The Big Rent Control Debate of Summer 2015 Happened Last Night: And it packed Town Hall to sweaty, 800-person capacity. Seattle City Council members Kshama Sawant and Nick Licata took on developer lobbyist Roger Valdez (Smart Growth Seattle) and house Republican Matt Manweller (R-Ellensburg) over whether the state's rent control ban ought to be lifted. Heidi was there and live-tweeted the whole thing.
Licata says new development gives the "illusion of progress," but we lose soul of city if ppl can't afford to live here. #rentcontroldebate
â Heidi Groover (@heidigroover) July 21, 2015
Manweller here to tell us what caused our housing crisis. Condescension meter up too high to tell if he's making a point. #rentcontroldebate
â Heidi Groover (@heidigroover) July 21, 2015
Valdez on how to fix the city's affordable housing crisis: "Build more housing. It's that simple." #rentcontroldebate
â Heidi Groover (@heidigroover) July 21, 2015
Sawant: Yes we need more supply, yes need zoning changes, but "price gouging by big real estate" happens "b/c they can." #rentcontroldebate
â Heidi Groover (@heidigroover) July 21, 2015
Can We See Some Evidence for This Claim in Particular?
Manweller: "There is greater scientific consensus that rent control doesn't work than that climate change is man made." #rentcontroldebate
â Heidi Groover (@heidigroover) July 21, 2015
The Guy Who Gave $70,000 Minimum Salaries to His Employees Is Now Being Sued by His Brother: Lucas Price, cofounder of Seattle-based Gravity Payments, has accused his CEO brother, Dan Price, of violating contracts and having "excessively paid himself and deprived Lucas Price of his minority-shareholder benefits."
King County Will Translate Voting Materials into Korean and Spanish for the 2016 General Election: The Voting Rights Act mandates that counties provide such materials when more than 10,000 voting-age citizens (or 5 percent of all voting-age citizens) speak a language other than English and do not "speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process." King County has provided voting materials in Chinese since 2002 and Vietnamese since 2010. ÂĄBienvenidos! ěë íě¸ě! This is a big deal!
King County Also Just Pushed Forward a November Ballot Measure That Would Install a Charter for Civilian Oversight of the Sheriff's Office: The new rule would "broaden the responsibility of the Citizen's Advisory Committee" at the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight (OLEO), an independent agency established by the county.
The Seattle Police Department's Chief Kathleen O'Toole Ponders Pot Citations: Do we really even need them? O'Toole questioned whether all of last year's 85 pot tickets (issued disproportionately to black Seattleites) are worth the effort.
But Don't Sleep on This TV News Report About a West Seattle Bud-and-Breakfast: "Some guests are willing to pay as much as $420." Geddit? 420. Heh. Hehehehe. It's like, a number, but for...
ANYWAY, Bloomberg Reports That Apple Signed a Lease in Downtown Seattle: Which is enough to house 120 to 200 employees and their really, really nice snacks (probably).
SPD Is Poring Over the Records of 30 Officers in Its New Early Intervention System: The 30 officers have been identified through use-of-force complaints and Office of Professional Accountability reports from the first half of 2015. The new data-driven program is "supposed to identify trends, identify potential problems before they become a huge problem," Seattle Police Officers' Guild president Ron Smith told KING 5.
Mayor Murray Is at the Vatican Today to Talk About Climate Change and Human Trafficking with a Bunch of Other US Mayors: The Pontifical Academy of Sciences paid for his airfare, the city press release noted.
Aaaaand Yes, Flying Is One of the Worst Things You Can Do for the Climate: Thinking about the climate-change impacts of flying famously made meteorologist Eric Holthaus cry and give up air travel altogether. So should politicians really be flying to climate conferences in particular? What about climate scientists? Should everyone go on Skype instead?
Seattle City Council Passes Resolution Affirming Privacy as a Human Right: Which is just another development in the city's privacy initiative launched in the fall of 2014. Earlier this year, the council passed a set of privacy principles to guide city decisions.
Sandra Bland's Death in a Texas Jail Cell Is Now Being Treated as a Murder Investigation: Bland, a 28-year-old who spoke passionately about the Black Lives Matter movement, was found hanging in her cell three days after being arrested in a traffic stop in Waller County, Texas. An autopsy initially stated that Bland, a black woman, killed herself, but Waller County district attorney Elton Mathis announced Monday night that the case is now being treated as a murder investigation. Mathis also said that dashboard-camera footage from Bland's arrest could be released today.