Seattle Weekly has a local politics column called "All Politics Is Local." (Ugh! They're constantly firing people and doing redesigns over there; couldn't they at least update their bumper sticker collection, too?)
Speaking of trite slogans, last week's "All Politics Is Local" was the worst kind of bumper-sticker cheerleading imaginable. A brave writer at the Weekly, George Howland Jr., stood up for the housing levy--a campaign that has no organized opposition. Now, there's a bold stance for a Seattle columnist. Asking Seattle liberals to spend money on low-income housing! The nerve of that guy!
What's most annoying about Howland's predictable support for the housing levy is that he's been staking out another "position" these days. In an attempt to help his identity-crisis paper find some sort of footing in Seattle, Howland's taken to playing the monorail skeptic, accusing others of being monorail cheerleaders and wondering why no one is asking the "tough questions" of the monorail campaign. (By the way: The leading monorail cheerleaders in town--The Stranger--published the anti-monorail campaign's questions verbatim a few weeks ago, and took them on point by point ["Monorailing," Josh Feit, Aug 8]. Howland ran the questions too, but didn't bother trying to address them--or even bother asking the monorail campaign folks to respond.)
Well, I have a few tough questions about the housing levy, questions that Cheerleader Howland failed to ask. Why is nearly 10 percent of the $86 million levy going to help middle-class people--two-person households earning $42,000 a year--get mortgages on homes? The amount of money earmarked for homeownership represents a 102 percent jump from the previous levy. Why is that? The levy is supposed to help poor people get basic housing, not serve as a handout to the middle class. When I asked housing levy advocate Paul Lambros of the Plymouth Housing Group these questions, he replied that it wasn't the "perfect" levy.
Moreover, supporters of the homeownership portion haven't been up-front. They sheepishly talk about earmarking the money for "distressed" communities. Heck, when the Seattle City Council approved the levy and sent it to voters in June, they coyly defended the homeownership portion by referring to the "McIver principle." Richard McIver is the only black city council member. The homeownership piece is basically an affirmative action housing program. So, are white, liberal Seattleites--some of them earning a lot less than $42,000--supposed to feel better about subsidizing other people's mortgages because the recipients are minorities? If taxpayers are supposed to feel better about that, cheerleaders like Howland ought to come out and say--explicitly--that middle-class black people deserve help that middle-class white people do not.
Here's another reasonable question: Why isn't the housing levy split in two? Why shouldn't we vote once to decide if taxpayers want to pony up $78 million for low-income housing, and then a second time to decide whether voters want to pony up $8 million for mortgages for people earning $42,000 a year?
These are important questions because the $86 million housing levy isn't the only tax measure that voters face this fall. Housing levy supporters put their levy on Septem-ber's primary ballot so it wouldn't have to compete with the monorail plan in November; they were worried that voters might say yes to the $1.7 billion monorail plan, and then try to save some money by voting against the housing levy. Tough question: Why didn't the housing levy people allow Seattle voters to choose between two giant tax hits this year and make some connections--and, dare I say it, some hard decisions about how to spend their own money?
For example, there's a progressive argument to be made for a monorail vote in lieu of a housing levy vote, because public transportation is actually a practical long-term engine for housing needs: A citywide rapid transit system will open up housing opportunities for the poor by making it possible for low-income people to live in lower-rent areas around Seattle that are served by mass transit (Delridge, Georgetown, Lake City), and get to service-industry jobs in the heart of downtown. A mass transit line will also spur demand for housing and density--which brings down housing costs. Basically, a public mass transit system is a social service.
These are some questions and arguments about the housing levy that a columnist who wants to be known for asking "tough questions" might want to wrestle with. George Howland Jr., however, isn't that columnist. (FYI, George: The housing levy folks called me too, and asked if I'd write a pro-housing levy article. I balked; I had too many questions about the levy. Lucky for them, you didn't have any.)
