Comments

1
Lol Sawant, don't ever change. Do people who voted for her cringe when she continues to propose these preposterous plans or do they genuinely think like her?
3
Fund LEAD, not more unreformed cops!
4
I can't really comment on the merits of this, other than this is the exact type of thing conservatives consider "classic libtardism: make things harder on small businesses OR hire less police"
6
The image--which I applaud--conjures either Lenin or Hitler . . . suitable for Murray, on whom I cannot, I mean, cannot get a handle. My mind boggles. I miss McGinn.
7
B&O tax is terrible. There are ways to tax business that are fair and don't hurt small local companies, but the B&O tax doesn't do that. Income tax now.
8
We should not allocate another dime for Seattle Police Department until they demonstrate that they are truly understaffed and not simply misallocating resources.

SPD regularly hide from the public and from our elected representatives information about their staffing allocation. They have about 1300 employees. We know what only about 400 of them do (source: Tim Burgess, May, 2014). We spent a half-million dollars on a study of their staffing and while it gave them what they want (suggesting an increase in staffing in order to reach levels similar to other cities), we still don't know just what they're doing with the staff they do have.

There never appears to be a staffing shortage at SPD when demonstrators threaten to put a damper on downtown retailers' holiday shopping bonanza or when a sportsball team throws a parade. There is apparently sufficient budget to keep people like Salvador Ditusa, who is known to drive around all day doing little but complaining about his job, running personal errands, and harassing people, on staff. And instead of hiring sufficient numbers to support the work they do, they use costly and inefficient overtime work--when the City Auditor examined that program, we discovered that http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news…">SPD mismanage millions of dollars of ove….

Instead of throwing more money at the problem, Mayor Murray should be demanding that they open the books and clean up their act.
10
Ridiculous to grow headcount by 15% on a whim. I don't see crime as an epidemic nor as a detractor from the city. Programs like pub trans and poverty reduction suffer while everynone just kinda nods in agreement (or is expected to) oh, of course we need more poliice!
12
@11 Business is driven by demand. If there is demand, then the business doesn't really care what the overheads (like taxes) are - they will hire people to meet the demand. If there is no demand, then you can cut someone's taxes to 0 and they'll still go bankrupt.

Service business is in the city because that's where the demand is. And that is why, I guess, the city prefers taxes that target businesses which can't run away to a low tax jurisdiction. If you tax Amazon too hard, they'll up stakes and leave for Redmond or whatever. But a restaurant is stuck where it is. And they'll pass those taxes on to their customers.

Lament if you like.
13
Two more years of this idiot as our mayor. Ugh.
15
Agree with Phil M. Also, I'll add that this is a similar situation that Metro ran into a couple years ago. Metro first, and now Mayor Murray are having the knee jerk reaction to turn to civilians for the money rather than looking for internal help first.

Metro supported tax measures that failed, when first they should've worked to optimize their existing fleet and staff hours.

Now the mayor is jumping to the conclusion that local businesses should foot the bill? WHY!?? At the very least, FIRST the SPD needs to set OT policies, re-examine staffing needs for special events, and manage cops that are liberally taking OT with no oversight (all called out in the auditor's report).

Only after internal efforts have been exhausted should the mayor and SPD be looking for cash from businesses or civilian taxpayers.
16
Or maybe instead of painting the crosswalks the color of the rainbow, some of that money can be reallocated to cops?
17
If I'm a Seattle business owner, I'd only pay cop staffing taxes if they can guarantee protection from May Day riots or reimburse the property destruction costs. Otherwise what the hell would I be paying for?
18
Research is finding that allowing safe consumption results in less crime than enforcing drug prohibition. Can this be true for other crimes as well? Ed is only addressing the symptom (crime) and not the root cause (poverty).

Homelessness crisis fixed, Mayor Murray awaaaaayyyy!
19
Great illustration by James Yamasaki!!

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