Hi Hannah,

I know this is a difficult concept, but a rental agreement is a private contract between the renter and landlord. If the city would like to be party to the rental agreement and have a say, why not join them as a party to the contract.

Simply have the city extend their large, flabby bureaucratic arm --sign the lease and they can be equally responsible for rent ect.

Perfectly simple.....

@ 1 & 2 - Well said, concise, to the point and frankly imminently reasonable.

Actually if Lewis wants to be reelected he should be staying as far away from Sawant and her bullshit as possible.

Er, do we want housing suppliers aka landlords to set up shop in Seattle or not? Construction costs don’t pay for themselves, and the bank charges more than a $50 late fee.

@5 .. Bravo... Absolutely Correct.

Now I will get a chalk board, you grab the hand puppets.... lets go to city hall, invite the the staff from The Stranger and we can put on a hand puppet show to illustrate how things work in the real world.

Let's give Hannah, a front row seat.... compliments of the house.

"no council members responded to my request for comment on Sawant’s reversal amendment, which does not bode well for the vote next week."

The real story here is the fact Sawant is completely incapable of advancing any of her legislative goals. Rather than working cooperatively with her fellow council members to build a coalition, she reverts to her usual tactic of getting her supporters to annoy other council members and protest and city council meetings. This has never worked in the past, but Sawant still uses this tactic. It's all she has. D3 deserves someone more capable.

I like Council member Lewis!

The Mr. Peanut look is very reassuring to us older folks who ate peanuts before the dark times of political unrest.

Yes, I'm for him. His plain no nonsense peanuts approach suits me fine.

@9: “Rather than working cooperatively with her fellow council members to build a coalition, she reverts to her usual tactic of getting her supporters to annoy other council members and protest and city council meetings.”

As you noted, she can’t accomplish anything anymore, so she indulges in yet another round of performative bullying, threats, and harassment. She’ll do this until the clock runs out, or she loses interest in this charade. Given her long-demonstrated love of bullying, I’d guess it will be the former, but maybe she’ll decide she’d rather grift full-time whilst still on Seattle’s payroll.

It’s both silly and sad: someone who had to fight her own neighbors tooth and nail just to keep her job now issues diktats to her fellow Council Members, backed up by ‘threats’ of costing them their jobs if they don’t follow her orders blindly. It makes a pathetic end to what could have been a great career.

Holy shit! Every single comment so far is correct! I’ve never seen such a thing. And 74% of tenants paying their rent on time is equally shocking. I had no idea it was that bad. Good thing we can count on Scarf Lady to enable that kind of behavior.

@11 "Performative bullying" is definitely Sawant's primary mode of legislative debate.

"'I have to say [C.M. Morales said in her remarks], the fact that we even talked about housing in this way–as somebody's investment, as somebody's business that they're running–is part of the problem here in my mind.

If housing
is a human right,
we shouldn’t be commodifying it.'"

well right There's
a fawking
BINGO

adiosa
Middle
Classa!

@15 Sawant could care less about renters. She is just anti capitalist so she hates private property rights and will pass any legislation that erodes the ability of people to monetize their investment. She sells it as pro renter but one only look at how her legislative efforts have hurt renters to see the true intent.

"However, lenders typically give homeowners a 15-day grace period before possibly charging a late fee in the neighborhood of 4% to 5% of the monthly payment. Among late renters who eventually pay in full, the majority pay before the 13th of the month, according to data collected by the Urban Institute over the last three years."

"Typically" is doing a huge amount of work in the first sentence. And it's notable -- and not surprising -- that there's no link to substantiate the Urban Institute data you claim exists.

I think Donald Trump constantly stiffing vendors for $ is bad and it's disappointing that The Stranger now thinks it's an awesome way to do business. It's weird how many parallels there are now between Slog writers and Trumpers. Horseshoe theory in action, I guess.

What landlord is counting on late fees to run their rentals? Be honest, when a tenant finds an agency or non-profit to get them through a setback, the landlord gets a payoff from donated and taxpayer money. Capping late fees means more people get back on their feet and taxpayers and donors dollars will stretch further.

@14
Housing is a human right! Rock on dude. You are so right, what am I saying, you are always right.... such a clear vision.... Next step is to amend the constitution of the US to make it law.

I think we need to start by having the US take title to all residential real estate.
Do we just take the title or pay the prior owner for the land and building? worry about that one later eh....

We will need new jobs for all those developers because who would build a building if the US just takes the title. I haven't thought this thru completely.. maybe you have.... what do you think?

You are right, bye bye middle class.... they won't be so smarty without a house. They gotta rent like the rest of us poor schmucks..... Then we will all be poor, but we will be equal.

And that will resolve the disparity and class warfare... we will all be brought down to the lowest common denominator.

Viva La Revolution!