You may have noticed that some sort of election happened last week.
Possibly, you’ve been less than attentive to the workings of local
government. But a lot has happened at City Hall and the County
Courthouse while the world wasn’t watching.
At the county, what was an acute budget shortfall is starting to
look like a chronic crisis, with a structural deficit
threatening all but the very most essential services.
Among the services deemed nonessential: programs that help county
inmates get GEDs and jobs, detox and chemical-dependency treatment, the
extremely successful Mental Health and Drug Diversion Courts, services
for domestic-violence victims, and help for women and children with
HIV and AIDS. Although County Executive Ron Sims has put some of
those cuts in a “lifeboat” that will stay afloat until June 30,
2009—the deadline the county has given the state legislature to
come up with a new long-term, stable funding source to pay for
them—the state is facing a $3.2 billion budget problem of its
own, and the legislature seems unlikely to be in a giving
mood.
At the last of several budget hearings, 63 people stood up and
begged the county council to preserve their programs. Some of the most
poignant pleas came from survivors of domestic violence, for
whom programs like Eastside Domestic Violence Program have made the
difference between homelessness and hope.
“For 34 years… no one was aware of the violence in my
relationship,” one EDVP client told the council. “My husband
intended for me to be on the streets and homeless within two months
of my asking for a divorce. Without Eastside Domestic Violence, that’s
where I would be.”
So if you were a member of the King County Council, what would you
cut? Funding for farmers markets that provide access to affordable,
local produce for thousands of families, or programs that literally
keep people off the streets? Those are the choices county council
members are facing.
The news at the city isn’t quite so bleak—unless, of course,
you’re the mayor. A majority of the council seems prepared to cut back
Mayor Greg Nickels’s youth violence initiative—which more than
one council staffer referred to as “half-baked”—and preserve
programs the mayor had targeted for cuts. Among those likely to be
spared, at least temporarily, are Get Off the Streets, which
focuses on street crime among alcohol- and drug-dependent homeless
people; CURB (formerly Clean Dreams), which works with young
people in crime-ridden areas; and Co-STARS, which helps homeless
people find permanent housing.
The council may also hold off on spending the $82 million the mayor
has requested to widen Mercer Street in South Lake Union, cut funding
for pedestrian-safety programs, and put planning for a new city jail
on hold until the council can determine whether changing the city’s
approach to drug crimes could make a new jail unnecessary. 