Comments

2

Well, maybe there will be a vote on the referendum after all. Can you imagine what the campaign advertising will be like.

3

Ironically, Sawant complained on the day of the vote that the other councilmembers didn't discuss it beforehand with her.

But really...are we going to interpret this law as to be so strict that council members can't call each other to discuss how to govern our city? I can understand not allowing an 8-way phone call or gathering that's hidden from the public, but this was not that.

4

And, if the repeal gets overturned on this technicality, the next step will be for the Referendum to be denied, since the signatures were not submitted by the deadline.

Who are these lawyers, and are they affiliated with anyone who would have received public money from the head tax?

5

They (the council) violated their moral obligation to go to the people first.

This program against the so called head tax was based on fraud and lies.
And the ever willing privileged to allow for the suffering to remain suffering and/or to make it worse. Pro genocide behaviors and standards towards the very poor.

6

To answer my own question @4, the signature on the brief is none other than that of Lincoln Beauregard, attorney in the failed lawsuit against then-Mayor Ed Murray by then-totally-not-a-drug-user Delvonn Heckard. Small world, eh?

7

What, no posting about the 45,000 signatures dropped off today by opponents?

First petition I've signed in Seattle ever, and stood in line for 5 minutes to do it, there were so many people signing. That's not voting, which anyone can do from the comfort of their home. This is people going out of their way just to sign a petition.

A vote would crush the tax. I was disappointed the council killed the tax, to be honest. I wanted it crashed at the polls. Probably 65-35% like the income tax in 2010. I wanted to rub the looney left's nose in that turd.

8

"based on fraud and lies."

Yeah, Godwin's Law! We have a winner!

"This program against the so called head tax was based on fraud and lies"

Sure sugartits.

9

"Pro genocide behaviors"

Godwin's Law indeed.

10

@8 and 9 ha ha ha ha ha. Thanks for the compliments.

Your buttons are easily pushed because the truth hurts. You are embarrassing with your total disregard for the disenfranchised. Your fellow human beings.

11

8 You misspelled poison. Get it right.

12

@5:

Bullshit. We live in a representative democracy, which, in case you slept through your high school Civics (or skipped it altogether), means we elect City Council members as representatives to legislate on our behalf, not to refer every piece of legislation they want to consider back to the voters BEFORE they legislate. That's why we have the referendum process: as a backstop so that voters can choose to amend or negate legislation enacted by their representatives.

As for those long, long lines - did Bezos give all his SLU employees an extra long lunch break that day?

13

"did Bezos give all his SLU employees an extra long lunch break that day?"

Ballard Market. You know, regular folk.

Enjoy being crushed at the polls.

14

"Your buttons are easily pushed because the truth hurts."

Look who's talking. Examples of fraud and lies, please.

You can run away now.

15

"disenfranchised"

Free will is a bitch.

Especially when you chose to use drugs.

16

Holmes says "Here, both the public and news media, and the Council itself, were all fully engaged in an open public process that included public comments, reporting by the media, comments from all nine Councilmembers, and a public vote held before a live audience and broadcast live to the public".

Yeah Pete, but only AFTER it was debated and decided in private by the Council. Just because you have a "show" for the public after the secret talks and vote tally, doesn't make it a public process. And you know that, but you're playing dumb. Just shut up if you can't be honest.

17

@16: It may surprise you to learn that a legislative vote generally does not happen until after the sponsor actually has promises from other legislators as to how they will vote. If the private messages had shown a solid five votes against the repeal, it would not have been scheduled at all.

It’s Holmes’ job to defend the Council against this suit. He’s doing his job, whether you like it or not.

18

How often does the Seattle Times quote articles in The Stranger?

19

@10- you were probably less annoying when you were strung out and homeless.

20

@19. No one is less annoying in either of those states.

Also, to answer the question, “No”.

21

@19 And we’ll keep on annoying you.

22

@21: Nope. That’s neither an example of fraud or a lie by the No Tax On Jobs! campaign.

Try harder.

23

Obviously the Mayor and the entire City Council other than Sawant should resign.

24

6: Oh for the love of....

There were MANY victims of Murray, not just Delvonn. The guy you mentioned there wasn't the only one, and his later substance abuse problems don't discredit his allegations. If anything, they were probably caused by what was done to him. If there were many victims, it had to be true. Murray was clearly guilty. Deal with it.

25

22: And it's a lie to call it "a tax on jobs".

26

@25

I dunno, when you think about it a bit, it's not really "a tax on heads," either, is it?

27

@25, @26: Now that it has been repealed, it’s no longer a tax on anything, now is it?

(Oh, and the “thousand” in “batting a thousand” isn’t actually “1,000”
but merely “1.000”. FRAUDSTERS!!1!)

28

@24: If you click on the first link in the post, it will take you to a copy of the filing. Scroll down, and you can read both the signature of the lawyer who filed it, and the name of the law firm which employs him. That lawyer and firm are the same as the lawyer and firm who (briefly) represented Delvonn Heckard in his now-withdrawn suit against Ed Murray.

If you believe anything you wrote @24 contradicts these well-known and easily-verifiable facts, please do explain the basis for your belief.

29

@28: Also relevant: the judge who will be hearing this case is the same judge who ruled that voters should not have the right to vote on heroin injection sites being forced upon their neighborhoods. Oh, and she also happens to be friends with Lorena Gonzalez.

30

Judges don't like fishing expeditions and PR stunts. I'm also pretty sure that the law was broken leading up to the head tax as well. We can't pick and choose.

31

@17:
Spare me the arrogant spin -- councilmember, are you?

A sponsor getting individual vote commitments (and without debating the issue at hand) is not the same as a group consensus being arrived at, after debating/discussing the issue privately. But you knew that already.

32

@31: “A sponsor getting individual vote commitments (and without debating the issue at hand)”

Yeah, that happens all the time, for sure. (How do you imagine a legislative body actually operates? Because it can’t under a ridiculously expansive interpretation of this law.)

Given who filed it, it may well be just another money grab, like poor innocent little Delvonn Heckard did against the city, because a former Mayor had said mean horrible nasty things about him. Another quick pay-us-and-we-go-away job, whose sponsors know (or very strongly suspect) it would fail rather quickly if tested in court. In this case, the City’s motivation in settling would come from not wanting to set impracticable precedent for how the Council may operate.

What this suit would do is invite the judiciary to second-guess almost any piece of legislation on procedural grounds. As @30 implied, that’s not likely to happen.

(And no, I’m not personally responsible for the epic incompetence that is the EHT and repeal.)

33

24: None of which discredits Delvonn or the charges against Murray. Delvonn sued because his life was ruined by Murray. It's likely that his issues with drugs and alcohol are self-medication for the trauma he experienced.

I don't care what you say about the lawyer(or his parents-I mean, who would name their kid "Beauregard" in the Seventies?) but there was no reason to go after Delvonn. He's suffered enough.

34

@33: None of your clanging objections to anything I wrote about pure, sweet, innocent, could-not-possibly-have-lied-to-your-face-for-a-six-figure-payout Delvonn Heckard and his past multiple lawsuits has anything to do with this thread. I merely noted that he employed the same lawyer and law firm as the plaintiff employs in this suit — you know, the suit which is actually the topic here? You may find that significant or not, as you will, but that commonality is the only reason we mention their previous client.

(Interesting that you write of Mr. Heckard using the present tense. That could explain a lot of your opinions, right there.)

35

Jesus Kee-RIST, the usual trolls are all over this! I swear I don't know Seattle, anymore.
@33 AlaskanbutnotSeanPurnell (re "...the lawyer and his parents..."): I'm stretching here, but I don't know---maybe after Violet Beauregard from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and they liked the bratty, gum-chewing character's last name, or because he loves the color blue?

36

In case anyone forgot- amazon paid $0.00 in federal income tax in 2017.

37

@36: Since CM Sawant and her cult followers forgot, Amazon is not the reason Seattle has thrown money at our homeless problem for decades, only to have more homeless persons than ever.

38

@33:
What is it about "Lincoln C. Beauregard" that makes you think Beauregard was anything but an inherited surname?

39

34: the point is that this isn't a discussion about Ed Murray or Delvonn. What happened with the head tax has no connection to Murray's career being ended due to what he did to innocent young men. I get it that you like to pretend that Murray is a victim, but he isn't and the situation with the homeless and the head tax would have happened even if he was still in office. And as far as that goes, from what I've seen the vast majority of the LGBTQ community believes Murray's victims and accepts that the end of Murray's career had nothing to do with homophobia-why do you refuse to accept those things? Look, I'll just put it this way...if it had been underage girls making the accusations, the story would have played out in exactly the same way. And you're right, Delvonn is dead-so why are you attacking dead victims of child sexual abuse?

With Murray, the story is over and there was no injustice. Move on already.


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