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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
If this is BLMSKC refusing to take any of that sweet, free money from The Man, I'll give them credit for sticking to their principles. Of course, there are plenty of other credible groups that are willing to participate, so Mrs. Durkan can certainly say she tried to get community participation. She'll even get a lot of BIPOC leaders to stand behind her, $100 million is a lot of money after all.
I also don't get the criticism of Mrs. Durkan's use of the JumpStart Seattle payroll tax. Whether you agree with her or not, her view that the costs of this tax outweighed the benefits isn't an unreasonable position. It's not reasonable to expect a mayor to ignore a huge pile of money that's being collected when revenues are being cut just because she opposed the tax.
BLMSKC was happy to make demands from the sidelines, but when asked to suit up and play, they took their ball and went home. Seattle voters still believe Black Lives Matter, and we'll still work toward eliminating racism. BLMSKC won't be part of it, no loss there.
Low-skilled jobs dropping like flies, businesses closing daily, ever-increasing encampment issues that the city refuse to acknowledge, unusable parks, dramatic increase in gun crime (most of the victims of said gun crime have been Black men, so not sure slashing police is going to do much for them) ; but hey, we have a BLM street mural so whew, dodged that bullet. SCC and mayor can mark 2020 a success!
A much better use for this $100M would be to shunt it to SDOT, and direct them to maintain our city's bridges with it. Require that all of it go to engineering firms and construction firms which are (a) owned by BIPOC-Americans, and/or (b) have a majority of BIPOC workers. Engineering and the skilled trades have long been paths for other minorites (as the Irish, Italians, and Germans were once considered) to move up into the middle class. We can both fix our bridges and improve our society.