Comments

1

Vote NO. Seriously. Enough is enough.

4

@3: Not to mention the proponents of these levies point out it's just a few dollars a month while deliberately ignoring the cumulative amount of property taxes, which is well into the thousands and over 5K-6K for nearly every house in Seattle.

5

When enrollment goes down, so do costs.

Logical fallacy aside, the school district is legit tanking. Pulling funding would accelerate the death spiral. Vote yes!

6

Isn't this vote in Feb voter suppression anyway? Just say no to voter suppression!

7

Vote YES. When I was in high school in the 1980s Memorial Stadium was an obsolete rickety hell hole. I can’t imagine what it is like today. It should be upgraded, can we get the OL Reign back?

Oh, and the stadium was built to memorialize fallen WWI soldiers, so it has to be hella old.

8

In case anyone is wondering, based on the levy rates/year, this is what a home owner living in a property with a county-assessed value of $449,000 would pay per year. I also accounted for an annual property increase rate of 4.3%. I combined both levy rates for 2023, 2024, 2025. I'm also showing the total tax paid at a rate of $9.3112 per $1,000

+-----------------+-------------------------------+-----------+----------------+------------------+
| collection year | Assessed property value | levy rate | amt paid | Total Tax |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-----------+----------------+------------------+
| 2023 | $ 468,307.00 | 1.21 | $ 566.65 | $ 4,360.50 |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+----------+----------------+------------------+
| 2024 | $ 488,444.20 | 1.2 | $ 586.13 | $ 4,548.00 |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-----------+----------------+------------------+
| 2025 | $ 509,447.30 | 1.19 | $ 606.24 | $ 4,743.57 |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-----------+----------------+------------------+
| 2026 | $ 531,353.54 | 0.41 | $ 217.85 | $ 4,947.54 |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-----------+----------------+------------------+
| 2027 | $ 554,201.74 | 0.39 | $ 216.14 | $ 5,160.28 |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-----------+----------------+------------------+
| 2028 | $ 578,032.41 | 0.37 | $ 213.87 | $ 5,382.18 |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-----------+----------------+------------------+

9

When was the last time a school levy didn't pass in Seattle?

10

Many grandmas would be of the Boomer generation, a demographic TS writers tend to shit on and blame for so many things - like the price of real estate. Why would they help you by reposting this on FB or anywhere for that matter? Honest question.

12

Thank your for pointing me to the article, Shoobob dear. I must have missed that part.

1975 Seattle was a completely different world. People were still reeling from the Boeing Bust and, more to the point, there was widespread anger about the start of school bussing in 1972.

I can't imagine that we would fail a school bond measure today.

13

@11: That tired old tactic just doesn't work, but your attempt does illustrate how brainwashed you are.

14

But I might change my mind in the future if SPS stops pairing the soft bigotry of low expectations for kids of color with the woke indoctrination of making kids of white feel guilt.

16

The Stranger has given many a great public service to Seattle. Their blind lock-step on Seattle Schools' levies is not one of them. I always wonder why they don't ask people who actually know something and keep up with what the levies will and will not do.

The Seattle Times article from 1996 was about levy failures in the '90s so the last one was NOT in 1975. Do read the entire article next time.

And that begs the question - what DOES happen if a levy fails? The district has a choice; either make cuts in the budget or rerun it with adjustments.

5 - NO, enrollment drops do NOT mean costs go down. The district will not be in smaller buildings if there are fewer students. You still need a principal at every single school. It would take a huge drop in numbers to actually make costs go down but that would likely mean fewer teachers and larger class sizes.

So about the levies. If you have to chose, vote for the Operations levy.

BTA V is NOT to rebuild Memorial Stadium. Not for $62M; what is The Stranger smoking? No, Budget Chief JoLynn Berge said at a recent levy forum for Horizon House that they would replace the stands and do some seismic work. That's it.

The district and the City did sign an MOU (memorandum of understanding) about working together on usage of Memorial Stadium but until the City actually puts some money on the table, it means little. The City wants with all its might to have the 9 acres that Memorial Stadium sits
on including the parking lot (and that parking lot generates about $1M a year for the district).

BTA V levy is a $300M increase from BTA IV. That's a hell of a lotta money.

"BTA building cost escalation AND building program contingency" - over $56M. I see the need for this much more for BEX which is totally renovating a building. But putting on roofs and putting in HVAC, you need this big a cushion?

Also in BTA V are items that came from the Board - "gender neutral bathrooms, clean energy and outdoor classrooms". All good things but in the PowerPoint, there are no dollars attached. What does that mean? It's a wish? It's unknowable?
Lincoln High and Ingraham both get $5M+ for their fields? Lincoln High School doesn't even HAVE fields to play on.

Also in BTA V is $1M for a new batting cage in West Seattle. C'mon!

There's a heck of a lot of padding in BTA V. I think voters should tell the district no and go back to the drawing board.

18

I was over in West Seattle yesterday, and there were vote no signs in several locations. What I found amusing was that the signs said SAVE MEMORIAL STADIUM! SAVE RAINIER BEACH HIGH SCHOOL!

Memorial Stadium really is in desperate need of rebuilding, and I believe the contracts for Rainier Beach have already been issued.

20

@19: I suggest you change your mind and vote NO on these levies.

21

The deaf, blind and brainless sheeple will do as The Stranger says. Obey!

22

19 Shame us? You don’t even sign your name.

24

More on Memorial Stadium. The district has been a bit less than clear about what will happen to Memorial Stadium.
https://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2022/01/about-seattle-schools-memorial-stadium.html

25

Where can voters see an actual and detailed breakdown of exactly how much goes for exactly what? Meaning, actual education needs related to the pandemic - which is far from over, though this article implies it is. No, we're still out here trying to protect ourselves while the schools and universities seem bent on continuing to spread covid.

Nurses, remote learning, books (anyone remember what that is?), MANY high grade filters/air purifiers( in classrooms, bathrooms - super spread area, lunchrooms (super spread area -where masks come off!), C02 detectors everywhere, N95 masks (not cloth or surgicals) on everyone in the buildings, counselors for children suffering social isolation from remote learning, vaccination teams inside every single schools to counter the large pools of 5-11 year olds who are still not vaccinated, I'm hearing, and therefore still spreading to the larger community. How about a plain old vaccine mandate, no exclusions - and before we vote for more money for what? To remain in our pandemic?

We have been waiting for almost 5 years, I think it is at this point, for 15th Ave NE to be repaired. Is this project ever going to be finished? Are we ever going to drive down that street without being reminded of a long-ago adventurous vacation in the rural back dirtroads of Mexico (and before the cartels)? That's how torn up and pot-holed that major artery still is in areas of this construction team that must drinking deeply deeply deeply at the gouard of the taxpayers. And why do we need a stadium for huge superspread events? I'm supposed to get excited about this? I don't go to these events. I don't want to get COVID 19. I'm doing my part to end the pandemic - and not by making believe it's over.

And where is the state income tax - or movement to get one - and so we can be done with these endless hostilities about property taxes? So done with this. Give a link with the exact breakdown, don't b.s. around - and explain there every single item for voters. Show me why, as a voter, on every single item, why this is good for us during a pandemic - and why it will stem the tide of the great superspreader that is the schools and universities.

26

And yes, I get that Seattle voters, like shepple, will probably pass this, like robots. Haven't seen the Seattle Times, but I'm betting they'll endorse this too. I wonder why.

700% increase in hospitalizations right now in King County.

I, for one, am very very concerned about that. I, for one, would like to be able to get into a medical center for things unrelated to covid - and without catching covid.

I am not making believe about anything. So right now, I think I'll vote NO until someone gives me a better argument and much more detailed and easily accesssible information - with one click of the proverbial mouse - all laid out nicely and very clearly.

But I get it. I won't get that (very commen sense request) and Seattle voters will robotically pass it.

27

North American Jay Bird dear, you’re distraught. Are you off your pills?

28

I checked the attached ink to see how much my taxes will go up, all homeowners should do it and see how much more Seattle schools are trying to add to our property tax bill. For me, living in a 1950s daylight rambler, in an admittedly nice section of town, my increase would be $1263.00 more added to my already super high $10k yearly homeowner's tax. Teachers already make way more then what you think. A good friend of mine is a kindergartner teacher, with her masters and tenure. Her salary is $135k per year. Save me the sob stories from teachers about their pay please. Let the schools get by on less. For a rag supposedly for 'equality' please come up with some more creative ways to tax us more fairly. And don't start with an income tax, without giving homeowners a major cut, one thing that's never mentioned in your articles in support of it.

29

People are just cheap. Over in Eastern WA, where our taxes are $800 a year, they're all bitching about the school levy, which is just a continuation of the existing one. That's part of the reason they're so dumb over there.

30

Is this a continuation of old levies or an increase? If it’s an increase how much is it increasing levy over levy?

The reason The Stranger sucks so hard is they’re obfuscating that concept.

32

Given a choice between paying a few extra dollars per year for school levys, or not paying them, and letting the teenagers loose a couple hours earlier each day, the choice is obvious!

33

@32: No dear, you're paying up to $6,000 to $10,000 a year in levies - or your landlord is and passing increased rent onto you.

35

So they passed, as expected. Hope you all who voted yes can square this article about how depraved our public schools have become:

https://mynorthwest.com/3341954/rantz-school-district-to-host-racially-segregated-meetings-to-pick-superintendent-promote-equity/

36

@27 Your post alone is a good enough reason to vote no. And unlike yourself, I'm never on pills. I like to feel the full range of my faculties without pharmaceuticals to help me vote like a trained poodle. And your stadium is bullshit.

37

As expected, they won, but there are more NO's than they expected, and they are not all on the proverbial "right," and that is why. So if any of you "out there" who wanted this money are reading this (besides the big blonde hairdo popping her pills) take that in. You got a punch in the gut, and I had a hunch you would.


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