There happened to be a City Council Safety Committee meeting this morning which got a lot of comments from citizens about last weekend's cop riot.
My personal favorite bootlicking council member even got a shout out from Seattle Gay News for trying to claim "bad actors" provoked police.
No, we know exactly who started the conflict Ofc Brian Muoio.
More from SGN below 👇🏿
#BobKettle #Seattle #SPD #PNW #MaydayUSA #BrianMuoio #SGN #HannahSaunders
So naturally Bob Kettle, city council's most excited ex-cop who wants a spy network, refused to turn over video footage of my assault directly infront of his home surveillance camera 🥴
I guess Bob Kettle likes his privacy more than solving crimes.
Yet here we are, spying on a few thousand old asian grannies in the CID and probably helping get them in trouble with ICE.
The constitution, 4th amendment, sound crime research and public comment didn't work, concerned Seattle citizens held a noise demo at Bob Kettle's house. City council's loudest supporter of this crap, ex-SPD cop and current neighborhood watch captain of Queen Anne.
And you know what? Bob's band of sundown town vigilantes violently attacked the protesters and I was smashed in the head for holding a fucking sign.
As we said months ago when the city council voted for this dragnet spy network, there are now people whose entire day and life will be on these cameras.
Each of these near neighborhood-wide deployments cover critical services and in some cases enough essential services that a person might be on camera everytime they leave home for years on end.
#Seattle #Soap #SODA #CathyMoore #BobKettle #SaraNelson #ACB
CM Saka budget proposal would create plan to end service on SLU Streetcar
Seattle’s official 20-year plan for transit, which the City Council approved in the spring, shows streetcar connections to the South Lake Union line as well as along 1st Ave to Lower Queen Anne and SoDo. There are no other streetcar additions in the plan, and even the Broadway extension is no longer included.The future has become even bleaker for the low-ridership South Lake Union (“SLU”) Streetcar line as Transportation Committee Chair Rob Saka has proposed funding a plan for how to wind down and end service on the line. The budget changes would no actually end service, but they set the stage to do so as early as next year’s budget. The action could set up the city to finally make a decision about the streetcar once and for all.
As Seattle Bike Blog argued in August, Seattle decided in 2015 to make the SLU streetcar a dead end when SDOT chose RapidRide bus service on the Fairview/Eastlake/Roosevelt corridor rather than a streetcar extension. The streetcar line’s operating budget sits at $4.4 million per year to serve about 500 weekday trips on average. Ridership peaked in 2017 before SDOT added transit-only lanes to Westlake Ave to coincide with expanded King County Metro bus service along much of the streetcar’s route. In my previous post, several SLU transit riders said they just hop on whatever comes first, a bus or the streetcar. The under-construction RapidRide J line will further improve bus transit service in the SLU neighborhood when it begins operations as early as 2027. So even those 500 daily riders would likely not be stranded without the streetcar. Metro just deleted the Route 20 bus with little fanfare, for example, and that deletion (as well as other bus route changes and deletions) had a bigger negative impact on access to transit than closing the SLU Streetcar would.
Additionally, construction for the South Lake Union light rail station is expected to shut down SLU Streetcar service for eight years, so it makes sense for Seattle to decide sooner than later whether the city sees a future for the streetcar beyond that construction. If the city wants to preserve service they could build 2,000 feet of additional track to bypass the Link station closure, but that would only make sense if we are committing to this thing long-term. If not, then we may as well get the tracks out of the roadway and focus on creating efficient bus pathways. Removing or covering the tracks would also eliminate major hazards for people riding bicycles around the neighborhood, preventing injuries and improving bike circulation within the neighborhood. Removing the tracks may even lead to more new bike trips per day than the streetcar would carry if it kept operating in its current state.
The only possible future for the SLU streetcar line would be to connect to the planned Center City Connector streetcar (AKA “Culture Connector”) through downtown along 1st Avenue and Stewart Street. However, construction on that line remains stalled, and it has a huge funding gap. Seattle Bike Blog has also voiced serious concerns about bike safety along the planned route. As Councilmember Saka noted in an interview with the Seattle Times, “The only viable path I see for ever doing that one would be to create a public-private partnership at some point.” Councilmember Bob Kettle has proposed removing the Center City Connector from SDOT’s capital improvements list, an amendment Saka supports.
The Downtown Seattle Association (“DSA”) pushed back against the proposal to kill the SLU Streetcar line, arguing to the Urbanist, “We’re seeing more residents, workers and visitors in downtown and now is not the time to take existing mobility options off the table. […] With looming major transportation projects like Revive I-5 impacting our network’s capacity, we need to ensure the transit modes we already have downtown are functioning optimally, safely and a providing great experience.”
Seattle Subway has also created an online petition to save the streetcar, arguing:
While the SLU Streetcar suffers from low ridership, it is widely attributed to the lack of connectivity rather than anything inherent to streetcars. We cannot fix the design mistakes of the past, but we can certainly make improvements. SDOT ridership figures for 2022 put SLU streetcar at 500 daily riders and First Hill streetcar at 2,500 daily riders, with ridership trending upwards since the pandemic. By SDOT’s own estimate, the proposed Culture Connector extension would attract 28,000 daily riders, making it more popular than the busiest bus line in the city. This city council also called out the Culture Connector as a key improvement in their own Seattle Transportation Plan which they passed in April. Rob Saka himself said at the time, “It’s time we commit to our transportation goals and give them [SDOT] the resources they need to succeed. That’s what this plan is all about.” They are now prepared to go back on that commitment.
The SLU Streetcar was initially funded by a LID in the area as a way to encourage development of the area into the business and tech hub it is today. So from that perspective, it was a huge success. But as a transit service, not so much. I worry about transit supporters taking the L off someone else’s forehead and putting on their own. Providing effective transit service was not the primary force behind this particular streetcar, so transit folks should not feel like this is something they need to own. The SLU Streetcar is a simulacra of a good transit system, but Metro’s bus system is an actual good transit system. The most important transit priority is to make sure the city builds more bus priority improvements in the area, preserving and improving on the bus-only lanes created when the RapidRide C extended into the area. Perhaps Metro buses could even reuse of some of the streetcar infrastructure like the transit-only pathway along Valley Street. The worst case scenario would be for the streetcar to be removed without any effort to improve bus service.
While the SLU Streetcar’s future certainly hinges on the Center City Streetcar, is the inverse also true? The city’s 20-year plan for transit calls for a 1st Ave Streetcar that connects Seattle Center/Lower Queen Anne to Pioneer Square and the First Hill Streetcar on Jackson Street as well as a 1st Ave extension into SoDo. Would some or all of this line be viable without the SLU connection? Perhaps rather than removing the Center City Streetcar from the capital projects list, Council could add questions to its request for a SLU Streetcar wind down plan about what impact such an action would have on a possible Center City line. This would give the city one more year to give the Center City Streetcar the proper public debate it deserves. Let’s lay out all the facts and options, and then make a damn decision.
If businesses and developers want to foot the bill for both the Center City and South Lake Union streetcar lines, then I’m sure city leaders will shift to support them. Otherwise, well, you may want to make an effort to go out of your way to ride the thing at least once before it is shut down so you can say you did it and buy that clever t-shirt on sale at Pike Place Market.
#SEAbikes #Seattle
Also yesterday our local neighborhood paper, The Stranger, write an article about the assault 👇🏿
Then at 2pm the main showdown will begin, knee capping social housing.
One of the interesting marketing/get-out-thr-vote problems with the council's move is it changes how I-137 will appear on ballots. If they had not tried to make a sabotaged alternative it would just say "I-137" instead it will reas "Proposition 2" or something similar which is just enough friction to confuse a lot of voters.
https://seattle.gov/council/calendar?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D177623102
#Seattle #SocialHousing #I137 #I135 #SaraNelson #BobKettle #CathyMoore
I dipped out of the city council meeting to watch the I-137 community forum, was pretty obvious how this was gonna play out.
The council has passed the SODA/SOAP bills which makes looking like a homeless person, a sex worker, or drug user in Seattle a reason a cop can stop you.
You can be banned from neighborhoods and fined $5k for existing in the wrong places.
#SODA #SOAP #Seattle #SaraNelson #CathyMoore #BobKettle #Sexworker #Homeless #DrugWar #SeattlePol
Activist held a noise demo Sunday evening at councilman Bob Kettle's house(the guy who called the cops on public commentors).
Councilman Kettle is ramming through the new Seattle stop and frisk law SOAP/SODA. It targets anyone who looks homeless, is dressed similarly to a sexworker or looks like they do drugs and enables cops and courts to banish people from large swaths of neighborhoods.
Unsurprisingly, Bob Kettle lives in Seattle's favorite Sun Down town.
NOISE DEMO THIS SUNDAY 7 PM
2500 11th Ave W, Seattle, WA 98119
the seattle city council is bringing back racist "SODA/SOAP" zones that will allow for police to stop and frisk and ban people from various areas in the city because they LOOK LIKE people who do crime. These policies will kill people and have been repealed for their racist and discriminatory outcomes.
Tell Kettle that Seattle says no to segregation, this Sunday!!!
It sounds like at least one person was trespassed and removed from the chambers. The cops have left.
The council members have brought the meeting back to session. Immediately, another activist stands up and begins protesting the councils excessive use of police and their bullshit yes votes on the bill.
The bill was then voted on and passed the committee.
Another protester stands up....
Seattle City Council, time to wake up: An open letter to our first-year councilmembers
Yesterday needs to be this City Council’s worst day if 8 out of 9 of them want a chance at another term. They pulled one of the most chickenshit moves I’ve ever witnessed from my years covering city politics when they decided to hold an expensive special election for the voters’ initiative 137 rather than put it on November’s high-turnout general election ballot. They did this for the sole purpose of weakening its chances because they know the more Seattleites who vote on the initiative, the more likely it will be to pass.
The Seattle City Council (minus Tammy Morales) is admitting that their opinion on the initiative is unpopular among the people they are elected to represent, and they are pulling a chickenshit procedural trick in order to circumvent the people’s will. Not only are they wrong to do this, they should stop and think for a moment about the implications for their political prospects in this city.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C-WSKGco9F_/
It didn’t help that they then retreated to their offices to remotely approve a contract for more jail cells to imprison low-level offenders because the outcry of public opposition in the council chambers was too loud. It also didn’t help that they somehow didn’t anticipate last week how unpopular it would be to roll back the minimum wage law. Not sure how many more signs folks will need before realizing they are making deeply unpopular decisions.
Here’s what I think is going to happen. Councilmember Woo will be toast in November, losing her second City Council election in the span of a year. It won’t be close. One down. At the same time, the voters of Washington House District 43 (entirely within the bounds of Seattle) will elect Shaun Scott despite a majority of the City Council endorsing Republican Andrea Suarez (who pretends she’s a Democrat because she thinks her voters aren’t paying attention). Suarez may not even make it into the general election depending on how late primary ballots turn out, that’s how out of touch this City Council is with the people they represent (Full disclosure: My family recently hosted a fundraiser house party for Scott’s campaign because he’s great). Seattle will then hold a special election, and we will pass I-137. But even worse for this Council, they decided through their action yesterday to turn the I-137 vote into a referendum of the city’s support for investing in affordable housing (spoiler, we want more) as well as a symbolic referendum on this City Council. Not a smart move, y’all.
Is it too late for them to save themselves? For Tanya Woo, yeah it’s too late. I also doubt Sara Nelson can reform her image, either, since she’s the leader of it all and she’s up for election next year (she’s welcome to try). But most of the others are still in the first years of their first terms. They get to use the “I was new and didn’t know better” card one time, and this is a great time to deploy it because that card expires soon. They are clearly getting advice from the wrong people right now, but there is no law that says they must continue following them into the abyss. They were elected by the people, and the office belongs solely to them and their constituents. It doesn’t matter how much corporate PAC money was spent to get them into office, they don’t owe those funders anything.
Kick your cynical bad faith advisors to the curb and go out into your community in search of real problems to solve to make our city a better place. Untie from the sinking ship that is Council President Nelson and be your own leader. Seattle is still a big small town, and elections are still usually won based on community support.
If councilmembers don’t turn things around fast, they may not even make it to 2027. Coucilmember Tammy Morales suggested during yesterday’s meeting that by not prioritizing their consideration of I-137, they likely ran afoul of the City’s Charter and could face recall elections. I personally do not like recall elections and hope it doesn’t come to that, but that’s the path this Council is walking (running?) down. Once you start taking actions to defy the will of the people, recall is the people’s recourse.
I love Seattle, and I believe in our city’s potential to be the city the rest of the nation looks to when trying to solve big problems. That’s why I love writing Seattle Bike Blog. This is my love letter to our city. We don’t always rise to our potential, but folks here never give up. Then every once in a while, we do something extraordinary. We are due for something extraordinary.
None of what I said above will happen on its own, but I believe the people of our city will put in the organizing and volunteer work to make it happen. Seattleites are desperate to make housing more affordable, and we are beyond sick of being told by elected leaders year after year that for some reason we can’t do it. That’s the energy behind I-137. If you all won’t do it, then we will. We’re not going to continue sitting on our hands pretending like there’s nothing more we can do while more and more people get priced out of our city’s cheapest apartments and forced to sleep in the fucking rain.
As our elected leaders, you can join us in an extraordinary victory as we create social housing that people can afford, or you can fight us. But if you fight us, you will lose. You made a big mistake yesterday, now you gotta figure out how to make it right. Which side of Seattle history do you want to be on?
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