I am in agreement with Mr. Miller’s Agreements, it’s Dead On!
Unfortunately, the Seattle Parks Foundation just sent out a misguided
bulk email to parks supporters asking them to support Seattle TBD Prop
1. If you are a Parks supporter, you should vote ‘no’. Here’s why:
To address the regressivity of this measure, City Hall has promised to
do rebates to low income people. Because they didn’t budget for rebates
in their rush to place this on the budget, the millions per year to pay
for rebates will need to come out of the General Fund. We are all
acutely aware of the cuts in our Community Centers and Parks Department.
This measure will make that worse.
Unlike our Parks Levy, this measure is so vague they can move the money
around wherever they want. Nick Licata is trying to address this after
the fact, but his measure won’t do the job because of the overly broad
categories they used in this ballot measure.
The Parks Foundation letter talks about $14 million for greenways, but
this number is not accurate. Moreover, spending on that segment has
already been reduced in draft budgets put forth by SDOT between when
this was put on the ballot and last week. In the original budget
available at the time this was placed on the ballot, $9.5 million was
specified for greenways. In the latest SDOT draft budget, this has
shrunk to $7.5M. You can see the original budget numbers on the
Sidewalks and Streets for Seattle website at
http://www.sidewalksandstreets.org/numbers.html
As far as sidewalks are concerned, this measure is a joke. In the budget
available at the time this was placed on the ballot, only nine new
sidewalk block faces were in the budget. In the October 3rd draft budget
from SDOT, this dropped to four (4) block faces per year for the entire
city.
Despite serious infrastructure needs, we’re spending over $17 million on
streetcar *studies*. We’re allocating nearly 50% of the $204 million
raised by this levy to transit but it does not buy any new bus hours or
bus routes. The number of speedier transit corridors has gone from
nearly nine to as few as four in subsequent draft budgets, and now we’re
told corridor improvements depend on matching funds. In their draft
budget published in early October, SDOT shifted money away from
sidewalks, transit, and pedestrian safety to fund over $6 million in
advertising/promotional programs.
I’m very disappointed in the Seattle Parks Foundation for supporting
this measure. This is absolutely not a Parks-friendly measure and
addressing the regressivity via promised rebates will reduce General
Fund monies that could restore some funding to Parks. This measure could
be Parks friendly, but to make that happen we have to vote this flawed
version down and bring a better one back next year. I urge you to vote
no on Prop 1.
David Miller
Sidewalks and Streets for Seattle
