1. Nine of nine Washington State Supreme Court justices DISLIKE that the state legislature has, with its iterative approach to funding K-12 education, failed to come up with a reliable comprehensive "plan" (italics theirs) to pay for schools, particularly class-size reductions and personnel costs. In a court order filed yesterday, the justices began fining the state $100,000 a day ("effective immediately") until the legislature outlines an actual plan.

Citing the legislature's own non-partisan Joint Task Force on Education Funding (JTFEF) estimates laid out in advance of the 2012 legislative session in response to the original McCleary decision to fully fund education, the court, noting the nearly $2 billion in MIA money to pay for smaller class sizes and stagnant teachers' salaries, called BS on the legislature's insouciance. 

On class sizes, the court wrote: "With a deadline for 2018 for compliance, the state is not on course to meet class size reduction goals... The state has presented no plan as how it intends to achieve full compliance in this area by 2018, other than the promise that it will take up the matter in the 2017-19 biennial budget."

And then, after excoriating the legislature for not having a "fully state-funded system that will attract and retain the educators necessary to actually deliver a quality education," the justices concluded: "The court will not dictate the details of how the state is to achieve full funding of basic education... The court has only required, and still requires, the state to present its plan for achieving compliance by its own deadline of 2018."

 2. And a batch of LIKES & DISLIKES from last night's city council candidate forum at city hall's Bertha Knight Landes room (the topics of the Metropolitan Democratic Club forum were housing and transit.)

District One (West Seattle) candidate Lisa Herbold and Position Eight (at-large) candidate Jon Grant DISLIKED that this fall's $930 million transportation levy proposal is stuck relying on property taxes. Grant, who's running against council president Tim Burgess, hyped a failed council member Nick Licata plan to add an employer tax to the mix: Retiring member Licata's funding alternative would have "lightened the burden on [fixed income] homeowners," he said.

"We need to start educating voters" on the regressive tax system in this state that forces Seattle into limited funding options Herbold (Licata's aide) said.

Herbold and Grant also teamed up to criticize the affordable housing (HALA committee) recommendations for supposedly letting developers off the hook. "We also need a residential linkage fee" Herbold said, protesting the plan’s exclusive tax on commercial only development. The council had originally proposed a blanket linkage fee on all development; the HALA committee replaced that with a commercial only fee and a compromise that gave developers an across-the-board upzone in exchange for mandating affordable housing production. Five to seven percent of all new residential development must be—or in lieu of, must fund, affordable housing at 60 percent of area median income.

But Grant added: "The current council, including my opponent Tim Burgess, is too comfy with developers." Reality check: The council has limited pod apartment development, reined in density in lowrise zones, reined in in-fill development, and before the HALA committee's 10-month compromise deal between social justice lefties (including affordable housing advocates) and developers, passed a $22 per square foot linkage fee.

Incumbent Mike O’Brien LIKED the HALA compromise, saying: "I'm willing to hold back the linkage fee [because of inclusionary zoning and the commercial linkage fee]" O’Brien is chairing the special committee that’s shepherding the HALA recs through council.

O’Brien’s opponent in District Six (Ballard Fremont), Catherine Weatbrook DISLIKED the HALA recs for targeting single family zones: "I'm concerned that the [HALA] report completely dismisses the value of open space in single family zones." (As we've pointed out before, that famous 65 percent number of city land that's zoned exclusively for single family zones, is actually 57 percent when you account for all the parks and open space that's tucked away for single families.)

Conversely, District Four (U. District, Roosevelt, Wedgwood, Sand Point) candidate Rob Johnson LIKED HALA’s philosophy: "Without changes [density and zoning changes] we'll see the suburbanization of poverty.” Johnson, the head of pro-transit advocacy group Transportation Choices Coalition, has continually flagged the impact that pricing people out of Seattle has on the environment by forcing Seattle’s own working (and driving) class into the suburbs, creating regional sprawl.

Council member Bruce Harrell LIKED SDOT’s Rainier Ave. road redesign in his Southeast Seattle District Two: "The bicycle culture is not there yet," he said as a criticism of the current infrastructure.

And the crowd DISLIKED longshot District Seven (Downtown) candidate Deborah Zech-Artis's assertion that "We're sort of lazy and retarded [when it comes to transit planning]." The crowd winced at the impolitic statement. "I didn't mean it in a negative manner," she said trying to explain her way out of it before someone in the crowd urged her to "just stop."