City Hall
Today's Sexy, Sexy Budget Hearing!
Today's city council budget committee meetings should prove pretty interesting: They involve cuts and adds to the city's parks, transportation, and neighborhoods budgets. (The council is in the process of tweaking Mayor Mike McGinn's budget and closing a budget gap that's now, thanks to the loss of revenue from soda taxes after Tuesday's election, about $68 million).
A few highlights:
• Fees for using park department services would increase, including fees for tennis courts, swimming pools, soccer fields, "fire rings" (?), and other facility rentals. In all, parks fees would bring in more than $21 million in the next two years.
• Additionally, the council will consider charging for parking in parks to raise money for parks programs. The parking proposal could serve as a substitute for more radical revenue-generating measures, like selling naming rights to parks to corporations.
• In the neighborhoods department, the council will consider restoring funding McGinn's budget cut for historical preservation (McGinn proposed cutting a staffer to identify potential historical buildings and sites); the neighborhood matching fund (which includes the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative and the city's Customer Service Bureau); a food policy position that oversees the city's P-Patch program; one of six neighborhood service centers that McGinn's budget eliminated; and six neighborhood district coordinators McGinn proposed cutting.
• In the transportation department, the council will discuss McGinn's controversial proposals to change parking rates and hours. In particular, the council seems likely to reduce the maximum hourly parking rate below the $5 McGinn has proposed; to require the city's transportation department to justify parking-meter rates by showing that they maximize "performance" (basically, a measure of how many parking spaces are empty and how long it takes to find a spot); to reinstate free parking on Sundays; and to reject McGinn's proposal to increase the commercial parking tax to 17.5 percent.
• The council will also consider a long list of new transportation and parking fees, including a new "scofflaw" program that will allow the city to boot (immobilize) cars owned by people who have failed to respond to four or more parking citations and increases in the fees for residential parking permits in neighborhoods.
A few highlights:
• Fees for using park department services would increase, including fees for tennis courts, swimming pools, soccer fields, "fire rings" (?), and other facility rentals. In all, parks fees would bring in more than $21 million in the next two years.
• Additionally, the council will consider charging for parking in parks to raise money for parks programs. The parking proposal could serve as a substitute for more radical revenue-generating measures, like selling naming rights to parks to corporations.
• In the neighborhoods department, the council will consider restoring funding McGinn's budget cut for historical preservation (McGinn proposed cutting a staffer to identify potential historical buildings and sites); the neighborhood matching fund (which includes the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative and the city's Customer Service Bureau); a food policy position that oversees the city's P-Patch program; one of six neighborhood service centers that McGinn's budget eliminated; and six neighborhood district coordinators McGinn proposed cutting.
• In the transportation department, the council will discuss McGinn's controversial proposals to change parking rates and hours. In particular, the council seems likely to reduce the maximum hourly parking rate below the $5 McGinn has proposed; to require the city's transportation department to justify parking-meter rates by showing that they maximize "performance" (basically, a measure of how many parking spaces are empty and how long it takes to find a spot); to reinstate free parking on Sundays; and to reject McGinn's proposal to increase the commercial parking tax to 17.5 percent.
• The council will also consider a long list of new transportation and parking fees, including a new "scofflaw" program that will allow the city to boot (immobilize) cars owned by people who have failed to respond to four or more parking citations and increases in the fees for residential parking permits in neighborhoods.
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