November 2018

information from the City of Seattle

The City of Seattle has awarded $755,000 to support 14 community-initiated projects through Seattle Department of Neighborhoods’ Neighborhood Matching Fund (NMF). Its Community Partnership Fund offers matching funds of up to $100,000 to community organizations committed to fostering and building our community. These awards range from $17,000 to $100,000 with the 14 organizations pledging over $769,890 in community match involving volunteer hours, locally raised money, donated materials, and in-kind professional services.

If you would like to obtain some well considered financial advice, contact Sarah Cecil 206-938-6017.

Brought to you by Sarah Cecil Financial Advisor with Edward Jones Investments.

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By Jason Boyd

In all the talk these days about fake news, and how to tell if the narrative you’re consuming is genuine or not, what I don’t want to see get lost is the ability to analyze one’s motivations for telling the story. Put another way, if you tell me why the chicken crossed the road, it’s one thing to verify whether this really happened, and it’s another thing to figure out why you think it’s necessary that I know why the chicken did it. What’s your agenda here?

City Councilmember Lisa Herbold detailed the current District 1 budget priorities in her newsletter to constituents.

District 1 Budget Priorities

Adding three inspectors to the Vacant Building Monitoring Program 
Since 2013 complaints related to vacant buildings have increased by 64 percent. The proposal would provide resources in SDCI for the Code Compliance division to enhance the existing Vacant Building Monitoring Program. The enhanced program would add a. buildings in the development pipeline, b. buildings that SFD and/or SPD are monitoring, and c. buildings that have had three or more violations within a 36 day period to the monitoring list and those buildings will be monitored monthly by the three new inspectors.

By Jean Godden

Seattle City Councilmembers have proposed dozens of new programs for the city budget to undertake in 2019 and 2020. A complete shopping list would likely amount to a cool billion or so. Thinking big is in the Seattle tradition, even if it means that there are bound to be some disappointments.

Here's how the story begins: On September 24, Mayor Jenny Durkan delivered her 2019-20 budget proposal to the Seattle Council. It was a balanced budget, as all such budgets must be, projecting how much the city can expect to receive in taxes, licenses and fees as well as how to spend taxpayers' money.

Since then, the Seattle City Council has been assessing the mayor's $5.9 billion proposal ($300 million more than this year's budget) and deciding where -- and if -- to make any changes. That's the council's task and, as the pundits say, passing the city budget is the most important job the council does.