Left, Mayor Mike McGinn chats with West Seattle professional guitar player Brian Lally, a member of the Park & Rec. Busker Program. Earlier he had asked the Mayor if he and his fellow buskers could possibly be paid more than the $50 the city pays them to perform for two hours. McGinn said he would look into the matter.
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Press release:
Southwest Seattle Mayor’s Town Hall
At the June 23 Southwest Seattle Mayor’s Town Hall meeting at Hiawatha Community Center Mayor Mike McGinn, City Departments & Community Groups answered nearly 30 questions from the audience, after the Mayor gave a speech about education.
Topics including problems with bus routes, large elementary school class sizes, a few anti-tunnel comments that preached to the choir, and a musical busker, classical and pop guitar player and West Seattle resident, Brian Lally, who asked the mayor for more than the $50 for two hours of play he and others in the city program earn. He is in the Busker Program through the Associated Recreation Council with Parks & Rec.
At 5:30-6:30 was the Meet and Greet: City Departments and local volunteer organizations have info tables, answer questions and offer volunteer opportunities.
Then youth dancers performed for 15 minutes, the breakdancing Vicious Puppies Crew and the synchronized dancers of Defined Movement. Most of the Vicious Puppies wore t-shirts supporting King County Council candidate Diana Toledo.
The Mayor mentioned his support for King County's car owners' car tab fees to go up $20 in order to avoid cuts to Metro Transit.King County Executive Dow Constantine is asking the King County Council to approve the hike, which would last two years. Six out of the nine council members must approve the increase. Otherwise, it may go before voters. Metro Transit is facing a $60 million deficit. The Mayor did point out that this is just a short term, two-year fix.
On the Expanded Education Levy, the mayor said, "If a child fails one class in the ninth grade they're likely to not finish high school," McGinn said. "So we have programs to go in with at-risk kids who have or will fail a class and take them through completion, even if it takes till the summer or beyond, and what you find is that if you do that the kids that go through that program have a much higher graduation rate.
"Each one of the programs are the tested so the outcomes actually work. Now it's bigger and we're spending more money on it. This is money that comes through the city. We contract third parties to provide the services. If we're not getting the outcomes we want we'll cancel the services.
"We're also taking that 'outcome approach' and bringing it over to our Human Services Division, Parks Department, libraries. We spend in he city tens of millions of dollars that affect youth and families. We just did a survey and asked how do you spend money on kids and how do you measure what you do. Very often the measurement is how many children were served. And we want to ask a different question. How is the child different as a result of the services performed. It is an outcome-based approach. We're starting a pilot program."
