A meeting in Shoreline on June 25 produced an unusual result—hundreds of voters asking King County Councilmembers to raise their taxes. Led by County Councilmember Bob Ferguson (D-North Seattle), the town hall meeting was called to gauge public support for a one-tenth of one cent sales tax increase in King County to fund gaps in mental health services budgets in the county. The meeting resulted in a record turnout for a council-led town hall meeting and calls for County Council to approve the tax increase. It would raise an estimated $47 million a year and be earmarked for services for the mentally ill and pay raises for mental health workers, typically underpaid. There is currently no formal proposal to raise sales taxes and it is unclear when Council would take up the issue, according to Ferguson’s office.

—Philip Dawdy

Police oversight rally

James Bible isn’t giving up. He’s demanding that Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske resign—regardless of what James Kelly or Carl Mack have to say about it.

Bible is the president of the Seattle-King County NAACP. On June 28 at 4 p.m., he will lead a City Hall rally calling for the chief’s resignation, along with the firing of two police officers—Gregory Neubert and Michael Tietjen—who were accused of planting drugs on a man they arrested in January.

Bible has been calling for the chief’s resignation ever since the release of a drugstore video that contradicts the police officers’ original incident reports. He made the demand again on June 22 after the Seattle Times obtained a leaked report from the citizen review board that oversees internal investigations, the Office of Professional Accountability Review Board. In it, board members said the chief had interceded in the investigation of Neubert and Tietjen.

A few hours after Bible gave his press conference, the Urban League and its director, James Kelly, held its own press briefing with Carl Mack, Seattle’s former NAACP chief. Kelly called the report a “draft” and Mack said it didn’t merit ruining the good police relations he had built.

“Once the report is final what are they going to do?” Bible asks. Given all the incidents of police abuse that the NAACP is currently following, Bible insists now is the time to demand real police accountability.

—Cydney Gillis