A citizens' initiative aims to put the brakes on the City of Seattle's effort to build a new jail.
Filed Thurs., Jan. 22, by the group Citizens for Fairness and Efficiency in Public Safety, of which Real Change is a member, the initiative petition needs 23,000 signatures of Seattle voters by the end of May to qualify for the November ballot.
If approved, Initiative 100 would require, first, that the city negotiate "publicly, openly, and in good faith" with King County for alternative jail space; second, that officials explore methods of sentencing that would decrease the number of inmates; third, that they devise a strategy to address racial differences in drug enforcement and sentencing. And finally, local officials would have to take the jail question to another vote, giving citizens the final say on whether to build it.