Cutting it off
The Washington state Legislature is about to hit a critical deadline to get bills out of committee on Feb. 24, and already one renter-friendly measure seems doomed.
According to an email from the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, Senate Bill 5435 — a measure to stabilize rents — did not make it out of committee. The Feb. 24 deadline is for bills that impact the state budget. Measures that don’t impact the budget have until March 8 to pass out of committee.
SB 5435 would have prevented landlords from upping rent during the first year of tenancy. After, landlords cannot raise the rent by more than the rate of inflation — as measured by the consumer price index — or 3 percent, in any 12-month period. The maximum would be 7 percent of the existing rent.
Rent control is illegal in the state of Washington. According to state law, no city or town — of any class — can dictate the amount that landlords can charge for rent in single family or multi-family homes. According to a Seattle Times article from 2018, rents in King County have gone up 155 percent in the past two decades.
Other bills
According to PubliCola, a bill that allows victims of “unlawful police actions” to sue for damages will advance out of committee.
The measure was sponsored by Rep. My-Linh Thai (D-Bellevue). It would give people legal recourse in the face of “qualified immunity,” which effectively prevents most officers from being prosecuted under the law.
SEEC-ing the candidates
Seattle is going to have elections for seven open council seats in 2023, and that is just the beginning of the election-season excitement this year. Overseeing it all is the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission (SEEC), and that body is looking for more people in the run up.
The SEEC needs two new commissioners to fill out its seven-member group. Members serve three-year terms and can be reappointed by the Seattle City Council, the very members that it polices should they violate codes.
The SEEC held a hearing into outgoing Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s use of city of Seattle resources to promote the “Tax Amazon” campaign.
Good news
The Seattle Public Library will expand hours to its branches in March and April using a $219.1 million library levy. It will fund open hours, collections, technology services, children’s programming, building maintenance and a seismic retrofit of multiple libraries.
According to the library, most of the 27 locations will be open every day of the week, and most branches will have longer hours. However, some will see minor reductions.
Library users will begin seeing changes on Monday, March 20, and additional increases will happen on April 3.
Read more of the Feb. 22-28, 2023 issue.