Positive COVID test prompts protest outside ICE detention center

Real Change
Sound decisions | Needed relief

by Ashley Archibald | October 28th, 2020

Sound decisions

The board of Sound Transit voted to transfer 10 properties to the city of Seattle to build affordable housing and ownership opportunities for people making 80 percent of the area median income or less.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 80 percent of area median income in King County is $95,250 for a family of four.

The transfers will provide up to 150 units of affordable housing in Rainier Valley, near transit.
Read more in the Oct. 28 - Nov. 3, 2020 issue.
- Read more about Sound decisions | Needed relief
Real Change
Choose your judge

by Kamna Shastri | October 28th, 2020

Judicial races determine who rules in the court of law, but get little exposure

Judicial races are far down the ballot, yet will weigh on the day-to-day functions of law and society. Judges, after all, make countless final decisions. Judges are usually the decision makers in a trial, while jurors are the fact finders. Judges’ personal experiences, biases and values will affect outcomes with more singularity than lawmakers, and more latitude than jurors filtered out and tasked with strict instruction to be unbiased.
Read more in the Oct. 28 - Nov. 3, 2020 issue.
- Read more about Choose your judge
Real Change
Is there a right to vote if access is diminished? A voter suppression explainer with answers

by Kamna Shastri | October 21st, 2020

Your ballot, nestled neat with its crisp sleeve and paid postage, has most likely arrived in your mailbox. Here in Washington, voting by mail was the norm long before the travails of the pandemic pushed states to cobble together plans to distribute and gather absentee ballots. Yet all U.S. voting systems are extensions of oppressive states with classism and racism, and many states passed modern laws under the “end voter fraud” banner that make voting inaccessible, especially for long marginalized groups: Black, immigrant and poor Americans.
Read more in the Oct. 21-27, 2020 issue.
- Read more about Is there a right to vote if access is diminished? A voter suppression explainer with answers
Real Change
Inside the ballot processing center and its COVID safeguards

by Ashley Archibald | October 21st, 2020

From the exterior, the King County Elections headquarters resembles a drab office building, gray and in an industrial part of Renton, across from a used car dealership.

On the inside, however, officials want the public to think of it as the Fort Knox of elections.

King County, like the rest of the U.S., is careening toward one of the most anticipated elections in modern history. By Nov. 3, the Electoral College will either reelect President Donald Trump or replace him with former Vice President Joe Biden.
Read more in the Oct. 21-27, 2020 issue.
- Read more about Inside the ballot processing center and its COVID safeguards
Real Change
King County sales tax to help homeless is passed over by city councils

by Ashley Archibald | October 21st, 2020

“This unprecedented investment will provide a stable and long-term funding stream to house upwards of 2,000 people living chronically homeless, as well as behavioral health care.” — King County Councilmember Joe McDermott

The King County Council approved a new sales tax that aims to create or acquire housing for nearly half of the county’s chronically homeless population, although several smaller cities in the county have passed their own version of the tax, bypassing the county’s effort.
Read more in the Oct. 21-27, 2020 issue.
- Read more about King County sales tax to help homeless is passed over by city councils
Real Change
Transit chugs along

by Ashley Archibald | October 21st, 2020

The Washington Supreme Court tossed out an initiative that would have limited car tab fees to $30, a move that would have hurt transit funding throughout the state.

Initiative I-976, pushed forward by infamous tax-opponent Tim Eyman, was approved by 53 percent of Washington state voters but opposed by roughly the same percentage of voters in the Sound Transit region.

A mix of governments, associations and private people took the matter to court, challenging I-976’s constitutionality.
Read more in the Oct. 21-27, 2020 issue.
- Read more about Transit chugs along
Real Change
All Black lives, L.A. signifies

by Kamna Shastri | October 14th, 2020

The Black Lives Matter street art in Los Angeles is a unique signage. Designer Luckie Alexander, an activist and artist and the founder of Invisible Men, was instrumental in ensuring that wording painted on the LA street — though it followed a similar structure as in D.C., Charlotte and Seattle — would stand testament to ALL Black lives.
Read more in the Oct. 14-20, 2020 issue.
- Read more about All Black lives, L.A. signifies
Real Change
You never find the same art twice

by Kamna Shastri | October 14th, 2020

“With the clearing of the chop, the city saw value in that mural and wanted to keep it and put up the protective barriers to keep automobiles from driving on it.” — Jason Huff, OAC project manager lead

The big Black Lives Matter work of art on Pine Street that made headlines in June is now a permanent fixture in Seattle, at least for the next five years. Before Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, Takiyah Ward and Joey Nix, who are Seattle artists and community organizers, were pressing themselves to figure out how to create art that “spoke to the ills of the pandemic.”

Then police killed Floyd, and Ward and Nix were instantly inspired by the Black Lives Matter murals popping up in other cities — Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Charlotte, North Carolina.
Read more in the Oct. 14-20, 2020 issue.
- Read more about You never find the same art twice
Real Change
Mayor plans to defund support for vehicle residency

by Ashley Archibald | October 14th, 2020

A longstanding program that works with vehicle residents will lose funding under the mayor’s 2021 budget proposal, but city officials hold that there will be no reduction in outreach services.

The Scofflaw Mitigation Team won $100,000 in the 2020 budget, marking the first time the group — a trio that has worked with vehicle residents since 2011 — had received material support from the city since they formed in response to an ordinance that created harsher penalties for people who accumulated parking tickets.
Read more in the Oct. 14-20, 2020 issue.
- Read more about Mayor plans to defund support for vehicle residency
Real Change
Positive COVID test prompts protest outside ICE detention center

by Christy Carley | October 14th, 2020

Demonstrators gathered outside the Tacoma ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Processing Center last week, calling attention to unsafe conditions within the detention center.

La Resistencia, a grassroots organization that advocates for shutting down the detention center, initiated a call for a “People’s Inspection” after they got word from inside that one of the guards employed by Geo Group, the for-profit prison company that runs the center, had tested positive for COVID-19.
Read more in the Oct. 14-20, 2020 issue.
- Read more about Positive COVID test prompts protest outside ICE detention center