1. Mayor Ed Murray’s surprise announcement, at a campaign forum last week, that he would put forward “a proposal for a high-end income tax” came at a particularly inopportune time for a group of progressive taxation advocates that has been working for months to craft just such a proposal. Proponents of a local income tax, including council member Lisa Herbold, met last week with city budget director Ben Noble to discuss putting together an income tax proposal that could withstand legal scrutiny. On Monday, Herbold announced she was introducing a resolution—”drafted with the assistance of the mayor’s office” and reviewed by the city attorney—that lays out a timeline and questions that need to be resolved in drafting a local income tax ordinance. The goal, Herbold said, is to begin considering a local income tax proposal by the end of May and to adopt an ordinance in July.
Trump Proof Seattle has proposed a 1.5 percent income tax on incomes over $250,000 a year; Herbold said Monday that one of the goals of the council process will be to decide on an income threshold and what kind of income (earned or unearned) will be taxed. Prior to Murray’s announcement last week, former mayor and current mayoral candidate Mike McGinn said he supported an income tax; Cary Moon, an urban planner and civic activist who announced she was running last week, says she would prefer a capital gains tax.
2. Council member Lorena Gonzalez had a message for legislators who are dithering over whether to require companies in Washington State to provide paid family leave: If they won’t do it, she will. Time is running out for lawmakers to reach a compromise between two dueling proposals, including one (sponsored by Sen. Joe Fain, R-47) that would preempt Seattle from adopting more generous requirements. The details of the two plans vary in the ways you might expect; the Republican proposal is entirely employee-funded and would provide new parents or people who need time off to care for a sick family member just two months of leave at half pay, while the Democratic version is partly employer-funded and provides more generous benefits.
“I feel that a statewide solution is the best solution for all working families, including Seattle working families,” Gonzalez said. “But I have still have a very strong interest, and am incredibly ready to advance, a Seattle-only policy if those conversations are not happening in good faith.”
3. A new job opportunity opened up this week for those with thick skin and a willingness to work for a company that has been widely panned as hostile to unions: Community manager for social responsibility for New Seasons Market in Seattle. New Seasons, you may recall, sparked controversy with its plan to bid on a new location above the Capitol Hill light rail station; labor groups criticized the Portland-based company for being “anti-union,” and the United Food and Commercial Workers organized an “unwelcome ceremony” when the company opened its first Seattle-area location on Mercer Island last year. New Seasons is also rumored to be the anchor tenant at another controversial development at 23rd and Jackson, where the luxury condo behemoth Vulcan plans to build hundreds of new apartments and tear down the unionized Red Apple store that has been a community fixture for more than 25 years. The community manager for social responsibility in Seattle, in other words, is going to have their work cut out for them.
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