On ballots that went out last week, voters have two choices to make to determine the future of Seattle’s newest plan for housing.
The first is whether the developer should be funded at all. The next choice — regardless of the previous answer — is how.
Option 1A is with a new employer tax on all salaries over $1 million a year. Backers hope the 5% tax would raise as much as $50 million a year to be spent on buying and, eventually, developing housing that would be cost-controlled and owned by taxpayers.
Option 1B is to fund the developer with $10 million a year in existing city funding — specifically the city’s JumpStart tax on large corporations in Seattle.
Not to quibble, I hate quibblers, but the old P-I was Hearst. The Times is ‘independent’, but owned by a big-money local family .
Count me among the folks who seriously liked Sawant. Abrasive, sure she was. But she made things happen, sometimes good things.