Seattle City Council members are using the voter-approved seven council districts as an excuse for quite a few eyebrow-raising actions. In April, councilmembers voted 8-1 for an ordinance allowing each council member to hire another aide to help them cope, at a cost to taxpayers of $500,000 per year.
Why, according to the councilmembers, is another aide necessary — especially given that Seattle councilmembers are the second highest paid in the country?
Councilmembers claim that since switching to a system in which seven council members are elected to represent individual geographic areas much smaller than the city itself, they have been “inundated with neighborhood questions and concerns.”
Only Councilmember Tim Burgess opposed the ordinance, citing the unnecessary added expense.
Well, this week, Councilmember Burgess found himself the alone in opposition to another ordinance — justified with the same excuse.
The council is considering a bill that would make a major change to the city’s ethics rules. The proposal would allow council members to “vote on legislative issues even if they have a potential conflict of interest, so long as the conflict is disclosed ahead of time.”
Under Seattle’s current ethics code (common among most cities), council members cannot vote on matters where they or their family members can “potentially benefit from the vote — especially financially.”
Councilmembers argue the need for a change in the ethics rules because “residents of newly formed districts will be unrepresented if a council member is not able to vote on matters because of the conflict of interest.”
Burgess isn’t buying the argument. He stated in a memo to his fellow councilmembers, “It’s been suggested that this change in Seattle’s standard is necessary because of the voters’ decision to establish city council districts, but I don’t believe the voters ever intended their actions to be interpreted as a desire to lower city government’s ethical standards.”
Burgess raised opposition to the bill via his memo, so discussion of the bill was postponed two weeks.
Interestingly enough, councilmembers are considering the change while a rather prominent city official is under an ethics investigation for the very issue. Prior to assuming his position as Seattle Department of Transportation Director, Scott Kubly served as president of Alta Bicycle Share. Alta Bicycle Share was allied with Pronto—the very same Pronto that Kubly pushed to bail out using taxpayer dollars.
Seattle councilmembers’ push to remove a rather important ethical standard should come as no surprise. Liberals from presumed Democrat Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have a tendency to consider themselves above the law/ethics rules and often push do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do policies… this is just more of the same.
“What difference does it make” Sound familiar? They do whatever they want and then change the rules to accomadate their lack of caring about the taxpayers…typical Libs!
Shift can demonstrate commitment to openness in government by recounting the entire story of how our Senate Majority Coalition came into being.
Once we’ve seen for ourselves how there was absoluelty no violation of legislative standards for ethics anywhere in those dealings, we’ll know Shift truly cares about — and, more importantly, is actually qualified to lecture
Seattleanyone upon — matters of governmental ethics.Well, tensie, we all now know where your ethical and moral standards lie… in the sewer. Your comment, in its entirety, is irrelevant to the subject at hand. But everyone knows you don’t care a fig if they are liberal, secular-progressives.
Two Senators came to their senses and crossed the aisle. I just recounted the entire story of how our Senate Majority Coalition came into being.
You can try to hammer your fake non-point into submission until the cows come home and it won’t change the fact that changing the ethics rules of the Senate so that one merely has to “disclose” a conflict of interest and then be OK to vote on the same issue has never, ever been discussed, came up for a vote, or had a vote postponed by the Senate Majority Coalition. That’s all on the Seattle Silly Clowncil. Try to stay on topic.
Biff, I was talking to Shift, not you. Yes, you give them your money and they spend it however they please, but that does not mean they’ve accorded you the recognition required to speak for them. Please remember your place.
If Shift is so anonymous, how do you know I’m not the senior editor? You just made a pathetic anonymous attempt to deflect attention away from the corrupt clowncil of comrades by continuing to beat the still-dead horse with hinting at some vague, unnamed ethics violation of forming the Senate MCC. Please refrain from commenting on anything away from the other two members of the beret-and-goatee set down at Komrades Koffee (where all drinks come with a government subsidy)
“If Shift is so anonymous, how do you know I’m not the senior editor?”
Even I’ve never accused Shift of engaging in that level of sock-puppetry, but you’re right, we’ve seen nothing here to exclude the possibility they (and you) really are that fundamentally dishonest with readers. After all, the utter contempt shown by the front-page posters for the intelligence of the readers is the primary defining characteristic of the posts here.
Now, since you’ve already said you don’t care to know all of the glorious, uplifting, inspiring details of political leadership which brought the Senate Majority Coalition into existence over the real votes of real taxpayers in real elections, you can stop pretending anyone believes you actually know anything about that story.
Since you’re the only that knows all of the glorious, uplifting, inspiring details of political leadership which brought the Senate Majority Coalition into existence over the real votes of real taxpayers in real elections, maybe you should share them with the rest of the real world. With a byline, of course.
Seeing as how you’re so into real votes of real taxpayers in real elections, thanks for heaping support and praise on I-1240 and I-1366. Don’t worry about the other two members of the beret-and-goatee set down at Komrades Koffee finding out. They oppose the bourgeois internet as a symbolic gesture.
So corrupt. How do you think Detroit ended up as the basket case it is? Via self-destructive policies such as this. The freefall at the hands of progressives continues to accelerate…..
sounds like Ali Baba and his band of thieves
So, to show Shift’s commitment to public disclosure, it will disclose who owns the site, and require bylines for all posts.
**Snicker**
You believe Shift is a public agency? Will you disclose who you are and put a byline on all you posts?
**Snicker**
Since I don’t have front-page posting privileges here, I cannot put a “byline” on anything. (Words, how do they work?)
I was just wondering if Shift would lead by example, and if not, why anyone would take them seriously. Perhaps you can tell us why you do?
You most certainly can put a “byline” on any post you like. You can put your name, address, phone number and if you like Snickerdoodles or not on any or all of your posts. Nobody would stop you. Or is it just something you feel you can anonymously demand of others? Lead by example, not that anybody would take you seriously because of it, though. You’re light-years past that ever happening. Perhaps people take Shift seriously because they don’t continually beat the dead horse of some vague, unnamed ethical scandal involving the formation of the Senate MCC that you made up to deflect attention from the corrupt clowncil of comrade’s total absence of ethics.