September 29, 2008
Mayor Greg Nickels
2009 City of Seattle Budget
Making Smart, Compassionate Decisions in Uncertain Times
Council President Conlin, Members of the City Council, distinguished guests and my fellow Seattleites: I am honored to be here today, to present to you my budget for 2009.
Whether planning a family budget, or the budget for a major metropolitan city, the objective is the same. You look ahead and anticipate what you might confront. Unfortunately, as we come together today, what we face is tremendous uncertainty about our national economy.
We’ve all seen the headlines: Turmoil in the financial and housing markets; Prices rising on everything from fuel to food.
The level of anxiety is something we haven’t seen in recent history. I hear it in my West Seattle neighborhood at the grocery store, and no doubt you’ve heard it too, in coffee shops and living rooms across our city.
An uncertain national economy
The past two weeks have obliterated many of the assumptions we had about the stability of our nation’s financial system. We found ourselves asking questions we had not before faced about safety and security of our investments and the prospects of more unsettling news to rock our confidence.
And that news came on Thursday when Washington Mutual, a Seattle institution since the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, became the latest casualty. While the customers of WAMU are not at risk, it leaves a big hole in our business community. A great Seattle company is no more. JP Morgan is a great company, just not a Seattle one.
Just like our families, our city government is not immune to these financial pressures. Whether it’s inflation, gas prices or skyrocketing health care costs, we too face challenges in balancing our budget.
These are unsettling economic times that require caution in all our decisions.
Members of the City Council, over the past seven years, we have worked together, through good times and bad to balance budgets and set priorities. It’s in times like this our financial discipline pays off.
Yes, we will make some difficult decisions this year. But we have a track record of making responsible choices every year that serves us well.
In this economy, I can think of no place I’d rather stand than right here in Seattle. We have set priorities. We have not let our spending get out of control. We have set aside resources for a rainy day and we are well prepared to weather a financial storm.
As I travel across this City, there are so many things that make me proud of what we’re accomplishing together.
We’re a city of progress. The trains have arrived, and in 2009 light rail is coming to the Rainier Valley, Beacon Hill and downtown. And we will break ground on the extension north to Capitol Hill and the University of Washington.
We’re a city that gets things done. In July we re-opened an expanded Magnolia Library. We have now completed the “Libraries for All” program—an idea that was born under Mayor Norm Rice; passed under Mayor Paul Schell; and implemented during my administration. With that perseverance, we have renovated and built 27 libraries across the city—from Broadview to the International District to Rainier Beach.
Seattle is also a city of opportunity. We have employers like the Gates Foundation, Amazon and Microsoft, all bringing new jobs to Seattle. And we’re home to so many innovative, small businesses, like the Macrina Bakery, building the Northwest’s first LEED-certified bakery in SODO.
These things don’t just happen. From Northgate to Southeast Seattle, from Ballard to Magnuson Park, we can be proud of the smart decisions we’ve made together, every step of the way.
Councilmembers, for years, we’ve worked together on creating jobs and opportunity. We are now being rewarded for those efforts. Across the nation, people see Seattle as an exciting, desirable place to live and to do business. That’s the direct result of having a vision and the foresight to make the right investments.
I am presenting to you a budget that maintains our direct services to the people of Seattle. I am proposing cutting some of our administrative costs but committing more resources to the key priorities that matter most to our residents.
Tough Times call for Compassion
A compassionate city cares for those who are struggling -- especially in these difficult times.
When times are tough we simply have more people in need. And my budget directs a record $52 million from the General Fund to human services to help the least fortunate in these difficult times.
I’m proposing that we spend nearly $3 million — more than ever before—to fight hunger. This includes more money to purchase food in bulk and to deliver meals to seniors and others who find it difficult to leave their homes. No one should go hungry in our City.
And, I’m proposing that we expand our ‘People Point’ effort to reach out and make sure that people who are eligible for help actually get it. Too often, people are missing out on basic benefits because they’re not aware of what’s available.
We’re also pushing forward with the 10-year plan to end homelessness. The plan envisions a day when we rely less on temporary solutions, like shelter. But today, we have immediate human needs.
My budget provides for more shelter beds north of downtown, a day center in Belltown, and a late-night, emergency voucher program for families with no place to go. No mother should be forced to see her child sleep on our streets. Ever.
In 2009 I will be proposing renewal, for the fourth time, of the Seattle Housing levy. No other City in America has committed itself to take care of those in need of housing so often. And when you place the levy on the ballot, I will join you in leading the effort for passage from our voters.
In the long term, I’m encouraged that our “Housing First” strategy is on the right track. We are housing the homeless without pre-condition. Once they have a place to call home, we’re finding that other parts of their lives begin to stabilize. We are right there to support them with medical and mental health services.
The results are in and the verdict is clear: When taxpayers invest in “Housing First,” it pays for itself. Every person we take off the streets, is one less person who’s using police and emergency room services at taxpayer expense.
Councilmember Rasmussen, when we started this several years ago, we took some flak. But our courage is now making a true difference in people’s lives. This coming year, we will have more than 300 “Housing First” homes; 300 people who are not sleeping in alleys or on street grates or in building entrances. We are reconnecting people who have been on the streets for years, with hope.
In 2009 I am proposing $2.1 million to secure even more homes and services for “Housing First.” By 2011, we will have more than 500 units, each unit bringing new hope to someone who was chronically homeless. And thank you for passing an ambitious plan for housing the homeless at Fort Lawton.
Don’t let people distort our commitment to ending homelessness. Once again in this budget, Seattle will spend more money to help the homeless than all other cities in Washington State combined.
There is a difference between compassion and license. Seattle is second to none in its compassion. But it is not to be confused with having no expectations for civil behavior or abiding by the rules to which we are all subject.
Is it compassionate to hide the least fortunate under a bridge or in a greenbelt, where they’re out of sight and out of mind? Is it compassionate to let the most vulnerable in our society, silently fall victim to crime? No, true compassion is reaching out your hand and offering a safe, humane home with hope for the future. It’s not the easy thing to do; it’s the right thing to do.
A priority on public safety
You’ve heard me say often, the paramount duty of the City is public safety. When there’s a crisis, fire or an emergency, residents expect that we will be ready to respond.
I want the people of Seattle to understand, that we will not waver in our commitment to: Keep our Neighborhoods Safe.
Consider how much progress we’ve made at our fire department: Every fire engine in the City is now staffed with at least four firefighters.
We’ve launched the new fireboat Leschi, and we’re refitting the Chief Seattle to protect our houseboats and industries on the fresh water. This year, we opened our new Emergency Operation Center, Fire Alarm Center and Fire Station 10—the first new fire station built in Seattle in 33 years.
My budget continues to build and rehabilitate fire stations. We will maintain complete staffing on our engines, ladders, aid cars and medic units. I want Seattle to be the most prepared city in America.
Our commitment to public safety means a Police Department second to none. My budget once again delivers on the five-year Neighborhood Policing Plan. This means more officers on the streets and more officers at critical times when they are most needed. The result will be a stronger, faster and smarter police department.
In 2009, we will add 21 uniformed patrol officers and another 21 in 2010. That puts us right on track to add 154 new patrol officers by 2012.
Our new contract with the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild recognizes the hard work of the officers on our streets every day. The contract supports our improvements to police accountability. Thank you for approving that contract.
Councilmember Burgess, I know you share my determination to recruit the very best officers in the nation. I am pleased to report to you today, that our hiring this year is right on target.
Our continued commitment to public safety is making a difference. Our crime rate last year was the lowest in 40 years. Last year, the number of murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries and vehicle thefts—were all down by more than 20-percent.
We are a much safer city today, than we were just five years ago.
Protecting our children
But those statistics don’t tell the whole story. I want to talk with you about a disturbing issue facing our city: Violence and our young people.
While nearly all our crime rates have dropped, the incidents of youth violence have stayed constant for several years.
Back in January on the MLK holiday, I was at Southwest Mortuary in Rainier Beach with the family of 14-year-old DeChe Morrison, who was shot in the stomach and left to die on South Rose Street.
As parents, many of us have faced the struggles of raising children. I know I have. But nothing compares to the unimaginable pain of losing a child, or the emptiness left behind.
DeChe Morrison. Allen Joplin. Perry Henderson. Pierre LaPoint. Four times this year gun violence in our community left a teenage victim dead.
These are our children and our neighborhoods, and what’s happening must be stopped. Let’s be direct. The children most at risk are poor children, children of color and in particular our African-American youth.
The time has come for us to fundamentally change our strategy on preventing youth violence.
I was joined by Councilmembers Harrell, Burgess and McIver when I pulled together people in the community after the shooting deaths of Allen Joplin and DeChe Morrison. I directed that City staff take hard look at what works in preventing youth violence, and what doesn’t.
We looked across the country at places that have had success—cities like Chicago, Baltimore or San Jose. What we learned is the basis for the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative that I am including with this budget.
Already this year, we stepped up emphasis patrols, working closely with our schools. We doubled the number of officers working in our gang unit. But law enforcement alone is not the solution.
This new initiative has three key principles.
First, it’s focused. We will make the most progress if we focus on about 800 young people who we know are at highest risk of perpetuating violence or becoming victims themselves:
- Juveniles who have been arrested, or are repeat offenders.
- Middle school students who skip school or get suspended.
- And young people who are victims themselves and may retaliate.
We know that many of these kids simply lack support in their lives. That vacuum can be filled by gangs and the misguided notion that kids can prove themselves through violence.
Our second principle is that we cannot expect these children to find us. We must go to them.
We will reach out to kids who are victims of violence. Cities like Chicago have used “violence interrupters”. These are people who have credibility on the street and can prevent violence and retaliation before it occurs.
We’re also going to do a much better job integrating the ways we help our young people. We recognize that each neighborhood is different. This initiative creates three neighborhood networks in southwest, southeast and central Seattle—three neighborhoods where young people are at greatest risk of violence.
We have enlisted the help of strong community based institutions to design each of these neighborhood networks, to identify these children and show them a path to a brighter future.
Our third principle is accountability. We will set specific targets that we can measure, starting with reducing youth violence in half. We will judge our success in a very concrete way.
Some of this can be done by refocusing programs we already have. But an effort this large is going to require new spending.
If we don’t stop this violence among our young kids and teenagers, it spills into adulthood. We need to invest now on a long-term strategy of prevention that begins with our youth.
Last month, I was in Denver, where I heard Senator Barack Obama give an historic speech and I was inspired by one passage in particular. He said:
“We must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents, that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework, that fathers must take more responsibility to provide love and guidance to their children. Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility, that's the essence of America's promise."
He is right. Local government can’t do this alone. Parents, Churches -- all of us have a stake; all of us need to step up.
What we are doing transcends any single program, any particular group, or any one agency.
For every child who goes astray, for every victim of a violent crime, there’s a mom or a dad or a loved one who agonizes over what went wrong.
The time has come for a new approach. Let’s all agree to work as one and protect our children.
Building strong families, healthy communities
We’re also committed to build healthy neighborhoods.
We show that commitment in this budget by building a new South East Dental Clinic, a vital service for low-income neighbors.
We demonstrate our commitment by starting work on a new community center for Rainier Beach.
And we show that commitment by making great places for kids to play. This biennial budget includes money for year-round turf at Miller Playfield in the Central District and on two fields at Delridge, so kids can be safer and use the fields intensively.
As our city grows, so does our obligation to make our neighborhoods great, inviting places. My budget develops a brand new park at Northgate on what had been an asphalt park & ride lot. It adds 26 acres of new park space on the new Beacon Hill reservoir lid (including a new skate park) – talk about a Green Roof! Travel and Leisure magazine recently said Seattle had the fourth best parks in America – we’re making them even better.
Councilmember Clark, I share your passion for building our communities. Thank you for your efforts to keep Seattle a city of great neighborhoods, getting better every day.
Transportation: Get Seattle moving
Transportation is like the weather – everyone talks about it but until recently no one did much about it.
Councilmember Drago, we all can be proud of our “Bridging the Gap” program. We are making significant improvements in the way people move around our city. You and Councilmember Licata have been strong advocates for improving pedestrian safety and together, we’re making great progress.
Perhaps you’ve noticed the new pedestrian countdown signals at 53 intersections that tell you exactly how much time you have to get across the street? We’re building 150 curb ramps every year to make our intersections more accessible. And at some intersections, we’re installing raised crosswalks and new, flashing lights in the pavement.
I am proud that we’ve added more sidewalks than any other recent administration. We’ve built nearly three-hundred blocks and counting.
This next year, we’re going to step up construction even more. My budget includes an additional $3.5 million to build new sidewalks. We’ll improve the most critical locations like paths to schools and transit stops.
Last month, on a drizzly August morning, I was excited to kick-off construction on 14th Avenue South in South Park. We didn’t get much attention from the press, but the South Park neighbors showed up with their umbrellas. We’re rebuilding this crumbling street. We’re installing new sidewalks. Street trees and artwork are going to transform the neighborhood.
Before I came to City Hall, the city was paving about four lane miles of streets a year. In 2009, my budget includes money to pave 25 miles. That’s progress. We’re catching up on the backlog of street repairs across this city.
It’s time to prepare for a future without a dangerous Alaskan Way Viaduct. When a decision is reached next year, we need to be ready with a design and a vision that reclaims our waterfront for the 21st century.
On this, we can agree: Seattle will reconnect our city to the shimmering waters of Elliott Bay. That viaduct was a mistake 55 years ago. We must not repeat it.
Seattle was just recognized as a gold-level Bicycle-Friendly community. The League of American Bicyclists has given that honor to only three other cities. And it is time to fill-in “the missing link” of the Burke-Gilman trail and complete a continuous trail from Golden Gardens on Puget Sound to Lake Washington and beyond. This budget will achieve that.
Improving customer service
Of course, these are difficult economic times, and that means I have cut administrative costs in many departments. We’re continuing to make our government even more efficient. And that’s how we will maintain our level of service to the public--from police to fire, from transportation to our public libraries, meeting human needs and maintaining our Parks.
Earlier this year, we asked the people to tell us about their experiences with city government. We got back hundreds of surveys from customers and our city employees. From this we developed a new Customer Bill of Rights that commits us to excellent customer service and defines what our customers can expect from the City.
Let me share one great example of how we are improving our services with the resources we have. A lot of folks complain about abandoned vehicles in their neighborhoods. The City even had a hotline to report abandoned vehicles. But if you ever tried calling it, you got voice mail. And many times, it was full. We have completely changed the way we handle abandoned vehicles. Now you get a live person. We are tracking every call.
In the first six months, we responded to 15,000 complaints of abandoned vehicles. Hard to believe we had so many cars littering our City. In many cases, we found the owners and worked with them to fix their vehicles and move them off the streets.
This is just one way we’re improving customer service, one step at a time. This year, we’ll do even more by leveraging our utility call center and improving our technology. Each one of these deliberate steps will make us more responsive. Just as we did with abandoned vehicles, we’re now working on 12 steps to deliver better customer service. From simplifying our business tax forms to improving our response on illegal dumping, we are focusing on the very basic services of city government.
Next on our list is graffiti. We’re making it easier to report. And we’ve started a new system to be more efficient and eliminate more graffiti faster.
I want to introduce some of our Graffiti Rangers from Seattle Public Utilities, who along with our Transportation and Parks staff, are out there every day cleaning up our City. Already this year they have cleaned up more than 6,000 reports of graffiti. Will you please stand -- let’s thank them for their hard work.
Let’s recognize another group of people who are working hard every day greeting visitors, fighting crime and cleaning up our parks in the Center City. Last year, the Council approved our program for Park Rangers and I wanted you to have a chance to meet them and thank them for what they’re accomplishing.
Jobs and opportunities for all
The construction cranes we see around town are a sign of the confidence people have in our City’s future. We’ve worked very hard to earn that.
But we continue to face a serious challenge: How can people afford the biggest expense most of us have, housing? Where does the City have some control and how can we help Seattle residents in a meaningful way?
The Seattle in which I grew up was a place where you could have a working-wage job and raise your family in decent housing. Today, as I talk with our teachers, firefighters, hotel and restaurant workers, they’re asking: Can I afford the rent? How can I ever save up for a home?
Seattle has a long, proud history of providing housing for the most needy. Our housing levy creates and preserves hundreds of affordable rental units every year. And just last year, the levy gave emergency rent assistance to keep more than 1300 people, including more than 600 children, from becoming homeless.
But today, even those with a good paying job are being squeezed. They’re the working folks who don’t necessarily qualify for subsidized housing, but they still earn less than decent housing costs.
I want to applaud the Council and Councilmember McIver in particular for passing new incentives to build more Homes Within Reach for our working families.
Next, we’re going to tell developers, if you want permission to build taller buildings -- fine, we’ll consider it in certain neighborhoods. But we’re going to require you to dedicate units that are affordable to our workforce, or provide real benefits to the neighborhood.
The other part of making Seattle affordable is making sure our people have family wage jobs.
The arrival of light rail is a remarkable opportunity. Councilmember Conlin (and before him McIver) and I have worked hard leading up to this day. We’re going to invest in neighborhood planning for our transit centers, places where small businesses and neighborhoods can thrive.
We’re also going to support industrial jobs by improving access for truck traffic. That means investing in new technology including an electronic “intelligent” signage system.
And it means investing in the long-awaited project to widen and strengthen the aging Spokane Street Viaduct. This is a large, important project for our city, especially West Seattle, SODO and our port.
As the rest of the nation comes to recognize the importance of conservation and renewable energy, Seattle is perfectly positioned to take advantage of a new opportunity. This growing industry can bring thousands of new, green jobs to our community. It’s happening already and Seattle is poised to be a leader.
Smart choices
As you know, I’ve been outspoken in our fight against global warming. At first, some skeptics asked, why is the City getting involved in such a daunting, worldwide problem?
My answer is this: we can lead by example. I challenged other cities to join us in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and living up to the Kyoto protocol. To date, more than 880 mayors representing more than 85 million people have signed that agreement. Now, we’re making a difference city by city across this country because Seattle led the way.
Here at home, we’ve walked our talk every step to reduce our carbon footprint. Thousands have joined Seattle Climate Action Now. We’re driving less, taking transit more and using more compact fluorescent lights. Those CFLs may seem like a small gesture. But they can add up to significant savings in your electric bill—more than a hundred dollars a year for the typical Seattle home.
And this year, our “twist and save” program hit the one-million mark—enough energy saved to power all the homes on Queen Anne Hill for more than two years. Multiply it by everything we’re doing in homes and commercial buildings, and you realize the power of conservation.
Last month, I was joined by Councilmember Harrell as we unveiled a 5-year conservation plan for Seattle City Light. Make no mistake; this is a historic investment in conservation. We’re going to avoid building a new power plant, or having to risk buying power on the open market by reducing our energy use by 20%.
We’re taking ‘Climate Action Now’ because it’s the right thing to do for our children. Our conservation plan is just another example of how we can save money and create jobs for the people of Seattle now.
Today as I present my seventh budget to you, reflect on how far we have come. While other governments are struggling, our hard work and financial discipline will pull us through these tough times.
Councilmember Godden the hard work of sheparding this budget through, falls to you. I pledge to work with you and all the council to deliver a budget that makes smart, compassionate choices for our people.
We’ve set the priorities of our government: Public Safety. Transportation. Strong families, Healthy Communities. Jobs and Opportunities for all.
Together, we’re making a difference for a City we’re proud to call home. Thank you and God bless our home, Seattle.
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