A people-first policy decision is easy here: make a bus only lane for the 8!

Rant about something dumb: the clear bag policies at our stadiums are so anti-city. It’s Friday. I want to walk to pick my kids up at afterschool and walk to take transit to the game, but I can’t bc the kids have their school backpacks. My husband wants to walk from work but he’s got a work bag. 🙄

At the Seattle School Board meeting tonight, there will be a discussion about sending a letter from the Board voicing support for Comp Plan amendments that allow for more housing density in Seattle!! Yes, yes, yes!!

Exactly! Also, renters shouldn’t be confined to busy arterials. I *want* more apartments to be built near public amenities (like parks, community centers, libraries) so renters don’t have to commute to visit city gems like Seward Park and Discovery Park!

Shout out to Sarah Clark (@sarahforschools.bsky.social), school board director and candidate, for her work in support of students and against this change. She showed up to the protest on crutches, met with student leaders, addressed the rally, and is pressing SPS admins behind the scenes to reverse.

Love her

So thrilled to vote for @edclin.bsky.social to represent our district on City Council! Upzoning the city will help desegregate Seattle—something that we sorely need.

The lingering chronic-absenteeism crisis is a third path for do-it-now quick wins for students and districts. Several high-quality, field-based studies show that real-time attendance monitoring coupled with low-cost messaging to parents and caregivers can reduce chronic absenteeism… (1/3)

"When we need to live with so much fear, we can't be a Free People" that part There's so much talk about the purported rights and liberties of gun owners and not enough about guns as a threat to everyone else's ability to enjoy their rights, infringing everyone else's liberty

I’ve only gotten through the Intro to Copaganda and it is a must read, especially us working in local gov’t and politics. Extra: follow the author in real time ⬇️ to unpack the media’s propping up of our ‘punishment bureaucracy’. It’s important to see how we can actually create safety for all.

This makes me so sad. “And where on earth does this idea of unpaid labor as a form of addiction treatment come from?…How often is this happening? How many rehabs are like this?”

We should allow for more housing all over our great city. There will be change, but change will likely be slow. We’re already so late to making this city have any semblance of affordability.

Ugh, just watched 2 transit security officers wake someone up to check if they paid fare. Person got super agitated. Security told them to get off the train so they did. Security followed to write them up. Not cool! Public transit should be free. Let’s stop criminalizing poverty!

This is so dystopian. How does it not change public opinion?

For folks not in DC: - There are full-on police checkpoints most nights - Gangs of 30+ federal agents roam DC - National Guard folks w/ guns patrolling a Harris Teeter - Every day, multiple friends see ICE kidnapping ppl - Daycares are scared to have kids go on walks due to ICE

A middle school I interact with is in a state with a school cellphone ban and y’all everybody in there is relieved. EVERYBODY. The kids, the teachers, the janitors. They are so relieved. Nobody is really uptight about it…except some parents.

There's a lot of misinformation out there about the concept of universal basic income. If you want to be well-informed, follow me and learn about what we know from studies in this thread: bsky.app/profile/scot... Here's a UBI starter pack too: bsky.app/profile/scot... And here's a UBI 101 link:

Helping housing become affordable helped reduce homelessness—we should not be surprised! Cash support/universal basic income allows people to buy specifically what *they* need! We should do more of this while we upzone Seattle and build more housing!

The most we spent in *just one year* was about $45,000 for two kids (one infant, one preschooler) in an affordable daycare. It’s worth noting that many early education workers get paid so low they also qualify for public assistance. The solution is simple: spend a lot more public money in childcare!

“If anything, the Department of Homeland Security is openly making appeals to far-right and white nationalist groups in its recent ICE recruitment drive, and some have, in fact, volunteered.”

I think you should be able to buy a cup of coffee or a bite to eat in America’s urban parks, and that the refusal to allow this is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what urban parks are, and what purpose they serve.

I’ve spent a lot of time on SEPTA since my husband is from Philadelphia, and it’s great!! This video is excellent at clearly explaining why investing in transit (esp. in cities) is necessary to support our most vulnerable neighbors, and therefore greatly benefits communities as a whole.

This playground will likely be most used during our increasingly hot and sunny summers. Sun shades need to be installed asap. No parent will spend longer than 30 mins here if they and their kid are burning in the sun. Playing at a playground is supposed to be a break for both parents and kids :)

It is wild to me that the City would consider listening to some people pushing back on adding 12 stories of housing to an existing 4 story building in a city’s DOWNTOWN CORE!!!

“To fulfill their democratic purpose, public schools must.. [offer] students a chance to learn together, in common. A vast body of research shows that children of all races and economic backgrounds benefit from integrated classrooms, with gains in learning, degree attainment, and future employment.”

Feeling so grateful to each and every person who supported our campaign! Together we advocated for real change in the criminal legal system—to end cash bail, stop punishing poverty, and hold powerful organizations like SPD accountable. And this is not the end! Let’s continue this work together ❤️

The city of Grants Pass may have won their Supreme Court case, but it hasn't decreased homelessness. "Criminalizing homelessness hasn’t worked for the past 40 years, since these laws have started building up, and it never will.” - Eric Tars of the Law Center.

I won! In a unanimous decision, the Washington Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that King County must end its 25-year-old practice of unconstitutionally searching, handcuffing, and detaining up to 500 people per year who show up for their court dates out of custody. This job is an incredible privilege.

Over the weekend, we received the sad news that two of our @realchangenews.bsky.social vendors were detained by ICE at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. Real Change is mobilizing quickly to provide assistance to the vendors and their loved ones. www.realchangenews.org/support-ice-...

➡️ “You can think of it as free care, but it’s really about taking the empty space between the labor market and schools and filling with intention. If we need a place to keep kids safe while their parents are at work, we might as well take advantage of that need to create the best system possible.”

"To meet his mass deportation goals, Trump is stripping legal status from thousands of immigrants who followed the rules." Another act of profound cruelty from Trump, Stephen Miller, and the crew. Read Isabela Dias' new article on this travesty. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

This is how our government has been corrupted: 1) Donors give huge sums to elect politicians to office. 2) Elected officials rewrite the rules in the donors' favor. 3) Donors make a huge profit. 4) Repeat. For the sake of democracy, we must get Big Money out of politics.

Vote Rouse: ‘Rouse said community courts should be available as a “backstop,” but that the first option the city attorney’s office should pursue should be “prefiling diversion,” which would mean connecting people to services without filing charges or threatening them with a criminal conviction.’ 1/2

"51% of public school K-12 teachers said they were not too or not at all satisfied with how much they were paid...Americans overall generally think teachers should earn more...74% of U.S. adults said teachers should be paid more, including 39% who said they should be paid a lot more."

In Seattle and WA, this deceitful narrative (school funding has grown while outcomes have stalled, so schools don’t need more money) is super pervasive and flat out wrong. Bookmark this post below and all the links that debunk this narrative!!

holy shit lmao

Withholding these funds will harm students, families, and local economies,” wrote the 10 GOP senators, many of them members of committees that make decisions on spending. I wish they had spoken up before, but glad they are advocating now!

Just horrific what’s happening. Consider donating to groups like www.chirla.org

This is amazing. A group of transit advocates walked the route of Metro Bus 8 in Seattle (notoriously late because it has to sit in traffic) and raced it on foot. They won by a lot. The bus averages 20+ minute delays. This road has space for a bus only lane. What’s holding us up?

Some of my favorite pics from tonight's amazing Race the L8 event.

This is leadership!! “It’s too expensive to provide childcare that’s both high quality and affordable for families, while paying providers a living wage,” Jacobs says, “and that’s why the government should step in.”

We’ve lived close to light rail for 8 years; prior to that I relied on the bus. Frequent and reliable transit has been life changing. I rarely wait more than 10 minutes; I rarely have to check the schedule; I don’t plan, I just go. Reliable transit moves people away from (also reliable) cars!

🙂

So not only have abortion bans not reduced the number of abortions—they’ve increased the number of later abortions! jessica.substack.com/p/bans-are-d...

Local 👏 elections 👏 matter! “Social justice movements against mass incarceration should continue to focus as much attention on changes in local and state government as the civil rights movement once did when it sought civil rights as a matter of national and federal intervention.”

Congratulations to Seattle’s new US Citizens! Forever moved by people putting in so much time and hard work to officially claim this country as their own. They’re betting on America; let’s keep fighting for us and for them.

I see people talking about the murder budget and saying “organize for ‘26,” and…y’all!? There’s elections this year. Some of us on the ballot will fight to maintain services and protect people the murder budget threatens. Others would surrender to it. Organize NOW. There’s a lot to win this year.

The Stranger’s endorsement for City Attorney may have “grit” to go after Trump (ahem, but so do Rouse and O’Sullivan!) but she also has spent her career prosecuting people whose only “crime” is poverty, wasting public dollars and punishing poverty. Bad call for our so-called progressive newspaper.

This is bad, but it's made worse by @governorferguson.bsky.social and #waleg having rejected a proposal to raise $3 billion per year for WA's public schools earlier this year and made schools more vulnerable. Once again: we cannot protect our state from Trump unless we're willing to tax the rich.

Alternative sentencing programs should treat people with humanity. Having rules like no fraternizing with others is so off base from what works—our culture underestimates the importance of community and connection for folks trying to make big life changes.