Director's Corner
Director’s Corner - County councilmembers
If you’re like most people in Seattle, you’re doing pretty good if you can name more than a few King County council members. They run the metro. They deal with wastewater. It’s dull stuff, so, who cares? Right? Wrong.
The county, for example, is a national leader in innovative criminal justice programs that divert youth and others from incarceration to alternatives that rebuild lives and communities. These depend upon the general fund, the 13 percent of the county budget that’s been hit hard by declining revenues. The County Executive’s proposed budget contains deep and damaging cuts to criminal justice and zeros out human services altogether. While these actions will have substantial long-term costs, without a significant change to the revenue side, there is simply no money to pay for them.
King County’s Healthy, Safe and Strong Communities Initiative would restore criminal justice and some human services funding by raising the sales tax by .002 percent or a penny more on every five dollars spent. While sales taxes are regressive by nature, the county’s options for raising revenue have, over the past decade, significantly eroded. This tax increase, given the alternative, makes sense.
Real Change recently hosted a County Communitywide Forum, a project to increase citizen understanding and dialogue on the role of the county and the problems we face. You can learn what we did by simply going online. Watch an informative twenty minute video and take an opinion poll at their website. Your answers will help inform the County budget process. Register and take the poll at communityforums.org. It’s time well spent. n
Comments
still have to arrest the drug pushers and pimps. they are the only ones who keep getting a second and third chance while the victims usually dont get that second or third chance… Just last night in the university district there was a drug deal gone bad. the gigantic east africans (3) chased down a pony tailed junkie and beat him up then threw him in thier 4 door late model honda accord… i wonder what kind of program real change thinks tax payers should subsidize for the evil that undermines the very community that makes it unsafe regardless of financial situation.. Chance are the junky will find a silver lining in his unwillingness to buy drugs again.. then again junkies are junkies!!! a muslim proves true when they kill the junkie.. but real change employs them…. go figure.. must be all about that paper?? hey tim!!!!
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