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Mayor to announce ‘Community Involvement Commission (to) replace the District Council system’

July 12, 2016 2:36 pm
|      21 COMMENTS
 |   Neighborhoods | West Seattle news

(Left, map of 13 Seattle “neighborhood districts”; right, map of 7 Seattle City Council districts. Both from seattle.gov)

2:36 PM: Just out of the inbox – a media advisory for tomorrow, about something related to what’s been a hot topic in neighborhood groups for months. This is the media advisory in its entirety:

Murray to announce the formation of Community Involvement Commission

Tomorrow Mayor Ed Murray will join neighborhood leaders and stakeholders to announce the formation of the Community Involvement Commission, which will replace the District Council system.

WHO: Mayor Ed Murray

WHAT: Executive Order signing, press conference

WHEN: Wednesday, July 13, 2:30 PM

Tomorrow’s announcement isn’t a public event but is happening at City Hall. Working to find out more …

3:27 PM: Of all the people we have messages out to, the first to reply: Councilmember Lisa Herbold‘s office. Legislative assistant Newell Aldrich says they didn’t get an advance alert on this either and are also trying to find out more. As he says, the deadline for the City Council to get the Department of Neighborhoods’ report on potentially aligning the 13 neighborhood districts with the 7 City Council districts wasn’t due until this Friday; a draft report had been in circulation for two months. Our most extensive report on local discussion of this is here.

P.S. Councilmember Herbold was already expected to talk about this topic, among others, at tonight’s Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting, 7 pm at The Sanctuary at Admiral (42nd/Lander), all welcome.

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21 Replies to "Mayor to announce 'Community Involvement Commission (to) replace the District Council system'"

  • AmandaKH July 12, 2016 (2:49 pm)

    It’s so great that he is coming to Westwood/Roxhill for the Find It, Fix It walk on the 25th.

  • WD fundie July 12, 2016 (4:12 pm)

    At least the acronym, pronounced “sick” will be apt?

  • 935 July 12, 2016 (6:37 pm)

    Please excuse my ignorance..but what is a “stakeholder”?

  • shirley nelsen July 12, 2016 (7:06 pm)

    Love the question about “stakeholder”  Will be interested in the responses/

    • WSB July 12, 2016 (7:08 pm)

      When used in governmentspeak, “stakeholder” means somebody who has a stake in whatever the topic at hand is. Open to many different interpretations of who that turns out to be, though!

  • wetone July 12, 2016 (7:27 pm)

     Can’t wait  to see what Community Involvement groups will be involved…….. At least he’s not shy about stacking the deck for wanted outcome ………

  • Diane July 13, 2016 (1:51 am)

    hoping you’ll be reporting “live” tomorrow, since it will probably not be on seattlechannel; very curious

    • WSB July 13, 2016 (2:08 am)

      Absolutely. I’m going to check with Seattle Channel later this morning if they’re at least planning to stream online, but no matter what, we’ll be there in person – I don’t know if any other journalists in town even cover district councils (we of course cover both local DCs as often as we can) so this is major for us. – TR

  • Ian Bell July 13, 2016 (7:26 am)

    My hunch is that “stakeholders” are developers, who traditionally don’t like having to take a what the neighborhood wants for itself into account. My concern is that by lumping neighborhoods together, neighborhood leaders will have their hands full trying to forge inter-community  compromises and will find less leverage in taking  hard-line stands to represent and protect their  neighborhood’s unique needs, identity and desires.

  • Captain Dave July 13, 2016 (8:56 am)

    It seems that this just another mayoral power grab to diminish the voice of citizens.  People should really think about dusting off their pitch forks if they want to have any say in what happens in their own neighborhoods.

  • Jalair Box July 13, 2016 (9:49 am)

    Ballard District Council was not informed of the Mayor’s action and I’m told had to make repeated called to confirm this communication was occurring.  We certainly hope this will be filmed.  The Ballard District Council meets is tonight at 7:00 p.m., at the Ballard Public Library, anyone is welcome.

  • pjmanley July 13, 2016 (10:52 am)

    Disenfranchising people and appointing a pre-screened, hand-picked central committee in their place is – all in the name of fairness and equity is Communism 101.  Not that anyone cares.  

  • pjmanley July 13, 2016 (10:54 am)

    Be nice if I could still edit after posting.  Oh well.

    • WSB July 13, 2016 (11:00 am)

      I apologize that we haven’t yet been able to restore the “plug-in” that allowed comment editing for a few minutes even without us requiring sign-ins for commenting.

      Meantime, anyone checking back here, the announcement is now listed on Seattle Channel’s website for a live stream at 2:30 pm: http://www.seattlechannel.org/eventLive

  • Not surprised July 13, 2016 (11:08 am)

    This comes as no surprise, because they have not been back-filling neighborhood coordinators as they leave, and the DON has long ceased to respond to grassroots initiatives. 

  • Querious July 13, 2016 (2:01 pm)

    For me, what with SDOT’s wrecking of Roosevelt Way, Pronto, HALA, the basic thrust of Murray’s action (as outlined above by Captain Dave) is to provoke a process of identifying a potential successor to Murray.   Now.  It’s important to begin Now.

    I am ready to sign up with almost any candidate with a resume to replace Murray.   Perhaps Council Member Burgess should be asked what he thinks of this putrid idea.  At least he has the resume.

  • Alexandra July 14, 2016 (11:17 pm)

    I smell a rat.  Design Review meetings switched to 7:30 a.m. when parents and working stiffs cannot attend; O’Brien’s attempted coupe by ramming through an ordinance to rezone 50% of Seattle by converting 120,000 single family properties to multi-family properties with no environmental impact statement.  O’Brien did so by answering the questions that would trigger such a statement in the negative such that the city had to find that there was a designation of no significant impact (DNS).  So much for Seattle’s mission statement, “To promote democracy on the local level by facilitating citizen debate on public issues and participation in government decision-making.”  Re-arranging neighborhood community councils at the same time destabilizes the prospect of citizen debate through the distraction of re-organization at a time when an organized voice is crucial to furthering a democratic process in which our voices must be heard.  We need to mobilize if we value democracy.  Out the rat.  For more information, go to:  https://queenanneappeal.org/  I am sure there are other resources, but this is the one I know.

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