By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
The City Council, sitting as the Select Budget Committee, voted this afternoon to pass a budget for the next two years. They’ve made dozens of changes since Mayor Bruce Harrell first sent them a budget proposal back in September. If you want to see how, this is the key document to read. Reading through it, we note that District 1 Councilmember Rob Saka‘s sponsored or co-sponsored changes include:
(WSB file photo)
*$2 million for what he’s calling the Delridge Safety Project, including likely removal of a divider that keeps drivers from turning left at Delridge/Holly (the budget item spells out, “for improvements to Delridge Way SW near the SW Holly St right-of-way to allow for left-turn ingress and egress from adjoining properties, including the Refugee and Immigrant Family Center Bilingual Preschool”)
*$1.5 million for turf at Fairmount Playfield
*$200,000 for neighborhood business districts
*$175,000 to eliminate angled parking at Duwamish Head, a longtime request of nearby residents concerned about street disorder and gatherings (the budget item spells out “to convert angled on-street parking on Harbor Ave SW
at Duwamish Head to parallel-only parking, and to restore parallel-only parking to Alki Ave SW adjacent
to this location”)
*$1 million for transit security, plus a report on implementing it
*SPD reports including officer recruitment/retention and sound-enforcing technology
*$50,000 for cleaning RV sites, plus a report on RV strategy
*A report on the pothole-repair program
*A report on attracting food retailers to food deserts
The Delridge project has been the subject of much discussion; it’s something that Saka pursued even before he was a council candidate. He defends it in the newsletter he sent out after the budget vote, including:
… I became aware that certain members of the organized opposition to this project is driven by fringe ideological framing and a purist “proxy war” of sorts that seeks to pit cars against cyclists, transit riders, or pedestrians. I wholeheartedly reject this divisive narrative. The Delridge Safety Project prioritizes inclusive safety improvements for ALL road users, not one mode of transportation choice over another. …
Saka’s newsletter also explains why the field at Fairmount Park was singled out for turf conversion, saying it traces back to the survey he circulated earlier in the year after “an extensive consultation process with five local youth recreational softball/baseball leagues,” and lists these results:
The voting results data for each of the eight candidate projects are as follows:
Fairmount Park Playfield: 137 votes, earning 31% of the total vote.
Riverview Playfield: 107 votes, earning 24.2% of the total vote.
Lincoln Park South Playfield: 46 votes, earning 10.4% of the total vote.
Hiawatha Playfield: 45 votes, earning 10.2% of the total vote.
EC Hughes Playfield: 38 votes, earning 8.6% of the total vote.
Highland Park Playfield: 27 votes, earning 6.1% of the total vote.
Bar-S Playfield: 24 votes, earning 5.4% of the total vote.
Walt Hundley Playfield: 19 votes, earning 4.3% of the total vote.
Saka’s newsletter lists other points that he considers key in the final budget.
P.S. One West Seattle budget point we noted early on, disbanding the Highland Park-based Mounted Police Unit as part of the SPD budget, never came up for reversal, so it appears that unit’s end is near.
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