Seattle

Seattle Activists Fight Building Of New Youth Jail

April 21, 2015 Megan Sherman, www.therealnews.com Resist! Criminal Justice, Mass Incarceration, Racial Justice, Seattle

With the prospect for a new $210 million juvenile jail looming in Seattle, a coalition of activists group held what's known as a people's tribunal to formulate strategies to fight it. Ariel Hart, a youth organizer with YUIR, Youth Undoing Institutional Racism, talks about the purpose of the tribunal. ARIEL HART, YOUTH ORGANIZER, YUIR: It is important that as we're organizing, as we're trying to talk to the politicians and dismantle the system that we're building and we're healing and we're growing our community. SHERMAN: The struggle to block the jail comes as troubling statistics show African-American youth are disproportionately ensnared in the city's juvenile justice system.

Seattle’s Fight For 15 Carries On

April 13, 2015 Steve Leigh, www.socialistworker.org Resist! City Council, Living Wage, Seattle

NEARLY A year after the Seattle City Council passed a $15 an hour ordinance, thousands of Seattle workers got a raise on April 1. According to the ordinance, which passed after a grassroots campaign of actions demanding a $15 an hour minimum wage, Seattle workers will now get a minimum of $10 an hour. This is part of a long phase-in until all workers get at least $15 an hour by 2021. With a built-in cost-of-living clause, all workers are expected to make $18 per hour by 2025. The state minimum wage is currently $9.47. Businesses employing fewer than 500 workers and providing health care or tips have to pay $10 an hour. Businesses employing more than 500 workers nationwide and smaller businesses that don't provide tips or health care must pay $11.

Groups Deploy Blimp With Message To Port Of Seattle

April 4, 2015 Gary M. Chittim, www.king5.com Resist! Environment, Oil & Gas, Seattle

Groups launched an unmanned blimp over the Port of Seattle Thursday in an effort to recruit more opponents of a plan to provide space for arctic drilling equipment. Shell's arctic offshore drilling fleet is expected to arrive this month for storage and preparation ahead of a new round of exploratory drilling in the Chuckchi Sea. The groups included the Backbone Campaign, 350 Seattle and Rising Tide Seattle. The tethered blimp rose 200 feet over the port in full view of morning commuters. A banner on the sides spelled out: "sHELLNO.org. Join the Flotilla!"

Seattle Residents Urge Port To Reverse Shell Oil Lease Deal

April 3, 2015 Betsy Lopez-Wagner, www.earthjustice.org Resist! Environment, Oil & Gas, Seattle, shell

“Your child, my grandchild and the unborn grandchild of our grandchildren are going to live with what we do to this society.” Those were Seattleite Jack Smith’s words to the Port of Seattle’s five commissioners on March 24, minutes before the port re-affirmed its two-year lease with Foss Maritime. In a motion that could be described as too little, too late, the port added a 30-day public comment period for future leases after getting pushback for signing the last lease without the public’s knowledge. Smith was one of several dozen protestors who spoke out in objection of the port conducting lease negotiations in secret with Foss Maritime where it agreed to host and service Shell’s Arctic drilling exploration vessels, solidifying a $13 million two-year lease.

Seven Lessons From Seattle City Council Vote Against Fast Track

April 1, 2015 Stan Sorscher, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Democracy, Politics, Seattle, TPP

Seattle City Council members started this debate as informed citizens, but not trade experts. They quickly came up the learning curve over several weeks. They heard plenty from corporate advocates, who abound in the Seattle area. They also heard (start at the 6:30 mark in the video) from workers, environmentalists, social justice groups, and the faith community. While they were studying this issue, WikiLeaks released a new draft of the notorious investment chapter of the TPP. Council members looked at dozens of letters written by members of Congress to our negotiators. A letter from Jay Inslee, Governor of the most trade dependent state in the union, opposing a key provision in TPP was so persuasive it was cited twice in the resolution.

Shell’s Battle for Seattle

March 21, 2015 Joel Connelly, www.blog.seattlepi.com Resist! Oil & Gas, Seattle

The Port of Seattle has quietly inked a two-year lease under which Shell Oil will use Terminal 5 on the Seattle waterfront as the base for its efforts to drill in Arctic waters of Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. With rapid authorization, negotiation and signing of the lease — reminiscent of how decisions on the waterfront used to be greased — the port has secured a $13.17 million deal and forestalled efforts by the region’s environmental groups to stop it. The lease, covering 50 acres of Terminal 5, is with Foss Maritime, which offers an array of supply and tug escort services. A Foss tug towed Shell’s drilling ship, the Noble Explorer, away from a beach in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, in July 2012 after the ship slipped its moorings.

McDonald’s Sues Seattle Over $15 Wage, Cites 14th Amendment

March 17, 2015 Bill Fold, www.thebillfold.com Educate! Law, McDonald's, Seattle

McDonald’s is not having a very good week. First, McDonald’s asked the band Ex Cops to play a gig at the McDonald’s SXSW Showcase, using the words “There isn’t a budget for an artist fee (unfortunately).” Then, just as the furor of McDonald’s asking artists to play for exposure—”as well as POSSIBLY mentioned on McDonald’s social media accounts like Facebook (57MM likes!)”—is dying down, we get this: Last summer, the City of Seattle passed a law that will raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 per hour. But in a bizarre twist, Ronald McDonald and friends are suing the city. On March 10, they’ll be in a federal courtroom, complaining that the new minimum wage violates a constitutional provision that was written to protect newly-freed slaves after the Civil War.

The Most Dangerous Woman In America

March 17, 2015 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Educate! Elections, Government, Politics, Seattle, Socialism

Kshama Sawant, the socialist on the City Council, is up for re-election this year. Since joining the council in January of 2014 she has helped push through a gradual raising of the minimum wage to $15 an hour in Seattle. She has expanded funding for social services and blocked, along with housing advocates, an attempt by the Seattle Housing Authority to allow a rent increase of up to 400 percent. She has successfully lobbied for city money to support tent encampments and is fighting for an excise tax on millionaires. And for this she has become the bête noire of the Establishment, especially the Democratic Party. The corporate powers, from Seattle’s mayor to the Chamber of Commerce and the area’s Democratic Party, are determined she be defeated, and these local corporate elites have the national elites behind them.

Port Of Seattle Sued Over Shell’s Arctic Drilling Fleet

March 11, 2015 Earth Justice, www.earthjustice.org Resist! Environment, Law, Seattle

A coalition of conservation organizations filed a lawsuit today against the Port of Seattle and the Port Commissioners, challenging the Port’s entry into a lease with Foss Maritime to open Terminal 5 to Shell’s Arctic drilling fleet without public proceedings or environmental review. The lawsuit charges that the lease will change the use of Terminal 5 by converting it into a homeport for Shell’s Arctic drilling fleet, which will need extensive maintenance and repairs after being battered in the Arctic conditions. The lease would allow Shell’s drill ships to be housed at the Port, including theNoble Discoverer which was the subject of 8 felony convictions and over $12 million in fines and community service last December, including for discharging oil-contaminated water in violation of water pollution laws.

Port Of Seattle Dodged Public Input, Hosts Arctic Drilling Rigs

February 14, 2015 Sydney Brownstone, www.thestranger.com Educate! Law, Oil & Gas, Seattle

Last month, the Port Commission held only one public meeting on the quietly negotiated deal, during which port commissioners all expressed some degree of environmental angst. (Remember, the port's slogan is "Where a sustainable world is headed.") At the end of the meeting, however, port commissioners ultimately allowed the decision to progress. Commissioner Courtney Gregoire (Christine Gregoire's daughter) called for "much more robust discussion" on environmental issues going forward. But when it came to the Shell lease, that never happened. Then last night, the Seattle Times reported that port CEO Ted Fick sent a letter to Earthjustice, the environmental group, revealing that he had already signed the lease.

Seattle Activist Organizing To Block Shell’s Arctic Drilling

February 7, 2015 Martha Baskin, www.truth-out.org Resist! Energy, Environment, Oil & Gas, Seattle

Can a coalition of national and state environmental organizations that has vowed to stop Seattle from becoming the home port for Shell's Arctic oil drilling rigs send a message to the oil industry? "Hell yes," said Peter Goldman, a member of the coalition and attorney with the Washington Forest Law Center. "They know what's going on here. If we make it more expensive for them to operate by denying them the city of Seattle, we are essentially pushing the tipping point over to the point of no return to where they're going to go away and not come back." While the timing appears coincidental, a day after the coalition held a press conference on Seattle's waterfront, Shell's CFO announced it will pursue a drilling program in Alaska's Chukshi Sea this year.

Police Arrest African American Vet For Using Golf Club As Cane

January 31, 2015 Meg Wagner, www.nydailynews.com Educate! Law, police brutality, Seattle

A Seattle cop arrested a 70-year-old military veteran, claiming the golf club he used as a cane was a weapon — a move that prompted the arrestee to sue the city and force a review of its officer. Newly released dashcam video showed Officer Cynthia Whitlatch arrest retired bus driver William Wingate in downtown Seattle in July. Whitlatch, who is white, claimed Wingate, who is black, swung his club at her. The footage of the incident showed no such maneuver. Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole ordered a conduct review into Whitlatch after the July 9 arrest, where Wingate was charged with obstruction and unlawful use of a weapon.

Seattle Tenants Force Public Housing Not To Raise Rent

December 29, 2014 James Tracy, www.rooflines.org Organize! Human Rights, Public Housing, Seattle

Public housing tenants are celebrating the Seattle Housing Authority’s (SHA) decision to retract a controversial plan to raise rents by more than 400 percent in the coming years. The “Stepping Forward” plan, announced last September, was immediately met with stiff resistance from tenants mostly organized through theTenants Union of Washington State(TUWS). In November, about 200 tenants of SHA buildings marched down Queen Anne Avenue to protest, then descended on the regularly scheduled SHA Board of Commissioners meeting, and spoke out about fears of displacement and homelessness if the plan were to be implemented. Commented TUWS leader and public housing resident Lynn Sereda, “We do remain vigilant, but consider this to be a victory for tenants, and our attention is now focused on making sure that the new appointments to the Board of Commissioners of SHA will be accountable to tenants and that we will have a voice in that process.”

Seattle Considering Creation Of A Public Bank

December 24, 2014 Matt Stannard, www.publicbankinginstitute.org Create! Law, Public Banking, Seattle

Seattle is at the forefront of cities taking back democracy. Seattle’s city council knows that the antecedents of democracy are material -- the ability to provide services, the ability to absorb the impact of economic shifts, the ability to make citizens feel invested in their communities. But one way the city can finance even more audacious and prosperous democratic participation, housing, social services and mass transit is with a public bank. The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times,Salon, and other national publications have recently touted the benefits of public banking; even the conservative Wall Street Journal admits that the Bank of North Dakota (the nation's only current public bank) outperforms "too big to fail" Wall Street banks.

Seattle WTO Uprising Still A Force In World Events

December 3, 2014 Ben Manski, www.berkeleyjournal.org Strategize! Democracy, History, Protests, Seattle, WTO

“This is what democracy looks like!” has become, since Seattle, more than a momentary expression of an alternative world that is possible. Instead, it has grown into an ongoing direct challenge to corporate capitalism and elite government. To be clear, the cost of that challenge has already proven high. And the past fifteen years have brought not only increased popular resistance but also greater social control in the form of police militarization and violence, security state expansion, unending war, and the legalization of corporate rule. Yet the fact remains that we have witnessed the birth of a global democracy movement that is constitutionally subversive and antagonistic to the institutions, laws, acts, and culture it seeks to transform.

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