On Tuesday morning, sympathetic supporters of the Seattle measures changed course and decided to appeal the judge’s decision to remove the homelessness policy reform measures from the November vote.
The appeal was filed in the 1st Chamber of the Washington Court of Appeals in the morning. The appeal requested the suspension of the decision, and pointed out: “If this court does not issue a suspension, Seattle citizens will therefore be prohibited from considering and passing a proposal for Seattle citizens facing this year within two years. The homelessness crisis,” read the appeal.
Groups supporting the initiative, including the Seattle Downtown Association and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, initially decided to abandon the appeal of Friday’s decision, arguing that the time was too short to withdraw the votes for the city hall’s measures to manage the Seattle homeless crisis.
Sympathy for Seattle will require the city to improve services, build 2,000 shelters, and then demolish camps from public places such as parks and sidewalks. On Friday, King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer (Catherine Shaffer) stated that the initiative goes beyond state law by allowing the city’s budget to be authorized through a charter-intuitive process.
But over the weekend, supporters of the charter amendments and lawyers interested in this issue questioned Judge Shaffer’s reasons for removing the measure from the ballot in the first place.
In addition, supporters sympathetic to Seattle also turned their attention to the November elections as another way to achieve their ultimate goal: forcing a major change in the city’s spending on treating and placing the homeless.
The sympathy for Seattle’s debate coincided with Amazon and other large employers planning to return some workers to their headquarters in the Seattle business district, which was hit hard by the homelessness crisis.
In each of the city’s most voted games—the mayor, two ordinary city council seats, and the city’s prosecutor’s campaign—every candidate has declared his or her sympathy for Seattle. Supporters may no longer have amendments to the bylaws, but they do now have a range of candidates.
“There is indeed a clear choice here,” said Jon Scholes, the main supporter of the measure and the chairman and chief executive officer of the Seattle Downtown Association. “If you want different results, you have to change who is responsible.”
To this end, some supporters of the initiative, including the DSA and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, are now turning their energies to support former city council chair Bruce Harrell instead of the current city council chair Lorena Gonzalez (Lorena Gonzalez). Mayor; Ann Davison replaced Nicole Thomas-Kennedy as City Attorney; Kenneth Wilson surpassed Teresa Mosqueda to take the 8th council position, and Sara Nelson surpassed Nikkita Oliver to take 9th place.
“The problem (about homelessness) will not go away,” Scholes said. “If the status quo remains the same, the situation will only get worse.”
It is the current status quo that prompted Sympathy for Seattle to be established in the first place. The voting measure obtained 37,714 valid signatures to qualify for the November vote, which should have required the city to better fund mental health consultations and provide 2,000 emergency or permanent housing units within a year starting in January 2022.
After housing and services are in place, it also requires the city to set up clear camps in parks and sidewalks-a feature that opponents of the measure believe “criminals the homeless.”
“We are happy (sympathizing with Seattle) that will not become an obstacle to an effective solution to our housing crisis, nor will people be punished for trying to meet their basic living maintenance needs (such as shelter, sleep, and food),” Bray Enshuster said that after King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer threw the measure from the ballot, the Washington staff lawyer’s ACLU.
According to its supporters, public opinion polls for the measure have been effective, with a support rate close to 65%.
But in the end, it’s not support or opposition to specific homeless policies that govern this day, it’s Judge Schaefer’s explanation of how voters can and cannot make any city budget policy Through this type of voting measures.
In her decision, she said that the amendment to the city’s charter—essentially a city’s constitution—is not a place to set specific budgetary tasks like the initiative. Instead, she wrote, it is the job of elected officials to make these monetary decisions.
In other words, don’t pick up on the city’s constitution; instead, choose new people to get the spending you want.
Scholes said this is what sympathetic Seattle supporters will do-while trying to overturn this decision in a higher court. “We strongly oppose this ruling,” he said. “Voters can change who is responsible. This is really important now, and it will be important in November.”