It is common to reflect on what makes us thankful as the holidays approach.

After last week’s budget vote, ChangeWA is grateful for the 2023 Seattle voters who rejected the reckless policies of the previous city council and replaced six of the nine council seats with more responsible members.

In the end, this council kept its promise to the voters by not increasing taxes. Facing a half-billion budget shortfall and with some councilmembers not willing to accept commonsense budget cuts, the council’s Special Budget Committee (which includes all councilmembers) voted on a proposed 2% income tax on capital gains (CB 120909). On November 19 the committee failed to support the controversial tax by a 4 to 4 vote (with Councilmember Woo abstaining).

Some council watchers were nervous that one of the No or abstaining votes could support the tax when the full council’s final vote took place on November 21. Yet due to public outcry, the No votes actually increased with Councilmember Strauss finally demonstrating restraint against this job-killing tax.

This movement towards the center is a change from the recent pass when extremists such as Kshama Sawant, Andrew Lewis, and Lisa Herbold epitomized the city council. Controlled by special interest groups dependent on receiving government handouts and Seattle’s dysfunctional radical fringe, the radical council appeared to be consistently seeking passage of destructive measures (such as “Defund the police”).

City Council President Sara Nelson now leads a council which is systematically replacing the numerous missteps of previous councils which resulted in record breaking crime rates, drug overdoses, and homelessness while causing severe reduction in available rental units and forcing multiple employers to close their doors.

Last Thursday’s rejection of the likely illegal income tax is the latest evidence of the voters’ smart decisions in the 2023 election. Six councilmembers (Nelson, Kettle, Rivera, Saka, Strauss and Woo) understood that a new tax would only drive more employers to remove their workers from Seattle, but after 10 years of unprecedented budget expansion (doubling from $4 billion to over $8.2 billion), the city has more than enough money to fund its services.

Councilmembers Moore (who was the primary sponsor of the tax), Hollingsworth, and Morales supported the job-killing measure.

Due to the legislative passage of citizen Initiative 2111, local governments in Washington are now prohibited from taxing income – from any source. Passage of this new tax on capital gains income would have resulted in taxpayers having to fund a costly lawsuit as the city council would have had to defend its likely illegal tax.

While we are grateful the current councilmembers are more responsible than their previous colleagues, we are aware that the radical fringe and greedy special interest groups are reorganizing and will likely target Council President Nelson (as well as effective City Attorney Ann Davison) in next year’s city election (mayor, city attorney, and two at-large council seats will be on the Seattle ballot).

We can expect to once again see protests in the council chambers and other shenanigans from the extremists as they seek to impose their reckless agenda onto Seattle’s residents. After the recent election of activist Alexis Mercedes Rinck over moderate Tanya Woo in the 2024 special election for one of Seattle’s two at-large council seats, radicals are hoping to return to the days when they controlled Seattle City Hall.

We must continue to support moderate measures which can return Seattle to its national prominence as being one of the country’s most livable cities instead of a place where the explosion of homelessness, violent crimes, and overdose deaths make national headlines.

We are also extremely grateful to those of you who support ChangeWA (and follow us on Twitter) and are active in making in making a difference. Your efforts will be much needed in 2025 to help remind voters of the destruction caused by previous extreme policies.

For now, we wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving weekend and may you share in the warmth and gratitude of the holiday!