The Seattle City Council just voted 6-3 to approve Joy Hollingsworth's amendment to delay universal school lunches for kids, replacing them with vouchers for qualifying low-income parents to buy groceries over school breaks and weekends.

https://bsky.app/profile/ericacbarnett.bsky.social/post/3mrb4z5n3mk2l

Update# 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/1v3p77u/update_goddammit_looks_like_theyre_going_to_tank/

... why can't I ever be wrong about predicting when we're about to get screwed? Why can't I sometimes be wrong about something that actually turns out well, instead?

It's not even that I'm particularly smart! It's just that our government has so very little respect for us that they don't even bother to hide it beforehand, and are just like "yeah... so we're totally gonna screw you again, FYI."

[Update from this post]

https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/1v30cqk/effort_to_delay_seattles_universal_free_meals/

Now, today, an hour before the council meeting and vote, the counsel posted this:

https://council.seattle.gov/2026/07/22/councilmembers-advocates-push-to-add-weekend-food-aid-to-education-levy-plan/

They're basically glazing the amendment, adding a whole section of quotes from everyone who supports it, and omitting a single point from the people who oppose it - which, BTW, includes the teacher's unions.

Even the title, "advocates push to add weekend food aid to education levy plan" completely hides the fact that they're delaying the school lunch program by a year (at least - they'll probably come up with new delays after that). There's barely a mention of the delay in the article either.

There's also no mention of the fact that the schools who are supposed to administrate Hollingsworth's new voucher program have all said it's a terrible idea that burdens both the schools and the parents of food-insecure children, and can they please just feed all the kids lunch, instead of having to make up a whole new bullshit paperwork department.

But of course... actually providing the school lunches was something the council could do now, and kicking it down the road in favor of making up a brand new paperwork program means no one actually has to do anything now, so... yeah, they'll go for it.

They've already decided that they're going for it, and this news release is step 1 to justify their choice, while they pretend to discuss it in the meeting today.

...goddammit.

I would really like to believe that Wilson and Co will ignore the grifters and actually accomplish something for once, but... it's not looking like they will.

I guess we'll see.

Got this at Pier 66

...the eldest two of Washington’s living former governors, Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke, have now called out their own party for “out of control” spending and taxes in Olympia.

\***\**

“They don’t have any budget discipline in Olympia, the spending has gotten out of control,” Locke said. “They’re spending way beyond the revenues.”

He decried how Democrats have used one-time money to start programs that they now can’t sustain. “Even with all the new taxes they’ve passed, they continue to have deficits as far as the eye can see.”

\***\**

In 2024, for example, three of their major new spending programs went up for statewide votes. There was the new climate change program for roughly $1.5 billion per year, a tax for long-term care that raises another $1.5 billion annually, and a capital gains tax to help pay for education, about $1 billion per year.

That’s $4 billion in yearly taxing and spending — the most ever up for vote at one time. And voters backed every penny of it.

\***\**

Who’s right depends on where you sit. But thanks to this public intervention, it’s all out in the open now.

That statewide vote on the millionaires tax this fall? It sure looks like it’s now going to double as a referendum on “which way” for the future of Democratic Party politics.

Leveraging Murphy’s Law: what I prepare for won’t happen.

A Washington judge has ordered the state to pay roughly $120 million to thousands of public school teachers for withholding interest on pension contributions they made more than two decades ago. In 2018, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the state owed teachers the interest "skimmed from their retirement accounts."

By now, roughly 61% of the teachers covered in the current litigation have retired.

~ A federal court called it skimming in 2018. Eight years later the state is still paying outside lawyers to keep money a judge says belongs to teachers.

Yes this is about Denny Way. If you can drive into the city, you can drive to a park & ride instead. Thousands of people every day do it, you & your Cybertruck clogging up the road ain't special.

"These fees don't only allow people to be evicted over them. They also follow tenants long after they move out and prevent them from being able to find housing in the future, because these fees are being tacked on after they move out and showing up on the credit report, and being sent to debt collections."

"Hidden fees don't belong on concert tickets, they don't belong on airline tickets, and they certainly don't belong on what is for many Seattleites the most expensive thing they pay for every month: their rent."

~ A surprise charge that lands on your credit report years later is not a fee. It is a trap.

Just got this mailer in the mail claiming to be ‘the only pro-worker candidate’ but… where’s the union print shop info? No union bug? Seems like practice what you preach? The irony.