By Tracy Record
White Center Now editor
What was supposed to be a conversation with all three 34th District state legislators at last night’s North Highline Unincorporated Area Council meeting was instead a conversation with two – State Rep. Brianna Thomas did not attend, but State Sen. Emily Alvarado and State Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon did.
MNUAC’s Barbara Dobkin asked each to talk about themselves first.
SENATOR ALVARADO: She’s been in the Legislature for four years – two in the House, two in the Senate. Outside the Legislature, “my background has been mostly in affordable housing.” She moved to Washington to go to law school but found herself diverted into the housing sector. She now works (remember, state legislator is supposed to be a “part time” job in our state) for a nonprofit and is vice chair of the Senate Housing Committee and also has a role on a committee that deals with liquor, cannabis, and labor issues. She’s also on the Transportation Committee, which means that part of her district – Vashon Island – has a voice in the state ferry system on which it so deeply depends. She works on family and child-care issues – she has a 14- and 10-year-old – and she says you might be startled to hear that child care is more expensive than college. She’s a West Seattle resident but says she has spent a lot of time in North Highline. “A not insignificant part of our district is unincorporated,” so she hears that the state matters more here “because you don’t have as many other levels of government otherwise.” SO, she says, she tries to pay extra attention to issues involving people here.
REPRESENTATIVE FITZGIBBON: He’s been in the Legislature 16 years and has lived in Highland Park (West Seattle) for seven years, after previous residences in the West Seattle Junction and Burien. “I do think we have an extra need to hear from folks in (the unincorporated) areas,” for the same reason Sen. Alvarado had cited. His biggest focus has been on environmental issues, and then he was elected House Majority Leader, so an even bigger focus has been on budget issues including education. “It’s been a challenging time for the state budget.” he noted. “How do we protect and grow the role of the state in supporting people who rely on (it)?” including students and seniors. Child care has been a big issue for him, with a 2-year-old and three-month-old. “We’re fortunate we have a lot of family help” but that’s not available to many families, so the state has increased its support for families who need child care, he said. He said that he’s proud to be involved with the White Center community. He also said he was sorry to hear of the late NHUAC leader Liz Giba‘s death (mentioned in our report on last month’s meeting).
Q&A: How is Medicaid going, given the federal cuts? Dobkin asked. Fitzgibbon said Medicaid has always been a state/federal partnership. “One of the things we have to spend a lot of money on right now is to set up new eligibility systems, the goal of which is to kick people off Medicaid, which is frustrating because we had been going the other direction.” He says he’s hopful “some of those changes may be undone” if Democrats take back control of at least part of the federal government. He said it’s also frustrating that they’ve tried to strengthen the safety net but that too has run up against federal budget cuts.
Attendee’s question: This attendee actually read a statement related to the Citizens’ United decision and a bill, SB6358, and whether the reps would support it. Alvarado tried looking it up and said she would want to know more before committing but is fully supportive of undoing Citizens United, saying what’s happened since it “is terrible.” Fitzgibbon said he’d want to understand more about the language of the bill before committing to it, but agreed “we are not well-served by moneyed interests in politics.” He said Citizens United didn’t change much about Washington campaign law but yes,, he agreed that “to prevent that type of oligarchic spending is necessary.”
Followup on the Medicaid matter and SNAP changes: The feds said they wanted to kick undocumented immigrants, fraudsters, etc., off the rolls, so has the state found much of that? Fitzgibbon said “no.’ One thing, he said, is that if the error rate was over six percent, the feds would take away more. Our state has one of the lowest rates in the country and most errors are the feds’ fault.
Alvarado added, “There’s a lot of misinformation.” And the state will have to find a way to provide coverage to those who are losing it.” She mentioned her proposal dubbed the “Wal-Mart tax” last session; “there’s no great place to go for revenue but we try to do what we can.”
Fitzgibbon added that one of the reasons the bill died was that there was no way to verify what percent of a company’s employees was on Medicaid/SNAP, and that too related to the feds’ attempt to find more ways to kick people off the assistance.
Another attendee said he was concerned about the two parties endlessly fighting as well as a lack of clarity when people mention “immigrants” without saying whether they’re referring to legal or illegal immigration.
Fitzgibbon clarified that undocumented immigrants are not eligible anyway, even though many of them pay into it.But if they’ve been in the country with legal status, for them to be kicked off health coverage is wrong; they’ll wind up in emergency rooms, at higher costs.
Alvarado then clarified that most of what the state Legislature passes is bipartisan – “we do get a lot done here, together.” But the federal discourse on immigration is making things worse, and they can’t do much about it, since it’s a federal matter.
How to get enough money for education and child care? another attendee asked. Sen. Alvarado said that even passage of the millionaires’ tax still leaves us as the “47th or 48th most regressive tax state.’ If that were fixed, the state might be collecting $3 billion a year. She said she would turn some taxes down if others could be brought up. And it’s difficult to realize that when the state is facing another deficit.
Fitzgibbon said that any tax increase, even in this very-progressive district, tends to create a lot of anxiety as the pressure ratchets up on people’s resources. We offer people a lot and its cost keeps going up, like “generous” student aid. He said that if he were in charge, he could imagine a better tax code like say the one in place in Idaho, which has “a low sales tax, a low income tax …” But they have some things to draw on, such as the pension fund “windfall,” he added, and hopes “to put some of that money aside to bring costs down.”
Alvarado noted that “we all pay our federal taxes” and most of it “goes to defense and war” while the taxes we pay here “goes to pay our teachers … health care is the next bucket.” Half of state taxes go to education, Fitzgibbon declared. “There are cuts we could make,” he said – “reductions in services for the developmentally disabled,” done in a larger institution while he feels it could be better done in smaller facilities, but there wasn’t much support for it. He said there’s not enough “waste” to make a difference.
“It’s not like there are pots just sitting there being misspent or missing,” added Alvarado. There’s already been personnel cuts, though “the people are the services (so) when you cut staff, you cut services.’
Another attendee brought up the ferries that are being built out of state. Fitzgibbon noted that there are very few Washington shipyards that can build ferries. At least they have to be built in the US; Canada, for example, has its ferries built in Romania. The discussion that ensued highlighted that “there’s a constituency for every possibility” – for some the lower costs matter most, for others having them built here and benefiting local workers and companies mattered more, etc. They also discussed the staffing situation’s improvement (as ferries executives spotlighted at last week’s online community meeting).
What about light rail funding? was the next question. Fitzgibbon said he felt West Seattle was better positioned because of the bureaucratic hoops that already have been jumped through; Ballard, more difficult, in part because of the 75-year financing issue. (He didn’t address whether that had a chance if it were reintroduced.) As for continuing beyond West Seattle and heading to White Center and Burien, “I don’t think we have the answer yet.” Fitzgibbon said, “MY benchmark is that by the time mm 3-month-old starts elementary school, I think we’re going to have light rail to West Seattle.”
Dobkin asked about whether federal attempts to go after mail-in ballots are threatening our elections. Alvarado said there are certainly threats but we could re-orient people to use drop boxes if the ruling on postal-mail ballots stood; that still would only affect federal elections, we could still handle state elections the way we want to. (A side conversation about the merits of mail-in voting ensued, including the joys of sitting at your dining table and looking up issues and candidates while you vote.) Fitzgibbon said the biggest threat we face is if the court says ballots have to be received by Election Day, not just postmarked by then.
On public-safety issues, Dobkin mentioned that a newspaper article about crime trouble on north Seattle’s Aurora Avenue had outlined legislators passing a bill that was supposed to enable respite centers for sex workers. Alvarado said “I don’t want to be a state where the only tool to help people who’ve been trafficked is to be arrested … We have to fund (interventions) too.” She also cautioned that she isn’t an expert on the issue so she doesn’t know if SPD needs to do things differently, but she’s not comfortable suggesting that we need to move back into decriminalization. Fitzgibbon said the legislator mentioned in the story is an expert in the area. Alvarado said the Legislature tried to “help and offer some supports” by enabling local jurisdiction to implement an extra sales tax.
Might the feds go through with the possible threat to halt international flights to sanctuary cities? “I think it’s the kind of crazy thing we see every couple days,” observed Fitzgibbon, also pointing out that Sea-Tac Airport is not in the city of Seattle.
Dobkin then asked what the state could do about homelessness response, and noted that Myers Way is seeing an increase in RVs.
“Homelessness is certainly a big topic,” said Alvarado, adding that “everywhere in the country is feeling the impact of homelessness … largely because housing is so unaffordable. .. Chronic homelessness is increasing because people are out there longer.” More needs to be done, she said, and added that shelter beds are fewer than what’s needed, and that it’s still hard to find sites, raise money to run them. The state funds both shelter and supportive-housing operations, she said, adding that last year they passed legislation to make it easier to open new shelters. She also brought up the “continuum of care funding” attack from the feds, which would have pulled funding for running some of the housing that’s already open. But they’ve had to “hold back” some mone to have it in reserve for running it in case the feds try again. She added that the fastest-growing segment of the population experiencing homelessness is older adults. “I’m scared of what we’re going to see in the coming years” if that’s not addressed.
She added that there was some expansion of tax credits for seniors who own homes, though.
What about people who need but decline services? Alvarado says that’s mentioned anecdotally but it’s important to offer people things that meet their specific needs, and then most people will accept it.
Shortly thereafter, the conversation wrapped up – “we’ll do it again next year,” Dobkin promised the legislators.
LOCAL SERVICES: Economic Development’s Phillip Le spoke, saying lots is going on in downtown White Center, where those new lights will be on earlier as it gets darker. How are they funded? Dobkin asked. Originally set for participatory-budgeting money, they were instead bought and paid for by the Roads Division, he said. He also mentioned the June 26th World Cup watch party that will close 16th. They’ll be packing up about 7 pm so they won’t show the last match of the night. They also are hoping that the south end of Delridge on the Seattle side will be able to shut down and be part of it too. Le also mentioned a housing survey that the county is circulating right now. The graffiti marring the ex-Bartell Drugs at Roxbury/15th came up; Castillo’s, the building’s owner, is working on the inside, he said, and will clean up the outside when they’re getting closer to opening a new market. Lots of other business spaces were discussed; nothing dramatic and new yet. In some cases, businesses that had received help to reopen still need to rustle up money due to rising costs. He’s also looking for spaces for a robotics group to meet, as it’s in a space where it’s about to get displaced.
NEXT NHUAC MEETING: The organization’s summer break starts now, and the next meeting will be in September or October.
