Amy Sundberg

It was a great conversation between two policy wonks, and I expect to have more in the future!

I look at the aftermath of former City Attorney Davison's term (spoiler: lots of domestic violence cases in that backlog) and what changes new City Attorney Evans is looking to make in the running of the office.

Also touch on new legislation to allow use of private toxicology lab testing for DUIs.

79! This is going to take a reeeeally long time.

This will be one of the races to watch this year.

When politicians don't honor their promises, our work is to make them. To do that, we have to build enough power to make them. I understand why people get disappointed but this is unfortunately how things work in politics.

I highly recommend listening to this clip of Rep. Brianna Thomas's comments on the state ALPR bill. She explains the impacts of these systems and says this bill risks normalizing the surveillance state.

Thanks to Rep Reed for posting about this!

Does the striker still prohibit vendor access to ALPR data?

Mayors, unlike council people, do not have to attend public meetings and listen to public comment. Answering questions at press conferences is pretty much the only time they have to answer to the public directly, even if it's via journalists asking questions.

Of course, the erosion of our state and local services will happen soon enough as the federal gov't withholds more funds from the states.

Regarding Mayor Wilson's announcement today re speeding up emergency housing: she has actually identified some funds ($4.8 million) to be utilized for this purpose. Over the last few years, that has become one of my shorthands in determining how serious an elected leader is about an issue.

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Today, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced three pieces of legislation intended to speed the creation of tiny home villages and other forms of emergency housing serving homeless people.

Washington's tax climate is still more "favorable" than California's with this new tax so I don't find that particularly persuasive, although I completely agree that it's tough to compete with the SF Bay ecosystem.

I don't think you're the only one.

“If [wealthy, powerful people] can get us to accept that the future’s already settled, AI is already here, the end is already here, then we will create that for them. My most daring idea is to refuse.” — @tressiemcphd.bsky.social

Given all the people we expect to lose health insurance this year and next, this bill seems particularly timely.

Really interested to see how this is resolved. Will legislators cave? Will Ferguson veto and delay such an important new revenue source? Will they reach a compromise?

Otoh, the fact I have to ask this question when Democrats hold the majority of both chambers and the governorship is telling.

Knowing my work can distract during a miserable time is so rewarding. Get well soon!

I guess you never know!

I mean, no. My phone doesn't create video recordings of everyone around me whenever I go anywhere. I think we can acknowledge a bit more nuance than that to these questions.

🤣

Autonomous vehicles act as mobile surveillance tools, collecting massive amounts of data. What safeguards around data privacy (including the possibility of companies selling data to data brokers) need to be included in any related legislation?

This is a good data point to have, thank you!

After all my angst fitting my liquids into a single bag for airplane travel, on my way home I totally forgot to take the bag of liquids out of my backpack at security, and...nothing happened.

As the article notes, Sen. Jesse Salomon blocked this bill from even being heard in the Senate Local Government Committee.

Salomon is being challenged for re-election in the 32nd LD (N. Seattle/Shoreline) by his seatmate, Rep. Cindy Ryu, who is a cosponsor of this bill.

And yet that almost certainly wouldn't happen in any large-scale way.

What's hilarious about this is that California, which is the tech and AI capital of the country, has a state income tax, the highest rate of which is 12.3% (vs 9.9% in the WA proposal), and the tax is on all income, not just income over $1 million. Yet somehow Silicon Valley is doing just fine.

All art is political one way or another. And saying it isn't, or you're more interested as an artist in the apolitical, or you don't understand, is appeasement to the shifting political and media environment.

Governor, King County has way more than 22 bridges in poor condition. Out of just the bridges directly owned by the county, there are 15 in poor condition, not counting any of the city-owned bridges or the WSDOT bridges on your map.