SEATTLE — Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan officially unveiled her 2020 proposed budget, and at least one big ticket item may be getting some internal push back.
Her roughly $6 billion budget covers everything from housing to homelessness, and transportation. It also incorporates many of the policy announcements she’s rolled out in the past month.
Durkan’s pitch to radically change how ride share companies, like Uber and Lyft, are managed appears to be a talking point. Durkan has previously said that she wants to mandate minimum wages for drivers, and increase ride fees to pay for affordable housing and full funding of the ‘Center City Connector’, the streetcar project which would connect the already existing South Lake Union and First Hill lines.
However, immediately following Durkan’s speech Monday, a key council member and Durkan ally admitted there is some negotiations still to come at City Hall.
“There is going to be a challenge, and there are some of us who are going to be ambivalent about it,” said Council Budget Chair Sally Bagshaw about the proposal to pay for the streetcar. “Believe not only could there be an argument, there is an argument, so we’ll see how it ends.”
Council President Bruce Harrell also said he though there was support for the proposal.
“But there have been a few critics for the council, and on the outside [of the streetcar],” Harrell said.
Harrell, Bagshaw, along with Council members Lorena Gonzalez and Debora Juarez, all attended the Monday budget roll-out at Franklin High. Council members Lisa Herbold, Kshama Sawant, Mike O’Brien, Teresa Mosqueda and Abel Pacheco didn't attend.