Week in Review: Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson, Boeing, and Republican-backed initiatives

Bill Radke discusses the week’s news with Seattle Channel’s Brian Callanan, political analyst Joni Balter, and KUOW’s David Hyde.

The Seattle City Council is complete. This week, the council filled its last vacancy by appointing Chinatown International District activist Tanya Woo. Woo says her top three priorities are housing, homelessness, and public safety. So how will the city accomplish those things and pay for it? Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson joined us to talk about that. We also asked her about drug policy, the budget deficit, and more.

More than 10,000 workers at Boeing's Renton factory stopped work Thursday to focus on quality control. This pause in production happened because a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines jet on Jan. 5. The Seattle Times quoted an anonymous source saying, don't blame Spirit AeroSystems or any other Boeing contractor. The door plug had been removed for repairs and Boeing mechanics in Renton reinstalled it wrong. Alaska Airlines said it expects to resume its 737 Max 9 flights by the end of next week, but they will send their own inspectors into Boeing plants, and they expect Boeing to reimburse them for at least $150 million in losses from the grounding of the 737 Max 9. What other potential fallout is there?

Six Republican-backed state initiatives got enough signatures to move forward this year. They'll likely be on the ballot in November. They include I-2117 to repeal the Climate Commitment Act, I-2109 to roll back the tax on capital gains, I-2111 to ban state and local governments from imposing taxes on income, I-2113 to loosen some restrictions on when law enforcement officers can engage in vehicle pursuits, I-2081 to let parents of public-school children review student records, including disciplinary and health information, and curricula, and to allow parents to opt children out of sex education, and I-2124. That one would allow residents to opt out of the long-term care program known as the WA Cares Act. Brian Heywood is the big donor behind all of them. What do we need to know about these initiatives?