Will Seattle council decide not to override mayor’s veto of SPD budget cuts?
Aug 27, 2020, 4:03 PM | Updated: Aug 28, 2020, 5:57 am

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan. (Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
(Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
Last week, Mayor Jenny Durkan vetoed a budget from Seattle City Council that would have enacted sweeping cuts to the police department’s remaining 2020 budget. With the council now on break, what are the chances it will override that veto once they return to the dais?
weighed in on Seattle’s Morning News.
Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County calls Chief Best鈥檚 retirement a loss
In order to override Mayor Durkan’s veto, the council would only need six votes, one less than the number of votes the budget got when it was initially passed in early August. Even so, Salisbury is skeptical that council members will opt for an override vote.
“I don’t see them overriding a veto,” Salisbury opined. “I don’t think that there’s enough political capital out there in these districts for these council members to go and do that.”
Rather, he predicts the mayor and council will likely come to a compromise on 2020’s remaining police budget, and instead turn their attention toward next year.
“I think that a lot of the council members are going to come back from their break with a tone of like, ‘Hey, we tried, it didn’t work, let’s come back to this in 2021,'” Salisbury said.
“You’ll probably see a lot of these community groups sustain or increase their pressure campaigns to make sure that their agenda points are heard,” he added.
Opinion: Cuts are coming to SPD’s budget, with or without Mayor Durkan
The 2020 budget packaged originally passed by the city council included:
- Eliminating up to 100 sworn officer positions across various teams via layoffs and attrition (including 32 patrol officers), beginning in November 2020
- Capping command staff pay at $150,000 (not including Chief Best鈥檚 salary, which was reduced to $275,000).
- Ending the Navigation Team
The council鈥檚 legislation prompted聽Police Chief Carmen Best to announce her retirement, effective Sept. 2. After she issued her veto, Mayor Durkan criticized the budget for not looking “at the concerns of public safety,” or accounting for “how the city will address [homeless encampments]” in the wake of cuts to the Navigation Team.
The council鈥檚 approval was considered a down payment on its pledge to defund SPD by 50%, now expected in 2021. Council President Lorena Gonzalez explained the reasoning in a . All but one council member approved the budget cuts earlier this month. Councilmember Kshama Sawant was the lone 鈥渘o鈥 vote, while Debora Juarez 鈥 who was not present at the meeting 鈥 abstained.
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