Councilmember Dembowski thanks Seattle voters for approving Seattle’s Proposition 1

November 4, 2014

Summary

Calls for continued transparency and accountability at Metro to ensure new revenue is responsive to taxpayer and rider needs

Story

Metropolitan King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski, Chair of the Council’s Transportation, Economy and Environment Committee, thanked Seattle voters tonight for supporting funding that will significantly expand Metro Transit service in Seattle. Dembowski’s King County Council district includes approximately 75,000 residents in NE Seattle.

With the first ballot counts in from King County Elections, Proposition 1 is passing with 59 percent of the vote.

“For the last six months I’ve focused on the clear message I heard from the voters in April - that King County and Metro needed to do more work to ensure we have the most efficient transit division possible,” said Dembowski. “I put forward a plan to identify additional cost savings, efficiencies, and new revenue to help balance Metro's annual budget and prevent devastating service cuts. We have since stopped nearly 300,000 hours of service reductions from being implemented.”

“To increase transparency and accountability at Metro, I wrote legislation to establish a full-time auditor to conduct ongoing reviews of the transit agency. I’ve also introduced an ordinance to require the General Manager of Metro Transit to be confirmed by the County Council. Voters need to have confidence that their money is and will continue to be well spent, and today’s vote signals that our hard work to that end is paying off.”

In Seattle alone, there are 287,000 annual hours of documented unmet Metro transit service needs, including passenger crowding and addressing on-time performance. Proposition 1 can fully fund this unmet need.