Daily Digest: Building affordable housing, time to fund Cascadia journalism, and it's Summer Book Bingo time! 📚
Removing roadblocks to affordable housing
We all know that housing is expensive all over Cascadia. And that's especially true in suburbs like the east side of King county. In my latest article for the Urbanist, I look at how cities outside Seattle, including Bellevue, Redmond, and Kirkland are working to tackle affordability, and how parking requirements and other bureaucratic roadblocks are slowing down the building of units. Meanwhile, Redmond opened two more light rail stations. Sightline Institute looks at how Washington state passed one of the strongest parking reform bills in the US and Katie Wilson, who's running for mayor of Seattle, lays out five strategies to lower rents in Seattle (spoiler: most of it involves funding and zoning for more housing).
OR gov eyes $1 billion kicker for wildfires
As University of Oregon experts express worry that federal cuts could mean disaster from wildfires across Cascadia this summer, OR governor Tina Kotek has expressed interest in tapping into the $1 billion "kicker" income tax refund to increase funding for wildfire prevention and firefighting. Though the Trump administration claims it won't cut firefighting, DOGE has drastically cut jobs at the US Forest Service, putting pressure on the agency.
Let's publicly fund journalism in Cascadia
Oregon State Standard looks at a bill currently in the Oregon Senate that would provide modest funding support to journalism outlets across the state – especially local and rural news outlets, which are struggling. Canada has a federal program that's helped keep British Columbia news sources, and California recently passed a $250 million five-year fund to support local journalism. A bill to fund journalism introduced in the Washington legislature failed to pass this year. It's an urgent issue: RANGE media, a great news source for Eastern Washington, recently announced its editor will be essentially volunteering until they can boost funds. Help them out by purchasing a subscription.
It's time for Summer Book Bingo!
Memorial Day weekend means two things for me: the start of backpacking season and the kickoff of Seattle Public Library's adult Book Bingo challenge. I always have high hopes of filling in all 24 squares by the end of the Labor Day weekend and never quite do it – but it's a good motivator to do more reading regardless. KUOW has a guide to strategies for filling your card (reading picture books?? OK sure, but that's maybe missing the point). Seattle Times book critic Moira Macdonald has some suggestions for summer reads, Spokane Public Library has a summer reading program for adults and teens, Multnomah County Library has a youth summer reading contest, and Vancouver Public Library's summer reading club encourages kids 5-12 to read over the summer.
--Andrew Engelson
