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Seattle City Council Bill 116141 , introduced February 25, would allow the City Council to exempt from public disclosure taxpayer-funded lobbying.  You can turn this bill around.  Call and email your councilmembers.  Come to a public comment hearing Monday, March 17 at 2 p.m. at Seattle City Hall Council Chambers, 601 Fifth Avenue, 2nd Floor. 

The City claims this bill is intended “to promote full disclosure” of paid lobbying,  but the ordinance would leave undisclosed the lion’s share of paid lobbying, that is,  lobbying by City employees and consultants from state and local government entities like Metro, Sound Transit, the Port Authority, School District, and Housing Authority.  When it existed, the Monorail Authority was one of the city’s largest lobbies.

City councilmembers don’t want you to know they’re being lobbied by their own staffs, and employees and staffs of other local government agencies,  operating on the apparent assumption that they know best what’s good for the public, and the public shouldn’t be told about it.   Worse,  lobbying in the public interest  - if that’s what selective agency consulting can be called – funded without disclosure to taxpayers can be just as bad for the public interest as private lobbying.