From a reader:

Jonah,
Let me try to explain Seattle politics giving 3 examples.
1) It is against the law for any city of Seattle employee, including the police, to ask anyones immigration status.
2) The Seattle School District is 20 million in the hole yet the Seattle city council pays someone to read poetry at council meetings:
http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/council/licata/poetword.htm
3) We have a 10 year plan to end homelessness which contains 6 principle actions. The first one listed… “Prevent Homelessness”. Not sure why we need the other 5 actions.
http://www.cehkc.org/10-YearPlanFinal.pdf
Top of page 19 if you care to verify.
I could give you more examples but I have to work so I can afford the taxes to pay off the 200 million dollar debt for a monorail system that is now not going to be built.