News For Reasonable People

The housing market is still red hot. But there are growing concerns about how much longer this strength can last. Home Depot (HD) reported earnings and sales that topped Wall Street's forecasts Tuesday. Lowe's (LOW) also reported better-than-expected earnings and sales on Wednesday morning, and CEO Marvin Ellison said in a statement that sales were lifted thanks to "broad-based dema...

The Washington Supreme Court has struck down part of the state's felony drug possession law because it doesn't require prosecutors to prove that someone knowingly or intentionally possessed the drugs. The ruling has enormous ramifications for law enforcement agencies across the state as evidenced by a decision by the Seattle Police Department to immediately halt making arrests for a susp...

A federal judge in Texas on Thursday ruled unconstitutional a national moratorium the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has instituted for most residential evictions to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. Siding with a group of landlords and property owners challenging the evictions freeze, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in Tyler, Texas, ruled the CDC exceeded its...

Pioneer Square business owner Hamza Albadan is at his breaking point and not mincing words. "They are a bunch of idiots running this gorgeous city," Hamza Albadan said. He immigrated to Seattle to live out his American dream that now sits near South Main and 2nd Ave Ext.  "I think we got to be out of business soon," Albadan said. He’s on the cusp of possibly shutting down Main...

Five months after former President Donald Trump’s administration dubbed Seattle, New York and Portland as “anarchist jurisdictions” that permit “violence and destruction of property,” President Joe Biden revoked the label on Wednesday. Trump’s label, issued last September in the heat of the presidential campaign, carried with it the threat that the administration could use it as part of a push to...

There’s been a lot of talk lately about an exodus from American cities, including Seattle. But is it true? According to countless news stories, a lot of folks are kissing city life goodbye and moving to the open spaces of the suburbs, or even to more rural parts of the country. The rise of remote work since the start of the pandemic is enabling these moves. You can find evidence that seems to back...

The City of Seattle announced Tuesday that it will begin using a pair of hotels as 24/7 enhanced shelter spaces for homeless individuals. That will encompass 66 non-congregate rooms at Belltown’s Kings Inn, and 155 non-congregate rooms at the Executive Hotel Pacific in downtown Seattle. Both sites will include some combination of wraparound services, case management, housing navigation services, a...

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon on Wednesday rejected the "aberration" of remote work, which has become a popular alternative to in-person offices during the coronavirus pandemic. “This is not ideal for us and it’s not a new normal,” Solomon, 59, said during a Credit Suisse Group AG conference, Bloomberg reported. “It’s an aberration that we are going to correct as quickly as possible.”...

A serious repeat offender was charged with second-degree attempted robbery on Friday after being caught trying to rob a Pike Place Market business. The suspect, 56-year-old Cedell Steven Scott, has been booked into the King County Jail 76 times in the last 35 years. According to court documents, the man is charged with attempting to steal more than $8,000 from the safe of a produce stand on Feb. 1...

Uncle Sam is in search for a pot of gold that could ease the pain of trillion-dollar deficits. And some believe Wall Street might just have the answer. For more than a decade, progressives have tried and failed to impose a financial transaction tax. But there is new momentum for such a levy as the national debt skyrockets during the pandemic and in the wake of the GameStop trading frenzy that shin...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and officials in his administration face allegations they covered up the true death toll due to COVID-19 in nursing homes. The state’s tally of deaths in nursing homes had excluded those confirmed in hospitals after residents had been transferred there. Federal and state officials have launched investigations into the Cuomo administration to determine the extent to which the stat...

The pay equity startup has decided not to renew its sublease in Pioneer Square, but the company still wants to stay in Seattle. Join your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic. Support the show 🛍️ Merch - https://Store. ReasonableTV.com/ 🌟 Go PREMIUM with Reasonable+ for uncensored access to our entire cont...

A couple of weeks ago, Mike Holzgang sat down for lunch with a client he was showing downtown Portland office space. "There's no way in hell we're renting here," the client told Holzgang, a commercial real estate broker for Colliers. As they entered the building Holzgang was showing, the client explained, somebody reached out from a tent on the sidewalk and tried to grab the cl...

One of the perceptions has long been that Seattle is spending a great deal of money on homelessness and that residents are not seeing the needle move. Is the public concern about the spending versus the outcome a legitimate one? “The first question I asked Jason (former leader of the Seattle Human Services Department, Jason Johnson) was when he started in 2018, the budget was under $90 million for...

Landlords in Oregon whose tenants have fallen behind on rent during the coronavirus pandemic can now apply for relief from the state. Applications for Oregon’s new landlord compensation fund opened Wednesday, nearly two months after state lawmakers allocated $150 million to seed the program. Landlords can apply for relief to cover 80% of the rent they are owed by residential tenants dating back to...

The City of Seattle has agreed to pay a $10,000 settlement to a woman who had filed a lawsuit over a December sweep of a homeless encampment in Cal Anderson Park. The lawsuit, filed in federal court by Ada Yeager, had initially asked U.S. District Judge Richard Jones to file a preliminary injunction to halt the sweep. Jones denied that request, but the litigation continued on, culminating this wee...

Boeing workers have been told to clear out their belongings from the jet maker's Longacres headquarters in Renton by the end of March, suggesting a sale of the $100 million office complex is coming this spring. Two sources with knowledge of the matter told the Business Journal about the order to vacate, speaking on condition they weren't identified because they're not authorized to...

A Senate bill that would impose a tax on capital gains in Washington state looked much different from its original form when it passed out of the Senate Ways & Means Committee Tuesday evening. With the changes, the new proposal is predicted to bring in less revenue than the original and affect fewer taxpayers. The bill was requested by the Office of Financial Management and was part of Gov. Ja...

A “rare opportunity” on Capitol Hill will transform a just-finished apartment building planned for upscale market-rate rentals into affordable housing for people who are currently homeless. The developer of the 76-unit Clay apartments plans to sell the building to the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) for about $18.2 million, said LIHI Director Sharon Lee. LIHI expects to house 75 people, includ...

What is Facebook without news? People and publishers in Australia are now finding out. Facebook (FB) has barred Australians from finding or sharing news on its service, a dramatic escalation of a fight with the government that may have wide-ranging consequences both in the country and around the world. The social networking company on Wednesday said that people and publishers in Australia will no...

The heated debate over Seattle’s $4-an-hour hazard pay law for grocery workers escalated sharply this week. On Tuesday, QFC announced it would close two Seattle locations by April 24 — and blamed the move, in part, on the new law. Although QFC acknowledged that both locations — at 416 15th Avenue East on Capitol Hill and at 8400 35th Ave. NE in Wedgwood — were “underperforming,” the decision to cl...

Mercer Island City Council on Tuesday approved an ordinance barring people from camping or storing personal items on public property. The proposal -- which passed in a 6-1 vote -- was approved after hours of public comment from people on both sides of the issue, with some arguing the proposal criminalized homelessness and didn't address the underlying problems, and others saying the city need...

Portland protesters held a snowball fight. About 75 people—some dressed in black bloc, others wearing '80s-style ski suits—gathered in Director Park for what was cheekily billed as "Antifa Snow Day." Tamales were served; so was beer. Around 10 pm, a smaller group set out for the Portland Police Bureau's Central Precinct. Not long after, somebody started shattering windows: at a...

A year ago this month, Jason Johnson — the leader of the Seattle Human Services Department, which manages potentially the largest city budget for homelessness in the Pacific Northwest, announced he would resign. The same day, mere miles away, COVID-19 claimed its first victim in the U.S. Johnson, who was to be a temporary department head, quickly realized he couldn’t step down just yet. Coronaviru...

A glut of new supply has hit the in-city market, but the booming Eastside isn't immune either, new data shows. Join your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic. Support the show 🛍️ Merch - https://Store. ReasonableTV.com/ 🌟 Go PREMIUM with Reasonable+ for uncensored access to our entire content library:...