By Cindy Ann Cole and John M. Repp, The Retiree Advocate, January 2018
When the Seattle City Council passed the 2018 budget, it contained a $100,000 appropriation for a feasibility study for a Seattle Public Bank. The Council has a long, many-step process for deciding what gets put in the final budget. Public comment and testimony is part of the process. Several members of the Seattle Public Banking Coalition went to City Hall on November 1, 2017, to testify. There was a huge crowd there as we arrived, and we got slot number 87. The big issue was stopping the sweeps of homeless camps.
And we supported that.
In the course of the testimony of many young activists for all kinds of needs our “prosperous” city is not meeting, we heard informed and impassioned testimony for a public bank! That is when we realized that there is a diverse coalition emerging which understands what Wall Street banks are doing to destroy our country. And that a public bank has the potential to meet some of our city’s needs. The next morning we heard that the first “balanced” budget did not have the money in it for a feasibility study. We immediately contacted our supporters to email their city council members, and so did activists of 350.org, Democratic Socialists and others. The City Council was flooded with emails. The next iteration and the final 2018 budget had the $100K appropriation in it.
On December 1, 2017, at the Economic Opportunity Institute, this emerging coalition got together face-to-face and on speakerphone to discuss next steps. Sitting around the table or on the phone were activists from Black Lives Matter, local tribal members of the Standing Rock Coalition, 350.org, Democratic Socialists, and MLK County Labor Council as well as several experienced bankers, retired government officials, and a law school teacher. We understand this type of emerging coalition is happening all over the country in our big cities with public banking, and hopefully other cross-class issues.
Now we know that a feasibility study is not a public bank. If we had to battle for $100K for a feasibility study, imagine how much we will need to battle for the capital of a public bank that is large enough to be a depositor for Seattle.
The Seattle City Council is committed to stop banking with Wall Street because they invest in deadly new fossil fuel infrastructure and practice fraud as a business model. We need a Seattle Municipal Public Bank that will invest in affordable housing, renewable energy, and other pressing needs for the good of all in our city.
Cindy Cole and John Repp are PSARA members.
