The fiscally incontinent Seattle City Council has approved the 2005 budget.

The council changed little of Mayor Greg Nickels' 2005 proposed budget, except by adding almost $6 million in spending, with most of that going to streets and bridges, libraries and social services. The council would finance most of its additions through a 1.5 percent increase in garbage, water, sewer and drainage charges. The increase would cost the average homeowner about $16 more a year.

a) Protect $109 opera tickets from having to go up to $110.
b) Protect the drivers of $30,000 SUVs from having to pay a $1 fee for parking in city parks
c) Maintain free home bookmobile service for "shut-ins" (this was due to pressure after "bookmobile patrons packed public hearings")
d) Save the job of a "city photographer"
e) Protect visitors to the Volunteer Park Conservatory from having to pay a nominal entrance fee
f) Preserve a quarter of a million dollars for

Policy Advocacy, which means, in essence, the salaries of favored private lobbyists. Under this category, Seattle taxpayers have been paying tens of thousands of dollars to the Fremont Public Association, Statewide Poverty Action Network and Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition; the Seattle Human Services Coalition; the Children's Alliance Human Services Advocacy Project, and others. For 2005, the mayor had cut this funding by half; the council now adds back $106,572.

Another questionable entry is Administrative Operations, $132,827. This is a city effort to help people start and run tax-exempt organizations, most of which will be asking the city for money. Again, we are paying people to lobby us.

The Mayor and City Council called this budget the "Putting People First" budget. It puts some people first, anyway.