Podcasts about downtown seattle association

3pm: Guest: Jon Scholes – President & CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association talks the future of the city and Seattle's plans for the World Cup // How former MLB player Travis Snider is impacting youth sports // WA Baseball player learning to play the saxophone

6pm: Guest: Jon Scholes – President & CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association talks the future of the city and Seattle's plans for the World Cup // How former MLB player Travis Snider is impacting youth sports // WA Baseball player learning to play the saxophone

Puget Sound Energy is considering moving power lines underground to prevent outages. Jeff Bezos announced some big changes to the opinion section of the Washington Post. Bruce Harrell and the Downtown Seattle Association provided an update on the state of Downtown. // Big Local: The City of Tacoma just spent money to virtue signal. Just hours after King County and the local transit union reached an agreement to create a safety task force, someone was shot at the Renton Metro Transit Center. A teen in Kennewick was arrested in an armed robbery at a coffee shop. // You Pick the Topic: Jake Tapper is releasing a very ironic book about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.

Join us for a chat with Monica Rankin from the Downtown Seattle Association as we dive into the dynamic landscape of Downtown Seattle. This session will provide an in-depth look at the Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) and the Metropolitan Improvement District (MID), two pivotal organizations dedicated to enhancing the vitality and livability of our urban core. Whether you're a resident, business owner, or simply interested in the growth of our city, this webinar will offer valuable insights and foster meaningful discussions about the future of Downtown Seattle.

Greg Tomlin and Tim Gaydos filling in // Thanksgiving storytelling — juxtaposing this year's holiday to experiencing it at the height of Covid // Jon Scholes, president & CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, on the Christmas tree lighting in Downtown Seattle // Trump picks Stanford Doc to head NIH // Bronny James situation with the Lakers — is nepotism in pro sports becoming a thing?

6pm: Guest - John Scholes - CEO of The Downtown Seattle Association //  Trump’s economy will bring a major shift to Seattle and the world // Seattle council member proposes capital gains tax at city level // How are those Third Ave Lights Doing // Guest - Nate Nehring - SNOCO City Councilmember // State of the WA State GOP // Elwood Edwards, voice of AOL’s iconic greeting ‘You’ve Got Mail,’ dies at 74 

4pm: Guest - John Scholes - CEO of The Downtown Seattle Association //  Trump’s economy will bring a major shift to Seattle and the world // Seattle council member proposes capital gains tax at city level // How are those Third Ave Lights Doing // Guest - Ryan Calkins - Port of Seattle Commissioner 

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and Jon Scholes, President and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, discuss a new city ordinance that will waive design review for new development downtown, the DSA's take on the city's mixed economic forecast, the impact of Amazon's 5-days-in-office mandate starting in January, the future of the Overlook Park project, and an interesting question from one of our patrons, too. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon!

What’s Trending: Labor Day weekend is coming up which means lots of traffic both at the airport and on the road. A new clip from tonight’s Kamala Harris interview gives insight into who she might appoint to her cabinet. Trump is taking heat for taking photos at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. Guest: Jon Scholes, president and CEO of Downtown Seattle Association discusses the Seattle Aquarium’s new ocean pavilion expansion. // Big Local: Tomorrow is the opening of the Lynnwood Link light rail extension and is expecting nearly 50,000 riders daily. A South Sound couple has been targeted by a lottery phone scam and warns others who might buy into the scam. 80-year old woman in Burien was killed Wednesday night in an apparent drive-by shooting. Final debate rules will not include live hot mics. // MLB catcher Danny Jansen became the first player in MLB history to play in the same game for different teams. Oklahoma State football will have QR codes on their helmets to promote NIL fundraising.

This week… Turns out The King County Office of Equity, Racial and Social Justice ignored civil rights complaints for almost two years. The Downtown Seattle Association wants to put 30 advertising kiosks across downtown. And Mariners fans are taking advantage of some unique promotions, including free tickets in exchange for a buzzcut. The South Seattle Emerald's Marcus Harrison Green and KUOW's Zaki Hamid are here to break down the week. NAAM Juneteenth Programming: https://www.naamnw.org/juneteenth We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. You have the power! Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/seattlenow And we want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram at SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback online: https://www.kuow.org/feedback See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

FRED'S BIO Fred Rivera is as accomplished as he is a terrific human being and has had a remarkable career. He is one of the highest ranking (and few) Latinos in the business of American professional sports. He currently serves as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for the Seattle Mariners, loves the game, started pitching as a young kid (great curveball), played in college, and deeply knows the economics of sports - and their positive impact on communities across America. We talk about school, multi generational influences, LA Law (the show), community fabric, leadership, and of course, emotional connections to baseball. His Mariners role was preceded by another big role: Fred served as Managing Partner of Perkins Coie's Seattle office, one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in the United States where he spent about two decades. He started his  career in the 1990's as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and in the early 2000's he served as Vice President in charge of internal investigations at Fannie Mae. He serves on the boards of directors of Heritage Bank (NASDAQ: HFWA), Delta Dental of Washington and OAC Services, and ROOT Sports, the Mariners-owned regional sports network. He has been recognized  in the U.S. News-Best Lawyers in America and as Director of the Year (2022) by the Puget Sound Business Journal. Fred also serves, or has served, as President of the Latina/o Bar Association of Washington, Regional President of the Hispanic National Bar Association and the boards of Rainier Scholars, Trustee of the King County Bar Association, Board of Directors of the Downtown Seattle Association, ArtsFund, and the United Way of King County, where he was Chairman. FRED RELATED LINKS Talking Baseball and More Baseball- KIRO7 News & KING5 News Heritage Financial Profile MCCA Profile Luminaries in Law - Seattle University Distinguished Alum Award - California State University GENERAL INFO| TOP OF THE GAME: Official website: https://topofthegame-thepod.com/ RSS Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/topofthegame-thepod/feed.xml Hosting service show website: https://topofthegame-thepod.podbean.com/ Javier's LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/javiersaade  SUPPORT & CONNECT: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/96934564 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551086203755 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOPOFGAMEpod Subscribe on Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/site/podcatcher/index/blog/vLKLE1SKjf6G Email us: info@topofthegame-thepod.com   THANK YOU FOR LISTENING – AVAILABLE ON ALL MAJOR PLATFORMS  

John Scholes of the Downtown Seattle Association joins the show to talk about the state of the city. // A checking of the texting. // Lakewood approves $1M for tiny home village. Bryan talks about his time at the Union Gospel Mission and what the real solutions to the homeless problem are.   

In this episode of the Industrial Advisors podcast, hosts Bill Condon and Matt McGregor interview Jon Scholes, CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association. Scholes discusses the current state of downtown Seattle and how it has recovered from the impact of COVID-19. Scholes shares how the city's focus on creating a diverse, vibrant downtown has attracted new businesses, increased residential growth, and boosted the visitor industry. He also talks about how Seattle stands out for its blend of urban experience and natural beauty. However, the downtown area has faced challenges including drug addiction and homelessness, but Scholes is hopeful due to the city's commitment to improve. Lastly, Scholes gives a hint about the possible return of the Sonics, contributing to the city's rich sports culture. 00:37 Guest Introduction: Jon Scholes 01:26 Current State of Downtown Seattle 02:38 Impact of Major Events and Developments 04:38 Seattle's Response to the Pandemic 08:02 Future Growth Opportunities for Seattle 10:21 Challenges Faced by Downtown Seattle 13:15 Return to Office Trends 16:08 Unique Attributes of Seattle 18:07 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Please enjoy this re-air of our listeners' favorite topical show of 2023! On this topical show re-air, Crystal chats with former Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and his former Senior Communications Advisor Robert Cruickshank about the missed opportunity for generational impact through how decisions were made about Seattle's waterfront and the SR99 tunnel. Mike and Robert review how the vision of the scrappy People's Waterfront Coalition, centered around making a prized public space accessible for all while taking the climate crisis on by transforming our transportation system, nearly won the fight against those who prioritized maintaining highway capacity and those who prioritized increasing Downtown property values.  The conversation then highlights how those with power and money used their outsized influence to make backroom decisions - despite flawed arguments and little public enthusiasm for their proposal - leaving Seattle with an underutilized deep bore tunnel and a car-centric waterfront. Some of the decision makers are still active in local politics - including current Mayor Bruce Harrell and his current advisor Tim Burgess. With important elections ahead, Crystal, Mike and Robert discuss how political decisions tend to conflict with campaign promises rather than donor rolls, how proven action is a better indicator than value statements, and how today's dense ecosystem of progressive leaders and organizations can take inspiration and win the next fight. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii, Mike McGinn at @mayormcginn, and Robert Cruickshank at @cruickshank.   Mike McGinn Mike is the Executive Director of national nonprofit America Walks.  He got his start in local politics as a neighborhood activist pushing for walkability. From there he founded a non-profit focused on sustainable and equitable growth, and then became mayor of Seattle. Just before joining America Walks, Mike worked to help Feet First, Washington State's walking advocacy organization, expand their sphere of influence across Washington state. He has worked on numerous public education, legislative, ballot measure and election campaigns – which has given him an abiding faith in the power of organizing and volunteers to create change.   Robert Cruickshank Robert is the Director of Digital Strategy at California YIMBY and Chair of Sierra Club Seattle. A long time communications and political strategist, he was Senior Communications Advisor to Mike McGinn from 2011-2013.   Resources “Seattle Waterfront History Interviews: Cary Moon, Waterfront Coalition” by Dominic Black from HistoryLink   “State Route 99 tunnel - Options and political debate" from Wikipedia   “Remembering broken promises about Bertha” by Josh Cohen from Curbed Seattle   “Fewer drivers in Seattle's Highway 99 tunnel could create need for bailout” by Mike Lindblom from The Seattle Times   “Surface Highway Undermines Seattle's Waterfront Park” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Seattle Prepares to Open Brand New Elliott Way Highway Connector” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I am very excited to be welcoming Robert Cruickshank and former Mayor Mike McGinn to the show to talk about something that a lot of people have been thinking about, talking about recently - and that is Seattle's new waterfront. We feel like we've spent a decade under construction - from a deep bore tunnel to the tunnel machine getting stuck - that's not even covering all the debate before that, but all of the kind of follies and foibles and challenges that have beset the process of arriving at the waterfront that we have now. And now that we are getting the big reveal, a lot of people have feelings about it. So I thought we would talk about it with one of the people who was at the forefront of criticisms of the tunnel and calling out some red flags that turned out to be a very wise warning - several wise warnings that have come to pass, unfortunately - for not listening to them. But I want to start early on in the beginning, both of you - and I had a short stint in the mayor's office - worked on this, talked about this on the campaign, really got it. But when did you first hear that we needed to replace the viaduct and there were some different opinions about how to make that happen? [00:02:06] Mike McGinn: Okay, so I'm sure I can't pin down a date, but the really important date was, of course, the Nisqually earthquake in 2001. And so it gave the Alaska Way Viaduct a good shake - the decks weren't tied into the columns, the columns were on fill, which could liquefy - and everybody understood that if that quake had been a little stronger and harder, the elevated would come down. Now you might think that that would call for immediately closing the roadway for safety reasons, but what it did call for was for reconstructing it. And you have to remember that highway was really one of the very first limited access highways - it was built long ago and it was just at the end of its useful life anyway. Certainly not built to modern seismic standards or modern engineering standards. So the conversation immediately started and I don't know when everything started to settle into different roles, but the Mayor of Seattle Greg Nickels, was immediately a proponent for a tunnel - and a much larger and more expensive tunnel than what was ultimately built. And it would have been a cut-and-cover tunnel along the waterfront that included a new seawall. So they thought they were solving two things at one time - because the seawall too was rotting away, very old, very unstable. But it would have gone all the way under South Lake Union and emerged onto Aurora Avenue further north, it would have had entrances and exits to Western and Elliott. And I seem to remember the quoted price was like $11 billion. And the state - governor at the time was Christine Gregoire - they were - No, we're replacing the highway. We don't have $11 billion for Seattle. And of course had the support of a lot of lawmakers for obvious reasons - we're not going to give Seattle all that money, we want all that highway money for our districts. And those were immediately presented as the alternatives. And so much of the credit has to go to Cary Moon, who lived on the waterfront and started something called the People's Waterfront Coalition. I think Grant Cogswell, a former City Council candidate - now runs a bookstore down in Mexico City, but wrote a book about the Monorail, worked on the different Monorail campaigns before that - they launched something called the People's Waterfront Coalition. And the basic proposition was - We don't need a highway. This is a great opportunity to get rid of the highway and have a surface street, but if you amp up the transit service - if we invest in transit instead - we can accommodate everyone. And so that was really - as it started - and actually I remember being outside City Hall one day, going to some stakeholder meeting - I went to so many different stakeholder meetings. And I remember Tim Ceis saying to me - he was the Deputy Mayor at the time - You're not supporting that Cary Moon idea - I mean, that's just crazy. I was - Well, actually, Tim. So the Sierra Club was - I was a volunteer leader in the Sierra Club - and the Sierra Club was one of the first organizations - I'm sure there were others, I shouldn't overstate it - but the Sierra Club was persuaded by the wisdom of Cary's idea and supported it in that day. And so that was really how the three different options got launched - no public process, no analysis, no description of what our needs were. The mayor went to a solution, the governor went to a solution - and it was up to members of the public to try to ask them to slow down, stop, and look at something different. [00:05:42] Crystal Fincher: And Robert, how did you first engage with this issue? [00:05:47] Robert Cruickshank: For me, I had just moved to Seattle the first time in the fall of 2001 - so it was about six months after the Nisqually quake - and I came from the Bay Area. And that was where another earthquake had damaged another waterfront highway, the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco. And that was where San Francisco had voted - after that quake had damaged their viaduct beyond repair - they voted to tear it down and replace it with the Embarcadero Waterfront, which is a six-lane arterial but they built a lot more transit there. So they did the - what we might call the surface transit option - and it worked really well. It was beautiful. It still is. And so when I came up here and started to learn a little bit about the place I was living and the legacy of the Nisqually quake, I thought - Oh, why don't you just do the same thing here? It worked so well in San Francisco. Let's just tear down this unsightly monstrosity on the waterfront and replace it with a surface boulevard and put in a bunch of transit - San Francisco's made it work successfully. And the more I learned about Seattle, I realized there's a legacy of that here, too. This is a city where we had a freeway revolt, where activists came together and killed the RH Thomson freeway, which would have destroyed the Arboretum. They killed the Bay Freeway, which would have destroyed Pike Place Market. And so I naturally assumed - as being a relatively new resident - that Seattle would stay in that tradition and welcome the opportunity to tear this down and build a great waterfront for people, not cars. But as we'll talk about in a moment, we have a lot of business interests and freight interests and others who had a different vision - who didn't share that community-rooted vision. And I think at numerous points along the way, though, you see people of Seattle saying - No, this is not what we want for our waterfront. We have an opportunity now with the fact that this viaduct nearly collapsed, as Mike mentioned, in the Nisqually quake - we have an opportunity for something really wonderful here. And so I think Cary Moon and then Mike McGinn and others tapped into that - tapped into a really strong community desire to have a better waterfront. I wasn't that politically engaged at the time in the 2000s - I was just a grad student at UW - but just talking to folks who I knew, anytime this came up - God, wouldn't it be wonderful down there if this was oriented towards people and not cars, and we took that thing down? So I think one of the things you're going to see is this contest between the vision that many of us in Seattle had and still have - this beautiful location, beautiful vista on Elliott Bay, that should be for the people of the city - and those in power who have a very different vision and don't really want to share power or ultimately the right-of-way with We the People. [00:08:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And I was involved in some things at the time - some curious coalitions - but definitely I was around a lot of people who favored either rebuilding the viaduct or the tunnel. Definitely not this roads and transit option - there's no way that's workable. That's pie-in-the-sky talk from those loony greenies over there. What are you talking about? But as this went on - I think no matter what camp people were in - there was always a clear vision articulated and people really focused on the opportunity that this represented, and I think correctly characterized it as - this is one of these generational decisions that we get to make that is going to impact the next generation or two and beyond. And there's an opportunity - the waterfront felt very disconnected with the way things were constructed - it was not easy just to go from downtown to the waterfront. It wasn't friendly for pedestrians. It wasn't friendly for tourists. It just did not feel like a world-class waterfront in a world-class city, and how we see that in so many other cities. You talk about the decision with the Embarcadero, Robert, and looking at - that definitely seemed like a definitive step forward. This was sold as - yeah, we can absolutely take a step forward and finally fix this waterfront and make it what it should have been the whole time. As you thought about the opportunity that this represented, what was the opportunity to you and what did you hear other people saying that they wanted this to be? [00:09:38] Mike McGinn: Yeah, so I think there are - I think that's really important, because I don't think there was a real discussion of what the vision was. People will say there was, but there really wasn't. Because what was baked in and what you're referring to is - well, of course you have to build automobile capacity to replace the existing automobile capacity, right? In fact, this state is still building more highways across the state in the misguided belief that more highway capacity will somehow or another do some good. So this idea that you have to replace and expand highway capacity is extremely powerful in Washington state and across the country. And there were very few examples of highway removal, so that was just a real challenge in the first place - that somehow or other the first priority has to be moving automobiles. For me, at that time I had become - the issue of climate had really penetrated me at that point. And in fact, when Greg Nickels took office and the Sierra Club endorsed him over Paul Schell - I was a local leader in the Sierra Club and a state leader in the Sierra Club - and my goal was that Mayor Nickels would do more than Paul Schell. And Paul Schell, the prior mayor, had done some good things. He had made Seattle City Light climate neutral - we'd gotten out of coal plants and we didn't purchase power from coal plants. He was really progressive on a number of environmental issues and we wanted Mayor Nickels to do more - and Mayor Nickels had stepped up. So we put on a campaign to urge him to do more. And he had stepped up to start something called the Mayors' Climate Protection Initiative - which was the City of Seattle was going to meet the standards of the Kyoto Protocol, which was like the Paris Agreement of its day. And that was - it set an emissions reduction target by a date in the future. And that was really great - in fact, over a thousand cities around the country signed up to the Mayors' Climate Protection Initiative. And I was appointed to a stakeholder group with other leaders - Denis Hayes from the Bullitt Foundation and others - to develop the first climate action plan for a city. Al Gore showed up at the press conference for it - it was a big - it was a BFD and a lot of excitement. And one of the things that was abundantly clear through that process of cataloging the emissions in the City of Seattle and coming up with a plan to reduce them was that our single largest source of emissions at that time was the transportation sector. We'd already gotten off of coal power under Mayor Schell - we received almost all of our electricity from hydroelectric dams. We had good conservation programs. Unlike other parts of the country, transportation was the biggest. Now what's fascinating is now - I don't know if I want to do the math - almost 20 years later, now what we see is that the whole country is in the same place. We're replacing coal and natural gas power plants. And now nationally, the single largest source of emissions is transportation. So how do you fix that? If we're serious about climate - and I thought we should be - because the scientists were telling us about heat waves. They were telling us about forest fires that would blanket the region in smoke. They were telling us about storms that would be bigger than we'd ever seen before. And flooding like we'd never seen and declining snowpack. And it was all going to happen in our futures. Honestly, I remember those predictions from the scientists because they're in the headlines today, every day. So what do we do to stop that? So I was - I had little kids, man - I had little kids, I had three kids. How are we going to stop this? Well, it's Seattle needs to lead - that's what has to happen. We're the progressive city. We're the first one out with a plan. We're going to show how we're going to do it. And if our biggest source is transportation, we should fix that. Well, it should seem obvious that the first thing you should do is stop building and expanding highways, and maybe even change some of the real estate used for cars and make it real estate for walking, biking, and transit. That's pretty straightforward. You also have to work on more housing. And this all led me to starting a nonprofit around all of these things and led to the Sierra Club - I think at a national level - our chapter was much further forward than any other chapter on upzones and backyard cottages and making the transition. So to me, this was the big - that was the vision. That was the opportunity. We're going to tear this down. We're going to make a massive investment in changing the system, and this in fact could be a really transformative piece. That's what motivated me. That climate argument wasn't landing with a whole bunch of other interests. There was certainly a vision from the Downtown and Downtown property owners and residents that - boy, wouldn't it be great to get rid of that elevated highway because that's terrible. There was also a vision from the people who still believed in highway capacity and that includes some of our major employers at the time and today - Boeing and Microsoft, they have facilities in the suburbs around Seattle - they think we need highway capacity. As well as all of the Port businesses, as well as all the maritime unions - thought that this highway connection here was somehow critical to their survival, the industrial areas. And then they wanted the capacity. So there were very strong competing visions. And I think it's fair to say that highway capacity is a vision - we've seen that one is now fulfilled. The second priority was an enhanced physical environment to enhance the property values of Downtown property owners. And they cut the deal with the highway capacity people - okay, we're here for your highway capacity, but we have to get some amenities. And the climate folks, I'm not seeing it - never a priority of any of the leaders - just wasn't a priority. [00:15:44] Crystal Fincher: How did you see those factions come into play and break down, Robert? [00:15:48] Robert Cruickshank: It was interesting. This all comes to a head in the late 2000s. And remembering back to that time, this is where Seattle is leading the fight to take on the climate and the fight against George W. Bush, who was seen as this avatar of and deeply connected to the oil industry. Someone who - one of his first things when he took office - he did was withdraw the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol, which is the earlier version of what's now known as the Paris Agreement - global agreement to try to lower emissions. And so Seattle, in resisting Bush - that's where Greg Nickels became a national figure by leading the Mayors' Climate Action Group - not just say we're going to take on climate, we're going to do something about really de facto fighting back against Bush. And then Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Al Gore comes out with An Inconvenient Truth. And by 2007, people in Seattle are talking a lot about climate and how we need to do something about climate. But then what you see happening is the limits of that - what are people really actually willing to do and willing to support? The other piece that comes together, I think - in the 2000s - is a revival of the City itself. Seattle spends the late 20th century after the Boeing bust - since the 70s "Will the last person out of Seattle turn out the lights," recovering in the 80s somewhat, recovering in the 90s, and then the tech boom. And by the 2000s, Seattle is a destination city for young people coming to live here and living in apartments and working in the tech industry. I think that unsettles a lot of people. One thing that really stood out to me about the discussion about what to do on the waterfront was this vision from old school folks - like Joel Connelly and others - we've got to preserve that working waterfront. And it's very much the sense that blue collar working class labor is under threat - not from corporate power, but from a 20-something millennial with a laptop working at Amazon who comes to Seattle and thinks - Gosh, why is this ugly viaduct here? It's unsafe. Why don't we just tear it down and have a wonderful waterfront view? And those who are offended by this idea - who are so wedded to the 20th century model that we're going to drive everywhere, cars, freedom - this is where you see the limits of willingness to actually do something on climate. People don't actually want to give up their cars. They're afraid they're going to sacrifice their way of life. And you start to see this weird but powerful constellation come together where rather than having a discussion about transportation planning or even a discussion about climate action, we're having this weird discussion about culture. And it becomes a culture war. And the thing about a culture war is people pushing change are never actually trying to fight a war. They're just - This is a good idea. Why don't we do this? We all say these - we care about these values. And the people who don't want it just dig in and get really nasty and fight back. And so you start to see Cary Moon, People's Waterfront Coalition, Mike McGinn, and others get attacked as not wanting working class jobs, not wanting a working waterfront, not caring about how people are going to get to work, not caring about how the freight trucks are going to get around even though you're proposing a tunnel from the Port to Wallingford where - it's not exactly an industrial hub - there are some businesses there. But dumping all these cars out or in South Lake Union, it's like, what is going on here? It doesn't add up. But it became this powerful moment where a competing vision of the City - which those of us who saw a better future for Seattle didn't see any competition as necessary at all - those who are wedded to that model where we're going to drive everywhere, we're going to have trucks everywhere, really saw that under threat for other reasons. And they decided this is where they're going to make their stand. This is where they're going to make that fight. And that turned out to be pretty useful for the Port, the freight groups, the establishment democratic leaders who had already decided for their own reasons this is what they wanted too. [00:19:11] Mike McGinn: It's important to recognize too, in this, is to follow the money. And I think that this is true for highway construction generally. You have a big section of the economy - there's a section of the economy that believes in it, as Robert was saying, right? And I do think the culture war stuff is fully there - that somehow or another a bike lane in an industrial area will cause the failure of business. Although if you went to the bike - outside the industrial building - you'll find a bunch of the workers' bike there, right? Because it's affordable and efficient. So there's this weird belief that just isn't true - that you can't accommodate industry and transit and walking and biking. Of course you can. And in fact, adding all the cars is bad for freight movement because of all the traffic jams. So there's that belief, but there's also a whole bunch of people - I mentioned Downtown property owners - that gets you to your Downtown Seattle Association. The value of their property is going to be dramatically enhanced by burying, by eliminating the waterfront highway. But then you also have all of the people who build highways and all of the people who support the people who build highways. Who's going to float $4 billion in bonds? It's going to be a Downtown law firm. And by the way, the person who worked for that Downtown law firm and did the bond work was the head of the greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce at that time. So you have the engineering firms, you have the material providers, and then you have the union jobs that go with it. So really at this point - and this isn't just about the waterfront highway, this could be any highway expansion - you've captured the business community because a big chunk of the business community will get direct dollars from the government to them. And you've actually captured a significant chunk of the labor community as well, because labor fights for labor jobs. In the big picture, service workers are taking transit, service workers need housing in town, and you can start to see a split - like in my ultimate run for mayor, I won some service worker unions, never won any construction trades. In fact, they held a rally my first year in office to denounce me, right? Because I was standing in the way of jobs. So that's a really powerful coalition. And I think what you see today in the country as a whole - as you know, I'm the ED of America Walks, so I get to see a lot more - this is a pattern. Highways aren't really supported by the public. They don't go to the public for public votes on highways anymore - the public wouldn't support it. And in fact, the data suggests the public gets that building more highway lanes won't solve everything. But you've got a big, big chunk of the economy that's gotten extremely used to billions and billions of dollars flowing into their pockets. And they need to protect that in every year. So you get that level of intensity around - Look, we're talking about $4 billion on the waterfront and a bunch of that money's coming to us. Better believe it's a good idea, and what are you talking about, climate? [00:22:03] Robert Cruickshank: You talk about public votes, and I think there are three crucial public votes we got to talk about. One is 2007, when these advisory votes are on the ballot - and they're not binding, but they're advisory. Do you want to rebuild the viaduct or build a tunnel? They both get rejected. And then the next big vote is 2009, the mayoral election, where Mike McGinn becomes mayor - in part by channeling public frustration at this giant boondoggle. And then ultimately, the last public vote on this, 2011 - in June, I believe it was, it was in August - about whether we go forward or not and the public by this point, fatigued and beaten down by The Seattle Times, decides let's just move on from this. [00:22:43] Mike McGinn: There's no other alternative. And it is worth returning to that early vote, because it was such a fascinating moment, because - I think the mayor's office didn't want to put his expansive tunnel option in a direct vote against the new elevated, fearing it would lose. So they engineered an agreement with the governor that each one would get a separate up or down vote. And by the way, Tim Ceis, the Deputy Mayor at the time, called in the Sierra Club, briefed us on it, and one of our members said - What would happen if they both got voted down? And Deputy Mayor Ceis said - by the way, Tim Ceis has got a big contract right now from Mayor Harrell, longtime tunnel supporter. Tim Ceis is the consultant for most of the business side candidates. Tim Burgess, another big supporter of the tunnel, now works for Mayor Harrell. Oh, and Christine Gregoire has been hired by the biggest corporations in the region to do their work for them as well. So there's a pretty good payoff if you stick around and support the right side of this stuff. But anyway, Mayor Ceis, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis, when said, What happens if they're both voted down? He goes - Well, that would be chaos. You don't want that, do you? And I remember all of us just kind of looked at each other - and we all went out on the sidewalk, there were like six of us. And we went - We want that, right? And so we joined in and supported the No and No campaign. And The Stranger came in really hard. And I think Erica Barnett wrote the articles. And Cary Moon was in on it. And the defeat of that, for the first time, opened up the possibility - Well, let's think about something else. And so a stakeholder group was formed. Cary Moon was appointed. Mike O'Brien was appointed. The waterfront guys were appointed. And the Downtown folks were appointed. And the labor folks were appointed. And I think a really important part of the story here is that it was advisory - they weren't making the decisions, it was advisory. But they got to a point at which the head of the State DOT, the head of the Seattle DOT, and the head of the King County DOT all expressed to their respective executives that surface transit worked and was worth it. And this was extremely distressing to the business community. So they mounted a big lobbying push and went straight to Gregoire. And Gregoire, for the first time, became a tunnel supporter. And they were promised that this new tunneling technology - the deep bore tunnel - would solve the cost issues of the deep bore tunnel. And not only that, the state's commitment, which to date was $2.4 billion - they had committed $2.4 billion to a rebuild - the state wouldn't have to pay anymore, because the Port would put in $300 million and they would raise $400 million from tolling. And coincidentally, the amount they thought they could raise from tolling was the exact amount needed to meet the projected cost of using the deep bore tunnel boring machine. So the deal was cut and announced. And the whole stakeholder group and the recommendations from the DOT heads were abandoned. And that occurred, basically, late 2008, early 2009 - the deal was made. And that was about the time that I was contemplating - well, I think I'd already decided to run, but I had not yet announced. [00:26:14] Crystal Fincher: And this was an interesting time, especially during that vote. Because at that time, I had an eye into what the business community was doing and thinking, and it was clear that their numbers didn't add up. [00:26:26] Mike McGinn: Oh my God - no. [00:26:28] Crystal Fincher: But they just did not want to face that. And what they knew is they had enough money and resources to throw at this issue and to throw at a marketing effort to obfuscate that, that they wouldn't have to worry about it. And there was this sense of offense, of indignation that - Who are these people trying to come up and tell us that we don't need freight capacity, that we don't need - that this extra highway capacity, don't they understand how important these freeways are? Who are these people who just don't understand how our economy works? [00:27:02] Mike McGinn: They were the grownups who really understood how things worked. And we were the upstarts who didn't understand anything. But there's a great line from Willie Brown talking about - I think the Transbay Bridge, and Robert can correct the name, in California, which was way over budget. And people were lamenting that the early estimates had been made up. And he goes - Look, this is how it works. You just need to dig a hole in the ground so deep that the only way to fill it up is with money. I think that's pretty much the quote. So that's the strategy. You get it started. Of course you have rosy estimates. And then you just have that commitment, and it's the job of legislators to come up with the cost overruns, dollars later. [00:27:43] Robert Cruickshank: And I think it's so key to understand this moment here in the late 2000s, where the public had already weighed in. I remember voting - it was the last thing I voted on before I moved to California for four years. I'm like no - I was No and No. And that's where the Seattle voters were. They rejected both options. And then you start to hear, coming out of the stakeholder group - Okay, we can make the surface transit option work. And I left town thinking - Alright, that's what's going to happen, just like the Embarcadero in San Francisco and done. And the next thing I hear in late 2008, early 2009, there's this deal that's been cut and all of a sudden a deep bore tunnel is on the table. And this is Seattle politics in a nutshell. I think people look back and think that because we are this smart, progressive technocratic city - those people who live here are - we think that our government works the same way. And it doesn't. This is - time and time again, the public will make its expression felt. They'll weigh in with opinion poll or protest or vote. And the powers that be will say - Well, actually, we want to do this thing instead. We'll cook it up in a backroom. We're going to jam it on all of you, and you're going to like it. And if you don't like it, then we're going to start marshaling resources. We're gonna throw a bunch of money at it. We'll get The Seattle Times to weigh in and pound away at the enemy. And that's how politics works here - that's how so much of our transportation system is built and managed. And so people today, in 2023, looking at this monstrosity on the waterfront that we have now think - How did we get here? Who planned this? It was planned in a backroom without public involvement. And I think that's a thing that has to be understood because that, as we just heard, was baked in from the very start. [00:29:11] Mike McGinn: Well, Robert, the idea of a deep bore tunnel was brought forward by a representative of the Discovery Institute, who you may know as the folks that believe in creationism. [00:29:21] Robert Cruickshank: Well, and not only that, the Discovery Institute is responsible for turning Christopher Rufo from a failed Seattle City Council candidate in 2019 into a national figure. [00:29:31] Mike McGinn: The Discovery Institute, with money from local donors - major, very wealthy local folks - they actually had a long-term plan to turn all of 99 into a limited access freeway. It's like - we need to get rid of that First Avenue South and Highway 99 and Aurora Avenue stuff - all of that should be a freeway. So they were the architects of the idea of - Hey, this deep bore tunnel is the solution. But Robert's point is just right on - transportation policy was driven by power and money, not by transportation needs, or climate needs, or equity needs, or even local economy needs really. When you get right down to it, our city runs on transit - that's what really matters. Our city runs on the fact that it's a city where people can walk from place to place. The idea that our economic future was tied to a highway that would skip Downtown - the most valuable place in the Pacific Northwest, Downtown Seattle. No, that's not really what powers our economy. But it certainly worked for the people that were going to get the dollars that flowed from folks and for the people who own Downtown property. [00:30:42] Crystal Fincher: And I want to talk about money and power with this. Who were the people in power? What was the Council at that time? Who made these decisions? [00:30:50] Mike McGinn: The Council at the time was elected citywide. And I think some people have concerns about district representation, but one of the things that citywide elections meant at the time was that you had to run a citywide campaign, and that's expensive. There's no way to knock on enough doors citywide. I did not have a lot of money when I ran for mayor, but at least I had the media attention that would go to a mayoral candidate. A City Council candidate would kind of flow under the radar. So you had people come from different places, right? They might come from the business side, they might come from the labor side. But ultimately, they would tend to make peace with the other major players - because only business and only labor could finance a campaign. They were the only ones with the resources to do that. So the other interests - the environmentalists, the social service folks, neighborhood advocates of whatever stripe - we chose from amongst the candidates that were elevated by, they would unify - in some cases, the business and labor folks would unify around a candidate. In fact, that's what we saw in the last two mayoral elections as well, where they pick a candidate. And so this doesn't leave much room. So when I was mayor, almost the entire council was aligned with the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce at that time, either endorsed by them or had made their peace with them so the challenger was not being financed. So Robert said something about those outsiders - I went under the radar screen as a candidate at the beginning of my campaign. When I entered the race, nobody was running because everybody thought that Greg Nickels had the institutional support locked down. [00:32:33] Crystal Fincher: But then a snowstorm happened. [00:32:35] Mike McGinn: Well, it was even before that - honestly, everybody thought that he could win. And long before the snowstorm, I was like - We're getting a new mayor. And I was actually looking around to try to figure out who it was going to be - because I wanted a mayor who actually believed in climate, who had my values. But nobody - I was looking through who the people were that might run, and it dawned on me - Well, nobody's going to run. But we're going to get a new mayor and I have my values - and I've actually run ballot measure campaigns and had a very modest base of support. So I was really the first one in the race that got any attention. So I got some great media attention off that. Then my opponent in the general, Joe Mallahan - whatever else you may think about Joe Mallahan - he actually saw it too. He saw that there was an opening. And then we were joined by a long-time City Councilmember, Jan Drago. And I remember the headline from The Seattle Times or the comments at the time was - Okay, now it's a real race. But it just really wasn't. So I was really under the radar screen in that race because they were disregarding me. But there was in fact a lot of anger about the tunnel. There was a lot of just - Greg, for whatever his positives or negatives that history will deal with - and by the way, I actually think Greg did a lot of good. I just was disappointed in his highway policies and his climate policies at the end of the day - I have a lot of respect for Greg Nickels, but he wasn't going to win that race. And I came out of the primary against Joe Mallahan. And all of a sudden we had these two outsiders and the business community's freaking out. All of it - I remember watching it - all of the support, the business support shifted to Joe. It took about a month, it took a few weeks. But all of a sudden - there was actually one week where I think I raised more money than he did, that was pretty unusual - and then all of a sudden all the money was pouring in. And boy, did Joe believe in that tunnel. And did Joe believe in what the Chamber of Commerce wanted to do. In fact, he believed in it so much that he believed that Seattle should pay cost overruns if there were cost overruns on the tunnel - an admission I got from him during the televised debate, I was shocked he admitted to it. [00:34:41] Crystal Fincher: I remember that debate. [00:34:43] Mike McGinn: Yeah. So you were kind of asking about how politics worked. It was really something. Yeah - here's another memory. About two weeks before the election, the City Council took - three weeks before the, two, three weeks, four weeks - they took a vote to say that the tunnel was their choice. Even though there's a mayoral election in which the tunnel is on the ballot, so to speak - in terms of the issues of the candidates - they took a vote for no reason to say it was a done deal. And then WSDOT released a video of the elevated collapsing in a highway, which is the first time a public disclosure request from a third party was ever given straight to a TV station, I think, in my experience in Seattle. I had Gregoire and the DOT folks down there working on that campaign too - their tunnel was threatened. So it really was something how - I indeed was kind of shocked at - it was such a learning experience for me - how much the ranks closed around this. I didn't appreciate it. I had my own nonprofit, I had been on stakeholder committees, I'd worked with a lot of people that weren't just Sierra Club members and neighborhood types. I'd worked with a lot of business people, many of whom had supported my nonprofit because they liked its vision. But they were very clear with me that as long as I supported the surface transit option, there was no way they could be associated with my run for mayor in any way, shape, or form - even if they liked me. It was a complete lockdown - right after the primary where Greg lost the primary and it was me and Joe, I was - Okay, open field running. I can now reach out to these people. There's no incumbent - maybe some of them can support me now. And they were abundantly clear on all of those phone calls that - Nope, can't do it. Until you change your position on the tunnel, we just can't do it. We have business in this town, Mike. We have relationships in this town. We cannot do that. So it was a real lockdown - politically. [00:36:38] Crystal Fincher: That was also a big learning experience for me - watching that consolidation, watching how not only were they fighting for the tunnel against you and making the fight against you a fight about the tunnel, but the enforcement to those third parties that you were talking about that - Hey, if you play ball with him, you're cut off. And those kinds of threats and that kind of dealing - watching that happen was very formative for me. I'm like - Okay, I see how this works, and this is kind of insidious. And if you are branded as an outsider, if you don't play ball, if you don't kiss the ring of the adults in the room - which is definitely what they considered themselves - then you're on the outs and they're at war. And it was really a war footing against you and the campaign. Who was on the Council at that time? [00:37:30] Mike McGinn: Oh my God. Let me see if I can go through the list. No, and it really, it was - your point about it was a war footing was not something that I fully, that I did not appreciate until actually going through that experience - how unified that would be. Excuse me. The City Council chair was Tim Burgess at the time. Bruce Harrell was on the Council. Sally Clark, Richard Conlin, Nick Licata. Mike O'Brien was running on the same platform as me with regard to the tunnel and he'd just been elected. Jean Godden, Sally Bagshaw. I hope I'm not leaving anything out - because - [00:38:04] Robert Cruickshank: Tom Rasmussen will forgive you. [00:38:06] Mike McGinn: Tom Rasmussen. Yeah - because City Councilmembers would get really offended if you didn't thank them publicly - that was another thing I had to learn. You have to publicly thank any other politician on stage with you or they held a grudge. Yeah. So I had - I didn't know all the politicians' rules when I started. [00:38:25] Crystal Fincher: There are so many rules. [00:38:27] Mike McGinn: There are so many, there's so many rules. But really what you saw then was that the Council tended to move in lockstep on many issues - because if they all voted together and they all worked citywide, there was protection. None of them could be singled out. So it was very - and it's not to say that some of them didn't take principled votes and would find themselves on an 8-1 position sometimes, but for the most part, it was much, much safer to be - it was much, much safer to vote as a group. And they tended to do that. And they had coalesced around the tunnel, except for O'Brien. And that could not be shaken by anything we brought to bear. [00:39:04] Robert Cruickshank: And this is wrapped up in not just the electoral politics, but the power politics. Because Mike McGinn comes in - mayor leading the 7th floor of City Hall, the head of City government - and smart guy, nice guy, willing to talk to anybody. But is not from their crew, is not from that group. And as Crystal and Mike said, the ranks were closed from the start. This is - again, 2009, 2010 - when nationally Mitch McConnell is quoted as saying, It's his ambition to make Obama a one-term president. I don't know if he's ever caught on record, but I would be quite certain that Tim Burgess would have said the exact same thing - that his ambition was to make Mike McGinn a one-term mayor. As it turned out in 2013, Tim Burgess wanted his job - one of the candidates running for it. So these are all people who have a reason to close ranks against Mike McGinn and to use a tunnel as a bludgeon against him to do so. [00:39:58] Mike McGinn: There were other bludgeons. After I won the general election and before I took office, they passed their annual budget - they cut the mayor's office budget by a third before I even took office. Just boom - I know - they were determined, they were determined. And so that was when the planning - that council then and with WSDOT - that was when basically the contours of the waterfront were locked into place, including what we now see as that very wide surface road. That was that Council. So if you're wondering, if you're looking at that going - Okay, wow, who decided that and where did it come from? Again, our current mayor and his current advisor and others - they've always been for that. Building that big surface road has always been the plan to go along with the tunnel, because highway capacity was their highest priority. And the park on the waterfront, along with a lot of money into the aquarium and into these new structures - that's their signature thing for so many other people. But the idea that you should, that there was an opportunity to transform our transportation system and transform our city to make it more equitable and climate friendly was never a priority in this process. Just wasn't. [00:41:20] Crystal Fincher: It was never a priority. It was never seriously considered. And to me, through this process - lots of people know, have talked about it on the show before - I actually didn't start off Team McGinn. I wound up Team McGinn - didn't start off that way. But through that - and you won me over with logic - it was you being proven right on several things. You pointed out that their projections, their traffic projections were just so far out of left field that there was no way that they were going to come close. And they even had to come down on their projections before we even saw the traffic - the actual traffic turned out to be lower. You were right on that one - the laughable - [00:41:59] Mike McGinn: They're under 40,000 cars a day - for a highway that was carrying 110,000 cars a day beforehand. So even as a traffic solution - to put that into context, 40,000 cars a day is like the Ballard Bridge. And I can guarantee you the replacement costs of the Ballard Bridge is not $4 billion or $3.1 billion. The E Line, I think, carries 15,000 people a day. Metro carries 220,000 people a day. What you could do with that $3.1 billion or $4 billion in terms of bus lanes, bike lanes, rolling stock for Metro, maybe pay raises for bus drivers so that we could actually have service - you could do so much with those billions of dollars. And we put it all into moving 40,000 cars a day? It's just pathetic. That's three Rapid Ride lines we could have had for a 10th of the cost, or even less. I think the investments in Rapid Ride lines are about $50-100 million a line to make the capital investments to make it work. So the waste - even if you don't care about climate, the waste of dollars - and who's paying those taxes? To a great degree, we have the most regressive state and local tax system in the nation. And we'll have a ballot measure soon, and I know a lot of environmentalists will be out there if the package spends for the right thing saying - Hey, we need money for local streets. Imagine if we'd taken that gas tax money and the Legislature had allowed cities and towns to use it to improve their streets - which they can do. I know that the constitution says highway purposes, but when you read highway purposes, it says roads and bridges. It includes everything. You can use gas taxes for anything that improves the road. And they do. WSDOT has used gas taxes to pay for bike lanes and sidewalks. It's legal. That's a choice. So we're driving around potholed streets. We have - we're putting up little plastic dividers because we care more about the car getting hurt than the bicyclist on the other side of that plastic divider. We're watching our transit service melt away because we can't pay bus drivers enough. But hey, man, somebody's got a really rapid - 3,000 people a day get to skip Downtown in their private vehicles. Where are our priorities for equity? Where are the priorities for economy, or even just plain old-fashioned fiscal prudence? None of that was there - because all of those dollars were going to fund the needs of the most powerful people in the City. And they captured those dollars - and all of us will pay the taxes, all of us will breathe the smoky air, and all of us will watch our streets deteriorate and our transit service evaporate. [00:44:52] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And to me, it was such a foundational lesson that the people that we have making decisions really matter - and that we have to really explore their records, their donors, their histories - because over and over again, we look at the decisions that wind up being made that frequently conflict with campaign promises, but that very, very rarely conflict with their donor rolls. [00:45:16] Mike McGinn: And yes - and every one of them knows how to make the value statements. So if I had any advice for people in this year's election - everyone is going to say they care about housing, everyone's going to say they think biking safe. I don't - one of the things that I came away with - I don't care about the goals you put into some policy anymore. Show me the hard physical action you will take that might piss somebody off, but you're willing to do it because it's right. And if you can't do that, then your value statements are meaningless. So take a look - who actually, and that's the question I always ask candidates for office - Tell me about a time you did something hard that might've caused you criticism, but you did it because it was right. Or that you made somebody who was an ally or friend upset, but you did it because it was right. Tell me about that time. [00:46:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's a challenge. And to your point and learning through just watching how people operated through that and some other processes - but that certainly was a big learning for me - is the role of coalitions, the role of accountability, and understanding. You have always had your finger on the pulse of Seattle, really - you're extraordinarily good at that. You're actually - both of you - are great strategists. But our political class is so detached from that sometimes - certainly I'm feeling frustration at some recent actions by our Legislature - we just had our special session day where they increased criminalization of substances, personal possession of substances - just reflecting on legislation to provide school, kids with free meals at school, things that seem like really basic and foundational that we should be able to land this. If we can call a special session to hand Boeing billions of dollars, we should be able to feed kids, right? [00:47:00] Mike McGinn: At the time we were cutting school budgets - when we found money for that. But I don't want to be too gloomy. And then I want to turn it over to Robert to get a last word in here, 'cause I just loved - his analysis is so awesome. I don't want to be too gloomy because - I look at what happened in the Legislature this year on housing, that we're finally going to allow housing, people to build more housing in places so people can actually live closer to their jobs and live more affordably. 10 years ago, we would have thought that was impossible. There's a lot of hard organizing that did it. At America Walks, we're the host of the Freeway Fighters Networks - there are people in 40 cities or more around the country that are organizing to remove highways. And while it's just a small amount of money compared to the amount going to highway expansion, there's actually federal funds to study and remove highways. So it's a long, hard slog. What felt for us - for Robert and me and Cary Moon and others fighting this - which felt like an impossible fight at the time is a fight that is now winning in places. Not winning enough - we're not winning fast enough - but it can change. And so that's - I don't want to be too negative. They got money, but organizing and people - and we actually have the public with us on this, just like we have the public with us on housing. So we just have to do more. We just got to keep at it, folks - got to keep at it. We can win this one. Don't allow this story of how hard it was to deal with the unified political class in the City of Seattle for their climate arson - should not deter you. It should inspire you, 'cause I actually won the mayor's office and we actually did do a lot of good. And the next fight is right in front of us again today, so get in it people. We need you. [00:48:46] Robert Cruickshank: I think that's spot on. And I remember coming to work in your office at the very beginning of 2011, when it seemed like the tunnel was just dominating discussion, but not in the mayor's office, right? When I joined, I fully expected to be like - roll my sleeves up to take on that tunnel. Instead, I'm working on the mayor's jobs plan, the Families and Education Levy, on transit. That's the stuff that was really getting done, and I think McGinn left a really great legacy on that. But we didn't win the tunnel fight. And I think we've diagnosed many of the reasons why, but one thing that really stands out to me as I look back from 12, 13 years distance is we didn't have the same density of genuinely progressive and social democratic organizations and people and leaders in Seattle that we have now. I think that matters because Mike's been talking about what's the next fight. I think one of the big fights coming up next year - when it comes time to renew that Move Seattle Levy - that's nearly a billion dollars that's going to be on the table. And we keep getting promised - when we are asked to approve these massive levies - that a lot of that money is going to go to safe streets, it's going to go to protect vulnerable users, we're going to do something to finally get towards Vision Zero. And instead it all gets taken away to build more car infrastructure. At what point do we finally stand - literally in the road - and say, No more. Do we look at the broken promises on the waterfront where we were promised a beautiful pedestrian-friendly waterfront and got another car sewer? We're going to have to organize and come together. We have many more groups now and many more leaders who are willing to stand up and say - We're not passing this levy unless it actually focuses on safe streets, unless it focuses on pedestrians and cyclists and transit users, and gives iron-clad promises to make sure stuff gets built so that some future mayor can't just walk in and start canceling projects left and right that we were promised. That's the lesson I take from this is - we're better organized now, we have more resources now, but it's still going to be a slog, and we're going to have to stand our ground - otherwise we get rolled. [00:50:34] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I thank you both for this conversation today - reflections on the tunnel fight, how it came to be, what it was like in the middle of it, and the lessons that we take moving forward in these elections that we have coming up this year, next year, and beyond. Thanks so much for the conversation. [00:50:50] Mike McGinn: Thank you, Crystal. [00:50:51] Robert Cruickshank: Thank you - it's been wonderful. [00:50:52] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Seattle budget season may be over but it's never too early to start preparing and studying up for next year! On this topical show re-air, special guest host Shannon Cheng chats with Amy Sundberg and BJ Last from Solidarity Budget about the City of Seattle budget process. After covering budget basics and where we're at in Seattle's budget process, they cover the ongoing fight over the JumpStart Tax and what's being done (or not done) to address the upcoming $251 million budget deficit in 2025. Next, the trio breaks down the difference between “ghost cops” and the fully-funded SPD hiring plan, as well as why ShotSpotter still isn't a good idea. The show wraps up with a sampling of this year's other budget fights, how people can learn more or get involved, and Amy and BJ's dream budget items! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the guest host, Shannon Cheng, on Twitter at @drbestturtle, find Amy Sundberg at @amysundberg, and find Solidarity Budget at https://www.seattlesolidaritybudget.com/.   Amy Sundberg Amy Sundberg is the publisher of Notes from the Emerald City, a weekly newsletter on Seattle politics and policy with a particular focus on public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system. She also writes about public safety for The Urbanist. She organizes with Seattle Solidarity Budget and People Power Washington. In addition, she writes science fiction and fantasy, with a new novel, TO TRAVEL THE STARS, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in space, available now. She is particularly fond of Seattle's parks, where she can often be found walking her little dog.   BJ Last BJ Last is a business analyst, and former small business owner, with two decades of budgeting experience across a wide range of industries. He organizes with the Solidarity Budget and Ballard Mutual Aid.   Resources Seattle Solidarity Budget   Notes from the Emerald City   Tools to Understand the Budget | Seattle City Council   “Mosqueda, Council Colleagues Pass JumpStart's COVID Relief Package and Economic Recovery Spending Plan” by Joseph Peha from Seattle City Council Blog   “Seattle's Jumpstart payroll tax raised more than expected. Is the money going where it's most needed?” by Angela King & Katie Campbell from KUOW   Memorandum: General Fund Deficit Historical Analysis from Seattle City Council Central Staff   “Harrell's 2024 Budget Leaves Big Questions on Safety and Looming Shortfall” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Final Report of the Revenue Stabilization Workgroup   “Removing Vacant Police Positions in Seattle's Budget Is Good Fiscal Stewardship” by BJ Last for The Stranger   “Police Budget Fizz: Hiring Falls Short, Shotspotter Gains Support, Burgess Misrepresents Jane Jacobs” from PubliCola   “Nearly half of Seattle police calls don't need officers responding, new report says” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times   “Set Money Aside for Illegal Surveillance, or Fund Community Needs Now?” by BJ Last and Camille Baldwin-Bonney for The Stranger   “New UW study says human-services workers are underpaid by 37%” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   City of Seattle Budget Office   Stop ShotSpotter! Webinar - Seattle Solidarity Budget and ACLU of Washington | Nov 8, 2023   Guaranteed Basic Income Panel - Seattle Solidarity Budget | Oct 10, 2023   The People's Budget Seattle | Announcing Winning Projects   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. [00:00:52] Shannon Cheng: Hello, everyone! This is Shannon Cheng, producer of Hacks & Wonks. I'm here as your special guest host for today. Everyone's been super busy with elections, but another important thing currently happening right now in a lot of our local jurisdictions is that they're having budget deliberations for the coming year. Budgets are super important - we talk a lot about policy on this show, but what really matters in the end is how that policy is implemented and budgets manifest our intent. So Crystal let me take over the show for a day, and I wanted to have some folks on who are closely following the budget here in Seattle. They're two local community organizers with Solidarity Budget. And before we get to meeting them, I just wanted to point out that while we're gonna be focused pretty deeply on the City of Seattle's budget, a lot of what we talk about is applicable to other places. So if you're interested in getting involved in the budget where you live, we can learn something from these experts. So without further ado, I just want to welcome Amy Sundberg and BJ Last. Amy, starting with you, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got involved with Solidarity Budget? [00:02:00] Amy Sundberg: Yes, hello! It's good to be here. I'm Amy, and I am the publisher and writer of the newsletter Notes from the Emerald City, which is a weekly newsletter that covers issues involving public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system - in our local area - so Seattle and King County mostly, and occasionally the state of Washington. As well, I sometimes cover public safety issues for The Urbanist. And I organize with People Power Washington and Solidarity Budget. Originally, I got my start organizing with People Power Washington and we would uplift the demands of Solidarity Budget. And eventually I connected with the folks at Solidarity Budget and started working with them as well, so that's how I initially got involved. [00:02:45] Shannon Cheng: What about you, BJ? [00:02:46] BJ Last: Hi, thanks. Great to be here. BJ Last - don't do anything as cool as Amy on a regular basis. I've lots of years as a budget analyst, former small business owner, was a professional baker - did pop-ups, but then COVID, so that kind of went by the wayside. I actually first got involved with Solidarity Budget over SPD overtime. SPD has a massive history of overspending on overtime. In 2020, there was a resolution the City passed mid-year saying if SPD overspends on its overtime, we won't give them more money for it. Lo and behold, SPD did. At the end of the year, council was like - Okay, fine, we'll give you more money, but we swear we're gonna take it from you next year to do an offset. And wanted that fight to be like - No, we need to actually try to get that money from them next year to have any kind of budget accountability. And spoiler, that sadly never happened. [00:03:34] Shannon Cheng: I agree with you that Amy is cool and also that the SPD overtime issues are very frustrating. For folks who don't know, could you give a little background on what Solidarity Budget is, and how it came to be, and how you all work together? [00:03:48] BJ Last: Sure thing. So Solidarity Budget came up out of - actually Mayor Jenny Durkan. Groups caught that Mayor Durkan was promising a lot of different groups the exact same pot of money and then being like - Y'all fight amongst yourselves to do this. And groups came together and was like - We're tired of actually just always being pitted against each other and forced to fight each other for scraps in the City budget, while all the funding goes to things that no one was wanting, like while all of the funding goes into SPD. SPD alone is still a quarter of the budget, getting everything carceral - it's about a third of the general fund. So it was that desire of - No, we don't want to be pitted against each other. And just rejecting this framework of - we have to fight against each other for scraps. So coming together as groups to be like - what are our big priorities and saying - Look, we are advocating for all of these things. [00:04:38] Amy Sundberg: I would say in addition, we wanted to make sure that when we're talking about the budget every year, that those most marginalized are centered in that conversation. And often they aren't, right? So it's important to have a coalition who has that front of mind when advocating. [00:04:54] Shannon Cheng: That's super smart. Our experience has been - it can be hard to get heard by electeds, just - if you're not the people in power, sometimes it just feels when you send your email and make your phone call, your voice might not be heard. And so trying to come together and forming a coalition so that you can have a larger voice seems like it would make a lot of sense if you want to push the lever on budget-related issues. Okay, so let's jump into some background and some budget basics before getting deep down into the weeds. Did you want to give, Amy, a sense of what the scale of budgets are at different jurisdictions and then what we're talking about here in Seattle? [00:05:31] Amy Sundberg: Sure. So there are many different government budgets. The biggest one, of course, is the national budget for the United States, which is around $4.4 trillion. So obviously a huge pot of money. Most of that money comes from personal income tax that we all pay every year and also corporate income tax, et cetera, et cetera. Then we have the state budget, which is about $72 billion per year. And then we have the King County budget, which is $6.2 billion per year. So you see, we're kind of getting smaller and smaller as we get into smaller jurisdictions. And then we have the City budget. And city budgets tend to be around $5 to $6 billion per year in total. All of these budgets are made up from various types of taxes and fees, and they each are responsible for funding different services in our communities. [00:06:26] Shannon Cheng: Great. So for the City of Seattle - let's just focus in on that as our example for today's episode. So where does the money for the City of Seattle come from? [00:06:35] Amy Sundberg: If we're talking about - particularly general fund - most of that money would come from property tax, sales tax, and B&O tax, which is a business tax. I think that's about 60% of the funds. And then there are a lot of other very small buckets of money that come in as well to make up the entire amount. [00:06:56] BJ Last: That's a great overview, Amy. And one thing I do want to just mention - so the total Seattle budget is $7.8 billion, but the vast majority of that is stuff that is extremely restricted. For example, we have public utilities. So City Light - that's $1.5 billion - that is all funded by the rates people pay for their electricity. So while that's there in that total number that makes the City's budget look absolutely huge, it's not accessible - the council can't use that to fund things. So the general fund is a much smaller slice of that. It's just about $1.6 billion. And that's the money that the City pretty much has full discretion as to where it decides to go and spend that. [00:07:37] Shannon Cheng: So if I'm understanding it correctly, you're saying Seattle's budget is pretty big, but a large part of it is already appropriated to specific things. So when it comes to these priorities that when people - they're looking around at their city or their neighborhood, and they want things - it's gonna have to come out of this thing you call the general fund. Is that correct? [00:07:57] Amy Sundberg: Yes, that's correct. So most of what we're advocating for every year is general fund dollars. [00:08:04] Shannon Cheng: Okay, and so you are saying, BJ, that the general fund is about $1.6 billion. So what types of things are currently getting funded out of the general fund? [00:08:14] BJ Last: Yeah, that's correct. So it's $1.6 billion. It's - very broadly defined, Public Safety is 47% of it. And that is SPD, also includes the Office of the Inspector General, the CPC, the police pension - those are all four different departments that are in there, that are all cops. The Fire Department and CARE/CSCC, which is the 911 dispatch - which is currently CSCC, may be getting rebranded CARE soon. So that's 47%. The next biggest bucket is Administration and that's 22%. And Administration is kind of a massive catch-all that includes a lot of things - so major expenditures in there are for indigent defense and the City's contract with the King County Jail. So when SPD goes and arrests someone and puts them in there, the City is effectively leasing part of the jail from King County - and that's to pay part of it. And it also includes things like Judgment and Claims Funds, which is for when people are suing the City - that comes out of there, that's housed in that Admin section. And unsurprisingly, that one's also been increasing a lot lately due to lawsuits coming from 2020, which we know what those were. And then the other thing that is anything really is Education & Human Services, and that's about 15% of the general fund. So those three things of Public Safety, Administration, Education & Human Services account for 80% of the general fund. [00:09:39] Shannon Cheng: Wow, so what's left in that 20% that's remaining? [00:09:43] Amy Sundberg: Oh gosh, it's a lot of small things. Libraries, for example, will get funded out of that. A lot of our Transportation actually gets funded through specific levies, so it wouldn't come from general fund. And I think that's true of Parks & Rec as well. But there might be some little bits of money that go to Transportation and Parks & Rec - they have varied funding sources, basically. [00:10:05] Shannon Cheng: Okay, great. So that's the general fund, the discretionary portion of the City of Seattle's budget. So what's happening right now with the process? [00:10:14] Amy Sundberg: When we talk about budget season in Seattle, it's generally just a two-month period in the fall. But really, budget goes on for much of the year - because before the fall, the City departments are having to analyze their budgets and turn in reports to the mayor. And then the Mayor's Office is developing a proposed budget - that's the budget that gets announced at the end of September. At that point, the City Council is able to come in and make their changes that they might wanna see in that proposed budget. So that's where we are right now. First, they review the proposed budget to make sure they understand what's in there and what isn't in there. And then the Budget Chair, who this year is Councilmember Mosqueda, puts together a balancing package - that's a package where she thinks that there is consent amongst the councilmembers, that everyone agrees that these are changes that should be made for the most part. And then each councilmember is given the opportunity to suggest amendments to that balancing package. And they need to get two other councilmembers to sponsor that in order to get those amendments considered. So that's where we are right now - we've just heard the amendments that are being considered. And eventually what will happen is that those amendments will be voted on by the Budget Committee, which is all of the councilmembers to be clear. [00:11:35] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so Mayor Harrell sent over his proposal end of September and we're about a month into the Council's involvement. And this is the budget for next year? [00:11:45] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, for 2024. [00:11:46] BJ Last: So Seattle operates on a biennium budget basis. So last year they set the budget for 2023 and 2024. So this year they're currently doing adjustments to that 2024 budget. And then next year it'll be back to doing the full biennium, where we'll be looking at 2025 and 2026. [00:12:04] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so this is just finishing up last year's work through the end of the year, and just adjusting based on the realities of how much money is coming in and new needs for expenditures. [00:12:15] Amy Sundberg: Theoretically that is the case. Seattle is a little bit less strict about that than some other municipalities. I would say King County is more of a true biennial budget, whereas Seattle's kind of a biennial budget. And I think actually there's been some push to make it more like King County, to make it more of a true biennium. So we'll see what happens with that. [00:12:36] Shannon Cheng: Okay, interesting. Another thing I keep hearing about all the time is this fight over the JumpStart Tax. And I think it'd be good to just lay out very clearly - what is that fight all about? [00:12:47] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, so the JumpStart payroll tax passed in the summer of 2020. And then the council passed a spending plan for it in 2021 to put into statute what exactly the JumpStart Tax is supposed to go to pay for. And just so we're clear on what that spend plan is - 62% of JumpStart funds are supposed to go to affordable housing, 9% to Green New Deal, 9% to Equitable Development Initiative, and 15% to small business. What has happened though - basically, because this was going on in the middle of the pandemic - obviously there was a lot more needs, the City budget was a little messier than maybe normally. So they allowed some of these JumpStart Tax dollars to be spent as a kind of a slush fund for the general fund so that we wouldn't have to have an austerity budget. And the idea was that over time this would transition and eventually all of the JumpStart Tax funds would go to those percentages that I mentioned a moment ago. However, what has ended up happening is that every year - regardless of what mayor we have - every year the mayor will take some of the JumpStart dollars and move it over for general fund purposes, instead of those specific Green New Deal and affordable housing purposes. Every year Council kind of tries to claw back those JumpStart funds to put them into the main purposes they were meant for. Now we're still having some budget issues, so there has been - even for this year - some money that Council agreed could be used from JumpStart funds to fund general fund priorities, especially because JumpStart funds ended up being larger than originally anticipated. So the compromise that was struck was that those extra dollars that we weren't originally expecting can be used to kind of help prop up the general fund. But what ends up happening is sometimes more money beyond that gets pulled from JumpStart into the general fund. And of course, because affordable housing in particular is a large percentage of where that money is supposed to go and is such a priority in the city right now, given our housing crisis, this becomes a big fight every year. [00:15:05] Shannon Cheng: Okay, yeah - that's helpful. So I think I saw - in 2021, the JumpStart Tax generated $234 million. And so that was one of those years where the City and the Council felt that some of that needed to go towards other things than that spend plan that you referenced. And so about 37% of it ended up going to the general fund. And then that leaves a much smaller slice left for addressing those issues that you listed - housing, small business support, Green New Deal, equitable development - which, if people stop and think about - looking around, what are the biggest issues that the City's facing right now? I mean, that's what these are trying to address - the housing crisis, small businesses struggling after the pandemic, needing to do something about climate change in a meaningful way, and then also trying to spread our resources in a more equitable way across residents of the city. And so - to me then - thinking about JumpStart Tax, it's sort of a mini version of a whole budget. Because we had purported values that we stated out when we passed this legislation - saying this is what we want to spend this money on. And then, as with many things, it's the reality of the implementation that lets us see where our priorities truly are. And it sounds like - in 2020, we said very strongly - We need to meaningfully address these issues that we've been in a state of crisis for for a long time, and they've just been getting worse. And people are pointing that out - you see that. What I find really interesting is that the original people who've opposed the JumpStart Tax - so that would be the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Seattle Association - are these the same people who are now pushing to take the money away from JumpStart's original purposes and redirect it towards other things? [00:16:53] BJ Last: Honestly, yes. They're a lot of the people pushing that they want to - I'll use the phrase - "liberate" JumpStart funds so that it can be used as effectively just more general fund backfill. They also haven't entirely given up on fighting JumpStart. As part of the Revenue Stabilization Task Force that was meeting this year, the representatives from the Metro Chamber of Commerce, she made comments of - Hey, we think we should actually pause JumpStart for a year or two - supposedly to help businesses on recovery. So they are still fighting on JumpStart a little. The opponents of JumpStart have much more moved to - they just want it to be more general fund. [00:17:32] Amy Sundberg: And I do think it's important to state also that when we talk about wanting to allow businesses to recover, JumpStart Tax only applies to very large businesses with very high payroll and very highly paid employees. It's not hitting small businesses - that's not how it was set up. [00:17:51] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, previous to JumpStart Tax, there was an attempt to pass the Amazon head tax and that did pass, but then eventually got repealed because of a lot of protest. And I believe the JumpStart Tax came out of a coalition that got built after that failed attempt, which included small business groups - because 15% of the JumpStart revenue is supposed to go towards small business support. Which everybody likes to say - small business is super important to the health and vibrancy of the Seattle economy. But are we willing to put our money where our mouth is on that? I just find it pretty insidious the way that they're approaching this because they oppose the tax to begin with, they're still opposing it now, they wanna pause it. But when they ask for the money to go back to the general fund, it seems like it's going back to a lot of their own interests, such as downtown activation. So not only are they taking the money back for themselves, they're also weakening the implementation of what this tax was originally said to do. People probably heard about this tax when they announced it - there was all sorts of glowing praise of this is gonna address meaningfully these problems that everybody cares about. And yet now, by weakening it and taking money away, we can't spend as much of that money on it. And so obviously, when you look at the results of what the JumpStart Tax has done, it will look like it's less. And so I just really wanna call that out. I also wanna call out that the council that passed the JumpStart Tax in July of 2020 is pretty much the same council we currently have other than Councilmember Nelson who replaced Councilmember González in 2021. And JumpStart Tax passed 7-2. The only two councilmembers who did not vote for it were Councilmembers Juarez and Pedersen. How have they been reacting to all this JumpStart scuffling? [00:19:33] Amy Sundberg: They definitely have been less supportive of increasing the JumpStart Tax in any way - that has been noticeable. [00:19:40] BJ Last: Yeah, they have also been very much on the wanting to just throw the spending plan out the window. Actually, it was Councilmember Pedersen who's the first one that I heard use the expression of "liberate" JumpStart funds - create additional flexibility and disregard that. There are also subtler attempts to pretend that the JumpStart spend plan is very unclear, and so potentially needs to be revisited due to that - even though it's actually an extremely clear spend plan. People just keep trying to violate it - it's not that the plan isn't clear, people just keep asking for stuff that goes outside of that spend plan. [00:20:13] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so then the councilmembers who did vote for it - so those would be Councilmembers Herbold, Morales, Sawant, Strauss, Lewis, and then obviously Councilmember Mosqueda, who spearheaded the effort. Are they staying strong behind the values that they voted for on the JumpStart Tax, or has that kind of squished up since then? [00:20:31] Amy Sundberg: I would say - I mean, you know - it's hard to say what is in their hearts, but I would say it's a mix. I think some of them have stayed pretty strong, and I think others of them have, you know, less so. [00:20:45] Shannon Cheng: Okay, fair enough. I guess I'm just concerned 'cause it sounds like this JumpStart Tax issue will continue to carry on, and it is possible that we will lose its biggest champion on the city council next year. So I just want everybody listening to understand what this fight is about and why it's so important. To me, it kind of comes down to differences in opinion over what is gonna float all the boats in this city, right? I mean, business wants us to believe that if we just pour all the money into business and their interests, that that will just generally help everybody. Whereas what JumpStart was trying to do, I believe, is trying to build from the ground up by providing people housing, trying to spread the resources in a more equitable fashion, tackling climate change, providing good jobs that come out of tackling climate change. And so I just really think this is a fight over shifting decision-making about how we spend our resources from being concentrated with a few powerful interests, and letting more people have a say and access to success and opportunities to do well in this city. [00:21:48] Amy Sundberg: I would say Councilmember Mosqueda in particular has been a stalwart advocate of JumpStart. And as the Budget Chair, she has been in good position every year to counter the attempts to try to use JumpStart as more and more of a City slush fund. So if we lose her on Council at the end of this year, that certainly will make it more concerning going forward in terms of what will happen with JumpStart. I'll also say there is this spend plan. It is in statute currently. That statute could be changed, so it's not like it's protected forever. [00:22:21] Shannon Cheng: All right, so everyone - it's Election Day. Get out and vote - try to think about who's gonna be our next champion for the JumpStart Tax. So moving on, we also keep hearing all this news about an upcoming budget shortfall in 2025. What's happening with that? [00:22:39] Amy Sundberg: So the City of Seattle is facing a massive budget deficit starting in 2025. It is now estimated to be around $251 million deficit, which has gone up based on the mayor's proposed budget. So basically, the mayor's proposed budget this year has made the problem worse - potentially - in upcoming years. $251 million is a lot of money. And so the question is, what are we going to do to address that? There are two main ways to do that. You can make cuts to the budget - spend less money. Or you can pass new progressive revenue that will help fund the budget. We are not allowed by law to have a not balanced budget, so that is not an option - it's not on the table. Or of course you can do a combination of cuts and new progressive revenue. So those are kind of the two levers that councilmembers have to play with. And what is relevant in this budget season right now is speaking about new progressive revenue, because if we want to pass new progressive revenue for the City of Seattle, we would need to plan ahead a little bit. Because it will take some time to implement any new progressive revenue that we might pass - there's a ramp up to getting it done. So if we wanted to have that revenue to rely on for 2025, we would really ideally want to pass things now before the end of the year. [00:24:03] BJ Last: What I'd add on to what Amy mentioned is how we actually ended up getting to this upcoming deficit. Over the last two decades roughly, Seattle's population has grown at a really robust clip. We have all seen that. We have not seen the same growth in the general fund revenues that come in. Property tax increases are limited to - I believe it's at most 1% a year for the city - because sales tax also does not increase. So while we are seeing this really big increase in population, we have not seen the same with our general fund. It has really not moved that much. So it isn't the narrative of - Oh, the city has added a bunch of new pet projects or whatever, and that's where it's come from. It's come from largely - the city has gotten bigger and the general fund growth has not kept up with that. 85% of that upcoming deficit projected is all due to just open labor contracts. The Coalition of City Unions - their contracts are open. SPOG - their contract is also open. Paying Coalition of City Unions, paying the City workers - the people that like literally keep the lights on, fix the roads - of actually going and paying them is where this is coming from. [00:25:06] Amy Sundberg: And especially because inflation rates have been so high the last couple of years, right? So that's - they need a much larger raise than they would need if inflation was not high. [00:25:15] BJ Last: Also on the inflation part - thank you, that's a great call out, Amy - growth of the general fund has not kept up with inflation, especially just these last two years. I think there've even been other years where it hasn't happened, but these last two years in particular, we have not seen the general fund grow at the same rate. So things have gotten more expensive for the city that the general fund has to get spent on, but the dollars coming in the door haven't kept up with that. [00:25:35] Shannon Cheng: Is anything being done about that? Did the mayor propose anything about progressive revenue, or thinking about this upcoming problem? [00:25:42] Amy Sundberg: The mayor did not propose anything having to do with new progressive revenue in fact, which is a decision that he has been critiqued for in the local media. And there certainly has been a fair amount of rhetoric about just tightening our belts, right? But to be clear, $251 million - that's a lot of cuts that would drive us straight into an austerity budget, one would think. So that is where the mayor's office has landed, but there have been a lot of conversations about potential new progressive revenue that started with the task force that BJ mentioned earlier, which was brought together to look at various possibilities of what could be good new revenue sources. And certainly there were people that sat on that task force that had a priority of finding good new progressive sources of revenue in particular, as opposed to regressive taxes that will hurt people who have less more. And they did find some reasonable options that would not require a change in state law, and so could potentially be implemented in time to address the 2025 budget shortfall. So I would say that there are three main possibilities at play right now that are being discussed. One of those is a capital gains tax, so we had a capital gains tax at the state level pass - so far it has survived any legal challenges that it has faced. So it would be possible for the City to institute a tax above that. It would be a fairly small amount, probably 1-2% capital gains tax. Councilmember Pedersen originally was the councilmember who suggested this, and he also suggested that we remove a certain water fee. So it'll be interesting to hear a more robust analysis of that water fee to find out - is that truly a regressive tax? Or with various rebates, et cetera, that are available for people - is it not that regressive a tax? Because if we were to take away that water fee, it would be revenue neutral, so it wouldn't actually assist us with the upcoming deficit. Not to say it's still not worthwhile to talk about, even if that's true, because we want to get rid of more regressive taxes and institute more progressive taxes. So either way, that's a good conversation to have - but it's unclear to me more of the details of that water tax, how regressive it is. So that is an important thing to discover. The other two options have to do with the JumpStart Tax that we were talking about. One of them would be just to increase that JumpStart Tax across - it has a tiered structure right now, so across the tiers to just increase it. Councilmember Sawant has already proposed very, very modest increases in that JumpStart Tax in two of her amendments for the 2024 budget to fund specific priorities. So increasing the JumpStart Tax just full stop is one option. Another really intriguing option that has been discussed is something called a CEO pay ratio tax. This would require corporations that pay their top executives exorbitant amounts to pay an extra tax, or fee, or surcharge. So basically what we could do is use the JumpStart Tax as a vehicle by adding an extra layer to it. So there would be an extra tax that would only apply to corporations that exceed a certain CEO pay ratio. And what I have heard about this tax - again, so it would be fairly easy to implement because you don't have to change state law, you would just add an additional layer to an already existent tax. And what I've heard is that it would collect a significant amount of funds, but I don't have any actual numbers on that. So it will be really interesting to hear an analysis of how much money that could potentially actually bring in. And what Councilmember Mosqueda has announced is that there will be an extra Budget Committee meeting after the main 2024 budget is passed to discuss some of these possibilities at more depth. So they will be discussed earlier in November, kind of as a briefing, and then the councilmembers will meet after the budget is passed to potentially vote on some of these possibilities, if they're not already passed in the 2024 budget. [00:30:09] BJ Last: One thing I wanted to mention - so the Revenue Stabilization Group looked at about 20 different taxes. They did a great write-up that finally made it out in August after having been delayed a few times. The three taxes Amy mentioned - one of the reasons that they're at the top three is how quickly they can get implemented. So, you know, we're currently sitting and recording this - it's November, the budget deficit starts on January 1st, 2025. There is very limited time to go and get an ordinance passed and actually then to have that go into effect - since a new tax doesn't go into effect the day that it is passed - and to make sure that it would survive any legal challenges. So there is even like a broader list of things, but because we have kept putting this conversation off, because the city has sort of kept pushing the can down the road, we don't have very much time to go and pass this. We have about 13, 14 months to get something passed and to start having dollars coming in the door before that deficit hits. [00:31:04] Shannon Cheng: All right, so time is of the essence here. And it sounds like although Mayor Harrell didn't put anything in his proposals to address this, at least Council seems like they're gonna be on it in some fashion. So we'll see what comes of that. Okay, so that's the revenue side of the budget. And I think that's helpful for people to understand, 'cause I think it's much easier to talk about what you want to spend money on rather than where that money is gonna come from. I mean, I know I'm like that in my own life. So maybe we need to talk about what are we gonna spend all this money that we're bringing in on. And earlier in the show, talked about a rough breakdown of the general fund - it sounds like a huge portion of that goes towards public safety, which includes the Fire Department and the Police Department. So is the reason why sometimes it feels like there's so much focus on the police budget because they're kind of the biggest chunk of the budget, so that if you were trying to look for places where we could make some savings, it would be there? [00:32:05] BJ Last: I'd say absolutely. Not only are they the biggest chunk - no other department eats up as big a portion of the general fund as SPD does. So not only that, but they also get absurdly special treatment that no other department gets, where a lot of basic budget practices even just get entirely thrown out the window because it's for SPD. Ghost cops are a great example of this. Ghost cops are positions SPD gets funded for, even though they have no plan, intention, or ability to fill these roles. So these are not people that SPD even thinks they can plan - they have said they aren't going in the plan, there's no desire to, but they still get funding for them year after year. There are like 213 of these now currently sitting around and it works out to be - about $31 million of SPD's budget right now is slush fund on this. And we talked about the upcoming deficit in 2025. So a $250 million roughly - $30 million on these guys - you can see that this is a large percentage of the deficit sitting right there in these ghost positions that councilmembers just don't want to touch. And to give a sort of example of how no one else gets treated this way - where they get to just sort of hold on to this positional authority when they have no ability to fill it. Last year, the city abrogated 24 911-dispatcher positions, which - abrogation means they remove positional authority to it. No one probably heard about this 'cause there wasn't a big kerfuffle because it's normal. Council and the mayor and everyone's like - Well, you guys have said you can't hire these guys for the next two years for the duration of the biennium, so we're just gonna remove positional authority to it. If staffing plans change, we can re-add it. We can also add this back into the 2025 biennium if staffing levels have picked up. And in fact, they actually already are adding back about three of them in the supplemental of - in 2024 now in the budget process because their hiring has picked up. So just using 911 dispatch as an example - the ghost cops, the excess positional authority - no other department gets that. Every other department it is what your staffing plan is - the number of people you actually expect to hire - that is the number of positions you get, and that's the number of positions you get funded for. SPD gets this massive slush fund that they get to go and use on whatever the heck they want. And there was also even a technology one that we saw in the 2022 budget. Truleo - it's a technology - it swears it's like AI, natural language processing of body camera footage. SPD specifically asked for additional money for this program as part of the 2022 budget. Council explicitly did not give them funding for this. They said - We are not funding this program. Then the City found out at the start of this year that SPD actually went ahead and bought Truleo anyway. So they ended up canceling the contract, but it ended up as a thing of - usually if a department goes to a company and says, We need additional money for this project - if they don't get that money and then they find a way to fund that project anyway, it raises a lot of questions. Like, why did you say you needed additional money for this if you could already cover it with your additional budget? And hey, all those other items that you said you needed additional money for, that we gave you additional money for - how many of them did you really need additional money for versus you were just attempting to pad out your budget? So that's one of the reasons why it gets a lot of attention. Not only is it just the biggest percentage of the general fund by a lot, but the absurd special treatment that they get. [00:35:29] Shannon Cheng: So SPD is 26% of the general fund? [00:35:33] BJ Last: SPD itself is 24-26%. That does not include the police pension department - that is a separate pension in there. It does not include the Office of Inspector General and the CPC, the Community Police Commission, even though they are also both part of that. So when you start adding all of those, it goes up even over a quarter. And then when you add in the city attorney's office, municipal courts, indigent defense, jail services - what we're spending on carceral - it's a third of the general fund all ends up sitting there. [00:36:05] Shannon Cheng: Wow, okay. Yeah, I see here - just the Seattle Police Department alone, not all those other things you added on - they're sitting at just under $400 million. So what I'm understanding is these ghost cops are haunting, I guess, the Seattle Police Department budget. [00:36:23] BJ Last: These ghost cop positions - they do haunt the general budget. Amy talked about how we're defunding JumpStart. So it's about $85 million last year, $85 million this year, $85 million next year - that's getting transferred from JumpStart to the general fund. So again, transferred from Green New Deal, affordable housing to the general fund. Because SPD gets a quarter of the general fund, that means that $21 million a year roughly is literally going from affordable housing to SPD and its ghost cops. [00:36:54] Shannon Cheng: Oh man. Okay. So, and then they're taking it, and as you said, spending it on things that they were explicitly told not to spend it on or who knows what else, right? We try to dig in and get more transparency into what's going on, but that can be difficult. And just what BJ was saying about budgeting practices and that SPD is not subject to those at times - so I looked at the King County biennial budget for the same time period from 2023 to 2024. And they have line items across all of their appropriation units, including the Sheriff's Office and the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, that's called a vacancy rate adjustment. And this is exactly what BJ is describing - it's capturing salary savings from them not having been able to hire and being able to put that back into the general budget so that they can use it for other things that there's a need for. And then in addition to that, last biennium for King County, they had an additional line item specifically only for the Sheriff's Office and the Department of Adult Juvenile Detention called Capture Additional Vacancy Savings. And here, I'll just read the line item - it says it's to increase expected savings due to vacancies to account for current unprecedented vacancy level. And, you know, it allows the Sheriff's Office and DAJD to request additional appropriation to reverse it if the vacancy rate reverses and that we're able to magically start hiring a ton of people. I mean, we see that there's kind of a nationwide hiring shortage across every kind of profession, but in police and corrections officers as well. So this is not abnormal, and there was not a giant fight in the King County budget when this happened. Just to give you a sense of the magnitude - just from the original base vacancy rate adjustment, it was $5.3 million from the Sheriff's Office. And that additional vacancy savings was $5.7 million. So this is meaningful money that can be used in other places and not just locked up in the - Oh, well, maybe law enforcement will get to use it. Or maybe when they get close to the end of the spending period, they'll just spend it on something that we didn't all agree that we wanted. [00:39:03] Amy Sundberg: I will say as well that SPD has a very optimistic hiring plan and they never hit it - at least for the last several years that I've been following it, they don't hit it. And this year they actually - the department shrank again. They have a negative total when you add in hires minus attrition. So it's still shrinking in spite of these hiring bonuses that we have no evidence actually works. But these ghost cop positions aren't even part of that. They're ones that even SPD says - We definitely aren't gonna hire that this year. It's not taking away from the hiring plan that SPD wants and thinks they can hire. It's additional positions beyond that. And to be clear, it's a couple hundred additional positions. It's not like four or five. [00:39:50] Shannon Cheng: Okay, thanks. 'Cause I feel like people conflate that a lot - this talk of supporting SPD and public safety and fully funding their hiring plan, which it sounds like that's what has been happening, but then you have this conversation about abrogating these positions or ghost cops. And so you're saying that those are two separate things? [00:40:10] BJ Last: Absolutely. SPD - they always put out incredibly optimistic hiring plans, even by their own terms. So their hiring plan for next year is still that they will end up with - I think it's a record number of hires, like more than they've ever had - hiring 125 cops, I think it is. And with the number of cops leaving slowing down. And they're like - Cool, our full hiring plan for next year is roughly 1,130 cops. And they're currently getting funded for like 1,344 cops, something like that - it's a difference of 213 positions between what they've said they can hire and what they actually plan on trying to hire - between that and what they're actually funded for. [00:40:47] Shannon Cheng: What are the issues in the hiring pipeline? Why is there a limit to the number of officers that they would actually be able to hire? [00:40:54] Amy Sundberg: I mean, there's a lot of factors. Primarily, there aren't enough applicants to begin with - not enough people want to become police officers at SPD. That's an issue. But as well, I just also - the hiring process takes time because they have to go through a series of testing and vetting. And then if they aren't lateral hires - if they're new recruits, then they have to go through the academy. And even once they're done with academy, they go through more training on the job, so they're not really full officers at that point yet. So it just - there's a long ramp to hiring new officers. Lateral officers - SPD has a great interest in hiring them because they've already been a police officer somewhere else. So they can kind of get plugged in more easily, directly into SPD. But they've been having a really difficult time finding lateral hires. So far in 2023 - I forget - it was four, five, or six total lateral hires for the entire year. And they had expected to be able to hire many more. And when asked about it, Chief Diaz said that the candidates simply weren't good enough for them to hire more than that. But somehow magically, they expect the candidates to get better next year if you look at who they expect to hire next year, which I think is interesting. [00:42:09] BJ Last: And I'd also say, Amy, none of that is unique to Seattle at all. It was already touched on - this is not just Seattle Police Department is having trouble hiring, this is police departments everywhere. Fewer people want to become cops. And just like Seattle, it really, really wants lateral hires because it's much shorter. I think the timeline from a new recruit is like 18 months before they are counted as a employable officer, or whatever their term is. The lateral is much shorter. So not only does Seattle want them, every other department wants them. Thing is just - people do not want to be cops as much. We know one of the things that isn't a barrier to hiring at all is pay. The average SPD officer made over $155,000 in 2022, based on the City's wage data. So they are making - the city pays an absolute ton for SPD on the individual officer level. There're the hiring bonuses that have been around that don't do anything. So it's - for these lateral hires, it's $30K that they're getting offered, it's $7,500 for a new recruit. So the city has already tried throwing just buckets and buckets of money to see if that would somehow turn into more people wanting to be cops in Seattle. And it has absolutely positively not worked. And that really needs to be acknowledged - not throwing money at this one - that's not going to change things here. It's not unique to Seattle, it's across everything. And it's also one of the reasons why other cities have moved to actually non-police responses to things. Because we look back - tons and tons of studies - SPD did its own study in 2019 that showed, I think it was 56% of all 911 calls are non-criminal. There was the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform Study that came out in 2021 - showed 80% of all the calls SPD is currently doing don't match anything in the criminal code, and 49% of those calls could immediately go to the community. So one of the reasons other cities are going into non-police responses is because it's what cops actually do - is they respond to non-criminal stuff, that's where they spend all their time. So why on earth are we throwing all of this money at people to show up, and escalate non-criminal situations, and traumatize people? And Seattle has really dragged its heels on that. After having talked about non-police response for years, multiple studies coming out about how little of SPD's calls are actually anything that counts as criminal, how much could go to community - just this last month, they finally launched a dual dispatch, which is SPD responding to stuff. So years later, the city has just refused to move on this item. [00:44:43] Amy Sundberg: I will also add, since we're in the middle of election season - I keep hearing from candidates that what they want to do to fix public safety in Seattle is hire 500 new cops. And I'll just say, your opinion doesn't matter - regardless of your opinion of whether we should hire more cops, whether you want less cops - we are not gonna hire 500 new cops in Seattle anytime soon. It is literally impossible. It is just not gonna happen. So when I hear candidates say that - I mean, it's pie-in-the-sky thinking, it's not a real solution because there are not 500 new cops for us to hire. And also there's, as BJ said, there's the 18 month ramp up to even get someone trained up to become a police officer. So this is just not reality. [00:45:32] Shannon Cheng: Okay, well, speaking of a mismatch between reality and intended outcomes, I keep hearing about this technology called ShotSpotter. I feel like we had a giant debate over it last year, it sounds like it's reared its ugly head again this year. Can you break down what this fight over ShotSpotter is and why it's important? [00:45:54] BJ Last: Sure, so ShotSpotter at a basic level - well, first off, so the company is now called SoundThinking. They did a rebrand because - yeah, the reputation that ShotSpotter has. It's an acoustic gunshot detection service is what it describes itself as - and it is people sitting in a room hundreds of miles away, listening to recordings of loud noises. And then saying whether or not they think that loud noise was a gunshot. That is what ShotSpotter boils down to. Like they swear there's a super fancy AI algorithm, but whatever that AI decides to flag - it goes to people sitting in a room hundreds of miles away, listening to a noise, and saying whether or not they think it was a gunshot. And they have a large financial interest in actually saying everything was a gunshot. Because of how the contracts are written - that there's no guarantees that they won't send a lot of false alerts. The only guarantee that is in there is anything where the police actually find that there was evidence of a gunshot - for 90% of those, ShotSpotter will have given an alert. So it's pretty much if they say that something wasn't a gunshot, and it turns out it was, that then could potentially hurt their contract. If they call every single loud noise a gunshot, that has zero impact on them at all. So people listening to loud noises with an incentive to go and say everything's a gunshot. And you are right - we had this fight just last year, when the city went and asked for it. And what this ask was - was they asked for additional funding, specifically for ShotSpotter, which council declined to give them. They're asking for it again. Of that additional money specifically for ShotSpotter - this additional money piece actually though, has no impact on whether or not the city actually purchases ShotSpotter. In order to purchase a subscription to ShotSpotter - because it's a subscriptions purchase, so it becomes an annual expense every single year - SPD has to go through a Surveillance Impact Report, which is they have to meet with the community, put together what would be a lot of - what would be the impacts of this technology, what does it do, get community feedback, and then council also has to go and approve that. SPD has been able to do this any single day that it's wanted to. It could have started this process. When they first asked for it last year, they could have started this process then. In any of the time between last year's budget and now, they could have started this process. So they have not done that. So they're asking for money - again, for something that they've taken no steps to actually get anywhere close to being able to legally purchase. [00:48:17] Amy Sundberg: I think too - I have a lot to say about ShotSpotter - I've spent way too much of the last several weeks of my life thinking about ShotSpotter. And to be honest, I just - I find it personally painful that we're having this discussion again this year. Because not only is ShotSpotter ineffective, so it's a waste of money - which is bad enough. I mean, we obviously do not have money to waste. But it is actively harmful, to be clear. There are many, many studies that show this. It increases the number of pat-downs, searches, and enforcement actions. It justifies the over-policing of Black, Indigenous, and people of color neighborhoods that they are primarily living in. It leads to unnecessary contact between the police and vulnerable populations. And it also leads to false arrests. There have even been some cases where they've shown that possibly some of the "evidence" - I put that in air quotes - "evidence" has been tampered with in various ways. I mean, this is actively harmful. It is not just a waste of money. And then also, this year is being sold as part of a crime prevention pilot. And let me be clear - gun violence is a huge problem. It's a huge problem in Seattle. It's a huge problem in King County. Frankly, it's a huge problem across the entire country. And I don't want to minimize the impacts of that in any way, but there is no evidence that shows that ShotSpotter decreases gun violence. So people who are desperate, who want a solution to that problem, are being sold ShotSpotter as the solution, but it's not true. And that's what I find so painful, right? Is that there's people who desperately need a solution to this problem, and instead of actually giving them one that might have a chance of working, they're given ShotSpotter as a false hope instead - which I find repugnant, frankly. [00:50:13] BJ Last: Oh yeah - it's incredibly predatory what they do, Amy. They prey on communities that are struggling with issues of gun violence - which is a massive issue, as you said, that really has huge impacts - and they sell them something that just makes things worse. You mentioned on some of the - what happens with some of these alerts - Adam Toledo was one of the most famous examples of this. So Adam Toledo was a 13-year-old that the Chicago police killed because they were responding to a ShotSpotter alert. And they chased after a 13-year-old, and ended up shooting him in an alley when his hands were empty - when there was nothing in his hands. So this is the real harm that does come from this. And again, it is preying off of communities that have been disinvested in and that are dealing with real problems of gun violence and being like - Oh, hey, here's something we swear will make it better. And that goes and makes it worse. [00:51:01] Amy Sundberg: I will also say - we had this fight last year, we're having it again. There've been a few new wrinkles that have been introduced this year that I think are important to address. One of them is that this year, they have proposed that along with the ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot technology, that they include CCTV cameras. And what Senior Deputy Mayor Burgess said during one of these budget meetings was that the combination of these two technologies leads to higher accuracy and also better admissibility in court. However, these claims have not been backed up. We did find a study that shows that, in fact, the combination of these two technologies does not improve accuracy. And Councilmember Herbold asked Tim Burgess for his evidence - What makes you think this? A month after she asked, she says she finally received his answer - which was six reports on CCTV alone with no ShotSpotter technology included so does not, in fact, give any evidence that it makes ShotSpotter better. And one kind of manual suggesting that maybe you could combine these two technologies with no study attached. So the only study we have found says, in fact, it does not improve the accuracy. So I think that's really important to note. There seems to be a certain lack of regard from certain quarters for actually looking at the evidence - that I find sad, frankly. And another wrinkle that I'll mention is that BJ talked about the Surveillance Ordinance - the report that they would have to do in order to implement ShotSpotter. In the original proposal from the mayor's office, they asked to do one report - so each report, you have to do a racial equity analysis as part of that report - and they asked to only do one report. But this is mobile technology, so you can pick up the camera and the ShotSpotter tech and you can move it to a different neighborhood. So they would only be doing their racial equity analysis in the original neighborhoods that it was going to be placed, and then they could pick it up and move it to any other neighborhood without having to do another racial equity analysis, which I think is deeply problematic because different neighborhoods are different. And a lot of the neighborhoods that they were talking about originally using this technology on are primarily white. And my concern would be - what if they picked it up and moved it to a community that wasn't primarily white, but didn't have to do a racial impact report on that. That is deeply troubling. And I will say Councilmember Mosqueda, in her balancing package, addressed this problem and said - No, you should do a racial equity impact for each time you move it. So hopefully we won't buy ShotSpotter at all, but hopefully that change will stay if we do - because I think you can't do one impact report for a neighborhood, and then move it somewhere completely different and expect that report to have any validity. [00:54:09] Shannon Cheng: So ShotSpotter doesn't address the problem it's claiming to try to solve. In fact, it sounds like it might be making things worse. And so they're asking this year for about $1.8 million, but what do we know from other cities - once you buy a pilot, this $1.8 million this year, what happens after that? [00:54:28] BJ Last: It's a subscription service. So even if you wanted to maintain the same amount or the same coverage area, you are spending that every single year. So this is, would be an ongoing expense. And that's also assuming the ShotSpotter doesn't change its rates. And then if you decided to expand the footprint of where it is, that's gonna add what you're spending every single year. So it is very much just an ongoing expense into a budget that as we said - hey, is already facing a substantial general fund deficit for something that does not address a serious problem. [00:55:00] Amy Sundberg: And the company SoundThinking - I mean, their business model is to persuade cities to expand. So it would not be surprising to me if we were to start this pilot - if in a few years we were spending more like $10 million on ShotSpotter, that would not shock me. [00:55:16] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so it's - this year, we're trying to decide whether to dip a toe into this ShotSpotter technology, but it could lead to larger expenditures in future years if this initial pilot gets funded further. [00:55:34] BJ Last: Absolutely. And also the ShotSpotter company SoundThinking - they do a lot of other surveillance items. They recently bought PredPol, which is nominally predictive policing, that has all the absolute racial bias issues that you probably imagine the moment that a company said that they can sell you predictive policing. So odds are it would not even be staying at just ShotSpotter - of microphones listening for loud noises - that SoundThinking would be trying to then expand to all of their other horrible, dystopian, incredibly biased technology. [00:56:05] Shannon Cheng: Yay. [00:56:07] Amy Sundberg: It's really concerning, right? I think a lot of people want to hold up technology as this panacea - where it will fix everything. And that is not always the case. And in this case, I would argue it is not at all the case. And there are actually things that we could be investing in that might address the issue much more effectively. [00:56:28] BJ Last: Yeah, like the things that are proven to work on this are low tech items - they're violence interruption programs, resourcing communities, things like that that are actually shown to reduce gun violence. [00:56:39] Amy Sundberg: Even physical changes in the environment have been shown to have a significant effect - like adding more lighting, for example. [00:56:47] Shannon Cheng: So those are some of the big fights over public safety, which - they're really important. Unfortunately, I also feel like they often overshadow some of the other big fights that might be going on - just there's a lot of rhetoric right now about public safety, especially with the ongoing election. So what are some of the other big budget fights that you're seeing in this year's deliberations? [00:57:05] BJ Last: Well, I'd say a lot of those fights are actually also public safety items. Like there are fights on School Safety Traffic and Pedestrian Improvement, SSTPI fund - so that's been getting cut. That is safe routes for kids to walk and bike to school - Vision Zero stuff is also getting cut. We're fighting really to stop that. And so far, at least 22 pedestrians have been killed while walking, biking, or rolling. So that is absolutely a public safety item, I would say. Same with - there are currently amendments to undo the cuts to food safety. The proposed budget cut about $950,000 from food security, so that was 650K roughly for food banks and 300K for food access. I would very much say that food access is also very much a public safety item. I think there was even a French musical, Les Mis - didn't that have a lot to do with an entire revolution because people couldn't afford bread and were hungry? [00:57:58] Amy Sundberg: There also is a fight about funding behavioral health services at Tiny House villages. Right now, that funding is a lot less than it was in 2023 for 2024. And the reason why that's important is because having this funding allows Tiny House villages to house people with higher acuity needs. But if they don't have those services available, then those people can't live there. So, I mean, that's a huge issue. And there are a couple amendments to address that - one of them would take the ShotSpotter money and use it instead to pay for that, which I think is a great use of that money. And there also are fights about pay wages for human service workers - to make sure that all human service workers are getting inflationary increase and a 2% raise on top of that, a true 2% raise on top of that. There have been various little fiddly things regarding that - some of those workers were not covered because they're technically paid through King County or with federal money. But they're still doing the job every day, they still deserve that full 2% raise. So there are amendments that are working to address that shortfall to make sure that those folks get paid a fair wage. [00:59:08] BJ Last: Yeah, and on the 2% raise for human service providers, there's a pay equity study that the University of Washington released - I think it was February this year - that found human service workers in Seattle are underpaid by 37%. So 2% is just a drop in the bucket compared to what we, a city-funded study by UW found that they are currently underfunded by. There was even a resolution passed that wants to increase their wages by 7% by 2025, so this is a small item just trying to move inline with that resolution and to also make progress towards that study. 'Cause again - underpaid by 37% is huge and that impacts people's ability to actually provide services. One other item I'll

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On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle Axios reporter, Melissa Santos!  Melissa and Crystal discuss how Election Night results in Washington state aren't conclusive and can change due to our mail-in ballot system, how four County election offices were evacuated and whether this might explain low turnout trends. Then they dive into where Seattle City Council election results currently stand and the impact that enormous spending by outside interests had on voter communication. Looking outside Seattle, more encouraging progressive results appear to be taking shape across the state in Tacoma, Bellingham, Spokane, Snohomish County, Bellevue, Bothell, and more! The show wraps up with reflection on why celebrated Seattle Police Department Detective Denise “Cookie” Bouldin suing the City for decades of racism and gender bias from SPD management and colleagues is yet another indication of internal police culture not matching their publicly declared values. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Melissa Santos at @MelissaSantos1.   Melissa Santos Melissa Santos is one of two Seattle-based reporters for Axios. She has spent the past decade covering Washington politics and the Legislature, including five years covering the state Capitol for The News Tribune in Tacoma and three years for Crosscut, a nonprofit news website. She was a member of The Seattle Times editorial board from 2017 to 2019, where she wrote columns and opinion pieces focused on state government.   Resources Digging into Seattle's Budget Process with Amy Sundberg and BJ Last of Solidarity Budget from Hacks & Wonks   “4 election offices evacuated in Washington state; fentanyl found at 2” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Business-backed Seattle council candidates take early leads” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Seattle council incumbents still trail in latest election results” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Business-backed groups spend big on Seattle council races” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Tacoma to consider new tenant rights measure on Nov. 7 ballot” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   “Tacomans deciding on progressive renter protections” by Lauren Gallup from Northwest Public Broadcasting   “The 4 biggest takeaways from election night results in Tacoma and Pierce County | Opinion” by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   “Bellingham voters consider minimum-wage hike, tenant protections” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   “Lisa Brown leads incumbent Nadine Woodward in Spokane mayoral race” by Mai Hoang from Crosscut   “Controversial Sheriff with Right-Wing Ties Faces Voters in Washington State” by Jessica Pishko from Bolts   “Johnson defeats Fortney in sheriff's race, new ballot drop shows” by Jordan Hansen from Everett Herald   “Pioneering Black detective sues SPD, alleging racism, gender discrimination” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, it was a special one. Our producer and special guest host, Shannon Cheng, chatted with Amy Sundberg and BJ Last from Solidarity Budget about currently ongoing City of Seattle budget process. The conversation ranged from the fight over the JumpStart Tax to why ShotSpotter is more egregious than you thought. This is the first show that I actually have not hosted on Hacks & Wonks and Shannon did a fantastic job. It's a really informative and interesting show, and I highly suggest you listen. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Seattle Axios reporter, Melissa Santos. [00:01:41] Melissa Santos: Hi, Crystal. [00:01:43] Crystal Fincher: Well, good to have you back on this Friday following general election results in Washington state. We have a lot to talk about, a lot that's interesting. I think the first thing I wanna talk about is just the nature of elections and results. As a reminder to people - for so long, so many of us were used to going to a polling place, voting, getting election results on Election Night. We still get that from a lot of other places in the country. It does not work like that here in Washington - and particularly for the City of Seattle, some other, especially major metropolitan areas - where there's, you see differences in where different demographics typically vote in the timeline when ballots are out. What races look like on the first night can look very different than what the ultimate results show. How do you approach this? [00:02:39] Melissa Santos: Well, so I basically - especially in Seattle races - I try to put a caveat at the top of any story I write on Election Night or the next day, sometimes even Friday of election week saying, Races are known to swing by 10 or 12 points in Seattle - this could change. It will change. It could change dramatically, essentially. So that's, I think, what we're seeing here. I mean, as of right now, when we're actually recording - we don't have Thursday's results yet. So we only have a very limited batch of ballots, especially because of something else we're probably gonna talk about later - there was limited counting in some counties, including King County, yesterday and fewer ballots released because of a scare they had at the elections office. So we just don't have a lot of information. Election night - like half the ballots maybe are being reported, so that's just a ton of room for results to change. And we have seen that repeatedly in Seattle, especially when it comes to progressive candidates looking like they're down, and then - oh look, they won by four points, three points, two points. So this happens a lot. And that's just a good caveat to keep in mind as we're talking about election results the week of the election in Seattle. [00:03:49] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and as you said, we are actually recording this on Thursday morning. Viewers will start to hear this on Friday, but we don't have many results - we might as well talk about it now. The reason why we have even fewer results than we thought, or fewer ballots counted, is that there were some wild things that happened at some elections offices yesterday. What happened? [00:04:10] Melissa Santos: So four county elections offices in Washington state, including in King County, received an unknown powder substance in envelopes that were delivered to the election office. And so the King County Elections office in Renton, that does all this counting, was evacuated for three hours the day after the election - in which counting was not happening because they had HazMat there, they had the Fire Department there, they had the police there checking to make sure this wasn't something super dangerous, that there wasn't a chemical attack, essentially, against the election offices. And in Spokane County, they got a similar thing and they actually didn't - I don't think they released results yesterday at all, actually, in Spokane. Or at least it was very delayed and limited. So in King County, they released many fewer ballots, and counted many fewer ballots, and reported fewer than they had expected to on Wednesday, the day after the election. And then also Skagit and Pierce County offices got mysterious packages. And two of them - in King County and Spokane, it was, there were traces of fentanyl. We're still waiting for more information, so there was some sort of fentanyl in there. Not clear about the other two - might've been baking powder in Tacoma, according to one report I saw, so. But in any case, this is a threat that people are sending stuff that is very threatening. I mean, everyone remembers it was around - Anthrax scares and this and that. So when you get in the envelope as a public servant like that - you're worried it could kill you, it could kill your colleagues, and then you're gonna not keep counting ballots probably. Or your coworkers across the building are gonna stop counting ballots - and that's what happened. [00:05:45] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And people are on heightened alert for a number of different reasons. These bring to mind some of the increased attacks that we've seen that seem to have anti-Semitic, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bias. There have been envelopes of powder mailed to synagogues in our state. So this has a lot of people wondering - are these ties to election denialists? Is this someone with some other grievance? But people are on heightened alert about that. King County counted about half as many ballots yesterday as they originally intended to, so we have really abbreviated results. The other factor that is a challenge that is not standard - not what we normally see - is turnout is low, is trending really low. And weirdly, it was trending above where we were a couple of years ago until Election Day - 'cause we can track how many ballots are received each day, how that compares - so it was actually up by a few percentage points. But on Election Day, really, turnout seems to have cratered. We don't know why. Again, the results being released - it's so early, so we just may not have the full picture. Maybe people just voted in a really late flux and we don't know that yet. There's just a lot that we don't know. But right now, turnout seems to be trending pretty low in a different way than we've seen before, at least so far. So we're not sure what that means, who might not have turned out, is this gonna wind up low? We just have a lot that we still need to see, both in results and in just the ballots received, and what that means for turnout. So with that said, let's start off talking about the City of Seattle. We had several council races. And I guess thinking, going through the results - overall, the more moderate candidate was leading pretty significantly in a lot of cases on Election Night. Again, as we talked about earlier, several of these races are still within the bounds where it's possible these races could change. And the person who ultimately winds up winning could be different than the person currently leading in several of these races - if ballots trend how they traditionally trend in the city - there's been a few different folks who've done some public analysis of this. But right now in District 1, Rob Saka - this looks to be one of the races that looks pretty conclusive, that Rob Saka currently holds a pretty commanding lead over Maren Costa. In District 2, Tanya Woo is currently leading Tammy Morales. This is a closer race and one that is within the margin where we see late ballots overtake what the early results were. In District 3, Joy Hollingsworth - this seems like a pretty settled race - seems to have prevailed over Alex Hudson. District 4, we have Maritza Rivera leading Ron Davis. This is one that is at the margin of where races come back - if ballots trend in the same way as they had before, Ron could end up eking out a win. If they don't, maybe he comes up a little short, but definitely a race we anticipate tightening up. In District 5, Cathy Moore holds a pretty commanding lead - this looks like one where it's beyond the range of kind of the bounce-back of ballots over ChrisTiana ObeySumner. And in District 6 - [00:09:34] Melissa Santos: District 6 is Dan Strauss, and that is really, really close, with Dan Strauss and Pete Hanning. And we actually saw Strauss, who's an incumbent, and is the more leftward candidate in that race - I mean, of the candidates in that race. [00:09:47] Crystal Fincher: Of the candidates in that race. [00:09:49] Melissa Santos: Not really the most leftward councilmember that is on the ballot necessarily, but in this race he is the more progressive of the two. He was down two points on Election Night, but now it's less than one percentage point. And that's just with the limited ballots we saw on Wednesday. So that's an example of how much you can switch there - we saw about a percentage point gain in a very close race. So I suspect Dan Strauss will actually win his race and be reelected, but we will see. [00:10:18] Crystal Fincher: It would be shocking if he didn't wind up winning this. And in District 7, we have Andrew Lewis and Bob Kettle, with Bob Kettle currently in the lead over Andrew Lewis. This is another one where it is still within the range that this is too close to call. We need to see further results. And if again, ballots trend in the same way as they've trended - particularly in 2021, but also in 2019 - then Andrew Lewis could wind up winning. This week is gonna be interesting with results because we typically get a daily update at between 4p and 5p, depending on the county. And King County - it's typically 4 p.m. But Friday is a holiday, so we won't get updates on Friday. Today, Thursday, will be the last day of updates. And then the next day that we get an update on the vote totals will be Monday. So Monday will probably be a very conclusive day, a day that shows whether people are on track to make it, where a lot of the late ballots are going to be in the tally - because the counting continues over the weekend, even though they don't release the results until Monday. So we'll see what that is. But a lot of races that are currently too close to call, even though if you've seen some other media outlets, particularly some columnists - I think Danny Westneat had a column, that was like - Oh, the progressive era in Seattle is over or something like that - which I think certainly the early results are different than even earlier results that we've seen in prior races, different than even in the primary, I think we would say. So there is something afoot here, and there's certainly going to be a different council with one, so many new candidates. But there's gonna be a new composition on the council, certainly. But saying what that composition is going to be with so many of these races still in the air, I think it's premature to say at this time, and we'll still see. We just don't know about the turnout and don't wanna mislead people, have to rewrite headlines. I think you're one of the more responsible journalists when it comes to setting appropriate expectations and making sure you don't overstate what the results are saying. [00:12:45] Melissa Santos: I mean, I think the one thing you can say, that I got from Danny's column, that I can guarantee will be correct is you will not have Kshama Sawant on the council anymore. And she has been one of the sort of firebrands on the council, very - has strong views that she doesn't shy away from and doesn't - whatever dynamic that is on the council, some people don't like it, some people do like it - that she just says what she wants to do and doesn't kind of do as much backroom compromise sometimes on certain issues. That's gone. So you don't have a Socialist on the council anymore - that is happening - 'cause she didn't run for re-election. There wasn't a chance for her to lose. So either way, that was gonna be different. But a couple of the moderate candidates we were talking about, I'm not really sure which way they'll vote on some of the issues that typically define Seattle moderates. And for me, Cathy Moore comes to mind. She won by - I mean, you can say Cathy won at this point - it was about 40 points. So that is not going to be, that's not going to happen for ChrisTiana ObeySumner. But Cathy, during election interviews, was a lot more forthright actually about taxes, saying - I disagree with the business community actually, that we probably need more tax revenue. And so she was much more open on the campaign trail about the notion of taxing businesses to close the City's budget deficit. And this is one of those issues that typically defines sort of the Seattle centrist moderates, business-friendly candidates - is having a lot more reticence about taxing businesses. Usually the candidates won't say - Absolutely not under any circumstances. But they'll say - We need to do an audit. I'm not, I mean, some of them actually will say, I don't think we have a budget deficit - in the case of Bob Kettle, I think that was something he said regularly, despite what the revenue projections do say. But Cathy Moore was a lot more nuanced on that topic. And also on zoning, potentially, and being willing to have more dense zoning in certain areas. I'm not sure that she'll vote the way - it remains to be seen. People can say things on the campaign trail and do totally different things, so we'll see. But she was fairly consistent about being sort of more on the liberal side of certain issues in that respect. Joy Hollingsworth, who has, I think, pretty definitively come out ahead in District 3 - this is Sawant's district. You know, she's a really - she's just a really compelling personality too. I mean, and I'm not saying this in a negative way - you talk to Joy, you feel like she's listening. She's a good candidate on the campaign trail. I saw her canvassing a lot - like in person, a fair amount - 'cause I live in that district. And her campaign sent out a lot of communications. She had the benefit of independent money, which we will talk about soon, I think, as far as more outside spending benefiting her campaign. So there were more mailers sent out - not even necessarily by her campaign, but on her behalf. And I just don't know if she's a traditional candidate. And she would say this and has said this - When am I the centrist candidate? I'm a queer, cannabis-owning business owner, you know, who's Black, and I just don't, when am I like the right-wing candidate here? So I mean, maybe doesn't fit the profile of what people think of when you're talking about sort of centrist candidates. And again, has done a lot of work on cannabis equity and equity issues, I think, that also helped her relate to a lot of voters in her district. Well, Rob Saka, I think, is more - who I think is pretty clearly winning in District 1 - is probably the most traditional, sort of more business-backed candidate who's skeptical of taxes, skeptical of how the City's spending its money, and then also had a lot of big business backing on independent spending. And is sort of more - we need to hire more cops, more in the traditional line of what you're thinking of as a centrist candidate. And he is going to be replacing a more progressive councilmember in Lisa Herbold. But, you know, they basically have Saka in that mold, clearly. And then the other two races that are decided already, it's not totally clear that it's some - it's gonna be a, exactly what kind of shift it's gonna be. And in fact, Cathy Moore is replacing a more moderate on the council anyway. So a lot is still dependent on what - the results we still don't have. And also, one of the more progressive members on the council is Teresa Mosqueda, who is running for King County Council and is likely to ultimately win that race, and that's gonna be an appointment process, where - to replace her on the council. So who that is - you could end up with a fairly progressive council, potentially, in some respects. If all of these races switch to progressive suddenly in the late results, which certainly may not happen. But it's just a little premature on Election Night to necessarily say the council's going to be way less progressive than it was, I think, potentially. That's all. [00:17:40] Crystal Fincher: No, I completely agree with that. We've talked about on the show - if you know me personally, we have definitely talked about this in person - but painting, you know, the media narrative out there, that - Oh, it's the super progressive council, you know, who's always battling with the mayor, and we want a change of direction. I'm always asking, define what that direction is, because we did not have a progressive council. There were different people in different positions on the council - certainly had progressives on it, but a number of moderates on it. And in this change, as you said - in District 1, I think it's very fair to say that that moved in a more moderate direction. District 5, I think that's moving in a more progressive direction, everything on balance. [00:18:30] Melissa Santos: And if Ron Davis wins in District 4 - which that district has been super swingy in the past because it has - I think university students is a factor, sort of, I do think there's a late turnout surge there in a lot of years, in some years, maybe that's greater than some districts. If he wins, you're going to be replacing Alex Pedersen, who is one of the more - certainly centrist, some would say conservative - but center candidates, and so you'd have a much more liberal person in that respect on, I think, both taxes, on criminal justice, I think on also zoning, definitely zoning, Ron Davis is like the urbanist candidate - is kind of what he's known as, and having worked with FutureWise and these organizations and in advocacy, sort of behind-the-scenes roles. So yeah, that would be, kind of, undermine the narrative to me. If you replace Alex Pedersen with Ron Davis, I'm not sure the progressivism-is-gone narrative exactly will hold up, so that's - but again, we would need some big swings for these things to happen. I'm not trying to act like you're going to get all these progressives. It definitely was a good night for business-backed, sort of, more centrist candidates on Election Night. [00:19:42] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that. And I think if Maritza Rivera ends up doing that, that's basically a wash on what their representation does - that looks like they have continued with what they generally had. And didn't move in a more progressive direction, but certainly did not get more moderate or conservative than what was already there, I think. I think there are two buckets of candidates that we're looking at, as you alluded to before. I think that Rob Saka, if Bob Kettle were to wind up prevailing, if Maritza Rivera were to wind up prevailing - those, I think, are most firmly in the traditional moderate conservative, very skeptical of taxation, very supportive of carceral solutions, more punitive solutions, lots of talk about hiring and supporting police, different answers to different issues, often involving public safety elements. I think that's fair to say. I don't think most people would put Cathy Moore, Joy Hollingsworth in that same category. I think Tanya Woo is a bit of a toss-up. This is another race where, I think, next to Dan Strauss, the next most likely candidate of what looks the way ballots traditionally go, even with some wiggle room - Tammy Morales, the way ballots trend in Seattle, certainly has a path to finishing in the lead. There is definitely a difference between those two candidates, but I think Tanya Woo has certainly expressed some reservations for taxation, has certainly expressed her support for public safety solutions - Maybe she falls somewhere in the middle there. It seems like she's not as aggressive as some of the other candidates and their zeal for those solutions, but she has signaled that she's open to them. So I think that's a question mark if it goes the Tanya Woo route. But this is a race that is definitely too close to call at this point in time for the way Seattle ballots trend. So that's Seattle. Let's talk a little bit more about the money, which you have written about - basically, everybody wrote about. We have not seen spending of this magnitude in Seattle City Council races since the Amazon money bomb that we saw in 2019. What happened with outside money in this race and what impact do you think it had? [00:22:34] Melissa Santos: So originally in 2019, there was a big - originally, that's not that long ago, I understand, but in recent history of Seattle elections - the Chamber of Commerce had a PAC that was spending a lot on behalf of the business-preferred candidates. And Amazon gave a million dollars plus to that - a million of it right at October, I think, in 2019. And that kind of - especially, Sawant in her race, again, Socialist councilmember, was saying Amazon's trying to buy the election. And then there was a sense that left voters turned out citywide even to kind of object to that. There was one, something that I think a lot of observers thought happened that year. And that one might have helped fuel this surge of left-leaning voters after the initial vote count as well. And also, Trump was in office. There was a lot of sort of motivation, I think, of progressives to kind of vote and make themselves heard wherever they could during that era. Okay, so this year - your original question - this year, we didn't have a chamber PAC doing all of the money. It wasn't all relayed through this chamber PAC. It was different. There were all these little political action committees called Neighbors of this Neighborhood. It was Downtown Neighbors Committee, Elliott Bay Neighbors Committee, and then University District Neighbors Committee. So it sounds, you know, those innocuous, sweet-sounding PAC names, right? But they were all supporting the candidates that were preferred by the, I mean, the Chamber and the Downtown Seattle Association. And they spent a fair amount of money. I mean, in the - I don't think that I had all the receipts when I did the calculations on Sunday, so there's a few more that have come in since then. But I mean, it was $300,000 almost for Maritza Rivera. And when I say for, I mean, a lot of it was spent opposing Ron Davis, but all benefiting Maritza - either in direct support from these external groups that were saying, Vote for this person, or, you know, saying, Don't vote for this person, her opponent, the more left-leaning candidate in that race. So that's quite a bit of money for one race, one district race, you know, you're talking about. And then we saw that for support for Rob Soka as well. And they were some of the similar groups where - there's overlap in who is supporting these PACs, right? Landlords organizations, there were builders and construction and realty interests. And there were - the Realtors PAC actually gave separately to a few candidates like Tanya Woo and Bob - okay, I shouldn't say gave. Let me back up. The Realtors PAC, the National Realtors PAC, actually spent its own money separately from these Neighborhood groups to support Tanya Woo and Bob Kettle. And so you just saw that outside PAC money was coming in. And that was, you know, a lot more than the leftward union side spent this year by a significant margin to kind of help support these candidates. So, I mean, at the end you had $1.5 million almost spent and more than $1.1 million of that, maybe $1.2 million, was from the business sort of backed interest sort of pouring money from outside into these races, supporting their preferred candidates. [00:25:53] Crystal Fincher: So I think - one, something that gets missed or I've seen a lot of questions about - so people are like, Okay, there's a lot of money. Corporations have a lot of money. How does that impact races? What does that mean when it comes to these campaigns and when it comes to what voters see? [00:26:11] Melissa Santos: So what you're paying for is communication. What they are paying for is communication. They're paying for mailers that go to voters, they're paying for TV or radio ads in some cases - maybe not radio this year, but it's, you know, this is some of the things that independent expenditures pay for. Online ads - so reaching voters to tell them about the candidate. And this is what campaigns do. That's the whole point of a campaign. Except when you have someone from outside doing it also, it just really widens your impact as a candidate - even though they don't coordinate, they're not involved together - it still will help get your message out to more people if you have supporters doing this on your behalf and buying mailers. I mean, I live in District 3 and most of the mailers I got were from Joy Hollingsworth's campaign, but I did get another mailer from an independent expenditure committee. And this was one that also was like - You like weed, vote for Joy Hollingsworth. Literally, that's what it said. I wish I was not kidding. So, I mean, again, that's - again, muddying the who's progressive and who's not a little. I mean, the mailers contribute to that, but anyway. And I got one mailer from Alex Hudson's campaign. So it just was like 5-1 on the communications I got from Joy Hollingsworth just to my own house. And so that's just an example of - even though only one of them was independent spending, you know, you can have a lot more mailers come and reach someone on behalf of a candidate if you have this outside money paying for it. [00:27:37] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and communication is really everything. I think, you know, most people know I do this kind of work during the day, this podcast is an extra thing, this is not the main thing that I do. But it really all comes down to communication. Like you talked about before, there are things that the campaign can do to directly communicate with voters - phone calls, canvassing is the most effective thing they can do. And if a candidate and their campaign is on the campaign trail doing that, that is certainly generally a really positive thing for their campaign and one of the most effective things that you can do to win votes. But Kshama Sawant is notorious and the DSA - people passionate about Kshama are notorious for mounting really formidable, substantial ground games where they are covering most of the district. Most candidates are not knocking on most of the doors in their district. They're knocking on, you know, a pretty small percentage of them. And even though to them and their supporters - they see the candidate talking all the time, attending events every night - you're only reaching 15, 20% of the people in the district probably. And so the other 80% of voters have not heard anything directly, have been busy living life. The thing that many candidates don't realize is that the hardest thing isn't getting them to understand that you're better than your opponent, especially for candidates who have not run for office before. The hardest thing to do is to let voters know that you exist overall. Most voters don't know that candidates exist. Most voters don't know that there's an election coming until they see the ballot arrive in their mailbox. People, like a lot of the people who listen to Hacks & Wonks - we're not the normal ones. We've talked about this before on this show. Most people do not pay attention to the news, to candidates, to elections as much as we do. That's really important to remember when it comes to this, because that spending - the type of communication, whether it's mail, the digital video ads that you see, cable TV ads, banner ads, text messages. One, that all costs money. And so having money enables you to do more of that. And getting that in front of voters is generally the most meaningful exposure that they have to candidates - that's how they're learning about a lot of them. So if they are bombarded with information from one candidate, they hear predominantly about one candidate - usually their communications talk about how wonderful the candidate is, all the wonderful things that they're saying or planning to do, or the version of that that they're spinning in that communication - that makes a big difference. And that's how people get to know who the candidates are. If someone isn't doing much of that, they can't win. That's kind of just a structural Campaign 101 thing. So again, talked about this on the show before - if you know me, we've definitely talked about this. Sometimes when people are making sweeping pronouncements about - This narrative clearly won the day and this is what voters are saying - that may be the case in a race where there's robust communication coming from all sides, where the amount of money spent is a lot closer with each other on both sides. But in these races where one candidate is outspent by hundreds of thousands of dollars and the communication that that equates to, you rarely see those candidates win in any circumstance, regardless whether the one outspending is moderate, conservative, progressive, what kind of message they have - if it's good or bad, it can be really mediocre, it can be pretty bad. If you spend and communicate that much and so much more than your opponent, that in and of itself usually is enough to win, which is why people talk about the influence of money and the communication that that buys being corrosive or toxic or such an issue, because that in and of itself is oftentimes enough to move enough voters to win the campaign. [00:31:57] Melissa Santos: And we should mention - Seattle has a Democracy Voucher system and I think all of the candidates, I think all of the candidates use Democracy Vouchers. Crystal can correct me if I'm wrong. But certainly some of the business backed ones receiving outside money also were limited - this limits their spending as a campaign, right? So the outside money takes on an even bigger role when each of the candidates can spend - I mean, gosh, the limit is, it starts at like $90,000, then it goes up if you all raise a lot of money. But you're limited, you're not spending more than $150,000, or $125,000, or something as a campaign. I forget the exact limits, but somewhere like around there or even lower. And then you have - so think about that - the campaign spending, we say $115,000 and really can't spend more. And then someone else is spending almost $300,000, right? So - separately - so you're having these, sometimes it's gonna be the majority of money in a race because the third party committees are not limited in how much they can raise and how much they can spend. So that's how you can get millions and millions of dollars. This year, it wasn't millions, but it was more than a million backing a certain slate of candidates. And that gets a big impact when you have fairly low-cost campaigns and everyone's limited to that to a certain degree. [00:33:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that is the picture of Seattle races at this point in time. I think it is fair to say that even if a number of the candidates come back, I think it's an over-pronouncement to say that there was a broad shift in direction one way or another. But I think it's absolutely fair to say that no matter what the results end up being, they're not going to be celebrated by progressive candidates, that moderates are going to wind up happier than progressives are gonna wind up with these results - in the city of Seattle. But I wanna talk about elsewhere in the state because I think the broad picture in the state - even though Seattle's likely to dominate the media conversation - that the picture in the rest of the state was more positive for progressive people than it has been in quite some time, that we see trends moving further in a Democratic and progressive direction, particularly in purple and red cities in some of the many metro cities. So Seattle, the biggest city in the state there, moved and had their results. But looking at Tacoma, looking at Spokane - these are two cities that seem to have moved definitively to the left in the composition of their councils, in Spokane's case - including the mayoral race - and also with some ballot initiatives. So starting with Tacoma - what's happening in Tacoma? [00:34:47] Melissa Santos: Well, they do have a measure on the ballot that's about sort of renter protections, which actually looks like it might prevail. It was down a little bit on Election Night, but again, we don't have a lot of results from Pierce County yet, and it's super close right now. And given the way the ballots so far have sort of trended, even with this limited amount of ballots released, I suspect that this sort of measure to enact a lot more protections for renters against eviction - and I'm blanking a little on some of the details of it - but that's sort of a priority for more liberal voters and certainly policy makers. That looks like it may pass still, still uncertain. But you also - what I thought was interesting, you know - you had, I'm just making sure I did not, two days ago with my Tacoma results, but it looked like Jamika Scott was doing really well and likely to win her race in Tacoma. And Jamika has run for mayor before and she's sort of a known, you know, pretty serious policy person, I think, in Tacoma on advocating for ways of getting rid of systemic racism. I mean, getting rid of it would be difficult, obviously, but sort of ways to mitigate and kind of make lives better for people who traditionally have not benefited from our systems. And she was really active with, or I mean, leader of the Tacoma Action Collective, which has been a group that's been sort of protesting different institutions in Tacoma, as far as their treatment of Black people and treatment of people of color more broadly, I think, as well. But especially with police brutality. This is someone who has been kind of consistently saying, We need some change in our system. And she's being elected, and people like her message in Tacoma - enough of them - to really catapult her into office, it looks like. And so that's something that was interesting. We saw Olgy Diaz, who is an appointed councilmember - oh gosh, no, she won an election by now - has she-- [00:36:51] Crystal Fincher: No, she was appointed, and she's running for her first actual election now, following the appointment. And she just took the lead. She was narrowly down on Election Night. Again, the same caveats apply - that that Election Night is a partial tally. It is not a result. So on the initial tally, she was down just by a smidge. Now she is actually leading. And just with the way ballots trend, it looks like that lead will continue to grow. So you had the more progressive candidates, certainly, in both of those races prevail. I think interestingly, particularly in Jamika's race - Jamika was not endorsed by The News Tribune, which has been very consequential in endorsing folks. And despite that - and I think, as a credit to the work that Jamika has been doing in community for a while and the coalition that Jamika built - speaking directly to issues that are impacting so many people. And a lot of times speaking meaningfully to communities, as you said, that have not traditionally been served very well by government. And really inspiring a coalition to rally around her, to vote in support of her, to turn out for that. I think that was helpful. In the same way, the Tacoma for All tenant protection measure, which had a storied path to the ballot - the City of Tacoma was basically looking to put a competing, less impactful measure that did less than this initiative did - looked like that was motivated by some of the opposing forces who didn't wanna see this measure prevail. They ended up going to court over it and the process wound up being flawed. So this wound up being the only measure - the citizens' initiative - on the ballot. And that attracted a ton of outside spending - the realtors, a number of landlord organizations, developer organizations spent a lot - hundreds of thousands of dollars in opposition of this initiative. And for - one, to be as close as it is, given all that spending, is pretty miraculous and I think goes to show the depth of the problem and how extremely it is felt to have this much support. But it looks, based on the way that ballots traditionally trend, like it's on track to eventually take the lead and win. So this is not the only initiative - there are others across the state, including other tenant protection initiatives that are speaking to what's - the large percentage of renters in the state are facing the seeming imbalance between how landlords can technically treat tenants and how important it is to put more safeguards around. And I think generally it's not controversial to say that treating being a landlord like any other business is not good for society when we're talking about a basic need for people. And putting more protections around whether the timelines of being able to raise rent, how you can evict people, the kind of notice that's required, and assistance that may be required. If you are forcing someone to move out, the issue of economic evictions, or just putting someone out - not because they did anything, but just because they want to earn more money from that property - are things that people are willing to revisit across the state. And I think a lot of people can learn that lesson. The other thing, just - I, as someone who does this for a living, get really excited about - that we're seeing in Tacoma and play out elsewhere in the state, is that sometimes these initiatives come and I'm speaking as a consultant, so obviously this happens - it has a lot of good results sometimes - but this wasn't the result of consultants getting around, establishment party entities saying, We want to put an initiative on the ballot, what should it be? And deciding what that's going to be in rallying support. This was something that truly did come from the community. This was a response from people in the community to problems that people in the community were having. They got together, they made this happen, they knocked on doors and advocated for it. This was not funded by an outside source - anything like that. And I think those are wildly successful. I think we've also seen this with the Tukwila Raise the Wage initiative that was successful that the Transit Riders Union did - that kind of model, which oftentimes is a reaction to inaction sometimes by people in power, which is frustrating to a lot of people, not seeing the issues that they feel are most important being addressed. We're having another very viable path with municipal initiatives being initiated, not just by the same old players with money, but people in community learning how to advocate and move policy themselves. I think that's a really powerful thing. We're seeing that across the state and I think we're gonna see more of it. I think that's a positive thing. [00:42:24] Melissa Santos: Yeah, Bellingham looks poised to raise its minimum wage as a city. And they passed a measure that actually - they've been doing tenant protections as a city council, but I think that what they look on track to pass - I should say the minimum wage is leading, I should say. I guess I'd have to look just close at the results. But they're on track to pass something that requires landlords to help tenants relocate if they raise their rent by 8% or more. I mean, that's like a pretty - Bellingham is a fairly liberal city, a lot of college students from Western and all this. But that's a level, that's like sort of testing out new policies at a city level that I don't think we've - I don't think Seattle requires the landlords to do rent - well, anyway, it is kind of, I'm rambling now, but it is kind of some creative, interesting stuff happening in some of these cities that is very on the progressive edge. And Spokane's mayor looks like they're going to be replaced with a Democrat - Lisa Brown, who used to be the state Senate majority leader and has been working in Governor Inslee's administration as Commerce Director. And so that's a big change there too. And that is certain - I think that is a very clear contrast in candidates where you have some voters rebuking the sort of far-right ties potentially of the mayor. Crystal has probably been following this more than me, but there was a big controversy recently with the mayor of Spokane sort of engaging with Matt Shea, who is like - oh my God, I forget all of this. [00:43:56] Crystal Fincher: Domestic terrorist, an advocacy, an advocate of domestic terrorism, someone who was planning to partake himself. [00:44:02] Melissa Santos: Yeah - who, an investigation that was commissioned by the State Legislature when Matt Shea was a legislator found that he engaged in acts of domestic terrorism. The current mayor were kind of hobnobbing with that, became an issue in that race. And voters are saying, Let's try something different - it looks like in Spokane with a more Democratic mayor. So that is a different than maybe what progressives might be seeing in Seattle. You're seeing other cities have sort of different results. [00:44:33] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. This was one where there's - in Seattle, it's on the centrist to progressive spectrum. This was a clear Democrat versus far-right Republican who did hobnob with Matt Shea, who attended - Matt Shea, who now is well-known as someone who was found to engage in domestic terrorism, to support a variety of far-right, extremist, insurrectionist type beliefs. Nadine Woodward appeared at one of his events, hugged him, seemed to be hobnobbing with his people. And even after that was palling around with Moms for Liberty - which are notoriously anti-LGBTQ, particularly anti-trans - candidates pushing for policy, pushing for book bans in school districts across the nation, basically. So there was a clear contrast here. These issues were front and center, and voters made a clear choice here and made the decision to change direction. And there're also - three of the four Democratic councilmembers are leading in Spokane. And so this is definitely moving in a more Democratic direction in Spokane, which is a really big deal. We saw similar in Tacoma. We were looking at a lot of suburbs - I mean, looking at the Eastside, just in King County - so many of those races. Now, Bellevue may have a more progressive council than Seattle. We've seen in a number of these cities, whether it be Bothell or others, where they have moved on affordable housing policy, transit and transportation, mobility policy in ways that Seattle has not. They seem to be outdoing Seattle when it comes to some of the implementation of progressive policy that lots of people have been asking for in the city of Seattle. Other cities have been moving beyond them and it seems like, in those cities, voters have responded well. There has been vigorous opposition to these, we hear reporting about pushback to expanding zoning and the types of housing that's able to be built in all areas basically. But those debates were had and it looks like in most of these situations where there were competitive candidates fielded, they prevailed. So I think that Seattle certainly looks one way. A lot of the state has really, really positive signals and directions. And as someone who works in elections, the map for what's possible in Washington state, I think, has expanded even more with this cycle. And there are some absolute blueprints to look at moving beyond to other cities, whether it's kind of party supported, establishment supported, well-funded efforts or more grassroots initiatives - that there are multiple routes now to passing policy that helps more people and especially the people who need the help most. So we will see what that is. Also in some pretty high profile races, like the Snohomish County Sheriff, where we had someone who billed themselves as a constitutional sheriff, who had said that they didn't plan on enforcing all of the laws, especially when it comes to gun legislation that we've passed, some gun control legislation - just some real extreme views. And voters picked the more moderate sheriff candidate there - certainly not revolutionizing what the traditional practice of public safety is among sheriffs, but I think voters definitely want to put more boundaries in place, and are worried about accountability, and really focusing on what makes people safer from all perspectives, and wanting to make sure people's rights are respected. And not necessarily feeling like violating people's rights is just a necessary price we have to pay to be safer as a community - that allowing that perhaps is part of what is making us more dangerous, what is contributing to some of the challenges in recruiting police officers. And addressing some of those systemic issues or at least promises of doing that from people are more convincing to voters in areas that have been comfortable voting for Republicans even - that they aren't just willing to just say, Do whatever you say you need to do regardless of whether it violates rights, or doesn't jive with the law, or whatever that is. So interesting results across the state certainly. Now with that, I want to talk about a couple of other things that we saw, including news. We saw news, we saw coverage before - I think particularly from PubliCola, from Notes from the Emerald City - about one of the most well-known officers in the Seattle Police Department suing the department. Detective Cookie Bouldin - suing the department saying that she has witnessed and experienced racism, gender discrimination over several years with the department. What do you see with this? [00:50:19] Melissa Santos: I mean, I don't think it's necessarily a surprise that over time, especially over decades, a woman of color, Black women in particular, may not have felt at home in the Seattle Police Department. This is something I believe she's raised before, now it's just there's a formal lawsuit. It's something that - it's not a huge surprise, but I think that it is a blow to the department to have someone so recognized as a leader and over time, to make these claims. It's kind of like when - not to change the subject to another thing, but when Ben Danielson, who worked at Seattle Children's, is a very respected Black pediatrician - is also suing Seattle Children's for discrimination and racism - maybe not discrimination, but discriminatory policies. And this has a huge impact when you have someone that you've held up as sort of an example of your best, in some ways, as a department or as an agency or as a hospital. And who is sort of someone you've said - This is someone who shows how we are including communities, who has been working on these issues. And then they say - Actually, there's been a lot of problems and there's been discrimination and racism that I've encountered in unacceptable ways. It's a huge blow to the police department, Seattle Children's. These are things that really are not good for the - not just the image of the police department, but because - they point to real problems. I'm not saying this is just an optics issue or something, but it signals that maybe what you've been saying publicly isn't what's happening internally, and it isn't what's happening privately, or how people are experiencing your actual policies and your actual operation. So that's not great. And I know for the police department - and I know that Chief Adrian Diaz has been really vocal about stamping out racism in the department. I mean, it's something he talks about a lot. But this indicates that there's been problems for a long time, at least in the minds of one of their really esteemed long-time officers in the Seattle Police Department. And I don't know that one chief talking about stamping out racism and trying to talk about culture change can - I don't know that the boat shifts that fast, right? So if you're pointing to deeper issues that have been - for decades, someone who's been there for decades, or was there for decades - gosh, I mean, it kind of, it raises questions about how much is still persisting of this and then how quickly it can change if it still is persisting. [00:53:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I mean, I think lots of people aren't surprised to hear that it is persisting, given a number of the things that we've seen coming out - whether it's the video of the SPOG Vice-President mocking the value of the life of a pedestrian that was killed, Jaahnavi Kandula, that was killed by a police officer speeding without lights and sirens on on the way to a call, whether it's the tombstone that they saw, whether it's just a number of the incidents that have resulted in complaints against several officers, consistently against a consistent group of officers, it seems, in several situations. And it's particularly notable just because Detective Cookie, as she's known by so many, has really been such a PR boon for the department, really is a face of the department. When people talk about community policing, when they talk about building relationships with community, when they talk about - Hey, there should be officers that really care, really get to know people, look out for people - a lot of them are directly thinking about Cookie Bouldin. They're directly thinking about things that they've seen her do in community. There's a park named after her. She's known for almost mentoring people, working, getting kids involved with chess - really someone who, I think, regardless of where you stand on the institution of policing where people would say, even with people that disagree, but if you're like Detective Cookie - She's okay, I've seen her help, I've seen her care. Certainly what I think a lot of people would want police to aspire to be, would want the role to aspire to be in a best case scenario. And for her to say - Yeah, well, this institution certainly, in Seattle, is one that is racist, is discriminatory, and has harmed people like me, people who it's held up as paragons and examples of what the job really is and how it can be done in the community - is troubling. We've seen this happen several times before in other departments - not with, I think, officers as publicly visible and known as Detective Cookie. But certainly a lot of discrimination suits - particularly from Black officers, other officers of color - saying that there have been systemic issues that they have been the victim of. Or even off-duty incidents where people have not recognized that they were officers and just saw a person of color and treated them in a different way than they were supposed to. So we'll see how this turns out, but certainly a stain, another stain on the department. I don't think anyone can say this is coming - this is just grievance, or sour grapes, or someone who just hates the institution of policing and is using anything to just tear down police, or who isn't supportive of policing overall. This is someone who has kind of built their life and they're living on that, is known for doing that and seemingly cared about that, yet went through all this. And maybe because they cared, endured through all of it - don't know the details there, but it is challenging. And I think one of the things that came out of the debates and the campaigns, the conversations that people had is really a reckoning with - maybe this is a big problem for recruiting. Maybe it's not the money that has been thrown at them that we've tried to use, that now even police officers are saying this is not a problem about money. People are talking about - it's not an attractive job. Maybe is it actually what's happening within departments the part that's not attractive and not external reaction to it. I hope that whoever winds up being elected on the council contends with this in a serious way. I think no matter what the view is on police, and I think there's a range of them within the candidates who are currently in the lead and even those who are not. But I do think this needs to be taken seriously. And I think even if you look at polling of Seattle residents - their views on public safety and policing are more nuanced than some of the like flat, simple - either you back the blue, you support cops, or you don't. Think people are, I think it's fair to say that at least most voters are generally supportive of having police respond when they call 911, but they want that to be an effective response. They want it to be a constitutional response that does keep everybody safe, and respect everybody, and build trust in the community. And we're just seeing too many things that are not that. And with that, I think that we have come to a close today. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, November 10th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks, and this past week's guest co-host, is the incredible Dr. Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle Axios reporter, Melissa Santos, who does a wonderful job reporting on all things political and beyond. You can find Melissa on Twitter @MelissaSantos1. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on all platforms, basically, as @finchfrii - that's two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.  

On this Tuesday topical show, special guest host Shannon Cheng chats with Amy Sundberg and BJ Last from Solidarity Budget about the City of Seattle budget process. After covering budget basics and where we're at in Seattle's budget process, they cover the ongoing fight over the JumpStart Tax and what's being done (or not done) to address the upcoming $251 million budget deficit in 2025. Next, the trio breaks down the difference between “ghost cops” and the fully-funded SPD hiring plan, as well as why ShotSpotter still isn't a good idea. The show wraps up with a sampling of this year's other budget fights, how people can learn more or get involved, and Amy and BJ's dream budget items! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the guest host, Shannon Cheng, on Twitter at @drbestturtle, find Amy Sundberg at @amysundberg, and find Solidarity Budget at https://www.seattlesolidaritybudget.com/.   Amy Sundberg Amy Sundberg is the publisher of Notes from the Emerald City, a weekly newsletter on Seattle politics and policy with a particular focus on public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system. She also writes about public safety for The Urbanist. She organizes with Seattle Solidarity Budget and People Power Washington. In addition, she writes science fiction and fantasy, with a new novel, TO TRAVEL THE STARS, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in space, available now. She is particularly fond of Seattle's parks, where she can often be found walking her little dog.   BJ Last BJ Last is a business analyst, and former small business owner, with two decades of budgeting experience across a wide range of industries. He organizes with the Solidarity Budget and Ballard Mutual Aid.   Resources Seattle Solidarity Budget   Notes from the Emerald City   Tools to Understand the Budget | Seattle City Council   “Mosqueda, Council Colleagues Pass JumpStart's COVID Relief Package and Economic Recovery Spending Plan” by Joseph Peha from Seattle City Council Blog   “Seattle's Jumpstart payroll tax raised more than expected. Is the money going where it's most needed?” by Angela King & Katie Campbell from KUOW   Memorandum: General Fund Deficit Historical Analysis from Seattle City Council Central Staff   “Harrell's 2024 Budget Leaves Big Questions on Safety and Looming Shortfall” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Final Report of the Revenue Stabilization Workgroup   “Removing Vacant Police Positions in Seattle's Budget Is Good Fiscal Stewardship” by BJ Last for The Stranger   “Police Budget Fizz: Hiring Falls Short, Shotspotter Gains Support, Burgess Misrepresents Jane Jacobs” from PubliCola   “Nearly half of Seattle police calls don't need officers responding, new report says” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times   “Set Money Aside for Illegal Surveillance, or Fund Community Needs Now?” by BJ Last and Camille Baldwin-Bonney for The Stranger   “New UW study says human-services workers are underpaid by 37%” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   City of Seattle Budget Office   Stop ShotSpotter! Webinar - Seattle Solidarity Budget and ACLU of Washington | Nov 8, 2023   Guaranteed Basic Income Panel - Seattle Solidarity Budget | Oct 10, 2023   The People's Budget Seattle | Vote by Nov 12, 2023   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. [00:00:52] Shannon Cheng: Hello, everyone! This is Shannon Cheng, producer of Hacks & Wonks. I'm here as your special guest host for today. Everyone's been super busy with elections, but another important thing currently happening right now in a lot of our local jurisdictions is that they're having budget deliberations for the coming year. Budgets are super important - we talk a lot about policy on this show, but what really matters in the end is how that policy is implemented and budgets manifest our intent. So Crystal let me take over the show for a day, and I wanted to have some folks on who are closely following the budget here in Seattle. They're two local community organizers with Solidarity Budget. And before we get to meeting them, I just wanted to point out that while we're gonna be focused pretty deeply on the City of Seattle's budget, a lot of what we talk about is applicable to other places. So if you're interested in getting involved in the budget where you live, we can learn something from these experts. So without further ado, I just want to welcome Amy Sundberg and BJ Last. Amy, starting with you, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got involved with Solidarity Budget? [00:02:00] Amy Sundberg: Yes, hello! It's good to be here. I'm Amy, and I am the publisher and writer of the newsletter Notes from the Emerald City, which is a weekly newsletter that covers issues involving public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system - in our local area - so Seattle and King County mostly, and occasionally the state of Washington. As well, I sometimes cover public safety issues for The Urbanist. And I organize with People Power Washington and Solidarity Budget. Originally, I got my start organizing with People Power Washington and we would uplift the demands of Solidarity Budget. And eventually I connected with the folks at Solidarity Budget and started working with them as well, so that's how I initially got involved. [00:02:45] Shannon Cheng: What about you, BJ? [00:02:46] BJ Last: Hi, thanks. Great to be here. BJ Last - don't do anything as cool as Amy on a regular basis. I've lots of years as a budget analyst, former small business owner, was a professional baker - did pop-ups, but then COVID, so that kind of went by the wayside. I actually first got involved with Solidarity Budget over SPD overtime. SPD has a massive history of overspending on overtime. In 2020, there was a resolution the City passed mid-year saying if SPD overspends on its overtime, we won't give them more money for it. Lo and behold, SPD did. At the end of the year, council was like - Okay, fine, we'll give you more money, but we swear we're gonna take it from you next year to do an offset. And wanted that fight to be like - No, we need to actually try to get that money from them next year to have any kind of budget accountability. And spoiler, that sadly never happened. [00:03:34] Shannon Cheng: I agree with you that Amy is cool and also that the SPD overtime issues are very frustrating. For folks who don't know, could you give a little background on what Solidarity Budget is, and how it came to be, and how you all work together? [00:03:48] BJ Last: Sure thing. So Solidarity Budget came up out of - actually Mayor Jenny Durkan. Groups caught that Mayor Durkan was promising a lot of different groups the exact same pot of money and then being like - Y'all fight amongst yourselves to do this. And groups came together and was like - We're tired of actually just always being pitted against each other and forced to fight each other for scraps in the City budget, while all the funding goes to things that no one was wanting, like while all of the funding goes into SPD. SPD alone is still a quarter of the budget, getting everything carceral - it's about a third of the general fund. So it was that desire of - No, we don't want to be pitted against each other. And just rejecting this framework of - we have to fight against each other for scraps. So coming together as groups to be like - what are our big priorities and saying - Look, we are advocating for all of these things. [00:04:38] Amy Sundberg: I would say in addition, we wanted to make sure that when we're talking about the budget every year, that those most marginalized are centered in that conversation. And often they aren't, right? So it's important to have a coalition who has that front of mind when advocating. [00:04:54] Shannon Cheng: That's super smart. Our experience has been - it can be hard to get heard by electeds, just - if you're not the people in power, sometimes it just feels when you send your email and make your phone call, your voice might not be heard. And so trying to come together and forming a coalition so that you can have a larger voice seems like it would make a lot of sense if you want to push the lever on budget-related issues. Okay, so let's jump into some background and some budget basics before getting deep down into the weeds. Did you want to give, Amy, a sense of what the scale of budgets are at different jurisdictions and then what we're talking about here in Seattle? [00:05:31] Amy Sundberg: Sure. So there are many different government budgets. The biggest one, of course, is the national budget for the United States, which is around $4.4 trillion. So obviously a huge pot of money. Most of that money comes from personal income tax that we all pay every year and also corporate income tax, et cetera, et cetera. Then we have the state budget, which is about $72 billion per year. And then we have the King County budget, which is $6.2 billion per year. So you see, we're kind of getting smaller and smaller as we get into smaller jurisdictions. And then we have the City budget. And city budgets tend to be around $5 to $6 billion per year in total. All of these budgets are made up from various types of taxes and fees, and they each are responsible for funding different services in our communities. [00:06:26] Shannon Cheng: Great. So for the City of Seattle - let's just focus in on that as our example for today's episode. So where does the money for the City of Seattle come from? [00:06:35] Amy Sundberg: If we're talking about - particularly general fund - most of that money would come from property tax, sales tax, and B&O tax, which is a business tax. I think that's about 60% of the funds. And then there are a lot of other very small buckets of money that come in as well to make up the entire amount. [00:06:56] BJ Last: That's a great overview, Amy. And one thing I do want to just mention - so the total Seattle budget is $7.8 billion, but the vast majority of that is stuff that is extremely restricted. For example, we have public utilities. So City Light - that's $1.5 billion - that is all funded by the rates people pay for their electricity. So while that's there in that total number that makes the City's budget look absolutely huge, it's not accessible - the council can't use that to fund things. So the general fund is a much smaller slice of that. It's just about $1.6 billion. And that's the money that the City pretty much has full discretion as to where it decides to go and spend that. [00:07:37] Shannon Cheng: So if I'm understanding it correctly, you're saying Seattle's budget is pretty big, but a large part of it is already appropriated to specific things. So when it comes to these priorities that when people - they're looking around at their city or their neighborhood, and they want things - it's gonna have to come out of this thing you call the general fund. Is that correct? [00:07:57] Amy Sundberg: Yes, that's correct. So most of what we're advocating for every year is general fund dollars. [00:08:04] Shannon Cheng: Okay, and so you are saying, BJ, that the general fund is about $1.6 billion. So what types of things are currently getting funded out of the general fund? [00:08:14] BJ Last: Yeah, that's correct. So it's $1.6 billion. It's - very broadly defined, Public Safety is 47% of it. And that is SPD, also includes the Office of the Inspector General, the CPC, the police pension - those are all four different departments that are in there, that are all cops. The Fire Department and CARE/CSCC, which is the 911 dispatch - which is currently CSCC, may be getting rebranded CARE soon. So that's 47%. The next biggest bucket is Administration and that's 22%. And Administration is kind of a massive catch-all that includes a lot of things - so major expenditures in there are for indigent defense and the City's contract with the King County Jail. So when SPD goes and arrests someone and puts them in there, the City is effectively leasing part of the jail from King County - and that's to pay part of it. And it also includes things like Judgment and Claims Funds, which is for when people are suing the City - that comes out of there, that's housed in that Admin section. And unsurprisingly, that one's also been increasing a lot lately due to lawsuits coming from 2020, which we know what those were. And then the other thing that is anything really is Education & Human Services, and that's about 15% of the general fund. So those three things of Public Safety, Administration, Education & Human Services account for 80% of the general fund. [00:09:39] Shannon Cheng: Wow, so what's left in that 20% that's remaining? [00:09:43] Amy Sundberg: Oh gosh, it's a lot of small things. Libraries, for example, will get funded out of that. A lot of our Transportation actually gets funded through specific levies, so it wouldn't come from general fund. And I think that's true of Parks & Rec as well. But there might be some little bits of money that go to Transportation and Parks & Rec - they have varied funding sources, basically. [00:10:05] Shannon Cheng: Okay, great. So that's the general fund, the discretionary portion of the City of Seattle's budget. So what's happening right now with the process? [00:10:14] Amy Sundberg: When we talk about budget season in Seattle, it's generally just a two-month period in the fall. But really, budget goes on for much of the year - because before the fall, the City departments are having to analyze their budgets and turn in reports to the mayor. And then the Mayor's Office is developing a proposed budget - that's the budget that gets announced at the end of September. At that point, the City Council is able to come in and make their changes that they might wanna see in that proposed budget. So that's where we are right now. First, they review the proposed budget to make sure they understand what's in there and what isn't in there. And then the Budget Chair, who this year is Councilmember Mosqueda, puts together a balancing package - that's a package where she thinks that there is consent amongst the councilmembers, that everyone agrees that these are changes that should be made for the most part. And then each councilmember is given the opportunity to suggest amendments to that balancing package. And they need to get two other councilmembers to sponsor that in order to get those amendments considered. So that's where we are right now - we've just heard the amendments that are being considered. And eventually what will happen is that those amendments will be voted on by the Budget Committee, which is all of the councilmembers to be clear. [00:11:35] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so Mayor Harrell sent over his proposal end of September and we're about a month into the Council's involvement. And this is the budget for next year? [00:11:45] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, for 2024. [00:11:46] BJ Last: So Seattle operates on a biennium budget basis. So last year they set the budget for 2023 and 2024. So this year they're currently doing adjustments to that 2024 budget. And then next year it'll be back to doing the full biennium, where we'll be looking at 2025 and 2026. [00:12:04] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so this is just finishing up last year's work through the end of the year, and just adjusting based on the realities of how much money is coming in and new needs for expenditures. [00:12:15] Amy Sundberg: Theoretically that is the case. Seattle is a little bit less strict about that than some other municipalities. I would say King County is more of a true biennial budget, whereas Seattle's kind of a biennial budget. And I think actually there's been some push to make it more like King County, to make it more of a true biennium. So we'll see what happens with that. [00:12:36] Shannon Cheng: Okay, interesting. Another thing I keep hearing about all the time is this fight over the JumpStart Tax. And I think it'd be good to just lay out very clearly - what is that fight all about? [00:12:47] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, so the JumpStart payroll tax passed in the summer of 2020. And then the council passed a spending plan for it in 2021 to put into statute what exactly the JumpStart Tax is supposed to go to pay for. And just so we're clear on what that spend plan is - 62% of JumpStart funds are supposed to go to affordable housing, 9% to Green New Deal, 9% to Equitable Development Initiative, and 15% to small business. What has happened though - basically, because this was going on in the middle of the pandemic - obviously there was a lot more needs, the City budget was a little messier than maybe normally. So they allowed some of these JumpStart Tax dollars to be spent as a kind of a slush fund for the general fund so that we wouldn't have to have an austerity budget. And the idea was that over time this would transition and eventually all of the JumpStart Tax funds would go to those percentages that I mentioned a moment ago. However, what has ended up happening is that every year - regardless of what mayor we have - every year the mayor will take some of the JumpStart dollars and move it over for general fund purposes, instead of those specific Green New Deal and affordable housing purposes. Every year Council kind of tries to claw back those JumpStart funds to put them into the main purposes they were meant for. Now we're still having some budget issues, so there has been - even for this year - some money that Council agreed could be used from JumpStart funds to fund general fund priorities, especially because JumpStart funds ended up being larger than originally anticipated. So the compromise that was struck was that those extra dollars that we weren't originally expecting can be used to kind of help prop up the general fund. But what ends up happening is sometimes more money beyond that gets pulled from JumpStart into the general fund. And of course, because affordable housing in particular is a large percentage of where that money is supposed to go and is such a priority in the city right now, given our housing crisis, this becomes a big fight every year. [00:15:05] Shannon Cheng: Okay, yeah - that's helpful. So I think I saw - in 2021, the JumpStart Tax generated $234 million. And so that was one of those years where the City and the Council felt that some of that needed to go towards other things than that spend plan that you referenced. And so about 37% of it ended up going to the general fund. And then that leaves a much smaller slice left for addressing those issues that you listed - housing, small business support, Green New Deal, equitable development - which, if people stop and think about - looking around, what are the biggest issues that the City's facing right now? I mean, that's what these are trying to address - the housing crisis, small businesses struggling after the pandemic, needing to do something about climate change in a meaningful way, and then also trying to spread our resources in a more equitable way across residents of the city. And so - to me then - thinking about JumpStart Tax, it's sort of a mini version of a whole budget. Because we had purported values that we stated out when we passed this legislation - saying this is what we want to spend this money on. And then, as with many things, it's the reality of the implementation that lets us see where our priorities truly are. And it sounds like - in 2020, we said very strongly - We need to meaningfully address these issues that we've been in a state of crisis for for a long time, and they've just been getting worse. And people are pointing that out - you see that. What I find really interesting is that the original people who've opposed the JumpStart Tax - so that would be the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Seattle Association - are these the same people who are now pushing to take the money away from JumpStart's original purposes and redirect it towards other things? [00:16:53] BJ Last: Honestly, yes. They're a lot of the people pushing that they want to - I'll use the phrase - "liberate" JumpStart funds so that it can be used as effectively just more general fund backfill. They also haven't entirely given up on fighting JumpStart. As part of the Revenue Stabilization Task Force that was meeting this year, the representatives from the Metro Chamber of Commerce, she made comments of - Hey, we think we should actually pause JumpStart for a year or two - supposedly to help businesses on recovery. So they are still fighting on JumpStart a little. The opponents of JumpStart have much more moved to - they just want it to be more general fund. [00:17:32] Amy Sundberg: And I do think it's important to state also that when we talk about wanting to allow businesses to recover, JumpStart Tax only applies to very large businesses with very high payroll and very highly paid employees. It's not hitting small businesses - that's not how it was set up. [00:17:51] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, previous to JumpStart Tax, there was an attempt to pass the Amazon head tax and that did pass, but then eventually got repealed because of a lot of protest. And I believe the JumpStart Tax came out of a coalition that got built after that failed attempt, which included small business groups - because 15% of the JumpStart revenue is supposed to go towards small business support. Which everybody likes to say - small business is super important to the health and vibrancy of the Seattle economy. But are we willing to put our money where our mouth is on that? I just find it pretty insidious the way that they're approaching this because they oppose the tax to begin with, they're still opposing it now, they wanna pause it. But when they ask for the money to go back to the general fund, it seems like it's going back to a lot of their own interests, such as downtown activation. So not only are they taking the money back for themselves, they're also weakening the implementation of what this tax was originally said to do. People probably heard about this tax when they announced it - there was all sorts of glowing praise of this is gonna address meaningfully these problems that everybody cares about. And yet now, by weakening it and taking money away, we can't spend as much of that money on it. And so obviously, when you look at the results of what the JumpStart Tax has done, it will look like it's less. And so I just really wanna call that out. I also wanna call out that the council that passed the JumpStart Tax in July of 2020 is pretty much the same council we currently have other than Councilmember Nelson who replaced Councilmember González in 2021. And JumpStart Tax passed 7-2. The only two councilmembers who did not vote for it were Councilmembers Juarez and Pedersen. How have they been reacting to all this JumpStart scuffling? [00:19:33] Amy Sundberg: They definitely have been less supportive of increasing the JumpStart Tax in any way - that has been noticeable. [00:19:40] BJ Last: Yeah, they have also been very much on the wanting to just throw the spending plan out the window. Actually, it was Councilmember Pedersen who's the first one that I heard use the expression of "liberate" JumpStart funds - create additional flexibility and disregard that. There are also subtler attempts to pretend that the JumpStart spend plan is very unclear, and so potentially needs to be revisited due to that - even though it's actually an extremely clear spend plan. People just keep trying to violate it - it's not that the plan isn't clear, people just keep asking for stuff that goes outside of that spend plan. [00:20:13] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so then the councilmembers who did vote for it - so those would be Councilmembers Herbold, Morales, Sawant, Strauss, Lewis, and then obviously Councilmember Mosqueda, who spearheaded the effort. Are they staying strong behind the values that they voted for on the JumpStart Tax, or has that kind of squished up since then? [00:20:31] Amy Sundberg: I would say - I mean, you know - it's hard to say what is in their hearts, but I would say it's a mix. I think some of them have stayed pretty strong, and I think others of them have, you know, less so. [00:20:45] Shannon Cheng: Okay, fair enough. I guess I'm just concerned 'cause it sounds like this JumpStart Tax issue will continue to carry on, and it is possible that we will lose its biggest champion on the city council next year. So I just want everybody listening to understand what this fight is about and why it's so important. To me, it kind of comes down to differences in opinion over what is gonna float all the boats in this city, right? I mean, business wants us to believe that if we just pour all the money into business and their interests, that that will just generally help everybody. Whereas what JumpStart was trying to do, I believe, is trying to build from the ground up by providing people housing, trying to spread the resources in a more equitable fashion, tackling climate change, providing good jobs that come out of tackling climate change. And so I just really think this is a fight over shifting decision-making about how we spend our resources from being concentrated with a few powerful interests, and letting more people have a say and access to success and opportunities to do well in this city. [00:21:48] Amy Sundberg: I would say Councilmember Mosqueda in particular has been a stalwart advocate of JumpStart. And as the Budget Chair, she has been in good position every year to counter the attempts to try to use JumpStart as more and more of a City slush fund. So if we lose her on Council at the end of this year, that certainly will make it more concerning going forward in terms of what will happen with JumpStart. I'll also say there is this spend plan. It is in statute currently. That statute could be changed, so it's not like it's protected forever. [00:22:21] Shannon Cheng: All right, so everyone - it's Election Day. Get out and vote - try to think about who's gonna be our next champion for the JumpStart Tax. So moving on, we also keep hearing all this news about an upcoming budget shortfall in 2025. What's happening with that? [00:22:39] Amy Sundberg: So the City of Seattle is facing a massive budget deficit starting in 2025. It is now estimated to be around $251 million deficit, which has gone up based on the mayor's proposed budget. So basically, the mayor's proposed budget this year has made the problem worse - potentially - in upcoming years. $251 million is a lot of money. And so the question is, what are we going to do to address that? There are two main ways to do that. You can make cuts to the budget - spend less money. Or you can pass new progressive revenue that will help fund the budget. We are not allowed by law to have a not balanced budget, so that is not an option - it's not on the table. Or of course you can do a combination of cuts and new progressive revenue. So those are kind of the two levers that councilmembers have to play with. And what is relevant in this budget season right now is speaking about new progressive revenue, because if we want to pass new progressive revenue for the City of Seattle, we would need to plan ahead a little bit. Because it will take some time to implement any new progressive revenue that we might pass - there's a ramp up to getting it done. So if we wanted to have that revenue to rely on for 2025, we would really ideally want to pass things now before the end of the year. [00:24:03] BJ Last: What I'd add on to what Amy mentioned is how we actually ended up getting to this upcoming deficit. Over the last two decades roughly, Seattle's population has grown at a really robust clip. We have all seen that. We have not seen the same growth in the general fund revenues that come in. Property tax increases are limited to - I believe it's at most 1% a year for the city - because sales tax also does not increase. So while we are seeing this really big increase in population, we have not seen the same with our general fund. It has really not moved that much. So it isn't the narrative of - Oh, the city has added a bunch of new pet projects or whatever, and that's where it's come from. It's come from largely - the city has gotten bigger and the general fund growth has not kept up with that. 85% of that upcoming deficit projected is all due to just open labor contracts. The Coalition of City Unions - their contracts are open. SPOG - their contract is also open. Paying Coalition of City Unions, paying the City workers - the people that like literally keep the lights on, fix the roads - of actually going and paying them is where this is coming from. [00:25:06] Amy Sundberg: And especially because inflation rates have been so high the last couple of years, right? So that's - they need a much larger raise than they would need if inflation was not high. [00:25:15] BJ Last: Also on the inflation part - thank you, that's a great call out, Amy - growth of the general fund has not kept up with inflation, especially just these last two years. I think there've even been other years where it hasn't happened, but these last two years in particular, we have not seen the general fund grow at the same rate. So things have gotten more expensive for the city that the general fund has to get spent on, but the dollars coming in the door haven't kept up with that. [00:25:35] Shannon Cheng: Is anything being done about that? Did the mayor propose anything about progressive revenue, or thinking about this upcoming problem? [00:25:42] Amy Sundberg: The mayor did not propose anything having to do with new progressive revenue in fact, which is a decision that he has been critiqued for in the local media. And there certainly has been a fair amount of rhetoric about just tightening our belts, right? But to be clear, $251 million - that's a lot of cuts that would drive us straight into an austerity budget, one would think. So that is where the mayor's office has landed, but there have been a lot of conversations about potential new progressive revenue that started with the task force that BJ mentioned earlier, which was brought together to look at various possibilities of what could be good new revenue sources. And certainly there were people that sat on that task force that had a priority of finding good new progressive sources of revenue in particular, as opposed to regressive taxes that will hurt people who have less more. And they did find some reasonable options that would not require a change in state law, and so could potentially be implemented in time to address the 2025 budget shortfall. So I would say that there are three main possibilities at play right now that are being discussed. One of those is a capital gains tax, so we had a capital gains tax at the state level pass - so far it has survived any legal challenges that it has faced. So it would be possible for the City to institute a tax above that. It would be a fairly small amount, probably 1-2% capital gains tax. Councilmember Pedersen originally was the councilmember who suggested this, and he also suggested that we remove a certain water fee. So it'll be interesting to hear a more robust analysis of that water fee to find out - is that truly a regressive tax? Or with various rebates, et cetera, that are available for people - is it not that regressive a tax? Because if we were to take away that water fee, it would be revenue neutral, so it wouldn't actually assist us with the upcoming deficit. Not to say it's still not worthwhile to talk about, even if that's true, because we want to get rid of more regressive taxes and institute more progressive taxes. So either way, that's a good conversation to have - but it's unclear to me more of the details of that water tax, how regressive it is. So that is an important thing to discover. The other two options have to do with the JumpStart Tax that we were talking about. One of them would be just to increase that JumpStart Tax across - it has a tiered structure right now, so across the tiers to just increase it. Councilmember Sawant has already proposed very, very modest increases in that JumpStart Tax in two of her amendments for the 2024 budget to fund specific priorities. So increasing the JumpStart Tax just full stop is one option. Another really intriguing option that has been discussed is something called a CEO pay ratio tax. This would require corporations that pay their top executives exorbitant amounts to pay an extra tax, or fee, or surcharge. So basically what we could do is use the JumpStart Tax as a vehicle by adding an extra layer to it. So there would be an extra tax that would only apply to corporations that exceed a certain CEO pay ratio. And what I have heard about this tax - again, so it would be fairly easy to implement because you don't have to change state law, you would just add an additional layer to an already existent tax. And what I've heard is that it would collect a significant amount of funds, but I don't have any actual numbers on that. So it will be really interesting to hear an analysis of how much money that could potentially actually bring in. And what Councilmember Mosqueda has announced is that there will be an extra Budget Committee meeting after the main 2024 budget is passed to discuss some of these possibilities at more depth. So they will be discussed earlier in November, kind of as a briefing, and then the councilmembers will meet after the budget is passed to potentially vote on some of these possibilities, if they're not already passed in the 2024 budget. [00:30:09] BJ Last: One thing I wanted to mention - so the Revenue Stabilization Group looked at about 20 different taxes. They did a great write-up that finally made it out in August after having been delayed a few times. The three taxes Amy mentioned - one of the reasons that they're at the top three is how quickly they can get implemented. So, you know, we're currently sitting and recording this - it's November, the budget deficit starts on January 1st, 2025. There is very limited time to go and get an ordinance passed and actually then to have that go into effect - since a new tax doesn't go into effect the day that it is passed - and to make sure that it would survive any legal challenges. So there is even like a broader list of things, but because we have kept putting this conversation off, because the city has sort of kept pushing the can down the road, we don't have very much time to go and pass this. We have about 13, 14 months to get something passed and to start having dollars coming in the door before that deficit hits. [00:31:04] Shannon Cheng: All right, so time is of the essence here. And it sounds like although Mayor Harrell didn't put anything in his proposals to address this, at least Council seems like they're gonna be on it in some fashion. So we'll see what comes of that. Okay, so that's the revenue side of the budget. And I think that's helpful for people to understand, 'cause I think it's much easier to talk about what you want to spend money on rather than where that money is gonna come from. I mean, I know I'm like that in my own life. So maybe we need to talk about what are we gonna spend all this money that we're bringing in on. And earlier in the show, talked about a rough breakdown of the general fund - it sounds like a huge portion of that goes towards public safety, which includes the Fire Department and the Police Department. So is the reason why sometimes it feels like there's so much focus on the police budget because they're kind of the biggest chunk of the budget, so that if you were trying to look for places where we could make some savings, it would be there? [00:32:05] BJ Last: I'd say absolutely. Not only are they the biggest chunk - no other department eats up as big a portion of the general fund as SPD does. So not only that, but they also get absurdly special treatment that no other department gets, where a lot of basic budget practices even just get entirely thrown out the window because it's for SPD. Ghost cops are a great example of this. Ghost cops are positions SPD gets funded for, even though they have no plan, intention, or ability to fill these roles. So these are not people that SPD even thinks they can plan - they have said they aren't going in the plan, there's no desire to, but they still get funding for them year after year. There are like 213 of these now currently sitting around and it works out to be - about $31 million of SPD's budget right now is slush fund on this. And we talked about the upcoming deficit in 2025. So a $250 million roughly - $30 million on these guys - you can see that this is a large percentage of the deficit sitting right there in these ghost positions that councilmembers just don't want to touch. And to give a sort of example of how no one else gets treated this way - where they get to just sort of hold on to this positional authority when they have no ability to fill it. Last year, the city abrogated 24 911-dispatcher positions, which - abrogation means they remove positional authority to it. No one probably heard about this 'cause there wasn't a big kerfuffle because it's normal. Council and the mayor and everyone's like - Well, you guys have said you can't hire these guys for the next two years for the duration of the biennium, so we're just gonna remove positional authority to it. If staffing plans change, we can re-add it. We can also add this back into the 2025 biennium if staffing levels have picked up. And in fact, they actually already are adding back about three of them in the supplemental of - in 2024 now in the budget process because their hiring has picked up. So just using 911 dispatch as an example - the ghost cops, the excess positional authority - no other department gets that. Every other department it is what your staffing plan is - the number of people you actually expect to hire - that is the number of positions you get, and that's the number of positions you get funded for. SPD gets this massive slush fund that they get to go and use on whatever the heck they want. And there was also even a technology one that we saw in the 2022 budget. Truleo - it's a technology - it swears it's like AI, natural language processing of body camera footage. SPD specifically asked for additional money for this program as part of the 2022 budget. Council explicitly did not give them funding for this. They said - We are not funding this program. Then the City found out at the start of this year that SPD actually went ahead and bought Truleo anyway. So they ended up canceling the contract, but it ended up as a thing of - usually if a department goes to a company and says, We need additional money for this project - if they don't get that money and then they find a way to fund that project anyway, it raises a lot of questions. Like, why did you say you needed additional money for this if you could already cover it with your additional budget? And hey, all those other items that you said you needed additional money for, that we gave you additional money for - how many of them did you really need additional money for versus you were just attempting to pad out your budget? So that's one of the reasons why it gets a lot of attention. Not only is it just the biggest percentage of the general fund by a lot, but the absurd special treatment that they get. [00:35:29] Shannon Cheng: So SPD is 26% of the general fund? [00:35:33] BJ Last: SPD itself is 24-26%. That does not include the police pension department - that is a separate pension in there. It does not include the Office of Inspector General and the CPC, the Community Police Commission, even though they are also both part of that. So when you start adding all of those, it goes up even over a quarter. And then when you add in the city attorney's office, municipal courts, indigent defense, jail services - what we're spending on carceral - it's a third of the general fund all ends up sitting there. [00:36:05] Shannon Cheng: Wow, okay. Yeah, I see here - just the Seattle Police Department alone, not all those other things you added on - they're sitting at just under $400 million. So what I'm understanding is these ghost cops are haunting, I guess, the Seattle Police Department budget. [00:36:23] BJ Last: These ghost cop positions - they do haunt the general budget. Amy talked about how we're defunding JumpStart. So it's about $85 million last year, $85 million this year, $85 million next year - that's getting transferred from JumpStart to the general fund. So again, transferred from Green New Deal, affordable housing to the general fund. Because SPD gets a quarter of the general fund, that means that $21 million a year roughly is literally going from affordable housing to SPD and its ghost cops. [00:36:54] Shannon Cheng: Oh man. Okay. So, and then they're taking it, and as you said, spending it on things that they were explicitly told not to spend it on or who knows what else, right? We try to dig in and get more transparency into what's going on, but that can be difficult. And just what BJ was saying about budgeting practices and that SPD is not subject to those at times - so I looked at the King County biennial budget for the same time period from 2023 to 2024. And they have line items across all of their appropriation units, including the Sheriff's Office and the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, that's called a vacancy rate adjustment. And this is exactly what BJ is describing - it's capturing salary savings from them not having been able to hire and being able to put that back into the general budget so that they can use it for other things that there's a need for. And then in addition to that, last biennium for King County, they had an additional line item specifically only for the Sheriff's Office and the Department of Adult Juvenile Detention called Capture Additional Vacancy Savings. And here, I'll just read the line item - it says it's to increase expected savings due to vacancies to account for current unprecedented vacancy level. And, you know, it allows the Sheriff's Office and DAJD to request additional appropriation to reverse it if the vacancy rate reverses and that we're able to magically start hiring a ton of people. I mean, we see that there's kind of a nationwide hiring shortage across every kind of profession, but in police and corrections officers as well. So this is not abnormal, and there was not a giant fight in the King County budget when this happened. Just to give you a sense of the magnitude - just from the original base vacancy rate adjustment, it was $5.3 million from the Sheriff's Office. And that additional vacancy savings was $5.7 million. So this is meaningful money that can be used in other places and not just locked up in the - Oh, well, maybe law enforcement will get to use it. Or maybe when they get close to the end of the spending period, they'll just spend it on something that we didn't all agree that we wanted. [00:39:03] Amy Sundberg: I will say as well that SPD has a very optimistic hiring plan and they never hit it - at least for the last several years that I've been following it, they don't hit it. And this year they actually - the department shrank again. They have a negative total when you add in hires minus attrition. So it's still shrinking in spite of these hiring bonuses that we have no evidence actually works. But these ghost cop positions aren't even part of that. They're ones that even SPD says - We definitely aren't gonna hire that this year. It's not taking away from the hiring plan that SPD wants and thinks they can hire. It's additional positions beyond that. And to be clear, it's a couple hundred additional positions. It's not like four or five. [00:39:50] Shannon Cheng: Okay, thanks. 'Cause I feel like people conflate that a lot - this talk of supporting SPD and public safety and fully funding their hiring plan, which it sounds like that's what has been happening, but then you have this conversation about abrogating these positions or ghost cops. And so you're saying that those are two separate things? [00:40:10] BJ Last: Absolutely. SPD - they always put out incredibly optimistic hiring plans, even by their own terms. So their hiring plan for next year is still that they will end up with - I think it's a record number of hires, like more than they've ever had - hiring 125 cops, I think it is. And with the number of cops leaving slowing down. And they're like - Cool, our full hiring plan for next year is roughly 1,130 cops. And they're currently getting funded for like 1,344 cops, something like that - it's a difference of 213 positions between what they've said they can hire and what they actually plan on trying to hire - between that and what they're actually funded for. [00:40:47] Shannon Cheng: What are the issues in the hiring pipeline? Why is there a limit to the number of officers that they would actually be able to hire? [00:40:54] Amy Sundberg: I mean, there's a lot of factors. Primarily, there aren't enough applicants to begin with - not enough people want to become police officers at SPD. That's an issue. But as well, I just also - the hiring process takes time because they have to go through a series of testing and vetting. And then if they aren't lateral hires - if they're new recruits, then they have to go through the academy. And even once they're done with academy, they go through more training on the job, so they're not really full officers at that point yet. So it just - there's a long ramp to hiring new officers. Lateral officers - SPD has a great interest in hiring them because they've already been a police officer somewhere else. So they can kind of get plugged in more easily, directly into SPD. But they've been having a really difficult time finding lateral hires. So far in 2023 - I forget - it was four, five, or six total lateral hires for the entire year. And they had expected to be able to hire many more. And when asked about it, Chief Diaz said that the candidates simply weren't good enough for them to hire more than that. But somehow magically, they expect the candidates to get better next year if you look at who they expect to hire next year, which I think is interesting. [00:42:09] BJ Last: And I'd also say, Amy, none of that is unique to Seattle at all. It was already touched on - this is not just Seattle Police Department is having trouble hiring, this is police departments everywhere. Fewer people want to become cops. And just like Seattle, it really, really wants lateral hires because it's much shorter. I think the timeline from a new recruit is like 18 months before they are counted as a employable officer, or whatever their term is. The lateral is much shorter. So not only does Seattle want them, every other department wants them. Thing is just - people do not want to be cops as much. We know one of the things that isn't a barrier to hiring at all is pay. The average SPD officer made over $155,000 in 2022, based on the City's wage data. So they are making - the city pays an absolute ton for SPD on the individual officer level. There're the hiring bonuses that have been around that don't do anything. So it's - for these lateral hires, it's 30K that they're getting offered, it's 7,500 for a new recruit. So the city has already tried throwing just buckets and buckets of money to see if that would somehow turn into more people wanting to be cops in Seattle. And it has absolutely positively not worked. And that really needs to be acknowledged - not throwing money at this one - that's not going to change things here. It's not unique to Seattle, it's across everything. And it's also one of the reasons why other cities have moved to actually non-police responses to things. Because we look back - tons and tons of studies - SPD did its own study in 2019 that showed, I think it was 56% of all 911 calls are non-criminal. There was the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform Study that came out in 2021 - showed 80% of all the calls SPD is currently doing don't match anything in the criminal code, and 49% of those calls could immediately go to the community. So one of the reasons other cities are going into non-police responses is because it's what cops actually do - is they respond to non-criminal stuff, that's where they spend all their time. So why on earth are we throwing all of this money at people to show up, and escalate non-criminal situations, and traumatize people? And Seattle has really dragged its heels on that. After having talked about non-police response for years, multiple studies coming out about how little of SPD's calls are actually anything that counts as criminal, how much could go to community - just this last month, they finally launched a dual dispatch, which is SPD responding to stuff. So years later, the city has just refused to move on this item. [00:44:43] Amy Sundberg: I will also add, since we're in the middle of election season - I keep hearing from candidates that what they want to do to fix public safety in Seattle is hire 500 new cops. And I'll just say, your opinion doesn't matter - regardless of your opinion of whether we should hire more cops, whether you want less cops - we are not gonna hire 500 new cops in Seattle anytime soon. It is literally impossible. It is just not gonna happen. So when I hear candidates say that - I mean, it's pie-in-the-sky thinking, it's not a real solution because there are not 500 new cops for us to hire. And also there's, as BJ said, there's the 18 month ramp up to even get someone trained up to become a police officer. So this is just not reality. [00:45:32] Shannon Cheng: Okay, well, speaking of a mismatch between reality and intended outcomes, I keep hearing about this technology called ShotSpotter. I feel like we had a giant debate over it last year, it sounds like it's reared its ugly head again this year. Can you break down what this fight over ShotSpotter is and why it's important? [00:45:54] BJ Last: Sure, so ShotSpotter at a basic level - well, first off, so the company is now called SoundThinking. They did a rebrand because - yeah, the reputation that ShotSpotter has. It's an acoustic gunshot detection service is what it describes itself as - and it is people sitting in a room hundreds of miles away, listening to recordings of loud noises. And then saying whether or not they think that loud noise was a gunshot. That is what ShotSpotter boils down to. Like they swear there's a super fancy AI algorithm, but whatever that AI decides to flag - it goes to people sitting in a room hundreds of miles away, listening to a noise, and saying whether or not they think it was a gunshot. And they have a large financial interest in actually saying everything was a gunshot. Because of how the contracts are written - that there's no guarantees that they won't send a lot of false alerts. The only guarantee that is in there is anything where the police actually find that there was evidence of a gunshot - for 90% of those, ShotSpotter will have given an alert. So it's pretty much if they say that something wasn't a gunshot, and it turns out it was, that then could potentially hurt their contract. If they call every single loud noise a gunshot, that has zero impact on them at all. So people listening to loud noises with an incentive to go and say everything's a gunshot. And you are right - we had this fight just last year, when the city went and asked for it. And what this ask was - was they asked for additional funding, specifically for ShotSpotter, which council declined to give them. They're asking for it again. Of that additional money specifically for ShotSpotter - this additional money piece actually though, has no impact on whether or not the city actually purchases ShotSpotter. In order to purchase a subscription to ShotSpotter - because it's a subscriptions purchase, so it becomes an annual expense every single year - SPD has to go through a Surveillance Impact Report, which is they have to meet with the community, put together what would be a lot of - what would be the impacts of this technology, what does it do, get community feedback, and then council also has to go and approve that. SPD has been able to do this any single day that it's wanted to. It could have started this process. When they first asked for it last year, they could have started this process then. In any of the time between last year's budget and now, they could have started this process. So they have not done that. So they're asking for money - again, for something that they've taken no steps to actually get anywhere close to being able to legally purchase. [00:48:17] Amy Sundberg: I think too - I have a lot to say about ShotSpotter - I've spent way too much of the last several weeks of my life thinking about ShotSpotter. And to be honest, I just - I find it personally painful that we're having this discussion again this year. Because not only is ShotSpotter ineffective, so it's a waste of money - which is bad enough. I mean, we obviously do not have money to waste. But it is actively harmful, to be clear. There are many, many studies that show this. It increases the number of pat-downs, searches, and enforcement actions. It justifies the over-policing of Black, Indigenous, and people of color neighborhoods that they are primarily living in. It leads to unnecessary contact between the police and vulnerable populations. And it also leads to false arrests. There have even been some cases where they've shown that possibly some of the "evidence" - I put that in air quotes - "evidence" has been tampered with in various ways. I mean, this is actively harmful. It is not just a waste of money. And then also, this year is being sold as part of a crime prevention pilot. And let me be clear - gun violence is a huge problem. It's a huge problem in Seattle. It's a huge problem in King County. Frankly, it's a huge problem across the entire country. And I don't want to minimize the impacts of that in any way, but there is no evidence that shows that ShotSpotter decreases gun violence. So people who are desperate, who want a solution to that problem, are being sold ShotSpotter as the solution, but it's not true. And that's what I find so painful, right? Is that there's people who desperately need a solution to this problem, and instead of actually giving them one that might have a chance of working, they're given ShotSpotter as a false hope instead - which I find repugnant, frankly. [00:50:13] BJ Last: Oh yeah - it's incredibly predatory what they do, Amy. They prey on communities that are struggling with issues of gun violence - which is a massive issue, as you said, that really has huge impacts - and they sell them something that just makes things worse. You mentioned on some of the - what happens with some of these alerts - Adam Toledo was one of the most famous examples of this. So Adam Toledo was a 13-year-old that the Chicago police killed because they were responding to a ShotSpotter alert. And they chased after a 13-year-old, and ended up shooting him in an alley when his hands were empty - when there was nothing in his hands. So this is the real harm that does come from this. And again, it is preying off of communities that have been disinvested in and that are dealing with real problems of gun violence and being like - Oh, hey, here's something we swear will make it better. And that goes and makes it worse. [00:51:01] Amy Sundberg: I will also say - we had this fight last year, we're having it again. There've been a few new wrinkles that have been introduced this year that I think are important to address. One of them is that this year, they have proposed that along with the ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot technology, that they include CCTV cameras. And what Senior Deputy Mayor Burgess said during one of these budget meetings was that the combination of these two technologies leads to higher accuracy and also better admissibility in court. However, these claims have not been backed up. We did find a study that shows that, in fact, the combination of these two technologies does not improve accuracy. And Councilmember Herbold asked Tim Burgess for his evidence - What makes you think this? A month after she asked, she says she finally received his answer - which was six reports on CCTV alone with no ShotSpotter technology included so does not, in fact, give any evidence that it makes ShotSpotter better. And one kind of manual suggesting that maybe you could combine these two technologies with no study attached. So the only study we have found says, in fact, it does not improve the accuracy. So I think that's really important to note. There seems to be a certain lack of regard from certain quarters for actually looking at the evidence - that I find sad, frankly. And another wrinkle that I'll mention is that BJ talked about the Surveillance Ordinance - the report that they would have to do in order to implement ShotSpotter. In the original proposal from the mayor's office, they asked to do one report - so each report, you have to do a racial equity analysis as part of that report - and they asked to only do one report. But this is mobile technology, so you can pick up the camera and the ShotSpotter tech and you can move it to a different neighborhood. So they would only be doing their racial equity analysis in the original neighborhoods that it was going to be placed, and then they could pick it up and move it to any other neighborhood without having to do another racial equity analysis, which I think is deeply problematic because different neighborhoods are different. And a lot of the neighborhoods that they were talking about originally using this technology on are primarily white. And my concern would be - what if they picked it up and moved it to a community that wasn't primarily white, but didn't have to do a racial impact report on that. That is deeply troubling. And I will say Councilmember Mosqueda, in her balancing package, addressed this problem and said - No, you should do a racial equity impact for each time you move it. So hopefully we won't buy ShotSpotter at all, but hopefully that change will stay if we do - because I think you can't do one impact report for a neighborhood, and then move it somewhere completely different and expect that report to have any validity. [00:54:09] Shannon Cheng: So ShotSpotter doesn't address the problem it's claiming to try to solve. In fact, it sounds like it might be making things worse. And so they're asking this year for about $1.8 million, but what do we know from other cities - once you buy a pilot, this $1.8 million this year, what happens after that? [00:54:28] BJ Last: It's a subscription service. So even if you wanted to maintain the same amount or the same coverage area, you are spending that every single year. So this is, would be an ongoing expense. And that's also assuming the ShotSpotter doesn't change its rates. And then if you decided to expand the footprint of where it is, that's gonna add what you're spending every single year. So it is very much just an ongoing expense into a budget that as we said - hey, is already facing a substantial general fund deficit for something that does not address a serious problem. [00:55:00] Amy Sundberg: And the company SoundThinking - I mean, their business model is to persuade cities to expand. So it would not be surprising to me if we were to start this pilot - if in a few years we were spending more like $10 million on ShotSpotter, that would not shock me. [00:55:16] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so it's - this year, we're trying to decide whether to dip a toe into this ShotSpotter technology, but it could lead to larger expenditures in future years if this initial pilot gets funded further. [00:55:34] BJ Last: Absolutely. And also the ShotSpotter company SoundThinking - they do a lot of other surveillance items. They recently bought PredPol, which is nominally predictive policing, that has all the absolute racial bias issues that you probably imagine the moment that a company said that they can sell you predictive policing. So odds are it would not even be staying at just ShotSpotter - of microphones listening for loud noises - that SoundThinking would be trying to then expand to all of their other horrible, dystopian, incredibly biased technology. [00:56:05] Shannon Cheng: Yay. [00:56:07] Amy Sundberg: It's really concerning, right? I think a lot of people want to hold up technology as this panacea - where it will fix everything. And that is not always the case. And in this case, I would argue it is not at all the case. And there are actually things that we could be investing in that might address the issue much more effectively. [00:56:28] BJ Last: Yeah, like the things that are proven to work on this are low tech items - they're violence interruption programs, resourcing communities, things like that that are actually shown to reduce gun violence. [00:56:39] Amy Sundberg: Even physical changes in the environment have been shown to have a significant effect - like adding more lighting, for example. [00:56:47] Shannon Cheng: So those are some of the big fights over public safety, which - they're really important. Unfortunately, I also feel like they often overshadow some of the other big fights that might be going on - just there's a lot of rhetoric right now about public safety, especially with the ongoing election. So what are some of the other big budget fights that you're seeing in this year's deliberations? [00:57:05] BJ Last: Well, I'd say a lot of those fights are actually also public safety items. Like there are fights on School Safety Traffic and Pedestrian Improvement, SSTPI fund - so that's been getting cut. That is safe routes for kids to walk and bike to school - Vision Zero stuff is also getting cut. We're fighting really to stop that. And so far, at least 22 pedestrians have been killed while walking, biking, or rolling. So that is absolutely a public safety item, I would say. Same with - there are currently amendments to undo the cuts to food safety. The proposed budget cut about $950,000 from food security, so that was 650K roughly for food banks and 300K for food access. I would very much say that food access is also very much a public safety item. I think there was even a French musical, Les Mis - didn't that have a lot to do with an entire revolution because people couldn't afford bread and were hungry? [00:57:58] Amy Sundberg: There also is a fight about funding behavioral health services at Tiny House villages. Right now, that funding is a lot less than it was in 2023 for 2024. And the reason why that's important is because having this funding allows Tiny House villages to house people with higher acuity needs. But if they don't have those services available, then those people can't live there. So, I mean, that's a huge issue. And there are a couple amendments to address that - one of them would take the ShotSpotter money and use it instead to pay for that, which I think is a great use of that money. And there also are fights about pay wages for human service workers - to make sure that all human service workers are getting inflationary increase and a 2% raise on top of that, a true 2% raise on top of that. There have been various little fiddly things regarding that - some of those workers were not covered because they're technically paid through King County or with federal money. But they're still doing the job every day, they still deserve that full 2% raise. So there are amendments that are working to address that shortfall to make sure that those folks get paid a fair wage. [00:59:08] BJ Last: Yeah, and on the 2% raise for human service providers, there's a pay equity study that the University of Washington released - I think it was February this year - that found human service workers in Seattle are underpaid by 37%. So 2% is just a drop in the bucket compared to what we, a city-funded study by UW found that they are currently underfunded by. There was even a resolution passed that wants to increase their wages by 7% by 2025, so this is a small item just trying to move inline with that resolution and to also make progress towards that study. 'Cause again - underpaid by 37% is huge and that impacts people's ability to actually provide services. One other item I'll throw out - there was also a cut in the budget to ADA accessibility. The reason that the City specifically funds this

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank! Robert fills Crystal in on dismaying news about Seattle Public Schools - how the district provoked parent fury by removing teachers and splitting classes after they screwed up enrollment projections, as well as their proposal for an austerity plan that includes school closures and anti-union financial policies. They then switch gears to discuss the conservative National Association of Realtors pouring money into the Seattle City Council races, Sara Nelson's penchant for campaign stunts rather than governing, and right-wingers using high gas prices to take aim at carbon pricing. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Robert Cruickshank, at @cruickshank.   Resources “ChrisTiana ObeySumner, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 5” from Hacks & Wonks   “Pete Hanning, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 6” from Hacks & Wonks   “A ‘routine' reconfiguration of Seattle schools brings tears, concerns” by Claire Bryan from The Seattle Times   “‘Please don't break our hearts,' Seattle parents, teachers protest widespread classroom shuffles” by Sami West from KUOW   “Seattle parents raise concerns over classroom size miscalculations by school district” by Denise Whitaker from KOMO   “‘The board needs to make this right'; Parents concerned over SPS restructuring” by Dave Detling from Fox 13   “Seattle Public Schools Unveil Plans for Sweeping Cuts and Lasting Austerity” by Robert Cruickshank from The Urbanist   “National realtors group drops $659k in Seattle, Spokane elections” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   “Burien Mayor Sees No Issue With Distribution of Homeless People's Private Info, Council Member Blames Her Colleague for Fentanyl Deaths” from PubliCola   “Will high gas prices derail WA's climate policy?” by Conrad Swanson from The Seattle Times   “Don't let the oil industry gaslight us about high prices at the pump” by Leah Missik for The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed this week's topical shows, we continued our series of Seattle City Council candidate interviews. All 14 candidates for 7 positions were invited, and we had in-depth conversations with many of them. This week, we presented District 5 candidate, ChrisTiana ObeySumner, and District 6 candidate, Pete Hanning. We did not talk with their opponents - Cathy Moore in D5 cancelled and Dan Strauss in D6 declined. Have a listen and stay tuned over the coming weeks - we hope these interviews will help you better understand who these candidates are and inform their choices for the November 7th general election. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show, and today's co-host: Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. [00:01:46] Robert Cruickshank: Hey - thanks for having me back again, Crystal. [00:01:48] Crystal Fincher: Hey, absolutely - thanks for being back. Well, there's a lot of news this week - a lot about everything. We're going to start off by talking about Seattle Public Schools and them really provoking parent fury, once again, by removing teachers and splitting up classes after the district screwed up enrollment projections. What's going on here? [00:02:11] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, there was a board meeting last night that was packed with parents from across Seattle, and huge media turnout - all four TV stations were there, The Seattle Times was there, KUOW was there - covering this. And what happened is - over the summer, the school district administrators told principals at schools different ratios and rules and projections for enrollments they had to use in determining how many teachers they would have and how many students they could have to a teacher. And there are rules coming from the state about needing to have small class sizes at elementary schools - it's a good thing, we want that. And so the principals went forth with what the district told them, made the assignments, school began in early September - everything's going great. Then all of a sudden, at the beginning of October, just a week ago, the district realized - oops, they screwed up the calculation. And that if they don't fix it, they could lose a $3.6 million grant from the state. Now the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction has said that Seattle's actually fine - we don't see an issue yet - but the district claims that they needed to take proactive steps. And so the district did - rather than say, Okay, here's some money to bring on additional teachers so we don't have to remove teachers from schools, so we don't have to take kids away from their classroom a month into the year - the district instead said, No, we're not gonna spend any extra money, we're just gonna move everyone around at 40 different schools, remove some teachers from the classroom entirely, create a bunch of split classes where a bunch of third graders now are gonna go into a room with a bunch of second graders, for example. And parents are furious, and they should be. I can give you a personal story. I have a fourth grader at Adams Elementary in Ballard, and he was in kindergarten when the pandemic hit and schools closed. So he lost half of kindergarten, and then first grade was mostly online. By the time he and his classmates get to second grade, they had any number of problems in the classroom for the full year. Second grade was a disaster for my kid, who had a ton of behavioral issues, and a lot of other kids in the class. Get to third grade, and his teacher at Adams Elementary, Ms. Windus, is excellent and she puts in a ton of work with these kids to get them back on track - helping them get back not just academically, but socially, emotionally. Third grade was great - not just for my kid, but for all the others in the class. Fourth grade's been going great so far. Well, because of these district-mandated cuts, the school has to get rid of Ms. Windus who's like this excellent teacher. And last night at the board meeting, we heard similar stories from across the city, including some really gut-wrenching stories from Southeast Seattle - Orca K-8 and Dunlap Elementaries - teachers of color, parents of color coming up and saying, Look, for the first time in years, I feel like there are teachers who get my kid and you're gonna remove them? One teacher got up and said, Tell me which student I should kick out of my class - the one who is homeless, the one who doesn't get enough to eat, the one who has behavioral issues that I've been able to help correct, the one who didn't think they could learn how to read but now they can? People were furious and rightly so, because what is happening here is the district is trying to make kids pay the price for an adult screw-up, rather than the district figuring out how to make this right without disrupting classrooms in the middle of the year. They've just said - Eh, you all can deal with it, kids can suffer the consequences. And a lot of the kids are ones - like I said earlier, not just like mine - who suffered through the pandemic and all that disruption - but necessary disruption, to be honest - because of the public health needs. But now you wanna make sure that you've got stability for these kids, that once they're bonded to a teacher in a good classroom they stay there - that's the thing they need - is stability. And this district just doesn't care. There are deeper issues, which we should talk about in a moment, but what you saw last night was an outpouring of anger and frustration at a district administration that didn't care, and a school board that just kind of sat there and didn't really make any promises to fix it. [00:06:20] Crystal Fincher: Well, and this seems to be a continuing problem, particularly with that feedback of not feeling like the district is as invested in the success of kids as a primary objective, and not really being responsive to the feedback that parents have. Does this feel like this is a continuation of this issue? [00:06:41] Robert Cruickshank: It's exactly it. The district has made it very clear that they don't care about public feedback - they don't believe that they should be answerable to the public. They don't think that the needs of students is a priority - you see in the media coverage and in the superintendent's words last night - that financial responsibility is their top priority. Well, that sounds pretty neoliberal. This is - let's put money first ahead of the needs of kids. There were a number of teachers who were there last night - and parents said similar things - who were like, We're in the richest city in the richest country in the history of the world with some of the wealthiest billionaires here, some of the largest companies here. Surely we can figure out how to solve this by working with the Legislature to tax the rich rather than making kids pay the price. The point I made last night at the board meeting is - Even if we can't get legislative money right now because they're not in session, why don't we take money from something else, like Central Office? We should be taking money away from administrator salaries - and they can do with less - rather than decide the first way to take money is to take out of the classroom. [00:07:51] Crystal Fincher: Well, and I guess that's a question that I have, that I've heard asked - what are the actual remedies here? Is this a situation where there are no good options or are there, is there a way to move forward without creating this type of disruption? [00:08:05] Robert Cruickshank: So Seattle's kids are stuck between two bad actors. On the one hand, the school district, which is deeply mismanaged. And a number of candidates for the board, like Debbie Carlsen, and a number of parents last night have been calling for an independent forensic audit of the school - of the district - and its spending. I've heard similar things from legislators who say - Hey, we're giving the district money, we don't know where it goes. So an independent audit and management reforms are necessary. On the other hand, our kids are also being hurt by the State Legislature and a Democratic majority that has not made it a priority to fund our public schools. So what do you do in the meantime? Like I said, I think the answer has to be for the district to figure out - where can they pull money from right now? If you need to lay off administrators, highly-paid assistant superintendents or something in the middle of the year, do it. These folks make a fair amount of money - you save teachers here and there. Parents have also raised questions about the new calculations that are being used to determine which schools lose teachers. In fact, a number of schools - including the one my kid attends - have seen enrollment go up. So this isn't a case of declining enrollment causing problems. At some of these schools, they've been adding kids back, which is great - you want to see that - and now they're getting punished for it. So you've got to take a look at - do we need to make mid-year cuts in the Central Office to free up money? Do we need to have some independent auditors come in and figure out what's going wrong? District administrators and most board members don't seem to want to do any of that, even though kids are paying the price. [00:09:34] Crystal Fincher: And I guess that leads me into a question about the long-term finances and outlook of the district, which is troubling. They're looking at deficits, as are many districts in the state, and we've talked about that before. Seattle Public Schools is proposing an austerity plan. What does that mean, and what kind of impact will that have? [00:09:57] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, so to be clear, districts across the state are facing financial problems because of the Legislature. In fact, there are at least three districts north of Everett that are under financial monitoring by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. So the question is - how do you respond to this? What Seattle Public Schools is proposing, and this came up last night after parents had vented their anger - the board went on to talk about a new financial policy that they're proposing, which is essentially permanent austerity. It would involve locking the district in at a budget level that is $200 million below where it was at last spring. They would have multi-year budget planning - an idea that was initially introduced to the State Legislature by Republicans - which would mean that you have a low baseline and you have very strict rules about how you can add money back. So if we succeed in getting the Legislature to pass a wealth tax, for example, and more money comes to the public schools, this financial policy would make it very hard for the district to go back and add because they could say - Oh, well, this isn't in our four-year fiscal plan, we don't know where we can put this money. There are also some interesting parts of the policy - and this came up for heated debate last night among board members - that are pretty obviously anti-union. I had an article at the Urbanist yesterday about this - and there are provisions that are clearly trying to undo the Seattle Education Association's gains in the contract last year during the strike. And in fact, one board member, Chandra Hampson - very neoliberal board member - openly said, Well, maybe we should look at reopening the collective bargaining agreement. - which a lot of people's eyes went wide, and jaws dropped, and made it clear we can't really do that. Teachers were there last night also to protest against this. There are other provisions in there which seem designed to hold down teacher salaries - it's all pretty neoliberal austerity-type stuff. And what's interesting to me is the contrast to what's going on at City Hall. I think a lot of our listeners probably saw an op-ed in The Seattle Times from about two weeks ago, by Rachel Smith of the Chamber of Commerce and Jon Scholes of the Downtown Seattle Association, saying that City Hall shouldn't raise taxes on corporations and the rich. Instead, you need to cut your spending and just focus on outcomes. And now you're seeing some of the conservative candidates, like Maritza Rivera and others, saying that same thing on the campaign trail now. Well, Seattle Public Schools is about to adopt that exact strategy - of slashing spending, saying - Oh, we're focusing on outcomes, even though the effects on kids are clearly devastating. What this is leading up to - and this is starting to get discussed among parents last night at the board meeting - the district has said for months now they want to close a bunch of schools in the district next year. And if you think moving a couple of kids around and teachers around in the middle of October is disruptive, wait until you close an entire school. The effect of school closures is devastating on kids. People may remember 10 years ago in Chicago when Rahm Emanuel closed 50 schools there - it was devastating for the community. Research made it extremely clear that kids whose schools were closed did more poorly academically than kids whose schools remained open. I mentioned that to the board and the superintendent last night - we'll see if they paid any attention to it. But it's clear that the school district is on a trajectory where they are embracing huge cuts - they want to spend less on our kids, regardless of the consequences. And it's gonna take parents rising up against that here in the district, and also us going to Olympia and making sure the Democratic majority there finally takes its paramount duty responsibility under the Constitution seriously and fully funds our schools. [00:13:38] Crystal Fincher: If the Legislature doesn't, is the district gonna have much of a choice but to close these schools? [00:13:45] Robert Cruickshank: They do. I think what is happening is the district initially said earlier this year that they needed to close schools to save money. But in articles that have come out since, district leaders have been saying - Well, actually, it's not really about money. There is a article in The Seattle Times in late August where they quoted the superintendent, Brent Jones, who said - We're not gonna see any savings from closing schools next year when there's a $100 million budget deficit, we might see savings two to five years out. The district closed schools in the late 2000s, only to learn a few years later that they had completely missed their enrollment projections - and by the early 2010s, they had to spend $50 to $60 million to reopen schools they had just closed a few years earlier. So it's not clear that closing schools is gonna help them. Finally, there's the issue of - if you've been moving kids around and making clear that their needs aren't as important as meeting a couple of financial projections in the middle of school year and then you close their schools, parents aren't gonna sit for that. A lot of them are just gonna walk away - they might move to a suburban district, they may put their kids in some private school. So closing schools sets in motion potentially a spiral of declining enrollment, which means less money coming to the school district. [00:15:05] Crystal Fincher: Now, it seems like that's a problem that they're destined to run into again, with as volatile as enrollment can be - but it does seem to be cyclical. There are lots of times - oh, enrollment is just down. Well, it doesn't ever seem to just stay down. It doesn't ever seem to just stay up. So it seems like the decision of opening and closing schools - and the tremendous expense that comes with opening and closing schools, in addition to the disruption that comes from it - is an extreme response to something that we know is likely to be, has always been a temporary condition. Has this been discussed at all from the board level? Have they responded to that? [00:15:50] Robert Cruickshank: Not really. And I think what you saw last night and with this current issue of the class sizes and allocations in the elementary schools, it's not clear that the district really has a handle on an ability to project enrollment at all. Ultimately, there's no need for the school district to do anything just yet. The legislative session begins in January. Typically, a school district does not approve its budget until late in the spring or even early in the summer. The Legislature was very close to passing a wealth tax last year - there were 43 out of 58 Democrats in the House who co-sponsored the wealth tax bill, certainly more would have voted for it. 20 of 29 state senators voted for the wealth tax. And significantly, there's been major change in the state Senate Democratic caucus - the previous chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Christine Rolfes, a Democrat from Bainbridge Island, did not give the wealth tax a vote. She begrudgingly held a hearing on it in the 2023 session, but wouldn't bring it up for a vote - has blocked efforts to add more funding for our schools. Well, she left the Legislature over the summer to become a Kitsap County Commissioner. Her replacement as chair of the Ways and Means Committee, which handles all the budget bills for the Senate, is June Robinson from Everett - much more progressive. She was a leader in getting the capital gains tax done. The new vice-chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee is Seattle's own Joe Nguyen from West Seattle, who is a champion of various wealth taxes - and has said he wants to fight to fund our schools. So I think there are real opportunities for our schools and for families in Olympia in January - we need to fight for those. We also need to make sure that the district doesn't prematurely embrace an austerity plan that will hurt our kids even further. [00:17:34] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We'll definitely keep an eye on this. And thank you for being so steadfast and following this - and advocating for not only your kid, but all of the kids in the district. I wanna talk about investment in Seattle City Council races - these campaigns are running hot and heavy right now, less than a month until Election Day, ballots are going to be mailed next week. So we have a lot that's happening and a lot of outside spending is beginning to show itself, including a very large investment from the National Association of Realtors. What are they doing? [00:18:13] Robert Cruickshank: So the National Association of Realtors has dumped about a quarter of a million dollars into campaigns to try to elect Tanya Woo in District 2, Joy Hollingsworth in District 3, Maritza Rivera in District 4, Bob Kettle in District 7. And there's been some good discussion online about this - well, why would the National Association of Realtors support candidates who are less friendly to building new housing in Seattle? And some speculation is that - oh, they wanna have less supply of housing so the price of housing stays high. That might be part of it. But if folks have been paying attention to either the National Association of Realtors or their Washington state arm, the nut of this is they're a right-wing conservative organization. They hate taxes. The fight for the capital gains tax in State Legislature involved strong, determined, long-term opposition from the realtors - they were some of the biggest opponents of a capital gains tax to fund our schools. The National Association of Realtors is in fact mired in scandal right now. Redfin, Seattle-based Redfin, recently left the National Association of Realtors because there are a series of sexual harassment allegations, antitrust lawsuits against the National Association of Realtors. Similar spending has come in in some of these races in Seattle City Council as well, for the same candidates, from the Master Builders. And so again, people wondering why - people like Ron Davis or Alex Hudson are really strong supporters of building more housing. So is Andrew Lewis. But again, this is just conservative politics - they don't want higher taxes. These people who run these organizations are Sara Nelson types - law and order, crackdown on crime, darn the consequences, and by the way, don't raise taxes. That's what this is really about. In fact, they're willing to undermine their stated goals of building more housing, selling more homes in order to achieve their real objective, which is right-wing ideologies. [00:20:18] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this is a troubling trend, unfortunately. We have seen realtors engage in elections in Washington across the state in several previous cycles - and some very controversially. And to your point, usually they have been seen in these candidate races recently, engaging in ways that are very inflammatory, that are targeting candidates that are not conservative - usually running against conservatives - where issues such as taxes are on the ballot, but then being willing to use a number of social wedge issues to intervene here. So this is quite a significant investment in these races that they're making - not only Seattle City Council races, there is also a Spokane race - they have engaged in Spokane in this similar way before in prior cycles. In fact, I'm recalling one from 2021 right now - I think with Councilmember Zack Zappone out there. So it is not shocking to see them engage in this way, but once again, we're seeing the influence of big money in these elections. And this is something that Seattle has had a very negative reaction to before in these races. And so do you think this is gonna see the kind of reaction that we saw like in 2017 - when Amazon was so influential in spending money in those races? [00:21:44] Robert Cruickshank: I don't know. I would like to think so, but I'm not sure. Amazon is the colossus of big corporations, especially here in Seattle. And everyone knows throughout the 2010s that Amazon grew dramatically, the city filled up with people working at Amazon - most of them are good progressive people who don't share the company's politics. But there's a sense that Amazon was distorting the way Seattle was growing and that Amazon was a bad corporate actor - in fact, the Biden administration just sued them over antitrust allegations a few weeks back. So everyone knows Amazon. Everyone knows Amazon is a villain - at least the corporate leadership. The National Association of Realtors and Master Builders are not nearly as well-known. They are right-wing interests, but the narrative isn't the same. It's interesting to me that Amazon is not playing overtly and publicly in these elections - I think they learned their lesson from 2019 when it blew up in their face. They're probably happy to see that burden, especially the financial burden, taken up by the Realtors and the Master Builders. But I think ultimately people are gonna wonder why all this money is coming in. Seattle is a city that supports clean elections - it's a city that pioneered the Democracy Voucher. It's a city that if we could, if the US Supreme Court would allow it, we'd probably ban all of these super PACs and corporate contributions - we can't because of federal rulings at the Supreme Court level. So I think while the Realtors and the Builders have a lower profile than Amazon, I think there is a chance the public will see this massive spending and think - Eh, I don't know if I like that. Seattle voters, especially those in the middle - that 20% of the electorate in the middle that can swing back and forth between a more conservative and a more progressive candidate - they don't like powerful, wealthy, private and corporate business interests telling them how to vote. [00:23:40] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it'll be interesting - in my opinion - to see how this shakes out because this is not a situation like Amazon or where the Chamber essentially overplayed their hand and saying, Well, we're just gonna buy these elections. And you're right - Seattle typically doesn't have a - doesn't respond well to that. So I think in this situation, to your point, it is different in that we don't see the concentration of that spending coming from one source, but I think we are seeing it kind of trickling in from these different sources. And it'll be interesting to see at the end of the day what that amount of spending winds up being and how influential that is. Money is influential in politics, unfortunately. And Seattle has taken steps to try and equalize the playing field, allow more access to people running to be credible candidates - especially with the Democracy Voucher program - but there still is not a cap on spending in any kind of way when it comes to independent expenditures. And these big corporate-focused organizations who are spending in these races - know and understand that and aren't afraid to use it. And are feeling the heat right now because they're seeing popular sentiment - we keep seeing these polls of people in Seattle that they keep trying to explain away, but this is where the people are at. So this is really their recourse and they're fighting against the majority of people being in support of things like a wealth tax, like a capital gains tax, like an income tax, really. And so they're freaking out behind the scenes, realistically, and this is the manifestation of that. This is how they feel they can fight back - in these independent expenditures from corporate entities in these elections. So it's a dynamic that they used to feel much more comfortable, I think, in knowing that - hey, especially citywide elections, these elections, we're gonna be able to get our person in. We know that we can spend enough to get them into the general and we can control the narrative. We know that a lot of times, the Times editorial board has a similar narrative to their interests - that that will carry the day. But between elections being districted now in Seattle, which that's a relatively recent development, and some more candidates having access to get on the ballot now, and that just the demographics and the impacts of income inequality and everything that we see flow from that being so present in our communities today - people are looking at that differently than they did, say, 10 years ago. So this is gonna be really interesting to see how this shakes out. [00:26:32] Robert Cruickshank: I think that's right. And I think that the big spending matters - it helps drive a narrative and a conversation, but it has to resonate with people. And as you're explaining this, my mind immediately went back to Green Jacket Lady. If you remember from a couple of weeks ago, Fox News came to Seattle and tried to show that - oh, people are really worried about public safety - and they got a totally different response, including a woman in a green jacket who said, What are you talking about? Like, I don't feel unsafe in the city at all. You saw somebody using drugs from the safety of your car and you're scared? And that's a real response from real Seattleite voters. All this fear-mongering that The Seattle Times, and these corporate interests, and Sara Nelson and her crew are trying to stoke doesn't resonate. And if you look at the election outcomes from the primary, a lot of those candidates who were trying to run on those fears - they were trailing their more progressive opponents. We'll see what happens - ballots are in the mail next week - I don't wanna take anything for granted. At the same time, there's a substantial number of voters in Seattle who do not buy that narrative at all. They want smart solutions - doesn't mean they are totally happy with open public drug use, they're not concerned about break-ins - they are. But they also want smart solutions to those and they're not gonna be fear-mongered into actually not doing anything - they're not gonna be fear-mongered into supporting right-wing candidates as a result. [00:28:02] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right about that. I think there's a misconception - it's just like, Well, some people just aren't concerned - but the majority of people are concerned. I think almost everybody is very concerned and unhappy with what they see out there - unhappy with what I see out there. Do I want people sleeping on the streets? Do I want people battling addiction and behavioral health issues that there's no one there to address? Absolutely not. But I think the misread is that - therefore we need to continue doing the same things that we've been talking about, for a decade really, and seeing things get worse while we do that. I think people have grown impatient with doing the same thing and getting the same failed result. And wanting meaningful investment in behavioral health treatment and addiction treatment, in housing, right - and really meaningfully solving these problems. And it seems like the issue here is that we have a number of candidates - candidates on one side - who seem like they want to continue largely with the status quo. And that status quo has been kind of a carceral focus - well, we can jail people, we can sweep them - but not doing the things that we know have been successful to really solve these problems in the longterm and not just move people from one area to another, have people go just in this revolving door in and out of jail - because jail can't address the problems that they're ultimately dealing with. I think people right now are saying - I'm fed up with this, but I actually want someone who will do something different that has a chance to fix this. [00:29:41] Robert Cruickshank: That's exactly right. Polls continue to show several things consistently - Yes, the public is concerned about homelessness. Yes, the public is concerned about public safety. That doesn't mean they're concerned about it in the ways the right-wingers are, as you just explained. Those polls also show the public wants an alternative to armed policing - that is extremely popular across polls since 2020 - and they also want to tax the rich to fund it. That is incredibly strong, and that shows up in all the polls as well. And so these candidates who oppose those things are trying to stoke the fears and concerns, and the progressive candidates have to be smart about this - you don't dismiss public concerns, you explain why your answer is better. And that does resonate - that is resonating across the campaign trail, you see it at town halls, you see it when candidates are at the doors - their message gets a good response. [00:30:32] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and this reminds me of an ad that I saw this morning that is really - for Seattle - a really inflammatory ad. And it was an ad from Bob Kettle, who is the candidate running against Andrew Lewis in Seattle's District 7, which covers the downtown area. And it's Bob Kettle and one of his big supporters, Sara Nelson - the most conservative member on the city council, I think most would say. And in this ad, Bob basically says - Hey, I'm running because of crime, and because this problem has gotten bad, and we need to crack down, basically. And Sara Nelson explicitly saying - Hey, Andrew Lewis didn't vote for my drug bill, and he is responsible for the deaths of people from fentanyl overdose, which is a wild accusation - for a couple of reasons. One, Andrew actually ultimately ended up voting for that bill. Two, just to say that not cracking down on a carceral solution is responsible for people's deaths - flies in the face of data, flies in the face of all available evidence that we know and that we have here, especially since incarceration has proven to be extremely ineffective. And risk after incarceration of overdose is the highest there - because people haven't been using for a while, their tolerance has gone down, but they're going back into the same environment they were with no additional tools of support - and are most likely to overdose in that situation. What do you think of an accusation like this? [00:32:12] Robert Cruickshank: I think it's absurd. And it shows the lengths to which - not just Bob Kettle, but Sara Nelson in particular, will go to try to defeat progressives. 'Cause that's what Sara Nelson's really about - you watch her on the council - she's not a data-driven elected official at all. Her positions are often inconsistent and certainly inconsistent with data. But what she really wants to do is defeat progressives - defeat progressive candidates and progressive ideas. And it's kind of shocking - you and I both worked in the McGinn administration 10 years ago, and Sara Nelson was a lead staffer for then-Council President Richard Conlin. And at the time, my interactions with Sara Nelson were great. She seemed - I don't know about progressive necessarily, but certainly left of center - really forward thinking, interested in sustainability, really smart, knowledgeable, thoughtful staffer. Somewhere in the 10 years since, she made a hard right turn. Now, a lot of people have done that, especially in the late 2010s in reaction to movements for Black lives and efforts to reform police. And as the city becomes more progressive, there's a certain type of Seattleite react really negatively to that. A small business owner like Sara Nelson, who owns Fremont Brewing, certainly seems to be one of those. And the City Councilmember Sara Nelson - a totally different animal from the Council staffer Sara Nelson we saw 10 years ago - is primarily driven by a desire to beat progressives. And here she sees an opportunity not to solve the problem of fentanyl addiction, not to solve a problem of public safety, but to beat an enemy. And in order to do that, she's willing to go to just absurd lengths. To accuse Andrew Lewis of being personally responsible for the death of drug addicts is a really awful thing to say about one of your own colleagues. But Sara Nelson thinks she can get away with it because again, she's clearly uninterested in having good relations with someone who's highly likely to get reelected. If Andrew Lewis wins, she's gonna have to work with him. She doesn't seem to care about any of that - she's not interested in building a strong relationship with a colleague. She's willing to just, you know, scorch the earth to try to get him defeated. Now there is a type of voter in Seattle who will respond to that, but it's not a majority of the electorate by any means - certainly in District 7, it's not the majority. [00:34:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it definitely doesn't appear to be the majority there. And this is not the first time that we have seen this come from Sara Nelson, or candidates that Sara Nelson supports. We saw a media stunt earlier in the cycle - it was about a month ago - where she was with the District 2 candidate there and in a really cynical response and really tried to turn it into a photo-op, talking about crime or public safety, something like that, saying - Where is Tammy Morales? Well, Tammy Morales was literally doing her job that the taxpayers pay her for - she was at a meeting of the city council where they were discussing the Transportation Plan - a meeting that Sara Nelson wasn't at, that she used as a stunt to call out her colleague actually doing the work that they're paid to do, that Sara Nelson wasn't doing. So it's just like - it seems like Sara Nelson is uninterested in the governing part of the job, which is the job, but very interested in these stunts and this inflammatory rhetoric and running against councilmembers, really regardless of ideology, but that disagree with her, right? Because I don't think many people are - you know, would say Tammy Morales and Andrew Lewis are the same on every issue. I think it's fair to say most people consider Tammy Morales to be more progressive than Andrew Lewis, not that Andrew Lewis is not progressive. But it's - in that situation, it's just like - what are you even talking about? And are you working with these colleagues? Are you engaging with data? Are you working towards a solution? Are you just trying to inflame people with rhetoric, and these stunts, and going on conservative talk radio and doing this? And now we see this really inflammatory ad land. It just seems like Sara Nelson is really uninterested in governing. [00:36:17] Robert Cruickshank: That's exactly right. And, you know, again, I think of Green Jacket Lady and Fox News because those are stunts that the national Republicans are really good at. You see it in Congress, right - the fight over the speakership - it's all about stunts to win the news cycle and defeat their opponents. Sara Nelson is engaging in the exact same stuff. She doesn't govern, she's not interested in data, very lightly interested in policy - it's all about stunts. That's all she knows how to do, that's all she really cares about because that's how she thinks she wins her actual objective, which is to defeat anyone she thinks as being progressive. We'll see what happens - like I said, there is a group of voters in Seattle that responds well to that. I don't think it's a majority of voters, even in District 7, but a lot of this comes down to turnout. We have elections here in Seattle in odd years - a lot of cities across the country have been moving their local elections to even-numbered years to make sure that more voters are participating in the process of choosing who represents them in City Hall. Seattle hasn't gone down that path yet - I think we should. We all know that there is much higher turnout in even-year elections in Seattle than odd-year elections. So this is not going to be so much a question of - can Sara Nelson convince more progressive Seattleites to turn on Andrew Lewis, and are more progressive Seattleites gonna show up and vote? [00:37:38] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it's challenging. The one thing that the people who love stunts - traditionally conservatives, Republicans - have done well for years is really, for their audience, connecting every single policy to a politician, to an issue at the ballot box. And really over the year, over the years in between these elections, really saying - This is the fault of this person. It was Kshama Sawant for a while while she was on the council, now they're trying to find a new person that they can blame this on. But that seems to be the MO there - it's the fault of this person - and they're constantly hearing that in their media ecosystems. It's not the same on the left - we don't talk about issues to that degree. Now there's more facts involved in a lot of these discussions than those - kind of in those right echo chambers - but still the connection isn't constantly being made. So when it comes time for people to turn out in these elections, you have a group that - based on, again, a lot of data that does not turn out to be true - that is missing tons of context, but they're eager to get voting. Which is why we see kind of in - because we do voting by mail - we can see those really eager voters, those getting their ballots in immediately, skew more conservative - they're ready to vote. Where people on the more progressive side need more information to vote - the communication does make a difference, which is part of the reason why you see spending on communication and them throwing so much money in there because they know that is influential and impactful in today's political world. So the job is really for progressives to communicate about the stakes of this election, to communicate and share with your friends and family. There's a lot of people online - I am a chronically online person also - but it's like, I've seen people over the years kind of focus on advocacy online and skip their friends, their cousins, their family, all the people that they're surrounded with in their lives, people you talk to at work. Those are the people who most need to hear from you - Hey, you voting? You voting for this person? 'Cause like these policies that we've talked about, this issue that I know makes you upset, that I know you're frustrated about is really at stake in this election, especially in local elections that don't get the kind of national attention that our federal elections do. So I am just impressing upon everybody listening to make sure you talk about how important these local city council races are to people in your lives - and whether it's school board, city council - all of these positions are critically important. And it takes you getting engaged with people in your life to get the kind of turnout to win these elections. [00:40:34] Robert Cruickshank: That's exactly right. I remember in 2019 - during that city council election that Amazon was trying to buy - being on the bus going downtown from my home in Greenwood, and just getting my phone out and going through my list of contacts - in text, Facebook Messenger, whatever it was - whatever the last communication I had with them, I went to that medium and sent them a message saying, Hey, have you voted yet? You got your ballot in? Here's a deadline, here's the nearest dropbox. And I was actually surprised the number of people who hadn't yet voted and were thankful for the reminder - and these are often people who are politically aware and engaged. So it makes a huge difference to talk to your networks, your friends, your family, your neighbors. Those are some of the people you can be the most influential with, and it is worth taking the time to do that when ballots arrive next week. [00:41:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I wanna talk about something incredibly important that is happening right now that seems to consistently fly under the radar, but is tremendously impactful for all of our lives. And this situation taking shape - in that right-wingers really are trying to use gas prices to take aim at carbon pricing, especially here in our state. What's happening with this? [00:41:51] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, so over the course of 2023, as gas prices rise - and they're rising across the country for many reasons, which we'll talk about in a moment - there's been a clear effort here in Washington State to blame that on the Climate Commitment Act, which the Legislature adopted in 2021, which creates a carbon pricing system. And has been raising more than a billion dollars a year to fund important projects to reduce carbon emissions. Their arguments are - and you see this in The Seattle Times all the time - that, Oh my gosh, gas prices in Washington are some of the nation's highest because we passed the Climate Commitment Act. This is not true. We all knew that going into this, passing the Climate Commitment Act could, as it did in California, add maybe five, seven cents a gallon to the price of gas - which would be dwarfed and has been by global trends. Gas prices are sky high right now in part because of demand for driving, in part because of oil company shenanigans with how they manage refineries to try to keep the price high. And in particular, the number one reason why gas prices are high is because of OPEC, geopolitics, and the Saudi government deliberately cutting production to try to squeeze Joe Biden to get what they want out of him or to help elect Trump. This has all been reported in the news, this is no secret. And yet these right-wingers - backed by the Western States Petroleum Association, the oil company lobbying arm - continue to try to put out a media narrative, and you saw it again in The Seattle Times over the weekend, trying to blame the Climate Commitment Act for high gas prices. This is not an idle threat. Tim Eyman has been defanged - he's gone bankrupt, he's pretty much out of the initiative business - but there are new people trying to take his place. Guy named Brian Heywood has raised a whole bunch of money to try and qualify six right-wing ballot initiatives for the state ballot in 2024 - one of which would repeal the capital gains tax, another which would repeal the Climate Commitment Act. And so that's what the backstory is here - there is a effort backed by the right-wing to try to go after Washington State's effort to tackle the climate crisis. I think voters understand if you explain to them that - No, this is not why our gas prices are high. We can get rid of the Climate Commitment Act tomorrow and you're still gonna pay $5.50 a gallon for gas. We need to do other things to address transportation costs, including spending billions of dollars a year to give people the opportunity to get around their community without having to burn fossil fuel - that's what people want - that's our goal as environmentalists is not to make people pay a lot of money. Our goal is to give people alternatives that are affordable - that's a story, a message we can win with, but we have to fight a lot of oil company money and The Seattle Times, which is not as interested in telling the story. I will say a colleague of mine at the Sierra Club, Leah Missik, who also works for Climate Solutions, had an excellent op-ed - I think we can link it in the show notes - in the Seattle Times of all places over the summer, really just debunking all these arguments against the Climate Commitment Act, pointing out that the real reasons why gas prices are high, and pointing out that the oil companies are behind all of this. [00:45:00] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it's no secret - I have had my issues with the Climate Commitment Act, but one thing that is clear is that the revenue from the Climate Commitment Act is absolutely critical in addressing our infrastructure, and making the kinds of changes - and having the chance to make those changes in a just and equitable way - in order to make this transition to a clean energy future, to reduce fossil fuel emissions. And this is not an option that we have, right? We have to get this done. And the opportunity for progress, right, is here. And we're talking about the elimination of that opportunity for something that everyone but climate deniers understand is absolutely critical and necessary. And we're really seeing that element getting engaged here in this fight against the Climate Commitment Act - this is a chance for progress right here, and we need to move forward with this and several other things, right? But just blaming that for gas prices is completely disingenuous - it flies counter to facts. And it's always rich to me that people who are engaging in this conversation for gas prices, which absolutely do impact people's budgets and eat into their discretionary income if they have any, but that pales in comparison to the cost of housing, to the cost of childcare, to even the increasing cost of groceries, right? These things that we don't hear these conservative elements get engaged with in any kind of way, but something that they feel that they can use as a wedge issue here is one that we're seeing. So it's just very cynical - it is really unfortunate that they're not engaging in good faith with this. And I think we see most of the time voters reject these kinds of efforts, but it really is going to take a continued effort to explain that - No, this isn't the fault of gas prices and repealing the Climate Commitment Act isn't gonna do anything with gas prices, which by all accounts are going to get more volatile as we go on with time. So we need to stand up alternatives to just needing to purchase gas constantly all the time - whether it's through EVs, investing in transit, investing in safe, walkable, bikeable communities - we shouldn't force people to burn gas to earn a living and to build a life. [00:47:33] Robert Cruickshank: I was talking with my wife about this and remembering in the 1970s, late 1970s, when Carter was president and there was another energy crisis. And Carter was trying to invest in getting us off of oil. Reagan becomes president, says - No, no, no, no, no. We're just gonna double down on oil and fossil fuels. For the 40 years since, anytime we have an opportunity to try to get off of dependence on fossil fuels, this country finds a way to not do it. And the only outcome has been gas prices get more and more expensive and we have no alternative but to pay it. Those of us who live in Seattle have some option for not having to pay for gas to drive - you can walk, you can bike more easily, you can take transit, more and more people have electric cars but those are expensive. But if you live outside Seattle, you have virtually no ability to get around, to get to school, to get to work, to get to shopping without paying for gas. It shouldn't have to be that way, and there are groups, environmentalists, who have been trying to fix this for decades. And we keep running into the same problems - oil companies like to make money off of this, they don't care about the consequences as long as the money keeps rolling in. We finally got a Climate Commitment Act. And as you say, it's not perfect. In fact, Sierra Club was neutral on it because of concerns about where the money would go. But we also believe that that can be fixed in a legislative process and certainly wouldn't support a repeal. And so this is where we can move forward and make sure this is done correctly. Or we just quit again, as we have every time for the last 45 years, and then we'll be complaining the gas prices are at $7 a gallon, $8 a gallon. We know that that's coming if we don't act now to give people the option to stop having to buy gas, stop having to spend so much money, and keep more of that money in their pocket and get around the communities sustainably. [00:49:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, October 13th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. You can find Robert on Twitter @cruickshank. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter and most other platforms - Robert also on other platforms - I'm @finchfrii with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar - I love using Overcast for mine. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical shows delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this re-air, Crystal chats with former Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and his former Senior Communications Advisor Robert Cruickshank about the missed opportunity for generational impact through how decisions were made about Seattle's waterfront and the SR99 tunnel. Mike and Robert review how the vision of the scrappy People's Waterfront Coalition, centered around making a prized public space accessible for all while taking the climate crisis on by transforming our transportation system, nearly won the fight against those who prioritized maintaining highway capacity and those who prioritized increasing Downtown property values.  The conversation then highlights how those with power and money used their outsized influence to make backroom decisions - despite flawed arguments and little public enthusiasm for their proposal - leaving Seattle with an underutilized deep bore tunnel and a car-centric waterfront. Some of the decision makers are still active in local politics - including current Mayor Bruce Harrell and his current advisor Tim Burgess. With important elections ahead, Crystal, Mike and Robert discuss how political decisions tend to conflict with campaign promises rather than donor rolls, how proven action is a better indicator than value statements, and how today's dense ecosystem of progressive leaders and organizations can take inspiration and win the next fight. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii, Mike McGinn at @mayormcginn, and Robert Cruickshank at @cruickshank.   Mike McGinn Mike is the Executive Director of national nonprofit America Walks.  He got his start in local politics as a neighborhood activist pushing for walkability. From there he founded a non-profit focused on sustainable and equitable growth, and then became mayor of Seattle. Just before joining America Walks, Mike worked to help Feet First, Washington State's walking advocacy organization, expand their sphere of influence across Washington state. He has worked on numerous public education, legislative, ballot measure and election campaigns – which has given him an abiding faith in the power of organizing and volunteers to create change.   Robert Cruickshank Robert is the Director of Digital Strategy at California YIMBY and Chair of Sierra Club Seattle. A long time communications and political strategist, he was Senior Communications Advisor to Mike McGinn from 2011-2013.   Resources “Seattle Waterfront History Interviews: Cary Moon, Waterfront Coalition” by Dominic Black from HistoryLink   “State Route 99 tunnel - Options and political debate" from Wikipedia   “Remembering broken promises about Bertha” by Josh Cohen from Curbed Seattle   “Fewer drivers in Seattle's Highway 99 tunnel could create need for bailout” by Mike Lindblom from The Seattle Times   “Surface Highway Undermines Seattle's Waterfront Park” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Seattle Prepares to Open Brand New Elliott Way Highway Connector” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I am very excited to be welcoming Robert Cruickshank and former Mayor Mike McGinn to the show to talk about something that a lot of people have been thinking about, talking about recently - and that is Seattle's new waterfront. We feel like we've spent a decade under construction - from a deep bore tunnel to the tunnel machine getting stuck - that's not even covering all the debate before that, but all of the kind of follies and foibles and challenges that have beset the process of arriving at the waterfront that we have now. And now that we are getting the big reveal, a lot of people have feelings about it. So I thought we would talk about it with one of the people who was at the forefront of criticisms of the tunnel and calling out some red flags that turned out to be a very wise warning - several wise warnings that have come to pass, unfortunately - for not listening to them. But I want to start early on in the beginning, both of you - and I had a short stint in the mayor's office - worked on this, talked about this on the campaign, really got it. But when did you first hear that we needed to replace the viaduct and there were some different opinions about how to make that happen? [00:02:06] Mike McGinn: Okay, so I'm sure I can't pin down a date, but the really important date was, of course, the Nisqually earthquake in 2001. And so it gave the Alaska Way Viaduct a good shake - the decks weren't tied into the columns, the columns were on fill, which could liquefy - and everybody understood that if that quake had been a little stronger and harder, the elevated would come down. Now you might think that that would call for immediately closing the roadway for safety reasons, but what it did call for was for reconstructing it. And you have to remember that highway was really one of the very first limited access highways - it was built long ago and it was just at the end of its useful life anyway. Certainly not built to modern seismic standards or modern engineering standards. So the conversation immediately started and I don't know when everything started to settle into different roles, but the Mayor of Seattle Greg Nickels, was immediately a proponent for a tunnel - and a much larger and more expensive tunnel than what was ultimately built. And it would have been a cut-and-cover tunnel along the waterfront that included a new seawall. So they thought they were solving two things at one time - because the seawall too was rotting away, very old, very unstable. But it would have gone all the way under South Lake Union and emerged onto Aurora Avenue further north, it would have had entrances and exits to Western and Elliott. And I seem to remember the quoted price was like $11 billion. And the state - governor at the time was Christine Gregoire - they were - No, we're replacing the highway. We don't have $11 billion for Seattle. And of course had the support of a lot of lawmakers for obvious reasons - we're not going to give Seattle all that money, we want all that highway money for our districts. And those were immediately presented as the alternatives. And so much of the credit has to go to Cary Moon, who lived on the waterfront and started something called the People's Waterfront Coalition. I think Grant Cogswell, a former City Council candidate - now runs a bookstore down in Mexico City, but wrote a book about the Monorail, worked on the different Monorail campaigns before that - they launched something called the People's Waterfront Coalition. And the basic proposition was - We don't need a highway. This is a great opportunity to get rid of the highway and have a surface street, but if you amp up the transit service - if we invest in transit instead - we can accommodate everyone. And so that was really - as it started - and actually I remember being outside City Hall one day, going to some stakeholder meeting - I went to so many different stakeholder meetings. And I remember Tim Ceis saying to me - he was the Deputy Mayor at the time - You're not supporting that Cary Moon idea - I mean, that's just crazy. I was - Well, actually, Tim. So the Sierra Club was - I was a volunteer leader in the Sierra Club - and the Sierra Club was one of the first organizations - I'm sure there were others, I shouldn't overstate it - but the Sierra Club was persuaded by the wisdom of Cary's idea and supported it in that day. And so that was really how the three different options got launched - no public process, no analysis, no description of what our needs were. The mayor went to a solution, the governor went to a solution - and it was up to members of the public to try to ask them to slow down, stop, and look at something different. [00:05:42] Crystal Fincher: And Robert, how did you first engage with this issue? [00:05:47] Robert Cruickshank: For me, I had just moved to Seattle the first time in the fall of 2001 - so it was about six months after the Nisqually quake - and I came from the Bay Area. And that was where another earthquake had damaged another waterfront highway, the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco. And that was where San Francisco had voted - after that quake had damaged their viaduct beyond repair - they voted to tear it down and replace it with the Embarcadero Waterfront, which is a six-lane arterial but they built a lot more transit there. So they did the - what we might call the surface transit option - and it worked really well. It was beautiful. It still is. And so when I came up here and started to learn a little bit about the place I was living and the legacy of the Nisqually quake, I thought - Oh, why don't you just do the same thing here? It worked so well in San Francisco. Let's just tear down this unsightly monstrosity on the waterfront and replace it with a surface boulevard and put in a bunch of transit - San Francisco's made it work successfully. And the more I learned about Seattle, I realized there's a legacy of that here, too. This is a city where we had a freeway revolt, where activists came together and killed the RH Thomson freeway, which would have destroyed the Arboretum. They killed the Bay Freeway, which would have destroyed Pike Place Market. And so I naturally assumed - as being a relatively new resident - that Seattle would stay in that tradition and welcome the opportunity to tear this down and build a great waterfront for people, not cars. But as we'll talk about in a moment, we have a lot of business interests and freight interests and others who had a different vision - who didn't share that community-rooted vision. And I think at numerous points along the way, though, you see people of Seattle saying - No, this is not what we want for our waterfront. We have an opportunity now with the fact that this viaduct nearly collapsed, as Mike mentioned, in the Nisqually quake - we have an opportunity for something really wonderful here. And so I think Cary Moon and then Mike McGinn and others tapped into that - tapped into a really strong community desire to have a better waterfront. I wasn't that politically engaged at the time in the 2000s - I was just a grad student at UW - but just talking to folks who I knew, anytime this came up - God, wouldn't it be wonderful down there if this was oriented towards people and not cars, and we took that thing down? So I think one of the things you're going to see is this contest between the vision that many of us in Seattle had and still have - this beautiful location, beautiful vista on Elliott Bay, that should be for the people of the city - and those in power who have a very different vision and don't really want to share power or ultimately the right-of-way with We the People. [00:08:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And I was involved in some things at the time - some curious coalitions - but definitely I was around a lot of people who favored either rebuilding the viaduct or the tunnel. Definitely not this roads and transit option - there's no way that's workable. That's pie-in-the-sky talk from those loony greenies over there. What are you talking about? But as this went on - I think no matter what camp people were in - there was always a clear vision articulated and people really focused on the opportunity that this represented, and I think correctly characterized it as - this is one of these generational decisions that we get to make that is going to impact the next generation or two and beyond. And there's an opportunity - the waterfront felt very disconnected with the way things were constructed - it was not easy just to go from downtown to the waterfront. It wasn't friendly for pedestrians. It wasn't friendly for tourists. It just did not feel like a world-class waterfront in a world-class city, and how we see that in so many other cities. You talk about the decision with the Embarcadero, Robert, and looking at - that definitely seemed like a definitive step forward. This was sold as - yeah, we can absolutely take a step forward and finally fix this waterfront and make it what it should have been the whole time. As you thought about the opportunity that this represented, what was the opportunity to you and what did you hear other people saying that they wanted this to be? [00:09:38] Mike McGinn: Yeah, so I think there are - I think that's really important, because I don't think there was a real discussion of what the vision was. People will say there was, but there really wasn't. Because what was baked in and what you're referring to is - well, of course you have to build automobile capacity to replace the existing automobile capacity, right? In fact, this state is still building more highways across the state in the misguided belief that more highway capacity will somehow or another do some good. So this idea that you have to replace and expand highway capacity is extremely powerful in Washington state and across the country. And there were very few examples of highway removal, so that was just a real challenge in the first place - that somehow or other the first priority has to be moving automobiles. For me, at that time I had become - the issue of climate had really penetrated me at that point. And in fact, when Greg Nickels took office and the Sierra Club endorsed him over Paul Schell - I was a local leader in the Sierra Club and a state leader in the Sierra Club - and my goal was that Mayor Nickels would do more than Paul Schell. And Paul Schell, the prior mayor, had done some good things. He had made Seattle City Light climate neutral - we'd gotten out of coal plants and we didn't purchase power from coal plants. He was really progressive on a number of environmental issues and we wanted Mayor Nickels to do more - and Mayor Nickels had stepped up. So we put on a campaign to urge him to do more. And he had stepped up to start something called the Mayors' Climate Protection Initiative - which was the City of Seattle was going to meet the standards of the Kyoto Protocol, which was like the Paris Agreement of its day. And that was - it set an emissions reduction target by a date in the future. And that was really great - in fact, over a thousand cities around the country signed up to the Mayors' Climate Protection Initiative. And I was appointed to a stakeholder group with other leaders - Denis Hayes from the Bullitt Foundation and others - to develop the first climate action plan for a city. Al Gore showed up at the press conference for it - it was a big - it was a BFD and a lot of excitement. And one of the things that was abundantly clear through that process of cataloging the emissions in the City of Seattle and coming up with a plan to reduce them was that our single largest source of emissions at that time was the transportation sector. We'd already gotten off of coal power under Mayor Schell - we received almost all of our electricity from hydroelectric dams. We had good conservation programs. Unlike other parts of the country, transportation was the biggest. Now what's fascinating is now - I don't know if I want to do the math - almost 20 years later, now what we see is that the whole country is in the same place. We're replacing coal and natural gas power plants. And now nationally, the single largest source of emissions is transportation. So how do you fix that? If we're serious about climate - and I thought we should be - because the scientists were telling us about heat waves. They were telling us about forest fires that would blanket the region in smoke. They were telling us about storms that would be bigger than we'd ever seen before. And flooding like we'd never seen and declining snowpack. And it was all going to happen in our futures. Honestly, I remember those predictions from the scientists because they're in the headlines today, every day. So what do we do to stop that? So I was - I had little kids, man - I had little kids, I had three kids. How are we going to stop this? Well, it's Seattle needs to lead - that's what has to happen. We're the progressive city. We're the first one out with a plan. We're going to show how we're going to do it. And if our biggest source is transportation, we should fix that. Well, it should seem obvious that the first thing you should do is stop building and expanding highways, and maybe even change some of the real estate used for cars and make it real estate for walking, biking, and transit. That's pretty straightforward. You also have to work on more housing. And this all led me to starting a nonprofit around all of these things and led to the Sierra Club - I think at a national level - our chapter was much further forward than any other chapter on upzones and backyard cottages and making the transition. So to me, this was the big - that was the vision. That was the opportunity. We're going to tear this down. We're going to make a massive investment in changing the system, and this in fact could be a really transformative piece. That's what motivated me. That climate argument wasn't landing with a whole bunch of other interests. There was certainly a vision from the Downtown and Downtown property owners and residents that - boy, wouldn't it be great to get rid of that elevated highway because that's terrible. There was also a vision from the people who still believed in highway capacity and that includes some of our major employers at the time and today - Boeing and Microsoft, they have facilities in the suburbs around Seattle - they think we need highway capacity. As well as all of the Port businesses, as well as all the maritime unions - thought that this highway connection here was somehow critical to their survival, the industrial areas. And then they wanted the capacity. So there were very strong competing visions. And I think it's fair to say that highway capacity is a vision - we've seen that one is now fulfilled. The second priority was an enhanced physical environment to enhance the property values of Downtown property owners. And they cut the deal with the highway capacity people - okay, we're here for your highway capacity, but we have to get some amenities. And the climate folks, I'm not seeing it - never a priority of any of the leaders - just wasn't a priority. [00:15:44] Crystal Fincher: How did you see those factions come into play and break down, Robert? [00:15:48] Robert Cruickshank: It was interesting. This all comes to a head in the late 2000s. And remembering back to that time, this is where Seattle is leading the fight to take on the climate and the fight against George W. Bush, who was seen as this avatar of and deeply connected to the oil industry. Someone who - one of his first things when he took office - he did was withdraw the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol, which is the earlier version of what's now known as the Paris Agreement - global agreement to try to lower emissions. And so Seattle, in resisting Bush - that's where Greg Nickels became a national figure by leading the Mayors' Climate Action Group - not just say we're going to take on climate, we're going to do something about really de facto fighting back against Bush. And then Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Al Gore comes out with An Inconvenient Truth. And by 2007, people in Seattle are talking a lot about climate and how we need to do something about climate. But then what you see happening is the limits of that - what are people really actually willing to do and willing to support? The other piece that comes together, I think - in the 2000s - is a revival of the City itself. Seattle spends the late 20th century after the Boeing bust - since the 70s "Will the last person out of Seattle turn out the lights," recovering in the 80s somewhat, recovering in the 90s, and then the tech boom. And by the 2000s, Seattle is a destination city for young people coming to live here and living in apartments and working in the tech industry. I think that unsettles a lot of people. One thing that really stood out to me about the discussion about what to do on the waterfront was this vision from old school folks - like Joel Connelly and others - we've got to preserve that working waterfront. And it's very much the sense that blue collar working class labor is under threat - not from corporate power, but from a 20-something millennial with a laptop working at Amazon who comes to Seattle and thinks - Gosh, why is this ugly viaduct here? It's unsafe. Why don't we just tear it down and have a wonderful waterfront view? And those who are offended by this idea - who are so wedded to the 20th century model that we're going to drive everywhere, cars, freedom - this is where you see the limits of willingness to actually do something on climate. People don't actually want to give up their cars. They're afraid they're going to sacrifice their way of life. And you start to see this weird but powerful constellation come together where rather than having a discussion about transportation planning or even a discussion about climate action, we're having this weird discussion about culture. And it becomes a culture war. And the thing about a culture war is people pushing change are never actually trying to fight a war. They're just - This is a good idea. Why don't we do this? We all say these - we care about these values. And the people who don't want it just dig in and get really nasty and fight back. And so you start to see Cary Moon, People's Waterfront Coalition, Mike McGinn, and others get attacked as not wanting working class jobs, not wanting a working waterfront, not caring about how people are going to get to work, not caring about how the freight trucks are going to get around even though you're proposing a tunnel from the Port to Wallingford where - it's not exactly an industrial hub - there are some businesses there. But dumping all these cars out or in South Lake Union, it's like, what is going on here? It doesn't add up. But it became this powerful moment where a competing vision of the City - which those of us who saw a better future for Seattle didn't see any competition as necessary at all - those who are wedded to that model where we're going to drive everywhere, we're going to have trucks everywhere, really saw that under threat for other reasons. And they decided this is where they're going to make their stand. This is where they're going to make that fight. And that turned out to be pretty useful for the Port, the freight groups, the establishment democratic leaders who had already decided for their own reasons this is what they wanted too. [00:19:11] Mike McGinn: It's important to recognize too, in this, is to follow the money. And I think that this is true for highway construction generally. You have a big section of the economy - there's a section of the economy that believes in it, as Robert was saying, right? And I do think the culture war stuff is fully there - that somehow or another a bike lane in an industrial area will cause the failure of business. Although if you went to the bike - outside the industrial building - you'll find a bunch of the workers' bike there, right? Because it's affordable and efficient. So there's this weird belief that just isn't true - that you can't accommodate industry and transit and walking and biking. Of course you can. And in fact, adding all the cars is bad for freight movement because of all the traffic jams. So there's that belief, but there's also a whole bunch of people - I mentioned Downtown property owners - that gets you to your Downtown Seattle Association. The value of their property is going to be dramatically enhanced by burying, by eliminating the waterfront highway. But then you also have all of the people who build highways and all of the people who support the people who build highways. Who's going to float $4 billion in bonds? It's going to be a Downtown law firm. And by the way, the person who worked for that Downtown law firm and did the bond work was the head of the greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce at that time. So you have the engineering firms, you have the material providers, and then you have the union jobs that go with it. So really at this point - and this isn't just about the waterfront highway, this could be any highway expansion - you've captured the business community because a big chunk of the business community will get direct dollars from the government to them. And you've actually captured a significant chunk of the labor community as well, because labor fights for labor jobs. In the big picture, service workers are taking transit, service workers need housing in town, and you can start to see a split - like in my ultimate run for mayor, I won some service worker unions, never won any construction trades. In fact, they held a rally my first year in office to denounce me, right? Because I was standing in the way of jobs. So that's a really powerful coalition. And I think what you see today in the country as a whole - as you know, I'm the ED of America Walks, so I get to see a lot more - this is a pattern. Highways aren't really supported by the public. They don't go to the public for public votes on highways anymore - the public wouldn't support it. And in fact, the data suggests the public gets that building more highway lanes won't solve everything. But you've got a big, big chunk of the economy that's gotten extremely used to billions and billions of dollars flowing into their pockets. And they need to protect that in every year. So you get that level of intensity around - Look, we're talking about $4 billion on the waterfront and a bunch of that money's coming to us. Better believe it's a good idea, and what are you talking about, climate? [00:22:03] Robert Cruickshank: You talk about public votes, and I think there are three crucial public votes we got to talk about. One is 2007, when these advisory votes are on the ballot - and they're not binding, but they're advisory. Do you want to rebuild the viaduct or build a tunnel? They both get rejected. And then the next big vote is 2009, the mayoral election, where Mike McGinn becomes mayor - in part by channeling public frustration at this giant boondoggle. And then ultimately, the last public vote on this, 2011 - in June, I believe it was, it was in August - about whether we go forward or not and the public by this point, fatigued and beaten down by The Seattle Times, decides let's just move on from this. [00:22:43] Mike McGinn: There's no other alternative. And it is worth returning to that early vote, because it was such a fascinating moment, because - I think the mayor's office didn't want to put his expansive tunnel option in a direct vote against the new elevated, fearing it would lose. So they engineered an agreement with the governor that each one would get a separate up or down vote. And by the way, Tim Ceis, the Deputy Mayor at the time, called in the Sierra Club, briefed us on it, and one of our members said - What would happen if they both got voted down? And Deputy Mayor Ceis said - by the way, Tim Ceis has got a big contract right now from Mayor Harrell, longtime tunnel supporter. Tim Ceis is the consultant for most of the business side candidates. Tim Burgess, another big supporter of the tunnel, now works for Mayor Harrell. Oh, and Christine Gregoire has been hired by the biggest corporations in the region to do their work for them as well. So there's a pretty good payoff if you stick around and support the right side of this stuff. But anyway, Mayor Ceis, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis, when said, What happens if they're both voted down? He goes - Well, that would be chaos. You don't want that, do you? And I remember all of us just kind of looked at each other - and we all went out on the sidewalk, there were like six of us. And we went - We want that, right? And so we joined in and supported the No and No campaign. And The Stranger came in really hard. And I think Erica Barnett wrote the articles. And Cary Moon was in on it. And the defeat of that, for the first time, opened up the possibility - Well, let's think about something else. And so a stakeholder group was formed. Cary Moon was appointed. Mike O'Brien was appointed. The waterfront guys were appointed. And the Downtown folks were appointed. And the labor folks were appointed. And I think a really important part of the story here is that it was advisory - they weren't making the decisions, it was advisory. But they got to a point at which the head of the State DOT, the head of the Seattle DOT, and the head of the King County DOT all expressed to their respective executives that surface transit worked and was worth it. And this was extremely distressing to the business community. So they mounted a big lobbying push and went straight to Gregoire. And Gregoire, for the first time, became a tunnel supporter. And they were promised that this new tunneling technology - the deep bore tunnel - would solve the cost issues of the deep bore tunnel. And not only that, the state's commitment, which to date was $2.4 billion - they had committed $2.4 billion to a rebuild - the state wouldn't have to pay anymore, because the Port would put in $300 million and they would raise $400 million from tolling. And coincidentally, the amount they thought they could raise from tolling was the exact amount needed to meet the projected cost of using the deep bore tunnel boring machine. So the deal was cut and announced. And the whole stakeholder group and the recommendations from the DOT heads were abandoned. And that occurred, basically, late 2008, early 2009 - the deal was made. And that was about the time that I was contemplating - well, I think I'd already decided to run, but I had not yet announced. [00:26:14] Crystal Fincher: And this was an interesting time, especially during that vote. Because at that time, I had an eye into what the business community was doing and thinking, and it was clear that their numbers didn't add up. [00:26:26] Mike McGinn: Oh my God - no. [00:26:28] Crystal Fincher: But they just did not want to face that. And what they knew is they had enough money and resources to throw at this issue and to throw at a marketing effort to obfuscate that, that they wouldn't have to worry about it. And there was this sense of offense, of indignation that - Who are these people trying to come up and tell us that we don't need freight capacity, that we don't need - that this extra highway capacity, don't they understand how important these freeways are? Who are these people who just don't understand how our economy works? [00:27:02] Mike McGinn: They were the grownups who really understood how things worked. And we were the upstarts who didn't understand anything. But there's a great line from Willie Brown talking about - I think the Transbay Bridge, and Robert can correct the name, in California, which was way over budget. And people were lamenting that the early estimates had been made up. And he goes - Look, this is how it works. You just need to dig a hole in the ground so deep that the only way to fill it up is with money. I think that's pretty much the quote. So that's the strategy. You get it started. Of course you have rosy estimates. And then you just have that commitment, and it's the job of legislators to come up with the cost overruns, dollars later. [00:27:43] Robert Cruickshank: And I think it's so key to understand this moment here in the late 2000s, where the public had already weighed in. I remember voting - it was the last thing I voted on before I moved to California for four years. I'm like no - I was No and No. And that's where the Seattle voters were. They rejected both options. And then you start to hear, coming out of the stakeholder group - Okay, we can make the surface transit option work. And I left town thinking - Alright, that's what's going to happen, just like the Embarcadero in San Francisco and done. And the next thing I hear in late 2008, early 2009, there's this deal that's been cut and all of a sudden a deep bore tunnel is on the table. And this is Seattle politics in a nutshell. I think people look back and think that because we are this smart, progressive technocratic city - those people who live here are - we think that our government works the same way. And it doesn't. This is - time and time again, the public will make its expression felt. They'll weigh in with opinion poll or protest or vote. And the powers that be will say - Well, actually, we want to do this thing instead. We'll cook it up in a backroom. We're going to jam it on all of you, and you're going to like it. And if you don't like it, then we're going to start marshaling resources. We're gonna throw a bunch of money at it. We'll get The Seattle Times to weigh in and pound away at the enemy. And that's how politics works here - that's how so much of our transportation system is built and managed. And so people today, in 2023, looking at this monstrosity on the waterfront that we have now think - How did we get here? Who planned this? It was planned in a backroom without public involvement. And I think that's a thing that has to be understood because that, as we just heard, was baked in from the very start. [00:29:11] Mike McGinn: Well, Robert, the idea of a deep bore tunnel was brought forward by a representative of the Discovery Institute, who you may know as the folks that believe in creationism. [00:29:21] Robert Cruickshank: Well, and not only that, the Discovery Institute is responsible for turning Christopher Rufo from a failed Seattle City Council candidate in 2019 into a national figure. [00:29:31] Mike McGinn: The Discovery Institute, with money from local donors - major, very wealthy local folks - they actually had a long-term plan to turn all of 99 into a limited access freeway. It's like - we need to get rid of that First Avenue South and Highway 99 and Aurora Avenue stuff - all of that should be a freeway. So they were the architects of the idea of - Hey, this deep bore tunnel is the solution. But Robert's point is just right on - transportation policy was driven by power and money, not by transportation needs, or climate needs, or equity needs, or even local economy needs really. When you get right down to it, our city runs on transit - that's what really matters. Our city runs on the fact that it's a city where people can walk from place to place. The idea that our economic future was tied to a highway that would skip Downtown - the most valuable place in the Pacific Northwest, Downtown Seattle. No, that's not really what powers our economy. But it certainly worked for the people that were going to get the dollars that flowed from folks and for the people who own Downtown property. [00:30:42] Crystal Fincher: And I want to talk about money and power with this. Who were the people in power? What was the Council at that time? Who made these decisions? [00:30:50] Mike McGinn: The Council at the time was elected citywide. And I think some people have concerns about district representation, but one of the things that citywide elections meant at the time was that you had to run a citywide campaign, and that's expensive. There's no way to knock on enough doors citywide. I did not have a lot of money when I ran for mayor, but at least I had the media attention that would go to a mayoral candidate. A City Council candidate would kind of flow under the radar. So you had people come from different places, right? They might come from the business side, they might come from the labor side. But ultimately, they would tend to make peace with the other major players - because only business and only labor could finance a campaign. They were the only ones with the resources to do that. So the other interests - the environmentalists, the social service folks, neighborhood advocates of whatever stripe - we chose from amongst the candidates that were elevated by, they would unify - in some cases, the business and labor folks would unify around a candidate. In fact, that's what we saw in the last two mayoral elections as well, where they pick a candidate. And so this doesn't leave much room. So when I was mayor, almost the entire council was aligned with the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce at that time, either endorsed by them or had made their peace with them so the challenger was not being financed. So Robert said something about those outsiders - I went under the radar screen as a candidate at the beginning of my campaign. When I entered the race, nobody was running because everybody thought that Greg Nickels had the institutional support locked down. [00:32:33] Crystal Fincher: But then a snowstorm happened. [00:32:35] Mike McGinn: Well, it was even before that - honestly, everybody thought that he could win. And long before the snowstorm, I was like - We're getting a new mayor. And I was actually looking around to try to figure out who it was going to be - because I wanted a mayor who actually believed in climate, who had my values. But nobody - I was looking through who the people were that might run, and it dawned on me - Well, nobody's going to run. But we're going to get a new mayor and I have my values - and I've actually run ballot measure campaigns and had a very modest base of support. So I was really the first one in the race that got any attention. So I got some great media attention off that. Then my opponent in the general, Joe Mallahan - whatever else you may think about Joe Mallahan - he actually saw it too. He saw that there was an opening. And then we were joined by a long-time City Councilmember, Jan Drago. And I remember the headline from The Seattle Times or the comments at the time was - Okay, now it's a real race. But it just really wasn't. So I was really under the radar screen in that race because they were disregarding me. But there was in fact a lot of anger about the tunnel. There was a lot of just - Greg, for whatever his positives or negatives that history will deal with - and by the way, I actually think Greg did a lot of good. I just was disappointed in his highway policies and his climate policies at the end of the day - I have a lot of respect for Greg Nickels, but he wasn't going to win that race. And I came out of the primary against Joe Mallahan. And all of a sudden we had these two outsiders and the business community's freaking out. All of it - I remember watching it - all of the support, the business support shifted to Joe. It took about a month, it took a few weeks. But all of a sudden - there was actually one week where I think I raised more money than he did, that was pretty unusual - and then all of a sudden all the money was pouring in. And boy, did Joe believe in that tunnel. And did Joe believe in what the Chamber of Commerce wanted to do. In fact, he believed in it so much that he believed that Seattle should pay cost overruns if there were cost overruns on the tunnel - an admission I got from him during the televised debate, I was shocked he admitted to it. [00:34:41] Crystal Fincher: I remember that debate. [00:34:43] Mike McGinn: Yeah. So you were kind of asking about how politics worked. It was really something. Yeah - here's another memory. About two weeks before the election, the City Council took - three weeks before the, two, three weeks, four weeks - they took a vote to say that the tunnel was their choice. Even though there's a mayoral election in which the tunnel is on the ballot, so to speak - in terms of the issues of the candidates - they took a vote for no reason to say it was a done deal. And then WSDOT released a video of the elevated collapsing in a highway, which is the first time a public disclosure request from a third party was ever given straight to a TV station, I think, in my experience in Seattle. I had Gregoire and the DOT folks down there working on that campaign too - their tunnel was threatened. So it really was something how - I indeed was kind of shocked at - it was such a learning experience for me - how much the ranks closed around this. I didn't appreciate it. I had my own nonprofit, I had been on stakeholder committees, I'd worked with a lot of people that weren't just Sierra Club members and neighborhood types. I'd worked with a lot of business people, many of whom had supported my nonprofit because they liked its vision. But they were very clear with me that as long as I supported the surface transit option, there was no way they could be associated with my run for mayor in any way, shape, or form - even if they liked me. It was a complete lockdown - right after the primary where Greg lost the primary and it was me and Joe, I was - Okay, open field running. I can now reach out to these people. There's no incumbent - maybe some of them can support me now. And they were abundantly clear on all of those phone calls that - Nope, can't do it. Until you change your position on the tunnel, we just can't do it. We have business in this town, Mike. We have relationships in this town. We cannot do that. So it was a real lockdown - politically. [00:36:38] Crystal Fincher: That was also a big learning experience for me - watching that consolidation, watching how not only were they fighting for the tunnel against you and making the fight against you a fight about the tunnel, but the enforcement to those third parties that you were talking about that - Hey, if you play ball with him, you're cut off. And those kinds of threats and that kind of dealing - watching that happen was very formative for me. I'm like - Okay, I see how this works, and this is kind of insidious. And if you are branded as an outsider, if you don't play ball, if you don't kiss the ring of the adults in the room - which is definitely what they considered themselves - then you're on the outs and they're at war. And it was really a war footing against you and the campaign. Who was on the Council at that time? [00:37:30] Mike McGinn: Oh my God. Let me see if I can go through the list. No, and it really, it was - your point about it was a war footing was not something that I fully, that I did not appreciate until actually going through that experience - how unified that would be. Excuse me. The City Council chair was Tim Burgess at the time. Bruce Harrell was on the Council. Sally Clark, Richard Conlin, Nick Licata. Mike O'Brien was running on the same platform as me with regard to the tunnel and he'd just been elected. Jean Godden, Sally Bagshaw. I hope I'm not leaving anything out - because - [00:38:04] Robert Cruickshank: Tom Rasmussen will forgive you. [00:38:06] Mike McGinn: Tom Rasmussen. Yeah - because City Councilmembers would get really offended if you didn't thank them publicly - that was another thing I had to learn. You have to publicly thank any other politician on stage with you or they held a grudge. Yeah. So I had - I didn't know all the politicians' rules when I started. [00:38:25] Crystal Fincher: There are so many rules. [00:38:27] Mike McGinn: There are so many, there's so many rules. But really what you saw then was that the Council tended to move in lockstep on many issues - because if they all voted together and they all worked citywide, there was protection. None of them could be singled out. So it was very - and it's not to say that some of them didn't take principled votes and would find themselves on an 8-1 position sometimes, but for the most part, it was much, much safer to be - it was much, much safer to vote as a group. And they tended to do that. And they had coalesced around the tunnel, except for O'Brien. And that could not be shaken by anything we brought to bear. [00:39:04] Robert Cruickshank: And this is wrapped up in not just the electoral politics, but the power politics. Because Mike McGinn comes in - mayor leading the 7th floor of City Hall, the head of City government - and smart guy, nice guy, willing to talk to anybody. But is not from their crew, is not from that group. And as Crystal and Mike said, the ranks were closed from the start. This is - again, 2009, 2010 - when nationally Mitch McConnell is quoted as saying, It's his ambition to make Obama a one-term president. I don't know if he's ever caught on record, but I would be quite certain that Tim Burgess would have said the exact same thing - that his ambition was to make Mike McGinn a one-term mayor. As it turned out in 2013, Tim Burgess wanted his job - one of the candidates running for it. So these are all people who have a reason to close ranks against Mike McGinn and to use a tunnel as a bludgeon against him to do so. [00:39:58] Mike McGinn: There were other bludgeons. After I won the general election and before I took office, they passed their annual budget - they cut the mayor's office budget by a third before I even took office. Just boom - I know - they were determined, they were determined. And so that was when the planning - that council then and with WSDOT - that was when basically the contours of the waterfront were locked into place, including what we now see as that very wide surface road. That was that Council. So if you're wondering, if you're looking at that going - Okay, wow, who decided that and where did it come from? Again, our current mayor and his current advisor and others - they've always been for that. Building that big surface road has always been the plan to go along with the tunnel, because highway capacity was their highest priority. And the park on the waterfront, along with a lot of money into the aquarium and into these new structures - that's their signature thing for so many other people. But the idea that you should, that there was an opportunity to transform our transportation system and transform our city to make it more equitable and climate friendly was never a priority in this process. Just wasn't. [00:41:20] Crystal Fincher: It was never a priority. It was never seriously considered. And to me, through this process - lots of people know, have talked about it on the show before - I actually didn't start off Team McGinn. I wound up Team McGinn - didn't start off that way. But through that - and you won me over with logic - it was you being proven right on several things. You pointed out that their projections, their traffic projections were just so far out of left field that there was no way that they were going to come close. And they even had to come down on their projections before we even saw the traffic - the actual traffic turned out to be lower. You were right on that one - the laughable - [00:41:59] Mike McGinn: They're under 40,000 cars a day - for a highway that was carrying 110,000 cars a day beforehand. So even as a traffic solution - to put that into context, 40,000 cars a day is like the Ballard Bridge. And I can guarantee you the replacement costs of the Ballard Bridge is not $4 billion or $3.1 billion. The E Line, I think, carries 15,000 people a day. Metro carries 220,000 people a day. What you could do with that $3.1 billion or $4 billion in terms of bus lanes, bike lanes, rolling stock for Metro, maybe pay raises for bus drivers so that we could actually have service - you could do so much with those billions of dollars. And we put it all into moving 40,000 cars a day? It's just pathetic. That's three Rapid Ride lines we could have had for a 10th of the cost, or even less. I think the investments in Rapid Ride lines are about $50-100 million a line to make the capital investments to make it work. So the waste - even if you don't care about climate, the waste of dollars - and who's paying those taxes? To a great degree, we have the most regressive state and local tax system in the nation. And we'll have a ballot measure soon, and I know a lot of environmentalists will be out there if the package spends for the right thing saying - Hey, we need money for local streets. Imagine if we'd taken that gas tax money and the Legislature had allowed cities and towns to use it to improve their streets - which they can do. I know that the constitution says highway purposes, but when you read highway purposes, it says roads and bridges. It includes everything. You can use gas taxes for anything that improves the road. And they do. WSDOT has used gas taxes to pay for bike lanes and sidewalks. It's legal. That's a choice. So we're driving around potholed streets. We have - we're putting up little plastic dividers because we care more about the car getting hurt than the bicyclist on the other side of that plastic divider. We're watching our transit service melt away because we can't pay bus drivers enough. But hey, man, somebody's got a really rapid - 3,000 people a day get to skip Downtown in their private vehicles. Where are our priorities for equity? Where are the priorities for economy, or even just plain old-fashioned fiscal prudence? None of that was there - because all of those dollars were going to fund the needs of the most powerful people in the City. And they captured those dollars - and all of us will pay the taxes, all of us will breathe the smoky air, and all of us will watch our streets deteriorate and our transit service evaporate. [00:44:52] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And to me, it was such a foundational lesson that the people that we have making decisions really matter - and that we have to really explore their records, their donors, their histories - because over and over again, we look at the decisions that wind up being made that frequently conflict with campaign promises, but that very, very rarely conflict with their donor rolls. [00:45:16] Mike McGinn: And yes - and every one of them knows how to make the value statements. So if I had any advice for people in this year's election - everyone is going to say they care about housing, everyone's going to say they think biking safe. I don't - one of the things that I came away with - I don't care about the goals you put into some policy anymore. Show me the hard physical action you will take that might piss somebody off, but you're willing to do it because it's right. And if you can't do that, then your value statements are meaningless. So take a look - who actually, and that's the question I always ask candidates for office - Tell me about a time you did something hard that might've caused you criticism, but you did it because it was right. Or that you made somebody who was an ally or friend upset, but you did it because it was right. Tell me about that time. [00:46:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's a challenge. And to your point and learning through just watching how people operated through that and some other processes - but that certainly was a big learning for me - is the role of coalitions, the role of accountability, and understanding. You have always had your finger on the pulse of Seattle, really - you're extraordinarily good at that. You're actually - both of you - are great strategists. But our political class is so detached from that sometimes - certainly I'm feeling frustration at some recent actions by our Legislature - we just had our special session day where they increased criminalization of substances, personal possession of substances - just reflecting on legislation to provide school, kids with free meals at school, things that seem like really basic and foundational that we should be able to land this. If we can call a special session to hand Boeing billions of dollars, we should be able to feed kids, right? [00:47:00] Mike McGinn: At the time we were cutting school budgets - when we found money for that. But I don't want to be too gloomy. And then I want to turn it over to Robert to get a last word in here, 'cause I just loved - his analysis is so awesome. I don't want to be too gloomy because - I look at what happened in the Legislature this year on housing, that we're finally going to allow housing, people to build more housing in places so people can actually live closer to their jobs and live more affordably. 10 years ago, we would have thought that was impossible. There's a lot of hard organizing that did it. At America Walks, we're the host of the Freeway Fighters Networks - there are people in 40 cities or more around the country that are organizing to remove highways. And while it's just a small amount of money compared to the amount going to highway expansion, there's actually federal funds to study and remove highways. So it's a long, hard slog. What felt for us - for Robert and me and Cary Moon and others fighting this - which felt like an impossible fight at the time is a fight that is now winning in places. Not winning enough - we're not winning fast enough - but it can change. And so that's - I don't want to be too negative. They got money, but organizing and people - and we actually have the public with us on this, just like we have the public with us on housing. So we just have to do more. We just got to keep at it, folks - got to keep at it. We can win this one. Don't allow this story of how hard it was to deal with the unified political class in the City of Seattle for their climate arson - should not deter you. It should inspire you, 'cause I actually won the mayor's office and we actually did do a lot of good. And the next fight is right in front of us again today, so get in it people. We need you. [00:48:46] Robert Cruickshank: I think that's spot on. And I remember coming to work in your office at the very beginning of 2011, when it seemed like the tunnel was just dominating discussion, but not in the mayor's office, right? When I joined, I fully expected to be like - roll my sleeves up to take on that tunnel. Instead, I'm working on the mayor's jobs plan, the Families and Education Levy, on transit. That's the stuff that was really getting done, and I think McGinn left a really great legacy on that. But we didn't win the tunnel fight. And I think we've diagnosed many of the reasons why, but one thing that really stands out to me as I look back from 12, 13 years distance is we didn't have the same density of genuinely progressive and social democratic organizations and people and leaders in Seattle that we have now. I think that matters because Mike's been talking about what's the next fight. I think one of the big fights coming up next year - when it comes time to renew that Move Seattle Levy - that's nearly a billion dollars that's going to be on the table. And we keep getting promised - when we are asked to approve these massive levies - that a lot of that money is going to go to safe streets, it's going to go to protect vulnerable users, we're going to do something to finally get towards Vision Zero. And instead it all gets taken away to build more car infrastructure. At what point do we finally stand - literally in the road - and say, No more. Do we look at the broken promises on the waterfront where we were promised a beautiful pedestrian-friendly waterfront and got another car sewer? We're going to have to organize and come together. We have many more groups now and many more leaders who are willing to stand up and say - We're not passing this levy unless it actually focuses on safe streets, unless it focuses on pedestrians and cyclists and transit users, and gives iron-clad promises to make sure stuff gets built so that some future mayor can't just walk in and start canceling projects left and right that we were promised. That's the lesson I take from this is - we're better organized now, we have more resources now, but it's still going to be a slog, and we're going to have to stand our ground - otherwise we get rolled. [00:50:34] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I thank you both for this conversation today - reflections on the tunnel fight, how it came to be, what it was like in the middle of it, and the lessons that we take moving forward in these elections that we have coming up this year, next year, and beyond. Thanks so much for the conversation. [00:50:50] Mike McGinn: Thank you, Crystal. [00:50:51] Robert Cruickshank: Thank you - it's been wonderful. [00:50:52] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this Tuesday topical show, Gabriel Neuman, Policy Counsel & Government Relations Manager for GSBA, has a conversation with Crystal about the organization's work as Washington's LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce. With a focus on community building and inclusion work, GSBA stands out from traditional business-oriented organizations in the support and services they provide to their member businesses. Crystal and Gabriel then discuss the business perspective and how GSBA is getting involved on challenges faced such as business taxation, workforce development, childcare accessibility, public safety, housing and homelessness. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find more about GSBA at thegsba.org.   Gabriel Neuman Gabriel Neuman (he/him) is GSBA's Policy Counsel & Government Relations Manager. Gabriel began working as GSBA's Office Manager in 2019, when he was attending evening classes at Seattle University School of Law. He has been thrilled to continue to serve GSBA after law school in the public policy world. Now, he collaborates with GSBA membership and local leadership to understand community needs and transforms those perspectives into advocacy. Prior to joining GSBA, Gabriel worked in the legal field and studied Political Science and Public Affairs, also at Seattle University, while collaborating with grassroots organizations on improving child welfare policy. Outside of work Gabriel enjoys crocheting, gardening, reading sci-fi, and live music.   Resources GSBA   GSBA and CHBA Present: District 3 Candidate Reception on Thursday, July 20, 2023, 4:30-6:30p   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. I am excited about today's show and to be welcoming Gabriel Neuman, who is Policy Counsel and Government Relations Manager of GSBA. Welcome. [00:01:02] Gabriel Neuman: Thank you - I'm excited to be here. [00:01:04] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much - great to be able to have this conversation with you. I think I just want to start out by helping the listeners understand - who is GSBA, what does GSBA do, and what brought you to this work? [00:01:18] Gabriel Neuman: GSBA is Washington's LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce. We started in the '80s as a way for LGBTQ folks in Seattle to find organizations and businesses that will accept them and provide a safe space for them. And over the years, it's evolved to form this big organization we have now. We have a scholarship program, which we began in the '90s, and we provide four years of recurring funding for students that are LGBTQ+ and allied. In addition to that, our chamber focuses primarily on serving small local businesses. And so through our chamber programs, we have a ton - we have a Business Academy, which is small business support through classes, and then we have one-on-one consults - so we help you create and sustain a business through questions and support. We have our networking and business connections pieces of our chamber - we host a lot of events under that. And then we also have our advocacy wing, which really focuses on trying to create a sustainable economic landscape for LGBTQ folks in Washington. So that's kind of GSBA in a nutshell - there's a whole bunch more. And for me personally - why I decided to join this work - I actually started to work at GSBA as office administrator, where I worked full-time while I was in Seattle University School of Law part-time during evening classes. And I came to GSBA because I really wanted to do something within my community. And I stayed because policy has always been a passion of mine and something that I wanted to do in a career. And GSBA was really supportive in providing that opportunity for me, and it just kind of ended up working out, so excited to be here. [00:02:59] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And so for a lot of people listening, sometimes on the news you hear a lot about the Seattle Chamber, Downtown Seattle Association. There are a number of business-oriented organizations throughout the city, county, and state - what really differentiates you and the work that you do at GSBA, and some of the results or work that you've done with members that you're particularly proud of? [00:03:26] Gabriel Neuman: Yeah, I think there are quite a few kind of different touch points. The Seattle Chamber and DSA are fantastic organizations, and we work well with them. But I would say that GSBA is focused a little bit more on the community-building aspect. And so we understand that to foster a collaborative environment and a business community that is sustainable for everybody, that means that everybody in the community needs to come and be invited to that table. And so GSBA really focuses on centering underserved communities in our work, and in connecting folks to each other in order to build and expand in that capacity. And then in addition, I think that a lot more of our work is centered on LGBTQ, but social justice initiatives in general - so we do a lot of DEI work, we do a lot of inclusion work for LGBTQ folks. And so it's really the kind of expertise we provide in that landscape that really differentiates us from those other orgs. [00:04:20] Crystal Fincher: In terms of policy, what have you been advocating for and have helped to pass, and what are the top things that you're working on now? [00:04:27] Gabriel Neuman: Yeah, last year was a fantastic year for LGBTQ rights in Washington state. Unfortunately, nationwide, we did not have the same results. And so in Washington this past year, a lot of our legislation was built to support our community - both in Washington and then also to support folks who are coming from other states in which they experience discrimination - and making sure that they're safe here in Washington. So what that looks like is GSBA - so we have a Policy Council that consists of folks from our community. And if anybody is listening and might be interested in that, please let me know - it's open to the public. So we have a Policy Council that serves in an advisory capacity for us, so that we can hear from our members in our community directly. And then we prioritize based off of what we think GSBA, as both a business organization and a social justice organization, can take the lead on - which ones we can support, but make sure the leadership resides within the organizations that are better fitted for it and then which ones are more like tertiary support. So there's a ton of support for LGBTQ legislation that was taken and led by other organizations, but GSBA supported them through testimony and through connecting our members to testify. So what those bills look like are we have a fantastic Shield Law that was just passed. And what that means is that folks from other states who are coming here to receive gender affirming care or reproductive care will not be able to be prosecuted in their state - that our Washington resources will not be used to prosecute them for receiving those services. And so that's gonna be really helpful - again, to provide that shelter and that opportunity for people coming here, but then also it protects practitioners in Washington who provide those resources from facing persecution in those other states. So that's really fantastic. Another bill that we advised on was the privacy bill - there was multiple privacy bills, but this one protects - helps to protect - healthcare data and making sure that your information about your gender identity, and your sexuality, and your reproductive history cannot be sold or used by organizations that may not want to, might not have your best interest at hand. So we are really excited about those. Some additional ones are there's a bill that made it easier for folks to seal their name changes - so if you're trans and you want to seal that name change due to fear of backlash from the public, we now have the ability to do that. And I worked on that as a community volunteer before I came into this position, and so I was really excited to see that one pass as well. So that's the LGBTQ side. On the business side, we were really happy to support a bill that makes it - basically, it makes it easier to set up ownership sharing programs - so giving employees a stake in the company - and that has been shown to produce a much better work quality of life for employees. But it also makes it easier for - if you're an LGBTQ business owner and you want to make sure your business stays in the hands of the employees you worked with for 20 years, or it stays in community - you have more freedom to do that now. So we're really excited about that one. And then a lot of kind of trying to get an increasing in our tourism budgets and providing additional funding for things like that. So we've kind of been - had our hands in a lot of different pots here - but it's been a busy year. [00:07:42] Crystal Fincher: And that's something that I have noticed - in really over the years - is that you do have your hands in a lot of different pots and are doing a lot of that work. And it does look different than you sometimes might expect from a purely business organization. You do a lot of the social work, more of a focus on equity, hearing from your members - seems like more comprehensively than a lot of other organizations may. I want to talk about some specific issue areas, revenue starting off - big conversation, always a conversation both locally and at the state level. One big piece of really consequential legislation was the JumpStart Tax for Seattle, which GSBA was in support of. And there have been conversations about maybe redirecting that perhaps, maybe changing what we're doing with it. What's your evaluation of the JumpStart Tax - how it has been performing, especially for small businesses, and where would you like to see that go? [00:08:38] Gabriel Neuman: Yeah, so from my understanding, the Seattle JumpStart Tax was intended to fund public housing - or affordable housing - and reinvest in our Green New Deal, and be attributed to some specific areas that our city needs additional funding towards. But right now, our general fund in the City is at a deficit, so we need more money in our general fund. And so they've been using the JumpStart Tax funds to help rebuild that deficit in the general budget. So what that means is that instead of the JumpStart funds being used for what the voters voted on them to be used for - affordable housing, Green New Deal-type things - it's instead being used to just furnish the general budget. That needed to happen - our city programs need to be funded. But it can't happen continually. It cannot be used as a continual, as a way for our city to lean on this tax in order to fill that shortfall - because there was so much political support brought behind this, and so many different people lent their voices into creating this tax and architecting it so that it would fill this very specific void in affordable housing that we have. And when it gets passed and that funding is not being used in the way the public thought it would be used, that results in a lack of - the public loses their confidence in our officials to delegate and to be able to actually reflect on those conversations they have with their constituents. And that really creates a compounding issue of how can we make sure that - that civic engagement and trust continues to exist, because that's literally the heart of our democracy. And so right now, I know the City has created a Revenue Stabilization task force. The goal of that is to find ways to basically fully furnish the general fund so that it does not have to pull from the JumpStart Tax. That task force - it'll be interesting to hear the results of the task force - they'll be releasing a paper to the City Council in July, outlining their plan and their suggestions. But there are some interesting conversations with participants on that task force around - the goal of the group was initially to just find ways to increase funding to the general fund. But some other folks in the group want to see if there are ways to cut current spending so that we can have a mixture of both taxes and spending cuts, so that we're not just increasing taxes on our businesses. And so there's a little bit of discussion there and I'm very curious to see how that'll play out. But - [00:11:07] Crystal Fincher: Is GSBA in favor of cuts, along with expansions of the tax? [00:11:13] Gabriel Neuman: Yeah, I think that we would be interested in understanding where those cuts would go and what that would look like, and see if there are avenues in which we can try to lower the amount. Because the reason that our general fund has all these additional programs that are underfunded right now is because when COVID started, we got a huge influx of federal funds and that money was used by the City to create a bunch of programming to help support and sustain our community during the pandemic. And a lot of those programs were very successful and we want to continue those programs, but we're not receiving that federal funding. And so I think that, just in the interest of having a well-rounded and well-researched perspective on where our budget is in general, we do support the idea of looking into all aspects - including spending cuts and different taxes, but - so we're interested to see what the City is gonna do. [00:12:07] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. One of the biggest areas of spending in the general fund is in public safety. Would that be an area that you would be looking to find some room in through cuts? [00:12:17] Gabriel Neuman: Yeah, I think that - public safety is a major issue for our members. And what our members are wanting to see is - they're wanting to see some sort of reassurance of their safety - and that's just not happening right now. People don't, they don't feel like those bases are being covered. And GSBA - we follow evidence-based approach to our policy - and the evidence right now says that increasing public health programming, increasing behavioral support for folks that need mental health support, and increasing resources like rehabilitation services that are supportive of folks that go through them, those are the types of things that promote a safe environment. And so GSBA is in support of programs like that that don't take a punitive approach to public safety, but rather a community-oriented and person-focused approach. So if that means less budgeting allocated towards the more punitive policy approaches within Seattle, then yes, we are in support of that. Yeah. [00:13:19] Crystal Fincher: Which is interesting 'cause it does seem like the City is increasingly moving in that direction. At the time of this recording, we have recently heard about the recent departure of Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell, perhaps about some differences in opinion on how things should proceed in this way. So are you actively advocating for more evidence-based investments and policies at this point in time? [00:13:45] Gabriel Neuman: Yes, we are - so GSBA is - we're currently researching the different policy proposals that have been introduced and voted on and voted down by City Council. We're planning on - I'm going to be polling our members, and I'm gonna be using that poll as a way to create a letter from GSBA and from our membership to submit to City Council that demonstrates our members' experiences and what they would like to see changed in order to make their environments better. So we're currently planning and preparing that. And in addition to that, a lot of our conversations around public safety have been done more at the community level. And so what that's looked like is we've hosted - our Capitol Hill Business Alliance has been really on board with trying to prepare our businesses to protect and to basically just secure their own premises. And so what that looks like is we've had a lot of events with non-police related trainings - and so that looks like public defense trainings, personal defense. We've had events where we have private security folks come in and show businesses what are the best practices for environmental security, where should you put your lights and your cameras, and things like that. And we've had just a lot of different - we've been trying to promote a lot of different ways for community to help support each other. So on Capitol Hill, for example, we're creating a Slack channel for businesses to communicate amongst each other - where if there's an area of concern, or if there's an employee that needs additional help like walking to a bus stop after their shift or something like that - that businesses can talk to each other, and to connect in that way, and have that kind of additional safety net. So a lot of our response so far has been kind of community-based and creating those types of networks, but we're looking to, and we're wanting to expand, those conversations more into the sphere with our elected officials. [00:15:33] Crystal Fincher: That sounds good, and we'll definitely be looking forward to that letter also. I also want to talk about the issue of revitalizing the economy. Certainly businesses of all types struggled to get through the pandemic - the pandemic is still here and happening - and businesses are facing a number of challenges from hiring and retaining employees, to understanding benefits, to just dealing with this larger economy. What are you hearing from your members are the biggest issues businesses are facing right now and what would help? [00:16:06] Gabriel Neuman: One of the big issues is going back to the earlier topic of taxation - is that businesses pay a ton in business and occupation tax. As you know, Washington has the most regressive tax system in the nation - and so instead of relying on an income tax, a lot of our taxes come from B&O, or business and occupation tax, which is directly placed on our business owners. In fact, in Seattle, our business owners pay around 70% of Seattle taxes, so a ton of money goes in there and it's hurting folks. And so we're trying to find ways to promote a more equitable tax structure so that our businesses can continue to thrive and that our government is working to support that. So that's one thing on the advocacy space. In addition, a big thing that we see is - are gaps in workforce development. There are a lot of positions that are open that people just are not applying for and that there are just not enough - that people, that the skills related to those careers are just not being offered at or made available at an economic rate for people. And so they cannot get those skills and so they cannot work at those jobs. So we have been really going forward with workforce development - this has been one of our big platforms for this year - is really trying to find ways to support our community in entering into those spaces. So there are expected needs for a lot of totally niche and really cool industries, like maritime officers - they need people to run the ferries, or people to do mechanics on our buses in King County, or folks to work at the airports - really cool stuff. So through our scholarship program, we just created a new source of funding that supports folks going through certificate programs. So now you can sign up, you can apply to our scholarship - and if you're wanting to go through a certificate program, then we can work with you to find out funding for that and through that route. And then in addition, we're also creating a workforce portal to allow folks to - who have gone through our programming - to connect to our businesses. And so we're doing a lot of promotion and facilitation for our members to be able to have the skills they need to enter there. But then there's, on the flip side, there's also a component of - we need to make sure that these industries are ready for our community, that they are ready to support and to accept LGBTQ folks. And so - because we want to make sure that we're sending people into a work environment that's gonna be successful for them. So we have an amazing LGBTQ inclusion program that we offer for organizations - where we go in and we, first we meet with the org, and see what type of support is it that you need? What do you want that to look like? And then we help with making a plan, and we have presentations where we can come in and speak with you and your employees and just give you the one-on-one on how to welcome LGBTQ folks into your org. And so we're building out that program much more and we're really proud of that. And then in addition to the kind of presentation and consulting piece, we're also creating a suite of actual products that businesses can use - for example, a guide on how to deal with name changes in the workplace, how employees and bosses and colleagues can all support that and different things like that. Another thing is helping employers to understand what a trans-friendly healthcare plan looks like for employees. So we are trying to take the extra step of not just saying - Make sure that you have a DEI statement - but instead going deeper and saying - What is the infrastructure that you have set up right now? And what can we do to make it a better environment for folks who are going to be joining your industry? So those are two areas in workforce development that we're helping with, but this is a statewide issue and it intersects with many other issues that are also impacting Washington. Kind of the third thing that employers are facing is that childcare, or the lack thereof, is also having a huge hindrance on their employees and on workforce retention. Because how are you supposed to take care of your kids, and work at a job, or go get your training, or do these things? And so AWB - the Washington Chamber - Association of Washington Business says that childcare is going to be one of the biggest issues going forward in the business advocacy front, just because of how substantially that impacts. So we're doing some research into better understanding that piece as well and how that affects our members. [00:20:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And those are all really important - glad to hear that they are in the priority. And it really does bring home the point that businesses do have to contend with societal issues and the impacts on their employees, potential employees, other people in the community. So things like you talked about - just the absolute evil and hostile legislation against - starting against the trans community, but it seems to be expanding against everyone. It is just so challenging. And you talk about the important work and really helpful work of helping your members in the greater business community really structurally and institutionally set up processes that will sustain equitable treatment of everyone. When it comes to a wide variety of businesses - certainly small businesses are facing a lot of challenges. Do you find that with issues like the B&O tax, taxation overall, that small businesses are being burdened more than larger corporations? [00:21:34] Gabriel Neuman: I cannot - I am not too familiar with the full tax scheme of larger corporations, but I can say that small businesses are facing huge crises with what they're dealing with in terms of taxation. There's, like in Seattle, they pay 70% of our taxes here. And there's just this kind of gap where we're seeing - well, they're paying - while folks are paying these taxes, they're still not seeing a lot of their essential services getting covered, at least in Seattle. So for example, we field a lot of concerns around excess trash in certain areas in the neighborhood, or we're seeing businesses have to respond to behavioral health crises in a way that hopefully a medically trained person employed by a state agency would be able to better respond to. And even things like our roads not being sufficient for bikers or for walkers being able to go to those places. These issues continue, these kind of basic infrastructure issues continue to impact businesses, and so when they're paying these taxes and they're not seeing these kind of basic things being done in their neighborhoods - there's this question of, What am I, what is this for? And again, that kind of feeds back into this lack of trust in our institutions and it exacerbates this dynamic - this kind of us-versus-them dynamic that we really don't want to see and it's not helping anyone. So I think that it's the amount of taxes people pay, but then also just what are the actual material results that they're seeing out of this? And so that's what kind of, we're trying to do a lot of work with our City government to help them understand that issue and to expand programming and support into those areas that - the kind of bread and butter of our communities. [00:23:23] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Another issue that everyone is contending with is housing and that absolutely impacts who can live in an area, dictates who can work in an area, and whether employers can retain employees, and what kind of wages are competitive. Are you active in housing advocacy? [00:23:42] Gabriel Neuman: We are not active in housing advocacy right now, but that is something that I want to get advocacy going on in the upcoming year. This is my first year in this position. And so there are a lot of areas where we really, for my first year, wanted to focus on setting the stage as a business organization and focusing really on the kind of business issues. But now that we are facing the intersection of all these things - housing is a business issue now, childcare is a business issue now - businesses are having to have opinions on and stances on things that they never had to before. And so GSBA, as a result, is now expanding into more of these different areas too. We want to make sure that we're educated and that we're having - that our analysis is reflective of the evidence. And so I've been doing a lot of research and trying to understand the housing issues from multiple different lenses, and as well as our Policy Council as well, so that we can have more of an engagement with that next year. But that is another - that is one of the major issues for our businesses - is housing, because how are you supposed to find employees? Again, harking back to that workforce development issue, how are you supposed to find folks that can afford to live near your business, or can afford to drive - transport to your business - and who have the skills to do that? Like it's just incompatible - something needs to change. So yes, we're going to be entering that field a lot more. [00:25:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So we're in the midst of City Council elections in the City of Seattle - you have a lot on your docket and you have a lot of advocacy that you do within the City - it's a major economic engine for the county and the state. Are you engaging in these City Council elections? [00:25:33] Gabriel Neuman: Yeah, so we are - we're working with Capitol Hill Business Alliance, which is the Chamber of Commerce on Capitol Hill. They also are under the GSBA umbrella, so they're part of our org. We're collaborating with CHBA on a District 3 reception, and that will be a space for - we're inviting all the candidates that are running for District 3 to Optimism in a very kind of casual atmosphere where folks can come and they can have those one-on-one conversations and meet those people as people. So we're really excited about that, and that'll be on July 20th. And then after the primaries are over, we're partnering with Seattle City Club to host a series of four debates in the contentious elections. And as someone who's done debate for more than half my life, I'm very excited to help with that. So yeah, we're really focusing on trying to get the word out about those elections and increase engagement 'cause it's really important. [00:26:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Are you seeing any specific policy directions that your membership or that you could say your membership is looking for, leaning towards from these candidates? [00:26:38] Gabriel Neuman: Yeah, I think that we - our members want something - they want to see, they want a representative that will listen to them and that will come to them and say - I'm your representative, here's who I am. What can I do for you? They want a representative that listens to them and that will - that wants to incorporate that perspective. Because every neighborhood in Seattle is unique and every neighborhood has its own character, and that's important for representatives to embody that and to reflect that. And especially in Capitol Hill, businesses want to know how they can stay safe and they want to be able to know that their neighborhood is going to retain the aura of safety so that folks will continue to go there. But again, they also do not want to see that reflected as more uniformed police officers walking around Capitol Hill. They want to see a community-oriented solution to this. And what that means is a representative that really understands the community and that knows how they can talk to the community to come to ways to bridge these issues. So definitely someone that's willing to come to the table on that. So I definitely say public safety and business taxation as well. There's a recent - recently Councilmember Pedersen brought forward the idea of a potential capital gains tax in Seattle, which would again impact the business community. And we're still - right now we're trying to find ways to enter that conversation and explain and try to find ways to make sure that that taxation doesn't actually affect our members. They want equitable taxation, is what I'm saying there. And housing - they want people to work at their businesses and that means access to housing, access to transportation. It's interesting, especially over the last few years, I've noticed that a lot of organizations are taking a much more social justice-oriented lens to policy issues because - again, that area of intersectionality is becoming much, much more apparent and it's not something that companies can ignore anymore. And it's been really fun to see this kind of increase in desire for participating in those conversations and how those partnerships can look in the future. [00:28:53] Crystal Fincher: Sure. Another issue that is top on the minds of residents and businesses both is that of homelessness and the struggle that the entire region is having with this. What do you advocate for at GSBA to try and meaningfully address this issue? [00:29:13] Gabriel Neuman: Yeah, there's - the one thing that comes to mind is we are trying to help connect those folks to - back to their community. We want unhoused folks to know that they are a part of a community and that they have a space for them. And one part of that looks like initiatives helping businesses to prepare to hire folks that have been involved in the criminal justice system. And so there is a Ban the Box initiative in Seattle and now what we're doing with our business consulting services is making sure that employers are aware of - that they should be hiring folks that were formerly incarcerated, that these people are awesome and still need to be considered as members of our community and helping them to onboard and prepare for that. That's one thing we're doing. Another thing is we are - I want GSBA to get more involved in the local referendums. And I've been in communication to see what we can do to support the new Housing Levy that'll be introduced to expand housing. We were very supportive of the behavioral health crisis levy that was just passed, we're really excited about that. And we're wanting to continue to work with those groups as well so that we can have pipelines of - Okay, if you know someone that wants to work at this, in this industry, in the maritime industry who is unhoused and they're going through your program to get housing, how can they connect with us so that we can support them in the workforce development area? So really trying to bridge those resource gaps and communicate with our community partners in that. [00:30:49] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Another issue facing the region is that of transit and transportation. We have lots of investments, continue to need more in road maintenance and safety - but also a focus on people who don't drive, or who choose not to drive, or can't drive and who are walking or riding or rolling or on transit. What are the top priorities in terms of transportation and mobility for GSBA? [00:31:19] Gabriel Neuman: Yeah, transportation is - it really is about being able to get from where you're living to where you're working. And we wanna make sure that there are bus routes that enter into the lesser-served neighborhoods and that transportation options are being introduced and promoted in those neighborhoods, so that those folks that don't have access - that might not have a car - can actually get access to those major transport hubs. So increasing bus access and then also increasing - again, particularly increasing transportation to those major transport hubs, like the light rail stations and things like that, so that people can get into the core area and then go off to where they need to go. That's one aspect. And then another thing that we've been doing is we've been working with our ride share companies in helping to aid them in setting up ride share infrastructure in cities that are not Seattle - having Lime bikes in smaller towns, for example, or in Eastern Washington. Or the scooters, as well - seeing those types of services in smaller areas, because they're fantastic in enabling people, again, to bridge those transportation gaps. And you see a lot of those transportation gaps in smaller towns and smaller areas. And that's where those kind of ride share programs can go a really long way in allowing people just the accessibility and the freedom to move around where they live more. We've been really excited about that. And then on the LGBT side, working with the ride share companies to understand what are the specific experiences that LGBTQ community has in accessing those services and how can we expand that into, again, into expansion into those smaller towns - like where do queer people go in those towns? Where are the routes most likely gonna be taken and how can we make sure the infrastructure is built up to facilitate that? Lots of kind of little niche things in there that we've been having a great time with. [00:33:19] Crystal Fincher: That sounds good. And as we close today, are there any thoughts or particularly helpful things that you would leave people with that they should know or that would be particularly helpful in helping and supporting our small business community? [00:33:36] Gabriel Neuman: Our small business community, I think - honestly, I would say that the best way to have your voice heard is to really talk to your elected officials. And we can help that, we can help facilitate that. Or if you just call or email their office - they want to hear from you and they want to know what it is that you're experiencing. And they literally cannot hear from you unless they hear from you. Please do that outreach and please let them know when they do things that you like as well, because they need that positive feedback. But more than that, just know that you have some really awesome advocates behind you. The GSBA is one wing of a much larger business support network across Washington State. And I've had the pleasure of meeting with a lot of these folks and everybody's in it for the right reasons and they are in it to support you. And that is no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And utilize us as well - not just GSBA - utilize us, but utilize your business support community writ large around you to see what avenues and resources are available for you, because there are so many too that you might just not be aware of. I would say that to the business community. Can I have a shout out to our LGBTQ community as well? I just want to say, I know this year has been very tortuous and very sad, with the legislation and the legislative attacks that our community has had nationwide. It's just been one thing after another, but Washington has your back. Washington has just passed this suite of transformative policy that will help to shield you if you are thinking of coming here, or if you are here thinking of and have a family that want to come spend time with you, or whatever - Washington has your back. And we are also continuing to build on that infrastructure. And we're continuing to look at these and have a proactive stance and a proactive approach to what is it that people in our community need and what is it that they're not getting, and how can we bridge that? Please know that in spite of what you've heard nationwide, Washington is continuing to be a safe space and we've got you. [00:35:47] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for that. And as a queer business owner myself, appreciate the work that you do and that you continue to do and the policy that you're pushing towards. If people want to find out more information about GSBA, how can they do that? [00:36:01] Gabriel Neuman: You can visit us on our website, thegsba.org. You can also see us on social media - we're just GSBA on Facebook and Instagram and all that. And you can also email me - I'm gabrieln@thegsba.org. [00:36:16] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for joining us today. [00:36:18] Gabriel Neuman: Thank you so much for having us. [00:36:20] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with former Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and his former Senior Communications Advisor Robert Cruickshank about the missed opportunity for generational impact through how decisions were made about Seattle's waterfront and the SR99 tunnel. Mike and Robert review how the vision of the scrappy People's Waterfront Coalition, centered around making a prized public space accessible for all while taking the climate crisis on by transforming our transportation system, nearly won the fight against those who prioritized maintaining highway capacity and those who prioritized increasing Downtown property values.  The conversation then highlights how those with power and money used their outsized influence to make backroom decisions - despite flawed arguments and little public enthusiasm for their proposal - leaving Seattle with an underutilized deep bore tunnel and a car-centric waterfront. Some of the decision makers are still active in local politics - including current Mayor Bruce Harrell and his current advisor Tim Burgess. With important elections ahead, Crystal, Mike and Robert discuss how political decisions tend to conflict with campaign promises rather than donor rolls, how proven action is a better indicator than value statements, and how today's dense ecosystem of progressive leaders and organizations can take inspiration and win the next fight. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii, Mike McGinn at @mayormcginn, and Robert Cruickshank at @cruickshank.   Mike McGinn Mike is the Executive Director of national nonprofit America Walks.  He got his start in local politics as a neighborhood activist pushing for walkability. From there he founded a non-profit focused on sustainable and equitable growth, and then became mayor of Seattle. Just before joining America Walks, Mike worked to help Feet First, Washington State's walking advocacy organization, expand their sphere of influence across Washington state. He has worked on numerous public education, legislative, ballot measure and election campaigns – which has given him an abiding faith in the power of organizing and volunteers to create change.   Robert Cruickshank Robert is the Director of Digital Strategy at California YIMBY and Chair of Sierra Club Seattle. A long time communications and political strategist, he was Senior Communications Advisor to Mike McGinn from 2011-2013.   Resources “Seattle Waterfront History Interviews: Cary Moon, Waterfront Coalition” by Dominic Black from HistoryLink   “State Route 99 tunnel - Options and political debate" from Wikipedia   “Remembering broken promises about Bertha” by Josh Cohen from Curbed Seattle   “Fewer drivers in Seattle's Highway 99 tunnel could create need for bailout” by Mike Lindblom from The Seattle Times   “Surface Highway Undermines Seattle's Waterfront Park” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Seattle Prepares to Open Brand New Elliott Way Highway Connector” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I am very excited to be welcoming Robert Cruickshank and former Mayor Mike McGinn to the show to talk about something that a lot of people have been thinking about, talking about recently - and that is Seattle's new waterfront. We feel like we've spent a decade under construction - from a deep bore tunnel to the tunnel machine getting stuck - that's not even covering all the debate before that, but all of the kind of follies and foibles and challenges that have beset the process of arriving at the waterfront that we have now. And now that we are getting the big reveal, a lot of people have feelings about it. So I thought we would talk about it with one of the people who was at the forefront of criticisms of the tunnel and calling out some red flags that turned out to be a very wise warning - several wise warnings that have come to pass, unfortunately - for not listening to them. But I want to start early on in the beginning, both of you - and I had a short stint in the mayor's office - worked on this, talked about this on the campaign, really got it. But when did you first hear that we needed to replace the viaduct and there were some different opinions about how to make that happen? [00:02:06] Mike McGinn: Okay, so I'm sure I can't pin down a date, but the really important date was, of course, the Nisqually earthquake in 2001. And so it gave the Alaska Way Viaduct a good shake - the decks weren't tied into the columns, the columns were on fill, which could liquefy - and everybody understood that if that quake had been a little stronger and harder, the elevated would come down. Now you might think that that would call for immediately closing the roadway for safety reasons, but what it did call for was for reconstructing it. And you have to remember that highway was really one of the very first limited access highways - it was built long ago and it was just at the end of its useful life anyway. Certainly not built to modern seismic standards or modern engineering standards. So the conversation immediately started and I don't know when everything started to settle into different roles, but the Mayor of Seattle Greg Nickels, was immediately a proponent for a tunnel - and a much larger and more expensive tunnel than what was ultimately built. And it would have been a cut-and-cover tunnel along the waterfront that included a new seawall. So they thought they were solving two things at one time - because the seawall too was rotting away, very old, very unstable. But it would have gone all the way under South Lake Union and emerged onto Aurora Avenue further north, it would have had entrances and exits to Western and Elliott. And I seem to remember the quoted price was like $11 billion. And the state - governor at the time was Christine Gregoire - they were - No, we're replacing the highway. We don't have $11 billion for Seattle. And of course had the support of a lot of lawmakers for obvious reasons - we're not going to give Seattle all that money, we want all that highway money for our districts. And those were immediately presented as the alternatives. And so much of the credit has to go to Cary Moon, who lived on the waterfront and started something called the People's Waterfront Coalition. I think Grant Cogswell, a former City Council candidate - now runs a bookstore down in Mexico City, but wrote a book about the Monorail, worked on the different Monorail campaigns before that - they launched something called the People's Waterfront Coalition. And the basic proposition was - We don't need a highway. This is a great opportunity to get rid of the highway and have a surface street, but if you amp up the transit service - if we invest in transit instead - we can accommodate everyone. And so that was really - as it started - and actually I remember being outside City Hall one day, going to some stakeholder meeting - I went to so many different stakeholder meetings. And I remember Tim Ceis saying to me - he was the Deputy Mayor at the time - You're not supporting that Cary Moon idea - I mean, that's just crazy. I was - Well, actually, Tim. So the Sierra Club was - I was a volunteer leader in the Sierra Club - and the Sierra Club was one of the first organizations - I'm sure there were others, I shouldn't overstate it - but the Sierra Club was persuaded by the wisdom of Cary's idea and supported it in that day. And so that was really how the three different options got launched - no public process, no analysis, no description of what our needs were. The mayor went to a solution, the governor went to a solution - and it was up to members of the public to try to ask them to slow down, stop, and look at something different. [00:05:42] Crystal Fincher: And Robert, how did you first engage with this issue? [00:05:47] Robert Cruickshank: For me, I had just moved to Seattle the first time in the fall of 2001 - so it was about six months after the Nisqually quake - and I came from the Bay Area. And that was where another earthquake had damaged another waterfront highway, the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco. And that was where San Francisco had voted - after that quake had damaged their viaduct beyond repair - they voted to tear it down and replace it with the Embarcadero Waterfront, which is a six-lane arterial but they built a lot more transit there. So they did the - what we might call the surface transit option - and it worked really well. It was beautiful. It still is. And so when I came up here and started to learn a little bit about the place I was living and the legacy of the Nisqually quake, I thought - Oh, why don't you just do the same thing here? It worked so well in San Francisco. Let's just tear down this unsightly monstrosity on the waterfront and replace it with a surface boulevard and put in a bunch of transit - San Francisco's made it work successfully. And the more I learned about Seattle, I realized there's a legacy of that here, too. This is a city where we had a freeway revolt, where activists came together and killed the RH Thomson freeway, which would have destroyed the Arboretum. They killed the Bay Freeway, which would have destroyed Pike Place Market. And so I naturally assumed - as being a relatively new resident - that Seattle would stay in that tradition and welcome the opportunity to tear this down and build a great waterfront for people, not cars. But as we'll talk about in a moment, we have a lot of business interests and freight interests and others who had a different vision - who didn't share that community-rooted vision. And I think at numerous points along the way, though, you see people of Seattle saying - No, this is not what we want for our waterfront. We have an opportunity now with the fact that this viaduct nearly collapsed, as Mike mentioned, in the Nisqually quake - we have an opportunity for something really wonderful here. And so I think Cary Moon and then Mike McGinn and others tapped into that - tapped into a really strong community desire to have a better waterfront. I wasn't that politically engaged at the time in the 2000s - I was just a grad student at UW - but just talking to folks who I knew, anytime this came up - God, wouldn't it be wonderful down there if this was oriented towards people and not cars, and we took that thing down? So I think one of the things you're going to see is this contest between the vision that many of us in Seattle had and still have - this beautiful location, beautiful vista on Elliott Bay, that should be for the people of the city - and those in power who have a very different vision and don't really want to share power or ultimately the right-of-way with We the People. [00:08:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And I was involved in some things at the time - some curious coalitions - but definitely I was around a lot of people who favored either rebuilding the viaduct or the tunnel. Definitely not this roads and transit option - there's no way that's workable. That's pie-in-the-sky talk from those loony greenies over there. What are you talking about? But as this went on - I think no matter what camp people were in - there was always a clear vision articulated and people really focused on the opportunity that this represented, and I think correctly characterized it as - this is one of these generational decisions that we get to make that is going to impact the next generation or two and beyond. And there's an opportunity - the waterfront felt very disconnected with the way things were constructed - it was not easy just to go from downtown to the waterfront. It wasn't friendly for pedestrians. It wasn't friendly for tourists. It just did not feel like a world-class waterfront in a world-class city, and how we see that in so many other cities. You talk about the decision with the Embarcadero, Robert, and looking at - that definitely seemed like a definitive step forward. This was sold as - yeah, we can absolutely take a step forward and finally fix this waterfront and make it what it should have been the whole time. As you thought about the opportunity that this represented, what was the opportunity to you and what did you hear other people saying that they wanted this to be? [00:09:38] Mike McGinn: Yeah, so I think there are - I think that's really important, because I don't think there was a real discussion of what the vision was. People will say there was, but there really wasn't. Because what was baked in and what you're referring to is - well, of course you have to build automobile capacity to replace the existing automobile capacity, right? In fact, this state is still building more highways across the state in the misguided belief that more highway capacity will somehow or another do some good. So this idea that you have to replace and expand highway capacity is extremely powerful in Washington state and across the country. And there were very few examples of highway removal, so that was just a real challenge in the first place - that somehow or other the first priority has to be moving automobiles. For me, at that time I had become - the issue of climate had really penetrated me at that point. And in fact, when Greg Nickels took office and the Sierra Club endorsed him over Paul Schell - I was a local leader in the Sierra Club and a state leader in the Sierra Club - and my goal was that Mayor Nickels would do more than Paul Schell. And Paul Schell, the prior mayor, had done some good things. He had made Seattle City Light climate neutral - we'd gotten out of coal plants and we didn't purchase power from coal plants. He was really progressive on a number of environmental issues and we wanted Mayor Nickels to do more - and Mayor Nickels had stepped up. So we put on a campaign to urge him to do more. And he had stepped up to start something called the Mayors' Climate Protection Initiative - which was the City of Seattle was going to meet the standards of the Kyoto Protocol, which was like the Paris Agreement of its day. And that was - it set an emissions reduction target by a date in the future. And that was really great - in fact, over a thousand cities around the country signed up to the Mayors' Climate Protection Initiative. And I was appointed to a stakeholder group with other leaders - Denis Hayes from the Bullitt Foundation and others - to develop the first climate action plan for a city. Al Gore showed up at the press conference for it - it was a big - it was a BFD and a lot of excitement. And one of the things that was abundantly clear through that process of cataloging the emissions in the City of Seattle and coming up with a plan to reduce them was that our single largest source of emissions at that time was the transportation sector. We'd already gotten off of coal power under Mayor Schell - we received almost all of our electricity from hydroelectric dams. We had good conservation programs. Unlike other parts of the country, transportation was the biggest. Now what's fascinating is now - I don't know if I want to do the math - almost 20 years later, now what we see is that the whole country is in the same place. We're replacing coal and natural gas power plants. And now nationally, the single largest source of emissions is transportation. So how do you fix that? If we're serious about climate - and I thought we should be - because the scientists were telling us about heat waves. They were telling us about forest fires that would blanket the region in smoke. They were telling us about storms that would be bigger than we'd ever seen before. And flooding like we'd never seen and declining snowpack. And it was all going to happen in our futures. Honestly, I remember those predictions from the scientists because they're in the headlines today, every day. So what do we do to stop that? So I was - I had little kids, man - I had little kids, I had three kids. How are we going to stop this? Well, it's Seattle needs to lead - that's what has to happen. We're the progressive city. We're the first one out with a plan. We're going to show how we're going to do it. And if our biggest source is transportation, we should fix that. Well, it should seem obvious that the first thing you should do is stop building and expanding highways, and maybe even change some of the real estate used for cars and make it real estate for walking, biking, and transit. That's pretty straightforward. You also have to work on more housing. And this all led me to starting a nonprofit around all of these things and led to the Sierra Club - I think at a national level - our chapter was much further forward than any other chapter on upzones and backyard cottages and making the transition. So to me, this was the big - that was the vision. That was the opportunity. We're going to tear this down. We're going to make a massive investment in changing the system, and this in fact could be a really transformative piece. That's what motivated me. That climate argument wasn't landing with a whole bunch of other interests. There was certainly a vision from the Downtown and Downtown property owners and residents that - boy, wouldn't it be great to get rid of that elevated highway because that's terrible. There was also a vision from the people who still believed in highway capacity and that includes some of our major employers at the time and today - Boeing and Microsoft, they have facilities in the suburbs around Seattle - they think we need highway capacity. As well as all of the Port businesses, as well as all the maritime unions - thought that this highway connection here was somehow critical to their survival, the industrial areas. And then they wanted the capacity. So there were very strong competing visions. And I think it's fair to say that highway capacity is a vision - we've seen that one is now fulfilled. The second priority was an enhanced physical environment to enhance the property values of Downtown property owners. And they cut the deal with the highway capacity people - okay, we're here for your highway capacity, but we have to get some amenities. And the climate folks, I'm not seeing it - never a priority of any of the leaders - just wasn't a priority. [00:15:44] Crystal Fincher: How did you see those factions come into play and break down, Robert? [00:15:48] Robert Cruickshank: It was interesting. This all comes to a head in the late 2000s. And remembering back to that time, this is where Seattle is leading the fight to take on the climate and the fight against George W. Bush, who was seen as this avatar of and deeply connected to the oil industry. Someone who - one of his first things when he took office - he did was withdraw the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol, which is the earlier version of what's now known as the Paris Agreement - global agreement to try to lower emissions. And so Seattle, in resisting Bush - that's where Greg Nickels became a national figure by leading the Mayors' Climate Action Group - not just say we're going to take on climate, we're going to do something about really de facto fighting back against Bush. And then Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Al Gore comes out with An Inconvenient Truth. And by 2007, people in Seattle are talking a lot about climate and how we need to do something about climate. But then what you see happening is the limits of that - what are people really actually willing to do and willing to support? The other piece that comes together, I think - in the 2000s - is a revival of the City itself. Seattle spends the late 20th century after the Boeing bust - since the 70s "Will the last person out of Seattle turn out the lights," recovering in the 80s somewhat, recovering in the 90s, and then the tech boom. And by the 2000s, Seattle is a destination city for young people coming to live here and living in apartments and working in the tech industry. I think that unsettles a lot of people. One thing that really stood out to me about the discussion about what to do on the waterfront was this vision from old school folks - like Joel Connelly and others - we've got to preserve that working waterfront. And it's very much the sense that blue collar working class labor is under threat - not from corporate power, but from a 20-something millennial with a laptop working at Amazon who comes to Seattle and thinks - Gosh, why is this ugly viaduct here? It's unsafe. Why don't we just tear it down and have a wonderful waterfront view? And those who are offended by this idea - who are so wedded to the 20th century model that we're going to drive everywhere, cars, freedom - this is where you see the limits of willingness to actually do something on climate. People don't actually want to give up their cars. They're afraid they're going to sacrifice their way of life. And you start to see this weird but powerful constellation come together where rather than having a discussion about transportation planning or even a discussion about climate action, we're having this weird discussion about culture. And it becomes a culture war. And the thing about a culture war is people pushing change are never actually trying to fight a war. They're just - This is a good idea. Why don't we do this? We all say these - we care about these values. And the people who don't want it just dig in and get really nasty and fight back. And so you start to see Cary Moon, People's Waterfront Coalition, Mike McGinn, and others get attacked as not wanting working class jobs, not wanting a working waterfront, not caring about how people are going to get to work, not caring about how the freight trucks are going to get around even though you're proposing a tunnel from the Port to Wallingford where - it's not exactly an industrial hub - there are some businesses there. But dumping all these cars out or in South Lake Union, it's like, what is going on here? It doesn't add up. But it became this powerful moment where a competing vision of the City - which those of us who saw a better future for Seattle didn't see any competition as necessary at all - those who are wedded to that model where we're going to drive everywhere, we're going to have trucks everywhere, really saw that under threat for other reasons. And they decided this is where they're going to make their stand. This is where they're going to make that fight. And that turned out to be pretty useful for the Port, the freight groups, the establishment democratic leaders who had already decided for their own reasons this is what they wanted too. [00:19:11] Mike McGinn: It's important to recognize too, in this, is to follow the money. And I think that this is true for highway construction generally. You have a big section of the economy - there's a section of the economy that believes in it, as Robert was saying, right? And I do think the culture war stuff is fully there - that somehow or another a bike lane in an industrial area will cause the failure of business. Although if you went to the bike - outside the industrial building - you'll find a bunch of the workers' bike there, right? Because it's affordable and efficient. So there's this weird belief that just isn't true - that you can't accommodate industry and transit and walking and biking. Of course you can. And in fact, adding all the cars is bad for freight movement because of all the traffic jams. So there's that belief, but there's also a whole bunch of people - I mentioned Downtown property owners - that gets you to your Downtown Seattle Association. The value of their property is going to be dramatically enhanced by burying, by eliminating the waterfront highway. But then you also have all of the people who build highways and all of the people who support the people who build highways. Who's going to float $4 billion in bonds? It's going to be a Downtown law firm. And by the way, the person who worked for that Downtown law firm and did the bond work was the head of the greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce at that time. So you have the engineering firms, you have the material providers, and then you have the union jobs that go with it. So really at this point - and this isn't just about the waterfront highway, this could be any highway expansion - you've captured the business community because a big chunk of the business community will get direct dollars from the government to them. And you've actually captured a significant chunk of the labor community as well, because labor fights for labor jobs. In the big picture, service workers are taking transit, service workers need housing in town, and you can start to see a split - like in my ultimate run for mayor, I won some service worker unions, never won any construction trades. In fact, they held a rally my first year in office to denounce me, right? Because I was standing in the way of jobs. So that's a really powerful coalition. And I think what you see today in the country as a whole - as you know, I'm the ED of America Walks, so I get to see a lot more - this is a pattern. Highways aren't really supported by the public. They don't go to the public for public votes on highways anymore - the public wouldn't support it. And in fact, the data suggests the public gets that building more highway lanes won't solve everything. But you've got a big, big chunk of the economy that's gotten extremely used to billions and billions of dollars flowing into their pockets. And they need to protect that in every year. So you get that level of intensity around - Look, we're talking about $4 billion on the waterfront and a bunch of that money's coming to us. Better believe it's a good idea, and what are you talking about, climate? [00:22:03] Robert Cruickshank: You talk about public votes, and I think there are three crucial public votes we got to talk about. One is 2007, when these advisory votes are on the ballot - and they're not binding, but they're advisory. Do you want to rebuild the viaduct or build a tunnel? They both get rejected. And then the next big vote is 2009, the mayoral election, where Mike McGinn becomes mayor - in part by channeling public frustration at this giant boondoggle. And then ultimately, the last public vote on this, 2011 - in June, I believe it was, it was in August - about whether we go forward or not and the public by this point, fatigued and beaten down by The Seattle Times, decides let's just move on from this. [00:22:43] Mike McGinn: There's no other alternative. And it is worth returning to that early vote, because it was such a fascinating moment, because - I think the mayor's office didn't want to put his expansive tunnel option in a direct vote against the new elevated, fearing it would lose. So they engineered an agreement with the governor that each one would get a separate up or down vote. And by the way, Tim Ceis, the Deputy Mayor at the time, called in the Sierra Club, briefed us on it, and one of our members said - What would happen if they both got voted down? And Deputy Mayor Ceis said - by the way, Tim Ceis has got a big contract right now from Mayor Harrell, longtime tunnel supporter. Tim Ceis is the consultant for most of the business side candidates. Tim Burgess, another big supporter of the tunnel, now works for Mayor Harrell. Oh, and Christine Gregoire has been hired by the biggest corporations in the region to do their work for them as well. So there's a pretty good payoff if you stick around and support the right side of this stuff. But anyway, Mayor Ceis, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis, when said, What happens if they're both voted down? He goes - Well, that would be chaos. You don't want that, do you? And I remember all of us just kind of looked at each other - and we all went out on the sidewalk, there were like six of us. And we went - We want that, right? And so we joined in and supported the No and No campaign. And The Stranger came in really hard. And I think Erica Barnett wrote the articles. And Cary Moon was in on it. And the defeat of that, for the first time, opened up the possibility - Well, let's think about something else. And so a stakeholder group was formed. Cary Moon was appointed. Mike O'Brien was appointed. The waterfront guys were appointed. And the Downtown folks were appointed. And the labor folks were appointed. And I think a really important part of the story here is that it was advisory - they weren't making the decisions, it was advisory. But they got to a point at which the head of the State DOT, the head of the Seattle DOT, and the head of the King County DOT all expressed to their respective executives that surface transit worked and was worth it. And this was extremely distressing to the business community. So they mounted a big lobbying push and went straight to Gregoire. And Gregoire, for the first time, became a tunnel supporter. And they were promised that this new tunneling technology - the deep bore tunnel - would solve the cost issues of the deep bore tunnel. And not only that, the state's commitment, which to date was $2.4 billion - they had committed $2.4 billion to a rebuild - the state wouldn't have to pay anymore, because the Port would put in $300 million and they would raise $400 million from tolling. And coincidentally, the amount they thought they could raise from tolling was the exact amount needed to meet the projected cost of using the deep bore tunnel boring machine. So the deal was cut and announced. And the whole stakeholder group and the recommendations from the DOT heads were abandoned. And that occurred, basically, late 2008, early 2009 - the deal was made. And that was about the time that I was contemplating - well, I think I'd already decided to run, but I had not yet announced. [00:26:14] Crystal Fincher: And this was an interesting time, especially during that vote. Because at that time, I had an eye into what the business community was doing and thinking, and it was clear that their numbers didn't add up. [00:26:26] Mike McGinn: Oh my God - no. [00:26:28] Crystal Fincher: But they just did not want to face that. And what they knew is they had enough money and resources to throw at this issue and to throw at a marketing effort to obfuscate that, that they wouldn't have to worry about it. And there was this sense of offense, of indignation that - Who are these people trying to come up and tell us that we don't need freight capacity, that we don't need - that this extra highway capacity, don't they understand how important these freeways are? Who are these people who just don't understand how our economy works? [00:27:02] Mike McGinn: They were the grownups who really understood how things worked. And we were the upstarts who didn't understand anything. But there's a great line from Willie Brown talking about - I think the Transbay Bridge, and Robert can correct the name, in California, which was way over budget. And people were lamenting that the early estimates had been made up. And he goes - Look, this is how it works. You just need to dig a hole in the ground so deep that the only way to fill it up is with money. I think that's pretty much the quote. So that's the strategy. You get it started. Of course you have rosy estimates. And then you just have that commitment, and it's the job of legislators to come up with the cost overruns, dollars later. [00:27:43] Robert Cruickshank: And I think it's so key to understand this moment here in the late 2000s, where the public had already weighed in. I remember voting - it was the last thing I voted on before I moved to California for four years. I'm like no - I was No and No. And that's where the Seattle voters were. They rejected both options. And then you start to hear, coming out of the stakeholder group - Okay, we can make the surface transit option work. And I left town thinking - Alright, that's what's going to happen, just like the Embarcadero in San Francisco and done. And the next thing I hear in late 2008, early 2009, there's this deal that's been cut and all of a sudden a deep bore tunnel is on the table. And this is Seattle politics in a nutshell. I think people look back and think that because we are this smart, progressive technocratic city - those people who live here are - we think that our government works the same way. And it doesn't. This is - time and time again, the public will make its expression felt. They'll weigh in with opinion poll or protest or vote. And the powers that be will say - Well, actually, we want to do this thing instead. We'll cook it up in a backroom. We're going to jam it on all of you, and you're going to like it. And if you don't like it, then we're going to start marshaling resources. We're gonna throw a bunch of money at it. We'll get The Seattle Times to weigh in and pound away at the enemy. And that's how politics works here - that's how so much of our transportation system is built and managed. And so people today, in 2023, looking at this monstrosity on the waterfront that we have now think - How did we get here? Who planned this? It was planned in a backroom without public involvement. And I think that's a thing that has to be understood because that, as we just heard, was baked in from the very start. [00:29:11] Mike McGinn: Well, Robert, the idea of a deep bore tunnel was brought forward by a representative of the Discovery Institute, who you may know as the folks that believe in creationism. [00:29:21] Robert Cruickshank: Well, and not only that, the Discovery Institute is responsible for turning Christopher Rufo from a failed Seattle City Council candidate in 2019 into a national figure. [00:29:31] Mike McGinn: The Discovery Institute, with money from local donors - major, very wealthy local folks - they actually had a long-term plan to turn all of 99 into a limited access freeway. It's like - we need to get rid of that First Avenue South and Highway 99 and Aurora Avenue stuff - all of that should be a freeway. So they were the architects of the idea of - Hey, this deep bore tunnel is the solution. But Robert's point is just right on - transportation policy was driven by power and money, not by transportation needs, or climate needs, or equity needs, or even local economy needs really. When you get right down to it, our city runs on transit - that's what really matters. Our city runs on the fact that it's a city where people can walk from place to place. The idea that our economic future was tied to a highway that would skip Downtown - the most valuable place in the Pacific Northwest, Downtown Seattle. No, that's not really what powers our economy. But it certainly worked for the people that were going to get the dollars that flowed from folks and for the people who own Downtown property. [00:30:42] Crystal Fincher: And I want to talk about money and power with this. Who were the people in power? What was the Council at that time? Who made these decisions? [00:30:50] Mike McGinn: The Council at the time was elected citywide. And I think some people have concerns about district representation, but one of the things that citywide elections meant at the time was that you had to run a citywide campaign, and that's expensive. There's no way to knock on enough doors citywide. I did not have a lot of money when I ran for mayor, but at least I had the media attention that would go to a mayoral candidate. A City Council candidate would kind of flow under the radar. So you had people come from different places, right? They might come from the business side, they might come from the labor side. But ultimately, they would tend to make peace with the other major players - because only business and only labor could finance a campaign. They were the only ones with the resources to do that. So the other interests - the environmentalists, the social service folks, neighborhood advocates of whatever stripe - we chose from amongst the candidates that were elevated by, they would unify - in some cases, the business and labor folks would unify around a candidate. In fact, that's what we saw in the last two mayoral elections as well, where they pick a candidate. And so this doesn't leave much room. So when I was mayor, almost the entire council was aligned with the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce at that time, either endorsed by them or had made their peace with them so the challenger was not being financed. So Robert said something about those outsiders - I went under the radar screen as a candidate at the beginning of my campaign. When I entered the race, nobody was running because everybody thought that Greg Nickels had the institutional support locked down. [00:32:33] Crystal Fincher: But then a snowstorm happened. [00:32:35] Mike McGinn: Well, it was even before that - honestly, everybody thought that he could win. And long before the snowstorm, I was like - We're getting a new mayor. And I was actually looking around to try to figure out who it was going to be - because I wanted a mayor who actually believed in climate, who had my values. But nobody - I was looking through who the people were that might run, and it dawned on me - Well, nobody's going to run. But we're going to get a new mayor and I have my values - and I've actually run ballot measure campaigns and had a very modest base of support. So I was really the first one in the race that got any attention. So I got some great media attention off that. Then my opponent in the general, Joe Mallahan - whatever else you may think about Joe Mallahan - he actually saw it too. He saw that there was an opening. And then we were joined by a long-time City Councilmember, Jan Drago. And I remember the headline from The Seattle Times or the comments at the time was - Okay, now it's a real race. But it just really wasn't. So I was really under the radar screen in that race because they were disregarding me. But there was in fact a lot of anger about the tunnel. There was a lot of just - Greg, for whatever his positives or negatives that history will deal with - and by the way, I actually think Greg did a lot of good. I just was disappointed in his highway policies and his climate policies at the end of the day - I have a lot of respect for Greg Nickels, but he wasn't going to win that race. And I came out of the primary against Joe Mallahan. And all of a sudden we had these two outsiders and the business community's freaking out. All of it - I remember watching it - all of the support, the business support shifted to Joe. It took about a month, it took a few weeks. But all of a sudden - there was actually one week where I think I raised more money than he did, that was pretty unusual - and then all of a sudden all the money was pouring in. And boy, did Joe believe in that tunnel. And did Joe believe in what the Chamber of Commerce wanted to do. In fact, he believed in it so much that he believed that Seattle should pay cost overruns if there were cost overruns on the tunnel - an admission I got from him during the televised debate, I was shocked he admitted to it. [00:34:41] Crystal Fincher: I remember that debate. [00:34:43] Mike McGinn: Yeah. So you were kind of asking about how politics worked. It was really something. Yeah - here's another memory. About two weeks before the election, the City Council took - three weeks before the, two, three weeks, four weeks - they took a vote to say that the tunnel was their choice. Even though there's a mayoral election in which the tunnel is on the ballot, so to speak - in terms of the issues of the candidates - they took a vote for no reason to say it was a done deal. And then WSDOT released a video of the elevated collapsing in a highway, which is the first time a public disclosure request from a third party was ever given straight to a TV station, I think, in my experience in Seattle. I had Gregoire and the DOT folks down there working on that campaign too - their tunnel was threatened. So it really was something how - I indeed was kind of shocked at - it was such a learning experience for me - how much the ranks closed around this. I didn't appreciate it. I had my own nonprofit, I had been on stakeholder committees, I'd worked with a lot of people that weren't just Sierra Club members and neighborhood types. I'd worked with a lot of business people, many of whom had supported my nonprofit because they liked its vision. But they were very clear with me that as long as I supported the surface transit option, there was no way they could be associated with my run for mayor in any way, shape, or form - even if they liked me. It was a complete lockdown - right after the primary where Greg lost the primary and it was me and Joe, I was - Okay, open field running. I can now reach out to these people. There's no incumbent - maybe some of them can support me now. And they were abundantly clear on all of those phone calls that - Nope, can't do it. Until you change your position on the tunnel, we just can't do it. We have business in this town, Mike. We have relationships in this town. We cannot do that. So it was a real lockdown - politically. [00:36:38] Crystal Fincher: That was also a big learning experience for me - watching that consolidation, watching how not only were they fighting for the tunnel against you and making the fight against you a fight about the tunnel, but the enforcement to those third parties that you were talking about that - Hey, if you play ball with him, you're cut off. And those kinds of threats and that kind of dealing - watching that happen was very formative for me. I'm like - Okay, I see how this works, and this is kind of insidious. And if you are branded as an outsider, if you don't play ball, if you don't kiss the ring of the adults in the room - which is definitely what they considered themselves - then you're on the outs and they're at war. And it was really a war footing against you and the campaign. Who was on the Council at that time? [00:37:30] Mike McGinn: Oh my God. Let me see if I can go through the list. No, and it really, it was - your point about it was a war footing was not something that I fully, that I did not appreciate until actually going through that experience - how unified that would be. Excuse me. The City Council chair was Tim Burgess at the time. Bruce Harrell was on the Council. Sally Clark, Richard Conlin, Nick Licata. Mike O'Brien was running on the same platform as me with regard to the tunnel and he'd just been elected. Jean Godden, Sally Bagshaw. I hope I'm not leaving anything out - because - [00:38:04] Robert Cruickshank: Tom Rasmussen will forgive you. [00:38:06] Mike McGinn: Tom Rasmussen. Yeah - because City Councilmembers would get really offended if you didn't thank them publicly - that was another thing I had to learn. You have to publicly thank any other politician on stage with you or they held a grudge. Yeah. So I had - I didn't know all the politicians' rules when I started. [00:38:25] Crystal Fincher: There are so many rules. [00:38:27] Mike McGinn: There are so many, there's so many rules. But really what you saw then was that the Council tended to move in lockstep on many issues - because if they all voted together and they all worked citywide, there was protection. None of them could be singled out. So it was very - and it's not to say that some of them didn't take principled votes and would find themselves on an 8-1 position sometimes, but for the most part, it was much, much safer to be - it was much, much safer to vote as a group. And they tended to do that. And they had coalesced around the tunnel, except for O'Brien. And that could not be shaken by anything we brought to bear. [00:39:04] Robert Cruickshank: And this is wrapped up in not just the electoral politics, but the power politics. Because Mike McGinn comes in - mayor leading the 7th floor of City Hall, the head of City government - and smart guy, nice guy, willing to talk to anybody. But is not from their crew, is not from that group. And as Crystal and Mike said, the ranks were closed from the start. This is - again, 2009, 2010 - when nationally Mitch McConnell is quoted as saying, It's his ambition to make Obama a one-term president. I don't know if he's ever caught on record, but I would be quite certain that Tim Burgess would have said the exact same thing - that his ambition was to make Mike McGinn a one-term mayor. As it turned out in 2013, Tim Burgess wanted his job - one of the candidates running for it. So these are all people who have a reason to close ranks against Mike McGinn and to use a tunnel as a bludgeon against him to do so. [00:39:58] Mike McGinn: There were other bludgeons. After I won the general election and before I took office, they passed their annual budget - they cut the mayor's office budget by a third before I even took office. Just boom - I know - they were determined, they were determined. And so that was when the planning - that council then and with WSDOT - that was when basically the contours of the waterfront were locked into place, including what we now see as that very wide surface road. That was that Council. So if you're wondering, if you're looking at that going - Okay, wow, who decided that and where did it come from? Again, our current mayor and his current advisor and others - they've always been for that. Building that big surface road has always been the plan to go along with the tunnel, because highway capacity was their highest priority. And the park on the waterfront, along with a lot of money into the aquarium and into these new structures - that's their signature thing for so many other people. But the idea that you should, that there was an opportunity to transform our transportation system and transform our city to make it more equitable and climate friendly was never a priority in this process. Just wasn't. [00:41:20] Crystal Fincher: It was never a priority. It was never seriously considered. And to me, through this process - lots of people know, have talked about it on the show before - I actually didn't start off Team McGinn. I wound up Team McGinn - didn't start off that way. But through that - and you won me over with logic - it was you being proven right on several things. You pointed out that their projections, their traffic projections were just so far out of left field that there was no way that they were going to come close. And they even had to come down on their projections before we even saw the traffic - the actual traffic turned out to be lower. You were right on that one - the laughable - [00:41:59] Mike McGinn: They're under 40,000 cars a day - for a highway that was carrying 110,000 cars a day beforehand. So even as a traffic solution - to put that into context, 40,000 cars a day is like the Ballard Bridge. And I can guarantee you the replacement costs of the Ballard Bridge is not $4 billion or $3.1 billion. The E Line, I think, carries 15,000 people a day. Metro carries 220,000 people a day. What you could do with that $3.1 billion or $4 billion in terms of bus lanes, bike lanes, rolling stock for Metro, maybe pay raises for bus drivers so that we could actually have service - you could do so much with those billions of dollars. And we put it all into moving 40,000 cars a day? It's just pathetic. That's three Rapid Ride lines we could have had for a 10th of the cost, or even less. I think the investments in Rapid Ride lines are about $50-100 million a line to make the capital investments to make it work. So the waste - even if you don't care about climate, the waste of dollars - and who's paying those taxes? To a great degree, we have the most regressive state and local tax system in the nation. And we'll have a ballot measure soon, and I know a lot of environmentalists will be out there if the package spends for the right thing saying - Hey, we need money for local streets. Imagine if we'd taken that gas tax money and the Legislature had allowed cities and towns to use it to improve their streets - which they can do. I know that the constitution says highway purposes, but when you read highway purposes, it says roads and bridges. It includes everything. You can use gas taxes for anything that improves the road. And they do. WSDOT has used gas taxes to pay for bike lanes and sidewalks. It's legal. That's a choice. So we're driving around potholed streets. We have - we're putting up little plastic dividers because we care more about the car getting hurt than the bicyclist on the other side of that plastic divider. We're watching our transit service melt away because we can't pay bus drivers enough. But hey, man, somebody's got a really rapid - 3,000 people a day get to skip Downtown in their private vehicles. Where are our priorities for equity? Where are the priorities for economy, or even just plain old-fashioned fiscal prudence? None of that was there - because all of those dollars were going to fund the needs of the most powerful people in the City. And they captured those dollars - and all of us will pay the taxes, all of us will breathe the smoky air, and all of us will watch our streets deteriorate and our transit service evaporate. [00:44:52] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And to me, it was such a foundational lesson that the people that we have making decisions really matter - and that we have to really explore their records, their donors, their histories - because over and over again, we look at the decisions that wind up being made that frequently conflict with campaign promises, but that very, very rarely conflict with their donor rolls. [00:45:16] Mike McGinn: And yes - and every one of them knows how to make the value statements. So if I had any advice for people in this year's election - everyone is going to say they care about housing, everyone's going to say they think biking safe. I don't - one of the things that I came away with - I don't care about the goals you put into some policy anymore. Show me the hard physical action you will take that might piss somebody off, but you're willing to do it because it's right. And if you can't do that, then your value statements are meaningless. So take a look - who actually, and that's the question I always ask candidates for office - Tell me about a time you did something hard that might've caused you criticism, but you did it because it was right. Or that you made somebody who was an ally or friend upset, but you did it because it was right. Tell me about that time. [00:46:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's a challenge. And to your point and learning through just watching how people operated through that and some other processes - but that certainly was a big learning for me - is the role of coalitions, the role of accountability, and understanding. You have always had your finger on the pulse of Seattle, really - you're extraordinarily good at that. You're actually - both of you - are great strategists. But our political class is so detached from that sometimes - certainly I'm feeling frustration at some recent actions by our Legislature - we just had our special session day where they increased criminalization of substances, personal possession of substances - just reflecting on legislation to provide school, kids with free meals at school, things that seem like really basic and foundational that we should be able to land this. If we can call a special session to hand Boeing billions of dollars, we should be able to feed kids, right? [00:47:00] Mike McGinn: At the time we were cutting school budgets - when we found money for that. But I don't want to be too gloomy. And then I want to turn it over to Robert to get a last word in here, 'cause I just loved - his analysis is so awesome. I don't want to be too gloomy because - I look at what happened in the Legislature this year on housing, that we're finally going to allow housing, people to build more housing in places so people can actually live closer to their jobs and live more affordably. 10 years ago, we would have thought that was impossible. There's a lot of hard organizing that did it. At America Walks, we're the host of the Freeway Fighters Networks - there are people in 40 cities or more around the country that are organizing to remove highways. And while it's just a small amount of money compared to the amount going to highway expansion, there's actually federal funds to study and remove highways. So it's a long, hard slog. What felt for us - for Robert and me and Cary Moon and others fighting this - which felt like an impossible fight at the time is a fight that is now winning in places. Not winning enough - we're not winning fast enough - but it can change. And so that's - I don't want to be too negative. They got money, but organizing and people - and we actually have the public with us on this, just like we have the public with us on housing. So we just have to do more. We just got to keep at it, folks - got to keep at it. We can win this one. Don't allow this story of how hard it was to deal with the unified political class in the City of Seattle for their climate arson - should not deter you. It should inspire you, 'cause I actually won the mayor's office and we actually did do a lot of good. And the next fight is right in front of us again today, so get in it people. We need you. [00:48:46] Robert Cruickshank: I think that's spot on. And I remember coming to work in your office at the very beginning of 2011, when it seemed like the tunnel was just dominating discussion, but not in the mayor's office, right? When I joined, I fully expected to be like - roll my sleeves up to take on that tunnel. Instead, I'm working on the mayor's jobs plan, the Families and Education Levy, on transit. That's the stuff that was really getting done, and I think McGinn left a really great legacy on that. But we didn't win the tunnel fight. And I think we've diagnosed many of the reasons why, but one thing that really stands out to me as I look back from 12, 13 years distance is we didn't have the same density of genuinely progressive and social democratic organizations and people and leaders in Seattle that we have now. I think that matters because Mike's been talking about what's the next fight. I think one of the big fights coming up next year - when it comes time to renew that Move Seattle Levy - that's nearly a billion dollars that's going to be on the table. And we keep getting promised - when we are asked to approve these massive levies - that a lot of that money is going to go to safe streets, it's going to go to protect vulnerable users, we're going to do something to finally get towards Vision Zero. And instead it all gets taken away to build more car infrastructure. At what point do we finally stand - literally in the road - and say, No more. Do we look at the broken promises on the waterfront where we were promised a beautiful pedestrian-friendly waterfront and got another car sewer? We're going to have to organize and come together. We have many more groups now and many more leaders who are willing to stand up and say - We're not passing this levy unless it actually focuses on safe streets, unless it focuses on pedestrians and cyclists and transit users, and gives iron-clad promises to make sure stuff gets built so that some future mayor can't just walk in and start canceling projects left and right that we were promised. That's the lesson I take from this is - we're better organized now, we have more resources now, but it's still going to be a slog, and we're going to have to stand our ground - otherwise we get rolled. [00:50:34] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I thank you both for this conversation today - reflections on the tunnel fight, how it came to be, what it was like in the middle of it, and the lessons that we take moving forward in these elections that we have coming up this year, next year, and beyond. Thanks so much for the conversation. [00:50:50] Mike McGinn: Thank you, Crystal. [00:50:51] Robert Cruickshank: Thank you - it's been wonderful. [00:50:52] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

With a new focus on public safety and a new legal approach to public drug use, Councilmember Sara Nelson (with special guest Jon Scholes of the Downtown Seattle Association) and other Seattle leaders are pushing for some big changes downtown. Plus, get the latest on Seattle's new tree ordinance and its new film commission, with host Brian Callanan on Council Edition!

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by the former Director of Progressive Majority who has now transitioned into public service but remains involved in numerous political efforts across Washington, EJ Juárez. They discuss today being the final day for this year's candidates to declare their candidacy for elected office, the legislature's decision to make personal possession of drugs a gross misdemeanor, Crosscut laying off women reporters in a pivot to podcast and video, Marc Dones' resignation as CEO of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and Seattle reclaiming the title of America's fastest growing city.  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, EJ Juárez at @EliseoJJuarez.   Resources Becka Johnson Poppe, Candidate for King County Council District 4 from Hacks & Wonks   King County Council races begin to take shape by David Gutman from The Seattle Times    Washington to Paper Over Drug War with Some Treatment Money by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger    OPINION | In Special Session, Lawmakers Are Hiding Behind a False Moral Imperative to Justify the War on Drugs by Jude Ahmed for South Seattle Emerald   Slog AM: Crosscut Lays Off Five Newsroom Staff, LA Pride Pulls Out of Dodgers Pride Event, Bouncy Castle King Accused of Arson by Nathalie Graham from The Stranger   Regional Homelessness Authority CEO resigns by Greg Kim from The Seattle Times    Why Did Marc Dones Resign? by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   Seattle is once again the fastest-growing big city, census data shows by Gene Balk from The Seattle Times   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday midweek - our Tuesday topical show - I chat with Becka Johnson Poppe about her campaign for King County Council District 4 - why she decided to run, the skillset she brings from overseeing half of King County's $16 billion budget, and her thoughts on addressing human services sector wages, issues plaguing the King County Jail, housing and homelessness, drug possession and substance use disorder, climate change and air quality, and budget transparency and efficiency. However, today we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: the former Director of Progressive Majority who's now transitioned into public service and remains involved in numerous political efforts across Washington, EJ Juárez. [00:01:34] EJ Juárez: Hi, Crystal - thanks for having me back. [00:01:36] Crystal Fincher: Hey - always excited to have you and your perspective on the show. Today is Friday, May 19th. For people who are involved in or adjacent to politics, this is known as the last day of filing week - the week where candidates officially declare their candidacy to run for a position on the ballot. We have hundreds and hundreds of positions up for election in Washington State. Here in King County, there are some interesting races shaping up. We will see - the deadline is 4 p.m. today - what the official candidate field looks like. We're nearing the end. There's usually a flurry of late additions just before the end of the last day of filing. I guess - what are your thoughts as we head into this final day? [00:02:24] EJ Juárez: My thoughts are - I love Friday of filing week. It is my favorite day of filing week because you get to go hang out at Elections and watch the folks at 3:50 p.m. that are standing around watching which races don't have anybody filed, so they can get a free pass or where they're gonna jump in. But I think some of the most exciting races out there right now - King County Council is starting to fill up with some late additions to the pack, especially in some races that looked fairly settled where we had clear challengers and clear insurgent candidates - and now we've got a different mix happening. And I would not be surprised if many organizations who were planning to do early endorsements are putting a pause on those plans because of new faces that are getting in - and just the pure number of folks that are running for some of these open seats, whether that is King County, City of Seattle, or some of the suburbs. [00:03:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. This week, we did see a new dimension in one King County Council race - I believe it's District 4 - to replace Councilmember Kohl-Welles. And already in the race were Sarah Reyneveld and Rebecca Johnson Poppe. This week, we had Jorge Barón join the race, formerly of Northwest Immigrant Rights Project - that's where I'm certainly familiar with him from. And this is gonna be a really interesting race and I don't know how it's gonna wind up. [00:03:40] EJ Juárez: Yeah, I think of all the King County Council races this year, this is the one that excites me the most - because there are three really great candidates who are bringing such different perspectives and have such different, I think, experiences that they would supplement the Council with. Certainly with Becka - newcomer, bringing a really deep set of experiences from her own personal and professional life. But then Sarah, who I don't think it is a surprise to anybody - who has been fairly widely known to be running for this for quite a while now, and now the opportunity is here. And then Jorge, which was a complete surprise and I think now within the last week has caught a lot of people off guard and really thrown a wrench into - certainly, Sarah and Becka's campaign plans, I'm sure. His decades of advocacy and his quite frankly historic leadership at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project would bring some really interesting perspectives to council as well as that race - representing a part of Seattle that has not always led on some of those issues. And Sarah being an Assistant Attorney General - I am so excited to see what issues bubble to the top and how this plays out. How about you? [00:04:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I'm interested - I'm certainly interested - three people who have formidable resumes behind them in different ways, but certainly all who have, I think, valuable perspectives to be shared. I think a lot of people are going to be wondering - hey, they clearly know what they're doing, they're professional, but what does that mean in terms of votes and how they're going to represent me and fight for the issues that are important to me? To not just be a vote, but to be a leading advocate for the issues that are important to me. How can I trust that? And I think how well each of those candidates addresses that is going to make a difference in how people view them and see them. Because we do have a lot of people who make a lot of promises, get elected, and then the way they vote doesn't quite turn out how people assumed based on their value statements. So it's gonna be really interesting to examine and see - those are not necessarily critiques of anyone in this race at all - just one of those overall things that will be interesting to follow. [00:05:49] EJ Juárez: It'll also be expensive. I cannot even imagine right now how much money will be spent in this primary, especially given the deep networks of all three of these candidates - I would expect this to be a very expensive seat. [00:06:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that is probably a lock on that one - maybe a historically expensive King County Council District race. We will see. I'm also just curious to see - certainly in the City of Seattle, a number of the larger cities - candidates usually start early. Late filing week doesn't usually - we don't usually get significant surprises today, or people who enter the race and you're like - Okay, they are in a prime position to win this thing. But for most of the suburbs and other cities that are not the handful of large cities, that's not the case. And the Friday of filing week brings just a flurry of activity. Names that pop up - some people are familiar with, some people aren't. But these city council races across the state, school district races - which are definitely extremely important to pay attention to. Don't know that we'll have any Municipal or Superior Court Judge races here in King County, but there certainly are elsewhere in the state. So some of those races that - once again - don't necessarily get top billing in the news, that people are clamoring over and paying attention to. But that are vitally important to just the daily lives of people - where we see sometimes in coverage of national politics and Congress, the debates that they're having in other states, the legislation that they're passing that are obliterating people's civil rights - particularly trans people at this point in time. But the eradication of teaching anything basically, but white-approved material, and not teaching any kind of LGBTQ queer history, any kind of ethnic history - to the people who are here and who've made contributions to our country and our communities. And this is happening here locally. We have people trying to ban books here locally, people talking about taking away funds from public education to go to vouchers and private education and dismantling parts of the system. These are really important races that don't get a lot of attention, but I hope wherever you are listening from - you pay attention to in your community, because they make a big difference and your vote just counts so much more in those elections because so many people don't vote. A few people can make a really big difference. So we will keep our eyes on who files today. Also this week, there was a one-day special session on the 16th to address legislation - known as Blake legislation - coming out of our State Supreme Court's Blake decision a couple of years back, which invalidated - basically struck down personal possession laws for substances, illegal substances - drugs, basically. This didn't have anything to do with dealing, distribution, paraphernalia - but for simple possession, it said that the existing law was invalid, which made the Legislature act. And at the time - this was either two or three years ago, pandemic time is weird for me - they intervened, made possession a regular misdemeanor. And at the time, the justification for that was - hey, we know that decriminalization is the right thing to do. We don't think we have adequate supports in place yet. So let's double down on providing resources to localities and counties to make sure that they have treatment services, diversion services established so that we aren't doing nothing, that we are doing something to address the problem. And we'll put a sunset in this bill for 2023 so that we can revisit this, hopefully things have progressed as we've intended, and we can then proceed with decriminalization. So they did that - I believe in 2021. And this year comes around - maybe - it was probably 2020. This year comes around - sunset's happening, they have to deal with this legislation. And during the regular session, they were not able to come to an agreement. There was certainly a significant faction of people who followed evidence and data and said - This should be treated like a public health problem. The War on Drugs has failed - we need to move in a different direction in order to finally address this and improve this problem. Others were in favor of a misdemeanor. Others wanted a gross misdemeanor - which, for people who don't know, gross misdemeanors can actually carry jail time and fines that exceed that of the lowest level felony penalty. As people talk about this, felonies certainly are a different class of crime, and stay on your record differently, and happens differently in background searches. But one of the things we do know is that jail is very destabilizing. And taking someone out of their community, away from their job, away from their family for that amount of time has - as any criminologist will tell you - proven to be more destabilizing than helpful, which is why locking people up for jail is frowned upon by most people who actually study this. It's viewed as counterproductive, making the problem worse and not better. And if we look at the War on Drugs over the past 40 years - I did the DARE program when I was in elementary school - we've only gone backwards in that time after spending billions, if not trillions, of dollars in that time on this War on Drugs. So when we had this decision, it was really viewed this time coming up - hey, they stated their intention when they first passed this legislation, now it's time to continue to work and do the job. Now - real talk - we did have a pandemic that slowed down some of this implementation, so it's not a shocking surprise that all of the infrastructure wasn't there. But it seemed like it was a time to double down on actually getting that done instead of just walking backwards and moving towards a gross misdemeanor. How did you feel about this? [00:11:44] EJ Juárez: I had a lot of thoughts. And first and foremost, I think the thought that comes to my mind the most is that - and you brought it up a couple of times - we are collectively still in a pandemic. And during that pandemic, many people's access and proximity to services to help them either in recovery or manage their life sober went away. And at the same time as many of those services and support systems - whether that was a person, or a formal group, or medical assistance - was taken away from people, they became isolated. And the expansion and explosion of addiction and dependency issues is here in our communities. And for as much as I love a good sunset in public policy - just like I love the ability to evaluate if our policies are going well - in this case, this is one of the ones that I think is well-timed to really say - Does this meet where we are as a community and a state right now? How are we gonna make this last and make good policy? And I think unfortunately, what we saw in this one-day special session from the Legislature was not necessarily the most bold solution and was not a solution that was - I think really, in my opinion - based on helping the most amount of people become the person that they wish to be, but instead was a failure of leadership to count votes within their own caucus. And I think - as much as I think the Speaker is an incredibly historic figure and I think having her leadership has definitely changed the nature of our House - we watched this fail to pass in the regular session, having to come back, and watch Democrats fight other Democrats on a bill that should not have been that contentious. [00:13:30] Crystal Fincher: And that's such an important point - and especially that this is really about Democrats. Democrats control both the House and the Senate - and the Governor's office - by healthy margins. And sometimes we hear that - Well, Republicans won't let us do that. That wasn't actually the case here. And I'm very curious to hear more information about the negotiation that took place - because there are a couple things that were odd to me. One, the motivation for acting - for why it was so important to step in for the state, for our Legislature to step in and make a law - was that there is a fear that patchwork legislation on-the-ground in cities would create a wild variance between laws in different cities and counties. So - hey, it could be a felony in one place and completely legal in another place, and that could be problematic in people not knowing what the deal is within a particular jurisdiction. In reality, what actually happened was that there seemed to be a coalescing of opinion on the Republican side - because we saw a number of Republican mayors, county council people step up in the last month or so of session, when it became clear that it was definitely a possibility that Blake legislation may not pass, certainly not during the session. And they said - You know what? If the Legislature doesn't act, we will step in. But what they said they would step in with did not exceed a gross misdemeanor anywhere. In fact, there were some Republicans, including Republican Reagan Dunn on the King County Council, who were proposing misdemeanor. And so I'm wondering who Democrats were actually negotiating with here. It doesn't seem like it was Republicans - because in that situation, Democrats seemingly would have been where the base was at. And the State Democratic Party passed a resolution saying that they favored decriminalization, and as an absolute last-ditch effort in a negotiation - a misdemeanor. Certainly nothing as far as a gross misdemeanor. So as they were negotiating, if that's the Republican starting position - is gross misdemeanor - where were Democrats at? And how did we only wind up at the exact place where Republicans - some MAGA Republicans - were at, right? We have not heard anyone talk about felonizing this. So what was this negotiation? It doesn't seem like we were negotiating with Republicans. And so if this was just where Democrats were at - this seems like this would be the result if this is just where Democrats were at. [00:16:03] EJ Juárez: Yeah, and I think it's just an important point to really explore - when Democrats are negotiating with Democrats, you have to look at two different places. One, who's recruiting the people that are at the negotiating table, right? And two, the folks that are at the negotiating table - what is their personal ambition? And I think we have a number of people this year that are watching openings coming up for Attorney General or other positions - where taking a vote that would have aligned with the Party that they support and identify as would have, anecdotally, hurt them in their own opinion. The polls do not support that opinion. The population does not support that opinion. And unfortunately we let, I think, individual elected officials' own personal ambition probably influence these negotiations, right? I wasn't in that room. But it is not unreasonable to assume that when you recruit more moderate candidates than the actual party that they identify with and the planks in that party's platform, that they are going to be pulling from the left towards the center - which allows the right much more room to hold on to that gross misdemeanor line that they have in the sand here. It was particularly telling with the quotes that came - I think that were published in The Seattle Times right after this kind of failure to get across the finish line before sine die happened - that this was a Democratic problem and this was an own goal on Democrats. I'm glad that they did get something done. But again, if it doesn't match the Party, I'm really curious what accountability looks like, especially for those legislators in King County where they do not have either their local LD or their county parties in alignment with perhaps the vote that they took. [00:17:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that's going to be very interesting to see. We have heard some legislators try and justify this by saying - Well, we got some additional money in for some services. And wow, when you look at the actual money that was there and added - one, I would argue that that money was always going to be part of the package. Two, it's so minute in comparison to anything else. If you were negotiating with that, it seems like there would be something more substantial that happened than the money that actually ended up being tacked on at the end. And I don't know that that justifies a wholesale criminalization statewide with no sunset. This is now just the policy moving forward that is, as you say, not in alignment with local parties and is not in alignment with evidence. And we're saying we have limited resources. And this costs money - criminalizing something, arresting people, jailing people, prosecuting people costs so much money. And so the limited resources that we do have are once again being spent in a direction that we know can't fix this, while we're starving the resources and somehow trying to justify throwing some coins in the other direction, saying - Well, this is gonna be part of improving it. It's just really difficult to see how this is really going to improve things. [00:19:16] EJ Juárez: And I know we need to move on, but my last point on this is really - this is where the lack of a real robust advocacy organization in our state that does this work - that brings in the stories and brings in the experiences at a scale that can hold legislators accountable - their absence is profound in these moments, right? Our ecosystem of advocacy organizations that influence policy has some pretty deep holes when it comes to some of these issue areas, and this is one of them. And I don't mean to discount the groups that are doing great work in this space, but those that are doing hard, (c)(4)-dollar, political expenditures that can engage in political activities is fairly thin. And I can't help but believe that if we had a more robust set of advocacy organizations that were playing in the political side, we would have better policy and we would actually get to the problem of the systems. Because we can't buy our way out of these problems with just more funding for services - we need to change systems, and that starts with how robust our advocacy systems are and how good our candidates are once they get into office. [00:20:23] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Also in the news this week is a local layoff - a local media layoff. Crosscut - Cascade Public Media, which is Crosscut's parent company, announced that it intends to lay off five newsroom employees - all women, by the way, two of them happen to be women of color, some with seniority over other people there. They're laying them off effective July 1st - in a pivot to video and podcast. This is just reminiscent of the mid-2010s and the really perilous, tragic pivot to video - that wound up being based on gerrymandered metrics - that led to a real decimation of many newsrooms across the country. And we're seeing this - some newsrooms have cited AI, there's recent - MTV News is closing, BuzzFeed News is shuttering. So many local media outlets are struggling and making do with so many fewer staff than they used to have. But this is really curious from Cascade Public Media. They're not saying they don't have the money to continue employment. They're just saying we're shifting directions - we're moving to podcast and video. We're gonna lay these people off and we're gonna replace them with additional video and podcast producers. Joseph O'Sullivan - to his credit - who is a white male reporter there called out online - Hey, curious to see why I'm safe from these layoffs here - I don't have seniority, but I definitely noticed that everyone laid off was a woman, two of whom were women of color - that just doesn't seem like it makes that much sense. Certainly not a good look. How did you see this? [00:22:09] EJ Juárez: I, and maybe this is the most inappropriate way to articulate this, but every time I have seen or heard a media company say they are pivoting to video and podcasting, I think that is really the death rattle, right? That didn't work for VICE, who just had a historic bankruptcy just this past week. It's not working for BuzzFeed, which is shuttering its newsroom. It didn't work for so many other companies. This is how I think big corporations - and in this case, public media - preserves its assets while it's winding down its obligations. The true cost is - we are in Washington state, I think, at a real critical juncture around how many local reporters we have left covering city halls, school board meetings, library trustee meetings. And all the sites that have suddenly become the most contentious sites of culture wars - we now lack the journalistic infrastructure to actually tell us why those places are becoming so politicized and why they are becoming the place where these fights are happening. It is incredibly disappointing that Crosscut - to me - has made this pivot because podcasting and video doesn't give you investigation. Podcasting and video doesn't give you the ability to do the long-term relationship building behind the scenes where you're developing sources and you are cultivating broad swaths of information from different people. What it does is it gives you the ability to be on somebody's TikTok as they're scrolling in their bed at night. But I would say the issues that we're facing are much more deep than 30 seconds can provide any one person. And the dearth of long-form reporting is what is going to kill this republic. The fact that we don't have the ability to go deep on why water treatment systems are so difficult to fund and renovate and keep operational - because they're unseen and unsexy, right? So it's incredibly sad to me. And I think it is even more telling that - as Crosscut probably increased their donor rolls on the backs of their highly promoted people of color coverage, are now laying off those very same reporters that brought in new donors. And I don't think that's lost on anybody. I think that this is what happens. You bring in folks to do the racial work, to do the work in communities that traditional media has not been able to do - and then they're first out the door after they've made their profit for the bosses. [00:24:36] Crystal Fincher: And we've seen this replay in so many different layoff scenarios exactly as you just laid out - whether it's mass media, whether it's news - it's just frustrating. Certainly a lot being talked about in - is AI part of this? We've heard in other layoffs cited that - well, AI can do so much more than it used to do, and we can rely on that for some of this. Or - hey, not lost on us, right? We're talking on a podcast - talking about how a pivot to podcast is not the thing to do, but it's not. That's - it's a different thing. And sure, supplement reporting and coverage with that, but to just replace it - like you said, this is what happens before they die. And it's also not lost on people that this is seeming - this is not the first action that people have felt in this direction. When they cut off their community editorial, guest editorial program - which did a really, really good job - was something that picked up a lot of support and steam, actually talking about on-the-ground solutions to many of the issues that plague us. One of the reasons I do this podcast is because I'm - I get so frustrated with the lack of conversation about actual solutions about what works - Should we address this or not? Not how do we address this? What are the options on the table? And there are usually a lot of options on the table that even people who consider themselves aligned politically can disagree on, different things need to be tested and tried out - there's so much to talk about in terms of how we solve things. And that series was really informative in that reason. And it was rumored - because of some board leadership or new leadership that came aboard, they felt like that was catering too much to progressive forces where it's - this is Seattle, that this is serving. It is reflective of the community that it is serving. But certainly if you are not living in Seattle, or if you do not interact with many people from Seattle, you may think that it is more appropriate to do that. Wasn't lost on people that - in the Crosscut Ideas Festival, people were platformed with severely anti-trans views, advocating for punitive criminal legal system policies and procedures, the othering of so many people, criminalization of homelessness and poverty. And Michael Cohen was there. Just things that made a lot of people scratch their heads and say - one, what in the world anywhere, but especially in Seattle, what is happening? What's even going on? So it just seems like the people who are making decisions just have a different alignment. And even though they said this decision was partly in place to pursue a younger audience - seemed like they were doing that - and they're getting rid of the people who were successful at doing that. [00:27:31] EJ Juárez: I think you hit the nail on the head of - this idea of pursuing a younger audience is not always pivot to video. It is reductive to assume that young people cannot consume anything more than 30 seconds. And it also does them a disservice when this is an incredibly politicized set of young people and set of generations that are hungry to understand their world in really complex and nuanced ways, and Crosscut has missed that boat. For me, what I think of a lot when I think of Crosscut now - and especially after the last Ideas Festival, which to me was less about ideas and more about provocative speakers to bolster their brand - was really this idea that you touched on around Crosscut had a moment in which it was super relevant. And that moment of relevancy was incredibly dense, but it was on the upswing and it was with those editorials. It was with the expansion of their reporting. What Crosscut did not do is capture its own growth and capture that moment, and instead pivoted towards a very traditional understanding of how that business needed to be run. They benefited greatly by the Seattle PI shutting down its very last legs of local content. And frankly, at the same time, as The Stranger really losing a lot of its best reporters and watching their own newsroom shrink and the quality is what it is now. But I think there's definitely a market change in both the Seattle and Puget Sound landscape, and Crosscut is such a cautionary tale of watching a group of people not capture their moment. [00:29:03] Crystal Fincher: Cautionary tale indeed. There was a point in time where - everyone I knew was tuning in to Crosscut, checking out Crosscut and what was there - the coverage was just so relevant locally. You really nailed it. And it's a shame that they moved in a different direction and it's certainly is not what it was, and moving further away - by the day, evidently. The union that represents those employees does say that they do plan on fighting this, that it doesn't seem like this transpired fairly. And so we'll definitely be paying attention to how this unfolds over the next weeks and months. Also this week, we got news that Marc Dones from the King County Regional Homeless Authority is stepping down and resigning from his position. How do you see his tenure and, I guess, the establishment - 'cause he basically built the thing from the ground up - of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority? [00:29:58] EJ Juárez: I think this one is so complex. I think there are many reasons why we're in this place and this surprise resignation - that maybe wasn't so much of a surprise. I feel like - for the past year, the only thing we've heard about the Regional Homelessness Authority in the news has been terrible. It has been punch after punch after punch where the nuts and bolts of that organization have left the folks on the ground doing the hardest work waiting to be paid, waiting to get the funds that they're promised. We've also seen, I think in some ways, a somewhat confrontational approach from that organization with the very regional structure that it's supposed to uphold. One of the things I think with this is I think Marc - I do not know Marc - and my interactions with that organization are as a spectator and somebody who depends on them to do the great work that they've set out to do. The vision that that organization set forth is incredible. And unfortunately, I think that in order for any organization to develop on an incredible vision, you have to build a great team. And unfortunately, that's an organization that did not build a regional team in order to execute on that vision. So you can be bold and visionary, but if you don't have the chops and you don't have the ability to bring a team with you - ideas are a dime a dozen, but true organizers and folks that can bring folks with them - I think that is what that organization desperately needs in its next leader. [00:31:25] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, for me, it feels like this was a challenging task from the outset. And I don't know that there was even the alignment between the regional parties involved that would have supported anything, but what had been happening in a status-quo-type of path moving forward. People who know me have probably had this conversation with me, but - even the formation of this regional homelessness authority felt like - we heard, certainly Ed Murray when he was the mayor, talk about the need for regional solutions. Several people talk about the need for a regional solution. To me, it always felt like that was an excuse and a way to escape accountability for local action, for action in their purview and in their jurisdiction. Certainly there was a lot more that a - Mayor Ed Murray, Mayor Jenny Durkan could have and should have done to address this - that they just didn't. They didn't agree with, they didn't execute on. And here we have now Mayor Harrell. And it just seemed like the vision that Marc Dones laid forth and the vision that you heard from local leaders like Mayor Harrell or some housing providers were never in alignment. And it seemed like there were silos there. It seems like there was some feeling that they needed to protect what they were doing, and maybe the Regional Homeless Authority was gonna take away some of their power or their resources. And a reaction to that was what it seemed like was happening in a few different places. Certainly Marc Dones talked about doing things in a different way. People didn't always agree with that way. Is that on him, or is that just on a lack of alignment? Certainly they hired him, so it seems they would have hired someone who was closer to what they - the direction that they wanted to go - but it's challenging. And it took - it's hard to build an organization. And what he got dumped on him was a ton of money and said - okay, build it and go. It took longer than anticipated to build it. It does seem like they were achieving some good results, especially recently. But as you said, there were other stories always peppered in there. And for every step forward, it felt like there was a story or something about a challenge that they were facing. And even the issue of - this latest major issue where somehow, because of someone's lack of oversight - and I'm still not sure exactly who that is - this organization wound up overspending its budget by quite a lot, which could leave people evicted, basically, without any place to live through no fault of their own in this situation - was really, was a challenge. And it seemed like that was a result of a lack of alignment, and people operating in silos and not wanting to share or collaborate on what they were doing. And so I certainly hope that this next person who is stepping in can manage those relationships better, or at least level set better. And hopefully these partners will give them the tools that they need and the collaboration that they need to succeed. But we will see how this continues to play out. Also, we got news - and I guess we will wrap up on this today - Seattle's, once again, the fastest growing city in the country. This is particularly amusing to many people in Seattle because of a long-term kind of insistence in trying to spin a narrative from some very conservative forces - in a documentary a while back that was pretty hyperbolic and exaggerated that "Seattle is Dying." And it's alternating between a city that's controlled by anarchists, that's being burnt down by Antifa, and being overrun by drugged-up zombies and homeless people who they characterize as all criminals and out there due to some moral failing or their own fault, right? And that just does not - it was just false. It is not the reality on the ground for most people. Most people are not fearing for their safety as they're walking throughout Seattle. They're just carrying on about their lives. And sure, there are challenges. And sure, there are people outside who shouldn't be - although the problem with that is the people outside, not people needing to see the people who are outside. And so it just is curious and interesting. And I'm wondering what you think, or why you think Seattle continues to be one of the fastest - or now the fastest - growing city in the country once again. [00:36:06] EJ Juárez: Seattle's awesome. I think that's - I love Seattle, and I think Seattle has a problem with people saying that they love Seattle. And there is a real culture in the Puget Sound of the other cities' political leaders scoring cheap political points by dunking on Seattle, right? And at some point, the chorus of those other politicians doing that work becomes something. And that has unfortunately permeated into the City, where I wish more people were open about how much they love this place - because that's why people are moving here. That's why people want to be here. And I think especially as we look at this return-to-the-office moment that we're in, Seattle is gonna come back. And I think that the work that the Downtown Seattle Association and the Mayor's office are doing to reimagine what's possible in our downtown, given that we have so many opportunities unlike other major cities - I'm super excited about it. I also think that we might be on the first wave of climate migration. I think that it would be foolish for us not to at least consider - those who have the means and opportunities now to relocate to a place where they are less exposed to natural disasters comparatively from where they might be from, where heat swings - barring last week - are less frequent. So I think that we're well poised for a comeback and I think that this is the first maybe harbinger of that, where we've got folks coming back and we're growing again. [00:37:44] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a very valid point, especially talking about - now is the time with people - when people of means are making changes based on this. And I've had conversations with people about this, and people are absolutely looking at - What is the weather likely to be? Is there likely to be flooding? Is there likely to be extreme heat waves? On top of that - of the challenges brought by climate change - the challenge is brought by our failure to manage our infrastructure appropriately. Some folks in Texas - not only is it a problem with heat waves or extreme cold, but also their power being completely unreliable when that happens. Or elsewhere in the country - or water being completely unsafe to drink and unpredictable in that way. Different ways that also a failure to manage infrastructure is exacerbating our struggles with climate change and leaving people more vulnerable to that. I also think that we are - we're, comparatively, a very educated place, a very engaged place. It's a beautiful place to live. It's not - this is one of the easier places for businesses to attract employees to come. And really that's what was behind our incredible population growth in the first place. This is a place, this is a good place to do business. We heard so many times from - whether it's the Association of Washington Cities or the Chamber or Washington Roundtable - these raises in minimum wages or this tax that the city council wants to put on businesses, it's gonna make the sky fall. Everybody's gonna leave. Everyone's gonna move out. And now they're - as the "Seattle is Dying" crowd will be - bad things are taking over Seattle. No one wants to be here. And that is just laughably false and continues to be proven laughably false. Definitely don't wanna give the impression that there are not significant challenges - there are lots of significant challenges everywhere. And the set that we have is, unfortunately across the country, a better set than many people are dealing with in other places. We should do better. We should still be doing better. But comparatively a lot of places are doing worse. Not to mention just attacks on civil rights, and people being able to be people and live their own lives in different places. And we are a place that is welcoming to people - as you talked about before. So I definitely understand why Seattle is at the top of this list and continues to return to the top of the list. I hope we do things to make it even more welcoming and inviting and support the population that is moving here, like making appropriate decisions on housing and renter protections and rent controls and preventing displacement from the continued population growth. [00:40:40] EJ Juárez: I think a key difference, too, as we look at some of those places that are less hospitable to business - Washington was rated number one best place to open and run a business multiple times here in the last few years, including last year. But I look at places like Florida, where also massive migration to that state and also very large high profile exodus by companies out of that state - because it is so hostile given the conditions for its employees to live safe, prosperous lives within their communities. So to places like that and people that are talking about how great Florida and Texas and all these other places are, I say - Hey, Disney just canceled a billion dollar expansion in Orlando for their employees because they did not believe their employees were safe in how hostile that government was towards them. Hey, come on up to Washington. We like Mickey Mouse, let's do it. [00:41:39] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we won't just exact a vendetta against a company because they didn't agree with what the governor said. So it'll be, it's certainly an interesting exercise to go over all the things that do make Seattle a pretty cool place to be - took me longer than many people to warm up to Seattle, but I have arrived, I'm here. [00:42:06] EJ Juárez: Just wait two years, it changes every two years. You'll like one of them. [00:42:09] Crystal Fincher: Oh goodness - with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, May 19th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is the former Director of Progressive Majority, who's now in public service and remains involved in numerous political efforts - and you all hear how insightful and intelligent he is when he's on - EJ Juárez. Thank you for joining us. [00:42:36] EJ Juárez: Thank you. [00:42:37] Crystal Fincher: You can find EJ on Twitter @EliseoJJuarez. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, it's two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get the full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Chris Sullivan's Chokepoint - an update on the West Seattle Bridge // JIm Krasula on the latest with the WGA strike // Hongkui Zeng, Director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science on the wonders of the human brain // Dose of Kindness -- Lessons in kindness // Gee Scott on his disappointment in Shawn Kemp's actions // Jon Scholes of the Downtown Seattle Association on the return of Amazon workers // Micki Gamez on child labor lawsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Metropolitan Improvement District is set to sunset on June 30, but Seattle City Councilmember Sarah Nelson is proposing a 10-year renewal that would collect nearly $3 million more from downtown property owners. The district is managed by the Downtown Seattle Association, with employees, also known as “ambassadors” tasked with services such as daily cleaning of downtown streets and sidewalks. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/washington-in-focus/support

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell joins the Chino Y Chicano to talk about the state of the city.   A recent poll commissioned by the Downtown Seattle Association and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce found the Mayor with a 67 percent favorable impression among the respondents.  However, the poll also found that 60 percent of respondents felt the city is on the wrong track. Mayor Harrell weighs in on the polling, along with his vision to revitalize downtown, concerns about public safety, homelessness, a growing fentanyl crisis, the city council, planning for the unpredictable and growing up bi-racial. Read:https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/buoyed-by-poll-seattle-mayor-harrell-should-go-big-on-public-safety/Read: https://crosscut.com/news/2023/01/two-seattle-asian-american-community-newspapers-go-out-printRead: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/leesa-manion-sworn-in-as-king-county-prosecuting-attorney/Read: The Best & Worst Awards for 2022https://i0.wp.com/nwasianweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/04-05-Matt-and-Gei-1.jpgRead Marcus Harrison Green's Seattle's Times column about Black Youth suicide. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/more-black-kids-are-dying-by-suicide-the-reasons-unfortunately-arent-surprising/

WHAT'S NEW AT 10! with Matt Markovich // GUEST: Jon Scholes, Downtown Seattle Association on how to fix a carved out city core // SCENARIOS!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

WHAT'S NEW AT 10! with GUEST: Jon Scholes from the Downtown Seattle Association on how we need to re envision downtown, with still only 40% office occupancy // Forget back to normal, it ain't happening // SCENARIOS!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this Hacks & Wonks week in review, Crystal talks with activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks, Mike McGinn about labor news, the downsides of car-centric planning, and alternative 911 responders. They discuss the first worker victory at a Seattle Starbucks, the tulip farm workers strike, King County elected officials getting involved in the concrete worker lockout, and an initiative to raise the minimum wage in Tukwila. Then they dive into the surprise highway in Seattle Waterfront plans and why adding lanes doesn't reduce traffic. Finally, Crystal and Mike discuss pushback on alternate responses to policing and what moving those jobs out of SPD looks like. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Mike McGinn, at @mayormcginn. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Seattle Starbucks employees approve union, the first on the West Coast” by Paige Browning from KOUW: https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-starbucks-wins-union-vote-the-first-on-the-west-coast    “Tulip farm workers go on strike one week before popular Mount Vernon festival” by Angeli Kakade from King5: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/farm-worker-strike-skagit-valley-tulip-festival/281-86d05687-6ab7-4d9d-9f94-8c9eb9c924b4    “County Proposes Concrete Co-Op as Private Companies Continue to Throttle Supply and Lock Out Workers” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/03/23/county-proposes-concrete-co-op-as-private-companies-continue-to-throttle-supply-and-lock-out-workers/    “Initiative aimed at Southcenter could raise minimum wage in Tukwila to match SeaTac, Seattle” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/initiative-aimed-at-southcenter-could-raise-minimum-wage-in-tukwila-to-match-seatac-seattle   “Surface Highway Undermines Seattle's Waterfront Park” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/03/20/surface-highway-undermines-seattles-waterfront-park/   “Alternate Response in Seattle Meets Another Hurdle” by Amy Sundberg from Notes from the Emerald City: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/amysundberg/issues/alternate-response-in-seattle-meets-another-hurdle-1090894?utm_campaign=Issue&utm_content=view_in_browser&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Notes+from+the+Emerald+City    “UW Can Keep Civilians Who Replaced Campus Cops, Choe Show Canceled, Dembowski Bows Out” by Paul Kiefer and Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/03/21/uw-can-keep-civilians-who-replaced-campus-cops-choe-show-canceled-dembowski-bows-out/    “Third and Pine bus stop to temporarily close amid downtown Seattle safety concerns” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/third-and-pine-bus-stop-to-temporarily-close-amid-downtown-seattle-safety-concerns/    Downtown Seattle Association: https://downtownseattle.org   The State of Downtown from the Downtown Seattle Association: https://downtownseattle.org/events/state-of-downtown/    Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks - and someone with a mean jump shot - the excellent Mike McGinn. Welcome back. [00:00:58] Mike McGinn: Thank you - although I don't think I have jumped on my shot for quite a long time. In fact, even - I played JV in college and they called me "Sunday Papers McGinn" - and the reason they called me that was they said that I didn't even jump as high as the Sunday papers. Now mind you - back then the Sunday papers were thicker than they are today, but even then it was still an insult about my jumping ability. [00:01:23] Crystal Fincher: All right - "Sunday Papers McGinn" - "Mayor McSchwinn" and "Sunday Papers McGinn" - there we are. [00:01:29] Mike McGinn: They also called me "Flash" because I lost every sprint, so it really is amazing that I could even hang at all on the court. I had to make it up with savvy and moxie - so there you go. [00:01:44] Crystal Fincher: But it worked. I wanted to start out just talking about some - one, seriously cool thing that happened this week - the Starbucks employees approved the first union on the West Coast here in Seattle, Starbucks's hometown, with the unanimous vote by the employees at the Broadway and Denny store on Capitol Hill to unionize. There is now a unionized Starbucks store on Capitol Hill in Seattle, and this is a really big deal. [00:02:14] Mike McGinn: I think that - I don't know how to put this in the great arc of the union story in America, but it does feel like we're starting to see - as we know, there was a real - unions saw a tremendous decline in post-World War II America. Immediately after the war, unionization was much stronger, there was a lot of shared wealth, the middle class grew stronger, broader, wealthier over that time and it really went together. Then we saw - you got to go back to the Reagan era - breaking the air traffic controller union was a highly visible sign, but there was a lot of other work that was done to weaken unions. And public opinions of unions declined as well. Unions were - oftentimes it was employee unions and public employee unions, excuse me - was really the strength of the union movement. And there were still, of course, craft unions and manufacturing unions and other service worker unions - but they really felt under siege. In the City of Seattle, for example, and it still goes on today - will a new hotel be a union hotel or a non-union hotel? And that's existential for the union workers because they don't want a non-union hotel to drive down wages so that they can't compete for wages, or their hotel that they work for can't compete. Same thing for grocery stores, so something like unionization in a Starbucks - coffee shops and more retail workers unionizing - that's a big deal, considering how many Starbucks there are across the country. It's also behind the push for the $15 an hour minimum wage - or really should be starting to get higher now - behind the push for paid sick leave, behind the push for childcare. Unions helped provide a floor for wages and working conditions, and we've now turned to the government to provide some of that floor - but with all the rising inequality across the country, we're seeing more people turn to unions, and it just feels like a change. So we'll have to see what happens moving forward, but it certainly feels like a change. [00:04:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, an absolute change and the link between the weakening of unions and income inequality is substantial. Certainly the pushback is happening - more than 150 other Starbucks locations are working to join the same union, including 6 in the Seattle area. So we're going to continue to see this with Starbucks, certainly with Amazon, another locally-based company that we're seeing a variety of unionization pushes across the country with that. And interesting because - trying to lead within the tech sector and the issue of unionization being important there - lots of times we're used to thinking about not just the lower wage jobs, but even the higher wage jobs is, "Oh, they make a good wage. They have no reason for a union," but my goodness, when you talk about all of the toxic workplace cultures that we've seen there, and actually even though someone may be making six figures and in not the lowest income bracket, the share of profit that is being absorbed by the company and kept from the workers, even in those higher paid jobs, is substantial. So it's just going to be really interesting to continue to follow these movements, and also looking at other local strike actions and labor actions. Another one this week, with the tulip farmers going on strike - tulip farm workers going on strike just before the Mount Vernon Tulip festival, which is really popular, but they have issues with worker conditions. They've been expected to work with lesions on their hands, their employers are not paying for PPE, and in very low wage jobs. The word there is that they continue to have a dialogue and they're working through it and both sides say that they're confident they can, but it is taking this collective action by workers to make this an issue that is pressing enough for employers to deal with. [00:06:53] Mike McGinn: Yeah, and we see an economy in which there's generally higher employment right now, so that's giving a little more bargaining power to workers, because the employment numbers are higher or the unemployment numbers are lower overall. It's a consequence of the inequality we've seen and grown - and in a period of growth - the pendulum swinging back a little bit. Will it be sustained? Probably will be determined by how government behaves ultimately in response to this. Do they support these movements? Or do we kind of go back to a time when the rules and procedures are set up to suppress it, and give more power to the companies in this discussion? [00:07:47] Crystal Fincher: Well, that's an excellent point regarding the response by government leaders and how that impacts the situation for workers. Because we see that with the concrete workers' strike action, which really has turned into a lockout by the concrete companies. The workers offered to go back to work, but the concrete companies have largely declined the workers' ability to do so. And not just that - the few workers who they have allowed to come back to work, they have not allowed them to drive trucks that are part of the company's fleets. They have actually acquired some old beat-down raggedy trucks that they've literally Sharpied the required information on the doors, and it just seems like a petty retaliatory action. And in response, we have seen throughout this process - some local leaders seem to put pressure on the workers by not forcing the companies to come back to the table or to respond in good faith. But Dow Constantine has basically said - hey, "Clearly the local concrete industry is failing the people of King County, and I won't let our region's infrastructure hang in the balance." And in response, he and members of the King County Council have proposed a local co-op, a publicly owned concrete co-op - to prevent situations like this from happening, to provide reliable, low-cost, on-time concrete to ensure that affordable housing projects, critical infrastructure gets completed on time. How do you see the leaders' responses in helping or hindering this whole process? Just how would you negotiate through this? [00:09:39] Mike McGinn: I just want to say I find this really fascinating - and I am an outsider - I have no particular insights on what's going on. But first of all, just the historical analogy - we have a public Port because the people that owned the docks on the Seattle waterfront could control how things worked. That affected - anybody who shipped through the public waterfront docks had to deal with the people who owned the docks - that was the reason we now have a public Port, because we didn't want to allow a few companies to control the flow of goods in and out of the state. And that was during the progressive era, same era in which we ended up with a publicly-owned electric utility and things like that - so to me, just the historical parallel is fascinating. I think the other piece of the parallel here is that - clearly, it's the issue of whether the workers are getting paid well, but this is also the rest of the business community saying we're hurting by the way you companies are acting. So what we see here is a split in the business community - so you have both Girmay Zahilay, a pretty progressive guy on the Council, and Dow Constantine - who's he's a progressive, but he's a more reliable partner to the business interest - let's remember, he came forward and he helped the Convention Center out with some short-term loans so they could keep going. And it's places like the Convention Center and the people who build massive infrastructure who really want to keep that concrete flowing. So it's just the politics of this here are fascinating, in which we're now seeing concrete production as a public good - or as a private good that must be handled by the public to ensure the smooth function of the economy. Now, if you look back at the Port - although it was hired to protect the small merchants using the Port - like any entity owned, run by the government, it can start leaning in on behalf of the big companies. So the Port itself is known for how it treats independent truckers, the Port itself is known for how it treats workers at its facilities. So I don't know - I'm just really struck by this - that we've come to this, where you have labor interests and other business interests saying the concrete companies need to get their act together, or we're going to take the business away from you. That's quite a moment here in Seattle. Let's see if it starts extending to other public goods as well - like maybe municipal broadband - maybe that's another place where only a few providers are managing to treat the rest of the community not so well, and we should look at public ownership. [00:12:37] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, another thing this week that was announced is an exciting initiative to raise the minimum wage in Tukwila, which includes Southcenter Mall - actually a really big employment hub for that city and that entire area, with a ton of retail and service workers - to raise the minimum wage there to $15 an hour. And it's next to SeaTac, it's next to other cities that have increased minimum wages - and so it's sitting there as an outlier and the Transit Riders Union is leading an initiative, a municipal initiative, to make that change. So this is a really interesting and exciting development - a test of worker-focused policy at the local level. And it's going to be really interesting to see how this unfolds. How do you see it? [00:13:35] Mike McGinn: The cities in this area - SeaTac, Tukwila, Burien, Kent, Auburn - are all places which have become much more diverse racially than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago. And it's due in large part towards communities of color and immigrant refugee communities being pushed out by costs in Seattle. These are workers who - we're talking a lot of low wage service workers - who have to commute distances into the City or find local work. I view this as very positive that they're pushing for this. We know that the SeaTac fight was over $15, which occurred before anywhere - led to that SeaTac City Council being in the crosshairs from both sides as to who would get elected, who would hold the majority - of one that was more supportive of these communities, one that was more diverse than in the past, or one that was more business friendly. And I don't know, I'll just say that the trend continues here where we're seeing more and more public demand from the communities in those places to get more respect as to how they're paid and how difficult it is to make a go of it in expensive Pugetopolis. [00:15:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely - and so this initiative would set Tukwila's minimum wage to approximately match SeaTac's, which started at $15 an hour with cost-of-living increases. Right now, it is about $17.50 an hour, just around there - and so it's going to be really exciting to see how workers organize, how the community responds to this. There's going to need to be some signature collection and a campaign put forward for this, but it - being led by the Transit Riders Union who has experience and the resources necessary to do this - I am eager to see how it unfolds. Well - [00:15:57] Mike McGinn: This is just fascinating - if you look at the demographics of Tukwila, which I'm doing on the Census - it's 20% Black, it is 26% Asian - that's Black alone or Asian alone, not looking at mixed. 6.6% mixed and 30% white - so it's really extremely diverse place, and a place where - we'll all be better off if the folks who have been pushed to the bottom of the economic ladder have a better wage. We really will all be better off if we can do this. [00:16:37] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and another notable thing about this is - in some of the other pieces of legislation that have raised minimum wages, it was limited to certain types of jobs, or sometimes accepted - there were allowances or exceptions made for certain classifications of jobs to not be included. And this is an across-the-board minimum wage - saying that we're setting a floor for workers, period, that needs to be competitive with the region. And Tukwila's sitting in between Seattle and SeaTac and other areas, and neighboring cities can have as much of a $3 an hour difference in what the minimum wages are. So hopefully this also helps to speak to the competitiveness of the region, and just helping the people who are working and serving us to be able to participate in our economy and enjoy the fruits of it just like everyone else. Also want to talk about - this week, a story that came out that I know you commented on - the Seattle Times Editorial Board was pushing back against people's surprised reactions to see just how car-centric the new Seattle Waterfront Park is. When this was sold - again, lots of conversations and history and context from the period leading up to when you became mayor and while you were, but - lots of talk about opening up the Waterfront, and this can be just a jewel of the City, and this is going to be a wonderful place for families to come and pedestrians and bicyclists, and like other waterfronts and their areas that are great pavilions for people to just enjoy and have fun, and a world-class park basically is how it was sold. And then you see it, and there's a highway that replaced the viaduct. How did a highway become part of this, and why are they trying to say that that is what they set people up to expect? [00:18:50] Mike McGinn: I think there's a few different factors in here. And one of the factors, there's a bunch of different things going on here. Maybe you want to edit this piece out - I have a little bit of background noise, so I'll start my answer again here. When you look at this, that was the debate initially - and the call from people was if we don't build the tunnel, if you try to just have a surface highway, you're going to end up with a big highway on the Waterfront. So that was a big part of the argument that was made by the tunnel advocates. And of course there were still some people that just wanted to rebuild the elevated - but if you had to rebuild it to modern standards, it would've been twice as wide, because wider lanes, full shoulder, et cetera, et cetera. So that was a big part of the argument. And for just - I would say the single largest reason why we ended up with the road we have there - is just a belief system that you actually can't remove roadway capacity. You just can't remove it. So that's why we ended up with the tunnel. People would say - well, if we don't have a tunnel, then all those cars will flood the City streets, or all of those cars will flood I-5, and the economy will ground to a halt. In fact, that wasn't just the public statement - I was lectured privately by Governor Gregoire, at the time, asking me if I wanted to destroy the City economy by snarling I-5. They just can't let go of this idea that we must have highway capacity to accommodate the cars. And that attitude then found its way to the surface, even after the tunnel was built. The fact is that - at its base, there's a four-lane road, two lanes each way, which is a big road - let's be really clear about it. A four-lane road, two lanes each way. Those are roads that we find very uncomfortable in lots of parts of Seattle, whether that's Lake City Way, whether that's Rainier Ave, whether it's MLK - throughout the City, they tend to produce very high speeds on them because you have the two lanes side-by-side. They don't have the attributes of a good downtown City street, which will be more narrow, and just naturally slows down vehicles when you do that. So you start there, then you add the ferry holding areas and then they say, "We need to put in a bus line," and this also was a controversial - actually, it wasn't really a controversial decision - it should have been more controversial, honestly. That was that the buses from West Seattle could have been sent through Pioneer Square - and if you took the streets on either side of the park down there, Occidental, you could have had one street dedicated to buses going in, another street dedicated to buses going out - and you wouldn't need a dedicated bus lane on the Waterfront. In fact, you could have kicked the cars off those streets and made those bus-only corridors at the time. And it would've functioned a lot like Pike and Pine function on the way up to Capitol Hill - would've been about the same amount of traffic, bus traffic, there. And it would've been delivering people to a place where there's a lot of businesses, a lot of residents, but it was rejected because the Pike/Pine neighborhood advocates and business advocates said, "We don't want the bus lines. Bus lines are bad, they'll hurt us." They said, "It'll be like Third Avenue through us." That's not true - it would've been more like Pike/Pine in terms of the number of vehicles, number of bus trips. So that was part of it too. So by the time you say we have to have room for all the cars, and we have to have room for all the ferries, and we need a dedicated bus lane - next thing you know, you got something that's eight to six lanes wide through big chunks of it, and that's a really big road. [00:22:57] Crystal Fincher: It's a huge road. [00:22:59] Mike McGinn: It's a huge road. [00:23:00] Crystal Fincher: The Urbanist did a great article about this. So just to - again, they tore down the viaduct and put just as many lanes on the ground as they did - and actually more south of Columbia street, where it turns into that queuing area for the ferries - plus the tunnel underneath, and bypass lanes, and the new Elliot Way also adds four more lanes - funneling more cars and trucks into Belltown and the Waterfront, directly adjacent to the new aquarium - that's supposed to be a centerpiece of this Waterfront Park. So there are very few parks that people think of, when you think of a park, that actually include a literal highway going in the middle of it. This is an area where I learned from you, where I was actually wrong. We talk a lot about, "Hey, Mike McGinn turned out to be right. A lot of people were wrong." The kind of roads and transit - surface roads and transit - option where - no, we actually don't need to replace the viaduct. We don't need the big stuff. If we actually add transit capacity and focus on just reasonable roads through here, we can actually do this without spending billions of dollars that are likely to create cost overruns in addition to this. We ended up just building a tunnel and a highway on top of it without sufficiently increasing transit capacity at all. My goodness. [00:24:32] Mike McGinn: It's one of the hardest things for people to really accept - is this idea that the amount of traffic we have is not a fixed amount that's driven by some set of external factors. There are clearly external factors driving the amount of traffic, but there's so much latent demand for driving, and so much of driving that could be replaced by other modes - that actually the amount of traffic you have in successful cities - if you're a city that's fading, the traffic will be driven by your economic activity, right? But in a successful city, the amount of traffic you have is driven by the amount of lanes you have coming in and out. If you reduce the lanes, the traffic reduces, and this is a very hard thing for people to understand. And the opposite is also true - when you expand the lanes, the traffic increases to fill the lanes. And it is because there are tons of alternatives - we do have buses running in and out of town, and some people take the bus because it's a pain in the butt to drive. And people are going to take light rail because it's better than driving, but it probably won't reduce traffic on I-5 that much. That line to Northgate will bring more people into downtown, and it'll bring them in a more pleasant way than if they had to be in stop-and-go traffic on I-5 all the way downtown. But we're still going to have about the same amount of traffic on I-5, because traffic is kind of like a gas - you remember your physics - it expands to fill the room available to it. It's one of the reasons - I'll get this in - it's one of the reason people love bollards. If you don't actually put up a bollard to protect a street or a place from cars going, or a curb stop to protect a place, the cars just expand to fill it. And it's a very hard thing for people to sometimes grasp. And that the opposite is true - that when you reduce the amount of lanes, when you reduce the amount of space available for cars, people will make different choices. And it might be a different choice about when they drive, it might be a choice about where they drive - maybe if you're in West Seattle, Green Lake Park doesn't look so good anymore. I don't know why it ever looked so good, if you're in West Seattle, to go to Green Lake - but there are enough discretionary trips in the system that we can conserve some trips without hurting our quality of life. In fact, there's an argument to be made it might improve your quality of life if people were looking to take shorter trips closer to their home and supporting local businesses and local efforts. Not everyone can do it, I'm not saying everyone can, but enough people can that you don't need that bigger highway on the Waterfront, and you don't need as many lanes coming into town. By the way, I'm going to toss one more thing into this mix - something that nobody talks about, it's been bugging me for a couple of decades now - is the 509 extension as part of the Puget Sound Gateway Program. Now, it's bad enough that we're building a highway that will cut through communities, add more pollution, et cetera, et cetera - but you know how everybody takes the back way to the airport from Seattle? Well, imagine if that road is extended to I-5 - people coming north on I-5 will have a back way into downtown. If you think the backups at the First Avenue South Bridge are bad now, wait 'til you see what it's like when you basically are mainlining cars from I-5 to the west of SeaTac Airport, straight to that First Avenue South Bridge. And who's going to breathe all the pollution of those idling cars? Residents of South Park and Georgetown and the Duwamish Valley. And then they'll cross that and then they'll hit that stretch of road heading into downtown - and where are they going to get off, if they're trying to go downtown? They're going to get off at that interchange just south of downtown. So that'll mean yet more cars in the industrial area, yet more cars in Pioneer Square. So this 509 extension, and it's incredibly against the interests of the Port as well. Port's one of the biggest proponents - they have this vision we'll build this and our trucks will just get on the road - and they'll just fly out to I-5 south by going down the 509 extension. But they're not thinking it through - because what is it going to mean to them to have 30,000-50,000 more cars a day clogging the industrial area because they've got a shortcut to downtown that enables them to skip the I-5 main line into Seattle. To me, this is a known impact of the 509 extension. I guess I'm telling this story, not just because I don't think we should build 509, but because it illustrates the absolute inability of the Port and business and engineering interests to tell the public the real impact of adding lanes. They believe it will reduce congestion - instead, it's going to send many more cars and much more pollution into the exact places where we say people should have cleaner air and should have fewer cars. [00:29:48] Crystal Fincher: Where it's currently creating shorter lifespans - it is literally taking years off of people's lives. [00:29:53] Mike McGinn: Literally killing people. Yes. [00:29:57] Crystal Fincher: And creating chronic illnesses - all of the cost and impacts associated with that. It's really counterintuitive, admittedly. [00:30:07] Mike McGinn: Yes. [00:30:07] Crystal Fincher: Because of our society, it's counterintuitive and people make the assumption - and feel confident in making the assumption - that if you add lanes then, "Hey, it's clear traffic." People think about when they're in a backup and they see a lane open up next to them and they can pull into it and speed up. And that's what they apply - they apply that logic to adding that lane is going to allow everybody to get in that lane and speed up. But that's actually the problem. And this is uncontroversial in planning circles. It's not like there is conflicting data and we don't know if adding lanes actually increases traffic. No, we've known conclusively for decades that adding lanes on highways increases traffic. The demand will always catch up - that's how it works. So there is no traffic congestion and especially on a route like that - people talk about the need to prioritize freight movement and that is absolutely a concern - you're actually making that tougher. You're putting more cars on the roads that right now are being heavily used by companies moving goods throughout our region. It just is so frustrating to continue to watch elected leaders, at all levels, continue to say things that are absolutely false. This is absolute misinformation that adding lanes reduces traffic and - [00:31:41] Mike McGinn: They know it's false. It's an iron law of congestion, it's an iron law of highway expansion. And again, it works in both directions and they know - but there is such a set of industries, and it kind of relates back to this concrete strike. There's a set of industries that - they need their multi-billion dollar cash infusion every few years to keep feeding them - and it's not just the construction companies, it's the companies that do the planning, it's the companies that provide the lawyers, it's the companies that help float the financial bonds to finance it all. Then you add in the trade unions that really want the union jobs associated with major infrastructure projects. And now you've got both sides of the aisle with support for this. So this last Transportation Bill was vastly better than prior ones in terms of the mix of spending, but it's got another multi-billion dollar fix for the companies addicted to the regular supply of money from the Feds and from the state for the work they do - same thing happened at the national level. They all have an interest in just not accepting something all the studies, all the professionals know to be true - because if they accepted it, they would turn off the money supply to people who really just - their entire businesses and their reason for being exists around that. So you can argue correctly that if you built - projects to build more sidewalks, build more transit, build more bike lanes - produce more jobs per dollar - but they wouldn't produce more jobs for the people that are currently getting the dollars. So they're not terribly interested in that - in changing the dollar flows - so that's what really drives this. Then they mislead the public that the new lanes will solve congestion, or they're just building out the system, or they're fixing bottlenecks, or they'll even tell you - this is one of my favorites - it'll reduce the number of cars stuck in traffic, so they won't be idling, contributing to global warming. They'll actually argue it'll reduce pollution, because it'll be more free flowing. And these are just all not truthful statements. And they're all too often made by professionals who know better, but they are in a system where the political leadership demands that they keep delivering the dollars to these companies. And that's just how it is. So we all got to keep doing our work to let people know that the costs of that are actually way too high to just keep some people in business. We need to take a look at a different approach. [00:34:38] Crystal Fincher: Well, this week there was also some very concerning events at the Seattle Police Department's presentation to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee of the Seattle City Council - a number of challenging things - and again, I highly encourage you to read, to subscribe, to Amy Sundberg's Notes from the Emerald City newsletter. She covers this frequently, comprehensively. But one thing I wanted to pull out was just - Brian Maxey, when making an SPD presentation regarding - I don't know if folks recall - the analysis that the City had done regarding SPD officers and how they were spending their time. So an independent analysis determined that 49% of the 911 calls that are currently handled by SPD were not emergencies, crimes - they could be handled by organizations other than SPD. This traditionally has been an uncontroversial thing where - before we saw that the 2020 protests - there are lots of departments around the country, several local ones and SPD also had chiefs who talked about this. They were saying, "Hey, we actually feel ill equipped to respond to calls where no law's being broken, but someone is unhappy that an unhoused person is around there," or "Someone's having a mental health crisis," or "There's just activity that doesn't quite rise to the level of criminal activity," or "Maybe just a car is parked in the wrong spot." And that could be handled just as sufficiently with a civil response and does not require an armed police response. And so the analysis was just about half of all of the calls, that could happen with - this presented an exciting opportunity, because my goodness, SPD has been complaining that they need resources to respond to these 911 calls, and we need to get police on the streets to be able to do this. And wow, you actually just got news that half of those calls are not sufficient enough or at the level where it needs an officer response. So it looks like the staffing crisis you've talked about actually has its own built-in solution - let's intelligently target what we respond to and what we don't, and where we use very expensive police resources that carry a high risk of escalation, and completely reduce that and reformat that. Unfortunately, SPD, instead of recognizing that opportunity immediately pushed back, and said, "Hey, we only identify 12% of the calls that we're confident that can be answered with an alternate response." I also want to note that 12% is not an insignificant number, so that should also be moved around. They basically said, "Well, we need more time to do more assessment and we need to do a study and create different protocols." And mire this in process to try and run out the clock and hope people lose the political will to do anything about this. They were reporting this week saying that - we actually did some revising and we actually don't think anything needs to be moved outside of the department. Anything that needs to be handled - we feel that we can do it within the police department, and maybe it'll look different and we'll try and make it seem like an alternate response, but it's still coming out of the police budget and using police resources - and just a challenge there. So this was one of the first times this issue has been revisited since they said they needed to do additional analysis - and they were light on details, but certainly indicated that they are not willing to offload anything further. And that anything that needs to happen within the City, they plan to use a police budget and armed or officer resources to respond to. What did you think of this? [00:38:56] Mike McGinn: Well, it is a great question, obviously. What do you really need police officers, and what do you not need police officers for? The police department may have a little bias there because they think they're pretty good. It's natural, it's human - I don't want to pick on the police department for doing that. We just need to recognize it - that things that they have historically done, they think it's appropriate for them to have done and for them to be involved in - that's just natural. So my first reaction to this would be that this is something that the police department needs to be having input into the decision, but you shouldn't be asking them to drive the process. It just may be too hard for them to do - to be able to separate those things. And when you add into that - there's an internal dynamic within the police department too, which is chiefs don't want to get sideways with the force, or leadership doesn't want to get sideways with the rank and file. And the rank and file - they're unionized under the Police Officer's Guild - and it's just really instinctive for public employee unions, period, to believe that only the union member can do this job, so if you're taking a scope of work away from us, that's just bad. That's just reducing - it's the other side of whether it's a union hotel or a non-union hotel. If you're a union hotel worker, it's like I don't want to - let's keep these jobs here - and again, it happens across all the unions. What makes this conversation harder is that police are still respected as having a word on safety - well, the police say we'll be unsafe if a police officer doesn't do this - they have a little more pull with the public. I believe I recall the firefighters were insisting that 911 calls for fire be handled by firefighters, because only firefighters themselves had the requisite expertise. And it's a good argument, but it is one that has to be tested and thought through. I think that's the type of thing that really has to be examined closely - is a good argument as to why this one requires a police officer as opposed to that one - but I don't think you can ask the police department to make that call. A mayor would have to set up a system where somebody else is doing the hard analysis and making the ultimate recommendations on how to do this, and it should have more stakeholders at the table as to how to do that. You can't ask an agency or department of government to reorganize itself into a reduced role or out of existence. It's like asking a cat not to be a cat - they just can't say I'm not going to be a cat anymore - they're cats. And it's awfully hard to tell a police department to redefine itself in a way that it isn't what it thinks it is. So that's my takeaway - is that this is a completely natural reaction, and somebody else better be in there digging and actually making the decisions - and ultimately will take hard choices from the mayor who will then face a loss of confidence from the union representing those folks, because you just reduced the potential future number of union jobs. And then there's the leadership, right? What's the potential size of my constituency - you just reduce the potential size of my constituency and the number of jobs I can hand out - therefore, you reduce my bargaining power for wages, and you reduce the promotion opportunities for people in the ranks, and all sorts of things. This is just - you got to separate the institutional imperatives of a union and a department from the actual facts of what does or does not take a police officer to handle - and that's a process that you can't put the police department in charge of. [00:43:20] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely and even in - and collective bargaining is bargaining with all sides at the table and one side not dictating what's going to happen. I also think it's important to highlight through this - the issue of having job security and protections is absolutely fair and legitimate and should be discussed. Moving these positions out of the police department does not mean that we have to move them to non-union positions. It may not be SPOG - it could be a different union, but that respond to the needs that the City actually has, that appropriately manage the resources that the City has, that enable the City to be as safe as it deserves to be. And so allowing responses to be laser focused on improving safety. If we have data that shows that something does increase safety, great. If we have data that shows the opposite, then that should be the signal to reallocate those resources to things that are more effective at doing that. I hope that we see that from the mayor, that there is direction saying it looks like we could more effectively use the people who are there in a role that better serves the public. And that seems like it would be crucial to building the trust that everyone acknowledges is lacking, or certainly not where people would like it to be. So I just hope that the mayor does lead this in the right direction, and doesn't just hand this off to the police department to drive this process. [00:45:09] Mike McGinn: I would add something else too - and a PubliCola article recently about the UW Campus police talked about this issue. There's also protections under labor law that you can't take a union job and give it somewhere else - potentially non-union job - it's called skimming. And so the argument that the police union can make, and it was an argument that was made by the UW Police Department rank and file, was that certain unarmed campus responders being hired by the University were skimming the union jobs of the SPD cops. And there was a ruling in the state - that no, that's not skimming - but that's a legal backdrop that also provides some power to the union, and you understand why that rule is there. If, let's say, a union has managed to unionize a portion of the workforce, you can't just reclassify them, give them a new title to do the same job and say but you're not union now. The skimming rule is there for a real reason, but that can also become an obstacle here towards changing things. I dealt with that some as mayor as well - when we were looking at how to reallocate responsibilities within City government, from one department to another, or from one set of workers to another - the skimming issue would come up. [00:46:47] Crystal Fincher: Just kudos to UW for having the will to set an example in placing safety of the people on the campus first and doing what all of the data showed would increase how safe people are and making that change. To your point, that was actually a really important ruling by Washington's Public Employee Relations Commission - to say, "Actually, this was done okay. Let's continue to prioritize worker safety, worker protections, making sure that we don't just hurt unions by doing this and make it harder for people to unionize - but balance the needs of the population there, the actual core focus of the organization, and aligning how those organizations are structured with protected workers within them." [00:47:45] Mike McGinn: And kudos to UW for taking the case all the way through and not simply saying, "Well, we can't do it because we might have to have a lawsuit, or we don't want to upset that union because of their role in the system." That can be harder for elected officials to do. Honestly, it keeps bringing up for me - the issue of public safety and the treatment of members of the public - the degree to which police officers have union protections, I think really is something that needs to be reevaluated. The idea, and I faced this as mayor - and every mayor faces it, every chief faces it - when they ask to do discipline, it's like, what is more important? The right of that police officer to keep their job, or the right of the public to be free of the conduct of a police officer that doesn't meet the standards that we believe the community's entitled to. And too often, the gist of it is - well, the right of the police officer to hold the job is higher under the law than the right of the people to be protected. Or - now, I shouldn't say under the law - but in practice, that's what happens. I don't think people appreciate - I was often asked, "Well, why don't you just fire the bad cops?" And it's like - we're trying, but it's a lot harder than you think. And quite often, the defense about why you can't fire a cop, and we've seen this since I was mayor too, was, "Well, nobody ever got fired for that before." And that itself is a defense for why you can't let go of someone. And as the force gets smaller, as it is right now, they're still not filling the empty spots. It's a lot harder to hide somebody in some department where they're not going to have to interact with the public in some way or another. This is a challenge. I think that that's a fundamental issue we have to start facing as a society as well - certainly, public employees should have the protections that any public employee has whether unionized or not, but have we gone too far - and for this particular set of workers - on the balance between the protection of someone to hold a job - a job that entails carrying a weapon, having the ability to arrest somebody, having the ability to stop someone for questioning and detain someone - all of these things just go to the fundamental rights, individual rights of members of the community. And on balance, whose rights are more important here? I think that calls for some reexamination of the union, of how we handle this. [00:50:42] Crystal Fincher: I will leave it there because that was well said - completely agree. [00:50:47] Mike McGinn: We'll call it good - thanks for having me, Crystal. [00:50:49] Crystal Fincher: And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, March 25th, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler and assistant producer is Dr. Shannon Cheng, with assistance from Emma Mudd. And our insightful co-host today was activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks, Mike McGinn. You can find Mike on Twitter @mayormcginn, you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to resources referenced in the show at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Today Tim spoke with Anna Kultin. She is a former Russian news anchor.  She joined the show to discuss her experience working at a Russian state-controlled TV network, how the misinformation blurs the truth for Russian citizens, and how the Kremlin is portraying the invasion of Ukraine. Also on the show, Jon Scholes, President and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association. He spoke about the future of Downtown Seattle. Finally, our friend David Meinert, owner of the restaurant(s)/bar(s) Huckleberry Square, 5 Point and Mecka. They talked about how restaurants are doing after the Covid mandates were lifted.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, Crystal's co-host is criminal defense attorney, abolitionist and activist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. They discuss how a powerful lobbying group used a focus on local control to sink statewide housing reform, and how to overcome that in the next session, a rundown of candidates running for open seats, the disconnect of prioritizing the wants of downtown stakeholders over real solutions to homelessness, the Seattle City Attorney's repackaging of a failed initiative, and mixed results on the plan for some concrete workers to return to work while concrete companies continue to drag their feet on negotiating a fair contract. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, at @NTKallday. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Here's What Happened in Olympia” by Rich Smith from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/03/15/68343035/the-strangers-rundown-of-2022s-huge-confused-legislative-session    “What Will It Take to Get Statewide Housing Reform?” by Matt Baume from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/03/16/68207458/what-will-it-take-to-get-statewide-housing-reform    “Surprise Sweep Displaces Fourth Avenue Encampment, Scattering Unsheltered People” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola: https://publicola.com/2022/03/09/surprise-sweep-displaces-fourth-avenue-encampment-scattering-unsheltered-people-throughout-downtown/    “Downtown Sweep Highlights Urgency of Resolving Seattle's Other “Top-Priority Encampment,” Woodland Park” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola: https://publicola.com/2022/03/16/downtown-sweep-highlights-urgency-of-resolving-seattles-other-top-priority-encampment-woodland-park/    “City Attorney's Office Introduces Latest Initiative to Target “High Utilizers” of the Criminal Justice System” by Paul Kiefer from PubliCola: https://publicola.com/2022/03/15/city-attorneys-office-introduces-latest-initiative-to-target-so-called-high-utilizers-of-the-criminal-justice-system/    “Harrell postpones Seattle police plan to crack down on ‘disorderly conduct' at Third Avenue bus stops” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/harrell-postpones-seattle-police-plan-to-crack-down-on-disorderly-conduct-at-third-avenue-bus-stops/    “Cigarettes and Fentanyl: All Aboard” by Nathan Vass from NathanVass.com: http://www.nathanvass.com/blog/cigarettes-and-fentanyl-all-aboard    “Some Seattle-area concrete drivers return to work, others await go-ahead from employer” by Nick Bowman from MyNorthwest: https://mynorthwest.com/3398180/seattle-concrete-drivers-return-others-await-employer/    “Concrete strike continues in King County as union workers who offered to return didn't show” by KING 5 Staff & Adel Toay from KING 5: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/concrete-strike-king-county-union-workers-no-show/281-f14d167c-c88c-44db-91c8-591171124209    Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. For transcripts and resources referenced in this show, you can visit officialhacksandwonks.com and reference our episode notes. Today we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program for the first time, today's co-host: criminal defense attorney, abolitionist, and activist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. Hey. [00:00:55] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Hello. Thanks for having me - and this is the second time I've been on - must have been so memorable that first time. [00:01:01] Crystal Fincher: No, this is your first time as a co-host on the Week In Review. Yes, we did an interview last time, which was very good and incredible. And a number of people were like, well, we see who you want to win. And it's just like, look, if she happens to be making great and salient points, it's not my fault. But yes, just really, really excited to have you here on the Week In Review. [00:01:28] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I'm excited to be here. Thank you. [00:01:30] Crystal Fincher: Well, and so the first thing that we have coming out of the gate was one thing I wanted to talk about - coming out of the end of the legislative session - we talked last week and broke down a number of bills. The Stranger this week had a great article that we'll put in our episode notes that also further broke down what was great about the legislative session, what was disappointing, and how we can move forward. And then Matt Baume also had another article talking about the failure of bills that would have mandated more density, specifically near transit, that would've helped address the affordability crisis that we have here in the state. And I thought it was very good - it was focused on, hey, what needs to happen moving forward to actually succeed in passing bills that require more density statewide? In that, he talked about the AWC, Association of Washington Cities, being a vocal opponent. They are a powerful lobby in the State of Washington. Their purpose, they say, is to represent the over 200 cities in the state. And their position largely was - it's really important to have local control in these and the one-size-fits-all solution that would come from the state just may not be right for our communities, so therefore we need to do nothing. The challenge in that is that most cities have not moved forward on doing anything. As you look at this issue, Nicole, what do you see as being the barriers and, I guess, the opportunities for moving forward successfully? [00:03:16] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I think that when I look at this, first I think it's funny that there is a coalition of all these cities that are all saying the same thing - we want local control - that seems to be the only thing that they agree on. But I think that on a state level, there needs to be a floor created for affordable housing and density, and that's really all we were talking about for the most part with these bills. It wasn't any incredibly specific directions that each city has to take on a certain timeline on a certain budget - anything like that. It was about just creating a floor of affordable, dense housing that is needed in pretty much every community. And I think that what I heard a lot in the last year was that - the reverse of there needs to be local control - which was now we have municipalities competing against each other for who can do the least. Seattle is - Sara Nelson and other people are calling out other cities for not doing their part and spending their money on addressing the crisis. And it seems to be like a race to the bottom in terms of who can spend the least. And because the idea, I think, is that if you build services, if you build affordable housing, people will move into them. And why do that when you can concentrate a lot of the unsheltered population in one place that provides the minimum to keep people alive? And that's what I see going on. [00:04:59] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and definitely a resistance to people who are defined as others and outsiders from even being able to buy into communities. It was really interesting in this article - there were representatives from cities across the state, from Port Orchard to Tacoma to University Place, and a number of them were leaders within AWC and talked about - we need local control, we are all very different. But one very consistent thread in these is that the median home price in most of these areas has doubled. This housing crisis is not just a crisis in major municipalities. It is a crisis across the board in areas that were affordable - that people used to consider being affordable and that people could buy into and still work in a major area where jobs are concentrated. And still live, even with a commute unfortunately - that it was possible to buy a home there with a median income. It is no longer the case in many of these places. And sometimes, like one of these examples in Port Orchard, they touted - well, we built new homes. Well, yeah, those are half million dollar plus homes adjacent to a golf course. If we're concentrating on making sure cities are accessible to people across the board and that you don't have to be rich and that we aren't displacing people outside of cities and just gentrifying them, then we have to have a solution across the board. Also, interestingly, the National League of Cities, which the Association of Washington Cities is a member of, had a 2019 report that said, "While local control is often at the heart of policies that accelerate progress, there are examples, particularly in the affordable housing policy arena in which state policy is needed." To your point, there has to be a floor. We have to establish a minimum boundary. Cities can determine the right way that they're all going to get there, but what we can't do - what is not sustainable, we're already paying the price for - is continued inaction while just spouting excuses like, well, it's not local control, therefore it's nothing. I would love to see leaders within the legislature say, "Well, you say you want local control? This wasn't successful this session. You now have this coming year to address this within your own cities. If you do, we can find a way to create legislation that respects what you've done." And more than likely if you're taking meaningful action, the floor is going to be below where you set it. But it's not going to be an option to continue to not take action next session and further on in the future. I would love to hear that from legislative leadership and leaders across the state - it just should not be an option. We have to make cities and housing affordable and accessible for people to live in, or else we're going to make our homelessness problem worse, we're going to make our displacement problem worse, we're not going to have people available to fill jobs that are necessary within cities. This is a critical economic development issue just in addition to a housing and social issue. So I hope we address that. Go ahead. [00:08:31] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Oh, I was just going to say too that I really like how you talked about these are communities that used to be affordable. When we talk about Port Orchard - my in-laws live in Port Orchard, and so when they bought their home, it was very affordable and the amount of money it appreciated to was pretty astronomical. And so when we're resisting building affordable housing - and affordable really is - we're talking about homes that are less than half a million dollars, which is just a wild concept that that's where we are with the average home prices in an area. It wasn't always like that. So the idea that these - the people that are already there should be able to stay with this huge, expensive appreciation that they have in their home value, but then not let anybody else in that is going to be coming in at the same level that they came in at. And unfortunately they're not going to be able to afford - they're going to have to have less in terms of space and in terms of all of those things. And so it's interesting to me to want to keep out the same people that are essentially already there, I guess. [00:09:52] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it absolutely is that issue. And then as I look at this, it's like the people who are in housing whose housing has appreciated and who are resistant to any kind of acceptance of other people in their communities - we're talking about their kids, we're talking about their employees, we're talking about their students. And again, people talk about, well, I can't find anyone to fill this position in my company. We can't find people. No one wants to work. But is it that no one wants to work? Or is it that you're now forcing people who can't live and work in the same community, and maybe the compensation doesn't work for someone who has to commute 45 minutes each way and drop off their kids beforehand and pick them up after? It just isn't tenable for so many reasons. I feel like we leave housing and affordability out of economic discussions and it's just so critical and a big part of those two. So I hope that we see significant action, and that candidates are talking about this on the campaign trail, and our leadership is making it clear in both the House and the Senate - that this is something that needs to be acted on and will be acted on next session, and that cities are on notice that they need to move in the right direction. [00:11:19] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yes, I agree. Yes. That needs to happen. And I think there needs to be some - maybe more clear calling out of what is actually happening. If municipalities are saying, oh, we want to sit down, we want to sit down, we want to talk, we want to talk - but then they're not asking for any more talks and they're not proposing anything of their own. I think it's maybe time to call a spade a spade and say, are you really interested in solving this problem, or are you really just kicking the can down the road? [00:11:47] Crystal Fincher: Exactly. Well, the legislative session did recently conclude, and that means that now we have a number of legislators who are kicking off their re-election campaigns and starting in earnest. One thing I don't know if everyone who listens is aware of is that - while our legislators are in office, they can't actually raise money, so they can't do a major element of campaigning. There is a prohibition against doing that, also for certain employees of the state. So once session concludes, they're all trying to catch up to people who have already been running and doing that. And so a lot of them are - people are receiving a lot more emails from their representatives and appeals for donations - that's happening now. And I just wanted to do a quick little rundown of where there are open seats. There are a number of representatives who are retiring or moving onto different positions, some in the House are running for Senate seats - but that is leaving some positions open that are now contested by several different people. The 22nd Legislative District in Thurston County - having Beth Doglio and Laurie Dolan who are Democrats, and Loretta Byrnes running for those - that's Position 1 there. 30th Legislative District in Federal Way, where Jesse Johnson has decided not to run for re-election - we have Kristine Reeves, who's filed to run, Leandra Craft, Lynn French, Ryan Odell and Ashli Raye Tagoai, I think it is, and Janis Clark. And then in the 36 District in Seattle, where Reuven Carlyle decided not to run and then Noel Frame decided to run for Reuven Carlyle Senate seat, leaving that House seat vacant - there's Julia Reed, Jeffrey Manson, Elizabeth Tyler Crone, Nicole Gomez, and Waylon Robert. And in the 46th District - and just a reminder, I am working with Melissa Taylor - there is Melissa Taylor, Lelach Rave, Nancy Connolly, Darya Farivar, and Nina Martinez who have filed for that seat. That's in north Seattle, northeast Seattle. 47th Legislative District, which is eastern Kent, Covington, Maple Valley area, where Pat Sullivan is no longer running, he's not going to be running for re-election - there's Carmen Goers, Kyle Lyebyedyev, Jessie Ramsey, and Satwinder Kaur, who is a Kent City Councilmember. And then King County Prosecuting Attorney is an open seat because Dan Satterberg is not running for re-election - and so there's Stephan Thomas, Leesa Manion, and Jim Ferrell who are running for that seat. So there is a lot to come - we're certainly going to be having conversations with several of these candidates, but running these campaigns are getting off in earnest now - and you'll be hearing lots and seeing lots, and the end of the legislative session is a big turning point in campaign season with another big milestone coming up. There are lots of people who can file to run and you can start your campaign committee in May - in mid-May is where people officially declare that they're running for a specific seat - and that will determine who actually appears on your ballot. And so that'll be the final say on who is running for what, so people in the interim can potentially switch positions they're running for, choose not to run - lots of choices and paths that this can go down. As you're looking at this crew, does anything just come to mind for you? Or you've run a campaign - a big campaign citywide before - what do see just ahead for these candidates and for voters who are evaluating them? [00:15:59] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I mean, I see some candidates that I think are exciting - I also love Melissa Taylor. I used to work on the other side of Leandra Craft - I think she's smart and knows what's going on. So I think I'm seeing some good candidates. Campaigning at that level is different because there just has to be so much fundraising done, whereas in the City, we're so lucky that we don't have to spend all of our time doing that. I just - I wish everyone the best because - oh yeah, oh, Nicole Gomez too. There's some people to be really excited about, I think, and so that's great. I just wish everyone the best. I hope everyone's taking good care of themselves - that's what I think when I see this list. [00:16:45] Crystal Fincher: Running for office is a very, very tough thing. It's not fun - you're putting yourself out there to be scrutinized - people do not always consider the human when they are communicating with or about candidates. And they are humans - even when we disagree with them, they're humans. I do think, as candidates are kicking off their campaigns, certainly fundraising is a big deal in the City of Seattle - with City races, there are Democracy Vouchers where every resident gets money from the City that they can donate to the candidate of their choice. That is not the case in these campaigns this year - they have to raise all the money they need. And campaigns do take money because unfortunately there is not broad media coverage, and getting your message out to most voters requires communicating directly with them. And so whether it's knocking on their door, giving them a call - which still takes resources - and usually also involves communicating with them via mail or online or on TV - just a lot of different mediums there. And then people are also focusing on endorsements - especially early on, people are trying to figure out - what do these candidates stand for, what have they been involved with, and how have they worked before in the past, what is their history? And sometimes endorsements can be revealing and highlight what that candidate prioritizes, who is in their corner, what kind of issues they'll be strong on and a leading a advocate for - not simply a vote. So lots of that happening right now, and certainly just hope for the best and hope they are successful in getting their messages out. It is an interesting time and campaigns are kicking off once again. I did want to pivot to a number of news items in the City of Seattle surrounding public safety - first being the issue of sweeps of a number of encampments. And so we had a 4th Avenue encampment sweep, which scattered a bunch of unsheltered folks. There's probably other sweeps to come soon, and the issue of another encampment that has been viewed as a top priority at Woodland Park. As you look at what's going on with these sweeps, what do you see as far as what's happening? [00:19:33] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: What I see is the huge amount of disconnect between what the public thinks is happening and what is actually happening - and that's just such a huge disservice to everyone. I know that there's a narrative out there that people are refusing services and they're refusing shelter. And I guess the idea is that some people are camping out in the cold and rain, because that's preferable somehow to be sheltered. And that's not what the case is - we don't have enough places for people to live that they can afford to live in. We don't have the services that are needed to stop this from continuing to happen. Also, the thing is - it really just moves the problem around. There's nothing really - it will clear one area of sidewalk for a certain period of time, but all it does is move things around. And the more people are destabilized, who are already barely, are clinging to stability and security in the most tenuous way possible - are then pushed around and have all the belongings they need to survive thrown away - because that's what we saw in the downtown sweep is - it was different than some of the other sweeps in that they didn't really offer services, they didn't offer anything. There's different timelines that they went by because they called the tents downtown an obstruction, a sidewalk obstruction, which means that they're - all of the things that they're supposed to do during the sweep, they didn't have to do any of that. And they didn't. And so we just see people's belongings being thrown away, tents thrown away. And I think what's also missing from the narrative around these sweeps is just how much stress that puts on service providers. I talk to a lot of people and they say, well, the Navigation Center is just up the street and I'm like, how much do you think that they can handle? Because as a public defender, something that I saw often was people being displaced by going to jail. That means when they get out, they have to get a new ID, a new EBT card, they have to go to DESC and see if they can get a tent and a sleeping bag - because there's things that people need in order to survive. And people don't just evaporate after a sweep, they are still existing. And also my partner has an office in Pioneer Square and he watched the 4th Avenue sweep, and he's seen a lot of sweeps around . That area. And he says, it's just really hard to watch people who are barely hanging on become so dysregulated by the horror of what is actually happening to them. And he said he would see people huddled together in alleyways trying to get away from the police - it's just a really horrifying scene that doesn't - it really truly does not solve any problem other than that one piece of sidewalk for a little bit of time. And so we're spending millions and millions of dollars to essentially make this problem worse. We move it around and make it worse. And so, I get that people don't want to see this anymore, but if that's what they want, then we're going to have to take some steps towards solutions and sweeps just aren't it at all. [00:23:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. You raised so many good points - it's absolutely correct. The bottom line is the actions that we're taking are not moving people into shelter and permanent housing. It is not an ideal solution to have people on sidewalks and have people living on streets. But when people don't have a home to go to and they don't have anywhere else to go, that is the option. That is the option. Unless we just expect people to die, we can't jail our way out of the problem. There certainly is a contingent of people who are just like, well, they shouldn't be on the sidewalk and that should be illegal and that's an obstruction and it's bad, and they should be arrested and they're probably criminals anyway and they're causing problems and creating crime. When the reality is people who are unsheltered are actually many times more likely to be victims of crime. They're a very vulnerable population and that's all just factless propaganda that we're hearing otherwise. But our services are not set up to meet the needs that actually exist, and time after time - when we listen and we hear things like they were offered shelter and they refused, we really do have to dig a little bit deeper and think about what were they offered? So many times what they were offered does not actually accommodate the needs that they have - if they have a partner, if they have a dog - those people that they have relied on that again, because they're in such a vulnerable position and because they are so exposed to the likelihood of having crime committed against them, having people that they can count on who help to look out for you, that help to protect your belongings - is essential to survival. And a lot of times we're asking them to give that up for a night in a shelter, for a week in a shelter. It's not even like they have the opportunity to transition in a permanent way and okay, maybe it's going to be okay. That stay in the shelter could be absolutely destabilizing for them and could tear apart the only thing that is keeping them safe and warm and alive. And so we just have to get really serious about this. I think Marc Dones has talked a lot about this issue and that we have to get real about - when we see such high "refusal rates", which can just be a service didn't fit. And when we see high rates of people being referred to services and then not showing up or following through, there's a reason for that. And if we want to get to the root cause of this issue and if we want to get people off of our sidewalks, which I think everybody wants, then we have to actually address the issues there and meet the needs that exist, not the ones that - they have to be solutions that meet the needs that they're identifying that they have, not what we think they should have, not what we think they deserve, not what we think is right or good or moral or all of that stuff. If we aren't addressing the things that they say will, hey, yes, that is something that I could do to move forward to get off the streets, then we're just moving people around to different areas. And again, a sweep is just moving people off of a block - the City and the County will acknowledge, have acknowledged - that no, it's not solving the issue of homelessness, it's moving them off of a block. I think another missing part of this conversation is that we seem to be prioritizing the needs and wants of downtown moneyed interests and not those of the rest of the community. We're perfectly fine spending tons of money - allocating tons of time and officer resources, City resources - to clear a block here and there at the behest of the Downtown Seattle Association, or the Chamber, or a business owner who's been loud and vocal, but we're actually not doing the same thing in other neighborhoods where just regular people are living. In fact, we're displacing the problems that existed in the downtown area to other communities - freely admitting it and saying, hey, we just spent the money that we could have spent to house people - which is the biggest problem of homelessness is people lacking houses - and we're treating this like a criminal solution and basically putting the problem into your lap now. And doing a victory lap because this one block downtown is clear for now. It just does not make much sense to me. And I just feel like so many people are just like, well, you don't care and you want all the sidewalks to be like this. No, no one does. We just want to actually not keep kicking the can down the road and waste the money that we could be using to actually solve this problem. [00:28:33] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Absolutely - and I also think that there's - I don't really understand why there is so much comfort in subsidizing downtown businesses using all the resources there to make sure that they can have what they want, but everybody else has to deal with the fallout and they just have to take it on. But like downtown - their sidewalks, everything - the City as a whole pays to subsidize clearing those blocks for them and for their businesses. And I don't understand why anyone is okay with that idea, especially because yes, we're not talking about solutions. And I think that if you're not talking about getting people housed, then you are just talking about moving the problem around. And there's a lot of reasons why - you were talking about people might refuse services, but there's also - and they're very real. Like you said, there's a community aspect that is the only thing that's keeping a lot of people truly alive, truly safe, truly alive - the modicum of safety and life that they have. And that's not considered. And I think that it's a very convenient - to say, well, they refused services - but it's just like, well, did you give them a three-night hotel voucher where they can't take any of their belongings? And so therefore they know if I do this, then I'm going to be out again in three days and I'm not going to have any of the things that I need to survive. There's a lot more that goes into decisions about what services to accept and not, rather than just personal preference. And I think that's how it gets sold - is like, oh, well, you maybe don't like this, but that's what there is. And it's just - first of all, I think people should have choices. But second, we're talking about the difference between life and death. And so the idea that, and this is what I would see in court all the time too, especially around issues like addiction or not having shelter is - well, if we just punish you harder, then you won't be like this anymore. I'm - this person lives under a bridge and is fighting for their life. I don't know how much lower we can take this - there's no point in making people who are suffering suffer more. I think there's this idea that they'll just suffer more and then they'll just stop - suffer more and then they'll magically have money to move into an apartment that costs twice as much as it did five years ago? That's this weird, magical thinking that is really, I guess, hypnotic on some level, but it's really pervasive. And we can see that it hasn't worked, so I don't really understand clinging to those notions. But yeah, that's where we are. And it's incredibly - I saw a picture the other day of some bike officers at a sweep and there was 12 of them just in the picture - and if you think about median income for a sworn police officer for SPD, I think it's $163,000. So even just looking - if we just rounded to $150k - 12 officers at $150k in this picture - that's almost $2,000 an hour. And I'm sure that was only a small number of the officers that were there. So in addition to parks, in addition to all of the other services that may or may not be provided - we're spending gigantic amounts of money to make the problem worse. And that just doesn't make any sense. If you want people off the sidewalk - I do too, this is horrible. Yeah, and I think there is this idea that if you say you don't like sweeps, then you must love people living in the street. And I think it's the complete opposite - you can be in favor of the sweeps, but you are not in favor of getting people off the street. You are in favor of getting people off your street temporarily. So it really - but I think it's really hard for people when the narrative is, oh, they're refusing services - as if people are being offered an apartment and they're saying, you know what - I really like it outside in the cold and rain. Yeah, it's hard, it's hard, there's - the media around this issue is really hard, making it really difficult for a lot of people. [00:33:30] Crystal Fincher: I agree with that. Another thing that we saw this week was the City Attorney Office pivoting back to a strategy - another strategy that we've seen unveiled many times before - an initiative to target "high utilizers" of the criminal justice system. And so Ann Davison has identified - I think it was 118 individuals who they say are responsible, 118 "high utilizers" who "create a disproportionate impact on public safety in Seattle." And so there have been similar initiatives launched in 2012 and 2019. And you may have heard other terms like high-impact offenders, prolific offenders - but this is the same strategy that they're using there. These clearly were not successful programs in the past, but we are returning to them. And certainly this is something that has been championed by more conservative folks, by the "law and order crowd". And we have varying opinions with this - there's a PubliCola article that goes over this - but King County Department of Public Defense Director, Anita Khandelwal, views the initiative as just repetition of a failed strategy, saying, "Over the last decade, the city has repeatedly announced similarly named initiatives that would focus more law enforcement resources on those already most policed as a strategy for addressing public safety. This is a tired strategy of arresting, prosecuting and jailing. It's expensive and clearly ineffective." Lisa Daugaard, the co-executive director of the Public Defender Association and co-founder of the LEAD diversion program, who we've talked about before - most recently supportive of the failed Compassion Seattle initiative - sees potential for success, saying the initiative is built on a solid foundation - addressing the needs of "high utilizers" on a case-by-case basis. She believes Davison could avoid the errors of past crackdowns by pushing her counterparts in city and county governments to expand programs like LEAD to accommodate a new surge in clients. Also, Lisa admits that if LEAD took on all 118 of those people's clients, they would not have any more capacity for additional clients in the future. And again, it's important to note that it does not appear that Ann Davison has expressed at all that she has any interest in diverting these programs to LEAD, or any other diversion program that is focused on treating more root causes to prevent this recidivism and reoffense that has been a hallmark of just arresting and jailing people. We have to do different things in order to get a different result. What do you think about this? [00:36:47] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I think it's funny - the repackaging every year - Ann really sold herself as this - someone so opposite of what Pete Holmes did, but now she's - this is the same exact thing. And it really is just window dressing in my opinion. And the idea that we can spend more on law enforcement and it's going to help is so ridiculous. The one thing that the 118 people that were identified have in common is none of them have shelter. [00:37:28] Crystal Fincher: Literally none? [00:37:30] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Right. Yeah. No, none of them do. They're all unsheltered. And so instead of spending this astronomical amount of money on more law enforcement, why don't we put money into housing? Because also when you look at the breakdown of the repeat crimes, it's usually low-level shoplifts and trespassing, which is just sleeping under an awning. And so how much of that could we just remove by getting people sheltered? And that seems to be the last solution. It's just - try everything else, except for providing shelter and services to people, which are so - it's so much less expensive to house someone and give them wraparound services - wraparound services like onsite case management, medication management, things like that - is so much less expensive than putting them in jail. And it's stable, right? Because no matter how much you hate that someone sleeps under an awning or steals a sandwich, no matter how much you dislike that, the criminal justice system will always fail to provide a solution because it's a temporary thing. The maximum sentence on almost every misdemeanor is - well, the maximum sentence is either 90 days or 364 days. And with the way jail time works, everyone's going to be back out on the street in 9 months - that's the max. We cannot just think of jail as this permanent housing solution and permanent incapacitation solution for low-level misdemeanors that could be so - I don't want to say easily, because it's not easy - it's not getting people into affordable housing, we don't have any first of all. And it's not an easy solution, but it's the only one that actually makes any sense. And I think that when we talk about LEAD or any of these other things, we're just putting more money where it doesn't belong. I don't think lawyers and cops should not be dealing with these situations. That's not where the money should go. The money should go to service providers, to housing, to professionals that deal with addiction or mental health issues - that's where the money needs to go and those are prioritized the least, and it's all about arrests and incarceration. And again, it's just like the sweeps - you're kicking the can - there's nothing about that that's going to solve the problem. And so no matter how many times someone gets arrested for these things, they're going to get out of jail. If it doesn't escalate into a felony and we're talking about the people that are these "high utilizers", or a couple years ago repeat offenders or prolific offenders, we're talking about a lot of misdemeanors. We're not talking about people with a bunch of murders or something like that. [00:40:24] Crystal Fincher: Committing violent crime, assaults - that type of thing. [00:40:27] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, so if we're talking about this low-level stuff, there's - it's a completely inadequate response that sucks up all of the resources needed to actually combat the problem. [00:40:39] Crystal Fincher: It does, and it is a real challenge. We have done this before, it has not worked. We keep spending resources on what has been proven to not work, while simultaneously demanding data that proves that doing anything else will completely solve this issue, and create a nirvana and just be the end-all and be-all, when that is actually not the standard that we're applying with our humongous expenditure of resources. And just another reminder that jail is really expensive. It costs a whole lot of money. The criminal, just our entire criminal legal system is a really, really costly system. So we do have a lot of resources available - we continue to make choices to spend them on lawyers, on jailing people, on all of the people and buildings and apparatus to support that. And when we actually have tons of data that that does not fix this problem - in fact, it is likely to make it worse. And so if we are focused on data-driven approaches, that is what is clearly being indicated - what we have a long track record locally that we can draw on that proves that, but certainly also looking nationally - so much data to back that up. We will have to see. The last thing I wanted to talk about was a story that came out this week - David Kroman wrote about it in the Times - with Harrell postponing Seattle Police Department's plan to crack down on disorderly conduct at Third Avenue bus stops. The police department was looking at using the City's criminal code regulating disorderly conduct on buses - things like smoking, playing loud music, littering, drinking alcohol, "loud raucous and harassing behavior" and other conduct that is inconsistent with the intended use and purpose of the transit facility, transit station or transit vehicle. These have often not been cited. We will put it in the episode notes - there's actually an article I need to track down by a bus driver that I thought was really thoughtful. And it does seem like it is a fact that there is more disruptive activity happening on buses than there was before. This bus driver was thoughtful and like, yeah, this is happening - and also there are lots of reasons why it's happening, and there are lots of reasons why taking a criminalizing approach may not be helpful, why taking a different kind of the law and order thing or just kicking people off buses may not be helpful. It's a complicated thing to solve. We do need to acknowledge that driver safety is important, that rider safety is important, but also have the lens that if we want to address this problem - again, like the conversation we just had - simply arresting and jailing someone actually doesn't fix and solve the problem. A lot of times this is a result and a symptom of failures in so many other places of people not having access to mental health treatment that they need, of substance use disorder treatment that they need, public health problems that we actually don't have those facilities for. What is your view on this, and on Mayor Harrell's decision to actually step in and postpone it? [00:44:34] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I think it's interesting because again, like as we already talked about, it's not a solution. There's lots of reasons for why these things are happening and it's not because there's lax enforcement. First of all, there is enforcement on buses - I've had many bus cases myself and there is some degree of enforcement. Is that something that's going to - or has that been working? Is it going to continue to work? Is the scope of the problem in a lack of enforcement? And it doesn't really seem to be. Like you said, there's lots of reasons that these things are happening. And when we're talking about mental health, addiction, housing - all of these things - addressing these things are going to help with those issues, but that's not what we put money towards. We just keep throwing it at this system that is not working. It's interesting to me that it was walked back - they're putting that on pause. And I wonder is that because they realize - oh, that's actually not going to make that much of a difference - but there's also the fact that buses and bus shelters are not under the City's jurisdiction. Those are county issues, so maybe that was not known - I don't know - beforehand. But when the City talks about cracking down on things going on on the buses, they don't have the jurisdiction to do that. So that could be one reason why it got walked back as well. [00:46:10] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. That's really interesting because - very clearly talking about enforcing things on buses - which yes, there is a jurisdiction issue there - but it also looks like they were planning to take action within 25 feet of transit stops. Is that defined as - technically the stop facility - or is there, I guess that's a really technical and wonky question, but I could totally imagine, to your point, that there are jurisdictional questions. [00:46:49] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, I don't know what that - I have not looked that up. No, I think that's under City jurisdiction - that would be under City jurisdiction. Yeah. Just not anything on a bus - I don't think would be. But yeah, I would have to look that up, but I do think that would be the City still. It just depends - there's different parts of the City, like when - I won't go into jurisdictional issues, because no one wants to talk about those things for long periods of time - but they don't have as much control. Let me just say - they don't have as much control over things going on on a bus as they think they do. If someone's committing a felony on the bus, then SPD could potentially get involved, but it's still - it's going to be prosecuted by the county. And if it's misdemeanors, the misdemeanors on a bus are also going to be prosecuted by the county, because of county - see, I could go on, it could be a really long time. [00:47:47] Crystal Fincher: Well, I just learned something because I did not know that misdemeanors committed on a bus would be prosecuted by the county and not city. Very interesting - these discussions are very interesting. But I think overall we'll just keep our eyes peeled on it and continue to update on it. Just another quick update in terms of the concrete workers strike - there was talk this week about some of them potentially returning to some job sites as a show of good faith and an attempt to lessen the impact on the greater community. That seems to have had mixed results and a mixed outcome where some talked about returning, others didn't. One particular company looked like workers were willing to return and the company was unwilling to let them work again. But again, we've seen city and county leaders say that they want a quick resolution and that this is impacting various projects around the county, but also workers need fair conditions. And the workers are saying, hey, they're asking us - when you consider inflation - to take a hit to our salary, to healthcare benefits, and to our pension - it's across the board. And companies saying, but we're technically offering more money than we did before and so it should all be good. And still not doing much to come to the table and participating in this activity - hoping that public pressure just forces the workers back and they can just ride out the storm and do nothing, and hope that public pressure does some negotiating on their behalf. So we will continue to follow it - the county, we had talked about before, had tried to issue an RFP to other companies to try and work around this and have greater protections for unionization and worker conditions. And that - no one responded to that RFP actually, so we seem to just be in this position - and unless there is some specific call or pressure, it seems like - on the companies to negotiate in better faith and to move closer to the workers, it looks like we're going to be stuck in this position for quite some time. So we will continue to see how that unfolds. And again, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on today, Friday, March 18th, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler, assistant producer Shannon Cheng, with assistance from Emma Mudd. And our wonderful co-host today is criminal defense attorney, abolitionist and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. You can find Nicole on Twitter @ntkallday, and you should be following Nicole. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii. Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcast - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced on the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Frustrated shop owners in Seattle say the cost of doing business downtown keeps climbing, and they point to concerns about safety as a major reason why.The Downtown Seattle Association says $564,000 was spent in the 2020/21 fiscal year, with most of that money from businesses going to private security firms.LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos everyday. https://bit.ly/3fs6dBUSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/seattlerealestatepodcast)

Tim spoke with Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia (20th District). They discussed the long care term act that Democrats passed last night and how Democrats repealed his bill without even bringing it to the floor. Also on the show, Jon Scholes, President and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association talking about the recovery of Downtown Seattle and the opening of a new PCC Market store opening in Downtown Seattle.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In March 2020, cities around the world shutdown all but the essential activities in the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19. Now, as vaccination rates in the Seattle area hover above 70%, businesses in the downtown core hope to see more traffic on the street and more customers coming through their doors. Jon Scholes, Executive Director of the Downtown Seattle Association, tells co-host Vivian Phillips that the arts are critical to the city's economic and social emergence from the pandemic.

Today Tim spoke with Former Washington State trooper Robert LaMay. Lamay is speaking out after being fired for defying the vaccine mandate. He explained why he told Democrat Governor Jay Inslee to "kiss my a--" after serving the public for 22 years. Also spoke about his concern over the future of the state. Tim also spoke with Jon Scholes, President and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association. Jon explained to us how the new vaccine verification mandate might affect the recovery of downtown Seattle.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Business and civic leaders on Thursday called for immediate action and investment to address the mental health and substance abuse crisis in downtown Seattle.Executives from Amazon.com Inc., Vulcan Inc. and Weyerhaeuser Co. were among the approximately five dozen signers of the letter, which the Downtown Seattle Association sent to the City Council and Metropolitan King County Council. It was full of hair-raising tales of assaults, vandalism and other crime.Among other things, the letter asked the city to adopt all of the public safety and housing investments, including increasing the number of Community Service Officers (CSO), proposed in Mayor Jenny Durkan's 2022 budget.Join your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW, and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic.https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2021/10/07/business-civic-leaders-downtown-action.htmlSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/seattlerealestatepodcast)

Concerns over crime in downtown Seattle escalated sharply this week after Weyerhaeuser reportedly delayed its return to its Pioneer Square headquarters due to neighborhood safety issues.In an email to employees, Denise Merle, Weyerhaeuser's chief administration officer, said the timber company won't bring workers back to the offices overlooking Occidental Park without “significant and sustained improvements in neighborhood safety,” according to a media report Thursday.  Weyerhaeuser declined to confirm the message or comment on the matter.But Jon Scholes, president and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, said that during a conversation with Weyerhaeuser officials in mid-September, “it was certainly made clear to me that they have not made a decision to return and won't until they see some improvement to safety in the neighborhood.”Join your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW, and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic.https://www.seattletimes.com/business/weyerhaeuser-cites-crime-in-pioneer-square-for-delay-in-reopening-its-seattle-headquarters/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/seattlerealestatepodcast)

DA33L€ on the "On Location" Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions and the Downtown Seattle Association 9/18/21 About "The DJ Sessions" - “The DJ Sessions" is a online/downloadable series featuring the hottest electronic music DJ's with live mixes and interviews, streamed live to a global audience. Check out the website: www.thedjsessions.com   With over 2,100 episodes produced over the last eleven years “The DJ Sessions”, a Twitch and Mixcloud “Featured Partner”, has featured international artists such as: BT, Simon Patterson, Lindsey Stirling, Mako, Morgan Page, Jes, Cut Chemist, Judge Jules, DubFX, DJs From Mars, Rudosa, Thievery Corporation, Sander Van Dorn, GAWP, Hollaphonic, Kissy Sell Out, Somna, David Morales, Roxanne, JB & Scooba, Massimo Vivona, Moulinx, Futuristic Polar Bears, Many Few, Joe Stone, Reboot, Truncate, Scotty Boy, Jody Wisternoff, Benny Bennasi, Dance Loud, Christopher Lawrence, Oliver Twizt, Ricardo Torres, Alex Harrington, 4 Strings, Sunshine Jones, Elite Force, Revolvr, Kenneth Thomas, Paul Oakenfold, George Acosta, Reid Speed, TyDi, Donald Glaude, Jimbo, Ricardo Torres, Hotel Garuda, Bryn Liedl, Rodg, Kems, Mr. Sam, Steve Aoki, Funtcase, Dirtyloud, Marco Bailey, Thousand Fingers, Dirtmonkey, Crystal Method, Beltek, Dyro, Andy Caldwell, Darin Epsilon, Kyau & Albert, Kutski, Vaski, Moguai, Blackliquid, Sunny Lax, Matt Darey, and many more.   In addition to featuring national/international artists “The DJ Sessions” featured hundreds local top DJs from their homebase of Seattle.   We have also undergone a massive upgrade in our TDJS studios and to our TDJS Mobile Studio to full HD streaming and HD audio to make the quality of the shows even better than before. Along with that we have launched a new website that now features our current live streams and past episodes in a much more user friendly mobile/social environment.   About The DJ Sessions Event Services - TDJSES is a WA State Non-profit charitable organization that's main purpose is to provide music, art, fashion, dance, and entertainment to local and regional communities via events and video production programming distributed through broadcast television and the internet for live and archival viewing.   "The DJ Sessions" is a Twitch "Featured Partner" and MixCloud "Featured Partner" series and has been recognized by Apple twice as a "New and Noteworthy" and "Featured Video” podcast. UStream and Livestream have also listed TDJS as a "Featured" stream in their lineups. The TDJS combined live streaming/podcast audience is over 125,000 viewers per week.   For all press inquiries regarding “The DJ Sessions”, or to schedule an interview with Darran Bruce, please contact us at info@thedjsessions.com  

DJ Dangerish on the "On Location" Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions and the Downtown Seattle Association 9/18/21 About DJ Dangerish - DJ Dangerish (Eric McNees) is a DJ, producer, audio engineer, music video/film producer, and just an all around great looking Seattle based friend. He started his music career playing guitar and writing songs in pop punk and emo bands from Spokane in the 2000s, with a first love in electronic music a'la big beats of The Crystal Method, The Chemical Brothers and Fat Boy Slim. In 2019 Eric began working directly with local Seattle Hip Hop artists such as Seven Da Pantha, collaborating, and remixing music of the Seattle scene. He brings Hip Hop to EDM, mixing up Tech House, Trance, PsyTrance, Big Beat with Hip Hop, Trap, and especially some of that Old School Boom Bap. Stay fresh! About "The DJ Sessions" - “The DJ Sessions" is a online/downloadable series featuring the hottest electronic music DJ's with live mixes and interviews, streamed live to a global audience. Check out the website: www.thedjsessions.com   With over 2,100 episodes produced over the last eleven years “The DJ Sessions”, a Twitch and Mixcloud “Featured Partner”, has featured international artists such as: BT, Simon Patterson, Lindsey Stirling, Mako, Morgan Page, Jes, Cut Chemist, Judge Jules, DubFX, DJs From Mars, Rudosa, Thievery Corporation, Sander Van Dorn, GAWP, Hollaphonic, Kissy Sell Out, Somna, David Morales, Roxanne, JB & Scooba, Massimo Vivona, Moulinx, Futuristic Polar Bears, Many Few, Joe Stone, Reboot, Truncate, Scotty Boy, Jody Wisternoff, Benny Bennasi, Dance Loud, Christopher Lawrence, Oliver Twizt, Ricardo Torres, Alex Harrington, 4 Strings, Sunshine Jones, Elite Force, Revolvr, Kenneth Thomas, Paul Oakenfold, George Acosta, Reid Speed, TyDi, Donald Glaude, Jimbo, Ricardo Torres, Hotel Garuda, Bryn Liedl, Rodg, Kems, Mr. Sam, Steve Aoki, Funtcase, Dirtyloud, Marco Bailey, Thousand Fingers, Dirtmonkey, Crystal Method, Beltek, Dyro, Andy Caldwell, Darin Epsilon, Kyau & Albert, Kutski, Vaski, Moguai, Blackliquid, Sunny Lax, Matt Darey, and many more.   In addition to featuring national/international artists “The DJ Sessions” featured hundreds local top DJs from their homebase of Seattle.   We have also undergone a massive upgrade in our TDJS studios and to our TDJS Mobile Studio to full HD streaming and HD audio to make the quality of the shows even better than before. Along with that we have launched a new website that now features our current live streams and past episodes in a much more user friendly mobile/social environment.   About The DJ Sessions Event Services - TDJSES is a WA State Non-profit charitable organization that's main purpose is to provide music, art, fashion, dance, and entertainment to local and regional communities via events and video production programming distributed through broadcast television and the internet for live and archival viewing.   "The DJ Sessions" is a Twitch "Featured Partner" and MixCloud "Featured Partner" series and has been recognized by Apple twice as a "New and Noteworthy" and "Featured Video” podcast. UStream and Livestream have also listed TDJS as a "Featured" stream in their lineups. The TDJS combined live streaming/podcast audience is over 125,000 viewers per week.   For all press inquiries regarding “The DJ Sessions”, or to schedule an interview with Darran Bruce, please contact us at info@thedjsessions.com  

DA33L€ on the "On Location" Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions and the Downtown Seattle Association 9/17/21 About "The DJ Sessions" - “The DJ Sessions" is a online/downloadable series featuring the hottest electronic music DJ's with live mixes and interviews, streamed live to a global audience. Check out the website: www.thedjsessions.com   With over 2,100 episodes produced over the last eleven years “The DJ Sessions”, a Twitch and Mixcloud “Featured Partner”, has featured international artists such as: BT, Simon Patterson, Lindsey Stirling, Mako, Morgan Page, Jes, Cut Chemist, Judge Jules, DubFX, DJs From Mars, Rudosa, Thievery Corporation, Sander Van Dorn, GAWP, Hollaphonic, Kissy Sell Out, Somna, David Morales, Roxanne, JB & Scooba, Massimo Vivona, Moulinx, Futuristic Polar Bears, Many Few, Joe Stone, Reboot, Truncate, Scotty Boy, Jody Wisternoff, Benny Bennasi, Dance Loud, Christopher Lawrence, Oliver Twizt, Ricardo Torres, Alex Harrington, 4 Strings, Sunshine Jones, Elite Force, Revolvr, Kenneth Thomas, Paul Oakenfold, George Acosta, Reid Speed, TyDi, Donald Glaude, Jimbo, Ricardo Torres, Hotel Garuda, Bryn Liedl, Rodg, Kems, Mr. Sam, Steve Aoki, Funtcase, Dirtyloud, Marco Bailey, Thousand Fingers, Dirtmonkey, Crystal Method, Beltek, Dyro, Andy Caldwell, Darin Epsilon, Kyau & Albert, Kutski, Vaski, Moguai, Blackliquid, Sunny Lax, Matt Darey, and many more.   In addition to featuring national/international artists “The DJ Sessions” featured hundreds local top DJs from their homebase of Seattle.   We have also undergone a massive upgrade in our TDJS studios and to our TDJS Mobile Studio to full HD streaming and HD audio to make the quality of the shows even better than before. Along with that we have launched a new website that now features our current live streams and past episodes in a much more user friendly mobile/social environment.   About The DJ Sessions Event Services - TDJSES is a WA State Non-profit charitable organization that's main purpose is to provide music, art, fashion, dance, and entertainment to local and regional communities via events and video production programming distributed through broadcast television and the internet for live and archival viewing.   "The DJ Sessions" is a Twitch "Featured Partner" and MixCloud "Featured Partner" series and has been recognized by Apple twice as a "New and Noteworthy" and "Featured Video” podcast. UStream and Livestream have also listed TDJS as a "Featured" stream in their lineups. The TDJS combined live streaming/podcast audience is over 125,000 viewers per week.   For all press inquiries regarding “The DJ Sessions”, or to schedule an interview with Darran Bruce, please contact us at info@thedjsessions.com  

DJ Dangerish on the "On Location" Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions and the Downtown Seattle Association 9/10/21 About DJ Dangerish - DJ Dangerish (Eric McNees) is a DJ, producer, audio engineer, music video/film producer, and just an all around great looking Seattle based friend. He started his music career playing guitar and writing songs in pop punk and emo bands from Spokane in the 2000s, with a first love in electronic music a'la big beats of The Crystal Method, The Chemical Brothers and Fat Boy Slim. In 2019 Eric began working directly with local Seattle Hip Hop artists such as Seven Da Pantha, collaborating, and remixing music of the Seattle scene. He brings Hip Hop to EDM, mixing up Tech House, Trance, PsyTrance, Big Beat with Hip Hop, Trap, and especially some of that Old School Boom Bap. Stay fresh! About "The DJ Sessions" - “The DJ Sessions" is a online/downloadable series featuring the hottest electronic music DJ's with live mixes and interviews, streamed live to a global audience. Check out the website: www.thedjsessions.com   With over 2,000 episodes produced over the last eleven years “The DJ Sessions”, a Twitch and Mixcloud “Featured Partner”, has featured international artists such as: BT, Simon Patterson, Lindsey Stirling, Mako, Morgan Page, Jes, Cut Chemist, Judge Jules, DubFX, DJs From Mars, Rudosa, Thievery Corporation, Sander Van Dorn, GAWP, Hollaphonic, Kissy Sell Out, Somna, David Morales, Roxanne, JB & Scooba, Massimo Vivona, Moulinx, Futuristic Polar Bears, Many Few, Joe Stone, Reboot, Truncate, Scotty Boy, Jody Wisternoff, Benny Bennasi, Dance Loud, Christopher Lawrence, Oliver Twizt, Ricardo Torres, Alex Harrington, 4 Strings, Sunshine Jones, Elite Force, Revolvr, Kenneth Thomas, Paul Oakenfold, George Acosta, Reid Speed, TyDi, Donald Glaude, Jimbo, Ricardo Torres, Hotel Garuda, Bryn Liedl, Rodg, Kems, Mr. Sam, Steve Aoki, Funtcase, Dirtyloud, Marco Bailey, Thousand Fingers, Dirtmonkey, Crystal Method, Beltek, Dyro, Andy Caldwell, Darin Epsilon, Kyau & Albert, Kutski, Vaski, Moguai, Blackliquid, Sunny Lax, Matt Darey, and many more.   In addition to featuring national/international artists “The DJ Sessions” featured hundreds local top DJs from their homebase of Seattle.   We have also undergone a massive upgrade in our TDJS studios and to our TDJS Mobile Studio to full HD streaming and HD audio to make the quality of the shows even better than before. Along with that we have launched a new website that now features our current live streams and past episodes in a much more user friendly mobile/social environment.   About The DJ Sessions Event Services - TDJSES is a WA State Non-profit charitable organization that's main purpose is to provide music, art, fashion, dance, and entertainment to local and regional communities via events and video production programming distributed through broadcast television and the internet for live and archival viewing.   "The DJ Sessions" is a Twitch "Featured Partner" and MixCloud "Featured Partner" series and has been recognized by Apple twice as a "New and Noteworthy" and "Featured Video” podcast. UStream and Livestream have also listed TDJS as a "Featured" stream in their lineups. The TDJS combined live streaming/podcast audience is over 125,000 viewers per week.   For all press inquiries regarding “The DJ Sessions”, or to schedule an interview with Darran Bruce, please contact us at info@thedjsessions.com  

DA33L€ on the "On Location" Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions and the Downtown Seattle Association 9/10/21 About DJ Dangerish - DJ Dangerish (Eric McNees) is a DJ, producer, audio engineer, music video/film producer, and just an all around great looking Seattle based friend. He started his music career playing guitar and writing songs in pop punk and emo bands from Spokane in the 2000s, with a first love in electronic music a'la big beats of The Crystal Method, The Chemical Brothers and Fat Boy Slim. In 2019 Eric began working directly with local Seattle Hip Hop artists such as Seven Da Pantha, collaborating, and remixing music of the Seattle scene. He brings Hip Hop to EDM, mixing up Tech House, Trance, PsyTrance, Big Beat with Hip Hop, Trap, and especially some of that Old School Boom Bap. Stay fresh! About "The DJ Sessions" - “The DJ Sessions" is a online/downloadable series featuring the hottest electronic music DJ's with live mixes and interviews, streamed live to a global audience. Check out the website: www.thedjsessions.com   With over 2,000 episodes produced over the last eleven years “The DJ Sessions”, a Twitch and Mixcloud “Featured Partner”, has featured international artists such as: BT, Simon Patterson, Lindsey Stirling, Mako, Morgan Page, Jes, Cut Chemist, Judge Jules, DubFX, DJs From Mars, Rudosa, Thievery Corporation, Sander Van Dorn, GAWP, Hollaphonic, Kissy Sell Out, Somna, David Morales, Roxanne, JB & Scooba, Massimo Vivona, Moulinx, Futuristic Polar Bears, Many Few, Joe Stone, Reboot, Truncate, Scotty Boy, Jody Wisternoff, Benny Bennasi, Dance Loud, Christopher Lawrence, Oliver Twizt, Ricardo Torres, Alex Harrington, 4 Strings, Sunshine Jones, Elite Force, Revolvr, Kenneth Thomas, Paul Oakenfold, George Acosta, Reid Speed, TyDi, Donald Glaude, Jimbo, Ricardo Torres, Hotel Garuda, Bryn Liedl, Rodg, Kems, Mr. Sam, Steve Aoki, Funtcase, Dirtyloud, Marco Bailey, Thousand Fingers, Dirtmonkey, Crystal Method, Beltek, Dyro, Andy Caldwell, Darin Epsilon, Kyau & Albert, Kutski, Vaski, Moguai, Blackliquid, Sunny Lax, Matt Darey, and many more.   In addition to featuring national/international artists “The DJ Sessions” featured hundreds local top DJs from their homebase of Seattle.   We have also undergone a massive upgrade in our TDJS studios and to our TDJS Mobile Studio to full HD streaming and HD audio to make the quality of the shows even better than before. Along with that we have launched a new website that now features our current live streams and past episodes in a much more user friendly mobile/social environment.   About The DJ Sessions Event Services - TDJSES is a WA State Non-profit charitable organization that's main purpose is to provide music, art, fashion, dance, and entertainment to local and regional communities via events and video production programming distributed through broadcast television and the internet for live and archival viewing.   "The DJ Sessions" is a Twitch "Featured Partner" and MixCloud "Featured Partner" series and has been recognized by Apple twice as a "New and Noteworthy" and "Featured Video” podcast. UStream and Livestream have also listed TDJS as a "Featured" stream in their lineups. The TDJS combined live streaming/podcast audience is over 125,000 viewers per week.   For all press inquiries regarding “The DJ Sessions”, or to schedule an interview with Darran Bruce, please contact us at info@thedjsessions.com  

Today Tim spoke with Jon Scholes, President and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association. They just filed an emergency motion of appeal for the Compassion Seattle charter amendment. Tim also spoke with Washington State Trooper Robert Lamay who says he'll take a firing -- as will hundreds other -- if they reject his religious exemption on the vaccine mandate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW with Nicole Jennings // Jon Scholes, President and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, joins us to discuss: is Seattle dying? // SCENARIOS See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Missed the Hacks & Wonks consultant roundtable? Never fear! On today's show you'll catch up on the first half of it. Consultants Riall Johnson of Prism Consulting, Michael Charles of Upper Left Strategies, and Heather Weiner join Crystal to discuss the results of the primary elections earlier this month, and what we can expect from the rest of election season. On today's show they discuss the mayoral primary election results, Charter Amendment 29 / Compassion Seattle, and the primary results for City Council Position 9 (City Wide). As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii, Michael Charles at @mikeychuck, Heather Weiner at @hlweiner, and Riall Johnson at @RiallJohnson. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Watch the entire consultant roundtable here: https://twitter.com/finchfrii/status/1425987129218240517?s=21 “Bruce Harrell, M. Lorena González eye November race after dominating Seattle's mayoral primary” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/bruce-harrell-m-lorena-gonzalez-eye-november-race-after-dominating-seattles-mayoral-primary/ “2021 Primary Precinct Results Show Familiar Rich vs. Rent-burdened Battle Lines” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/08/19/2021-primary-precinct-results-show-familiar-rich-vs-rent-burdened-battle-lines/ “The C Is for Crank: Correcting the Record on Compassion Seattle” by Erica C. Barnett at Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/07/13/the-c-is-for-crank-correcting-the-record-on-compassion-seattle/ “Seattle mayoral race filled with ads, PAC money, and cash” by David Hyde and Gracie Todd at KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/stories/as-candidates-court-voters-with-campaign-ads-pac-cash-flows-into-seattle-s-mayoral-race “Where This Year's Campaign Money Is Coming From” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/06/15/where-this-years-campaign-money-is-coming-from/ “Seattle's 2021 primary just set up a ‘battle royale' in November” by Angela King from KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-primary-sets-up-battle-royale-in-november “Nikkita Oliver overtakes Sara Nelson to assume the lead for Seattle City Council #9” by Andrew Villeneuve: https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2021/08/nikkita-oliver-overtakes-sara-nelson-to-assume-the-lead-for-seattle-city-council-9.html Carolyn Bick's coverage of policing for the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/?s=carolyn+bick   Transcript Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks, to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work. And, provide behind the scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com, and in our episode notes. Hello, welcome to the Hacks & Wonks Post-Primary Consultant Round Table. I'm Crystal Fincher, the host of Hacks & Wonks, and a political consultant. And today, I'm thrilled to be joined by three of my favorite political consultants, to break down what happened and last week's primary election. First, I want to introduce Riall Johnson. Hey, Riall, thank you for joining us. Also, Heather Weiner. Hello. And, Michael Charles. So, I just wanted to start off by letting you give a quick synopsis of what you've been doing, what you're working on this cycle, and the types of races that you work on. So, I will start with Riall. Riall Johnson: Hi, thanks for having me. Riall Johnson, manager of Prism Washington. We've work on a lot of progressive campaigns around the region. We had about 16 candidates running this year for office. 12 of them were people of color, 15 of them ended up making it through the primary or didn't have a primary. So, we count those going through. So, hopefully, all 50 of them can win the general, but a lot of, just really focused on helping candidates that usually don't have the institutional support getting that leg up, especially at the beginning of the campaign, to make it to overcome those hurdles, and making more people from the community run for office. Crystal Fincher: Thank you. And, Michael Charles. Michael Charles: Great. My name is Michael Charles. I'm the managing partner of Upper Left Strategies. We have about eight candidates this cycle, which I did 15 before Riall, That's why I don't have any hair anymore. But yeah, we're excited. But we're similar to Riall. We work with progressive folks. We really like challenging the establishment and taking on tough races that people don't expect our folks to win. And we really like to do good job and get out there and win. So, we're excited this cycle, to have a lot of good candidates, countywide and citywide, and we're just excited about the work we're doing. And, thanks for having me here today. Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And, Heather Weiner. Heather Weiner: I am so honored to be here with you Crystal and also with Riall and Michael, who have just been kicking some serious butt over the last few years, and particularly, in this cycle. In contrast, I'm only working as a consultant with Lorena González. Who's running for mayor in Seattle. And most of the campaigns that I'm working on, are not on the ballot this year. They're mostly issue in legislative campaigns. Crystal Fincher: You said that super, all modest, only working on Lorena González. Basically, if you want to win a ballot initiative, you call Heather Wiener, is basically where we're at. Well-known for so many big progressive wins. So, thrilled to have you along with Riall and Michael Charles here, with Crystal Fincher with Fincher Consulting. I have worked with a lot of candidates. Now, mostly focusing on ballot initiatives and independent expenditures, but I wanted to kick off this conversation, starting off, looking at the Seattle mayoral race. Heather, you just mentioned that you're working with Lorena González, who was one of the two candidates who made it through, along with Bruce Harrell. So, starting off, what do you think of the results? Was this what you were expecting? And? what do you think this says about the voters in Seattle? Heather Weiner: Well, let me give you, first, my spin answer. Oh, yeah. We knew that Lorena was definitely going to be in the top two, and come within two points. That seems totally natural and we just totally thought that that was what's going to happen. Okay. Now, let me give you the real answer. Oh, my God. We were blown away. We knew we were going to be in the top two, but we thought that Bruce Harrell would have a larger lead, at this point, that he would have coalesced some of the Republicans/more conservative elements. And, particularly with the results that we saw in some of the other races, we definitely thought that Lorena would be in the twenties. So, we were very surprised at her great showing there. And, I do have to say a lot of that had to do with name recognition, of course. Also, the amazing amount of support that she got from labor. And also, I think the people who are informed voters in the primary being concerned about, Bruce Harrell, making it through. So, I was very excited. And in fact, I think, made a fool out of myself in the party, some bloggers and reporters reported on somebody running around cheering and making an ass out of herself. And that, I will 100% admit, was me. Crystal Fincher: So, for Michael and Riall, we all saw the public that was done in this. So, I'm sure we all heard about some of the internal cooling from the campaigns that showed a lot of voters, the majority of the voters undecided heading into the final stages of the primary campaign. But, I think it's fair to characterize the polling as showing Bruce and Lorena González in the lead. Bruce, usually, leading those as Heather mentioned, by a wider margin. Then, we saw in the actual results. But, we also saw that Colleen Echohawk seem to have more traction in polling, then resulted in the final election tally that Jessyn Farrell was talking about different stuff. So, what do you think accounts for the polling that we saw and the difference in the results that we got? Michael Charles: I do think that these folks were really independent, or they were undecided at the time, but as I've stated many times on your show, that I think there's two parties in Seattle now, it's the Seattle Times and it's The Stranger. And, those two make up the bulk of voters in Seattle, now. And if you get The Stranger vote, you're going to make up the mind to a lot of those undecided voters that were deciding between Colleen. And I thought that The Stranger actually, devastatingly for Colleen, made a pretty good argument for why you wouldn't want to vote for her. Crystal Fincher: What do you think, Riall? Riall Johnson: Yeah. The Stranger and the times are really big forces in terms of the primary vote and who else gets through. One thing I know is, I worked with Andrew Grant Houston (Ace). We had a lot of people that gave vouchers to Andrew, but they still voted for Lorena. Basically, out of a lot of fear for someone, they feel that Lorena was the person that could beat Bruce. And, it's a valid argument, that you're afraid of giving us some money and then and then voted for someone else, because they didn't probably didn't feel Ace had the name recognition to get to the general. Well, like I said, it's disappointing. And of course, on my end, but also, you see why it happened. And I think what's like other candidates, people always talk about wanting to change and new, but also experiencing new recognition still hold strong in a lot of things.   Riall Johnson: And I think that's what Lorena did. She did a great job of wrapping up a lot of the union support, I think coalescing in progressive organizations show that she built a good coalition of progressive establishment support, which I think, really carried her through. And, that's what The Stranger saw. I think Colleen, I was actually, even when we first heard about Colleen, excited about, I think you saw like who was supporting her and the policies. There wasn't really a lot lining a lot with Bruce, I think, which made people fall off in the end, and then when people, primary numbers do look at platforms and they see what that Lorena's platform was more of on progressive side, than they were with Colleen. And I think that's what helped, in the end, probably steer people away from Colleen towards Lorena.   Heather Weiner: I really wanted to find out from you two, what you thought about some of the negative messaging that was out there, from people on the right who were sending out, the Seattle is dying type mail. Seattle had enough, was a mail that I saw. Did you think that that would depress votes, do you think that's motivating to voters? What do you think is the interaction with that kind of campaigning?   Riall Johnson: It probably depresses you, because voter turnout was low. Way lower than I expected. I was hoping there would be some residual voter turnout increase from the 2020 election, where 75%, 85% of Seattle voted. And now it's down to, 36% right now. Something like that, but we're going to probably crack for you hopefully by the end, maybe. So, it's lower than it was two years ago, I think, it looks like, so far. The Seattle is dying message has been going on for 100, years as we've seen it. It's like, if it's not dead by now, then Seattle is just immortal. And, I think that the whole point is like, people are catching on, that it's just right-wing propaganda to say, like, the fastest growing in the country, is dying.   Riall Johnson: And it's just like, if it's dying, how come there's so much economic boom here? The only thing that I'll say is, Seattle is actually choking and it's choking the poor, and it's choking the working-class because people are getting priced out, because the rich here, are thriving so much in this booming the city. And, that's why we see people just... you If anything is dying, it's like, we're getting pushed out because of just the unfair... If anything is the right wing haven. I always joke about Seattle just because there's no income tax, billionaires live here for a reason. They get to crap on poor. I'm not allowed to cussing here, I would. And, the police get to get away with anything they want. It's just like, this is not the progressive city we live in. And I think, that narrative of Seattle dying, it's just more just demonizing homeless and demonizing poor people that make it feel like, people feel just because they see homeless is icky, and they want to just sweep them away with police. One thing that resonate is that, I think-   Michael Charles: Yeah. That's what I was going to say too, Riall, around the homelessness. And I think that, this election is so much about homelessness. It's the top issue. Everybody wants to talk about homelessness. And, I think if anything, that messaging drove people to think, who has the vision that's in line with me about how I think homelessness can be solved in the region. And I think that, especially considering that I feel like this electorate is probably the most conservative electorate you'll see every four years, which is post presidential election, primary in a city. It's going to be the most conservative electorate we can see, which I also think speaks to how powerful, or what strong positioning Lorena's in. And, that was literally the most conservative electorate we're going to see. And if she's only two points behind, that really makes me feel like she's connecting, clearly, on some issues with some folks, that otherwise wouldn't feel the same. And if anything, I think that actually helped Lorena in that case, to be honest, where a lot of the people that are tired of this messaging of Seattle's dying or like, I'm just tired of hearing it. So, they're going to vote for somebody that they think, actually, is the opposite of that. And so-   Heather Weiner: It's so interesting, because we know we did some polling about public safety issues. Because we saw some of the polling that was coming out of other... I was in the public polling that was talking about, oh, people are really scared. There's a big safety issue going on. People are really scared about crime. And certainly, you would think so, in seeing KIRO, KOMO, Q13, some of the mainstream media coverage of this, but when we actually ask people, "Well, how safe do you feel in your neighborhood?"   Heather Weiner: 83% said they felt very safe. So, we feel scared about what's happening somewhere else because that's what we're being told to feel. But, what we see with our own eyes and our own neighborhoods is, yeah, there are people who are living on the street and they are human beings and they are my neighbors, and I feel compassion and empathy to them. And we can also talk about Compassion Seattle. I hope that's on the agenda.   Crystal Fincher: It is on the agenda.   Heather Weiner: Before I give up the mic, let me just say, shout out to Riall, who helped his candidate max out on vouchers. He was the first one to help his candidate max out on vouchers, in the mayoral campaign, which is mind boggling hard, particularly for a candidate that most people haven't heard of. And then the second thing is, your candidate, Andrew, was so smart. So on-message, so unapologetic about the positions that he was taking. I think he did drive the narrative and drive the message and drive the debate on it. And so, I'm going to be able to say sorry. I'm sorry to not have him at those the upcoming forums. I really enjoyed having him there. I was totally into his headbands.   Michael Charles: And, Riall is unquestionable at getting vouchers at this point. I just think everybody needs to know that, that is undoubtedly the case.   Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. There is not anyone who is in the same tier, as Riall and Prism, when it comes to voucher game. Extends into regular signature gathering. Just fantastic, incredible job. And you just set a new bar throughout this cycle. The other thing-   Michael Charles: When you're making an establishment, you're managing to do something right.   Crystal Fincher: Yes.   Riall Johnson: They only had a few hearings about it.   Crystal Fincher: Change some rules in the middle of the cycle. One thing I wanted to just circle back on a little bit was, talking about the whole Seattle is dying narrative, which clearly didn't carry like people thought it would carry. And I think we've talked about this on the show before, but that is such a narrative. I think people confuse that narrative. I think sometimes, there are some entities when you look at historically like their cost per vote are very bad. A lot of times the more, business focused chamber candidate ask those ies, a lot of times, they're are not the most efficient at driving out votes.   Crystal Fincher: And it takes all that money that they throw at candidates, to drag them across the finish line. But that Seattle is dying narrative, does not work in Seattle. And I think, sometimes, people have some blinders on, within Seattle, thinking that that's an effective thing, when really that narrative works for people who are not familiar with Seattle, who don't live in Seattle, who are outside of Seattle. That's where that's gaining traction. But as you mentioned, Heather, that polling matches up with everything that we've seen before. And that, people who live in Seattle, don't feel that. They don't feel that as they're walking through their neighborhood, that they feel like they're in danger. They don't feel like, "Oh, the city that we thought we knew that this was utopia, is now this barren wasteland." And, there's lawlessness and anarchy and seeing the...   Heather Weiner: Well, let's be honest. There are a lot more people who are living on the street. And, with people living on the street, we are seeing, we are visually experiencing more trash or seeing people who are suffering more, we're seeing more drug use. And as a result, we all feel very uncomfortable. But, let's go back to what Riall was saying, which is, when you're talking about who's to blame here and what really the problem is, the problem is that, the money that was taken out of housing, out of mental health, out of treatment services back in 2011 by the State Legislature, was never put back into those budgets. And the cities and counties have then been left with the bill. And they are the ones who are now responsible for taking care of people who are being evicted, who can no longer pay the rent because of the recession, for the expansion of substance use disorder, because of trauma. And as a result, who's got to pay? And let me just go here and channel Andrew Grant Houston and say, big corporations are the ones who have got to pay, because they are the ones who are hoarding the wealth. Okay. I'm not running for office.   Crystal Fincher: Well, so I guess that, that is an interesting conversation. And looking at some of the other candidates, I guess a couple things. One, it appears that candidates who did favor the Compassion Seattle amendment, got more votes than candidates who did not favor the Compassion Seattle amendment, with the caveat that this is a primary election that we-   Michael Charles: But it was only Jessyn and Bruce, right, that really we're in favor of it, right?   Crystal Fincher: And Casey Sixkiller.   Michael Charles: And Sixkiller.   Crystal Fincher: Yeah.   Heather Weiner: Oh, yeah. Okay. That's right. That's probably true.   Riall Johnson: Colleen was, and then she wasn't.   Heather Weiner: And then she wasn't.   Michael Charles: Yeah. She's like half.   Heather Weiner: Yeah, yeah. Pretty close. Somebody who's listening, do the math.   Crystal Fincher: Yeah. It was there, but it was a primary electorate. There is not much messaging about Compassion Seattle. To your point, Heather, we're just getting started with the citywide conversation on Compassion Seattle. And, I think part of the challenge of it, as someone people who listened to Hacks & Wonks are not going to be surprised that I oppose the Compassion Seattle Charter Amendment 29, because it's codifying suites and doesn't do much to actually solve the root problems that cause homelessness. But, the messaging on it, the name, Compassion Seattle, the headlines that you hear on the evening news, it guarantees money to be spent on services and provides a humane, compassionate way to address the problem. Those are all things that people want. And, we haven't really gotten into a wide discussion city-wide or communication to people who don't pay attention to politics that much, on what the details of this actually are, and how might differ from the rhetoric there. So, candidates like Jessyn Farrell and Bruce Harrell, supported it. Do you think that is going to help or hinder them in the general election?   Riall Johnson: I think it's going to hinder them. We had to contend with these people on the streets and it was just a horrible initiative there. One night on the streets. And it was just like, they would try to take over terse on where people gathering voters were. Heather experienced it. So, you just use people. The way they did about that, they were just trying to bully their way into this initiative, and then bully in their way on the ballot. And it was really easy to get someone to see the side of things, if you pitched things right...   Riall Johnson: Because, that messaging, they would just say, it's going to help the homeless. Anything you can say can help the homeless' assaults objective. And, everyone wants to help the homeless, but the question is, what are they going to do about it? This whole thing about guaranteeing money, we've already been spending money on the homeless. Question is, what we do with it. People keep trying to blame the council for the problems. At this point, I can blame the council for, or get mad at them. But the thing is that, council is only like 20% of power, in the city. The rest of it resides in the mayor.   Riall Johnson: And we have had a corporate conservative mayor, for the last three decades. Maybe with the exception of Mike McGinn, he had his issues. With Ed Murray and Jenny Durkan, Tim Burgess and Bruce Harrell, who was also here, the last five mayors, and any before that. It's just been, corporate supported backed mayors, have just done with the corporations, one of them to do with Seattle and always giving police more money, giving corporations whatever they want, and then stripped funding. Even if when they get funding, they just don't spend it on housing or homeless situations. They just spend it on sweeping them, and sweeping money the other way. So it was like, we said we'd put money in it. We've been putting money at the sweeps, not even foreign money, actual housing. And, the mayor is the plane for all that, because council has given the mayor money for this, and mayor just doesn't choose it use it.   Riall Johnson: And people need to realize, the power resides in the mayor's office. That's why Andrew ran the first place. He's like, "We can be the most progressive City Council ever. We can be nine out of nine progressive City Council." Well, I think unless the mayor actually does what we ask them to do, which they have the choice not to. And, Durkan has been declining these choices in the county, misusing this money. There's not much a council can really do in the city. And, the thing is, unless they get they can do more to approve both, but we don't have that full progressive council. It's funny how they only try and blame Kshama or Tammy or the three per actual progressive, or the councils, or four progressive... But, they don't have the full power. Lorena has given money and shepherded a lot of bills, just doesn't get spent right. And even to that, I don't want to blame Bruce for everything the council do either, because the council can only do so much. Heather Weiner: Yeah, it's not a weak mayor, government that we have. It's a very strong mayor form of government that we have here. On C29, one of the things that's in the news, I don't know if you guys have seen, is that ACLU and some homelessness advocates and Transit Riders Union just filed a lawsuit yesterday, challenging C29. And, I am a lawyer. I don't play one on TV, but I think they have a good chance. And I don't want to bore your listeners by telling them why they have a good chance, but actually, I think they have a good chance. And, I think it also helps by ACLU, getting their name into the press, talking about how they oppose this, I think that also weakens that unofficial backdoor IE, that the Downtown Seattle Association and the chamber have going, right now.   Michael Charles: Well, polling has backed up that people are actually like, when they hear this on the surface, it's actually not a bad idea. And so, it's, I'm worried that with no official... We have a small amount of opposition, but I think Heather's right. I think that there's a good chance this gets through right now. And, without the right information, without people really understanding what's in the bill here, it's a really good chance it's going to pass. People are looking for a plan. People are looking for a vision. People want just something done on homelessness.   Heather Weiner: Right. And, if you look at their messaging, it's very much about the council, the council, the council. So, pointing the finger at them. So, yeah, I think C29 is going to be really interesting. I know you guys don't want to talk about Seattle politics the whole time, so I'll be quiet.   Riall Johnson: Isn't that what we're here for?   Crystal Fincher: Yeah.   Heather Weiner: Well, there are, actually, other cities in King County.   Crystal Fincher: There are, and we will get to them.   Michael Charles: Crystal lives in one of them. Just throwing that out there.   Crystal Fincher: I live in one of them, and I'm excited. We had one primary race. And, the candidate shares the same last name with me in Kent, and her results as the local paper record said, she dominated her two opponents. So, pleased with that, but-   Michael Charles: With minimal spend, mind you.   Crystal Fincher: Minimal spend, that cost per votes. It's pretty impressive. Nice work on that, Michael Charles. But, I do want to just put a bow on Charter BIM at 29. I'm looking forward to that lawsuit. I agree with the panel here, that the anti-campaign has a tough road, just because of the simplicity of the message favoring the pro-campaign. The devil really is in the details, significant devil in the details. But, you have to get to the details. And that's really hard without a concerted communication effort, which takes a lot of resources. And, the pro-campaign, clearly has the resource advantage. Doesn't mean it's impossible. Just means that the work is cut out for the anti-Charter Amendment 29 campaign ahead, but I'm sure they're going to have a lot of eager and talented people willing to put in that work.   Riall Johnson: Yeah. All you gotta do is tell people, "He's following the money. Look at who's funding him."   Crystal Fincher: Seriously. And, there was a story I think, by Jim Brunner this past week in the Seattle Times, talking about Trump's number one booster in the state giving to both the Bruce Harrell campaign, and the Charter Amendment 29 campaign.   Heather Weiner: Yeah. And, Bruce Harrell's IE. Let's make sure to give credit where credit's due. That was Danny Westneat, of all people.   Crystal Fincher: It was Danny Westneat.   Heather Weiner: Yes. Danny Westneat published that, just when I think I broke up with him.   Michael Charles: George Petrie is also one of the people that are fighting the eviction moratorium the most, that wants to end that. So, I would just throw that out there as well. Heather Weiner: Yeah. The landlord.   Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I hope to see covered in the general election, the story of campaign spending. It's an undertold story. And so many, especially Seattle campaigns and mayoral campaigns, I think that we have ignored to our detriment, the story of donors. Certainly, during the past two with Durkan and with Ed Murray, their rhetoric said one thing, their donor listed something completely different.   Michael Charles: I would add Dow Constantine to that list as well, as somebody who takes money from Amazon and lots of other places as well.   Crystal Fincher: It's something I think is a fair question to ask candidates. These are investments for access and policy from businesses, and you just have to ask them, why do they feel it's a good investment in that candidate? What return do they think they're getting? It's fair to ask that, for a lot of different ones. But, I think that one lesson we need to learn in politics is that, it's not that candidates are bought and sold, but organizations, companies know where a candidate stands, and they're giving with an expected result. And usually, that turns out to be correct. When you look at how someone governs, usually, there are no surprises when you look at their donors. That's something that Seattle voters have a history of ignoring. I hope they pay attention this time. And, I hope the media pays attention this time. That story by Danny Westneat, I thought it was excellent. I hope to see more.   Heather Weiner: Yeah, don't say that too loud. If he hears you, he's going to write something completely opposite of it.   Michael Charles: And shout out to like Erica. Erica Barnett, normally does a really good piece every year. I don't know. I didn't pay attention as close to this year. She did one on the mayor's race or City Council, but she normally does an excellent job on this, every year.   Crystal Fincher: She's been on top of it in covering that, in addition with Charter Amendment 29 also. So, PubliCola has been on that. The Urbanist has been doing more coverage of that, and has had a lot of great stories throughout that, in addition to the South Seattle Emerald. So, a hat tip to local Seattle media for being engaged in helping to hold candidates accountable and help to inform voter.   Heather Weiner: And to City Hall reporters, it is a thankless job but there's new people coming out. New people, you're sitting on Twitter who are following what's happening in City Hall. And, I really appreciate that, as a thankless job. I want to hear what you guys have to think about council race nine. Crystal Fincher: Yeah.   Riall Johnson: So first off, shout out to Carolyn Bick, as well for in South Seattle Emerald.   Crystal Fincher: Excellent.   Riall Johnson: Council race nine, this is like a lot of hopes and dreams you've been thinking about a little bit, that someone that doesn't have to follow the party establishment framework can actually win. And so, Nikkita getting through the primary gives hope that, we could actually break free of those two party system. And, that's my biggest joy from seeing Nikkita get through. It's just like, not only is that seeing someone from the community that's put in so much work in that leading movements, or imagine, leading protests, showing that and seeing that reflecting the electorate without party support, without party politics. Started their own party, and getting through and leading is just hugely exciting to watch the potential of that.   Riall Johnson: It's not the first person, obviously, Shannon did as well, Andrew did as well, but city-wide, was getting that much support. It's a testament to the community organizer that Nikkita is. And of course, I'm really good friends with the campaign manager, Shaun Scott, who's an amazing organizer. He's just knows how to get people without... You see their posts, you see 100 people coming up to campus. Because, they just got excited for that person. And that resonates with voters regardless of party. I think the side of that campaigns has been very contagious.   Heather Weiner: I love just to see some of the volunteer art around town. I had my two nieces visiting here from Florida, and all they could talk about was Nikkita. They're both 14 and 16, and they saw the art around town, and they were starting to tell me about this candidate named Nikkita. It was really inspiring and really interesting. I want to hear the T though. Let's say, I'm not involved with either DSA or the People's Party, what is going to happen if we have Nikkita and Shaun, both on the City Council? What do you think will happen? Will they work together? Do you think there's going to be tension? What's happening there?   Riall Johnson: I wish I could tell you. I don't know.   Michael Charles: Well, obviously, they represent two different things, right? DSA is not the same as People's Party. I feel like there's a big separation in their approach, and how they're going to go. Or, not even DSA, but what is it? What's Shaun's-   Riall Johnson: Socialist Alternative.   Michael Charles: Socialist Alternative. Yeah. I feel like they're totally different approaches. The way they go about problem solving, is a lot differently. And I say that in the way that, I think Shaun's approach is to throw bombs, right. And I don't know that Nikkita's approach is necessarily to throw bombs, but to speak truth to power. And I think those are two different things. And I know that Shaun's approach is about speaking truth to power, for sure. But, it's through the lens of capitalism versus everything else. And Nikkita's is more around equity, and how are we genuinely pushing equity in government?   Michael Charles: Not to throw too much, but I want to step back just from the D9 race itself. And I felt like that was like two things. One thing being, the day after punditry needs to be dead. We need to just stop doing a day after punditry. This is ridiculous. I can't tell you how many posts we read that was like, Nikkita underperformed. Sara Nelson was up by all these numbers. And then, here we are. Nikkita's clearly in the lead. And, it's switched, but secondly, there's no room for middle politics right here. And I think the mayor's race proved that. I think this race was the clearest example of, there's no room for anything, but you got to pick a team at this point. The voters have no room for nuance. You are either on the side, that's going to fight what's going on in this city, or you're cool with everything that's going on. You want more of the same. So, there's just no room for nuance. There's no room for, if they think you're the policy person or that you work for them. That's just not important in these races any longer. It's about, are you on our side or not? And, I think we're really clear.   Heather Weiner: No, Michael, you worked for a candidate in this race, right. For Brianna Thomas, who was very much in that lane, and wasn't able to break through both of those. And, I am a huge fan of Brianna Thomas. I voted for Brianna Thomas, and I know she's a friend of the show. Tell me, how it would have been different if either Nikkita or Sara was not in the race. I'm sorry. Am I sounding like I'm trying to host right now? Crystal, feel free to kick me-   Crystal Fincher: No, you're fine. This is a conversation.   Heather Weiner: All right. Sorry. I'm just really interested. Yeah.   Michael Charles: No. The thing is that Brianna has integrity. And, what she needed to do once Nikkita got in the race, was not like, if she wanted to get through, you had to pick a team. And, the fact is, Brianna's also really progressive, has progressive ideas. But if what you were looking for was that, you chose the person that had more history with that lane, that clearly was less intellectual about, explaining, you need to know this about city politics and you need to know this about city politics in order to get things done. And I think voters really with that of like, I don't care about the insider ball game. I just don't care. What I want is people that are going to stand up for these issues.   Michael Charles: And I think that for Brianna, it was hard. If Sara Nelson wasn't in the race, Brianna would have gotten through. If Nikkita wasn't in the race, Brianna would have gotten through. Traditionally, we look at Lisa Herbold. We look at Andrew Lewis. She's in the mold of a lot of the candidates or a lot of the current council members of a former staffer. She is what traditionally we have done in Seattle for politics. And so, I just think that it was a repudiation of the idea of more of the same. And they said, we want somebody that's more extreme to get done what we want done.   Riall Johnson: Also, I think it came down to name or condition. Nikkita has just been done a lot of work, been on the spotlight, led a lot of things, and people recognize. And also, you don't have DNS on the ballot. So, it was a nonpartisan race. People saw the progressive candidate that voter's pamphlets, all that stuff added up. And Brianna has been just doing a lot of great work for years. And, I hope people come away, recognizing the stuff that she's done behind the scenes. She's been that person behind the scenes, that workforce has just got things done. Like, the minimal wage. Even the very first minimum wage organize the SeaTac one, not just the statewide, but the SeaTac wage. A lot of policies that we are thankful that we pat ourselves on the back for, the progressive policy and City Council, Brianna got done.   Riall Johnson: So, I think you've got to give credit where credit's due. And hopefully, I don't think Brianna was done with Seattle, because she's just someone who…When we actually do turn this place into the progressive ****hole that Fox News thinks it is, we're going to need people like Brianna to get things done. So hopefully, we see more of her and her career, one way or another. She's sharp as they come. Hopefully, she's not done with Seattle.   Michael Charles: Brianna is not done with Seattle politics. In my opinion, I think that she's going to be an important part moving forward.   Heather Weiner: There's so few women of color who were running for office in the City of Seattle, and there's so many who are starting to run now, thanks to the three of you, in all of these other cities, and in King County. But, to have two women of color, running against each other in that race was painful to watch. Right. Because, we want to raise up women of color, as much as we can, everywhere.   Crystal Fincher: Go ahead, Michael.   Michael Charles: I was just going to say, I think it's good that we have multiple women of color running for office. I'm excited about that. I don't think we have to coalesce around the one or anything ever. Actually, I wish we had four women of color running in every race, always. That would be amazing. We would feel we're doing something right, if that's point.   Heather Weiner: And, that's a good point. We had two women of color running in this mayor's race with Lorena and Colleen Echohawk, which was fantastic. Yeah.   Michael Charles: And to have two Black women running, is almost even cooler.   Crystal Fincher: It's really cool. And I think it impacts the quality of the discourse. I've heard from several journalists who commented on the quality of the policy discussions in that Position 9 race, and the detail of Nikkita's policy, Brianna's policy. I don't know that Sara Nelson brought a lot of detail in policy to the table. But certainly, between Brianna and Nikkita, really talking about, not just a vision, but the plans to get there. I think in the mayoral race, multiple women of color running, and having more nuanced conversations and better conversations, I think that's a positive thing. I'm with Michael on that, I don't think that there can only be one. And I also appreciate it, because we don't have enough women of color running yet, we're still excited when it happens because it happens too infrequently.   Crystal Fincher: But, there's this tendency to be like, well, there could only be one who is the true and authentic person of color who can speak for all of the people of color. Right. And, we're definitely not a monolith. We have a lot of different perspectives. And I think the more people of color, women of color, more black women that run, we get to see the richness of how varied we are, how many different perspectives and solutions we can bring to the table. So, I like seeing people run. I wish that we could be able to elect great people, and not have to choose between two, if it would be great if they both could wind up an office? Sure. But when they end up running against each other, is it okay? And, do I think it is necessary? Unfortunately, no. I think that it's good to see those perspectives. And I agree that we have not seen the last of Brianna Thomas, and will be better for it, if she stays engaged.   Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your Podcasts. Just type in Hacks & Wonks into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your Podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show, at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com, and in the Podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.  

Today Crystal is joined by a very special co-host and KIRO 7 political reporter, Essex Porter! They cover what happened in this week's primary elections, whether or not there were any real upsets or surprises, and we may see over the next few months heading into the November general election. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal on Twitter at @finchfrii, and find Essex at @EssexKIRO7.    Resources “Harrell, González will likely compete to be next Seattle mayor” by David Kroman from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/08/harrell-gonzalez-will-likely-compete-be-next-seattle-mayor  “Incumbent Pete Holmes slips to third place in Seattle city attorney race after Thursday's ballot count” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/incumbent-pete-holmes-slips-to-third-place-in-seattle-city-attorney-race-after-thursdays-ballot-count/  “6 takeaways from ballots counted Tuesday in Seattle area's 2021 primary election” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/6-takeaways-from-ballots-counted-tuesday-in-seattles-2021-primary-election/  “Primary election results: Harrell, González lead mayor's race” by Crosscut Staff: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/08/primary-election-results-harrell-gonzalez-lead-mayors-race  Read Hacks & Wonks interviews with candidates that are likely to move on to the November election: Mayoral candidate, Lorena González: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/f9428eab/conversation-with-lorena-gonzalez-city-council-president-and-mayoral-candidate  District 9 City Council candidate, Nikkita Oliver: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/300d5a84/nikkita-oliver-activist-organizer-city-council-candidate  District 9 City Council candidate, Sara Nelson: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/29584c47/discussion-with-sara-nelson-city-council-candidate  City Attorney candidate, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/20c5baf6/nicole-thomas-kennedy-candidate-for-city-attorney  King County Executive, Dow Constantine: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/1e6eecae/a-chat-with-dow-constantine-king-county-executive  King County Executive candidate, Senator Joe Nguyen: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/1e38d0ac/meet-senator-and-kc-exec-candidate-joe-nguyen-again    Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows, where we review the news of the week. Welcome to the program - I'm extremely happy and excited to welcome today's co-host, KIRO-7 political reporter, Essex Porter. Hey Essex! Essex Porter: [00:00:54] Hello, and good to be here. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:57] Excellent to have you here. Well, I'm thrilled to have you on the program. You are known to everyone as the person who lets us know what's going on with politics here locally on TV. So we just had a big primary election earlier this week and we have vote-in-mail here in the state, so we don't get all of the results on Election Day. We get them in batches in the days - on Election Day and throughout the week. Usually most races are clear by the end of the week, and most races are clear with one or two hanging in the balance. So I guess, starting with the mayor's race, what was your feeling on just the result that we got? Essex Porter: [00:01:45] The result was not surprising. We expected former City Council President Bruce Harrell to be in the lead on election night and he is. We pretty much expected current City Council President Lorena González to come in second and make the November ballot - and she did. The other two - three and four - Colleen Echohawk, number three, Jessyn Farrell, number four. That was pretty much expected as well. And the Northwest Progressive Institute poll pretty much nailed where they would come in. I think they were tied pretty much in that poll, or close to tied in that poll. And that's exactly the order they showed up in. So we have the November election matchup that we expected, but we'll see if there are surprises between now and November. It's a long time away. Crystal Fincher: [00:02:41] It is a long time away - a lot of communication yet to go. Where we stand today, and today we're recording this Friday morning - people will be starting to listen to this on Friday afternoon. We still have yesterday's results. We don't have the Friday results in yet. There are probably going to be another 20,000-ish votes counted today in Seattle is what we're anticipating. But as it stands right now, Bruce Harrell is just shy of 37% - 36.9%. And then Lorena González is at just shy of 30%, so 29.6%. With Colleen Echohawk further behind, in third place, but at 9% - I think that's further behind than a lot of people expected her to be. Some of the polling showed that she was closer, that she had a potentially significant upside after people heard her message and how she talked about herself. Why do you think that that result didn't line up with expectations? Essex Porter: [00:03:46] Well, yeah, interestingly and the only poll I'd really seen, was the public one by Northwest Progressive Institute, which had her roughly where she is ending up, as I recall. I think it had her right at 8%, but there was a large number of undecided people in the race. Perhaps for Colleen Echohawk, who has been a very strong candidate when you see her in person - but of course it's hard to meet everybody in person, and you really have to get a message out there when you are someone who has not been in the headlines of the public eye for as long as Councilmembers Harrell and González had been. Now Colleen Echohawk has a very public profile, she's just not as well-known. And I think the result can be heartening for her and her supporters, and can point certainly to a future in Seattle politics, even if she's not going to be on the ballot this November. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:00] Absolutely, and I think you nailed it. It really is, for people who pay attention to politics - a number of people who listen to this podcast are more plugged-in than the average person when it comes to political news. So we can - we're more exposed, we're more in tune with all the news coming out - where the candidates stand, who they are, what their histories are. But the average Seattle voter is not us. We are abnormal. The biggest opponent for a candidate is not the person or people who they are running against. It's everything else in a voter's life that is competing for attention. There's a lot going on right now in the world. We're dealing with a pandemic, people are figuring out what they're doing with their kids and school and work and home and remote, and just a lot going on, in addition to everything else that's going on in life. And so lots of people don't start paying attention until they notice that they get their ballot in the mail and their voter's pamphlet. And in that time, you really have to communicate really effectively with a message that penetrates and captures people's attention. Certainly that's simpler to do when there's familiarity with a candidate. So people who had been Councilmembers and incumbents enjoyed that. They'd been on ballots before, voters were already familiar with them. People who voters weren't very familiar with in the mayor's race, they just didn't seem to - their message didn't seem to penetrate. So, but as we've seen with a lot of other races, this can certainly set someone up for a future successful race, now that they're more widely known, more broadly known, and people have gotten a little bit more of a chance to get to know who they are. Essex Porter: [00:06:44] I got to talk to a few voters on the day before the election and on Election Day. The sense I got from voters was certainly - coming out of this pandemic and having a nice weather summer, and for, at the time before the election - things were relaxing and people were enjoying getting out, enjoying maybe taking a little bit of a vacation trip. I talked to one person, I asked him why he was voting so late, "I'm voting so late because I just moved and I needed to get the ballot at the new address. Soon as I got it, I came and I voted." People have things going on in their lives. But what's one of the thoughts I have is that - I wonder if the atmosphere will be changing. Because in the last few days of the election and this week and continuing on, there is more concern about COVID. There is more of a restrictive attitude as the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID begins to impact our lives here in the Seattle area and the Northwest. There is a concern that the psychological, if not physical opening we have, will be closing back down. That may also be on voters' minds as they go into November. That will be one of the things that's overhanging that vote as they make choices. Crystal Fincher: [00:08:12] The Delta variant is here and prevalent. So we'll see how that continues to line up. Another interesting thing I was looking at is obviously - we have the Compassion Seattle initiative coming up on the November ballot, and we had the major candidates basically all line up on one side or the other of the initiative. And that acted as a dividing line between where candidates stood. Are they more of a law and order-focus candidate, looking at issues that may bring more criminalization or certainly codify some criminalization of homelessness into the City Charter with sweeps, in addition to some other elements and in that - Essex Porter: [00:09:01] And I have to say, that's one of the arguments over Compassion Seattle - as to whether it does criminalize homelessness and poverty. Whether it does make it more likely and give more approval to sweeps. I mean that's going to be one of the big debating points. There are supporters of Compassion Seattle who don't necessarily see it that particular way. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:27] Absolutely. And certainly the language about it, right? Compassion Seattle - this is a compassionate solution to this challenge that we're facing. Everyone seems to agree that it's a problem. Which part of that they find to be the problem is up in the air. Is it that they have to see and deal with people being homeless? Is it that they are feeling uncomfortable about it and wanting them to be removed, or swept, or other things happen? Is it an issue of services? Certainly the initiative does address services. People talk about how effective that is and is it really more than what we're doing now? And many people say that it is 1% more perhaps, but perhaps more restrictive, but - Essex Porter: [00:10:18] And as I talk to voters - and again, this is a small number of voters I'm talking with, as I'm working on deadline and meeting people at random at the ballot box. But as I talked to voters, when they mentioned homelessness, all the voters I talked with started out with a feeling of compassion for those who are homeless, who may be forced to sleep on the streets, or camp in a tent. And then as you listened to them, even if they didn't say who they liked in the mayor's race, it was clear that they kind of divided. There were people who spoke compassionately about those who are homeless, who felt to me - is that they would be more inclined to support Bruce Harrell. There are others who talked very much the same way, who felt to me - they would be more inclined to support Lorena González or Colleen Echohawk. The Northwest Progressive Institute poll has Compassion Seattle at, I think, it's 61% support. So it just seems to me, there's a lot of people across the mayoral candidate spectrum who support Compassion Seattle. It may not be that a vote for one person as mayor is a vote against Compassion Seattle. That's what it will be interesting to see work out in November. Crystal Fincher: [00:11:48] It'll be interesting to see it work out in November. And interesting to see how the vote share was turned out based on where the candidates were at. Candidates who supported Compassion Seattle got more votes than candidates who didn't in the primary. But we do have Bruce Harrell who said that he is supportive of Charter Amendment 29 and Lorena González who opposes it. Essex Porter: [00:12:16] Yeah, that's going to be one of the key things that differentiates those candidates, because there's actually a lot that's alike about those two candidates. But we'll be looking for what the differences are. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:24] Will be interesting to see how that turns out. We also got results in the City Council races. I don't think many people are too surprised to see Teresa Mosqueda, the incumbent, in Position 8 with 56%. Kenneth Wilson is going to also make it through to the general, at 17%, but that race is looking pretty settled. In the Position 9 race, Sara Nelson is in the lead as we speak, with 42%, followed by Nikkita Oliver - they have 36%. And then Brianna Thomas in third place, with just about 14%. So it looks like Nikkita Oliver and Sara Nelson are making it through to the general - two very different candidates. Two other candidates who line up on opposite sides of the Compassion Seattle debate, they're on different sides on the JumpStart tax, the head tax, many different things. So that certainly is going to be a race where voters have a clear choice. Essex Porter: [00:13:31] Yeah. Now that is absolutely true, and I talked briefly with Sara Nelson before the election, because by total coincidence, she doorbelled my house. And you look through the doorbell camera and think, "Hey, that's somebody I recognize," but when we talked, at least the public polling did not have her in the lead in this race. She sounded very concerned, and while I haven't spoken with her after the election, I suspect there are few people as surprised as she is, that she did so well in this race - that she has a strong lead at over 40% of the vote. And this race, I think, will be probably more for the folks who are interested in policy, and follow policy - because they do differ so much on policy. They are both seasoned at creating policy, and evaluating policy, and taking stance on policy. So it's going to be going to be a very policy-oriented City Council race. Because they diverge very much, ideologically, people are going to have that choice you're talking about. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:05] Yeah, I mean, Nikkita has certainly talked a lot about policy. And one of the nice things about that race is that it has been so policy-focused - in their debates, especially with Brianna Thomas, there were definitive policies, plans laid out. I think it's going to be interesting to see the contrast between Nikkita and Sara. I interviewed both of them earlier, we'll link both of those interviews in the show notes to this show, but very different approaches. It feels like they're taking different stances to even the conversation about policy. Essex Porter: [00:15:45] I think Sara Nelson will be running a message that, "I'm a business woman. I've been at City Hall. I've worked policy in City Hall. I'm a business woman too. So I know how what happens at City Hall impacts business. I don't necessarily have all the answers, but you can be comfortable with my approach and my thought process." I suspect that's the kind of message that she'll be trying to get out there. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:17] I anticipate the same, and I anticipate to see a lot of the downtown and business interests that have traditionally been associated with the Chamber to consolidate around her. And to see a lot of the more progressive interests consolidate around Nikkita. We'll see how that goes. Essex Porter: [00:16:38] That might be the race that's not going to be settled by Friday after the November election. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:43] After the November election, that may be tight, but we'll see. Now there is a race that, as we sit here on Friday morning, still is not decided. Not enough for either, for any of the candidates, to have definitively declared victory or conceded and that is the City Attorney's race. And my goodness, is this a race? So as we are sitting here, after the results release on Thursday - Ann Davison is at 34.5%, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy is at 33.19%, Pete Holmes is at 32.02%. Talking to the campaigns, it looks like they're anticipating 25,000-40,000 more ballots perhaps. But this is an unusual situation, in that the incumbent Pete Holmes is now trailing - unless he significantly improves his vote share in today's count, it's looking like he's not going to make it through the primary. Essex Porter: [00:17:54] This is, at the moment, the classic example of late votes lean left. The total on election night had Holmes in third place. The total on Wednesday night had Holmes moving up just barely to second place. And now, the total on Thursday night, where the late ballots are finally counted - those ballots that went in the mail on Monday maybe, or went in the mail on Sunday, some of the ballots that went into drop boxes late on Tuesday - those are the ballots that have been counted. And they push Nicole Thomas-Kennedy ahead of Pete Holmes again. We both have seen it often - once that trend gets started, it doesn't reverse - the Friday ballots just confirm it. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:49] Yeah, they do. So it is looking highly unlikely that Pete Holmes is going to end up making it through. The other thing is that they're strongly trending for Nicole Thomas-Kennedy in yesterday's count. If you look at just yesterday's count, there were just over 28,000 ballots counted yesterday. Nicole Thomas-Kennedy got 37% of those ballots, Ann Davison 33%, and Pete Holmes 29%. So it's just - that trend is going to have to move sharply. And when you start thinking about what it's going to take to close that gap, you start looking at numbers, he's going to have to clear 35% to closer to 40% of the remaining ballots to look like he has a shot. That just doesn't seem consistent with anything that we've seen so far. Essex Porter: [00:19:45] Yes, exactly. So now we have to contemplate what happened to Pete Holmes? Here's a three term incumbent, taking a position on criminalizing poverty, basically, that a lot of people favor. I mean, his criticism is that he is not tough enough on people for petty crimes like shoplifting or petty theft. But his stance has been to focus on those he perceives as true dangers in society, and that's not most of the people who come across for misdemeanors. Most of those are not necessarily violent crimes. So he's taken a stance that a lot of people on the left would support, but somehow that wasn't enough? Crystal Fincher: [00:20:40] Well, it's interesting, because he certainly, when he came into office, he certainly came in as someone who was more reform-minded from his predecessor - in talking about stopping prosecuting some marijuana, crimes, stopping - being more friendly to nightlife and entertainment venues, that kind of thing. But what Nicole Thomas-Kennedy spent a lot of time talking about was there have been certain areas where they stopped that focus, but my goodness, there's still a lot of criminalization of poverty. And prosecutions of what seemed to be misdemeanors that are so minor that it's certainly costing the City more to prosecute it, than they're getting from the prosecution. And that criminalizing people in that situation actually is more likely to make the problem worse and more expensive to solve, than to fix it. So she has talked more about addressing root causes, taking an approach that helps get people on the right track, as opposed to just criminalize people and have them going in and out. So he took heat for not being progressive enough and for criminalizing poverty too much on one end. On the other end was for people who think he's just been too soft on crime, look at everything happening, you've got people going for that, "Seattle is dying" narrative. And just on the hard side saying, "Oh, he's a liberal and letting everyone off, and crime is running rampant." But then there's also people saying, "I just see ..." I think it doesn't help that a lot of people associate, wrongly, I should point out, wrongly associate homelessness with criminality. People who are unhoused are more likely to be victims of crimes, than they are to perpetrate them. I also think a lot of people don't understand that he is dealing with misdemeanors and that felonies, or most serious crime, is handled from the King County Prosecutor. So I think he's also taking heat for a lot of people's perception that crime is up, and some types of crimes are up. Overall crime is down, some violent crimes are up. So he's also taking heat for that perception. And then also, he just didn't really seem to care about campaigning for a while, until it became clear he was in danger. And then it seemed to be too little too late, with some faux pas added in some late interviews and statements. Essex Porter: [00:23:20] Yeah, I haven't taken a look at the crime numbers, even for the non-violent crime, so I can't immediately confirm that overall crime is down. And it may not matter, unfortunately, exactly what the numbers are, because it is what the feeling is, right? Crystal Fincher: [00:23:45] The perception - exactly. Essex Porter: [00:23:47] It's the perception. I spoke with Ann Davison after the election, and one of the phrases that she uses and I think is going to be at center of her campaign, is that she's going to, "Center the victims," and that's the language she uses. It's going to be a victim-centered approach. I think that's the kind of approach on public safety issues - because we're going to have public safety issues that are going to be headlines about some terribly unfortunate things that happen between now and November, that will be happening every week. When she talks about centering victims, I think that is going to be a strong counter to Nicole Thomas-Kennedy if she is in the November election, who is going to be talking about a wholesale change. She calls it abolition, and people are going to be weighing again, the stark contrast between Ann Davison, who maybe will take a more conservative approach than many people would like, and Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, who may be taking a more progressive approach than many people feel comfortable with. It's going to be which person can make people feel comfortable with their approach to public safety. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:22] Yeah, absolutely. And basically, Pete Holmes not making it through the primary, as looks likely - certainly we'll have a much clearer idea about that after today's results. But if you're asking me, it doesn't look good for Pete Holmes. It's - there's an admission that what is going on now hasn't worked. And so people want a new approach - is that new approach more of a, "Hey, let's just crack down on people and arrest them, get them in jail," or is it, "Let's treat some of the root causes." And I think, as you articulated, Ann Davison's position and what she may be talking about. I think Nicole Thomas-Kennedy is going to be focusing a lot on what we have done hasn't worked. And what we hear proposed is more of exactly what has not worked on this level. A lot of clarifying and educating that we aren't talking about violent crimes. And that's where a lot of the disdain and discomfort comes, when people think, "Well, we can't just have people assaulting people on the street and facing no penalty. And what are we doing?" And that's a scary prospect for a lot of people. So I think hearing her talk about, "Okay, what does this mean in the role of City Attorney. And how do we change our approach?" I think that's going to be a really interesting and enlightening dialogue. I think people are going to hear some things from both candidates that are different than what they were expecting. So it'll be interesting to see how this continues to evolve through the general, but I'm excited about the conversation that will happen because of this race. Essex Porter: [00:27:11] Yeah, and I think it's going to get some national attention as well, because I think, more than the mayor's race, it'll be a clearer choice of where Seattle wants to go. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:23] Absolutely. And I mean, Hey, we're in the City who has a socialist on the City Council, who the DSA is not just a synonym for the Downtown Seattle Association, it's the Democratic Socialist. And they are a significant force here. We have a candidate who identifies as an abolitionist proudly, who is making it through a primary, beating the incumbent. So, I mean, this is, even for people in a primary election, which is usually a more conservative voting group compared to a general election voting group, there's a lot of receptivity to Nicole Thomas-Kennedy's message, which I think was surprising to a number of people. But I think people need to understand that there is a feeling that what has happened isn't working. And people do want reductions in crime, people do want to feel safer. But it's just, what is it that actually does make us safer? And that conversation and the details and the contours of it are one I'm excited to have. Essex Porter: [00:28:39] Yeah. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:41] Well, I think we are coming up on our time. I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to join us today, Essex on July ... Geez, listen to me - Essex Porter: [00:28:52] It's already August. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:52] I'm going to edit that. Essex Porter: [00:28:55] Don't edit that. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:57] I'm totally editing that. Maybe I'm editing that. I'm all over the place, but I appreciate you listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, August 6th, 2021. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler and our wonderful co-host today was KIRO-7 political reporter, Essex Porter. You can find Essex on Twitter @EssexKIRO7. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. While you're there, leave a review, it really helps us out. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time. Essex Porter: [00:29:50] Bye-bye.

Today Crystal in joined by Tiffani McCoy, Advocacy Director at Real Change, to discuss Charter Amendment 29, commonly known as Compassion Seattle. This amendment will appear on your November ballot, and would codify encampment sweeps into our city charter. Tiffani and Crystal discuss the misleading way this amendment is being messaged, what the actual cost of the amendment would be, and why its backers should make us wonder if it's really intended to solve the homelessness crisis, or just remove houseless people from our sight. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal on Twitter at @finchfrii, and find Tiffani at @TiffaniMcCoy1. You can also find updates on the work of the House Our Neighbors Coalition at houseourneighbors.org, or follow them on Twitter at @houseRneighbors.   Resources ”Compassion Seattle Amendment Faces Scrutiny from Democratic Group and Homeless Advocates” by Chetanya Robinson from the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/24/compassion-seattle-amendment-faces-scrutiny-from-democratic-group-and-homeless-advocates/ “Seattle chamber appeals dismissal of lawsuit against city's ‘JumpStart' payroll tax” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-chamber-appeals-dismissal-of-lawsuit-against-citys-jumpstart-payroll-tax/ “Sweeps Continue in Seattle: Perspectives from the Street” by Luke Brennan from the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/14/sweeps-continue-in-seattle-perspectives-from-the-street/ “Interim Guidance for Homeless Service Providers” from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/homeless-shelters/plan-prepare-respond.html “'Every Community Should be Using FEMA Dollars' for Hotel-Based Shelter. So Why Isn't Seattle?” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/03/18/every-community-should-be-using-fema-dollars-for-hotel-based-shelter-so-why-isnt-seattle/ “The Cost of ‘Compassion'” by Kevin Schofield from the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/07/17/weekend-long-reads-the-cost-of-compassion/#:~:text=Compassion%20Seattle%20Cost%20Analysis&text=Here%20is%20their%20report.,annually%20in%20ongoing%20operational%20costs. “The C Is for Crank: Correcting the Record on Compassion Seattle” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/07/13/the-c-is-for-crank-correcting-the-record-on-compassion-seattle/ “How many homeless people in Seattle are from here?” by Scott Greenstone from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/do-homeless-people-come-to-seattle-for-help/ “Regional Homelessness Director Marc Dones: ‘The Driver of Homelessness Is Economic.” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/07/26/regional-homelessness-director-marc-dones-the-driver-of-homelessness-is-economic/ “Myths and Facts of Homelessness in Washington State” from the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance: https://www.wliha.org/sites/default/files/myths.pdf   Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Tiffani McCoy who's the Advocacy Director at Real Change, and I wanted to have Tiffani on to talk about Charter Amendment 29, the Compassion Seattle - so-called Compassion Seattle - Charter Amendment to address homelessness in Seattle. Thank you so much for joining us, Tiffani. Tiffani McCoy: [00:01:13] Crystal, thank you so much for having me to talk about this important issue. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:17] Absolutely, I appreciate it. So I guess, just to start, what is Charter Amendment 29? Tiffani McCoy: [00:01:26] Yeah, Charter Amendment 29 is being peddled as a solution to the homelessness crisis in Seattle - that's verbatim what people heard on the street when approached by a paid signature gatherer. But Charter Amendment 29 includes no new solutions, no new funding, and would codify the forced removal of our unhoused neighbors into the City Charter, which is basically the same as our City's constitution. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:56] Okay, and so they're saying, "Hey, this will solve homelessness and we're going to do it in a compassionate way. After all, our name is Compassion Seattle. It dedicates resources for services that are badly needed. It guarantees that there's going to be housing built. And it makes sure that we can do something to actually take care of people and get them off the street." Is that accurate to you? Tiffani McCoy: [00:02:24] Yeah. So if the backers of Charter Amendment 29 - which are real estate developers, millionaires, and corporations - if they were true about solving this crisis, they would compassionately put their money where their mouth is. And they would stop recycling the false claim that we simply just need to spend our dollars better to solve homelessness. And they would also stop trying to characterize sweeps - the forced removal, the displacement of unhoused neighbors - as compassionate. And the question really is - should real estate developers dictate who lives in Seattle? Should millionaires dictate who lives in Seattle? Because according to this Charter Amendment, these folks who are bankrolling this are saying that they get to dictate who lives in Seattle. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:15] Well, and it certainly has been reported on - that it is primarily funded by downtown Seattle business interests, who frequently talk about taking a more hard line or more criminalized approach to addressing homelessness. And I guess starting at the point of, "Okay, what does it actually do?" They're saying, "Hey, we're dedicating resources to addressing homelessness that have not been there before." I think the number is 12% of housing dollars going towards being mandated to be spent on this. Is that tangibly better than where we're at? Is that a significant improvement? Tiffani McCoy: [00:03:55] Yeah, what you're saying is really important to kind of suss out, and I really think that this tweet by Erica C. Barnett captures it just really specifically. This Charter Amendment doesn't fund anything. It merely says that the City must shift existing resources to create 2,000 new shelter beds so that parks can be clear for housed people to use. That's the essence of this Charter Amendment. It doesn't fund anything. Right now, the City of Seattle spends roughly $11 million a year already on housing and homelessness. This Charter Amendment requires 12%, so $18 million more to allegedly "fund," and I say "fund" in quotes - wraparound services, mental health treatment, diversion programs, parks cleanup, sweeps of folks, and also to build 2,000 shelter or permanent housing units. That's fanciful thinking. That's why this is an empty promise. There's absolutely no way that this will fund all of those mechanisms. And actually, recently, a lot of City Council members actually asked the Seattle central staff - it's the City Council's research body - "What would this actually cost us if it were enacted?" And those figures are daunting, and I think that all listeners should go and look for that report - because it looks like to enact Charter Amendment 29, it would cost between $20 to $180 million a year to do. And the lower end of $20 million is assuming that the funding of diversion programs, the funding of mental health services, the funding of wraparound services, is already happening in the City. So those boxes are already checked and that's how you get that low end number. So, no, this doesn't fund anything. This would fund shelter beds over permanent housing, which we know under a housing first model, is the preferable range. That's the true way to get folks off the street - getting them into housing. So, no, this isn't something. This is nothing. And it is being pushed by these big business interests that just very clearly want to influence City Council and mayoral races through buying a law and putting it on the ballot at the same time. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:23] Well, I mean, there definitely have been people who have speculated that the reason why Charter Amendment 29 is on the ballot is to help the more conservative candidates, or candidate for mayor, as it will turn out, in the general election. So, the motivations have been called into question, especially since a number of the donors previously simply advocated for more sweeps before, but then came back with the language of compassion wrapped around this. And some of the issue that you brought up about the funding - really leading with saying, "Hey, this is going to provide so much funding. We are dedicating so much to this," without mentioning that, "Hey, almost all of that money is already allocated on being spent - that is already in effect - and the new funding, any new funding that is provided for it, doesn't necessarily mean that it will provide 2,000 new units." We don't know exactly - there's no mandate on what those units have to be. There's no mandate on what the service has to be. And we're in the midst of a situation where money has been allocated, for actually years, in the City of Seattle to build more housing - and delays and bureaucracy in the mayor's office have prevented that from coming to fruition. So I know one of my initial concerns looking at it was, "Okay, so you say that you've allocated money for doing it, but we are currently in a situation where the money can be sitting there for years with nothing happening." Meanwhile, we would have codified in our City Charter, which is basically the city's constitution, that you can now sweep these people off of the streets - which is important because these sweeps have been ruled in several courts to be unconstitutional because there is no place else for them to go. So if the City doesn't provide some option for people to go, it can't outlaw people's existence in public and say, "No matter how you exist, if you can't afford a house, its going to be criminal." As you look at this, what are, I guess, the biggest barriers that we need to address overall to get this fixed and does the Charter Amendment make any attempt to address those or not? Tiffani McCoy: [00:08:51] Yeah. So you brought up a lot in there, a lot of really important points. And I want to really kind of hone in on the funding aspect and how you've aptly described kind of the blocking of progress by the backers of Charter Amendment 29. I mean, these are the same folks that have stepped in full-on to stop any progressive revenue measure to actually fund the crisis. The Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association have a lot of overlap, but actually we're litigating against the JumpStart progressive revenue source - that about $150 million a year would go towards building deeply affordable permanent housing, which we know we desperately need. And they litigated against that to try to not have that go into effect. The judge ruled against their efforts to block that funding, but they've appealed and they are still trying to fight to make sure funding for housing doesn't happen. So that also calls into question their flowery, slick PR, "We want to get everyone inside." If you truly did, you wouldn't be blocking a progressive revenue measure. You would be helping to support that. I also think that getting into this - is this something? Sure, I'll admit that 2,000 more shelter beds would be helpful, but I'm also going to tell you, based on vendors that we've talked to at Real Change, mutual aid folks that go out and do outreach - shelter bed, mat on the floor, congregate shelter is not at all wanted. It's not desired. It is not taken. Even though we've moved in positive ways during the pandemic away from congregate shelter, there's nothing in this that guarantees that that won't happen - that these won't be mat on the floor, in at 8:00p, kicked out by 6:00a, not being able to bring a pet, not being able to bring your belongings and your partner, et cetera, et cetera. So this is a false solution. And not only that, it does absolutely nothing for 50% of our unhoused neighbors currently living outside, and it does nothing to deter the inflow of homelessness. It has nothing about eviction protection or just deeply affordable housing. Generally, it's an empty promise to end homelessness and it grossly sensationalizes our most vulnerable residents for political gain. Crystal Fincher: [00:11:21] Well, and I think you raised some important points - one, looking at really criminalizing the most vulnerable residents - putting them at risk of being swept - and really it's important to think about - when you are unhoused and you are really carrying all of your belongings with you, being swept means someone coming and just taking all of your things, and oftentimes, despite assurances that have happened in the past saying, "Well, we try and spare people's belongings," frequently they do not. So someone who is just trying to cobble together anything that they can, maintain their few possessions, have some kind of sense of continuity and history - we look at all of the things that we keep around our houses and imagine you just trying to keep a few things and someone just deciding one day that they're going to come and remove it all, when you have nowhere else to go and don't have ample time or opportunity to move or to relocate. And as you said, this also doesn't mandate any kind of productive housing. We were actually able to get a lot of data throughout this pandemic as congregate shelter - people just kind of in one room on cots or mats all together - became a public health risk because of the pandemic. And so there was a shift to housing people in hotel rooms. And the difference between being among a bunch of other people who you don't know - concerns about your safety potentially, your belongings, whether or not they're going to be stolen, it not being a place where you can just be, like in your house all day long, you have to clear all your stuff and leave and then come back oftentimes. The difference between the stress and anxiety that causes, and then being able to have a room to yourself, a door that locks, a place where only you have access to your belongings - just that measure of peace and ability to exhale, just removing that really mental health barrier of the burden of not having any privacy, set people up for so much more success and there are much better outcomes. So being that this doesn't even mandate that, "Hey, we're going to make sure that we provide the type of shelter and housing and individual rooms that increases the likelihood for success," seems like that's a big glaring oversight to me. And one of the criticisms is that, "Hey, this was crafted by the people who just want to sweep people." They actually did not include the impacted populations in this group. Sure, they had a couple people from service providers who may stand to profit from this initiative and see revenue result from it, but people who are actually living on the streets - who can provide great feedback on what would actually be helpful, what can actually get people over the hump and into, not just housing, but be stable in their housing - were excluded from this process. And so a lot of what we're seeing that has been helpful in other circumstances is not even included in this. As you look at it, what do you see as some of the major oversights? Tiffani McCoy: [00:14:48] I mean, all of those oversights you just mentioned are critical and point towards the pretty clear fact that this isn't about housing our neighbors. This is not about building housing for folks to have inside. This isn't about stemming the economic impact, which is creating homelessness in the first place - rising rents, wages that are decreasing, the pandemic. This isn't about any of that. This is truly just about buying a law to influence City Council and mayoral races. I mean, the Chamber of Commerce had a stunning defeat - and the Downtown Seattle Association - in the 2019 races, spending millions of dollars to try to influence and they lost most of those seats. So they're doing it in this backdoor way, again, by sensationalizing homelessness for political gain. I also like to think of this as just very clearly, Mayor Jenny Durkan's dream scenario for sweeps. This is how she has moved the City since she has stepped into office. We used to have mostly 72 hour sweeps and now the predominant amount of sweeps are very last minute - no services, no outreach there. You've got to throw your stuff away and just get on with yourself. And I mean, incredibly traumatizing. Sweeps are traumatizing all the time, no matter what, no matter if you have 72 hours, if you have a week, two weeks. It's the City, it's the state telling you, "You don't belong here. You need to find somewhere else to go, and we're not going to help to actually stem what brought you into this position in the first place." So it's just overall just smoke and mirrors and it's just so unfortunate and deeply disturbing and gross because we do know what can address this crisis. And instead of being able to focus on that, these corporations and big businesses are still trying to operate like a parallel government in that they get to decide equally with folks that we elect into office how the City should run. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:57] I think a lot of this fundamentally goes down to the - I think there's just "conventional wisdom," which is not tethered to reality - but just that, "Hey, people shouldn't be on the streets and for some reason it is more of a problem for me to see people who are homeless than for people to actually be unhoused. And they just need to go somewhere else and they just need to move somewhere else and it's their fault anyway. They're probably using drugs. They're a source of crime." And I think we really have to grapple with the amount of people who are underneath this impression - sometimes media coverage and what gets sensationalized exacerbates that impression - that homelessness, really when a lot of the interests, especially pro Charter Amendment 29 interests talk about it, they talk about it in terms of a crime problem. As if, one, this is a major or significant source of crime in that people who are unhoused are somehow not victims more often than perpetrators of violence, and some of the most vulnerable people in our society that need protection. But how do you address to people that, "Hey, just step back for a second - just criminalizing this. Here is why throwing someone in jail if they're in a tent on a sidewalk doesn't work?" How do you talk about that? Tiffani McCoy: [00:18:35] That gets into a lot of the framing that Charter Amendment 29 is using around this. They always highlight one of the first couple things is one, that this is about us getting people off the streets, and then the second and third thing is usually about, we need more mental health service and addiction treatment. So they are perpetuating the myth that the vast majority of people are living outside because of a drug and alcohol problem and mental health problem. And we know that's not the case. In fact, just this last week, Marc Dones was interviewed by PubliCola. Sorry, I'm in the office so there's a phone ringing in the background. But Marc Dones, who's the new head of the Regional Homelessness Authority, just said that it's really about 15 to 20% of those living outside have severe behavioral health or substance use issues. The vast majority of folks experiencing homelessness can't afford to get into housing. He says it is an economic issue and not at all because of - that the main driver is not drug and alcohol issue, as Charter Amendment 29 backers would have you believe. So, in the face of all of this evidence, we know again the political impetus for Charter Amendment 29 is about sensationalizing those things that you mentioned about people not wanting to see visible poverty, about people seeing mental health issues happening in public when they're walking to get coffee or to lunch. It's not about a humane approach and look at how our economic system is failing humans. It's about, "You are a bother to my eyes. I don't want to see it. Let's sweep you off to somewhere else." So we need to get back into realizing and absorbing and embracing that this is an economic issue through and through - not just even in Seattle - nationwide. We don't have housing as a human right. We don't allow housing to meet your needs based on your income. It's just like a completely gross upside down system and until we start to truly realize that this is an economic issue, that rent is too high, that we don't have deeply affordable housing - at the end of the day the question is, who gets to decide who lives in Seattle? That's what I would say to that person. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:01] I think those are all excellent points and I do think that we have work to do and that we need to hold more of our media accountable in the wider ecosystem. There's been a lot of excellent reporting on this from some of our local papers and local media outlets, but there's also been some problematic local reporting. And so we really have to, I think, call out when there are obviously misleading, obviously non fact based, non data based narratives that frequently make homeless people increasing targets of violence and absolutely stigmatize it. Because to your point, and there was just another study that came out - I think it was this past week - that yes, homelessness is an economic problem. More people are homeless because they cannot afford to pay for a place to live than any other problem. And in fact, being homeless exacerbates all of the other problems. So allowing people to become homeless actually makes all of the other problems worse. It's not that those other problems start and then homelessness suddenly spontaneously erupts. This is a problem of affordability fundamentally and prioritization of making sure everyone does have a home and that this is accessible to live in. So I guess one of the biggest issues to me is that I think there is a considerable - polling continuously reinforces that there is a huge percentage of the population who, I think, a lot of times feel like, "Hey, I don't know what the ultimate decision is to fix this. There have been a lot of people trying for years. I've heard it talked about for years. It's been declared an emergency and only got worse. And I hear this bickering about it. And it seems like no one who's been elected whose job it has been to fix this has been up to the task of getting this fixed, so at least this is something because what's the alternative?" So when you hear that, and what's the alternative - what should be happening for people sick of seeing nothing happening - what should be happening? What is possible? What can be done in the short term to make a big impact? Tiffani McCoy: [00:23:34] Yeah, I want to go back to that media accountability, because I think it's key. We have to, as a society, move past this idea of respectability politics and call it out as we see it. We're in a climate crisis. I have a young daughter who's two. I'm terrified for the next generations and myself, all of us, for what's going to happen. There are massive things that we should be focusing on instead of me fighting a bunch of rich people who want to influence city politics by buying a law. That's what I'd like to do, but back to the media - we have to hold them accountable. The Seattle Times is playing a really, really egregious role in not being objective whatsoever in this. They very much want this to pass. They make that super clear in all their writing. They aren't publishing any op-eds that shows, like the House Our Neighbors Coalition who's fighting to defeat this Charter Amendment. They're not running any op-eds from anyone in the community and we've had several people send in. They're not going to run that, just not at all going to give that viewpoint. We also need to hold the people that are in power accountable, like truly, truly accountable. If you look at the mailers that are going out for City Council races - one of these mailers by Jessyn Farrell shows the list of neighborhoods that are going to be the priority for encampments should she become mayor. That is a very clear dog whistle and violent actually. And it's a dog whistle that everyone- Crystal Fincher: [00:25:11] Wait, she released a sweep priority list? Is that what you're saying? Tiffani McCoy: [00:25:14] I'm going to show you it. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:15] Okay, so we can see each other on video on this podcast. So... Oh, look at that. There's a whole map. Tiffani McCoy: [00:25:25] These are the priorities. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:28] I am looking at this. It does exist. And so looking at Jefferson Park, Lake City Park, Occidental Square, Haller Lake, Ballard Commons, North Aurora, any public school property with unsheltered people. What that tells me is that, once again, although they seem to be bending over backwards to avoid talking about the one thing that this actually does that's new or significantly different, and that is codify sweeps in the City Charter, which is basically the city constitution - which I continually, and we're deep into this podcast now, but I also have to say is against King County Public Health guidance in the middle of a pandemic and against CDC guidance in a pandemic as being very unhealthy and likely to spread the virus doing sweeps. And we see this determination to not just move forward, but to make it impossible for anyone to keep people from being able to sweep and to basically enact a criminalized or just basically razing people's abodes. So we have a challenge here, but I guess I'll go back to the question. For someone who's saying, "I am so fed up with this problem being this problem, and it's not my job to fix it. Elected people haven't fixed it. This seems like it may do something new to address the problem." What are the alternatives? What should people be pushing for? What do we know works? What can be done in the short term to make a significant impact? Tiffani McCoy: [00:27:17] I'm glad that we were able to go back to that. Thank you for going on that tangent of that dog whistle to all of those neighborhoods, "I will be there for you to make sure you don't see visible poverty." That's across many different candidates. You can tell which ones have adopted Charter Amendment 29 language and are putting it in their mailers. But to what can happen now - I think that we just do have to take a step back and look at how disastrous this mayor has been for this crisis and for, I mean, lots of things, but let's just stick to this crisis. She has left time and time again money on the table from the federal government to bring people inside. She decided not to take up FEMA money to put folks inside and COVID-19 money to put folks into hotels. She's just left millions of dollars on the table and folks, I encourage you, if you want to read more about that to just Google anything about Seattle and COVID money being left on the table. So that could have put hundreds of our unsheltered neighbors inside, into a room of their own, where they have that agency and safety. So we just didn't take that money that would be basically no strings attached from the federal government. What also can be done right now is folks can, especially if they're in the business community, demand that the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association drop the litigation against the JumpStart progressive revenue because that will put into the hopper thousands of units. We also just need to look at zoning, just have to be very real about it. There's a recent racial equity toolkit analysis that came out on, I can't remember the name of it, The Urban Village Strategy. Not only is it showing the deep racist roots of so many in the city of Seattle, but how it makes it impossible to solve the housing crisis because of all of the single family zoning. So we have to look at that. That is starting to happen immediately at the City Council, so getting involved in those fights to make sure that we change zoning so that we are able to... Sorry, a phone is going on in the background. So that we're able to actually create density and affordable housing across the whole city and not just have these very white dominant spaces that are protected. I would also say, RV safe lots. Real Change fought for some of the federal money that just came through for RV safe lots. We have about 1,500-2,000 folks living in their vehicle and we just always forget them. We don't do anything to meet their needs. So we need to like massively expand those. We did win some funding through the federal money that came down. There is a second round, so Real Change is going to keep fighting for that, so stay tuned. We need to get like thousands of those. We need to start talking in the thousands, not the hundreds or the dozens of units. And then I would say investing in housing first. I mean, we'll see what House Our Neighbors becomes after November 3rd, but those are a couple of things to plug into now. But I also recommend folks look at the House Our Neighbors Twitter because we are actively plugging people into fights that will make a difference right now. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:21] Perfect. So where can they find you? What is the House Our Neighbors Twitter? Tiffani McCoy: [00:30:27] I think it's just house and then the letter R... Yeah, it's @houseRneighbors, and neighbors is spelled out, on Twitter. Same with Facebook. Our website is houseourneighbors.org, but the our is spelled out. And yeah, we're on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Get involved. We've been tabling for a couple of weeks now. We also did some decline to sign petitions and we had people actually remove their signatures as well, because just going back to something you said Crystal, this is a slick PR campaign. They have millions of dollars behind them. They paid $180,000 to get signatures collected and when people are starting to learn about the disingenuous nature of this and who's backing it, they reached out to us to remove their signature. And one woman was crying and not to like politicize this, but she just felt ashamed that she was duped, as she says, by this. But we do want to solve this crisis as a community - you're completely right - it's just this is not the way to do it and it would actually cause a lot more harm and, as you said, it would cost way more money. Crystal Fincher: [00:31:37] I mean, this seems like it's going the way of several other issues - whether it's how we address substance use disorder and substance use, to how we just address issues of general affordability in society and workers' rights. There are very well-funded efforts afoot to keep things the way that they are and the way that they are has been harmful. And the attempt to move in a more positive way, which in this situation is not throwing people into jail or throwing away all of their belongings and just telling them to move somewhere else. That actually does nothing to address the issue, the fundamental problem, which is that that person does not have a place of their own to stay. For most people, the reason why is because they can't afford it. That is the primary reason. Nothing else is more of a cause. And that this population is more at risk of being victimized and harmed, not more likely to do harming or to be victimizing others. And so to prioritize taking care of people who need a home, and as you said, there is no substitute. We have to build places for people to live. There are not enough places. There are not enough affordable places. We have to address all of that. There's encouraging conversations happening within the mayoral race right now and City Council races. Certainly, there are candidates like Bruce Harrell and Jessyn Farrell and Casey Sixkiller who are supporting Charter Amendment 29. But there's a lot who aren't. Basically, the rest are not. And so those conversations and really giving the investments that are being made, like you said, even the JumpStart tax that was just passed with investments there, there is actually action being taken. I think part of the issue is some of the stuff that is taken and that we are seeing is working is very contrary to the narrative that has been set out by some of the hard line interests that we've seen come out of downtown from the DSA and the Chamber. So, part of the answer I think is to see the investments that are now being made through, to see now that the Regional Homeless Authority has a leader and direction for that work to be done and to continue with the work of building homes for people and addressing affordability. There really is no other sustainable solution. So thank you so much for joining us today. And again, if anyone has any questions, wants to get involved, we'll put all of this information in our show notes and they can reach out to you again on the House Our Neighbors Twitter or Facebook or website, I assume, and reach out to you there. So thanks so much, Tiffani, for joining us today. Tiffani McCoy: [00:34:47] Thank you Crystal. I appreciate the opportunity. Crystal Fincher: [00:34:47] Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

GUEST: Michael Medved with Three Things You Need to Know // GUEST: Jon Scholes, from the Downtown Seattle Association on what needs to change // SCENARIOS See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Primary ballots are in mailboxes now! Today friend of the show, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks Mike McGinn joins Crystal on the show to discuss the front runners in the mayor's race, how candidates need to be making the case to the public in these remaining weeks before the primary, and the psychology and emotion that drives Seattle's voting decisions. And Mike delivers a fundamental election rule: Message quality multiplied by message delivery equals impact. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @frinchfrii and find today's co-host, Mike McGinn, at @mayormcginn. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources: “No incumbent in Seattle mayoral race, but candidates still running against City Hall” by Daniel Beekman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/no-incumbent-in-seattle-mayoral-race-but-candidates-still-running-against-city-hall/  “Poll shows many voters still undecided, Bruce Harrell leading race for Seattle mayor” by Daniel Beekman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/poll-shows-many-voters-still-undecided-bruce-harrell-leading-race-for-seattle-mayor/  “For the first time in years, there are 2 serious candidates for the King County executive” by David Guttman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/race-for-king-county-executive-pits-experienced-well-funded-candidates-against-each-other/  “Seattle's mayoral candidates have plans for homelessness, but they're staring at an uncertain future” by Scott Greenstone: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattles-mayoral-candidates-have-plans-for-homelessness-but-theyre-staring-at-an-uncertain-future/  “The C Is for Crank: Correcting the Record on Compassion Seattle” by Erica C. Barnett: https://publicola.com/2021/07/13/the-c-is-for-crank-correcting-the-record-on-compassion-seattle/  Publicola Elections Coverage: https://publicola.com/category/elections/ South Seattle Emerald Elections Coverage: https://southseattleemerald.com/tag/2021-elections/ We the People Power Voter Guide: https://www.wethepeoplepower.org/voter-guide-2021   Primary Elections Endorsements: The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2021/07/14/59065522/the-strangers-endorsements-for-the-august-3-2021-primary-election  The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/who-supports-who-in-seattle-elections-endorsements-roll-in-for-mayoral-council-races/  The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/06/28/the-urbanists-2021-primary-endorsements/  350 Seattle Action: https://350seattleaction.org/2021-elections    Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks - and a fire Twitter follow also, the excellent Mike McGinn. Mike McGinn: [00:00:59] Yeah, you can find me on Twitter @mayormcginn. I just can't let go of that handle - it's just too good. But I'm really many years past it now, so thanks for having me on the show, Crystal. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:11] No, absolutely. But you know what, you're always there to provide context and an informed opinion - and it's usually insightful, and useful, and often spicy. We get spicy McGinn a lot of times, and I like it. Mike McGinn: [00:01:25] I'm not running for anything anymore so I'm just pure truthteller mode. No, 95% pure truthteller mode. I pull some punches. I do pull some punches still, Crystal. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:35] Well, what I want to talk about is - ballots should be in your hands today, tomorrow. If you're listening to this, ballots are arriving in Washington State for primary elections. So it's a big deal. We've seen a wave of endorsements be released from major political organizations, media organizations - both The Times and The Stranger. So it is now time to vote - a lot that we've been talking about, all the candidates that we have been talking about - now the rubber is hitting the road and communication plans are in full effect. Mailers are hitting mailboxes, commercials are on TV, digital ads are all over the place, so how are you seeing this race standing right now, Mike? Mike McGinn: [00:02:23] Mayor's race - I think at this point we're really down to three viable candidates - is where I would start. You can look at - fundraising numbers is one way to look at it, major endorsements is another. And Bruce Harrell has the Seattle Times and in early polling, he was what, at 17% or 18% or something like that, which is when you think about it, kind of low for an incumbent, somebody that the City knows. He's not incumbent in the office, but for being known. Lorena González has The Stranger endorsement and lots of labor endorsements, got a big IEC from labor coming out. The theme of her campaign is her personal resume primarily is what she's running on. But she has the drag of being from the City Council. I don't know whether it's 29 or 39 City councilmembers that have run for mayor, and only Norm Rice actually pulled it off. And he had the tailwind of the Rainbow Coalition from Jesse Jackson running for president. And when he announced that coalition, that was the following year from the Jesse Jackson race, and he just vaulted in. And also a very skilled elected official. I mean, "Mayor Nice"? Who gets that nickname, "Mayor Nice"? Crystal Fincher: [00:03:44] You didn't get that nickname? Mike McGinn: [00:03:51] [Laughter]. And the other thing is - when you look at it is the right track, wrong track numbers in the City have been off the charts on all of the polls that have come out to date. And so if you're associated with what's been going on, that's going to give you a headwind. I think that the third candidate in the race and full disclosure, I've endorsed Colleen Echohawk in the race. She's talking about the issue that people say is the most important one - homelessness - that comes out on top of almost every poll. That's the focus of her campaign. She organically raised a lot of money through vouchers - got there first, didn't have to hire people to collect them as opposed to the other candidates, and is the outsider. The other candidates in the race are credible and have been treated as credible, but I think at this stage when you look at the fundraising numbers and the endorsements, I think it's going to be very hard for Andrew Grant Houston or Jessyn Farrell or Casey Sixkiller to come out of this primary with where they stand right now - the combination of institutional endorsers, dollars, message and political base that they're bringing into it. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:10] So based on the polling that's come out, a number of people are looking at this as, okay, on the - conservative and progressive are different when used in Seattle than when used in outside of Seattle- Mike McGinn: [00:05:24] Let's use right lane, left lane. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:26] Right lane candidate being - looks like it's going to be Bruce Harrell, by polling and indications there, it appears to be that he is leading the right lane. And the left lane as you just talked about, it looks to be Lorena González, with potential Colleen Echohawk on her heels. How are both making the case that they can run against a right lane candidate and when? Mike McGinn: [00:05:59] Well, and that's interesting. Part of the reason I think Bruce - well, the right lane always consolidates more than the left lane. It's like that Will Roger's joke about, "I don't belong to any organized party. I'm a Democrat." So the left is never powerfully organized and the right tends to consolidate. The other right lane candidates didn't really take off. And the left lane candidates all have a little more juice in them. And actually, given that Jessyn decided to endorse the Compassion Seattle Initiative, I'm not sure what lane she's in at this point, but both. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:32] Well, and I think that's been a problem for her. Mike McGinn: [00:06:34] Yeah, I think that's been a problem for her because this is a year that unlike prior years in which you had the Chamber of Commerce uniting with the King County Labor Council to decide on a candidate - that's what they did with Durkan, that's what they did with Murray. We're now back to - that's what they did with Mallahan, as I think about it. Right, and I got some union support but the Labor Council and a lot more of the unions went with Mallahan because labor was for the tunnel. Labor was for the tunnel and I actually heard from service worker unions that ended up endorsing him and they said, "We're taking a risk, all of our brothers and sisters are mad at us for supporting you because they really want the tunnel." Crystal Fincher: [00:07:15] That tunnel. Mike McGinn: [00:07:17] Yeah, that tunnel. So even though I was clearly the candidate for transit and working people against what I believed was a corporate bureaucrat who was running in the right lane, they still went with him. You still see that happening in politics today. The construction unions still have a lot of influence. So do the firefighters - they're quite conservative. And the Labor Council. In this case, we don't have that - where the Labor Council and the Chamber are ordaining a leader. So we're seeing a business backing Bruce - they're consolidating behind Bruce. You're seeing labor consolidating behind Lorena, but you're not seeing all of the progressive left consolidating behind Lorena. You see it breaking up into more pieces there. So the argument as to, against Bruce, is insider versus outsider. And I think that's going to be a huge challenge for Lorena in the general - right track, wrong track numbers. It's about the mayor but it's also about the Council. I ran in 2013 and I wanted the electorate to say, "Well, if you see conflict between the mayor and Council, look at what people are advocating and pick the person on the right side. By the way, that's me." That was my argument. But if you're close to City Hall, you might be able to do that - but people who are further away, they paint everybody with the same broad brush and it can be hard to distinguish yourself. And I just think that when you look at the polling to date and how low Lorena's numbers have been for somebody who's run city-wide multiple times, it really suggests she still has to go out and get a lot of votes. You probably got to get to 25% or so to get out of the electorate. So she's got to get from wherever she's starting - a long way. Everybody does, and Bruce has a shorter path to get there, but everybody's got to go a long way and the question becomes, does Lorena have a ceiling because of the negativity towards the City Council? Crystal Fincher: [00:09:34] That's a really interesting question. I guess the variable that I'm also looking at in this is looking at candidates independently. It's always a different scenario than looking at them head-to-head with another candidate. Bruce, also being an insider, does that neutralize that whole insider argument? Really, and to be real, Colleen is a former head of the Downtown Seattle Association-ider. So it's not like she's a radical outsider. Mike McGinn: [00:10:03] I don't think she was the head of the Downtown Seattle Association. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:05] Was previously. Mike McGinn: [00:10:07] I think she was just on the Board, but maybe I'm wrong. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:09] On the Board, on the Board. Mike McGinn: [00:10:10] She was on the Board, right. But just for the record, that's a spot that's given to the Chief Seattle Club. They are automatically on it because they are downtown and the DSA wanted a homeless provider on their Board. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:22] Which is the case for a lot of different organizations. They have different spots there but also not known as a left-leaning organization at the same time. So looking at their policies and being associated with that from a policy standpoint does not quite paint the picture of an outsider in the way that a lot of people think of outsiders in terms of politics. A lot of people would view that as a more establishment qualification on the resume, but neither here nor there. I think the bigger point I was making is that - does the fact that Bruce was formerly a Seattle City Council member, briefly mayor also - does that negate an insider argument if both people are former Councilmembers within Seattle-elected government, or does that more even the playing field and get to more of an issue-based stuff, or does the insider versus outsider argument still carry? Mike McGinn: [00:11:22] I think that Bruce carries that baggage too. He's helped by the fact that he's been off the Council a couple of years, but he does carry that baggage too. There's no question about that. I think if the question is how would Lorena - if Bruce has consolidated the right lane and people are fighting for the left lane, the question becomes how would Lorena do against Bruce in a head-to-head and how would Colleen Echohawk do in a head-to-head? And I'll bet you, that in those types of heads, Colleen would do a lot better than Lorena. I would bet you that. But of course, we're only going to get to run one of these. That's the way it works. But if there were polling done, I bet you what those head-to-heads would show as well. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:10] Always an interesting conversation on if there was polling done. And one of the things that we both have browsers refreshing right now is that the Northwest Progressive Institute, NPI, is actually going to be releasing public polling in the Seattle City Council, the mayoral races, several Seattle races. So that's going to be interesting to see actual public polling come out. They anticipated it being near the end of this week. Let's see if that actually comes out today. It wouldn't surprise me if it wound up being early next week, but we certainly are keeping our eyes on it. Mike McGinn: [00:12:47] I also think you have to take a look at the messaging of the candidates. Bruce's messaging is, "I'm a decisive leader. I know how to get things done." That's also Lorena's messaging - "I'm a decisive leader, I know how to bring people together to get things done. And look at my resume, I'm a progressive." Colleen's message is, "I've dedicated my life to helping homeless people in Seattle, and I'm an expert on homelessness which is the most important issue in the city." And I think that the headwind that both Lorena and Bruce face in the general is that they're saying that they know how to get things done, but the public says, "Yeah, but you had your shot." And that's the biggest headwind that both of them will face in the general election. Crystal Fincher: [00:13:35] Yeah. I'm also curious to see how much attention is paid to their donors and what their donors say. Because one, I think - continuing issue that we have in Seattle elections is ignoring that, and then being surprised that candidates vote pretty consistently in line with where many of their donors are at. That does not mean that their votes are necessarily bought. It just may mean that, "Hey, people see someone who has values that they feel are similar, that they feel is representing them." Not necessarily that they're buying it but that they see kinship there. And it really is telling where corporate interests see their candidate, and where labor and progressive interests see their candidate. And looking at the overlap between where major donors to Ed Murray, major donors to Jenny Durkan - and then look to see where those are at in the current races - a lot of them with Bruce Harrell. So is what we're signing up for really different if the traditional backers, if the coalition of donors looked similar to a profile of prior coalitions of donors? I wish we paid more attention to that in Seattle politics. Mike McGinn: [00:14:58] I agree. And clearly the kind of the business side donor class is consolidating behind Bruce and they're going to have an independent expenditure for him. Labor is consolidating behind Lorena and they're going to have a big independent expenditure campaign for her. And it's hard to cross your base. It's hard to tell your base they're wrong. That's like an axiom of politics and you're absolutely right. It's not that it's pre-negotiated or bought, but it becomes hard. And we saw that in play with Lorena when the police contract came up and the King County Labor Council urged a Yes vote on the contract, Lorena voted Yes on the contract because that's what labor wanted at the time, and the Community Police Commission wanted a No vote on that. We saw it very recently with the vehicle license fee. A stakeholder group came forward and said 75% of the $20 vehicle license fund, like $7 million a year - real money, but not big money in infrastructure. And the climate advocates and the alternative transportation advocates asked for, so the Council respect that. And labor said, "No, put it into bridges." The laborers, the carpenters and the King County Labor Council went down and said, "Nope, take the money from walking, biking and transit, put it into a bond for bridge repair." And that's basically what Lorena did on that one as well. So you get the situation where the base, the people that pay for your elections - it gets hard to cross them on tough issues, on high profile issues. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:47] I would just ask that as people are voting, consider that. Consider where their base is and what their history is of voting in line or not in line with those considerations. And certainly I know a number of people who agree with Lorena on a number of issues and that issue for a lot of people is the most challenging one. It's like, "Oh, but that police contract vote." is a sticking point for a number of - particularly further left-leaning progressives and where they're having a challenge in there. But there's issues with that with every single candidate almost - although I did - someone referred to Andrew Grant Houston as - what did they call him - the Elizabeth Warren of the race because he has a plan for everything, like well thought out and well organized. But I would say, aside from him, most - just anecdotally, a lot of people are like, "I love this candidate except for major issue where there was a problematic vote or a problematic issue." Jessyn, it's Compassion Seattle. With Lorena, it's that police vote. People got stuck with Colleen on the initial indication of support for Compassion Seattle, which she later said she's not going to be voting for and she does not support. But that gave people a lot of pause. So there's a number of those with candidates. Mike McGinn: [00:18:16] And I think over on the progressive side, that's absolutely right, and there's a little bit of - kind of arguing over who's in fact the most progressive. Although I think we can say that all of them have very strong progressive credentials. You don't represent homeless downtown, or come from Lorena's background and she's done great things in other areas. But clearly, your point about labor is good. By the way, Bruce Harrell voted for that contract too. And Colleen asked for them to vote No. It's an interesting thing getting elected as I did in '09 without a lot of institutional endorsements. It meant that I actually had a lot more freedom of movement. Everybody was trying to figure out where I would land. At the same time, I also didn't have a whole cadre of people behind me who were looking to back me up and stand up for me when I got in. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:14] That is the thing. Mike McGinn: [00:19:15] It's an interesting mix. But it really did - people were really wondering when I got in, in 2010, well, where is he going to land? Because in the primary- Crystal Fincher: [00:19:25] I was one of those wondering in 2010 where you were going to land. Mike McGinn: [00:19:25] On the other hand, it gave me - it meant that I didn't - this is going to sound a little trite, but honestly, my biggest concern was responding to the voters because I had gone around the institutional endorsers for the most part to get to win. The Stranger endorsement was big, and I picked up some service worker unions and other individual endorsements but nothing like anybody else in the race did. So that makes a difference in governance as well as you pointed out. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:01] Yeah, absolutely. And to be clear, the City of Seattle races are not the only races happening. We have a number of races. One, King County Executive race where certainly the two front runners are Dow Constantine, the incumbent who's been there and certainly in a strong position, versus Senator Joe Nguyen. What's you're read on where that stands right now? Mike McGinn: [00:20:23] It's hard to say. I think that Dow, after 12 years in office, is going to be facing the same time for a change sentiment. But I think Joe has to make the case for change. I think if you look at - and Joe Nguyen has got a great progressive record in the legislature and you can hear his values when he speaks. Dow has to explain the Youth Jail, he has to explain the Mariners Skyboxes, he has to explain the bailout of the Convention Center. He's got to defend his record and explain why he is the agent of making things happen now after 12 years based on where things stand. So I think that's going to be a big challenge for him. I think that is somewhat of a lower profile race. It doesn't necessarily deserve to be a lower profile race. It just is - the mayor's race is going to use up a lot more of the media coverage than the County Exec race will. So Joe has to make the case. He's got to aggressively pursue the change argument and what his values were. But it can happen. Look at Girmay vs Larry Gossett - it can happen. People can make a decision that it's time for a change even if they're not particularly angry at the incumbent, but they just think that the incumbent isn't delivering to their expectations of what they want to see at that time. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:59] Yeah. This is going to be an interesting race to see, especially at the primary point. I think looking at the point where Joe Nguyen got into this Executive's race - before he got in, Dow, obviously incumbent not challenged by major Democratic candidate before that, was running away with all of the endorsements. After Joe declared, they've really split most of the endorsements. It has not been strong one way or the other. They've really been splitting a lot or just blocking each other's endorsements. There isn't enough for a consensus in a lot of places. So I think the insider, more activist, more involved, and people who pay attention to those stuff all the time - which is a small percentage of people - are indicating that they view this certainly as a race. It's a whole different thing than communicating with voters who don't pay attention across an entire county. That's a heavy lift, a really heavy lift. And so for me, the question is can Joe Nguyen communicate that same kind of thing that makes the insider race competitive county-wide before the primary? Certainly, they have a lot more time for the general, assuming he makes it through which he should. But man, that's a lot of communication to people who don't pay attention. Mike McGinn: [00:23:29] Who will be low information voters, right - which is why that kind of background, that insider or outsider thing takes on a larger influence in races like this. It comes in and they already have a frame for deciding the race. And what you were just talking about is something I call the "perception primary". Some people might call it the "money primary". But it's not just money - it's a perception and it's spread by the insiders. And the thing about the perception primary is that people can be entirely wrong, in the perception primary. And that's, I think, one of the things you're highlighting here. Again, I'll go back to my own experience. In 2009, Greg Nickels had almost all the major endorsements and a lot of money. And the idea that he was vulnerable was actually the reason that I could get in the race. Nobody else would get in the race. He couldn't be beat. So the perception primary was keeping people out of the race. They said, "Well, we can't win the perception primary. We can't even get out of the perception primary." So I think that's always a challenge for a candidate is - can you survive the perception primary and I barely did. I barely did, let's be really clear about that. But I did survive it, but then once you got into the actual primary, I took first place. So I think there's a thing that happens where we all get sucked into the perception of the race. So clearly, Joe has political insiders or the politicos, whatever you want to call them. People are like, "Yeah, Joe has got a shot." But now, he's got to take his case to the voters. That's a very perceptive observation. And the same thing is true - I'll circle back to the mayor's race. There was a whole lot, I was doing a whole lot of - same thing happened in my '09 race. Remember when Jan Drago, a longtime City Councilmember got in the race, it was almost literally a headline of "Now it's a real race". Well, her highest polling numbers were the day she got in. And the two highest vote getters in the primary were two people who had never been in office before, me and Mallahan. So that was a case where the perception primary was just way off. And mayor's race, there's been a perception primary but this is a remarkably wide open race, more wide open than I think we've ever seen in my time watching. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:57] It's pretty wide open. One thing that we talked about in terms of, hey, who appears to be leading here based on polling - the leading vote getter in polling is Undecided, really at this point- Mike McGinn: [00:26:10] By a lot. We are engaging in some of that perception primary stuff too by saying message, dollars, institutional support should lead to votes based on what we know. But we could be wrong - because the nature - yeah. The biggest leader right now is Undecided. So, once the paid media lands and once the media decides how they're going to frame up the race in the last few weeks - will really decide which candidates can propel a little bit and get to that finish line. Maybe they're starting in a different place to get to the finish line. I think two weeks before the ballots drop, I was polling 7% in the mayor's race, ended up at 28%. And Greg Nickels was polling at 22% and he ended up at 25%. So, he spent a lot of money, it just didn't move his numbers because he was in a context where he just couldn't. And I was. And in 2017, I said, "I'm going to do this again," and the exact opposite happened. I started with a higher number and I went down because these people heard about the other candidates and they wanted someone new. So, it really drove home to me just how important the context of the race is, not what the early polls show. It all happens when the money drops and when the voters start paying attention - what movement do you start seeing then? That really happens. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:48] Yeah. Now is when the race for real regular people begins. A lot of people realize that the race is happening once they get their ballot in the mail. It's like, "Oh, this is a thing." And usually along with their ballots, they're getting four mailers a day from here on out most of the time. So, it's going to be real interesting to see how effectively people can get their message across. And that's not an easy thing to do. It takes - you have to penetrate people's consciousness at multiple points, multiple times - in order to make a real impression. And so that takes - certainly a significant budget and just good message execution. Mike McGinn: [00:28:40] Well, good message too. That was part of the point I was making about '09. But I really learned it in 2007 when I worked on the - Roads and Transit campaign. So, to refresh people's memory, the legislature decided to - that a regional Roads and Transit ballot would go in front of the public in 2007. And it included money for light rail but it also included money for highway expansion. And the Sierra Club - we decided to fight it because we believed it was bad for global warming. And I think we got the Cascade Bicycle Club with us and no other institutional endorsers. A few elected officials joined us late. But it was all the elected officials, business, labor, most of the environmental groups supported the Roads and Transit ballot measure. They said it's the only chance to get light rail. They had $5 million to spend and the polling had them at like 56%. They ended up, I think, at 44% on election night. And we spent about $50,000. We had no money, but we had a really good message. And they spent $5 million, they didn't have a good message. So, here you go. I now feel like I'm in Marco Lowe's Politics class. It's a mathematical equation, it's really simple. It's Message x Message Delivery = Impact. And if your message is - it's the only math you have to know in this. If you got an awesome message and zero delivery, no impact. And if you got a billion dollars of delivery and your message is a zero, zero times a billion dollars is still zero impact. It's both. You got to have a good message. You got to deliver it. And now, we're going to find out who's got the message in these races that actually moves voters. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:40] Yeah. And a lot to learn from it and that will certainly inform how the message is developed in a general election. Certainly, your race - a number of races - have been instructive just for me personally in terms of how effective a message can be. But in a singular rallying issue, certainly you and transit- Mike McGinn: [00:31:02] Kshama and 15 in her race- Crystal Fincher: [00:31:06] Yeah. And Kshama was the other one - 15 Now. Mike McGinn: [00:31:10] 15 Now, yeah. And I think that- Crystal Fincher: [00:31:12] That was huge. That was very instructional for me. Mike McGinn: [00:31:15] I think that Bernie Sanders got into that first race against Hillary Clinton, thinking he was just going to be a message candidate. I mean somebody to carry this message and use the race as a way to distribute a message. And he discovered his message about the power of Wall Street and the power of billionaires was really powerful. And all of a sudden, he was in a real race. The reporters say he didn't think that was going to happen and maybe if he'd realized that sooner, he might have won that one. Because you want to race differently when you're trying to deliver a message and when you're trying to win. But it's another example of how someone can have tremendous amount of institutional support, but somebody can come in with a better message and lap 'em, or at least give them a good run. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:04] Well, Obama versus Hillary was message versus establishment. Mike McGinn: [00:32:08] Great example of that. And so it's not necessarily about experience, or resume. It's about what the voters are looking for right then in a candidate. And you can run a race that - it's the context that's going to decide it, ultimately, more than the candidates. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:33] Voting is an emotional decision. Voting is not a logical decision. And to your point, it really is about how you can connect, how your message and the vision that you're painting connects with voters. And if you can tap into what they're feeling, both their frustrations and their aspirations, that is the key. Like - "We don't have to be here. We can be in a better place. I can bridge that gap and get us there." Make that connection to the voters - that sticks. And helping to have, I think, in your case and Kshama's case and certainly looking nationally in Obama's case, but on a local level with a number of people, to be able to paint a very clear image of where you can go. You were very clear on your vision. Kshama was very clear on her vision, to the point like other people have no problem repeating and defining where you stand. And I actually think that's kind of the crux of where people have challenges with candidates. It's like, "Okay, explain the candidate to me." And if they have a hard problem doing that, that's a problem for the candidate. They need to be able to say, "Oh, Kshama is 15 Now candidate. Mike is the transit candidate." Mike McGinn: [00:33:56] The fact that I rode a bike actually delivered a lot of message. I was an environmentalist who cared about transit and walking and biking and alternatives. Those things really mattered. And if your supporters can't explain why you're running, you have a problem because so many votes are actually gained by your supporters carrying the message on your behalf. So, it's got to be really simple - people complain about sound bites and I understand, because they feel like it oversimplifies the issues, but the reality of somebody running for office or running an advocacy campaign is they have to be able to boil their message down and express it in a way that actually has impact and conveys meaning to people. It's a lot harder than it looks to do that. It's a lot harder and I think people don't fully appreciate the role that a few words can play in delivering a message that moves voters, or moves people to action in an advocacy campaign. I think of "Defund the Police", everybody is picking on Defund the Police - that it hurts Democrats, and it may well hurt Democrats. But that wasn't a message invented by Democrats to a bunch of people in swing districts. That was a message invented by activists to call attention to the role of policing America. And by that measure, it seemed like a whole lot of people were repeating their message. And again- Crystal Fincher: [00:35:38] A whole lot of people repeating the message functionally. In several areas, including here in Seattle, more movement both in rhetoric and in policy than we have seen in the past 20 to 30 years in most instances. And a clear delineation between action that is inconsequential and what is just rhetoric - like a reform conversation - versus Defund is a clear bright line of if we aren't addressing the resources involved with this, if we're just tinkering around the edges of maybe some trading and stuff, that that actually is not getting us where we need to go. Mike McGinn: [00:36:17] And I think that is just completely on point, Crystal. It came from a constituency that's been yelling for decades, if not longer, at not being heard. And somebody is now hearing the message and having to confront it and respond to it - the criticism that, "Well, it's not a perfect message and it might hurt somebody else over there," that's kind of a secondary concern to the activist who's been ignored already. Crystal Fincher: [00:36:45] 100%. 100%. Mike McGinn: [00:36:47] Now having said that, I've noticed that that's not a prominent phrase in this year's City Council or mayoral elections. Crystal Fincher: [00:36:57] No - no it's not. Mike McGinn: [00:36:58] But it served its purpose in the moment and now people have to move and find a different way to try to move the debate. And actually, I think that is- Crystal Fincher: [00:37:05] But it actually set the stage for the debate that we're having now - and determine the lanes and set the parameters. So now, there are discussions about what percentage of funding, how're we going to divert. And so it's not an explicitly Defund conversation - but starts with where are the resources, what are we doing with the actual funds, what are the budget numbers and items. And so kind of like talking about the bridge, or the tunnel - the tunnel, the tunnel, the tunnel was an issue that stood for a whole set of policies. Mike McGinn: [00:37:43] It stood for climate. It stood for using tax dollars wisely. It stood for equity - that transit was a better investment than highways. All of that was in play there. Boy, it kind of takes me to another topic I hesitate to bring it up, but there's a little bit of a test. This year is a test. Two years ago was a test too of where is the electorate right now on a lot of these things. The Compassion Seattle Initiative is an example of that. Now, it's written in such a way that people can see things in it that aren't there or not see things in it that are there. The vote is happening. It's become a little bit of a litmus test for left to right, but not completely. I saw former City Attorney Mark Sidran speaking up - I saw an article he was speaking up at a Belltown forum - saying you can't support Compassion Seattle, it's too lenient on the homeless. So, I think this why I'm laughing because there's such a swirl around this issue. But I think that's kind of one of the issues out here - is homelessness is clearly the most important issue in the city right now. That's what's showing up on the polls, and that's what people care about. But then you have to dig a layer deeper, what does that mean? What kind of city are we? Do we go to, "Yeah, so we need to build more housing," or do we get to, "We need to kick them off the streets and parks"? And that's the other thing that's kind of really very much in play this year. And the fact that Compassion Seattle is on the ballot and who's backing it - now that we see who's backing it, now that its contours become a little more clear - you can see that in a way it's designed to try to boost voter turnout of those who might vote for the right lane candidate. Crystal Fincher: [00:39:50] Absolutely. Mike McGinn: [00:39:50] That's what it feels like to me. This is a political ploy more than a reasoned solution. And we declared an emergency on these six years ago, for crying out loud, but we haven't really treated it like an emergency in that six years. It was just - and there's only so many task forces or government structures and emergency resolutions you can pass before the public goes, "Well, what the hell are you going to do?" And that's really a big issue. Is it a progressive response to homelessness or not a progressive response to homelessness? That's going to be a task for the Seattle electorate in the City this year. I know which side I come out on, and I hope the City comes out on the right side of that too. Crystal Fincher: [00:40:34] Yeah. I mean it is in reality. And Erica Barnett, in PubliCola, actually did a great piece this week on - what do its advocates say versus what does the text actually say? They're very different things. It is clearly not a progressive policy. It is clearly being, trying to be - it's dressed up in progressive clothing - from the name on down and what they're saying. So, it will be very interesting to see, but that's one of those where the simple messaging on that - the easiest way to message, the simplest way to message is very deceptive and it makes it seem like, "Hey, this is finally going to do something and take care of something and people who don't just want to see people swept. But hey, there's money for this and they're going to help." You can message all of that in a way that a lot of media organizations are carrying without question, and the text doesn't jive with what their messaging is. Mike McGinn: [00:41:38] I have a sense that the confusion about what it really means will hurt it in the same way that it hurts many initiatives. That initiatives always often suffer from the public response if it's not well thought out, it's not well-thought through, that the legislative process enables things to be a more nuanced approach. And I think that that is going to be a drag for the proponents of this getting it through, which is good, from my perspective. But even so, its level of popularity overall even without those negatives of we're not quite - maybe it's not built right, maybe it's got some bad provisions in it, maybe it's not well-thought through. I still think the level of support is going to be so high, even if it fails, that it kind of shows how fed up people are with no action from government on this issue. Crystal Fincher: [00:42:37] I agree with that. The issue is that people are so tired of this problem not being taken care of. It's been declared a crisis in overlapping jurisdictions - that it's been the top priority - and people have seen the issue get worse, not better. So, it is something. It's doing something, and some people I think are just willing to say, "Well, it's time to do something, and we've seen politicians dither for years. And so we have to do something." That is the challenge, I think the biggest challenge. Mike McGinn: [00:43:10] I don't know whether it passes or fails. Even though I was kind of leaning on it, I think it might fail, but I also think it might pass. Back then, maybe here's a close. Maybe we've reached the end. I think that that we have to do something kind of feeds back to the County Exec race we talked about, feeds back to the mayor's race - how that will affect people that were more in the position to do something and those that weren't. And even how it affects the race between Nikkita, Sara Nelson, and Brianna Thomas. Granted, none of them are incumbents but one worked for a City Councilmember and one is clearly the right lane and one is clearly the left lane. Crystal Fincher: [00:43:52] Technically, two have worked for City Councilmembers, but Brianna currently- Mike McGinn: [00:43:56] Oh that's true - Sara did for many years. I shouldn't say that, but Brianna more recently. Actually true - Sara worked for City Councilmembers for quite a long time and was working for Councilmember Conlin when I was mayor and we interacted with her quite a bit. So, yeah, I think that this overarching sense is something that's going to be feeding into all of the races and what's the power of that - given the specific people in the race and their personalities and their platforms and their supporters and their messaging - remains to be determined in each one. But I think it's a powerful driver in all of the races. Crystal Fincher: [00:44:32] Yeah, I agree with that. I think people are fed up and impatient at the moment. For what is the question - they are unhappy with where things are at. Most people do feel like things are on the wrong track for one reason or another. And so what to do with that is the question. Mike McGinn: [00:44:53] Never seen wrong track numbers this high, never seen them this high in my years of following it. It's really astounding numbers on the wrong track. Well, let's Crystal, you and me, we're trying to get the City on the right track in our own ways. And maybe not everybody agrees with our ways, but I'm for all the people out there fighting to make it get it back on the right track. So, maybe we'll lead back with everybody. Crystal Fincher: [00:45:21] Yeah, I'm with you. Getting things on the right track, taking action. I do think people have to - I do think people owe an explanation, who have been in power - an accounting of what they have done with that power. And I think that we are seeing in a lot of different places - certainly, with - Republicans are not hesitant to use whatever power they have and wield it in whatever way they can. I think a lot of frustration with Democrats is that a lot of people say, "Hey, you have the power to enact so much change and not much is happening," and feeling frustration with that. Certainly, that's not universal. Republican inaction is notorious. But people have to account for the power that they have. And I think people are like, "Dude, I'm electing you to use your power to do something." And I think people who can make the case that they will do something with the power that they have will fare well if they can communicate that effectively. Mike McGinn: [00:46:23] And I'm not running for office, so I'll say this. I think the voters too, have to hold themselves accountable as well. There's a little bit of, it's not easy to cut through all the rhetoric and the misrepresentations and all the rest. But ultimately, get out and vote this time - like we get the elected leaders sometimes that they get past us or they get in. And it's up to the voters to really hold them accountable. So, take your time. You don't have to take my word for who the right candidate is, or Crystal's, or any endorsers. Take your time to dig in and definitely take your time to vote. It's a low turnout election year. Sorry for just being - but it's a low turnout year. And what we know is people are calibrating their arguments and their policy positions based on who they think is going to vote this year. So, you get out there and you vote and upset the applecart a little bit. Maybe you can get some people in there who are more progressive. Crystal Fincher: [00:47:26] Yeah. And I think I said it in another show - vote your conscience. For me, I am a strong believer that in primary elections, a lot of people are like, "Well, am I throwing away my vote if I vote for someone who I feel is not in the lead?" And that's a whole host of people because right now, there's lots of talk about who's in the lead - although to be clear, Undecided voters are the plurality of voters right now. But vote for the candidate who you feel most closely matches your values because whether or not that candidate makes it through, that is a statement of values and that's a statement that all other candidates pay attention to. If X candidate that stands for a range of values doesn't make it through, but they're 15% of voters, especially in a general election where more than likely no candidate is going to be approaching 50%, probably not 40%, probably closer to 30%. They're going to have to put together a cohesive platform that can consolidate the other voters. And if they see that, "Oh, man, I am not going to get out of this without addressing climate. I'm not going to get out of this without meaningfully making sure people feel safe, without meaningfully addressing the issue of unhoused people on our streets." Make sure that they take notice of where you actually stand in terms of your values. And you don't have to compromise in a primary election. The choice in the general will be between two people and that's where you have to kind of look at, "Okay, what's the better choice, neither of them probably are going to be ideal on everything but the best choice." But vote your values now, please. Mike McGinn: [00:49:11] Let me put it this way - 90% of the elections, I'm with you. And boy, would I love some ranked-choice voting in a race like this. I would love to see ranked-choice voting in - so order the ones you want. So, you won'thave to worry about the strategic vote. But I think there are sometimes some races you want to vote for the person who you think stands the best chance of winning the general too. And I think this might be one of those as we talked about earlier. I think sometimes you have to look at that one too. And that certainly I think was a factor in getting Biden through the election. I think one of the reasons that the Black voter supported Biden so much, in addition to having a relationship with him and knowing where he stood, was also knowing they didn't want to take a chance on Trump. And they thought Biden had the best shot. Crystal Fincher: [00:50:03] And mistrust of other voters that they would vote progressively and not betray the vote that people might take if they voted their conscience. Yes, yeah. Mike McGinn: [00:50:13] Yeah, and so it's a tricky one. I wish strategic voting weren't a thing. I think there are sometimes when it is. And so that may be where we are this time too, but you can't and you shouldn't vote for somebody if you don't feel good that they're going to advance the causes you believe in at the end of the day. That's the thing that matters. So, do your homework, folks. Crystal Fincher: [00:50:38] Do your homework. We'll certainly include a lot of links - lots of organizations have endorsed - we'll include links from a variety of organizations - Times, Stranger, Urbanist, PubliCola, Transit RIders Union. There are a number of organizations and you can read through their rationale about why they made the decisions that they made. I find that helpful in sometimes trying to wade between which candidates I'm debating on. But please do that. We thank you so much for taking the time to listen to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, July 16th, 2021. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was activist, former Seattle mayor, Mike McGinn. You can find Mike on Twitter @mayormcginn - that's M-C-G-I-N-N. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live show and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get the full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show today at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

What's the state of downtown Seattle? How are businesses and other sectors navigating the ongoing impact of the pandemic, recent protests, lack of affordable housing, and other social and economic factors? Hear perspectives from leaders including Bob Donegan, President of Ivar's, and Brian Surratt, Vice President of Real Estate Development and Community Relations for Alexandria Real Estate and former director of the City of Seattle's Office of Economic Development, on the history of the Emerald City and their vision to ensure downtown shifts from surviving to thriving. Bob Donegan is the President at Ivar's, Seattle's Original Seafood Restaurants. He joined the company in 1997 as the Chief Financial Officer and became President on 9/11 when one of his partners died. In addition to Ivar's, Donegan volunteers at the Seattle Aquarium, Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Seattle Historic Waterfront Association, the Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts, the Seattle Sports Commission, UW's Foster School Center from Strategic Leadership, and the Seattle branch of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. Brian Surratt is Vice President at Alexandria Real Estate Equities, one of the largest developers of life science and technology campuses. Previously, he was the Director of the City of Seattle's Office of Economic Development. Surratt has been recognized by the German Marshall Memorial and the White House Fellowship programs, as well as Seattle Met Magazine and Puget Sound Business Journal.  Surratt is currently a board member of FareStart, the William D. Ruckelshaus Center, the Seattle Center Foundation, Downtown Emergency Services Center, Seattle 2030 District, and Downtown Seattle Association. Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Seattle City Club.

We spoke to Jon Scholes, President and CEO at Downtown Seattle Association about Compassionate Seattle and homelessness. And we also took calls on how to deal with the heat this weekend.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We spoke to Jon Scholes, President and CEO at Downtown Seattle Association about Compassionate Seattle and homelessness. And we also took calls on how to deal with the heat this weekend.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Erica C. Barnett of Publicola joins Crystal as they analyze this week's news, including: more mayoral candidates than ever supporting limitations of single family housing zoning and providing free transit services, ACLU of WA and the House Our Neighbors Coalition coming out in opposition to Charter Amendment 29 and the misleading rhetoric from the pro CA-29 "Compassion Seattle" campaign, and members of the Seattle Police Department fraudulently registering to vote by using their precinct address instead of their residential address. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Erica C. Barnett, at @ericacbarnett. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “What Is the Correct Percentage of Single-Family Zoning in Seattle?” by Mike Eliason: https://www.theurbanist.org/2018/06/01/correct-percentage-single-family-zoning-seattle/ “Amazon provides $100 million to build affordable housing near Sound Transit stations” by Mike Lindblom: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/amazon-provides-100-million-to-build-affordable-housing-near-sound-transit-stations/?amp=1 “Seattle mayoral candidates talk free transit, traffic-ticket cameras and greenhouse-gas emissions” by Daniel Beekman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-mayoral-candidates-talk-free-transit-traffic-ticket-cameras-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ MASS + Allies Mayoral Candidate Forum (Video), hosted by the Cascade Bicycle Club, moderated by Erica C. Barnett: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=500917777790093&ref=watch_permalink Text of Seattle Charter Amendment 29, AKA “Compassion Seattle”: http://clerk.seattle.gov/~cfpics/cf_321942b.pdf Statement from the ACLU of Washington on proposed Seattle Charter Amendment 29: https://www.aclu-wa.org/news/statement-aclu-washington-proposed-seattle-charter-amendment-29 Statement from the House our Neighbors Coalition on Seattle Charter Amendment 29: https://www.houseourneighbors.org/ “Seattle Navigation Center gets people out of tents, but getting them into housing is tougher” by Vianna Davila and Vernal Coleman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-navigation-center-gets-people-out-of-tents-but-getting-them-into-housing-is-tougher/ “Only Two People Have Found Permanent Homes Through Seattle's New Low-Barrier Shelter” by Erica C. Barnett: https://www.seattlemag.com/news-and-features/only-two-people-have-found-permanent-homes-through-seattles-new-low-barrier “Where This Year's Campaign Money Is Coming From” by Erica C. Barnett: https://publicola.com/2021/06/15/where-this-years-campaign-money-is-coming-from/ “No Charges Against Cops Who Violated Voting Law; City Finally Buys Shower Trailers” from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/06/14/morning-fizz-voting-police-shower-trailers/ "Elections Department Will Refer Two SPD Voter Registration Issues to the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office" by Rich Smith https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/06/15/58254135/elections-department-will-refer-two-spd-voter-registration-issues-to-the-king-county-prosecuting-attorneys-office "City reverses course, issues permit for CHOP Art Juneteenth Celebration in Cal Anderson" by jseattle https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2021/06/city-reverses-course-issues-permit-for-chop-art-juneteenth-celebration-in-cal-anderson/ "Why King County Needs Ranked-Choice Voting" by Girmay Zahilay https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/06/15/58244912/why-king-county-needs-ranked-choice-voting   Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work with behind the scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost live shows where we review the news of the week. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host, Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. Erica C. Barnett: [00:00:50] Thank you Crystal. Great to be here.  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:52] Excellent. I'm excited to have you here as always. You're always covering -- your coverage is great at PubliCola. You actually hosted a forum this week, not the first forum you've hosted this cycle. But certainly another great one. And we've had a lot of things happen during the week from that forum to Juneteenth being on Saturday -- now federally recognized as a holiday after Congress passed it, the Senate unanimously and Joe Biden signed it. Now only if they would do the same thing with the filibuster and others. The King County Council discussing renter protections ahead of the eviction moratorium. King Council Councilmember Girmay to introduce an ordinance to put ranked choice voting on the ballot in November, signature gathering with Compassion Seattle has begun, an SPD officer was in a bizarre and tragic incident -- struck and killed while helping a motorist on the side of I-5, and then her car was stolen, oddly. And then also two SPD officers registered to vote using the precinct address, which is illegal. It's a felony. And they're going to be referred to the Prosecuting Attorney after barely facing any discipline within SPD. So we'll see if that turns out to be anything more substantial -- seems like it is for other people. Let's hope that the cops have to play by the same rules in this instance. That would be a good start in that process.  But I want to start off talking about the Cascade Bicycle Club Transportation Forum that took place on Wednesday that you hosted, Erica. And I guess overall, what was the forum focused on? What were some of the big highlights and takeaways regarding the candidates? Erica C. Barnett: [00:02:41] Sure. The forum, which was actually hosted by the Mass Coalition, which includes Cascade and a bunch of other transportation and environmental and sustainability groups, really focused -- we ended up focusing a lot on transportation. There were some questions and some discussion of other environmental issues, as well as equity issues related to transportation. And it was a really interesting, very substantive forum. I thought the candidates came to it with some pretty different views, I think, of what a sustainable transportation system would look like, for example. But I think a couple of things really jumped out at me about the candidates' responses. One was just the fact that there's near unanimity now around the idea that single family zoning is exclusionary, which is a term that urbanists have used for many years. To say, look, single family zoning, where you can only have detached, single family houses in an area is based on redlining which is a racist practice, and is a form of modern day redlining, that forces people who can't -- who didn't buy in in the sixties, seventies, when houses were cheap, or who are wealthy now -- it forces people into suburbs and smaller apartments and places where other types of housing are allowed. I remember when I wrote that single family zoning was racist and based in redlining, maybe -- I don't know -- less than 10 years ago, I was lambasted for just suggesting that idea. And now it is just totally mainstream, all the candidates seem to believe pretty strongly that we need to get rid of single family zoning. The other thing that jumped out at me about a particular candidate is that is Bruce Harrell's sort of insistence on this idea. And he said this about homelessness, too -- that philanthropy is going to be part of the solution to transportation problems. I was not really sure how that's going to work, or how donations are going to solve these big systemic issues, and he didn't really explain, but that seems to be a big theme for him. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:01] That - yes, that's interesting. I certainly have heard him talk about philanthropy before. It seems like, Hey, if our current system and process is not sufficient enough to address the problems, and we already know that the mega rich are not paying their fair share, as we saw in a recent ProPublica publication after they released the tax returns of billionaires and they're paying less than many people who earn $75,000 a year or $50,000 a year -- why not just tax them? Isn't taxing the most reasonable, sustainable, equitable solution there instead of bending over to beg them for money and essentially hoping that you luck into enough money one time to make a little change -- but can you plan off of philanthropy? It just seems like it is passing the buck and not sufficient enough to address the challenge that we have right now. And [it's] trying to get away from the taxation conversation, which -- we've had the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We've had Amazon and Jeff Bezos say that they'll give X amount for homelessness or affordable housing and that Okay. seems like more of a way, especially while they're fighting against floor taxation, to placate people. Erica C. Barnett: [00:06:39] Yeah. And it always comes with strings attached. Amazon's contribution, it was largely -- the majority of it is in the form of a low interest loan. So it's not really philanthropy. I mean, philanthropy is, as I understand it is giving, it's not lending. So, there's that. And the fact is, Harrell's comment on philanthropy, in this case was about Move Seattle, which is supposed to build a lot more sidewalks and bike lanes than it is going to actually build -- just because of the cost of things going up and revenues going down. So his idea is to backfill that, but then, okay -- so, you get a bunch of money from Amazon, let's say -- where are they going to build those sidewalks? Is it going to be in places that are beneficial to Amazon workers, or is it going to be in the places that have historically gone without sidewalks for decades and decades, in Southwest Seattle, in Southeast Seattle and far north Seattle? So, that sort of idea and the same thing with his idea to do philanthropy for homelessness -- Amazon built a new facility for Mary's Place, which serves women and women with children. And not in any way to denigrate Mary's Place -- they do very important work -- but the biggest portion of the homeless population in Seattle is single men. And it's very, very hard to site a shelter for single men. There's no philanthropy. That's just, you know, philanthropy -- there aren't big businesses lining up to do this work. And so I would be really wary of any money that comes with strings attached. Even if Harrell's sort of vague proposal turned into a plan and turned into money.  Crystal Fincher: [00:08:33] Yeah. And fundamentally, this may be because I'm a wonk, but I want to hear what you can do, what you as a candidate in looking at your capacity as the Mayor of Seattle, what in your sphere of influence can you do? That to me just seems like passing the buck. "Well, let's get someone else. Someone else needs to do this. And wow, we can really do it with someone else, but I personally don't have a plan to address it." And I think we're at the point where many of the issues that we have require plans from these candidates to address directly. Tell me what you can do as mayor. This other stuff, legislative action, philanthropy, regional help -- all useful and helpful. Sure. But can we count on them? No. So we better have a plan.  Erica C. Barnett: [00:09:20] And we've had four years of a mayor appointing task forces that make these kind of vague proposals at the end. And it's like a black hole. We're gonna put this taskforce on top of this issue that's really important. And then you either never hear from them again, or they issue a list of eight recommendations that are basically the same stuff they went in, knowing they would need to recommend and do. So I think that mayoral candidates who say, I want to pass the buck onto Amazon, or I want to pass the buck onto a task force -- I mean, that's just promising more of the same.  Crystal Fincher: [00:09:59] Exactly. Another issue I was wondering about, that, actually, I've heard some candidates talk about -- some of them have talked about it on this show -- is the idea of free transportation. Certainly not a new idea. Certainly a popular idea, and the fare box -- fares do not cover the transportation system and don't pay all of the bills, but that idea was accepted by, and is being advocated for, by a number of candidates. Did you talk about that in the forum?  Erica C. Barnett: [00:10:32] We did, it came up a couple of times. It was really-- and that was another issue where I feel like the the window has really shifted. All the candidates except for Lance Randall -- and I'll say, all the candidates who were there, Casey Sixkiller canceled and Colleen Echohawk had a longstanding conflict -- so, the candidates who were there also that they supported free transit, except for Lance Randall. Bruce Harrell said that he wanted to move towards free transit, but in the meantime he supported, in his words, incrementalism from doing things like reducing reducing rates, doing free fares for some folks, and being creative and buying more hours. But overall, everybody did say on the record, we support free transit. I should say, I just remembered, Ace, the architect -- what's his real name? Andrew Grant Houston.  Crystal Fincher: [00:11:29] Andrew Grant Houston, yes. Erica C. Barnett: [00:11:31] Ace The Architect on Twitter, which is where a lot of people know him. He did say that the issue beyond free transit is thinking about it in a holistic way and actually making it easier for people to get out of cars and to be on buses, so doing things like changing land use patterns and making more systemic changes in the longterm, so that it's just easier for people not to have to buy cars. Crystal Fincher: [00:11:58] Which I am a strong advocate of, I think people should truly have a choice of the type of transportation that they want to use. And, if someone is dedicated to remaining in a car, okay. But lots of people, especially in metropolitan areas like Seattle, a car is an inconvenience and it's hard and challenging to park. Parking takes up valuable space and is also expensive. And so just having to negotiate through that where oftentimes transit or biking or walking, when there are safe options, are better and quicker and healthier options for a lot of people. So to truly have that choice and to not have that choice eliminated because of poor zoning, lack of safe transit ways -- it is necessary. I appreciate that point being brought up. Was there anything else, overall insightful in just how they saw the possibility to transform the city as we have it today to one where there is that choice, or we do have more reasonable transit options within their terms? Erica C. Barnett: [00:13:10] Well, I think there was -- and I have to go back and look at their exact answers so I don't mischaracterize anybody, but I think there was sort of unanimity for expanding the Move Seattle levy to cover more and to be larger perhaps. And figuring out a way to build Sound Transit without having to -- they're going through this realignment process because their revenues have come in short -- but figuring out a way to build everything that is promised in Sound Transit without having to go back and pass another levy and wait another however many years to get everything built.  So, those were kind of the broad themes of consensus: We can't go back. We can't let the pandemic set us back on what is supposed to be a hundred year decision on Sound Transit Three. And so, again, you've followed this stuff for a long time as have I, and it just feels like, compared to previous elections -- even the last mayoral election, not to mention the ones before that -- everything on this kind of progressive transportation revenue and land use issue has shifted to kind of thinking about it more through an equity lens, which I think was not really as much of a factor four years ago. And of thinking of kind of the systemic reasons that people maybe drive cars or people can't afford 2. 75 for a bus fare.  And that's produced this discussion of free transit, which I just find totally fascinating. I mean, it's something that, Sound Transit I should say, is pretty much dead set against because they say they need those revenues. But it feels like we're moving somewhat in that direction, if not free then more access to reduce fares for more people.  Crystal Fincher: [00:15:10] Yeah, certainly. And I would imagine that free transit on Metro and not on Sound Transit would potentially changes some usage patterns by some people and that making transit more accessible for some people. I mean, Sound Transit -- I could talk about Sound Transit for a long time. The recent extended plans given, how they're presenting their budget, and delays until potentially 2046 for some alignments is just like, how are we discussing this with a straight face? I'm sorry, it's clownery. What is even happening? How are you even with a straight face taxing people today without delivering today? Sound Transit can do better.  Erica C. Barnett: [00:15:59] I agree.  Crystal Fincher: [00:15:59] I can confidently say that we should not accept what they're saying as acceptable and "That's the best that we can do." Sound Transit can do better. They should do better. They should be held accountable for doing better. And, I am encouraged, as you said, with the type of conversation that we're having today, especially in the Seattle City Council and mayoral races, where there seems to be uniform acceptance that we have to do better. That that is not sufficient. And hopefully that pushes the Sound Transit board and organization in a better direction. And hopefully we get some new leaders on that board who will more strongly advocate for that too. Erica C. Barnett: [00:16:43] Yeah. And just very quickly to be clear, for the mayoral race, this is a really relevant question because the mayor does serve on the Sound. Transit board. That's a given. City Council members can serve on the board. But the mayor does. So the Mayor of Seattle has a lot of influence on that board.  Crystal Fincher: [00:17:00] Absolutely. Thank you. Well, another thing I wanted to get to was the Compassion Seattle. I think it is ironically named and that there's not much compassion in sweeps, which is what they're trying to put into the City Charter, but signature gathering for the Compassion Seattle Charter Amendment has started. The initiative is facing fresh opposition from new coalition House Our Neighbors, the ACLU of Washington also publicly took a stand against that Charter Amendment. And there were also some misleading statements made in a campaign forum on Wednesday about that Charter Amendment. But I guess looking at overall the Charter Amendment, where that stands, where the camp stands and in signature gathering, is there anything that you found notable in those events, Erica? Erica C. Barnett: [00:17:58] Well, a couple of things. So the ACLU coming out against it was very interesting. Compassion Seattle put out a statement, kind of opposing the ACLU's opposition. I think there's just a lot of kind of misleading statements happening from the campaign about what the amendment would do. And that's kind of the basis of all this back and forth. I would just encourage people to actually read the amendment because it's not very long and anything that comes out of the campaign's mouth is much less relevant -- because it's about intent -- than just what it actually says in the amendment. So the campaign makes statements about how this would mandate funding for treatment. It would mandate funding for all these different services -- for case management, for compassionate things. And it doesn't actually do that. If you look at the amendment itself, it does not do that. It says that 12% of the city's budget, the city's general fund has to go into a Human Services fund that will pay for, in the first two years, 2000 units of temporary or emergency housing. And so what that means is shelter. And the campaign will say, Well, this could include permanent supportive housing. Permanent supportive housing costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a unit. And then you have to sustain it over time with services. And shelter costs thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per bed, depending on what you're talking about.  So when the campaign says this mandates treatment and services, what they mean is it mandates a minimum of enhanced shelter. So something like the Navigation Center in Pioneer Square -- I'm sorry, in the International District. And that's it. So look at what the amendment actually says when you're hearing all these kinds of grandiose promises. Because a lot of them don't really shake out the way that the campaign portrays it. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:06] That is true. Can you explain what the Navigation Center is like -- that's what it's mandating -- what is the Navigation Center? Erica C. Barnett: [00:20:17] Sure. And this is actually, this is another -- speaking of the narrative shifting, and what is possible shifting -- the Navigation Center was really innovative in its time when it was first built. It's an enhanced shelter, which means that people can stay 24 hours. They don't have to pack up their stuff and leave it at seven in the morning. There's some storage for people to keep some of their belongings and you can have pets. You can go with your partner. I believe it is sex segregated in terms of sleeping areas, but you get a little more privacy. People sleep on bunk beds in smaller rooms. So it's not just like a giant room the way, say, like DESC's old Downtown shelter was. So, it's an upgrade from your basic shelter. However, it is still a mass congregate shelter. And one thing the pandemic has taught us is that people do much, much better when they have privacy, when they have a room to themselves to think and breathe, and a door that locks, and a bathroom. I think the Navigation Center has a few stalls, mass showers. And so it's still a shelter.  And I think the pandemic showed us that we can do better and that people do better when we do better. So, when Compassion Seattle says we're going to do all this amazing stuff, they're talking about something that was amazing when it was first put into place, 5- 10 years ago. But we've moved beyond that now in our understanding of what actually makes people's lives better and puts them on the path to being able to sustain housing or get into permanent housing.  Crystal Fincher: [00:21:59] Right. And thank you for that -- I appreciate that. I think it is really important to be able to go through what the Charter Amendment actually does say. We will certainly include that in our show notes for those who want to read it for yourselves. And while there's a lot of promises being made far surpassing that, and there was video of a signature gatherer -- a paid signature gatherer actually -- who was saying, No, Compassion Seattle will not forcibly remove someone from anywhere. I don't know if people realize what a sweep is, but that's literally forcing someone to move from an area and you're codifying that in the City Charter. So, that can't be changed -- as the City Council has moved against that, but the Mayor has remained in support and has deployed these sweeps in various areas of the city -- even in defiance of what some communities have asked for. That is literally what that is. You can't put sunshine and a smile on that. That's what it is.  And also just as a reminder, it is also recommended against by the CDC for being dangerous in a pandemic. And although it is wonderful that the City of Seattle and King County look overall to be at 70% vaccination rate, which was certainly a target, many vulnerable populations, BIPOC populations are not there yet. So certainly taking a vulnerable population that is already struggling in several different ways, compounding that also with the risks brought forward either in congregate shelter or by being swept, which is recommended against -- it does not seem ideal. We know we can do better. This is a solution; it's not the best solution. And actually doesn't look like it's going to do much to solve the root issue, but make people seeing homelessness happier that they may not have to see it as frequently in their own area. But it certainly isn't finding appropriate shelter and putting people on the path to stable housing. Erica C. Barnett: [00:24:15] Yeah. And just on the question of sweeps -- I mean, there's been some dispute about whether this would increase the likelihood of sweeps, because it does essentially codify what's already allowed under the law. And that is true. But as Jon Scholes, the head of the Downtown Seattle Association, was saying just the other night at a forum -- the reason they're putting it in the City Charter, he said -- which is the city's constitution -- is so that the City Council can't do anything with it. They can't overturn it. It is in place and it can't be undone.  Now, of course, they also did this weird thing where they have it sunset after seven years, which is unprecedented -- for a constitutional amendment to sunset. So that speaks to a kind of wishy-washyness about it, or the belief that homelessness will be solved in seven years, which of course, it won't. But yeah, I mean, this is their intent. Their intent is to make sure that no matter what City Council gets elected, no matter what mayor gets elected, this cannot be overturned. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:25] Which is, I mean -- we've moved, especially now that we've moved to districted elections. The Council moving against this is really -- these are the representatives that people in each area of the City have elected to represent their interests. And to say, You know what? We can't risk those people actually making decisions -- the decisions that the people of the City are electing them to do -- seems really disingenuous. It seems like this is kind of a sour grapes policy disagreement from people who were just unhappy with the direction that the City is going and using this tactic to get back at it and saying a lot of misleading things while they do. So if what they were doing didn't matter and wasn't consequential, they wouldn't be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pass it and to do it. It is codifying sweeps. That's the purpose. That's why they're spending so much money to do it. And you did an excellent article this week on just where money is coming from in Seattle races in these ballot initiatives, charter amendments. And the money for this is coming from the predicted and predictable place. It's downtown business -- certainly from the downtown area -- who have been advocating for sweeps this entire time. So we see what it is. Erica C. Barnett: [00:26:50] Yeah, it's very interesting.. I mean, just -- and Seattle Ethics and Elections does a great job of this to be honest. I mean, I can't take any credit for the charts and graphs that are in this post that I did on PubliCola, but it's very, very stark when you look at just the overwhelming amount of money coming from District 7, which includes downtown, for Compassion Seattle. And you can look at the numbers individually, and it's just -- it's real estate firms, it's developers, it's property owners downtown. And they continue to shape the narrative, unfortunately, for this current mayor, but also are trying to shape the narrative in the actual elections. And I think that it's important to remember that Seattle has a lot of neighborhoods other than downtown -- when thinking about issues in general.  Crystal Fincher: [00:27:48] Absolutely. The last thing I wanted to cover is an item that has been on many people's nerves. And that is actually eyebrow raising that -- just the audacity of it -- the two SPD officers who registered to vote using the addresses of their precinct, which is not where they live, in order to vote seemingly against candidates who they were unhappy with running. What happened here and where does that stand? Erica C. Barnett: [00:28:19] So I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, I believe it was eight officers that registered to vote using SPD precincts.  Crystal Fincher: [00:28:27] You are correct.  Erica C. Barnett: [00:28:29] And they won't face criminal charges. There was an investigation by the Office of Police Accountability and what they decided was basically -- they're going to, they got one day unpaid suspensions and oral reprimands in various cases. And three of them retired or resigned before the investigation concluded. And so it's now been referred to the King County Prosecutor and that's sort of where it stands. I mean, this is -- if you think about -- if you or I were to decide that we wanted to vote in -- if I were to say, I really just don't like that Kshama Sawant. So I'm going to register to vote in her district, even though I live in District 7. You know - we would get in a lot of trouble and it would probably be a news story, to be honest, if we were public figures, which we are. So the fact that police officers, most of whom do not live in the City of Seattle and do not vote in our elections, would try to influence or participate in elections that they have no right to participate in is -- I mean, it's pretty appalling. And the fact that this was sort of -- they sort of received a slap on the wrist as if this was no big deal at all is as you said -- it's infuriating.  Crystal Fincher: [00:29:56] It is infuriating and you're right -- two are going to be referred to the King County Prosecutor's office. But there were eight.  Erica C. Barnett: [00:30:04] Thank you. We got there. I didn't have that detail.   Crystal Fincher: [00:30:07] So thank you -- I appreciate that. Or seven -- I'm looking at the five other officers -- and I'm looking at an article written by Rich Smith in the Slog right now. And including the SPOG president, Mike Solan, who also registered with an incorrect address. And the one thing we know is that they knew they were doing wrong. Why? Because Solan has been posting and created controversy, as he often does, by posting about the people -- the Stop the Steal thing, basically -- voter fraud and stealing the ballot. We just had a number of police officers attend the DC events that led to the insurrection. And the entire premise of people being in DC was that basically Black cities and Black voters -- cities with large Black populations and Black voters -- were just deeply fraudulent and did this in wide numbers, and voted where they weren't eligible when they weren't eligible. And clearly SPD officers took this to heart and felt that, and got mad about it -- mad enough to take their behinds to DC to protest something that did not exist. And we still don't know if any actually participated in the insurrection, but I actually think that's ultimately irrelevant because just being there is proof of such an indefensible and unacceptable belief and position. It was billed as Stop the Steal -- who was stealing what? For them to be able to answer that question with -- Well, other people are stealing this election from Trump -- is ridiculous. That said, they were happy to call that fraud when it came to other people. They did call it fraud when it came to other people. But somehow it was okay for them to do it. It's like they think they're above the law or something. I am just --  Erica C. Barnett: [00:32:09] It is like that, isn't it?  Crystal Fincher: [00:32:10] It seems so. And one -- for them to get a slap on the wrist, like barely a slap on the wrist. I think it was one day suspension?  Erica C. Barnett: [00:32:19] Yeah. Yeah.  Crystal Fincher: [00:32:19] Most of them were committing this literal felony. Erica C. Barnett: [00:32:23] Yeah, and I think it's -- it's the same in what we saw in the Trump era -- was projection, projection, projection. You sort of imagine people doing the thing that you yourself are contemplating or actually doing. And I think that the vast majority of the verified cases of voter fraud that have been found -- and there are not very many, it's really a handful -- have been Republican voters. So read into that what you will. But yeah it is -- but the fact that there's, I mean -- will these nine or these eight people sway an election? Of course not. But it's the fact that they are exemplars of the community, supposedly. And they are an example, and if they get off with impunity, then more people will be encouraged to just kind of do whatever they want.  Crystal Fincher: [00:33:15] Yeah. And accepting the vilifying of other people for doing what they themselves are doing, which is what our criminal legal system seems to do consistently. And is it any surprise that if they find it acceptable, and they're such a critical part of the system and how people enter into the system -- is it any surprise that there might be some bias involved with how they police, if they have no problem doing this? Just what does that say about that culture? It seems pretty obvious.  And again, they should not be above the law, but man, we keep seeing how that is true and it is just disheartening to see. And I hope that through this process and everything else that we've seen, that leaders in the City take seriously the need to bring forth true accountability -- as a new Police Chief is hired and really ultimately this new Seattle Police Officers Guild contract is negotiated, make sure there are levers to bring real accountability within that. And don't accept it if it doesn't have it -- that should be a litmus test.  Erica C. Barnett: [00:34:22] Well put. Crystal Fincher: [00:34:23] Well, thank you so much, everyone, for taking the time to listen to Hacks & Wonks today -- today on Friday, June 18th, 2021. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is the awesome Lisl Stadler. Our wonderful co-host today was Seattle political reporter and founder of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. I'm also thankful to Shannon Cheng and Lexi Morritt for also being extremely helpful with this podcast. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett, that's Erica with a C, and on publicola.com. You can buy her book Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking Relapse and Recovery at your favorite bookstore. You can find me on Twitter @finchrii, that's spelled F I N C H F R I I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts, just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar -- sometimes you need to use the ampersand and instead of the word and, we've discovered -- we're working on that, but be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows  and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. While you're there, leave a review -- it really helps us out. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

Erica C. Barnett joins Crystal on the show this week to discuss developments in Seattle's response to the homelessness crisis, the ironic language of the Compassion Seattle Initiative, the cancellation of a needle exchange program in Federal Way, and calls for the King County sheriff to resign in light of a recently publicized email articulating her support for a cop who unjustly murdered a civilian. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Erica C. Barnett, at @ericacbarnett, and read more of their work at Publicola.com. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Watch our guest today, Erica C. Barnett, talk with Omari Salisbury about the “Compassion Seattle” Charter Amendment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohb-H65i9AY  Learn more about the proposed charter amendment here: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/04/02/group-seeks-amendment-to-charter-requiring-homeless-services-and-clearing-of-parks/  Find more information about the Federal Way decision to end needle exchanges here: https://publicola.com/2021/04/08/hostile-architecture-at-the-library-needle-exchange-ban-in-federal-way-and-a-roads-heavy-transpo-bil/  Read about calls for the King County Sheriff to resign here: https://publicola.com/2021/04/09/calls-for-king-county-sheriff-resignation-expand-beyond-county-council/   Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work with behind the scenes perspectives on policies in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.  Today, we're continuing our Friday almost live shows where we review the news of the week. Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host, Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and author of Quitter: A memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. Erica Barnett: [00:00:48] Great to be here, Crystal.  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:50] Great to have you here with us again. It's always an enlightening time when you're here. And as one Seattle City Councilmember noted, It seems like Erica's always on there.  Erica Barnett: [00:01:01] Ooh, which one? Crystal Fincher: [00:01:06] So you're - people are hearing you.  Erica Barnett: [00:01:08] Awesome.  Crystal Fincher: [00:01:08] And I wanted to start off talking - with an issue that is really relevant in the City of Seattle right now. A proposed charter amendment - an initiative that's being brought up that they'll be gathering signatures for, from a group called Compassion Seattle. We talked about this a little bit last week, but do you want to go over what it is and who is putting that forward? Erica Barnett: [00:01:33] Sure. Compassion Seattle is a group of organizations and individuals. So the original proposal was made by former City Councilmember, Tim Burgess. But it's being funded primarily at this point by the Downtown Seattle Association. There's also some organizational support from the Public Defender Association and the Chief Seattle Club and the Downtown Emergency Service Center, so some homeless service providers.  And what the initiative would do is it would set a mandate in the City charter. So it would amend the city's constitution to mandate that the City spend 12% of its budget every year on a special human services fund that would pay for homeless services, behavioral health, and things like that. And it would also mandate 2,000 new units, beds of shelter. It says shelter or housing, but I, think that realistically, what we're talking about is shelter, within the first year after the charter amendment passes. So it constrains future mayors and City Council members in that way. And then in addition, it says that as this housing/shelter becomes available, the City shall endeavor to keep, or it shall keep, parks and public spaces open and clear of encampments, which I would say opponents and just people kind of reading between the lines would say is a return to sweeps. So that's the broad strokes of what it does. Still a lot of unanswered questions about some of those mandates in particular.  Crystal Fincher: [00:03:20] Well and still a lot of questions, certainly. One of the first ones that I have just currently is - What exactly is different in this proposed charter amendment than the current state now? Are we currently funding anywhere close to 12%? Is that - that's being certainly billed as a big amount and, Hey, we're really investing. Is that a big investment?  Erica Barnett: [00:03:44] Well, I mean, it will be a big investment, if it ends up being additive to what the City is already providing to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. And I know that's a bit of a wonky answer, but we are supposedly going to a regional approach to homelessness. And so the question - I mean, a huge unanswered question with that 12% of the budget, which is about, I think, $185 million a year at the current budget size, is that - is this going to be the City remaining in the business of providing homeless services, or is this going to the King County Authority? So that's a whole other giant policy question of - are we moving toward regionalism or is this a step in the other direction? The 12% number was apparently based on it being 1% higher than what we spent in the 2021 budget, but that is sort of a very, very - not misleading, but not representative amount. We usually - the City usually spends considerably less than that. So more like 9%. So this would be a pretty big hike and it would commit the City in perpetuity. So, no matter what happens, if there's a giant earthquake or other disaster, if we have another economic depression - no matter what, this money would have to be spent in this way. And so it really is - sorry that this is a legalistic term and I'm sure they've vetted this legally, but it is a prior restraint on future city councils and on mayors, to spend this money in this way. And to use the City's constitution to do that, as I've reported on PubliCola, is unprecedented. It's just, it's not usually what we amend the City charter for. So there's a lot of things about this proposal that are highly unusual and unprecedented.  Crystal Fincher: [00:05:46] Definitely. And this initiative was announced just over a week ago, but you have been reporting at PubliCola on this for months and saw this coming. So I guess, as you're looking at what the actual impact of this is going to be in terms of housing units and in terms of sweeps, what does it look like?  Erica Barnett: [00:06:11] Well, I think that the - if you look back at the early drafts of the amendment, and I'll have a story coming up on Monday about this as well with more details. But if you look back at the early drafts, it was all about sweeps. And I think that one sort of reason some of these groups that are not business groups bought into it is that some of that language was eliminated.  But where this came from was polling that found a tremendous amount of support for encampment sweeps. And so, the early language was all about removing encampments, keeping parks and public spaces clear of encampments, and it was much more punitive. So I think that, you know, that language isn't quite in there as much anymore, but the fact that that's how it originated says to me that this is fundamentally about removing encampments from parks and public spaces where they are visible. And whatever the actual language - it's important to know that context of that's where it comes from.  I think that because there's so many unanswered questions at this point, it's a little hard to say what the long-term impact is going to be. But I think that there - when you have a very vague language, like emergency housing including everything from enhanced shelter to permanent supportive housing, that tends to default to the cheapest, lowest, common denominator of those things. So if you're saying you have to build a thousand units of something, it's much, much easier to put in a thousand shelter beds in a congregate, enhanced shelter than it is to build a thousand units of permanent supportive housing. And of course that's impossible in one year. It's just not going to happen that quickly. So what I perceive this as is - a mandate for shelter that probably won't happen because there is no historical precedent for the City building shelter that fast. I mean, look at the pandemic. We stood up 95 new shelter beds in the first six months, not a thousand, not 500. 95. So the City is very slow about this stuff, and there's a little bit of, I think, magical thinking going on that if we just tell the City they have to do something, they're going to do it. We tried that with the emergency declaration on homelessness and that's been five and a half years now. And the emergency is still here and if anything, worse than ever. So, I don't think the immediate impact that you're going to see, in terms of actual housing, is going to be very great.  I mean, I could be proved wrong. That's certainly why some of the supporters from the kind of more left-leaning, homeless service provider community are - say they are supporting it. Because it actually does set sort of priorities and principles out, but let's also look at practice and look at what the City has done historically. And there's just not - there's not a whole lot of promising precedent there.  Crystal Fincher: [00:09:16] Yeah. And you actually raised a really interesting point that caught a lot of people's attention when they announced. This isn't - certainly with the original language and as many people see the intent, it is being supported by a lot of people who have been very in favor of sweeps without any services and seem to be primarily concerned with doing away with visible homelessness and not actually providing shelter for people. With the language around, one, just the name of the organization now - Compassion Seattle. It just sounds, I mean, how can anything bad happen from a group named Compassion Seattle? I mean, come on. How could you not trust that? But at the same time, there is a coalition of organizations and people like Lisa Daugaard from the Public Defenders Association, who people associate with the LEAD program, other programs that have been lauded as beneficial from social justice advocates and others. And so they're looking at this going, Well, why is she on board? Are they on board? Why does this - has this attracted someone who seems to be pushing in the other direction, I guess, what have you seen from that? And what have you heard from them as to why they're supporting.  Erica Barnett: [00:10:46] Well, I mean, what I've heard from Lisa and from other groups in their statements - Chief Seattle Club put out a statement and other groups have as well - is that, as I said, this sort of sets out principles and it doesn't contain language that mandates sweeps without any kind of services. So it ties those two together, in principle. I think, and I've written a little bit about this too - the Downtown Seattle Associa-, uh, the Downtown Emergency Service Center, and the PDA, and Chief Seattle Club, and Plymouth Housing as well - I mean, these are not as unlikely of allies as you might think.  Simplistically, it's easy to just think that, Oh, these are homeless advocates and these are bad business guys. Right? But the Downtown Seattle Association and DESC and all these groups have been working together on various things for many, many years. I mean, LEAD is Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion. They started out as an organization in Belltown that came out of complaints about encampments and about drugs and - actually primarily drug users and crime in the Belltown area. And it's - it was done in collaboration with police. So, you know, the directors of Plymouth Housing and the Chief Seattle Club sit on the board of the Downtown Seattle Association. The CEO of DSA is on the board of the Downtown Emergency Service Center. So these organizations are all connected, and I don't mean that in a conspiratorial way, just that they've worked together for a really long time and it's not really that surprising.  I mean, I think that advocates, the fact that advocates have not signed on - advocates like Real Change, like the Lived Experience Coalition, which is made up of individuals who actually have lived experience of homelessness. They told me yesterday that they have not even been consulted on this initiative and they have asked to be - they've asked to be included in conversations and they say that they have been refused or just didn't get any response. So, look at who's not there, I think, and that is more telling than the fact that these downtown groups are there and are at the table. Crystal Fincher: [00:13:06] Yeah, certainly. And again, as we've talked about in candidate races with endorsements and figuring out where people stand and where their interests seem to align, follow the money. Who is funding this and who is likely to benefit from it? And that's pretty illuminating, but in this entire conversation, we will certainly continue to keep paying attention. They will be collecting signatures - will probably be able to get enough signatures to put it on the ballot. So we will see, as this unfolds, but certainly a lot of people are asking questions. A lot of people are skeptical, and there's a lot of people who have not been heard from, as you said. So I guess looking - in a related issue - currently what we're dealing with, there are more sweeps planned right now. Do you want to talk about those?  Erica Barnett: [00:14:09] Sure. So the City is, well, this week actually, this morning, as we're talking on Friday - the City's parks department removed an encampment at the Rainier Playfield. And it was a small encampment that was inside the dugout. It was a number of men who all are Spanish speakers who were removed from that place. And the City has told me that four of them were moved to the Executive Pacific Hotel, or at least offered spaces there. I'm not sure if they are actually there right now. And then the rest of them are being offered some kind of shelter.  So that's kind of the first in a wave that's going to be happening over the next few weeks, I'm told. Miller Park, on Capitol Hill, is next. They've got a playfield there that kids, I guess, play Little League there and there's a school a few hundred feet away. So that's happening. There's one up in Ballard at Gilman Playfield. And then - or Gilman Playground rather. And another happening at the University Playground after that. So, this is just kind of the beginning of a ramp up, I think, of returning to encampment removals, which have been mostly suspended during the pandemic because it's the danger of moving people around. I would argue that moving people around is dangerous to those people no matter what. So yeah, so we're back at this again. And the reasoning given is that it interferes with playfield use, it interferes with children being able to get to school safely, and all the same kind of reasons you always hear for these encampment removals. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:54] Well, you know - speaking of a reason that we always hear. In two separate instances, we have heard people say, Well, you know, if there is trafficking going on within encampments, and there may be sex trafficking or trafficking of minors - have you ever heard of that happening, or are aware of any instance of that happening ever in Seattle? Erica Barnett: [00:16:19] I'll be honest with you, Crystal. I mean, yes, that does happen at encampments. I mean, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. That certainly does happen. Not on the level that it would be proportional to the response. Because I think instead of using a scalpel like we do with housed people, where we target the individual who is engaging in the activity, as opposed to saying, you know, we're going to sweep everybody who lives in the house. We should be doing that in encampments. There's certainly, I mean, there's bad stuff happening in encampments just like there's bad stuff happening in people's houses and people's apartments across the City.  So I would say that that has happened, and sex trafficking has happened in encampments from what I understand. And I don't want to whitewash that or sugarcoat it, but that's not - but to me, that is still not a justification for saying we're going to remove every encampment, or we're going to remove every single person at this 60-tent encampment where something bad or illegal was happening in one tent. I mean, we don't do that with any other kind of crime. It's only with homeless and vulnerable people that we use that kind of broad brush and just say, We're going to get rid of all of them.  Crystal Fincher: [00:17:40] Yeah, absolutely, and appreciate the perspective. It is important to address the problem and not just do that broad brush. It doesn't matter how many people we negatively impact if we are trying to address a problem. And also this week, in Federal Way. Federal Way decided to ban needle exchanges. Do you want to talk about what happened there?  Erica Barnett: [00:18:17] Yeah. There was a City Council vote this week, I think on, Oh boy, Wednesday? I don't know - time is meaningless. But essentially, the precipitating factor - so what happened before, leading up to this meeting, was that there's this needle exchange that is run by King County. It's called SCORE. And it's a van that goes out upon request when people call and say, I would like to exchange needles. So you're talking about - generally, drug users. And they go out there and a lot of times, they will go to a Park and Ride in that area and do the needle exchange. So it's on request.  So a woman, you know, neighborhood activist woman, called and said, I don't have any needles to exchange, but can I get some needles? She claims that she was given a hundred needles and this kind of turned into a giant social media nightmare like a lot of things like this do. And it just kept getting blown up and blown up more and more. And so this ended up leading to King County, actually, agreeing to suspend this program down there. And then last, or earlier this week, the City Council voted to affirm that, and to extend it, so that they can convene a working group to talk about what to do about this, I would say, non-existent problem.  Crystal Fincher: [00:19:46] Yeah, definitely a non-existent problem. And making sure this does not get mixed in with the conversation about safe consumption sites, which, you know, that has been a conversation, definitely in South King County, that has been used to scare people and as a wedge issue.  With needle exchanges, these have been around for decades and are very uncontroversial from a public health perspective. They've been around, they've been established. It is a benefit to all of our health. We have a very recent example of how our health depends on the health of our neighbors. And if there is a vector of risk that we can address, we should do that. And that's really what needle exchanges do. We are all healthier when we make sure that everyone in our community is healthier. And if we can reduce the risk from activity that is going to happen - people are currently using, and even if we're unhappy about it in our own minds, it doesn't solve or address substance use disorder. So people are going to be using. If they're going to be doing that, we want to make sure that they are not inflicting more harm than they would be otherwise. And actually make sure that they're alive and healthy so that if they can get back on a healthier path then excellent. But there's no reason to just let our neighbors die if there's a better option. Really. Frankly.  Erica Barnett: [00:21:22] Yeah. What was so - what was so shocking to me - I mean, because I've been a reporter for a long time and these debates about drug use have really evolved over the years. And there's much more of an acceptance of the idea of harm reduction. And what was shocking to me at this meeting, or maybe not shocking, but surprising, was that people in Washington state were saying things like, I don't, you know, if they get AIDS, I don't care. And, well the drugs are going to get them anyway, so who cares if they get hepatitis. And, if you give them needles, it will make them do drugs.  And I mean, which is truly like the kind of stuff I heard as a kid, growing up in the eighties, about condoms. I mean, it just - it doesn't make sense that condoms cause sex and it doesn't make sense that clean needles cause drug use. The reason for needle exchanges, just to be clear is - if you're reusing needles over and over again, first of all, as you said, there, it becomes a vector. I mean, you can get hepatitis, you can get HIV. All kinds of diseases are communicable that way. But also if you have old needles that aren't sharp, it leads to abscesses. It leads to horrible infections. It leads to, frankly, hospital stays, which costs all of us as a society, money to put people in the hospital for weeks for abscesses that - for people who are uninsured. So even if you're just looking at it from a selfish perspective, it's not a good policy to let people get infected and sick and need long hospital stays, which is truly what happens and where the needle exchange movement emerged out of - was that people were getting very, very sick and being sick didn't deter them from using drugs either. So, there's just absolutely no evidence that denying people access to clean needles and clean drug paraphernalia causes them to stop using drugs because that's just not how addiction works.  Crystal Fincher: [00:23:35] Yeah. It's not a choice at that point. If someone is experiencing addiction, then choice has been removed from the equation and they are experiencing a health issue. And so to simply act like they could choose to stop, or to not care that they can't, and to even get them to a place where that's an option, we need to keep them healthy. It's just, it's just sad.  And to me, I see the connection between this conversation about "Seattle is Dying" and that whole thing, which a lot of people in Seattle can very easily dismiss because the portrait that they're painting of Seattle does not ring true from anyone who lives in the City and is moving about. I mean, it's very disingenuous. They're telling a - it's propaganda. It is not reality. But for people in the suburbs, I don't think people really understand that Seattle is not actually the audience for that. It's the suburbs. And it's people who do not have an immediate experience in Seattle and who they're trying to inoculate against public health guidance. The data that is becoming increasingly clear and conclusive, in a variety of different areas saying, Yes, we have many shared concerns with public health. The health of our neighbor directly impacts us - our immediate health financially. It does. And that helping people instead of criminalizing them is generally the most effective method to deal with most problems that have a health or substance use component. So, there are people who are very, very interested from the religious right, from the alt-right, and who just see this as a front on their culture war. And that is how they're battling against it. And so this propaganda and scaring people that, Hey, Seattle treated people like humans and look what they got - it's dying. And that is being heard and reacted to in suburbs, and rural areas, and areas outside of Seattle. And it's not a coincidence that we're seeing this kind of backlash. And that we're not just having a conversation about the policies in Seattle today. This is leading to the repeal of long-term, decades-long accepted, uncontroversial issues and practices that now they're using to advance their agenda on the other side, really. So it's just really troubling.  Erica Barnett: [00:26:23] Yeah, it'd be nice if people listened to public health experts instead of the testimony of somebody who says they knew one person who used drugs and they responded well to a tough love approach, which is secondhand, anecdotal, and not based in any actual public health data or expertise.  Crystal Fincher: [00:26:44] Not based in any public health data at all. I mean, everything flies in the face of it. This is uncontroversial from a public health perspective. It just was used by people who wanted to advance a social agenda. And who felt that humanizing people was not compatible with that agenda. And treating people like people - like people we care for, and not just not caring if people die. So I hope that we see a change of that. And certainly there are a lot of local elections this year that are going to dramatically influence that conversation. And I hope you all get involved in that wherever you're listening to this from.  There's another issue this week. Looking at the King County Sheriff, the current King County Sheriff, who was elected, but actually will be - the Sheriff is going to transition to an appointed position after a vote last year by voters in King County. But the Sheriff is not having a good time right now. And lots of people from lots of different corners are asking for her resignation. You want to explain why? Erica Barnett: [00:27:57] Sure. So, and this is based on reporting by my reporter Paul Kiefer, as well as some great reporting in the South Seattle Emerald by Carolyn Bick. Great reporting by both of these reporters about a department-wide email that the Sheriff, Mitzi Johanknecht, I believe is how you say it, sent after the killing, or about the killing of Tommy Le in Burien in 2017. And in this email, she basically said that the settlement with King County for Tommy Le's death was not uncalled for, but that she understood why the deputy shot Le. A couple of the shots landed in his back. It was clear that he was not in fact, as the deputy argued, running at him or a threat in any way. But what she said in the email was that, It was an understandable decision and that she did not entirely agree with the decision to settle. So this is causing a lot of consternation on the city- on the County Council. And this week, State Senator Joe Nguyen joined the chorus and said that she should resign. Now, I don't know that that is going to have any impact on her directly. There's going to be an appointment process that comes up. It will probably not include her among the candidates, but I have not heard that she has any plans to resign so far. So it looks like, at this point, we're going to have to wait to see that appointment process play out.  Crystal Fincher: [00:29:46] Yeah, certainly it looks like that. She just did a King 5 interview. I feel like it was three days ago, but this week - days run into each other for me. So in the past she did that and certainly said that she did not plan on resigning, that she has no plans to resign, and really defended her actions. And is going on a tour to try and cover things up, and I guess get beyond this crisis for her, but, it certainly is troubling. She certainly is not reading the room. Just, you know, this is a conclusive finding. This is not - this seems like it should have been out of the realm of opinion by this time with the data and evidence that came out. There doesn't seem to be room for question about what happened and that it wasn't correct. There were King County Councilmembers who, right after the decision said, Hey, we legally could not comment while this was going on, but now that it has settled, this is the bare minimum that the family should have received. And they also should have received an apology that this was wrong. And for her not to be able to engage with that just further underscores why a lot of people say, Hey, this conversation about reform - it's not actually working for a lot of people, because if that is the attitude that we're dealing with in that extreme circumstance where it looks pretty conclusive that the version of events given by the deputy did not match the version of events that actually happened. And that that was an outcome that was not necessary. And that if it's not necessary to kill someone, then someone shouldn't wind up dead.  Erica Barnett: [00:31:42] Yeah. It's interesting to sort of contrast the way - you know, looking at the Sheriff's response to this and sort of saying, She understands why this deputy did what he did and he made a tough decision. And it - that feels like the kind of statement that you would hear from police chiefs and sheriffs maybe a decade ago. And now it seems as though there's, in most cases, at least some lip service to the idea of reform from chiefs and from people who are high up in law enforcement. So what struck me about it is, Wow, this is just such a throwback attitude. And not to say that the Seattle Police Department has made meaningful strides toward reform and certainly not defending them in any way, but just to go out of your way and cross 12 lanes of traffic that you don't need to cross to say, to defend the actions of somebody who has pretty unequivocally acted badly. Just, I think, speaks to how behind the times and how the Sheriff is and how inappropriate that kind of leadership is for 2021.  So in some ways I think it really validates the decision - I mean, we'll see who the County Council ultimately appoints, or the commission that's going to be discussing the appointments. But it does speak to the reasons that the voters passed this initiative to have an appointed sheriff rather than an elected one.  Crystal Fincher: [00:33:22] Absolutely. And that is our time, actually, for today.  Thank you for listening to Hacks and Wonks on this Friday, April 9th, 2021. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler and our wonderful co-host today was Seattle political reporter and founder of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett. That's Erica with a "C" and on PubliCola.com. You can buy her book, Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery anywhere right now. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F I N C H F R I I. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live show and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed.  Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time.

Today we had on Debbie Rosenfelt. She is the CEO of From the Heart, a grief counselor, and a Chaplain. She shared her incredible journey and how her loss put her on the path to help others deal with the grief of losing a loved one. We also had on Jon Scholes he is the President and CEO of Downtown Seattle Association to talk about the Compassion Seattle Initiative. This initiative would fundamentally change Seattle's governmental structure around managing homeless services.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we had on Debbie Rosenfelt. She is the CEO of From the Heart, a grief counselor, and a Chaplain. She shared her incredible journey and how her loss put her on the path to help others deal with the grief of losing a loved one. We also had on Jon Scholes he is the President and CEO of Downtown Seattle Association to talk about the Compassion Seattle Initiative. This initiative would fundamentally change Seattle's governmental structure around managing homeless services.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the leader of the Downtown Seattle Association, Jon Scholes leads one of Seattle's most important business groups, helping set policies with City Hall and ensuring the voices of the business community are impactful in city management.

Crystal is joined by Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis from District 7 (from Pioneer Square to Magnolia). They get in to Mayor Durkan's passed up FEMA funding, the removal of the Denny Park encampment, how the city council is trying to address our homelessness crisis, Seattle Police Officers Guild contract negotiations, and whether or not the city of Seattle should help bail out the convention center. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii. Find today's guest,Councilmember Andrew Lewis, @CMAndrewJLewis. More information is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Resources Read about the FEMA funding Mayor Durkan turned down here: https://publicola.com/2021/03/04/mayors-office-says-hotel-shelter-service-costs-are-not-eligible-for-fema-funding-shelter-providers-and-fema-guidelines-disagree/  Learn about the removal of the Denny Park encampment here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/at-denny-park-city-is-quietly-trying-to-sweep-homeless-campers-without-police/  Read Danny Westneat's coverage of homeless encampment removal in John C. Little Park (referenced in the show as John Miller park) here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/the-story-of-one-ordinary-park-brings-new-hope-for-seattles-homelessness-emergency/  Read about Councilmember Lewis's “It Takes a Village” initiative here: https://www.seattle.gov/council/meet-the-council/andrew-lewis/it-takes-a-village  Learn about modular tiny homes being produced in Everett here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/an-everett-companys-tiny-homeless-shelters-pop-up-in-portland-more-cities-across-u-s/  Find out more about Capitol Hill's new supportive housing complex, the Clay Apartments, here: https://lihi.org/2020/12/10/the-clay-apartments/  Read about some of the moves made this year by the Washington State legislature on police accountability here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/washington-legislature-takes-up-excessive-force-by-law-enforcement/  Follow all things legislature at leg.wa.gov Learn about the CAHOOTS alternative to policing program in Eugene, Oregon here: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/10/874339977/cahoots-how-social-workers-and-police-share-responsibilities-in-eugene-oregon  Read about some of the challenges of negotiating the new Seattle Police Officers Guild contract here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/federal-judge-to-seattle-city-council-tread-carefully-with-efforts-to-defund-police-or-risk-violating-consent-decree/  Find out more about the convention center bailout here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/city-state-look-to-join-king-county-in-multimillion-dollar-washington-state-convention-center-bailout/    Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. I wanted to welcome to the show, Andrew Lewis, the councilmember from District 7. Thanks so much for joining us today, Andrew. Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:01:02] Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:04] Well, there've been a few things that have happened at the Seattle City Council lately. Certainly in the past year you have been busy dealing with the pandemic, the economic challenges covered by that, and then all the issues that we're dealing with in the City that have in many ways been exacerbated by both the health and economic crisis. And I guess I want to start out just talking about homelessness and trying to get people housed, which you've certainly done a lot of work on. So I just wanted to get overall - what have you been doing? Where does the City stand on helping get people who don't have homes into stable housing? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:01:50] Yeah. Well, that has certainly been the most defining thing that we've been dealing with at the Seattle City Council. It's something that predated my service on the Council and I'm hoping it will be a crisis that we've been able to resolve by the time that I leave. And I think it's best to talk about it in short-term and long-term things that we need to do. And like so many other things, COVID came along and made an already intolerable crisis of having so many of our neighbors live on the streets even worse. By some estimates we've lost as much as a third of our shelter capacity, as they've had to deintensify and kick more people out into the street who were in shelter before. We've had inpatient behavioral mental health programs shrink and deintensify. All of these things have added up to even more unsheltered homelessness in the City of Seattle at a time when we really didn't need it to be going in that direction. So in the short-term, we need to provide a lot more shelter. And I think we need to follow the lead of a lot of other West Coast cities and really lean into using emergency relief from the federal government and from other sources to stand up more emergency shelter. And that can come in the form of hotels, it can come in the form of tiny house villages. Just whatever it is - something that is desirable, something that has privacy, something that has everything that people need to be successful, to be warm, and to be safe. And we need to do that in the short-term, and we need to do that soon.  In the long-term, we really need to have a regional strategy around scaling permanent supportive housing. And the City Council passed last week a big bill that I put forward on permanent supportive housing to make sure that we are waiving every piece of red tape we possibly can in the City of Seattle to build more permanent supportive housing and build it faster. So that includes things like exempting it from design review. It includes removing certain development mandates that exist for commercial housing, like onsite bike storage, for example, or onsite parking, or things that are less relevant for supportive housing and that add extra expense and waiving those. And saving $45,000 per unit, not per building, but per unit in cost. So, for the long-term, we need to be building that permanent supportive housing. And in the short-term, we got to be standing up these shelter assets. We have stood up some shelter over the course of the last year and that's great, but as we can see visibly, the demand and the need is far greater and we need to keep working on that. Crystal Fincher: [00:04:47] And that's absolutely true. You brought up a point that's certainly been in the news lately - talked about following the lead of other cities and getting federal relief. Certainly has been a lot of conversation about FEMA dollars that were made available to reimburse, at least partially, housing and getting people at least into hotels - space where they do have shelter. But the mayor has been resistant to doing that, which has just seemed really confusing and strange to a lot of people. One of the biggest barriers that we're facing is the cost of providing this housing, and if there's the opportunity to get at least part of it reimbursed, why would we not move forward and do that? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:05:38] Yeah. I think that where the disagreement has been - and it's certainly true that it's complicated. It is not an easy process to apply, for example, for FEMA funding, which I think specifically is what you're referring to. And there's been some reporting by Erica C. Barnett about this and about the FEMA funding. And I think what we've heard from the mayor's office is that there are certain formalities that need to be followed. And my response to that, and I think the response of a lot of my Council colleagues is, "Sure, let's really dig in and let's do those formalities that are required. And let's take full advantage of it." We know that other cities on the West Coast are doing it. Los Angeles probably is doing it most prominently, although San Francisco of course, has been doing it as well. We also know that the scope is a little bit limited in who can benefit. It has to be limited to people who have a unique vulnerability to COVID. Now that conceded, I would venture to guess - quite a few of our neighbors experiencing homelessness under those criteria would qualify. So there certainly is a way we can design a strategy here and expand the scope of how many people we're getting inside. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:59] Have also been concerned - and I saw a Twitter thread you had about the Denny Park encampment removal from about a week ago. Do you think that should have happened? Do you think that's how we should be handling things? And how do you think we should be dealing with encampments throughout the city? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:07:25] I think that's best answered by looking at a tale of two parks. And I think a lot of people who've been watching Danny Westneat's coverage of tiny house villages in particular, has noticed that there was this common theme in the late fall, where he did a series of three columns chronicling what was going on at John C. Miller park in South Seattle, where the Low Income Housing Institute went down there, coordinating with Councilmember Morales' office. There were about 10 people that were camping there, and they were able to get everyone into a tiny house village - no sweep required. There's no tents in that park at all anymore. And all the people that were there are now in shelter.  I think contrasted with Denny Park, the thing that was frustrating to me - sweeps can actually, we've noticed, have an inverse effect where it can actually lead to more people hearing about the sweep and coming and congregating at the park because they think if they go there, they'll be able to get an offer of shelter. So Denny Park, there were maybe about 12 people that were still camping there when the notice of sweep was posted. On the day of the actual sweep, that number had gone up considerably. There were more people that were there because word had gotten out about it. And I think that that contrasts in a less favorable way with what happened at John C. Miller Park, where we were able to more lead with a matched offer of, "This is the amount of space that we have. Let's go out to John C. Miller Park, give everyone a tiny house." And people will accept it, people will accept something that's better, as Chloe Gale with REACH always says. And it worked - there's no tents in that park, there are still no tents in that park, but we know that people were turned away at Denny Park without shelter. And I'll say this - we know where those 10 people at John C. Miller Park were - we know where they are now, they're in a tiny house village. There's a lot of people who are at Denny Park that are now camping in another unsanctioned place, somewhere in the Downtown core, somewhere in South Lake Union. I think what we increasingly need to do is make sure we're scaling up, be it tiny houses, be it hotel rooms, but a space for people to go, because we've seen that that's what makes these things more effective. And it's been the case with a lot of these sweeps where we're just moving folks from one location to another. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:55] Right. And the CDC has recommended against doing sweeps, certainly in a pandemic. Do you ever see a justification for doing a sweep of an encampment? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:10:06] I think that there can be, in circumstances where someone has camped in a place where they're at an incredible hazard to life or health. And by that, I mean, we've had a lot of cases in the news over the last few years of people that are camping next to an off-ramp who get hit by cars and killed, for example. So I think that there's places there, where if there's an exigent risk, that it's a hazard, people could die from something like that, that I think it makes sense. I think it can also make sense in limited circumstances where, and there's been a couple of these recently too, where there's been encampments that aren't being used for shelter, they're being used for highly concerning criminal activity, be it human trafficking or whatever else, and they're not being used for shelter. And if you can establish that through careful investigation, then a removal can be warranted.  But in cases where people are using a tent for shelter, which is the overwhelming majority of tents, we need to be really intentional and leading with engagement and leading with outreach, because if we're constantly just churning people around in the community, we're not resolving the underlying issue. And indeed what we've been seeing, I think increasingly is, like if a business district or something complains about a particular encampment, I think that people are starting to understand that just moving that encampment to someone else's business district doesn't equitably resolve the issue from that standpoint. And it certainly doesn't do anything for the people living in the camp. And that is something that we need to continue to work on. And the only way we can get out of it is by scaling shelter to meet the scale of the crisis, which is what I've been proposing with my It Takes a Village initiative and a couple of other projects my office is working on, in collaboration I'll say, with a broad coalition at this point. It's no longer the case, I think, where there's this division where social justice advocates and service providers are advocating a shelter first approach, and business is advocating sweep first, ask questions later. I think increasingly what we're seeing now is an alliance of groups like the Downtown Seattle Association, which I would say in a lot of ways, it may still have an overtly pro-sweep policy, but have realized that outreach is a lot more effective if you have more shelter options. I think that the notion that used to prevail as recently as two or three years ago, that people living in encampments don't want help, has been completely discredited. Crystal Fincher: [00:13:04] So how many shelter spaces do we need? How can we get there in a... Is it possible to get there in the next couple of years? And what needs to be done to move people from, "Okay, we've got them in shelter and they aren't outdoors," to stable, permanent housing? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:13:27] Yeah. So, we can scale quite a bit of shelter pretty quickly by using a couple of different strategies. One is hoteling, like JustCARE has been doing. The JustCARE initiative, which is a county-funded program active in Pioneer Square and Chinatown ID, has been using hotels, which are really fast, right? We have this huge hotel vacancy rate because of COVID. No one's traveling for work, no one's going on vacation, so hotels are just sitting empty. You don't have to go through a whole process of building the hotel, you don't have to go and site a place to put a FEMA style tent or something. I mean, the hotel rooms are there, it's literally a turnkey operation to get some people in there and use them for shelter. So, I think that's part of it, is the hotels, that's just a matter of, doing a contract and then having a staffing plan and getting folks in there. And that can happen pretty quickly.  I think that some things like tiny house villages - tiny houses can be built pretty quickly. There's some designs out there like Pallet up in Everett, where those modular tiny houses can be assembled. Each unit takes about 30 minutes to assemble, so if you had a bunch of volunteers, you could scale them up pretty quickly. So, I think that we could actually move pretty quickly to scale a lot of these things up to meet the demand. The demand is approximately, based on the 2020 One Night Count, a little over 3,700 people. We have every reason to believe that it's probably higher than that in Seattle. And that's 3,700 people who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness. So that doesn't include our neighbors who are in shelters - they're still considered homeless because they're not in permanent housing yet, but not unsheltered. So the unsheltered homelessness number is around 3,700 or so, probably a little higher because of the challenges we're facing due to COVID. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:36] You're listening to Hacks & Wonks with your host, Crystal Fincher, on KVRU 105.7 FM. Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:15:46] There's some cause for celebration in the permanent supportive housing world in the last two weeks where LIHI recently acquired another permanent supportive building that was just built, The Clay up on Capitol Hill, which is great. It was reported in the Seattle Times. So that will have a pass-through impact, but I think the real key here is we got to be working on moving our bottleneck in that chain of how people get into permanent supportive housing, from these unsanctioned encampments into shelter. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:21] Well, there are certainly a number of competing priorities. There are also a number of candidates - we're going to have a new mayor and a number of people have announced for mayor. We're going to have a new City councilmember, and the other seat is certainly contested with an incumbent running. Have you endorsed anyone? Are you planning to endorse anyone? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:16:48] Well, I've definitely endorsed - my friend and labor sister, Teresa Mosqueda, is running for reelection. I think that she's an outstanding colleague - very excited to work with her and hope that she is resoundingly returned to the Council in the fall, and will be very strongly campaigning for her. My colleague, Councilmember González, who has been the Council President, definitely a good friend of mine - I haven't made an endorsement in the mayor's race yet. Crystal Fincher: [00:17:24] Well, and what do you think these candidates for, certainly the citywide council positions and for mayor, what do you think they need to demonstrate to the residents of Seattle to earn their vote? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:17:38] It's tough when you're in this COVID posture. And under ordinary circumstances, I'd be out at the Legislative District meetings and physical community councils. And I'm doing that kind of outreach right now, but it's all through Zoom meetings. And you know, Crystal, you don't get those opportunities to be in the back, and talk to people, and go talk to somebody after the meeting. So it's hard to know what the vibe on the ground is going to be in this election. I think certainly, there's going to be a lot of questions around public safety and the approach that we're going to take. I think there's definitely going to be a litigation over homelessness on - is homelessness, as I believe, a public health, public housing issue or is it a criminal justice issue? My hope is that it's a debate that will heighten what Seattle can be and not one that's going to be just limited, mired down in acrimony. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:48] I certainly hope so. You mentioned public safety and the direction that you're going to be heading. How do you believe we should proceed and how do you think the SPOG contract should be approached? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:19:04] Yeah. I'm on the Labor Relations Coordinating Committee, so I can't really talk too much about the bargaining. I can say kind of a broad... And actually, I should also clarify in terms of roles, the way the process works, the Council does not bargain itself with any union, but contracts need five Council votes to get ratified. And so, they're negotiated by the mayor. And we have this thing called the Labor Relations Coordinating Committee, where five councilmembers sit on it and we approve parameters so that the mayor can go and bargain. And they'll know if they're within those parameters, they have their five votes for ratification. I can't go too much into that. I can only say that historically one of the big challenges we've seen, and this has been from the federal judge, and the consent decree too, is accountability. The council has been very supportive this session, of a lot of bills that have been brought forward by Joe Nguyen and others down in the Legislature that would strengthen the city's hand in bargaining. We've all been on the record supporting those changes - I think all of us on the Council and the mayor. I think taking a step back and looking at the more broad area of public safety, we can see nationally and internationally, lots of really innovative best practices for how you can change what we have historically seen the role of police - by diversifying it and have a system that's very much informed by public health, where a lot more responders are not police, not armed - in some cases, not even official City employees. I think the good example of that is the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon, which has been in existence for about 30 years there, where crisis intervention workers and counselors and social workers and mental health clinicians go out and are the first responders on the scene, dispatched directly by 911. The STAR program in Denver is another really good example of this, which is a variation of CAHOOTS that was developed by Denver Justice Project. We really need to be leaning into models like that. So, I think we're seeing nationally a revolution in public safety that really is going to be changing a lot of the underlying assumptions and making the community a lot safer, and making services that are a lot more responsive. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:33] I did want to go back to just your conversation about the police union contract, which does impact so much of what's possible, specifically with discipline and oversight and accountability. And I know that you can't discuss the particulars of negotiation, but as far as your role as a councilmember and approving the contract and voting it up or down, there have been a couple of things that have been talked about for quite some time. One is the 2017 accountability ordinance. The other is whether or not the contract can supersede local Seattle ordinances. Will you be voting for a contract that doesn't include either one of those things, that doesn't include the 2017 accountability ordinance, or that supersedes local ordinances? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:22:26] Yeah, I can't answer that question given my position on the LRPC. What I could just say now is I think it has been clear from the feedback on that last contract from Judge Robart, who is overseeing the federal consent decree process, that there have to be significant changes to the accountability structure in order to comply and square our obligations with the federal consent decree. He's also said that it's possible, that if the city can innovate through our negotiations on other things that accomplish essentially the same goals in different ways, he's open to considering that too. I think that what we can all agree with is that the current accountability structures are not sufficient given what the federal court has said. Crystal Fincher: [00:23:19] That makes sense. And definitely going to be looking forward to seeing how that unfolds. One other issue I wanted to... I think has flown under the radar a little bit, but certainly is talked about in a number of circles, is the issue of the Convention Center bailout. Do you think the City should play a role in providing funds for a Convention Center bailout? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:23:44] I think in approaching that, the first thing we need to do is acknowledge at the front, I know there's been a lot of discussion about this, that the Convention Center is going to be a critical economic engine for our state and our region as we're coming out of COVID. And it is going to be a centerpiece of Downtown recovery, going forward at a time where Downtown, because congregate work, retail, all the things we - nightlife, entertainment, live music - all the things that have made Downtown hum, have been put on hold because of COVID. So, I think having a vibrant Convention Center is going to be a key part of our recovery. I really want to look closely if it comes to that. No specific proposal's been brought forward about the equity of the deal. How much is King County putting in? How much is the State putting in? I want to make sure that we're looking at how we're going to get the money back, because I don't think that it should just be a blank check that's written to the folks that are putting the Convention Center together. I think that there should be some kind of deal to make sure that anything we put in does get paid back. And that that's a realistic plan, not one where the expectation of getting paid back is dubious. But I think that it's definitely something that we should be considering, but those are going to be some of the criteria. So if folks are listening to this that are putting the details together before transmitting it to Council, make sure you incorporate that feedback if you want to appeal to me. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:26] Well, that is definitely getting useful feedback. And I guess in our closing time, I just wanted to ask you, as someone in your position who hears from so many constituents, has such a broad view of what goes into running the City - what should we be paying attention to that we're not, or what's flying under the radar that shouldn't be? Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:25:48] We do have a crisis of unsanctioned encampments that is not a crisis of some big moral failing. Homelessness is the aggregation of so many of the failures of American society and education and public health and criminal justice that all ends up getting visibly put in front of all of us in the form of chronic homelessness. It's something that we've been discussing, but I think we just need to be really clear with the narrative. It is not something that can be dealt with through a law-and-order strategy. And there's a lot of people out there that are using their platforms to either implicitly argue for that, or very explicitly leaving nothing to the imagination, doing that. And I think that it is what we see a lot - I think on the Council and also regional leaders on the County Council and the Legislature too - is people reaching out that have a very conclusory approach to this, which is, "Camping in public with a tent is illegal. And therefore this is very simple, and you're trying to make something complicated that is actually very simple. Enforce the law." I think that there's a lot more we could be doing to push back on that narrative, if only from a pragmatic area of saying like, "Well, look, King County Jail has been deintensified down to 1,400 jail cells. So if you want to go out and arrest 3,700 people for camping, that's not even something that you could do even if we wanted to." And to be clear, we don't, that's not going to solve the underlying issue.  But I think we need to be doing more as progressives, especially in Seattle, to push back on that narrative because I think it is having an impact and eroding our ability to build a regional strategy around homelessness. I think it is resulting in cities like Mercer Island passing these weird, legally dubious ordinances, cities like Renton evicting all homeless shelters out of their city limits. I think that that is the Seattle is Dying thing, it's not really effecting policy in Seattle, but I think we're starting to see it's affecting sentiment in other parts of the County. And it's eroding our ability, I think, to really build the kind of coalition that we need to, to solve this underlying problem. And I think we need to take that very seriously. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:37] Yeah. I completely agree with you, especially the observation that the Seattle is Dying narrative - it's not impacting Seattle. And I actually don't think it's crafted for Seattle. It is very much crafted for suburbs. Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:28:56] And one more point I'll add on that - I appreciate everything you just said - is it feels like every two years, and maybe there was a reset for this because of COVID, and we'll see how this year's election goes. But I feel like we relitigate the same conversation in our municipal elections every two years. I feel like in 2019, this was also the question. It was like, "Is homelessness primarily a law and order problem, or is it primarily a housing, public health problem?" And resoundingly, in that election in 2019, the candidates that were elected - myself and the other folks that won - generally speaking, held that view that it is a housing and public health problem and were successful. And I just get the sense now, going back to our earlier conversation, I think we're going to have a citywide election this year where some people are going to try to relitigate that conclusion. That's got to be the fight this year. And I hope that we can continue to fight for the better angels of the voters in our region on that. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:09] Well, I absolutely agree. And I thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Look forward to having you back in the future and looking forward to just watching you work throughout the year. So thank you so much. Councilmember Andrew Lewis: [00:30:22] Okay. Thanks for having me. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:26] Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter, @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts, just type in "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Over the last year, the pandemic has taken a major toll on downtown Seattle's business community. Even with more vaccines on the horizon, the future of downtown Seattle remains uncertain. Jon Scholes is President of the Downtown Seattle Association. He spoke with KUOW’S Kim Malcolm about how downtown can recover from the pandemic, and what needs to be reimagined to bring people back.

Today Crystal and co-host Heather Weiner get into all things Seattle mayoral and city council elections, including: Who has thrown their hat into the mayoral race? Who is likely to in the near future? How will the Chamber and Amazon money affect these elections? Will big grocery store chains, some disgruntled by the $4 hazard pay increase recently passed by the city council, show up as major financial contributors? (Also, Trader Joe's is being pretty cool.) A full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Heather Weiner, at @hlweiner. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Articles Referenced: Follow the South Seattle Emerald's coverage of the mayoral race here: https://southseattleemerald.com/?s=mayor Learn more about Democracy Vouchers, and how you can use them, here: http://www.seattle.gov/democracyvoucher  Learn how to testify remotely before the legislature, and how to follow bills here: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/01/how-follow-and-participate-washington-state-legislature    Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources are available in the show notes with the podcast and at officialhacksandwonks.com in the episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host renowned political consultant, Heather Weiner.  Heather Weiner: [00:00:49] Hi, more like infamous.  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:53] Well, certainly known for doing lots and lots of good work - groundbreaking, nation-leading work. So I am pleased to have you on the program again and eager to dive into these issues.  Heather Weiner: [00:01:05] Oh my gosh. I love podcasts and how they spend the first couple of minutes telling each other how much they love each other.  Crystal Fincher: [00:01:12] Well, see the awesome thing about having a podcast is it does give me an excuse to talk to people who I adore and admire and who are doing incredible work. So this is - this is really a bonus and a perk.  Heather Weiner: [00:01:23] Yeah. I love - I love all the different, incredible guests that you've had on.  All right. What are we talking about this week? Crystal! I'm so excited. Like, it's like, it's kind of like Christmas. It's not quite Christmas. It's more like - I don't know - hmm, more like opening, like Thanksgiving for political folks right now. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:41] For political folks - or maybe it's like Christmas Eve for political folks in Seattle - as we like unwrap the presents, you know? Get the few early ones on Christmas Eve and unwrap the presents that are political candidates for mayor and city council. And we had some more announcements this week. So I guess looking at the mayor's race to begin with, what's the shape of the race right now? Heather Weiner: [00:02:06] Yeah. Well, okay. First, full disclosure - I'm currently working with Lorena González. I'm helping her out with some comms work, but that's only for a couple of weeks just to help her get off the ground on her campaign. So full disclosure there. So you'll know that I'm not biased when I say, Wow, Lorena González is so - but yes, I'm - I think this is pretty big news. You know, the city council president is running for mayor. I think she is definitely has the biggest name recognition of anybody who's in the race right now. But there's also some really great people who have already declared like Colleen Echohawk, Lance Randall, and Andrew Grant Houston, all of whom are people of color, which is just amazing to have that deep of a bench and so many great leaders of color running for mayor. I just think it's wonderful here in Seattle.  Crystal Fincher: [00:02:52] Yeah. And we're seeing that increasingly, and to me it is positive and notable because so, you know, we need representation and power across the board - certainly within the political system and within policy places, in addition to others. And the leaders that we have and kind of also breaking through what so many people do very often - it's assume, you know, well, there is a Black opinion and there is a, you know, Latino or Hispanic opinion. There is an, you know, like Asian people believe - as if, you know, that is one category with an opinion. And to me one of the very healthy things is that we can have conversations about the various experiences we've had and the perspectives that we have and they're nuanced and varied. And that is - that reflects reality. And so to be able to have that seen more widely, hopefully, normalizes that, Hey, you know, I'm just going to look to one person from all of the non-white groups, because we have no problem distinguishing between white people and well, this is an environmental candidate, this is someone who is representing business and everything and in past elections we certainly have - Okay, well, that's - that's the candidate from the Black community. That's a Black candidate and it is not that simple. And so we do have a wonderful representation of Seattle so far, and there's also some other folks rumored at getting in. So who else might join the race?  Heather Weiner: [00:04:32] Well, we're still hearing rumors about Bruce Harrell, former city council member. We're hearing rumors about Jessyn Farrell, who is a former state legislator . Possibly Nikkita Oliver, question mark. So there's a lot of people out there who are still thinking about running. I think it's going to be a crowded race. If you remember, when we had an open seat after Ed Murray, we had dozens of candidates running. Full disclosure - I worked for Cary Moon during that campaign. And here we go again.  Crystal Fincher: [00:05:02] Here we go again. So we're getting to the point where many candidates are announcing here in this February and through March timeframe. Usually candidates are in if they're going to be in by that time, although there could be some after. But how are people, I guess, after their rollouts and their campaign announcements - how are they positioning themselves? Heather Weiner: [00:05:26] Yeah, I was just going to ask you that question. How are they positioning themselves? I mean, who here is the, you know, in that list of people we've talked about is the Chamber candidate? Who is the far left candidate? None of these are really that clear. Even for Lorena, there's quite a bit of conversation about collaboration, about bringing sides together, about not having the yelling and frankly, a lot of hate speech that has been coming towards the Council and between the council and other folks for the last couple of years. It's no secret that the Council and the current mayor have had a rough start - now in year three - on their working relationship.  And you know, there's also confusion among the public about, well, what does the City Council really do? So I wondered - Crystal, if we could just kind of review that for a second. Let's do a quick Civics 101 here and remind ourselves that when you talk about the City Council, it's the same as talking about Congress essentially. The City Council reviews the budget, they make legislation, they make specific policy, they pass laws - but then it is up to the mayor's office and the enormous amount of people who work for the City of Seattle to implement those policies, to spend that budget wisely. And I think that Durkan - and I'm saying this on behalf of myself, not on behalf of anybody's campaign - I think Durkan has done an excellent job of - anytime there was a problem, putting it on , putting the blame on the City Council instead of taking responsibility for herself.  Crystal Fincher: [00:06:55] She is a masterful blamer - I would agree with that. Heather Weiner: [00:06:59] So I think - and I think the public and some members of the press have bought it. I've been making jokes all day today that the cruise ship industry is going to be closed this year. And because of some rules that Canada is putting forward - not allowing them to dock. And why aren't we blaming that on the City Council too? So I'm really very curious to see how these different folks who are running, who are all - seem to be kind of rushing for the middle, except for maybe Andrew Grant Houston - how they're going to handle that. Well, that was not anybody like a candidate calling. Sorry. So I think it's going to be super interesting to see how that positioning is handling out. And I think a lot of what's happening at this moment is people re-introducing themselves to the public.  Crystal Fincher: [00:07:43] And I think the re-introductionis needed and useful. And also, with the rollouts that they have  and the interviews that candidates have done in various places. And I will say the South Seattle Emerald has done an excellent job with the various candidate interviews and getting more detailed than we often see in an initial interview certainly - is that it's not immediately apparent that people are trying to position themselves as, Well, I am the Chamber candidate, and I am the candidate of the people, and the left progressive candidate. And it really has been an issues focused conversation so far. But how do you see things shaping out, moving forward? Do you see front runners in this race? Do you see people starting with clear advantages in their position?  Heather Weiner: [00:08:38] Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, obviously Lorena González is the front runner here. She has the fundraising base, she has the name recognition, she has the knowledge - deep inside knowledge - of how the City Council works. She's well-known as a civil rights attorney in this town. Remember - she was the lawyer who fought for victim - fought for justice for the victim of the infamous "I'm going to beat the Mexican piss out of you" incident with SPD. So she's very well known, but Colleen Echohawk is also very well-known. She's got within certain circles, you know - she's known for her advocacy on housing affordability and philanthropy. She's on the board of the Downtown Seattle Association. So she's pretty well-known too. So I don't know - I think it's going to be interesting to see how that works out. I'm also very curious to see what happens with the independent expenditures. Now, as you remember, because it wasn't that long ago - it was 2019 - Amazon dumped $1.5 million into trying to elect their slate of candidates. And they also put - big businesses also put, including Comcast, put a million dollars into electing Durkan. So who they gonna put their money behind this year is really the question. There's been some rumors the Chamber is going to stay out of it, but we've been seeing a lot of other stuff happening that indicates, Nah, they're not gonna - they can't resist.  Crystal Fincher: [00:10:07] They have never been able to resist and I don't think that this is going to be any different. They certainly seem - while they still may have a question, perhaps, on who they'll ultimately support. They certainly seem to be moving in the direction of preparing that support and putting themselves in a stance to activate for their candidate once they're chosen and official.  Heather Weiner: [00:10:31] Let's - I mean - now the Chamber is going to argue and I think Tim Burgess and Tim Ceis, that people who are really - who are advising, who are the consultants on this, I think they're going to start arguing that things have changed in the last two years. And they have - but not because of anything the City Council has done. I mean, look, we're in the middle of a pandemic, right? Once every hundred years that something like this would happen. Poverty is on the rise because people have been unemployed. There's less money circulating through our economy right now. People are facing eviction, they're facing mental health issues and also substance use disorder issues. Yeah. Crime is going up right now. Yes - people - we are seeing increased homelessness and all of these are symptoms of the larger issue of wealth inequality and what's happening with our economy under COVID. They're going to try to put all of that - the increased visualization of poverty, which is what homelessness is - they're going to try to put that on the City Council. And I don't know if voters are going to understand the big picture macroeconomics here.  Crystal Fincher: [00:11:36] And I certainly do see a tendency - certainly from the mayor - and she seems to have gotten that from those interests as she was running - to blame everything on the City Council. We have seen several times over the past couple years that when the Council and the mayor have disagreed, the Council with the support of the public seemingly behind them, has overridden the mayor. And seemingly won the argument with the support of the public.  Heather Weiner: [00:12:07] This mayor is probably the least enthusiastic about interacting with the public of any mayor - well before COVID - and seemed a little bit sour on the job from day one. And so I'm not surprised that she doesn't want to run again. It is a hard job. And I will have to say that almost every reporter who interviewed Lorena González this week asked, Why do you want this job? It is not an easy job, right? We've got a city that is very much divided. We've got massive wealth inequality. We are seeing the impacts of 100 years of racial discrimination, of gentrification. We are, you know - and expecting a mayor to come in and solve all of those problems. And that's a really big burden. That's a really big job.  Crystal Fincher: [00:12:56] It is a big job and it is coming with more expectation of accountability and accountability in more visible ways than we have seen before. The public seems to be more engaged and less willing to tolerate rhetoric and really looking for action. Someone's going to have to prove that they have a plan that they're willing to fight for and implement. How do you think the candidates are positioned to do that?  Heather Weiner: [00:13:22] Yeah. I think the only candidate - now look, I sound like I'm campaigning, please forgive me, okay? I do think the only candidate, really, who knows how to work with the Council is the current Council President. Crystal Fincher: [00:13:35] You're listening to Hacks and Wonks with your host Crystal Fincher on KVRU 105.7FM. Heather Weiner: [00:13:45] There's two seats coming up, also at the same time - the election - even if both of those seats went to conservative candidates , the mayor, a progressive mayor, would still have a majority on the Council. So I think there is a really good position here to get quite a bit done, at least in the first two years of whoever the next mayor's reign is. And I'm wondering - let's talk about those seats. So Teresa Mosqueda, I think, thought for a couple of minutes about running for mayor, decided not to do it, has already qualified for democracy vouchers in one week, is on a fundraising tear. I think she's scaring off any other challengers to her - I don't think anybody's going to want to do it. She's already pretty popular.  And then you've got the seat that's being vacated by Lorena that's coming open and that's where everybody is flooding in.  Crystal Fincher: [00:14:30] We saw Sara Nelson declare for that seat either yesterday or the day before - this week, certainly. And she has run before. She's a business owner. She's had the support of CASE, the Chamber's campaign arm before. And so how, I guess, as she's running, how is she positioning herself and what did she present as her plan and viewpoint in her rollout?  Heather Weiner: [00:14:56] Yeah. Her talking point was - we need the perspective of a business owner on the Council. People don't remember though - that actually Sara Nelson was a staffe , City Hall staffer for quite a few years. I believe - I know that she worked for Conlin - I'm going to have to fact check this. Anyway, I know that she worked for Conlin and she is trying to say that she needs to be the business representative. I think what's going to happen though, is when people take a look at her positions and also her backers, they're going to see the same big corporate folks that we've always had. So that's going to be interesting. Ryan Calkins is also rumored to be thinking about this. He is currently a Port Commissioner.  Also a small business owner. And has been, in my view, really moving his own positions way to the left over the last year which is interesting - handsome, tall white guy. We've also heard rumors about Scott Lindsay who - former candidate for City Attorney - who lost badly to Pete Holmes. And who also has been working closely with KOMO and SPOG to foment, you know , anger towards the City Council.  And then we've also heard rumors about Brianna Thomas who's a friend of the show - I know she's been on the show before . Who is also a Lorena González staffer, who also has been named as a possible person who might be running. So that's - and I think actually Brianna has, and I'm not just saying this because I personally like her a lot - I actually think she has a good chance. Voters like to elect former City Hall staffers. Lisa Herbold - former city hall staffer. Dan Strauss - former City Hall staffer. Alex Pedersen, former City Hall staffer. All of these folks - Andrew Lewis, right - used to work at City Hall. So all of these folks are folks who have been elected by the voters. I think she has a good chance.  Crystal Fincher: [00:16:44] I think she has a good chance. And I think that particularly with her - especially right now and just talking about - voters want someone who is prepared to get the job done and start executing and delivering without just talking about what is needed without the knowledge and ability to get it done. As that - as Lorena González's chief of staff - she has been intimately involved with getting policy through and implementing the passage and the implementation, the design of legislation that can withstand the legal challenges. You know, it's as important to make sure your policy can stick as it is to pass it. So I think the combination of her experience kind of within that system and also additional experience at the legislative level and then bringing a community-oriented perspective into the office and really being able to fight for what community is standing for. I know that Lorena has talked about how important Brianna has been in not just reaching out to the community which she's been very  helpful with, but also in bringing the community perspective into the office. And to say, Hey, as a Black woman, this is not trivial - being afraid for ourselves and our family, as we walk out on the streets and not knowing if we're going to see someone come home again, or if they're going to be you know, harassed for, you know, either from the police or from, you know, Proud Boys roaming the streets without consequence or a variety of things. So, so being strong in that perspective has certainly, I think, helped policy in Seattle , been valuable for Lorena, and what voters are looking to see in their representatives today. Heather Weiner: [00:18:35] Yeah. And I know you said earlier at the show - that just because you're a person of color does not mean that you just singularly represent the people who you ethnically or racially identify with. But I do - I do think from a just, you know, your average voter perspective, seeing a Black woman on the City Council would be great because we do not have any Black representation right now.  I mean, but let's talk a little bit about what's happening on the money front. So right now, most of these candidates are using democracy vouchers - which I love, it makes me so excited. I mean, Seattle - you're awesome. You are using democracy vouchers to support the candidates that you want. This is the best way to overcome big money in politics. The other thing I want to point out is the rules have really changed for independent expenditures this year. Lorena, actually - don't I just sound like I'm promoting her constantly on this podcast? Are we going to have to declare this to the PDC as an in-kind contribution? You know, she was originally an ethics and elections commissioner. And now as a legislator with the City Council, passed some really remarkable reforms to campaign financing so that corporations that have a significant foreign presence are seen as foreign contributors and cannot participate in independent expenditures. So that is really interesting. And it's going to be interesting to see if Amazon and these other big corporations are legally able to put money into PACs like People for Seattle.  Crystal Fincher: [00:20:06] Yeah. And they, you know, last time around, they basically said, Here, have a blank check - whatever you want to spend, you can. To the point that they were - they were spending so much, they were running out of ways to spend it. So checking the influence of large actors, especially, who may not have the interest of the City of Seattle as their primary motivator , is something. I think that they'll find a way to participate within this campaign, but I do think you made an excellent point about democracy vouchers helping to check the power of corporations  like Amazon and of those with the most money - which buys the most communication and allows you to attempt to drown all of the other voices out. And we saw that firsthand, last city council election, where really it was because the people were engaged and did not appreciate Amazon trying to buy their candidates. And buy their way onto the City Council and influence on it, especially since the policies that they were fighting against were ones that Seattleites supported by a wide margin. You know, the Head Tax is popular among people in Seattle. The only entity that seems to be against it is Amazon and therefore the Chamber, which seems to closely follow Amazon's legislative and policy agenda.  Heather Weiner: [00:21:35] Look, I mean, Amazon still polls high in this city, you know, their political game-playing not withstanding. We - people still like Amazon. We like having our packages coming to our house. We like how the ease of Amazon, like voters still like Amazon. So - but they do not like Amazon trying to deliver a slate of candidates. So I don't know that they're going to be able to do it. And honestly, how do you spend money this year, Crystal? So remember there's no political advertising on Facebook in the state of Washington. Or - and Google says they don't allow it either in the state of Washington although people get through. Twitter definitely doesn't allow it anymore. So in terms of social media advertising and fundraising, that's off the table. You definitely want to have people knocking doors then, right? But how are you going to knock doors during COVID? We saw that Mark Mullet did it. He hired - he hired people and I think that's what helped him - pushed him over the edge. But how are you going to do it? How are you going to spend that money?  You know, I think folksCrystal Fincher: [00:22:33] are going to try it at the doors. I think that is going to happen. I think that we'll see a lot of digital advertising money spent. And so, although it may not be on Facebook and Amazon, it'll be on every other site you go to. And those, you know, customized ads that are served up. And I think that we are going to see, you know, an onslaught of radio and TV and mail and, and kind of going back to the old standbys. And frankly, what a lot of those entities are used to doing and have done for decades, really. And just trying to out-communicate on the airwaves and in the mailboxes.  But we will see - I think that people really saw the power of democracy vouchers before. And I think one thing that's underestimated is that not only does it give people the power to compete with big moneyed interests, with being able to broadly appeal to the residents of Seattle and have that add up. But it also gets people engaged to a greater degree than they did without them. The democracy voucher isn't just, Hey, one transaction, let me hand this over. It really does create a deeper bond or a deeper level of engagement with the candidate. So I think that right now we're going to see candidates have to not just be the candidate of the Chamber or with supportive unions - that they're going to have to speak to people and get the support of the public as much as they ever have before and not rely on, you know, Hey, look at my friends over here. They're going to do the heavy lifting of this independent expenditure communication without them having to make their own case and be a credible candidate that people feel is up to the task of handling the crises that we're facing.  Heather Weiner: [00:24:26] Yeah. You know, I know we only have a couple more minutes left, but I want to just say, I think one of the big players that we might see this year coming into the City Council and mayor's race might be the big grocery stores. They are big in the news this week - suing, well, some of them are - suing to stop their own workers from getting hazard pay in the grocery stores. I mean, these are people who are supposed to be the heroes, the frontline workers. People who are exposing themselves to hundreds and hundreds of people who might have COVID every single day. They are getting sick. They are the ones absorbing the impacts of this. And the grocery stores which are getting amazing amounts of profits during COVID - because we're all buying our groceries and not eating out - don't want to pay that money. And they are going to - they're suing, they're saying it's unconstitutional. They're really raising a fuss. Except - and PCC, which is supposed to be progressive, you know, co-op, awesome place to shop - is one of the people who are screaming the loudest. Except, and this blows my mind - Trader Joe's. You know, LA has done the same ordinance - Trader Joe's just went ahead and said, You know what? Good idea. We're going to do it for all workers across the country. Everybody gets $4 an hour raise.  Crystal Fincher: [00:25:44] Which was incredible to see and really did not do service to their similar, large grocers who as you said, despite reaping windfall profits since the beginning of the pandemic, have said, Well, we can't afford this. This is gonna make the price of groceries go higher. You know, the sky is going to fall. Don't pay attention to our exorbitant executive pay. But if we give these employees on the frontlines who are risking their lives 4 more dollars - things are going to be horrible.  Heather Weiner: [00:26:16] Yeah. We're going to have to raise prices - blah, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, these same corporations are buying back their own stock, right? Or giving out big dividends. Their shareholders are making a bunch of money - a grocery cart of money, Crystal. Yeah. Anyway, so look for them to get, to be involved in the play. And again, they're beseeching Mayor Durkan to veto this. I don't know if she is going to do it, but I know the City Council has enough votes to override it. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:43] Well, and my goodness, you would think that Mayor Durkan would be chastened a little bit about, you know, when the Council acts in service of the people and I then move to veto it - it doesn't turn out well, it's going to get overridden and then she's just sitting there once again as someone who tried to get in the way of progress and was just repudiated by everyone. And this seems like, you know, it seems like a bad argument on its face. And one that doesn't really have a shot in Seattle 'cause as you said, these corporate executive shareholders are reaping a lot of profit and have not had the experience that so many regular people, and certainly that many of their employees on the frontlines have, in the pandemic. And struggling to pay bills, and dealing with being exposed and trying not to bring that home to other family members. And to have the CEO of PCC fight against it as she's flying to Australia.  Heather Weiner: [00:27:49] Really?  Crystal Fincher: [00:27:50] Literally. Literally was fighting against the $4 hazard pay as she's tweeting online about loving her second home and getting ready to go to Australia. I'm like, Read the room, read the room. And as you have Whole Foods CEO, again, trying to put a progressive face on a company and him saying, Well, if people would just eat better, they would be healthier - wouldn't even need health insurance. Because certainly eating well prevents injuries from car accidents and cancer and you know, just how ridiculous and detached and entitled these people making these arguments are and it's pretty transparent. So this is going to be interesting, and I do think that they're going to play a greater role in attempting to shift the discourse. And it'll be interesting to see how that is responded to and how they receive that.  Heather Weiner: [00:28:48] Well, I can't wait to talk to you about this more. I think I'm coming back next month. Let's - let's check in and see what happens.  Crystal Fincher: [00:28:55] Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, February 5th, 2021. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. and the producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. Our wonderful co-host today is Seattle political consultant Heather Weiner. You can find Heather on Twitter @hlweiner. You can find me at Twitter @finchfrii. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts, just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live show and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. And you can get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes.  Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time. 

As a nation we are so divided and it seems impossible to get past our differences. So Gov. Dan Evans discussed how we can reunite as a country because he was known for bringing people together across party lines. We also had on Jon Scholes who is the President and CEO of Downtown Seattle Association discussing how small businesses are doing during Covid-19 and letting us know there is hope for the future. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As a nation we are so divided and it seems impossible to get past our differences. So Gov. Dan Evans discussed how we can reunite as a country because he was known for bringing people together across party lines. We also had on Jon Scholes who is the President and CEO of Downtown Seattle Association discussing how small businesses are doing during Covid-19 and letting us know there is hope for the future. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colleen Echohawk is the Executive Director of the Chief Seattle Club. She is an enrolled member of the Kithehaki Band of the Pawnee Nation and a member of the Upper Athabascan people of Mentasta Lake.As the founder of the Coalition to End Urban Indigenous Homelessness, Echohawk is committed to homeless advocacy and changing the trajectory of Native American and Alaska Native people living away from reservations in urban places and experiencing homelessness. Recognizing a lack of equity in housing design and development, and the profound impact that this can have on the well-being of people of color, Echohawk has turned her focus to equitable low-income housing development and indigenous-led design. Under Echohawk’s leadership, Chief Seattle Club received the Puget Sound Sage Visionary for Justice Award (2019), Seattle Community Law Center’s Equity Award (2018), the Neighborhood Builder Award (2017), and Municipal League of King County’s Organization of the Year (2016).Echohawk’s education has been focused on organizational development and leadership; helping brilliant people do better work for the greater good. She is the co-founder and principal at Headwater People Consulting Group. Some of her recent recognitions include: recipient of King County’s Martin Luther King Jr. Medal of Distinguished Service (2020), one of Seattle’s most influential people by Seattle Magazine (November 2019) and one of Seattle Met Magazine’s 50 most influential women (2018). Colleen Echohawk serves on many local boards, including a Mayoral appointment to the Community Police Commission. Other board affiliations include Seattle Foundation, KUOW (National Public Radio member station,) Downtown Seattle Association, and All-Home Coordinating Board. In this episode Colleen shares what led her to answer the call to lead the Chief Seattle Club and her love for the people she serves. Reflecting on her studies in public health, Colleen speaks about the trauma the pandemic has unearthed and exacerbated for the Native community. She calls out the impact of white supremacy and systemic racism continues to have on housing, economic development and beyond. Alongside leaders in the greater Seattle area, Colleen continues to ensure that Native people have a place to connect with their respective tribal community. We also learn about the work that she is currently engaged in with the Equitable Recovery & Reconciliation Alliance. Colleen also shares her thoughts on what an emerging Native leader should consider in their professional journey.We are humbled in our leadership and name the truth of our experiences as we share Forward 4O’s platform with this phenomenal WOC in the nonprofit and social enterprise sector.Stay connected to Colleen on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Follow the work of the Chief Seattle Club on Twitter and Instagram. Follow Forward 40(4tea) on IG and Twitter @forward4tea. Continue to support and nominate a guest to be on the show. You can also learn more about the host Coach Faith here.

UW Foster School of Business professor Jeff Shulman interviews the president/CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, Jon Scholes, and a long-time Central District entrepreneur and advocate Jesdarnel “Squirt” Henton. Scholes and Henton share how they are navigating the changes in Seattle and their outlook for the future of the city.

Angela Dunleavy-Stowell is CEO at FareStart, a James Beard Award-winning nonprofit organization that transforms lives, disrupts poverty and nourishes communities through food, life skills and job training.FareStart provides hands on training to students through its social enterprise cafes, restaurants and catering operations and provides over 900,000 meals to the Greater Seattle community each year. Since 1992, FareStart has offered life-changing human services to more than 10,000 adults and youth while serving over 10.7 million meals to Seattle area schools, homeless shelters and healthcare facilities. FareStart works to end poverty, homelessness and joblessness in communities across North America through its consulting and membership services. Prior to her role at FareStart, Angela was co-founder and CEO of Ethan Stowell Restaurants, a Seattle-based hospitality group that grew to 16 locations under her tenure. In 2013, Angela was named one of Puget Sound Business Journal’s “40 Under 40.” She and Ethan Stowell received the 2016 Richard Melman Innovator of the Year Award. She has been honored as one of Puget Sound Business Journal’s 2017 “Women of Influence” and was named one of the “50 Most Influential Women in Seattle” by Seattle Met Magazine. In 2018 Puget Sound Business Journal named Angela to their “40 Under 40” Hall of Fame. Angela is on the Board of Directors for United Way of King County, the Seattle-King County Workforce Development Council and the Downtown Seattle Association.

The design community in Seattle, and others across the country, are attempting to resolve their civic present with their urban future. It’s up to architects, planners, developers, and designers to listen to communities and shape the city to serve its people. But what does that mean when some see downtown Seattle as a response only to tourism and the bridge and ferry crowd? How do we develop and preserve Seattle’s unique nightlife along with the exponentially growing transportation demands? More importantly, how do we retain the natural beauty of our city and still, literally, reach for the sky with the office spaces of the future?

In Episode Four of Downtown Stories from the Downtown Seattle Association, producer/host Feliks Banel sits down at a coffee shop with Virginia Anderson, former director of Seattle Center, and one of the people most closely involved in DSA's efforts to create new housing in that era, and to launch the DSA initiative that became Bellwether Housing. Downtown Stories is a podcast series exploring the past, present and future of downtown Seattle and commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Downtown Seattle Association (DSA).