Podcast appearances and mentions of ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2024 50:32

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle Times City Hall reporter, David Kroman! Crystal and David dig into why Seattle is putting less money into new affordable housing project this year and how this week's launch of a second social housing initiative by House Our Neighbors may be appealing to voters wanting to see progress on the issue. Next, they discuss the pressure on Mayor Bruce Harrell to deliver results now that a City Council friendly to his agenda has taken office and how the new Council's relative inexperience was on display at initial committee meetings. Finally, the show wraps up with a troubling story of the for-profit Tacoma immigration detention center refusing to allow state inspectors access after hundreds of complaints about the facility's poor conditions. 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, David Kroman, at @KromanDavid. Resources Harm Reduction in Rural Washington with Everett Maroon of Blue Mountain Heart to Heart from Hacks & Wonks “Why Seattle will fund fewer new affordable housing projects this year” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times I-136 Let's Build Social Housing | House Our Neighbors “Seattle's social housing developer proposes payroll tax on ‘excess earners'” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times “New Social Housing Initiative Would Tax Business to Fund Up to 2,500 Over 10 Years” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger “A council of allies in place, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell feels pressure to deliver” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times “Watch: New Transportation Committee gets intro from SDOT, CM Kettle puts foot in mouth” by Tom Fucoloro from Seattle Bike Blog @KromanDavid on Twitter: “Councilmember Rob Saka: "Ideally I'd like to have an across the board auditing of the entire city budget, but I am mindful that that is very costly and a time intensive activity. It's not practicable or feasible this year."” “State inspectors denied entry to privately-run immigration detention center in Tacoma” by Grace Deng from Washington State Standard 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 our 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, I welcomed Everett Maroon of Blue Mountain Heart to Heart for a conversation about how the opioid epidemic has impacted rural communities in Washington, the damaging role of stigma, what harm reduction is, and why it's so important. 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 Times City Hall reporter, David Kroman. [00:01:22] David Kroman: Hello. Thanks for having me. [00:01:24] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Thanks for being here. Well, there is - been a decent amount of news this week. We will start off talking about news you covered about why Seattle is funding fewer new affordable housing projects this year. What's happening and why are they seeming to step back here? [00:01:45] David Kroman: Yeah, it's interesting, and I would say kind of concerning for the general affordable housing landscape. So back to as far as 2018, Seattle has always made these annual announcements of how much money they're going to be putting towards affordable housing. They pair it with federal tax credits and private donations, but it usually ends up being over $100 million a year. Last year, for example, it was $147 million - I think it was about that the year before. This year, the award is only $53 million for new affordable housing projects - that stands out because voters just passed a new housing levy that's triple the size of the one before it. There is still money - less money, but there's still money - coming in from the Mandatory Housing Affordability program. And there's also the JumpStart payroll tax, which is supposed to go towards housing. So all those things together would suggest there's a lot of money for new affordable housing, but the problem is that a lot of the projects that the city has funded in the past are struggling with their finances. The combination of interest rates and some wonky details about what loans they're on mean that these 70 projects or so that are in the works, or at various stages of development, need something in the order of $90 million to prop them up. So it's a frustrating reality for people in the affordable housing world because they want to be building new housing, they want to be putting new units on the market. But because of just the nature of construction industry and where interest rates are at, a lot of that money is getting sucked up into basically paying for housing that we thought we'd already paid for. [00:03:17] Crystal Fincher: So does this money that is usually allocated annually - does it only go to the construction? Does it ever go to propping up other projects? Did this happen by surprise for the city? It doesn't seem like it was telegraphed that it would be this much of a hit. How did this change come about? [00:03:36] David Kroman: Yeah, the Office of Housing always helps out with operations and maintenance, and they see that they have a certain obligation not to just fund the construction, but to make sure that the buildings that they're helping fund function properly and can actually house people. I don't think it's uncommon that they go back and help out buildings that they'd already funded. As far as I know, though, it has never gotten to this size. It was telegraphed actually a few months ago - their initial announcement of how much money would be available suggested that it was going to be quite a bit smaller. I think people thought there were some more technical explanations for that. But what's really happening - in affordable housing, there's basically two loans that these affordable housing buildings get. There's the construction loan, which is what they get to put up the building. And then there's their final loan that they convert to once they've leased up enough of their units and are bringing in enough rent - because, despite the fact that it's affordable housing, the calculations that the banks make around these still require that they're collecting some level of rent from their tenants. Usually that process takes two or three years for them to convert from their construction loan to their final loan. But for a lot of reasons, they're just having a really hard time doing that. They're having a harder time filling their units - I think that's probably worth following up on why that is exactly. And then they're having a harder time collecting rents - some of that does go back to some of the pandemic era policies that were intended to stabilize people in their rental apartments. So they're not able to get to the point where they can get off of their construction loan. And that is a really bad loan to be on for a long period of time, just because the rates and interest rates on those are way higher. And so I think that reality is just coming to pass this year, that basically every single one of these projects is functioning on a construction loan. But if the Office of Housing didn't go back and help them weather this storm, then we're looking at a much worse problem, which is affordable housing buildings that have already been built and people are living in them - but them just basically going belly up or needing to be sold. And so kind of a rock and a hard place for the Office of Housing - they have a choice of spending on new buildings or helping out the buildings they've already funded. The choice in some ways is fairly obvious because you don't want to lose these buildings you've already built. But it does mean that future projects take a fairly significant hit. [00:05:48] Crystal Fincher: Well, it does look like that and it's important to keep these projects moving and healthy so that they don't go belly up or cause a large amount of destabilization in the market. But looking forward, especially with this hit to new affordable developments in an already-crisis level situation with housing affordability, the need for more units to be added - what kind of long-term impact does this look to have? Are we looking at a similar situation next year where we could be looking at a further hit? Is this a permanent injury to affordable housing funding, at least for the short to midterm? [00:06:28] David Kroman: Yeah, it's a good question. I'm not sure, but I do know that something fairly material would have to change between now and next year to make sure that this isn't a problem anymore. The number of units in a building that have to be leased up and collecting rent is like 90%, so it's really high. It used to never be a problem, but it seems like a lot of these buildings are hovering around 80% occupancy/rent collection. So unless the City has some trick up its sleeve for making sure that these buildings are 90% leased up and the people who are in them are paying that rent, it sets up a situation that is out of the City's hands because these are banks making these calls on whether or not they qualify for these cheaper loans. It's not like the City can pass some law that requires the banks to give them a cheaper loan. And so my guess would be it's not a problem that will go away in a year and probably will come up again this time next year. In the past, this has just never been a problem because, unfortunately, affordable housing is in such high demand that banks have never even thought twice about whether or not an affordable housing development would hit 90% occupancy and payment. The deeper concern here is that as banks see that that assumption is maybe not holding up as well, they might be more hesitant to write these loans in the first place. The only sort of cold comfort, I guess, is that this is not really a specific problem for affordable housing. I used to cover transportation - any transportation project is having these massive cost overruns and problems with construction projects too. And so maybe there's a little more leniency on the part of the financers because they understand that this isn't just some negligence on the affordable housing providers part, it's just the reality of the construction industry right now. But that doesn't mean that it's going to start being cheap anytime soon. [00:08:13] Crystal Fincher: Right - that's almost the takeaway. Everything about building housing right now seems expensive and growing more expensive. Inflation has definitely hit every element of it and interest rates are higher than they used to be, and just everything seems to be contributing to a higher overall cost. And so that's a challenge that we're going to have to figure out how to deal with, especially as it would be one thing if this were 15 years ago - We need to make plans because this is going to become a problem if we don't address it appropriately. But this now is a problem, a major problem, crisis level, where from the legislature to different cities are all acknowledging that we do have to build more residential units - at minimum - in addition to a variety of other policies, in order to prevent rents and housing costs from continuing to skyrocket. So here we are again, but not enough money is currently budgeted to go around. Is this a money issue? I know there's also a big budget deficit that they're in the process of beginning to deal with. Did the money just run out? Is this a matter of priorities? [00:09:21] David Kroman: Yeah, there is one lever I think that the City could pull and is pulling that could actually help this a little bit, which is one of the problems is the permitting timeline - for anything really, but affordable housing included - it used to be a year and a half basically just to get all the permits. There has been some legislation passed recently to exempt some affordable housing projects from design review in an effort to speed things up. That could help because then you're not sitting on a piece of property without actually being able to do anything with it. But yeah, it is a money problem because what it is at the end of the day is just things are costing more. The problem is every time there's a property tax levy in Seattle, the specter of levy fatigue is raised. So far, Seattle voters have never hit that - they have handily passed pretty much every property tax levy put before them. But there is, to an extent, an upper limit on how much in property taxes Seattle officials are going to feel comfortable asking voters to fund affordable housing. And if more than 50% of their money is going towards projects that they already thought had been funded, suddenly the political scenario starts to feel a little more fraught. Meanwhile, the other two funds that the City relies on for affordable housing are also no longer guaranteed solid funds. The Mandatory Housing Affordability pot - that depends on there being a lot of development in the City of Seattle. And of course, we've seen permits for new development plummet, which means there's just not going to be as many contributions from private developers toward affordable housing. And then the JumpStart payroll tax, this new city council is thinking already about this $230 million budget gap that you mentioned, and are not the friendliest to the idea of a business payroll tax. And so shifting the JumpStart tax from pure housing purposes to basically budget relief is very much on the table. And I think nonprofit housing developers understand that. So the problem is that in addition to the housing levy, which is robust and large, not going as far as they had hoped, combined with these other two sources of funds either declining or perhaps being repurposed for political reasons, in general, creates a lot of uncertainty among nonprofit housing developers. [00:11:23] Crystal Fincher: It does. We will continue to follow this. Thank you for covering that so comprehensively. Well, and that leads into news this week that House Our Neighbors launched a new social housing initiative, basically Part 2 of their initiative process that they talked about before. What is House Our Neighbors? What did the first initiative do? And what are they launching with this initiative that they just filed? [00:11:51] David Kroman: House Our Neighbors is the political side of Seattle's new social housing developer. 2023, they ran an initiative that set up this public developer that was theoretically going to take money and then either buy or build buildings. On its surface, it sounds a little bit maybe like Seattle Housing Authority, but their focus was going to be on mixed income or housing for not necessarily the poorest residents - 80% to 120% AMI. The idea being that if you're trying to raise a family in Seattle, it's really difficult because it's very, very hard to find two-, three-, four-bedroom affordable apartments. This would fill that gap that they see is missing between the market and government provided subsidized housing. The complaint or pushback on the last initiative was that there weren't any funds to do any of that work. That was intentional on the part of the people who ran the campaign because there are concerns about violating the state's rules against having multiple subjects in one initiative. So this new initiative that they're running would be that second step. It would provide a funding source via a tax on businesses with employees earning more than a million dollars. Their hope is to raise $50 million a year and buy or build around 2,000 units of social housing. I don't know that their announcement was coordinated with the Office of Housing's affordable housing announcement, but the two things certainly are related to each other. [00:13:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And with social housing, it's designed to be permanently affordable, government-owned, mixed-income housing that insulates itself, basically, because it's not part of the private market - where we just got done talking about all of the factors causing price increases in the private market. But because this is public, government-owned, it can move forward with a different model that is conceivably more insulated from market forces, in addition to not having profit pressure attached to it - helping to keep it more affordable with mixed incomes where people paying into the pot help fund the affordable housing for everything else. This did pass in the City of Seattle. And as you said, this was a two-part initiative process. The first part was on whether we were going to establish this public developer. And now comes the time to fund it. So when it comes to funding, what is the funding mechanism? And why was this chosen? [00:14:15] David Kroman: Yeah, the funding mechanism is similar to the JumpStart Tax that we were talking about before, which is it focuses on companies that have an employee making a million dollars or more. And I think the thought behind this - if you think back to the contentious Head Tax debate, which was targeting overall revenue of a business and trying to tax that, that became really contentious because you have businesses like grocery stores that have really high revenue, but super thin profits. So when you have Uwajimaya, for example, testifying against this tax as a beloved local business, people get kind of queasy about it - it basically failed because of that. The argument here is we're not really focusing on the overall revenue. We're focusing on whether or not they have employees that they're paying over a million dollars, because that suggests - if you can pay somebody a million dollars or more, you should be paying some tax on that. And it's a marginal tax, so the first million dollars of that person's salary are not taxed - it's everything above that that is taxed. The City's payroll tax exempts grocery stores and healthcare businesses, or at least healthcare businesses have waiver for a few years. This one doesn't do that. This targets any business that's paying people a million dollars or more. The exact number of businesses that that includes is a little murky. They relied on a couple past legislative efforts at the state and city level to come up with their calculations. If it passed, we'd get a little more sense of who would actually have to pay this tax, but that's basically how it works. [00:15:33] Crystal Fincher: So what they're referring to is an 'excess earners' tax, and it'd be a 5% marginal payroll tax. As you said, if they had an employee making $2 million, the tax would not apply to that first million. It would only apply to the one million above that at a rate of 5%. They're estimating with that revenue source, they could acquire or build 2,000 affordable units over 10 years. What is the timeline for this initiative now? What do they have to do in order to qualify and get it on the ballot? [00:16:06] David Kroman: They have set 30,000 signatures as their goal, and they want to get it by June - because if they got it in by June, that would leave the current city council no choice but to put it on the November ballot. And anybody who's trying to do a more left-leaning progressive initiative wants to get their measure on the November ballot because turnout in Seattle is going to be probably 80% - it's a presidential election - and the progressives of Seattle figure that more turnout favors them. So the goal is November '24. But they said that if for whatever reason they didn't get there, they would run it anyway at a later ballot date. I just think politically, that would be a little more challenging for them. [00:16:40] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. They just filed the initiative. So that process for the initiative to be approved, get to the signature gathering process will be commencing. How does this fit in, in the general overall landscape? Tiffani McCoy, who's the policy and advocacy director with House Our Neighbors, talked a little bit about this happening because there is either not a plan or a deficit in the ability to deliver the amount of housing we need and the type of housing we need at scale. [00:17:11] David Kroman: Yeah, it fits in because the affordable 80% to 120% AMI - there is just not really anybody interested in doing that right now. There have been some one-off projects around the city where a developer, out of the good of their own heart, has said that their building is going to be affordable to a certain level - workforce housing. But you're really relying on individual developers being interested in doing that. Usually those come with time limits, so they guarantee it for 30 years or 40 years or something like that. And then as we talked about before, there's Housing Authority and Office of Housing - it's a small lane, but there is a lane for 0% to probably 60% AMI. But when voters are approving a property tax levy, they're not quite as interested in building housing for people who are making up to $80,000 a year. But when you're looking at how expensive it is to live in Seattle or what the median income is, those people are having a hard time finding places to live and especially raise families in Seattle. And so that is more who this effort is targeted towards, which is fill that gap between 0% to 60% AMI and then 200%+ AMI housing, which there's just not a lot of people out there building that kind of housing right now. [00:18:21] Crystal Fincher: Right. And that matters so much because that is related to a lot of the staffing shortage talk that we hear about, whether it's teachers or bus drivers or healthcare workers or - across the board, we're hearing about workforce shortages, particularly in the City of Seattle and surrounding areas. And a big piece of that puzzle is that people just can't afford to live in the areas where those jobs are. It's way too expensive. So you have people moving further and further out, making it harder to commute in for a job, or just finding a job elsewhere outside of the city. And so housing affordability is an important element in just these conversations about our overall economy, including workforce strength and availability. It is absolutely related to those challenges. So once they made this announcement, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce immediately make a statement that opposed it. I don't know that this opposition was necessarily surprising, but it was an immediate reaction. How did they respond? [00:19:30] David Kroman: No, not surprising at all - they took the JumpStart Tax to court. They clearly don't like payroll taxes on businesses. Their argument was they supported the Housing Levy and they support some level of voter-agreed-upon property tax to build housing for the poorest people. The Chamber's line, and this has been their line and that of other businesses since at least back to 2017 when the first Head Tax debate came up, is this all comes down to supply. That the real issue is that Seattle is zoned in a way that you just can't add more supply, especially in the 60% or whatever it is of the city that's zoned for single family homes. So their argument is you are asking businesses to try and address a very small part of a much larger illness. And in so doing, you're not going to get us to where the city actually needs to be. And at the same time, you're going to materially hurt these businesses at a time when it has been, at least for some of them, sort of a difficult period. I think the counterargument is it has not actually been that difficult of a period for businesses like Amazon. And if you're paying somebody over a million dollars, something must be going okay for you. But I think the Chamber's position does kind of go to this point, which is - you're talking about a symptom when the real cause is just that we have built a system that doesn't allow for new housing construction. [00:20:42] Crystal Fincher: Yes, and it would be less ironic if they didn't seem to also oppose a lot of the rezoning and necessary new construction for that. But I guess it's a comfortable position to be in when you can just oppose things that seemingly have to do with each other. But I do think that's part of the reason why this passed in the first place. This passed after several years of seeming opposition and defeat of efforts to make things more affordable overall, including housing, especially those that are funded with taxes. And that has been a big point of contention between the Chamber and other folks there. The Chamber traditionally takes a - Hey, just don't tax us approach. A lot of their financial support of candidates in elections seems tied to their willingness or unwillingness to tax business. So this has been a long-standing divide that we have here. But I wonder if they've ever wondered if that long-standing hesitance to do that, in the face of skyrocketing costs borne by the regular residents of Seattle and surrounding areas, might have something to do with the alternatives becoming more popular to the point where they pass this in Seattle. So it'll be interesting to see how formal and robust the opposition to this initiative is. But it does seem like this is an alternative that the residents of Seattle are looking at. And as we look forward, especially if the JumpStart Tax is raided for the general fund, some of the other mechanisms that the legislature is looking at right now don't end up coming to fruition - this may be one of the only avenues where it looks feasible that something can actually happen, that there can be funding for, and that we can start to make up some of the gaps that are reopening here in some of the other areas. How do you see the prognosis for this moving forward? [00:22:42] David Kroman: Yeah, I think you're right that this is a lot of voter response to an intractable problem. I think it is true that the underlying problem is supply - I think that's hard to dispute at this point. It's just there are a lot of people coming into the city and just not enough housing for them. And so then, therefore, even old, run-down housing is being competed for - rich people are outbidding people of lesser means for housing that you would not necessarily associate with rich people. A lot of that is enabled by the fact that most of the city - it's just cast in amber and there cannot be any added density. So at a time when the city's population is growing, you've got certain neighborhoods in Seattle where the population is actually decreasing, and I think that is what is driving a lot of rent increases. I think the reaction, though - the problem is now, the struggles are now - and so it's all well and good to diagnose the deep problem and look back at what the city should or shouldn't have done, or what the city should be doing to help this problem in 10 or 15 years. The city could upzone across the entire city tomorrow, and the construction environment - as we just talked about - means it's pretty unlikely that you're going to see a huge influx immediately of new housing and density because it's just not a great time for building new stuff. And so I think that then causes people to look for alternative options. And this is one of them, which is a more direct taxation to construction that is divorced from - well, not entirely divorced because we talked about the problems facing the nonprofit housing world, but more divorced from market forces that, again, perhaps should have been addressed a long time ago. But even if they were addressed tomorrow, would take years, decades, perhaps, to really show meaningful improvements in the affordability of Seattle. And so I think that is why these solutions that the Chamber doesn't like - because they are not market solutions, they are taxation solutions on their clients and the people that they represent, but that becomes more appealing because people want to make some immediate progress in the next year. [00:24:38] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, we will continue to follow that story and the initiative and see how it goes. I also want to talk about a piece that you wrote this week about Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, titled, "A council of allies in place, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell feels pressure to deliver." I think that pressure is an appropriate response - a number of commitments or what he ran on two years ago still has a lot of areas for improvement. I don't know that anyone feels that the type of progress that was indicated or promised has actually happened. But some of that was in his telling because he didn't have a great working relationship with the council - even though they have very distinct roles and responsibilities. But he's saying now, and part of what he said during the campaign - if we have a better working relationship, we could accomplish more. What did this story uncover, what did you talk about, and where does he stand on what he's accomplished and what he's looking to accomplish? [00:25:37] David Kroman: Yeah, I think it's perhaps not quite exactly like having a one-party President, House and Senate, but it's something like that. Because at least since I have been watching City Hall, I would argue that there has been no mayor who, at least on paper, has come into a more favorable political environment than Bruce Harrell does right now. Because he endorsed five people for city council - which I don't think Durkan or Ed Murray dipped that much of a toe into the political scene, so that alone was a big jump into playing politics - and then all of them won. And then he gets this bonus of another one of his opponents, Teresa Mosqueda, leaving to go to the King County Council. So basically he gets six new friendly people on the council, banishes all but Councilmember Tammy Morales as clear opponents to his agenda. And then more than that, if you've been watching the committee meetings in city council this year, their agenda items are what is the Seattle Department of Transportation and what does it do? They are just getting their feet under them. They are still trying to find where the bathroom is. Meanwhile, Bruce Harrell has been in City Hall for 14 years. So all of that added together means there is nothing in his way to basically do what it is that he has envisioned for City Hall. The question is - can he or will he do that? And also it kind of puts to test some of the narratives that were created around what the previous council was at fault for doing. Some of those I think could end up being true, but also I think some of the problems that we're talking about here - fairly complicated and don't just boil down to who exactly was on the previous city council. For example, police recruitment. The mayor has said he wants to grow the department to 1,400. It's a real question of whether the police department is ever going to be back to 1,400. But there's no longer the boogeyman of "Defund the Police" to fault for those challenges - now the rubber meets the road. Can a council that has explicitly said it wants to hire more police officers actually do that? And then if it doesn't, I will be curious to see how voters respond. Will they give him the same level of scrutiny that they gave the council the last few years? That will be interesting to watch. [00:27:35] Crystal Fincher: That will be interesting to watch. I do also find it interesting, from the perspective of his allies that we heard during the campaign, of stuff like "Defund the Police" and blaming some of the inability to achieve what they said they wanted to achieve on that, as if the council had been hostile. But if we look - particularly over the past two years - the council didn't pass up an opportunity to fund the hiring of more police officers. Functionally - policy-wise, budget-wise - they allocated all of the money that was asked for, they allocated bonuses related to that, yet they still ran as if this council was somehow hostile to that issue. It seemed, to your point, like the creation of a boogeyman that didn't exist, and certainly not since he's taken office here. Did that strike you as genuine reasons or reasons that really would have impeded him taking action on some of his priorities that he seemingly talked about? Well, it was because of the council that I couldn't. But on an issue like police funding, where council did provide the funding for that, where council did provide everything that was asked for to do that, yet there still wasn't progress - does that rest on the council or was that another issue? [00:28:51] David Kroman: Yeah, I think if you ask him and you ask the current council, they acknowledge - Sure, they didn't literally defund the police by 50%. And what they did "defund" was mostly a shuffling of the decks.decks -moved parking enforcement to SDOT for a while and they moved 911 to Community Safety. So the police department's budget shrunk, but those functions just moved to a different department. I think they acknowledge - yes, that they didn't cut them. But policing is an incredibly competitive recruiting environment. And I think their argument is. And I do think - yes, they didn't literally defund, but they were pretty public about some of their comments around the police. And I think that that probably had an effect on certain police officers' willingness to stay at the police department and others' willingness to come to the police department - can have a whole debate about the merit or harms of that, but I do think that probably played a factor. But at the same time, I think that there's a lot else going on around that issue of police recruitment that transcends just conversations around "Defund the Police" and what the previous city council did or didn't do. The mayor's office has had a budget for marketing for a couple years now. As far as we know, the recruitment environment has not improved. And so I think there are a lot of technical details that will slowly come out over Harrell's administration that show that the problems - while I do think that whatever the city council's previous image was, made probably a difference around that - I think there's a more complicated story around the mechanics of what recruitment actually looks like. [00:30:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I tend to think that there's a more complicated story around the mechanics of recruitment, particularly because several surrounding departments, including those with staunch supporters of hiring police, of funding police, are also experiencing challenges with hiring. It's hard to find a department around that isn't saying that they're experiencing staffing problems. So it seems to go deeper, in my view, than just that. Can I absolutely say that their willingness to examine the budget four years ago had nothing to do with this now? No, I can't. Certainly conservative elements in talk radio and Fox News continue to make a lot of that and characterize "defund" as a current dominant thought, which I think is just demonstrably false. On top of that, just on that issue, with the understanding and the knowledge that even if you were to hire an officer today, it's going to be a year plus before they can actually be deployed on the streets because of their need to train and go through their requirements. Is there a plan in the interim? We're two years into Bruce Harrell's term now, and it doesn't seem like - okay, barring that, what are we doing? I don't want to say no plan. They introduced a limited partial trial of a co-response model for behavioral health through his new CARE Department. There is that going on in a limited way - would love to see that expanded so it's at minimum around-the-clock, but certainly more than a handful of officers and responders involved there. Certainly in the area of public safety, I think a lot has been examined there. Were there any other issue areas, whether it's homelessness, the City's environmental plans, economic development within the city, that he talked about wanting to deliver or work on in his next two years? [00:32:10] David Kroman: Harrell - I think he's going to be dripping these out slowly. But the thing that I would say stood out to me the most was his comments about the City's relationship to the county. We had seen some comments of his about, specifically the City's relationship to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, leak out unintentionally over the last two years. Fairly clear that he took a skeptical eye toward that body. But now I would say the big change now that he has this friendly council and basically full control of the City Hall is he's no longer saying those things in private. He's being fairly public about - he has a skeptical view of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. And he has a skeptical view of the amount of money that the City of Seattle is giving that body and whether it is doing what he wants it to do. He said basically the same thing about Public Health Seattle King County, which I thought was interesting. I had never heard that relationship come up as one that needed additional scrutiny. But he said that when it comes to the issue of fentanyl, that basically he thinks Public Health Seattle King County should be doing more, and he was wondering why they're not doing more. And so as far as specific policies or legislation he might introduce, I don't have a great read on that just yet. But I do think - and I've heard this from the new council members too - I wouldn't be surprised if we see a fairly dramatic rethinking of how the city and the county work together on some of this stuff. [00:33:25] Crystal Fincher: Interesting. Certainly, it seems like there might be some budget implications attached to that. That might be another reason why we are talking about this now, as the City looks to trim a couple hundred million dollars or make up for a budget deficit of over $200 million that they're facing. Has he been responsive, or did you get a chance to talk about some of the seeming inaction on some of those areas? There certainly seemed to be a number of promises as he walked in and optimism from a lot of people as he took office that - Hey, you're someone with a different vision who's looking to move forward on a variety of things, talking about One Seattle and the vision that he has for that. Has that resulted in or materialized in anything? Is he talking about doing anything specific with that? I think a lot of people are wondering just kind of overall what his plans are. [00:34:17] David Kroman: Yeah, I think so far this has not been the most policy-heavy mayor's office by any stretch. I think back to the Murray administration - before, of course, everything else came out - but that was an office that pushed super hard for the task forces around $15 an hour and housing affordability, the HALA committee, and they would lock people in a room and make them work it out. This is not that office. What we have heard from him is a lot of messaging and, I think, an effort to do perhaps not systemic things, but pushes around certain homeless encampments or priority policing around Third Avenue or 12th and Jackson. And it's kind of these hits and sort of giving a general message about what kind of mayor he is. I think he would perhaps point to some of the rules - tree canopy legislation or things like that. But I don't know that you can point to the first two years of his office and call it a major policy-heavy term. I think there's going to be more pressure on him to be a little more policy-minded in the next two years, because as we just talked about, he's not going to have to do nearly the amount of negotiation with this city council as he would have had to do with the last one. If he comes down to them and says - I think this is really important, we got to pass this. - pretty good chance he's going to get it passed without, there's going to be tweaks and I'm sure there's going to be some nods towards pushback or accountability. But at the end of the day, this is a city council that has kind of adopted the mayor's own One Seattle slogan. When he was on city council, too, I don't know that everyone would have pointed to him, as a city councilmember, as the most policy-driven. He had certain things that he focused a lot on around policing, or he was the one who pushed the hardest for body cameras. And he's pushed hard for some police technologies like ShotSpotter and things like that. But when he was on city council, he wasn't taking the lead on a lot of big, big policy swings. And so far, I would say that's mostly been true for the first half of his term. It's just he's going to have to show some big policy swings, I think, for these next two years - because I do think he's hyper-conscious of his own reelection campaign, is my sense. We didn't talk about that specifically, but I think he's interested in running for reelection. I think it's assumed he will run for reelection. And so he's going to have to build a case for himself to voters in two years from now. [00:36:28] Crystal Fincher: Definitely. I also want to talk about some of the firsts that we saw this week. We saw the Seattle City Council conduct their first committee meeting. The Transportation Committee, chaired by Councilmember Rob Saka, held its first meeting. As you talked about, it was very Intro to or Transpo 101, because these are a lot of new members who are not familiar with the way this functions, who are still just getting their bearings underneath them for how City Hall works, how legislation works, what SDOT does do. They are all very new and are not even coming into this with a policy background in the area that may help. So this is really starting from Step 1 here. What did we hear during this committee and outside of the committee - statements from members of the council this week? [00:37:19] David Kroman: Well, a few things that stood out to me. One, it's starting to hit home a bit that this is just an incredibly green city council. This is two-thirds of people who have not held elected office before - that's not to say that they have zero experience. Maritza Rivera, for example, was a department head, so she has spent some time in City Hall. But at the end of the day, some of the questions they're asking or getting briefed on are things like - What is the Sound Transit Board? Who decides where the West Seattle to Ballard stations go? - things like that. Not to say that they don't know those things, but that's the level that we're at right now in their committee meetings. So that was one thing that really stood out to me, which is - they don't have a lot of time to figure out a lot of these big problems. We're already a month in to the year because they had to spend the first month appointing a new member. Council President Nelson didn't schedule any committee meetings during that time. So it's February and we're doing the briefing meetings. I think that's going to be something to watch. We also heard, I would say - let's call it some acknowledgement of the reality of the situation. On the campaign trail, we heard a lot of talk about "auditing the budget." We really heard it in the applications to fill the vacant council seat, this phrase "audit the budget, audit the budget." It was never super well defined what they actually meant by audit. We heard from Councilmember Saka that a literal audit of the entire budget is something that would take a really long time and be really expensive. And he acknowledged that they're not going to do that, at least not this year. So that raises some questions around what they actually meant when they were saying we were going to audit the budget and how that is materially different from what happens every year with the budget - which is you review what you can, and cut where you think you can cut, and fund what you want to fund. So that was interesting - just there's a certain reality that comes with moving from being on the campaign trail to being in office. [00:39:06] Crystal Fincher: There is a reality about moving from the campaign trail to moving into office. Speaking personally and speaking as someone who is a political consultant, has worked with plenty of candidates. This is something that you hope candidates would have an understanding of while they're running. This is directly related to what their plans are going to be. Certainly, Rob Saka and other councilmembers were asked plenty of times on the campaign trail how they were planning to deal with this looming budget deficit. And part of the background of this is that, "Well, we need to audit the budget" issue - never sound credible or serious to a lot of people because, overall, just a citywide budget audit is not the thing. But as you said, the budget process is what that is. The budget process is continually reviewing, understanding, approving, modifying - what this funding is, how effective the funding has been - that's all part of the standard budget process of the City every year. And so a lot of it seemed like they were trying to avoid talking about what their plans were. They were trying to avoid taking a stance on particularly the progressive revenue that would be needed to close a budget hole like this. And the mayor put together a Progressive Revenue Task Force that came out with options that may seem doable - asked about those, the move from a lot of the candidates, especially the moderate to conservative ones, was to say - I don't know about that progressive revenue, but we really need to audit the budget before we do anything else. We need to take a look at exactly what's being spent where and see if it works and that kind of stuff. But I think we're arriving in another situation where if you actually come in with a plan about what you want to accomplish, that's one thing. If you're coming in trying to avoid talking about what you want to accomplish, that becomes really hairy - trying to contend with and explain once you're actually in office. So now the one thing that people heard you talk about, which seeing response certainly online following these comments, was - Hey, the only thing he talked about was doing audits. And now he's saying that - Well, they can't really do that, we're walking it back, it's not practical or feasible. One, that seemingly could have been something that when people pointed that out on the campaign trail, maybe they should have taken that to heart and come up with a more realistic plan. But also now that we're here, it just seems like maybe there wasn't the kind of understanding related to what they were saying. I hope future candidates look at that and take that under advisement. I hope voters look at that and again, look at the types of answers that you're getting - even though they may sound good in a soundbite, are they actually realistic? Will they actually get done what you want to see happen in the city? Or is it just a line that people are tossing out in order to avoid talking about something else, or because it sounds good as a soundbite? [00:41:57] David Kroman: Yeah, I would say this, though, about the budget. I don't want to sound like I'm defending the City's budget process too much because - it takes you a little while, but it's very easy to see where dollars are allocated, theoretically. It is much, much more difficult to know if those dollars are actually being spent in the way that the city council budgeted them for. We've seen this actually crop up in conflicts between the city council and the mayor's office, which is city council will budget a certain amount of dollars and the mayor's office - not this mayor's office, past mayor's offices - just won't spend it because it wasn't part of their priority. And I think you can look to that conflict and generalize it out a little bit. I don't know that there are great mechanisms to show for sure that when the city council puts money towards a certain thing, it's A) going to the thing that it was supposed to, going out at all - I do think there are probably some amount of dollars that are dedicated and not being spent for whatever reason. I don't think it's corruption or anything like that. It's just staffing and permit timelines or whatever it might be. And then of course, the final question of - So it's gone out the door, is it doing what it was intended to do? I think those are all questions that are probably worth asking. And I'm not sure are always asked in the fullest sense every year during budget. And so I agree that the use of the word "audit" was incredibly fast and loose on the campaign trail. Because when you say "audit," that implies something pretty specific. We have a Washington State Auditor. We have a City of Seattle Auditor. And they do audits, or you can hire people to do an audit. It's clear that audit in the most literal sense of the term is not on the table here because that costs time and money. Close scrutiny of whether the dollars that the City has allocated are being used in the way that people said they were going to - sure, I can buy that a little bit more. I don't know how you bring that more into the process than what's already there. To the new councilmembers' credit, I think there is room there to shed a little bit more light on that end of the budgeting equation than has been done in the past. [00:43:50] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely agree with that. I think you raise a really important point. It's hard to do it comprehensively - doing a deep dive into everything is a challenging thing. I do think that those questions do need to be asked frequently, especially on these high priority items. We definitely have a number of examples in the Durkan administration where they just refused to spend money - if council funded something and it wasn't aligned with the priorities of the mayor's office, the mayor's office just wouldn't spend that money in some instances or would look to divert that money to another area that wasn't one of their policy priorities as they've identified. So certainly just because money is allocated, does not mean at all that it's being spent at all or spent effectively. And I hope council does take seriously their responsibility to make sure that what they intend to happen as they set forth does happen and that money isn't just sitting there - that should be working for the residents of the city. But we'll certainly see what happens there. Last thing I want to talk about today was a story that was really concerning about a for-profit ICE detention center in Tacoma blocking health and labor inspections. What happened here? [00:45:04] David Kroman: Yeah, this was news to me. It looks like the state had tried to pass a law that basically increased access to the ICE facility - a privately run jail, basically - for people who have come into the United States. Because, as we know, there have been a lot of complaints about that facility over the years, but it's always been a little bit of a he-said, she-said situation because there's just such limited access in a way that - not to say that the state or city or county jails are in great shape, but lawmakers have an eye into those places and can see what's going on in there. They just don't with this facility because it's private. And so this bill was supposed to allow that access, but it seems like the GEO group that runs the prison is fighting them super hard on it in court and even barring people from entering. And this is pretty new to me - it seems pretty concerning - something that if you were a lawmaker, you might want to follow up on. [00:45:52] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, these complaints, there were hundreds of complaints - over 200 just between April and November of last year - stuff like insufficient food, misuse of solitary confinement, clothes rarely laundered and returning when they were supposedly laundered wet and dirtier than before, detainees with mental health issues being refused clean clothing. Medical issues, including stroke, paralysis, asthma, internal bleeding. One instance, a detainee with a broken arm was only given ibuprofen and not a cast for days after the incidents. When you talk about the types of violations that can happen when you have people who are 100% under your control, who you control their access to everything - the possibility of denial of that is egregious and atrocious. And so you do have to follow the laws of the state. Representative Lillian Ortiz-Self is trying to work through legislation to ensure that the state can inspect and examine what is happening here so it gets out of the world of he said, she said, and to ensure that they're following the laws of our state. And they've refused. So it is really concerning. A law was passed in 2021 aimed at shutting down the detention center by 2025, but that was ruled unenforceable. It just really is scary to think about - that we have these facilities responsible for people's care, basically, while they're being detained just seemingly unaccountable to anyone, with really catastrophic impacts on people who are jailed or detained here in this situation. And sometimes I'll hear people very flippantly - If they didn't want that to happen, then they shouldn't have done something to land in there in the first place. One, I think it might surprise people, the amount of seemingly innocuous things that can land someone in there. But regardless of how they landed in there, these are still people in the care of the state. And the detainment is what has been called for there, so they're being detained. But that doesn't mean that abuse, neglect, mistreatment is in any way justified. It is never justified. And I just think that we need to look at these things seriously. And when we hear about facilities, with the responsibility on behalf of the state, where they can control people's access to the necessities of life, that we should hold a higher standard than the average private company out there. And it really is just infuriating to me that we seemingly land in these situations where we have people being mistreated and they just seem to not care about the law - it's about the profit - and regardless of how people suffer at their hands in the process of it, I just - these types of stories really get to me. [00:48:54] David Kroman: Yeah, and I think it's why people are so concerned and looking for ways to get more eyes on the private prison industry - just because it is a constitutional right that people, even incarcerated people, have healthcare and food and not inhumane conditions, but just a little harder to make sure that it's not happening when the prison doesn't necessarily need to answer to the voters. [00:49:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully that is something that will change soon. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, February 9th, 2024 - it's my mom's birthday today, as we're recording this February 8th. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle Times City Hall reporter David Kroman. You can find David on Twitter at @KromanDavid, that's K-R-O-M-A-N, David. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me on all platforms at @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else 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 shows 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.

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Hacks & Wonks 2023 Post-Election Roundtable Part 1

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 21, 2023 49:57

On this Tuesday topical show, we present Part 1 of the Hacks & Wonks 2023 Post-Election Roundtable which was live-streamed on November 13, 2023 with special guests Katie Wilson, Andrew Villeneuve, and Robert Cruickshank. In Part 1, the panel breaks down general election results in Seattle City Council Districts 1 through 6. Similarities and differences between the contests are discussed as well as the impact of low voter turnout, lopsided outside spending, and campaign messaging. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the roundtable releasing this Friday for more election analysis! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find guest panelists, Katie Wilson at @WilsonKatieB, Robert Cruickshank at @cruickshank, and Andrew Villeneuve at https://www.nwprogressive.org. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Katie Wilson Katie Wilson is the general secretary of the Transit Riders Union and was the campaign coordinator for the wildly successful Raise the Wage Tukwila initiative last November. Andrew Villeneuve Andrew Villeneuve is the founder of the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI) and its sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. 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 Hacks & Wonks 2023 Post-Election Roundtable Livestream | November 13th, 2023 Transcript [00:00:00] Shannon Cheng: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Shannon Cheng, Producer for the show. You're listening to Part 1 of our 2023 Post-Election Roundtable that was originally aired live on Monday, November 13th. Audio for Part 2 will be running this Friday, so make sure you stay tuned. Full video from the event and a full text transcript of the show can be found on our website officialhacksandwonks.com. Thank you for tuning in! [00:00:38] Crystal Fincher: Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Hacks and Wonks Post-Election Roundtable. I'm Crystal Fincher, a political consultant and the host of the Hacks & Wonks radio show and podcast, and today I am thrilled to be joined by three of my favorite Hacks and Wonks to break down what happened in last week's general election in Washington. We are excited to be able to live stream this roundtable on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Additionally, we're recording this roundtable for broadcast on KODX and KVRU radio, podcast, and it will be available with a full text transcript at officialhacksandwonks.com. Our esteemed panelists for this evening are Katie Wilson. Katie is the general secretary of the Transit Riders Union and was the campaign coordinator for the wildly successful Raise the Wage Tukwila initiative last November. Andrew Villeneuve is the founder of the Northwest Progressive Institute and its sibling, Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. And Robert Cruickshank - Robert's the Director of Digital Strategy at California YIMBY and Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, a longtime communications and political strategist, and he was Senior Communications Advisor to Mayor Mike McGinn from 2011 to 2013. Welcome, everyone. [00:02:02] Robert Cruickshank: Thanks for having us. [00:02:04] Katie Wilson: Yeah, thanks, Crystal. [00:02:04] Crystal Fincher: Well, absolutely. Let's start talking about the City of Seattle City Council races. There are quite a number of them - we'll break them down by district. So there were 7 districted positions. This was the first election since the latest redistricting process, so these districts are not exactly the same as they were the last time we had an election, so that may have played a little role - we'll talk a little about that later. But going into Position 1 - as we see, Rob Saka currently holds a commanding lead and he will win the race for Seattle City Council District 1 with 54% of the vote to Maren Costa's 45% of the vote. Turnout in this election was 46%, compared to 2019's 54%. Quite a bit difference. Starting with Robert, what was your take on this race? [00:03:09] Robert Cruickshank: You know, I have to say I was a little surprised at the margin of victory for Rob Saka here - for a couple reasons. One is that I thought Maren Costa ran what seemed to me to be a strong campaign that potentially would have resonated with a majority of voters, not just 45% of voters in West Seattle and in Georgetown-South Park. But also Maren Costa got endorsed by all of the other candidates in the primary aside from Rob Saka. And one might have thought that that would have conferred added legitimacy and certainly support for the campaign. It does not seem to have turned out that way. One thing I think we'll certainly want to talk about tonight is the effect of lower turnout - did that wind up sinking progressive candidates or was it other factors? But here you see the first of the seven districts - significantly lower turnout. Now if we had 2019 level turnout, would that have been enough to bring Maren Costa to victory? Hard to say. Maybe not. But this certainly is one where Maren Costa, who had a great record of standing up to Amazon - she was one of the two employees who was fired by Amazon for doing climate organizing, and then wound up getting a settlement as a result of that. I'd be interested to dive more deeply into what happened there. But it's also - one thing I would keep in mind is West Seattle - voters there have been pretty cranky and upset ever since the pandemic began - because while for the rest of us in Seattle, pandemic 2020 meant lockdowns, it meant protests, it meant a lot of disruption. For West Seattle, it also meant being cut off from the rest of the city because the bridge went out. The bridge closed right around the time the lockdowns began due to safety concerns it might collapse. And having spent a little bit of time there in West Seattle lately and talking to voters out there - there is a strong sense of disconnection, of anger and frustration, at City Hall and it's possible that got taken out on Maren Costa, who's seen as a progressive candidate. There's definitely a narrative that the business community - and their wealthy PACs and Seattle Times - tried to tell to paint progressives as a kind of incumbents here. And it's entirely possible that that was another factor here too. But certainly worth looking at to see what happened in District 1. [00:05:23] Crystal Fincher: Definitely. What do you think about this, Andrew? Oh, you are currently muted. [00:05:35] Andrew Villeneuve: I was surprised too. I think this was a result that not a lot of people maybe saw coming because if you look at the top two results, Maren had a significant lead - plurality lead, but a lead. You look at the difference - they are in two different brackets when you have - Maren Costa's up there in the 30s, Rob Saka's back there in the 20s. So I think a lot of people assumed in the general election that there was going to be a significant advantage for Maren Costa, especially having the support of all of these rivals who had not made it to the general election. But I think when you look at Rob Saka's message, I think we have to conclude that it did resonate with the voters in the district. And I'm looking at his website and just checking out all of his enendorsements - and he emphasized he was endorsed by Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell - I think that was a key endorsement that he got. I think the mayor is very popular - our organization does quite a bit of polling - some of Hacks & Wonks listeners may know. And in all of our polling this year we've seen the mayor is very popular with Seattle voters. And that includes District 3 voters, voters across the city - really he's popular all over the place. So having that endorsement and touting that as prominently as he did - I think that was a key factor. And then of course The Seattle Times - I think they have more pull in certain districts than others. And District 1, I think, is a district where I think that they have more pull than some of the other publications that endorsed in the race. I think The Stranger's endorsement matters more in District 3 than it does in District 1. And I think we saw the result of that here with this result. And it could have been closer if there had been higher turnout. I have to agree with that as well. And the fact is right now we may see the lowest turnout in the history of the state of Washington in a general election. It's not clear yet if we're actually going to get to that worst turnout marker but we are certainly close. Currently I am looking to see how many ballots are left because the Secretary of State is saying - Well, we think the turnout is going to be somewhere between 36% and 39% - that's statewide. And if we don't surpass 37.10% then it is the worst turnout 'cause that was the low mark set in 2017. And as we can see, Seattle has higher turnout than the state as a whole, but it's lower than it has been in past odd years. This is part of a disturbing trend where we keep seeing turnout declining in odd-year elections - it is not going in a healthy direction, so that could definitely have an effect. If there is an opportunity later we can talk about even-year elections and what that could do for Seattle, but I'll leave it there and we'll continue to talk about the other races. [00:08:13] Crystal Fincher: Definitely. What did you see? We will go over to this next slide here - looking at the role of independent expenditures in addition to campaign fundraising, did you see the role of money in this race being significant, Katie? [00:08:33] Katie Wilson: Yeah, totally. I haven't actually studied in detail all of the slides you put together, but this is obviously telling that there is a pretty massive independent expenditure contributions here against Maren Costa. And you have to believe that that was a significant factor. I hope that maybe you, Crystal, or someone can speak to the relative weight of independent expenditures in the different City races because I haven't looked at that but I wonder to what extent that can help us to understand some of the results. But I think the spending against Maren was really significant. I will say this was one of the races that also surprised me. Partly because whereas we saw in a couple of other districts some of the more progressive labor unions actually lined up with the more moderate candidate, in this race labor - maybe not 100%, but was pretty strong for Maren and so it also surprised me to see this margin. The last thing I'll say, because I know we have a lot to get through, is that I'm really curious about what is so horrible about Rob Saka that all of his opponents in the primary came out for Maren, so perhaps we will get to learn that - maybe that's a silver lining. [00:09:40] Crystal Fincher: Hopefully we learn he can rise above that given he is going to be a councilmember. It will certainly be interesting to see what his prime agenda is. He's certainly talked a lot about public safety, police - a lot of public safety talk involved with a lot of different issue areas. So it's going to be really interesting to see what his priorities are as he begins to govern. I want to talk about Seattle City Council District 2. And this is one that saw a pretty tantalizing result - had us all on the edge of our seats. On Election Night, which is just a partial tally because we have vote by mail - those come in day after day, it takes us days to count them. We saw Tammy Morales overtake Tanya Woo after a few days of counting. This is a very, very close race. We can see here the breakdown of what the daily ballot returns were and how those changed over time. Robert, what did you see with this race, and why do you think Tammy was able to prevail when so many of the other progressive candidates were not? [00:10:54] Robert Cruickshank: This is not the first time Tammy Morales has been in a very close election in District 2. She ran for the seat the first time in 2015 against then-incumbent councilmember Bruce Harrell and narrowly lost by roughly 400 votes. She did get, of course, elected in 2019 and now re-elected here in 2023. I think part of the story here is incumbency does help. I think the fact that Morales has worked really hard to show her voters that she delivers in southeast Seattle also goes a really long way. Obviously there was frustration among a lot of voters in the Chinatown International District area - that shows up in the results so far - Tanya Woo did very well there. But in other parts of District 2 - Columbia City and points south - Morales held her own and did well. I think you've seen in the four years Morales has been in office, she's been a champion for workers, a champion for renters. She's fought very hard to tax Amazon, supported the JumpStart Tax. She's been very attentive to the needs of the district. When a number of people were struck and killed along MLK Boulevard there, Morales stepped up and met with people, fought hard and is continuing to fight hard at the City and with Sound Transit to make safety improvements. Morales is seen by a lot of people in southeast Seattle as someone who is attentive to the district, attentive to concerns, and responsive - along with being a progressive who's delivered results. So I think those are the things that insulated Tammy Morales from a more maybe conservative-moderate wave this year. Tanya Woo certainly ran, I think, a strong campaign - obviously a very close result. But I think a lesson here is that progressives who get in office and try very hard and very overtly to show their voters that they are working hard for them, that they share their values and are trying to deliver - that can go a really long way. [00:12:56] Crystal Fincher: I definitely agree with that. How did you see this, Andrew? [00:13:00] Andrew Villeneuve: I see Councilmember Morales as someone who is willing to do the work and that really matters. In a local campaign, doorbelling counts, organizing counts. I looked at Councilmember Morales' website while I was writing our election coverage last week and I was noticing how many of the pictures that she has are her with other people - and they're holding signs and look very excited. I look a lot at how do candidates present themselves and who do they surround themselves with. And there's something about these pictures that struck me as - it's not so conventional, it's very fresh. I thought that was a good image for her to put out to the electorate. This is a hard-working councilmember who's got a lot of supporters - a lot of grassroots support - focused on the needs of the neighborhood. Incumbency matters, as Robert said. I was looking at her 2019 results as well. In 2019 she had 60.47% of the vote in that contest. And that was a sharp change from 2015 when she was facing off against Bruce Harrell and lost by only a few hundred votes. So I think that that big victory four years ago was helpful in setting the stage for this closer election this year where it was a tougher environment - the district's changed and of course you had an opponent who was well funded and trying to get the seat. And I think a more credible, perhaps a better opponent - someone The Seattle Times and others could really rally around more than Mark Solomon from four years ago. So I think that's what made the race closer. But Councilmember Morales brought a lot of strength to this race, and you can see in the late ballots that that dominance was key. And that's why it's so important that that lead change occurred last week, because if Tammy was still behind this week it would be hard to pull it out. And we're seeing that in those other two races that we'll talk about later where things got really close but there's no lead change. [00:14:51] Crystal Fincher: What was your evaluation of this race, Katie? [00:14:54] Katie Wilson: I don't have a lot to add but I'll just say I think with a margin that small everything matters, right? And so, kudos to the folks who ran that campaign and who were out knocking on doors and making phone calls and sending texts - because with just a few hundred votes that makes a difference. Fewer than a thousand votes difference in that race would be looking more like the District 7 race and we'd all be singing a very different tune. And I will just say - the implications of that race - Tammy being theon council again is going to be super important for social housing, for the success of Initiative 135, because she's really been kind of a champion of that on council and now will be able to continue that work - that was one of the things looking at the initial results that was running through my mind is - oh gosh, who's gonna carry the standard for social housing? [00:15:54] Crystal Fincher: That's a great point. I also want to look at the spending in this race where Tanya Woo and independent expenditures in support of her and in opposition to Tammy Morales were substantial. And in this race, as in District 1 and a few others, we saw some very sharp and pointed criticisms coming through in mailers, in commercials. It was quite the direct voter messaging campaign. Do any of you think it went too far? Do you think it backfired at all? How did you evaluate that in this race? [00:16:38] Robert Cruickshank: I don't know that it -- obviously it didn't succeed. But again I agree with Katie that in every close - super close election like this, every little bit makes a difference. I think it's clear that it certainly helped Tanya get to a very near victory. It's entirely possible though that it also may have backfired in some ways. I think that generally speaking, voters want to hear from candidates positive things about why you should elect them. They don't want to hear a candidate delivering negative hits. Someone else delivers the negative hits - it shouldn't be the candidate themselves. So it's entirely possible that Tanya Woo maybe put a ceiling on herself by going personally directly negative. But then again just a couple of shifts here and there and we're talking about a Tanya Woo victory. [00:17:30] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, you raise a great point. In a race this close, everything matters. Been involved in close races before - you dissect every single little thing. Wonderful to be on the winning end, agonizing to be on the losing end of this - for the candidate and staff. As we look to the District 3 race, this was an interesting race because we had one of the most notorious active incumbents in Kshama Sawant, who had gotten a lot of ire from The Seattle Times, from some of the TV news - were not a fan of her. She was a Socialist, not a Democrat, and pointed that out fairly frequently. Was a lightning rod but you can't say she didn't represent her district. She was reelected. She withstood a recall attempt but she decided not to run for reelection, so we had Alex Hudson and Joy Hollingsworth competing to be a new representative in this district. What do you think this race was about, and why do you think we got the result that we did? We'll start with Andrew. [00:18:39] Andrew Villeneuve: So this is a race that we actually polled at NPI. We do as much polling as we can locally during odd numbered cycles, but it's tough because there's so many jurisdictions and some of them are too small to poll. But in this jurisdiction, there were enough voters that we could do a poll which was great. And in our poll we found a significant lead for Joy Hollingsworth. In the aggregate, which is a combination of a series of questions that we asked - Joy Hollingsworth got 52%, Alex Hudson got 28%, 16% said they were not sure, 3% didn't recall how they voted - that's the early voters, part of them. And 1% would not vote. So what we saw in the election was - of course, the late ballots have now come in - and what's interesting is Joy Hollingsworth's number is not very far off from the number she got in the poll. So basically it looks like the people who were planning to vote for Joy, or did vote for Joy already, did that. So they followed through - that's what they did. And it looks like Alex Hudson picked up most of the undecided voters and brought that race much closer. But Joy had this built-in lead that the poll showed was out there. Joy had done the work to build a majority coalition of voters in this election and our pollster did a good job modeling the election. They had to figure out who is going to turn out, and that's always a guess. They looked at 2019 turnout, 2017 turnout, 2021 turnout - tried to get a feel for who's that likely electorate going to be. And what we saw basically is the dynamic that was captured in the poll is what played out in the election. Joy had a majority and that majority was able to get Joy elected. Alex took the undecideds, the not sure folks, brought them in and made it a much closer race. But didn't do well enough in the late ballots to change the outcome, and that's despite District 3 being a very, very, very progressive district - a district that I think The Stranger has more influence in than other districts in the city. So I think it's really great that we were able to take a look at this race. I wish we could have done all 7 districts. But we have a poll write-up where we talked about what we heard from voters because we actually asked them - Why are you backing this candidate? We did a follow-up question. It was a ground breaking thing for us in a local poll to ask the why behind the vote. And people told us that Joy is from the district. People said she grew up in Seattle, she's genuinely invested in the community, not everyone with a political science degree knows what's best. She has extensive experience across a lot of relevant areas - greatly focused on public safety, had the mayor's endorsement, long Central area presence. So those are some of the comments that we heard. People who were supporting Alex said that she was an urbanist, she had a better set of plans. There were some really positive things people said about her. We didn't get a lot of negativity in the poll so people weren't really trashing the other candidate, but they were praising the one that they had decided to support. And I like to see that. I like to see that positive focus. So I think that's why we saw the result we did. Joy ran a really strong campaign, she connected with people. She was all over the place - I heard from District 3 voters saying, She doorbelled my home or she made herself accessible. I really liked that. And people just like to see someone from the Central District running for this council position. And my hat is off to Alex for putting together a great set of plans, running a strong campaign as well - it's just that in this election, Joy was her opponent and Joy was able to seal the deal with the voters. [00:21:59] Crystal Fincher: How did you see this, Katie? [00:22:03] Katie Wilson: I think Andrew gave a good rundown there. What I would have to add is this is one of those districts where some of the labor unions that you might think would line up with the person who is perceived as the more progressive candidate actually went for Joy. UFCW 3000 and Unite Here Local 8 both endorsed Joy and she got MLK Labor's endorsement. I think that probably mattered. I live in District 3 and I got in the mail an envelope, and when you open it there was a card from Unite Here Local 8 - pro-Joy. And so I think that for a lot of people who maybe are not in a hyperpolitical bubble, there was not a clear contrast between the two candidates in terms of who was the lefty pick and who was the more moderate pick. So yeah, I mean, and I think basically everything that Andrew said resonates with me as well. [00:23:02] Crystal Fincher: Robert, do you think that the contract - or contrast or lack of a contrast played a role in this race? [00:23:09] Robert Cruickshank: I absolutely do. I think there's an interesting column from Danny Westneat of all people in Seattle Times over the weekend, but what made it interesting is quoting a Seattle University professor who said he talked to his students and the students said - Yeah, they both seem progressive. They both seem pretty similar. And I think if you look at their campaign literature and their websites, that comes through. There's a longstanding strategy of a more moderate business-friendly candidate like Hollingsworth blurring those lines. I remember the 2013 election when Mike McGinn, the incumbent, narrowly lost to Ed Murray. And Murray ate into McGinn's base on Capitol Hill partly by blurring those lines. Jenny Durkan did a very similar strategy to Cary Moon in 2017. Blur the lines, make yourself seem progressive, make it seem like both are fine. A couple other things stand out as well. The Washington Community Alliance puts together this great general elections dashboard. And I was looking at the results so far, precinct that we have - not complete results, but so far from 2023 in District 3 - and comparing it to what we saw there in 2019. And something stood out to me immediately, and Andrew alluded to this. On Capitol Hill itself, Alex Hudson did really well, so did Kshama Sawant. In the northern part of the district - North Capitol Hill, Montlake, and anywhere along the water, Leschi, Madrona - Egan Orion in 2019, and Joy Hollingsworth did well in those areas. In the Central District, Kshama Sawant put up 60, 65, 70% in those precincts. In 2023, Joy Hollingsworth won most of those Central District precincts. That seems to be where the battle for District 3 was won by Joy Hollingsworth and lost by Alex Hudson. So I think that's a big part of it. I think the fact that Hollingsworth is from the community, is herself a woman of color, I think that resonated really strongly there. I think that those factors meant Alex Hudson had a real hill to climb, literally and figuratively, getting up there in District 3. And I don't think Alex was able to do it. You know, we at the Sierra Club endorsed Alex, but we interviewed all the candidates, and they were all really strong candidates there. I think ultimately, there's an interesting contrast with Sawant and Hudson that - I haven't figured out where I am on this, but it's interesting to think about. You know, Sawant won four elections in Seattle, the last three of which were in District 3 against huge corporate opposition. And one of the ways she prevailed was by mobilizing a strong base and by showing she delivers for her base. She delivers for workers, she delivers for renters - everybody knows that. And her base of activists from Socialist Alternative are out there aggressively getting votes. They did a great job of it. Unfortunately, Hudson is much more of a wonk candidate. She has extensive experience with housing and transit, knows local government inside and out. And when Sawant was in office, you'd hear a lot of progressives lament Sawant's approach, lament Sawant's attitude and style. And wish they had someone who was more of a wonk who'd work within City government - that's definitely Alex Hudson, but you gotta get elected. And what we see is that there's something to Sawant's approach - not that you have to agree with all of it - there's something to her approach to winning elections that I think progressives can learn from. And I think that - looking back, I think Hudson may have wished she could be more overtly progressive, especially when it comes to finding the things and finding the issues that motivate the base to show up. That's one of the only ways you would be able to overcome Hollingsworth's strength in that key battleground in the 3rd District, which is the Central District. [00:26:55] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think you've hit on something there. And I think it's something that we see in the Tammy Morales race, that we've seen from Kshama Sawant - that if you are a progressive, playing it safe, trying to not be that progressive - not saying that these candidates were overtly trying to not be progressive. But you have to show that you're willing to fight and willing to deliver. You have to show that there's some basis to believe that not only are you talking the talk, but you can also walk it. And I think this race could have benefited for more of that on the progressive end. But it's gonna be interesting to see because Kshama was unique in many ways, but lots of lessons to learn from her just epic ground game that she had race after race. And do have to hand it to Joy Hollingsworth, where I think - similar to Andrew and others - have heard anecdotally for quite some time that she has been out there knocking on doors, that she has been out there talking to community. And that is extremely important and only helps a candidate to be in contact with so many people in the community. So going to District 4 - which this is a race that still isn't called, still is too close to call for a lot of people. What do you see happening here? And what do you think is this dynamic happening in this district, Robert? [00:28:19] Robert Cruickshank: You know, I think this is another one where it is a very sharply divided district within itself, similar to District 3. You've got not just the U District - obviously is going to vote more progressive. So was most of Wallingford and areas around Roosevelt and even parts of Ravenna. But then once you get further north and further east towards the water, you get a bit more moderate, even more conservative. And once you're of course out in like Laurelhurst or Windermere, you're among the wealthy class. But Davis fought hard, fought very closely - nearly won. I don't know that there are enough remaining ballots as of here on Monday night to give Davis enough room to make that 300 vote gain that he needs. But he fought really close and really hard against a huge mountain of corporate money. This is one where I really have to wonder - if we saw 2019 levels of turnout, would we see a Davis victory? The results certainly suggest, especially as the later ballots came in, that might well be the case. Davis ran, I thought, what was a very strong campaign, certainly one that connected with a lot of people in the district. But so did Rivera. And I think this is a interesting test case for how did sort of The Seattle Times-Chamber of Commerce narrative play out? Was Davis able to really overcome that and tell his own narrative of where we should go in Seattle? It certainly seems like in a lot of these races, any progressive candidate faced a lot of headwinds from just a constant narrative that the city is unsafe, city's on the wrong track, it's the fault of progressives and the city council, we have to make a change. And that drumbeat was really loud and really constant. And as you see here on the slide, Davis was outspent significantly greater - nearly half a million dollars spent against him to defeat him by putting out that message. How do you overcome that? You've gotta try to build a base, you've gotta try to actually get out there and sell a strong progressive agenda. I think Davis did as much as he could, but it clearly wasn't enough. This is one race where, gosh, I would love to be able to see good polling after the fact and take a deep dive into what happened here. Because I think if you wanna find a candidate who isn't an incumbent, is a progressive, and who tried to win against all this money - Davis ran what I think a lot of us would have considered to be a smart campaign. But I'm sure there are things that were missed, mistakes were made - that I think are worth taking a closer look at once we have more data. [00:30:54] Crystal Fincher: Do you think it was possible to win this race given the headwinds, Katie? [00:31:02] Katie Wilson: Well, I mean, with a margin that small, you have to say yes. I mean, again, small things matter. But I mean, I guess I think what I would say here - and this is not really just about this race, but as we're going through these races district by district and picking out the little things about the candidates or the spending or whatever - I think it is important to keep in mind something that Robert alluded to, which is turnout. And Danny Westneat had this piece, which Robert mentioned, that really just laid out kind of like - not only is turnout way down from 2019, like double digits down, but it's young voters who didn't turn out. And I really have to think, I mean, I think that like if we had seen 2019 levels of turnout with that demography, this race would have turned out differently. I think it's even possible that Districts 1 and 3 could have turned out differently. I mean, the difference is so great in turnout and in who voted. And that is not just a Seattle thing. That's not a, so I mean, that was something that Westneat seemed to kind of emphasize the "Sawant effect" or something, but this is bigger than Seattle, right? This is like countywide, statewide - you look at the turnout numbers and turnout across the state is way, way lower than 2019. And it is young voters who would have voted strongly progressive who didn't turn out. So I think that's just a really significant thing to keep in mind as we kind of nitpick all of these races. Sorry, crying baby. [00:32:25] Crystal Fincher: We're doing baby duty and that happens and we're fine. Andrew, what did you think? [00:32:30] Andrew Villeneuve: Yeah, some great things have been said by Robert and Katie about this race. I was so impressed with Ron Davis as a candidate. I just found him extremely thoughtful. I'm like - why can't we have candidates like this in every city? Maritza Rivera also had some really interesting things in her campaign that I liked. But I think what was really striking for me is Rivera, if you go on her endorsements page, you'll see Bob Ferguson is the very first endorsement listed there. And that's really interesting. And not everyone can get an endorsement from Bob Ferguson. Maritza Rivera had one and made sure that people knew that she had that endorsement. Also, you see Mayor Harrell's endorsement there. The mayor's doing well in this election. His candidates are doing well, and I don't think that's a coincidence. And I also noticed Sara Nelson's endorsement there. Sara Nelson gets a lot of flak from folks in Seattle, especially on the left, perhaps deservedly so for some of the positions she's taking. But in our polling, she's actually got a pretty good approval rating relative to other members of the council. I say relative because these things are relative. So Sara Nelson is perceived better right now than other members of the council - and that includes Councilmember Sawant, who's leaving her district with a horrible, awful job performance rating, including from her own constituents. It's not just citywide. Our polling was very, very clear on that. People are not happy with her job performance. So she was able to get elected several times, she built an amazing coalition. But then that support has eroded away. And I think that's why she didn't seek re-election. I think she realized she was going to have some difficulty getting re-elected if she sought re-election. So exiting allows to avoid a defeat, which I think is a good strategy, because then you can go and take your experience in elected office and do something else. But I just thought Davis had a tremendous set of ideas. He engaged with groups that other candidates didn't, from what I heard. And what I really liked was, again, he had this thoughtful, urbanist-centered vision. It really appealed to me personally. If I was in District 4, I'd be like - wow, this is just really exciting vision for Seattle. And his voters' pamphlet statement just talked about how everyone deserves a home in Seattle. And the themes that I saw there were very powerful. And I'm a little surprised that he didn't quite have a stronger Election Night performance. I thought Rivera might lead, but to see him down by as much as he was, that wasn't quite what I thought we might see. And I don't do predictions, so I'm always willing to be open-minded and see what happens. But I was thinking that the race would be closer on Election Night, and then it would be possible for there to be a lead change by the end of the week if that were the case. But instead, Maritza Rivera has kept a lead throughout this count. So I think, unfortunately, Ron Davis is out of runway to turn this around. But he came really close. And I think he should definitely run for office again. [00:35:23] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, a lot of great ideas that we heard. Go ahead, Katie. [00:35:25] Katie Wilson: Sorry, just to add one thing to what I was saying before from the Westneat column. This is roughly 40,000 fewer Seattleites showed up for this election than in 2019. So if you look at that, we're talking about an average of 5,700 votes in each district that would have been added. And so you look at these margins, and that would have shifted several of these races. [00:35:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree. And then I also-- I'm looking at this difference in spending. And the spending isn't just money. It's communication. It's the commercials that you see, it's the mailers that you get, it's the digital ads that you see. And those do move some voters. Are they going to close a 25-point deficit? No. But can they move a race 5, 10 points? Absolutely. And so as I'm looking at this, I'm looking at just how close this race is. And it seems to me that money definitely impacted this race, as did turnout, as did so many other things. But it just seems really hard to be able to go up against that amount of communication when you don't have it - to be outspent, to be out-communicated by that degree. And given that, I do think Ron Davis mounted a really, really good campaign for hopefully his first campaign and not his last, because he did contribute a lot of great policy ideas, concrete policy ideas, that I think would do the city good. Moving to District 5, where we saw ChrisTiana ObeySumner versus Cathy Moore. This race was pretty conclusive as of the first tally on Election Night. What was your evaluation of this, Andrew? [00:37:11] Andrew Villeneuve: Well, this was the one race I think that everyone could say - That's done - on Election Night. That's a done race. We can see where things are going. And of course, there has been a shift in the late ballots, but not enough of one to threaten Cathy Moore's position. So I guess what we saw is Cathy Moore had a campaign of enormous strength, resonated with the electorate. And we just didn't see the same from the other side. I mean, I know The Stranger made a very powerful case. But you look at the top two field, and there were other candidates - Nilu Jenks was running and didn't quite make it. But I feel like the fact that there wasn't a stronger vote for ObeySumner in the top two, that sort of set up the general election. I think you want to have as much support as you can get in the top two. And then you want to be able to run as strong of a general election campaign as you can. And I think that here, there might not have quite been the same resonance with the electorate for that candidacy. And I think that that's part of the issue - when you are having trouble connecting with voters for whatever reason, then you're going to see that kind of lopsided results. And sometimes there's nothing you can do about it because for whatever reason, you're just not clicking. But I heard from a lot of folks who-- I asked every District 5 voter, who are you voting for? And everybody basically told me Cathy Moore - that I talked to. And I ran out of people to ask to see if I could find any ObeySumner voters. But to me, that sort of spoke for people had talked to their neighbors, they had considered their choices, and they settled on Moore. And so that's where we were on Election Night. And of course, again, late ballots - we saw some change, but not a whole lot of change. And so again, I think hats off to Cathy Moore for running a campaign that brought together a lot of people, excited a lot of folks. And we'll see now how Cathy does on the council as Debora Juarez's successor. [00:39:16] Crystal Fincher: And Robert? [00:39:18] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, I'm a District 5 resident - voted for ChrisTiana, but have had many conversations with Cathy Moore. And Cathy Moore is definitely not easy to pigeonhole as a corporate moderate. Cathy has, I think, some pretty strong progressive background and positions. This is an interesting district up here in District 5 too, that - people assume it's so far north that we're almost suburbs, and that's kind of true. But there are also large pockets of immigrant populations, people of color, low-income folks. And if you look at the map so far of the precincts - votes that have come in so far - ChrisTiana, they've only won a single precinct in Pinehurst, but they're pretty close in areas like Licton Springs, north Greenwood, Lake City. They're almost neck and neck with Cathy Moore in some of those areas - these are some of the denser parts of the district as well. Again, I don't think anyone's surprised that Cathy Moore prevailed by a fairly wide margin here. Again, given what Andrew pointed out in the primary, that that seemed foretold there. But I just wanna emphasize that Cathy Moore did not run the same race that maybe Rob Saka or Maritza Rivera or Bob Kettle or Pete Hanning ran. And I think that certainly helped. It's a district that four years ago, handily reelected Deborah Juarez over Ann Davison, who's of course now our city attorney. Which suggests that in District 5, there's definitely a lot of support for a left of center, but not too far left of center candidate. Well, again, we'll see what Cathy Moore does on the council. I think Cathy also ran a campaign that was good, but also kind of promises a lot of things to a lot of people. And the rubber will meet the road in the next few months on the council, especially as some important decisions come up around budget, around police contract, and around transportation levy. [00:41:17] Crystal Fincher: Now, moving on to District 6 - this is where we saw incumbent Councilmember Dan Strauss wind up overtaking and winning the race over Pete Hanning. How did you see this race, Andrew? [00:41:34] Andrew Villeneuve: So this was a race where we saw our first lead change, and Councilmember Strauss was fortunate in that he had the advantage of incumbency. He also, I think, had a district that perhaps, he felt like - okay, I can handle this redistricting, like I can handle some adjustments to the lines. I think he was well-prepared to face a slightly different electorate than what he faced in his last campaign. And he also was mindful of his public safety posture as he went into the campaign, realizing that - we're gonna talk about District 7 next - but realizing that it's important for people to perceive you on public safety as being someone that understands the issues that are out there in the community, which we know are significant. We know some people are concerned about property crime. We know some small business owners are very vocal about the issues they're going through, they're looking for more help from the city. And I think Councilmember Strauss was ready for that dynamic. I also think he made an effort to present himself as someone who's gotten things done. And he got not the most enthusiastic endorsement from The Stranger, but it didn't seem to hurt him too much. I mean, they sort of riffed on his "Ballard Dan" moniker. I went to his website and was reading about how he presented himself, and he's talking in his campaign bio about non-political things. And I think that's a really interesting and smart choice is to show yourself as not just a politician, but also a fellow community member, someone who has different interests. You're not just interested in politics - that's not the only thing you care about. And I think that that helped him connect with voters. I think it's very important for people to see who you are - that helps them identify with you. It's very important that people identify with you when they go to vote, because elections tend to turn on identity and trust more than anything else. Issues do matter, of course. And those of us who are very much in the wonkish space, we love people's issues, positions - we love to evaluate them. But I think a lot of voters are more in the mindset of - Do I want this person representing me in government? And they think about it at a very basic level. They don't think necessarily about people's issue positions. And they certainly don't have an Excel spreadsheet where they run a calculator to see whose position they're closest to. So I think that was one of the key things that I saw here was just, again, Strauss presenting himself as someone that folks could identify with and empathize with. And I also think Pete Hanning could have run a stronger campaign here - not as much resources on Hanning's side as I thought we might've seen, and that could have been a difference maker. Again, in a close race with a lead change, it's like just what we were talking about earlier - anything can make the difference. So we could talk about a lot of different factors, but what I saw was an incumbent who was interested in getting reelected and put in some of the work. And made sure that there were reasons for people to identify with him. And I think that we saw that worked out for him, and he was the first of the two incumbents to get that lead change on Thursday. So congratulations, Councilmember Strauss, on your reelection. [00:44:37] Crystal Fincher: How did you see this, Katie? [00:44:41] Katie Wilson: Yeah, I don't - sorry, I'm a little bit distracted. But yeah, I mean, I think that Councilmember Strauss definitely did somewhat of a pivot to the right, or just trying to kind of blow with the winds of his district and that paid off. And yeah, I'll pass it on to Robert. [00:45:02] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, I think a couple of things stand out. Certainly the slide that's being displayed right now - notice there's no independent expenditure against Dan Strauss. Strauss clearly cozied up to the Chamber here, he cozied up to Mayor Harrell. So his blowing with the wind, which I think is an apt description, worked. It also worked when Dan put out mailers saying, I voted against defunding the police. Dan has been very active in trying to get encampments cleared at Ballard Commons Park and other areas in the neighborhood. So I think we who are progressive - who don't want to see a renewal of the War on Drugs, we don't feel comfortable when we see sweeps happening, we're not totally comfortable with this current mayor - have to do some reflection here. And the fact that Strauss took these positions that we who are progressive don't really like and prevailed with it - isn't great for us. And I think we've got to be honest about that and reflect on what that might mean, and how we pivot, and how we handle things differently. It doesn't mean we should abandon our core values. You never do that in politics, otherwise we should go home. But I think we got to take a look at this race and see why. Now, a couple other factors I want to point out. Again, Strauss is a incumbent and that helps. Also his district is fairly favorable. I think there's sometimes a reputation that like Ballard gets as being a bunch of cranky, conservative Scandinavians and it's just not. If you have a view of the water in District 6, you voted for Hanning. If you don't, you probably voted for Strauss - and that goes as far up as North Beach, North of 85th Street, which is pretty well off, parts of Crown Hill, pretty well off, lots of homeowners in Phinney Ridge and Greenwood, Ballard and Fremont all voting for Dan Strauss by pretty healthy margins. So I think the fact that that district - one that reelected Mike O'Brien in 2015, and I think would have reelected him in 2019 had O'Brien had the stomach for it - it is a favorable one. I think there's more opportunity there then Strauss was able to really make out of it. But again, this is a race where, press as we can point to things that didn't go our way, we didn't get the turnout we wanted, we had a lot of money spent against us, but someone like Dan Strauss who sort of blew with the wind, decided which way the wind was blowing, moved away from a lot of our positions and prevailed. So we have to be honest about that. [00:47:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this race I thought was interesting because he did run away from his record basically and try to correct for that. It's really interesting because we saw two different approaches from two incumbents who both wound up successful. Tammy Morales, who is probably now the most progressive member remaining on the council - one of the most progressive before - showed that she was engaged and she did care. And I think maybe the key is really that - there has been this prevailing idea that progressives just don't care about crime or they wanna go easy on it. And one thing I think both Dan Strauss and Tammy Morales did was show that they cared very deeply and they were willing to stay engaged, stay involved, try and push through public safety, community safety initiatives that both of their districts had been calling for. And being engaged is what helped them. And really showing that they care and showing that they're working on the problem is what helped them - both of them - in those races, even though they have taken very different approaches and Tammy Morales stood by her record, fought hard for the district and a number of different things. So that was interesting for me to see - just the different approaches - but both looking like they were successful as long as they were engaged. [00:48:55] Shannon Cheng: You just listened to Part 1 of our 2023 Post-Election Roundtable that was originally aired live on Monday, November 13th. Audio for Part 2 will be running this Friday, so make sure to stay tuned. Full video from the event and a full text transcript of the show can be found on our website officialhacksandwonks.com. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks, and you can follow Crystal @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch 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 our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thank you for tuning in!

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Alpha - Resist Evil

evil alpha resist ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 30, 2023 32:37

Join us as our church engages with the material from the Alpha course this fall. Our Sunday service this week begins with a brief introduction followed by a short Alpha video, and the podcast picks up again after the video for the related talk, this week by church member and small group leader Ed Murray. With any questions or to receive a link to the week's video, please contact us at church[at]csvineyard.org.

Week in Review: July 21, 2023 - with Doug Trumm

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 21, 2023 35:04

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Publisher of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm! The show kicks off with a rundown of The Urbanist's primary election endorsements, followed by discussion of a Federal Way shooting that raises lots of questions, the Burien council majority's continued failure on homelessness response, Ed Murray being spotted at political events, a court ruling that Seattle's primary encampment sweeps tool is unconstitutional, and a Mayor Harrell change of heart on South Lake Union light rail stations. 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, Doug Trumm, on Twitter at @dmtrumm. Doug Trumm Doug Trumm is Publisher of The Urbanist, where he has contributed as a writer and editor since 2015. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at UW in 2019 with a concentration in urban policy. As a car-free renter living in Seattle, his policy focuses include improving transit and street safety and tackling the housing affordability crisis. His cat Ole is a national treasure. Resources “Carrie Barnes, Chair of the King County Democrats” from Hacks & Wonks “2023 Primary Election Endorsements” from The Urbanist “The Stranger's Endorsements for the August 1, 2023, Primary Election” from The Stranger “Seattle Times editorial board endorsements: Aug. 1, 2023, primary” from The Seattle Times Endorsements from PubliCola Progressive Voters Guide from Fuse WA 2023 Policing and Public Safety Voter Guide - Seattle City Council from People Power Washington “Person killed during drive-by shooting in Federal Way, police say” by Lauren Girgis from The Seattle Times “Burien still can't decide whether it'll take homelessness offer” by Anna Patrick from The Seattle Times “After Refusing Shelter Offer from King County, Burien Proposes Camping Ban” by Erica Barnett from PubliCola “Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announces his resignation on September 12, 2017.” by Nick Rousso from HistoryLink.org “City's Primary Tool for Sweeping Encampments Without Notice Ruled Unconstitutional” by Erica Barnett from PubliCola “Harrell Advances New Denny Station Options That Could Delay Ballard Link” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist “Transit Advocates Push to Save South Lake Union Light Rail Station” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist Ballard Link Extension: South Lake Union Stations Webinar #2 | Sound Transit Find stories that Crystal is reading 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 our 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, I chatted with Carrie Barnes, Chair of the King County Democrats, about how the county party engages in local elections and politics to improve lives in our area. Today, we are 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: Publisher of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. Hey. [00:01:20] Doug Trumm: Hey, good to see you - thanks so much for having me. [00:01:22] Crystal Fincher: Very, very happy and excited to have you. And as we sit here, people have ballots at their homes - you should have received your ballot - if you haven't, you should pursue getting another one or tracking down where that is. But primary election is in full swing. The primary election end date is Tuesday, August 1st. And wow, there have been a lot of endorsements, including endorsements from The Urbanist. Who did The Urbanist decide to support in several different races? And what was the approach The Urbanist took to making these endorsements? [00:01:58] Doug Trumm: Yeah, we are excited to announce our slate. I'll, I guess, start with how we got there, which was a painstaking process - we've done it the same way, going back six, seven years. And that involves - first, the questionnaire to get people on the record about some issues important to urbanists and Safe Street advocates and housing advocates. And then after they've submitted their questionnaire, we invite them in for actual interviews that are now happening over Zoom - which has been convenient, I think, for everyone, since we're covering a wide area. We probably should have been doing this the whole time - save the candidates time and you get through more candidates. And it's about a 25-minute interview and you learn a little bit more - when you get a vague response in a questionnaire or some issue becomes relevant that maybe wasn't when you sent out the questionnaire. And then we debate what we felt about it. And luckily we didn't have any big fights this year, but obviously some disagreement. And I guess I can start with the Seattle City Council. We also endorsed in Bellevue this year, but where we endorsed, there's not a primary - so not the big fireworks that rolled that one out, but there will be more in the general. But we'll start in order. District 1 in Seattle - Maren Costa, we liked. She's a climate activist and clearly had the best housing platform. A slam dunk as far as what urbanists are looking for, I think, as some of the other candidates were much more wishy-washy about how much housing are they going to allow and how many ways are they going to allow to block it. Costa was pretty clear - I want housing. And then in [District] 2, we liked the incumbent, Tammy Morales. She's been the most strident Safe Streets advocate in the council, so we need someone like that 'cause it's very hard to get Safe Streets projects done. And her district is also in most in need of it, and she's been very clear about that. So it just seems like we need a strong voice, especially in that district. D3, we went with Alex Hudson. We thought she had the most policy chops experience - a lot of progressives in that race, but we thought Alex had the most ability to get it done. In D4, we liked Ron Davis. Didn't really seem to be anyone else who wanted the progressive mantle in that race, and maybe that's a credit partially to Ron Davis being a strong candidate. And we think he is really clear about where he stands and not very politician-y in that way, which is refreshing - was very clear about he wanted a lot of housing in the Comp Plan update that's due next year. Just to underscore that it's a really consequential election because that Comp Plan update is happening next year and a lot of big stuff happening next year, so definitely don't sit out this election. And Ron seems like the person clearly who actually believes in urbanism, believes in 15-minute cities, and things that can make it easier to get around the city as well. Competition just isn't very good. Then in D5, we went with Nilu Jenks. And that is interesting, right - so maybe I get your take on that rather than keep grandstanding here with our endorsements - but we liked Nilu a lot, but then it turned out The Stranger went with ChrisTiana ObeySumner, who we didn't get a chance to interview, otherwise we might have been so inclined potentially - just couldn't get that scheduled. So we ended up going with Nilu, who is pretty strong on most of our issues - was clear she was for housing abundance. And we didn't love some of her police takes, but we thought she was the best candidate we interviewed. And then The Seattle Times went with Cathy Moore. D5 is a weird race because Cathy Moore is now the de facto business chamber candidate, but there aren't as clear of lines. Did you have anything on that or should I keep going? [00:05:18] Crystal Fincher: I think you should keep going and I will chime in at the end. But I do agree that is a race with a number of very interesting candidates that I think are all worthy of looking into. And I think looking deeper into, particularly ChrisTiana ObeySumner and what they're doing is warranted. [00:05:36] Doug Trumm: Yeah, we're gonna continue to try to get that interview scheduled, so there's always potential in the general - it can be different. Also, who knows who's gonna make it through that primary, so it could be a very interesting field - there's a lot of candidates who have a decent shot. Tye Reed also has the Transit Riders Union endorsement and some other progressive endorsements, and is running probably farthest to the left. We wrote in our write-up that we liked Tye as well, but we just thought Nilu had the stronger chance in the general and also a little bit more of a bridge builder. Then moving on to D6, we went with Dan Strauss. We weren't terribly excited about it. He's been someone who's definitely tacked to the center and to the right. And his district has too, so maybe that's just survivalism, but we don't think those votes are good - I'm thinking of his recent vote that gave Ann Davison the power to lock poor people and drug users on the street. It just seemed like a forced vote - there wasn't actually a treatment plan and a diversion plan offered, but on pinky swearing - I don't know how you would take that pinky swear from Ann Davison. So that was a culmination of a continuing slide to the right, especially on safety. And he's been all right as Land Use Chair, but also has moved fairly slowly. But compared to Pete Hanning, his main competition, Dan's still clearly better so we went with Dan. And then D7, we went with Andrew Lewis. We thought Andrew Lewis and Dan Strauss were very similar - they both reflected as progressives and there was always questions about how progressive they really are, but I think Andrew's done a better job than Dan at defining himself and taking some brave votes here and there - he's been more accessible in explaining his waffles, rather than waffle-and-hide - I think that waffling is indicative of his kind of process to get somewhere. I'm not sure, always, what Dan's thinking. So we went with Lewis. The people running against Lewis also are all running pretty far right. It wasn't like there was someone who was gunning for The Urbanist endorsement in that race. But I think Lewis, as Chair of the Homelessness Committee, has done some good stuff and been very clear about trying to set up a alternate response and really hammering on that, so he's definitely worthy of a second term. We also endorsed in King County Council. One really hard race for us to endorse - because we had so many candidates we liked and we really went back and forth about how to do it - we ultimately decided not to do a dual. But in District 4 of the King County Council, which is Northwest Seattle, we went with Becka Johnson Poppe. And she works at King County now as a Budget and Policy Director, and that experience pushed her over the top for us. She's someone who already can hit the ground running. She knows this stuff inside-out and she has credibility - she is a progressive and has pushed on stuff. And one thing we're really watching on the King County Council is Metro Transit service - it's not where it was pre-pandemic, there's less frequency. And she's someone who's been clear about county-wide Transportation Benefit District, which could fund bus service and get us back to that pre-pandemic level eventually. Oddly, the King County Council's been dragging their feet on that and letting obstacles stand in the way rather than solve those obstacles, which is always frustrating to see. I think getting some new people in there, maybe they can take more of a problem-solving approach rather than - We can't get enough bus drivers, so I guess we're gonna accept mediocrity from our transit delivery. [00:08:32] Crystal Fincher: If that would have been a dual endorsement, who would have been the other? [00:08:36] Doug Trumm: Probably Jorge Barón. The vote didn't go that way, so I couldn't say for certain how it would have went. We liked all three candidates in that race, so I think it would probably have been Jorge - who got in late, but has an incredible record as far as leading [Northwest] Immigrant Rights Project. He's led that organization, has done incredible work. We certainly heard from him how he was going to apply that background to advocating for people of color communities in the county and understanding their issues better. And even though you're not gonna be determining that policy at the county level, you are doing a lot of policy that still affects people's livelihood. So liked Jorge Barón - he ended up getting The Seattle Times endorsement, he's pretty progressive for a Seattle Times endorsement. It might just be a reflection of three pretty progressive people in the race. Did The Stranger also go with Jorge? [00:09:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, he nailed what many candidates don't usually nail, which is getting both The Times and The Stranger endorsement. That doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it is usually a very encouraging sign for that candidate. But you're right, this is a race where there are only good choices. And so it just depends on your personal preferences and who you think can best carry out the vision - three solid candidates, each with impressive resumes and impressive experience. [00:09:49] Doug Trumm: Yeah, the third being Sarah Reyneveld, who got the Transit Riders Union endorsement, and I think a handful of labor endorsements. And has also been someone who's been active on transit issues - that countywide Transportation Benefit District, or other funding measures, to get the county back on track. Another open seat in the County Council in District 8, a more West Seattle-type area all the way to Burien and Tukwila. We went with Teresa Mosqueda, which was an easy choice for us, especially after her main competition - Burien Mayor Sofia Aragon - has been on this get-the-homeless-people-out-of-our-city-and-not-provide-services tangent now. So Teresa Mosqueda has been a great City Councilmember in Seattle, and obviously it'd be tough to see her go. She has a clear plan of how she's going to continue working on these issues at the county - transit, housing, healthcare, and childcare kind of being the pillars of her platform. And yeah, she's just someone who got a lot done, including JumpStart, which was the biggest step forward for progressive tax reform in Seattle in maybe ever. So I think that kind of resume is tough to beat. [00:10:49] Crystal Fincher: And that makes sense. There are a number of races for people to choose from this year - definitely going to be reshaping what the Seattle City Council looks like, with so many vacancies and so many open seats and new candidates that are going to be coming aboard. I think it's a solid group of endorsements. There are arguments that can be made for some other candidates in some of those races. I think District 5 is one of those where there are a number of good choices. You talked about Tye Reed, who was instrumental in the passage of social housing in Seattle - making that happen, getting that passed, and has been an organizer for a while around a number of different issues in the city. No one can question Tye's dedication to these issues and real personal investment - and making sure it can get better. We talked about ChrisTiana ObeySumner and Nilu Jenks, so we'll see how that race turns out - that's going to be another interesting one to check out. So we'll leave that there. We'll probably include links to other endorsing entities - just as you try to make up your mind as a listener and a voter - just to give you resources there to assist with those. Also want to talk about a number of other things, but we will go to this brief story about a drive-by shooting - evidently, sheriff deputies were on-site. There's not much that's been reported, and it really seems like the reporter dictated an initial statement from the police and didn't ask any questions. I'll read it to you, and then we can talk about it. Title - Person killed during drive-by shooting in Federal Way, police Say. A person was killed during a drive-by shooting while King County Sheriff's Office deputies were performing a wellness check early Saturday morning in Federal Way. Officers were attempting to check on the person seen behind a property in the 3900 block of South 320th Street shortly before 3 a.m. when two vehicles sped off and two shots rang out. Sheriff's spokesperson, Sergeant Eric White said the person was hit by gunfire and died at the scene. Deputies followed the two vehicles but they got away. No arrests had been made as of Saturday afternoon. Several businesses are located in the area of the shooting. That's the whole story. That's quite an interesting tale. What is your initial reaction to this, Doug? [00:13:16] Doug Trumm: Yeah, it's a head scratcher - have a story, we don't have a lot to go on. It tears down the mythology of what policing can do, especially with us rolling back our police chase limitations and letting police go hog wild in these chases again - at this past session at the State Legislature - because of pushback from the police lobbying forces. Theoretically, they were gonna do these chases and catch people exactly like this. They saw someone doing a drive-by shooting and they were in their cars, conceivably - this is the perfect time to do that chase. And yeah, it didn't work out, so it just underscores that using police chases is such a uncertain and certainly dangerous type of way to try to apprehend criminals when you can easily just ID the car and catch up with them later. And there's so many pedestrians and other bystanders that die in these chases - there really has to be a good chance of a good outcome, like some sort of win, to deal with that collateral damage. That's the first thing that popped into my mind. And the drive-by was apparently someone else. All these police press releases, reported with very little critical eye - when police are involved, they put it in passive voice and passive action. But because of that way they write the press releases, you wonder - Did the police open fire? Did they do anything? - we don't have that information yet. It was reported as a drive-by, so one would assume it wasn't just police opening fire during a wellness check. Were these people involved in the wellness check at all? - you end up with more questions than you have answers. In real-life situations, you realize there's so much that could go wrong. [00:14:42] Crystal Fincher: So many questions I have - a person was killed during a drive-by. Okay, so King County Sheriff's Office deputies were performing a wellness check. First thing, Federal Way has its own police department - doesn't contract with King County for its deputies. So these deputies, for some reason, responded instead of the Federal Way Police Department. Was it in response to a call? Who called it in? But they decide to go by themselves. Why were they on scene? So they were attempting to check out a person behind a property, they say, when two vehicles sped off and two shots rang out. I notice it doesn't say those shots came from the vehicle - it's vaguely worded and isn't useful, especially when there's so much that can be consequential, based on their characterization of what happens. Then the Sheriff's spokesperson said the person was hit by gunfire and died at the scene - I'm wondering if this reporter did anything but dictate this statement - did they ask anything about this? This is just a very vaguely worded statement. Deputies followed the two vehicles, but they got away. Again, this is a situation where even with the police pursuit law, they would have been able to follow them, but they said they needed a rollback to be able to catch criminals like this, and evidently that's not the case. What happened here? So no arrests have been made, no information has been shared that we've seen. What was the make and model of the car? Any description of the people inside the car? What came of that whole thing? There's no information. So if we take what they say at face value, what a spectacular failure in public safety. You have two officers on-site, and a person still gets murdered according to this account? All the excuses of they need more officers, they need more funding, we need to be able to have the officers nearby, on-site to protect people - there were two here, and they couldn't protect one person. How does that happen? Why does that happen? What was the situation? Was something missed? Did they not see people prowling in the area? What a failure. They assume that the shots came from this vehicle that killed this person. How do we not have a description of the car, a license plate, the people inside, any followup on that? Where does this case stand? None of that information provided. If police departments want to restore trust, if they want to have people work for them - those are the kind of answers that people want to see. Do people want to work for a department that can't stop a murder when two deputies are on scene, that can't apprehend a perpetrator when they have a zero-second response time and they can immediately respond? What is the purpose and utility here? And are they doing the work to figure out how to keep this from happening again, to figure out how to actually ensure safety? Unfortunately, too often that is not the case. And that's if you take everything just at face value here. It would be great to see some supporting information - some dash cam, body-worn camera video - just to see what happened, how this happened, and does the evidence match up with the narrative here? There is work that the Federal Way Police Department needs to do, that many departments need to do, and that the King County Sheriff's Office needs to do to rebuild trust within the community. [00:17:54] Doug Trumm: Why even run the story if you have so little information? It plays right into the police narrative. [00:17:59] Crystal Fincher: Yep, definitely a decision that The Seattle Times should dive into and ask themselves a lot of questions - about how this came to be published and what information they were relying on. Also wanna talk about the City of Burien and their continuing shame, really. The council majority deciding that not only do they wanna refuse the offer of shelter - the million dollars, 30-some odd Pallet shelters on provision, 100-ish parking spaces to backfill some space that a dealership was using. They are turning all that down and moving towards just a blanket camping ban in the city, which we've seen fail in so many other cities, but they are determined to do it themselves. This again is happening on a 4-3 council vote. The council majority, unfortunately, is winning this. What do you see happening here? What's your reaction to this, Doug? [00:18:57] Doug Trumm: Yeah, it's pretty sickening. I don't know that folks necessarily saw this coming. We saw some progressives elected onto the Burien City Council, so there was some hope that they were actually going to be looking towards making progress on this issue, doing things that actually work in the long term - rather than sweeping it under the rug and pushing it to other cities. But the four centrists on Burien City Council continue to hammer on this issue - they're not taking this offer of help that very few other cities in the region have, with so few strings attached, to a million dollars worth of housing for their homeless people. It's the type of thing that makes your head explode because - if you're mad about homeless people, having more roofs over the people's heads is the most direct way of dealing with that. And they had a million process complaints, like - Oh, what's gonna happen in five years or whatever? We're gonna be on the hook. It's just that type of thing that they wouldn't ask for any other offer of a million dollars from the county - suddenly they want a 20-year plan for this when they have no plan themselves. It's really, like you said, shameful. They've lost the majority of their Burien Planning Commission, as you've talked about in this podcast before, because of this move when the mayor decided to remove the head of the Planning Commission and then some other Planning Commissioners quit in protest. We all covered all that, but the one thing that's gonna happen if that commission continues to be unfilled is it's gonna slow down the production of housing in Burien - large projects have to go to that commission. If that happens, you're exasperating your housing shortage - they're creating the problem that they're complaining about. It's maddening, it's not treating these folks as human beings - I think it was Stephanie Mora referring that they should poop in doggy bags like they're dogs - it's clearly dehumanizing language. I think should be disqualifying for holding this office, but hopefully they lose their seats. For now, they're the people making policy for a city of about 50,000 people - it's crazy. [00:20:43] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it absolutely is. And as you talked about, Mayor Sofia Aragon, Deputy Mayor Kevin Schilling, Councilmember Jimmy Matta have been part of making these decisions that are unconscionable. This is really a depiction of this soft, kind of progressive rhetoric with a wink and a nod. In previous statements, they had talked like - We definitely want to sweep, but we'll do it in a nice way, in a compassionate way, in the progressive way. But when it comes down to it, they really weren't interested in that at all. They just wanted to get people away and using very dehumanizing language. The real tell is - the place where they usually make an excuse and get away with it - We don't have the money. We don't have the resources. If we could, we would, but we just can't - we don't have anything, I'm sorry. So the only choice we have is to sweep because we just don't have the choice to do anything else. King County basically called that bluff and said - Okay, we've got a million dollars for you. We've got Pallet shelters ready to go. We've got a location that we can partner with. And hey, this dealership is gonna be impacted? We'll provide 100 parking spaces, which is larger than their inventory. - every objection, every excuse, every hurdle that they had was basically responded to by the county. And by the way, kudos to Dow Constantine and his office for taking a stance and for trying to constructively work with the City of Burien. There sometimes have been criticisms for Dow doing that in South County. He is doing it here. And Burien and the Council majority - they turned all that down. They could have already housed the people there. This would make a meaningful, visible, substantial difference in their situation overnight - once this is implemented - and they just decided not to. They're just looking for a ban. Bans are wholly ineffective, as the prior sweeps were wholly ineffective. And they just moved people from one location to another and making, as you said, the problem they're allegedly trying to fix even worse. This is just a continuing shame and negligence from the council. These people are their constituents - whether someone has a home or not, these are Burien residents - and their job is to help them and to serve them. And they refuse to do so. And it's shameful. It's pathetic. [00:22:59] Doug Trumm: Hopefully they come to their senses - this 4-3 split has been pretty durable. [00:23:03] Crystal Fincher: We will see what the primary elections hold. Sofia Aragon is running currently for King County Council against Teresa Mosqueda. I don't think anyone really expects Sofia to win this race. But it is really important to make sure people don't just rest on their laurels and sit on the sidelines. And even in this primary, even when it seems like one person is clearly more qualified than the other, you actually need to vote and make your own choice. [00:23:28] Doug Trumm: These are like conservative trial balloons - they're testing the waters - can Democrats get away with very conservative Trump-esque rhetoric, dehumanizing homeless people, pandering to cops in completely unaccountable ways? They want to see if that works. I don't know if Sofia is connecting these two - it seems like she would be when she declares for office for the King County Council race. But maybe her calculation is this makes her more popular. And I think it's really incumbent upon people who don't agree with that to actually turn out to an odd-year election, because it's validating that approach. And you're going to see more and more of it if people get rewarded for that. [00:24:05] Crystal Fincher: That's blatantly the calculation that they're making. Kevin Schilling has an opponent - Patricia Hudson - running against him right now, who is the progressive choice who is endorsed by King County Democrats. I mean, they received a very unusual letter of rebuke from the King County Executive's office, also from the 33rd District Democrats, which encompasses part of Burien. And the other part of Burien is the 34th, who also submitted an open public letter of rebuke. Anyone who calls themself a Democrat on record, locally, is outwardly opposing it. And it hasn't stopped them. In fact, they seem to be using that as cred. So this is important. These are still the people in office. They do need to be held accountable, and people need to make their voices heard. Another disillusioning development we've seen over the past couple of weeks is Ed Murray evidently popping up at political events around the region and definitely catching a number of people off guard. There seem to be some people who are okay with it. But just as a reminder - Ed Murray, former legislator, former mayor of Seattle, had to resign in disgrace as mayor of Seattle after credible allegations of molestation of underage people who were under his care and also potentially a family member. Also troubling was his response using someone's background against them - they were going through hard times as unhoused youth working with LGBTQ youth, who oftentimes very unfortunately are disowned by family, kicked out of the house, and left in very vulnerable positions - to then cite that vulnerable position as a reason why someone may not be believed was really victim blaming. The entire community, who has so many people who have been victimized - was a re-victimization to hear that. But he's been out of the public eye for a while and seems to be doing a soft launch to get back in. What's your reaction to this? [00:26:04] Doug Trumm: With someone like that who's had such a long political career, they don't start going to political events just for fun. They're plotting getting back into politics. He's clearly testing the waters here, seeing if he can get back into politics. He's seeing if he can get acceptance enough to the point where he can run for something again or be a campaign manager. I don't think it should happen. And it's also not a pleasant experience for folks who did have a negative reaction to his handling of that situation - making it very hard for his accuser to come forward because he was using the whole weight of his office against that person. That's not how you handle it if you're a leader - you don't victim blame. Luckily, he finally resigned, but he was going to hold on to that office with everything he had. [00:26:44] Crystal Fincher: I also think that's a low bar. It's wholly inappropriate for him to be in these. There's been no atonement. There's been no acknowledgment of what he's done. And while I don't believe in throwing people away forever, there has been nothing to indicate that he acknowledges what he's done, that he's attempted to make amends to his victims. In fact, that seems quite the opposite. He's just hoping to pick up where he left off. I think it is going to be really interesting to survey who is okay with him being at political events, and at their political events, and who is not - and what that says about different people as candidates. Who is finding this troubling and who is finding it just fine? I'm curious about where he does feel welcome and why, and what that says about those spaces. We will see how this continues to unfold throughout the city. And if you spot Ed Murray, shoot me a message. Also, a pretty significant court ruling this week came in about encampment sweeps, particularly about the City of Seattle - Seattle has been sweeping too broadly and is unconstitutional in its application. When there's clearly a risk to public safety or they are blocking completely a sidewalk, there is cause for encampment sweeps. But they've been doing it too much and for reasons that are too broad - they need to effectively offer shelter and provide shelter if they're going to sweep people. Without that provision of shelter, there's nowhere else for someone to go. It is illegal to say you can't exist here - in essence, you're saying you can't exist anywhere. And this court ruling was powerful with some pretty clear statements calling the current policy dehumanizing, destabilizing, and counterproductive. How did you see this? [00:28:31] Doug Trumm: The two individuals who brought it - their story was so tragic - they mentioned losing wedding rings, family heirlooms, because they've just been repeatedly swept while they're getting services or going to work or whatever. One person mentioned losing their work boots and then that jeopardized their employment and that sunk them deeper into the spiral of homelessness. They kept getting these last-second-notice sweeps because they were supposedly an obstruction. If the definitions are broad, they don't have anywhere to go. The ruling says the two main ways they were bending this rule is they were defining the blockages - 50% blockage, it becomes 100% blockage in their eyes, or even a 30% blockage - because some of these sidewalks in downtown are fairly wide. And unfortunately, some sidewalks in our city are pretty narrow. Often folks aren't trying to block the whole sidewalks. They're trying to go somewhere they can and not fear that their stuff's gonna get snatched up and taken away. They lost all these valuable possessions, including their wedding ring. What are we doing here? This cruel unusual punishment that rises to a constitutional violation and this judge issues this ruling. Now the City's gonna have to rethink how they do this. The other main way they avoid the Boise ruling, Martin v. Boise, is they say that anything in the park is an obstruction - because someone wants to use that particular part of the park, even if it's some secluded, say in the forest, in a large park when 99% of the park is still accessible. Part of Mayor Harrell's campaign pledges to clear the parks. Some of the parks are clearer than they were when he took office, but others still have encampments and it goes to this whack-a-mole approach of you're constantly chasing people around the city at great expense and great suffering to some individuals, like the two that brought the suit, and we haven't made durable progress. [00:30:11] Crystal Fincher: Another event this week with Sound Transit - Mayor Harrell is up for a Denny Station on West Lake Avenue again. How'd this happen? [00:30:19] Doug Trumm: Hey, I gotta give credit to grassroots organizers there - there's a lot of people involved. Seattle Subway sent, I think, over 6,000 letters via online petition. Uptown Alliance got a lot of letters because they were also very dismayed to see that the station on the eastern edge of their neighborhood was suddenly gonna disappear - at a whim - six, seven years into this process. And what was happening here, if you didn't follow this story, is there's gonna be obviously this new Ballard Link Light Rail line that will go from Downtown to Ballard. And on the way, it's gonna pick up Denny Triangle, it's gonna pick up South Lake Union, it's gonna pick up Uptown. And these were gonna be really high-use stations, but there's one problem in that some of the corporations and real estate interests in Denny Triangle were not excited about the station location. Folks like Amazon, Vulcan, were lobbying against this location because they didn't like the closure of Westlake Avenue, they said, which South Transit at this point in this process was estimating a full closure of four years. They're putting the station right under Westlake so they do have to mine it, it's gonna be closed for that part. But they realized that they could put decking over the top - they didn't propose that initially 'cause it's more complicated and expensive. But they realized they could do that, obviously, if the alternative is putting some station two blocks to the west, which is what the proposal that came forward out of this last-minute wrangling - wasn't in the DEIS, the draft environmental impact statement. So that means it requires more planning and process. So there's two public meetings online that Sound Transit is hosting - I think one of them is today and the other one is a couple of days from now - we can link to that in the notes maybe. But because this shifted-west alternative came forward late in the process, was proposed as a way to alleviate these concerns from corporations and real estate - they had to do this process. The mayor backed it at a meeting last month, I think it was, but then last week he walked that back. He said - You know what? We really need to keep the South Lake Union Station because what happens with shifting the station west is it gets super close to the other station on Aurora, which is a major bus artery. - so that's where a lot of people were going to transfer from bus to rail. And it would put you closer to Uptown too if you're headed to the eastern part of Uptown. So the shifted-west alternative consolidates the two stations into one. And that's what sort of set off all these alarm bells with Seattle Subway and Uptown Alliance and the urbanists and others that - Hey, why are we dropping a station? And they presented to Uptown Alliance - Sound Transit did two days ago, I think it was - and apparently the consolidating those two stations, they shared their ridership analysis, which was new information. It's gonna cost about 10,000 riders - someone who was at that presentation told me. And that's a pretty big deal - 10,000 daily riders. So the mayor didn't have that information last week when he made his statement - he said he was still waiting for ridership to confirm his decision, but he said he's starting to lean Westlake and just wants a good mitigation plan, which I don't know why we couldn't start there from the first place - because we're seeing across, especially the Ballard Link Station, that there's lots of changes that are happening because people don't like the construction period and don't think the mitigation plan is very good. And there may be something to that. The mitigation plan should be really good, but rather than focus on the mitigation, we've been just tossing around all these different ideas and extending the - what that means is you have to do a whole new study and that delays the whole project. So maybe small progress there on the Denny Station decision - we can focus on how to do that right and get a good construction mitigation plan, rather than last-minute options that are un-vetted and are going to require another year or two of study. [00:33:51] Crystal Fincher: And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, July 21st, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful cohost today is Publisher of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. You can find Doug on Twitter @dmtrumm, that's two M's at the end. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. And you can find me on all platforms - Bluesky, SPILL, Twitter, all of them, Mastodon - @finchfrii, that'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 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.

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Week in Review: May 26, 2023 - with Robert Cruickshank

Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2023 45:07

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank! They cover WA gubernatorial candidate Bob Ferguson's controversial and publicly-mocked endorsement from former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, an escalating battle over an illegal encampment between the Burien City Manager and King County Executive legal counsel, how a proposed “Renter's Bill of Rights” from Tacoma for All is gathering signatures in Tacoma for a local initiative, the Seattle City Attorney and a right-wing councilmember's plan to rush through a restart of the failed War on Drugs, Seattle's new tree protection ordinance and the first meeting of the Seattle Social Housing Developer Board.. 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 Sarah Reyneveld, Candidate for King County Council District 4 from Hacks & Wonks @BobFergusonAG on Twitter: “I'm grateful to have the support of former Seattle Police Chief” @davidstoesz on Twitter: “I recently had a long email exchange with the AG's office about why they didn't investigate Best's and Durkan's missing texts, a felony” “King County Executive accuses city of Burien of 'lease scheme' to evict people from homeless encampment” by Nia Wong from Fox 13 Seattle “King County expresses 'substantial concerns' about City of Burien's intention to sweep campers off city-owned lot; won't allow police to help” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog “Burien City Manager responds to King County's letter warning that police won't help with encampment sweep” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog “Dueling Tenant Rights Measures Square Off in Tacoma” by Kevin Le from The Urbanist “Tacoma city officials discuss updates to Rental Housing Code” by Lionel Donovan from KING 5 “Slog AM: Seattle City Council Rushes to Vote on Drug War Reboot, Tacoma Landlords Try to Squash Tenant Bill of Rights, and DeSantis's Twitter DeSaster” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger “Here's how the new drug possession law in Washington is different that what was on the books“ by Jim Camden from The Spokesman-Review “Washington's War on Drugs Starts Up Again in July” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger “'Real people being represented': Seattle's social housing board is just getting started” by Joshua McNichols, Libby Denkmann & Noel Gasca from KUOW Find stories that Crystal is reading 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 Friday almost-live shows 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 topical show, I chatted with Sarah Reyneveld about her campaign for King County Council District 4 - why she decided to run, the experience she brings as a public sector attorney and community advocate, and her thoughts on addressing frontline worker wages and workforce issues, the need for upstream alternatives in the criminal legal system and substance use crisis, how to improve policy implementation, climate change and air quality, and budget revenue and transparency. 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: Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. [00:01:30] Robert Cruickshank: Thank you for having me back, Crystal. It's always fun to be on the show. [00:01:33] Crystal Fincher: Always great to have you on the show. So this has been an eventful week, but wow - last night, there was a little event that popped up that kind of took the notice of everyone who follows politics basically in Washington state, whether they were on the progressive side, conservative side, or somewhere in-between. That was Bob Ferguson's announcement of his endorsement by former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best. Why did this attract so much attention, Robert? [00:02:03] Robert Cruickshank: Because Carmen Best is one of the most controversial figures in Seattle right now, coming out of the summer of 2020. And as Alexa Vaughn, for example, noted - she runs The Needling - this was posted on the anniversary of George Floyd's murder. And when Minnesota police murdered George Floyd three years ago, as we recall, it sparked a major wave of protest here in Seattle to demand reforms here. And in that response, that protest, Mayor Jenny Durkan and Chief Best systematically deceived the public, deleted their texts in what ought to be a felony, and essentially got away with it. Carmen Best then left her job as Police Chief of Seattle and is now making a fair amount of money as a TV pundit. And so Carmen Best, coming out of that summer, is seen as one of these leaders who sided with the cops against people demanding urgently-needed reform, and is seen as avatar of we-need-to-get-tough-on-crime policies - who has a very poor reputation among a lot of people in Seattle, including Ferguson's base. And that's what happened yesterday, in the reaction, was Ferguson's base - progressive people in Seattle who've been cheering him on as he takes on Trump, as he takes on big corporations - all of a sudden surprised to see him just bear-hugging one of the most notorious figures in recent Seattle history. [00:03:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and adding on top of that - the challenges during those protests, the deleted texts that you mentioned, but also the tear-gassing of neighborhoods. I don't think people understand how radicalizing that was for some neighborhoods in Seattle. They didn't tear-gas protesters. They tear-gassed entire geographical areas. People in their homes couldn't breathe, were severely impacted by that. And where do you go at that point in time? There are protests out on the street. You're at home with your kids, with your family, and getting tear-gassed in your home. That's what happened in Seattle, and people have not forgotten that. That was a radicalizing moment. I think you've seen instances afterwards in just relations and demonstrating that the trust with the police department is completely evaporated. Neighbors banding together to question people being detained for what seems like no reason because they no longer view them and the police as being on the same side after that. They felt attacked. You aren't attacked by people you trust - yeah. [00:04:33] Robert Cruickshank: Well, they were attacked. They absolutely were. And you talk about the stories of tear-gassing the neighborhood. I will never forget hearing at one of the City Council meetings in early June 2020, when this was all going on, a father who lived in an apartment on Capitol Hill talking about how the tear-gas got into his apartment and his newborn baby started crying and having fluid coming from its nose and mouth because it couldn't handle the tear-gas that had seeped in. This is an example of just complete disregard that Carmen Best had for the public. When the Council tried to ban the use of tear-gas, ban the use of blast balls that had been fired at peaceful protesters in June 2020, Carmen Best spoke out against that. So it is a legacy of attacking - with vicious weapons of war - the people of Seattle engaged in peaceful protests during this crucial moment in our City's history. And for Bob Ferguson to tout her endorsement comes off as the state's leading law enforcement guy - that's what he is as Attorney General - embracing Carmen Best and her narrative of what happened. And I think it's a real wake-up call and a shocking moment that maybe needed to happen. Bob Ferguson has had 11 years in office of very good press. He's fought hard for LGBTQ rights. He's fought hard to ban assault weapons. We talked about his lawsuits against Trump and against big tech companies. And rightly, he's gotten a lot of credit for that. But we haven't seen much about his other views on other issues. He hasn't been asked to take a stand on housing, transit, policing. I don't believe he weighed in, at least certainly not in a loud public way, on the question of what to do about the Blake decision. And so as he's launched his "exploratory campaign" for governor, racking up endorsements all over the place - literally left and right - Pramila Jayapal and Carmen Best. He hasn't gotten a lot of scrutiny yet. I think yesterday's move to announce the endorsement of Carmen Best means he's going to start getting a lot of scrutiny. I think the honeymoon for Ferguson, at least in Seattle, is over. Now that may not be a bad thing in Ferguson's political calculation, but I think you saw the governor's race shift substantially yesterday. [00:06:41] Crystal Fincher: I think so too. What do you think went into this political calculation to seek, and accept, and publicize this endorsement? [00:06:51] Robert Cruickshank: I think Bob Ferguson is trying to shore up his right flank. He's probably looking at what he saw south of the border in Oregon last year, where the Oregon governor's race was dominated by questions of public safety. He's seen similar things happen around the country where Democrats are attacked on this. I think he is also seeing that right-wing Democrats, like Mark Mullet, are making noise about running for governor. I think Ferguson feels he has to shore up his position on the right and the way that he can do that is by touting law and order. And in fact, the day before he announced Carmen Best's endorsement, he also announced the endorsement of Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell, who had run for King County Prosecutor last year - losing to Leesa Manion. And Ferrell ran on a more law and order right-wing approach, so there's clearly a calculated effort here by Ferguson to show - at least maybe the media and a certain segment of the electorate - that he's not like those other Democrats. He's not a Seattle Democrat who's, in the parlance on the right, soft on crime. He's going to be tough on this stuff, and I think it means that quite a lot of scrutiny now should be directed his way in terms of asking him where he stands and what he believes on the major issues of crime and public policy. [00:08:03] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. When you see this, especially with such a - at least from the online vocal right - also such a backlash from them. This is one of those where you look at the ratio and people are like, My goodness - there was not a positive reaction to this. It was pretty negative across the spectrum. It was universally negative across the spectrum. Who does this help him with? Who do you think - there's their calculus - but in reality, do you think this helps with anyone? [00:08:36] Robert Cruickshank: I think that Ferguson has been waging a low-key but significant effort to try to win the support of The Seattle Times. He was a supporter of legislation in Olympia this year that would have created some tax breaks for media companies, including The Seattle Times, and Times lobbied hard for it. The bill was also sponsored in the Senate by Mark Mullet, so I think Ferguson is looking at this - trying to make sure that he has The Seattle Times in his corner, certain right-wing Democrats in his corner. But they're not a huge portion of the electorate. The sense I have is Ferguson wants to try to just clear the field as much as he possibly can in advance of the actual election. But there is a huge risk here because in building that coalition, you can't alienate another piece of it. Now, all of a sudden, he's got Seattle voters, who are pretty shocked by the Carmen Best endorsement, taking a second look at Ferguson. That's going to give an opportunity to someone like Hilary Franz, who launched her campaign but otherwise hasn't had much energy or momentum - gives her an opening to maybe try to win some of those Seattle voters over. [00:09:42] Crystal Fincher: There's another element of this that I find interesting, and actually this is the element that I would be concerned about backfiring over the long term - that it could play into a narrative that could turn out to be harmful. It's that - while questions were swirling around what happened with the East Precinct and how that happened, finding out the texts were deleted - which is a significant crime, really - and lots of people asking, Hey, Bob Ferguson, why aren't you investigating this? And him saying, I can't. But as has been covered several times - again recently - he has either referred, or spoken up, or suggested that in other instances. And so if a narrative catches on that - Yeah, Bob's tough if he doesn't have a friend doing something - you know, if a friend is doing one of those things that lots of people find objectionable, it's a different story if it's a friend. If it's a different story, if it's a donor, perhaps. It's a different story - that kind of thing. I would be concerned about that kind of narrative catching on. And so that to me is why - I don't understand - realistically - look, if you're trying to project law and order, he could have done what Jim Ferrell did. That didn't work for Jim Ferrell, but it didn't have this kind of backlash where - hey, different police chiefs - but to choose Seattle's Carmen Best, it just - my goodness, that is an unforced error, it seems. Lots of time left, more than a year in this campaign. Who knows who else is going to get in the race? Lots of time, so I am in no way suggesting this is fatal. He obviously financially enjoys a significant advantage and there's lots of time left. We have seen plenty of politicians at all levels step in it and make their way out. So I'm not saying that this is damning, but it's certainly - to your point - is going to invite more scrutiny than there had been before. [00:11:42] Robert Cruickshank: It is. And I was thinking about this earlier today - we haven't had a contested primary for governor on the Democratic side in Washington state in nearly 20 years. Last time was when Ron Sims and Christine Gregoire ran against each other in 2004. Inslee didn't have a challenge in 2012, and obviously hasn't been challenged since. We might have one now and I think that would be healthy - healthy for the Democratic Party, healthy for the state - to have different ideas out there, candidates running on policy and having to have discussions and debates about that. I think it'd be really helpful. Ferguson has had a lot of momentum early. He's racked up a ton of endorsements, as we've talked about, but he hasn't really been challenged on policy and he hasn't - made very few statements on policy. It was surely a deliberate thing on his campaign's part. That needs to change - that'll make Ferguson a stronger candidate in the general election. And it'll make all of us - whether we're big D, small D Democrats, or just voters who care about the direction of our state - better off when there's a real policy discussion happening in the primary. [00:12:42] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We will continue to follow what's going on with the gubernatorial race, but in the meantime, in the City of Burien, there is a really contentious situation going on right now between the Burien - really interestingly - between the City and King County Executive's legal team. Can you just cover what is going on here? In a nutshell, what is the issue and what's currently happening? [00:13:13] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, the City of Burien - and it seems to be the City Manager in particular in Burien - is trying to sweep a homeless encampment. Now, here in the western United States, we're governed by a Supreme Court - or not, I'm sorry, not a Supreme Court decision, that's important - a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which is one level below the Supreme Court, against the city of Boise, saying that you cannot sweep a homeless encampment without having made real good faith offers of shelter to those people you're trying to remove. At some point, one would imagine some city somewhere will try to take that to the US Supreme Court, which would be a nightmare, because I don't think we'd get a good ruling out of that. But here in the western US, we are all governed by that decision - which is binding from the Ninth Circuit - which means you can't just sweep people without giving them a place to go. That doesn't justify sweeps, but that's the legal ruling that cities operate under. Now, what Burien appears to have tried to do was redefine a city park as a dog park - as private park - in order to get around having to actually offer shelter. Because they don't have an offer, they have nowhere to go - that's why encampments exist - they exist because people have nowhere else to go. And so the City Manager said this is the plan we're going to do. Well, King County Executive's Office slapped down Burien pretty hard and said - You can't do that - that violates the court ruling - and we're not going to provide police support. Burien, like many cities in King County, many smaller cities, doesn't have its own police force. They contract with the King County Sheriff's Office. And the King County Sheriff's Office, after 2020 charter reform, the Sheriff is now appointed by the Executive. So the Executive now has more direct control over the King County Sheriff's Office than it had before. And so what Dow Constantine's office is saying is - We're not going to have police there to help do your sweep. Without police, you're going to have a hard time actually getting people to move. The City of Burien is striking back. The City Manager is disagreeing with this. But interestingly, people like Hugo Garcia, who are on the City Council in Burien, are saying - This is not us. We didn't authorize this. This is the City Manager going out and doing this on his own. And so now you have really a fight over power in Burien and who actually controls these important levers of city government - when it comes to people's shelter - is in question here. So Burien has a lot to sort out. [00:15:28] Crystal Fincher: A lot to sort out. And a little context further with this is - where the encampment is now - arrived there because Burien did previously conduct a sweep at one location that was city-owned. And because sweeps don't do anything to solve homelessness - housing solves homelessness - in an entirely predictable turn of events, the people who were swept wound up in an adjacent city lot because there's nowhere else to go. There was no offer of housing, no shelter. Where do you think they're going to go? Obviously, they're just moving place to place. We know that's how this works - over and over again - it's been covered several times, just locally here. So that happened. And so the Council in a 4-3 - they kind of have a 4-3 moderate to conservative majority there - they decided to enter into a lease with a private entity, and who billed themselves as dog park caretakers, in an attempt to allow them to trespass the people who are on that property as private owner-operators, basically, in a way to get around the City's requirement to do that. Well, that was just blatantly an end-run attempt, which Dow Constantine - wisely and following the law - decided not to adhere to. But now this is an interesting situation. As you said, there are councilmembers who said - Wait, wait, wait, this is not happening. The response to the King County Executive's legal advisor is not coming from us. The City Manager decided to respond on their own. The lease with the C.A.R.E.S. Organization - Burien C.A.R.E.S. Organization - is not executed yet. We don't think it should be. We need to reconsider and talk about this. But it's a legitimate issue. And Burien - frankly, there are a number of cities skirting the requirement to provide housing. That's why we see the whole theater around - they were offered housing and they refused, even if they know that the housing is not adequate, even if they know the shelter is available - them trying to check that off as them basically - checking on their list - okay, we have technically done the thing that will not get this sweep called unconstitutional, hopefully. Even though when it has been brought to court, it's been successfully challenged before. So we'll see how this continues to unfold. But it's kind of a - the equivalent of a constitutional crisis, almost - in a city, like a charter crisis. Who does actually have the authority to do this? Can the city manager act, in his capacity, response to this? Can he act independently of the Council on this response? Who knows? They were talking about an emergency meeting. We'll see what results from that. But certainly a lot of people and organizations are paying attention to this. And it is - it's a conundrum. [00:18:24] Robert Cruickshank: It is. And I think it is another example of the ways in which the regional approach to solving homelessness isn't working right now. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority lost its executive director last week and is spending a lot of money, but what is it showing for it? It's taking forever to get people into shelter. The idea behind the regional approach is - this is a regional problem - let's pool our resources and act quickly to cut through all the bureaucratic silos so we get people into shelter. It's what we all want. It's not happening. And I think - yet again, we're seeing another grand effort to solve homelessness not succeed because we haven't actually tackled the root of it. We're not funding enough supportive, permanently supportive, temporary shelter, whatever it is - it's not being done. The state isn't kicking in the money that's needed. It's hard to get the permitting. It's hard to find the zoning because we've been glacially slow to change zoning. We finally got some of that fixed here in the 2023 session, but - Ed Murray declaring a state of emergency over homelessness in 2015. I remember when I moved to Seattle, a little over 20 years ago, we were in the middle of the 10-year plan to end homelessness. We have these grand efforts that go nowhere. Meanwhile, people are in crisis. People living outside, whether it's in the cold of winter or the heat and smoke of summer, aren't getting their needs met. These are our neighbors who deserve shelter. And government just trying to pass the buck, just trying to appease a few cranky people who don't want to see a tent, but not giving people the help that they need and have needed for a long time. And we need to find actual solutions to get people housed and pay what it takes to do it. Otherwise, we're just going to keep seeing more stuff like this happen. [00:20:01] Crystal Fincher: We are. And we have to contend with the use of resources here. Burien's in a bind now. If they do buck this - and there's been some early talk - we don't need the Sheriff, we can stand up our own department. The reason why they haven't stood up their own department is because it's prohibitively expensive. And they're already spending a significant portion - I think almost half of their general budget - on policing currently. And so the money that we put into these sweeps, the money that we put into litigation, and the challenges of just working through this is all money that is being spent on things that we know are not going to do anything to make this problem better. At the most, you can make it disappear only in the sense that - yes, you sweep someone from one location, they're going to move to another one. Lots of people hope they just move to another one in another city so they don't have to deal with it, but they do. And now every city - look at housing prices, which are the biggest determinant of our levels of homelessness. Lots of people, employed people, families cannot afford housing. There is nowhere for them to go. So if we continue to waste our resources on the things that don't work, we don't have the resources for the things that do. And we're hearing excuses - Oh, we would love to do this. We would love to have more supportive housing. We would love to have more behavioral health supports. We would love to have more people to help shepherd them through this. Well, then stop spending the resources on the things that don't work, and start spending them on the things that do. That's not an excuse when you're making the decision to spend the money on the things that don't work and that are harmful - that should be a point of accountability right there. And instead they're using it to excuse and explain their actions - it doesn't fly. And I hope they do have a robust conversation about this. I know there are definitely councilmembers there who want that to happen, who want to focus on providing housing, and working collaboratively with the King County Executive to get that done. But the majority of the council, unfortunately, did not take that position at that time. I hope some come around and see the light. [00:22:04] Robert Cruickshank: I agree, and I think ultimately this is where the state needs to step in - you talk about how this is a problem everywhere. I took a train up to Vancouver, British Columbia, earlier this year and you could see under overpasses along the entire route, including in Canada, people living in tents, people trying to make - get themselves shelter under an overpass, whether it's rural Skagit County or the suburbs of Vancouver. This is a problem everywhere because we haven't built enough housing. We know that homelessness is primarily a housing crisis. When you don't build enough housing, when you don't have enough affordable housing, you get homelessness. There are the other reasons why an individual may wind up or stay in homelessness - people who have mental health needs, people have drug addictions - and a lot of that develops when you're out on the streets. Plenty of people fall into homelessness without being addicted to a single drug, without having any outward signs of mental illness. But once you're on the street, in what is a fundamentally traumatic situation where you are unsafe and do not have security or shelter, it becomes very easy to develop those other problems. And so housing is that essential piece of solving homelessness, solving addiction, solving all these other things that people need help with. And it's not being done. And asking cities to solve it themselves without giving them the financial support from the state government, or certainly not coming from the federal government - we're about to see massive spending cuts out of the stupid debt ceiling deal. Once again, it falls back on the State Legislature, and ultimately on our next governor, to figure out how they're going to solve it. Because when you leave it up to cities, you're going to get bad decisions. You're going to get things like we're seeing in Burien right now. It has to be solved at a higher level. [00:23:48] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely does. In another city development, there is an attempt to put a tenant's bill of rights on the ballot in the City of Tacoma. What do they want to do, and what would this mean for renters? [00:24:01] Robert Cruickshank: It's a really great thing. I think what you're seeing in Tacoma is a group coming together called Tacoma for All. And what they're trying to put together is something they call sometimes a tenant bill of rights. It's also been called a landlord fairness code. You do a number of great things such as requiring six months notice for all rent increases, relocation assistance for rent hikes over 5%, no school-year evictions of children and educators - that's a great thing to do because the last thing you want is for educators and families and students to be thrown out during the school year. It would ban deadly cold weather evictions, so if we're having a cold snap or a bunch of snow, you can't evict people out into the snow. It would cap excessive and unfair fees and deposits and ban rent hikes when there are code violations. Seattle has a lot of these things already, but Tacoma doesn't. And what a number of renters and advocates have seen in Tacoma is the need to bring those protections to Tacoma, especially because the state didn't do it - the state didn't act on a rent control bill that had been proposed earlier this year. So you're seeing a group of people come together with strong support from labor, from elected officials like Yasmin Trudeau and others, to make the Tacoma for All initiative a reality. They're getting some pushback from the City, obviously, which - the mayor doesn't really want to do this and offered a vague compromise solution but didn't provide details. And the organizers said - No, we're going to go ahead with our own initiative - which I think is the right thing to do. I believe there are three pieces to the stool of solving housing. You need more supply from the private sector. You need more supply from the public sector - things like social housing, public housing. And you also need renter and tenant protections. And Washington has started to add some more private supply, but we need more tenant and renter protections across the state. And so with the State Legislature failing, you're seeing people in Tacoma step up to act on their own, and I think it's a great thing to do. [00:25:53] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. They're in the middle of collecting signatures - early in the month, they had about half of them that they needed. They need to collect a total of 8,000 by June 15th to submit to the City, and they're actively signature gathering now. The Council could take action to put what they propose on the ballot - like you said, they're signaling that they're going to propose something, obviously. They're feeling the need to do something since there is something on the table right now, but don't know what it is. And it does not go as far - at least the indications based on what has been discussed in work groups so far - do not go as far as the Tacoma For All group's does. And it just doesn't seem like it's going to have the teeth. And so they're prepared to take this all the way, to try and collect all of the signatures - they're recruiting volunteers. And so it'll be great to see this get on the ballot and to have a full conversation about it. I do hope the City tries to take an approach that works because this is attempting to solve a real problem. And completely applaud Tacoma For All for stepping up to really address this problem. This is not a partisan issue. This is just a straight affordability issue. And it affects all of us, even homeowners who are happy with the way that their home price is appreciating - and it has quite a bit, I think home values have almost doubled in Tacoma over the past 10 years - but it's making sure that the teachers in our community, the pharmacists in our community, our transit drivers, everyone who is our neighbors, everyone who we rely on to make our communities thrive, really, rely on affordable housing. If your kid gets sick, do you want to be short a nurse because they couldn't afford to buy a million dollar home, an $800,000 home on an average salary? Lots of people are facing this and we have to contend with this. Displacement is already happening, especially on the Hilltop - it is an issue. It's not speculative. It's not in the future. It's happening now and it needs to stop. They can take action to help reduce the harm here. And I really hope they do. [00:28:04] Robert Cruickshank: Exactly. And I love that they're taking inspiration from what has happened in Seattle. A lot of these elements of Tacoma For All come from policies Kshama Sawant has championed. And Sawant, being the very clever strategist that she really is, fought hard for genuine rent control, has been denied it because the State Legislature won't do it. So she said - Okay, I'll go find other ways - any possible thing we can do under the rights that the City has, we're going to do it to protect renters. And it's worked. Not completely, but she can get these policies done and they provide some assistance to renters in Seattle. And Tacoma looking at that saying - Yeah, let's do that too. It's a good example of things we can do with stopgaps, but we still need the state to step in. California and Oregon have passed statewide rent stabilization laws capping annual rent increases. Washington needs to do the same. It is an urgent thing too. You mentioned being a homeowner - I'm a homeowner. My annual rent, so to speak, is capped. If you have a fixed term mortgage - 30 or fixed - that doesn't go up. It might go up a little bit because of property tax changes, but even those are capped - unfortunately, by Tim Eyman. So homeowners have essentially rent stabilization, but renters don't. And I think it's only fair that renters have those same protections too. [00:29:24] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now for the City of Seattle - bouncing back here - Seattle is looking to double down on the War on Drugs. What are they talking about, and how did we get here? [00:29:35] Robert Cruickshank: So this is Ann Davison and Sara Nelson and Alex Pedersen, the right wing of Seattle City government, trying to revive the War on Drugs. They believe that the answer to the fentanyl crisis, and in some ways the answer to visible homelessness downtown, is to criminalize. Let's go back to the War on Drugs - if you're using drugs, if you're a drug addict, the answer isn't treatment, it's jail. The irony here is that a lot of us progressives argue that what needs to happen is - these people need housing, they need treatment, give them a shelter, give them a room with a door that locks. Well, that's what Ann Davison wants to do - she just wants to put them in jail. Jail is a type of housing, but it's not the type of housing that's going to solve someone's addiction. In fact, it's going to make it worse, it's going to add more trauma, it's going to make it harder for that individual to escape the cycle of addiction and whatever other problems they're facing. But there is this desire among Seattle's right, which feels a little bit resurgent - over the last 10 years, the right wing in Seattle was on the back foot as we had a lot of really progressive policies come into place and they were wondering how do they strike back and now, they think they found their answer in really leveraging public concern about public drug use. But we know for an absolute fact that criminalizing the use of drugs does not solve drug problems, it does not end addiction - it's been conclusively demonstrated. Interestingly, the City Council, rather than put this to the usual committee process, is bringing it directly to a vote early next month. That could be read two ways - it could be read as either the City trying to do this quickly and put it into place before the public can react against it, or it's also possible that you have a majority in the Council that doesn't want to do this and wants to kill it quickly before it gets too close to the primary in August. Who knows? But it's an example of this absurd desire among certain people in Seattle to just go back to Reaganism - it's crack down on homelessness by jailing people for sleeping in a tent, crack down on drug abuse by jailing anyone smoking fentanyl. This is just stuff we thought we left behind, but it's an important reminder to those of us who are progressive that we're always going to have to deal with right wingers, even in our own city, even in a deep blue city like Seattle. People are going to keep trying to find ways to poke that electric fence to see where there's a weakness and where they can try to really roll back the progressive policies that they hate so much. [00:32:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's - people who listen to the program regularly know how I feel about this whole thing. It is just really a shame. It is also as important as ever for you to contact your councilmembers, contact the mayor - let them know exactly how you feel about this. I think sometimes, especially in Seattle, it's easy to take for granted once progress has been made, that it's settled. Similar to - we thought Supreme Court law was settled, right? Everything is in flux. And there are people working actively to dismantle the progress that has been made. And counting on people being asleep - they know that they're in the minority. That's why they can't say what they really believe loudly and proudly all year long. And they do tend to strike in these ways that tend to minimize public engagement, support, time - trying to rush this through and let's just get it done. We see this done over and over again. And so I just hope that people understand that there really is a threat of this happening - that Seattle isn't above this, it's not beyond this. This is not something that we can take for granted. And I do encourage everyone listening to contact your City councilperson - contact all the Council people - and let them know where you stand on this, because there's going to be an upcoming vote in early June. And right now it looks like - it seems like - they're leaning towards criminalization and seems like they're leaning towards expanding the criminalization options even from where they were before. So please get engaged. [00:33:43] Robert Cruickshank: I think it's also important to - anytime you encounter a City Council candidate - to make it clear where you stand as well. Because these are - as the campaigns really start to kick into gear here after Memorial Day, as they sprint towards the August primary - we're going to have to tell these people running for the seats, especially where there isn't an incumbent. Quite a few districts like District 1, District 3, District 4, District 5 - let the people know that you are not a fan of criminalizing drugs. You do not want to go back to the Drug War. A lot of Seattle's state legislative representation voted against the gross misdemeanor provisions in the Blake fix that finally came out of the Legislature earlier this month. That was courageous of them - it's a good thing they did. We need to show similar leadership here in Seattle rather than just waltz back down the path of Reaganism. [00:34:32] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Also in Council action this week was a tree ordinance that was passed. How did this develop and what ended up passing? [00:34:42] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, this has been in gestation for a long time. I remember we were talking about tree ordinance back when Mike McGinn was mayor, but it finally came to pass this week. And what the ordinance does - I credit the Harrell administration for this, and I credit Dan Strauss as well for finding a good middle ground that isn't perfect, but a middle ground that tries to harmonize tree policy and housing policy. What's really been going on is a number of people who don't want new density in our city have seized on the idea of trees as the way they can block housing. Oh, we're going to cut down all these trees to build housing. Oh, isn't this terrible? The way we can stop the density that we don't want is to make it almost impossible to remove a tree. And in their mind, a healthy urban forest is threatened not by the climate crisis, but by development. Now, we know this is wrong. The City's own research shows very, very clearly that new development is not a major factor, it's a very tiny factor in the loss of trees in Seattle. The main source of tree loss is in natural areas and parks. And why is that happening? Because the climate crisis. We had, as everyone remembers, that awful heat wave in the summer of 2021. And you saw those cedars go brown afterwards. We then had 120 days without rain in 2022 - that further stressed the trees. And some of these are old, majestic trees planted over 100 years ago in our parks and natural areas that are struggling now to survive in the climate crisis. That's where we're losing trees. Where do we need to get trees, build more trees, plant more trees? In City-owned right-of-way, and especially in southeast Seattle. So the answer here should be rather than give in to what the NIMBYs want and make it almost impossible to build anything new - you've got to harmonize these things. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, which produces those annual reports, has said numerous times that more urban density is a core element of solving the climate crisis, of reducing carbon emissions. And yet some of these NIMBYs want to use trees to undermine that. Now, we can't have one climate policy undermining another. We need to find ways to bring tree protections and housing construction together. And that's what the Harrell administration and Dan Strauss have tried to do. I know there are some housing advocates, who I respect, who are unhappy with some of the exact details of how this went down. I get that. At the same time, I and the Sierra Club believe it's a reasonable compromise that isn't going to hold back housing production. It'll help us have a healthier urban forest while avoiding blaming new density for loss of trees, right? This is a climate crisis issue. If we want to keep our great firs and cedars and other tall trees we love in the City, we've got to tackle the climate crisis. We have to build higher. We have to build denser. That's how we reduce the carbon emissions that is making everything so much hotter and putting these great trees under stress. [00:37:46] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And I think we're seeing a part of a trend here, we're seeing a tactic as part of an overall strategy. And that is from NIMBYs and from the right to co-opt progressive language, to co-opt traditionally progressive causes - and use those to try and sabotage development. And so we've seen this manifest in Seattle with different things or to get their way in a public way - we saw it with bike lanes in West Seattle - they're hard to get, but oh all of a sudden now that it could potentially displace some people who are living in campers, we're all for implementing a bike lane and an accelerated delivery timeline right here, right? We see - we've seen ADA regulations used to - in lawsuits - used to stifle transit mobility improvement. And it's really critically important - and you basically said this - to not give in to the - well, no these are more important than disability access, or this is more important than making sure we do have adequate trees. They want to create the friction between these two groups who are fighting for resources and rights and access. And the key thing to do is to basically join together in solidarity and saying both of these are necessities for our community. We need clean air, and we need everyone to be able to access everything required to live, right? So how do we figure that out? Not we just don't do one, or we just don't do the other. We fight and discount what's needed for the true issue. If we actually get together with people who are being used to do this, we can figure out solutions better and cut out the kind of astroturf middleman, who's just using a different group to try and get their way. It's really cynical, it's really just shameful - but we're seeing this happen a lot. And I - some people's immediate reaction is - I really want this, so I'm going to dig my heels in and say that other thing is bad it doesn't matter. And that's a trap that they want you to fall into, and that's a trap that hurts us all moving forward. We have to work together and make sure that we get our needs met and sometimes it's hard to thread that needle perfectly. Sometimes it's going to leave a lot to be desired, but we really need to keep working to make sure that everyone is getting what they need to be supported in this community. Also an exciting development with Seattle's social housing board having their first meeting. What happened there? [00:40:23] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah they - after the passage of Initiative 135 earlier this year - it created a new board to oversee the social housing authority. And this board is not comprised in the usual way - like typically a City commission or City board is - the mayor gets to make a bunch of picks the City Council gets to make a bunch of picks and they can pretty much pick whoever they want to. In this case though, the initiative stated that the board members had to come from certain backgrounds - he had to pick someone with urban planning experience, he had to pick someone who understands Passivhaus design which is very environmentally friendly. But most importantly, you have to pick a number of people with lived experience as renters or as unhoused folks - and that is what happened with this board. And it's a majority of people, I believe, who are not homeowners. And the idea here is to have this board represent the people, or at least the type of people, who would actually live in a social housing project once we get it built. So they had their first meeting, came together, they elected their leadership. Councilmember Tammy Morales was there and has been really the driving figure in getting this done, and I think one of the few - unfortunately - people on City Council who's really been strongly behind this. I think other councilmembers have been much more hesitant. But social housing is a key part of the solution - there's a great article in the New York Times earlier this week about Vienna - and Vienna has a ton of social housing, and it works really well in having a mix of incomes together, living in the same building where everyone's pulling together to help build a great community. It also includes space for people who are very low incomes or who are formerly homeless, so I think it's really exciting to see this process get underway - a board that is working well together, at least at the start. It seems like Initiative 135 is getting off to a great start, but the bigger question obviously going to be - How do you fund the construction of social housing? The people who wrote the initiative were advised, and I think correctly, that they couldn't do both at the same time - they couldn't create the social housing authority and have a funding source. Well now, we need the City to step up - and this is another thing that we're going to have to see City Council candidates talk about - Initiative 135 passed by pretty healthy margin in the City, it passed in every single Council district. So Council candidates should be on board, but if you talk to some of these folks - they're not all on board. So one of the things that I hope becomes a major issue in the City Council elections this fall is - how are you going to make social housing a reality, how are you going to fund it here in Seattle - because the public clearly wants it and there's clearly a huge need for it. [00:43:00] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. The public does want it - even at the forums that have happened so far - and we know that most people in the public are not tuned into elections yet but there are some who are - and shoring up this early support and making an early impression, especially in a crowded primary, makes a difference. And I will tell you, every forum that I've seen or been at - the public there has had questions about social housing. How are you going to secure funding, how are you going to make sure this implementation goes smoothly? They want to know about it, they want to know how they're going to support it. I fully anticipate this to be a significant issue throughout this entire campaign and beyond. The public voted for it, they want it, they're really curious about it, they're excited about it. And this is something that they feel could potentially put a dent in housing prices and start a blueprint - expand upon the blueprint - of what it looks like to implement this in our state and throughout the region, so really exciting. And with that, I will thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday May 26, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. You can find Robert on Twitter @cruickshank. You can follow Hacks & Wonks @HacksWonks, and you can find me @finchfrii, with 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 week-in-review and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review. 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.

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Week in Review: May 19, 2023 - with EJ Juárez

Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2023 43:29

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.

Empowered - Spiritual Gifts

empowered spiritual gifts ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2023 28:34

Join us for the next teaching in our "Empowered" series as Ed Murray explores the topic of spiritual gifts.

Week in Review: March 17, 2023 - Nicole Thomas-Kennedy

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2023 47:22

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by defense attorney, abolitionist and activist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy! Crystal and Nicole discuss a number of news items this week, including new data showing a change in commute patterns for Seattle workers, as well as a new poll showing Republican Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier and Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson as the two leading candidates to succeed Jay Inslee as governor, should Inslee decide against seeking an unprecedented fourth term. They also delve into the details of the ACLU lawsuit against King County over Seattle jail conditions and examine the rising demand for the state's 988 hotline, how important non-police responses are for public safety, and the potential for new funding to help support mental health resource. Following Tacoma's State of the City address by Mayor Victoria Woodards, Crystal and Nicole also note the progress Tacoma is making in a more holistic approach to public safety with a Behavioral Health Crisis Response Team and an unarmed Community Services Officer Program, which would increase the level of response and bring support to non-emergency situations that are not an active threat to life or property. They review an encouraging update from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority about their work with the Right of Way Safety Initiative moving a total of 189 previously unsheltered people inside to a shelter or housing option that meets their needs. They also discuss a contentious debate surrounding the location of a new Sound Transit station. The conversation wraps up with a discussion of the recent train derailment on the Swinomish Reservation and the tribe's upcoming court case against the railway company for allegedly running trains in violation of a 1991 easement agreement that the tribe says limited the length of trains allowed to pass through. 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. Resources How Highway 99 Removal Would Reconnect South Park with Mike McGinn and Coté Soerens from Hacks & Wonks “Your old workweek is extinct, Commute Seattle data shows” by Mike Lindblom from The Seattle Times “Bruce Dammeier (R), Bob Ferguson (D) lead hypothetical 2024 gubernatorial field in WA” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate “The Exodus of Inmates from the King County Jail Continues” by Amy Sundberg from Notes from the Emerald City “ACLU-WA, Director of Public Defense Call Out Conditions in King County Jail” by Alison Jean Smith from South Seattle Emerald “ACLU sues King County over Seattle jail conditions” by Sydney Brownstone from The Seattle Times “Washington state may boost 988 hotline funding as demand grows" by Taija PerryCook from Crosscut “New facility will provide crisis response services for Washingtonians in north King County” by Shane Ersland from State of Reform “‘Our best days are ahead of us.' Mayor Woodards relays optimism in State of the City” by Liz Moomey from The News Tribune “Safety, homelessness, recovery top priorities in Tacoma State of the City address” from KIRO 7 News “Identification Documents Open Doors” | King County Regional Homelessness Authority “Constantine Backs ‘North of CID' Light Rail Station, Bypassing Chinatown and Midtown” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist “Incomplete Analysis Overlooks Rider Delay Caused by Skipping Union Station Hub” by Stephen Fesler from The Urbanist Coalition Letter opposing 4th & 5th Ave locations: WSBLE station location in the Chinatown International District “Balducci Wants a Good Transit Option for Chinatown” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist “BNSF train derails on Swinomish Reservation as tribe readies court case against railway company” by Isabella Breda and Vonnai Phair 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 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. If you missed our Tuesday midweek show, I'm joined by Mike McGinn of America Walks and Coté Soerens of Reconnect South Park to learn more about their work with the Freeway Fighters Network. Mike shares a broad overview of the movement's efforts to remove crumbling highway infrastructure while addressing the climate, health, and equity issues that these concrete structures have caused. As a resident of Seattle's South Park, Coté reflects on the throughline of Highway 99 running through the middle of her community - connecting a history of redlining, displacement, and racism to the present-day impacts on the neighborhoods' livability, pollution exposure, and life expectancy. Mike and Coté call out the lack of imagination exhibited by the country's attachment to the highways, to our highways, and paint a compelling vision that replaces underutilized thoroughfares with vibrant, connected communities. But today we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with our co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: defense attorney, abolitionist, and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. [00:01:55] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Hi, thanks for having me. It's always - [00:01:57] Crystal Fincher: Hey, love having you - happy to have you back. We've got a bunch of news to cover today. One interesting story - starting out - was just new data showing new commute trends. We are not traveling in the same way that we did before the pandemic. What did you take from this report? [00:02:17] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: It seems that no matter how much some want everyone to come back to the office Monday through Friday, office workers don't wanna do that. And it looks like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is the day that people are primarily coming into the office. And it sounds like they're working remotely mostly Mondays and Fridays. [00:02:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and that has shaped and changed our commute patterns. Lots of people have noticed they're different - certainly midweek has the biggest impact. There continues to be this push to get people back to the office. We've seen Seattle's mayor, other people celebrate a return there. Certainly a lot of businesses that provide services and amenities to people who have traditionally worked downtown are happy to see increased traffic. Do you think we're ever gonna get back to a time where people are doing a regular Monday through Friday workday again? [00:03:11] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I hope not - that's just my personal opinion. But people don't get paid for their commute time. And if you live in Snohomish County, or if you live - housing prices are so high right now that more and more people are forced to live outside of the City's core and travel in, which is part of our traffic problem, but it's also a quality of life issue. If people can work three days a week in the office and essentially get the same benefits that they would be for working five days a week in the office, why would we be trying to get people in there more? Obviously there are benefits felt by those workers, and I think reducing traffic is a huge issue. I understand that it doesn't necessarily benefit downtown businesses, but times have changed, things have changed, technology changes things, and I hope we don't get back to five days a week of intense and horrifying traffic. [00:04:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And I do also wanna mention that - being one of the people who does not have to commute every single day and can work from home, there is privilege attached to that. There are people predominantly in lower wage jobs, a lot of service jobs that don't have the option to not come into the office. Or people doing manual labor, which is every bit as skilled and takes all the talent that all the other types of jobs have, but they oftentimes are not able to have the flexibility to work from home or to take advantage of the saved commute time, which is really significant. If someone handed you back an hour, an hour and a half every day - there's so much more that can be done, or so much more rest that could be had, or just spending time with your family - it doesn't necessarily have to be productive in the way that we view work. But people finding balance is an important thing. So that's interesting and that has changed. Other interesting news that we saw this week - there was a poll fielded by the Northwest Progressive Institute that they wrote about in The Cascadia Advocate, their news publication, that showed if Governor Inslee happened to decide against seeking an unprecedented fourth term - which he has not announced any plans about - if that were to happen though, Bob Ferguson, our current Attorney General is viewed as the leading Democrat for the governor's race and Bruce Dammeier is the leading Republican. How did you view this? [00:05:38] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Polls are always interesting, right - we all wanna know what the future holds. But it's always who is responding to polls, what sort of choices or wording - which I think that poll actually went into a little bit, which is great - but at this point, I don't think a Republican is gonna poll all the Democrat votes. So it looks like they're even, based on the responses by - the people who respond - based on the people who responded to the poll. [00:06:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely - a situation where Democrats are splitting the vote. And to be clear, it showed if Jay Inslee were not to run again, who people were asked who they'd vote for, Bruce Dammeier - and I always forget whether it's Dammeier or Dammeier, so if I'm mispronouncing his name, I apologize - got 35%, Bob Ferguson 21%, Dow Constantine and Hilary Franz both polled at 7%, with 30% of the respondents not being sure. So really interesting to see the response to this. They also had breakdowns of the different regions of the state - notable there was Dammeier's home turf is in Pierce County, but he basically polled about the same there as he did for a statewide percentage. So there wasn't necessarily the kind of advantage that we normally see there. And swing turf continues to be swing turf. But really interesting as we move closer to the time where people expect to hear more from Jay Inslee about what his plans are or are not. Certainly a fourth term would be unprecedented - doesn't mean that he can't go for it - but certainly there's a lot of people waiting in line to figure out what's gonna happen and who's gonna be on the ballot. [00:07:20] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, it'll be interesting. [00:07:22] Crystal Fincher: Will be very interesting. Also this week, we see the ACLU suing King County over Seattle jail conditions. What's happening here? [00:07:32] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: So there was a decision - I can't remember how long ago - it was about conditions in the jail that was won by the ACLU. I think it was maybe in the late 80s? And basically the ACLU is saying is that they are not living up to the terms of that decision. There's also community groups that are not happy about what is going on in the jail. There's an astronomical suicide rate, especially compared to the national average in the downtown jail. It's old, it's antiquated, it makes it difficult for attorneys to see their clients. There's just a lot of elevated risk there. And Constantine said in 2020 that he recognized all of those things and wanted to shut it down. And so between the ACLU lawsuit and community groups' pressure, we are seeing a little bit of movement - but instead of finding alternatives to incarceration, what's happening is they moved 50 people from the downtown jail to the RJC [Regional Justice Center] in Kent. And now those people are double-bunked, so they took one thing and made another problem over here. Or the other thing that I think is being sought by the executive is a contract with SCORE, which is the South County Correctional Regional [South Correctional Entity] - I don't remember what it stands for - but which is really well understood to be the worst of our three jails here in King County. And so he wants to move people to SCORE, which obviously - people with the ACLU, with community groups are not excited about that because it doesn't do anything to solve the problem. It just moves it around. [00:09:06] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And to your point, the other facilities that they're moving inmates to already had their own pre-existing problems in this area that are being made worse with these additional inmates. It is just really a challenge and they are not, have not been able, willing or able - probably both - to adequately staff this. And so you can't just keep shoving people into this facility - that you're completely in control of - that is inadequately staffed, that doesn't have appropriate medical care, that has escalating rates of illness and suicide, where the corrections officers themselves have reached out and communicated via letter to the Executive to say - Hey, we are not staffed enough to keep our own selves safe and we're asking you to reduce the population because it's also unsafe for the corrections officers and staff that are there. Just this isn't working for anyone. And it seems like it's absolutely reasonable and appropriate for the ACLU to seek a court remedy for this. [00:10:17] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Absolutely. Something needs to be done. [00:10:19] Crystal Fincher: Right - and this also goes to the larger conversation we're having about public safety, about policing, about whether we want to return to more punitive, punishment-focus-based public safety where we're just locking up everybody - without realizing that that requires staffing, that requires administration. There is a cost to what we're doing and we don't even seem to be reaping any benefits in terms of increased public safety because of this. It is just a money suck that is harmful to everyone involved with the system and then makes us less safe on the other side. It just doesn't seem like this is working in any way, shape, or form. [00:11:04] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, it's true. And I think part of the problem is it's such a political question at this point. So many people have absorbed the idea that the only way for us to have public safety is to be as punitive as humanly possible. And we have mass incarceration in this country - we incarcerate more than any country in the world and we are not the safest. So clearly that isn't working, but I think that that's a - it's an easy flashpoint, fear sell to people that is actually making us less safe. And there's a lot of people that are pushing for alternatives, but it is an uphill battle. But it's being waged and I have a lot of hope that we will get there eventually, just hopefully sooner than later. [00:11:45] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And there are a lot of individual cities, organizations making progress in this area. In fact, this week we saw a story that the state's demand for the 988 hotline is increasing and they may receive new funding - this is an alternative response to just sending police out to every single call solo. And thinking that we can solve calls related to homelessness, or someone feeling uncomfortable with someone in their neighborhood, or someone going through a behavioral health crisis - which we see turn out tragically in so many other situations - to say maybe a more appropriate response to this, that if someone is having a behavioral health crisis, there are responders that maybe don't need a gun and a badge, but they're experts in handling this type of mental health crisis situation. This is what we're trying to get at. This is what poll after poll shows the residents know is necessary and want. And so we might be increasing capacity for that. How do you see the 988 hotline, the demand for it, and what's possible through it? [00:12:55] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: When I was a public defender, I constantly had family members, people in the community asking - who can I call when my uncle, or my son, or someone in the community - who can I call that's not just a police officer? Because a lot of times the people that are forced - they don't have a choice - something is happening and they need to call, they need help, but it's always been a police officer. And I've seen so many mothers have to call, and then their sons get locked up, and they have no contact orders with the mom. And it just becomes this whole mushrooming problem that makes everything significantly worse and - if not deadly. And so I have seen community, directly affected community asking for this for years. And I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. It's really encouraging that people know about it, that people are using it. I think that once that becomes more of a normalized thing, we can keep pushing in that direction because there's so little - police always say that they don't wanna be social workers, they don't wanna be mental health counselors, they don't wanna be domestic violence experts, but we have to build those alternatives - because it can't just be cops or nothing. So it's really encouraging to me to see these alternatives being built up. I hope they keep moving in the direction they are because a lot of times services like this end up getting co-opted for different means, where, it'll be like - oh, we didn't have police come to this X amount of calls and now we have police coming to every calls because that's something that they lobbied for. And so I hope that they can stay and keep moving in an independent direction because it is so necessary. So yeah, I think it's encouraging. [00:14:30] Crystal Fincher: Definitely encouraging. And I should note that the 988 system doesn't absolutely guarantee that there's not going to be a police person involved in the response - that is still a possibility. There may be frontline people who come and if they happen to call for backup, that could happen - some places like in Seattle, as we've seen, police are wanting to respond to every overdose call - even though that is not a public safety call in many, if not most, jurisdictions, that seems out of line with many practices, certainly best practices. It can happen, but as you say, building out these alternative responses are absolutely necessary. And I think the more we do that, the better, the more we accelerate moving on to more effective solutions that keep us all safer. Because you hear this - Well, if we get rid of cops, then what next? We call 911 and no one comes, and there's anarchy and wild stuff in the streets. And that's not it. Being a progressive stance on public safety and understanding that it takes a comprehensive approach and addressing root causes, or else we wind up with this revolving door situation that doesn't address any problems that we're trying to solve - accountability is a progressive value. We don't want to escape accountability. We just want it to be effective and productive, and the end result to be that the entire community is safer and people are victimized less often. And we have data from experts who study this. And by the way, police are not necessarily public safety experts - they're not paid to do that or be that in any kind of way - but there are a lot of criminologists, a lot of people who actually do study this, who have identified several more effective approaches. And so it would be just really good to see us getting this stood up and see how we can actually work through these models and processes to make us safer. 'Cause we do need that. Crime is bad - there is not anyone who disagrees with that. People being victimized is bad, but it happens - the context in which we discuss it just through policing, the things that we've decided to make it illegal or focus on enforcing is just such a tiny percentage of the story of how safe people are. And whether it's sexual assault and harassment, or theft, or wage theft - those kinds of things - there are some that make the headlines, there are some don't, there are some that just slip by unnoticed even though it's harmful to a lot of people. And the more we can get at that, the better off we will all be. And a bill is still alive in the Legislature to increase funding for that 988 system and help to further build it out. Also saw this week, Tacoma's State of the City from Mayor Victoria Woodards, there in Tacoma. A lot of the standard stuff that you would expect to see there and focusing on public safety. But I think one thing that I found notable about the State of the City address, in Tacoma and so many other cities, is how the City of Seattle sometimes it's thought - well, it's progressive - and people just say that and assume it's true, and so all the most progressive policy must be coming out of Seattle. And Seattle is actually behind a lot of other cities in the state on really crucial issues - on homelessness, housing affordability, and public safety - because we saw Tacoma talking about something that Seattle seems to not be very interested in. They're running behind on their alternate response plans. Mayor Harrell committed that he would be standing up alternatives to a police response and is behind his stated timelines on that. And now people continue to ask - Hey, where's that coming? You said public safety was one of your top priorities and this major piece of it is still going unaddressed that's really up to him to implement. And Tacoma is talking about implementing those. Certainly they're talking about incentives for new officers, but they're also talking about standing up alternative response programs, investing in youth violence prevention, and addressing root causes. And it seems like they're taking at least a more holistic approach, or moving forward, than Seattle in the region. And it just underscores to me that this really, to your point, shouldn't be a political conversation. It should just be about what makes more people more safe. And was pretty happy to see that Tacoma seems serious about investing in some of those things. [00:19:13] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, I think it's a really positive direction. When people talk about police - in Seattle we always talk about 911 response times without really looking at what, all the factors that influence those things. But one thing - if we wanted to actually increase the speed at which police responded, one thing we could do instead of hiring more officers - 'cause there's an officer shortage all over the country - is to take some things off their plate. They have said - We don't wanna do substance abuse counseling, we don't wanna do this. So fine - let's take that off. Why are they being asked to do those things anyway? And there has been a fundamental shift over the last, I would say 40 years, but also just - there's always a fundamental shift with the passage of time. But a lot of things that police officers do now are not things that we asked them to do when I was a kid in the '80s, or something like that. And there's a complaint that we have to do all these things now, and it's just - Okay, how about we listen to you and take some things off your plate? And that's one way to meet both the stated goals of each party - you want faster 911 response times, we want actual public safety or things that actually work. And that really building out those other services and other ways to respond to things, other than just an armed officer, really meets all of the goals. So it's encouraging, and I think Seattle definitely has a tendency to give lip service to things. And then when no one's looking, there's a slow walk. And that's what I'm seeing right now is - Oh yeah, definitely, we should do these things. And then we look away and it's just a casual, just slinking away without really doing anything, or without making any specific promises, or really having a plan. And so I really like that Tacoma is - Yeah, we're not gonna do that. [00:20:59] Crystal Fincher: Yes - not that I have no bones to pick with decisions that they make in Tacoma - but it really does seem like they are interested in moving the needle on more comprehensive responses that get closer to addressing root causes. And investing real money into doing that, because that really is the bottom line. If there is nothing invested in there, if it's not in the budget, then it's clearly not a priority. And it's so interesting, especially having you on the program with unique insight and insight beyond what most people have into the criminal legal system - also reminds me of talking to former Mayor Mike McGinn, who enjoyed one of the lowest crime rates in the past 40 years, but making a very similar point that you did in - Hey, okay, so they say we have a shortage - which I could go on a whole rant about - but okay, so say that there really is a shortage, which everyone is experiencing. Police keep saying that it's actually not a financial problem, that this is something that has to do with the perceptions of the culture and the perceptions of just the profession - the job of being a police officer - that lots of people have. And until that gets more effectively addressed, until there's more trust built there, that this is going to be a problem that continues. But since everyone is having a hiring problem, if you're pinning all your hopes on once we can get enough police officers hired - which no one seems to be able to do these days - then it'll be safe. So is everyone just supposed to sit around and accept not being safe until years down the line when there are enough officers - even when an officer gets into the system, a lot of times it's a year before they're actually deployed on the street. They've got to go through training and all that kind of stuff. So we have to stand up these other things if we're going to make a dent in public safety, if we're gonna keep people safer. And it really is confounding to me that we have police determined to respond to every overdose call, but they also made the decision that they were too short-staffed to investigate sexual assaults of adults. How does this make sense? If the goal is to keep people safe, if the goal is to take the "bad guys" off of the street, then would we be doing more investigating? Would we want to spend more time doing that stuff than accompanying EMT on an overdose call where no other cities - other cities are not doing this. Why are we utilizing these resources in this way? Why do they still want to keep parking enforcement? Why do they still want to keep doing these things and accompany encampment sweeps, where they're essentially just watching Parks Department? It just doesn't make sense anyway you look at it, even if you grant everything that they're saying, even if you agree with, "We need more cops," and, "They help keep people safe," and all that, then why aren't you doing the things to utilize them more effectively? I don't know, but it is frustrating. [00:24:04] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: It is frustrating because no matter how you look at it - if you're going to listen to police say, "We don't want to do these things," then you have to weigh that against the fact that they are actively fighting to do those things. Or if you're gonna believe that a reactionary police force is what's going to keep us safe, then why are they not reacting to things that are threats to public safety? And if you're gonna believe that they don't want to - yeah, I don't know - there's a lot to it, but there is a lot of, I think, talking out of both sides of things. But the bottom line is we've had fully staffed police before. We still have crime. They only react. Why don't we focus on prevention? I would like to see less crime. I don't want to be the victim of a crime. I don't want my daughter to be the victim of a crime. I would rather that didn't happen rather than have someone respond to it after it happened. And that's what I would like to see for myself, my family, my neighbors, this community - is that not only do we just feel safer maybe because we're told we should, but that we are actually safer, that we're not experiencing these traumatic things. And there's no guesswork in it. We are the only country that does things this way. There's been a million studies saying it doesn't work, or at least not the way it's proposed that it works. But we also have so many other countries that have taken different avenues towards public safety that have been far more successful than we are. So it's really not - there's no guesswork in it. It's just a matter of - can we get past this ridiculous narrative that we've all been fed in order to enact real solutions? And so people are working on it. I'm hoping we're getting there. More and more people are being open to the idea that it's not - the one cure-all solution for everything is more police. [00:25:50] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And for these alternative responses, like this 988 hotline - seems like there was pent-up demand for it. People have been waiting for something like this and wanting to use it. It's had a 25% to 30% increase in calls just since last July. 90% of calls are answered within 30 seconds. 95% of calls are resolved over the phone. Fewer than 2% of the calls end up involving the police or an EMS responder. And for the 5% of calls not able to be resolved over the phone, the speed of that response is critical - and that's what that bill in the Legislature is trying to target. It would increase funding for rapid-response teams. It passed the House and is now being considered by the Senate. It looks like the Legislature is trying to be responsive to their communities and their residents, certainly expressing that this is something that they want. Information is showing that it's being used, and so we will see there. Also, this week we got a press release from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and they're making progress. It took a bit to get spun up. They had to basically start from scratch in building a brand-new office that took a little bit more time than originally anticipated. But since they've been up and running, what they have been doing seems like it has been working and in line with the vision of the KCRHA. So they just announced 30 people previously unsheltered at First and Michigan are now inside. They've been working in conjunction with the Seattle, with the Washington Department of Transportation - our State Department of Transportation - to remove people from rights of way. Sometimes you see people camping under freeways or in other similar rights of way - and we talked last year about legislation and funding passed to try and address this. And it looks like it's going to good use - 30 people moved inside from one that a lot of people have seen there at First and Southwest Michigan. 41 people moved inside from sites in the Chinatown International District, in the CID - 27 people matched with shelter or housing options will be moving inside soon. Two weeks ago, they had an event with state partners to ensure that people had the IDs necessary for housing and all the paperwork, because there's a lot that goes into being able to qualify for housing, and so making sure that other stuff was done. They also resolved five encampment sites under the same Right of Way Safety Initiative, with a total of 189 people previously unsheltered having moved inside to a shelter housing option that meets their needs, according to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. And other sites remain in progress - there's a contract to open an additional 113 units of emergency housing that's just about done. So they seem to be moving forward. Lots of talk about their recent five-year plan and the budget request attached to it, which is big and robust, but we're also trying to address this problem that is tied to so many other problems in our community. So how do you see this and the work that they're doing overall? [00:29:13] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Obviously, it's a step in the right direction. There was the homelessness - declared a crisis in the Ed Murray years - it's a clear step in the right direction. I think one thing that I often notice is that a lot of these different groups will be stepping on each other all of the time - not really not meaning to but the county is doing this, but the City Attorney is also putting people in jail for sleeping under an awning - which means then they lose their ID, then they lose everything they have, and then they're back to square one. Or, the City does encampment sweeps where same things happen - people lose all of the things that they need in order to get housing. They're back to zero. Then they have to go back to DESC, get a new tent - blah, blah, blah - it just is this compounding thing. So I'm encouraged by what they're doing, and my hope in the future is to not - we spend so much time and money getting one step ahead and then pulling it back two steps. And so I like that there's a coordinated effort. I hope that the City can get more on board with that because nobody likes it. The people who live outside don't like it. The people who don't live outside don't like it. It's a thing I think we can all agree on. And so my hope is that they can continue their work, but that that work isn't impeded by constantly enacting actions that have a detrimental effect on people's ability to stay sheltered - because obviously the problem is not going to go away unless we address it. So I'm happy to see that they are taking those steps. [00:30:41] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and I agree. Also making news this week is something that has flown under the radar for a while, but seems to be garnering a lot of attention now and with a flurry of new activity. It's a new station that will be built that - the Sound Transit Board of Directors is going to be making a decision on on March 23rd - about some new Sound Transit stations, or a new Sound Transit station, in Seattle. For quite some time, they have been looking at a 4th Avenue alignment - that has had a lot of support from various groups for a long time - that would connect with existing infrastructure, have a Union Station transit hub that also helps with connectivity with the existing stations, the Sounder station, just kind of everything going on in that area in terms of just pure transit connection time and ease of use of the transit system in terms of speed for a lot of people around the neighborhood. However, there's a new alternative or some new alternatives that have popped up recently in response to concerns from many people in the CID saying, "No, actually, there are lots of problems with the proposed alignment that will create, once again, significant impacts and challenges for the CID, that could potentially displace a lot of people in businesses, and just create a lot of havoc on the streets after they have dealt with a lot of havoc over the past decade with challenges from dealing with everything from the deep bore tunnel to other Sound Transit stations. And a historical challenge that has been there for a while has been - as we've seen and talked about on the show forever - government entities' lack of engaging communities, especially BIPOC and lower-income communities, when it comes to alignments of light rail and other regional transit options through the City and region. This has been a long-standing issue, and even way back on the first segments that were entered, that were built, people from the CID have been saying - Hey, you have not been listening to us, and we're paying the price, and we're displacing a really important community. We're not considering the importance of landmarks to the community that are part of - some of them are saying they're part of our heritage. These landmarks are as important as the people. This is our community. All of the elements of it make our community. And yes, we can talk about how quick transit connection would be otherwise, but is it fair and equitable to only pay attention to that and disregard the needs of the community that exists there, or should we be looking at mitigating that impact, that - no, this may not be the first choice of a lot of people, and it may even come with some harmful outcomes that may need to be mitigated otherwise, but that is what this work really involves if you're doing it right. It's talking to everybody, considering all of those, and trying to come up with a solution that kind of, first off, doesn't seek to harm or destroy anything that can't be rebuilt. And I think that's the crux of where a lot of people are coming from. If you're trying to destroy a part of our community that can't be rebuilt or can't be reclaimed or is just going to be lost if you do that. I personally don't have a dog on the hunt, really, for preferred alignment. My interest is in making sure that the community is heard - and not astroturf efforts, not people seeking to use this to further a pre-existing political argument, or to just oppose development or oppose transit like some people reflexively do. If someone is at risk for displacement, if someone is part of a community that has been displaced and has seen a lot of what they have built and have been able to maintain despite historic attempts to destroy it in a variety of ways, that that's something that we shouldn't dismiss. That doesn't, that's not the same thing as a NIMBY opposing transit. These are people who are at risk of displacement and who are at risk at losing important parts of their culture potentially, and that should be listened to and valued. [00:35:02] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Absolutely. I think that BIPOC and low-income communities have always borne the brunt of this sort of utilitarian approach to transit, and I'm happy to see people speaking up and I would expect that. And I think you make a really good point. This isn't the regular sort of NIMBY - I don't want it, I don't want people in my neighborhood, I don't care about this, I drive every day or whatever. That there's different solutions being proposed here. And I think that's a really important distinction and the solutions are not do it in another neighborhood. The solutions are - yes, we want this here. We recognize the necessity of it, but how about we go about it in a way that considers our culture and what we've built here and the people who already live here. And I hope that conversation can be had and there's something that can be worked out with the actual input of the community that's going to be affected because that's really - it's the bottom line with everything really. [00:36:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know everything that went into the support of this - of some new alignments by, particularly the King County Executive Dow Constantine and Mayor Bruce Harrell. But I will point out that they have received frequent criticism, including from me, about not listening to residents of the CID - whether it's from previous Sound Transit alignments with light rail, or the deep bore tunnel, or homelessness service provisions and access. And again, it's not to say that these things shouldn't happen, but they certainly shouldn't happen without the input and participation of the people who live there. And that hasn't happened in a while, so a charitable reading of this late proposal and support for some alternative alignments - could charitably be read as responding to the desires of the community after hearing and taking criticism and admitting to falling short sometimes before. So I hope that that is genuinely what is going on. And we will see - obviously a lot to follow there. I know there was actually a Transit Riders Union meeting last night where they were discussing it, which I missed, but there are lots of people - I know people who have strong feelings on both sides of this. And again, my interest isn't necessarily in just the alignment, but in making sure that we don't discount the voice of the community as just wanting to oppose this, but we can dismiss it and keep moving on. These concerns should be listened to. They are valid. And if we can find a workaround, even if that means that it's not purely the fastest alignment from transit, then let's figure that out. To me, it feels very similar to people who are really focusing on - everything that you're doing is anti-car and this is anti-car if it slows me down five minutes to get to my destination, even if that five minutes means that other people will literally live instead of being killed by cars on streets that are designed and used dangerously. And just saying - It's not the fastest for me, therefore it is inefficient and bad. There are other considerations and we have to consider the whole community. I don't know how this is gonna end up. I don't know who's gonna wind up supporting what, but it seems like there are valid concerns all the way around that no one should dismiss. Also looking at other news this week, we saw another train derailment - this time on the Swinomish reservation - which on the heels of the East Palestine train derailment in Ohio, certainly people are paying more attention. Hear a lot of people saying - There are like a thousand derailments every year, this is normal, it's not a big deal. Something being normal and not a big deal are not always the same thing. Yes, it happens frequently. No, it should not be happening and we should be paying more attention to this and it should be bothering us more than it has, I think. And this is another example why - it's something that is considered to a lot of people that doesn't get a lot of attention, that perhaps this is a small source of contamination from this freight train that derailed. But this is their land, this is their water supply, and they have never consented to having that be spoiled and they knew the risk of this. In fact, there's a trial set to begin on Monday over a lawsuit that the tribe filed in 2015, alleging that BNSF trespassed when it ran thousands of trains filled with highly combustible crude oil over the reservation without the tribe's consent. The tribe says that the railroad was knowingly violating an easement agreement the two parties made in 1991, that the tribe has limited the length of trains allowed to pass through. And it looks like BNSF just ignored that, decided to put through longer trains, and now the things that they were warned could and would happen are happening. And this is just happening everywhere and we should be paying more attention. [00:40:06] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. I grew up in a railroad family. My dad worked for Santa Fe, later at BNSF - and derailments weren't considered a "Heh, like they just happen" type thing. They shouldn't be happening. And do accidents happen? Yes, of course, sometimes they do, but it's not something that we should just be like, "Oh yeah, huh." It's not normal and it's not healthy. And I think one of the things that's really dangerous is that not only are we in a place where people who work on trains are saying, "Hey, it's not safe. We are not safe. We're not healthy. We're not well. We are put in danger. We're told to ignore danger," which was such a - to me, when I read things like, "Oh, they say just go ahead and run it even if a wheel bearing is." - just growing up the way I grew up with my dad - that was such a wild concept to be like, "Hey, there's something unsafe. We'll just go ahead and do it anyway." That is not how things have been done historically with the railroads. So we're seeing already this shift between worker safety and train safety and community safety. But the thing that's really scary too is that the railroads wanna keep moving in this direction. They want less staff on train, they want half of what they used to have on trains because they think it's gonna be automated and it's gonna be cheaper. And they want to move towards even more intense scheduling. And at the same time, benefits for workers have eroded. The union power has eroded - as we saw, the government step in and end the strike that was happening. And I think that there's, we're seeing the convergence of all of those things at once - and not just things are bad now, but they're going to get significantly worse if we don't pay attention to this problem. So I'm happy to see that there is coverage of these things. And I wish that we didn't have to do this thing where the Swinomish said "Hey, we're in danger of this." and they're like, "Whatever, do it anyway." And then the dangerous thing happens. We know what's going to happen. There's no need to have these constant reminders that are material harms that validate the concerns of the community that's there. And it's the same, not the same, but it's similar to what we were talking about with the CID. There has been communities - historically, communities of color, low-income communities, Indigenous communities - that have borne the brunt of utilitarian transportation design. And they are saying, "Hey, we don't want that anymore." And that's something that should be valued. Of course, I think it should be valued, but I hope to see some movement and I hope - I wish them well on their legal pursuits on that. But I think that we need to be - I don't care if there's 100 derailments every day. They need to be something that we should be paying attention to because we shouldn't just be settling for that. [00:42:57] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And there's a problem with just railroad regulation. And the problem is that they are subject to so little of it. It's absurd. And I don't think most people realize how much latitude we give railroad companies. It is almost obscene. I don't think most people realize that. So I live in Kent - the reason why I'm a little bit more familiar with railroad problems and policies because - Kent has two railroad lines crossing right through its downtown, which I live in the middle of, which is why sometimes you hear train horns if you're listening. But cities are actually not allowed to touch train tracks. They're actually not allowed to touch crossing arms and stuff, and so we have two separate railroad companies who have been so horrible about maintaining railroad crossings. If people are residents of Kent, they have been stuck behind, in a humongous traffic jam, on some of Kent's biggest thoroughfares that are just cut off by railroad track crossing arms that get stuck, or don't go down, or they're malfunctioning. That's been happening for years. And so many people are like, "Why doesn't the city do something about this?" And it turns out - yeah, the city is legally prohibited from touching the railroad tracks. The railroad company has to respond. The railroad companies don't share what hazardous material is on there and you basically have to wait for the railroads and the companies to show up and decide how they're gonna handle it, decide what they're gonna disclose, decide what the timeline is - and people have no control. And when you think about having no control over potentially hazardous substances going through your communities - these railroad lines are adjoining neighborhoods, schools, playgrounds - and it's just by chance that there's not a situation like in Swinomish and in East Palestine - this is what we're all signing up for and we shouldn't be, we should not be. Unfortunately, this is something that these lawsuits - I'm glad that the Swinomish tribe filed this lawsuit. This may be some of the only recourse we have aside from Congressional action to pare this down and to demand some accountability. Railroad companies don't even have to tell you if something highly flammable, highly hazardous, highly toxic is traveling through cities so that people can appropriately prepare emergency and hazmat responses. Cities can't even prepare for the type of damage that railroads can do, so we just need to change. I am glad a lot more people are paying attention and I hope people continue to hold our elected leaders' feet to the fire, but particularly our Senators and Congresspeople, to actually take some action to regulate and rein in the control and domination that these railroad companies have - that is really putting people at risk and that these companies haven't shown anywhere close to the type of responsibility, accountability to cleaning up these things or to being able to handle the type of world that they're putting us all into. So it's a challenge. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, March 17th, 2023. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was defense attorney, abolitionist, and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. Thank you for joining us - always a good time. [00:46:27] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Always a good time. [00:46:27] Crystal Fincher: Yes! You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you prefer to 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 find Nicole Thomas-Kennedy on Twitter @NTKAllDay. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me @finchfrii, it's two I's at the end. 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.

director house washington state michigan ohio seattle police crime executives republicans democrats id senate indigenous hacks cities score highways senators kent wa transportation bipoc congressional south park attorney generals avenue state department santa fe chinatown railroads aclu ems emt tacoma legislature ids desc ave inmates cid midtown washingtonians union station nimby jay inslee king county heh cot city attorney sounder kiro pierce county southwest michigan snohomish county washington department parks department bnsf congresspeople bob ferguson sound transit wonks nicole thomas thomas kennedy swinomish ed murray king county executive dow constantine america walks mayor bruce harrell mayor harrell king county jail sydney brownstone aclu wa nicole thomas kennedy

Week in Review: February 17, 2023 - Robert Cruickshank

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2023 57:12

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank! They discuss the landmark passage of Seattle's Social Housing Initiative 135, what it says about Seattle voter preferences and expectations of candidates running for local office. They also discuss the continuing candidate announcements for Seattle City Council, with two moderates announcing their intentions to run this week. Several candidates in the field have avoided sharing their positions on the issues most important to Seattle voters. Crystal and Robert analyze how that may impact their races and what voters are expecting from candidates this year. In the wake of a pedestrian in a crosswalk being killed by an SPD officer who was responding to an overdose call, Robert and Crystal discuss whether it's appropriate for police to respond to every overdose call in addition to the fire department, especially while the department says they are short-staffed. They also cover the advancing bipartisan legislation that aims to expand the conditions under which police can pursue fleeing vehicles despite their continued harm to innocent bystanders, while Democratic Reps. Reed and Farivar and Sen. Dhingra oppose this bill in favor of an evidence-based approach that prioritizes increased safety for everyone. Robert and Crystal close the show with a discussion of the woeful state of education funding in Washington state. Despite the McCleary decision that affirmed Washington state's paramount constitutional duty to fully fund public education, districts are still relying on levy funding to address existing funding shortfalls and considering closures of schools, while experiencing chronic understaffing in several areas and considering destabilizing school closures. As Robert discussed in The Urbanist op-Ed he wrote, this is a result of legislative inaction on school funding and the taxation of extreme wealth, the failure of all levels of government to address increasingly unaffordable housing, and too many school board directors who are failing to act in the interests of students with urgency. 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 Social Housing Is Winning by Rich Smith from The Stranger Seattle Mayor and Majority of Council Mum on Social Housing by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger Who's running for Seattle City Council in 2023 by Melissa Santos from Axios Andrew Ashiofu Stresses Lived Experience in D3 Seattle Council Pitch by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist Tech Lawyer Rob Saka Announces Bid for Seattle City Council District 1 by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger Seattle Subway Leader Efrain Hudnell Announces D3 City Council Bid by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist Twitter thread from Rep. Julia Reed (D-36) exposing the fault lines around police pursuit policy Overdose Patients Can Become Violent”: Fire and Police Respond to Questions About Pedestrian Death by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola In pursuit of good policy: Washington legislators debate validity of the data used to justify 2021 police reforms by Guy Oron from Real Change Opinion: Everyone (Especially Urbanists) Should Care About the Crisis Facing Seattle Schools by Robert Cruickshank from The Urbanist Gov. Inslee weighs in on potential Bellevue school consolidation by Farah Jadran from KING 5 Lawmakers in Olympia narrowing down which bills will move forward by News Staff from KIRO 7 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 - 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. If you missed our Tuesday midweek show, transportation reporter Ryan Packer joined me to discuss regional transportation issues - including our traffic safety crisis, legislative bills and funding, the Washington-Oregon Interstate Bridge Replacement bailout, and the disconnect between and within our regional planning bodies. Today we're 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, today's cohost: Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and one of the best political strategists on the West Coast, Robert Cruickshank. [00:01:29] Robert Cruickshank: Oh thank you, Crystal, for having me. It's always an honor to be here and a pleasure to talk about all these issues happening locally with what I think is one of the smartest minds in Washington. [00:01:38] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much. I am very excited to talk about our first topic this week - big news locally, regionally, and really nationally. Initiative 135 in the City of Seattle for social housing is passing, will pass. What do you think of this? What will this do? And what does this mean for Seattle? [00:02:02] Robert Cruickshank: As President Biden would say, I think this is a BFD. It, as you said, is watched around the country. There have been state legislators in California, Hawaii, New York, who have commented on this favorably, wanting to bring it to their states too. It is a crucial tool in the toolbox for solving our housing crisis. We need more housing. We need more affordable housing. And places in Europe - Vienna being a notable example - have shown that social housing can help solve that by having a publicly owned and operated system of housing that's available to people at affordable rents and also at middle income rents. And what that does is it helps have the system be self-supporting. And of course, the renters run the place themselves. They're responsible for self-governance, which I think is a huge missing piece that you see in at least American housing, where there's either the owner-occupier or you pay rent to a landlord and you don't really control your own surroundings. This is a great middle solution that works for so many people in the middle, in a city where we're losing our middle class. This is a way for teachers and nurses to be able to stay in Seattle as well as people working in the coffee shops and working in the bear-time industries. It's also, I think, a huge victory for progressives in Seattle. This was not something that was championed by the City. In fact, the City did not want to fund this during the budget process last year. They got no support from established leaders until late in the process, really. This is something that came out of grassroots organizing - it started as a response to Charter Initiative 29 back in 2021, which was an attack on homeless folks. And a group of organizers led by Tiffani McCoy thought - let's do something better. Let's put a competing initiative on the ballot to actually solve this - that evolved into the social housing initiative. I also think it's a huge, huge defeat for The Seattle Times. There was no official No campaign. There was no well-funded organization or effort trying to stop this, so The Seattle Times became the de facto No campaign. Their editorials against it were the things that you'd hear on the doorsteps or on the phones when you're talking to undecided voters - who would cite those talking points - so they were easily debunked. But The Times really went all out to try to stop this from happening, and they lost in a low turnout election in February. I think a lot of people wouldn't have been surprised had this failed - thinking it's February, not enough progressive folks show up, maybe if it had been on the November ballot, it might have passed. But it's passing by a healthy margin now. Once the remaining ballots are counted that margin is almost certainly going to grow. So it's a strong mandate for building more housing and building affordable housing as a solution to our dire housing crisis. [00:05:02] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And the crisis is dire. I think a clear message sent is Seattle residents realize it. It is a crisis and they expect action. And in the absence of action that they were expecting from our local elected officials, who collectively have not done much - done enough, I should say - to address this crisis, they're willing to act themselves. I do want to just highlight and commend the House Our Neighbors coalition, which was the campaign behind this - from getting signatures and qualified on the ballot to passing this initiative - organizing, getting people together. Just really, really appreciate that. Appreciate the role of the King County Democrats played in helping this - I think that's a great model of seeing how local parties can impact their communities and local politics. To your point, this was not supported by really the Democratic establishment, right? This was not a conservative versus progressive issue. This was not a D versus R issue. This is one of those issues that we have seen in Seattle - where you have establishment Democrats versus more progressive, more community-led people. And we've seen that turn out less favorably than this many, many times. And so I just think we're seeing - we saw the Tukwila Initiative succeed, we saw this, we're watching Renton happen right now. We're looking at an era really where the community is coming together and demanding more and expecting more and a big deal. And I think the message that elected officials and candidates need to take away from this is that they're behind where the public is. They are lagging and not understanding the urgency, the desperation, and the fear that so many people have. This was basically characterized by a lot of people as some fringe, super extreme, lefty initiative that lots of people didn't even feel like they needed to pay attention to because they just never took it seriously. And that was a mistake. And these are not wild lefty fringe beliefs - this is the mainstream. We saw in this first count where over just about half of the voters were over 55 years old - we're talking average age approaching 60 in this election - and over half of them wanted to see social housing. We're just in a different era and people need to wake up and smell the coffee here because - as I've said many times before, as have you - voters are expecting action. And especially in the context of so many of these local elections, especially in the City of Seattle, with the number of candidates declaring and being really vague about what they do or don't believe, and trying to not offend people - which has been a recipe for inaction over the past decade - in Seattle politics, definitely. That is at odds with where the entire Seattle electorate is - not just younger people, not just lefties, the entire electorate - and people need to recognize that. [00:08:37] Robert Cruickshank: I think that's right. And I think that's particularly true of housing where - currently in City Hall, there seems to be an attitude among most, but not everyone, that we have to tread slowly and carefully when it comes to solving the housing crisis. There are some great leaders on the City Council - Tammy Morales, Teresa Mosqueda - who are pretty bold about, we need to use a comprehensive plan to upzone huge swaths of the City. But the rest of the City government seems hesitant. But they're ignoring where the public's at - the polling statewide shows there's 71% support for the missing middle housing bill. That support is also high here in the City of Seattle. And what you're seeing with social housing, which isn't exactly upzones but it's dense housing that will be built for social housing, is strong, strong support for action. There is not anywhere close to a majority - in Seattle at least - among voters for maintaining this single-family, low-rise, low-density NIMBY attitude that seems to predominate certainly among the way the media talks about housing and too often the way the City talks about housing. I think this vote is going to resonate throughout 2023. Obviously, what I-135 did is not fully fund social housing - they weren't able to do that at the same time the initiative for fear of running afoul of the single subject rule. So they went ahead and created the authority, gave a little bit of money to start that authority up. And then they're going to work with the City to try to get it funded. And if City Hall doesn't try to fund construction of social housing, they'll come back to the ballot again. All these council candidates who are declaring in the last few weeks, even the last few days, are going to have to be on the spot now because voters went ahead of them and said, No, we actually want social housing to happen. Now we expect you to deliver. And this is going to be an issue throughout 2023 and all these campaigns, and that's a good thing, right? They're having to now respond to where the public actually is, not responding to a Seattle times narrative of - Oh, people are cranky, they don't want new density, we want NIMBYism everywhere. That's not where the public is at, at all. [00:10:39] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and I'm excited to see where this is going to go. I'm excited to see these candidates and elected officials be put on the spot and have to answer. And I'm trying to have some grace - it is early in the campaign cycle, they're working on this stuff - but if this were to continue later in the cycle, as we've seen in previous cycles, there's really an arrogance about it. It's really feeling that you're not accountable to the voters and really being straight with them about what you believe, who you are, what you're doing, or that you have an obligation to act on their behalf, and to deliver on the mandate that they have provided. So I'm eager to see how this continues. I'm eager to see that now that this has passed - we saw Tammy Morales attempt to provide some funding that the rest of the council, many of the rest of the council, did not agree with. But with this new council coming up, assuming Tammy is reelected - is this something that she can lead on and helping to provide funding and making this happen? I just think my final thought on this for now is really another explicit message that Seattle residents expect government to be part of the solution. This is - we hear so many times that - the market needs to take care of itself. We can't step in and do this. This is really big and really problematic - I don't know that government can address this. It has before. It is elsewhere. And if we don't interrupt the cycle of what's currently happening, we're just going to price everyone out of Seattle. We have a lot of people who have been laid off recently, who are fearing being laid off soon, who are making well into the six figures - who are largely saying, We don't know that we can continue to afford to live in Seattle. Even for those who haven't lost their jobs - looking at the prospect of potential instability financially saying, Is this responsible? Do we need to preemptively leave? Because without a massive - making $200,000+ - can you responsibly afford to live in Seattle? It's really a challenging situation that is long past time needing a response to and Seattle residents acting on that. [00:13:05] Robert Cruickshank: And it wasn't that long ago that it was affordable to live here. 10 years ago - housing prices - you could buy a house in Seattle for less than $400,000, three, four bedrooms. You could rent a two bedroom apartment for $1,200 or less. It was relatively affordable. And it just happened rapidly because we hadn't kept up with building enough housing. We hadn't been providing enough affordable housing. And I think voters are fed up. They want their government to act. And I think one of the big takeaways from I-135's passing is - voters are going to solve this if our government doesn't. [00:13:37] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I do want to talk more about the candidates that are running, particularly in the City of Seattle and in King County. We saw a few new announcements this week. Who has thrown their hat in the race and what are they talking about? [00:13:51] Robert Cruickshank: So it feels like January, early February was when the progressive candidates jumped out and we saw people from Maren Costa - who's a climate activist coming out of Amazon, and fought Amazon, was fired by Amazon - running in District 1. A number of great people jumping in in District 3, people like Ron Davis in District 4. But now we're starting to see the empire strike back a little bit. Rob Saka announced this week for District 1 in West Seattle - he's a tech lawyer perceived to be pretty close to the Harrell administration. A couple of days later, we had Tanya Woo announce for District 2 against Tammy Morales - running, try to be a more corporate-friendly, business-friendly candidate. What's interesting is these candidates are trying to have it both ways. They are clearly saying things that they think will appeal to the business community, will appeal to the political establishment, but also trying to say things that sound somewhat progressive. But the result is it's a word salad. All these, all of their launch documents - you go to their websites, their press releases - they're not really saying anything of substance. They're just trying to say a bunch of words that they think will get voters to like them. And that's alarming to me because as we just talked about, we're facing multiple crises in the city and we need candidates who are willing to step up and provide bold solutions. And instead, what we're starting to get are candidates who were hemming and hawing and tried to be super vague about what they really believe - sound progressive enough, but also really business-friendly. And all these candidates remind me of is Jenny Durkan - when she ran in 2017 with the same type of messaging - very clearly corporate-friendly, but also would say a few things that sounded progressive, just enough to get the progressive voters comfortable with her. We elected her and it was a disaster. So I think as these candidates start to announce and they'll have a ton of money behind them, it's going to be really, really important for the voters to push them pretty hard, to say - no, we're not looking for nice words, we're looking for actual solutions that'll help end the problems that we're facing in the city. [00:16:08] Crystal Fincher: I felt disappointed - really, personally - at a lot of these announcements. We are talking - these things are crises now because they've been building for years. They've been getting worse for years. We're not dealing with new issues. We're dealing with neglected issues. It's no secret how communities felt. We've been talking about, debating about, having a public discourse about homelessness, about taxation, about public health, public safety for years. Very few people are undecided fundamentally on these issues. What really is the differentiator is - where do you stand and what do you want to do? What might make you more effective at doing what you want to do than others who want to do that thing? But instead, we're not hearing people who have participated in this discourse over several years - at least they're acting as if they haven't - some of them have. But we're hearing them just say, Did you vote for initiative I-135? Are you planning to? Well, it's interesting and I haven't decided yet. Okay - after several months and coming to the point where you are going to run, you know how you're going to vote. If you don't know that, you don't know so many other things that are required for running in this city. There's no special knowledge that you get once you get elected and there's no enlightenment that rains down upon you. It just is more accountability. And so I want to know where someone stands. You talked about Jenny Durkan. We heard that from Jenny Durkan, the same kind of - Well, I'm interested. I'm not sure. I want to convene community and listen to what they have to say and then I'll make a decision. I want to evaluate where our taxes are being spent and see where we can cut and blah, blah, blah, blah. We heard that from Ed Murray. We heard that from the leadership that we have been frustrated with, and that have led to this situation where issues have been neglected because of inaction for so long that now they are crises. Ed Murray talked about the homelessness crisis. Jenny Durkan did. Bruce Harrell did. But in the same kind of way. And so I'm just wondering - after seeing this so many times, are they banking on - well, it worked for Ed Murray. It worked for Jenny Durkan. Seems to be working for Bruce Harrell in some things where he seemed to sound more progressive on the campaign trail than how he's governed on certainly some issues. Are they thinking - well, it worked for them. It can work for me too. And let me just try not to offend the majority of Seattleites who are progressive while still making my high-earning corporate supporters - keeping them comfortable and winking and nodding that, Yeah, everything will be fine. I'll be good for you. I just need to say this stuff to make sure that I don't freak out the rest of the voters. And voters deserve better. The City deserves better. And we can't continue to do this same thing over and over again. I think voters are getting hip to that fact, which is why we see election results like we saw this week. [00:19:28] Robert Cruickshank: I think that's right. And I think there's a common political strategy that consultants will tell their candidates - Don't offend your, don't say anything that might alienate some voters. Be wishy-washy. Don't take a bold stand. That's pretty traditional advice. And it tends to be wrong. You tend to see that in fact, the people who win are the ones willing to take a stand, and willing to talk directly to voters, and show voters that they are willing to fight for what's right. And I think you're going to see that here in 2023. I think coming out of the pandemic, coming out of the rebellions of 2020, I think that City Hall has become very skittish and hesitant. They've been through a lot, but they're also not really stepping up to lead - aside from a few exceptions here and there. And unfortunately, starting to see some candidates who are trying to align themselves with certainly the mayor's office - adopting that same sort of wishy-washy - We're not going to stick our necks out. I don't think that's where the public's at, at all. I think the public wants to see solutions. They want progressive solutions to housing, to homelessness, to public safety. And I think candidates who understand that and are willing to talk in a smart, approachable, sensible way about these things will do really well in 2023. It might surprise some in the established class, it might surprise some of the media, but it shouldn't surprise voters who are clearly asking for that. [00:20:58] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I think another dynamic that is interesting is that we heard the leaked comments from Mayor Harrell in that police department briefing, where he basically said he was recruiting against existing councilmembers. What he wasn't banking on, it sounds like, is the number of open seats that were there. So we have a number of candidates who I think were recruited and started off trying to run as clearly opposition candidates to the candidates that they thought that they were going to be running against. And so I'm wondering if they thought that they would be able to get away with being more moderate, conservative - in opposition to some of the incumbents. That's not what ended up happening. These are open seats. And when having - I will also say, just as a consultant watching this happen over and over again, as you've probably seen - if you have one loud oppositional person, especially who's a moderate or conservative, running against someone who's more progressive, pretty often they will get through primary just because they oftentimes consolidate their base more effectively than several other candidates there. And so they'll get through a lot of times, they won't make it through to the general, but we see that dynamic. Things turned out to be different - there are open seats. And so they don't have someone that they can just say, No, I don't like that. I don't like this. I don't like that. They have more pressure to come out with their own vision, to define who they are and what they want to do, and paint a positive vision, lay out a plan for what they want to do. Seems like some of them weren't prepared to do that. And in a primary, being in the middle is not a good place to be - especially in an open seat, crowded primary. You need to talk about who you are and what you're doing - because lower turnout elections, really consolidating a base in a primary is really important. And people have to be able to know who you are, number one, and then identify what you stand for to see if they align with you. If everyone sounds kind of the same, that becomes a really difficult job and you see big vote splits there. So it's going to be interesting - just in this open seat context - to see how this plays out, how many more people wind up getting into the races. I think we'll see a number of other announcements in these various districts and for King County Council. But it's going to be really interesting to see the results of who stands up and defines themself - really interesting just in the lead up to Initiative 135 - seeing the difference in Seattle City Council candidates and King County Council candidates for people who were willing to say yes or no to whether they were going to vote for Initiative 135 and the ones who just wouldn't give an answer. And for so many other issues - Do you think we need to hire more police? Yeah, maybe, perhaps. We need to look at it. We need to explore and examine. We probably need more. How many more? I don't know. I'll check with community. All these really, like you said, mealy-mouthed wishy-washy things. They got to do better and they got to do better soon. [00:24:31] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, a couple of quick thoughts on that. I think that this is going to be a change election, and some of these candidates were running expecting it to be a change election that would work in their favor - that they would be, that the sort of moderate center would be the opposition bringing change. The fact that so many people are leaving the City Council totally undoes that strategy. And now it's a change election, potentially, with the change people seek as a way from a City Hall that isn't solving their problems. And that is a huge opening to progressive candidates who can now run as change agents without having the baggage of being in office during four really turbulent, difficult years. So I feel like progressive candidates have a huge opening here in 2023 to offer genuine, concrete, specific solutions, to not be afraid to speak directly to voters, to not be afraid to put themselves out there. And I think voters will respond really well to that. You also mentioned police. And I think - 'cause I know this is something we wanted to talk about today as well. It's clear that one of the strategies that these more centrist moderate corporate candidates are planning to run is - we need to hire more cops. In fact, there's been reports out there that those folks are cooking up a ballot initiative potentially for November - to try to force the City to hire, spend even more money hiring even more cops. And it just flies in the face of the facts. There's a national shortage of officers. Even in cities that fell all over themselves to shower love on the police departments during the middle of 2020 while the rest of us were trying to hold them accountable, they're facing shortages too. And it's not because people said unpleasant things about the cops, not because people are holding them accountable, it's not because we're not paying them enough. For the last two years, City Hall has been showering potential recruits with money and they're not coming in the door - they're not coming in the door anywhere in the country. I think part of that is because we haven't reformed the departments. I think you see a lot of potential recruits look at policing and say, I don't want to work in an institution where violent racism is not only tolerated, it's expected. You look at the rank and file of the current Seattle Police Department - these are people who elected Mike Solan, a far-right Trump acolyte, as their president for SPOG in January of 2020 - well before the George Floyd protests began. It's a department that has resisted reform for years. So obviously this is where the defund the police movement came out of - if they will resist reform, we have to go to more extreme solutions. The public has said - Well, we don't really want that. Although the public has still very consistently said, We also want funding for alternatives to policing. There's a huge opening here again for progressives to come in and say, Look, we need to be using our police resources more smartly than we are right now. They shouldn't be chasing after people in mental health crisis - that's where King County's Crisis Care Centers Levy coming up in April is also hugely important - to stand some of that up. But we have to be smart and have an honest conversation that we can't just shower money on recruits who aren't showing up, because fundamental problems in the way policing in the city and in this country is done and we haven't tackled it. And you're not going to solve those problems just by try to get more officers into a broken institution. Your potential officers are saying, No, I'm going to go do something else with my life. [00:27:59] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And we aren't reckoning with what's coming from police. We have had several instances, including number from SPD officers, saying the money isn't the problem. The money isn't the problem - coming from them. Yeah, sure. You can try giving us more of a signing bonus, but that's not going to help. And irresponsibly - when someone's saying money's not the problem and you have a shortage of money - spending it on something that is not going to get results, hearing from the horse's mouth that it's not going to get results is really confounding and confusing. I think that - to your point, we have to look at using the resources more effectively, more efficiently. We talk about efficiency and driving best practices in lots of other areas of government and business, but we seem to exempt police from that. Is patrol really the most appropriate place? The City's own studies - lots of City studies - have shown that the majority of time that patrol officers are spending is not on addressing unlawful activity. They've shown that a majority of calls that they're responding to are not critical emergency calls. So why do we continue to act as if that's the case, to deploy as if that's the case? We need to be more effective in how we utilize our existing resources. And it seems like there's an unwillingness to even entertain that conversation. There is an explicit unwillingness that has come out of - it seems like the Seattle Executive's office - for that in ignoring their own studies and research that they had started. And really not engaging with - we need to look at how officers respond, what they're responding to, and responding to the mandate from Seattle residents to have more appropriate responses to different things. And when we're not doing that, we see everybody unhappy for all of the reasons. You're not responding effectively to anything because you aren't looking at how you can be more effective. Where if we were looking at that, we could potentially be doing really well in some areas and supplementing other areas with resources that have a better chance of solving the root cause. But we keep on entertaining this revolving door, very punitive approach where - Okay, someone is in a behavioral health crisis, but we're going to go ahead and arrest them, put them in jail, which is going to further destabilize them. They're getting out - they still don't have a home, they still don't have a job, they have less of a likelihood to get that. And now a lot of ways and ticky tack things that they have to now adhere to. And if they don't then they just continue in that spiral. We have to get smarter about public safety. We have to talk about public safety more comprehensively. It's more than policing, even for those who are saying it definitely includes policing. You can't say it isn't only policing. It's very shortsighted. It flies in the face of all the data we see. And we admit that all the time. We talk about how important education is. We talk about how important addressing poverty is for good outcomes. We talk about how important all that is and putting people on a correct footing - because we understand that that has a direct correlation to how people are able to build a life, participate productively in society, whatever that means, and to not have to resort to illegal activity, or have options so limited that that's what they choose. We know what to do. It's just a willingness to do it. And we need to stop allowing people who are not invested in the health of our communities dictate this narrative that runs counter to the health of our communities and the safety of our communities. Listen to the people who are there - they're telling you what they need, but our leaders and our media - lots of our media - continues to ignore that. [00:32:12] Robert Cruickshank: It's like housing. We talked earlier that the public - in both polling and now the results of I-135 - clearly support solving the housing crisis with things like social housing. They want something done that's positive and constructive. The polls show the same thing on public safety. I think we'll see, in the Crisis Care Centers Levy that King County is running in April, the same thing. That is setting up a system where you see someone on the street, or on the bus, or wherever in mental health crisis - a danger to themselves, maybe danger to others, you call it in. And rather than a cop showing up, you get trained professionals who understand how to handle mental health crisis show up - and take them not to jail, but to a crisis care center where they're going to get treatment. It works even in states like Arizona - like a purple state like that - the system works really well. Bringing it to King County is essential because then not only are people going to get the care they need rather than being dumped in jail where their situation is going to get so much worse, they might even pass away as we've seen in recent months. But you also free up the police to respond to things that you want them to respond to. You want cops responding to someone breaking the glass door of your local small business. You want cops showing up to a domestic violence incident. You don't want cops showing up to someone in mental health crisis. And you don't want cops necessarily showing up to every time someone has an overdose. And I know this is something else that's been in the news this week. The Community Police Commission, after the horrific incident a few weeks ago where an officer struck and killed someone speeding in their vehicle near Westlake on their way to an overdose call. It turns out that Seattle Fire has a policy where they want an officer at every overdose call. The Community Police Commission said, Where does this policy exist? Why do you have this? What is your justification for this? It doesn't make sense. It is a waste of police resources. And as we're seeing, it's a danger to the community. Someone who's overdosing, someone who's in crisis - they need help. And Fire Department responding is exactly what you want. If for some unknown reason there's a need for police backup, because something else is happening in that situation - case-by-case basis, sure. But to have a policy where you're going to take an officer off of patrol, or off of something more important and go to a call on an overdose - an overdose call is important. It doesn't need an officer there. It doesn't need a guy with a gun showing up. It's usually a guy, as we know, showing up to this. It's a waste of resources. It's dangerous to the community. People are getting killed now because of this policy. It's time to reevaluate that as a part of a larger reevaluation of where are we using our police resources? [00:34:51] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's based on no data. And in the midst of what they're characterizing as a shortage of police, why are they sending them out to these calls? There's no evidence showing that people who are coming out of an overdose situation are inherently dangerous. If that was the case, we'd be seeing that in hospitals around the country. But in the same way that hospitals treat that - and if they need backup, then they call for it - why wouldn't the Fire Department be doing the same thing? It looks like the Fire Department has been complicit in this thing and saying, Well, we've seen that. But in response to being asked, Really, we have seen people be violent? That's a regular problem? Can you show us any data demonstrating that? None of that has been provided to date. So why are we doing that? And again, looking at how we deploy our existing resources in the midst of a shortage, why is that a priority? We've been making that decision while we were also making the decision to not investigate sexual assaults of adults. How does that make sense - that we're going to rush to and respond to an overdose that's already being handled, that most other cities handle with just a Fire response - this seems to be really outside of best practices and what is generally accepted as normal across the state. It's just really confusing to see why this is happening. And I hope that's something else that is being examined. Also being examined is - how appropriate and when it is appropriate to pursue people in police chases - this is a conversation in the Legislature that has been ongoing. We've talked about this on the program before, but this legislation looks to be advancing. And it's really interesting - we saw this week a pursuit in Kent that ended in a crash, we saw two pursuits in the last two days in California end in fatalities - one of an innocent pedestrian standing by, a number of others ending in crashes. We seem to not be reckoning with how frequently these things are ending in property damage, and in loss of life, or severe injury to people innocently standing by. And we have to acknowledge that the impact is the same as if some external person came and murdered them, or someone came and stole their car. This is harmful to people in the community. And what has never happened has been saying - You can't pursue vehicles. They can pursue. They have been pursuing. They pursue quite frequently, as we've been paying attention to this in the news more closely recently. But this is a debate that they're currently having. What's your view on this? [00:37:56] Robert Cruickshank: When I'm out on the streets myself, sometimes I'll notice that an ambulance comes by and they're speeding to a call, someone's life is in danger. But they're driving quickly, but deliberately and safely - they're taking care to not endanger anyone around them. If I hear a siren - it's a police car coming by - I notice they drive much more aggressively, much more quickly, with apparent less regard for people around them. I think that just speaks to the cultural problems we see in policing - a lack of care and commitment to public safety for anyone other than the officers themselves. And I think it speaks to the larger problem we face here. You have a concern created by right-wing media and by some police themselves who just don't like the idea of being held accountable, or having any restrictions on their operations - who are complaining about laws passed in 2021 governing police pursuits. And as you said, they don't prevent police from pursuing. It has to be a specific situation where certain criteria are met - how it should be. And they're trying to loosen that. And in fact, just yesterday, a bill to loosen rules around police pursuits made it out of a House committee. There are a few people who stood up against that. I want to shout out to them. Newly elected Representative Darya Farivar, from here in the 46th, was the lone Democrat to vote against it - kudos to her. Newly elected Representative Julia Reed is not on that committee - she's from the 36th district - but she had a really good series of tweets yesterday where she called us out and said, This isn't just coming from Republicans, it's coming from some of my fellow Democrats - and I'm not okay with this. We need to continue the fight for fixing things that are broken in our public safety process. So kudos to Representatives Reed and Farivar - it just seems to me that we need more leadership like that. Too many people go to Olympia to play the game, but they showed up to win. And I really appreciate that. They may not be able to stop this bill from going through and weakening important rules around police pursuits, but at least they're standing up and speaking up publicly and trying. And we need to see more of that in Olympia. [00:40:02] Crystal Fincher: We absolutely do. I thank you for bringing them up. I also want to highlight Senator Manka Dhingra, who we've talked about on this show and we interviewed her before. She's talked about - in a lot of areas - that this flies in the face of evidence and of data that show this is dangerous. And an increase in crime, an increase in vehicle deaths are not at all related to whether or not police can pursue people in different instances. Really it looks like the increase in car thefts is really tied to an increase in the value of used cars. But we're really seeing a lot of data flying back and forth, accusations, and people saying - Well, it's for this reason, it's for that reason. Why are we trying to expand this when we don't have solid data or evidence on anything? And to Manka Dhingra's credit, what she has said is that she does not want to bring this up for a hearing on the Senate side, but she is proposing that - Hey, we're hearing a lot of things fly back and forth. We do need to determine what best practices are across the country - what is happening, what is working. And so we can study this and find out what the facts are, particularly for us on the ground here in the state. But standing strong and saying - Look, I know that people want to do this in the law enforcement community, in some elements of the law enforcement community - because to be clear, others have already taken steps to limit police pursuits because this is a best practice and they have recognized that it not only puts the public at risk, but it also puts their officers at risk - to have just a no holds barred, chase everyone whenever you want, even if they just steal some toilet paper from the corner store. So it's going to be interesting to see how this proceeds, particularly in the Senate. But I do hope that people, that a lot of times - we are not bashful about telling our representatives and our electeds our opinions when we disagree with them. But I appreciate calling out ones who are fighting for us and ones who are representing where we stand and what we want - and let them know that you appreciate that, that you have their back - because right now, they're being bombarded by other people and by other lobbies who don't feel the same and who are trying to pressure them with tactics - threatening, battles in the media, challenging that, all that kind of stuff. So make sure that you are engaged in these. We will include links in the show notes to help you see where you can get involved, help contact them. But this is a really important thing that is happening. I hope that is not successful, but don't know. We'll see, because to your point - this is a bipartisan effort. And it's just hard to understand why, particularly after we saw residents across the state reject the kind of reasoning in last year's November elections - voters provided a pretty clear mandate and Republicans tried to make these arguments and actually ran on reversing this. And voters said no across the board to a degree that they rarely do. It's just really confusing to me that - especially the Democrats who support this - would then turn around and say, Okay, but we need to do this anyway. Another example of what we talked about earlier of our elected officials being behind where the public is at. [00:43:44] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, and I think we see this often in the Legislature, unfortunately - a leadership in the Democratic Party in Olympia that is out of touch, unwilling to step up and solve problems. I think you just flagged it correctly. They won an election in 2022, despite being hammered on these issues. They not only protected their swing seats, they picked up a few more. So there's no real urgent mandate from voters, there's no threat to their position for doing this - from making it easier for cops to drive unsafely in police pursuits, but they're doing it anyway. We also see - in education - where the Legislature is really falling down. Thankfully, Marysville's passed a school levy this week - if they hadn't, they're talking about having to dissolve the district. But then the whole McCleary case was designed to make it so you don't have to rely on the local levy anymore. What's turned out is that the Legislature continues to underfund schools. Schools are potentially closing in Seattle, Bellevue - I think we're going to hear about more districts facing this. And the Democratic leadership just isn't engaged on this. There is a bill to try to fully fund special education. There's a cap on the number of students who can receive special education services, even if - that the Legislature will fund, at least. The State Legislature has a cap on how much funding they'll provide for special education. If your district has more than 13.5% of its students who need special education services, the Legislature will not fund above that. In Seattle, 16% of students need services. In rural districts, it's as high as 20%. And those are undercounts. The district is pitted - pits students against each other - says effectively, In order to serve special education students, we got to take money from somewhere else. And so 25 legislators sponsored a bill in the House to eliminate that cap and fund that this year. And a number of people showed up to the House Appropriations Committee hearing last week - myself included, at least virtually - to testify in support - all of a sudden to discover a proposed substitute bill that guts all of that. Says actually, We'll raise it slowly and we'll only implement it over five years. So they're not going to solve the financial problems that schools face. A large part of school deficits is because of underfunding of special education. But the legislative leadership of the Democratic Party is just - it's not a priority for them. They don't seem to really care about public education, even though, once again - polls show the public cares about it. So you have a Democratic leadership in Olympia that feels pressure to change laws around police pursuits because of media pressure, but not really pressure from the public. Certainly not a majority of the public. A few loud voices on the right, but that's not a majority. But the things that the public really does care about, especially education, are just not getting solved. And it's a sad state of affairs in Olympia where the leadership - and I think it's a leadership problem - isn't in touch with what the voters want or need. [00:46:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's a real challenge. I appreciate that you had an excellent piece that ran in The Urbanist earlier this week talking about this, but this is really a comprehensive problem that's been a while in the making that has a lot of different causes. And you talked about a number of issues that are contributing to this - including housing, including our tax system - but really looking at the responsibility of our Legislature to handle this. What needs to happen at various levels of government now to address this, and what impact might this have on school district elections that are coming up? [00:47:27] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, excellent question. The problems facing our schools - it's like a perfect storm of three different things. The Legislature underfunding our schools, cities making it hard for families to stay. When families get priced out and families leave, then your enrollment starts to drop. And then the school district itself is mismanaged, is very top-down - notorious for not responding to the public, notorious for not really caring about what parents and families want - of all backgrounds, of all income levels. So these are all coming together to create a real crisis. In Seattle, if you lose public schools - the schools and neighborhoods start to close, and that just accelerates decline. It accelerates families leaving. It accelerates people who say, I don't want to move to Seattle, right? It works against what we're trying to do at the city and state level in terms of making it easier to build housing and recruit more families and keep families here. If you're not going to provide schools for them, you're going to make them go out of their way to get their kids to school - you're undermining all of that work. One of the things I think we need is leadership in the Legislature, and it strikes me that - we have great leaders on housing in the Legislature - you can look at Jessica Bateman, Nicole Macri. They are champions on housing, and that's great - I like that. There are champions on the environment. We don't seem to have a champion on public education in the Legislature right now. There are people who support it and care about it, but no one really has made it their core issue that they're going to fight on no matter what happens. And that's weird to me, because public education touches so many of their constituents. It's well-liked, universally popular. Polls show that the public wants it. So we need to have champions step up to save our public schools to prevent these closures. I think there's an attitude in Olympia right now that says, Well, enrollment's declining - not much we can do about that. That's terrible, right? We should want everyone in the public system. That is where - we not only educate all of our kids, that's where we do the work of building a better society. We want to undermine racism and privilege and inequity? Bring all the kids into the public system, teach them all together how to be anti-racist - rather than turning the public schools into a de facto safety net, which is what's happening. The other thing the Legislature can do is pass a wealth tax. It has widespread public support - two-thirds of Washington voters want to tax the rich to fund things, including public schools. Do that this year. But that's a situation where a Senate Democrat - in this case Christine Rolfes, Chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee - hasn't brought that bill up for a hearing yet. She is someone who's thinking about running for statewide office next year. Does she really want to go statewide having blocked a wealth tax? That seems unwise. But we'll see what the Democratic leadership in Olympia wants to do. Do they take public education seriously or not? [00:50:21] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it seems very unwise. And this is another issue that Democrats, especially in battleground districts, ran talking about public education, ran talking about how important it is. This is following a number of teacher strikes that happened at the beginning of the year, where they called out how critical these issues are and they're at nearly unsustainable levels now. They are short staffed when it comes to special education. As you talked about, there are situations where even in a fire drill, there wasn't enough staff to safely evacuate all of their students. This is hazardous in many different ways. And I also want to call out, just as we are looking at this - this is 2023. And this year, not only are we going to be seeing city council elections and mayoral elections, but school board elections - which so often get overlooked, but are absolutely critical to addressing this issue. I hope that we see a deeper examination of school board races across the board - in Seattle, across the state. This is critical. And I also want to call out - it's also critical because our public schools are where a number of - I don't just want to say conservatives, but like fascists, have designated a battleground. We're seeing attacks on trans people existing across the country, and absolutely here too. We're seeing efforts to ban books on everything - from issues that address the LGBTQ community to BIPOC communities. They are really trying to use the schools to outlaw people, to make it illegal to exist. And this has worked in so many other places. We have districts - I'm here in Kent, the Kent School District - candidates who were endorsed by Democrats, one former Chair of the 33rd District Democrats voting against teachers' unions, voting to take them to court, voting to ban books, right? This is something that's happening in these elections because they go so unnoticed. Lots of people do not pay attention or examine, so someone with really extreme, harmful ideologies who does not want to acknowledge the humanity or the right of everybody to exist and learn and thrive are flourishing. And this is how they're getting their foothold into power and into local government. And then they make it onto city councils and into the Legislature and into Congress. We have to pay attention to these things. What's your take on what's at stake in these elections? [00:53:10] Robert Cruickshank: I appreciate you saying that, because school board is hugely important. And it is something that I think the progressive movement generally isn't paying enough attention to - school boards in particular, but also public education. And I think we need to change that here in 2023 for the reasons you mentioned. I think it's also true in Seattle where thankfully we're not seeing efforts to ban books. The previous school board did in 2015 think about trying to sue teachers when they went out on strike - thankfully they got strong public pushback against that. But I think the problem we have in Seattle, for example, is a school board that is disengaged - that isn't really willing to step up and do the work to fix the district, to take on persistent mismanagement, and to rebuild the district in a way that power devolves to the community in ways that are equitable. And I think you have four seats here in Seattle that are up for re-election this year - that's the majority of the board. And there are a few of us parents who are working to try to figure out - who's out there, who's willing to step up and run. And it's hard - it's an underpaid job. You get $4,000 a year, essentially, with no real support and a lot of work. But it's important and rewarding work that has to be done because public education is just one of those absolutely crucial things to the future of our society. And the right understands this. They get that very, very clearly. The corporations understand - that's why they want to privatize the system - because there's a lot of money in it. The right understands because there's a lot of power in it. And I think progressives need to make 2023 the year that - in Washington State, at least - they really deeply engage on this. We saw around the country last year in 2022 - where progressives did engage on school board races, they did really well. A lot of parents in places like North Carolina or Michigan, Texas mobilized to stop these right-wingers who wanted to use school districts and school boards to attack other kids. And those progressive candidates by and large did well. I think it's important for us in Washington State, whether you are in a district where those anti-trans, anti-critical race theory people are coming in, or whether you're in Seattle where the problems are different - you just have a school board that isn't really focused on doing the job properly. We as progressives need to really get our act in gear on this and take public education and school boards super seriously this year. [00:55:28] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And issues like special education, issues about letting police back into schools are on the docket this year. And if we don't step in and make our voices heard, make our preferences heard, other people certainly will. Like you said, conservatives have understood for a long time. They've understood the importance of the courts at a more fundamental level than progressives have traditionally. And they understand the role of public education - in just our society and how it shapes - so I hope we continue to pay attention to that. Appreciate all of your insight here. We'll also link that op-ed that you wrote and include that in the show notes. And I just want to thank everybody for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, February 17th, 2023 - this year continues to evaporate. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today is Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. You can find Robert on Twitter @cruikshank, that's C-R-U-I-C-K S-H-A-N-K. You can follow me on Twitter @finchfrii. Follow Hacks & Wonks @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 get our 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.

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Christmas Spirit - 1st Sunday of Advent

advent vineyard christmas spirit sunday of advent ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2022 34:52

Join us as long-time Vineyard member Ed Murray begins our "Christmas Spirit" series on this 1st Sunday of Advent.

Week in Review: November 18, 2022 - with Nicole Thomas-Kennedy

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2022 61:32

On this week's Hacks & Wonks, Crystal is joined by friend of the show, defense attorney, abolitionist and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy! They start catching up with the Seattle City Budget. The City Council revealed their proposed budget earlier this week, and in general it proposes putting back funding for programs that were originally given fewer resources under Mayor Harrell's proposal - most notably restoring the raises for frontline homeless service workers, which were cut in Harrell's budget. The Council's proposal also uses JumpStart funds as originally intended, cuts ghost cop positions, and eliminates funding for the controversial ShotSpotter program. After the horrific incident last week that involved a shooting at Seattle's Ingraham High School, students staged a walkout and protest on Monday to ask city leaders for resources to help prevent gun violence. The students are asking for anti-racism and de-escalation training for school security, assault weapon bans, and more school counselors and mental health resources. What they have made clear they don't want is more cops in schools, but despite that Mayor Harrell and some of his advisory boards are advocating for an increased police presence in schools. Housing updates this week start with positive news: Mayor Harrell is asking for affordable housing to be exempt from the much maligned design review process. Allowing affordable housing to skip design review will encourage developers to build affordable housing, and will help us battle our housing shortage faster than we could otherwise. In frustrating housing news, KING5 released some upsetting reporting outlining some overt racial housing discrimination against Black families in Seattle, including one story about family who received a significantly higher appraisal when they dressed their home to look like it was owned by a white family. Carolyn Bick from the South Seattle Emerald reported on potential City and State records laws violations by the Office of Police Accountability. The OPA has been manually deleting emails, or allowing them to automatically be deleted, before the two-year mark prescribed by City and State laws. It's another example of a city office failing to hold itself accountable to basic records standards. The Seattle Department of Transportation seemed to once again be more responsive to concerns about administrative liability than community concerns about pedestrian safety amid rising fatalities. When locals painted an unauthorized crosswalk at the intersection of E Olive Way and Harvard, SDOT workers removed the crosswalk within 24 hours. This is happening while many people and business owners, most notably Councilmember Sara Nelson, have been placing illegal “eco blocks” without removals or consequences. Finally, the Chair of Washington State Democrats is being criticized for threats to withhold resources against Washington House candidates if they showed support for nonpartisan Secretary of State candidate Julie Anderson. This is a high-profile extension of a question that party groups–big and small–are dealing with: how do we handle Democrats' support of nonpartisan or third party candidates? 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 today's co-host, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, on Twitter at @NTKallday. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Resources “City Council's ‘anti-austerity' budget package: Aiming JumpStart back where it belongs, preserving parking enforcement's move out of SPD, nuking ShotSpotter, and giving mayor his ‘Unified Care Team'” by jseattle from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog “Morales Hopes to Resurrect Social Housing Amendment That Didn't Make Balancing Package Cut” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist Learn more about how to get involved in Seattle's budget season at this link. “Care, Not Cops” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger “Seattle proposal would free affordable projects from design review — and give all developers path to skip public meetings” by CHS from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog “After a low appraisal, Black Seattle family 'whitewashes' home, gets higher price” by PJ Randhawa from KING5 “Why housing discrimination is worse today than it was in the 1960s” by PJ Randhawa from KING5 “OPA May Have Broken City and State Records Laws By Not Retaining Emails” by Carolyn Bick from The South Seattle Emerald “SDOT Decries Tactical Urbanism While Allowing Eco-Blocks All Over the City” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola “Rent a Capitol Hill apartment from one of these companies? You ‘may have rights under antitrust laws to compensation' as lawsuit alleges price-fixing violations in Seattle” by jseattle from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog “Scoop: State Democratic Party chair under fire for alleged threats” by Melissa Santos from Axios 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 text 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 cohost. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show, today's cohost: defense attorney, abolitionist and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. Hey. [00:00:54] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Hey - thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. [00:00:57] Crystal Fincher: Welcome back. Great to have you back. So we have a few things going on this week. We will start with the Seattle budget. The mayor introduced his budget a few weeks back - this is now the Council, and the President of the Council, being able to introduce their own budget and their take on things. What did you see here that was notable? [00:01:21] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I think the things that were really notable were that JumpStart was headed back to where it was originally planned. That tax was created for affordable housing and things like that, and the mayor tried to take it a different direction that I don't think addresses the City's needs at all - so it was good to see that. Keeping - not giving SPD the money for those ghost cops - the officers that don't actually work there, that haven't actually worked there for a while - their salaries, SPD was allowed to keep for a long time, and so taking that away. And I think really most importantly - to me, given what I do - is taking out the money for ShotSpotter, which is something that the mayor has pushed really hard for, but has shown to not work and actually be detrimental to marginalized communities in other cities. And that was a million dollars, so it was great to see that taken out. [00:02:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that was definitely an improvement, I think, in a lot of people's minds. That was something that did seem to be oddly championed by the mayor and very few other people, regardless of what their political orientation or leaning is. It is just something that - a decade ago, people were wondering if it had some potential, and then it was implemented in a number of cities with a number of very well-documented problems. One thing that it does not seem to be able to accomplish is to reduce gun violence, which is its ultimate goal. But it did introduce a lot of other problems. It was expensive. It seemed to increase surveillance and harassment, particularly of Black and Brown communities, without intervening or interrupting any kind of violence. And that is just an inexpensive and ineffective use of funds. Given a budget shortfall, it seems like we should not be wasting money on things that have proven not to work and not to make anyone safer. I think another notable difference in this budget, between the mayor's budget, was he had proposed a reduction in salary for some of the frontline workers for homelessness services and outreach services there. Those are critical positions and crucial to being able to address homelessness, reduce homelessness. A lot has been covered over the years across the country about how important having comfortable, well-paid frontline workers is so that they're not living in poverty, they aren't in unstable positions - creating a lot of turnover and uncertainty with the workers on the frontline - so that they do have the capacity and ability to do that kind of frontline outreach work and getting people into services that meet their needs. And so there was definitely a repudiation of the idea of reducing their pay and making sure that their pay will continue to rise with the cost of living and the Consumer Price Index. So that was nice to see. A few other things, like you talked about, just making sure that the JumpStart funds, which it seems now everybody is acknowledging, have been very helpful. And even people who previously opposed it are now backing its use to backfill their own plans. But really just making sure that it is spent in a way consistent with its original charter, basically. And so more of a right-sizing and being more consistent with the spending that Seattle voters have backed, that these candidates were elected and reelected with mandates to go forward with - that we're seeing that there. Moving forward here, there was just an opportunity for public comment earlier this year. There is one more opportunity for councilmembers to introduce amendments to this budget before it's going to be ultimately passed. So I encourage everyone, if you have thoughts about the budget, we'll include some links just explaining it. There was a really good Capitol Hill Seattle story just breaking down the budget and what's happening there to make sure we go there. But a few notable other investments from there include $20 million each year for equitable development initiative projects that advance economic opportunity and prevent displacement. $20 million Green New Deal investments each year, including $4 million to create community climate resilience labs. $4.6 million for indigenous-led sustainability projects and $1.8 million for community-led environmental justice projects. $9 million for school-based health centers, which is a really big deal, including a new $3 million across the biennium for mental health services in response to the demand for more health providers from teachers and students - we'll talk a little bit more about the student walkout and strike and their demands later in the show. Also created a combined total of $1.5 million for abortion care in 2023, to ensure access to reproductive care for uninsured people in Seattle. And a $253 million investment into the Office of Housing for affordable housing - and that's over $50 million more than the last budget for building rental housing, more supportive services, first-time ownership opportunities. I know a lot of people are also hoping that Councilmember Tammy Morales' proviso makes it back into the budget to support social housing and securing City-owned property for rental housing that has a much better shot of being able to be affordable for regular people working in the City, especially those who don't have six-figure incomes and can't afford a million dollar home. This is going to be crucial to making sure that we have dedicated land and space and capacity to build permanent affordable housing. [00:07:54] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, and I hope that makes it back in very - I really hope that makes it back in. The thing that I see with the Council's - what they're proposing to put back in, or the changes they're making from Harrell's budget - is most all of them address things that would enhance public safety. And when I hear about things like old technology that's been shown not to work, that gives more or giving more money to police or things like that, I think people think that that's about public safety, but it's not. Those are reactionary things, those are things that have been shown not to address the problems, we really do need to be looking at those upstream things like housing, helping marginalized communities, mental health - all of these things are things that are actually going to result in more safety for everyone. And so I'm happy to see that their proposals are addressing those things. And I hope that they make it into the final budget. [00:08:52] Crystal Fincher: I agree. And I also think that we saw - with just these past election results that we received - that residents of Seattle, really across the county, but especially in Seattle, once again, show through their votes for candidates who are talking about addressing root causes, the rejection of candidates for the Legislature for King County Prosecuting Attorney who were talking about punitive punishment-based approaches, lock-em-up approaches, which the city and the county continually have rejected. And I think voters are just at the point where they're saying, no, please listen - you have already increased funding for police, but we have these big gaps in all of these other areas that we need you to address and fill, and it's - just talking about police is doing the overall public safety conversation a disservice because it takes so many other things to make sure that we are building communities that are safer, and where fewer people get victimized, and where we are not creating conditions that cause disorder. And so I hope that they are listening. And I hope that that gives both the Budget Chair and councilmembers faith and strength and motivation to move forward with these kinds of investments in community - that center community and that center addressing the root causes of crime, preventing crime - which is the most important thing that we can do. I don't think anyone is looking around and saying - things are great, things are fine - but I think people are fed up with the inaction or bad action and ineffective action taken. So we will stay tuned and continue to report on that. [00:10:47] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Very helpful. [00:10:47] Crystal Fincher: We just alluded to, but talked about this week - following last week's shooting of an Ingraham High School student by another student - extremely extremely tragic situation - that student wound up dying. This is a traumatic thing for the school community to go through, for the entire community to go through. And we saw students walk out to cause awareness and with a list of demands. What were they demanding? [00:11:19] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I'm not going to get it perfectly off the top of my head, but they want more resources for students. They want more mental health care. They want access to those things. They want things that are preventative. They're not asking for punitive retribution or more metal detectors or cops in schools or something like that. They're asking for things that are actually going to be preventative, that are going to encourage the wellbeing of all students. And they know that that's what's going to keep them safe. And from what I've seen from SPS - they seem responsive to those demands in some way. It remains to see what will be actually followed through on. But the response I've seen so far from SPS, just being the parent of an SPS student, is that they are listening to what these kids are actually saying and what the data actually shows will make these kids safer. So I find that to be hopeful. I hope you can verbalize what their list of demands were more succinctly than that, because I don't want to misrepresent what they're saying at all. But when I read through what they were asking for and saw what they were asking for, it was all stuff that was aimed at prevention - because that's what - they don't want to be shot. And that's very valid. And they shouldn't have to worry about those things. And the things that have been implemented for years, like more police in school, those lockdown drills and things like that - it's not working. It's just like we were talking about with the budget stuff, we need to get to those root causes. [00:13:04] Crystal Fincher: You're exactly right. And what these students want really does, to your point, cover the gamut of preventative measures. So there are a few different things. One, they want the district to increase anti-racist and de-escalation training for any security at Seattle Public Schools. They also demand that the state update safe storage laws and ban assault rifles. Students asked the Council to reroute $9 million from SPD to pay for counselors. They want one counselor - to be paid a living wage - but at least at a ratio of 1 for every 200 students. Right now, the district is averaging about 1 for every 350 students, so that is a significant increase in counselors. But I don't think there is anyone here who does not acknowledge the need for more mental health resources for students. And this is especially pronounced in the middle schools across the district. So that is a pretty substantial one. They did say that they don't want cops in schools. They don't want the introduction of more guns, more people with guns in schools - but they want the things that will prevent them. They want mental health resources and community-based resources, therapy resources, and intentional de-escalation and communication training, DBT therapy training - really for students there, so they can figure out how to use words to disarm and de-escalate conflicts instead of getting physically violent, encouraging gun violence, that type of thing. They really want to - they understand that there's a gap with many kids that they're trying to navigate through and this is a normal thing for students anyway. We need to equip them with the tools to work through conflict, to work through their emotions, even when they're very big. They recognize that and they're calling for that. So these are all things that are backed by data and evidence, that have shown to reduce conflict, to reduce violence of all kinds, definitely gun violence. And that are evidence-based, have worked in other areas - pretty reasonable. And so there are a few areas where this could come from. They're certainly asking the Legislature for action, but also with the City and the mental health money. I think Teresa Mosqueda said that she was allocating $2 million and saying that's a down payment on what the students are asking for. Another source that was talked about by some people online was the Families & Education Levy in the City of Seattle, which is tailor-made for things like this. And so that, I think, should be part of this conversation going forward. But we absolutely do need more mental health resources in the schools. And we heard that post - as students were returning back to school after schools were closed due to COVID, and as they were returning, there were certainly a lot of parents who wanted to reopen schools, get their students back in there, but also talked about the challenges that students were dealing with - with anxiety and a range of mental health needs. They seemed to acknowledge that students, in connection with violent events happening and needing to deal with that - we need to figure out a way to get this done. I think the student demands are entirely reasonable and the entire community needs to listen. Now, one dimension of the story that we have seen, there was a story - and I forget at this point who came out with it - but it was like the district is exploring basically putting armed police officers back in school. Upon reading the story, it was like no, actually the district, no one in the district was considering that. The students specifically said they didn't want that. School board members said that they were not currently examining that. But it does seem like the mayor and some of his advisory boards are advocating for armed police officers to return to schools. It seems like the people directly impacted are saying, no, please no, again, not anymore. But the mayor has a different viewpoint here. How do you see that? [00:17:57] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: First of all - yes, the student demands are very reasonable and it's, I don't know, I'm constantly impressed by youth - just how informed they are, the way they present their ideas, and just - they're deeply rooted in this. They are the ones that are impacted. We didn't have to deal with this growing up. I didn't have to deal with this growing up. I didn't have to deal with COVID. I didn't have to deal with the Internet. I didn't have to deal with guns in schools. This is new territory for these kids and they are the ones that are able to tell us what they need and they do so so well. And it is backed by data and research. And I think the mayor has suggested or wants to do this cops-back-in-school thing, but kids know this isn't what has made us safe. We have seen very, very good - horrible, tragic examples of how school resource officers fail to keep kids safe. And I think a lot of people's eyes have been open to that. And while I see the suggestion, I acknowledge the suggestion, I don't think it's serious. I don't think you can keep talking about more cops, more cops - putting more cops here - and be serious about safety. We know that doesn't work. And I think that there's enough kids, there's enough parents, there's enough people, there's enough people on the Council that know these things that - if he wants to push forward that kind of agenda, I think the pushback is going to be really big. And we can't keep pretending that that's the solution - I think that a lot of people are ready to stop doing that and to be able to push back. And I love this walkout. I think it's so encouraging that these kids are really pushing for what they know to be true. And they're not just sitting there saying, there's nothing we can do about it. They know that there's something they can do about it. So I think that's very encouraging. And I would expect that any sort of really serious pushing forward of that idea of more cops in school, I would expect there to be really very large community and student backlash to those ideas. [00:20:15] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think there would be pretty ferocious backlash to that. We will see how that proceeds and continue to keep you up to date on that. Now, something that Bruce Harrell announced this week, that actually seems like it's going to have a positive reception and that can move things in a positive direction - he's looking to exempt affordable housing from design review - from the much-maligned design review process. What's he proposing to do here? [00:20:47] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: He's proposing sort of a moratorium on affordable housing projects having to go through design review. So if people don't know - design review is a lengthy process where there's - I'm doing air quotes - "community input" on housing design, and it really drags out housing projects for so long. If you see an empty lot and there's a billboard up that says that they're going to build a nine-story building with mixed use - there'll be commercial space on the bottom - and then nothing happens for years and years and years. There's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the primary ones is that really long design review process, which is shown not to be actually that democratic when it comes to the community. So exempting affordable housing from that is such a huge and awesome idea that I think someone said, why didn't we do this before when there was a homelessness crisis declared? Ed Murray could have done this when he declared that crisis, but instead that there's all these projects that are languishing and really upping the price for developers to even build these things. So I think there's - not only is it going to get affordable housing built more quickly if this is actually implemented, which I hope it is, but it's also going to make building affordable housing more attractive to developers because just having that land sit there and having those plans sit there for years and years - it makes it very expensive for developers to undertake projects. And when they do, they're going to want to get as much return on their investment as possible. And so you have to make up for those lost years of the land just sitting there. And so allowing this to go forward is going to provide more housing for the community, which we desperately, desperately need, but it's also going to encourage developers to build affordable housing over other types of housing. So I think this is fantastic and I really hope it goes through. [00:22:55] Crystal Fincher: I think it is fantastic. I think this is a good example of listening to the community. This is a win all the way across for developers who are trying to build projects more economically and more quickly, for just the community who is waiting for housing prices to be more affordable - and not just because interest rates are changing the equation for a lot of people, but to get more supply online quickly. And so this was done with Mayor Bruce Harrell and with Councilmembers Dan Strauss and Teresa Mosqueda. And it would begin a one-year interim period exempting affordable housing projects from design review and then use that trial year to conduct what Harrell says will be a full State Environmental Policy Act review of legislation to try and make this exemption permanent. And so it would permanently exempt, or they're hoping to permanently exempt, housing projects from design review - exempting housing projects that use the mandatory housing affordability program to produce their units on site for a two-year pilot and also allow other housing projects to choose whether to participate in full design review or administrative design review as a two-year pilot. So this is something that hopefully does get more affordable housing units online quickly, cut through the bureaucracy - so a positive development here and excited to see it. What I was not excited to see was a story on KING5 about one of the elements that is part of the wealth disparity, the wealth gap that we see. We've seen stories, sometimes from across the country, talking about whitewashing homes and homes owned by Black people getting lower appraisals than other homes for no other reason, seemingly, than that they're Black. And this happened with a Black family in Seattle who got an initial home appraisal - they had their family pictures in there, they had some African art up. The home was visibly owned by Black people. So with this, this family got an appraisal that was initially $670,000 - under the median home price in Seattle. They thought - well, that seems low, that seems out-of-spec for what we've seen others in this area. So they decided to take down their personal pictures. They put up pictures from a white family. They had a white friend stand in the house presented now as if it was owned by a white family. And instead of the $670,000 appraisal, they got a $929,000 appraisal. The only difference was that it was a home owned by a white person, that appeared to be owned by a white person, versus one that is owned by a Black person - right here in Seattle. What did you think of this? [00:26:09] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Personally, I was not surprised. I saw that this had happened in other areas. I think there was a famous example from a couple of years ago where the difference was half a million dollars. But I think that there's an idea that - in Seattle, we're so progressive, we're so liberal that this kind of thing doesn't happen here. And it does. And I think it's dangerous to think that it doesn't. I think that the Black community gets gaslighted a lot about these things when this is a really clear, very obvious example. But how many other times has this happened? Probably quite a bit. And it's really contributing to the wealth gap. And this is something that Black people have been saying for years has been happening. And it's just now starting to catch on. People are starting to catch on that this is a thing. And when I say people, I mean people who are not Black because they already know about this. But it's really starting to be something that's obvious, that's happening here, that's happening everywhere. And there's all of these little things that happen to maintain that wealth gap - because it's the appraisal value, it's also Black homeowners being targeted for mortgage takeovers by banks, by realty companies. This is not something that a lot of white homeowners deal with - I think in one of the articles, a parent had died. And so then they kept getting calls from different groups asking to buy the home for cash and asking to do some sort of weird backhand reverse mortgage and things like - there's a lot of predatory things out there aimed at Black people and Black homeowners that white homeowners don't deal with. And I'm glad to see KING5 do this story. It's awful that it's happening, but I think the public needs to know that this is something that's happening and that in progressive Seattle, we are not - by any stretch of the imagination - immune to things like this happening on a regular basis. [00:28:23] Crystal Fincher: We are not at all immune. It impacts us in so many ways. Just where we still deal with the legacy of redlining and where Black people in Black communities have been. And then as there is this new displacement happening - that kind of difference in home valuation can very much determine whether that family can afford to buy again in Seattle or be forced out of Seattle. This is just such a major problem and just another manifestation of it here. So yeah, unfortunately not something that I found surprising, but just still really infuriating all the same. And I just hope more people wake up to see what's happening and engage in how they can help make this community more inclusive and do the work that needs to be done because there is work that needs to be done. [00:29:15] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Absolutely. [00:29:17] Crystal Fincher: Other news this week - the Office of Police Accountability may have broken records laws in what - how they've been operating. What happened here? [00:29:29] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: So in this case, I believe Carolyn Bick from the Emerald had put in a public disclosure request for some emails. And what she got back from OPA was that they didn't retain it because they followed SPD's policy of record retention, which is different than the City's policy of record retention, which - they say they're part of SPD or they initially said they were a part of SPD, but they're not. They're not a law enforcement agency. They're a City agency. But I would like to point out one thing too - that the City's record retention policy is wild compared to other bigger entities. If you're a City employee, you're required to archive emails or communications that could be of public interest. So instead of automatically retaining everything and then deleting spam or needing this manual deletion, you have to manually save it. But what's in the public interest is huge. So there should be a default to be saving these things all the time. And of course, we've seen with other communications, like the mayor's texts or Carmen Best's texts, that absolutely those things should have been saved and they set them to delete instead. I think the argument here is about what is the record retention policy for OPA and it's just - it's just interesting that this is the Office of Police Accountability, but yet they're not accountable for their own record keeping. And then the City Attorney's Office said, we can't give you an answer to the question about, do they have SPD's retention policy or the City's retention policy? They said that calls for a legal opinion, so we can't give you one - which to me is just like, what do you do then? Isn't that your job - to make those determinations? So just another way that the Office of Police Accountability is - it's just an HR department for SPD. They just whitewash everything and put righteous complaints through a long bureaucratic process that they tell people to trust in, that ends at being a big old nothing - that even that process - that they can't keep correct records for. So it's shocking really just how much it is all the time that we're hearing about this stuff. [00:32:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's what is notable to me. It's just yet another thing from a body that is supposed to hold other entities accountable - and seems to have challenges doing that - just seeming to skirt accountability itself and being a hub of so much controversy. Just really makes you evaluate - what is the purpose, what is happening, what is going on? Are we doing more harm than good here? And it just seems like we don't ever receive answers, that there are very alarming things that happen. And the answers are to - well, we'll reshuffle some staff and we won't really address the substance of what happened. We'll just call it a day, wrap it up, put a stamp on it, and close it out. We just won't talk about it anymore. It's just - what is happening, why are we doing this? And jeez, if this is just going to be a farce, can we just save the money and do something else? Why are we investing in something that continues to break rules, and to seemingly break accountability processes? Just really confusing there. [00:33:30] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, very much so. [00:33:32] Crystal Fincher: Also really confusing this week - SDOT once again very quickly erased a crosswalk - a crossswalk that a community put up at a dangerous intersection, that is clearly an intersection where people are designed to cross - indicated by the curb cut and the ADA-compliant rumble strip. But it was a dangerous place to cross. It was a place where community had brought up concerns that had seemingly not been listened to or addressed. They decided, as has happened before in the City, to put up their own crosswalk to increase the safety of people who need to cross the street. And there are people who need to cross the street more safely. But once again, seemingly - within 24 hours, I think - SDOT appeared and took action, not based off of calls for increased safety and taking action to make this intersection more safe, but came and removed the paint creating the crosswalk, saying for reasons of safety and liability, they can't stand by and let the community paint a crosswalk, even if it is painted to standards. But they immediately removed it. And the new head of SDOT said, hey, we are trying to move in a new direction, but we can't. We'll never be comfortable with people painting their own crosswalks for liability reasons. And then receiving pushback from the community saying, we ask you to take action to make this more safe. You don't. People get killed on the street. People get run into and hurt. Our street designs are nearly exclusively car-centric in most of the City. So hey, neighbors took action to make the road safer for their neighbors, for kids who need to cross the street, for elderly people, disabled people who need to cross the street. And it just seems that the action comes when people take their own actions - [00:35:50] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Sometimes [00:35:51] Crystal Fincher: - to make the street safer. That will get resources out to remove it, but we don't seem to be wanting to deploy the resources necessary to make these intersections safer. How did you see this? [00:36:05] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, I applaud the effort of the community to make those streets safer. And I thought that the reasoning given - safety and liability - was thin. There's nothing about not having a crosswalk that makes it safer, obviously - that's what the community has been complaining about. And in terms of liability, it's always interesting to me that the liability that they're talking about is liability for a crosswalk that, "shouldn't be there," that they didn't sanction. But apparently there's no liability for people who are continually injured or killed in a place where the community has asked repeatedly for a crosswalk. And I think that it seems disingenuous to me. And yes, and it doesn't really mesh with the other things that they're talking about. So they can have someone come out and pressure wash off something that's supposed to be for community safety - like you said, for kids, for elders, for disabled people, for everyone - because we all walk if we're able. But the streets belong to everybody. But then they'll have someone come out and pressure wash this crosswalk off overnight. But at the same time, we have seen, for over a year, these ecoblocks, the big concrete blocks - that I think the most famous example of them is Councilmember Sara Nelson putting them around her business - so RVs, or people who are unfortunately having to live in their car, can't park near her business. Those are popping up all over the City now. And SDOT says, we're unwilling to pull people off safety projects to move those. But yet, they'll get someone out there overnight to erase something that's making public safety, but they won't do anything about these ecoblocks. And I think that's really another disingenuous argument, because there is more that they could be doing about that. There's ticketing. There's not just going and every day removing whatever's put there. There's a lot of things - there's fines, there's ticketing - that they could do to discourage this, and they're just not doing it. And to me, I think back to 2020 - when SPD built that ecoblock fort around the East Precinct and the West Precinct too. They built a little fort out of these City-owned ecoblocks around their precinct. And when there was things that ecoblocks were needed for, the City said, we don't have any more ecoblocks right now because they're being used for SPD's fort. And so now it seems like we have a glut of ecoblocks in the city - they're just everywhere. So I don't really understand where they're coming from. If they're not coming from SDOT, where are they coming from? And if they're not coming from SDOT and these are people buying ecoblocks and putting them there - on city streets - seems like it would be fairly advantageous for SDOT to go and pick them up. They're on public property. We didn't have enough of them before. Why not just collect them then? Or like I said, especially when they're on a private business, there's so much more the City could be doing about it. And obviously there's someone on the Council that does it. It's never been addressed. And it shakes, I think, people's faith and trust in City government and City agencies when they so clearly don't - their actions don't match up with what they're saying that they want to do. And so I expect more of these sort of crosswalks to pop up. And the community has been having these conversations with SDOT forever and nothing has happened. If this is what's moving the conversation forward, if this is what's creating safety - to me, that's the most important thing. People shouldn't be dying on the street. That's the most important thing. So whatever creates safety, whatever moves that conversation forward to protect people's lives, I think that's great that the community is doing that. I hope it pushes the conversation forward and really creates this infrastructure that we so desperately need. [00:40:45] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree. I think those ecoblocks - some people I've seen refer to them now as Nelson blocks since Councilmember Sara Nelson, despite seeming acknowledgement that they are illegal, continues to use and deploy them and exclude others from public space that they are entitled to be in. And that just does not seem to be a priority, like some other things in this community that seemingly have lower costs or impacts. But just, yeah, that the responses don't seem to make sense. The interventions don't seem to be consistent. And I would really like to hear a coherent and consistent approach to safety in Seattle. Or at least start by understanding and acknowledging that what is happening is unacceptable. And instead of running to defend - and I understand that there are concerns about liability, that is a fact - but we do need to expand the conversation to - let's be not just concerned about getting sued, let's be concerned about one of the residents in the City, that we're responsible for, being killed. Because that is happening. And what are we doing to mitigate against that risk? - is really the bottom-line question I think people want some better answers to. [00:42:12] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, and they deserve them. [00:42:14] Crystal Fincher: They do. Another activity that maybe deserves - some Capitol Hill tenants are suing some landlords. What's happening here? [00:42:22] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: So they are suing - there's, I don't know if people know this, but there are a few corporations, big housing corporations that own a lot of the housing in Capitol Hill and all around Seattle. And so many of them have started using an algorithm, through a company called RealPage, that collects all the information about whatever the company-owned property is, but then also all of the surrounding properties - to raise rents. So to tell landlords the maximum asking price that they can have for rent, based on what's going on around the city, around the neighborhood, from all this data from other places. And it's caused a lot of - and it's something that these big companies can hide behind for rental hikes too - they say, oh, a computer algorithm sets our rental prices and this is what it's set as. And RealPage CEOs have been very open about saying this is more than most landlords could ask for - I wouldn't feel comfortable as a human being asking for this rent, but it's set by a computer, so I can't do anything about it. And it's really caused rents around Seattle and Capitol Hill to skyrocket. There's many factors that go into skyrocketing rents, but this is absolutely one of them. And so the lawsuit is alleging illegal price fixing by these tenants, or by these landlords. And they're not the small mom-and-pop landlords that we're talking about. We're talking about the big housing conglomerates that own so much of our rental housing here in Seattle. And it alleges that it's basically illegal price fixing by having all of these groups that just continuously raise the rent - at the same time, along the same lines - and it's driving up prices everywhere. And I'm very happy to see this lawsuit personally. Rents are out of control in Seattle, and some of that is tied to supply, obviously. Obviously, there's no doubt about that. But what we don't need is businesses taking advantage of data aggregation to make rents go higher and higher and higher. And what I hear sometimes is - the market supports this. And I think that's a really misguided argument. People need housing. It's very, very dangerous to live on the street. Nobody's living on the street because that's a good time. No one's having an urban camping vacation out there in the middle of November. People don't want to live on the street. Housing - like food, like water - is something that we all need. So just because the market supports it doesn't mean it's affordable or good for the rest of the city. When people are paying 50% or 60% of their income to rent, that hurts everyone. That makes it - as food prices go up, as rent goes up, we have people that have to lean on social services. They have to go without things that are - really, it's a detriment to our entire community. So I'm very happy to see this lawsuit. Anything we can do to bring rents down and rebalance the - there's never going to be a full balance between landlord and tenant, obviously, but there needs to be some sort of rebalancing that's going on to make it so people can actually afford to live in this city. [00:46:01] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We still have areas in the state where people's rent can double. We still have areas just - where we are displacing people in the name of profit. And this is an essential need. This is something that people need to survive. We are seeing an explosion in homelessness because people cannot afford a place to live. Fundamental causes of homelessness are the inability to afford rent. People try and blame - people dealing with substance use disorder or people with mental illnesses - and those are issues and often become worse issues after someone is out on the streets because that is such a rough environment. But the biggest contributor is the inability to pay rent. And that's why we see other areas that have higher instances of people dealing with substance abuse, higher instances of people dealing with those issues - that don't have the degree of homelessness that we do in areas like Seattle, where things are just simply so unaffordable for so many. So we absolutely need to do that. To your point, we need more supply and action - to get more supply is great, but we aren't going to fully address this issue until we bring this landlord and renter situation into greater balance, until there are more rent controls, renter protections in place. That is also a necessary piece of this scenario. And taking this action is necessary - what we've seen has been predatory and has contributed to homelessness. And if we don't get a handle on this, we're not going to get more people housed anywhere around here. So I think this is a justified action. I think that - no, we actually need to stand up and say, you are not entitled to ever-escalating and increasing profits on the backs of people who are providing valuable services and who are valuable people in our communities. We just can't allow that to happen. It's not that - no one can make a profit, right? It's not that we're outlawing being able to be a landlord. But there are responsibilities that should come with that. This is not just a great area for profit and speculation. You're dealing with people in their housing, you're dealing with families in their housing. And there should be a greater amount of care and responsibility that we demand from that. So I am also happy to see this happening. [00:48:55] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah. I also think it's important to realize that when there are so many housing - when there are so many landlords and companies raising these rents - like you said, they are also causing homelessness. These rising prices cause homelessness. So what is actually happening is they are externalizing the cost of homelessness to the community while they make ever greater profits. And as I really like to point out - that this is to the detriment of everyone. So it is the community that is paying for them to make ever greater profits. And that's what we're really talking about. It's not just, people should be able to make money - of course they should be able to make money - but this is something that you can't ignore. This is not like an expensive handbag. People need shelter. And so when we are talking about those things, there will be a community cost if those things aren't brought back in line. And it's important to recognize that the market can't fix all of this. There has to be something else when it comes to things that people - that are basic human needs. And I like the idea that housing is a human right. We need it. We can't live without it. And I think that more and more people are getting behind the idea of that - that housing is a human right, that we all deserve the dignity of living in a home. But I also hope people realize that it is these profiteering landlords that are externalizing the cost of their profits to the community. So yeah, I welcome this too. It's hopeful. [00:50:45] Crystal Fincher: It is. And the last thing we'll cover today - there was a story by Melissa Santos in Axios talking about the State Democratic Party Chair under fire for being a staunch defender of Democrats Steve Hobbs, and really discouraging and going after folks who endorsed non-partisan Julie Anderson and her race against Democrat Steve Hobbs for Secretary of State. You have Joe Fitzgibbon, who chairs the House Democrats Campaign Committee, saying that Tina made threats about withholding resources from Washington House candidates because Democratic House Speaker Laurie Jinkins supported the non-partisan candidate instead of the Democrat. And then you have folks - Tina Podlodowski, certainly, but also others saying that - hey, this is what happens in the Democratic Party. Either you back Democrats or you're not. You're free to support who you want, but not within the Democratic Party. How did you see this? [00:51:58] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I thought this was a kind of a nothing, really. She's the Chair of the Democratic Party. Think whatever you want about Democrats - the job of the chair of the Democratic Party - there's many things to it, but pushing forward Democrat candidates, Democratic candidates, and a Democratic agenda is what she does. And I was really surprised - the headline of the article, which I know is not written by the journalist, said something about "alleged threats," which makes it sound so much more intense than it was - I think that it's - we really need to get serious about politics and about what we're doing. Republicans are on board with just voting for whoever has an R by their name, and that's something that Democrats haven't necessarily been doing. They've been trying to do that, but they haven't necessarily done it. But to think that the Chair of the Democratic Party is not going to try to push hard for Democratic candidates - I just thought was ridiculous, really. It just seemed like an absurd story. I have a limited - I had a limited experience with politics, but from what I experienced - this was nothing. This was really not much compared to what actually goes on in politics. To me, this just seems like she's trying to get Democratic candidates in there, which is what she's doing, that's what she's supposed to be doing. So I thought it was a kind of a weird story - the way it was framed, the choice of using the word "threat" without really talking about, until much later in the story, about what those "threats" really were - which were not direct, and which were about using Democratic Party funds and resources. And those are things that she's responsible for. I just really thought it was a kind of a nothing of a story, really. [00:54:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think what made it a story was that you had a House leader making these accusations directly, and that's something that we don't really see that often. And I think just the - I think it is largely to be expected that a Democratic Party Chair is not going to be happy with the endorsement of a Democrat. I think what caused more of the question is not just saying, hey, Joe Fitzgibbon or Laurie Jinkins, you took this action, and therefore I'm not happy with this - with you - and maybe not supporting you, but the extension to Democratic candidates overall across the state, potentially, because of that. Which Tina Podlodowski and her team said wasn't serious and was par for the course, after being confronted with the existence of them, after I think initially saying that nothing was said. But then, I think this is interesting - not necessarily for this instance - although I do think there's a healthy conversation to be had about is holding the support of unrelated candidates fair play or not. But also just because it does talk about - in this instance, we're talking about a nonpartisan - some of these issues become very simple if we're talking about Republicans. They become a little more complicated when we talk about nonpartisans, when we talk about - especially in the Seattle area - folks from the DSA or People's Party, who may not label themselves as Democrats, but may be aligned on values. And so, is the Democratic Party a party of a label where just the - vote blue, no matter who - if they have a D by their name, great. Or is it a party of principles underneath that label, and you're more searching for someone who adheres to those principles, which may be someone who doesn't necessarily identify as a Democrat. I think that this conversation has been happening within local party organizations for a while, and different LPOs [Local Party Organizations] have come up with different stances themselves. Some are fine with endorsing folks outside of the party if they align on values, and others are very not fine with that. I think we see where Tina Podlodowski and the State Party is on that. But it is, it's not a straightforward equation. Because you do have these resources for the - it is the Democratic Party - doesn't prevent anyone from aligning with another party in doing that. Although that's a flip remark - if you're a Democrat or if you're a Republican, that alignment comes with significant resources that are available or not available with that. So I think, especially with those resources at stake, especially with candidates who may not be affiliated, I understand where people paused and said, wait, what is going on here? But I do think there's a bigger conversation to be had just within the party about - is it about a label? Is it not? Usually that's a much simpler equation when you get to a general election in a partisan race, but we had a situation with a nonpartisan running. And in Seattle - in city council races and other local races, we have situations where non-Democrats run, who are in the same place or further to the left of Democrats. So it just really depends here. But I think there is further exploration and conversation that needs to happen about this, even on the local level. [00:58:21] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, I think that's - those are all really good points. And I guess, when I was running, I saw people in the LDs going hard for Nikkita Oliver, who didn't identify as a Democrat. And a lot of non-endorsements of Sara Nelson, for instance, who was a Democrat. And to me, it seemed like there was robust conversation in the LDs and they did not all agree. And they did not all do the same thing. And I - yeah, I think there is room for conversation about that. To me, it just - I get a little bit - it seems very - what am I trying to think of? What am I trying to think of when something's pot-kettle-type thing - like the right does this stuff constantly. And there's a total double standard when it comes to liberals, Democrats, progressives, the left. And I ran in a race where my opponent was not nonpartisan, but presented themselves that way. And it's hard to know, as a voter, what you're truly looking at. And so I wish - yeah, I think there - I definitely agree there needs to be a more robust conversation. At the same time, I think the Chair of the Democratic Party should probably be - whoever the Democratic Party has endorsed would be like someone that they would be pushing forward. But yeah, it does get really murky. And you're right, it comes with a lot of resources and access to voter databases and things like that - that has been shared with some groups and not others. There is - it isn't a straightforward situation, like it is with the right, where it's just - he's the nominee, so that's who we vote for - which is also breaking down on the right, it seems like, because they seem like they maybe took that too far. But there's a lot of nuanced conversation that needs to take place. [01:00:28] Crystal Fincher: And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, November 18, 2022. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co host today is defense attorney, abolitionist and activist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. You can find Nicole on Twitter @NTKallday - that's NTK-A-L-L-D-A-Y. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch 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 shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. Please leave us 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. [01:01:19] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Thanks for having me - this was great.

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We Are Vineyard - Experiential Worship

worship vineyard experiential ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 6, 2022 42:36

In this week's teaching in our "We Are Vineyard" series, Ed Murray explores the Vineyard distinctive of "Experiential Worship". Listen in!

2022 New York State Budget Advocacy – A Discussion with City Bar Committee Members

New York City Bar Association Podcasts -NYC Bar

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2022 47:41

Elizabeth Kocienda, New York City Bar Director of Advocacy, speaks with three City Bar members about issues that they advocated to include in the New York State Budget. Lisa Pearlstein, Betsy Kramer, and Ed Murray discuss the work that they did through their City Bar Committees to bridge the digital divide for New Yorkers living in shelters; increase funding for representation of parents and children in family court and matrimonial proceedings; and reform the Joint Commission on Public Ethics. Find more resources, including those mentioned in this podcast, by using this link: https://bit.ly/3kSGIwf

advocacy committee new york state new yorkers state budgets joint commission public ethics ed murray city bar

Ep. 16. Sculptural & fluid architecture

DESIGN POD

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 19, 2022 34:43

Ed Murray is an accomplished associate and architect who has led a wide range of projects for independent owners and international brands across the entire hospitality spectrum, including luxury hotels, banqueting and conference venues, resorts & spas. The latest of which is Westin London City, which he and his team are working on renovating a history-riddled property elsewhere in London. For this episode of DESIGN POD, sponsored by Minotti London, Murrary joins Hamish Kilburn and co-host Harriet Forde to discuss fluid architecture – as well as what modern studio life looks and feels like at Dexter Moren Associates. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Project Bible - Spiritual Beings

bible project vineyard spiritual beings ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 2, 2022 41:03

Join us this week as we welcome a guest speaker, Ed Murray, for the next teaching in our Project Bible series, exploring Spiritual Beings. Ed is a life group leader and part of the worship team here at the Vineyard. The "Spiritual Beings" video referenced in the teaching can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/cBxOZqtGTXE

Week In Review: February 25, 2022

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 26, 2022 52:26

For the last week-in-review of February, Crystal is joined by Executive Director of America Walks and former mayor of Seattle, Mike McGinn. They discuss why the plan to hire more officers to address public safety is impossible in the short term and Plan B is needed to keep people safe now, how local officials can impact a Union strike, the disappointing new legislative staff unionization bill, the high cost sprawl and impact of not allowing people to live close to where they work, and how cities can raise more revenue from increased density. 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 “Police Sweep Troubled Little Saigon Intersection, Retirement Incentives Could Thwart SPD Hiring Plans, City Still Plans Sidewalk Sweep” by Paul Kiefer and Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/02/22/police-sweep-troubled-little-saigon-intersection-retirement-incentives-could-thwart-spd-hiring-plans-city-still-plans-sidewalk-sweep/ “Cold-Weather Shelter Plan Illustrates Challenges With Proposals to Eliminate Encampments Downtown” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/02/22/cold-weather-shelter-plan-illustrates-challenges-with-proposals-to-eliminate-encampments-downtown/ “Concrete Companies Stonewall Negotiations with Striking Truck Drivers, Threatening Cascading Construction Delays” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/02/24/concrete-companies-stonewall-negotiations-with-striking-truck-drivers-threatening-cascading-construction-delays/ “King County Announces Request for Qualifications for Contract at Same Time Teamsters Bargaining Committee Shows Up At Companies' Doorsteps To Negotiate” from The International Brotherhood of Teamsters: https://teamster.org/2022/02/king-county-announces-request-for-qualifications-for-concrete-contracts-at-same-time-teamsters-bargaining-committee-shows-up-at-companies-doorstep-to-negotiate/ Twitter Thread on Staff Unionization Bill by Nikkole Hughes: https://twitter.com/NikkoleHughes/status/1496232372605710336 “Nobody Knows the Number of Seattle Small Businesses at Risk of Eviction Starting Next Week” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/02/24/67269130/nobody-knows-the-number-of-seattle-small-businesses-at-risk-of-eviction-starting-next-week The Seattle City Council Let the Eviction Moratorium End by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/02/22/67197191/the-seattle-city-council-let-the-eviction-moratorium-end Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, 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 with our 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, the excellent Mike McGinn. [00:00:57] Mike McGinn: Thank you, Crystal. Glad to be here as always. [00:01:00] Crystal Fincher: Glad you are here. Now, there's a lot going on in the world. [00:01:05] Mike McGinn: Yes. [00:01:05] Crystal Fincher: We tend to focus on local politics and policy - there are a lot of people talking about stuff at the federal level. Certainly right now, there's so much going on throughout the country and internationally with Russia invading Ukraine, trans rights under attack viciously in Texas and beyond - just a lot of news all over the place. I just want to acknowledge that as we start out. And there's lots of information, and coverage, and punditry that can be found about all of that. Our little slice of experience is here in the state of Washington and King County, so we're going to focus on that, but I certainly do want to acknowledge that that is weighing heavily on the minds of a lot of us here and hopefully better news will come soon. With that, I guess I will start out this conversation talking about policing in Seattle. There's a lot of news that came out this week - talking about the plans for the staffing levels, there have been a number of encampment sweeps, and also a police precinct put in the CID [Chinatown International District] and more of a hotspot policing focus that they have there. So as you look at what's happened over this week, what are your thoughts, Mike? [00:02:34] Mike McGinn: Well, I think one of the things that we knew, but I don't see that the media has really picked up on this yet - the response of the last two mayors and now Mayor Harrell as well, and it predates them as well. When I took office in 2009, Greg Nickels had shepherded through the neighborhood policing plan and - that's what it was called - and all of these had the central thing of hire more officers, right? And it's very appealing - it feels quite logical to the public. Okay, we have crime - what we need is more police officers. And what we've seen over the last number of years is that the police department is losing officers much faster than it can replace them. So this week in City Council, the report showed that they hope to hire 125 new officers, and hiring takes time - they have to go through a state training academy. There's a special class being set up for Seattle recruits, or rather recruits to the Seattle Police Department, that might come from all over the state or beyond. And even so, even with this new emphasis, they are predicting that they will add 125 officers in the coming year, but they're also predicting that they will lose 125 officers in the coming year. So this is my thing - this is what I think the media should be focusing on, which is if you're going to report that somebody's solution is more officers, you have to include that that's not going to happen anytime soon, right? We're not going to increase the size of the police force in the next year, perhaps two years. Who knows when they can actually reverse that attrition that's occurring? So if your solution to crime is we're going to get more officers and more officers will deter crime - if that's your plan, you don't have a plan because you can't hire that many officers. So you have to have a Plan B. And the Plan B has to be an emphasis on other ways to fight crime rather than more officers. And when Bruce Harrell stood up and did a press conference in response to the very serious public concerns and the media concerns about increases in violent crime, increases in shots fired - basically, what we heard was hotspot policing and more officers. We didn't hear any of the other ways in which City government can put - I mean, I shouldn't say we didn't hear any - of course, he spoke about the need for that, but I didn't hear announced the programs or the new investments or the initiatives to look at what are the sources of the crime and how can you intervene? And this is not - it doesn't have to be long-term stuff. I mean, what the data is showing - that the victims of murders are mostly young Black men, right? We have had youth violence prevention initiatives in this City - they can be expanded, they can be made more effective. We have had partners with community groups on the formerly incarcerated returning to the community. We've done these things. We have ways of getting at this that requires reaching out to all of the skills and talents and abilities of the community as a whole and not immediately going towards a punitive approach. I'm talking now about the mayor not really announcing a new plan, but I'm also not hearing the City Council go here. I think too many folks - we've kind of gotten in the habit from the progressive side of when people talk about crime saying, "Well, it's not as bad as it was 20 years ago." And it isn't. It is not as bad. But it is a real concern, it is increasing. There are people who are literally in the crosshairs of this crisis of public safety, and I don't think that's an answer. So I really think that the more progressive politicians should be coming in and saying, "We've tried making the size of the police department almost half the City budget, and it really hasn't worked." How about we put that same level of emphasis and approach on the programs that we know work - there's national studies, there's plenty of data. There's studies out there that show the number of community groups in a neighborhood is related to reductions in crime. These programs work. There's tons of data that these programs can work. [00:07:38] Crystal Fincher: Tons of data. [00:07:38] Mike McGinn: But we've never resourced them. We've never resourced them the way we resource police officers, and we have to do that. So this issue of crime is serious, the violence is serious, the shots fired is serious - and we need a serious response. And honestly, saying more police officers right now - that's not a serious response. That's just pandering because their own predictions say they were not going to be able to increase the size of the force in the coming year. Sorry, I'm kind of passionate about this, but this is a real thing. And communities and people are suffering - and just pandering to more police officers as a solution is not a solution. [00:08:23] Crystal Fincher: Well, yeah - it's not a solution. We have to get beyond rhetoric to actually what are the policy differences? What procedures are going to change? What staffing levels are going to change? What is the substance that is changing? And we do hear so much about staffing and it seems like a number of both elected folks and folks in the media just kind of focus on that one metric. Kind of like with COVID, people only talk about deaths - and wow, there's long COVID, there's chronic illness and disability. There's so much more to consider besides just if someone's dying. There's so much more to consider than just the staffing level, whether it's more or less. And with that, even if the, "Hey, everybody's on board. Let's hire more officers," - to your point, we can't do that. There cannot be more on the street for quite some time - even if they're in the pipeline, it takes a while for them to get through that pipeline. So it is absolutely true that crime is both lower and too high. We don't want - people are justifiably concerned. This pandemic has taken such a toll on so many people in so many ways - from road rage to some of the random nonsensical violence - that we've seen are wild. [00:09:56] Mike McGinn: Domestic violence. [00:09:57] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Domestic violence has skyrocketed. [00:09:58] Mike McGinn: Absolutely. We look at these things and there's not going to be a police officer in place to prevent that. There are things that are beyond the reach of the police as well. It's the community-level interventions and the non-police responses that we need to be focusing on as well. And I want to be clear - from my experience as mayor, good policing can make a difference, right? If there's catalytic converter thefts, then let's try to figure out how that's happening and how to thwart that. And that's a combination of detective work, maybe some undercover work, detecting patterns, doing what's necessary. I saw this during my term - if there was burglary issue in a place, the police could use their resources to try to deal with that. So effective policing can make a difference. I also think an officer walking a beat in a place where people feel unsafe can make a difference in making people feel safer and maybe preventing some things. But let's not make believe that that alone can solve it. And certainly the punitive approach, the longterm punitive approach that we have tried, it just hasn't worked. It just hasn't worked. We had more people in jail. People get arrested multiple times and recycle through the system, come out again. And it breeds, as we know with places that have followed stop and frisk tactics and the like - it leads to violence in its own right, and escalation and lack of safety for individuals subject to that treatment, as well as building horrible distrust between the community and the police. So there's bad policing and there's good policing. But I do think that good policing obviously can help with fighting crime. But it can't do it alone and never has. It requires partnership with the community to get at root sources. I want to say this isn't long-term stuff either - it isn't like, "Oh, if we have a better educational system, we have fewer criminals." Yeah, that's true. But we can identify right now - I'm sure there are people in the community, I'm sure there are people working in the community right now who, if we said, "If we give you some more money to target some programs to the people who are most at risk, can you do that?" And we could, and it would make a difference within months. It could make a difference immediately. It could make a difference in a day if that person is reached and is put in a different position than they are in now. So it can be done. And it can be done a hell a lot quicker than trying to increase the size of the police force, which is going to continue to see attrition and continue to have hiring difficulties. [00:12:56] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it can be done more effectively than it looks like the iteration of this hotspot policing effort, which has been covered in a number of outlets - PubliCola wrote a story, KING 5 also wrote a story just about encampment sweeps not getting people off the street. Some of those sweeps are happening without any offer of services - if they declare it to be an emergency or a particular health hazard, no attempt at making any connection to services is necessary and that has happened with some of these - these are just sweeps, nothing additional. In other cases, they're offering shelter for the night as part of the sweeps. When they say they're offering services, that was the service offered. That does nothing to get someone off the street. All it does is put them further back and that now they have no belongings, no stability. And they just move elsewhere in the City. So what in fact ends up happening, and PubliCola also got at this in their article, was the folks who were on the block that the police are - there's six policemen in this area, a mobile unit. So yeah, they moved off of that block, but they just went into adjoining neighborhoods. So PubliCola talked to some of the folks in the adjoining neighborhoods and they said, "Yes, they came over here. We're seeing them over here. It's just musical chairs." And unless if we're talking about homelessness, we include permanent housing that people can get into. And in the case of trying to address crime, is that actually making a difference in violent crime? It was just close to one of these hotspot places - there was just a shooting the other day. So are we really doing the smartest intervention, to your point? Would these resources be better used in more detective capacities and trying to get to the origin and the root cause of the crime or who are the people really behind this? We seem to be moving further away from that. SPD moved resources out of specialized units, senior abuse units, domestic violence units to patrols on the street. [00:15:24] Mike McGinn: I mean, it's a very difficult situation when you are faced with a declining number of resources and you have to start making choices about what to do with that. I think that then requires - you've got to start looking, "Well, what other resources do we have in the City beyond the police department? Who else is out there that can help? What roles can they pick up?" These aren't flip of the switch type of things, right? These are management level decisions about aligning people towards programs. There are good people in city government who want to get rolling. And I don't want to be - I critiqued Mayor Harrell for, in my opinion, not announcing new initiatives on this, but I have hope for Mayor Harrell in this regard. I mean, my memory - his strategic advisor or strategic initiative advisor or whatever his title is - is the guy who brought forward the anti-panhandling statute. But Mayor Harrell cast the deciding vote against it that enabled me to veto that statute and prevent it from becoming law. And he did so because he read the Human Rights Commission report on that and what it would mean for that type of enforcement to be brought against homeless people or people panhandling on the street. So I feel that Mayor Harrell - I had a sense of where his feelings are, and I think he now has a very significant management job to realign City resources towards a more humane approach and not respond to the demands of the business community which is very much a believer - there are portions of the business community that are supportive of various human services and social services. They're engaged in that. But the overwhelming demand from that sector right now is, "Well, we need to move the homeless out of the core. We need to have more police officers on the street." And it's just not a plan that's going to lead to much success. What Mayor Harrell should be asking himself is - a year from now, does he want to be standing up at a press conference saying, "The solution is more police officers. And in the meantime, what have I done?" Or does he want to stand up and say, "Well, these are the programs we've lifted up. These are the people we're serving. These are the outcomes we're seeing"? So I guess I'd appeal to both Mayor Harrell's sense of compassion and sense of concern for the community in this - I've seen it. And to his own political wellbeing, that this is a place for leadership, this is a place for leadership - and a very hard issue. But sitting tight, it's not going to be a good press conference a year from now with sitting tight with just more officers is going to be the answer one day. [00:18:31] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree. I also want to talk about a couple of occurrences this week in union strikes that we've seen. [00:18:41] Mike McGinn: Yeah. [00:18:42] Crystal Fincher: Or unionization - one including a strike. One is with the concrete workers. Concrete companies are negotiating with striking truck drivers - that has been going on for quite some time. And the companies have actually been stalling somewhat - they've been slow and hesitant to come back to the table, they're now asking for a new mediator - they seem to be using a number of stalling tactics and not being in a rush. Meanwhile, local elected officials Mayor Harrell, Executive Constantine, have been vocal in talking about needing to get back to work, this potentially delaying a number of projects including the West Seattle Bridge, other projects downtown, continually reinforcing the need to get to work. And it's interesting how this plays out and that if concrete companies are stalling, workers have a proposal that they feel like they're trying to work through and negotiate and the company just isn't participating in those conversations, then you have elected officials putting pressure on just to get this done with and get back to work and it's going to be late. That actually has the result of pressuring the union, pressuring workers, to just make concessions and settle for things that may not be fair, that are certainly less than they're asking for that are kind of falling by the wayside - because if the concrete companies can just run the clock out with no penalty and rely on others to do the pressuring, and try to get public opinion to just get this over with so we can get moving, that really is putting the workers in potentially a really unfair and unpleasant spot. If the company isn't coming back to the table and making any differences in their proposals, the only way that can happen is if the union workers just decide to give up. That doesn't seem like that is where a lot of people in this community are aligned, it doesn't seem like that might be the healthiest thing for supporting the autonomy and authority of unions to negotiate in good faith with companies. This is a situation where we had a previous co-host, Julie McCoy, refer to you handling this when you were mayor and faced with a strike. How did you decide to approach this kind of situation when you were in office? [00:21:27] Mike McGinn: Well, just first to comment, you're referring to a press conference. And one of the things that stood out to me about that press conference was that the person who's building the Convention Center downtown was one of the people at the press conference urging action. Yeah, and as you may remember the Convention Center - I think it's up to $1.7 Billion project, paid for with taxes. The County had to come forward in an unusual move and guarantee loans for it so that it could continue going. Harking back to the prior issue, it's clearly the County and the City were feeling the pressure from those interests to do something, so that's what you saw. So it is interesting that there are times when people are called upon to take sides. And it's challenging to take sides in a union dispute. But if you can, if you can come in and lean in a good way, you should. We had a garbage lockout that was occurring. So we had contracts with companies to collect our garbage and recycling. I have to say, I can't quite remember which contract it was now - I think it was garbage. And they were going to fly in people to drive the trucks, because they were going to lock out the workers because they didn't have a contract. It turned out that our public utilities had wisely put a clause into their agreement, which said that if there was any failure to collect the garbage, there would be fines depending on how much garbage they failed to collect - a strike wasn't an excuse, or a lockout wasn't an excuse, to not pay the fines. So we held a press conference and said we were going to - we announced this, said how it worked, said that we were going to fine the companies if they didn't collect the garbage. I remember we asked people to tweet their uncollected garbage with some type of clever hashtag - I wish I could remember it now - but we had the clever hashtag. I think it was pretty darn quickly the garbage company settled because we had leverage and we used it. So that would be one of my questions, and I'm not smart enough or knowledgeable enough about the situation to know what leverage the County or City might have to help get the companies to the bargaining table, or lean in a little more on the side of workers. But that would be the first question is - what leverage do they have? And we were fortunate. We were fortunate that we had a contract that had really good leverage and we chose to use it. By the way, when they settled, they called me up and they asked if - actually, I heard from the head of the utility - they contacted me and he said, "This is great. They've settled. They're going to get back to work. And as a sign of good faith they've asked you to cancel the fines for all the garbage that went uncollected while they were bringing in the scabs." And I was like, "No, they need to pay the fines, man. They were holding the whole City hostage with the idea that there'd be stinky garbage. They need to pay the fines." So they did, they paid a fine too. And again, we had the leverage, we used it, and we made it clear that we would use it. So hopefully that'd be a deterrent in the future as well. [00:25:02] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I hope so. And just the awareness that the actions that they take do impact the process and that they can either help or hurt workers, applying this leverage does have an impact for the concrete companies or the union, and understanding that the actions that they take have come consequences. [00:25:28] Mike McGinn: I had another example where I leaned in on that. It was during the 2013 re-election campaign - it became quite controversial, but there was a company - there was a developer that was redeveloping a site and they were asking the City to turn over the alley. [00:25:44] Crystal Fincher: That's right. That street - [00:25:46] Mike McGinn: Right. It's called a street vacation. [00:25:49] Crystal Fincher: Vacation. [00:25:49] Mike McGinn: In essence, they're asking the City to sell them property so that they can develop the whole block and not have to keep the alley in place. And we recommended to the City Council that they not do that. And that was at the urging of the grocery store workers, because they're like they're going to bring - they plan to bring in a Whole Foods, which was a non-union grocery. And I went and listened to the workers and there - the point they made was when you facilitate a non-union grocery, that puts downward pressure on our wages and makes it more likely that our grocery store will suffer. So there were lots of grocery stores in this neighborhood that were unionized, and here was going to come a non-union grocery. And I was like, "Yeah, we don't need to sell more property." It was kind of interesting because the business community was like, "You can't use land use laws to favor unions." And my response to them was, "This isn't a land use law. This is our property. This is City property. We get to sell it to whoever we want to, for whatever reason we want to. And I don't want to sell it to a company that's non-union and that's going to hurt our union workers. So you guys are conservatives, you believe in property rights, right? Well, there's the City using its property rights. We don't want to sell it to you. We don't have to." So it was interesting - it wasn't portrayed that way. They thought it was a slippery slope to me using land use laws in some way, but it was actually a deeply conservative action we were taking. We get to choose who we sell it to, and that was that. Now, it turned out I lost that re-election campaign, a relatively close campaign, and Ed Murray pushed that one through with the support of the Council and that property was sold. [00:27:35] Crystal Fincher: It's such a good lesson to so many of us in this area watching that and understanding that the City has so much power that goes unused. The City has so much leverage that routinely goes unused. The way that was framed was so interesting because it was - well, you're just trying to help workers, you're trying to create an unfair advantage. And with completely not acknowledging that we do that for companies, corporations daily. [00:28:06] Mike McGinn: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We did too, we did too. If you are crossing the West Seattle Bridge, if you look down, you'll see a really beautiful office building right next to the Duwamish waterway. Well, under the industrial rules - and it's the office building which is the headquarters for a tugboat company - well, under the land use laws at the time, you couldn't have an office of that size in the industrial area because the industrial interests didn't want industrial land taken over by offices. But tugboat company is different - we changed the law. We did that for that company. And that was the right thing to do to make it easy for the tugboat company to have its offices next to its tugboats in the industrial area. We did stuff like that all the time - we would look at what rules we have in place to try to facilitate business. I think it's appropriate to see where you can use that to help workers as well in that process. You don't have as many as you think though sometimes - like there are - if the development rules say you can build a hotel, and this is I think always a big challenge for the hotel workers, it can be very hard to stop a hotel because they can go to court and say, "Look, we're following the rules. We're allowed to build a hotel and there's nothing there." And that's why you tended to see the purchase of City property - the alley vacations become a tool because that was a leverage point that the City had. But there are other leverage points as well, there are other leverage points, and sometimes it's just soft power as well as showing up and standing with workers somewhere can make a difference too. [00:29:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Absolutely. [00:29:55] Mike McGinn: Yeah. [00:29:55] Crystal Fincher: So we'll see how that turns out. There's also - was a new development in an issue we talked about last week in the legislature, with the bill that had originally died that allowed legislative staff to unionize, which had a lot of support from Democratic lawmakers. Unfortunately, it didn't go through - there was rhetoric saying that it wasn't quite ready, even though evidently there has been some iteration of this since 2012. They were saying there just wasn't time, it's going to take one more year. A few legislators had been pinpointed as specifically opposing it and being problematic and preventing it from reaching the floor for a vote from the full legislative, the full House. But it turns out this week, they weren't actually bound by a deadline that they couldn't get past and a new bill was introduced. Who'd have thunk? Maybe the deadlines don't mean as much as people initially thought - that's one of, actually, my big lessons that I've learned over the years with the legislatures - the rules are flexible. [00:31:13] Mike McGinn: They make the rules. They're allowed to change the rules. [00:31:15] Crystal Fincher: Yes. And do routinely. And then at other times they're like, "Well, these are the rules we have, we have no power." The rules say this and that's just that, which it seemed like that was Plan A, and then there was a lot of pushback from - just kind of broadly across the political, policy, nonprofit labor and worker spectrum. And gaining a lot of attention even outside of Washington State. So a new bill was introduced to allow - new bill was introduced, it was dropped initially without language at first. So it's like, "Oh, hey. Maybe this is going to be a good thing, maybe they're going for it after all." When the full text of the bill did drop, it was revealed to be a massive problem. This bill actually doesn't reflect the prior bill in that it would basically enable staff to unionize in the traditional manner on their terms. This basically established a committee or a commission that would study this, and charter a study to take a look at all the special circumstances of the legislature and the work, and talk about who should be able to unionize and who shouldn't, and what should be able to be collectively bargained and what can't, and also prevented any employees from being covered by a union until mid 2025. That's a long time. And certainly not consistent with the next year rhetoric that we were hearing. And also just seems to put a lot of limitations and set this process up to say, "Well, we might create a grievance process for you and that should take care of a lot of your concerns. But wow, there are so many problems with the idea of a union that we just would have to figure out and get around." That's going to continue to be really hard and just continue to kick the can down the road. So I don't know if this is going to go much of anywhere - it certainly should not - kind of fell really flat with a thud. And it just actually made the situation look worse, and that there actually seems to be some real significant anti-union sentiment from some of these legislators working on these bills. I think one of the co-sponsors, Representative Riccelli, wanted to do something helpful and he was working with some people to craft this bill that did not have the same kind of motivation or pure intentions, purity of intentions. And this was the result of it. But certainly just another disappointment in this whole process. And really goes to the issue of trust - is this something that you actually do want to get done, looking at the text of this? Is this a priority for people? And it just seems to be a big question mark. [00:34:26] Mike McGinn: It's not surprising - when I was but a young man, I went to work for a congressman and this was 1983. One of the things you learned was that Congress had exempted itself from pretty much every workplace law. It'd be really interesting to see - now at the time, members of Congress could retire and convert their campaign funds to personal use at that point. It became their money. So there were all sorts of laws and that one changed. I don't know the degree to which other laws have changed, but it is just not surprising that the body that makes the rules may not want it to apply to them either. So we just see that - I don't think FOIA applies to Congress, I don't think OSHA applied to Congress, there was all sorts of things that just didn't apply. So that's challenging. Now, of course, the flip side of that is that the unions and it goes back to our prior discussion - with the loss of decline in the union membership across the number of workers covered by unions, the public sector and government sector has become an extremely important place for unions as well as the people that do business with government, as we were discussing earlier. Again, in 1983, the Speaker of the House was Tip O'Neill and it had been a Democratic Congress for a hell of a long time - these are the people that are most ideologically aligned, but it's a wholly different thing to apply it to their own offices. [00:36:13] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and that's what matters most actually. That's where you actually see what someone's values are - is how they handle those situations when it does impact them and affect them. I hope they do better. I also want to talk about - back to Seattle and the Seattle area news this week - that housing prices have, continue to skyrocket. And also that the eviction moratorium is ending. [00:36:43] Mike McGinn: Yeah. [00:36:44] Crystal Fincher: What did you read on that this week? [00:36:49] Mike McGinn: There's so many reasons why we are where we are on housing, right? One is an inequality question - just with the rise in unequal incomes and further distributions on wealth, there's a real haves and have not situation with regards to housing and getting into housing gets harder. There's a racial aspect to it as well because of the way the laws have really prevented Black people in particular from accumulating generational wealth - the discrimination, the red lining, the lending practices, et cetera. And then it all just really gets turned up a whole lot of notches when you lock into place a zoning regime that prioritizes single family homes, which has its roots in the same race and class issues I was just discussing. So you have this situation where, not just in Seattle, but there's a New York Times article about being able to afford a house in Spokane, right? It's one of those cities that, "Oh, that's not a hot coastal tech hub with lots of high price people." Well, it's happening there too. And it's happening there because of these issues where we've just locked down the supply of housing for people. Obviously, there's a need for really big investments for those who need some level of subsidy - who need subsidized housing, whether it's shelter, whether it's transitional housing, or whether it's public housing, or social housing as they call it in Europe. There's a need for that. But there's also a huge need to, I believe, to allow the private sector to build housing too. I mean, the need is so big that just literally after decades of zoning laws that lock up most of your land in single family zoning, there's just not going to be enough housing out there. It's just not going to be there. And that's exactly what's happened. It's exactly what's happened. And what we see is the public gets it. The public gets that we need to change the rules. Now, they may be a little more hesitant. That's also what the public shows, right? They may be a little more hesitant about changing it in their own neighborhood, but they certainly believe it should change in the system overall - like they're getting that. Housing laws that once only locked out a segment of the population are now locking out such a big segment of the population, including the sons and daughters of those who once could afford homes when they were that age, that the public demand is growing for that to change. But it's not moving close to fast enough. [00:39:57] Crystal Fincher: It's not moving close to fast enough. There was a bill in the legislature this year, the middle housing bill, to address exactly that. Market rate housing, which doesn't dictate any particular price, but just private development - it's not public or social housing - and allowing just a modest amount of more zoning, of more density overall in neighborhoods, which is absolutely what's needed. That bill died. [00:40:26] Mike McGinn: Yeah, that bill died, the backyard cottage expansion died - we put so much restrictions on it because we're concerned about the impacts of the people who already live in a place. And oftentimes those impacts are where will all the cars go? But if we look at some of our most desirable neighborhoods in the City - take a look at Capitol Hill - you can walk down a street and you can see a brick apartment building, you can see a courtyard apartment. You can go a little further - you can see a big house - maybe once upon a time that house was subdivided into multiple units, and now maybe it's just owned by one person. And they're all jumbled up together because Capitol Hill, when it was being built out, it was being built out the way all cities are built out historically which is they just get thicker. If you're a growing city and you have more jobs, places that are closer to the jobs get more intensely developed. Pioneer Square was a collection of wooden shacks at one point, right? And then there were probably nice houses. And then now you've got six or eight story brick buildings. That's what cities do. And what we did was we stopped them doing that when we brought in all of the zoning and the single family zoning restrictions. We just said, "No, you can't do that." We've had this limited thing of, "Well, they can build on arterials." Well, guess who's breathing the most pollution then? Again, the equity things. Again, I'll go back to Capitol Hill. If you walk around Capitol Hill, it's not just on the arterials, right? It's mixed in and it means that you can absorb a lot of housing and still have a leafy green street. And more than that, you'll have a nice business district because there's enough people there to support the coffee shops and restaurants that everyone says they love. So we have this bizarre dichotomy where people are like, "I want a single family neighborhood, I don't want anybody else's car on my street. But I also want a thriving business district and highly frequent transit to my neighborhood, right? Oh, and I'm going to take my vacation to some European or South American -" [00:42:38] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, to a community that looks exactly like what I'm fighting against. [00:42:42] Mike McGinn: Yeah. Because isn't it so great to be in this place that has all of this activity and life and wonderful architecture? I know, it's nuts. And the biggest opponent of the state bills was the Association of Washington Cities. And what you find is that they say it's about local control, but I personally believe that the real issue is that so many local elected officials just share the values of the single family homeowners. They may do that themselves, they just share those values. From a financial perspective, if you are the mayor of a city trying to figure out how to pay for all your services, infill housing is great. You get the sales taxes on the construction, you get the real estate taxes on every time it changes hands, you get the sales taxes from the residents of the place, you get the B&O taxes from the new local businesses that serve those people. And you don't have to build another - you barely have to build anything, right? [00:43:45] Crystal Fincher: You don't have to run a sewer line way out - yeah. [00:43:49] Mike McGinn: Right. The road already exists, there may be a bus line nearby already, which now is more people dropping money into the fare box, right? This is a money maker. Now, sprawl on the edge of town is a money loser, right? You're not going to collect enough money from those single family houses to pay for all those new roads and pipes and wires to service a sprawling development. But you already have all the roads and pipes and wires to serve infill development - it's there - there you go. You also get utility taxes - every one of them hooks up to utility, you're going to pay utility taxes, 6% to the City. It's a major source of revenue for a city. I don't know if anybody from the Association of Washington Cities listens to this, but if you want to balance your budget, support infill housing. If you want better libraries and schools and roads for your community, support infill housing. If you want more business for your local small businesses, support infill housing. Really, it's not a bad thing. People really enjoy it. They'll spend good money for it. So I don't get it. [00:44:59] Crystal Fincher: That became so apparent to me - I served on the City of Kent's land use and planning board a long, long time ago. And that was so immediately apparent in a way that is shocking that it's not something that we talk about more openly in municipal conversations. It is really expensive. Sprawl is really expensive. Building out the city's infrastructure and then maintaining that infrastructure is really expensive. We don't capture that cost from developers, we put that on the residents of every single city. And that's really expensive. So then we have these conversations about, "Man, these roads are horrible. They're torn up. My goodness, this service is terrible." And it's because cities don't have the money to maintain the infrastructure that they continue to build when they allow sprawl and thinks just to, "Yeah, we're going to build new houses way out on the edge of town instead of allowing more density where it currently is." [00:46:04] Mike McGinn: It's a sugar buzz, right? You get a short term hit. You get a short term hit of revenue from that construction. It feels good. And the developer says, "Hey, I'll build the road for you and give it to you." [00:46:14] Crystal Fincher: "And we might even put in a sidewalk." [00:46:17] Mike McGinn: "You got a free road," they'll say. Except it's not free, right? 20 or 30 years from now, you're going to have to repave that road or something and do that for a few decades. And all of a sudden, you've got more roads than you can take care of. By the way, I'm not making this up. The County is talking about turning roads to gravel to reduce their costs. The City of Seattle has no way to pay for all of its local street repairs. They keep arterials in good repair, but they can't afford to take care of residential streets. And here we are talking about the housing issues and everything else. It's so straightforward, it's such a good thing, but at bottom. Oh, by the way, Kent's got a nice little street grid, right? Kent's got a street grid in downtown, they've got the good bones as they say for a good walkable community. But what's really at the heart of it is if we allow apartment buildings, who are the people that will move in and do we want those people here - the things that people say about renters, which is kind of code for maybe the person is - [00:47:25] Crystal Fincher: One of "those people." Maybe people with lower income. [00:47:27] Mike McGinn: One of "those people," right - they don't really have ties to the community. [00:47:31] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. They don't look like us. They don't have the same - [00:47:34] Mike McGinn: They're different. They might be immigrants. They might be Black people. They might not have as much money as us. All of that feels vaguely threatening to me. Can't we just keep this neighborhood single family with the people that are here? And next thing you know, you can't afford a house in Spokane even. [00:47:51] Crystal Fincher: Yes. [00:47:52] Mike McGinn: Which is a great town. It's a great city. I know why people are moving there. It's a great city, but it's crazy that we're not allowing people to build housing. [00:47:59] Crystal Fincher: And Pierce County Council Chair, Derek Young, brought up in response to the local control desire that was brought up for many cities, is that not allowing density in larger cities, major metropolitan areas, directly impacts the affordability of housing in other areas. We've talked about how suburbs - the housing prices are rapidly increasing. And other areas in the state - in Spokane, the cost of housing is rapidly increasing because we can't absorb that in the areas where we should be able to, where there is existing infrastructure and jobs to support it. And the local tax revenue to support all of the infrastructure necessary from schools to roads, to social services, to support the population. So then that vicious cycle starts again where housing prices skyrocket. It displaces people from those communities who can't afford it. It puts people who need to be closer to services and to jobs and to schools in order to be able to afford to live, live in a healthy way - it puts them out of the perimeter where they can do that. And we start to see the consequences that we've seen in so many other areas with increasing rates of people not being able to afford their homes and falling into homelessness. Increasing people needing to commute to work and creating the traffic that everybody says that they hate. All of that is a direct result of not allowing people to live close to where they work, to live in proximity to other people and services. It is so obvious and known in most planning departments in the state. This is not a partisan issue - you can go to Wahkiakum County, you can go to anywhere - and planners there will tell you the same thing. This is not a right versus left thing. This is just kind of a basic city planning, economics conversation. This is the way that cities run, and are built, and operate. And we just need to do something before there are too few people left in the cities to keep them accessible to anyone else. [00:50:19] Mike McGinn: For the local elected officials too, you kind of like - this is a great place to Take the L, right? "Oh, we tried, but we couldn't stop them from changing the rules. Sorry, we have no choice but to allow that multifamily unit now." Right? The State Legislature is taking the political pressure off them if they pass this. So that the local elected official would not have to face the angry constituent on the new building and be like, "No, that's the state law. Go talk to your State Legislature." And then they could go reap the benefits in the community from that. So their hostility to it is - the hostility from the Association of Washington Cities is - it's just not well calculated either for the health of their city or for their local politics either. It's just not well calculated. [00:51:17] Crystal Fincher: Just not well calculated. And with that, we will probably just conclude this conversation. It can go on for a long time. There are lots of other things that we could discuss. [00:51:25] Mike McGinn: Of course. [00:51:25] Crystal Fincher: But we'll call it a day with that. And I certainly thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, February 25th, 2022 - February just evaporated for me. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler and assistant producer Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks, and one of my mentors, Mike McGinn. You can find Mike on Twitter @mayormcginn. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii. And now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcast. Just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get 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 the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Consultant Roundtable: Part 1

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2021 41:55

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.

Week in Review: August 20, 2021

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 20, 2021 29:07

This week Erica C. Barnett of Publicola joins Crystal to dive in to the breaking news about Mayor Durkan intentionally causing her texts from last summer to disappear, why folks experiencing homelessness face more harm from congregate shelters than from encampments, the deep deficiencies of "Compassion Seattle" Charter Amendment 29, and the map of González versus Harrell voters breaking down clearly along income lines. 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 “Mayor's office knew for months Durkan's phone setting caused texts to vanish, emails show” by Lewis Kamb, Daniel Beekman, and Jim Brunner of The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mayors-office-knew-for-months-durkans-phone-setting-caused-texts-to-vanish-emails-show/ “When a homeless encampment was cleared, no one went to a shelter. The reasons are complicated” by Daniel Wu from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/when-a-homeless-encampment-was-cleared-no-one-went-to-shelter-the-reasons-why-are-complicated/ “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/ “The City's Progress Report on Homelessness Is Also a Reality Check” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/07/27/the-citys-progress-report-on-homelessness-is-also-a-reality-check/ “Beware of the feel-good news story” by Samantha Grosso from Vox: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/11/26/20982211/feel-good-news-inspiration “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/ "In King County, pollution makes ZIP codes predictors of your health" from University of Washington: https://depts.washington.edu/urbanuw/news/in-king-county-pollution-makes-zip-codes-predictors-of-your-health/ “National Environmental Public Health Tracking: Community Design” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/tracking/topics/CommunityDesign.htm “Fine particulate air pollution associated with higher risk of dementia” by Jake Ellison from University of Washington: https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/08/04/fine-particulate-air-pollution-associated-with-higher-risk-of-dementia/ “King County rent relief still slow to reach tenants” by David Kroman from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/08/king-county-rent-relief-still-slow-reach-tenants “The Severe Health Consequences of Housing Instability” by Frances Gill from The People's Policy Project: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/07/09/the-severe-health-consequences-of-housing-instability/ 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 in the 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 back to the program, friend of the show, and today's co-host, Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola and author of Twitter, a Memoir Of Drinking Relapse And Recovery, Erica Barnett. I was just having a conversation with a friend who was in the middle of reading your book and they were loving it. [00:00:51] Erica Barnett: So awesome. That's so good to hear. [00:00:53] Crystal Fincher: Yes. And it's now available in paperback. So pick it up wherever you pick up your books. Well, I wanted to start off by talking about news that broke... Well, kind of news. More news about Mayor Durkan's missing texts and missing texts from the mayor's office. The mayor knew for months, the office knew for months what was causing those texts to vanish. They were acting like it was a mystery, not sure what happened, but a review of messages and the fruit of public disclosure requests reveal that they've known the whole time because they did it. What did you think about this story? [00:01:27] Erica Barnett: Well, I mean, as you said, it's breaking news that's not really breaking. I mean, anybody reading these stories that have been coming out in The Seattle Times over the last few months is probably scratching their head going, "How could you just accidentally on purpose delete months of texts?" And of course it was done intentionally. I mean, it reminds me a little bit of like, when celebrities say something really inappropriate on social media and then claim that their Instagram was hacked or their Twitter was hacked. I mean, it was never a particularly believable excuse that somehow there had been a technical glitch that had conveniently deleted months of texts relating to the protests last summer. And as we're finding out more details, of course, it's coming out, that they were not believable because they were not true. So it's a real bummer for the city that they're going to have to be dealing with this and the city attorney's office is going to have to be dealing with this for months, if not years after Jenny Durkan leaves office, because there are more important things in the city to be handling. And the lack of disclosure and the decision to deny information to reporters, including myself, is going to have ramifications long after this particular mayor leaves office. I mean, I hope it ultimately leads to some stricter public disclosure requirements at the city. State has pretty good public disclosure laws, in my opinion and the problem is always in the implementation and in people taking them seriously or not. [00:02:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. It is. And whether people take them seriously and I'm still frustrated at the different levels of accountability that we hold our powerful privileged and some public officials to, this is a potential felony. Jenny Durkan, on purpose, changed a setting to cause those texts to automatically be deleted after a set period of time, which was not legal, which is a potential felony. This is a former federal prosecutor who is intimately familiar with disclosure requirements and rules. And I mean, there's a reason why a former federal prosecutor might be concerned about what things may look like if they got out and with an understanding of how to prevent the facts from getting out. This is a mayor who had to go through remedial disclosure training while during her tenure in the city. This is not an accident. This was completely on purpose. This has been a whole charade about, "Well, we're not sure. Who knows. We can probably find and recover this information," and it's so disappointing. It's already cost taxpayers over $200,000, and we're just at the beginning of this process and just... It is so infuriating, it's infuriating. It's frustrating. [00:04:14] Erica Barnett: Well, it's interesting too, the mayor's office. I mean, this information came to The Seattle Times through public disclosure requests. And my understanding at least, in my own personal experience is that the mayor's office is having to go back with a new person, doing these public disclosure requests and essentially redoing them to... And this is not just with regard to text messages, but also emails. I, last week, received some emails from the mayor's office that included her personal city email address, which I have never received a single email that I'm aware of, or that I can recall. It jumped out at me that, oh, all of a sudden, there's this huge batch of emails that has the mayor's actual direct email address on them that came to and from the mayor. I've never received those. Is that because this was just a coincidence that finally, when they were being done by someone working under duress and pressure that they actually turned them over, or is it just while she just never uses this address? I mean, I have no real way of knowing, except that now my public disclosure request responses look very different than they have for the previous three and a half years of this administration. [00:05:20] Crystal Fincher: I, again, just so frustrated. And part of my frustration is that some of this looked apparent. I mean, you certainly called attention to general obfuscation of facts, hiding information, unwillingness to speak to people who they didn't view as friendly to them or willing to carry their talking points. And I think now people... There've been so many mistakes and so many missteps that Durkan has few allies left anywhere, but we could have avoided some of this if the scrutiny that was applied to different officials certainly applied to the city council was applied to the mayor's office from the beginning. So I hope this is a lesson that people from all across the board from all sectors, from all areas pay attention to. Even if you feel like someone is an ally, you still have to hold them accountable. And wow. That just did not happen with Jenny Durkan and I'm thankful it is beginning to happen now. [00:06:22] Erica Barnett: Well, then the election is in just a few months. So we're going to have a new administration, and hopefully this will not continue into the next one. [00:06:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. This week there was a great story in The Seattle Times that reminded me of several stories that you've done on PubliCola, going deeper than just talking about yes, the homeless... We have more unsheltered people. The issue of homelessness is more apparent and present than it's been in our lifetimes. And the reason why people are on the street and not in shelter, sometimes even when shelter space is available is not a simple one. But there are legitimate reasons why people don't want to go to congregate shelter and it's because many of them feel and have experienced more danger in some of those congregate shelters than they have in encampments outside. You've reported on that. There were also shelter acceptance numbers released this week. What have you seen on that? [00:07:22] Erica Barnett: Well, I mean, I think that it should be self-evident to anyone just thinking about themselves and their own life. Just thinking about the way human beings are that, first of all, people don't like to... It is not desirable to sleep in a big room with no privacy, with no safety, with no guarantee that you're going to have a bed in the morning. So that's basic congregate shelter. The city of Seattle has largely moved away from that to enhanced shelter but what that is is slightly less congregate, generally dorm style rooms. You have a little bit of privacy, but I mean, that is still really less than ideal, particularly if you've experienced trauma or violence or had your stuff stolen, or even if you just can't be in a room full of people. For whatever reason, sleeping in a room full of strangers is not appealing to me. And frankly, I've thought about this a lot, if I became homeless myself, I would much rather have some privacy, some sense of safety in a group of people that I know, which is often the case with encampments. People get to know each other, they protect each other. They look out for each other. And so when the option then the city comes through and sweeps and encampment of, say, 30 people who all know each other, who all trust each other, and maybe don't trust anybody else because life has taught them not to trust people, and tells them, "You all have to go to different shelters across the city and you can't take your pets or you can't take your partner," because a lot of these shelters are sex segregated, "You got to get rid of all your stuff." It's not an appealing prospect. So the numbers that came out recently show that the shelter acceptance rate, which is an unfortunate term, because it implies you're accepting or rejecting an option that is great, which is really simplistic, but the shelter acceptance rate went up in this last quarter because people are going to the hotels the city has provided, and that's great. Hotels are a much better option than enhanced shelter. But I think that the city is touting it as this incredible achievement, but I think it really speaks more to the fact that the city failed for months and months and months to accept money and to open up shelters in hotels for people. And now, we have just 200 or shelter rooms in hotels for the thousands and thousands of unsheltered people in our city. So the fact that those hotels filled up is not something to be celebrated in an unadulterated way. It's great that some small, tiny percentage of people were able to move into them, but it is still a small, tiny percentage, and the city should've done more and could have done more, much, much, much earlier. And under the Durkan Administration, they chose not to. [00:10:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. and this has been a longstanding problem. It's one of those things that they announced a celebration. I'm sure Durkan is thinking about her legacy and trying to put a good spin on things before she makes her final exit from the mayor's office. But it reminds me of those stories that are presented as feel good stories, like this kid sells lemonade and raises $2,000 for his mom's cancer treatment. And it's just like that is not a happy story. That's a story of failure and burden and deep inequity. And this is what that reminds me of. Compared to the need, we were talking earlier, you mentioned the latest one night count number for unsheltered people in Seattle was around 5,500, and that's usually a dramatic undercount. So using that as a starting point, a very conservative figure, looking at the numbers that the mayor's office is touting is just so woefully insignificant when we do have information on what helps. And it does not escape my notice that what helped make a big dent in that was providing the hotel rooms, which the mayor's office dragged their feet on and didn't get a fee reimbursement for it. It just seems like it's been like pulling teeth to make any progress on the things that have data behind them that we know work. And it's like, "Oh, finally, I did the things that I've been resisting that you have been begging me to do that we know work. And whew, success." And it's just like, "We could be so much further along if you would've just done it sooner." [00:11:34] Erica Barnett: and I will say too, this really speaks to the oversimplification that Compassion Seattle, the homelessness initiative, is doing, because they're saying, basically, "We'll clear the streets." And by that, they primarily mean Downtown Seattle, which is where all their money is coming from. "And to do that, we're going to provide 2,000 shelter beds." It shows how little the backers of that understand about why people accept shelter and why people reject shelter. Again, I don't love those terms, but if you are going to do shelter on the cheap, which is what Compassion Seattle is essentially proposing, you're going to get shelter that people don't want. You're not going to be able to pay for 2,000 permanent or semi-permanent hotel rooms using that money, that Compassion Seattle is proposing to require the city to spend. It's not going to be enough money, and it can't be done that quickly. As we're seeing with the county, it takes time to buy hotels, et cetera. It's just, we have a very oversimplified idea in the city and probably in this country as well of what people actually need, because we think of people too much as just widgets we can stuff into boxes. As we've seen over and over again, they're not, and they have preferences and freewill and choices to make in their lives, just like everybody else. [00:12:58] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And make them just like we make decisions. As you pointed out, would any one of us be excited to spend the night in a room with no walls, with no doors, with a ton of people who we don't know, when we've heard others have had bad experiences in that situation? Absolutely not. That would wear on us after a short period of time. And we're asking people who already are dealing with challenges that are only intensified by being unsheltered to enter into a dangerous and destabilizing environment, and it just makes no sense. I do appreciate that Seattle Times article this week, we'll link it in the episode notes, for making that plain and for really talking about the reasons why what is offered does not fit the need and is actually not a fit or a solution for the problem there. And thank you for pointing out that Charter Amendment 29, known as the Compassion Seattle Charter Amendment, it doesn't provide enough time, it doesn't provide enough money, it doesn't enough shelter to begin to meaningfully address the challenges out there. The amount of shelter they say they're going to provide accounts for less than half of the very most conservative estimate of the need out there. So really, the only change that is definite and codified into the city charter is the ability to sweep people, which is what the financial backers of this initiative have been advocating for, and it's not a surprise that that is really the only thing with teeth and specificity in this initiative. And so I hope we have a more robust and full conversation about that generally throughout this general election time period. There is a lawsuit that the ACLU of Washington, How's Our Neighbors, they've sued that initiative, basically saying that it operates outside of the authority of a charter amendment and is getting into policy details that it is not authorized to do. We'll see how that pans out, but certainly I'm concerned that we're not paying attention to people saying, "This is actually what would help," the people who are most in the position to know what would actually help, and why things that are being offered aren't helping, and it's up to us to listen and respond. I also want to talk this week about a story that I think The Urbanist did a great job in breaking down, which was the 2021 primary precinct results. Now that we finalized where we are at in this election, we have the precinct by precinct results. They've mapped those results, and then also did a really smart analysis on just what that means. And what we see is something that's been familiar to us throughout several elections, where areas of Seattle that are more single-family exclusive, basically people who are well-to-do and wealthy, voted one way, people who are rent burdened voted a different way. And so this is a familiar looking map, but it also discusses also not just the population growth in Seattle, which I've talked about before as being a unique factor in elections here that we don't see in a lot of other areas, because there's been so much growth, even things that happen 5 and 10 years ago are unfamiliar to a significant portion of the population here, like Pete Holmes, his history, and what happened before Ed Murray, and all of that stuff may not be familiar to the tens of thousands of people who weren't here before then. And so, not just that Seattle has grown, but where that growth has occurred and what that suggests about potential voting patterns was discussed in this Urbanist article by Doug Trumm. What do those results look like to you? [00:16:40] Erica Barnett: Well, it feels like every two years or every four years we look at these maps, and it shows that if you have a view of the water, if you live in an exclusionary single-family area, you tend to vote more conservative. I mean, I do think your point is well taken, Crystal. The number of people who are moving here from elsewhere and don't have the same history is going to, eventually, one hopes, reshape our voter map in a more progressive direction. To bring it down to like a very wonky level, and I think this is where Doug took it too, if the city chooses not to do anything about the zoning problem, which is fundamentally a problem of being able to rent in Seattle and the ability of people like me and people who don't make $200,000 a year to live here, that is going to largely determine the course of our future elections. Bruce Harrell has said very, very clearly that he wants to preserve single-family zoning. And in fact, he of all the candidates in this primary election, he was the most clear on this one issue, which is that single-family zoning is extremely important to him and that he believes that we should only allow apartments along essentially car sewers, busy arterials, which is the current situation. And when you have that, what happens is there's not enough housing, people who make under $100,000 a year move out to Issaquah and vote Kathy Lambert out of office maybe, but they're not here to vote for progressive candidates or for more progressive candidates in Seattle elections. I really think that this issue, I mean, it's a bit of a sleeper issue amid all the discussion about homelessness, but it's very related. Lorena González who wants to eliminate the exclusionary single-family zoning map that we've had for many decades now, and Bruce Harrell wants to preserve it as it is with maybe a little bit more density right along those big busy streets. And that is a huge, huge decision that's going to shape the future of our city and who can afford to live here and call it home. [00:18:56] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely is huge and has been a big topic discussion throughout the mayoral race. Look like Bruce Harrell was initially a little bit more muddy on where he stood there, and certainly initially gave indications that he may be open to addressing exclusionary zoning. But as time moved on as we saw his donor list and the list to the PAC supporting him, you get filled with some of those more traditional, downtown conservative interests that talk crystallized on exactly what you said, "Hey, in areas that are already dense, we'll have them accept more density, but we're going to leave those exclusive previously red lined areas alone." And people keep remarking on maps of Seattle. Just like when there's a voting map and there's a map of health outcomes, when all these maps come out, they're really racial and income disparity maps. That's really what we're looking at with every single map that comes out. And unless we change that dynamic, fundamentally, overall, as many cities are doing, I mean, shoot, Olympia is moving in that direction. Portland, so, they're moving in that direction. Unless Seattle does that, we are not going to change this underlying dynamic, which impacts everything. So it's absolutely critical to focus on that issue, to understand where the candidates are. And there is a clear choice in this campaign between Bruce Harrell and Lorena González. And in my opinion, only one of them is offering a solution that will begin to break this disparity that we see over and over again, throughout every election and through so many issues. [00:20:37] Erica Barnett: Just to pinpoint another issue of racial justice, it's income, it's racial equity, but it's also I think more and more about environmental justice, the environmental justice impact of telling people they have to live on these busy streets. And not every arterial is like a zooming highway, but the fact is when you live on a busy roadway with cars on it all the time, your health outcomes are worse. And if you look at racial mapping of Seattle, if you look at income mapping of Seattle and you look at health mapping, it all correlates, and it's in those areas where people live on freeways, where they live along busy six-lane arterials that you see worse health impacts. And so, when we say that, "Oh, we should confine density to these specific areas," what we're also saying is we should confine disparate health impacts to certain areas. So I think for Bruce Harrell to be making that argument is really something people should be looking at and considering as they vote. [00:21:36] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. We're really saying we accept illness in these areas. We accept that we are going to force asthma and heart disease and lung disease in these areas. There are up to 10 years difference in life expectancy within different zip codes in Seattle, primarily due to environmental impacts and racial disparities that we see with that. There's been great data that's come out of the University of Washington over the past several years about this, but it is not minor. And again, we're talking about years of someone's life. Just thinking about how impactful that is, it is unacceptable. And the reason why this doesn't happen in other neighborhoods is because they have the resources to fight for something and to really move the levers of power and get listened to when they find something unacceptable. It's not an accident that this is not happening in affluent areas. What we should be looking to do is say, we deserve every opportunity to be healthy and to thrive as the people who can afford to today. And things are going to have to change in order to make that happen. [00:22:45] Erica Barnett: Absolutely. [00:22:47] Crystal Fincher: Now, another issue that is major, that there was a story about in Crosscut this week is about the rent relief being slow to reach tenants. We talked about this on the show with Rep. Debra Entenman, and she talked about the issue of some landlords being uncooperative through this process. Additionally, in this process, there are bureaucratic barriers that we're seeing. And we've had this long conversation over the past year-plus about the eviction moratorium and how critical that is to keep people in their homes. And, if you ask me, that was absolutely necessary. But that's always been a temporary solution. The only thing that's going to help is getting money in the hands of people or canceling debt, to account for these big rent balances that have been accumulating throughout the pandemic. The only thing that is going to fix this are these programs in this relief, like King County and other counties are in charge of administering. There's a significant amount of money available that can help thousands and thousands of people at risk of being evicted, but that help has been extremely slow to get out to tenants. And this is something that I hope we collectively pay attention to, shine a light on, put pressure on people to do more, to work faster, because this is the difference between people staying in their homes and getting evicted, and that the ability for landlords to evict people is coming up again soon. So if we don't get this money out, we're going to see some of the negative outcomes that we've been working so hard to fight for this long. What were your takeaways from reading the article and looking at this issue? [00:24:19] Erica Barnett: Well, I think you're right. I mean, the eviction moratorium does have to be, it is inherently temporary and I suppose it can just be extended again and again while they work out all these problems. But rent assistance, I mean, this is something we should learn from the pandemic, I think. It's better to find a way to pay people rent assistance than to let them get evicted and become part of the homeless population on our streets, which we have a lot more trouble dealing with than just paying people's rent. And so, if we can't set up these systems where the money gets to people through a less bureaucratic and a less time-consuming. So I mean, the problem seems to be, and I'm just reading the same article as you, but the problem seems to be a problem of bureaucracy, tracking people down, getting the money from the feds, to the county, to the agencies, to the people. And if we can't set up a system where this works efficiently at the end of this process, then the next time there is a big crisis, or arguably in the ongoing crisis that is the lack of affordable housing and a lack of affordability of this region, we're going to be screwed. I mean, I have always said that, and it is not just me, it is data supported that the best thing to do for people who are rent burdened is to help them stay in their homes by giving them money. And so, I would like to see out of this pandemic a more permanent system of doing that so that we don't have the homelessness crisis just continue to get bigger and bigger. Just the stress of dealing with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I've been in debt in the past, without my housing being at risk, and it is incredibly stressful. And my heart goes out to all the people that are struggling with just the stress of that. I mean, even if the outcome in the end is that they get the money that is coming to them, I mean, it's a human tragedy beyond the level of people getting evicted and becoming homeless. I mean, it's a human tragedy that people are having to deal with the amount of stress that is caused by the situation that they did not cause, which is a global pandemic and unemployment and everything that we've seen over the last year and a half. [00:26:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah absolutely, and I appreciate you mentioning that and bringing that up as someone who has also been both broke before, housing unstable, it is tremendously stressful. And there's also been a lot of research that's come out about that over the past few years, about just how much that toll, on top of everything else, takes on your health and wellbeing and ability to even function. That only gets worse if we allow people to then become unhoused. It becomes more expensive for us to publicly deal with it, the health and personal outcomes are certainly more pronounced and severe. And so we have to do everything in our power. And I hope, as Dow Constantine is working through this, these are primarily county issues, that he takes a laser focus on getting this money out to the people who need it. And a lot of it looks like, hey, people have a checklist that they're working on. They've got to tick down the checklist and, oh, there's a problem here, and we can't continue. One organization was rejecting around 75% of applications because they couldn't track people down, they didn't get all the information. That, to me, seems like a signal to go back, to take a look at the checklist and look at how you can work through those barriers, to get the resources to people who need them, how appropriate it is to have those barriers in the first place, and do we need more feet on the street, resources allocated to getting beyond those without just saying, "Well, we can't help." This is a crisis. This is a crisis. And we have to treat it like one and rise to the occasion with the appropriate allocation of resources and attention and energy. So we will certainly be following along with that. We thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, August 20th, 2021. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng and our wonderful cohost 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. And you can buy her book Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse and Recovery, wherever you like to buy books. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, 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.

Week in Review: July 16, 2021

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 17, 2021 52:04

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.

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Week in Review: June 11, 2021

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2021 46:43

Today former Seattle mayor and Executive Director of America Walks Mike McGinn joins Crystal to dissect the most recent finance numbers in the mayor's race and break down what they mean, and discuss how Seattle mayoral candidates are seeking to position themselves in this year's race. Then tea is spilled about how Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes doomed the SPD consent decree from the start, how his challenger, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, looks to be qualifying for Democracy Vouchers sooner than him, and how that race might unfold. 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 atofficialhacksandwonks.com. Resources “Effort to Expand Hotel Shelters Has Broad Support, Recycled Statements Replace False Endorsement Claims on Compassion Seattle Website” from Publicola:https://publicola.com/2021/06/09/effort-to-expand-hotel-shelters-has-broad-support-recycled-statements-replace-false-endorsement-claims-on-compassion-seattle-website/ “Police Make Mass Arrests at Protest Against Oil Pipeline” by Hiroko Tabuchi, Matt Furber, and Coral Davenport: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/07/climate/line-3-pipeline-protest-native-americans.html Campaign finance reports from the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission: http://web6.seattle.gov/ethics/elections/campaigns.aspx?cycle=2021&type=campaign&IDNum=749&leftmenu=collapsed “Democracy vouchers play crucial role as candidates compete for cash in Seattle mayoral race” by Daniel Beekman and Jim Brunner:https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/democracy-vouchers-play-crucial-role-as-candidates-compete-for-cash-in-seattle-mayoral-race/ “Pete Holmes to seek fourth term as Seattle City Attorney” by David Kroman:https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/02/pete-holmes-seek-fourth-term-seattle-city-attorney “Abolitionist Nicole Thomas-Kenney Announces Last-Minute Run for City Attorney” by Mark Van Streefkerk: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/10/abolitionist-nicole-thomas-kennedy-announces-last-minute-run-for-city-attorney/ “Seattle police funding debate turns to flawed officer behavior system” by David Kroman:https://crosscut.com/news/2021/05/seattle-police-funding-debate-turns-flawed-officer-behavior-system “Can the Seattle Police Department Consent Decree Be Fixed?” by Paul Kiefer:https://publicola.com/2021/06/03/can-the-the-seattle-police-department-consent-decree-be-fixed/ “Court Monitor Bobb Helped Create Seattle's Police Reform Mess” by Doug Trumm:https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/09/14/court-monitor-bobb-helped-create-seattles-police-reform-mess/ “Seattle police had a chance to prove abolitionists wrong. They didn't.” by Shaun Scott:https://crosscut.com/opinion/2021/05/seattle-police-had-chance-prove-abolitionists-wrong-they-didnt 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 cohost. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show, former mayor of Seattle, and today's co-host: activist, community leader, and current Executive Director of America Walks, the excellent Mike McGinn. Mike McGinn: [00:00:57] I always enjoy being here Crystal and I am a subscriber to Hacks & Wonks on the podcast platform of my choice. So go to the podcast platform of your choice and subscribe and support Crystal and KVRU. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:14] Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate you. And we always get a lot of comments whenever you're on the show, because you kind of bring the heat when it comes to context and history of like - okay, lots of people moved to Seattle in the past 10 years. I mean, we've had a population explosion - so a lot of people listening today and here in the City were actually not here when you were mayor, and don't have the memory of what happened, and are missing the context of a lot of what happened. How did we get into this Consent Decree situation? What initially happened back when Jenny Durkan was a federal prosecutor and Pete Holmes was running for office, and how did we get into the situation we find ourselves in today? You have a lot of that context, so we appreciate it. Speaking of that context, we have some - a lot of news this week. Looking over - just lots of items have happened this week - Compassion Seattle having to take down its webpage listing false endorsements, we got tax documents on billionaires. Big items this week with - the Olga Park encampment sweep by the City, Durkan vs. Seattle Public Schools on the encampment in Bitter Lake, hybrid work models coming back with Amazon, the state reinstating around a 100,000 driver's license and halting the practice of revoking licenses for non-payment of traffic fines, three pipeline protests - the Line 3 pipeline protests, Keystone XL pipeline finally dead - which is great and awesome. But we'll start out with - we just got new fundraising numbers in the mayoral race. Well, in all of the Seattle races, but I guess we can start with the mayoral race and just for the breakdown - where we are currently at. The top six mayoral candidates right now, in terms of contributions - Colleen Echohawk and Andrew Grant Houston are right neck-and-neck at $399,987 and $[399,]978 respectively. There is a $400,000 cap initially on the ability to accept Democracy Vouchers, and so they are at that cap and can't cash in anything beyond that cap. Following that, Bruce Harrell at $308,000, Lorena González at $299,000, Jessyn Farrell $134,000, and Casey Sixkiller at $43,000. So, you know, Colleen Echohawk and Andrew Grant Houston are just - they're just getting more cash than they know what to do with. And I think both of them - certainly Andrew Grant Houston has reported a significant amount of vouchers, basically in waiting, that he has banked if and when the cap on those expenditures gets raised. So I guess, how are you looking at this? Just on that number - the contributions and what they're doing, Mike. Mike McGinn: [00:04:15] I think it's very, it's really interesting. You know one of - there's a few things that are interesting. One, it is worth noting that there is a $400,000 cap on expenditures for those that are in the Democracy Voucher program, and if an opponent or if an independent expenditure campaign tips the balance over $400,000, then Ethics and Elections can give permission to people to do more. I think what really jumps out at me though, is that the two people in the race that are not office holders seem to have had the most success just collecting vouchers. Now Andrew Grant Houston hired people to do it, and they're out there canvassing and collecting them. And so that's one technique. I think Colleen Echohawk - they've just been coming in. And it's kind of surprising because you'd expect that the people that had held office before - Jessyn Farrell, Bruce Harrell, Lorena González - they all have, should have substantial mailing lists. They should all have a substantial base of donors who are used to giving them money for their campaigns. They both, all three of them, have run multiple times and - but none of them have maxed out. None of them have hit the cap. Theoretically, they have a more sophisticated campaign operation, including the database and donors, to hit that first. So if these numbers are affirming what some of the polling that we've seen has shown, which is that there's a sentiment out there that the City's on the wrong track - the right track, wrong track numbers are very much leaning towards wrong track from multiple sources. And so that's favoring outsiders. And I - in 2009 when I ran, I was an outsider and it ended up - and I was running against an incumbent, Greg Nickels. There was another outsider in the race, Joe Mallahan - he was a businessman who put in his own money. And everybody always looked at fundraising, and I didn't fundraise that much compared to the others, but I fundraised enough. But the incumbent had the most money. Another candidate in the race was a long-time City Councilmember, Jan Drago, and they both finished out of the - neither of them made the top two out of the primary. So in a lot of ways, honestly, this feels to me like 2009 in that political dynamic of the outsider is going to do better. I had to wait for the votes to actually show that there was public sentiment for me. The use of the Democracy Vouchers is a measure of public sentiment. And it's kind of fascinating to me 'cause political types, before Democracy Vouchers, just were meticulous at looking at who donated to who, and how much money they had - and they would use that as a metric for success. Now that Democracy Vouchers are out there, they're like, "Ah, money doesn't really matter anymore." Well, hold it. The outsiders are maxing out with regular people handing over the vouchers, and the insiders with all of their political apparatus are struggling to get to the finish line. Something's going on out there - that's what this is telling me. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:35] Yeah, it is really interesting to see this dynamic. And as you point out, it is not the people who you would think have very established mailing lists and contacts and donor bases from the campaigns that they ran to get elected in the first place. And this may be a measure of insider money versus outsider or regular people who typically aren't intimately involved, particularly early in campaigns and this process. So it is really interesting just to see the effect that Democracy Vouchers have had. And as you point out, it really is a measure of, "Hey, where are regular people at" - that you have to actually interact with the residents, in some form with your campaign, to get these Democracy Vouchers. And my goodness, they have gotten a lot more of them than their opponents at this point in time. But also, related to this conversation, and you talk about in your campaign - you didn't raise as much money as the other candidates, but you certainly had enough to execute your plan. Yeah, and get your message out. And so having the cash-on-hand in order to do that is important. And so - one, is just looking at the contributions, but really what a lot of people are looking at in politics is, "Okay. But how much money do you have - meaning you try and keep your expenditures on other items down, because the more you can spend directly communicating with residents and voters in the City, the better you are when it comes - to be able to turn out that vote. The cash-on-hand story is actually a very different story. Colleen Echohawk actually has not spent much on the race - she has spent $83,000. Her cash-on-hand is $316,000 - so that's in the bank still able to be spent. Andrew Grant Houston has actually spent the most so far out of the top six candidates in the race. And so even though he's raised $400,000, his cash-on-hand $134,000, which is less than the next two people in terms of fundraising. Bruce Harrell has $220,000 in cash-on-hand. Lorena González has $149,000 in cash-on-hand, then Jessyn Farrell with $58,000, and Casey Sixkiller with $26,000 on-hand. So that's a very different story than just that top line of fundraising, and really impacts how many people you can communicate with outside of free media models like news - in the paper and online - and communicating with people that way. What do you see when you look at that? Mike McGinn: [00:10:20] Well, you're right. Obviously cash-on-hand is the metric that matters. And the fundraising from Democracy Vouchers and from donors is some measure both of the degree to which you have support from some base of supporters, as well as the degree to which you have support from people that are used to giving money. So it's a little bit of an indicator as well. So that's - so what's interesting to me when I look at that and you see the two bottom people - Casey Sixkiller doesn't appear to be a very serious candidate right now. Like if he was a credible challenger from - so I'll back up a little bit - we've spoken about this before. You know, there's generally a right lane and a left lane in Seattle politics. There's an assumption here that Casey is in the right lane - looking for more support from the business communities, a former - he is the deputy mayor to the incumbent. Well, whether it's the business community or the public, it doesn't appear that people think that a current deputy mayor to Jenny Durkan is a really good investment of their Democracy Voucher or their hard-earned dollars, either one. So not looking like he's getting much traction there for people who are - who might be more sophisticated about who to back. I think that Jessyn Farrell is down at this low level - kind of says the same thing. I mean, she's run multiple times in Seattle. She had a mayoral race four years ago, in which she ran a credible race, and she's just not kind of getting the support. And something else jumped out at me - and it was listening to your podcast, Crystal - is that she's a backer of the Compassion Seattle measure, which is starting to become a real indicator of what lane are you in. And when she says that she supports the Compassion Seattle - tells me that she wants to run in the right lane. And actually we spoke about this at length in a podcast a while ago. I said, she's not running in the left lane. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:27] You called it first. Mike McGinn: [00:12:28] I called it first - right! She's working the right lane because the Compassion Seattle is very much backed by the business community as their solution. And what we see is that Echohawk and Houston and Lorena are opposed to it and so they're over there in the left lane. And Harrell and Farrell and Sixkiller are for it, so that's the right lane. Well, it just kind of speaks a little bit to the fact that Jessyn can't quite figure out her lane. And I could talk more about this concept too, but that's just really fascinating to me. And I think there's another thing - that's if you'll permit me just to do a little bit of analysis. Crystal Fincher: [00:13:04] Have at it! Mike McGinn: [00:13:05] I'll just do a little more analysis here that comes to mind. You know, when I was working within the Sierra Club and endorsing candidates, what really became clear to me was that there was a - there were kind of two sources of candidates as well that don't map exactly with the left lane-right lane, but mostly. And the Chamber of Commerce and the downtown business community was one source of dollars in support for a candidate, and labor as a whole was another source. So in 2001, it was Nickels versus Sidran, and that was a classic business candidate versus a labor candidate. Every other constituency in town kind of has to decide who - where do we go with that? And social services tends to go with labor, and environmentalists go with labor, but sometimes there's a business candidate they like. The neighborhood people - where are they going to go. But all of those other constituencies or communities, and it might be immigrant and refugee communities, or the Black community - they don't necessarily run their own candidates. They tend to have to line up behind the business candidate or the labor candidate. Now when I ran, Greg, at that point - Nickels had been in office for eight years, and he pretty much had both. That's one of the things that an incumbent can do, right? What'll happen is - everybody's getting just enough out of the incumbent that they don't want to take a risk on a challenger. So he had the Chamber of Commerce, which I think was a little shaky on Greg Nickels. He wasn't their guy from the beginning and he had a big chunk of the unions, and I was coming in without either of those. And so was Joe, but then he got business, and I got a little bit of labor in the general. By the time we got to 2013, we saw a really interesting phenomenon, which was a traditional Democrat in Ed Murray. He had the Chamber support and he had a bunch of labor support. I had some too, but we split labor. And now we, all of a sudden, we saw this business-labor alliance in '13 anoint Ed Murray as the candidate. And this was worked out by the kingmakers and the power elites of the city, right. And I know that sounds a little exaggerated, but trust me - there are specific people who sit down and pick who their candidate is. Same thing happened with Jenny Durkan, who was the named candidate. She picked up the Labor Council endorsement, the Construction Trades - which like highways and other things, backed her. The police officer's union was part of that at the time. So for two cycles in a row, we got these coalitions of labor-business candidates. And now in this race, all of a sudden, we have a very clear labor candidate in Lorena González and a pretty clear business candidate in Bruce Harrell. And going back to Jessyn, I think she was running as if she could be one of those business-labor hybrid candidates of the last two cycles, but that coalition has broken apart. Now it's a straight business and a straight labor. But what's fascinating is that in the years, the same forces that have now - give us two different candidates, right. But business and labor can't find common ground now - that's too much inequality, too much issues around taxes and homelessness - for them to be able to find a candidate to bridge that. And I, again, I think Jessyn was trying to run as that candidate. They can't do it, but the same forces that produce that dynamic also means that candidates that are outside of those two bases are credible. So, if you look at the - if you look at the citywide City Council race, we kind of have the same dynamic. We have a business candidate in Sara Nelson, we have the labor candidate in Brianna Thomas, and then you have the neither-of-the-above candidate, Nikkita Oliver, who's coming with a base of support that's completely outside of those two usual centers of gravity and power in the City. So that's kind of the question in this race - is does Colleen Echohawk come from her background as a social services provider, Native American woman? Does Andrew Grant Houston somehow or another slingshot off of the urbanist base. And again, neither of them are going to get very many endorsements from labor, business or a lot of the other traditional players, because everybody's kind of used to - you got to go with one of those. I didn't get any of those in the primary in '09 and I won, right? So it's a very interesting dynamic this year and I think Democracy Vouchers really pushes that even more. And there's no room left for somebody who's trying to be like progressive enough for progressives, but a dealmaker enough for the conservatives. There's no room for that candidate in this cycle - anybody's trying to run that way is like - there's no base for them. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:30] Well, and as you've mentioned before and mentioned earlier today, what were you polling at before you won the primary, like six weeks out? Mike McGinn: [00:18:38] Yeah, no, this is really important stuff - like people see the polls, and the fact that what it shows right now - and these are candidate polls, so take it with a grain of salt. But it kind of shows that Bruce and Lorena are doing better than others, but they're also better known than others. About five to six weeks out before the primary, maybe three weeks out before ballots dropped - and I was at 7% in 2009 in the primary, Greg Nickels was at 23% or something like that, Joe Mallahan was at 7%, and a former City Councilwoman Jan Drago - or current City Councilwoman at the time, Jan Drago - was like at 15% or 16% or something like that. But when Election Day came around, Mallahan and I were - I was first, he was second, and Greg was third and he hadn't moved. And the point is that polls right now - the voters aren't paying attention yet. And all of the materials, all of that money we were talking about - hasn't been spent on campaign communications yet. The messages have not been delivered, right? Like the articles about who should I vote for, the conversations that are just going to start occurring around town of who you're for and why - none of that's really happened yet. And when that happens, that changes those numbers dramatically. And that's why, you can try to crystal ball it and say - no pun intended - but you can try and crystal ball this and say, "Well, here's what I think is going to happen." And we've been doing a little bit of that here saying, "Oh, it's an outsider year, right?" Like that's what the hints are telling us, but it's - this is really an up-in-the-air election, I would say. And having polling at 20% right now, or 15%, if you're a relatively well-known politician in town - that may be your lid. That may be as high as you can go, and your numbers might go lower once they hear about another candidate. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:37] Yeah, and it's an interesting dynamic - you certainly raise a lot of very relevant and helpful issues for context in how to think about this race. When I look at these numbers, I think about what you mentioned earlier in terms of the right track-wrong track polling, and for me, how insufficient it is just to ask that question and make an assumption on that answer. Because right now people ask about the right track-wrong track and the media, I think, has created a popular impression that the City's actions are those of the City Council. But actually when you look at the City Council and Jenny Durkan, both of whom can be characterized as the City - those are two very different viewpoints, two very different philosophies and stances on issues. The City Council has vetoed what Durkan has done, so there's polarization there. And so when someone says things are on the right track, the thing that I see a lot of people doing is concluding - "Well, therefore it means that real people want the issues and the stances that I personally agree with, and this is the proof because people say things are wrong and bad right now." But looking at - if we're using these fundraising numbers and others, especially with Democracy Vouchers from real people as a - some kind of indicator as to where people are really at. The people, as you talked about, if we're using Compassion Seattle as kind of the most visible proxy for which lanes people are in, those that are not supporting are just dominating in terms of fundraising and Democracy Vouchers. So in terms of the wrong track that the City is taking - is it that some of the inaction and opposition to being able to execute the direction that the City Council has given - is that the frustration? Like, "Hey, at least do something instead of just vetoing stuff and saying stuff is unacceptable, but not doing that much about it." Or is it that people are unhappy with the direction of the Council - looking at the available polling, and to be clear - undecided is the top vote-getter right now in every single poll that's been written, internal and otherwise. So to your point, lots of movement yet to come. But with that, it would suggest that people aren't that unhappy with the Council, as some media narratives suggest, with Lorena making it into the top two, but also not being tied to an insider or wanting to go further to the left if you look at Andrew Grant Houston, or even some of Colleen Echohawk, stances. So it's to be determined where people are at in ultimately deciding what they prefer the direction of the City to be. But I don't think it can be gleaned from a right track-wrong track number. I think that's probably a poor indicator. Mike McGinn: [00:23:40] Yeah.I think that there's a few things in there. One is the - I think for people that are more involved in politics, there's very definitely a Council-versus-the-mayor dynamic that's been going on for the last number of years. And for people who side with the Council in that fight, and for the most part - for the most part, almost everything - I do. That matters in the race. But there's a lot of other people who can't parse that, who don't really feel like they're in a position to figure out who's really right or wrong in that discussion. And I think that's one of the challenges then if you are a current City Councilmember, or even a former one in Bruce's case, right? He was in office in the years in which homelessness went up - and to say, "I'm the person who can come in and fix it." - that's going to be a challenge. And Lorena will have the same challenge. Having said that, she's probably and is drawing support in particular from labor - unions - for the things that she has delivered for them. Like she has stood up on issues that have led for labor to support her. So it is a mixed bag. I guess I would - speaking from personal experience, I wish that the public had taken a closer look at what was the underlying issues between the City Council and me at the time I was mayor, but I have to say, I know a lot of voters didn't. And a lot of those were just like, "You know what. It seems like the mayor and the Council aren't getting along. We need to get someone new in there." And not only did they - not only did I lose a close race to somebody who said, "I'm going to do everything McGinn did, except I'll do it better." Both of them were false - you'll grant me the opportunity to say that opinion. But, uh - but that was - Crystal Fincher: [00:25:35] I agree. Mike McGinn: [00:25:35] - that was his pitch - no ideological issues. "I'm just gonna, I'll just be better at doing it." But they also delivered districts - elections - which was a repudiation of the City Council in the same election. So when the mayor and the Council are fighting, the pox on both your houses thing is real and strong. And so the last point I'll make is - these right track-wrong numbers I've been seeing are really high. They were far higher than they were in 2009 when I ran. And again, an incumbent lost then - and right then the right track-wrong track weren't that far apart then. So these are very - these are historically high right track-wrong track if these polls are accurate. And I think we'll see more polls that will show it to be that. Which is why I think it's an outsider election, but I also know it's also wide open. And I think the candidates know that too, right now. If you're a mayor watcher, everybody's going to be trying to figure out how do I grab my votes out of that pool of undecided voters? What do I have to do to get some votes? And I think you're going to see candidates working harder to stand out in the next few weeks. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:47] All right. So we have covered the conversation about the mayor's race in more detail than we thought we were going to get into, but I definitely also want to make sure to talk about the City Attorney race. And so how are you looking at this - with Pete Holmes currently there, but with his challenger, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, at this point actually qualifying for Democracy Vouchers. Even though she entered the race much later than he did, she's qualifying for Democracy Vouchers before Pete Holmes. Why do you think that is? Mike McGinn: [00:27:22] Well, I think this is really fascinating. I mean, it's pretty clear from her own words that Nicole Thomas-Kennedy got into the race pretty much at the last minute, because she thought it was really important to raise issues, about police reform in particular. And like candidates have discovered before - they get into the race just because they feel they need to carry a conversation, then all of a sudden they discover that maybe there's some momentum behind that. I think that was true with Kshama Sawant against Richard Conlin - I think she got into that race the first time she was elected to the City Council to make sure there was a debate and discovered she had momentum. I think that happened to Bernie Sanders when he entered the race against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic primary and all of a sudden he discovered he had momentum. And I think the same thing has happened to Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. We were talking about insider or outsider - Pete's been in office for 12 years. And, you know, he, he came in as a progressive reformer on a variety of issues, very much supported by the nightclub industry at the time, because of the way the Nickel's administration was harsh to nightclub establishments. But he came into office - it's been 12 years and it looks like the public is ready for someone different, if the voucher numbers are to be believed. Now I'm not saying that that's how this race is going to turn out, but that there was more support for a challenger than probably Pete anticipated or Nicole Thomas-Kennedy anticipated. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:54] And a lot of people in the public anticipated. Why do you think there is seemingly this much of an appetite, even an early appetite - looking at early endorsements and meetings and how those are going among insiders. Even those are turning out to be tougher for Pete Holmes than I think a lot of people anticipated. What's going on? Mike McGinn: [00:29:16] Well, you know, I think Pete's found himself in a - well, if you want to try to pin it down - he's been in office 12 years. And I was thinking about this the other day - I think since I signed the Consent Decree in 2012, that there've been 5 mayors, if you count a couple of interims. I think there've been 5 police chiefs, counting interims. Several City Council presidents, we've even had two Monitors - but during that entire 12 years, we've only had one City Attorney and that's Pete Holmes. And he positions himself as a reformer, and essential to reform. In fact, I've heard him say, "You can't ask me to leave now because we have to finish the job of reform." Well, we've been told - we were being told for years by the Monitor and mayors - that reform was on track and Pete was joining that chorus. And what we saw with the protests, and the police behavior, and tear-gassing the public - leading to a federal court order against it. What we see is that reform failed. And Pete says he was at the helm of that, but now he has to be there to help fix it. And I think that from the progressive side, they see that he's not really solving the problems that he says he's for. And I had my own experiences with Pete, obviously, but he has been throughout this entire process, a big supporter - he basically chose the Monitor we ended up with. I wanted a different Monitor. He got 5 members of the City Council to vote for Merrick Bobb - this is the Monitor who brought us this software system, which everybody says costs millions of dollars, and it's completely ineffective, but we have to keep using it - it's useless. In fact, when he proposed that and I objected to it - and Pete supported it in front of the judge. And helped bring it - that was in the monitoring plan. That software - people don't know this - that software was not in the Consent Decree. That software was brought up by the Monitor, put into a monitoring plan, objected to, but Pete said, "No, that's my monitor, and that's his plan and we have to support it." So Pete needs to take responsibility for that waste of money too. He delayed, for years, the adoption of the accountability legislation, because he had to put his hand in to deal with the Community Police Commission's recommendations. And he never had good relationships with the Community Police Commission. And here - I'll share news with you that probably no one knows 'cause I don't know that I've ever shared it before. Breaking news. When we mediated - when I mediated the Consent Decree with the Office of Civil Rights, the mediator kept two people out of the mediation. Nobody had to ask her, she just chose to do it. There were two people not allowed in that mediation. One was Jenny Durkan. The other was Pete Holmes. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:26] Oh what! Okay - Mike McGinn: [00:32:28] Yes. Yes! He signed the agreement, but he did not negotiate the agreement. And it was really interesting because the mediator - I had visited in DC, I'd met with the head of the Office of Civil Rights, Tom Perez. I had to go to DC and meet with him to try to get the negotiations on track because at that time, Jenny Durkan was refusing to negotiate with us. Well - Crystal Fincher: [00:32:55] As the US attorney at the time. Mike McGinn: [00:32:56] As the US attorney at the time, while simultaneously sending letters saying that we weren't agreeing to things fast enough. But there wasn't a real give and take. There wasn't a real dialogue about how to settle the case and how to come up with a good productive Consent Decree. So I went to DC, met with Tom Perez, we agreed to re-open negotiations with their office taking more leadership in it. And we ended up with a mediator. The mediator came and visited me and said, "Look, here's the problem. We need the principals in the room. We're going to get the chief litigator from the Office of Civil Rights and you - both need to be in the mediation so that we have the people with the authority to make a deal." And I said, "Okay, that makes sense. I understand that." I was a lawyer in private practice. And then I said, "What about - hold it, what about Pete Holmes?" And she said, "Nope, Pete Holmes is not invited. And by the way, neither is Jenny Durkan." So the mediator, from her own decision-making, had already decided how it was going to run. And we had someone from the City Attorney's office there. The mediator would talk to Pete periodically to keep him updated, but the very clear intent was that we needed to keep them - both of them - a little bit away from the negotiation so it could have a chance of success. The two of them were, just honestly, just politicizing the hell out of it at the time. My opinion. And so - Crystal Fincher: [00:34:21] I agree. Mike McGinn: [00:34:22] Yeah, no - it was a really challenging environment and we managed to hold a mediation without the leaks to the press about what was being discussed on a daily basis. I'm sure the press would have loved more information about what was going on on a daily basis, but it provided the type of environment in which we could come up with an agreement that everyone could sign. As soon as the agreement was signed, next step was the discussion about who the Monitor would be - critically important decision. And that was the point at which Pete insisted on Merrick Bobb, and did everything in his power to block the people I would have supported, and to get the Council to line up behind Merrick Bobb. I ultimately would have to give way, and we ended up with Merrick Bobb - and Merrick Bobb didn't get along with the Police Commission, wasted money on the software, said everything was going great and it wasn't. And Pete was backing him the whole time. So Pete - you had 12 years to do police reform, maybe it's time to give somebody else a shot. Crystal Fincher: [00:35:22] Well, I think a lot of certainly insiders, at this point as it looks, and the regular public is going to have an opportunity to hear the conversation and to hear that maybe it's time for another choice. So I certainly appreciate all of the background. See, the wonderful thing about having you on is that you come with receipts from way back when, and there certainly is a lot that I remember from, certainly, working with you at the time. But you just have all of the detail and all of the intricacies from what happened. Mike McGinn: [00:35:57] A lot of years ago, now. The years are adding up, Crystal. Crystal Fincher: [00:36:00] Well, the years are definitely adding up, but I appreciate the context, and the time, and just being able to go back. Because also - it is so - like now, having a progressive Council to people is normal. It so was not this. It so was - Tim Burgess and Bruce Harrell and Richard Conlin and it was a conservative Council who was mad - who was salty on a daily basis, with the support of the Seattle Times on a daily basis - at this outsider, loony, progressive, McSchwinn mayor. Was coming in and trying to do all these crazy things like trying to do Road Diets, and things that now have been - that are viewed as normal and not controversial. But at the time, when I tell you that, like the whole War on Cars discourse that started for you and during you, that was - it was hyperbolic. It was just - it was extreme. So we're at a very different place today than we were then, but we still have people who were intimately involved and aligned with that conservative Council, like Jenny Durkan, who were very instrumental in setting things up to land exactly where they are right now - which is frustrating for some of us looking at like - this was predictable, that this wasn't the progressive champion that a lot of people thought when they were running. But of course we have the benefit of doing stuff like this for a living and having the time to know when to dive into this. And a lot of people just don't have access to that information. Mike McGinn: [00:37:43] Well, it's really, and this is a really a good example of that. Like the way in which police reform can be politicized and was politicized. I mentioned the selection of the Monitor. I remember Bruce Harrell like, "Mayor McGinn is anti-police reform because he won't support Merrick Bobb." We had three candidates we supported, that we submitted to the judge, for a monitor. We - I signed a - negotiated a Consent Decree that called for a Monitor, but we were in this place where it was very easy to say who was for and against reform at the time. And that process of reform - it's so fascinating to watch now a decade later, right? Almost 10 years later - to see that we now have this bizarre situation really where the Council doesn't have authority to change the police budget because the judge wants something different. They don't have the authority to get rid of a software program that doesn't work. Where the Community Police Commission - they warned the Council not to vote for the police contract, and they did vote for the police contract that wiped out the accountability procedures. And all of that was being overseen by the judge. Like the judge is saying, "Who gets to decide what the accountability procedures are? It's me, I'm the judge." So what started as an attempt to engage the community in a dialogue with the City and the police department about what reform looks like - with the belief that it should be homegrown because it's more likely - let's listen to community - has now turned into this very, very top-down thing, being run by a judge, in which so much of the local control has disappeared. And who's the one person who could go into court on behalf of the City and say to the judge, "No, the Consent Decree called for the Community Police Commission to have power. Not for the judge to have all the power, right? It called for the City Council to be able to pass accountability reforms without having to check with the judge." That is what the - that is basically what the decree provided. But you need a City Attorney who would have the guts to actually go into a federal judge and say, "You don't have all the authority in this instance." And so since there was never any pushback on the judge - now the ability of the community as a whole to influence police reform has been taken away and resides in the judge. And there's really only one place that - there's only one person under the City Charter who had the authority to go in on behalf of the City and say, "Do something different." And that was Pete Holmes. And he never was willing to challenge the Monitor, never willing to challenge the judge, never willing to stand up for the community in that way. So Pete, you've been at this - I go back to - been in there 12 years, said he's necessary to police reform. He has to take some accountability for how he's not gotten it done overall. Crystal Fincher: [00:40:49] And the point that you're making now is a point that he couldn't make enough, 10 years ago, while challenging you with his authority that he was claiming under the Charter - for the Monitor, for taking a different stance than you were in the negotiation. And at that time saying, "Well, you know, it is my duty and responsibility. I have this ability, I'm an independently elected official. I am not just simply operating at the will of the mayor. I am my own entity, and I can and should." So he is claiming this authority, and at that time to challenge you with the support of the conservative Council, and that's why it was so striking to me and I commented a number of times during this past year. During the protests, seeing everything that SPD was doing, all of these challenges that we're having with the judge, all of the challenges that we're having in who can order what between Durkan and the police chief and that, the subpoena-ing of media records and video on behalf of the police. I am just sitting here going - how is Pete Holmes standing silent? This is consent to this - because he made a point of telling everyone he had the power to challenge things like that a decade ago. And now he's just quiet as a little mouse and escaping the accountability that is - that Jenny Durkan was encountering, that the Council, that the police chief - everyone was under the microscope, except Pete Holmes, just quiet in the corner over here. And it's like, if there was one person who could change this, it is Pete Holmes. Just a little frustrating. But, you know, we've talked about that before. Mike McGinn: [00:42:37] Well, and it is - we have talked about that before - and yeah, something like subpoena-ing records of the media. Like how did that become City policy and how could Pete go and defend that as an action, as if SPD was not a part of the City? And so - Crystal Fincher: [00:42:53] Yeah. As if the media is just an investigative arm of SPD that they can use at their will - it doesn't work. Democracy doesn't work that way, the City Charter doesn't work that - like, that's not how things work. Mike McGinn: [00:43:07] And, you know, I think the same issue, honestly, can be raised with respect to homelessness. Now, I'm not saying a City Attorney can solve homelessness alone. It's something that will take the executive branch, the legislative branch, the judicial branch - a lot of the issues for homeless people have to do with dealing with compliance with the laws about being outside, and people ending up being prosecuted, and ending up in Municipal Court. So I don't want to say that Pete can solve homelessness, but a City Attorney is at a really unique and central position on the homelessness issue, because they are standing - 'cause they are in relationship to the City Council, the mayor, the judicial system, and the police department, specifically in a very unique way. And interacting also with the County Prosecutor as well. And to me, it's just noticeable that in 12 years of being at that central point, we really haven't seen - what's the leadership to solving homelessness. He has certainly leaned in on specific things - like I will not prosecute this, or I'll change the penalty for that - and those are oftentimes the right direction to go. But in terms of demonstrating some type of leadership in that space and helping us solve the problems, it's just like you were saying with the other issues - he doesn't want to put himself into that position of being associated with the homeless response. And it's just really hard to do that if you're not going to - it's really hard to have a homelessness response when somebody in that position isn't going to be a really strong collaborator in the solutions. Crystal Fincher: [00:45:03] Yeah, I agree. I appreciate the time that you've spent with us today. This is probably the longest episode that we've ever had. But like this is - just for people listening - a lot of times there's a conversation before the show, there's a conversation after the show. So this just captures more of some of the types of conversations we have on the sides. And we just decided to keep, to keep rolling. Mike McGinn: [00:45:28] Just kept rolling, we just kept going. We couldn't help ourselves, Crystal. Crystal Fincher: [00:45:31] Couldn't help it. And you provide just so much valuable insight and context, so I appreciate it. Well, thanks for taking this time with us today. Mike McGinn: [00:45:41] Anytime. Crystal Fincher: [00:45:41] So I appreciate and thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, June 11th, 2021. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our insightful co-host today was activist, former Seattle mayor Mike McGinn. You can find Mike on Twitter - it's a fire Twitter feed, by the way - @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 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 the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

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Prayer Mini-Series - Week 3

prayer miniseries ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later May 25, 2021 33:43

Join us this week as we wrap up our Prayer Mini-Series with guest speaker from our church, Ed Murray!

Week in Review: March 26, 2021

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 27, 2021 38:42

This history of police reform in Seattle is long and winding, and today Crystal is joined by former Seattle mayor Mike McGinn to get in to how we got to our present point. Additionally, they cover what may come next in Seattle policing, and how this will affect this year's mayor's race. 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: Read about the city of Seattle needing assistance from the state in order to regulate the police here: https://crosscut.com/news/2020/11/seattle-seeks-states-help-reduce-power-police-unions Explore a timeline of police accountability and reform in Seattle here: https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-seattle-police-accountability Learn more about Seattle's current situation with the consent decree here: https://publicola.com/2021/02/05/federal-judge-gives-forecast-for-future-of-seattles-consent-decree/ Find more about Seattle's city attorney, Pete Holmes, here: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/02/pete-holmes-seek-fourth-term-seattle-city-attorney Read about the Seattle PD's attempt to subpoena journalists recordings last summer here: https://crosscut.com/news/2020/08/seattle-police-subpoena-tests-washingtons-reporter-shield-law Read the South Seattle Emerald's profiles of Seattle mayoral candidates here: https://southseattleemerald.com/?s=mayor 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 with a cohost. Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host: activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle and just all-around cool and knowledgeable guy, Mike McGinn. Welcome. Mike McGinn: [00:00:52] You're awfully nice to me. Also, Executive Director of America Walks - that's my new gig. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:57] Absolutely. And a cool new gig. Mike McGinn: [00:01:00] It's a national organization that supports local advocates who are trying to build inclusive, accessible, and equitable communities. So it's a fun new job to be able to support people, you know, who are kind of like me, you know, when I was trying to get sidewalks in my neighborhood, or trying to get better transit service, or trying to get more housing in a neighborhood. I get to support people like that around the country, which is a lot of fun. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:29] Yeah. And really cool. And I've seen you - I've seen your support of advocates here in Washington which is really useful and necessary. And especially someone who would love more connection and walkability in our neighborhoods. And especially my father is blind and, you know, has been reliant on transit and sidewalks and making sure those connections are safe and accessible. Really appreciate that work 'cause that literally makes the difference between some people being able to go places and live life and not. But here in Washington on today's show, I wanted to talk with you - you've been through so much and have so much experience and historical knowledge from your time as mayor here in Seattle. And the conversation around policing and specifically around the Seattle Police Officers Guild, known as SPOG - their contract, which is going to be renegotiated here in the near future - has been a hot topic of conversation because we've been talking so much about re-imagining, a word that gets on my nerves, but that is the most relatable word for what we're talking about. Policing here and making changes within the department - we can make changes to the Chief, but a lot of what happens in terms of accountability really is dictated by the contract - and that supersedes what the City or the Chief can do, or has authority over. So this is a big deal if we want to address the issues that we've seen. And in this past week, we just had another story where a well person check was called in and a 70-something year old man was held at gunpoint, abused, had mobility issues, couldn't stand. They would not help him, let him fall, harassed him - just exactly the opposite of what you want to see. We want resources that come in and help and don't cause harm. And in too many instances, that is not the case. The contract has a lot to do with this. So I guess as we're just starting in the negotiation, what is it like to negotiate that contract? Mike McGinn: [00:03:49] So we did have a negotiation of the contract when I was mayor, and I guess, the most important thing to understand is the backdrop against which the negotiation occurs - which is that in addition to the contract, there's also civil service protections for the police union that are the same as for any city or state employee. So it's - both of those exist, but there are more specific things - more specific protections that relate to police officers that are found in the agreement. And under state law, if you cannot reach an agreement with the union on the terms, then it goes to an arbitrator. And the arbitrator is supposed to look at peer cities to determine what the appropriate result should be. And what I was informed is that in practice, the arbitrator that is chosen will tend to trade money for reforms. So, in order to give both sides something - if the City is asking for reforms, then the - then it'll, you know, if it's going to reward a reform, a change to the ability to fire an officer, you know, making it easier to fire an officer, then they're likely to award more money to the officers in pay. And that's certainly what's put on the table by the union itself in the negotiations. Well, if you want that, how much you gonna pay us for it? So I think you even see in this contract, the latest contract, that there's extra pay if somebody wears a body camera, as an example. So that even tied it together more tightly. But the problem is that the discipline provisions are considered a subject of bargaining, and it's going to go to arbitration, and you're going to be held up against the standard of what other cities are doing, as to what is reasonable to ask for. So that really constrains what you can accomplish. So it really is a case of going to the Legislature and asking them to change some of those things. So that's one piece of it, you know, and the other piece of it is, and it's not been tested yet, but you know, the judge in the - that's overseeing the consent decree has made noises for the City shouldn't have to pay for reforms. Well, is he going to try to make a ruling to that effect? 'Cause, you know, the union will take that one to court and there'll be litigation over which - what governs the consent decree, and the judge and the consent decree, or national labor relations laws - as to how contract should be bargained. So the union protections - the ability of having union protections and the ability to bargain - basically starts to prioritize the protection of officers over changes to the rules and reform. Now, again, we got to avoid much of that in my negotiation, because we were in the midst of negotiating the consent decree. So rather than attempt to negotiate into the contract certain reforms, because who knew what the consent decree would call for or what was appropriate? We had a reopener to address consent decree issues, and as part of the consent decree we ultimately gave to the Community Police Commission the responsibility to recommend changes. And my thinking at the time was that then we'll have - we'll know what to ask for. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:34] Yeah. And so that is good and helpful background. One, just kind of explains how we got into the situation today where police budgets just continue to expand, and another insight into why that has continued to happen, or one of the mechanisms by which that's happened. But also looking at - okay, we're comparing ourselves to other like cities - that seems like that's going to be problematic if Seattle is one of the cities on the forefront of making changes. We're one of only a handful of cities that has reduced funding to any degree, by any percentage, in the country. So, we're almost guaranteeing that we're going to be comparing ourselves to cities who are doing less than we are just because we're out front and trying to address some of these issues. So is that going to work against us? Mike McGinn: [00:08:32] Yeah. No, that's exactly the issue - that's the challenge. Now, one clarification though, the contract addresses the pay and working conditions of the officers, but it doesn't say how many officers - that's a budget decision that the City can make and does make. Um, regularly, in fact. When I was mayor, we let the police force go down through attrition in the first two years that I was there because we were in the midst of a recession. So we let - we didn't replace officers who left and we moved officers around to fill the gaps. So that's an option today as well if you wanted to reduce the budget - was just have fewer officers. What we're seeing now, though, is we actually have the judge stepping in, overseeing the consent decree, to say, No, that would be a violation of the consent decree. You have to have more officers. So you now got this frankly bizarre situation in which the judge is saying we need more officers to achieve reform. And you've got the public saying, or portions of the public saying, No, we actually think we should have fewer armed officers doing some of these functions and be moving them to other parts of city government or not doing them at all - responding to someone in crisis, as you mentioned at the front end of this discussion, or whether it's handing out tickets to people, or whether we even need people handing out tickets for jaywalking or not wearing a helmet. Like there's things that off-, that should, that maybe don't need to be priorities anymore for officers. And certainly not for officers carrying a gun. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:11] Definitely. I think this is a really interesting conversation, especially that element about the judge. It's a more conservative judge who has voiced concerns about some of the reforms and changes that Seattle has wanted to make. And it's impacted decisions that the Council has made. I mean, they've - they have spoken about, Hey, that the judge already said that moving in that direction is the opposite direction that they want to see, even though we personally want to move there. And if we don't come up with a solution that is within bounds of what he deems acceptable, he's going to just throw this out and we're going to wind up with something even worse than we have now. So having to operate within the bounds to make this conservative judge who has authority to accept or reject what Seattle, certainly what the Council does, and what happens with the police department is a challenge. Another challenge that I don't think has been talked about much is the relationship between the Mayor and the independently elected City Attorney. And a lot of people are used to thinking about the City Attorney in terms of like the Attorney General in that the Executive, whether it's the president or a mayor, they set - they chart a course. They say this is the direction that we're going, and the City Attorney would then defend whatever the direction that the Mayor says we're headed in. So if they're pushing for a reform, or even for something that may be somewhat new and they know is going to encounter some legal challenge, but they're trying to set a precedent - that the City Attorney would be there to defend it. It's not necessarily the case in Seattle, is that? Mike McGinn: [00:12:00] No. So here's the deal and, in your example, you said the course that the mayor set. But the City Attorney represents the City. So it might get a little complicated sometimes to figure out the City's position on certain things. But there are processes for doing that. The legislative process, for example, is how we decide what the City's position is on something. The Council debates, the Mayor signs, or vetoes, and it's overridden - like there are ways to get at the City's position on a topic. I think what's interesting about Pete is that he's decided - Pete Holmes - is that he decided some time ago that, as a separate elected official, he apparently had the authority to decide what the City wanted, meaning the public as a whole, as opposed to the decision - as opposed to the City through its elected representatives and their decision-making process. So it leads to, an interesting - so for years, the Community Police Commission had basically no representation in front of the Court. They were like, Hey, we want to be heard on this. I experienced it myself, like all of a sudden realizing, Oh my God, there's nobody here to - Pete is now in a position to unilaterally decide what is or is not the City's position on litigation - that's what his position was. So it's weird, you know? 'Cause he represents himself as - his client is the public. Well, how does he know what the public wants? And so therefore he finds himself without a client, essentially, 'cause he can just divine it from within his own head. So that's a real challenge, I think, in city government when trying to negotiate - work through the litigation issues here with the DOJ or with other third parties. It was a challenge for me. I don't know what it was like for Ed Murray or Jenny Durkan, but it - there may have been a challenge there as well. I certainly know it was a challenge for the Community Police Commission to try to be heard as a voice of the City in the process. Um, you know, Pete would put himself into the process and say, Well, I've got to decide what the City position is first. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:07] Well, I think it's a challenge that we have seen throughout the last year of protests and police activity - where the Council has taken very strong positions and clearly indicated where they're at. The Community Police Commission has been very clear in indicating where they're at and where they've seen violations. And seeing the City Attorney defend the other side, and defend what the department has been doing, and really not seeing any pushback or any indication, that he would like to see things move in a different direction. And certainly as an elected official, he has the latitude to speak and voice - make his voice heard. And we really heard silence. Mike McGinn: [00:14:57] Well, I think it's, I mean, now I will say this - there is an expectation that a prosecutor will execute prosecutorial discretion. So when acting as a prosecutor, for example, you would expect the City Attorney to make decisions as to when or when not to charge. And you actually wouldn't want the City Council or the Mayor trying to weigh in on those individuals. Where the City itself is a party to litigation - for example, on the litigation over how we were using, how the City was using tear gas, for example. That does put the City Attorney in a tough position, right? What's the City's position there? How should they respond to those allegations? Where should they defend or not? And I don't really know what conversations occurred between the City Council, Mayor, and Pete Holmes to resolve that. But that is a place where the City Attorney often finds themselves as an advisor to both branches of government and can act in a way to help bring the City together around an issue. And I would say that's a separate challenge for a City Attorney. And I don't know the degree - well, I will say from my experience, that was not a role that Pete embraced - of how do we bring everyone together on a common position. It oftentimes felt to me as mayor, that Pete was more trying to figure out - where's my political, where should I be standing politically in this process? Yeah. When these things are so challenging, you actually - that's a time when the City Attorney, in their advisory role to each branch, can yield a particular benefit or create challenges. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:37] Yeah, you brought up a good example with the use of tear gas. I also think about the decision to attempt to subpoena journalism organizations, our news organizations, for evidence captured throughout their reporting, which seems like that is a massive violation. They fought back hard against that and ultimately prevailed, but wow, what a challenging position to be in from the City's perspective and - Mike McGinn: [00:17:06] And that's - something like that is such a clear policy choice. Like that actually should be put to - that type of decision shouldn't rest in the City Attorney's office or with the Mayor alone. That's one where you actually want the City Council and the Mayor maybe hashing that out. What's our position? Do we subpoena? Is it our position as a city government that we're entitled to journalists' notes and videos? That's not a City Attorney's call. As opposed to - is this a misdemeanor charge or a felony charge, or should I send this person off with a lesser charge because that's the right way to handle this? Crystal Fincher: [00:17:45] Well, and I'm surprised that, well, you know, I don't know if surprised, but I would have hoped to - that Pete Holmes, the City Attorney, would have stood up in that instance and said, Hey, we shouldn't automatically move to defend and pursue this here. We should step back a little bit and examine this policy. Is this really what we want to do? And instead of just moving forward with suing our news organizations. Mike McGinn: [00:18:15] Well, I'm now recalling this issue too. It was portrayed as the police department has requested this information. So I, as the City Attorney, will do what the police department wants. Police department isn't yet another branch of government. The police department - the Mayor report - excuse me. The Chief reports to the Mayor, and the City Council sets policy. So again, this is a place where it's not the SPD's call as to whether or not to subpoena. And it's certainly not the City Attorney's call as to whether or not to do that. If he felt that he was getting conflicting messages, that the executive branch and the Mayor wanted him to do that, and the Council didn't want him to do that, that's a place where he's got to kick it back to them - You guys, go through the legislative process and give me the answer. Or try to bring them together privately and see if there was a chance to get the City on the same page. But again, that's - that would require recognizing who his clients are. And his clients here were not the police department. His clients were the city government as a whole, with their position determined by its elected - by the elected representatives of the people. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:24] Certainly. And Pete Holmes will be on the ballot again this year. The City Attorney is going to be up for election here - in the primary in August and general in November. And I certainly think that these should be important conversations to have, and have been kind of flying under the radar here in Seattle, even though we've seen the importance of City Attorney's races in shaping the path of criminal justice policy across the country. Mike McGinn: [00:19:53] Well let's - so let's just close with a larger observation here. Which is that this process of the consent decree and reform started with over 20 community organizations asking for reform. It led to the consent decree that set up a Community Police Commission that had representatives from many of those organizations making recommendations. But now all the power as to what is or is not reform, appears to be concentrated in the judge, in the City Attorney, in the Mayor, in the US Attorney for the Western District of Washington. And you know, it should not go unnoticed that those are older, white people - are now making all the decisions and hold the cards on reform, including Mike Solan, the head of SPOG. And who's left out of the equation? All of those men and women - the Black men and women that were, and Brown and Asian. And the communities of color that were all represented on that Community Police Commission, their voice has been silenced. And I still look at this process and go, how did that happen? How did that happen? And the answer is it happened the same way it always seems to happen, where we have the media and others saying, Well, I guess those important people, the judge and the City Attorney and the Mayor and the US attorney, they must be the ones with all of the knowledge and power, because look at who they are and look at their status. So if they say it's reform, it's reform. And we were told - we were told for years and years, that reform is on track by those important people. And the media reported it as if it were true. And now we have officers wouldn't reveal their badges, the police department used tear gas over a judge's order and over the City Council's order. The police department abandoned the precinct, apparently without any orders from above - just did it on their own and then decided not to police the CHOP. Oh, we can't go in, got to wait for hours. Even if that means people are dying. Right? So reform was in fact broken, but we were repeatedly told by the important people that it was not broken, that it was on track. And we listened and believed those important people, rather than listening and believing to the community members who said, No, this isn't working. Don't use - the Community Police Commission wrote years earlier - don't, stop using blast balls. You know, your demonstration tactics are wrong. And they were blown off and everybody was told, Don't worry, we got it. We got this. So, you know, I guess it happens the way it always happens. And it's very, very disappointing. And I guess, you know, if we're looking at the next mayor, it's going to be who's going to have the guts to just say, Look, this process - the process we were in, was broken and we've got to try to figure out how to fix it. And the contract's an important piece of it, but it's a lot deeper than that. Crystal Fincher: [00:23:00] Well said. And to your point, it's going to take the next mayor bringing them into the conversation, bringing all of us into the conversation. If any of that dynamic is going to change, that seems like it's going to be the only conduit. That the City Council appears to be making attempts to do that. But it's really going to take the Mayor, throughout this negotiation, throughout the consent decree issues, and overall to bring them in. And we do have a mayor's race on our hands with several people who have gotten in the race. And I think in looking at candidates on people's radar - we see Lorena González, Jessyn Farrell, Colleen Echohawk, Andrew Grant Houston, Bruce Harrell, Lance Randall. There are some others who've been there, but I think that the names that we've listed have gotten the most attention and are set up, certainly, to be a central part of the conversation. So I guess as you're looking at this race, what do you see? How do you see it shaping up? Mike McGinn: [00:24:13] Well, you know, probably the starting point to looking at the race is to kind of consider Seattle's political landscape. You know, the political physics of running a race in Seattle. And first of all, just about everyone's a Democrat. I think over 90% voted for Biden in the last election, almost 90% voted for Hillary Clinton. So, we're so used to looking at things through a national frame. We just have to recognize, well, pretty much everyone in the race is going to be a Democrat and everyone's going to say they're a progressive. So you really have to look at the fault lines in Seattle itself and recognize that there are two different bases. And if you look at any election map in Seattle of any city-wide race - on one end of the spectrum are, you know, single family homes with views of the water. And that's one set of voters. And it's just, again, the map, if you did a blue and red map, and you called the red, the more conservative part of Seattle - all the view homes would be in red. All the view neighborhoods would be in red. The other end of the spectrum would be an apartment building on an arterial served by a bus line. And those, and whether that's an immigrant refugee community, whether that's young people moving to town, that's going to be on the other end. And in the middle, then, are probably well-educated professionals making a decent living who consider themselves quite progressive, but you know, a little bit worried that maybe some people are a little too radical. And that's the middle of the electorate. And so what happens in Seattle - also kind of looking at political physics - 95% of the time there are two candidates that come out of the primary. One is endorsed by the Seattle Times, who is often also endorsed by the greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. And one is endorsed by The Stranger. And you'll find a host of environmental and labor unions over there too, but, you know, service workers in particular. But you'll also see some service workers, excuse me, some unions and construction trades over on the Seattle Times, Chamber of Commerce side as well. The unions are kind of in the middle of all this too. So the real question is what candidate is in which lane? Because there's not a lot of room in the middle here. You want to be in the middle to win. You want to be able to get over that 50% to win the race, but you're not going to get through to the primary unless you can claim a lane. And so in the left lane, everyone's going to be looking at well, who's the real progressive with a chance to win. And over on the right lane, they're going to be looking at who's a candidate we can work with. The Chamber knows that they can't get, you know, just some dyed in the wool corporate business person to win the race. This is Seattle. So this is somebody who's progressive enough, looks like a progressive. They can win the middle of the Seattle electorate, but they'll work with us. They'll play ball with us. They'll make deals with us and they sure won't be running around saying they're going to tax the hell out of us. And taxes is probably the thing they care about the most, over there on the Chamber side. So, who's in what lane is the question. I got my ideas about who's in what lane. Why don't you tell me - go take it where you want to take it. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:30] Uh, you know, what I want to hear is - who you do think are in what lanes. We've talked about the mayor's race on several prior shows. I'm interested to see how things play out. I think that there are going to be - many people are going to be trying to claim that progressive lane. The real issue is who is going to actually have policies to back that up. And I think that it is telling - where we're seeing real passion and specifics in what people are talking about, and where there's a lot of vague speak. So I guess, how do you read it? Mike McGinn: [00:28:10] Well, and to be clear, the race is still developing. And we were talking about this before the show. Some candidates' platforms fill out a little as it goes. I know mine did. I came in in 2009. I was really comfortable talking about the issues I worked on the most, but I had to learn more. But you can tell something from what people prioritize, or from their history. I guess it's pretty clear. There are a couple of people that are pretty clear what lane they're in. Bruce Harrell pretty clearly seems to be claiming the right lane and I've got the depth of experience and what he chose to emphasize. Which isn't to say - again, I want to be clear. Bruce has pursued progressive things - protecting the rights of felons to be able to rent property, for example. He upheld my veto of the panhandling statute and I'm grateful for it. But it's very clear that he's much more aligned with the business community than the other candidates and that's his lane. Over on the left side, Andrew Grant Houston is a really fascinating candidate. He's absolutely an urbanist. On Twitter, his handle is Ace the Architect, and he's for - let's build more housing, let's defund the police, let's build more bike lanes. And he's out there, credibly raising money. So, he's really playing hard, which is impressive for Andrew. I think a lot of people are looking at Colleen Echohawk because she's - because Durkan appointed her to things and saying, Well, what lane is she in? Full disclosure, the people who helped me on my race are now helping Colleen on her race and she's coming in and saying, homelessness is the highest priority. I've got experience with homelessness. I've got experience with managing things. I represent the poorest people in one of the richest cities in the nation. And she clearly is working to claim, in my opinion, I believe she's working to claim that progressive lane. Lorena - very interesting. Lorena was endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce, the Seattle Times and The Stranger in her first race. And I think kind of the question has been, what side would she fall on? And obviously, from her background and her, you know, the issues she cared about before running for office, which were police reform. You'd expect her to be in the progressive lane. I think that's where she is. But it's interesting how much time she - I've seen her talking about how she's actually good for business and she can work with small business, and I kind of get it. When I was in the mayor's office and I was criticized for being too progressive, I always wanted to tell people, No, I can work with other people. I can work with everybody. But, so I think she's in that lane. I think the most interesting here is Jessyn Farrell. Because when you look at Jessyn, she certainly comes out of an environmental advocacy and transit advocacy background.But you know, when you look at Transportation Choices Coalition - the two directors who followed her - one went to work for Durkan - Shefali. Another was endorsed by the Chamber in his city council race, and now works for a big corporation - her former colleague, Rob Johnson. Crystal Fincher: [00:31:41] That was Rob Johnson. Mike McGinn: [00:31:42] Yeah. Yeah. And Rob, you know, again, this is Seattle. Rob worked to get bike lanes on 65th and more power to him, but he was the Chamber candidate in that race, when he first ran. So, Jessyn's Field Director and Communications Director when she was head of TCC is now head of the greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. So the politics of Transportation Choices Coalition has always been to work with the business community to get money for transit by also supporting highways. They try to trim back the highways and get more for the transit, but that's always been their politics. And so when I saw Jessyn get in the race, I was like, well, how is she going to out-progressive Colleen Echohawk and Lorena González? And all of a sudden, I realized, Oh, she's not trying to out-progressive them. She's trying to be progressive enough, but also be the candidate who would be seen as the - perhaps the most credible challenger for the Seattle Times endorsement. So - Crystal Fincher: [00:32:49] And that my friends is a hot take! Mike McGinn: [00:32:54] I'm telling you it's - I think Jessyn's too smart to think that she can out-progressive them. I think she's going to present herself as the type of progressive, and she'd be more progressive. Let's be clear. She'd be more progressive than Jenny Durkan by a bunch. But it's also true that when she was asked who she voted for in the last election, as between Durkan and Cary Moon, she said she voted for Jenny Durkan. So, it's an interesting play and let's forget - let's not forget, Ed Murray was the champion of gay marriage when he ran against me. And was seen as a very strong progressive because of his position on transit. He was also a huge highway supporter, but he was a transit supporter. And he'd worked to - for certain other things, but he was the type of candidate that the Chamber of Commerce could support because they felt like, Hey, he'd gotten the highway money for them. He made them promises that he would be nicer to them than I would be. And again, the Chamber doesn't get a hard right candidate. They get somebody who's progressive enough to win in Seattle, but will play ball with them. And Ed was that candidate, and those business leaders were standing up with Ed at press conferences, you know, after there were multiple accusations of wrongdoing against him. And they went and chose Jenny Durkan next. And Jenny said she was a progressive, so that's kind of what swings is - how much of a progressive does the Chamber of Commerce have to accept in order to get a credible candidate? And in today's age, maybe Jessyn's that candidate. Maybe she's the Seattle Times candidate, not The Stranger candidate in this time. And it's kind of interesting that the issue she hit on, when she started running. She was on childcare, which is a great issue. She was on affordable housing, which is a great issue, but we didn't really hear her talking in the same way about taxes or police reform at the time. Crystal Fincher: [00:34:51] You know, this is why I enjoy conversations with you, because you come with context and history. And you will come with a take that I have not heard someone make before. And then I'll be like, My goodness. That is actually true. And when you do think about it, you're 100% correct that the Chamber needs someone progressive enough. They're never going to get a conservative candidate. They know that. They don't even try. It's who can credibly message themselves as a progressive or progressive enough, not a conservative, still holding progressive values, and they certainly say, We are totally on the progressive bandwagon on issues surrounding transportation. It's always been that. They, more than kind of general conservatives, recognize the importance of transit, in addition to advocating for more highways and issues there. They haven't been shy in advocating for transit, which is something that we normally don't hear from conservative voices. And so they'll be like, Hey, we are progressive, just like Seattle. We're different - we're the Seattle Chamber, we love transit too. And people go, Yeah. And then they stand up by, whether it's Ed Murray or Jenny Durkan and they do go - and we are on board with their progressive transit agenda and people go, Yay. That's okay. And then we end up with people making the policies that we have seen. I hope Seattle learns the lesson that we have to listen to policy specifics and that we can't just accept someone who says that they are progressive or who makes a - can pull off a really good photo shoot with a lot of diverse people in the picture. And actually looks at the policies and experience and history and understanding that, Look, the Chamber does not support people who it does not think are going to play ball and get some usually meaningful reassurance in that area. And they take that seriously this time, because people act surprised when they elect the Chamber candidate and then the Chamber candidate does Chamber things and they're like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe they would do this. So hopefully we see something different this time. Mike McGinn: [00:37:10] The Chamber really got burned in the last election. You know, Amazon put in a million dollars - all of their, all of their candidates lost. You might see the Chamber not publicly endorse for quite some time in this race, if at all. But that doesn't mean that the Seattle Times won't endorse, or that doesn't mean they won't be behind the scenes, doing their best to influence the outcome. So that's just one more observation to make. Crystal Fincher: [00:37:38] Very interesting. Well, I appreciate you taking this time with us today. I thank everyone for listening to the show today and for just spending your time with Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM on this Friday, March 26th, 2021. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our insightful co-host today was 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 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 the full versions of our Friday almost live show and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced to the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

Week in Review: February 12, 2021

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2021 33:38

Today on the show co-host (and new dad!) Michael Charles of Upper Left Strategies joins Crystal to discuss the appointment of accused sexual assailant Joe Fain by Republicans to the redistricting commission, what may happen as we jump into mayoral and county council election season, and the kind of leadership Seattle and King County need right now. 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, Michael Charles, at @mikeychuck. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Articles Referenced: Read about responses to Joe Fain's appointment to the redistricting commission here: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/02/groups-denounce-selection-joe-fain-redistricting-commission Learn more about the redistricting of Washington State here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/washington-unlikely-to-gain-congressional-seat-but-2021-redistricting-may-still-bring-drama/ Follow the South Seattle Emerald's coverage of the mayoral race here: https://southseattleemerald.com/?s=mayor 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. And just a heads up this episode does include discussion of a public figure being accused of sexual assault. 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 cohost. Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host political consulting and managing partner of Upper Left Strategies, Michael Charles. Michael Charles: [00:00:53] And brand new father, I might add now. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:56] And brand new father! Congratulations! Michael Charles: [00:00:59] Thank you. It's exciting to be back and get away for a little bit to come share in gossip a little bit with you. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:07] Yes. And I've seen the baby and she is adorable. So yeah. Congratulations. Good job. I'm sure you're short on sleep and all that kind of stuff, but how fun. Michael Charles: [00:01:20] Aw, thank you - Team Girl Dad, enjoying every minute. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:23] Yes. Wonderful. Well, I just wanted to dive in and I guess we will start with one of the big stories we saw this week and, and kind of was surprising to hear it and not surprised to see how the state GOP has acted in the wake of it - but the story that Republicans decided to appoint Joe Fain, ex-Senator of the 47th Legislative District, who lost election in a seat that he was originally presumed to be safe in following allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman several years back. The allegation by all accounts seems very credible and thorough. This was not something that was just heard of right now - she told other people at the time and the recounts of what she said then versus now, you know, completely match up. There is not a reason to doubt her and of course, as we know that women don't come forward - almost never come forward with sexual assault allegations falsely. The percentage of false allegations are so minute. Meanwhile, the number of women who are sexually assaulted, 1 in 6 is the estimate, and the overwhelming majority don't even come forward at all because of the stigma and blowback and social, professional and mental health, and sometimes legal consequences attached to that. So just always doesn't help - to lay that out upfront. But wanted to talk about it in that vein and that these were credible allegations against him that were basically addressed by him being voted out and that you know, for all intents and purposes from Republicans' standpoint - they kind of tanked the investigation and brought that to a close in the Legislature because he was already gone. And so they decided and said, Hey, out of all the names that we had to choose from - Joe Fain is the one that we want to head our redistricting effort. And that was shocking and appalling to so many people across the state, including a number of organizations who wrote public letters condemning the action and asking that he be removed. The other Democrats on the commission have asked that he be removed. And that we don't provide platforms and promote people who have been credibly accused without a full and thorough investigation. What's your take on this, Michael? Michael Charles: [00:04:12] I mean, in short, it feels like it's trolling from the GOP and it feels like a reflection of kind of what's happening on the, you know, the national scale here with Marjorie Taylor Greene and some of this idea of cancel culture, and what role do we have in public life, and who gets canceled and why? And you know, I think seems like it's a weird cross to begin to have your discussion based on, but I feel like it was a move towards politics and not move toward that they thought was best for people. It was a very political decision that led - that's leading to a discussion. There's something about trolling the libs that conservatives get pleasure out of, I honestly feel . And it's unfortunate they don't have the same values and standards in their leadership and they don't hold their leadership to the same standards that we hold ours to. You know, I think it's unfortunate that they chose that path. I think it's really good that we can continue to have these discussions about the values that we hold important to us as a community, as a party, as a region, like we should, we should not want this in our leadership and we should denounce and speak loudly against the party, the interests - that don't find this to be a problem. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:43] Yeah, absolutely. And I also want to, you know, Republicans have clearly invited this, but this is opposition to people being promoted and platformed who have been credibly accused of sexual assault without there being a full investigation and accounting for what happened. That's not partisan - the desire to want that is not partisan. And also a reminder - Joe Fain was known as one of the most, I guess, centrist and bipartisan legislators out there. He had actually enjoyed the endorsement of a number of Democrats in addition to Republicans on a local level. And had worked in a variety of ways, had voted against some of the more egregious social policies. And so, one - suggesting that the opposition against him was solely partisan and Democrats just trying to get rid of a Republican flies in the face of him actually having more Democratic support than almost every other Republican in the state at the time. And that the opposition to him is a reflection of our values collectively as a society. This isn't political - many of the people, including myself , have taken the same stance, whether someone is a Democrat or a Republican accused of sexual assault. That is not okay to just act like that's not a thing and to move on like it's not an issue or a problem. And then as we saw in the articles this week, Republican leadership getting very upset just because they were asked - you know, getting irate and insulting and belligerent in response to reporters inquiring about this. To have the audacity to think that no one was going to notice, care, or follow up - how detached do you have to be? How detached is Republican leadership that they thought it was cool enough to just be like, Oh, they're, they're going to get real mad about this and that was entertaining, as opposed to people being fundamentally offended at how brazenly they seem to be able to disregard the suffering and victimization of women by their own. And even if they want to stand on the side of, Hey, this is an accusation - let's let due process take its course. Then let it take its course and don't move preemptively, or work around the process, or prevent an investigation and then say, Well, no investigation happened - one wasn't warranted and we can move on like it, wasn't a thing that doesn't exist. Real accountability is needed and demanded, and people are not going to be quiet because they feel it's inconvenient or the one person who they felt tolerable was there. And my goodness, what does it say about the quality of people they have available if this was the best they could choose? Which is what they said. They had a long list of names and Joe Fain was who they felt was the best. I don't think that is being heard like they intended it to be heard, but we hear what they're actually saying. And maybe it's kind of in line with what happened with Loren Culp - man, if that's the best you have to offer, you are in trouble. And if Joe Fain is the best you can do in this capacity, they're hurting. Michael Charles: [00:09:17] Yeah, I think you're spot on. It's indicative of a party that's dying. I think we're seeing the early stages of what took place in California in the Democratic.. err.. the Republican party dying essentially and no longer being even a player in statewide issues. So, I mean, we're just watching the same thing where a party that's trying to reflect itself of a national party and the values of a national party that just don't reflect the values of the state and people in our state. And they do, but to such a almost radical extent at this point, it's hard to even take them seriously. Although when it comes to something like redistricting, it's harder to dismiss the importance and the reality of the role that putting those boundaries in place play in representing our communities. So it just shows that we need to rethink a process of redistricting ultimately, too, if we're going to think about how - if we're giving a party that does this kind of things fair shot at determining what our state boundaries look like? I mean, I think that just gives greater credence to the case we should be moving to an even more neutral source of establishing these boundaries. Because if we can just put anybody in there with absolutely no recourse, then I mean, if we haven't noticed anything from the Trump era, it's - we should identify these holes in our democracy and our Constitutions and begin to plug them so that we don't continue to just allow people that don't share our values, the stated values, to make big decisions so that, you know, we're in a once in a decade opportunity here and there's nothing we can do about somebody being in there. I think that that's a - again, a reflection of a system that's broken. Crystal Fincher: [00:11:05] I agree with that and I'm concerned about the re-districting - the redistricting process. You know, it is extremely consequential in the drawing of all of our political boundaries. We hear about terms like gerrymandering and basically drawing boundaries in a way that protects your own folks. And you know, in many cases - in cases that we've seen here, disenfranchises votes that you don't want to count and they do that in a variety of ways. They, you know - and we see it, frankly, right now in South King County. We see it in Yakima County where instead of keeping communities whole, cities whole, and political subdivisions, like cities and counties and different things like that intact - they will divide up these cities and these districts in ways that, you know, include some communities here and excluded there, and they're shaped really weird, and they don't seem to follow any rhyme or reason. And the result is that instead of communities being able to vote together in favor of their interests, they're all split apart into neighboring districts. And instead of being , you know, cohesive in one area, they're split among other areas. So for example, cities of Kent and Renton , Auburn , SeaTac are - Burien - split between several districts. I think Kent has four legislative districts. Renton has several, Burien has several. And so the city of Kent, which I'm very familiar with - a city of over 120,000 people , a large population of people of color, immigrants, Black people, lots of people call it the Kent-ral District because this is where a lot of people have been displaced to, who used to live in the Central District. And, but it is hard to have anyone pay attention to what's going on here - you rarely hear about this area, this economy, the people here, the needs, because they aren't represented by a Senator, a legislator - there's four or five in the districts and the needs get covered up and overshadowed by several other cities, several other agendas. And it just makes it harder for people to organize and advocate for the issues that affect them and their neighbors because they're in effect separated. Michael Charles: [00:13:38] And on top of that, it feels like they - especially in these communities, like you mentioned, that are so diverse, made up of so many different groups of people, communities - they'll make it so that the people of color are there enough so that you can't win without getting some of that white population that may or may not agree with your community at all, but they're dependent upon that population in order to get a representative that even agrees with your interests. And so they're in effect like falsely moderating a lot of these districts that would otherwise be, you know, a lot stronger voices, especially around progressive change that actually impacts the communities that live in these districts, you know? Crystal Fincher: [00:14:22] And so I know I have concerns about these issues being surfaced in the redistricting process and hope that they are, hope that they do follow through on promises to make the process more inclusive. Hopefully, people's comfort with remote technology and remote testimony and outreach now because of the pandemic helps them in reaching out to more people in more locations to get an understanding of how redistricting has impacted them. You know, another example, city of Yakima is not a big city geographically, and in the middle of a very rural area. There is no reason why the city of Yakima needs to be cut in half and one half in one legislative district and another in another half. The only result of that is diluting the power of the vote that people in Yakima have. And when we look at the majority of the population who is Latino or Hispanic in that area and the push to remove and, I guess, destroy the power that they have been working to build - that's one way to do it. And that has been an effect. It makes it harder to advocate for a community, and everyone in that community, and no one should be left behind. And those kinds of tactics that are used to dilute power of people who oftentimes have the least - it's not fair, it's not right, and it has no place in the redistricting process. And it shouldn't be used as a negotiating tool either. This should be a fundamental value that the Democratic party, certainly, and that everyone should stand up for - for the good of democracy and to not allow communities to be separated and torn apart in this redistricting process. Because that's going to continue to have an impact for the next decade and the policy that is passed, and the people that we are able to put into office and whether they reflect us or they don't. Michael Charles: [00:16:35] Agreed. Amazing. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:38] So we will stay tuned to see what continues to happen with redistricting and also keep an eye on ways that people can get involved and make their own voices heard as those come around. I guess we will move on to talking about the state of Seattle elections. We are in an election year. We have had a number of people announce for mayor so far. We've had a couple , I think - I guess I will say one official announcement for a re-election on the council side. But how , starting with the race for mayor, how do you see it shaping up? How do you see the positioning and I guess strength and the case that Lorena González and, you know, coming from the council and other candidates have made so far. Michael Charles: [00:17:30] Yeah, I think we've seen in the past few weeks a couple of the first, what I would call high quality rollouts from some candidates. And I think we saw Colleen Echohawk, and then we saw Lorena González. And I think with those two now in the race, it's kind of beginning to see some lanes kind of take shape and see where people are kind of trying to jockey for position. And it's really interesting to see Lorena come in and kind of, you know , be what I would assume at this point, just due to her experience and position as a statewide - citywide council member, that's been elected twice as the favorite to - currently in the race . You know, Colleen Echohawk had a good rollout for a first time candidate - seemed to be - have a stance that was a little less clear, I guess, as far as policy points, but still strong and having lots of coverage and just like in excitement levels. And so it's kind of cool to see this is the first - the mayor's race that we've seen that has democracy vouchers. And I think that makes this situation unique relative to all the other races we've seen in the past. And it'll be interesting to see what role money plays in this process now that, you know, there's a little more strategy involved around getting direct contact to voters and you know, candidates that maybe traditionally wouldn't have been as strong of contenders now have an opportunity. I'm still interested to see - do we see somebody from the DSA/People's Party/Leftist part of Seattle run? I think that shakes a lot of things up , you know - with rumors of like Bruce Harrell getting in or Tim Burgess. I think that that also begins to kind of shake things up as well. So , one of the interesting observations from the last council races that we saw a couple of years ago was that there wasn't a lot of room in the middle for folks post-primary. And what we saw in the primaries was the most ideological candidates ended up getting through, or perceived ideological candidates, due to endorsements, et cetera. Specifically Stranger versus Seattle Times endorsements - kind of seemed like that was the factor. And so there's only two of those lanes to pick. And so it's somebody kind of making it not as clear what those two moderate candidates, or seemingly moderate, relative to a Tim Burgess or a DSA, or, you know, whatever - Socialist Alternative People's Party candidate. I think that if that gets in, then we, I mean, the dynamics of the race change tremendously and the arithmetic to getting through a primary changes what the race looks like. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:24] Yeah. You know, and that primary math is going to be interesting and does completely depend on who's in the race and how they're trying to position themselves. And what I always find interesting is to look at what candidates say as they're coming in and to see if and how that changes as they continue to run. And see, Okay, maybe I'm not getting as much traction with the supporters and base that I thought when I started. Let me just change my tune a little bit and modify these couple positions and, you know, pick up some support from these other interests that say they're interested and, you know, donating significantly to my campaign. There have - in every Seattle election that I've seen in the past 12 years. It's been a long time. I - there has been at least one candidate who has done that. And, and there often isn't much coverage that - certainly not that people continue to refer to. And so lots of times they get away with that changing of their positions and policies, but it is going to be interesting to see who does that, who is leading , you know, in saying things they actually believe and will be consistent with. And to see what candidates are willing to fight for. I talked about it a little bit in an article this week, but I do think that this whole idea of, you know - a lot of times the candidate for who is supported by the Chamber and those interests, will come in and they'll be talking about, you know, we're going to find consensus and we're going to bring everyone to the table. And we're gonna make sure that we don't move forward unless we have agreement and my feedback to that is consensus is not a policy. And consensus is not a benefit in and of itself. And we have seen two prior mayors, frankly, with Mayor Durkan and Ed Murray before her, who ran hard on this idea of consensus, and being a bridge builder and just someone who can bring people together - as if that was the goal. And as if that is the benefit and that's a virtue - and it seems to be a recipe for inaction based on what we've seen for them. That they are trying to please so many people and to wait for everyone to agree, which just isn't going to happen, that they wind up doing a lot of nothing and contradicting themselves and announcing big plans that aren't really executed and implemented well, because keeping people together and everyone in agreement is a challenging thing to do. So I think - Michael Charles: [00:23:17] Yeah, totally. And we saw some of this with like, just even more recently with Reagan Dunn and his comments on homelessness and the fact this guy is serving on the lived experiences council making policy around how to solve homelessness in the region. And people say, Well, we need to have a Republican at the table. I mean, you ask, Well, how is that productive to helping achieve what we want which is ending homelessness if what they want is in direct competition to the very facts and policy discussions - in direct conflict with that, what is the point to having that? Like, how is moral leadership being exhibited if it's more about having somebody have a seat at the table, rather than it is actually solving the problem at hand? Crystal Fincher: [00:24:03] Exactly. And I think people are so frustrated and so fed up at seeing problems not get solved. Yet, seeing some elected officials acting like, Well, we did get everyone together. Look at this wonderful task force. Look at, you know, all these people smiling in the picture that I have announcing this policy. Or, Oh, we passed a bill, but then don't see that it's implemented correctly. They're tired of seeing people act like things are okay and like they are doing a good job when they are seeing things around them not change one bit. And if anything, just get worse. Someone is going to have to make a case for fixing problems and in a way that people can see and feel in their neighborhood, on their street. They're, you know, as they go to work, to the store and back - that they can see that things are improving meaningfully, not just moving people who don't have homes from one place to another. Or, you know, putting a navigation program in that actually doesn't navigate anyone anywhere. And just seem to have been a way to say I'm doing something without actually doing anything. They, I think, Seattle is ready for someone to make a case for some strong leadership - and not that consensus isn't important, but strong leadership builds a coalition around getting a problem solved and Hey, this is a plan - we are moving towards fixing it. And when people see that you follow through, and that you will move towards getting something done, and that you won't wait for everyone to agree because no one ever will, and actually fixing something - they'll hop on board quickly. And so coalitions are a result of trust and belief in your ability to solve problems. They are not a benefit in and of themselves just to have. Coalitions don't solve problems, coalitions are there to fix problems. And if someone takes that view of it, then I think they will be in a good position to make progress in this race. It'll be interesting to see, but you know, I do want to talk - Michael Charles: [00:26:25] And I think that just on top of just Seattle, I think the whole region - I mean, we're in a unique moment period where I think people are looking to not just Seattle, but really like all their leaders across all - regardless whether they're Democrat, Republican - people just want to get shit done. And it feels like we're - you know, as we've approached the year 10 of the War on Homelessness - you know, the emergency declaration on homelessness and all these things. When does performative become no longer acceptable from our leadership and like really the rubber meets the road? And not that I think anywhere on the West Coast has really particularly done a great job of this. And somehow we're unique in our approaches to these challenges. However, I think we have the people, the energy, the ability to actually solve these big problems if we take the time to find leaders that are willing to build a consensus with people that actually want to achieve something, not just maintaining the status quo or making it - you know, happiness in our region is determined upon the average wealth per person. Like there's just - there's gotta be other determinants we're using and figuring out how do we make life more livable for - especially those that are being left behind. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:43] I completely agree with that. And we have a few minutes left and I actually wanted to talk about the King County Council and politics at the King County level. Those elections are up this year too and there's some real issues that are probably going to be consequential in the election and definitely consequential policy-wise. And for all residents of King County - you just talked about Reagan Dunn and you know, recent issues that he's had and that people have had with his comments. What did happen there? Michael Charles: [00:28:21] Totally. You know, I - so there's just - he's made comments about the way in which we can solve homelessness and taking very conservative approaches of - you know, we should give people bus tickets and send them outta here. And you know, my idea is putting them out on an island and have everybody live together and - you know, just some of these wildly conservative, based out of zero reality kind of proclamations of what simple, you know, answer there is to solving homelessness, rather than taking into consideration all the facts and analysis and reality of the situation at hand. So I think because of that , we're seeing - and I think what's really interesting in King County, especially over the last four years of our tremendous growth - has not only been tremendous growth and incoming of new populations. And - but also just kind of the, the shifting of our suburban, especially, population from being even moderately Republican to Democrat and, you know, moderately Democrat of the huge, tremendous shifts. And so what we're seeing for the first time is areas that have been strongholds for Republicans in King County, at least as far as the district levels go with King County Council, we're seeing these areas begin to shift and be more Democrat. And I think we're going to see for the first time, all three of the seats held by Republicans are likely going to face very strong and realistic challenges to their seats on the council this year. And a lot of that is due to demographics, but a lot of it is due to this - what we're beginning to see - like this nationalized attitude of the GOP of defending Joe Fains. You remember - Kathy Lambert was very vocal in supporting Joe Fain before. Like I just - I think the shift in values and understanding of what the GOP actually stands for - and I think they're all in trouble out on the East King County and South King County. The other member of that being at risk, you know, Pete von Reichbauer who's been in South King County, but served in that position for a really long time. And, you know, from, 'cause I believe it's your district is, you know, you - Crystal Fincher: [00:30:38] Just south - Michael Charles: [00:30:38] Just south of your district, but you know, I mean, you know, that area has seen tremendous change over the past 8-12 years as well. So I think we're seeing the demographics and timing of what could be a tremendous change. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:53] Well, we are going to keep an eye on that and we'll definitely be talking more about that when you're on again. And we're happy that you are a regular co-host who rotates in here. So appreciate the time that you've taken. And we appreciate everyone listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, February 12th, 2021. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler and our insightful co-host today was Michael Charles, Managing Partner at Upper Left Strategies and new dad. You can find Michael on Twitter @mikeychuck and you can follow his podcast, Cold Brews and Voting Blue on your favorite podcatcher. You can find me on 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 shows and our mid-week 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 podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time.

Week in Review: February 5, 2021

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 6, 2021 31:33

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.

Week in Review: January 22, 2021

Only in Seattle - Real Estate Unplugged

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 23, 2021 30:26

Today Crystal is joined by a new co-host for our weekly show, the inimitable Marcus Green! Crystal and Marcus get in to the inauguration, how we need to continue to be involved in policy after the election, the Seattle Police Department's response to officers who attended the Capitol Hill insurrection, and the refusal of some police officers to wear masks – even when at a hospital. A full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii, and follow Marcus Harrison Green at @mhgreen3000. Learn more about Hacks & Wonks at www.officialhacksandwonks.com. References: Hear how to pronounce Vice President Kamala Harris' name here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYkZkpLQUS0 Learn about why it's important to pronounce names correctly here: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210108-the-signals-we-send-when-we-get-names-wrong Read Seattle Times coverage about the SPD officer's refusal to wear a mask here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/spd-reaffirms-mask-guidelines-after-hospital-incident-that-blew-up-on-twitter/ Check out The South Seattle Emerald's continuing coverage of the upcoming Seattle mayoral race here: https://southseattleemerald.com/tag/seattle-mayoral-race/ Read guest Marcus Harrison Green's Seattle Times column here: https://www.seattletimes.com/author/marcus-green/ Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with Political Hacks and Policy Wonks to gather insight into state and local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a guest cohost. Welcome to the program today's co-host and publisher of the excellent South Seattle Emerald and columnist with the Seattle Times, Marcus Harrison Green. Welcome Marcus! Marcus Harrison Green: [00:00:31] It is such a pleasure to be here, Crystal. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a long time coming and I'm glad that I'm here. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:39] Absolutely a long time coming. I'm such a fan of your work of the South Seattle Emerald. I have just followed you for so long - your writing, your columns, everything that you're doing. And now the South Seattle Emerald is a resource that I and so many people refer to every day for critical information about our community. So I am just thrilled that you are here. And so what happened this week? Just a couple things, right? Not too much. Pretty low-key, I guess. So starting off, what, what kind of everyone was paying attention to for so long - the culmination of the 2020 election. This week we had the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. So there was a lot surrounding that - I guess, your thoughts on the events of the day? You know, we were kind of holding our breath to see if there was going to be any violence that day. Lots of people have feelings about, Okay, so what does this actually mean in terms of changes of policy moving forward? As you are absorbing this, I guess, what did you take from the inauguration and what are your views on what lies ahead? Marcus Harrison Green: [00:01:51] Yeah, I mean, I, it's a small thing, but it was - I was like, I was hoping that the Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who swore in Kamala Harris, would have gotten her name correct. Crystal Fincher: [00:02:04] It's not a small thing, and it is a significant thing and - Marcus Harrison Green: [00:02:08] It is a very, very significant thing. You're watching it and you're like, Ooh, 'cause you're seeing it in her eyes. It's just like, but you know, but other than that, right, the rest of the day in terms of the inauguration day seemed to go off pretty much without a hitch relative to what many people were expecting. Like, I'll say this. I mean, I certainly was on alert for any violence that was going to take place, but it, you know, it's really was a fairly low-key day in the sense that it was somewhat normative, right? And, and I think that was - I think that was the main message that they were trying to convey, right? I mean, as much as I've been critical over our past presidents and heck, this one, that we are newly - our new president as well. If there was sort of something about - and look, all inaugurations are propaganda, let's be honest. But there was something about, right - seeing all the past presidents there together. You know, obviously it's a photo-op, but sort of this message of, Okay, we've gotten through sort of this one bout of chaos, most likely to go through another bout of chaos, but at the very least it was like, we can be calm and assured and breathe at least a sigh of relief for 24 hours. And I think that's really kind of what the nation needed regardless of, you know, what, where you fall along the spectrum. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:42] Yeah, I agree. I mean, one of the, just kind of huge picture hallmarks of democracy is the peaceful transfer of power. And this has not been a completely peaceful transfer of power, but there is something to just the, the ceremony of handing off power. This is not something that - I think we've seen - we can take for granted. So now that we've been able to move on, I mean, I certainly saw a lot of conversations from people going, You know, there, there are some problematic histories and issues that we have with, you know, Joe and Kamala. This isn't going to be any different and why is this worthy of celebration? And I think that we can hold space for multiple things at one time when we look at this inauguration. Certainly, people may have issues - and justified issues - with some of Kla Harris's policies and Joe Biden's policies. I am one of them. And , but I do think that there is space and it is okay and, and shoot - with all we've had to endure, it is okay to, to take a moment of joy and celebration and commemoration to mark us seeing a, you know for me, certainly - a Black woman , an Indian woman being inaugurated as the Vice President of the United States of America. This is something we have never seen before and, and little boys and girls growing up now can say, Oh, this is something that, that is normal. This is in my realm of possibility. I see someone there and can put into context that they belong there. It does not seem foreign anymore and, and, you know, certainly they're going to be facing a lot of obstacles and, and everything that is the challenge of running federal government and trying to move policy. But I do think that - and also celebrate that - Wow, one, we just got rid of a nightmare and you know, at least we are not going to be continuing to head full speed down that road. Now we're gonna, you know, push in the right direction as hard and as fast as we need to? To be determined. But for that day, I am, am with everyone else and saying, let's pause and celebrate. Let's feel this joy. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:06:08] Right. It's more of a - it's almost like a holiday of catharsis, right? In the sense of, No, it's going to take a much more than, right, an hour and a half inauguration to heal true. But at the very least, it's sort of a, Hey, we can stop. And we can just pause, and we can reflect, and we can - I mean, I hate to admit this - but like I found myself singing with the Garth Brooks, you know, during the Amazing Grace rendition. And I'm just , you know, I had to almost catch myself. I'm like, You know what? Whatever, right? I mean, I mean, this is a time to invite a level - yes, of healing. But let's be honest though - a level also of accountability, you know, in our country. Right. And you can't have healing without accountability. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:59] Right. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:06:59] And you know one of the things and look - I think, quite frankly, the, you know, Biden's speech - it was a little overblown with some of the praise and, and the lauding of it - I think Chris Wallace called it "the best he had ever heard." I'm like, come on. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:12] Oh my gosh. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:07:14] But I mean, it was, it was definitely better than his predecessor's. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:17] Yes. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:07:18] But , right - exactly. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:20] And I think that's - that's an example of moving forward - like, okay, we have to recalibrate the bar that we have. The previous bar from the previous president was, you know, underground. And so, you know, yes, it is better than that, but, but how can you not be? And so it's kind of this recalibration of, of the standards that we hold people to. And, and also, yes, it is better, but that doesn't mean it's where we need it to be. And we do need to continue to advocate and push and be involved to stay engaged and hold this administration accountable. Just because someone has the D next to their name and you voted for them does not mean that, that they are above all criticism and critique, they don't need to be called in or called out - they absolutely do. And that's how we actually get progressive policy - that I'm a fan of, obviously - progressive policy. But that's how we get policy passed - is by continuing to hold people accountable and making sure they hear our voices. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:08:24] Well and I think, yeah. And I, and I think to your point in what a lot of criticism has been lobbed already, right, at Biden and Harris for some of their past policy misdeeds - you know, everything from, you know, helping shepherd the crime deal to when Harris was the AG over there in, in California, essentially wanting to jail folks for - for parents, for truancy, if you will. I think that at the end of the day it's also like, look, politicians aren't static, right? They're reactionaries. And so the thing - the thing that they react to, right, is their constituency and their base and to movements, right? And so at the end of the day, it's up to us to hold folks accountable who are supposedly on our side, right? I mean, that wasn't that of the prior administration. That is at least ostensibly this administration. And so I think it has to be pushed, right? It's that old apocryphal story of FDR - he's talking to somebody , you know, from a, I want to say it's a labor union - and he says, you know what? I agree with everything that you said, but you gotta go make me do it. You gotta make me do it, right? And so I think, you know, we're in this position right now with Biden-Harris - we gotta go make them do the things that we think are the best possible things in terms of, you know, progressive legislation and moving this country in a direction that , you know, is equitable for everyone. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:41] Completely agreed. And, and, you know, on that same vein of staying engaged, it's not just on the federal level - the local level counts too. And, and a lot of the changes that people are really pushing for across the board, and certainly that protests are focused around, and that will bring equity in all of the areas that we need to - require action at the local level. And, and the City of Seattle is a perfect example. And we have a police department in Seattle that refuses to take a seat, really , and continues to stay making headlines for all of the wrong reasons. And, and the community being engaged is the reason why - why we're also able to, to have these issues and items surfaced and why we're one of the only cities in the country- like one of three, I think it is - who actually reduced the funding of the police department. But I mean, this week we saw - you know, more officers were in DC during the "Stop the Steal" rally, which just the premise of the event is so problematic. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:10:51] Yeah, we thought it was only two. And now it's five. It's yeah. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:54] Now it's five that we know of so far. And so, you know, this is a continuing challenge. More officers were there. You have a police guild chief - head - who is, you know, Mike Solan, who just was called on to resign by several members of the community and the City Council because of his false and inflammatory statements about an insurrection , an anti-democratic attempted coup. So, so do we trust this mindset with policing? I mean, the structure of the department is something that we can certainly spend a lot of time, and have before, talking about. But my goodness, just on a daily basis - Marcus Harrison Green: [00:11:39] Yeah that is like an absolute, no - I mean, it's been that way forever. I'm a lifelong Seattleite. I mean, it's been that way since I've lived here - so, which has been all my life. Goodness. I - where to begin - I think the press conference that interim Police Chief Diaz held earlier in the week where he said you know, that he would fire any police officers that were, that were proven to have been involved in the actual insurrection, in riots. And then he sort of goes on to say, But you know, if they were just there to protest and, you know, and had the belief that the election was stolen, then, you know, that's, that's a different thing. I'm thinking like - these are public servants who are tasked, right - they are public servants tasked with protecting people. I would want to say, could they at least have some, like, I don't know, relation to reality? I mean, that, that bothers me - that bothers me that they would think that this - the election is stolen. I mean, that, that, that shows their character and that shows right, also their thought process. I don't want somebody like that with the license to kill. I'm just sorry. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:50] A hundred percent. And, and to be clear, not just stolen, but stolen by Black people fraudulently voting - and in a mass conspiracy across the country to upend an election. Like that - and so all of the Black people's and Black areas' votes should be invalidated. That is where they're at. And so I don't feel comfortable with that as yet another thing that we are contending with and, and I think we have to address - we absolutely have to address this culture. We can't act like that has nothing to do with how they would be performing their job. It has everything to do with how they would be performing their job. And they are taking this direction from someone who has said "it's okay to rough them up a bit," who has encouraged police violence, who has excused murder from white people and from police officers, and has advocated for the death of Black people who are innocent and just existing. So it absolutely has to do with how they police and, and the attitude that they take. And this is on the heels of other news this week, that as we've all seen numerous times - Seattle police officers , several of them, many of them, refuse to wear masks when this is required, when they are interacting with several members of the public in vulnerable places. And there was a tweet that a nurse made who was at a local hospital who recounted the experience from a night prior saying that, Hey, there was a Seattle Police Department officer in here who was not wearing a mask. This was near COVID patients. This was in a hospital. Obviously these are people who are ill or with compromised immune systems and every precaution needs to be taken - there at the very top of the list of places where we need to be careful. And when asked to put on a mask, got an attitude, refused to, and so you're looking at an officer of the law who can detain whoever he wants, who really has the authority in that situation to - to violate people's rights and put people's health in jeopardy and like, this is a real threat - you're in a hospital, you might be killing people. You might be giving people an infection that will kill them. And, and to do that with impunity and to have that attitude, that that is okay, is just so far beyond unacceptable. And I don't understand how, how this has been able to linger for so long - watching so many police without masks on. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:15:27] It's - it just goes back to, right, I mean, the whole thing with power corrupting. And police officers for too long in our society have been too powerful, quite frankly. And that - you can't tell me that that mentality, right, doesn't start to become a part of you, where it's like, I - I can enforce and lay down the law, but I don't need to be subject to it myself. And I mean, it's just the whole not-wearing-a-mask thing - it's just ultimately, right, a microcosm, an epitome - of the whole fact that police officers largely do not want to be held accountable for their actions. You know, this whole mask situation is just, you know, the microcosm of that. And the fact is when you also ask them to be accountable, then it's all of a sudden it's, Well, we can't do our jobs, or we're being attacked, or this and that. And it's like, at the end of the day, nobody is drafted to be a police officer. You are - you voluntarily entered into this, and so that you should have guard rails to what you can and can't do, especially if you are given such an outsize, I don't wanna say, you've been given sort of an outsize presence within our society. So you should also have an outsize responsibility. Unfortunately doesn't seem like too many people want to buy into that. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:35] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, we have the saying, "With great power comes great responsibility," for a reason. And it's true. We are not advocating that they go home injured. We're not advocating anything. We just don't want our rights to be violated. And given that they have the power to - to violate them - that they can detain people, that they can , you know, strip people of their freedom , interrogate people - they have the ability and the authority to go so far beyond what every other citizen, resident can, that - that they should be held to a higher standard. This is something so simple and obvious that we have to continue to push back on the idea that, that, no, we shouldn't question anything. We should just let them do whatever they're doing and whatever request they make, whether it's legal or not, whatever mood they're in, whatever whim , you know, they feel, we just need to capitulate and obey and, and do whatever they say at whatever time. That's not how this works. It's certainly not how it should work. And, and if that is happening, it should be completely , you know, overhauled and fixed. And so there's so much work to be done. You know, it was very revealing to see the support for the [King County] charter amendments in the November election, especially one having to do with reforming and bringing more accountability to the Sheriff's office. Because a lot of people are under the impression that, Oh, only, only Black people care about this. Only these young, you know, radicals and left-wing progressives and Antifa, as if that's an organized thing, only cares about that. And, you know, to see a super-majority of cities in King County come out strongly in support, in favor of reforming - it just really underscores that this behavior has persisted and has been so visible that - no, we're actually in agreement as a society, whether in the suburbs or not, whether you're in high income or low income areas - people understand this needs to change and have voted to change it. And in the City of Seattle, the numbers are, are huge - astronomical in support. So, you know, this idea that, Oh, people just want law enforcement officers to keep doing what they're doing and they support them. You know, I think people want to, you know, say, Hey, let's all work together to keep each other safe, but, but that means that we have to keep each other safe. And if there are members of our community that are not feeling safe, we have to do something about it. So I'm definitely gratified to see that people are willing to vote for change at the ballot box. And I hope, especially as we have city council elections, the mayor election coming up this year in 2021, that we - that they see that the residents across the board in Seattle are demanding change and willing to vote for it. And, and to take that also as a caution - that if they're acting against that, then that is a problem for them at the ballot box also. This is something that the residents of Seattle want and the most important poll that could possibly be taken - the one that actually happens when people vote - supports it. So we'll have to see what happens. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:20:06] I'm cautiously optimistic, Crystal. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:09] I am cautiously optimistic too. And by the way, you at the South Seattle Emerald are running an excellent series - so people should stay tuned to the South Seattle Emerald because you have interviews with people who have declared that they are running for mayor so far and will continue doing that. So people should definitely know that that is a resource for finding out where people stand right now. I know that, you know, as I was reading - certainly went into more detail with one candidate in particular than I had seen anywhere else. So I appreciate how thorough you're being in examining who these candidates are and the issues that they support . Marcus Harrison Green: [00:20:51] Appreciate that, Crystal. And you have - I have to say it, especially because it's your show - you have definitely helped with sourcing of, of some questions. So you are the mayoral whisperer is what I'm going to start calling you. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:04] I don't know about that. I've just been around long enough to to have absorbed that over time. I think that's it. And I'm just approaching dinosaur status, pretty much. So I wanted to talk about, just a little bit, about the candidates that have announced so far. I guess, looking at the City of Seattle elections - what is on-deck, I guess, for the next few months at least? We're going to see more people announcing their candidacies - what types of issues, I guess, are immediately on the docket for them right now? I anticipate, certainly, dealing with COVID - getting the vaccinations out. What are we looking at there? Marcus Harrison Green: [00:21:45] I mean, obviously COVID - we're still in the midst of a pandemic and then the same crisis that we've had - that have yet to be fully satisfactorily addressed. And I'm talking about homelessness, obviously - affordable housing, income inequality here in the city. How do you balance companies paying their fair share, but also I think things that keeps some companies here for quote, unquote, create jobs and so forth. So it's not going to be an easy task. I mean, I think, you know, love or hate our current mayor - I think her tenure has definitely shown that it is a extremely hard job in a city that is changing, evolving, and has multiple interests that quite frankly, don't always align. So it is going to be tough. I don't know if there can be a unifying force, if you will, in terms of the mayoral candidates who have already declared and some who I've heard are considering running. That being said, I don't know if we necessarily even need a unifying force, right? I think we need strong leadership in this city. And it's yet to be determined who can provide that type of leadership. Crystal Fincher: [00:22:46] Yeah. I, I definitely agree with that. I think that we have seen , certainly, with Jenny Durkan , before her, with Ed Murray, that there seem to be a desire to not make people unhappy. And wanting to please everyone. And as we all know, especially when it comes to being the head of a major city, that doesn't work. And that's just going to get everyone mad at you. And it's a recipe for paralysis. And when there are pressing urgent problems that you're dealing with, you know, that usually winds up moving you backwards. And, and we have seen, throughout the 10 years of both of them, moving backwards on the issue of homelessness, income inequality, housing instability, so many factors. And so I certainly am hoping for someone who is willing to be a strong leader and who is not going to be kind of that same, well, let's, let's try and find a consensus and let's try and, you know, take a uniform approach. And I've commissioned four task forces to take a look at that. And you know, I'm not going to implement any of their recommendations, but treat their report as like a win. We cannot afford - literally, residents can't afford to have that happen anymore. People are, are trying to avoid COVID, trying to stay in their homes with the highest unemployment rate. So certainly a challenge moving forward. And we'll just have to see how it unfolds. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:24:19] Crystal, I do want to ask you this - I mean, you talked about the, our last two mayors. Like I could not tell you who their base actually was, right? I mean, you know, like who, who are these people's base, right? Like, I can't tell you who Jenny Durkan's base is right now. Might be one of the reasons she's not running for reelection. Crystal Fincher: [00:24:37] Aside from the Chamber? Marcus Harrison Green: [00:24:41] Right. Right. But obviously, Chamber support isn't enough, in and of itself, to, to, to gain you friends. And, you know, enduring influence in the city - and endearing, I should say - well, endearing and enduring influence in the city. So how do you, I mean, how do you - how would you suggest - if you were giving free advice, if you will, to our next leader, whoever whomever that might be, what would you tell them? Crystal Fincher: [00:25:13] I mean, so I guess I should say this. Obviously coming , having worked on Seattle mayoral campaigns before, having you know - knowing people who worked within several campaigns, probably had a little bit more visibility into the coming together of, of policy. You hit the nail on the head and that you actually have to have a base of residents who vote in the city. And, and that's a challenge. And, and so my advice would be to be who you are and lead according to your values - that's really all you can rely on. And, and that actually builds trust with voters. I think people underestimate that, that - if you give voters a clear understanding of, of what your values are, and the lens through which you process information and policy - that even when you disagree, even, even when they don't see eye-to-eye, that if you're able to explain to them - this is how I came to this decision. This is how I come to these decisions and the same way that, you know, this policy that you supported. There's a reason why I did that. And, and this is the reason why I did this and to be transparent. And certainly that's not going to please everyone, but people would be surprised. Many politicians would be surprised that that does carry weight with a number of voters. And that they feel that if you are straight with them and that you actually care about helping them - that's really what they're looking for. Not, well, if I do this, I'm going to make this person unhappy. And gosh, my re-elect is going to need an endorsement and financial support from that organization. And, Oh, these, you know, this trade organization that's, you know, headed by people who don't even live in the city - that becomes so problematic. And so I think you just have to be where you are and, and that has to match where the voters are. And really if that doesn't match, then you aren't right for the moment anyway. You're going to have to make your case. And, and if they decide to go in a different direction, that's what happens. But, but the way that you actually build power and build political capital is by saying - you know what, I'm going to lead in this direction and then leading in that direction and, and bringing the coalition with you that comes. Your mandate comes from being elected and people need to understand that. And operate accordingly. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:27:36] Crystal's mic drop. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:39] Well, I thank you so much for joining us today. You know, this has been a wonderful conversation. Again, I encourage people to continue to read the South Seattle Emerald and support the South Seattle Emerald financially because it's such a necessary media platform here in the city. And thank you to everyone for listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, January 22nd, 2021. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our wonderful co-host today was South Seattle Emerald publisher and Seattle Times columnist, Marcus Harrison Green. You can find Marcus on Twitter @mhgreen3000. You can find me on 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 and you will get our almost-live show and our midweek show sent directly to your podcast stream. And of course we will have a full audio transcript available for people there and the links to articles and information that we referenced in the show. So thanks for joining us and talk to you next time.

Igor Vidmar

Nedeljski gost Vala 202

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 10, 2021 47:48

Nikoli ni hotel biti Žare lepotec, čeprav je bil v življenju pogosto prvi. Pred mesecem dni je dokazal, da lahko tudi večni alternativci in samohodci in posebneži doživijo častitljiva leta. Kot nezlomljivi novinar Ed Murray v istoimenskem filmu Georgea Clooneyja vam bo zaželel "Lahko noč in srečno!" 70-letnik bolj ali manj mračne pojave. Z njim se je pogovarjal Damjan Zorc.

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#269 - Report on Seattle emergency calls could shake up defund police debate

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2020 18:45

A new, privately funded analysis of dispatch data from the Seattle Police Department shows that the city’s most diverse neighborhoods have the most number of high priority 911 calls, providing new support for the argument that cutting police staffing will hurt the communities that call it the most but that have also been the most critical of the agency.The report was created by Scott Lindsay, the public safety adviser to former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and who also last year authored the System Failure report that was critical of the way the city's criminal justice system handles habitual offenders.Lindsay found:-An 82 percent increase in the number of Priority 1 calls in the city’s most diverse neighborhoods; and-A 114 percent increase in responses to serious crimes in minority neighborhoods compared to other less diverse neighborhoods in Seattle.Join your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic.Support the show (https://buymeacoff.ee/seattlepodcast)

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The Thick Red Line: Jesus, Race and Hope

jesus christ race thick redline our live ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2020 40:08

Our Live service from June 7th, 2020 with Special Guest, Ed Murray.

Episode 37

State of Ed Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 9, 2019 24:10

Marc leads the first of three sessions at EdCamp LI 2019, in Commack, New York. Educators discuss how to use podcasts and other tech tools to promote student voice and increase engagement. Listeners are welcome to ask a question, suggest a topic or share their thoughts: ask@stateofedpodcast.com Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or follow on @soepodcast Follow Marc on Twitter @marcisseks or online: marcisseks.com Check out these instructional tools: Merge Cube, Padlet, Adobe Spark, Nuzzel, Google VR TourCreator Guests for Session 1: Jessica Morrocu Kim Lynch @mslynch5th Ed Murray @eddiecmurray Jan Kasal @jankasal Check out Marc's new book, available wherever books are sold.

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#204 - Andy Murray

The Paul Leslie Hour

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2019 21:55

204 - Andy Murray We're welcoming restaurateur & chef Andy Murray. Andy Murray is the man behind the Murray Bros Caddyshack Restaurant. It was along with his friend, the entrepreneur Mac Haskell that the original idea was formed to take the classic golf comedy film “Caddyshack” and create a restaurant based on it. The original location opened in St. Augustine Florida in 2001 (which I've been a proud eater at every time I pass through) and there's a second location in Rosemont, Illinois. Andy Murray developed the menu for the restaurants. An Honors graduate of the New York Restaurant School he worked in some of the most renowned restaurants in New York, Mortimer's, the Tribeca Grill and the Lonestar Roadhouse. He's also the brother of past guests John Murray, Ed Murray and Joel Murray. It's an honor to welcome a down-to-earth man who understands that the simple things are the best pleasures in life. Andy Murray is serving up a great interview right here on The Paul Leslie Hour. Special thanks to our friend Terry Kane for making this interview a reality! Support The Paul Leslie Hour by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/the-paul-leslie-hour

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Fatal SPD shooting of Che Taylor: Andre Taylor explains .. .

THE JUDGE JOE BROWN SHOW

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2019 109:17

NOT THIS TIME! is a grassroots movement that evolved from the killing of Mr. Che Andre Taylor by the Seattle Police Department on February 21, 2016.Andre Taylor (Che's brother) and his wife Dove founded NOT THIS TIME shortly after Che's death, to engage with local community members, the families of those who have lost their loved ones to police shootings, and those who work inside the system, to demand more police accountability and safer communities.NOT THIS TIME works with a large and diverse coalition of Native Tribes, Black Churches, Asian Pacific Islander groups, Latino Organizations, and people with disabilities to reform policing in Washington State. It has garnered the support of U.S. Senator Patty Murray, U.S. Congressman Adam Smith, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and many others working to create more just laws in Seattle, King County, and Washington State. Organizational allies include the Seattle Community Police Commission, the Black Law Enforcement Association of Washington, the King County Office of Law Enforcement Oversight, and the Washington Joint Task Force on the Deadly Use of Force in Community Policing.The communities we serve, especially African-American, are disproportionately affected by fatal police shootings. In the decade from 2005 and 2014, over 200 people were killed by the police in Washington State. The exact number killed is not known, because Washington State, like almost all other states in the US, does not maintain an official statewide record of officer involved shootings. please visit notthistime.global

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Rainier Beach Branch: Re-opening Celebration

The Seattle Public Library - Author Readings and Library Events

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2018 30:18

celebration beach branch rainier seattle public library ed murray

#128 - Ed Murray

The Paul Leslie Hour

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2018 40:56

Ed Murray a retired financial consultant and radio station owner gives great insight on a lot of things from golf, caddying, financial health, his radio station and the city of Chicago. He comes from a family that includes past interviewees John Murray and Joel Murray. Ed Murray will inspire you! This interview originally aired on the radio and is being brought out as we dedicate this episode of the podcast to Mr. Iqbal Chowdhurry. Happy listening and cheers to your great financial well-being! Support The Paul Leslie Hour by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/the-paul-leslie-hour

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Ep 53: Seattle City Council President Bruce Harrell on becoming mayor... for less than a week

mayors harrell seattle times city council president seattle city council ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2017 28:12

Seattle Times reporters Jim Brunner and Daniel Beekman interview Seattle City Council President Bruce Harrell about a very unusual time in local politics. Harrell became mayor after Ed Murray resigned amid allegations of sexual abuse but only stayed in the role for a few days.

Men Got Issues

MASKulinity

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 21, 2017 37:50

This week, Samantha and Remoy explore why men fight, actually more like why they think they should at least want to fight; talk about the bravery of 5 men stepping forward to denounce Ed Murray's criminally gross ways and how this could inspire other men to do the same; and address just one more thing that men deal with that we don't talk about: eating disorders. Tune in this week for some insights and conversation about how Men Got Issues.

got issues ed murray remoy

The C.O.W.S. Compensatory Call-In 09/16/17

The_C.O.W.S.

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 16, 2017

The Context of White Supremacy hosts the weekly Compensatory Call-In. We encourage non-white listeners to dial in with their codified concepts, new terms, observations, research findings, workplace problems or triumphs, and/or suggestions on how best to Replace White Supremacy With Justice ASAP. We'll use these sessions to hone our use of words as tools to reveal truth, neutralize White people. We'll examine news reports from the past seven days and - hopefully - promote a constructive dialog. #ANTIBLACKNESS The state of Florida continues the reovery after the ravages of Hurricane Irma. Over a million residents in the sunshine state remain without electricity. The Caribbean and the states of the Georgia and South Carolina also experienced storm damage. Large populations of black Caribbeans testify that Whites on the islands were evacuated first and given preferential treatment. Across the Atlantic, a London train was bombed leaving more than 20 transit riders injured. It's been reported that "ISIS" is claiming responsibility for the attack. An act of terrorism on US soil was reported in New Hampshire where an 8-year-old non-white child was racially pummeled by a mob of White urchins. They tied a rope around the child's neck and pushed him from a picnic table. Speaking of protecting children, former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray resigned this week after months speculation that he sexually molested numerous children. KUOW's Gyasi Ross wondered if the only reason this White man left office is because a White accuser finally stepped forward. When Murray was accused of only raping non-white children, he was not compelled to give up his post. And another White Missouri police officer has been exonerated for killing a black male. Former officer Jason Stockley was acquitted of the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith. Much like the Michael Brown Jr. protests that roiled Ferguson in 2014, large crowds of people have marched in the streets for much of the day. #AnswersForMiriamCarey INVEST in The COWS - http://paypal.me/GusTRenegade CALL IN NUMBER: 641.715.3640 CODE 564943# The C.O.W.S. archives: http://tiny.cc/76f6p

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Ep 52: Amazon seeks second headquarters and Ed Murray resigns as Seattle mayor

amazon seattle mayors seeks resigns headquarters seattle times matt day ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2017 29:00

Seattle Times business reporter Matt Day discusses Amazon's decision to seek a second headquarters somewhere other than Seattle. Then politics reporters Jim Brunner and Daniel Beekman break down Mayor Ed Murray's stunning resignation amid allegations of child sexual abuse.

Ep 95 Of Durags & Boatshoes

Durags and Boatshoes

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 14, 2017 55:12

In this i95 episode the Summer Jam is filled with everything from Cher's yeeks to the iPhone X. Gucci is Selling Hope Like Dope and bagging up that work at Motel6. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has to Hold This L. Not All Heroes Wear Capes some create amazing makeup lines that include women of ALL colors. And in Health Over Wealth, I got some advice for men during cuffing season! Questions/Comments/Feedback: DuragsAndBoatshoes@gmail.com

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Dueling Dialogues Ep. 13

Dueling Dialogues

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 14, 2017 31:13

Today's show - Political Potpourri. Breaking News - Shooting in Texas, Trump has a new grandchild, Equifax hacked, flood updates for Florida, should churches get FEMA support? Trump ‘looks forward’ to signing resolution condemning neo-Nazis. Is ESPN Racist? Jewish Conservative, Ben Shapiro gets accused of being a white supremacist and Neo-Nazi. Shapiro set to speak at UC Berkeley. World seems to be emulating the movie Idiocracy. Former Navy Seal Commander suggests the U.S. drop 25 million iPhones into North Korea and launch a WiFi satellite to beam Western Media to North Koreans. Laura Ingrahams to take over Hannity's 10pm timeslot on Fox News. Hannity goes to 9pm and head to head with Rachel Maddow. Seattle mayor Ed Murray resigns after 5 claim child abuse. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi dine with Trump, talk China over Chinese food. 02:00 Breaking News - Shooting in Texas, Trump has a new grandchild, Equifax hacked, flood updates for Florida, should churches get FEMA support? 03:40 Trump ‘looks forward’ to signing resolution condemning neo-Nazis 06:45 Today's show - Political Potpourri 07:05 Is ESPN Racist? Trump Bashing is the new sport. 13:30 Jewish Conservative, Ben Shapiro gets accused of being a white supremacist and Neo-Nazi. Shapiro set to speak at UC Berkeley. 17:30 World seems to be emulating the movie Idiocracy 19:00 Former Navy Seal Commander suggests the U.S. drop 25 million iPhones into North Korea and launch a WiFi satellite to beam Western Media to North Koreans 22:20 Laura Ingrahams to take over Hannity's 10pm timeslot. Hannity goes to 9pm and head to head with Rachel Maddow. 26:35 Seattle mayor Ed Murray resigns after 5 claim child abuse. 27:30 Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi dine with Trump. For a list of source links, visit http://therightleftchronicles.com/podcasts/702/dueling-dialogues-podcast-ep-13/

1521: iPhone X

The Black Guy Who Tips Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 13, 2017 143:22

Rod and Karen discuss LGBTQ news, Ted Cruz liked a porn tweet, iPhone X announced, Ed Murray resigns, Republican spends campaign money on bullets, Texas prof fired over rape tweet, PewDiePie says the n-word, All Lives Splatter, Welfare Fraud amnesty for white people, man tries to run down Antifas, McDonald;s right, big sis pep talk, GOP lawmaker threatens democrat over confederate statues, woman shoots homeless man, psychic scammer, cheese thief and sword ratchetness. Twitter: @rodimusprime @SayDatAgain @TBGWT Email: theblackguywhotips@gmail.com Blog: www.theblackguywhotips.com Voice Mail: 704-557-0186 Sponsors: Site: Lootcrate.com/tbgwt Code: TBGWT

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Ep. 32: 8th CD Candidate Kim Schrier, Plus the Stranger's Heidi Groover on Ed Murray's Resignation

The Washington State Indivisible Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 13, 2017 35:38

This week, we sit down with Democratic candidate for the 8th congressional district, Dr. Kim Schrier, about her views on healthcare, immigration, the climate, and the role of empathy in American politics. We also speak with The Stranger's Heidi Groover about the resignation of Seattle Mayor Ed Murray. All that, plus a weekly call to action!

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Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy 8.19.17 - Mike & Billy interview Ed Murray.

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 20, 2017 45:54

Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy 8.19.17 - Mike & Billy interview Ed Murray. Ed shares growing up in the Murray family, the movie Caddyshack and more! Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy is brought to you by the USGA, The Patrons Caddy, Slickstix.com, Premier Irish Golf Tours, Taylor Made Golf, Sundale Country Club , McPhees Grill, RiverLakes Golf Club Hanger Golf Training Aid , Orange Whip Wedge and Paso Robles Golf Club. Visit Golftalkradio.com for the latest show information, contests, videos, iPhone and Android Apps and more! If you are interested in advertising with Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy email us at info@golftalkradio.com

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The C.O.W.S. Compensatory Call-In 07/22/17

The_C.O.W.S.

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 22, 2017

The Context of White Supremacy hosts the weekly Compensatory Call-In. We encourage non-white listeners to dial in with their codified concepts, new terms, observations, research findings, workplace problems or triumphs, and/or suggestions on how best to Replace White Supremacy With Justice ASAP. We'll use these sessions to hone our use of words as tools to reveal truth, neutralize White people. We'll examine news reports from the past seven days and - hopefully - promote a constructive dialog. #ANTIBLACKNESS While many spent the week denouncing controversial crooner R. Kelly over allegedly holding young girls in a cult, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray remains in office after the local paper revealed Oregon social services found he had sexual molested a black foster child in the 1980's. Murray says he won't step down, and the big city mayor is facing no criminal charges. Speaking of convicts, Orenthal James Simpson was granted parole for his 2008 Nevada robbery conviction. He could be released later this year. Like "the Juice," another celebrated black person on the other side of the planet was lauded this week. South Africa held Mandela Day to praise the late Madiba's years of labor against apartheid/ White Supremacy. 6 African teens attending a robotics competition in Washington D.C. have been reported missing . Contrary to the outpouring of sympathy for reserved for missing white gals, these brilliant black teens are already being accused of engineering their own disappearance. #AnswersForMiriamCarey INVEST in The COWS - http://paypal.me/GusTRenegade CALL IN NUMBER: 641.715.3640 CODE 564943# The C.O.W.S. archives: http://tiny.cc/76f6p

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Ep. 46: New information on decades-old sexual-abuse allegations against Seattle Mayor Ed Murray

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Play Episode Listen Later Jul 21, 2017 27:23

Seattle Times watchdog reporter Lewis Kamb and political reporter Jim Brunner discuss their recent story on a 1984 Child Protective Services investigation of sexual-abuse allegations against Ed Murray. Then they talk with City Hall reporter Daniel Beekman about reaction from mayoral candidates and City Council members.

Ep 38: Seattle soda tax? A health advocate and a burger boss debate city's proposal

Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2017 37:50

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has proposed a 1.75 cent per ounce tax on the distribution of sweetened beverages, and the City Council is considering it. Lindsay Hovind of the American Heart Association and Ryan Hopkins of West Seattle's Boss Drive-In debate the proposal.

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Ep 36: A suddenly wide-open race for mayor of Seattle after Ed Murray ends his re-election campaign

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Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2017 29:20

Seattle Times reporters Jim Brunner and Daniel Beekman discuss a race for Seattle mayor that was turned upside down this week when Ed Murray announced he was ending his campaign for a second term.

Ep 32: Delving into the sex-abuse allegations against Ed Murray

allegations delving seattle times sex abuse ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2017 25:10

This week's hosts Dan Beekman and Gina Cole talk with Seattle Times reporters Jim Brunner and Lewis Kamb about their reporting on the sex abuse claims against Seattle Mayor Ed Murray.

9: Mike Pence's "Mother" / Mayor Ed Murray - Daytime TV - Lumberjanes

The Feminist Furies

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2017 59:57

This week, Natalie and Kelly begin by discussing Mike Pence's alleged nickname for his wife and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray's rape allegations. Then get into the merits of daytime TV and soap operas, and finish with a recommendation to read the comic book series Lumberjanes.

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Ed Murray: Meditating in the age of Trump

POLITICO's Off Message

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2017 53:01

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray joins Off Message to discuss the city's lawsuit against the federal government on the sanctuary cities, how a monk encouraged him come out as a young man and what President Trump doesn't understand about the immigrant community.

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Ep. 29 - Seattle Mayoral Candidate Nikkita Oliver

Breakdances With Wolves

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 1, 2017 74:56

Gyasi, Wes and Minty are joined by Seattle Mayoral Candidate Nikkita Oliver, who is challenging the status quo by taking on incumbent Ed Murray to become the first woman of color (and first woman in 91 years) to hold the position of Mayor in Seattle.

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Ep 27: Seattle's Kshama Sawant on Ed Murray, Trump's election, homelessness and taxes

donald trump elections seattle taxes homelessness kshama sawant ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2017 33:29

Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who belongs to the Socialist Alternative Party, discusses her differences with Mayor Ed Murray on immigration, resisting President Donald Trump and last year's presidential election. She also talks homelessness and taxes.

Ep 25: Mayor Ed Murray on the state of Seattle, homelessness and resisting Trump

donald trump seattle mayors homelessness resisting ed murray

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 24, 2017 31:18

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray explains why he wants a new $275 million property-tax levy for homeless services, a new $16 million per year tax on sugary drinks to pay for education programs and information from the Trump administration about sanctuary cities.

Ep. 13: Visions for Seattle's Future

Seattle Growth Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2016 51:33

It is time for us to decide as a people : what do we want for this city as it undergoes a transformation? In today’s episode you are going to hear what the highest leadership at the city and state levels want. You will hear an in-depth interview with Seattle Mayor Ed Murray. You will also hear an in-depth interview with a member of Governor Jay Inslee’s executive cabinet, Brian Bonlender. You will also hear appearances by Maggie Walker, Friends of Waterfront Seattle Greg Smith, CEO of Urban Visions; Jane Richlovsky, partner in Good Arts Building; Benjamin Zuercher, founder of StuffMapper; Ali Ghambari, owner of Cherry Street Coffee; Tasha Meyer, student; Bojie Mageo, cofounder of Swurveys; Mikaela Kiner, CEO of uniquely HR; Ty Sanders

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Crosscut.com’s David Kroman on Mayor Ed Murray’s 2017 Budget for Seattle

Reporter's Notebook

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 28, 2016 11:52

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray unveiled his 2017 budget this week amid the chants of protesters outside of Seattle City Council chambers. The Mayor’s budget places an emphasis on the hiring of more police officers, the shortage of affordable housing, and the homelessness crisis. KCTS 9’s Enrique Cerna breaks down the Mayor’s budget with Crosscut.com’s City Reporter David Kroman, who describes the atmosphere in the council chambers as tense. Read the story: http://crosscut.com/2016/09/seattle-budget-mayor-ed-murray-city-council/ Image Credit: Micah Sheldon (https://www.flickr.com/photos/30709234@N02/5674295171/)

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Episode 2: Seattle's 'secure scheduling' law, Mayor Ed Murray fails on homelessness

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Play Episode Listen Later Sep 16, 2016 29:07

Seattle Times political reporters Jim Brunner and Dan Beekman look at Seattle's "secure scheduling" law with supporters and critics, including a former Starbucks president and the director of Working Washington. Plus Seattle Mayor Ed Murray's admits he's "failed" to effectively address the city's homelessness crisis.

David Kroman on Seattle's Homelessness Problem

Reporter's Notebook

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2016 10:44

It has been nearly a year since Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine declared a “state of emergency” over homelessness. Murray and Constantine promised more expenditures and more services to address the problem. Since then, the homeless population has continued to increase with the last one-night count finding some 3,000 people sleeping on Seattle streets — a five percent increase from the previous count. A deadly shooting incident in a homeless encampment called “The Jungle” in January highlighted the urgency of the problem, shocking city officials and residents. The Murray Administration has been strongly criticized for its handling of the sweeps of homeless campers. Now comes two long-awaited and pricey homeless reports that call on the city to make changes to how it deals with the homeless, how it spends money on services, its approach to housing and how that money is distributed to local programs. The reports says there are too many programs and they are inefficient in dealing with the city’s homeless crisis. The reports have already drawn criticism from local advocates for their cost and date-driven recommendations. Crosscut City Reporter David Kroman has written extensively about Seattle’s homeless problem and the efforts to address it. Kroman attended the press conference where details of the reports were discussed for the first time. He also heard from the Mayor’s office and captured reactions from homeless advocates. Kroman sat down to talk about the reports, the potential impact and what they mean in the ongoing struggle to deal with Seattle’s growing homeless population.

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Ep. 2: Home Buying in Seattle

Seattle Growth Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2016 46:57

Learn what it takes to buy a starter home in Seattle and how that has changed over the years. First hear Seattle Mayor Ed Murray share what the people of Seattle can do to help improve their neighborhoods. Then Rob Wasser (5:02), owner and designated broker of Prospera Real Estate and a member of the Northwest MLS board of directors, shares data on affordability in Seattle, as well as how the conversion of single-family homes to townhomes is affecting that affordability. Brad Evered (25:41), a broker with Caliber Home Loans, discusses the changes in lending standards over his 20 years in the business, and translates the current parameters to the levels of income, debt and savings necessary to buy a home in Seattle today. The episode also features appearances by Seattle homeowners and house hunters Kathy Kelley, Leslie Basel, Loren West and Dan Morgan.

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Mayor Ed Murray

Conversations with Enrique Cerna

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2016 31:20

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray talks about the homelessness crisis with KCTS 9’s Enrique Cerna. He addresses his state of emergency declaration, the shooting in the Jungle, the citizen anger and frustration over the growing number of homeless in Seattle, and what some perceive as the city’s soft approach towards the homeless. The Mayor also talks about the Seattles Police Department’s progress in meeting reforms set out in the Department of Justice consent decree, race relations and what he thinks the presidential candidates should be talking about, but aren’t.

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Rex Hohlbein

Conversations with Enrique Cerna

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2015 48:35

Rex Hohlbein was a successful Seattle architect who made a good living designing million-dollar homes. But Hohlbein gave up his architectural career to become an advocate for the homeless. What motivated him to do so? How did a talented homeless artist affect his decision? What does he think of the recent announcement by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine to declare states of emergency in the city and county in response to the growing rate of homelessness? Enrique Cerna takes up those questions and more with Hohlbein in an in-depth conversation about the homeless.

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Chapter 15: Welcome to the Other Side of the Rainbow

Defining Marriage - Gay/LGBT News & Chat

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2015 29:54

Senator Ed Murray had a roadmap to win equality in Washington. It would take years, and for much of that time, nobody believed he could do it. That’s because a key ingredient of his plan was time and patience. Rather than pushing for full marriage, Ed wanted to take a slow-motion approach, gradually educating legislators about marriage over the course of years before putting a marriage bill in front of them. Impatient allies didn’t see the point. But Ed’s strategy was vindicated one day in 2012 when he was sitting in his office with his partner Michael, both of them collecting themselves after an emotional testimony about why their long relationship deserved equal treatment under the law. In walked Mary Margaret Haugen, a longtime legislator with a conservative district. She had voted against marriage equality in the past, but today, she told them, she had changed her mind. It was simply the right thing to do, she realized, even though it meant she would probably lose her seat. That’s when it was clear that the tide had turned. People who would never have supported the freedom to marry before now found themselves switching sides, even if it came at a great cost. “We have been on a long journey,” Governor Christine Gregoire said. After years of work, she said, the marriage bill was “the final step. It is the right step. We have finally said yes to marriage equality.” But it wasn’t the final step after all. Instantly, anti-gay groups began gathering signatures to put their definition of marriage on the ballot that November. Winning over the conscience of the legislature was a multi-decade effort; now, Ed had eleven months to win over the conscience of the whole state.

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Ed Murray Talks About Commercial Solar Hot Water Systems

The Energy Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 22, 2015 23:43

Ed Murray Talks About Commercial Solar Hot Water Systems by Barry Cinnamon 366248

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Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy 11.15.14 - Joel & Ed Murray - The Murray Bros. eBay Auction

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 15, 2014 42:04

Joel Murray and Ed Murray call into the show to share the Murray Bros. eBay Auction Special offer: visit www.ineedtheball.com and type in "Golf Talk" when making a purchase to receive FREE SHIPPING & 10% off your purchase! Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy is brought to you by Ineedtheball, Slickstix.com, Polara Golf, Adams Golf, Sundale Country Club , McPhees Grill, Redwood Empire Golf CC and Paso Robles Golf Club. VisitGolftalkradio.com for the latest show information, contests, videos, iPhone and Android Apps and more! If you are interested in advertising with Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy email us at info@golftalkradio.com.Special offer: visit www.polaragolf.com and type in "July" when making a purchase to receive 30% off your purchase!

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Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy 4.19.14 - Ed Murray Shares Stories of the Murray Family & Caddyshack

Common Core: The Human Journey Colloquia Series

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2014 45:54

Ed Murray, one of the Murray brothers joins Mike & Billy in studio to share stories of growing up in the Murray house and the making of the movie Caddyshack.Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy is brought to you by Slickstix.com, Polara Golf, Adams Golf, Sundale Country Club , McPhees Grill, and Paso Robles Golf Club. Visit Golftalkradio.com for the latest show information, contests, videos, iPhone and Android Apps and more! If you are interested in advertising with Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy email us at info@golftalkradio.com.

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Dr. Ed Murray, The Wonderful Wild Women of Children's Literature, Fall 2013

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 16, 2013 6:23

Dr. Ed Murray, The Wonderful Wild Women of Children's Literature, Fall 2013

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Savage Love Episode 296

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2012 80:07

This week, we present a live recording of the Savage Lovecast. We recorded the fundraiser show in Seattle at the Neptune Theatre, along with musical guests Garfunkel and Oates and a special appearance by Washington State senator Ed Murray. And the usual topics were covered: auto-fellatio, giving vibrators as gifts, sex with ducks. Ho hum. This was a super-fun show. We hope you like it. You can contribute to Washington United for Marriage by going to their website: This episode is brought to you by Babeland—a women-owned sex toy retailer. Babeland offers a variety of sex toys and workshops designed to enhance your sex life. Enjoy 10% off with free shipping when you shop . This episode is also brought to you by . They make it easy to build a website or a blog. Give it a whirl, and if you want to buy it, use the code “Savage6” for a 10% discount.

Savage Love Episode 296

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2012 80:07

Savage Love Episode 281

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Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2012 46:54

We begin our podcast with arguably the sleaziest caller we've ever encountered. It really has to be heard to be believed. How can you help a friend when she's hung up on a psycho? To aid a man who's wife has no libido whatsoever, Dan enlists the help of human sexuality expert, scientist, author and the generally convivial Dr. Debby Herbenick. And Dan speaks with mighty Washington state Senator Ed Murray on the strategy for winning gay marriage rights. And win, we will. 206-201-2720 Today's episode is brought to you by . Get 50 percent off almost any item when you enter "Savage" at checkout. Comment on this episode at

Savage Love Episode 281

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Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2012 46:54

Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy - 7.09.11 - Live @ Pebble Beach for the Nature Valley First Tee Open - Hour 1

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 9, 2011 37:33

Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy broadcasted LIVE from Pebble Beach for the Nature Valley First Tee Open on Saturday, July 9th. Guests included Ed Murray the oldest brother of Billy Murray, Senior PGA Tour Player Mark McNulty, First Tee Coaches and Players. Mike & Billy had a great time hanging out with over 30 kids and their families who made the trip up from the Central Coast of California and are part of the First Tee of the Central Coast.A select few First Tee kids from all over the world had the chance to play Pebble Beach and Old Del Monte Golf Courses with Senior PGA Tour Players such as Bobby Wadkins, Mark O'Meara, Chip Beck and Hale Irwin just to name a few.Slickstix.com, Avila Beach Golf Resort, Blacklake Golf Resort, Adams Golf, Avila Village Inn , Golfland Warehouse and Dr. Tullius. Sign up for a chance to Win a Bridgestone Davis Love III Staff Golf Bag. Visit Golftalkradio.com for the latest show information, contests, videos iPhone and Android Apps and more!

Golf Talk Radio with Mike & Billy - 7.09.11 - Live @ Pebble Beach for the Nature Valley First Tee Open - Hour 2