Podcast appearances and mentions of Erica C Barnett

Two longtime political journalists, Erica C. Barnett and Josh Feit, explore all the reasons that the 2003 film Shattered Glass, about the rise and downfall of former New Republic journalist Stephen Glass, is the greatest journalism movie—nay, greatest movie—of all time. In the inaugural episode, we dissect some of our favorite scenes from Shattered Glass, and tell you why you should watch this iconic movie.Quotes: "Is anyone interested in hackers?""The building's closed on Sundays.""He fed us fiction after fiction, and we printed them all as fact. Just because we found him... entertaining."Hosts: Josh Feit and Erica C. BarnettEdited by: Erica C. BarnettSend us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and Erica C. Barnett, publisher of Publicola, discuss the story behind the City's work on a new crowd control policy for the Seattle Police Department, an update on SPD's 30 x 30 project to increase recruitment of women, departures from the Council and SDOT, and more. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon!Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies - The Beltway BriefingListen for of-the-moment insider insights, framed by the rapidly changing social and...

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and Erica C. Barnett, founder of Publicola, discuss the tradeoffs in Mayor Bruce Harrell's budget proposal, a new plan for lateral police hires and increased neighborhood surveillance, a new contract between Seattle and the King County Jail, and a major upheaval for King County's public defense system. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon!

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett! They discuss: Seattle Police Contract Raises Budget Concerns, Accountability Questions Thurston Sheriff's Hiring of Officer Involved in Manny Ellis' Killing Illuminates Broader Accountability Issues Burien Countersues King County Over Encampment Sweeps Unhoused Asylum Seekers at Garfield As always, a full text transcript of the show is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Erica Barnett, at @ericacbarnett. Resources “Tentative Police Contract Includes 23 Percent Retroactive Raise, Raising Cops' Base Salary to Six Figures” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “City Council FINALLY Ratifies Coalition of City Unions Contract Despite Budget Deficit Concerns” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Residents condemn Sheriff's hiring of former Tacoma officer involved in death of Manuel Ellis in Tacoma” by P. Jade Asumbrado from The Journal of Olympia, Lacey, and Tumwater   “Officer hired as sheriff's deputy despite involvement in fatal Manuel Ellis arrest resigns” by Gene Johnson from The Associated Press   About Certification Hearings | Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission   “Washington state creates process for public to seek police decertification” by Amy Radil from KUOW   “As Burien Countersues Over Homelessness Ban, Another Unsheltered Person Dies Downtown” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Will Seattle Respond to the Refugee Crisis with Housing or Handcuffs?” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Anonymous donor offers $50,000 to get asylum-seekers shelter” by Anna Patrick from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here

Week in Review: Conservative Initiatives, Comprehensive Plan, and Ax Murderer Controversy Conservative Initiatives Pass Democratic Legislature In a surprising move, the Democratic-majority in the Washington state legislature passed three conservative ballot initiatives into law, bypassing the need for a public vote. The initiatives ban a state income tax, expand parental rights regarding instructional materials and student records in public schools, and give police broader authority for vehicular pursuits. Barnett warned the parental rights measure could be wielded to out LGBTQ students: "It is outing trans kids, it is outing potentially gay and lesbian bisexual kids...it's a violation of the rights of privacy of children and teenagers." The decision avoids a costly campaign battle, but Barnett questioned if it signals Democrats being "willing to negotiate instead of fight" well-funded opposition. Mayor's Comprehensive Plan Faces Criticism Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell's proposed 20-year Comprehensive Plan allows for just 100,000 new housing units, despite projections that 250,000 more people will move to the city. Critics blasted this as woefully inadequate to address the affordable housing shortage. Barnett called it "stunning in its lack of ambition" beyond mandated zoning changes. Fincher urged residents to attend public meetings and directly press the mayor's and councilmembers' offices, saying "They need to hear from you, their constituents." Revelation of Ax Attacks on Homeless People Raises Concerns  Weeks after a suspect's arrest, Seattle police admitted they withheld information about horrific ax attacks targeting the city's homeless population. The lack of public warning sparked outrage. Barnett speculated police view such crimes against the unhoused as "not affect[ing] the general public." Fincher condemned the "dehumanizing conversations and rhetoric...about visible street homelessness" that enable such violence. Both hosts emphasized the need for accountability and citizen engagement from Seattle's elected leaders on these intersecting crises around housing, public safety and inequality.   As always, a full text transcript of the show is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Erica Barnett, at @ericacbarnett. Resources   Executive Dow Constantine Details How King County Tackles the Homelessness Crisis Through Housing Solutions from Hacks & Wonks   “Why we are voting to pass WA's parental-rights initiative” by Jamie Pedersen and Laurie Jinkins for The Seattle Times   @ErinInTheMorn on Twitter/X: "Democrats in Washington State just passed a PRIEA act which will likely result in forced outing of trans students in the state.  Initiative 2081 gathered enough signatures to go on the ballot.  Rather than fighting it at the ballot box, they decided to pass it instead.  Horrific"   “LGBTQ Advocates Are Ready to Fight the Parents' Bill of Rights” by Vivan McCall from The Stranger   “First-of-its-kind database: Majority of people killed in police chases aren't the fleeing drivers” by Susie Neilson, Jennifer Gollan and Janie Haseman from The San Francisco Chronicle   “City Attorney Disqualifies Judge from Criminal Cases, Issues Traffic Ticket to Officer Who Killed Student With His SUV” from PubliCola   “Republican City Attorney Ann Davison Throws Municipal Court into Chaos” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “The City Attorney's Blanket “Affidavit of Prejudice” Policy Against Judge Vaddadi” by David Ziff from Ziff Blog   “Draft Comprehensive Plan Would Increase Housing Less Than Needed to Accommodate 250,000 New Residents” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Seattle Releases Comprehensive Plan Less Ambitious Than Bellevue” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Mayor Harrell proposes housing density in every Seattle neighborhood” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times   One Seattle Plan Engagement Hub   One Seattle Plan Open Houses   “First Hill man arrested in ax murder as Seattle Police secretly searched for suspect preying on homeless — UPDATE” by Justin Carder from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog   Find stories that Crystal is reading here     Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank! Crystal and Robert chat about Raise the Wage Renton's special election win, how a rent stabilization bill passed out of the State House but faces an uphill battle in the State Senate, and the authorization of a strike by Alaska Airlines flight attendants. They then shift to how gender discrimination problems in the Seattle Police Department create a toxic work culture that impedes recruitment, the inexplicable pressing forward by Seattle on ShotSpotter while other cities reject it, and the failure of a philanthropic effort by business titans to solve the regional homelessness crisis. 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 “Renton $19 minimum wage hike ballot measure leading in early results” by Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks from The Seattle Times   “Washington State House Passes Rent Stabilization Bill” by Rich Smith from The Stranger   “Rent Stabilization Backers Aim to Beat Deadline to Keep Bill Alive” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   2024 Town Halls | Washington State House Democrats   “Alaska Airlines flight attendants authorize strike for first time in 3 decades” by Alex DeMarban from Anchorage Daily News   “The Seattle Police Department Has a Gender Discrimination Problem” by Andrew Engelson from PubliCola   “Harrell Plans Hasty Rollout of Massive Surveillance Expansion” by Amy Sundberg from The Urbanist   “Chicago will not renew controversial ShotSpotter contract, drawing support, criticism from aldermen” by Craig Wall and Eric Horng from ABC7 Chicago   “Despite Public Opinion, Seattle Cops and Prosecutors Still Prioritize Cracking Down on Sex Work” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Council's Public Safety Focus Will Be “Permissive Environment” Toward Crime” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “The private sector's biggest bet in homelessness fell apart. What now?” by Greg Kim from The Seattle Times   “Amazon donation is ‘another step' after homelessness group's collapse” by Greg Kim from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical shows and our Friday week-in-review shows delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review. 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 week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. [00:01:08] Robert Cruickshank: Thank you for having me back here again, Crystal. [00:01:11] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much. Well, we've got a number of items to cover this week, starting with news that I'm certainly excited about - I think you are, too - that this week, in our February special election, Renton had a ballot measure to increase the minimum wage which passed. What are your takeaways from this? [00:01:31] Robert Cruickshank: It's a huge win, both in terms of the margin of victory so far - nearly 60% of Renton voters saying Yes to this in a February election with low turnout. It will raise the wage to around $20 an hour in Renton. And I think it's a clear sign that just as we saw voters in Tukwila last year, and just as in fact voters in SeaTac 11 years ago - kicking all this off - moving to $15 an hour with a city ballot initiative that year, voters in King County, Western Washington want higher minimum wages. And I don't even think we need to qualify it by saying King County in Western Washington. You can look around the country and see - in states like Arkansas, when people put initiatives on the ballot to raise the wage, they pass. So I think there's, yet again, widespread support for this. And I think it also shows that the politicians in Renton - there were several city councilmembers like Carmen Rivera who supported this. There are others, though - the majority of the Renton City Council didn't. They spouted a lot of the usual right-wing Chamber of Commerce arguments against raising the minimum wage, saying it would hurt small businesses and make it hard for workers - none of which actually happens in practice. And voters get that. Voters very clearly understand that you need to pay workers more - they deserve more, especially in a time of inflation. This has been understood for well over 10 years now - that the minimum wage wasn't rising quickly enough and it needs to keep going up. So I think it's a huge wake-up call to elected officials - not just in local city councils, but at the state legislature - they've got to keep doing work to make sure that workers are getting paid well and that the minimum wage keeps rising. [00:03:04] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree. I also think, just for the campaign's purposes, this was really exciting to see. Again, not coming from some of the traditional places where we see ballot measures, campaigns being funded - great that they're funding progressive campaigns in other areas, but that these efforts are largely community-led, community-driven. The Raise the Wage Renton campaign, the Seattle DSA - the Democratic Socialists of America, Seattle chapter - were very involved, did a lot of the heavy lifting here. So really kudos to that entire effort - really important - and really showing that when people get together within communities to respond to problems that they're seeing and challenges that they face, they can create change. It doesn't take that many people acting together and in unison, speaking to their neighbors, to have this happen in city after city. And like you said, it started in SeaTac, and we see how far it's carried. I also think, as you alluded to, this puts other councils on notice. I know the City of Burien is talking about this right now, other cities are looking at this locally. And we have been hearing similar things from Burien city councilmembers that we heard from some of those Renton city councilmembers who declined to pass this on their own. They were parroting Chamber of Commerce talking points. They were parroting some old, disproven data. People recognize and so much data has shown that when you empower people, when you pay people, that is what fuels and builds economy. The economy is the people. So if the people aren't in good shape, the economy is not going to be in good shape. People recognize that. And we really do have to ask and reflect on - I think these elected officials need to reflect on - who are they serving? And where are they getting their information from? Because in city after city, we see overwhelmingly residents respond and say - This is absolutely something we want and we need. And there's this disconnect between them and their elected officials who are parroting these talking points - Well, we're worried about business. Well, we're worried about these. And I think they need to really pause and reflect and say - Okay, who are we really representing here? Where are we getting our information from and why are we seeing time after time that these talking points that have been used for decades, from the same old people and the same old sources, are completely falling flat with the public? I think they should be concerned about their own rhetoric falling flat with the public. They're certainly considering where these elected officials are as their reelections come due, as they're evaluating the job that they're doing. So I think they really need to think hard, evaluate where they are, and get aligned with the people who need the most help, who are trying to build lives in their communities. And stop making this go to the ballot. Stop making the people work harder for what they need - just pass this in your cities and make it so. [00:06:17] Robert Cruickshank: Absolutely. It would be certainly better for working people - for the elected officials to do this themselves. I am noticing a growing trend, though, of progressive and left-wing activists - socialists in this case, DSA - going directly to the ballot when needed. We saw it in Tacoma with the renters' rights legislation last year. We've seen it last year with social housing. And now again this week, House Our Neighbors came out with the initiative to fund social housing, which they had to split in two - due to legal reasons, you had to create the developer first, and then now you have to fund it. And again, the city council had an opportunity to do both here in Seattle. They had the opportunity to create the authority. They passed on that. Then they had the opportunity to fund it. They passed on that. And I am bullish on House Our Neighbors' chances to get their funding initiative, which would be through a payroll tax on large employers, passed by voters this fall. Because again, social housing was super popular at the ballot last year in a February election. Now they're going to go for November 2024 election when there's going to be massive turnout. It's unfortunate that people are having to put a lot of time, money, effort into mounting independent efforts to get things on the ballot - that's hard. It takes a ton of work, not just the gathering signatures and raising money, but just keeping a coalition going and all the meetings and stuff. But hats off to the people who are able to do that. It's not a sustainable way to get progressive policy done, but in a moment where there are more members of city councils who are aligned with the big corporations and wealthy donors, it's what you're going to have to do and it's building power. Ultimately - hopefully - it starts leading into successful victories in city council elections around the region, just as it's led to successes at the ballot box for initiatives. [00:07:59] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We saw in this effort, as we've seen in others, significant opposition from some elements in the business community. There were some businesses, especially small businesses, who were supportive of this, who were either already paying their employees higher wages because that's how you attract people in business - is not doing the absolute bare minimum. But we saw significant resources spent. This campaign was outspent. And still, the people made it clear what they wanted with another really, really impressive and strong margin. So we'll continue to follow where that goes. We will certainly continue to follow other ballot measures on the ballot as they develop this year, especially with House Our Neighbors and the Social Housing Initiative in Seattle - just going to be really interesting to see. Moving to the legislature, significant news this week that rent stabilization has passed the State House and now it moves on to the Senate. What will rent stabilization accomplish? [00:09:03] Robert Cruickshank: So the bill, HB 2114, which passed out of the State House - it was the last bill they took up before the deadline to pass bills out of their original house - limits the amount of increase in rent each year to 7%. So a landlord can only raise your rent 7% a year. This is modeled on similar legislation that was adopted in Oregon and California right before the pandemic - in Oregon and California, it's a 5% annual increase. This being Washington state, we can't do things exactly the way that are done elsewhere - we've got to water it down a little bit, so it's 7%. But it's not rent control in which a property or a apartment is permanently capped at a certain level, no matter who's renting it. Like the Oregon and California laws, this one in Washington would exempt new construction. And the reason you want to exempt new construction is to encourage people to keep building housing. And there's plenty of research that shows now that one of the most effective ways to bring rent down, not just cap its growth, is to build more housing. So building more housing and then capping the annual rent increase on housing that's been around for a while generally works. And you're seeing this in California and in Oregon - especially in cities that have been building more housing, rents have come down while those living in older apartments, older homes, are seeing their rents capped, so they're having an easier time affording rent. This is all good, and it made it out of the State House on mostly a party line vote - Democrats almost all in favor with a few exceptions, Republicans almost all against. Now it goes to the State Senate where there's a number of conservative Democrats, like Annette Cleveland from Vancouver who blocked the Senate's version of the bill, who's against it. Surely Mark Mullet, a conservative Democrat from Issaquah running for governor - surely against it. And Rich Smith in The Stranger had a piece yesterday in which he related his conversation with Jamie Pedersen from Capitol Hill, one of the most rent-burdened districts in the city, one of the districts in the state of Washington - legislative districts - with the most renters in it. And Pedersen was hemming and hawing on it. And so it's clear that for this bill to pass - it surely is popular with the public. Democrats, you would think, would want to do the right thing on housing costs going into an election. But it's gonna take some pressure on Democrats in the State Senate to pass the bill, especially without watering it down further. The bill that Annette Cleveland, the senator from Vancouver, had blocked in the Senate would cap rent increases at 15% a year. It's like. - Why would you even bother passing a bill at that point? 7% is itself, like I said, watering down what California and Oregon have done, but 7% is still a pretty valuable cap. Hopefully the Senate passes it as is. Hopefully the State Senate doesn't demand even more watering down. There's no need for that. Just pass the bill. Protect people who are renting. [00:11:44] Crystal Fincher: Agree. We absolutely need to pass the bill. I do appreciate the House making this such a priority - building on the work that they did to enable the building of more housing, which is absolutely necessary, last session. And this session moving forward with protecting people in their homes - trying to prevent our homelessness crisis from getting even worse with people being unable to afford rent, being displaced, being unable to stay where they're living, to maintain their current job. So that's really important. But it does face an uncertain future in the Senate. I do appreciate the reporting that Rich Smith did. He also covered some other State senators on the fence, including Jesse Salomon from Shoreline, John Lovick from Mill Creek, Marko Liias from Everett, Steve Conway from Tacoma, Drew Hansen from Bainbridge Island, Sam Hunt from Olympia, Lisa Wellman from Mercer Island, and Majority Leader Andy Billig being on the fence. And so it's going to be really important for people who do care about this to let their opinions be known to these senators. This is really going to be another example of where - they've obviously had concerns for a while, they're hearing talking points that we're used to hearing - that we know have been refuted, that maybe that information hasn't gotten to them yet. And maybe they don't realize how much of a concern this is for residents. They may be - they're in Olympia a lot of time, they're hearing from a lot of lobbyists - and they aren't as close sometimes to the opinions of the people in their districts. But one thing that many people need to understand is that many of these districts are having legislative town halls coming up as soon as this weekend, but certainly in short order. We'll put a link to where you can find that information in the show notes. Make it a point to attend one of those. If you can't, call, email, make your voice heard - it's really going to take you letting them know that this is a priority for you in order for this to happen. It's possible. So we really need to do all we can to ensure that they know how we feel. [00:13:58] Robert Cruickshank: Exactly. And those State senators you named, they are all from safe blue seats. Not a single one of them, except for maybe John Lovick in Mill Creek, is from a purplish district where they have to worry about any electoral impact. Although, to be honest, this stuff is popular. There are plenty of renters in purple districts who are rent-burdened and who would love to see the Democratic majority in Olympia help them out, help keep their rent more affordable. So it's a huge political win for them. Some of this may be ideological opposition. Some of them may be getting a lot of money from apartment owners and landlords. Who knows? You got to look at the case by case. But gosh, you would hope that the State Senate has political sense - understands that this is not only the right thing to do, but a winner with the electorate, and passes the bill. But it is Olympia. And unfortunately, the State Senate in particular is often where good ideas go to die in Olympia. So we'll see what happens. [00:14:48] Crystal Fincher: We will see. We'll continue to follow that. Also want to talk about Alaska Airlines flight attendants this week authorizing a strike. Why did they authorize this, and what does this mean? [00:15:01] Robert Cruickshank: Well, I think it goes back to what we were talking about with workers in Renton. Flight attendants work long hours - they're not always paid for it. They're often only paid for when the flight is in the air. And their costs are going up, too. The expense of working in this country continues to rise and flight attendants continue to need to get paid well for that. Flight attendants' union is very well organized. There's the good Sara Nelson - Sara Nelson, head of the flight attendants' union, not Sara Nelson, head of Seattle City Council - is an amazing labor leader and has done a really good job advocating for the flight attendants across the industry. And you see that in the strike authorization vote - it was almost unanimous with almost complete 100% turnout from members of the Alaska Flight Attendants Union. Alaska Airlines has been facing its own issues lately, especially with some of their Boeing jets having problems. They've also, for the last 20 years, at least tried to cut costs everywhere they could. They outsourced what used to be unionized baggage handlers at SeaTac many years ago - that caused a big uproar. It was, in fact, concerns about Alaska Airlines and how they're paying ground crews that was a major factor in driving the SeaTac minimum wage ballot initiative way back in 2013. So here we are now - the Alaska Airlines flight attendants looking to get better treatment, better wages and working conditions. And huge support from the union. And as we've seen in this decade in particular, huge support from the public. And I think it's really worth noting - you and I can both remember the 90s, 2000s, when workers went out on strike weren't always getting widespread public support. And corporations had an ability to work the media to try to turn public against striking workers - now, teachers always had public support, firefighters had public support, but other workers didn't always. But that's really shifted. Here, there's a widespread public agreement that workers need to be treated well and paid well. You see that in Raise the Wage Renton succeeding. You see that in the huge public support for Starbucks workers out on strike who want a union contract. And if Alaska Airlines forces its flight attendants out on strike, you will see widespread public support for them as well, especially here in western Washington, where Alaska maintains a strong customer base. People in the Seattle area are loyal to Alaska, and they're going to support Alaska's flight attendants if they have to go out on strike. [00:17:20] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and there's still a number of steps that would need to happen in order for it to lead to an actual strike. The flight attendants' union and Alaska Airlines are currently in negotiations, which according to an Alaska statement, is still ongoing. They signal positivity there. Hopefully that is the case and that continues. But first-year flight attendants right now are averaging less than $24,000 in salary annually. And especially here, but basically anywhere, that's not a wage you can live on. Those are literally poverty wages. And this is happening while Alaska Airlines has touted significant profits, very high profits. They're in the process of attempting to acquire another airline for $1.9 billion right now. And so part of this, which is the first strike authorization in 30 years for this union - it's not like this happens all the time. This is really long-standing grievances and really long dealing with these poverty wages - and they just can't anymore. This is unsustainable. And so hopefully they are earnestly making a go at a real fair wage. And I do think they have the public support. It is something that we've recognized across the country, unionization efforts in many different sectors for many different people. This week, we even saw - The Stranger writers announced that they're seeking a union, and wish them best of luck with that. But looking at this being necessary across the board - and even in tech sectors, which before felt immune to unionization pushes and they used to tout all of their benefits and how they received everything they could ever want - we've seen how quickly that tide can change. We've seen how quickly mass layoffs can take over an industry, even while companies are reporting record profits. And so this is really just another link in this chain here, saying - You know what, you're going to have to give a fair deal. It's not only about shareholders. It's about the people actually working, actually delivering the products and services that these companies are known for. The folks doing the work deserve a share of those profits, certainly more than they're getting right now. [00:19:44] Robert Cruickshank: I think that's right. And again, the public sees that and they know that being a flight attendant isn't easy work. But whoever it is, whatever sector they're in, whatever work they're doing, the public has really shifted and is in a really good place. They recognize that corporations and governments need to do right by workers and pay them well. Hopefully the flight attendants can settle this without a strike. And hopefully Alaska Airlines understands that the last thing they need right now is a strike. They've had enough problems already. So hopefully the corporate leadership gets that. [00:20:13] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I also want to talk about a new study that certainly a lot of people haven't found surprising, especially after two very high-profile gender discrimination lawsuits against SPD. But a study was actually done that included focus groups with Seattle officers, both male and female. And what was uncovered was a pervasive apparent gender discrimination problem within SPD. What was uncovered here? [00:20:45] Robert Cruickshank: All sorts of instances of gender discrimination - from blocked promotions, to negative comments, to inequities and inconsistencies in who gets leave - all sorts of things that made it an extremely hostile work environment for women. And some of the celebrated women of the department - Detective Cookie, who's well known for leading chess clubs in Rainier Beach, sued the department for gender and racial discrimination. And what the study shows that it's pervasive, but the only times it seemed to get any better were when women led the department - Kathleen O'Toole in the mid 2010s and then Carmen Best up until 2020 seemed to have a little bit of positive impact on addressing these problems. But under current leadership and other recent leadership, it's just not a priority. And it speaks, I think, to the real problems - the actual problems - facing police. You hear from people like Sara Nelson and others on the right that the reason it's hard to recruit officers is because - Oh, those mean old progressives tried to "Defund the Police' and they said mean things about the cops. That's not it at all. This report actually shows why there's a recruiting problem for police. Normal people don't want to go work for the police department. They see a department that is racist, sexist - nothing is being done to address it. Who would want to enter that hostile work environment? I remember when Mike McGinn was mayor - we were working for McGinn in the early 2010s - trying to address some of these same problems, trying to help recruit a department that not only reflected Seattle's diversity, but lived in Seattle - was rooted in the community - and how hard that was. And you're seeing why. It's because there's a major cultural problem with police departments all across the country - Seattle's not uniquely bad at being sexist towards women officers, it's a problem everywhere. But it's the city that you would think would try to do something about it. But what we're hearing from the city council right now - and they had their first Public Safety Committee meeting recently of the newly elected council - is the same usual nonsense that just thinks, Oh, if we give them a bunch more money and say nice things about cops and ease up a little bit on, maybe more than a little bit, on reform efforts trying to hold the department accountable - that officers will want to join the ranks. And that's just not going to happen. It is a cultural problem with the department. It is a structural problem. The red flags are everywhere. And it's going to take new leadership at the police department - maybe at City Hall - that takes this seriously, is willing to do the hard work of rooting out these attitudes. And you've got to keep in mind, when you look at this rank-and-file department - they elected Mike Solan to lead their union, SPOG - in January of 2020. Solan was a known Trumper, hard right-wing guy - and this is well before George Floyd protests began. Yet another sign that the problem is the department itself, the officers themselves, who are often engaging in this behavior or refusing to hold each other accountable. Because again, this toxic culture of - Well, we got to protect each other at all costs. - it's going to take major changes, and I don't see this City leadership at City Hall being willing to undertake the work necessary to fix it. [00:23:54] Crystal Fincher: I think you've hit the nail on the head there. And just demonstrating that once again, we get a clear illustration of why SPD has a problem recruiting. It is absolutely a cultural issue. It is what they have been getting away with despite dissatisfaction from women. And women in the department saying either we're targeted or discriminated against, but a lot of us - even though we're experiencing it - just try and keep our heads down and stay silent. And a lot of those people end up moving out eventually because who wants to work in an environment like this? We recognize this in every other industry. There's a reason why organizations and corporations tout their corporate culture, tout their benefits for women, their respect for women, their inclusion of women in leadership and executive-level positions. And we don't see that here. So if the leadership in charge of this - from Bruce Harrell, who is the ultimate head of the department, the buck stops with him to the police chief to the City Council - if they're actually serious about addressing this and not just using this as a campaign wedge issue with the rhetoric, they will have to address the culture of this department. Now, the Chair of the Seattle City Council's Public Safety Committee, Bob Kettle, who was recently elected in November, said that the hiring numbers were disappointed. He said - "The number of women that were hired in 2023 was not acceptable. We need to have a representative force where women are well represented. We need to be creating that culture and an environment of inclusion. And also the idea that you can advance, you can be promoted, you can move forward in the organization." So if he is serious about that, he has to address the culture - and that's going to involve addressing a number of things. That's going to involve, perhaps, addressing a number of the people currently in leadership who have created and who continue this culture and who are going to have to be dealt with if this is going to change. But this isn't something that's just going to change because there're new people elected in office. This isn't something that's just going to change because they're getting compliments more as a department and more funding has been thrown at them. This is going to take active engagement and a difference in leadership, a difference in training, a completely different approach. So we'll follow this. Mayor Bruce Harrell also said that he is planning to meet with women throughout the department to hear directly from them and listen to their concerns - we will see what results from those conversations and what happens. But now there is a lot of touted alignment between the mayor and city council here, so there really should be no roadblocks to them really addressing this substantively - if they're serious about addressing this. [00:26:58] Robert Cruickshank: I agree. And one of the ways you'll see whether they're serious or not is how they handle the SPOG contract. And one of the things that helps change a department's culture, where this sort of behavior is clearly known to not be tolerated, is for there to be real consequences. How are officers disciplined? How are officers fired? How are they held accountable? Right now, it's very difficult to remove an officer - the current contract rules make it very easy for an officer to contest a firing or disciplinary action and be reinstated or have the disciplinary action overturned. You're not going to eradicate a culture of racism and sexism without changing that as well. And that is at the core of the fight over the SPOG contract, and we will see whether the mayor and the city council are serious about cultural changes at SPD. And you'll see it in how they handle the SPOG contract - hopefully they'll put a strong one out and hold their ground when SPOG pushes back. But that's not going to happen, honestly, without the public really pushing City Hall hard. Because I think you see - from both the mayor and the city council - a desire to cut deals with SPOG, a desire to not go too hard at them. And I don't see - absent public mobilization - a strong SPOG contract coming. [00:28:07] Crystal Fincher: I think you're right about that. In other SPD public safety news, Seattle is planning a significant rollout of the ShotSpotter system. We've talked about that before here on the show - it's basically a surveillance system that's supposed to hear, to be able to determine gunshots from noises, to try and pinpoint where it came from. Unfortunately, it has been an absolute failure in several other cities - we've had lots of information and data about this. And this week, we received news that the City of Chicago is actually canceling their contract after this failed in their city. And so once again, people are asking the question - Why, with such a horrible track record, are we spending so much money and getting ready to roll this failed technology out in Seattle? Why is this happening? [00:29:04] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I see people on social media speculating it's because of campaign donations and things like that. I'm not sure that's it. I honestly think this goes back to something Ron Davis said in the campaign when he was running for city council, criticizing his opponent, Maritza Rivera, who ultimately won, and other candidates in-line with Sara Nelson for wanting to, in his words, "spread magic fairy dust" around public safety issues and assume that would work. And that really, I think, is what ShotSpotter is. It's magic fairy dust. This idea that there's some magical technological tool that can quickly identify where a gunshot is happening and deploy the officers there immediately. It sounds cool when you first hear about it like that, but as you pointed out and as Amy Sundberg has written about extensively, it doesn't work - just literally doesn't work. The number of false positives are so high that officers are essentially sent on wild goose chases - you can't trust it, it's not worth the money. And Chicago, which is a city with a very serious gun violence problem, explored this. And for them to reject it means it clearly does not work, and Chicago needs solutions that work. I think honestly, the reason why the city is adopting is they want to do something that looks like they're acting, that looks like they're taking it seriously, even though this isn't going to actually succeed. It is very much that magic fairy dust of trying to appear serious about gun violence, without really tackling the core issues that are happening here, without tackling the problems with policing, without tackling the underlying problems in communities and neighborhoods that can cause gun violence. There is a growing issue at schools in Seattle with gun violence. And students have been trying to raise this issue for a while, ever since a shooting at Ingraham High School in late 2022, another shooting that led to another student's death in near Chief Sealth High School in West Seattle recently, to a group of students robbing another student at Ingraham High School at gunpoint in recent weeks. There's a serious problem. And what you're not seeing is the City or the school district, to be honest, taking that very seriously or really responding in the ways that the students are demanding responses. And I think the really sad story with something like ShotSpotter is all this money and effort is being spent on a clearly failed piece of technology when other answers that students and community members are crying out for aren't being delivered. That's a real problem. [00:31:21] Crystal Fincher: It is absolutely a real problem. And I think there's near unanimous concern and desire for there to be real earnest effort to fix this. We know things that help reduce gun violence - there's lots of data out about that. The city and county have done some of them. They've implemented some of them on very limited basis. But it is challenging to see so much money diverted elsewhere to failed technologies and solutions like this, while actual evidence-based solutions are starved, defunded, and are not getting the kind of support they deserve - and that the residents of the city, that the students in our schools deserve. This is a major problem that we have to deal with seriously. And this just isn't serious at all. I feel like - it was the early 2010s - this technology came out and it was in that era of "the tech will save us" - everyone was disrupting in one way or another. There were lots of promises being made about new technology. And unfortunately, we saw with a lot of it in a lot of different areas that it just didn't deliver on the promises. So I don't fault people for initially saying - Hey, this may be another tool in the toolkit that we can use. But over the past 10 years, through several implementations in Atlanta, Pasadena, San Antonio, Dayton, Ohio, Chicago - it has failed to deliver anything close to what has happened. In fact, it's been harmful in many areas. And so you have people who are interested in solving this problem who are not just saying - Hey, we just need to throw our hands up and do nothing here. We're not trying to minimize the problem. They're in active roles and positions really saying - Hey, this is a priority. And unfortunately, this is not a serious solution to the problem. The Cook County state's attorney's office found that ShotSpotter had a "minimal effect on prosecuting gun violence cases," with their report saying "ShotSpotter is not making a significant impact on shooting incidents," with only 1% of shooting incidents ending in a ShotSpotter arrest. And it estimates the cost per ShotSpotter incident arrestee is over $200,000. That is not a wise use of government expenditures. A large study found that ShotSpotter has no impact - literally no impact - on the number of murder arrests or weapons arrests. And the Chicago's Office of Inspector General concluded that "CPD responses to ShotSpotter alerts rarely produced documented evidence of any gun-related crime, investigatory stop, or recovery of a firearm." Also, one of the big reasons why Seattle is saying they're implementing this is - Well, we're so short-staffed that we really need this technology and it's going to save manpower, it's going to save our officers' time, it's going to really take a lot of the work off their plate. Unfortunately, the exact opposite was shown to happen with ShotSpotter - "ShotSpotter does not make police more efficient or relieve staffing shortages." In fact, they found it's the opposite. ShotSpotter vastly increases the number of police deployments in response to supposed gunfire, but with no corresponding increase in gun violence arrests or other interventions. In fact, ShotSpotter imposes such a massive drain on police resources that it slows down police response to actual 911 emergencies reported by the public. This is a problem. It's not just something that doesn't work. It's actually actively harmful. It makes the problems worse that these elected officials are saying that they're seeking to address. With the challenges that we're experiencing with gun violence, with the absolute need to make our cities safer - to reduce these incidences - we quite literally cannot afford this. And so I hope they take a hard look at this, but it is really defying logic - in the midst of a budget crisis, in the midst of a gun violence crisis - to be embarking on this. I really hope they seriously evaluate what they're doing here. [00:35:54] Robert Cruickshank: I agree. And what you're raising is this question of where should we be putting the resources? And shout out to Erica C. Barnett at PubliCola, who's been writing in the last week or so some really good articles on this very topic - where is SPD putting its resources? A few days ago, she had a very well-reported article at PubliCola about enforcement of prostitution on Aurora Avenue, which is a very controversial thing to be doing for many reasons - is this is actually how you should protect sex workers? But also, is this how we should be prioritizing police resources? Whatever you think of sex work, pro or con, whatever your opinion is - is that where police resources should be going right now when we don't have as many officers as the City would like to have, when there's gun violence, and when there's property crime? And then she also reported recently about, speaking of Bob Kettle, he put out this proposal that he wants to focus on what he calls a "permissive environment towards crime" and closing unsecured vacant buildings, graffiti remediation as priorities. Again, whatever you think about vacant buildings and graffiti - how does that rank on a list of priorities when there are problems with gun violence in the City of Seattle? There are problems with real violent crime in the City of Seattle. And how are police department resources being allocated? I think these are questions that the public needs to be asking pretty tough questions about to City Hall, to Bob Kettle, to Sara Nelson, to Bruce Harrell, and SPD. Because, again, they haven't solved the cultural problem with SPD. They're not going to get many new officers until they do. So how do you use the resources you have right now? And it doesn't look like they're being allocated very effectively, whether it's cracking down, in their terms, on sex work on Aurora or buying things like ShotSpotter. It just seems like they're chasing what they think are easy wins that are not going to do anything to actually address the problem. And we will be here a year or two later still talking about problems with gun violence because City Hall didn't make it a real priority. [00:37:52] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Also want to talk this week about news that was covered - actually in The Seattle Times and elsewhere - about the private sector kind of corresponding organization to the King County Regional Homeless Authority - We Are In, a philanthropic endeavor from some of the richest residents in the states and corporations in the state - actually folded. It was a failure. What happened? Why did this fall apart? [00:38:24] Robert Cruickshank: A lot of this stems from the debate in 2018 over the Head Tax - taxing Amazon to fund services related to homelessness. Mayor Ed Murray declared way back in, I think 2014, a state of emergency around homelessness. We're 10 years into that and nothing's been done. But what the City was looking to do in 2018 - Mike O'Brien and others were talking about bringing back the Head Tax, taxing the corporations in the city to fund services to address the homelessness issue. And the pushback from Amazon and others was - You don't need to tax us. We'll spend money better than government can and do it ourselves. And so that's what things like We Are In was intended to do. It was really intended to try to forestall new taxes by, in theory, showing that the private sector - through philanthropic efforts - can solve this more effectively. And guess what? They can't. In part because homelessness is a major challenge to solve without government resources, without major changes in how we build housing and how we provide services and where they're provided. And what you're seeing is that a philanthropic effort is not going to solve that. They keep chasing it because I think they have a political imperative to do so. But what happened was that We Are In wasn't producing the result they wanted to, leadership problems. And now Steve Ballmer is talking about - Well, maybe we'll just fund the King County Regional Homelessness Authority directly. It's like - okay, in that case, what's so different between that and taxation? There is a report that consultants came up with - I think got publicized in 2019 or 2020 - that the region would need to spend something like $450 million a year to really solve homelessness. You could easily raise that money through taxes and taxing corporations and wealthy individuals. And they are just so adamantly opposed to doing that. They would rather try to make philanthropic donations here and there, even when it's clearly insufficient to meet the need. It's not well thought out. It's not well programmed and just falls apart quickly. [00:40:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I agree. Over so many years, we've heard so many times - Just run it like a business. We need to run government like a business. And over and over and over again, we see that fail - that doesn't work. When you can't target what you're doing to a certain market, when you're only serving a limited subset - when you have to serve the entire public, when you have to actually invest in people, and this isn't a quick product or service that you can use that automatically fixes a situation, there have to be systemic issues that are addressed. And sometimes there's this attitude that - Oh, it's so simple to fix. If you just put a business person in charge of it, they'll get it done. Look at how they built their company. They can certainly tackle this. And over and over again - this is the latest example - that just simply doesn't work. They aren't the same. They aren't the same set of skills. They operate on different levels. There's different training. Lots of stuff is just absolutely different. And part of me, fundamentally, wishes we would stop denigrating and insulting the people who have been doing this work, who have been really consistently voicing their concerns about what's needed, about what their experience shows solves this problem, about what is actually working. There are things that are working. There are things going right in our region that we seem to not pay attention to or that we seem to, especially from the perspective of a number of these organizations who spend so much money to fight taxes, spend so much money to pick councilmembers, saying - Well, we think we have a better solution here. And so we wasted time trying and failing with this when, again, the answer is systemic. We have to sustainably fund the types of housing and resources that get people housed once more, that prevent people from becoming unhoused, and that make this region affordable for everyone so that one unforeseen expense can't launch someone into homelessness. We have been doing a poor job on all of those accounts as a region for so long that it's going to take significant investment and effort to turn things around. Some of that is happening, and I'm encouraged by some things that we're seeing. But at the same time, we're also hearing, especially in the midst of these budget problems that cities are dealing with, that they're looking at unfunding and rolling back these things. Interesting on the heels of this ShotSpotter conversation, where we're investing money into that - they're talking about de-investing, about defunding homelessness responses, public health responses to these crises. And I think we have just seen that this group involved with this effort just does not understand the problem, had the opportunity to meaningfully participate in a fix, and it just didn't work out. That's great - they're doing a great job running their businesses. They can continue to do that. But it's time to really follow what the evidence says fixes this and not what business titans are wishing would fix it. [00:43:55] Robert Cruickshank: That's exactly right. And yet for the business titans, it's a question of power. They want to be the ones to ultimately decide how their money gets spent, not we the people or our elected representatives. I think of one of the things we started out talking about today is - rent stabilization bill in Olympia. Capping rent increases is a way to reduce homelessness. There are plenty of people who are pushed into homelessness by a rent increase they can't afford. Steve Ballmer calling up those State senators who are going to be tackling this bill saying - Hey, this would really help reduce homelessness if you pass this bill. I'm going to doubt that Steve Ballmer is making those calls. If I'm wrong, I'm happy to be wrong. I don't think I am. For them, they want the power to decide how their money is spent. And even when they spend it poorly, they still want that power. And I think they're willing to hoard that power even at the expense of people who really are in need, who are living without a home, and who need all of our help urgently. [00:44:49] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely agree. The last point I would want to make is that it's not like philanthropic funding is all evil, it's never helpful - it is. But this is about who is leading the solutions here and what we're doing. And I think that there are so many experts - so many people in organizations who are doing this work well - who need that additional funding. Let's put that philanthropic money into systems that are working instead of trying to recreate the wheel once again. So much time and money was lost here that so many people can't afford and that have had really horrible consequences. And I think a number of people who went into this were probably well-intentioned. But it just goes to show once again that - we know what works. And no matter how much we wish that it could be some simple fix over here, that it wouldn't require any public expenditure, it absolutely does. So it'll be interesting to follow and see what happens from there. And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, February 16th, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is the incredible Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. You can find Robert on Twitter at @cruickshank. You can find 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 show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! Crystal and Erica discuss public outcry over targeted inspections of LGBTQ+ establishments and Seattle Council President Sara Nelson's remarks opposing even-year elections for local races. They then turn to news from King County that the target closure date of 2025 for the Youth Jail will be missed and how the annual “Point In Time” homelessness count will be different this year. The show wraps up with new polling that Seattle voters are supportive of a big Transportation Levy and a stunning update on the Snohomish County gravel yard vs elementary school situation. 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 Barnett, at @ericacbarnett.   Resources Pairing Advocacy and Research for Progress with Andrew Villeneuve of the Northwest Progressive Institute from Hacks & Wonks   “Seattle's Queer Community Demands Swift Change After Raids of Gay Bars” by Vivian McCall from The Stranger   “Seattle LGBTQ+ bars, clubs on edge after ‘lewd conduct' violations” by Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks from The Seattle Times   “Council President Sara Nelson Opposes Effort to Increase Voter Turnout” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Amid Backlash Against Therapeutic Alternatives, Youth Jail Will Stay Open Past 2025 Target Date for Closure” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “KCRHA Plans More Focused Homelessness Count, Council President Supports Bills That Would Make It Easier To Take Away Drug Users' Kids” from PubliCola   “Seattle Voters On Board with Big Transportation Levy, New Polling Shows” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Gravel yard warns Snohomish County school to stop speaking out — or else” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I chatted with Andrew Villeneuve of the Northwest Progressive Institute about their work to advance progressive policies through their focuses on research and advocacy. Among other projects this year, NPI is working to combat the six dangerous Republican-sponsored initiatives and push for even-year elections for local races. 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: Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. [00:01:26] Erica Barnett: Hello - it's great to be here. [00:01:28] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back again, as always. Well, starting out the news of the week was something a lot of people were both surprised and very troubled to see. And that was Seattle's queer community being very alarmed - and now demanding swift change - after raids that included gay bars. What happened here? [00:01:49] Erica Barnett: The Joint Enforcement Team, which is a group of Seattle Police Department officers and the Liquor Control Board of the state, went out and they were checking on a bunch of bars - I think it was more than a dozen. But the thing that has gotten the most attention is citations at two gay bars on Capitol Hill - The Eagle and The Cuff - for lewd conduct. And I believe it was associated with guys being in jockstraps and possibly nipple showing - and frankly, to my mind, very silly stuff that could not matter less. But they cracked down on this and it kind of feels like a throwback to the days when the city and the state were really concerned with behavior in bars and things that are moralistic laws that probably shouldn't even be on the books. So there has been a real outcry since then from the LGBTQ+ community about - why is this something that the Liquor Control Board and the police are focusing on right now? Feels like we're kind of in a backlash era on a lot of different issues from policing to just stuff like this moral conduct BS. And this is just another example of that. It's really unfortunate and kind of shocking that in 2024, the police and the Liquor Board care about whether somebody's butt is showing. It feels very, very silly and very, like I said, very throwback to a different era. [00:03:07] Crystal Fincher: Definitely feels like a throwback to a different era - a few different eras - that aren't all that long ago, some pretty recent. But we can't ignore that happened during a time right now where we're seeing laws passed across the country to criminalize members of the LGBTQ+ community and targeting them in a way that is certainly more severe than we've seen in decades, seemingly. And so there was some pushback by some members of the team there - Hey, this wasn't actually a raid, these were check-ins. Regardless of what you call it, the impact is really the same. It has a chilling impact that scares people out of the space. You've got police seemingly coming in and not just going - Hey, I want to check on you in these situations. They came in as part of an enforcement action, it seemed. They also took pictures of people - they said, for evidence. But again, what are we using these lewd laws for? And I saw some people online say - Well, we don't allow nudity in hetero spaces so we're just treating the gay community the same way. There's nothing to see here. And oh, we absolutely do allow nudity-- [00:04:21] Erica Barnett: Well, and also we should - this is, what frustrates me about this is I feel like the police and the Liquor Board are so far behind the rest of the public. I think if you went out on the street and asked 10 people or 100 people - Should guys be allowed to wear jockstraps at a bar? And if everybody's consenting, should some sexual behavior be allowed at a bar? And should women be allowed to be topless or whatever? Most people would say - Yeah, I guess. I don't care. I'm not going there. You have consenting adults in an environment where everybody knows where they are - I cannot imagine that the public is on board with using police resources, which are supposedly so scarce that they can't respond to 911 calls, on cracking down on people for a little bit of nudity and "lewd behavior." I mean, the fact that we have lewd behavior laws is a whole other subject, but it all just feels very ridiculous to me. [00:05:15] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and those laws are very relevant as a subject right now. And they are a problem - they are unequally enforced. In fact, one of the owners of one of these queer bars does own several other mainly hetero bars and spoke with authority saying - Hey, my bars that are not gay bars don't have this happen. They are policing these bars differently. And one of them testified that a police officer recently said that they're just starting to enforce these new laws again. It has a lot of people really questioning what the priorities are. As you said, we do actually poll people pretty often in Seattle about what concerns them. And nudity has never made the list, that I've seen - they are concerned about a variety of things of public safety. This doesn't seem to take the cake. And as you said, with a shortage - as they say - of police officers and resources to keep people safe, seems like they could be used in a much better and effective way than taking a picture of someone exposing a nipple. I just don't know where the priority is, and I do hope that this spurs some questioning of officials involved. How did this happen in the City of Seattle? How was there no one involved in this process that could raise the red flag of - Hey, this looks real suspect. This looks like we are not treating this community in the way that we treat other communities. It's just really a challenge. There was a Washington State Liquor Control Board meeting, a couple of them - one yesterday where there's quite a bit of public comment from concerned community members. Members of the board said that this is a very concerning incident for them. They did end up questioning the usefulness of lewd laws overall. They did say - Hey, as an administrative body, it really isn't in our wheelhouse to be changing the law, but we do think that the legislature should review these lewd laws. The LGBTQ caucus within the legislature is going to be meeting about this to potentially address the lewd laws and potentially pulling from some other legislation that had been advanced by sex workers, who have advanced a lot of worker protection safety, workplace safety legislation to potentially help prevent something like this - unequal enforcement - from happening again. Just doesn't seem like lewd laws make sense in our society today, and I do hope they take a look at that. But certainly alarming news to a lot of people, myself included, to see. And surprising in a city like Seattle, but it really does go to show we just can't take anything for granted - that these things can't happen here. Potentially they can. And we need to make sure we're doing all we can to ensure that we are not targeting vulnerable communities. Also want to talk about a story that made a decent amount of news, certainly in political Seattle, this week. And it was news that Council President Sara Nelson opposes an effort to increase voter turnout. What happened here? [00:08:27] Erica Barnett: Well, so there was a story in The Stranger that quoted Sara Nelson from a meeting about a week and a half ago, saying that she had a strong concern about moving local elections to even years. The part that got quoted was - From the perspective of a local government candidate, I don't believe that greater turnout necessarily means a better informed public. And that was the part that got quoted and I think really blew up on social media, sort of suggesting that Sara Nelson - and the article also explicitly said - that Sara Nelson believes that there should be less voter turnout and that it's better for politicians like her who - she is one of the more conservative members of the city council - that it would be better for politicians like her if fewer people voted. And that's what got spread really widely. I will say there is a lot of debate about whether we should go to even-year elections. But that quote from Sara Nelson was - to me, it was a classic example of taking a quote out of context. I was at that meeting and I remember her comments, but that didn't jump out at me. And the reason it didn't jump out was that she went on for several more minutes. And I'll just quote a little bit more of what she said. It doesn't necessarily mean a better informed public when it comes to the issues that impact people's lives directly, from public safety to potholes. These are the issues that we here at the dais deal with, and I'm concerned that there will not be time or there will not be interest in hosting all the forums my colleagues attended last year. Media will not be interested in the lower down the ballot races because of the high profile stuff like President and Congress. Down ballot participation hasn't really been examined and for those reasons, I'm concerned about moving local elections to even years. I think that would be bad for cities across the state. And she was expressing one side of this debate, which is that people in even-year elections - when there's president, when there's Congress, when there's all the statewide races, when there's just tons and tons and tons of other races - people aren't going to continue down the ballot and they're not going to inform themselves or vote in those very low on the ballot races, the ones that deal with potholes, the ones that deal with all those other local issues that the council deals with. So I think that quote was wildly misrepresented, and she was expressing a common argument against even-year elections. Now, agree with it or not, she wasn't saying that she thinks people shouldn't be allowed to vote or that she likes low voter turnout - which it's understandable that that tiny little snippet was interpreted that way. But she did go on for quite a while. And I think it's really unfortunate that the rest of that very long quote was just clipped out. [00:10:56] Crystal Fincher: As you say, Sara Nelson does have a tendency to go on for a while and sometimes the thoughts aren't as clear and easy to parse, sometimes you do have to do a bit of reconstituting to fully understand what she is trying to say. And it is important to have the full context of all of her comments there. I do think that it's important to pay attention to all of the things that she said. And that is one of the things that she said. And it's very possible, as I've seen her do before, where she'll throw out a lot of things - she may not expand upon them or be able to really fully articulate why she said them. But it is important to me that we don't ignore this because we see this happen in a lot of debates where they'll throw out some seemingly fairly common mainstream points of debate - people can disagree, this is generally what they think. But that portion - which I do think it is important to not discard just because there were other reasons also given - was the justification for why people like me, a Black woman, shouldn't be able to vote. A specific tool of disenfranchisement that we are hearing parroted today across the country. She is not the only person to articulate this ever. It's troubling, and I do think it's important to call it out. [00:12:18] Erica Barnett: I just would recommend people watch the entire segment of that meeting on the 22nd. Because I do think that is super inflammatory - people are saying stuff like that all the time around the country. MAGA conservatives want to disenfranchise Black people, want to disenfranchise Hispanic people, want to disenfranchise everyone who won't vote for the Trump agenda. And that is horrifying. I don't think that's what Sara Nelson was saying here. I think that describing her as a conservative in Seattle is very real, but describing her as a MAGA Republican is ridiculous - in my opinion. [00:12:50] Crystal Fincher: I don't even think we need to label her as a standard Republican, as a MAGA Republican, as a conservative. She's definitely a conservative. But I do think we are at a point in time where it is dangerous to ignore that - even if it's one point out of five or six that she made, it is included in the points that she made. And ignoring things like that or not taking that seriously, whether it comes out of the mouth of Trump or out of the mouth of Reagan Dunn or out of the mouth of Sara Nelson, has been what has helped to get us to the point that we're at right now - which is not a great point since we're rolling back voting rights all over the place in the country and in danger of doing that even more. I do see where people could have different interpretations of what she said. I think it's important to, while viewing the full context of what she said and that she did give a lot of other reasons, to make sure that this is never, ever, ever a reason that anyone articulates. And that anytime it's articulated, we hear that and we respond - because ignoring that makes it worse. And saying things in seemingly innocuous ways and putting - okay, three reasonable reasons and a wildly racist reason is how those views are peddled. [00:14:08] Erica Barnett: I don't think she was making a wildly racist point. I am not a defender of Sara Nelson and her policies. I do think that lots of them are very damaging, but I believe she was basically making one point - which is when you have a lot of stuff at the top of the ballot, it is hard for voters to learn about or care about the stuff at the bottom. I share all your concerns, but I also think that it's important to be accurate about these things. [00:14:33] Crystal Fincher: I think it is important to be accurate. I happen to disagree with the other points that she made and think they're disproven by California's even-year elections and the success seen there. There's going to be continued debate on this. But I do think that regardless of what her intention is, it's another intention versus impact statement. The impact of the words that she used has been undeniable over the years and how they're being used now is to disenfranchise. [00:15:00] Erica Barnett: My frustration is mostly that The Stranger wrote this article that was very inflammatory without providing the appropriate context, which is the job of journalists - instead of trying to make somebody a villain when there are lots of policy reasons to make somebody a villain that don't involve taking their words out of context. But I really look forward to the debate on the even-year elections, because I think one thing you can say without any caveats is that Sara Nelson is not going to be a fan of voting reforms of any kind. And I think that that is going to break down along very much progressive and moderate and conservative lines. And I think we'll see hopefully more articulation of why people are for or against this. And that'll be revealing, I think, to people in the public trying to make up their minds on this. [00:15:44] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I think you and I agree that the full context should always be known. I think it is helpful to see the full context of what she said. I just happen to also believe that we can't ignore the content that is included in that context. Even if it wasn't her main point and she didn't have an intent to do that, I just can't ignore that being included - from whoever says it at any point in time - to make sure that that doesn't make it easier for other people to continue to disenfranchise others. I do want to talk about a story you covered this week about the Youth Jail looking like it's going to stay open past 2025, which was its target date for closure. What happened here? [00:16:34] Erica Barnett: Well, essentially what happened is Dow Constantine in 2020 announced that he was going to have a target of 2025 for the Youth Jail to close - and actually more than a target, he said it would be closed. And since then, there has been an advisory group that's been meeting and discussing alternatives to the Youth Jail. And they came up with a list of six recommendations. And that list of recommendations, I think, reflects the fact that there is a real debate about what to do with young people who have committed very serious crimes like murder and if they can be immediately released into, let's say, a low-security or no-security therapeutic environment, or if they need to be in a secure locked cell, essentially. At the same time, the county has not come up with money to do any of the alternatives that are suggested in this report. And they right now don't really have a lot of prospects for coming up with money because unless there's a ballot measure, the money has to come out of the county's general fund, which is between $35 and $50 million in the hole next year. So right now, the proposal is - basically there's some consensus recommendations that came out of the advisory group that are about setting up community supports and standing up more groups to help people, and this kind of stuff that we hear over and over again. It's currently fairly vague and would cost money, but not as much money as the recommendations that were a little more contentious. One, where there is general consensus but not total consensus, was to build these new housing alternatives called "community care homes" for people who leave the Youth Jail but don't have a safe place to go. So those would be essentially group homes. And the need is really in South King County. And those would be quite expensive - you're talking perhaps single family homes, more of a home-like environment. And then the more controversial idea was something that's called "respite and receiving centers," which would be where police would take kids immediately after they are arrested. And it would theoretically not be a jail, but in a lot of cases, depending on the crime, kids wouldn't be able to leave. There's locked versions of these that exist elsewhere. There's low-security versions. And so that is also very much up in the air, and it also would cost quite a bit of money. So we're sort of in a period of stasis where there's going to be some examination of these alternatives, but the Youth Jail itself is not going to close. And just last thing, the Youth Jail - the Patricia Clark Children and Family Center is its official name - it went down into the single digits in terms of population during COVID and it's back up to about 30, 40. And population before COVID and before all these promises was about 50% Black - I think it was like 47%. The population after COVID - and of course, the goal of this in part is to reduce disproportionality - but the population now is still approximately 50% Black. And that's wildly out of proportion with the King County population. So progress has not been made, and I think that's the headline and the depressing conclusion - that we just haven't done a whole lot since before the pandemic. [00:19:37] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it certainly appears that way. And several members of the council, in addition to the King County Executive, seem to be grappling with this and talking in a perhaps different way than they had before. Dow Constantine said that he believes there will continue to be a need for secure detention, meaning traditional jail for kids accused of the most serious crimes. Councilmember Girmay Zahilay said - I think the controversy will be around if a young person poses a serious threat to the community, to community safety - if, for example, they've been charged with murder - will that person be able to just walk free in a couple of days? He said, on the flip side - If we're going to build another facility that is a secure detention facility, we have to be clear on what we're changing to make it different from the current Youth Jail. So we will continue to pay attention to how they negotiate their way through this and how they do define what they're doing that is going to make it different from what they're currently doing, if at all. It's going to be interesting to see how they continue to go about that. Also want to talk about the King County Regional Homelessness Authority planning a more focused homelessness count this year, which is different than they have done it in recent years. What is changing with the way they're doing the "Point In Time" count this year and why are they changing it? [00:21:01] Erica Barnett: So the "Point In Time" count used to be a literal point-in-time count where people would go out at night and count people that they saw in tents and cars, and it would be an estimate. And it was always regarded as an undercount. King County Regional Homelessness Authority has since then adopted a form of sampling where they go out - they set up locations and invite people to come there. They give people who do show up coupons to give to people they know in their networks. And through a series of going through people's networks, they've reached people that wouldn't ordinarily be reached by just setting up a survey. And they use that to come up with a number. The last time they did this, they ran into some challenges - one of which is that they didn't have enough locations. Particularly in South King County, people were left out - populations and areas of South King County were left out. And they also did a separate portion of it, which was a qualitative process, where they did these interviews with people about what their experience being homeless was like. The interviews were, as I reported last year, often very rambling. They didn't include specific questions. They were just supposed to be conversations. But those interviews were used to determine the initial five-year plan for reducing homelessness. And they were regarded as pretty problematic, so they dropped that portion this year. They're going to more locations. They're doing it for a longer period of time, so there's going to be a little more time to collect interviews. And I think just overall, it's going to be more organized this year. From my reporting, it sounds like it was somewhat chaotic and rushed the last time - again, particularly in South King County, because that's where they started. And so they learned all their lessons off of the South End and then applied them in other areas. So the plan is just to be a little bit more organized and also do more training. Last year, there was a brief training that could be done online. And I think there's been more training this year and people are given specific questions to ask, rather than - What has it been like for you? - which was one of the questions last time. [00:22:57] Crystal Fincher: And why is that "Point in Time" count so important? [00:23:01] Erica Barnett: Well, it's important in a practical sense of being able to receive federal funds. It's also mandatory - HUD requires it. But it also gives a sense of whether homelessness is getting better or worse, whether it's going down or going up. And so. It's never an exact count. Even when you're doing statistical sampling, it's not going to be exact. And what's kind of wild is that there's a bunch of different counts for King County - one is done by the State Commerce Department, there's a King County one, and then there's a King County Homelessness Authority one. And they vary wildly - they are just tens of thousands apart. So one of the things that the KCRHA count does - it's the largest count. It's the one that has the largest number, which is over, I believe, 50,000 people experiencing homelessness in King County - I don't know if that's the correct number, but it gives probably a better sense of the scale than the previous "Point In Time" count, which was always around 10,000 to 13,000. So it kind of more accurately represents how bad the problem is, but it also shows year after year whether the number is going up or down using the same methods. [00:24:02] Crystal Fincher: Well, we will pay attention to what that is. Certainly, this has been talked about throughout campaigns, during election season, from electeds who have just recently been elected or reelected. And so it's going to be really important to see if what they have been doing has resulted in more or less - it's not an exact count, but it is a process that seemingly repeats, has for several years. So relative size of the count, hopefully, is going to be an indicator of where we're at and if any progress has been made. Also want to talk about new polling showing that Seattle voters look like they are supportive of a big transportation levy. Polling was done to determine the levels of support for a more modest levy versus one that includes additional projects, and it looks like there is support across the board. What did you see? [00:25:00] Erica Barnett: Well, I think that even though transportation is not an issue that is in the headlines, it's something people experience every day, obviously. And people who use transit in particular can both see progress on some of the Rapid Ride lines that are being funded with previous levy funds and also frustration with the fact that things are not proceeding as quickly as voters might have hoped. So I think it shows that there is very strong support for some of these less high-profile issues, like the way that we get around our city - but also in a larger sense that people are still willing to support taxes when they go to specific things. And I think that might seem like an obvious point, but if you look at some of the other problems that we're facing, like homelessness, like the Youth jail and the very large cost of replacing it that we're just discussing, there's hope - because people actually are willing to pay for these things. I think people get very irritated by sales taxes, and understandably so - and it's the most regressive kind of tax. And at the same time, they're willing to support property taxes, which I think leaders should really take a look at. And the Housing Levy that passed recently is a good example of the city going way too small. I think they could have gotten a much bigger levy and polling showed that. And I think that once again, polling is showing that there's a strong voter appetite, so going big is going to produce more results. So my hope would be that City leaders would take notice of that and instead of doing this mealy-mouth thing they do every time where they're - Well, here's three numbers and we'll pick the middle one, they go big and actually get some stuff done. [00:26:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think there's absolutely that political case - that it's easier to affirmatively sell something that people want to see, something that they're getting for their money. And just the scale of the challenges that we are facing that can be addressed through this transportation levy, to me, tell me that it's not just politically feasible, but really important to do. We are behind on our 2030 climate goals. We're behind on the ones coming after that. We need to do more. We need better transportation options. Hopefully, they're looking at some acceleration of some projects here. Certainly, it's been frustrating for a lot of people to see delays in projects that were initially expected to come. And we're facing issues like inflation that have increased the price tag. Everyone has seen that happen in every area of their lives. This is no different - things are going to cost a little bit more, and so I think it would be a mistake to not be able to go after the full suite of projects that we could. Certainly maintaining what we have is important, but we are falling further behind and are going to tax our existing resources more if we don't do more, provide more, and fund more. So I hope they wind up going for what is needed and not settle for what seems like - Hey, maybe people will be more likely to support a smaller amount. People just don't like that decision - the overwhelming majority of people just do thumbs up and thumbs down on the idea of that tax. Some people may oppose taxes and oppose this. But for people who are likely to be supportive, it is not going to change whether this passes or fails to go for the full amount, and I hope they understand that. The last thing I want to talk about today was an update to a story we talked about on last week's week-in-review with Daniel Beekman. We talked about a Snohomish County elementary school and kindergarten who were being really adversely impacted by an unpermitted gravel yard that popped up without any warning to the school next door to them. In addition to just causing a bunch of dust and noise that is making it disruptive to be able to teach and very distracting, it's also seemingly caused some really concerning health concerns from headaches, black snot, coughing fits. It is just really challenging what these kids are going through. It has not escaped my attention or Daniel Beekman's attention, as he reported it, that the population of this school - they have a larger immigrant and refugee population, a larger population of students who are living in poverty than a lot of other schools, and wondering if that is the reason why they seemingly haven't had any kind of support or recourse against this happening, particularly since it's an unpermitted use. This is in unincorporated Snohomish County, so in this situation, it really is up to the county council to determine what, if anything, to do. And their only response so far had been to say - Well, we'll give them some more time to try and bring their use into a permitted use. That has been dragging on while this school and these kids and the staff there have been trying to negotiate their way through this and raise some red flags and ask people to intervene here. An update came out this week in a follow-up story by Daniel Beekman. The gravel yard responded by sending a cease and desist letter from their attorney to the local school, really just saying - You guys need to stop talking about this. Not saying - Oh, wow. Kids are getting sick and they're having really bad health outcomes. We should see if we are the cause of this and try and stop it. Or, okay, maybe we'll pause this work until we are operating legally in a permitted way. That wasn't it. It's just to try and shut up the people who are complaining about black snot and headaches in kids - that are happening. I just thought that was really an unfortunate response and one that frequently backfires. It appears that it did here and that that is drawing more attention to this whole thing. So that was an update that I wasn't expecting to see, was certainly dismayed to see. I do hope that the county council does take some action here, that the county executive takes some action here to at least provide some recourse to examine what is happening here at the school, to not just let someone, in an unpermitted capacity, negatively impact kids who have to be at school. I think a few people had contacted the county council - hopefully that turns out to be helpful. But very troubling to see and we'll continue to follow along with what is happening there. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, February 2nd, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter at @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can find Erica everywhere - I see her on all the platforms and getting PubliCola in my email inbox and everything else. 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, Overcast, 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 show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle Times politics and communities reporter, Daniel Beekman! Crystal and Daniel discuss the unsurprising Seattle City Council vacancy appointment and what we might see from a business-backed, Harrell-picked legislative body as they navigate a hiring freeze, a large budget deficit, and upcoming important policy decisions. Next, they turn to the Office of Police Accountability's conclusion that SPOG Vice President Auderer's comments about Jaahnavi Kandula's death were “​​derogatory, contemptuous, and inhumane” and speculate how Chief Diaz and Mayor Harrell will handle disciplinary action. The conversation then covers Daniel's recent story about a Snohomish County school's travails with a neighboring gravel yard and seemingly unconcerned local government. Finally, in the wake of the City of Seattle settling with 2020 protesters for $10 million, Crystal and Daniel wonder whether there will be any meaningful change in how the Seattle Police Department responds to protests. 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, Daniel Beekman, at @DBeekman.   Resources The Raise the Wage Renton Campaign with Maria Abando and Renton City Councilmember Carmen Rivera from Hacks & Wonks   “In "Foregone Conclusion," Council Appoints Tanya Woo to Citywide Position” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Total Corporate Takeover of Council Now Complete” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Harrell Issues Hiring Freeze as New Council Members Vow to "Audit the Budget"” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “SPD cop's comments on Jaahnavi Kandula's death were ‘inhumane,' biased, watchdogs say” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times   “Snohomish County school seeks relief from gravel yard sited next door” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times   “City of Seattle settles BLM protesters' lawsuit for $10 million” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and 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 Renton City Councilmember Carmen Rivera and Raise the Wage Renton Steering Committee member Maria Abando to learn more about the citizen initiative to raise Renton's minimum wage. Ballots got mailed out this week, so keep an eye on that and make sure all your friends and family in Renton vote by February 13th. 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 politics and communities reporter, Daniel Beekman. [00:01:28] Daniel Beekman: Thanks for having me on. [00:01:30] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, there is a good amount of news to discuss this week. Starting off, Seattle got a new councilmember. Tanya Woo was appointed by the council to fill the vacancy created by Teresa Mosqueda's election to the King County Council. What was the lead up? What happened here? How did this happen? [00:01:53] Daniel Beekman: Well, it was an interesting situation where so soon after actual elections, we had this appointment process for the City Council because Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda jumped to the King County Council in the same election that elected an almost all-new Seattle City Council, so there's some kind of whiplash there with so much change so quickly. And we saw the new-look City Council appoint someone who narrowly lost in November, which was interesting to see. They sort of had an option of, in theory, choosing someone who fit the profile politically of Teresa Mosqueda, the outgoing councilmember, to fill that citywide seat, or of choosing someone who had just run, or going a whole other direction. And there was a lot of politicking ahead of the appointment. And I think that the new City Council President Sara Nelson said we're not doing anything else until we have this appointment. So we're not going to get down to actual business, which to some extent makes some sense in that you want to sort of have everything set before you start doing the work. On the other hand, it sort of laid down a marker of - this is our first new thing that we're doing as a city council. It's going to be significant, which it is - choosing someone to represent the whole city, at least until November, late November when the election results get certified. But yeah, it was interesting. What did you make of it? Were you surprised that they picked Tanya Woo? [00:03:32] Crystal Fincher: I was not surprised at all. In fact, this seemed like it was a foregone conclusion for quite some time. Part of this was telegraphed publicly - it looks like with about a week before, there was a letter from Tim Ceis - who was a former consultant to Bruce Harrell, may currently be a consultant to Bruce Harrell, and business lobbyist - who had sent a letter to some of his allies talking about their success with the independent expenditure effort, referring to the money that they spent in support of electing candidates in this last election in Seattle, which was very successful for them. And saying that they had the right to voice their opinion and state that they wanted Tanya Woo picked. They named her by name and said - She is our person, you should pick her. Also telegraphed from a prior meeting where they narrowed down and selected the finalists where several councilmembers from the dais said - Since someone else already picked Tanya Woo, I'll go with a different person. So it looked like she was the favorite anyway. I think that the relationship that had been established between them was clear. They were all similarly ideologically aligned. They spent a lot of time together during the campaign trail. But as you said, it was a controversial pick because Tanya Woo was just unsuccessful in that election and just lost to Tammy Morales. And so having a portion of the City opt not to have Tanya Woo represent them to vote for Tammy Morales - and I personally am not someone who feels that someone who lost an election should never be appointed, but I do think that the will of the voters does make a difference here. If Tanya would have had similar ideological preferences to Tammy Morales and lost, you could say - Well, they're saying similar things. The voters seem like they would be fine, too. They didn't just reject this. This seems like it could be a pick that does represent what Seattle residents feel best represents them. This is not that case, and so we will see how this turns out. But there's been a shift in ideology on the council now. Interestingly with this, it's not like even if they didn't go with Tanya Woo, the majority of the council wouldn't still be in the same place. But this provides almost an extra insurance vote for them, as they consider the things that are facing the city, whether it's a budget deficit - Sara Nelson already signaling a desire to cut business taxes. They're going through an audit - they're saying right now - with the City and seeing where they can cut spending basically to address this $250+ million dollar deficit that's coming up that may be even bigger because they're also signaling that they want to further increase the police budget. So we'll see how this turns out, but it's going to be really interesting to see them negotiate the challenges that are facing them. What do you think this sets up for the council over the year? [00:06:23] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, it was interesting. I haven't been the reporter covering most of this in the last couple of weeks for us. And going forward, it'll be my coworker, David Kroman, who is doing a great job and will do a great job. But I did just dip in for a minute when the new councilmembers were sworn in - This was early this month. And I remember that Councilmember Tammy Morales made it a point in that swearing in, getting started meeting - and talking about this appointment that they had to make - of mentioning some of the big ticket items and running down the list of what this year might look like. And it was striking to think about what they have coming up. There's a Comprehensive Plan update due by the end of this year, which sounds kind of wonky, but is important. It's basically redefining the growth strategy for the city for the next 20 years. There's a transportation property tax levy up for renewal. There's this potential budget gap that you mentioned. And there's the issue of the contract for the police officers union due. So those are some big ticket things all in this year. And I think it may be the budget, like you were mentioning, that turns out to be the one that's the hottest politically with this new group and where you sort of see the imprint of the new politics to the extent that it is a shift. But I'm sure other things will crop up as they always do. [00:07:55] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, we will continue to pay attention to what happens with this council. Also, because this has been an appointment, this person who did get appointed has to stand for election in the very next election - they don't serve the full term after an appointment. So this seat will be on the ballot in November 2024. So that is going to be an interesting dynamic. Robert Cruidkshank talked about last week - this is going to be interesting to see. Given how there was controversy surrounding this appointment, how is that going to impact Tanya Woo, who is assumed to be running for this seat? And how many other people we see who applied for this appointment are also going to be on the ballot? Is anyone new going to be there? So certainly a lot to pay attention to politically here. [00:08:40] Daniel Beekman: I was just curious to know what you thought about that, because I listened to what Robert was saying, listened to your show last week with him - and I think he was saying that he thought the new guard on the City Council is maybe overestimating their political momentum. And that the way this appointment process happened with Tanya Woo being backed by the independent expenditure sort of business types, there could be a backlash in November, which I could kind of imagine in the sense that people don't love the idea of behind the scenes - big business picking their leaders. And it's in a presidential election year, so that could factor into things. But also Councilmember Woo now obviously has support and name recognition and all that and will benefit from being there at City Hall. And support not just from business leaders, obviously. And so I'm curious to know what you think - I understand where he was coming from when he was making that backlash prediction, but I'm not so sure about it. What do you expect? Do you think it'll hurt or help her or what? [00:09:46] Crystal Fincher: It could hurt. The potential is there. And it really depends on how things play out, I think, with the budget, primarily - with some of the real visible issues that they're going to be dealing with this year. I do think that it was notable and novel to have Tim Ceis send out that letter. Now, I don't think that penetrated immediately to the general public. I don't think 80% of people are aware that Tim Ceis sent any communication, or who Tim Ceis is realistically. Kind of same with how many people are really paying attention to the City Council right now. But as you hear these things being talked about, they do know that Tanya Woo lost. And this did make broad news - people are getting news alerts about it. And it's a name that they wouldn't expect to be there. So it's kind of like - Huh, that's different. And didn't she just lose? - which I think is an odd thing. I do think that there has been a - you could characterize it as brazen - that business has a big voice here and that there is a close alignment. And whether or not you view it as them being in the pocket or being a puppet of big business, or that they're just aligned and view it as an extremely important constituency that they're prioritizing that there does seem to be a much closer alignment there. And Seattle voters have explicitly rejected that before. They are uncomfortable when it comes to corporate control. Seattle residents are taxing themselves to institute a small property tax for the Democracy Voucher program. And I really do agree with Robert's point about Seattle voters being uncomfortable with austerity - cutting services is just not what Seattle residents are necessarily comfortable with. And Seattle, to a greater degree than just about any other city in this state, prioritizes services for its residents - those that cost - and they want library services, they want housing provided, they want these different things. Now they want action and they want to see improvement on the ground on these issues, but they don't expect an absence of these services or - Okay, we're just wholesale slashing programs and services that you've been used to and that Seattle is known for providing. So I do think that a number of these issues would be easier for them to run on, for them to implement had they mentioned that while they were running for election. But I think the other complication is while they were campaigning, they bent over backwards - these candidates that won, for the most part - to not talk about - Okay, there's a big budget deficit. What would you cut if you're not going to raise revenue? Where do you find revenue to provide more money for more police? And that's a conversation that many of them didn't want to have. I think Bob Kettle was probably the one who most explicitly talked about that. A few just didn't. A few threw out ideas like - Well, we need to find out what's happening with the City. But there wasn't anyone who said - You know what, we are going to be cutting programs. We are going to be cutting services. We are going to be providing business tax breaks. Not one said that one. So that's going to be interesting to see - in a deficit, when they're cutting services for residents and then seeing tax breaks for businesses, how that's going to fly. [00:13:02] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, I think that it's not surprising or out of bounds for the new councilmembers and the new council president to feel like they have a kind of mandate. And I think voters can feel to some extent like they were installed in office being business-friendly candidates, and the voters knew that - that's not a total surprise. And I think it's understandable that they would say - OK, well, we got put here, this is who we are, and we're going to try to do what we want to do. We'll have to see how the budget actually plays out and the deficit, because there can be updated forecasts and new money comes in - and it's hard to know what that will look like. But I do think what you mentioned about - if there start being cuts to libraries, that might not be a politically savvy thing in Seattle - hands off our library. So I think to that extent, that's where the rubber could meet the road to see how much political juice folks have, if that's the direction it goes. I can see both angles here. [00:14:05] Crystal Fincher: A lot is still up the air. Interestingly, it wasn't a unanimous vote by the council. One or two votes for this appointment - Joy Hollingsworth, Tammy Morales, and one other councilmember - [00:14:18] Daniel Beekman: Dan Strauss. [00:14:19] Crystal Fincher: Dan Strauss, that's right - did not have Tanya Woo as their choice. So there was some difference. So we'll see how these alliances play out. Even though there are ideological differences, councilmembers may still find things that they share, issues that they want to pursue - maybe on not the big headline issues, but other ones. And how those relationships build and progress - maybe that can provide some hope for how things play out with the City. Also, speaking of the budget, Mayor Bruce Harrell just announced a hiring freeze. As the new council sets out on their quest to audit the budget, Harrell instituted a hiring freeze across all City departments except police, fire and the 911 response division known as the CARE Department. PubliCola covered this - everybody covered this - but this is going to be a significant freeze. Certainly not the first freeze. Hiring freezes are not unprecedented - in fact, with big budget deficits, we have seen this before. It'll be interesting to see how this results and how much money this could potentially save. What do you see? Do you think a hiring freeze makes sense at this point in time? [00:15:30] Daniel Beekman: I wouldn't weigh in on whether it makes sense or not. It's interesting to see. And obviously, the idea is that we'll save some money leading into the budget season and maybe make some decisions easier, or get rid of some of the hard decisions that might otherwise be there. But also, it's a political signal - I would assume - to say, this is the situation we're in. This is really serious, and we're going to have to make some tough calls coming down the line. And the idea of exempting these public safety positions from that also sends a signal. Again - hiring freeze is one thing, cutting services is another thing - and if it starts to blur into cutting as the year goes on, then that's where you could imagine the average voter starting to get concerned. So it'll be interesting to see how it evolves and also how the relationship between the mayor and this new city council evolves too on something like this, as councilmembers get pressure from various advocacy groups or stakeholders with the budget - and employees - and as the mayor does too. Do they work in lockstep together - the mayor and the council, or the council majority to the extent that there is a clear one - or do they start playing off each other. I'm really curious to see how Mayor Harrell handles the new council - does he see himself as the leader, or is he going to play off what they're doing and position himself as different from whatever tack they're taking. And this hiring freeze and how it continues to play out could start to show what that relationship might be, I think. [00:17:09] Crystal Fincher: That is going to be interesting to watch. This hiring freeze was not a surprise to me. Again, it's not unprecedented. The City is facing a very serious budget deficit with some major structural issues. Over the years, there have been several short-term, or shorter-term, sources of funds that have been used to plug holes, get us through some challenging times - and that's all coming to roost now. There are several needs for permanent funding that don't currently have permanent funding sources attached. Also, it's going to be interesting to see what they end up doing with the JumpStart Tax and the revenues from that. That certainly has been dedicated to a number of issues that have provided some very important services to people who need housing assistance, small business assistance, eviction assistance - just really plugging some of the real critical gaps for folks and businesses in the city. But this is being eyed as a source of revenue for some of the other priorities or things that they're looking to shift to. And they have signaled that that may be a source of revenue that they look to divert or repurpose. And you're right - how the relationship develops between the mayor and council is going to be interesting to watch, especially since Bruce Harrell played a big role in recruiting and helping to elect these councilmembers - the majority who were elected, the new ones. He had talked about for a while, other people had talked about - Well, there needs to be more alignment between the mayor and council to get things done. Bruce talked about he wanted a council that would partner with him and that was loyal to him, really. And he has that now. And so from that perspective - okay, the barriers that you said that you had to being able to move forward on the priorities that you've set forth have seemingly been removed. So now we can expect to see, or we should expect to see, action on some of the priorities that have seemingly lagged or that there hasn't been as much progress on over the past two years since he took office. So it's going to be interesting to see what they set as an agenda, how aggressive they are with addressing priorities that residents have had when it comes to public safety - making everyone safer in the city, which they are taking steps to do. And some of the things that they've talked about with the CARE Department that is now rolling out a co-response kind of partial model for some mental health calls. Tammy Morales did make a point in some of her remarks to remind the colleagues that Bruce Harrell is not their boss. They don't work for him. They are partners with him. He's a colleague. He isn't a superior. And so it'll be interesting to see if - on the flip side, they view themselves as a check to some things that may come out of the mayor's office. We'll see how that turns out. It looks like there is broad alignment right now and a culture of positivity that they're trying to enforce - wanting to not have any negative comments, to get along and be really collegial. And we'll see if that results in some significant progress on homelessness, on public safety, on economic development, on just help for the people who need it most in the city. [00:20:25] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, I think you're right that - in terms of the mayor, he's halfway through his term now and now has this friendly city council. So yeah, you would think that now would be the time to do the things that he promised to do on the campaign trail and that people want to see City Hall accomplish. So what are those things? It'll be interesting to see what comes out of his office this year. Is it just going to be taking care of those must-dos? We talked about the Comp Plan and Transportation Levy renewal and the budget. Or is there something more proactive that's going to come from his office on housing and homelessness? The voters just passed a new Housing Levy last year. But yeah, what's going to come out of his office - if anything - that's a big ticket item this year now that, like you said, in theory, there shouldn't be any barriers to him getting done what he wants to get done. [00:21:18] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I also want to talk about news this week about the comment that we heard from an SPD police officer mocking, really, Jaahnavi Kandula's death - she was killed by a police officer who was responding to a call - killed in a crosswalk, hit by his cruiser while he was driving it. And those comments made international news for how just grotesque and callous they were. I don't think anyone, besides perhaps the police union, is arguing that they weren't absolutely detestable. But it's been quite some time, but there was just an Office of Police Accountability finding at a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday where they found that the vice president of Seattle's police union acted unprofessionally and showed bias when he made callous comments downplaying the death of Jaahnavi Kandula. What did you think of this finding and this incident? [00:22:24] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, well, I don't think it's surprising that the watchdog agency, the OPA, would come down with this finding, although I don't think they released what their recommendations for discipline were - it just goes, they sent it to the police chief, Adrian Diaz, for him to decide whether he wants to concur with those unknown recommendations for discipline or he has to justify doing something else. So yeah, I don't think it's surprising that the OPA would come down on it this way, given what their role is as a watchdog agency and given what happened and all the uproar locally, nationally, internationally. I think the big question is what the police chief is going to do and what the mayor, his boss, is going to do. It seems like a major moment for, again - what is the relationship between the mayor and the police chief and the police union? We'll be waiting to see what happens. And a little bit interested that - I could imagine a world in which the police chief and the mayor, knowing that this recommendation was coming down from the OPA, would get their ducks in a row. Let's say, if they were sure they were going to concur - this is kind of speculation - but if they were sure they were going to concur with the recommendations and kind of be ready right away to say - Yes, we agree with this and here's the action we're taking now, boom. And the fact that that didn't happen concurrently with this coming out from the OPA and that the police chief apparently is taking time to take a look at it is interesting. And then, of course, there's the ongoing investigation into the incident itself and the officer who was involved in the fatal collision. So that's a whole other thing that's still waiting out there as well, and whether he - what kind of consequences he might face. [00:24:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I think that's where the rubber is really going to hit the road here is - so what are you going to do about it? And like you said, the OPA investigator did not make his finding public. The police chief will have to decide whether he's going to fire this officer, whether he's going to discipline him in any way. But that's going to be really interesting to see, especially in an environment where they are really supportive of police - they do have plans to hire more officers - they are trying to signal it's a new day in our relationship with the police department. At the same time, the mayor has at least given lip service - and I think some of the other new councilmembers have - saying that, But we do want to take accountability seriously. This looks to be perhaps their first test of this under the new council. And especially with something that there doesn't seem to be much ambiguity on where the general public is on this - it is pretty detestable. And even in the findings from the OPA director, it was pretty stark what they said. They said his comments were "derogatory, contemptuous, and inhumane" - that's a quote from Betts' summary. Said - "For many, it confirmed, fairly or not, beliefs that some officers devalue and conceal perverse views about community members." This is not something where it's anywhere close to acceptable. It said the investigators concluded that his comments did in fact violate SPD policies - that the department prohibits behavior that undermines public trust, including any language that is derogatory, contentious, or disrespectful towards any person. The policy also prohibits prejudicial or derogatory language about someone's discernible personal characteristics, such as age. They directly violated those, and at a time where I think everyone acknowledges there needs to be trust rebuilt between the police department and the community - that those are really serious violations. And if we're serious about creating a culture that is different than this, then can this remain in the police department? So a decision coming up that hopefully - I certainly would hope - that they find this is not compatible with the police department or its culture. But we'll see how this turns out. [00:26:33] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, and I guess what raises the stakes - and of course the stakes are so high for the family involved and all of that. But what also raises the stakes here for the city is that this isn't just any police officer, but this person is vice president in the police officers' union, SPOG, and the guild. So right up at the top of the officer hierarchy and embedded in the culture of the force. [00:27:01] Crystal Fincher: Now, I do want to talk about a story that you wrote this week that I think is really important to cover. It's about a school in Snohomish County seeking some relief from a gravel yard sited next door. What is happening here and who's being impacted? [00:27:20] Daniel Beekman: Sure. This is an interesting one. So basically what's happening - this is an elementary school in the Mukilteo School District, but it's not in the city of Mukilteo. It's in this wedge of unincorporated Snohomish County between South Everett and Mukilteo. And next door on the same campus is a big kindergarten center that serves as the kindergarten for a larger area - so there's maybe close to a thousand kids on this campus. And there's this piece of property right next door to the school, closest to the south wing of the school - and some portables and the asphalt playground - that was a vacant lot until a couple of years ago. A company bought it that's involved in mining and gravel and sand and other construction materials with a mine up in, I think, Granite Falls, Snohomish County. And they bought this property to use as basically a gravel yard, sort of a distribution hub. So they'll bring stuff down from the mine and put it in piles there with big trucks. And then trucks will come get the material to take out to job sites. And for at least a while, they're also using it to bring in, I believe, construction debris from job sites and then to be taken elsewhere. And especially starting last spring, the school started noticing - at first, they said they didn't get any word about what this was or that this was happening in advance - they just saw construction activity happening on this property. And then last spring started realizing - Well, this is a permanent thing. They're not building something. This is just what it is. And it's going to be like this for the foreseeable future. And they say they've been dealing with dust from these materials and with lots of noise from the trucks rumbling around and the construction vehicles' buckets slamming against the sides of the trucks as they're unloading and loading. They say it's really disruptive to classes - some of the classes, especially closest to the property - and also they're concerned about health impacts in terms of the dust. It's hard for them to know exactly what to attribute or not attribute to the dust, but they've talked about more bloody noses and black snot and headaches and stomachaches among students and teachers. So that's kind of what's going on. And where government comes in is that it turns out that this gravel yard operation hasn't had any permits since the start. And there were some complaints filed last spring about this, and the county basically has taken the stance of - Yeah, they don't have any permits. There was some kind of mix up, perhaps, but we're going to work with them to bring them into compliance. What they're doing is, in theory, allowed under the zoning of this property. So yes, they need permits and they need to do various things to get those. But we're going to give them time to do that and work with them to do that to see if they can. And the school district and people at this school are saying - Why are you continuing to allow them to operate when we say it's disruptive to our classes and our kids learning, especially if they don't have the permits? So that's what I wrote about. It's a weird situation. To the bigger picture about why it matters - obviously, it matters to the kids and the teachers there. But the bigger picture - there's a question about priorities of Snohomish County government that's being raised. Even one teacher wrote in a letter to the county council something along the lines of - what's worth more, kids or dirt? So there's sort of a question of priorities there and what the handling of the situation says about those. And then also - what I found interesting was the principal and others raising a question of environmental justice or equity and saying - Look, this school, it's on unincorporated land. There isn't a city hall to look out for us in this case. The school serves - I think, about 70% of the students qualify for free lunch, about half are multilingual learners, which means they speak a language other than English at home. There are a lot of immigrant and refugee kids. And the principal just said straight up - If this was happening in different neighborhoods or with a different demographic of students, I don't think the powers that be would be putting up with it. So that's the story, and we're going to keep following it and see what happens. [00:31:55] Crystal Fincher: This was disappointing for me to read - just because that did seem to come through. It does seem to be a question of priority. When you talk about bloody noses, stomachaches, headaches, black snot - I mean, that is alarming to think of as a parent. If you see that going on with your kid, you know something's wrong. If you see that happening with your students and it wasn't previously happening, you know something's wrong. Again, like you said, it's hard to know exactly how to attribute it. But if this is a newer occurrence, you're going to ask questions and want a remedy. I think in the story you talk about - they can see the dust and there have been studies recently talking about how harmful particulate matter can be for developing lungs and hearts and brains - and for everyone, kids and teachers there. It's a big challenge. And for this to be happening suddenly - no notice, not current or appropriate permits for what they're doing - and the remedy to be, Well, we'll just let them keep doing it. Who knows what's going on at the school and we'll work with them to make sure they get up to code so they can keep doing this, instead of working to ensure that the kids are safe just seems backward. And it really does stand in contrast with so many other issues that we see people talk about when it comes to keeping kids safe, keeping schools safe. We restrict several activities around schools - really common ones are you can't have guns in school zones, you can't have any weapons, you can't have alcohol - that kind of stuff. We restrict, and some cities have sought to restrict, whether homeless people can be in vicinities of schools - which I personally think is misguided, but there have been cities that have done that. And so why is it so important to keep kids safe in those situations, but not this one? Why is it in this particular situation that the health of these kids doesn't matter? And not just the health impacts, but that this has been very disruptive to their learning - they've had to restructure their days. Extremely loud and disruptive, which studies have shown does impact, does hinder learning. So why is this allowed to continue unpermitted without any kind of approval or exploration about whether this is an appropriate and compatible use? I do hope the Snohomish County government does better. I hope they engage more actively in this. I hope that they do track down what is happening with these kids and that they are able to mitigate this. But it does seem like these stories often go unreported, so appreciate you servicing this. We're used to hearing - we think of a place like Magnolia or Laurelhurst and how much process there is around anything new that happens. And that this is allowed to just up and happen in a different area, in a poorer area, just seems really disappointing and a reflection on priorities that need to change. Also want to talk this week about the City of Seattle settling with Black Lives Matter protesters from 2020 for $10 million. What happened under this settlement? [00:35:09] Daniel Beekman: Well, the City Attorney's office in the city made a calculation and said - We're going to cut our losses here, in terms of the money that we're spending on the case and the money that we could end up paying at the end of it if we continue. And that's what they do is - they make a calculation, and they negotiate - and say $10 million is what it's going to take to make this case go away, but we might have to pay more if we continue. And it wasn't a case where the City said - And we're admitting fault. Sometimes - I think rarely - but sometimes the city, public entity will say something like that with a settlement. That wasn't the case here. They said this is a straight up calculation of risk for tax dollars and that's why we're settling this case. But that's what happened. And it's the latest in a now pretty long series of settlements of lawsuits related in one way or another to the May, June, July 2020 timeframe. And it will be interesting, actually, to try to tally them all up and see what the final number would be. But this is, I think, the biggest - but there have been a whole bunch of settlements in the six-figures and over a million dollars related to the protest summer of 2020. I think there still is some litigation hanging out there, so we may continue to see more. And I don't know how much closure this will bring to the city and to the plaintiffs involved here from this time, but definitely a big settlement. [00:36:45] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this is already - as you said, City Attorney Ann Davison reiterated the City was not admitting any fault here. This lawsuit was filed about three years ago, has already cost the City in defense and expert witness fees. Among the plaintiffs were a woman who had a heart attack when she was struck in the chest by an SPD blast ball, and a man who was hospitalized in a coma after his arrest, a veteran who uses a cane and was gassed and tackled because he didn't retreat fast enough - because the cane was viewed as a weapon - there were lots. The police indiscriminately fired tear gas and blast balls in this neighborhood - not only impacting protesters, but also impacting the entire neighborhood. There were people who were just in their homes who were impacted. by this. It was quite a significant event. Even though the City did not admit any fault, there was a finding by a federal judge saying officers had used excessive force and had violated the free speech rights of thousands of residents who were legally gathered. It really was a stain on the police department - another thing that most people looked at and said, This is not right. This should not happen. This is a violation of trust, and really just harmful to residents in the city. Police are supposed to be there, philosophically, to protect people. And seemingly the opposite happened here. The attorney for the plaintiffs, along with some of the plaintiffs, did have a press conference yesterday and said - Hey, the City's not admitting fault, but they really should be. And there was so much that was troubling that happened here. The attorney cited other incidents, including a hoax perpetrated by the department to scare protesters into thinking armed members of the Proud Boys extremist group were in the area. The City hired an expert, University of Liverpool Professor Clifford Stott, who's among the world's foremost crowd policing experts. And I thought this was pretty jaw-dropping - Stott reportedly concluded that, particularly during the early days of Seattle's protests, he had not seen the level of violent aggression by police against unarmed protesters "in any democratic state." That's just a pretty stark, horrible conclusion - saying that this doesn't happen in democracies. We don't see this kind of reaction in free societies. And so this is a really significant payout. And once again, we're seeing a large payout because of police violations and misconduct. We're now seeing this happen while we're hearing - There's not much money to go around. We're trying to figure out what to do with the shortfall, yet we're still paying out this extra money. And it just seems like this should be a signal that - Hey, there is a reckoning that needs to happen within the department, within the city that perhaps hasn't happened yet. And maybe the insistence that - Hey, there's no fault here seems a bit out of touch. How did you see this? [00:39:56] Daniel Beekman: I'm not sure about the admitting wrongdoing aspect of it and what reasoning is behind that decision. But I think a bigger picture question is - okay, so there's this big payout for the plaintiffs. It's a headline. It's meaningful in those ways. But the bigger question is - okay, well, if something happens and there are big protests - what if a decision comes down that people don't like in that other case we were talking about, the fatal collision? And there are protests on the street and the police department is sent out to handle those protests. Are we going to see the same thing happen again? That's the real question, right - is what's been put in place in regulation and policy and law and culture to ensure that things are done the right way the next time? And I think there's an open question about would things be different again, or not? So I think that's the thing that it would be helpful to hear from policymakers and from City leaders on. The look back is important, but there's that question of - what about next time? What do you think about that? [00:41:14] Crystal Fincher: No, I think you're exactly right. I personally would love to hear from the police chief, from the mayor - who are directly responsible for the police department - what about next time? I think that's the right question to ask and what they should be asking themselves. What is going to change? How have we responded to this? Have policies changed in response to this? Has training changed? Has any guidance changed? Have they responded to this with any criticisms, with any - Hey, I would like this to change. This is under their purview. This is under their control. So how are they asserting their leadership? How are they affirmatively trying to shape this culture? Or are they just kind of taking a hands-off policy and hoping this doesn't happen again? - Hey, we'll deal with something if it directly lands in our lap, like we need to make a disciplinary decision on the one case that we talked about earlier that you just referenced. But when it comes to culture, when it comes to how things are looking moving forward - what is their vision for that? What are they setting forth? How are they leading? It's their responsibility. How are they handling that responsibility? Are they handling that responsibility? And I think residents are interested to hear that. They want to know that there are plans in place and that there is a response. Or are we setting ourselves up again for harm against residents of this city, and lawsuits that drag on that are really expensive - that take time and money? And here we go again. So I do hope they address that. And maybe, this new council can help prompt some of those questions - maybe as these conversations take place and as there are more press conferences, we can hear more about that, hopefully. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, January 26th, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle Times politics and communities reporter, Daniel Beekman. You can find Daniel on X, also known as Twitter, at @DBeekman. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter - all platforms - at @finchfrii. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, 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 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.

Join Amy in this episode of "Eternally Amy" as she interviews author Erica C. Barnett, a journalist and veteran in the world of writing and publishing. Erica, a local in Seattle, shares her journey of sobriety, focusing on her memoir, Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery. The conversation delves into the struggles of addiction, the impact on relationships, and the transformative power of recovery. In this episode, we also talked about: Erica's Sobriety Journey: Erica outlines her journey, battling alcoholism. Redefining Rock Bottom: Amy and Erica challenge the notion of a "rock bottom." Transformation in Relationships: Discussion on alcohol's impact on relationships. Discovering Authenticity: Exploration of authenticity in sobriety. Embracing Vulnerability and Relapse: Amy applauds Erica's vulnerability. Hosted by Amy Liz Harrison Buy Amy's Books: https://amzn.to/3ys8nuv http://amylizharrison.com/ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Lgxy8F Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3vHHHoi Hashtags For This Episode: EternallyAmy, SobrietyJourney, QuitterMemoir, AddictionRecovery, AuthenticityInSobriety, RockBottomRealities, RelationshipsInRecovery, EmbracingVulnerability, PersistingThroughRelapse, RecoveryIsPossible EternallyAmy #SobrietyJourney #QuitterMemoir #AddictionRecovery #AuthenticityInSobriety #RockBottomRealities #RelationshipsInRecovery #EmbracingVulnerability #PersistingThroughRelapse #RecoveryIsPossible  

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank! Crystal and Robert dive into the open machinations of the big corporate donors to appoint their preferred candidate to a Seattle City Council vacancy and how the messy process has leached its way into Seattle School Board politics. They then discuss the qualification of a right-wing initiative to dismantle the state's plan to take on the climate crisis. Robert gives a rare kudos to The Seattle Times for their presentation of a debate over homeless encampments, they both are dismayed at the depressing and infuriating news that the Tacoma officers in the Manuel Ellis case are getting paid $500k each to voluntarily leave the police department, and the show rounds out with analysis of some media's treatment of AG Ferguson's lawsuit to block a merger between Kroger and Albertsons. 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 RE-AIR: The Big Waterfront Bamboozle with Mike McGinn and Robert Cruickshank from Hacks & Wonks   “Harrell Administration Consultant Tim Ceis Urges Businesses to Back Tanya Woo for Open Council Seat” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Business, labor lobby for open seat on Seattle City Council” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times   “Seattle City Council candidate has residency conflict in School Board role” by Claire Bryan from The Seattle Times    “Initiative 2117 (repealing Washington's Climate Commitment Act) gets certified” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate   “‘Should Seattle remove encampments?' Advocates debate” by Greg Kim from The Seattle Times   “Tacoma cops acquitted in death of Manuel Ellis will get $500K each to resign, city says” by Peter Talbot from The News Tribune    “Kroger-Albertsons merger would hike grocery prices, create near monopolies in some Washington communities, AG says” by Helen Smith from KING 5   “WA suit to block Kroger-Albertsons merger gets cheers, raised eyebrows” by Paul Roberts from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy walks 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 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. 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, one of our audience favorites, and today's co-host: Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. [00:01:12] Robert Cruickshank: Hey - thanks for having me on again, Crystal. [00:01:14] Crystal Fincher: Hey, excited to have you on again - here in 2024. Well, we've got a lot to talk about - things are getting spicy in the City of Seattle, with regards to this upcoming Seattle City Council appointment to replace Teresa Mosqueda's seat. Because Teresa was elected to the King County Council, which created a vacancy - so now it needs to be filled. So what happened this week? [00:01:38] Robert Cruickshank: Well, I think a lot has happened with the machinations around this appointment process - and in fact, things we're learning about how the new regime at City Hall is conducting itself - and they come together. I think this is basically Tim Ceis - who is former deputy mayor to Greg Nickels back in the 2000s, corporate lobbyist, close to established power in Seattle - and Council President Sara Nelson, who, of course, just became council president after the new council with a bunch of her allies got sworn in at the beginning of the month. They seem to be conducting a purge of anyone progressive in the City Hall, in City staff, and are determined to consolidate power around what is actually, I think, a fairly radical agenda for the city that most voters didn't really actually select, especially when it comes to cutting taxes for big businesses and slashing public services. But in order to try to achieve that, they know that they need to try to push out and keep out anyone who might disagree, anyone who might even be remotely progressive on anything. I think it's a pretty significant misreading of the results of recent elections in Seattle - their candidates won often narrowly on questions of public safety, not on cutting taxes for big businesses. In fact, most of their candidates hedged on the questions of taxes when they were asked during the campaigns. But I think you see a real desire to consolidate power around a small group of loyalists, no dissent allowed. And this is a approach to governance that I don't think Seattleites expect or want. I mean, most people in Seattle assume and want a fairly technocratic, go-along-to-get-along government where everyone is sort of driven by data, gets along with each other, and try to do things in the public interest. Now, you and I, a lot of our listeners, know that's not really how the city operates. But what we're seeing now is, I think, a much more aggressive and - in some ways, unprecedented for Seattle - attempt to impose a radical agenda on the city from the right. [00:03:26] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this isn't what voters thought they were signing up for. This isn't what anyone campaigned on. Voters are looking at what the candidates are saying, they're looking at the mail, the commercials - again, definitely talked about public safety, talked about homelessness. But what we saw in Sara Nelson's first statement was austerity - we're cutting taxes for business. But voters didn't weigh in on this at all. And I don't think people are going to have a great reaction to this. [00:03:55] Robert Cruickshank: When Seattle voters weigh in on questions of taxes, Seattleites pass almost every tax put in front of them. When it comes to state ballot initiatives to tax the rich - they might fail statewide as they did in 2010, but they pass with wide support in Seattle. When it comes to money in politics, Seattleites approved taxing themselves - raising their property taxes slightly - to create the Democracy Voucher program. This is a city that does not want corporate money in politics and yet, that is exactly what's happened here. The reason we're talking about all this right now is not just because there's a council appointment, but because Tim Ceis, this aforementioned corporate lobbyist, sent out an email at the beginning of the week urging all of the people - whether they're wealthy individuals or from big corporations - who donated to the independent expenditure campaigns to help get a lot of these councilmembers elected last year, telling them - Hey, we need you to mobilize right now to stop Vivian Song, who is currently on the Seattle School Board, who's seeking the appointment - Ceis says, We got to stop her. She held a fundraiser for Teresa Mosqueda. She endorsed Ron Davis. She's friendly to unions. And gosh, we can't have that on our council. And the way Ceis put it was to basically act as if these wealthy interests had bought the council. They now own the council - it is theirs, not ours. Not ours in the sense of "we the people." And they can do whatever they want with it. So Ceis' attitude - and I think Sara Nelson shares this - is that it's theirs now, nobody else can tell them what to do with the city council. They have the absolute right to pick whoever they want to and impose this agenda on the city. I think both that attitude and a policy agenda they want are not what the city wants at all, and they are going to run into a big backlash real fast. [00:05:30] Crystal Fincher: Real fast. And the brazenness with which he stated this was wild. This is from the email that Tim Ceis sent - "While it's been a great two weeks watching the outcome of our effort as the new City Council has taken office, the independent expenditure success earned you the right to let the Council know not to offer the left the consolation prize of this Council seat." Okay, they're just admitting that they bought this seat. They're just admitting that - Hey, yeah, it was our effort that got these people onto the council. And we spent a million dollars plus in this independent expenditure effort and that gives us the right - he said the "right" - to tell the council what to do, which I don't recall seeing something this overtly stated before. [00:06:17] Robert Cruickshank: There's an important contrast we can draw - both Bruce Harrell and Eric Adams, mayor of New York, were elected in 2021. And at the time, Eric Adams was hailed as some sort of future of the Democratic Party - center right, tough on crime, pushing back against progressives. Well, here we are at the beginning of 2024 - Eric Adams has a 28% approval rating in New York - highly unlikely to win a re-election at this point. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of the primary reasons is cuts to public services - libraries, schools, parks, all sorts of things. And the public is just clearly rejecting that. Bruce Harrell is up for re-election next year. And I think Harrell's going to have to decide for himself - does he want to be the one to get all the blame for this? Or maybe he just thinks Sara Nelson takes all the blame. Who knows? Maybe there's a good cop, bad cop approach being planned here - with Sara Nelson being the bad cop pushing austerity and Harrell's try to be the good cop, try to bring everybody together. Who knows? But I think what you see in New York is what you're going to see in Seattle - a significant backlash. I also want to mention - you quoted Ceis' letter talking about giving a prize to the left. Vivian Song is not a leftist. This is the part that just blows my mind about all this. She's as mainstream a Seattle Democrat as it gets. If you read her application letter for the council appointment, she talks about hiring more cops, being careful with city spending. She's honestly probably a little bit to the right of most of the previous city council that just got voted out. But to Ceis and Nelson, she's unacceptable because she's friendly with unions, was friendly with some progressives - what that shows me is that they only want extremists like themselves or who will just do their own bidding. And I think they're setting themselves up for a significant backlash. [00:07:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and the final point - in looking at this, there were so many applicants to this - all across the spectrum, right? There weren't just progressive applicants for the seat. There were dozens and dozens of people from across the spectrum - and good choices - people who had experience, who have the right intentions from across the spectrum. This isn't about - Well, we just don't want an extreme leftist from these corporate interests. This is about - You're going to pick our person. Because there are several other choices on there - they're talking about Tanya Woo. Why aren't they talking about Phil Tavel, right? Why aren't they talking about anyone else that seems to align with their interests? They want loyalists - that's the bottom line. It goes beyond what the ideology is. It's - are you going to be loyal to me? Are you going to back me on what I'm doing? And without that assurance - We're not backing you. With that assurance, you're in and we're going to fight. And hey, we spent a million plus to get these other folks in. Now we're using our muscle to get you in too. And we're telling people - Hey, this was our show. We elected these people. It was our effort and that gives us the right to dictate what's going to happen. When you have the primary concern, the primary litmus test being loyalty and not is this going to help the residents of the city? Do they have experience? Can they credibly lead and do this? Wow, we get into a lot of trouble if it's just - Are you going to back me? Are you not going to question anything I'm doing? Are you going to rubber stamp this? So this appointment process is really going to be an opportunity to see where the loyalties lie. Are they serving their constituents or are they serving the business community? Because again, there are lots of picks if they wanted to go with a conservative person, right? I think they probably will. But the point is, it's got to be the one handpicked by business. This is going to tell us a lot about where the heads of these new councilmembers are at. Yeah, it [00:09:49] Robert Cruickshank: will. And I think it's also setting up 2024 - not just in terms of the policy discussions we'll see in City Hall, but the campaigns. This seat that gets filled in this appointment process later this month will be on the November 2024 ballot citywide. And I think Tanya Woo would likely run for that seat if she's appointed to it. If so, then she's going to have to go to voters - not as someone picked for her qualifications, at least in the way the public will see it. The public will see it as - she was picked by business because she's loyal to business. Vivian Song may want to run for that seat too - last night got endorsed by the King County Labor Council to hold that appointment. It sets up a very interesting - not just 10 days between now and when this appointment gets made, but 10 months between now and the November election, where I think you're going to see real contests over the future of the city. [00:10:35] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Another interesting dimension with this about Vivian Song is about her residency and her existing Seattle School Board position. What's going on here? [00:10:45] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, so we'll go back to 2021 - where there was an article that appeared in The Stranger when Vivian was running for the school board, questioning her residency - that she had changed residencies and changed voter registration - and questioning whether she was eligible to run for the District 4 seat for the school board. Now, the school board districts don't line up exactly with the city council districts, so listeners should keep that in mind - but Vivian won, won citywide. Because in school board, you are first elected out of the primary in just the district. Then the top two from that district go on to a citywide election in the school board. So Vivian won citywide in 2021. Last summer, it emerges that some of her critics and opponents on school board were questioning where she lives now - that she might not actually live in the district she technically represents. This is brought to the school board legal department, which looked at it and did not see a need to kick her off the school board, or declare her seat vacant and force an election. People move around for personal reasons, and they don't have to be told to tell those personal reasons in public. But Vivian is not someone who is manipulating the system for political gain - there are legitimate reasons she was moving. And yet this comes out in a Seattle Times article this week and gets mentioned at a board meeting last night - the only board meeting during this entire council appointment process. This has been under discussion behind the scenes at the school district for months. But why does it emerge now? I think it's the obvious reason why it emerges now - because some of Vivian's critics on the school board, whether they're working directly with Tim Ceis and Sara Nelson or not, are certainly helping Tim Ceis and Sara Nelson try to torpedo Vivian Song's candidacy. Now, from a progressive perspective, this doesn't necessarily mean that Vivian's the right pick for the appointment process. We should take a look at everybody. But I think the relentless efforts to destroy her, both in her position on the school board and to keep her out of the city council, suggest to me some real problems with the way both the city council and the school board are now being governed by small little cliques determined to hold on to their own power, to push austerity, unfriendly to labor, and hostile to public input. I think it's a really shocking and disturbing development that we're seeing in our city. Away from small-d democratic governance. I think everyone in the city should be really concerned about these developments. [00:13:05] Crystal Fincher: Completely agree. And statewide news - big news - it's going to impact our November 2024 ballot. The second right-wing initiative qualified for the 2024 ballot. What does this do and what does this mean? [00:13:21] Robert Cruickshank: So background here is that the far right chair of the state Republican Party, State Representative Jim Walsh - hardcore MAGA Trump guy - became State Party Chair last year and is working with a wealthy mega-donor, a guy named Brian Heywood, to try to repeal the main accomplishments of the Democratic majority in the legislature of the last few years. So we've got six initiatives so far that they've submitted to the state to qualify - two of them have made it to the ballot. One of them you just mentioned, which will be Initiative 2117 to try to destroy our state's climate action plan. They want to repeal the carbon pricing piece of it - sometimes known as cap and trade, cap and invest, whatever you want to call it. Their argument is - Oh, it's why gas prices are so high in Washington state. Well, no. One, we on the West Coast have always had higher gas prices than the rest of the country. And in fact, the reason Washington has high gas prices is because of King County. I did an analysis a few weeks ago that shows - if you cross the river from Portland to Vancouver, Washington, the average cost of gas is the same. If you are in Tacoma, you're paying less than you pay in Portland, Oregon. So if carbon pricing was causing gas prices to soar across Washington state, you'd see it everywhere - but you don't. What that suggests to me is you might actually be seeing oil companies gouging King County - that's worth investigation, which the oil companies don't want. But point being - Jim Walsh, who's a Trump guy, Brian Heywood, who's the wealthy funder, want to destroy our ability to tackle the climate crisis. They want to destroy our ability to fund the things that are needed to help people get off of fossil fuel. And so they're putting this on the ballot. They're going to put some other initiatives on the ballot to try to repeal our capital gains tax on the rich, that funds schools and early learning. And this is going to be one of the big battles that we're seeing this year - an effort to impose, again, a far-right agenda on the state of Washington. And I think that progressive organizations, the State Democratic Party are maybe a little slow to respond to this - I think they will engage, but now's the time to start letting people know what's happening here, what this attack is, how dangerous it could be, and the importance of stopping all six of these initiatives. [00:15:30] Crystal Fincher: We've seen Republicans have an increasingly hard time winning statewide and legislatively over the past few years - they've lost power, they tried the courts. The Supreme Court actually just rejected a case trying to come to the Supreme Court about the capital gains tax. So this is their only recourse now. And unfortunately, because of the way our political system is, money gets you really far. And so if you have these multi-hundred millionaires, these billionaires who come in and say - You know what, this is what I want - they're able to basically make us go through this whole charade. And so we have to fight against it. It's here. We have to do this. But it really is important to talk to people about - not to fall for these cheap lines that, Oh, this is another gas tax. It's the hidden gas tax, as they say. But we've had this price gouging conversation before - I think more people are seeing it, which is encouraging. But we're going to have to go through this whole campaign. [00:16:29] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, and I think that it's worth noting there are reasonable discussions to be had about how to do carbon pricing right and what it should fund. And there were very intense conversations and disagreements about that when this was passed in 2021. And I think it makes sense to take a look and say - Okay, how do we make sure we're doing this right? That's not what this initiative does. This initiative uses voter concern about gas prices to totally destroy our ability to tackle the climate crisis. This is coming from people who don't believe the climate crisis is real. Or if they do believe it's real, they don't really want to do anything to stop it because they think driving and keeping oil companies happy is more important. We see wild weather all across the region - we remember that super hot heat wave from the summer of 2021, we remember the long droughts of 2022 - this is not a time to mess around. If we want to look at how to address needs to ensure that carbon pricing works - great. If we want to take a look at what it's funding - great. But to totally destroy the system entirely because a bunch of right-wingers and wealthy donors want it, I think, is a disaster. [00:17:30] Crystal Fincher: Absolute disaster. I was certainly one of those people who had criticisms of the Climate Commitment Act. There are certainly tweaks that should be made. There are some better ways that we can go about some of these processes. But the option isn't - do nothing. That's unacceptable. It isn't just dismantle and repeal everything. Just like with Social Security, just like with Medicare - these big, important pieces of legislation - that do come with benefits. We're going to have to tweak them. We're going to have to get information back, get data back, and respond to that with some technical fixes, some tweaks to make sure that we steer it onto the best path that it can be. But wow, we cannot afford to do nothing. We can't afford to dismantle this at this point in time. This is one of the most hopeful opportunities we have - really in the country - to show how states can lead and come together to get this done. We can't dismantle this at this point in time. Also want to talk about a debate that we saw, on the pages of The Seattle Times, among homeless advocates that reflects a lot of the conversation going on in communities about how to handle encampments. What was talked about here and what's important to understand? [00:18:42] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, I want to do something I don't always do, which is give credit to The Seattle Times for hosting this discussion. I think it was a really good way to do it - between two people - Tim Harris, who used to be the executive editor of Real Change, and Tiffani McCoy, a leader in the Initiative 135 House Our Neighbors Now social housing effort here in Seattle. These are two progressive people who have long records of advocacy for housing and for the needs of the homeless. So they didn't do the usual thing that media will do - is pit a progressive against some crazy right winger. These are two people, who I think come at this with the right intentions and the right values. And they both made some pretty good points about how we handle this issue of sweeps and encampments. Sweeps - I believe they're awful. They're also popular. The public likes them. We saw the 2017 mayoral race, we saw in 2021 mayoral and city council races, city attorney race. We saw it last year in the city council races. Candidates who back sweeps almost always defeat candidates who oppose them - we're getting nowhere, and the people who are living in these encampments aren't getting help. Now, this doesn't mean we should embrace sweeps. And I thought that Tiffani McCoy did a really good job of laying out, again, the damage that sweeps do to not just the possessions of people who are living in tents, but to their own psychological state. And it often makes it harder for them to escape addiction, harder for them to find stability they need to get a home. I thought Tim Harris, though, made some good points about the problems that happen if you leave an encampment in place - how drug dealers eventually find it. And even the best managed encampments - it just takes one or two people with bad intentions to show up and the whole place kind of falls apart into violence. So leaving an encampment out there doesn't help the people who are living there, especially now we're in the extremely cold winter season. But what happens is, too often, this gets framed as a discussion between - do we sweep or do we leave encampments indefinitely? And when that's the terms of the discussion, sweeps will win every single time. And we've seen that for years now. And I think progressives need to realize that that's the case. We are not going to stop sweeps by trying to argue against sweeps alone, and to argue essentially for leaving encampments indefinitely. We have to get out of that binary that we're losing and the people in those encampments are losing. And I think the only way out is to go to the solution, right? We need to build housing for people immediately. Bruce Harrell took office on a promise to build 2,000 units of housing for folks - homes, shelter, tiny homes, whatever - to get people out. Did that happen? Where did that go? You know, there are some tiny home villages that are out there. They do a great job. But why aren't we massively expanding those? Where are the safe RV sites? Where are other forms of shelter? Where's the permanent supportive housing that we need? Where are the new SROs that we need? I think that's where progressive energy needs to focus - is on getting people out of tents now - into real housing with a roof, with a door that locks that they like, where they can bring all their possessions, including their dog and their partner. And I think that's where the emphasis needs to go. I think if we get stuck in this sweeps versus indefinite encampments, we're just going to keep losing. The people who need help aren't going to get it. And so I thought that this debate that The Times hosted did a good job of really laying out why we need to go in that direction. [00:21:59] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is another area where - just the classic communications issue - you can't just argue against something. You have to argue for the vision that you want - because it doesn't translate - what people do here is exactly what you said. Well, okay - if we aren't going to sweep, then they're going to just stay there and that's unacceptable too. And it's unacceptable to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons, right? Some people are those crazy right wingers who just, you know - Get them out of my sight type of thing. But there are people who are saying - We need to get these people into a better place. We have lethal cold in the winter. We have lethal heat in the summer. We have public safety concerns. People who are unhoused, who are in these encampments, are more likely to be victims of crime than just about anyone else. This is a hazard to their health, to everyone's health. This is a big challenge. We need to get them into housing. We need more shelter options. We can't have this conversation while we know there isn't the infrastructure to get everyone indoors. Until we have that infrastructure, what are we talking about? We have to build. We have to build more transitional housing. We have to build more single residence occupancy, or those SROs. We have to move forward with housing. And I do believe in a Housing First approach. There's also this preemptive kind of argument that we're hearing from right wingers - Oh, we already tried that. Oh, we so have not tried that. We've never come close to trying that - on more than a trial with 20 people basis - that has never been a policy that the city has pursued overall. We have pursued these encampment sweeps and you can see they aren't getting us anywhere. The problem has actually gotten worse while we're doing this. So we have to make sure that we're speaking with unity and articulating what we want to see, what we're pursuing, what needs to get done. [00:23:50] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, and I think there is another reason for urgency here. Sweeps, under rulings of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals - federal - in the case against the City of Boise, Idaho, and a similar case against the City of Grants Pass, Oregon. The appeals court ruled that you cannot sweep an encampment without offering shelter to the people living there. A lot of cities, including San Francisco and others, have wanted to get out of that. They appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in the last few days. The Supreme Court has said - Yes, we will take up those cases. It is highly likely then, perhaps by this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court will say - You can sweep whenever you want to. You can eliminate an encampment without having to offer shelter at all. And I think a lot of advocates will point out that those offers of shelter, you know, are maybe a fig leaf at best. That fig leaf is going to go away very soon. So I think that just creates even more urgency to push really hard to get the city and the state to step up and provide housing, whether it's, you know, buying more hotels to get people out of tents or put up more tiny home villages. Whatever it takes, we have to do it, and we have to do it now because there is now an actual ticking clock at the U.S. Supreme Court on this. [00:24:57] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And you know what? I do want to recognize what Dow Constantine has been doing with leaning on this issue - with the buying the hotels, working in concert with different cities in the county, offering - even in the Burien debacle, it was really the county who provided the light at the end of the tunnel and real tangible assistance to actually deal with the issue and get people into housing. So, you know, more of that - more of what we've seen from Dow Constantine, more of focusing on getting people housed. Absolutely want to see it. And just absolutely dejecting news - where I wasn't shocked, but certainly dismayed. The Tacoma cops from the Manuel Ellis case are getting $500,000 to voluntarily leave the department. What are your thoughts on this? [00:25:47] Robert Cruickshank: I mean, it's unsurprising and appalling that they're getting half a million dollars after killing Manuel Ellis and getting away with it. I mean, getting away with it was bad enough - the way that the jury ruled in that case a few weeks back. Now they're literally getting money in their pocket after this - being waved goodbye. And I'm sure that this does not come with any stipulations that would make it difficult for them to get a new job anywhere else. I remember when McGinn was mayor in the early 2010s, the Ian Birk case. Ian Birk, the Seattle officer who shot and killed Native American woodcarver John T. Williams. Birk was not really prosecuted. There was an inquest. But Birk left the department, got a job somewhere else. Well, one of the things McGinn did was pursue legal remedies to make it impossible for Birk to get another job as an officer. I do not see any such thing happening here in the Tacoma case. These officers are getting a payday and getting away with it. But I think what this shows, yet again, is the importance of having real teeth in police accountability. And I think it also shows that the criminal justice system is not a substitute for that. We can't assume that the criminal justice system alone is going to hold cops accountable, as we saw in this case - yet again, it didn't. We need reforms at the state level to remove officer accountability from bargaining. We need to make it easier for cities to hold cops accountable who break the law, who commit murder, things like that. And that's where this needs to go, because what has happened here is injustice upon injustice upon injustice. And if this doesn't spur us to act, then what's going to? [00:27:32] Crystal Fincher: There's currently a federal review going on by the U.S. attorney for Western Washington. The family of Manny Ellis is calling for a consent decree for the City of Tacoma's police department with this. So those levers are turning. This issue to me is really - my goodness, this is not a pro-cop or an anti-cop thing, right? How do we hold people accountable who violate the standards that we set for them, who violate the standards that are already in place? This reminds me of what happened in the City of Kent with the assistant chief who had Nazi memorabilia, Hitler mustache, Nazi signs at work - and then got paid a ton, got rich to leave voluntarily. What are we doing when there's no mechanism to fire a Nazi in the workplace? For people who are absolutely in favor of more police, why are you tolerating this? That's my question. Why are we allowing this to fall into the - Well, either you love cops or you hate cops and you're evil if you want to do anything attached to accountability. What are we even doing? I could go on about this for a long time, but this just falls into - What are we even doing? What is the point of anything if we have to pay people who violate our standard to leave? [00:28:53] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah. I mean, we've been told since the summer of 2020 - Oh, we can't defund the police. Okay, then what are we going to do? Because we can't allow this sort of behavior, whether it is Nazi memorabilia in the actual work office in Kent or killing Manuel Ellis on the streets of Tacoma to continue - which is what I fear is actually what critics of police accountability want. They just want cops to be able to do as they please without consequences because in their minds - and these are mostly white folks like me who are saying these things - they don't think they're ever going to have to face those consequences. They want to maintain their hierarchy, their place at the top as much as they can. They see police as part of that. It's really toxic. And I think that it just shows, once again, the urgency of fixing this - including at the state level, to get the legislature out of this idea that some legislators have that - Oh, somehow it undermines labor unions and labor rights if we take accountability out of police bargaining. Well, military soldiers can't bargain, they can't form a union. They have a strict uniform code of military justice. They're held, in many cases, to much higher standards than police officers. I think we could point out ways in which even the military needs to be held to higher standards, but at least there are some. They exist and they operate. Police - they are convinced that they have the right to do as they please and to get away with it - and to be paid well for it, even when they do horrific things. And that is what we have to reject. And I think at this point - cities, we need to hold them accountable and push them. But the state needs to step in and we need to see changes to state law to make it easier to have real accountability at the local level. [00:30:25] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Final thing I want to talk about today is a lawsuit announced by Attorney General Bob Ferguson to stop the Kroger-Albertsons merger that they have announced their intention to do, saying that this is going to be bad for competition, creating grocery monopolies. Grocery prices are already sky high - this would make it worse. What do you think about this? [00:30:49] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, I think it's absolutely the right thing to do and well within Attorney General Ferguson's right to protect local business and to protect consumers. And people notice that Fred Meyer and QFC are owned by the Kroger company already, and there's not enough competition there - prices there are higher than they should be. You add in Albertsons to the mix, and that's even less competition. I think people understand that more competition helps bring prices down, it's good for consumers. More local ownership - good for consumers. And this is popular, right? I think the public likes it. What's interesting to me is the way this gets covered. There's an article in The Seattle Times today about Ferguson's lawsuit. And to read the body of the article, it makes it very clear that the public loves it, that there's a legitimate reason for Ferguson to sue to protect the particular needs of Washington businesses and Washington consumers - because our grocery market industry is not always the same as other states. And we need to have our attorney general in there fighting for our interests. People get that. The Federal Trade Commission under Lina Khan is doing a great job really finally reinvigorating antitrust law and taking on mergers like this. And she's fantastic. But the article opens with this weird frame, questioning whether this is all a political stunt and saying - Oh, well, Ferguson jumped out and filed a lawsuit before the FTC did. Maybe he's trying to undermine the FTC or going rogue. Maybe it's just a political stunt. Yet the rest of the article makes it super clear that that's not the case at all. The article shows that the FTC says - No, we can work with Washington. They don't seem to be worried about this. In fact, the FTC regularly works with attorneys general around the country in multi-state lawsuits, in partnership with the federal government. So it struck me as a case where the second two-thirds of that article was really useful, but the top of it seemed to be The Times going out of their way to try to spin this against Ferguson. And I think it's a real lesson to the State Democratic Party and to Ferguson's campaign that they cannot trust the media to give him a fair shake here in 2024. The media is going to be hostile. The media is going to try to take things that look potentially helpful for Ferguson and spin them against him. So they're going to have to be ahead of that game and prepare for that, as well as make sure they're doing their own comms, using social media really well to get the story out there. Because the public gets it - the public doesn't want to see Albertsons, Fred Meyer, QFC all owned by the same company. They know it's either going to raise higher prices, fewer staff in stores, or fewer stores outright. We've already seen some stores close across the region. You're going to get more of those bad outcomes. So thank you, Bob Ferguson, for stepping up. And Bob, watch your back, because the media is coming for you. [00:33:28] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. This is a positive thing. This is consumer protection. This is what we ask him to do as our attorney general. We have seen the direction that things go when there's consolidation. There's a lot of people who order delivery now. I don't know if many people have been in stores lately, but it is a miserable experience because they've reduced staff to untenable amounts where you have to wait for someone to unlock half the thing or stand in a special section and a special line. It's just - this is the wrong direction that we're going in. We've already seen this as a result of consolidation. We don't want to see any more. [00:34:03] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, and you can look at another act of consolidation that I wish someone had sued to stop, which is when Rite Aid bought Bartell Drugs in 2020. Everyone knows that's been a disaster. Bartell, locally owned store - you had great locally owned products for sale. You could go and get your prescription filled really quickly and easily. Once that merger happened, all of a sudden people's prescriptions got lost, lines got really long, took you hours to get your prescription filled. And then all of a sudden, stores started closing all over the place. Now Walgreens is closing stores because there's not a lot of competition. There's no incentive for them to keep these stores open. And now we're going to see the same things happen with grocery stores - those trends that are already kind of lurking, accelerating if this merger goes through. So kudos to Bob Ferguson, but he's got to watch out for the people who are coming for him, especially in the media. [00:34:52] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, January 19th, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is the Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist Robert Cruickshank. You can find Robert on Twitter, or X, @cruickshank. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter. You can find me on all platforms - BlueSky, Threads, anything - @finchfrii. 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 show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Washington State government reporter for McClatchy, Shauna Sowersby! Crystal and Shauna recount the terrifying details of a hole blowing out the side of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 midflight, the response by Alaska Airlines, and what steps the National Transportation Safety Board is taking to get to the bottom of the incident. They then shift gears and discuss Inslee's final State of the State address, the start of the Washington state legislative session, and how $700k has been spent by the State Transportation Department on boulders to discourage homeless from returning to encampments. Finally, Crystal wraps up with a rundown of a Seattle City Council staff shakeup less than a week into new Council President Sara Nelson's term. 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, Shauna Sowersby at @Shauna_Sowersby.   Shauna Sowersby Shauna Sowersby was a freelancer for several local and national publications before joining McClatchy's northwest newspapers covering the Legislature. Before that, Shauna worked for the US Navy as a photographer and journalist.   Resources RE-AIR: Evaluating the Role of Incarceration in Public Safety with Criminologist Damon Petrich from Hacks & Wonks   “Alaska, United find loose hardware during inspection of 737 MAX 9s” by Dominic Gates from The Seattle Times   “When Alaska flight 1282 blew open, a mom went into ‘go mode' to protect her son” by Dominic Gates from The Seattle Times   “NTSB focus on Boeing, Spirit assembly work after Alaska Airlines blowout” by Dominic Gates from The Seattle Times   “‘The strongest state in the nation': Gov. Jay Inslee delivers State of the State address” by Shauna Sowersby from The News Tribune   “Leading WA lawmakers give media a rundown on their 2024 legislative priorities” by Shauna Sowersby from The News Tribune   “Washington taxpayers paid nearly $700,000 for boulders to deter return to encampments” by Shauna Sowersby from The Olympian   “Major Staff Shakeup Marks Sara Nelson's First Week as Council President” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, we re-aired my robust conversation with criminologist Damon Petrich about the ineffectiveness of incarceration. We hope everyone listens as the pressure to double down on the punitive status quo intensifies. 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, today's co-host: Washington State government reporter for McClatchy, Shauna Sowersby. Hello. [00:01:24] Shauna Sowersby: Hi, Crystal - thanks for having me on again. [00:01:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely - thanks for coming on. We have a lot to discuss. I think this week we will start with what has been dominating the news and is quite concerning to many. And that is what has followed from the Alaska Airlines flight that had a door plug basically fall off during a flight and cause a rapid depressurization, forced the plane to return back to Portland - it was on its way to Ontario, California. And my goodness, so much has happened in the aftermath. What happened in this incident? [00:02:06] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, so what it appears like - kind of after the fact, after they've been given a few days to kind of look this over - was that, I believe, one of the theories is that the plug was not properly, the door plug was not properly put into place. They're not aware if it was even screwed down completely to begin with, if those screws were even there at all, or what's going on. But it sounds like a lot of those - if not most of those - flights have now been grounded so that they can kind of inspect that issue a little bit more. [00:02:37] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so all of the 737 MAX 9 aircraft have been grounded by the FAA. Initially, Alaska announced that they were going to ground them pending a maintenance inspection, which they had started and had already said - Hey, a couple of the inspections had already been complete, we're ready to fly again. The FAA actually stepped in and said - No, we're actually going to ground these - or the NTSB stepped in and said - We're going to ground them, we want a robust inspection. And they have decided to do that. And they actually don't have a time for return yet from that grounding - and they've learned more. The nature of airplanes, airlines, as they're constructed, is it's not just Boeing. Boeing has subcontractors and suppliers that are also responsible for part of the assembly. And in this situation, Spirit AeroSystems, based out of Wichita, Kansas, is the subcontractor that is responsible for installing this door plug. And then Boeing in Renton is responsible for the final inspection of the component before sealing it behind installation and the sidewall. Dominic Gates of The Seattle Times is their aerospace reporter and has done a number of articles on this - useful to follow him and his reporting if you want to stay on top of this. But it just really seems, just like you said, that it seems pretty obvious that this was not installed correctly. Both United and Alaska in their inspections have found multiple problems associated with this door plug installment - whether it's loose bolts, some bolts or some hardware that may not be in the right place or missing - they just don't know what's happening. And this causes a lot of questions about the quality control of both Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems. [00:04:27] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, all of this, too, is just so harrowing. I know you and I, before the show started, were kind of talking about the folks who didn't show up for that flight. I believe Dominic also wrote the article about - from the mother's perspective, who had to hold on to her child as the flight was trying to land an emergency landing. So yeah, I mean, this stuff - I'm glad that they grounded everything when they did. My own daughter actually had a flight out Saturday by herself, after Friday night had happened, on an Alaska flight. So we were kind of holding our breath for that and really glad to see the news Saturday morning that they had grounded all of those flights, but still - not something people want to be thinking about before they're boarding their flights. [00:05:15] Crystal Fincher: Not something people want to be thinking about and also just another unpleasant incident for Boeing after their previous quite lengthy grounding of MAX airliners - following that software error that led to fatal crashes that took quite some time to fix. And kind of ironically, Boeing was also seeking a safety exemption for that other plane - had just requested it within hours of this incident happening on this type of plane. So there's still - looks like quite a lot to be determined, looks like the NTSB in its preliminary findings are really focusing on Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems. There was a question about an indicator light saying, you know, there may be something going on with the depressurization system that Alaska Airlines chose to - they followed up on, they saw it, they didn't seem like they quite got to the root cause of what it was, but they said - Okay, so we won't send these planes on long haul flights, we won't send them over water so that if anything happens, they'll be able to get to an airport quickly. Which on one hand, some people said, Why are they flying it at all? And on the other hand, people said, Well, that may have actually saved some lives, depending. One thing that is absolutely clear is it's fortunate this depressurization happened at the relatively low altitude that it did - at 16,000 feet, instead of much higher up, which could have had this wind up being a very, very different and much more tragic story - if it would have depressurized at a much higher altitude or typical cruising altitude. And just more questions surrounding even Boeing and their training and preparation for this aircraft. One of the findings was, occurrences that happened was that when the depressurization happened, the cockpit door flew open, which Boeing says - Well, it's designed to do that, that's supposed to happen. The pilots didn't know that. No one on the plane knew that. And that also caused a checklist - this is important information that the pilots are dealing with - to just fly out of the cabin. So they're down information, trying to manage an emergency, one of the pilots' headset fell off or was sucked off as that happened. Yeah, so I mean, this was a harrowing thing. Very, very happy that the injuries that did occur were relatively minor. But it does seem like it was a really traumatic experience. As you said, that article detailing the mother having to basically hold on to her son whose shirt and headphones had been sucked off. And then basically her seatmate holding on to her, as she's holding on to her son. The flight attendants - because of how they were positioned and the noise and everything - they knew that there was a depressurization, but they didn't actually really know that there was a gaping hole in the plane, which also delayed them getting to help this mom and her son. And she's staring out at the ground 16,000 feet below, trying to hold on to her kid - just, I can't even imagine. But this has certainly caused me to feel uncomfortable about flying on these MAX planes and just wondering - Okay, so they're inspecting all of this. Well, are they inspecting everything on the planes? Because I think there's a lot of people questioning - this is a quality control issue. What else may be escaping their attention? So I do hope that we do get to the bottom of this. It does seem like the NTSB generally does very thorough investigations and inspections. They seem like they're being cautious and just their plan to deal with this - making Boeing revise their safety materials and warnings for pilots and airlines to reflect the reality of the situation that we know now. So this is quite challenging, but also - looking at having potential regional economic effects again. What does this mean for Boeing, who's one of our region's largest employers? What does this mean for Alaska Airlines, and potentially United, having to cancel a lot of flights? Just a lot of questions. But there has to be absolute confidence in the safety of air travel or else everything unravels from there. So we'll see how this continues to unfold. [00:09:27] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, I'm really curious to know what's going on internally at Boeing right now. And, you know, if we're actually going to see any action on that front in the coming weeks as well. [00:09:40] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And it does seem like Boeing initially is taking a little bit different of, is operating a little bit differently in the beginning of this challenge that it did initially in the beginning of the last MAX issue challenge. They seem to be stressing that they plan to be transparent, that they plan to be accessible, that they're trying to support their partner airlines, saying that they know they need to get this right and rebuild trust. So it is a different stance that hopefully, I mean, after learning how seemingly trying to cover things up or discount things before did not turn out that well. And that this is a real crisis. So yeah, we'll see how everyone approaches this and what the findings continue to uncover. [00:10:28] Shauna Sowersby: I will be looking forward to it. [00:10:30] Crystal Fincher: As will I. Well, here in the state of Washington - as we start a new year, not only is there a new start of the legislative session, which just convened, but also we get our annual State of the State from Jay Inslee, who has announced that he's in his final term. He will not be running, he is not running for reelection. What did he have to say in his State of the State address? [00:10:55] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, it seemed to me like Inslee really wanted to highlight his last - he mentioned that this was his 11th State of the State that he's given, this will be his last one as governor. And so I - this one seemed to be highlighting a lot of the things that he believes are wins for Washington state. The one that comes to the top of my head is the regional training centers for law enforcement officials that they had opened out in Pasco - so to him, that's a really big issue. He mentioned climate issues, of course - talking about the CCA [Climate Commitment Act] and being proud of that work. Also brought up housing from last year and all the bills that were passed to increase the supply of housing. So he just kind of went through all the things over the last three terms that he's been in that he believes the state has done really well. [00:11:49] Crystal Fincher: What was the reaction to his State of the State address, both by lawmakers in his party who are Democrats and by Republicans? [00:11:58] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, I would say the Democrats are cautiously optimistic, it seems like. I would say - well, Laurie Jinkins did say that she is very optimistic. But, you know, it seems like some of the other ones are a little bit more cautiously optimistic about the things that Inslee is saying. Republicans - Jerry Cornfield asked them a question the other day, because he felt like they were kind of focusing too negatively on on issues. So he's like - Is there anything nice that you do have to say? And it seemed like there was kind of a struggle to come up with that, as they were listing out all these kind of other issues that they were bringing up - public safety and things of that nature. [00:12:41] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it'll be interesting. There are going to be a number of ballot initiatives that they're gearing up for that are going to be on the ballot. So they are certainly in a critical mood and are trying to ride that all the way through to November. But there are - agree with them or disagree with them - there have been some major landmark achievements under Jay Inslee. One of the biggest and most recent is the Climate Commitment Act, the CCA, which is raising quite a bit of money from pricing carbon, basically - trading credits that are trying to cap emissions and have that money be reinvested in policies and infrastructure that helps to do the same. We'll see how that turns out to be, what the results and progress of that are as we get more reporting and tracking of what's going on - but certainly a lot of cause for optimism, a lot of opportunity to make some significant investments and movements towards decarbonization, reducing pollution, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Talking about public safety - that center that had been opened - as many municipalities talk about wanting to accelerate hiring and recruitment of police and sheriffs. This adds to the capacity to do that. We've talked about it before, but some people don't know there's quite a bit of lead time - once you hire an officer, it's not like you hire them today, they're on the street tomorrow. They do have to go through a training, quite extensive training, policies and procedures. And so it can be and often is a year plus from the time that they're hired to the time that they are actively on - working for a police or sheriff's department - so that expanding capacity. Talked about mental health treatment and support there, expanding capacity. There have also been some challenges in those areas, which I definitely saw Republicans point out. But kind of as you saw him wrapping up his final State of the State, did you see him trying to - was he contending with what he might view as his legacy or what he wanted to leave people with? How did you read this final State of the State address from Inslee? [00:15:02] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, I would say it was kind of exactly that. Like, hey, here's this reminder. Look at all of these things that I've done over the course of the last 11 years, 12 years. I feel like it definitely was written in such a way, or given in such a way, that it was to check all the boxes, show off all the things that he's done - understandably. There were a lot of good things that have been done, so why not show them off, I guess? [00:15:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. He also did say that he saw two grave threats in the US and the state - one to just the basic tenets of democracy, part of the larger conversation. The other is about reproductive rights and women having reproductive choice - and called on the legislature to enshrine reproductive protections in the State Constitution this session, something that did not get passed last year. So we will see if they decide to heed that call this session or not. What do you see as the prospects for that? [00:16:07] Shauna Sowersby: Well, Republicans have already stated that they are not on board with this idea at all. I think that's - it seems pretty unanimous across both Republican caucuses in the Senate and the House that it's just not going to happen. They believe that there's other issues that need to be taken care of. They - one of the things they always go to is - There's no threat to it here in Washington, it's already protected. Why would we need this additional measure? So they have very clearly stated that there is no appetite in their parties to pass this. And since this would be a constitutional amendment, it would require some Republican votes there as well. [00:16:49] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, we talk about there being no threat, but we continue to see a number of Supreme Court cases that do have the potential to impact what we're doing here in the state and what's happening in other states - increasing demand, restricting capacity for what we're doing here in Washington state and what women have access to. So we will continue to follow along with that and see. But as you've been covering and have been talking about, our legislative session did start. There have been a couple of availabilities talking about priorities in this session. What are Democrats and Republicans saying are their priorities for this legislative session? [00:17:29] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, it seems like everybody is on board with behavioral health and continuing that progress from last year. Of course, housing is on the docket for both parties. And what was it - even just on Monday, they already passed Rep. Barkis' lot-splitting bill off the House floor. So, you know, huge appetite to continue that work, it looks like. Public safety is another thing that I keep hearing from both parties, although I will say it seems like it's coming more from the Republicans than it is the Democrats. And those are some of the major issues I can think of kind of off of the top of my head. I know that the ballot initiatives from Let's Go Washington will also have, could have a major impact this year, too, on what the legislature decides to do once those are certified. They've talked about how they'll deal with them as they come to them. But that's also something - they need to need to watch out for as well. [00:18:31] Crystal Fincher: So when we talk about housing - obviously, there was some pretty significant action and movement on housing last session. What specifically are they talking about trying to accomplish this session? [00:18:44] Shauna Sowersby: Well, I will tell you that it doesn't seem like - this more pertains to rental housing - rent stabilization has come up and they've been asked about this many times. And so I know that that's been a really big issue for a lot of folks. And a lot of folks are really curious in this - and it doesn't seem like that one is going to get passed anytime soon. But in terms of housing, Representative Melanie Morgan introduced a bill to create a centralized Department of Housing in Washington state, so I thought that that was a pretty interesting idea. Trying to think - the lot-splitting bill was the other one that comes to mind. [00:19:23] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it'll be interesting. And just as you continue to talk about - as you mentioned, addressing behavioral health needs and needing to dramatically expand capacity, in addition to expanding the labor force that is available. There are shortages in providers and workers in that arena and that needing to be addressed there. So that is an area where there does seem to be bipartisan recognition that action is needed in that area. What that ultimately turns out to be - we will see - but it is basically at crisis levels, most people are acknowledging, and needing to happen there. Housing and homelessness are still there. There seems to be a lot of the back and forth that we've been hearing in a lot of localities about what is the right approach, criticism of trying to double down on failed policies for many. But we will - we'll see what happens there. Transportation is another area that that you covered there - lots of major projects that have skyrocketing costs. The ferry system struggling, and what to do about that, are major issues. What have you heard in those areas? [00:20:41] Shauna Sowersby: Well, definitely in terms of ferries, it does not seem like either the Democrats or the Republicans feel very optimistic in that area. I'm trying to think of what - one of the quotes I heard the other day, but it was like, you know, if you're expecting anything anytime soon, don't. This is stuff that is going to be in the works for quite a while. We are - obviously, as I'm sure you're familiar with, there's been a lot of issues with our ferries in the last several months - you're hearing news stories about them getting grounded, all sorts of things, so I think that that is going to be, will continue to be a very serious issue that needs to be addressed. And it doesn't seem like that'll happen anytime soon. [00:21:33] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that is going to be a challenge. I think you did report that most lawmakers don't have an appetite for delaying any of the outrageously expensive and growing more expensive transportation projects. You know, a lot of highway projects are what we're looking at there. So it looks like they will find the money from somewhere - and where that comes from, we will see. But yeah, just a lot on their docket and a lot to keep track of. Session has just gotten underway. Early action, early hearings are underway. But we will see what continues to unfold there and we'll continue to follow your reporting. Also wanted to talk about another story of yours this week, talking about - my goodness, Washington taxpayers have paid nearly $700,000 for boulders to deter a return to encampments by people who had been cleared out. What is going on? [00:22:33] Shauna Sowersby: That is a good question. I live here in Olympia, and so I was just driving by the former encampment on Sleater Kinney a couple months ago, and I noticed how many boulders there are. I mean, it's massive - I don't know if you've seen it anytime soon. But it got me really curious. I just wanted to know what was going on. And so yeah, had a conversation with WSDOT about it - one encampment at Sleater Kinney, the one that I had mentioned, that one alone is $643,000 just for the boulder placement, transportation, and all that stuff. So yeah, this is - it shocked me whenever I heard that number, and whenever I added up all the numbers that they had given me and everything to total nearly $700,000 just for boulder placement in three areas. [00:23:27] Crystal Fincher: I mean, it's wild, it's frustrating. As we've talked about several times on this program - fundamentally, at its core, homelessness is a housing problem. The one thing that every homeless person has in common, the cause of being homeless is not having a house. There are things that can contribute as factors. There are oftentimes, you know, being homeless is so hard that it often exacerbates other factors or other risks that were there before. But we seem to be spending money on everything but getting people into housing. And spending so much money on things that are not helping move people into housing. And to think that we're investing in literal rocks - $700,000 in rocks - to say, Don't come back, does not alleviate the problem of homelessness. We basically - we know that if we clear an encampment without also helping people into shelter or housing, that they just move to a different place. We're relocating the problem, we aren't solving it. And to spend $700,000 in a basically relocation effort doesn't seem like the best investment to me. Did this strike the people you were talking to as a large expenditure? Did they seem like - Well, this is just what we needed to do? Was there any kind of thought or reflection on that? [00:24:57] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, I actually posed that question to WSDOT because I was curious too. I'm like, this - people might be startled by this number, right? Like, what do you think of this? And she acknowledged - Kris Abrudan - she acknowledged that it is quite an expense, but stressed the need to have something like that in place to prevent people from returning to encampments. I asked the same question to Governor Inslee at a press conference. I asked him - if he thought that that was a good thing to invest in. And it was sort of the same response - I was actually a little surprised by Inslee's response, especially since he's kind of been on the forefront of wanting to create so much housing and help homeless folks and stuff, but his response to say - Oh well, the neighbors like it being there, they like having those boulders there because it means people won't return. I just was a little surprised by his response in that instance. [00:26:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I mean - and wow, you know what a good way to get people not to return to the site of an encampment would be - would be like providing them housing. They wouldn't return if they had a place to actually live. And how much could $700,000 go towards making that possible? That is not a small amount of money. That could do a lot, not just for the plain old housing costs or even, you know, if it was temporary shelter hotel. But to move towards permanent housing - for some supportive services, assistance, coordination - it just seems like such an expensive waste to me personally. But I really appreciate your reporting on this because it does take understanding what we are contending with, with the issue on the table - what's being proposed and done currently to address it, and going, Is that working? And is this the wisest expenditure of money? I certainly hope that more people would figure out ways to - instead of spending money on eco-blocks, or on hostile architecture, on rocks, that we would take that money and do something that more meaningfully and permanently addresses the issue and gets people off of the street for good. And doesn't just keep them on the street, but just away from this specific area with some rocks - which also like are an eyesore to many people, like they're not cute. [00:27:30] Shauna Sowersby: I'm saying - thank you. Yes. I'm like, are we just gonna keep expanding rocks everywhere until, you know, there's no more room for anything. [00:27:40] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it's a challenge. And also that we have to contend with these things. I mean, hostile architecture is the term for it - but these are in public spaces, these are in places that we all congregate at, drive by, are around, and it's not pleasant for the community. I'm sure some people will say - Well, encampments aren't pleasant either - and they certainly aren't for the people who are forced to live there because they have nowhere else to live. And I just think that we should focus on removing the pain from everyone and really sustainable solutions that try and address the root cause of the problem and not the symptoms of the problem, that ignoring addressing the root cause just continues to exacerbate. [00:28:26] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah. And not to mention, those are all being graffitied up and everything now, too. So if we're talking about an eyesore, you know, it's just progressively getting worse on that front. [00:28:38] Crystal Fincher: My goodness. Well, the final thing I wanted to talk about today is local to Seattle. We recently had the new city council sworn in. Sara Nelson selected as Council President - who is a conservative - or centrist, as they're calling themselves. And with this, the first action, one of the first actions that Sara Nelson took was to fire the head of Central Staff there, which was very concerning to a lot of people. With the amount of new councilmembers who, regardless of what your political leanings are - there's a lot to just understand if you've never held elective office before, you're coming in to a major city. To legislate, to be part of the city council - just how things work, understanding what the roles and responsibilities are, how to conduct yourself during meetings, what the status of projects underway and planned are, getting familiar with what is going to be in your portfolio on your committees. It really is a lot. You are drinking from the fire hose. And this is true for any new elected in any position, regardless of ideology. Just the job is daunting. And so there's a lot that needs to be caught up. Institutional knowledge is really important. People who understand why legislation was written a certain way, understand the consequences or ramifications of things that have been proposed, understand what stakeholdering went into different processes and what was done. This institutional knowledge - a lot of it walked out the door with a lot of the outgoing councilmembers. And with all these new ones, I think there's been broad agreement and reporting and discussions that while there's going to be a lot on their plates and, you know, having people who understand just how things work at the city is really important. When it comes to Central Staff, these are the people who support all of the councilmembers, who help to analyze and move legislation, who are working in this capacity. And Esther Handy is the person who was fired, but was largely credited for stabilizing that office when they took this position a few years back and just has done the job very well. Having competent people in those roles is very important for just the writing and passage of sound policy, across the whole portfolio of policy. And there was no performance reason given. It wasn't like they weren't doing their job. Sara Nelson said that she just didn't feel like, you know, just didn't like the supposed political leaning of Esther, which that doesn't seem to have ever been an issue before. These are nonpartisan positions. You know, was she performing the duties of the job? It seemed to catch, it absolutely did catch a lot of people by surprise. And really at a time when this kind of knowledge and stabilization is needed, was just viewed as really short-sighted. Certainly looks that way to me. And it looks like someone really wanting to say - It's a new day, there's a new sheriff in town. And, you know, this is, we're now doing this my way. So very new day there at the Seattle City Council. Hard to find a similar incidence of something like this happening in the city before. Certainly within offices, people in their own staffs, and people who know that they're in, you know, kind of positions attached to the elected - that happens, and it's unfortunate sometimes for the actual lives involved. But people are prepared for that, and that happens more often. But for this, this caught a lot of people off guard and was just like - Whoa. It looks like there's going to be a use of power in ways that we have not seen in recent memory here in the City of Seattle. [00:32:41] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how - how else everything is affected moving forward. What else will be changed, too? [00:32:48] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, January 12th, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is Washington State government reporter for McClatchy, Shauna Sowersby. You can find Shauna on Twitter at @Shauna_Sowersby. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me anywhere you want to find me 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 show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! Crystal and Erica discuss how a City of Seattle audit of registered rental properties shows a shift from smaller rental properties to larger apartment buildings that mirrors national trends, rather than being a direct reaction to tenant protections that landlords often cite as an issue. They then call out local media outlets republishing a sensational story of a homeless landlord with a “nightmare tenant” without fact checking. On the public safety front, Crystal and Erica dig into the importance of the upcoming Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) contract and whether all the newcomers to City Council will get up to speed quickly enough. Finally, they chat about the departure of Sound Transit's CEO and what it signifies about the embattled regional transit agency. 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 Barnett, at @ericacbarnett.   Resources “Decline in “Mom and Pop” Rentals Driven by National Trends, Not Local Renter Protections, City Audit Finds” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   ““Nightmare Tenant” Story Amplified by Seattle Times Crumbles Under Scrutiny” by Katie Wilson from PubliCola   “What a New Seattle Police Guild Contract Could Mean for Reform” by Amy Sundberg from The Urbanist   “Seattle police not complying with law requiring lawyer access for kids, audit finds” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times   “Only 4% of detained youth are offered attorney access by Seattle police, audit finds” from KUOW   Audit Report on SPD Compliance with Youth Access to Legal Counsel Requirements | Seattle Office of Inspector General   “Op-Ed: Quick CEO Ousting Points at Sound Transit Board Deficiencies” by Robert Cruickshank for The Urbanist   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript Coming soon  

Welcome to the latest episode of "Eternally Amy," hosted by Amy Liz Harrison. Today, Amy delves into the powerful memoir, "Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery," written by local Seattle author Erica C. Barnett. Joined by her friend Alysse Bryson for the Boozeless Book Club, they embark on a candid discussion about the book's themes, particularly the challenges of addiction, resilience, and the impact on relationships. In this episode, we also talked about: ● Amy reflects on reading "Quitter," drawing parallels to her own experiences. ● Introduction to Barnett, a local Seattle author, and relevance of her story. ● Discussion on relationship challenges and the intensity of Erica's journey. ● Recognition of complexities in relationships during addiction and recovery. ● Elyse humorously shares her take on relationships. ● Brief summary of "Quitter," praising its brave narrative on addiction challenges. ● Amy's love for "Quitter" memoirs and their impact on her aspirations as a writer. ● Invitation for listener engagement and anticipation for future episodes.   Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and RecoveryBook Link: https://amzn.to/47EErvt Hosted by Amy Liz Harrison Buy Amy's Books: https://amzn.to/3ys8nuv http://amylizharrison.com/ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Lgxy8F Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3vHHHoi Hashtags For This Episode: #EternallyAmyPodcast #QuitterMemoir #AddictionJourney #BookClubDiscussion #RecoveryReflections #SobrietyStories #RelationshipChallenges #MemoirReading #BookPodcast #BoozelessBookClub

On this topical show re-air, Shannon Cheng of People Power Washington joins Crystal to dive into the intricacies of how the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) contract stands in the way of police accountability. With negotiations already underway, Crystal and Shannon talk about what we should be looking for in the next SPOG contract and why police accountability is important. An overview of the historic difficulty bargaining with SPOG highlights how the City has been left with a lacking accountability system, how the community has struggled to have their interests represented at the table, and how the Seattle Police Department has fallen out of compliance with its consent decree. With little insight into the closed-door negotiations with SPOG, Crystal and Shannon look for signs in recent agreements with other local police unions where progress in accountability reforms was paired with officer wage increases. 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 Shannon Cheng at @drbestturtle and People Power Washington at @PeoplePowerWA.   Shannon Cheng Shannon Cheng is the Chair of People Power Washington, a grassroots volunteer organization which champions policies that divest from police and reinvest in community-based solutions and alternate crisis response, decriminalize non-serious offenses, and implement accountability and enforceable standards for police officers and agencies. People Power Washington was instrumental in the passage of the 2020 King County charter amendments to reform public safety, and continues to be involved with public safety advocacy in the City of Seattle, King County, and Washington State Legislature. Shannon holds a Bachelor and Master of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She continued her graduate work at MIT and earned a PhD in Space Propulsion with a Minor in Geology/Geophysics because she loves rocks. Since graduating, Shannon has been working on computational lighting technology with her husband, becoming a passionate orienteer, and organizing in support of civil liberties — from immigrants' rights to voting rights to criminal justice reform.   Resources Sign up for the People Power Washington mailing list   “Police Management Contract, Which Includes Concessions, Could Serve as Template for SPOG Negotiations” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   Timeline of Seattle Police Accountability | ACLU of Washington   “As negotiations with city loom, Seattle's police union has had an outsized influence on police accountability measures” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times   Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act | Revised Code of Washington   “Officials Announce Changes to Police Union Negotiation Strategy, But Accountability and Bargaining Experts Say More Should Be Done” by Paul Kiefer from PubliCola   “New King County police contract increases pay, body cams, and civilian oversight” by Amy Radil from KUOW   “King County strikes deal with union for bodycams on sheriff's deputies” by Daniel Gutman from The Seattle Times   “Seattle police union elects hard-line candidate as president in landslide vote” by Steve Miletich and Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times   “Seattle approves new police contract, despite community pushback” by David Kroman from Crosscut   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I am thrilled to be welcoming a crucial clutch member of our team and absolute talented woman in her own right, Dr. Shannon Cheng. Welcome to the show. [00:01:05] Shannon Cheng: Hi, Crystal - excited to be here. [00:01:08] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you here. Now, you wear many hats. One of those is as Chair of People Power Washington - Police Accountability. Can you just let us know a little bit about the organization and what brought you to the work? [00:01:21] Shannon Cheng: People Power Washington - we're a volunteer-run, grassroots group focused on bringing equitable public safety and police accountability. We focus on several geographic areas - we started off working in Seattle - we also do work in King County as well as now Washington State. We're working at different levels of government because our experience was - working at the city level - we found out there were some things that really had to be taken care of at the state level and vice versa. We started off in 2017, right around when the Seattle Police Accountability Ordinance was passed, and that's how we got involved more deeply and have continued. And then in 2020, when the summer protests were happening, a lot of people came out of the woodwork really wanting to get involved with this issue in particular. And so our group's really expanded and that's why we added on King County to some of the work that we do. [00:02:14] Crystal Fincher: When it comes to police accountability, really wanted to have this show because over and over again, no matter what direction we come at it from, it seems like one of the biggest barriers to accountability that we always hear is the police union contracts. And we hear from the police chiefs, from the mayors that, Oh, that would be great to do, but we can't do it because of the contract. Or we hear about discipline that has been taken, that is then reversed after arbitration, because of things having to do with the contract. So I really wanted to talk about and examine that, especially because that contract is currently being renegotiated. So why is this so important and what's at stake? [00:02:59] Shannon Cheng: As we have been working on trying to get better police accountability in Seattle specifically, what our group kept running up against - any kind of progress that was trying to be made, any solution that was being suggested to try to improve the system - the barrier we kept running up against and being told was, Well, that has to be bargained in the SPOG contract. And SPOG is the Seattle Police Officers Guild - they're the police union in Seattle that represents our officers and sergeants. There's another police union also - the SPMA, the Seattle Police Management Association - which represents the lieutenants and captains. But SPOG is the main one that is constantly standing in the way. And so I think one thing that - I think when we talk about police accountability, it's helpful to think about are there are these different branches of accountability and we have obstacles along all of those paths. So when we talk about police accountability, I think it's important to realize there's several different tracks that we can try to hold police accountability and then understanding what are the obstacles that are in each of those tracks. So the first one would be criminal accountability. This is where the state would charge an officer. And we have seen a lot of issues with that where we don't have an independent prosecutor who is willing to bring charges against a police officer. Oftentimes the investigations that are done that would lead to charges being brought are not being done in a way that doesn't have conflicts of interest. So that's something that's being worked on. There's also civil liability, where a person who has suffered distress at the hands of a police officer would be able to bring civil charges and get redress in that fashion. On the federal level, that is what is blocked by qualified immunity. People may have heard of that, where if the case is not exactly been decided with this exact same parameters in a previous precedent, then people are not able to get their case through. Another avenue of accountability is regulatory, which would be decertifying a police officer who has fallen beneath the standards that have been set for what a police officer should do. And then the final one that I think that many people think about a lot is what I would call administrative accountability. And this is done at the local level in our local police departments - and it has to do with how we can impose discipline on police officers at the local level. So when the police chief - as you were saying, Crystal - decides that an officer was acting in a way that they need to be disciplined, then that's what we call administrative accountability. And so the reason that the SPOG contract is so important is that it basically dictates how the City can impose accountability onto our officers. And so everything that ever happens that has to do with looking into how the officer may have behaved, or deciding whether that was within policy, and then if it was not within policy, what kind of discipline can be imposed, or even whether that discipline sticks - all of that is tied up into what is agreed upon between the City and the Seattle Police Officers Guild in their contract. [00:06:29] Crystal Fincher: So when we hear accountability being talked about, there are actually specific policies and things that - many people have looked at this contract process and best practices around the country and have come out with. What are the recommendations that are specifically being made for the next SPOG contract? What should the public be looking to get out of this? [00:06:54] Shannon Cheng: Yeah - I think at a minimum - the next SPOG contract should be in alignment with the recently negotiated contract with the Seattle Police Management Association. We were able to get things such as subpoena power for the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of Inspector General through that contract. We also were able to restructure the disciplinary review process so that it was less biased towards officers getting discipline overturned in arbitration. I think there was also a clear definition of what honesty means for police officers, which is very important. So yes, minimum is what happened in the SPMA contract. And then beyond that, it should go further and not block anything from the 2017 accountability ordinance - so things such as being able to civilianize the Office of Police Accountability so that we don't have the conflict of interest of officers investigating other officers. And then I think a broader conversation that the City has been trying to but has been hampered is talking about what kind of alternative public safety response that we might want to be able to have other than sending an armed officer. I think there's been a lot of concern that the SPOG contract, as written, could lead to an unfair labor practice claim by the union if Seattle moves forward with any kind of pilot. And so this is what has been holding us back in ways that a lot of other cities around the country have been able to move forward. [00:08:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And cities in our area have been able to move forward. Seattle appears to be behind the curve when it comes to things like the holistic types of responses - to be able to send an appropriate response to whatever the emergency is, which isn't always an armed police officer - it may be a social worker, someone who can address substance use disorder, or different things to address those issues that just can't be handled by a police officer with a gun or through our criminal system. So I think having those things in mind is really important as we continue to move through this in this conversation. And this is a really challenging issue for people to deal with because of the messaging environment and the way that the politics of the situation has unfolded. Because there are some folks - we've heard repeatedly from the head of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, who has been known for making incendiary statements before, and this kind of feeling or proposition that police accountability is inherently anti-police. When I think - on the ground - most people, even if they don't mind having the police show up and seeing them all over the place, is that we all have standards for our jobs, for our performance, how we should deal with other people, and there are rules. And if those rules are broken, there should be some kind of accountability attached to that. If you are not doing what you're supposed to be doing, if you're abusing others on the job - that, in every other circumstance, is grounds for usually immediate termination. But we're finding nearly the opposite in terms of the police. I think a lot of people are challenged by the notion that, Hey, why am I held accountable for being able to de-escalate a situation, follow the rules and regulations of my job. Yet people who have control over other people's human and civil rights don't have that and a big challenge having to do with that. So as we navigate this - I guess starting off - how do you think of and characterize and do this work, and refute those kinds of accusations and challenges? [00:11:07] Shannon Cheng: I think it's important to remember that police officers and law enforcement are given special extra powers that a lot of the rest of us don't have. They have state-sanctioned power to take away life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So they have direct control over the civil and constitutional rights of people in situations. And we trust them to uphold the Constitution and not overstep bounds - and that's what we would expect to see. Unfortunately, that's not what happens a lot of the time and that's where we do need accountability to come into play - when people's rights have been violated. [00:11:55] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so we've talked about the different types of police accountability. We've talked about administrative accountability. I just want to review where we're at in this process, specifically, when it comes to the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract. [00:12:12] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so the current Seattle Police Officers Guild contract expired at the end of 2020. So currently the officers are working without a current contract and the City and the union are under negotiations for the next contract. We don't have much visibility into when the next step is going to happen and we don't know what parameters they are going to be bargaining. [00:12:43] Crystal Fincher: So right now they're operating without a contract and that means the current contract continues. And we had this conversation, or we had a public conversation about this - not many people were probably tuned into that conversation - before the last contract negotiation. What went into that contract negotiation and how does that tee up what's at stake in this contract? [00:13:05] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, the previous contract negotiation was finished in the end of 2018. And so that contract had already been overdue for several years. And one of the reasons it took so long to negotiate is that the City of Seattle has been under consent decree since 2012 - so 10 years - and what that means is that the Department of Justice came in, did an investigation into officers at the bequest of many community organizations, and found that there was unconstitutional policing happening in the City of Seattle. So basically the federal government is providing our local law enforcement oversight and trying to bring them back into compliance with the Constitution. So as part of that - in 2017, the City of Seattle passed an ordinance that established a police accountability system that at the time was hailed as being a landmark accountability system, that had three branches - people may have heard of them. There's the OPA, which is the Office of Police Accountability - their job is to do investigations and suggest discipline that the chief will then apply. There's also the OIG, which is the Office of Inspector General, which is observing and making systemic recommendations to the system. And then finally there was the CPC, which is the Community Police Commission, and their role was to bring community voices in - it was the community that originally brought up issues with how policing was being done in Seattle, and so this was to continue to let them have a voice into how we rectify the system. So the issue is that that ordinance passed into City law in 2017, but it was not actually implementable until the next SPOG contract was negotiated with the officers. And in 2018, 18 months after that landmark law got passed, a SPOG contract got ratified which basically rolled back a lot of the provisions from the police accountability ordinance. And so there was a lot of community outcry - many groups came out, including the CPC, to ask that the City Council and the mayor reject that contract because it basically did not honor what - all the work that had been done to try to put a workable system into place. [00:15:43] Crystal Fincher: We're picking up this contract negotiation again here - that's currently being negotiated. I think a lot of people are looking at this - looking at the conflicting statements that we've heard from the mayor between what was said while on the campaign trail and what has been said after he was elected to office, in addition to some leaked comments. So in this particular contract, what are the things that are important to get out of it to ensure the kind of accountability that we've talked about, to ensure that people are treated in accordance with the law, in accordance with regulations. And that's not to say that they can't do their jobs, just that they should be able to do it correctly. What are the most important things to consider here? [00:16:36] Shannon Cheng: I think the contract really needs to allow us to see what a robust accountability system could do. I think there's this assumption that because we have the existence of these three bodies - the CPC, the OPA, and the OIG - that we have a working accountability system, and people often blame that system for not imposing the accountability. But the truth is that that system has not been able to be fully implemented because of the restrictions put on it by the 2018 SPOG contract. So since that contract passed, we've had incidents where the federal judge overseeing this consent decree ruled the City out of compliance on the issue of accountability specifically. There was a famous case where an officer's discipline got overturned in arbitration because the arbitrator decided that the chief's firing wouldn't stand. [00:17:32] Crystal Fincher: So that must be really a fundamental challenge that really speaks to the culture of the department. If you're trying to weed out - as they would call it - bad apples. They are constantly saying, This doesn't represent all of the officers and all that kind of stuff. Well, if it doesn't, then this is an issue of culture and you have to be able to weed out those bad apples in order to avoid spoiling the whole bunch, as the rest of that saying goes. But if those people are still winding back on the force - was that the case where an officer was - punched a handcuffed woman and broke her jaw, which is not supposed to happen as most people can deduce - and was actually fired by the chief, which is a high bar to clear. They cleared that bar, but were put back in the job through arbitration. What does that do to other officers? What does that say to other officers, especially when you hear the kinds of things coming from the head of the union - that come from them - and some of the really inflammatory things that really make it hard to believe that police are viewing every member of the public equally and doing their job impartially, and really putting the health and safety of the public as their primary priority. As we go through this, many people aren't familiar with union negotiations overall. This is a very different category of union, seeing that they have special privileges and abilities granted to them by the law. They get to impact other people's civil rights and lives. So in just the mechanics of negotiating this contract - it's hard because these negotiations are private - but what is the process of negotiation? How do people go about getting the kinds of concessions that are necessary to ensure that we're all safe? [00:19:35] Shannon Cheng: I think it's important to first understand that - in Washington State, public sector unions are given the right to collectively bargain under state law. This is the Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act. This is where a public employer and a public sector union and their exclusive bargaining representative will sit down at a table and hash out personnel matters such as wages, hours, working conditions, as well as grievance procedures. Under this state act, police guilds and associations fall into a special category - they're classified as uniformed personnel, and so they are considered vital to the welfare and public safety of the State of Washington. So what this means is that - if in the course of doing the collective bargaining with one of these unions they can't reach an agreement, that union is not allowed to go on strike. Because of that, the Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act then gives them the opportunity to instead go to a third-party arbitrator to decide the disputes about the contract. And then the Washington Open Public Meetings Act is what says that all these negotiations for collective bargaining are behind closed doors. So effectively, what this means is that the public has very little insight into what's happening. And for many unions that's reasonable, but as we discussed before - for police unions in particular, they have a lot of power and influence and impact, and they deal with the public nearly day to day in their jobs. And so how that happens and when things go wrong, the public has a deep interest into making sure that our interests are represented. So the way that - practically speaking - these negotiations happen at the City is that the two parties are the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Officers Guild. So on the City side, we're represented by the Labor Relations Policy Committee. In the past, this was effectively only representatives from the mayor's office or direct reports from under the mayor. After getting burned so badly with that 2018 SPOG contract, there's been a lot of effort to change that so that other bodies have more input. So for example, the City Council has five representatives that sit on that committee and they have been able to get a City Council staffer to be able to be at the table for this round of negotiations. In addition, because accountability has been such a difficult point for them to negotiate at the table, they wanted to have an outside expert - with specific technical expertise about the accountability system - to be also present at the table. So that didn't quite happen. Instead, what they are having is representatives from our three accountability bodies able to be present only for the part of negotiations about accountability. So that's who's sitting at the table from the City side. And then SPOG has their representatives to represent the police union. So as I said, the public has very little input into how these negotiations are proceeding. The City Council did hold public hearings back in the fall of 2019 - ahead of the start of these negotiations - to get input into what the public would be interested in seeing. The issue is - 2019, at this point, is several years ago, and a lot has happened since then in this area, and the conversation and discourse has changed, I think, fueled by what happened in the summer of 2020 and all the protests that broke out. But collective bargaining is a lengthy process. It takes a long time. It's going to take several years. We expect to hopefully see a tentative SPOG contract come out sometime in this next stretch. But until it does, we really have very little insight into what is happening and what is being traded back and forth between the two sides. [00:23:54] Crystal Fincher: Okay. And just going through what the - continuing through what the process would be once they do come to an agreement in the negotiation - what are the steps to then get it approved officially? [00:24:08] Shannon Cheng: Right. So if a tentative agreement is reached, then the members of the Seattle Police Officers Guild will vote to see whether their guild would accept the contract. If a majority of them agree, then the tentative collective bargaining agreement would be sent to City Council for ratification. A majority of City Council members would have to vote for that. And if it passed out of City Council, then the mayor would have to actually sign the agreement. And then that would make the agreement official. [00:24:39] Crystal Fincher: Okay. And if they can't come to an agreement, what happens? [00:24:46] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, so if they can't come to an agreement - under state law, it could go to interest arbitration. And so this is where a third party arbitrator would make a binding decision on the topics of the contract that they have not been able to come to agreement with. I think historically - going to interest arbitration has been considered risky for the City because these arbitrators would look at like agreements from around the country to make their decision about what seemed fair or not. And this problem is not just in Seattle where we're having difficulty having good contracts with our police union - this happens around the country. So I think the sense has been that if we looked at other contracts, those would tend to lean towards the police union and not be in our favor. I think there are some who feel that - after the protests of 2020, that situation may have changed a little bit. And another note is that that other police union we talked about in Seattle that represents the captains and lieutenants, the SPMA - they recently negotiated a contract that did include more of the progress we would want to see in accountability. So it's possible that if SPOG had to go to arbitration and they looked at this other contract from the same city, that they would agree that SPOG should do the same. [00:26:16] Crystal Fincher: So what are the signs and signals that we're getting from this current negotiation? Where does it look like things stand? It's hard because so much of the process is opaque, but what have you been able to glean? [00:26:31] Shannon Cheng: Yeah. So about the specific SPOG negotiations themselves - that as they're happening now - very little. It is very opaque, as you said. But so instead we can try to look at these hopeful signs of other police guilds that have had their contracts negotiated in the recent past. So as I just said, the Seattle Police Management Association contract - that was bargained and passed and accepted this past summer in June 2022. From that contract, SPMA got wage increases that went back retroactively and are pretty in line with sort of the consumer price index. And what Seattle got was that we were finally able to get some of the elements that were missing from that 2017 police accountability ordinance. One thing that has been not available is that our accountability bodies have not had subpoena power over the police department. And so in the SPMA contract, they just didn't mention subpoena power at all - and so because of that exclusion of that term, then it is now granted under the accountability ordinance. Other improvements that happened was handling how badly arbitration can go sometimes for the City. So trying to - we can't get rid of arbitration as a route for disciplinary appeal, but we can put some guardrails around it. So what they were able to negotiate was that officers couldn't bring new information into the appeal decision. Previously, the initial investigation would happen, the discipline would be decided - and then in the officer's appeal of the decision, they could bring up new information that was not available to the original investigators. And so it was like having another investigation all over again. So they have now said, No, the officer needs to provide all of the information up front and that all needs to be considered first at the first investigation. They also have decided that the arbitrators have to decide whether the chief-imposed discipline was arbitrary or capricious - and if not, they can't overturn the chief's discipline. So these are all positive things that we've seen in the Seattle Police Management Association contract and we would definitely hope to see the same put into the upcoming SPOG contract. Then in King County, our sheriff's office - they recently reached an agreement with their deputies just this past November and got similar wins. In exchange for pretty generous wage increases, the County has finally been able to get the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight the authority to actually conduct independent investigations as well as subpoena power. These are things that County voters had passed overwhelmingly in charter amendments and then got enshrined in county ordinance, but again, those were being blocked by the police officers guild contract not accepting those changes. So those have both moved forward and I think those are very positive signs that it is possible to sit down at these difficult negotiations with our police guilds and give them fair wage increases. And in exchange, have them accept reasonable accountability measures. I think unhopeful signs - that I think about - is just how SPOG historically has been a very difficult union to negotiate with. We've just seen that they are much more - they're less willing to give unless they get something in exchange. For example, when we wanted them to start wearing Body-Worn Cameras, we had to pay them extra in order to do that. So things like that give me pause in terms of how negotiations with SPOG would be going - because they have been difficult. I think also their current leadership, the SPOG president, has been very antagonistic and unaligned with a lot of the efforts have been made to try to improve public safety. [00:31:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree with the evaluation of not being aligned. You just mentioned the county-wide vote for increased accountability and restructuring the County Sheriff's department to make that possible. Seattle has voted over and over again, both for statutory improvements and for candidates who have promised on the campaign trail to increase accountability measures. Yet there has been really inflammatory positions and statements made that seem to suggest that they think the public just wants to reject that, and you have to hate police in order to want any kind of accountability, and it's just unacceptable to even think about. And over and over again, the public in opinion polls and in elections says the opposite. They do want people to be accountable for performing on the jobs much like they are. We shouldn't expect people - service workers making minimum wage - to be able to de-escalate situations that we don't expect of police, who that's supposed to be one of the things they're trained and expected to do. So I think a definite misalignment between what the public wants and expects, and what SPOG is willing to entertain and discuss. So since we're in this time without a contract, what are possible outcomes that could happen short of getting a contract, or that could inhibit contract negotiations moving forward? [00:33:03] Shannon Cheng: I think what's really going to be important with these upcoming negotiations is that the City is taking seriously what the public has over and over said that they want to see - which is we need to have a robust police accountability system that hasn't been watered down and that is allowable by the SPOG contract. In 2018 - at that City Council hearing where they ratified the problematic contract - there were masses of community members who came out. Groups, citizens, many people came out saying, We agree that SPOG has the right to have pay increases, they've been working without a contract for a long time - they deserve to have fair wages and benefits - but not at the cost of throwing out all the work that we've done under the consent decree and trying to put together a system where we have an accountability system that will help build community trust in what this office, this department that is supposedly here to protect and serve us is doing. And unfortunately the other side came out to that same City Council hearing and everybody was just talking past each other. They were just saying things like, We deserve to have raises. If you don't pass this, it means that you think we don't deserve raises. And that is not what the community was saying. They were saying, You deserve a raise, but in exchange, you need to give us accountability. And they just left out the accountability piece completely. And so I think it's really important that - as the City moves forward, that they listen to what the public has been saying and make sure that we get that accountability this time, not at the expense of this argument of, Oh, well, the officers have been working without a updated contract for too long. Because these negotiations - we know they take a long time - historically they have been. This is not an unknown, they should have been prepared for that, and to know that this would be an argument that was going to be made. So absolutely, they need to tie any increase or benefits that they give - which is our leverage over the police guild - to getting what we want back, which is full implementation of the 2017 police accountability ordinance. At the minimum, they should have the same things that were negotiated and agreed upon in the SPMA contract in the SPOG contract. And then they should go beyond. Right now, we have an issue where the Office of Police Accountability is restricted in the number of civilian investigators that they can have and what kinds of cases those civilian investigators can manage. We have a situation where we have cops investigating cops. And it's cops who then get put back into the system where maybe they're the ones under investigation again. So I think just anybody can see that there's a huge conflict of interest there where - an officer assigned to be an investigator maybe wouldn't want to do the best job of the investigation because they're going to be back working with these same people in a short time period. So we need to really button down and get our accountability system into a situation where it is more in line with what had been celebrated as this groundbreaking, new way of approaching the issue. Because right now, the current system is just really broken. [00:36:41] Crystal Fincher: It is really broken and I appreciate all the work that you've done, that other organizations have done to - one, highlight and help people see what are the processes and policies behind this brokenness, and what is the path to being able to have more accountability in this system. I guess heading into - closing this and final words - if people are interested in making a difference in this issue and trying to make sure that we have accountability, it seems like there are a couple different options. One big opportunity is with the elections that we have coming up. You'd mentioned that it's going to take a majority of the council to ratify whatever contract does wind up happening. We will have several open seats coming in this City Council election. So what are the kinds of things that people should be looking to hear from candidates in order to have confidence that they are going to act on the kind of accountability measures that are necessary? [00:37:51] Shannon Cheng: I think first and foremost, hearing from people that they recognize that there is a problem with the current system. And that they deeply understand that just because we have a system in name, it doesn't mean that the system is working. And that this is all tied up in these contract negotiations. I don't know if by the time elections happen, whether the negotiations will have moved forward or not. But I am sure that whatever contract does come out, more work is going to be needed to be done for the future one. So setting ourselves up for success and having people that even recognize that there is a problem. I think that so often - police officers are given the benefit of the doubt sometimes, and they don't like receiving criticism. Nobody does, but police officers in general get very defensive and it can be hard to stand up to that and push back, especially with a lot of the mainstream narratives that are going around - but somebody who is going to be bold and willing to stand up for what the public wants in the face of all of that pushback. [00:39:05] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. What are other ways that the public can help push this in the right direction? [00:39:10] Shannon Cheng: I think being in touch with your electeds - City Council is important, but honestly, I think the mayor is the one who holds the keys to a lot of how this plays out. So if anybody has the ability to figure out how to tell the mayor that this is absolutely what we want and we will not accept a contract that does not bring our accountability system up to snuff, that's important. Our group is going to be monitoring and watching for when this contract does get negotiated and comes out, and we'll be looking at it and try to analyze it. We don't know exactly how much time we will have between when that contract comes out and when the City Council vote and mayor signing will happen, but we will be on alert. And so if you're interested and want to receive updates about when that happens and when is an effective time to make your voice heard, you could sign up for our mailing list. If you go to wethepeoplepower.org/join-us, there's a form there where you can sign up. As I said, we also do work at the King County and state levels, but you can have an option to only receive alerts about the areas that you're interested in. [00:40:24] Crystal Fincher: Thanks for helping us understand the really intricate and confusing process with the contract. And thanks so much - we will be following up on this as we get more news about it. [00:40:35] Shannon Cheng: Thanks, Crystal. [00:40:36] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this Tuesday topical show, special guest host Shannon Cheng and fellow co-organizer with People Power Washington, Amy Sundberg, delve into everything they wish people knew about the looming Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) contract. The conversation starts by outlining the outsize control the SPOG contract has on the City of Seattle's police accountability system, the City budget, and efforts to civilianize jobs that don't require an armed response. Amy and Shannon then break down a soon-to-be-considered Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City and SPOG - what each side gets, its fiscal impacts, whether the agreement will have any effect on SPD understaffing, and why the already-disappointing dual dispatch pilot is worse than they thought. Next, the two non-labor lawyers try to explain why any attempt to offload roles from an overworked police department entails lengthy negotiation and sign off from SPOG, how SPD continues to be understaffed despite best efforts to counter attrition, and what might happen if City electeds stood up to the police guild. Finally, in anticipation of a full SPOG contract coming out sometime in the next year, they discuss why the MOU is a bad omen of what is to come, how the process is designed to exclude public input, the difference between police guilds and labor unions, a stalled attempt at a state legislative solution, what Councilmember Mosqueda stepping down from the Labor Relations Policy Committee means - and wrap up with Amy giving Shannon a powerful pep talk! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the guest host, Shannon Cheng, on Twitter at @drbestturtle and find Amy Sundberg at @amysundberg.   Amy Sundberg Amy Sundberg is the publisher of Notes from the Emerald City, a weekly newsletter on Seattle politics and policy with a particular focus on public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system. She also writes about public safety for The Urbanist. She organizes with Seattle Solidarity Budget and People Power Washington. In addition, she writes science fiction and fantasy, with a new novel, TO TRAVEL THE STARS, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in space, available now. She is particularly fond of Seattle's parks, where she can often be found walking her little dog.   Shannon Cheng Shannon Cheng is the producer of Hacks & Wonks and new to being in front of the mic rather than behind the scenes. She organizes for equitable public safety in Seattle and King County with People Power Washington and for state-wide policies to reduce police violence and increase accountability with the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability. She also works on computational lighting technology, strives to be a better orienteer, and enjoys exploring the world in an adventure truck with her husband and her cat.   Resources Notes from the Emerald City   People Power Washington - Sign up for our mailing list   How the SPOG Contract Stands in the Way of Police Accountability with Shannon Cheng from Hacks & Wonks   Council Budget Action to authorize Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City and the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) | Seattle City Council   “City Council Agrees to Pay Cops Double Time for Working Special Events” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Will Seattle Pay SPOG a Premium to Let Others Help SPD with its Staffing Woes?” by Amy Sundberg from Notes from the Emerald City   “Harrell's Dual-Responder Proposal Would Fail to Civilianize Crisis Response” by Amy Sundberg from The Urbanist   Better Behavioral Health Crisis Response with Brook Buettner and Kenmore Mayor Nigel Herbig from Hacks & Wonks   Labor Relations in the City of Seattle | Seattle City Council Central Staff   Labor Relations Policy Committee | City of Seattle Human Resources   “Firefighters' Tentative Contract Could be Bad News for Other City Workers Seeking Pay Increases” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Police Unions: What to Know and Why They Don't Belong in the Labor Movement” by Kim Kelly for Teen Vogue   “Seattle Police Officers Guild expelled from King County's largest labor council” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times   SB 5134 - 2021-22 | Enhancing public trust and confidence in law enforcement and strengthening law enforcement accountability for general authority Washington peace officers, excluding department of fish and wildlife officers.   SB 5677 - 2021-22 | Enhancing public trust and confidence in law enforcement and strengthening law enforcement accountability, by specifying required practices for complaints, investigations, discipline, and disciplinary appeals for serious misconduct. Labor 4 Black Lives - Seattle   DivestSPD   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. [00:00:52] Shannon Cheng: Hello everyone! This is Shannon Cheng, producer of Hacks & Wonks. You have me again today as your special guest host. Today, I'm super excited to have a fellow co-organizer with People Power Washington with me, Amy Sundberg, who also writes Notes from the Emerald City. And we were wanting to have a conversation about the Seattle police contract negotiations as they relate to the Seattle Police Officers Guild, or SPOG. We're hoping to break down what is a dense but very important topic for our listeners. Amy, do you have any thoughts on this before we get started? [00:01:29] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important whenever we talk about police guilds that we make the distinction that just because we might be being critical about police unions, police guilds - that in general, we are very supportive of labor and that there are many reasons why police guilds are different than all other labor that hopefully we'll have a chance to get into later in this episode. But until then, just to be clear - in general, we support workers' rights, we support workers organizing for better conditions in the workplace, and that is not a negotiable part of our philosophy. [00:02:06] Shannon Cheng: Yes, 100% - completely agree. We in no way are saying that workers' rights are not important. They absolutely are. Police are entitled to have living wages, but there are also issues that crop up with the way that negotiations happen in Washington state that sometimes are counter to other goals that we have as a society. So before we jump in, I wanna talk about what impact does the police contract have in the City of Seattle? So one aspect that I've been following super closely for the last many years is that the current police accountability system that we have here in Seattle - you may have heard of it before, it's composed of three independent bodies. There's the OPA or the Office of Police Accountability, the OIG or Office of Inspector General, and the CPC, the Community Police Commission. This three-body accountability structure - the powers that they have are completely governed by what the SPOG contract says that they have. And you may have heard that we had a strong accountability ordinance passed back in 2017 - establishing these bodies and giving them authority. Yet the following year in 2018, we passed a SPOG contract that rolled back a lot of those accountability provisions. So oftentimes I hear community members frustrated that we aren't able to hold an SPD officer accountable for something egregious that has happened. And it all goes back to the accountability system and what has been written in the SPOG contract. [00:03:44] Amy Sundberg: I would also just say that this is one of the reasons that police guilds are different from other unions - is because they are currently negotiating these sorts of accountability provisions in their contracts. And they're the only workers that are negotiating for the right to potentially kill other people, right? They're armed. And so it's a different matter because of the stakes involved. [00:04:09] Shannon Cheng: Yes, a very big difference. I used to be a union member of Unite Here Local 8 - I worked at a restaurant. And we had accountability measures in our contract, but it was for things like if I didn't charge a customer for a bread basket. And the consequences of me not charging $1.95 for the company I work for is very different than an officer using excessive deadly force to kill a community member. So stakes are completely different. So beyond the accountability system, the SPOG contract also has a huge impact on city funding and what the City budget looks like every year. We did an episode recently about the budget and how the police have an outsize portion of that - do you wanna talk a little bit more about that, Amy? [00:04:57] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, so the contract will determine how much money is flowing into SPD. And right now, SPD gets about a quarter of our general fund - so that's the part of the budget that can be allocated to anything that isn't already tied up via statute. So a quarter of the general fund, which is a significant amount of the money that we have available to us as a city. And the question always is - Is that number gonna grow? And how much of the general fund are we as a city comfortable with SPD taking up? That is a question that is decided basically in this contract. [00:05:32] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, 'cause the contract sets the pay rates and raises that SPD will receive. And I think we've heard from a lot of other city unions that are also currently bargaining their contracts that there's this issue that a lot of them are being offered raises that aren't keeping up with the cost of living. For example, the Firefighters, the Coalition of City Unions. So it will be interesting to observe and see, when the eventual SPOG contract comes out, what kind of raises do they get and how do they compare to other city workers? The final thing that I think the police contract holds a lot of power over is something that we know is extremely popular in the city. When we've done poll after poll, people really want to see an alternate crisis response available to community members. We know that police are not the best at deescalating crisis response situations. And sometimes it's very harmful - and actually escalates - and has led to deaths of community members. So we've been struggling as a city to stand up some kind of alternate crisis response since the summer of 2020. And unfortunately the SPOG contract has been a huge obstacle in the way of that. Could you explain that more for us, Amy? [00:06:44] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, I would say first of all, that definitely this alternate emergency crisis response is a big part of this, but the contract stands in the way of civilianization in general overall. So this is one big piece of that, but it also means that if there are jobs that we feel like should be done by civilians who are not armed - besides crisis response - that also gets decided in the contract. So I do think that's important to talk about. [00:07:10] Shannon Cheng: So that's why keeping an eye on this police contract is really important. It really does hold the key to so many facets of the change that we want to see in our city. Let's now talk about what's been happening more recently. During the Seattle budget process, we learned that the City had come to a possible temporary agreement with SPOG, which they call an MOU, or a Memorandum of Understanding. To be clear, this is not the final full contract that we do expect to see with SPOG eventually, and that we've been waiting for for several years now. The previous contract expired at the end of 2020, and they have been in negotiations for about three years at this time. So this MOU came out. It was meant to address what some electeds are calling "emergent needs" of the city. And they had to do this during the budget process because it had budget implications that needed to be approved. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what's in this MOU? [00:08:16] Amy Sundberg: Yes, I would love to. I'm glad that you emphasized this is different than the actual SPOG contract. It is temporary, and it is to address these "emergent needs," so to speak. So it does have an expiry date of the beginning of January of 2026. So I just want to get that out there first. But the MOU accomplishes three main things for the City, and then we'll talk about what it gives SPOG. So the three main things that it accomplishes for the City are - first of all, it would allow the City flexibility to sometimes use parking enforcement officers or other civilians to staff special events. They certainly wouldn't be the only people staffing special events, but perhaps they could do things like traffic control that don't really require a sworn armed officer to do. It would allow the City to use park rangers at parks outside of downtown. Right now, they have an agreement that park rangers can only be used in downtown parks. But last year, they started a huge expansion of the Park Ranger program, so now they have a lot more park rangers - or they're in the process of hiring them - and would like to be able to expand to use them at all the parks in the city. And the third thing it would do is allow the City to implement its new dual dispatch emergency alternative response program. Basically, the pilot just launched this past October. And it turns out that if this MOU is not approved - which it is not currently signed yet - it's not actually true dual dispatch yet, from my understanding. What was said in all of the press briefings and all of the communications is that how this program is supposed to work is that there's dual dispatch, so that means that SPD will go out at the same time as the alternative responders - CARE responders, I'm gonna call them. They go out at the same time. But apparently right now, they're not actually allowed to be dispatched at the same time because this MOU hasn't been approved. So the police have to go first, and then they can request to have an alternate CARE responder team come out after they arrive. So that is not how I understood this was going to work, and if this MOU is approved, then it will be able to work the way it's been described previously. [00:10:38] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so there's a difference between what we've seen from press releases and press briefings about this new dual dispatch pilot within the CARE department to what is actually possible right now without this MOU. [00:10:53] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, and my guess - and this is me guessing, to be clear - my guess is that, of course, people involved knew that this MOU was being developed, knew that this agreement was being developed. And so when they launched the pilot, they explained how it was gonna work if this MOU was signed, even though it hadn't been signed yet - in maybe a burst of hope that that's how it would turn out. As well, I imagine, because of - you're not allowed to talk about things that are going on in negotiations at the labor table, so they probably weren't allowed to talk about it. And instead of getting into the nitty-gritty of it and confusing people, that they might have decided - for simplicity's sake - explain it the way they did. But, you know, of course, now we know that that wasn't entirely accurate. [00:11:38] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so basically, what we had seen in the past that was all this glowing announcement about this new dual dispatch pilot should have a giant big asterisk next to it because they had not actually completed what needed to be done to be able to launch it in the way that they were talking about it. I do wanna eventually dig deeper into what the MOU specifically says about the dual dispatch, but first, we've talked about what the City is getting out of this agreement. And to be clear, even though this isn't the full contract, this is something that was negotiated with SPOG. And so I think that it's important for us to look at because it gives us a little hint as to how negotiations with SPOG are going. So we've heard what the City is getting. So what is SPOG getting out of this negotiation? [00:12:21] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, so what they have now in the MOU is that they want to give officers who volunteer to staff special events a special additional bonus. So it would be $225 bonus for each special event shift that they volunteer to do. And that's in addition to overtime. So what The Stranger reported, which I actually think is a really helpful way to think about it, is that this bonus basically means that officers will be getting paid double time for any shifts that they work - that they volunteered for - for special events. Normally, overtime is time and a half. So instead of time and a half, they're getting double time. However, if they finally reach an agreement on the full SPOG contract, the bonus would not necessarily increase - so it's not tied to their current wages. [00:13:15] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so let me get this right. We are giving SPOG extra bonuses to work shifts they already get paid overtime for. And in exchange, they are letting us let them work less at some of these special events. Is that a fair characterization? [00:13:33] Amy Sundberg: I mean, possibly. It's a little bit - to be honest, I'll be interested to see how it plays out because I don't know how much less they actually will end up working. So we might just be paying more to get the same thing, or we might be paying more for them to work less so that parking enforcement officers can take a few of their jobs. It's unclear how this will work out in practice. [00:13:59] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, I've heard some of the discussion of this. We all know, or we've been told over and over again from many quarters, that SPD is very understaffed, that the officers are overworked, that people are upset that response times are slow - and everybody blames the fact that there aren't enough officers to do the amount of work that is out there for them. So part of trying to offer these special event shift bonuses is that right now for these shifts, when they ask people to volunteer - if they don't get enough volunteers, my understanding is that they go by seniority. And so maybe some of the newer officers are made to work these extra shifts, thereby making them even more overworked than they already are. So some of the thinking behind this is that if they offer this bonus to sweeten the deal in terms of working these extra shifts, that perhaps some of the higher senior-ranked officers would be willing to take some of these volunteer shifts and thereby spread the workload out better across SPD. But this doesn't actually do anything to help with the overall understaffing issue, right? We still have the same number of officers doing the same amount of work, unless they do agree to let some of these other parking enforcement officers take over some of the shifts. [00:15:23] Amy Sundberg: Right, and unless there are actually shifts available for those parking enforcement officers to take after whoever has volunteered has volunteered. So it kind of depends how they set it up. I will say, I think what you said is exactly what the City and SPD has been saying - I think that's a very accurate characterization. But I've also heard from other sources that special event shifts are actually pretty popular among officers and that it's a nice way to make extra money potentially - because it is paid overtime, and now double time. So that's why I'm not really sure how this is gonna play out in practice. And just to talk about the overall impact of what offering this bonus does to the budget - because this was just passed in our 2024 budget now. This Memorandum of Understanding would start October 1st, 2023. And like I said, it would go to the beginning of January 2026. And we are paying $4.5 million - that would cover from October of this year 'til the end of next year. And then we'll be paying another $3.6 million for 2025 to cover these special event bonuses. So altogether, it's a little more than $8 million for a little bit over two years of bonuses. For at least this next year, the money came from a reserve fund. But again, this is $4.5 million that is being spent on these bonuses instead of on any other pressing needs that the city might have. Just to name one, we gave a big cut to mental health services in tiny home villages. And if those tiny home villages don't have these services, certain people who have more acute needs cannot live there. So it's gonna really impact who is able to live in a tiny home village going forward. So that is one thing that we cut in 2024 - we have much less money for that now. Obviously, there are lots of needs in the city though, so that's just one example. [00:17:24] Shannon Cheng: That's really good for us to understand - what is a concrete example of what we're giving up in order to give these bonuses to the police officer. So this really matters because we're in a time of budget shortfalls, both current and upcoming. We're being told that SPD is overworked, and yet we're in this state where we're being asked to pay SPOG more money to maybe do less work and accept help for tasks that they said they're not good at. And I'm talking about this dual dispatch co-responder program. So why don't we turn to that and get a little bit more into the weeds and delve into what is problematic about how this dual dispatch pilot is set up. I think there's been a lot of talk about the alternate crisis response that we've been trying to set up in the city. I think it's evolved a lot over time. And something that I want people to appreciate about all this is that all this talk fundamentally doesn't matter unless we have the agreement of SPOG - that they will accept how we want to do things. And this MOU is the first time that I have seen - spelled out - some of the details of what our dual dispatch program could look like. Amy, I know you've been following this for a very long time. I think you've been at pretty much every meeting that's been about this topic. And so - of people in the world who I think would know how we've ended up at this dual dispatch program, you could tell us about that whole history. So I will turn it to you. [00:19:04] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, I can. And I will say, I wrote an article about this for The Urbanist, I think, a couple of months ago. We'll link to it in the show notes. I will say it was a very hard piece to write because I have been following this since 2020 in all of its little details. And then I was trying to boil it down into a thousand words - explaining to someone who maybe knew very little about this - what exactly had been going on for the past three or so years. I do recommend you check that out. But it has been a very frustrating process, I will say. We started talking about some kind of alternative crisis response in summer of 2020 because of the George Floyd protests. And we had a few, I would say, champions on the city council who really wanted to see this happen. So it wasn't that there was nobody advocating for this - there definitely was. Councilmember Lewis in particular, and also Councilmember Herbold - both very strong proponents of having some type of program like this in Seattle. But what we saw was just obstacle after obstacle, after hurdle after hurdle, and just a lot of back and forth, a lot of dragging feet from both the executive's office - both previous Mayor Durkan and current Mayor Harrell - and a lot of dragging of the feet of SPD. You can kind of chart it out and see the strategy of making this take as long as possible, which I do in that article I was talking about. But I think one of the most powerful things I can do is compare Seattle to another city who did it differently. So in Seattle, we have this new pilot now through the CARE Department. It has six responders hired. They are focused, I think, only in the downtown area. And they work 11 a.m. to 11 p.m, so it's not 24/7 coverage - because there's only six of them, right? There's only so much you can do with six people, and they work in teams of two. So that is what we have. That just got stood up a month ago, month and a half ago - very recently. And like I said, it's not even a true dual dispatch until the MOU gets signed. And frankly, I was very disappointed that it was a dual dispatch at all. So that's what we've finally accomplished in Seattle after all of these years of politicking - versus Albuquerque. So Albuquerque, first of all, it's a little bit smaller than Seattle - maybe about 200,000 fewer people live in Albuquerque. So keep that in mind when we think about scale, right? So they also are under a consent decree, just as we have been, for a slightly shorter amount of time - but for a long time as well. So that is comparable in some ways. But in 2020, they took seriously the call from community to start some kind of emergency alternative response to respond to crisis calls. And in 2023, they budgeted $11.7 million to their response, which has been growing over the last several years. They now have over 70 responders employed to do this alternative emergency response. Their teams respond to calls related to homelessness, substance abuse, and mental health, as well as calls related to things like used needles and abandoned vehicles. And they are allowed to answer calls on their own, and they don't have to go out with the police. And they talk a lot about how what they're doing is using a public health approach. This is Albuquerque. And I guess I didn't mention earlier, but Seattle - what we are paying for our alternative response program for 2024 is $1.8 million. $1.8 million versus $11.7 million. And Albuquerque is smaller. [00:22:46] Shannon Cheng: That's incredible. And also I wanna call out - so $1.8 million is a little over a third of the bonuses that we are giving SPOG in this MOU to have them maybe work less special event shifts. That is just mind blowing - the difference in scale of what we're willing to put money towards. [00:23:08] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, and the Albuquerque program has been so successful, they keep scaling up. And they've scaled up pretty quickly - it's really impressive. So kudos to them. I really appreciate that they're offering us a vision of what could be, but it certainly is not what we have been doing here in Seattle - which is really disappointing, especially given how strongly people that live here reacted to the murder of George Floyd and how long those protesters were out there - night after night after night asking for something better, right? And we look now at where we are and like - well, we haven't given people something better. That's just - I mean, that's my opinion, but I think it's also - if you look at the facts, it's pretty backed up by facts. [00:23:53] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, and by polling. And I agree, it's been really frustrating to see other places around the country continue to lap us - even locally here. I don't feel like it's talked about very much, but we did do a show with them here on Hacks & Wonks. So up north, there's a five-city consortium that is Bothell, Kenmore, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, and Kirkland. And what they started with - they didn't start out immediately with full civilian-led crisis response. I think something that people are concerned about in standing up these programs is that they're worried - well, what if the crisis responder comes across something that they can't handle and they get hurt? - that kind of question. And that's why they're arguing that they need this police backup. There's all sorts of things about that - I mean, I would say sometimes the police tend to actually escalate these situations and make them more dangerous, and thereby I'm not sure that having the police backup would actually help. So what happened with this five-city consortium is that they started out with a program within the King County Sheriff's Office called RADAR. And it was a co-response model where a sheriff's deputy and the crisis responder co-responded to a situation. And I believe that it was more equal - that the co-responder had agency in these calls. It wasn't just the sheriff's deputy making all the decisions. But what happened is that over time - and I feel like it was a relatively short amount of time, like on the order of one to two years - the sheriff's deputies realized, You know what? We're not really needed at these calls. And it's actually really boring for us to sit around, watch a crisis responder who's skilled deescalate a situation, and I could spend my time better doing something else. And so that's actually what's happening. This program has now evolved into something called the Regional Crisis Response Agency, which is civilian-led. And they're not yet, I think, at 24/7 coverage, but they're working towards that. And so this is happening literally just north of us, okay? So it is possible here in Washington state - I know that there've been comments made that some of these other places, maybe they have different state labor laws that might affect things. But fundamentally, I think the difference is whether the police guild is willing to work with the program and allow it to happen. So I think for whatever reason, with the King County Sheriff's Office - they were more open to accepting this kind of program, and letting it grow and evolve, and thereby taking workload off of them. Whereas here in Seattle, we don't really see that same situation with SPOG. [00:26:33] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, I've been really interested in this consortium of cities that has done this. I think that is, from what I understand, it's not an uncommon path for these programs to take - to start out with more of a police presence and then kind of realize over time, Oh, maybe this isn't actually necessary, and to evolve in that way. So I mean, there is certainly hope that Seattle could do the same thing. We're just very far behind in terms of timing. And there's also - while there is hope, there's no guarantee that it will develop that way. [00:27:08] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, I would say that a lot of what I'm seeing happening in Seattle now is putting a lot of trust in faith that SPOG is going to allow certain things to happen, or not stand in the way, or not demand exorbitant amounts of money to get the things that the City wants. And I don't know that - looking at past history of our dealings with SPOG - that we can really trust that that's how things are gonna go. I mean, they have social media accounts that literally post made up images of a public safety index that has no relation to reality - doing fearmongering about whether people in the city feel safe or not. I just don't see them as being good faith participants in working with us on measures that make the public feel safe that doesn't involve the police department. [00:28:04] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, I agree with you. I am also concerned - certainly that's been part of my motivation for following this story so closely over the last several years. Because like I said, there's no - just because it's gone like that in other cities does not mean that it will happen that way here. And as we see, in fact, it hasn't. The type of program that Albuquerque has developed doesn't look very much like what we have developed in the same amount of time. So no guarantees then - just hopes, thoughts and prayers, which doesn't necessarily get you very far. [00:28:36] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, so I guess what was spelled out in this MOU about the dual dispatch that I found concerning is that it really looks like the police officer has authority over almost every aspect of what the alternate - well, I don't even know that we can call it an alternate crisis response - what the dual dispatch looks like. They get to decide when and if it's safe for the crisis responder to enter the scene. They get to decide whether they leave or not. The MOU specifically says that it doesn't affect the number of officers who respond to the incident. So if you're worried about understaffing and needing less officers going to some of these calls, that's not in this MOU. Something that really worried me is that even if the officer decides that the crisis responder can handle the situation - afterwards, the crisis responder will file the incident report within the police department's system. And so - I think in 2020, what we heard was a lot of community members coming out saying that they do not feel safe calling the police when they or a loved one is undergoing a crisis. And so if the solution we're offering now is one where police show up and even if they don't participate, they get record of what happened with the loved one - this kind of goes against everything that was being asked for, and it is still not going to serve people in the city who don't wanna use police for these situations. [00:30:08] Amy Sundberg: I agree. I don't think that it is what community was asking for. There definitely are people who don't feel safe calling the police who aren't gonna want their information then transferred to a police database to potentially be used later. I will say that one thing the MOU does do - that wasn't particularly clear from the original press release about it - is that it does allow a police officer to clear a scene while not being physically present. So it does clear the way for potentially calls being answered only by the CARE responders and not actually having a police officer there as well. So that is important to note, but even if that is happening, there will still be information about that filed into the police database - in SPD's database. So that is part of the agreement, part of what is being memorialized here. Also, the scope of the program is defined by this agreement, and I find that quite troubling. The number of responders allowed to be hired by the end of 2025, beginning of 2026 is 24 full-time. 24. So just to remind you, Albuquerque - smaller than us - has more than 70, and they were able to ramp that up in two to three years. So we're talking about a two-year ramp up here. If we were serious about this program, we could definitely ramp up above 24, but we will not be able to because of what this MOU says. We are limited to 24 - that's all we'll be able to do. And then the other thing that I found very interesting is that this MOU limits the call types that CARE responders will be allowed to answer to person down calls and welfare check calls. So there will be no ability to expand beyond those two call types, regardless of how anything might change in the interim. I thought that was really interesting because during one of the hearings - when they had Amy Smith, who is the director of the new CARE Department, people were really interested in the call types, right? What call types would be answered? Yes, right now it's person down and welfare check, but could we expand that later? And she seemed, to me, to be kind of reluctant to answer - kept heading off and being like, Well, first we need to expand to 24/7 coverage. Which reasonable, fair enough - but after reading this MOU, I was like, Oh, and also they won't be allowed to expand, so it's a moot point, right? These are the two call types, and that's all that they're gonna be able to do - period. [00:32:43] Shannon Cheng: So let's back out a little bit because this is something that I know I have been confused about for a long time. And to be clear, I am not a labor lawyer - if there's any labor lawyers listening to this and who can help explain this to me better, I would really appreciate it. But you hear about all these types of calls that we acknowledge - and I think even sometimes SPD acknowledges that they are not the best first responders for. So why is it that we have to go through this whole negotiation process - and whether it's through an MOU or the full contract - why does that have to happen before we can offload work from an understaffed department to other people who are better at the job? [00:33:26] Amy Sundberg: Well, Shannon, I am also not a labor lawyer, but I will do my best. From what I understand, workers have bodies of work. So you have to negotiate if you wanna take away any piece of that body of work and give it to a different worker. So that's what we're looking at here - because these are considered SPD's body of work. However, you make a really compelling point in that - for years now, SPD has been talking with increasing urgency about how understaffed they are, about the staffing crisis. And we know that this staffing crisis of police departments is not just here in Seattle - it's nationwide. Police departments all across the country are facing the exact same staffing shortages that we are here in Seattle. So obviously this is not just a local problem - this is larger than that. Given the fact that this is a problem that doesn't seem to be able to be addressed anytime soon. I mean, as much as people like to slag on City Council about these sorts of things, the fact is - they, in the last year or so, they passed these big police hiring bonuses. They've approved the hiring plans. They've done everything SPD has asked them to do regarding staffing in particular. And yet we do not see any particular improvement in this area. Staffing so far for 2023 for SPD - they actually still are in the negative. They are not hiring as much as they are losing officers - still, even with these bonuses, which have not been shown to work. So this is gonna be a problem for a while. This is not something you can fix quickly. There is a hiring training pipeline that takes quite a while to complete to get new police officers. There are not a lot of lateral hires - that is, police officers who are already trained, who are willing to move from a different department - we hired hardly any of those in 2023. Apparently we had some candidates, but they weren't qualified to serve in SPD - they weren't appropriate candidates. So we don't have a lot of them. Chief Diaz has said he expects potentially more lateral hires in 2024, but he did not give any reasons as to why he would expect that to be any different, so whether he has actual reasons or whether he's just kind of hoping - I'm not certain - but this is obviously something that's gonna go on for more than a year or two, right? [00:35:55] Shannon Cheng: Right. [00:35:55] Amy Sundberg: So because of that, I do think that there is potentially a legal argument to be made that some of the body of work of SPD officers needs to be given to other people because there just simply aren't enough SPD officers to do it all. And then you made a great point that what we've seen in other municipalities is that police officers - some of this work - they don't even wanna do it. They're actually end up being quite happy to have other people doing it so that they can go off and do other parts of the job that perhaps they prefer. So it's interesting watching this play out here and how it's kind of different from how it's playing out elsewhere in the country. [00:36:38] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, it feels like here - as you said, the City has done everything they possibly could to encourage staffing and hiring of new or lateral hires to the department and it just - it's not working. So in the meantime, we still have all these needs in the city to address - and they're not getting addressed, or they're getting addressed poorly. So it's frustrating that we're being held up by this issue of certain aspects being considered under the police body of work and not being able to let people who are better able to do that work - and honestly, for less money - and alleviate some of all the problems that people are frustrated about in this city. So again, not a labor lawyer, but my understanding is there would be concern that if we just went ahead and started taking some of this work from SPD without their signing off on it - is that SPOG could file an Unfair Labor Practice with the state PERC, the Public Employment Relations Commission, which oversees state labor law. And I guess I don't know what that ruling would be, but it seems like the City's not willing to go that route. I understand that it would entail standing up to SPOG, which I agree completely is a scary thing to do, but the people who are our electeds are the ones with the power to do that. So I don't know - if you've been elected, we need you to stand up to SPOG. [00:38:10] Amy Sundberg: Well, and because of the staffing shortage at SPD, that does present a really compelling argument that the city can make if there was to be an Unfair Labor Practice suit filed, right? Because if SPD is unable to do this work because they can't hire enough and they've been getting all the support they've been asking for to hire as much as possible, and yet they still don't have enough staffing, someone has to do the work. So I do think that - I don't know how that suit would go, but it's not for sure that SPOG would win. [00:38:44] Shannon Cheng: Right. I just wonder why that's not an option that the City seems to be pursuing and that they're just, with this MOU, basically just saying, Fine, we'll just pay out. - what to me feels like, I don't know, sort of a ransom that SPOG is holding us under to let us do things that we all fundamentally want to do. So where is this MOU in the process? You said that the $4.5 million plus $3.6 million the next year has already been approved through the budget process. So what happens next? [00:39:15] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, so the money has been approved - that part is done. But what happens next is that the full council has to vote on the actual MOU agreement. So there's money for it, but they haven't yet approved it. So that vote, I believe, will be happening at their full council meeting on Tuesday, December 5th, which is at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. So if people want to get involved and share their opinions with their councilmembers about this MOU, you have until December 5th to do so. You can email your councilmembers, you can call your councilmembers, you can see if now that budget season is over, you can potentially even meet with them - although it is a pretty tight timeline to do that. And then you can give public comment at that meeting on December 5th, either virtually - you can call in - or you can go to City Hall and do it in person. I do encourage people to do this if they are so moved. I think it's really important for our elected leaders to hear from the people and hear what we wanna see and what we are concerned about. Even if we are not able to stop this MOU from being approved, I think it's really valuable for our elected leaders to know that this is an issue of concern, that the people of Seattle care about it, and that we're paying attention. And I do feel that there is significant value in that as we move towards potentially looking at a completed contract with SPOG. Those negotiations are ongoing - I don't expect to see that contract this year, but I would not be shocked to see it sometime next year. So to let electeds know now that this is something that we care about will then build momentum for the bigger conversation that is to come. [00:40:59] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, completely. Our electeds really do need to hear that this is something that we're concerned about, that we understand is important, that we've been waiting for five years for a different full SPOG contract to help address some of the things we talked about at the beginning of this show. I would also - I just wanna let people know - I think this is also something that's very in the weeds and maybe isn't really well understood. But the way that these labor contracts get negotiated at the city is that there's a whole team on the City side, which includes representatives from the mayor's office, as well as from city council. And the way that it's structured - it's called the LRPC, or the Labor Relations Policy Committee - the way they have it set up is that five councilmembers, and the five is important because five is a majority. Five out of nine of our council sits on that LRPC, so they are privy to the negotiations. And under state labor law, all of these negotiations are behind closed doors. So the public really has no insight into what's happening until we get something like this temporary MOU coming out for approval, or eventually a full contract for approval. The last time that the public had any opportunity to give input into what this SPOG contract is gonna look like was in December of 2019, when a public hearing was held 90 days ahead of when they started negotiations for the new contract. So it has been four years since the public has had any chance to weigh in on what we would like to see in this contract. And as we all know, a lot has happened in those four years that may affect what we hope to see that comes out. Anyway, just going back - the LRPC, I believe, is purposely structured to have this majority of council on it. Because that means that any labor agreement that comes out of that committee means that it had the approval of those five councilmembers. So if we get to the City Council meeting where Council's gonna approve it, and one of those councilmembers ends up voting against it, there could be a argument made that they were not bargaining in good faith. So the whole thing is set up that the public has very little in the way of power to affect how these agreements happen. And I just wanna call that out. [00:43:14] Amy Sundberg: For sure, Shannon. If this is an area that you work on regularly as we do, it is very frustrating how few chances there are to have any real impact. [00:43:23] Shannon Cheng: I would also say that the other period of time where you might have impact is that period between contracts - so after a contract has been accepted and is implemented, and before the next contract is entering into this black box of contract negotiations. The way that we've seen some of these negotiations happen, they are so lengthy in time that - SPOG is currently working without a current contract for three years. I think the contract they're negotiating is five years long. So we're already behind the last time that we did this - last time they approved it in November of the third year, it's almost December. So this is gonna be even less time after they approve this contract before they're gonna have to start negotiating the next one. I seriously wonder if at some point we're gonna get to the point where they're gonna be negotiating two contracts at the same time, or maybe they need to make the contract longer than five years? I just - again, not a labor lawyer - I don't know what happens with all this. But the reason - I think, and I've seen indications of this - that the negotiations take this long is because SPOG is not willing to accept accountability provisions that the City wants. And what's gonna happen, which is the same thing as what happened the last time, is that so much time will pass with them not having a real contract that they're gonna come out and make this argument that they haven't had a living wage increase for many years, and we just - the City needs to cave and give them what they want so that they can get raised back up to whatever level that they deserve. Which I'm not saying that they don't deserve, but they're doing this at the expense of us getting things that we want in that contract. And it's the same playbook every single time - and we need people to step up and call this out if we don't want it to keep happening. [00:45:15] Amy Sundberg: I will say too, that from what I understand - and I actually did talk to a labor lawyer about this - this is fairly unusual in labor overall for these contracts to be so far extended. And one of the issues that arises because of this is issue of back pay. Because when negotiating for raises, it's actually not unusual for any kind of union to get back pay as part of it for when the negotiation is taking place. But normally that amount of time would be maybe six months max of back pay, because that's how long it takes to complete the contract. In this case though, we're talking about over three years of back pay, and three years in which there has been a lot of inflation, right? So we're talking about potentially millions upon millions of dollars in a lump sum that the City will need to pay when they approve this contract - just for back pay, for things that have already happened - not even looking forward and thinking about how much the raises will cost the City in the future. So that becomes a significant issue at that point. [00:46:22] Shannon Cheng: And this links back to why this MOU matters, right? As you were saying that - we know the money for it is coming out of some special pay reserve that the City has. I would think that that pay reserve has been put aside in part to probably help pay some of this back pay that we're expecting to get when there is a final SPOG contract. So if we're using up $4.5 million now through next year, $3.6 million the next year from this reserve, that is less money that we have at the bargaining table to have leverage over what we get from SPOG in the final contract. [00:46:53] Amy Sundberg: But not only that, Shannon - also it impacts all other city workers. That's the money that's potentially for them too. So I mean, if you look at the firefighters, they're in the middle of negotiating a contract right now - I guess they have one that maybe they're voting on - which doesn't keep up with inflation. So if they agree to this contract - in real terms, they'll be receiving a wage cut - our firefighters. And then we have the Coalition of City Unions, who I - unless this has changed in the last few days, the most recent offer was a 2.5% wage increase. 2.5% - do you know how much inflation has been? These poor workers. And of course we don't have any insight into what SPOG is being offered right now - that is not public information. But it will be really interesting - when this contract does become available to the public - to see how that compares to the contracts that the Coalition of City Unions is being pressured to accept, or the contract that the firefighters are being pressured to accept. So it's not like this all happens in a vacuum. Whatever SPOG does also affects all the other unions in the city. [00:48:01] Shannon Cheng: That's a good point. I mean, much like the general fund funds lots of aspects across the city, I imagine this pay reserve - it's not the SPD pay reserve, but effectively it feels like that might be what it is. And that's super unfair to all the other city workers. Everything at the city is interrelated - SPOG is not the only union that the City is dealing with, both in terms of funding for their department, but also the staffing and the pay raises. So let's go back and talk a little bit more about police guilds and other unions, and I've heard police guilds are different from other workers' unions and that sometimes aren't aligned with the working class. Could you talk a little bit more about that, Amy? [00:48:44] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, I mean, I would say that police guilds are different from other unions in at least three ways. The first way, as you said, is that in general - police are on the side of the boss. They're not on the side of working people. They get their power from protecting rich people, right? Obviously I could say it in more academic language, but that is basically what I mean. They get their power from protecting rich people's interests. They get their power from protecting rich people's property. And that is not in alignment with other working people who are fighting for different rights. And you can see this in history. If you look at the history of policing in this country - in the South, police kind of rose up - they caught slaves. That was one of the first things they did, right? And the police developed from that, which is obviously horrendous. And then in the North, it was a little bit different, but police rose up or were very heavily involved in union busting back at a time when that was a big deal. So they have never been aligned with the working class, but I do think that those origins have become hazy through the passage of time and because of messaging, right? It definitely benefits police guilds to be seen as part of unions, even though they're not necessarily gonna be fighting for the same things that unions fight for. And so I think that's part of why there is that kind of argument at play. So that is one reason why they're different. Like I said earlier, another reason why they're different is because they, along with potentially prison guards and border patrol workers - these are kind of a different class of workers in that they're the only ones negotiating for the right to use force, right? To potentially kill, to hurt somebody, to surveil people - all of that kind of stuff, which is just inherently very different than the rights that other workers are organizing to get. And then the last point is that they do benefit from exceptions to rules governing other workers in terms of scope and in terms of contract negotiations, particularly with respect to provisions governing transparency and discipline. So they have different rules applied to them. So it's just - it's different, they're different. And it's important to really talk about these things, and study these things, and look and see more deeply how they're different because this is an argument that is brought to bear to kind of stop further accountability from being possible - as I know, we've both seen that play out here in Washington state. [00:51:21] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, completely. As I mentioned before, I foresee that when the eventual SPOG contract comes out, there will be pressure from SPOG that this is part of their inherent labor rights, that if we don't get what we wanna see in it in terms of the accountability pieces specifically, that - Well, you'll just need to wait till next time, or something like that. It'll be this incremental approach. When the 2018 SPOG contract got approved - I was at that hearing - and definitely there was a division within labor there. As you were just mentioning, I think that some people do see that the police guilds are not always aligned with workers - and we did see some unions come out to that effect. We also saw other workers come out in solidarity with SPOG arguing that - Yeah, they deserve their raises and benefits and they had been working too long without a contract. At the time, SPOG was still a member of the MLK Labor Council, so I think that helped a lot. We did, in 2020, see SPOG get ousted from that MLK Labor Council. So I am curious to see if anything plays out differently this time around - remains to be seen. And finally, I will say that I've heard a lot of councilmembers reference this - that they are hoping for some kind of state legislative solution that will help them with being better able to negotiate these contracts with the police guilds. But we've been following this at the state level also. And I will say that currently any action on the state level - it's dead. It's been dead for several years. There was a bill introduced in 2021 that laid out some things, but there was no movement on it. And the reason there's no movement on it is because labor as a whole is not on board with it - they feel like it's gonna be an erosion of workers' rights. And it may be, but as you were saying, police guilds are different than unions - and I think that the legislation was crafted to try to make that distinction. And so I'm not sure whether those fears are completely founded or not, but in any case, nothing is happening on that front. [00:53:27] Amy Sundberg: I did find that legislation very interesting. And I agree that over time it was worked upon to be really laser precise in terms of what it did. And at the end of the development that I'm aware of, what the bill actually did is that it took accountability measures for police off of the bargaining table by creating an overall unified standard that police departments across the state would have to live up to. So it would no longer be something that you negotiate in the contract - it would just be, This is how we operate. This is how accountability works in the state of Washington. And as I said, that is one of the ways in which police guilds are different than unions - is that they have this bargaining power over these accountability issues that are just not relevant in any other union's bailiwick of work. So that is why the bill was crafted the way it was to be such a kind of surgical carve-out of certain things. The reason this would be helpful - first of all, it would set a statewide standard so that's inherently helpful. But also if you take those accountability issues off of the bargaining table, then you can actually spend more time and energy bargaining for other things - like a better emergency alternative response program, or something like this. So right now it's harder for the City to do that because they have to be thinking about these accountability pieces. And especially right now, because - I do not know that they will be allowed out of the consent decree totally until they meet the 2017 accountability ordinance in the SPOG contract. And I do not think that Judge Robart will allow them to leave without showing that that is part of the new contract. I will say as well, that one of the reasons the MOU is worrisome to me is because it kind of shows potentially how things are going with the larger negotiation around this actual contract, which as we know - because it takes so long to negotiate it, once we get one, we're stuck with it for potentially a really, really long time, right? So it's a big deal. Whatever ends up in this new contract is a really big deal because we'll be stuck with it for a while. So even though the MOU is term limited - it will expire at the beginning of 2026. So at first I was like, Well, at least we don't have to pay these special event bonuses in perpetuity, at least it's only for a couple of years, at least we're only limited to 24 alternate first responders for a couple of years. But the thing is, these are also aspects that will have to be in that full contract - something will have to be in that full contract to allow us to continue this pilot in 2026 and beyond. So what is that gonna say? Is that also gonna limit how many people we can hire by a really significant amount? Is that also gonna limit the call types to be very, very narrow that they can respond to? Is it going to memorialize this sort of bonus so that we're paying out millions upon millions of dollars just to have permission to do these things when we know that SPD doesn't have the staffing to do them? That is an issue of real concern. And the MOU - to me - says these are things that we are potentially - they're going to have to be addressed in the contract so that we have something that reaches after 2025, and this might be how they are addressed, right? I mean, we don't know, obviously - black box - but these are things that when that contract is released, I'm going to be looking at very carefully and going to be very concerned about. [00:57:11] Shannon Cheng: What if they don't include any of this stuff in the eventual contract? Does that mean on January 2nd, 2026, the dual dispatch pilot just suddenly has to stop operating? [00:57:20] Amy Sundberg: I mean, yes - I think so. Unless they come to another MOU, right? Or like you said, they could risk an Unfair Labor Practice suit. But I mean, ultimately, this is gonna have to be worked out. So it's all fine and good for councilmembers to be like, Well, this is temporary - but ultimately it cannot be temporary. We're going to have to come to some kind of arrangement as to how this is going to work in the future. [00:57:46] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, completely agree. I mean, Amy and I have been staring at this black box of contract negotiations for a really long time and trying to see any indication of anything that's going on with it. And this MOU is the first indication of how things are going. And I would say our estimation is - it's not going well. I mean, I think the other thing I saw that happened is we heard Councilmember Mosqueda say that she stepped down from the LRPC. I don't know that she fully explained what her reasoning was behind that, but my sense is she is probably the councilmember on current LRPC who is the most wanting of all the things we've been talking about in this episode. And she's specifically said that she didn't agree with the MOU because she felt like it was bad strategy in terms of the overall SPOG contract negotiation. So to me, part of her stepping down sounds like it's because those negotiations are not going well. And to me, that's very concerning. [00:58:45] Amy Sundberg: Absolutely, and especially because she's going to be moving over to King Council now - she got elected as a King County councilmember now and she knew it was going okay. So she knew that was a possibility for her political future. And so she only had a few months left and yet she still stepped down. To me, what that says - obviously she's not allowed to say anything - but to me what that says is that there were big problems because otherwise why wouldn't you just finish your term? Like it's no big deal to do just a couple more months. And we also know that Councilmember Mosqueda has in general been a fierce champion of workers' rights and is very aligned with labor. So I am very concerned both as to what this means about the upcoming SPOG contract and about what this means to other labor and how they're being treated by the City. And we've seen this already playing out. So the fact that she stepped down shows, I think, the potentially - some deeper issues that are going to continue to be revealed over the next several months. [00:59:49] Shannon Cheng: And I think this all happened kind of under the radar, but I was trying to do some digging to try to understand when that happened. And as far as I can figure, it was sometime around August. It was the same time that - from the mayor's side, Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell used to be on the LRPC. She has now been replaced by Tim Burgess. And with Councilmember Mosqueda stepping down, she has now been replaced by Councilmember Strauss. [01:00:12] Amy Sundberg: I will say that Monisha Harrell was also known as something of a champion when it came to accountability, right? I felt that accountability was genuinely important to her and that she was committed to fighting for that in the next contract. But with her gone - again, black box, so we don't know - but it is discouraging news. [01:00:35] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, so not to end everything on a huge downer, but that is the life you choose when you decide to make police contracts your issue of main interest. [01:00:49] Amy Sundberg: You know, I actually - yes, this is bad news. But I do not think people should take this as a downer at all. I think people should take this as encouragement to get involved. If you haven't gotten involved up until this point, or if you are involved and you're beginning to flag or feel a little tired - which believe me, at this point I can really, really relate to - we're gonna need all hands on deck next year. And that's just me being realistic. It is really frustrating, but the only way we're gonna see the change that we want in this regard is by organizing. Organizing, organizing, organizing. And I will be more specific than that because I remember a time when people would say that to me and I would be like - I don't know what that means. Like, sure, but what do I actually personally do? And what I would say is if you wanna get involved - and I highly, highly encourage you to get involved with this - you need to find an organization to plug into so that you have that accountability of structure and community to kind of keep you going. And it doesn't mean you can't take breaks. In fact, I'd say you 100% should be taking breaks as well. I am about to take a week and a half break and I'm very excited about it, so I am the last person that will say anything against taking breaks. But if you're part, if you're building those relationships with others, it will keep you involved for the longterm, which is what we need for this kind of fight. And organizations that are working on this specifically - I mean, I don't know them all, but I know People Power Washington - Shannon and I are involved with - we definitely are always working on this. Defend the Defund is another organization that you can look

This week…We got a clearer picture of the new-look Seattle City Council. Is it a glow up? Time will tell.Seattle city employees got an email about how to save money in the midst of a fight for higher pay.And we discuss the most controversial topic of all: the merits of Thanksgiving turkey, as the biggest food holiday of the year approaches.Publicola Editor and Publisher Erica C. Barnett and Soundview Strategies Partner Sandeep Kaushik are here to break down the week.We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/seattlenow And we want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram @SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback online: https://www.kuow.org/feedback

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! First up, for those looking to supercharge their engagement in Washington State policymaking or advocacy, Crystal gives a shout-out for the Washington State Institute for a Democratic Future program. Applications for their 2024 class are open and due by November 20th for early applicants (there is also an extended “late application period” until November 27th but with an increased application fee). Check out the program that launched Crystal's career in politics and see if it's right for you! Crystal and Erica then dive into a roundup of election news starting with how the Seattle City Council is losing institutional knowledge with its makeup shifting after last week's election results, meaning the new council will need to get up to speed on many complex upcoming issues such as the City budget, the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) contract, and the Comprehensive Plan. Contributing to this loss of experience is Teresa Mosqueda moving over to the King County Council and how speculation has begun over who her appointed replacement will be. The election news wraps up with two snafus - the King County website breaking on Election Night and USPS finally delivering missing ballots from an unchecked mailbox. Moving on from elections, they discuss Seattle budget news - a $20 million increase in the JumpStart Tax to fund student mental health care programs, narrow passage of controversial ShotSpotter surveillance technology, continued struggle to fund City employee pay increases, and a spotty outlook for much-needed progressive revenue solutions. Delving further into City worker wage issues, the City sent an oblivious email to workers providing financial tips whilst asking them to accept a sub-inflationary pay increase and the tentative firefighters' union contract also doesn't keep up with cost of living. Finally, Crystal and Erica revisit the saga unfolding in Burien with a looming deadline to accept $1 million to address their homelessness crisis and Sound Transit resumes fare enforcement. 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 Barnett, at @ericacbarnett.   Resources WAIDF - Washington State Institute for a Democratic Future   “Morales Surges While Other Progressives Flail in Latest Election Results; Mosqueda Explains Why She'll Stay Through the End of This Year” from PubliCola   “Who Will Replace Teresa Mosqueda?” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “County Website Failed on Election Night Due to “Traffic Issue”” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “USPS failed to deliver ballots from one Seattle mail drop box” by Sarah Grace Taylor from The Seattle Times   “City Budget Will Fund Shotspotter—But Also Significant Progressive Priorities, Including $20 Million for Student Mental Health” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “A Mixed Seattle Budget, While a $221 Million Deficit Still Looms” by Amy Sundberg from Notes from the Emerald City   “City Employees Seeking Wage Increase Advised to “Avoid Impulse Buys”” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Firefighters' Tentative Contract Could be Bad News for Other City Workers Seeking Pay Increases” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “As Deadline to Use or Lose $1 Million in Shelter Funding Looms, Top Burien Official Offers New Explanation for Failing to Inform Some on Council” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “King County gives Burien deadline to take $1 million for homeless shelter” by Greg Kim from The Seattle Times   “Sound Transit to start issuing citations today to riders who don't pay” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times   “Seattle light rail is about to get heavy for those who don't pay the fare” by Joshua McNichols from KUOW   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 shows and our Friday week-in-reviews 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 2023 Post-Election Roundtable on Monday night, you can catch the recording on our YouTube channel, or Facebook, or Twitter feeds. We'll also be releasing the roundtable next week as podcast episodes. Tune in for our breakdown of last week's election results with guest panelists Katie Wilson, Andrew Villeneuve and Robert Cruikshank. Also wanna make sure if you can't listen to the Post-Election Roundtable, it will be available on the website with a full text transcript. 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, today's co-host: Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. [00:01:38] Erica Barnett: It's great to be here. [00:01:40] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back as always. It's the time of year where I get to talk about the Washington Institute for a Democratic Future. It is that time again and seeing as how this is Hacks & Wonks and a lot of you are hacks and wonks who are listening, the Washington Institute for a Democratic Future is really ideal for people who may be interested in looking at working in policy or politics, getting more involved in their community and activism. It is a six-month fellowship that runs from January to June that has 10 intensive weekends plus an optional week in Washington, DC. And each of these weekends is in a different place geographically across the state. And it gives you the opportunity to do a deep dive on policy, how that policy is impacting people on the ground from a variety of different perspectives - so, you know, there's a huge network of legislators, policy experts, advocacy organizations, unions, business owners, different people. So you may go to Kitsap County and explore the economy in Bremerton and issues that are happening there. In Central Washington, issues that are important there and talking about legislation that impacts migrant workers and immigration - from a policy perspective - but also talking to workers and representatives for themselves, talking to farmers and business owners there to see how they're being impacted and what their feedback is and what they feel the most prevalent issues that they have. So it's getting a really comprehensive view of what people are facing on the ground throughout the state and how policy is impacting that and has a potential to impact that. So just really important - that is absolutely what I credit for me working in politics. I started my political career after doing IDF - just a really powerful network and a really powerful policy education in ways that really matter and getting to see that a lot of times the situations aren't simple, different people have different perspectives, policy impacts people in different ways. Few things are 100% good and positive and 100% bad or negative. It's really understanding how things impact people differently and trying to do the most good as possible, particularly considering sometimes what's politically possible, different types of activism - whether you're working legislatively, electorally, just more on the ground in community, mutual aid, just a lot of different things. So I recommend this. The early application deadline is Monday, November 20th - so coming up. There's an extended late application period that continues through Monday, November 27th. The website is democraticfuture.org. There's more information about it there, but definitely encourage anyone who may be considering working in politics or who's interested in that - who wants to understand how they can more deeply impact policy in their community and state - to do that. I do want to underscore that you don't have to already be an insider. You don't have to have any idea of what's going on, really. This is a Democratic organization - it is not catering to Republicans, I can tell you that - but looking at people with a variety of experience from diverse backgrounds across the state. It's just a program that I heartily recommend, and I believe most people who go through it come out on the other end more able to impact change in the world around them. So apply to the Institute for a Democratic Future. Well, we think we have a pretty good view of what actually happened with the election now. It's taken a while to count, but what are your takeaways from the general election that we just had? [00:05:39] Erica Barnett: Well, I mean - as others have said, and as I've said in other venues - obviously we are, the City we, are going in a more centrist direction with the city council. From Position 7 - electing Bob Kettle over Andrew Lewis - kicking out a couple other councilmembers. So politically, I think the direction is going to be a little less progressive generally, a little more in the sort of Sara Nelson centrist direction. And I think - big picture - the council is going to be made up primarily of new people and people without a whole lot of experience. The most experienced councilmember, I believe, will be Tammy Morales, who just narrowly got reelected - correct me if I'm wrong on that. But not a lot of institutional memory and knowledge on the council, which I think is going to be - it's always problematic when you lose the majority of an institution all at once, right? And when you're talking about staff who have been there for a long time, as well as councilmembers who maybe have a few terms under their belt - so people are going to be learning on the job and they're gonna be doing it in a year when there's a massive looming budget crisis, when there is the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract on the table, and just lots of other things that the new council is going to have to grapple with - that are really, really big problems and big questions - and they'll be doing it, sort of coming in with virtually no City experience in almost every single seat. [00:07:23] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that is - it's a really big deal. And we talked about this kind of in the beginning when people were filing or announcing that they weren't running for re-election - kind of hitting a lot of people going - we're losing a ton of institutional knowledge. And just the work that it takes to get up to speed, it's not just what do you wanna do with issues, with - and even with that, a number of the new councilmembers on the campaign trail had a lot of questions, had a lot of things that they wanted to find out and investigate and get to the bottom of, but maybe not as many new ideas. And they're gonna have to understand just procedurally how do things work. Legislation is a weird thing - crafting legislation, working it through the process is not an intuitive endeavor. And it does take institutional knowledge. There's so many reports, committees, just things to digest when you're getting in - even if you've held office before. If you haven't, that's just a big mountain to climb to get your feet underneath you as far as how to understand what's happening from all of the different information sources, advocates, departments, but also how to then enact and respond to the challenges that are happening. I think in this situation, it actually passes a big advantage to the mayor's office. The mayor's office does have a lot of institutional knowledge. The mayor's office does have an agenda that they wanna enact. And right now the council - the new council - is not going to really be in a position to ask questions based on historical knowledge, to investigate or interrogate what expenditures may be, what proposals may be, if there is precedent for something, if there isn't, how something fared before when it was proposed or when it was enacted. There are a lot of things that we do and undo in government and understanding the history of that - how it worked out - is actually really useful so we can learn from what we did before and do better next time, particularly when implementation with a lot of programs has been a major issue. So I am concerned for what this is going to look like in practice with a council that just is really inexperienced. [00:09:41] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I mean, and I just was thinking as you're talking - just kind of going through all the different folks that have been elected and thinking about how - on the current council, I would lift up Lisa Herbold as an example of somebody who's been there 25 years in various roles. And she is the person, particularly like during budget, who brings up things that have happened in the past or says - Well, we actually discussed this six years ago and this was the discussion then, or there's a proviso on this money that says this. And you need someone who is able to do that, whether it's a staff member or a number of staff members or a councilmember, not just during budget time, but during - for example, the SPOG contract. Five members of the council sit on the Labor Relations Policy Committee and they're going to be bargaining with the police guild and Mayor Harrell's office. And if you are talking about people that don't have a lot of institutional knowledge of what came before, I mean - like you, I'm concerned that they're just going to get steamrolled by whatever the mayor's office and SPOG decide that they want or that they can agree to. And I also thought of another thing that they're going to be doing next year, which is the Comprehensive Plan. There's a major update every 10 years and that's happening next year. And that's the document that guides planning and development and zoning for the entire city. And during the campaign, this was a question that came up - which Comp Plan option do you support? And everybody said Comp Plan 5 - for the most part. And I think that without getting into the details of what that even means, I would be really curious to ask every single person who was elected - So what's in Comp Plan 5? Because I think that sometimes campaigns deal with surface level issues, but the Comprehensive Plan is a massively complex document that they're going to be discussing over the course of a year now - starting in January, February - and it's really consequential. So that's just another example of a complex decision that this council is going to have to be making - again, without a lot of institutional knowledge. And I will say just to mention one idea that got squashed this year, Teresa Mosqueda, who is one of the councilmembers who's leaving to go serve on King County Council, brought up the idea of doing staggered elections so that instead of electing all 7 district city council seats all at once, like we did this year, we would do 4 one year and then 3 two years from then. And the idea is that even if you elect a completely new council every four years, at least people have a couple of years of experience under their belts. And that idea just got quashed, and I think it's very unlikely to happen - but that would have made a little bit of difference. [00:12:51] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I thought that was an excellent idea - was sad to see that not be able to move forward. Now, speaking of Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who was just elected to the King County Council - this now brings up an issue of there being a vacancy timing around when she can choose to go or not. Evidently there's been some calls - maybe people looking at the Supreme Court or Congress, different things, and then looking at the Seattle Council and going - Well, hey, if there's an opportunity to get another progressive in, maybe you should leave early. Why did she appear to decide against that? [00:13:31] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I mean, Teresa Mosqueda is not Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And one big difference is that she is not independently wealthy and - nor is her staff. And so I think that just as a practical matter - and this was my immediate reaction actually when I started seeing calls for her to step down and just kind of not have a job for a couple months, was - well, like normal people can't do that. And even if you're making $130,000 a year, or whatever it currently is at the city council, it is hard when - she has a little kid. And her staff, some of whom may go over with her to King County Council, still need to make a living. So there's a very practical consideration. And the other thing is, I think it's a bit of sour grapes. I mean, the voters have spoken and I think it would be a bit of sour grapes to say - Well, we're gonna shove a progressive onto the council under the wire. But more importantly, I don't think that it would probably work. I don't think it would be successful to try to get - for Teresa Mosqueda to try to appoint another Teresa Mosqueda-type to the council because you have to get the support of your colleagues. And I don't know that the current council would be willing to sort of subvert the process. I mean, it wouldn't be subverting the process, it would just be rushing it a bit. But to do that at this point, when we have a new council coming in, it just - there's a sense of fairness about that, that I think would strike some of the current council the wrong way, even if they are more progressive people who are leaving. [00:15:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it's not like there's a situation now, or upcoming with the new council, where there is a one-member majority and this one change is going to tip the balance of decisions that are made. I think with looking at some of the budget action, which we'll talk about shortly, earlier this week - we can see that's not the case. And there's also just the responsibilities of the job, which I think Teresa Mosqueda takes seriously. The City of Seattle is heading into a pretty significant budget deficit - hundreds of millions of dollars budget deficit. And I think most people consider her to be the foremost budget expert on the council - particularly with so many new people coming into the council and so much work to do on the budget, the more work she can do to help prepare this next council for what's gonna happen, to help usher in what hopefully will be sustainable changes to the budget, the better for everyone and for the city, I believe. So that's gonna be interesting. I did see Hannah Krieg report on rumors that Tanya Woo is either angling for, or people are angling for her, to be appointed to that position when that does happen. Tanya just lost a very narrow election to Tammy Morales in Seattle's District 2. What do you think the prospects for that would be, or what that would mean? [00:16:45] Erica Barnett: Well, I mean, I would be completely speculating, but it does seem - and segue to completely speculate about that - I mean, it does seem sort of unlikely, you know, just looking at historical appointments for the council to appoint somebody who ran against one of the people that won. Historically what the council has done is either appoint sort of placeholder people who have said they're not going to run for re-election, because remember - this is just a temporary position until the next election, which in this case would actually be in 2024. Because of the way it works, it would be the next state election since there's not another city election until '25. So you're talking about a very temporary seat. I don't know. At this point, my gut would be that they wouldn't do that. But again, that is just speculation. I know Brianna Thomas, who ran for council a couple of times and now works in the mayor's office in labor relations, is another potential person who is definitely angling for that position. So she seems like another possibility, but again, that's somebody who really wants to stay on the council and maybe perceived as progressive, or a member of the kind of progressive wing of the council - she worked for Lorena González, who's quite progressive, before joining the mayor's office. So I'm not following that super, super closely yet, but yeah - it'll be interesting, but perhaps not hugely consequential, except for 2024, who ends up getting that position. [00:18:36] Crystal Fincher: I wanna talk about another Election Night story, or one that was really made plain on Election Night. And that was King County's elections website and its performance or lack thereof on Election Day. What happened? [00:18:50] Erica Barnett: Yeah, so I've been wanting to write about the King County website and it's not just the elections website, but we'll talk about that specifically. But I would encourage people to go to kingcounty.gov and just check it out. See what you think. They did a big website redesign, revamp. And one of the consequences of that revamp is that it's really hard apparently to load sort of new information into the website for just kind of regular County departments. And so on Election Night, if you are an election watcher, what ordinarily happens is that you start refreshing the webpage around 8:10p. The results usually go up right around 8:15p. And so on Election Night, people were refreshing, refreshing, refreshing, but there were no results for at least 15 minutes. I actually gave up and got the results from King 5, which apparently got them because the elections people had to post the results on Twitter. I'm not really on Twitter that much anymore, so I didn't see this, but they had to create essentially a workaround for this website that is - it's not only does it look like something from - I don't know, 1999, maybe that's a little mean, 2003 we'll say - but it doesn't function very well and a lot of stuff is broken, and links don't work, and all the photos are gone, and it's just a mess. And yeah, it was really consequential on Election Night when people were trying to find out who won and couldn't get this information for 15, 20 minutes, which I know might not sound like much, but it is hugely consequential if you are a campaign or if you are somebody interested in the results, like I was as a reporter. So man, it was just a mess. [00:20:54] Crystal Fincher: It was a mess. I was at KIRO doing Election Night coverage and it was a big challenge. Fortunately, their team was able to get the results from the alternate posts, so we had them before they were live on the website. But it's really a challenge. And especially at this point in time where there is so much bad faith information, misinformation about elections, the integrity of our elections, and what's happening. Unfortunately, that means that we need to do as great a job as possible at being transparent, at making sure that things work as expected, that we can explain what's happening and why it's happening, and provide some predictability and transparency in the process. And having that happen on Election Night is very suboptimal. We'll see what improvements they make to it. And we've seen rollouts of websites - these things are hard. It is not like you flip a switch and everything works. So I don't wanna devalue the work involved, but I do hope they reflect on the timing of this, the type of testing and rigor that they use to test this - especially for the kind of strain that is expected on a night like Election Night. I think we heard some of the reasoning was that - Well, you know, it just had a lot of traffic and that contributed to the collapse. Well, yeah, that's gonna be expected on Election Night. And I hope they are able to do a better job in the future - making sure that it can accommodate the infrequent but predictable heavy loads that the website is going to experience. [00:22:40] Erica Barnett: Well, I think in one way it was actually optimal - possibly - because I think it, you know, people have been complaining about this website for a while. I mean, when I first went to it - and I don't know, it's probably been a month or two now - I truly thought, and again, it's kingcounty.gov. I truly thought it was a, like a test website. Like it was sort of the interim version between the old website and the new one, and this was just like temporary. And then called and found out - no, this is the website. And I think there are just - there are so many things that are suboptimal and just bad about it. And I think that sometimes in my experience, the tech side of things tend to, you know, say things like - Well, it's just, you know, it's not the design, it's that you're just not used to using it, or you're not using it right, or there's nothing wrong, there's nothing to see here. And I think a website falling apart on Election Night that just really like pissed off a number of people outside the county might impel them to actually take some action on this thing, because it is infuriating to use. I mean, it is - just one quick example that, you know, that's emblematic - is you go to the website now, and one of the, it's sort of like "the top things people need." And one of them is like animal control. Another is a camera in rural King County that like is on some road in rural King County - I don't know who needs that, but I wouldn't put it in the top, you know, 10,000 things on that website that people are looking for. So hopefully this will bring some sanity back, 'cause I use that website pretty frequently and it is very frustrating to use. [00:24:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I also use it frequently. And we didn't talk about this part before, but yeah - I had the same thought as you. I thought it was an interim site that - okay, well, they - my read was - well, they were hoping to do some upgrades, but clearly they couldn't get them done in time. So this is the, you know, meantime, they just stripped it down to bare bones and just want to make sure it's functional. That was my read, my assumption - I didn't look very deeply into it besides just being frustrated that everything was hard to find and wasn't where it was before. But yeah, it was a challenge, these things often are. But that would also make me want to keep it as, these things happening as far away from elections as possible. Like, you know, let's implement changes in January or February instead of later in the year, you know, closer to the primary or general election if we're doing these things. And yes, it may be a bigger site-wide thing, but my goodness - if you're hoping that things land well with the public, this is certainly - elections are one of the most visible things that the county does. I would be surprised if there was something that generated more traffic to the website than the election site around election time. But we will see how that continues and hopefully they're able to get that together soon. Also want to talk about another elections-related story, and that was the story of the post office missing pickups from a ballot box that contained ballots in some races - one of them still is too close to officially call. What happened here? [00:26:21] Erica Barnett: Well, from what I understand, the post office just didn't pick up any mail from this one site - or sorry, from this one box for like a month. And I just read about it in The Seattle Times, probably like you did. And I got a tip about it and was gonna look into it, but you know, a one-person website, so I didn't get around to it - Times did. And yeah, it just sounds like they somehow messed up and didn't pick up any mail at this box. So there are 85 ballots, I believe, that are being counted now. Not enough to turn around Ron Davis's election prospects against Maritza Rivera in District 4, but still - 85 ballots is 85 ballots. When you're talking about margins of like 300 votes, every little bit counts. So this was pretty significant to find out about at the, you know, at the 13th hour, really. [00:27:31] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And then just reading about the process that occurs when this does happen. It looks like they were able to follow the process and get these ballots counted by verifying the dates and signatures on them, but certainly a conundrum here, and would love to see what's put in place to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Yeah, will be interesting to see. And the last thing I'll just say about these elections is - you alluded to a little bit earlier with talking about Teresa Mosqueda - it's not just her, but it's her staff. And in big cities - smaller cities and suburbs don't have council staff, but in Seattle, they do. And the role of staff is really important. It's going to be even more important because they're gonna hold the institutional knowledge. They do a lot of the policy work, preparation work, doing the research, interacting with community, doing constituent service. And a lot of them have been there for a while. They are absolutely valuable resources. Sometimes bureaucrats get a bad name for working in government service, but I just - seeing the work that they do, how instrumental they are to the process, particularly in support of elected officials who oftentimes just need good information and assistance to get stuff through the system. It's really important to have capable and competent bureaucrats. I think the City does have a number of them, and I think we're gonna see how important they are in the coming year. [00:29:04] Erica Barnett: Yeah, the City couldn't run without the deep state. I mean, truly. You need those people who've been there 20 years who like know Robert's Rules of Order in and out, and can write a script and, you know, for a city councilmember to read, and can write legislation and just do all the sort of grunt work that keeps things running. I mean, they, you know, staff gets maligned and they're always sort of subject to budget cuts because - who needs all these administrative people? But in a lot of cases, you really do need the administrative people because they're the ones that make the council meeting not look like chaos. [00:29:41] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And who help make legislation stand up to legal challenges and get things implemented in the way they were intended. It is really important and just wanted to say that I see them. And when - I'm thinking about Andrew Lewis, who was not reelected - that means that his staff has a lot of question marks too. And in a city as expensive to live in in Seattle, that is a harrowing thing. So elections do impact lots of people in lots of different ways. I do wanna talk about the budget, and action this week with the council pertaining to the budget. What did they do? [00:30:21] Erica Barnett: Well, they are still continuing to sort of hack away at Mayor Bruce Harrell's 2024 budget. And they have voted on a whole slew of amendments. I would say the headline, and surprisingly it has not been a huge headline, is that Kshama Sawant - outgoing councilmember, often does a lot of kind of performative stunty stuff that doesn't actually result in legislation - but she won on a big issue this week. She got $20 million - a very, very tiny increase, I think it was 0.01%. So 0.0001 to the JumpStart Tax to fund mental health care and mental health programs for students. And $20 million is a really big deal at a time when the City is anticipating big budget decisions next year, potentially budget cuts. And when a lot of these debates in the City budget are over $300,000 or $1.5 million, just these very tiny increments. So to me, that is the huge headline is that Kshama Sawant sort of won the budget as she is walking out the door. But other stuff in the budget this year includes ShotSpotter, which is the controversial proposal that Mayor Bruce Harrell has made for a couple of years running to put surveillance systems in neighborhoods to detect gunshots or things that sound like gunshots. A lot of criticism of that system, but it sounds like the council is going to finally give in - on a 5-4 vote most likely - and fund that. And City pay increases are still sort of outstanding because that work is happening in the background, but there's gonna need to be money for City employees to get pay increases. And there's a lot of other stuff kind of around the margins - Sara Nelson is getting some money for the City to subsidize private drug treatment for some folks. And then kind of looming in the background after they pass this budget - and this is another reason Teresa Mosqueda, as you mentioned, is sticking around - They've got to figure out some revenue solutions for next year, 2025, and beyond. So they're looking at other increases to JumpStart, a capital gains tax, and there was talk of a CEO excess compensation tax but it seems like that's not gonna raise very much money - so it's off the table for now. [00:33:14] Crystal Fincher: Well, it certainly is gonna be interesting to see how those conversations play out as this year progresses, this next year progresses. I know several of the candidates who were elected expressed curiosity at some of the revenue options but were notoriously hesitant to commit to supporting any particular option. And knowing that so much of the outside spending that came into these races during the campaign was fundamentally about resisting taxation and some of those efforts and proposals, it's gonna be interesting to see what actually does wind up passing, if anything. [00:33:58] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I - on that note, I will just say that a lot of candidates said that the City doesn't have a budget problem, it has a spending problem. And I think they're going to realize that the City actually does have a budget problem when they have to get in and actually deal with the budget. I don't think that - there's a lot of talk of, We're gonna audit the whole system and I wanna look at the whole budget. Well, good luck, that's not really possible. I mean, you have entire departments each with their own budget division - hashing out the budget, looking at the actual budget documents for any one department could be a job for a person for a year. So I think they're going to be, they're in for a bit of a rough awakening if they think that they can't raise any new revenues and that they can accomplish $250 million in budget reductions through cuts alone. So we'll see when that awakening takes place, but I think it will. [00:34:58] Crystal Fincher: Oh, I absolutely think it will. It is certainly one thing to have catchy and simple slogans and taglines and soundbites when you're running for office, but governing is a serious thing. It is actually harder than running the campaign. So we will see how this progresses. Now I also want to talk about this week - a couple of things when it does come to the potential raises for City workers - that they've been saying, Hey, it's really expensive to live in Seattle. We count on cost of living adjustments to help keep up, but even that is hard with inflation, the cost of living. We aren't making enough in the first place. We need more money. This is teeing up to become a major confrontation, really, with the mayor's office signaling that they're hesitant to give raises anywhere close to what workers are asking for. There may be labor actions taken. We will see what happens. But this week, one interesting thing came out in an email from the mayor's office. What did they send? [00:36:16] Erica Barnett: So an email went out to most City employees this week. And what it said was - I think the subject line was "Financial Self-care," something related to that. And what it said was basically - if you are struggling with money, maybe you should look at your spending. And it gave some examples of things that you can do to sort of reduce your costs in your day-to-day life. And one was pay yourself first, which is this sort of very - I would say for a normal person - very unrealistic idea that before you pay your bills, you should put money in savings or in investments. And I think it's self-explanatory why most people can't do that. People living paycheck to paycheck need to keep the lights on, need to pay their rent. And then another suggestion was that people consider - when making purchases, whether something is a want or a need - which again, I mean, there's just something so condescending about that and so out of touch with the way normal people make spending decisions. And like, sure, like, do I make impulse buys? Does everybody sometimes? Yes. But the advice in this email - not to sort of waste your money on frivolous stuff - hits really poorly at a time when City employees are saying, Look, we're not asking for raises, we're asking for a cost of living adjustment to deal with the fact that inflation went up 8% last year and continues to rise. And what that means is a dollar buys less. So it's just - it was very, very, very poorly worded and poorly timed, considering that City employees are literally talking about striking right now. And so I just, I was sort of blown away by it. And one of the reactions - it got a lot of reaction when I posted about this. And one of the most common reactions was - huh, this is interesting because Mayor Harrell is saying that we all need to work from the office at least three days a week as part of his downtown revitalization plan. And part of that plan is that we're gonna go out to eat at lunch, and we're gonna go out to get drinks after work. And I don't know - is that a want or need, Mayor Harrell? So it's - I think it hit really poorly with a lot of City employees. And I've gotten a lot of reaction from folks who received it, sort of saying - Thanks for pointing this out, this is ridiculous. [00:38:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I've also seen a lot of reaction to that. When you're saying - Hey, help me, I'm struggling, and it's, you know, the cost of living, inflation is just unreasonable - it's hard to keep up with. And when the cost of rent is going up, and childcare is going up, and groceries are going up, and people are feeling this in every way - to have the person who does have the power and authority to say, You know what, we will ease this a little bit. We will grant your cost of living adjustment. We already know that you have shortages, and we're burning you out with the amount of work that we're placing on you and the amount that we're not paying you. So we're going to ease that burden and address some of these work shortages, some of these staff shortages in areas that are critical to delivering essential services for residents of Seattle. Seems like there's precedent for thinking that way - we've talked about financial solutions with the police department to help address retention and staffing. Seems like that should apply to other departments, but somehow it doesn't here. And just doesn't seem to be landing with people very well. And just to be clear, right - it's not like financial education and financial planning tips are never warranted. But they are not an intervention or response to poverty. The problem with poverty is not poor people making bad decisions and that's why they're poor. It's that they don't have enough money. And wow, we just got a whole lot of new data on how effective giving people in poverty more money is, as opposed to all of these extra things that are not more money. If you want to reduce poverty, invest in the people who are experiencing it. And if we want a city that is resilient moving forward, if we want a city where we do take pride in paying people a living wage - meaning a wage where they can live in the city - we're gonna have to do better than this for City employees, certainly. Now I also wanna talk about what the prospect is, and what the outlook is for this pay increase. And there was something that happens that maybe makes that cost of living adjustment look a little questionable. What was that? [00:41:11] Erica Barnett: I believe you're talking about the firefighters' contract, which was sent to firefighters - members of the Fire Department - last week. And the votes on that are gonna be tallied soon. But basically what it said was the firefighters, if they vote on this, will agree to a sort of maximum annual wage increase of 4%, a minimum of 2%, which is quite a bit less than the other City workers were asking for, the Coalition of City Unions. And the sort of compromise or payback for that is that if inflation is above 4%, then the money that would be paid to workers getting an inflationary increase is gonna go into what's called a COLA bank. And so - like say inflation 6%, your wage increase is 4% - you get 2% in the COLA bank. If next year inflation is 1%, you can get some of that back. So your minimum increase will always be 2% for the life of the contract. So that's still 2% to 4%, which is not a whole lot of increase, particularly for workers whose pay has been falling further and further behind under their existing contract. But the thinking is that this could be sort of a foreshadowing of what Harrell is going to ultimately offer the rest of the city. So I think there's quite a bit of discontent around that. And again, there is talk of some sort of action. There have been practice pickets happening. And I don't have any special insight into whether the City workers would strike, but I know it's being discussed. They are not technically allowed to do that under their contract. So again, not sure what sort of action they're going to take, but I know that there is a lot of discontent with the idea of settling for a 2% to 4% wage increase at this point. [00:43:16] Crystal Fincher: I wanna shift a little bit and really talk about a story that you broke - a couple weeks ago, I feel like it was - that we also saw reported at The Seattle Times as new this week. What is going on in the City of Burien right now? [00:43:33] Erica Barnett: Oh man, the - well, I mean, just a very, very quick background - the City of Burien passed a ban on sleeping in public at night. And has meanwhile, been sort of pushing around this group of unsheltered people from place to place - And now has the legal authority to use the Sheriff's Office to do so. They have meanwhile, been sort of sitting on an offer of a million dollars from King County, which originally proposed sort of a land swap deal where a Pallet shelter could be built in downtown Burien. But of course the city rejected that, I think, primarily because it would be in sort of a visible location. They've been sort of hemming and hawing on what to do with this million dollars ever since. And we're talking about, I think that was over the summer - I believe in June or July - that they, it was in July, that they voted against using it for that shelter. And so now it's November and King County has said - Look, we have to use this money. Or you have to use this money or we're going to put it out for bid. And so they have until November 27th to do that. The City Manager, Adolfo Bailon - apologies if I am mispronouncing his name - but he essentially sat on this information for a week and did not tell most of the council that this sort of deadline had come up until a week into the four weeks that they have to figure out a new location. So meanwhile, I think the council has one more meeting before this deadline passes. And my guess is they're not going to come up with a solution since they haven't done so so far. And this money is just going to go back into King County and then they'll put it out for bid for other South King County cities to use. [00:45:45] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think - if people do want to catch up on what's happened, there has been no one following what's been happening in Burien with more rigor than you and PubliCola. So I would encourage people to catch up on what you have already covered. But just a little more context - this is happening with a very polarized council. There is a 4-3 moderate conservative council majority. The three members in the minority have been very vocally opposed to the way things have gone. This all kicked off because the county basically - they were trying to figure out how to deal with this as a city, were looking like they were going to embark on some illegal sweeps. The county executive's office basically said - Hey, looks like you're about to embark on illegal sweeps. Since you contract your police department through the Sheriff's department, we're just letting you know that the sheriffs cannot participate in an illegal sweep. This kicked off a lot of hemming and hawing by the council - ended up coming to what, I think, the county viewed as a reasonable compromise and offer for help that lots of cities would love to have. And they said - Okay, you're trying to deal with this. We'll help you with a million dollars, some Pallet shelters. You talked about the land swap deal - there's publicly owned land that is being leased to a car dealership, we'll accommodate for that. And basically you have land available to make this happen. We know you need more resources to adequately address this. We will help you with that. And the council majority basically refused to engage with that for a long time. So the county finally has gotten around to saying - Okay, this isn't just an offer out there forever. We need to put this money to good use, so do you wanna take it? And the city manager in Burien initially said, Hey, I didn't even see it. I had no idea this was happening. Turns out he did, he actually responded to the email. But it has been quite a trial and tribulation there, and so we'll have to see what's gonna happen. But it does look like basically an effort to sabotage any attempt to do anything but criminalize homelessness, which just feels so out of joint from where most people are on this topic. Even people who feel that - hey, eventually sweeps are justified, almost uniformly feel like, but we need to do all we can to make sure that we do transition people into housing if possible, that offers of shelter are made, that we don't just move the problem from one place to another. City is not engaged with that at all. They seem perfectly satisfied to just sweep people from one place to another, as has been documented by the sweeps that they did of one location - seeing the people just move to another location. Homelessness is a problem about the lack of housing. If you aren't doing anything to provide housing, you aren't doing anything to solve homelessness, unless you feel the visibility of it, and not the people who actually don't have homes and are dealing with everything associated with that, which is just a very, very, very hard way to live. So we'll see what continues to happen. What are the prospects for them taking this up? Do they still have the option to ignore it? [00:49:14] Erica Barnett: Well, do you mean taking up the offer for a million dollars? Well, I mean, certainly they have the option to ignore it. I mean, it will go away. I mean, I think that - I'm perhaps a little bit less charitable than you are in my assessment of what people want, just having watched all these meetings of people sort of screaming that these are - Seattle people are sending mobs of homeless people down to Burien and just this kind of very unrealistic, fantastical stuff that people say. But I think there's some magical thinking going on on the council as well. The city has just hired, just signed a contract - a no-bid contract - with a group called The More We Love that's run by one individual, a Kirkland mortgage broker named Kristine Moreland. And she has said that she has access to special resources that no one else does, and she can easily house and shelter people. And that it's just that all these other experienced homeless outreach providers have failed. And I think that is a fantastical notion because, as you said, there is not enough housing, there is not enough shelter. And generally what she does is put people into detox, which is a three to five day program that doesn't include any housing or treatment, or takes people to Seattle and puts them into Union Gospel Mission shelters. Those are two of the things that I am aware of her doing, neither of which is a solution. And one of which is just moving people out of Burien and into Seattle, which is not housing them. So I think that there's just, there's a lot of unrealistic thinking going on. And of course, there was an election in Burien as well. And two of the more progressive members will no longer be on the council next year - they've been replaced by people who agree more on this issue with the conservative council majority. So yeah, it's, you know, I don't expect the situation there to get any better on this issue, nor do I think that this new council is going to have more realistic notions of what's possible without additional resources. [00:51:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, certainly the election results there were definitely a move in the other direction. We saw King County GOP endorsed candidates like Kevin Schilling handily winning his race there. Now, some of the opponents were pretty new, didn't have many resources, but can pretty much see a continuation and perhaps even an acceleration of these policies that are very punitive and hostile towards the unhoused population. The last thing I wanna talk about today is an update on Sound Transit's fare enforcement policies and processes. We've talked about this before, you have covered this for quite some time. So now they're coming out with a new fare enforcement system. What are they going to do now? [00:52:32] Erica Barnett: Well, as far as I can tell, the main difference - they're going to be enforcing fares and this has been covered in the past, but there will be more opportunities for people to get warnings and things like that - the initial fines will be lower. But the main difference is that the fare enforcement people are now called fare ambassadors and they are not in security uniforms, which Sound Transit is saying is a significant change. I mean, I guess it does make things feel different if you have a person who is not in a uniform, but an orange vest, checking your fare. But ultimately, I mean, that's the big substantive difference. They say that this is gonna be more equitable, they're gonna check everybody on the train, but as you mentioned, I've been covering this for a long time and for years, they've been saying that their process is completely equitable and that they - it is essentially impossible for them to discriminate against anybody or target anybody because of their race or perceived socioeconomic status because they start at both ends of the train and they move to the middle. And there was a slide that they showed so many times that I started kind of making fun of it on PubliCola because, you know, it was just this very, you know, sort of bored recitation at every council, or sorry, at every Sound Transit meeting where they would say - You know, we start at both ends of the train, we work our way to the middle, it's completely equitable. So, you know, they're saying this is gonna be completely equitable too. I don't think that it is possible to have an equitable fare enforcement policy because I think fare enforcement hits different people differently. And if you can't pay it, eventually, you could go to court and get a misdemeanor on your record. So fare enforcement inherently and fares inherently are not equitable. So we'll see how it plays out in practice, but once you start enforcing fares, you have instituted an inequitable process because poor people are less likely to be able to pay fares, more likely to get caught without having paid their fare, and then more likely to be unable to pay the fines that will eventually start accruing. [00:54:50] Crystal Fincher: I have a major pet peeve - pet peeve is too minor a way to say it, but it probably comes through and I haven't overtly articulated it, but you know, in lots of things that I talk about - but people just taking action to take action, that is not a serious attempt to fix the problem that they say they're trying to fix. Whether I agree with what they're stating is a problem or their way that they're going about it - even if you take everything at face value, their solutions are not in any way adequate enough to address what they're saying is a problem. And so the momentum - we've heard Sound Transit board members talk about how important fare enforcement is - people are getting away with it and we need to collect these fares for our system. We - our budget depends on fare box recovery and if people aren't paying, then that's throwing our finances and our system into chaos. Which would make most people reasonably think - Okay, so if they're doing fare enforcement action and spending all of this money on these fare enforcement people, and instituting this basically entire administration dedicated to fare enforcement - one would think that the fines that they issue would be collected by Sound Transit. I was surprised to learn from your reporting before that that wasn't the case. And it seems like it still isn't the case under this new system, is that correct? [00:56:24] Erica Barnett: My understanding is - yes, that the fines go to the, go into the administration, into the court system, but, you know, I am not 100%, I have not looked into this. So please don't, please do some fact checking on this for me, 'cause I - maybe you can look into it, Crystal - but I'm pretty sure that, yeah, the fines don't go to Sound Transit. I mean, I think like big picture, Sound Transit does have some financial problems. A lot of them are related to the fact that they continue to provide service that is suboptimal for a lot of people. A lot of times trains are stopped because of incidents, escalators very often don't work. And the trains are running a lot slower now, they're more crowded because there's not enough cars and they're not running as frequently. And so the service has really suffered. And so - number one, it's not a great product right now. It could be a great product again, but you're sort of instituting fare enforcement at a time when the product itself is suboptimal. And second, they're planning the next expansion of the light rail system and a lot of the stuff they're doing, you know, in particularly in South Lake Union, for example, to appease Amazon and other companies in that area is moving stations around and making big changes that are going to cost money. And then on the flip side, eliminating stations like the Midtown Station that have huge constituencies, like all the people on First Hill that got robbed of a station in Sound Transit 1 when they cut the station there. So you're sort of putting the squeeze on people who might be your riders in the future and moving things around to appease big companies. So I don't know - I think a lot of people are frustrated with Sound Transit right now and focusing on, Oh my God, it's those damn, you know, fare evaders, as they call people who don't pay, they're the problem - just feels really off point right now. And, you know, I mean, I'm sure you've ridden light rail. It's noticeably slower recently because people, the drivers for one - I mean, one reason for that is that the drivers are slowing down in the Rainier Valley to avoid hitting people because Sound Transit put the trains at grade in the first segment of light rail. So yeah, it's just - it's not a great look. [00:59:05] Crystal Fincher: It's not a great look. And yes, I have ridden light rail recently. I've also ridden BART recently and LA Metro trains recently. And my goodness, is it just noticeable? If you know me, you've heard this rant, but Los Angeles, the car capital of the world, and Seattle actually started planning their light rail systems at the same time. And Seattle has wound up with a partial line that still has end points getting pushed off for decades, it seems like. And LA has built this vast network of multiple lines and everything in a city where it's not easy to get stuff done, where people have more of a connection to their cars, where it's harder to get around in other areas - so the lift of getting people to make that change seems heavier down there. And wow, we've just gotten bogged down in the Seattle process, it seems. But it seems like the main problem, what's underlying everything else, is that their - the people in charge of this system, the Sound Transit Board, are not regular transit riders. They don't seem to use the product that they're responsible for. And listening to them talk - most of them are, predominantly drive cars, they don't take transit often. And you can hear that in their comments, you can see that in how they are planning, or not planning, or the things that they're missing, as we progress here. So I certainly hope that we see more of a focus on appointing leaders to that board who understand the system and use it, and understand how important it is to their community and the relevance of their community, and how it needs to adapt to other communities. Yeah, it's really interesting. I'm thinking of a number of suburban leaders, whether it's Bothell or Covington - people wanting to improve the service, make it relevant for their community, but it is just been a big challenge. With that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, November 17th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett and on multiple platforms now - just search Erica and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and soon you'll be able to follow it on other platforms. You can find me on most platforms as @finchfrii. 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 and leave a review if you're able - to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical 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.

"The King County Regional Homelessness Authority's Partnership for Zero program—a heavily hyped public-private partnership aimed at ending unsheltered homelessness in downtown Seattle—is ending," Erica C Barnett wrote on PubliCola. Erica and Sandeep dig into the details and disagree about whether it was the right concept in the first place. Please donate to keep the pod alive here. Our editor is Quinn Waller.Want to help the pod and raise awareness about your own podcast or business? We've got a special for the month of October only!  Contact us realseattlenice@gmail.comIf you want to help support Seattle Nice, please review us wherever you get your podcasts.If you're still on X Twitter find us @realseattlenice Also please donate!  Our Patreon link is here. Support the showSupport the show

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 Mayor Bruce Harrell's business-as-usual budget proposal - how it lacks bold vision, doesn't address the pressing problems we face, and double downs on police as our only public safety solution by ignoring calls for civilian-led alternative response and reviving conversation about failed ShotSpotter technology. Crystal and EJ's conversation then moves to Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison signing onto a pro-encampment sweeps brief, Target trying to blame store closures on crime, Green Jacket Lady schooling a Fox News reporter, and a study showing drug decriminalization didn't lead to increased overdose deaths. 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 “Joy Hollingsworth, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 3” from Hacks & Wonks   “Alex Hudson, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 3” from Hacks & Wonks   “Harrell's Proposed Budget Brings Back Shotspotter, Funds Human Services Workers, Includes No New Diversion for Drug Users” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Business Bestie Mayor Harrell Ignores Gaping Hole in the Budget” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Four Problems with the ShotSpotter Gunshot Detection System” by Jay Stanley from the Amercan Civil Liberties Union   “City Attorney Davison Signs Brief Demanding Right to Sweep Encampments Without Offering Shelter” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “As Seattle Targets close, shoppers question if crime really is to blame” by Renata Geraldo from The Seattle Times   @DivestSPD on Twitter: “Seattle Times headline: Target closing stores due to crime.  21st paragraph: Shoplifting is down 60% overall, 40% in UDistrict, and 35% downtown.  Next graph: Retailers don't always report, so you can just treat those numbers like they don't matter.”   “Seattleites challenge Fox News' spin on the city's crime” by Melissa Santos from Axios   @abughazalehkat on Twitter: “Fox News tried to do a bunch of scary man-on-the-street interviews about crime. It didn't go well.”   “New study suggests looser WA drug laws do not mean more overdose deaths” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed this week's topical shows, we continued our series of Seattle City Council candidate interviews. All 14 candidates for 7 positions were invited and we had in-depth conversations with many of them. This week, we presented District 3 candidates, Joy Hollingsworth and Alex Hudson. Have a listen to those and stay tuned over the coming weeks. We hope these interviews will help voters better understand who these candidates are and inform their choices for the November 7th general election. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: the former director of Progressive Majority who's now transitioned into public service and remains involved in numerous political efforts across Washington, EJ Juárez. Hey! [00:01:42] EJ Juárez: Sorry, everybody - I'm back. [00:01:46] Crystal Fincher: We love having you and there are always comments from listeners about how insightful you are when you're on - more than usual - so it's always great to have you on. I want to start talking about Seattle's mayor's budget proposal this week. Mayor Bruce Harrell released his budget that he will be presenting, or did present, to the council and city. The council will also take up the budget - they ultimately have the responsibility for passing a budget. But this is the mayor's recommendation - his take on where we should be moving the city. What were your big takeaways about what were in the budget and where do you see this going? [00:02:28] EJ Juárez: Yeah, thanks. I think, first of all, this is a budget that really lacked a bold vision. And I think that my biggest takeaway was this is very much, in many ways, business as usual. This is the values document from an administration that's, I think, still pretending it's a decade ago and not catching up with the problems of today. There's no huge solutions here to some of the most pressing problems for the region and the city, but ultimately, the big swings that you would expect from a mayor who has a significant amount of political capital in the moment are missing. We don't have big swings for human service workers with large increases in pay and benefits to get them to where they need to be able to stay in this city and serve the people, as well as address the problems that are affecting every other element of City services. I think the other thing that was pretty shocking is the fact that we are still spending as much money as we are on the police alone in this city. This is not an integrated approach to safety or even really improving the conditions of different places around the city. So, again, I was a little dumbfounded. [00:03:41] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think, overall, this is not a budget that anyone is finding surprising from Mayor Bruce Harrell. I think your point is well taken that it seems to lack the kind of investment and scale to meaningfully address the biggest challenges that the city is facing - in two different directions - one, in the revenue and services direction, certainly more voters are demanding a more comprehensive public safety response. This looks to largely be a traditional public safety response - there is money in there for a co-response program, there doesn't seem to be new revenue for diversion, which was supposed to be part of the safety legislation that gives the city attorney power to prosecute drug possession in the city and public drug use. It doesn't seem to meaningfully invest in the issues that are most pressing for the city. Two glaring omissions in the budget are - there doesn't seem to be any preparation or contention - or at least at this point, it's hard to see - for the major upcoming budget deficit that the City is going to be facing. In the next budget - not this year, but next year - there's predicted to be a $225 million budget deficit. And that's quite a bit of money that's gonna require either significant cuts or a significant increase in revenue. So you would think that some of that preparation would be happening now. City council candidates are talking about it, departments are talking about it. And so it's weird that the chief executive of the City - the mayor - is not contending with that in the budget. I don't know if we're gonna be hearing more about that, but I hope we do because certainly the City needs a plan to get through that while addressing the City workers who are crucial to delivering on the mayor's agenda, on what the City just needs to do to operate and serve its residents. What's gonna be happening with that? They deserve a cost of living increase. I hope they get it. They're gonna be negotiating for that. But where is that going to come from in the budget? And it's going to have to be a bigger number than they're accounting for now. There are just some things that don't seem like they're meaningfully dealt with in the way that residents are demanding, and in a way that will solve the challenges that residents are demanding being solved and that Mayor Harrell says is on his agenda. [00:05:57] EJ Juárez: I think you hit it right on the head in that - when you're faced with what will likely be a $500 million deficit in just two and a half years here, we are going to have to make really difficult and painful choices. That's not a number you can just raise your parking rates to get out of, which is what he's proposing. Maybe there's gonna be a huge influx for FIFA coming up and all of the sporting events and concerts, but there's not enough Taylor Swifts in the world to get us to $500 million with just raising parking rates to get us out of the forthcoming deficit. I really worry that the political courage to actually solve this problem just isn't there. This is a really, I think, high-profile instance of kicking that can down the road - either to the council or to the next mayor - to say, Hey, I'm gonna drive us towards the cliff, but you're gonna be at the steering wheel when it goes over. And it's really unfortunate because I think at that point, the options will have dwindled to fairly unpopular choices. And if those choices don't go forward, we will live with cuts that will both harm the residents of this city, but potentially cripple agencies and public services for up to a decade. I think we all remember what happened in the last recession when deep cuts to manage the forthcoming cuts at the time were ramping up - it took 10 years for agencies to get back to pre-2008 levels - with the inability of leaders to raise revenue quickly and plan accordingly. [00:07:20] Crystal Fincher: There are lots of people who have said before that budgets are moral documents. They reflect your priorities. You put your money where your mouth is. And once again, we see residents of the city absolutely saying - I think by and large, it's fair to characterize where people are at the city saying - they don't mind funding extra police, but they also want to fund better alternative response programs, more comprehensive solutions to public safety and meeting people's basic needs - that helps keep people out of paths that lead to crime, or poverty, or homelessness, or all of those things. We know that investing in education, basic needs, making sure people do have their basic needs met does positively impact all of those other areas. Investment in police again this year - after lots of prior investments - $392 million. Alternatives to police - $5 million. And when you look at what that really means in the budget after years and years of this being asked for, demanded, actually funded by the council - this just seems like paying weak lip service to something the city's desperately in need of. So we'll continue to see. Another item in there - that I was surprised to see back this year - was a proposal for ShotSpotter, which is infamous at this point in time. About a decade ago, it was viewed as this revolutionary new tech that could help automatically detect where gunshots are coming from, and help better deploy police, anticipate where people are coming from. It was supposed to be a positive new tool. What actually resulted was that it was very bad at detecting gunshots - it detected a lot of things that were not gunshots as gunshots, provoking police responses where they were not needed, where they were harmful or dangerous, and really just ended up not being an effective way to address gun violence at all. And cities regretting the money that they spent on that. That had all happened. This is not new news. This is 5 and 10 years ago news. But for some reason, not only was it proposed in the mayor's budget last year and was widely panned, but it's back this year for some reason. Bruce really likes ShotSpotter, despite the fact that there's so much evidence against it. And it just seems like there is so much on the plate to do, to knock out, to try - when it comes to the suite of public safety and community safety initiatives that we could be launching, why are we still talking about this? [00:09:47] EJ Juárez: It is - the question I think that's on a lot of people's mind right now is when you have such a loud chorus from folks across the city who typically are not aligned on issues, who typically are not singing the same song, you have everybody largely lined up saying - This is a bad program. This is proven to not work. And here's a decade's worth of evidence. This is really Bruce against the world on this one. And Bruce is the loudest cheerleader for this program, which has huge consequences for communities of color, low-income communities, and just the general public. It is mind-blowing that again - the singular focus on implementing this program from the mayor's office is just devoid of any input or any, I think, actual critical thinking about what is this doing for the city. Yeah, I'm still stunned. [00:10:36] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so we will continue to follow that process. This is going to be important. It's gonna be important for you to talk to your councilmembers, council candidates, let the mayor and the mayor's office know how you feel about this. It's a document for how the City is going to be run, managed, and should reflect your priorities - and not just those of moneyed interests in the city. So I hope people do engage. We will certainly stay tuned on that. I also wanna talk about this week news that City Attorney Ann Davison signed onto a brief demanding the right to sweep encampments without shelter as a prior Supreme Court decision - Martin v. Boise - what was that decision called - where it was ruled by the Ninth Circuit Court that it is unconstitutional to sweep people from encampments without offering shelter. Basically, if you have nowhere else for them to go - if they have nowhere to go - you can't sweep them. That's cruel, it's unusual, it's inhumane, it's unconstitutional - currently. And so that's why sometimes we've seen legitimate, good faith offers to try and get people into shelter. Unfortunately, we are operating in a time where we know we have inadequate shelter space - number one. And even that shelter sometimes is so inadequate - maybe just one night's worth of shelter - and there are lots of times restrictions and conditions placed on it. There are curfews. If it's a congregate shelter situation, that is - one, no longer viewed as a best practice, but an area that understandably has lots of concerns and fear attached to it. And if you think about - hey, you're going somewhere and you're just gonna be shoved into a room with people who you may not know, people who may be experiencing some of the hardest times in their life, may not be as stable as ideal. And that's a challenge for anyone to be in, and it's hard to stabilize in that kind of situation. And so it's understandable to say - hey, if we're forcing you to go somewhere, there should be somewhere else to go. Otherwise, you're literally just moving the problem around and doing nothing to solve it - probably, definitely destabilizing people further. But this lawsuit is basically saying - Hey, cities should have more autonomy, this is infringing upon cities' ability to make their own decisions. How do you view this lawsuit? [00:12:56] EJ Juárez: I'll start by saying - when you start punishing humans for doing human things, it's a really awful situation you're in. People cannot go without rest. People cannot go without sleep. People must sleep to survive. And people that are already in crisis, who are doing the bare minimum needed to survive as a person, right - getting themselves rest and sleep - I think criminalizing that and making it more difficult for people to do what they need to do, is a really sad state of what we are spending our time legislating and monitoring. I do think that we have obligations to keep sidewalks clear, encampments both safe for the people that are there and I think for the people that are around them. It's obviously a super contentious issue with people on all sides. What I find interesting about this is that the city attorney is essentially joining the - I don't know - progressive, compassionate bastions of North Dakota cities and Colorado Springs to make this argument for a city that clearly has very different values than those places, but that is saying - We wanna do this, but we don't want the responsibility of caring for our residents after we take action on their bodies. We are going to physically move a person and force them out of a place of their choosing and throw our hands up and say - We don't wanna deal with it after that. That's a new thing - and that is a very bold step towards, I think, the opposite of a compassionate response around how we would wanna treat our neighbors, right? And how many times do we hear from the city, the county, or the state about our neighbors? Be kind to your neighbor, love thy neighbor, whatever the phrase that comes out and whatever fluffy PR piece that we get from a government agency - but ultimately it's hollow because we're saying - We will love them until they inconvenience us. And that inconvenience and that discomfort I'm feeling by either seeing or experiencing - tangentially - homelessness is larger and more important than actually caring for the person experiencing a crisis. I find it odd that this is the stake that the city attorney is joining in on with an amicus brief that doesn't involve us, but that is her prerogative. [00:15:06] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it is her prerogative as an independently elected City official. Different cities have different systems. Some cities appoint their chief prosecutorial official in the city, Seattle elects it, and it's elected separately than the mayor, than councilmembers, and so there is latitude for the city attorney to act in this way - this is within their jurisdiction. I'm curious to know what councilmembers, what council candidates think about this - but also what the mayor's office thinks about this, which is really interesting. We haven't heard condemnation of it, I don't think. So it seems like this isn't too troublesome to him - and that's not surprising to the office, given what seems to be their current predisposition towards sweeps. But it is - one, interesting that this could happen in this situation because of the way Seattle's government is set up. [00:15:55] EJ Juárez: People will continue to sleep - and that, at the end of the day, this is a lot of effort that our city attorney is spending on a problem where people will continue to sleep and exist. And it is beyond my absolute wildest imagination that a person can spend so much of our City resources and tax money on this problem without it being a signal to political donors, to folks who are furthest from crisis about the disdain that they have for people that are in crisis. [00:16:28] Crystal Fincher: And it is disdain, and really - part of this lawsuit or brief trying to get these rulings really overturned, there were two, Martin v. Boise and then Johnson v. Grant Pass - where the City is essentially, and this group of people bringing this, is essentially arguing that homelessness is a choice. PubliCola did a really informative article on this, and reading from here - they're arguing that calling unsheltered people involuntarily homeless grants a special status on people who, in their view, in reality, engaging in a voluntary behavior by sleeping outdoors, much as an alcoholic who is caught being drunk in public has chosen to drink of his own volition. That's from a Supreme Court case from 1968, whose conclusions are contradicted by modern addiction experts - addiction is not a choice. Once someone is at the point where they're addicted, choice and logic no longer is in that conversation - that's just a biological reality. But it's really insidious, saying, as we do with so many things - Oh, they find themselves in this situation. And how many articles have come out in the past month just talking about the amount of elderly and seniors who are increasingly homeless, that we've seen inflation skyrocket - housing price skyrocket, transportation costs increase, eldercare, childcare, food, everything is increasing. There are lots of people on fixed incomes. If we have a health crisis, that can throw someone into bankruptcy and homelessness. But right now, as we hear in rhetoric and debates and conversations, we're seeing this reflected in this brief - basically saying it's their fault. They're there because it's their fault. It's a moral failing on their behalf. And that gives us license to not have to deal with it. That absolves us of responsibility from having to be responsible for our making sure people have a place to sleep, to live, to not die and languish on the streets. This is really a moral argument at the center of this, which is really insidious. [00:18:33] EJ Juárez: It is, and I can feel my blood boiling as we talk about this now more and more, because we are never allowed to talk about homelessness without having to talk about addiction. We know - study after study and time after time - addiction is not the number one driver of homelessness in this country, nor is it the number one driver of homelessness in any city in this country. The conflation between addiction of any kind and the inability to be stably housed is so often presented to us in every argument about solving this problem, that it is the largest shiny object of distraction - because then it gets into the moral policing, it gets into the individual choices, right? The circumstances that a person may find themselves by choice, which in and of itself, as you just said, is not a true choice - because addiction doesn't work like that. But even in all the articles that we've seen coming out around this and the city attorney's language and our elected leaders, I would love for somebody to do a true study on how many times we can talk about homelessness without talking about addiction - and how often that conflation has ruined otherwise very good solutions to affordability, to making sure that people are able to earn wages that can pay for houses within a reasonable distance from the place of their employment. 'Cause even as we're talking about this - in these sweeps, the articles from the Supreme Court, the things that we're reading in terms of legal precedent - are all focused on this idea that folks are just drunk, folks are high, and therefore they don't wanna be housed. I think both the media needs to do better and our elected officials need to do better 'cause it's played out and it's tiring. [00:20:11] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree. And I feel very similarly about conversations where homelessness is conflated with crime. Homeless people are much more likely to be a victim of crime than almost anyone else - they're victimized to the greatest degree. When it comes to the public safety discussion, everyone deserves to be safe. And that seems to make sense to start with people who are the most in danger, who need the most help - to help them become safe. And unfortunately, the toxicity of this conversation is putting homeless people in more danger - we've seen attacks. And just disgustingly, what's being normalized - was having this conversation with someone yesterday - is how often we see, particularly from right-wing elements, but we also see it from so-called moderates and progressives on campaign mailers in attack ads - is this viewing homelessness as the spectacle. And the very dehumanizing way in which people are shown who are having some of the toughest times in their lives - they're in various stages of crisis and just the exploitation of their likeness, of their images, sharing their locations, their details - that's just dehumanizing. And you're not showing that person with any intent to help, with any engagement with why they're there, with any engagement with who they are as a person. You're simply using that as a tool to degrade and dehumanize them and to really make it seem like this is a choice. But a lot of the language we hear from that is just really dehumanizing. And we hear it in places like Burien who passed a camping ban this week, while still not engaging with any of the free resources offered to them to help solve their problem. It's just really disappointing. And we're engaged in these tropes and this rhetoric that is not tied to the reality of the problem. And it is a problem. There absolutely needs to be effective interventions to help this. I don't think anyone wants anyone sleeping on a sidewalk, I don't think anyone wants encampments there - but those are signals of a greater failure and of policies that we keep doubling down on that don't work. And it's time to stop doing that so we can finally do something that does work to help improve this problem. Also wanna talk about news this week that a couple Targets are closing. And what was notable about this is, as we've seen with some prior press releases and announcements, Target blamed this on crime. But after so many other instances of seeing companies blame some of their store closures on crime and then follow up months after - okay, actually it wasn't the crime, it was some mismanagement, it was just us trying to save money, offload some assets - and that being really disingenuous, or in some other cases, just ways to do some union busting, like in Starbucks's case. But here, these are not in downtown Seattle - these are in two other locations. These are mid-format stores. And a lot of people in the neighborhood say - These stores were not meeting anyone's needs. It's not surprising that they're closing. And it just seems like crime may not be the real reason here, but one that corporations seem to be able to get away with. And then have people in the media basically dictate what they say as a story without any critical examination of their central statement there - that it is because of crime. How do you view this? [00:23:29] EJ Juárez: It's such a troubling trend to watch - particularly retail over the last few years here - throw up their hands in the face of engaging in capitalism. It is - Oh, we want to expand. We're gonna open these stores. We're gonna try new models. But oh, we're actually - it got hard. We're not gonna adapt. We're not gonna try and survive. We're gonna close these stores and blame it on our customers. We're gonna blame it on the neighborhood. We're gonna blame it on the city. We're gonna blame it on X, Y, and Z. And there's this dissidence that's happening amongst these large retailers, I think. But also, I don't know - having gone into the U District Target myself, maybe they shouldn't have had two full racks of unicorn onesies available in a store that was tiny to begin with. So it's okay for business and enterprise to experiment with store formats and changing up what they do, but to then blame - and be, I think, fairly disingenuous about - store closings on crime and creating this really amped up sense of crisis that might not match reality. And I think we saw that come to fruition with The Seattle Times reporting on this, because for the first time, I think, in the face of these closures, we actually have a media outlet that said - Let's check. Let's actually show the truth here. And it showed that the reports don't match what Target is saying around where the incidents of crime and calls to police actually happened, where particularly the Ballard location was the lowest rate of incidents amongst all the Targets in the region. So it is odd to me. I just have to laugh, 'cause I can't get those onesies out of my head. I'm like - Your business didn't work. Adapt. [00:25:04] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. These are not the traditional, full-service, big box Target stores. These are smaller versions that, according to lots of people - myself included - had tons of stuff like those onesies that were not needs. But the stuff that a lot of times you run to the store for - regular household items, food items - were not regularly available, but there were plenty of really nearby stores that had them more available, that were more convenient to get in and out of, at a lower cost - so it's not like there was no competition in this area. It does seem like this was an issue where maybe just the format of the store, like you said, the experimentation didn't work. I do think it is a positive sign that The Seattle Times - after receiving some criticism from prior coverage where - Hey, they reported what the company said. Later on, after actual scrutiny, those claims about closing because of crime didn't hold up. That's not to say that that's not at all a concern. I'm sure everyone has the concern. We need to do a better job of doing the things that we know have a chance at reducing retail theft, those kinds of things - doesn't seem like we're meaningfully investing in the things that have shown to successfully help that. But it looks like, especially amidst so many reports of record profits from some of these same corporations, that maybe this is just a really convenient way to avoid saying our idea didn't work. [00:26:28] EJ Juárez: I think a lot about what has Target, the corporation, done to advocate to make those areas around their stores more livable, more walkable, safe, right? It's a little bit like - I'm gonna grab my toys and go because I don't like the situation I'm in - but I'm not gonna do anything to voice that concern and I'm not actually gonna advocate for policies that improve the conditions around my enterprise's footprint. And had we had a robust response from Target getting involved in those neighborhoods - saying we are here to advocate for our neighborhoods - then I think the lament around closing these stores could be more genuine, but we just didn't see that, and that's a shame. [00:27:07] Crystal Fincher: I do wanna give a shout out real quick to Seattle's Green Jacket Queen, who - we'll link the story in our show notes - but a few people did an excellent job, but one woman in particular went viral after Fox News was doing some Seattle man-on-the-street interviews, trying to basically engage in the "Seattle is Dying" discourse, saying that there are addicts all over the place and rampant crime and carjacking and people shooting up and blah, blah, blah. And she had time that day and she took full advantage of it and basically just was ready - mocked the interviewer - it was just absolutely hilarious. And did not play into the incorrect framing, the incorrect facts, and just plainly stated - No, most people are not walking around scared or worried for their safety. Someone else talked about - The way to address crime is by addressing basic needs, and that helps people get their way out of that is a much more effective way of dealing with that as a community and as a society. And also Green Jacket Lady called out just the fearmongering - the reporter tried to say, I saw people shooting up. Were they bothering you? Oh no, I was in my car. Oh no, in your car. It gave me so much life. I was just so happy to see that - it seems like the city was - because we are starved for pushbacks on these narratives that don't match the reality of what people are living on the ground in the city. [00:28:33] EJ Juárez: I think we're also starved for people that aren't giving us the political speak, that aren't talking in big meta-level stuff. We saw a star born in real time on Fox News and this woman was basically just the embodiment of that meme from a couple of years ago with - Oh, you don't like me? Oh, whatever, you don't care. This is Fox News and it was treated with the exact seriousness that Fox News deserved in the heart of Seattle, which was - You are playing in my face, get out of here. You are not representing our values, get out of here. And I think the fact that she called him out so beautifully - and kindly - with humor, You were in your car. You felt harm in your car driving by? That is the most, I think, Seattle thing ever. And also, how we get painted in the national media by some of these more conservative outlets. So I want this woman to run for mayor. I want her to run for governor. I think I'm ready to go knock on some doors. [00:29:31] Crystal Fincher: Shoot, if she's ready, I will volunteer my services. Let's go. But I will say - she went viral nationally, basically - that's a situation that can have a few pros, but also several cons. And you don't always volunteer to be thrust into the spotlight. I will say I'm impressed - like I saw a few people who chimed in and were like, Oh, that's my friend, I know her. But that I still don't know her name is just a credit to the quality of her friends - not putting all her business out there, maintaining her privacy - which she deserves. If she ever wants to co-host a Friday show, invitation is open. But I also love that her friends are protective of her in that way and not putting her business out there. I saw Melissa Santos with Axios wrote an article, wound up getting in contact with her - and she said she wanted to stay anonymous. We absolutely respect that. And I respect that her friends have made that possible for her. [00:30:25] EJ Juárez: Love it. I'll still buy the merch. Make it happen, Green Jacket Lady - I'm ready. [00:30:30] Crystal Fincher: But I am down. I am ready to ride, Green Jacket Lady. If you ever want to, hit me up. And I just want to close the day talking about a study that says what many of us know, but that if you follow a lot of the legislation being passed - the state level and in many cities - you would wonder why they're doing it. A study finding that decriminalization did not increase overdose deaths at all in Washington or Oregon, which is what many people have been saying - taking a public health approach to drug use is the most effective way to deal with both addiction and just all of the issues surrounding that. And we heard a lot of misinformation, whether it's from the Legislature passing the Blake legislation and increasing criminalization of drug use to conversations in the city of Seattle and elsewhere - talking about the importance of cracking down on drug use, because that's the only way that they'll see. And once again, basically the opposite is the case. And the premise for cracking down being that going soft doesn't work, and people are using drugs more than ever, and ODing more than ever, and we need to crack down to get people safe - just doesn't track with reality. [00:31:45] EJ Juárez: Yeah, I think this was a fairly limited study of only about a year since these things have been passed recently. I think that the critical piece of this is that study needs to continue so that we can see year after year that this first set of data holds. And the fact that it did not show a demonstrable increase in these types of crimes or deaths - this is what anecdotally advocates have been saying, this is what they know from first-hand experience working with those communities. And it's nice to see science looking at policy and it getting the attention it deserves to cut through the noise. And I wanna commend the fact that this study was done. I wanna commend the fact that like they found the grant funding to do this because - especially in the polarizing time that we're in and the really punitive time that we're in, I think researchers and academics who are engaging in this type of work for the public good are often under attack and this is what we need more of. Also, I appreciate the fact that they're looking at two very concrete areas - Washington and Oregon - which are pointed out by national media and others as these places where it's all out of control. But yet it doesn't really match the data, so we know this is getting spun up by people who have different goals than actually helping people. [00:32:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And it is good to see this data that's directly applicable to our state in Washington and in Oregon. This does align with several other studies and trials that have been done elsewhere - across the world, really. The War on Drugs is a failure, it's ineffective. And we see alternative paths that get better results and we just refuse to do that. Again, it's not that drugs aren't a problem, it's not that nothing needs to be done - but doing what we know won't work time after time is getting really tiring, it's getting really expensive, and we're losing the opportunity to do so much other good because we're determined to keep following this path which has not been fruitful at all. So with that, I think we will conclude the news of the day. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, September 29th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is the former director of Progressive Majority, who's transitioned into public service and remains involved in numerous political efforts across Washington, EJ Juárez. You can find EJ on Twitter @EliseoJJuarez. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter. You can find me on Twitter, on Blue Sky, on wherever you wanna find me - I'm pretty much @finchfrii everywhere. You can also get Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or 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 shows delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and courts, Ashley Nerbovig! Ashley and Crystal discuss (and rant!) about continued and international outrage over Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) leaders caught on body cam laughing about a fellow Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer running over and killing Jaahnavi Kandula - how the SPOG contract makes it near impossible to discipline or fire officers, Mayor Bruce Harrell's responsibility in creating the mess by voting for the contract as a City councilmember and in possibly getting us out of it by delivering a better one from the current negotiations, and how our recruiting problem is a culture problem in a competitive marketplace. The show then covers passage of the War on Drugs 2.0 bill by Seattle City Council, the start of the trial for three Tacoma officers accused of murdering Manny Ellis, and a rally held by Seattle City employees for fair pay. 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, Ashley Nerbovig, at @AshleyNerbovig. Resources “Tanya Woo, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 2” from Hacks & Wonks   “Tammy Morales, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 2” from Hacks & Wonks   “Seattle Police Officer Probably Won't Get Fired for Laughing about Jaahnavi Kandula's Death” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Police response time to Wing Luke Museum 911 calls raises questions about priorities” by Libby Denkmann and Sarah Leibovitz from KUOW   “Seattle Police Officer Hurls Racist Slur at Chinese-American Neighbor” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “‘Feel safer yet?' Seattle police union's contempt keeps showing through” by Danny Westneat from The Seattle Times   “Amid SPD controversy, Mayor Harrell leads with empathy” from Seattle Times Editorial Board   “Seattle Launches Drug War 2.0” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Council Passes New Law Empowering City Attorney to Prosecute People Who Use Drugs in Public” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   @daeshikjr on Twitter: “BREAKING: Seattle City Councilmembers revived a recently voted down bill that many community activists are calling War on Drugs 2.0. We spoke with Sara on her campaign trail about her experience with drugs, mushrooms, and what she hoped to accomplish while in office. …”   “Trial begins for Tacoma officers charged with killing Manuel Ellis” by Jared Brown from KNKX   “Trial of 3 Tacoma police officers accused of killing Manuel Ellis in 2020 gets underway” by Peter Talbot from The News Tribune   “Historic trial begins for 3 officers charged in killing of Manny Ellis” by Patrick Malone from The Seattle Times   @tacoma_action on Twitter: “Here's how you can support the family of Manuel Ellis during the trial…”   Trial Information for State v. Burbank, Collins and Rankine | Pierce County Courts & Law    “City Workers Rally Their Asses Off” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   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 this week's topical shows, we continued our series of Seattle City Council candidate interviews. All 14 candidates for 7 positions were invited and we had in-depth conversations with many of them. This week, we presented District 2 candidates, Tanya Woo and Tammy Morales. Have a listen to those and stay tuned over the coming weeks - we hope these interviews will help voters better understand who these candidates are and inform their choices for the November 7th general election. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program for the first time, today's co-host: staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and courts - and rocking that coverage - Ashley Nerbovig. Hello. [00:01:42] Ashley Nerbovig: Hey, Crystal - thanks. Hi. [00:01:43] Crystal Fincher: Glad to have you on the show. We have no shortage of things to talk about and particularly this week where everything public safety was exploding, imploding, just all over the place. I want to start off talking about a story that is now making international headlines - the release of the video of an SPD officer, a SPOG executive, mocking the death of Jaahnavi Kandula, who was killed by another policeman while she was just a pedestrian just walking and run over by a policeman who - it didn't seem like he had his lights and sirens on, going over 70 miles per hour. Just such a tragedy in the first place, and then outrage was the dominant feeling nationally, internationally when that video came out. What is going to happen or what does it look like is going to happen? You wrote a great piece this week about that. [00:02:42] Ashley Nerbovig: Yeah, he's not gonna get fired - for sure - unless something wildly out of the normal process happens. And even if that does, the arbitration process is such that they would look at the SPOG contract and be like - There was nothing in this that he did that's actually fireable. - and it's super frustrating to watch. And in that story, I break down how we've seen these cases before - that cops have said really outrageous stuff, or even done something pretty outrageous, or something that the public looks at as pretty outrageous - and the reaction has been either it's a written reprimand or it's unsustained findings. One of the examples I gave was that there was multiple officers in one car who - one of them said - they accelerate toward protesters, people can be heard to be laughing. And so one of them says - I effing hate these people - or something along those lines. And because they couldn't narrow it in and prove who said it, and none of the cops inside said who said it - it's frustrating, but it also makes sense when you read the SPOG contract - because they have to prove beyond a preponderance of evidence, which is more than 50%, which sounds like a pretty low standard to hop over. But actually, I think they did a review of a bunch of different cops' policies on what they have to prove to require discipline across the country and SPD is in a very small minority - the majority of people have something that's lower or at a preponderance of evidence, and our standard is right above it. You see all of this outrage, and then you see Andrew Lewis and Lisa Herbold and Mayor Harrell and SPOG all say, essentially - We want to watch the OPA process, we're excited to watch that investigation. - as if they don't know that anyone reading the SPOG contract, anyone who's read enough OPA cases knows that this is going to end in the cop continuing to be on the force. And to some extent, you can make the argument that if this was one isolated comment, maybe it wouldn't be a firing that was justified. But when you look at his entire career, and then when you also look at what the actual other punishments are, right? You can get suspended, but you don't have that suspension served consecutively - you can serve it throughout a year. So it means that - the whole point of having a suspension is that they don't get paid, and it hurts their bottom line, and it's something to avoid. If you're just serving out a 15-day suspension over a year, and then you're making it up with tons of overtime, what are the consequences for cops in this city? And the answer is that our police accountability systems do not have actual consequences for our officers right now. [00:05:28] Crystal Fincher: Not at all. And it's infuriating. And this has kicked off a conversation that we've had before - just talking about the SPOG contract and the importance of that - there are a lot of people who are new here who weren't paying attention several years ago. There was an attempt that the City of Seattle - the council in particular - attempted to do this. They passed police accountability legislation that tightened that up. But then the current SPOG contract that's in place - was approved by Mayor Harrell on the council, by the way, who voted for the current contract that is currently handcuffing him and preventing him from being able to do anything about this - that superseded many of the City ordinances that dealt with this. And one thing that a lot of people don't know is that contract can supersede City law. So the things that the City thinks is happening, the process that we have - our democratic, our initiative process, the council process - all falls by the wayside when this is approved. And at the time, this was approved on a narrow vote - this was not, the conversation leading up to the approval of this current contract was not like - Oh, this looks great, it's fine. Lorena González infamously toiled over the vote that she was going to do, and later said that she regretted voting to approving it. But they were warned that this was going to happen. They were warned that moving backwards on accountability was going to produce really unsavory results. And lo and behold, here we are. So once again, we're in a situation where everyone - almost everyone - agrees. Most members of the public, of the national community, international community agree this is egregious. This is unacceptable. And the City's handcuffed because of this current contract. And I just want people to be aware that the next contract is currently being negotiated. The mayor's office - the same mayor who approved this current contract - is currently negotiating this next contract. And is Bruce Harrell going to ensure that something like this can't happen again with no remedy, or recourse, or consequence? That's really going to be up to how this contract is negotiated and structured. I don't know what's going to happen with this officer in this incident - he has a long record himself of issues, complaints - and I don't know what's happening with that is going to go through this process. But the executive's office, the council who will ultimately have to approve this contract does have a say in whether or not something like this can happen again. And I think they owe the residents of the city assurances that this shouldn't happen. We're seeing so many of these examples. This isn't the first example of a death mocked - it's just the first one that we have on video that's public. There was a tombstone before, there's been social media posts before. And also the fact that this was, I believe, VP of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. When you have leaders doing this - similar to the assistant police chief in Kent who displayed literal Nazi memorabilia - that speaks to culture. These are leaders. These are people dictating what we have here. And tangentially, and this is going on while we're having a conversation about police being short-staffed, while we're having a conversation about how hard it is to recruit - after the city has thrown money and recruitment bonuses and retainment bonuses at people. And can we just acknowledge that someone looking at this, now that they have the choice to join any police department, basically, they want to - they're all hiring - why would they join Seattle? This is the recruiting problem here. It's this culture. It's this continued drumbeat of toxic, distasteful stuff. [00:09:06] Ashley Nerbovig: I think you're right about it being a culture problem. But I also think that the strength of our SPOG contract - you could make an argument that these are some of the most protected City employees. And it's across the board that people don't want to be cops. And it makes sense because even if you take away all of the controversies, local governments overall are struggling right now to recruit people for any job. And then on top of it, you're talking about a job that requires a lot of no work from home - we've had a complete culture shift in what we value about work. And I think when you look at what the job of being a cop is, it's you have to live in a certain location, basically, you can live - although Auderer lives in Olympia, I think, so you can live far away - but you have to be able to go to work in-person. And then on top of it, you're tied to all of this really negative associations that we have with cops, and this shift in how we've thought about cops. And you're competing in a really tight job market where there's a lot of really - yes, you get a lot of money being a Seattle police officer, but that requires a lot of overtime. You can make that same money just like having a normal 40-hour workweek if you work something tech, and it can also be more flexible and more remote. I just think that the problem is exactly that being a cop is not appealing, and we can't change that - no one wants these jobs. And so why are we not talking about what people do want to work and starting from that place of - people do want to help people. I think a lot of cops in those positions talk about reshifting budget priorities, and that would mean changing their jobs. But cops were the first people to tell me that they didn't want to be social workers, that they weren't trying to do social work - and that they felt like they didn't have the tools and they weren't the people to be doing mental health intervention, or drug abuse intervention. Or homelessness intervention. You can't help someone unsheltered when you're a cop. The only thing cops can do is jail. I thought something really interesting - I know this is something we're going to talk about in a bit - and I really want to say something that I thought about with the SPOG contract. One of the things that I can't remember if it was Teresa Mosqueda or Morales who said it, but one of them was like - If we aren't funding these treatment options - when they were talking about the drug vote - If we aren't funding these treatment options, and we aren't funding these diversion programs, the only thing cops are going to be able to do if they want to get someone off the street is put them in jail. And I think that people have this idea that cops have other options, but that's their tool. It's not a choice for them. The only solution for cops is to arrest - that is their main job activity. And just this idea that people don't want these jobs, they are not effective for the problems that we have, and yet we have this desperation - and Bruce Harrell has this desperation to cling to tough-on-crime policies. And it's dumb. And you don't see any solutions, but people like to pretend like they saw some improvement - when they just like the feeling of, oh - you don't see anything change when you put a tough-on-crime policy. There's this idea that all of our - anytime we do something that's like violence intervention or like a community-based approach - that we don't see the results very quickly. And it always is so funny to me, because I'm like, you don't see - no one in their day-to-day life, if we tomorrow said you can arrest - other than maybe someone who went downtown and all of the homeless people, we can't even put anyone in the King County Jail. So I don't know what they're talking about right now, but you don't actually see a marked improvement - you just get a shift in media narratives - that's all that changes, really, in my opinion. [00:12:49] Crystal Fincher: This is the same thing that we're doing - and your point is exactly correct - we're only funding one thing. And what you fund, what you put resources to, is what you're going to have. We are so desperately short of other support services, behavioral health support services. And there are entities in the process of addressing that, right? Absolutely frustrating that it's not here now, there is some work being done there. So progress is being made largely at the county level and regionally. But this is not going to work. This is the same old thing. The thing that I find troubling, particularly as a progressive political consultant, is that this makes passing progressive policy harder. Because if you dress something up like progressive policy - Oh, it's really important that we treat root causes. And yeah, we all believe it. - and they all say that until it's time to actually put their money where their mouth is, to actually do the thing, to implement it. And then what we get is this warmed-over piece of legislation that does one of the things - yes, we can arrest - and makes it harder than it was before to do the other things. And it was astronomically hard before. We know what's going to happen with this. So the real question is, so what are they going to blame for the failure of this next? What excuse is coming up next? I talk to a lot of people, lay people, some people - I just like hearing an unfiltered opinion of someone who's not an insidery insider and paying attention to all the policy and stuff. And you would be shocked by how many people who are - they don't consider themselves super leftist, probably general Democrats, but they don't really pay attention to much - who are under the impression that Seattle's progressive city council has run amok. And it's like, when it comes to public safety, they are not passing progressive policy. Unfortunately, the conservative council - that is the policy that we have and that we've continued. And when everybody rushes to put that label on it - we're going to see a lot of political communication coming up soon, where I'm sure everybody is going to call themselves a progressive, probably pragmatic progressive, responsible progressive - but like they cling to that word and they want to present their policy is that. But when it's not, all it does is hurt actual progressive policy. So it's important for people to stand up and be like - No, we see that, and we see that it's not what the community is demanding and asking for. It's just really frustrating. We should probably get back to some of this news a little bit. [00:15:02] Ashley Nerbovig: There's just one last thing I want to say about Danny Westneat - this is going back a couple topics, but it was something that you said about the SPOG contract and that this is the leadership of SPOG. And Danny had a - bless his heart, he tried, probably - I quote tweeted it when I read the first couple of graphs. And then I went back and read his whole column about Auderer - I can't even say his last name - but the SPOG VP's comments. And he said quite a few things that were just absolutely ridiculous, where he talks about how SPOG uses public safety as a bargaining chip and says essentially - Oh, it'd be a shame if something happened to this beautiful city of yours. And then he goes on to give them that bargaining chip and say that Seattle desperately needs more cops. And then he goes to talking about how - he names a city that basically did defund because they also broke up their cop union. And it's just such a wild series of thoughts. And he concludes it on - SPOG needs to clean house. And it's so frustrating - even if you're just thinking of it logically - if you are a member of SPOG, and your vice president has gotten out of this many OPA investigations with little to no punishment - you don't think they know who is leading them? That's who I want as my union vice president - I want someone who's gotten away with a bunch of stuff - that is how you stay safe and stay protected - and who's going to clean house - the leadership? The leadership is the problem. Anyway, I just wanted to fully round that out by giving Danny like a 2 out of 5 stars on that column. [00:16:35] Crystal Fincher: There are a lot of people who are like - Wow, okay, didn't think there was going to be a day where many of them agreed with Danny Westneat. He got some of the way there. I think one of the challenges with that is a tendency to view unions as separate from workers, and the union as separate from the cops. They are elected by their peers in the union - this is representative of the culture, this is the result of them saying these are the people we feel best represent us. And this is what it is. If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is - but here we are. And it's hard for me to separate SPOG versus police because SPOG is police. And it's just time we had a serious conversation about real accountability. And it's a tangible conversation - there is someone responsible for this, there is an intervention that can work here - we can negotiate this. It's up to the mayor, the people on negotiating committee, it's up to the council who's going to approve this. This doesn't just happen - they're permitted to happen by a contract that is in place. And if we're unhappy with it, and if City Hall can't see that the people are unhappy with a contract that enables this, the question is - particularly for Bruce Harrell, who is the boss of the police department - they literally report to him, police chief literally reports to him, direct report, his responsibility. What is he going to do now? Is he going to respond to this and say, I'm going to ensure this doesn't happen again? Because that's a buck-stops-here attitude that is normally expected of an executive. That's the job. What is he going to do to ensure this doesn't happen again? How is he going to live up to his word that he's going to improve the culture and improve public safety? We're waiting. And it seems like they're just permitting this. They're just - Oh, that's too bad. [00:18:20] Ashley Nerbovig: The Seattle editorial board said he's been leading with empathy. If anyone really wants to rage out, read that editorial. I don't know if Bruce called and said he was going to cancel the whole city's subscription to The Seattle Times, but it's just absolute garbage. Kandula was killed while Officer Kevin Dave was responding to a guy who had too much cocaine and wasn't even ODing. Rich, my editor, said this to me earlier this week, where he was like, we were talking about the drug vote, and he was saying - This is just another example of how cops shouldn't be the ones responding to people overdosing. EMTs can go to these things. [00:18:56] Crystal Fincher: And do in most other cities - without police, to be clear. [00:18:59] Ashley Nerbovig: And you mentioned earlier that it was unclear about his lights. And I don't know for sure what was going on there, because I know his in-car video wasn't working. But I've read another OPA case where someone had said that a cop was just turning on his lights and sirens to get through red lights - and the justification for that that they showed was that it was like - oh, he was tactically using his lights and sirens, which means that they only turn them on to get through lights and stuff, even though he's responding to a call. And when they do that, it means that their in-car video doesn't turn on. And that's allowed because - oh, it's a tactic. And super curious to see the end of this OPA report for Kevin Dave. EMTs are not worried about sneaking up on people - they just turn on their lights and go. But yeah, it's going to be really frustrating to watch. [00:19:45] Crystal Fincher: So now can you break down what this legislation does? Because I've seen it characterized in a number of different ways - Oh, it's making drugs illegal. It's like doing different things. What did this legislation actually change? [00:19:56] Ashley Nerbovig: This particular piece of legislation - to do my full roundup of this - everybody knows that in 2021, the Washington Supreme Court struck down our felony drug possession law. The Washington State Legislature scrambled to pass something - and they passed this idea of we're going to do two referrals to treatment before we arrest anyone, and we're only going to arrest on a misdemeanor, and that went across the state for people in possession of drugs. That went on for two years and it was unworkable - they didn't structure it, they didn't create a database for people to be marking referrals - it's called a stopgap measure. It was one of those things where it was a really half thought-out piece of what potentially could be progressive legislation, did more harm than just making it a misdemeanor and then trying to talk about decriminalization a little bit later - I think that might have actually ended up being strategically a better way to go, except you would have seen a bunch of people arrested in that time. The result is that they came back this session and they said - Okay, no. They had that big fight and they said - We're going to make it a gross misdemeanor, your first two offenses you're going to get a maximum sentence of 180 days, any offenses after that you're going to go up to 364 days. And they said - We prefer people defer to treatment, we prefer cops defer. - that was one thing that Herbold and Lewis both kept saying is - their City bill, that it was different from the state bill and that it starts the diversion out of the system process at the cop level before people even have a case started, whereas they kept describing the state bill as getting started. There are multiple places throughout the system that you can get diverted - you can get diverted before you get arrested so there's never anything on your record, you can get diverted after you've been arrested by the cops and now the prosecutors are in charge of your case and they defer any charges or defer any charges from getting actually convicted and then you're able to get it off of your record. So that's deferred prosecution. And then there's, you can get stuff - after you've been sentenced, you can get stuff wiped off your record. The argument that the City was making in how their bill was different from the state bill is they're saying - Oh, we really make it clear that our policy is not to arrest. The state bill does too. They say that it's their preference that people are diverted to treatment rather than be arrested. They also put a bunch of deferred prosecution stuff in there to divert people out of the system once they have charges against them. It's easier to talk about what this bill didn't do. It set a policy that said - This is our preference by the City of Seattle. So the state law was already in place. And now because it's a misdemeanor, state law passes - that starts in August, like everything gets implemented. So technically, cops could find people who were using drugs in public or possessing drugs in public and arrest them on a gross misdemeanor. And I think the using is such an interesting part of this, because there's nothing about possession as a charge that doesn't get at the same thing that public use does. When you make it all about public use and you add public use plus possession to this law, it is such a dog whistle towards people who are just mad at unhoused people. Morales said something really clear in the City Council vote, which was that this bill is not going to curb public use because the people who this bill is targeting have nowhere else to use. And so the state law passes, SPD cops can do this. But if SPD cops right now in Seattle - or right before this, because Harrell signed the bill yesterday - before this bill passed, if they arrested someone, their charges, because Seattle doesn't have its own ordinance, would have gone to Leesa Manion's office, the King County Prosecutor's, which would have made a ton of sense. King County Prosecutor's has a bunch of programs already in place for this - they've already been dealing with felony versions of this for a long time. But her office did a weird thing and got really like - We don't have the misdemeanor staff to handle this and these felony drug courts that we have wouldn't even apply to this. They did a bunch of workarounds - they really quashed the idea of these cases getting referred to them really early on, or at least they asked for money from us that apparently City Council just was unwilling to try to negotiate - or they were unwilling to negotiate trying to work out a contract. I never really understood what her motivations were with that or were slamming it down so hard. And so the City said - We're going to implement this ordinance and we're going to send these cases to our city attorney, Republican Ann Davison. So that's what this law does is that it doesn't - anyone who describes it - all that this law does is say that now Ann Davison can prosecute these cases, and also we would really like it if cops didn't arrest people on these charges. And it says - and I'll give them this - it adds a bunch of paperwork that cops now need to have when they do arrest someone on a drug possession charge. But I think Morales really summed it up really well where she said - This does not expand any diversion, it doesn't expand any treatment. - and this is probably a little bit more opinion-based, but - It doesn't improve public safety in any way. And I think that's so key is that we can ask - even if it's not, even if you aren't someone that believes in the nefarious, like that cops are all like Auderer and don't care about behavioral health and don't really look at people who are addicts on the street as someone that needs public health intervention - let's buy the premise that there are well-meaning cops out there who want to take these people to treatment. We do not have resources. And this idea that - in the City Council staff member, or the City Council Central Staff's memo, they said - Diversion requires social workers. These are actually much longer, much more resource-intensive cases. And cops are going to maybe divert the first or second time that they find someone, but then there's no resources to pick that person up - there's nothing to actually help them, maybe they're not ready to get treatment yet. And at some point, they're just going to arrest them and they're going to go through all of the charges. And maybe they're not going to go to jail because King County won't take them right now, but it's creating the structure for that. And they're still going to have to continue to show up at municipal court until they get something on their record that ends up putting them in jail. And we know how bad jail is - we know that it increases the chances of overdose. I think this bill kills people - I think that's the bottom line of what this bill does - is that it's going to kill a bunch of people, and make a bunch of people poorer, and do nothing to curb drug addiction, and fill our jails, and just continue the cycle of mass incarceration. [00:26:51] Crystal Fincher: The outcomes from this type of policy are clear. We have so much information about what happens when you do just fund, enable sending people to jail without doing anything to address the root causes for why they're there. Also, there are some people rejoicing over this - like it is going to help - I'll be curious to see their evaluation after a period of time, to see what their perception of what results. But it's just frustrating because we could choose to do what has shown to be effective elsewhere. Everybody is frustrated. I don't think anyone is happy. I don't want to be in a space where someone is using publicly, right? And perhaps inhaling secondhand something or whatever. But I also recognize that generally people who do use in public don't have another place to use. And if it is an issue of - addiction isn't logical, right? Addiction isn't reasonable. It's not - Oh, there are consequences for me going to jail now, so I'm just going to stop being addicted. The thing about addiction is that you can't decide to stop being addicted. It's not up to you. And that people fall into addiction for a variety of reasons. And being addicted is a reality that so many people face - to treat it as like they're less than human for struggling with that particular issue is ridiculous. But we do that from a public safety perspective. And as you said, this is going to largely wind up targeting the homeless - that's usually who this applies to - people. We can talk about the drug habits of executives and rich people, and the rates of drug use are not low across the board. I always find it so curious. We drug test minimum wage and low wage workers, but not high wage executives. I'm pretty confident what results we would see if we did that. There's an interesting video with Sara Nelson - yeah, speaking of politicians using drugs, and then voting on drug ordinances - but Sara Nelson has a place to use privately. That's the difference. [00:28:52] Ashley Nerbovig: Because we're going after public use, we're not going after possession. And the casual way she talks about it - you are aware that you are growing drugs, and you're telling people where to find drugs - and I can hear her argument against this, right? But the point of it is that drugs are not inherently dangerous, and it was incredibly frustrating to watch that video. And then think about the fact that when this was in front of the Public Safety Committee, Mosqueda came out and said - I want to make it very clear that lots of public health agencies at this point have said that breathing in secondhand fentanyl smoke is not dangerous to your health. I am someone who opens a window if someone blows vape smoke too close to me - I don't like it, I don't want that smell, I am not totally convinced that the smell will not linger. But it's like that, right - it's a smell, I'm not worried about getting a nicotine contact high. And the way that fentanyl gets demonized as the worst drug that we've ever seen, it's part of how we can dehumanize the people who are using it. And I think it's so interesting, because if you ask someone to class their own drugs, shrooms and weed and cocaine would be the bourgeoisie of drugs - they're allowed, it's fine - alcohol. All of those things are totally fine. And the people who use them are not degenerates or any way bad. Maybe cocaine. But for the most part, we are totally okay with those kinds of drugs, no matter how alcohol is still one of the most harmful substances in our society. Whenever I call the King County Medical Examiner's Board to get the overdose deaths, it's overdose deaths and deaths due to alcoholism. But they're longer term, right? So I'm not saying that - fentanyl is absolutely killing people - it's in everything. And it is a new, very scary problem because we don't have a ton of ways to treat it. But it doesn't change the fundamentals of what we're seeing, which is you had someone like Sara Nelson who struggled with her own story of addiction. But as soon as it becomes a drug that they view as dirty or not fun to scavenge for, you get this attitude of - We need to crack down on this. And that's how it's got to be a punishment-based system - it's not a conversation, it's not help, it's not treatment - we've got to really show these people the errors, the way to be, and improve their life. And it's just so condescending. [00:31:30] Crystal Fincher: This is the crack playbook at play. And again, to be clear, not at all saying that fentanyl is not very troublesome, problematic, and that we don't want people using that. Those are all true. But to say somehow a unique and unsolvable addiction issue as opposed to opioids, as opposed to all of the other things. The one thing that we know is that there are new drugs created all the time for a variety of things. There's going to be something more potent. Fentanyl is not the last, right? It's just the current. There is going to be a next. We've been playing this cat and mouse game with the War on Drugs, with all that we're doing - it's here. But hearing the language around that is the same tactic that happened with crack, right? And the justification to pass a ton of laws, super harsh penalties, mandating mandatory time, adding it as a strike for possessing crack, lower thresholds for dealing and all of that, as opposed to cocaine, which was used by a different demographic largely and fueled there. This is pretty transparent. And unfortunately, you hear a lot of the rhetoric in public meetings. You hear it from people - Oh man, this fentanyl, these people are like zombies, this is something completely new we haven't seen before. Those are all the same things that they said with crack. Those are all the same things that they say with the new drug that they want to use when they're in the mood to crack down and jail people - here is where we're at. Acting like fentanyl is just - oh, if you're addicted, you're lost, you're hopeless, is untrue. It is a dangerous drug. We need to address it. Public health approaches have a better record of doing that than punitive jail-based approaches. But it's a problem that we do need to get our arms around, but we make it harder to do that when we pursue policies to jail - which are very expensive to do in every single way. And then say - Sorry, we just don't have the resources to provide more treatment services, to provide more behavioral health services, to provide more housing, to provide detox for people. Those are all necessary for us to deal with this problem, and we just aren't doing it. I would like to do it. I would like to meaningfully address this - most people would - but this makes it much harder. I do want to talk about this week, a very important - and for our state historic - trial starting, of the three officers accused of murdering Manny Ellis. What is happening here? [00:33:58] Ashley Nerbovig: Yeah. So they're still in jury selection. It's going to be a long, drawn-out process. I think opening statements start October 2nd. And for people who don't know the case, Manny Ellis was an unarmed Black man who was in Tacoma - this was March before George Floyd's death, and there are so many parallels. Everything that is terrible about George Floyd is terrible in this case. Bob Ferguson comes in, says that he's going to investigate this case, does an investigation. Tacoma Police Department does not cooperate with Washington State Patrol. Washington State Patrol and AG Ferguson ends up creating this probable cause statement and now three officers, three men are all on trial this week. Or the trial is starting and jury selection is starting. And there's one guy who - I can't remember his name now - but he's live tweeting all of it. And there's been some really interesting tidbits. One of the jurors - the judge asked if there were any jurors who might have conflicts presiding over a case involving law enforcement, no one raised their hands, and then the judge looks at this guy and says - But didn't you say you have a brother in law enforcement? And there's no other details, but that's where it's starting right now. And it'll be a really interesting case - it's horrible to see these cases get to this point - and you wonder about, I don't know anything about the disciplinary records of these cops. But yeah, that's where it's starting. And that's the background on it. [00:35:14] Crystal Fincher: And certainly - it's a trial. And I generally try not to follow these things or get emotionally invested in these trials - for good reason - they often don't seem to wind up with justice, and even what is justice when your loved one, someone you care about, a human being is killed. And just also lifting up - we hear about all these cases around the country - we have more than enough here locally. There's another police officer from Auburn currently awaiting trial for killing Jesse Sarey in Auburn. It's really troubling. And we also have family and friends of Manny dealing with this and having to once again hear the horrific details of this killing. And they're continuing to call for the firing of the cops who've been on payroll this entire time, who are still on payroll. There's a GoFundMe for the family. And court is something that people can show up to and show support if they want to do that also. It's a tragedy. And I hope the family is able to find peace and healing and that this can assist with that. I have no idea where they stand on this, but certainly, I'm thinking of them as this trial continues to go on. Last thing I want to talk about today is Seattle City employees rallying for fair pay. Why did this rally happen? [00:36:38] Ashley Nerbovig: Shout out to Hannah Krieg - she got all the great quotes for this one. This rally happened because apparently, and I'm quoting directly from her story - Bruce Harrell is funny, he's a funny guy, and if this is true, I believe it - Mayor Harrell told them to rally their asses off. The City started their negotiations for a pay increase of 1% and has settled on a pay increase of 2%. And the City workers are saying that's an insane way to start negotiations in one of the most expensive cities in the country. She puts this really good stat in there - that's a pay cut as the cost of, a 1% cost of living adjustment or even a 2% cost of living adjustment is a pay cut as the cost of living rose 8.7% this year. It's really important to note that the SPOG contract guarantees at minimum like a 1.5%, I think - I did a little tweet about this - it's plus COLA or something. But effectively, regardless of what their contract says, they have never gone a year without at least a 3% increase. Lieutenants and higher up guilds just got like a 4% increase. Sometimes I'll get these emails from the mayor's office that's - I'm really like unhappy with how you've portrayed us as prioritizing police. We really prioritize like other things too. - and it's, you can see it, where their money is going. So the workers are contract, are striking because they're not getting, at minimum, just keeping up with inflation. And the City of Seattle seems to think this is just like across the board, boy to cut is in general services and for the city. And that's - I really encourage people to follow Hannah's coverage on this because she's really on top of it. [00:38:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's really challenging. We talked about police saying they have a shortage of officers and all of the action that has been taken to fix that including a retention bonus, healthy retention bonuses. And so we're talking about the shortages in the rest of the city, and it just doesn't seem like there is the interest in making sure the City is able to provide essential services and the level of service for everything that is currently happening and that people expect. There have been several council candidates who have said and agreed with - Yeah, we should be giving City workers the same kind of retention bonuses, investing in their retention, doing something tangible to actually address the shortage here. And we're going to be seeing Mayor Harrell's budget come out pretty soon. It's going to be interesting to see how he deals with that and what it is because a budget is a value statement - that's a document of values - where you're spending your money is what you value the most. And other things - you can talk about them and say they're great, but if you aren't funding them, clearly they were lower on the priority list in your estimation. And he may have his reasons to justify that. But it is disingenuous to say - Oh, I completely prioritize that, I value that, and I'm just not going to fund that while I'm going to fund this other thing. So it will be interesting to see. But it seems like the City has a lot of work to do to start to step up. And everyone on the campaign trail talks about their values and making sure people can live where they work, how important that is to our economy - and it absolutely is important - again, what tangibly is going to be done about that? What are we going to see in that budget? And if not, just what is really the tangible impact of that? So we'll continue to follow that. But certainly workers see some definite red flags there and are rallying to make sure people understand that this is a problem that has consequences for the entire city and beyond. And for all the plans that people say they have, they're going to rely on these employees to execute them. So we better make sure that there are people in place to deliver on the policy that we pass as a city. [00:40:34] Ashley Nerbovig: Yeah, I hope we get a strike. I think it would be good for people to feel what happens when they don't - I think that a lot of these services are invisible. And we already see that SPOG is doing all these sick-outs and they're not responding to calls - and a lot of them are blaming it on the staffing shortages. When you hear about sick-outs, you get a little bit curious about those call response times. I hope it turns into a strike because I think people do need to realize how essential these workers are. [00:41:00] Crystal Fincher: Certainly the public - some people definitely see that, some people definitely don't. But a strike will be a failure, right? We're having a rally because an initial offer was pretty insulting. It was not a serious offer. It's a pay cut. If you're starting saying - Okay, how big a pay cut are you going to take to people who are already short-staffed and overworked? Because really, let's talk about it. When we talk about short staffing, that means that the same amount of work is falling on fewer heads. And that's a hard position to be in - and many of these positions aren't like super high-paid positions anyway. People are struggling to just pay their bills and work is getting harder, and now you're going to ask them to take a pay cut. And being disrespectful when that happens - Okay, go rally your ass off. So I hope there is more respect in this process and that lines of communication open and are productive. Because strikes are disruptive, right? They're not fun, they create a lot of drama. It may come to that - and I absolutely support workers' rights to strike and sometime that's necessary to get the job done - but I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope they are able to talk. But it's going to take more respect from the City perspective, realistically - they just aren't starting in a serious place. [00:42:14] Ashley Nerbovig: Yeah, I like what you said there. It would be a failure. My chaotic evil side is - yeah, disrupt it, show people that you exist and stuff. But you're right. It would suck for these workers to have to go on strike because - the no pay and I'm sure they have a fund - you're 100% correct. What I would actually like to see is Mayor Harrell care about these people the way that he has been so consistently able to show care for our police department. [00:42:44] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, September 22, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is the incredible Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and the courts, Ashley Nerbovig. You can find Ashley on Twitter at @AshleyNerbovig, A-S-H-L-E-Y N-E-R-B-O-V-I-G. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me on just about every platform at @finchfrii, that's F-I-N-C-H F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks - wherever you want to listen to us, you can listen to us - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar of your favorite pod player. And be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen - 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 - talk to you next time.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! The show starts with the infuriating story of Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) leaders joking about a fellow Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer running over and killing Jaahnavi Kandula - how the shocking comments caught on body cam confirm suspicions of a culture in SPD that disregards life, that the SPOG police union is synonymous with the department, and whether a seemingly absent Mayor Bruce Harrell will do anything about a troubled department under his executive purview. Erica and Crystal then discuss Bob Ferguson officially entering the governor's race with Jay Inslee's endorsement, Rebecca Saldaña jumping into a crowded Public Lands Commissioner race, no charges against Jenny Durkan or Carmen Best for their deleted texts during the 2020 George Floyd protests, the latest on Seattle's drug criminalization bill, and flawed interviews for KCRHA's Five-Year Plan for homelessness. 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 Barnett, at @ericacbarnett.   Resources “Rob Saka, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 1” from Hacks & Wonks   “Maren Costa, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 1” from Hacks & Wonks   “"Write a Check for $11,000. She Was 26, She Had Limited Value." SPD Officer Jokes with Police Union Leader About Killing of Pedestrian by Fellow Cop” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “‘Feel safer yet?' Seattle police union's contempt keeps showing through” by Danny Westneat from The Seattle Times   “Handling of Jaahnavi Kandula's death brings criticism from Seattle leaders” by Sarah Grace Taylor from The Seattle Times   “Political consultant weighs in on growing Washington governor's race” by Brittany Toolis from KIRO 7 News Seattle   “Jay Inslee endorses Bob Ferguson to succeed him as WA governor” by David Gutman and Lauren Girgis from The Seattle Times   “Rebecca Saldaña Jumps into Weirdly Crowded Race for Lands Commissioner” by Rich Smith from The Stranger   “No Charges Against Durkan and Best for Deleted Texts; Investigation Reveals Holes in City Records Retention Policies” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “After Watering Down Language About Diversion, Committee Moves Drug Criminalization Bill Forward” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Harrell's “$27 Million Drug Diversion and Treatment” Plan Would Allow Prosecutions But Add No New Funding” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “The Five-Year Plan for Homelessness Was Based Largely on 180 Interviews. Experts Say They Were Deeply Flawed.” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   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 this week's topical shows, we kicked off our series of Seattle City Council candidate interviews. All 14 candidates for 7 positions were invited. And over the last week, we had in-depth conversations with many of them. This week, we presented District 1 candidates, Rob Saka and Maren Costa. Have a listen to those and stay tuned over the coming weeks - we hope these interviews will help voters better understand who these candidates are and inform their choices for the November 7th general election. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. [00:01:37] Erica Barnett: It's great to be here. [00:01:39] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back. Well, I wanna start off talking about just an infuriating story this week where Seattle police officers - a union leader - joked about killing of a pedestrian by another Seattle police officer - and just really disgusting. What happened here? [00:01:58] Erica Barnett: The Seattle Police Department and the King County Prosecutor's Office actually released this video from the night that Jaahnavi Kandula was killed by Officer Kevin Dave. It is a short clip that shows one-half of a conversation between Daniel Auderer, who is the Seattle Police Officers Guild vice president, and Mike Solan, the president of the police guild - as you said, joking and laughing about the incident that had just happened. And also minimizing the incident - so from what we can hear of Auderer's part of the conversation, he makes some comments implying that the crash wasn't that bad, that Dave was acting within policy, that he was not speeding too much - all of which was not true. He was going 74 miles an hour. The incident was very gruesome and just a horrible tragedy. Then you can hear him saying in a joking manner, "But she is dead." And then he pauses and he says, "No, it's a regular person." in response to something that Solan has said - and there's been a lot of speculation about what that might be. Then he says, "Yeah, just write a check." - after laughing - "Yeah, $11,000. She was 26 anyway, she had limited value." I'm reading the words verbatim, but I really recommend watching the video, which we posted on PubliCola.com, because you can hear the tone and you can hear the sort of cackling laughter - which I think conveys the intent a lot more clearly than just reading a transcript of it. [00:03:23] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we will link that PubliCola story with the video in our show notes, but it's just infuriating. And just to recap what happened just in the killing of her initially - that was a tragedy and an infuriating event. An officer was responding to a call that arguably police aren't needed at - in other jurisdictions, they don't seem to be needed on those types of calls - but without lights and sirens blaring, going over 70 mph on just a regular City street. And yeah, that's illegal for regular people for a reason - common sense would dictate that would be against policy - we give them lights and sirens for a reason to alert people that they're coming really fast and to clear the way. And it just seemed like Jaahnavi didn't have a chance here. And then the slow leak of information afterwards - just the event itself seemed to devalue their life and the way it was handled - and then to see this as the reaction. If their job is to keep us safe, they seem gleefully opposed to that. [00:04:28] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I think that in the aftermath of the story going national and international, I think that one of the reactions I've heard is - Well, this is how we've always thought - from people who are skeptical of the police, I should say - this is how we've always assumed they talk, but to actually hear it on tape is shocking. And I think what happened in this video, the reason we have it is because Auderer perhaps forgot his body cam was on. 'Cause after he makes his last comment about $11,000, she had limited value, he turns off the camera and we don't hear any more of that conversation. This is a rare look into one such conversation between officers. And I will say too, that there was a - Jason Rantz, a local radio personality, right-wing commentator, tried to pre-spin this by saying that this was just "gallows humor" between two officers, and this is very common in professions where you see a lot of grisly and terrible stuff. And I will just point out, first of all, gallows humor is like making a joke about, I don't know, like a 9/11 joke, you know, 20 years after the fact. It's not on the night that someone was killed, joking about her being essentially worthless and trying to minimize the incident. That's not gallows humor. That's just the way, apparently, the police union VP and president talk amongst each other. It just shows that the culture of the department - we talk a lot about City Hall, which I cover - they talk a lot about recruiting better officers and getting the right kind of police. But the problem is if the culture itself is rotten, there's no fixing that by just putting 5 new officers, 10 new officers at the bottom of the chain. It comes from the top. And that is then - these two officials are at the top of that chain. [00:06:09] Crystal Fincher: It does come from the top. And this also isn't the only time that it seems they have really distastefully discussed deaths at the hands of their officers or other people's deaths. There was a story that made the news not too long ago about them having a tombstone in one of their precincts for someone who was killed. There have been a couple officers who've had complaints for posting social media posts that seem to make fun of protesters who were run over. We have had a protester run over and killed here in the city. This is something that we've talked about that we - as a community - project that is against our values, but we continue to let this police department just mock people's safety in the city. I mean, you know something wild is happening when even Danny Westneat - who I think most people consider to be an extremely moderate, feels in-line with the Seattle Times editorial board, columnist for The Times - even he thinks SPOG has gone too far, and he's notoriously sympathetic to the police department. [00:07:15] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I think that in that article, he almost got there. The article was basically - we desperately need more police, but this darn police union just keeps messing up and saying these terrible things, so we've got to reform this police union - which I just thought was a bizarre note in an otherwise pretty reasonable article because the police union is the top. It is the people that create the culture for the rest of the department in a lot of ways, perhaps more so than the police chief and the command staff. It's made up of cops. The cops vote in the head of the police union, the vice president - they are the ones that are choosing these folks. So if the police union's culture is broken, I think that means that SPD's culture is broken. [00:07:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, unions are the culture. I feel like that's a trickle-down effect of anti-labor forces trying to paint unions as separate entities as workers. They are the workers. They're elected and selected by workers. So if anything, they seem to be the distillation of the culture. And there is a problem - I don't think that's controversial to say, I don't think that's even in dispute anymore - widely across this. And there've been, again, lots of people pointing out these problems for years and years. And it feels like this is where we arrive at if we ignore this for so long. As I talked about in the opening, we just got done with a large round of Seattle City Council candidate interviews. And it was really interesting to hear, particularly from a few of them - there's three that I'm thinking of, that people will eventually hear - but who will talk about the need for more cops, who will talk about how important it is to rebuild trust with the community. But over and over again, it seems like they put it completely on the community to be responsible for coddling, and repairing the relationship, and building trust. And it seems like that needs to start on the other side. This is not even something that in polite society would happen, right? These are disgusting comments and disgusting beliefs, no matter who has them or where they come from. And we basically have sanctioned and hand over the power to violate people's civic rights to a department where this happens. And it's just a real challenge. And we have several councilmembers right now who have talked about needing to bring accountability and reform the police department in campaign materials when they were running. And it just seems like that dropped off the face of the earth. This should be a priority. But more than everything else, I wanna talk about the responsibility that the mayor has here - it's like he disappears in these conversations and we talk about the council and we talk about the police department. Bruce Harrell is their boss. Bruce Harrell is the executive in charge here. Chief Adrian Diaz serves at the pleasure of, is appointed by the mayor. This is the executive's responsibility. The buck literally stops with him on this. And he seems to just be largely absent. I think I saw comments that he may have issued an apology this morning, but - Where is he on talking about the culture? Where is his outrage? Where is he in dealing with this? And this is happening amid a backdrop of a SPOG contract negotiation. How is he going to address the issues here in this contract? Or are we gonna paper over it? There's a lot talked about - one of his chief lieutenants, Tim Burgess, a former police officer, and how sympathetic he's been to police - and is that going to create a situation where this is yet another event that goes unaddressed in policy, and we don't put anything in place to prevent this from happening again? [00:10:45] Erica Barnett: Harrell's statement was very much like a "bad apple" statement without completing the thought, which is that a bad apple ruins the bunch - that we're disheartened by the comments of this one officer. As you said, not addressing the culture, not addressing the fact that he can actually do something about this stuff. He is the person with the power. And as you mentioned, he was basically absent - made a statement in response to some questions, but it was pretty terse, and it didn't get at the larger cultural issues that I think this does reflect. [00:11:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And I know there were comments, I saw comments from a couple of City councilmembers as of last night - calls to hear from more on their opinion on this issue. I have not seen more - we'll see if those trickle in over the coming day or two. But Bruce Harrell has the responsibility and the power to do something about this. Is he going to use it? - that's the question people should be asking, even more than what Chief Adrian Diaz is gonna do. This is unacceptable behavior. This absolutely speaks to the culture, and it's time we have someone who takes that seriously as an executive. Now, I also wanna talk about news that came out this week - that wasn't necessarily surprising, but certainly a benchmark and a milestone in a campaign - and that is current Attorney General Bob Ferguson officially announced his candidacy for governor and came with the endorsement of Jay Inslee. How do you see him as a candidate and his position in this field so far? [00:12:17] Erica Barnett: It's a big deal. I think Ferguson has been waiting patiently - or not - to run for governor for a while. He's had this trajectory - waited for Inslee when he decided to run again last time - this is the reward. I think it puts him very much in the front of the field as Inslee's successor. Obviously we'll see, but I think Inslee is a fairly popular governor. You see this in a lot of races, where you have an anointed person - the King County Council, Teresa Mosqueda is kind of similar - comes in with all the endorsements and I think is well-placed to win. So yeah, I think this puts Ferguson in a really strong position. [00:12:52] Crystal Fincher: He is in a really strong position. As we know - I wish it wasn't the case, but unfortunately it is reality - that money matters a lot in politics right now. It's the only reliable way to communicate with voters en masse. There's earned media, but there's less reporters around the state than there used to be. So paying to put communications in front of voters is something that needs to be done. Paying a staff that can manage a campaign of that scale is something that needs to be done. And Bob Ferguson is head and shoulders above everyone else - he has more than double what all of the other candidates have combined in terms of finances, so that puts him in a great position. Obviously having the endorsement of the most visible Democrat in the state right now is something that every candidate would accept - I'm sure almost every candidate on the Democratic side would accept right now. It's gonna be interesting. But I do think we still have a lot of time left, there's still a lot of conversation left. It is an interesting field from Hilary Franz to Mark Mullet, a moderate or conservative Democrat. And then on the Republican side, Dave Reichert and Semi Bird - one who I think is trading in on his reputation, at least in a lot of media stories as a moderate, but from being pro-life, anti-choice, to a number of other viewpoints - I don't know that realistically he's a moderate, just kind of a standard Republican. And then Semi Bird, who's endorsed by people like Joe Kent and others, who are definitely on the far right-wing side. So this is gonna be an interesting race. There's a lot of time left. And I still think even though Bob Ferguson - I think it's uncontroversial to say he's the front runner - still important to really examine what they believe, to talk to the voters around the state. And it seems like he's taking that seriously and vigorously campaigning. So we'll continue to follow what this race is, but it is going to be an interesting one. [00:14:54] Erica Barnett: I will say really quickly too, that Reichert does not seem to be running a particularly active campaign. He's not, from what I hear, out there doing a lot of on-the-ground campaigning the way that Ferguson has. So while I think you're gonna hear a lot about him on TV news and more right-leaning publications, I think that we're talking about the Democratic side of the field because it's very unlikely that we'll have a Republican governor - even one who has a lot of name recognition like Reichert. [00:15:20] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. So we'll continue to follow that. And just as an aside, I thought I would mention that in the race, another statewide race, for Public Lands Commissioner, State Senator Rebecca Saldaña jumped into the race - joining State Senator Mona Das, Makah Tribal member Patrick Finedays DePoe, King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, and current State Senator Kevin Van De Wege. As well as on the Republican side - I'm not sure how to pronounce her name - but Sue Kuehl Pederson. It's a crowded race that's going to be an interesting one. And I'm really curious to continue to see what Senator Rebecca Saldaña has to say, as well as the other ones. But that's a crowded race, and that one could be very interesting. [00:16:03] Erica Barnett: Absolutely. Weirdly crowded race. [00:16:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, very interesting. [00:16:06] Erica Barnett: Or surprisingly - I don't know about weirdly - but surprisingly crowded. [00:16:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, surprisingly. Rich Smith of The Stranger did an article about that this week, which we will link in the show notes. Now, I also want to talk about news we received this week about another long-standing issue tied to both public safety and a former mayor. And that's news that we received that former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best will not be facing charges for deleting texts. What was the finding here and what does this mean? [00:16:39] Erica Barnett: Yeah, as we all know, they deleted tens of thousands of texts, many of them during the crucial period when 2020 protests were going on, when they were amassing troops - so to speak - and reacting with force to people protesting police violence after George Floyd was killed. And the finding essentially was that the King County Prosecutor's Office could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these deletions had been intentional and that they were trying to effectively conceal public records. It's a pretty high standard of proof that they have to meet at the prosecutor's office. I read the entire report from the investigator - what was released to reporters earlier this week - I have to say they put a lot of faith, I think, in or at least trust in public officials' statements that they sort of didn't know anything about the City's retention policy for cell phones, for text messages. The excuse was often - Well, I thought they were being preserved in a server somewhere, so it was fine to delete them. And I asked - because I think we all know when we delete our text messages, they're gone. You can't just get them back. AT&T doesn't have a server for us somewhere where we can get our text messages. So I said - Do they not understand how cell phones work? Was there any training on this? - and the response was - Well, I would dispute that they understand how cell phones work and there was training, but it was mostly about email. There's some stuff in here that kind of strains credulity a little bit, but again, it's a high standard of proof they had to meet, so that was their argument. There's a civil case where a federal judge said that it was unlikely that they didn't know what they were doing, but he had a lower standard of proof. So that's why it's a slightly different conclusion from basically the same facts. [00:18:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think these are always interesting situation - when it comes to an actual charging decision and what's needed there. I'm sure they're considering - unfortunately in our society today, they can afford significant defenses that are not available to a lot of people - that may have factored into their decision. But overall, it just once again seems like there is a different standard for people with power than those without power. And we're having conversations about people dealing with addiction, about people shoplifting for financial reasons - and even not for financial reasons - people being assaulted and in some instances killed for petty theft, or eviction, or different things. And it seems like we have no problem cracking down and expecting perfect compliance from people without power. But those that do just don't seem to be held to the same standard of accountability. And I think that's damaging and troubling. And I think we need to explore that and make sure we do hold people accountable. And it also just doesn't, once again, escape my notice that these aren't the first controversies that either one of them dealt with that did not have the kind of accountability attached to them. And so yes, it's a slippery slope. And if you keep sliding, you're gonna wind up in a low, dirty place. And once again, this is part of what undermines people's trust in power, and in institutions, and in democracy. And we need to be doing all we can to move in the opposite direction right now - to build trust and to conduct actions with integrity. And it just doesn't seem like that is a priority everywhere - they know they can get away with it - and it's really frustrating and disheartening, and we just need to do better overall. [00:20:05] Erica Barnett: To put a fine point on one of the things that the investigation revealed to me that I was not aware of actually about public disclosure - which is that text messages, according to the City, can be deleted if they are "transitory" in nature. And "transitory" is defined as not relating to policy decisions or things of substance like that, which means that according to Durkan and Best, it was fine to delete anything that was not like - We are going to adopt this policy or propose this policy, or our policy is to tear gas all protesters or something like that. So if it's tactical in the moment, that was not preserved. But I do records requests - I get text messages from officials - and a lot of times they include stuff that Durkan and Best are defining as transitory, like text message - I mean, I'm just making this up - but an official saying this other official is a jerk or somebody. There's all kinds of sort of process related text messages and texts that give some insight to decision-making that would be considered transitory. It is entirely possible that Durkan and Best are deleting all of those kinds of messages, which is not something I think should be deleted, and that I think is in the public interest to know about if people are requesting it. So I found that very disturbing - this notion that you can just destroy records if they aren't related to policy. I think in practice, most officials know better than that - and that's just based on records requests I've done - but apparently that's a big loophole that I think should be closed in the policies at the City, if at all possible. [00:21:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now I wanna talk about the return of the drug criminalization bill in the City of Seattle. What's happening with this? [00:21:43] Erica Barnett: The City Council's Public Safety Committee voted this week to basically move it forward to the full council. There's a new version that has a lot of nice language - in the sort of non-binding whereas clauses - about we don't wanna start another drug war and we definitely, for sure for real, prefer diversion. But essentially the impact of the bill is the same as it has always been, which is to empower the city attorney to prosecute and empower police to arrest for people using drugs in public and for simple possession of drugs other than cannabis. There's some language in the bill - and including in the text of the bill itself - that says there will be a policy in the future that says that police should try to put people into diversion programs first. And there's a couple kinds of diversion programs that we fund - inadequately currently - to actually divert the number of people that would be eligible now. So the impact of this bill is, I think, going to actually be pretty limited because - unless the mayor proposes massive investments in diversion programs like LEAD, potentially like some of these pretrial diversion programs that City Attorney's Office wants to fund. But we're facing a huge budget deficit in 2025 and years out, so it feels like a lot of kind of smoke-and-mirrors talk. We really love diversion, but we're not gonna fund it. And maybe I'll be proven wrong in two weeks when the mayor releases his budget, but my bet is that there's not gonna be massive new funding for these programs and that this is gonna end up being mostly talk. [00:23:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, mostly talk. And just on that specifically - that the mayor did announce $27 million to help support this effort. Is that $27 million - is it what it sounds like? [00:23:33] Erica Barnett: Yeah, this is like one of the things that I feel like I've been shouting from the rooftops, and all the other local press - I don't know why - keep reporting it as if it is a $27 million check of new money, but it's actually $7 million that's left over in federal CDBG [Community Development Block Grant] grant funding that has to be spent, but the City has failed to spend it so far. So that's a lump sum - some of that's gonna go to an opiate recovery site run by DESC that I wrote about at PubliCola a couple of weeks ago. And then the rest is a slow trickle, over 18 years, of funding from a previously announced opiate settlement. And so that's gonna be on average about $1 million a year. As City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda was pointing out earlier this week, a lot of that - 20% of that goes to administrative overhead. So you're really looking at more $700,000-$800,000 a year, and it diminishes in out years - that is what they call budget dust - it is not enough to pay for virtually anything. I don't know what they're going to ultimately spend that trickle of funding on, but it's definitely not $27 million. That's what I mean by smoke and mirrors - that's a good example. It looks like a fairly big number, but then you realize it's stretched out into the 2030s and it's not nearly as big looking - actually, sorry, the 2040s, I believe, if I'm doing my math right - it doesn't look nearly as big when you actually look at what it is. So I encourage people to do that, and I've written more about this at PubliCola too. [00:24:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. We can also link that article. The most frustrating thing to me about Seattle politics, I think - in addition to just the endless process and reconsideration of things instead of making a decision and doing it - is this thing right here where there is a problem and people seem to actually, in public, rhetorically agree with the problem. Arresting people just for drug offenses does not solve that problem - it destabilizes people more, jail is not an effective place for drug treatment. Does that mean no one in the history of ever has ever become clean in jail? - there have been people, but they're few and far between. And experience and research and common sense, when you look at what actually happens there, really shows that is more of a destabilizing experience, that people who are in addiction need treatment, effective treatment, for that addiction and substance use disorder. And for people who may be recreationally using, sending them to jail doesn't help them when it comes to - and in fact, it's very hurtful - when it comes to finding a job, to securing housing, a variety of things. And that often has a more negative effect when it comes to forcing people into needing assistance, into needing help or completely falling through the cracks and becoming homeless - and dealing with the challenges there that we all pay for as a society. And so here we are again, where we actually did not solve the problem that everyone is articulating - and it seems like we just punted on that. But we're funding the thing that we say is not going to solve the problem, that we're confident is not going to solve the problem - and wrapping words around everything else, but that action isn't there. And I think what's frustrating to a lot of people, including me, it's sometimes - people on the left or Democrats are in this larger public safety conversation get painted as not wanting to do anything. And that's just so far from the truth. This is a problem, we need to address it. I just want to do something that has a chance of helping. And it seems like we're throwing good money after bad here and investing in something that we know is not going to be very helpful, meanwhile not funding the things that will be. And so we're going to be a year or two down the line and we'll see what the conversation we continue to have then is, but wondering at which point we stop doing the same thing that keeps getting us these suboptimal results. [00:27:20] Erica Barnett: And this is one place that you can blame the city council. I know the city council gets blamed for everything, but they are out there saying that this is a massively changed bill and it's changed in meaningful ways - in my opinion, it really hasn't been. [00:27:32] Crystal Fincher: I agree with that. I want to conclude by talking about a story that you wrote at PubliCola this week, talking about challenges with the way interviews for the Regional Homeless Authority's Five-Year Plan. What happened here and what were the problems? [00:27:49] Erica Barnett: Yeah, the new Five-Year Plan for homelessness, which was pretty controversial when it first came out because it had a $12 billion price tag, was based largely on 180 interviews that the homelessness authority did with people who are unsheltered in places around the county. And the interviews were basically 31 questions that they were supposed to vaguely stick to, but some that they really needed to get the answers to - for demographic reasons - and didn't always. The interviews were conducted primarily by members of the Lived Experience Coalition with some KCRHA staff doing them too. I've read about 90 of the 180, so about half of the 180 so far - and I would describe them as primarily being very discursive, very non-scientific. And it's not just that they are qualitative interviews 'cause it's fine for a qualitative interview to ramble - I talked to a couple of experts about how this kind of research usually works - and the idea is to make it more like a conversation, and that was the goal here. But in a lot of cases, the interviewers were doing things like suggesting answers, like interrupting, like talking at great length about themselves and their own experience, making suggestions, making assurances or promises that they could help them with services. There are just all kinds of things going on in these interviews that are not best practices for this type of interview. And then the interviews, which generally, people didn't tend to answer the question - there was a question about what has been helpful or harmful to you - and the goal there was to get people to say things that would suggest a shelter type, for example. They almost never said a specific shelter type except for a tiny house village, but the interviews were then coded by researchers to sort of lead to a specific set of shelter types. And without getting into too much technical detail, the idea was if somebody said they wanted X type of service or they had Y type of problem, that would suggest they needed Z type of service. So you're living in your car, you probably need a place to park your car safely. You're living in an RV, you need an RV safe lot. And the problem is, first of all, you're extrapolating from 180 interviews. And second, some of these solutions are pretty determinative. If you live in an RV, do you wanna live in an RV forever? Maybe not. Anyway, it just, it was not a great process to come up with this plan that ultimately is a plan to spend billions of dollars, even if it doesn't have that price tag, on a specific breakdown of types of service. And so I think they're not gonna do it again this way next year, but I think it did really inform this plan in a way that was not always super helpful. [00:30:23] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I do know a little something about qualitative and quantitative research. As you said, doing qualitative interviews - in a narrative format, having a conversation - is not in itself a bad thing, but you can't interject your experience. You can't help inform the answers of the people you're talking to and that seemed to happen. And it really did seem like it was - they had an ambitious plan, maybe the training for how to do this was not as comprehensive as it needed to be - that certainly appears to be the case. Initially, they actually did hundreds, multiple hundreds of interviews for this, but a lot of them had to just be discarded - they were so outside of the bounds of what was supposed to happen, they were not able to be included in what they considered their final data set. And that's really unfortunate. It's a lot of time, it's a lot of effort - especially with populations that are harder to consistently contact and follow up with, any chance you have to connect with them is really meaningful. And so if you don't utilize that time correctly, or if you can't do anything with that, that just seems like an extra painful loss. I understand the ambition to get this done, but the execution really suffered. And I hope that there are lessons learned from this. Even in the ones that were done wrong - I say it seems like an issue of training and overambition, 'cause usually there is a lot of training that goes into how to do this. Usually these are people's professions that actually do this. It's not - Oh, hey, today we're gonna do some qualitative interviews and just walk up and have a conversation and check some things off the list. - it doesn't work that way. So that was unfortunate to hear. And the recommendations from this - I don't know if they change or not after review of this whole situation - but certainly when you know that eyes are going to be getting wide looking at the price tag of this, you really do have to make sure that you're executing and implementing well and that was a challenge here. So how do they move on from this? Was it at all addressed? Are they gonna do this again? What's going to happen? [00:32:25] Erica Barnett: I don't think they're gonna do the qualitative interviews, at least in this way again. I think this was something that Marc Dones really emphasized - the former head of the KCRHA - really wanted to do. And it got rolled into also doing the Point-In-Time count based on extrapolations from this group of folks they interviewed. They call these oral histories and really emphasized the need to get this data. I don't think it's gonna happen again based on what KCRHA officials told me, but qualitative data - I mean, I should say, is not as you mentioned a bad thing - it can be very useful. But the training that they received was a one-time training, or perhaps in two parts, by Marc Dones - I don't think they have anybody on staff right now that is trained in the kind of stuff that Dones was training them on. So I think this is probably one of many things that we'll see that happened under - in the first two years of the agency - that's gonna go by the wayside in the future. So doubt we'll see this again. [00:33:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I hope - there usually is really useful information and insight that comes from doing qualitative research. I don't think that we should necessarily throw the baby out with the bathwater here overall, but certainly this was a big challenge. And I hope that informs how they choose to move forward in the future. But with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, September 15th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is the wonderful Dr. Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett, or X formerly known as Twitter, as @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on multiple platforms as @finchfrii, that's F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, 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 podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Erica C. Barnett has been reporting on Publicola about problems with a "short-lived hotel shelter program run by the Lived Experience Coalition —a group of advocates who have direct experience with homelessness."  Who is to blame? Plus, burning hot takes on Burning Man getting stuck in the muck. Our editor is Quinn Waller.If you want to advertise, please contact us realseattlenice@gmail.comIf you want to help support Seattle Nice, please review us wherever you get your podcasts.If you're still on Twitter, you can also find us there.  @realseattlenice on TwitterAlso please donate!  Our Patreon link is here.Support the show

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! They discuss the latest in Burien's non-addressing of homelessness, new revenue options presented for Seattle, whether primary results mean Seattle City Council incumbents are doomed or safe, and how candidates who support police alternatives led in primaries. The episode continues with how Mayor Harrell's $27M for drug diversion and treatment adds no new funding, Seattle adding new protections for app-based workers, and signs of a late-summer COVID surge. 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 Barnett, at @ericacbarnett.   Resources “No Solutions for Unsheltered Burien Residents After Another Contentious Council Meeting” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Proposals to Close City Deficit Prompt Immediate Backlash from Businesses, Business-Backed Council Members” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “The Seattle Process Strikes Again” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   Final Report of the Revenue Stabilization Workgroup | City of Seattle   “Are Incumbent City Councilmembers Doomed? The Seattle Times Sure Hopes So!” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Candidates who support police alternatives lead primaries in Washington cities” by Scott Greenstone from KNKX Public Radio   “Harrell's "$27 Million Drug Diversion and Treatment" Plan Would Allow Prosecutions But Add No New Funding” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Seattle City Council adds more protections for app-based workers” by Sarah Grace Taylor from The Seattle Times   “Early signs suggest WA could see a late-summer COVID wave” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times   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. 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, today's co-host: Seattle political reporter and Editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. [00:01:08] Erica Barnett: It's great to be here. [00:01:09] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back and certainly a number of things to talk about this week. I think we'll start off talking about the City of Burien and the continuing saga - and kind of city crisis - surrounding their handling of people who have been camping because they are homeless. There was an offer of assistance made from the County, there was some work going on - and this is happening with a fractured Council majority and Council minority, usually voting 4-3 in these things. There was a meeting that happened this week. What happened at that meeting and where do things stand now? [00:01:48] Erica Barnett: At the meeting, there were no decisions made, but there was a long discussion of the timeline of what has happened so far. The City Manager presented his version of events in which the City of Burien is held harmless, did nothing wrong, has tried earnestly to come up with alternatives for these folks - and it is a few dozen people - but has just failed or been thwarted at every turn. Several dozen people have been moved from place to place since they were originally swept from a site outside City Hall and the Burien Library. And now they are living at a couple sites - or until this week, were living at a couple sites - in Burien. A group of people were swept out of a site next to a Grocery Outlet and across the street from a Family Dollar by a private company that has gotten a lot of positive attention from the Council majority, which is run by an individual named Kristine Moreland and offers what their website refers to as sweep services - removing people - and this group claims that they have housed folks. What appears to have happened, and I'll be writing more about this later this week - on Friday, probably as you're listening to this, it might be up - what appears to have happened is that they have been relocated into a hotel for a week or so with no apparent plan to do anything beyond that. As I wrote this week, there's no real solution in sight and the County's money is contingent on them finding a location in the City of Burien or getting another city to agree to take Burien's homeless population on. That money could go away. [00:03:20] Crystal Fincher: It's a shame that the money could go away. Something that struck me as unfortunate this entire time is, as you say, this isn't about thousands upon thousands of people. This is actually a situation where it seems like it's possible - working with partners, working with the resources that the County has provided in terms of cash and tiny homes - potentially house most or all of this population, to work through this. This seems like something that is fixable and achievable, and something that Council could be looked at as an example of how to work through this and manage this issue in your city. It appears that they just continue to run from that and double down on these criminalized solutions that have just moved people from literally one lot to another, sometimes across the street from each other. This is in a pretty small area of the city where these encampments and sweeps have taken place. And so just watching the City continue to not try to solve this problem is exceedingly frustrating. [00:04:24] Erica Barnett: To be fair to the City - I try to be fair always, but to take the City's perspective - I can see an argument that a million dollars is really not enough. You can't house people for a million dollars. You can shelter them temporarily. And that is what the County has proposed. But that is a small caveat to the fact that the City, right now, is showing a lot of mistrust for traditional partners that actually do this work and are telling them there is no housing, that it's incredibly hard to house people, and they have to go through a whole process. And they're showing a lot of mistrust of LEAD and REACH, which have been working down in that area for a long time, and showing a sort of almost naive trust of this new organization that is run by one individual who says that she can solve all of their problems and that it's easy. One thing I didn't mention is they put on the table the idea of contracting with this organization run by Kristine Moreland - it's called The More We Love - it's a private group, it's not a nonprofit. So they're talking about spending money on her group because she has said that it is very easy to house people. [00:05:25] Crystal Fincher: Wow. That would be an interesting use of public funds. [00:05:29] Erica Barnett: There's a lot of questions about whether they can actually do this, like where the funds would come from. If they would take away REACH's money, that's federal money - she would need to have a lot more assurances and perhaps a nonprofit, which as I said she does not appear to have, to do that. They've started going down that road. The mayor proposed last week that they start working on looking into contracting with this group. It is very much on the table and could happen or could start to be discussed seriously within the next couple of weeks. [00:05:58] Crystal Fincher: Very interesting. We will continue to follow this, as we have been doing. I also wanted to talk about significant news this week in the City of Seattle, where a revenue workgroup presented options for potential progressive revenue options in the City of Seattle. What happened with this and what options are on the table? [00:06:18] Erica Barnett: This workgroup has been meeting for a while - it consists of folks with the mayor's office, City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda is the co-chair, then some business groups, some labor groups - including the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which had an interesting reaction this week. But the workgroup eventually came up with a set of policy options - they're saying they are not recommendations - and they considered 63, they narrowed it down to 9. And the top three are the ones that the City could move forward with right away. Those are, in order, increasing or changing the JumpStart payroll expense tax and letting those monies flow into the general fund, implementing a City-level capital gains tax - which the City believes it could do without a ballot initiative or permission from the State Legislature. And then a new tax on CEOs that have a very high ratio of pay compared to the average employee in a company - essentially a surcharge on the JumpStart Tax to companies that have extremely well-paid CEOs. I should mention this is all to close a pending revenue gap in 2025 and beyond of hundreds of millions of dollars. They've got to figure out a way to narrow this gap either by cutting spending, by increasing revenues, or most likely some combination of both. [00:07:39] Crystal Fincher: These are certainly interesting options. You noted that these are not recommendations, they're simply presenting options - which makes me wonder about the coalition that was at the table here, the participants in the workgroup, the elephant in the room of sometimes these workgroups are really just attempts to get the business community on board with a tax. It doesn't look like they accomplished that here. What are the dynamics of the groups who were involved in putting these options together? [00:08:10] Erica Barnett: Yesterday, a member of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce sent out a statement saying - Seattle revenues are at an all-time high and spending is unsustainable - repudiating the idea that we need new taxes and suggesting that the real problem is the City Council is just spending frivolously. The report the revenue stabilization task force put out talks about spending and notes that the amount the City has been spending has been going up roughly in line with inflation and labor costs. There's some mandatory COLAs [cost-of-living adjustments] and pay increases that have happened that have been very necessary to keep folks more in line with the private market to actually keep people working for the City, which has faced problems with hiring just like every other workplace. There isn't necessarily a lot of evidence that the City is spending out of control, at least according to this report that the Chamber itself signed off on, but they have indicated that they're gonna come out hard against it - not clear in what way, but they certainly have sued over other taxes, including the JumpStart Tax in the past. More to come, I'm sure, but they have indicated that they are not on board with these options, which would tax businesses essentially and tax some of their members. [00:09:24] Crystal Fincher: As you mentioned, they opposed the JumpStart Tax, they opposed previous taxes. Here, they frequently act as an organized opposition to taxation, particularly taxation that involves the business community. Lots of people talk about Seattle process and how we will workgroup and task force something to death - that certainly is the case. But when a number of candidates run, or when we've heard in press conferences with the mayor and talking about One Seattle - and if we can just get everyone seated around the table and get everyone talking, surely we can hammer out something and agree and be able to move forward in community and coalition and with buy-in. The problem is that other people are too contentious and they wanna do things without the buy-in of everyone, but I will get everyone together and do that. That's certainly not unique to Bruce Harrell - we heard that from Mayor Ed Murray, from Mayor Jenny Durkan, from several City councilmembers - they just needed to get people together. In another one of these workgroups, they did bring everyone to the table and the same disagreements, the same lack of alignment that was evident before this was put together surfaces now. It's time to make a decision for a lot of people. If everyone doesn't agree to do something, then it's on pause, it just doesn't happen. Or is it going to be moving forward with options that may have the support of the general public? Certainly a number of these options poll well and the candidates who have advanced them are winning most of these elections. Are they willing to move without the support of the business community or potentially setting up another showdown with the business community? That's a question that has yet to be answered. [00:11:10] Erica Barnett: I would not dismiss this necessarily as just another example of Seattle process going nowhere. I think the last revenue stabilization task force, of course it was called something else but, came up with the JumpStart Tax, which is a payroll tax on highly-compensated workers at extremely large employers - that has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars a year and really addressed the revenue shortfalls during COVID. I think that business community aside - and Alex Pedersen, City councilmember who is an ally of the business community, sent out a press release poo-pooing the proposals or the policy ideas - this will probably lead to some action by the council. They have to do something. They are facing a really grave situation. There are other task forces that have met and not really done much in similar situations. The council and the City - the mayor and the council have to pass a balanced budget every year. If they've got a $250 million shortfall in a budget, they've got to address that. Looking at and talking to Teresa Mosqueda, the chair of the committee, one of the co-chairs of this task force, and the Chair of the Finance Committee yesterday, they're looking at those first three options very seriously. There's probably a council majority right now to support one of those options. Depending on how fast they move on this, it could be a new council that may be less friendly. We'll see. They have to do something. I don't see cutting that much of the budget as an option. [00:12:28] Crystal Fincher: The Chamber is staking out the position that the only thing that they are willing to discuss - from their perspective right now - is cuts and not focusing on the revenue-generating options, some of which were considered more progressive than others by many people. So what are the next steps here? [00:12:46] Erica Barnett: Council Central Staff is going to do an analysis of these options, probably - again, with the emphasis on those ones that the council can do on its own. Then there will be policy recommendations and legislation, presumably, to pass some version of one or more of these options. There are six other options, some of which would require the Legislature to pass legislation allowing the City to implement some of these taxes - that's a longer-term strategy that the council says it's going to engage in. The short-term perspective is they're going to start working on this stuff. When it comes to the Chamber, they are not all-powerful - their job is generally to oppose taxes on their members. They did that last time - they lost in the court of public opinion, and they also lost in court - now we have the JumpStart payroll tax. I don't know if that experience is going to make them reluctant to challenge an expansion of that tax or any of these other taxes. They have not been successful so far in preventing taxation to close these revenue shortfalls, to pay for housing and homelessness solutions - their opposition just means the business community is against this. It doesn't mean that it's not going to happen. [00:13:53] Crystal Fincher: That's a very good point. Also want to talk about a piece you did in PubliCola this week as a response to some at The Seattle Times suggesting the three incumbents in Seattle City Council races that are running again - each of whom lead their race, two of whom with over 50% of the vote - are somehow not safe. Did that pass the smell test? [00:14:18] Erica Barnett: They presented a theory in this editorial - described as a hopeful theory on their part - that the incumbents are in trouble if they end up with less than 55%. They said that this was just the general consensus of election watchers. I don't know - I'm an election watcher, you're an election watcher - this is not my consensus. And nor, when I look back at the numbers, is it reflected in reality. An incumbent might have a somewhat tough race if they are under 50% of the vote in the primary. There's just so many reasons - among which is, as you said, they're all above 50% now. The primary electorate tends to be more conservative. The incumbents that The Seattle Times wants to defeat are all more progressive than their opponents. The primary election turnout was incredibly low. Some of these folks in the races with lots and lots of candidates where there wasn't an incumbent were winning by a few hundred votes. The Times really is hopeful they will be able to finally rid themselves of candidates, or of City councilmembers like Tammy Morales, who is very much leading her Seattle Times-endorsed opponent, Tanya Woo, Dan Strauss, who's leading Pete Hanning. And Andrew Lewis, who actually is looking the weakest right now - he is under 50%. His opponent, Bob Kettle, is unlikely to get a bunch of business community backing in District 7, which includes downtown. All the incumbents are looking strong right now. [00:15:41] Crystal Fincher: That seems to be the consensus from the election watchers I'm aware of, many of whom are actively involved in several elections. Incumbents just don't lose from this position. We rarely, if ever, see that. It's rare to see, even in open seats, for people to finish over 50% and then not win, which doesn't mean that - barring scandal or something wild happening, there are a lot of unknowns - to suggest that this indicates trouble is really stretching it. We will continue to follow those elections. We just did a Post-Primary recap show, which we will also be releasing on the podcast - you can hear more about our thoughts on those. [00:16:22] Erica Barnett: The one example I was able to find in history where it came close to what The Times was saying was Richard Conlin, who I think ended up under 50% in his primary against Kshama Sawant. And Sawant won by a very narrow margin in her first election. It does not illustrate The Times's point because Sawant is obviously far to the left of Richard Conlin, who was a standard moderate Democrat liberal. They really just don't have any examples to back up these kind of sweeping conclusions that they're making. [00:16:51] Crystal Fincher: They don't. They're having a challenge reconciling the results of the race. They were setting it up, from an editorial perspective, that Seattleites are really unhappy with the council and that unhappiness meant they wanted a change and more moderate candidates, they were unhappy with the direction of the City. I've talked about several times - the City doesn't necessarily have a direction - you have a mayor who is more moderate, you have some councilmembers who are more progressive, others who are more moderate depending on the day of the week. You need to get into an examination of the issues and where Seattle voters generally are on issues is more progressive than what The Times usually articulates. It'll be interesting to see how they evaluate these races and their endorsed candidates and their chances. What do voters really expect to see? What do they not want to see? What do they find unacceptable? Questions that oftentimes are left unexamined by seemingly the parties who could do well to examine them the most. Also want to talk this week about an article that actually talked about candidates who support police alternatives are leading primaries, getting through to the general election. Some of those candidates really want to focus on those alternatives. Many of them want those alternatives in addition to police or to be able to dispatch a more appropriate response - whether it's a behavioral health crisis, someone dealing with substance use disorder, homelessness - dispatching responders who may not be armed police, but who are equipped to handle the problem at hand, which oftentimes even police will tell you they are not the best equipped to handle things that are not of a criminal nature. What did this article find? [00:18:27] Erica Barnett: People are interested in alternatives to police. There has been a lot made of the idea that there is this backlash to "Defund the Police." The City of Seattle did not defund the police. In 2020, there was a real movement for change that organized under that name. They were advocating for funding alternatives and using some of the money that is currently used for armed police officers. When you frame it in a way that does not use those words - "defund the police" - that is what people want. I do not cover cities outside Seattle, which this article focused on, but I think that is definitely what we've seen in Seattle where folks who have said they would ensure that there are 5-minute response times to 911 calls, like Maritza Rivera in District 4, or folks who have run on an expand-the-police platform, like Olga Sagan, who was a primary contender against Andrew Lewis in District 7, and I think ended up with 19% of the vote and is out. Those folks did not fare as well as people who said - I want to fund alternatives and come up with a way to respond to crisis calls, for example, without sending out cops. [00:19:35] Crystal Fincher: Voters do want to be safer and feel safe. They recognize that conversation about public safety and how we keep people safe is a lot bigger than just policing. If you listen to elected officials speak or you listen to campaign rhetoric, you would think it was either we invest in hiring a ton more cops and keep doing that, or we do nothing and lawlessness reigns. No one wants lawlessness to reign. No one is proposing to do nothing. There are alternative solutions, there are other responses, there are cities implementing this. One of the things in this article is that this is not just a Seattle phenomenon. In fact, many other cities - Bellingham, Spokane, Tacoma - other cities around the region who are moving forward with this and who have candidates really wanting to examine how to best keep people safe and prevent crime in addition to responding to it, taking a more comprehensive look at how do we address all of these issues. It's another signal that voters want to hear more comprehensive plans for how people plan to keep the community safe, want to use more tools at folks' disposal. And I hope candidates see that and recognize that and come with some real serious proposals to help their communities become safer. [00:20:54] Erica Barnett: I think too, it speaks to some failures of the media - and we're talking about The Seattle Times - but broadly the debate about policing has been misrepresented as defund the police versus public safety. Everybody wants to feel safe in their communities. And the people who have advocated for reforms and for funding other alternatives are just as interested in public safety and community safety as "Refund the Police" or "Overfund the Police" crowd. They clearly outnumber that crowd. There are a lot of nuances within that first group of folks who want community safety, but would like to see alternatives. It is much larger than just the police can and should do everything alternative. [00:21:37] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Also want to talk about something that you covered that we didn't get to last week because of all the election news, but I think is important to talk about since we are trying to deal with issues like drug addiction, substance use disorder - this may fall underneath an alternate response. But the City of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced $27 million for drug diversion and treatment options as a new attempt to implement the drug prosecution legislation that previously failed on the council. What is he actually proposing? [00:22:12] Erica Barnett: The coverage of this was so frustrating to me, including in outlets that I think ordinarily do a very good job of breaking stuff like this down. I did write about the $27 million and I asked - What is this $27 million? - because it's not in the legislation. The Seattle Times said that it was in the legislation - that is not true. The legislation itself essentially just reintroduces the drug criminalization ordinance, which would allow Ann Davison, the City Attorney, to start prosecuting drug users and adds a phrasing that says the police department must adopt a policy in the future that prioritizes diversion when people are arrested for drugs. $27 million was a separate announcement that Harrell made as part of announcing this legislation. And what it is, in fact, is $7 million in underspending, so money that the City failed to spend in previous years, will be put forward to some kind of capital investment. So like a building - unclear what that will be, but it'll have something to do with treatment. So very vague, but $7 million in money that the City has left over. The other $20 million is funding from the two opioid settlements with the companies that the Attorney General of the State of Washington secured earlier this year - that $20 million trickles into the City of Seattle over 18 years. The rate of inflation being what it is - in 2034 or 2035, $1 million is not gonna buy a lot. It doesn't buy a lot now. It's really overstating the case to say that this is $27 million. It's two different kinds of money - one is this tiny trickle of a little bit of money that's gonna come in every year for the next 18 years. [00:23:49] Crystal Fincher: When I first saw that announced, my initial questions were - Where is this money coming from? We saw something similar to this back with the Compassion Seattle Initiative - okay, we tried to advance some legislation, it failed. So let's add some money to it to make it seem compassionate, that nods to the things that actually do have broad public support. It's money that is in other buckets that we're transitioning to this bucket, and it's looking big, but we're gonna be spending it over a long period of time - so it's not really an investment of a rounding error over what we're doing right now. Certainly looking at the scale of the problem - doesn't seem like it has a chance of doing much to meaningfully impact that at all. In fact, it seems like it might be an inefficient way to spend this money. Maybe this would be an area where you could look at what would function more effectively. But it seems like it's acceptable, with policy that we've seen coming out of this mayor's office, to cobble together these kinds of funds and announce it as if it's - Hey, we're making a significant investment here. Look at the details and they're underwhelming. I hope that there is more to the plan than this. [00:25:05] Erica Barnett: I should correct myself on that $7 million - it's actually not probably gonna be spent on new buildings. The mayor spokesman told me that it'll provide capital funding to prepare existing facilities to provide care and treatment services for substance use disorders. Again, very vague - not a lot of money spread over, potentially, a lot of different facilities. And as we discussed, the City has this huge looming revenue shortfall. They don't have a lot of money. They don't have $27 million to put into anything new. And so I think this speaks to the fact that we are actually going to address the problem just of opioid addiction. It is going to cost a lot of money and it would require actual new funding. It's not something that the City is generally responsible for - public health is the responsibility of the County primarily. The City is out here claiming to have the solutions in hand and it's really incumbent on reporters and just on the public to be aware of what this really means, which is not a whole lot. [00:26:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it will be interesting to see how this lands - with the council taking this up, where this is gonna go. I would love to see significant funding put in this and enough where it looks like it could make a difference in the area. We'll see how this shakes out. Also wanna talk about a positive thing - I think to many people, myself included - that happened this week and that is the passage of new protections for app-based workers in the City of Seattle. What did this legislation do? [00:26:32] Erica Barnett: Yeah, the City has been working for months, it feels like years, on legislation to help protect app-based workers - folks like Uber drivers, grocery delivery app workers - from being deactivated in the apps and effectively being unable to earn a living. The workers have argued they are subject to unfair deactivation by companies, retaliatory deactivation, this sort of thing. The legislation would say they have a right to appeal if they are deactivated. It also sets out some guidelines for deactivation. It is a first step toward protecting folks who are working as "gig workers," who have few labor protections. It's not a lot different than being a freelance writer or a contractor, but with low hourly pay and without the protections that you have being an employee of one of these companies. It's a BS job designation, but the gig economy operates on workers who have very few protections, very low pay, and has insisted that their workers are not employees because that would afford them protections that most people with jobs have. City of Seattle is taking steps to try to give them some of those protections, although they're still not employees and still don't have the protections that they deserve as members of the labor force. [00:27:50] Crystal Fincher: An important element here is how these platforms and gig work companies advertise themselves to people who could work on their platforms. They do signal - Hey, this is a way to achieve financial stability. This is almost like building your own business or a new way to have more freedom, yet still be able to pay your bills and live the life that you want. But the way that you could get kicked off of these platforms could be completely arbitrary with no recourse. And as you said, this is really about having a way to appeal these decisions that sometimes are made without the involvement of any person - some algorithm determines that something didn't go well and it could get that wrong. We see plenty of times where automated decisions, whether it's an algorithm or AI, do not make the just decision. And having someone's livelihood that depends on that should come with more protections, more assurances, or at least a consistent process that could be followed. So I am happy to see this pass. This is continuing to grow and a really substantial area of our economy and a lot of our neighbors rely on this kind of income - having that be more predictable and stable with more of a process for people to understand how it works and how they can operate within it is a positive thing. [00:29:11] Erica Barnett: Firing a writer because of negative comments in the comments section of a blog - the customer is not always right - and in a normal job, if you've got a complaint from a customer, you would have the opportunity to state your case to your employer. In this case, as you said, it's determined by algorithms that are not transparent. You really have no recourse. [00:29:29] Crystal Fincher: Legislation was crafted with the input of these app companies too. I think Lisa Herbold was quoted as saying, she made some modifications to make sure - after hearing feedback from these companies - to do all that they could to make sure that they were being explicit about action taken to protect people's safety or those kinds of urgent situations. This is really getting at the element of people being able to understand the rules and the processes they have to adhere to. And finally this week, I wanna talk about a story that maybe a lot of people are seeing anecdotally. We've been seeing news across the country about wastewater detection of COVID increasing. It looks like we are going to see a late-summer COVID wave here in Washington state. What's going on with the 'VID? [00:30:21] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I know tons of people who've gotten COVID recently. It's very alarming. People are slacking off, or have been slacking off for at least a year or so, with COVID thinking that it's over, the pandemic emergency being declared over and people aren't wearing masks. There's obviously a surge. I read a really alarming story about the impacts of long COVID, which we really have yet to reckon with. It was a story about just how much it affects your cardiovascular health and the rate of heart attacks going up in younger people. It's very alarming and it's still a very serious disease - even if you aren't showing symptoms, even if you're showing mild symptoms, it's very scary. I traveled recently and I was guilty of not wearing my mask as much as I probably should have. And I was lucky I didn't get COVID, but it's still coming for all of us. [00:31:09] Crystal Fincher: It is still coming for all of us. I did travel recently, was masked during travel. Doesn't happen to everyone, but a significant percentage of people who have mild initial infection can come with all of these side effects. We just don't know yet. This COVID has not been around long enough to know what the long-term impacts are. My biggest learnings during COVID is how viruses operate overall and how it's not unusual for a wide variety of viruses to be an initial flu-like illness, like how HPV is tied to cervical cancer. I'm certainly not an MD - look this up yourself, follow guidance. It does seem like we should be more cautious about transmitting viruses overall, COVID or not. If wearing a mask can keep me from having that, I think that's a positive thing. We need to continue to focus on responses that make shared spaces safer, looking at ventilation and air filtration and treatment. I hope those conversations are still ongoing in policy circles - certainly they're important. It's unfortunate that we have relaxed masking in places where people don't have a choice to be, like on public transit or in healthcare settings, where they're more likely to see more sick people and the people who are there are more likely to be vulnerable. You can't not go to the doctors when you need help or you're relying on treatment. [00:32:33] Erica Barnett: One reason I am less vulnerable is because I work from home. The City is currently still debating whether to and how much to force people to come back into work at the City of Seattle. Amazon - I saw a story today that they are monitoring people using their badge swipe-ins to police whether people are following their work-from-the-office mandates. There's so many benefits to letting people work from home. I find it very discouraging that part of the debate seems to have been settled in favor of the you-must-work-at-the-office crowd. It is protective to be at home and not be out in crowds of people who may be less cautious and getting you sick. [00:33:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I'm definitely a proponent of working from home - I am doing that as we speak - that's a privilege I have that a lot of people don't have. If you do come down with something, you can test for whether it's COVID or anything else. And employers making sure that they are giving their employees leave, which is a big problem, particularly in service industries. And with that, I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, August 11th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng, who is incredible and amazing and talented. Our insightful cohost today is Seattle political reporter and Editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter at @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me on all platforms @finchfrii, that's F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical interview shows delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Washington State government reporter for McClatchy, Shauna Sowersby! They discuss the failure of an anti-trans referendum campaign, a self-proclaimed white nationalist country musician playing at the Washington state capitol, new state laws going into effect, AG Ferguson continuing to avoid disclosing his donors, and another lawsuit filed against the Washington State Legislature for withholding public records under “legislative privilege.” The conversation continues with federal pandemic relief aid getting funneled into police surveillance technology, no-notice sweeps being ruled unconstitutional by King County Superior Court, and an audit showing that the Seattle Police Department could do more with existing resources to address organized retail crime. 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, Shauna Sowersby at @Shauna_Sowersby. Shauna Sowersby Shauna Sowersby was a freelancer for several local and national publications before joining McClatchy's northwest newspapers covering the Legislature. Before that, Shauna worked for the US Navy as a photographer and journalist.   Resources “PRIMARY WEEK RE-AIR: Teresa Mosqueda, Candidate for King County Council District 8” from Hacks & Wonks   “PRIMARY WEEK RE-AIR: Becka Johnson Poppe, Candidate for King County Council District 4” from Hacks & Wonks   “PRIMARY WEEK RE-AIR: Sarah Reyneveld, Candidate for King County Council District 4” from Hacks & Wonks   “PRIMARY WEEK RE-AIR: Jorge Barón, Candidate for King County Council District 4” from Hacks & Wonks   “With referendum failure, WA just dodged a bullet of hype and hate” by Danny Westneat from The Seattle Times   “‘Heretic' group to offer unbaptisms at WA Capitol Campus” by Shauna Sowersby from The Olympian   “New Washington state laws go into effect Sunday. Here are some of the key ones” by Shauna Sowersby from The Olympian   “WA AG Bob Ferguson should come clean about donors” by The Seattle Times editorial board   “WA judge fines AG's office, DSHS in ‘cavalier' withholding of lawsuit evidence” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   “New lawsuit alleges WA state Senators were ‘silently withholding' public records” by Shauna Sowersby from The Olympian   “Federal aid is supercharging local WA police surveillance tech” by Brandon Block from Crosscut   “Summary judgment in ACLU case could end ‘no-notice' sweeps in Seattle” by Tobias Coughlin-Bogue from Real Change   “Audit: Police Could Do More, Without Hiring Extra Cops, To Address Retail Theft Rings” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   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. In preparation for the primary election on next Tuesday, August 1st, we've been re-airing candidate interviews for the open City [County] Council seats all this week. Be sure to check them out if you're still deciding whom to vote for. Today, we are continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program for the first time, today's co-host: Washington state government reporter for McClatchy, Shauna Sowersby. Hello. [00:01:09] Shauna Sowersby: Hello, thanks for having me. [00:01:11] Crystal Fincher: I am so excited to have you on the show today. I think I told you before - followed your work for so long and your reporting has been really important for quite some time now, so very excited. To begin the conversation, we will start talking about the failure of a referendum for a piece of legislation that would benefit the trans community. What happened here? [00:01:35] Shauna Sowersby: During the State Legislature this year, there was a bill that was passed, 5599, that was sponsored by Senator Marko Liias. And that bill expanded a law that was already in place and included teenagers trying to seek gender-affirming care as well as abortion care. So it wasn't really a new law, it was just expanding on something that was already there - to try and protect these other factors that were involved. [00:02:04] Crystal Fincher: This is really about protecting populations within our homeless community. This is about shelters and whether shelters have to mandatorily divulge information, or if they wait to determine, or discriminate in any way. So it's not - as it was couched by some people - this is about medically intervening with youth, this is about intervening in family matters, or they wanna take people from your homes. This is about a population that's already unhoused and legislation that's trying to keep teens from really being vulnerable when they're homeless and out on the street with nowhere else to go, which is a very, very dangerous and harmful place to be. This became what a lot of people refer to as culture war stuff - is really what we're dealing with in this whole time now, where people are targeting trans people, trans rights, really the broader LGBTQ community in a lot of these situations. And anything that could potentially make life easier or just not as extraordinarily difficult for trans people in things that they may be dealing with. There are a lot of LGBTQ youth that get kicked out of their homes for that reason - and so if they are there, or people who are seeking abortion care - that can't be a reason for someone to be turned away or submitting information, divulging information to other people. Basically just protecting them like we protect everyone else. But I was happy to see, personally, that this referendum failed. And I think it's just another statement that overall - we don't play that, we don't do that in Washington. Certainly these elements are active, but they are nowhere near the majority of community and we need to keep making sure people know and understand that and make that visible. [00:03:44] Shauna Sowersby: And I just wanted to point out, too, that it failed by a lot - I think it was like 5,000 signatures or something that it failed by. So I don't think it had quite as much support as the writers of that referendum had intended. [00:03:57] Crystal Fincher: When you look at the facts of what is and isn't happening and why, and what gender-affirming care means in the context of the broader community - it's got broad meanings. People who are not even trans access that all the time. It's not a controversial thing. This is not really about kids. This was an attack on the entire community and an attempt to claw back rights. [00:04:17] Shauna Sowersby: And I think the Danny Westneat article in The Seattle Times brought up a really good point too. This wasn't even an issue until gender and reproductive rights got brought into the mix. It wasn't a problem before that. These two things are very popular topics throughout the country right now. [00:04:35] Crystal Fincher: I also wanna talk about a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist country musician playing at the Washington State Capitol. What went on? [00:04:43] Shauna Sowersby: He'll be there Friday the 28th. There was a Rolling Stone article that came out a while ago about him. He was open about being a white nationalist - seemed to be proud of the fact that he is a white nationalist country musician. So he'll be there at the Capitol with Turning Point USA, which I'm sure a lot of folks listening might be familiar with. But the House of Heretics will be there and they will be doing unbaptisms and gender affirming rituals. I believe one of their quotes was something like they wanted whenever Sean plays on Friday night for it to be the devil's ground for him to play on. So I thought that was pretty interesting. [00:05:24] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it is. And Turning Point USA is a radical organization - you have a self-described white nationalist, like a Charlie Kirk, that is associated with and promoting white nationalists. And it's just not that wonderful. And like I said, these things are here and they're around and people are trying to introduce this in the community, certainly trying to make it seem more mainstream. But it's not. And I think all of our responsibility is making that known and visible. Other news this week - and especially with you as a legislative reporter covering so much that happened in the legislative session - we passed legislation, but there's usually a little bit of time before it's passed and when it completely takes effect. But we do have a number of new laws about to go into effect this Sunday. What are some of the key laws coming? [00:06:09] Shauna Sowersby: Our legislature did a really good job on housing this year. And one of the laws that went into effect on the 23rd was more access to ADUs, so that's a positive thing. That's something that the legislature had been going after for several years, if I remember correctly, but finally got that one. So those are allowed in certain cities with a certain population. Hopefully that will help ease the lack of housing situation that's going on pretty much everywhere around the state. So I think that's a good one. Another one that goes into effect is landlords' claims for damages. So that extends the timeline landlords have to provide documentation to show that they are in the right in retaining a tenant's deposit - which is a really important one, I feel - that's also another thing that they've been trying to get passed for a long time. They also need to keep receipts that they can actually show to their tenants before they can charge them, so I think all of those are really good. It also prevents them from charging past normal wear and tear, which anybody who's ever rented, I'm sure, has probably run into an issue like that. So I think that type of law will be a positive for a lot of renters out there. And then another one I thought was interesting, just because I'd never really heard of this before this year, but they're making pill presses illegal in the state. I had no clue what these were, to be honest with you, before they passed this law. It's basically trying to prevent people from overdosing on fentanyl when they take things that they think might be something else, such as a Percocet. These can look very legitimate with these pill presses, but can include amounts of fentanyl in them that can kill you. So obviously that is another positive law that went into effect just recently. [00:08:04] Crystal Fincher: And that's how people can identify pills. They're registered, marked for different types of pills. You can actually look up and Google them. If a pill gets lost or dropped or something and you pick it up and see markings on them, you can find out what it is by that. But yeah, people have been abusing that to pass off some substances. And when we have such dangerous and harmful drugs out there that can be so easily mixed into other substances or look like something else, that's really important. As well as the accessory dwelling unit, or the ADU, bill - a lot of people think of them as mother-in-law houses, but allowing people to add density or add a unit to their existing property is an important element in the whole web of increasing the amount of density, or preparing communities to responsibly absorb more people living there without having real estate prices go sky high as we've been seeing. So some really, I think, good laws coming in, some progress being made. And so it'll be interesting to see how these are enforced, especially when it comes to those landlord ones - to see if they actually do materially improve the situations that they are seeking to improve. Also wanna talk about Attorney General Ferguson's campaign for governor and a call for him to come clean about his donors, especially in a piece that was published in The Seattle Times this week. What's happening with this? [00:09:27] Shauna Sowersby: The Public disclosure Commission was set to have a ruling a few weeks back that outlined and reinforced the idea that if you're moving money from one campaign to another campaign - so Ferguson moving from going for Attorney General again to governor - so you can move a certain amount of money over into your other campaign without having to disclose those donors. Like you were saying earlier, it's something that could be done - they were saying you shouldn't be doing it this way. And right before that date came in, they clarified that he switched all that money over - and I believe it was $1.2 million, is that correct? [00:10:05] Crystal Fincher: It's about $1.2 million and they received notice that a clarification was coming. They transferred it the day after that notice, which I think was a day before they officially did it. That is a detail that I don't know we all knew and understood before. And it's confusing. With the PDC, there's an underlying law and the PDC issues guidance and interpretations. This entire time, the actual law has not changed. The PDC's guidance about the law is what changed. And a person was looking at the law and looking at the guidance - unconnected to the campaign, I think to any campaigns - and was - Hey, it looks like your guidance does not actually say what the law does, or it leaves a hole. The bigger issue is - say you transfer these things over - we have campaign finance limits. If you can only donate - say a limit is $1,000, it changes year to year - if you transfer money over from some of those same donors, it could put people over the limit for this race and you can't be over the limit. The PDC said - Oh, that is correct. We overlooked that or got that wrong. Called the campaigns to say - Hey, we realized we got something wrong and we're going to be issuing formal guidance tomorrow. After that call, the campaign said - Oh, let's transfer it. Then we find ourself here. There's the law. Should this have been done? The answer appears to be no, but it's also hard because people are following guidance. I followed a PDC guidance before. And so the fact that it was done in the first place - I completely understand you're relying on the PDC for guidance - it's the muddy area of when they say - Ooh, this guidance is wrong. And it's not like they're saying the law is going to change. If it's not the law, it's not the law. It's not illegal if you do it before it's a law. It's a little dicey in that they were notified that they weren't going to be able to do it and then rushed to do it before it was written on paper when basically they got the tip off. [00:11:57] Shauna Sowersby: And now the fact that they're being called on to disclose those donors and they're not doing it - that's another issue as well. [00:12:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's something that the PDC is taking up again. I believe they're having a meeting - we're recording this on Thursday - I think they are having a meeting today, potentially as we speak. Big issue that we're left with - because the issue of democracy, small-d democracy, is the disclosure of donors. This is foundational to our system. And from near and far, every state has campaign finance regulations. Some are enforced better than others, but this is really important so that within campaigns - there's dark money with PACs - within campaigns, it's really defined that someone can donate, but they have a limit and they can't donate above that limit. That helps, from the campaign perspective, make sure that people with money can't crowd out everyone else or just dominate the conversation financially within that campaign. I do find it concerning that right now, there's $1.2 million worth of donors that we don't know. If you have pledges that you're not accepting money from these people or who's that? We see in other races - Oh, whoa, this Trump supporter donated or this, on the Republican side, Biden supporter did this. Or you're wondering why they're donating and what promises may have been made. I'm not saying that promises are always made for donations, but usually people donate to who they find themselves aligned. That's a reasonable thing to explore and debate, which is why our law mandates that. I hope that they are disclosed. Even if they find that he shouldn't have transferred the money at all, I do think it is realistic and very doable to disclose them. Disclosure is easy. For them to have been able to transfer the money, they had to get permission from the donor. So they have all of those records - that the transfer couldn't have happened without it. It'll be really interesting to see how this winds up. [00:13:48] Shauna Sowersby: One more thing too that I wanted to add about the whole Ferguson thing is that - for the state's highest attorney's office, him being in that office for so long - he obviously knows these rules. He knows that he should be holding himself to a higher standard. One of the things that concerns me - not just about the PDC and his campaign finance stuff - is that his office was recently fined for withholding hundreds of thousands of documents in a lawsuit against a developmentally disabled woman. Documents that would have helped this woman and her case, but appears that a lot of these documents were intentionally withheld. Not saying that Ferguson himself was responsible for doing these things, but it is his office. The mixture between that and then the recent PDC guidance that - as a candidate for governor, he should really be putting himself in a higher standard. [00:14:44] Crystal Fincher: Like you said, who knows how much he was aware of going in - and most of these donors are probably above board - I would assume most of them are not above the limit. How much money is it, really, from donors who are above the limit here? Practically looking at correcting this issue - say it's even half a million dollars worth, he still has a significant financial lead over other people and it gets this thing that's dogging his campaign. Just disclose the donors - you have the money, just disclose donors. [00:15:15] Shauna Sowersby: You're already in the lead. Hilary Franz said she wanted to make sure that this was a fair transfer and that everybody was going by the same rules. Even with somebody else calling him out for it, still wasn't doing it. [00:15:28] Crystal Fincher: There's a reason why he's the front-runner. There's a lot of things about him that excite people, but I don't think you're ever above having to answer questions. Even if you are the front runner in the race, we all wind up better. And it sets a precedent - people may be comfortable with Ferguson and he may make a wonderful governor, but for successive governors, I don't want a precedent set where they don't have to follow the rules. I want to talk about another lawsuit filed against the Washington State Legislature for withholding public records under "legislative privilege." What's happening this time? [00:16:03] Shauna Sowersby: Nothing new here. I believe it was Friday of last week - me and some other requesters got back a set of documents - this is from a request that was filed, I want to say, in January and closed out in February. We were told that we had all records from every lawmaker that was withholding records under "legislative privilege". Lo and behold, Friday, we get another batch of records that have suddenly been found. The petitioner in this lawsuit, Arthur West, also filed one of the previous lawsuits for "legislative privilege." He believes that in this case, it's called "silent withholding" - it's still part of the same lawsuit that he's filed before, but this is an addendum where he believes they may have intentionally been withholding these final documents - they should have been found, they should have been captured in our request, so it's odd they're showing up now. This is an additional lawsuit into what's already happening - I believe WashCOG, Washington Coalition for Open Government, they also have a lawsuit pending. I don't think it has a hearing date until later in September. So not looking good so far for lawsuits and lawmakers. We'll see how this all turns out. I'm assuming it'll be a slow process, but we're finally getting things kicked off. [00:17:25] Crystal Fincher: I'll be curious to see what comes of it. Also want to talk about a story that came out this week - just a couple of days ago or yesterday, I think - about the amount of federal aid going towards police surveillance. When we say police surveillance, what are they talking about? [00:17:40] Shauna Sowersby: An article from Brandon Block in Crosscut - looks like they are using federal aid money that was supposed to go to other things to basically spy on people. It seems like there's a lot of concerns from groups like the ACLU who say that the surveillance equipment can be used - not just for immigrants and for trying to deport people, but it can also be used for people who are seeking out-of-state abortions coming into Washington. So there's multiple concerns here what the surveillance equipment could be doing. And it looks like a lot of it is - from the article - license plate surveillance and the drones that they were using - makes you wonder why these smaller towns are spending so much money on surveillance equipment. [00:18:29] Crystal Fincher: I don't think people realize that this much money was going to these things. And at a time when lots of people are talking about wanting more police funding, wanting to hire more officers, saying that there's not money to do it - there's so much money being spent and being siphoned from other areas where it seems like it was originally intended to go and being spent on this surveillance technology, like drones and automatic license plate readers, going through communities and looking up everyone's license plates everywhere. And usually - one, these are not equitably used, equitably deployed. A lot of times they are deployed much more heavily and ubiquitously in lower income communities and BIPOC communities. Is the community aware of this? Are people aware of this? Like you said, we have other states trying to - actually have criminalized abortion care, gender affirming care. There aren't policies, strong policies with enforcement that really limit how this data can be used, how it can be shared, how it can be spread. This is where we can have bad outcomes where potentially someone from another state, someone with a nefarious purpose can find this information to track people down and inequitably enforce laws that are on our books in communities, causing disproportionate harm. At minimum, this should be something that is very intentionally discussed in these communities. I definitely recommend that people do read this article by Brandon Block - we'll include it in the podcast show notes and on the website. It's really concerning to see so much money diverted for this purpose - was supposed to help people survive the pandemic, help people not get evicted, help cities support small businesses - that this was diverted for this purpose and in a way I don't think was transparent or consistent with what people intended within their communities or even federally. [00:20:25] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, it seems like people weren't asked about that. I'm sure there was probably no conversation for that, but like you're saying, it could have been diverted for a number of purposes and instead goes to surveillance equipment. [00:20:39] Crystal Fincher: We will see if there's any follow up on that. There was another case this week that was really important and reiterated what other cases have found and that is that no-notice police sweeps that are used in lots of localities, including Seattle, were found to be unconstitutional. What did this ruling hold and what are some of the impacts that it may have? [00:21:01] Shauna Sowersby: In this article from Real Change, it talks about how the court ruled the city's sweep policies are not carefully tailored, in some circumstances, to pursue the city's valid governmental interests and require more disclosure than is reasonably necessary. The rules define obstruction so broadly, the city can invade unhoused people's privacy rights without notice, offers of shelter and preservation. [00:21:27] Crystal Fincher: This is an issue that many cities are dealing with. We've been talking about the unfortunate circumstances in Burien, certainly in Seattle. Every community is really looking at this and facing this. So many of our neighbors are now homeless - and the City of Seattle and Burien have really gone too far. It had been established before that it is illegal for a city to conduct a sweep if there is no offer of shelter provided. Basically, if you have nowhere for someone to go, it is found to be unconstitutional to sweep someone in that instance. There's a reason why the CDC recommends against it, why it is not recommended, especially in extreme weather situations. These are people's whole possessions. Though outwardly sometimes they may not look like much to someone walking by, this is what they have and this is critical - the few things they do have for work, their ID, the few mementos that have meant the absolute most to them that they've been able to keep when they've lost everything else is what they have. Just coming through unannounced - and you leave, you come back, and your stuff is gone. Or you have an hour and the stuff is gone is really destabilizing. We have to do a better job of supporting this. Most people have also seen that when there is nowhere for someone to go, it doesn't do anything to solve the problem. We're really just moving the issue of homelessness around. We're not doing anything to solve it. It's this game of musical chairs and most people are just moving from property to property or place to place within a city most of the time, certainly within the region. So we've got to expand our response. We can't keep doing the same thing over and over again. The biggest problem here is that people don't have housing. If housing is not an element in the solution, it's not a solution. And yes, that is complicated. Yes, it's costly. But it really is not as costly as allowing the situation to continue. I don't think there's anyone left, right, or anywhere who is satisfied with seeing people on the street within encampments, but I think people just don't want to double down on that failure, spend so much money on police resources - all the resources that we're spending in a way that doesn't solve the problem. So the City of Seattle is gonna have to go back to the table and figure out what they're gonna do. Other cities are gonna have to look at this ruling and modify what they're doing, or potentially face the same lawsuit and legislation, and wind up having to do it by force rather than proactively. [00:23:58] Shauna Sowersby: The governor and the legislature - they've been trying to tackle this issue too with the rights-of-way - the whole idea there was that they weren't gonna move people out unless they had some sort of housing situation set up for those folks. So instead of just shuffling them around from one place to another, it's still a small pilot program at this point - and can't do it on a large scale, obviously. I think instead of sweeping folks, this is a better alternative - not the best alternative, for sure - but it's better than shuffling folks around one other part of the city like you were saying. [00:24:33] Crystal Fincher: And this ruling did say that the use was overbroad. There are still circumstances where it is legally permissible to do this if really obstructing a sidewalk. It is constitutional for a sweep to happen. The issue is that they're happening in so many more situations where there's imminent harm or obstruction. The last story I wanted to talk about today was an audit that came out about the City of Seattle, but really applicable to many cities - saying police could do more without hiring extra cops to address retail theft rings. This is really important - we see stories almost every day on the news about theft. If you're online, you see surveillance photos from stores and theft happening. People are trying to figure out the way to address this, and the biggest problem that seems solvable from a public safety perspective is going after these retail theft rings. But in a way, going after petty theft is not going after retail theft and this audit addressed that. This report basically said targeting organized retail theft is important. And some cities like Auburn have been successful at doing that, but they've succeeded by trying to "cut off the head of the snake" - as they put it - and not going after petty theft. What this study found is that Seattle really likes going after petty theft and calling it going after retail crime. Most of the crimes are theft under $750, they are individuals doing this. They find them participating in task forces, but as for action on the ground - action that they're taking - it doesn't appear that they're doing much to actually go after the heads of these organizations, the organized part of that organized crime. According to the audit - in PubliCola that came out on the 25th - responding to calls from just the top 100 retail locations in the city used almost 19,000 hours of police time, equivalent to nine full-time officers that could be streamlined by using tools like rapid video response instead of deploying officers out all over town. So if they need to interview employees, they can do those interviews by Zoom. They can do those in a more proactive way, in a more efficient way - that saves officers time, that saves employees time, that is really less impactful to both the business and the department. And can also get them that information quicker, so it gives more of a chance to get closer to the people who are in these fencing rings, who are making it profitable for these people to steal. And the audit found that the City does participate in task forces and stuff, but they should also invest in place-based strategies like environmental factors, the actual design, better lighting, activating vacant lots, and other non-law enforcement approaches to make hotspots less appealing places for people to operate illegal street markets. There were 68 strategies proposed last year, but the City's only implemented three. So we have these conversations - they're really visible in Seattle, but they're happening all over the place in cities from Auburn to Kent to others - having these community meetings and saying - Wow, we're really trying to do this. If you look under the hood, you see that they continue to go after petty criminals at the expense of the ability to go after the heads of these organized crime rings and using other tools besides just a cop responding to something to prevent these things from happening. How did you see this? [00:28:00] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, this is something that could probably not just apply to Seattle, even down here in Olympia, Tacoma. This is a result of the other media outlets making a bigger deal about shoplifting and focusing on that as a narrative - that could be inspiring more resources to be going into those sorts of things, as opposed to - like you were saying - the areas where they really could be focusing on instead. We're just going for the wrong thing. [00:28:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and you raise a good point. If you are seeing this highlighted - and we've seen lots of stories of theft used in a way that's really propaganda, we've seen situations here locally and nationally where the impact of theft has been overstated and the cause is muddied. If people really care about this, they'll take these findings into account and implement them. If all you hear them saying is the same thing over and over again, that seems more like a campaign tactic or like a scare tactic. We have to use all of the tools at our disposal. We have to get more intentional about wisely using the resources that we do. You have people saying the only way that things can be improved is to hire more cops. There's no way to get more cops online without basically a year lead time because they have to be accepted, go to the academy - there's a long lead time before you get them on the street. Wow - how bleak and hopeless is that situation? Seemingly nothing else can be done - after we have already taken so many steps and allocated so much money, extra money - retention bonuses to stay, high salaries, how many officers are clearing money that other people in the community aren't making? And so using that money effectively, finding ways to use the existing assets more efficiently - this is gonna save officers' time. We should see action taken on these. And certainly within SPD, when there are 60-something recommendations and only three have been implemented, we need to keep ticking down that list. I hope we get beyond the talk when there's so much that needs to happen to keep us safe and to hopefully prevent crime instead of just responding to it. There are things identified and hopefully they choose to do them. And with that, we thank you for listening to this Hacks & Wonks on Friday, July 28th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful cohost today was Washington State government reporter from McClatchy, Shauna Sowersby. You can find Shauna on Twitter @Shauna_Sowersby - Shauna underscore Sowersby. You can - and that's S-H-A-U-N-A. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter and you can find me on all platforms @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, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a 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, vote by August 1st, and we will talk to you next time.

Dozens of homeless residents in Burien are still living outside, months after the city started debating how to help them. A million dollar deal fell through. An entire city board resigned. And council meetings are getting heated, to say the least. There's something for every community in the region to learn about Burien's homelessness crisis. Publicola editor and publisher Erica C. Barnett explains.We want to hear from you! Fill out our audience survey to help us improve the show (and maybe win some sweet Seattle Now stickers): https://forms.office.com/r/9Q5TdZhfghWe can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. You have the power! Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/seattlenowJoin us for a live taping in August! The conversation is all about Seattle's music scene. Tickets and more info: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kuows-seattle-now-live-casual-friday-

This week in review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola Erica Barnett! They discuss Everett's OceanGate Inc.'s submersible tragedy, King County Regional Homelessness Authority turmoil, Burien's continuing crisis, a poll showing residents favor a capital gains tax for Seattle, Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell leaving the mayor's office, what may happen to the officer who hit and killed Jaahnavi Kandula, and local publications not crediting Erica and Publicola for their work.  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 Barnett, at @ericacbarnett.   Resources “Jorge Barón, Candidate for King County Council District 4” from Hacks & Wonks   “Homelessness Authority Distances Itself from Lived Experience Coalition, Won't Re-Bid Entire System This Year as Planned” from PubliCola   “Homelessness Authority Attempts to Wrest Control Over Controversial, Consequential Oversight Board” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Burien planning commissioner removal is latest in string of encampment drama” by Anna Patrick from The Seattle Times   “Burien Decides to Take No Action on Encampment on Its Property, Opening Path for Private Sweep” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Poll shows Seattle residents support citywide capital gains tax” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times   “Mayor Harrell's niece out as senior deputy mayor” by Sarah Grace Taylor from The Seattle Times   “Seattle Police Officer Was Driving 74 MPH When He Hit and Killed 23-Year-Old Pedestrian” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   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 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 Jorge Barón about his campaign for King County Council District 4, why he decided to run, how 17 years at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project has prepared him for the role, and his thoughts on generating progressive revenue for county services, drug possession and substance use disorder, addressing overcrowding in the King County Jail, improving frontline worker wages and workforce issues, air quality and climate change, and the importance of oversight in genuine community engagement and policy implementation. 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: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. [00:01:46] Erica Barnett: Great to be here. [00:01:47] Crystal Fincher: This has been one wild week of news. I guess we will start out talking about the Everett submersible tragedy - what we now know is a tragedy - and just an odd situation. And to me, really, the height of hubris. What did you see as this unfolded and what are your thoughts? [00:02:08] Erica Barnett: Yeah, hubris is such a great word to describe what happened in this tragedy involving five people who went down in the submersible that - the stories are coming out now about the extent to which it was not safe and people were, within the company, were blowing the whistle. A guy was let go after saying - This, we need to do more safety analysis of this submarine, submersible rather - I don't really know the difference but it's a submersible. And it seemed like a pretty unsafe situation for everybody involved, yet the owner of the company essentially said safety checks are stupid, regulation is anti-innovation, and I'm going to go down in the sub that's run by a PlayStation controller, and everything's going to be good. And for the sake of what? It's deep sea tourism for rich people and they can call themselves explorers all they want, but the Titanic where they were going to - where they ultimately met their fate - is one of the most explored deep sea artifacts known to man. So this just, it just felt like such an avoidable tragedy if the people who ran this company, the people who surrounded the guy who ran this company, were willing to just put their foot down and say no. But of course, it's very hard to say no to billionaires with big egos - look at Elon Musk and his plan for going to Mars and space exploration and his exploding rockets. [00:03:44] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely is hubris. It absolutely was a tragedy several years in the making, and this guy believed his own hype despite the fact that his craft was the only one like it, it wasn't certified for the job that it was actually doing. He thought the certifications were frivolous and just got in the way of innovation. And even his industry association wrote him, basically begging him to stop taking passengers and to really reevaluate what he was doing with that craft. And even if you do want to move forward and support innovation, they're like - Yeah, okay, then go down by yourself - don't take paying passengers who aren't engineers or explorers themselves. This is really irresponsible, this is going to end in a tragedy. And it absolutely did. I just, I feel bad for the 19 year old who evidently had a bad feeling - wisely - looking at the facts of the situation, the disclaimer that they were asked to sign, and his relatives said that he basically went to please his dad. That's really unfortunate. But my goodness the hubris involved, and it's just a reminder that just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should do something. And take a look at - is this really something we should be doing? Why are we going down to look at the Titanic? It's basically a graveyard at this point in time. What are we getting from doing that? I just - there's so much that is beyond me with this. [00:05:16] Erica Barnett: Yeah, there was discussion about what the - in one of the articles I was reading - about what the purpose of this was. And I think their stated justification was - Well, we're studying the way that the Titanic wreckage is decaying over time. But they were going down every year - that's BS - it was, it's an ego trip. And I think this is a general lesson that people who think they're smarter than experts could take to heart, which is that expertise matters and experience doing something matters. And if you are saying the laws of physics don't apply to you, you should talk to some people who know about the laws of physics. And if you're saying engineers are boring, which is a paraphrase of something that Stockton Rush, the head of the company, said - he said, We don't want a bunch of 50-something year old guys, we want young innovators. Those 50-something year old guys were the ones telling him that this wasn't safe and that's not what he wanted to hear. But it turns out, they actually knew what they were talking about. [00:06:14] Crystal Fincher: They did. And it just reminds me so much of - we've heard so many - really tech entrepreneurs most of all - talking about disruption, talking about how regulations and traditional processes are just passe and they get in the way of innovation. And all of these regulations are unnecessary and bad and get in the way of - these entrepreneurs just trying to do their thing and innovate. And they're there for a reason. We have seen how so many of those tales wind up and it turns out they weren't doing anything mind blowing, technologically groundbreaking. They were just looking at different ways to exploit the system. And it feels like this was another thing where he was looking for some loopholes to get through, felt really smart for supposedly figuring it out. But there's a reason that happens - regulations, as they say, are written in blood. And here's yet another example. So I just hope people learn the lesson with this, and we don't see another replay - we'll see how that works out. I also want to talk about the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which just has a lot going on. What is this week's news? [00:07:29] Erica Barnett: Boy, where to start - there's going to be a meeting today. So I guess I'll start in reverse chronological order - there's going to be a meeting today to essentially take over control of the Continuum of Care Board, which is an obscure but very important body that oversees federal funding that comes in from HUD, but that had a big controversy earlier this year - as I reported - when one of the members of the board shouted down another member over the proposed appointment of a sex offender who had targeted teenage girls to the board. That blew up in a big way, it got picked up all over right wing media - which really distorted the story quite a bit and demonized this volunteer board member. And now I think in the fallout from that and with the departure of former CEO Marc Dones, the KCRHA is trying to get control over that board in a literal way. They're adopting a new charter that essentially takes away some of the board's powers to appoint its own members and that sort of thing. So that is happening today. The KCRHA was also supposed to rebid the entire homelessness system. So basically start from zero, we're going to rebid all these contracts, it might be a whole new set of players - that was supposed to happen next year. And it's not going to happen now until at least the year after that. So there's just a lot of retrenchment going on with the departure of Marc Dones. Helen Howell is the interim CEO and I think that she is trying to do a lot of damage control. They're distancing themselves from this group called the Lived Experience Coalition that had a lot of power in the old structure. So there's a lot of just change and churn happening at the organization right now. [00:09:05] Crystal Fincher: There's a lot of change and churn. We've also seen an op-ed earlier this month, from King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn, calling for basically the end of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. Other people I've seen - who consider themselves progressive - also wondering what the purpose is, what the future holds. Is it really going to continue being such a lopsided or Seattle-heavy organization? Are other suburban cities also going to contribute? What do you think the future looks like for this organization? [00:09:42] Erica Barnett: I think the organization is in a position where it has to succeed - that's not to say that it will - but I think these calls for it to just be evaporated or for it to be defunded are pretty, frankly, stupid and beside the point. Because those conversations have already happened, we decided to create this authority - there were progressive objections at the time too, but here we are. And so I think now what the authority really needs is support from the county and the city. And one thing that has really hindered it is not just lack of buy-in from suburban cities, because suburban cities - it's true, they are not on board with what the authority wants to do by and large, they have various types of objections to various aspects including the whole philosophy of Housing First. But I think the bigger problem is the KCRHA does not have money to be anything other than an administrative pass-through organization at this point. And I think it over promised based on wishful thinking about funding and about what it could do with the money that it had. And they promised that they would be a transformational force to reduce and end homelessness within a very short period of time. And we've heard those promises before and they never come true because, in part, because there's just - we don't put the funding behind it. So the amount of funding they have is basically the same as existed before the RHA was even stood up. So it just stands to reason that they're not going to make a transformational system with the same amount of money. To me, these calls to just dissolve it are beside the point, and also Reagan Dunn and others who are saying this don't actually have an alternative proposal other than just don't do anything. [00:11:23] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it also seems like we've seen friction between the Homelessness Authority and some of its subcontractors or organizations who are doing some of the groundwork. Has that been a hindrance, and does it look like it may continue to be? [00:11:39] Erica Barnett: It's an interesting question. For example, the authority is doing an investigation into the Low Income Housing Institute - I'm not sure when that the results of that are going to come out. And maybe that's justified, but launching into investigations and focusing on that kind of stuff - that creates obviously tremendous friction between the authority and its contractors - which, again, maybe that's fine if there's problems there. But it does feel like it has been such an adversarial force. And I think that Marc Dones came in with a lot of criticism for the existing system and existing providers and wanting to reinvent the wheel. And as it turns out, existing providers in many cases actually know what they're doing and are experts. And we were talking about expertise - it is important not to alienate everybody that you're going to have to work with that makes up the entire homelessness system. So I think there's a lot of broken trust there that's going to have to be rebuilt. And I'm not saying that means don't investigate agencies where there are problems, but there has just been an adversarial relationship between the authority and a lot of these groups that is going to have to be repaired for the system to work. [00:12:53] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We will continue to follow what happens with the Regional Homelessness Authority. Now let's talk about Burien - my goodness, Burien. [00:13:02] Erica Barnett: Oh, Burien. What are we going to do with you? [00:13:06] Crystal Fincher: So what has been happening this week in Burien? [00:13:10] Erica Barnett: Oh, goodness - just to briefly recap - the City of Burien, of course, has failed to do anything to meaningfully address and help a relatively small group of people who are living unsheltered in Burien, moved them around from place to place. And last week, they censured and removed from his position the head of the Planning Commission for Burien - because he essentially told the group of encampment residents who were living outside the library about another spot where they could legally be, that's also owned by the city. And I did not attend this meeting, but I heard it was incredibly ugly and that there were tirades from the dais about the role this planning commissioner played in helping these unsheltered people go somewhere safe. And the Planning Commission, or commission of any small city, is - you could say it's not really a big deal. Who even knows about this commission? What do they do? But it's a way of silencing people for what they do in their private lives and punishing them for what they do in their private lives. And these are volunteer commissioners - who show up and do the work. And they could now be censured for stuff they say on Twitter, conceivably, or any sort of actions that the city council and the mayor of Burien don't agree with. And that is just an absurd silencing of free speech, among other things. And I think it's really, really troubling on a much larger scale than just the City of Burien. And also, the city turned down a million dollars from King County that was no strings attached to actually help the people who are living homeless in Burien who are now scattered - to the four winds, essentially - across Burien and across downtown Burien. They had an opportunity to spend this money however they wanted. And they said, we don't want the money. [00:15:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and have they even officially said - We don't want the money, or have they just not even bothered to respond to the offer? [00:15:12] Erica Barnett: That's true. I'm just taking that as a "we don't want the money" because you have this offer out here - they're so, in my view from watching the story - they are, they're just so dead set against King County at this point that they won't even work with them is my impression. And I think they just want this problem to go away. I think they want to grandstand and tell homeless people to pick themselves up by their bootstraps or suggest that they're not really from Burien, which is not true from people who have worked with these particular individuals for years. And again, it's a small group of people that are being demonized and singled out for existing homeless in a small city that doesn't have a lot of resources. So a million dollars could have gone a long way. [00:15:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, a million dollars plus 35 Pallet shelters ready to go - on offer. And in addition to that, it is just confounding - basically to your point - whether or not they take it up, they've effectively declined it. And this - the saddest thing, two sad things. One, this is a result of a split council majority. And we're used to hearing this kind of rhetoric from MAGA people, from super right wing, far-right kind of extremists. But right now, we're seeing this from - a Democrat is part of this conservative majority on the council - and just really disappointing to hear how extreme the rhetoric has been. You talked about coming from the dais - there's a clip of Deputy Mayor Kevin Schilling, there was a clip of another councilmember - just really disheartening and kind of stomach turning to watch. [00:16:50] Erica Barnett: Unprofessional - I would say - I just I don't know how you can have a reasonable conversation with a councilmember who said - not during this conversation, but previously - that people living on the piece of land that former planning commissioner Charles Schaefer suggested should just go to the bathroom in the dog bags that are provided for dogs. And this was in saying that she didn't want to provide a porta potty for people living unsheltered at the site. It's just heartless, dehumanizing stuff that I think is inappropriate to be coming from the dais of a city council. So it's hard to see where they go from here. And I will also add - I neglected to mention one thing that also happened - is that a lot of other city commissioners and board members resigned in protest of Charles Schaefer's removal from the Planning Commission. It's just really unprecedented stuff over in Burien right now. And yeah, I think they're - their elections are coming up and we'll see. But I think that they're at an impasse right now. [00:17:51] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it does appear that they're at an impasse. And again, sweeping people does not do anything to solve the issue of them not having homes, which is the main problem. And what we saw - yet again, for the third time - is after being swept from a location, they still have nowhere to go, so they move somewhere else. Burien is not big - the area that we're talking about is not big. And this is actually not a big population of people that we're dealing with. This is one of those rare situations that really seems solvable, particularly with the partnership from the county. It really does seem like it's possible to move the unhoused people in Burien into shelter, to work with the people who are there, and to get that done. And they just won't - they just refuse to. I will say that there are three councilmembers in the minority who have been doing the hard work - Cydney Moore, who we will have an upcoming interview with on a Tuesday topical show, but who was also up for censure in that special meeting where they kicked out the planning commissioner, Hugo Garcia and Sarah Moore have been working and trying to get the council to move to take action. But when the majority does not feel that way, you really can't do anything. So we saw this week that one of the few remaining plots of public land where people would be able to go just had some hostile architecture pop up - a bunch of rocks and some campaign signs of a candidate who is very hostile to the homeless - popped up in that strip of dirt. So we'll see what comes next, but it certainly is really sad to watch. Also making news this week is a poll about a local capital gains tax for Seattle. What do Seattle residents prefer? [00:19:36] Erica Barnett: They prefer a capital gains tax, apparently. There are caveats, right? So it's a capital gains tax on the sale of stocks and bonds over $250,000. And according to this poll, which was reported in The Seattle Times, the level of support is over half and less than a third oppose the idea, and then the rest are undecided. But that's pretty darn strong support for a new tax in the City of Seattle. We always hear about tax fatigue, but I think that when you propose a progressive tax - which a capital gains tax is rather than yet another sales tax that makes everything more expensive for everybody - people support it. [00:20:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now, what are the prospects look like - this being introduced - is this something that may move soon in the City? [00:20:23] Erica Barnett: I'm not sure about the timeline, but I do think that if polling is happening on this, it is because it's something the City Council is talking about. We've discussed the capital gains tax in the past - the State Supreme Court upheld the state's capital gains tax this year, so I think that there is a lot of momentum for it. Alex Pedersen has proposed, recently, a 2% capital gains tax. Of course, he's going to be leaving the council, so I don't know if this is something that can happen this year. But I do think - the City has been desperately looking for progressive revenue sources to fund some of its priorities - facing big budget shortfalls in coming years. We need more funding. And that funding cannot just eternally come from property tax, which is also a regressive tax that renters end up paying as well. So I think that the prospects of this are pretty good. It's the first new progressive revenue proposal that's come about since the JumpStart Tax, which is a tax on big employers. So I think that taxing the rich, taxing big wealthy corporations that don't pay their fair share - I think these are very popular ideas in the City of Seattle. [00:21:35] Crystal Fincher: This is certainly going to be interesting - just because the City is facing a budget shortfall without this - there is talk of needing more revenue or needing to make some significant cuts. So this may be introduced right at the right time for City budget purposes. It'll be interesting to see, especially with someone like Councilmember Pedersen leading the charge for this, to see that this may be workable, to see what kind of coalition comes together around this. But we will keep our eyes on it. Also news this week - that's pretty significant, especially in wonky and hacky circles - is news that Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell is transitioning out of Mayor Harrell's administration. How did you see this? [00:22:20] Erica Barnett: Yeah, wow - it was big news, and it's been rumored for a couple weeks. And how did I see it? I see it as the power struggle within the mayor's office has landed in Tim Burgess's court. So Tim Burgess is the longtime advisor to Bruce Harrell - former city councilmember, works in the mayor's office, and is now going to be the deputy mayor. And he is much more of what I call a law-and-order person. He very much supports what I would call punitive approaches to low-level crimes - things like shoplifting, drug use, etc. And I think Monisha Harrell definitely had a different point of view and approach. She was and is much more oriented towards harm reduction, towards trying to figure out ways for example, drug users to get into recovery as opposed to going to jail. That's an oversimplification, but those are the fault lines within the mayor's office. And I think that the faction that's led by Tim Burgess has obviously won that battle. And I think perhaps because Bruce Harrell is probably more oriented to that point of view than he is to his niece's - Monisha Harrell's - point of view. What do you think? [00:23:26] Crystal Fincher: I think that's largely right. I think, especially at this point in time in the reporting that we've seen, reflects what I've known about Monisha for several years. When she came in - certainly for people who hadn't known about her - it may raise eyebrows to see a mayor appointing his niece. But when you look at Monisha's resume and list of accomplishments, she absolutely earned that position and deserved to be there. And has been behind a lot of statewide policy moving in a progressive direction - in terms of public safety, in terms of some police reforms, and trying to move into a better direction with these issues that we're dealing with right now in how we treat substance use and substance abuse. But she has been behind a lot of policy and isn't always trying to take credit out front, but has been there and has a reputation for being a person of her word. And I can just imagine that that is a complicated position to be in when you have some policy disagreements with your uncle, who is the mayor - you are the deputy mayor, you have some other really big personalities like Tim Burgess in that executive's office. And we see how things did shake out. And I don't think - and I haven't had discussions with Monisha about this, this is no inside information or anything, but just from an outsider perspective - it does seem like there was some significant misalignment. But it's a challenge and it's always a dilemma. And I know lots of people who go in, even if you disagree with the executive there, if you feel that you can make a positive contribution - and to be clear, Monisha wasn't going in saying, I disagree or anything, she's always signaled public alignment with Mayor Harrell - but it's a complicated position to be in. And I know she was probably just trying to do her best and get the job done. But when the ultimate decision is not yours, things can go a different way. And it looks like a lot of things have gone a different way in the City of Seattle. And a lot of things that we're still waiting on - she was on Hacks & Wonks talking about trying to stand up a Department of Public Safety, talking about standing up alternative responses so that you could have the most appropriate responder - that's not always going to be an armed cop responding, but someone, if it's a substance abuse crisis, if it's a mental health crisis - but things just seem to have gone sideways. So we'll see what she does next and where she lands. But I - with no friction or resistance in this mayor's office seemingly - kind of worrisome about the direction of public safety, especially as there is a SPOG contract being negotiated right now. Just wonder what's going to happen from here on out. [00:26:11] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I think - just real quickly - I think that an internal issue with Monisha leaving, within the City itself is, I hear from people in the departments on the second floor, all through City Hall that - the second floor, sorry, being City Council - but also just within the departments that Monisha was somebody that you could really work with, that she would sit down and listen. And listen - which is, and like you said, was a straight shooter, would not BS you, and would - was willing to change her perspective from learning new information. And I'm not sure that Burgess has necessarily shown himself to be that same type of person or personality. And yeah, I think this third department is probably going to still happen, but it may happen in a different way. And I'm not entirely confident that Burgess is going to be someone who changes his mind on beliefs that he has formed very, very firmly over many, many years about public safety. This is the guy that proposed criminalizing "aggressive panhandling" when he was on the City Council. So very, very different perspective from what Monisha brought to it. And just also, I wonder what's going to happen within the City itself when there isn't somebody like Monisha sitting down with folks and listening and saying - Okay, I hear you - and taking that back to the mayor's office. [00:27:38] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I think sometimes people look at the mayor and the people who work for the mayor, and they think everybody is completely in alignment. And they're all just working towards the same goal. And that is frequently not the case. What you see is what the final adjudication is, what the final decision is - but a lot of times there's vehement debate, there's pushback, there's things that are mitigated before it gets out to the public. And you would be surprised sometimes how much difference someone pushing back internally can make in the way things turn out publicly. And I wish things would have gone differently, but here we are. And we will continue to pay attention to what is happening in the mayor's office. Also this week - got more information about what went into the officer fatally running over, basically, Jaahnavi Kandula a few months back. What happened here? [00:28:43] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I had been trying to get this information for several months about what actually happened, particularly how fast this officer was going - and finally had my third or fourth attempt at a record request fulfilled by the SPD, actually pretty quickly, because this case has been referred over to the King County Prosecutor. So what we learned, among other things, is that he was driving 74 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour zone immediately before he struck her. So he hit the brakes about two-thirds of a second before the impact. And so what we can tell from that is that he was going too fast for her to have possibly gotten out of the way - she did attempt to run, but it was too late. As I said, the investigation is now to some extent in the King County Prosecutor's office. SPD, of course, is doing - did its own internal investigation and has to decide whether to fire this guy and that could result in a whole series of appeals. So we'll see what happens with that. But one issue that's probably going to come up is this question of whether he had his siren on as he was approaching. I don't know that it would have made a difference, because he was already speeding when he was a block away. But in terms of policy, you're supposed to exercise due care. And part of that is having lights and sirens on. And the report says that he was chirping his siren sporadically as he went through intersections approaching the site of the collision. And that is, to my understanding, not the policy when you're doing emergency driving. And in any case, I don't know that SPD is going to find that it's - or the King County Prosecutor is going to find that it's appropriate to be going 75 in a 25 mile an hour zone, even when you are supposedly doing emergency driving to get to an emergency, which is also questionable for reasons that I've reported. [00:30:34] Crystal Fincher: Extremely questionable - just why that officer, and the policy of officers is to respond to overdose calls in the first place. I think it was just an unfortunate situation all the way around. It's not going to shock me, like so many times it doesn't shock me, if they come up with a finding that the officer didn't do anything punishable. But how we don't sit back and question every single element of this and understand that we can do better and we deserve better - if this doesn't spur that, I don't know what will. [00:31:07] Erica Barnett: I wouldn't be surprised to see them make an example of this guy and suggest that this is a one bad apple situation, but we'll see. [00:31:14] Crystal Fincher: We will see. And before we conclude today - I didn't put this in the list that we were going to talk about. But I want to talk about yet more examples this week - and I don't know why this happens so much with you - of your reporting being copied, plagiarized - [00:31:31] Erica Barnett: oh Lord. [00:31:32] Crystal Fincher: - without, and being uncredited. Why is it so hard for people to credit you? [00:31:38] Erica Barnett: I don't think it's a me problem - honestly. [00:31:41] Crystal Fincher: It is so not a you problem. [00:31:43] Erica Barnett: Well, no, no, no - what I mean is I think it's a small publication problem. But yeah, I do a lot of original reporting - last week I broke a bunch of stories and one of them was plagiarized by Ari Hoffman at The Post Millennial, which is a right wing site. And he just took my language, changed it slightly, took out - this was about the judge who ruled that police, essentially, can't enforce the graffiti law for the time being. And without going into the details of that story - he just lifted it and took out some of the language that was perhaps not flattering to SPD and used all my same links, including a link to a very obscure site that somebody sent me on Twitter to the ruling, like a public site where you can actually see the ruling without having to pay. So blatant plagiarism. And I am in touch with attorneys and will be taking action on that. But then King 5, quite infuriatingly, took this story that we were just talking about - which I have been reporting on for months and I've been the only reporter in town who has continued to pay attention to the story of this officer who ran down a pedestrian and written about it multiple times, filed request after request to get this information, finally got it, read this 99-page report thoroughly before reporting on it. And then, six hours later, King 5 miraculously has all the information that was in my story - on a story that they have never paid any attention to since it happened in January. So it was an extremely clear cut case of using my reporting. And that's fine if you say this was reported by PubliCola, which a lot of other outlets who reported on this did, including KIRO, Seattle Times. It's just a basic thing - you can report something, but say who did it first - because this was an exclusive. But they didn't do that. I don't know why. I think it's because it's easier to do it to a small outlet. I don't think they would do this to The Seattle Times because they have a battalion of attorneys and I don't, so it's easy to get away with. And I asked them repeatedly to just give me a credit and they have ignored all of my requests. [00:33:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and that's not cool. And they should credit you. [00:33:59] Erica Barnett: It's not cool. [00:34:00] Crystal Fincher: And that should be a regular thing, whether it's an independent outlet or a behemoth like The Seattle Times. But I just wanted to talk about that, say we saw that - and people need to do better. [00:34:13] Erica Barnett: I appreciate that. [00:34:14] Crystal Fincher: But also hopefully there's a small little bit of satisfaction - silver lining there - that your reporting is solid, and it's good, and you're asking the right questions, and digging in the right places, and uncovering information that is useful to us all. And I appreciate that. [00:34:31] Erica Barnett: Well, thank you - the thing is, just quickly to plug - King 5 would not have had this story if I hadn't reported it, which means that if PubliCola wasn't around, the story would not have existed or it would have been reported much later and in a different way and with a different focus. And so I think that it might be easy to say King 5 - we got it from King 5, who cares? But King 5 and all these other outlets were not paying close attention to this the way that we were. [00:34:58] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, June 23rd, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. And you can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and the links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.  

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by general secretary of the Seattle Transit Riders Union, Katie Wilson! They cover a lot of ground today, discussing Bob Ferguson's unnamed donors, the Burien Planning Commission resigning in protest over “scapegoating” and “lack of action and missteps” by the city council majority and city manager, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell's “War on Health,” reflections following the Seattle City Council mobility-focused forums, the Seattle City Council approving an affordable housing levy for the November ballot, Trans Pride barring Seattle Public Library, King County Council considers mandating that stores accept cash in addition to card or electronic payments, and a Saving Journalism, Saving Our Democracy event on Wednesday, June 21st, at Town Hall Seattle. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii, find today's co-host, Katie Wilson, at @WilsonKatieB, and find the Seattle Transit Riders Union at @SeattleTRU. Resources “Better Behavioral Health Crisis Response with Brook Buettner and Kenmore Mayor Nigel Herbig” from Hacks & Wonks   “Before rule change, AG Bob Ferguson moves $1.2M ‘surplus' to campaign” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   “Early WA governor's race skirmish? Campaign finance loophole scrutinized” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   “Public Hearing to review – and possibly take action against – Charles Schaefer and Cydney Moore will be Thursday, June 15” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog   “King County's letter to City of Burien offers $1 million and 35 pallet shelters for homelessness crisis” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog   “Emotion-packed special Burien City Council meeting results in removal of Charles Schaefer as Planning Commission Chair” by Mellow DeTray from The B-Town Blog   “UPDATE: Total of 9 commissioners, advisory board resign en masse in protest of Charles Schaefer's removal” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog   “Seattle to Launch "War on Health"” by Amy Sundberg from Notes from the Emerald City   “​​Harrell's approach to fentanyl crisis: Heavy on spectacle, light on substance” by Marcus Harrison Green for The Seattle Times   “Community Court Is Dead. What Comes Next?” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Harrell Vows to Pass New Drug Law, Creates Work Group to Find Solutions to the Fentanyl Crisis” by Andrew Engelson from PubliCola   “Mayor Harrell Promises a ‘War on Health,' Not a ‘War on Drugs'” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Midweek Video: Seattle Council Candidate District 3 Mobility Forum” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Seattle City Council District 5 Mobility Forum Video” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “City Council sends $970M Housing Levy to Seattle voters” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   “WA renters need to earn twice the minimum wage to afford rent” by Heidi Groover from The Seattle Times   “Seattle Public Library Kicked Out of Trans Pride After Hosting Anti-LGBTQ+ Activist Kirk Cameron” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Data shows Seattle area is becoming increasingly cashless” by Gene Balk from The Seattle Times   Saving Journalism, Saving Our Democracy – Town Hall Seattle   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. 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 learned about North King County's innovative new Regional Crisis Response Agency with its inaugural Executive Director Brook Buettner and Kenmore Mayor Nigel Herbig. Following national guidelines and best practices for behavioral health crisis care, a five-city consortium established the RCR program in 2023 as part of a vision to provide their region with the recommended continuum of behavioral health care - which includes someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go. 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: co-founder and general secretary of the Seattle Transit Riders Union, Katie Wilson. [00:01:35] Katie Wilson: Thank you, Crystal - great to be here. [00:01:37] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you here again, and just - I am such an admirer of the work that you and TRU do. Just wanted to start talking about - an updated public disclosure report cycle just happened, we're in the midst of a gubernatorial race that has started early. But there was a notable addition to these reports, or occurrence in these reports, and that was the reporting by Bob Ferguson of his surplus transfer. How did you see this? [00:02:10] Katie Wilson: Yeah so basically, Ferguson transferred - I believe it was - $1.2 million from surplus funds from previous campaigns to his current gubernatorial campaign. And it appears as just a big lump sum, so it's not clear who donated this money - what individuals or interests. And because of the timing of the new PDC interpretation of the law, this appears to be technically okay, but it does mean that it's very possible that you have people who contributed to that $1.2 million who are also contributing to his current campaign and therefore going over individual campaign contributions. So you could look at it as a big infusion of kind of dark money into this race if you wanted to. It appears to be technically legal but definitely of, I suppose, questionable ethics in a larger sense. [00:03:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it was really notable. I'd read the reporting looking at it, but when you're looking at a PDC report and you see basically more money undeclared, unassigned to - literally listed under miscellaneous there in the report - it does make you wonder who those people are. Especially since if you work in politics or affiliated with it, you know that it's because of an action by the attorney general - which lots of people agree with - that we can't currently advertise on Twitter or Facebook because they lacked the appropriate reporting requirements. Because that's so important - to see who is giving what - we have stronger disclosure requirements than some other areas. Certainly it's something we take seriously. And so it is interesting to see from the attorney general who did that, just a lot of dark money. This could be an interim reporting thing maybe, he could still report who those donations belong to. As you said, it could run afoul of some of the campaign contribution limits if there are people who gave both to that campaign that he's transferring from and to his current gubernatorial campaign, but it's really a conundrum. Our Public Disclosure Commission recently clarified that you can't make transfers above any campaign contribution limits, but the official notification or the official clarification didn't happen until after this transfer - although they did let everyone know that they were going to be making that rule change. And it was after that notification that this transfer was made. So no, it was probably dicey, a bit questionable - especially because of that, I would expect to see the donors disclosed. I hope to see the donors disclosed - I think it's an important thing that is unambiguously the spirit of the law, if not the letter. So we'll see how this continues. Are there any other notable races that you're paying attention to, notable reports that you saw? [00:05:09] Katie Wilson: Not so much on the PDC side - I think I didn't comb through it as closely as you did. But one more note on the Ferguson thing - I was just thinking, it just brought to mind - I think the reason, part of the reason why it's notable is just the size of the transfer of money, right? $1.2 million is actually quite a campaign fund. But also just, of course, that it is Bob Ferguson - many of us associate him with principles and things like that. [00:05:36] Crystal Fincher: In law and order. [00:05:37] Katie Wilson: Right - in law and order. And so it just makes me think about just the difference between the things that we say that we believe and then how we behave in our own lives. And you think of something like a new tax going into effect - and a wealthy person who supports a tax that is going to require them to pay more money, but then they shuffle things around before it goes into effect to avoid it affecting them as much. Human nature perhaps, but I think we can expect better of our elected leaders. [00:06:10] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Speaking of expecting better from our elected leaders, I wanted to talk about what's happening in the City of Burien. We certainly have talked about this before, after King County Executive Constantine sent a letter that was - I don't know that it was unprecedented, but certainly not something that we see often. After Burien had twice enacted sweeps of homeless encampments - which as we know are advised against by public health authorities, don't have evidence showing that they are effective, usually people just end up moving to another place - that doesn't solve homelessness, it is actually destabilizing. And providing services and housing is what has had a track record of success that's much better than sweeps. But they kept doing it. And then they - and when I say they, I'm talking about a majority of four people on the Burien City Council – in 4-3 votes on the council, voted to move forward with that. And then because they were called out about a law that says if you're gonna sweep, you need to have shelter available - it makes no sense and is unconstitutional to say that someone can't be in a public space without somewhere else for them to go. When that happened, they said - Okay well, we'll try and just do an end run around the law, and we'll lease it to this dog park group - which is a front for people who are just going to use their lease and occupation of that land as a private entity to then trespass people off of that land, so a sweep by proxy. Which Dow Constantine, the King County Executive, saw and said - I can't have our sheriff's deputies participate in this - and those sheriff's deputies are the ones who are actually providing police services to the City of Burien - saying that this is unconstitutional, we can't be a part of it. But at the same time, offering help to get through the problem, offering $1 million, offering several pallet shelters - I think it's 100 pallet shelters - for people and space in order to put that. Which most cities, I think, would be jumping up and down, celebrating, saying - We need all the help we can get. [00:08:18] Katie Wilson: You would hope, but most cities - you think most cities in King County would be jumping up and down to start a sanctioned encampment in their city? [00:08:31] Crystal Fincher: I think many would. I think more would than you think. Now, that caveat comes with they may sweep in addition to that, I don't know that they would stop the sweeps. But I do think that most would take that money and identify places in the same way that they've identified places in these contentious meetings for shelters and different locations and the conversations that we have with that. Not that it wouldn't have any friction, but most cities have taken advantage of funds in this area. It is definitely more unusual to say - No thanks - to a million bucks, especially when the problem is chronic. They have swept three times now and the people just moved to another location - 'cause surprise, they have no other home to go to. And if there is no shelter, then what? So shelter has to be part of this. And hopefully we proceed beyond shelter and really talk about housing and helping transition people into that. So this is just a conundrum. But the escalation came when the City Council tried to censure a member of the Planning Commission and a City Councilmember who were actually trying to do the work of finding housing for people - accusing them of interfering. And it just seemed like a really ugly thing - that they felt like they were being called out, showed in their reaction to King County Executive Dow Constantine's letter. Just seems like taking offense to even being questioned about this tactic - again, that is against best practices - and feels like retribution, and really unconstitutional retribution. What's your view on this? [00:10:09] Katie Wilson: Yeah, this has been a really contentious public issue in Burien for a little while now. And I think that the bigger issue that we're dealing with here is the spread of the homelessness crisis. Of course, the homelessness crisis has been regional - not just in Seattle - for a long time, but I think that there's been an intensification over the last few years and especially coming out of the pandemic as rent increases, not just in Seattle, but in some cases even more so in other cities around the county have just shot up, right? So you've had double digit percentage rent increases in many, many cities around the county, including Burien. And so I think that that has led to, been a big factor in increasing numbers of unsheltered homeless people in Burien and other cities outside of Seattle, so that it's becoming a more visible and urgent public problem for them. And I think that there's a lot of kind of wishful thinking on the part of both some elected officials and a lot of people in Burien that this isn't really a Burien problem, right? Like maybe these people could just go to Seattle or something, right? So I think that there's a - and we saw this play out too in the fight in Burien about permanent supportive housing recently, right? So there's a reluctance to invest in things like shelter and services in the city, and a desire that the problem just goes away or goes somewhere else. So that's, I think, the bigger picture. And the specific grounds on which the councilmember, Cydney Moore, and the Commissioner Charles - and I'm forgetting his last name now - that this meeting was held, hearing was held last night to potentially remove Charles from the commission and to censure Cydney on the council was that they had - when these sweeps were happening - they had allegedly talked to campers and helped them to find somewhere else to camp. And so I think the idea was that it was improper for these public officials to basically tell people - Here. You can camp here. - when it's technically illegal. And so this hearing took place last night and the outcome was that the - Charles was actually removed from the commission, something that the council had the power to do. And they did that by a 4-3 vote. And in the end, Cydney Moore was not censured. There was a proposal to postpone discussion indefinitely that passed, so that didn't happen. The council does not have the power to remove a fellow councilmember - that can only happen through an election. If they had had the power to remove her, would four of the councilmembers have voted to do so? We'll never know. But they decided not to censure her, knowing that she's going to still be on the council, at least through the elections. [00:13:06] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and at least in elections - there are active elections going on here. We have two people who have been strong proponents of these sweeps, who have spoken against King County Executive Dow Constantine - two of them are running for election. One running for a King County Council seat - Sofia Aragon, running against Teresa Mosqueda. Another running for Burien City Council seat - Kevin Schilling, with two opponents there. And it was really interesting this week - there were endorsement meetings held in a variety of LDs - Burien is in both the 33rd and the 34th Legislative District. So hearing local Democratic organizations talk about this - and it is just confounding - 'cause there's such a misalignment between what you hear coming from the legislative districts and the Democratic base in these areas in the city, and some of the elected officials. So there seemed to be a strong repudiation - certainly a decline to endorse Kevin Schilling again, same with Sofia Aragon. And so it just seems like there are signals coming from people that this is not the right solution. And even if people don't know what to do about the problem and are - I see this as a problem, I'm not sure what to do. It feels like everybody is going - But why would you pass up some help and maybe a path forward? Why would you pass up a million dollars? And talking about passing up - that this offer was made earlier this month, late last month - and they haven't even taken it up, considered it. We still have people living outside. And they had this special meeting to consider kicking this planning commissioner off of the Planning Commission, censuring this councilmember - yet, they're still not even taking time to discuss this offer. Focusing on solutions, getting to work - no matter what your viewpoint is or what you're working on - seems like that would be what would satisfy most people, at least make some progress moving forward on whatever it is that they're going to decide to do. But it seems like they're doing nothing and refusing any offers of help, both financially and otherwise. So many times it's the - Well, how are you gonna pay for it? Someone else is willing to pay for it. The hardest part of this is already taken care of. So I hope that they do take action to move soon. We have seen already some repercussions from this council action and seeing several people from some Burien commissions have resigned - one from an Airport Commission. In fact, not only an airport commissioner, but several members of the Planning Commission are resigning from their seats. And a statement that is released - was just released here while we're recording - the statement says, "We, the undersigned, are resigning from the Burien Planning Commission effective immediately. We've lost confidence in our city council's ability to lead. Over the past several months, it has become clear to us that there is a majority on the council, specifically, Mayor Aragon, Deputy Mayor Schilling, and Councilmembers Matta and Mora, who are unwilling to discuss issues of affordable housing, homelessness, and poverty in Burien. Instead, they have spent valuable time and resources seeking someone to blame for their lack of action and the missteps of the new city manager. Planning Commission Chair Charles Schaefer fulfilled their need for a scapegoat, and they removed him from his position last night while still refusing to take action to address the homelessness crisis that impacts Burien as much as any other city in our region, state, or county, or country. In addition to being unproductive, this action raises significant concerns for us all about our own constitutional rights as individuals serving our city." So we will continue to pay attention to what is happening here, and see what happens. Also want to cover this week - Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell - I don't know if he meant to say this or what, but announced his "War on Health" this week. What happened here? [00:17:17] Katie Wilson: Okay, what a situation. So I think - I guess the idea is that - we all hate the War on Drugs, so we're gonna go for a War on Health instead. Yeah, bad marketing. So the background of course is the City Council vote recently on basically copying the new state drug law into Seattle's code so that the City Attorney Office can prosecute drug possession and public use in Seattle. And that vote ended up failing due to a last minute switch by Councilmember Lewis. And Lewis subsequently said that he would vote for it, but only if there was a process to stand up some new alternative to replace the community courts that City Attorney Ann Davison had unceremoniously dissolved. And so this announcement by Bruce Harrell was of a task force - I'm now forgetting the name of the task force, Crystal, maybe you can help me out - and so the idea is that this very diverse task force, people coming from many different perspectives are gonna come together and they're gonna figure out the solution. We're gonna have more diversion programs, we're gonna have ways for people to avoid just spending a long time in jail for drug possession or public use. And then Seattle is going to pass this law at least partially recriminalizing drugs. And then, everything's gonna be great. So that's the Harrell version of what happened. [00:19:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it's interesting. And it was the Fentanyl Systems Work Group - a subset of the Fentanyl Systems Work Group that was originally put together as part of an effort to revitalize downtown - so now there's a shift, in a subgroup made of that. It was noted that - he said that we need to take a public health approach. There are no public health representatives on this large and broad task force, but it just - if you know me, we've probably had this conversation, but - at some point in time, we have to stop trying to task force our way around problems. We've known of this crisis for quite some time. We've had staff dedicated to figuring out what to do with this crisis. This is a big problem. I don't think that the issue is that people don't know what the problem is, or what the options are on the table - we've been discussing this as a community for quite some time. It really is just - what are you going to do about it? And of course, no one is going to be - everyone is not going to be happy with whatever decision is made, but there needs to be action taken. Hopefully that action is aligned with best practices and what we have seen work elsewhere. But it seems like this is a half-baked response and kind of a flat-footed response to the council declining to do what they were doing there. But even if they would have passed that - that doesn't take care of the crisis. We're talking about criminalization here. We're not talking about the things that actually get people out of addiction, that gets fentanyl off of our streets, that does address public use - which is a problem and needs to be taken care of. I think a lot of people's frustration is just - why do we keep spending time and money either doing nothing, or doing things that have already failed? It would be great if we could spend time and money on things that have a shot at working and have shown that they have worked elsewhere. [00:20:59] Katie Wilson: Yeah, totally. And a couple of things that jumped out at me, reading some of the coverage of this - I thought Marcus Harrison Green had a good op-ed in the Seattle Times about it. And one of the things that he pointed out is that many people start using after they become homeless, right? And so in that context, throwing someone in jail - which is incredibly expensive, even if you do it compassionately, as Harrell has promised compassionate arrests or whatever - and then eventually they're back out on the street where they're more likely to overdose is a really bad idea. And I think that Erica Barnett, in a lot of her coverage of this and related ideas, points out repeatedly that the idea that jail is gonna be just this nice kind of sobering up period, and then you're gonna come out and be much more likely to get treatment and services is really wishful thinking. And in one of the pieces on PubliCola about this, Lisa Daugaard points out that the really critical issue is actually finding funds for recovery services for people with substance use disorder, especially people who are homeless. And that's really, I think, the elephant in the room in terms of what we're not talking about when we're creating this task force to come up with policies and everything. It's just not being willing to reckon with the scale of the resources that are gonna be needed to actually provide the housing and give people the services that they need. And this is something that I think - not to say that that's not gonna be talked about, I'm sure it will be talked about - and it will be talked about in the fall budget process this fall. And that just really makes me nervous - because as someone who's on the City Revenue Stabilization Work Group that's thinking about how the City should deal with an impending general fund shortfall, there's not gonna be a lot of money sloshing around that is just waiting to be allocated to things like this. So I think there's gonna be some really challenging conversations coming up about how we fund these extremely underfunded needs. [00:22:59] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I also wanna talk this week about a number of candidate forums that were held in the City of Seattle from organizations focused on mobility and disability throughout the community - a large coalition of those. And so there were council forums held in several districts. I moderated one of them, another one ended up being canceled - it was a District 4 forum - in honor of the strike at the University of Washington. Any takeaways that you had from these forums with Seattle City Council candidates? [00:23:35] Katie Wilson: Yeah, and by the way, side note - congratulations to UAW 4121 - I believe they've settled their strike as of yesterday. So that's awesome. But yes, so there was going to be a District 4 candidate forum and that's been - hopefully will still happen at some point, but was canceled in solidarity with the strike. But over the last couple of weeks, a large coalition of organizations - including the Transit Riders Union and other groups that work on transportation, climate, and disability issues - hosted forums in the three other open seats, so District 1, District 3 and District 5. And you can watch all of them - so they were recorded, I think The Urbanist might've run articles with links, they're on YouTube. And full disclosure - I did not attend all three forums, I have listened to a lot of it - but my overall impressions were hopeful, but also cynical. So I think a lot of the candidates in all of these races gave a lot of really good answers, made commitments, said that they support much greater investments in multimodal infrastructure. They understand that over 60%, or 66%, of Seattle's carbon emissions come from transportation. They need to really do mode shift - give people realistic options that aren't driving. They support one of our, TRU's issues - trying to get Seattle to pass legislation to require large employers to pay for transit passes for their workers - something that we were working on before the pandemic and was interrupted, but we would love to see happen at some point soon. So lots of good answers. I think the challenge that I see is that when I think about, for example, our current City Council and the kind of answers that they would give to those same questions at a candidate forum, I think a majority, probably a super majority would also give great answers to those questions. And one of the things that we've experienced over the years working with allies to try to get Seattle to do better on these transportation issues is just how short the good intentions and commitments fall in practice often. So for example, it's one thing to say that you support building sidewalks in all the places in cities that don't have them. How are you gonna come up with the astronomical funds that are required to do that? It's one thing to say that you support a connected network of bus lanes and bike lanes throughout the city. How are you gonna behave when there's big political conflicts because you're trying to take space away from cars? And another thing that we've experienced is that even when we have a council that is pretty good on these issues - if we don't have an executive who's right there with them and going to cooperate on implementation, the council can even pass things, like dedicate money for multimodal investments. And then those things don't happen because the mayor doesn't actually support them. And so the money doesn't actually get spent on those projects and things just get delayed and delayed and delayed out of existence. So that's the caution, but we'll see. I think I don't have very much of a sense in a lot of these council races of where exactly things will land after the primary, but I'm hopeful that we'll get some councilmembers in there who care about these issues and will at least make a good effort to move forward. [00:27:08] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I definitely share the takeaways that you have. I also found it notable - one, on a number of the questions - yeah, the answers were more agreeable than initially thought, even specific answers. I also think - and heard it from them directly - they were surprised at hearing figures like 40% of residents of Seattle use non-car modes of transportation, yet only 4% of the SDOT budget is dedicated to those modes - and just that big contrast there. And they were very unaware of that contrast. I think there's a lot of people who, because of the way that media coverage has been over really the past decade plus, that more money and resources are dedicated to this than actually are - and really seeing how little comparatively is budgeted for people in cars versus everyone else doing everything that's not in cars is really stark, and they seemed very surprised by that. And I hope that helps to frame just why we're in the situation we're in, and why we have so far to go, and the urgency is so strong right now. So hopefully we do get some good policy wins out of this, ultimately, when these races shake out. Also want to talk about the Housing Levy being approved. What did the City Council do this week? [00:28:38] Katie Wilson: Yeah, so the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to send a $970 million Housing Levy to the November ballot for voters to vote on. This is a seven-year property tax levy, so that $970 million is spread over those seven years. And this would be used to construct and operate new affordable housing. It would be used to subsidize affordable home ownership. It would be used to raise wages for workers in the supportive housing and services sector. There's a big chunk for rental assistance, some other things. And it's a significantly larger levy than the one that is expiring - I believe it's like over three times bigger than the previous one. And of course that is, I think, probably an appropriate response to the scale of our housing prices. I guess what I would say is that it's tough - because we're chasing the private market. So as rents in the private market and housing costs, home prices in the private market just shoot up and up, it becomes more and more expensive - more and more people on the lower end cannot afford to rent, let alone buy in our region. And so then that demands more and more public resources to create housing that they can afford. And to me that - so it's tough because you look at the Housing Levy that's just expiring and it was very successful, right? It actually created more housing than it had been projected to. And then in addition, we have other funds that are going into building affordable housing, like the JumpStart big business tax - a big chunk of that is going to fund affordable housing and that's been incredibly successful. You look at the list of projects around the City that have benefited from money from JumpStart and it's a long list. And so this funding that we're putting into affordable housing is really a success story, but you look around and you don't see that reflected in general kind of feeling of - this city is becoming more affordable. And that's really just because we have - so much of the housing is still stuck in this kind of dysfunctional private housing market that is just going up and up and up. So yeah, that's what's happened. [00:31:02] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And your point about - progress is absolutely being made, that's just a factual statement - but we still have the conditions that are creating this problem. And it's like you have to plug the leak in the boat if you're going to successfully bail it out, and we haven't adequately plugged those leaks. The wages required - there was an article about this this week - the wages required to just afford rental housing, let alone a home, are astronomical. What were your takeaways from that article and how does that contribute to this problem? [00:31:39] Katie Wilson: Yeah, totally. And that's the annual Out of Reach report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition - so every year they come out with a big report about every state in the country, every county in the country that kind of looks at what is the wage that a full-time worker would need to make in order to afford housing in that region. And basically what the report showed is that here in Washington, in the state - not just in King County - a Washington renter needs to earn $30.33 an hour to afford the typical one-bedroom apartment in the state without spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs. And then in the Seattle area, that's even higher. So a renter would need to make $40 an hour, over $40 an hour to afford that market rate, standard one-bedroom apartment. And these are significantly higher numbers than last year's report - I believe it said they're about 20% higher than last year. And so what that tells us is that even though - luckily, here in Washington state and in the cities in King County that have established higher minimum wages, those wages are indexed to inflation - so we do get an annual inflation adjustment upward. That adjustment is not sufficient to make up for the rising cost of rents in our region so that lower-wage workers are definitely falling behind. And that $40 an hour figure is really interesting because it basically means - you look at the wages in Seattle, SeaTac, and now Tukwila, which starting on July 1 is going to have a minimum wage of $18.99 for most workers - those are getting up toward $20 an hour. But looking at this, it's like you would actually need two adults working full-time at those higher minimum wages to, with any comfort, afford a one-bedroom apartment in King County. So it really just shows how even as there are these efforts going on - this year, ballot initiative in Renton and work that TRU is doing with allies in Burien and unincorporated King County to try to get more jurisdictions to raise minimum wages - we're trying to get them to raise up to around $20 an hour, right? $19 or $20 an hour. And that's great, but man, it still doesn't mean that you're going to be able to afford housing easily. So yeah, it's a problem. And I think like this and thinking about the Housing Levy and just how far we have to go to make this region affordable, I think it really also underscores the need for social housing and how important it is that the City does a good job of following through on Initiative 135 and getting that started, so that we can start expanding the non-market housing sector - serving not just the very lowest income levels, but people even of all income levels - because really only taking housing out of the private market, ultimately, is going to fix this problem. [00:34:41] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And a reminder that there is an option for taking some housing out of the private market in the City of Seattle with the - Seattle's public developer that has been established. And as we talk about these City Council elections coming up, really making sure that there are plans that these candidates have to fund this developer and to pursue this is going to be very important. Also this week, we saw an announcement from Trans Pride that they are no longer welcoming the Seattle Public Library at their event. What happened here? [00:35:16] Katie Wilson: Yeah. Trans Pride basically announced that Seattle Public Library is not welcome at their event due to a number of issues, but I think the most recent one - and maybe the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak - was the library's allowing Kirk Cameron to host a talk in a library auditorium. I believe this was last month. Kirk Cameron being a former child TV person - I never saw him, I don't remember who he was - but who is now an anti-LGBTQ+ activist and has written children's books about the dangers of Pride. And so the library, as a public institution, says that it has legal obligations to not engage in viewpoint discrimination and has to allow any group or individual to rent its meeting spaces. And Trans Pride has responded by uninviting the Seattle Public Library from participation in the upcoming event. [00:36:24] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And this to me is a situation where - yes, the library is correct that because of First Amendment issues, they do have to accept facility rentals from there. But Trans Pride also absolutely has the right to determine who is and isn't welcome at their event, and especially in today's environment where safety is of paramount concern. Yeah, I think in this situation, both parties have the right to do what they do. I've seen some reaction in going - questioning whether Trans Pride can even do this. They absolutely can. This is what consequences are. And while it does appear that the Seattle Public Library, and most public libraries, do have to rent to their facilities to people for events and they can't choose who does and doesn't get to do that - it is unambiguously clear that Kirk Cameron is espousing harmful and dangerous rhetoric that's false, and it winds up endangering our trans community. And yeah, absolutely, they're not going to be welcome at an event where their institution can participate in making Trans Pride and the people in our community less safe. It's pretty straightforward. You have no right to participate in everybody's events - if they don't feel comfortable with you there, then that's that. So to me, this is just the library made its decision that it felt that it had to make, and Trans Pride made their decision that they felt that they had to make - and that's just that. [00:38:03] Katie Wilson: Yes, and PubliCola has done a lot of good coverage of this issue, so go there to read more. [00:38:09] Crystal Fincher: We will, of course, be linking that article in the show notes. Also wanted to talk about an upcoming vote this week with the King County Council about whether to mandate that stores in the county, or at least in unincorporated King County, continue to take all forms of payment, including cash. Why is this such an issue? [00:38:29] Katie Wilson: Yeah, so article in this week's Seattle Times from Gene Balk talking about how cashless payment and refusing to accept cash is becoming a more and more common thing in the Seattle area. And this is timely because there is actually legislation before the King County Council, championed by King County Councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles, that would require businesses - most businesses in unincorporated areas of the county, which is the jurisdiction that the King County Council has jurisdiction over - would require them to accept cash as a form of payment. This is something that I don't believe any jurisdiction in Washington state has done yet, but it's not unusual in other parts of the country. So New York City, San Francisco - there's a bunch of cities. And even a couple of states - I think the entire state of New Jersey, there might be a couple more - have passed legislation that requires businesses to accept cash payment. And obviously for a lot of us, we just walk around with a card and that's fine and it works for us. But especially seniors, immigrants and refugees, people with privacy concerns - either from experience with or fear of identity theft, domestic violence survivors, houseless people - there's demographics that are much more likely to rely on cash for most or all daily transactions. And if you're in one of those - in that situation - then if you have more and more businesses not accepting cash payment, then you get effectively locked out of the local economy. And so this legislation is coming to the full King County Council next Tuesday for a vote. It's not guaranteed to pass - so I think that there's definitely some reluctance on the part of some of the King County Councilmembers to vote on this. So if you think this is important, now's a good time to email in to your King County Councilmembers and maybe consider testifying next Tuesday. But yeah, I think unincorporated King County has a chance here to set an example for other jurisdictions in the area. [00:40:44] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And that great reminder to make your opinion known to your city council - County Councilmember - if you can. I was just in Santa Monica, California a couple weeks back, and they had businesses that had signs in their shops that they don't accept cash. This is a thing that can happen in this area. And it does seem to be a reaction to not wanting "those" people around. And there are lots of reasons why someone may prefer to use cash over other means, or may have to use cash over other means - and discriminating based on the type of payment just doesn't seem wise or prudent. And especially as we see so many forces working on excluding people from so many other places in society, we certainly don't need to contribute to the acceleration of that. So I also want to talk about an event taking place next Wednesday. What's happening? [00:41:47] Katie Wilson: Yes. So next Wednesday, 730 PM, at Town Hall Seattle, there is a forum that is co-sponsored by South Seattle Emerald and Real Change called Saving Journalism, Saving Our Democracy. And this is going to be a conversation about the challenges that news outlets, especially local news outlets, are facing these days keeping the lights on and providing adequate coverage of local issues. And the panelists include Jelani Cobb, who is the Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, and Michael McPhearson, who is the Editor of the South Seattle Emerald, Florangela Davila, who is a journalist who's worked at a bunch of different outlets, and Frank Blethen, who, of course, is the publisher of The Seattle Times. And the moderator is going to be Delores Irwin, co-chair of the League of Women Voters of Washington, which actually - earlier this year - put out a really great study called The Decline of Local News and Its Impact on Democracy, which charts the struggles that newspapers, in particular, in Washington state have faced over the last decades and kind of the dwindling news coverage in a lot of areas of the state, creating news deserts. So I think it's going to be a fascinating conversation. And I happen to know that there will be some potentially actionable policy proposals that will be discussed that could turn into interesting campaigns in this area in the near future. So I definitely encourage people to attend the event, get involved in the conversation. [00:43:39] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And I am a big fan and supporter of both Michael McPhearson and Florangela Davila - we are fortunate to have them both in our local media ecosphere. And certainly, this is part of a broader national conversation. But looking forward to see what's discussed. It's critical to our democracy, it's critical to just our everyday lives - the quality of representation and policy that we see - and how people and organizations and institutions are held accountable. So it makes a big difference - I hope people definitely tune in and attend - we will put a link to that in the show notes also. And with that, I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, June 16, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is co-founder and general secretary of the Seattle Transit Riders Union, Katie Wilson. You can find Katie on Twitter @WilsonKatieB. You can find Seattle Transit Riders Union on Twitter @SeattleTRU. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. And you can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

The city council narrowly rejected a proposal that would give the city attorney the power to prosecute public drug use and possession.The slim margin suggests there's a lot of division in the city about how to approach the crisis. Publicola journalist and editor Erica C. Barnett will tell us how the vote went down and what happens next.We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. You have the power! Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/seattlenowAnd we want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram at SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback online: https://www.kuow.org/feedback

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by King Conservation District Supervisor and Seattle sportswriter and enthusiast Brittney Bush Bollay! They talk about several developments this week including Governor Jay Inslee and Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler announcing that they do not plan for reelection and the candidates that are vying to replace them, Gov. Inslee calling for a May 16th special session to address personal possession of controlled substances, a potential trafficking victim found in the Seattle hotel room of a Colorado Avalanche player, interests aligned with the Seattle Chamber fielding a message testing poll to raid the JumpStart Tax, and the King County Council shortchanging the Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services Levy on a 5-4 vote.  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, Brittney Bush Bollay at @BrittneyBush.   Brittney Bush Bollay Brittney is a King Conservation District Supervisor and climate activist who is passionate about the role cities play in preserving the environment. They serve on the city and state boards of the Sierra Club and helped write the organization's national Urban Infill Policy Guidance. In their spare time, they're almost certainly yelling at sports.   Resources Governing as an Eastern WA Democrat with Spokane City Council Member Zack Zappone from Hacks & Wonks   “WA Gov. Jay Inslee won't seek reelection for fourth term” by Jim Brunner, David Gutman, and Paige Cornwell from The Seattle Times   “Early WA governor's race skirmish? Campaign finance loophole scrutinized” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   “Washington Republicans believe governor's race is winnable” by David Hyde from KUOW   “Longtime WA Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler will not seek reelection” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times   “Inslee calls WA Legislature special session to address drug possession” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times   “Progressive Democrats Want to Compromise on a New Drug Law” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Proposal to Make Public Drug Use a Misdemeanor Unlikely to Have Much Visible Impact” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “New Drug Law Negotiations Still Messy” by Amy Sundberg from Notes from the Emerald City   “Colorado Avalanche player involved in incident at Seattle hotel” by Matt Markovich from KIRO 7   “Seattle Cop Mocks Trans People, Blames Jan. 6 Riots on Pelosi; County Council Plays It Safe by Proposing Flat Levy Renewal” from PubliCola   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 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 topical show, I chatted with Spokane City Council Member, Zack Zappone, about his approach to politics and policy as a Democrat in a more conservative area of Washington state. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program, friend of the show, today's co-host: King Conservation District Supervisor, Seattle writer and enthusiast, Brittney Bush Bollay. Hey. [00:01:20] Brittney Bush Bollay: Hello, how are you? [00:01:21] Crystal Fincher: I am excellent. I'm so thrilled to have you on the show. You are basically a Seattle celebrity when it comes to all things politics and sports, and bring the analysis and the fun to all of our favorite Seattle sports and sports stars. So I am so excited to have you on the show today. [00:01:39] Brittney Bush Bollay: Well, thank you. I'm excited to spend my Friday doing what I do anyway, which is hanging out with my friends talking about politics and sports. [00:01:46] Crystal Fincher: That's right. And one big topic that everybody has been talking about this week is that Governor Jay Inslee has announced that he will not be running for reelection. So as you think about Inslee's - I don't know - legacy, what he's known for, and what this election presents, what are your thoughts on what's going on with Inslee? [00:02:07] Brittney Bush Bollay: It's funny - I actually got polled a few months ago on the idea of him running again. And I was really surprised that he would even consider it. Not because I think he's been a bad governor or ineffective or anything like that, but precedent - really, honestly - three terms is a lot. Four would be kind of gauche. Don't you think? It's a lot, it's time - it's time for someone else to have a go. So I think that he's had a solid legacy as a governor. And I think he's also, for the left wing of the Democrats, not gone as far as we would like on a regular basis. And I'm interested to see what the new candidates - what their angle is, what's their new message? What's their - are they gonna be running on a voice of change? I'm the new Inslee. It's exciting to see a fresh race shaping up with some good candidates and also some terrifying candidates. [00:03:06] Crystal Fincher: You nailed it right there. Good and terrifying, as far as the candidates go. For the left wing of the party, certainly - and coming out of Seattle, where Seattle's no stranger to kind of nation leading or early legislation pushing for progressive solutions, certainly compared to the rest of the state and country. I do think that he has shepherded the state through - we just, through the pandemic that we had - an unprecedented crisis and against some really vitriolic pushback as one of the first states in feeling the impacts of COVID in the country, taking decisive action in pursuit of keeping people safe and following the CDC guidance. That was certainly there. Trying to navigate through the situation with schools and students - while certainly there's a lot to learn and a lot that can be done better, I think people were trying to do the best that they could at that time. We've seen some recent - kind of, I think - what he would call crowning achievements. Certainly the Climate Commitment Act, which is a huge piece of environmental legislation that will be creating hundreds of millions and beyond dollars that hopefully will be reinvested in ways that spur a green economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and impacts. And we just saw him standing up for reproductive rights and purchasing our state supply of mifepristone. There've been a number of issues - certainly we're leading the nation in gun safety. So he has certainly worked in conjunction with the Legislature, our state's elected leaders, to get a lot of this done. He had a run for president. He does have some crowning achievements there, and some things that I think he can walk away and be proud of. And also there's the opportunity to do so much more. And we'll see that from these candidates that we have coming up - some exciting, some intriguing, some terrifying. So we have Bob Ferguson, who's already announced. We have Hilary Franz, who's announced an announcement. And we have, evidently, Mark Mullet - moderate to conservative Democratic Senator, who said he's considering a run. And then some GOP candidates - one already announced, Semi Bird. I know there has been questioning about Jim Walsh, JT Wilcox. We'll see how this turns out. How do you see this race shaping up? Or what do you think are going to be the dividing lines in it? [00:05:31] Brittney Bush Bollay: Honestly, I think Bob Ferguson's gonna run away with it. But I don't know - it'll be interesting to see who the second candidate is who comes through. I think the GOP candidates probably will just fight amongst themselves and get - if they can't work it out, then get little pieces of the various sort of right-wing voter bloc. I think Ferguson has a lot of respect. He has a lot of name recognition. He got a lot of fans for his standing up to Trump, and his helping the state navigate and protect people during that really scary four years. I think it's funny that he announced an exploratory committee, and then the next day was announcing endorsements. That was a little transparent - everybody knew, everybody knew. Hilary Franz has been pretty good in her role, but I'm interested to see what she - how she translates her more niche work that she's been doing with state lands, and what that looks like as she has to expand her platform into governor. [00:06:36] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Also news this week that our Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is also stepping down. This is another statewide elected position. Now, Mike Kreidler has made a lot of unfortunate news for racist, sexist, other very problematic statements. He has been asked to resign by the governor, leaders on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers. He refused to do so, but has announced that he's not running for reelection. Patty Kuderer has announced that she is running for that seat. We'll probably - gonna see some others coming up before the filing deadline for candidates on May 19th, but it'll be interesting to see what this is. And it'll be interesting to see, in both of these races, in my opinion - looking at now versus - what was it 2012 - the last time these races were competitive, 2008 - somewhere around there. It's been a while. [00:07:29] Brittney Bush Bollay: It's been a while. [00:07:30] Crystal Fincher: I feel like 2012. But time is a unique construct for me at this point in time. But the world is very different than it was the last time these races were competitive for governor and for insurance commissioner. In that time, we've had a pandemic that has reshaped the way a lot of people think about and live their lives. We have increasing threats to democracy, attacks on people's personhood, attacks on just whether people should be able to freely live their lives as who they are. And a lot of troubling things happen. And I think there's gonna be much more of a conversation this time about how people use their power. And I think from both sides - both Republican and Democratic - if you're looking at the party's bases now, both sides have an expectation that leaders use their power in more definite and comprehensive ways than they did before. That some precedents may be limiting - following tradition and rules - we're seeing tradition thrown in the trash and rules broken right and left. And some people's literal survival may depend on really taking an affirmative stance and standing against hateful rhetoric, hateful policy - policy that is restricting, stripping rights, first and foremost, but also when it comes to the biggest challenges that we're facing. If it's poverty, if it's homelessness, if it's inequality - the insurance commissioner taking on issues like barring the use of credit scores for insurance pricing, which doesn't reliably predict what your insurance risk is gonna be. Or the governor taking steps to make sure we have access to abortion pills here in the state, if that is restricted on a nationwide basis. That those are things that maybe would have been viewed as extreme actions 10, 12 years ago, but today are viewed as necessary and welcome, certainly by this side of the base. If you're talking about Republicans, they are especially riled up that perceived overreach and all of the stuff that they say about the liberal stuff - we don't need to go into all of that - but it's gonna be interesting just to see what the fault lines of this are and how what sometimes used to be more narrow and targeted policy intersects with other policy and all of the issues that most people are dealing with now. [00:09:55] Brittney Bush Bollay: And it's funny 'cause of course, the Republicans were the first ones to start to use and leverage the state legislatures for things that previously had been considered overreach. And now Democrats are doing it as a defensive measure, against those policies. Again, it's always every accusation is a confession. But it's really interesting to me - we're in a time where we're really re-examining sort of the idea of a state and the role of the state government, and sort of the concept of individual states and their relationships to each other has gotten very different as these policies - some states, for example, or one of the most conservative states in the country, in Idaho. And not only do we have to affirmatively protect our people here in Washington, but we have to think about the neighbors in the states around us and the people who are gonna need the help that they can't get in their locations. And how to welcome them, how to make sure that we're prepared to help them and make them feel safe. And that's something that I do think that Inslee has done a good job about. And the Legislature has, seems to have really been thinking about making sure that people who do need reproductive care, abortion access, gender affirming care, and things like that - that they can come to Washington, that they can be safe, they can get what they need. And I think that that's some creative governing - that I think is great. I think that's what we need to do in unprecedented times - is you have to use the office in unprecedented ways. Because at the end of the day, the role of the government - in my opinion - is to help people out where they can't help themselves. [00:11:36] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Think you nailed It. And Inslee is still at work. And even looking at the work that they're doing - and it actually seems to be going well - they seem to be working well with partners in terms of right now, they're working on the freeway encampments and trying to move people into housing. Looking at updates from at least the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and the work that they're doing in partnership with the state, that seems to be actually going pretty well and getting good results - in working with the people at these sites to move them into shelter or temporary housing on the way to trying to find permanent housing. So Inslee is still at work, and he also called a special session for May 16th? [00:12:23] Brittney Bush Bollay: I believe it was May 16th, yeah. [00:12:25] Crystal Fincher: Yep, so coming up here - a special session to deal with the Blake fix, or what to do about the - once again, pending potential of not having any statewide drug law to address simple possession of substances. Now, certainly we've talked about many times before, lots of evidence points towards - one, the War on Drugs that we've undertaken is a failure. We've spent billions upon billions, if not trillions, of dollars worldwide, trying to eradicate drugs and drug use and have failed spectacularly to do that after all of the expenditures. And many places concluded - You know what? Treating drug use as a crime actually seems to be counterproductive, really expensive, really derails a lot of people, destabilizes lives. And what people really need is treatment for substance use disorder, not this punitive lock-them-up that doesn't address the root cause that landed them there. So they're gonna take this up. They had previously considered a bill that would have made substance use personal possession a gross misdemeanor, which is different than a simple misdemeanor. It can carry penalties actually worse than a low-level felony, but we'll see. They're saying that they're trying to work out a compromise, an agreement - what that is going to be, I don't know. Certain localities have said that they plan to move forward on recriminalizing if the State Legislature doesn't. And what they're saying is they want to avoid a patchwork of different laws and policies across the state. So it'll be curious to see what happens here. How do you see this? [00:14:09] Brittney Bush Bollay: It's wild, isn't it - that when you take someone who's using substances, generally, to cope with trauma and then throw them in jail and further traumatize them, it's wild that doesn't solve the problem, isn't it? It's frustrating to me to see what I feel like is a rush to recriminalize a behavior that I don't think should be criminal in the first place. And especially when you consider - you've talked about this on here before - we all know it's not all drugs there's a war on, and it's not the same war on all drugs. And there's no war on alcohol. There's not really a war on marijuana anymore. It's the drugs that we've just decided are the bad ones. And it gets so tangled up - I think that people have a real morality ingrained in them around drugs. And again, around certain drugs, that I think it's really hard for people to escape, to analyze, to pull back from. Like I went through DARE, all of that, and we're taught - drugs are bad. And again, some drugs are worse than others clearly, because for a variety of reasons, we've just decided that. So I think it frustrates me that - I don't think we're seeing evidence-based policy proposals from a lot of people around this. And a lot of people seem really hung up on the idea - drugs are bad, we must punish them. And it doesn't do anything. It doesn't do anything except waste money and make more people sad. [00:15:37] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And I've been particularly disheartened to see several legislators from King County - from areas where their population is ahead of where they are, their residents are ahead of where they are in terms of this policy. Their residents recognize that people need help and treatment over being thrown in jail. And lots of people are recognizing, who don't want to see people struggling with substance use disorder and all the consequences that that causes, and we're seeing more and more of that. And people going - Yeah, I don't want to see the consequences, whether it is losing property, losing a home, financial instability, criminal behavior, right? No one wants to see that, but looking at locking someone up - they're just going to get out. It's not like we're locking them up for life and - nor should we be. And then they get out, and if we want them to be able to build a life where they can sustain and thrive however they choose to, doing things like doing something that will lose them their job, that will cost them money that they don't have, that requires them to adhere to things that may not do anything to help their current situation, but could further destabilize them - is just not helpful to anyone. And it's really expensive to take care of from a societal perspective. It is actually less expensive to provide someone housing or to provide someone with treatment, than to jail them and then have them come out not healed and too many times wind up back in jail where it's really expensive yet again. So we just have to figure out a different approach. The current approach has failed, and we keep on trying to double down and triple down on that. And I'm particularly disappointed in some Seattle and King County representatives who are eager to double and triple down on seriously recriminalizing this possession - just doesn't make sense. But we will see what comes out of this special session. [00:17:33] Brittney Bush Bollay: It's just so frustrating to me, 'cause it's just based on such a complete misunderstanding of why people are using substances in the first place. And when they get out of jail - like you said - nothing's changed, except that now they have more instability in their life and a harder time getting a job and finding somewhere to live and are probably further in debt. [00:17:52] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now this next item that we're gonna talk about is - I think people are still struggling to put together the pieces, but we just got some updates this week that have added a couple other elements. But it's really troubling. So - super exciting - the Seattle Kraken have started off playing the Colorado Avalanche in the playoffs, dominated that series. [00:18:19] Brittney Bush Bollay: That part was fun. [00:18:21] Crystal Fincher: Yes - won in seven - super exciting time for hockey fans in this town. But sometimes what comes along with major sporting events, especially during playoffs, are troubling activities surrounding that. And there was an incident related to one of the Avalanche players that happened in a Seattle hotel while they were here in town. Evidently as this happened - for some reason that we don't know - the Avalanche were looking for one of their players, they went into his room, did not find him in his room, but found a woman in the room that was under the influence of something - don't know, has not been determined, at least from the information here. Speculation has ranged from - was it close to an OD situation? Was she given a substance that she did not consent to? Those were all possibilities and called out. But in this - she was alone, she was heavily intoxicated - by the reports, very extremely intoxicated to a degree where she pretty much did not appear okay to go anywhere, do anything on her own for her own safety. But in talking to this person, she said she was from, came over from - she was Russian, but came from Ukraine - came here and someone, a bad man, took away her passport. Now for people who pay attention to trafficking, this is a huge red flag of - something isn't right here. This is something that we see often in human trafficking and oftentimes people forced into - whether it's in servitude, whether it's sex work - they're forced into these things, right? And so she was combative, she was not happy - which is not odd for someone who is a victim of this and talking to other unfamiliar men and heavily intoxicated. Turns out part of the Avalanche's security detail is actually Denver police officers who were involved in this. Call was placed to 911. They said, You can find her at the door. So I guess they just moved her to the door. Paramedics came and she was combative. Unfortunately it looks like they considered, according to KIRO 7 reporting, institutionalizing her in mental health hold in the hospital - paramedics inquired about doing that. And it is just really concerning to me that there is a situation where it looks like Denver police, who may have been off duty - but they're still police - were involved in, Seattle police were involved in, this woman who exhibited signs of being trafficked and who said that was just shoved out of a hotel and said come pick her up. And they seem to more seriously consider institutionalizing her than providing her the help and services she needed as someone who really looked like a victim of trafficking. How did you see this? [00:21:21] Brittney Bush Bollay: It's weird. It's very weird. There's a lot of big holes in this story, aren't there? The team doctor made the call, but he said that someone else told him to make the call, but we don't know who. We don't know where they found the player. We don't know where the woman is now. It was like the middle of the afternoon, so it's not like they had probably been out partying late at night. Yeah, it's all very strange. And if you know anything about the NHL, you know that they're not good at this type of situation. There's been many a coverup and a bungled scandal in the NHL's history. There's not a lot of people to trust here either to handle this well or appropriately. [00:22:10] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it looks like there was - if, again, there's a lot of information missing - but also what we know is this player was rushed out of town that day. They now say that he's suspended or gone for personal reasons. [00:22:24] Brittney Bush Bollay: Personal reasons. [00:22:25] Crystal Fincher: No other information attached to that. No follow-up on what happened to this woman. I hope she's okay. I hope someone followed up to try and figure out - who is the person who took your passport, how did you arrive here? Is this part of a trafficking? It seems like this should be ripe for investigation. Nothing reported so far suggests that that's the case. So I hope we just didn't basically return this woman to her trafficker. But all of this is open and no comment about this has come from the Colorado Avalanche. It looks like they're just hoping to get away with not saying anything about this, particularly since their season is now over. But this is really, really troubling. And lots of people have heard many stories about how - even police - and it was a major detail that Denver police officers are here traveling with the team, and how often they fail people in these situations, how often they fail to recognize when someone is in need of help and not just a burden. And certainly this woman had been reported - she'd been combative - and it just seemed like they viewed her as a problem, whether it was a PR problem, or that they were just trying to get rid of her and get her out. And that was the exact wrong thing to be doing. If you're getting out, are you following up at the hospital? Are you investigating why she doesn't have her passport? Who is this bad man that took it? What is the connection to the Avalanche player? Is this a trafficking ring happening that they're ignoring, while saying that they're taking public safety seriously here? And as we all know in Seattle, the Seattle Police Department was caught not investigating sexual assaults of adults - what, last year, year before last - just made the decision on their own to stop investigating those crimes because they said they were short-staffed. Seems like if you were to prioritize any crime, it would be that. [00:24:27] Brittney Bush Bollay: Especially 'cause that's the one that they like to dangle out a lot of the time when they're looking for more funding. They're like - well, what about the rapists, right? [00:24:35] Crystal Fincher: While they're insisting on going to every overdose call, evidently, where - in most other cities - they're not needed for that at all, something that paramedics usually handle on their own. So it's curious how they prioritize spending their time, and who they're prioritizing spending that protecting and not protecting. I just am very troubled by this. And it just seems to be another coverup where - did we just, did we as a society really just fail this woman and however many more that are like her? [00:25:10] Brittney Bush Bollay: And you would want to think that there would be procedures in place for this. And you would want to think that they would be followed by - procedures from the Seattle Police Department, procedures for the Denver Police Department, procedures probably in high-end hotels. They should be prepared for this sort of thing. And I know that they're private business and their personal interest is gonna be in making it go away, just like the NHL's interest is. So again, like you said, who's gonna protect this woman? No one seems like they're looking out for her right now. And yeah, I just really - I hope that she's not just falling through the cracks. [00:25:44] Crystal Fincher: I hope so. And this happened a week ago - about a week ago, I think. So hopefully she's not lost at this point in time, but I hope this is followed up on. I hope - I have seen some Denver media demanding answers from the Avalanche. I hope that they continue to press that, and national media continues to press that. This is a big issue, especially because this is unfortunately common around playoffs, around big sporting events. We have a number of big marquee events coming to Seattle. So being very interested in making sure that this doesn't happen. If it is found, that it is investigated and figured out and broken up is really key and critical. And I hope they are paying attention to this. And that this is just another reason why it is critical to have people responding who are appropriate to the situation that's happening. I have to think that if there was someone more familiar, or whose job it was not to enforce or contain, but to help - but to recognize this and is there for potential victims of trafficking, to help them understand how they can get out, to help them with resources. Because people in this situation - notable they take the passport because you can't go anywhere, you can't do anything without that. You don't have ID. And usually people - she said that she came over from overseas - don't have a driver's license, don't have anything. So they are completely dependent on the person who is trafficking them, who is forcing them into situations that they have not consented to, that they do not want to be in, that they have to be in just to stay. And so if this person doesn't have their own money - usually no accounts, no money, everything is coming from that person - it wouldn't be surprising at all to see that this person wound up right back in a potential trafficker's hands. We'll continue to follow this if any other information comes out, but this is something that I just don't want to disappear and go away. Other news this week is - so the Seattle Chamber is really actively message testing a plan to raid the JumpStart Tax. They are polling right now. And they've said that this is their intention, basically - a plan to revitalize downtown. And it's so curious because they were not supporters of this tax. They opposed this tax when it was being put together and being passed, but now they want it for themselves. How, what do you think about this? [00:28:27] Brittney Bush Bollay: It's so - it's not even subtle. It just makes me laugh honestly, in a way, because like you said, they've tried so hard - everything they could to keep this tax from existing in the first place. And now that it's here, they're like - Oh well, since it's here, since you have this nice little tax file, what if I just take some of it? What if - and you showed me the questions on the poll and it's hilarious. What if we told you that Amazon and Starbucks are sweet baby angels and the Seattle Council is populated entirely with demons - would that make you oppose or support our position? They can't have it. Not that I am the only one who gets to say, but no. We've - this is a tax that was organized and pushed for by the community for very specific needs in the community. And I don't think that the Chamber can just waltz in and just take it for their own very specific ends that are different from the very specific ends that we already decided it was for. [00:29:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. [00:29:35] Brittney Bush Bollay: And what are they going to do? Are they going to reopen Gap? I don't know. [00:29:40] Crystal Fincher: It is - it's interesting, but you can see some of the messages that they're testing. Some of the questions in this survey - I'll read them. This is one. Currently, officials claim that the City of Seattle is facing a budget shortfall of $225 million. Which of the following approaches to addressing the issue do you prefer? Some say the budget shortfall is driven by things beyond the City's control: declining tax revenues, inflationary pressures, dramatic increase in demand for city services. They need to say we need to find additional progressive tax revenue to maintain the current level of city services so our city's most vulnerable don't suffer. Others say tax revenues have been increasing, but the City is increased, but City spending has increased even faster and the Council still doesn't have an effective plan to address critical issues like homelessness and public safety. They say instead of taxing residents and businesses further, the City Council needs to be held accountable and deliver better results with the money they already have. Now one, we've heard this used by some prior City Council candidates who are definitely anti-tax. It looks like they're testing that to do. They - I'm trying to find ones where they are like - Oh, businesses already pay so much. Microsoft and Amazon pay so many taxes. They're paying the majority of taxes and why would you want them to pay anymore? Now, obviously when you consider that those are among the richest businesses in the entire world - yeah, it makes sense that they would pay a significant amount of tax and that represents a tiny percentage. But you see them stressing the percentage of the City budget, the percentage of - that the flat dollar tax. So right now - Seattle businesses, large and small, already pay 64% of Seattle taxes, including JumpStart which brings more than a quarter of a billion dollars of new money each year and is the largest tax increase in the city's history. Further increasing taxes on businesses will push them to leave, creating an even bigger budget gap and shifting the tax burden to Seattle households. Then asking how convincing is this statement as a reason to oppose a further increase in local business taxes? Right? So you can hear them basically say - Well, they're paying most of the taxes anyway, so they should get to decide how to use it and not the residents of Seattle. In fact, they shouldn't just get to decide, we should basically just hand it over to them to let them spend it. A rebate, in effect - they're asking for. Obviously this came into place because while those companies were becoming the richest in the world, the impacts of that in this community were felt - and they're both positive and negative impacts, right? It's not like people are saying there's never been any positive impact, but it is true that - wow, a lot of people, hundreds of thousands of people moved to the region. Because of them, that puts a strain on local resources, especially without - for so long, without them contributing to this tax. After the repeal of the Head Tax, they weren't paying hardly any taxes to the city that was enabling their meteoric rise - the talent provided by public education, public universities here, our infrastructure. They're finding talent here to the degree that they aren't finding it in other places, which is why they're coming here and relocating here. And I always laugh at the suggestion that raising taxes or more revenue will force businesses to flee because we have literally heard that for decades - with every increase in the minimum wage, with every single business tax, B&O tax - we've heard, Well, this is going to scare businesses away. This is going to really make the town go bankrupt. And all that's happened is that more businesses have come, and the businesses that have been here have become more successful to a large degree if we're looking at large businesses. So there is a conversation to be had on - should we all sacrifice and continue to pay a disproportionate price societally compared to how much wealth we have or what income we make in comparison to literally the richest people and the richest companies in the world? Of course they're going to be paying a dollar amount that looks large, but what percentage of almost trillion dollar companies, hundreds of billions of dollar companies relying on our infrastructure, relying on our roads, relying on our utilities, relying on our education system and talent. Seattle said - absolutely yes, 100%. They are not currently paying their fair share and this represents it. And they're trying really hard to message against that and paying quite a lot of money to test this poll, to test their messaging, and really trying to hone in on what they feel will be most persuasive here. [00:34:25] Brittney Bush Bollay: Yeah, and that right there tells you that they think it's a good investment for them. I feel sometimes like Amazon is this shadow extra branch of our government because of the gravity that they have in the City. And just - all you have to do for a certain portion of the voting population is say, Oh, Amazon's going to leave. And everyone's - Oh no, that can never, we can't do anything that will make Amazon mad. And it's frustrating, and it's inaccurate, and it creeps me out. I mentioned to you earlier - when I see Amazon ads now on TV, it's starting to feel like propaganda because they have so much sway. The other thing that these polls and these narratives never mention is that there's a mayor and a whole executive branch in this town. And the City Council actually does not run the City by themselves. They don't even put the budget together by themselves. Obviously they do the final passage. They do a lot of editing. The mayor also has to sign it. And then the mayor and the executive branch have to take that money and they have to execute. They have to use it. And so it's not just these seven people's responsibility for everything that's going on. But somehow they're the only ones that ever get their fingers pointed - that get fingers pointed at them. [00:35:46] Crystal Fincher: Oh yeah, and that's very intentional. Fingers pointed at them by the same parties that coincidentally are interested in dramatically reducing taxation for the richest companies in the world. It's all very curious. Also curious in this to me continues to be the representation that this is both big businesses and small businesses that are in favor of this. Usually in the case with these things, and especially for taxes like this, they're - like the GSBA, the Greater Seattle Business Association, was in favor of the JumpStart Tax - which is a chamber made up of mostly smaller businesses, right? The biggest businesses are part of the Seattle Chamber and driving that Chamber activity. You see other smaller chambers that are predominantly small businesses supporting this because it does include a lot of help for small businesses. But it's these gigantic corporations that are trying to steer the money away. And so this JumpStart Tax is popular in part because it actually is really going to the people who need it most in our community. It is going to small business owners who do need the help, who aren't able to just decide not to pay a lease without consequences, who can decide just not to pay their vendors without consequences, and wield their influence, and bully other people for lack of a better word. They're more at the whims of just rules and laws and the market. And they need help and they appreciate the help. They're suffering from rising rents and income inequality in the business world in a similar way that we're seeing it among individuals. So it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. I just think a lot of people are not prepared for the effort that's going to come to divert this JumpStart Tax revenue to downtown and, for a tax that the full city voted on and that really the full city needs to benefit from, and that several neighborhoods in Seattle need help. Are we once again focusing on downtown to the exclusion of other neighborhoods? Are we giving money to downtown to the exclusion of other neighborhoods? And certainly downtown is a vital economic engine. I don't think anyone is disputing that, and we need to do things to make sure that we are fostering business as well as - the end to that is part of that bargain is we want to foster business so that people can have good living wage jobs so that they can have a house and a home and build a life that they can. In the absence of that second part happening - it's not just we want a big business just to say that it's big, it's for the benefits that it brings to the community. Those benefits were not coming. And so this is the correction that Seattle residents felt was appropriate. And so that is - there's a target on it. They're going after it, and people better be prepared. Also this week, we got news that the County, King County, voted to maintain the same level of the Veterans, Seniors and Human Services Levy. In a vote - they had a choice to say, Okay, we're going to maintain the same levy amount. Basically they put together a package and said - you're gonna get this housing help - all of this for Veterans, Seniors and Human Services - a lot of very crucial services for the community - helping people avoid homelessness, special services and providers that are crucial and necessary. I think most people agree with that. Unfortunately, because of inflation, because of all of these costs - what this money buys now, it buys so much less than it did before. And so we're looking at not getting as much as most people would have hoped. And so they were also considering raising, really by a couple cents, per value assessed. I think total, they estimated it would cost the average person $17 per year to say that would actually provide the level of services that we feel is necessary to help in this situation and not the trim-back-austerity light. And this is yet another example, in my opinion, of a short-sighted decision. One - just politically - people don't make decisions on taxes and going, Okay, this is 0.012 of my assessed value property, but this is 0.014. And man, that difference between 0.012 and 0.014 is untenable. People don't vote like that. They don't vote like that. They vote on the tax overall, and do they feel they're gonna get their money's worth? And so just putting the tax on is the big thing. Unless you're doubling or tripling - that's gonna cause a conversation - but modest increases are, people just flatly do not make decisions like that. We can say that confidently with tons of evidence. But what does happen, unfortunately, in situations like this - especially with the renewal - people pay for something. People are fine paying taxes if they feel that they're getting value for their dollar. The problem becomes when they feel like they're getting short-changed or they're not getting value for it. And so right now, for the same price, you're saying - and again, a price that they aren't very sensitive to - you're saying, Okay, you're gonna get less. It's not gonna do as much. And so then the next time that we go to renew this, people are gonna have gotten less. People are gonna see less help, less change, and they're gonna feel like this tax is less justified. So it actually makes it harder to pass next time. And then when you shortchange this, or when you know you're going in with less funding than it really needs and that you can get - when you leave money on the table, you also leave helping people on the table. And you build the case by helping lots of people in your community. That is your case for reelection. Fewer people are going to be helped. There are people attacking - Hey, you're spending this money and we aren't really seeing the difference. You can spend large sums of money because if it's going to help people, that is the justification, that is the value, and people feel that value. But without doing that, then the tax starts to feel burdensome to more people. And the people fighting against that, who would fight against any tax - the people who are most opposed to this, generally are opposed to all taxes - and it's not an issue of two tenths of a percent or whatever, or cent. It's just different. So I'm frustrated to see members that voted for this lower amount. It ended up being a 5-4 vote. It looks like Dave Upthegrove was actually the deciding vote against going for the full amount needed in this levy. And he and some other suburban members said that they - think he said - I don't have any problem with this politically, I just don't know that with some of the pressures that this could pass, that people would pay for it. And that is just not consistent with all available data. And it's just a shame to see money left on the table that could help people, and that could provide value for the money that we're spending. When we have a constrained ability to raise revenue - and especially when some of the options aren't that great - we have limited options for progressive revenue, few options. In those situations and even across the board, it's - yeah, we are asking more from some people, but hopefully the people who need it most are the ones getting helped. And the value is delivered to them first, and we don't burden people who can't absorb it comfortably. But we'll see. How did you feel about this? [00:43:20] Brittney Bush Bollay: You know, it's - going back to these messages that we hear over and over again - that every time there's a levy, and there's always a levy, we hear - Oh well, people are getting levy fatigue. They're getting taxation fatigue. If we keep raising the property taxes, people are gonna stop voting for it because they just, they're tired of it. Which is, as you just said, it completely contradicts the actual messaging or the evidence about why people vote the way they do. And so it's, again, it's just tiring to see us shoot ourselves in the foot, on the basis of a non-evidentiary-based supposition. And so not only are we - we're quitting before we even have a chance to lose is what it feels like. It feels like they're not even gonna try to do the full amount 'cause they've just decided that they can't. And so not only are we denying ourselves that potential opportunity, but then we're locking ourselves in to this lower rate as well. It's not like this is something that we can re-examine every day. So I guess frustrated too - for one word, frustrated - yeah, let's do more. Who doesn't wanna help veterans and seniors? Come on, man. And I think that Seattle and King County - we really like to think of ourselves as the kind of place where we help each other out. And I think people - you said people do vote for that. When I was, when we were working on the Transit Levy a couple of years ago, we found people really were compelled to help people who couldn't afford transit get transit - because they understood - it gets them to work, it gets them to the doctor. It makes people feel good. They wanna do that. [00:45:04] Crystal Fincher: It reduces my traffic. [00:45:06] Brittney Bush Bollay: Right - let people do that. Let people help each other, man. [00:45:12] Crystal Fincher: I wish, I just wish more people understood the value proposition of taxation and how important it is to provide value. And that when you cut back on what you're going to provide - and this is applicable to Sound Transit, this is applicable to school levies and things, we've talked about this before. One time I wound up chairing a school levy because of this issue here - of the higher versus lower amount thing. Again, the issue here isn't tax versus no tax. It's tax at one amount, tax at a tiny bit above that other amount. And people just don't differentiate between that amount. So go for what you know is going to deliver the value necessary and the value intended, instead of saying - Sorry, we're just gonna have to do a lot less. When people look at their own personal finances, they make these judgments all the time, right? And if they feel like - Okay, yeah, I think that's good. I think that'll help. Okay, that's fine. But if it's - This isn't helping much, I don't know that this is gonna do much - then no, they're not as inclined to do it. And making these decisions repeatedly, as you said, just locks us into lower rates and into funding that we know is not going to provide the relief that it's intended to. And when people feel like they've been bamboozled - like we do with the Waterfront, like we do - Hey, I thought I bought this other thing and you delivered something completely different. Hey, I thought I was buying the same amount of things that I did before for the same price, but turns out you cut back. People notice that - that they will notice and feel that more than they will notice and feel the incremental difference in the tax amount. And I just wish more electeds understood this. We would save ourselves a lot of peril. [00:46:59] Brittney Bush Bollay: And I think that a long term degradation of trust in government has very, very serious consequences that add up over time far more than incremental taxation increases do. [00:47:11] Crystal Fincher: I agree. Delivering what people expect, also the implementation of stuff - we've talked about before - getting the implementation right are absolutely critical, especially for the advancement of progressive policy. With that, I will thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, May 5th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was King Conservation Supervisor, Seattle sports writer and enthusiast, fashion maven, Brittney Bush Bollay. You can find Brittney @BrittneyBush, that's two T's in the middle. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter and Blue Sky and Mastodon - finchfrii everywhere. 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, 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 our podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank! They start with updates on legislation covering housing, education funding, repeals of Eyman initiatives, and gender affirming care and the budget. They continue with a chat about the upcoming end of the Department of Justice consent decree with the Seattle Police Department and the context surrounding it, as well as contention between Seattle City Council members over a proposal to limit late fees to $10.  Crystal and Robert finish with a discussion of how confusion and contention within and between organizations and a mismanaged budget may lead to hundreds of people being ousted from shelter.  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 Standing Up to the Status Quo with Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson from Hacks & Wonks   “Final steps for Washington state's middle housing bill” by Joshua McNichols from KUOW   “Proposed property tax cap hike angers Washington Senate GOP” by Spencer Pauley from The Center Square   “VICTORY! Washington State House passes NPI's bill to repeal Tim Eyman's push polls” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate   “Washington lawmakers buck trend of anti-trans bills” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Abolitionists and Reformers Agree on Something!” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Council Committee Waters Down Bill to Cap Late Fees at $10 for Renters” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “As Homeless Agencies Bicker Over Blame, Time Runs Out for Hundreds Living in Hotels” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “No Clear Solution for Hotel Evictions After Chaotic Homelessness Board Meeting; Budget Decision Postponed” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   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 chatted with Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson about what got him engaged in public service, what issues are top of mind in Bothell, and how he approaches making meaningful change when the system is biased to keep things the same. 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, today's co-host: Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. [00:01:22] Robert Cruickshank: Thank you Crystal for having me back - it's always a pleasure to review the week in Seattle with you. [00:01:28] Crystal Fincher: Always a pleasure to have you on - very insightful and always on it. So we have a number of developments in the Legislature this week. We just passed another major cutoff. There are a lot of bills that survived, a lot of them that died - but we do have major news in a lot of different areas, including housing. What are the housing bill updates for the week? [00:01:50] Robert Cruickshank: I think the big news this week is the Senate passed the missing middle housing bill, HB 1110. This is the bill that notoriously died last year, thanks in large part to the work of Representative Gerry Pollet. But ahead of this year's session, a pretty big coalition came together led by Representative Jessica Bateman in the House and Senator Yasmin Trudeau over on the State Senate side. They brought together a big coalition of people - from Amazon to the State Labor council, from builders to the Sierra Club, and a lot of people in between - to get this bill done. And focusing on the missing middle bill, it made it out of both chambers - House and Senate. They're gonna have to reconcile the versions, which aren't that different. It only took a few amendments that whittled down some of the scope, but not in any dramatic way. And so getting the missing middle housing bill out, which will allow duplexes, quadplexes, even more to be built around the Puget Sound region and around the state is a huge win for housing because it'll help address the housing shortage. It also helps begin to roll back the exclusionary racist zoning policies that have been created over the decades in the state. They create a lot of residential segregation and have fueled gentrification and displacement across the state. So getting HB 1110 out of the Senate is a big deal. There's hopefulness that it will sail through the concurrence process in the House and get signed by the governor soon. So that's the good news on housing. But there's other news that is maybe less - anytime you deal with the Legislature, you get half a loaf at best, unfortunately. And Democrats started the session by talking about what they call the three S's of housing - supply, stability, and subsidy. So supply - building new housing - they've done some of that. HB 1110, like we talked about, passing out of the House and Senate is good news. But some other bills got whittled down. The House Housing Committee, for example, loaded down a transit-oriented development bill with a bunch of poison pill amendments to the point where that bill's probably not gonna pass. It might, but if it did, it would be under very weakened circumstances. But at least supply is moving forward in some degree. Stability - the ability to make sure people don't lose their housing due to rent increases - that's gone. California and Oregon in the last few years have both passed statewide caps on rent increases, but once again that bill died in Washington. And then subsidy. In order to get the most affordable housing, you have to subsidize it and you need government to do that. And Jay Inslee, the governor, came in at the beginning of the session with a bold proposal - a smart one - to have voters approve a $4 billion bond for affordable housing. Senate Democrats have said - No, we don't wanna do that. And they're left with a couple hundred million to build affordable homes, which is better than nothing, but in a era of high inflation and high land values, labor shortages - that's not gonna buy as much as $4 billion would. So while there was a lot to celebrate in this session around housing, especially the missing middle bill, there's also a lot to look at and say - It should have been even better and the promises made at the beginning of the session, especially around stability and subsidy, were broken. And that's gonna hurt a lot of people. And so we need this Legislature to do better when they come back next year. [00:04:59] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely - completely agree with everything you just said. And I guess I am holding out a little bit of hope that there's still action that will be taken. You mention that $4 billion proposal, which would really accelerate the building of housing - really badly needed housing - to help us catch up on the units that we're behind to help keep housing affordable. Both kind of a housing and revenue issue with - the Real Estate Excise Tax is still up in the air, having a bit of a tough time, but they're still battling through that. So two opportunities where they can still take action, I hope. And certainly middle housing is worthy of celebrating it passing - this has been a long road bringing together big broad coalition - we've spoken with Representative Bateman on this show about this before. Your point about there being disappointment, about there not being more done - certainly missing middle housing was necessary, needed to happen, but so are these other things. And so is catching up on our housing supply, and on these protections, and on really feeling like we not only have the technical ability to build these units, but there's the funding and the resources there available to do that. That is a piece we are still missing. And if we do really consider housing to be a crisis, if we do really want to say we have taken action that matches the scale and scope of this crisis, there's gotta be more. We're not done yet. And there is the opportunity more this session that I hope they take advantage of. [00:06:41] Robert Cruickshank: I agree. And I think it's going to be interesting to see what the governor decides to do. Jay Inslee, in his 10+ years in office, has usually not been willing to confront the Legislature. He rarely vetoes anything. But I think this is a situation where he's gonna have to make a decision. Does he allow the Senate Democratic Caucus to basically abandon his $4 billion housing bond? Or does he make them do it? Does he veto a capital budget? Does he veto the operating budget? Does he say - I am the final voice here with my veto pen and I will use it if we don't get these things - we may need to see something like that. Inslee hasn't issued exactly a veto threat, but he has issued a very strongly worded public statement criticizing the Senate Democrats for rejecting his affordable housing bond. So I think you're right that that's not dead yet, but it's going to come down to a question of - what is Inslee willing to do to try to get it done? Is he willing to really put the screws to the Legislature in a way he hasn't traditionally done to try to get this through? And I think the rest of us who are advocates have to look at this overall session and ask ourselves - why did it turn out this way? We have some wins and we should celebrate those. But we also had, as you mentioned, things that didn't get through - whether it's transit oriented development, whether it's rent stabilization, and of course, a question about the affordable housing bond. This is a Legislature with strong, stable, large Democratic majorities. They don't have two-thirds majorities, but they've got pretty sizable majorities - they're not in any danger of losing those anytime soon. So this isn't a matter of having to cut deals with the Republicans. It's a matter of having divisions and dissensions within the Democratic caucus. And this is where one of the reasons we wish we had more of a journalism core in Olympia - it's all been whittled down over the last few decades - we don't have great insight as to what exactly goes on in these caucuses. We don't really know where things stand and who - we have a sense of who the power players are, we have a sense of who the movers and shakers are, but we don't have as much as we would like. We certainly don't have as much as we do, for example, insight into Congress. We don't really have it here in the Legislature. And so those of us who are the advocates and observers, we need to sit down after the session and figure out - okay, why did it turn out this way? How do we get better outcomes next time? Just as we did after 2022 - the reason why a missing middle bill looks set to pass and be signed into law is because that work was done. People evaluated where pressure needed to be put and did it. Now I think we need to do that more systematically, especially when it comes to stability and subsidy - those two legs of the housing stool. [00:09:22] Crystal Fincher: Now what's happening when it comes to education funding? [00:09:26] Robert Cruickshank: Something very interesting has happened this week and so far it's only the right wing that's noticed this - and the Republicans - it hasn't made it through anywhere else. But Senate Democrats proposed this week, SB 5770, which would eliminate one of Tim Eyman's signature initiatives, which is a 1% property tax cap. Now let's go back to the mid-2000s when Bush was president - voters approved this initiative, the Supreme Court of Washington threw it out - said it's unconstitutional - but led by Frank Chopp, a panicky Democratic majority put it into law themselves. They were afraid that if the court's ruling were to stand, Democrats would lose seats at the 2008 election - which we can look back and see that was a pretty ridiculous fear, but they did it. So Democrats put into place Tim Eyman's 1% property tax cap and that's gutted funding for schools, it's gutted funding for cities and counties. And there's been pressure ever since to try to relax that. There's also been a lot of pressure over the years - and one of the hats I wear is President of Washington's Paramount Duty - we try to advocate for education funding using new progressive revenue rather than rely on a property tax, which is regressive. And the state has a regressive system anyway - let's use a wealth tax. And we know that Senator Noel Frame and others have been pushing a wealth tax in the Legislature to fund education. This week, State Senator Jamie Pedersen and a group of Senate Democrats come out with a bill, 5770, that would help address education funding by eliminating Eyman's property tax cap. And say instead of a 1% cap, there'll be a 3% cap on annual property tax growth year-to-year. What they're essentially saying is - Yes, we recognize we aren't doing enough to fund public education. Yes, we need to do more. Yes, we need a new revenue source. But rather than tax the rich, we're gonna raise the property taxes again. And it puts education advocates in a really interesting spot because at least 50 districts across the state - large and small, urban and rural, east and west - are facing enormous budget cuts, even school closures. And these are really dire cuts that will significantly undermine the quality of public education in our state. And now we have Senate Democrats saying - Here's your funding, it's a property tax. Are you going to accept it or not? And that's a tough call. In 2017, to address the McCleary case, the Legislature passed the largest property tax increase in state history and it still wasn't enough. And coming out of that, we said - we need a capital gains tax and we need a wealth tax. Capital gains tax, of course, upheld by the Supreme Court. The wealth tax proposal would have essentially restored taxes on intangible property, which we used to have until the 1990s. So that's a pretty straightforward thing - 70% public support, widespread support in both caucuses. But this is an interesting move by some more centrist Democrats to say - Let's not do a wealth tax, let's go back to the property tax one more time for schools. [00:12:20] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and in this conversation about how regressive our state is overall when it comes to taxation, there were certainly a lot of people hoping that we would move closer to a wealth tax, especially with the bill that Representative Frame has in the Legislature ready to go. This was a great opportunity that they didn't take advantage of. And so we'll see how this turns out. But interesting to note that - we're talking about the repeal of one Tim Eyman initiative - he had a hard enough time getting them just to stand. So many of the initiatives that he passed were ultimately ruled unconstitutional. But one that did pass and that we've been living with the results of on every ballot is the Advisory Vote initiative that he ran, where we see all these votes on our ballots that don't count. And really just - if the Legislature basically authorizes any revenue, it lands on our ballots as a referendum Advisory Vote - hey, would you want this upheld or not? It's really just a poll, but a really wasteful and really poorly done poll that really makes our ballot a lot longer, more confusing. And especially with long ballots, there's a lot of people who don't flip the ballot over. So if the first page is dominated by these questions that don't have anything to do with the current election, we are actually hurting ourselves voting-wise because we know people are just going to miss votes that actually matter because we're putting votes that don't matter on the front of the ballot. So happy to see that being overturned. [00:14:07] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, that's great news that the Advisory Votes appear to be gone - that bill still needs to be signed by the governor but that's, I think, a foregone conclusion. And kudos to folks at the Northwest Progressive Institute who've been working on this for years. And what that shows me - along with the repeal of the Advisory Votes and repealing potentially 747, which is the initiative that did the 1% property tax cap - it reminds us that we blame Tim Eyman for a lot of this, but his enabler all along - his biggest enabler - has been the Democratic majority in the State Legislature. Way back in 2000 when his first initiative, the $30 car tabs, which gutted funding for transit and the ferry system - Supreme Court threw that out too. And it was a Democratic Legislature who said - No, actually we're going to put that back in ourselves. And a governor, Gary Locke, who - probably worried about reelection that year, though he didn't need to - put it back into place. Same thing with a 1% property tax cap. The Advisory Votes - the Democratic majority could have repealed that at any time, but only this year were they willing to do so. But I think the biggest way in which the Legislature has enabled Tim Eyman is by failing to fix the overall tax system. And while Eyman himself is a shady character at best and while his initiatives are appalling, he taps into a very real anger in the electorate with our regressive tax system. And that is the thing that has kept him going all this way - finally, he seems to be genuinely out of business - bankrupt, done, a spent political force. And that's partly because of his own mistakes. It's also partly because progressives in the state and in the Legislature finally have figured out how to push the caucus in a better direction on taxes. There's still a long way to go. And I think if Democrats say no to a wealth tax and yes to another property tax increase - I'm shocked that they would do that, worrying about swing seats in the 2024 election, but we'll see what they decide to do. But hopefully we see a Democratic majority start to take tax reform even more seriously and the ruling on the capital gains tax last month should give them a green light to go quite a lot further. [00:16:17] Crystal Fincher: I certainly hope so. Now there is definitely a bright spot this year in my view and a lot of people's view - especially with the backdrop in this country, with all of the hate-fueled bills, the anti-trans bills banning gender-affirming care, essentially banning gender-affirming care - there've been over a hundred bills passed in legislatures across the country that have been tearing apart, taking away rights for gender-affirming care, rights for trans people to exist basically. But we've done better here in Washington state and I'm actually proud of this. I wanna see more of this and I'm glad that we are showing that we can move in the other direction and that we're codifying protections. What did we see this year in the Legislature? [00:17:11] Robert Cruickshank: This year, the State Legislature - both houses have passed a bill SB5599, which would provide significant new protections for kids who are questioning changing their gender identity, who can do that and receive services and treatment and housing without having to notify their parents from a certain age - I believe it's 13 or 14. And this is a really important bill because what it does - it provides protections for these kids from families who may be hostile or unwelcoming to their very existence. And it's an excellent response and a necessary response to problems we see - even before the right wing decided that they're going to wage war on trans people - there's many stories that many of us know of young kids or teenagers who have questioned their gender identity, changed their gender identity, recognize that they were misassigned all along, and families either not responding well or being outright abusive. So there's been pressure for a while for the Legislature to do something about that. And now as we're seeing right wing states, red states, pass all sorts of awful bills restricting healthy care for trans people - Missouri just yesterday passed a bill making it extremely difficult to give proper care to trans kids - Washington's Legislature has gone in the right direction and withstood a barrage of awful hateful attacks coming from Republican legislators and coming from right wing media outlets. And they've stayed the course on that. One thing I notice about this Democratic majority in the Legislature - whenever it comes to finances or economics, they can be unreliable. But when it comes to our basic human rights, they're pretty strong. And I think the passage of this bill to protect trans kids is another example of when the Legislature gets it right. And they have to withstand a lot to get it right. I look forward to this bill making it out of the Legislature for good - it's pretty much there - and getting signed by the governor because I think this will be a big win. [00:19:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely a big win. Another big win that I just really learned about over the past year is another bill that allows trans people, or refugees, victims of intimate partner violence to be able to change their name while protecting their privacy and safety. The regulations for doing that in many places, including here before, were really onerous. Oftentimes you had to publicly publish in a paper that you intended to do that, there are lots of fees, jumping through hoops, going to court - just really unnecessary for what essentially is just some paperwork that needs to be filed. And so we did that. This is on top of a law passed a couple of years ago that requires insurers to cover gender affirming surgeries that are prescribed by a person's doctor and deemed medically necessary. You just talked about that Missouri bill - and they're not just going after kids - that law that was just signed - have a friend who is trans - trans adults who - they would not be able to get gender affirming care under that law now. They're really going after the right of trans people to exist. This is genocidal activity that we're seeing, and it's really important for everyone to speak up no matter where we are, especially in our own spheres. And when we come up against transphobia or any kind of bigotry, really, including, especially transphobia. But it's important to show that we can move in the other direction, that we're not putting up with this hate, that we don't have to go along with it, that we can hold leaders accountable, that we can hold corporations accountable. And even with Governor Inslee purchasing our own stash of mifepristone, which was a great move by the way - thank you, Governor Inslee for that. And when we talk about - hey, we wanna see some action taken in the face of this fascist march against women, against trans people, against everyone who's not a Christian straight white male almost - we have to have more of this. We have to keep doing this. And I'm glad we're doing it. I appreciate our Legislature and Governor Inslee for doing this, and I just wanna continue to see more. [00:21:34] Robert Cruickshank: Absolutely. I think Inslee's leadership on this has been significant and going out and buying a supply of the abortion pill was a huge deal. And I saw people in California asking Gavin Newsom, the governor there - Why aren't you doing the same thing? He announced that now he will. And so it's great to see Inslee leading on that. I think it comes back, also in my head, to the housing question earlier. We are recognizing that we're in a moment right now where it is becoming difficult to live in a lot of these red states - where people's rights to exist are under significant threat and we're starting to build out here on the West Coast, and especially here in Washington, a haven - where you can get the abortion pill, where your right to exist as a trans person is protected under state law. We should be inviting people to come move here, come live here, come join us - and that's hard to do if housing is hard to find and expensive. So I think it should all be connected. We are unfortunately in this place in American history right now where we need to build havens for a lot of people, and the West Coast should be a haven and we need to take every step we can - whether it's passing legislation to protect trans kids, buying up stockpiles of the abortion pill, and making it easy for people to live and afford to stay here. I think these are all connected things that we need to be doing. [00:22:52] Crystal Fincher: All right - we will continue to follow what is happening in the Legislature in these final weeks of the session. Big event happening in the City of Seattle that is going to change the status quo of things over the past 10 years - and that is the DOJ saying they're ready to move to end the consent decree with the Seattle Police Department. What's happening? What's the background and context around this? [00:23:18] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, so 2012 is when the City of Seattle and the Department of Justice entered into a consent decree to allow a federal judge to oversee badly needed reforms to the Seattle Police Department. And so fast forward to 2023, and I think a lot of people quite understandably react to news about ending a consent decree with - Well now, wait a minute. Why would we do that? The department hasn't been reformed. And I think there's a great article in The Stranger yesterday by Ashley Nerbovig who explains why. A lot of advocates who are strong police reformers have all along understood that bringing in the Department of Justice is a double-edged sword. You bring in the Department of Justice to get reforms done that couldn't be done at the local level, but at the same time you lose community control over the department. And we saw that, I think, most clearly in 2020 when the federal judge who oversees the case came in and told the City that they could not ban the use of pepper spray or blast balls in protest management, which we saw SPD doing regularly in the Black Lives Matter protests on Capitol Hill - including City councilmembers getting pepper sprayed, people in their homes with babies getting pepper sprayed, blast balls injuring people left and right. And the City said - We don't want this anymore. We're passing an ordinance. And the judge came in and said - You can't do that. Efforts to defund the police department in 2020, which obviously have faded for political reasons, but the judge also said - You can't do that. And I think those are two examples that really brought home to people the other edge of the sword with a consent decree, which is that you lose a lot of that community control. And so what's happening now is a recognition that the legal boxes have been checked in terms of reforming SPD. This isn't to say that SPD is fixed by any means, 'cause it's not - but that the Department of Justice has done about all it can do. And that the work of lasting, substantial, and fundamental reforms to the police department have to come from us in the community. It has to be led by the community. It has to be led by the people of Seattle for it to stick and for it to work. And that's what the advocates have been saying for a while. And now there's consensus that we need to move beyond the consent decree. And what I liked about Ashley's article is she really did a good job of explaining that and quoting the advocates who talk about why we need to move beyond it. And I think what that does is hopefully shows to people that the end of the consent decree should not and cannot be the end of police reform in Seattle. I mentioned defund earlier - we're almost three years out now from the George Floyd protests, three years out from the summer of 2020, where it looked like we might actually defund the police. I think that the - while there may be still be people in Seattle who want that, I think the political momentum for that is gone. What that means now is to fix this police department, which still has many problems, we have to turn to other solutions. So they're gonna have to come from the community and we're gonna need an ordinance over how the police are managed. We're going to need a new SPOG contract. And without the Department of Justice and without a federal judge, which is the key piece involved, maybe we do better than we did in 2018. Because in 2018, the contract that the City did with SPOG was terrible. It's up to us now - and it always has been really - to make sure that we're doing the work to fix this police department. Because there's a lot of people out there and there'll be a lot of candidates running for city council who are already saying - the answer to whatever problems we have in the City is let the police off the hook, let the police off the leash, step back from reform. And that's of course what SPOG wants all along. And we have to fight that, we have to resist that. And I think not being able to rely on a federal judge means we have to do it ourselves, which hopefully makes reform more lasting. [00:27:05] Crystal Fincher: I hope so. I think the way you worded it - really this is about the DOJ has done all they can do. Does it mean that the issue is fixed? Does it mean that this is a mission accomplished moment? It means that, as you said, there were boxes checked, the list was all checked off, and they have done all they can do - which in many situations that we've seen with consent decrees across the country, ultimately doesn't really amount to much. And that is a lesson I think a lot of people are taking away from this too - this external federal oversight that is removed from the community is problematic. The Community Police Commission was meant from the outset to have much more power and authority than it currently has, than it wound up having. There were lots of people who did not want a voice from the community really impacting policing, and there were definitely moves made to neuter the CPC throughout this process. So I think that we do have to, at minimum, demand that there is a process put into place to where there is true accountability to the community and input from the community in this. And what's gonna be possible will largely depend on the council that we wind up with, but you named some really significant markers that are coming up, including this SPOG contract - that is currently being negotiated that'll have to come before the council to be approved - that's going to lay the foundation for any kind of change that's going to be able to happen in the future. There are so many times where we talk about something happening and really it boils down to - well, it's in the contract. The police chief says his hands are tied so often by the contract. The mayor - well, the contract. So we really do have to hold those leaders accountable to negotiating a good and accountable contract, and see what happens from there. But this is a definite step in the progression of public safety in Seattle. And it'll be interesting to see what happens from here. [00:29:17] Robert Cruickshank: It will. And with that SPOG contract, we have to keep in mind that the contract that was approved in 2018 - even some of the progressive folks on the city council voted for that contract and they got a lot of pressure from the County Labor Council to do it. Of course, two years later, the County Labor Council did the right thing and ejected SPOG from their membership ranks. And so hopefully a discussion about approving the contract goes differently this time. That's a reminder that even if we elect what we think are the right people to the city council, there's no guarantee that they'll do the right thing with a SPOG contract. It's gonna take a lot of public organizing, mobilization, and advocacy to make sure that City Hall knows this has to be a strong contract and that we expect City Hall to stand up to SPOG on this - to not just roll over for whatever demands they make. [00:30:02] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I also wanna talk about an issue this week at the Seattle City Council about late fees for late rent from renters. What is happening with this? [00:30:15] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah so Kshama Sawant who - champion of workers and renters - came out with an ordinance that would cap late fees on paying your rent at $10. So if you're paying your rent late, you get charged a $10 fee - no more. And people who are renting in the City will pay much more than that in late fees - we've heard stories of $100 fees, $500 fees, just absurd. And a committee that heard this at the City Council whittled that down and said - well, we'll base it on a percentage of your rent, but it could - you might be charged a minimum of $50 late fee or higher, basically to neuter the effect of what Sawant had proposed. And at a time when rent continues to be high in the City, rising inflation, and more and more people losing their jobs as maybe recession looms - it definitely seems like a moment to do all we can to ensure that we have affordable housing and to prevent people from getting evicted. And missing a rent payment and not paying a late fee are often things landlords use to evict people. So there's plenty of reasons why we should make it easy to pay your rent and make it hard to get to lose your home because of rent. And so to watch members of the City Council whittle this down was really disappointing and frustrating. Sawant isn't giving up - she's putting a lot of pressure on the rest of the City Council to go back to $10 an hour - or sorry - to go back to $10 cap on late fees. And I think it's a sensible thing to do. The Stranger article on this singled out Andrew Lewis, someone who is running for reelection, and he may be making a political calculation that he needs to keep landlords happy, but you're not gonna get reelected by keeping landlords happy. Nobody gets reelected by keeping landlords happy. You have a ton of renters in the 7th Council District. You have a ton of renters across the City. It's not only the right thing to do in terms of preventing homelessness and keeping people in their homes, it's also the right thing to do politically. There's no upside to undermining this bill for capping late fees on rent at $10. So we'll see what the council does. We'll see if they take what I think is a sensible thing to do from a policy and political perspective, or whether they are terrified of cranky landlords picketing their offices - I don't know - but we'll see what happens. [00:32:36] Crystal Fincher: We will see what happens. This is yet another issue where, really, the concerns of landlords and tenants are at odds and the council is having to make a call here. And once again, if we are really serious about calling our housing crisis a crisis, our homelessness crisis a crisis, and understanding that preventing people from getting evicted and keeping people in their homes is absolutely critical to addressing - we have to do that if we're gonna address homelessness. It is the most effective way to address homelessness - is to prevent people from becoming, from losing their housing in the first place. And so needing to intervene in these situations is there. And you have some landlords basically just making a market argument - let the market sort it - we can charge, we can charge. If they can't afford it, other people can - the law allows this, so we should be able to do it. And what the law has allowed is what has landed us in this crisis. It has created this crisis. There is too much of an imbalance and we need to bring that back into alignment. And this seems like a reasonable way to do it. And really we're here because we have endured so many fights and so much opposition towards everything else that has also been suggested, while facing limitations on what's possible overall. So there aren't that many levers that we can use. And I do think it's important to use the ones that we have. [00:34:06] Robert Cruickshank: Yep, I fully agree. I just wanna add one thing - that this is one of the things I'm gonna miss about Kshama Sawant. She has a reputation of being this dogmatic ideologue and she cares very deeply about her socialist values, as well as she should. She's also really clever and keeps coming up with different ways to achieve the goals she wants to achieve - fighting for rent control has been one of her core political values ever since she got elected in 2013. We all know that the State Legislature prevents local governments from enacting rent control, and so what she's systematically done is tried to find every possible way to limit the amount that landlords can charge renters - to limit those increases, to protect renters any way she can. And I think that that's something that not enough people understand - certainly the media's not gonna tell that story. But I think it's one thing that I'm really gonna miss when she's not on the council - is that really clever persistence that she has to find yet another way to protect renters. And you don't have to be Kshama Sawant to do that - any democratic elected official can champion renters' rights. And not only are you doing the right thing for renters and the right thing to fight homelessness, you're also doing something that's politically popular. So I would love to see more people follow that lead. [00:35:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And unfortunately we got some weird bad news in the realm of homelessness policy and implementation this week - in there is currently a situation with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and other agencies bickering over a million-plus dollars shortfall to fund temporary housing for homeless people. What is going on? [00:35:57] Robert Cruickshank: So as a result of federal stimulus funds during the height of the pandemic, a group called the Lived Experience Coalition was able to get a one-year federal grant to house people who were living on the streets in hotels. Smart policy - get people off the streets and into safe, secure housing with a door that locks, with a roof over your head, with heat and running water - it's exactly what we need and what we want. But that grant is running out. There's questions about how the grant has been administered and where the money is. And if money isn't found - at least a million dollars - to keep this going, then nearly 250 people who are currently housed in these hotels will be evicted and most likely go back out on the streets. And this is something nobody should want to see happen. And yet there's a bunch of bickering and finger pointing over who's responsible for this rather than solutions. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority had a meeting earlier this week where they basically said - Well, this isn't really our thing. It's not our fault. It's not our responsibility. We don't want to spend a million dollars on this because then that takes away from other things we want to do. City council, King County Council are pointing fingers at other people saying - It's not our responsibility. And it's just sad to see that bureaucratic bickering is leaving nearly 250 people hanging in the balance who might lose their home, might get put back out on the streets again. And that's something that theoretically this authority was created to prevent from happening - the whole argument about creating a regional homelessness authority was to provide coordination at a regional level. And instead they seem to be heading down the same path of bureaucratic inertia and bureaucratic turf defense - and it's exactly what this was all designed to prevent, and yet that's right where we are again. And so it's pretty frustrating to see this happen and a lack of leadership at all levels of government to come in and ensure that these people and others can stay in the housing that's been found for them. Because I think this is one of the things that makes it hard to get people into housing in the first place is - a sense that it's temporary, a sense that it's uncertain. We want to offer people housing and many people who live on the streets want housing. They want to be housed. This right wing narrative that people are out there by choice and refusing all offers of shelter is absurd, but they want quality shelter - no one wants to live in a place that's unsafe. And so putting folks in a hotel room is a really smart thing to do, it makes a ton of sense. You'd think that would be something that we would want to continue and promote. When that becomes unstable - another form of unstable housing - when people living there are like - Well, I don't know if I'm going to be here next month. That's not great. That doesn't help anyone. That doesn't help people hold down a job. It doesn't help people stay in a treatment program. And so we need leadership, whether it's from the Regional Homelessness Authority or from the City or County Council to come in and say - No, we're going to fund this. We're going to make sure these people stay in a hotel with a roof over their head and a door that locks. [00:38:49] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think I have a meta-takeaway on this. This is such a dysfunctional situation. I think you diagnosed it correctly as a turf defense situation. There does seem to be some - and not just from the three parties named in this thing, but also from the mayor's office is involved in this and others - and each seeming to want their own kind of stake and - Hey, leave the Lived Experience Coalition alone, you worry about other stuff, they can worry about this kind of thing going on - which is weird. But the nature of a lot of service work in government is they're contracting organizations. It's not like government is standing this up themselves and these are people directly employed and paid by the City or County. They contract with a lot of nonprofit organizations, service providers who have various levels of experience and expertise, who have different - some lived experience, some professional experience - obviously lived experience is absolutely necessary to serve any population correctly, a familiarity with them in the system. But it feels like sometimes we set ourselves up for these disasters by not doing a good job in the implementation of policy to deliver on what its true and original intention was. And if we don't clearly define and help manage and implement these contracts, these arrangements, then it can get away from you like this. If you aren't paying attention to, or overseeing, or staying in contact with, or whatever the case may be - these situations - you can wind up with a million dollar plus hole in your budget because you just weren't paying attention. And we still aren't sure exactly what happened to those funds. And that is a question I think many people are working on getting answers to and really clear answers on how we wound up in this situation - 'cause it seemed like there were red flags there throughout the process and things kept getting worse. But I do think that as progressives, as Democrats, we have to pay as much attention to the implementation as we do with the passage. The victory is not in the signing of legislation, the passage of a bill or law - the victory is in it delivering on its promise and helping people in the community. And so the work really begins when a law is passed - and there's administration that needs to be built and stood up and funds that need to be dispersed - you're building little organizations, sometimes big mega-organizations. It's like a startup and you have lots of these organizations doing this at the same time. And you have to pay attention to the coordination, to the implementation, to the contracts, to the management. We have to do a better job with that across the board, so we don't have situations like this where this is a - they're actually using evidence-based practices that are best practices, but risking everything going wrong because of a lack of oversight and management. That just makes the policy look like it's not working. That gives ammunition to Republicans, to reactionaries who just say that - Oh, these policies failed, it was always gonna fail. These people are irresponsible, they don't know how to run this. We have to be responsible for this too. We have to prioritize this. And I think sometimes there is an inclination to be - Okay, we meant well. No, it's not going well. We're just gonna ignore it, cover it up. Let's not talk about that. Let's not make it look bad. And we really need to get away from it not looking bad. And really this is not delivering on what we need it to do to help the residents. This is not addressing the problem we passed this and funded this to address. We have to pay more attention, get more focused on, and demand more when it comes to implementation and management and accountability for these projects. [00:43:11] Robert Cruickshank: I agree. And I think you made a really good point about the fact that there are consequences to failure. And one of the consequences obviously is more people living out on the streets, which we don't want. These are our neighbors. We want our neighbors to be housed and taken care of. The other consequence is it just provides ammunition to reactionaries. They are out there and there are some of these people running for City Council who are saying - We need to just scoop everybody up and put them in Auburn. KOMO's idea from right before the pandemic started of Homeless Island - they want to take Anderson Island, which used to house sex offenders and house homeless people there. This is - it's what they want. They're very adamant that they think the solution is not housing. The solution is basically prison-style treatment. And if we, who are more progressive and actually care about the wellbeing of people who are unhoused, are unable to get good policy passed and implemented, then the answer isn't that folks are going to be out on the streets for awhile. The answer is a much worse solution will come from the right. And so I think that should provide a spur to action along with the desire to help our neighbors. And I think it's really important to emphasize these folks are our neighbors. I once heard the head of DESC point out that most of the people they serve were born within 10 miles of their facility in downtown Seattle. These are our neighbors. And even if they weren't, we should be helping them. But they are our neighbors and we absolutely should be helping them. [00:44:45] Crystal Fincher: Couldn't say that any better. Absolutely agree. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, April 14th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. You can find Robert on Twitter @cruickshank - that's C-R-U-I-C-K S-H-A-N-K. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and find me on Twitter @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. 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 the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live week-in-review and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On today's Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, Crystal is joined by political consultant and principal partner at Prism West, Riall Johnson! Crystal and Riall discuss a controversy in Burien following a homeless encampment clearing, because another encampment (predictably) reappeared a block away because the people without housing still lacked housing, and homelessness is caused by a lack of accessible or affordable housing. The King County Council approved a $3.5M contract to rent 50 beds from the SCORE facility in Des Moines, WA, despite Executive staff saying that it won't make much of a difference. They also discuss the seemingly lackluster results from the new bonuses designed to attract more SPD officers. They end with a discussion of the over 30 Seattle City Council candidates and how the upcoming election 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, Riall Johnson, at @RiallJohnson.   Riall Johnson Riall began working in political campaigns in 2012 after he retired from a 9 year career as a professional football player. His first campaign was as a field organizer in Cincinnati, Ohio for President Obama's re-election campaign, which was also where he started his professional football career when he was drafted to the Bengals in the 6th round in 2001. Riall's focus in politics has always been on the field side of grassroots campaigns. He has knocked thousands doors for campaigns in six different states, organized the collection of over 900,000 signatures, and created grassroots volunteer groups that are still self-sustaining today.   For the past few years, Riall has been focusing his work in his home state of Washington, where he has led impactful campaigns focused on gun violence prevention, police accountability, and criminal justice reform.  After directing ballot initiative I-940, Riall founded Prism West (formerly Prism Washington) in 2018 to focus on getting progressive candidates of color in office to increase representation in government and bring real transformative policy to fruition. Many of his clients have broken many barriers by becoming the first of their demographic to be elected to their offices. He is currently working on bringing rent control back to the State of California.   Resources The Case for the Crisis Care Centers Levy with King County Executive Dow Constantine from Hacks & Wonks   “After Removing Encampment, Burien Considers the Options: Provide Shelter, Ban Camping, or Both?” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Burien faces hard choices around homeless encampment” by Anna Patrick from The Seattle Times   “King County Commits Millions to Make Jail Slightly Less Crowded” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Slog AM: Trump Indictment Drops Today, Harrell Drags on Police Alternatives, Election Day in Other Places” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger “Slog AM: SPD Hiring Lags Despite Big Bonuses, WA Stocks Up on Abortion Pills, More Cringe from Elon” by Vivian McCall from The Stranger   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, Executive Dow Constantine filled me in on why King County voters should support the Crisis Care Centers Levy by voting Yes on Proposition 1 this April. The proposed levy would raise funds to address our urgent behavioral health crisis by building five new crisis care centers across the county, stabilize and restore residential treatment beds, and cultivate the behavioral health workforce pipeline. 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 cohost: Principal Partner at Prism West, Riall Johnson. Hey. [00:01:28] Riall Johnson: What's up? [00:01:29] Crystal Fincher: You have been jet setting all over the place. You're an - certainly an interstate, maybe an international man of mystery at this point in time - just working all over. What have you been up to? [00:01:42] Riall Johnson: I'm Canadian, so I guess I'm international - or half-Canadian - and currently I'm in California, Southern California, working on bringing back rent control to the state of California. That's been, that's my most - my recent project. But also, I'm still involved vaguely in Washington politics - I'm still keeping a little track. And I plan on returning - probably next year for some more - help with some of my clients getting reelected as well, and trying to push things further, finish the mission that we set out to when we started Prism. [00:02:17] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. There's a lot of news that has happened this week. We cover local government. There's a lot of national federal news that broke out this week, whether it's the arrest and arraignment of former President Trump, to a litany of anti-trans legislation, to the unjust expulsion of two Black members of the Tennessee legislature, to Biden backtracking and issuing a betrayal of sorts and saying that, and not being equivocal about trans people being able to participate in sports and saying that maybe there are some situations where they shouldn't be allowed to, or may not be allowed to - which was a completely unnecessary action to take. I do not know why that happened - it's pretty disappointing. But in the midst of all that, we have a lot happening locally. There's been conversation in the City of Burien - and we have talked to councilmembers from the City of Burien - really interesting city to follow. And right now, they recently cleared an encampment at a site. And as predicted, as we have seen after encampment clearings in Seattle and many, many other cities - because we're not actually providing any meaningful housing, people just relocate to another location. In Burien, they relocated to another location just like a block away to another city-owned property, which caused consternation from a number of people there. Some residents concerned that - Hey, we still haven't done enough to provide these people with housing options that make sense for them and that can help them out of their situation. And other people predictably - seemingly being more worried about the visible part of the homelessness, not necessarily what people who are unhoused are going through - but mad that they have to see that and feeling that it's somehow them being spurned by people who have no place to stay moving to somewhere else where they're allowed to exist. How do you read this? [00:04:27] Riall Johnson: It's just - it's typical city behavior. You see this nationwide - they think that if you bully these folks, you push them out of their immediate space, they're gonna just be gone forever. They're gonna disappear. And we have this constant attempt of disappearing the homeless - of trying to - and not realizing they're actually people and they have to live somewhere. They're going to live somewhere, so they can't just drive across the state or somewhere so you don't see them again. And if they're still homeless, they're gonna be homeless somewhere else. So all we're doing is taking turns pushing them back around, like a pinball machine. And it's sad to watch 'cause people need to realize - if you don't wanna see them - if you gave them homes, you wouldn't see them. Or you wouldn't know they're homeless 'cause we still have to live - when you have a home, you have to leave your home and go work and do things, even though - people don't realize about 47% of homeless people have jobs. So the whole get-a-job narrative is stupid 'cause they get a job and they're still homeless 'cause we simply can't afford homes. And that's the main problem - is that housing is just not affordable. Even when they call it affordable housing, it's not affordable 'cause the AMI is skewed all wrong. So we need to build public housing. We need to go back to how we had - before Reagan cut the housing authority in the '80s - where we actually had federal funding for these houses, for housing for people. And we could actually treat it as a regional solution, which - I hate that term, but actually - 'cause we could provide housing throughout the country in spaces, not just in the City of Seattle. 'Cause you see this - in Burien, or any other city outside of Seattle, has no right to complain about homelessness because you look at the numbers from the regional housing authority - Seattle and I think one other city are the only ones that contribute to the fund. And Seattle contributes 95% or 98% of the funds to the regional solution. So the only ones that even put any money up, the only ones who even put any services up - so of course people are going to gravitate there 'cause there's services, but they put in the fund and then the other cities don't kick in anything. And they just push everything to Seattle and then point at Seattle like they're the problem - Look at all the homelessness. Well, you push all your people there constantly. So it's just typical. And you see this - I see this in LA, I see this in Long Beach. You see this in bigger cities and you see it in San Francisco. You see it in New York and Denver, Miami - the bigger cities carry the load of it and then everyone wants to crap on the big cities - Look at these Democrat run cities 'cause they're, look at all the homeless people. They're the only ones that actually treat them like humans in any sense - remotely, 'cause you don't see, when you get up close, it's like they're not even treated well here - but it's the lesser of many evils that they have to face. And they're just going to where they're going to be bullied the least. [00:07:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's a challenge. And I think it is just a continual reinforcement that - as you said, this is a problem that is caused by a lack of housing. There are lots of people who try to suggest that homelessness is really an addiction problem. It's really a crime problem. And if we just treat these people like they're addicts or we treat these people like they're criminals, that that will clean everything up. We have been trying that and that approach has been failing - truly for decades now, for years and years and years. And the question really is - when are we going to stop doing the thing that has been failing and start doing the things that have been shown to be much more effective? This is a problem with the affordability and the accessibility of housing. If homelessness was primarily a crime problem, places with the highest crime rates would have the most homelessness - that's not the case. If homelessness was primarily an addiction problem, places with the highest addiction rates would have the highest rates of homelessness - that's not the case. What is the case is that areas with the highest level of housing that is unaffordable to the local populations have the highest rates of homelessness. It's because people cannot afford to live where they're at. It really is that. And so we have to provide housing to people to get them off of the street. We have to help people transition back into permanent housing. And money that we spend on criminalizing this solution, on locking people up, on putting up fencing, on making areas unavailable, on paying for security and park staff and police officers to kind of police these encampment sweeps and move people all around - it's just a recipe for failure. We know that. Why do we keep trying that? Let's provide housing and follow the evidence for what other people are doing that is working, what other cities are doing that's working. We can and need to do better. And so I did not find it surprising at all that if you sweep one location without providing people with any path to permanent shelter - yeah, you're just moving the problem around. And it sounds like the people are unhappy - a lot of people who testified were just unhappy that they didn't move the problem far enough away. But we can't keep punting to other jurisdictions, to other cities, to other counties, to other regions to help solve this problem. Every city needs to kick in and do things to meaningfully allow and provide more housing, and to keep more people in their homes, and to keep people from being evicted. [00:10:11] Riall Johnson: Yeah, I think the other - and on top of that, this is an American problem where we just need to get over - of not accepting poor people having nice things. And then we just - 'cause we have the money for it. We always have the money. It's the richest country in the world. Always have the money. Seattle's one of the richest cities in the world - has the money. Bellevue and all these other cities around - are richest suburbs and suburban towns in the world - they have the money. The thing is, and it's funny how even when you explain to people who want these sweeps or are pro-sweep - which is mind-boggling - if you ever talk to someone who really just wants them swept and kicked out, you tell them how much more it costs to sweep them, and to jail them, and to do the cleanup, and all that stuff - and it's gonna cost us more. Because essentially - hopefully we can organize all the homeless folks that are being swept all the time to sue the cities for all the possessions that they've lost and been stolen - 'cause we're really robbing these people of their stuff. 'Cause you give them no notice, you show up, you clear them out, and they don't get to get all their things, or they literally take it from them half the time and throw the stuff out. And I think there was another city - I forget which one - that actually successfully sued the city for millions of dollars as a class action lawsuit, which I hope Seattle does at some point. And I would definitely help organize that. The thing is - we spend so much more doing this cruel stuff, and people have said this before - that the cruelty really is the point. People relish in treating these people so badly, knowing that they would save more money if we just provided homes for them. But they don't wanna spend money on that - even being told and shown straight data that it costs more doing what we're already doing - to sweep them, and jail them, and assault them, and clean up the stuff. It costs us more money. Just give them homes and we save money. And bonus, you don't have to see them anymore. At least - and that's the problem - you'll see them. You just won't know they're homeless, so you won't be able to label them as such. And that's - we just have to get over just giving poor people nice things, which is a home. But we don't want - we just don't want to. We can do it, we just don't want to. [00:12:30] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Speaking of another situation where it seems like there may be other better options of what we can do, but we don't want to - is this week, the King County Council voted to extend a contract or to enact a contract with the SCORE Correctional Facility in Des Moines, Washington, to offload some of the King County jail population to that Des Moines Center - in the wake of studies, calls from employees who work there, the Public Defenders Association and many others saying that the jail is overcrowded, understaffed, a hazard to the health of the people that are living there, and there just is not enough staff support to keep anyone safe, and it's a mess. And so you had an unusual alliance of corrections facilities employees - the jail guards - in addition to public defenders saying, This is untenable and unsustainable. We need to lower the jail population. You also have a prior promise from King County Executive Dow Constantine to close the jail. Yet, it seems like policy is moving in the opposite direction, and they're spending millions of dollars to offload - what was it - 50 people to that facility. And really saying - Okay, is this meaningfully addressing this problem? Or are we just once again kicking the can down the road here to figure this out? - to spend $3.5 million to rent 50 beds in Des Moines. It was a 7-2 vote with King County Councilmembers Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Girmay Zahilay voting against the measure to transfer the inmates, really saying that they don't have enough information to really determine that this is the best alternative and that there are functionally deeper problems than this is going to solve, and we're spending money on this kind of stopgap solution that could be really, really helpful to spend in areas that may be more likely to keep people more safe. How do you read this situation? [00:14:49] Riall Johnson: It's funny. I think - it's not funny. It's ironic that it was just Girmay and Jeanne Kohl-Welles. And I would expect Girmay Zahilay to vote No on this 'cause - knowing him. I didn't expect Jeanne Kohl-Welles to vote for this, but it's amazing how principled some elected folks get when they're not running for reelection and they're not looking for - or higher office. And the funny thing is - this is what I've said in politics overall - is you don't have to trust people in politics, you trust their ambitions. And I had a very interesting conversation while - up in Snohomish with a prosecutor - and it opened my eyes because, and we're talking about bail reform - just letting them out. Why are we even putting these people in jail for minor stuff? Why are we even putting - they don't even have to be there. And that's the thing - why is this conversation, are we having in the "most progressive county" - I'm quoting, you can't see me - that we have a full jail? And it's because we have to just redefine what crime actually is. These people that they're bringing in for "crimes" aren't crimes in most other parts of the world. So they shouldn't even have to be there. It's minor offenses that they're in there, that they could just either pay a fine or not be a crime in the first place. And so we should - if we just redefined that, we wouldn't do that. But we're already stuck in this narrative that we're not tough on crime at all. We're the toughest country on crime in the world. And this is what this prosecutor told me was, and it shows - 'cause he's gonna, obviously he was gonna run for reelection at the time - when he said, I want to let these people out, but all it takes is one. All it takes is one of them to recommit and do something egregious and do something really bad. And the whole thing is gone. And it made me realize that - Yeah, he's not right. He's right about himself - his world is turned up now. His reelection chances are gone. His job, it's - his future is in jeopardy if that happens, not everyone else's. Because the thing is, no matter - the longer you hold people in jail, they're gonna - and you can't put people in jail for life. You're gonna get out at some point. They're worse off - they're gonna be - and more likely going to commit something more serious because they're in a worse situation than before. They're more damaged than before. So the effect is that we're even - why we're even putting these people in the jail, or most of these people in jail, in the first place is trivial. So we shouldn't even have to vote to relocate them or borrow beds from other states, other counties - because they shouldn't be in jail in the first place. And they're not realizing that solution. But every one of those people - all seven that voted for it - are all still planning on running for something in the future. And that's what they're scared of. They're scared of that one person that gets out of jail, commits something bad, worse, and they get blamed for it. They don't - and this happened to Chesa Boudin - 'cause he let a lot of people out of jail. And one person assaulted someone in the - actually, I think in the Asian community - and they used that as a cudgel, and just - [00:18:23] Crystal Fincher: And that was in San Francisco, right? [00:18:24] Riall Johnson: Over and over and over - yeah, in San Francisco. And that's what - they're all scared of that - you can see. And that's my theory, 'cause you talk to them one-on-one - they all wanna vote No, they all wanna do this, the right thing - but they know they can't because they're scared of the reelection chances, or further election chances, including Dow Constantine. [00:18:47] Crystal Fincher: It's something that we commonly see, and unfortunately they're afraid of - they're afraid of following the data for fear of weaponization of the anecdote. Because yes, there are certainly people who are invested in the status quo in our current system, who are salivating to use anything to help bolster their position or discredit others. Because they know that they have to rely on the anecdotes, because the data is not on their side. But there's a lot of money to be made from the existing system and what they're doing. There's a ton of money to be made in a variety of facets, but really the impact of that - and what we need to not pepper over - is that you're selling out the rest of the community, you're harming the rest of the community. Because the data is what it is. We know that overall, fewer people are going to be harmed and victimized if we change the approach that we take, if we stop focusing on these punitive, punishment-based approaches - based on us not feeling like people are worthy of humanity, or we need to personally feel like we punish them. Does that feeling justify the increased likelihood and increased events of harm that are really happening to real people? It's a challenge and it's a shame. You said Jeanne Kohl-Welles - also not running again and seeming to be a little freer in her comments and considerations - she did call on Dow to follow through on his promise to close the downtown jail. And she also expressed, as did Girmay and some other council members, expressed concern that because this appears to be such a stopgap measure that doesn't seem to be robust enough to solve the actual problem, that they're concerned about getting another request for funding, and a request for an extension, and a request for expansion of this - because this doesn't actually solve the problem, even though we're forking over millions of dollars to make that happen. So they took some votes to ensure that an automatic extension or an automatic expansion couldn't happen, that their approval is gonna be required for that. But also if you're approving this - even if that does happen, what is the logic of voting No if you voted for this? Again, I'm not quite sure what that is, but it'll be interesting to follow. We will continue to follow this, and it's a conversation that we continue to have. Also this week, we got news that bonuses so far have not shown to recruit many new officers. And for the amount of money that's invested - not just in salaries and benefits for police, but also these signing bonuses - certainly I think most people were hoping, who viewed this as a solution, to get much more bang for their buck as they did. It's interesting in that we have heard the Harrell administration talk about data and dashboards and all that information. And the data that we have received on this doesn't seem to be too promising, yet that doesn't seem to be deterring many people. They said it's too soon to figure out that this is a failure, or to conclude that this is a failure. We did see an uptick in some of our hiring and have a bit of a larger class, so maybe there's some benefit that we're getting from this. Although we have heard from officers themselves who've said - These signing bonuses don't make a difference. If someone is leery to come, and especially given the salary, throwing an extra $10,000 at them isn't really going to be big enough to make the difference here. Now it could with a lot of other positions that have shortages in the City, but we seem to be focused on police right now. And so it is just going to be interesting to see if it's just - well, the data didn't look like we wanted it to, but we're just going to keep pushing forward and not adjust - while expressing the importance of better performance and getting data and metrics from other public safety initiatives or things that are running behind, like alternative response. And really this is money that could be invested in other areas. How do you see this? [00:23:48] Riall Johnson: It's just another - I feel like I'm repeating myself - it's typical. It's typical American exceptionalism - thinking that the country with the most police than any other military force, with more police than any other military force, is going to solve this. There's never been a correlation of more police and less crime - never. If anything it's gone the opposite - less police, you get less crime. We're so invested as a country - that more police is going to solve our stuff. And we have more police than ever, always. And it's just never affected crime. And if anything, it just affects more arrests - and it's just arrests for bull crap - told you I wasn't going to cuss. So I think it's - sarcastically speaking - if we were just nicer to cops in Seattle, more of them would come 'cause that's what - don't take this out of context 'cause like someone's clips this, 'cause it's - that's the narrative you see in the newspaper. Cops don't want to be here 'cause they're not nice to us here. There's too much protest, and too liberal, and it's too progressive. You hear this narrative outside - that's what's deterring - if that's deterring cops, it's too bad. Your job's tough, I'm sorry. You completely say - We're proud, we support the blue, and it's the toughest job - f*cking do it. They don't want to do it. They want an easy job where they can bully people and get away with it more often. So they're not afraid of being - and it's not so much being treated bad - they're afraid of accountability 'cause they feel like Seattle might hold them more accountable. I think it just doesn't matter 'cause - and I'm happy actually that less and less people want to be cops because probably - you see this generation's growing up - seeing more and more of what cops are doing, less of them want to be that. And I hope that's gonna be a nationwide trend overall. Gen Z and Gen A, I think are growing up - they're seeing more and more police violence. We didn't get to grow up seeing those constant videos. All we saw was a Rodney King video - we didn't have the cameras. I'm turning 45 this month. I didn't see constant police violence growing up. I grew up - I was 16 when Hillary and Joe Biden and Bill Clinton brought us the crime bill. I was a super predator in their eyes. And we were sold on that - me and my generation and everyone else - was sold on that stuff that more police is gonna solve this. And all it did was just lock more people up - for the same stuff I saw at Stanford University, tons of kids do. And boy, they weren't kicking down those doors. So it's never - more police has never solved crime - is not going to. So I'm actually happy that it's failing because it's going to show - and you see the stats of crime is still staying the same or going down, even with less cops. If we invest more in the communities and provide more housing and more services, we'll have less crime - 'cause we'll have less poverty and we'll have less need - because most of them is just crimes of poverty. So I think this is something I want to see nationwide - is just less cops, people wanting to be cops, because we're opening people's eyes to the culture of it. And a lot of younger generation growing up don't want to be part of that culture. And I hope that - so I say, keep filming people, keep filming them all the time, put them on blast, hold them accountable as best you can. And hopefully this is a trend that we see nationwide. [00:27:33] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And it will be interesting to see where these trends follow. It'll also be interesting just to see the electoral trends. We also saw this week, the City of Chicago opted to elect a progressive mayor who the police union was vehemently opposed to. They said that they would walk off the job if this person were elected and they're just going to do that. And well - the city's voters called their bluff. [00:28:02] Riall Johnson: Please leave. Please don't go - oh no. We'll see if they do - they won't, they won't. [00:28:11] Crystal Fincher: Maybe a couple might, but once again, I think this is an area where residents continue to be out ahead of elected officials in this area. Residents don't seem to have the hang up over conversations about comprehensive public safety, and public safety being much bigger than policing and having to be much bigger than policing. We have to have conversations about meeting people's basic needs. We have to have conversations about poverty and homelessness and all of that. And really addressing the roots of those problems - making sure people's basic needs are met - that impacts our public safety, that impacts how many people are victimized, it reduces the amount of people who are victimized in a variety of ways. And that really is the bottom line - we become safer when we do that. Think voters are there - there's certainly a large percentage of them - winning percentages of voters are there. And we just need actions by our elected officials that reflect that. [00:29:15] Riall Johnson: It's funny - unless you've been in a situation where you can't afford food, can't afford rent, can't afford a place to stay, you can't judge people if they're taking from major corporations. Meanwhile, corporations are committing exponentially more wage theft than you could ever steal from the cosmetic aisle. And it's very hard to combat the narrative as a consultant or in politics when they only have to show one or three videos - one to three videos - of the same shoplifting over and over and over, and then say it's a crime spree. They have the illustration advantage to do that. It's very hard. It was very hard to combat that in 2021 and to this day. So apparently, if you listen to the right narrative - the narrative on the right - crime has been skyrocketing for so long. But the stats show it's lower or the same - it's apparently gone through the graph and come back up to the bottom to go right back where it was. But every year, crime's skyrocketing. So where is it skyrocketing to? Apparently, everyone's a criminal at this point if you say - what is skyrocketing and what is actually crime. I used to do crime all the time when I was in college. I was at Stanford University, one of the richest schools in the country, and I shoplifted all I got, all I could 'cause I was broke. I couldn't work. I wasn't allowed to work. This is before the NIL [name, image, likeness] stuff. I stole groceries constantly. I'm admitting to the crime. I testified on this during the whole, and when we were trying to legalize college athletes getting paid. 'Cause when I can afford food, I don't have to steal it. But I have to eat somehow. And I had to eat at a level of a college athlete, of a college football player. So I stole groceries from Safeway constantly, every chance I got. And thank God I was good at it - but also, I had to. What else was I going to do? My parents couldn't send me money, and I couldn't even get a job 'cause it was illegal for me to get a job while I was in college. I was fortunate to not grow up in poverty, and my parents were middle class, but they weren't obviously able to just send me money every week while I was in college - sitting there broke. So I stole - I just stole food. And if they even had it, I was scared to ask them for it. I felt more dignified stealing food than asking for money from my parents - even if it was like 20 bucks, so I can go grocery shopping, which that could actually get some groceries back then, 1998. So we have to understand - it's not about who's doing the crime or what's happening - it's like why? Why is this happening? And they think it's just 'cause people are criminals and we need to lock up more people. Even though as a country, we lock up more people than anywhere else in the world - at four times the rate. And we think doing that more is going to solve the problem. [00:32:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, to me - it's just telling - okay, if that's what we have been doing for 30 years, and we feel that things now are worse than they've ever been - maybe that's a signal that it's not the best solution. Maybe that's a signal that that approach has failed and we should try something else. That is not how people invested in keeping things the way they are feel about it, by and large, unfortunately. But I guess the other news is that there - wow, is a whole lot more people who are less and less invested and actually invested in changing the way that things are. And those are becoming majorities in many cities and areas and states. And we're seeing that play out in a lot of these elections. So we will continue to follow that conversation and what happens. Also just wanted to cover - since you're here, since we do elections and politics - so at my latest count, I believe there are 36 declared candidates for Seattle City Council across all of the districts. That is a big number - and there are a lot of people at this point in time. A lot fewer people have qualified for Democracy Vouchers. I think we're gonna get an update on Monday perhaps to see who else may have qualified. But out of everyone, it looks like in District 1, Preston Anderson and Rob Saka have completed the Democracy Voucher qualifying process. In District 2, Tammy Morales has qualified for Democracy Vouchers. In District 3, Joy Hollingsworth and Alex Hudson have completed the qualifying process. In District 4, Ron Davis as well as Kenneth Wilson have completed the qualifying process. In District 5, no one has at this point in time via the publicly available information on the Democracy Voucher website. In District 6, Dan Strauss, the incumbent, has completed the qualifying process - as has incumbent Andrew Lewis in District 7. Those are all of the people who have been reported as successfully qualifying for Democracy Vouchers - obviously a big gate and necessary accomplishment for a campaign. But there are a lot who are in a lot of different positions. There is a sea of candidates. So I guess I'll just open it up to you on your thoughts - about anyone in particular, or this crop of candidates overall, and what this means for the City of Seattle. [00:34:53] Riall Johnson: I think it was - did you say 36? I think 49 ran last - four years ago. I think there was more open seats. I think there was only one incumbent. Debora Juarez was the only incumbent running. So now we only have two - no, three incumbents this time with Tammy, Dan, and Lewis. I used to work with Dan by the way - we were coworkers long time ago. [00:35:23] Crystal Fincher: Really? [00:35:23] Riall Johnson: Yeah, for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. I'm a fan of Dan Strauss - personally. I disagree with him a lot, but a fan of Dan. But either way, this year is gonna be weird 'cause 2019 - going off 2019 - it was a big rally for progressive and it was a big progressive wave there, especially when Amazon dropped that million dollar bomb at the end, on top of the million dollars they already spent through the Chamber. I think this is gonna be interesting. I'm a big fan of Tammy, obviously - she's a client, or former client - I'm not doing any elections this year. So I don't think - she doesn't even need help. She was one of the best campaigners I've ever seen, so I think she's going to - she'll win on her own. She's gonna win. I think she's got - working with somebody, she's in good hands - but I don't see anyone beating Tammy. And in terms of the other races, it's just gonna be weird to see - they're not gonna have this narrative about fighting Amazon and stuff 'cause Amazon actually learned, the Chamber learned to step out of it and then distribute their money through other channels. They're still gonna put the same amount of money - they're just gonna put it so it's harder to track. So I encourage people to just look - you can still find it - look where the money's going. Look where it's going - they're gonna go through another entity. They're gonna distribute through other different donors. They're still gonna be backing the people. So just look where all the rich people, the same donors you see every year putting behind their own corporate police candidates. And you're gonna see that. And then that's gonna tell you all you really need to know - who's in what. 'Cause the thing is this is what - it always irks me about Seattle and a lot of cities nationwide, but especially Seattle - a lot of these races actually in the end are irrelevant unless you get a really super majority. The whole narrative of Seattle being this progressive place is false. Seattle has no income tax. It's a libertarian utopia, in my opinion. But they blame all their problems on a Brown woman named Kshama because she's the only socialist in there. If you're outside of Seattle or the narrative, thinks like Kshama runs the City. No, there's no way any city council member can run the City. The mayor runs the city. And we've had a corporate mayor for the last 46 out of 50 years, I think. The only mayor that actually did anything progressive was Mike McGinn. And it's funny - you look at the stats, you look at the homelessness rate after 2013 - it's gone up pretty - a whole lot since 2013. [00:38:11] Crystal Fincher: As has the crime rate. [00:38:12] Riall Johnson: Exactly. [00:38:14] Crystal Fincher: I think it was lower - McGinn enjoyed the lowest crime rates in the last 40 years, which - he would be the first person to tell you - were not only because of his policies, he did benefit from policies from Greg Nickels also. But numbers don't lie. [00:38:34] Riall Johnson: Yeah, and we stopped investing in housing overall. And the City - and even if the City Council gives and puts money in housing, it's not like - they just give you the money or approve it, the mayor's got to execute it. And Jenny - I remember seeing Jenny Durkan literally just declined to use the money in any sort of way. She promised a 1,000 or 10,000 tiny homes or whatever - she built a hundred. It's - we got the corporate mayor we've asked for - the Chamber's got their candidate for the last two decades, or the last decade. They got Murray, they got Jenny, they got Tim what's-his-name? The guy who was council for - [00:39:10] Crystal Fincher: Briefly, Tim Burgess. [00:39:11] Riall Johnson: Tim Burgess. Bruce Harrell twice now. And it's gonna go the same way every time. As long as you get a mayor that can't do anything unless they get approval from their corporate overlords - we all call it - we're gonna have this problem all the time, no matter who we elect to City Council. So Tammy's gonna win. Everyone else that I see on the table is just gonna be - is some semi-progressive right now that's just gonna go with the status quo. And she's probably gonna be a lone voice, lonely voice on that council. And then she's now gonna start getting the blame because they can't - they're not gonna have Kshama to blame anymore. And so it's gonna be sad to see all problems - even though it's like you got the mayor you wanted, you got the city council candidates you wanted - you're not gonna have Kshama, you're not gonna have Teresa, all you're gonna have is Tammy. And somehow Tammy's gonna be - they're gonna try and blame Tammy for the - all the problems they have when they've caused it. So it's just, it's gonna be funny to watch this after the election, but in terms of who I see - I just don't, I'm sorry - I'm not paying attention enough, but I don't see anyone outside of Tammy Morales that kind of fits my - what I wanna see in a councilmember. That's my biased opinion, so - as much as I love, I like Dan Strauss as a person, and I think he's better than the person that's challenged him obviously. Me and Dan would have disagreements face-to-face if we met, if we saw, if I saw him again. I just don't see it. I see - either you have to get a major majority of veto-proof votes constantly that's going to actually defund the police, that's actually going to provide housing, that's actually going to fund transit. We're gonna be in this cycle over and over and over as long as we have a mayor that refuses to actually do the things and is beholden to the large corporations we have here in Seattle. So I don't see - I see these elections as inconsequential, somewhat irrelevant in the overall scheme of things. They're important, obviously - you want the support, but the one city councilmember in your district is one-ninth of about 15% of power in the City. That's how much the city council pretty much has - 15-20% of the power. The rest of the 80-90% is the mayor's office. And that's - but the overall narrative - it's hard to get that across 'cause you watch local news, you watch Fox News or cable news, you think this radical socialist Brown woman is running Seattle because that's who they put on the face of it. Never smiling, always with her mouth open yelling - when you, if you meet Kshama, she's the nicest person possible, she's always smiling. But they always want to get it - it's just funny how that narrative is painted on these things. And same with Tammy - they're going to put Tammy on there with - it's typical misogynistic stuff you see with - they always put her with - as she's speaking and then they get her at the worst moment possible with her mouth open. And they're going to do this over and over and over to put the blame on them so they can avoid accountability. [00:42:26] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it is - that trope basically is well-worn. And they do like to pick a favorite progressive person to pick on - that's a lot of P's, but anyway - for me, I need to get more familiar with a lot of candidates, certainly. But I think I'm with you just on the - I'm, I can't say across the board, 'cause there have been a couple that I have heard some conclusive opinions on - taking away almost whether or not I agree with people on issues, it is just hard in this crop to find people really saying where they stand on it. And again, certainly there have been a few who have, but it seems like the majority is afraid to say anything. And to your point that the candidates who have been favored by the Chamber and corporate interests, those candidates for mayor have won for the past decade. And there is no one who has any more power in the City than the mayor. The City Council, to your point, can fund things and can direct policy. But it provides the funding - it actually can't spend that money itself. That is up to the executive. The executive has to spend the money. They manage and implement all of the things in the City. Every department answers to the mayor, including the police department - and what happens there is completely the mayor's responsibility. That is the executive, that is the person with the most power. And it feels like that goes by the wayside because there has been a person on the council that they've been able to demonize from the progressive side that - it reminds me just of conversations about racism or sexism or anti-trans messaging where it's like - simultaneously, the people who you're railing against are somehow deficient in their eyes, but also so smart and powerful and numerous that they can do everything and every bad thing is their fault. And there's this big magical conspiracy that is happening that people are, I guess, communicating telepathically to coordinate all of the horrible things that as conservatives would say, liberals want. But it's just - yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not quite inspired by the crop of candidates, but I think it's just - you're gonna have to decide to do something. And we're at the point where we've had now 10 years worth of really mayors painting themselves as the adult in the room, the people who can bring together people who disagree, and bring everyone together and figure out where people agree and can make progress. And that's just messaging to excuse people not taking action. That has not materialized. What that equates to in practice is just gridlock and nothing happening. And I think we're seeing the result of nothing happening for so long. This is why so many - homelessness has skyrocketed, income inequality is skyrocketing - continuing to do so - so many of the things that we have labeled crises have only gotten worse because the people who said that they were gonna bring everyone together and stop making people mad, like those divisive progressives - it turns out you do have to make a decision at some point. And if you don't, the bad thing continues to happen and that happens. And I think lots of people are at the point with Bruce Harrell - you've made lots of promises that sound great. It seems like you forgot about some of those promises and other of those promises are running like late, way behind schedule. Maybe you changed your mind. Maybe that was just rhetoric. But you said things and we want to see you deliver, and we're waiting. [00:46:45] Riall Johnson: Yes. We'll see what Backroom Bruce does in the next two years, which - we'll see. I've met Bruce - actually he's a nice guy, charismatic guy - he wins people over pretty easily. And actually I turned him down. I couldn't do it. 'Cause it's just - you can't, I just can't give in to corporate interests like that. This is the thing - I don't know how much time more we've got 'cause this is - I'm going back to 2019 and my experience. And this is a problem that needs to be said in Seattle about the progressive left - the power players in the progressive left - they don't want change either. They just want power. And if anyone's listening, they can see - I think I have it on my pinned tweet back in 2019 - the problem I saw and I identified it. And I burned a lot of bridges saying this out public. And I'll say it again though, 'cause it needs to be called out. There was a big movement behind progressive candidates. "Progressive candidates." They put about a million dollars behind six candidates for the open seats. There was three white candidates and three candidates of color. They put over $900,000 behind the white candidates and about $23,000 total behind the candidates of color - 18 of that 23,000 went to Tammy. The other 2,000 each went to Kshama and Shaun Scott - it was a literal direct correlation of skin color by who got more money. And they spent more money against Mark Solomon - Tammy's candidate, who was also Black, a Black man - than spending more money for Shaun. That's how anti-Black the Seattle left is. Seattle is 6% black. 20 years ago, it was 13% Black. So somehow this pro-Black, equitable, progressive city has been systematically kicking Black people out of this city for the last 20 years. And I'm one of them. So it's just - it's a false narrative, I think, to think that there's people who claim to be for this. And you'll literally see in Seattle where someone will have a sign saying, "In this house, Black Lives Matter, love is love," blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And then right next to it, literally it'll say, "Don't rezone this property, make it so historic." Like it's all platitudes I see. And I see it not just with voters, but I see it with the people in power - the people in the "progressive" movements that actually have the money, and they don't put their money where the mouth is. There's never a movement supported by this. They don't put the money behind actual progressive candidates, or abolitionists, or whatever. They just talk the talk. They put all this money behind Dan Strauss, Andrew Lewis, and Lisa Herbold - and they all waffled on all their votes. They didn't do anything. They just did middle of the road stuff. But meanwhile, the candidates that actually were pushing for real progressive transformative policies, like Shaun Scott, Kshama Sawant, and Tammy Morales - they didn't support that way. And the reason - I burned bridges - I'll burn them again, I'll burn the ships. 'Cause it needs to be said. And it needs to be - look where the money's going, and you'll see where people stand. And the funny thing is we just - and this is why you see a lot of these candidates, even this year, waffling on stuff. They're coming out middle of the road. They say they're progressive. They come from progressive organizations that are well-funded, and they're not taking proper stands because they're scared to - because the organizations that support them are scared to as well. So I think this needs to be said and needs to be called out - until we have some real progressive candidates that can stand on their own and stand against even their own backers, like the unions and the progressive organizations that - I'm not gonna name names, I've already done that. But they know who I'm talking about and they know I'm talking about them, and I don't care. But the thing is we need candidates that will do that, and we need more communities to stand up against that, and fight on their own. And it's very hard to do that because - ultimately, you're turning away resources - because these are well-resourced organizations as well and progressive organizations. And it's hard to do that without resources. And once - when you do that, you gotta realize you're gonna be on your own and you're gonna have to do this on just pure human power - with a little bit of money. And just - and I guess, hopefully vouchers - on a minimal budget, that you could, that hopefully you can win by. [00:51:42] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for all of your insight today, Riall Burn the Ships Johnson. Appreciate your insight and reflections and perspective. And with that, I thank everyone for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, April 7th - it's April 7th already - 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful cohost today is Principal Partner at Prism West, Riall Johnson. You can find Riall on Twitter @RiallJohnson, that's R-I-A-L-L Johnson. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. And you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, that's two I's at the end. 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 the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your feed. If you like us, 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.

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and Erica C. Barnett of Publicola discuss the City of Seattle's plans to triple the Seattle Housing Levy, a big decision for King County regarding its downtown jail, a possible end to the consent decree, a building homelessness crisis in Burien, and a contract with the Mayor's office related to Sound Transit that's raising some questions, too. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

On today's Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter and the editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! Crystal and Erica discuss the City of Seattle's first-in-the-nation legislation to provide paid sick and safe leave for gig workers, Mayor Bruce Harrell's $970 million housing levy proposal, a story about the lack of progress building tiny homes leads to a discussion about the difference in responsibilities between the city council and the mayor - who bears the responsibility to implement programs and policy that has been funded. Then they discuss the recently discovered $280,000 contract given to a Harrell associate to seemingly spin the narrative that his preferred Sound Transit station proposal is community led, and a political tactic used by monied interests that exploits language and concerns voiced by marginalized communities to influence policy. Erica and Crystal also cover the Department of Justice moving to end the consent decree with the Seattle Police Department and the Seattle City Council candidate facing accusations of non-payment from former staff and volunteers. 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 Barnett, at @ericacbarnett.   Resources Megan Burbank and the State of Reproductive Healthcare in Washington from Hacks & Wonks    Seattle passes first-in-the-nation paid sick leave for gig workers by Josh Cohen from Crosscut    Mayor Harrell Unveils $970 Million Housing Levy Proposal by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist    Andrew Lewis announced a fundraising plan to double Seattle's tiny houses. So, where are they? by Anna Patrick from The Seattle Times    City Paid Consultant Tim Ceis $280,000 to "Encourage Agreement" and Build "Community Consensus" for Harrell's Light Rail Route by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola    Sound Transit Board Adopts Major Last-Minute Changes to 2016 Light Rail Plan, Skipping Chinatown and First Hill by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   Sound Transit Board Backs Last-Minute Proposal to Skip Chinatown and Midtown Stations by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist    City Asks Judge to End Consent Decree; Outstanding Issues Include Protest Response and Accountability by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   Matthew Mitnick's Campaign Meltdown by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   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 get the podcast - the full versions of our podcast - on 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 welcomed reporter Megan Burbank to talk about the status of reproductive health care in our state after last year's Dobbs decision removed guarantees for abortion access on the national level. 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: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. Hello. [00:01:12] Erica Barnett: Hello - it's great to be here. [00:01:13] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back. We have some good news this week, interesting news this week - we will start off for a big deal for gig workers - paid sick and safe leave is now available. What's going on here? [00:01:30] Erica Barnett: As you said, the gig workers for the bigger companies - DoorDash, Uber, et cetera - are going to have access to the same paid sick and safe leave benefits that full-time employees have, provided by their employers. So there's a new law that was signed into - a new local law - that was signed this week. And yeah, so this is part of the process of slowly acknowledging that gig workers are, in fact, workers and employees of the companies that employ them, and not just people doing this for a hobby or as a extra source of work. These are jobs, and they are jobs that require now the same benefits that every other kind of job requires. [00:02:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and this is taking place during a years-long debate, conversation, fight for gig workers rights from a lot of people who have recognized that - hey, the work that these people are doing looks a lot like the work of employees and not of independent contractors. They're being told where to go when, how to do things - fitting in a pretty specific box of behavior with a lot less latitude than a lot of people think of when they think of independent contractors or independent business owners. And the bottom line is because of this, whether or not it even meets the legal test of an employee - functionally, this is how it works. And so the impacts on people's families and in our society are the same as employees. So if someone gets sick, it can be incredibly economically disruptive to that family and to our community to not have any leave available. So this definitely seems like a positive thing for workers, and for the community, and just helping to make sure there's a solid safety net in place. This is a big bell - all of these safety net items that keep coming and unfortunately going in a lot of situations - but this was a gratifying thing to see that I think is going to help a number of people. [00:03:37] Erica Barnett: Yeah, and I think it's also part of the - just the reckoning from the pandemic that is, I think, slowly being whittled away at as people are being required to come back to offices, unnecessarily in a lot of cases. I think during the pandemic, we really started to wrestle with this idea of hustle culture - this idea that nobody needs any time off, and your work is your life, and it should be the only thing you care about. That is, I hope, over - at least for the time being. And we're trying in this state, at least, to figure out ways to put those kind of somewhat new values into practice by doing at least the minimum, which I think this particular law - it's great, but allowing people to have time off when they're sick should be a floor and not a ceiling. [00:04:30] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and your point about many of the pandemic-era protections and safety net enhancements being whittled away is absolutely true. We're about to head into a time next week where mask mandates, even for transit, health care situations - the few remaining situations where they were necessary - are no longer being mandated. Although we are getting some news about some local health care systems that are still looking as if they're going to be continuing those, so we will stay tuned. Certainly housing is top of mind for a lot of people now. City of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has proposed an enhancement to the Housing Levy. What is he proposing and what will this do? [00:05:18] Erica Barnett: Yeah, the new Housing Levy proposal would triple the size - and that's in real terms - the actual tax that people will be paying on their property. The previous Housing Levy - which passed in 2016 and is expiring now - that levy was $290 million. This would raise $970 million, which is obviously a significant bump. Interestingly, because the cost of everything has risen so much quicker than in the past and inflation has been so bad - and the cost of construction and the availability of labor and all the reasons that housing has become more expensive - well, building housing is also a lot more expensive. So as a result, one sort of dampening feature of this levy - or disappointing - is that it's not going to build that much more housing than the previous levy, despite it being tripled now. Now, that's not an argument not to do it. If we did levy the size of the previous levy, we would be building - we would be dramatically going back on reducing the amount of housing we were building. So it may be necessary to increase it this much, but it's not going to triple the size of housing or the amount of housing that's being built. [00:06:28] Crystal Fincher: So given that the money is tripling but the amount of housing isn't, what accounts for the difference - is it that housing costs have also experienced inflation, construction costs have experienced inflation? What accounts for so much of that extra money not providing housing? [00:06:48] Erica Barnett: Yeah, the main reason is that construction costs have simply increased, as has the cost of land. And that's everything from material, steel, concrete, to labor, to just - everything involved with building an apartment building now is more expensive. I think that raises a question that the Housing Levy does not attempt to answer - and we could go down a rabbit hole on who is supporting the Housing Levy and why - but the Housing Levy is not primarily an acquisition levy, and maybe it should shift more in that direction. It's much, much cheaper to - as the example of the Low Income Housing Institute during the pandemic has really shown - it's much cheaper to buy housing that already exists and convert it into low-income housing or start renting it to low-income people than it is to build new housing from the ground. And so I think this is a very - we're using the same old methods that we have always used and building housing instead of acquiring housing. And there are good reasons to want to build more affordable housing and add more density and all this stuff, but it also is quite expensive. And I think that there should be perhaps more creativity in play than just saying - Well, it's three times as expensive, so we're going to triple it. It doesn't necessarily solve the problem if, in seven years, we're coming back with a $3 billion levy. [00:08:10] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is part of the tension in all of our conversations about housing that we're having policy-wise at different levels - it's what will actually make enough of a dent in the problem in the medium-term to long-term? If we keep this incrementalist approach, it feels like we are just setting ourselves up for increased expenses, increased costs. And there needs to be a massive investment that will result in more affordable housing units, whether that's a combination of affordable on the market - which is not affordable for many people now - subsidized housing, public housing, whatever that is. We need more of it now, and I think a lot of people are concerned that what we're doing is going to do exactly what you say - kick the can down the road and set ourselves up for - are we going to need a tripling of the next levy? And I think sometimes we're a little bit hesitant on the left to have some conversations about - are we getting the value for our dollar that we need to here? Is this actually going to meaningfully address the problem? Again, absolutely not saying that we shouldn't pass this Housing Levy. We definitely need more housing. It needs to be a multifaceted, all-hands-on-deck approach. And this may be the best that can be done right now, but I think we do need to ask - is this the best that we can do, or how do we need to supplement this, and what's going on? In one of those things for - how do we supplement this, what other strategies can we use to help make housing more affordable for more people - Andrew Lewis, certainly in trying to address the homelessness problem has really launched into tiny homes as an option that can meaningfully address moving people off of the street, out of encampments into a place that could help them stabilize and launch into more permanent affordable housing. But we saw a story this week asking where those tiny homes are - what has happened and where are we at right now? [00:10:29] Erica Barnett: Andrew Lewis promised, I believe - and I'm not looking at the story right now, I'm just going from memory - I think it was 800 tiny homes over a certain period. And promise is - that's the word that The Seattle Times used. I think this was like a goal, and it's a goal that really depends on the - on both funding through the City budget, which has to be approved by both the City Council and the mayor, and it also depends on the mayor's willingness to actually invest those funds and actually direct funding toward that purpose. And I think this gets lost a lot of times when people are criticizing the City Council for inaction and blaming the City Council for things - it's up to the mayor. And under Mayor Jenny Durkan, there were a whole lot of things that didn't happen. She just decided that they weren't her priorities, and so the council would allocate money and the mayor would not spend it - and I think we're seeing that to a certain extent here. I also think the Regional Homelessness Authority has been quite hostile to the notion of spending money on tiny homes. Their five-year plan that came out recently, or at least the draft, had no money at all for tiny homes. Now, they've changed that a little bit in the plan that they're probably going to finally adopt next month - but there is a lot of pushback against tiny homes as a form of shelter. And it's the type of shelter that people who are being swept from encampments most often say that they want, and so I think it is certainly worth a short-term investment at least. But right now we're not quite living up to what the City Council and Andrew Lewis have proposed. [00:12:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And your point about just whose responsibility is this is well taken. And I think in a number of areas - and frankly, in some of the local media coverage that we see of this - it really doesn't come through who is responsible for what. What does a city council do? What does a mayor do? A city council is responsible for allocating funds and for developing the policy for an issue. The mayor is the person who makes it happen. They implement and execute - that's their job. All of the departments in the City report to the mayor - they oversee and direct what happens in that. So really, once the money is made available and they hand it over to the mayor's office - whether or not something happens is really up to the executive - right now, Mayor Bruce Harrell. So I am curious about where this stands, but similar to several other conversations that we're having - whether it's issues related to homelessness or issues related to public safety, like Bruce Harrell's promise to stand up alternative 911 responses so that people can have the most appropriate responder to whatever emergency they're having - which usually is not a armed police officer in a situation that isn't related to illegality, but maybe someone's having a behavioral health crisis or needs some other resources. We need to ask Bruce Harrell where that is - that is the mayor's responsibility. Once the money is allocated, once the city council says - Here is the money, here's what it's for - it's up to you, Bruce Harrell, to make it happen. And so I'm really curious to see if that question gets asked to him and to see what his answer would be, because I think that would be very informative. [00:13:48] Erica Barnett: Just real quickly, I want to correct myself. I said 800, it was 480 that Andrew Lewis proposed. And yeah, and it died because of Jenny Durkan - full stop. She just wouldn't spend the money. And so the length of this article in The Seattle Times is surprising when it could have been one line. [00:14:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now, Bruce Harrell did take some action that we learned about - related to the Chinatown International District station conversation, debate that we're having about the siting. We learned that there was an effort launched as - what a year ago, I think it was - to actually drum up support for the new Sound Transit station options that were characterized as - Hey, this is a last-minute effort that came from the community because we heard the concerns, and so this is why it's popping up now. Turns out that there's more to the story. What happened? [00:14:47] Erica Barnett: Last week, I'm sure folks are aware, Sound Transit Board adopted a new route through downtown that skips over Chinatown with new stations near the Stadium station and next to the existing Pioneer Square station, and then also eliminates a Midtown station that was going to serve First Hill. What I reported this week is that the mayor, about a year ago, hired consultant Tim Ceis, who has been around forever - since even before I was here in Seattle. He was Deputy Mayor for Greg Nickels, worked for Ron Sims, and has a long career as a political consultant and lobbyist. Now I would say we don't know exactly when or how this new proposal came about - I do not believe that it was last minute, but I also don't know that it was around a year ago. But in any case, Harrell hired this consultant at a cost of $280,000 for one year's worth of work, which is an absolutely astronomical amount for a consultant and lobbyist. And his job essentially was to - as you said, Crystal - to drum up support for the mayor's preferred alternative. And when this became the mayor's preferred alternative is something that I am still reporting on and trying to find out. But this was an option that the mayor, as well as King County Executive Dow Constantine, presented as an organically-arising proposal from the community, and that there was unanimity in the CID community around skipping the CID. And as we saw last week, five thousand some people who signed a petition that was presented to Sound Transit that was against that option, the head of Uwajimaya does not support it, the head of SCIPDA, the main public development authority down there, does not support it. And so there is not unanimity. And I think Tim Ceis' job was in part to present appearance of unanimity where there was none. [00:16:41] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and I think this is a situation - similar to the big homelessness complex conversation - that a lot of people have a hard time reporting on and wrapping their heads around. And I will call it out - especially when it involves communities of color, there seems to be this - whether it's a belief or desire that - coming from the belief that communities of color are a monolith. And we are not. There are various opinions, perspectives. We are as diverse within our communities as everyone else. And so what we're seeing from the community is - absolutely there are concerns, there are different opinions on what the best path forward is - I think they're all worthy of hearing, especially when they come from the community. And we should do that. And that is genuine and authentic. But what we see too often, especially politically - and this is a tactic that we see used often locally and nationally - is that people will piggyback off some of those rumblings in community to push their own agendas and to push their preferred options with the veneer of community support. So there's the term "astroturfed," which is the opposite of grassroots - we're going to try and make this look like it's a grassroots effort, we're going to try and make it look like the community has completely rallied around this new option or alternative. And that is a marketing ploy. That's spin. And I think there are both things going on here. So it is absolutely still important to listen to those concerns from the community, to seriously consider and to implement mitigation strategies - and that has not been done in too many prior projects and situations, and that's a legitimate concern and should be addressed. But I also think that we need to take a serious look at - okay, who are the people that stand to profit and benefit here who are pushing these alternatives that don't seem to fit the characterization that they're trying to sell. There is more to the story. And so it's just one of these situations that just makes me groan because it's messy and it's not straightforward. And it requires people to proceed with a bit of nuance and hold space for different opinions and perspectives while still being wary of people looking to exploit the situation. So it's a continuing thing that we see - is notable to me, as you noted, the size of that contract is gigantic. [00:19:19] Erica Barnett: $20,000/month. [00:19:21] Crystal Fincher: For 20 hours of work - please pay me a $1,000/hour. [00:19:24] Erica Barnett: And let's be real - we don't know, and I've also requested a lot of information about this - but we don't actually know how many hours of work Ceis was doing. The 20 hours was an estimate given to me by the mayor's office and it was a squishy - Oh, it's about 20 hours of work a week. The contract doesn't really stipulate anything and it doesn't have an hourly rate. And for all we know, it was 10 hours, it was five hours, it was - maybe it was 25. I don't know, but - [00:19:52] Crystal Fincher: It's definitely less than - I know the official thing, and you have high reporting standards that you adhere to and I appreciate that. It's one of the things that I appreciate most about your reporting - is that it is solid and backed up. But I know that they weren't spending 20 hours a week on this thing. But even if they were - Look, I would be willing to spend 20 hours a week doing something if you pay me $280,000 a year. I will put that out to anyone - for whatever 20 hours of work that involves, I'm down. But we'll just continue to see how this proceeds. [00:20:26] Erica Barnett: But yeah, and I'm still reporting on it. So I suspect there will be - I'll have follow ups in the midterm future. [00:20:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Also this week, we saw that the City of Seattle is pursuing an end to the Seattle Police Department's consent decree with the Department of Justice. What's going on here? [00:20:48] Erica Barnett: Yeah, this week the city attorney and mayor and - the City of Seattle officials - sent a request to Judge James Robart to effectively end the consent decree with a couple of exceptions. So basically, Robart would find the City in substantial compliance with this agreement that has been going on for more than a decade - or the City has been a party to for more than a decade - with the exception of crowd control and accountability. And those are two issues that Judge Robart has brought up in the past as - and finding the City not in complete compliance. But the agreement proposed says - But don't worry, we'll wrap all that up and we'll be done with it by various months in the future, but generally this summer. And be out from under the consent decree entirely by the end of the year. People are confused about the consent decree at all. I totally understand - it's a weird situation that the City has been in for the last 12 years. Essentially, the City was found to be in noncompliance with a whole bunch of things related to constitutional policing - including racially biased policing, including use of force - excessive use of force. And the City keeps coming back in recent years to try to get the judge to lift the decree. And they've gotten very close in the past, but then something always happens and - there's a scandal, there is an egregious instance of police brutality, there are protests involving thousands of people where the police brutalized protesters in response to protests against brutality, and tear gas in the entire neighborhood - this happened in 2020. And so it's been a long, slow process - the City now seems to believe and called themselves "a department completely transformed and unrecognizable from the way it was 10 years ago." [00:22:37] Crystal Fincher: That is a curious characterization, isn't it? [00:22:39] Erica Barnett: City Attorney Ann Davison's memo supporting this was effusive about it, and even more so than the actual memo saying we deserve to be let out from under this. It was - called the department dramatically transformed, a night-and-day contrast, and even described the protest response in 2020 as a temporary lapse and a single one from otherwise completely improved and transformed crowd control policies. I'll say that some of the reasoning they gave for this is there have been protests since then and the police didn't act that way. And the protests - notably - are things like the Women's March, protests against war in Ukraine, things that did not involve criticizing the police and also did not involve racial justice. So I think that's a little bit of an apples to orange because orange is comparison there. [00:23:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. This is an interesting effort because there are a lot of people who cheered the establishment of the consent decree because it's somewhat of an acknowledgment that - yes, there has been unconstitutional biased policing and the use of excessive force to the degree that the department is no longer trusted to oversee itself. To fix those problems, it needed federal oversight from the Department of Justice - hence the consent decree that we got into. And certainly this has been a long winding road, as you said. It has been interesting in that the brand of oversight has had both positive and negative elements - I think to all sides they find both positive and negative with that - certainly they are looking for status reports and some accountability attached to that. And the judge associated with this has called out events in protest and it looking like the issues that caused the consent decree to be necessary have not been solved. We've also seen sometimes the judge has had opinions and perspectives on how the City should address reforming the SPD, or reimagining SPD. And the judge made it clear he was not a fan of dramatically changing funding, reducing funding - a number of the things that some people who are more progressive and reform minded would have supported and opposed. And that shaped what's been possible with policy for fear that - hey, if the city council does pass some sweeping overhaul or substantive changes, that those are not going to be allowed and going to be overturned by the judge. So this has been an interesting situation that I think hasn't unfolded exactly as anyone predicted. But it is, I think, a victory lap that is trying to be ran that - I think, as you talked about - is, man, you should urge caution for declaring victory and a mission accomplished statement, because if something else happens, it just makes it look like you are completely out of touch with what is happening in the department and uninterested in taking substantive steps to address it. But we'll see. [00:25:50] Erica Barnett: Yeah, quickly - I think something else has happened, which is the death of Jaahnavi Kandula, who was a pedestrian - a student who was walking in a crosswalk and was hit by a police officer going allegedly to the scene of an overdose. But a lot of details have come out about that make one question that narrative from SPD. But SPD has been really untransparent and has refused to release any details about its investigation of this incident, which happened in January. It is now almost April and there's no body-worn video - there's just no information whatsoever - no video, no narrative, no explanation. And it is interesting that they have been so non-transparent at a time when they are asking for this consent decree to be lifted. So I think, of course, something else is going to happen - it's not a matter of if, but when. But this is an example of something that has been - I'm not going to go so far as to say it's been covered up, but it has certainly been slow walked. And a lot of people are asking a lot of questions about that incident, including myself. I've reported on it extensively and just gotten absolutely nothing from SPD. [00:26:56] Crystal Fincher: You have and your reporting has been critical to people finding out any information for this, so much appreciated. I do want to talk about an event that unfolded this week in the City of Seattle campaign land. One of the 30+ people now running for city council in the City of Seattle made news this week in their campaign - for not paying their workers. I, in this situation, just wanted to say a couple of things to set the record straight. Because there was a story written about this, which is great to bring light to it, but - [00:27:32] Erica Barnett: And we should say it's Matthew Mitnick running - [00:27:33] Crystal Fincher: It is Matthew Mitnick. [00:27:35] Erica Barnett: - running for District 4. [00:27:36] Crystal Fincher: Correct. In Seattle City Council District 4. So there were nine former volunteers or staffers, depending on who you - what version of events happens to be the truth. But who wrote an open letter accusing the campaign, or released a statement accusing the campaign of essentially wage theft, potentially youth labor violations because a number of the people involved were under 18. But there seems to be some conversation or disagreement with a lot of people where evidently a number of people were under the expectation that they were going to be paid, saying that Matthew Mitnick said that he would pay them. They wound up not being paid, and then there were some other accusations about his treatment of staff. But my takeaway from this was a little bit simpler. Even if you only believe what Matthew Mitnick said and you only go off of what there is written evidence for, there is a staffer who was hired - who was agreed to be paid a wage, who has not been paid all of their wages. They were paid once. They have not been paid again, despite continuing, despite doing work after being paid. There is unpaid work currently on the table. Matthew said - Hey, we're raising Democracy Voucher money. As soon as we raise enough, we'll pay you. That's not how things normally work in campaigns. [00:28:54] Erica Barnett: That's what I was going to ask you. So if you're running a - and we should say this is a guy who's running as a socialist. He's a 22-year old student. He moved here pretty recently from Wisconsin, where he also ran for office. And so he's, I would say, a pretty marginal candidate. That's my opinion - you may disagree, Crystal - I don't know. What is the common practice when you are a campaign that's running on a shoestring and you don't have a lot of money? Is it just to not hire people until you have that money? Because that would make sense to me. [00:29:24] Crystal Fincher: That is literally exactly what it is. That is literally exactly what happens in the majority of situations. Now, it's not like there's never been abuse before. But yes, you only hire and buy what you have the money to hire and buy. And that does mean a lot of things go - if you aren't able to raise much money, that means that you aren't able to afford a lot of the things that you probably hope to be able to afford with a campaign. One of the things that people do need to acknowledge is that running for office today requires raising and spending money. I wish it did not require as much money and think that Democracy Vouchers and other reforms that are on the table can help lower the cost of campaigns. I think that there's also a lot of spending on a lot of things, which is cool, but that's not everything. But they do require money. And if you're going to have staff, if you're going to have - if you're running a campaign in the City of Seattle, you need a campaign manager at minimum. You should also have people who are familiar with how to win campaigns - who have done that before, who can help guide through the process, because there are - that is an expertise. There are people who bring that to the table. I'm not going to suggest that someone go to court without a lawyer. I'm not going to suggest that someone run a campaign without other people who have been through that process before to help you through that process. But yeah, you just don't hire them until you have the money to hire them. And also, campaigns run out of money. And when that happens, then you have to wind things down - starting with paying the most vulnerable people first. The people who take haircuts in not getting paid, unfortunately, are - sometimes consultants agree to - hey, we can bill this on debt, you can pay me if you raise enough money and different things like that. But you have explicit overt conversations, you write stuff down, and you pay people who are reliant on that money to pay their rent. And what was cited in the story is that the person who wasn't paid does not have enough money for their rent at this point in time. So there's an impact. And so you do have - you are responsible for managing the people on your campaign, for managing your budget - that absolutely needs to happen. That's how that works. [00:31:38] Erica Barnett: Yeah, and I'm just looking at Mitnick's campaign filings. And again, as I said, I consider him an extremely marginal candidate who was hyped up by The Stranger in particular, in a way that I think was out of proportion to his viability. But at any rate, he has raised less than $5,000. Winning a council campaign is in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands for the primary. So yeah, not surprised he can't pay anybody - he hasn't raised any money. And so that is - it's unfortunate that he led campaign staffer on in that way or was overconfident in his own ability to raise money. [00:32:15] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, March 31st, 2023. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Maurice Jones, Jr. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, with two i's at the end. 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 get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review whenever you can. 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.

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and Erica C.  Barnett of Publicola discuss a challenging trend for City Attorney's Office salaries, a new report on pay for human service workers, the future of Ballard Commons, an update on the state legislature, and Sound Transit's work to improve its fare recovery process. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett!  During this Seattle-centric episode, they discuss Mayor Bruce Harrell's State of the City speech, the SDOT Vision Zero report about traffic safety, the passage of first in the nation caste legislation, what's next for social housing, questions from the oversight board for the scope of King County Regional Homelessness Authority's five-year plan, an increase in violence against unsheltered people, and the outlook for downtown Seattle. 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 Barnett, at @ericacbarnett. Resources The State of the City is Vibes by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola  In State of the City, Seattle Mayor Harrell emphasizes crime, downtown by Sarah Grace Taylor from Seattle Times Vision Zero | Our top-to-bottom review provides a roadmap and new actions to reverse challenging trends in traffic safety by Seattle Department of Transportation Seattle must do more to prevent traffic deaths, report says by David Kroman from Seattle Times Councilmember Tammy Morales responds to the release of SDOT's vision zero review: "this report stops short of calling for dramatic or swift action to combat the unprecedented number of collisions, injuries, and fatalities on our streets, particularly in District 2.” by Tammy Morales on Twitter Seattle becomes the first city to ban caste discrimination by Lilly Ana Fowler from KNKX Opinion: Confessions of an American Caste Traitor by Prashant Nema from South Seattle Emerald What's next now that Seattle's Social Housing Developer initiative has passed by Capitol Hill Seattle Study: Human Service Wages Are Even Worse Than You Imagined by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola  Violence Against Unsheltered People Spikes, Social Housing Moves Into Startup Mode by Publicola Plan to Eliminate Visible Homelessness Downtown is “Clearly Behind Schedule,” but Backers Remain Optimistic by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola  Oversight Board Questions Price Tag, Exclusion of Tiny Houses from Homeless Agency's Five-Year Plan by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola  As Downtown recovers, Seattle reimagines what it could be by Josh Cohen from Crosscut  #ThePostman - D'Vonne Pickett Jr. Memorialized With Street Sign in the Central District by Cesar Canizales from Converge Media Qualified Immunity Bill Passes Key Hurdle as Other Criminal Justice Reforms Stall Out by Andrew Engelson from Publicola Transcript   [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are 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: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. [00:01:11] Erica Barnett: Hi, Crystal. Great to be here. [00:01:13] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back. I want to start off talking about an annual event that happens in the City of Seattle every year - the State of the City address by Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell. What did he say and what was your impression of his State of the City speech? [00:01:31] Erica Barnett: As I said in my headline and a story I wrote about this, the message that I got from it was vibes. What I mean by that is it was a lot of positive talk about the future of the city - everything's looking brighter - the future of the city is bright, optimism, innovation, Downtown that's going to be wonderful for everyone. But a lot of what he actually proposed or said he's going to do in the coming year, which is the point of the State of the City speech, was either stuff that he promised in his first State of the City speech last year or sort of small scale stuff - white papers, activation plans, executive orders, and a vision for the future of public safety - which is basically what he said last year as well. So not a lot of substance - quite a lot of fluff and good vibes talk - which resonated really well in the room, I have to say. It felt like a good speech, but when you read the words or paid attention to them at the time, there just wasn't a whole lot there. [00:02:37] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing - and you called this out also in your article, I think - is that especially on the heels of Mayor Jenny Durkan, who was not the most charismatic mayor that we've ever had and didn't particularly seem to enjoy the job, Bruce brings charisma to his speeches, to his interactions with people - and that goes a long way to building goodwill, at least in the reception of what he's saying. The vibes feel good, but as you said, it wasn't packed with substantive promises, goals, but there were a few that were included in there. What did those include? [00:03:17] Erica Barnett: Yeah. So he said - so I mentioned this "downtown activation plan" - so reading between the lines, he talked about how great it is that Amazon is forcing people to come back to work, essentially - which a lot of them are not very happy with - but saying that as everybody returns to work and downtown kind of returns somewhat to normal, we're going to activate it, there's going to be new small businesses and storefronts, art spaces, possibly - and again, this gets into kind of the vague part - he kept saying may, possibly, maybe we'll have an arts corridor, a 24/7 street, this kind of vision of downtown, but yeah, as far as concrete actions, he says there'll be a plan. He also said there's going to be a new executive order about fentanyl and other synthetic drugs. Again, executive order - I don't know what that - that can mean a range of things. It's not the same thing as legislation. And then he says that he's going to propose a suite of legislation to hire more officers and release a vision for the future of public safety, which again - I think that what that actually translates to, particularly on the recruitment side - is they're going to hire a marketing manager who's going to do some ads. He mentioned digital ads aimed at Gen Z trying to get more younger recruits, but yeah - again, really, I'm really reaching to find substance because there just wasn't a lot of it there. [00:04:44] Crystal Fincher: There was not - it doesn't appear - did he say anything about the planned public safety department that has been talked about for a year now? [00:04:55] Erica Barnett: Oh, yeah. So that was another thing that he talked about in his first State of the City speech. He said within the year, we'll have a plan for this department - and I don't remember the exact language or whether there's anything solid there - but this year, a year later, he's saying that pretty soon there's going to be a white paper that sort of lays out what this department might look like. I think that that's a really good example of something where - he does not deliver on that third department, which is supposed to be a kind of non-police public safety response department. It does have a name, which is the CARE Department, the Civilian Assisted Response and Engagement Department - so they've gotten that done. But if he doesn't deliver on that this year, I think there's going to be some pushback, maybe, for not actually accomplishing all these lofty goals. It's been more than a year and he hasn't delivered on it yet, but a white paper is, allegedly, coming. [00:05:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I think a lot of people are definitely looking forward to the white paper as a precursor to further action. Hopefully, certainly people want to stand up responses that are appropriate to the type of call that are coming, and there seems to be a broad recognition - because of the creation of this department and certainly by the residents - that a variety of different types of responses are needed. Having a cop with a gun show up to every single circumstance doesn't make sense, and certainly with the staffing challenges that they say they have doesn't seem to be the wisest thing. So it looks like we're going to stay tuned for the white paper. How that translates to actual action and creating this department and getting this off of the ground, which they have been talking about, remains to be seen. [00:06:45] Erica Barnett: And I will say the white paper was supposed to be out last year. It was - the deadline was fourth quarter - the sort of loose deadline was fourth quarter of last year, so it's late. [00:06:54] Crystal Fincher: That seems to be a recurring theme, but we will continue to pay attention with eagerness and an open mind to see what actually happens. Another long-awaited report this week was the Vision Zero report that was just released yesterday. What is this and what did it say? [00:07:14] Erica Barnett: Yeah, speaking of things that are behind schedule - this was supposed to come out last year and got delayed. It was billed as a top-to-bottom review of Vision Zero, which is the plan to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. It is titled the Top-to-Bottom Review of Vision Zero, which I find funny just because it's so literal. But what does it say? Basically it says the City has taken a lot of great actions to try to reduce traffic deaths and where it hasn't been able to take actions, it has tried really hard. It's a defensive report in a lot of ways - blaming other agencies, blaming the state and the fact that the state has control over a lot of our streets like Aurora, and then outlining a bunch of different steps that the City could take in the future to try to reduce deaths and serious injuries, most of which I should say are pretty underwhelming. There's a top five list that includes stuff like phasing in an unknown number of additional "No Turn on Red" signs downtown in time for tourist season - and I'm quoting here, "in time for tourist season and the Major League Baseball All-Star game." Another one is to accelerate leading pedestrian intervals, which is where if you approach an intersection, the light will turn for pedestrian first so you can start crossing before cars start coming. So we're going to do more of that. So it's a lot of - let's do a little more of the things that we're already doing and maybe that'll work. Nothing particularly bold in terms of things like street design that allows cars to drive, or for people to drive as fast as they do - mostly focused on individual behavior, automated traffic enforcement, that sort of stuff, but no real big bold vision here. [00:09:08] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I was a little bit surprised by its billing as a top-to-bottom review, and that doesn't seem to be necessarily what we received. It seemed to be a review of things that they were doing - and I don't know if I want to say avoidance - but not necessarily on focusing on many things that as you said, weren't already planned. There was not an analysis, as Ryan Packer pointed out on Twitter, of what was the impact of reducing speed limits. Was that helpful? Was that not helpful? That was certainly done as part of the Vision Zero program. Also as you said, there seemed to be no focus on road design, which has so much to do with whether or not it's possible for drivers and cars to even get into those dangerous situations. I saw Councilmember Tammy Morales released a statement calling out the same thing that you did - Hey, this seems to lack design features. She said that she would be helping identify some of the missing money to finish going after grant money to implement projects that had already been planned, but that were in jeopardy or delayed because they did not have the funding. But also it seemed like there was a lack of recognition of just the severity of the problem. You just pointed out - Hey, we want to have this done basically for tourist attractions - while every day we are seeing people being killed and maimed by these pedestrian collisions. And so it just doesn't seem like there was the kind of urgency or thoroughness. And maybe this was something where - hey, they started this and there was a limited scope. They realized it was a problem later on and the report didn't quite get there? Seems like they should have realized this has been a problem for quite some time, given all of the discussion around it. But left a lot of people wanting, I think. What are you looking forward to seeing come out of this? [00:11:08] Erica Barnett: I hope that SDOT will listen to some of the feedback. Just looking through the summary report, which is the one with more graphics and stuff, it just feels like - and again, this was late, so they spent extra time on it, or waited to release it - but it just feels like a book report that somebody did at the last minute before it was due. There's data in here that goes all the way back to 2011 - the 25 mph issue that you were mentioning. So it says, Oh, it does, 25 mph is good and here's how we know - it's data from 2018. Data from 2018 is now almost five years old and that is before the City actually implemented more widespread 25 mph speed limits. So I don't know, did it do anything? Did we study that? Are we studying that? There's just so much missing information in here. And I'll just reiterate - in this 22 pages, a chart is repeated twice. I don't know if anybody copy edited it, if that was intentional. There are two pages that are just a graphic and a big - a blue field. It just, it feels like - and do those things matter? I don't know. It makes it feel like there's a lot of filler in here. And when you look at the content, it's just really like back patting - let's do more of the same and that'll maybe make things better, and blame for why they can't do certain things. [00:12:28] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I don't think this is egregious in terms of the report and how it's put together, but I think people are feeling particularly frustrated because this is an emergency. This is a crisis. This is something impacting the health and wellbeing of so many residents, and so many others are at risk, by just the design of the roads and the community. And so it just feels like maybe it wasn't done, or it's not conveying the urgency of the situation, and really conveying that they are planning to do everything they can to reduce this for the residents that live here now, not the tourists coming into town. I know that SDOT and the City has plenty of people who care, who I'm sure are balancing issues of funding and staffing and prioritization. So what I don't want to do is imply that everybody involved with this is careless and doesn't - I think that a lot of people care very deeply about this. But it does come to prioritization - from the executive on down - and maybe there's a tension between what people know is helpful and right to do and what is actually being authorized and funded. And the people pushing for accountability have been pushing on those meaningful levers beyond rhetoric, saying - Okay, what is actually going to be done? What is being built, revised? Let's put this into action. So eager to see the issues that they identified get into practice and hopefully this is definitely a springboard for more. And I think the way they characterized it was also - these actions to build momentum towards further actions with the first five things that I think they identified. So we'll continue to pay attention. [00:14:14] Erica Barnett: One of the action plans in this, which I thought was an action plan - one of the actions is to create an action plan. And it's - Okay, wait, I thought that this was supposed to be the action plan. When is the action plan coming? So I don't know how long people are willing to wait for an action plan since this top-to-bottom review took all the way into February, more than a year into Harrell's term. So we'll see. [00:14:36] Crystal Fincher: It feels a lot like the infamous Seattle process, but we will see. One thing that happened that made national headlines this week was the passing of first-in-the-nation caste legislation led by Councilmember Sawant - what does this do and why did it happen? [00:14:56] Erica Barnett: Essentially, it adds a caste to the list of protected classes in the City's anti-discrimination laws. So those laws protect people from discrimination on the basis of gender, race, disability, etc - and so it adds caste to that list. And the concern as I understand it, and I did not cover this story myself, but is - there is in fact caste discrimination among, against people of South Asian descent, particularly in the tech sector. And that this is a problem that was brought to Councilmember Sawant - and she proposes legislation, which as you said, is getting national and international coverage because it's the first of its kind in the US. [00:15:37] Crystal Fincher: It is. And it didn't pass without some pushback and controversy. What were detractors of the legislation saying? [00:15:46] Erica Barnett: There was quite a bit of controversy. And again, I'm going to do this - I'm going to explain this at a very high level because I'm a little out of my depth and I don't want to misstate anything - but the controversy revolved around whether this was discriminatory against Hindus in America, because it calls out that caste discrimination among Hindu castes and against people in lower castes. And so there was opposition from a Hindu American saying that it'd create a discriminatory system. There was also opposition on the City Council itself from the one person who voted against it - Councilmember Sara Nelson, who said essentially that it was unnecessary, agreed with some of the arguments against it, and also said that it would open the City to litigation and she didn't want to take that risk. [00:16:29] Crystal Fincher: And she was notably the only councilmember to vote against that - all of the others present did. I will say - I appreciate the conversation that this legislation has opened up. Certainly I have done a lot of learning around this issue - was not up to speed and familiar, still not completely, but it does highlight how many things that can seem invisible and innocuous to people who are not familiar with this - just as covered in some of the articles and coverage about this, just questions like, Hey, do you eat meat? That may seem innocent and unproblematic to people who are listening to that - can be very impactful and discriminatory in this context. So I appreciate the opportunity to learn more. And this has been covered and lauded across the country, really, and covered in international papers. So certainly groundbreaking legislation led by Councilmember Sawant. Also this week, we saw continuing coverage of the winning social housing legislation, which I'm still personally excited about - the opportunities that this unlocks and also just starting to figure this whole thing out. I'm sure it's not going to happen without some bumps and bruises along the way, but that's how new legislation and new programs and implementations work. What is next in the implementation process for social housing? [00:17:56] Erica Barnett: So I talked to both of the proponents, Real Change and House Our Neighbors, as well as former House Speaker State Rep Frank Chopp, about this. And what's happening in the immediate term is Chopp - in the Legislature session that's going on now - is trying to get funding to basically pay for the agency's first 18 months or so of operations, the new public developer. The City of Seattle is obligated to provide in-kind assistance, but of course they have their own budget challenges and so this would essentially provide state funding through the budget to get them up and running and allow them to set up a taxing proposal, which then might have to go before the voters again - in yet another initiative - if it is a local tax. Chopp also said, when we talked, that there could be some state options - like there's an expansion that's being proposed of a real estate excise tax that would create sort of a new tier of taxing for property sales over $5 million. And there's a local option there that could be used for social housing, he said. There's a number of different possibilities that they're considering, but they've got 18 months to figure that out and potentially get something on the ballot and pass to actually pay for the housing. [00:19:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And there's also going to be a board established and some hires made. What will that process look like? [00:19:19] Erica Barnett: They're making a couple of hires. So that would be - that's something that $750,000-800,000 would pay for is - I believe it's an Executive Director and a Chief Operating Officer. And then the board is going to be made up of 13 people - 7 of them would be appointed by the City's Renters' Commission. And then it's - the other 6 are appointed by various folks - the mayor, the City Council, and some other local groups with housing expertise. And that board - Tammy Morales is spearheading getting that process rolling. And then the board starts meeting and starts discussing all these things that we're talking about - how to move forward. They're going to be the decision makers. And ultimately, that's a temporary board. Assuming housing does get built, there's going to be a new board that's going to be made up mostly of people who actually rent in the buildings. But that's a few steps down the line. [00:20:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So we will continue to follow the implementation, follow what's happening with this. But that initiative is passing, will become official - I actually forget the day that the election is certified - but coming up here soon. [00:20:21] Erica Barnett: I think it's today, February 24th - if not, it's Monday. [00:20:23] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Yeah - excellent. Thank you - I'm like, it's around now, but so it will be officially official soon. Again, just bang up work to the people doing that and looking at how many of the volunteers are pivoting now to the Renton minimum wage initiative that is happening. I'm just excited about what organizers are doing in the region to try and help improve the everyday lives of folks. Also this week, we saw some King County Regional Homelessness Authority meetings - discussion about their scope and budget moving forward. What were those conversations? [00:21:05] Erica Barnett: Yeah. The regional authority has released its five-year plan and it's in a draft form - it's going to be finalized, I believe, in April. And it's a somewhat novel approach to doing an implementation plan for an agency. Basically what they've done is created a plan that would end unsheltered homelessness within five years and at huge cost. You've probably discussed this on Hacks & Wonks before, but the price tag is in the billions per year plus billions more for capital costs to set up shelters and other types of temporary housing. And there's been pushback from - everyone from Councilmember Andrew Lewis in Seattle, to regional leaders, to Claudia Balducci from the King County Council, to Mayor Bruce Harrell saying - This is a nice aspirational plan, but we can't even come close to actually doing this. Just one year's worth of funding for this plan is two City budgets. There's been pushback about whether this is realistic, can we start smaller? And it's almost like the opposite of the Vision Zero plan - it's too ambitious in some ways - some would argue. I think the agency would argue that it's not too ambitious, it's just realistic. But there is a gap between reality on the ground right now, in terms of the agency's funding and reality as they define it, which is we need to spend these billions of dollars to actually address the problem. [00:22:31] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we actually have a conversation with the head of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, Marc Dones, coming up on this week's midweek show where we go into that in a little bit more detail and why that's necessary, what that's comprised of. But I think there is a big conversation to be had. They're saying that they need more federal dollars and support, that there needs to be a lot more financially. I think they're really saying - Hey, now that we have gotten staffed up, have started to implement the plan, and we're doing some targeted things that are working - it's time to scale this up. And the real conversation seems to be, can we afford to scale it up? And if not, where does that leave us and what do we do? So that'll be interesting - to see how this conversation unfolds, and how cities view their contribution to this regional solution, and their individual responsibilities within their city - how they balance that and what types of approaches they move forward with. But it does seem like there are some things that are working and that are positive that should be, hopefully will be expanded. Certainly I think most people agree that the job is not done, more needs to be done. And so what is enough is really going to be part of a conversation. And people who are elected are going to have to stand up for what they've advocated for and what they're saying to attempt to address the challenges here. But it'll be interesting to see. Also in related troubling news, we got more evidence and information about violence against unsheltered people. What did we learn? [00:24:10] Erica Barnett: This is really troubling. The issue of homelessness and the issue of public safety are often conflated, with people saying that having homeless encampments nearby is unsafe for nearby children, people living in houses nearby. But in reality, the people who are most vulnerable in living in encampments are the people in the encampments themselves. So a new crime report from SPD showed a 229% increase in hate crimes, specifically targeting homeless people because they're homeless. Police Chief Adrian Diaz told me that this is an example of people "taking things into their own hands" because they're frustrated with encampments existing in their presence and the associated litter and perceived just disorder that goes with that - they've been attacking more homeless people. Additionally, there's been more gun violence deaths involving people who are homeless. So it's incredibly dangerous to be homeless and it's becoming more dangerous. And I think this gets lost in conversations about whether violent crime is up or whether property crime is up. A lot of these victims are people experiencing homelessness themselves. And I really think that gets lost in narratives about homeless people being inherently dangerous or a threat to neighborhoods. [00:25:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it has been a chronic problem, has led to them specifically being targeted, dehumanizing language around them. And certainly regionally, we've seen a lot of direct attacks on their - I'm thinking of a couple in Tacoma right now where people went in there because of narratives about them being criminals, going in to find stolen property, and it winds up with violence - but without that stolen property. It's a challenge, and I hope we understand how vulnerable that population is and we follow the data and evidence about what seems to be effective in addressing those issues. Certainly we hear a lot about downtown Seattle. And there was an article this week, and continued conversations that we have in the region, in the wake of Amazon announcing that they are recalling people back to the office on at least a part-time basis and requiring people work from the office, which Mayor Bruce Harrell applauded and said was a good thing. But the state of downtown, the state of the central business district - should it be and remain and should we try and invest resources in keeping it predominantly a business district? Or are people really looking for something else? What was your take on that article and on the conversation about what we should be doing with downtown? [00:26:52] Erica Barnett: Yeah, it's been really interesting to see the backlash among Amazon employees themselves to this idea that they are - to not the idea - to the mandate that they go back to work three days a week. The City, of course, has a two day a week mandate that is observed by some and ignored by some, I would say. And I think that the State of the City speech actually highlighted this kind of dichotomy that you're talking about, because on the one hand, Harrell said, It's great that Amazon is coming back downtown and we're going to have this dynamic downtown that returns to normal again. And at the same time, he was saying - maybe, in that list of maybes that he had - Maybe what downtown looks like is going to be different, and we'll have housing in some of these office spaces and other types of businesses in the retail spaces. And so I think that we're still figuring that out. But I just do not believe that we're going to return to the way it was before, because I think a lot of people have realized that they're more productive at home, they've realized that not getting paid for a long commute that is essentially unnecessary to doing their job feels unfair. And there's a whole lot of reasons that people liked working from home during the pandemic - people who have caregiving responsibilities have had a lot more flexibility to do that stuff. And primarily, we're talking about women with those responsibilities. So I don't think it's going to work to just say - everybody has to come back to the way it used to be. We also have a tight labor market, so forcing workers who can leave and take other jobs to do something like come back to downtown Seattle is not going to work in the short term for sure. [00:28:30] Crystal Fincher: And this is being lauded because some people are saying, Great, this is going to be great for businesses downtown revitalizing, re-energizing downtown Seattle in this circumstance and situation - because foot traffic, as measured by downtown employees, has been down under 50% to what it was pre-pandemic levels. And although hotels have seen basically a return to pre-pandemic level activity from people traveling, visiting - they are not seeing that in terms, or coming from workers. And so it seems like there are a number of signals from the public saying, Okay, downtown should have another purpose besides just a place that people commute to and from to work. And that comes with its own challenges and that - it's long been a problem. Even in terms of just public safety and having safe activated spaces - meaning spaces where people are at - it's not like you're in a desolate, barren area after 7, 8 PM and people have left for the day. There's not that much going on in the core of downtown. Also more people live downtown now than have ever before - thousands more people than at the beginning of the pandemic. And just basic things like childcare and just some basic things to have and raise a family are missing in downtown and people need to go to other neighborhoods. And it seems like people are looking to downtown Seattle and a lot of other downtowns to fulfill desires for culture and community a lot more now, or to a much greater degree than they were before, where it was just business. And so re-imagining or reconstituting downtowns where maybe driving to the office every day is not the main draw - seems like that has to be a focus for the future or else downtown is going to get left behind. How do you see that? [00:30:29] Erica Barnett: Yeah. This is a conversation that has been going on for almost as long as I have lived here, or actually probably longer, about downtown. Especially - when I moved here more than 20 years ago - downtown really shut down at night. And I'm downtown at night a fair amount - I think that the sort of tumbleweeds idea that downtown just turns into, rolls up the blinds or whatever the saying is - it's not that - at 5 o'clock, it's not - that's exaggerated. There are people downtown now, especially Belltown bleeds into South Lake Union - there's stuff going on. But the thing is, we've been saying for decades now and more intensely lately, I think with the pandemic, that downtown needs to have a different focus and different reasons for people being there other than office work. And yet, we still have, again, a mayor saying maybe that's something that should happen. If you're the mayor, or you're a City leader, there are things you can actually do to make it affordable for childcare to be downtown. And I won't go into all the different mechanisms for stuff like that, because it's pretty boring. But the only thing the mayor mentioned was changing zoning codes to allow housing - and actually housing is already allowed everywhere downtown. What you need to do is provide incentives and money to make it possible to convert office buildings into housing, because that's not going to happen by just saying, Maybe it should. And so we just haven't seen action on these things. And it actually does take action and money and spending to make some of these things happen. Childcare is not going to materialize because we wish it into existence. Neither are art spaces, all these things - we have to take action, there have to be grant programs, there has to be actual legislation and priorities and spending - because we can't just wish it into existence. It hasn't worked so far. And it's not going to work now. [00:32:21] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree with that. Lots of talk about activating spaces, vacant storefronts. I think he did say that there was going to be a pilot, or actually not even a pilot, a competition to kick off innovation for how to convert commercial spaces into residential spaces - which has its share of complications and isn't necessarily simple and straightforward, can be done. But it does seem like we're in the beginning stages and just dipping our toe in the water a little bit with a number of these things instead of taking concrete action, which I think a lot of people would be eager to see. So that's another thing we'll continue to stay on top of and see how that unfolds. We do thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, February 24th, 2023. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and you can find me there also @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere 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. 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 podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

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.

On this midweek show, Shannon Cheng of People Power Washington joins Crystal to dive into the intricacies of how the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) contract stands in the way of police accountability. With negotiations already underway, Crystal and Shannon talk about what we should be looking for in the next SPOG contract and why police accountability is important. An overview of the historic difficulty bargaining with SPOG highlights how the City has been left with a lacking accountability system, how the community has struggled to have their interests represented at the table, and how the Seattle Police Department has fallen out of compliance with its consent decree. With little insight into the closed-door negotiations with SPOG, Crystal and Shannon look for signs in recent agreements with other local police unions where progress in accountability reforms was paired with officer wage increases. 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 Shannon Cheng at @drbestturtle and People Power Washington at @PeoplePowerWA.   Shannon Cheng Shannon Cheng is the Chair of People Power Washington, a grassroots volunteer organization which champions policies that divest from police and reinvest in community-based solutions and alternate crisis response, decriminalize non-serious offenses, and implement accountability and enforceable standards for police officers and agencies. People Power Washington was instrumental in the passage of the 2020 King County charter amendments to reform public safety, and continues to be involved with public safety advocacy in the City of Seattle, King County, and Washington State Legislature. Shannon holds a Bachelor and Master of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She continued her graduate work at MIT and earned a PhD in Space Propulsion with a Minor in Geology/Geophysics because she loves rocks. Since graduating, Shannon has been working on computational lighting technology with her husband, becoming a passionate orienteer, and organizing in support of civil liberties — from immigrants' rights to voting rights to criminal justice reform. She is thrilled to bring her diverse experience to Fincher Consulting and Hacks & Wonks.   Resources Sign up for the People Power Washington mailing list   “Police Management Contract, Which Includes Concessions, Could Serve as Template for SPOG Negotiations” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   Timeline of Seattle Police Accountability | ACLU of Washington   “As negotiations with city loom, Seattle's police union has had an outsized influence on police accountability measures” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times   Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act | Revised Code of Washington   “Officials Announce Changes to Police Union Negotiation Strategy, But Accountability and Bargaining Experts Say More Should Be Done” by Paul Kiefer from PubliCola   “New King County police contract increases pay, body cams, and civilian oversight” by Amy Radil from KUOW   “King County strikes deal with union for bodycams on sheriff's deputies” by Daniel Gutman from The Seattle Times   “Seattle police union elects hard-line candidate as president in landslide vote” by Steve Miletich and Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times   “Seattle approves new police contract, despite community pushback” by David Kroman from Crosscut Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I am thrilled to be welcoming a crucial clutch member of our team and absolute talented woman in her own right, Dr. Shannon Cheng. Welcome to the show. [00:01:05] Shannon Cheng: Hi, Crystal - excited to be here. [00:01:08] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you here. Now, you wear many hats. One of those is as Chair of People Power Washington - Police Accountability. Can you just let us know a little bit about the organization and what brought you to the work? [00:01:21] Shannon Cheng: People Power Washington - we're a volunteer-run, grassroots group focused on bringing equitable public safety and police accountability. We focus on several geographic areas - we started off working in Seattle - we also do work in King County as well as now Washington State. We're working at different levels of government because our experience was - working at the city level - we found out there were some things that really had to be taken care of at the state level and vice versa. We started off in 2017, right around when the Seattle Police Accountability Ordinance was passed, and that's how we got involved more deeply and have continued. And then in 2020, when the summer protests were happening, a lot of people came out of the woodwork really wanting to get involved with this issue in particular. And so our group's really expanded and that's why we added on King County to some of the work that we do. [00:02:14] Crystal Fincher: When it comes to police accountability, really wanted to have this show because over and over again, no matter what direction we come at it from, it seems like one of the biggest barriers to accountability that we always hear is the police union contracts. And we hear from the police chiefs, from the mayors that, Oh, that would be great to do, but we can't do it because of the contract. Or we hear about discipline that has been taken, that is then reversed after arbitration, because of things having to do with the contract. So I really wanted to talk about and examine that, especially because that contract is currently being renegotiated. So why is this so important and what's at stake? [00:02:59] Shannon Cheng: As we have been working on trying to get better police accountability in Seattle specifically, what our group kept running up against - any kind of progress that was trying to be made, any solution that was being suggested to try to improve the system - the barrier we kept running up against and being told was, Well, that has to be bargained in the SPOG contract. And SPOG is the Seattle Police Officers Guild - they're the police union in Seattle that represents our officers and sergeants. There's another police union also - the SPMA, the Seattle Police Management Association - which represents the lieutenants and captains. But SPOG is the main one that is constantly standing in the way. And so I think one thing that - I think when we talk about police accountability, it's helpful to think about are there are these different branches of accountability and we have obstacles along all of those paths. So when we talk about police accountability, I think it's important to realize there's several different tracks that we can try to hold police accountability and then understanding what are the obstacles that are in each of those tracks. So the first one would be criminal accountability. This is where the state would charge an officer. And we have seen a lot of issues with that where we don't have an independent prosecutor who is willing to bring charges against a police officer. Oftentimes the investigations that are done that would lead to charges being brought are not being done in a way that doesn't have conflicts of interest. So that's something that's being worked on. There's also civil liability, where a person who has suffered distress at the hands of a police officer would be able to bring civil charges and get redress in that fashion. On the federal level, that is what is blocked by qualified immunity. People may have heard of that, where if the case is not exactly been decided with this exact same parameters in a previous precedent, then people are not able to get their case through. Another avenue of accountability is regulatory, which would be decertifying a police officer who has fallen beneath the standards that have been set for what a police officer should do. And then the final one that I think that many people think about a lot is what I would call administrative accountability. And this is done at the local level in our local police departments - and it has to do with how we can impose discipline on police officers at the local level. So when the police chief - as you were saying, Crystal - decides that an officer was acting in a way that they need to be disciplined, then that's what we call administrative accountability. And so the reason that the SPOG contract is so important is that it basically dictates how the City can impose accountability onto our officers. And so everything that ever happens that has to do with looking into how the officer may have behaved, or deciding whether that was within policy, and then if it was not within policy, what kind of discipline can be imposed, or even whether that discipline sticks - all of that is tied up into what is agreed upon between the City and the Seattle Police Officers Guild in their contract. [00:06:29] Crystal Fincher: So when we hear accountability being talked about, there are actually specific policies and things that - many people have looked at this contract process and best practices around the country and have come out with. What are the recommendations that are specifically being made for the next SPOG contract? What should the public be looking to get out of this? [00:06:54] Shannon Cheng: Yeah - I think at a minimum - the next SPOG contract should be in alignment with the recently negotiated contract with the Seattle Police Management Association. We were able to get things such as subpoena power for the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of Inspector General through that contract. We also were able to restructure the disciplinary review process so that it was less biased towards officers getting discipline overturned in arbitration. I think there was also a clear definition of what honesty means for police officers, which is very important. So yes, minimum is what happened in the SPMA contract. And then beyond that, it should go further and not block anything from the 2017 accountability ordinance - so things such as being able to civilianize the Office of Police Accountability so that we don't have the conflict of interest of officers investigating other officers. And then I think a broader conversation that the City has been trying to but has been hampered is talking about what kind of alternative public safety response that we might want to be able to have other than sending an armed officer. I think there's been a lot of concern that the SPOG contract, as written, could lead to an unfair labor practice claim by the union if Seattle moves forward with any kind of pilot. And so this is what has been holding us back in ways that a lot of other cities around the country have been able to move forward. [00:08:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And cities in our area have been able to move forward. Seattle appears to be behind the curve when it comes to things like the holistic types of responses - to be able to send an appropriate response to whatever the emergency is, which isn't always an armed police officer - it may be a social worker, someone who can address substance use disorder, or different things to address those issues that just can't be handled by a police officer with a gun or through our criminal system. So I think having those things in mind is really important as we continue to move through this in this conversation. And this is a really challenging issue for people to deal with because of the messaging environment and the way that the politics of the situation has unfolded. Because there are some folks - we've heard repeatedly from the head of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, who has been known for making incendiary statements before, and this kind of feeling or proposition that police accountability is inherently anti-police. When I think - on the ground - most people, even if they don't mind having the police show up and seeing them all over the place, is that we all have standards for our jobs, for our performance, how we should deal with other people, and there are rules. And if those rules are broken, there should be some kind of accountability attached to that. If you are not doing what you're supposed to be doing, if you're abusing others on the job - that, in every other circumstance, is grounds for usually immediate termination. But we're finding nearly the opposite in terms of the police. I think a lot of people are challenged by the notion that, Hey, why am I held accountable for being able to de-escalate a situation, follow the rules and regulations of my job. Yet people who have control over other people's human and civil rights don't have that and a big challenge having to do with that. So as we navigate this - I guess starting off - how do you think of and characterize and do this work, and refute those kinds of accusations and challenges? [00:11:07] Shannon Cheng: I think it's important to remember that police officers and law enforcement are given special extra powers that a lot of the rest of us don't have. They have state-sanctioned power to take away life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So they have direct control over the civil and constitutional rights of people in situations. And we trust them to uphold the Constitution and not overstep bounds - and that's what we would expect to see. Unfortunately, that's not what happens a lot of the time and that's where we do need accountability to come into play - when people's rights have been violated. [00:11:55] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so we've talked about the different types of police accountability. We've talked about administrative accountability. I just want to review where we're at in this process, specifically, when it comes to the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract. [00:12:12] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so the current Seattle Police Officers Guild contract expired at the end of 2020. So currently the officers are working without a current contract and the City and the union are under negotiations for the next contract. We don't have much visibility into when the next step is going to happen and we don't know what parameters they are going to be bargaining. [00:12:43] Crystal Fincher: So right now they're operating without a contract and that means the current contract continues. And we had this conversation, or we had a public conversation about this - not many people were probably tuned into that conversation - before the last contract negotiation. What went into that contract negotiation and how does that tee up what's at stake in this contract? [00:13:05] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, the previous contract negotiation was finished in the end of 2018. And so that contract had already been overdue for several years. And one of the reasons it took so long to negotiate is that the City of Seattle has been under consent decree since 2012 - so 10 years - and what that means is that the Department of Justice came in, did an investigation into officers at the bequest of many community organizations, and found that there was unconstitutional policing happening in the City of Seattle. So basically the federal government is providing our local law enforcement oversight and trying to bring them back into compliance with the Constitution. So as part of that - in 2017, the City of Seattle passed an ordinance that established a police accountability system that at the time was hailed as being a landmark accountability system, that had three branches - people may have heard of them. There's the OPA, which is the Office of Police Accountability - their job is to do investigations and suggest discipline that the chief will then apply. There's also the OIG, which is the Office of Inspector General, which is observing and making systemic recommendations to the system. And then finally there was the CPC, which is the Community Police Commission, and their role was to bring community voices in - it was the community that originally brought up issues with how policing was being done in Seattle, and so this was to continue to let them have a voice into how we rectify the system. So the issue is that that ordinance passed into City law in 2017, but it was not actually implementable until the next SPOG contract was negotiated with the officers. And in 2018, 18 months after that landmark law got passed, a SPOG contract got ratified which basically rolled back a lot of the provisions from the police accountability ordinance. And so there was a lot of community outcry - many groups came out, including the CPC, to ask that the City Council and the mayor reject that contract because it basically did not honor what - all the work that had been done to try to put a workable system into place. [00:15:43] Crystal Fincher: We're picking up this contract negotiation again here - that's currently being negotiated. I think a lot of people are looking at this - looking at the conflicting statements that we've heard from the mayor between what was said while on the campaign trail and what has been said after he was elected to office, in addition to some leaked comments. So in this particular contract, what are the things that are important to get out of it to ensure the kind of accountability that we've talked about, to ensure that people are treated in accordance with the law, in accordance with regulations. And that's not to say that they can't do their jobs, just that they should be able to do it correctly. What are the most important things to consider here? [00:16:36] Shannon Cheng: I think the contract really needs to allow us to see what a robust accountability system could do. I think there's this assumption that because we have the existence of these three bodies - the CPC, the OPA, and the OIG - that we have a working accountability system, and people often blame that system for not imposing the accountability. But the truth is that that system has not been able to be fully implemented because of the restrictions put on it by the 2018 SPOG contract. So since that contract passed, we've had incidents where the federal judge overseeing this consent decree ruled the City out of compliance on the issue of accountability specifically. There was a famous case where an officer's discipline got overturned in arbitration because the arbitrator decided that the chief's firing wouldn't stand. [00:17:32] Crystal Fincher: So that must be really a fundamental challenge that really speaks to the culture of the department. If you're trying to weed out - as they would call it - bad apples. They are constantly saying, This doesn't represent all of the officers and all that kind of stuff. Well, if it doesn't, then this is an issue of culture and you have to be able to weed out those bad apples in order to avoid spoiling the whole bunch, as the rest of that saying goes. But if those people are still winding back on the force - was that the case where an officer was - punched a handcuffed woman and broke her jaw, which is not supposed to happen as most people can deduce - and was actually fired by the chief, which is a high bar to clear. They cleared that bar, but were put back in the job through arbitration. What does that do to other officers? What does that say to other officers, especially when you hear the kinds of things coming from the head of the union - that come from them - and some of the really inflammatory things that really make it hard to believe that police are viewing every member of the public equally and doing their job impartially, and really putting the health and safety of the public as their primary priority. As we go through this, many people aren't familiar with union negotiations overall. This is a very different category of union, seeing that they have special privileges and abilities granted to them by the law. They get to impact other people's civil rights and lives. So in just the mechanics of negotiating this contract - it's hard because these negotiations are private - but what is the process of negotiation? How do people go about getting the kinds of concessions that are necessary to ensure that we're all safe? [00:19:35] Shannon Cheng: I think it's important to first understand that - in Washington State, public sector unions are given the right to collectively bargain under state law. This is the Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act. This is where a public employer and a public sector union and their exclusive bargaining representative will sit down at a table and hash out personnel matters such as wages, hours, working conditions, as well as grievance procedures. Under this state act, police guilds and associations fall into a special category - they're classified as uniformed personnel, and so they are considered vital to the welfare and public safety of the State of Washington. So what this means is that - if in the course of doing the collective bargaining with one of these unions they can't reach an agreement, that union is not allowed to go on strike. Because of that, the Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act then gives them the opportunity to instead go to a third-party arbitrator to decide the disputes about the contract. And then the Washington Open Public Meetings Act is what says that all these negotiations for collective bargaining are behind closed doors. So effectively, what this means is that the public has very little insight into what's happening. And for many unions that's reasonable, but as we discussed before - for police unions in particular, they have a lot of power and influence and impact, and they deal with the public nearly day to day in their jobs. And so how that happens and when things go wrong, the public has a deep interest into making sure that our interests are represented. So the way that - practically speaking - these negotiations happen at the City is that the two parties are the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Officers Guild. So on the City side, we're represented by the Labor Relations Policy Committee. In the past, this was effectively only representatives from the mayor's office or direct reports from under the mayor. After getting burned so badly with that 2018 SPOG contract, there's been a lot of effort to change that so that other bodies have more input. So for example, the City Council has five representatives that sit on that committee and they have been able to get a City Council staffer to be able to be at the table for this round of negotiations. In addition, because accountability has been such a difficult point for them to negotiate at the table, they wanted to have an outside expert - with specific technical expertise about the accountability system - to be also present at the table. So that didn't quite happen. Instead, what they are having is representatives from our three accountability bodies able to be present only for the part of negotiations about accountability. So that's who's sitting at the table from the City side. And then SPOG has their representatives to represent the police union. So as I said, the public has very little input into how these negotiations are proceeding. The City Council did hold public hearings back in the fall of 2019 - ahead of the start of these negotiations - to get input into what the public would be interested in seeing. The issue is - 2019, at this point, is several years ago, and a lot has happened since then in this area, and the conversation and discourse has changed, I think, fueled by what happened in the summer of 2020 and all the protests that broke out. But collective bargaining is a lengthy process. It takes a long time. It's going to take several years. We expect to hopefully see a tentative SPOG contract come out sometime in this next stretch. But until it does, we really have very little insight into what is happening and what is being traded back and forth between the two sides. [00:23:54] Crystal Fincher: Okay. And just going through what the - continuing through what the process would be once they do come to an agreement in the negotiation - what are the steps to then get it approved officially? [00:24:08] Shannon Cheng: Right. So if a tentative agreement is reached, then the members of the Seattle Police Officers Guild will vote to see whether their guild would accept the contract. If a majority of them agree, then the tentative collective bargaining agreement would be sent to City Council for ratification. A majority of City Council members would have to vote for that. And if it passed out of City Council, then the mayor would have to actually sign the agreement. And then that would make the agreement official. [00:24:39] Crystal Fincher: Okay. And if they can't come to an agreement, what happens? [00:24:46] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, so if they can't come to an agreement - under state law, it could go to interest arbitration. And so this is where a third party arbitrator would make a binding decision on the topics of the contract that they have not been able to come to agreement with. I think historically - going to interest arbitration has been considered risky for the City because these arbitrators would look at like agreements from around the country to make their decision about what seemed fair or not. And this problem is not just in Seattle where we're having difficulty having good contracts with our police union - this happens around the country. So I think the sense has been that if we looked at other contracts, those would tend to lean towards the police union and not be in our favor. I think there are some who feel that - after the protests of 2020, that situation may have changed a little bit. And another note is that that other police union we talked about in Seattle that represents the captains and lieutenants, the SPMA - they recently negotiated a contract that did include more of the progress we would want to see in accountability. So it's possible that if SPOG had to go to arbitration and they looked at this other contract from the same city, that they would agree that SPOG should do the same. [00:26:16] Crystal Fincher: So what are the signs and signals that we're getting from this current negotiation? Where does it look like things stand? It's hard because so much of the process is opaque, but what have you been able to glean? [00:26:31] Shannon Cheng: Yeah. So about the specific SPOG negotiations themselves - that as they're happening now - very little. It is very opaque, as you said. But so instead we can try to look at these hopeful signs of other police guilds that have had their contracts negotiated in the recent past. So as I just said, the Seattle Police Management Association contract - that was bargained and passed and accepted this past summer in June 2022. From that contract, SPMA got wage increases that went back retroactively and are pretty in line with sort of the consumer price index. And what Seattle got was that we were finally able to get some of the elements that were missing from that 2017 police accountability ordinance. One thing that has been not available is that our accountability bodies have not had subpoena power over the police department. And so in the SPMA contract, they just didn't mention subpoena power at all - and so because of that exclusion of that term, then it is now granted under the accountability ordinance. Other improvements that happened was handling how badly arbitration can go sometimes for the City. So trying to - we can't get rid of arbitration as a route for disciplinary appeal, but we can put some guardrails around it. So what they were able to negotiate was that officers couldn't bring new information into the appeal decision. Previously, the initial investigation would happen, the discipline would be decided - and then in the officer's appeal of the decision, they could bring up new information that was not available to the original investigators. And so it was like having another investigation all over again. So they have now said, No, the officer needs to provide all of the information up front and that all needs to be considered first at the first investigation. They also have decided that the arbitrators have to decide whether the chief-imposed discipline was arbitrary or capricious - and if not, they can't overturn the chief's discipline. So these are all positive things that we've seen in the Seattle Police Management Association contract and we would definitely hope to see the same put into the upcoming SPOG contract. Then in King County, our sheriff's office - they recently reached an agreement with their deputies just this past November and got similar wins. In exchange for pretty generous wage increases, the County has finally been able to get the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight the authority to actually conduct independent investigations as well as subpoena power. These are things that County voters had passed overwhelmingly in charter amendments and then got enshrined in county ordinance, but again, those were being blocked by the police officers guild contract not accepting those changes. So those have both moved forward and I think those are very positive signs that it is possible to sit down at these difficult negotiations with our police guilds and give them fair wage increases. And in exchange, have them accept reasonable accountability measures. I think unhopeful signs - that I think about - is just how SPOG historically has been a very difficult union to negotiate with. We've just seen that they are much more - they're less willing to give unless they get something in exchange. For example, when we wanted them to start wearing Body-Worn Cameras, we had to pay them extra in order to do that. So things like that give me pause in terms of how negotiations with SPOG would be going - because they have been difficult. I think also their current leadership, the SPOG president, has been very antagonistic and unaligned with a lot of the efforts have been made to try to improve public safety. [00:31:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree with the evaluation of not being aligned. You just mentioned the county-wide vote for increased accountability and restructuring the County Sheriff's department to make that possible. Seattle has voted over and over again, both for statutory improvements and for candidates who have promised on the campaign trail to increase accountability measures. Yet there has been really inflammatory positions and statements made that seem to suggest that they think the public just wants to reject that, and you have to hate police in order to want any kind of accountability, and it's just unacceptable to even think about. And over and over again, the public in opinion polls and in elections says the opposite. They do want people to be accountable for performing on the jobs much like they are. We shouldn't expect people - service workers making minimum wage - to be able to de-escalate situations that we don't expect of police, who that's supposed to be one of the things they're trained and expected to do. So I think a definite misalignment between what the public wants and expects, and what SPOG is willing to entertain and discuss. So since we're in this time without a contract, what are possible outcomes that could happen short of getting a contract, or that could inhibit contract negotiations moving forward? [00:33:03] Shannon Cheng: I think what's really going to be important with these upcoming negotiations is that the City is taking seriously what the public has over and over said that they want to see - which is we need to have a robust police accountability system that hasn't been watered down and that is allowable by the SPOG contract. In 2018 - at that City Council hearing where they ratified the problematic contract - there were masses of community members who came out. Groups, citizens, many people came out saying, We agree that SPOG has the right to have pay increases, they've been working without a contract for a long time - they deserve to have fair wages and benefits - but not at the cost of throwing out all the work that we've done under the consent decree and trying to put together a system where we have an accountability system that will help build community trust in what this office, this department that is supposedly here to protect and serve us is doing. And unfortunately the other side came out to that same City Council hearing and everybody was just talking past each other. They were just saying things like, We deserve to have raises. If you don't pass this, it means that you think we don't deserve raises. And that is not what the community was saying. They were saying, You deserve a raise, but in exchange, you need to give us accountability. And they just left out the accountability piece completely. And so I think it's really important that - as the City moves forward, that they listen to what the public has been saying and make sure that we get that accountability this time, not at the expense of this argument of, Oh, well, the officers have been working without a updated contract for too long. Because these negotiations - we know they take a long time - historically they have been. This is not an unknown, they should have been prepared for that, and to know that this would be an argument that was going to be made. So absolutely, they need to tie any increase or benefits that they give - which is our leverage over the police guild - to getting what we want back, which is full implementation of the 2017 police accountability ordinance. At the minimum, they should have the same things that were negotiated and agreed upon in the SPMA contract in the SPOG contract. And then they should go beyond. Right now, we have an issue where the Office of Police Accountability is restricted in the number of civilian investigators that they can have and what kinds of cases those civilian investigators can manage. We have a situation where we have cops investigating cops. And it's cops who then get put back into the system where maybe they're the ones under investigation again. So I think just anybody can see that there's a huge conflict of interest there where - an officer assigned to be an investigator maybe wouldn't want to do the best job of the investigation because they're going to be back working with these same people in a short time period. So we need to really button down and get our accountability system into a situation where it is more in line with what had been celebrated as this groundbreaking, new way of approaching the issue. Because right now, the current system is just really broken. [00:36:41] Crystal Fincher: It is really broken and I appreciate all the work that you've done, that other organizations have done to - one, highlight and help people see what are the processes and policies behind this brokenness, and what is the path to being able to have more accountability in this system. I guess heading into - closing this and final words - if people are interested in making a difference in this issue and trying to make sure that we have accountability, it seems like there are a couple different options. One big opportunity is with the elections that we have coming up. You'd mentioned that it's going to take a majority of the council to ratify whatever contract does wind up happening. We will have several open seats coming in this City Council election. So what are the kinds of things that people should be looking to hear from candidates in order to have confidence that they are going to act on the kind of accountability measures that are necessary? [00:37:51] Shannon Cheng: I think first and foremost, hearing from people that they recognize that there is a problem with the current system. And that they deeply understand that just because we have a system in name, it doesn't mean that the system is working. And that this is all tied up in these contract negotiations. I don't know if by the time elections happen, whether the negotiations will have moved forward or not. But I am sure that whatever contract does come out, more work is going to be needed to be done for the future one. So setting ourselves up for success and having people that even recognize that there is a problem. I think that so often - police officers are given the benefit of the doubt sometimes, and they don't like receiving criticism. Nobody does, but police officers in general get very defensive and it can be hard to stand up to that and push back, especially with a lot of the mainstream narratives that are going around - but somebody who is going to be bold and willing to stand up for what the public wants in the face of all of that pushback. [00:39:05] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. What are other ways that the public can help push this in the right direction? [00:39:10] Shannon Cheng: I think being in touch with your electeds - City Council is important, but honestly, I think the mayor is the one who holds the keys to a lot of how this plays out. So if anybody has the ability to figure out how to tell the mayor that this is absolutely what we want and we will not accept a contract that does not bring our accountability system up to snuff, that's important. Our group is going to be monitoring and watching for when this contract does get negotiated and comes out, and we'll be looking at it and try to analyze it. We don't know exactly how much time we will have between when that contract comes out and when the City Council vote and mayor signing will happen, but we will be on alert. And so if you're interested and want to receive updates about when that happens and when is an effective time to make your voice heard, you could sign up for our mailing list. If you go to wethepeoplepower.org/join-us, there's a form there where you can sign up. As I said, we also do work at the King County and state levels, but you can have an option to only receive alerts about the areas that you're interested in. [00:40:24] Crystal Fincher: Thanks for helping us understand the really intricate and confusing process with the contract. And thanks so much - we will be following up on this as we get more news about it. [00:40:35] Shannon Cheng: Thanks, Crystal. [00:40:36] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by Associate Editor of The Stranger and noted poet, Rich Smith! They look at tragic traffic deaths in Seattle, track leg updates on free school meals and minimum wage for incarcerated workers, discuss the Washington Supreme Court's hearing on our capital gains tax, outline County Prosecutor Leesa Manion's changes to the office, update us on Seattle's social housing initiative, and react to candidates running for Seattle City Council.  Crystal and Rich start the show by covering this week's tragic traffic deaths, including the death of 23-year old grad student Jaahnavi Kandula, who was hit by a police vehicle. The number of these incidents is a horrific reminder that these fatalities aren't due to random chance, but are the result of numerous policy priorities and choices by elected officials and institutions.  Turning to the state legislature, our hosts give overviews on a bill to give free lunches to all public school students in Washington state and a bill that would provide minimum wage to incarcerated individuals for their labor. In state Supreme Court news, this week the court heard arguments for the suit over our state's capital gains tax that the legislature passed last year. We'll be keeping an eye out to see when we finally get a decision on this case.  King County's new Prosecuting Attorney, Leesa Manion, outlined her new approach to the office, including the creation of a gun violence prevention unit and a division focused on prosecuting gender-based violence. Rich also updates Crystal on the Stranger's Election Control Board's endorsement of Seattle's social housing initiative I-135, which will be on the ballot for the upcoming February 14th election. Finally, we end the show catching up on the newly announced candidates for this year's Seattle City Council elections, and ask why some candidates are announcing their campaigns without a clear vision of why they want the seat.  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 Rich Smith at @richsssmith.   Resources “Evaluating the Role of Incarceration in Public Safety with Criminologist Damon Petrich” - Hacks & Wonks    “Casual Friday with Crystal Fincher & Besa Gordon” by Patricia Murphy & Brandi Fullwood from KUOW    “Officer Responding to Overdose Call Killed Woman In Marked Intersection Where City Canceled Safety Project” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola    “Three pedestrians taken to hospital after collision in South Seattle” by Amanda Zhou from The Seattle Times    Follow Ryan Packer twitter: @typewriteralley   “Prevent traffic deaths with proven solutions for Seattle streets” by Gordon Padelford from The Seattle Times    “WA bill would make school meals free for all students” by Ruby de Luna from KUOW   “WA lawmakers consider minimum wage requirement for incarcerated workers” by Libby Denkman & Sarah Leibovitz from KUOW   “Supreme Court Ruling Could Allow Washington to Tax the Rich” by Will Casey from The Stranger   “Public safety is focus of new prosecutorial units” by Christine Clarridge from Axios    “Vote Yes on Initiative 135” from The Stranger    “Who's running for Seattle City Council in 2023“ by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Formerly Unhoused, Andrew Ashiofu Wants to Fight for Housing Progress on City Council” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Central District Resident Joy Hollingsworth Is Running for City Council” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Urbanist Alex Hudson Enters Council Race to Replace Sawant” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger “Assistant Attorney General Sarah Reyneveld Is Running for King County Council” by Rich Smith from The Stranger   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I am 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, we re-aired our conversation with criminologist Damon Petrich, who led the most comprehensive analysis of incarceration and crime data to-date, which found that incarceration doesn't reduce the likelihood of reoffending. Damon and I talk about how to design and evaluate programs that do work to deliver greater public safety for everyone. Also today, I appeared on KUOW's Casual Friday podcast - we'll put a link to that in the show notes and on the website. 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, today's co-host: Associate Editor of The Stranger and noted poet, Rich Smith. [00:01:30] Rich Smith: Thanks for having me again - so good to be back. [00:01:33] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back. This is a week that was packed full of news. Starting off - some news that really sucked - really sad and tragic events happened this week when it came to pedestrians being hit by cars. One killed by an SPD officer driving a car on the way to a substance abuse call. And another - family, a parent and two kids, hit in a crosswalk. It has just been a horrible week. What happened and where do we stand on this? [00:02:15] Rich Smith: Yeah, it was on Monday - Fire was called to an OD [overdose] call, cops responded along with that. And a young woman, 23-year-old woman, named Jaahnavi was crossing the road - she's a grad student. And the cop hit her with her car. She died later of injuries later that evening. The cops slow rolled the information on this, at first saying that there had been a collision, putting the blame on the fire department. And then later on Tuesday, they finally confirmed that she died after being hit. And it's a tragedy, and it's one of those stories that show just how few choices we have - or how constrained our choices really are - by policy that we don't even see. We think we're out here making decisions - we think people are out here making decisions - but those decisions are circumscribed. And there are so many of those policies hidden in the background of this story. For instance, that intersection where she crossed was due for a while to get a revamp - a protected intersection - that would have prevented, or that may have prevented, this tragedy from occurring. We haven't seen the video - I don't know where she crossed in the crosswalk, I know she was in the crosswalk. But the design of this protected intersection may have prevented that from happening. The mayor took it out of his budget this year due to a giant $140 million hole that they had to work around and as a result of slowing real estate market, et cetera. The City Council didn't put that money back in and so - obviously, work wouldn't have started on that project before this incident happened - I don't want to get into butterfly effect stuff. But had we moved on that earlier, had we treated this Vision Zero - the city's plan to reduce all pedestrian deaths to zero - more seriously than we have been, if we'd been prioritizing that earlier, then tragedies like this could have been prevented. Also, there's the policy of having a police officer respond alongside a medic when they're doing an OD call. My understanding is that if the medic has to give the person who's suspected of having an OD Narcan, they want a cop there in case there's some kind of violent response to reversing the overdose with Narcan - and so they request this backup. The person who the medic checked on declined medical assistance at the time - it turns out it wasn't an emergency, but they were called. I'm not sure who called or why, but they were called because they thought someone was having an OD - and now it creates this emergency situation where if the cop threw on his lights, then they're racing to the scene. It's hard to really put the whole picture together because we haven't seen the video. We only know what the police are saying and what Fire is saying, but it does seem to be this confluence of questionable policy decisions that allowed for this tragedy to happen. [00:06:18] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And at least the information that we have now - as you said, the police have been slow to release information - but it appears that dispatch made the call to dispatch the police, that it wasn't actually requested by the fire department. But they were co-dispatched to the call along with Fire once they determined that was the case with the call, which is questionable - these are the things that we're talking about. So many times you talk about how all of these issues are related - how when we're talking about housing, we're talking about poverty. How we're talking about health, we're talking about equity - and so many of these failures came together. And just overall, even with the timing of this thing, this is a result of longstanding neglect. How long have we been talking about how unsafe this is? And this was just one pedestrian collision and injury this week. We also had a family mowed down in a crosswalk. [00:07:20] Rich Smith: Did you see that video? [00:07:21] Crystal Fincher: I unfortunately did see that video. We have to do better. I think a lot of people are wondering - we hear lip service being given to this year, after year, after year. Certainly there have been some electeds who have tried to propose money and others - Tammy Morales comes to mind - but overall between the council and the mayor, we have not gotten this to be a priority. And we have to do something different, we have to do something substantial. If we had the amount of poisoning deaths by some source that we do with pedestrian deaths and collisions, we would be doing something about it. If there were a Brown person walking around and beating up people to this magnitude, we would be doing something different. This is a crisis. And just because it's happening to people outside of cars doesn't mean that we just give thoughts and prayers and don't do anything. And it's feeling like the situation where we all know we need to do more to stop gun violence, yet so much action isn't taken. There's an excellent article that was written last year, I think, by Gordon Padelford at The Urbanist, which kind of goes through - Hey, this is what percentage of pedestrian deaths are caused by this type of issue, this is the recommendation or the ask to solve it - this is what can happen. There's short term stuff, there's long term stuff. I just hope to see some action here. And it appears that there are some things that don't require the building of new infrastructure, but some signal timings - we need to look at how we allow drivers to turn both right on red and left turns - and we can be doing those in a safer way. And just all of that. I hope we get real serious about this across the region real quick. We just talked last week about the alarming skyrocketing pedestrian deaths and injuries across South King County. And I follow Ryan Packer on Twitter and their Patreon, and they cover the majority of these pedestrian-involved collisions. And just watching the amount of those come down the timeline is sobering. [00:09:45] Rich Smith: That's another sort of system - just people being in their cars and having car brain and forgetting - the great lie of the car is that you're not a 2-ton steel cage traveling down the road at 70 mph or 40 mph that could just absolutely wreck the fragile human body. For some, the car - you don't feel like that when you're in the car and that - so we got to kill the car in our head. [00:10:16] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and the mind frame that comes with it - I drive, I have a car. I drive a lot less than I used to, but still drive. And I've had feelings before - of that feeling of inconvenience and wanting to get somewhere as fast as possible, but I really do think it takes a reframing to be like - Okay, I am in a 2-ton vehicle that can instantly kill or maim someone. It's okay if it takes me literally two minutes longer to get somewhere. When we talk about traffic calming, when we talk about signal timing, or not taking a right on red - yeah, it may delay you for 30 seconds - for 30 seconds, right? It may delay you for two minutes. But if the trade off of two minutes - that we can plan around, we can manage - is people not getting gruesomely killed, that's a trade off we can make. And we need to have more conversations that you don't just have free rein and cars aren't this - the ultimate priority above and beyond anything else. We have to also address - everything is culture now, but car culture - and how we teach people to drive, how we talk about driving, how we design around that. Until we reframe that it's okay if cars stop every now and then or go slow every now and then, we're going to continue to see this kind of stuff. [00:11:42] Rich Smith: Absolutely. And when I drive, I feel myself like I just turn - I'm like, when I'm a pedestrian, I'm like, are you kidding me? It's the - the roads are ours, I'm fragile, I could be destroyed by your machines. Stop, slow down - in the crosswalk, you monsters. But then when I'm in a car, I'm like - all of these pedestrians don't care about their lives at all. They're walking into the middle of the road. They're dressed the exact same color of the night. They need to get out of my way - blah, blah, blah. So I have to consciously remind myself - I'm in a climate-controlled environment. I'm listening to the music that I want to listen to, or the radio that I want to listen to, or the podcast I want to listen to - like Hacks & Wonks. And if I need to pause - to pay more careful attention to my surroundings - then I'm the one who should because I'm the one who's basically a weapon right now. It just, yeah - and it's - you'll get there, it's not going to take - even if you're 30 seconds later, two minutes late, you'll get there. People will welcome you - so just chill out, cars. [00:12:52] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. This week - more action in our legislative session that we have this week - there were two bills in particular that caught my eye. One to make all school lunches in Washington free, which I think is an excellent idea. And another to require that incarcerated workers at least make minimum wage, because right now they don't and it's basically slavery. What's your take on these bills? [00:13:24] Rich Smith: Yeah, it's weird to make anybody - they're kind of related - but it's weird to make children go to a place for - whatever, 7-8 hours, and then make them buy their food there if they want to not operate at a caloric deficit. And poverty is high. Child poverty is shockingly high. And it just shouldn't be an expense. As somebody who went to school and - I could have made my lunch before I went, but I always just tried to bum money from other people so that I could have the pizza or whatever at school. So I don't know, it was always embarrassing to bring lunch. And so I just always wanted to have the school lunch. I remember being - as a kid, school lunch was somehow prestige - even though in popular culture, school lunch is stereotypically lunch lady giving you neon food or whatever. In any event, it's just - I really would have benefited from this bill. I wouldn't have had to convince so many of my fellow students to give me dimes and quarters so that I could get bad pizza or whatever. But yeah, philosophically, kids shouldn't have to pay for food. Poor families shouldn't have to be scrounging up a couple of bucks just so that they can eat. And similarly, if we are forcibly incarcerating people and they are working, they should make the minimum wage and not, as Representative Tarra Simmons - who brought this bill to the Legislature - testifies, 42 cents an hour because of how much the jail can just dock from your pay for medicine, for this, for that, for this financial obligation, for this financial obligation. Basically, you're paying to incarcerate yourself. You're paying the state to make you less free, to take away your freedom. And you are effectively a slave. It's unconscionable. [00:15:33] Crystal Fincher: It is unconscionable. And when this is an exception in the constitutional amendment banning slavery - means it's literally slavery. These people are working and doing the same kind of work that everyone else is. Just because they're incarcerated does not mean that their labor has no value. And there is such a problem with making elements of our criminal legal system profitable for people - we have seen how corrupting and how corrosive that is. We should not be incentivizing people to lock people up and keep them locked up. We just re-aired our midweek show about how problematic carceral solutions are, and it just makes no sense. And also we spend so much time and energy, so much administrative resources on managing who gets lunch, who doesn't get lunch - just tracking and doing the - tracking who does qualify for free lunch, and who doesn't, and who's behind, and how to collect it. That all takes money too. We're requiring them to be there, just as you said. And the consequences - say a family is having trouble affording food, so their kid needs to be shamed and humiliated and can't eat or get something - how does that make any kind of sense? And also, we just got so much data from the unfortunately brief free school lunches that we provided nationwide and what kind of an impact that had on child poverty, on child hunger - was absolutely a positive and way more transformative than most people even anticipated. Really, why are we not doing this? It seems cruel not to. So I'm very excited to see both of those making their way through the Legislature. Also big news this week - on the wealth tax issue - the Supreme Court heard the capital gains tax case. How is that playing out? Where do we stand with that? [00:17:45] Rich Smith: Well, we'll see. They just heard - that is, the Supreme Court just heard - oral arguments on the case yesterday. It's difficult, really, to follow the arguments because Justice Steven González is so fine that I have trouble paying attention to what the lawyers are arguing about, the difference between the excise tax and income tax, etc. I'm joking - he's a good-looking man, but he didn't actually talk that much during the oral arguments. But he did ask a kind of prescient question, or a useful question, that was interesting to me. This is all to say that - yeah, we'll see - they presented their arguments yesterday. Backing up a second, the State Legislature - after a decade of arm twisting and back bending and watering down bill after bill after bill - finally decided to pass a capital gains tax on the richest 8,000 Washingtonians. That is a 7% tax whenever you realize capital gains, which is a financial asset over - $250 million is the threshold of the tax. If you cash out stocks for more than $250 million, then you're going to get hit with a 7% tax. A bunch of conservatives sued and said this isn't a excise tax or a sales tax - a transactional tax as the state is arguing - this is an income tax because that property, or that $250 million is property. According to the State of Washington's Constitution, that's income. State's taxing that money at 7%. Constitution says you can only tax property at 1%, so it's unconstitutional. Also, the fact that there's an exemption means it's not taxed uniformly, so that's unconstitutional. They also argue that it's a violation of - they have some kind of commerce clause argument that I didn't understand and that didn't seem to apply. It didn't seem particularly sophisticated - the justices didn't seem particularly bothered by it during oral arguments yesterday, but that's basically the gist. And it's up to these political figures - these justices after hearing the arguments - to determine whether or not we're going to allow the state to raise $500 million to pay for education. The state hoped that they're - or asked the court to give a decision before April 18th on the matter, so that the lawmakers who are busy writing the state budget can know if they can include this $500 million that we raised from the capital gains tax in their bottom lines or not. The Supreme Court didn't seem bothered by that, didn't seem like they were moved by that request and will release a decision on their own time - a little sort of cross-branch flexing back and forth there during the oral arguments. But we know that on some Thursday, sometime in the next few months, we'll get an answer to whether or not we can tax them. And there's also the possibility that the court could, in their decision, say - Actually, income tax - or income isn't property. Those court rulings that determine that, the court decisions that determined that in the '30s were wrong. And that would allow Washington State to pass income taxes for the first time in over 100 years, which would really give us the opportunity to rebalance the tax code that is right now balanced on the backs of the poor. Every recession we dig ourselves out of - we do it from sales tax, property taxes, taxes on gross receipts of small businesses and other businesses - and large businesses, frankly. And that's the most regressive way to do it. And we're the most regressive state - in terms of taxes - in the country. So there's a slim possibility that we could change the whole game, but I don't know if they'll do that. They don't seem hungry to do that. [00:22:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And Will Casey had a great breakdown of this all in The Stranger, in a piece that we'll link in the show notes and in our social media threads on this show. But to your point, they can - they do actually have a few different choices. This isn't necessarily just a binary - it's allowed or not allowed. They could agree with the lower court that it's not allowed. They could also agree with the Attorney General's opinion, which doesn't take any view on overturning the prior case that said income is property, we can't have an income tax, and just say it's an excise tax. It doesn't even get into the other discussion. And then that third option, as you articulated, can have them overturn the ruling that made an income tax illegal. One of the most foremost Washington State constitutional scholars and professors that we have in the state - Hugh Spitzer and some others - thought that that isn't likely - just overturning the whole thing and finding that income tax is legal to do in the state is unlikely. That if something does happen, they predict it would be agreeing that it's an excise tax. But who knows? They can do anything. We will see what happens. [00:24:01] Rich Smith: Sorry, just one correction. We can have an income tax, but it just has to be uniform and it can't be more than 1% because that's - yeah. But yeah, just to clarify - we all know, and I know - I said it too. But it's just - it's like a shorthand - it's we can't do an income tax that makes sense - is what we mean when we say we can't do an income tax. [00:24:17] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. A graduated income tax. Thank you for that clarification. [00:24:21] Rich Smith: Yeah. Yeah, but I agree that - listening to oral arguments in any case, and especially in a case like this, just makes me go crazy because the arguments are never about the moral value of the question at hand. The judges aren't deciding whether or not it's - we should have a capital gains tax if the Legislature does it. It's based on previous case law triangulated over the course of many different years - is it technical - are these definitions, does this definition of capital gains and income and property align with the plain language of this law or not, and to what degree do we care that it does? It seems like it's all up to us to decide, right? You've got Noah Purcell, the Assistant Attorney General, arguing on behalf of the state saying stuff like, This is an excise tax because when we're taxing the capital gain, we're taxing it at the point of the transaction - not taxing the actual - we're taxing the transaction, not the money, but the ability to do the transaction, not the money that you get coming in. And the other side says like, In all 50 states, or in every other state in the country, they have capital gains taxes - but those taxes are called income taxes. And yet here we have a capital gains tax and suddenly it's not an income tax? And then the state says, Well, we're the only state in the country that defines income as property, right? So it just dwindled - the entire argument dwindles into definitions and it just makes you feel insane while you're watching it, because it has nothing to do with this. It has little to do with the substance of the policy matter. So we just make it up anyway and decide - the entire law is based on language, which is quicksand, it's soup, it changes constantly. The definitions are made from language and so their meanings change over time, and yet we've got these clerics in robes pretending like they're mystical beings seeing the true intent of the law or whatever and just argue. It's just, it's witchery. But anyway, I just really - if you want to feel that, if you want to feel insane, I recommend going to TVW and watching the oral arguments. [00:26:55] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we will stay tuned to what happens and await the upcoming some Thursday where we eventually hear what the fate of the capital gains tax is. Also this week, we heard from our new King County Prosecutor, Leesa Manion, about some of her plans for the office - the establishment of some new units focusing on gun violence, sexual assault, economic crimes, and others. How did you view this? [00:27:27] Rich Smith: Rearranging the office chairs? I don't know, right? Creating these units and - on the one hand, making it someone's job to focus on certain crimes does matter, right? It changes the focus and the thrust of the work that gets done on a daily basis. But I don't know to what degree that's going to fix the problems in the office. You're not really dealing with - it's not like we're still concentrating on "repeat property crime" which seems to be, what, a euphemism for graffiti, which is one of the - or, broken windows - which is one of City Attorney Ann Davison's big areas of focus as well as the mayor's office. But I don't - I'm not quite sure, really, how this rearrangement will impact the scope and work of the office. They don't expect it to help knock down the 4,000-case backlog that developed over the course of the pandemic. They're not really - there's some stuff to like in there in terms of focusing on diversion, which would be better than if we had Jim Ferrell in there, who was the hard right - or a conservative Democrat, I should say - running against her in the November elections last year, but I'm not sure. What's your take on it? [00:29:17] Crystal Fincher: You know, I am reserving judgment. I'm willing to see how this turns out. It does actually matter - to create units where people are focusing, where they're able to share resources to investigate and - within our current system of both policing and among the prosecutor - investigation is an important thing. That's the meat of how we figure out who does stuff and especially if we want to stop playing whac-a-mole with people doing low-level crimes that are often the result of some other root cause. The ability to move further up the chain and address some of those systemic issues, or if they are actually targeting organized retail theft or domestic violence, intimate partner abuse - to really go after people who are doing that, or who are defrauding seniors, and going after wage theft - that requires focus and investigation and specialized resources and they're not going to get pulled away on to whatever the newfangled thing is that they're focusing on that week. And that's shown to have an impact and make a difference. I also recognize that this is one piece in the criminal legal system puzzle. And on that investigation issue, we still have issues with police who are doing the frontline work in this and not investigating many things. And having those who were in investigative roles moved out to patrol - because of their conversations on staffing and feeling that they need to do that. And then we wind up in situations where we aren't investigating sexual assault. And even when there's gun violence and a business owner has a bullet that they collected that went through their window, the police aren't showing up for days or weeks to pick that up and even process that. So it's like what can the prosecutor do if police are only focused on patrol, surveillance, low-level crime and not able to put the resources into investigation in order to address these issues. So it feels like everything's a mess systemically and they're trying to wade through that. But I do think that - we know that certain interventions with gun violence, we know that certain types of diversion, we know that focusing on crimes of abuse and manipulation and fraud make a difference. I was excited to actually see named - wage theft - which is one of the biggest crimes being perpetrated in the City, that so often doesn't get talked about because it is perpetrated by more wealthy people, business owners. But that also comes with a pause, because in the quote that I saw in the paper, it talked about, Hey, we - last year, we filed more charges against organized retail theft than any others before. The Stranger had done excellent reporting on what they call organized retail theft - sure does look the same as small-time petty theft. And so if we're laying out this big - saying we're focusing on wage theft and economic crimes and fraud and organized retail theft - but every focus, all the resources, and all of the energy is going towards this "organized retail theft" that looks like the same old theft that we've been dealing with that is not very organized. We'll have to see how this turns out. So willing to give the benefit of the doubt, see what happens, see what kind of an impact can be made, but I'm definitely waiting to see what the impact is. [00:33:23] Rich Smith: Yeah, could just - want to triple underline that. The categories look okay to me. It'll be, it'll just be telling to see where they put, or the prosecutors put, their emphasis. [00:33:34] Crystal Fincher: Okay. With that, also wanted to talk about Initiative 135 on the docket. There is an election coming up on Valentine's Day, February 14th, to decide whether Seattle is going to have social housing and The Stranger took a stance on it. What did you guys decide? [00:33:56] Rich Smith: The Stranger Election Control Board is Pro - we want you to vote Yes on Initiative 135 for social housing. It's not perfect, but it is good. And so it's worth, it's worth your time. It's worth your Yes vote. Certainly. [00:34:15] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely is. I was in a conversation yesterday - with Axios actually - and talking about what the prospects of this look like. But I also think this is an interesting time - with all of these tech layoffs that we're experiencing and talk of an economic recession, there've been some people who have been fortunate enough to be insulated from the worry and concern about being priced out of Seattle and feeling secure with income. And there are lots of conversations about the working class and whether different workers, or a different class of worker, not feeling the same kind of solidarity or vulnerability to some of the challenges that other people have been facing when it comes to trying to fight for their rights, for unionization, for recognizing that they could be a paycheck or two away from financial instability, poverty or homelessness. And there are a lot of new people contending with some of that insecurity. This is unfortunate wherever and however it happens - absolutely not rooting for anyone to lose their job - there's a lot of pain and struggle and uncertainty going on now. But I do think this is all part of this same conversation and crisis that we're facing - we have a whole new class of people wondering if they can afford to remain in Seattle. If they are upside down on their mortgages with the way things are right now, if they can afford rent - continue to afford rent if they lose their job and don't get another one very frequently - how we're going to weather this predicted recession that's coming. So it really does seem like the time for varied action, new action, different action, not letting perfect get in the way of the good, and do something here. And this seems like it has a track record elsewhere. The reasoning behind it is sound. And let's kick this off. And let's see if we can get this right. And if it needs fine tuning as we go along, let's do that. But it really seems like the time for some different decisive action is now. [00:36:39] Rich Smith: Yeah, one of the members in the SECB highlighted this initiative as optimistic. And it's something you can rally behind, it's something you can really organize around - not just to get it passed, but once it's implemented, and once they start going through the steps of actually creating the social housing - it is a site for organizing, a site for movement building. And that's just - there's so few exciting, actual things like that - having a public developer, which this initiative would create, to acquire and build housing for people between 0% and 120% of the area median income that the City would own and make affordable - that is lower than 30% of your income, if you're living in those buildings - forever, it's just exciting. And yeah, it's forward thinking. And as we argue in the endorsement, we suck at thinking for the future - Seattle does a horrible job of thinking ahead. And I think it's because a lot of people who are here don't want to. They have - a lot of people have their house, who have their little nautical village, like being in the corner of the country, have this identity of being away from it all and that's why we're out here in the first place - and just emotionally blocked out the 2010s, where people flooded into the city, into the area - because of how prosperous all the companies were, because of all these opportunities. And then just did nothing to build the infrastructure for it. And this has been a curse of this town going back decades. 1970 - we didn't get the trades, and so the trades went to Atlanta. In 1990, or '95, we settled for a much smaller light rail extension that we possibly could. We have made the mistake of not making room for people who want to move to this beautiful place time and time again. And it is the root cause of so much of the pain and struggle that we see outside. And this initiative comes along and says, Okay, let's have a 50-year plan. And let's start now. Let's add another tool to the housing toolbox that can - if we plant this seed, grow into thousands and thousands of affordable units built sustainably, with union labor, that can keep housing - a certain amount of housing stock - affordable forever. Not like affordable housing - government-subsidized housing - which can go back on the unaffordable market in 30 years most of the time. And not like the market rate housing, which nobody's been able to afford for as long as I've been alive. But permanently affordable housing. And, yeah, as we mentioned, and as the advocates for this initiative will mention, it's working in France, it's working in Vienna, Austria, it's working in Singapore, it's working all around the globe. And it can work here - granted, very different housing markets, very different tax structures - in those places. But we can do it here, and we should. Because as Representative Frank Chopp of all people, who has dedicated his public life to building affordable housing, said about the affordable housing system we have now - it doesn't work. We need to try something else. And this is that something else. So it's exciting, and people should vote for it. [00:40:36] Crystal Fincher: Also coming on a later ballot to you - in August, in the primary - will be a number of councilmembers vying for several open seats. We had several announcements so far, some new ones this week. Who's running for City Council? Who's not running for City Council? And what does it mean? [00:40:57] Rich Smith: Everybody is running for City Council, it seems like. Well, last week - was it? Kshama Sawant, who represents District 3, the central area of the City, announced her plans to leave. And this sort of spurred some people to announce, though others had done it around that time or a little before that time. But it's really motivating people to jump in. And so yeah, we've had a number of people jump in in that race, in that City Council race. Joy Hollingsworth - runs Hollingsworth Cannabis, Central District resident, comes from a lineage of civil rights organizers - and she's in, she announced on MLK Day. We've got Alex Hudson - just announced this week - who was the Executive Director of Transportation Choices and runs the neighborhood board over at First Hill. Andrew Ashiofu, the Co-Chair of the Seattle LGBTQ Commission, jumped in to the race. Hannah has got great profiles on all of these people - you should check them out at The Stranger. And just this morning, Sarah Reyneveld, who is a Assistant Attorney General - she's jumping into the King County race to replace Jeanne Kohl-Welles, who was on the King County Council in District 4, representing Ballard, Queen Anne, Belltown, South Lake Union, that kind of area, on the County Council. She was in that seat for two terms. So Reyneveld is trying to swoop in and keep her legacy going there. And yeah, we've got another ex-Amazon worker, who was legally fired, is jumping into the race to replace Lisa Herbold. She was not one of the ones reportedly recruited by Bruce Harrell - still waiting for that person, whoever he is, to jump in at some point. So yeah, a flurry of activity and many more to come, I'm sure, as the balance of the City Council is up for grabs this year. [00:43:21] Crystal Fincher: This is going to be interesting with so many open seats - Lisa Herbold, Kshama Sawant, Alex Pedersen are not running again. We're going to see a lot of turnover, the potential for a switch in the balance of power with the council. And as you said, there are great profiles in The Stranger about some of these candidates. I think Capitol Hill Seattle and The Urbanist also had a couple of profiles. We will continue to see what they say, but I will say - one, it's early. It's early - running for office is hard and people are starting to get this together. But I do hope to see overall a greater articulation of vision. And hearing what they actually want to do, what they want to accomplish for the City and for the residents of Seattle. I was struck - in a few different situations where - being asked about issues, policy, where do you stand on this, do you support social housing, do you support this or that? And - Well, I'm not sure. I'm interested in hearing more about it. I want to hear what the community has to say. I'm looking forward to bringing people together to discuss it. I support this, but don't know if I can commit to it before I hear more information. And this is a time where you are running and making the case that you are the person most qualified to make this change. And to bring about the change that a lot of people are frustrated that they haven't been seeing after hearing promises for so long. And so it really seems like a missed opportunity to not at least take a stand on some things, let people know where you're at - and that may be a differentiator for people in crowded primaries. If someone is willing to stand up with certainty on issues and others aren't, that's absolutely a differentiator. And this is across a variety of issues, a variety of candidates. This is not about one candidate - have seen this widespread. So I do hope we see a greater articulation and greater commitments on what they're going to be, because I do worry about people who are afraid of offending people this early in the game. Campaigns are hard - don't get me wrong - but they don't compare to governing and the type of pressure and accountability that's there. And so if you cannot commit here, what are we going to get when you're on the council? [00:46:02] Rich Smith: I'm trying to hold it in, Crystal - but yeah, I couldn't agree more. Why are you running for office? You decided to announce - you could control that decision. If you don't have definitive answers for where you're at on problems that have existed for years in this city, if you still need to learn more from the community, hear more from the community on hiking the JumpStart Tax to fill budget gaps, or where you're at on pedestrian improvements, or where you're at on this or that - then why did you decide to run? All you're telling me whenever you say that - when you say, I need to listen to the community more on this issue - is that you are running as a matter of course, because you want the power of the position, not that you have something that you want to do with that power. And saying, Ah, but how I will wield my power is to be a collaborator, or to listen, to bring the community together, bring everyone around the table - then you are saying that - that you suck. I don't know how to say it - that you're going to defer to whoever's interests seem to have the most sway over - I don't know. You don't have principles in that moment, right? You're just a funnel for other people to use. And as we've seen in the past, that means you're going to bend to big business, you're not going to stand up for stuff that you know is right. And that's, or at least that's what that signals, and it just boggles the mind. And then this little ouroboros of the community asked me to run - Okay, great. What are you going to do? I'm going to listen to community. Well, what did the community - why do they want you to run? Presumably they want you to run because they already agreed with you on stuff. And so just - trust your instincts, say what's right - and people will respond. I don't know why everyone's trying to not offend X. I know why - because they don't want to offend the money - because they need the money, and they need the endorsements, and they need the support in order to win. And so whatever - people aren't going to say what they actually believe. It's either that, or they actually don't believe anything and there's just a transparent grab for power on assumption that you've been working toward this, and so it is yours. It's disgusting to see, frankly. And I don't know - maybe I'm just getting over this, but I'm - it's, it's, I find - it sucks. It's offensive. [00:48:47] Crystal Fincher: I'm gonna choose to try and have a charitable interpretation of where they may be. It is early in the campaign. Maybe they haven't figured out the best way to articulate where they stand yet. But I do think they need to hurry up and get to it. Anyone - you don't have to be elected to bring people together and listen to community. The reason why you run for office is to have the power to make decisions. It's to make those decisions. We give you that authority through an election. And so we need to hear about what decisions you plan on making. We need to hear about the policy that you plan on crafting and passing in specificity. That is why you run. We are not trying to elect a convener here. We're not trying to elect a moderator for the community, someone to conduct listening sessions. We can do that any day of the week. We can pay other people for that. But only a few people can sit and make those decisions. And so hearing about those is really important. And to your point, Rich, we have heard that from people who have done nothing, from people who have gone back on their promises that they made while they were running, from people who did say - I'm different, money has no hold on me. But lo and behold, they wind up doing different things than they said when they were running. And it's exactly what their list of top donors wants. That's what we're used to seeing when we hear this. And so a red flag automatically pops up. Maybe that's not ultimately where these people are going to be coming from, maybe that's not their intent, maybe they're still working on that - I would encourage them to work on it quickly. [00:50:34] Rich Smith: Yeah. I agree. And that's - thinking of Sawant - that's part of what made her refreshing was - she was just like, she just tried to do what aligned with her principles. She had no power, so she ended up spending a lot of time just like dunking on her colleagues a lot in ways that were not particularly productive or whatever. But she was like, Okay, we want to protect abortion in Seattle. Let's pay for it all. Let's pay for all abortions. Here's a plan to pay for everybody's abortions every year. It costs $3.5 million. Sign it up. Oh, we got a $140 million budget hole. Let's raise the JumpStart Tax to fill it. Sure, we're going to have to fill it with something else in the meantime and then backfill with JumpStart, but let's do that. And so it's not hard to have a policy position and to try to do what you, try to hold onto that principle when you finally make it into office. And so I just wish people wouldn't hedge. And if you say something and then you change your mind later, you can just - you just do that. You could say I changed my mind for this reason or that reason. And then you won't have the - oh, broken promise mailer, or whatever that you're scared of. People just don't know how to be people on the campaign, and it's incredibly depressing. And it just takes so much time to parse. And I amplify your call and your hope that people will get better quickly on these issues. [00:52:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I think it's going to be a competitive advantage for those - who do still have to hit all your campaign marks, do the things that get votes and connect with people. But the way to connect with people is to tell them concretely how you plan to improve their day-to-day life. And with that, we will wrap up today's Hacks & Wonks. Thank you so much for listening on this Friday, January 27th, 2023. I cannot believe the month of January just evaporated like that. How dare it. But we're almost to Black History Month. Anyway, Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was Associate Editor of The Stranger and noted poet Rich Smith. You can find Rich on Twitter @richsssmith, with three S's in the middle. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and find me on Twitter @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live show 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 podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time. [00:53:31] Rich Smith: Thanks - bye.

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett! They catch up with all of the news out of the legislature this week, as well as Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant not seeking re-election, a dodgy push-poll, South King County pedestrian fatalities on the rise, and lawsuits against the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI).  Breaking down the flurry of news out of the legislature this week, Crystal and Erica discuss proposed legislation for a wealth tax, middle housing, lowering the blood alcohol limit for driving, limiting rent increases, reducing the disparity between products advertised towards women versus men, alternatives to jail for behavioral health crises, and a potential expansion of law enforcement's ability to conduct vehicle pursuits.  The trend of current Seattle City Councilmembers announcing they won't seek re-election continued this week when councilmember Kshama Sawant revealed she won't again this year. With four of the seven open seats on the council this year without incumbents, this years' election is guaranteed to bring a large change to the city's leadership.  A seemingly non-scientific push-poll designed to show support for a potential ballot measure to fund more police hires and spending was sent to a number of Seattle residents. They use it as a jumping-off to discuss manipulative polling and how it's used to justify unpopular policy. Crystal and Erica also discuss the alarming increase in pedestrian fatalities in the region, especially in south King County. The data supports the need to make wide-spread improvements to our pedestrian infrastructure to truly make our cities safe for people who walk and bike.  Crystal and Erica end this week's show looking at two lawsuits against the Low Income Housing Institute. A former resident has sued the organization, claiming that LIHI illegally evicted them by not giving proper notice. The case hinges on whether LIHI's housing is emergency shelter or transitional housing, the latter requiring stronger resident protections. LIHI is also facing accusations that the conditions of their tiny house villages are not adequate to support their residents. 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 Barnett at @ericacbarnett.   Resources “Tackling Poverty with Misha Werschkul of the Washington State Budget & Policy Center” - Hacks & Wonks   “WA lawmakers trying again to tax wealth, as part of nationwide effort”  by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times   “Two State-Level Housing Bills Aim to Stabilize Rent and Protect From Rent Gouging” by Vee Hua from The South Seattle Emerald   Washington Coalition for Police Accountability's letter on vehicle pursuit bills SB 5352 and HB 1363   “State Proposals Aim to Lower Traffic Deaths by Improving Driver Behavior” by Ryan Packer from Publicola   “Washington lawmakers discuss an alternative to jail for mental health crises” by Doug Nadvornick from KUOW   “Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant Will Not Seek Reelection” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Why I'm Not Running Again for City Council” by Kshama Sawant from The Stranger   “South King County Sees Alarming Jump in Pedestrian Fatalities” by Andrew Engelson from The Urbanist   “WALeg Wednesday: Saldaña Drops Bill to End Jaywalking” by Ray Dubicki from The Urbanist   “Former Tiny House Village Resident Sues Nonprofit, Alleging Unlawful Eviction” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola “Homelessness Authority, LIHI Clashed Over Reporting of Two Deaths at Tiny House Village” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I am 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. Today, we are 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: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. [00:01:08] Erica Barnett: Hello, hello. [00:01:09] Crystal Fincher: Hello, hello - and welcome back. Always a pleasure to have you and your information and insights. Think today we will start off just talking about the week in the Washington Legislature, now that our legislative session is off and running. What did you see this week? [00:01:28] Erica Barnett: There's a lot going on as always. This is a long session, so there's a lot more policy legislation coming our way. There's a proposal to revive a wealth tax that has moved forward but then floundered in previous sessions - it would be a 1% tax on intangible assets like stocks and bonds - and so we'll see how that goes this year, maybe third time is the charm. Legislation is moving forward to allow sixplexes around the state in areas that are ordinarily or that are traditionally single-family only - that's Jessica Bateman's bill - and that too has been proposed in the past, but it may have a better chance this session because one of the sort of obstructionist legislators, Gerry Pollett, is no longer in charge of the committee that determines whether that bill goes forward. There's a bill that would reduce the limitations on police pursuits. Police say that they, that legislation from - I believe it was either last year or 2021 - limiting the instances in which they can go after somebody in their car to violent crimes and sex crimes is inhibiting their ability to chase what they call criminals - people committing property crimes and things like that. So that proposal is up and it has a lot of support from the right-wing pundit class. And I'm missing a lot of other stuff - there's a bill to lower the blood alcohol limit for driving while intoxicated to 0.05 percent like Utah, which has been really effective in that state in reducing drunk driving deaths and a whole lot more. [00:03:18] Crystal Fincher: I think that's a good start. There's lots of things just getting out of the gate and people trying to figure out what does have the momentum and the support to move forward versus what doesn't. I think another one that I was looking at - in addition to the middle housing bill, which came out with a ton of support in a hearing that it had earlier this week - are also some bills aiming to stabilize rent and to protect people from rent gouging. So looking at capping rent increases between 3 and 7% annually, depending on the rate of inflation. There's lots of conversations about, absolutely, the need to increase housing supply - there's widespread agreement on that, and that certainly is necessary to long-term affordability. In the short-term, things like rent stabilization policies are going to be critical for reducing displacement, evictions, and can make more of a difference in the short-term than increasing the housing supply. So lots of people sometimes have either-or conversations about those. I personally love the opinion that both are necessary and useful. I've talked about before - I've had neighbors with rent increases over 40%, had rent increases personally of over 30%. And that is just completely unaffordable for so many people, and contributing to the amount of unhoused people that we have - so definitely looking at that as another one. There was another bill that just was a cool thing - with Senator Manka Dhingra, who works with students and youth in the area to introduce legislation. And they suggested legislation, which she has introduced now, which seeks to bring equity between pricing for products marketed towards men versus women, and how frequently the same exact product marketed towards women will cost more for no apparent reason. And so a bill trying to address that - I think that was most of it. There was another interesting one this week about an alternative to jail for people experiencing mental health crises. Instead of going to jail - which really doesn't address the root cause - talking about a kind of a 24-hour cooling off center where instead of being an environment that is not helpful at de-escalating or calming situations, that a place that is not jail that can seek to maybe stabilize or calm down a situation to hopefully get a person in a place where they're either stabilized or in a place where they can seek services. It sounds like that is in the beginning stages of conversation - does not have funding attached to it yet, that would be necessary - but those are the things that have been on my radar. [00:06:32] Erica Barnett: That last bill that you mentioned, also from Senator Dhingra - it's based on a similar program in Arizona - and I'm getting this from KUOW's coverage. And it's interesting. I really want to read up more about it because it's a 23-hour hold, essentially. And we have various types of involuntary and voluntary mental health facilities. 23 hours - my immediate response is - what happens after that 23 hours? Do we just release people back to the streets with no care plan? I'm assuming that is not the intent, and I'm assuming that 23 hours actually must come from some limitation in the law. But at the same time as this bill is moving forward, there is a proposal that's going to be on the ballot in April in King County to create crisis care centers where people can just walk in and - voluntarily or be brought there by police, I suppose - to receive crisis care. And it's for a longer period than that 23 hours, so it feels like there is an emphasis right now on trying to get an entire continuum of care for people in crisis. And none of this has passed yet. As you said, the bill in the Legislature does not come with funding. But there is more discussion of this than I've ever seen in the state, and that's really encouraging because right now, primarily what we do is put people in jail when they're experiencing a crisis that is causing a threat or perceived threat to public safety - and that really can be extremely destabilizing for people. [00:08:17] Crystal Fincher: And then you had talked about the vehicle pursuit legislation that is being worked on this week - and really interesting dynamics in between those. There certainly are folks led by a lot of law enforcement organizations who are saying that they're being limited - lots of times we can't chase people, or crime is on the rise because we've been essentially handcuffed from going after "bad guys." Senator Dhingra talked about it - we did an interview with her on Hacks & Wonks and in a Democratic media availability this past week - talked again about there's no data showing a linkage between a rise in crime and the limitations that were placed on police pursuits before. Now they're asking for an expansion of those. It is unclear why that would make a difference according to their logic. One, they actually are still allowed to pursue those most serious cases and have been. We've had several stories over the past few weeks of pursuits that have happened. And this is really a question of is it worth pursuing something, someone - no matter what - if someone stole some Tide detergent, is it worth a high-speed pursuit on residential streets where people are being put at risk and innocent bystanders are frequently harmed and killed in these situations. In fact, in the city of Kent, a police officer was killed during a high-speed chase. These are actually really dangerous events that happen. And there's a real question about - is it worth the loss of life, when frequently if you can identify the person you can find and pick them up - which has happened frequently - after the fact without risking the lives of everybody in the area. So that's going to be an interesting conversation moving forward. Senator Dhingra chairs the Law & Justice Committee and is not eager to bring this up for a hearing, but there are certainly Republican legislators and some Democratic ones who are in favor of expanding the ability to conduct these pursuits. And so that conversation is definitely going to be one that we follow throughout this session. Looking at events this week in the City of Seattle, one notable announcement came earlier this week about a councilmember who is not going to be running again. What was announced? [00:11:06] Erica Barnett: Kshama Sawant - I laugh because this was just so widely covered compared to other councilmembers who are not running - part of a trend of councilmembers on the current council saying that they are not going to seek re-election, but Kshama Sawant will not be running in District 3. She's going to be starting some sort of labor-related organization, and I say that vaguely because there wasn't a whole lot of detail in her announcement about what this group will do, but it's called Workers Strike Back. And what it will not do, apparently, is pursue elected office for its members. Sawant's organization, Socialist Alternative, is a small, Trotskyist offshoot of the socialist parties in America, and it's definitely one of the smallest. And they have not had a lot of success at getting people elected around the country. Sawant was really their shining example of a member who actually made it to elective office and was in there for three terms, for 10 years - one of those terms was a two-year term. And so they're going on and they're saying that they're going to start a workers' movement worldwide, so it remains to be seen what will happen with that. But Sawant will no longer be on the council, and a lot of people are already lining up to try to replace her. [00:12:42] Crystal Fincher: There are. I saw a couple of candidates have declared already, which has also received a lot of coverage. You are right - we got some kind of brief mentions for prior councilmembers, including Lisa Herbold and Alex Pedersen, announcing that they are not running. But there seems to be strong opinions about Councilmember Sawant and therefore strong reactions in both directions - people sad to see someone who has been a fierce and unabashed advocate for issues about workers' rights for a long time. Councilmember - Mayor Harrell also said one thing he never doubted was her fierceness and advocacy. But this is definitely going to be a change on the council, and she has definitely left her mark - coming to office following the $15/hour initiative in the City of SeaTac that was run by a number of unions and advocates and folks. Following that, she ran in the City of Seattle as a dramatic underdog who people didn't really take seriously for almost all of the campaign - running on 15 Now, $15/hour in the City of Seattle - and running successfully, making Seattle one of the first cities - major cities - in the country to pass that minimum wage. And we've seen minimum wages increase across the country since then, with first SeaTac and then Seattle. So really interesting, certainly has been a lightning rod for a lot. So we will see who is going to wind up replacing her and how those campaigns take shape. What do you see as - just how this election season in the City of Seattle, with so many open seats - may unfold? [00:14:52] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I was just doing the math in my mind - because I have to do it every time - and four of the seven seats that are going to be up are definitely going to be open seats. Open seat elections are always more interesting in my mind because you don't have that built-in power of incumbency that sometimes keeps people away, but often we re-elect incumbents. So we'll see what - Andrew Lewis has already said that he is going to be running for re-election in District 1. I believe Tammy Morales will be running for re-election - I would put money on that at this point - not a lot of money, but a little money. And Councilmember Dan Strauss also seems to be showing signs that he will run for a second term up in District 6. So still, with four open seats, that's going to be - that's a number that could swing the tenor of the council if there's any kind of trend in whether those seats swing left or right. But importantly, one thing that happens when you have massive council turnover is you both get a sort of breath of fresh air, but you also lose a lot of institutional knowledge. I think, and I said on Seattle Nice, I think Sawant's actual influence on legislation has been somewhat overstated. She didn't achieve $15/hour in Seattle - that was very much a union effort that she got on board with, and it was a process of collaboration and compromise. Her thing was, as you said, it was 15 Now - just do it now and screw anybody that opposes it. But she also has institutional knowledge and institutional memory, as does Lisa Herbold who's been there for - been in the council milieu in some capacity for 25 years. It's going to be a loss of that kind of institutional knowledge, and I think that that is important when you're a city council going up against a mayor who - and I say going up against because they often clash. Historically, the council and the mayor are often on opposite sides of issues. When you don't have that institutional knowledge of how processes work and how legislation gets done and how the budget gets done, the mayor can roll you over. Bruce Harrell has a lot of experience himself being on the council for a long time, so it'll be interesting to see how that affects the power dynamic between the mayor and the council as well. [00:17:36] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely will be. I'm also interested in something else that we saw this week that flew a little bit under the radar, but definitely was noticed in a number of political circles - which was a public safety online poll that was sent to people via text, several people this week. In fact, so many that it really didn't seem like it was a randomly targeted poll. It looked like someone got a hold of some political lists and sent it out, but what did this poll seek to ask and what was it comprised of? [00:18:10] Erica Barnett: Yeah. Unfortunately, nobody sent me this poll - which if you're listening to this and you want to send me poll information, please do - but from what I gather, it's a push poll designed to elicit the feeling that Seattle is less safe and needs more police. The goal seems to be gauging support for a potential public safety funding initiative at some point in the future. And again, I don't know anything more about the idea behind this initiative, but it would essentially - or at least according to the poll - get the police department up to 1,450 officers within five years. The premise behind this is pretty flawed, which is that all we need is to pour more money into the police department and they will magically be able to hire 500, 600 new officers - when the police department itself has said that's not the issue. Now, they would define the issue as people don't want to be police officers in Seattle because there's insufficient support for police in institutions like the City Council. I would say police departments across the country have had trouble recruiting in the last three years and this is just a sign of that. But the police department has a lot of money - they fund tons of, hundreds of vacant positions every year - and so I don't think a massive increase in their budget is going to have a whole lot of impact because their budget is not really the problem. However you define the problem, it's not that we aren't funding police sufficiently. [00:19:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And this was really interesting - and for those who have listened and who know me, thank you for capturing this poll and sending me all of the screenshots. Just FYI - always do that with polls - take screenshots, send them on over if you get called for a poll, note what it is and all of the questions. Really interesting to see what people are asking, how people are asking. And with polls like this, I would not be surprised to see - obviously someone is thinking about this initiative - but looking at something like this, sometimes we see these announcements or stories in the media which cite numbers from vague polls. And this is not a real poll - this is someone sending around some surveys, very non-scientific, and the questions are almost comically skewed and written here. So it'll be interesting to see if someone uses this to try and signal support for the poll. I would also be interested just in seeing the raw numbers because traditionally, folks in the City of Seattle do not react well - even if this was a scientific poll - so this is going to be really curious to follow, but obviously someone is thinking about running a public safety initiative - really a police hiring initiative, which this really is. And it really does seem to be misguided. If there is one thing the City has definitely been trying to do for the past couple years, it's hire more police officers. How many times have they tried to increase hiring bonuses? They're advertising everywhere. This has been a monthly conversation in the City for, I feel like, two solid straight years - and if money could fix the problem, it would have. But we'll see how this continues to unfold. Another unfortunate bit of news that we have seen reinforced over and over again - but that has been made official - is just the increase in pedestrian fatalities and what kind of impact that is having. Some unfortunate news that we've seen, which has been reinforced repeatedly in news that we've seen, is pedestrian fatalities across the board have been increasing. There's been great coverage in The Urbanist about an alarming jump in pedestrian fatalities in South King County - just, it's really bleak. Really looking at the data put together by the State Department of Transportation - since 2013, the total number of crashes resulting in death or serious injury to pedestrians has climbed from 33 in 2013 to 95 in 2021. And that number continues to increase, and it is really alarming. And looking at the areas that are the most dangerous - Highway 99, also known as International Boulevard or Pacific Highway South, is one of the most dangerous roads for pedestrians in addition to Benson Highway or 104th - these go through several south County cities - but it's basically a high-speed highway in the middle of these cities. I remember they did work related to RapidRide Line A - a revamping of Pacific Highway South and International Boulevard - and unfortunately, one of the features that we saw was that there are long stretches of road with no pedestrian crossings. And mixing that with speeds that are 50 mph in some places is just a recipe for a disaster - when you're forcing people to sometimes take a - choose between walking directly across the street, which would be categorized as jaywalking, or taking a 10 to 15 minute detour to walk down to the nearest light or crossing and then walk all the way back, which is challenging for people with mobility issues - there are a lot of age and the disabled people, there are a number of services and health clinics on these roads. And so predictably, people are going to attempt to cross the road to avoid those really long crossings. To me, this was foreseeable just because of the design in these areas - and just mixing such high speeds in such high traffic pedestrian areas - and so it's unfortunate. These cities have recognized the problem, but some of the solutions that they've presented for the problem have been challenges. In fact, there was coverage of a meeting by Ryan Packer, actually, at the state where some City of Kent officers, at least who've been involved in traffic enforcement, really seemed to almost victim blame in the situation - talking about they would do emphasis patrols to help stop jaywalking, which is a cause of this. I would say that's more predictable impact of design there and people making a choice because sometimes they can't walk that distance. And also characterizing people who are on foot or even on bike as unhoused people or people in poverty, as opposed to lots of people who are commuting. This is a site where several accidents have - several fatalities and crashes that have injured and killed pedestrians have taken place. It's going to be - a new light rail station is in process of being built there. This is a very high traffic area, lots of commuters, it's near a Park and Ride - and so there's a whole cross-section of people, lots of professionals. I used to be frequently on transit as I was commuting to work via Metro in Seattle daily. It's just disappointing to see a lack of recognition of what some of these challenges are. The Urbanist addressed some of these in that article, but it is really, really challenging, and I wish the conversation in terms of solutions and increasing safety would focus more on things that didn't blame the victim or seek to target them, instead of help keep them safer. [00:26:51] Erica Barnett: Yeah. The idea that our roadway problems and our pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are because of individual behavior - it goes both ways, right? There's also an emphasis on people driving too fast, and this report does talk about people going - this report in The Urbanist talks about people going 80, 90 mph - and that is a huge problem and people should not be driving that fast. And two, these roads are designed for that. And the only way that you can make it possible for people to cross the road without "jaywalking" and the only way you can get people to stop speeding - and even driving the speed limit is often more than fast enough to cause fatalities - is you've got to put crosswalks in, you've got to slow down traffic. And the way you do that is through road design. And some of these - you can't necessarily go and narrow a highway - you can, but it's expensive and controversial. You can put in stoplights, you can put in bus lanes, you can do things that slow down the flow of cars - and I would say that it's not just that these things cost money, it's that they cost political will, and they're just - in a lot of these cities, and in the state, and including in Seattle - there is not the political will to do something that will slow down motorists. I remember - I don't live on Rainier anymore, but I lived right on Rainier for many years, or just a couple blocks off it - and I would use the 7 to get everywhere and run errands. And I am somebody who is physically capable of running across the street, and let me tell you - I did not go half a mile in one direction, walk across the approved pedestrian infrastructure, and walk half a mile in the other direction, just because that's what the road was telling me to do. I would run across the road. So people act rationally - and in that situation, it is rational to run across the road and just risk it, because I didn't have time to spend 30 extra minutes crossing a street that traffic engineers had decided was a highway through the middle of a neighborhood. And that causes really risky behavior. And the only solution, and the solution that obviously we haven't taken - because traffic fatalities are going up and not down everywhere - is to change our roads and to inconvenience drivers a little bit in order to save some lives. [00:29:32] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and I do just want to underscore - between 10 and 15 years ago, the conversations about traffic calming in Seattle and hearing pushback, and - Oh my gosh, this is going to change my commute and things are going to take forever, there's a war on cars. And the impact to cars and drivers was really negligible - literally talking about differences of one and two minutes, which can have such a powerful impact on safety and truly save lives. We really do have to ask ourselves the question, Do we really believe cars should be able to just go as fast as possible and have absolute priority in anything that might slow them down? It's bad even if it costs lives and money and so much. Or can we spare a minute? Can we spare two minutes to spare some lives? It really does come down to that, and I wish we would more openly have that conversation - because there are so many people who are walking, and who are riding bikes, who are in proximity to that. And it has to be part of the solution to public safety, people being safe on the roads. I just wish we would be in a different place with that. I do want to definitely talk about some great coverage in PubliCola this week about the Low Income Housing Institute, also known as LIHI, being sued for unlawful eviction. What happened here? [00:31:11] Erica Barnett: This is one of a couple of lawsuits actually that have been filed against LIHI. One was dismissed at the court commissioner level, but this one was just filed this past week by a guy who lived in a tiny house village - actually in Olympia - run by LIHI. And he was kicked out after an altercation with one of the staff. And the lawsuit essentially is asserting that this was an eviction, that LIHI's tiny house villages are housing. This guy lived in the tiny house for more than two years when he was kicked out, and LIHI said - You have to be out within 48 hours, take all your stuff, goodbye. And he did vacate, but he's saying this was not legal, and it was an eviction, and the tiny house was his home. And I think as a matter of law, what is interesting - there's a couple of things that I think are interesting about this case - as a matter of law, LIHI has long been classified, or was long classified - their tiny house villages were classified as encampments. And they got an upgrade during the pandemic - the city, and then eventually the federal government, now considers them enhanced shelter. But what they're saying is that it's essentially transitional housing, and it meets these definitions of transitional housing that were adopted by the State Legislature just a couple years ago. So there's an interesting legal argument there about - once you have four walls, a door that locks - is that everybody who supports LIHI likes to say - is that housing? And does LIHI have more obligations to give notice and to give reasons and to allow people in some cases to rectify whatever is wrong? LIHI says that they are not transitional housing and that if you started defining their tiny houses that way, it would create a situation where every type of enhanced shelter would start looking at the people they take in differently because they wouldn't want to have to keep people around if they were causing a problem in the community. And if you had tenant rights, that would create a situation where people could live there for a long time while continuing to cause problems. So if it goes forward, that would be an interesting legal discussion. And separately, I think that there's been a lot of complaints from residents of the tiny house villages that the conditions there are not always the greatest. One thing that this gentleman who's suing brought up to me was that they have these kind of outdoor kitchens, that he said the nutrition is really bad, there have been times when the washing machines have been broken so they can't wash their clothes, where there's been no hot water for a month on end in this particular village. And so I think there's questions too about the quality of life at tiny house villages. And so those are not really being litigated, but they're being discussed and I think that that will continue to be the case. LIHI is under a microscope with funding from the new King County Regional Homelessness Authority, whose CEO Marc Dones has never been a big supporter of tiny house villages. So I think they are under fire right now, and their CEO Sharon Lee is definitely someone who fights back and you can read my coverage for her comments on that. [00:34:59] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this is an interesting situation. I think it really brings up a lot of issues to a lot of folks that just because someone does not have shelter, if someone is responsible for providing them shelter or housing - and some of these people can be housed for months in tiny home villages - does that mean that they are not entitled to the same kinds of protections that everyone else is entitled to? And it seems like the argument against that is that - Well, this is a more challenging population and if we're going to serve them, providing those kinds of protections is dangerous for us as an organization and maybe we couldn't do it overall. When I think there are a lot of people who would love to talk about, Okay, what are ways that we can ensure that there isn't abuse or exploitation, more dangerous conditions? Just because someone does not have the means to pursue a lot of recourse or is coming from a bad environment, does that mean that we're fine with letting them settle for any old thing and any old treatment? And that is not to say that this is not a challenging and complex issue. Certainly this is a population that because they have been unhoused and out on the streets, they've been made more vulnerable to a host of challenges - whether it's health problems, safety issues, mental health issues, substance use disorder - the things that afflict society at large afflict this population also, and they're at risk for so many other things. And so I just hope we have a conversation that really does start from a place of how can we keep this population as safe as possible? And how do we keep people accountable to ensure that there aren't abuses? I feel like it's a risky place to be to say - If we aren't here, no one's going to be. And so take it or leave it with whatever there is, or not being introspective about how services can be provided in a better, safer, more equitable manner. I know that's what I thought when I first saw the coverage. What kind of reaction are you seeing from people? [00:37:20] Erica Barnett: It's interesting. I think there is a lot of opposition to LIHI right now that I'm seeing in places like Twitter. I did want to say - just to flip your comments a little bit - I've also heard lots of complaints over the years from people who live at encampments but also in tiny house villages, that the environment can also be made unpleasant and challenging by other residents. People talk about - because tiny house villages - many of them are low-barrier and they allow people to use drugs and alcohol. People talk about that creating a bad environment in some tiny house villages. And when you have a population that is largely actively using, it can be really challenging for people who aren't. I don't want to discount the fact that when you are completely low-barrier, that creates challenges in itself - if somebody's trying to stay sober and they're in that environment, for example. But there can be lots of challenges in these communities - they're communities of people who are all struggling with different things. I just wanted to signpost that a little bit. Like I said, I think there's pushback to LIHI right now. It receives a lot of contracts from KCRHA and people are starting to really put a spotlight on them more than on other organizations. My coverage has been pretty factual, I think, so I'm trying not to reflect a bias one way or the other. And people can read into it their own biases and opinions and are doing so. [00:39:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And it'll be interesting to see - I think one of the issues is that this is one provider who is doing so much of this work, and almost has a monopoly on the ability to provide these services. And are there - I certainly don't want to suggest that there are not challenges and that residents may not be, safety issues and sometimes, and thank you for bringing that up. I do think that it would be interesting to see what other similar shelters are doing and if they're in line with this. I do not know if they are in line with what other shelters who provide similar services or other tiny home villages are providing, but I hope that that is being looked at. [00:40:02] Erica Barnett: I will just say - really briefly - compare it to another enhanced shelter, the Navigation Center. Navigation Center kicks people out all the time. We don't necessarily talk about that as much because it's not as high profile. People aren't - the Navigation Center doesn't have an Andrew Lewis on the City Council constantly singing its praises and inviting criticism, but shelters do kick people out. It happens a lot for behavioral issues, so people should not be under the impression that this is uncommon. [00:40:34] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, we will thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, January 20th, 2023. Happy birthday, Terrance. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, co-host of Seattle Nice Podcast, and the author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse and Recovery, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and find me on Twitter @finchfrii with two I's at the end. 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 the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. And if you like us, 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 episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by long-time communications and political strategist and Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, Robert Cruickshank! They cover Governor Inslee's State of the State address, the legislature's responsibility to provide urgently needed resources for public education, plans to address our state's housing crisis in the 2023 legislative session, multiple controversies involving Walgreens, Seattle Public Schools suing social media companies, and why the "refusal" of services by people experiencing homelessness is largely a reflection of those services' inability to meet their needs. Governor Inslee's State of the State address focused on housing and homelessness, following a mandate from voters in last year's elections to solve with progressive reforms. Crystal and Robert discuss how our state's housing crisis is fueling displacement and homelessness, and talk about proposals pending in the legislature that could help. Alongside this, Washington's public education is straining under a lack of funding, and needs more resources to hire essential teachers and public health professionals. Both housing and education could be better solved by the legislature if they enact progressive revenue, such as a wealth tax, to fund new programs and battle a potential revenue shortfall. A debacle occurred over the preservation of a Seattle Walgreens building that's been designated as a landmark. The council reversed a decision last week and significantly limited new construction in order to preserve parts of the building, which will limit the ability to develop the remaining property into much needed housing, and seems misaligned with the city's stated goals of rapidly increasing housing stock and reducing harmful emissions. A Walgreens executive also made news when they had to apologize for overstating the impacts of shoplifting on its stores. Exaggerated crime narratives like these, pushed by candidates and media outlets, were used to undermine progressive reforms in recent elections, even though they were never supported by real data. Returning to education, Seattle Public Schools announced their plan to sue various social media companies for the negative impacts on students' mental health caused by social platforms. While social media has a role to play in our national youth mental health crisis, some students and parents argue the district's resources would be better spent on acquiring more direct mental health support for students. Finally, Crystal and Robert look at some excellent reporting from Tobias Coughlin-Bogue at Real Change News, explaining why services are refused by people experiencing homelessness. Refuting narratives that people living on the streets don't want shelter, the data show that in fact, when offered private, non-congregate shelter and housing, they largely accept it. Congregate shelters that lack privacy and security are often unable to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness, often lacking the ability for people to bring their possessions, partners or pets with them, and are most frequently cited as creating harmful or negative experiences for the people who use them. 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 at @cruickshank.   Resources “Seattle's I-135 Social Housing Initiative with Tye Reed and Camille Gix from the House Our Neighbors Campaign” - Hacks & Wonks   “Gov. Inslee leans into housing and homelessness in 2023 State-of-the-State address” by Dyer Oxley from KUOW   “Washington Should Tax the Rich to Save Our Public Schools” by Robert Cruickshank from The Stranger    “How WA's legislature is addressing the housing crisis in 2023” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   “In Reversal, Council Poised to Preserve Landmarked Drive-Through Walgreen's” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola   “Walgreens executive: "Maybe we cried too much" about shoplifting, thefts” by Herb Scribner & Hope King from Axios   “Seattle Public Schools Sue Social Media Companies for Detrimental Effects on Youth” by Vee Hua from South Seattle Emerald   “Seattle Public Schools sue TikTok, Meta for youth mental health crisis” by Julie Calhoun from KING5   “Service refusal is not a myth, but it is surrounded by them” by Tobias Coughlin-Bogue from Real Change News   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I am 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 get 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, we had a great discussion with Tye Reed and Camille Gix from the House Our Neighbors campaign. Tye and Camille told us about the origins of the campaign, what the I-135 initiative - the Seattle Social Housing Initiative - they're championing accomplishes, and how they plan on getting the votes for the February 14th ballot. Find it in your podcast feed or on our website. Today we are 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 - one of the smartest political minds on the West Coast and today's co-host - Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. [00:01:32] Robert Cruickshank: Oh, Crystal - thank you for having me. I think you're one of the smartest people in Seattle and Washington State politics, so you're the one who deserves the accolades. [00:01:43] Crystal Fincher: I appreciate that, but - decade and counting - you've always been on target. So I think we will start out talking about what the Executive of the State of Washington has laid out as his priorities as we start this legislative session - what he's calling on the Legislature to do and pass and the path that he's setting for the state. What stood out to you about this? [00:02:08] Robert Cruickshank: I think Governor Inslee is going big and bold on homelessness and housing. A $4 billion housing bond to build affordable housing - to help address not just the homelessness crisis but the crisis at the lower end of the housing market - is a big step to take and I think it's the right one to take. We haven't seen the state do anything like this in quite some time, but it's a recognition that for too many decades now, we haven't been building enough housing, haven't been building enough housing of all kinds at all levels. And what that is doing is fueling displacement, fueling gentrification, and fueling homelessness. I think Governor Inslee's taken a look around the country - he could even look just south of the river to Oregon where the politics of housing and homelessness really seemed to threaten Democrats - but Democrats like Karen Bass and Tina Kotek have stepped up and said, No, we're going to lead on this. And I think Inslee's taken a page from that and recognized that that's where he needs to be to do an effective job of governing Washington state. Combined with the legislation we're seeing from Jessica Bateman bringing the missing middle bill back and other things pending in the Legislature, it's shaping up to be a potentially big, big year for finally addressing Washington state's housing crisis, which then feeds homelessness. We'll see what happens in the Legislature - we have, though, in past years seen big proposals get whittled down, but I'm hopeful based on things I'm reading and hearing from legislators that this might actually survive. And obviously it has to go to the ballot - voters have to approve an affordable housing bond in the fall, but polling from Stuart Elway and others shows that it's likely to pass. So it's an exciting start. [00:03:43] Crystal Fincher: It is an exciting start, and it looks like the state is ready for this - both based on the polling and on action that's been taken across the state for quite some time. There's been a question from a lot of people - certainly in the Seattle region and from leaders in our Legislature - wondering, Hey, is the state ready? that we've heard in the past several sessions. And in that time we've seen cities like Spokane, Olympia, Tacoma take action on increasing their housing supply - really looking at increasing middle housing in those cities. It looks like other areas of the state have been more ready and willing to take action than even the Seattle area. So it looks like there's a broad recognition across the state that this is a crisis and that people are expecting action. Another area where bold action was on the agenda is certainly in terms of gun reform and gun laws. Inslee spoke about requiring permits for people having guns, requiring training, and moving forward on a lot of the steps that they've been talking about before - certainly they've taken action - but the call to go further and addressing violence and tragic outcomes from guns is high on his agenda. [00:05:06] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, and I think it's time - in fact a long past time - for the state to finally enact an assault weapons ban. California's had one for decades. Illinois just passed one this week. It's been pending in the Legislature for some time, but it's been Democrats who've been hesitant to act - maybe afraid of how it might play in swing districts - but I think polling has shown pretty consistently the public understands that these weapons should not be in the hands of the general public. Inslee's called for it, Attorney General Bob Ferguson has called for it. This should be finally the year, especially after Democrats did well in an election year that they were not expected to do well in here in Washington state. It should give them the confidence that they can do bold things like this that are also popular. There's no reason to hesitate, but we'll see what happens in the Legislature. Will they get cold feet yet again and fail to pass an assault weapons ban even though it's something the public really, really wants? [00:05:59] Crystal Fincher: It is absolutely something the public really wants. I do wonder what impact events in Oregon are going to have. Certainly they have taken an initiative in moving forward that's been challenged in the courts and is currently going through that process - we'll see if that has an impact here. I did appreciate his broader words on public safety, which were more forward-thinking and more in-line with what the data say is effective in reducing crime - and the acknowledgement that public safety is so much broader and bigger than policing. That behavioral health, that addressing root causes, that addressing poverty is actually critical to the longterm safety and resilience of our communities. In addition to protecting abortion rights - which we'll see how much of a fight Republicans put up against this. This is certainly an area where they did not connect with voters in the November elections that we just saw, but they do still seem willing to push some of that legislation to ban abortion in various ways and to fight against what may be proposed, so that's going to be very interesting to see. What did he have to say about education? [00:07:10] Robert Cruickshank: He had a little bit to say - not a great deal. The governor's budget proposes some money to help recruit and retain teachers - it's part of a larger workforce problem, but there's been a teacher shortage since the late 2010s. He has a little bit of money to spend on special education - I think he's proposing around $150 million statewide for that, which is somewhat helpful. But the need to provide special education services is much greater than the state funds. The state currently caps the amount of money it will give districts for special education funding at 13% of the overall student population. So what that means is - in a district like Seattle, about 15.5% of students receive some sort of special education services. The Legislature says, Sorry, we're only funding up to 13%. It's also an issue in smaller districts - rural districts face this cap as well. It's absurd that the Legislature tells districts we will only pay for a small fraction of the special education services your students might need. And that creates incentives for districts to try to deny services to students. And coming out of a pandemic, it's worse than ever because students bring new mental health issues to schools, there are longstanding special education needs, disabled students who have other issues that weren't getting addressed and are now getting recognized - but their districts don't want to pay for it, so they find ways to not provide the service. And it's really a root problem at the Legislature. So while it's nice that the governor does have a little bit for education, it seems that overall the Democratic leadership in Olympia isn't really taking what is their constitutional paramount duty as seriously as they need to, even as districts across the state - large and small, urban and rural, east and west - are facing a growing number of cuts in the coming years. This was never supposed to happen under the McCleary decision, but it is because the Legislature got away with underfunding schools overall. [00:09:08] Crystal Fincher: And you, in fact, had an op-ed - a column - in The Stranger this week, talking about what needs to happen to save our public schools. What did you go through in that? [00:09:19] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, so the Legislature was sued 15 years ago by a family from Chimacum, which is near Port Townsend. And the McCleary family brought the suit after levies failed and classes were cut, teachers laid off, and saying - This is a denial of our constitutional right to an amply, fully-funded public education. The State Supreme Court agreed - ordered the Legislature to fully fund our schools. The Legislature hemmed and hawed, dragged their feet, eventually held in contempt by the Court. And finally, in 2017, they passed a new education funding system designed to comply with the McCleary decision. But at the time, Senate Republicans were in the majority. And they demanded a solution that relied on the largest state property tax hike in history and that also didn't fully fund schools. And at the time, there were articles quoting the superintendent of Seattle, of Tacoma – this is the summer of 2017 – saying, This is going to underfund special education services, it's going to underfund our ability to retain teachers, it's going to underfund our ability to serve multi-language learners. All of that has happened. And now we're at a point where districts across the state are facing cuts. Seattle - in two years - faces $150 million in deficit. Chimacum, the district that started it all, where the McCleary family is - is running on reserves. They're running about a $1 million/year deficit and they're likely to face cuts next year. I saw on social media this week - a parent in Everett posting that the Everett district sent out a survey to families basically saying, We have to make budget cuts. What is more important to you? Safety and security at schools, your students' mental health, after-school programs, student electives in high school? And it's - this is not what was supposed to happen. You can look at Marysville, just north of Everett, where levies failed twice in 2022 and they had to make $13 million in cuts. The entire point of the McCleary decision was to end reliance on local levies for basic education. That hasn't happened. And last week when the legislators had their preview sessions - meetings with the media - and they would be asked about this, it turns out it was the Republicans who said public education was a big issue for them and that they were going to focus on it. Now their solutions are all terrible - they want to slash taxes, they want to privatize schools, give everyone vouchers - it's a disaster. But at least they recognize there's a problem that they have to respond to. Democratic legislators either didn't mention it at all or did only in passing and saying, We've done a lot of great work over the years, but there may be a little bit here we have to do in 2023. It just struck me and struck others in the media, like Danny Westneat at The Seattle Times, that - where is the Democratic leadership on public education right now, especially going into a year that a biennial budget is written - so the budget over the next two years is written in this session - coming off of a successful election where Democrats did well. They have a mandate. There's a wealth tax that Senator Noel Frame and others have proposed that could go quite a long way in fully funding our public schools. You could even make it large enough - affecting no more than 2,000 taxpayers, for example - that you can fund our public schools better and even have a little bit of a cut in the property tax to your average Washingtonian. This would be sensible to do, but it's unclear if the Democratic majority in Olympia is going to go down that road - that road is wide open for them and it's just mystifying why they're not interested in taking it. [00:12:48] Crystal Fincher: This was highlighted so much by the number of teacher strikes that we have had and them all reinforcing, Hey, we need more funding for special education. We need to address the shortage of teachers, the shortage of staff - even bus drivers are in short supply in many districts. A lot of those frontline workers who are serving our kids in our public schools are being stretched to the point of breaking. And so I certainly hope to see decisive action. And in our battleground districts where a lot of times we hear, Hey, we want to take action on this, but it's going to be pushing too far and we're going to be jeopardizing our members in these districts that are swing districts. And we saw them make the case for the value of public education - funding public education, standing strong with teachers unions - during the campaign and voters agreed and said yes. So the mandate and expectation to take action is absolutely there. [00:13:55] Robert Cruickshank: It is. And there's polling from the Northwest Progressive Institute that shows - taxing the rich to fund public education is popular in every region of the state, and that includes Eastern Washington. You can look at the swing districts in the 42nd in Whatcom County, the 26th district in Pierce and Kitsap counties, and those are just a few examples where taxing the rich to fund our schools is popular. People get it, they like it, they want it. And the Legislature did deliver finally in 2021 by passing a capital gains tax. That's a good start. And it's notable to me that the effort to repeal that fizzled last year when it became very clear to its backers that they would lose if they went to the ballot. So the Legislature has a mandate, they also have the responsibility. I liken the paramount duty clause of the Constitution to someone being given a job description - they start a new position and in big, bold capital letters at the top of that job description says, this is the number one thing you must focus on. For the Legislature, that parallel is a paramount duty clause of the State Constitution that says amply and fully funding public schools is your paramount number one duty. And it's not happening right now. And I support all the other investments they're planning to make - and they're all connected - there are a number of students who are homeless, students whose families experience intermittent housing insecurity, students who have mental health needs, students who have health care needs and their families have health care needs. All this is connected. So we're not saying fund public education at the expense of anything else, but pass a wealth tax that gives us billions of dollars more a year to start funding all these things, including public education. [00:15:37] Crystal Fincher: That's certainly on the docket as our legislative session just began. Is there anything else that you're keeping your eye on as we start the journey through the next hundred days or so of legislation that's hopefully going to impact the state positively? [00:15:52] Robert Cruickshank: I think there's another reason to look closely at a wealth tax - and that is we have to look at the revenue forecasts for the state. Gavin Newsom, down in California earlier this week, announced his budget for the year - $22 billion shortfall due to declines in the stock market. Washington is a little more insulated because we aren't as dependent on stock market revenue, but that is one of the first things that comes back - is revenue from taxes based on the stock market. If there is a recession this year or if unemployment rises - and it's starting to rise with tech layoffs - you start to see spending go down, and that affects sales tax receipts, it affects business and operations tax receipts, and maybe even property taxes. So we'll see what the revenue forecasts show in a couple weeks. If it shows potential deficits, then I think that makes a case for a wealth tax all the more important and all the stronger, because then you have to prevent cuts from happening as well as do these new investments that are still needed. [00:16:51] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Switching gears a little bit - we saw two interesting developments this week - both, oddly, involving Walgreens. One, regarding a preservation debacle in the City of Seattle. What happened here? [00:17:08] Robert Cruickshank: It is a debacle. So there's a drive-through Walgreens on Denny - and I think it's at 6th or 7th, it's not far from the Space Needle - and it is in an old bank building that got landmarked a few years ago, even though it is not that unique. It turns out that almost every city in Washington state, even some smaller ones east of the mountains, have the same exact building dating to the 1950s. It's old, but old doesn't necessarily mean historic or that it's really important to preserve, but the Landmarks Preservation Board said, Yes, this is a landmark. The City Council's then asked to handle the development rights at this property, and last week they voted that - just because it's a landmark doesn't mean we have to prevent new housing from being built here - and they looked poised, at least in committee vote, that they would allow a significant amount of housing to be built here. In the week between last week and the vote this week, things shifted. Councilmember Herbold put out a proposal that would actually significantly limit development here, saying - You can build on the parking lot if you can fit it in there. Most housing builders say, There's no way we're going to fit anything more than a couple stories there. You can't build a tall building, with the ability to have the building be self-supporting physically, on such a small footprint. And so the council suddenly did a 180 and said, Actually, we're going to ensure that most of this property is off-limits to growth and development in housing. Councilmembers Mosqueda and Morales strongly objected and voted against this. Councilmember Lewis tried to play middle ground, as he often does - but I don't know that that worked in practice, and I don't know if that's going to work to satisfy his supporters. And, of course, you have councilmembers like Sara Nelson and Lisa Herbold seeing an opportunity to try to prevent new housing from being built. And that's ultimately what happens - a 7-2 vote to have a very limited ability to build on the parking lot there, which is - not much housing is going to go in this location, even though it is zoned already for tall towers. It's surrounded by tall towers there - Denny and Westlake - and it's a couple blocks from a planned light rail stop for the ST3 line that will go out to Ballard. It's just an absurd situation, all in all. I think the council made the wrong decision, and it also raises serious questions about how the landmarking process works - for something that's actually not really that historic to be given protections - to prevent hundreds of homes from being built and to prevent at least $1.5 million from being put into the affordable housing fund that would have happened if it could be built to its maximum zoning potential. [00:19:56] Crystal Fincher: And conversation about protecting the drive-through - and this is happening while the Council and the City is saying, Hey, we're in a housing crisis. We need to desperately, as quickly as possible, add as many housing units as we can in the City - that's a key element of addressing housing affordability and homelessness. And saying we need to accelerate our pursuit of meeting our climate goals. We are having regional discussions about how we're behind schedule in meeting our 2030 climate goals, and certainly we need to do more to address that. Having more dense housing, reducing - especially in the most metropolitan, urban environments - the necessity of cars. This is also against the backdrop of public safety and a pedestrian and road safety crisis we're in the middle of. And it just seems like preservation in its current iteration and how it's operating is just not aligned with any of those goals. And so it really begs the question - what are we doing here? It doesn't seem to make much sense. These are buildings - I'm in Kent right now, I'm pretty sure Kent literally has five of these buildings. It's hard to find a suburb that doesn't have at least a couple. And so what is special about this, or is this really just a proxy for preventing development? [00:21:37] Robert Cruickshank: Oh, it's a proxy - no doubt. A proxy to prevent development on that site and an opportunity for people who are dead set against new housing from being built in the City - an opportunity for them to try to stop it from happening. You mentioned Kent, you mentioned climate. And one of the reasons we're in a climate crisis is because after World War II, rather than build in urban centers and build more density, we sprawled everywhere. Rather than add more housing in Seattle, we paved all that farmland there in Kent. We cut down all those trees on the hills in Kent. And not just Kent, obviously - all over the Puget Sound region we did this. All over the country, honestly. And so in 1990, the state passed the Growth Management Act designed to stop that from happening, to prevent our forests and farmlands from being destroyed by development. But the trade-off there to protect those places - and we absolutely must protect them - is that we agreed that there would be more density in the cities, and that just has not happened. So this is where I think the conversations we're having this morning are great because we're talking about what's going on at the Legislature and Governor Inslee's proposals, legislation to add missing middle housing, and how that affects cities and why it's necessary because cities keep doing stuff like this. They keep finding ways to prevent sensible housing projects from being built in places that make sense for them to go - it's Mercer Island trying to prevent new housing from coming there, even though they are in the center of the Puget Sound region. We clearly need the state to step in and address this because cities won't. There is a bill that's been proposed in the Legislature this year that would significantly limit the ability of design review boards to mess with housing. There's a notorious example up on the top of Queen Anne where Safeway wanted to build 200 housing units there, and it took years to get through the design review process. They'd come back and say we don't like the color of the brick on the building. It's absurd. Now, historic preservation is important. There are things that have to be protected, right? Everyone agrees protecting Pike Place Market was the right thing to do. But you have to use those sparingly in order to ensure that you still have value in what you're protecting - are you just protecting anything that's old? And to ensure that you're not undermining your other goals, as you mentioned. Historic preservation should go hand-in-hand with solving our climate crisis, with solving our housing crisis - it should not be oppositional. [00:24:00] Crystal Fincher: And speaking of proxy actions, Walgreens also admitted this week that they exaggerated the impact of crime, the hysteria they stoked - saying, Oh, we have to close these locations, we're dealing with challenges, this is really impacting our bottom line, talking about retail theft - they absolutely overstated it. They overstated it to such a degree they had to admit and apologize for overstating it. And it's so insidious because so many stories - to anyone who, to many people who didn't have a financial interest in the criminalization of poverty and telling this story, it was really obvious that that is not the reason why Walgreens is taking these actions - while they're announcing historic revenue and profits - doesn't seem to be impacting the bottom line. In fact, wage theft seems to be a bigger problem in that industry - a much, much bigger problem. But that was the justification used by so many candidates at the local level across the West Coast. And we've seen this here in Washington state and our local cities saying, Look at these businesses saying that they're having such a problem with theft. We need to crack down on it. We need to deploy resources to make sure that they're happy. And we need to act against what the data say is effective for reducing crime and making people more safe, making our community healthier, and just enforce these laws and jail people and hold them accountable. And it turns out it was all fake. [00:25:43] Robert Cruickshank: It was. There is a public safety issue in our country - there has been for a long time, but it's, as you just described, overstated, exaggerated for political effect. And that's problematic in numerous ways, one of which is it's used to - quite deliberately, I believe - in order to undermine more progressive candidates, to support more regressive candidates, whether they're conservative Democrats or Republicans. And it also distorts the way we talk about public safety. It distorts the way we treat public safety. When Walgreens is out there in 2022 saying, Oh, my gosh, we're having a huge shoplifting crisis. Somebody help us - our elected officials are nowhere to be found. That affects the way politics happens, it affects who wins elections, it affects where money gets spent. So for them to come out publicly to acknowledge here in 2023, after the elections are already done - Oh, actually, we were just overstating that. There's a little bit of an issue, but it's not nearly to the degree we were saying it is. It's just clear that this is being manipulated for political effect. I think one of the places it was manipulated most effectively and successfully was in New York. And one of the reasons Republicans now control the House by just a few votes is because New York Democrats got hammered on public safety and crime, even though, as it turns out - New York - a lot of it was just hype. And when you have corporations hyping public safety for political purposes, it's just hugely problematic because it makes it so much more difficult to actually address things that people need, to actually address the root causes of public safety issues. [00:27:15] Crystal Fincher: I also have to call out the media's role in this whole situation, and the seeming willingness to just dictate without any question what comes from people whose job titles start with, C's. The CEO says public - they're having a problem, and then we see headlines across the city and all of these papers saying that, Oh, crime is an issue. And others seemingly catching on - Hey, we can blame this. We can blame anything on crime. We saw Starbucks union bust basically - attempt to union bust - saying, Crime is an issue. We're going to shut down this store. It so happens that the stores that they're shutting down are the ones that are unionized - unless unionization just attracts this special kind of crime, which it does not. This is just a cover. But the lack of curiosity, the lack of interrogation, the lack of attention to data from many in media, and just repeating and parroting what they're saying without really examining the truth of these claims is a problem that needs to improve moving forward. [00:28:26] Robert Cruickshank: It is and there's not any accountability for that when it happens. When The Seattle Times or KOMO have these breathless headlines or TV broadcasts that talk about a huge wave of crime in Seattle and turns out - well, actually it's not that huge, and actually crime's been going down for a while, and the other disruption of a pandemic - things got a little out of hand for a bit because everything was disrupted, there are ways to solve this without panicking. No one's going to - there's not going to be any accountability or change - you're not going to have editors at The Seattle Times or ownership at KOMO look at themselves in the mirror and think, Gosh, we got this wrong - mea culpa, we're sorry - here's how we're going to do better going forward. They're just going to keep finding new ways to exaggerate issues in order to attack their political opponents. [00:29:12] Crystal Fincher: And it's sad. We even saw The New York Times basically acknowledge that there was a problem, without acknowledging their direct role in that problem, in the litany of headlines that occurred during that election talking about how much of a problem crime was - although it turns out New York is safer than most small towns. We hear a lot of this talk, especially from the right side of the aisle and right wing forces, saying, Oh, it's this - everything is really dangerous in Democrat-run cities and these large cities are really horrible. And literally the exact opposite is true. [00:29:49] Robert Cruickshank: Here's how it plays out in The New York Times - they're so busy covering a supposed crime wave that doesn't actually exist, that they're missing actual law breaking from a Republican candidate like George Santos. His opponent - his Democratic opponent - tried to draw attention to what appeared to be a litany of lies from this candidate, tried to get The New York Times to cover it, and they wouldn't. So you have a guy who's now in Congress - and people in Congress are thinking, How do we get this inveterate liar out of our ranks? There's a way you could have prevented this from happening, but The New York Times was more interested in spinning up a story about crime than they were about really investigating a really shady candidate for office. [00:30:29] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We will continue to pay attention to what they say. We - at the time - certainly talked about how those claims were dubious and we'll continue to call that out. We also saw this week an interesting development in Seattle Public Schools, which is a suit that they're bringing against social media companies. What is this suit about? [00:30:52] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, this is interesting. It came out of the blue to a lot of us who are parents, even those of us who follow the district closely. They announced a lawsuit against TikTok, Facebook, Google - which runs YouTube - for the way in which their social media apps, in their words, are undermining the mental health of students. And they're not wrong about that. That is an issue that many people have observed over the years. Social media is structured in a way that it preys upon fears and concerns in kids, the way that the algorithms work are designed to get kids hooked, the way that they get them hooked are appealing to their most base instincts, getting kids to fight with each other on social media. There are problems here. But the reaction from parents and especially from students at SPS is one of kind of dismissiveness towards this lawsuit. The leaders of the Seattle Student Union have been quoted in media saying, Yeah, there are problems with social media for sure, but where is the mental health support that we need from our schools? They have been arguing for months and had a walkout in late 2022 over the issue of a lack of mental health counselors in schools. The Legislature still does not fund mental health counselors at every school - they don't even fund a nurse at every school. The Seattle Student Union asked for $9 million to be spent to hire more mental health counselors. The City of Seattle stepped in and said, Well, we'll add $4 million. The district says we just don't have any money, which you have to question where the district spending priorities are. And so what you're seeing the students say - I've heard this from parents as well - and I think they have a really good point, is that the school district seems to be blaming the tech companies and not looking at what the district can do itself to help solve this. Parents even point out that in elementary grades on student computers, you can still access YouTube in the classroom - just without any filters or restrictions. So while I do believe that there is an issue here with the way the tech companies operate, I think social media does harm kids - the district has a point in this lawsuit. They might well lose it because it's not going to be very difficult for the social media companies themselves to point to the fact the district isn't doing all it needs to do, or all it could do, to address student mental health needs. [00:33:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And that seems to be the most confounding part of it to me is that in a district that is saying it has limited resources - in fact, does not have the resources available to adequately provide mental health services for students, which has been well-documented and well-talked about at all levels - that a lawsuit, although valid, is the most effective expenditure here. These are expensive and you're going against some of the deepest pockets in the world. This is at minimum going to be a very long and protracted legal battle. And I just don't know that spending this money on a lawsuit versus spending it on actually helping these students with these issues that - while they may include social media, certainly go far beyond social media - and that they can take direct steps to address. It just seems very questionable and I'm really curious to see how they arrived at this being the solution they're going for. [00:34:12] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, I wonder as well. And the district in Seattle sent out an email to families this week saying, We're not spending district money on it. It'll only be funded - the attorney's fees will be paid out of a settlement or a victory. But that doesn't really answer the question of what happens if we don't win. What happens if, for example, the district wins in lower court and these companies appeal all the way to a Supreme Court? So I find the district's claims that public money isn't going to be spent on this very skeptical and very - it's hard to believe. I saw the Kent School District join the suit, so clearly districts are talking to each other. And again, there is an issue here. But it's hard to see the districts doing this with a serious intent to address student mental health needs when there's so many other things they could be doing, such as funding more counselors, and they're not. [00:35:07] Crystal Fincher: I hope to learn more about the deliberation process here. Maybe there's something that I'm not seeing - that's certainly possible. But without that information, this seems questionable. I also want to talk about a very good article this week from Real Change - really diving into the issue of service refusals by the unhoused community. We've certainly talked before on the program - and this has been a big topic of discussion overall - that a lot of times when they're talking about encampments and saying, We need to clear this. And you hear in the reporting, We made offers of service to people that were refused. Therefore, they just decided not to do that. They don't want services and evidently they want to be outside, and this is the life they want to live, and we just can't have in this area - so we're completely justified in sweeping them. We tried to help and they refused. And the truth is much more complicated than that - and really examining how appropriate, how effective, how valid is the help that they're looking at. What did you see from this? [00:36:19] Robert Cruickshank: It's a fascinating article. And what it showed is that people who are currently living out on the streets - whether it's in a tent, in an RV - they want private shelter. They want a tiny house. They want a room in a hotel. Ultimately, of course, they want housing - stable, permanent housing. The congregate shelters where they're like dormitories, cots on a floor - that model exists but it's unsafe for a lot of people. They don't feel safe there. People are concerned that their possessions will get stolen. A lot of these congregate shelters have rules preventing people bringing their possessions or their pets in. They can't go in with a partner. So what the article showed is that when the offer of shelter was made for a tiny house, it was over 60% uptake. People said, Yes, I will take a tiny house. When it was a cot on a floor in a congregate shelter, the rates of refusal went up. And that's not because people are refusing services. People who are living on the streets are normal human beings and I think the discourse often, especially coming from the right, neglects that point. Normal human beings who want privacy, who want to feel safe in the place where they sleep at night, who find a tent or an RV to be safer than some of the conditions they experience in congregate shelters. So what this suggests is that - whether it's at the city level, the regional level, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, or the state level, and this is something that hopefully the governor's bond would address - you need short-term and permanent private housing. Private in the sense - not privately owned - but private where someone feels that that room is their own, that they are secure where they're sleeping at night, there's a roof over their head and a lock on the door. And I think that that is the direction we need to be heading in. We need to spend more on things like tiny houses, but those are always intended to be transitional. We put someone in a tiny house so that we get them off the streets where it's still not safe, where they're still subject to exposure to conditions, whether it's cold or smoke in the summer - cold in the winter, smoke in the summer. And then we also need to really get serious about building more housing. It just comes back to the conversation we had at the top of the show. Housing is essential. It's the root of almost everything. But that article showed that if you approach folks who are unhoused and treat them like normal human beings - which they are - people who want dignity, privacy, and security, which all of us want, you can get folks into shelter if - assuming you've provided it. And this shows that contrary to what the right-wingers claim, the problem isn't with people refusing. It's our government isn't providing shelter. [00:39:10] Crystal Fincher: This has been a problem that's repeatedly been talked about and that people who've been unhoused have been saying for quite some time. In the article, it talks about it boiling down to the three P's - being able to bring your pets, your partners, and your possessions. And when you think about it, of course it does. Of course it does. It also talks about how many people have had negative, harmful, traumatic experiences in congregate shelter for the same reasons that you or I would be hesitant about spending a night in a room full of people we don't know, who are dealing with a wide variety of their own challenges, leaving people who you are relying on to keep you safe. With a variety of things that are a danger to your life and health, having that community to rely on is key to survival. And if you have to give up everything you own or put it at risk of being stolen, which has happened quite a bit in congregate shelters, that's going to give you pause for doing that. For the offer of shelter - for sometimes one night - that you have to be in by a certain time, be out at 7 AM in many of these situations. And it just is not there to meet the need. This congregate shelter model - while a lot of people have been well-meaning, while people operating them are certainly doing good jobs, which - this can fill a gap when there's absolutely nothing else available, when we need hazardous weather or conditions shelter. But for a reliable, effective option, we have to have non-congregate options available to where - you said - people can lock the door, can feel secure and safe. And because of moving to this model and being forced to move to this model sometimes during the pandemic, we were able to get a lot of data that showed, Hey, people stabilize much more effectively when they can feel safe, feel secure - have that baseline - to then start addressing their other problems. If people don't feel safe and secure, that just can't happen. And of course it can't - that's common sense. So I hope that we move towards models that have a chance of working and that serve the population that we're attempting to address. [00:41:43] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, and it comes down to providing housing. There's a new book that is out that's called Homelessness is a Housing Problem. There's a recognition growing, finally, that homelessness is caused by and will only be solved by providing more housing. And not just temporary shelter, not just a tiny house - although tiny houses are great. It has to be permanent housing. This comes back to everything we've been talking about today - the need for housing. And Seattle has another opportunity - you mentioned at the top of the show Initiative 135 - that comes up, we'll be getting ballots in the mail shortly asking Seattleites to vote to create the opportunity to build more social housing. And we need all these different types of housing in our community. Our failure to build stuff like this over the last decades is the reason why we have a homelessness crisis. Acting quickly to fund it and build it is the way we get out of it for good. [00:42:38] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, January 13th, 2022. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today is the Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruikshank. Thanks so much for joining us and sharing your wisdom today. [00:43:00] Robert Cruickshank: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure to talk with you about everything that's going on in our community. It's always a great conversation. [00:43:06] Crystal Fincher: You can find Robert on Twitter @cruickshank. That's C-R-U-I-C-K S-H-A-N-K. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. And you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii - that's F-I-N-C-H F-R-I-I. 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 our full versions of the 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 podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Three city council members — Debora Juarez, Lisa Herbold and Alex Pedersen — have said they won't run for re-election this fall. That means about half of the seats up for election will be wide open, setting up some big changes for the council and the city. PubliCola editor Erica C Barnett will tell us about the departures and what they could mean for this fall's election.We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/seattlenowAnd we want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram at SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback online: https://www.kuow.org/feedback

Note: In light of the growing body of news and evidence that the King County Jail is dangerous and ineffective at improving safety, the Hacks & Wonks team decided to re-air this illuminating episode about the harm that jail and the current bail system causes our community.   On this Hacks & Wonks midweek show, Chanel Rhymes, Director of Advocacy at the Northwest Community Bail Fund, joins Crystal Fincher to discuss our desperate need for bail reform. The NCBF is dedicated to ending cash bail and pretrial detention in Washington state. They do advocacy for reform, court watching to hold the system accountable, and they raise funds to provide bail for people who can't afford it on their own. Chanel explains the difficulties that jailing people prior to a conviction causes for people before they're even convicted of a crime, and dispels criticisms of bail funds as being dangerous for the community, rather than being a correction against systemic inequality. Crystal and Chanel also breakdown recent data on bail reform that shows that bail reform and eliminating pretrial detention for misdemeanors actually reduces crime in the long run, and doesn't negatively impact whether people show up to court. You can find information on the Northwest Community Bail Fund and resources for its court watching program in the links below. Chanel Rhymes Chanel Rhymes is the Director of Advocacy for the Northwest Community Bail Fund. Prior to joining the Northwest Community Bail fund, Chanel served as the Court Program Analyst for the Washington Supreme Court Minority and Justice Commission, executing the mission of ensuring that all courts in the state of Washington remain free of bias so that justice might be adjudicated in a neutral and fair manner. Previously, she was a Program Manager for the Freedom Education Project of Puget Sound where she developed and coordinated college courses for women seeking to attain their AA degrees while incarcerated at the Washington Correction Center for Women.   Chanel has worked with the Council of State Governments Justice Center, supporting their work on national criminal justice reform. She also has legislative experience as a Political Field Organizer and as a Legislative Liaison for the Washington Student Association, where she lobbied for the interests of students in higher education around issues of affordability, administration transparency, and accessibility. Chnel was raised in Tacoma, Washington, and received her BA from Evergreen State College with a focus in Law and Government Policy. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal, on Twitter at @finchfrii, find the Northwest Community Bail Fund on Twitter at @NWCBailFund.   Resources Northwest Community Bail Fund website   NCBF - Court Watch Resources and sign-up   “The Effects of Misdemeanor Bail Reform” from Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice   “No More Police: A Case for Abolition” by Mariame Kaba & Andrea J. Ritchie   Washington state court's Criminal Rule 3.2   “A Seattle man began the night in crisis. Then, a sudden death in restraint” by Sydney Brownstone and Greg Kim from The Seattle Times   “In a Sign of Worsening Conditions, Understaffed King County Jail Has Lacked Water for a Week” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Public Defenders Union Joins Jail Guards' Call to Address COVID Crisis” by Paul Kiefer from PubliCola   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher and I'm a political consultant and your host. On the 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. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm very excited about this show, where we get to talk with Chanel Rhymes, who is the director of advocacy at Northwest Community Bail Fund. Thank you so much for joining us. [00:00:51] Chanel Rhymes: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. [00:00:54] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you on. Have been a follower of the organization for quite some time. Obviously, this has been a topic across the country, and really globally. We're behind a lot of the globe on this. But in our country, a topic especially in the past few years, and looking at just what we're doing in terms of our criminal legal system, all of the challenges within it, and what can be done to make our communities more safe, keep our communities more safe, and really move towards a world and communities where we meet basic needs and we don't choose punishment over healing injustice. So I guess starting out, can you tell me just what the Northwest Community Bail Fund is and does, and what brought you to this work? [00:01:46] Chanel Rhymes: The Northwest Community Bail Fund is a nonprofit organization. We post bail for those during pre-trial detention. A lot of folks cannot afford to access the services of a bail bond agency, whether they don't have the means or collateral, so we are here to fill in those gaps. Ultimately we would hope to see an end to pre-trial detention and cash bail, but, because we know that is gonna take time, in the meantime we work to reduce harm. So we post bail as well as just, make sure that the community is not harmed and folks can fight their cases from a position of freedom, which they're entitled to through the constitution and the Washington state constitution. [00:02:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. [00:02:34] Chanel Rhymes: I myself came to this work in- I've been doing criminal justice reform work for a long- or, excuse me, criminal punishment reform work, for a long time. I, myself, am formally incarcerated. I am very passionate about those that have done their time and served their time be- the opportunity to go back into society and be a contributing member. I personally believe, though, that we need to stop trying to fix things after and start things from the beginning. Kind of like the, the babies in the river. I'm not gonna keep taking the babies out. I'd rather let's not put the babies in. So I'm trying to, we, myself and our organization, is trying to work to so that folks are just not incarcerated. And a lot of times folks are incarcerated just because of not having means. [00:03:25] Crystal Fincher: And this is such an important conversation. One, just as we talk about right now, we're sitting here in the midst of a crisis as defined by our public defenders, staff at jails. We had a historic letter earlier this year where both public defenders and corrections officers are saying, "hey, we can't handle the population here at the King County jail. It's unsafe. It's beyond what we can tolerate." And I don't think a lot of people realize that a lot of people who are in jail have not been convicted of anything. This is a pre-trial detention. They've not been sentenced. They're not serving a crime. They've not been found guilty of anything. It is simply because of a financial reason that they are sitting in jail and all of the challenges that, that presents. What does it mean and what kind of challenges does it pose when we detain people before their trials? [00:04:25] Chanel Rhymes: Oh, plethora. You could risk losing your housing. You can lose your children, custody of your children. You can lose your employment. And with all that comes, a rippling effect of other things, whether that be financial instability, just the trauma itself of going to jail. A lot of people that, say "lock them up," or "they just need to go to jail," never seen the inside of a jail. It's one of the most horrific places. On top of, with us being in a pandemic, you could potentially die, ultimately, from sitting in jail because there are still COVID outbreaks in jails every week. And so ultimately you could lose your life for something you haven't even been convicted of yet. And that's no way to bake it. That's not the way our system is designed. It's not supposed to be set up that way. Or at least they say that. [00:05:24] Crystal Fincher: At least they say that. It is certainly not what we've been sold. And so it's such a challenge. It is very destabilizing. And even in the case that someone does wind up pleading guilty or serving time, we're relying on them having the means to pay whatever fines they're going to be charged to do all that. And so if they don't have a job, if they have lost, as a result of being detained, all of the ability to fulfill the terms of whatever punishment they've been handed, that's a challenge in and of itself. And the bottom line is, a lot of people think putting people in jail makes us safer. If we didn't have this, they would be out committing crimes. And every now and then there's a case that gets publicized where they say, see, look, this is- bail reform caused this. Is that the case? [00:06:24] Chanel Rhymes: It's not the case. Number one, judges decide what bail is. Number two folks have a constitutional right to bail. The purpose of bail - and our Washington Supreme Court has said this - the state is not in the primary interest of collecting bail bond forfeitures. It is more concerned with folks showing up to court. That is what the purpose is. That, whether somebody is released or not, does not make us safer. There are tons of people who are arrested for violent crimes and don't spend a day in jail because they have the means to bail themselves out. Where are the folks asking about them? I think it's very interesting that bail reform and, nonprofits, people who don't make money off of this business, are the ones under the microscope, but yet bail bond agencies make millions of dollars every day bailing people out that sometimes do go on to commit new crimes. We don't hear about those in the news. We only hear about the less fortunate, which is those folks that are coming to a community bail fund or, mutual aid fund, and it's because we demonize poverty in this society. And it's just bizarre to me, in a sense, that we've gotten to this point. As if folks don't understand that wages have been stagnant for 40 years. The cost of living is going up. People can't make it can't survive. And so putting them in jail, and then if they are convicted or plead guilty just to get out, they now have a criminal conviction. So then that creates barriers to getting employment. And the other thing that you need, housing, that is the first, one of the major things that disqualifies most folks for housing, is a criminal conviction. So if we're also criminalizing homelessness, locking people up, then convicting them, and then they get out and they can't rent anywhere, and then we're like, "why are you homeless?" We are just creating this cycle and it's really a cycle of abuse. [00:08:38] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and one really has to ask is the offense that people really are in jail for whatever they've been accused of, or is it just that they're poor and can't afford bail? And even just the issue of bail overall, for some reason, we have landed in a place where we think that a dollar amount is indicative of whether or not someone is in danger or is safe regardless of what they have been accused of, regardless of what kind of flight risk someone may be deemed to be. Hey, if you have enough money to, if you're rich, and and you can pay for whatever, it really doesn't matter. You're not gonna be in jail. And, we have seen several examples of people who are, just a small misdemeanor accusation which, often can result in dropped charges overall for lack of evidence, for just not being worth it to pursue in the system, yet they have been in jail and have experienced, like you talked about, the loss of job, the loss of housing, and that being destabilizing. And in fact that increasing the chance that someone is likely to be involved in their criminal legal system in the future, as opposed to if they were able to maintain their connections in community. And then also on the back end, just about everyone we're sending into jail is going to come out on the other end. So don't we have an interest in making sure that we are doing all we can to set people up for success and to not drop them into another pit, which it seems this just sets up people to do. What do you tell people when they're like, "it's there to make sure they come back and if they don't have bail, then they won't come back. So bail is necessary and if they can't afford it, then you know, they could just leave and never come back anyway?" what do you tell people who just say bail is necessary to get people to show up? [00:10:48] Chanel Rhymes: They can find us anywhere. The world we live in now, if they wanna find you, they really can find you. But, ultimately, most people do wanna get this resolved. Nobody wants this hanging over their head. A lot of times people don't show up, not on purpose. People, don't FTA, or Failure to Appear, on purpose. Life happens. There's life circumstance. Also, too, people wanna get it taken care of because they probably didn't do it. People aren't really decking and dodging. I will add though that even if we have a lot of folks saying people they need to go to jail or they need to do this, a misdemeanor? It's max fine, like 90 days in jail. So I think too, people have a misconception of what our punishments, our sentencing structure is, and the difference between jail and the difference between prison, and misdemeanors, gross misdemeanors, and felonies. Even with our gross misdemeanor, the max jail time is a year, up to a year, but after that, okay, they serve their time, they're back out, what are we going to do to help folks? What I tell people is how is this solving anything? Why would you want your tax dollars just to be wasted to keep doing this? And wouldn't you want your tax dollars to be used to help people. So they're not back in this situation? The amount of money that we spend on criminal punishment and police is just ridiculous when you compare it to what we spend on education. So if we really wanted to make changes, we would be investing our money in education, healthcare, mental healthcare, reproductive rights, all of those things. Never in our 40 years of plus doing this whole drug war or anything, have cops, police, arrest helped make us any safer or do any type of harm reduction. There's tons of studies out there that show when you reinvest that many within the community and provide people's services, recidivism goes down. I think it's odd that we just keep having to have this conversation over and over again, because we obviously know what's not working, but we are very, afraid to try what some people or some municipalities and governments have done that work. [00:13:11] Crystal: Well. And it feels like, for people who've looked into this, for the people who are the loudest on this issue on either side, they do know what the data says. They do know that the evidence shows conclusively, repeatedly - there was just a new study that came out and reiterated this just last month - that bail reform, not relying on bail and releasing people pre-trial, not subjecting them to all of the harms that result from that, doesn't hurt people appearing in court over people who have been detained, doesn't hurt their likelihood of committing a crime again, over people who have been in bail. So there is actually no advantage safety-wise. There's no advantage in the court system. It's not, "hey, a lot of people were failing to appear - weren't failing to appear - now they are with bail reform. It is actually the opposite. This is working to keep people safer. This is working to help people show up and we are not contending with how expensive this is to us as a society financially and in terms of just our safety and our health within the community. My goodness, courts are expensive to run and administer. Prisons and jails are so expensive to run and administer. All of the staff, all of everything required to do that is so costly. We're sitting here talking about upcoming budget shortfalls here in, the city of Seattle, throughout the state in different cities, yet when you look at the city's budget, such a huge percentage of it and their county's budget, such a huge percentage is dedicated to locking people up. And especially pre-trial, what benefit are we getting out of it? Why do you think people are so resistant to saying, "wow. Number one, we aren't getting the results that we want from our current system. It would actually save us money that we could invest in areas that we all know need it." Yet, lots of people still aren't there. Why do you think that is? [00:15:22] Chanel Rhymes: Because people are being misinformed, and fear-mongered by their local news and reporters, who I'm shocked at the things that they write and put out. And it's clear that a lot of reporters locally here have no clue about criminal law or criminal procedure. They are flat out lying to the public. And so then folks see that on TV, they read it in their newspapers, they read it online and they think that the sky is falling. Everything is super dangerous. I also think poverty is a lot more visible now. So people, their senses seem to think "oh, it's bad, it's more." And it's no, just more people are hurting and you're seeing it more. It's not hidden. It's coming into your neighborhoods. I truly believe it's miseducation, misinformation, and 30 years of watching Law and Order that people think they know the system and how things work. I blame our media to be quite honest, because they're just not being truthful. And most of the information that, it seems to me, that they're getting are coming either straight from prosecutors or straight from police. They are refusing to talk to anybody from the other side. [00:16:42] Crystal Fincher: And even, not from either, quote unquote side, there are actual experts on crime. They're called criminologists. We have lots of them at our wonderful universities, research universities here in the area, who are able to speak on what the evidence and research shows is and is not effective and useful and working in terms of keeping people safe, keeping people from committing crimes. And over again, they are coming up with data that says detaining people pre-trial just because they cannot afford to get out of jail does not keep us safer. Does not do anything to help our system to help reduce crime. It just doesn't do that. In fact if it had, if it has, any effect, it's the opposite effect. It actually makes outcomes worse. It makes people more likely to do that because they have been made more unstable and put in a more precarious position because of that. So if you were to talk to a lot of the local media, what would you advise that they do? [00:17:53] Chanel Rhymes: Educate themselves on the way that criminal law, that criminal procedure, works before just going with conjecture and their feelings and how they feel. There are laws, there are court rules, reasons why things are done. Ultimately too, the fact that they're saying, "okay, so we're holding people because they can't afford it." If they were so dangerous, no bail would be set. Obviously, a bail has been set, so that judge has deemed them safe enough to go back into the community once they pay that money. So you can't have it both ways either, it's completely they're there because they're a danger or is it really they're there because they can't afford it? Because if they were such a danger, then why is there a dollar amount that they could pay that says they're not dangerous? It just doesn't make any sense. I mean the argument of it makes us safer- it just doesn't. And I just think we've just been recycling the same thing over and over again. And then also, too, people, the internet, your phone, every social media, people are getting lots of just different images and things like things are horrible. "Seattle is dying, oh my gosh, they've closed my Starbucks." And it's really like people are homeless and hungry and that's, what's really- The fact that too, we are still within a pandemic and we have a lot of people in charge that want folks to just keep on going just out. "No, everything's fine." people are still financially hurting. We also hear a lot about, I'll just say that, media's writing a lot about retail. Nobody writes about wage theft. More money is stolen in wages than it is in deodorant. What does that tell you? I'm reading a police report and somebody is charged with stealing body wash, deodorant, razors. They're trying to survive. Those are essential items. Like we need to look at that. Like what services can we get that person so they don't have to steal the basic needs just to be a human and live in this society? [00:20:12] Crystal Fincher: I'm with you, I'm with you. So as we look moving forward, right now, you and Northwest Community Bail Fund are filling in this gap in our current system. Obviously there's a lot of changes that would be more effective if we made them. In terms of bail, what is it that you would like to see changed about our current system? Would you like to move to a system where judges just make the decision as they have in some other localities across the country? "Hey we're not really doing bail. We are making the determination about whether we feel this person is a flight risk or a threat to society. And if yes, we're detaining them and if, no, we're not." And throwing the idea of bail out the window in lieu of that? Or something different? What would you like to see in terms of bail in the system we're in? [00:21:10] Chanel Rhymes: There should be no bail. There should be no pre-trial detention. Folks are innocent until proven guilty. There's no reason for anybody to be caged. That's what they are, is caged. Before they have been convicted by a judge or jury of their peers. They've just been accused. We should be moving completely away from that. I would say, even just to start, we could have judges actually, follow court rule 3.2, which says you need to use the least restrictive means to release people. So that would be a start. We do court watching in courts around the area, particularly Seattle Municipal Court. We watch arraignment hearings. We, we take, track, demographic data, race, perceived age, age, date of birth. But we also track if court rule 3.2 is brought up by judges, by the prosecutor, or by the defense. And we recently had our data analyzed and it was only 13% in all of the cases that we had listened to that it was brought up. That's a very low number for a court rule to not even be mentioned during arraignment. And that has to do with whether folks are, public safety issue or, the means to pay to get out. So I think one, first thing is if y'all going, institute these rules and create these policies, you should follow them first. You're not even following your own policies, so can you accurately say if it's working or not? I don't think so, but ultimately it's a no. I'm an abolitionist. Get rid of them all. I just got my no more police book. I just started on that. This, it's not working. All we're doing is harming people and it's not sustainable and it costs too much. We could be investing those dollars in so many other ways that would actually give us a better return on investment because all we're doing is churning out more debt, ultimately, because if they can't get a job, they can't get housed, we're still gonna end up having to pay for it another way. [00:23:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. We're paying for it no matter what, just depends on whether it's an investment that's gonna yield a return later on. If we're dealing in, education and health and mental health and behavioral health support and treatment that do yield benefits for our entire community or whether we are dealing in the aftermath of pain and harm and paying to keep people in prison and incarcerated, which is just so terribly expensive and costly financially, and to our community, to that person, to the community, to everyone involved. What would you say to the people who- Obviously we always hear examples of violent crimes, horrible crimes, some horrible crimes happen that should never happen. And they see what someone has been accused of. They hear evidence against them and they're like, "that person is not safe on the street." And say, "we're afraid of what can happen. That they're a danger to society and based on what they've done, they should be detained." What do you say to people in that circumstance? [00:24:50] Chanel Rhymes: You have no proof that evidence is actually evidence that is true, or that can convict him. People are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, not public opinion. There's a process that you go through during criminal procedure where the judge gets to decide what evidence gets to come in and what doesn't. We don't just get to decide oh, that's true. That piece of evidence that the reporters said right there is true. Also, we all know police lie all the time. We're just gonna take the word of police because that's who most reporters are getting their information from, they're just reading it from police reports and statements or their, communications officer or whoever it may be. So how is it that untrained people in law, just the regular general public would be able to determine who's safe and who's not? I also think if a judge has set bail, who are you to say that, better than that judge about the case? I don't understand that. Either we believe in these systems and y'all want these systems to do their job, or y'all just want to do it out in the public. Are we going back to that? Where we just doing the public, in the public square, and then everybody we decide how things go? No. To me, it's just bizarre that somebody be like this is what happened. You really don't know that's just what it was reported. People have to be convicted in a court, not in public opinion, it's just not the way it works. [00:26:24] Crystal Fincher: Which is true. And once again, this most recent study in Houston, which backs up prior studies, under consent decree where more people had to be released within 24 hours of a misdemeanor arrest, there was a 6% decrease in new prosecutions over the three years that followed that they followed those defendants. They said, "okay, everybody's saying we need to see whether or not people, are really gonna show up. We need to see whether you letting people out is really going to, make things safer as these people claim, let's follow these defendants. Let's follow these people." Over a period of years, not even beyond, not even stopping at, okay this one case, their current case was adjudicated, whatever happened, they went beyond. Eliminating bail, taking that out as a factor, releasing them and not detaining them simply because they can't afford bail, resulted in a decrease over the existing system. Meaning that locking people up made it more likely that someone was going to commit a crime again. Made it more likely that things would be less safe in our community. I'm for what makes people more. We talk about all of these things. A lot of it is punishment related. And I think in so many of these conversations, we have to decide whether we are going to prioritize punishing people or whether we're gonna prioritize keeping our community safe, because they really are at odds. And punishment is not working for us, any of us, and it's really expensive. It is so harmful to the person involved, it's harmful to the community and it's so costly. And we talk about funding for jails. We talk about funding for police. There is only a certain amount of money in the whole bucket. So if we're giving more to one area, we're taking it from somewhere else or preventing it from being invested in somewhere else. And I'm sure everyone listening to this thinks, "hey, we need, we do need more behavioral health support. We do need more substance use disorder. Treatment and accessibility and availability. We do need to make sure people have access to these things without having to be involved in the criminal legal system to get clean or to get healthy." And so it's just such an important issue and I thank you for just being vocal about this. For helping people in this organization and doing something that is making our community safer. Really appreciate it. If people want to learn more or to get involved or donate to the Northwest Community Bail Fund, how can they do that? [00:29:11] Chanel Rhymes: You can go to our website, which is N-W- C-O-M-B-A-I-L-F-U-N-D.org So nwcombailfund.org. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram. I'm so grateful to have this conversation with you and inviting me on to talk about the organization that I dearly love, and we truly do wanna make our community safer and we wanna stop harming folks. [00:29:42] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Wanna stop harming folks. One thing that I do have to mention: I saw a report that you produced, and I feel like this was last year at some time now. You're not only doing this work, but you are, as an organization, being accountable, being transparent about the activity that's going on. You are showing results for what you're doing in a way that goes be above and beyond a number of others that I've seen. I appreciate that transparency in this organization. And then also wanted to mention, you brought up your court watching, also, earlier, which is such a useful and valuable tool. And just enlightening and informative because, to your point, lots of people don't know what happens in court. People have very limited experience, maybe someone contests a parking ticket or a speeding ticket or something. Lots of people have never stepped foot in one. And so have this idea from TV shows what it's like. It's nothing like what on TV shows. And so I sincerely appreciate that too. We're gonna link those court watching resources in the show notes, also for people to be able to access and follow. [00:31:05] Chanel Rhymes: Thank you. That is also available on our website, we're always looking for more court Watchers. We really need folks to go in person to courts. Seattle Municipal Court and Tacoma Municipal Court offer virtual courts so people can actually court watch from the comfort of their own home. If you're interested in court watching with us, please go to our website and fill out an interest form. [00:31:25] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for all of your information today, for what you do. It's been a pleasure to have you on Chanel. [00:31:31] Chanel Rhymes: Thank you. [00:31:32] Crystal Fincher: Thank you all for listening to Hacks and Wonks. The Producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler, our Assistant Producer is Shannon Cheng, and our Post-Production Assistant is Bryce Cannatelli. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks, and you can follow me at @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 & Wonks into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe, to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered right 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 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.

For this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, Crystal is joined by returning co-host: Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! The show starts with yesterday's acquittal verdict of embattled Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer whose trial followed familiar narratives of an officer fearing for their life, leading to a disappointing but unsurprising outcome. The release of Governor Inslee's proposed budget hints at Democratic priorities in the upcoming legislative session such as housing affordability, expansion of mental health services, and education. Meanwhile, with Washington state on track to hit a 25-year high in traffic deaths, Crystal and Erica discuss the need to address road design and a possible lowering of the legal blood alcohol content (BAC) level for meaningful improvements in road user safety. Finally, the two talk about the decisions of Seattle City Councilmembers Debora Juarez and Lisa Herbold to not run for re-election as well as a recent King County auditor report showing insufficient data collection by county diversion programs and plans for a 2023 assessment of the traditional criminal legal system for comparison. 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, Erica C. Barnett, at @ericacbarnett. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Jury acquits Sheriff Troyer of false reporting in case involving newspaper carrier” by Jared Brown from The News Tribune   “Ed Troyer beat the rap, but can Pierce County's sheriff outrun the mistrust he's sown?” by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   “Housing, homelessness, and behavioral health: Here are some of Inslee's 2023 budget priorities” by Shauna Sowersby from The News Tribune   “Washington traffic deaths on track to hit 25-year high” by Christine Clarridge from Axios   “The Urbanist's Ryan Packer Discusses Worsening Traffic Safety Crisis on KUOW” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Seattle City Council President Debora Juarez won't seek reelection” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   “Seattle Councilmember Lisa Herbold will not run for reelection in 2023” by Dyer Oxley & David Hyde from KUOW   “King County jail diversion programs not collecting enough data” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I am 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 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 cohost: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, cohost of the Seattle Nice podcast and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. [00:01:00] Erica Barnett: Thanks, Crystal. [00:01:02] Crystal Fincher: There are a number of things we can cover this week. We will start off with big news in Pierce County about Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer, who was acquitted on misdemeanor charges of false reporting related to an incident he had with a Black newspaper carrier in Tacoma. What happened here? [00:01:22] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I think you've probably been following this even more closely than I am - living close to, slightly closer to Pierce County than I do. But I - from the coverage I've read, Troyer was acquitted of false reporting in a situation where he had a confrontation with a mail carrier. Troyer is white. The mail carrier was Black - sorry, a newspaper carrier. And the confrontation led to - Troyer at one point called in police, something like 40 cop cars showed up - endangering this newspaper carrier. And he was later charged with false reporting - he claimed that he was threatened by this guy and that he was in fear for his life, gave a lot of conflicting testimony about this over the interceding months. There is body camera footage that indicated that his story was not exactly accurate. The police reports also conflicted with his claim that he was in mortal danger. And yet, a six-person jury - all men, mostly white - decided that he was not guilty of this offensive false reporting. And so he is now claiming that he was vindicated. [00:02:49] Crystal Fincher: I was not surprised to see Sheriff Troyer characterize this as a complete vindication and justification, that this was a political witch hunt against him by liberals - who hate police, as he would characterize that. I don't agree with that sentiment. But I do - I did see that there were a number of red flags in the beginning of the trial as I was watching it, just as a Black woman who pays attention to these things and who has seen these situations unfold - about the types of motions that were granted and not, the type of evidence that was allowed to be shared that the jury was able to hear and that the jury was not able to hear. Certainly in these situations, we as the public are privy to a lot more information, sometimes, than the jurors are. And so it was clear that we were going to get more information about the mail carrier's background, issues or incidences that may have happened before - even though he was basically the victim in this scenario. And we were not going to hear a number of things about the background and certain elements about Sheriff Troyer. And in those situations, we have so frequently seen those wind up in acquittals of law enforcement officers who are on trial - this is an area that we have notoriously had difficulty with. It's exceedingly rare - still - to see police charged in situations that look like they're worthy of charges. These were misdemeanor charges, they were not felony charges - and so we will see how this is. But some things that are not in dispute - Ed Troyer is currently on the Brady list of officers who are known to have been dishonest before, and that information needs to be disclosed and can color whether or not those law enforcement officers can testify in court or not, or have their testimony doubted because of prior propensity towards being a liar being shown. So from a layman's perspective, this definitely seems like an unjust result where there are known inconsistencies - he said that his life was threatened when he made that call, which of course - a response to a Black man - that's asking for a violent outcome in today's world and the incidences that we see. So it's just a challenge, and it just is always disappointing, even if not surprising. And just underscores that it is challenging to hold people accountable equally in our society - especially those who hold more power, have more money, or are in law enforcement. [00:05:41] Erica Barnett: Yeah - in the trial, Troyer's attorney kept referring to him as "a great man" and there was clearly this - or at least once referred to him as "a great man" - but portrayed him as this incredible, upstanding citizen who's protecting the people of Pierce County. And I think there was just this narrative of - how could this white sheriff have done such a thing? That's just impossible - look at him. And definitely playing into the sort of veneration of law enforcement and particularly white law enforcement. Again, I also can't speak to the jury's state of mind, but all those tropes came into play during this trial. And I think were probably very effective at convincing the jury that he could not have been guilty of the things that he was accused of - and seemed quite guilty of, in my opinion, reading the coverage. [00:06:40] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, there are some things that are not in dispute and that evidence has shown. He did say that his life was threatened when he did initially call in. And he says - I called the non-emergency number, then the other number. He knows the non-emergency number, he can call that - it still was with the goal of eliciting a response. And then did not repeat that, did not say that was the case when officers did come onto the scene. And that there were just inconsistencies in the story throughout, which even if that is aside from the level - from the issue of guilt or innocence under what the jury can consider in these circumstances, technically in that situation - it goes to how honest is a sheriff? How honest is law enforcement? And the one thing that I haven't seen talked about in this is - so we saw the sheriff deputy who took the report, which did contradict what - or which Ed Troyer ended up contradicting and saying that he didn't say some things that were in the report. What's the status of that deputy? Is that deputy in fear of reprisal, as we've seen in several other departments where people who do speak against their superiors or even their fellow law enforcement officers - have been ostracized, have been assigned to desk duty, less than ideal assignments, have in some situations not received appropriate backup, or been placed in harmful situations, or been allowed to be in harmful situations. So I do wonder what things are like within that department right now and what the conversations are about the deputies who contradicted what Ed Troyer said. [00:08:27] Erica Barnett: Yeah, that's a great question. [00:08:29] Crystal Fincher: That's concerning. So we will continue to see what is happening in the aftermath of this trial and continue to follow this as we see what happens. Now, we are in December - the legislative session is starting in less than a month and Governor Inslee released his proposed budget, which gives an idea of at least what he is focusing on, perhaps what Democratic leadership in the Legislature - and they have majorities - so what they're focusing on is likely to either pass or dominate conversation in the session. What did we see as Inslee's priorities in the budget? [00:09:12] Erica Barnett: I think the biggest priority is this proposal to raise $4 billion over the next six years to increase the housing supply across the state. Now that would require a statewide referendum because - although it wouldn't raise taxes, it would basically allow the state to issue more debt - and so statewide voters would have to approve that. $4 billion over six years - that's a lot of money, it's probably not up to the need - so we're talking about thousands of units of housing rather than tens or hundreds of thousands. But that's the big highlight. He also has proposed expanding Western State Hospital to 350 more beds, which would essentially open up a new facility for Washington state residents in crisis. So that remains to be seen - how that will, how that proposal will go, or whether there'll be controversy over expanding a large mental health facility that has had some problems in the past. And there's some climate commitment goals, of course - spending money out of the Climate Commitment Act, that recently passed. And again, as usual, Inslee is focusing on things like clean energy and electric vehicles - not so much on reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled or doing things to get people out of those cars, electric or otherwise. And that's been a consistency theme with him that he's been criticized for by transportation advocates, who say that the only way that we can meet our climate goals is to stop driving so much and stop letting our communities sprawl out into the hinterlands and the forests. So I think that may also be a source of discussion this session. Are you hearing about anything else, Crystal? [00:11:21] Crystal Fincher: I think I'm hearing a number of things that are consistent with what you're saying - a lot under the housing umbrella - certainly what you talked about are the headlines, some other action related to that. But there does seem to be a recognition that action is necessary to address the housing affordability crisis that we have across the state. A lot of times Seattle makes headlines for how expensive it is - and it certainly does appear to be one of the most expensive places in the state, certainly throughout King County. There are a few that top the list in the state. But also what happens in Seattle and in the major metropolitan areas impacts every city - impacts the suburbs and even rural areas - and impacts housing prices there. And so we've seen housing prices steadily creep up in suburban areas throughout the state where lots of people have traditionally looked to to find affordable housing. There are lots of areas that are no longer affordable for people who make an average income. And it actually looks like in the majority of areas, it's very challenging to find housing that an average income earner can find affordable, in addition to all of the other expenses in life - and so it is a concern. Education is another area where there has been a lot of talk and consideration of need. We saw a number of teacher strikes earlier in the year, leading into the beginning of the school year, where they talked about special education funding and special education programs - in particular - being at the top of this crisis. In addition to staffing concerns in several areas - definitely within special education, but also just generally in teachers and in transportation for school districts, which has forced a number of school districts to enact less than ideal bell times, school start times, or transportation schedules because of shortages of drivers. So I think that certainly from an advocate's point of view and from some legislators, they were trying to highlight that. And there does seem like there is some inclination to address some of the funding, but whether it will make a meaningful dent - or if there's enough support among Democrats in the Legislature to take this action - we will see. But I think that's going to be another area that gets a lot of attention. [00:13:53] Erica Barnett: I think too - just to jump back to housing and homelessness for one second, I think that the King County Regional Homelessness Authority is really going to be looking to the state for funding because the city and county didn't really up their funding this year. And so there's an open question of how much of that $4 billion might trickle down to - not only housing in King County, but housing specifically for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness in King County. And that remains an open question because we haven't seen all the details of this proposal yet. But I think that is something that King County is really going to be looking towards. And sometimes that money comes with strings attached - as we saw in the last legislative session, when the county got something like $49 million, $45 million for homelessness, or the King County Regional Authority did. But it has to go toward removing encampments, or rather resolving encampments and moving people indoors from highway overpasses owned by the state. So it'll be interesting to see how the local agency negotiates with the state over this money. And of course, it's not a given that it's going to pass because it does have to have voter approval. [00:15:06] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And then there's another item in the news that may also be related to action in the Legislature. And that was news that Washington traffic deaths this year are set to hit a 25-year high. How did you react to this? [00:15:25] Erica Barnett: Sadly, I wasn't terribly surprised. I think that we have a Vision Zero goal in the City of Seattle and there are Vision Zero goals in cities and counties and states all over the country - and that Vision Zero means zero traffic deaths or serious injuries by, I believe, 2030. We're obviously not at all on track and we've been headed in the wrong direction for a really long time. And so sadly, I wasn't surprised. I think that the pandemic - obviously, people started driving a little more recklessly because it was easier to do so with fewer people on the streets. But, I think this goes back to what I was saying about Inslee and his climate priorities. A lot of times the reasons for these fatalities when we do, we look at individual driver behavior and that is important - people are driving drunk more, there's just a lot of people speeding, and speeding in school zones. But that behavior always, or often, relates to the design of the road. And in this state, we have unfortunately - and in the City of Seattle and other cities, too - we don't really look at road design enough and we don't slow down the roads. It's meaningless to say the speed limit in Seattle is 25 mph on all arterials when you have these wide streets that make it very, very easy to go twice that or three times that. We're continuing to widen highways, we're continuing to widen roads that - we're building a giant highway on the waterfront here in Seattle. And so I think unless there's meaningful change to actually force people through design to slow down, we're going to continue seeing this trajectory, unfortunately. And just real briefly, I will mention - on the blood, on the alcohol-related deaths, which I believe Axios reported that those are also up dramatically. There is legislation being proposed this year that would lower the maximum blood alcohol level to 0.05, which is what they did in Utah - and that does have a direct correlation to lower traffic deaths. It happened when everybody - when all the states, for the most part, lowered it to 0.08, which is what we have now. So that can also make a difference. [00:17:54] Crystal Fincher: I hope - yeah, I hope it does. It looks like some other states are also inclined to move in that direction. You had mentioned earlier, before we started recording, that when many states lowered the blood alcohol level to 0.08, that traffic fatalities dropped at that time. So it goes to - it hopefully should follow that further lowering that blood alcohol level should also continue to decrease traffic fatalities due to alcohol - and just the reality overall that drinking and driving just don't mix at all. I think that there is the impression that buzzed driving is fine - there certainly have been media campaigns about buzzed driving is drunk driving. But it doesn't seem like that has really penetrated into the wide public. And, we have bars that let people drive home immediately after consuming however many drinks that they have. I've always thought - okay, well bars have parking lots - that just goes to follow that people are going to be driving after drinking and that seems suboptimal. And often thinking of that in context of the hysteria in enacting a lot of marijuana legislation - that we don't seem to treat that as consistently as we should. But it will be interesting to see how this follows. I also was not surprised to see the level of deaths in car accidents - in accidents with cars - being this high. And Ryan Packer with The Urbanist has reported for quite some time - and they also have a Patreon - but just the steady drumbeat of dismemberment and injury in their reporting on Twitter that I see come down my timeline - it feels like daily they are covering another pedestrian that has been hit by a car, someone on a bus that's been hit by a car. The frequency of it is just jarring. And sometimes, you see numbers on a paper and - but just the daily reminder of - oh, there's an emergency response and the details, getting the details of that response - this was a pedestrian being hit by a car in this place in Seattle. And it does seem to take place in some areas in Seattle more frequently than others. And it does seem like we need to intervene in road design. There was a video that was circulating online earlier this week of a car driving in a protected bike lane, meaning that they were on the other side of a barrier that - it seems like it should have been clear that you should not be driving on the other side of a barrier. The road markings would not have made sense in that situation that they were driving over - but the car was just driving down that - behind a bike. And it's things like that - to your point of road design has a lot to do with it. Lots of people are asking why were there not bollards that would actually prevent a vehicle from being able to access this area in that situation. But I do think that we need to pay a lot more attention to that at all levels of government. And I would love to see that being prioritized more. I know we're due to get a report in the City of Seattle from Mayor Harrell - I think it was in one of his executive orders, or something that I was reading the other day - that either in Q1 or Q2 of 2023, there's going to be a report on how the City of Seattle has adhered and progressed with the Vision Zero plan that they have enacted. So it'll be really interesting to see their evaluation of that and what the recommendations are moving forward to help improve pedestrian safety - in the City of Seattle, and also applying that to the rest of the state. [00:21:53] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I just flashback to Jenny Durkan, the previous mayor, unveiling with great fanfare - 25 mph signs on Rainier Avenue South, which remains one of the two deadliest streets in Seattle, despite this sort of nominal decrease that's supposed to make everybody start going slower. I do think penalties also are important - there are lots of problems with charging fines and penalties to people who don't, of lower income. But that said, something like a DUI, for example, is really, really not just stigmatizing, but actually it screws up your life. People don't want to get a DUI. And so it actually does provide a disincentive for people to drive drunk - the fact that a DUI is going to ruin your life for a while. And I think speeding - same thing. Speeding has become something that is very easy to get away with, particularly with less emphasis on traffic enforcement - things like that. So we've got to find a way - some combination of better road design and disincentivizing some of these poor behaviors and dangerous behaviors that actually put lives at risk to - beyond just saying, oh now the speed limit is 15 mph. Who cares if everybody's driving 50? [00:23:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. So we also got news this week - in Seattle - specific news about councilmembers, some councilmembers not running for re-election. As we head into these 2023 municipal elections where the councilmembers are going to be up, some of them said - a couple of them said - I've had enough. Who did we see say that they're going to be bowing out? [00:23:47] Erica Barnett: Debora Juarez, who represents North Seattle in District 5, has said - I would say all along since she was elected again - that she was not going to run again. So she mentioned very casually in a council meeting that - this is my last term. And that turned into a bunch of stories, but that was a pretty expected one. The one that was a little more surprising was down in District 1, West Seattle - sorry, wait, is that right? Yes, District 1. Wow. You would think that after all this time, I would know all the districts. In West Seattle, Lisa Herbold is not running for re-election after two terms. And she said that she was frustrated to see Pete Holmes being defeated after he was opposed by the far left and the far right, in Seattle terms. And so we ended up actually electing Republican Ann Davison as City Attorney. And she said - I don't want that to happen to me - essentially citing some reporting that she was going to be "primaried" from the left and just feeling concerned that she didn't want to go through that, and kind of felt like she had done what she came to do. And so now that seat's going to be up - and could be more. There's, of course, rumors that Kshama Sawant is not going to run again in the 3rd District, and haven't been able to pin down anybody else on their plans. But all seven seats are going to be up - all seven districted seats. So I think it's going to be a really lively election year. [00:25:30] Crystal Fincher: I also think it's going to be a really lively election year. We've already seen some people announce in some districts - or at least one announcement, I think, and talk of others who may be announcing. It'll be curious to see. I thought that the explanation from Lisa Herbold was a little odd and confusing. I think maybe - just from the political perspective - Pete Holmes didn't lose actually because he was a moderate. Pete Holmes lost because he ran a horrible, horrible campaign. [00:26:01] Erica Barnett: Well, he didn't campaign - that was the problem. [00:26:04] Crystal Fincher: He didn't campaign until the last minute. He took - looks like he took - it for granted. What the actual - I don't know what was in his mind or anything, but did not campaign, seemed to think that it was an automatic thing until the very end. And then gave some really odd and counter-productive interviews for his purposes. And he lost his race. I wouldn't necessarily say that he was beaten or if he would have campaigned like most incumbents do, that he would have lost there. So I don't know that the fear of that was actually founded. It wasn't like some mystical force came in and swept him out. He lost that race on his own. But I would say that I understand feeling like - I've done what I could do, the time is done. And feeling like maybe it's not that rewarding of a job in some circumstances - it's not easy to stand in front of the public and to hear some of the vitriol, to receive the threats that they receive. And they do receive threats and scary things happen. So I get not being excited to run again for re-election, but it'll be interesting to see how this all unfolds. The final thing that we'll talk about is just another thing in King County - and a story that King County jail diversion programs are not collecting enough data, which is just really curious to me - because this has been a conversation certainly in the City of Seattle, as the City has signaled both wanting to move forward with alternatives to traditional police responses, some that are more appropriate for people who may be unhoused or experiencing behavioral health crises. And evaluating programs that engage in those practices very tightly, but not evaluating the things that we're currently doing - like how does it actually compare to the traditional police response? It seems like we want to collect data on what everyone else is doing, but we get real skittish about collecting data when it comes to traditional police responses from police departments, or results from people who have been jailed or incarcerated. How did you read this? [00:28:24] Erica Barnett: Look, I am all in favor, actually, of more data. And I do think these are outside programs that the County funds, but the County does fund them. And so I actually - I think it's great to collect data on whether these programs are working. Now, I'm not sure that recidivism should be the only thing that we are measuring, and I hope that they will measure some other types of outcomes that are perhaps more meaningful, like outcomes that sort of measure a person's wellbeing. But I also completely agree that - if data is good, data should be good for everything. And so County Executive Dow Constantine has said that he also wants an assessment of the traditional legal system - I think that that is great. I think that needs to happen because we spend a lot more money on that system than we do on any of these diversion programs, individually or collectively. So I think that in terms of what gets covered and what gets attention, the idea that - oh my God, we're not following whether these diversion programs work is always going to get a lot of press. And perhaps other programs like jail-related programs, maybe things like Drug Court - I'm just pulling that out, so it's possible that has been assessed more than I am aware of - but just some of the traditional legal options should be submitted to the same scrutiny and should be getting the same kind of media coverage as these diversion programs because a lot of them are pretty small. And I will note in that auditor's report, it did note that some programs have been assessed and have been shown to be pretty effective, like the LEAD program, which is constantly getting called out - this last budget cycle, both the County Council and the City Council said, oh, we need to assess LEAD to see what does it do and does it really work? And it's actually a program that's been probably assessed more than any other diversion program in the system. So we also need to say at some point - hey, look, we assessed this program, it works really well - let's put money into these things that work well and not just constantly be raising doubts about the very concept of diversion, which I think unfortunately some of the coverage of this audit has done, by not also focusing on these other aspects of the legal system that we don't really scrutinize. [00:30:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Completely agree with that. I think, to your point, more data is good - uniform data, consistent data is good - so you can actually compare apples to apples, and you understand the similarities or the differences in the populations that are being served and the outcomes in those specific bands of populations, and that you can compare them to each other. I think what everyone wants as the goal here is a safer community and more effective programs to help that happen. And so the more that we can find out about what that is, the better. We do ourselves such a disservice to leave out, to your point, what we do spend the most on, allocate the most resources to - in those programs that are usually already operating under a government umbrella, whether it's law enforcement, or courts, the jails - and getting good information there. So I hope that we do see consistent and uniform data collected as a general practice across the board at all levels of these programs in and without, because we are seeing data from throughout the country - from people who are experts like criminologists saying - that things like just strict incarceration don't actually get the job done. So the more that we can figure out what does create a safer outcome, what does reduce people's - what does reduce their likelihood of committing another crime, of victimizing someone else - we don't want that to happen. I think everyone wants fewer people to be victimized. I was reviewing articles from throughout the year and saw one characterization in something that's - moderates want to be safer, but progressives want reform. And it was just - how horrible and inaccurate is that framing? I don't know anyone who is pro-crime. I think everyone wants to get safer. And certainly we hear a lot about punitive solutions - just lock them up and enforce things versus others. I think that we all do ourselves a favor and we all increase the likelihood of becoming safer if we do evaluate everything across the board with the ultimate goal of what does actually result in fewer people being victimized. So hopefully this conversation continues in a positive way, that we do see that those programs that have been scrutinized frequently like LEAD with good results continue to get support, and others that do not result in fewer people being victimized don't. And we can shift those resources to things that do make us safe. And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, December 16th, 2022. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of Publicola, co-host of the Seattle Nice Podcast, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett - that's if Twitter lasts for a while, we'll see what happens with that - and on PubliCola. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii. 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. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in these podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

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.

With Election Day looming and ballots due in a few days, this week's show is a Ballot-In-Review! Crystal is joined by perennial favorite Mike McGinn along with the rest of the Hacks & Wonks team - Bryce Cannatelli and Shannon Cheng - to discuss the recent political climate, break down the context of down-ballot races and why your vote matters. Listen in as the crew opens their ballots and thinks their way through the important choices in front of them. 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 ballot party attendees: Mike McGinn at @mayormcginn, Bryce Cannatelli at @inascenttweets, and Shannon Cheng at @drbestturtle. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Time Stamps Washington State Advisory Votes - 05:57 King County Charter Amendment 1 and Proposition 1 -  08:25 Federal Races - 16:54 Washington Congressional Races - 18:00 Secretary of State - 32:00 Washington State Legislature Races - 33:13 LD26 - 33:27 LD47 - 35:30 LD42 - 36:57 LD30 - 38:09 LD44 - 38:22 LD46 - 38:55 LD36 - 39:45 LD37 - 39:56 LD34 - 41:05 King County Prosecuting Attorney - 41:32 City of Seattle Municipal Court - 52:40  City of Seattle Proposition Nos. 1A and 1B - 1:01:48   Reminders Don't forget to vote! Visit votewa.gov for voting resources.   Institute for a Democratic Future 2023 applications are live! The initial deadline is November 2nd, and the final deadline is November 13th.   Learn more about how to get involved in Seattle's budget season at this link and about King County's budget timeline here.   Student debt relief sign-ups are live! Visit this link to enroll.   Resources  Washington State Advisory Votes:  “Tim Eyman's legacy of advisory votes on taxes hits WA ballots again” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times King County Charter Amendment 1 and Proposition 1: “King County considers moving most elections to even years” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   King County Proposition No. 1 - Conservation Futures Levy Washington Congressional Races: “Congressional candidate Joe Kent wants to rewrite history of Jan. 6 attack” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   Straight Talk bonus round: Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Joe Kent from KGW News   “Rep. Schrier, challenger Matt Larkin clash in debate over who's extreme” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times Secretary of State: Hacks & Wonks Interview - Julie Anderson, Candidate for Washington Secretary of State   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Steve Hobbs, Candidate for Washington Secretary of State   Hacks & Wonks - Secretary of State audiograms - Addressing Democratic criticism of Julie Anderson   Hacks & Wonks - Secretary of State audiograms - Thoughts on Ranked Choice Voting   Hacks & Wonks - Secretary of State audiograms - Experience to manage the broad portfolio of the SoS office Washington State Legislature Races: LD26 - “New ad highlights Washington candidate's past behavior against staffers” by Shauna Sowersby from The News Tribune   Sign up to volunteer for Emily Randall's campaign here on her website.   LD47 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Claudia Kauffman, Candidate for 47th LD State Senator   “Boyce, Kauffman vie for WA senate in swing district with Kent, Auburn” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times   LD42 - “Sefzik-Shewmake forum highlights abortion, health care” by Ralph Schwartz from Cascadia Daily News   LD44 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - April Berg, Candidate for 44th LD State Representative   LD46 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Darya Farivar, Candidate for 46th LD State Representative   LD36 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Jeff Manson, Candidate for 36th LD State Representative   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Julia Reed, Candidate for 36th LD State Representative   LD37 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Emijah Smith, Candidate for 37th LD State Representative   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Chipalo Street, Candidate for 37th LD State Representative   South Seattle Emerald 37th LD Candidate Forum   LD34 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Emily Alvarado, Candidate for 34th LD State Representative   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Leah Griffin, Candidate for 34th LD State Representative   Hacks & Wonks Elections 2022 Resource Page King County Prosecuting Attorney: "PubliCola Questions: King County Prosecuting Attorney Candidate Leesa Manion" by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   "PubiCola Questions: King County Prosecuting Attorney Candidate Jim Ferrell" by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   "Leesa Manion, Jim Ferrell tied in the 2022 contest for King County Prosecuting Attorney" by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate   "Leesa Manion Holds Razor-Thin Lead in King County Prosecutor Race, NPI Poll Finds" by Douglas Trumm from The Urbanist Washington Supreme Court: Hacks & Wonks Interview - Washington Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Washington Supreme Court Justice G. Helen Whitener City of Seattle Municipal Court: Hacks & Wonks City of Seattle Municipal Court Judge Candidate Forum   "Defense Attorneys Say Harsh Sentencing Decision Reveals Judge's Bias" by Will Casey from The Stranger City of Seattle Proposition Nos. 1A and 1B: City of Seattle - Proposition Nos. 1A and 1B   Ranked Choice Voting vs. Approval Voting from FairVote   The Stranger - City of Seattle Propositions Nos. 1A and 1B   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I am Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant - a busy one - 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 are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host - and we're adding a little twist. So first, we want to 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 popular Mike McGinn. Welcome back. [00:01:03] Mike McGinn: Not quite popular enough - Crystal - you have to acknowledge that, but I think we need to go to the other guests on the show today. [00:01:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so we're coming with you with a full Hacks & Wonks crew today. We have the incredible Bryce Cannatelli, who coordinates everything with the show and holds it down. Pleased to have her with us today. Hey, Bryce. [00:01:29] Bryce Cannatelli: Hey, Crystal. [00:01:30] Crystal Fincher: And we have Dr. Shannon Cheng, who is here to enlighten us also with her wisdom and insight, along with Bryce. Hey, Shannon. [00:01:39] Shannon Cheng: Hey, Crystal - super excited to be here. [00:01:42] Crystal Fincher: You could probably hear the sarcasm in that - but this is going to be fun. We are having a Hacks & Wonks little ballot party - we thought it may be helpful - because we talk about several things on the ballot, we talk about several races. But a lot of times we open up the ballot and there are things on there that we haven't seen, haven't heard of, and are trying to figure out. So we thought we would all just open up the ballots, go through them together - some of us in this call are later-voting people because we like receiving all of the voter communication until the last minute, so we haven't turned them in - but we encourage everyone to turn in their ballots as soon as possible. As we go through this ballot, we will add timestamps and let you know when we discuss the different areas of the ballot. So if you have a particular question about a particular area, you can just go to that portion in the show and figure out that, because we actually have taken some time to discuss what is in this ballot and on this ballot. So good luck. Make sure you get your ballot in. If you can't find it, if something happens to it, if you have questions, votewa.gov, V-O-T-E-W-A.gov is a resource. Or hey, just @ the show @HacksWonks to reply to us and we will try and chase down any answers to questions that you have. So vote, make sure everyone you know votes. This is really important and a lot is at stake locally and nationally. And what we do locally is going to dictate what happens nationally. And with that, I will give a few reminders today. And yeah, number one is vote. Don't forget to vote. The election - Election Day is Tuesday, November 8th. You can go to votewa.gov, that's V-O-T-E-W-A.gov to get all of the information about voting. If something has gone haywire, if you can't find your ballot, if you're not sure what you need to do, if you need information about accessible voting, or if you need to figure out about how to register to vote - which you still can do in person if you haven't registered to vote or changed your address or anything like that - go to votewa.gov and you can get all that figured out. Also, the Institute for a Democratic Future is accepting applications for this coming year's new class. The deadline is November 13th and so make sure to get those in there. I've talked about this before on the show, the Institute for a Democratic Future is great for people who lean left and who want to learn about making a difference in their community, who want to learn about politics and policy, or potentially even having a career - it's responsible for my career in politics. So if you want to learn more about that, feel free to hit me up or visit the website, which we'll link in the show notes. Also, it is budget season around the state - and including in Seattle - and so we're going to include resources for the Seattle budget process as well as King County in our show notes, so stay tuned with that and make sure that you get involved in making your priorities and needs known to your elected officials who are allocating money for the next year or two there. Student debt relief - signing up is happening now. Don't forget to do that. Don't wait to do that. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. And Daylight Savings Time ends this Sunday at 2 a.m. We're falling an hour back. We're moving into darkness in dismay and it's a very sad time for some of us here at Hacks & Wonks who like the extra sunshine in the evening. So here we go into the dark months of winter. [00:05:31] Mike McGinn: But Hacks & Wonks will be on every week to bring some sunshine into your life. [00:05:37] Crystal Fincher: We will try. We will try. [00:05:40] Mike McGinn: Stay tuned in on a regular basis. Yeah. [00:05:43] Crystal Fincher: So let's open up our ballots, crew. Let's see what we have here and start to talk through - for those of you who still have to vote - some things that may be useful, helpful. So the first things we see on this ballot that we've opened up are Advisory Votes. Man, these Advisory Votes on every freaking ballot. We have two Advisory Votes here. How did we get into this Advisory Vote situation, Mike? What is this going on? [00:06:15] Mike McGinn: This was part of the Tim Eyman Full Employment Act where he was trying to find yet another ballot measure to put in front of the people. So what this one does - it is passed by the people - and basically they have the opportunity to have a second opinion on every tax that's passed by the Legislature. So that's why you always have all these Advisory Votes at the top. But everybody approves to-date, the public approves the votes that are passed by the Legislature. It's why we elect people, send them to the Legislature. It's really just turned into extra space on the ballot, which costs money and makes the ballot a little longer. And so we could all save a little space on the ballot if the Legislature changed this. In the meantime, don't upset that budget that your Legislature worked to craft - just vote to approve. [00:07:08] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree with that. I cannot wait until we get to the time where we get the opportunity to repeal this. It makes our ballot longer. It confuses people. This is just anytime there is basically revenue passed, it has to appear as an Advisory Vote, which does not have any force of law. It doesn't actually do anything. It is basically a poll about something that has already happened. So yes, vote to approve. But also I would really like a movement to vote to eliminate these Advisory Votes. One thing it does is it makes the ballot longer, which is not pleasant for a lot of people. What do you think, Bryce? [00:07:49] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, I wanted to hop in just to say that the choices are Repealed and Maintained. And so the suggestions to vote to approve them are to Maintain them as the maintain option. But yeah, no, I definitely agree. We've talked about it in past shows. We talk about it off the air. Getting people to vote down-ballot is always a challenge. And these Advisory Votes just get in the way of that. I think we'll have more to talk about when we get to the Proposition Nos. 1A and 1B question on the back of the ballot about what length might do to people answering those questions. [00:08:25] Crystal Fincher: All right. So we are here in King County. We all have King County ballots. The next thing I see on my ballot - I think you probably see the next thing on yours - as we travel down from the Advisory Votes, is actually King County, a County Charter Amendment. Charter Amendment No. 1 - even-numbered election years for certain county offices. Question: Shall the King County Charter be amended to move elections for the county offices of Executive, Assessor, Director of Elections, and Councilmembers from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years? Why is it important to move from odd-numbered to even-numbered years according to the advocates for this charter amendment, Mike? [00:09:10] Mike McGinn: The single most important thing you can do to improve voter turnout. When you look at election results in the state of Washington, Oregon, anywhere else around the country, so many more people turn out in an even year because you also have congressional elections or presidential elections. It's just a more momentous ballot than the odd year elections. And so if you think people should vote more, if you think democracy is a good thing, moving it to an even year is great. The county has the option to do that. Cities can't just do it on their own - they need a change in state law. Representative Mia Gregerson has been pushing for that and others have pushed for it. In addition to getting more people to vote, it also really improves the demographics of the ballot. We're getting more young people, more people of color, more immigrant refugees - who are here and can legally vote. We're just getting so many more people voting that we're getting a more representative ballot. So I've been a big proponent of this. You just get a different electorate. You get a better, more representative electorate. And if what you care about, and I do, is more affordable housing - if you get an older, more conservative electorate, they're going to oppose new housing and they're going to oppose new taxes for affordable housing. They're going to be more likely to say, keep the car lane and don't make it easier to walk or bike or use transit. So we need to get an electorate and get elections in even years where we have an electorate that more reflects where we need to go. And hearing from more people, if you believe in democracy, it's great. So big kudos to King County Council for - and Girmay Zahilay, in particular - for championing this. And hopefully we can move all the elections to even years. By the way, we'll save some money too. We'll have fewer elections that the elections offices have to step up for. [00:11:15] Crystal Fincher: I'd love to see it. What do you think about it, Dr. Cheng? [00:11:18] Shannon Cheng: I'm really excited. We talk a lot about - on this show - about how local elections really matter and that local government is really where you feel the actual changes and impacts in people's day-to-day lives. And so having some of more of our local elections in a year where more people are going to be paying attention to it, I think it will be super helpful. I know I talked to somebody recently who felt like they were in Washington state and so their vote didn't matter. And, we're going to get to these other races. And I was trying to tell them, no, we have things on our ballot that really do matter, like the King County Prosecutor and judges and all that. And I think just combining it in a way where people are going to be paying more attention to these things that really matter in their lives will be super helpful. [00:12:03] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well said - I agree. Next up on the ballot for King County is Proposition No. 1, the Conservation Futures Levy. So the King County Council passed Ordinance 19-458 concerning funding to protect open space lands in King County. The proposition would provide funding to pay, finance, or refinance acquisition and preservation of urban green spaces, natural areas, wildlife, and some salmon habitat, trails, river corridors, farmlands, and forests. And would reauthorize restoration of the county's Conservation Futures property tax to levy a rate that will be assessed for collection in 2023 and use the dollar amount from 2023 for the purpose of computing subsequent levy collections. So should this be approved or rejected? There are some really compelling statements about this, but this is really important for protecting open space lands in King County. There have been lots of conversations just about the preservation of land, the preservation of open and undeveloped land, and how important that is. These are conversations related to sprawl, related to just air quality, related to just people having the opportunity to recreate near where they live and not selling or developing all available land and the consequences that potentially come from that. So it is important, I think, widely acknowledged as important from people all across the aisle. It's important to maintain all of this. I see a statement submitted by Sally Jewell, who I believe is a former CEO of REI and served in a presidential administration, and De'Sean Quinn, who is a Tukwila City Council member, as well as Dow Constantine. And really, we have to take this action to protect climate change, to protect these last best places throughout King County. So far, this program has safeguarded over 100,000 acres of land, including Cougar Mountain, the Duwamish Waterway Park, and Sammamish River Trail. And they can accelerate that with this proposition. Statement in opposition to it really basically says that, hey, parks are having challenges being maintained, and we've already done enough. I don't know that there's a lot of people here in King County feeling that we've done enough to address climate change or that we've done enough to protect local land. Protecting farms and fresh water, and open space seems like a priority to so many people in this area - and what makes this area so desirable to the people living here and those who visit and eventually come here. What do you think about this, Mike? [00:15:08] Mike McGinn: It's a parks levy. I'm for parks levies, generally. I actually got to run one once, and it was just great. And there's so much more in it than you might think. And if we talk about community - that to me is ultimately what this is about. There's clearly the environmental protection, but that's the quality of life and the community gathering places as well. So yeah, and it's a renewal. It's an expansion and a renewal of an existing levy. And I think every time you get to go to a great county facility, you just have to remember that the money came from somewhere, and this is where it comes from. They really have to pass these levies to make it work, given the way finances work for county and municipal governments. [00:15:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And so this will cost the average homeowner about $2 more per month. There is relief available to qualified low-income seniors and other households. And the funding recommendations are made by an independent advisory committee and subject to external audit. So it's not just, hey, willy-nilly stuff happening here. There is accountability and oversight - looks like it is endorsed by the Nature Conservancy, Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust for Public Land, the Wilderness Society, Seattle Parks Foundation, REI, Dow Constantine and council members - just a lot of support there. I find those arguments to be particularly convincing. But this is an important one that's flown under the radar for a number of people, I think. I've gotten a lot of questions from people saying, whoa, what should I do with these county amendments and this proposition? And so just wanted to make sure that we went through that. Next on my ballot are the federal races, which have gotten a ton of coverage. I think if you listen to the show, odds are you probably know if you're going to be voting for Senator Patty Murray or her challenger, Tiffany Smiley, but that is at the top of the ballot right now. Do any of you have anything to chime in with about this race? [00:17:22] Mike McGinn: It's really fascinating to watch how this race is starting to become part of a national narrative about whether or not there's a red wave - going to hit the federal elections. And then there's some counterarguments. And we could pundit all afternoon on this one. And I'm sure a lot of you, if you're politically oriented, have really been watching the national news about what will happen in Congress. Will the Senate remain Democratic or will it turn Republican? Is the House going to flip? Most pundits say it will flip to Republican control, but there are still some folks out there holding hope that it might not. So I think the real message just is - if you cared about the national scene, you have an opportunity to play locally too. There's a Senate election in the state of Washington as well. [00:18:15] Crystal Fincher: All right. And next up on people's ballots - is going to vary based on where we live. It's going to be the congressional races. So I actually live in the Ninth Congressional District. We have a very competitive Eighth Congressional District race between Kim Schrier and Matt Larkin. Kim Schrier, the Democrat, Matt Larkin, the Republican. We have other races. Who's on your ballots? What congressional districts are you in? [00:18:43] Mike McGinn: I've got Seven, which is Pramila Jayapal and Cliff Moon. [00:18:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think all three of you are in Seven there. Those races are a bit less competitive. I think two of the most competitive races here are going to be Kim Schrier versus Matt Larkin. And then down in southwest Washington, actually - in the Third Congressional District - between Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and extremist Republican, MAGA Republican Joe Kent, who is just... It's hard to do justice to him by describing him because I've tried to do it and then I've been like, okay, I can't do this. Here, watch this clip of him and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in this sit-down with a reporter, just answering questions. And it is wild. He does not think January 6th happened in the way we all saw it happened with our eyes. He thinks that it was a CIA false flag operation. He doesn't think that police officers were killed as a result of that. He's deep into conspiracy theories, deep into the election denial of the 2020 election. Just deep into so many things - eager to cut social security, eager to cut so many things, eager to defund Ukraine between Ukraine and Russia, eager to do all sorts of things at the border. This is someone who eagerly and has multiple times appeared on Tucker Carlson. This is not Jaime Herrera Beutler. This is not the type of Republican that people are used to seeing in this district, or even as people think about Republicans in this country now - even the more extreme version that people are getting familiar with. This is the tip of the spear of the most extreme. He models himself after Marjorie Taylor Greene, says he looks up to her and wants to do that, does not want to work across the aisle, doesn't see a point to it. Rarely does media outside of the conservative bubble, does not want to debate Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. This is a race where a lot is at stake. Jim Brunner just wrote an article about it this morning in The Seattle Times. Actually, he shared it - I'm not sure if he wrote it. But this is an important one for people to get engaged in. We've talked about the importance of - even if you don't live in a district, hey, why don't you adopt a district, make some phone calls, do some phone banking, get down there and canvass - do what you can. Don't let this slip away without doing everything possible. The Third Congressional District is traditionally a Republican district, but it's traditionally a Republican district that has elected Republicans like Jaime Herrera Beutler, who were nowhere near as extreme as Joe Kent. This is a closer race than we've seen there in quite some time. If enough people get involved and if enough people get engaged, who knows what could happen? Democrats seem energized down there. This is one where - don't let it go by without everyone pitching in and doing what they can to engage in that race. Any thoughts that you have on that one? [00:22:10] Mike McGinn: This race, yeah, it does highlight just where the Republican Party has been going. I think you see some of this in the Murray-Smiley race as well. I've been really impressed by the campaigning of the Democrat in the race and the way in which she's approaching the race. This is a district that is - it's a swing district, but it's a lean-R swing district, if that makes sense. It has the Portland suburbs, but it also has more rural areas as well. Yeah, maybe this - if this were on the East Coast, people would be looking at this as a bellwether of which way the trend is going in national politics. Who knows? Maybe we'll be able to tell a little bit from the East Coast about how this race might work out by the time they start announcing results from this coast. But really, I think the D in this race - she's run a really solid race, speaking directly to people's economic concerns as a small business owner as well. And there's this thing where reporters want to talk about partisanship or polarized politics or divisiveness. And yeah, I would say the electorate is polarized - there are a hell of a lot of folks nationwide who are going to pull the lever for candidates because they want to see Republicans have charge of the chamber, regardless of the shortcomings of the local candidate. It's a really fascinating phenomenon that's going on. But I'm going to make an argument that it's - the Democrats look a lot like candidates I've seen in the past running. And the Republicans don't, in my mind, in terms of the extremism that we start to see on whether or not the election was stolen. The number of election deniers that are out there for the last election - there's just no credible evidence that there was any voter fraud. It went in front of numerous, numerous courts. It went in front of judges appointed by Republicans and Democrats. There's just no evidence for this. And I don't know that the media knows how to handle this - that when you have one side that just denies reality and the other side is still operating mostly within the frame of U.S. politics, as I've seen it in the years I've been involved in U.S. politics, but they both-sides it so much. And I think this raises a great illustration of that. The Democrat is really a right down the middle-of-the-road type of politician, and the Republican here is espousing things that just aren't so, and it's one hell of a tight race down there, according to all the polls. And portraying this as Americans are divided or the politicians are polarizing doesn't capture what's going on. [00:25:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that is a good point. What do you think, Bryce? [00:25:23] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, I just wanted to weave back in something that Shannon mentioned earlier, which is that there are still people who live here and who vote here, who think that they live in Washington - they live in Western Washington - they're pretty safe from things. And I think this race is an important reminder that there are people running with these extreme views. There are these people running here in the state with really far-right priorities and goals. And this is a federal race, so it's gotten a lot of media attention, but it just highlights how important it is to pay attention to local races as well - races that for the State House and for State Senate and other positions - and just pay attention to what people are running on and making sure when we see people coming with extreme and dangerous views, that that's called out, that we let people know. Election Day is still in a few days. There's still opportunities to inform voters in this district about the candidates. There are still opportunities for voters who are really worried about rhetoric like this and candidates like this to get out there and talk to voters and inform them about this race. [00:26:32] Crystal Fincher: This conversation reminds me of one other thing, and actually was having a conversation about this as we were punditing on Kiro the other day. And there are some Republicans who are going - well, they're calling everybody extreme. Yeah, they're calling Joe Kent extreme, but they're also calling Tiffany Smiley extreme. And they're not the same extreme, but they're painting them with the same brush - you're hearing that for everybody, all the Republicans. If you say it about everybody, it's meaningless. And the challenge is, and the thing that the Republican Party has set up, is that they do have these extremists who are out further than a lot of the other Republicans that are elected, at least outwardly, right? And saying things that have been openly covered as white nationalism, Christian nationalism, that have been anti-Semitic, that have been racist, that have been homophobic, anti-trans, anti-gay - just very openly blatant right? And that is absolutely extreme. And no, not every Republican is outwardly openly saying that. They leave that to the Joe Kents and the Marjorie Taylor Greenes. But what is striking to me is how they have not been reined in by the people who have previously been considered as moderate and have previously been considered as the adults in the room. Those adults in the room are doing nothing to contain that extremist element in the party, and in fact, have given them more power, more visibility. The Republican Party, all of their caucuses have pumped money into these campaigns. Their allied PACs and supporters have pumped money into these campaigns and have been apologists for them. So if you will not rebuke when you hear those things said, if you will not stand up and say, you know what, I'm standing for these principles, and that person is not doing that, and we're both carrying the same label - I don't want to carry the same label as a person who is saying that - that is not what I stand for. We're not standing shoulder to shoulder. We're hearing none of that. We're hearing silence. And there are some people who want to interpret that silence as, well, clearly they don't agree. And when I talk to them, they sound perfectly reasonable, and they've been moderate in the past. We're hearing some of the most troubling things that we have in a while. Just the open anti-Semitism, the open racism, the open homophobia and transphobia that we're seeing is alarming. They're passing laws against it. This is not theoretical language. And we're seeing political violence as a direct result. That, of course, was predicted, right? When we hear speech like that, it incites violence. We have talked about it inciting violence, and it incited violence in multiple places, in multiple ways. And we've seen that just in the past couple of weeks - from January 6th to Nancy Pelosi to the Michigan governor - we're seeing this all over the place, right? And so silence is enabling violence. Silence is not moderation. It's enabling this extremism and violence. So yes, when you hear them all being painted with the same broad brush, it's because they're doing nothing to stop this rapid descent into this cesspool that we're on the precipice of, and that some states have already fallen to, right? It's important to vocally stand up against this, against hate, whenever we see it. And that's not a partisan statement. And if a party is trying to say that when you say that you need to call out violence, that you need to call out political violence, that you need to stand up and talk against anti-Semitism and call it what it is, and somehow they're putting a partisan label on that, be very wary of a party that says that speaking against those things is speaking against their party. They're telling you what the party is about if those things they're labeling as a partisan attack. I think that's very important to be said. This is so far beyond a Democratic and Republican issue, and we have to be aware that these Republicans are caucusing together, right? They're voting together for a national agenda, and we've heard this national agenda articulated. We've heard the things that they're queuing up. We've seen the types of policies that they're passing in places like Florida and Texas. We have the preview of what's coming there, and it is ugly, right? And ugly to people who used to consider themselves Republican. So to me, this is beyond the conversation of just Democrat and Republican. This is a conversation that we have to have before we even get to issues, because if we're leading with that hateful rhetoric and we're leading with that extremism, it really doesn't matter what someone is saying about issues, because the things that they are saying about people in their community is already excluding people and already doing that. I think that's extremely important to say, that we can't say that enough, and that trying to dismiss this extremism, and dismiss criticisms of it, and dismiss the refusal to call it out for what it is - is extremism itself. All right. So next on our ballot, we have the state races, starting with Secretary of State, which is a lively race. Now, we have talked a bunch about the Secretary of State race, and have also been posting a lot about it on the Hacks & Wonks Twitter account this week. So for that, between Democrat Steve Hobbs and Non-partisan Julie Anderson, we're going to refer you to those other shows. We'll put links in the show notes. We'll put links to the little audiograms and snippets that we have of the candidates' takes on different things. Steve Hobbs was a longtime Democratic senator known as a moderate for quite some time - and Julie Anderson actually just released a new ad that talks about that and him as a moderate. And then Julie Anderson has been the Pierce County auditor in Pierce County for 12 years, I believe now, and has built relationships around that area. So that's an interesting race to follow. We'll put those links in there, but that's the next one on the ballot. And then we get into the legislative races, which are going to be different depending on which legislative district that you're in. I just wanted to mention a few of the battleground districts here in the state. So one of them is in the 26th Legislative District Senate race - very important - between Emily Randall, Senator Emily Randall, and current Representative Jesse Young, who's running for that Senate seat. Emily's a Democrat with a strong record and has been representing that community and been in the community for quite some time. Jesse Young is one of the more extreme Republicans in our legislature, has - in the mold of the Matt Sheas, who made a lot of news for his activity in domestic terrorism. And if you think that sounds like a euphemism or like a stretch of the truth, I mean literal domestic terrorism like running a camp training people for war and putting tracking devices on law enforcement vehicles, and making threats to political opponents - extremism - and advancing bills to outlaw abortion in Washington state under threat of putting doctors in prison - that kind of extremism. And Jesse Young, as we talked about last week with Pierce County Council Chair Derek Young, has actually been suspended from working with legislative staff because of his past behavior and harassment or abuse. He is no longer permitted to have legislative staff, which is certainly hobbling in one's ability to get their job done. They lean very heavily on those staff. And so not being allowed to have one and having to do or not get done all of the administrative work, preparation work, ability to meet with constituents, ability to review and prepare legislation and represent the community is absolutely hobbled by that. But that is actually a really close race. Another one where it makes sense if you can adopt a race, that 26th Legislative District is a really important one where people can get involved with and make their voices heard. Also, the 47th Legislative District is a hotbed of activity - a competitive Senate race there - open seat left by the exiting Senator Mona Das and is being competed for by former State Senator, Democrat Claudia Kauffman and Republican Bill Boyce. This has been a purple district, a swing district, has elected both Democrats and Republicans. This district has a history of extremely close races. And so we have a race here where we're seeing some of the dynamics that we see in Democrat versus Republican races. Choice is a huge issue here. Bill Boyce - being bankrolled by far-right Republicans - has been giving really mushy responses about what he thinks about a woman's right to choose. And so that is certainly on the ballot, as well as just the history of corporate giveaways, tax - as was quoted in the paper - tax breaks and sweetheart deals given to rich developers and donors. And so certainly looking at the donor rolls there, you get a different story of who those legislators would be based on the activity there. So another very important partisan race. 42nd Legislative District, a very competitive race between Sharon Shewmake and Simon Sefzik - another Democrat versus Republican race - very important here for the Senate and just a variety of things. And again, we're seeing just greater space between the two parties. Here in the state, we, I think, have seen Republicans who have considered themselves moderate and who have been less eager to engage in some of the social wedge issue rhetoric that sometimes we see on a national basis. There have been Republicans who wore it as a badge of honor previously to say, no, that's not me. I'm focused on these other issues, but stand up. And whether it's being pro-choice, whether it is standing up for marriage equality. There have been some before here who have done that, some who haven't, but some who have. We are not seeing that now. Things are following the direction of some of the national races. And so we have that there. 30th Legislative District with Claire Wilson and Linda Kochmar, as well as the race between Jamila Taylor and Casey Jones are close - and so engaging in those is important. And then the 44th Legislative District with John Lovick, the Democrat who was previously a representative, currently a representative, now running to be a Senator, against Republican Jeb Brewer. Republican Mark Hamsworth for the House seat versus Brandy Donaghy, who was appointed to that seat and is running to fill the term, this new term. And then April Berg versus her Republican opponent. So pay attention to those races. Please make sure that you're engaging in these battlegrounds. And then we also have just Seattle races and - that we've covered. So in the 46th Legislative District, we have a classic Seattle moderate versus progressive race. Even though those, when you get into it, the labels might be a little bit simplistic, but certainly someone who seems more resistant to taxation, more resistant to change in Lelach Rave versus Darya Faravar, who wants to take more of an active approach in addressing issues like homelessness, housing affordability, and public safety - and move more in the direction of things that we've seen with the history of working versus those that have not. So that's a choice that we have there. We also have previously interviewed Darya, and so we'll link that in the show notes for your information. The 36th Legislative District features a race between Democrats Julia Reed and Jeff Manson. We've also interviewed both in that race. And we'll link that in the show notes. The 37th Legislative District is one where we did a primary candidate forum, have interviewed both of those candidates there - Democrat Chipalo Street and Democrat Emijah Smith. And we also did a debate in partnership with the South Seattle Emerald and others - hosted by the South Seattle Emerald - an in-person debate, actually. And we will link those there. I think that there are some interesting issues in that race, notable differences. We will also share kind of the lightning round stuff. But also, hey let's make sure that we're recognizing the full humanity of people and that we are not treating people who are in the LGBTQ community any differently than others. And that is an issue of difference in that race. So I encourage you all to do your homework about that and make sure that any candidate that you're voting for fully stands up for the rights of all people in our community. And that you communicate with the candidates about that and make sure all of your candidates know how important that is to you. And then we have the 34th Legislative District with Democrats Leah Griffin and Emily Alvarado. We've interviewed both of them. We'll link both of those shows in the show notes. So there are contested races throughout Seattle. Encourage you to vote in those races and make your choice. If you need help, refer to our show notes or to officialhacksandwonks.com. We have an Election 2022 page there and we'll put all of the resources on there. Next, we go to the County Prosecuting Attorney's race here in King County, that is between Jim Ferrell, who is the mayor of Federal Way, and Leesa Manion, who's the current Chief of Staff in the Prosecuting Attorney's Office. Jim Ferrell has been endorsed by folks like the King County Republican Party, some mayors, King County Council member Pete von Reichbauer, like the Covington and Algona mayor. Leesa Manion has been endorsed by the King County Democratic party, former governor Gary Locke, local labor unions. So there's a little bit of a difference in the profile of their supporters that kind of indicates the approach that they're looking to take. One, being more in line with some of the data that we're seeing in the most effective approaches to addressing crime and accountability - that has yielded some results in what we've seen, especially with youth crime and youth intervention, which seems to be particularly effective with Leesa Manion and her managing this office and hundreds of staff and attorney, which is certainly in line with what the County Prosecuting Attorney needs to do. Jim Ferrell, coming from the mayor of Federal Way, has talked about more of a punitive approach to this and is talking about cracking down on some of the things that we have been seeing as successful. It's interesting in how this race is shaping up and what the candidates are talking about and what they aren't talking about with them. Certainly Leesa has been leaning into her experience, the type of coalition that she's building, whether it's people who are in support of more common sense gun reform and making sure guns don't proliferate on the streets, to those who are looking to maintain accountability but make sure that we're doing the things that give folks the best chance of reducing recidivism, or people returning, or revictimizing people who are committing further crimes. Jim Ferrell seems very focused on trying to apply longer sentences, lengthier sentences, talking about a more, again, punitive approach, prosecuting more, longer sentences - that type of stuff. So with that, what do you think? What is your take on this race, Shannon? [00:44:01] Shannon Cheng: So this race is between Leesa Manion, who's the current Chief of Staff for the outgoing King County Prosecutor, Dan Satterberg - she's been in that position for quite a time. And her opponent is Jim Ferrell, who is the current mayor of Federal Way. So when I look at this race, I see - with Leesa Manion who - it's a continuation of what King County has been doing, which I would characterize as incremental reform of the criminal legal system to be more fair and equitable. I think this can be embodied in initiatives they aspire to, such as declaring racism as a public health crisis or the goal of Zero Youth Detention. So I think with Manion, you will get a continuation of the slow work that the county is doing to try to make our criminal legal system more equitable and fair. Whereas with Ferrell, I see this as a candidate who's trying to throw us back to punitive tactics that have been proven to be ineffective. He wants to be more tough-on-crime and is riding this wave of Republicans pointing to crime as being the reason not to support the Democratic candidate. I think that Ferrell has specifically spoken about being against and wanting to roll back some of the diversion programs that King County has started to try to use, especially for youth. And I also - even if you don't - if you agree on this punitive approach, I think it's also worth considering that right now the legal system is kind of at capacity. So what Ferrell is suggesting is going to put even more strain on it. The courts are already - have backlogs coming from the pandemic and the jails are full and not functioning well and not providing people humane conditions to be in there. So I just fear that that will lead to a lot more suffering for many people across our county. And I think this is a really important race to look at and think about. [00:46:12] Crystal Fincher: So Mike, what's your take on this? [00:46:14] Mike McGinn: It's interesting to see the contrast here. It's a local version of this national debate that we have now seen - that the proper response to crime is to crack down harder. And we're seeing this here as well. I worked with Dan Satterberg and he was a really interesting elected official. And honestly, to me, I may not have agreed with him on every decision - I know I didn't agree with him on every decision he made. But he was a civil servant first and foremost. He was trying to figure out what was the right path forward. He was engaged in the discussion. He led on things like Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, people returning to the community from jail - getting their records cleared and restoration of rights. So he was really, and it's interesting, he was elected as a Republican, moved the race to a nonpartisan race and then was elected as a Democrat. So he clearly was somebody who was willing to go where the evidence led and not go based on ideology. So that's the experience we've had from that office, which is, I think, what you want in a prosecutor's office. It's a pretty important position. The effect it has on people's lives is immense. I think that really says something that we see someone looking to continue that tradition. And then we see someone coming in with - if only we punished people more. How's that been working? Really? We have some information on that, which is it doesn't really work. It takes a combination of the judicial system and community systems to really try to deal with root causes of crime, to deal with recidivism, to deal with the issues here. And I think that this is a little bit of a bellwether here. Are we going to try to be a progressive place, a progressive county that adopts and looks at new approaches? Or are we going to go to a more regressive approach to this? Because, yeah, that's worked so well in solving crime over the decades. [00:48:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think so. What's your take, Bryce? [00:48:37] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, I don't know how much more I have to add to this other than just the importance of this race and the importance of making sure we have somebody who's really thinking about the - not just people's emotional concerns about crime, but the actions and the strategies and the programs that have been proven to address the things that actually lower crime. We've talked on a number of different episodes throughout this year about programs that have successfully reduced recidivism. And those are programs that often get criticized by people who claim to be tough on crime. And I just think that's something to interrogate our candidates about for this position, because the county prosecutor has a lot of influence in terms of how the county addresses crime in a way that's going to impact real people in big ways. [00:49:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree. I will chime in and say that we just got a new public poll here that was just reported on, I think yesterday, showing that this race is basically statistically tied. So turnout is going to be really important. Lots of people talk about - they look at the federal races - they wonder if their vote matters. They're going, okay millions of people are voting. Why does mine make a difference? Really what makes a difference are these down-ballot races, are these local races. If you care about the issues of homelessness, justice, equity, affordability, what our community looks like, who it serves - our criminal legal system is an essential part of that equation. And we're talking about, in so many of these conversations, how we intervene and address victims. And most people who have perpetrated crimes have been victims of them. And how we intervene when people are victims, especially early, and especially when they're young, dictates how their future goes and whether they end up on the path to criminalization and poverty or a better path. So the way we intervene in that makes a difference. The way we treat and handle these cases that come through and how we address accountability depends on whether our streets are made safer, whether our tax dollars are used in a way that makes it less likely that people are going to commit crime and less likely that people are victimized or more, right? And we're seeing the impacts of the status quo of a more punitive approach. And either we choose to keep doing the same thing, and polls keep showing that no one is satisfied with the condition of things today. And so we do need to consider that when we are making these choices. And I hope you take a long, hard look at that. And most of all, get engaged and vote, make sure other people vote. And talk about these races, talk about the county attorney races, talk about the judicial races that we're going to talk about in just a moment, right? These are very important. Turnout is not where we would love it to be. It's lagging behind some previous years here locally, especially among younger people. And I know that is concerning to some. So the more that people can do to make sure that everyone can - and the most impactful thing you can do is just text those close to you, call those close to you, talk to them. Hey, coworker - hey, did you get that ballot in? What are you doing for this race? Remember, this is important. Hey, cousin, hey, brother, sister, mom - it's those connections close to you and those personal contacts that actually make it more likely for those people to vote. External organizations can try and do all the voter mobilization that they can and that work is valuable and good and should happen. But hearing from someone who you care about and who cares about you saying, hey, make sure you do this, you have any questions, you need help - is one of the best things you can do to make sure that people actually turn out to vote. So with that, we can talk about a couple of these judicial races, which are next on the ballot. Now we see the state Supreme Court races and we see Justice Mary Yu, who - you probably hear affection and admiration in my voice because I have affection and admiration for Justice Mary Yu. We also have a great interview with her from a few months back that we will post in the episode notes. Justice Barbara Madsen, also wonderful. Justice Helen Whitener, who is just - look, I'm going to just go ahead and get personal. Justice Helen Whitener is everything. I just need everyone to know that Justice Whitener is everything from - just everything. Her experience - vast, broad experience - in so many elements and areas of the law. The thoughtfulness, the lived experience, the outreach into the community - just a beautiful human being and an effective and intelligent justice. I am a fan of Justice Helen Whitener and we've done a couple interviews with Justice Whitener. And fortunately this time she isn't being challenged by anyone mediocre like she was last time, so this is an uncontested race. And when I say mediocre - I mean just got his license to practice law in order to run against someone with a resume as vast and deep as Justice Whitener's. And so now we'll talk about the contested municipal judge races in the City of Seattle between Damon Shadid, who is the incumbent in that one seat - has been endorsed by a number of Democratic organizations, received Exceptionally Well Qualified by a number of organizations, and is standing on his record. And a new challenger from the City Attorney's Office, Nyjat Rose-Akins, who is endorsed by the King County Republican Party and Jenny Durkan, and is wanting to make changes to some things and talking about the record of Community Court and changes that she wants to make there. In the other race, we have judge Adam Eisenberg, who has been rated Exceptionally Well Qualified by a number of the local and ethnic bar associations, but also has received a high number of negative feedback and surveys from the King County Bar Association and concerns about management and whether women are treated fairly under his management. And then Pooja Vaddadi, who is a newcomer and a new challenger, who has been - received a number of Democratic endorsements, but also has not received any ratings from local judicial bar associations because she has chosen not to stand in front of them for ratings. Bryce, how would you characterize those races? [00:55:42] Bryce Cannatelli: Like Crystal said, we got to hear from all of these candidates in a forum. I'll start with the Damon Shadid and Nyjat Rose-Akins portion of it - they're running for Position 7. Damon Shadid has been a judge in this position for quite a while. And the main point of difference between the two is Nyjat Rose-Akins often talked about during the forum criticisms of Community Court and her interest in making a lot of changes to the Community Court system, whereas Judge Shadid has defended what that court has been able to do and hopes to see it continue in its current direction. As far as Pooja Vaddadi and Judge Eisenberg, that's another kind of longtime incumbent in the position - I can't remember how long he's been in that role - and a newcomer. And Pooja Vaddadi brought up concerns about the way that Judge Eisenberg has handled himself in the courtroom. You can hear her talk about that in our forum specifically at the end - is something that her campaign has been highlighting as of late, but also just the need that she claims there is in the municipal court for some changes. [00:56:52] Crystal Fincher: What's your take on those races, Shannon? [00:56:55] Shannon Cheng: So I think - so for the Judge Eisenberg and Pooja Vaddadi race - Pooja Vaddadi is a practicing public defender. And I think her experience in being in the court with somebody such as Judge Eisenberg presiding - it was a maybe not great experience for her. And so she saw a lot of injustice there and felt called to try to step up and bear witness and call out what was happening and how she has a different vision for how that court could be run. I personally appreciate that because I think judicial races are just very low information. It's really hard - as Crystal just went through, there was a long list of uncontested judges on the ballot - and I often look at those names and I have no idea who those people are. And so it has been interesting in this race to get a window into how courts work. And I know for me, it's been very educational. And I continue to aspire to learn more about how courts are run and what matters. And yeah, so for the Damon Shadid and Nyjat Rose-Akins - as Bryce said, I think it comes down to the vision of how Community Court will be run in the future in Seattle. Whether you want somebody from the City Attorney's Office driving the vision of how to handle low-level offenses in the city versus the path that we had been on to to try to support people in need and not further entangle them in a system that kind of - a system that can snowball on people's lives. [00:58:41] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's right on. And I think in these races, we are seeing a little bit of a difference. There has been a lot called out by Pooja Vaddadi's campaign. But in fairness, I think you referred to Pooja talking about how she was partly moved to run for this position based on some of the injustices she saw. But one of the issues in this race that has been brought up is that Judge Eisenberg was the recipient of the highest number of - basically highest amount of negative feedback. King County Bar Association does an anonymous poll of its member attorneys for judges and the highest percentage of attorneys returned negative responses for Judge Eisenberg - higher than all of the other judges and gave that feedback. Judge Eisenberg didn't seem to feel that that had any validity. And he talked about how he had been rated Exceptionally Well Qualified, which is the highest rating given by a number of different bar associations. And it being pretty standard that judges go before different bar associations and get interviewed and they evaluate their fitness for judicial office and provide a rating from Exceptionally Well Qualified, I think Very Well Qualified, just on there. And so he had a number of highest ratings. And Pooja Vaddadi decided not to sit in front of those. And she said it was because she felt that it was biased or tilted or they would automatically give high ratings to incumbents, but not give high ratings to people who weren't incumbents. So she didn't feel the need to sit before them, which is a bit different. A lot of first-time candidates do go before those bodies and are evaluated and come out with decent ratings. I'm trying to think if I recall first-time candidates getting Exceptionally Well Qualified - I think I recall a couple, but also some who haven't. So I don't know, there very well may be a role that incumbency plays in that, but that was an element in that race that came through. As well as prior coverage about whether Judge Eisenberg potentially gave someone a harsher sentence for exercising their right to a jury trial instead of accepting a plea deal. And that being a wrong thing - that is a right that people have to exercise. And whether someone pleads guilty to a charge on a deal or is found guilty on that charge, penalizing someone simply for choosing to go to trial is not something that should happen and is certainly frowned upon. And so there was some coverage in question about that. We can also link that in the show notes. So those are certainly interesting races. And I think Shannon summed up really well just what's at stake moving forward in the Damon Shadid and Nyjat Rose-Akins race. So now let's get into the meat of a Seattle big-time initiative - Propositions 1A and 1B, which are on the City of Seattle ballot. They are not on my ballot, but we've got ballots waving with Shannon and Bryce and Mike over here talking about this question. [01:02:10] Mike McGinn: Do you want me to take a shot at it? [01:02:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, go ahead. Take a shot at it, Mike McGinn. [01:02:16] Mike McGinn: Okay. We all know how ballots work - you get a choice between - in the primary, you normally get a whole lot of candidates to vote for and you pick one. And what this is proposing is that in the City of Seattle, whether you want a different way to vote that will give you more choices. So the first question is, and let me tell you what the two choices are. One is called approval voting. So you'd look at your ballot and you'd have multiple people on the ballot and anyone that you approved of, you'd vote for. So you could vote for one, two, three, four, to approve as many as you want. And the idea there is that you don't want to have to restrict your vote to one candidate. And I have to say there have been times when I've had multiple friends on the ballot - I just want to be able to say I voted for all of them. But there are other good reasons to want to maybe approve multiple candidates. The other style is something called ranked choice voting. So in that case, you'd rank the candidates - one, two, three, four, five. And they'd add up the votes, and whoever the lowest vote getter was would get dropped off. And so let's say - I'm standing here with Bryce and Shannon and Crystal - let's say I had ranked them Crystal first, and then Bryce, and then Shannon. If Crystal was the lowest vote getter, she'd be off the list. And my vote would now go to Bryce - my second vote would be counted. And you do this by a process of eliminating the lowest-ranked candidate until you get to a winner. And we'll probably get more into why - what are the differences between the two systems and why they're better. And there's a whole world of election nerddom, which is substantial - what is the best way to represent what the voters really want, but you're going to get to choose here. So the real question is, do you want to keep the existing system - and that's the first question on the ballot - or do you want a new system? And if you vote Yes, I want a new system, you'll also be asked - well, actually, no matter how you vote on whether you want a new system - you're then asked, which one do you like more, approval voting or ranked choice voting? So yeah, it is pretty dense and complicated. You probably want to sit down and look at this. But if I could break it down for you - if you think you want more ways to have your vote count and have more discretion in how to award it to people, you'll want to vote Yes on the initial question. And then you'll get to weigh in and decide which one of those two - approval or ranked choice voting - you like more. And that'll tee it up for people to offer their opinions on what they like more on the rest of the podcast. How was that? Did I do okay, guys, in getting the description out? [01:05:13] Crystal Fincher: You did! You did, in fact, do okay of getting the description out. And I think also just the - functionally on the ballot - what you said was really important and I just want to reiterate. So this - we're talking about - okay, there are two choices there, approval voting and ranked choice voting. But when you get your ballot, you're going to see that it is constructed in a way that's not just that simple choice. There really is an initial question and then a secondary question. The initial question - why don't you just read what's on the ballot? [01:05:47] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, I could do that. I can also hold it up to you, so you can see the wall of text that happens beforehand. Shannon is shaking her head on the video feed, because - Seattle voters will know it if they've opened their ballots - there's a lot of text that goes before you can actually answer the question. So please read your ballot from top to bottom to make sure that you vote for everything. But the way that it's formatted is we get an explanation of both of the individual propositions. So it says Proposition 1A, submitted by initiative petition number 134, and Proposition 1B, alternative proposed by the city council and mayor, concern allowing voters to select multiple candidates in city primary elections. Proposition 1A would allow voters in primary elections for mayor, city attorney and city council to select on the ballot as many candidates as they approve of for each office. The two candidates receiving the most votes for each office would advance to the general election consistent with state law. The city would consult with King County to include instructions on the primary ballot, such as vote for as many as you approve of for each office. As an alternative, the city council and mayor have proposed Proposition 1B, which would allow primary election voters for mayor, city attorney and

On this week's Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter Erica Barnett to delve into Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss' “unforced error” at a public meeting, as well as interesting results from a recent Seattle Chamber of Commerce poll on homelessness. They then break down the convoluted question Seattle voters will see on their ballots around voting reform, what happened with King County's about-face on expansion of the SoDo shelter, and why the terrible wildfire smoke conditions the region has suffered through for weeks needs to be treated as a real ongoing issue. The show wraps up with good news about Seattle redistricting and a victory for the Redistricting Justice for Seattle coalition! 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, Erica C. Barnett, at @ericacbarnett. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Reminders Don't forget to vote! Visit votewa.gov for voting resources.   People Power Washington 2022 Public Safety Voter Guide covering Washington State Legislature, King County Prosecuting Attorney, and Seattle Municipal Court Institute for a Democratic Future 2023 applications are live! The initial deadline is November 2nd, and the final deadline is November 13th.   Learn more about how to get involved in Seattle's participatory budget season at this link. Student debt relief sign-ups are live! Visit this link to enroll.   Resources "A highly charged public meeting in Seattle's Greenwood - but don't you dare record it" by Isolde Raftery from KUOW   "Chamber Poll On Homelessness, Public Safety Shows That It Matters How You Frame the Questions" by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   "Seattle voters to consider 'approval voting' vs. 'ranked choice' voting; here's the difference" by Sarah Grace Taylor from The Seattle Times   "Under Pressure, County Executive Constantine Cancels Plans to Expand SoDo Shelter" by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   "The Persistence of Seattle's Smoke Show" by Ray Dubicki from The Urbanist   "What does Seattle need for coming smoky summers? Clean air shelters, new rules to protect workers, and patience" by AGPhoto from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog   "In Dramatic Turnaround, New City Council Map Splits Magnolia to Keep Other Neighborhoods Whole" by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   Transcript Coming soon

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Hacks & Wonks' very own Production Coordinator, Bryce Cannatelli!  The show starts with some new polling from Crosscut/Elway looking at November's upcoming general election. Current Senator Patty Murray is maintaining a fair lead against challenger Tiffany Smiley, who released a new ad this week that sees her pushing a “Seattle is Dying” narrative, filmed in front of the closed Starbucks along E Olive Way.  In police news, mayor Bruce Harrell has chosen his SPD Chief, and it's the same interim chief we've had for a while: Adrian Diaz. Diaz represents a status-quo pick from Harrell, and the decision seems to promise more of the same emphasis on police hiring and department budgets that we've been seeing from the administration.  The upcoming Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) contract negotiation is a real test for Harrell and Diaz's commitments to police reform and accountability. People Power Washington put out recommendations for what they would like to see in the contract, including numerous oversight and discipline requirements already present in the Seattle Police Management Association (SPMA) contract. We'll be paying close attention to the final contract to see which reform measures the Harrell administration will push for.  Next Tuesday, September 27th, Mayor Harrell will announce his budget proposal for the city, and we all have a chance to have our voices heard! From September 28 to November 22nd, the public can provide feedback on the budget. You can submit your comments on the budget to the City Council via their email, Council@Seattle.gov, and public comment will be accepted at all meetings of the Council's Budget Committee.  In other interesting police-related decisions from Mayor Harrell, Notes from the Emerald City reports that, during an August 17th Community Police Commission meeting, the mayor spoke of working to get officers back into schools, without mentioning the potential to worsen the school to prison pipeline or risk the health and safety of students. The Mayor is also vouching for a parks budget that would pay for 26 additional rangers in the city's parks. Seattle's Solidarity Budget coalition is criticizing this move as paying for “soft-cops” to enforce harmful policies on homeless and marginalized people using the parks.  In some positive news this week, we look at the Green New Deal Proposals from Mayor Harrell, which promise to take some necessary steps to both lessen emissions from city buildings and prepare for the consequences of climate change through the creation of resilience hubs.  We also have some exciting, and much needed, financial relief programs for immigrants in the county. The Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) announced the launch of two new programs: one that will help immigrants pay fees associated with applying for legal status, and another that will provide financial assistance to immigrants disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic but are ineligible for federal assistance because of their immigration status. Please look at the links below for more information, and share this information as much as you can to get the word out.  Finally, a reminder that Crystal will be moderating a debate between 37th LD State Representative Pos. 2 candidates Emijah Smith and Chipalo Street on October 4th at the Rainier Arts Center at 7:00pm. See the links below for information on how to RSVP and how to ask questions ahead of the show.  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, Bryce Cannatelli, at @inascenttweets. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Resources “Poll Watch: Elway finds solid lead for Murray; Steve Hobbs barely ahead of Julie Anderson” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate:  https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2022/09/poll-watch-elway-finds-solid-lead-for-murray-steve-hobbs-barely-ahead-of-julie-anderson.html    “‘So much crime that you can't even get a cup of coffee from the hometown shop on Capitol Hill' — Republican Senate candidate takes on Murray over E Olive Way Starbucks closure” by jseattle from Capital Hill Seattle Blog:  https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2022/09/so-much-crime-that-you-cant-even-get-a-cup-of-coffee-from-the-hometown-shop-on-capitol-hill-republican-senate-candidate-takes-on-murray-over-e-olive-way-starbucks-closure/  “New SPD Chief, Same as the Old Chief” by Will Casey from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/cops/2022/09/20/78504249/new-spd-chief-same-as-the-old-chief   “Harrell Picks Diaz for Police Chief” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/09/21/harrell-picks-diaz-for-police-chief-as-expected-council-park-district-alternative-would-keep-park-rangers-raise-tax/  People Power Washington's 2022 Seattle Police Officers Guild Contract Recommendations: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RIpYL98qo2mEeB5yAZN9Y53sbm3i2Jomv0sVrj10tWY/view   “City of Seattle's Fall Budget Cycle Is Nearly Upon Us: Your Participation Is Needed!” by Vee Hua from the South Seattle Emerald:  https://southseattleemerald.com/2022/09/19/news-gleams-det-cookie-chess-park-reopening-council-passes-6-5m-for-seattle-green-new-deal/#City-of-Seattles-Fall-Budget-Cycle-Is-Nearly-Upon-Us    “Mayor Asks for CPC's Assistance in Bringing Cops Back into Seattle Schools”  by Amy Sundberg from Notes from The Emerald City”:  https://www.getrevue.co/profile/amysundberg/issues/mayor-asks-for-cpc-s-assistance-in-bringing-cops-back-into-seattle-schools-1359958  Seattle Community Police Commission (CPC) August 17, 2022 Meeting:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D-JtHPKuQQ   “Seattle Solidarity Budget coalition opposes funds for what it calls 'soft cops'” by Amy Radil from KUOW:  https://kuow.org/stories/seattle-solidarity-budget-coalition-opposes-funds-for-what-it-calls-soft-cops  “Det. Cookie Chess Park Reopening, Council Passes $6.5M for Seattle Green New Deal” by Vee Hua from The South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2022/09/19/news-gleams-det-cookie-chess-park-reopening-council-passes-6-5m-for-seattle-green-new-deal/  “King County launches new programs to support immigrants” from Northwest Asian Weekly:  http://nwasianweekly.com/2022/09/king-county-launches-new-programs-to-support-immigrants/     Call for support: 1-844-724-3737 (Monday to Friday from 9 a.m.–6 p.m.) Contact Aimee Zhu at 206-393-2110 or aimeez@cisc-seattle.org  “$340M WA immigrant relief fund plagued by monthslong delays” by Melissa Santos from Crosscut:  https://crosscut.com/politics/2022/03/340m-wa-immigrant-relief-fund-plagued-monthslong-delays  “Delayed immigrant relief fund now accepting applications” by Melissa Santos from Axios:  https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2022/09/20/delayed-immigrant-relief-applications-washington  Apply through: immigrantreliefwa.org.  The application portal went live Monday and will remain open through Nov. 14. People will be notified as soon as December whether their application was accepted. Checks or pre-paid cards are expected to be mailed by January 2023.  37th LD State Rep. Pos. 2 Debate - Tuesday, October 4th at the Rainier Arts Center: officialhacksandwonks.com/blog/37th-ld-debate-state-representative-october-4-2022  RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/south-seattle-emerald-2022-electoral-debate-tickets-412293840977   Submit audience questions before the show here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQlF7kRixWh_GnFInZ7UxDdKXK59LONGKAsQ1WBXgm3lysRA/viewform Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Talk about talking to people who do the work - today, we are welcoming for the first time our co-host: my colleague, Bryce Cannatelli, who is the Production Coordinator for the show also. Welcome Bryce. [00:01:00] Bryce Cannatelli: Hey, Crystal - thanks for having me. [00:01:02] Crystal Fincher: Excited for you to be on - you are in the trenches with me every day in the work that we do - our day jobs - this podcast is like the side hustle. But you are brilliant and intelligent and always helpful and insightful and savvy and wise, so I'm excited to have you on the show today. [00:01:27] Bryce Cannatelli: Oh, thank you so much. That's very kind of you. [00:01:31] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so we should start off talking about - hey, some new polling dropped. We are in the midst of a general election with a lot of races on the ballot, including a senatorial race at the top of the ballot. And so what did these poll findings conclude? [00:01:52] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, so this new Crosscut/Elway poll, that was published yesterday, was a statewide poll and confirmed one of the things that we took away from the primary election earlier this year, which is that the red wave that was much talked about is not happening the way that a lot of people anticipated. Looking at the statewide races from this poll, we see that US Senator Patty Murray is still leading against Tiffany Smiley 50% to 37% with 12% undecided, which is a comfortable lead for Murray. And maybe more interesting from the polling - looking at the Secretary of State's race between Steve Hobbs, who was appointed to the position last year, and independent challenger Julie Anderson, where Hobbs received 31% in the poll, Anderson got 29%, and 40% of the voters were Undecided. And maybe even more surprising than that was Hobbs only getting 42% in his home county of Snohomish County, which shows that there is definitely a pathway for Julie Anderson here to become an independent Secretary of State, which would be a first for Washington in a very long time. [00:03:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it would be. And the Cascadia Advocate, which is a publication of the Northwest Progressive Institute, had a nice analysis and breakdown of this. I think this is consistent with what we have seen with prior polling for Patty Murray and Tiffany Smiley - it looks like Murray has a comfortable lead. Smiley is definitely trying to throw out all the stops - we've seen Smiley go hard about her being pro-life in the primary, try and scrub reference to that and revise her messaging in the general - that doesn't quite seem to be landing. Recently shot a "Seattle Is Dying" style - and that's a reference to previous hyperbolic documentary-style programs that have largely mischaracterized the state of homelessness and public safety in Seattle, conflated different reasons and root causes. And is really just viewed comically by people in Seattle, but unfortunately often taken seriously by people outside of Seattle - both in our suburbs here in the state and nationally. And so it's a narrative that doesn't land inside the City, but we'll see if maybe they think they can make some inroads using that kind of tactic. Capitol Hill Seattle had some coverage of that earlier this week, but I was not surprised to see anything about that. It looks like the Secretary of State's race is a race. It does look like it is a competitive race. I know that there are some people who - Hey, this thing is done. We will see. And, it may turn out not being as close as current polling reflects. Obviously we are sitting here in late September - most of the communication that campaigns are going to do is yet to come. And so there's still some defining of the candidates - their name IDs aren't very high statewide for either of them. So that may change some minds. There's a chunk of undecided people who still have to get familiar with them and get to know who they are. So it's an interesting dynamic because this is a position that has been held by Republicans for a long time. With Steve Hobbs' appointment, he's the first Democrat to be in that position in several years, but being challenged by an independent. And so - in campaigns, who you are aligned with can also influence how much money and resources you have access to. Steve Hobbs, you would think, is going to be supported by some Democratic organizations and independent expenditures by Democrats. It remains to be seen whether Julie Anderson gets that kind of independent support and other organizations communicating on her behalf to see what that race is gonna be like. So stay tuned, but that certainly looks to be a competitive race. Certainly more competitive than what currently looks to be the case for Patty Murray or Tiffany Smiley. But that is not to say that that should be taken for granted certainly. Voting is important, getting involved is important. And so we will continue to follow what the polls continue to say and what the campaigns continue to do. Also this week, we had a big announcement from Mayor Bruce Harrell, mayor of Seattle. Bruce Harrell naming that he selected his interim police chief as his permanent police chief. So basically person's doing the same job and their title changed, but it looks like we are going to be in for more of what we have gotten - very much a status quo pick. How did you see this, Bryce? [00:07:04] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, I definitely see it as a status quo pick as well. It seemed like there was a preference for Diaz early in Harrell's administration, but Harrell was required to do a national search for a new police chief. The three finalists that were highlighted were Adrian Diaz, SPD Assistant Chief Eric Greening - two people who have been working with and in the SPD for a long time. And the third pick was the assistant police chief out of Tucson, Kevin Hall. And the pick for Diaz really does highlight this commitment to the status quo, to the same strategies that we've been having when it comes to public safety and the role of police in public safety. Now, all three finalists did at least speak to some elements of reform, to some elements of alternative response, or evaluating the role of police in public safety and how to improve the relationships between police and communities. But it was really Kevin Hall out of Tucson who spoke the most in that regard, who talked about programs that he had been a part of in Tucson to try to circumvent people going directly to jail, who pointed out issues with the intense hiring focus strategy that the Harrell administration has been leading - pointing out that there is a nationwide shortage, or at least a long time, hiring troubles for police. And that in Seattle, specifically, we have bottlenecks within our police training system that make it such that hiring a police officer today means they won't be on the street for about a year. It is not a quick fix. And the Harrell administration ultimately choosing Diaz runs a little counter to Harrell's own talks about really rolling up his sleeves and figuring out how to change the culture of the SPD, how to add a little accountability - seems like we're really just strapping in for more years of the same approaches we've been seeing, which as you pointed out, the "Seattle is Dying" narratives that people like Tiffany Smiley like to use to try to rile people up outside of the City are overblown, but public safety is still an issue here. And our police-focused, or police hiring focus, strategies just have not been helping that. [00:09:40] Crystal Fincher: This is an interesting choice. As you just said, public safety is a concern. Rising violence is a concern. Any violence is a concern. And there is a problem within the City. I don't think anyone is disputing that some types and categories of crime have decreased, others have increased. But I think we all have an interest in making sure that fewer people are victimized, that we reduce violence. And there's just about no one who is satisfied with the direction things have been going in support of that effort. People may have different reasons for being dissatisfied, but pretty much there's universal agreement that the status quo has not been working. So this being a status quo pick is a curious choice in that regard. And to your point, it does seem to run counter to some things that Bruce Harrell has said, and even just lip service to how he views accountability. They talked about - Hey, they're gonna prioritize addressing violent crimes, the staffing shortage, and improving the culture within the department. Well really - they're gonna focus on addressing violent crimes? This is the same person who decided to stop investigating sexual assaults of adults - without telling many people evidently - but what is worth investigating if that isn't worth investigating? That actually often comes with more evidence unfortunately than a lot of other types of crimes. And to just wholesale make a decision that you're stopping doing that - seemingly just to deploy more people on patrol - doesn't seem in line with this. Bruce is this police chief's boss and if he is holding people accountable for their decisions, what was the outcome of that? Was it just - oh, please don't do that again. Why didn't I know about this? It seems like there is an endorsement of the things that have happened with this decision, and I question a number of the things that have happened and whether they are consistent with this goal of reducing violent crime and how we're measuring that. And so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out, but just - I don't know that - it seemed like there was a big effort in the press conference to sell this as - Hey, we're turning a corner, this is a new day. We're gonna start focusing on these things. And really it's the same people focusing on the same things, making the same kinds of decisions. And I just - in terms of reactions, whether someone is progressive or conservative, it just seemed to have fallen flat. Whether that squarely lands on the head of Diaz or Harrell is - can be questioned, but certainly from an outside perspective and just at a glance, it's - okay, we're continuing to do the same thing, and it seems like there's universal agreement - same thing isn't working. So would be very eager to see some differences in approach and in decision making to give people confidence that there is going to be something done to address violence. And also to your point, something done to address it today, this year - because hiring isn't that. Even with the money that has already been approved, and additional money that has been approved, to hire, to retain people, to search across the country - despite officers continuing to say that they don't think that's the most effective use of money and won't be effective in keeping people on the force. That can't result in any additional officers until next year at the earliest, because it does take a long time for someone to go through the hiring pipeline, then to go through the training pipeline, then to land on the street. So if that's what you're counting on, that won't start to make a difference until next year. And we have a public safety problem right now. We have people getting victimized right now. And so would love to see the plan for what are you going to do right now. With that - influential in that, and also talking about - just still in the realm of public safety, especially accountability. A lot of that goes beyond the chief or the mayor, and is largely dictated by the Seattle Police Officers Guild, or SPOG, contract. And what did we see happen this week? [00:14:26] Bryce Cannatelli: This week we saw an open letter of contract negotiations from People Power Washington, talking about what they would like to see happen with this year's SPOG contract. And this SPOG contract really represents a major test for what we've been talking about for how serious Harrell and Diaz are about adjusting the culture, introducing accountability, improving relationships between police officers and the City. What People Power Washington are asking for here is establishing greater methods of accountability, of making sure that the disciplinary review process mirrors what happens in the Seattle Police Management Association contract, making sure that there are methods of actually holding police officers accountable for problematic and illegal behavior. They want to see restrictions so that SPOG doesn't allow in-uniform off-duty work for police officers, which is definitely a problematic occurrence. They want to see that any contract with SPOG provides alternatives for, or provides alternative community-based emergency response programs. And a lot of other requests that are, quite honestly, things that we've seen in other cities in other areas really make a difference in community public safety. And especially programs like alternative community response - when City leaders are really hounding us again and again on the lack of police - you brought up sexual assault cases not being investigated. It is a very reasonable request. And it seems like in everybody's best interest to try to figure out some of these alternative community response programs. [00:16:26] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely that. And these are - I think it's worth going through these things, 'cause a lot of times people are just like - okay, we need reforms, but what are those reforms? And yes, this contract is important but what are the things that we need to make sure that are in here? Sometimes it's not the most accessible information. And so I do think it's important to talk about - and not just things that have made a difference in other jurisdictions, but with the baseline set by the Seattle Police Management Association contract from earlier this year, making sure those types of provisions are included in here. So I'm gonna go through some of these things, especially what was in the Seattle Police Management Association contract - at minimum, the things that were included in there that should be included in the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract - providing subpoena power to both the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of the Inspector General so that they can get all information relevant to their investigations and to complaints to make their findings. Establishing the standard of proof as a preponderance of evidence for all disciplinary action, requiring OPA records to be retained for the length of employment plus six years regardless about whether the findings are sustained or unsustained - because we've had problems with records disappearing, officers unfortunately repeating that conduct, but no paper trail to be able to better root out who is creating problems. Defining dishonesty as providing false information which the officer knows to be false or providing incomplete responses to specific questions regarding material facts. Right now that definition is not that robust - pretty common sense, but it's not. Including layoff language in the management rights section of the CBA - allowing the city to decide the necessity for layoff without having to bargain. Requiring public disciplinary review meetings, phase out additional pay for the use of body worn cameras, establish a disciplinary review process mirroring the one defined in the recent 2022 SPMA contract. Allow for the 180-day clock to be stopped whenever a criminal investigation is conducted, regardless of where the alleged criminal activity occurred or what agency is conducting the investigation. And place the burden to establish any reason to deny an extension of the clock based on a good use, a good cause on the union. Empower the OPA to make assignments based on the skills and abilities of the investigator, rather than whether they are a civilian or a uniformed sergeant. And allow the OPA to communicate with the criminal investigators and prosecutors from any agency about the status and progress of a criminal investigation. These are really common sense things, things that are not out of bounds. These are already in a Seattle Police Management Association contract. They should absolutely at minimum be included in the SPOG contract. Also, wanting to remove barriers to civilianize certain public safety functions and provide alternative community-based response as you talked about - it shouldn't include any guaranteed minimum of staffing that might impede efforts to civilianize or limit the possibilities for reenvisioning public safety in Seattle. The mayor, the police chief, the council - all of our leaders in Seattle - have made commitments in this direction and tying their hands preemptively limits what they're able to do and what voters voted for and expect. Requiring SPOG - the contract should not allow in-uniform off-duty work for police officers, nor should it require the City to pay any part of the Seattle Police Officer Guild President's salary. It's pretty unprecedented. And in a time where we're heading into budget shortfalls, where other departments in the City are also dealing with this, that's not an arrangement that we see with other unions within the City. So let's bring that in line with other unions. And broader changes to the accountability system that'll close loopholes and remove barriers to accountability. Specifically, discipline should not be required to be foreclosed within a certain timeline - in other words, 180 days. The OPA should have the ability to refer criminal investigations to the agency of their choice and be able to oversee those criminal investigations. Requirements should be instituted for the OPA to retain records permanently for investigations related to excessive force, dishonesty, criminal conduct, or where underlying allegations were concealed. Limitations should be removed as to how many of OPA investigators must be sworn versus civilian, so we can progress towards civilianizing OPA and stop the practice of officers investigating other officers which is an inherent conflict of interest. There shouldn't be any language barring the ability of complainants to appeal disciplinary decisions, a process that should be developed by the CPC as a top priority. And there should also be no language preventing the transparency of and ability to adapt standards of discipline so the public can evaluate these standards and participate in changing them as expectations around public safety change. I wanted to go through those just because it is important for us all to know what we should be looking for in this contract, what is at stake, and what desperately needs to change. And so I appreciate People Power Washington engaging in this, so many community organizations engaging in this, and look forward to seeing what comes of this and what the mayor is comfortable with in this contract, as well as the city council. Other big upcoming element - and this is all wonky stuff, but it's wonky stuff that material impacts the day-to-day lives of people in these cities. So the budget process for the City of Seattle is coming up and that is going to determine a lot of what is - everything in the City - every service that the City provides, every function that the City has - is addressed in the upcoming budget. I just want to review the timeline real quick, so people know what to be on the lookout for. Coming up next week, the mayor's going to deliver the proposed budget on September 27th. The mayor's gonna outline his priorities, what anticipated spending levels on different things are. The council is going to review the mayor's proposal starting on September 28th throughout October. The public will be able to provide feedback on the budget between September 28th and November 22nd. Councilmembers will propose changes in October, the Budget Chair presents a balancing package - basically a response to the mayor's proposed budget on November 8th. Councilmembers may propose further revisions up to November 21st, and the council will vote to adopt the budget on November 22nd. So the months of October, really in the month of October, there's going to be a lot of work being done, and that's the time to engage with your councilmembers, to engage with the mayor, make your voice heard on what this budget is going to bring. And there are a couple elements that kind of preview a couple things that are on deck. One being - looks like the mayor is going to ask for the Community Police Commission, or CPC's, assistance in bringing cops back into Seattle schools. What is happening here? [00:24:26] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, so this was pretty interesting. During an August 17th meeting between Mayor Harrell and the Community Police Commission, Community Police commissioner and Officer Mark Mullens pointed to defunding as overstepping. And removing resource officers from schools - people don't have the visual, but I put quotes over defunding - and Mayor Harrell did respond, saying that resource officers and police officers needed to earn the trust and right to get back into schools. But also said that he's working with Superintendent Dr. Jones and Chairman Brandon Hersey to rebuild these relationships and is working to get officers back into school - suggesting that the Community Police Commission could be an invaluable asset in this space. It's interesting because in all of this, no mention was made about how this would affect - or could affect - students detrimentally, how it could contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline, how it would affect students' health and safety, which again just calls into question or at least runs counter to these spoken commitments to trying to find a more up-to-date view of police's role in public safety. In the same meeting, he also suggested that the CPC help recruit new officers for the Seattle Police Department. [00:25:57] Crystal Fincher: I don't think that's in their given roles, is it? [00:25:59] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, no, not at all. It's definitely not. So it was a really interesting meeting and it seems to go against what a lot of communities are concerned about when it comes to the role of police officers in school, especially how it affects students of color and other marginalized students. [00:26:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I'm curious to see what the Seattle Public School Superintendent has to say about this, what Seattle Public School's board members have to say about this. And what their intentions would be and what they find acceptable in this area - is this something that they are looking to incorporate, or is this something that the mayor is suggesting that does not align with what they want? I'm very curious to hear what their takes would be on that. Also, another thing that was - that will be - that Bruce Harrell previously announced will be something that he's looking to include in the budget is a new park ranger, basically expanded park ranger hiring, and maybe some expanded duties. What are the details there? [00:27:04] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah. Harrell proposed to pay for 26 additional rangers in Seattle's parks. And during the announcement did stipulate some - tried to preemptively defend this by defining the differences between these park rangers and police - they're not supposed to be involved in sweeps. But this decision has still gotten a lot of pushback. The Solidarity Budget - the Seattle Solidarity Budget coalition is leading the effort here in criticizing this - calling the park rangers "soft cops" because park rangers can still issue trespass citations and can still end up funneling people into jail and into other areas of the criminal justice system, even if they're not armed, even if they don't fulfill the same exact roles as police officers. [00:28:16] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and so this is gonna be interesting to follow. Bruce Harrell is rolling this out, seemingly, as a public safety initiative, which immediately invited questions. Okay - what public safety role do these play and which talks, basically brings it into the "soft cop" conversation - they can issue citations, they can introduce people into the criminal legal system or reintroduce them into it. And so that being a concern - the council is looking at taking this up and potentially narrowing the scope of what they can do. The council looking at, as you said, preventing them from engaging with sweeps or anything like that. It'll be interesting to see where this lands, but again, make sure you make your voice heard. There was an article in KUOW this week that we will link discussing the Seattle Solidarity Budget coalition and what they have talked about and what they're also proposing. And they certainly are talking about - it would be more effective, according to evidence and data, to invest more in addressing core needs, things that are more closely tied to the root causes of crime to prevent it - instead of operating around the edges perhaps. So we will see where that lands and continue to follow that. We talk about Seattle a lot. We talk about Mayor Harrell a lot and certainly have some bones to pick with a number of things that are happening within the City. But one positive thing, I think, that was just announced by Mayor Harrell was the City unanimously passing a $6.5 million Green New Deal. Last week, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed legislation requested by Bruce Harrell, I believe, for setting up a Seattle Green New Deal Opportunity Fund. And this is something that Bruce Harrell talked about on the campaign trail, this is something that is desperately needed in Seattle and beyond. We have to address greenhouse gas emissions, we have to address pollution in all of its forms, and mitigating the effects on all of our communities, particularly those hit worst and the hardest, which are usually BIPOC, low-income communities that are dealing with the brunt of this. So what are the specifics of what's going to be happening, Bryce? [00:30:47] Bryce Cannatelli: Like you said, this is exciting and definitely points towards the City, both looking at how can we reduce emissions, but also how can we battle the impacts that climate change has on people who are really vulnerable. So looking at the breakdown, which we'll link in the show notes - the South Seattle Emerald did a really great breakdown of it. These funds are going to new resilience hubs to help during climate emergencies like extreme heat or other weather-related events like wildfire smoke and flooding. We're gonna see $1.78 million go to upgrading community facilities to foster resilience. Another, a little over a million dollars, for centers in the Duwamish valley to provide cooling, air filtration, other programming. And almost half a million for a citywide resilience hub strategy, focusing on communities that are impacted, as they say, first and worst by climate injustice. We're also going to see some upgrades to municipal buildings for electrification, cooling, heating, and air quality upgrades to Seattle's 650 owned buildings, including its 27 public libraries. We're gonna see over $2 million going to accelerating Seattle's transition of City-owned buildings off of fossil fuels by 2035. Providing heating, cooling, clean air to some library branches and over half a million for building electrification. We're also going to see, and this is pretty exciting as well, investments in fossil fuel free affordable housing - affordable housing for low income residents, which will give about $2 million to supporting affordable housing projects that are underway to be free of fossil fuels and avoid really inefficient and costly upgrades that we would have to do later just to make them more climate friendly and energy efficient. They're also funding a climate and community health indicator project, which hopes to get accurate local and reliable data for addressing climate change. Developing a carbon pollution and community health indicators to inform how we plan around climate change. Money to go to supporting community and public health partnerships to look at cumulative health impacts of climate change. Trying to acquire new transportation energy data to figure out where electrification needs to happen first. And there's also a hundred thousand dollars going to supporting community engagement to inform the climate element of the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan, which is hoping to develop Seattle's climate resilience and environmental justice goals over the next 20 years. This money is going in a lot of different directions - some of it proactive, some of it reactive - but it is really encouraging to see the City really taking this seriously and putting funds that came from the JumpStart program actually into making the City a place where people are safer and healthier. Especially if they're already in a part of a town or in a community that's especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. [00:34:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So good work. Keep it up. Also wanted to make mention this week - King County is launching new programs to support immigrants, which is a big deal. There is now, which was just announced, this launch of two new programs that started earlier this month to provide financial support, including a King County immigration fee support program to help immigrants pay eligible fees associated with applying for legal status - including fees with US Citizenship and Immigration Services and Executive Office for immigrant review. And also immigrant applications costs vary from a couple hundred to thousands of dollars per applicant. So if you are living, working, going to school in King County, or currently detained in ICE facilities, but previously living, working, or going to school in King County - you are eligible for support. And that's up to $3,000 per individual and $6,000 per household, depending on the fees incurred or expected in 2022. So we will link that - in the system, oftentimes people are listening who may not be in that situation, but maybe you know folks who are. It's also common to know folks who are, but not know that they're in that situation - 'cause there is, often people are not excited to disclose that they may not have all of their papers in perfect order. So just the more people can do to spread this word throughout all of our communities in every area, in person and online - the more we can make sure people are connected to resources that are going to be helpful. So I was very encouraged to see that as well as there's another related piece of welcome news this week - in that some long overdue relief looks like it is finally going to get out. What is happening here? [00:36:23] Bryce Cannatelli: Washington's Legislature approved of $340 million in aid for undocumented immigrants last April and there have been a lot of delays on this program, this money not reaching its intended recipients. But this week we did get some good news. Applications are now open for a fund that are gonna provide financial aid to undocumented immigrants in the state. People who need the support can apply to receive a check or a prepaid debit card through the website immigrantreliefwa.org - we'll put that link in the show notes and it'll be on our Twitter as well. This application portal went live on Monday. It's gonna be open until November 14th. So just like the other story that we just talked about, this is gonna be really good to share as much as you can. The Department of Social and Health Services says that each eligible person will get a minimum - a minimum - of $1,000 with the total award to each person depending on the size of the applicant pool and other factors. If you qualify - you have to be over 18 years of age and you must be ineligible for unemployment benefits or federal stimulus payments due to immigration status. [00:37:44] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and this if we recall, back then was necessary because although there was a wide variety of relief made available to the majority of residents living here, there were some very notable carveouts for immigrants. And that - immigrants are part of our communities, they're working in jobs just along with the rest of us and in need of support. And so this was meant to fill the gap. Obviously would've been great to get the money out earlier as intended, but it is now available, so please spread the word. The online application is available currently in Spanish, English, Chinese, Korean, and Tagalog. Make sure you spread the word - support and help is available. And we are fairly sure that there are definitely a lot of people who need it, so making those connections is a very helpful thing. And as a reminder, I'm going to be moderating a 37th Legislative District candidate debate on Tuesday, October 4th, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM. Doors are gonna open at 6:30. This is an in-person event that will also be streamed online. It's gonna be at the Rainier Arts Center. So the programming starts at 7, doors open at 6:30. They are going to be checking vaccination cards, masking is required, they will also offer rapid testing for those who are not vaccinated. Again, all will be required to wear masks, but hope that you come down, make your voice heard. You can also submit questions. We'll put a link in the show notes that you can use to ask questions. You can also @ me on Twitter if you wanna do that, shoot me what you're thinking, we'll try and incorporate that in there. This is being put on by media partners, including Hacks & Wonks, KNKX, KVRU, and Real Change with support from King County Elections, the Seattle Foundation and League of Women Voters. So excited about that. Excited about hearing from both of those candidates. It's gonna be an important choice that residents of that district are going to make. So look forward to seeing you there. And with that, I think that is our show for today. Thank you so much for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, September 23rd, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler, assistant producer is Shannon Cheng, and our Production Coordinator is my co-host today - Bryce Cannatelli. [00:40:21] Bryce Cannatelli: Thank you so much again, Crystal. It's a lot of fun. [00:40:24] Crystal Fincher: And so thanks to Bryce for being our insightful cohost today. You can find Bryce on Twitter @inascenttweets, spelled I-N-A-S-C-E-N-T-T-W-E-E-T-S. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks, and you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, as you do. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere you can get 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. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full text 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.