Podcasts about International District

Former New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce and radio host Derek Underhill share perspectives with young New Mexicans Danielle Hernandez, & Denice Sanchez on the biggest local and national headlines every week!This week, Sam Martinez takes a break from bootcamp to join the show once again.Trump offers tax breaks for loans on U.S.-built cars—will Dems lose ground as tariffs bring American jobs roaring back?Social Security and Medicare are strong—why do Democrats keep lying about Trump cutting them?Democrats tend to govern with emotions—Here's why that's a difficult way to create policy.America's youth don't grasp bankruptcy, will Dems keep them clueless as the nation nears collapse?Foreign countries rip us off with tariffs, why do Dems cry when Trump fights back to save jobs?GOP headquarters in Albuquerque firebombed, Dem Congresswoman calls for followers to ‘agitate' Republicans hours before.Trump demands voter ID for elections, will Dems block him from protecting our vote?Filmmaker calls Albuquerque's ‘International District' America's scariest. Find out what he saw.Tune in to hear it all and more, and join us weekly for a closer look Inside New Mexico!

From City Council District 6 which encompasses UNM, Nob Hill, and the International District, Councilor Nicole Rogers comes in to talk about her last year of accomplishments, She also discusses The Homeless Coordinating Council, and Homeless Voucher Program. All this with TJ on News Radio KKOB.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What could become of the Expo New Mexico State Fairgrounds? Near the end of 2024, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced a 'Request for Proposal,' or RFP, seeking ideas for a master plan to redevelop 236 acres of state-owned land in the central part of Albuquerque. This week, Chris & Gabby break down what this could mean for the area near the International District with freshman District 6 City Counselor, Nichole Rogers. The governor's announcement is coupled with half a million dollars in state funding and ideas for potential housing development, entertainment venues, and possibly moving the State Fair out of Expo. What do the neighbors want? And what are the next steps?  We appreciate our listeners. Send your feedback or story ideas to hosts chris.mckee@krqe.com or gabrielle.burkhart@krqe.com. We're also on X (Twitter), Facebook, & Instagram at @ChrisMcKeeTV and @gburkNM. For more on this episode and all of our prior episodes, visit our podcast website: KRQE.com/podcasts. Also, check out the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel. Our show also airs on television! Tune into Fox New Mexico on Wednesdays at 10:35 p.m. MST. 

From crime, homelessness, economic investments, and a new presidential administration - there are several potential changes in the pipeline for 2025. This week, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller joins Chris and Gabby to discuss some major events from 2024 and what's ahead for the new year. Keller is officially in the final year of his second term and will run for a third term. What's his thinking behind another mayoral term? And what should Albuquerque be focused on the most in 2025?  Tune into the full discussion to hear his response to the big news topics including the DWI-APD corruption scandal, an RFP for Expo New Mexico, and continued challenges in the International District. We appreciate our listeners. Send your feedback or story ideas to hosts chris.mckee@krqe.com or gabrielle.burkhart@krqe.com. We're also on X (Twitter), Facebook, & Instagram at @ChrisMcKeeTV and @gburkNM. For more on this episode and all of our prior episodes, visit our podcast website: KRQE.com/podcasts. Also, check out the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel. Our show also airs on television! Tune into Fox New Mexico on Wednesdays at 10:35 p.m. MST.

What’s Trending: Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer accused of stalking, but it is unclear whether or not Troyer ever came in contact with the defendant. SWAT teams will begin to have constant presence in the International District in an effort to cut down crime rates in the area. The FBI was left scrambling after the local agent from New Orleans who first addressed the media completely contradicted herself and gave out false information. And Jake Skorheim joins the show to talk about the New Years holiday. // Big Local: A DEI agent in King County is considering suing the city of Federal Way over a contract dispute. And a family in Renton has a unique e-scooter stolen from their garage while they were home. // You Pick the Topic: Even though the Seahawks are eliminated from playoff contention, head coach Mike MacDonald said that he will do everything he can to get his players the incentive bonuses they deserve.

Seattle's public safety crisis continues as a 37-year-old man was stabbed in the Rainier Beach AT&T store, an event indicative of the city's growing violence. The suspect, allegedly experiencing a mental health crisis, reportedly targeted the victim without provocation, reflecting a concerning trend of random attacks. This incident adds to a staggering number of stabbings in the city, including a recent spree in the International District, with 10 victims over 36 hours. Critics point to Seattle's permissive policies on homelessness and drug use as exacerbating the problem. The Chinatown International District, a hotspot for crime and drug activity, underscores how progressive governance has failed to ensure public safety. The city's defunded police force and lack of proactive measures further compound the issue, leaving citizens and local businesses vulnerable. Seattle's leadership must confront these escalating dangers or risk deeper economic and social decline.

Tamara (Tamie) Fennell has been working as a mental health advocate for two plus decades, in Virginia and in Colorado. As a past NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Fairfax, Virginia Affiliate Board Member, a NAMI Virginia State Program Trainer and NAMI Colorado Douglas / Arapahoe County Program Facilitator, Tamie has led educational programs structured to help caregivers and family members understand and support individuals living with serious mental illness.Tamie has also worked on presentations and educational in-service initiatives focused on raising awareness of mental health issues in educational settings. Her work with law enforcement officers on crisis intervention training programs has been especially fulfilling, as has speaking before state legislators to enact change.Since moving to Colorado in 2015, Tamie has worked in operations in the non-profit sector, in nonprofit fundraising and event coordination. Tamie currently is serving Rotary International District 5450 as 2024-2025 District Governor and partners in local and international service work with her local Rotary club.www.rotary.org**********************************************************Judy is the CEO & Founder of the Judy Carlson Financial Group. She helps her clients design, build, and implement fully integrated and coordinated financial plans from today through life expectancy and legacy.She is an Independent Fiduciary and Comprehensive Financial Planner who specializes in Wealth Decumulation Strategies. Judy is a CPA, Investment Advisor Representative, Life and Health Insurance Licensed, and Long-Term Care Certified.Judy's mission is to educate and empower her clients with an all-inclusive financial plan that encourages and motivates them to pursue their lifetime financial goals and dreams.Learn More: https://judycarlson.com/Investment Adviser Representative of and advisory services offered through Royal Fund Management, LLC, an SEC Registered Adviser.The Inspired Impact Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast-with-judy-carlson-interview-with-tamara-fennell-rotary-international-district-5450-2024-2025-district-governor

Paul and Wally discuss the potential impact of the new Israel/Iran conflict. The good news is that America's relative oil independence has not caused oil prices to skyrocket. Also, will this change Congress' approach to the stalled aid bills?   Biden's permitting ban on LNG exports is a loser across the spectrum. A former NPR executive recently said there's bias at NPR. Here's our story about NPR in New Mexico. NM is the only state in US to see a drop in immigrant numbers from 10 years ago. NM a mediocre 38th in Rich States, Poor States. A security firm "fires" their Albuquerque client due to danger of working in "International District."  NY Times: Film subsidies are money losers. A taxpayer-funded Southern NM abortion clinic location is still TBD. 

Pastor Joanne Landry. When it comes to helping the unhoused of Albuquerque's International District, Pastor Joanne walks the walk. As founder/director of Compassion Services ABQ, and lead pastor of the Interfaith Bible Center, Pastor Landry offers beds, respite, recovery and a ray of hope to the community she tirelessness serves. Hear how it all got started, and how transformed into the inspiring beacon it has become today, on this important episode.

Running a small business has its challenges. Running a small business along Central Avenue in Albuquerque's International District is particularly challenging these days. Some major stores have shut down. Other business owners are dealing with drug users, homelessness, and crime right outside their doorstep. This week, Chris & Gabby sit down with the owner of Southwestern Minerals, who has had a family business in the area since the 1960s. The owner shares details about what he and his wife are up against, what's kept them in business so long, and the changes he hopes to see from the city to keep Route 66 businesses like his - around.  See the visuals from Gabby's KRQE Investigates report with Southwestern Minerals here.  We appreciate our listeners. Send your feedback or story ideas to hosts chris.mckee@krqe.com or gabrielle.burkhart@krqe.com. We're also on Twitter (X), Facebook, & Instagram at @ChrisMcKeeTV and @gburkNM. For more on this episode and all of our prior episodes, visit our podcast website: KRQE.com/podcasts.

Brad, a local Tacoma resident who runs TacomaWTFTrees on Instagram, joins the guys on this episode. TacomaWTFTrees is the place to view some of the worst tree-pruning jobs in the Tacoma area. People are encouraged to submit their own sightings, see the links below to check them out! 00:04 - They start this episode sharing their love of the bacon cheeseburger pizza that was enjoyed while recording, Justin introduces Brad, and Brad talks about what got him started posting on Instagram. He talks about the various comments he gets on his posts, the decision to get two of his trees removed, and the cost of doing it. 17:38 – Brad talks about getting into the Useless, Unsuccessful, and/or Unpopular Memes group on Facebook, growing up on the Northend of Tacoma, and the odd feelings he experienced while at Stadium High School. He talks about his parent's haunted house, Justin talks about the haunting of The Union Club, and the history of his house. 34:52 – Justin talks about the changes in the International District, Brad talks about how much Proctor District has changed over the years, and the best places to drink back in the day. Justin reflects on his Magic days, they talk about movies they've watched at Blue Mouse Theatre, and Scott talks about watching Pennywise at Real Art Tacoma. 53:00 – Scott shares that some of the trees at Wright Park have plaques on them with their history, Brad and Scott talk about how cool the Manuscript Museum is, and Brad explains where his favorite part of Tacoma is at. Brad talks about working in the tugboat industry, the difference between fishing and tug boating, and the crazy number of ships on anchor during Covid. Thanks, Brad, for a great conversation! Special Guest: WTF Trees.

Paul and his family took a trip to Texas recently. RGF often cites data highlighting the economic success of Texas. He shares a bit about the trip and Texas' economic success. Also, Buc'ees are awesome!  NM's already small share of national GDP shrank between 2012 and 2022.  Gov. MLG plans to push ANOTHER EV mandate through the unelected Environmental Improvement Board.  Currently the Gov. has imposed a 7% mandate as of 1 year ago by 2025. The Gov. plans on imposing a 43 percent mandate starting in 2027 with that requirement going to 82% by 2032. The Gov. has also called on the Biden Administration to impose strict regulations on trucks.  An RGF op ed on Kids Count ran statewide. Also, RGF is hosting a statewide conference on education reform through its Opportunities for All Kids project on September 22nd.  Sen. Heinrich & White House tout mother of four living in ABQ's “International District” being given $10,500 for “updated and more powerful and efficient electric system, advanced light bulbs, air sealing, high efficiency shower heads, low-flush toilets and other improvements.” The City of ABQ also received $18.2 million in federal $$ for 20 buses. That's $910,000 per bus. According to the American Public Power Association An average diesel transit bus costs around $500,000, compared with $750,000 for an electric bus.

It joins a list of other spaces, including a Chinatown in Philadelphia. The list is managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

For years, businesses in Seattle's Chinatown-International District have been dealing with broken shop windows… and living with the plywood used to fill the gaps.But now, they're getting some help.An Huynh, the Senior Community Development Manager with SCIDPA gives us a closer look at a project that's letting the light in, and raising hopes for more visitors this spring and summer.SCIPDA is the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority.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/feedbackKing County behavioral health crisis centers: https://www.kuow.org/stories/on-the-ballot-stabilizing-king-county-s-mental-health-crisis

On this Tipping Point discussion Wally and Paul take on a number of fiscal issues: Contrary to the views of NM politicians, lower taxes CAN result in higher revenues. According to the latest Rich States Poor States report New Mexico sticks out relative to its neighbors (in a bad way). New Mexico's economy isn't in great shape, but according to a report from Pew the government has seen more tax revenues than any other state since January of 2020. Based on the recently passed budget in Santa Fe Paul put together a chart to illustrate just how quickly spending has grown. New Mexico's capital outlay process has always been corrupt, but the $10 million for an abortion clinic added to this year's bill only highlighted the corruption. Insanely Germany has shuttered its last 3 power plants (resulting in more coal and wood being burnt). Meanwhile the Biden Administration is planning to force EV's on Americans whether they want them or not. Paul had a chance to talk to KOAT Channel 7 about the ongoing cost of the DOJ consent decree.  Folks in ABQ's “International District” want a grocery store now that Wal Mart has closed but they vote for people who won't get serious about crime

Today on the show, Paul and Ben talk about tech issues, how many earths, “Wash You Want?” diagnosing mental health issues, getting a haircut at the Red Apple, white people are the only ones who call it the International District, unintentional racism, running after Crispin Glover, hair, the clean plate … Continue reading →

This week on Generation Justice, we proudly featured community leader and resident of the International District, Enrique Cardiel, who shared about the closing of the Walmart on San Mateo and Central, the effects this closure has in the community, and important legislation to keep an eye out for. Enrique has lived in the International District and worked as a public health professional for over 25 years! We also shared with you, calendar events for you and your family to take part in, and our weekly vaccine equity segment with important information on vaccines, COVID-19, and more! Catch us live every Sunday @ 7:00pm on 89.9 KUNM OR stream on KUNM.org!

Join us as we sit down for an update with KODA, a 17 story condominium located in the heart of Seattle's International District. KODA offers a great collection of move-in ready studios, one, and two bedroom homes, along with a collection of amenities designed to be a convenient extension of your home.

Justin Pearson is lead pastor and church planter at Restore Church in Albuquerque's International District. In this episode we discuss planting and pastoring churches in hard places and among hard to reach people with the hope and joy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For more information about Restore Church visit: www.restoreabq.com For more information about First Baptist Church of West Albuquerque visit: www.fbcwa.org

Two Seattle newspapers focused on the Asian community stopped printing this month. Many advocates and residents of the Chinatown-International District say they fear they'll be left without a voice and a way to safely advocate for their neighborhood.

The Monologue: John Fetterman's debate performance apparently wasn't 'painful to watch' The Interview: Brett Rogers (Snohomish County prosecutor candidate) says crime can get under control -- if we are more aggressive about punishing criminals.The Interview: Curtis Houck (Managing editor of Newsbusters) says Google is burying Republican candidate websites -- including Tiffany Smiley's site.LongForm: Cody Spencer (owner of Pink Gorilla Games) says he's now leaving the International District due to crime -- the last, an armed robbery.The Quick Hit: Whoopi gets fired up about Lindsey Graham and Herschel Walker on The View.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After strong pushback from the Seattle Chinatown International District community, King County Executive Dow Constantine announced the county will scrap its plans to expand a homeless shelter near the area. It was a major grassroots victory for the community which says it is not against helping the homeless but felt the C-I-D is housing more than its share of homeless services. The Chino, Matt Chan was active in leading the community efforts. He talks about the county's decision to pull back and how the community came together to make it happen. 

A popular game shop in the Chinatown-International District has experienced a rash of break-ins in the past year.The owner of Pink Gorilla says the business has been targeted around six times in 2022 at the shop off of S King St. Because of that, he is going to take even more measures to make sure the business is secure.LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos everyday. https://bit.ly/3KBUDSK

What's Trending: More violence in Seattle's International District, a wild story out of Illinois, Oregon EMS are wildly overworked and its causing problems. // Big Local: Rantz and Jesse Johnson get into a twitter fight, a disturbance in Edmonds as murder charges are dismissed and WSU researchers may have discovered a new COVID strain. // Starbucks adapts to market changes with focus on convenienceSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bryan is back LIVE today after a short bout with the flu. Putin set to hold sham election in regions of eastern Ukraine. Kamala Harris says what Ron Desantis did to migrants is a dereliction of duty. // Bryan checked out the new Star Wars series on Disney+ and liked it. More Latinos turning republican. // Fatal shooting in Seattle's International District. Underwater volcano explosion from January created a global shockwave and may contribute to climate change.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 In Seattle's Chinatown International District, there is outrage over King County plans to construct a homeless shelter complex adjacent to the CID. Community members say the CID is already overwhelmed by crime from homeless encampments. They want the county to pause the project. On this episode, we talk with Seattle University Professor Emerita Marie Wong about the controversy. She says there is history, and racism behind the outrage in the CID. 

The Monologue: Migrants are suing Florida governor Ron DeSantis  The Interview: Rep. Jim Walsh (R-Aberdeen) slams the plan to give hundreds of millions to illegal immigrants. And he weighs in on how likely it is for Republicans to win the House.The Monologue: International district neighbors have been activated against county officials The Interview: Dan Matthews is the Republican candidate taking on Rick Larsen for WA-02. He makes the case for his election. LongForm: Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer says they are refusing bookings every day because of a lack of jail staff -- how does this impact public safety and why do they have the crisis? He explains. The Quick Hit:  Ana De Armas is frustrated that people will watch her in her new movie.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amidst international turmoil, world leaders speak at the United Nations in New York, including President Biden. // Katie Daviscourt joins the show to talk about the protests by International District residents against proposed homeless hub of services. // Bryan and producer Greg check the texts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Residents in Seattle's International District are upset with a King County plan to expand a homeless shelter in their neighborhood. They say they weren't consulted about the decision. They may have dodged a bullet given the reaction of King County Executive Dow Constantine and his staff.Independent journalist and Discovery Institute fellow Jonathan Choe asked Constantine about the criticisms. The executive did not respond well.An angry Constantine refused to answer, lobbed a partisan insult, and then retreated to a private staff-only elevator to avoid going on record.LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos everyday. https://bit.ly/3KBUDSK

Journalist Jonathan Choe joins Ari to discuss King County Executive Dow Constantine dodging questions about the HOMELESS MEGAPLEX he's trying to RAM through Seattle's International District. The residents of Chinatown are begging him to put a moratorium on the project until public comments are gathered.

The King County Prosecutor's Office said Tuesday that it has filed first-degree murder charges against a man who was caught on camera throwing a woman down the steps of a Seattle light rail station and then stabbing another person at a Sound Transit bus stop.Alexander Sherad Jay, 40, who is also known as Jay Alexander, is accused of grabbing his 62-year-old victim at the International District light rail station and throwing her down the stairs before following her downstairs and shoving her further down the steps. The suspect then allegedly kicked the woman in the face.LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos everyday. https://bit.ly/3KBUDSK

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Axios reporter Melissa Santos. They start off looking at the larger trends from this last week's primary, including why the predicted ‘red wave' didn't materialize. Next, they talk about Olgy Diaz's appointment to the Tacoma City council, discussing her impressive credentials and watershed status as the first Latina to serve on the Council. In Seattle City Council news, Crystal and Melissa look at the two recent abortion- and trans-related protections the council passed this week. For updates on public health, our hosts look at how Washington state is lifting most of its COVID emergency orders, where the state is at with its COVID response, and what our outlook is for MPV and its vaccine. After that, the two discuss the redistricting plans for the Seattle City Council, and different neighborhoods' responses to the proposed new district lines and close the show by looking at the state of behavioral health crisis response in our neighborhoods, discussing the county's plans for an emergency walk-in centers, the county's plans to improve its behavioral health response, and our lack of crisis response staff.  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Melissa Santos, at @MelissaSantos1. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Our blue legislature bucks GOP trend” by Melissa Santos from Axios: https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2022/08/12/washington-state-blue-legislature-gop-trend    “Tacoma City Council selects its newest member. She's the first Latina to serve” by Liz Moomey from The News Tribune: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article264330356.html?taid=62f470bf1a1c2c0001b63754&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter    “Seattle passes protections for abortion and gender affirming care” by KUOW Staff from KUOW: https://kuow.org/stories/seattle-passes-protections-for-abortion-and-gender-affirming-care   “MPV cases doubling nearly every week in WA, as U.S. declares public health emergency” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/monkeypox-cases-doubling-nearly-every-week-in-wa-as-us-set-to-declare-public-health-emergency/   "US will stretch monkeypox vaccine supply with smaller doses" by Matthew Perrone from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/us-will-stretch-monkeypox-vaccine-supply-with-smaller-doses/   Washington state says goodbye to most COVID emergency orders” by Melissa Santos from Axios: https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2022/08/09/washington-end-most-covid-emergency-orders   "New map would redraw Seattle's City Council districts, with changes for Georgetown, Magnolia" by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/new-map-would-redraw-seattles-city-council-districts-with-changes-for-georgetown-magnolia/   “Racial Equity Advocates Like Seattle's Newly Proposed Political Boundaries. Magnolia Residents Do Not.” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/08/04/77339585/racial-equity-advocates-like-seattles-newly-proposed-political-boundaries-magnolia-residents-do-not   “County Plans Emergency Walk-In Centers for Behavioral Health Crises” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/08/11/county-plans-emergency-walk-in-centers-for-behavioral-health-crises/    "Local Leaders Announce New Coalition to Address Behavioral Health Crisis" by Will Casey from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/08/11/77680008/local-leaders-announce-new-coalition-to-address-behavioral-health-crisis   “Designated crisis responders, a ‘last resort' in mental health care, face overwhelming demand” by Esmy Jimenez from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/designated-crisis-responders-a-last-resort-in-mental-health-care-face-overwhelming-demand/   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. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review because it helps a lot. 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 today's cohost: Seattle Axios reporter, Melissa Santos. [00:01:00] Melissa Santos: Hello, thanks for having me. [00:01:01] Crystal Fincher: Hey, thanks for being back. We always enjoy having you. So there were a number of things that happened this week. I think we'll start off just talking about the elections real quick. We got more results this week. Things are looking more conclusive - a couple of late-straggling races have been decided, including one of the congressional - two, really of the congressional district races. It looks like in the 47th Legislative District race that Republican Bill Boyce will be facing Democratic candidate Senator - former Senator - Claudia Kauffman. And that in the 47th House seat, that Democrat Shukri Olow and Democrat Chris Stearns will both be getting through and Republicans will actually not be making it in that seat, despite that race including three different Republicans - one the pick of the GOP that raised over $200,000, Carmen Goers, who actually finished in last place. So a number of things got settled, but overall, as you look at these elections, what are your takeaways, Melissa? [00:02:16] Melissa Santos: On the legislative side, really things look mostly similar to what they looked like on primary night, in the sense that a lot of the races that Republicans had hoped to pick up, I think Democrats still look really strong in. And that's in a lot of those swing districts in the suburbs - in Island County, the Democrats have pretty strong performances in some House races that I think Republicans have been eyeing for a pickup in the 10th District. The 28th Legislative District looks pretty much like the incumbent Democrats are in really good shape there - that's around Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Lakewood, University Place. And I think that the Republicans not having someone in that 47th District open seat is maybe not what people would've predicted when talking about a red wave coming this year, and that Democrats have been saying - we're just trying to defend what we have, we're not really planning to add seats here. But they look like they're in a pretty good position to defend the seats. The only place where things look like it'll be rough for Democrats are seats up in the 47th - sorry, the 42nd Legislative District in Whatcom County, I think, have some disappointing results for Democrats when it comes to trying to get the former - the State Senate seat formerly held by Republican Doug Ericksen. That's gonna be a tough race where it looks like the State House Democratic Rep who's running for it might have a really tough race to fight in November. She wants to pick up that seat for the Democrats. But again, Democrats were trying to just defend mostly this year. So I think they look like they're in a pretty good position to do that. One thing that's a little bit interesting is a lot of the fringier types in the Republican legislative caucus in the House are actually not going to be returning to the legislature next year. And some of that's just because they ran for Congress in some cases, like Brad Klippert. [00:04:15] Crystal Fincher: And Vicki Kraft. [00:04:16] Melissa Santos: Yes, and Vicki Kraft. So I'm interested to see how that plays out. There are some races where legislative candidates who are being accused of being RINOs [Republicans In Name Only] actually have advanced through the primary. And I am wondering if some Republicans - are they more moderate or just hoping that they beat the more Trumpy Republicans essentially. So that's something I'm watching actually going forward is - while we certainly have situations across the nation where Trump-endorsed Republicans are getting through - we see this in the 3rd Congressional District race, here in our state, where Jaime Herrera Beutler who voted to impeach Trump will not be getting through to the general - that was finalized this week. But locally in legislative races, I'm not sure that the more far-right candidates will win out in all these races in November. So I'm watching that - how does our state picture, when it comes to the Republican party, compare to what we're seeing nationally. And it's always interesting to see how Washington does 'cause we're a little bit different sometimes as a state in how we vote versus the rest of the country. [00:05:25] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And that sets up an interesting dynamic for Republicans, I think, in that it is really helpful when - just from a campaign perspective - when everyone is consistent with the message that's being delivered for the party, what priorities are in terms of values. And so there have been - legislatively - some more moderate Republicans making it through. There are certainly some real extremists. And again, "moderate" is an interesting word for Republicans 'cause - when it is gonna come to some of these caucus votes, I think moderation is gonna effectively fly out of the window. Or being afraid to speak out on certain things that challenge some of the more extreme elements in the party, which essentially in my opinion, enables that element of the party. But with Joe Kent higher on the ticket and being so visible, being a frequent guest on Hannity, Trump-endorsed, and really vocal about a number of things like opposing aid to Ukraine, about wanting Jim Jordan - who is extremely problematic and has been accused of ignoring sexual assault allegations on his watch under his responsibility - wanting him to replace Kevin McCarthy as the leader of the party, certainly moving in a much more extreme direction. A number of those things are gonna be inconsistent, I think, with what some of the other Republicans, I think legislatively under JT Wilcox certainly, Republicans are gonna wanna be talking about. So there may be just a bit of a mismatched message there and it will be interesting to see how the party navigates that, but especially coming from a place where the extremism - you look at the primaries - certainly did not land. And some of, even the criticisms just legislatively, of Republicans who were on the message that they wanted to be on, did not turn out to be very effective at all - that presents a challenge for them in the general. [00:07:40] Melissa Santos: I think that was interesting in the Federal Way area. I think everyone, including Democrats, were saying - yeah, there's a lot of voters concerned about public safety there. I think everyone thought maybe the Democrats might be a little bit more vulnerable from attacks from Republicans in that area in South King County around Federal Way, with Republicans say - Hey, Democrats passed all these bills that hamstring police, so they can't keep you safe. I think everyone thought that line of argument might work better in some of those areas in South King County than it did. And so I'm wondering if Republicans will change their approach or not, or if they're just gonna stick with hammering Democrats on public safety. I think that maybe we'll see just more talk about economy and inflation and maybe a little less of the public safety attacks - possibly - based on those results. [00:08:29] Crystal Fincher: And they certainly hit hard on both of those. It is interesting to see - particularly - so you have Jamila Taylor, who is the incumbent representative there, there's another open House seat, and then Claire Wilson in the Senate seat. Jamila Taylor, who's the head of the Legislative Black Caucus, did play a leading role in passing a lot of, number of the police accountability reforms that police, a number of police unions, and people who are saying "Back the Blue" and these were problematic. She actually has a police officer running against her in that district. And also, the mayor of Federal Way, Jim Ferrell, is running for King County Prosecutor on a hard line, lock 'em up kind of message. They've been working overtime to blame legislators, primarily Jamila Taylor, for some of the crime that they've seen. And holding community meetings - really trying to ratchet up sentiment against Jamila Taylor - helping out both her challenger and Jim Ferrell was the plan. And again, that seemed to fall flat. Jamila Taylor finished with 54% in that race and the most votes out of any Democrat. You saw Democrats across the board, both Claire Wilson and Jamila Taylor, get 54% and 55% of the vote. In a primary, that is certainly where you would want to be and that's really a hard number to beat in the general. And then in the other open seat, you had two Democratic candidates combine for, I think, 55% of the vote. So it is - where they attempted to make that argument the hardest, it seemed to fall almost the flattest. And it goes to - we talked about this on the Post-Primary Recap a little bit - I think it goes to show that the conversation publicly - certainly the political conversation about public safety - I think is too flat and does not account for where the public actually is. I think people are absolutely concerned about crime and rightfully so - we have to attack gun violence, we have to attack property crime and violent crime. We have to do better than we're doing now. But I think people are recognizing that the things that we have been doing have not been successful. And we have been trying to lock people up and people see that there's a need for behavioral health interventions, for housing, for substance use treatment and that those things are absent. And that you can send a policeman to do that, but they don't have the tools to address that even if they were the appropriate responder. And there's a lot of people saying they aren't even the appropriate response for a number of these things. So I just think regular voters - regular people - just have a more nuanced and realistic view of what needs to happen. [00:11:42] Melissa Santos: I also think that message - we could talk about those races forever, probably - but I think that message might land especially flat in communities like South King County that are predominantly people of color in many of these communities. They want to address - well, okay, I should not group everyone together, let me back up here - but I think a lot of people see the effects of crime on their communities and their family members and want support, not just a crackdown. And I don't know if that - I don't know - I'm generalizing here and I shouldn't, but I think that maybe that - [00:12:09] Crystal Fincher: I think it's across the board. I feel like - we saw polling in Seattle where, even if you break it down by Seattle City Council district, whether it's North Seattle or West Seattle which are predominantly white areas, in addition to other areas with higher percentage of people of color - they're saying near universally - when given, asked the question - where would you allocate more of your tax dollars in the realm of public safety to make a difference? They start off by saying behavioral health treatment, substance use disorder treatment, treating root causes. And then "more officers" trails those things. So it's - and even before more officers, they're saying better training for officers so they do a better job of responding when they are called. So I just think that across the board, there's - Republicans have gotten far and have done a lot by talking about the problem. And I think what the primary showed is that you're gonna have to do a better job of articulating a logical and reasonable solution to the problem. 'Cause people have heard talk about the problem for a long time, this isn't new. They're ready for someone to do something about it and they want to hear something that sounds credible, with some evidence behind it, that'll make a difference. And I don't think Republicans articulated that at all. And I think Democrats are talking about things more in line with where voters are at. But certainly, we could talk about those election results forever, but we will move on to other news. Speaking of newly elected people, we have a new appointment of a person on the Tacoma City Council - Olgy Diaz was just unanimously appointed as the first Latina member of the Tacoma City Council last Tuesday night. She was one of 43 applicants to apply, ended up making the shortlist, and then was officially appointed on Tuesday night. What did you take away from this? You previously covered - based in Tacoma, covered Tacoma previously, worked at The News Tribune. What does Olgy bring to the Council? [00:14:41] Melissa Santos: Olgy is really experienced in politics, I want to say. For way back when - I think I started talking to Olgy years and years ago - she was, definitely in her role with leading One America, she's done a lot of policy work at the state level for a long time. She worked in the Legislature, so I talked to her in that capacity. And she brings a lot of experience to the table - I think more than a lot of people who apply for vacancies on city councils, for sure. But I honestly was also just - I was blown away to read - I didn't realize the Tacoma City Council has never had a Latina member before and that really blew my mind, given the diversity of Tacoma and given that that's a community where you have people who just weren't represented for such a long time. I worked in Tacoma for eight years at the paper and I didn't - I guess I didn't realize that was the case. So Olgy - separately - brings just a ton of experience. She leads the National Women's Political Caucus of Washington now as president and I talked to her for stories in that capacity, and she's always very knowledgeable and really thoughtful. But yeah, that's just - in terms of representation, she brings a lot to the Council that apparently it hasn't had - in terms of experience and lived experience as well. I didn't watch the whole appointment process every step of the way, but it seems like that is a very solid choice, given that you have someone coming in possibly that has way more, broader political knowledge than a lot of the sitting councilmembers in some cases. And that's not a knock on the sitting councilmembers, but you just have someone really, really versed in politics and policy in Washington State coming onto that city council. [00:16:26] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and an unusual amount of experience. I think, to your point, not a knock on anyone else. Olgy just has an unusual amount of experience on both the policy and political side. She's the Government Affairs Director for Forterra, she's president of the National Women's Political Caucus as you said, on the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition and Institute for a Democratic Future board. She's previously been on the city's Human Rights Commission. She just has so many, so much experience from within, working within the legislature and elsewhere. And if - full disclosure - Olgy Diaz is not just a friend, but also worked for Olgy as her consultant and love the woman. But just completely dynamic and if you know Olgy, you know she reps South Tacoma harder than anyone else just about that you've ever met. She deeply, deeply loves the city, particularly South Tacoma, and has been an advocate for the city in every role that she's had. So just really excited to see her appointed. In other local news - this week, Seattle, the Seattle City Council stood up and passed protections for abortion and gender affirming care. What did they do? [00:17:52] Melissa Santos: They passed something that makes it a misdemeanor for someone to interfere, intimidate, or try and threaten someone who is seeking an abortion and they also have some civil rights protections that they passed. Those are especially - you might not think that's necessarily an issue in Seattle all the time, but I think that - certainly the misdemeanors for trying to interfere for someone getting treatment or getting abortion care, I think that is something that could actually be used and called upon sometime in Seattle with certain individual cases. And I do think it's - not necessarily in a bad way - but a messaging bill on both of them - in a way saying - care is protected here. Even though in Washington State we do have some state law protections for abortion - better than in most states - I think it's partly about sending a message to people that your care will not be interfered with here. And maybe even a message to people in other states - that they can come - actually that is part of it - is that you can come to Seattle and get care and you will not, we will support you. And so that's part of why they're doing it - both on a practical level, but also sending a message that we will not tolerate people trying to dissuade, to discourage people who decided to get an abortion from getting the care that they are seeking. [00:19:18] Crystal Fincher: And I know Councilmember Tammy Morales has also said that she plans to introduce further legislation to prevent crisis pregnancy centers from misrepresenting the facts, misleading people - which has happened in other situations with pregnancy crisis centers, which sometimes bill themselves as abortion care providers. A person seeking an abortion finds them, goes, and unexpectedly is - in some situations - heavily pressured not to have an abortion. And there's been situations where they have been found to have been coerced into not having an abortion. And so that would just seek to make sure that everybody correctly represents themselves, and who they are, and what they are attempting to do. Lots of people do, to your point, look at Seattle and say - okay, but this - things were safe here anyway. I do think the first one - we see a lot of counter-protestors - of people making points in Seattle, going to Seattle to protest different things, because it has a reputation for being progressive, where progressive policy is. So it attacks people who really dislike those policies and moving in that direction. I think this is helpful for that. And it serves as model legislation. There are some very red areas here in the state. There are other localities - we may have neighboring states that - the right to abortion is coming to an end. And so having legislation like this that has passed in the region, that has passed nearby, that is in place, that survives legal challenges against them makes it easier for other localities to pass the same. And so I think that it is a very positive thing for Seattle to take the lead passing model legislation. Certainly aren't the first to pass, but having it in the region is very, very helpful. So glad to see that. Also this week - some challenging news. One - monkeypox, now referred to as MPV, cases have been doubling nearly every week in Washington and has been declared a public health emergency. Where do we stand here? [00:21:37] Melissa Santos: I think that right now, we have about 220 cases - and that's what I think I saw on the CDC website just earlier today. And last week, it was 70 fewer than that, at least - we have been seeing, especially early on, every week or so the cases were doubling in our state. And we remember how COVID started in a way - it was small at first and things just can really expand quickly. This isn't spread the same way COVID is - and I'm not saying it is - but we do definitely have a vaccine shortage here for this and that's a huge concern. I asked the State Department of Health - actually, I have not put this in the story yet, but I was like - how many people do you feel like you need to treat that are at high risk? And they said it's almost 80,000. And took me a long time to get that number, but I think we only have - we only are gonna have something like 20-something thousand vaccines doses coming in, maybe 25,000, through at least early September. So there's a lot of potential for this to spread before we get vaccines to treat the people who are most at risk. That's a big concern. And so I haven't checked in our state yet - this sort of decision that we can stretch these doses further by divvying them up and doing, making each dose into maybe five doses - that could really help here. So I need to check whether in our state we're going forward with that and if that meets the need or not. But we still need a second dose for everybody, even beyond that. So it looks like the math just doesn't work and we're still gonna be short. And in that time, how far will it spread? Because it's not just - it's not a sexually transmitted disease that only is going to spread among LGBT individuals - other people are getting it and will get it. So that is - and also that community needs as much support as they can get anyway, regardless. But this is not something that just affects someone else, for instance, if you're not a member of that community. It's something that can affect everybody, and it's - everyone's afraid of another situation like we had with COVID - could it spread before we get a handle on it? And I think it's still an unknown question right now. [00:23:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, big unknown question. And to your point, it was - the CDC just announced that the vaccine supply can be stretched by giving one-fifth of the normal dose, so stretched five times what we thought we previously had. But that was just announced, so our local plans for that are probably in progress and process and hopefully we'll hear more about that soon. But haven't yet as that information was just announced - I want to say yesterday, if not day before. With that, to your point, it is - some people are under the mistaken impression that this is a sexually transmitted infection. It is not. It can spread by just skin-to-skin contact. If two people are wearing shorts and at a concert, or have short-sleeve shirts and are rubbing against each other, it can be spread just by touching especially infected lesions, by surfaces if there's a high enough amount on a surface. It is pretty hardy - lasts a long time on a number of surfaces or clothes or different things like that. Certainly a lot of concern with kids going back into school, kids in daycare that we may see an increase particularly among children - just because they are around each other and touching each other and playing as they do and that is how this virus can spread. So certainly getting as many people, starting with the highest risk people, vaccinated is important. We are short - there are just no two ways about that and running behind. Testing capacity has also been a challenge. So hopefully with these emergency declarations that we've seen locally and nationally that we fast forward the response to that and get prepared pretty quickly, but we will say that. Also this week, most COVID emergency orders have been ended. What happened here? [00:26:08] Melissa Santos: Some of them are still getting phased out, but the governor just very recently announced in our state that he's going to be - he's ending 12 COVID emergency orders. And so I went - wait, how many are left then, 'cause I don't think we have that many. And the governor's office - there's only 10 - once these mostly healthcare, procedure-related orders are phased out, will only be 10 COVID emergency orders left. And honestly, some of those have even been scaled back from what they were. They're - one of the orders relates to practicing some safe distancing measures or certain precautions in schools - that's really a step back from having schools be completely closed, like we had at one point. So even those 10 aren't necessarily as stringent as the orders we were seeing earlier in the pandemic. What does that really signify? I think that the governor has said - because we have good treatment options available, it doesn't mean that COVID is no longer a threat, but we have better ways of dealing with it essentially. It's not like early in the pandemic when nobody was vaccinated. We have a fairly high vaccination rate in our state compared to some others. And we have some treatment options that are better. And at least right now - well, I say this - our hospitals aren't pushed completely beyond capacity. Although, however - this week Harborview actually is over capacity, so that's still a potential problem going forward. But we just have better ways of dealing with the virus than we did. It doesn't mean it's not a threat, it doesn't mean that people aren't still getting hospitalized and even dying - because they are. But we're moving to a different stage of this pandemic where we're just not going to have as many restrictions and we're going to approach the virus in a different way. [00:27:51] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Yeah, that pretty much covers it there. [00:27:56] Melissa Santos: The thing - I do think for public - I've asked the governor a couple times - what is your standard for lifting the underlying emergency order? 'Cause we still are in a state of emergency over COVID and that does give the governor, if something comes up, quick power to ban some activity or something. And if there's a public health risk, he could order, for instance, indoor mask wearing again if he wanted. He has not indicated he plans to, but it gives him a little more power. Republicans are still mad about that, but in effect, there aren't that many orders actually in place anymore. We're just not living under as many restrictions as we once were. [00:28:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. So the protections are going away - there are lots of people who are very concerned about this. This does not seem tethered to - earlier in the pandemic - in some situations when cases were spreading at a lower amount than they were in some areas then than they are today - they tied it to certain metrics and to hospital capacity and different things. So there seemed like there was an underlying data-based justification that would dictate what the appropriate health response was. This seems untethered from all of that. And I think a lot of people's criticisms of this are - the actions that are taken, or realistically the actions that are no longer being taken, the justification behind that seems to be driven by convenience or by a desire just to get back to normal or fatigue. And instead of what health precautions dictate would be wise. I think at the very minimum we would be a lot better off if - we were very late in, from the CDCs perspective, in acknowledging that this is an airborne virus. And so air quality, air purification, air turnover in indoor spaces is extremely important, especially given how helpful that is for wildfire air mitigation. We're having a higher, more low-quality air days than we have before. Focusing on indoor air purification - I wish there were more of a push for that, more awareness for that, more assistance for that. Because it just seems like - given this and monkeypox, which has evidence that it is spread also via airborne - [00:30:37] Melissa Santos: Or at least droplets in close - yeah, at least like close breathy, breathing-ey stuff. [00:30:44] Crystal Fincher: Yes - that air purification is important. And so I wish we would make a greater push because still - that's not really aggressively talked about by most of our public health entities. And there's just not an awareness because of that, by a lot of people who are not necessarily being, saying - no, I don't want to do that - but just don't understand the importance of that. And many businesses that could take steps, but just don't know that that's what they should be doing. Sometimes it's still here - well, we're sanitizing all of these surfaces, which is going to come in handy for monkeypox certainly, but is not really an effective mitigation for COVID when - hey, let's talk about air purification instead of you wiping down surfaces. Just interesting and this may ramp up again, depending on what happens with MPV infections and spread. So we'll see how that continues. [00:31:47] Melissa Santos: But this time we have a vaccine at least - there is a vaccine that exists. Remember the beginning of COVID - of course, everyone remembers - there was no vaccine. So this feels like - theoretically, we should be able to address it faster because we have a vaccine, but there's just a shortage nationwide of the vaccine. So that's, I think, an extra frustrating layer of the monkeypox problem - is that we have a tool, but we just don't have enough of it. In COVID, we just were all completely in the dark for months and months and months and months - and anyway. [00:32:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and unfortunately the effect on the ground of not having enough is the same as not having any. [00:32:23] Melissa Santos: Right. Yeah. [00:32:24] Crystal Fincher: And so people are left with greater exposure to the virus and to spreading the virus than there would be otherwise, because we don't have the adequate supply of it. Which they say they're working on, but of course those things - unless you are prepared beforehand and making an effort to be prepared beforehand, it takes a while to get that ramped up. I think they're saying the earliest we could anticipate additional supply would be in the September timeframe, and oftentimes that's when it starts to trickle. And so it could be October before we see a meaningful amount of additional supply or longer. Just stay on top of information, be aware out there, and we will see. Very important thing happening within the City of Seattle - is Seattle City Council district redistricting, and what's happening. There have been some good articles written recently - both in The Seattle Times, especially in The Stranger by Hannah Krieg - about racial equity advocates actually being happy about the newly proposed political boundaries for council districts. But some residents of Magnolia, the expensive and exclusive Magnolia community, who have been known to advocate against any type of growth, or development, or any change to their community, other people getting greater access to their community and the political power that comes with who they've been and their ability to have an outsized voice, realistically, in local politics. They're not that happy. What's happening here? [00:34:16] Melissa Santos: The proposal that at least is moving forward at this point would split Magnolia, right? So this is something that communities of color have argued as being - Hey, in other areas, our communities are split and that dilutes our voice. And now it's interesting that Magnolia, which is not historically an area where - that has been predominantly people of color - every district in Seattle is changing - safe to say that it's been a whiter area. They're saying - Hey, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa - wait, we're gonna get split, that's gonna dilute our voice. So it's an interesting dynamic there. And what's also interesting - and it makes sense because the same organizations have been working on city redistricting and state redistricting, to some degree - we're seeing this movement to really unite and ensure communities in South Seattle are not divided. So in this - this was something that they really were trying to do with congressional districts - is make sure that South Seattle communities of color have a coalition and aren't split. And especially having the - well, let's see, and at least in state redistricting - making sure the International District is connected in some way to other parts of South Seattle and Beacon Hill. That was a priority in one of the congressional district redistricting for some of these groups that are now working on Seattle redistricting. One of the things that it would do is put South Park and Georgetown in the same district, which is interesting because I think those two communities work together on a lot of issues that affect the Duwamish and affect - again, a lot of people of color that live in those districts - there are issues that really would affect both of them. And so putting them in the same district, I could see why that would make sense. And you also have - I want to make sure I have this right, but I think - making sure Beacon Hill and it is connected to South Seattle as well. I'm gonna check here - is it also the International District here we're talking as well? Oh, Yesler Terrace - that's right. [00:36:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so CID and Yesler Terrace will be in District 2 - kept them both in District 2 - that those were some really, really important considerations. And large percentages of those communities have talked about how important that is. You just talked about Georgetown and South Park being in that district. Looking at Lake City, Northgate, and Broadview in District 5. Also keeping growing renter populations together in South Lake Union and Downtown together there has been making a difference. Both communities of color and, as we talk in the larger redistricting conversation, communities of interest - and now with more than half of the City being renters - renters have been largely overlooked in terms of redistricting and City policy until now. And really what a number of these organizations are saying is - we've been overlooked, we have not been absent, but we've been ignored in this and communities and voices from places like Magnolia have been overrepresented and have been catered to this time. And there's a saying - when you're used to privilege, equity looks like oppression. And so Magnolia is saying - we're losing our voice - and kind of collectively, interests from the rest of the City are saying - no, what you're doing is losing the ability to speak over our voices. But now that we're all at the table and all have a voice, it's time for us to also be recognized as valid and important and worthy of preservation and continuity and representation and not have it broken up in favor of predominantly wealthy homeowners who are saying - well, we're a historically important community. Well, are you historically important and the change that the rest of the City has seen hasn't come to your district because you have fought so vehemently against it. And then turn around and say - and that's why you should cater to us and keep us together because we continue to fight against any kind of change. And realistically saying - hey, other districts have changed and boundaries need to change in those other areas to accommodate that. And so this does - certainly not all that advocates have asked for, but some meaningful progress and some promising boundaries, I think, for a lot of people in the City, for a lot of people who are not wealthy, for people who are renters no matter what the income is - because of the challenges that just the rental population is facing. And to your point, neighborhoods who have worked together and who share interests, who now have the opportunity to have that represented politically within the City? I think that's very helpful and I definitely hope people stay engaged. In this redistricting process. And as the voices from some of those communities who have had greater access to an ability to participate in these redistricting and City processes, and who've had the inside track and who have been listened to to a greater degree than others, that you add your voice to the conversation to make sure that it isn't drowned out by anyone else. Looking at a recent announcement - and kind of announcement is a better word than a new policy or a plan - because it is just announced and announced the intention to take action, but we have yet to see. There was a press conference yesterday about emergency walk-in centers for behavioral health cases, addressing our regional behavioral health crisis here. What was announced and what is the deal? [00:40:32] Melissa Santos: What exactly is going to happen remains a little bit unclear to me exactly, but basically King County Executive Dow Constantine announced a plan to just expand services for people who are experiencing a behavioral health crisis. And it's going to be part of his 2023 budget proposal, which isn't coming out 'til next month. So the idea is having more short- and long-term treatment - so more walk-in treatment that's available and more places to send people who have acute mental health needs. He was talking about how the County's lost a third of its residential behavioral healthcare beds - Erica Barnett at PubliCola reported on this pretty extensively - and there's just a concern there just won't be enough. I was surprised by the stat that there's only one crisis stabilization unit in the County that's 16 beds - that's not very much, especially when we know people suffer mental health crises more frequently than that small number of beds might indicate. So what's interesting is we want to put more money in somewhere so people aren't getting treated in jails, that they have a better place to go, but we're not quite - we don't know exactly the scope of this, or how much money exactly we're talking about to put toward more beds. I guess there's some plans to do so - is what I got from the executive. [00:42:06] Crystal Fincher: Certainly from a regional perspective, we saw representation from the mayor's office for the City of Seattle, county executive certainly, county council, regional leaders in behavioral health treatment and homelessness - all saying that - Hey, we intend to take action to address this. Like you said, Dow said that he will be speaking more substantively to this in terms of details with his budget announcement and what he plans to do with that. Universal acknowledgement that this is a crisis, that they lack funding and resources in this area, and say that they intend to do better with a focus, like you said, on walk-in treatment and the ability to provide that. But we just don't know the details yet. We'll be excited to see that. And you covered this week, just the tall task ahead of them, because we've spoken about before and lots of people have talked about even in this press conference, a problem that we almost require that people - the only access that people can get to treatment sometimes is if they've been arrested, which is just a wildly inefficient way to address this, especially when it plays a role in creating some of the problems with crime and other things. But even with the newly rolled-out intervention system with an attempt to - if someone who previously would've called 911 now can call a dedicated kind of other crisis line to try and get an alternative response - but even that is severely underfunded. What's happening with that? [00:44:00] Melissa Santos: So with 988 - this is the three-digit number people can call when they have a mental health crisis and they'll be connected to a counselor who can help talk them through it. The idea is ultimately for that system to also be able to send trained crisis responders - largely instead of police in many, many cases - meet people in-person, not just talk to them on the phone. But we just don't have enough of these mobile crisis response teams. There's money in the state budget to add more over the next couple of years, especially in rural areas that just don't have the coverage right now. They just don't have enough teams to be able to get to people when they need it. That's something they want to expand so there's more of a response than - that isn't a police officer showing up at your door. So that's the ultimate vision for this new line you call - 988 - but it's not fully implemented right now. You still will get some support. And if you call, I'm not trying to say people should not call the line, but they don't necessarily have all the resources they want to be able to efficiently deploy people - I shouldn't say deploy, it sounds very military - but deploy civilian trained helpers to people who are experiencing a crisis. So that's where they want it to go and The Seattle Times had an article just about how some of those designated crisis responders right now are just stretched so thin and that's just not gonna change immediately, even with some new state money coming in to add more people to do those sorts of things. And designated crisis responders have other duties - they deal with actually to getting people to treatment - some involuntarily in certain cases. Again, it's different than a police response and right now there's just not enough of those folks. [00:45:55] Crystal Fincher: Which jeopardizes the willingness of people to continue to call. Certainly the possibility that a police response can ultimately happen from someone who was requesting a behavioral health or another type of intervention response. And that is still a possibility which some people find challenging or - hey, they expected to avoid that or have something different if they call this and that might not always be the case. But it's certainly a challenge and I think one of the things that was talked about yesterday, which kind of wraps this under a whole umbrella, is there needs to be a lot more done in terms of infrastructure and capacity from - with there being someone to call, someone appropriate to call for whatever the challenge is, an appropriate response. If that is a behavioral health trained person, a crisis intervener, someone like that - and places to take people. Someone does respond and then can connect that person to services that exist. We have problems in a number of areas saying - yeah, we offered services or services are available and they aren't, or they aren't appropriate for the crisis that's there. They don't meet the needs of the person and their situation. So certainly a lot to build out. I think it is a positive step that we're hearing acknowledgement of this and a unified plan to take action, but still need to see what actually results 'cause sometimes we hear big fanfare to start and don't get much substantive on the back end. Certainly I hope with a number of the people involved in this that we do get some substantive progress and I hope to see that, I would expect to see that - but I'm looking forward to it. With that, I think that wraps up this show today. Thank you so much for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, August 12th, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler, assistant producer is Shannon Cheng with assistance from Bryce Cannatelli - we have an incredible team here at Hacks & Wonks - just want to continue to say that it is not just me, it is completely our team and not possible without this full team. Our wonderful co-host today is Seattle Axios reporter Melissa Santos. You can find Melissa on Twitter @MelissaSantos1. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on the new Twitter account @HacksWonks, you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii (spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I). Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show deliver to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show and Election 2022 resources at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Sound Transit is considering several options for a second light rail station in Seattle's Chinatown International District. Activist Betty Lau opposes anything that will harm the people, the businesses and the regional legacy of the C-I-D. Lau joins the Chino Y Chicano to explain her concerns and what she sees as a lack of respect for the  Chinatown International District. https://southseattleemerald.com/2022/08/05/sound-transit-will-do-more-study-before-recommending-where-to-build-second-cid-light-rail-station/?fbclid=IwAR2VX_WOLnzdRs0CGISLz5sUenY2hcvh4iidT_bUvdIutOZ11SQ6JCJYLDo& https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattles-chinatown-seeks-to-push-a-future-light-rail-station-farther-away/ 

Paul discusses the the mission that Toastmasters International has for its Districts. ______________________________________________________________________ This is episode 1 from Programme 43 of the 2021/22 season - published on June 24th with Ted Mellamphy & Paul O'Mahony, produced Moira O'Brien DTM and edited by Gearoid Murphy DTM. The show is in four parts and usually has this format: (1) Introducing a “Thought for the Week” and a “Word of the Week” together with general conversation arising out of these two topics. Published at 4pm on Fridays. (2) Either an Interview, the recording of a speech or external media. Published at 4pm on Saturdays. (3) Discussion on a topic usually led by Paul. Published at 4pm on Sundays. (4) Further chat with our guest. Published at 4pm on Mondays We often film the recording of these shows to YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHVM9lgg2KJuZL6DcoUxD1_mVddOFe-J). Contact us : email: info@irishtalkers.com Website: www.irishtalkers.com Facebook: The Talk Show for Talkers Magazine: "Public Speaking Weekly" on www.irishtalkers.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/irish-talkers/message

New Sound Transit light rail lines are on the way - connecting to Ballard and West Seattle thanks to a ballot measure voters approved in 2016. But plans for a new station in the neighborhood of Chinatown International District have raised alarm with community groups and local businesses

On February 19th, 1983 three men entered the Wah Mee Club, a gambling club in Seattle's International District, armed with guns. Their purpose was to rob the club's patrons and kill everyone inside. The robbers murdered 13 people. If it weren't for one surviving witness, the killers might have gotten away with it. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the deadliest mass shooting in Washington state history. Willie Mak, Benjamin, Ng, and Tony Ng shot 14 people that night at the Wah Mee Club. They thought they had killed everyone inside and made off with $20,000. But, what they didn't know was that one of their victims survived and was the key to bringing the trio to justice.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today, we take a trip to the International District of Seattle to learn more about the authentic Taiwanese drink, bubble tea! Caroline Lee, the owner of Young Tea, joins us to share her insight into crafting quality teas, the importance of using naturally sourced ingredients, and her experiences as an entrepreneur in the COVID era. Check out their website younteaglobal.com or follow their Instagram @youngteausa for more information!

THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW: Omicron // In WA, a 13-year-old can seek an appointment and receive mental health services, treatment for a substance use disorder or withdrawal management support without the consent of a parent or guardian // Open air drug dealing and other crimes have hurt businesses in the International District. Two of them are likely closing // SCENARIOS See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kau Kau BBQ Restaurant in Seattle's Chinatown-International District started roasting Thanksgiving turkeys decades ago. It's now an enormously popular tradition with many repeat customers.

Join Reina, Blanca, John, Alex, Enrique and Jesse as they talk the stories we tell and are told that form us in the International District.

Join Ashley as she sits down with Tatum Spalding and Lily Wu for an update on KODA, a new condominium tower situated in the heart of Seattle's International District. Connect with the KODA Team: https://ownkoda.com/ http://instagram.com/kodaseattle Connect with us here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urbanashteam Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UrbanAshley LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/urbanashteam Twitter: https://twitter.com/urbanashteam Website: http://www.urbanash.com Recorded September 14, 2021

Jesse sits down with Enrique, Reynaluz and Alex to grapple with experiences of pain in the International District.

Who, what and how we celebrate reveals our values as a neighborhood. Listen in on this month's neighborhood convo as we discern how we party in the International District!

Listen in on our conversation with longtime International District residents as we discuss where we see peace springing up in our midst.

Join us for a spotlight on one of our partner bookstores, Estelita's Library, a “justice-focused community library and bookstore” originally located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. Local Journalist Mike Davis chats with Estelita's co-founder Edwin Lindo about the history and founding of the bookstore and considers the impact the Library has on the Seattle community as they prepare to open a second location in the International District. Edwin Lindo, JD, is a critical race theory scholar and educator who is faculty within the Department of Family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine; and Associate Director for Equity and Critical Teaching in the Center for Leadership and Innovation in Medical Education. Edwin teaches, presents, and writes on issues of race and racism within Medicine and society. He is also the creator of The Praxis Podcast. You can reach Edwin via Twitter @edwinlindo. Mike Davis is a local journalist covering arts, culture, and politics for the South Seattle Emerald. Davis is also co-host of “Clap Back Culture” on Converge Media. Estelita's Library: http://estelitaslibrary.com/  Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here. 

Join us for a spotlight on one of our partner bookstores, Estelita's Library, a “justice-focused community library and bookstore” originally located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. Local Journalist Mike Davis chats with Estelita's co-founder Edwin Lindo about the history and founding of the bookstore and considers the impact the Library has on the Seattle community as they prepare to open a second location in the International District. Edwin Lindo, JD, is a critical race theory scholar and educator who is faculty within the Department of Family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine; and Associate Director for Equity and Critical Teaching in the Center for Leadership and Innovation in Medical Education. Edwin teaches, presents, and writes on issues of race and racism within Medicine and society. He is also the creator of The Praxis Podcast. You can reach Edwin via Twitter @edwinlindo. Mike Davis is a local journalist covering arts, culture, and politics for the South Seattle Emerald. Davis is also co-host of “Clap Back Culture” on Converge Media. Estelita's Library: http://estelitaslibrary.com/  Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here. 

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

BECOME A PRODUCER! http://www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast   Find The Midnight Train Podcast: www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com www.facebook.com/themidnighttrainpodcast www.twitter.com/themidnighttrainpc www.instagram.com/themidnighttrainpodcast www.discord.com/themidnighttrainpodcast www.tiktok.com/themidnighttrainp   And wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.   Subscribe to our official YouTube channel: OUR YOUTUBE Picture the scene: It's a beautiful day outside, you're walking your dog and soaking in the sunshine, it's relatively peaceful and quiet, and you're enjoying your time out with your dog. What could possibly ruin this moment. Well what if your dog started acting strange, pulling you towards a spot in the dirt. He keeps pawing at it and won't leave it alone. Eventually he unearths a bone. No big deal you find animal bones all the time on your walks. But this bone seems different, it's too long, too big to be an animal bone. You get kind of creeped out. But has that feeling completely ruined the moment, maybe not yet but it's about to get worse. On a whim you decide to take a picture of the bone and send it to your sister who is a nurse. Your good time is officially ruined when your sister confirms your suspicions, the bone is, in fact, not animal, it's human. A human femur to be exact. This is the exact scenario that led to the discovery of one of the, if not the, largest crime scenes in American history and a series of crimes that would as of yet, go unsolved.   Christine Ross was the unfortunate soul that came across the body in the scenario described at the outset of the episode. She was walking her dog Ruka in an area that had recently been cleared out for a new neighborhood to be built. After the bone was found she called the police and that's when things get crazy! So let's get further into this story!   The West Mesa is an elevated landmass lying west of the Rio Grande stretching from south of Albuquerque northward to Bernalillo in the state of New Mexico. A large portion of West Mesa is part of Petroglyph National Monument and is bisected by Interstate 40 and Historic Route 66. There are numerous subdivisions with new homes being built on the lower portion of the West Mesa as the City of Albuquerque continues to expand further to the west. Further west on the mesa are the mobile home communities of Pajarito, located to the south of I-40, and Lost Horizon, located about 1/2 mile north of I-40. The bodies of 11 women and one unborn child would be uncovered in West Mesa. It would take a year to identify all of the victims. Police would follow many leads but to no avail. We're going to look at the victims then discuss the most likely suspects and evidence did them being there killer and even discuss how this may be connected to a small sex trafficking ring that could be part of a larger global ring!   The story may start earlier than you think. In the early 2000s, in an area called The War Zone, a tumor began to spread about a killer in albuquerque. There were stories of a killer roaming the streets and murdering sex workers. The war zone is an area now known as the international district. It is one of the most diverse areas of the city. It is also one of the poorest areas in the city and has a high crime rate. A 1991 article from the Albuquerque Journal described East Central as "a loose-jointed carnival of sex, drugs and booze" with drug dealers and prostitutes operating openly. In 1997, the city put up barricades in the neighborhood to make it harder for criminals to get in and out. Eventually, thanks in part to efforts by neighborhood residents, the crime rate decreased and the barricades were removed. In 2009, residents who resented the War Zone name persuaded city leaders to officially re-brand the area as the International District, highlighting its diverse community rather than crime. The first International Festival was held later that year. Despite these changes, crime has continued to be an issue in the neighborhood.    It was here in 2004 that Cinnamon Elks, a sex worker that often worked in the war zone, came to hear a crazy story. She had told her friends there was a dirty cop murdering and decapitating sex workers and burying their bodies on the West Mesa. Soon after she related this story she disappeared.    Years before the bodies are found, police detective Ida Lopez found that a number of sex workers were going missing. She began to compile a list, which included Cinnamon Elks, and began to try to bring notice of the issue to light. Lopez had a list of 16 women that had gone missing. When the body's were found Lopez feared the bodies were the same women on her list. She was partially correct, 10 of the 11 women identified we in fact on her list.    For homicide investigators, the case posed challenges from the start, said Dirk Gibson, a communications and journalism professor at the University of New Mexico who has authored numerous books on serial killings. Years had passed from the time the women and girls disappeared, probably limiting available evidence.   “You can’t have a colder cold case,” Gibson said. “In this case, there was almost nothing but bones.”   Let's take a look at the victims. All but one of the women were sex workers from New Mexico. Many were known to live hard lives. Several were mothers. None of them deserved what happened to them.    Jamie Barela, 15, was last seen with her 23-year-old cousin Evelyn Salazar heading to a park at San Mateo and Gibson SE in April 2004. Neither woman was ever seen again until their bones turned up in the mass grave site on the West Mesa in 2009. Jamie was the final skeleton to be identified, almost a year after the first bone was found. But Jamie’s mom believed investigators would find her daughter’s body long before she was named. Unlike the other West Mesa victims, Barela had no known prostitution or drug arrests.   Evelyn Salazar was reported missing on April 3, 2004, by her family. She was 23 when she disappeared. She was the 10th victim to be identified, and her 15-year-old cousin Jamie Barela was the final one to be identified. The two were last seen together at a family gathering and then went to a park at San Mateo and Gibson. Salazar liked camping and outdoor activities, was a good cook and taught her daughter how to roller skate, according to her obituary.   Michelle Valdez: The last time Dan Valdez saw his daughter Michelle, he asked her to not stay away too long. Michelle Valdez had a daughter who she cared for deeply, and had a big heart, Dan Valdez said. “Michelle was quite a gal, she would give you the shirt off of your back if you needed it,” he said. “She was good-hearted, kind, and didn’t deserve what she got.” He said he couldn’t remember exactly when she got involved with drugs. But she started disappearing for days, sometimes a week at a time. Later it turned to months. When she did show up, he would give her small sums of money — even though he knew she would use it on drugs — in the hopes that she would come back again. Eventually, she stopped altogether. Dan Valdez reported her missing in February 2005, when she was 22. Her bones were the second set to be identified in late-February 2009 after investigators started digging for bodies. They also discovered the remains of Michelle Valdez’s 4-month-old unborn baby. Michelle had dreamed of one day being a singer, her mother said, or maybe a lawyer like her aunt. “Drug addiction certainly wasn’t the lifestyle she wanted,” Jackson said. “She wanted help, but she didn’t have money or insurance, so it was very hard for her to get it.”    Veronica Romero was 27 when she was reported missing by her family on Valentine’s Day 2004.   Her family laid her to rest in July 2009 after her body was one of the 11 unearthed. “We’re putting her to rest finally, but considering what’s been done, and now we’re finding out more of what’s happened to her, and it’s sad,” family member Desiree Gonzales told KOB-TV at the time. “She was hurt real bad.”    Julie Nieto grew up in Albuquerque’s South Valley and Los Lunas, and loved chile peppers and jump rope. She later went to Job Corps, which teaches under-priveleged young people different professions. Her mom, Eleanor Griego, said Nieto started doing drugs when she was around 19. She tried to get her treatment to no avail. Griego says she last saw Nieto, then 23, in August 2004 at Griego’s dad’s house. She left behind a young son, who Griego said she had doted over. Two years after Nieto went missing, her sister Valerie Nieto was found dead in a motel on Central Avenue after overdosing. “She couldn’t handle it. She was depressed all the time, crying all the time,” Griego said. “That was the only sister she ever had.”    Doreen Marquez loved jewelry and fashionable clothes and had a huge personality, according to her friends and family. She went to West Mesa High School where she was a cheerleader, and later had two daughters who she was devoted to, throwing them extravagant birthday parties. But as the girls got older, Marquez’s boyfriend was jailed and she turned to drugs. She spent less and less time with her daughters, leaving them with her sister or other family members.   “I had kicked her out of my house. That was the last time I saw her,” Julie “Bubbles” Gonzales, Marquez’s sister, said in an interview last year. “I just told her, ‘You know, it’s better if you just go. Whenever you feel like you’re not going to use, or you just want somewheres to come and eat, shower, or whatever, my door is open.’ And she never came back.” Garcia said the last time she saw Marquez, she told her she could help her deal with her addiction. But Marquez refused. Unlike many of the other women whose bones were found on the West Mesa, Marquez didn’t have any prostitution arrests. But police believe she engaged in it nonetheless.   When Diana Wilhelm didn’t hear from her daughter on her birthday in August 2004, she knew something was wrong. But it would take nearly five years for police to confirm what Wilhelm already believed — her daughter Cinnamon Elks was dead. Elks, who was 32 when she went missing, was the third of the West Mesa victims to be identified after the first bone was found in early 2009. She, like many of the others, had a string of prostitution and solicitation arrests — 19 total, with 14 convictions. She was friends with at least three of the other victims — Gina Michelle Valdez, Victoria Chavez and Julie Nieto.   Syllannia Edwards stands apart from the other West Mesa victims. She had no known friends or family, and was a runaway from foster care in Lawton, Okla. Edwards, who was 15, was the only African American victim. She never knew her father, and last saw her mother when she was 5. Police believe she may have been a “circuit girl,” meaning she was traveling along the I-40 corridor as a prostitute. Early in the investigation, a tipster told investigators Edwards was seen in Denver in the spring and summer of 2004. The tipster said she had been at a motel on East Colfax Street in Denver. “They were high-prostitution areas,” then-APD spokeswoman Nadine Hamby said in 2009. Police believe she may have been travelling in a group. “We’ve received information that Syllannia was associated with three other females and that she may have gone by the aliases Chocolate or Mimi,” Hamby said. Early on, investigators hoped Edwards’ background, because it’s different from the other victims, would provide the details needed to crack the case.   Virginia Cloven grew up in a small trailer heated by a wood-burning stove in Los Chavez. She was funny, loved doing her makeup and was a favorite at school. Tragedy struck the family when she was in high school. Her brother was shot and killed in a homicide that would later be ruled self-defense. Virginia Cloven ran away from home a week later, when she was 17. Another brother ran away too. “They said they couldn’t stand it anymore,” Robert Cloven said. At first Virginia Cloven lived with her grandfather in Albuquerque, then moved in with a boyfriend. He got hit by a car and went into a coma, and soon Virginia Cloven had lost her home and was living on the streets of Albuquerque’s International District. One year, she called her dad asking what he wanted for his birthday. He asked her to clear up her citations and then they were supposed to meet in Albuquerque. They last heard from her in June 2004. She called to say she had a new boyfriend who had just gotten out of prison and that she was probably going to marry him. “We said we’d like to meet him, but we never heard from her again,” Robert Cloven said in 2009. “After that, everything just went dead.” Robert Cloven reported his daughter missing four months later, in October 2004. She was 23 at the time.   Victoria Chavez, 26, was the first woman whose bones were identified after they were found on the mesa — before the public learned the women were likely murdered by a serial killer. “To have them come and knock on my door, I was devastated,” stepfather Ambrose Saiz said at a memorial event in 2009. “I never thought it would end like this. I just had that hope.” Chavez’s mother reported her missing in March 2005 after she hadn’t seen her in more than a year. The mother also said in the missing persons report that Chavez was on probation and was a “known drug user and prostitute.” She had five prostitution convictions, according to court records.   Sheriff’s deputies investigating the disappearance of Monica Candelaria in 2003 heard from her friends that she had been killed and buried on the mesa. It turns out, those friends were right. When the 21-year-old never showed up, detectives turned it over to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office cold case unit. The case stayed cold until she was identified as one of the women found on the mesa in 2009. She was last seen near Atrisco and Central in Southwest Albuquerque. Deputies said she lived a “high-risk lifestyle” and may have had gang ties. She had been convicted of prostitution once, according to court records. But her obituary highlights a happier side. “Monica enjoyed laughing, joking, taking care of babies, and spending time with her family,” the obituary reads. “She will be remembered as a loving daughter, mother, granddaughter, niece, cousin and friend who will be truly missed.”   11 women who all list their lives too soon. Most likely in a terrible manor. The police have not revealed the causes of death of the women. It was difficult to figure out how the women died and they are keeping that nugget to themselves to use as a gage of the beauty of claims and tips.    After several years of nothing some suspects started popping up. Some  actually fit the profile very well. Even still no official suspects have been named. Here's a look at some of the suspects that police have checked out.    Lou Fred Reynolds, who police said was a pimp, died of natural causes on Jan. 2, 2009. Police found pictures of several West Mesa victims at his home but no physical evidence linking him to the murder. Reynolds, of Albuquerque, was arrested in 2001 and in 1998 on suspicion of promoting prostitution. Reynold was supposedly very focused on some of the West Mesa victims back when they were still missing. Lori Gallegos and Amy Reid both have connections to the mystery. Reid's sister and many friends started to disappear around the same time. Gallegos's close friend Doreen Marquez vanished in 2003. Gallegos said her search led her to Reynolds who supposedly ran an escort service. "When I met Fred Reynolds I wasn't looking for a suspect of a murder case at that point I was looking for my friend that was missing," said Gallegos. In October 2008, he showed her pictures of Doreen. He also had photos of missing women he claimed he was looking for. "He told me he was a former heroin addict himself and this was the reason he wanted to help the women that worked for him, he wanted them to have a good life," said Gallegos. Reynolds passed away a couple months later from health complications. What came as a surprise to Gallegos was Fred Reynolds was one of the names initially mentioned as a person of interest in the case. Reid who also knew Reynolds and considered him a friend. She said there is no way he was involved. "He wasn't violent and he wasn't abusive and he wasn't in anyway a killer," said Reid. Reid said Reynolds was someone who truly cared about the missing women and wanted to help find them.   Another really suspect was Ron Erwin. Erwin has a connection to I've of our previous episodes. He is a photographer from Joplin Missouri. Erwin fell under a cloud of suspicion in the serial murders case investigators from New Mexico showed up at his properties in Joplin armed with search warrants. In the first interview he has granted about the matter, Erwin told the Joplin Globe he does not know how he became a suspect in the case, only that the experience has resembled a nightmare. “There’s an old ‘Twilight Zone’ episode,” Erwin said, “where a man wakes up to the world he’s always known and suddenly nobody recognizes him and he’s running around trying to say, ‘Don’t you remember me? I’ve known you for 40 years,’ and all this.   “Well, that’s what my life’s been in that time,” he said during the interview at the office of Joplin attorney Phil Glades.   “I don’t know how it all got to that stage before it suddenly exploded that morning,” he said. “I don’t know.” Erwin spent the better part of a year trying to prove his innocence behind the scenes. He hired lawyers in Joplin and New Mexico to advise him, even though he has never been charged with the murders, and he declined all interview requests.Erwin went to Alexandria, Va., in December to have the polygraph exam administered by former FBI polygrapher Barry Colvert. Glades said Colvert determined that Erwin was not being deceptive in his answers regarding the West Mesa murders. The results of that exam were provided to Albuquerque investigators a few months later when they asked, as a last request, if he’d be willing to take a polygraph. While no real reason was given to the public about why Erwin was a suspect, it is said that he was seen often at the fair in Albuquerque where the women were known to frequent and men were known to pick up prostitutes. Erwin and his attorneys provided the Globe with a copy of the final page of an Albuquerque police report dated June 26 of this year that concludes: “Ron Erwin is not a viable suspect in the killing of the 11 victims located at the 188th Street S.W. site.”   The paragraph specifies dates in 2004 when victims Veronica Romero, Evelyn Salazar and Jamie Barela are known to have disappeared. The report states that detectives were able to verify that Erwin was in Joplin on both the day that Romero vanished and the day Salazar and Barela turned up missing.   “I believe there weren’t too many specific dates in this case, but those were two of them,” Erwin said. “And I was able to account for all my days in 2004.”    “Why he was a suspect — that’s all in sealed warrants, that’s still part of our pending investigation,” said Sgt. Tricia Hoffman, spokeswoman for the Albuquerque Police Department, in a phone interview. “But, at this point, we’ve been able to eliminate him as a viable suspect.”    So at least they know who didn't do it.    Scott Lee Kimball  is a convicted serial killer from Boulder County, Colorado. He is serving a 70-year sentence after pleading guilty in 2009 to the murders of 5 people. All four victims died between January 2003 and August 2004, while Kimball was on "supervised release" after a prior check fraud conviction, serving as an FBI informant. In December 2010, Kimball told a cousin that he had been proposed as a suspect in the West Mesa murders in New Mexico, which were committed during the same 2003-2005 time period. He denied involvement. Even though he's denied involvement, he has boasted about committing other murders although authorities have yet to uncover direct evidence to back up his claims.    Another suspect, and one of the most viable ones was Lorenzo Montoya, we say was as he was killed while in the act of committing another murder. When Lorenzo Montoya was killed in 2006, the bodies of the West Mesa victims had not yet been found. Police Chief Ray Schultz said at the time that police had been looking into him in connection to prostitutes who had vanished from the city.   He has since been named as a possible suspect in the West Mesa deaths.   That’s likely because, like another possible suspect Joseph Blea, who we'll get to in a bit,  Montoya cruised the East Central corridor and was known to be violent.   His first prostitution-related arrest was in 1998 when he picked up an undercover detective posing as a prostitute. He offered her $40.   She took him to a motel room near Washington and Central, where officers arrested him.   That apparently didn’t deter him.   In 1999, vice detectives watched him pick up a prostitute near Central and San Mateo and followed him to a dark dead-end road near the airport.   Police believe they caught him in the act as he was trying to rape and strangle her.   Montoya had apparently never planned to pay her — he only had $2 in his wallet.   He was arrested, but the case was later dismissed.   About four years later, he was still at it. Detectives watched him pick up a prostitute on Central Ave. and arrested him. The woman told officers he paid her $15.   By that time, Montoya already had a history of violence.   According to a domestic violence form his girlfriend filled out after an alleged assault, Montoya repeatedly beat her.   The woman said he had also done “gross things to me,” but didn’t detail what they were in the document.   She wrote that Montoya threatened “to kill me and bury me in lime.”   That threat may shed light on Montoya’s last crime.   In December 2006, he invited an escort to his trailer and killed her, according to a search warrant affidavit.   “She was bound by the ankles, knees and wrists, with duct tape and cord,” a detective wrote in the warrant.   When the woman’s boyfriend came to check on her, he shot and killed Montoya. The woman’s body was found outside Montoya’s trailer partially wrapped in a blanket. Her legs and wrists were wrapped in duct tape, and a thick layer circled her neck. An unrolled condom, pillowcase, and the woman’s belongings were in a trash bag in the trunk of the car Montoya had rented. Inside Montoya’s trailer, investigators found duct tape next to his bed. They also found hardcore pornography and some homemade sex tapes. One of those recordings shows Montoya having sex with a woman and the tape goes black. In a following scene on the same tape, the camera is focused on Montoya’s bedroom wall.   The camera doesn’t capture what’s happening, but the audio captures what sounds like tape being pulled from a roll. At least one trash bag is opened and there’s minutes of rustling noises. Police have sent that audio to the FBI and other crime labs for enhancement, but haven’t been able to determine what Montoya was doing. Two years after Montoya’s death, the decomposed remains of the West Mesa victims were found.  Montoya was immediately a potential suspect. But police have never detailed conclusive evidence tying him to the crime. Police spokesman Tanner Tixier said detectives tested Montoya’s living room carpet for DNA of all the victims found on the mesa and it came back negative. They also found nothing suspicious in his financial records around the time that the women went missing. Although Montoya’s family has declined to speak with the press, some of their comments were captured in interviews recorded by police the day he was killed. His mother expressed disbelief that Montoya could have done what police accused him of. And his girlfriend told them through sobs that she was supposed to be at Montoya’s trailer the night Hill was killed, but she had canceled because she wasn’t feeling well.   “He was very aggressive when he was younger, but he changed a lot,” she said. “He was good to me.”   Police announced in October 2016 they were looking for two escorts shown in one of the sex tapes.   “We need those two women identified,” Tixier said. “We’re trying to figure out if they are still alive.”   Next up is the aforementioned Joseph Blea.  Joseph Blea caught the attention of investigators almost immediately after the first remains of the West Mesa victims were unearthed.   April Gillen, Blea’s first wife, contacted police seven days after the discovery of a bone on the mesa and said she thought police should look into him.   They already knew a lot about him.   Blea is currently serving a 90-year prison sentence after he was convicted of four sexual assaults unrelated to the West Mesa case. He’s faced other sex-related charges as well, including accusations that he raped a 14-year-old girl he knew with a screwdriver. That case was later dropped, according to online court records.   And his DNA was found on a prostitute left dead on a curb in 1985. He’s never been charged in connection with that crime.   Police knew him even before many of those allegations surfaced — they had run across him more than 130 times between 1990 and 2009, and many of those encounters were along the East Central corridor known for prostitution and drugs, according to a search warrant affidavit unsealed late last year.   It’s an area many of the victims reportedly frequented.   In one report six years before the West Mesa victims went missing, a woman who had been walking on Central Avenue said Blea called her over to his car and exposed himself.   Police found rope and electrical tape on his passenger seat.   In the weeks after the victims’ remains were found, detectives with APD’s Repeat Offender Project tailed Blea for four days as he appeared to stalk prostitutes on the stroll.   “On two separate occasions Mr. Blea drove Central Ave from the west part of Albuquerque to the east part of Albuquerque,” the detective wrote in the warrant. “He slowed and circled the block in areas where prostitutes were working. He did not approach any prostitutes but appeared to be closely watching them.”   When detectives interviewed a prostitute who knew him, she said he took her to his house and tried to tie her up. She said she didn’t let him.   About eight months after the West Mesa murder investigation began, detectives searched Blea’s home and collected women’s jewelry and women’s underwear.   His wife, Cheryl Blea, told police he enjoyed wearing women’s underwear when having sex. She said she had on occasion found jewelry that didn’t belong to her or her daughter in their home. And she said her daughter had found women’s underwear hidden in their shed.   In a 2015 interview with the albuquerque Journal, Robert Cloven, the father of victim Virginia Cloven, said some families had noticed the women’s jewelry was missing.   Detective Mark Manary, who is the only investigator on the West Mesa case full-time, won’t say if the jewelry or underwear found at Blea’s house matched any of the victims’ DNA.   “Due to this being an ongoing criminal investigation this question cannot be answered at this time,” he said in an email in January 2016.   Blea also reportedly discussed the West Mesa case with others.   When detectives interviewed a former cellmate, he said Blea told him he knew the victims. He said he had paid them for sex acts.   “Mr. Blea spoke poorly about other identified victims, calling them trashy,” officers said cellmate Monroe Elderts told them.   Blea told Elderts he hit one of the victims when she tried to take his money.   Most of the evidence detectives present in the search warrant is circumstantial, but there’s one piece of physical evidence they believe may tie him to the crime.   Officers digging up the bones found a plant tag for a Spearmint Juniper next to Virginia Cloven’s remains.   Detectives traced that tree tag to a nursery in California that sends plants to Albuquerque, and Blea’s business records indicate he bought plants from nurseries that sold the California plants.   It’s unclear if detectives were ever able to directly tie that tree tag to Blea.   Blea began his lengthy prison sentence for the sexual assault cases in 2015. He is appealing his conviction in those.   His former attorney, John McCall, said Blea says he had nothing to do with the West Mesa murders.   “We dealt with issues relating to all of this,” McCall said in January 2016. “But it doesn’t seem like they really had any conclusive evidence regarding Joseph Blea. He’s denying involvement in West Mesa consistently.”   Authorities believe that the women may have been involved in a large interstate sex trafficking operation. According to the El Paso Times, the presence of Syllannia Edwards among the victims has led authorities to believe that sex trafficking gangs could have been involved. Edwards was from Oklahoma, but was known to have been in Texas and Colorado before ending up in Albuquerque. It is unknown, however, if she traveled on her own or was trafficked there. Several arrests and convictions in El Paso, Texas, indicated that Albuquerque is part of a broader sex trafficking route that includes the states of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as the Mexican city of Juarez. According to New Mexico State University, the FBI has investigated long-haul truck drivers as suspects in murders of sex workers along major highways, and authorities have reason to believe that Edwards was one such victim. The El Paso Crime Stoppers office received an anonymous tip in 2010 that a suspect whose last name was Cota had killed a girl nicknamed "Mimi" and "Chocolate," both of which were names Edwards was known to go by. Despite the tip, however, the West Mesa Murder case remains unsolved.   So what about this Cota feels anyways. The following is taken from a new Mexico state university article.     A truck driver who used to belong to El Salvador’s military special forces allegedly could be linked to serial crimes of girls and women in El Paso, Texas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to a Crime Stoppers tip included in court documents related to the appeal of Texas death row inmate David Leonard Wood. The tip, which is part of the Crime Stoppers report, refers to Wood’s case and to the West Mesa murders of Albuquerque.   The report states that the victim or victims of the alleged suspect, whose last name in the Crime Stoppers report is Cota, were nicknamed “Mimi” and “Chocolate.” New Mexico authorities had identified one of the 11 victims that were found in shallow graves in Albuquerque’s West Mesa in 2009 as Syllannia Edwards, whom police stated may have used the nicknames “Mimi” and “Chocolate.”   The West Mesa case remains unsolved. Edwards, who was 15 years old, was reported missing in 2003 in Lawton, Oklahoma. Police there said they considered her an endangered runaway. Police said she was also seen in Aurora, Colorado in May of 2004, and may have been associated with prostitutes in that city. It is not known when and how Edwards traveled to Albuquerque.   “Edwards was killed sometime between 2004 and 2005 and then buried in a mesa located adjacent to 118th Street SW in Albuquerque,” police authorities stated. “(The Cota) suspect would lure the females with narcotics,” the tipster told Crime Stoppers.   An anonymous caller provided the tip on Feb. 22, 2010 to Crime Stoppers of El Paso, Inc. According to court records, El Paso Detective Arturo “Tury” Ruiz, who was assigned to follow up on the tip, went as far as to prepare a grand jury document so that he could request more details about the tipster’s information. An official with the Albuquerque Police Department confirmed today (Sept. 13, 2016) that the El Paso Police Department had shared the 2010 Crime Stoppers report with authorities investigating the West Mesa murders. No further comment was available due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.   According to the Crime Stoppers report, “The caller (tipster) advised they have information regarding the crimes for which a man named David Leonard Wood will be executed soon. The caller advised (that) the suspect [Cota]… is responsible for these crimes.”   “The caller advised two of the victims’ nicknames were Mimi and Chocolate,” the Crime Stoppers report stated. “The caller advised the suspect never admitted to killing the women, but did admit to having picked up the women and paid them in exchange for sex.” “The caller has reason to believe the suspect … is responsible for the West Mesa, NM murders as well … (and) may also be responsible for several murders in Milwaukee, WI,” the Crime Stoppers report stated. The tipster claimed that the suspect had been a member of El Salvador’s military special forces. The tipster further alleged that the suspect is “very violent” and “exhibits a very strong hate towards women.”   The tipster told Crime Stoppers that Cota allegedly once boasted that “You will see me all over the news one day.” The suspect, the tipster alleged, used to be involved in drug-trafficking, and had a relative that was arrested on drug charges in California. The tipster alleged that the suspect ‘s nickname was “El Tigere,” was between 55 and 56 years old (in 2010), had a thin build, reddish hair, and drove a light burgundy-colored van.   The suspect reportedly worked as an interstate 18-wheel truck driver, and had lived in Albuquerque and West Oakland, California.     Wood was convicted in the deaths of six girls and young women who disappeared in 1987 in El Paso. Their bodies were found in shallow graves near what is now the Painted Dunes Golf Course in Northeast El Paso. The victims were Ivy Susanna Williams, Desiree Wheatley, Karen Baker, Angelica Frausto, Rosa Maria Casio and Dawn Marie Smith.   Three others who went missing in 1987, two from Northeast El Paso, and one who lived in nearby Chaparral, New Mexico, were Melissa Alaniz, Cheryl Vasquez and Marjorie Knox; they were never seen alive again. El Paso police said they had suspected Wood in their disappearances.   Wood has steadfastly denied killing the six victims and denied any connection with the disappearances of Knox, Alaniz and Vasquez. After his conviction by a jury trial, Wood was sentenced to death, and was scheduled to be executed in 2009. The Texas Criminal Court of Appeals granted him a stay the day before he was to be executed so he could prepare his appeal.     There is thought that the same person responsible for the west mesa killings was also responsible for the cringes that Wood was convicted of.    So there you have it… the unresolved story of the West Mesa killings. Who did it? Why did they do it, where are the rest of the missing girls? We may never know.   Sources for today were an amazing special article series from the Albuquerque Journal, the New Mexico state university article on the Cota suspect, the El Paso times and their article on the subject. Those were the main sources although we did find some smaller bits scattered around various random websites.  Horror movies filmed in new mexico: https://wheninyourstate.com/new-mexico/14-awesome-horror-movies-you-didnt-know-were-filmed-in-new-mexico/

Luke 8:22-25 reminds us that the power of Jesus is a lifeline and anchor for the powerless in life's storms.

Listen in on this conversation with the International District neighbor all-stars! We are talking about power in the neighborhood.

Westgate Heights Park was the location for a fatal shooting overnight. First Lady Jill Biden to make an appearance in Albuquerque later today. And a new library is coming to the International District at the location once occupied by the Caravan East.

We continue our series, looking at the social dynamics at work in the International District. this week we looked at the "Paintings"/symbols giving meaning to and revealing the hopes, dreams, strengths, experiences and disappointments of our neighborhood. We proclaim good news from Psalm 106 that God's steadfast love outlasts all of our pain, brokenness and failure.

Our neighborhood is filled with images, symbols, sounds and art. Some of these are our creations, growing out of our experiences and identity in the neighborhood. Others, have been created and placed here by others, as charity, control or commercialization. These "paintings" tell a story. They tell our story. A story of resilience, resistance, freedom, oppression, conflict, and much more!Listen in on our conversation with Enrique, Reyna, John, Blanca and Alex as we discuss the history and present reality of "Paintings" in the International District.For the pictures with time-stamp of when they are discussed, click here: WEEKEND SCRIPTURE READINGSSATURDAY APRIL 17Numbers 13 (1-3, 17-33)Psalm 121Mark 11:1-26SUNDAY APRIL 18Numbers 14 (1-31)Psalm 122Mark 11:27-12:12

On this week's episode of Dim Sumdays, Amanda and Conner tried to visit Joyale, but they were closed for a holiday. Instead, they end up getting Dry Dipping Noodles and Chicken Wings from Hue Ky Mi Gia in Seattle's International District. The topics of the show include: - Sh*T My Mom Says - Best Things I Saw Online - Beef of the Week

Amanda and Conner are in a parking lot in Seattle's International District enjoying delicious dim sum from Harbor City Restaurant. Along with covering all of the wonderful food they ordered, the follow topics are also covered: - Winning a Big Screen TV on Ellen - Getting 2nd dose - Sh*T My Mom Says - Best Things We Saw Online this week - Why NCAA March Madness is so fun

As we continue our DWELL series, looking at the different social dynamics within the International District, we see God's heart of provision revealed in scripture and through the life of Jesus. As we cooperate with God's heart of provision, we will participate in a beautiful dance of enough, in which every person's needs are provided with equity and peace, justice and flourishing result.

As we learn to dwell with God in place with people in the International District, we have invited some neighbors to be our guides on this journey. Each month, during the week of our neighborhood reflection on social dynamics at play within the ID, we will listen to and learn from a lively conversation with some neighborhood "all-stars" who are deeply rooted in our place and deeply committed to our people. This convo is centered around the social dynamic of "Pennies"/Money, how it flows, works, is distributed and acquired in the International District. This is a lot of fun and well worth a thoughtful listen. WEEKEND READINGSSATURDAYExodus 20Psalm 73Matthew 20:17-endSUNDAYExodus 21 (1-19, 22-29)Psalm 74Matthew 21:1-22

Join the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Really as we explore Seattle's historic Chinatown-International District. We also sprinkle in some of our top recommendations in the area. Want to know more? Don't hesitate to reach out! AwesomeNossum.com/contact

Today Crystal and co-host Erica Barnett of Publicola give us an in-depth update on homelessness, and what is being done (or not being done) to address the underlying conditions that cause it. And they ask the question: can homelessness be an issue that is solved through a reginal commission, or is it something each city in the Puget Sound needs to innovate around on their own? 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, Erica C. Barnett, @ericacbarnett. More information is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Read about the Regional Homelessness Authority here: https://publicola.com/2021/03/02/fizz-as-homeless-authority-regroups-citys-homelessness-division-is-at-the-breaking-point/ Learn about King County's recent use of hotels in order to house those experiencing homelessness here: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/02/can-king-county-keep-using-empty-hotels-fight-homelessness See coverage of the recent Denny Park encampment removal here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/at-denny-park-city-is-quietly-trying-to-sweep-homeless-campers-without-police/ Learn about the continually changing way the mayor is seeking to address homelessness here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattles-homeless-shelter-surge-unveiled-with-fewer-shelter-beds-more-questions/ Dive into all Erica C. Barnett and Publicola's coverage of current events at publicola.com.   Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host Crystal Fincher.  On this show, we talk policy and politics with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today we're continuing our Friday almost-live show where we review the news of the week.  Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host, Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery - Erica Barnett. Erica C. Barnett: [00:00:51] Thank you so much for having me. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:54] Thank you for joining us again. There's a number of things that happened in the past week to talk about. I wanted to talk about a story that you have been covering in detail at PubliCola, and that is funding for JustCARE running out and the mayor's office raising objections to taking federal money to run the hotels. So do you want to talk a little bit about just what has transpired? Erica C. Barnett: [00:01:20] Sure, so there is a program called JustCARE, which is run by the Public Defender Association here in Seattle, that moved about 130 people off the streets in Pioneer Square and the International District into hotels. And they are still there - they're staying in hotels with County funding, but that funding is running out on March 15th unless the County and or the City can come up with money to pay for it.  Separately, or separate and related, there is the issue of FEMA funding, which I've covered a lot on PubliCola - which is basically since the Biden administration came in, they have decided to reimburse cities for a lot of different things that are related to the COVID disaster. But one is shelter and specifically shelter in hotels, and everything that's reimbursable is reimbursable at a hundred percent and most things are reimbursable. The mayor's office has expended, I would say an extraordinary amount of energy, raising objections to this idea of taking this federal funding that is a hundred percent reimbursable. So the city could be spending money on hotels - and a lot of cities have done this already, San Francisco actually just expanded their program by 500 more rooms - and getting reimbursement of a hundred percent of the costs that are eligible, which again is most of the costs. This relates to JustCARE's because they say that the City should be seeking FEMA reimbursement to expand the program and to continue the program. But the city says that that's not possible for a whole host of different reasons, or rather the mayor's office says this. City Council disagrees with her position, pretty much across the board. But the upshot, I mean, is basically because the mayor is the one who makes these funding decisions ultimately, we have not sought FEMA funding for hotels, and we have not expanded the city's hotel based shelter program to anything remotely like what other cities on the West Coast are doing. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:36] Well, and that's really interesting. And one of the questions was - is there just a philosophical difference from the mayor's office and the approach that certainly Council has favored - for putting people without homes up in hotels. Does that seem to be a genesis of some of this conflict? Erica C. Barnett: [00:03:55] Well, I would say, I mean, I can't sort of get into the mayor's mind and her philosophy. The mayor, I should say, also doesn't talk to me directly. She has not granted a single interview with PubliCola or my previous website - it was called The C Is for Crank - since she became mayor. And I've asked many times, so I'm not going to get into her psychology, but I do think that her policy position has been that hotel based shelters are not a good solution. I mean, she obviously has supported other types of shelters for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. One is congregate shelter - she's opened up a lot of mass shelters run by mostly The Salvation Army. And she has expressed support for tiny house villages, which is another kind of non congregate shelter. But when it comes to hotels, for whatever reason, I mean, since the very beginning of the pandemic, she has vehemently opposed doing the kind of expansion that cities like San Francisco and LA have done. Now, the City is finally preparing to open its very, very first two hotels, hopefully later this month, at the end of March or so. That's going to shelter around 200 or so people. But I mean, we're talking about a year, more than a year, into this pandemic and we are just now getting the first couple of hotels that are being funded by the City. Now there are other hotels that various service providers have been running on their own and in some cases with City funds, but as far as these kind of federally backed hotels, we're just totally behind the curve on other comparable cities. And I don't know about the philosophical reasons, but certainly the policy has been, and the result has been, that we do not have many hotel based shelters and we have a lot of big mass congregate shelters. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:57] All right, from what I've read, it seems like the mayor's office has said, Well, this isn't something that FEMA can reimburse in full, so that's why we've decided to not go after it. Erica C. Barnett: [00:06:13] Yeah. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:14] But the City Council has said, Well, if we can be reimbursed in part, isn't that still worth it? What is the thought behind that argument? Well, I mean, obviously, again the mayor is not sharing her intimate thoughts with you, but what has been I guess, the basis of their argument there? Erica C. Barnett: [00:06:35] Well, a couple of things and I think it's actually even a little more complicated than that, because the mayor's office insists and has said over and over to me - and this is when I talk about extraordinary energy, I mean, I have just in my inbox just email, after email, after email from the mayor's staff saying why I'm wrong, and why the City Council is wrong, and why service providers are wrong, and why other cities are wrong, and why everybody is wrong, except the mayor. What they would say is that they believe that no services of any kind are reimbursable by FEMA, so staff at the shelters - the mayor's office says are not reimbursable. Just basically any kind of services beyond running a bare bones hotel, where they drop off a meal a couple times a day and provide security and cleaning, the mayor's office says nothing beyond that is reimbursable. That is not in my report, according to my reporting, according to looking at other cities and according to talking to multiple service providers, that is not true. What is not reimbursable is case management and things like behavioral health care. In San Francisco, that's amounted for about 15% of the total costs. So if you're talking about 85% of the cost of hotels being reimbursable at a hundred percent - so that's free money that San Francisco is receiving. And what they do have to figure out how to pay for is the remaining 15%. And that is not me making up a number. That is actually what the San Francisco Chronicle reported this week as what FEMA has, in the real world, chosen not to reimburse for. I mean, it's just a matter of whether you believe other cities' experience and service providers or whether you don't. The other objection the mayor's office has raised, beyond whether any of this stuff is reimbursable, is that it's onerous in their words, or in the words of a memo from their budget director - it's onerous to fill out all the paperwork and to kind of dot all the I's and cross all the T's to get FEMA reimbursement. It's extremely complicated. And from everything I understand, that's absolutely true. It's super complicated to get money from FEMA - we all know this. The question is, do you decide to do the hard thing and make that choice to do the complicated paperwork and to do all the documentation, or do you say it's too hard? And so far the City has said it's too hard. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:15] Well, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong - I saw statements from, I think Councilmembers Lorena González and Tammy Morales saying, Yes, it may be hard, but we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to fulfill our obligation to our tax paying residents. And try to do everything we can to jump through whatever hoops necessary to get this reimbursement. Has there been other statements on behalf of the Council, or what have they shown their direction will be with this? Erica C. Barnett: [00:09:53] Well, I think the Council - I mean, Andrew Lewis, Teresa Mosqueda, Tammy Morales, have all kind of expressed this frust... Dan Strauss. This week at Council - have all expressed this frustration with the fact that they can allocate funding, but in Seattle, the way our system works is whatever the City Council budgets in their budget authority, the mayor doesn't have to spend. And so if they were to say, We're going to allocate or we're going to express a policy position that FEMA funding should be used, the mayor's office doesn't have to pay any attention to that. And so I think they're using their bully pulpit to sort of say this should be a priority and it is a priority for us. But if the mayor's office chooses not to spend that money or not to seek that money, the Council really can't do anything. And that's just kind of a quirk of the way our system works. But ultimately it is in the mayor's hands. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:53] And is that where we stand now - the mayor has to decide or gets to decide what the direction will be, so we may not actually pursue getting this FEMA reimbursement? Erica C. Barnett: [00:11:04] Well, I think yes. And I also think that looking retrospectively, I mean, the problem too is that FEMA funding, and this is one of the objections they raised to the very concept. FEMA funding right now runs out in September - now that could conceivably be extended. But the problem is that we didn't do this from the beginning. I mean, the money was reimbursable at 75% even under the Trump administration. And now it's reimbursable at a hundred percent going all the way back to January 2020, so had we been funding hotels using this money from the very beginning as other cities have done, it would all be reimbursable now. Everything that is eligible would be reimbursable, so it's almost, I don't want to say it's too late to even be having this conversation, but this conversation definitely should have happened earlier. And I think we'd be in a very different place now if we'd had this conversation a year ago, instead of now. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:06] Yeah, it definitely would have been nice to have earlier. It feels like a lost opportunity and a really disappointing oversight on behalf of the mayor's office. But I guess we are here now and hopefully they will pursue moving forward with that. In a related issue, with the County, I wanted to talk about the Regional Homelessness Authority and where it stands, and what's next, and is there even a next? What's going on with that? Erica C. Barnett: [00:12:40] Well, as you know, Regina Cannon from Atlanta was offered the position - she's with C4, I think it's C4 Innovations. It's a consulting firm that works on homelessness, and she was offered the position of CEO of the Authority, which is basically the Executive Director. And she turned it down. And the reasons she turned it down are not entirely clear, but my reporting indicates that one is that this entity is maybe ungovernable because the idea of a regional authority is that you bring together all these disparate cities, and unincorporated areas, and Seattle, and the King County government itself. And they're all going to get together and agree on essentially a unified regional approach to homelessness. And we've seen again and again, that many of these cities do not agree with the quote unquote Seattle way of doing things, which has been a huge issue from the beginning. What are the right solutions to homelessness? Does it include harm reduction based drug treatment, all sorts of things. Right now where they're at is - they're basically going back to the drawing board. When I say they, I mean the implementation board for the Authority. They're going back to the drawing board and looking at the 17 applicants that applied for the position and considering are any of these folks qualified and somebody we would pick to fill that position. There's the runner-up - is a person named Marc Dones, out of Brooklyn. And I believe Brooklyn - in New York City. And they may decide to take the position, but I think the larger question is - is this authority going to work? Is it governable, and is it going to be a better system than we have in place now, which is essentially all the various cities doing their own approaches to homelessness. And I mean, I think the jury is very much still out on that. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:04] You're listening to Hacks and Wonks with your host Crystal Fincher on KVRU 105.7 FM. Yeah. And certainly I've noticed, and there's been lots of coverage on other challenges, not even on homelessness, but just on a variety of issues, whether it's transportation, the approach to COVID and quarantine sites - that there have been challenges between the County and Executive's office and communication with a number of cities in the County. Certainly with a number of South County cities feeling like they haven't had an adequate seat at the table for many decisions, so it seems like there are challenges overall in being on the same page regionally. And certainly with this issue, there has been a wide variety of approaches and stances with this. So what does it look like for a path forward? What are the options? Erica C. Barnett: [00:16:11] Well I mean, one option, the sort of nuclear option would be to say, Look, this regional authority is not going to work. Right now what it consists of is essentially two boards that are - there's like a governing board and an implementation board, and I won't bore you with the details of what the difference is. And there's some staff, but it's very bare bones at this point. It was supposed to be stood up many months ago. And the original plan - they're basically six months behind schedule now. And it's unclear how much this latest setback is going to put them further behind schedule. So nuclear option is saying, You know what, we need to go back to the drawing board. We need to sort of take all the homeless services that Seattle has been doing and retain them at the City of Seattle and beef up the division that actually does that work and is still doing that work now, and figure out a way forward. And I'll add, this is something I covered this week as well. The Homelessness Division within the City of Seattle's Human Services Department is down to about half of what it was a year ago. And they're doing more work than ever before. And people are leaving because they've gotten layoff notices because of this Regional Authority. And there's just like no certainty, so the more people leave, the more work is left for everybody else, the more burned out everybody gets. And so there's a real brain drain that's happening, as the Regional Authority process kind of continues to stall. Another option is hire somebody from that pool, maybe hire Marc Dones, the runner-up or somebody else who was in the pool, and just kind of keep chugging forward. But I think there's a tremendous amount of frustration among the people who actually provide services to people living on the streets and people living precariously unhoused, because ultimately that's who is supposed to be served by this governance board, governance authority, or the regional authority rather. And I think it's, I don't know. I think just personally I find these endless conversations about governance and structure and process rather frustrating, because what gets lost is that people are dying on the streets and there are thousands of people unsheltered. And the idea that like, there's going to be a perfect process that the County and the cities come to an agreement on that's going to solve the problem is just an illusion. I mean, it's about spending, it's about how we allocate dollars, and it's about getting people into housing and getting people into services. And I think that just really gets lost and has gotten lost for six months in these just endless discussions about how do we structure everything. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:14] I think that's an excellent point and true. That we've gotten away from the fundamental reason why we're having these conversations in the first place - is we need to get people into housing. And I almost feel like that getting away from the fundamental issue and talking about the scale of the problem, compounded by the current COVID pandemic and the challenges that we're facing with recent, very cold weather. And just how hostile it is to be outdoors, that this is a real challenge. And lots of people are interested in not necessarily continuing to talk about how we're facing a big, if not even bigger problem, four years after they talked about having bold big solutions that were going to make a big difference. It seems like this is going to be a significant issue once again, leading up into the mayoral elections. And so I guess, how do you see things moving forward in this conversation with the candidates who are running for City and Council positions? Erica C. Barnett: [00:20:34] Well, what's so interesting to me so far is I get information about polls all the time from - just from readers and people I know who've taken polls. And the issue that all of the polls I have heard about so far ask about - they ask about homelessness, but they also ask about the quote unquote state of downtown, which is I think related to homelessness, but is really conflated with homelessness in these polls. And is going to be a big issue during the campaign. So I think candidates are going to have to answer questions about what are you going to do to quote unquote clean up downtown? And by clean up downtown, I mean, what the sort of dog whistle is there is of homeless people. There's a lot of people living in tents downtown. There's a lot of people living in tents in Pioneer Square and there's just a tremendous amount of suffering and people living unsheltered. I think that's going to be a huge issue. And I think that the dividing line is going to be sort of what sort of approach are the various candidates going to take to this really kind of neighborhood specific question of cleaning up, quote unquote. Again, I'm putting giant scare quotes around that - downtown. Is the response, Well, the issue isn't downtown, it's homelessness and people congregate downtown for reasons. And if we address those reasons, they will not live downtown. Or is it we need to sweep the parks downtown. There was a big sweep of Denny Park, just north of downtown this week. Is it we need to - I mean, I think we'll hear people saying things like, on the more conservative side, saying things like we need to tell them that they can accept services or be arrested, or told to move along. And so I mean, this has been a dividing line, I think in recent elections, period. But I think the pandemic and the fact that a lot of businesses have been closed, and unsheltered homelessness has become more visible as we've talked about before. It's visible because we're not moving people from place to place as much. It's not that it was better before and now all of a sudden, we have this huge homelessness crisis. It's that it's visible to us. I think that's going to be the number one issue during the campaign - the sort of joint quote unquote public safety issue of having visible homelessness and the homelessness issue itself. Crystal Fincher: [00:23:15] Yeah. And I really appreciate you putting that in its proper context. In that those big scare quotes around cleaning up downtown, really being just a workshopped PR massaged way to say, What are you going to do to prevent me from having to see people without homes and to see people on the sidewalks? And that's a very different conversation than saying, How are we going to address the issue of people not having homes? How are we going to house these people and put them on a path to stable housing, stable permanent housing. And it is going to be a very big issue. And we hear the different shades of the Seattle is Dying narrative, which very much talks about homelessness as an issue of crime and vagrancy. And one, homelessness itself being compared to a crime. And two, people without homes being assumed to be hostile and criminal and needed to be dealt with by authorities in some way, instead of helped. They need to be policed or given ultimatums that they need to adhere to and abide by, or they don't have the right to not be in jail. Because they don't have a home or the ability to pay to afford one and so... Oh, no, go ahead. Erica C. Barnett: [00:24:58] I was just going to add, I mean, to the criminality question - it is absolutely true that people commit survival crimes all the time. I mean, I live next to a store that gets ripped off on a weekly basis. And I'm not saying that those are good crimes, or that it's okay to have a society where people shoplift and sell things in order to survive, or in order to sustain an addiction. That's not a good society to live in. And the root causes are not addressed by sort of saying, Well, the behavior is the problem and we need to police the behavior. No, the behavior is not the problem, the homelessness is the problem, the addiction is the problem. There are root causes to these things. And so this is me editorializing, very strongly, that I do think that we should have a downtown and we should have a city where people are not running shoplifting rings and where people are not stealing things to survive. But I don't think that the solution to that is criminalizing the root causes of that, which is what you do when you just throw people in jail and don't treat the underlying condition, which may be homelessness, which may be poverty, which may be addiction, or some combination of all those things and more. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:29] Absolutely. And definitely, we don't want anyone to be victimized in any way at any time. It is not more okay for one group to victimize than others. I think we do need to focus on root causes and solutions. And I also think that what is really easy to do and that we see flavors of the same story - is a person who is homeless committed this crime. We see that very often. That crime may be committed by other groups at a much higher percentage than people without homes. And that context is never provided in there either. And so there is also this inclination, more so by some elements of the media than others, to suggest that crime is being driven by homelessness when there are lots of other causes and lots of other perpetrators besides people who don't have homes. But what that does do - by perpetuating stereotypes that certain crimes are committed predominantly by one group of people when that's not the case, is it creates a lot more hostility towards people without homes. It creates, as we've seen, people who don't have a problem going up and harassing, sometimes assaulting, destroying the property, pushing for these sweeps - it creates victimization. And oftentimes we see people who are emboldened by believing what they hear when that's not true. And so I definitely appreciate you clarifying and speaking out against that and not being part of that problem. I certainly want to underscore, whenever we do talk about this, that the different ways that people talk about it - one, indicate where they're coming from or who their sources of information are. And two, we do need to put this information in the correct context - that we need to solve homelessness, we don't need to clean up downtown. And use that type of terminology for suggesting that we should just get people off of the street. And that you should be suspicious and not happy with people who put this problem in the context of, I want you to prevent me from having to be aware that other people are suffering, as if that in and of itself is suffering. The suffering is the actual suffering. Having to see the suffering is a signal of how bad that suffering is, and is not in any way justifiable to suggest that someone just shouldn't have to look at it or deal with it. We are responsible for solving this issue and that's where we should go, so that certainly is me up on a soapbox. I'm okay to be on that soapbox, but feel very strongly about that. And again, that type of rhetoric leads to victimization of people who were already in vulnerable positions in the first place. And I do not want to see more of that happening. With that said, we are right about at the time, we could certainly discuss a lot more, but time is preventing us from doing that.  I do appreciate all of you listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, March 5th, 2021. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our wonderful co-host today was Seattle political reporter and founder of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett, that's Erica with a C and on publicola.com. And you can buy her book Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery wherever you want to buy your books. Lots of great independent booksellers here. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii at F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed.  Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time.

Dim Sumdays Ep04 with Conner and Amanda is live! We recorded this episode from the parking lot of Dim Sum King in Seattle's International District. This week's topics include: - Millennial vs Gen Z - Sh*t My Mom Says - Favorite Thing from the Internet - New Names for the Pandemic

Listen in on our intro to our new series, called DWELL. God dwells in place with people, inviting us to the same. Where God is dwelling there is healing and transformation (Revelation 21:3-4). Over the next months, we will be responding to the Good News of God's dwelling with us in the International District, looking at 9 social dynamics that God's healing love transforms.

An early morning fire in Albuquerque has displaced residents from an apartment complex. Covid positive numbers in NM continue to go down. And 25 arrests were made in the International District as part of BCSO's Gang Recognition Intelligence Patrol.

Set for completion this spring, KODA is situated in the heart of Seattle's International District.⁣ Join us as we sit down with Erik Mehr and Tatum Spalding of Erik Mehr & Associates to discuss exciting new updates as the project reenters the market.⁣ Sneak preview pricing includes:⁣ Studios from the mid-$300k's⁣ 1 bedrooms from the low-$400k's⁣ 2 bedrooms from the low- $600k's⁣ Connect with Erik & Tatum: https://ownkoda.com/ http://instagram.com/kodaseattle Connect with us here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urbanashteam Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UrbanAshley LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/urbanashteam Twitter: https://twitter.com/urbanashteam Website: http://www.urbanash.com Recorded January 15, 2021

This episode we discuss a female criminal who used her business of fortune telling in North Seattle to scam people out of their hard earned money.In 2007 Sylvia Sutton chanced upon meeting the fortune teller Lady Monica at a street fair in Seattle’s International District. Sylvia made an impulse decision to have her palm read; one that would haunt her the rest of her life. Over the next few years Lady Monica, better known by her real identity of Brenda Nicholas, would scam Sylvia out of her life savings under the guise of “help” to cure a gray aura.Unfortunately, that isn’t all Lady Monica did. In 2011, when highly decorated war hero Patrick Fleming turns up murdered in his retirement home residence, police start piecing together a connection between Sylvia, Patrick and Lady Monica aka Brenda Nicholas. Brenda’s greed would be the ultimate downfall for her and her associates and eventually all responsible parties pay for their crimes.We discuss crimes against the elderly and persons with mental health issues in this episode, a very serious subject, and felt that it was a good idea to mention the subject of loneliness these members of our community often face.If you are so inclined, here are some links with information on how you can brighten someone's day, even during this pandemic when in-person contact is limited. These are only 3 of many ways you could connect with someone. If you know of more, please message us to get the words out. Please consider doing a random act of kindness this holiday season in your community in any way possible.Ways for Senior Citizens to stay connected during the pandemicLetters Against Depression VolunteerHow to help and give back in your communityHappy Holidays, from our small campsite in the woods to yours… Some information from this episode:Killer Scammer: The True Story of Brenda Nicholas by Ana BensonPurchase on Amazon BooksInvestigation Discovery shows on Brenda Nicholas and her crimes:Killer Instinct with Chris Hansen on Amazon Prime *pay to view*Dead of Night on Amazon Prime *pay to view*Charges against killer of war veteran:https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-woman-charged-in-gruesome-murder-of-elderly-navy-vet-11-22-2015Brenda Nicholas is sentenced for her crimes:https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/woman-sentenced-in-vicious-killing-of-seattle-veteran/https://www.foxnews.com/us/woman-gets-34-years-in-brutal-murder-of-purple-heart-veteranConviction of Charles Jungbluth:https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/amp/Man-convicted-in-N-Seattle-torture-killing-4473986.phpThe list of grievances in Brenda’s appeals after her conviction:https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2769019/state-of-washington-v-brenda-nicholas/

SPAAC SNACC now comes with Banchan! – a new minisoda series where we provide commentary on the drama in social media food discourse and dig deeper into conversations on food, identity, and social justice. We will also be using this space to share news on the food scene in Seattle, where we're based. This inaugural episode is a special double feature. In the first segment, Pauline and Christina talk about the Twitter storm that brewed over Hainan Chicken Rice, and bid sad farewells to a beloved restaurant in Capitol Hill before dishing on some newcomers to the International District. Jenny and Thomas round off the episode with a thoughtful, reflective segment on voting and the elections that are happening as we speak. Post-show notes: Suika lives on at both Tamari Bar and Rondo, which are in Capitol Hill

Our guest today on the pod is Alex Horton.  Alex is a Native New Mexican who formed the 1st Economic Development Center in Albuquerque's International District.  The center's purpose is for the community to have access to the resources they need to develop businesses and grow the job base. IDED site IDED Coworking Space The ID Incubator ID Studios Financing Change Speaker Series The Awarepreneurs Community Paul's business coaching site

That's right, I finally did it. I ate at a restaurant during the pandemic. It was the first time eating at an establishment in Seattle since February. What's the one restaurant you would risk exposure for their food? Also included in this week's show is This Week in Seattle news including COVID 19 Relief funds for the International District and Arts & Science businesses. The Featured Meal of the Week is from South Seattle's BENT BURGERS. Their signature burger is called THE BENT BURGER and its fully loaded with burger patty, fried egg, hot link and bacon squished between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches.

On the 95th episode of the Seattle Foodie Podcast, we talk with one of the owners of Ironsteak, Maggie Lo. Ironsteak currently has two locations in Redmond and the International District and recently reopened last month in coordination with King County moving into Phase 2. Listen in as Maggie tells us about the concept of Ironsteak and what safety measures they've taken to make it a safe dining experience during Phase 2. Also, be sure to listen in as Maggie tells you what new items are being offered at Ironsteak. In addition, Monica and Nelson dine out together for the first time at Masala of India in Northgate. Tune in as they tell you their favorite dishes they ordered and the current specials Masala of India is currently running. As always, Monica and Nelson also dive in to what they ate last week. Nelson visited eateries that included Ono Poke, Quick Pack, Frankie and Jo's, and Mediterranean Kitchen. Meanwhile, Monica checked out Market Fishmonger, Mangosteen/Cut and Cook BBQ/Bobabar, Kidd Valley, SUSU Dessert Bar, Kau Kau, and had an epic July 4th potluck with her family. She also collaborated with Intentionalist and opened pay it forward tab for customers at Central Cafe and Juice Bar. Thank you so much for listening and we hope you enjoy the latest episode of the Seattle Foodie Podcast!

Aaron Chan's grandfather founded the Mon Hei Bakery to bring Chinese pastries to the burgeoning International District of Seattle with funding from investors. While the concept itself isn't new in this modern food startup world, the significance is the timing: the year was 1979. Fast forward over thirty years, and the Mon Hei Bakery was a provider of affordable and old world Chinese dumplings, hom bao, egg tarts, and mooncakes. Regulars flocked there to buy fresh snacks, and the Chan family had established themselves as active members of the community. Tragically, on Christmas Eve 2013, the building in which Mon Hei was based burned down, taking with it the legendary bakery.  Aaron joined the PeasOnMoss podcast to share his family's story about food entrepreneurship and surviving after a business tragedy. Though his parents didn't want him to go into the bakery business, he felt the call rise up in his heart after the fire and observing how his parents have struggled to understand how they can still participate in their community without a bakery. It's ultimately a story of hope, and it's a unique perspective of food business operations from a family business. 

Frank Nam (We Belong Here), Rickey Hall (University of Washington Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity), Jamie Lee (Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority) and Joaquin Uy (Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs at the City of Seattle) discuss integration versus assimilation, how to care for International District residents most impacted by COVID-19, education access, and the importance of deeper community outreach to immigrants and refugees.

Radio TI | Where Leaders Talk Nikki Quinn, current Toastmasters International District 74 Director, is interviewed by Elizabeth Viljoen on Radio TI's podcast program 'Creating Culture.' Our Southern African District Director answers important questions about the annual Council Meeting and International Prepared Speaking Contest - the highlight of the local Toastmasters's year. Due to measures implemented to prevent the spread of Covid-19, the important meeting and contest will be held online. What is the vision if the District Council meeting? Why can't the meeting be postponed? What District business must be conducted? Who will attend? May I as a regular member attend? And most importantly: Will the meeting be fun? Radio TI | Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RadioTMI/ Radio TI | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/37774704/ Southern African Toastmasters Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/toastmasters74membersgroup/ Music : Myk Nich | https://soundcloud.com/myknich Engage with us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RadioTMI/ When you're ready to produce your own podcast, contact the podcast experts at

Cariño Padilla, friend & owner of Stretch Strength and Fitness in the International District, joins me on the cast today. We talk his roots, family, bieng and entrepreneur in the current climate, how he became a business owner & his vision for Albuquerque.

This week's episode was inspired by a sad anniversary in Seattle and American history. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, our country committed horrible acts against our own citizens by placing over 100,000 people of Japanese heritage, in internment camps all over the west coast. "On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forced evacuation. Both Seattle Mayor Earl Millikan and Governor Arthur Langlie (1900-1966) declared their support of the removal. " (source: https://www.historylink.org/File/240?mc_cid=8e2cf1caf1&mc_eid=98adb54834) At the time, there were 9,600 Japanese in King County and a day after the bombing, they started to be investigated, arrested, banned from public services, revoked business license and had bank account frozen. These horrible acts are barely a generation away from current Seattleites and I thought it would be fitting to educate myself a little more on what happened and share some of those details with you. This episodes FEATURED BUSINESS OF THE WEEK is inspired by the theme, Maneki. Maneki is a Japanese Restaurant that has been serving Seattle's International District since 1904. They survived this time of exclusion and continue to honor their traditions and rich history in the area. "Ownership of Maneki has changed hands only a few times in its century-long tenure. The longest owners were the Sato family; Tokuji Sato owned Maneki between 1923 and the early 1960s, when he handed ownership over to his daughter, “Shi-chan” Virginia Ichikawa, and her husband Joe. The restaurant is now officially owned by the nonprofit InterIm CDA, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Seattle’s International District." (source: https://crosscut.com/2017/05/maneki-seattle-oldest-sushi-restaurant) This episodes FEATURED MEAL OF THE WEEK comes from Wallingford's Yoroshiku. A big thank you to Wendy Kato for sharing these resources for us on her Facebook page, and being a big supporter of Find Me in Seattle and many more Seattle communities.

We had the honor to attend and cover a very special event in the storied journey of the brothers of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc - the chartering of their Delta Nu Nu Chapter (Middle East) - 13th International District. We spoke with Dr. Trevor V Hodge, Tenth 13th District Representative (in charge of global expansions for Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc). We also spoke with Dr. David Marion, the 41st Grand Basileus. In addition, we featured some of the brothers speaking on being a global citizen. WATCH • LIKE • SHARE • SUBSCRIBE Subscribe to our YOUTUBE channel and follow us on Instagram @globalbrotherspodcast "Live global and prosper!" --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/globalbrotherspodcast/message

On the 71st episode of the Seattle Foodie Podcast, we chat with Cristina Buenaventura, Bar Manager at Currant Bistro and the winner of the Stranger's Seattle Favorite Bartender. Cristina's extensive cocktail program and creations are a must try at Currant Bistro at the Sound Hotel in Belltown. Listen as she tells us how she got started making delicious libations and the process that goes into crafting all of her creations. In addition, Monica and Nelson inform you of four events around Seattle this week including Locus Wines Pop-Up Shop with Sharply, Pop Punk Dim Sum at House of Hong, the 10th Annual Belgian Fest at Seattle Center, and the Flavor of Inspiration at Hot Stove Society. Finally, this Saturday is the Chinese/Lunar New Year and we're telling you all of our favorite Chinese restaurants outside of the International District to go celebrate. Listen in as we tell you places to go get dim sum, noodles, takeout, or dinner reservations without having to brave the long lines and wait. Thank you so much for listening and we hope you enjoy our latest episode of the Seattle Foodie Podcast. Happy eating, Seattle!

This week on New Mexico in Focus, we begin our annual countdown of the top stories of the year, with a special Line opinion panel of all journalists. Our look back at 2019 kicks off with topics ranging from President Trump’s visit to Rio Rancho this fall to groundwater contamination near New Mexico military installations and Governor Michelle Lujan’s first year in office. NMiF also looks back at a story from August, when neighbors in Albuquerque’s International District worked with the Nature Conservancy and Rocky Mountain Youth Corps to turn an empty dirt lot into a pop-up public park. Among the goals for the project were to build community and help add greenery to one of the hottest parts of New Mexico’s biggest city that has few natural spaces.

Episode 005: It's crazy to think that this week is the two year anniversary since I was let go from my last job. It was a weird day, it didn't feel like the other last days of work I had in the past. It was exciting because I knew the following week was going to be the start of a new focus, dedicating my full time to Find Me in Seattle. I go to this annual Ugly Sweater Party and I remember the day I got let go, I went to this same party, and now that I am going again this year, it's fun to reflect on that moment. This week I am starting two new segments: Meal of the Week, and Featured Business of the Week and here they are: Meal of the Week: Shredded Chicken Congee from Congeez in Uwajimaya in the International District. Congee is an Asian Rice Porridge that is complimented by a meat and topped with spices. Congeez comes with a lot of ginger which is great for sick and/or rainy days. Featured Business of the Week: Low Rider Baking Company - Emily started Low Rider as a cookie popup, which she started to take to farmer's markets. She then grew into a space in Georgetown and then to a physical retail location in the Central District. She was actually one of the first brands to ever work with Find Me in Seattle when she reached out and asked if I would promote her company in exchange for a box of cookies. I ended up taking the box around the city on the 62 bus line and took pictures with the cookies at Green Lake, The Fremont Troll and Downtown Seattle. My pro tip, make sure to get a birthday cake cookie and the Oreo cookie. However, she has these new stuffed cookies that are amazing. If you don't have plans on Saturday April 14th, make sure you check out the Green Lake Pathway of Lights! Check out my website: findmeinseattle.com

Welcome to episode 002 of the Podcast. This solo episode is a work in progress. Listen in for a review and recap of my visit to the brand new, highly anticipated Momosan Ramen, by Chef Morimoto in the International District of Seattle. I also spend some time talking about commuting in Seattle, a 9% decrease in single person cars, claiming a rock from the remnants of the Alaska Way Viaduct, and a weird commercial about how we should be excited to save $2 by using our Good-to-go pass on the new underground tunnel (insert awkward hand gesture from the commercial here). Shout out to Steve Pool, I wish you a happy retirement!

The Wah Mee Massacre was one of the most brutally horrific mass murders in PNW history. Join us as we discuss the details of the crime, the results, and the aftermath that has caused many to believe that there is still a residual presence in the International District of Seattle.

In Episode 5, Maris hosts Art Activist and Seattle treasure, Sara Porkalob!Sara is a Seattle based Arts Activist who specializes in theater work. You may have seen the first two plays of her Dragon Cycle trilogy centering around telling the story of her family through the perspective of her mother and grandmother. And earlier this summer, you may have seen her play 7th and Jackson at Cafe Nordo here in Seattle. You have a few opportunities to see Sara’s work in the next year! First, Cafe Nordo will be producing the world premier of her new play, The Angel in the House, February 2020. It is, in Sara’s words, “A feminist, Victorian revenge thriller”. Next, Artswest is producing a world premier of her new play, Alex and Alix, in April 2020. Alex and Alix is a lovestory about two women and their journey with memory loss.And this winter, Sara will be performing in Baltimore Center Stage's production of Men on Boats, directed by Jenny Koons.And be sure to follow her on instagram @sporkalob, and check out her website! Sara and Maris’s conversation covers the intersection of public policy, social justice, and art making; how storytelling can be used to dismantle systemic racism; and Sara’s recommendations for Filipino food in Seattle. Sara Porkalob is an award winning arts activist based in Seattle. She’s featured in Seattle Magazine’s Most Influential People of 2018, City Arts’s 2017 Futures List, and served as Intiman Theatre’s 2017 Co-Curator. She is a co-founder of DeConstruct, and online journal of intersectional performance critique. Her first full length play Dragon Lady is the recipient of three 2018 Gregory Awards for: Outstanding Sound/Music Design, Outstanding Actress in a Musical, and Outstanding Musical Production, has garnered a Seattle Times Footlight Award, and a Broadway World Award for “Best New Play”. In 2019, American Repertory Theatre produced Dragon Lady and Dragon Mama, the first two plays in her family trilogy The Dragon Cycle and in July 2019, Nordo’s Culinarium produced her new play, 7th and Jackson, a historical fiction with music and immersive dining, inspired by Seattle’s International District. She is a proud 2nd generation Filipinx American and owes all of her success to her family.Believe survivors. Black Lives Matter. Queer Trans Lives Matter. Vote. Listen to Episode 5 on iTunes HEREListen on Spotify HEREFollow along or become a supporter of Sharpest Knives at www.Patreon.com/SharpestKnivesPodcastFind Sharpest Knives on Facebook.com/SharpestKnivesPodcastFollow @SharpestKnivesPodcast on InstagramEmail any suggestions or questions for future guests to SharpestKnivesPodcast@gmail.comSharpest Knives is partially supported by the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.Support the show (http://www.patreon.com/sharpestknivespodcast)

This week on New Mexico in Focus, senior producer Matt Grubs sits down for an in-depth conversation with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham about her ambitions goal of raising New Mexico’s public education system to be the best in the country. Less than a month after firing her education secretary, the governor picked Ryan Stewart to lead the Public Education Department. NMiF goes to Albuquerque’s International District to see how neighbors working with the Nature Conservancy and Rocky Mountain Youth Corps have transformed a vacant dirt lot into a pop-up public park. Among the goals for the project are to build community and help add greenery to one of the hottest parts of New Mexico’s biggest city. Gene Grant and The Line opinion panelists debate the qualifications of Ryan Stewart as secretary-designate of New Mexico’s Public Education Department. Gov. Lujan Grisham introduced Stewart on the first day of the new school year for much of the state. The Line also looks at the possibility of reshaping New Mexico’s Public Regulation Commission, currently an elected body that regulates utilities, telecommunications, and motor carrier industries. In The Line’s final topic, the panel will discuss the state’s denial of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requests for New Mexico workforce records.

Malia Burns is the principal of Summit Sierra, a charter school in the International District. Tonight, her very first class of high school seniors is graduating. 98% have been accepted to at least one four-year college or university, and between Summit Sierra and their sister high school in Tacoma, the students have received over $3 million in grants and scholarships. Dave and Malia discuss opening more charter schools, their policy of not allowing teachers to unionize, and the cost of Summit Sierra compared to a traditional public school.

In the 25th episode of the Seattle Foodie Podcast, we interview renowned Seattle Food Writer, Leslie Kelly. Leslie sits down with both Monica and Nelson to discuss the Seattle food landscape. Currently, Leslie is travelling all through the United States and you can follow along in her adventures on Instagram at @ourgrandtour.  In addition, Monica and Nelson recap a full week, which included openings of Hood Famous Bakeshop in the International District and Lassi and Spice in the SLU, Musang Seattle's Fundraiser and Li'l Woody's Sandwich, Happy Hour at Smith Tower, and a visit to Bellevue's Xiao Chi Jie. Finally, we focus on the Fremont neighborhood and provide you with 20 of our favorite restaurants, bars, and eateries. Look forward to recommendations for seafood, ice cream, dessert, beer, cider, brunch, and so much more! Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy our newest episode.  

In the 24th Episode of the Seattle Foodie Podcast, we chat with the owner of Blazing Bagels, Dennis Ballen. Dennis discusses how Blazing Bagels originally started as a push cart going from office building to office building to now producing about 35,000 bagels per day! Make sure you visit one of the 3 Blazing Bagel locations to get @annie_eatsfood's BanhMiLicious Bagel Sandwich. This sandwich created by @annie_eatsfood is available NOW for a LIMITED TIME ONLY! In addition, Monica and Nelson recap an eventful week that included a Pike Place Food Crawl with famous Seattle Food Writer, Leslie Kelly (@ourgrandtour), the Seattle Wine and Food Experience Grand Tasting, one more Burger from Li'l Woody's Seattle Burger Month, a Takeover at Chop Suey, and an epic Brunch at Soi on Capitol Hill. We also tell you about a fun event at the Seattle Aquarium hosted by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and a rescheduled Food Walk in the International District. Finally, we finish off with a little message to an awesome Seattle Foodie couple. Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy our latest episode!

Today our guest is Michaele Pride who is a professor of architecture at the University of New Mexico where her work focuses on the intersection between design and public health. Michaele has a lot of in depth experience in both urban design and architecture in both the private and public sector. She really emphasizes consensus, collaboration, and public engagement throughout her teaching. Michaele leads and supports projects through the UNM's Design and Planning Assistance Center (DPAC), including several for NM Mainstreet communities and The Stories of Route 66: the International District (a plan for a new community space in Albuquerque). She also helped found the Design Professionals Coalition after the Rodney King Riots in LA to help unassisted neighborhoods in south LA. In this episode we talk about designing for unassisted communities and approaching community space in a different, more inclusive, way. Links: UNM Profile + all of her work Article on Work in Arkansas Design and Planning Assistance Center UNM Creative Placemaking Albuquerque Feedback? We would absolutely love to talk. Please email humancitypodcast@gmail.com, Tweet at HumanCityPod, or message on Instagram Hosted By Stig Terrebonne

The full worship service of our celebration of 2 years in the neighborhood! Kingdom stories of God's faithfulness in us and through us as we seek the peace and flourishing of the International District through a shared Gospel life.

umpirepantspod@gmail.com @umpirepants Daisojapan.com Bill is more official, drops, Mary is going to London -> cheap seafood -> Mary doesn't like Daiso -> Great Wheels -> Kingdome -> foot update/hobos -> Kingdome -> Ken Griffey Jr.'s bat update, Mary's foot update (20:42 - 38:28 ) -> Sofie interrupts -> Halloween candy bar -> the International District -> checks -> Mary's story was long (16 minutes and counting), flip flops/Las Vegas, are we recording Mary from London?, Mary was early, Literally, Best Of, listeners, cute error messages -> architechture, so, theater of the mind/The Shadow, Heritage Festival -> bikes -> Derby Days -> Heritage Festival -> flour sack dresses, duct tape, Herman Edition, Umpire Pants Out

The past, present, and future of Seattle's International District with Ron Chew - a lifelong Seattle resident with a long history of socially conscious journalism along with involvement in several labor and social justice organizations.

The past, present, and future of Seattle's International District with Ron Chew - a lifelong Seattle resident with a long history of socially conscious journalism along with involvement in several labor and social justice organizations.

It's Thursday morning at 8 am and you know what that means! It's time to get the latest in headline news from renowned reporters Bryant Willis, Tanya Fleetwater, and Fabian von Heezil, who go behind the scenes to get unique insights into the weeks' most interesting under reported stories. This week guest Elena Martinez is in studio to help Willis and Fleetwater investigate a uniquely sensual new coffee shop in London and explore the Satanic Temple's new mission to start clubs at elementary schools. Plus, Elena sends von Heezil to the International District and Tanya considers another new religion.

Welcome to LPLE, "Let's Practice Listening in English!" Jesse and Andrew talk about their coffee and tea preferences, and what it was like to experience tea and coffee in different countries. Join in the conversation! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ask us questions about English conversation and meet other English language learners all over the world. Twitter: @LPLEDialogFM Facebook: facebook.com/LPLEDialogFM TRANSCRIPT Intro [Jesse]: Hi everyone. My name is Jesse Robbins, and welcome to LPLE from Dialogue FM. We're the podcast that lets you practice listening in English. We speak English slowly and clearly so that you can follow along and understand native English speakers more easily. I'm excited to help you improve your English listening skills, as well as help you learn new vocabulary, grammar, and idioms commonly heard and conversation among native English speakers. If you want to practice listening in English, then we invite you to join our conversation. Andrew: Last night, my girlfriend and I went to dinner and a movie, and we went to eat at an Indian style restaurant. And, at this restaurant they serve tea Indian style, which they called chai, and they're very nice about making sure that you always have a full cup, so I love going there. But, while we were eating, it made me think about all of the different ways that coffee and tea are served in different cultures and places in the world. I take my Indian tea hot with milk and sugar so it's sweet and creamy, and I've always had it that way. My girlfriend asked me at dinner why I like drinking tea with milk and sugar when I like drinking my coffee black without any milk and without any extra sweetness in it. And, she's right; I like my coffee bitter but hot, and I like my tea creamy and sweet. But, there's actually a lot of different ways to take coffee or to take tea and it varies by custom. When I'm in Vietnam, for example, or eating at a Vietnamese restaurant even in the United States, they serve Vietnamese coffee, which means a different kind of coffee; it's brewed stronger they brew it into the glass that you're going to drink it directly, and they pour it over condensed milk, so again it is creamy and sweet, and usually you serve it with ice, so it's actually cold. So, I like coffee and both of these cases. But, in my morning routine when I am having breakfast and getting ready for the day, the kind of coffee I want is black and bitter, and I only want coffee Vietnamese-style when it is served at a Vietnamese restaurant with a Vietnamese meal or when I'm visiting the country directly. And, I think that's true of most people, so I wanted to ask you how you take your coffee and how you like to drink at another places. Jesse: That's a really good question. Let me just say that on rare occasion will I ever drink drip pour coffee straight black. So, if I go to Starbucks and I ordered a tall drip [coffee], I will always put a little bit of half-and-half [milk] and one package of sugar--raw sugar, the thick, brown granulated sugar. Andrew: This is raw sugar, but it's not molasses sugar, right? This is just... Jesse: Right, it comes in that brown package, I think, it's called Sugar In The Raw. I can't remember the name. Andrew: Right. This is a form of unrefined white sugar. Jesse: Right. Whenever I have drip coffee, it's always with that small combination; a little bit of cream or milk and a little bit of sugar--just the right taste. When I'm in Vietnam, it's always iced coffee with condensed milk. On rare occasion if I'm in someplace cold like Da Lat or in the winter time, then I'll remove the ice; then you could take it just straight drip coffee with condensed milk, hot. Generally speaking, when I'm at a Vietnamese restaurant here in Seattle, it's always the iced...Vietnamese iced coffee. In fact, that Vietnamese iced coffee is very popular among non-Vietnamese, because they know it is very, very strong right. One of my favorite memories with coffee and tea was when I was in India. So, remember, back in the MBA program at the University of Washington, we had Study Tours, right? Andrew: I went to Brazil and you went to India, yes? Jesse: No, well you went to Brazil and I led China...I co-lead China. Right before, in our first year I went to India as a participant. And, in India, by luck, I was going to be in India during the time that one of my friends was getting married--one of my Indian friends was getting married. Andrew: You got to go to an Indian wedding? Jesse: I got to go to a traditional Sikh wedding. So, when we think of Indian weddings we think of the big parties, very, very elaborate. And, I'm sure he had that, but, from what I remember and what I understand, this was a wedding that took place over a few days and the Sikh part of it, this one was more religious, a religious ceremony at his house. Smaller, intimate; close friends and family. Andrew: How many people, about?... Jesse: I want to say about 50 to 70 people there. Andrew: That's the "small" version?...[hahaha] Jesse: And then, after that, there was a wonderful banquet afterwards in his backyard. And, I remember one of the wait staff coming around with a big jar of chai tea. Andrew: This is served hot with milk? Jesse: Hot with milk, correct. He'll give you a clay--a very, very rough feeling, very rough clay cup. A small cup. A very, very small cup. If you think of that Chinese tea cups that you get at a Chinese restaurant--about that size, if not smaller. And then, he'll pour it, and then you just sip it. Unlike my natural tendency to shoot it as if it were an alcoholic shot, use just casually sip on it. And, mind you, it is a very hot day, so you're not trying to consume a lot of hot liquid at one time. That was delicious; I made sure to find him again multiple times during my visit to my friend's house to get more of that chai tea. Very, very good! Andrew: Excellent. I think it's funny, the different ways we expect to receive our drinks depending on where we are and our circumstances. Even in the United States, the way people drink tea is different by custom. In Seattle, here, we're usually drinking tea as a substitute for coffee because we have a strong coffee culture. Jesse: Right. Andrew: And, so, we take our tea hot in water and maybe with sugar. And, that's different from, for example, how it is taken in the United Kingdom or in Britain, where the expectation is that tea is served hot with milk, for example. Or, even in the south or the southern part of the United States where tea is served as a refreshing drink in the hot summers where it's almost always iced tea and it's very, very, very sweet. So, they add lots and lots of sugar. And, if you asked for tea in, for example, Georgia in the middle of the summer and you're expecting to get a hot chai or chamomile, potentially served with a little bit of sweet, you would be very disappointed to receive this, this cold beverage, instead. Jesse: That's right. You raise an interesting point. For example, you go to--let's say you are an Indian native from India. You come over, you come to Georgia, you're invited to someone's house. And, someone asks, "would you like some tea?" And, in your mind, you have one definition of the word "tea." You--when you think of tea, you think of it based on your culture and the context of your culture, based on your experience with tea from your native country. And then, when you're served, chances are it's cold and in a big glass with lots of sugar and a slice of lime. Andrew: Right. Think about how disappointed you would be, right? Jesse: Absolutely. One of the interesting coffee-tea combinations here in Seattle that I really enjoy and that I also want to recommend is 'matcha latte.' Andrew: 'Matcha latte.' What goes into a matcha latte? Jesse: "Matcha" is Japanese-style green tea. That takes care of the 'tea' side, right? And then, 'latte' is your standard form, your regular espresso-style drink. Andrew: Regular in Seattle. So, that is pressure-brewed coffee, very strong, mixed with hot steamed milk. Jesse: Right, exactly. Andrew: And then, so, matcha co-... matcha latte?... Jesse: Yes. Andrew: A matcha latte, if I'm understanding right, is tea instead of the coffee? Or is it tea plus coffee and the steamed milk? Jesse: Tea plus coffee--... matcha green tea powder mixed in with an actual latte with the caffeine. That's my understanding. Andrew: OK. So it has both. You're getting a little bit of both sides at the same time. Jesse: Yes. And the matcha latte comes out green. So, for anyone unfamiliar with drinking anything that has a green color to it, I think people who drink matcha latte for the first time are a little scared. Andrew: Right. Of the color... Jesse: Of the color, right. However, when you drink it, it's--... it's absolutely delicious. A little sweet. It has the green tea flavor and yet has the warm texture and feel of a latte. Overall, I highly recommend it. There's a few places in Seattle that serve matcha latte. Andrew: Is this a Starbucks option or do you have to go somewhere locally? Jesse: No. You have to go to a small café. The café I like to go to is called Panama Cafe. Panama Cafe is in the International District in Seattle, and there, that's the only place I know right now that has matcha latte. Now, before, a few years ago, Starbucks used to sell--and I still think that they do sometimes, maybe during the summer--Starbucks sells a matcha Frappuccino, and that came from Japan. I remember--... I remember--this is going to sound very hipster--I remember drinking matcha Frappuccino in Japan before it was ever introduced to the American Starbucks. Andrew: ...And then you came back and they brought it to the stores in Seattle. Jesse: Yes. I think they brought it back from me. I don't know. Andrew: [hahaha] But you like them. The Frappuccino is a sweet--... Almost like a sweet milkshake kind of drink, right? Jesse: Yes. Coffee milkshake, yeah. Andrew: ...With whipped cream on top? Jesse: Yes. Andrew: And, so they added the matcha power to that, as well. Jesse: Yes. So it's green. It's very green. It's tastes delicious. I highly recommend it. If you're ever in Japan or here in Seattle during the summer, I recommend you try it. Andrew: I'll have to try the matcha latte or matcha Frappuccino soon. Jesse: Great. Outro [Jesse]: Thank you for listening to this episode of LPLE, Let's Practice Listening in English, from Dialog.FM. Subscribe to LPLE on iTunes to hear the latest episodes, or listen to past episodes on our website, Dialog.FM. That's d-i-a-l-o-g-dot-f-m. If you have questions or comments about English, or if you would like for us to use a word, grammar, or idiom in our conversation so you can learn how to use it correctly, we would love to hear from you on Twitter at @dialogdotfm or Facebook at facebook.com/dialogFM.

ON SUNDAY, JUNE 29 WEST BERKELEY’S INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT WILL TRANSFORM INTO A VIBRANT FESTIVAL SITE Almost 15,000 people attended the BERKELEY INTERNATIONAL FOOD FESTIVAL last year; over 20,000 attendees are expected to attend this summer. The INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT, around the intersection of University and San Pablo Avenues, is a concentration of cultural culinary traditions that is unique to Berkeley, a city known the world over for its culinary sensibilities. This small area is one of the densest areas of independently owned ethnic food markets in the region, has many excellent restaurants serving a wide variety of specialty cuisines, and is home to the most globally diverse retail mix in Berkeley.

Bad Company. Jamba Juice. Cockroaches in the International District. Urination. Drobo colonoscopy. Journey, Foreigner, and Survivor. Mr. T. Minority dwarves.