Podcast appearances and mentions of john lovick

Some thoughts from John Lovick about the right way and the wrong way to create a stage persona. And then Chapter Sixteen of “The Miser's Dream.” A Few Minutes With… John Lovick starts at 00:02:31“I Love That” starts at 00:14:24Chapter Sixteen of “The Miser's Dream” starts at 00:27:27 LINKSThe Eli Marks Mystery Series: http://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Get yourself a Free Eli Marks Short Story: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/jj1r1yaavjListen to an Eli Marks Audio Short Story: https://BookHip.com/LZBPPMDHandsome Jack on Fool Us: https://youtu.be/cGGcCgSmoO4John Lovick Website: http://www.handsomejack.com/John Lovick (Complete Interview): https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/eli-marks-podcast/episode-219-john-lovick-handsome-jack-and-then-chapter-19-of-the-bullet-catchA Few Minutes With John Lovick video: https://youtu.be/IH1zoofffvgPaul Williams Still Alive (Trailer): https://youtu.be/ZkD1Tr4b2vgPaul Williams “Still Alive” (song): https://youtu.be/ndjuJeo3POMMuch Ado About Nothing (Trailer): https://youtu.be/rbSN4Lv_N4gHenry V (Trailer): https://youtu.be/tksPrKi5wUgHamlet (Trailer): https://youtu.be/UjHXIWLTsOkAndrew Scott “Hamlet”: https://youtu.be/q6CLdCl9TB0Check out the Occasional Film Podcast: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/the-podcast

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

WHAT'S NEW AT 10! GUEST: Sen. John Lovick, on his bill to lower the DUI threshold to .05 and make DUI drivers pay restitution // Watch me lose my job on TikTok // SCENARIOS!

On this topical show re-air, Crystal chats with Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson about what got him engaged in public service, what issues are top of mind in Bothell, and how he approaches making meaningful change when the system is biased to keep things the same.  Mayor Thompson believes that continuing as we always have will only make our current problems worse, that it's impossible to make everyone happy, and chooses to prioritize real fixes even in the face of opposition from those comfortable with the status quo. He makes the case for diversified zoning in Bothell as a solution to multiple problems his community faces - creating affordable housing, minimizing ballooning infrastructure costs associated with sprawl, relieving upward pressure on taxes, improving traffic conditions, and addressing climate change. The conversation wraps up with a call to action for those who are empathetic, curious, and driven to make the world a better place - to plug in, to not underestimate themselves, to not overestimate those in power, and to have confidence in listening to and advocating for their community. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Mayor Mason Thompson at @electmasont.   Mayor Mason Thompson Mason is the Mayor of Bothell. He grew up in the area, went to the University of Washington, and stayed home to raise his family in Bothell. He found politics a few years ago, and after getting involved quickly realized how much local government needs to change and how resistant the system is to change. So he spends a lot of time talking about issues like housing and transportation to highlight how change is not just necessary, it's beneficial. He's finishing up his first term in office and won his first re-election this year.    Resources City of Bothell   “Ambitious Planning and a Decade of Growth Are Transforming Downtown Bothell” by Natalie Bicknell Argerious from The Urbanist   “Thompson captures Bothell City Council post by 5 votes” by Jerry Cornfield from Everett Herald   “Bothell Legalizes Duplexes on Corner Lots and Trims Red Tape” by Stephen Fesler from The Urbanist   “Bothell Preserves Main Street Pilot, Discarding Arguments About Hurting Transit” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   “Bothell Finds Its Long-Term Vision for a Citywide Bike Plan” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you know me, you know that I'm very excited for our conversation today with our guest: the mayor of Bothell, Mason Thompson. Welcome to the program. [00:01:04] Mayor Mason Thompson: Thank you, Crystal. It's really fun to be here. I really enjoy listening to the show, so it's cool to be on this side of the fence too. [00:01:10] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. I appreciate it. I have been following you for quite some time - haven't known you personally, but have followed - as you were running, and what you've been doing while mayor, and have just found it really inspiring and interesting. I think starting out - I'm just curious and I think a lot of people are curious about what got you interested in public service. [00:01:33] Mayor Mason Thompson: I think it is everybody's responsibility to do whatever they can to make the world a better place. And not everybody can, and this looks different for everybody - it's not an expectation I'm putting on people, but I feel a pretty deep conviction that that's my responsibility. And there were basically two things that got me involved in city politics the first go around. The first is that the City purchased a former golf course, and I thought there should be mountain bike trails there. So I joined the Parks Board knowing that I didn't have any decision-making authority, but it gave me access to the conversation and kind of thought - Hey, what can I do with this? Let's just run an experiment and see if I can make this happen. The other thing that happened right around the same time is Donald Trump got elected. And that's just one of those moments in time that make you realize that there is nobody riding in on a horse to save us. And if we don't all do everything that we can to make the world a better place, then people like him do. So I got involved with the City on the Parks Board because I wanted to see mountain bike trails. And then I got involved with the 1st LD as a PCO because I wanted to get involved on the partisan side as well. And because of reasons, nine months later I got asked to run for city council and said yes, and here we are. [00:02:50] Crystal Fincher: Nice. So what is Bothell like? What's the lay of the land in Bothell? [00:02:55] Mayor Mason Thompson: Bothell is a suburb that is far enough from the core that we haven't seen housing prices go up to a point where everybody who wants to change things has mostly been excluded. So we're in a really cool position where we have the ability to do things that are a little different that involve some change. And we've seen this since well before I got involved in local politics - our downtown has changed quite a bit and I wasn't in any way involved in that, but I'm also grateful it happened even though the people that did that aren't my traditional allies. So we have a bunch of people in Bothell that want to change the world and want to actually meaningfully address the biggest challenges we face, which involves change. There's no way to status quo our way out of our problems. So I'm really fortunate that I'm surrounded by a lot of really incredibly talented people up here that want to make change and want to make the world a better place for our kids. [00:03:51] Crystal Fincher: So what was running for office in Bothell like? [00:03:55] Mayor Mason Thompson: It was terrible. Running for office sucks. My opponent had every advantage - a lot of money, hired great consultants - I did not have a consultant when I ran. And I knew that the only path I had to success was just to work really hard. So I knocked on doors all year - I set my schedule up so I could do it. And on election night, I was down about 86 votes, I think. And so I had the whole ballot chasing experience - three days before certification, we were actually tied for a day. I get to tell the story about how I was knocking on doors trying to get people to cure their ballots, and somebody said on that exact day - Well, I didn't think my vote would actually make a difference. And I got to tell him - Sir, if you had voted right now, your vote would be the difference in this race because as of today, we're tied and certification is in a couple of days. So I ended up winning by 5 votes - we had two recounts because Bothell is in King and Snohomish County. And I didn't find out I won until the middle of December sometime. So I feel like I got the full experience, and I'm ready for an easier experience this go around 'cause that all sucked - but here we are. [00:05:04] Crystal Fincher: Here we are. And that's really interesting and really curious - sometimes people have this romanticized idea of running for office and it's tough. It's a tough thing to do. Did you learn anything, or did your perspective change or broaden as a result of talking to so many residents while you were running? [00:05:24] Mayor Mason Thompson: Absolutely. And I tell candidates now that I think it's the most important thing they can do - not just to get elected, but so you truly understand where your community is at and what people think about things. And the great thing about canvassing and knocking on doors is people aren't self-selected by who shows up to council meetings. So you're not getting the standard group of people that know council meetings exist, that have the spare time to do it, that care about certain issues in the community. You get, I think, a much broader perspective of where your community is at. So when I came on board, I had some pretty decent convictions around where my community was at and that gave me a lot more confidence to actually advocate for change because I think the community is behind a lot of the things I care about. [00:06:11] Crystal Fincher: So what does the community care about? What are the issues that are top of mind in Bothell? [00:06:18] Mayor Mason Thompson: I'm gonna back up a second because you said running for office people have this romanticized idea of - and running for office for me was mostly knocking on doors and hearing everybody complain about the things they don't like. That is what running for office was. And the two things that really bubbled up to the top that everybody likes is the fact that housing is really completely inaccessible to almost everybody that hasn't acquired it a long time ago. And whether or not you have housing, you have kids, you have family - you know somebody that's trying to acquire housing right now and no matter how bad you think it is, it's probably worse. The other thing that people talk about a lot is, frankly, the inconvenience of our transportation system. And they don't always say that. They'll say things like, "I can't find anywhere to park. It takes me 20 minutes to get to the freeway. Traffic is terrible." And the inherent inconvenience of everybody getting around in cars is something that everybody recognizes and also something that I feel like we need to address - because we've already paved almost 18% of Bothell for people to drive on, and I think that's enough. And we should do better - not just try the same things even harder than we already have - because those things have caused all of the problems that people told me they don't like when I ran. [00:07:39] Crystal Fincher: How has the reaction been to the approach that you're taking? [00:07:44] Mayor Mason Thompson: Not universally positive. Anytime you want to make change, you're going to rile some feathers, especially folks that have been involved in creating the status quo or folks that benefit from it. But honestly, I think that the general electorate is a pretty long way ahead of where most elected officials and most government structures are in terms of the actual things we need to do to change our problems. And when you have a quick second to chat with somebody and you can ask them what they really care about, everybody wants something to change. And all of our systems are set up to bias toward keeping things exactly the same. Mostly, I think people are pretty on board with a lot of the things I want to do and I hope that, because I'm taking everything I learned from them when I knocked on a lot of doors and just putting that into practice. [00:08:35] Crystal Fincher: So that's interesting that you talk about - whenever you want to change, obviously some people are not going to be happy about it and there's going to be some opposition. We see in a lot of jurisdictions and in a lot of different ways, leaders who run on principles who say they truly believe in making change and they have a vision on what could happen. But when opposition comes, they fold. How do you approach still maintaining your values, working despite opposition to achieve the kind of change that you want? [00:09:11] Mayor Mason Thompson: The governor recently quoted John Lovick as having said something like, "The only thing we hate more than the way things are is the possibility that those things might change." And change is scary, change people see as loss, and change is unfortunately also the only way that we're going to actually meaningfully address any of our problems. And fundamentally, I think that is the job of every elected official - is to meaningfully address the biggest challenges that we face. But when you try to do that, it requires change and that is always uncomfortable because there are always things that we won't know about what the future looks like with change. And people will bring up all the different things that we don't know that could possibly happen, instead of prioritizing fixing the negative things that are happening right now. So you get all of these voices - some people saying, Do this, some people saying, Don't do this. And the easiest thing to do is to try to make everybody happy. And usually what we wanna hear is - Yeah, I care about all the things that you care about, but I also care about keeping things in a way that you're comfortable with. And it's really hard, I think it's impossible to walk that line. So I just don't try - I am here to make the world a better place. And I will happily tell people my convictions around righting historic wrongs around climate, around actually fixing some of the problems that we have. And I'm not here to say anything negative about the path that other people take. But I will also say that when you do run for office and you win, there's a significant amount of pressure to go along to get along. There's the cool kids elected club, and you go to different organizations that are groups of cities and everybody circles the wagons. And it's really, I think, a way for people to belong to something, which is important, which is something we all care about. But I keep my eye on the prize and think that my job is to meaningfully address the biggest challenges we face. And there's no way to make everyone happy. So I'm not gonna try. [00:11:20] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. There really is no way to keep everyone happy, but making changes certainly can keep people happier over the long-term - seems like you're absolutely willing to do that. You talked about housing. What is the current housing situation in Bothell? What's your split between homeowners and renters, and home prices? What is the housing situation in Bothell right now? [00:11:43] Mayor Mason Thompson: The median single-family - or the median home price, not single-family home - the median home price in Bothell, I think, is just under a million dollars right now. It was a little over a year ago. And if you've got $200,000 to put down and can afford a $5,000/month house payment, that's attainable for you. And if you can't - good luck, I guess - move somewhere else. And we reserve about 65% of our land right now for the most expensive housing type that is the most expensive for the City to upkeep, that pushes tax pressure upwards because the maintenance cost for that built environment is really high. And those areas produce the most children and having children is creating demand for new housing. And we limit our growth mostly to the 35% of the area where we allow different housing types. And I'm working really hard to change that because that's at the root of everything that my community told me they cared about. If you want traffic to get better, the answer is not to push everybody out farther apart and only allow one type of thing in the neighborhood. All that's doing is requiring people to drive farther on your roads, which is more maintenance costs, which is more traffic, and you get all of people's cars and none of their humanity. If we allow people to live there, we get everything that makes us human, including probably a car or two, because that's the way that we've decided we want people to get around. [00:13:12] Crystal Fincher: That's an interesting talking point. And I think Seattle, certainly in King County - largest city in the county, largest city in the state - and has a finite amount of land that can be built within. That's different than a lot of suburbs in the area where it is possible to build out. The challenges come with sprawl when you build out. What are the economic impacts, the impacts to city infrastructure? What is the cost of continuing to not use your land effectively and efficiently, and continue to expand and build single-family homes and developments seemingly without end? [00:13:57] Mayor Mason Thompson: Before I get into the costs, I guess I'll just say that everything that we don't like about the way things are is caused by the decisions that we've made in the past. And if we keep everything the way that it is right now, what's gonna happen is all of our problems are gonna keep getting worse. And we have a ton of problems - every city does. I'm not aware of any city that has an actual plan to maintain their roads over the long term. We have what's called a Safe Streets and Sidewalks Levy, and we have enough roads in Bothell to reach to Spokane. And those are just our city-owned roads, not the three or four different state highways that go through town. And those were all built out - about half of Bothell was built out when it was unincorporated. Most of Bothell was built out - '70s, '80s - and we're reaching the end of that infrastructure life cycle. And we have a levy that is around, I think, a third of the total property taxes that people pay to the City. And almost all of that, we're just using to maintain roads - and it's not enough. So the more people drive, the more they are traffic - because traffic is just people driving cars - but there's also a pretty significant infrastructure cost that we're gonna have to find a way to pay for someday. And when you're in my position, going back to the voters and asking for more money every couple of years - that's not a great, it's not great for your career prospects. So one of the things I'm really interested in doing is trying to solve multiple problems at once - where we allow more housing in between all of the other housing that already exists on roads that we already have an obligation to maintain, and we can realize more tax revenue per acre in the land that we have without requiring any more infrastructure. And so if you can add revenue and reduce the amount of added costs, then we've got a chance at structurally fixing this thing that is broken. And we had a company called Urban3 come out and do a land evaluation for Bothell. And we know that in Bothell, the average fourplex kicks off double the tax revenue per acre that the average single-family home does. And most of those fourplexes were built in 40s, 50s - back when they were legal - and they're old and run down. And the single-family homes are a lot newer, a lot nicer, and that fourplex still outperforms the single-family home from a tax revenue per acre. It doesn't matter - I guess the cost of the road frontage and maintaining it is the same no matter how many people live behind it. And the more people that live behind it, the more hands we have on deck to help pay the bills - and many hands make light work. [00:16:28] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So what are you doing to try and make and keep housing more affordable in Bothell? [00:16:36] Mayor Mason Thompson: I guess the first step is simply opening up that 65% of Bothell's residential land that we've deemed untouchable for any future development. We have a middle housing code amendment that's going on in parallel with what's going on at the state right now. And we're paying pretty close attention to what's going on with the state, because - boy, if they pass something, it'll be a whole lot easier for us. But if they don't, we're ready, we're working on it. And honestly, just making more modest housing types legal to build. This isn't a requirement - we're not making it illegal to build a single-family home. But if somebody wants to build something more modest, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to. So we also have some different growth centers in town that we're looking at, and we have our comp plan coming up. And we are looking at different ways to integrate residential and commercial to reduce the amount of times people have to get in their car. 'Cause there's really only two ways to make traffic better - either people take fewer trips in their car, or they have to drive less for the trips that they do take. So when I look at how to make all of our problems better - allowing infill housing and building more housing in between all the housing that already exists makes housing less expensive and makes traffic better, because people have to drive fewer miles and take fewer trips in their car. It reduces the upward pressure on taxes because we have more folks to help pay the bills. Another thing about infill housing - we are limited in property taxes to raising it 1% per year. Inflation was 10% last year. So the City took a huge haircut, bigger than we normally do. And we need to figure out how we're gonna pay for stuff, and how we're gonna reverse this upward pressure on property taxes that we have 'cause nobody likes that. And when we build new housing - that's not subject to the 1% - we get to take all of that. So we've really got a way to address almost all of our biggest issues - and I haven't even touched on the climate impacts, my gosh. But just by allowing more housing closer to all the other housing, we touch just about every issue that people in Bothell find important. [00:18:44] Crystal Fincher: Do most people live and work in Bothell? Do they commute out and drive back? What is that situation like? [00:18:52] Mayor Mason Thompson: Most people commute out and drive back in Bothell. We do have a pretty substantial group that lives in Bothell, but they're definitely a minority - that live and work. And we have people that go in every direction. We have people that go north toward Everett, Snohomish County - think Boeing employees. We have a significant amount that will take 522 into Seattle. And we have a significant amount that work on the Eastside. But we're mostly a commuter suburb, and we have also a significant amount of people that live outside of Bothell that come into Bothell to work. Now, if we can build housing for those people - to me, that looks like a capture opportunity, because we already have their cars. They're already driving here, they're already parking here, they're already adding maintenance costs to our roads every time they drive through it. Why shouldn't we realize some tax revenue and some of their humanity at the same time? One thing I think gets lost in the conversation about adding more residents is that - yeah, when more residents come, they're probably gonna have cars. And they might be traffic sometimes, like you, because they drive them. But that's not all you get from them. You get more kids for your kids to play with. You get more people to go on a walk when you see. You get more folks to hang out on long summer nights, and maybe crack a beer, and chat with a neighbor. People don't just bring the things you don't like. They bring their full humanity, and I think that more people makes for a stronger community not a weaker one. [00:20:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So what approach are you taking to try and capture more of those people? You talk about infill housing, allowing more housing. Is there anything happening on just the attracting businesses front? What does economic development look like in Bothell? [00:20:43] Mayor Mason Thompson: Economic development - Bothell has decided over the years that we wanted to stay this quiet suburb, that we don't wanna be a place where all the chain stores go. So we don't have - I think, fortunately - as much sort of strip mall retail as a lot of our neighbors do. I'm keenly interested in small neighborhood businesses, or even just small businesses in a downtown neighborhood - and having more small retail space so we can have that incubator where residents who wanna start a business can do so in Bothell. This drives me nuts because we have two residents that I know personally that have started businesses in the last couple of years - one went to Mill Creek and one went to Woodinville. They both wanted to be in Bothell, but we just don't have small, accessible retail space. So I think that's a big part of economic development. Another part is that we need to go out and tell the story about why people like living in Bothell so we can try to attract larger businesses. Because on a budget economic development side, they make a much bigger difference. We have the Canyon Park Business Center with a huge biotech hub. We have North Creek with a lot of different technology in it. And I want to see more larger companies try to utilize those spaces and take advantage of, honestly, a lot of the different housing opportunities that are coming to Bothell and the fact that people like living here - so we can get more economic development and more money from those folks so we can, again, reduce that upward pressure on taxes that we see from current residents, and pay to make Bothell a cooler, more vibrant city. [00:22:13] Crystal Fincher: How do businesses respond to attempts to make Bothell more livable, more walkable, suitable for people using all different types of mobility options? Are they pretty welcoming with that? Are they open to removal of parking and more mobility infrastructure? How has that been? [00:22:35] Mayor Mason Thompson: Businesses follow people and businesses want to land someplace that their folks want to live - that is attractive - because that's gonna help them compete for a scarce resource of talent. And we have a lot of talent in the area, but we also have a lot of companies competing for it. So the folks that I've talked to want a place where their people can afford to live close to home. I forget what the number is, but there's some massive dollar amount difference that you have to earn to have the same level of happiness depending on the length of your commute. So they want to go someplace that is - A) there's enough population nearby that likes living there so that they can have employees that want to work for them and want to take advantage of a short commute. Parking minimums - I have yet to talk to a business that is really excited about us making them subsidize our problem against their will. And parking minimums are a tax that we place on housing and businesses that we use to subsidize getting more traffic and climate change - they're a bad deal. The promise is that - I'll back up a little bit - nobody likes other people's cars. Their car is the only righteous car, and other people's cars are traffic and in the parking spot that they want to take. Everybody agrees on this. The problem is that when we say our solution is that we're gonna mandate people to give more space to cars, what we get is more cars. If we turned Bothell City Hall into a pizza restaurant and we gave away a thousand pizzas a day, do you think Bothell would eat more or less pizza? [00:24:14] Crystal Fincher: They would eat more pizza. [00:24:15] Mayor Mason Thompson: Right? It's pretty obvious. So if we force people to build a lot more parking spots and we force a lot more infrastructure for cars and then we give it away to them for free, do we think people are gonna use more or less of it? It's the same question. They're gonna use more. This idea that there's a fixed amount of demand for people driving is silly because if nobody ever built a road, we would not have any cars because there would be no place to drive them and then we would walk everywhere 'cause it would be easier to get around. So the problem is - is when we expect business to solve our problem of too many people's cars by creating more space for them, we really just make our problems worse. And it's not just the problem that we're trying to solve for there, it's all of our other problems. Because there's a finite amount of space in cities and we have to choose - what do we want here? Do we want parking here? Do we want housing here? Do we want businesses here? And every time you choose one thing, you say no to something else. So we haven't tried to address parking minimums citywide yet in Bothell - I personally believe that they are harmful and shouldn't exist. [00:25:22] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. Now you referenced climate earlier - what is Bothell doing to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution of all varieties? [00:25:33] Mayor Mason Thompson: We're trying to make it legal to build more housing closer together. And it's not just the middle housing - we have a few different areas that we have recently upzoned quite a bit, like Canyon Park we finished the master plan up for, we've allowed micro housing citywide in the - I shouldn't say citywide - in that 35% that we allow people to do it in. [00:25:51] Crystal Fincher: So you mentioned climate change earlier and the impacts that not allowing diverse types of housing - restricting development and the impact on both city budgets and climate change that has. What else is Bothell doing to address climate change and pollution? [00:26:09] Mayor Mason Thompson: I don't want to minimize the impact that building more housing in between all of the other housing that exists has on climate. It is one of the best things that we can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that's a big part of our strategy. We are also adopting the provisions of what used to be 1099 - I think it's 1181 this year - and we're doing that with a grant from Commerce. And we've also recently - over the last say, 5 or 10 years - preserved a lot of open space in Bothell. We have the Wayne Golf Course that I mentioned earlier, we have the North Creek Forest. There's another organization up in Snohomish County Bothell - there's a parcel land up there, Shelton View, that we haven't acquired but we are keenly interested in doing so if there's a path. So I will say from a preservation point of view, we're working on that. But also just an understanding that building more Bothell in between the Bothell that already exists - isn't just the best thing we can do to address our biggest problems that we see every day as a city, it's also the best thing that we can do for the long-term problem of climate change. [00:27:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. What does homelessness look like in Bothell? [00:27:19] Mayor Mason Thompson: I wasn't expecting this question. I think homelessness in Bothell looks a lot like it does in every other suburb - where Seattle is the only city that is trying to do something about it, so everybody goes there - we offload our homeless problem to Seattle because there are resources down there, and then we blame Seattle for the problem that we had a hand in creating. There's not a lot of visible homelessness in Bothell - a one-bedroom apartment I think is around $2,200-2,400 right now as a median rent, so the median rent isn't much different than in some of our bigger, traditionally more expensive neighborhoods. But again, homelessness is a housing problem. And I wanna be part of the solution to homelessness, regardless of whether or not there's a lot of visible homelessness in Bothell, because people are suffering and people need places to live. So I will just say that those micro units that we've allowed - those smaller, traditionally more affordable types of housing that don't cost as much to build - are a really, really, really important part of dealing with homelessness. Because homelessness comes with a lot of comorbid effects - if I lived on the street, I might wanna do something to get away too. And I have an incredible amount of sympathy for those folks and want to build enough housing for them. I will also say that I ran the year Seattle is Dying came out, so I got a ton of questions when I was doorbelling about people that are homeless. And I'll just repeat my stock answer here to that question that I figured out over time - I am a man of faith, I'm a Christian. And if you look at the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus really delineates who's with me and who's against me - Jesus doesn't talk about your theological beliefs, Jesus doesn't talk about how often you go to church. Jesus says - that which you have done to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done also unto me. So Jesus said - Take care of the people in society that are the most vulnerable and have the most need. So if I see somebody waking up underneath a bridge with a needle in their arm, I see Jesus. And I will support policy that treats that person with all of the dignity and compassion that I would treat God. [00:29:35] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, I think that's the way to be. We're in a time where there's a lot of people - a lot of people who even call themselves Christians - who don't take that view. And we're seeing attacks on the trans community, the entire LGBTQ+ community, different racial communities - and it is a scary fraught time for a lot of people. And not just in terms of rhetoric, but in terms of policy being passed in a lot of places. What is Bothell doing to make all of its residents feel welcome and included, and how is that going? [00:30:17] Mayor Mason Thompson: There's always a temptation during interviews like this to highlight the things that you're doing really well, 'cause we all wanna make ourselves look good, right? I'm not sure we're doing enough, to be blunt. We have resolutions - we can make public statements supporting Black and Brown people, supporting the trans community, supporting these groups that are traditionally marginalized - but I don't know that we're doing enough. And that pains me greatly. I could just talk about housing here and how, quite frankly, anybody that is in a traditionally marginalized group typically has less money than people who look like me. So creating more housing is the answer to a lot of questions, but I don't wanna just lean on that all the time and pretend like that's enough. So if anybody's got any great ideas, I'm here for them. And we have a couple of councilmembers that have some lived experience with this, and I lean on them heavily when it's time to make decisions - because they understand this a lot more than I do. [00:31:16] Crystal Fincher: So if someone is interested in getting involved in the community, involved in policy in Bothell - what advice would you give them? [00:31:26] Mayor Mason Thompson: If you are empathetic, if you care about other people, if you're curious, if you wanna figure out why things are the way they are, and if you're willing to do the work - both to get elected as well as to change the world once you are - you are completely qualified to run for office. Because nobody has any idea what they're doing. We are all guessing, we are all faking it - because we are all trying to solve problems that there isn't a playbook for. The built environment that we have is less than a hundred years old. We've reached the point in time where we know what doesn't work about it. And this hasn't been done before. We know things need to change, but this isn't a math problem. This isn't two plus two equals four. This is a really messy process - trying to unwind a whole lot of things that are really expensive to deal with and really problematic, and it requires a lot of change that makes people uncomfortable. If you're empathetic, if you're curious, and if you're willing to do the work - do something, do whatever you can do to make the world a better place. And if that looks like bringing a meal to a neighbor when they're having a rough day, do that. If that looks like running for office, do that. But plug in where you can and start doing the work. And if you start doing the work of trying to make the world a better place, other things find you at that point in time. So I would just say to anybody listening - don't underestimate yourself and don't overestimate the people that are already sitting in these seats because we don't know what we're doing. We're trying to figure it out. We're trying to make the best decisions we can to make the world a better place and we need help. [00:33:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I appreciate you bringing that up, especially that - hey, the people sitting in the seats of leadership right now don't necessarily have all the answers. I think a lot of people are used to seeing City of Seattle, our Legislature, Congress, and they see that they have these full staffs and policy people and an office full of people to help them wrap their arms around policy. That is not the case in suburbs - you are rolling up alone. It's considered a part-time job. In reality, if you're doing a good job at it, it usually is much more than a part-time job. And usually there's a stipend of less than $10,000/year, I think mostly less than $5,000/year. Yet we're tasking these people that we elect with managing sometimes multi-billion dollar budgets with that, and people are just rolling up with the knowledge that they have or had and doing whatever they're doing. There is not a lot of guidance. There's no person who has all of the expertise and all of the research and policy documents ready to hand to you. You have to seek that out to yourself, which is also a note - to people advocating for policy, advocacy organizations - that my goodness, if you get involved in suburbs, you can make such a huge difference and so many don't. What advice would you give to electeds at the local level - other mayors, other people on city councils - for the approach that they should take, or advice that you have for them on making the kind of change that they ran to make? [00:34:42] Mayor Mason Thompson: Oh, you're gonna get me in trouble here. Do your best to meaningfully address the biggest issues we face. There's this idea that there's a difference between local issues and state issues and federal issues. And I have never heard anybody talk about policy that they support by saying - a different level of bureaucracy should handle this. And if we care about meaningfully addressing the biggest challenges that we face, then we are gonna have to change things. But you just laid out all of the reasons why that's so hard and why the system itself is so biased toward keeping things exactly the way they are right now. We hire part-time amateurs to make our most important policy decisions in almost every jurisdiction around here. And if you think about the experts that we're listening to - senior staff who give council their advice - they've been doing this for a long time. If you're a director at a city, you've had a really good career and you're really good at doing things the way that we're doing them right now. And most part-time councilmembers aren't gonna show up on a random Tuesday night and disagree with subject matter experts that have been doing this for decades, even if we know that we have to change things in order to get different results - because we don't know what we're doing, we rely on them. So I guess this isn't really advice, it's more just if you listen - well, this part's gonna be advice. If you listen to your community and you know that things need to change, have the courage to follow through and to actually change things instead of just making sympathetic noises toward our biggest problem and then fighting to keep everything exactly the same. And I'm incredibly sympathetic to people in different jurisdictions because our job interview process is nine months long, it's all done in public. People will take anything you've ever said and try to take it out of context and use it against you. It requires an incredible amount of privilege. And the more wealthy your network, the easier it is to raise money. The more flexible your job is, the easier it is to both get and do the job. Folks in our community who are struggling just to get by - and there's a lot of them because of the way things are right now - they're busy trying to survive. Everybody should do everything they can to change the world, but if you're busy trying to survive - you can't do anything to change the world and that's okay. So I guess the advice that I would give is - recognize the amount of privilege that you have. And when the voices that we talk to - mostly as people who own homes, people who are comfortable, people who have the privilege to be able to do this work that pays us next to nothing, and will take as much time as you give to it - all of our friends are the same way. My friends are all pretty comfortable in life. So if we listen to the concerns of the comfortable and we only address the concerns of the comfortable, we're missing the biggest problems we face as society. Because all those big problems that I talk about, I don't face them - my life's pretty good. But we wanna actually make change, we have to make change, and we're gonna have to make some people uncomfortable - but I think it's really important that we talk about why, and we talk about shared values, and we talk about who we want to be rather than what we want to do. Because I'm really petty and what I want to do is not always who I want to be, but who I want to be is somebody that cares about the people in society who need it the most. I wanna be bold enough to be able to make change that's necessary. I want my kids to be able to afford to live in Bothell - if they want to - down the road. I want to leave them a habitable planet. The way things are have caused all the things that are wrong with it. And this idea that we can nibble at the edges and not fundamentally change the way we do things and expect different results is wrong. So I don't even remember what question I was talking about - I was rolling and you didn't stop me - but I guess just have the courage to make change. And I know that it's really hard, and I know that people show up and yell at you in council meetings - and I don't know every other community, so I am really reticent to criticize any other elected official. But if there's one thing that I wish I had more company with, it's the comfort in actually being with people that are comfortable to actually change the things that are causing the biggest problems we face. And that is unfortunately in short supply. [00:39:28] Crystal Fincher: Completely agree. Thank you so much for your insight today, information - glad we get to learn more about you and Bothell. Thank you so much, Mayor Mason Thompson. [00:39:40] Mayor Mason Thompson: It's still weird to hear that title, but thank you very much, Crystal. And thank you for the work you do - I really appreciate it and I really enjoy listening to the show, and I'll probably listen to this one with a little more critical eye than most of them. [00:39:52] Crystal Fincher: Much appreciated. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

In this episode we talk to John Lovick aka Handsome Jack. He is one of today's top magicians who also coaches other now top magicians in part due to John's help. John talks about his love of Penn & Teller, his Fool Us trophy, the many books he has written and cowritten and much more. Wesiseli.com Patreon.com/wes_iseli

Internationally renowned illusionist and mentalist Asi Wind is starring in his second solo Off Broadway show: an intimate evening of magic entitled “Asi Wind: Inner Circle.” John Lovick directs the production which features production design by Adam Blumenthal and a specifically constructed space at The Judson Theatre. After opening in September 2022, “Asi Wind: Inner Circle” has been extended by popular demand multiple times and is now scheduled to run until January 7, 2024.

Wir reden heute über die 10 meistverkauften Kunststücke vom Großhändler unseres Vertrauens. Da sind einige Überraschungen dabei. Versprochen. Genauso wie gute Laune und Fachsimpelei vom Feinsten. Alle Infos in den Show Notes, über 15 000 Artikel beim Secret Magic Store.

TODAY'S TOP STORIES // GUEST: Sen. John Lovick on the police pursuit compromise and whether there's any solution for mass shootings in America. // WE NEED TO TALK about being laid off by tech and picking up contract work.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson about what got him engaged in public service, what issues are top of mind in Bothell, and how he approaches making meaningful change when the system is biased to keep things the same.  Mayor Thompson believes that continuing as we always have will only make our current problems worse, that it's impossible to make everyone happy, and chooses to prioritize real fixes even in the face of opposition from those comfortable with the status quo. He makes the case for diversified zoning in Bothell as a solution to multiple problems his community faces - creating affordable housing, minimizing ballooning infrastructure costs associated with sprawl, relieving upward pressure on taxes, improving traffic conditions, and addressing climate change. The conversation wraps up with a call to action for those who are empathetic, curious, and driven to make the world a better place - to plug in, to not underestimate themselves, to not overestimate those in power, and to have confidence in listening to and advocating for their community. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Mayor Mason Thompson at @electmasont.   Mayor Mason Thompson Mason is the Mayor of Bothell. He grew up in the area, went to the University of Washington, and stayed home to raise his family in Bothell. He found politics a few years ago, and after getting involved quickly realized how much local government needs to change and how resistant the system is to change. So he spends a lot of time talking about issues like housing and transportation to highlight how change is not just necessary, it's beneficial. He's finishing up his first term in office and running for his first re-election this year.    Resources City of Bothell   “Ambitious Planning and a Decade of Growth Are Transforming Downtown Bothell” by Natalie Bicknell Argerious from The Urbanist   “Thompson captures Bothell City Council post by 5 votes” by Jerry Cornfield from Everett Herald   “Bothell Legalizes Duplexes on Corner Lots and Trims Red Tape” by Stephen Fesler from The Urbanist   “Bothell Preserves Main Street Pilot, Discarding Arguments About Hurting Transit” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   “Bothell Finds Its Long-Term Vision for a Citywide Bike Plan” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you know me, you know that I'm very excited for our conversation today with our guest: the mayor of Bothell, Mason Thompson. Welcome to the program. [00:01:04] Mayor Mason Thompson: Thank you, Crystal. It's really fun to be here. I really enjoy listening to the show, so it's cool to be on this side of the fence too. [00:01:10] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. I appreciate it. I have been following you for quite some time - haven't known you personally, but have followed - as you were running, and what you've been doing while mayor, and have just found it really inspiring and interesting. I think starting out - I'm just curious and I think a lot of people are curious about what got you interested in public service. [00:01:33] Mayor Mason Thompson: I think it is everybody's responsibility to do whatever they can to make the world a better place. And not everybody can, and this looks different for everybody - it's not an expectation I'm putting on people, but I feel a pretty deep conviction that that's my responsibility. And there were basically two things that got me involved in city politics the first go around. The first is that the City purchased a former golf course, and I thought there should be mountain bike trails there. So I joined the Parks Board knowing that I didn't have any decision-making authority, but it gave me access to the conversation and kind of thought - Hey, what can I do with this? Let's just run an experiment and see if I can make this happen. The other thing that happened right around the same time is Donald Trump got elected. And that's just one of those moments in time that make you realize that there is nobody riding in on a horse to save us. And if we don't all do everything that we can to make the world a better place, then people like him do. So I got involved with the City on the Parks Board because I wanted to see mountain bike trails. And then I got involved with the 1st LD as a PCO because I wanted to get involved on the partisan side as well. And because of reasons, nine months later I got asked to run for city council and said yes, and here we are. [00:02:50] Crystal Fincher: Nice. So what is Bothell like? What's the lay of the land in Bothell? [00:02:55] Mayor Mason Thompson: Bothell is a suburb that is far enough from the core that we haven't seen housing prices go up to a point where everybody who wants to change things has mostly been excluded. So we're in a really cool position where we have the ability to do things that are a little different that involve some change. And we've seen this since well before I got involved in local politics - our downtown has changed quite a bit and I wasn't in any way involved in that, but I'm also grateful it happened even though the people that did that aren't my traditional allies. So we have a bunch of people in Bothell that want to change the world and want to actually meaningfully address the biggest challenges we face, which involves change. There's no way to status quo our way out of our problems. So I'm really fortunate that I'm surrounded by a lot of really incredibly talented people up here that want to make change and want to make the world a better place for our kids. [00:03:51] Crystal Fincher: So what was running for office in Bothell like? [00:03:55] Mayor Mason Thompson: It was terrible. Running for office sucks. My opponent had every advantage - a lot of money, hired great consultants - I did not have a consultant when I ran. And I knew that the only path I had to success was just to work really hard. So I knocked on doors all year - I set my schedule up so I could do it. And on election night, I was down about 86 votes, I think. And so I had the whole ballot chasing experience - three days before certification, we were actually tied for a day. I get to tell the story about how I was knocking on doors trying to get people to cure their ballots, and somebody said on that exact day - Well, I didn't think my vote would actually make a difference. And I got to tell him - Sir, if you had voted right now, your vote would be the difference in this race because as of today, we're tied and certification is in a couple of days. So I ended up winning by 5 votes - we had two recounts because Bothell is in King and Snohomish County. And I didn't find out I won until the middle of December sometime. So I feel like I got the full experience, and I'm ready for an easier experience this go around 'cause that all sucked - but here we are. [00:05:04] Crystal Fincher: Here we are. And that's really interesting and really curious - sometimes people have this romanticized idea of running for office and it's tough. It's a tough thing to do. Did you learn anything, or did your perspective change or broaden as a result of talking to so many residents while you were running? [00:05:24] Mayor Mason Thompson: Absolutely. And I tell candidates now that I think it's the most important thing they can do - not just to get elected, but so you truly understand where your community is at and what people think about things. And the great thing about canvassing and knocking on doors is people aren't self-selected by who shows up to council meetings. So you're not getting the standard group of people that know council meetings exist, that have the spare time to do it, that care about certain issues in the community. You get, I think, a much broader perspective of where your community is at. So when I came on board, I had some pretty decent convictions around where my community was at and that gave me a lot more confidence to actually advocate for change because I think the community is behind a lot of the things I care about. [00:06:11] Crystal Fincher: So what does the community care about? What are the issues that are top of mind in Bothell? [00:06:18] Mayor Mason Thompson: I'm gonna back up a second because you said running for office people have this romanticized idea of - and running for office for me was mostly knocking on doors and hearing everybody complain about the things they don't like. That is what running for office was. And the two things that really bubbled up to the top that everybody likes is the fact that housing is really completely inaccessible to almost everybody that hasn't acquired it a long time ago. And whether or not you have housing, you have kids, you have family - you know somebody that's trying to acquire housing right now and no matter how bad you think it is, it's probably worse. The other thing that people talk about a lot is, frankly, the inconvenience of our transportation system. And they don't always say that. They'll say things like, "I can't find anywhere to park. It takes me 20 minutes to get to the freeway. Traffic is terrible." And the inherent inconvenience of everybody getting around in cars is something that everybody recognizes and also something that I feel like we need to address - because we've already paved almost 18% of Bothell for people to drive on, and I think that's enough. And we should do better - not just try the same things even harder than we already have - because those things have caused all of the problems that people told me they don't like when I ran. [00:07:39] Crystal Fincher: How has the reaction been to the approach that you're taking? [00:07:44] Mayor Mason Thompson: Not universally positive. Anytime you want to make change, you're going to rile some feathers, especially folks that have been involved in creating the status quo or folks that benefit from it. But honestly, I think that the general electorate is a pretty long way ahead of where most elected officials and most government structures are in terms of the actual things we need to do to change our problems. And when you have a quick second to chat with somebody and you can ask them what they really care about, everybody wants something to change. And all of our systems are set up to bias toward keeping things exactly the same. Mostly, I think people are pretty on board with a lot of the things I want to do and I hope that, because I'm taking everything I learned from them when I knocked on a lot of doors and just putting that into practice. [00:08:35] Crystal Fincher: So that's interesting that you talk about - whenever you want to change, obviously some people are not going to be happy about it and there's going to be some opposition. We see in a lot of jurisdictions and in a lot of different ways, leaders who run on principles who say they truly believe in making change and they have a vision on what could happen. But when opposition comes, they fold. How do you approach still maintaining your values, working despite opposition to achieve the kind of change that you want? [00:09:11] Mayor Mason Thompson: The governor recently quoted John Lovick as having said something like, "The only thing we hate more than the way things are is the possibility that those things might change." And change is scary, change people see as loss, and change is unfortunately also the only way that we're going to actually meaningfully address any of our problems. And fundamentally, I think that is the job of every elected official - is to meaningfully address the biggest challenges that we face. But when you try to do that, it requires change and that is always uncomfortable because there are always things that we won't know about what the future looks like with change. And people will bring up all the different things that we don't know that could possibly happen, instead of prioritizing fixing the negative things that are happening right now. So you get all of these voices - some people saying, Do this, some people saying, Don't do this. And the easiest thing to do is to try to make everybody happy. And usually what we wanna hear is - Yeah, I care about all the things that you care about, but I also care about keeping things in a way that you're comfortable with. And it's really hard, I think it's impossible to walk that line. So I just don't try - I am here to make the world a better place. And I will happily tell people my convictions around righting historic wrongs around climate, around actually fixing some of the problems that we have. And I'm not here to say anything negative about the path that other people take. But I will also say that when you do run for office and you win, there's a significant amount of pressure to go along to get along. There's the cool kids elected club, and you go to different organizations that are groups of cities and everybody circles the wagons. And it's really, I think, a way for people to belong to something, which is important, which is something we all care about. But I keep my eye on the prize and think that my job is to meaningfully address the biggest challenges we face. And there's no way to make everyone happy. So I'm not gonna try. [00:11:20] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. There really is no way to keep everyone happy, but making changes certainly can keep people happier over the long-term - seems like you're absolutely willing to do that. You talked about housing. What is the current housing situation in Bothell? What's your split between homeowners and renters, and home prices? What is the housing situation in Bothell right now? [00:11:43] Mayor Mason Thompson: The median single-family - or the median home price, not single-family home - the median home price in Bothell, I think, is just under a million dollars right now. It was a little over a year ago. And if you've got $200,000 to put down and can afford a $5,000/month house payment, that's attainable for you. And if you can't - good luck, I guess - move somewhere else. And we reserve about 65% of our land right now for the most expensive housing type that is the most expensive for the City to upkeep, that pushes tax pressure upwards because the maintenance cost for that built environment is really high. And those areas produce the most children and having children is creating demand for new housing. And we limit our growth mostly to the 35% of the area where we allow different housing types. And I'm working really hard to change that because that's at the root of everything that my community told me they cared about. If you want traffic to get better, the answer is not to push everybody out farther apart and only allow one type of thing in the neighborhood. All that's doing is requiring people to drive farther on your roads, which is more maintenance costs, which is more traffic, and you get all of people's cars and none of their humanity. If we allow people to live there, we get everything that makes us human, including probably a car or two, because that's the way that we've decided we want people to get around. [00:13:12] Crystal Fincher: That's an interesting talking point. And I think Seattle, certainly in King County - largest city in the county, largest city in the state - and has a finite amount of land that can be built within. That's different than a lot of suburbs in the area where it is possible to build out. The challenges come with sprawl when you build out. What are the economic impacts, the impacts to city infrastructure? What is the cost of continuing to not use your land effectively and efficiently, and continue to expand and build single-family homes and developments seemingly without end? [00:13:57] Mayor Mason Thompson: Before I get into the costs, I guess I'll just say that everything that we don't like about the way things are is caused by the decisions that we've made in the past. And if we keep everything the way that it is right now, what's gonna happen is all of our problems are gonna keep getting worse. And we have a ton of problems - every city does. I'm not aware of any city that has an actual plan to maintain their roads over the long term. We have what's called a Safe Streets and Sidewalks Levy, and we have enough roads in Bothell to reach to Spokane. And those are just our city-owned roads, not the three or four different state highways that go through town. And those were all built out - about half of Bothell was built out when it was unincorporated. Most of Bothell was built out - '70s, '80s - and we're reaching the end of that infrastructure life cycle. And we have a levy that is around, I think, a third of the total property taxes that people pay to the City. And almost all of that, we're just using to maintain roads - and it's not enough. So the more people drive, the more they are traffic - because traffic is just people driving cars - but there's also a pretty significant infrastructure cost that we're gonna have to find a way to pay for someday. And when you're in my position, going back to the voters and asking for more money every couple of years - that's not a great, it's not great for your career prospects. So one of the things I'm really interested in doing is trying to solve multiple problems at once - where we allow more housing in between all of the other housing that already exists on roads that we already have an obligation to maintain, and we can realize more tax revenue per acre in the land that we have without requiring any more infrastructure. And so if you can add revenue and reduce the amount of added costs, then we've got a chance at structurally fixing this thing that is broken. And we had a company called Urban3 come out and do a land evaluation for Bothell. And we know that in Bothell, the average fourplex kicks off double the tax revenue per acre that the average single-family home does. And most of those fourplexes were built in 40s, 50s - back when they were legal - and they're old and run down. And the single-family homes are a lot newer, a lot nicer, and that fourplex still outperforms the single-family home from a tax revenue per acre. It doesn't matter - I guess the cost of the road frontage and maintaining it is the same no matter how many people live behind it. And the more people that live behind it, the more hands we have on deck to help pay the bills - and many hands make light work. [00:16:28] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So what are you doing to try and make and keep housing more affordable in Bothell? [00:16:36] Mayor Mason Thompson: I guess the first step is simply opening up that 65% of Bothell's residential land that we've deemed untouchable for any future development. We have a middle housing code amendment that's going on in parallel with what's going on at the state right now. And we're paying pretty close attention to what's going on with the state, because - boy, if they pass something, it'll be a whole lot easier for us. But if they don't, we're ready, we're working on it. And honestly, just making more modest housing types legal to build. This isn't a requirement - we're not making it illegal to build a single-family home. But if somebody wants to build something more modest, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to. So we also have some different growth centers in town that we're looking at, and we have our comp plan coming up. And we are looking at different ways to integrate residential and commercial to reduce the amount of times people have to get in their car. 'Cause there's really only two ways to make traffic better - either people take fewer trips in their car, or they have to drive less for the trips that they do take. So when I look at how to make all of our problems better - allowing infill housing and building more housing in between all the housing that already exists makes housing less expensive and makes traffic better, because people have to drive fewer miles and take fewer trips in their car. It reduces the upward pressure on taxes because we have more folks to help pay the bills. Another thing about infill housing - we are limited in property taxes to raising it 1% per year. Inflation was 10% last year. So the City took a huge haircut, bigger than we normally do. And we need to figure out how we're gonna pay for stuff, and how we're gonna reverse this upward pressure on property taxes that we have 'cause nobody likes that. And when we build new housing - that's not subject to the 1% - we get to take all of that. So we've really got a way to address almost all of our biggest issues - and I haven't even touched on the climate impacts, my gosh. But just by allowing more housing closer to all the other housing, we touch just about every issue that people in Bothell find important. [00:18:44] Crystal Fincher: Do most people live and work in Bothell? Do they commute out and drive back? What is that situation like? [00:18:52] Mayor Mason Thompson: Most people commute out and drive back in Bothell. We do have a pretty substantial group that lives in Bothell, but they're definitely a minority - that live and work. And we have people that go in every direction. We have people that go north toward Everett, Snohomish County - think Boeing employees. We have a significant amount that will take 522 into Seattle. And we have a significant amount that work on the Eastside. But we're mostly a commuter suburb, and we have also a significant amount of people that live outside of Bothell that come into Bothell to work. Now, if we can build housing for those people - to me, that looks like a capture opportunity, because we already have their cars. They're already driving here, they're already parking here, they're already adding maintenance costs to our roads every time they drive through it. Why shouldn't we realize some tax revenue and some of their humanity at the same time? One thing I think gets lost in the conversation about adding more residents is that - yeah, when more residents come, they're probably gonna have cars. And they might be traffic sometimes, like you, because they drive them. But that's not all you get from them. You get more kids for your kids to play with. You get more people to go on a walk when you see. You get more folks to hang out on long summer nights, and maybe crack a beer, and chat with a neighbor. People don't just bring the things you don't like. They bring their full humanity, and I think that more people makes for a stronger community not a weaker one. [00:20:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So what approach are you taking to try and capture more of those people? You talk about infill housing, allowing more housing. Is there anything happening on just the attracting businesses front? What does economic development look like in Bothell? [00:20:43] Mayor Mason Thompson: Economic development - Bothell has decided over the years that we wanted to stay this quiet suburb, that we don't wanna be a place where all the chain stores go. So we don't have - I think, fortunately - as much sort of strip mall retail as a lot of our neighbors do. I'm keenly interested in small neighborhood businesses, or even just small businesses in a downtown neighborhood - and having more small retail space so we can have that incubator where residents who wanna start a business can do so in Bothell. This drives me nuts because we have two residents that I know personally that have started businesses in the last couple of years - one went to Mill Creek and one went to Woodinville. They both wanted to be in Bothell, but we just don't have small, accessible retail space. So I think that's a big part of economic development. Another part is that we need to go out and tell the story about why people like living in Bothell so we can try to attract larger businesses. Because on a budget economic development side, they make a much bigger difference. We have the Canyon Park Business Center with a huge biotech hub. We have North Creek with a lot of different technology in it. And I want to see more larger companies try to utilize those spaces and take advantage of, honestly, a lot of the different housing opportunities that are coming to Bothell and the fact that people like living here - so we can get more economic development and more money from those folks so we can, again, reduce that upward pressure on taxes that we see from current residents, and pay to make Bothell a cooler, more vibrant city. [00:22:13] Crystal Fincher: How do businesses respond to attempts to make Bothell more livable, more walkable, suitable for people using all different types of mobility options? Are they pretty welcoming with that? Are they open to removal of parking and more mobility infrastructure? How has that been? [00:22:35] Mayor Mason Thompson: Businesses follow people and businesses want to land someplace that their folks want to live - that is attractive - because that's gonna help them compete for a scarce resource of talent. And we have a lot of talent in the area, but we also have a lot of companies competing for it. So the folks that I've talked to want a place where their people can afford to live close to home. I forget what the number is, but there's some massive dollar amount difference that you have to earn to have the same level of happiness depending on the length of your commute. So they want to go someplace that is - A) there's enough population nearby that likes living there so that they can have employees that want to work for them and want to take advantage of a short commute. Parking minimums - I have yet to talk to a business that is really excited about us making them subsidize our problem against their will. And parking minimums are a tax that we place on housing and businesses that we use to subsidize getting more traffic and climate change - they're a bad deal. The promise is that - I'll back up a little bit - nobody likes other people's cars. Their car is the only righteous car, and other people's cars are traffic and in the parking spot that they want to take. Everybody agrees on this. The problem is that when we say our solution is that we're gonna mandate people to give more space to cars, what we get is more cars. If we turned Bothell City Hall into a pizza restaurant and we gave away a thousand pizzas a day, do you think Bothell would eat more or less pizza? [00:24:14] Crystal Fincher: They would eat more pizza. [00:24:15] Mayor Mason Thompson: Right? It's pretty obvious. So if we force people to build a lot more parking spots and we force a lot more infrastructure for cars and then we give it away to them for free, do we think people are gonna use more or less of it? It's the same question. They're gonna use more. This idea that there's a fixed amount of demand for people driving is silly because if nobody ever built a road, we would not have any cars because there would be no place to drive them and then we would walk everywhere 'cause it would be easier to get around. So the problem is - is when we expect business to solve our problem of too many people's cars by creating more space for them, we really just make our problems worse. And it's not just the problem that we're trying to solve for there, it's all of our other problems. Because there's a finite amount of space in cities and we have to choose - what do we want here? Do we want parking here? Do we want housing here? Do we want businesses here? And every time you choose one thing, you say no to something else. So we haven't tried to address parking minimums citywide yet in Bothell - I personally believe that they are harmful and shouldn't exist. [00:25:22] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. Now you referenced climate earlier - what is Bothell doing to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution of all varieties? [00:25:33] Mayor Mason Thompson: We're trying to make it legal to build more housing closer together. And it's not just the middle housing - we have a few different areas that we have recently upzoned quite a bit, like Canyon Park we finished the master plan up for, we've allowed micro housing citywide in the - I shouldn't say citywide - in that 35% that we allow people to do it in. [00:25:51] Crystal Fincher: So you mentioned climate change earlier and the impacts that not allowing diverse types of housing - restricting development and the impact on both city budgets and climate change that has. What else is Bothell doing to address climate change and pollution? [00:26:09] Mayor Mason Thompson: I don't want to minimize the impact that building more housing in between all of the other housing that exists has on climate. It is one of the best things that we can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that's a big part of our strategy. We are also adopting the provisions of what used to be 1099 - I think it's 1181 this year - and we're doing that with a grant from Commerce. And we've also recently - over the last say, 5 or 10 years - preserved a lot of open space in Bothell. We have the Wayne Golf Course that I mentioned earlier, we have the North Creek Forest. There's another organization up in Snohomish County Bothell - there's a parcel land up there, Shelton View, that we haven't acquired but we are keenly interested in doing so if there's a path. So I will say from a preservation point of view, we're working on that. But also just an understanding that building more Bothell in between the Bothell that already exists - isn't just the best thing we can do to address our biggest problems that we see every day as a city, it's also the best thing that we can do for the long-term problem of climate change. [00:27:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. What does homelessness look like in Bothell? [00:27:19] Mayor Mason Thompson: I wasn't expecting this question. I think homelessness in Bothell looks a lot like it does in every other suburb - where Seattle is the only city that is trying to do something about it, so everybody goes there - we offload our homeless problem to Seattle because there are resources down there, and then we blame Seattle for the problem that we had a hand in creating. There's not a lot of visible homelessness in Bothell - a one-bedroom apartment I think is around $2,200-2,400 right now as a median rent, so the median rent isn't much different than in some of our bigger, traditionally more expensive neighborhoods. But again, homelessness is a housing problem. And I wanna be part of the solution to homelessness, regardless of whether or not there's a lot of visible homelessness in Bothell, because people are suffering and people need places to live. So I will just say that those micro units that we've allowed - those smaller, traditionally more affordable types of housing that don't cost as much to build - are a really, really, really important part of dealing with homelessness. Because homelessness comes with a lot of comorbid effects - if I lived on the street, I might wanna do something to get away too. And I have an incredible amount of sympathy for those folks and want to build enough housing for them. I will also say that I ran the year Seattle is Dying came out, so I got a ton of questions when I was doorbelling about people that are homeless. And I'll just repeat my stock answer here to that question that I figured out over time - I am a man of faith, I'm a Christian. And if you look at the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus really delineates who's with me and who's against me - Jesus doesn't talk about your theological beliefs, Jesus doesn't talk about how often you go to church. Jesus says - that which you have done to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done also unto me. So Jesus said - Take care of the people in society that are the most vulnerable and have the most need. So if I see somebody waking up underneath a bridge with a needle in their arm, I see Jesus. And I will support policy that treats that person with all of the dignity and compassion that I would treat God. [00:29:35] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, I think that's the way to be. We're in a time where there's a lot of people - a lot of people who even call themselves Christians - who don't take that view. And we're seeing attacks on the trans community, the entire LGBTQ+ community, different racial communities - and it is a scary fraught time for a lot of people. And not just in terms of rhetoric, but in terms of policy being passed in a lot of places. What is Bothell doing to make all of its residents feel welcome and included, and how is that going? [00:30:17] Mayor Mason Thompson: There's always a temptation during interviews like this to highlight the things that you're doing really well, 'cause we all wanna make ourselves look good, right? I'm not sure we're doing enough, to be blunt. We have resolutions - we can make public statements supporting Black and Brown people, supporting the trans community, supporting these groups that are traditionally marginalized - but I don't know that we're doing enough. And that pains me greatly. I could just talk about housing here and how, quite frankly, anybody that is in a traditionally marginalized group typically has less money than people who look like me. So creating more housing is the answer to a lot of questions, but I don't wanna just lean on that all the time and pretend like that's enough. So if anybody's got any great ideas, I'm here for them. And we have a couple of councilmembers that have some lived experience with this, and I lean on them heavily when it's time to make decisions - because they understand this a lot more than I do. [00:31:16] Crystal Fincher: So if someone is interested in getting involved in the community, involved in policy in Bothell - what advice would you give them? [00:31:26] Mayor Mason Thompson: If you are empathetic, if you care about other people, if you're curious, if you wanna figure out why things are the way they are, and if you're willing to do the work - both to get elected as well as to change the world once you are - you are completely qualified to run for office. Because nobody has any idea what they're doing. We are all guessing, we are all faking it - because we are all trying to solve problems that there isn't a playbook for. The built environment that we have is less than a hundred years old. We've reached the point in time where we know what doesn't work about it. And this hasn't been done before. We know things need to change, but this isn't a math problem. This isn't two plus two equals four. This is a really messy process - trying to unwind a whole lot of things that are really expensive to deal with and really problematic, and it requires a lot of change that makes people uncomfortable. If you're empathetic, if you're curious, and if you're willing to do the work - do something, do whatever you can do to make the world a better place. And if that looks like bringing a meal to a neighbor when they're having a rough day, do that. If that looks like running for office, do that. But plug in where you can and start doing the work. And if you start doing the work of trying to make the world a better place, other things find you at that point in time. So I would just say to anybody listening - don't underestimate yourself and don't overestimate the people that are already sitting in these seats because we don't know what we're doing. We're trying to figure it out. We're trying to make the best decisions we can to make the world a better place and we need help. [00:33:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I appreciate you bringing that up, especially that - hey, the people sitting in the seats of leadership right now don't necessarily have all the answers. I think a lot of people are used to seeing City of Seattle, our Legislature, Congress, and they see that they have these full staffs and policy people and an office full of people to help them wrap their arms around policy. That is not the case in suburbs - you are rolling up alone. It's considered a part-time job. In reality, if you're doing a good job at it, it usually is much more than a part-time job. And usually there's a stipend of less than $10,000/year, I think mostly less than $5,000/year. Yet we're tasking these people that we elect with managing sometimes multi-billion dollar budgets with that, and people are just rolling up with the knowledge that they have or had and doing whatever they're doing. There is not a lot of guidance. There's no person who has all of the expertise and all of the research and policy documents ready to hand to you. You have to seek that out to yourself, which is also a note - to people advocating for policy, advocacy organizations - that my goodness, if you get involved in suburbs, you can make such a huge difference and so many don't. What advice would you give to electeds at the local level - other mayors, other people on city councils - for the approach that they should take, or advice that you have for them on making the kind of change that they ran to make? [00:34:42] Mayor Mason Thompson: Oh, you're gonna get me in trouble here. Do your best to meaningfully address the biggest issues we face. There's this idea that there's a difference between local issues and state issues and federal issues. And I have never heard anybody talk about policy that they support by saying - a different level of bureaucracy should handle this. And if we care about meaningfully addressing the biggest challenges that we face, then we are gonna have to change things. But you just laid out all of the reasons why that's so hard and why the system itself is so biased toward keeping things exactly the way they are right now. We hire part-time amateurs to make our most important policy decisions in almost every jurisdiction around here. And if you think about the experts that we're listening to - senior staff who give council their advice - they've been doing this for a long time. If you're a director at a city, you've had a really good career and you're really good at doing things the way that we're doing them right now. And most part-time councilmembers aren't gonna show up on a random Tuesday night and disagree with subject matter experts that have been doing this for decades, even if we know that we have to change things in order to get different results - because we don't know what we're doing, we rely on them. So I guess this isn't really advice, it's more just if you listen - well, this part's gonna be advice. If you listen to your community and you know that things need to change, have the courage to follow through and to actually change things instead of just making sympathetic noises toward our biggest problem and then fighting to keep everything exactly the same. And I'm incredibly sympathetic to people in different jurisdictions because our job interview process is nine months long, it's all done in public. People will take anything you've ever said and try to take it out of context and use it against you. It requires an incredible amount of privilege. And the more wealthy your network, the easier it is to raise money. The more flexible your job is, the easier it is to both get and do the job. Folks in our community who are struggling just to get by - and there's a lot of them because of the way things are right now - they're busy trying to survive. Everybody should do everything they can to change the world, but if you're busy trying to survive - you can't do anything to change the world and that's okay. So I guess the advice that I would give is - recognize the amount of privilege that you have. And when the voices that we talk to - mostly as people who own homes, people who are comfortable, people who have the privilege to be able to do this work that pays us next to nothing, and will take as much time as you give to it - all of our friends are the same way. My friends are all pretty comfortable in life. So if we listen to the concerns of the comfortable and we only address the concerns of the comfortable, we're missing the biggest problems we face as society. Because all those big problems that I talk about, I don't face them - my life's pretty good. But we wanna actually make change, we have to make change, and we're gonna have to make some people uncomfortable - but I think it's really important that we talk about why, and we talk about shared values, and we talk about who we want to be rather than what we want to do. Because I'm really petty and what I want to do is not always who I want to be, but who I want to be is somebody that cares about the people in society who need it the most. I wanna be bold enough to be able to make change that's necessary. I want my kids to be able to afford to live in Bothell - if they want to - down the road. I want to leave them a habitable planet. The way things are have caused all the things that are wrong with it. And this idea that we can nibble at the edges and not fundamentally change the way we do things and expect different results is wrong. So I don't even remember what question I was talking about - I was rolling and you didn't stop me - but I guess just have the courage to make change. And I know that it's really hard, and I know that people show up and yell at you in council meetings - and I don't know every other community, so I am really reticent to criticize any other elected official. But if there's one thing that I wish I had more company with, it's the comfort in actually being with people that are comfortable to actually change the things that are causing the biggest problems we face. And that is unfortunately in short supply. [00:39:28] Crystal Fincher: Completely agree. Thank you so much for your insight today, information - glad we get to learn more about you and Bothell. Thank you so much, Mayor Mason Thompson. [00:39:40] Mayor Mason Thompson: It's still weird to hear that title, but thank you very much, Crystal. And thank you for the work you do - I really appreciate it and I really enjoy listening to the show, and I'll probably listen to this one with a little more critical eye than most of them. [00:39:52] Crystal Fincher: Much appreciated. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

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What's Trending: The house speaker impasse continues,  Tina Podlodowski is stepping down as Democratic Party chair and John Lovick wants to lower the DUI threshold. Big Local: Lynnwood residents are upset about an opioid treatment clinic and two Whatcom Co. deputies return to work after being shot. // More states continue to legalize human composting as burial.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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On this Friday show, we present Part 2 of the Hacks & Wonks 2022 Post-Election Roundtable which was live-streamed on November 15, 2022 with special guests political consultants Dujie Tahat and Kelsey Hamlin. In Part 2, the panel breaks down election results for State Legislature seats in the battleground districts of the 26th, 30th, 44th, and 47th LDs, where Democrats prevailed despite fears of backlash from passage of police accountability bills in 2021. They then dive into how the King County Prosecuting Attorney's race embodied many of the election cycle's themes - how fearmongering and punitive approaches to public safety lost to positive messaging about addressing root causes, and how the media and editorial boards attempted to drive narratives out of touch with the nuanced conversation voters are ready to have. Finally, the roundtable wraps up with a look at how established organizations and their history of relational organizing won successful initiatives to bring ranked choice voting to Seattle and a higher minimum wage to Tukwila. 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-hosts, Dujie Tahat at @DujieTahat and Kelsey Hamlin at @ItsKelseyHamlin. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Hacks & Wonks 2022 Post-Election Roundtable Livestream | November 15th, 2022   Transcript [00:00:00] Bryce Cannatelli: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Bryce Cannatelli – I'm the Post Coordinator for the show. You're listening to Part 2 of our 2022 Post-Election Roundtable, with guests Dujie Tahat and Kelsey Hamlin, that was originally aired live on Tuesday, November 15th. Part 1 was our last episode – you can find it in your podcast feed or on our website officialhacksandwonks.com. You can also go to the site for full video from the event and a full text transcript of the show. Thanks for tuning in! [00:00:43] Crystal Fincher: Okay, okay, okay. Did you do work in any legislative races? I know you did a lot of work, but I don't know if you did any legislative work. [00:00:52] Dujie Tahat: We didn't do legislative work this year. [00:00:53] Crystal Fincher: Okay. [00:00:54] Dujie Tahat: Yeah. We weren't even planning on doing really a bunch of any electoral work and then, you know, suddenly we got a phone call. Yeah, exactly - it was like August and then we got six phone calls and I was like, oh, yeah, all right - sure. [00:01:10] Crystal Fincher: Nice. In these races, there were some interesting ones. One, legislatively, the 10th Legislative District, which is still too close to call - the lead flipped yesterday, it flipped again today. That one of the legislative districts there got a little dramatic in one of those races. Dave Paul actually looks safe in that race - I think it's safe to say that he is going to win. But whether Democrat Clyde Shavers or Republican Greg Gilday carries the day is still to be determined. Another huge district, battleground district, and one that people were not at all clear on how that was going to end up was the 26th Legislative District - out in Pierce and Kitsap County, with Emily Randall in a race defending her Senate seat against Jesse Young, who was a Representative. And it looks like Emily Randall has won that race. I would definitely put Emily in the category of people who are in community, connect with community, and leading boldly - not afraid to say where she stands, not afraid to make the case, and take the case to people in her district - and talk with people who agree with her, talk with people who may not agree with her. But I think what we saw there, and what she found, was that she was able to find places of agreement. And people understanding that she's operating in good faith, and even if they don't agree with everything that they heard from her - on the Republican side, that they know that she listens and is willing to act and is willing to fight for a lot of things that just benefit everybody, that don't really have a Democrat or progressive label on it, but just wanting to get people cared for and healthy in the district is a big deal. That certainly was one, but a lot of people were not sure how that was going to end up, but ended up turning out well. The 30th legislative district and the 44th - two interesting races - full disclosure, did work in those legislative districts, but saw - I think what I noticed in the 30th District especially - this is in South King County, this is mainly Federal Way, some of Auburn in the 30th Legislative District. But you had Jamila Taylor there and you had Kristine Reeves running for the seat that Jesse Johnson ended up leaving. Both were successful, but Jamila actually had a Federal Way police officer running against her in that office - and Federal Way is the city where Jim Ferrell is the mayor. He was certainly - him running for King County Prosecutor - unsuccessfully - but really talking about that punitive - as they call it, law and order - but really punitive punishment-focused rhetoric and rallying against some of the accountability measures that the Legislature took, trying to really blame that on Jamila and others there. And that really just seemed to fall flat - and pretty solid, comfortable victories there for all three candidates in that district - Senator Claire Wilson, Kristine Reeves, and Jamila Taylor. So that was an interesting one where people were wondering - okay, is there going to be a backlash? I saw an article today, I think from Scott Greenstone, where he wrote about - hey, that backlash that people were wondering if it was going to appear, just related to public safety, very much did not appear. And the 30th Legislative District was one of those districts where they really tried to hammer the Democratic candidates with that and make a case on the Republican side, and it just didn't seem to come through. Similarly in the 44th Legislative District, but had an interesting result there - John Lovick, previous representative, now won his race to be the senator there, along with Brandy Donaghy, who was appointed to the seat, was running for this new term, as well as April Berg, who is a continuing representative there. But again, in that district that used to be a swing district - that used to be the district of former moderate Senator Steve Hobbs, as well as John Lovick, and for years they insisted that - hey, it takes a moderate to win this seat, this is a purple district, they won't elect a progressive Democrat. And then April Berg came along and said, Really? Watch this. And then it seemed to have continued, and what was once a purple district now seems to, as you both talked about before, now seems to be pretty safely blue for the time being. And just an interesting development there, because there was so much in flux at the beginning of the cycle, and now it just seems to be so definitive that they're there. [00:06:57] Kelsey Hamlin: Can I - oh, okay. Go ahead. I was going to say, because you touched on it a couple of times - around leading boldly with Emily Randall. And for that matter, like Jamila - and the races really that you just went through - these candidates who lead boldly actually are the ones that get the turnout, that get the motivation from voters that we were talking about earlier. And at the end of the day, they're also being a person, they go and talk to people, they're not just relying on ads that show up on people's TVs to just get people to feel one way or another. But you had mentioned this backlash narrative around, ultimately, police accountability measures that were passed two legislative sessions ago, and a lot of the narrative was - ooh, is there going to be backlash during this midterm? Is this going to impact electability of sitting legislators? And as a result, because that question was even posed, because we're operating from a place of fear, because we're not willing to lead boldly, except for the few great folks of, some of which you just named - that actually really, really impacted the immediately next legislative session, this early 2022 one that just finished. And so those bills were rolled back - all in the name of electability politics - but at the end of the day, when you look at the races of the people who are not involved in that rollback, who in fact opposed it, those are the folks that really pulled the ticket, brought it home. So I'm just really curious around your take of just even the framing of backlash in general, about who we're giving power to for actually taking bold action. Is it backlash, if we're actually doing what is clearly voters' will? So I'm just curious around that conversation in general, because it's played over the course of the past two to three years. [00:09:11] Dujie Tahat: Can I also add a follow-up question, because I think I was going to ask a similar question - in terms of backlash - because I think there's also the relationship, I think, between sort of local politics, local elections, and then the nationalization. So I think we can definitively say last election cycle last year, when it was all city and county races, was a kind of backlash to - elected a bunch of conservative city council members and city attorneys. And at least in Seattle, in the Seattle area. I'm curious if there's a difference, if there's a meaningful difference between how voters behave in an off-year versus a not-off-year, and then particularly, like the voting for a state legislator versus voting for your mayor in the context of public safety and crime and police, in particular. [00:10:08] Crystal Fincher: Okay, a few things. One, so even on just last year - and certainly for people in Seattle, they felt that there was a backlash because of the mayoral race and the city attorney race - I think that there were some other fundamentals and pretty clear fundamentals at play. And the other issue is that when you look in the suburbs, we had a number of suburbs elect some of the most progressive city council people that they ever have before. And so I think really what we had was a story of candidates. And I think that especially in the City of Seattle, where the media plays a role in elections in a different way than they do in some of the suburban and rural areas, that that also impacted some races. I think that fundamentals pretty well favored Bruce Harrell, right? I think just looking at voter communications, spending on direct voter communication - the Nicole Thomas-Kennedy race and some of the other races - they were just massively outspent and outdone with direct voter communication. So anytime that there's that much of a lopsided communication delta, it is hard to prevail in that situation. And then when you have unknown people who - it's up to you to define yourself or the opponent to define you - and in those situations, the opponent had a lot more resources to try and define those, that that impacted those races in a different way in Seattle than we saw in some of the suburbs. But I do think that when it comes to the backlash narrative - our public conversation, the media conversation about public safety is in a very different place than people on the ground. In 2020, with the King County Charter Amendments that brought forth more accountability measures and offices, in addition to appointing instead of electing the sheriff - that wasn't just the only thing that brought forth accountability measures. And despite those charter amendments being dramatically outspent and there being opposition against them, they were passed. And they were passed in just about every council district in the county, right? So this was not - this never has been, as sometimes it is characterized, as well - just those super lefties in Seattle care about like comprehensive public safety and addressing root causes of crime and issues like that. Over and over again, we have seen at the ballot box and in polling - that voters across the county do care about accountability, that whether or not they want more police or not, they all - and I'm using the term all in a near literal sense - 80+ percent when folks at the ballot box are saying, but we also want alternate responses. We understand that - hey, even if I have no issue with an officer, and I think that it's appropriate to call an officer at some period and at some point in time - that when it comes to an issue of someone having a behavioral health crisis, or if someone is unhoused, or if someone is dealing with complex family issues - that sometimes an armed police response is - they're just not equipped to do that, right? And I think that the public conversation in the media has been - well, is it defund or not? Do you back the blue or not? - and it's very binary, shallow conversation. But most voters recognize that it's not an either or most of the time it's an and situation. And what we have done is invested a lot in some portions of the necessary public safety puzzle and have starved other areas. And so we better get to taking action on addressing some of these root causes, on enabling appropriate response. Just yesterday, there was someone near where I lived, clearly having a behavioral health crisis, right? And there's this helpless feeling that calling the police on this is not - it won't help anyone. It won't help anyone in this situation. But there isn't anyone to call, there is not a resource available to appropriately handle this - and it's frustrating. And it makes you feel helpless. But that's what's missing. And I think lots of people see and feel that and understand that we need to buffet our infrastructure. I think being very defensive and playing into that shallow conversation - is it defund or is it not - that is such an elementary point to start the conversation. Because there's such broad acknowledgement that we do need other things, that we better pay attention to that. So painting that as some controversial lever of what side are you on, does not represent where most people in the public are at. And over and over again, they keep saying - we want you to deal with this more comprehensively. We want to do the things that evidence shows will make these issues better and not keep trying the same failed solutions. We seem to have a few leaders who are dead set on just doing the same old things regardless of the failed continued results. And some media who seem to be very interested in pushing that narrative. I think it is really hard to do that credibly right now, given - once again - the results that we saw so conclusively in the King County Prosecutor's race, the judicial races, some of these county races, these legislative races. And I do think that people understand that - really - public safety is a local issue. And Tiffany Smiley trying to blame Patty Murray just clearly fell flat. But people understand that Patty Murray isn't deciding whether or not to deploy your local policeman, right? That's a local decision. But I also think that the part that's missing is that people have to be held accountable for results there too. And then as we look at the effectiveness of some of these alternate response projects and pilots, and we're looking at metrics, and whether there's a dashboard available and what are they doing - we better be doing that with all of our emergency response, police response and making sure that we're getting out of it a justification for the money that we're putting into it. And if we're not, let's do something that's actually more effective. People's safety is at stake. And I just feel that this political conversation that has enabled a perpetuation of these failed policies that have not stopped people from being victimized are just hurting us all. That was a very long-winded answer, but I have feelings about that. What are your feelings about that? [00:18:06] Kelsey Hamlin: I also do think there's a level of accountability that needs to happen, even on the consultant side. Who told our legislators that enacted police accountability that was complex, that was like - hey, let's not do vehicle chases anymore at really high speeds because people pretty much always die and you almost never catch anyone. Who decided that that's the thing we want to roll back? These aren't these binary conversations that led to these laws happening in 2020, 2021 and then getting rolled back in the very next year. And getting rolled back in the name of electability, right? Who is using their power to tell our legislators that they should actually in fact hold back on their boldness, that they should not enact these rather complex and very clearly data-driven laws behind not just police accountability, but public safety in general. At the end of the day, it comes down to - hey, let's maybe kill less people this year. [00:19:06] Crystal Fincher: That was always bad advice. I don't - clearly there was some advice given with that, but - look, Democrats, Republicans are going to call you lawless, criminal-loving, all of that - regardless of what you do. And as - we talked about it on the show before, I think lots of us have talked about this - it was absolutely predictable that even though they did roll those back, Republicans attacked Democrats as if there was no rollbacks and as if nothing had happened. So instead of acting defensive and scared of what you are doing, do the right thing. Make the case for doing the right thing. Take the case to the voters. If you are actually connected to community, you can do that with credibility, right? And with success. But just looking at a poll and going - uh oh, this looks scary, we better backpedal and - yeah, that was a frustrating thing to watch happen. [00:20:17] Dujie Tahat: And now to take it back to the start of this conversation, it's like - you didn't need to do it. We didn't need to do it because we increased majorities, despite all of the contextual historical indicators pointing to us losing majorities. We actually gained them - so we didn't need to do it. [00:20:37] Crystal Fincher: Didn't need to do it. And yeah, that was very unnecessary. I hope there are lessons learned from that. There need to be lessons learned from that. Just wrapping up some of these legislative races, we talked about the 44th. The 47th, which we actually did quite a bit of work in, was an interesting race. And I think the 47th Legislative District holds a lot of lessons for a lot of people there. This was a district - and it's part of Kent, Covington, part of Auburn, Maple Valley - that area in South King County. But there was - starting off - two Black Republicans - one - and then a third running in that district who was a Ukrainian refugee. There were two open seats, an open Senate seat, an open House seat, and then one incumbent running - Debra Entenman on the Democratic side. On, for the Democratic challengers, we had a primary with Carmen Goers that - it was a Black woman who was a Republican active in the Chamber of Commerce against Shukri Olow and Chris Stearns on the Democratic side in the primary. And in the Senate seat, you had Bill Boyce a Black Republican, who's currently a Kent City Councilmember, running against - in the primary - Claudia Kauffman and Satwinder Kaur. Claudia Kauffman had formerly been a Senator and then Satwinder Kaur was a sitting Kent City Councilmember. And so just - this was interesting - it's in South King County, one of the most diverse areas in the country, an area where the school district has more languages spoken than almost any other district in the country. But what we saw here was the Republican Party making some inroads with non-white candidates, at least. And the Republican Party being active on the ground and active in school board races and active in faith communities, whether it's mosques or gurdwaras or churches, and activating on the ground in a way that I don't think a lot of people have been paying a lot of attention to. But we need to, and we need to be showing up in those areas as progressives if we want to continue - to engage and continue to win and continue to advance policy in these areas. This manifested in - during, in the school district races, we have had votes in the Kent School District from people who called themselves Democrats to ban books with queer content, right? This is a weird time and a weird kind of mishmash of people and issues and interests. Fortunately in this race, Claudia Kauffman wound up prevailing on that side in the primary. In the one House seat, that open seat, a Republican actually didn't even make it through - there were three Republicans who did not make it to the general election, the two Democrats did. Chris Stearns ended up winning that race. So this was a district where candidates ran hard. There was a lot of money spent in this district, a lot of electioneering going on. But - and it wound up still fairly close in that Senate race. And so the help and the village was needed, as it is in so many areas, to get this race across. But this is - this turned out well, but we cannot take our foot off of the gas. We can't take our eye off of the ball - because the Republican Party is organizing in ways that we're used to seeing the Democratic Party doing. And we can't take that for granted and need to be in all the spaces - and not cede faith spaces to Republicans and not cede rural communities to Republicans. And to make sure that what we're talking about helps and brings value to those people in those places, as well as everywhere else. And so just an area where good things happen - I think this is another district that moving forward is going to be more reliably blue. But it's not going to be - I think in most of these - they're going to continue to need work. These aren't places where we can be - ah, we won, we're safe. We don't have to do anything else. This is when the work begins and when action is needed - I think that is the case. Any other thoughts on the legislative races from either one of you? With that, I just want to talk about the King County Prosecutor race for a moment. What did you see here, Kelsey, in terms of this race and why it turned out, how it turned out? [00:26:05] Kelsey Hamlin: Oh my goodness. I think everything we've talked about tonight is - was culminated, more or less, in that race, right? Whether you want to go look at the media and the narrative going on there - and this just false take that Ferrell was going to be as high and mighty as he was prophesized to be. And whether you're looking at polling, or whether you're looking at media and some articles that came out on him, or whether the framing is the backlash that's going to happen - is literally Jim Ferrell culminated in real-time with the person. And at the end of the day, I just - I didn't see his work as fruitful. I didn't see it based in community. I know Leesa Manion's been showing up in spaces continuously - she's not a new face to me. And it just didn't - the narrative writ large didn't really track with what I felt in my gut. And it's always interesting to see it play out, given the context of NTK as a prior race - it happened locally and how big of a deal that was. And so it's really satisfying to see it turn out the way that I had felt it in my gut. And it - yeah, I just think the boldness is where it's at. And as long as you make your values clear, as long as you're clear about it and you're a real human being to fellow people - the job is not as hard as we make it out to be - if you just try and get those things there. Dujie, what was your take? [00:27:52] Dujie Tahat: Yeah, I think for me - I'm really struck by King County voters just generally being happy with King County, like the government of King County. Leesa Manion represents an extension of the current prosecuting attorney and people seem really happy with Satterberg. And I think to our point of having, being able to hold two competing thoughts at once and not giving into the binary, I think Satterberg is actually a pretty good exemplar of somebody who's started off as a Republican during the era of punitive - just punitive - policy, to someone who is advocating very much for diversion programs. And you're seeing this also coming off of a King County electorate that just passed a bunch of charter amendments to improve policing in 2020. So you're seeing, I think, an electorate that is primed to have these nuanced conversations in a way that is totally divorced, I think, from the coverage. Like you pointed out, the narratives are what they are, but the electorate is continuing to have a more nuanced take and make it really, really abundantly clear that it actually - it's not even either-or, and it's not even really all that close, right? I don't, I can't think of - this is the closest race that I can think of at a county level that has to do with the criminal justice reform, or the executive, or the prosecuting attorney. People, I think, are just like generally pretty happy. [00:29:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - it's really - this is interesting. This is also a race that we did work in with our firm. And I don't know that the - that voters were really happy with the way that things are, but they're definitely unhappy and do not like the punitive approach. And are really saying - okay, I hear from, I'm hearing one thing from Jim Ferrell - very punitive, very punishment-based, but punishment does not equate to safety. And really, it seems like voters do want action that equates to safety and have come to the conclusion that just punitive punishment does not, as the evidence shows. And I think what helped Leesa was an articulation of an expansion of some stuff, an expansion of some strategies from where they were - with the city attorney, with the prosecuting attorney's office for quite some time - but really an articulation of - okay, we are moving forward there, we do want to keep people more safe. But we're going to have to address some root causes of these issues and just throwing people in jail is not, as we have seen, is not going to get the job done. So we better have some other strategies to address gun violence, to address intimate partner violence, to address just the range of things that we're seeing and dealing with - from property crime to violent crime. And I think that she just articulated a vision that was closer to what King County voters feel is the solution. So I think - I think there were just two different visions and voters made a clear choice of where they want to be and what they want to see. And I think - also in this one - now it's time for action. And I know that she's planning on hitting the ground running, has - is very familiar with the office and this role. I also think that people valued just the familiarity and experience there. And understanding what it's going to take to make some of these changes and shifts within that office and managing people and going through that was helpful. But I think that - I really do hope that just in the media ecosystem overall, that there is an acknowledgement that clearly we have some media entities that were really hoping for the punishment narrative to take hold, but it just hasn't, it's not a thing. Can we please move on and talk about all of the different issues, all of the different possibilities and solutions now - because there's a ton to talk about, there's a ton to explore. And if we start covering that, exploring it - we're all going to be better off and help everyone understand where we're moving, and where we can move to, and how to make people more safe. [00:33:00] Kelsey Hamlin: Yeah. And let's name too, that it's not even just media at large, but specifically editorial boards and these columnists - that are sticking with that status quo punitive narrative that doesn't actually resonate with people, and still trying to drive that home where it's not there. I'll also name too, 'cause editorial boards have a lot of power, but I'll also name too that Leesa's message was just positive - more positive about change - and Ferrell's was the exact opposite. But that's a messaging statistic and stat and tactic that we know very well - that if you just have a more positive message, it will resonate more with people. [00:33:42] Dujie Tahat: And I think that you are also touching on - you've made more clear what I meant, which is - it is not that maybe people are happy with the conditions as they are right now, as much as I think the county is more primed to have the conversation of where we go from here, as opposed to some of the narrative setters - I think that people generally - people have voted, specifically voters in King County, because of what has been on the ballot lately - understand that there is a more nuanced set of choices and that there's actually an alternative to the sort of binary punitive or abolish everything. [00:34:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I think you are exactly right. And so now I want to talk about a big City of Seattle election that you two had a little bit to do with there - the choice before Seattle voters to change the way that they voted. And if they did want to change the way that they voted, was it going to be approval voting or ranked choice voting? How did this play out and how did ranked choice voting prevail? [00:34:57] Dujie Tahat: I think people wanted it - I think that's ultimately at the end of the day what happened, right? I think people understand that our democracy is not working as well as it could be. I think people in Seattle have a history of willing to make improvements that strengthen our democracy, like Democracy Vouchers and stronger campaign finance laws. And despite everything editorial boards can do to throw barriers at not changing the way we do things, people still saw through that and voted for it - not for nothing. Editorial boards were wrong on democracy - The Seattle Times editorial board was wrong on Democracy Vouchers too, they were wrong on ranked choice voting. The position that our democracy is just fine - we shouldn't do anything to tinker with it - is at best intellectually dishonest. And I think a lot of people understand what ranked choice voting is - over 50 jurisdictions across the country already use it - Alaska just elected a Democrat because of it. New York City elected a mayor and the most diverse city council it's ever had. It's pretty obvious and intuitive. The process was maybe a little complicated, and it was - it was frankly, complicated - but that shouldn't be a reason to not do the right thing, which was so often the sort of biggest argument against the campaign. [00:36:32] Crystal Fincher: Now in this, you talk about editorial boards - you had both The Seattle Times and The Stranger editorial boards recommending a No on the first question - saying don't change the way things are voting. I think The Urbanist recommended Yes and for voting for ranked choice voting, but The Seattle times recommended a No vote and just leave the second choice about which one blank. The Stranger said a No vote, but choose ranked choice voting. Urbanist had a Yes vote and ranked choice voting. So in that kind of a situation where you have, especially entities like The Times and The Stranger that have been so consequential in elections with how they've made their choices, how did you fight against that and prevail? [00:37:30] Kelsey Hamlin: Yeah. I think a component of it is RCV as a kind of movement and a - RCV being ranked choice voting - as a kind of movement and thing that's come up from the ground across the country, it's not just in Washington, has had the benefit of having just an organic group of people already there waiting. This isn't as if it popped up out of nowhere, at least on the ranked choice voting end. There's the same people that have advanced mail-in ballots, that have fought for same-day voter registration, that fought for Democracy Vouchers - are the same exact people that are behind the campaign asking for ranked choice voting to be on the ballot for voters to choose. A lot of that groundwork was already there and that helped us out at the end of the day. The margin isn't the biggest margin in the world for that first question about change. It's funny to me the way the endorsements landed because, just on the common sense front, it - the question is, yes, do you want change or no, we don't want change - everything's fine, democracy is fine - not crumbling at all. Like writ large it's silly on its face, but at the end of the day, the process question - the one and two - we haven't seen since - someone had pointed out today - since 2014. It's that preschool question of you have to vote Yes, and then you have to vote which thing you want. And that's really the only kind of comparable instance that we have to compare how we did to another instance that had the same setup. It was a confusing layout, but RCV itself is not confusing - Dujie has movie nights with his kids all the time, and it's always - hey, let's pick our first, second and third choice for which movie we want to watch tonight. And then you phase them out and have another go around - it's not hard. You can do it with kids. We do it intuitively when we go to any ice cream shop, or restaurant, or go to the grocery store. At the end of the day, there was a lot of organic movement in the first place that helped us out. And there was a lot of field efforts across the board, thanks to that organic volunteer presence and people that were ready, where we did a lot of field effort across Seattle and not just centric to one area that we thought was strong or not. As far as patterns go for the results, I find it painfully accurate that a lot of the pro-ranked choice voting crowd, pro-let's-improve-our-democracy folks and votes tend to be with renters - it's with younger folks and with renters - that's the strongest demographic that had voted for ranked choice voting. And it also matches the core arterials that you see on land use, the multifamily zoning that you see in land use. And we see this pattern over and over again in a place like Seattle, where the more progressive voters are with renters, are in those districts that are more dense and not exclusive and more affordable. So you see this really multifaceted thing coming out in the voter results if you try to take a closer look at it. [00:40:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. [00:40:49] Dujie Tahat: And to get at what you're saying, Crystal, in terms of what do we do once we have these endorsements that are - malpractice, to put it nicely, I think for us it became about - okay, we have more voices than the editorial board has to make a better case for the editorial boards. And we basically wanted to overdrive, to flood the ecosystem with really good op-eds basically and LTEs to sort of supplement the paid voter contact we were already doing, to supplement the organizing that was happening. And I think - we placed a lot of them in the last in the last 10 days of GOTV, and I think that those are really meaningful and really important - because in terms of - we've been having a conversation all night about narrative setting and who gets to set narrative. And I don't, personally and just as a firm, I don't think that shouldn't be left to editorial boards, right? Especially if what we have and the issues that we're representing and the communities that are going to benefit from the solutions we're proposing has a greater set of people, then what we're going to do is flood the ecosystem with those voices. And we'll do everything we can to shift that narrative. We're not maybe going to have the same symmetrical set of powers, but it's certainly - it's certainly important - we don't show up, we should. Or we don't - we don't not show up. [00:42:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. There is one last initiative, as our time is coming to a close, that I did want to talk about, that was very exciting, and I thought was very well executed. And that was the Raise the Wage Tukwila initiative to raise Tukwila's minimum wage. As you watch this play out, what were your thoughts about it? [00:42:42] Dujie Tahat: I think that this is another sort of example of where fundamentals really bore out, right? I think that - and it's a continuation of - the Fight for $15 happened in South King County, it's only natural that South King County pushed that even further. You had the Transit Riders Union, Washington CAN - organizations who had been organizing, just doing relational organizing for years, not just showing up for this single campaign - turn on their networks for this one campaign that is a part of this broader set of things that they're advocating for. And I think, again, related to the conversation we've been having, it's like how much - people, I think what I love about our conversation, is that we all recognize that voters are pretty smart and they all actually know that if you're just showing up this one time because of a moment of self-interest, or if you're here every single day to talk to me about what my life is like, and that you're offering a solution that will actually meaningfully impact that. And that's where, how that campaign ran. I'm really interested in, and this was also a little bit modeled in the RCV campaign, but there's a distributed organized canvassing model. And trying to see how that model might apply in different parts of the state and how that might scale - I haven't had a chance to look at the numbers yet. I think there's a really interesting promise there too, and implications for other races. But all of that too is only made possible by the years of relational organizing and showing up every single day too - that's not a thing you can just build in August for your GOTV operation in six to eight weeks. [00:44:24] Crystal Fincher: Completely agree. What'd you think, Kelsey? [00:44:28] Kelsey Hamlin: Yeah. I mean, this - just like Dujie said, had come up after the Fight for $15. I also believe there was a SeaTac fight for wages as well, right before that. And so I think this is just a culmination of a lot of work on the ground that had already been there in the first place. So again, just like we've been talking about when you're in community, when you're showing up, when you're present and you're listening to people and not just telling them - that is when people will show up for you in return - because it matches, because it lines up, because you're on the same page. And at the end of the day, like the fight for wages and the discussion on inflation, the discussion on abortion rights, and this discussion on unaffordability and housing - these things are all connected at the end of the day. And people, voters realize that - and a lot of campaigns that oppose changes like this and even opposed ranked choice voting and don't want a minimum wage - I remember Seattle Times way back, when it first started, was very skeptical even after a study came out on it. A lot of the people that pose these types of things - one, pop up out of nowhere and then two, aren't connecting the dots between just these issues that in our real lives we experience every single day. And that's just the connection that we have to be making when we're talking to people on their doorstep. So yeah, I think it's a really great celebration and a fight that deserves a lot of applause on behalf of the organizations that are involved in them, especially Seattle Transit Riders Union and Washington CAN - they've been around for a very long time and I'm very proud of them. [00:46:15] Crystal Fincher: I agree and well said. And with that, the roundtable comes to a close. I want to thank our panelists, Dujie Tahat and Kelsey Hamlin, for their insight in making this an engaging and informative night. To those watching online, thanks so much for tuning in. If you missed any of the discussion tonight, you can catch up on the Hacks & Wonks Facebook page, YouTube channel, or Twitter where we're @HacksWonks. Special thanks to essential members of the Hacks & Wonks team and coordinators for this evening, Dr. Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. If you missed voting in the election, or if you know someone who did, make sure to register to vote, update your registration, or find information for the next election at myvote.wa.gov. And as a reminder, even if you have been previously incarcerated, your right to vote is restored and you can re-register to vote immediately upon your release, even if you are still under community supervision. Be sure to tune in to Hacks & Wonks on your favorite podcast app for our midweek interviews and our Friday week-in-review shows or at officialhacksandwonks.com. I've been your host, Crystal Fincher - see you next time.

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

John Lovick (Handsome Jack) talks about creating a character and when it's time to bring in a director … and then a reading of Chapter Nineteen of “The Bullet Catch.” Chapter Nineteen of “The Bullet Catch” starts at 00:34:33LINKSThe Eli Marks Mystery Series: http://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Get yourself a Free Eli Marks Short Story: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/jj1r1yaavjListen to an Eli Marks Audio Short Story: https://BookHip.com/LZBPPMDBONUS VIDEO: John Lovick on Penn & Teller Fool Us: https://youtu.be/LAe2YqW2SAs(Very) Early John Lovick performance: https://youtu.be/ZfgtlJnEw68John Lovick (Handsome Jack) on Penn & Teller: https://youtu.be/cGGcCgSmoO4Check out the Occasional Film Podcast: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/the-podcast

Tobias Dostal is an installation and mixed media artist who also happens to be one of the most wildly creative magicians in the world. His mega-hit tricks, Silhouette and Optix took the magic world by storm.  He sits down to discuss the intersection of being a visual artist and being a magician, and a lot more. Nick Locapo stops by to discuss the featured product of the week from Brent Braun. Before all of the Jeremy Griffith is in the hot seat when he has to list his top five tricks in under five minutes in the Top Five Under Five.Dead Cutting Aces: https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/3985Ambitious Card (World's Greatest Magic: https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/S17017Coins Through Table: https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/S17034Card Warp: https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/S17028Reparation by John Lovick: https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/1775Definitely Not Marked by Brent Braun: https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/13767Le Voyage Dans la Lun (A Trip to the Moon) by Georges Méliès: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNLZntSdyKE

Secret, former, & mistaken identities of The Carbonaro Effect star & current guest resident of the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Lovick aka Handsome Jack @handsomerjack is a writer, director & magician. Winner of the 2016 Parlor Magician of the Year, from the Academy of Magical Arts & of a Penn & Teller Fool us Trophy, joins Jesse to talk about Elton John, Tom Waits & The Shaggs?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lovick

Volunteering celebrities in magic shows, escape artist Don Knotts, & a confession from Handsome Jack. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're Not Gonna Take It vs. Give Peace A Chance, what Penn, Jason Garfield, & Oprah Winfrey have in common, & we say goodbye to the Amazing Johnathan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is your chance to get to know Rep. Brandy Donaghy. Brandy, who lives in Everett and represents Washington's 44th legislative district, is a Navy vet, community educator, and emergency-preparedness expert who was appointed in December to the House seat vacated when Rep. John Lovick accepted an appointment to the state Senate.

Rachel Wax stops by the show to discuss her shows at the legendary McKittrick Hotel and The Slipper Room in New York City. Nick Locapo stops by the show to discuss the featured product of the week from Paul Curry. Before all of that, the show kicks off with Josh Janousky discussing an incredible book of bill switches on Desert Island Magic Books.___The magic of Rachel Wax : https://www.rachelwaxmagic.com/Rachel Wax Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rwaxx/?hl=enTouch by Paul Curry presented by Nick Locapo : https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/9134SWITCH - Unfolding The $100 Bill Change by John Lovick: https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/11321

Thursday, January 6 on Urban Forum Northwest, guests for the hour are: *Attorney Bakari Sellers is a CNN Political Analyst, he served in the South Carolina House of Representatives 2006-2014. He comments on the January 6, 2021 attempt to overthrow the US Government. *LaNesha DeBardelaben, President & CEO Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) invites you to hear Nikki Giovanni speak on "The Poetics of Infinite Hope" at 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm (PST) on January 17, the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday on the NAAM you tube channel. *Jon Bersche, Training Coordinator, City of Seattle and a Convener of the Seattle MLK Opportunity Fair that brings employers and job seekers together comments on the changes due to the latest virus. *Katie Harris, coordinates the workshops for the Seattle King County Martin Luther King Jr. Organizing Coalition she will comment on the organizations new approach due to omicron. *Senator John Lovick was selected by the Snohomish County Council December 15, 2021 to fill out the term of Senator Steve Hobbs who was chosen by Governor Jay Inslee to fill the vacant Secretary of State position. He will comment on his priorities for the legislative session that begins next week. Urban Forum Northwest streams live at www.1150kknw.com. Visit us at www.urbanforumnw.com for archived programs and relevant information. Like us on Facebook. Twitter@Eddie_Rye. This program will also air on Saturday 7:00-8:00 am (PST).

Today on the show, fellow political consultant Heather Weiner joins Crystal to preview the players in the upcoming state legislative session - who's stepping down, who's getting appointed, who's moving up in leadership positions - as well as a peek at next year's elections with announcements that several incumbents are resigning (and one who changed their mind). They discuss Inslee's supplemental budget announcement, an opportunity to address our upside-down tax system with a Wealth tax, and the need to fix the now-delayed WA Cares long-term care benefit system. Plus a reminder to get your booster! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal on Twitter at @finchfrii, and find Heather at @hlweiner.   Resources “Historic vote: County Council appoints Lovick and Donaghy to state legislature” by Mario Lotmore from Lynnwood Times: https://lynnwoodtimes.com/2021/12/16/44th-legislative-district-211216/   “Yasmin Trudeau appointed to represent 27th LD in Senate” by Aaron Kunkler from Washington State Wire: https://washingtonstatewire.com/yasmin-trudeau-appointed-represent-27th-ld-in-senate/   “State Rep. Vicki Kraft announces run for 3rd Congressional District” by Lauren Ellenbecker from The Columbian: https://www.columbian.com/news/2021/dec/01/state-rep-vicki-kraft-announces-run-for-3rd-congressional-district/   “Washington state Sen. Ann Rivers changes course, plans to continue in politics” by Troy Brynelson from Oregon Public Broadcasting: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/12/14/washington-state-sen-ann-rivers-changes-course-plans-to-continue-in-politics/   “Marko Liias chosen to chair the Washington State Senate's Transportation Committee” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate: https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2021/12/marko-liias-chosen-to-chair-the-washington-state-senates-transportation-committee.html   “Inslee's 2022 budget highlights poverty, climate, salmon recovery and transportation investments” from the Governor's Office: https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee%E2%80%99s-2022-budget-highlights-poverty-climate-salmon-recovery-and-transportation   “Q&A: Rep. Noel Frame on her Washington State Wealth Tax” by Michael Goldberg from Washington State Wire: https://washingtonstatewire.com/qa-rep-noel-frame-on-a-wealth-tax-for-washington-state/   DuckTales theme song: https://youtu.be/p1I2HqXIMRo   WA Cares Fund: https://wacaresfund.wa.gov/   “I didn't think I would ever need WA Cares: I was wrong” by Dani Rice in The Spokesman Review: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/dec/14/i-didnt-think-i-would-ever-need-wa-cares-i-was-wro/   “Inslee, Washington state Democrats discuss delaying WA Cares long-term care payroll tax” by Joseph O'Sullivan from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/inslee-washington-state-democrats-discuss-delaying-wa-cares-long-term-care-payroll-tax/   “As scientists race to gauge omicron threat, here's what's known and what isn't” by Emily Anthes from The New York Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/as-scientists-race-to-gauge-omicron-threat-heres-whats-known-and-what-isnt/   Seattle & King County Public Health - COVID-19 Vaccine - Getting vaccinated in King County: https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/vaccine/distribution.aspx   Washington State's Vaccine Locator: https://vaccinelocator.doh.wa.gov/   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com and in our episode notes. Today we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week. Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host, political consultant and urban farmer, Heather Weiner. [00:00:51] Heather Weiner: Crystal Fincher, I'm so glad to see you! Good morning and so happy to be here, or afternoon depending... [00:00:57] Crystal Fincher: So happy. Yeah, I mean, people hear this in the afternoon. It's early in the morning - it's quite early in the morning. I'm always fighting morning voice on these things, but I'm delighted to see you and have you back on the program. Welcome, welcome. [00:01:10] Heather Weiner: I'm so glad to be here, and what a year it's been, and what a year it's going to be. I'm really excited about what we're going to talk about today. About Leg Session - what's happening next, who's retiring, who's getting moved up. We've got a lot of great things to talk about today. [00:01:24] Crystal Fincher: We do have a lot of great things to talk about, so let's dive in. I mean, to your point, there's a lot of turnover. We have folks who were just appointed. We have Senator John Lovick in the 44th. We have new Representative Brandy Donaghy in the 44th. We also have Senator Yasmin Trudeau in the 27th. A number of appointments - I think people would generally be surprised about how frequently we actually do appoint legislators, who then go on to run for - to retain their seat after that. [00:02:00] Heather Weiner: This is why people - this is the only real benefit of being a PCO within the Democrat - I mean, not real benefit, there's lots of benefits to being a PCO. But one of the great benefits of being a PCO is being able to appoint someone to fill an open seat. And that's what they did in LD44 - is they appointed John Lovick from Representative to Senator to fill Steve Hobbs' position. And then they nominated someone to fill his position. And the Snohomish County Council actually went against what the PCOs recommended and appointed Brandy Donaghy - who by the way is fantastic - she's a US Navy vet, she's a woman of color, she's amazing. But I've only seen this happen a couple of times where County Council will go against the recommendations of the PCOs and the legislative district. I think the last time I saw this happen was down in SeaTac when Mia Gregerson was appointed over the recommendations of the LD - and she's been great by the way. [00:03:11] Crystal Fincher: She has been great and - [00:03:13] Heather Weiner: Super interesting. [00:03:13] Crystal Fincher: - that was in my legislative district, the 33rd. I remember - [00:03:17] Heather Weiner: Oh, so you remember that? [00:03:17] Crystal Fincher: Very well, yes, and was happy to support Mia in that meeting - and certainly was a contentious time in the 33rd legislative district. But PCOs, or Precinct Committee Officers - to your point - that is one of the most consequential and impactful duties that they have. In Seattle LDs, you frequently have 100+ active PCOs. In a number of the suburbs, you're talking about 30 people who are getting together to decide, just by a majority vote, who is going to be the next legislator when there is a vacancy. That's a very important role to play. I've been involved in efforts to recruit and increase the number of PCOs, and how representative those PCOs are of their communities - and this is one of the biggest benefits that I consistently talk about is - Hey, you actually get to choose. We talk about all these elections and how important it is, but wow, sometimes you are one of 35 people who gets to choose who your next Representative or Senator is going to be, and there are plenty of close votes in those situations. PCOs pick three people to send to the County Council, and the County Council gets to pick one of those three. And to your point - usually, they pick the number one choice, but they don't have to and sometimes they don't. [00:04:45] Heather Weiner: They don't have to. Sometimes they don't. [00:04:47] Crystal Fincher: And now the 44th has a legislative delegation that is 100% Black. [00:04:52] Heather Weiner: Which is fantastic. And we have a new person of color in our mostly white State Senate, which is also fantastic. [00:05:02] Crystal Fincher: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:05:03] Heather Weiner: I mean, all of it is great. But it's very interesting to watch - again, I have not seen this happen very often. And I think it's a great - I don't know, it's a lot of internal politics going on - but again to your point, 90% of this is showing up, so if you're a PCO and you happen to show up for that meeting, you're one of 30 votes that is setting somebody into a seat that they may hold for decades. [00:05:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. That they may hold for decades. And these days, I mean, we're talking about the turnover of one to two Senators. A vote composition change of one to two within the Democratic delegation makes the difference between progressive revenue or not - or that can impact policy just by switching one, two votes, one, two changes - particularly in the Senate. These are very, very consequential - and certainly we'll be talking about these new appointments, these new legislators - as we head further into the session - [00:06:07] Heather Weiner: Well, welcome. [00:06:07] Crystal Fincher: - which starts on January 10th. [00:06:09] Heather Weiner: Yeah, welcome. [00:06:09] Crystal Fincher: So yeah - I'm excited. [00:06:10] Heather Weiner: Welcome Senator Trudeau, welcome Senator Lovick, welcome Representative Donaghy - you'll be hearing from us. And then - [00:06:16] Crystal Fincher: Yes, absolutely. [00:06:17] Heather Weiner: And then there's a bunch of people who are also retiring from the Senate. I mean, from the Legislature, right? Kirby just announced yesterday that he's not running. [00:06:27] Crystal Fincher: Mm-hmm [affirmative], and that's in the 27th legislative district. [00:06:29] Heather Weiner: Also in the 27th, which is - [00:06:31] Crystal Fincher: South Tacoma, Lakewood, Spanaway. Certainly a big opportunity for people to run there - I know a lot of people were looking at Sharlett [Mena], who ran last time, be going "Hey! Are you still interested?" [00:06:45] Heather Weiner: mm-hmm [ [00:06:45] Crystal Fincher: affirmative]. So that'll be interesting to follow and see who is interested in running for that open seat. Certainly David Frockt has announced that he's not running for re-election. Representative Javier Valdez has announced his intention to run for that seat, so he's running there leaving his seat open. And so Melissa Taylor is running for his seat, and she's got $50,000 in the bank and a number of endorsements. I'm working with her, full disclosure - but very excited about that race. And she is an absolute force to be reckoned with and has done so much work in the community that - I'm excited. We also have Vicki Kraft down in the 17th legislative district, down in southwestern Washington who - that has been a purple district, with her winning by one to two percentage points in her last few races. She has announced that she's running for Congress against Jaime Herrera Beutler, leaving that seat open. [00:07:52] Heather Weiner: So she basically - she is primarying - [00:07:54] Crystal Fincher: mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:07:56] Heather Weiner: A Republican. [00:07:57] Crystal Fincher: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:07:57] Heather Weiner: She's a very conservative Republican, who is primarying a conservative Republican, in my view. I think that's really interesting - it could actually end up flipping the seat, because if Kraft wins that primary, it really opens it up for a more moderate Democrat to take the seat. Because Kraft is much more aligned with the Trump right-wing of the Republican party. [00:08:19] Crystal Fincher: I mean, she is - the disgraced former Representative Matt Shea, literally an extremist - Vicki Kraft introduced legislation to jail women and their doctors for having abortions or providing abortion services, denied coronavirus was a thing, denied climate change was a thing - really, really troubling - just the most extreme that there is. And so that's going to be really interesting - both to see how that Congressional race plays out, because there were a few challengers to Jaime Herrera Beutler from her right. And to see what opportunities that leaves for Democrats in that legislative district. [00:09:10] Heather Weiner: Super interesting. [00:09:11] Crystal Fincher: And I think it might get a little bit more slightly - we'll have to see what the district looks like post-redistricting, and get beyond these challenges to the redistricting maps that currently exist - but it's going to be real interesting to see how that shapes up. Lots of change, lots of turnover, lots of opportunity. [00:09:35] Heather Weiner: But Crystal, what do you think it means that Ann Rivers just took back her resignation? So here's what she says - she said she was stepping down because she had a new job and that was going to take up most of her time in Longview. Now, all of a sudden she takes back - she goes "Oh, actually, I think I'll have enough time." What? Don't you think, I mean, let me just go ahead and project on here - did they take a look at the poll and realize that that seat would flip if it was open? And that as someone who's held the seat since 2010, as an incumbent, she's going to keep it? What happened? What really happened there? I don't think her job description changed. [00:10:12] Crystal Fincher: Her job description definitely didn't change. I don't know what the polling shows in that district. I mean, certainly in many areas across the state things have become less beneficial for Republicans, but I also think that also given some - I mean, Republicans can't be feeling great within the state - nationally is a different story. But within the state, they aren't feeling that great - and so, some certainly are going to be departing. I'm wondering if she saw opportunities for increased power just within her caucus. [00:10:50] Heather Weiner: Yeah, maybe somebody traded something to her. [00:10:52] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. [00:10:52] Heather Weiner: Well, she has three more years, right? She doesn't have to run. [00:10:55] Crystal Fincher: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:10:55] Heather Weiner: She has three more years there, which also helps save the state Republican caucus quite a bit of money. I think - super interesting - I didn't know you could take back your resignation. It's not like you're breaking up with somebody and then say "Oh, I had a good sleep and I changed my mind." [00:11:12] Crystal Fincher: Well, if you remember Pat Sullivan in the 47th legislative district - did that last - [00:11:16] Heather Weiner: Well, that's true. [00:11:18] Crystal Fincher: - cycle. [00:11:18] Heather Weiner: But he stepped down because he was tired, and then I think he just realized he wasn't really that tired and came back. But here, her excuse was my job is going to take up too much time and then suddenly it's not taking up a lot of time. I don't know. [00:11:31] Crystal Fincher: Suddenly it's not. Yeah, I - [00:11:33] Heather Weiner: Seems fishy. [00:11:34] Crystal Fincher: It is fishy, and also - wow, there are so many people who could take over. Certainly on the Democratic side we have plenty of conversations about - Hey, there should be space for new leaders within the party. Although, on the Republican side, this is a really interesting conversation, especially from folks coming from a left perspective, because a new Republican is probably one who is more extreme than the one who currently exists. [00:12:06] Heather Weiner: Exactly, which is another reason why they didn't want Ann Rivers to - [00:12:09] Crystal Fincher: Right. [00:12:09] Heather Weiner: - right - step down? I mean, she represent - the 10th is a - right? That's where she's from? The 10th is a tough place for Republicans and it's another purple district. Huh, all right. Well, let's talk about - there's so many things - it's a short session and they're going to try to put a whole bunch of things in there. Leadership has been changing also, as we're talking about elections. What's happening with the Democratic leadership? [00:12:33] Crystal Fincher: Well, probably the headline leadership change is with the Chair of the Transportation Committee. Steve Hobbs, who had been the Chair and had been certainly a moderate, some would even say conservative Democratic member of the caucus, was appointed to be Secretary of State - which created an opening for, not just for someone taking his seat and Senator Lovick filling that role, but also a new Chair of the Senate Democratic Transportation Committee, which is a very consequential and very powerful position to be holding in the Legislature. Especially at this time, where there are a lot of resource coming in federally - probably the time where they're dealing with some of the biggest budget opportunities that are going to be coming their way, that have come their way - and as we talk about the vision for what our transportation focus should be looking forward. Are we going to focus on expanding highways and doing things that have a track record of not just increasing traffic, but also making our climate crisis worse? Or are we going to focus on really giving people choices about how they're able to navigate through our communities? Whether it's commuting to work, whether it's having an option to bike, whether it's having sidewalks in their neighborhoods so that they and their families can travel safely. [00:14:06] Heather Weiner: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:14:07] Crystal Fincher: Right now there really is a crisis because there's a lack of choice in how people can get around. We default to making it very comfortable for folks and cars, which is going to continue to be necessary and I don't know that anyone is saying that it's not necessary, but up to a quarter of the people in this state rely, in some degree, on a non-car mode of transportation. Some don't have any choice on their ability to drive, be it because of disability or lack of mobility or just how their community is situated, and so what kinds of investments are we putting in that, what kinds of investments are we making in reducing the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions? These are all at stake, and so the new head of the Transportation Committee, Marko Liias, is now holding that seat. That was an appointment that was announced at the State Legislature. [00:15:06] Heather Weiner: It's great news. That's great news - I mean, Marko is younger. [00:15:13] Crystal Fincher: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:15:15] Heather Weiner: Definitely more urban focused, and also definitely more transportation and future transit focused, so I think it's great news. And I think that transportation advocates are probably breathing a sigh of relief - and happy - [00:15:32] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. [00:15:32] Heather Weiner: - to move forward. Because I mean, bless Steve Hobbs, he's got a lot of great things about him, but one thing was that he was definitely a roadblock to some of the more progressive things that the transit advocates wanted. [00:15:44] Crystal Fincher: Yes. A roadblock and a road lover. [laughter] A road lover and expanding that - yeah. [00:15:50] Heather Weiner: All right, there's your quote for Twitter. Well, I'm very excited about that and I'm really excited about what Inslee came out with in his supplemental budget announcement yesterday. [00:16:01] Crystal Fincher: What did he come out with? [00:16:02] Heather Weiner: He said, Look, the state is not out of the Covid crisis yet and we need to put more money back into the economy, and we also need to make sure that we are proposing significant funding to address poverty that - which means the child tax credit. [00:16:21] Crystal Fincher: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:16:21] Heather Weiner: Which means, as you said, investing well over $160 million into more housing and resources, expanding K-12 learning, investing in the green economy - which means more jobs, but also helping to combat climate change, and of course his favorite, which is protecting salmon habitat. He even went out and had a press conference a couple days ago - out by a salmon stream. That - he also is talking about rebuilding the rainy day fund, and of course what's happening is the conservatives are wanting to use an anti-tax message to both attack the governor and to also shore up some of their swing folks in the next coming election. We're going to see a lot of fighting over - do we have the money to do all of these things? Why don't we cut taxes for people instead? Why are we raising taxes? It's going to be a really interesting discussion for the budget geeks out there over the next couple of days. [00:17:30] Crystal Fincher: And I mean, next couple of days, weeks, months? [00:17:35] Heather Weiner: Through April. [00:17:35] Crystal Fincher: Yes, there's going to be a lot to continually talk about. One question I had, looking at a number of these proposals, are two issues in particular - the Wealth Tax, and might be most appropriate to say wealth taxes, and there're some different configurations of those. And then the longterm care payroll tax. [00:18:00] Heather Weiner: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:18:01] Crystal Fincher: And that looking at a potential delay. What is happening with those? [00:18:05] Heather Weiner: Well, first on the Wealth Tax, last year, or this year, the Legislature passed a modest tax on extraordinary profits that people, extraordinarily wealthy people, make when they sell their stocks and bonds on the stock market. They passed a small tax on that. That was the first step in fixing our upside down regressive tax system, and also raising half a billion dollars a year for childcare, early learning, and other things that we need to invest in - in education - but that's just the first step. Our tax code is so regressive, and before we can start cutting sales taxes, cutting property taxes, providing more tax credits to people who are in the lower incomes - we have to make sure that we first know where that money's going to be coming from. And Noel Frame has been pushing for a Wealth Tax, which is on billionaires - people who have so much wealth that they're sitting on - that's sitting in bank accounts, it's sitting in third houses, it's sitting in off-shore accounts. People who are just hoarding this amount of money - it's not circulating through the economy - she is proposing to do a tax on that wealth. It's not an income tax, it's not a sales tax, it's a tax on the wealth that you're just sitting on - and to get it back into the economy, get it back into jobs, invest it back into businesses. Very excited about that - we know that Senator Warren, Senator Sanders have all been pushing on a Wealth Tax in Congress. I think we need to take the bull by the horns and do one here. [00:19:48] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and wow, the public support behind this has just been skyrocketing - north of 60%. [00:19:53] Heather Weiner: Yes, and it is bipartisan. Yeah, it is a bipartisan support. Everybody agrees that the super wealthy need to be paying what they owe in taxes, that we need to stop them from dodging their responsibilities, and get more money into the hands of working people - so that we can pay our bills. [00:20:14] Crystal Fincher: So we can pay our bills, and I think a lot of it has been - we used to hear a lot of rhetoric of, Well, we can't tax job creators. And then there was the recognition that wow, this money that's being hoarded isn't being used to create jobs. It isn't being used to do anything. These billionaires have so much money that they cannot spend this money. It is literally just sitting there collecting interest in amounts that are more than any of us are seeing in a lifetime. [00:20:46] Heather Weiner: In a lifetime! In a lifetime! They're collecting more interest in a minute than any of us will be seeing in a lifetime. And what are they wasting it on? They're wasting it on frivolous rocket trips into - 30 second trips into space. I mean, they're not putting it back into the economy. And of course they do - people point to when Bezos, or Gates particularly, fund couple hundred million dollars in philanthropy projects - but those are one offs, and they're things that they control. They control the outcomes of that. The public doesn't control the outcomes of that. They get to choose where the money goes to and who the money goes to. Often that's inequitable, and often it doesn't actually work. And what we need is the public to be controlling that money and deciding where it goes. We are still a democracy, last I checked. [00:21:36] Crystal Fincher: Particularly because the infrastructure that is funded by the public is what is enabling their wealth. It is not like they had nothing to do with it, but certainly it is not like they had everything to do with it. And that public investments, that subsidies - have not played a great role in their ability to grow and continue to profit in the amounts that they have been, while also creating challenges in communities. Seattle is a perfect example of the impact of massive growth and scale - from primarily Amazon, and that radically shifting the whole composition of our housing market, that completely directly impacting the homelessness and affordability problems that we're seeing. And then to not play a role, and to not pay their fair share in mitigating these issues, has been repeatedly found to be unacceptable. [00:22:38] Heather Weiner: It's like a cartoon. It's like a cartoon that we used to watch as kids, where there's this greedy duck sitting on top of a huge pile of money and jewels, and just laughing but not being able to do anything with it, right? And pointing at everybody else while they're just working in the mine. I mean, I just made up that cartoon - I don't know if it actually exists - but that's the image that I have in my mind. [00:22:58] Crystal Fincher: I mean, and now I'm picturing Scrooge McDuck, but - [00:23:01] Heather Weiner: It's probably Scrooge McDuck - that's probably where I got that image from. [00:23:04] Crystal Fincher: And also now I have the DuckTales theme song in my head, which - [00:23:07] Heather Weiner: Well, how's it go? [00:23:08] Crystal Fincher: It's one of the best theme songs ever created. Look, we do not need me singing - [00:23:13] Heather Weiner: No, please, will you just sing it for one second? [00:23:19] Crystal Fincher: Life is like a hurricane - what am I even doing? Okay, anyway - [00:23:25] Heather Weiner: Use that mic for good, Crystal. [00:23:27] Crystal Fincher: And it is not me singing, let's - let's put a period on that right now. [00:23:32] Heather Weiner: All right, we have a couple more minutes, but let's talk about this really controversial, but really important, Long-term care - Washington Cares - that this tax. So Inslee is expected to announce today, along with the House and Senate leadership, that they're going to delay implementation of the payroll tax for a year while they figure out how to make some improvements to it. For people who are listening - you're shaking your head, Crystal, I'm not really sure why - are you still, you still got the Duck... [00:24:04] Crystal Fincher: I'm just thinking about how the hell did I end up attempting to sing on my podcast. Anyway, go ahead, sorry. But yes, it's a very important issue. [00:24:18] Heather Weiner: Yeah, so let's remind people what Long-term care is. Long-term care - I'll give you a story - Dani, actual real woman, she's actually now Ms. Wheelchair USA of 2020 - 30 years old, has a son, goes in for a routine medical appointment, medical procedure - comes out paralyzed. Not expecting, of course, nobody expects to be paralyzed, but comes out paralyzed. She's going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Health insurance does not cover Long-term care, which is help around the house - so that she can pick up things, move, clean. Health insurance doesn't cover it. And Medicare, if she somehow was older, does not cover help around the house - or if you're elderly, if you're seriously injured, if you have long-term Covid - who's going to help make your meals? Who's going to help you get to appointments? Who is going to help you get dressed, go to the bathroom? Medicare and health insurance do not pay for that, so who does pay for it? Well, Medicaid does help with that in-home care, but in order to qualify for Medicaid, you have to sell everything - you have to have no assets. [00:25:37] Crystal Fincher: Yes. [00:25:37] Heather Weiner: Zero. You have to spend down. [00:25:38] Crystal Fincher: You have to live in poverty. Yes. [00:25:39] Heather Weiner: And at the age of 30, she and her husband don't have any - they're just starting to build a life, so she does not have access to this. WA Cares, the Long-term care payroll tax, would fund help for people like Dani, or people like - people's grandparents, me in 20 years - who need help around the house so that we don't have to go to a nursing home or rehab facility. Everybody pays into it, just like they do for Medicare, just like you do for Social Security - everybody pays a small amount from your paycheck. It goes into this fund, and then it's there when you need it. And 70% of us are going to need some kind of Long-term care at some point in our lives. 70% of us. Controversy is - number one, somebody added, I'm not going to name names - somebody added an opt-out provision to it last year or the year before. That then, the Long-term care insurance industry then swooped into Washington state and told everybody that they didn't want to pay a payroll tax, a small payroll tax, that ends when you retire. Instead they want to pay thousands a year into a Long-term care insurance, which is often a scam, and that they have to continue paying and cannot miss one payment for the rest of their lives. So Long-term care insurance companies are in there now - and people got really upset because number one, now they know that they're being taxed. And number two, they can't buy Long-term care insurance because a lot of people have pre-existing conditions and so now they're not being able to buy it. People are upset, there's a lot of confusion - the Democrats and the Republicans are upset about this. So now they're going to delay it and see if they can make some fixes to it, and then restart it in a year - is my understanding. Now, what do you have to say, Crystal? I know, you're not very happy with this program. [00:27:33] Crystal Fincher: I mean, I'm not very happy with how it ended up. I mean, it is absolutely a fact that we have a problem that has to be addressed. That the longer we do not address it, the more people are going to be needlessly suffering many of the same types of issues that we've been facing with healthcare. The private market has become predatory and is not serving peoples needs - it's not primarily concerned with taking care of people. It is primarily concerned with profit. And we have put safeguards in place for people during retirement - care in our state. We certainly have more healthcare choices, but we still don't have many options for people who find themselves unable to work because of a disability - who are in need of Long-term care, or who are not able to live independently for a variety of reasons. And especially, we're still in the middle of a pandemic - we have a lot of people suffering with long Covid. Disability is a fact of life for an increasing percentage of our population and we have to contend with that, but we make it - we basically tie disability to poverty. To your point - to be covered, someone has to basically have no assets and no income, and as soon as they do they stop qualifying for assistance. [00:29:04] Heather Weiner: Yup. [00:29:05] Crystal Fincher: And so what do we do? Are we allowing people to fall back into poverty? As we know and as we - [00:29:11] Heather Weiner: Forcing them. Forcing them into poverty. [00:29:14] Crystal Fincher: Yes, forcing them into poverty - and as we've seen, that hurts everyone. That doesn't just hurt the people who are directly involved - that weakens our communities, that affects our economy. [00:29:24] Heather Weiner: And it actually affects the tax payers, because the tax payers - we as tax payers are responsible through Medicaid. We pay Apple Health, DSHS - we pay for this support. Either we pay for it for others, or we pay for it for ourselves - and that is what we're trying to do - is to shift that from being a Medicaid burden where people have to go into poverty, to where people have access to this. [00:29:48] Crystal Fincher: Yes. [00:29:49] Heather Weiner: Now - [00:29:49] Crystal Fincher: So the need to fix it is there? [00:29:51] Heather Weiner: Yes. [00:29:51] Crystal Fincher: The challenge is as soon as they made this an opt-out situation. [00:29:55] Heather Weiner: Yeah. [00:29:56] Crystal Fincher: Insurance works because everyone pays in and then it takes care of the people who need it, but it takes everyone paying in in the first place. Otherwise it is untenable for a variety of situations. We went through this whole discussion with Obamacare - we understand how this works, we understand the necessity of it - and there are also a billion court challenges against it that were unsuccessful because this is how this works in society and it is beneficial for us all. [00:30:28] Heather Weiner: Right. You are 100% right. Everybody has to pay into it or else it doesn't work. [00:30:33] Crystal Fincher: Yes. And one, the policy choice to make it optional was a poor one, and really set this program up to fail - and all of the messaging against it that is disingenuous. And somehow as if it doesn't matter - and this messaging against it is, to be clear, funded by very conservative forces - big corporate forces who just want to maintain their ability to extract profits from people in healthcare crises. And in its current constitution, it's unworkable. It is a problem. [00:31:16] Heather Weiner: Yeah. [00:31:17] Crystal Fincher: And everyone has acknowledged that. There's a bipartisan acknowledgement that there is a problem. But I hope we also understand that there is an urgency to actually fix this problem and not just to sit there, as we heard so many people attempt to do in the healthcare conversations overall. Hey, everyone loves their insurance - when in fact no one loves dealing with insurance, right? And trying to paint the status quo as somehow okay, and that's why it's okay not to make any changes - when the status quo isn't working for anyone. We're having this conversation because the status quo is so incredibly broken. [00:31:54] Heather Weiner: And there's so many people who are going to be - we're going to see a 40% increase in 2025, 2026 - in our Medicaid rolls if we do not deal with this, because so many boomers are becoming older and are going to need help. And so that means they're going to be filing for Medicaid for Long-term care, and who's going to be paying for that? We the tax payers are, so this needs to be fixed quickly and not delayed too long, because those people are going to need help. [00:32:26] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. It has to be fixed. I just hope people see through all of the messaging of - everybody who is against everything just tries to call something a tax when - yes, we collectively pay for things that benefit us all, and it is much more expensive to not handle this in a way that reliably provides Long-term care for those who need it, and to try and place the burden on the individual. We've seen how poorly that has turned out with our healthcare system, we see how poorly it's turning out with the current way we handle Long-term care - and it's just unsustainable. That's the bottom line - what we're doing now is unsustainable. [00:33:07] Heather Weiner: Yeah. [00:33:07] Crystal Fincher: So I'm looking forward to a bipartisan fix to provide people with reliable, affordable Long-term care. [00:33:17] Heather Weiner: Me too. I am too, and I just think about this woman, Dani, who went in for routine surgery and came out paralyzed - and she and her husband have been financially really struggling to figure out how to get her some help. [00:33:30] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Absolutely. [00:33:30] Heather Weiner: And it could happen to you. It could happen to me. [00:33:31] Crystal Fincher: It can happen. It can and will happen to many, if not most of us, so we better prepare for it. It's coming and we better make it possible for people to prepare for it, and not have it so expensive that it's inaccessible to people, and then we force people into poverty to access any kind of care. [00:33:55] Heather Weiner: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:33:56] Crystal Fincher: It's bad. We've seen how bad that is in so many different scenarios. Let's not continue to go down this bad path. On a different subject, I just want to encourage everyone to get boosted, number one. But I also feel like we need to continue to have this conversation about the need for Paid Time Off for employees - especially wage based employees, service employees - to have time to deal with the side effects that are part of vaccinations. This is what happens. [00:34:28] Heather Weiner: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:34:30] Crystal Fincher: And as we see that we are so reliant on community vaccination and people getting this - that we have to understand that this - people are going to need a day or two to deal with their flu-like symptoms that result from the flu shot, from the Coronavirus booster, from all of these. And that people, when they're forced to make a choice between being able to come in for a shift and pay their rent, and somehow maybe fit in something that's going to make them sick, they're going to say look, my rent is coming whether or not I get boosted. I have to earn this money to pay my rent, to pay my bills. And we need to make sure that there is a way for them to continue to pay their bills and be healthy. And so that there is a responsibility that we all have to not just get boosted ourselves, but also to hold companies in our community responsible and accountable for allowing their employees to have time off to get this and to deal with this. I am saying this because I personally know a number of people, there have been a number of stories about people who really are looking at the choice between being able to work and earn money versus fitting in a booster shot. And we need to make this not a hard decision for someone. People shouldn't have to chose between their bills or their health. [00:36:04] Heather Weiner: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:36:07] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. It is a challenge. [00:36:12] Heather Weiner: Agreed. I'm looking at the time, my love. [00:36:14] Crystal Fincher: Yup, and we are there. I appreciate everyone listening today to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, December 17th. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. And our wonderful co-host today is Seattle political consultant extraordinaire, Heather Weiner. You can find Heather on Twitter @hlweiner. That's H-L-W-E-I-N-E-R. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered 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 to the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

John "Handsome Jack" Lovick - the world's preeminent collector of Asparagus Valley Cultural Society memorabilia - interviews the world's foremost authority on the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society about the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Penn, Goudeau, & Handsome Jack (John Lovick) bond over all things flying, from jet lagged souls to Ambien, hot air balloons, & skydiving Air Traffic Control. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bob Dylan vs show tunes, Matt's first hoverer, & driving the magic bus. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thursday, June 10 on Urban Forum Northwest on 1150 AM KKNW/www.1150kknw.com and on Alexa 2:00-3:00 pm (PDT) my scheduled guest for the hour are: *Washington State Representative John Lovick (D) 44th legislative district comments on the accomplishments this pass session and respond to the nation-wide voter suppression legislation being introduced. *Reverend Dr. Robert L. Jeffrey, Sr., Senior Pastor, New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, Founder, Black Dollars Day Task Force and the Clean Greens Farm and Market comments on the Grand Opening of the market. *Davies Chirwa, Founder of Channel A TV/DC Productions Media Group is one of the coordinators of the 10th Annual Kent Black Action Commission (KBAC) Juneteenth Celebration. *Ann Okwuwolu, Executive Director, It Takes A Village is coordinating the 5th Annual Juneteenth Celebration at Othello Park Saturday, Juneteenth 11:00 am-2:00 pm. Urban Forum Northwest streams live at www.1150kknw.com. vivid us at www.urbanforumnw.com for archived programs and relevant information. Like us on Facebook. Twitter@Eddie_Rye. /this program will also air on Saturday 7:00-8:00 am (PDT).

Thursday, June 10 on Urban Forum Northwest on 1150 AM KKNW/www.1150kknw.com and on Alexa 2:00-3:00 pm (PDT) my scheduled guest for the hour are: *Washington State Representative John Lovick (D) 44th legislative district comments on the accomplishments this pass session and respond to the nation-wide voter suppression legislation being introduced. *Reverend Dr. Robert L. Jeffrey, Sr., Senior Pastor, New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, Founder, Black Dollars Day Task Force and the Clean Greens Farm and Market comments on the Grand Opening of the market. *Davies Chirwa, Founder of Channel A TV/DC Productions Media Group is one of the coordinators of the 10th Annual Kent Black Action Commission (KBAC) Juneteenth Celebration. *Ann Okwuwolu, Executive Director, It Takes A Village is coordinating the 5th Annual Juneteenth Celebration at Othello Park Saturday, Juneteenth 11:00 am-2:00 pm. Urban Forum Northwest streams live at www.1150kknw.com. vivid us at www.urbanforumnw.com for archived programs and relevant information. Like us on Facebook. Twitter@Eddie_Rye. /this program will also air on Saturday 7:00-8:00 am (PDT).

Gregory Wilson is a two-time FISM award-winner with a score of best-selling instructional DVD's on the market.In 1998, he was also awarded "Most Creative Magician of the Year" by the International Brotherhood of Magicians.He has contributed almost 100 original effects to MAGIC, Genii, Linking Ring, M.U.M., Arcane, Penumbra, Magic Menu, Channel One, Vanish, Labyrinth, Magicseen and other magazines, as well as a full chapter in Paul Harris' The Art of Astonishment, a chapter in Harry Lorayne's Best of Friends 3, a chapter in John Lovick's Switch, and a chapter in the wildly popular Magic for Dummies. Just don't hold that last one against him! He has performed and lectured on 6 continents, in 47 countries and over 1,000 cities, giving him the experience to add to your own personal experience.In this interview Greg sits down and talks about his career in magic.  He speaks about performing magic, creating products and the highs and lows of his career.  He gives a lot of advice on how to get ahead in magic, performing close up magic working hard and being successful.Greg also performs some amazing magic which will blow your mind!  He also showcases a brand new trick which will be dropping any week now on his website the secret source.  This trick is called Holy Smoke and on the video he performs the routine and explains why it is so good!This interview is incredible. It should be required viewing for every magician. 

Feliks Banel looks into Seattle's hockey future via Vancouver's hockey history // Chris Sullivan on Boeing closing its Seattle R&D facility // Hanna Scott on the new WA COVID roadmap // Dose of Kindness -- giving back to a generous preschool director // Gee Scott on Rev. Raphael Warnock's win // Hanna Scott with state Rep. John Lovick on proposed police reform legislation See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Harrison interviews Rob Zabrecky and finds out how his strange childhood disease had an even stranger cure, how going from front man of Possum Dixon to magic is the most "punk rock" thing he's ever done, how a poster for his magic show ended up in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," and why working on your act should lead to "art tears."With special guests John Lovick and David Kovac.Presented by the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Josh and Jay interview John Lovick AKA Handsome Jack

Today, we present our conversation with 44th LD representative John Lovick. In a recent op-ed for the Everett Herald in response to the murder of George Floyd, Rep. Lovick shares his perspective as someone who has both grown up Black in America, and who has served in law enforcement for many years. We also talk about the work he's done at the legislative level to increase police accountability here in Washington. This is excerpted from a town hall recorded on Tuesday with legislative candidates from the 44th legislative district. Links: Rep. John Lovick: www.reelectjohnlovick.org/ His op-ed in the Everett Herald: www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-…brought-to-mind/

As part of our town hall series in partnership with the Washington Indivisible Network and Indivisible Tacoma, we present three Democratic candidates for the state legislature from the 44th LD, which includes Snohomish, Mill Creek, Lake Stevens, and Marysville. Join us for a conversation with Representative John Lovick, April Berg, and Anne Anderson, recorded live on the evening of Tuesday, July 16th. Links: Rep. John Lovick: https://www.reelectjohnlovick.org/ April Berg: https://www.aprilberg.com/ Anne Anderson: https://www.friendsofanneanderson.com/ Rep. John Lovick's op ed in the Everett Herald: https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-what-526-horrible-seconds-of-video-brought-to-mind/ April Berg's op ed in the Everett Herald: https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/commentary-lets-set-a-few-ground-rules-as-we-talk-about-race/

State Rep. John Lovick spent more than 30 years in uniform with the Washington State Patrol. He was the Snohomish County sheriff and then the county executive. He's also Black, and he grew up in Louisiana in the 1950s and 60s. And he’s been watching and listening to the chants and the voices and the protests we've seen in Washington state and around the country over the last several days. He told KNKX All Things Considered host Ed Ronco that he still believes that America’s soul can be redeemed. Hear an extended version of their conversation, below.

John Lovick is my guest today. We talk about what a director brings to a magic performance, what good magic looks like, his Penn and Teller memorabilia collection, why being limited by a character is good for creativity and The Magic Castle.

It’s a little over a month into the new year, how are your resolutions going? We’re here to give you a well timed push back onto your path. Shezam theme / Intro 0:00:00 Lindsay Benner 0:01:20 John Lovick 0:06:06 Stephen Bargatze 0:07:59 Lili VonSchtupp 0:12:43 Max Maven 0:17:37 Shezam’s Motivation 0:20:36 Shezam theme / SAM… Continue reading 047 – Get Motivated – Special Episode

It’s a little over a month into the new year, how are your resolutions going? We’re here to give you a well timed push back onto your path. Shezam theme / Intro 0:00:00 Lindsay Benner 0:01:20 John Lovick 0:06:06 Stephen Bargatze 0:07:59 Lili VonSchtupp 0:12:43 Max Maven 0:17:37 Shezam’s Motivation 0:20:36 Shezam theme / SAM… Continue reading 047 – Get Motivated – Special Episode

We got to visit today with Rep. John Lovick, the 44th-district Democrat who serves as Speaker Pro Tem in the state House of Representatives. He was a state patrol office for more than 30 years, a state representative for nine, a county sheriff, a county executive, and then a state representative again. We talk about that and more in today's Capitol Ideas.

John Lovick nos ofrece un método para conocernos mejor mágicamente que servirá para comprender mejor lo que hacemos y lo que debemos hacer para mejorar. Vídeo en: https://youtu.be/KFxX9RZUuaA magiaestudio.com

Pastor Dan Kellogg carries on with our series called Quandary:Dilemmas in life. This week, Dan and our special guest Sheriff John Lovick, talked about difficult people in our lives. Join us for this great message about how to deal with the difficult people in our lives. Recorded 10-17-2010

In this podcast Jonathan Bayme and Dave Buck hosted Magic-Con's second podcast with two very special guests, John Lovick and Eric Mead. Dave talks further about what Magic-Con is and who it’s for and ended with a few details about the event including when registration will go on sale. Also in the podcast, John Lovick and Eric Mead discuss the importance of a serious conference for magicians and why the goal of Magic-Con is important. Eric also provides some valuable feedback for the younger generation of magicians and hints to what he might be talking about. It’s an insightful discussion and just a tease to what you can expect at Magic-Con.