Podcasts about king county executive dow constantine

Matt Markovich - Spinning the wheel of Legislative Lunacy // House Transportation Tax Proposals // Tara Simmons Protests // Guest: John Wilson - King County Assessor // King County Executive Dow Constantine tapped as Sound Transit CEO with up to $650K salary // The Hands Off 2025 Protests planned for April 5th 

(The Center Square) – The Seattle area's public transit agency is keeping candidate details confidential amid its search for its next permanent CEO, but transit advocates are calling for a transparent and public-involved process. Sound Transit narrowed down its list of candidates for the CEO position to five. However, details about most of the candidates have remained undisclosed from the public.The lone exception is King County Executive Dow Constantine, who also serves as a board member for Sound Transit. During the Sound Transit Executive Special Meeting, Constantine confirmed he is pursuing the CEO position as he is finishing up his fourth term as county lead and not running for reelection this year.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxx Read more: https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/article_905b8246-ee48-11ef-9261-73ebf794fc1c.html

Feliks Banel's guests on this live broadcast of CASCADE OF HISTORY include roving correspondent Ken Zick LIVE from the historic Rancho Super Car Wash (aka "Elephant Car Wash") in Rancho Mirage, California; railfan Dan Bolyard of Coulee City, Washington on tracking down a trackside photo of his younger self from more than 40 years ago; Cindy Staats, VP of Marketing for Shakey's USA on the history of that pizza chain (whose Renton, WA location closed last week); and King County Executive Dow Constantine's remembrance of filmmaker/Twin Peaks co-creator David Lynch. We also listened to Paul Robeson's 1952 Peace Arch concert recording of "Joe Hill." This LIVE broadcast of CASCADE OF HISTORY was originally presented at 8pm Pacific Standard Time on Sunday, January 26, 2025 via SPACE 101.1 FM and streaming live via space101fm.org at historic Magnuson Park - formerly Sand Point Naval Air Station - on the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle.

On this bonus episode of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel speaks with King County Executive Dow Constantine about a lunch Executive Constantine had with the filmmaker and “Twin Peaks” co-creator David Lynch, and reflects on Lynch's legacy in Snoqualmie, North Bend, King County and the Pacific Northwest. Lynch passed away last week at age 78. CASCADE OF HISTORY is broadcast LIVE most Sunday nights at 8pm Pacific Standard Time via SPACE 101.1 FM and streaming live via space101fm.org. The radio station is located at historic Magnuson Park - formerly Sand Point Naval Air Station - on the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle. Subscribe to the CASCADE OF HISTORY podcast via most podcast platforms.

Around 3:00am today, a King County Metro driver was fatally stabbed near the 4100 block of University Way in Seattle’s U-District. At a press conference this morning, King County Executive Dow Constantine said that the loss is being felt by everyone in county transit. "We are not always able to keep what's happening out on the streets away from the transit that operates on those streets," said Constantine. "We are doing everything that we can, and will continue to ramp up our efforts, to make sure that transit is safe for everyone. Including, especially, for our brave operators who are out on the streets every day." Greg Woodfill is the local president of the Amalgamated Transit Union #587. He said he’d like to see more regional resources dedicated to transit safety. "I don't have all the answers. This is a difficult, societal problem. What I know is that we're not doing enough," said Woodfill. "This is bigger than Metro, this is bigger than Seattle, this is the whole community that we serve." The attack comes just a couple days after Metro cut service to a cluster of stops around 12th Avenue South and South Jackson Street in the Chinatown International District because of ongoing “safety concerns.” For the latest, Soundside was joined by KUOW reporter Ann Dornfeld, who attended a press conference with transit and public officials in Tukwila this morning. Guests: Ann Dornfeld, reporter on the KUOW investigations team. Related links: KUOW - King County Metro bus driver killed in fatal U District stabbing King County Metro cites safety in closing Little Saigon bus stops | The Seattle Times Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The federal government has the authority to deport foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally over the objection of local authorities, a panel of three judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled. The 29-page ruling was written by Judge Daniel Bress, with judges Michael Hawkins and Richard Clinton concurring. At issue is an April 2019 executive order issued by King County Executive Dow Constantine, which directed county officials to prohibit fixed base operators on a county airfield near Seattle from servicing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flights used to deport illegal foreign nationals. Constantine's order prohibited King County International Airport from supporting “the transportation and deportation of immigration detainees in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, either traveling within or arriving or departing the United States or its territories.”

After 4 terms, King County Executive Dow Constantine is not running for reelection. With a 150 million dollar budget problem, a housing crisis, and criminal justice reform facing the county…..who would want the top spot anyway? KUOW Politics Reporter Scott Greenstone interviewed the candidates eyeing the job. He'll break it all down. We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Seattle Now in your feed. Got questions about local news or story ideas to share? We want to hear from you! Email us at seattlenow@kuow.org, leave us a voicemail at (206) 616-6746 or leave us feedback online.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've gotten two major announcements from local politicos: First, Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales has announced she's resigning from her seat on the council come January.Morales was re-elected this year, and is one of the two remaining incumbents of the 2020 council, which pushed for more progressive policies like police reform.What's behind the toxic and “harmful” atmosphere within the council Morales alleges, and how did it possibly impact her ability to pass legislation?And, we'll discuss King County Executive Dow Constantine's decision to not run for reelection next year. Host Scott Greenstone, political consultant Sandeep Kaushik, and PubliCola editor and publisher Erica Barnett hash it out on this week's Sound Politics.Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundpoliticsnotes.Sound Politics is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. Our editor is Gabe Spitzer. Our producer this week is Noel Gasca. Our host is Scott Greenstone.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why is King County's longest-serving executive in the modern era not running again? Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and King County Executive Dow Constantine discuss his next career moves, decisions he wishes he would have made 15 years ago when he began as the county's leader, Sound Transit, and the King County Homelessness Authority, too. Also featuring questions from show patrons! If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon.Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies - The Beltway BriefingListen for of-the-moment insider insights, framed by the rapidly changing social and...

King County Executive Dow Constantine has announced his plan to step down at the end of next year. We take a closer look at the move and the emerging tension between the centrist Seattle City Council and King County government, which has moved further left. Erica highlights the struggle in this recent story about a city council proposal to turn a sobering center into "a secure facility for people arrested for public drug use and possession." King County's not interested.  We also debate and discuss what prompted Constantine to make the move after serving in the role since the Mike McGinn era, Constantine's legacy, and who will replace him.  Plus, Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore's proposal to tax the rich, and why it's destined to fail.  Our editor is Quinn Waller.  Send us a textThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

What’s Trending: Seattle parents are trying to recall the Seattle Public Schools president over potential school closures in the district. Matt Gaetz made another surprising cabinet pick today by nominating Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. // Big Local: Two Lacey parents are facing murder charges for allegedly trying to kill their daughter in an “honor killing.” King County Executive Dow Constantine announced he will not run for reelection next year. Due to mandates from Major League Baseball, the City of Everett must either renovate the Aquasox baseball stadium or build a new one. If they don’t, they will lose the team. // A TikTok food critic reviewed restaurants in Seattle.

5pm: King County Executive Dow Constantine decides not to run for reelection in 2025 // John’s Moving Story About Empathy from a Union Gospel Mission Ride-Along // Dissecting Kamala Harris’ loss and the death of mainstream media // Letters

Members of the King County Council have moved to officially say the county's youth jail should remain open. The council voted last week eight-to-zero in favor of a non-binding resolution to declare its support for keeping the Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center in operation – with some improvements.   The move comes just over four years after King County Executive Dow Constantine pledged to shutter the facility by 2025 It was a promise made during the summer of George Floyd racial justice protests. At the time – Constantine said his goal was “shifting public dollars away from systems that are rooted in oppression.”  And he predicted that, “phasing out centralized youth detention is no longer a goal in the far distance.” But since then, the goal has been getting farther down the road. Earlier this year, the timeline for closing the jail was pushed out to 2028 at the recommendation of an advisory committee of community partners. And now, the county appears to be indefinitely delaying that push.  Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.    Guests: Tascha R. Johnson, Associate Executive Director of Choose 180 - a non-profit dedicated to transforming the juvenile justice system King County Councilmember (District 9) Reagan Dunn   Relevant Links: Youth jail should be improved, not closed, King County Council votes - KUOW See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What’s Trending: Bob Ferguson is gaslighting all of us ahead of tomorrow’s primary by trying to erase his record. The stock market experienced a significant dropping, sparking concerns that the U.S. economy may be headed toward a recession. // Kamala Harris is on the verge of picking her VP candidate and it appears the front runners are Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Governor // King County Executive Dow Constantine was allegedly seen waiting tables at a West Seattle restaurant.

An exclusive report on changes within a Washington state gender clinic. King County Executive Dow Constantine should step down. The devastating death of 13-year-old Matthew Stavkovy. “White-Presenting” Progressive lawmaker complains she was a victim of racism. Kamala Harris' baffling border ad. 

Former Seattle PD chief comes out as gay amid accusations from female officers. King County Executive Dow Constantine lashes out at Brandi as he contradicts his own argument on homelessness. Appellate court ruling could make it impossible for landlords to avoid drawn-out eviction proceedings. The White House wants you to question reality. 

Thursday, May 16 on Urban Forum Northwest : *Congressman Hank Johnson (D) GA-04 ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee of Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet comments on the launch of Court Reform Now Task Force. He's concerned with the Supreme Court ideology catering to the wealthy and privileged while subtracting rights from everyone else. *King County Executive Dow Constantine plans on signing the legislation passed my the legislation passed by the King County Council that would raise the minimum wage to $20.29 an hour for workers in unincorporated areas working at the largest businesses. *DeeShaa Connor, Washington State Department of Health and W. Larry Williams, Founder and Chairman, The Anchor Group USA invites you to the Sunday, May 19 "No Menthol Sunday". Menthol tobacco is one of the leading causes of death for African Americans. The General Baptist Convention Northwest is a partner in this endeavor. *Seattle Port Commissioner Fred Felleman will talk about how the coalition of the port and communities near the airport and the Congressional Delegation were able to secure the FAA Reauthorization Bill that will drastically improve the quality of life, eliminate some pollution, address aircraft emissions, and FAA noise mitigation. *Carmelle Bias, Founder, Womens Business Expo Group

Thursday, May 16 on Urban Forum Northwest :*Congressman Hank Johnson (D) GA-04 ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee of Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet comments on the launch of Court Reform Now Task Force. He's concerned with the Supreme Court ideology catering to the wealthy and privileged while subtracting rights from everyone else.*King County Executive Dow Constantine plans on signing the legislation passed my the legislation passed by the King County Council that would raise the minimum wage to $20.29 an hour for workers in unincorporated areas working at the largest businesses.*DeeShaa Connor, Washington State Department of Health and W. Larry Williams, Founder and Chairman, The Anchor Group USA invites you to the Sunday, May 19 "No Menthol Sunday". Menthol tobacco is one of the leading causes of death for African Americans. The General BaptistConvention Northwest is a partner in this endeavor.*Seattle Port Commissioner Fred Felleman will talk about how the coalition of the port and communities near the airport and the Congressional Delegation were able to secure the FAA Reauthorization Bill that will drastically improve the quality of life, eliminate some pollution, address aircraft emissions, and FAA noise mitigation.*Carmelle Bias, Founder, Womens Business Expo Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thursday, May 16 on Urban Forum Northwest : *Congressman Hank Johnson (D) GA-04 ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee of Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet comments on the launch of Court Reform Now Task Force. He's concerned with the Supreme Court ideology catering to the wealthy and privileged while subtracting rights from everyone else. *King County Executive Dow Constantine plans on signing the legislation passed my the legislation passed by the King County Council that would raise the minimum wage to $20.29 an hour for workers in unincorporated areas working at the largest businesses. *DeeShaa Connor, Washington State Department of Health and W. Larry Williams, Founder and Chairman, The Anchor Group USA invites you to the Sunday, May 19 "No Menthol Sunday". Menthol tobacco is one of the leading causes of death for African Americans. The General Baptist Convention Northwest is a partner in this endeavor. *Seattle Port Commissioner Fred Felleman will talk about how the coalition of the port and communities near the airport and the Congressional Delegation were able to secure the FAA Reauthorization Bill that will drastically improve the quality of life, eliminate some pollution, address aircraft emissions, and FAA noise mitigation. *Carmelle Bias, Founder, Womens Business Expo Group

In 2020, amid racial justice protests, King County Executive Dow Constantine vowed to close a newly-built youth detention facility in the next five years. A new county audit of the facility, called the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center, points out the complications of actually accomplishing Constantine's goal.

What’s Trending: 9 juveniles were arrested in Kirkland for carjacking. Guest: Mark Mullet is claiming that the Washington Democrat primary is rigged in favor of Bob Ferguson. // Big Local: City Leaders in Bellevue are calling out the King County Sheriff and King County Executive Dow Constantine to resolve the dispute over the city’s camping ban. Gig Harbor is facing a budget shortfall after voters rejected a property tax increase. // A California teen blasted the state’s education system in a Fox News interview.  

What’s Trending: A Seattle homeless man, Mike, reportedly died in a fire 2 days after expressing in an interview that he would never move back indoors, 2 homicides that happened within hours are being investigated by the sheriff's office. Congress is considering a ban on Tiktok // LongForm: GUEST: Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling rips into King County Executive Dow Constantine and Sheriff Patti Cole Tindall’s refusal to enforce his city’s homeless encampment ban. // The Quick Hit:  AI company, ZeroEyes, is trying to prevent school shootings with weapon detection software.

In an interview with the Hacks & Wonks podcast, King County Executive Dow Constantine outlined the county's approach to addressing the region's homelessness crisis - a crisis he says fundamentally stems from a lack of affordable housing. "The reason people don't have housing is because they can't afford housing," Constantine said. "It's a tremendously bad, unfortunate side effect of the economic story that we've seen unfold here over the last 20 years." Constantine stressed that the root cause of homelessness is people not being able to afford a place to live amid soaring housing costs. Other factors, like addiction, have been shown to be made worse by homelessness, but are not the root cause of it. "If you say they're not housed because they're addicted, that is simply saying that we're not providing the appropriate service," he stated. The county has taken a regional approach by partnering with cities through initiatives like the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to fund services and shelters. A key effort is the Health Through Housing program, which has acquired over 1,200 units by purchasing and converting former hotels and motels. "We had the University of Washington come in and study [this approach]...what we were anecdotally observing was absolutely true - that this made an enormous difference in people's lives," Constantine said. "About 95% of people who come into this permanent supportive housing are successful, meaning that they don't end up back in homelessness." However, the county has faced challenges getting some cities like Burien to site shelters and affordable housing projects amid pushback from opposed residents. Constantine urged residents and elected officials to see this as a shared crisis requiring regional cooperation. "For elected officials: you have to develop a spine...your jurisdiction has to do its part of the solution," he stated. "For residents: everything will work better when we're all participating and accommodating folks in your community." Looking ahead, Constantine said state legislative action is needed to reform Washington's "woefully inadequate" tax system that leaves cities and counties underfunded for affordable housing and services. "We have to adopt a mentality that we're all in this together, and that this is a shared challenge, and the solutions have to be shared," he concluded.   Resources King County Regional Homelessness Authority   Health Through Housing: A Regional Approach to Address Chronic Homelessness   “Kenmore's canceled affordable housing project draws sharp criticism” by Anna Patrick from The Seattle Times   “Redmond Swoops In To Save Kenmore's Cancelled Low-Income Housing Project” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   “A Seattle suburb known for affordability becomes example of U.S. debate on homelessness” by Anna Patrick from The Seattle Times   “King County will have to close health clinics without state help, Constantine says” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times   “King County allocates $3 million to fund 100 hotel rooms for asylum-seekers” by Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks from The Seattle Times   “King County Announces $1 Million in Additional Support for Asylees and Refugees in Tukwila” by Lauryn Bray from South Seattle Emerald   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Well, today I'm very thrilled to be welcoming King County Executive Dow Constantine to the program. Welcome. [00:01:00] Executive Dow Constantine: Thanks for having me. [00:01:01] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for coming. And thank you for having a conversation that I think is very important - one that is on the forefront of many people's minds, that we see as we go about our daily lives, and unfortunately some of us have to experience - and that is dealing with homelessness, and the role that the county is playing in addressing homelessness in our region. Just starting out, what has been your approach to addressing our homelessness crisis, and why is it so important for the county to be involved? [00:01:33] Executive Dow Constantine: So a brief but really complex question. It is important to us because the reason our government exists is to seek to make this a welcoming community where every person has the opportunity to thrive. And it is tremendously difficult to thrive if you don't have a safe, secure place to call home. The county has a wildly complex system of governance, including local governance - so, there is one county government, there are 39 city governments, there are myriad special districts. And of course, there's the state and much more. And it is often difficult to figure out who's on first - who is in charge of which aspect of this complicated picture of housing and homelessness. So we have taken on the role of trying to create partnerships to bring together all of these jurisdictions, regardless of their formal responsibilities or authorities to stitch together a complete approach to helping our shared constituency - those folks who are unable to secure housing. The county is Public Health - the county has some considerable region-wide human services programs that we have constructed, notwithstanding the fact that we're only technically responsible for those programs in the unincorporated area of 250,000 people. The county has a lot of capacity that some of the smaller cities don't have. And so in many cases, sort of by default, we've stepped in to try to bring together all of the parties. Seattle has its own capacity - Seattle's a big city with an appropriately sized government that has experts, it has the capacity to go out and seek funding, to go out and hire experts and do the work. So we work in partnership with them, but we also try to help the smaller cities that don't have that capacity be able to step up and do the work for their constituents. And we can't do it alone. And all of that is to say that the county is not the be-all and end-all in this arena, so we sought to create a regional authority where we could unite, bring together all of the contracting that governments were doing for outside entities to provide services to the people. And that was really the motivation for starting the effort on the Regional Homeless Authority. [00:03:54] Crystal Fincher: And I wanted to talk about that a bit because I think people wonder - we've heard a number of officials from cities around the area, including Seattle, talk about how important this is to address regionally - that it's hard to address within each silo of each jurisdiction, and so a regional solution is needed. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority seemed to be an answer to that. But it's unclear sometimes what is within the scope of the authority, and what the county is doing, what cities are doing. So speaking from the county - where do you overlap, or where do you work with the KCRHA, and where do you operate independently? [00:04:34] Executive Dow Constantine: So I'm going to oversimplify in order to hopefully make it clear. But we had a lot of places where we're entering into contracts with nonprofits to go out on the streets and provide services. And then the City of Seattle had a lot of contracts, often with the same nonprofits. And those contracts were on different schedules, and had different requirements, and required a lot of paperwork by those nonprofits - things that were not contributing to actually getting people off the street. And so we decided to try to take all of that and put it into a single entity with a single set of processes - and the city and the county contributed staff who had been doing that work in our respective governments. The homeless authority is in charge of helping people who are on the streets - not through homeless authority employees providing direct services, but by contracting with those folks who can help people on the streets - getting people into shelter, getting people into housing, getting people into the services they need to be able to stabilize their lives and exercise the kind of control over their lives they want to have and that they used to have. The authority is not in charge of housing - of building housing, of creating housing stock. And that has been a source of considerable confusion over time - is to come back to the obvious basic issue that people are homeless because they don't have housing, they can't afford housing. And therefore, the authority should be building housing - no, that is not their job. That is our job, the city's, various cities' jobs. It is the housing authorities' jobs, it is the state's job. And keeping clarity about that and keeping the authority focused on the mission of contracting for direct services to folks on the street is important in order for all of us to be more effective. [00:06:14] Crystal Fincher: Got it. So as we get into talking more about what's happening in specific areas, I want to talk a little bit about what you just brought up - that homelessness is primarily a problem of housing, people not having housing. However, we hear people around the region - some saying, This is really an issue of addiction, this is an issue of criminality. It's not a housing issue. These are people who sometimes want to be out on the streets and don't want to have housing and don't want to have jobs - that kind of narrative. What do you think of that, and what is your approach to the issue of homelessness and what it's comprised of? [00:06:58] Executive Dow Constantine: So the reason people don't have housing is because they can't afford housing. They may have been evicted from housing for the inability to pay rent or lost their home because they couldn't pay their mortgage. They may have lost their housing because of domestic violence or because they were acting out in some way because they have an untreated or undertreated behavioral health challenge. But fundamentally, it's because people can't afford housing. There is too much money chasing too little housing in our region. And that is a tremendously bad, unfortunate side effect of the economic story that we've seen unfold here over the last 20 years - where there's just so much more money being paid to so many more people and then a bunch of people being left behind. So if you say - Well, they're not housed because they're addicted or they're not housed because they have an untreated mental health problem - that is simply saying that we're not providing the appropriate service in order for them to be able to exercise that authority over their own lives, to be able to earn money, and be able to get the housing they need. It also means that we have an affirmative responsibility to deal with the housing imbalance so that there is housing for people to rent at wages you can afford. It is a dodge simply to try to blame the victim all the time here. People want to say - Well, that would never happen to me because I'm a responsible person. I would never have a drug addiction. I would never get into a bad relationship. I would never lose my job - all those sorts of things. But that can happen to anybody, and we have to view every single person on the streets as though they are our brother or sister, or our daughter or son. And if we do that, then we will see our obligation to help them - not by simply being paternalistic toward them, but rather offering them the help they need to exercise agency - to be able to do what it is they want to do, which is live with the dignity and security. And to reconnect with their families and friends and peers. You go talk with folks who are living in homeless encampments - they are mostly from around here and they mostly really long to be able to simply be accepted in their community again, to be able to see their kids, to be able to be seen in the community as a person who is worthy of respect, and to carry themselves with dignity. And depriving them of that is just utterly unacceptable and inconsistent with who we want to be. [00:09:29] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now, one of the things that we've learned over the past several years - and that the county has actually helped to operationalize - is the type of shelter, the type of housing that is most helpful. We've seen a move away from congregate housing to individual rooms where people can feel secure, can lock a door, and can really start to stabilize. Why has that been so important and how has the county been able to implement that? [00:09:58] Executive Dow Constantine: Well, sometimes congregate shelter - just an emergency shelter overnight - is essential. You're out on the street - it's unsafe either because of the weather or some other factor and you need to get inside. But being brought inside, given a mat on the floor, and then being kicked out with all your stuff at 7 in the morning is not a prescription for long-term progress. You just keep cycling through, you can never get your feet under you, you can never get stabilized, you can never get on track to deal with whatever underlying challenges you might have, or the simple act of getting cleaned up and applying for a job and starting to make money again. So when COVID started, we started moving people from congregate shelters into individual hotel rooms we had rented - it became clear that those people, in addition to avoiding getting COVID, were getting better in a whole lot of other ways. That having a door on the room with a lock on it, the ability to have their stuff be safe, the ability to get a full night's sleep, to have a bathroom to use when you wanted to started to get people calmed down to reduce the trauma and increase their ability to accept the other help that was available. And that help might be behavioral health treatment, that help might be job counseling, that help might be a whole range of things that could offer people a path back to the lives that they lived and that they want to live. And we had the University of Washington come in and study the hotel that we had in Renton, where we had moved many, many people who had been in congregate shelters, cycling in and out every day. And the university quickly identified that what we were anecdotally observing was absolutely true - that this made an enormous difference in people's lives. It was not their permanent home. It was not what they ultimately wanted for themselves. But the step up to a room of your own made a huge difference in their ability to start taking stock of the rest of their lives and being open to accepting the other help that was available. And so we really pursued that, and we've now purchased 1,200+ units through our Health Through Housing Initiative. We just opened a facility in Auburn - it's great, it's an old hotel, not that old - that folks are now moving into with supports on-site. And we're soon opening one in Redmond. And just as we found in the original Renton hotel, about 95% of people who come into this permanent supportive housing are successful, meaning that they don't end up back in homelessness. Some of them spend a lot of time in permanent supportive housing - some of them ultimately move into a place that was purpose-built for that - but a lot of folks move on to a job and subsidized, affordable housing, and ultimately to reclaiming their lives. And that is what we want. We want to prevent people from coming into homelessness, and we want to offer them the supports they need to exit homelessness. [00:12:55] Crystal Fincher: I want to talk about the Health Through Housing initiative a little bit more because it does seem to be a model that is working. And one of the things that seems to be tough, that a lot of areas are having challenges with, is how to work between jurisdictions - how a county can work with a city, its elected officials and leaders, be responsive to the local needs and residents and their concerns, and the need to house people there locally, and balancing sometimes differing perspectives and needs there. How have you worked through that process with cities, and what advice would you give to other counties in the same position and cities when it comes to working with the county? [00:13:41] Executive Dow Constantine: Well - how have we worked through it? Usually with great patience. We don't have land use authority inside of cities. We don't have permitting authority inside of cities. Even if we're bringing the resources, we have to work with those cities to get a place sited. What we offer to do is work with them to choose the operator so that the nonprofit operating it is one that the city's comfortable with and to have some percentage of the folks moving in be people who've been homeless in the local community - and I think those are all reasonable accommodations. And some cities have been quite successful - their leaders have stood up and worked with skeptics in their community in order to get sites up and running. Other cities have been less successful where the opponents of doing anything have ultimately kept them from taking action and moving forward. We're getting more and more success as people see that when these facilities open, they are not a blight, but a blessing - that they are able to get people off their streets locally and to help folks from around the region get their lives back. And I will say that the system we have where every local community essentially gets to approve or veto the housing that we collectively need is an awfully tough environment in which to solve a problem of this scale. The legislature keeps taking measured actions to require more of local jurisdictions, to say - No, you really do need to site these places. You really do need to include more affordable housing. You really need to include more housing generally. And in general, those measures have been successful. But there are still some communities that are being tugged back and forth by folks who just don't want to be part of the solution. We had a big challenge - permanent supportive housing issue in Kenmore, where Plymouth Housing had been working on a project in cooperation with the city for years, and there was an election and then the council majority changed - and suddenly they disapproved the permit. That building now, I'm pleased to say, is going to be sited instead in Redmond. And the city of Redmond stepped up and said - This is not okay. We want to help those who are in need in our region of the county. And they've voted to proceed, and they're moving forward pretty quickly on identifying a site and getting the funding to help Plymouth Housing build that building. [00:16:04] Crystal Fincher: Now, you did mention the legislature taking some actions to help make it easier to address this housing affordability, housing quantity, homelessness crisis. Is there any legislation that you're tracking right now that you think would be very helpful moving forward? [00:16:23] Executive Dow Constantine: I can't speak to any specific legislation this year. There was a bill introduced quite late, as I understand it, that would require cities to accommodate facilities like the Plymouth Housing facility we just discussed. But in general, the legislature and the county have multiple approaches - there's subsidy and then there's leverage, where they have essentially regulation that says in order to receive our funding for other things, you have to accommodate a certain amount of housing. And I do think that our cities more and more are getting with the program - that they are each having growing pains - they're each having a struggle between those who don't want anything to change and those who realize that the future is coming, whether you prepare for it or not. And as they see success in their neighboring cities, they realize that maybe a little bit of change is not the end of the world. So I'm encouraged about it. If I could double back to the Regional Homeless Authority, the idea there was to bring together King County and Seattle - where the big player is issuing contracts locally - and our other 38 cities, and the people with lived experience to inform the work we're doing. And that has been a difficult beginning - trying to get everybody to work in sync. It's getting better - we've got a new interim executive director who I think is going to be able to continue to build those relationships. We do definitely need all of the formerly known as suburban cities, all of the non-Seattle cities - many of them are not very suburban at all anymore - to participate at the appropriate scale for their city and participate in funding, participate in programming, participate in siting buildings - both affordable housing and supportive housing. And as we do that, we have the capacity in a county of 2.3 million people - one of the economic centers of the country - to give everybody a safe place to live and the supports they need to get moving again. But it needs to be an all-hands effort. It can't just be a few governments and our nonprofit partners. [00:18:28] Crystal Fincher: When you talk about it needing to be an all-hands effort, one thing that I think a number of people noticed - I certainly noticed - was King County playing an active role in saying, The solution in different cities may look different in each individual city. And there are multiple ways to address this, individual ways may be right or not right for each city. But cities have to act affirmatively - you need to do something to be part of the solution. And it seems like you, with the county and different departments in the county, stepped up when it came to the city of Burien, which has been toiling with this for quite a while - in not just how to address this, but even whether to address this. And stepping up and saying - Hey, you are using county resources, whether it be the sheriff, whether it be other things, and you're not going to be able to use these in ways that are consistent with the law and in ways that aren't working towards a solution. What was your approach to Burien and how did you work through that issue? [00:19:32] Executive Dow Constantine: First off, the Burien saga clearly illustrates a point that I'm always trying to make, which is that homelessness is not a downtown Seattle problem. Homelessness is an everywhere problem. It manifests differently, it's more visible in different places. You see it in Seattle in part because there aren't a lot of woods for people to camp in. And in part because this is where all the TV stations are, so whenever they want to film some salacious story about homelessness, they go out in the streets of Seattle. It's just easier than driving to Kent or Shoreline. I will say that Burien started out, I think, with pretty good expressed intentions around helping people who were showing up, sleeping on their streets. They got a lot of pushback when they started trying to figure out how to site a facility. And it became, as in Kenmore, an election issue where an organized group of naysayers was essentially saying - These people don't belong here. - and blaming the victim and refusing to acknowledge the basic obligation to provide people an alternative if you need them to go somewhere. You don't have to construct the perfect solution. You don't have to construct their forever home. But you can't go to somebody who's sleeping in the park or on the street and say, Leave. - without saying - To go over here, which is a place that's at least as good and safe, right? Because if you're just chasing people back and forth across the street, you're being cruel to them and you're achieving nothing. And Burien could not really get past that. We put a million dollars on the table and a whole bunch of new Pallet shelters - tiny homes that are manufactured here in the Puget Sound region. And just kind of an organized group of citizens kept the city council stymied for a long time and unable to identify a piece of city property to move people to. They had previously approved Downtown Emergency Service Center building with 95 units in Burien - and that is in fact opening this summer - so that preceded this whole controversy. And that's going to be a great thing because again, people are going to be inside and be getting the help they need. They're going to be countering the narrative that all of those folks on NextDoor have about their community. But ultimately, Burien came to terms with the need to do something real to fix this issue, and they are now fixing it. They've applied for some of the funding that King County's put on the table. They are working with others - I think the City of Seattle and Seattle City Light - on a site. And so they went through a lot of agony and I think probably a lot of electoral challenges, but ultimately they're going to get to a solution that's going to work for some of the folks who are homeless there. [00:22:08] Crystal Fincher: I also want to talk about how things look at this point in time and moving forward. Many cities, including the City of Seattle, including the county are looking forward and dealing with significant budget deficits. The City of Seattle has a $200 million-plus deficit coming up. A lot of cities are saying they're going to need to scale back on efforts in many areas. Some of the market forces, perhaps, that made it particularly advantageous a couple years ago to purchase hotels when costs were more attractive than they are now made it possible to do more. Looking forward, is it going to be harder to purchase these hotel sites or housing sites to build and to work with cities? How do you think this looks moving forward? [00:22:58] Executive Dow Constantine: The strategies change from time to time with market conditions, right? There was a moment when hotels were depressed because no one was traveling - it was a good time to go buy hotels. There will be opportunities now with, for example, the opening of many, many new light rail stations and light rail lines to paint on a broader canvas - to work to include affordable housing and even supportive housing and other facilities targeted to those who have been homeless in different station areas where everyone can have inexpensive access to all the opportunities the region offers. It's a different situation than we had four years ago, but it is still an opportunity. I will say that the reason that the City of Seattle, King County, and others are facing deficits is not because the economy is in the tank - it's going great. We're, again, one of the economic centers of the country. It's because the state has among the worst tax systems in the nation. And so the tax system is utterly misaligned with the economy and people are not paying based on their ability to pay. Some people pay a much higher percentage of their means - both income and wealth. Those are folks who have very little money who end up paying a lot more in sales tax as a percentage. Those are folks who own homes as their primary or only asset, where they're paying property taxes - if you have 100 times as much money, you don't have a home that's worth 100 times more. So if our measure of wealth is real property, it is a very inadequate and inaccurate measure of your ability to pay. So you probably can afford more than a person who is living on government assistance or living at poverty wages, but you're paying a heck of a lot more than someone who is legitimately wealthy. And there are a lot of folks who are legitimately wealthy in our community. The legislature needs to create a tax system where you're taxed based on what you earn, and what you have, and whatever proxies there are to allow us to understand the right mix of those two things - they need to adopt them. And then we will have adequate money to do what needs to be done so that every person can be successful and can contribute back to the community. Then we will all be better off when we have that kind of a community. In the meantime, we are making do with the woefully inadequate tools we have. And we're asking the legislature for help - they're in part failing and in part keeping hope alive - so we'll see how the session turns out. [00:25:29] Crystal Fincher: We will see how the session turns out. I completely am aligned with your assessment of why we are in the challenging position that we are financially as a region and hope that in November 2024, when some of these issues are on our ballot, people remember this and pay attention. Also, the biggest city in the county, Seattle, is facing a major budget deficit and does have some progressive funding options that have been recommended. Do you think the City should take action on some of those options? [00:26:02] Executive Dow Constantine: Yeah. I wouldn't presume to tell the mayor or the City what to do because that's just bad for business, but I - and by business, I mean our business working with the City. But I do think that the City of Seattle has a lot more options than we have. The counties do not have business occupation tax, counties do not have utility tax, counties do not have the authority to levy the kind of head tax or employee tax that the City has - although we did go to Olympia and ask for that with the cooperation of the major employers in the county, remember. And it was killed, not by the Republicans - though none of them were going to vote for it - but by the Democrats. So we would have had a relatively low but countywide employer tax, essentially, to pay for homelessness and housing services - and we did not get that. So cities have that organic authority, the county does not have the ability to do that. So the state of Washington is in charge of all local tax authority, and they have failed - under Republican and Democratic control - to come to terms with the fact that we have this terrible tax system and that it's particularly terrible for cities and counties, and particularly for counties. [00:27:13] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now, I want to talk about another area where the county is unique - and that is public health. The county is responsible for delivering so many healthcare services to communities, and it seems like this is a really important element of addressing our homelessness and housing crisis also. How have you been able to leverage that at the county? And looking forward, why is it so important to make sure that we are adequately funding and supporting healthcare at the county level? [00:27:48] Executive Dow Constantine: So public health is a county responsibility. We have had the City of Seattle sort of participating - they contribute about $15 million of our many hundreds of millions of dollars a year. But it's basically a county department, a county function. It is many things. It is epidemiology. And it is about, for example, pregnancy care and birth control. It is about so-called lifestyle issues, like trying to reduce diabetes population-wide, trying to reduce smoking population-wide, trying to deal with these population health issues that affect a lot of individuals and very much inequitably. And it's also about direct service to people. So it is about 70,000 people who get their healthcare at King County Public Health clinics. And maybe half of those people would not qualify for Medicaid because they may be here without documentation - they're not eligible for federal assistance, but we as a county provide that assistance because we don't think that a kid ought to not get healthcare because their parents happen not yet to be documented. Right now, our general fund has been subject to this 1% lid on the increase in aggregate property taxes for, I think, like 17 years now. And with inflation at 6%, 7%, whatever percent over the last few years, we have a huge problem in our general fund. And the one thing that is not mandatory - one major thing that is not required by the state - is providing that healthcare directly to residents. So we're looking at potentially having to close all of our public health clinics after this year if the legislature doesn't take action, which is absurd in one of the wealthiest regions in the country. But that is the grim reality. And so I've been in Olympia pushing them to recognize that reality and to provide us the local funding authority to be able to keep our healthcare going. Now, the way in which direct services are provided has evolved over the years - there are many community-based clinics, nonprofits, et cetera, providing healthcare. There are also an awful lot of people who are getting them directly from county-run clinics and that will continue to evolve. But the thing that's not going to change is there are going to be folks who need help from their local government in order to be able to get basic healthcare, and we desperately need to be able to continue to provide it. [00:30:15] Crystal Fincher: One issue that we've been seeing recently has been that of some refugees, who are fleeing unimaginable conditions elsewhere, arriving here not having housing and landing at one of a couple shelters - those shelters basically operating beyond their capacity now because of the demand - and the need to help house those people in some ways. We saw some of them being moved to hotels, and then questions about the funding for the hotels. Where does that situation stand? And how can help be provided moving forward? [00:30:55] Executive Dow Constantine: This is a problem that's manifesting in different ways all over the country. But the real focus there right now is a church in South King County that started off with a few people arriving, and then the word started to spread, and they continued to throw their doors open to folks arriving, and soon were overwhelmed. The county stepped in - this is like homelessness - nobody is specifically in charge of this except the federal government, right? So the county stepped in - we pulled some money that we had set aside for other purposes, I think for homelessness. And we got 300 people into a hotel with ongoing permanent funding so they would not become unhoused. And there was a community group that put a whole bunch of people in a different hotel and then didn't have any money to follow up and pay to keep them there, so then that was the precipitating crisis. We have been working with the state of Washington to see what the state can do. We've been talking with our federal partners, but of course they have 50 states and who knows who else talking with them about the crises that are happening in their communities. We as a nation have to come to terms with what is going to be the future reality, which is that a lot of people are going to be migrating to the United States from places that are war-torn, that are famine-ridden, and a lot of it is because of the changes in the global climate. And we're going to have to have an orderly, humane, and funded way to welcome those who are seeking asylum - and not just asylum, but a new life contributing to their new country. It is agonizing. During the Syrian crisis - when people were trying to bar refugees from our country, we went out and welcomed Syrian refugees here and made accommodation for them. During the Ukraine war - when that started, we opened up a hotel to accommodate refugees. Then when Afghanistan suddenly fell, we opened another hotel to accommodate Afghan refugees. And that is who we are as a community, and we do not have the capacity - we don't have the financial capacity - to be able to deal with this on our own. The United States government must act, and the refusal of Congress to step up to anything that is going to deprive them of a campaign issue in November is pretty exasperating. [00:33:13] Crystal Fincher: That it is. Finally, I'm wondering, from your perspective as someone who has helmed successful initiatives to get people housed, who's working with a lot of different localities - what are your top recommendations for elected officials who are trying to figure out how to navigate through this in a proactive way, and for residents of cities who aren't sure what to do, but know that something needs to happen? What would you recommend to both of those groups? [00:33:45] Executive Dow Constantine: Well, for all of us, we have to adopt a mentality that we're all in this together, and that this is a shared challenge, and the solutions have to be shared. For elected officials - You have to develop a spine. This is not about you going out and being a hero and solving the whole problem yourself, but your jurisdiction has to do its part of the solution. And that has to do with homelessness and accommodating those who've been on the streets. And it has to do with housing and providing housing for people of all incomes, including folks at the low end of the economic spectrum. And for residents - Everything will work better when we're all participating and accommodating folks in your community is not a negative thing. It's not a burden - it's an opportunity. Your children, the children of this community are the folks who are ending up homeless on the streets. Your children are the ones who are struggling to be able to afford to live in the neighborhood in which they grew up. So you making your community into a place that accommodates people of all economic circumstances is really preserving the ties that bind us together, preserving the social capital that makes us a better community. I would say that we have a lot of really good funded programs right now to be able to build that kind of affordable housing. We have a lot of really good programs to be able to build that supportive housing for those who've been homeless or who may be struggling. But we also have to get to the point where the actual market is working again and that people can make money building housing for other than the top of the market. And as long as it is the case that you can't afford to build workforce housing, then people at the workforce level are going to be pushing out the people who have less money than that, right? And I cannot emphasize enough that government is never going to be able to solve all of this simply by building public housing. It is going to have to be that, and incentives, and the market working, and much more. And then we will be able to get back to some equilibrium where every person is able to afford a safe, decent home - and in doing so, to be able to thrive and give back to their community. [00:36:06] Crystal Fincher: Okay, one small additional question - talking about that, I was just reminded that social housing has been voted on and passed by the residents of Seattle. There's going to be an initiative collecting signatures to fund that - do you think that's part of the solution when it comes to housing and homelessness? [00:36:25] Executive Dow Constantine: Yeah, I don't know for a fact. I'm intrigued by it and I want to better understand how that's going to work in the City of Seattle. But I do think that you just got to recognize that housing is - despite aspirations of some folks over the years - housing is mostly about a market like everything else. And the market's not working - the market is broken. And when the market's broken, it is the responsibility of the government to step in and fix it and to make the market work. And that means adding stock that would not be built by the market, that means providing either incentives or requirements for people to build for a broader range of incomes. And this is not rocket science - although rocket science is not actually that complicated - but this is not rocket science. We know how to do all of this and it is just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other until we get it done. [00:37:19] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much, King County Executive Dow Constantine, for helping us to understand the lay of the land here in King County and for helping to just blaze the path on getting people housed and on actual solutions here. Thank you so much. [00:37:36] Executive Dow Constantine: Thank you. [00:37:37] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this Election 2023 re-air, Crystal chats with Cydney Moore about her campaign for re-election to Burien City Council Position 2, accomplishments from her first term, and her consistent progressive track record. They then dig into the details of Burien government's recent non-handling of their unhoused population as sweep after sweep has disrupted and endangered lives, caused community division, and failed to solve anything. Highlighting the importance of upcoming elections, a 4-3 majority on the Burien City Council has been unwilling to accept an offer of help from King County and has instead focused on retaliation against those working on solutions. 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 Cydney Moore at @vote_cydney.   Cydney Moore Cydney Moore is a mother, activist, and elected representative with a long history of service to her community. Her background includes over a decade of experience in nonprofit leadership, and years of experience as a small business owner, a journalist covering politics, and as an advocate for social justice issues including housing for all, fair wages, women's rights, LGBTQIA2S+ rights, immigrant rights, ending the war on drugs, and more. She has worked on policy issues at the city, county, and state level, and currently holds office as a Burien City Councilmember. Cydney also serves on the board of 3 nonprofits (the Burien Arts Association, Tukwila Pantry food bank, and the Multi Service Center), and is on several regional boards and committees, including the Domestic Violence Initiative Regional Task Force. Her other experience includes acting as a Lead Organizer for ACLU Burien People Power, and volunteering for organizations like the Burien Severe Weather Shelter and Burien C.A.R.E.S. Animal Shelter.   Resources Campaign Website - Cydney Moore   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. I am very excited today to be welcoming Burien City Councilmember Cydney Moore to the program. Welcome, Cydney. [00:01:00] Cydney Moore: Hi, thank you so much for having me - I'm really excited to be here. [00:01:04] Crystal Fincher: Well, we certainly have no shortage of things to talk about, especially with recent news and events in Burien. But I do want to start because you are a councilmember, you are running for reelection right now - is to talk about what led you to run for office, to want to serve, and what have you been spending your time doing in your first term? [00:01:24] Cydney Moore: Well, I feel like I've always been drawn towards public office. Even as a kid, I used to dream about becoming the first female president. Even as far as third grade - I found some old notes in school folders my mom had stashed away where I had written policy proposals for what I would do - and it's pretty consistent, actually. One of the things that I talked about was everyone will have a home. I guess I've always wanted to serve my community, I've been an activist my whole life, I have been working in nonprofit leadership for over a decade now. So this is my passion, this is what drives me - creating a better community for all of us, creating a better future for our people - that's what gives me joy. In my first term - it's been a rough go - I took office in January of 2020, right before the pandemic hit, so I had a lot of goals and aspirations for what I wanted to do, and we ended up scrambling to mitigate the harms that were ongoing in the crisis we were all facing. But throughout that, we were able to accomplish some great good. One of the things that we were able to do in Burien that I'm really, really proud of was approve hazard pay for essential workers throughout the pandemic, and we also implemented an eviction moratorium that kept people from losing their homes throughout the entire state of emergency in Washington. I also have been involved with passing a groundbreaking list of renters' protections in Burien. We're leading the charge in some of these areas and other cities are certainly looking to us as an example - I'm incredibly proud of that. We have launched a new co-responder model that integrates behavioral and mental health professionals and crisis responders alongside police on calls. I am hoping that we can work towards having an individual standalone crisis response team that can call in police if needed, but can operate independently. I proposed an increase in our human services budget, so I'm really, really proud of that - that was just in our last budget cycle and it actually funds a lot of incredible services across our city, including things like rental assistance, utility assistance, education opportunities, mental health support, therapy for children, youth and adults, food banks - just all the good things - doubled the city arts budget. Right now, we are working on passing legislation to raise the minimum wage here in Burien - very, very excited about that, that's something that I started working on initially right after I got into office and that sort of got put on halt due to the pandemic, so I'm really excited to be taking that back up again. I created a lobby effort to King County Council through my work with the Domestic Violence Initiative Regional Task Force, serving as a representative from our council, to allocate additional funding for domestic violence protection order advocates, and proud to announce that we actually got $375,000 allocated to the protection order advocacy program. So, yeah - I think we've done some good, I'm really proud of what we have been able to accomplish. I'm really proud of my track record so far in office, and I'm hoping to continue the work. [00:04:54] Crystal Fincher: It is an impressive track record, particularly with new councilmembers coming in, dealing with things during the pandemic. But, hey - it sounds like you guys have a totally progressive council - there's no friction or issues in Burien, is there? [00:05:10] Cydney Moore: You know - it's funny because it's not funny. But if you don't laugh, you cry. So one would think that - forward-facing - our council is progressive. We have people - the majority of our council has claimed to be progressive - they ran on progressive values. And as of late, we're not seeing quite so much of that as we would like. There has been a lot of divisiveness. And I'll tell you - getting positive things passed is like pulling teeth with our council - to put it plainly. It's brutal. It's painful work. And I really wish that we were a little more cohesive and aligned in our goals and our values so that we could do more work because it is slow-going and it's unfortunate. [00:05:59] Crystal Fincher: It is unfortunate, and we've seen it blow up in the news. So, is it that there's a 4-3 kind of moderate conservative majority on the council now? [00:06:07] Cydney Moore: Yes, that's very accurate. You can see a pretty consistent 4-3 split on just about everything major, and especially when it comes to passing progressive policies. Absolutely. [00:06:21] Crystal Fincher: So, Burien has been in the news because of sweeps, a lease, what to do with the unhoused population, and whether to help, how to help, the county has stepped in. This has been an ongoing saga that we have been talking about during the week-in-reviews. But can you walk us through what has been happening and where things stand? [00:06:42] Cydney Moore: Okay. So, we had a number of unhoused people who were camping on property that is jointly owned and operated by our City and the King County Library system. Our building - the first two stories is our Burien Library, and then the third story is City Hall, and we share a space on the ground floor for city council meetings and multipurpose uses for the library. So, there's a condo association of those two entities that operates this building. We had a lot of campers out there for quite a long time. Some of them had been there for - I'd say, a year, maybe more - and it was fairly mellow. A lot of these people are individuals that those of us who've worked directly with our homeless population have known for, sometimes years. But the condo association decided they wanted to sweep people off the property - and our city council and our city manager essentially took a hands-off approach, deferred to the condo association, and we did not take action to allocate new space for people to go. We directed our contractors that provide outreach services, LEAD and REACH, to go out and offer people what support they can, but it's been abundantly clear there is not shelter space available in Burien - we don't have any significant shelter here. And the shelters in the surrounding area are absolutely full, so we were told outright there aren't shelter beds available for most of these people. We moved forward with the sweep, and I worked very diligently for the weeks leading up to the sweep to try and find any alternative options for people in terms of places they could relocate to, looking for different property, reaching out to different organizations, and fell short. So the night before the sweep, myself and my dear friend and colleague, Charles Schaefer, who was then the chair of our planning commission, we went out and we told the unhoused people camping there - We don't have anywhere for you to go. Do you have any plans for where you might go? And most of them said - No, they had no idea where to go, otherwise they would have gone there already. Most of them were scared and didn't know what was going to happen to them, and so Charles and I let them know legally they have a right to camp on public property - besides parks, because Burien has a ban on camping in parks. And we have very little public property in the city that is not parks. It's very minimal - and I can say that with a very strong degree of certainty because I've looked, I've looked at length - but we did locate a small piece of public land one block away in our downtown core, and we told people - If you camp here - legally, that is allowed and per Martin v. Boise, the Ninth Circuit Court ruling that says we can't criminalize homelessness, our city will not sweep you until policy changes or they figure out some loophole. We told them straight up - the City doesn't condone this, we're not acting on behalf of the City, the City is not sanctioning this, and quite frankly, people are gonna be upset, and the City is probably going to work to remove you as quickly as possible. But for the time being, until there's some other alternative, you can go here if you choose to - and they did. And so the following morning, we had a big media circus - lots of people coming out to watch the sweep, see what happens. A lot of people in the area were devastated at the prospect, but there were, alternatively, people who were very excited to see people removed and were under the impression that by removing them from this piece of property, they were somehow going to disappear. Again, many of these unhoused people have been living here in Burien for years - this is their home - even if they don't have a house, they have strong roots here, connections, family even. So there was quite an uproar when people came out the next morning and realized that the problem had not gone away, they didn't solve anything, and people they thought they were going to disperse out of our downtown core moved one block away, and at that point could not be swept. Our city council and our city manager collaborated to take action to lease out that property quickly, and they decided to lease the property to Burien C.A.R.E.S., which is our contracted animal shelter here. They leased the property for $185 a month, which has been speculated as far below fair market value - it's a sizable piece of land in a prime location, so that is of some concern. And as soon as the lease was signed, they conducted a sweep on that property and did not allocate any space for those people to relocate to. I begged them for months, I tried at every city council meeting between the two sweeps to ask our council to consider any option. I made a few proposals - none of them are ideal, but emergency temporary places that people could stay for the time being while we sorted through it - and they denied all asks for taking action. So they swept the unhoused population again, which had grown in size because people here have, again, close ties, and there are people who I know of personally who typically tend to avoid camps, that realized that that was a safe place, that there was safety in numbers there, that it was someplace they would be able to stay in contact with people like service providers and family members because they were not hiding off on the side of the road or in a bush somewhere - they were centrally located and stable for the time being. So they got swept again, and Charles and I went up there again and informed people - Hey, we've been looking, we still haven't found anything, but we have located some other public property that is big enough for you to camp on if you decide to go there. Charles and I consulted the King County parcel viewer and a number of city maps, and we found a little slice of - patch of grass - that ran adjacent to a park just a few blocks away. And according to the King County parcel viewer and all the city maps we consulted, that piece of land was somehow overlooked or whatever - it just wasn't part of the park, so legally, it would be acceptable for people to camp there. So many of the people relocated there, and they stayed there for a couple of days until one of our city councilmembers apparently called the police. The police said they wouldn't sweep them because as far as the police could see, that's not part of the park and it's legal for them to be there. She contacted our city manager, who took it upon himself to do some digging, and found one map in our city files that contradicted all the other maps we have and said that it was a park. And so he told the police - This is a park, I'm deciding that this is a part of a park, you have to go remove them. A testament to the ambiguity of the legal status of whether this piece of land is park or not park is the fact that our police will immediately sweep people who are in a park - that's just a policy that's standard ops for them. They did not immediately sweep people. They posted a 72-hour notice, giving people time to get their things together and try and relocate. City council still did not take any action. So Charles and I went out and spoke to people again, and the options continue to get increasingly worse - the land is increasingly smaller every time that we are finding. We let them know there is a very small piece of dirt that runs along our main downtown strip, right next door to the Library-City Hall building - literally on the next block, and two blocks down from the original lot that they went to after the first sweep - so they're right back where they started, pretty much. But a number of our unhoused people camping out have relocated to this very small patch of dirt. Some people decided to go try their odds camping on some vacant private property that had sat empty for a while - they managed to go unnoticed for a few weeks. But I got a text last Tuesday from one of their mothers - and she's a very kind woman, she does what she can, but she lives in Puyallup and is on the verge of homelessness herself, so she's not able to fully support her son - but she let me know that there were 14 people who were camping on this private lot in the north end of town, and police had just arrived with a trespass order, and they were giving them two hours to get out. So I went out again and tried to get whoever I could to come out and help get people assistance in relocating and getting their stuff, and trying to make sure they could get where they were going to go without losing too many of their important belongings. And some of them decided to come down to the patch of dirt on 152nd and our downtown core and join the others, and some of them decided to drag their tents to a median in the middle of a very busy road just down the block, and it's a really dangerous area in that particular corridor, but they asked the police - Is this public land, are you gonna sweep us? And the police said no, and so they decided that they were gonna take their chances. And so to my understanding, there are still a couple of people who are camping out in a very small island median in the middle of a very busy road. And to this day, our council has refused to take action. We have had an offer come in from King County of $1 million and 35 Pallet homes, which house two people apiece, to allocate property and help us operate a safe space for people. Our council voted that down. [00:16:43] Crystal Fincher: And I wanna talk about this for a minute - because you talked about what was happening on the ground, but during this process, the City of Burien received a letter from the Office of the King County Executive, Dow Constantine, from his legal counsel, saying - Hey, it is illegal to sweep people off of public property when there is no shelter available. You basically made it explicit, City of Burien, that there's no shelter available. And your police force are actually county sheriff's deputies who are contracted by the City of Burien, so because they fall under the authority of the county as deputies, we are saying they can't participate in that - which caused quite an uproar. What was the response to that? [00:17:25] Cydney Moore: People were confused and upset. Some of us were very pleased. I was very surprised when I found out our city got that letter, and I was very grateful to our county for their response and taking a stance that they're not going to violate people's constitutional rights to exist in a public space with nowhere else to go. [00:17:47] Crystal Fincher: And that's really the crux of it right there - is that time after time, as we've seen in so many other cities, just sweeping someone and saying - Well, you can't camp here - does not do anything to address the issue of homelessness. It doesn't do anything to provide shelter, to provide housing, to address that underlying problem. And so many times, people who come at this problem from the issue of - Well, the people being there, their existence, me having to look at them and deal with them is the problem - when the root of the problem is they don't have a home, and so many other issues become exacerbated, and so many things get destabilized from not having a home. So as you said, they move from one location to another to another, because it's not like there's any attempt to work on housing from the council majority. And also, illustrative of how councils work, you can have people on very different sides, but the majority is going to carry the day. So although there were three people who have been working diligently on the council to try and provide a real solution that doesn't just create the next spot for someone to camp, or once you've made all of the spots in one city illegal, just push them into another city and say it's their problem - it's about really finding a way to provide people with shelter. Because it is not ideal for people to be sleeping outside. As you said, it's dangerous, it's completely suboptimal. So this offer from the county that came in - about three weeks ago now, I think - has the majority of the council done anything to take advantage of the million dollars, the 35 Pallet shelter help? [00:19:24] Cydney Moore: No, we had that brought before us for a vote, and our council majority declined and they voted it down. And at this point, our next regularly scheduled council meeting isn't until July 17th, and so we are working to take advantage of this gap to rally public support and coordinate with a variety of different organizations in our community to hopefully put pressure on council enough that they will take action. Burien is actually in the middle of a budgetary shortfall - we're facing an impending fiscal cliff if we don't raise taxes and fees and find new revenue sources. And so turning down a million dollars for anything at this point seems pretty irresponsible, but certainly turning down a million dollars to serve our unhoused and vulnerable population is - it's unconscionable in my mind. I can't tell you how many times I've sat there thinking how amazing it would be if somebody dropped a million dollars in front of me to go help the homeless - that's literally the stuff that dreams are made of. And to turn it down is - I just can't fathom why anybody would say no to that. And like you pointed out, sweeps are dangerous. People living outside - it's dangerous. Unhoused people are disproportionately targeted as victims of harassment and violence. And we have data that shows that sweeps cause a number of disruptions to people's lives - they result in people losing things like documentation, identification, medication - disrupting any kind of progress they are making towards stability. It interrupts their contact with service providers, case managers, family members that serve as a support system. And they increase the mortality rate of unhoused people. It just - they're dangerous. Burien already has a disproportionately high mortality rate for our unhoused population compared to King County as a whole. So we are facing a very real crisis here - our region is facing a homelessness crisis in general, but Burien is finally having to stare that issue in the face and we're failing in our response, our leaders are failing in our response. And our people are suffering as a consequence of that. And it is quite devastating to witness, especially being on the ground in direct contact with these people that some of us have worked with for years. We know their names, we know their faces, we know some of their backstories, some of them I know family members of. It's an ugly thing to witness seeing people who are already in crisis being shuffled around and disregarded and hung out to dry - by leaders who are tasked with protecting the safety and wellbeing of all of our constituents. So it's disappointing, to say the least. [00:22:05] Crystal Fincher: Very disappointing. And very disappointing that your attempt to help people while following the law, and the law that the Office of King County Executive Dow Constantine very helpfully and forcefully advised the City of Burien that they were running afoul of in their current way, their reaction wasn't to say - Okay, let's pause and reevaluate. Obviously we're getting legal advice that this is illegal. It does jive with the court decision saying that we can't sweep without offers of shelter. We've pretty much just flatly admitted that there aren't offers of shelter. So maybe we pause and talk with some of our partners and figure out ways to get these people housed. No one wants people out on the street - if we can try and work to find a way to get them into shelter, that would be excellent. They decided not to do that. They decided to double down on the way things were going, to basically - I think a fair characterization to the letter from the King County Executive's legal counsel was indignation from the city manager, who then went forward and basically just kept doing the things that he was doing, even appearing to not check with the council before some of the things - although he does have the support of the council majority. So now we're in a situation where they haven't taken up any of this offer to house people, and people are being harmed by this. People are out exposed to the elements and to a very hostile, activated, conservative, radical element that has been drawn to Burien over this issue. And some of the contentious scenes that we've seen across the region with people just talking in very dehumanizing ways about the homeless population - really not seeing them as people, really just seeing the problem is that they're inconvenienced by having to look at people and not really caring about what that person is going through - that's a challenge. So they haven't had time to address the offer of a million bucks and Pallet shelters. They did have time, however, to hold a special meeting to consider censuring you and to consider removing Charles, who you talked about - the Chair of the Planning Commission - because of your helping and trying to find a solution to this problem. What in the world? What was your reaction to that? [00:24:16] Cydney Moore: Yeah, I spoke to this during the special meeting when the council was considering removing Charles from the Planning Commission - who I might add, has served our community dutifully for many years and has been serving the homeless directly, I think, for 14 years in our city - so he knows them very well. And what are you going to expect from somebody who's been in that field for so long other than trying to help? But my response is that - throughout history, there is a pattern of punishments being doled out to people who try to help persecuted minority groups, whether that's people based on their race or their religion or who they love - it's a consistent pattern. And history does not look kindly on those who are enacting those punishments against people who try and help. I told our council, I said - Charles is going to have to live with what we do tonight for the rest of his life, or at least until our council makeup changes. But every person on this council is also going to have to live with their decision and this decision may follow you. Are you prepared to answer for it, for what you do tonight? 'Cause I'm very comfortable in my position, but I don't know if later on when people ask you - Why would you do this? - if you'll have justification or excuses enough to explain why you would take such action. It was very, very clear that what Charles and I have done is try to inform our constituents of what our laws are and how best to comply. And I think that's something that really needs to be noted in these conversations - these unhoused people have been asking how they can follow the law. They're asking - Where is it legal for me to go? Where can I be? Where am I allowed to exist? And our city has offered no real option, but has publicly stated - Oh yeah, you can be on public property - until we find a loophole to take it away from you. And you can be on sidewalks, which obviously is true to the extent of people can stay on sidewalks large enough where they're not obstructing them - you have to maintain a three feet clearance path on a sidewalk and there's not that many sidewalks that are wide enough for people to camp on in Burien without obstructing. So these individuals are literally just asking their leaders - Where can I go? Where am I allowed to be? And we did our best to inform our constituents of what the City's policies are, where they are legally allowed to go, how they can comply with the laws. And that's the duty and obligation of any public servant, especially a councilmember that makes those laws and policies and a planning commissioner, the Chair of the Planning Commission, whose job it is to advise on zoning and land use issues. So arguably we were doing our job to the best of our ability and to the expectation that I think we should all be held. And our council - the term that has been used by many in our community - used Charles as a scapegoat. They can't remove me - I am an elected official. But Charles was appointed, and they found a target and took advantage of that. And I think it just reflects really, really poorly on our council and on our city as a whole that our leadership would penalize someone for informing people of their constitutional rights and informing people of knowledge that is public, by the way - all of the information that we shared is all public knowledge, it's all easily accessible on government websites. Yeah, I don't know how they felt comfortable doing that. I really don't understand any valid justification for that - and that's what I said. [00:28:08] Crystal Fincher: Well, I'm gonna hop in here and editorialize. We know there wasn't a valid reason for that - but as we've seen in Tennessee, as we've seen in so many other places - if they feel they have the power to do it, they will. They had the power to remove Charles. I think they initially thought they may have the power to remove you. You were actually, as you said, doing your job. They still have not taken up the offer to house people. Their job is to serve and take care of their constituents. They have constituents who have been out on the street. There's an offer of shelter and money to make that happen available that they just won't do - they would rather just sweep people, just kick them out - knowing how destabilizing that is and knowing how much it has failed directly in the City of Burien. This clearly isn't working. It's really expensive to do - requires a lot of public enforcement resources, law enforcement resources, parks resources - requires a whole lot and it's not making a difference. So one would think that they would stop doing the same thing over and over again - getting failing results - and start to do something that would work. The county didn't just say - This is illegal, you can't do it. They offered an olive branch and said - And we will help you. And they basically slapped that hand away and said - No, we're good. In fact, we're not even gonna deal with that. We're just gonna try and kick out people who disagree with us and enact these really retaliatory actions. And it is really a shame. But what happened was lots of people saw this and people of all cross-ideological spectrums - I don't think many of the commissioners who wound up taking action would call themselves progressive, but they do call themselves public servants - and were appalled at this negligence and scapegoating and retaliation by the majority on the city council, mayor, deputy mayor, city manager, others, and said - This is unacceptable - and resigned in protest. And the entire Planning Commission resigned in protest and several other commissioners throughout the city - I think 12 in total resigned from their position. So now, Burien is in a crisis - doesn't have a planning commission, has several other commissions short-staffed. Many cities - this is comprehensive planning time where the Planning Commission is doing some heavy lifting - and now there is nothing there, because they decided to act petty and retaliate and not use money offered to them for free to house people. So where do things go from here? [00:30:35] Cydney Moore: That's a good question. As you said, we don't have a planning commission now, and they were absolutely in the middle of a major project. We haven't heard from our city any official statement in regard to what the plan is going to be to fill these vacancies. So our entire Planning Commission is gone. Our Parks Board has lost their chair, the vice-chair, and another member. We've lost at least one Airport Committee member and arts commissioner. Like we - arguably our city is in a spiral right now, and I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't know what we're going to do, I haven't heard anything from our leadership, I haven't heard anything from our city manager - certainly haven't heard anything regarding plans to move forward. As I said, my goal right now is to work with my fellow progressives on council to lobby as much support as we can and pressure as we can to get the council majority to approve use of this million dollars and designate a safe space for people to go. Our unhoused population is still waiting for a response and things aren't getting better. And as you said, there is significant anger in the community and there's been a large conservative presence - and the hostility there is not dissipating. I'm aware of people who have - like I said, unhoused people are always disproportionately targeted as victims of harassment and violence, but people have been very aggressive towards our unhoused people here throughout this - throwing fireworks at their tents, stealing their tents, and bragging about it openly. There are people who are openly in public talking about wanting to shoot them and shoot me. So this violent rhetoric has maintained and our unhoused people are out there exposed with nowhere to go, no safety, no walls to hide behind. And so we're going to continue pushing for our council to take action - because we don't have an option not to, honestly - doing nothing is just not an option in my mind and in the mind of many others in our community. As far as our city operations go - like I said, I really just don't know. We are legally required to have a planning commission and to have a comp plan, a comprehensive plan, and we just don't have the people now. And it usually takes quite a while for us to go through the process of putting out a call for new applicants and going through the screening process, interview process, all of this. And quite frankly, the strain on our staff has been significant - like you said, it takes a lot of resources to engage in things like sweeps. Our staff is already pretty bare bones. Burien operates with some incredible people, but they are stretched thin. And having to call multiple special meetings certainly doesn't help with their workload. Having to engage in sweeps doesn't help with their workload. And now having to add on to their plate - trying to figure out what to do with a whole bunch of empty spaces and an entire empty planning commission - yeah, I don't know what that process is going to look like, or how quickly any of that will move forward. You would expect our city manager to be offering some insight or - the City was really quick to respond to that letter from King County, but obviously not so quick to respond to the fact that we have had a mass resignation from our public servants that we need, we legally have to have. So I'm waiting with bated breath, just like everyone else, to see what happens there. [00:34:20] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I should note, while they haven't taken up any substantive action at all to try and house people - even though there's an offer of a million dollars, 35 Pallet shelters, they've had meetings to censure and retaliate against their opponents - they also had time to welcome Prime Minister Modi from India, who has taken a lot of heat from the human rights community for human rights violations, free speech violations. They rank very, very low - I think they've dropped from something like 140th to just under 160th out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index. Certainly seeing a lot of protests - I think there's no one who says - Ah, everything is great. And yes, this is someone we should celebrate and welcome. Although those three Burien city councilmembers did somehow and they found time for that, but not time to take up the ability to house their residents who are without homes right now. Now, before we close - usually we talk about a lot of other stuff with candidates - this time, I felt it was appropriate to talk about everything that has been happening with the situation in Burien because it has been in the news and is so pressing - and is still just languishing with the council not doing anything at the time that we're recording. But this is happening also while you're running for reelection. And you've drawn several opponents - I think most, if not all, come from the people who are virulently anti-homeless - is the way to say it. They don't seem to have any solutions or care at all about the actual housing - Just get them out of here - seems to be the thing. And they're running to take a hard line on getting those people out of here and getting someone who actually is doing the work to house people out. What can people do if they're looking for more information about your campaign? [00:36:09] Cydney Moore: I would encourage everyone to check out my website - it's votecydney.com - C-Y-D-N-E-Y. Sign up for updates, sign up to volunteer. Please donate if you can - I run a grassroots campaign, always have - I'm not a particularly wealthy person that's self-funding my operations here, so anything that you can do to help will help us get through this election. I am working very diligently with our partners in the community to build a coalition of support for my campaign. But this is of the people, by the people, for the people - so if you can, please contribute however you are able to. Also, you can always follow me on social media - @vote_cydney on Twitter, Facebook - Cydney Moore for Burien City Council. I welcome any feedback people might have, any input you might have, any ideas for creative campaigning you might have. This is rough - it's a rough time to be dealing with all of these things and running a campaign - and I have drawn out a lot of scrutiny. I guess you could say that I'm a pretty polarizing person at this moment and people are drawing some hard lines. And people aren't always falling on the side of those lines that you would expect. I have had people who don't actually necessarily agree with my position, but do respect the fact that I'm willing to stand up for my position, who have expressed their support. And I have people who you would think are progressive, who you would think would be aligned with me, who are pissed - they're really mad at me for what I've been doing. And so, yeah, I can use all the support I can get at this time. And what I'll say about my opponents are the most vocal one is avidly anti-homeless and has been actively asking our council to sweep people and seems to be of the mindset that we should let them hit rock bottom, which I guess in my mind means let them die - because if you're outside and have nothing and have nowhere to go and have - barely even have clothes on your back, no food, no safety, I don't know how much more rock bottom it gets than that than just letting them die. And that's what happens. Our unhoused people are dying. So that's certainly concerning and not somebody that I would want representing me in elected office in my city. And my other two opponents - I just have not seen or heard much at all from - I literally just met one of them for the first time the other day. I've never missed a city council meeting in all of my years of serving, and I've never seen those individuals attend a single meeting. I've never seen them out in the public engaging with people, and I'm actively involved in a lot of things - I serve on the board of three different nonprofits in this community, I volunteer for a number of different organizations and causes. And so it concerns me that we have people running that I don't know and nobody that I know who are also involved in the community have ever seen, so I can't speak to their values. But I'm here and I am present and I'm active and I will remain so. And you can look at my track record - my voting record is available on the City of Burien website and I encourage everyone to look to it - I don't think you're ever gonna find a single vote I've ever taken that is not solidly progressive. So I'm - like I said, I'm pretty consistent in that - and I am adamant about maintaining the fight for positive change in our city. And I would ask and invite everyone who is willing to join me in that. What happens here in Burien has a ripple effect across our region - like I said, we are leading as an example in a lot of different ways for a lot of different policy issues. And so community doesn't end at city limits - what happens here can absolutely impact our neighboring cities and cities across this area and sometimes across the country - there are other cities who have looked at us and our policies from around the country. So please help me because there are a lot of people who are against what's going on here and we need all the help we can get. We need people who will continue to fight for what's right in office and keep things real in local politics. [00:40:14] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Cydney Moore. And we'll continue to follow the events happening in Burien. Thank you. [00:40:22] Cydney Moore: Awesome, thank you so much for having me. And I look forward to following your future coverage. [00:40:27] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.  

King County voters may see a new climate levy lid lift on their ballots next year as county officials begin discussions to increase revenue to reduce climate impact efforts. The new motion would request King County Executive Dow Constantine to develop funding options to generate $1 billion in funding over a six- or nine-year period. Funds would be used for greenhouse gas reduction efforts and response to climate impacts. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/washington-in-focus/support

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Founder and Editor of The Needling, Lex Vaughn! They discuss how the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) Vice President who mocked Jaahnavi Kandula's death is now on red light camera duty, how a KING 5 story effectively victim blamed Kandula for what she was wearing, and how Seattle will pay nearly $2M after a man died of heart attack after incorrectly being on a 911 blacklist. Crystal and Lex then talk about Senator Nguyen's bill to detect gas price gouging, the Week Without Driving, Burien making their camping ban worse, how Bruce Harrell's dual responder program fails to civilianize crisis response, and a new GOP candidate in the 3rd Congressional District race. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Lex Vaughn at @AlexaVaughn.   Resources “Maritza Rivera, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 4” from Hacks & Wonks   “Ron Davis, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 4” from Hacks & Wonks   “Seattle police officer heard joking after woman's death has been taken off the streets” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times   “New video shows moments before woman is hit by Seattle police vehicle” from KING 5   “Seattle to pay nearly $2M after man dies of heart attack at address wrongly on 911 blacklist” by The Associated Press and KIRO 7 News Staff from KIRO 7   “Sen. Nguyen moving forward on bill to detect price gouging at the gas pump” by Brett Davis from The Center Square   “Could You Go a Week Without Driving?” by Tanisha Sepúlveda from PubliCola   “Burien Makes "Camping" Ban Worse, Auderer Now on Red-Light Camera Duty, Harrell Order Subtly Improves New Drug Law” from PubliCola   “Harrell's Dual-Responder Proposal Would Fail to Civilianize Crisis Response” by Amy Sundberg from The Urbanist   “Lewallen emerges as GOP alternative to Kent in rematch with Gluesenkamp Perez” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed this week's topical shows, we continued our series of Seattle City Council candidate interviews. All 14 candidates for 7 positions were invited and we had in-depth conversations with many of them. This week, we presented District 4 candidates, Maritza Rivera and Ron Davis. Have a listen to those and stay tuned over the coming weeks. We hope these interviews will help voters better understand who these candidates are and inform their choices for the November 7th general election. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and Founder and Editor of The Needling, Lex Vaughn. Hey! [00:01:36] Lex Vaughn: Hey, nice to be back. [00:01:38] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back. And I just have to say before we get into it - The Needling is so good. You do such great work there. And like the last two weeks are as good as it has ever been. There's no one in the country doing it better than The Needling right now. It's just absolutely great. If you guys are not tuned into The Needling - website, Patreon, social media - please get into it. [00:02:03] Lex Vaughn: Thank you so much, Crystal. [00:02:05] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, we have a number of things to talk about this week. Wanna start off talking about an update to the story of pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula, who was killed by an officer who ran over her while going over 70 miles per hour in response to a call - although he did not have his siren going at the time - and a story that came out in KING 5 also related to that. But just starting - update to that story is the SPOG Vice President, Daniel Auderer, who was caught on tape mocking Jaahnavi's death is now on red light camera duty - has been taken off the street. It is not uncommon for officers to be reassigned to administrative positions while investigations are ongoing - that's the case here. What do you think about where we stand here in terms of accountability? [00:03:00] Lex Vaughn: I think no one should feel like anything real has happened as far as accountability or punishment goes - he's been reassigned, but he could be, as soon as we take our eye off this, he could be put back in the same position he was before. Auderer is still a major part of the guild leadership, so it's like - this isn't just any cop. This is guild leadership that forms a lot of the culture of the entire department, so it's upsetting to not see - once again, how - it's just upsetting to see how hard it is to even get real punishment happening for some of these people after what they do. They should be fired. And I think the next thing I'm focused on is just what's gonna happen in this next police guild contract - it's up this year and it's in negotiations right now. I just, I hope it's slightly better than the contract before - and it would just be nice if it was easier to hold police like this accountable. [00:03:59] Crystal Fincher: I'm right there with you. And I hope it's significantly better than it is right now. And there's a model in place for it - the City of Seattle passed an ordinance in 2017 that included many accountability procedures that the SPOG contract that's currently in place, that was signed in 2018, supersedes. It has written in there that it supersedes City law - so if there's a conflict, the SPOG contract is what wins, basically, over what the City says. And as we've seen, there've been several examples of things that regular people look at and say - This is not okay, this is not what we want - where we see officers commenting across the country saying - This is inappropriate, incorrect. Yet it seems like not much can be done, and the most that's done is they're suspended without pay then reinstated, or assigned to desk duty, various administrative tasks. It's a challenge. [00:04:55] Lex Vaughn: And I'm so tired of the shrug that happens - Well, I don't know, police contract. What are you gonna do? Well, now we're in negotiations. You are actively in a position to do something about it long-term. I don't want any shrugging right now about this 'cause we are actually in a zone where we can change the contract, or change how the City interacts with that union as a whole. I'm just learning myself about what options there are in increasing accountability. Is there a way to decertify this union completely if - I mean, I think a lot of what they support and don't fight against in their own ranks is kind of criminal itself. You're enabling people to kill innocent people - for me, to me, that's criminal. And it's like, I wish that was kind of acknowledged more often - where's the line here where some of what they're doing is criminal. [00:05:49] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and you know, the other thing I look at here is this is a threat to public safety in Seattle, particularly for people who say and believe that - Hey, we need more officers on the streets now, we need to hire more officers, there is a shortage. One, if there's a shortage, why are they responding to overdose calls, crisis calls in the first place and redeploying it? [00:06:11] Lex Vaughn: You know, as outlets like DivestSPD have reported in detail, it's - this call, where this young woman was killed by a cop going three times the speed limit in a high pedestrian area at night without a siren - he was rushing to a reported overdose call where health personnel, paramedics were already headed there. And apparently there were like six police units headed there as well? This is just inefficient, like at a minimum, at a minimum - incredibly inefficient and dangerous. And it really kind of underlines - how could you think we need more cops when in a situation like this, they're over-responding and actually a danger to the community. The entire way this operation is working is faulty and not increasing public safety. [00:07:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely not increasing public safety. And hurting the effort that they've invested a lot of money into to recruit additional officers. Since they offered retention bonuses, you know, there was a lot of talk over the past couple of years that - Oh, they need more money, they need an incentive to stay. Well, the incentive is not money. Many of them are compensated fairly handsomely, but since that was approved and they've been receiving retention bonuses - the attrition has not improved - we're still hurting as badly as we ever have. And it's time - and I appreciate Tammy Morales in a forum last night, as well as others, and there've been several other people who've also talked about this - just plainly stating, Hey, these incidences happening are a problem, are a disincentive for people to apply to be a police officer, to want to be a police officer, particularly in Seattle. And especially when so many cities are talking about having shortages, why would they choose a city that has so many visible problems and problematic officers instead of another one there? So, I mean, this is - the culture is as much of a problem in terms of recruiting as anything else. But also, we do have to stop and say - What are we even doing overall? - to your point. I also want to talk about this KING 5 story that came out recapping it, but got a pretty severe pushback and lots of call-outs - because in that story, they detailed what Jaahnavi was wearing, while it - was it dark colored this or that, you know, potentially talking about a drug test. And as you said - to be clear - she was in a crosswalk. She was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing. The person doing what they weren't supposed to be doing was a person responding to a call that was questionable that they should be going to anyway. [00:08:55] Lex Vaughn: I cannot stand anyone acting like - Oh, she just didn't look both ways. This was a high pedestrian area - at night, no sirens. How many of us would expect, as soon as we're entering a crosswalk, for a cop, a giant car to barrel at us at over the speed limit of what's, on our freeways? Okay - that's fast. She didn't, she barely comprehended what was going to happen to her before it happened to her. [00:09:26] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and when you look at there, it's not - one, it's a crosswalk, and drivers should be aware of crosswalks and crossings marked or unmarked. This is a marked crosswalk - there's a crosswalk sign, there's barriers in the road - this is not an area - Oh, who would know that there would be a pedestrian there? Like, if there was a place for a pedestrian to be, it is there. And to essentially victim blame in that way and not talk about the responsibility of the person in the vehicle that has the power to instantaneously obliterate someone - what their culpability and responsibility was there - is just really disgusting. [00:10:04] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, I have to say, I'm really disappointed in KING 5 for that report, 'cause I mean, in Seattle, I think we tend to think of KOMO as the station that would run something like that, not KING 5. And it's hard to understand what the motivation of that report was. I mean, I guess they were maybe giddy that they had new video that hadn't been seen before, and I don't know, maybe there was only so much they had to say about it - she's wearing black clothes - but it just came off as very victim-blamey. You know, this is not a report that you wanna turn into a pedestrian safety cautionary tale - where that's not really the moral of the story here - 'cause I think any of us, most people, that would have happened to them, no matter what they were wearing, I doubt that cop would have all of a sudden had time to brake if she was wearing yellow. He was going way too fast. [00:10:57] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Absolutely going too fast to respond in any kind of way at that speed, to be able to take any kind of evasive action - and we see that in how the accident played out. I think this is reflective of the super car-centric culture and how problematic that is - instead of realizing that everyone has a right to use the roads and therefore everyone, whether you're walking, biking, riding. But the responsibility that people have in understanding that - yes, if you have the potential to do greater harm, then you must take greater responsibility. The consequence for a pedestrian walking out into the street to a car is negligible - there's going to be no damage there, right? Like, you know, looking at the worst-case scenario is entirely different than someone losing their life. And so I suspect in this situation - a problem that we've seen in lots of news media in that they saw the video, they looked at the police report and what the information that the police gave out, which unfortunately too often only focuses on, especially when situations when police are involved, only focuses on the pedestrian that is involved or the non-police entity that's involved. Just really striking, we - was the officer driving - were they tested for drugs or alcohol? Were they, I mean, you know, a sign of impairment there, so how in the world it makes sense? [00:12:22] Lex Vaughn: They were not. She was, he wasn't - despite the fact that this guy who ran her over, apparently had had his driving license suspended in Arizona the year before he came here and got hired with a bonus. So, you know, if you think these bonuses are getting us anyone quality, all you have to do is look at this case - not the case - we're not getting anyone special here. [00:12:48] Crystal Fincher: Well, you know, I don't know who it's bringing, but there absolutely needs to be a different strategy implemented here. And everyone needs to do better in reporting, and considering how they talk about this, and what our stance as a community is about this. I also wanna talk about another story this week that didn't seem to percolate, but that was surprising to me. And it was news that Seattle had to pay nearly $2 million to the family of a man after he died of a heart attack after getting delayed response because his address was wrongly on a 911 blacklist. One - okay, there's a 911 blacklist - there's news. [00:13:29] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, I did not even know that. Oh, God. [00:13:32] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so the situation is this person had a heart attack, fell out - had lived in the unit for a year. The people who lived in it before him wound up on a list - and responders and police say they keep a list of people who have been hostile to or problematic with police, which, you know, I don't know what hard and fast rules about that, how subjective that is, but you can see how that could come to be. But they wound up on this list because of a prior tenant - that wasn't told to them on the call, there was no indication, you had - no one has any idea - [00:14:06] Lex Vaughn: I had no idea that was a thing. [00:14:09] Crystal Fincher: - that - yeah, that the list exists or that they may or may not be on it. So this guy's lived here for a year. It's not even like he just moved in there. [00:14:16] Lex Vaughn: And I'm like - oh my God. So it's like based on address, not even like phone numbers? 'Cause like I would imagine almost everyone has like a cell phone now. Like almost no one has a landline. [00:14:27] Crystal Fincher: Some people have a landline. [00:14:28] Lex Vaughn: I mean, okay. [00:14:29] Crystal Fincher: Some people don't have cell phones. [00:14:30] Lex Vaughn: It's like a small fraction of people. [00:14:32] Crystal Fincher: Most people do, some people don't - but either way - so they call and they're like - Okay, help is on the way. But the help is - they see there's a flag, so they have to wait for basically police to co-respond with them, which delays the call. You know, another 911 call comes in after a paramedic is apparently on the scene, but not going in because they're waiting for police. And they're saying help is on the way, but no indication that there's a delay. The man passes away because of - looking at the settlement, feeling like had he received more timely medical care, he certainly would have had a better opportunity to survive. But that this was the reason why he died - and that this list exists, that finding out through this, that evidently the list was neglected - they don't take people off the list or hadn't before this - was very problematic. In response to this, they're now saying they'll age people off of the list after 365 days. But you can imagine- [00:15:28] Lex Vaughn: Why did it have to take this to do that obvious a thing? [00:15:31] Crystal Fincher: Why did it have to take this? And how does no one engage with the fact that, especially with half of Seattle residents renting, right? [00:15:39] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, I'm a renter. And I read this and I was like - Okay. I mean, I've lived in this place that I'm in for three years, so well - I mean, I don't know. It's like, I want to check - I don't know who lived here before. [00:15:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, how do you get on? Is there an appeals process to come off? The lack of transparency surrounding this seems like it could create another situation like this in the future. So this was a story reported by KIRO 7 - would be interested to find out exactly what criteria are to get on the list. Are people ever removed from the list now other than aging off? And even with things aging off over a year, people move all the time - renters move all the time - this is absolutely disproportionately impacting people who rent. And a year is a long time to wait for something to edge off. If you have an emergency and you haven't lived in your place for a year, who knows if when you call 911, there's some reason that you don't know why people aren't responding. So I found that just really interesting. [00:16:43] Lex Vaughn: And just another important part of that report is that apparently a dispatcher was punished and also sued the City because he tried to fix that system. And he was kind of like wrongfully punished on the job for trying to bring up and reform that 911 blacklist. And it just seems like - wow, you know, a person like me - I didn't even know it existed, but I think we all got to take a hard look at that 'cause that's a tragedy that didn't have to happen. [00:17:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolute tragedy. And very interested to learn more about how that list operates and if it is in line with best practices and it just seems- [00:17:24] Lex Vaughn: It seems very outdated. [00:17:26] Crystal Fincher: It really does. Wanna talk about another story that is part of a larger story. And it's Senator Joe Nguyen, our state Senator, is moving forward on a bill to detect price gouging at the gas pump. Gas prices have been in the news a lot lately - they find their way into the news every year for a variety of reasons that - the price of gas is high. It's a cost that a lot of people incur. And as the prices rise, people feel that in their budgets, certainly - don't wanna minimize that at all for people who are on a tight budget. But for people who care about that, I hope they also have urgency in dealing with housing costs, childcare costs, some of the biggest costs that people have. But gas is a factor in there, and so we have a situation where gas prices are volatile - they have been, they always are. In this situation, we have Democrats and Republicans calling for a couple of different solutions. Republicans call for a gas tax holiday, they blame the Climate Commitment Act - which was passed here in this state, which assigns basically a price to carbon - and saying, This is the reason why gas prices are high. Other people have pointed out for quite some time that we still have these oil companies making record profits and that accounts for more of the gas price there. And these increases in price don't seem to correlate with the increase and decreases in cost. And we hear - Oh, you know, refinery's offline for maintenance. Well, that seems to coincide with major holiday weekends and times when they know people will be driving to make the price skyrocket. California passed a bill similar to this, which Joe Nguyen said he looked at and is modeling this off of. And they found that there was some, you know, shady stuff going on. And what this does is basically establish a commission, or a tribunal, or some organization that can review pricing information and kind of proprietary data from these companies - saying that this isn't public data, so it's not like there are gonna be competitive disadvantages for sharing and it's not gonna be given to the public. But this group can review it and say - Okay, is this in line with costs, or are you just raising the price of gas to price gouge consumers - which appears that it's happened before. So this is an interesting bill that Senator Nguyen is moving forward with to detect price gouging. And I'm gonna be really curious to see how this plays out. What do you think? [00:19:47] Lex Vaughn: I mean, I'd be interested to see how they plan on changing that behavior. 'Cause I guess I applaud the effort to detect price gouging and do something about it, but I'm almost in like a state of - I've just accepted oil companies do that all the time. I mean, I think especially in that year after - since the war in Ukraine, it seemed like there was a period where they were artificially jacking up the prices when they didn't really need to - even after President Biden had taken action to reduce that problem, the prices were still high. So I'm just so used to the price gouging that I assume is always happening, I'm like - Oh, okay, you gonna do something about it? Good luck with that. I don't have high hopes, but- [00:20:34] Crystal Fincher: Well, I think there are bigger structural issues involved. I mean, we are trying to phase out fossil fuels in a long-term perspective, and that is going to make the cost of gas increase in the long-term. Now, as with many things - and part of that is the price is inherently volatile, it's gonna become more volatile, especially as - even if we wanted to burn all the oil in the world, there's a limited supply of oil. So this was coming at some time. How do we make this transition in a way that is as fair and equitable as possible? And that's what the proceeds of the Climate Commitment Act are supposed to do - these proceeds that are exceeding expectations from these carbon credits - that's what the push towards more renewable forms of energy, electric cars - but even better, getting the cars off the road and using transit - and making, building our infrastructure and building our communities in a way that make that a viable and attractive option for people. 'Cause right now we still have a long way to go for that. And in this Week Without Driving, many of us are experiencing that firsthand- [00:21:39] Lex Vaughn: How was that? [00:21:39] Crystal Fincher: It's still ongoing. I shared online that I have a trip today to make where it's a two hour one-way trip, even though it's only 17 miles - but it underscores how important it is to improve transit service everywhere - and it benefits everyone. We have to get out, we have to mitigate the impacts of climate change. We have to get on this and accelerate our efforts to meet our 2030 goals - to have a shot at meeting our goals that are further down the line. We have a long way to go, but improving the accessibility and the experience on transit will improve traffic, will improve air quality, will improve finances. It costs a lot less if that's a reasonable option to do. [00:22:24] Lex Vaughn: I'm always shocked when people aren't completely on board with building great public transit as fast as possible everywhere. 'Cause even if you're a driver and you're never taking public transit, how is it not in your interest as well for as many people as possible to be in public transit? You get less traffic. It should be a win-win-win for everybody to get more of these things online. [00:22:49] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think there's a lot of misinformation about there. And I think the way that we have allowed communities to build and grow - that we've allowed sprawl and basically enabled- [00:22:59] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:00] Crystal Fincher: -the inaccessibility of transit in communities makes people - the default lifestyle for many people is a car-based lifestyle. And we've allowed transit to atrophy in many places, if it even was readily available in the first place. So people - when people can't see it and can't see it working, they have a hard time conceptualizing it. [00:23:22] Lex Vaughn: Oh yeah. And I mean, whenever you do that Google Maps route - I mean, I do that sometimes where I'm like - Oh, what's the public transit route? If it's very long, I'll opt for using my car for part of that trip somehow. And that usually is the defining thing, right - is just looking up on a Google Map - is this a half hour trip or a two hour trip? [00:23:43] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. [00:23:44] Lex Vaughn: I mean, that's a big difference. [00:23:45] Crystal Fincher: It's a humongous difference. And for several - I fortunately am privileged enough to not have to drive often. But for those I do, that's an absolute consideration. And I would like to take transit. And there are some advantages even on a longer trip - you can do other things, you can multitask, you can just decompress - you don't have to be present and aware, paying attention while you're driving, you don't have the stress of traffic sometimes, which is nice. So I mean, even on a longer trip, there are some advantages to transit, but also it can be less convenient depending on there. And if you have to walk a long way, especially in poor weather, when it's cold. Or if there aren't adequate facilities at a transit stop - I saw someone yesterday comment, Hey man, I looked up something and it was a two and a half hour trip, and my bladder can't securely make that trip and we don't make public restrooms readily available to people. There are a lot of structural barriers in place for people to be able to use transit, and we have to do a better job at removing those barriers if we're gonna make progress. And so the Week Without Driving is really bringing that home to a lot of people in ways that we can talk about, but when you do it and you feel it, it just provides additional insight and urgency into that. I also wanna talk about the City of Burien - yet again - who passed their camping ban and then decided to make their camping ban worse. So what Burien did was now expand the number of hours per day in which being unsheltered will soon be illegal. PubliCola has been doing an excellent job covering what's been happening in the City of Burien - we will link this article and update in our show notes also. But basically the Burien city attorney said that the city decided to make the adjustment after learning that shelters begin making their decisions about who to admit around 4.30 in the afternoon. And by 10, most are closed. And according to him, it would be too late to take people there - that's questionable reasoning. And by starting the ban earlier in the evening, the city thinks that it can plausibly say shelter was available - which is important in order to pass the constitutionality test - and that people refuse to accept it. Those are not hard and fast rules, and especially with some of the new shelter coming online, it is more flexible. The shelters making such decisions and closing early are part of the reason why it's hard for people to do that anyway. A meaningful percentage of people who don't have homes still have jobs. Lots of people who don't have homes or who are housing insecure have jobs. And if their shift goes beyond 7 or 8 or 9 or whatever the closing time is- [00:26:32] Lex Vaughn: Very unreasonable. [00:26:33] Crystal Fincher: -you have to choose between keeping the job that has a shot at either getting you back into housing or keeping you from falling into a further precarious position on the street. It just doesn't make sense. So they expanded the hours that they were doing that. During the meeting - there's a lot of misinformation that comes from the council majority on this council - they were saying that they, Hey, it increases the amount of time that they're able to camp, which is just false. Like it was weird. It only allows camping between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. - or the ability to be in public while you're unhoused, basically - even though that there aren't good options for where these people to go. And as we've been reminded several times, options are available and on offer to the City of Burien to have people have a place to go - land has been identified for them. And this is a seven-member council, it's a split council - so four members in the majority, three members in the minority. That four-member council majority has not decided to take the county up on the offer of a million dollars to help with long-term placement, hasn't taken - two entities now who have offered Pallet shelters here. It's just really unfortunate. [00:27:49] Lex Vaughn: Has that city been sued yet? Or like - 'cause it does seem illegal. I mean, they're not even, they're rejecting housing for these people and then doing this camping ban at the same time. I would think that's illegal. [00:28:03] Crystal Fincher: Well, that's the question. And it does strike a lot of people as illegal, which is one of the reasons why the King County Executive's Office sent a letter to Burien saying that - Hey, because your police department contracts with the King County Sheriff's for your deputies, we're telling you our deputies cannot participate in these sweeps because it's unconstitutional. [00:28:23] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, that's great. [00:28:24] Crystal Fincher: And they say - Ah no, it's not. They try to do an end around and find a loophole by leasing to a seemingly faux dog park organization that - then they could trespass people off of land. It's just a whole mess. [00:28:40] Lex Vaughn: The extent they're going to boot homeless people out of their city is crazy - without helping them. [00:28:48] Crystal Fincher: Without helping them, yeah. [00:28:49] Lex Vaughn: The option is right there, the money is right there - and they're not using it. I imagine a lot of these things just aren't true that they're saying? But is that true - that thing they said about all these homeless shelters accept people at 4.30 and not afterward? Is that a thing? [00:29:06] Crystal Fincher: And the way he phrased it even is vague in and of itself - they begin making their decisions at 4.30. [00:29:12] Lex Vaughn: Begin making their decisions at-- [00:29:14] Crystal Fincher: Yes. [00:29:14] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, and it's like - yeah, just think about, I mean, the average person is not done with work at 4.30. They're not even home from work at 4.30, if they're not a remote worker. And yeah, and there's a lot of different shifts out there that people might be taking. And it assumes that people who don't have shelter don't have jobs, which is just the worst piece of misinformation. [00:29:38] Crystal Fincher: Or don't have any other interests, or places to go - it's just challenging. And speaking of the King County Sheriff's, this is a big concern - who are they gonna have to actually enforce this? - which is a question that was asked. And Deputy Mayor Kevin Schilling said on the dais that - Hey, the King County Sheriff's Office signed off on the change. However, PubliCola followed up with the King County Sheriff's Office, and a spokesman for King County Executive Dow Constantine told PubliCola that the county has not made a decision about whether and how to enforce the law. So, that is absolutely not true - what Deputy Mayor Kevin Schilling said - that evidently is still under review. And it looks like they were, once again, in a rush and moved hastily without even knowing if this is something that they can enforce. It is just, it's just a challenge. [00:30:31] Lex Vaughn: Come on, Burien - get some new people on that council. [00:30:34] Crystal Fincher: Speaking of challenges that are pretty easy to foresee, or things that don't quite make sense based on what we're being told - is news that, hey, finally, finally, the mayor's office who has had the funding to do this and for some reason hasn't for a long time, announced that they're going to launch a dual responder program. However, this dual responder program would still fail to civilianize the crisis response, which is what the mayor's office had initially said they wanted to - we had a conversation with Deputy Mayor, then-Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell on this show about that before. But in the way this is going to be - in the way it's proposed, in the way it looks like it's going to happen - a new Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department, or CARE Department, will launch a dual dispatch pilot consisting of teams of two civilians, some of whom are behavioral health providers, who can be dispatched alongside SPD officers. And so this program hired six responders so far, $1.8 million has been proposed from the mayor in the 2024 budget. And in the press conference, which I think you said that you watched, they talked about this being similar to or based on programs that have gotten acclaim in a few other major cities. However, ours is substantively different than theirs - in that, theirs don't rely on co-response - meaning that an armed officer has to go with someone all the time - or they have options out of that, that is not a requirement of the dispatch. And there's good reason for that. One, most of these calls don't apply to that. In Denver's program, they found that they only needed to call for armed police response 2% of the time where their crisis responders were dispatched - especially as you said before, when they're saying they don't have enough cops to do the job that is expected of them, you would think that'd be like - Oh, that's great news. We can deploy our resources in areas where they can be more effective. [00:32:44] Lex Vaughn: That's why it's probably a dual response. They don't want our city to discover that we don't need police at every single one of these calls. And it's unfortunate that the mayor and this police department are more concerned with how can we get this police department more money, more people. It's, I guess, a rough transition here - to say the least - to get this city to wrap its head around the fact that you do not need police at every single one of these 911 calls. And in fact, it's very dangerous for a lot of these cops to show up, especially in cases where someone's having a mental health crisis or something. When I was a reporter at The Seattle Times, I unfortunately reported on cases where someone was having a mental health crisis and they were shot for not immediately obeying orders. That was, you know - I - if you have a loved one that struggles with mental health issues, the police - they're not who you want to call. It's dangerous, 'cause I think a lot of police are - they're just too willing and ready to shoot as soon as they're not listened to. And so I'm very disappointed that this is a dual response thing, when it's so clear we need that CARE team to just respond on their own, with their own expertise, without anyone armed on the scene. [00:34:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and especially in crisis calls, armed responses - an armed presence - is its own escalator. [00:34:17] Lex Vaughn: Yes - yeah, like duh - for anyone. And then imagine you're also in crisis - just not a great mix. [00:34:24] Crystal Fincher: It's challenging. You know, Crosscut previously reported that while only 2.2% of calls for service in Seattle were crisis calls, those calls accounted for 25% of Seattle officers' use of force. And if we recall, Charleena Lyles in 2017 was a perfect example of that, really unfortunate example of that. It's just really challenging. They seem determined to have an officer respond - to your point, it seems like they are afraid of relinquishing anything. But that seems to be happening - if you listen to their logic - at the expense of everyone else's safety and more effective deployment across the city. Then another really meaningful point brought up is just the scale of this pilot - what are we really able to see? [00:35:12] Lex Vaughn: Six people, right? [00:35:12] Crystal Fincher: Six people - yeah, absolutely. And that is completely out of line with the scale of the programs in these other cities. [00:35:21] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, Albuquerque - 70 people. They're really doing it. [00:35:25] Crystal Fincher: Look at how many officers we have. Look at the size of the city. And one thing that's been noticed by lots of people for a long time is that we put out these pilots, we say we need to see results, and we need to get data on them to see if they're gonna continue. And you just throw a couple people out there - and you can't reasonably expect any meaningful intervention from a few people. Now when you do look at that, they do outsize good for what they're there. So it's like, just imagine if we were to appropriately invest and deploy in numbers that could effectively manage this problem citywide. But we continue not to do that, which is frustrating, and watch more of the budget continue to go to police officers, vacant police officer positions - and it's just frustrating. [00:36:16] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, I mean, it's like the police department and the City are trying to make this argument that we don't have enough officers. And it's like - Well, what if we're just not doing this efficiently at all? And it's just unfortunate to see that the priority here seems to be retaining dependence on a police department that is as bloated as possible, and not just creating a more efficient public health and public safety kind of operation system here. Like you said, a lot of these calls - they do not need an armed cop, especially one that might be barreling through a high pedestrian area at 75 miles per hour, coming to the call. And if we're really interested in public safety here, I really think we don't need more cops. We need to use the cops we have more efficiently, with more accountability. And expand this other program, the CARE program, and let them respond independently to a lot of these calls and expand it. And I'm worried that this program is being set up to fail. Some people might say that - Well, this is better than nothing. It's a start. - I guess, but I think it's being set up to fail. This is six people - not that many people - and they're not being allowed to be the first to intervene, which is really where I think the magic of those programs happens. It's like - Wow, the situation did not get escalated. This person got the help they needed without a gun on the scene. [00:37:48] Crystal Fincher: And it feels like someone is coming to help, right? And it really is the difference in - is someone coming to help me, or is someone coming to control me? Is someone coming to make me do something, to stop me? [00:37:59] Lex Vaughn: Yep, that is - that's it - right there, yeah. [00:38:04] Crystal Fincher: And that makes such a big difference when someone is already in a place where they're unstable, where they're worried, concerned, where they're not perceiving things as well as they can be. And then expecting them then to be able to - oftentimes be calmer than the officer that's responding - and just rationally follow everything. You're being called because this person is not behaving rationally, right - so we know that from jump - everything else that stems from that, it's predictable that that's not going to have a great outcome. And again, we have to get to dealing with the root causes of this. There's nothing a police person can do to address a behavioral health crisis. [00:38:47] Lex Vaughn: That's not their expertise at all. [00:38:49] Crystal Fincher: That's not their expertise, it's not their job. It's not their - no training, no resources in order to do that. The people who actually can make those connections - who do understand our complicated and inadequate, but you know, system - and to try and get people in there and to get them some help that they need, so this is not a chronic problem. So this doesn't escalate. It's really important. The last story I want to talk about today is the emergence of a new GOP candidate in Washington's 3rd Congressional District. This district is now notorious for being one of the biggest districts in an upset race in 2022, where Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez beat Joe Kent, a very far right-wing Republican in 2022 - biggest upset race in the country. And so Joe Kent announced that he was running again, he's been running, and he's endorsed by the likes of Trump and you know, a lot of really, really, really far right extremists. And that is what a lot of people blame on his loss that - wow, even that was too much for this pretty solidly Republican district. So it looks like other Republicans in the state - I don't want to call them moderate Republicans, 'cause I don't think that is an accurate descriptor - but ones who realize that Joe Kent- [00:40:11] Lex Vaughn: Maybe just smarter, like more strategic Republicans. [00:40:16] Crystal Fincher: Right - is a tainted brand, right? And are trying to operate more strategically. And so Leslie Lewallen, a city councilmember in Camas in Clark County, has entered the race and drawn early support and endorsements from prominent Republicans like former Attorney General Rob McKenna, former Secretary of State Sam Reed, and Tiffany Smiley. And Tiffany Smiley, who's the challenger to Patty Murray in 2022. And so they are not going the MAGA route, they're trying to go the other route. Although if you look at the issues that she's talking about, this is really, you know, how they're dressing up someone who holds a lot of the same core beliefs when it comes to women's choice, when it comes to these really troubling attacks and book bans that we're seeing in schools, attacks on the trans community and the LGBTQ community - just a lot of worrisome things. This is not, you know, what we had previously described as a moderate Republican. This is still a pretty far right Republican, but it's not Joe Kent. And, you know, Joe Kent is out of touch with reality in a variety of things - it's hard to really explain how wild this guy is without just being like - look at this, I cannot - I had to do this in 2022. Like I can't do justice to what this is with an explanation, just watch him talk. [00:41:42] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, him and Loren Culp were kind of an insane, you know, pair to talk about back then. [00:41:48] Crystal Fincher: They were just not in touch with reality. But, you know, this will be interesting. And we see this effort, with Dave Reichert in the governor's race, to try and dress someone up as a more moderate Republican to kind of assuage some of the fears that people have of someone too extreme. MAGA - the MAGA brand - is not popular throughout the state, that's not a winning brand in the state. And Republicans have been losing ground because of it. But I think, especially when we look at a lot of these races in King County - like I'm thinking of the 8th Congressional District race, the Reagan Dunn race against Kim Schrier - even someone who has, you know, traditionally branded themselves as a moderate, they still hold beliefs that are pretty repugnant to lots of people. Kind of first and foremost, the issue of abortion rights, right - these are pretty fundamental rights. The issue of privacy protections - pretty fundamental rights. Wanting a stronger safety net - pretty fundamental, you know, support by a lot of people in the state. And Republicans seem to disagree with that. [00:42:48] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, or at a minimum, they're just spineless because Reagan Dunn, at certain points, has - if it's advantageous to him, you know, hasn't been as conservative, but just depends on where he's trying to mold himself. [00:43:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. [00:43:04] Lex Vaughn: Yeah. [00:43:04] Crystal Fincher: So at this moment, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has a pretty substantial financial lead. I think I read that she has like a million and a half dollars and Joe Kent has like a shade under $500,000. But I - this will be a district that this cycle, I'm sure, attracts a lot of attention and a lot of outside spending. Definitely on the list for Republicans to pick up. Now, you know, we're sitting here as Republicans just kicked out Speaker McCarthy, which makes Patty Murray now second in line to the presidency since there's no current Speaker of the House. But, you know, Republicans have problems from the very top of the ticket all the way on down, so it'll be interesting just to see how they manage this chaos. [00:43:49] Lex Vaughn: Yeah, well, this whole next year is gonna be an interesting Republican identity journey - I don't know if it's a crisis, they've kind of been in crisis for a little while, but it's - they're gonna have to make some decisions about who they're gonna be in the future. Are they gonna continue the Trump route or are they trying to find this other, I don't know. I guess almost as far right, but just a different tone, different leaders at the helm kind of leading that. I don't know. [00:44:24] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, very - it'll be interesting to see. And, you know, we'll have another shutdown battle coming up in about a month. Who knows if we'll have a speaker by then? Who knows if we'll be in any better position for anything by then? [00:44:39] Lex Vaughn: I just heard yesterday there's a possibility of Trump being a speaker? [00:44:43] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so- [00:44:45] Lex Vaughn: Oh my God, I didn't know that was a thing. [00:44:47] Crystal Fincher: Fun fact is the Speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House or Congress. So yeah, they can appoint - they could do that with Trump if they wanted to, I think? [00:44:58] Lex Vaughn: Ahh, this world is insane. [00:45:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's, you know - it is frustrating - the Republicans are not a party serious about governing right now. And I just wish we would contend with that more directly. Or at least- [00:45:14] Lex Vaughn: And the people who vote for them. Like what are you doing? [00:45:16] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. So we'll continue to follow this, but that will certainly - is an interesting new element in that 3rd Congressional District race that will have impacts here locally and nationally. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, October 6th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful cohost today is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Founder and Editor of The Needling, Lex Vaughn. You can find Lex on Twitter @AlexaVaughn, V-A-U-G-H-N. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter and most other networks @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. [00:46:41] Lex Vaughn: Bye.

On this Tuesday topical show, Crystal chats with Rob Saka about his campaign for Seattle City Council District 1. Listen and learn more about Rob and his thoughts on: [01:10] - Why he is running [05:31] - Lightning round! [14:12] - What is an accomplishment of his that impacts District 1 [17:46] - City budget shortfall: Raise revenue or cut services? [23:29] - Climate change [25:29] - Transit reliability [28:08] - Bike and pedestrian safety [30:22] - Public Safety: Alternative response [35:00] - Victim support [40:56] - Housing and homelessness: Frontline worker wages [43:03] - Small business support [47:30] - Childcare: Affordability and accessibility [51:38] - Progressive revenue options [53:41] - Difference between him and opponent 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 Rob Saka at @voterobsaka.   Rob Saka I am a Seattle Public Schools dad of three, attorney, justice reform advocate, Air Force Veteran, and West Seattle resident. As the son of a Nigerian immigrant, I overcame abject poverty, a traumatic and unstable home life cycling through the foster care system, to rise in the ranks of the U.S. Air Force, earn my college and law degrees under the G.I. Bill, and achieve success as an attorney and policy advocate in Seattle and King County. I grew up in the foster care system in Minnesota until my father was able to rescue me at nine years old. We moved out west and settled in low-income apartments in Kent, blocks away from a justice center that would later house some of my childhood friends. Growing up, I watched my dad work numerous physically demanding low-wage jobs. As a single father, he ended up settling for any honest work he could get to put food on our table. I went on to earn my college degree under the G.I. Bill at the University of Washington where I met my wife, Alicia. After quickly moving up the Enlisted ranks, I earned a rare Deserving Airman Commission and served as an Intelligence Officer. After 10 years in the military, I resigned my commission to focus on serving others as a civilian attorney. I thought I could help others in my community better overcome some of the systemic barriers I had navigated growing up if I was armed with the power of the law. After graduating law school from the University of California, Hastings Law, I moved back to Seattle to practice law at Perkins Coie. I have tried my best to bring my unique brand of servant leadership and passionate advocacy in service of communities across this city, including by serving on nonprofit boards such as the Seattle Urban League, representing fellow Veterans in need pro bono, via the Seattle Stand Down Initiative, helping underserved microentrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, volunteering to be head coach for my daughter's Little League baseball team, and much more. In 2018, King County Executive Dow Constantine appointed me to serve on the once per decade Charter Commission where I helped champion and pass several voter-approved ballot measures to reform our justice system and protect workers. In 2021, the King County Council appointed me to the nonpartisan Districting Committee tasked with redrawing King County Council districts using Census data. In 2022, Mayor Bruce Harrell appointed me to serve on the Seattle Police Chief Search Committee responsible for helping to select the next Chief of Police.   Resources Campaign Website - Rob Saka   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Well hello - today I am thrilled to be joined by a candidate for Seattle City Council in District 1, Rob Saka. Welcome, Rob. [00:01:03] Rob Saka: Thank you, Crystal - appreciate the opportunity to share this virtual space here with you and your audience. [00:01:10] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, I guess what I'm starting off wondering is - why are you running? [00:01:17] Rob Saka: Yeah, so great, great question. So just a little bit about me first. I'm a - Crystal, I'm a public school dad of three - three young kids. I'm an Air Force veteran, attorney, community safety advocate. I had the pleasure of serving on a lot of boards and commissions, most recently the Seattle Police Chief Search Committee. Before that, I served - I got nitty gritty, waist deep in US census data and helped redraw the legislative boundaries in King County using a process that runs parallel to state and federal redistricting. Before that, helped champion and pass a brand new justice reform framework right here in Martin Luther King County - and that voter's ultimately approved. And, you know, so I live in Delridge with my family and look, I'm grateful - as an Air Force veteran, I went to law school. In the last 10 years, I've been helping organizations and individuals of all sizes start and grow their businesses and be successful. And I'm grateful, Crystal, where I am today personally and professionally. But I'm also someone who overcame the foster care system for the first nine years of my life - cycling in and out, in and out, mostly in - before my father, who is a Nigerian immigrant, was able to finally rescue me from those circumstances at age nine. And, you know, me and my dad - he ended up raising me as a single parent, ended up sort of struggling growing up, our struggles continued together. But I was born in Minneapolis and moved out West like middle school age - landed in South King County in Kent, so proud to have called - proud to call West Seattle my home today, lived in Seattle for over 15 years. But, you know, particularly during the formative years of my childhood - you know, adolescence - grew up in South County in Kent. And, you know, so let's just say I have a non-traditional background and journey and path to where I am today. And I grew up in Kent - in the valley in Kent - that were blocks away from the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center, Crystal, that would later house some of my childhood friends. And sadly, some of them would be sentenced for their crimes by judges who are now my professional mentors in the legal community. And so I've always felt this continuing, ongoing - not just responsibility, but duty - duty to make sure that more people from disadvantaged backgrounds and communities and walks of life are able to not only achieve their true potential in life, but thrive. And part of my calling, part of the way I've been able to do that is through justice reform and making sure more people that look like me and you and others, you know, aren't like - more specifically more Black and brown folks - aren't overly represented in the criminal justice system here. And so I mentioned some of that work. And I fought to hold bad police accountable in the past, and I'll continue to do that, you know, going forward if elected in Seattle City Council. But public safety has been weighing heavily on my heart and my mind, Crystal, as a dad - dad in the city, just a dad from Delridge. And I understand the need - as a Black man growing up in this country, I understand the need to have better police because I've experienced police brutality firsthand. And better police - not no police, not defund police, but better police - and I fought to hold bad police accountable, continue that work going forward. But the stakes have never been higher to make sure that we have the public safety resources and prevention and response and intervention capabilities - both, all - that we need to meet the challenges we're currently facing. And I was - been personally disheartened by some of the current direction of the Seattle City Council in particular, and I'm here to focus on solutions. The stakes for this city have never been higher - for my kids, for kids across this entire city. But I couldn't be more energized and excited at the opportunity that we all have to bring about the change that I think people are so desperately yearning for. So that's why. [00:05:31] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Well, before we dive into all of the details and long discussion we're gonna have, we are adding a new element into our candidate interviews this year, which is a bit of a lightning round - just short form yes or no, or choose one answers. And so starting with this little group - This year, did you vote yes on the King County Crisis Care Centers levy? [00:05:56] Rob Saka: Yes, happily. [00:05:57] Crystal Fincher: This year, did you vote yes on the Veterans, Seniors and Human Services levy? [00:06:03] Rob Saka: Yes, yes - that benefits everybody. Not just 'cause I'm a vet - heck yes. [00:06:08] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote in favor of Seattle's Social Housing Initiative 135? [00:06:13] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:06:16] Crystal Fincher: In 2021, did you vote in favor of Bruce Harrell or Lorena González for Mayor? [00:06:21] Rob Saka: I voted for Mayor Bruce Harrell. [00:06:24] Crystal Fincher: In 2021, did you vote for Nicole Thomas Kennedy or Ann Davison for City Attorney? [00:06:29] Rob Saka: Ooh, yeah, it's - rock and a hard place - but given the choice between an abolitionist and someone super duper hefty and strong on public safety, I voted for Ann Davison. [00:06:43] Crystal Fincher: In 2022, did you vote for Leesa Manion or Jim Ferrell for Prosecutor? [00:06:48] Rob Saka: Leesa. [00:06:49] Crystal Fincher: In 2022, did you vote for Patty Murray or Tiffany Smiley for US Senate? [00:06:54] Rob Saka: Senator Murray. I helped knock on doors for her in 2010. Of course, yeah. [00:07:00] Crystal Fincher: Do you rent or own your residence? [00:07:03] Rob Saka: Today, I own - grateful for that - but I'm a lifelong renter and other unstable and insecure housing before that, but today, I own. [00:07:12] Crystal Fincher: Are you a landlord? [00:07:14] Rob Saka: No. [00:07:15] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to require landlords to report metrics, including how much rent they're charging, to help better plan housing and development needs in the district? [00:07:25] Rob Saka: Maybe. Curious to understand more about what specific set of problems that would help address-- [00:07:34] Crystal Fincher: We can get more into all the detail. We'll keep these to yes or no right now. Are there instances where you support sweeps of homeless encampments? [00:07:45] Rob Saka: I support better connecting our unhoused neighbors with shelter and services, and some people call it sweeps, some people call it restoring encampments or whatever, but-- [00:07:57] Crystal Fincher: Is this a yes or a no? [00:08:01] Rob Saka: I support connecting people with, better connecting people with shelter and services. So I guess under your framing, yes. [00:08:08] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to provide additional funding for Seattle's Social Housing Public Development Authority? [00:08:15] Rob Saka: Maybe. We need to figure out where that's gonna come from, but I'm inclined to do it. I'm looking forward to working with the authors of the original bill - that I voted for - to figure out what the funding solution looks like. [00:08:28] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with King County Executive Constantine's statement that the King County Jail should be closed? [00:08:36] Rob Saka: As a principle - long-term, yeah, long-term, but yeah, we still have issues and challenges today that require incarceration, and so-- [00:08:52] Crystal Fincher: Moving on to - lightning round, lightning round. Do you agree with King County Executive Dow Constantine that the Youth Jail should be closed in 2025? [00:09:02] Rob Saka: Maybe. [00:09:04] Crystal Fincher: Should parking enforcement be housed with an SPD? [00:09:10] Rob Saka: Maybe. [00:09:11] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to allow police in schools? [00:09:17] Rob Saka: Yes, if that's what the community wants. [00:09:19] Crystal Fincher: Would, do you support allocation in the City budget for a civilian-led mental health crisis response? [00:09:25] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:09:26] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget to increase the pay of human service workers? [00:09:31] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:09:33] Crystal Fincher: Do you support removing funds in the City budget for forced encampment removals, and instead allocating funds towards a Housing First approach? [00:09:42] Rob Saka: No. [00:09:44] Crystal Fincher: Do you support abrogating or removing the funds from unfilled SPD positions and putting them towards meaningful public safety measures? [00:09:53] Rob Saka: No. [00:09:55] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocating money in the City budget for supervised consumption sites? [00:10:00] Rob Saka: No. [00:10:01] Crystal Fincher: Do you support increasing funding in the City budget for violence intervention programs? [00:10:08] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:10:10] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract, or Seattle Police Officers Guild contract, that does not give the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of Inspector General subpoena power? [00:10:22] Rob Saka: Yes, I worked on it at the county level - yes. [00:10:26] Crystal Fincher: So you oppose it, they should have subpoena power? [00:10:28] Rob Saka: Yeah, absolutely. I believe an effective civili-- well, we can talk about it, but yeah, yeah. [00:10:32] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't remove limitations as to how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian? [00:10:45] Rob Saka: Help me understand this question - is it - so-- [00:10:47] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose basically lifting the cap, removing limitations? Would you oppose a contract that doesn't remove those limitations as to how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian? [00:11:03] Rob Saka: No. [00:11:03] Crystal Fincher: Meaning should - okay, gotcha. Do you oppose a SPOG contract that impedes the ability, do you oppose a SPOG contract that impedes the ability of the City to move police funding to public safety alternatives? [00:11:20] Rob Saka: Would I oppose a SPOG contract that removes? [00:11:23] Crystal Fincher: That impedes the ability of the City to move police funding to public safety alternatives? [00:11:31] Rob Saka: Yes, provided it doesn't impact, yeah. [00:11:34] Crystal Fincher: Do you support eliminating in-uniform off-duty work by SPD officers? [00:11:43] Rob Saka: No. [00:11:45] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans and non-binary students are allowed to play on the sports teams that fit with their gender identities? [00:11:53] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:11:55] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans people can use bathrooms or public facilities that match their gender? [00:12:00] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:12:02] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with the Seattle City Council's decision to implement the JumpStart Tax? [00:12:08] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:12:10] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to reduce or divert the JumpStart Tax in any way? [00:12:15] Rob Saka: No. [00:12:17] Crystal Fincher: Are you happy with Seattle's newly built waterfront? [00:12:23] Rob Saka: Yes. Maybe. Could be better. [00:12:26] Crystal Fincher: Do you believe return to work mandates, like the one issued by Amazon, are necessary to boost Seattle's economy? [00:12:34] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:12:36] Crystal Fincher: Have you taken transit in the past week? [00:12:40] Rob Saka: No. [00:12:41] Crystal Fincher: In the past month? [00:12:43] Rob Saka: No. [00:12:44] Crystal Fincher: Have you ridden a bike in the past week? [00:12:48] Rob Saka: No. In the last month - yes. [00:12:51] Crystal Fincher: Should Pike Place Market allow non-commercial car traffic? [00:13:00] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:13:02] Crystal Fincher: Should significant investments be made to speed up the opening of scheduled Sound Transit light rail lines? [00:13:09] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:13:11] Crystal Fincher: Should we accelerate the elimination of the ability to turn right on red lights to improve pedestrian safety? [00:13:19] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:13:21] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever been a member of a union? [00:13:23] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:13:25] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to increase funding and staffing for investigations into labor violations like wage theft and illegal union busting? [00:13:33] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:13:35] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever walked on a picket line? [00:13:39] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:13:40] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever crossed a picket line? [00:13:42] Rob Saka: No. [00:13:44] Crystal Fincher: Is your campaign unionized? [00:13:49] Rob Saka: No, no one in my-- [00:13:52] Crystal Fincher: You would know if it was. [00:13:53] Rob Saka: Yeah. [00:13:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. If your campaign staff wants to unionize, will you voluntarily recognize their effort? [00:14:00] Rob Saka: Yes. [00:14:02] Crystal Fincher: See, and that's the end of the lightning round - quick and painless. And now we can get into our deep conversation where we can get into all of the nuance. Wanted to start out talking about, you know, a lot of people look to work that candidates have done to get a feel for what they prioritize and how qualified they are to lead. Can you describe something you've accomplished or changed in your district and what impact that has had on its residents? [00:14:28] Rob Saka: Yeah, so a couple of things. I kind of - as I mentioned, I served on a number of boards, appointed boards, and commissions at the county and city level. And particularly with respect to my prior work in the King County Charter Commission where kind of basically changed the landscape for, you know - at the constitutional, the basic framework of the county, made a number of changes that voters ultimately approved and signed off on that, you know, helped make King County a better place. And therefore this district and the city, entire city a better place. So more specifically, you know, I'm really proud of a lot of the work that I did in the justice reform space. You know, I'm one of the co-architects, the reason why in this county we no longer elect our sheriff, we appoint our sheriff. Why? Because I believe in effective civilian oversight of law enforcement. Also, you know, one of the lightning round questions earlier was about, you know, granting the civilian Office of Law Enforcement Oversight or whatever - the parallel office, whatever it's called, at the city level - them subpoena power. And I helped champion and pass that at the county level to make sure that the civilian Office of Law Enforcement Oversight has subpoena power and voters approved that. And, you know, also with respect to the inquest process, when someone is killed by law enforcement, you know, I helped add safeguards and protections and making sure that that process is more fair and transparent for all, more specifically by adding and allowing the families of the deceased to be represented by, you know, have legal representation and clarifying what constitutes an in-custody death situation. So, you know, that's sort of like the package of justice reform work that I'm proud to have been a part of and help lead. And then there's this whole issue of workplace protections. It is now unlawful in this county to discriminate against workers on the basis of, you know, their status as family caregivers or their status as a veteran, including veterans who were dishonorably discharged as a direct result of their, you know, their trans and queer status. Some, you know, as we know, when Trump took office, you know, he did what Trump does and unfortunately, a lot of people were given paperwork and discharged, many dishonorably, from the military. And so now in this county, you can no longer - so it's not just the people of, absolutely, you know, like everyone benefits from that, not just the people in the county. And selfishly, look, as a veteran and someone who has - with three young kids - and I have my own family caregiving obligations, but so my DNA and fingerprints are clearly all over that. But we know that everyone, everyone benefits, again, when they can show up to work without fear of reprisal, retribution, discrimination, because of one of those things. [00:17:46] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Well, I wanna talk about the City budget. The City of Seattle is projected to have a revenue shortfall of $224 million beginning in 2025. The City's mandated by the state to pass a balanced budget. So the only options to address that deficit are either raising revenue or cutting services. Which one of those is, or what combination of those, is your approach? [00:18:12] Rob Saka: Yeah, it might be a more - I respectfully, you know, reject the paradigm - it's one or the other, you know, cutting or modifying maybe. And we can consider new revenue opportunities, but I think my starting place is operating within existing state law, meaning, you know, we have to have a balanced budget and start with whatever City budget we do have in place. And, you know, so that's my starting point. We need to identify what's working well, like working well spending-wise - what kind of, you know, I personally support audits of city budgets - independent, third-party audits even of city budgets, potentially across the board to identify and regular ongoing like monitoring and systems evaluations to make sure we're getting the bang for our buck and making sure whatever dollars we're spending are wisely spent. And we can shift, you know, reshift or, you know, reallocate resources to areas of greater need and greater impact potentially, but depending on the opportunity. And then from there-- [00:19:25] Crystal Fincher: I guess starting in the frame, just to help clarify the frame. So if we are working within the City budget and starting with the existing City budget, what we're moving to needs to be $224 [million] slimmer than what currently is. So I think audits are wonderful things, I think they're actually an underutilized resource for many - and not a tool of punishment, but a tool of discovery. But if you do have to cut, if you are starting from the point of - let's take this budget and see where we can trim - where are you starting? What, where would you prioritize those cuts? [00:20:03] Rob Saka: Yeah, I'm not gonna prioritize any specific area. I'm not gonna come in and target any specific area. Instead, I'm gonna approach it with a curious mind and, you know, figure out what are those programs and services that are well delivered, well administered, and we're seeing results for. And what are, you know, other opportunities where they either need potentially additional investment or maybe reinvestment and kind of going from there. And then, you know, that's kind of like the framing that I kind of view this as. And then from there, if an existing - so if everything, after all that work, you know, it's a set of, you know, it's a spectrum, a set of analysis that kind of run side-by-side and in parallel. But, you know, from there, let's look at - so take the issue of homelessness, for example. Homelessness is certainly a Seattle problem, but it is not a Seattle-only problem. The issue of homelessness in this city is a regional problem, it's a county problem, it's a state problem, and it's a federal problem. And it's a shared - so I think not only should we not try and solve the issue - whatever the issue is, whatever the challenge is - alone and in a silo. We need to look to those other partners and other governments for design, helping to co-design and co-engineer the policy solution - Step one. Step two is we also need to look to them for, you know, like help funding the specific solutions as well. So, you know, I would push for more - that's one area where I would push for more funding of, you know, like the shared responsibility model. And from there, let's explore public-private partnerships - building housing, affordable housing - you know, there's organizations and private organizations, including some companies who, you know, want to contribute and help address the problem. And so working collaboratively with them to figure out what's doable, how we can potentially close some of those gaps and fund them. And then let's look at new revenue opportunities after that. And I know there's this new Progressive Revenue Task Force - or whatever it's been rebranded, it's called something else in Seattle now, but - and then let's look at new revenue potentials and opportunities. But there's like, I kind of think about it more than just like - yeah, I try to avoid the either or-- [00:22:43] Crystal Fincher: I mean, but isn't that, wouldn't that be the position that you're in when you're elected? You have to trim the budget by $224 million - absent finding new revenue, which is going to take a little bit to trickle in and get started anyway. So you're going to have to make that call as a councilmember, right? [00:23:01] Rob Saka: I'm going to have to make the call to be the, be a responsible steward of whatever dollars we are spending. I'm going to have to make the call of being, you know, doing my due diligence to make sure that we're operating within the existing City budget, identifying, you know, system deficiencies and opportunities to improve and streamline and allocate and sometimes reallocate resources. Yes. [00:23:27] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Okay. So let's talk about climate change. On almost every measure, we're behind on our 2030 climate goals, while experiencing devastating impacts from extreme heat and cold, to wildfires and floods. It's been really challenging and anticipated to see things like that with increasing frequency. What are your highest priority plans to get us on track to meet the 2030 goals? [00:23:53] Rob Saka: Yeah, so climate change is an issue that's really important to me personally and my family. And having talked to a lot of people throughout this district, it is one that I know is weighing heavily on the hearts and minds of a lot of people - I wouldn't say that supersedes public safety in the issue of, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but it is very important, it's very urgent. So my specific plans and proposals from a policy perspective to address climate - make sure we have a, we actually bring to life climate justice and we're seeing and building out climate resiliency across this district and hopefully across the City as well. This - District 1, first of all, as you probably know, now includes South Park and Georgetown due to redistricting. And those are some of the most historically, you know, at-risk communities. The life expectancy of folks is lower there in the Duwamish Valley. We need to build out more sustainable communities and more resilient communities. So I support things like - we also need to cut down the amount of greenhouse gases as quickly as possible. And part of that is, you know, we need to encourage and incentivize people using 100% electric vehicles. You can do that at the city level in part by building out our infrastructure and charging battery infrastructure to support that across the city. So that's part of my plan. Another part is we need to get people, again, out of those single-occupancy vehicles that are producing the most greenhouse gases and into public transit. And so we need to, therefore, expand our public transit options. And not only as we expand out options and service, we need to expand reliability and the quality, overall quality of the experience. And I do know, just having talked to a lot of people - 7,000+, knocked on 7,000+ doors personally in this district. My campaign has knocked on an additional 12,000 outside of that. You know, there are some people, a lot of people that want to take public trans and get out of their cars, but unfortunately they just don't feel safe. They don't feel safe when they're on the bus. Crystal, they don't feel safe when they're on the journey from their homes to the bus stop. They don't feel safe when they get off the bus to wherever the destination they're going, whether it's downtown or wherever they're going. And so we can build out and expand and drive reliability and predictability and accessibility and our transit options. But if no one's feeling comfortable to take the bus, it's a nice shiny object that's effectively akin to a art project. We need to make sure we create the experience that is in-line with people's expectations as well and making sure we're doing both things in parallel. And also, you know, we need to - and part of my plan includes - working collaboratively with labor organizations to find the best opportunities and build the pipeline for those jobs, working class jobs, in sustainable fields and making sure that those are well-funded. And, you know, we create - everyone is able to share in the benefits of a sustainable economy that's diverse. Also building out and improving our green building codes and sustainable building standards, environmental standards - strengthening those. Those are just some of the things that, you know, kind of how I view the opportunity at the Seattle City government level, from a policy standpoint, to make further progress and accelerate our impact on addressing the climate challenges we face. [00:28:08] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. So how would you look to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety in your district? [00:28:17] Rob Saka: Yeah, so we need to - one's low-hanging fruit. One is bike safety. So we need to add more protective barriers to bike lanes where possible, where feasible. I think there's an opportunity for more bike lanes, but I think we're at a decent place there - we're better off in bike lanes today in this district than we are in pedestrian safety improvements and enhancements. I'll tell you - 7,000 doors I knocked on personally, Crystal, and all over this district - and I started right here in my own community in Delridge. And then I sort of branched off, fanned out to other parts of the district and, you know - Admiral and Fauntleroy and Alki. And then, you know, South Park. And for the last month before the primary, I came back home - came back home to Delridge and High Point and, you know, other more disadvantaged communities, historically underrepresented communities like South Park. And I was struck by a couple of things. 'Cause when I was at those, like the "more affluent" parts of the district - I was amazed, Crystal - like the potholes were few. When there were potholes, they were quickly patched and repaired. Amazingly, shocking - there were sidewalks on both sides of the streets. And then when I came back home, particularly to Delridge - more specifically, like when you get further east of Del, anywhere east of Delridge, you go, the Delridge corridor - Crystal, there's many neighborhoods and communities that don't - not only do they not have one sidewalk, they don't have any sidewalks, period. We need to build out our, like, and building out, investing in basic sidewalk infrastructure is a huge opportunity to address pedestrian safety in this district. And I plan to do just that. [00:30:22] Crystal Fincher: Well, I want to talk about public safety a bit, and starting with alternative response. While a number of jurisdictions, definitely around the country - but even in our own region, in the county - have rolled out alternative response programs to better support those having behavioral health crises, Seattle has stalled in implementing what is a widely-supported idea by voters and residents in the City. Where do you stand on non-police solutions to public safety issues, and what are your thoughts on civilian-led versus co-response models? [00:30:54] Rob Saka: Yeah, so it's imperative. It's an essential part of my plan and my public safety package - to actually stand up, fund, and deliver this - and work collaboratively with my fellow council members and the mayor to do so. We've, sort of as you alluded to, Crystal - we've kind of languished a little bit, been in the sunken place a little bit, if you will - talking about this great opportunity, and we just can't seem to get unstuck and unblock ourselves. Meanwhile, you mentioned a few other jurisdictions right here in the county, across the state, that have done it - but some great comparators, I think from a population standpoint, geographic scope and size, are Denver and Albuquerque. We literally do not need to recreate the wheel here. Instead, we need to just humble ourselves and look to how, specifically, other jurisdictions have been successful. What works? Now, also, at the same time, understanding every single thing that they did well is not gonna port over, make a direct, logical, one-for-one - mean it'll automatically work out well here in Seattle, but we don't need to recreate the wheel. Let's look to what's been successful in other jurisdictions - I named a few that would be good comparators. With respect to, but that is an essential part of public safety, not the only part. Yeah, we need to hire more police officers and train them and make sure they have the tools and resources they need to be successful, set and enforce the highest standards of excellence and professionalism in the communities where they operate, and hold them accountable swiftly if they fail to carry out their duties in a just, equitable, constitutional manner. So that's also an essential part. But back to the first, the question here. Yes, I support these civilian-led responses. It's an urgent thing and we need to treat it as such. And for the co-response versus civilian-led response, I think that's gonna be a situation-dependent thing. I know they have various models in other jurisdictions. And if it's pretty clear, we need to develop some good, sharp, clear, consistent guidelines about what that response looks like. But I'll tell you, Crystal, when I - I volunteered for a 911 shift downtown, you know, at the call center downtown Seattle, and I was struck by two things. One, the mounting list of calls - queue of calls - that, like, deserves ordinarily some sort of police response of some sort, but because of staffing levels, no one was gonna get to it for hours, maybe some cases days. And also, I sat sitting side-by-side next to the frontline call center operator and listening to the calls, I definitely heard a few calls that someone was in a clear crisis situation and they needed a response of some sort, but a badge and a gun and armed response and a uniformed response was not at all what they need. We've seen how that's a formula for disaster. We, you know, we can train police officers - and yeah, we're gonna train them better, make them better, and hold them accountable, but we're not gonna train our way out of bad responses. Like, they don't need to be leading and frontlining a lot of these crises calls, especially when maybe the call earlier, someone might've been trying to take their life, that's conceivable, and then they respond to someone who just needs help. He needs a, they need a social worker or behavioral mental health crisis. We can't train our way out of that with uniformed gun-badge responses. So, but it's a situation-specific - to answer your question, you know, again, about the different models options. It's a situation-specific kind of analysis. [00:35:00] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. I wanna talk about victims - a lot, and we hear people talk about victims and oftentimes mischaracterize what victims say, but both from, you know, anecdotal conversations and numerous studies, victims overwhelmingly want two things - to make sure what happened to them doesn't happen to them or anyone else again, and help getting beyond their - support and help to get beyond and to restore what was lost or damaged or hurt. And we don't do a good job from a governmental standpoint, or as a community, supporting people who have been victimized. And so often that feeds into very unhealthy outcomes later on down the line. What can you do in your capacity as a City Councilperson to better support victims of crime? [00:35:55] Rob Saka: Yeah, so great, great question. I think the best - so all of these issues - highly complex, nuanced. So let's double click, dive a little deeper. So we talked about the imperative a moment ago to, you know, from my perspective, to hire more police, public safety, empower them, set and enforce the highest standards, and hold them accountable. Also the co-equal important policy plan that I have to stand up, fund and implement, you know, these civilian-led responses. But also a very, very important part of this whole equation is prevention - making sure that we don't have to, people don't have to experience crime to begin with. Making sure that people - that crime victims, if you will - you know, not only they don't feel the sentiment and have the experience of like, not wanting that to happen again to someone else, but also they don't feel the sense of like, we need to kind of restore and bring a sense of whole and completeness to whatever traumatic experience happened to them. So prevention is really important and crime prevention is really important. And why is there crime? Well, it's complex, not just one thing, but you know, rising inequality, lack of access to resources, unequal opportunities, poverty, you know, lack of mental behavioral health services and support. And I think building out programs and services anchored and oriented around addressing those root causes will go a long way in preventing crime to begin with and minimizing our impact. Because yes, we need effective prevention and address the root causes, if you will, but we also need to make sure that we have, you know, our whole like policy plans and funding strategy reflects, you know, making sure we can contemplate and resource the realities of today and have good interventions as well. So, you know, all of those things must and should coexist in parallel, in my view. [00:38:17] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so I just wanted to clarify on that last one. I think your points about prevention and your plans to hire more police certainly speak to some other aspects, but specifically when it comes to supporting victims - people who have been - unfortunately, while you're working towards prevention and doing the other things, it is, there are going to be more people who are victimized unfortunately, even while we're reducing crime. But what could you do to better support victims, people who have been victimized, and people who do need help? [00:38:55] Rob Saka: Yeah, so great question. The number one thing is making sure we have effective intervention and response capabilities. And, you know, we do that in part through making sure we have well, you know, well-resourced, trained set of public safety apparatus - firefighters, police, paramedics - and to make sure that people have the responses that they need and expect. Making sure if someone has been like victimized by property crime or whatever it is, that, you know, they can reasonably expect an officer to show up and, you know, take a report, and hopefully investigate that, and follow up, and show up in a timely manner. But also, you know, depending on the nature of the victimization for crime victims, we also need to do a better job of making sure people have access to services and - like trauma response and support services - and they're better taken care of from a mental health perspective as well. And help them navigate and better help them navigate everything - like, you know, talking about crime in abstract, you know, without a specific like fact pattern, it's a little tricky. But I do think at a high level, there is a huge opportunity to better help people navigate the various systems, structures, services, and programs that currently exist today once - for victims - and then build out and expand those as well. [00:40:56] Crystal Fincher: I see. I wanna talk about housing and homelessness and in particular, one thing called out by experts as a barrier to the effectiveness of the homelessness response is frontline worker wages that don't cover the cost of living. Do you believe our local nonprofits have a responsibility to pay living wages for our area, and how can you make that more likely with how the City bids for and contracts for services? [00:41:24] Rob Saka: Yeah, I think that is some of the most important work going on - in any profession, in any discipline, in any - like the direct frontline work that, you know, our professionals across a variety of disciplines are doing directly on a day-to-day basis with our unhoused neighbors. And inflation is rising exponentially. You know, wage increases haven't kept up just across the board, especially in government and in nonprofit contracted work. So yes, I support, you know, making sure they have living wages because as a policy matter, like you sort of, your priorities show up in what you support and what you fund. So that doesn't also mean at the same time, you know, wouldn't look for - in the issue of homelessness, for example - wouldn't look for opportunities to perform, you know, like initial or like regular ongoing systems checks to analyze performance and, you know, figure out what's working well and, you know, knock down barriers to success and, you know, things like that. But yeah, I mean, I, these workers have a tough job. So I support living wages. [00:43:03] Crystal Fincher: And I wanna talk about the larger economy - well, larger to the City and district, at least. And the City has a very, very vibrant business economy. Some of the largest corporations in the world headquartered here and nearby, as well as a really vibrant small business community that really spans the range across the board. But they have a number of challenges that they're trying to deal with and get beyond. So when it comes to your district, what can you do? I guess, one, what do you think the biggest challenges facing small businesses in your district are and how can you address those needs? [00:43:43] Rob Saka: Yeah, the biggest challenge is facing this district. You're right, like, to first address - kind of how you prefaced that question, I like that framing - yeah, we have a vibrant economy with companies and businesses of all sizes. And, you know, the only challenge is it's not - the benefits that provides our region, you know, aren't always equally shared and distributed and those opportunities aren't always equally shared. And look, I grew up in Kent, you know, and - in the valley in Kent, like I said - and my dad, if we know what we know about Kent, the economy runs on two things - agriculture and warehousing district. It's always been a warehousing district. Today, there's this big, fancy Amazon fulfillment center - it's like the crown jewel of the Kent warehousing district. And I'm glad it's there, personally. And great, you know, but before that was there and long after it, something else, maybe. It's always been a warehousing district, always will be. And my father was a frontline warehouse worker in Kent. And I found my path to other opportunities in tech, you know, through the military and law school and other things, but we need to make sure more people have access to those opportunities. But to answer, you know, that kind of follow-up question there about what can I do? What can I best do to support small businesses if elected? Well, one, I don't view my role as like prescribing, you know, setting forth prescriptive menu changes for a restaurant, for example. But where I can help, and I've talked to small businesses - small business owners, their workers, their customers - and the number one opportunity that I see to help support them and help make sure that they're successful is public safety. There, someone told me the other day - a small business owner with an office downtown told me the other day that their workers don't feel safe coming to downtown. So how can you impose these hybrid work requirements, which I generally support, as long as there's some - I also like the flexibility, especially, and value the flexibility as a parent of young kids to have, you know, like a couple of days to work from home, work remotely. But how can you impose these across the board, agnostic of whatever the attendant circumstances is, you know, requirements for working from the office based on some arbitrary number or some executive's gut feeling about what sparks innovation the most when people, when their workers don't even feel safe. And then their customers oftentimes don't feel safe. How are we going to stimulate the economy if people - we need to get more people, not just from this district, into these businesses across the district and across the city, but we need to get more people from, you know, South County and, you know, people from the Eastside and other parts of the state and like wanting to come here and spend their money and feel comfortable and invest here as well. So I think public safety is the number one opportunity that I see and I hear over and over and over again from small business owners, their workers, and customers. [00:47:30] Crystal Fincher: Right, and I wanna ask you about childcare, which is a challenge faced not only by people with kids, you know - challenge faced primarily with them - but the effects are felt throughout the entire community. It's people's largest expense next to housing, frequently. And now the annual cost of childcare tops that of college annually. So it's just an astronomical expense and sometimes just the accessibility - just is there childcare available near you - is a challenge. What can you do as a City councilmember to help families in your district with this? [00:48:10] Rob Saka: Yeah, it's a unique problem that I understand firsthand, not only as someone with childcare responsibilities - my number one job in life is the parent of these three kids - but also someone who experienced, you know, like pre-K childcare from a place of need in under-representation. And look, I mentioned I grew up in and out of foster care for the first nine years of my life - mostly in. And, you know, when I wasn't in foster care during that time, you know, sometimes I was in a, like a Head Start program or a funded program of some sort. Usually it was not being watched by whoever could watch me. And raised by soap operas. And I'm grateful, like I said, where I am today personally and professionally, not because of some of those, you know, lousy experiences, but I'm grateful because I am where I am despite some of those lousy circumstances. And you look at the research and you look at the data on people, on kids who have been exposed to like, like pre-K programs and preschool programs, been in those programs. And you look at their life outcomes. They perform generally better in school than their peers who don't have some sort of preschool program and are just sort of like, kind of how I was describing and how I grew up most of the time. Their graduation rates are higher, their college attendance rates are higher. Like their life outcomes are generally better. And so one opportunity that I see long-term - I got two terms in me if I win. One is not enough to get done what I intend to get done, and two is like just a sweet spot. I don't believe in mandatory term limits, but there's nothing wrong with self-imposed ones. So I have two terms - towards the end, I wanna actually build out and fund preschool program for all. And make sure that more people have that opportunity. And make sure more people have access to quality affordable childcare - and educational, like a learning environment that's gonna help them, and help communities, and help us long-term. So really, really urgent challenge. And also part of that, like childcare workers are some of the most underpaid folks too. And they do work, and they do work for us. And I know firsthand, a lot of them put their - they were some of the most unsung heroes during COVID. They, a lot of workers, but like talking about this specific question, a lot of them put their health and safety on the line for poor wages, uncertain working conditions - to make sure more people could work. And make sure more kids are able to be successful long-term. And so they're grossly underpaid. So there's been other jurisdictions that have been successful, at least in terms of like starting to think about, how to better pay and how to better fund universal preschool programs for all. And so I'm curious to figure out creative ways to do exactly that on Seattle City Council. [00:51:38] Crystal Fincher: And the last thing I just wanna touch on is - back to a budget issue - those Progressive Revenue Task Force recommendations that did come out, especially now before this revenue shortfall. So if dramatic cuts are to be avoided, there does need to be some new revenue in place. Do you support, or will you be advocating for any of the recommendations from the Progressive Revenue Task Force, or any other ideas you have? [00:52:11] Rob Saka: Yeah, thank you, Crystal. So, we talked a little bit about my, like kind of how I view the budget and operating with the existing - looking to additional government partners at all levels, and funding sources, and public-private partnerships - and then expanding, looking at new revenue sources. But you asked a question about potential new revenue sources. And from this report, I'm most keenly interested in learning more about the vacant home, vacant lot tax idea. That seems to be - potentially, I don't know - I would love to learn more and explore and closely study, examine the feasibility of that. But that seems to be just the most low-hanging fruit opportunity in terms of one, creating revenue. We shouldn't just create revenue for the sake of it. You know, it should have a purpose and an incentive and disincentive structure behind it. I think that will help address the affordability crisis, and making sure we have beneficial use of living space at all times, and incentivize people to actually use stuff. So, but, so that's one thing I'm keenly interested personally in learning more about and exploring. Yeah. [00:53:41] Crystal Fincher: Got it. In the last couple minutes we have here, there are people trying to make a decision between you and your opponent - and two new candidates, no incumbent in this open seat race - and people just searching for who best aligns with their values and who is best suited for this role. What do you tell voters who are trying to make up their minds? [00:54:04] Rob Saka: Yeah, so we have a very clear choice in this race. The contrasts have never been more clear. We can choose the business-as-usual approach and, or we have an opportunity to bring about some change. And I'm a strong Democrat, you know, make no apologies about that - matter of fact, I'm the strongest Democrat in this race 'cause I'm the only one that's been endorsed by our home local Democratic Party, the 34th District Dems, shout out to them. And I'm a strong progressive. And, you know, I also need to think we need to better incorporate progressive values, equity, and make sure things not only are equitable by design - I think we do that well in Seattle - but also equitable in implementation. And is it truly equitable in implementation? And being willing to humble ourselves and figure out if that's not the case, what's the solve? What's the fix? What's the solution? And the issue of public safety, there's - I've been entirely consistent about this whole time. We need to stand up civilian-led responses. We need to hire more police and empower them to carry out their public safety mandate and hold them accountable. We need to also focus on crime prevention in parallel. So that's my plan. There's complexity and there's nuance there. And, you know, despite some of the rising crime and gun violence in this district - South Park, someone was shot and I think killed earlier today. And the issue of gun violence isn't one shared equally across this city and across this district. Certain communities, including the one I live in - in Delridge, are more impacted and bearing the brunt of it more than others. So it's just remarkable to see that after all these shootings, my opponent still thinks that defunding the police by 50% was a good idea. I think it was a bad idea. And that doesn't mean we can't hold bad police accountable. I fought to do that. I fought to do exactly that at the county level and I'll continue to do that and accelerate that work. But yeah, the issue of public safety has never been, the contrast has never been clear. And look, if people like the current direction of the Seattle City Council - the current approach, the toxicity, the divisiveness, the performative ideological-based, you know, acts and gestures rather than a collaborative approach focused on solutions, I'm probably not their candidate. But I am here to bring about the change I think people so desperately want and need - a collaborative, responsive government that centers equity, progressive values, and a little healthy dose of common sense as well. So yeah. [00:57:23] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for your time and for sharing more about your candidacy with us today - much appreciated. [00:57:32] Rob Saka: Thank you, Crystal - appreciate you. [00:57:34] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this Tuesday topical show, Crystal chats with Cydney Moore about her campaign for re-election to Burien City Council Position 2, accomplishments from her first term, and her consistent progressive track record. They then dig into the details of Burien government's recent non-handling of their unhoused population as sweep after sweep has disrupted and endangered lives, caused community division, and failed to solve anything. Highlighting the importance of upcoming elections, a 4-3 majority on the Burien City Council has been unwilling to accept an offer of help from King County and has instead focused on retaliation against those working on solutions. 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 Cydney Moore at @vote_cydney.   Cydney Moore Cydney Moore is a mother, activist, and elected representative with a long history of service to her community. Her background includes over a decade of experience in nonprofit leadership, and years of experience as a small business owner, a journalist covering politics, and as an advocate for social justice issues including housing for all, fair wages, women's rights, LGBTQIA2S+ rights, immigrant rights, ending the war on drugs, and more. She has worked on policy issues at the city, county, and state level, and currently holds office as a Burien City Councilmember. Cydney also serves on the board of 3 nonprofits (the Burien Arts Association, Tukwila Pantry food bank, and the Multi Service Center), and is on several regional boards and committees, including the Domestic Violence Initiative Regional Task Force. Her other experience includes acting as a Lead Organizer for ACLU Burien People Power, and volunteering for organizations like the Burien Severe Weather Shelter and Burien C.A.R.E.S. Animal Shelter.   Resources Campaign Website - Cydney Moore   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. I am very excited today to be welcoming Burien City Councilmember Cydney Moore to the program. Welcome, Cydney. [00:01:00] Cydney Moore: Hi, thank you so much for having me - I'm really excited to be here. [00:01:04] Crystal Fincher: Well, we certainly have no shortage of things to talk about, especially with recent news and events in Burien. But I do want to start because you are a councilmember, you are running for reelection right now - is to talk about what led you to run for office, to want to serve, and what have you been spending your time doing in your first term? [00:01:24] Cydney Moore: Well, I feel like I've always been drawn towards public office. Even as a kid, I used to dream about becoming the first female president. Even as far as third grade - I found some old notes in school folders my mom had stashed away where I had written policy proposals for what I would do - and it's pretty consistent, actually. One of the things that I talked about was everyone will have a home. I guess I've always wanted to serve my community, I've been an activist my whole life, I have been working in nonprofit leadership for over a decade now. So this is my passion, this is what drives me - creating a better community for all of us, creating a better future for our people - that's what gives me joy. In my first term - it's been a rough go - I took office in January of 2020, right before the pandemic hit, so I had a lot of goals and aspirations for what I wanted to do, and we ended up scrambling to mitigate the harms that were ongoing in the crisis we were all facing. But throughout that, we were able to accomplish some great good. One of the things that we were able to do in Burien that I'm really, really proud of was approve hazard pay for essential workers throughout the pandemic, and we also implemented an eviction moratorium that kept people from losing their homes throughout the entire state of emergency in Washington. I also have been involved with passing a groundbreaking list of renters' protections in Burien. We're leading the charge in some of these areas and other cities are certainly looking to us as an example - I'm incredibly proud of that. We have launched a new co-responder model that integrates behavioral and mental health professionals and crisis responders alongside police on calls. I am hoping that we can work towards having an individual standalone crisis response team that can call in police if needed, but can operate independently. I proposed an increase in our human services budget, so I'm really, really proud of that - that was just in our last budget cycle and it actually funds a lot of incredible services across our city, including things like rental assistance, utility assistance, education opportunities, mental health support, therapy for children, youth and adults, food banks - just all the good things - doubled the city arts budget. Right now, we are working on passing legislation to raise the minimum wage here in Burien - very, very excited about that, that's something that I started working on initially right after I got into office and that sort of got put on halt due to the pandemic, so I'm really excited to be taking that back up again. I created a lobby effort to King County Council through my work with the Domestic Violence Initiative Regional Task Force, serving as a representative from our council, to allocate additional funding for domestic violence protection order advocates, and proud to announce that we actually got $375,000 allocated to the protection order advocacy program. So, yeah - I think we've done some good, I'm really proud of what we have been able to accomplish. I'm really proud of my track record so far in office, and I'm hoping to continue the work. [00:04:54] Crystal Fincher: It is an impressive track record, particularly with new councilmembers coming in, dealing with things during the pandemic. But, hey - it sounds like you guys have a totally progressive council - there's no friction or issues in Burien, is there? [00:05:10] Cydney Moore: You know - it's funny because it's not funny. But if you don't laugh, you cry. So one would think that - forward-facing - our council is progressive. We have people - the majority of our council has claimed to be progressive - they ran on progressive values. And as of late, we're not seeing quite so much of that as we would like. There has been a lot of divisiveness. And I'll tell you - getting positive things passed is like pulling teeth with our council - to put it plainly. It's brutal. It's painful work. And I really wish that we were a little more cohesive and aligned in our goals and our values so that we could do more work because it is slow-going and it's unfortunate. [00:05:59] Crystal Fincher: It is unfortunate, and we've seen it blow up in the news. So, is it that there's a 4-3 kind of moderate conservative majority on the council now? [00:06:07] Cydney Moore: Yes, that's very accurate. You can see a pretty consistent 4-3 split on just about everything major, and especially when it comes to passing progressive policies. Absolutely. [00:06:21] Crystal Fincher: So, Burien has been in the news because of sweeps, a lease, what to do with the unhoused population, and whether to help, how to help, the county has stepped in. This has been an ongoing saga that we have been talking about during the week-in-reviews. But can you walk us through what has been happening and where things stand? [00:06:42] Cydney Moore: Okay. So, we had a number of unhoused people who were camping on property that is jointly owned and operated by our City and the King County Library system. Our building - the first two stories is our Burien Library, and then the third story is City Hall, and we share a space on the ground floor for city council meetings and multipurpose uses for the library. So, there's a condo association of those two entities that operates this building. We had a lot of campers out there for quite a long time. Some of them had been there for - I'd say, a year, maybe more - and it was fairly mellow. A lot of these people are individuals that those of us who've worked directly with our homeless population have known for, sometimes years. But the condo association decided they wanted to sweep people off the property - and our city council and our city manager essentially took a hands-off approach, deferred to the condo association, and we did not take action to allocate new space for people to go. We directed our contractors that provide outreach services, LEAD and REACH, to go out and offer people what support they can, but it's been abundantly clear there is not shelter space available in Burien - we don't have any significant shelter here. And the shelters in the surrounding area are absolutely full, so we were told outright there aren't shelter beds available for most of these people. We moved forward with the sweep, and I worked very diligently for the weeks leading up to the sweep to try and find any alternative options for people in terms of places they could relocate to, looking for different property, reaching out to different organizations, and fell short. So the night before the sweep, myself and my dear friend and colleague, Charles Schaefer, who was then the chair of our planning commission, we went out and we told the unhoused people camping there - We don't have anywhere for you to go. Do you have any plans for where you might go? And most of them said - No, they had no idea where to go, otherwise they would have gone there already. Most of them were scared and didn't know what was going to happen to them, and so Charles and I let them know legally they have a right to camp on public property - besides parks, because Burien has a ban on camping in parks. And we have very little public property in the city that is not parks. It's very minimal - and I can say that with a very strong degree of certainty because I've looked, I've looked at length - but we did locate a small piece of public land one block away in our downtown core, and we told people - If you camp here - legally, that is allowed and per Martin v. Boise, the Ninth Circuit Court ruling that says we can't criminalize homelessness, our city will not sweep you until policy changes or they figure out some loophole. We told them straight up - the City doesn't condone this, we're not acting on behalf of the City, the City is not sanctioning this, and quite frankly, people are gonna be upset, and the City is probably going to work to remove you as quickly as possible. But for the time being, until there's some other alternative, you can go here if you choose to - and they did. And so the following morning, we had a big media circus - lots of people coming out to watch the sweep, see what happens. A lot of people in the area were devastated at the prospect, but there were, alternatively, people who were very excited to see people removed and were under the impression that by removing them from this piece of property, they were somehow going to disappear. Again, many of these unhoused people have been living here in Burien for years - this is their home - even if they don't have a house, they have strong roots here, connections, family even. So there was quite an uproar when people came out the next morning and realized that the problem had not gone away, they didn't solve anything, and people they thought they were going to disperse out of our downtown core moved one block away, and at that point could not be swept. Our city council and our city manager collaborated to take action to lease out that property quickly, and they decided to lease the property to Burien C.A.R.E.S., which is our contracted animal shelter here. They leased the property for $185 a month, which has been speculated as far below fair market value - it's a sizable piece of land in a prime location, so that is of some concern. And as soon as the lease was signed, they conducted a sweep on that property and did not allocate any space for those people to relocate to. I begged them for months, I tried at every city council meeting between the two sweeps to ask our council to consider any option. I made a few proposals - none of them are ideal, but emergency temporary places that people could stay for the time being while we sorted through it - and they denied all asks for taking action. So they swept the unhoused population again, which had grown in size because people here have, again, close ties, and there are people who I know of personally who typically tend to avoid camps, that realized that that was a safe place, that there was safety in numbers there, that it was someplace they would be able to stay in contact with people like service providers and family members because they were not hiding off on the side of the road or in a bush somewhere - they were centrally located and stable for the time being. So they got swept again, and Charles and I went up there again and informed people - Hey, we've been looking, we still haven't found anything, but we have located some other public property that is big enough for you to camp on if you decide to go there. Charles and I consulted the King County parcel viewer and a number of city maps, and we found a little slice of - patch of grass - that ran adjacent to a park just a few blocks away. And according to the King County parcel viewer and all the city maps we consulted, that piece of land was somehow overlooked or whatever - it just wasn't part of the park, so legally, it would be acceptable for people to camp there. So many of the people relocated there, and they stayed there for a couple of days until one of our city councilmembers apparently called the police. The police said they wouldn't sweep them because as far as the police could see, that's not part of the park and it's legal for them to be there. She contacted our city manager, who took it upon himself to do some digging, and found one map in our city files that contradicted all the other maps we have and said that it was a park. And so he told the police - This is a park, I'm deciding that this is a part of a park, you have to go remove them. A testament to the ambiguity of the legal status of whether this piece of land is park or not park is the fact that our police will immediately sweep people who are in a park - that's just a policy that's standard ops for them. They did not immediately sweep people. They posted a 72-hour notice, giving people time to get their things together and try and relocate. City council still did not take any action. So Charles and I went out and spoke to people again, and the options continue to get increasingly worse - the land is increasingly smaller every time that we are finding. We let them know there is a very small piece of dirt that runs along our main downtown strip, right next door to the Library-City Hall building - literally on the next block, and two blocks down from the original lot that they went to after the first sweep - so they're right back where they started, pretty much. But a number of our unhoused people camping out have relocated to this very small patch of dirt. Some people decided to go try their odds camping on some vacant private property that had sat empty for a while - they managed to go unnoticed for a few weeks. But I got a text last Tuesday from one of their mothers - and she's a very kind woman, she does what she can, but she lives in Puyallup and is on the verge of homelessness herself, so she's not able to fully support her son - but she let me know that there were 14 people who were camping on this private lot in the north end of town, and police had just arrived with a trespass order, and they were giving them two hours to get out. So I went out again and tried to get whoever I could to come out and help get people assistance in relocating and getting their stuff, and trying to make sure they could get where they were going to go without losing too many of their important belongings. And some of them decided to come down to the patch of dirt on 152nd and our downtown core and join the others, and some of them decided to drag their tents to a median in the middle of a very busy road just down the block, and it's a really dangerous area in that particular corridor, but they asked the police - Is this public land, are you gonna sweep us? And the police said no, and so they decided that they were gonna take their chances. And so to my understanding, there are still a couple of people who are camping out in a very small island median in the middle of a very busy road. And to this day, our council has refused to take action. We have had an offer come in from King County of $1 million and 35 Pallet homes, which house two people apiece, to allocate property and help us operate a safe space for people. Our council voted that down. [00:16:43] Crystal Fincher: And I wanna talk about this for a minute - because you talked about what was happening on the ground, but during this process, the City of Burien received a letter from the Office of the King County Executive, Dow Constantine, from his legal counsel, saying - Hey, it is illegal to sweep people off of public property when there is no shelter available. You basically made it explicit, City of Burien, that there's no shelter available. And your police force are actually county sheriff's deputies who are contracted by the City of Burien, so because they fall under the authority of the county as deputies, we are saying they can't participate in that - which caused quite an uproar. What was the response to that? [00:17:25] Cydney Moore: People were confused and upset. Some of us were very pleased. I was very surprised when I found out our city got that letter, and I was very grateful to our county for their response and taking a stance that they're not going to violate people's constitutional rights to exist in a public space with nowhere else to go. [00:17:47] Crystal Fincher: And that's really the crux of it right there - is that time after time, as we've seen in so many other cities, just sweeping someone and saying - Well, you can't camp here - does not do anything to address the issue of homelessness. It doesn't do anything to provide shelter, to provide housing, to address that underlying problem. And so many times, people who come at this problem from the issue of - Well, the people being there, their existence, me having to look at them and deal with them is the problem - when the root of the problem is they don't have a home, and so many other issues become exacerbated, and so many things get destabilized from not having a home. So as you said, they move from one location to another to another, because it's not like there's any attempt to work on housing from the council majority. And also, illustrative of how councils work, you can have people on very different sides, but the majority is going to carry the day. So although there were three people who have been working diligently on the council to try and provide a real solution that doesn't just create the next spot for someone to camp, or once you've made all of the spots in one city illegal, just push them into another city and say it's their problem - it's about really finding a way to provide people with shelter. Because it is not ideal for people to be sleeping outside. As you said, it's dangerous, it's completely suboptimal. So this offer from the county that came in - about three weeks ago now, I think - has the majority of the council done anything to take advantage of the million dollars, the 35 Pallet shelter help? [00:19:24] Cydney Moore: No, we had that brought before us for a vote, and our council majority declined and they voted it down. And at this point, our next regularly scheduled council meeting isn't until July 17th, and so we are working to take advantage of this gap to rally public support and coordinate with a variety of different organizations in our community to hopefully put pressure on council enough that they will take action. Burien is actually in the middle of a budgetary shortfall - we're facing an impending fiscal cliff if we don't raise taxes and fees and find new revenue sources. And so turning down a million dollars for anything at this point seems pretty irresponsible, but certainly turning down a million dollars to serve our unhoused and vulnerable population is - it's unconscionable in my mind. I can't tell you how many times I've sat there thinking how amazing it would be if somebody dropped a million dollars in front of me to go help the homeless - that's literally the stuff that dreams are made of. And to turn it down is - I just can't fathom why anybody would say no to that. And like you pointed out, sweeps are dangerous. People living outside - it's dangerous. Unhoused people are disproportionately targeted as victims of harassment and violence. And we have data that shows that sweeps cause a number of disruptions to people's lives - they result in people losing things like documentation, identification, medication - disrupting any kind of progress they are making towards stability. It interrupts their contact with service providers, case managers, family members that serve as a support system. And they increase the mortality rate of unhoused people. It just - they're dangerous. Burien already has a disproportionately high mortality rate for our unhoused population compared to King County as a whole. So we are facing a very real crisis here - our region is facing a homelessness crisis in general, but Burien is finally having to stare that issue in the face and we're failing in our response, our leaders are failing in our response. And our people are suffering as a consequence of that. And it is quite devastating to witness, especially being on the ground in direct contact with these people that some of us have worked with for years. We know their names, we know their faces, we know some of their backstories, some of them I know family members of. It's an ugly thing to witness seeing people who are already in crisis being shuffled around and disregarded and hung out to dry - by leaders who are tasked with protecting the safety and wellbeing of all of our constituents. So it's disappointing, to say the least. [00:22:05] Crystal Fincher: Very disappointing. And very disappointing that your attempt to help people while following the law, and the law that the Office of King County Executive Dow Constantine very helpfully and forcefully advised the City of Burien that they were running afoul of in their current way, their reaction wasn't to say - Okay, let's pause and reevaluate. Obviously we're getting legal advice that this is illegal. It does jive with the court decision saying that we can't sweep without offers of shelter. We've pretty much just flatly admitted that there aren't offers of shelter. So maybe we pause and talk with some of our partners and figure out ways to get these people housed. No one wants people out on the street - if we can try and work to find a way to get them into shelter, that would be excellent. They decided not to do that. They decided to double down on the way things were going, to basically - I think a fair characterization to the letter from the King County Executive's legal counsel was indignation from the city manager, who then went forward and basically just kept doing the things that he was doing, even appearing to not check with the council before some of the things - although he does have the support of the council majority. So now we're in a situation where they haven't taken up any of this offer to house people, and people are being harmed by this. People are out exposed to the elements and to a very hostile, activated, conservative, radical element that has been drawn to Burien over this issue. And some of the contentious scenes that we've seen across the region with people just talking in very dehumanizing ways about the homeless population - really not seeing them as people, really just seeing the problem is that they're inconvenienced by having to look at people and not really caring about what that person is going through - that's a challenge. So they haven't had time to address the offer of a million bucks and Pallet shelters. They did have time, however, to hold a special meeting to consider censuring you and to consider removing Charles, who you talked about - the Chair of the Planning Commission - because of your helping and trying to find a solution to this problem. What in the world? What was your reaction to that? [00:24:16] Cydney Moore: Yeah, I spoke to this during the special meeting when the council was considering removing Charles from the Planning Commission - who I might add, has served our community dutifully for many years and has been serving the homeless directly, I think, for 14 years in our city - so he knows them very well. And what are you going to expect from somebody who's been in that field for so long other than trying to help? But my response is that - throughout history, there is a pattern of punishments being doled out to people who try to help persecuted minority groups, whether that's people based on their race or their religion or who they love - it's a consistent pattern. And history does not look kindly on those who are enacting those punishments against people who try and help. I told our council, I said - Charles is going to have to live with what we do tonight for the rest of his life, or at least until our council makeup changes. But every person on this council is also going to have to live with their decision and this decision may follow you. Are you prepared to answer for it, for what you do tonight? 'Cause I'm very comfortable in my position, but I don't know if later on when people ask you - Why would you do this? - if you'll have justification or excuses enough to explain why you would take such action. It was very, very clear that what Charles and I have done is try to inform our constituents of what our laws are and how best to comply. And I think that's something that really needs to be noted in these conversations - these unhoused people have been asking how they can follow the law. They're asking - Where is it legal for me to go? Where can I be? Where am I allowed to exist? And our city has offered no real option, but has publicly stated - Oh yeah, you can be on public property - until we find a loophole to take it away from you. And you can be on sidewalks, which obviously is true to the extent of people can stay on sidewalks large enough where they're not obstructing them - you have to maintain a three feet clearance path on a sidewalk and there's not that many sidewalks that are wide enough for people to camp on in Burien without obstructing. So these individuals are literally just asking their leaders - Where can I go? Where am I allowed to be? And we did our best to inform our constituents of what the City's policies are, where they are legally allowed to go, how they can comply with the laws. And that's the duty and obligation of any public servant, especially a councilmember that makes those laws and policies and a planning commissioner, the Chair of the Planning Commission, whose job it is to advise on zoning and land use issues. So arguably we were doing our job to the best of our ability and to the expectation that I think we should all be held. And our council - the term that has been used by many in our community - used Charles as a scapegoat. They can't remove me - I am an elected official. But Charles was appointed, and they found a target and took advantage of that. And I think it just reflects really, really poorly on our council and on our city as a whole that our leadership would penalize someone for informing people of their constitutional rights and informing people of knowledge that is public, by the way - all of the information that we shared is all public knowledge, it's all easily accessible on government websites. Yeah, I don't know how they felt comfortable doing that. I really don't understand any valid justification for that - and that's what I said. [00:28:08] Crystal Fincher: Well, I'm gonna hop in here and editorialize. We know there wasn't a valid reason for that - but as we've seen in Tennessee, as we've seen in so many other places - if they feel they have the power to do it, they will. They had the power to remove Charles. I think they initially thought they may have the power to remove you. You were actually, as you said, doing your job. They still have not taken up the offer to house people. Their job is to serve and take care of their constituents. They have constituents who have been out on the street. There's an offer of shelter and money to make that happen available that they just won't do - they would rather just sweep people, just kick them out - knowing how destabilizing that is and knowing how much it has failed directly in the City of Burien. This clearly isn't working. It's really expensive to do - requires a lot of public enforcement resources, law enforcement resources, parks resources - requires a whole lot and it's not making a difference. So one would think that they would stop doing the same thing over and over again - getting failing results - and start to do something that would work. The county didn't just say - This is illegal, you can't do it. They offered an olive branch and said - And we will help you. And they basically slapped that hand away and said - No, we're good. In fact, we're not even gonna deal with that. We're just gonna try and kick out people who disagree with us and enact these really retaliatory actions. And it is really a shame. But what happened was lots of people saw this and people of all cross-ideological spectrums - I don't think many of the commissioners who wound up taking action would call themselves progressive, but they do call themselves public servants - and were appalled at this negligence and scapegoating and retaliation by the majority on the city council, mayor, deputy mayor, city manager, others, and said - This is unacceptable - and resigned in protest. And the entire Planning Commission resigned in protest and several other commissioners throughout the city - I think 12 in total resigned from their position. So now, Burien is in a crisis - doesn't have a planning commission, has several other commissions short-staffed. Many cities - this is comprehensive planning time where the Planning Commission is doing some heavy lifting - and now there is nothing there, because they decided to act petty and retaliate and not use money offered to them for free to house people. So where do things go from here? [00:30:35] Cydney Moore: That's a good question. As you said, we don't have a planning commission now, and they were absolutely in the middle of a major project. We haven't heard from our city any official statement in regard to what the plan is going to be to fill these vacancies. So our entire Planning Commission is gone. Our Parks Board has lost their chair, the vice-chair, and another member. We've lost at least one Airport Committee member and arts commissioner. Like we - arguably our city is in a spiral right now, and I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't know what we're going to do, I haven't heard anything from our leadership, I haven't heard anything from our city manager - certainly haven't heard anything regarding plans to move forward. As I said, my goal right now is to work with my fellow progressives on council to lobby as much support as we can and pressure as we can to get the council majority to approve use of this million dollars and designate a safe space for people to go. Our unhoused population is still waiting for a response and things aren't getting better. And as you said, there is significant anger in the community and there's been a large conservative presence - and the hostility there is not dissipating. I'm aware of people who have - like I said, unhoused people are always disproportionately targeted as victims of harassment and violence, but people have been very aggressive towards our unhoused people here throughout this - throwing fireworks at their tents, stealing their tents, and bragging about it openly. There are people who are openly in public talking about wanting to shoot them and shoot me. So this violent rhetoric has maintained and our unhoused people are out there exposed with nowhere to go, no safety, no walls to hide behind. And so we're going to continue pushing for our council to take action - because we don't have an option not to, honestly - doing nothing is just not an option in my mind and in the mind of many others in our community. As far as our city operations go - like I said, I really just don't know. We are legally required to have a planning commission and to have a comp plan, a comprehensive plan, and we just don't have the people now. And it usually takes quite a while for us to go through the process of putting out a call for new applicants and going through the screening process, interview process, all of this. And quite frankly, the strain on our staff has been significant - like you said, it takes a lot of resources to engage in things like sweeps. Our staff is already pretty bare bones. Burien operates with some incredible people, but they are stretched thin. And having to call multiple special meetings certainly doesn't help with their workload. Having to engage in sweeps doesn't help with their workload. And now having to add on to their plate - trying to figure out what to do with a whole bunch of empty spaces and an entire empty planning commission - yeah, I don't know what that process is going to look like, or how quickly any of that will move forward. You would expect our city manager to be offering some insight or - the City was really quick to respond to that letter from King County, but obviously not so quick to respond to the fact that we have had a mass resignation from our public servants that we need, we legally have to have. So I'm waiting with bated breath, just like everyone else, to see what happens there. [00:34:20] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I should note, while they haven't taken up any substantive action at all to try and house people - even though there's an offer of a million dollars, 35 Pallet shelters, they've had meetings to censure and retaliate against their opponents - they also had time to welcome Prime Minister Modi from India, who has taken a lot of heat from the human rights community for human rights violations, free speech violations. They rank very, very low - I think they've dropped from something like 140th to just under 160th out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index. Certainly seeing a lot of protests - I think there's no one who says - Ah, everything is great. And yes, this is someone we should celebrate and welcome. Although those three Burien city councilmembers did somehow and they found time for that, but not time to take up the ability to house their residents who are without homes right now. Now, before we close - usually we talk about a lot of other stuff with candidates - this time, I felt it was appropriate to talk about everything that has been happening with the situation in Burien because it has been in the news and is so pressing - and is still just languishing with the council not doing anything at the time that we're recording. But this is happening also while you're running for reelection. And you've drawn several opponents - I think most, if not all, come from the people who are virulently anti-homeless - is the way to say it. They don't seem to have any solutions or care at all about the actual housing - Just get them out of here - seems to be the thing. And they're running to take a hard line on getting those people out of here and getting someone who actually is doing the work to house people out. What can people do if they're looking for more information about your campaign? [00:36:09] Cydney Moore: I would encourage everyone to check out my website - it's votecydney.com - C-Y-D-N-E-Y. Sign up for updates, sign up to volunteer. Please donate if you can - I run a grassroots campaign, always have - I'm not a particularly wealthy person that's self-funding my operations here, so anything that you can do to help will help us get through this election. I am working very diligently with our partners in the community to build a coalition of support for my campaign. But this is of the people, by the people, for the people - so if you can, please contribute however you are able to. Also, you can always follow me on social media - @vote_cydney on Twitter, Facebook - Cydney Moore for Burien City Council. I welcome any feedback people might have, any input you might have, any ideas for creative campaigning you might have. This is rough - it's a rough time to be dealing with all of these things and running a campaign - and I have drawn out a lot of scrutiny. I guess you could say that I'm a pretty polarizing person at this moment and people are drawing some hard lines. And people aren't always falling on the side of those lines that you would expect. I have had people who don't actually necessarily agree with my position, but do respect the fact that I'm willing to stand up for my position, who have expressed their support. And I have people who you would think are progressive, who you would think would be aligned with me, who are pissed - they're really mad at me for what I've been doing. And so, yeah, I can use all the support I can get at this time. And what I'll say about my opponents are the most vocal one is avidly anti-homeless and has been actively asking our council to sweep people and seems to be of the mindset that we should let them hit rock bottom, which I guess in my mind means let them die - because if you're outside and have nothing and have nowhere to go and have - barely even have clothes on your back, no food, no safety, I don't know how much more rock bottom it gets than that than just letting them die. And that's what happens. Our unhoused people are dying. So that's certainly concerning and not somebody that I would want representing me in elected office in my city. And my other two opponents - I just have not seen or heard much at all from - I literally just met one of them for the first time the other day. I've never missed a city council meeting in all of my years of serving, and I've never seen those individuals attend a single meeting. I've never seen them out in the public engaging with people, and I'm actively involved in a lot of things - I serve on the board of three different nonprofits in this community, I volunteer for a number of different organizations and causes. And so it concerns me that we have people running that I don't know and nobody that I know who are also involved in the community have ever seen, so I can't speak to their values. But I'm here and I am present and I'm active and I will remain so. And you can look at my track record - my voting record is available on the City of Burien website and I encourage everyone to look to it - I don't think you're ever gonna find a single vote I've ever taken that is not solidly progressive. So I'm - like I said, I'm pretty consistent in that - and I am adamant about maintaining the fight for positive change in our city. And I would ask and invite everyone who is willing to join me in that. What happens here in Burien has a ripple effect across our region - like I said, we are leading as an example in a lot of different ways for a lot of different policy issues. And so community doesn't end at city limits - what happens here can absolutely impact our neighboring cities and cities across this area and sometimes across the country - there are other cities who have looked at us and our policies from around the country. So please help me because there are a lot of people who are against what's going on here and we need all the help we can get. We need people who will continue to fight for what's right in office and keep things real in local politics. [00:40:14] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Cydney Moore. And we'll continue to follow the events happening in Burien. Thank you. [00:40:22] Cydney Moore: Awesome, thank you so much for having me. And I look forward to following your future coverage. [00:40:27] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

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

King County Regional Homelessness Authority CEO Marc Dones is stepping down from the role after serving as head of the agency since 2021. In a letter addressed to Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and King County Executive Dow Constantine, Dones compares the role as CEO of the agency to “a relay race,” adding that the time spent as head of the homelessness authority was more of a sprint. “As a queer black person, I have watched many members of my community burn out trying to hold too much for too many and I have watched them become unable to contribute the full breadth of their talent or vision to the work,” Dones said in a letter. “ I have watched them become bitter and destructive and what I know is that I don't want that for myself.” --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/washington-in-focus/support

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

On this midweek show, Executive Dow Constantine fills Crystal in on why King County voters should support the Crisis Care Centers Levy by voting Yes on Proposition 1 this April. The proposed levy would raise funds to address our urgent behavioral health crisis by building five new crisis care centers across the County, stabilize and restore residential treatment beds, and cultivate the behavioral health workforce pipeline.  Crystal and Executive Constantine discuss how the levy is critical to our overall public safety and public health response in that people who currently may end up in jail or the hospital as a result of a mental health crisis would instead have an appropriate and effective place to go to seek help. The win-win of implementing this upstream resource is that people will receive much-needed care and our strained criminal legal and healthcare systems will be relieved of cases they are ill-equipped to handle. The conversation then digs into the practical details of building a sustainable workforce and shoring up community-based facilities for those with significant behavioral health challenges. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find more information about the Crisis Care Centers Levy at https://yeskcprop1.com/.   Resources Crisis Care Centers Levy Fact Sheet   Building Behavioral Health | Yes on King County Proposition 1   “King County Council votes to put tax funding crisis centers on April ballot” by Michelle Baruchman from The Seattle Times   “King County measure would put $1.25 bn over a decade toward behavioral health crises” by Guy Oron from Real Change News   “To Help Kids Like Mine, Pass the King County Crisis Care Centers Levy” by Brittany Miles for PubliCola   “King County proposes moving people from Seattle, Kent jails to Des Moines site” by David Gutman and Sydney Brownstone from The Seattle Times   “ACLU sues King County over Seattle jail conditions” by Sydney Brownstone from The Seattle Times   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. So today I'm thrilled to welcome King County Executive Dow Constantine to talk about a very important levy that's going to be on all of our ballots this April - the Crisis Care Centers Levy. Welcome, Executive Constantine. [00:01:08] Executive Dow Constantine: Thanks, Crystal, for having me. [00:01:09] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So what is this levy? What does this do? [00:01:13] Executive Dow Constantine: So there's a need - an unmet need in our community. We all see it - in our families and with our friends, in the streets, in the justice system. There is no walk-in treatment available for people - either mental health or addiction crisis - collectively behavioral health crisis. Further, we're losing the long-term residential treatment beds that were built, that were set up when the large state hospitals began to shut down in the '70s and '80s. And then we're really losing a lot of workers. Now I know this is a common story across the whole workforce right now, but behavioral health work has long been low-paid and it's always high stress. It demands a lot of you emotionally. And so people are not able to hang in there, especially on the wages that are paid. So we have a behavioral health levy - the Crisis Care Centers Levy - and it does three things. First, it builds five walk-in clinics - crisis care centers for those in behavioral health crisis - one of them exclusively for youth. The rest would be distributed geographically around the county so that everyone could have access. Second, it begins to rebuild the stock of those residential treatment beds where you can stay indefinitely as you get treatment and begin to chart a path forward in life. And third, it supports the workforce by increasing wages and bringing apprenticeships and training and other supports that people need to dedicate themselves to this important work. Because as we say over and over, it takes people to treat people - buildings and programs are not enough. You have to have the people - educated, dedicated people - to do this work. [00:02:49] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and that's so important. And talking about the need - you summed it up - this is critical for our overall public safety and public health response here. I know I have been in the situation - so many people have been in the situation - where we see someone who's clearly struggling with a behavioral health issue, but it doesn't seem like police are the appropriate response. They're not breaking the law, but they're clearly in crisis. Maybe they're scaring people around them. Maybe they're going through an episode and scared themselves. In a situation like that, how would it work with this new system - instead of someone being diverted to a jail, or calling the police, or using that kind of response? [00:03:33] Executive Dow Constantine: Right. Right now, people may end up getting arrested and taken for booking - if in their crisis, they act out in a way that is illegal. They can end up being taken to the hospital emergency room - taking themselves, taking others - not the right place for people in behavioral health crisis, but many people end up essentially staying there and boarding - I call it - at the emergency room for long periods of time. They can end up often in the streets, and we've seen this time and again. When people are in crisis, they're no longer able to do the work that's required to stay housed and they can suddenly end up sleeping outside, which of course then just tends to exacerbate the problems that they're struggling with. We're putting together a system where whether you decide that you need to go in and get help, or perhaps you're picked up for a petty crime and the police determine that what's really going on here is you seem to have a behavioral health challenge, or your family is desperate and needs a place to find you help because they're afraid you're gonna hurt yourself or others - they have a place to take you. And it's a place where for the first day, the first 23 hours, you can begin to get re-centered. They have experts there who can help you get past the immediate crisis, and then move into the other wing of this crisis care facility - where for the next two weeks, you can get diagnosed, understand what kind of treatment's going to be available, begin to plan your path forward. And that's - it's a no wrong front door approach. Anywhere you enter the system, somebody can bring you to this place and you can begin to get the help you need. I will add one more thing, since you mentioned the criminal legal system. In Maricopa County, Arizona, they have a clinic like this - this is something that local governments are taking up in spots around the country because of the failure of the federal and state governments to step up. In Maricopa County last year, the police dropped off 28,000 people at the crisis care clinic - people who otherwise might have gone to jail or might have ended up out in the streets. And that is a really significant number. And we expect those kinds of numbers here as well. [00:05:37] Crystal Fincher: Those are huge numbers. And I think most people at this point are looking around in our communities and saying, "Yeah, I can see where there's that kind of need." Will these centers be able to handle that kind of capacity? As you've mentioned, this is a result of longstanding decisions and policies that have gotten us here - neglecting systems or not investing appropriately in systems over decades, really. So we have this large backlog of need, pent up need, and an increasing ongoing need. Will this be appropriate to handle all of the need that exists? [00:06:14] Executive Dow Constantine: I think it will be appropriate, but probably still insufficient - at least at the beginning. Remember, there's a lot of - as you say - pent up need. There's a lot of unmet need out there. Yes, in the streets. Yes, in the criminal legal system. Yes, in the hospitals. But also in homes across the county, in communities - rich and poor. Folks are struggling everywhere, and a lot of people find that they really have nowhere to turn. Even people of means, even people with insurance, even people with connections don't have a place for their loved one to go. So at the outset, it will not be enough - this is as much as we believe we can do as a county. I will say that two weeks ago, we were able to break ground on a new center in Kirkland that's modeled - it's on the same model. That one was funded by the state with some county money - ahead of this levy. And it's my hope that that will be able to - rather than being one of the five - that will be able to be a sixth clinic. But we're cobbling this together as best we're able - recognizing again that behavioral health challenges do not stop at city or county or state borders, and this should really be a national effort to meet a clear need of the people. [00:07:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I saw the news of that facility - the groundbreaking on that facility in Kirkland. It looks like all of the surrounding cities are very excited about it and eager to get it going because the need is so great in the area. [00:07:34] Executive Dow Constantine: Can I just mention something about that? 'Cause we often hear about communities or cities opposing the siting of human service facilities in their jurisdiction. And we're having battles over homeless housing, and battles over all sorts of things. But this seems to be a service that - across the political spectrum - is recognized as needed, as necessary, because everyone has this experience in their personal life. And I have to tell you that as I've been calling around raising support to get this levy passed, everyone I have talked to eventually gets to a personal story. My child, my sibling, my parent, my best friend had this thing happen to them - this crisis - and we didn't know what to do, we didn't know where to turn. Or we finally randomly found a lifeline and were able to get help for them, but that should be available for everyone. So the cities, like Kirkland and those northern cities, are really interested in having this facility sited locally. [00:08:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I think - as you talked about in other situations - there have been varying responses to cities being excited or not excited about the location of services or hotels for the homeless. And developing that response and then having sometimes not positive feedback about where things are sited and located. But it seems like, with the five separate centers, that this is something that is gonna be geographically distributed and able to meet the needs of cities around this county. Was that part of the calculation as you were putting this together that went into looking at the variety of centers? [00:09:05] Executive Dow Constantine: Very much - the need is everywhere. The upsurge in mental health challenges coming out of the COVID crisis is everywhere - it's across the county - fentanyl, and before that the prescription opioid and heroin challenges everywhere. And although it's visible in the homeless population, it's visible in the people who come into contact with the criminal legal system, you cannot find a community where there aren't stories of struggle and suffering - and yes, tragedy - anywhere in this county or in this country. And so this is something that - yeah, again, cities are excited about and we were excited to make sure that this was not just centered in Seattle, but it was going to be able to serve everyone across the county - 2.3 million people. [00:09:48] Crystal Fincher: Now will this reduce strain? You talked about before - right now these people are winding up on the streets too often. They're also being caught up in the criminal legal system, which - with a behavioral health issue - doesn't really have the tools to address the root causes of behavioral health issues. Emergency rooms, and we hear all throughout our healthcare systems - they're being overburdened and people waiting longer and longer just for general or specialized appointments. Do you anticipate this easing the burden on some of those other systems? [00:10:20] Executive Dow Constantine: Yes, it has to. And this clearly is a logical and sort of utilitarian response to these overburdening challenges of the hospital system, the justice system, the emergency medical telephone system, and the challenges we're seeing on the streets. But it's not only about that, because there are an awful lot of people who have a behavioral health challenge who don't fall into any of those categories - who've not come into contact with any of those systems, but they also have nowhere to turn. And there is this - again, quiet suffering happening in families and communities everywhere. I will tell you that this is the obvious missing element in a lot of the other work, frustrating work, that we're trying to do. How do we reduce the jail population? A huge percentage of people in jail have either an addiction or a mental health challenge, or very often both. How do we reduce homelessness? A lot of folks who are on the streets don't have a diagnosable challenge, but a very large percentage do. And to be able to get them the help they need so that they can get centered, get clear, and begin to exercise agency over their lives again is absolutely critical to solving this. The hospitals are constantly asking us for help because they are really overburdened. They cannot provide the services they're supposed to provide because so many people, because of a lack of options, are showing up at their door. There's one crisis care center that is not open access in King County right now - it's run by the Downtown Emergency Service Center. You can be brought there by the police, or you can be brought there from a hospital - checked out of a hospital and checked in there. You cannot self-refer, your family can't bring you, your human services counselor can't bring you. And it doesn't have anywhere near the capacity that either the hospitals or the police would need to be able to deal with the challenge. I talked with an emergency medical worker - a firefighter - last week, and he was saying that just a huge percentage of the calls they receive are ultimately people who are simply in crisis. They're decompensating, as they say in the psychiatric world. They're having either withdrawal or overdose challenge. And these folks need somewhere to take people - they can't just continue to either bring them to the hospital or show up and then leave without providing them help. [00:12:42] Crystal Fincher: So I think those are excellent points. I actually think you're right on target that it will reduce reliance on hospital system - on so many of our systems - that are overburdened, that we're trying to manage and deal with. We did hear recent news about a lawsuit from the ACLU for King County Jails, a new potential SCORE - Des Moines facility - contract for some spillover capacity with the Seattle Jail, King County Jails there. Do you anticipate this helping to reduce the need for those facilities and the inmates that we're sending to those facilities? [00:13:19] Executive Dow Constantine: Yeah, yes. First of all, the highest priority is to relieve the suffering - to provide the help regardless of where you're interacting with the systems. But we have this enormous challenge with being required to accept people being booked into jail - ordered into jail by the courts, booked into jail by the cops from different jurisdictions - and we are overwhelmed. We don't have the personnel to be able to do what we agreed to 20 years ago under the Hammer agreement. Now we've been working with the ACLU - we believe we're in compliance with the agreement in the sense that we're doing everything we can to hire and accommodate people. But that has forced us to go out and try to rent more space - and the personnel that comes with it - to move people around in order to be able to comply with their demands. The fact is that we have about a hundred people in the jail on any given day who are supposed to be in state custody because they've been ordered over for evaluation and restoration of their competency to stand trial. But the state doesn't have the capacity to take them - so they, instead of being out of our jail within a week, as is required by law - some people have been there for 7, 8, 9, 10 months and they're not getting better while they're there, they're not getting the services to restore their competency to stand trial, and they're causing our jail to be overcrowded. And it is just unacceptable. It's also costing us $10 million or more per year to deal with that state failure. These are all results of the underinvestment in the behavioral health system. And also, if you want to broaden the aperture, underinvestment in the upstream measures that will cause people not to come into contact with the criminal legal system in the first place - including the work we're doing - Best Starts for Kids, diversion programs and other. It is - this is probably the single most obvious glaring void in the system - the lack of crisis care and long-term treatment capacity. And if we do this, I think we're going to be a long way down the road towards solving the problem with the jail system. [00:15:19] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now you say - rightly - that you have to compensate and make up for the lack of capacity elsewhere, that is costing King County money. But with public health being such a core responsibility of the county, what went into making this a levy as opposed to funding it out of the budget? [00:15:38] Executive Dow Constantine: Yeah, there's just no money. This would raise $1.25 billion over six years - that dwarfs anything we can do in the tiny sliver of the general fund that is available for discretionary spending. Most of the general fund - three quarters of it - is devoted to criminal legal system work mandated by the State of Washington. So we're left with about a quarter of our discretionary money to use for the elections process, the assessor's office, all the public health work that we do, all of the diversion to move people away from the criminal legal system, sexual assault and domestic violence victims' programs - all of the things that we, collectively as a community, think are important to do instead of using the hammer of the criminal legal system. And yet those are the things that are on the chopping block if we don't have enough funding in the general fund - because they are not required by state law. [00:16:29] Crystal Fincher: How do you respond to people who say, "Okay, we're required to do some things by state law, but not everything. Maybe we opened up too many jail facilities, and maybe we're jailing too many people. Is there something that we can do with our sizable public safety budget to make some room?" [00:16:47] Executive Dow Constantine: Yes - first off, we're not in charge of that - the courts order us to hold people and that is our job. The executive doesn't get to by fiat decide that some people leave the jail - the exception being when we had to maintain the jail population at a certain level because of the COVID emergency that I declared. But absent that emergency and the need to prevent overcrowding to prevent the spread of COVID in the jail, I'm outside of my authority to send people home. What we need to do is create these alternatives - starting with making sure that people are getting behavioral health treatment instead of booking at the jail - but also diversion programs, sending people into a setting where they can actually deal with their underlying challenges, and perhaps compensate their victims rather than going through an empty process that doesn't change them or the outcome for the person they victimized. And if we have enough of that capacity, we can begin to get the cops and the courts and the prosecutors and everyone else to start reducing the demand on the jail system. I've said many times and I say it again - we have to close the downtown Seattle jail. It was opened in the 1980s. It was obsolete in terms of the model on which it was built the day it opened. It's very obsolete now and it is in the wrong place. You've got this jail - hulking jail - on one of the most valuable real estate opportunities in the entire Northwest. There could be hundreds of units of housing for people with varying incomes on that site. And instead there's this jail that adds nothing to the urban fabric and is built on the wrong model to start with - we've got to do better. And building this kind of capacity that we're talking about today is an essential, indispensable element of doing that. [00:18:28] Crystal Fincher: I see. And so I want to talk a little bit more about - you said this does three things - creating the five new regional crisis care centers, preserving the residential treatment beds that are necessary, and growing the behavioral health workforce pipeline, which is crucial and critical. We can build buildings, but if we can't staff them and don't have the appropriate people to provide the services, it's all for naught. So how does this go about increasing the workforce and preparing the workforce? [00:18:59] Executive Dow Constantine: So the idea is - first - that all of these human service agencies that receive government funding to provide behavioral health services are very strapped. They get reimbursed based on very unrealistic rates from the state and federal government - rates that often don't reflect the higher cost of living in Seattle and King County. So we will add to that funding to help raise up the floor for people and essentially change the standard for what the industry pays. This is the same thing we're having to do in childcare, for example, and elder care. All of these caring professions have been historically underpaid, historically disproportionately peopled by women and people of color. And they've been really not given the compensation that they need or deserve. And it is a matter of changing expectations. Changing expectations also means raising more money, which is what we're talking about doing here. It's not just the compensation. It is also the path into this. You shouldn't have to go deeply into debt to be able to enter this profession. You should have some certainty about - once you commit yourself to this, having a job that you can work in. You should be able to progress in the profession if you choose to do that. And so we want to provide apprenticeship programs - we've already begun one with Service Employees International Union 1199 - they represent a lot of these workers. They will have continuing education investment. And then in the implementation plan for this, we'll be looking at the specific conditions, talking with workers about - What is it you really need? Do you need housing subsidy? Is that the thing that's most important? Do you need to be near transportation? What - is it about insurance? What are the things that could cause you to be able to take up this work and be able to do it sustainably? [00:20:38] Crystal Fincher: And I guess follow-up question is that - that is all absolutely necessary. And these centers, in my opinion, certainly seem like they will help and help to fill this gap that so obviously exists. I have seen people question - okay, we get these centers and someone can get there and stabilize overnight. They can even potentially get a couple weeks of services, but some people are dealing with some significant challenge they're gonna take a while to work through. And so there needs to be some kind of handoff if we're gonna continue care and people are gonna get better. How does that process work, and does that capacity exist? Does this help address that capacity too? [00:21:17] Executive Dow Constantine: So some people who leave a center will be going home to their family. Some people who leave a center may need to go to just simply affordable housing - housing that has artificially been made affordable. Some people may need to go to long-term residential treatment. And I mentioned that - that's the second leg of this three-legged stool here. Those are the facilities that replaced the big hospitals as they began to close. And although Western State still exists here, it's not what it once was - and there used to be three state mental health hospitals. There were never enough of these community-based facilities built. Most of them are now 40 or more years old and they've never had reinvestment in the infrastructure. And so the little nonprofits that are running them - that are getting by day-to-day on inadequate compensation from the federal and state governments - aren't able to put the new roof on, aren't able to replace the wiring or the plumbing, and they're locking the doors and walking away. So the county, with help from the state, has been scurrying around trying to prop up this house of cards over the last few years to keep as many beds as possible. Still, we've lost a third of our capacity just since 2018 - half of our capacity over the last couple of decades. So this begins - this stops the outflow and then it starts to rebuild the capacity. And the immediate commitment here is to rebuild to the 2018 level, which was about one third, so it'd essentially be adding 50% to the base that we have now. [00:22:38] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we gotta stop digging if we're ever gonna climb out of this hole. And 2018 levels are a good start - certainly we saw a lot exacerbated throughout the pandemic and more cracks exposed that were already there and just made worse over that time. But this seems like a good start. Can you talk to me about the timing of this? When would these centers be built and coming online? When will these services be available for the community? [00:23:03] Executive Dow Constantine: Yeah, so as I say, we advanced funding to get the Kirkland center started even before the levy is presented to voters or passes. Assuming it passes, my understanding is that we would be able to begin collecting this funding on January 1st of next year. We are in a very bad budget situation. The State Legislature has failed to act on the 1% lid on property taxes for the 20th year in a row. And with 8% inflation and a 1% lid, you can imagine that things are pretty dire. But we're gonna be looking for ways to jumpstart this even before the tax receipts start coming in. I am not committed to only building new - if we find a building that will work and that's cheaper and faster, we will go that direction. And that is true for the crisis centers, it's true for the residential treatment facilities. We want to be sensible, we want to act boldly and quickly. And I think still, as with the homeless hotels, one of the major impediments is going to be the ability to hire - that has just been a tremendous challenge in everything we do over the course of the last three years or so. And so we gotta get started on that with Service Employees International 1199 immediately. [00:24:09] Crystal Fincher: Makes sense. So this looks like it will cost the average King County homeowner about $10 a month, based on the assessment there. As they're considering this and thinking about their various obligations and commitments and bills, what do you say to them as they're pondering this decision - when they get their ballot - to just reinforce why this is worth it? [00:24:31] Executive Dow Constantine: First off, let's all acknowledge that Washington State has about the worst state tax system in the country. And I once again call upon the Legislature to fix it so that we are able to pay for what is needed with everyone contributing as they are able. Now, as - among the taxes that exist, the property tax is perhaps slightly more progressive than the others, like the sales tax. A person who owns an $800,000 house, which is the median home in King County, would pay about $10 a month. For that homeowner, I would ask - Have you ever had anyone in your life who's experienced a behavioral health challenge, an addiction or mental health challenge? Or in your community, are you seeing the results of the failure to provide service on the streets - in petty crime, et cetera? I think you can make a very clear, rational, unemotional argument that it just makes sense to invest this small amount of money to deal with what is obviously a huge societal problem. Because of that, I've actually taken on the responsibility of co-chairing a National Commission on Mental Health and Wellbeing on behalf of the National Association of Counties - met with the surgeon general and the president a few weeks ago. We're going to be advocating for a renewal of federal commitment to this challenge. And we have a national crisis of mental health and addiction and we just cannot afford to neglect it anymore. [00:25:55] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, we will leave it there. And thank you so much for sharing all of the details about the Crisis Care Centers Levy that will be on our ballots in April - we'll be receiving our ballots here coming up pretty soon, so we're all getting prepared for it. Make sure we share the word just because - this is not when people are used to voting all the time - we really need to make sure that we are all turning out and spreading the word that this is a necessary vote and that these crisis care centers are helpful. Thank you so much, Executive Constantine. [00:26:27] Executive Dow Constantine: Thank you. [00:26:27] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

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

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

Gov. Inslee's State DOT "slow walking" the clearance of an illegal homeless camp underneath I-5 at the Seattle Ship Canal bridge, Federal Way city officials dispute the King County Executive Dow Constantine claim that they were notified about King County turning the Red Lion Hotel there into a homeless hotel.

6am hour-- the Biden Administration looking more and more feckless with excuses about Chinese spy balloon discovered last week over Montana, Biden let the Chinese balloon "complete its mission" and then shot it down, MSNBC host unexpectedly grills House Democrat (on Intell. Committee) about Biden's response to Chinese spy bill, Seattle & King County both end COVID vaxx mandate for government employees "effective immediately", GUEST: ShiftWA.org's Randy Pepple, says two Legislative bills in Olympia offer real solutions for broad-based tax relief but they're being bottled up by Democrats (HB1483 would provide property tax relief. HB 1704 would reduce the state sales and use tax rate. HB 1011 would repeal the deeply unpopular state long-term care program and its payroll tax.), no inclination by WA Democrats to provide an ounce of tax relief during this WA Legislative session, Pepple notes that most states are awash in budget surpluses (including WA) because of extra federal funding related to COVID shutdowns and restrictions, the Columbia Journalism Review's assessment of the Russiagate 2016 collusion, its unsparing in its criticism of mainstream media "peddling disinformation for the better part of three years". 7am hour -- Olympia school facing claims of racial segregation over 5th grade BIPOC group, the Olympia elementary school principal rebuffs KOMO reporter/photographer asking questions about the criticisms of the 5th grade BIPOC group, "the entire school is supposed to be a safe space", an SI writer tells story about the ill-fated Russell Wilson 'special tent' at Broncos training camp last summer, RIP Bob Throndson a Seattle TV news icon from the late 1970s-2000s, Throndson was a field reporter at heart and could have worked in any news medium, Throndson understood the importance of writing good copy for viewers with straight-ahead reporting, Throndson covered the Mt. St. Helens 1980 eruption and the 1992 LA riots among his career achievements, 8am hour -- magnifying the importance of race and the general mantra of 'treat others as you yourself would want to be treated', Disney+ "The Proud Family" slavery reparations scene, new public records from Democrats in WA Legislature show numerous redactions regarding capital gains income tax law that was passed last year but is currently facing legal constitutional challenge in Supreme Court of Washington (SCOW), prominent Democrats not only want a different presidential candidate in 2024 but apparently they want a different VP too, only 22% of Americans think Biden should run again for President, Gov. Inslee's State DOT "slow walking" the clearance of an illegal homeless camp underneath I-5 at the Seattle Ship Canal bridge, Federal Way city officials dispute the King County Executive Dow Constantine claim that they were notified about King County turning the Red Lion Hotel there into a homeless hotel, violent crime in Seattle including murder, rape and aggravated assault are all up in latest round of 2022 stats, arsons and reported burglaries are down but car theft is up by 30%.

Josh and Tracy get into the big game match-up. What are you most interested in? Is it the game? The food? Asking the boss for the next day off? Josh breaks down the wonderful write-up about Living Well Kent, Tracy talks about King County Executive Dow Constantine's stop in Kent for Clark Lake Park, and who doesn't love a cold salad?      

6am hour -- a recap to the weekend's annual Roanoke Conference and the big attendance for the big WA political event, continuing coverage of the $11.8 billion budget request for KC Regional Homeless Authority, simultaneously Seattle residents near two large illegal homeless encampments on the I-5 Express Lanes want the areas cleared after a weekend shooting, sports and occasional political pundit Jason Whitlock wonders why there are protests if 5 Memphis Police officers are now charged in the killing of Tyre Nichols, Gov. Inslee exclusive interview, several big admissions from Gov. Inslee including that his laws on drug possession and police pursuit aren't working as intended, Inslee says he's open to changes, Inslee admits "fentanyl deaths are just horrific right now", Carslon concludes "Inslee has holes in every part of his thinking" . 7am hour -- Bellevue schools situation, why Bellevue school student enrollment is shrinking as parents aren't happy with the politics connected to teachers pushing policy, several Democrats in WA Legislature propose a mandatory voting law, KVI's exclusive interview with Gov. Jay Inslee: John Carlson asks Gov. Inslee if he'll support a felony drug possession law but Inslee only says he's against drug decriminalization, Carlson asks Inslee "is there a willingness to prosecute (people caught with illegal drugs)?", Inslee admits that fentanyl is "horrific right now", a KVI listener comments on the Inslee COVID vaxx mandate and what's covered under worker's comp. 8am hour -- reacting to the Memphis Police body cam video of the beating of driver Tyre Nichols who died on Jan. 17th after fleeing a traffic stop, HBO's Bill Maher calls out the attempt to tie every social injustice to race in America, King County Executive Dow Constantine is asking voters to support a property tax levy to pay for behavioral health and crisis care this spring, Constantine's 8-year-levy plan would collect $1.25 billion in taxes over 8 years, the full KVI exclusive interview with Gov. Jay Inslee answering questions about the current drug possession law and police pursuit law, the full interview totals 17-minutes, Inslee admits both laws that he signed need to be revised, however Inslee refuses to acknowledge that his COVID vaxx mandate rule needs to be changed.

The GOP is spending like democrats Seattle Way - are masks coming back The Swamp- Senate bans Tik-Tok are they actually standing up to china? Woke report

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

Independent Seattle political journalist, Jonathan Choe, is denied a press credential from King County Executive Dow Constantine's office to attend a media tour of a proposed homeless services complex in the Seattle "SoDo" neighborhood. Constantine's staff tells Choe on-camera "I've determined that you work for the group that you said that you worked for, which is not a media group". KVI's John Carlson evaluates the new standard of journalism that Constantine's Administration has decided to establish for covering his office and policies.

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, Crystal is joined by the former Director of Progressive Majority who has now transitioned into public service but remains involved in numerous political efforts across Washington, EJ Juárez.  This week, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced his proposed budget for 2023-2024, and there are a number of questionable decisions that reveal where the mayor's priorities lie. Beyond moving parking enforcement back to the SPD, the budget invests in a police surveillance tool called ShotSpotter, which has been a failure in other cities where it's been implemented, resulting in lead to police overreach without a reduction in crime.  At the same time, Harrell's budget is calling to lower the cost-of-living increases for the city's human services workers, a choice that would require a change in law. At a time when inflation is hurting everyone, especially our lowest earners, and we're dealing with a number of public health crises and staffing shortages, the decision to effectively cut the pay of essential workers who are doing crucial work stands in stark contrast to the large hiring bonuses being offered to police.   King County Executive Dow Constantine and other leaders announced a new property tax that would provide $1.25B to help create new behavioral health crisis centers to help those in need receive necessary support. This proposal will need to be approved by the King County Council before being voted on in an April special election. We'll keep checking in on this plan as it develops. In a new update on the controversy surrounding former mayor Jenny Durkan's missing text messages, a forensic analysis has found evidence that these messages were intentionally deleted, not accidentally removed. As EJ reminds us, these public records concern an issue that resulted in someone's death, and their deletion has prevented their family from getting closure. If it's determined that these messages were in fact intentionally deleted, the implications are criminal. We'll keep paying attention to this story for updates. In the 42nd LD in Whatcom County, a State House race has seen a terrible, but not so shocking, revelation. GOP candidate Don Johnson attempted to scrub his social media feeds of racist, misogynist, and anti-semitic posts, but failed to do so before the Bellingham Herald recorded them. The Herald reported on the unacceptable posts this week, revealing a history of dangerous rhetoric and misinformation that Johnson hopped to hide. Another reminder that Crystal will be hosting a debate between 37th LD State Rep candidates Emijah Smith and Chipalo Street on Tuesday, October 4th at 7:00pm at the Rainier Art Center and streamed live. See seattleemerald.com/debate for more details! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at@finchfrii and find today's co-host, EJ Juárez, at @EliseoJJuarez. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Harrell's Budget Would Move Parking Encforcement Back to SPD, Add $10 Million to Homelessness Authority, and Use JumpStart to Backfill Budget" by Erica C. Barentt (@ericacbarnett) from Publicola (@PubliColaNews): https://publicola.com/2022/09/27/harrells-budget-would-move-parking-enforcement-back-to-spd-add-10-million-to-homelessness-authority-and-use-jumpstart-to-backfill-budget/   “Harrell budget proposal steps back on Seattle reforms including larger SPD, new plan for big business tax” by jseattle from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog: https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2022/09/harrell-budget-proposal-steps-back-on-seattle-reforms-including-larger-spd-new-plan-for-big-business-tax/   "City of Seattle and King County Reveal Proposed Budgets for Input" by Vee Hua from The South Seattle Emerald (@SoSeaEmerald): https://southseattleemerald.com/2022/09/28/news-gleams-city-of-seattle-and-king-county-reveal-proposed-budgets-for-input-renton-arts-grants/   “The Mayor Wants to Pay Human Service Providers Less” by Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) from The Stranger(@TheStranger): https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/09/28/78543620/the-mayor-wants-to-pay-human-service-providers-less   Information on public comments for the budget from The South Seattle Emerald: Written public comment on the city's 2023-2024 budget will be accepted at all meetings of the City Council's Budget Committee. Comments intended for the full council can be sent to council@seattle.gov. There will be three public hearings on the budget at City Hall on these dates: Tuesday, Oct. 11, at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, at 5 p.m.   "Seattle's Left Proposes Defunding the Police, Stopping Sweeps, and Building Housing in Solidarity Budget" by Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) from The Stranger(@TheStranger): https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/09/23/78520829/seattles-left-proposes-defunding-the-police-stopping-sweeps-and-building-housing-in-solidarity-budget   “New Tax Would  Fund Behavioral Crisis Centers” by Erica C. Barentt (@ericacbarnett) from Publicola (@PubliColaNews): https://publicola.com/2022/09/27/new-tax-would-fund-behavioral-crisis-centers-things-to-look-for-in-harrells-first-budget-proposal/   "‘Spoliation of Evidence' - CHOP lawsuit judge asked to rule against City of Seattle over deleted texts” by jseattle from Capital Hill Seattle Blog- https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2022/09/spoliation-of-evidence-chop-lawsuit-judge-asked-to-rule-against-city-of-seattle-over-deleted-texts/    The Bellingham Herald(@BhamHerald)'s story on Dan Johnson's hateful social media history [story is behind a paywall]: https://t.co/Xtbq2D6BKD    Tweet thread with information about Whatcom County State House Candidate Dan Johnson's hateful online history: https://twitter.com/finchfrii/status/1574794894807539712?s=20&t=Kn1jkKibpz1cn_fNJUBMzg   Next Tuesday, October 4th, at 7:00pm, join Crystal live or in-person as she hosts a debate between 37th LD State Rep candidates Emijah Smith & Chipalo Street! See seattleemerald.com/debate for more details!   Transcrip Coming Soon

KVI's Lars Larson and John Carlson examine a proposal by King County Executive Dow Constantine to raise property taxes (that's sure to keep rents in Seattle and the suburbs lower!) to haul in up to $1.25 billion for mental health services.

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

KVI's John Carlson listens to the long-awaited first public response by King County Executive Dow Constantine to questions about his King County Regional Homeless Authority (KCRHA) proposed homeless facility planned for the SoDo neighborhood near the Chinatown-International District. Constantine finally answers questions about the proposed homeless facility from independent reporter, Jonathan Choe. One week ago, Constantine ignored Choe's questions telling the former Seattle TV news reporter "you're not actually a journalist".

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

Jonathan Choe joins Ari to discuss the looming showdown in Chinatown. Activists and Asian American families/biz owners in Seattle's CID say they are going to WAR against King County Executive Dow Constantine and his new homeless MEGAPLEX - scheduled to be built in nearby SODO. They claim Dow Constantine NEVER consulted them.

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

Over one million people in Washington have a mental health condition. In February 2021, almost half of adults in Washington reported symptoms of anxiety or depression. 30% were unable to get needed counseling or therapy. A new coalition announced today by King County Executive Dow Constantine is looking to make a difference in the crisis.

Thursday June 30 on Urban Forum Northwest - *Martin Luther King Jr. County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall was appointed by King County Executive Dow Constantine to be Sheriff on May 6, 2022. She was appointed as Interim Sheriff in November, 2021. She will share her vision, her priorities and plans for a just and inclusive Sheriff's Department. * Seattle Police Detective Cookie Bouldin has received accolades for her positive work with the youth of South Seattle. Most recently a Chess Park is being constructed due to her success of engaging South Seattle youth in the positive and peaceful game of Chess. *Reverend Lawrence Willis, President, United Black Christian Clergy of Washington has been the lead organizer in Justice for James Myers, the Black Carpenter who experienced a noose being placed at his workstation on a building being constructed for FACEBOOK in Redmond WA. *Claude Burfect, First Vice President, Seattle King County NAACP attended the Poor Peoples Campaign event in Washington DC last week and will comment on the event. The Reverend Dr. William Barber is the leader of this effort. *Award winning Draze will be in Seattle on Saturday, July 2 to host The Dhindindi by a Chosen Few that will be held at 7:30 pm at The Collective Seattle, 400 Dexter Avenue North. 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. Hear the program on Alexa and my podcast.

Thursday June 30 on Urban Forum Northwest - *Martin Luther King Jr. County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall was appointed by King County Executive Dow Constantine to be Sheriff on May 6, 2022. She was appointed as Interim Sheriff in November, 2021. She will share her vision, her priorities and plans for a just and inclusive Sheriff's Department. * Seattle Police Detective Cookie Bouldin has received accolades for her positive work with the youth of South Seattle. Most recently a Chess Park is being constructed due to her success of engaging South Seattle youth in the positive and peaceful game of Chess. *Reverend Lawrence Willis, President, United Black Christian Clergy of Washington has been the lead organizer in Justice for James Myers, the Black Carpenter who experienced a noose being placed at his workstation on a building being constructed for FACEBOOK in Redmond WA. *Claude Burfect, First Vice President, Seattle King County NAACP attended the Poor Peoples Campaign event in Washington DC last week and will comment on the event. The Reverend Dr. William Barber is the leader of this effort. *Award winning Draze will be in Seattle on Saturday, July 2 to host The Dhindindi by a Chosen Few that will be held at 7:30 pm at The Collective Seattle, 400 Dexter Avenue North. 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. Hear the program on Alexa and my podcast.

If you live or do business in King County, you're probably curious about local policy decisions and how your government is running things. We asked for your questions for King County Executive Dow Constantine.... and you delivered.

On Tuesday, King County Executive Dow Constantine announced that Patti Cole-Tindall will be King County's next sheriff. She spoke to Soundside about her plans for the department.

King County Executive Dow Constantine sits down with Soundside guest host Jeannie Yandel to answer listener questions about King County's new Health through Housing purchase, homelessness in the county, rising crime rates, and more.

On today's rebroadcast, Crystal's interviews King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, and they discuss police accountability and what it really means to invest in community. In the conversation they discuss the King County Charter Amendments that were on the November 2020 ballot and have since been approved by the voters, changing how the sheriff is selected, and requiring investigation over all police related deaths. Councilmember Zahilay also goes into the important work he's doing to increase investment in Skyway, without displacing the people who already call it home. A full text transcript of the show is available below, and on the Hacks & Wonks blog at https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/post/king-county-councilmember-girmay-zahilay-talks-sheriff-reforms-supporting-skyway. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and Councilmember Girmay Zahilay at @girmayzahilay. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Articles Referenced: Learn more about the King County Charter Amendments from People Power at https://www.wethepeoplepower.org/kcca.   Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we don't just talk politics and policy, but also how they affect our lives and shape our communities. As we dive into the backstories behind what we read in the news, we bring voices to the table that we don't hear from often enough. So today on Hacks and Wonks, we are excited to be joined by Girmay Zahilay, King County Councilmember for District 2, who has been doing a lot of work in the community. You've probably seen and heard from him - he's everywhere, just about, but we are excited to have a conversation today just about what you're working on. So thanks for joining us.  Girmay Zahilay: [00:00:52] My pleasure, Crystal. Thank you for having me.  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:54] So I guess starting out, what are you working on? What's top of the agenda right now? Girmay Zahilay: [00:01:00] We're working on a lot of stuff. I would say the two biggest policy agendas that we have are number one, Skyway, which is a neighborhood just south of Seattle and north of Renton. And that encompasses all things for the wellbeing of that neighborhood. And the second area that's our top priority is our criminal legal systems and imagining the future of public safety and making sure that marginalized communities are uplifted, supported, and feel safe rather than brutalized by a system that is racist and that hasn't seen much of any innovation for a long time. So, I would say those are the two biggest and we can dive into each of those umbrellas, as you like, Crystal, but there's some exciting stuff in each one of those.  Crystal Fincher: [00:01:46] Sure, absolutely. I mean, both of those are related - Skyway has the largest African American population, in the State, per capita. And so we see under-investment, and an under-resourced  area that's been ignored and neglected, despite it's absolutely prime location. And so the conversations that we're having with public safety go hand-in-hand with conversations that we're having there, and that, if Black Lives Matter, as you've said, Skyway has to matter - and the types of considerations that we're talking about in public safety extend to the whole conversation - just about racism and inequalities, and really setting people up for very different outcomes in life from the very beginning, based on the way we're set up systemically. So in terms of public safety, what are you working on? Girmay Zahilay: [00:02:48] Right. Your point, Crystal, about these two issues being intersecting is so spot-on. Right now we're seeing possibly the largest civil rights movement in the history of the United States. The Black Lives Matter movement has brought in millions of people nationally and tens of thousands of people locally. I grew up in South Seattle, so seeing our streets packed with tens of thousands of people like we have, shows me that there is momentum to support Black Lives. The Black Lives Matter movement is not just about ending police brutality. Of course, that's a central message, but it's also about ending all kinds of systemic harm and uplifting Black people because our systems have not done that so far. And like you said, Skyway is the place where we must start. It has the highest proportion of African Americans in the state of Washington and simultaneously, it's also the area that has been disinvested from the most. When you have an area that has the highest proportion of Black people and the area that has been disinvested in the most, that is systemic racism, plain and simple. So it, just to me, it points out this issue where again, our region says one thing and does another. We can drive around South Seattle and Skyway and see Black Lives Matter signs everywhere, but we don't invest in Black people the same way that we should. These issues are intersecting - Skyway, our system of public safety, police brutality - these are all intersecting issues.  Crystal Fincher: [00:04:29] They're absolutely intersecting issues and have been issues for so long, and we're really late in having this conversation. And it's a matter of having a representative in your position continually stress that this is a priority - this is urgent. And someone with lived experience who this is not a theoretical issue for and who has spent many years leading up to this, working on how to change from the root, systemically, the issues that we're dealing with. And one thing that I do want to point out that, from my perspective I appreciate, is, as an elected representative, we want you to take great votes and people are certainly excited about that. But the leadership goes beyond just what you do in the meetings and the votes you take. And you talked about being part of the largest civil rights movement happening right now, that we're in the middle of, and there were nights when we saw horrifying video coming out of the streets of Seattle and surrounding areas and, certainly SPD, behaving questionably. And some just, unambiguously, inappropriately and violently. And there were protesters and people in the community who said, Hey, we need help down here. We need someone down here to witness this, to address this. This is wrong, from being teargassed, to being beaten, to being corralled, and you answered that call. You were there, you were available - one, you were in a position to even see that. I mean, between Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, you are there and present when a lot of other people are not. And you were like, Hey, I'll be there. And you were there. And that just meant a lot to me, it means a lot to community to see - not only as someone willing to take the vote, but this is personal and this is real, and they're willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the front lines and say, You know what, I'm part of this too. And this affects me too. And I'm in a position to use my platform and power to change this, not just when it comes to taking a vote, but just using your voice, shining a light on it all around. So I just want to say - I appreciate that, I saw that, I know a lot of the community sees that. And it matters to have someone who understands and who has felt and experienced, what this really means and the consequences of these actions. And so beyond that, or I guess looking through that lens, what is your approach to turning just the understanding, the pain, and the need into policy - and what is in process? Girmay Zahilay: [00:07:30] Thank you, Crystal, for highlighting that. There were a number of other elected officials who came out that day as well, and just the community members who've been organizing and protesting for the past six months. They've been putting their bodies and their lives on the line every day, to advance justice. And we, as elected officials, need to be out there with them. 2020 is such a special and different year, right? Before 2020 happened, we already had so many crises - it's not like we were in peace times before this and there were a lot of issues to resolve. But then 2020 starts and the issues get bigger and our tools for resolving them diminished greatly - because the usual tools that we have for advocacy engagement, understanding one another, are completely obliterated when we're not allowed to gather or be near each other. So as elected officials, we have to find other opportunities of engaging and learning and listening, because it can't all happen virtually. We cannot believe and be lulled into the false sense of understanding our constituents from a laptop or from a cell phone. We have to be out there. And that's why I try my best to be out as much as I can, in a safe way, every opportunity that I get - whether that's outside delivering masks - I could have my staff or King County officials go out and do that for me, but I want to be out there, I want to see people, I want to talk to them - or that's going out and protesting with people, because I need to experience the police brutality and overreach firsthand if I'm going to shape effective policies. I think it's really important for us to be out there, to be visible, to show people that we're truly listening, and crafting our policies based on what we're seeing and hearing from our constituents. Otherwise, we're susceptible to just believing the spin, and the narrative, and whatever media agenda there is out there of the people who have access to media, telling the story for us. And I think the most perfect example is the evening marchers and the young people who are organizing and marching every night. If I were to just to open up my news apps and read about them, I'm seeing - mobs, destructive mobs. When I went out there and actually sat with them and spoke to them, I was blown away by the level of nuance and informed discussion that I was able to have with these teenagers and young adults. They were pulling up our voting records, they were pulling up things that we have said in the past in various committee meetings. It was just the most intellectual conversation that I've had in my time as a councilmember. And I would have never known that if I hadn't gone out there and spoken to them.  Crystal Fincher: [00:10:28] Well, and what you talked about is very important in needing to be present and experience it yourself 'cause you just mentioned, if we watched the typical evening news, they'll focus on, Hey, if there is some property damage, if there is someone that they can view looking aggressive, or if the police department says, Hey, this is our take on things today, whether or not that story changes later on down the line. That's really been the focus of our local TV coverage that a lot of people catch. A lot of people don't have the time or ability just to do a deep dive into news and the social media and to see what's actually happening. So for you to be able to experience it yourself and be on the ground and understand that this isn't - these aren't people without a plan. These aren't people acting impulsively.  These are people who understand that lives are at stake and who have taken it upon themselves to educate themselves, to arm themselves with knowledge, and to say, You know what? We are going beyond what we've done before and we're demanding better. And I tell you, young people are the best at holding everyone accountable. And out of necessity - because their preceding generations have slipped and didn't do the job they should have. So they're actually coming around and saying, Okay, let's actually show you all how it's done. And we just saw that result in the Seattle City Council recently - overriding Jenny Durkan's veto of the rebalanced budget that significantly defunds SPD and sets the stage for even more defunding in the next budget.  Girmay Zahilay: [00:12:16] Right.  Crystal Fincher: [00:12:16] So, from the County perspective, and talking about the Sheriff's that are within your jurisdiction - are you also looking at defunding and what are the specifics of the plan? Girmay Zahilay: [00:12:29] I would encourage everyone to look into Charter Amendment #6, which will be on your November ballot. When anybody who's listening to this opens up their ballot in November to vote on things like who they want their next president to be, they're also going to see a list of seven King County Charter amendments, and four of these amendments relate to your County system of public safety. If you vote Yes on Charter Amendment #6, it would allow the King County Council to shape the future of public safety. This is not some kind of symbolic, or incremental, or performative change around eliminating police brutality. This would allow the King County Council to move away from a system where we send armed police officers to respond to every single challenge on the streets of our city and county - to assist them - that is a diverse toolkit of public health alternatives. So, if we see a mental health crisis on our streets, we can send trained mental health professionals. If we see somebody in need on our streets, like an encampment, we won't send officers with guns - we send rapid response social workers who can help people in need. If our youth are having conflicts or issues, we can send violence interrupters and mentors to respond. If somebody has routine, everyday things like a noise complaint, or wants to do a wellness check, or a fire code issue, we can send code enforcement officers who aren't armed. Our default response to every single issue does not have to be to send police officers who have guns, because that's how Black and Brown people die unnecessarily. That's what we've seen all around the nation and this charter amendment, if it's passed - and it is something that our office proposed - would remove certain restrictions that would allow, then, the King County Council to transfer public safety functions away from traditional law enforcement and toward community-based and public health alternatives. I think this would be a huge and beneficial change for our county and all it takes is our public approving it through the voting process. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:49] You're listening to Hacks and Wonks with your host Crystal Fincher on KVRU 105.7 FM. So that's going to be on the November ballot.  Girmay Zahilay: [00:15:30] The one I described is just 1 of 7, but there are others - like shifting our Sheriff from an elected position to an appointed position, which would increase accountability to the Council and allow us to give the Sheriff policy instruction, which we can't right now. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:24] You just mentioned the charter amendment to make the Sheriff appointed and not elected. A lot of people feel like, Hey, if we elect people, they're directly accountable to the people - we can hold them accountable, we get a consistent voice. Why is having them report or be appointed and accountable to the council a better system? How does that increase accountability?  Girmay Zahilay: [00:16:56] Well, an independently elected sheriff is exactly that - more independent, and we do not need a more independent police department. We need better checks and balances, we need to be able to oversee them, we need to be able to provide policy instruction to them. And yes, on the surface, it does feel like electing someone feels like accountability to the voters, but once you've elected them for four years, who are they exactly accountable to? The Council right now has budgetary power - we can provide incentives through budgetary sticks and carrots, but we cannot give them policy instruction. We cannot transfer public safety functions elsewhere. And the King County Executive right now - if the Sheriff did something wrong, the King County Executive cannot fire the Sheriff, for example. There would have to be a recall process, which is way more complicated than a King County Executive just saying, Hey, you've done something wrong. You are not being accountable to our constituents. We're going to look for somebody else. And also an appointed position would allow the King County Council and the Executive to do a nationwide search and find the best quality person for the job, whereas an election, you are inherently through that process - you're attracting politicians to that job. People who are going to be accountable to - more accountable to the police unions and to their donors - than to people who want better policy instructions for them.  Crystal Fincher: [00:18:35] It's always interesting to have this conversation with politicians, but it's usually only politicians who hold themselves accountable and allow the public to hold themselves accountable, who want to bring that up. that is a legitimate issue - that there are a lot of politicians who do feel beholden to their donors and to, a lot of times, the special interests that helped provide the funding and resources to get them elected - but that often have competing agendas with the people who they're actually elected to serve. So as we're looking at this overall - one issue that we have recently talked about in Seattle, and especially looking at the Mayor and the control that Jenny Durkan has over the Seattle Police Department, and even the Police Chief for the Seattle Police Department - not really having power or authority to impose appropriate discipline, to make appropriate changes, because of the police guild's contract for Seattle. Is that also an issue with the Sheriff's department in King County? And how do you fix that? How do you begin to change that, so that there is accountability?  Girmay Zahilay: [00:19:49] It's a huge obstacle for justice and accountability. One of the things that we talk about most is the fact that oversight - the process of holding police officers accountable for misconduct, for example, that process is subject to bargaining - meaning that we can only hold police officers accountable in the ways that the police unions agree to. Imagine if any other profession, a high risk profession, say surgeons, or anything like that. Imagine if they told you, Hey, you can only hold us accountable the ways that we agreed to. Is that real accountability? Of course not. That's what we have here - that's the issue that we're facing here - the fact that oversight is subject to negotiation and bargaining. I understand why some things are subject to negotiation - we want workers to be protected - police officers are workers as well - things like benefits and workforce conditions, things like that, of course. But when we're talking about holding you accountable for misconduct, for example, that is not something that we should have to negotiate with you. That should be a completely independent function not subject to negotiation, but it is right now, because of state law. And last month, I actually held a round table discussion with several state-elected officials and community members, especially out in Skyway, and people in the union world, like MLK Labor Council. I had them all on a call and we discussed what can we do to solve this issue without deteriorating workers' rights? Because the last thing we want to do is have anti-union people using this police union issue as a way of deteriorating union rights. That's not what we want to do. Is there a way to carve out this specific, special situation? And that's what we would discuss with the state-elected officials as a state matter - it's not something that King County Council can change, but we did get some commitments from state-level people - that they are going to look into this and address the collective bargaining laws that  allow police unions to be an obstacle to true accountability. Crystal Fincher: [00:22:16] Okay, that makes sense. So, in terms of what is possible in this next legislative session, are there fixes that they're committing to bring forward, or that are currently in discussions? And then how much is an issue of state law preventing that, and how much is an issue of direct negotiation of the contract? Girmay Zahilay: [00:22:41] So it's both for sure. And I, the sense that I got from the state-level people is that they are going to introduce something that allows - that would carve out police unions from this collective bargaining law. Or at least carves out accountability measures from the requirement to bargain and negotiate. Because again, that should be independent. I can follow up with them to hear if a specific bill is going to be proposed, but that's the sense that I got.  Crystal Fincher: [00:23:12] Yeah, that makes sense. And, appreciate you trying, even though that is not in your direct area of control - to make an effort to work in cooperation with your partners at the state, and to say, Hey, we need action. What can we do? And to get that conversation started, and we will certainly be talking more about that here on Hacks and Wonks.  So broadening the conversation - and we started talking about Skyway - and we started talking about the disinvestment and, really, the institutional neglect and hostility, which is certainly harmful and a form of violence. How do we - what are the best ways to address that? What change can meaningfully be made? What policies can be changed, especially right now in the middle of a pandemic, when every local government and state government is saying, We're experiencing a budget crisis at the same time - so what can be done? And looking at the near term, and then in the next six months to a year, what is planned? What is possible? Girmay Zahilay: [00:24:29] For sure, Crystal, and I think the most important thing is to start off understanding what the problem statement is. The problem statement is not - how do we get more investment into Skyway? I actually just got into a Facebook argument with somebody on Facebook - which I tell myself every day, Don't get into Facebook arguments because it's a losing battle - you're not arguing rational people most of the time. But I posted how Skyway needs investments, et cetera, and this guy who, of course, had a vote Trump thing in his profile pictures, somewhere deep in there, was saying that, The easiest way to fix Skyway and to have it catch up with the neighborhoods around it, is to reduce regulations for developers, handout permits as quickly as possible, and private capital can flow in and we can develop it so fast - this is such an exceedingly simple solution. And I have to tell him, Again, you are working with the wrong problem statement. The problem is not where we need to find ways of having private capital flow into Skyway. If that were the only thing we're trying to solve for, the solution is exceedingly simple, right? It's just to eliminate all regulations, hand out permits to developers. And of course, they would take that in a heartbeat. The problem statement is - How do you invest in Skyway without displacing the people who already call it home? And the solution to that is much more nuanced and requires us to be much more thoughtful about how we proceed with development. It requires us to, yes, invite development, but do it in a way that is lockstep with anti-displacement measures, that invests in existing people and existing small businesses that are already there. It requires us to down-zone certain areas so that we can slow the pace of gentrification as much as possible. It requires us to be really thoughtful about what kind of requirements we're putting on developers - we're not just saying, Hey, developers, it's a free-for-all. No, you have to have a certain number of your units be affordable. You have to - right of first return to people that you displace in the process of development. You have to invest a certain amount of money in existing small businesses. You have to create community land trusts and community ownership. Those are all things that we're trying to do right now, because as far as I can tell, I have not been able to identify a single neighborhood or region in Washington State that's gotten it right so far. If it was so simple, I asked this man who argued with me on Facebook, give me the list of neighborhoods in our state where this has worked before. Just - we don't have to argue - just lay out the facts for me, because again, if you're going to point to places like the Central District - no. South Seattle - no. Anywhere you point to me, I'm going to show you that - no, we did not get it right. Yes, private capital flowed in and development happened, but what happened to the people who already live there? And that's what we're trying to solve in Skyway. And I can talk about the things that we've been working on so far, but I know it's always best to give myself some breathing room and not talk endlessly.  Crystal Fincher: [00:27:50] Well, we do have a few more minutes, but it would be good just to get an idea of what the focus is. Girmay Zahilay: [00:27:59] For sure. So the first thing that we did was help get a Skyway Land Use and Zoning Plan pushed across the finish line. This is something that people had been working on before I got here, but we helped push it across the finish line. And that's the first thing - is setting the foundation for investment - and that means we down-zoned certain areas from bigger commercial areas into smaller neighborhood commercial areas. Because again, we don't want speculative developers coming in here and putting in giant high-rises, and Targets, and Walmarts, and all that. Not yet. We also changed the areas that are already zoned for multi-family housing, like apartment complexes - we included some affordability requirements into those, so if you are going to develop areas that are already marked for multi-family, you have to have a certain level of affordability for lower income people to be able to live there. That's just setting the foundation. And then, now what we're working on is bolstering the level of investment that King County is willing to put in - for things like a community center, we just got earmarked for $10 million. For things like participatory budgeting, where the community gets to choose how it wants to spend money - whether that's for housing, or youth services, or roads and infrastructure - $10 million is going to go into that. We're getting $4.6 million - and this is all part of King County Executive Dow Constantine's proposed budget - $4.6 million is going to be redirected, of marijuana revenue, is going to be redirected from law enforcement and go toward community-based alternatives. So you lay the foundation of slowing the rate of gentrification, and then you slowly invest and build up - and at the same time, in lock step, we're going to also be placing, preparing anti-displacement measures, like just cause eviction, which would require that landlords and other big commercial developers - that they have a just reason for kicking out tenants and can't just do it for commercial reasons, or whatever it might be.  Crystal Fincher: [00:30:21] Right. That is helpful, certainly. And excited to hear that you're picking that up - other local jurisdictions have taken that up, and so others are just beginning to follow their lead and I'm glad to see that you're on the leading side of that. So I appreciate you just talking to us about everything today and what's going on and just understanding more of one central point. It isn't simple. It isn't simple, it isn't easy, but that is not an excuse not to do the work. And in fact that means that we really have to double down and dive in to understand the issues and get to work now, because we really can't wait any longer. We can't afford to wait any longer - people's lives are at stake and in the balance - and everything from health to education, just to what someone's neighborhood and school and street looks like, and what their future is set up to be - depends on the work that we're doing today. So I appreciate you spending this time, I appreciate the work that you're doing. Can you give your Twitter handle one more time, so people can get more information about what we've talked about today?  Absolutely. It's @girmayzahilay. Thank you so much, Crystal. I Girmay Zahilay: [00:31:48] really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I really love the work that you do, and your whole team does. Thank you for highlighting the voices of our most marginalized communities and some of the solutions that would get us on track to being a region that works for everyone. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:10] Thank you for listening to Hacks and Wonks. Thank you to KVRU 105.7FM in Seattle where we record this show. Our chief audio engineer is Maurice Jones, Jr. And our producer is Lisl Stadler. If you want more Hacks and Wonks content, go to officialhacksandwonks.com, subscribe to Hacks and Wonks on your favorite podcatcher, or follow me on Twitter @finchfrii. Catch you on the other side.

The city of Seattle and King County have reached a land swap agreement to transfer ownership of City Hall Park to the county in exchange for 13 properties.On Friday, King County Executive Dow Constantine's office announced the agreement with Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan in a release.The swap will give King County the half-acre park, allowing it to “complete its downtown Civic Campus,” in exchange for a total of 1.35 acres of land across the Seattle area.The release states that the 13 properties the city will acquire will help it reach its “goal to expand and protect green space and public parkland,” particularly in the South Park area.The agreement follows years of safety concerns surrounding City Hall Park, which is adjacent to the King County Superior Courthouse. Concerns reached a fever pitch last summer after a woman was allegedly sexually assaulted inside a courthouse bathroom and a homeless encampment at the park continued to have issues.https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/city-hall-park-king-county-land-swap/281-f9b0bed0-c8d7-4c6c-987d-9e16eaf1bd45Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/seattlerealestatepodcast)

This week Crystal talks with King County Executive Dow Constantine about his decision to run for a fourth term as County Executive. They discuss the path to Covid-19 recovery, persisting inequality in King County, the comparatively low rate of vaccination in BIPoC communities in South King County, the role of government in bailing out large private projects, campaign finance, public safety, and more. 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 guest, King County Executive Dow Constantine, at @DowC. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Joe Nguyen challenging Dow Constantine for King County executive” by Melissa Santos: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/04/joe-nguyen-challenging-dow-constantine-king-county-executive “Seattle Elections 2021: Digging deeper into voters' top priorities” by Anne Christnovich: https://crosscut.com/inside-crosscut/2021/06/seattle-elections-2021-digging-deeper-voters-top-priorities “King County passes $631M rescue plan for COVID recovery; Seattle unveils its $128M proposal” by Daniel Beekman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-county-passes-rescue-plan-spending-for-covid-19-recovery-seattle-unveils-its-proposal/ “Community Health Centers Work to Address COVID-19 Vaccine Inequity” by Sally James: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/03/02/community-health-centers-work-to-address-covid-19-vaccine-inequity/ “Elders of Color Face Major Hurdles Getting COVID Vaccine” by Carolyn Bick: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/03/04/elders-of-color-face-major-hurdles-getting-covid-vaccine/ “Seattle's COVID relief money to focus on direct aid, housing” by David Kroman: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/05/seattles-covid-relief-money-focus-direct-aid-housing “Despite criticism, King County Council gives Mariners $135M” by Manola Secaira: https://crosscut.com/2018/09/despite-criticism-king-county-council-gives-mariners-135m “No bailout needed for Washington State Convention Center expansion, as private financing presumes economic rebound” by David Gutman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-state-convention-center-expansion-secures-financing-no-longer-needs-a-bailout/ “County Exec Candidates Spar Over PACs, City Finally Funds Street Sinks” from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/05/25/county-exec-candidates-spar-over-pacs-city-finally-funds-street-sinks/ “A guide to political money: campaigns, PACs, super PACs” by Philip Elliott: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/a-guide-to-political-money-campaigns-pacs-super-pacs “Police Accountability and Inquests in King County: Representing families calling for a fair and transparent process” by Leslie Brown: https://www.aclu-wa.org/story/police-accountability-and-inquests-king-county-representing-families-calling-fair-and “King County voters have spoken: Police reform and a new sheriff are coming” by Dow Constantine: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/king-county-voters-have-spoken-police-reform-and-a-new-sheriff-are-coming/   Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight in the local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind the scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Well, today we are very happy to have Dow Constantine, King County Executive, and a candidate running for reelection this year. Thanks so much for joining us Dow. Executive Dow Constantine: [00:01:02] No, thanks for inviting me on Crystal. I appreciate it. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:05] So now you are in a competitive race. You've drawn a competitor in Senator Joe Nguyen in this case. So just starting off, why are you one running for a fourth term? Is it a fourth term this time? A fourth term and why do you feel you're up for the challenges that we're facing today? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:01:26] Well, it's an exciting moment for us. I mean, we're coming out of this sort of constellation of crises. And I think that the very fact of COVID and the economic collapse and the civil rights awakening and realization about climate change that people are coming to and many other sort of disruptions in society has created an environment where we can make a lot more progress on the issues that we've been dutifully pushing forward over the course of the last four years on equity and social justice and anti-racism on climate, on transformation in the criminal legal system and a lot more and homelessness, I guess I would say. And so it's an exciting moment. We've made enormous strides since I've been in office, but there are these difficult issues that it was very hard to get traction on. And now we have a chance to really run the open field on them. And that is in a nutshell why I'm excited about running for another term. What was your other question? Crystal Fincher: [00:02:42] And why you feel you're up for addressing the challenges that we're facing today? You talked about these crises. I mean, certainly with the pandemic, our economy, facing the climate, we're in a world of hurt at the moment. I mean, I guess some people are, some people have been having a great time through this pandemic. Executive Dow Constantine: [00:03:01] Yeah. Some people made out this time. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:02] But why do you feel you're the person to take on these challenges in the next four years? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:03:08] Well, I think because I've shown that I and my team are the people who have been able to solve the tough challenges, to take on the big issues, not to simply kick the can, but to be able to create a high capacity transit system for three counties or the nation's leading early childhood development program, or tackle the COVID crisis and do a better job than just about anybody in the country, even though it landed here first. So we are I think an arguably very good at this work and that doesn't mean the challenges are easy to stand up and knock down. But it does mean that we have the team that has proven that we can take on the tough challenges and ultimately defeat them. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:57] So you mentioned the COVID recovery and certainly doing better than many counties across the country. On the overall rate, I guess, how would you grade yourself on your response and your leadership throughout this recovery and how do you think it's going? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:04:14] Yeah, well, there's the question of the public health response. And I think we've been in the upper tier in terms of our ability to respond to the health crisis, to keep people from contracting the virus, to get people through this. For much of this, we were, I think the top county out of the 3000 largest counties. Right now I think we're number 94 or five out of 97 in terms of the high quality of our response. We've got San Francisco and Honolulu doing slightly better than we are in infection rate right now. But this is a real accomplishment and it's put us in a strong position for recovery. But recovery means a lot more than simply people getting physically healthy, although that's important. And we're working to make sure that we get the vaccines out to as many people as possible. It also means rebuilding the economy in a way that is both robust and more equitable than it was before, taking on directly the issue of not just income inequality, though that's critically important, but also of creating opportunity for those who have been historically marginalized, historically left behind. And we have here in this region, the ability to connect everyone to economic opportunity that puts them in a position to do what we were all told we were going to be able to do, which is do better than our parents and our grandparents did. And I had a really fascinating meeting about this yesterday with a group that's working to stand up a program to train and up-skill people to be able to take specific jobs in the new economy at Amazon, at Microsoft, at Google and other companies, technology jobs that will allow them a ladder to greater and greater success. That is the kind of thing that living in King county and in Central Puget Sound , that's the kind of opportunity it provides. But we've got to make the connections for people to be able to get across that divide and into those careers. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:29] Absolutely. And talking about the public health response, I mean, certainly overall the vaccination rates are great. Right now slightly less than half of African-Americans are fully vaccinated, right at half, 50.7% of the Hispanic and Latino community are vaccinated, in South King county, only 56% of people are vaccinated. Why do you think that is? And what should you be doing to increase those numbers? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:07:03] Yeah. Well, we should be doing what we are doing and what we have been doing. Our public health department has been extremely aggressive in getting into communities that are underserved by the healthcare system and providing access to vaccines, extremely aggressive and creating partnerships with trusted community-based organizations to reach those who either are not well connected to a traditional systems, or do not trust traditional providers to give them the vaccine and to convince people to come and get the vaccine that's going to allow them to be healthy. And we're going to continue doing that work in different modalities. It was first the mass vaccine sites that we set up in Auburn and Kent. We have a clinic with Kaiser Permanente in Federal Way and we're networking with partner organizations to bring people to that clinic, but also partnering to set up pop-ups with community-based organizations. And we have a partnership of over 50 community-based organizations around King County helping with this, so that whether you're a community organization or a church or any kind of organization, you can have the vaccines there available for your constituency, invite people to an event. I went to a great one in Redmond with the Latinx community on the east side. And it was set up to appeal to what they themselves viewed as their constituency that was being vaccine resistant to come to be with trusted partners, to be with people they knew, to be in familiar surroundings and to have a sort of mutually supportive environment in order to take this step across into something that's a little bit unknown or about which people were weary. I think that has got to be the approach we take in this as we move toward trying to get past those sort of disparities that have plagued this rollout nationally. And we've narrowed the disparities in King County to much, much less than they are nationally, but they still exist and they persist, and we're going to keep fighting to make sure that we're meeting people where they are and offering them information and the healthcare they need to be able to get through this thing. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:26] So you were making a great point about the inequities that currently exist, and you have been the incumbent for the past 12 years. And as a lot of people, have observed and I think rightly that the pandemic laid bare the inequities and disparities that already existed and just really exacerbated them. And so, as someone who has been in charge of King county and King county's public health apparatus over the past 12 years, that those inequities and disparities existed on your watch and languished on your watch, do you think you own that? Do you think that you have acted sufficiently to address the inequality that we've seen in the health system that has resulted in such a hard time throughout this pandemic for so many? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:10:15] Well, it is a fact that King County has not managed to solve 400 years of racism in America yet. But we have seized from the very day I took office mantle of equity and social justice and built it from a mere idea to a commitment to an office that's actually seen in my executive office to a strategic plan and an implementation plan and the creation of our internal anti-racism core team and their production of anti-racism budget and policy agendas that we have adopted. And this work is both internal to the county and it's 15,000 employees in our programs and external, and about all the institutions of the community. So the fact is that we have been working very vigorously and diligently toward transforming this community. And I would remind you of what we just discussed earlier, which is the notion of this moment as a breakthrough moment, a moment when we can take this work we have been doing and with a suddenly enthusiastic public broadly make rapid progress. That is what is exciting about this moment that we've been beating our head against a wall, we've been charging into the defensive line over and over and over. And finally we see in front of us the open field we needed to run with this transformation. And so I'm very excited about it. And I really want folks to be able to better see, and hopefully this campaign will allow them the remarkable work that we have been doing over the course of my administration in equity, social justice and anti-racism. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:09] So do you think the... I mean, I certainly think that the public is more aware and enthusiastic about addressing some of the inequities that we now see the consequences that come from letting them languish. Do you think that's the difference and being able to accomplish more than was accomplished in your prior terms is having public buy-in? Is that the big difference that you're seeing? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:12:34] Yeah. We've accomplished quite a lot in terms of building in an equity lens in everything we do and all the work that we set about to do in community. But yes, that's what matters on anti-racism, that's what matters on climate and clean water, that's what matters on criminal legal system transformation. That is what matters is getting the public to focus on the progress that we're working to make and to join in it. And this public now is really ready for it. And it is unfortunate but predictable that it takes the kinds of crises we lived through over the course of the last 15 months to make that so. But it was very clear even last summer that the public mood had changed dramatically. And I said very clearly and publicly, even at that time, this was our moment. The door had been kicked open, that progress was possible, and we can't let it close like it did 50 years ago. For example in the, in the 1960s, when change was in the air and the opportunity to transform America and make it live up to its ideals was possible. And then Richard Nixon and his Southern strategy took everything in reverse. And that reverse lasted really for a half century. We made halting forward progress. But having the public be galvanized around the kinds of transformation this nation needs is something that's rare indeed. And we have to keep that door kicked open and put our shoulder to it and drive through. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:11] Certainly have to drive through. Do you think that there is the possibility of heading off, I guess, a crisis that comes from the convergence of these problems and them lasting for so long? Do you think that there's a way to galvanize the public without requiring a crisis? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:14:34] There should be, but is often been repeated that with crisis comes opportunity and the opportunity of this crisis is to refocus people on the failings of our nation, the way in which our reality is so misaligned with our ideals and the story we've always told about ourselves. And I think that... I mean, just to be perfectly frank, having white America suddenly wake up to the reality, to have the scales dropped from their eyes and to see what's going on is a critical turn of events and is a chance to drive kind of real change that we have been struggling to create at King county over the course of years with our equity and social justice work. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:23] Absolutely. Well, and you mentioned that there's an opportunity now, and there certainly is an opportunity with a lot of renewed or just new public enthusiasm to build a new normal. I mean, we touched on the recovery before, economically a lot of people who already had a lot have done spectacularly financially through this pandemic and headed where they started. [crosstalk] But we still have a lot, particularly women, particularly women of color who have lost their jobs and those jobs haven't come back, who are suffering from not having childcare that disappeared during the pandemic, people struggling still to make bills, people still who are impacted by this eviction moratorium and afraid that the past due rent that's going to come due here real soon is going to make it impossible to stay into their homes. What should you be doing? What can you do? What are you doing and what will you do to help the people who need it the most? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:16:30] Well, we are focusing all the funds that we can get from the federal government, from the state government money that we're able to scrape up locally and into a recovery package. And the council has just passed our seventh COVID supplemental, emergency supplemental measure, and I'm putting together the eighth. And the one that the council just passed, included my proposal for a $25 million for economic recovery for BIPoC and, sorry for using that generic term, and women-owned businesses that have been particularly disadvantaged during the crisis and because, and for rental assistance, the amount of between this budget, one a few weeks before to $150 million in additional rental assistance for people who are behind on the rent in King County and there will need to be more because it is humanitarian challenge to be sure if people lose their homes. And it's also enormously more expensive to get people out of homelessness and back into a home than to keep them housed where they are. It is going to require more help from the federal government or the state government or at least more authority from the state government to the local government, which we do not have to be able to raise the funds to get people through the rest of this. But I got to say that the key for us is having our economy functioning and functioning for everyone, rather than just those who are fortunate enough to have come here with the skills to land the kinds of jobs as economy is now offering. One of the ways in which we are responding in King County I several weeks ago signed a pro equity contracting executive order. And that is designed to give Black and Latino and Asian and Indigenous owned businesses better access to government contracts. For example, construction contracts. We have over $100 billion of public contracts in the pipeline in King County over the course of the next couple of decades, including sound transit. And that is enormous opportunity for entrepreneurs, for skilled trades people, for generations who have been left out of the economic story of this region to be able to build a secure economic future for themselves and their families. And as I mentioned before, these high-tech businesses just to give an example, are going to keep hiring, they're going to keep growing and we need to not simply settle for people moving here from elsewhere to take those jobs, and then squeezing people out of the housing market. We need to be much more purposeful about connecting people to the training they need, the skills they need to be able to get those jobs and to have specific jobs targeted for people who are getting skilled up right here in King County. So it's exciting. Eddie Rye and others are helping create this organization that is going to be providing this training and making the connections to the big employers and having them figure out how to move people from where they are economically stuck across this gulf into a place of expanding economic opportunity in the businesses that are growing here in King county. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:17] That is certainly important. And making sure people have jobs in that opportunity. I've heard your opponent mention and other people mention, in this climate where there certainly has been a significant amount that you and the King County council have authorized to go for a variety of different types of help and assistance throughout this pandemic, there were some other things that popped up that people question. Certainly before the pandemic looking at the, what was it, $135 million that wound up going to Safeco Field and people including Councilmember Dave Upthegrove said, hey, that can be going to affordable housing and should be, or the proposal to bail out the convention center with $100 million of county dollars that I think they ultimately found public (Crystal meant to say private) financing which I think a lot of people were advocating for them to do from the beginning. With those during that time, it was certainly talked about, I'm sure you heard, hey, should we be spending it here? Is this the priority? Or should we be giving it more directly to the people who are impacted? How did you work through that? How did you rationalize that? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:21:32] So the visitor taxes, the hotel, motel taxes, the tourist taxes are supposed to go to pay for things that keep the tourism industry, the visitor industry going and creates thousands of jobs, livelihoods for people throughout the county. And baseball is about the biggest tourism thing we have. And it is a public building that has to be kept standing. But what is never said by the critics is that, back then all of this tourism business allowed us to spend some 600, I believe, $660 million on affordable housing. It is the goose that laid the golden egg, and we need to continue to foster it because there are direct jobs in the visitor industry. And it also produces a lot more revenue that can go to the important social programs, including housing that we fund. The Convention Center is also an enormous economic engine and employer, high quality family wage jobs, building that building. Well, over 1000 of them that were in jeopardy of ending in the middle of a pandemic. But more than that, all of the jobs operating that and the restaurants and all of the services that visitors here, thousands of visitors pay for. And that is going to keep an awful lot of people employed, allow them to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. We cannot allow these important industries to just go by the wayside and Washington state has needed a larger Convention Center for a very long time. I had to go to Olympia. I had to work the legislature over years to try to get them to allow us to expand the Convention Center. When they fail, they finally gave up and handed over control of the entire thing to the county, and we chartered a new organization. And then we constructed a very complex real estate transaction to get that block of downtown Seattle, which was becoming obsolete as a bus depot because of the light rail taking over entirely the downtown tunnel. And then work to get the convention center construction started only to have COVID hit and have it be threatened with being shut down. I mean, this is the work that people need to build a better life. If you go to that Convention Center and you talk with the contractors, many, many, or the laborers and the carpenters many, many of them are People  of Color from marginalized communities who have been recruited into apprenticeships and then journey positions where they're able to build a better life than their parents had, where they're able to provide for their kids to buy a house, to build a secure retirement. That's what we need. That is what we need for us to really have economic justice in this county, not just very wealthy people and then a whole bunch of people scraping by. We need to have kinds of jobs that allow people to earn a solid living. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:03] And certainly, I don't think you'll find anyone who disagrees with the need to make sure that we are protecting workers and protecting the industries that serve Seattle a lot. And you are endorsed by quite a few labor unions. So they have been seemingly very happy with how you have proceeded in your activities. I guess the question that I have would be, does the fact that they ultimately ended up finding private financing mean that maybe we should push harder on, especially entities who their backers may have more resources than the average person, to try and find private solutions for bailouts, as opposed to the public need to bail them out? How do you think about that? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:25:55] I think it is an appropriate role for government to keep important economic activity happening. And during the pandemic, the credit for projects that were funded by tourism taxes dried up because the tourism economy collapsed. But what the market learned ultimately was that that was not going to be a permanent circumstance, that visitors were going to come back and that they needed to get the Convention Center done and it was a good investment. But there was a period when they needed the guarantee of money in order to be able to keep people employed and not have to mothball the project. So this is where, I guess this is sort of taking a step back here, this is where you find the difference between sort of ideology and the reality in which we have to work. And the reality in which I have to work is real people with real jobs and real hard choices. Yeah, sure. I would, of course love to be able to just pursue a sort of utopian vision. But the fact is that we have real-world constraints that we have to figure out how to deal with. And the trick has been to figure out how to keep our values front and center to have our budgeting and our policy follow those values. And we've been I think unarguably very successful at that. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:16] Well, I think in that vein, there's another issue about values and practicality that has popped up in this campaign about campaign finance and whether it is good and okay. Your opponent made a pledge to not accept PAC dollars or corporate PAC dollars, I think he termed it. And you made the point in a forum, I think it was, hey, it looks like you have accepted PAC donations, which led to a conversation about while it was a different kind of pack or an association. Executive Dow Constantine: [00:27:57] Yeah, it's splitting hairs. It is posturing and splitting hairs. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:04] So how do you view who donates to you and what that says about where you stand and the influence that they have? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:28:15] Well, I think my record is absolute proof of where I stand and you may agree with it, you may disagree with it, but it is very clear, well-documented and I think my record shows that I am pro environment that I'm pro labor, that I'm pro equity, that I'm pro transit mobility. And I've not just said those things out loud, I've actually done the heavy lifting to make them real. And so if he is afraid that he will be influenced by PAC donations then fine by me, if he doesn't want to accept donations, I know who I am. I know what I stand for. I know the work I've done. And I do think that if he is going to say, he's not going to accept PAC donations or corporate PAC donations or corporate association PAC donation or whatever it is, he should at least be consistent. And I don't think he has been. Crystal Fincher: [00:29:21] Consistency is key. We were looking back and we've also interviewed Senator Nguyen and he mentioned as we were talking about this, because I asked him, and we had a conversation about, hey, is it really different? Are they special interests ultimately? It does seem like splitting hairs. But he brought up, hey, this is after $750,000 of expenditures in this race. And I actually thought he misspoke, but looking back at it, you received over $300,000 in contributions in 2018, over $400,000 almost $400,000, $398,000, in 2019, $142,000 in 2020, $479,000 in 2021. Now first, fundraisers are just excited about this and yours  has done an excellent work. Executive Dow Constantine: [00:30:15] $175,000 last month. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:16] You are a fundraising juggernaut, but you've also spent in 2018, $233,000, in 2019, $312,000, 2020, $77,000. Before you ever drew an opponent, you are comfortable and lots of people would argue, you are a comfortable incumbent. What do you think that says about the state of campaign finance? What are you spending that on in the campaign in the first place? And do you think that is a healthy ecosystem when you're not, I guess in essence, publicly campaigning, in the sense when you look at a lot of the other local elected officials who run campaigns in the years or maybe the year before they run a campaign, but spending multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars on off years? Does that just seem it's kind of a campaign industrial complex? Do you feel like that's healthy? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:31:15] Well, I mean, there definitely is a campaign industrial complex, there are all these consultants out there, including my opponents consultants who are building a living figuring out how to make money off of campaigning. Crystal Fincher: [00:31:29] I mean hey, I'm a consultant too. I'm not knocking it all, but man, those are eye popping numbers. Executive Dow Constantine: [00:31:34] Stuff costs money. I had an amusing conversation just before we started this podcast where the very leftist political candidate who was calling me, asking for my help in raising money and about the fact that no matter how pure your beliefs, everything costs. People who do work need to be able to keep a roof over their heads. People who have expertise deserve to be paid for it. People who contribute their time should be fairly compensated and they don't deliver mail for free and they don't carry your video for free. None of that stuff's free, nothing's free. And this is a county of 2.3 million people. So this is larger than 15 states. So it is an expensive proposition, is also a very big job with over 15,000 employees and over $12 billion budget. And as I said 2.3 million people to account for. It is painting on a very large canvas, so it does end up costing money. Yeah. And I don't like having to raise money, I find it painful. I'm sort of by nature an introvert, the act of having to pick up the telephone and ask someone to donate is excruciating. I don't like going to events, I find it exhausting. But the fact is that that's what you have to do. That is what you need to do in order to be able to serve. And if you're not willing to do it, then you can't build a three county light rail system or create the nation's leading early childhood development program. So is it worth it? I don't know. But it is what you got to do in order to be able to do the good work. Crystal Fincher: [00:33:29] Sure. And speaking of the hard work and the tough work, public safety has certainly been an issue that a lot of different jurisdictions have been tackling in a variety of different ways or not tackling for some jurisdictions. King County recently voted to stop electing the Sheriff and making it appointed. There have been a number of high profile incidences within the King County Sheriff's department and calls very vocally recently from a broad swath of the public. And looking at the vote for those charter amendments, it looks like the majority of King county wants to see some substantive reform. In looking at that, do you one, agree that there's a need for substantive reform? What are your plans for that reform and why do you think that was not as urgent a need to act on before in the prior 12 years? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:34:30] Well, I mean, I don't know that anybody thought it wasn't an urgent need. So long before the Sheriff's issue was on the ballot, it was long before this sudden awakening in America, around the reality of police violence and Black Lives Matter that we undertook to completely upend and rewrite the system of inquests in officer involved deaths in King County. I did that sitting at the table with the bereaved families of those who died at the hands of police. And when we did that, we did it to remove this situation where we got to the end of the process and the police officer was asked, well, did you fear for your life? And that police officer inevitably said, yes, I feared for my life, that's why I shot. And then it was used as some sort of exoneration, subjective fear, and we turned it into a process that would reveal whether that officer followed their training. And if so, whether their training was in fact flawed, whether the policies and the procedures, the equipping of those officers has to be changed by the responsible agency, whichever agency it is. And when we did that with these families, I think we created a really enlightened and forward looking process. One that is directed at figuring out how we can change the use of force, the use of force by police officers. And we were immediately sued by the Seattle Police Department by my own King County Sheriff's office, by police agencies all around the county, who said they shouldn't be forced to comply with this. And it's before the Supreme Court now. I'm really pleased that we did such good work, but it's only the beginning and getting those charter amendments passed to allow me to take control of the Sheriff's Office is an important step forward. We've even panel the community group that is going to be the core of our community co-creation of the new duties and structure of the Sheriff's Office, and will help me identify the person who will be the next Sheriff accountable to me and to the Council and to the people. And we will be taking over as well the hiring, the firing the discipline in the Sheriff's office. But there's a lot more than that, and we can talk about this forever. I'm very convinced that as a society and certainly within King County we need to narrow the scope of problems. Of course, the police are called and broaden the availability of public health and human service interventions to help unwind conflict and communities to help individuals who are having behavioral health challenges. And I've deployed in the courthouse area, a 24 hour days, seven day a week team, behavioral health team to do just that, to go out, to engage those who are having behavioral health challenges on the streets, to get them inside, to get them to treatment, the help they need to keep them from being in harm's way and to help them make halting steps forward on the road to recovery. That's possible to do in other communities too. Crystal Fincher: [00:37:59] I think that's positive. I guess the thing is, with the inquest process, it doesn't actually have any accountability at the end of it. It's a fact finding exercise. Knowing the facts is absolutely necessary, but what's the connection between finding out those facts and actual accountability. And in a way, go ahead. Executive Dow Constantine: [00:38:19] The authority rests with the agency that employs the police. So if it was a King County Sheriff's deputy involved, that exercise where we found out whether or not they follow their training or whether it was the training and procedures themselves that were flawed, would then land back in the lap of the person in this case right now, the Sheriff, these separately elected Sheriff, but later the appointed Sheriff and the Executive to fix. And the same thing is true if it is a city police department like Kent or Seattle. But the county does not have the ability to go sanction the city of Kent for their officer's actions. However, the prosecuting attorney, if he finds that a crime has been committed can bring criminal charges as our prosecutor has in the case of the city of Auburn. Crystal Fincher: [00:39:11] Well, and I guess the ultimate question is with King County Sheriff's deputies in your capacity as King County Executive what responsibility do you have to ensure that there is actual accountability and what are your plans for that? Executive Dow Constantine: [00:39:28] Well, I'm excited about having the opportunity to create that accountability starting January 1st. So I'm excited that we are now finally going to be able to move forward on the pilot for body-worn cameras, but I want to make them permanent and ubiquitous. I want all officers to have cameras on them, and I want the cameras to be on whether they're in the unincorporated area or in the many cities that contract with King county, because I don't think anybody should be afraid of the truth. I am wanting us to get through, and I wish that the current sheriff would get through the huge backlog of disciplinary actions. I want us to be able to negotiate, which they have not succeeded in doing, the ability for the office of law enforcement oversight to have real teeth so that we have an agency that can independently not the internal investigations, one that can independently assess what has happened in police use of force and take corrective action. There are a whole bunch of opportunities that come with the public's embrace of these charter amendments. And I do not think that before George Floyd, before last year, the public would have been ready to make this change, but it is one that I've been advocating a long time, and I'm very excited to have the opportunity to move forward on. And now these, I talked earlier about the big difficult issues transforming the criminal legal system, which is fundamentally flawed all across this country is an opportunity for King County not just to fix things here, but to provide models that can be followed by other jurisdictions to begin to create the change we want to see in our nation. And that is as you can tell, I'm talking excitedly about this. That is the reason I want to run for reelection, that we have the chance to do things that weren't possible even a year and a half ago or that were going to happen very slowly, haltingly, at a great glacial pace. We have the chance to run the field and I want to do it. Crystal Fincher: [00:41:34] Well, this is certainly an interesting and exciting race. It is great to be able to hear in detail your plans and the progress that you've been able to make, and your stance on, on all of these issues that are pressing. And we thank you for spending the time with us today. Thank you so much. Executive Dow Constantine: [00:41:55] Thanks for having me. Crystal Fincher: [00:41:57] Thank you for listening to Hacks and Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled, F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in Hacks and Wonks into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

King County Executive Dow Constantine announced a $100 million plan Thursday to bring at least 500 people in off the streets of Seattle by the end of the year — one of the most ambitious local plans in scale and timeline announced in a year of big promises to expand housing and shelter.To hit the large target on a short timeline, Constantine said the county plans to use more than $100 million from the estimated $437 million it received in federal dollars through the recently passed American Rescue Plan. The money will fund tiny homes, large-scale shelters, behavioral health services and housing vouchers. An estimated $40 million of it will go to a jobs program to employ 400 people living in shelter or housing programs, as well as rental subsidies for people in shelter.Join your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic.Support the show (https://buymeacoff.ee/seattlepodcast)

King County Executive Dow Constantine was at one time a grunge-loving college DJ for the alternative UW radio station KCMU (now KEXP). And when he first ran for King County Executive back in 2009, he was endorsed by Pearl Jam’s Eddy Vedder. Now, he’s being challenged for his seat by a millennial who says his favorite music is the “Hamilton mix-tape."

King County Executive Dow Constantine discusses navigating the pandemic and the future of King County. Julia Nagele, Principal and Director of Design for the architecture studio at Hewitt, discusses the urbanization of Seattle and how the pandemic economy has affected her business.

On today's rebroadcast, Crystal's interviews King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, and they discuss police accountability and what it really means to invest in community. In the conversation they discuss the King County Charter Amendments that were on the November ballot and have since been approved by the voters, changing how the sheriff is selected, and requiring investigation over all police related deaths. Councilmember Zahilay also goes into the important work he's doing to increase investment in Skyway, without displacing the people who already call it home. A full text transcript of the show is available below, and on the Hacks & Wonks blog at https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/post/king-county-councilmember-girmay-zahilay-talks-sheriff-reforms-supporting-skyway. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and Councilmember Girmay Zahilay at @girmayzahilay. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Articles Referenced: Learn more about the King County Charter Amendments from People Power at https://www.wethepeoplepower.org/kcca. Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we don't just talk politics and policy, but also how they affect our lives and shape our communities. As we dive into the backstories behind what we read in the news, we bring voices to the table that we don't hear from often enough. So today on Hacks and Wonks, we are excited to be joined by Girmay Zahilay, King County Councilmember for District 2, who has been doing a lot of work in the community. You've probably seen and heard from him - he's everywhere, just about, but we are excited to have a conversation today just about what you're working on. So thanks for joining us.  Girmay Zahilay: [00:00:52] My pleasure, Crystal. Thank you for having me.  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:54] So I guess starting out, what are you working on? What's top of the agenda right now? Girmay Zahilay: [00:01:00] We're working on a lot of stuff. I would say the two biggest policy agendas that we have are number one, Skyway, which is a neighborhood just south of Seattle and north of Renton. And that encompasses all things for the wellbeing of that neighborhood. And the second area that's our top priority is our criminal legal systems and imagining the future of public safety and making sure that marginalized communities are uplifted, supported, and feel safe rather than brutalized by a system that is racist and that hasn't seen much of any innovation for a long time. So, I would say those are the two biggest and we can dive into each of those umbrellas, as you like, Crystal, but there's some exciting stuff in each one of those.  Crystal Fincher: [00:01:46] Sure, absolutely. I mean, both of those are related - Skyway has the largest African American population, in the State, per capita. And so we see under-investment, and an under-resourced  area that's been ignored and neglected, despite it's absolutely prime location. And so the conversations that we're having with public safety go hand-in-hand with conversations that we're having there, and that, if Black Lives Matter, as you've said, Skyway has to matter - and the types of considerations that we're talking about in public safety extend to the whole conversation - just about racism and inequalities, and really setting people up for very different outcomes in life from the very beginning, based on the way we're set up systemically. So in terms of public safety, what are you working on? Girmay Zahilay: [00:02:48] Right. Your point, Crystal, about these two issues being intersecting is so spot-on. Right now we're seeing possibly the largest civil rights movement in the history of the United States. The Black Lives Matter movement has brought in millions of people nationally and tens of thousands of people locally. I grew up in South Seattle, so seeing our streets packed with tens of thousands of people like we have, shows me that there is momentum to support Black Lives. The Black Lives Matter movement is not just about ending police brutality. Of course, that's a central message, but it's also about ending all kinds of systemic harm and uplifting Black people because our systems have not done that so far. And like you said, Skyway is the place where we must start. It has the highest proportion of African Americans in the state of Washington and simultaneously, it's also the area that has been disinvested from the most. When you have an area that has the highest proportion of Black people and the area that has been disinvested in the most, that is systemic racism, plain and simple. So it, just to me, it points out this issue where again, our region says one thing and does another. We can drive around South Seattle and Skyway and see Black Lives Matter signs everywhere, but we don't invest in Black people the same way that we should. These issues are intersecting - Skyway, our system of public safety, police brutality - these are all intersecting issues.  Crystal Fincher: [00:04:29] They're absolutely intersecting issues and have been issues for so long, and we're really late in having this conversation. And it's a matter of having a representative in your position continually stress that this is a priority - this is urgent. And someone with lived experience who this is not a theoretical issue for and who has spent many years leading up to this, working on how to change from the root, systemically, the issues that we're dealing with. And one thing that I do want to point out that, from my perspective I appreciate, is, as an elected representative, we want you to take great votes and people are certainly excited about that. But the leadership goes beyond just what you do in the meetings and the votes you take. And you talked about being part of the largest civil rights movement happening right now, that we're in the middle of, and there were nights when we saw horrifying video coming out of the streets of Seattle and surrounding areas and, certainly SPD, behaving questionably. And some just, unambiguously, inappropriately and violently. And there were protesters and people in the community who said, Hey, we need help down here. We need someone down here to witness this, to address this. This is wrong, from being teargassed, to being beaten, to being corralled, and you answered that call. You were there, you were available - one, you were in a position to even see that. I mean, between Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, you are there and present when a lot of other people are not. And you were like, Hey, I'll be there. And you were there. And that just meant a lot to me, it means a lot to community to see - not only as someone willing to take the vote, but this is personal and this is real, and they're willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the front lines and say, You know what, I'm part of this too. And this affects me too. And I'm in a position to use my platform and power to change this, not just when it comes to taking a vote, but just using your voice, shining a light on it all around. So I just want to say - I appreciate that, I saw that, I know a lot of the community sees that. And it matters to have someone who understands and who has felt and experienced, what this really means and the consequences of these actions. And so beyond that, or I guess looking through that lens, what is your approach to turning just the understanding, the pain, and the need into policy - and what is in process? Girmay Zahilay: [00:07:30] Thank you, Crystal, for highlighting that. There were a number of other elected officials who came out that day as well, and just the community members who've been organizing and protesting for the past six months. They've been putting their bodies and their lives on the line every day, to advance justice. And we, as elected officials, need to be out there with them. 2020 is such a special and different year, right? Before 2020 happened, we already had so many crises - it's not like we were in peace times before this and there were a lot of issues to resolve. But then 2020 starts and the issues get bigger and our tools for resolving them diminished greatly - because the usual tools that we have for advocacy engagement, understanding one another, are completely obliterated when we're not allowed to gather or be near each other. So as elected officials, we have to find other opportunities of engaging and learning and listening, because it can't all happen virtually. We cannot believe and be lulled into the false sense of understanding our constituents from a laptop or from a cell phone. We have to be out there. And that's why I try my best to be out as much as I can, in a safe way, every opportunity that I get - whether that's outside delivering masks - I could have my staff or King County officials go out and do that for me, but I want to be out there, I want to see people, I want to talk to them - or that's going out and protesting with people, because I need to experience the police brutality and overreach firsthand if I'm going to shape effective policies. I think it's really important for us to be out there, to be visible, to show people that we're truly listening, and crafting our policies based on what we're seeing and hearing from our constituents. Otherwise, we're susceptible to just believing the spin, and the narrative, and whatever media agenda there is out there of the people who have access to media, telling the story for us. And I think the most perfect example is the evening marchers and the young people who are organizing and marching every night. If I were to just to open up my news apps and read about them, I'm seeing - mobs, destructive mobs. When I went out there and actually sat with them and spoke to them, I was blown away by the level of nuance and informed discussion that I was able to have with these teenagers and young adults. They were pulling up our voting records, they were pulling up things that we have said in the past in various committee meetings. It was just the most intellectual conversation that I've had in my time as a councilmember. And I would have never known that if I hadn't gone out there and spoken to them.  Crystal Fincher: [00:10:28] Well, and what you talked about is very important in needing to be present and experience it yourself 'cause you just mentioned, if we watched the typical evening news, they'll focus on, Hey, if there is some property damage, if there is someone that they can view looking aggressive, or if the police department says, Hey, this is our take on things today, whether or not that story changes later on down the line. That's really been the focus of our local TV coverage that a lot of people catch. A lot of people don't have the time or ability just to do a deep dive into news and the social media and to see what's actually happening. So for you to be able to experience it yourself and be on the ground and understand that this isn't - these aren't people without a plan. These aren't people acting impulsively.  These are people who understand that lives are at stake and who have taken it upon themselves to educate themselves, to arm themselves with knowledge, and to say, You know what? We are going beyond what we've done before and we're demanding better. And I tell you, young people are the best at holding everyone accountable. And out of necessity - because their preceding generations have slipped and didn't do the job they should have. So they're actually coming around and saying, Okay, let's actually show you all how it's done. And we just saw that result in the Seattle City Council recently - overriding Jenny Durkan's veto of the rebalanced budget that significantly defunds SPD and sets the stage for even more defunding in the next budget.  Girmay Zahilay: [00:12:16] Right.  Crystal Fincher: [00:12:16] So, from the County perspective, and talking about the Sheriff's that are within your jurisdiction - are you also looking at defunding and what are the specifics of the plan? Girmay Zahilay: [00:12:29] I would encourage everyone to look into Charter Amendment #6, which will be on your November ballot. When anybody who's listening to this opens up their ballot in November to vote on things like who they want their next president to be, they're also going to see a list of seven King County Charter amendments, and four of these amendments relate to your County system of public safety. If you vote Yes on Charter Amendment #6, it would allow the King County Council to shape the future of public safety. This is not some kind of symbolic, or incremental, or performative change around eliminating police brutality. This would allow the King County Council to move away from a system where we send armed police officers to respond to every single challenge on the streets of our city and county - to assist them - that is a diverse toolkit of public health alternatives. So, if we see a mental health crisis on our streets, we can send trained mental health professionals. If we see somebody in need on our streets, like an encampment, we won't send officers with guns - we send rapid response social workers who can help people in need. If our youth are having conflicts or issues, we can send violence interrupters and mentors to respond. If somebody has routine, everyday things like a noise complaint, or wants to do a wellness check, or a fire code issue, we can send code enforcement officers who aren't armed. Our default response to every single issue does not have to be to send police officers who have guns, because that's how Black and Brown people die unnecessarily. That's what we've seen all around the nation and this charter amendment, if it's passed - and it is something that our office proposed - would remove certain restrictions that would allow, then, the King County Council to transfer public safety functions away from traditional law enforcement and toward community-based and public health alternatives. I think this would be a huge and beneficial change for our county and all it takes is our public approving it through the voting process. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:49] You're listening to Hacks and Wonks with your host Crystal Fincher on KVRU 105.7 FM. So that's going to be on the November ballot.  Girmay Zahilay: [00:15:30] The one I described is just 1 of 7, but there are others - like shifting our Sheriff from an elected position to an appointed position, which would increase accountability to the Council and allow us to give the Sheriff policy instruction, which we can't right now. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:24] You just mentioned the charter amendment to make the Sheriff appointed and not elected. A lot of people feel like, Hey, if we elect people, they're directly accountable to the people - we can hold them accountable, we get a consistent voice. Why is having them report or be appointed and accountable to the council a better system? How does that increase accountability?  Girmay Zahilay: [00:16:56] Well, an independently elected sheriff is exactly that - more independent, and we do not need a more independent police department. We need better checks and balances, we need to be able to oversee them, we need to be able to provide policy instruction to them. And yes, on the surface, it does feel like electing someone feels like accountability to the voters, but once you've elected them for four years, who are they exactly accountable to? The Council right now has budgetary power - we can provide incentives through budgetary sticks and carrots, but we cannot give them policy instruction. We cannot transfer public safety functions elsewhere. And the King County Executive right now - if the Sheriff did something wrong, the King County Executive cannot fire the Sheriff, for example. There would have to be a recall process, which is way more complicated than a King County Executive just saying, Hey, you've done something wrong. You are not being accountable to our constituents. We're going to look for somebody else. And also an appointed position would allow the King County Council and the Executive to do a nationwide search and find the best quality person for the job, whereas an election, you are inherently through that process - you're attracting politicians to that job. People who are going to be accountable to - more accountable to the police unions and to their donors - than to people who want better policy instructions for them.  Crystal Fincher: [00:18:35] It's always interesting to have this conversation with politicians, but it's usually only politicians who hold themselves accountable and allow the public to hold themselves accountable, who want to bring that up. that is a legitimate issue - that there are a lot of politicians who do feel beholden to their donors and to, a lot of times, the special interests that helped provide the funding and resources to get them elected - but that often have competing agendas with the people who they're actually elected to serve. So as we're looking at this overall - one issue that we have recently talked about in Seattle, and especially looking at the Mayor and the control that Jenny Durkan has over the Seattle Police Department, and even the Police Chief for the Seattle Police Department - not really having power or authority to impose appropriate discipline, to make appropriate changes, because of the police guild's contract for Seattle. Is that also an issue with the Sheriff's department in King County? And how do you fix that? How do you begin to change that, so that there is accountability?  Girmay Zahilay: [00:19:49] It's a huge obstacle for justice and accountability. One of the things that we talk about most is the fact that oversight - the process of holding police officers accountable for misconduct, for example, that process is subject to bargaining - meaning that we can only hold police officers accountable in the ways that the police unions agree to. Imagine if any other profession, a high risk profession, say surgeons, or anything like that. Imagine if they told you, Hey, you can only hold us accountable the ways that we agreed to. Is that real accountability? Of course not. That's what we have here - that's the issue that we're facing here - the fact that oversight is subject to negotiation and bargaining. I understand why some things are subject to negotiation - we want workers to be protected - police officers are workers as well - things like benefits and workforce conditions, things like that, of course. But when we're talking about holding you accountable for misconduct, for example, that is not something that we should have to negotiate with you. That should be a completely independent function not subject to negotiation, but it is right now, because of state law. And last month, I actually held a round table discussion with several state-elected officials and community members, especially out in Skyway, and people in the union world, like MLK Labor Council. I had them all on a call and we discussed what can we do to solve this issue without deteriorating workers' rights? Because the last thing we want to do is have anti-union people using this police union issue as a way of deteriorating union rights. That's not what we want to do. Is there a way to carve out this specific, special situation? And that's what we would discuss with the state-elected officials as a state matter - it's not something that King County Council can change, but we did get some commitments from state-level people - that they are going to look into this and address the collective bargaining laws that  allow police unions to be an obstacle to true accountability. Crystal Fincher: [00:22:16] Okay, that makes sense. So, in terms of what is possible in this next legislative session, are there fixes that they're committing to bring forward, or that are currently in discussions? And then how much is an issue of state law preventing that, and how much is an issue of direct negotiation of the contract? Girmay Zahilay: [00:22:41] So it's both for sure. And I, the sense that I got from the state-level people is that they are going to introduce something that allows - that would carve out police unions from this collective bargaining law. Or at least carves out accountability measures from the requirement to bargain and negotiate. Because again, that should be independent. I can follow up with them to hear if a specific bill is going to be proposed, but that's the sense that I got.  Crystal Fincher: [00:23:12] Yeah, that makes sense. And, appreciate you trying, even though that is not in your direct area of control - to make an effort to work in cooperation with your partners at the state, and to say, Hey, we need action. What can we do? And to get that conversation started, and we will certainly be talking more about that here on Hacks and Wonks.  So broadening the conversation - and we started talking about Skyway - and we started talking about the disinvestment and, really, the institutional neglect and hostility, which is certainly harmful and a form of violence. How do we - what are the best ways to address that? What change can meaningfully be made? What policies can be changed, especially right now in the middle of a pandemic, when every local government and state government is saying, We're experiencing a budget crisis at the same time - so what can be done? And looking at the near term, and then in the next six months to a year, what is planned? What is possible? Girmay Zahilay: [00:24:29] For sure, Crystal, and I think the most important thing is to start off understanding what the problem statement is. The problem statement is not - how do we get more investment into Skyway? I actually just got into a Facebook argument with somebody on Facebook - which I tell myself every day, Don't get into Facebook arguments because it's a losing battle - you're not arguing rational people most of the time. But I posted how Skyway needs investments, et cetera, and this guy who, of course, had a vote Trump thing in his profile pictures, somewhere deep in there, was saying that, The easiest way to fix Skyway and to have it catch up with the neighborhoods around it, is to reduce regulations for developers, handout permits as quickly as possible, and private capital can flow in and we can develop it so fast - this is such an exceedingly simple solution. And I have to tell him, Again, you are working with the wrong problem statement. The problem is not where we need to find ways of having private capital flow into Skyway. If that were the only thing we're trying to solve for, the solution is exceedingly simple, right? It's just to eliminate all regulations, hand out permits to developers. And of course, they would take that in a heartbeat. The problem statement is - How do you invest in Skyway without displacing the people who already call it home? And the solution to that is much more nuanced and requires us to be much more thoughtful about how we proceed with development. It requires us to, yes, invite development, but do it in a way that is lockstep with anti-displacement measures, that invests in existing people and existing small businesses that are already there. It requires us to down-zone certain areas so that we can slow the pace of gentrification as much as possible. It requires us to be really thoughtful about what kind of requirements we're putting on developers - we're not just saying, Hey, developers, it's a free-for-all. No, you have to have a certain number of your units be affordable. You have to - right of first return to people that you displace in the process of development. You have to invest a certain amount of money in existing small businesses. You have to create community land trusts and community ownership. Those are all things that we're trying to do right now, because as far as I can tell, I have not been able to identify a single neighborhood or region in Washington State that's gotten it right so far. If it was so simple, I asked this man who argued with me on Facebook, give me the list of neighborhoods in our state where this has worked before. Just - we don't have to argue - just lay out the facts for me, because again, if you're going to point to places like the Central District - no. South Seattle - no. Anywhere you point to me, I'm going to show you that - no, we did not get it right. Yes, private capital flowed in and development happened, but what happened to the people who already live there? And that's what we're trying to solve in Skyway. And I can talk about the things that we've been working on so far, but I know it's always best to give myself some breathing room and not talk endlessly.  Crystal Fincher: [00:27:50] Well, we do have a few more minutes, but it would be good just to get an idea of what the focus is. Girmay Zahilay: [00:27:59] For sure. So the first thing that we did was help get a Skyway Land Use and Zoning Plan pushed across the finish line. This is something that people had been working on before I got here, but we helped push it across the finish line. And that's the first thing - is setting the foundation for investment - and that means we down-zoned certain areas from bigger commercial areas into smaller neighborhood commercial areas. Because again, we don't want speculative developers coming in here and putting in giant high-rises, and Targets, and Walmarts, and all that. Not yet. We also changed the areas that are already zoned for multi-family housing, like apartment complexes - we included some affordability requirements into those, so if you are going to develop areas that are already marked for multi-family, you have to have a certain level of affordability for lower income people to be able to live there. That's just setting the foundation. And then, now what we're working on is bolstering the level of investment that King County is willing to put in - for things like a community center, we just got earmarked for $10 million. For things like participatory budgeting, where the community gets to choose how it wants to spend money - whether that's for housing, or youth services, or roads and infrastructure - $10 million is going to go into that. We're getting $4.6 million - and this is all part of King County Executive Dow Constantine's proposed budget - $4.6 million is going to be redirected, of marijuana revenue, is going to be redirected from law enforcement and go toward community-based alternatives. So you lay the foundation of slowing the rate of gentrification, and then you slowly invest and build up - and at the same time, in lock step, we're going to also be placing, preparing anti-displacement measures, like just cause eviction, which would require that landlords and other big commercial developers - that they have a just reason for kicking out tenants and can't just do it for commercial reasons, or whatever it might be.  Crystal Fincher: [00:30:21] Right. That is helpful, certainly. And excited to hear that you're picking that up - other local jurisdictions have taken that up, and so others are just beginning to follow their lead and I'm glad to see that you're on the leading side of that. So I appreciate you just talking to us about everything today and what's going on and just understanding more of one central point. It isn't simple. It isn't simple, it isn't easy, but that is not an excuse not to do the work. And in fact that means that we really have to double down and dive in to understand the issues and get to work now, because we really can't wait any longer. We can't afford to wait any longer - people's lives are at stake and in the balance - and everything from health to education, just to what someone's neighborhood and school and street looks like, and what their future is set up to be - depends on the work that we're doing today. So I appreciate you spending this time, I appreciate the work that you're doing. Can you give your Twitter handle one more time, so people can get more information about what we've talked about today?  Absolutely. It's @girmayzahilay. Thank you so much, Crystal. I Girmay Zahilay: [00:31:48] really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I really love the work that you do, and your whole team does. Thank you for highlighting the voices of our most marginalized communities and some of the solutions that would get us on track to being a region that works for everyone. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:10] Thank you for listening to Hacks and Wonks. Thank you to KVRU 105.7FM in Seattle where we record this show. Our chief audio engineer is Maurice Jones, Jr. And our producer is Lisl Stadler. If you want more Hacks and Wonks content, go to officialhacksandwonks.com, subscribe to Hacks and Wonks on your favorite podcatcher, or follow me on Twitter @finchfrii. Catch you on the other side.

Today, host Crystal Fincher and local journalist Ashley Archibald dive into King County Executive Dow Constantine's plan for a $100 million bailout of the Convention Center, and why that doesn't make sense in a Covid-19 economy. Also, Renton is seeking to oust over 200 folks experiencing homelessness in the middle of a winter spike in the pandemic. Crystal and Ashley discuss why this is bad idea. A full text transcript of the show is available below, or at https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/post/week-in-review-dow-s-convention-center-bailout-renton-evicting-homeless-people Articles referenced: King County to bail out Washington State Convention Center expansion with possible $100 million loan by David Gutman https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/king-county-to-bail-out-washington-state-convention-center-expansion-with-possible-100-million-loan/   The convention business is cratering, and cities are getting stuck with the bill by Mike McGinn and Joe Cortright https://cityobservatory.org/the-convention-business-is-cratering-and-cities-are-getting-stuck-with-the-bill/   General Publicola news coverage by Erica C.Barnett (another friend of the show) at publicola.com.   Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii, Ashley at @AshleyA_RC, and more info at officialhacksandwonks.com.   TRANSCRIPT *This transcript was automatically generated then lightly edited, and may not be an exact replication of the audio.   Week In Review with Ashley Archibald: December 4, 2020   Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we gather insight into state and local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives about politics in our state. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost live shows where we review the news of the week with a friend of the show. Welcome back to the program today's guest, local journalist, Ashley Archibald.   Ashley Archibald: [00:00:36] Hi, thank you for having me!   Crystal Fincher: [00:00:39] Thank you so much for joining us again. I wanted to start out talking about something that Dow Constantine rolled out this week as something he's planning to do, which is a bailout of the Washington state convention center, which has a total project cost of $1.8 billion.   And right now is $300 million short and saying they could run out of money within the next couple months if they don't have something happen. And so Dow Constantine has said, Well, you know what? Sign the County up for a $100 million dollars of that $300 million price tag. We want to fill the gap because Dow Constantine believes that the convention center is critical and necessary, and that is the most effective use of those funds at this time. So just starting out with what is happening. I guess starting off previewing, how did you hear about this, Ashley, and what are the nuts and bolts of what this plan is?   Ashley Archibald: [00:01:45] I remember hearing about it yesterday on the Twitterverse because I'm sick like that. But the first that I've really read about the details was in the Seattle Times today. And I have to say, I'm a little confused by the overall cost benefit analysis. I clearly haven't spoken to the Executive's office, I don't know what he's looking at, but I'm struggling to understand why we would extend a publicly financed loan, using your money and my money, to save a business that isn't going to be able to open for quite some time, versus the individuals and businesses that exist now that can be served by money like this.   Crystal Fincher: [00:02:34] Yeah. And certainly the reaction to this has been swift and strong and a lot of people felt the exact same way that you have. And I have several of those same questions - but wait a minute, why are we bailing out this business in effect and not actual people who may be facing losing their home in a pandemic, losing their jobs, just a lot of people who are experiencing real pain and on the brink. And so the issue with this is, when the convention center decided to embark upon their big new redesign, restructuring, this big project, big price tag, $1.8 billion. And when initially the project was funded by a couple of bonds totaling $1.8 billion. And when those bonds were issued, revenue from the hotel tax, which is what funds those bonds was, had risen by 8% every single year since the prior recession.   And so this looked like a really great source of funds that was secure and rising. The convention center was going gangbusters. They were, they had so many people wanting to come for conventions that they were turning people away. And so it looked like at that time that this was a reasonable investment, with the thought being that, Hey, the convention center attracts businesses who bring hundreds of people into the city and County every year, who stay in hotels and eat at restaurants and go visit tourism sites and bring money into our economy. Tourism certainly is a significant chunk of our regional economy here. So that thinking was okay, this looks great. So after the pandemic, hotel revenue fell by 96% from the same period in 2019. A quarter of Seattle's downtown hotels have at least temporarily closed. Bookings on Airbnb have absolutely plummeted so the source of funding has been decimated. Cruise ships, which bring a lot of people in like just the overall tourism economy, obviously with COVID and travel and congregating being dangerous, has just eviscerated this whole thing.   And ongoing financing, the financing needed to finish paying for this project. Banks have looked at the project and said, you know what? We actually think that this is a bad idea. We think if we give more money, it's going to be throwing bad money after good money. So why don't we just not? And they're saying, Hey, we ran up against a brick wall. They're saying that we're in a money-losing business and that not only are things looking bad now, but that they're not projected to look better for years, even after we get beyond the immediate COVID threat. So we're now faced with a situation as a County. And Dow Constantine has thought, you know what? It's actually a good idea to use a $100 million of the county's ability to loan them this money, even though they're saying we actually need $300 million. So we're giving them money that comes at significant cost to the city, perhaps. And the mechanism to even fund these bonds is very shaky, and saying, but this isn't even gonna solve the whole problem. You still need $200 million more while you're telling us that banks are saying this is a bad idea. And traditional public private financing is saying, no, this is a sinking business and a sinking line of revenue. Overall tourism may come back, but giving it to this one entity and thinking that is going to stimulate the wider economy is not a realistic thought.   Ashley Archibald: [00:06:46] It surely seems to me that there should be strings attached to this if it is actually going to be funded by public money. If we are going to put up a $100 million and the actual bill is $300 million. So they're not some conditions on it? Should it not say, Hey, if you can come up with this other $200 million, then yeah, we're going to chip in. At the minimum, I feel like that's a base level kind of ask.   Crystal Fincher: [00:07:17] That is a very base level kind of ask. And that has been a question put to the development team led by Matt Griffin here and to the County, and their response has been, well we're also talking to the city and the state to maybe get that money together from them. So basically all of these public entities, with the taxpayer on the hook and in the middle of a pandemic, to bail out this one organization. And it's dicey.   Ashley Archibald: [00:07:51] How would you like to see a $100 million of County money with 1% interest spent, Crystal?   Crystal Fincher: [00:07:59] On people who are facing issues that really might cause them to die or significantly degrade their quality of the most basic elements of life. People who can't afford food, people who can't afford shelter, people who can't afford childcare, who are trying to take care of loved ones in the middle of this pandemic. We're coming up on an expiration of the eviction moratorium. And we have a record number of people out of work because of this pandemic. We have a record number of people who are late on rent or not sure how they're going to pay next month's rent. And there are no protections for them. We're going to see, unless there is some help provided to them, just an enormous amount of human suffering.   So if we have the ability to spend $100 million, I would like that to go to actual people, and keep them housed and healthy and fed. That seems like at the most basic function of our government. And as we collectively give our money to say, Hey, we want at the very basic level, to keep people safe and provided for, that keeping roofs over people's heads and feeding them seems like it should be really high on the priority list. And to not even do this in a sense of we're directly benefiting people harmed by the pandemic. If we could give this to workers who would be laid off and displaced by this project to prevent us from having to spend hundreds of millions of other dollars to finish bailing this out and complete it. We could give it to the small hotels and small businesses who are not having the resources of big national chains, but who do a lot to prop up our local economy. To help them as they deal with these closures related to the overall federal poor response to COVID. There are so many ways that we could directly help people and not give this to one organization. We're talking about one organization. We aren't even talking about the greater needs of an entire industry.   So, I guess I'll flip that question and ask you, what would you like to see happen with these funds?   Ashley Archibald: [00:10:31] I mean, from a completely personal view, I am terrified of the impending homelessness crisis that we are going to see when the eviction moratorium is end. And I know you touched on this, but that is completely capturing my attention. I mean, there are people out there who, for no reason that is any fault of their own, it's not like they're not working, it's not like they're doing any of the vices or who cares, but at the end of the day, these are people who should be housed, who are doing everything that they can, and a once in a hundred years pandemic strikes and they lose everything. And in a month or two, unless something good happens, they are going to be houseless. And if you thought, and that's a universal you, not a you, if you thought that the 2015 emergency declaration of homelessness in Seattle and King County was significant, you're about to see something that is far, far worse.   Crystal Fincher: [00:11:41] And you're absolutely right and adding onto this we're having this conversation in the midst of a Congress having discussions about another quote, unquote stimulus package that has most of the elements that actually stimulate the economy stripped out. This is now being presented as a bipartisan bill, but it's going to greatly benefit corporations. The, talking about getting monthly checks and support as Democrats talked about, Nancy Pelosi and democratic leadership at the federal level talked about, since the spring and holding out to, hoping that Biden gets elected and that there can be a robust bailout that we all know is needed to support our economy overall, and the people who comprise it, with another cash payment. But those looking at ongoing with eviction relief, with a lot of those elements that have now been almost entirely removed from that bill. So the help that was signaled was going to be on the way is no longer for most people. And any, relief that they get, perhaps there's going to be one small payment of a $1000 or $1500, but after months of being out of work, and not paying rent for months, that, is frankly insulting. So we know that there's going to be a lot of pain coming and that the reason why there isn't more now was due to the previous federal help given to States and localities that is now going to evaporate.   So now that we know we're going to have a lot more people in need of direct assistance, just to keep a roof over their head, we're now talking about giving money to the convention center, which by every metric of the business that is required to support the public money to support them, if we're going to bail them out and their ongoing prospects looks bleak and grim that they're not even going to be able to pay it back. Not even just a question of is this a smart expenditure? It just looks horrible all the way around and I'm just not sure why this is felt to be the priority right now.   This is just a reminder that you're listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher and today my co-host is friend of the show, Ashley Archibald, who's a local journalist. And as we're talking about this, educated in this exact area of the economy. Do you want to just talk a little bit about your background, Ashley?   Ashley Archibald: [00:14:35] I left journalism originally well not left, I took a pause, to go to grad school at the London School of Economics and Political Science to get a degree in local economic development. So I have a lot of thoughts on how governments use and lose their money.   Crystal Fincher: [00:14:54] Yeah, a lot of thoughts and are a subject matter expert. And, it seems like you are in agreement with many of the other experts and people who are paid to support this, that they're saying, Hey, this is not a good idea. This is being built on a really shaky foundation and just really does not look good. And, just from, in public policy today, there are a lot of disagreements, but you kind of have to stop and pause when not only people who come from those stuffy establishment backgrounds and private financing, that entire industry, and just the general public, average person on the street all looks at this and says, what in the world are you thinking? This is a horrible idea. There is no data that backs this up. The only way you can think this is a good idea is if you just think in platitudes that, Oh yeah. The convention center is critical to our tourism industry.   However, looking at the details, it is a very small percentage of our local tourism industry. And the plan that is being floated is to tax the rest of the industry and give the proceeds of that to this one organization who is counting on companies nationally and internationally traveling here to house hundreds of, to put up hundreds of people and have conventions and trade fairs. And not only is that not happening during COVID, but every industry globally is going to be feeling the effects of this recession that hopefully isn't a depression by that time. And the prospects for companies turning the spigot back on and spending on conventions and these large-scale meetings are, It's just not realistic for the next several years. And it's really questionable to think, are we even, it doesn't make sense to assume that we're going to go back to what we considered normal. I don't think it does.   Ashley Archibald: [00:17:18] I am not a public health expert. I feel like I should just throw that out. I'm not an expert in much, but I have yet to hear a single person say that we are going to go back to normal, potentially ever, but definitely not anytime soon. Like we're not going to see a vaccine that actually gets rolled out to the entire American people until 2021. And I want to, first of all, say, Oh, my gracious, these scientists who have managed to make this happen faster than any time in human history, like we have a vaccine for this faster than we have ever seen one developed before by a factor of four. Like we didn't have, I think the last vaccine that was developed took four years. And so it's exceptional that they're doing this. But that being said, people will still need to mask up. They will still need to avoid big gatherings. And they're going to have to do that for a while. And I think things are going to change, and we're going to see them change, and it's going to feel like a real relief, but I really hope that people understand that we're not going to be able to do big things indoors for a while.   And I know nothing about the convention center business, but having worked at a nonprofit who has used the convention center, fairly comfortable saying that it takes a minute to put in a reservation there.   Crystal Fincher: [00:18:54] It definitely does. It definitely does. These are big logistical events. It takes months and months of planning to have an event at the convention center. These are big, significant events that require teams to plan and execute and yeah, it is, it's hard to see, one, thinking that this is going to be happening anytime in the short term. But it is extremely presumptive, especially when the bet you're making is with public dollars that, Hey, everything is going to bounce back even after we get done.   Ashley Archibald: [00:19:35] But there are businesses right now, right, who need that help? There are local businesses who employ local workers that local people shop at. And I don't know. I mean, I think that that is, if you're looking at it just from a capitalistic, economic point of view, does it not make sense to make sure that people can keep their businesses open and to make sure that people can spend money in those businesses?   Crystal Fincher: [00:20:05] Hundred percent. And there seems to be broad agreement about that. That, Hey, if we are going to provide help, it should be, and help especially from city government, County government, it should go to businesses and people who are directly beneficial to that. So, yeah, we talk all the time. We're in a conversation right now because of the dining restrictions, about how many locally owned restaurants have already been forced to close and that hundreds of others are on the brink, and they all employ people - many of our neighbors. So yeah, why are we not talking about direct relief? And to the extent that there were federal CARES funds available and some loans to other circumstances, the need is so much greater and everyone has talked about that even the money set aside before to help was grossly inadequate.   So this just doesn't seem like a good idea at all. And based on previous data - there's a good article that we can link in the show notes, that Mike McGinn and Joe Cortright wrote early in this pandemic, basically teeing this up. Saying, Hey convention center business is cratering, and they're going to come to cities and public entities for bailouts and here's why it's a horrible idea. Lo and behold, they predicted things really correctly and they detail why it is such a bad idea and why using the convention center, even as a proxy for, Hey, we have to support the tourism industry, we have to support our local economy. Convention visitors accounted for just 7% of the room nights in Seattle hotels. They're actually, a really minor element in our local tourism economy and our economy overall. So if we are talking about that sector of the economy being important, why don't we talk about the other 93%? What supports that? Instead of doing what, accounts for 7%. That seems like it would make sense at the most basic level.   But with that, I'm sure we'll be hearing much more about that in the coming week. There's already quite a backlash against that and so many people are feeling pain and going, why am I paying taxes, while I'm in pain, to support that building? I'm not quite sure. But moving on and talking about people in need, I want to talk about, and you certainly have been following this, the issue with housing people who are unhoused and the Red Lion in Renton. Can you brief us a little bit on what's going on there?   Ashley Archibald: [00:23:07] Yeah, so I, will freely disclose that I learned about this from Publicola and Erica C Barnett, who is a fantastic local journalist. And everybody should go and look at her work and that of her colleagues. But, the Red Lion is a hotel in Renton that is being used by the DESC organization to move people who are experiencing homelessness into individual rooms so that they can escape COVID. COVID was this, unfortunately, the reason that this happened, but it was not a bad thing, right? Like people have had real changes in their lives as a result of being inside and being safe. And the Renton city council has chosen to put boundaries on that so that the Red Lion will not be used for a shelter anymore. Their plan is to designate very specific areas of Renton where people can be housed, but according to Publicola, that will only be about half of the residents who were there. So we're talking about putting hundred, like literally a hundred plus people, who are experiencing homelessness out on the street, in the middle of a pandemic, which does not seem to me to be a logical public health outcome.   Crystal Fincher: [00:24:47] It is very much not a logical public health outcome. And it specifically has been recommended against, by the CDC. And a lot of the punitive actions actually that we see being taken by governments against homeless people are specifically recommended against for public health reasons by our own Centers for Disease Control. So it is perplexing and the question really needs to be asked - what public good is being served here?   Ashley Archibald: [00:25:21] I don't know the answer to that. I am sure that the reasoning that has been extended so far is that people are afraid of increasing crime, or invasions, or something of that nature. And let's be clear. I am not here to apologize for other people's actions. What I am here to say is that at the end of the day, these people need shelter and it is a regional response to homelessness that I've been told that we want. And it is absolutely necessary for the prevention of a spread of this disease to get people inside and safe. And so I really feel on a personal level that it is a necessity that we house people. And it shouldn't have ever been this question. Obviously people should be housed anyway, but I am willing to see the argument. I have not seen it and I don't know that it exists, that we shouldn't try to prevent people from spreading COVID? Maybe if we can house them, it would be an ultimately cheaper, financially, and certainly a more moral stance to take.   Crystal Fincher: [00:26:46] Right. And this is just NIMBYism and people being classist and hating on people who don't have homes. And viewing not having a home as a moral failure in and of itself. And that these people are not deserving of human dignity and help. And it's just a shame.   Thank you for listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, December 4th. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our wonderful co-host today was local journalist and friend of the show, Ashley Archibald. You can find Ashley on Twitter @AshleyA_RC. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii (spelled f-i-n-c-h-f-r-i-i) and now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts, just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost live show and our midweek show sent directly to your podcast stream.   Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time.

3 PM: Hanna Scott: Officer’s pepper-spraying of child at Seattle protest was inadvertent, didn’t violate policy, review finds // King County Executive Dow Constantine proposes new felony diversion program, cuts to Sheriff’s Office in budget // Behind Enemy Lines: Jermaine Wiggins of WEEI Radio // Why You Shouldn’t Give Up on Virtual Happy Hours See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

King County Executive Dow Constantine has unveiled his proposal for the 2020 Strategic Climate Action Plan. It’s a five-year roadmap that aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade. Among the details is a pledge to plant 3 million trees and make buildings and transit greener.

In this special episode, we share the WebCall last week to hear what was happening on the ground in Seattle, WA and King County, WA, in the face of the COVID-19 closure of music venues and live experiences.  Kate Becker talks about how King County is responding to the virus, what they are telling their music venues, businesses, artists and community, and generally shared her moving perspective on lessons learned throughout this process of pandemic and public health. Guest: Kate Becker, King County WA Public Health for Mass Gatherings, Creative Economy Strategist Before the current crisis, Kate Becker had been the Creative Economy Strategist for the Office of King County Executive Dow Constantine in Seattle, WA.  For 5 years, she had been the Director of the Office of Film + Music in the City of Seattle, and had been a Commissioner for the Seattle Music Commission.  Her prior background includes being Director of Development and Exec. Producer for the Seattle Theatre Group, as well as being heavily involved in arts and non-profit work for many years. This virtual event was co-hosted by the Music Policy Forum, Music Cities Together, the Center for Creative Futures at the Maremel Institute, King County Creative, and Innovating Music @ UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Mentioned Links: Music Policy Forum King County Creative on Facebook and their new website COVID-19 Handbook for Creative Industries Kate Becker on LinkedIn

This week, with coronavirus continuing to spread in King County, we speak with King County Executive Dow Constantine to get the latest on what's being done to contain it, how and where we can get accurate information, and about how residents can stay healthy and safe. Then, we speak with the creators of the new documentary about gerrymandering, “Slay the Dragon.” Filmmakers Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance join us to talk about how the GOP has weaponized redistricting in the United States, and about how citizen activists are standing up and fighting back. Links: Information about COVID/coronavirus: https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/communicable-diseases/disease-control/novel-coronavirus.aspx Slay the Dragon film website: http://www.slaythedragonfilm.com Eric Holder's Anti-Gerrymandering Organization, All on the Line: https://allontheline.org/ Theme music from https://filmmusic.io "Pure Joy" by Otis Galloway License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Preet Bharara sums himself up this way on Twitter: Patriotic American & proud immigrant. @Springsteen fan. Banned by Putin, fired by Trump. Former US Attorney, SDNY. Host of "Stay Tuned."Bharara came to national attention as a highly successful federal prosecutor who refused to resign from his post in the Southern District of New York. As noted, President Trump dumped him.Mr. Bharara is the author of Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law. His book has earned praise for its thorough, jargon-free exploration of the workings of our justice system.“You will not find God or grace in legal concepts, in formal notions of criminal justice. Certain values and ideals are beyond justice. These include mercy, forgiveness, redemption, dignity. Also love.” –Preet Bharara in Doing Justice He spends his free time now as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University’s School of Law, a Senior Legal Analyst on CNN, and the host of "Stay Tuned with Preet," a podcast about justice and fairness.Preet Bharara was interviewed by King County Executive Dow Constantine at Town Hall Seattle on February 7. KUOW’s Sonya Harris recorded their conversation.

“All communities are made better by arts and music.” Kate Becker, the Creative Economy Strategist at Office of King County Executive Dow Constantine, has dedicated her career to developing a thriving creative economy. Passionate about the arts from an early age, Kate has had an inspirational rise from all-ages club promoter to founder of the Vera Project to our region's key driver of economic policy for the creative arts. One of our most powerful leaders, Kate is traveling the country to evangelize the concept of a creative economy and to also learn from other cities. She shares some of the biggest challenges that artists and small businesses who support the arts community face in growing cities and how regional government can make a positive difference in supporting the arts.

There's no question that the thriving economies of wealthy west coast cities have left some residents behind. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever. And although the market has cooled some, the cost of housing continues to rise, leaving more and more people unable to afford housing at all. So, what do we do? For this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast we gathered urban leaders, including King County Executive Dow Constantine, Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. They weighed in on what's worked, and what hasn't, to address issues of affordable housing and homelessness in their cities, and to explore what solutions might still be out there.

Season 5 focuses on a topic that affects everyone in Seattle: Homelessness. King County Executive Dow Constantine discusses regional approach to addressing homelessness and the reasoning behind his efforts. Northwest MLS director Robert Wasser of Prospera Real Estate gives an update on rents and housing prices. The episode also features Ty who was interviewed while living on streets outside City Hall.

2016 ended on a high note for King County Executive Dow Constantine as he received national recognition for his governing of the state’s largest county. But 2017 brings challenges, with President Donald Trump and questions about future federal funding for transportation, housing and human services. Constantine talks about those concerns and more on this edition of “Conversations with Enrique Cerna.”

On this edition of Reporter’s Notebook, Crosscut.com city reporter David Kroman talks with KCTS 9’s Enrique Cerna about the Seattle police shooting of Che Taylor last February. Kroman obtained the entire dash-cam recording of the shooting. His story examines the police response after the shooting and the length of time it took for Taylor to be given medical aid. Medical examiners at Harborview Medical Center pronounced Taylor dead several hours after the shooting, but it is unclear whether he died at the scene or at Harborview. King County Executive Dow Constantine has ordered an inquest into the shooting.

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

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