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Seattle budget season may be over but it's never too early to start preparing and studying up for next year! On this topical show re-air, special guest host Shannon Cheng chats with Amy Sundberg and BJ Last from Solidarity Budget about the City of Seattle budget process. After covering budget basics and where we're at in Seattle's budget process, they cover the ongoing fight over the JumpStart Tax and what's being done (or not done) to address the upcoming $251 million budget deficit in 2025. Next, the trio breaks down the difference between “ghost cops” and the fully-funded SPD hiring plan, as well as why ShotSpotter still isn't a good idea. The show wraps up with a sampling of this year's other budget fights, how people can learn more or get involved, and Amy and BJ's dream budget items! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the guest host, Shannon Cheng, on Twitter at @drbestturtle, find Amy Sundberg at @amysundberg, and find Solidarity Budget at https://www.seattlesolidaritybudget.com/.   Amy Sundberg Amy Sundberg is the publisher of Notes from the Emerald City, a weekly newsletter on Seattle politics and policy with a particular focus on public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system. She also writes about public safety for The Urbanist. She organizes with Seattle Solidarity Budget and People Power Washington. In addition, she writes science fiction and fantasy, with a new novel, TO TRAVEL THE STARS, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in space, available now. She is particularly fond of Seattle's parks, where she can often be found walking her little dog.   BJ Last BJ Last is a business analyst, and former small business owner, with two decades of budgeting experience across a wide range of industries. He organizes with the Solidarity Budget and Ballard Mutual Aid.   Resources Seattle Solidarity Budget   Notes from the Emerald City   Tools to Understand the Budget | Seattle City Council   “Mosqueda, Council Colleagues Pass JumpStart's COVID Relief Package and Economic Recovery Spending Plan” by Joseph Peha from Seattle City Council Blog   “Seattle's Jumpstart payroll tax raised more than expected. Is the money going where it's most needed?” by Angela King & Katie Campbell from KUOW   Memorandum: General Fund Deficit Historical Analysis from Seattle City Council Central Staff   “Harrell's 2024 Budget Leaves Big Questions on Safety and Looming Shortfall” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Final Report of the Revenue Stabilization Workgroup   “Removing Vacant Police Positions in Seattle's Budget Is Good Fiscal Stewardship” by BJ Last for The Stranger   “Police Budget Fizz: Hiring Falls Short, Shotspotter Gains Support, Burgess Misrepresents Jane Jacobs” from PubliCola   “Nearly half of Seattle police calls don't need officers responding, new report says” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times   “Set Money Aside for Illegal Surveillance, or Fund Community Needs Now?” by BJ Last and Camille Baldwin-Bonney for The Stranger   “New UW study says human-services workers are underpaid by 37%” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   City of Seattle Budget Office   Stop ShotSpotter! Webinar - Seattle Solidarity Budget and ACLU of Washington | Nov 8, 2023   Guaranteed Basic Income Panel - Seattle Solidarity Budget | Oct 10, 2023   The People's Budget Seattle | Announcing Winning Projects   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. [00:00:52] Shannon Cheng: Hello, everyone! This is Shannon Cheng, producer of Hacks & Wonks. I'm here as your special guest host for today. Everyone's been super busy with elections, but another important thing currently happening right now in a lot of our local jurisdictions is that they're having budget deliberations for the coming year. Budgets are super important - we talk a lot about policy on this show, but what really matters in the end is how that policy is implemented and budgets manifest our intent. So Crystal let me take over the show for a day, and I wanted to have some folks on who are closely following the budget here in Seattle. They're two local community organizers with Solidarity Budget. And before we get to meeting them, I just wanted to point out that while we're gonna be focused pretty deeply on the City of Seattle's budget, a lot of what we talk about is applicable to other places. So if you're interested in getting involved in the budget where you live, we can learn something from these experts. So without further ado, I just want to welcome Amy Sundberg and BJ Last. Amy, starting with you, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got involved with Solidarity Budget? [00:02:00] Amy Sundberg: Yes, hello! It's good to be here. I'm Amy, and I am the publisher and writer of the newsletter Notes from the Emerald City, which is a weekly newsletter that covers issues involving public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system - in our local area - so Seattle and King County mostly, and occasionally the state of Washington. As well, I sometimes cover public safety issues for The Urbanist. And I organize with People Power Washington and Solidarity Budget. Originally, I got my start organizing with People Power Washington and we would uplift the demands of Solidarity Budget. And eventually I connected with the folks at Solidarity Budget and started working with them as well, so that's how I initially got involved. [00:02:45] Shannon Cheng: What about you, BJ? [00:02:46] BJ Last: Hi, thanks. Great to be here. BJ Last - don't do anything as cool as Amy on a regular basis. I've lots of years as a budget analyst, former small business owner, was a professional baker - did pop-ups, but then COVID, so that kind of went by the wayside. I actually first got involved with Solidarity Budget over SPD overtime. SPD has a massive history of overspending on overtime. In 2020, there was a resolution the City passed mid-year saying if SPD overspends on its overtime, we won't give them more money for it. Lo and behold, SPD did. At the end of the year, council was like - Okay, fine, we'll give you more money, but we swear we're gonna take it from you next year to do an offset. And wanted that fight to be like - No, we need to actually try to get that money from them next year to have any kind of budget accountability. And spoiler, that sadly never happened. [00:03:34] Shannon Cheng: I agree with you that Amy is cool and also that the SPD overtime issues are very frustrating. For folks who don't know, could you give a little background on what Solidarity Budget is, and how it came to be, and how you all work together? [00:03:48] BJ Last: Sure thing. So Solidarity Budget came up out of - actually Mayor Jenny Durkan. Groups caught that Mayor Durkan was promising a lot of different groups the exact same pot of money and then being like - Y'all fight amongst yourselves to do this. And groups came together and was like - We're tired of actually just always being pitted against each other and forced to fight each other for scraps in the City budget, while all the funding goes to things that no one was wanting, like while all of the funding goes into SPD. SPD alone is still a quarter of the budget, getting everything carceral - it's about a third of the general fund. So it was that desire of - No, we don't want to be pitted against each other. And just rejecting this framework of - we have to fight against each other for scraps. So coming together as groups to be like - what are our big priorities and saying - Look, we are advocating for all of these things. [00:04:38] Amy Sundberg: I would say in addition, we wanted to make sure that when we're talking about the budget every year, that those most marginalized are centered in that conversation. And often they aren't, right? So it's important to have a coalition who has that front of mind when advocating. [00:04:54] Shannon Cheng: That's super smart. Our experience has been - it can be hard to get heard by electeds, just - if you're not the people in power, sometimes it just feels when you send your email and make your phone call, your voice might not be heard. And so trying to come together and forming a coalition so that you can have a larger voice seems like it would make a lot of sense if you want to push the lever on budget-related issues. Okay, so let's jump into some background and some budget basics before getting deep down into the weeds. Did you want to give, Amy, a sense of what the scale of budgets are at different jurisdictions and then what we're talking about here in Seattle? [00:05:31] Amy Sundberg: Sure. So there are many different government budgets. The biggest one, of course, is the national budget for the United States, which is around $4.4 trillion. So obviously a huge pot of money. Most of that money comes from personal income tax that we all pay every year and also corporate income tax, et cetera, et cetera. Then we have the state budget, which is about $72 billion per year. And then we have the King County budget, which is $6.2 billion per year. So you see, we're kind of getting smaller and smaller as we get into smaller jurisdictions. And then we have the City budget. And city budgets tend to be around $5 to $6 billion per year in total. All of these budgets are made up from various types of taxes and fees, and they each are responsible for funding different services in our communities. [00:06:26] Shannon Cheng: Great. So for the City of Seattle - let's just focus in on that as our example for today's episode. So where does the money for the City of Seattle come from? [00:06:35] Amy Sundberg: If we're talking about - particularly general fund - most of that money would come from property tax, sales tax, and B&O tax, which is a business tax. I think that's about 60% of the funds. And then there are a lot of other very small buckets of money that come in as well to make up the entire amount. [00:06:56] BJ Last: That's a great overview, Amy. And one thing I do want to just mention - so the total Seattle budget is $7.8 billion, but the vast majority of that is stuff that is extremely restricted. For example, we have public utilities. So City Light - that's $1.5 billion - that is all funded by the rates people pay for their electricity. So while that's there in that total number that makes the City's budget look absolutely huge, it's not accessible - the council can't use that to fund things. So the general fund is a much smaller slice of that. It's just about $1.6 billion. And that's the money that the City pretty much has full discretion as to where it decides to go and spend that. [00:07:37] Shannon Cheng: So if I'm understanding it correctly, you're saying Seattle's budget is pretty big, but a large part of it is already appropriated to specific things. So when it comes to these priorities that when people - they're looking around at their city or their neighborhood, and they want things - it's gonna have to come out of this thing you call the general fund. Is that correct? [00:07:57] Amy Sundberg: Yes, that's correct. So most of what we're advocating for every year is general fund dollars. [00:08:04] Shannon Cheng: Okay, and so you are saying, BJ, that the general fund is about $1.6 billion. So what types of things are currently getting funded out of the general fund? [00:08:14] BJ Last: Yeah, that's correct. So it's $1.6 billion. It's - very broadly defined, Public Safety is 47% of it. And that is SPD, also includes the Office of the Inspector General, the CPC, the police pension - those are all four different departments that are in there, that are all cops. The Fire Department and CARE/CSCC, which is the 911 dispatch - which is currently CSCC, may be getting rebranded CARE soon. So that's 47%. The next biggest bucket is Administration and that's 22%. And Administration is kind of a massive catch-all that includes a lot of things - so major expenditures in there are for indigent defense and the City's contract with the King County Jail. So when SPD goes and arrests someone and puts them in there, the City is effectively leasing part of the jail from King County - and that's to pay part of it. And it also includes things like Judgment and Claims Funds, which is for when people are suing the City - that comes out of there, that's housed in that Admin section. And unsurprisingly, that one's also been increasing a lot lately due to lawsuits coming from 2020, which we know what those were. And then the other thing that is anything really is Education & Human Services, and that's about 15% of the general fund. So those three things of Public Safety, Administration, Education & Human Services account for 80% of the general fund. [00:09:39] Shannon Cheng: Wow, so what's left in that 20% that's remaining? [00:09:43] Amy Sundberg: Oh gosh, it's a lot of small things. Libraries, for example, will get funded out of that. A lot of our Transportation actually gets funded through specific levies, so it wouldn't come from general fund. And I think that's true of Parks & Rec as well. But there might be some little bits of money that go to Transportation and Parks & Rec - they have varied funding sources, basically. [00:10:05] Shannon Cheng: Okay, great. So that's the general fund, the discretionary portion of the City of Seattle's budget. So what's happening right now with the process? [00:10:14] Amy Sundberg: When we talk about budget season in Seattle, it's generally just a two-month period in the fall. But really, budget goes on for much of the year - because before the fall, the City departments are having to analyze their budgets and turn in reports to the mayor. And then the Mayor's Office is developing a proposed budget - that's the budget that gets announced at the end of September. At that point, the City Council is able to come in and make their changes that they might wanna see in that proposed budget. So that's where we are right now. First, they review the proposed budget to make sure they understand what's in there and what isn't in there. And then the Budget Chair, who this year is Councilmember Mosqueda, puts together a balancing package - that's a package where she thinks that there is consent amongst the councilmembers, that everyone agrees that these are changes that should be made for the most part. And then each councilmember is given the opportunity to suggest amendments to that balancing package. And they need to get two other councilmembers to sponsor that in order to get those amendments considered. So that's where we are right now - we've just heard the amendments that are being considered. And eventually what will happen is that those amendments will be voted on by the Budget Committee, which is all of the councilmembers to be clear. [00:11:35] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so Mayor Harrell sent over his proposal end of September and we're about a month into the Council's involvement. And this is the budget for next year? [00:11:45] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, for 2024. [00:11:46] BJ Last: So Seattle operates on a biennium budget basis. So last year they set the budget for 2023 and 2024. So this year they're currently doing adjustments to that 2024 budget. And then next year it'll be back to doing the full biennium, where we'll be looking at 2025 and 2026. [00:12:04] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so this is just finishing up last year's work through the end of the year, and just adjusting based on the realities of how much money is coming in and new needs for expenditures. [00:12:15] Amy Sundberg: Theoretically that is the case. Seattle is a little bit less strict about that than some other municipalities. I would say King County is more of a true biennial budget, whereas Seattle's kind of a biennial budget. And I think actually there's been some push to make it more like King County, to make it more of a true biennium. So we'll see what happens with that. [00:12:36] Shannon Cheng: Okay, interesting. Another thing I keep hearing about all the time is this fight over the JumpStart Tax. And I think it'd be good to just lay out very clearly - what is that fight all about? [00:12:47] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, so the JumpStart payroll tax passed in the summer of 2020. And then the council passed a spending plan for it in 2021 to put into statute what exactly the JumpStart Tax is supposed to go to pay for. And just so we're clear on what that spend plan is - 62% of JumpStart funds are supposed to go to affordable housing, 9% to Green New Deal, 9% to Equitable Development Initiative, and 15% to small business. What has happened though - basically, because this was going on in the middle of the pandemic - obviously there was a lot more needs, the City budget was a little messier than maybe normally. So they allowed some of these JumpStart Tax dollars to be spent as a kind of a slush fund for the general fund so that we wouldn't have to have an austerity budget. And the idea was that over time this would transition and eventually all of the JumpStart Tax funds would go to those percentages that I mentioned a moment ago. However, what has ended up happening is that every year - regardless of what mayor we have - every year the mayor will take some of the JumpStart dollars and move it over for general fund purposes, instead of those specific Green New Deal and affordable housing purposes. Every year Council kind of tries to claw back those JumpStart funds to put them into the main purposes they were meant for. Now we're still having some budget issues, so there has been - even for this year - some money that Council agreed could be used from JumpStart funds to fund general fund priorities, especially because JumpStart funds ended up being larger than originally anticipated. So the compromise that was struck was that those extra dollars that we weren't originally expecting can be used to kind of help prop up the general fund. But what ends up happening is sometimes more money beyond that gets pulled from JumpStart into the general fund. And of course, because affordable housing in particular is a large percentage of where that money is supposed to go and is such a priority in the city right now, given our housing crisis, this becomes a big fight every year. [00:15:05] Shannon Cheng: Okay, yeah - that's helpful. So I think I saw - in 2021, the JumpStart Tax generated $234 million. And so that was one of those years where the City and the Council felt that some of that needed to go towards other things than that spend plan that you referenced. And so about 37% of it ended up going to the general fund. And then that leaves a much smaller slice left for addressing those issues that you listed - housing, small business support, Green New Deal, equitable development - which, if people stop and think about - looking around, what are the biggest issues that the City's facing right now? I mean, that's what these are trying to address - the housing crisis, small businesses struggling after the pandemic, needing to do something about climate change in a meaningful way, and then also trying to spread our resources in a more equitable way across residents of the city. And so - to me then - thinking about JumpStart Tax, it's sort of a mini version of a whole budget. Because we had purported values that we stated out when we passed this legislation - saying this is what we want to spend this money on. And then, as with many things, it's the reality of the implementation that lets us see where our priorities truly are. And it sounds like - in 2020, we said very strongly - We need to meaningfully address these issues that we've been in a state of crisis for for a long time, and they've just been getting worse. And people are pointing that out - you see that. What I find really interesting is that the original people who've opposed the JumpStart Tax - so that would be the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Seattle Association - are these the same people who are now pushing to take the money away from JumpStart's original purposes and redirect it towards other things? [00:16:53] BJ Last: Honestly, yes. They're a lot of the people pushing that they want to - I'll use the phrase - "liberate" JumpStart funds so that it can be used as effectively just more general fund backfill. They also haven't entirely given up on fighting JumpStart. As part of the Revenue Stabilization Task Force that was meeting this year, the representatives from the Metro Chamber of Commerce, she made comments of - Hey, we think we should actually pause JumpStart for a year or two - supposedly to help businesses on recovery. So they are still fighting on JumpStart a little. The opponents of JumpStart have much more moved to - they just want it to be more general fund. [00:17:32] Amy Sundberg: And I do think it's important to state also that when we talk about wanting to allow businesses to recover, JumpStart Tax only applies to very large businesses with very high payroll and very highly paid employees. It's not hitting small businesses - that's not how it was set up. [00:17:51] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, previous to JumpStart Tax, there was an attempt to pass the Amazon head tax and that did pass, but then eventually got repealed because of a lot of protest. And I believe the JumpStart Tax came out of a coalition that got built after that failed attempt, which included small business groups - because 15% of the JumpStart revenue is supposed to go towards small business support. Which everybody likes to say - small business is super important to the health and vibrancy of the Seattle economy. But are we willing to put our money where our mouth is on that? I just find it pretty insidious the way that they're approaching this because they oppose the tax to begin with, they're still opposing it now, they wanna pause it. But when they ask for the money to go back to the general fund, it seems like it's going back to a lot of their own interests, such as downtown activation. So not only are they taking the money back for themselves, they're also weakening the implementation of what this tax was originally said to do. People probably heard about this tax when they announced it - there was all sorts of glowing praise of this is gonna address meaningfully these problems that everybody cares about. And yet now, by weakening it and taking money away, we can't spend as much of that money on it. And so obviously, when you look at the results of what the JumpStart Tax has done, it will look like it's less. And so I just really wanna call that out. I also wanna call out that the council that passed the JumpStart Tax in July of 2020 is pretty much the same council we currently have other than Councilmember Nelson who replaced Councilmember González in 2021. And JumpStart Tax passed 7-2. The only two councilmembers who did not vote for it were Councilmembers Juarez and Pedersen. How have they been reacting to all this JumpStart scuffling? [00:19:33] Amy Sundberg: They definitely have been less supportive of increasing the JumpStart Tax in any way - that has been noticeable. [00:19:40] BJ Last: Yeah, they have also been very much on the wanting to just throw the spending plan out the window. Actually, it was Councilmember Pedersen who's the first one that I heard use the expression of "liberate" JumpStart funds - create additional flexibility and disregard that. There are also subtler attempts to pretend that the JumpStart spend plan is very unclear, and so potentially needs to be revisited due to that - even though it's actually an extremely clear spend plan. People just keep trying to violate it - it's not that the plan isn't clear, people just keep asking for stuff that goes outside of that spend plan. [00:20:13] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so then the councilmembers who did vote for it - so those would be Councilmembers Herbold, Morales, Sawant, Strauss, Lewis, and then obviously Councilmember Mosqueda, who spearheaded the effort. Are they staying strong behind the values that they voted for on the JumpStart Tax, or has that kind of squished up since then? [00:20:31] Amy Sundberg: I would say - I mean, you know - it's hard to say what is in their hearts, but I would say it's a mix. I think some of them have stayed pretty strong, and I think others of them have, you know, less so. [00:20:45] Shannon Cheng: Okay, fair enough. I guess I'm just concerned 'cause it sounds like this JumpStart Tax issue will continue to carry on, and it is possible that we will lose its biggest champion on the city council next year. So I just want everybody listening to understand what this fight is about and why it's so important. To me, it kind of comes down to differences in opinion over what is gonna float all the boats in this city, right? I mean, business wants us to believe that if we just pour all the money into business and their interests, that that will just generally help everybody. Whereas what JumpStart was trying to do, I believe, is trying to build from the ground up by providing people housing, trying to spread the resources in a more equitable fashion, tackling climate change, providing good jobs that come out of tackling climate change. And so I just really think this is a fight over shifting decision-making about how we spend our resources from being concentrated with a few powerful interests, and letting more people have a say and access to success and opportunities to do well in this city. [00:21:48] Amy Sundberg: I would say Councilmember Mosqueda in particular has been a stalwart advocate of JumpStart. And as the Budget Chair, she has been in good position every year to counter the attempts to try to use JumpStart as more and more of a City slush fund. So if we lose her on Council at the end of this year, that certainly will make it more concerning going forward in terms of what will happen with JumpStart. I'll also say there is this spend plan. It is in statute currently. That statute could be changed, so it's not like it's protected forever. [00:22:21] Shannon Cheng: All right, so everyone - it's Election Day. Get out and vote - try to think about who's gonna be our next champion for the JumpStart Tax. So moving on, we also keep hearing all this news about an upcoming budget shortfall in 2025. What's happening with that? [00:22:39] Amy Sundberg: So the City of Seattle is facing a massive budget deficit starting in 2025. It is now estimated to be around $251 million deficit, which has gone up based on the mayor's proposed budget. So basically, the mayor's proposed budget this year has made the problem worse - potentially - in upcoming years. $251 million is a lot of money. And so the question is, what are we going to do to address that? There are two main ways to do that. You can make cuts to the budget - spend less money. Or you can pass new progressive revenue that will help fund the budget. We are not allowed by law to have a not balanced budget, so that is not an option - it's not on the table. Or of course you can do a combination of cuts and new progressive revenue. So those are kind of the two levers that councilmembers have to play with. And what is relevant in this budget season right now is speaking about new progressive revenue, because if we want to pass new progressive revenue for the City of Seattle, we would need to plan ahead a little bit. Because it will take some time to implement any new progressive revenue that we might pass - there's a ramp up to getting it done. So if we wanted to have that revenue to rely on for 2025, we would really ideally want to pass things now before the end of the year. [00:24:03] BJ Last: What I'd add on to what Amy mentioned is how we actually ended up getting to this upcoming deficit. Over the last two decades roughly, Seattle's population has grown at a really robust clip. We have all seen that. We have not seen the same growth in the general fund revenues that come in. Property tax increases are limited to - I believe it's at most 1% a year for the city - because sales tax also does not increase. So while we are seeing this really big increase in population, we have not seen the same with our general fund. It has really not moved that much. So it isn't the narrative of - Oh, the city has added a bunch of new pet projects or whatever, and that's where it's come from. It's come from largely - the city has gotten bigger and the general fund growth has not kept up with that. 85% of that upcoming deficit projected is all due to just open labor contracts. The Coalition of City Unions - their contracts are open. SPOG - their contract is also open. Paying Coalition of City Unions, paying the City workers - the people that like literally keep the lights on, fix the roads - of actually going and paying them is where this is coming from. [00:25:06] Amy Sundberg: And especially because inflation rates have been so high the last couple of years, right? So that's - they need a much larger raise than they would need if inflation was not high. [00:25:15] BJ Last: Also on the inflation part - thank you, that's a great call out, Amy - growth of the general fund has not kept up with inflation, especially just these last two years. I think there've even been other years where it hasn't happened, but these last two years in particular, we have not seen the general fund grow at the same rate. So things have gotten more expensive for the city that the general fund has to get spent on, but the dollars coming in the door haven't kept up with that. [00:25:35] Shannon Cheng: Is anything being done about that? Did the mayor propose anything about progressive revenue, or thinking about this upcoming problem? [00:25:42] Amy Sundberg: The mayor did not propose anything having to do with new progressive revenue in fact, which is a decision that he has been critiqued for in the local media. And there certainly has been a fair amount of rhetoric about just tightening our belts, right? But to be clear, $251 million - that's a lot of cuts that would drive us straight into an austerity budget, one would think. So that is where the mayor's office has landed, but there have been a lot of conversations about potential new progressive revenue that started with the task force that BJ mentioned earlier, which was brought together to look at various possibilities of what could be good new revenue sources. And certainly there were people that sat on that task force that had a priority of finding good new progressive sources of revenue in particular, as opposed to regressive taxes that will hurt people who have less more. And they did find some reasonable options that would not require a change in state law, and so could potentially be implemented in time to address the 2025 budget shortfall. So I would say that there are three main possibilities at play right now that are being discussed. One of those is a capital gains tax, so we had a capital gains tax at the state level pass - so far it has survived any legal challenges that it has faced. So it would be possible for the City to institute a tax above that. It would be a fairly small amount, probably 1-2% capital gains tax. Councilmember Pedersen originally was the councilmember who suggested this, and he also suggested that we remove a certain water fee. So it'll be interesting to hear a more robust analysis of that water fee to find out - is that truly a regressive tax? Or with various rebates, et cetera, that are available for people - is it not that regressive a tax? Because if we were to take away that water fee, it would be revenue neutral, so it wouldn't actually assist us with the upcoming deficit. Not to say it's still not worthwhile to talk about, even if that's true, because we want to get rid of more regressive taxes and institute more progressive taxes. So either way, that's a good conversation to have - but it's unclear to me more of the details of that water tax, how regressive it is. So that is an important thing to discover. The other two options have to do with the JumpStart Tax that we were talking about. One of them would be just to increase that JumpStart Tax across - it has a tiered structure right now, so across the tiers to just increase it. Councilmember Sawant has already proposed very, very modest increases in that JumpStart Tax in two of her amendments for the 2024 budget to fund specific priorities. So increasing the JumpStart Tax just full stop is one option. Another really intriguing option that has been discussed is something called a CEO pay ratio tax. This would require corporations that pay their top executives exorbitant amounts to pay an extra tax, or fee, or surcharge. So basically what we could do is use the JumpStart Tax as a vehicle by adding an extra layer to it. So there would be an extra tax that would only apply to corporations that exceed a certain CEO pay ratio. And what I have heard about this tax - again, so it would be fairly easy to implement because you don't have to change state law, you would just add an additional layer to an already existent tax. And what I've heard is that it would collect a significant amount of funds, but I don't have any actual numbers on that. So it will be really interesting to hear an analysis of how much money that could potentially actually bring in. And what Councilmember Mosqueda has announced is that there will be an extra Budget Committee meeting after the main 2024 budget is passed to discuss some of these possibilities at more depth. So they will be discussed earlier in November, kind of as a briefing, and then the councilmembers will meet after the budget is passed to potentially vote on some of these possibilities, if they're not already passed in the 2024 budget. [00:30:09] BJ Last: One thing I wanted to mention - so the Revenue Stabilization Group looked at about 20 different taxes. They did a great write-up that finally made it out in August after having been delayed a few times. The three taxes Amy mentioned - one of the reasons that they're at the top three is how quickly they can get implemented. So, you know, we're currently sitting and recording this - it's November, the budget deficit starts on January 1st, 2025. There is very limited time to go and get an ordinance passed and actually then to have that go into effect - since a new tax doesn't go into effect the day that it is passed - and to make sure that it would survive any legal challenges. So there is even like a broader list of things, but because we have kept putting this conversation off, because the city has sort of kept pushing the can down the road, we don't have very much time to go and pass this. We have about 13, 14 months to get something passed and to start having dollars coming in the door before that deficit hits. [00:31:04] Shannon Cheng: All right, so time is of the essence here. And it sounds like although Mayor Harrell didn't put anything in his proposals to address this, at least Council seems like they're gonna be on it in some fashion. So we'll see what comes of that. Okay, so that's the revenue side of the budget. And I think that's helpful for people to understand, 'cause I think it's much easier to talk about what you want to spend money on rather than where that money is gonna come from. I mean, I know I'm like that in my own life. So maybe we need to talk about what are we gonna spend all this money that we're bringing in on. And earlier in the show, talked about a rough breakdown of the general fund - it sounds like a huge portion of that goes towards public safety, which includes the Fire Department and the Police Department. So is the reason why sometimes it feels like there's so much focus on the police budget because they're kind of the biggest chunk of the budget, so that if you were trying to look for places where we could make some savings, it would be there? [00:32:05] BJ Last: I'd say absolutely. Not only are they the biggest chunk - no other department eats up as big a portion of the general fund as SPD does. So not only that, but they also get absurdly special treatment that no other department gets, where a lot of basic budget practices even just get entirely thrown out the window because it's for SPD. Ghost cops are a great example of this. Ghost cops are positions SPD gets funded for, even though they have no plan, intention, or ability to fill these roles. So these are not people that SPD even thinks they can plan - they have said they aren't going in the plan, there's no desire to, but they still get funding for them year after year. There are like 213 of these now currently sitting around and it works out to be - about $31 million of SPD's budget right now is slush fund on this. And we talked about the upcoming deficit in 2025. So a $250 million roughly - $30 million on these guys - you can see that this is a large percentage of the deficit sitting right there in these ghost positions that councilmembers just don't want to touch. And to give a sort of example of how no one else gets treated this way - where they get to just sort of hold on to this positional authority when they have no ability to fill it. Last year, the city abrogated 24 911-dispatcher positions, which - abrogation means they remove positional authority to it. No one probably heard about this 'cause there wasn't a big kerfuffle because it's normal. Council and the mayor and everyone's like - Well, you guys have said you can't hire these guys for the next two years for the duration of the biennium, so we're just gonna remove positional authority to it. If staffing plans change, we can re-add it. We can also add this back into the 2025 biennium if staffing levels have picked up. And in fact, they actually already are adding back about three of them in the supplemental of - in 2024 now in the budget process because their hiring has picked up. So just using 911 dispatch as an example - the ghost cops, the excess positional authority - no other department gets that. Every other department it is what your staffing plan is - the number of people you actually expect to hire - that is the number of positions you get, and that's the number of positions you get funded for. SPD gets this massive slush fund that they get to go and use on whatever the heck they want. And there was also even a technology one that we saw in the 2022 budget. Truleo - it's a technology - it swears it's like AI, natural language processing of body camera footage. SPD specifically asked for additional money for this program as part of the 2022 budget. Council explicitly did not give them funding for this. They said - We are not funding this program. Then the City found out at the start of this year that SPD actually went ahead and bought Truleo anyway. So they ended up canceling the contract, but it ended up as a thing of - usually if a department goes to a company and says, We need additional money for this project - if they don't get that money and then they find a way to fund that project anyway, it raises a lot of questions. Like, why did you say you needed additional money for this if you could already cover it with your additional budget? And hey, all those other items that you said you needed additional money for, that we gave you additional money for - how many of them did you really need additional money for versus you were just attempting to pad out your budget? So that's one of the reasons why it gets a lot of attention. Not only is it just the biggest percentage of the general fund by a lot, but the absurd special treatment that they get. [00:35:29] Shannon Cheng: So SPD is 26% of the general fund? [00:35:33] BJ Last: SPD itself is 24-26%. That does not include the police pension department - that is a separate pension in there. It does not include the Office of Inspector General and the CPC, the Community Police Commission, even though they are also both part of that. So when you start adding all of those, it goes up even over a quarter. And then when you add in the city attorney's office, municipal courts, indigent defense, jail services - what we're spending on carceral - it's a third of the general fund all ends up sitting there. [00:36:05] Shannon Cheng: Wow, okay. Yeah, I see here - just the Seattle Police Department alone, not all those other things you added on - they're sitting at just under $400 million. So what I'm understanding is these ghost cops are haunting, I guess, the Seattle Police Department budget. [00:36:23] BJ Last: These ghost cop positions - they do haunt the general budget. Amy talked about how we're defunding JumpStart. So it's about $85 million last year, $85 million this year, $85 million next year - that's getting transferred from JumpStart to the general fund. So again, transferred from Green New Deal, affordable housing to the general fund. Because SPD gets a quarter of the general fund, that means that $21 million a year roughly is literally going from affordable housing to SPD and its ghost cops. [00:36:54] Shannon Cheng: Oh man. Okay. So, and then they're taking it, and as you said, spending it on things that they were explicitly told not to spend it on or who knows what else, right? We try to dig in and get more transparency into what's going on, but that can be difficult. And just what BJ was saying about budgeting practices and that SPD is not subject to those at times - so I looked at the King County biennial budget for the same time period from 2023 to 2024. And they have line items across all of their appropriation units, including the Sheriff's Office and the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, that's called a vacancy rate adjustment. And this is exactly what BJ is describing - it's capturing salary savings from them not having been able to hire and being able to put that back into the general budget so that they can use it for other things that there's a need for. And then in addition to that, last biennium for King County, they had an additional line item specifically only for the Sheriff's Office and the Department of Adult Juvenile Detention called Capture Additional Vacancy Savings. And here, I'll just read the line item - it says it's to increase expected savings due to vacancies to account for current unprecedented vacancy level. And, you know, it allows the Sheriff's Office and DAJD to request additional appropriation to reverse it if the vacancy rate reverses and that we're able to magically start hiring a ton of people. I mean, we see that there's kind of a nationwide hiring shortage across every kind of profession, but in police and corrections officers as well. So this is not abnormal, and there was not a giant fight in the King County budget when this happened. Just to give you a sense of the magnitude - just from the original base vacancy rate adjustment, it was $5.3 million from the Sheriff's Office. And that additional vacancy savings was $5.7 million. So this is meaningful money that can be used in other places and not just locked up in the - Oh, well, maybe law enforcement will get to use it. Or maybe when they get close to the end of the spending period, they'll just spend it on something that we didn't all agree that we wanted. [00:39:03] Amy Sundberg: I will say as well that SPD has a very optimistic hiring plan and they never hit it - at least for the last several years that I've been following it, they don't hit it. And this year they actually - the department shrank again. They have a negative total when you add in hires minus attrition. So it's still shrinking in spite of these hiring bonuses that we have no evidence actually works. But these ghost cop positions aren't even part of that. They're ones that even SPD says - We definitely aren't gonna hire that this year. It's not taking away from the hiring plan that SPD wants and thinks they can hire. It's additional positions beyond that. And to be clear, it's a couple hundred additional positions. It's not like four or five. [00:39:50] Shannon Cheng: Okay, thanks. 'Cause I feel like people conflate that a lot - this talk of supporting SPD and public safety and fully funding their hiring plan, which it sounds like that's what has been happening, but then you have this conversation about abrogating these positions or ghost cops. And so you're saying that those are two separate things? [00:40:10] BJ Last: Absolutely. SPD - they always put out incredibly optimistic hiring plans, even by their own terms. So their hiring plan for next year is still that they will end up with - I think it's a record number of hires, like more than they've ever had - hiring 125 cops, I think it is. And with the number of cops leaving slowing down. And they're like - Cool, our full hiring plan for next year is roughly 1,130 cops. And they're currently getting funded for like 1,344 cops, something like that - it's a difference of 213 positions between what they've said they can hire and what they actually plan on trying to hire - between that and what they're actually funded for. [00:40:47] Shannon Cheng: What are the issues in the hiring pipeline? Why is there a limit to the number of officers that they would actually be able to hire? [00:40:54] Amy Sundberg: I mean, there's a lot of factors. Primarily, there aren't enough applicants to begin with - not enough people want to become police officers at SPD. That's an issue. But as well, I just also - the hiring process takes time because they have to go through a series of testing and vetting. And then if they aren't lateral hires - if they're new recruits, then they have to go through the academy. And even once they're done with academy, they go through more training on the job, so they're not really full officers at that point yet. So it just - there's a long ramp to hiring new officers. Lateral officers - SPD has a great interest in hiring them because they've already been a police officer somewhere else. So they can kind of get plugged in more easily, directly into SPD. But they've been having a really difficult time finding lateral hires. So far in 2023 - I forget - it was four, five, or six total lateral hires for the entire year. And they had expected to be able to hire many more. And when asked about it, Chief Diaz said that the candidates simply weren't good enough for them to hire more than that. But somehow magically, they expect the candidates to get better next year if you look at who they expect to hire next year, which I think is interesting. [00:42:09] BJ Last: And I'd also say, Amy, none of that is unique to Seattle at all. It was already touched on - this is not just Seattle Police Department is having trouble hiring, this is police departments everywhere. Fewer people want to become cops. And just like Seattle, it really, really wants lateral hires because it's much shorter. I think the timeline from a new recruit is like 18 months before they are counted as a employable officer, or whatever their term is. The lateral is much shorter. So not only does Seattle want them, every other department wants them. Thing is just - people do not want to be cops as much. We know one of the things that isn't a barrier to hiring at all is pay. The average SPD officer made over $155,000 in 2022, based on the City's wage data. So they are making - the city pays an absolute ton for SPD on the individual officer level. There're the hiring bonuses that have been around that don't do anything. So it's - for these lateral hires, it's $30K that they're getting offered, it's $7,500 for a new recruit. So the city has already tried throwing just buckets and buckets of money to see if that would somehow turn into more people wanting to be cops in Seattle. And it has absolutely positively not worked. And that really needs to be acknowledged - not throwing money at this one - that's not going to change things here. It's not unique to Seattle, it's across everything. And it's also one of the reasons why other cities have moved to actually non-police responses to things. Because we look back - tons and tons of studies - SPD did its own study in 2019 that showed, I think it was 56% of all 911 calls are non-criminal. There was the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform Study that came out in 2021 - showed 80% of all the calls SPD is currently doing don't match anything in the criminal code, and 49% of those calls could immediately go to the community. So one of the reasons other cities are going into non-police responses is because it's what cops actually do - is they respond to non-criminal stuff, that's where they spend all their time. So why on earth are we throwing all of this money at people to show up, and escalate non-criminal situations, and traumatize people? And Seattle has really dragged its heels on that. After having talked about non-police response for years, multiple studies coming out about how little of SPD's calls are actually anything that counts as criminal, how much could go to community - just this last month, they finally launched a dual dispatch, which is SPD responding to stuff. So years later, the city has just refused to move on this item. [00:44:43] Amy Sundberg: I will also add, since we're in the middle of election season - I keep hearing from candidates that what they want to do to fix public safety in Seattle is hire 500 new cops. And I'll just say, your opinion doesn't matter - regardless of your opinion of whether we should hire more cops, whether you want less cops - we are not gonna hire 500 new cops in Seattle anytime soon. It is literally impossible. It is just not gonna happen. So when I hear candidates say that - I mean, it's pie-in-the-sky thinking, it's not a real solution because there are not 500 new cops for us to hire. And also there's, as BJ said, there's the 18 month ramp up to even get someone trained up to become a police officer. So this is just not reality. [00:45:32] Shannon Cheng: Okay, well, speaking of a mismatch between reality and intended outcomes, I keep hearing about this technology called ShotSpotter. I feel like we had a giant debate over it last year, it sounds like it's reared its ugly head again this year. Can you break down what this fight over ShotSpotter is and why it's important? [00:45:54] BJ Last: Sure, so ShotSpotter at a basic level - well, first off, so the company is now called SoundThinking. They did a rebrand because - yeah, the reputation that ShotSpotter has. It's an acoustic gunshot detection service is what it describes itself as - and it is people sitting in a room hundreds of miles away, listening to recordings of loud noises. And then saying whether or not they think that loud noise was a gunshot. That is what ShotSpotter boils down to. Like they swear there's a super fancy AI algorithm, but whatever that AI decides to flag - it goes to people sitting in a room hundreds of miles away, listening to a noise, and saying whether or not they think it was a gunshot. And they have a large financial interest in actually saying everything was a gunshot. Because of how the contracts are written - that there's no guarantees that they won't send a lot of false alerts. The only guarantee that is in there is anything where the police actually find that there was evidence of a gunshot - for 90% of those, ShotSpotter will have given an alert. So it's pretty much if they say that something wasn't a gunshot, and it turns out it was, that then could potentially hurt their contract. If they call every single loud noise a gunshot, that has zero impact on them at all. So people listening to loud noises with an incentive to go and say everything's a gunshot. And you are right - we had this fight just last year, when the city went and asked for it. And what this ask was - was they asked for additional funding, specifically for ShotSpotter, which council declined to give them. They're asking for it again. Of that additional money specifically for ShotSpotter - this additional money piece actually though, has no impact on whether or not the city actually purchases ShotSpotter. In order to purchase a subscription to ShotSpotter - because it's a subscriptions purchase, so it becomes an annual expense every single year - SPD has to go through a Surveillance Impact Report, which is they have to meet with the community, put together what would be a lot of - what would be the impacts of this technology, what does it do, get community feedback, and then council also has to go and approve that. SPD has been able to do this any single day that it's wanted to. It could have started this process. When they first asked for it last year, they could have started this process then. In any of the time between last year's budget and now, they could have started this process. So they have not done that. So they're asking for money - again, for something that they've taken no steps to actually get anywhere close to being able to legally purchase. [00:48:17] Amy Sundberg: I think too - I have a lot to say about ShotSpotter - I've spent way too much of the last several weeks of my life thinking about ShotSpotter. And to be honest, I just - I find it personally painful that we're having this discussion again this year. Because not only is ShotSpotter ineffective, so it's a waste of money - which is bad enough. I mean, we obviously do not have money to waste. But it is actively harmful, to be clear. There are many, many studies that show this. It increases the number of pat-downs, searches, and enforcement actions. It justifies the over-policing of Black, Indigenous, and people of color neighborhoods that they are primarily living in. It leads to unnecessary contact between the police and vulnerable populations. And it also leads to false arrests. There have even been some cases where they've shown that possibly some of the "evidence" - I put that in air quotes - "evidence" has been tampered with in various ways. I mean, this is actively harmful. It is not just a waste of money. And then also, this year is being sold as part of a crime prevention pilot. And let me be clear - gun violence is a huge problem. It's a huge problem in Seattle. It's a huge problem in King County. Frankly, it's a huge problem across the entire country. And I don't want to minimize the impacts of that in any way, but there is no evidence that shows that ShotSpotter decreases gun violence. So people who are desperate, who want a solution to that problem, are being sold ShotSpotter as the solution, but it's not true. And that's what I find so painful, right? Is that there's people who desperately need a solution to this problem, and instead of actually giving them one that might have a chance of working, they're given ShotSpotter as a false hope instead - which I find repugnant, frankly. [00:50:13] BJ Last: Oh yeah - it's incredibly predatory what they do, Amy. They prey on communities that are struggling with issues of gun violence - which is a massive issue, as you said, that really has huge impacts - and they sell them something that just makes things worse. You mentioned on some of the - what happens with some of these alerts - Adam Toledo was one of the most famous examples of this. So Adam Toledo was a 13-year-old that the Chicago police killed because they were responding to a ShotSpotter alert. And they chased after a 13-year-old, and ended up shooting him in an alley when his hands were empty - when there was nothing in his hands. So this is the real harm that does come from this. And again, it is preying off of communities that have been disinvested in and that are dealing with real problems of gun violence and being like - Oh, hey, here's something we swear will make it better. And that goes and makes it worse. [00:51:01] Amy Sundberg: I will also say - we had this fight last year, we're having it again. There've been a few new wrinkles that have been introduced this year that I think are important to address. One of them is that this year, they have proposed that along with the ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot technology, that they include CCTV cameras. And what Senior Deputy Mayor Burgess said during one of these budget meetings was that the combination of these two technologies leads to higher accuracy and also better admissibility in court. However, these claims have not been backed up. We did find a study that shows that, in fact, the combination of these two technologies does not improve accuracy. And Councilmember Herbold asked Tim Burgess for his evidence - What makes you think this? A month after she asked, she says she finally received his answer - which was six reports on CCTV alone with no ShotSpotter technology included so does not, in fact, give any evidence that it makes ShotSpotter better. And one kind of manual suggesting that maybe you could combine these two technologies with no study attached. So the only study we have found says, in fact, it does not improve the accuracy. So I think that's really important to note. There seems to be a certain lack of regard from certain quarters for actually looking at the evidence - that I find sad, frankly. And another wrinkle that I'll mention is that BJ talked about the Surveillance Ordinance - the report that they would have to do in order to implement ShotSpotter. In the original proposal from the mayor's office, they asked to do one report - so each report, you have to do a racial equity analysis as part of that report - and they asked to only do one report. But this is mobile technology, so you can pick up the camera and the ShotSpotter tech and you can move it to a different neighborhood. So they would only be doing their racial equity analysis in the original neighborhoods that it was going to be placed, and then they could pick it up and move it to any other neighborhood without having to do another racial equity analysis, which I think is deeply problematic because different neighborhoods are different. And a lot of the neighborhoods that they were talking about originally using this technology on are primarily white. And my concern would be - what if they picked it up and moved it to a community that wasn't primarily white, but didn't have to do a racial impact report on that. That is deeply troubling. And I will say Councilmember Mosqueda, in her balancing package, addressed this problem and said - No, you should do a racial equity impact for each time you move it. So hopefully we won't buy ShotSpotter at all, but hopefully that change will stay if we do - because I think you can't do one impact report for a neighborhood, and then move it somewhere completely different and expect that report to have any validity. [00:54:09] Shannon Cheng: So ShotSpotter doesn't address the problem it's claiming to try to solve. In fact, it sounds like it might be making things worse. And so they're asking this year for about $1.8 million, but what do we know from other cities - once you buy a pilot, this $1.8 million this year, what happens after that? [00:54:28] BJ Last: It's a subscription service. So even if you wanted to maintain the same amount or the same coverage area, you are spending that every single year. So this is, would be an ongoing expense. And that's also assuming the ShotSpotter doesn't change its rates. And then if you decided to expand the footprint of where it is, that's gonna add what you're spending every single year. So it is very much just an ongoing expense into a budget that as we said - hey, is already facing a substantial general fund deficit for something that does not address a serious problem. [00:55:00] Amy Sundberg: And the company SoundThinking - I mean, their business model is to persuade cities to expand. So it would not be surprising to me if we were to start this pilot - if in a few years we were spending more like $10 million on ShotSpotter, that would not shock me. [00:55:16] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so it's - this year, we're trying to decide whether to dip a toe into this ShotSpotter technology, but it could lead to larger expenditures in future years if this initial pilot gets funded further. [00:55:34] BJ Last: Absolutely. And also the ShotSpotter company SoundThinking - they do a lot of other surveillance items. They recently bought PredPol, which is nominally predictive policing, that has all the absolute racial bias issues that you probably imagine the moment that a company said that they can sell you predictive policing. So odds are it would not even be staying at just ShotSpotter - of microphones listening for loud noises - that SoundThinking would be trying to then expand to all of their other horrible, dystopian, incredibly biased technology. [00:56:05] Shannon Cheng: Yay. [00:56:07] Amy Sundberg: It's really concerning, right? I think a lot of people want to hold up technology as this panacea - where it will fix everything. And that is not always the case. And in this case, I would argue it is not at all the case. And there are actually things that we could be investing in that might address the issue much more effectively. [00:56:28] BJ Last: Yeah, like the things that are proven to work on this are low tech items - they're violence interruption programs, resourcing communities, things like that that are actually shown to reduce gun violence. [00:56:39] Amy Sundberg: Even physical changes in the environment have been shown to have a significant effect - like adding more lighting, for example. [00:56:47] Shannon Cheng: So those are some of the big fights over public safety, which - they're really important. Unfortunately, I also feel like they often overshadow some of the other big fights that might be going on - just there's a lot of rhetoric right now about public safety, especially with the ongoing election. So what are some of the other big budget fights that you're seeing in this year's deliberations? [00:57:05] BJ Last: Well, I'd say a lot of those fights are actually also public safety items. Like there are fights on School Safety Traffic and Pedestrian Improvement, SSTPI fund - so that's been getting cut. That is safe routes for kids to walk and bike to school - Vision Zero stuff is also getting cut. We're fighting really to stop that. And so far, at least 22 pedestrians have been killed while walking, biking, or rolling. So that is absolutely a public safety item, I would say. Same with - there are currently amendments to undo the cuts to food safety. The proposed budget cut about $950,000 from food security, so that was 650K roughly for food banks and 300K for food access. I would very much say that food access is also very much a public safety item. I think there was even a French musical, Les Mis - didn't that have a lot to do with an entire revolution because people couldn't afford bread and were hungry? [00:57:58] Amy Sundberg: There also is a fight about funding behavioral health services at Tiny House villages. Right now, that funding is a lot less than it was in 2023 for 2024. And the reason why that's important is because having this funding allows Tiny House villages to house people with higher acuity needs. But if they don't have those services available, then those people can't live there. So, I mean, that's a huge issue. And there are a couple amendments to address that - one of them would take the ShotSpotter money and use it instead to pay for that, which I think is a great use of that money. And there also are fights about pay wages for human service workers - to make sure that all human service workers are getting inflationary increase and a 2% raise on top of that, a true 2% raise on top of that. There have been various little fiddly things regarding that - some of those workers were not covered because they're technically paid through King County or with federal money. But they're still doing the job every day, they still deserve that full 2% raise. So there are amendments that are working to address that shortfall to make sure that those folks get paid a fair wage. [00:59:08] BJ Last: Yeah, and on the 2% raise for human service providers, there's a pay equity study that the University of Washington released - I think it was February this year - that found human service workers in Seattle are underpaid by 37%. So 2% is just a drop in the bucket compared to what we, a city-funded study by UW found that they are currently underfunded by. There was even a resolution passed that wants to increase their wages by 7% by 2025, so this is a small item just trying to move inline with that resolution and to also make progress towards that study. 'Cause again - underpaid by 37% is huge and that impacts people's ability to actually provide services. One other item I'll

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

On this Tuesday topical show, special guest host Shannon Cheng chats with Amy Sundberg and BJ Last from Solidarity Budget about the City of Seattle budget process. After covering budget basics and where we're at in Seattle's budget process, they cover the ongoing fight over the JumpStart Tax and what's being done (or not done) to address the upcoming $251 million budget deficit in 2025. Next, the trio breaks down the difference between “ghost cops” and the fully-funded SPD hiring plan, as well as why ShotSpotter still isn't a good idea. The show wraps up with a sampling of this year's other budget fights, how people can learn more or get involved, and Amy and BJ's dream budget items! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the guest host, Shannon Cheng, on Twitter at @drbestturtle, find Amy Sundberg at @amysundberg, and find Solidarity Budget at https://www.seattlesolidaritybudget.com/.   Amy Sundberg Amy Sundberg is the publisher of Notes from the Emerald City, a weekly newsletter on Seattle politics and policy with a particular focus on public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system. She also writes about public safety for The Urbanist. She organizes with Seattle Solidarity Budget and People Power Washington. In addition, she writes science fiction and fantasy, with a new novel, TO TRAVEL THE STARS, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in space, available now. She is particularly fond of Seattle's parks, where she can often be found walking her little dog.   BJ Last BJ Last is a business analyst, and former small business owner, with two decades of budgeting experience across a wide range of industries. He organizes with the Solidarity Budget and Ballard Mutual Aid.   Resources Seattle Solidarity Budget   Notes from the Emerald City   Tools to Understand the Budget | Seattle City Council   “Mosqueda, Council Colleagues Pass JumpStart's COVID Relief Package and Economic Recovery Spending Plan” by Joseph Peha from Seattle City Council Blog   “Seattle's Jumpstart payroll tax raised more than expected. Is the money going where it's most needed?” by Angela King & Katie Campbell from KUOW   Memorandum: General Fund Deficit Historical Analysis from Seattle City Council Central Staff   “Harrell's 2024 Budget Leaves Big Questions on Safety and Looming Shortfall” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Final Report of the Revenue Stabilization Workgroup   “Removing Vacant Police Positions in Seattle's Budget Is Good Fiscal Stewardship” by BJ Last for The Stranger   “Police Budget Fizz: Hiring Falls Short, Shotspotter Gains Support, Burgess Misrepresents Jane Jacobs” from PubliCola   “Nearly half of Seattle police calls don't need officers responding, new report says” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times   “Set Money Aside for Illegal Surveillance, or Fund Community Needs Now?” by BJ Last and Camille Baldwin-Bonney for The Stranger   “New UW study says human-services workers are underpaid by 37%” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   City of Seattle Budget Office   Stop ShotSpotter! Webinar - Seattle Solidarity Budget and ACLU of Washington | Nov 8, 2023   Guaranteed Basic Income Panel - Seattle Solidarity Budget | Oct 10, 2023   The People's Budget Seattle | Vote by Nov 12, 2023   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. [00:00:52] Shannon Cheng: Hello, everyone! This is Shannon Cheng, producer of Hacks & Wonks. I'm here as your special guest host for today. Everyone's been super busy with elections, but another important thing currently happening right now in a lot of our local jurisdictions is that they're having budget deliberations for the coming year. Budgets are super important - we talk a lot about policy on this show, but what really matters in the end is how that policy is implemented and budgets manifest our intent. So Crystal let me take over the show for a day, and I wanted to have some folks on who are closely following the budget here in Seattle. They're two local community organizers with Solidarity Budget. And before we get to meeting them, I just wanted to point out that while we're gonna be focused pretty deeply on the City of Seattle's budget, a lot of what we talk about is applicable to other places. So if you're interested in getting involved in the budget where you live, we can learn something from these experts. So without further ado, I just want to welcome Amy Sundberg and BJ Last. Amy, starting with you, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got involved with Solidarity Budget? [00:02:00] Amy Sundberg: Yes, hello! It's good to be here. I'm Amy, and I am the publisher and writer of the newsletter Notes from the Emerald City, which is a weekly newsletter that covers issues involving public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system - in our local area - so Seattle and King County mostly, and occasionally the state of Washington. As well, I sometimes cover public safety issues for The Urbanist. And I organize with People Power Washington and Solidarity Budget. Originally, I got my start organizing with People Power Washington and we would uplift the demands of Solidarity Budget. And eventually I connected with the folks at Solidarity Budget and started working with them as well, so that's how I initially got involved. [00:02:45] Shannon Cheng: What about you, BJ? [00:02:46] BJ Last: Hi, thanks. Great to be here. BJ Last - don't do anything as cool as Amy on a regular basis. I've lots of years as a budget analyst, former small business owner, was a professional baker - did pop-ups, but then COVID, so that kind of went by the wayside. I actually first got involved with Solidarity Budget over SPD overtime. SPD has a massive history of overspending on overtime. In 2020, there was a resolution the City passed mid-year saying if SPD overspends on its overtime, we won't give them more money for it. Lo and behold, SPD did. At the end of the year, council was like - Okay, fine, we'll give you more money, but we swear we're gonna take it from you next year to do an offset. And wanted that fight to be like - No, we need to actually try to get that money from them next year to have any kind of budget accountability. And spoiler, that sadly never happened. [00:03:34] Shannon Cheng: I agree with you that Amy is cool and also that the SPD overtime issues are very frustrating. For folks who don't know, could you give a little background on what Solidarity Budget is, and how it came to be, and how you all work together? [00:03:48] BJ Last: Sure thing. So Solidarity Budget came up out of - actually Mayor Jenny Durkan. Groups caught that Mayor Durkan was promising a lot of different groups the exact same pot of money and then being like - Y'all fight amongst yourselves to do this. And groups came together and was like - We're tired of actually just always being pitted against each other and forced to fight each other for scraps in the City budget, while all the funding goes to things that no one was wanting, like while all of the funding goes into SPD. SPD alone is still a quarter of the budget, getting everything carceral - it's about a third of the general fund. So it was that desire of - No, we don't want to be pitted against each other. And just rejecting this framework of - we have to fight against each other for scraps. So coming together as groups to be like - what are our big priorities and saying - Look, we are advocating for all of these things. [00:04:38] Amy Sundberg: I would say in addition, we wanted to make sure that when we're talking about the budget every year, that those most marginalized are centered in that conversation. And often they aren't, right? So it's important to have a coalition who has that front of mind when advocating. [00:04:54] Shannon Cheng: That's super smart. Our experience has been - it can be hard to get heard by electeds, just - if you're not the people in power, sometimes it just feels when you send your email and make your phone call, your voice might not be heard. And so trying to come together and forming a coalition so that you can have a larger voice seems like it would make a lot of sense if you want to push the lever on budget-related issues. Okay, so let's jump into some background and some budget basics before getting deep down into the weeds. Did you want to give, Amy, a sense of what the scale of budgets are at different jurisdictions and then what we're talking about here in Seattle? [00:05:31] Amy Sundberg: Sure. So there are many different government budgets. The biggest one, of course, is the national budget for the United States, which is around $4.4 trillion. So obviously a huge pot of money. Most of that money comes from personal income tax that we all pay every year and also corporate income tax, et cetera, et cetera. Then we have the state budget, which is about $72 billion per year. And then we have the King County budget, which is $6.2 billion per year. So you see, we're kind of getting smaller and smaller as we get into smaller jurisdictions. And then we have the City budget. And city budgets tend to be around $5 to $6 billion per year in total. All of these budgets are made up from various types of taxes and fees, and they each are responsible for funding different services in our communities. [00:06:26] Shannon Cheng: Great. So for the City of Seattle - let's just focus in on that as our example for today's episode. So where does the money for the City of Seattle come from? [00:06:35] Amy Sundberg: If we're talking about - particularly general fund - most of that money would come from property tax, sales tax, and B&O tax, which is a business tax. I think that's about 60% of the funds. And then there are a lot of other very small buckets of money that come in as well to make up the entire amount. [00:06:56] BJ Last: That's a great overview, Amy. And one thing I do want to just mention - so the total Seattle budget is $7.8 billion, but the vast majority of that is stuff that is extremely restricted. For example, we have public utilities. So City Light - that's $1.5 billion - that is all funded by the rates people pay for their electricity. So while that's there in that total number that makes the City's budget look absolutely huge, it's not accessible - the council can't use that to fund things. So the general fund is a much smaller slice of that. It's just about $1.6 billion. And that's the money that the City pretty much has full discretion as to where it decides to go and spend that. [00:07:37] Shannon Cheng: So if I'm understanding it correctly, you're saying Seattle's budget is pretty big, but a large part of it is already appropriated to specific things. So when it comes to these priorities that when people - they're looking around at their city or their neighborhood, and they want things - it's gonna have to come out of this thing you call the general fund. Is that correct? [00:07:57] Amy Sundberg: Yes, that's correct. So most of what we're advocating for every year is general fund dollars. [00:08:04] Shannon Cheng: Okay, and so you are saying, BJ, that the general fund is about $1.6 billion. So what types of things are currently getting funded out of the general fund? [00:08:14] BJ Last: Yeah, that's correct. So it's $1.6 billion. It's - very broadly defined, Public Safety is 47% of it. And that is SPD, also includes the Office of the Inspector General, the CPC, the police pension - those are all four different departments that are in there, that are all cops. The Fire Department and CARE/CSCC, which is the 911 dispatch - which is currently CSCC, may be getting rebranded CARE soon. So that's 47%. The next biggest bucket is Administration and that's 22%. And Administration is kind of a massive catch-all that includes a lot of things - so major expenditures in there are for indigent defense and the City's contract with the King County Jail. So when SPD goes and arrests someone and puts them in there, the City is effectively leasing part of the jail from King County - and that's to pay part of it. And it also includes things like Judgment and Claims Funds, which is for when people are suing the City - that comes out of there, that's housed in that Admin section. And unsurprisingly, that one's also been increasing a lot lately due to lawsuits coming from 2020, which we know what those were. And then the other thing that is anything really is Education & Human Services, and that's about 15% of the general fund. So those three things of Public Safety, Administration, Education & Human Services account for 80% of the general fund. [00:09:39] Shannon Cheng: Wow, so what's left in that 20% that's remaining? [00:09:43] Amy Sundberg: Oh gosh, it's a lot of small things. Libraries, for example, will get funded out of that. A lot of our Transportation actually gets funded through specific levies, so it wouldn't come from general fund. And I think that's true of Parks & Rec as well. But there might be some little bits of money that go to Transportation and Parks & Rec - they have varied funding sources, basically. [00:10:05] Shannon Cheng: Okay, great. So that's the general fund, the discretionary portion of the City of Seattle's budget. So what's happening right now with the process? [00:10:14] Amy Sundberg: When we talk about budget season in Seattle, it's generally just a two-month period in the fall. But really, budget goes on for much of the year - because before the fall, the City departments are having to analyze their budgets and turn in reports to the mayor. And then the Mayor's Office is developing a proposed budget - that's the budget that gets announced at the end of September. At that point, the City Council is able to come in and make their changes that they might wanna see in that proposed budget. So that's where we are right now. First, they review the proposed budget to make sure they understand what's in there and what isn't in there. And then the Budget Chair, who this year is Councilmember Mosqueda, puts together a balancing package - that's a package where she thinks that there is consent amongst the councilmembers, that everyone agrees that these are changes that should be made for the most part. And then each councilmember is given the opportunity to suggest amendments to that balancing package. And they need to get two other councilmembers to sponsor that in order to get those amendments considered. So that's where we are right now - we've just heard the amendments that are being considered. And eventually what will happen is that those amendments will be voted on by the Budget Committee, which is all of the councilmembers to be clear. [00:11:35] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so Mayor Harrell sent over his proposal end of September and we're about a month into the Council's involvement. And this is the budget for next year? [00:11:45] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, for 2024. [00:11:46] BJ Last: So Seattle operates on a biennium budget basis. So last year they set the budget for 2023 and 2024. So this year they're currently doing adjustments to that 2024 budget. And then next year it'll be back to doing the full biennium, where we'll be looking at 2025 and 2026. [00:12:04] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so this is just finishing up last year's work through the end of the year, and just adjusting based on the realities of how much money is coming in and new needs for expenditures. [00:12:15] Amy Sundberg: Theoretically that is the case. Seattle is a little bit less strict about that than some other municipalities. I would say King County is more of a true biennial budget, whereas Seattle's kind of a biennial budget. And I think actually there's been some push to make it more like King County, to make it more of a true biennium. So we'll see what happens with that. [00:12:36] Shannon Cheng: Okay, interesting. Another thing I keep hearing about all the time is this fight over the JumpStart Tax. And I think it'd be good to just lay out very clearly - what is that fight all about? [00:12:47] Amy Sundberg: Yeah, so the JumpStart payroll tax passed in the summer of 2020. And then the council passed a spending plan for it in 2021 to put into statute what exactly the JumpStart Tax is supposed to go to pay for. And just so we're clear on what that spend plan is - 62% of JumpStart funds are supposed to go to affordable housing, 9% to Green New Deal, 9% to Equitable Development Initiative, and 15% to small business. What has happened though - basically, because this was going on in the middle of the pandemic - obviously there was a lot more needs, the City budget was a little messier than maybe normally. So they allowed some of these JumpStart Tax dollars to be spent as a kind of a slush fund for the general fund so that we wouldn't have to have an austerity budget. And the idea was that over time this would transition and eventually all of the JumpStart Tax funds would go to those percentages that I mentioned a moment ago. However, what has ended up happening is that every year - regardless of what mayor we have - every year the mayor will take some of the JumpStart dollars and move it over for general fund purposes, instead of those specific Green New Deal and affordable housing purposes. Every year Council kind of tries to claw back those JumpStart funds to put them into the main purposes they were meant for. Now we're still having some budget issues, so there has been - even for this year - some money that Council agreed could be used from JumpStart funds to fund general fund priorities, especially because JumpStart funds ended up being larger than originally anticipated. So the compromise that was struck was that those extra dollars that we weren't originally expecting can be used to kind of help prop up the general fund. But what ends up happening is sometimes more money beyond that gets pulled from JumpStart into the general fund. And of course, because affordable housing in particular is a large percentage of where that money is supposed to go and is such a priority in the city right now, given our housing crisis, this becomes a big fight every year. [00:15:05] Shannon Cheng: Okay, yeah - that's helpful. So I think I saw - in 2021, the JumpStart Tax generated $234 million. And so that was one of those years where the City and the Council felt that some of that needed to go towards other things than that spend plan that you referenced. And so about 37% of it ended up going to the general fund. And then that leaves a much smaller slice left for addressing those issues that you listed - housing, small business support, Green New Deal, equitable development - which, if people stop and think about - looking around, what are the biggest issues that the City's facing right now? I mean, that's what these are trying to address - the housing crisis, small businesses struggling after the pandemic, needing to do something about climate change in a meaningful way, and then also trying to spread our resources in a more equitable way across residents of the city. And so - to me then - thinking about JumpStart Tax, it's sort of a mini version of a whole budget. Because we had purported values that we stated out when we passed this legislation - saying this is what we want to spend this money on. And then, as with many things, it's the reality of the implementation that lets us see where our priorities truly are. And it sounds like - in 2020, we said very strongly - We need to meaningfully address these issues that we've been in a state of crisis for for a long time, and they've just been getting worse. And people are pointing that out - you see that. What I find really interesting is that the original people who've opposed the JumpStart Tax - so that would be the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Seattle Association - are these the same people who are now pushing to take the money away from JumpStart's original purposes and redirect it towards other things? [00:16:53] BJ Last: Honestly, yes. They're a lot of the people pushing that they want to - I'll use the phrase - "liberate" JumpStart funds so that it can be used as effectively just more general fund backfill. They also haven't entirely given up on fighting JumpStart. As part of the Revenue Stabilization Task Force that was meeting this year, the representatives from the Metro Chamber of Commerce, she made comments of - Hey, we think we should actually pause JumpStart for a year or two - supposedly to help businesses on recovery. So they are still fighting on JumpStart a little. The opponents of JumpStart have much more moved to - they just want it to be more general fund. [00:17:32] Amy Sundberg: And I do think it's important to state also that when we talk about wanting to allow businesses to recover, JumpStart Tax only applies to very large businesses with very high payroll and very highly paid employees. It's not hitting small businesses - that's not how it was set up. [00:17:51] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, previous to JumpStart Tax, there was an attempt to pass the Amazon head tax and that did pass, but then eventually got repealed because of a lot of protest. And I believe the JumpStart Tax came out of a coalition that got built after that failed attempt, which included small business groups - because 15% of the JumpStart revenue is supposed to go towards small business support. Which everybody likes to say - small business is super important to the health and vibrancy of the Seattle economy. But are we willing to put our money where our mouth is on that? I just find it pretty insidious the way that they're approaching this because they oppose the tax to begin with, they're still opposing it now, they wanna pause it. But when they ask for the money to go back to the general fund, it seems like it's going back to a lot of their own interests, such as downtown activation. So not only are they taking the money back for themselves, they're also weakening the implementation of what this tax was originally said to do. People probably heard about this tax when they announced it - there was all sorts of glowing praise of this is gonna address meaningfully these problems that everybody cares about. And yet now, by weakening it and taking money away, we can't spend as much of that money on it. And so obviously, when you look at the results of what the JumpStart Tax has done, it will look like it's less. And so I just really wanna call that out. I also wanna call out that the council that passed the JumpStart Tax in July of 2020 is pretty much the same council we currently have other than Councilmember Nelson who replaced Councilmember González in 2021. And JumpStart Tax passed 7-2. The only two councilmembers who did not vote for it were Councilmembers Juarez and Pedersen. How have they been reacting to all this JumpStart scuffling? [00:19:33] Amy Sundberg: They definitely have been less supportive of increasing the JumpStart Tax in any way - that has been noticeable. [00:19:40] BJ Last: Yeah, they have also been very much on the wanting to just throw the spending plan out the window. Actually, it was Councilmember Pedersen who's the first one that I heard use the expression of "liberate" JumpStart funds - create additional flexibility and disregard that. There are also subtler attempts to pretend that the JumpStart spend plan is very unclear, and so potentially needs to be revisited due to that - even though it's actually an extremely clear spend plan. People just keep trying to violate it - it's not that the plan isn't clear, people just keep asking for stuff that goes outside of that spend plan. [00:20:13] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so then the councilmembers who did vote for it - so those would be Councilmembers Herbold, Morales, Sawant, Strauss, Lewis, and then obviously Councilmember Mosqueda, who spearheaded the effort. Are they staying strong behind the values that they voted for on the JumpStart Tax, or has that kind of squished up since then? [00:20:31] Amy Sundberg: I would say - I mean, you know - it's hard to say what is in their hearts, but I would say it's a mix. I think some of them have stayed pretty strong, and I think others of them have, you know, less so. [00:20:45] Shannon Cheng: Okay, fair enough. I guess I'm just concerned 'cause it sounds like this JumpStart Tax issue will continue to carry on, and it is possible that we will lose its biggest champion on the city council next year. So I just want everybody listening to understand what this fight is about and why it's so important. To me, it kind of comes down to differences in opinion over what is gonna float all the boats in this city, right? I mean, business wants us to believe that if we just pour all the money into business and their interests, that that will just generally help everybody. Whereas what JumpStart was trying to do, I believe, is trying to build from the ground up by providing people housing, trying to spread the resources in a more equitable fashion, tackling climate change, providing good jobs that come out of tackling climate change. And so I just really think this is a fight over shifting decision-making about how we spend our resources from being concentrated with a few powerful interests, and letting more people have a say and access to success and opportunities to do well in this city. [00:21:48] Amy Sundberg: I would say Councilmember Mosqueda in particular has been a stalwart advocate of JumpStart. And as the Budget Chair, she has been in good position every year to counter the attempts to try to use JumpStart as more and more of a City slush fund. So if we lose her on Council at the end of this year, that certainly will make it more concerning going forward in terms of what will happen with JumpStart. I'll also say there is this spend plan. It is in statute currently. That statute could be changed, so it's not like it's protected forever. [00:22:21] Shannon Cheng: All right, so everyone - it's Election Day. Get out and vote - try to think about who's gonna be our next champion for the JumpStart Tax. So moving on, we also keep hearing all this news about an upcoming budget shortfall in 2025. What's happening with that? [00:22:39] Amy Sundberg: So the City of Seattle is facing a massive budget deficit starting in 2025. It is now estimated to be around $251 million deficit, which has gone up based on the mayor's proposed budget. So basically, the mayor's proposed budget this year has made the problem worse - potentially - in upcoming years. $251 million is a lot of money. And so the question is, what are we going to do to address that? There are two main ways to do that. You can make cuts to the budget - spend less money. Or you can pass new progressive revenue that will help fund the budget. We are not allowed by law to have a not balanced budget, so that is not an option - it's not on the table. Or of course you can do a combination of cuts and new progressive revenue. So those are kind of the two levers that councilmembers have to play with. And what is relevant in this budget season right now is speaking about new progressive revenue, because if we want to pass new progressive revenue for the City of Seattle, we would need to plan ahead a little bit. Because it will take some time to implement any new progressive revenue that we might pass - there's a ramp up to getting it done. So if we wanted to have that revenue to rely on for 2025, we would really ideally want to pass things now before the end of the year. [00:24:03] BJ Last: What I'd add on to what Amy mentioned is how we actually ended up getting to this upcoming deficit. Over the last two decades roughly, Seattle's population has grown at a really robust clip. We have all seen that. We have not seen the same growth in the general fund revenues that come in. Property tax increases are limited to - I believe it's at most 1% a year for the city - because sales tax also does not increase. So while we are seeing this really big increase in population, we have not seen the same with our general fund. It has really not moved that much. So it isn't the narrative of - Oh, the city has added a bunch of new pet projects or whatever, and that's where it's come from. It's come from largely - the city has gotten bigger and the general fund growth has not kept up with that. 85% of that upcoming deficit projected is all due to just open labor contracts. The Coalition of City Unions - their contracts are open. SPOG - their contract is also open. Paying Coalition of City Unions, paying the City workers - the people that like literally keep the lights on, fix the roads - of actually going and paying them is where this is coming from. [00:25:06] Amy Sundberg: And especially because inflation rates have been so high the last couple of years, right? So that's - they need a much larger raise than they would need if inflation was not high. [00:25:15] BJ Last: Also on the inflation part - thank you, that's a great call out, Amy - growth of the general fund has not kept up with inflation, especially just these last two years. I think there've even been other years where it hasn't happened, but these last two years in particular, we have not seen the general fund grow at the same rate. So things have gotten more expensive for the city that the general fund has to get spent on, but the dollars coming in the door haven't kept up with that. [00:25:35] Shannon Cheng: Is anything being done about that? Did the mayor propose anything about progressive revenue, or thinking about this upcoming problem? [00:25:42] Amy Sundberg: The mayor did not propose anything having to do with new progressive revenue in fact, which is a decision that he has been critiqued for in the local media. And there certainly has been a fair amount of rhetoric about just tightening our belts, right? But to be clear, $251 million - that's a lot of cuts that would drive us straight into an austerity budget, one would think. So that is where the mayor's office has landed, but there have been a lot of conversations about potential new progressive revenue that started with the task force that BJ mentioned earlier, which was brought together to look at various possibilities of what could be good new revenue sources. And certainly there were people that sat on that task force that had a priority of finding good new progressive sources of revenue in particular, as opposed to regressive taxes that will hurt people who have less more. And they did find some reasonable options that would not require a change in state law, and so could potentially be implemented in time to address the 2025 budget shortfall. So I would say that there are three main possibilities at play right now that are being discussed. One of those is a capital gains tax, so we had a capital gains tax at the state level pass - so far it has survived any legal challenges that it has faced. So it would be possible for the City to institute a tax above that. It would be a fairly small amount, probably 1-2% capital gains tax. Councilmember Pedersen originally was the councilmember who suggested this, and he also suggested that we remove a certain water fee. So it'll be interesting to hear a more robust analysis of that water fee to find out - is that truly a regressive tax? Or with various rebates, et cetera, that are available for people - is it not that regressive a tax? Because if we were to take away that water fee, it would be revenue neutral, so it wouldn't actually assist us with the upcoming deficit. Not to say it's still not worthwhile to talk about, even if that's true, because we want to get rid of more regressive taxes and institute more progressive taxes. So either way, that's a good conversation to have - but it's unclear to me more of the details of that water tax, how regressive it is. So that is an important thing to discover. The other two options have to do with the JumpStart Tax that we were talking about. One of them would be just to increase that JumpStart Tax across - it has a tiered structure right now, so across the tiers to just increase it. Councilmember Sawant has already proposed very, very modest increases in that JumpStart Tax in two of her amendments for the 2024 budget to fund specific priorities. So increasing the JumpStart Tax just full stop is one option. Another really intriguing option that has been discussed is something called a CEO pay ratio tax. This would require corporations that pay their top executives exorbitant amounts to pay an extra tax, or fee, or surcharge. So basically what we could do is use the JumpStart Tax as a vehicle by adding an extra layer to it. So there would be an extra tax that would only apply to corporations that exceed a certain CEO pay ratio. And what I have heard about this tax - again, so it would be fairly easy to implement because you don't have to change state law, you would just add an additional layer to an already existent tax. And what I've heard is that it would collect a significant amount of funds, but I don't have any actual numbers on that. So it will be really interesting to hear an analysis of how much money that could potentially actually bring in. And what Councilmember Mosqueda has announced is that there will be an extra Budget Committee meeting after the main 2024 budget is passed to discuss some of these possibilities at more depth. So they will be discussed earlier in November, kind of as a briefing, and then the councilmembers will meet after the budget is passed to potentially vote on some of these possibilities, if they're not already passed in the 2024 budget. [00:30:09] BJ Last: One thing I wanted to mention - so the Revenue Stabilization Group looked at about 20 different taxes. They did a great write-up that finally made it out in August after having been delayed a few times. The three taxes Amy mentioned - one of the reasons that they're at the top three is how quickly they can get implemented. So, you know, we're currently sitting and recording this - it's November, the budget deficit starts on January 1st, 2025. There is very limited time to go and get an ordinance passed and actually then to have that go into effect - since a new tax doesn't go into effect the day that it is passed - and to make sure that it would survive any legal challenges. So there is even like a broader list of things, but because we have kept putting this conversation off, because the city has sort of kept pushing the can down the road, we don't have very much time to go and pass this. We have about 13, 14 months to get something passed and to start having dollars coming in the door before that deficit hits. [00:31:04] Shannon Cheng: All right, so time is of the essence here. And it sounds like although Mayor Harrell didn't put anything in his proposals to address this, at least Council seems like they're gonna be on it in some fashion. So we'll see what comes of that. Okay, so that's the revenue side of the budget. And I think that's helpful for people to understand, 'cause I think it's much easier to talk about what you want to spend money on rather than where that money is gonna come from. I mean, I know I'm like that in my own life. So maybe we need to talk about what are we gonna spend all this money that we're bringing in on. And earlier in the show, talked about a rough breakdown of the general fund - it sounds like a huge portion of that goes towards public safety, which includes the Fire Department and the Police Department. So is the reason why sometimes it feels like there's so much focus on the police budget because they're kind of the biggest chunk of the budget, so that if you were trying to look for places where we could make some savings, it would be there? [00:32:05] BJ Last: I'd say absolutely. Not only are they the biggest chunk - no other department eats up as big a portion of the general fund as SPD does. So not only that, but they also get absurdly special treatment that no other department gets, where a lot of basic budget practices even just get entirely thrown out the window because it's for SPD. Ghost cops are a great example of this. Ghost cops are positions SPD gets funded for, even though they have no plan, intention, or ability to fill these roles. So these are not people that SPD even thinks they can plan - they have said they aren't going in the plan, there's no desire to, but they still get funding for them year after year. There are like 213 of these now currently sitting around and it works out to be - about $31 million of SPD's budget right now is slush fund on this. And we talked about the upcoming deficit in 2025. So a $250 million roughly - $30 million on these guys - you can see that this is a large percentage of the deficit sitting right there in these ghost positions that councilmembers just don't want to touch. And to give a sort of example of how no one else gets treated this way - where they get to just sort of hold on to this positional authority when they have no ability to fill it. Last year, the city abrogated 24 911-dispatcher positions, which - abrogation means they remove positional authority to it. No one probably heard about this 'cause there wasn't a big kerfuffle because it's normal. Council and the mayor and everyone's like - Well, you guys have said you can't hire these guys for the next two years for the duration of the biennium, so we're just gonna remove positional authority to it. If staffing plans change, we can re-add it. We can also add this back into the 2025 biennium if staffing levels have picked up. And in fact, they actually already are adding back about three of them in the supplemental of - in 2024 now in the budget process because their hiring has picked up. So just using 911 dispatch as an example - the ghost cops, the excess positional authority - no other department gets that. Every other department it is what your staffing plan is - the number of people you actually expect to hire - that is the number of positions you get, and that's the number of positions you get funded for. SPD gets this massive slush fund that they get to go and use on whatever the heck they want. And there was also even a technology one that we saw in the 2022 budget. Truleo - it's a technology - it swears it's like AI, natural language processing of body camera footage. SPD specifically asked for additional money for this program as part of the 2022 budget. Council explicitly did not give them funding for this. They said - We are not funding this program. Then the City found out at the start of this year that SPD actually went ahead and bought Truleo anyway. So they ended up canceling the contract, but it ended up as a thing of - usually if a department goes to a company and says, We need additional money for this project - if they don't get that money and then they find a way to fund that project anyway, it raises a lot of questions. Like, why did you say you needed additional money for this if you could already cover it with your additional budget? And hey, all those other items that you said you needed additional money for, that we gave you additional money for - how many of them did you really need additional money for versus you were just attempting to pad out your budget? So that's one of the reasons why it gets a lot of attention. Not only is it just the biggest percentage of the general fund by a lot, but the absurd special treatment that they get. [00:35:29] Shannon Cheng: So SPD is 26% of the general fund? [00:35:33] BJ Last: SPD itself is 24-26%. That does not include the police pension department - that is a separate pension in there. It does not include the Office of Inspector General and the CPC, the Community Police Commission, even though they are also both part of that. So when you start adding all of those, it goes up even over a quarter. And then when you add in the city attorney's office, municipal courts, indigent defense, jail services - what we're spending on carceral - it's a third of the general fund all ends up sitting there. [00:36:05] Shannon Cheng: Wow, okay. Yeah, I see here - just the Seattle Police Department alone, not all those other things you added on - they're sitting at just under $400 million. So what I'm understanding is these ghost cops are haunting, I guess, the Seattle Police Department budget. [00:36:23] BJ Last: These ghost cop positions - they do haunt the general budget. Amy talked about how we're defunding JumpStart. So it's about $85 million last year, $85 million this year, $85 million next year - that's getting transferred from JumpStart to the general fund. So again, transferred from Green New Deal, affordable housing to the general fund. Because SPD gets a quarter of the general fund, that means that $21 million a year roughly is literally going from affordable housing to SPD and its ghost cops. [00:36:54] Shannon Cheng: Oh man. Okay. So, and then they're taking it, and as you said, spending it on things that they were explicitly told not to spend it on or who knows what else, right? We try to dig in and get more transparency into what's going on, but that can be difficult. And just what BJ was saying about budgeting practices and that SPD is not subject to those at times - so I looked at the King County biennial budget for the same time period from 2023 to 2024. And they have line items across all of their appropriation units, including the Sheriff's Office and the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, that's called a vacancy rate adjustment. And this is exactly what BJ is describing - it's capturing salary savings from them not having been able to hire and being able to put that back into the general budget so that they can use it for other things that there's a need for. And then in addition to that, last biennium for King County, they had an additional line item specifically only for the Sheriff's Office and the Department of Adult Juvenile Detention called Capture Additional Vacancy Savings. And here, I'll just read the line item - it says it's to increase expected savings due to vacancies to account for current unprecedented vacancy level. And, you know, it allows the Sheriff's Office and DAJD to request additional appropriation to reverse it if the vacancy rate reverses and that we're able to magically start hiring a ton of people. I mean, we see that there's kind of a nationwide hiring shortage across every kind of profession, but in police and corrections officers as well. So this is not abnormal, and there was not a giant fight in the King County budget when this happened. Just to give you a sense of the magnitude - just from the original base vacancy rate adjustment, it was $5.3 million from the Sheriff's Office. And that additional vacancy savings was $5.7 million. So this is meaningful money that can be used in other places and not just locked up in the - Oh, well, maybe law enforcement will get to use it. Or maybe when they get close to the end of the spending period, they'll just spend it on something that we didn't all agree that we wanted. [00:39:03] Amy Sundberg: I will say as well that SPD has a very optimistic hiring plan and they never hit it - at least for the last several years that I've been following it, they don't hit it. And this year they actually - the department shrank again. They have a negative total when you add in hires minus attrition. So it's still shrinking in spite of these hiring bonuses that we have no evidence actually works. But these ghost cop positions aren't even part of that. They're ones that even SPD says - We definitely aren't gonna hire that this year. It's not taking away from the hiring plan that SPD wants and thinks they can hire. It's additional positions beyond that. And to be clear, it's a couple hundred additional positions. It's not like four or five. [00:39:50] Shannon Cheng: Okay, thanks. 'Cause I feel like people conflate that a lot - this talk of supporting SPD and public safety and fully funding their hiring plan, which it sounds like that's what has been happening, but then you have this conversation about abrogating these positions or ghost cops. And so you're saying that those are two separate things? [00:40:10] BJ Last: Absolutely. SPD - they always put out incredibly optimistic hiring plans, even by their own terms. So their hiring plan for next year is still that they will end up with - I think it's a record number of hires, like more than they've ever had - hiring 125 cops, I think it is. And with the number of cops leaving slowing down. And they're like - Cool, our full hiring plan for next year is roughly 1,130 cops. And they're currently getting funded for like 1,344 cops, something like that - it's a difference of 213 positions between what they've said they can hire and what they actually plan on trying to hire - between that and what they're actually funded for. [00:40:47] Shannon Cheng: What are the issues in the hiring pipeline? Why is there a limit to the number of officers that they would actually be able to hire? [00:40:54] Amy Sundberg: I mean, there's a lot of factors. Primarily, there aren't enough applicants to begin with - not enough people want to become police officers at SPD. That's an issue. But as well, I just also - the hiring process takes time because they have to go through a series of testing and vetting. And then if they aren't lateral hires - if they're new recruits, then they have to go through the academy. And even once they're done with academy, they go through more training on the job, so they're not really full officers at that point yet. So it just - there's a long ramp to hiring new officers. Lateral officers - SPD has a great interest in hiring them because they've already been a police officer somewhere else. So they can kind of get plugged in more easily, directly into SPD. But they've been having a really difficult time finding lateral hires. So far in 2023 - I forget - it was four, five, or six total lateral hires for the entire year. And they had expected to be able to hire many more. And when asked about it, Chief Diaz said that the candidates simply weren't good enough for them to hire more than that. But somehow magically, they expect the candidates to get better next year if you look at who they expect to hire next year, which I think is interesting. [00:42:09] BJ Last: And I'd also say, Amy, none of that is unique to Seattle at all. It was already touched on - this is not just Seattle Police Department is having trouble hiring, this is police departments everywhere. Fewer people want to become cops. And just like Seattle, it really, really wants lateral hires because it's much shorter. I think the timeline from a new recruit is like 18 months before they are counted as a employable officer, or whatever their term is. The lateral is much shorter. So not only does Seattle want them, every other department wants them. Thing is just - people do not want to be cops as much. We know one of the things that isn't a barrier to hiring at all is pay. The average SPD officer made over $155,000 in 2022, based on the City's wage data. So they are making - the city pays an absolute ton for SPD on the individual officer level. There're the hiring bonuses that have been around that don't do anything. So it's - for these lateral hires, it's 30K that they're getting offered, it's 7,500 for a new recruit. So the city has already tried throwing just buckets and buckets of money to see if that would somehow turn into more people wanting to be cops in Seattle. And it has absolutely positively not worked. And that really needs to be acknowledged - not throwing money at this one - that's not going to change things here. It's not unique to Seattle, it's across everything. And it's also one of the reasons why other cities have moved to actually non-police responses to things. Because we look back - tons and tons of studies - SPD did its own study in 2019 that showed, I think it was 56% of all 911 calls are non-criminal. There was the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform Study that came out in 2021 - showed 80% of all the calls SPD is currently doing don't match anything in the criminal code, and 49% of those calls could immediately go to the community. So one of the reasons other cities are going into non-police responses is because it's what cops actually do - is they respond to non-criminal stuff, that's where they spend all their time. So why on earth are we throwing all of this money at people to show up, and escalate non-criminal situations, and traumatize people? And Seattle has really dragged its heels on that. After having talked about non-police response for years, multiple studies coming out about how little of SPD's calls are actually anything that counts as criminal, how much could go to community - just this last month, they finally launched a dual dispatch, which is SPD responding to stuff. So years later, the city has just refused to move on this item. [00:44:43] Amy Sundberg: I will also add, since we're in the middle of election season - I keep hearing from candidates that what they want to do to fix public safety in Seattle is hire 500 new cops. And I'll just say, your opinion doesn't matter - regardless of your opinion of whether we should hire more cops, whether you want less cops - we are not gonna hire 500 new cops in Seattle anytime soon. It is literally impossible. It is just not gonna happen. So when I hear candidates say that - I mean, it's pie-in-the-sky thinking, it's not a real solution because there are not 500 new cops for us to hire. And also there's, as BJ said, there's the 18 month ramp up to even get someone trained up to become a police officer. So this is just not reality. [00:45:32] Shannon Cheng: Okay, well, speaking of a mismatch between reality and intended outcomes, I keep hearing about this technology called ShotSpotter. I feel like we had a giant debate over it last year, it sounds like it's reared its ugly head again this year. Can you break down what this fight over ShotSpotter is and why it's important? [00:45:54] BJ Last: Sure, so ShotSpotter at a basic level - well, first off, so the company is now called SoundThinking. They did a rebrand because - yeah, the reputation that ShotSpotter has. It's an acoustic gunshot detection service is what it describes itself as - and it is people sitting in a room hundreds of miles away, listening to recordings of loud noises. And then saying whether or not they think that loud noise was a gunshot. That is what ShotSpotter boils down to. Like they swear there's a super fancy AI algorithm, but whatever that AI decides to flag - it goes to people sitting in a room hundreds of miles away, listening to a noise, and saying whether or not they think it was a gunshot. And they have a large financial interest in actually saying everything was a gunshot. Because of how the contracts are written - that there's no guarantees that they won't send a lot of false alerts. The only guarantee that is in there is anything where the police actually find that there was evidence of a gunshot - for 90% of those, ShotSpotter will have given an alert. So it's pretty much if they say that something wasn't a gunshot, and it turns out it was, that then could potentially hurt their contract. If they call every single loud noise a gunshot, that has zero impact on them at all. So people listening to loud noises with an incentive to go and say everything's a gunshot. And you are right - we had this fight just last year, when the city went and asked for it. And what this ask was - was they asked for additional funding, specifically for ShotSpotter, which council declined to give them. They're asking for it again. Of that additional money specifically for ShotSpotter - this additional money piece actually though, has no impact on whether or not the city actually purchases ShotSpotter. In order to purchase a subscription to ShotSpotter - because it's a subscriptions purchase, so it becomes an annual expense every single year - SPD has to go through a Surveillance Impact Report, which is they have to meet with the community, put together what would be a lot of - what would be the impacts of this technology, what does it do, get community feedback, and then council also has to go and approve that. SPD has been able to do this any single day that it's wanted to. It could have started this process. When they first asked for it last year, they could have started this process then. In any of the time between last year's budget and now, they could have started this process. So they have not done that. So they're asking for money - again, for something that they've taken no steps to actually get anywhere close to being able to legally purchase. [00:48:17] Amy Sundberg: I think too - I have a lot to say about ShotSpotter - I've spent way too much of the last several weeks of my life thinking about ShotSpotter. And to be honest, I just - I find it personally painful that we're having this discussion again this year. Because not only is ShotSpotter ineffective, so it's a waste of money - which is bad enough. I mean, we obviously do not have money to waste. But it is actively harmful, to be clear. There are many, many studies that show this. It increases the number of pat-downs, searches, and enforcement actions. It justifies the over-policing of Black, Indigenous, and people of color neighborhoods that they are primarily living in. It leads to unnecessary contact between the police and vulnerable populations. And it also leads to false arrests. There have even been some cases where they've shown that possibly some of the "evidence" - I put that in air quotes - "evidence" has been tampered with in various ways. I mean, this is actively harmful. It is not just a waste of money. And then also, this year is being sold as part of a crime prevention pilot. And let me be clear - gun violence is a huge problem. It's a huge problem in Seattle. It's a huge problem in King County. Frankly, it's a huge problem across the entire country. And I don't want to minimize the impacts of that in any way, but there is no evidence that shows that ShotSpotter decreases gun violence. So people who are desperate, who want a solution to that problem, are being sold ShotSpotter as the solution, but it's not true. And that's what I find so painful, right? Is that there's people who desperately need a solution to this problem, and instead of actually giving them one that might have a chance of working, they're given ShotSpotter as a false hope instead - which I find repugnant, frankly. [00:50:13] BJ Last: Oh yeah - it's incredibly predatory what they do, Amy. They prey on communities that are struggling with issues of gun violence - which is a massive issue, as you said, that really has huge impacts - and they sell them something that just makes things worse. You mentioned on some of the - what happens with some of these alerts - Adam Toledo was one of the most famous examples of this. So Adam Toledo was a 13-year-old that the Chicago police killed because they were responding to a ShotSpotter alert. And they chased after a 13-year-old, and ended up shooting him in an alley when his hands were empty - when there was nothing in his hands. So this is the real harm that does come from this. And again, it is preying off of communities that have been disinvested in and that are dealing with real problems of gun violence and being like - Oh, hey, here's something we swear will make it better. And that goes and makes it worse. [00:51:01] Amy Sundberg: I will also say - we had this fight last year, we're having it again. There've been a few new wrinkles that have been introduced this year that I think are important to address. One of them is that this year, they have proposed that along with the ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot technology, that they include CCTV cameras. And what Senior Deputy Mayor Burgess said during one of these budget meetings was that the combination of these two technologies leads to higher accuracy and also better admissibility in court. However, these claims have not been backed up. We did find a study that shows that, in fact, the combination of these two technologies does not improve accuracy. And Councilmember Herbold asked Tim Burgess for his evidence - What makes you think this? A month after she asked, she says she finally received his answer - which was six reports on CCTV alone with no ShotSpotter technology included so does not, in fact, give any evidence that it makes ShotSpotter better. And one kind of manual suggesting that maybe you could combine these two technologies with no study attached. So the only study we have found says, in fact, it does not improve the accuracy. So I think that's really important to note. There seems to be a certain lack of regard from certain quarters for actually looking at the evidence - that I find sad, frankly. And another wrinkle that I'll mention is that BJ talked about the Surveillance Ordinance - the report that they would have to do in order to implement ShotSpotter. In the original proposal from the mayor's office, they asked to do one report - so each report, you have to do a racial equity analysis as part of that report - and they asked to only do one report. But this is mobile technology, so you can pick up the camera and the ShotSpotter tech and you can move it to a different neighborhood. So they would only be doing their racial equity analysis in the original neighborhoods that it was going to be placed, and then they could pick it up and move it to any other neighborhood without having to do another racial equity analysis, which I think is deeply problematic because different neighborhoods are different. And a lot of the neighborhoods that they were talking about originally using this technology on are primarily white. And my concern would be - what if they picked it up and moved it to a community that wasn't primarily white, but didn't have to do a racial impact report on that. That is deeply troubling. And I will say Councilmember Mosqueda, in her balancing package, addressed this problem and said - No, you should do a racial equity impact for each time you move it. So hopefully we won't buy ShotSpotter at all, but hopefully that change will stay if we do - because I think you can't do one impact report for a neighborhood, and then move it somewhere completely different and expect that report to have any validity. [00:54:09] Shannon Cheng: So ShotSpotter doesn't address the problem it's claiming to try to solve. In fact, it sounds like it might be making things worse. And so they're asking this year for about $1.8 million, but what do we know from other cities - once you buy a pilot, this $1.8 million this year, what happens after that? [00:54:28] BJ Last: It's a subscription service. So even if you wanted to maintain the same amount or the same coverage area, you are spending that every single year. So this is, would be an ongoing expense. And that's also assuming the ShotSpotter doesn't change its rates. And then if you decided to expand the footprint of where it is, that's gonna add what you're spending every single year. So it is very much just an ongoing expense into a budget that as we said - hey, is already facing a substantial general fund deficit for something that does not address a serious problem. [00:55:00] Amy Sundberg: And the company SoundThinking - I mean, their business model is to persuade cities to expand. So it would not be surprising to me if we were to start this pilot - if in a few years we were spending more like $10 million on ShotSpotter, that would not shock me. [00:55:16] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so it's - this year, we're trying to decide whether to dip a toe into this ShotSpotter technology, but it could lead to larger expenditures in future years if this initial pilot gets funded further. [00:55:34] BJ Last: Absolutely. And also the ShotSpotter company SoundThinking - they do a lot of other surveillance items. They recently bought PredPol, which is nominally predictive policing, that has all the absolute racial bias issues that you probably imagine the moment that a company said that they can sell you predictive policing. So odds are it would not even be staying at just ShotSpotter - of microphones listening for loud noises - that SoundThinking would be trying to then expand to all of their other horrible, dystopian, incredibly biased technology. [00:56:05] Shannon Cheng: Yay. [00:56:07] Amy Sundberg: It's really concerning, right? I think a lot of people want to hold up technology as this panacea - where it will fix everything. And that is not always the case. And in this case, I would argue it is not at all the case. And there are actually things that we could be investing in that might address the issue much more effectively. [00:56:28] BJ Last: Yeah, like the things that are proven to work on this are low tech items - they're violence interruption programs, resourcing communities, things like that that are actually shown to reduce gun violence. [00:56:39] Amy Sundberg: Even physical changes in the environment have been shown to have a significant effect - like adding more lighting, for example. [00:56:47] Shannon Cheng: So those are some of the big fights over public safety, which - they're really important. Unfortunately, I also feel like they often overshadow some of the other big fights that might be going on - just there's a lot of rhetoric right now about public safety, especially with the ongoing election. So what are some of the other big budget fights that you're seeing in this year's deliberations? [00:57:05] BJ Last: Well, I'd say a lot of those fights are actually also public safety items. Like there are fights on School Safety Traffic and Pedestrian Improvement, SSTPI fund - so that's been getting cut. That is safe routes for kids to walk and bike to school - Vision Zero stuff is also getting cut. We're fighting really to stop that. And so far, at least 22 pedestrians have been killed while walking, biking, or rolling. So that is absolutely a public safety item, I would say. Same with - there are currently amendments to undo the cuts to food safety. The proposed budget cut about $950,000 from food security, so that was 650K roughly for food banks and 300K for food access. I would very much say that food access is also very much a public safety item. I think there was even a French musical, Les Mis - didn't that have a lot to do with an entire revolution because people couldn't afford bread and were hungry? [00:57:58] Amy Sundberg: There also is a fight about funding behavioral health services at Tiny House villages. Right now, that funding is a lot less than it was in 2023 for 2024. And the reason why that's important is because having this funding allows Tiny House villages to house people with higher acuity needs. But if they don't have those services available, then those people can't live there. So, I mean, that's a huge issue. And there are a couple amendments to address that - one of them would take the ShotSpotter money and use it instead to pay for that, which I think is a great use of that money. And there also are fights about pay wages for human service workers - to make sure that all human service workers are getting inflationary increase and a 2% raise on top of that, a true 2% raise on top of that. There have been various little fiddly things regarding that - some of those workers were not covered because they're technically paid through King County or with federal money. But they're still doing the job every day, they still deserve that full 2% raise. So there are amendments that are working to address that shortfall to make sure that those folks get paid a fair wage. [00:59:08] BJ Last: Yeah, and on the 2% raise for human service providers, there's a pay equity study that the University of Washington released - I think it was February this year - that found human service workers in Seattle are underpaid by 37%. So 2% is just a drop in the bucket compared to what we, a city-funded study by UW found that they are currently underfunded by. There was even a resolution passed that wants to increase their wages by 7% by 2025, so this is a small item just trying to move inline with that resolution and to also make progress towards that study. 'Cause again - underpaid by 37% is huge and that impacts people's ability to actually provide services. One other item I'll throw out - there was also a cut in the budget to ADA accessibility. The reason that the City specifically funds this

On this Tuesday topical show, Crystal chats with Maritza Rivera about her campaign for Seattle City Council District 4. Listen and learn more about Maritza and her thoughts on: [01:06] - Why she is running [04:46] - Lightning round! [19:29] - What is an accomplishment of hers that impacts District 4 [22:51] - Response to ARTS staff letter complaints [24:58] - City budget shortfall: Raise revenue or cut services? [29:02] - Public Safety: Alternative response [31:24] - Victim support [33:33] - Housing and homelessness: Frontline worker wages [34:49] - Climate change [36:56] - Transit reliability [39:15] - Bike and pedestrian safety [39:52] - Small business support [41:43] - Childcare: Affordability and accessibility [43:40] - Difference between her 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 Maritza Rivera at https://maritzaforseattle.com/.   Maritza Rivera Maritza is running to make restoring our public safety system a priority because she knows from personal experience that failing to take public safety seriously harms low-income and underserved communities the most. She won't rest until we get to 5-minute response times for priority 911 calls, take home and car break-ins seriously, get guns off our streets and out of our schools and shut down open-air drug markets. Maritza loves Seattle, the small businesses, food, arts, music, and diverse populations that make up our city's rich fabric. Maritza is committed to listening to everyone and working with everyone – to find real solutions to real challenges we cannot ignore any longer.   Resources Campaign Website - Maritza Rivera   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 pleased to be welcoming a candidate for Seattle City Council District 4 to the program - welcome, Maritza Rivera. [00:01:01] Maritza Rivera: Thank you, Crystal. Thanks for having me on the program today. [00:01:05] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, I wanted to start off by hearing why you are running. [00:01:12] Maritza Rivera: Thank you for the question, Crystal. I'm running because I'm a mom of two teenage daughters who go to Ingraham High School, where - sadly, and I'm sure you know, and everyone else by now knows - there was a shooting in the fall last November. And a student got killed by another student. And our kids were all in lockdown for hours. And as I was sitting - not sitting, standing - at the parking lot waiting for the kids to come out and my girls to come out, it was, you know, a frightening experience. And I thought, you know, the public safety issues in Seattle right now are such that I can't sit around and watch what's happening. And when our current councilmember, Alex Pedersen, decided not to run again, I thought - I have 30 years of public service, I have something I can offer the city council, and I can't sit around and watch - I have to try to do something. You know, I grew up in New York City in the Bronx, in a mainly Black and brown neighborhood - and it was low-income and it wasn't safe. You know, we were safe in our homes, but it wasn't safe walking to and from school. And I moved to Seattle 22 years ago because it was so safe and vibrant and beautiful - and I thought what a great place it would be to start and raise a family, and we did that. And then fast forward - you know, things have really changed in Seattle - and, you know, I got into the race to address what I think is most urgent right now, which is the public safety issues across the city that the D4 is also experiencing, like the, you know, the shooting at my daughter's school, like the - daughters' school - the, there are home break-ins and car break-ins, the businesses on the commercial corridors of the D4 are suffering. Those small businesses - they're getting their windows broken into, there're folks using drugs blocking their entryways. So, you know, these are all the issues - there've been shootings in this neighborhood apart from the school shooting. And so we really need to address that. And, you know, we need to do various things on the, you know, unhoused folks - we need to get folks off the street. I think it's inhumane to leave people living on the street where there's no sanitation and amenities, where women and youth are particularly vulnerable. Lots of folks in those encampments are vulnerable to, you know, the drug dealers who are preying on these folks. We really got to get them indoors. We need to provide services - both mental health and drug addiction services - but we need to have folks off the streets. You know, we need to do better that way. And so for all these reasons, I thought - you know, I'm going to get into this race and I'm gonna do what I can to help get our city back on track. I think the mayor's doing a great job, but he needs a city council that's gonna work with him to actually accomplish positive change. [00:04:45] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Well, we are going to add a different element into this than we have in some of our prior years' candidate interviews and do a little lightning round here in the interview. Pretty quick and painless - but just some quick yes or no, or quick answer questions. So starting off - This year, did you vote yes on the King County Crisis Care Centers levy? [00:05:08] Maritza Rivera: Yes. [00:05:09] Crystal Fincher: This year, did you vote yes on the Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services levy? [00:05:13] Maritza Rivera: Yes. [00:05:14] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote in favor of Seattle's Social Housing Initiative 135? [00:05:21] Maritza Rivera: That's the PDA [Public Development Authority]? [00:05:24] Crystal Fincher: Yes. [00:05:25] Maritza Rivera: No. [00:05:26] Crystal Fincher: In 2021, did you vote for Bruce Harrell or Lorena González for Mayor? [00:05:30] Maritza Rivera: Bruce Harrell. [00:05:32] Crystal Fincher: In 2021, did you vote for Nicole Thomas Kennedy or Ann Davison for Seattle City Attorney? [00:05:38] Maritza Rivera: Ann Davison. [00:05:39] Crystal Fincher: In 2022, did you vote for Leesa Manion or Jim Ferrell for King County Prosecutor? [00:05:46] Maritza Rivera: Oh my God. I'm so sorry, I'm having a - Leesa Manion, Jim - I can't remember, Crystal. [00:06:04] Crystal Fincher: Okay. In 2022, did you vote for Patty Murray or Tiffany Smiley for US Senate? [00:06:10] Maritza Rivera: Patty Murray. [00:06:12] Crystal Fincher: Do you rent or own your residence? [00:06:15] Maritza Rivera: Own. [00:06:16] Crystal Fincher: Should parking enforcement be housed within SPD? [00:06:24] Maritza Rivera: I don't have an opinion on that one. [00:06:27] Crystal Fincher: Are you a landlord? [00:06:30] Maritza Rivera: We are. [00:06:31] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to require landlords to report metrics, including how much rent they're charging, to better help plan housing and development needs in the district? [00:06:47] Maritza Rivera: You know, I'm gonna say maybe on that one. [00:06:51] Crystal Fincher: Are there instances where you support sweeps of homeless encampments? [00:06:57] Maritza Rivera: I, you know, we need to get people off the streets. So I do support getting folks off the streets and into sheltering. [00:07:09] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to provide additional funding for Seattle's Social Housing Public Development Authority? [00:07:17] Maritza Rivera: And that one also, I would say maybe, because it depends on - the reason I didn't vote for it was because I feel like we have all these programs for housing and I need to see, you know, where are we with what the investments we're already making before we add another thing. So I just have concerns about adding something else before we know what we're doing with the current investments that we have. But I think that, you know, it passed. So it doesn't matter, you know, it's the law of the land and I respect that. And I think that we should have - you know, let them do a, let us do a project - let us invest in a project and see how it goes. And if it's successful, then great - we should keep funding it. [00:08:07] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with King County Executive Constantine's statement that the King County Jail should be closed? [00:08:20] Maritza Rivera: You know, to be honest, Crystal - I don't know enough about why he's, you know, he's making the recommendation to close it to be able to answer yes or no on that one. [00:08:31] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Would you vote to allow police in schools? [00:08:37] Maritza Rivera: Depends what kind of police. Like I think if it's community police officers and if it's in a - you know, what the details around it is - I think I might support something like that, but it just depends what it is. [00:08:53] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to allow any armed presence in schools? [00:08:59] Maritza Rivera: Armed presence. I don't think we need armed presence in schools, but I do need - I think we need to make the relationship between, you know, our youth and schools and the police more - you know, a better relationship. [00:09:16] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget for a civilian-led mental health crisis response? [00:09:25] Maritza Rivera: I would have to see what that looks like. Civilian-led without any experience working with mental health folks - I'm sorry, with folks that are experiencing mental health crisis - like, I mean, you need mental health professionals to work with folks. So if it's in conjunction working with the mental health professionals, perhaps. But folks experiencing mental crisis really need a mental health professional. [00:09:54] Crystal Fincher: Okay, and for these, we're going for quick yes, no, or maybe answers. We have a whole section to talk about all the details. So I promise you - you'll get the ability to explain yourself on topics in a fuller way after we get done with this. Do you support allocation in the City budget to increase the pay of human service workers? [00:10:14] Maritza Rivera: Sorry, can you repeat the question? [00:10:17] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget to increase the pay of human service workers? [00:10:25] Maritza Rivera: Maybe. [00:10:27] Crystal Fincher: Do you support removing funds in the City budget for forced encampment removals and instead allocating funds towards a Housing First approach? [00:10:42] Maritza Rivera: Most, I mean, maybe, Crystal. Again, we need to look at what the proposal - these are hard to answer yes or no because without the details, it's hard to say on some of these. [00:10:54] Crystal Fincher: Do you support abrogating or removing the funds from unfilled SPD positions and putting them toward meaningful public safety measures? [00:11:06] Maritza Rivera: We need to hire more police officers. So, I mean, taking money away from being able to do that, and you can't do the money- [00:11:16] Crystal Fincher: Right, this isn't for hiring police officers. This is money that was allocated for unfilled positions that were then not hired yet. So in this year's budget - where there is money there for them to be hired, but they weren't hired yet. [00:11:29] Maritza Rivera: Yeah, but it's not ongoing funding. So, you know, that's a maybe - because if it's, you're funding something temporarily, but then once you hire the officers, you're not gonna have the money to redirect the resources. So if you're saying the funds for this year's budget that haven't been used, and it's a one-time thing- [00:11:51] Crystal Fincher: Well, there would still be money for hiring in successive budgets. It's just if they didn't use it in the current year. [00:11:55] Maritza Rivera: Correct - current, but I mean - yeah. [00:11:57] Crystal Fincher: So you think it should be saved and added to the next budget? Is that- [00:12:01] Maritza Rivera: No, no - what I'm saying is if you're gonna use it for a one-time investment in something, then that's fine. But if it's not for ongoing - if you need to hire the officers, right? 'Cause the problem, Crystal, is sometimes - you know, if you're investing in something, that thing you're investing in, if it's a community thing, that needs ongoing investment as well. So I just wanna differentiate - if we're not using it this year, then we should redirect it to something else, like the budget in general of the City. But then it has to be something that's a one-time because then for the following year, you're gonna need it to fund the thing you originally- [00:12:44] Crystal Fincher: Yes. [00:12:44] Maritza Rivera: -fund, right? [00:12:45] Crystal Fincher: And that is a useful differentiation. [00:12:48] Maritza Rivera: Yeah. [00:12:48] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocating money in the City budget for supervised consumption sites? [00:12:56] Maritza Rivera: I would support - you know, I've had- [00:12:58] Crystal Fincher: Going for a yes, no, or maybe, yes, no, or maybe. [00:13:01] Maritza Rivera: Well, maybe on that, but- [00:13:04] Crystal Fincher: Okay. [00:13:05] Maritza Rivera: More leaning toward no, because I think the Fire Department actually has a better solution that I would support instead of consumption sites. [00:13:14] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Do you support increasing funding in the City- [00:13:16] Maritza Rivera: I'm sorry, the Fire Department, did I say Fire? [00:13:18] Crystal Fincher: I think you said that. [00:13:21] Maritza Rivera: Okay, great. [00:13:22] Crystal Fincher: Do you support increasing funding in the City budget for violence intervention programs? [00:13:28] Maritza Rivera: Yes. [00:13:29] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't give the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of Inspector General subpoena power? [00:13:40] Maritza Rivera: I need more information about that, Crystal. [00:13:43] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't remove limitations as to how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian? [00:13:53] Maritza Rivera: I need more information about the SPOG contract. So anything related to that. [00:14:00] Crystal Fincher: Okay. So again, opposing a SPOG contract that impedes the ability of the City to move police funding to public safety alternatives? Again, not enough information? [00:14:12] Maritza Rivera: Can you tell me the question again? Sorry. [00:14:18] Crystal Fincher: Sure. Do you oppose a SPOG contract that impedes the ability of the City to move police funding to public safety alternatives? [00:14:32] Maritza Rivera: So take money away from the police department to put into police alternatives. [00:14:38] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that prohibits, or impedes, or makes harder the ability of the city to move police funding to public safety alternatives? [00:14:53] Maritza Rivera: Yeah, I do need more information. [00:14:55] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Do you support eliminating in-uniform off-duty work by SPD officers? [00:15:04] Maritza Rivera: Ask me again - sorry - do I? [00:15:07] Crystal Fincher: Do you support eliminating in-uniform off-duty work by SPD officers? So if they're working - doing parking duty, or traffic direction duty - off-duty. Or if they're working in a security capacity off-duty. Do you support eliminating their ability to do that in SPD uniform? [00:15:37] Maritza Rivera: I need more information about that too, Crystal. These are very detailed. [00:15:45] Crystal Fincher: They're specific questions. [00:15:47] Maritza Rivera: Very specific - correct. [00:15:49] Crystal Fincher: Yes. 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? [00:15:58] Maritza Rivera: Yes, I support that. [00:16:00] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans people can use bathrooms and public facilities that match their gender? [00:16:05] Maritza Rivera: Yes. [00:16:06] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with the Seattle City Council's decision to implement the JumpStart Tax? [00:16:14] Maritza Rivera: Yes. [00:16:16] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to reduce or divert the JumpStart Tax in any way? [00:16:24] Maritza Rivera: Need more information about that - it depends. [00:16:27] Crystal Fincher: Are you happy with Seattle's newly built waterfront? [00:16:34] Maritza Rivera: I mean, as a user of the waterfront, I think it's a great project. Obviously, I don't have the details of the investments that are being made and how things are getting completed, but I think it's a great project for the city. [00:16:53] Crystal Fincher: Do you believe return to work mandates like the one issued by Amazon are necessary to boost Seattle's economy? [00:17:02] Maritza Rivera: Yes, absolutely. [00:17:05] Crystal Fincher: Have you taken- [00:17:06] Maritza Rivera: We need to get folks back into the office if we're gonna get downtown back on track. [00:17:11] Crystal Fincher: Have you taken transit in the past week? [00:17:14] Maritza Rivera: Yes. Light rail. [00:17:15] Crystal Fincher: Have you ridden a bike in the past week? [00:17:19] Maritza Rivera: No. [00:17:20] Crystal Fincher: Should Pike Place Market allow non-commercial car traffic? [00:17:25] Maritza Rivera: Actually, I would like to see it closed off to non-commercial, which is a proposal - I know - that's being floated around. [00:17:34] Crystal Fincher: Should significant investments be made to speed up the opening of scheduled Sound Transit light rail lines? [00:17:42] Maritza Rivera: Sorry, ask again. [00:17:43] Crystal Fincher: Should significant investments be made to speed up the opening of scheduled Sound Transit light rail lines? [00:17:50] Maritza Rivera: Yes, we should do all we can to finish the extensions. [00:17:56] Crystal Fincher: Should we accelerate the elimination of the ability to turn right on red lights to improve pedestrian safety? [00:18:04] Maritza Rivera: Yes. [00:18:05] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever been a member of a union? [00:18:08] Maritza Rivera: I haven't personally, but my dad was when I was growing up. [00:18:15] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to increase funding and staffing for investigations into labor violations like wage theft and illegal union busting? [00:18:24] Maritza Rivera: I definitely support that. [00:18:27] Crystal Fincher: So you would vote to increase funding? [00:18:30] Maritza Rivera: I mean, I support doing it. I can't say - I mean, I don't know what the current, where we currently are with that work at OLS [Office of Labor Standards], but I definitely support it. And if we need more funding, then we need to look - figure out how to get it. [00:18:47] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever walked on a picket line? [00:18:49] Maritza Rivera: Yes. No - like walked with the picketers. [00:18:53] Crystal Fincher: Supporting. Supporting the picketers, yes. [00:18:56] Maritza Rivera: Supporting - yes. [00:18:57] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever crossed a picket line? [00:19:04] Maritza Rivera: No. [00:19:05] Crystal Fincher: Is your campaign staff unionized? [00:19:12] Maritza Rivera: Campaign - no. [00:19:13] Crystal Fincher: If your campaign staff wants to unionize, will you voluntarily recognize their effort? [00:19:19] Maritza Rivera: Yes. [00:19:21] Crystal Fincher: Well, that's the end of our lightning round. Pretty painless, there we go. So back to other questions. Lots of people look to work you've done to get a feel for what you prioritize and how qualified you are to lead. Can you describe something you've accomplished or changed in your district, and what impact that has had on residents there? [00:19:44] Maritza Rivera: I've worked - so I've worked at the City for a number of years now - I just resigned from my position as Deputy Director in the Office of Arts and Culture, where I primarily was in charge of getting our budget through the budget process. And prior to that, I was in Mayor Durkan's administration - worked in the Mayor's office and worked with a portfolio of City departments - a lot of it related to their budgets and reviewing of their budgets. So I think in general - not just in the D4, but across the city - I've been involved in reviewing department budgets and working to make sure and bring accountability to those budgets. And making sure that I was implementing the mayor's - and the city council, when they passed the budget - implementing the programs and the services that were passed in the budget. So like I'll say most recently, 'cause I was just at ARTS, there was recovery funding for arts organizations and artists across the city. And I worked - our staff did a great job - and I worked with our staff to get those dollars out the door as quickly as possible, particularly post-pandemic. And the department gives grants out to organizations, arts organizations, across the city. So we work to make sure and we were getting those grants out as quickly as possible. So I think these are things that are not just specific to the D4, but do include the D4. True, in the Durkan administration - unfortunately, we were in a pandemic. And one thing that I feel really proud of is - I worked on reopening of the farmers markets after everything was shut down. It was really the first thing that was opened, and I worked with the farmers markets across the city - including the one at the University District - to make sure that they opened it safely during that post-pandemic, not post-, but during the pandemic, actually - I shouldn't say post-pandemic - during that pandemic time. And I'm really proud of the work that I did there because the farmers market was open and available to the residents here in the D4. And I'm proud to say there were no outbreaks at the farmers markets because we were following the public health guidelines, and working with the farmers markets' leaders who did a great job in putting the guidelines - following the guidelines and making sure that they were doing all they could to make sure that there were no outbreaks so we could continue to keep the markets open. [00:22:51] Crystal Fincher: I wanted to ask more about your time at ARTS because there was reporting related to your time there saying that 26 out of 40 ARTS staff at the time signed a letter really detailing complaints against you, highlighted by three - that leadership disregarded City policies, that there was a toxic work environment, and that the staff's ability to do its work for the community was hindered. With over half of the employees there signing their name to this letter publicly and this being handed over to the Ombuds office with their concerns, how do you respond to this? Do you think that accurately reflects your time there? Were there any thing that these employees said that to you was something that you could improve or reflect on? [00:23:39] Maritza Rivera: I'll say, Crystal, that the mayor brought in Director, or former Director - or former Interim Director - royal alley-barnes to direct the office. She, in turn, brought me on - I was backfilling for someone at the time. And, you know, I know that staff - you know, every time there's change of leadership, staff has - some staff have a hard time. And so - you know, we, I feel really proud of the work that I did while I was at ARTS. And I have a lot of respect for the folks that work there. I know change is hard, but we worked together and we were able to get a lot accomplished, and I feel really proud of my personal work while I was at ARTS. [00:24:36] Crystal Fincher: As you consider those allegations in your time there, is there anything to you that you could have done differently to change that outcome? [00:24:47] Maritza Rivera: Again, I just feel really proud of the work that we were accomplished - I mean, that we accomplished together. That's - you know, I feel proud of the work there. [00:24:58] Crystal Fincher: Well, I wanna ask you about the budget, because the City of Seattle is projected to have a $224 million budget shortfall in 2025. The City's mandated to pass a balanced budget, so the options to address this are either raise revenue, cut services, or some combination of those two. Which one of those will be your approach to the budget? [00:25:22] Maritza Rivera: Yeah, thank you for the question, Crystal - and obviously this comes up a lot. First and foremost, I think we need to look at the budget and make sure that we are accountable to the dollars that we're currently investing. So I say that, to say - we need to look at the programs that are being funded and make sure that they're having the outcomes that we intended - because part of budgeting is making sure that the money that you're using is being well spent. And you don't know that if you don't know what outcomes you're getting - How many folks are you helping? Is it really helping? Does the community feel like it's helping? And so we need to do the reviewing of those programs in each of those departments to make sure that the programs that we're funding are actually, like I said, having the intended outcomes. If they are, then we should continue them. If they're not, then we should redirect the resources to something different that will have the outcomes that we're intending. So we need to engage in that exercise before then we look at - excuse me - raising revenue. And so that, to me, is really important - the accountability piece. I feel really strongly - I mean, my dad was a blue collar worker and he paid taxes, and I just, I'm very sensitive - people work really hard for their money and we wanna make sure that we're spending their money, we're accountable to those dollars. And then once we do that exercise, then we can look toward - if we need to raise revenue, then we can look at how we would do that. But I do feel like the accountability piece is really important and it's been missing. [00:27:18] Crystal Fincher: Well, I do wanna get into more specifics here because that is not a small budget cut - pretty significant - so unless that review winds up with some pretty steep cuts or that's the outcome - that will end up, there will also need to be revenue. There were some options presented by a revenue workgroup. Do you support revenue options, and which ones do you see yourself supporting or advocating? [00:27:44] Maritza Rivera: Yeah, Crystal - I can't say now which ones I would support. You know, I'd have to, I'd look at it and see and talk to, you know, folks. And see and then talk to my colleagues and see what makes sense for the city - and talk to the mayor, obviously, as well. So we need to do this working together. We need to find these solutions working together as a city council and working with the mayor. So I can't say today which ones I would support, but I will say that we need to work together to look at which ones make the most sense for the city. [00:28:25] Crystal Fincher: Are there any of the recommendations that you would not support, or what would be the priority revenue options or what you'd be most likely to support? [00:28:36] Maritza Rivera: I don't have - I can't say today what that would be. [00:28:41] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so nothing from the workgroup that you've heard makes it to the top of the list? [00:28:48] Maritza Rivera: There's nothing today that - I wouldn't prioritize it right now. I'd wanna have conversations about it. [00:28:54] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. I do wanna talk about- [00:28:56] Maritza Rivera: I haven't met with the workgroup and I haven't had the opportunity to have those conversations. [00:29:01] Crystal Fincher: I see. When it comes to public safety, several jurisdictions around the country and in our region have rolled out alternative response programs to better support those having a behavioral health crisis or other issues, but Seattle has stalled in implementing what's a widely-supported idea. Money's been allocated, but it has not been implemented yet. Where do you stand on non-police solutions to public safety issues? And what are your thoughts on civilian-led versus co-response models? [00:29:32] Maritza Rivera: Well, I think that we need to support alternative responses because we know that, in certain cases, a police officer is not trained to handle a situation - but a mental health or social provider or social worker's in a better position to, is trained to respond to those situations and be able to deescalate. In terms of - you know, I think the non-police solutions where there's a co-response - sometimes that's appropriate and that's what we, you know, should support. You know, I think the Health One model is a great model - it's proven to be successful and it's one that we should look to invest more in. Those are the kinds of models that I think have proven results to work and something that we should look at expanding. And then, also - I mean, in terms of in the community - when the police budget got cut, things like the police, the community policing efforts, also - those are the things that kind of go first. And I think those are a really great way of working with community in the neighborhoods to really do, to handle, to address the public safety issues. And so I think that we need to go back to basics that way and make sure that all our neighborhoods have that community policing - community police and those neighborhoods working on the ground with the community folks to address the public safety issues in the neighborhoods. [00:31:24] Crystal Fincher: Now, I do wanna talk about victims and survivors. We talk a lot about victims - people who have been impacted by crime or who have been harmed - but most of what we hear are people speaking for victims or over victims. And we don't often listen to what they're saying, and what they say mostly is that - one, they wanna make sure that what happened to them doesn't happen to them or anyone else ever again. And they want better support, more effective support, in helping to get beyond what happened to them - to help mitigate the harm that occurred, whether it's from an assault or a theft or you name it, some help getting beyond that. What can you do, in your capacity as a city councilperson to better support and help victims or people who have been harmed? [00:32:19] Maritza Rivera: I mean, I think - I mean, we need to listen to folks and we need to listen to - you know, we need to listen to their experiences and we need to listen to, you know, their needs. I think that about victims and also survivors - and just in general, as a city councilmember, your job is to listen to your residents in your - to the residents in your district, in this case district. It used to be they weren't district positions, right? They were citywide. But now you need to listen to folks in your district and make sure that you are, you know, not operating in a vacuum when you are doing the work because really, ultimately, the work is to support the residents of the city. And so that includes victims as well - listening and listening to what their needs are, because you need to be well-informed when you are making these decisions that have an impact across the city. [00:33:33] Crystal Fincher: One thing called out by experts as a barrier to the homelessness response is that frontline worker wages don't cover the cost of living - causing staffing issues, impacting the level of service. 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? [00:33:59] Maritza Rivera: Yeah, absolutely - I think the nonprofits need to make sure that they're paying living wages to the folks that they hire, in the same way that the City does. And, you know, I mean, I think with the bids - that's an area where you can, as you're working with these providers and nonprofits, making sure that you're setting up funding models that require nonprofits and providers to support workers and make sure that they're paying living wages to their workers. [00:34:49] Crystal Fincher: Now, on almost every measure, we're behind on our 2030 climate goals, while we're experiencing devastating impacts from extreme heat and cold, wildfires, floods locally and around the globe. What are your highest priority plans to get us on track to meet 2030 goals? [00:35:09] Maritza Rivera: Yeah, I think my biggest priority in terms of the climate is really on the transportation front. I think - you know, I came from a city where we had a robust transportation system and it meant that I didn't have a driver's license 'til I was 30 years old because I - and I took public transit everywhere. So, you know, Seattle - we need to be investing in a transportation system that's on par and competitive with other cities across the country. And, you know, we've lagged behind - it's taken us a long time to get even where we are, but we need to go further. And it really - I think, is one of the best ways that you can address climate change - is to get people out of their cars and using public transportation. And so I support, you know, the light rail, buses. We really need to get folks, you know, utilizing these services, but we can only do so if we have a robust service. And so we really need to focus on investments in the transportation. So, you know, like Move, the Move Seattle Levy's coming up next year - or not coming up, but, you know, renewal, hopefully. The council, whoever's sitting council, will vote to renew it and put it on the ballot again for folks in the city. But I really do think that we need to continue and we need to expand on the transportation investments, so we can have a robust system that folks will utilize and we can get folks out of their cars. [00:36:56] Crystal Fincher: One major issue that people are saying is preventing them from getting out of their cars right now is transit reliability. Because of staffing shortages, other issues - the reliability of buses has been tanking with buses not showing up when they're scheduled, routes being suspended, some being canceled - and really putting people who are currently riding in a bind, forcing some of them out of transit and into cars. Now, Sound Transit is a regional entity and King County Metro is a county entity, but as you talked about with the Move Seattle Levy and other things, the City does impact transit service in the city. So what can you, as a city councilmember, do to stabilize transit reliability? [00:37:43] Maritza Rivera: Yeah, well, we need to work in partnership with Sound Transit and the county to make sure that we are providing a service to residents that is robust and reliable. But we can only do so if we have strong partnerships, because to your point - we make investments, but Sound Transit is the entity that's responsible for implementing, right? So we need to have really strong partnerships with these entities. And I will say reliability is a huge issue, but I'm gonna say my experience is public safety is a huge issue as well. Right now, public safety, in my opinion, has impacted people's not wanting to take the light rail and buses. And then we've also seen bus drivers that have been impacted because of folks doing drugs on the buses and the light - well, bus drivers on the buses and the operators on the light rail. So we need to do, we need - I think public safety is an equally important piece to address when we're looking at trying to increase ridership of the light rail and buses across the city. [00:39:10] Crystal Fincher: How would you- [00:39:11] Maritza Rivera: And we need to work with our partners on that as well. [00:39:14] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. How would you improve pedestrian and bicycle safety? [00:39:20] Maritza Rivera: We need to make sure we have the robust bike lanes and we need to do things like the signal - I don't know what you call it - but the signal, when it changes, it lets the pedestrian, it gives some time for the pedestrian to cross before it changes for the driver. And so we need to do more of that across the city. We have that in certain places, but it's not robust. And so we need to do that - those kinds of things - to promote pedestrian and bike safety. [00:39:52] Crystal Fincher: Now, we have a vibrant economy and a vibrant business community in the city and in the district. We have some of the largest companies headquartered here and nearby, but also really diverse and varied small businesses. What are the highest priorities for small businesses in your district, and what can you do to better support those businesses? [00:40:17] Maritza Rivera: Yeah, the small business owners that I've talked to in the district are really concerned about public safety because they've had to deal with, like I said earlier, windows broken into. There's a business in the D5 that I know has gotten broken into five times and have been robbed. And so - those five times - so we need to support the public safety issues. We would need to provide support for the public safety issues that these small businesses are facing. You know, as you said, we have a vibrant economy. And I think that the lifeblood of any city is it's small businesses - it really - the small businesses keep a city vibrant. Obviously big business provides jobs, so that's important too. But right now I think what the small businesses are mostly facing are those public safety issues. And so we need to really work with them to make sure that we are addressing those issues so that folks are coming out and going to those businesses, and the business owners aren't losing money just trying to deal with the public safety issues that they're experiencing. [00:41:43] Crystal Fincher: Now I do wanna talk about another issue crucial to our local economy and that's childcare. Many families are dealing with a high cost of childcare - it's the number two cost behind housing for most families. And we recently got reporting that shows that childcare is more expensive than college now. Families are breaking their budgets trying to afford this, and we can't talk about inflation or affordability without contending with childcare. What can you do to ease the burden on families for childcare costs? [00:42:18] Maritza Rivera: Yeah, so it - I mean, I experienced firsthand just the childcare issues, a lack thereof. And I'm particularly concerned - I mean, I'm lucky that I actually took some time off to be able to care for my children because it wasn't penciling out - what I was making was going toward childcare. And it was difficult to even find the childcare to begin with, so we need to be supporting the opening of more childcare centers. We need to make sure that childcare providers are working - workers I mean, are making living wages because it's a hard job and, you know, folks are not gonna wanna do it if it's not, you know, a living wage. And so we need to support those things. And I know that the City has some childcare subsidies and my understanding is not everyone is aware - so making sure that community folks, you know, in low - in our underserved communities are aware of the services is really important too on the childcare front. But we definitely need more childcare options and we need to make sure workers are making a living wage so that they will want those jobs. [00:43:40] Crystal Fincher: Now, as we move to close this interview, there are still a lot of people trying to make up their minds between you and your opponent. When a voter is asking - Why should I support you? Or what is the difference between you and the person you're running against? - what do you say? [00:43:58] Maritza Rivera: What I say, Crystal, is that there is a stark difference between us in that - my opponent does not support the mayor's proposal to hire more police officers to address public safety. My opponent doesn't support the drug possession law, which is supported by the mayor and which I do support - and which our current councilmember in the D4 brought forward, actually, with Councilmember Nelson as well. That is huge. If folks - public safety, I have a sense of urgency of public safety. I've said, and I've been consistent, this is why I got into the race to begin with - was the public safety issues because of what happened at my daughters' school. And my opponent is not supporting the laws that would address public safety right now in the city - and that's what we're suffering the most from in the city currently - are the public safety issues. So that is a huge difference. I also think that my opponent's rhetoric is divisive. He's named-called councilmembers. And I talked to a voter the other day who said - my opponent went to her door and was, you know, name-calling and being derogatory on some councilmembers and they didn't like that my opponent was doing that. So I don't think that - you know, you can agree to disagree on the city council and still work together. I worked for Tom Rasmussen when Tom was first elected. And, you know, one thing I saw with that group of city councilmembers - they didn't all agree, you're not always gonna agree, but they did work together to find compromise and move forward. And there was civil discourse. And that's what's missing from the city council right now. And, you know, my opponent's divisive rhetoric is more of the same of the city councilmembers who are engaged in that type of behavior. And so those are two stark differences between us. [00:46:31] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for joining us today, candidate for Seattle City Council District 4, Maritza Rivera. Thank you so much. [00:46:39] Maritza Rivera: Thank you, Crystal. Have a great day. [00:46:42] 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.

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and David Kroman of the Seattle Times discuss a "laugh heard round the world" by an SPD officer investigating a pedestrian's death, the final stages of Seattle's new drug possession and public use law, a decision not to charge former Mayor Durkan or Chief Best after thousands of texts went missing, an updated ordinance for the growing problem of vacant buildings, and continued trouble for our state ferry system. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

6pm - No charges over former Seattle Mayor Durkan's deleted texts, prosecutors say // Top US House Republican McCarthy launches Biden impeachment inquiry // White House rips media for fixating on Biden's age // Try Hard, but Not That Hard. 85% Is the Magic Number for Productivity // Feedback Is Too Scary for Some Workers, So Bosses Call It ‘Feedforward' Instead // Is Biden Too Old to Run Again? We Asked People Born on His Exact Birthday // The Golden Bachelor: Everything You Need to KnowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week in review, Crystal is joined by metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll!  They discuss the first closure of a state prison in over a decade, the new statewide drug law likely to fill more jails than treatment centers, Bruce Harrell's new Downtown Activation Plan, a new poll found 82% of voters don't believe highway expansions are the best solution for reducing congestion, Washington receiving $1.2B for affordable and reliable high-speed internet access from the Biden administration, and the King County Council deciding that businesses must accept cash.  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, Matt Driscoll, at @mattsdriscoll.   Resources “Cydney Moore, Candidate for Burien City Council Position 2” from Hacks & Wonks   “Washington Department of Corrections to close one of 12 prisons” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   “Washington's new drug law was 'designed to fill our treatment centers.' Experts say it won't” by Scott Greenstone from KNKX Public Radio   “Harrell's Downtown Plan for the Perfect Seattle” by Ray Dubicki from The Urbanist   “Stop The Sweeps Protesters Drown Out the Mayor's Boring Downtown Press Conference” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Americans Are Ready to Move On from Highway Expansion Even If Politicians Persist” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Many WA residents still don't have internet access. How much will $1 billion help?” by Shea Johnson from The News Tribune   “King County will require businesses to accept cash” by Melissa Santos from Axios 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 to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I chatted with Cydney Moore about her campaign for re-election to Burien City Council Position 2, the accomplishments from her first term, and her consistent progressive track record. We also dug into the details of Burien government's most recent non-handling of their unhoused populations as sweep after sweep has disrupted and endangered lives, caused community division, and failed to solve anything. Today, we continue 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: metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll. Hey, Matt. [00:01:32] Matt Driscoll: Thank you Crystal - yeah, hi. Thanks for having me again - it's great to be back. [00:01:36] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back, very excited to have this conversation today. And starting off, we received news this week that one of Washington's 12 state prisons, the Larch Corrections Center, is going to be closing basically for lack of demand. What did you see here? [00:01:54] Matt Driscoll: Yeah - first of all, no shortage of news this week, so that's always good. But yeah, this is one of those stories that - I think for maybe some folks - flew under the radar a little bit, but the lack of need aspect of it is really interesting. Obviously in the announcement, it was acknowledged that if the situation changes in the future, they reserve the right to reopen the facility, which is a minimum security facility. But it's really interesting and follows our incarceration rates here in the state, which have dropped. Some of that's pandemic related - maybe a significant portion of it is pandemic related, whether folks being released, or toward the end of their sentences, or just some of the ways that the justice system has been slowed down. But yeah, it's really interesting, of course, because by a lot of metrics, it's described as a success. The state has been working to reduce its population of incarcerated individuals, I think, as a society, or at least as a state - partisan aspects of this. But understanding or the acknowledgement that incarcerating people - in all instances, for long periods of time, over and over again - is not ideal, not good for our society, not good for people. They would say that in addition to some of the things that have cut down prison population, just pandemic related or whatnot, some of the things they're doing within the prisons to reduce recidivism rates and those sorts of things are working. I would say that we still need much, much more of that - still really underfunded and just under-everything area. I think that when you talk to folks who were incarcerated, I don't think the sentiment is usually that - Yeah, we've got everything we need here to help us. I think there's still a lot of need there, I guess, is what I'm saying. But yeah, overall, I think it's a sign, hopefully, that some things are working. Also, I'm hesitant to read just too much into it in terms of gauging our success of reducing recidivism or reducing prison population, just because there are those kind of variables related to the pandemic and those sorts of things. I don't know - what was your take? [00:03:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think it's interesting. And clearly, the trend has been - especially with lower security facilities - is focusing on more evidence-based practices that do reduce recidivism. And those are more likely to occur in community settings, not in carceral settings. Localities have been moving in that direction, counties have been moving in that direction. Now, we're seeing a retrenchment of some more punitive policies, so I wonder if that is going to turn around. I thought it was interesting that we saw Teamsters Local 117, which represents a lot of the corrections officers, expressing dissatisfaction with this move - talking about it will be detrimental to the prison staff and their families. But I think a lot of people also view this as the impact on the population. Obviously, I think most people want the end goal for us to have a safer community overall. And so if we can - for people who have committed an offense, whatever offense - if we can lower the chances that they do that again, following those evidence-based practices, I think most people are on board with that. I think we do need to see that. But we'll see how this continues. Certainly, imprisoning people is wildly expensive, and many local budgets are feeling the pressure of that. Certainly, the state budget is feeling the pressure of that. So this is the first closure since 2012, 2011 - since the McNeil - yeah, yeah, so it's been quite a while. We'll see if this is a trend that continues, especially as we have more local conversations about whether to close county facilities and other facilities here. So interesting to see - I am gratified to see it. We will see if this is a trend that continues. And obviously, the most important thing is making sure our communities are safer. Also want to talk about news this week - really analysis - of Washington's new drug law in response to the Blake decision, kind of 2.0, the second take on it. And lots of people looking at the new drug law with the hopes that it would increase access to treatment, but it looks like that is not what it's going to do. What's your take on this? [00:06:10] Matt Driscoll: I have a broad take on this, just in general. I think that - and somewhat in relation to the conversation we just had - the thing progressives, or Democrats, are really good at doing is identifying, for lack of a better term, the easy part. I think there is an acknowledgement that the criminalization of drug use and the War on Drugs was a failure and is not the way to address issues of addiction. It's just not. And so I think there's broad consensus on that. But unfortunately, for a whole lot of political reasons and other reasons, at this point - in my mind, and again, I'm an opinion columnist, so take this for what it's worth - but the bulk of what they've been able to do is the easy parts of the decriminalization side, which is an important side of it. But what we don't have, what we don't even come close to having is infrastructure or the alternative that's actually going to provide treatment and recovery for people. And so sure, to my mind, what's happened so far is basically we've said - Okay, we shouldn't criminalize drugs, but we haven't in any way, shape, or form set up the infrastructure that it's going to need or dedicated the funding that it's going to need to actually create something better. And so in the interim of that, I think what you're seeing - and I don't subscribe to the conservative idea that all the drugs we see on our streets are related to Blake, and I'm not buying that. But I do think in the interim, what you've seen - and it impacts people's perception and it impacts people's views - increased suffering on our street, increased the visibility of suffering and addiction, and just contributing to a general feeling that society is unraveling. And you can have a kind of whatever take on that you want, but until progressives, until Democrats, until as a state, we actually create a system that provides an alternative to criminalization and go beyond just things that make it less criminal or decriminalized altogether, I think we're going to be stuck in a very hard spot. So I think there's a lot of work yet to be done. And in several instances, I've interviewed proponents of trying to get an initiative on the ballot around the decriminalization of drugs and setting up treatment options - and those proposals always funnel massive amounts of money towards treatment, like that's the other part of it. And we just really haven't, to my mind, gotten there yet. [00:08:36] Crystal Fincher: We haven't gotten there. And in my mind, there's a wild inconsistency between the rhetoric about - especially this Blake bill that they passed - and the reality of it. It's absolutely true there's a lot of rhetoric here. Inslee is saying this bill was meant to fill our treatment centers, not to fill our jails. Oh, but it was absolutely written to fill the jails - to be clear. The rhetoric around Blake acted as if we had a free-for-all for the prior years, but that's not the case. The Blake decision was actually, a couple of few years back. It has been a misdemeanor to possess drugs - that they have not been decriminalized for years. And this latest fix increased the criminalization, while removing treatment mandates and options there. So we have something now that's a gross misdemeanor, adding additional public usage stuff on there, and basically giving all of the tools and infrastructure to arrest - but not providing anywhere close to the infrastructure to treat, while at the same time providing discretion to prosecutors to say - No, we actually don't want to do diversion at all. It's not something they have to do. It's optional at this point in time. And we see, even in cities like Seattle, them moving to dismantle some of the community-based and treatment-based options they had with Seattle exiting, the city attorney saying that Seattle will be exiting the community court program. So it just is confounding to me because - no, clearly this is going to fill jails. Clearly we're going to see more arrests and prosecutions because that's explicitly what this bill allowed for. And it also allowed for these continuing closures that we're seeing, and this lack of capacity without doing much meaningfully to address it. We see the county stepping in - counties stepping in really across the state - to try and fill some of that gap. But without state action, we're still going to be woefully under-resourced. [00:10:36] Matt Driscoll: The points, or a point, I was trying to inarticulately make - because I agree with all of that - is, and going back to the rhetoric, clearly the idea that the massive expansion, everything we've seen relates to Blake is not true. There's so many more factors to that. But I guess my point being that because progressives and Democrats haven't gone beyond just decriminalization and haven't created anything better, it created a void where that rhetoric and political pressure to do something was able to grow. If you're just the average person in Washington and you see what's going on, you wouldn't be right, but I can understand how you would come to the conclusion that we've got to do something and we'll criminalize more. I can understand how people get there. So the point being that because Democrats and progressives haven't done the full deal, they've only done the easy parts - it creates the space for the reintroduction of the punitive measures, the reintroduction of the criminalization. And until they go the full way, I think it's going to be really hard to completely break free of that. [00:11:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's a good point. And also to that, just overall, when we have situations like this where the rhetoric does not match the legislation - and they talk of moving in one direction, but pass policy that make it inevitable that we will be moving in the other direction - it makes it harder to implement actual progressive policies because you're wrapping these conservative policies in the cloak of progressivism. And so when people hear - Okay, these are the progressive people in charge. They're passing progressive policy and it's failing. Well, yeah, of course it's failing because it's essentially the same War on Drugs. But that does make it harder in the future to do anything because people hear - Oh they tried something new and it didn't work, so let's go back to what it was when we have been doing that the whole time. So it just is frustrating from a policy perspective, it's frustrating just from dealing with it in our communities. This is an untenable situation overall. It is not great to have people using in public around other people. It's not great to have people suffering with addiction and really having nowhere to turn or having to be criminalized before you get access to services. It just is undesirable. And I wish we would do all of the work - the easy and the hard stuff to your point - to actually take a real shot at an evidence-based solution to this. [00:13:09] Matt Driscoll: Hear, hear. [00:13:10] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now also this week, we saw Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell seemingly try and address some issues like this, included with his downtown activation plan. What was your thought about his plan and the reactions to it? [00:13:27] Matt Driscoll: Yeah - of course, I have the comfort of watching all this from afar, which is always enjoyable. The first thing is, from a lot of perspectives, this was seen as a - and I know there's a lot to it - but addressing some of those issues we just talked about - around kind of disorder, open drug use, addiction in our streets, and the impact that's having on downtown. But I think it's also worth keeping in mind that when we talk about downtowns, just in general, they're facing a lot of challenges right now in terms of the reinvigoration, or whatever we're calling it, that are not related to those sorts of issues. The lasting impact of COVID and everything that went along with it is still very much in effect. Here in Tacoma - last time I checked - you're looking at occupancy rates, offices are still 60%. Here at UWT, students aren't on campus like they used to be. The broader point being - there are a whole lot of issues that are impacting downtowns right now that kind of go beyond the "Seattle is Dying" - homelessness on our streets, addiction, all that kind of stuff. And from my understanding of it, there are parts of Harrell's plan that kind of deal with that, in terms of the closing of streets and some things. Because I think we're going to have to reimagine our downtowns in some respect. I don't think it's necessary - I'm tempted to say it's never going to go back to the days when we can rely purely on the 9-5 office work to sustain a downtown. What I probably should say is if that is going to happen, it's not going to happen anytime soon. I think that we've experienced massive changes, and there are massive trends, and there are trends that downtowns are going to have to adjust to. Now, all that being said - again, I think Harrell - related to the disorder, crime, drug use, again - it goes back to that conversation we just had around the political pressures and the ways that when we half measure things, or don't go the full way - or to your point, which is a really important one - wrap bogus policy in progressive talking points and champion it like progressivism when it's really something different and then it fails, it creates a lot of pressure. And I think there's a lot of pressure on Harrell right now. I think a lot of residents want, rightfully, rightfully want to see a downtown and just a city that is not dealing with these stories. It's not good. I write a column, my politics are out there. What we see in our downtowns right now, just in general - and not even just downtowns - it's not good. There's suffering, there's addiction, there's disorder - and it contributes to a feeling that kind of society is falling down. And I don't mean to be hyperbolic around it because I know the kind of the perspective is important and there are a lot of factors here, but it's that tension too. And I think Harrell is trying to respond to the very real concerns that people have. And I know that the rhetoric of those concerns doesn't always really match the politics of councilmembers and Seattle as a whole, and so there's that tension. But you're the poll person, not me, but I think I saw a poll not too long ago that said Harrell's approval or numbers look considerably stronger than the city council. And I think issues like this are a reason why, because I think there are - and again, I don't live in Seattle, I don't know, you tell me, you don't live in Seattle either, but you follow Seattle much closer than I do - I think there's a large part of the population that's just really frustrated and really fed up and is looking for answers and is looking for strong answers. And so I think there - now, is it going to work? [00:17:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think a lot of your points are right on. I think for the actual plan, Mayor Harrell articulated seven bold goals for downtown Seattle - looking at the details of these goals, they're largely rehashes of things that have been previously announced, but bringing it together under one heading and one focus, I suppose. So wanting to make downtown safer and more welcoming, increased service provider outreach along Third Avenue - I think that's great to provide a 24 hour presence, if they're actually service providers and not just a crackdown and like we've seen before where police flood a block and then leave and really ultimately not many things change. Graffiti services - Mayor's really, really into graffiti removal - dealing with it there. But also, I think he is getting at some of the re-imagining of downtown and some of what he's talked about - talking about convening leaders to share strategies about return to office and hybrid work policies, incentivizing the development of childcare and education services downtown by allowing greater building heights when these facilities are included in new buildings, develop a life-at-night agenda to activate downtown businesses. When you - really, after reading many proposals by Mayor Harrell and realistically Mayor Durkan, it is notable when you read the actual plans - how much of them start with words like develop and hire and create. This is not an active initiative. This is basically - we're going to start to actually think about and do things. And it looks like they're great at launching these initiatives, but what results from them is another question. And I think people are waiting to see - and to your point, are frustrated at so much talk over years and years while watching these problems get worse, certainly not better in a lot of areas, and wanting to do something that moves the needle. I also notice in these that it's - these problems that we're facing, that downtowns are facing, are substantial. They're going to require some really different action to get a different result. And things like - for childcare, we just received - there was a story written, I think, by Axios either this past week or the week before, talking about childcare in Seattle is now more expensive than college on an annual basis. It seems like with this crisis currently in process, more needs to be done for childcare affordability than allowing increased building heights in new development that's going to happen - that might make a difference in five or 10 years, maybe, but what are we doing to try and move the needle in the short term? What are we doing to ensure that we're going to get those results and not just hope for some trickle-down impact from tangential policies that aren't offensive to anyone. We're going to have to start making decisions that - moving one way or the other - are probably going to make some people unhappy, and I feel like there's a hesitance by some elected officials to do that. But what we've seen is that in the hesitance to make people unhappy, they're making people unhappy because problems have just persisted. So it's a challenge. We'll be following it along. There are some good things in here - and if they get this rolling, there's going to be some good things that result. But that's the big question here. What is the - is the implementation actually going to happen and what's going to result from it? So we will see what happens with that. Also, want to talk about a poll that came out this week about Americans being ready to move on from highway expansion even if politicians aren't. A new poll showed that 82% of voters don't view highway expansion as the best solution for reducing congestion. This is certainly in line with data and evidence that we've seen here - expanding highways creates more traffic than it reduces and is induced demand - this is a thing that has happened. We can see all the expansions that we've had in this area - on 405, on I-5 - and traffic seems to be worse than ever. What's your view of this? [00:21:46] Matt Driscoll: My take on the poll is that it does reflect, certainly, I think, a growing acknowledgement that we can't just continuously expanding our freeways until the end of time, until we have 27 lanes, and everyone can fit in their SUV single-occupancy to go to and from there. I think, and it's evidence-based, and so I do think there's much greater recognition of that - that we need alternatives to that. That being said, just to be honest with you from a Pierce County perspective - from working here and talking to people - the 82% seems incredibly high. From the folks I hear - this is a county that voted against Sound Transit 3 - historically is anti-Sound Transit. This is a community where congestion near I-5, or near the Tacoma Dome, and construction feels like it's been going on for most of our natural lives. And yet people, I still think - and I don't know the percentage of it, but county-wide - I still think that a significant portion of this place wants to see the bulk of our transportation money going to the traditional things like freeways and roads and all those sorts of things. Now, the other thing about this poll is that it included - it was like expand our highways, freeways, or, and a bunch of different options - there were a bunch of other things that all got lumped into, Would this be better? - things like fish passage, and then mass transit, bus, those sorts of things. And so I think that probably impacts the numbers just a little bit, in that it was kind of like either you do freeway expansion or would any of these things or all these things together be better? And so I think that that probably contributed to the poll a little bit, although I know the conductors of the poll defended their methods there. But overall, just coming full circle, I think it matches with a growing sentiment that we need to do more than just build highways and expand highways. But still, in Pierce County, 82% - it seems high to me. [00:24:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think there's a lot at play in this. I do think that seeing so many highway expansion projects with a promise of reducing congestion not do that over the last 20, 30 years - there's more skepticism. I also think it's significant that more people are recognizing just how much money we are spending on expansion while also not spending on maintenance. I think it has permeated into the public. People who are driving are driving on streets that often are not maintained well, that certainly aren't complete streets - they aren't maintained well for drivers, let alone everyone using the streets. And then on top of that, just looking at the expenses there - we're sitting here watching bridges fall down across the country, bridges closed locally for challenges, and saying that we have this huge backlog - we can't afford to maintain our bridges, we can't afford to maintain our roads. But we're talking about building new ones that are also going to increase the maintenance price tag - that just doesn't seem fiscally responsible at all. And I think as people are looking at the variety of things that we can't afford - we can't afford to feed kids free food in schools that we mandate they attend. We can't afford so many of the human services that we talk about. We can't afford transit - transit service we're watching being degraded, we're watching planned new light rail, new bus facilities be pushed back for decades sometimes. It just doesn't seem to be working. We don't seem to be spending our money in the right places and in the right way. And I think there is more popular awareness of that. One of the most notable things I found in this poll is that 90% of the people polled drove regularly. This isn't a poll of lefties and people who just don't have cars, which some people use to just discount their opinions - Oh, you don't drive anyway, you don't know how important it is. This is not the case - this is everyone realizing and recognizing what a problem is. And also, I think it also helps that people got a taste of not having to commute during the pandemic, got a taste of - Hey, what if I didn't have to drive all the time? What if there was an alternative? What if I didn't have to brave rush hour all the time? What if we invested in these other things that make that more possible and everything more livable with this new way of life that we've entered into? - and cause people to do more reflection on their own perhaps. Maybe that is also accelerating it. There's a lot of maybes in here. To your point, this does cover a lot of things. Not everything was that huge number, but we see over 65% of people agreeing with - providing people with more transportation options, it's better for health, safety, and economy. Expanding highways takes years, causes delays, and costs billions of dollars. More important to protect our quality of life than to spend billions of tax dollars on expanding highways. And no matter where you live, you should have the freedom to easily get where you need to go. So there are certainly some takeaways in here that people are feeling like there should be more options - not to the exclusion of cars - but certainly not only for cars and expanding highways in that one specific way. So very interesting to see. What I think is safe to say is that members of the public overall seem in a different place than our elected officials who are still seemingly operating from expand-it policies being great for everything. But it doesn't have the cachet that it used to, to say - I'm going to fix your traffic by expanding this highway. - it's not landing like it used to. [00:28:01] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, I agree with so much of that. I think your point about the maintenance, because it's unsexy, but I think your point about the maintaining what we have aspect of that whole is really important. I suspect that's - the reasons you talked about it are a big reason why that number was so high. And then also, again, just to come back to a theme so far in this show about progressives, big ideas, and then the impact when they fail to deliver. Obviously it's not over yet, but I can't help but think of Sound Transit here. It's like sitting here in Pierce County, we've been told for years - and in Tacoma we voted in favor - we need more options, we need this infrastructure, we need mass transit. And it's a progressive cause and it's politicized, and it gets pushed through. And then the carry through, follow through, frankly - just a disaster. It's just a disaster. And if you're sitting down here in Pierce County in Tacoma, and you're paying those car tabs every year and you're looking at what that has done and when that might do - and it's just - so again, it's just the plans are great, it's important, all that - but just the follow through and progressives just continued inability to nail the follow through for - again, and I think it ties in something you said earlier - it's just their hesitancy to upset people in a lot of cases. It just hamstrings these things and they end up big and stupid and dumb - and I voted in favor of it, I voted in favor of it again, but Sound Transit's dumb, man. It's just from down here, what we've got - and that might anger some people that I speak to regularly, and some people I consider friends, and some people I'm ideologically aligned with - but just from an average citizen perspective, it's unfortunate to see how it has played out and how it looks like it's gonna continue to play out, just because there's so much at stake in terms of public sentiment. [00:30:13] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and just continuing down that tangent - one, I think this is another example of something that gets a progressive label, but you look at the policy, you look at the substance of it, and you look at the Sound Transit board itself - it skews moderate to conservative, and probably closer to conservative when you look at the composition of the entire board. And it shows in this policy, but of course, it is another thing that is wrapped in progressive policy. But beyond that, I don't think Pierce County voting down ST3, I don't think that Pierce County rejecting this iteration of transit necessarily means that Pierce County is anti-transit. What is really predictable is that if you sell someone something and say - I'm gonna deliver it next week - and then next week comes and you say - Okay well, actually next year, next decade - they're not gonna be happy to continue giving them money. People pay taxes with an expectation of benefits and services and things being provided in their community. If they are getting nothing back from that, if all they're doing is paying and watching other people get the benefits, they are not gonna be excited to do that. This is just really, to me, common sense that you have to deliver for people. You have to give them what you sold them. Otherwise, they're going to be unhappy about it, and they're not gonna trust you the next time you come with something to sell them. This is what we're doing with our suburbs, with Pierce County with Sound Transit. Got lines open in Seattle and coming down through South County, the Eastside, going north - but the timeline of this is just absolutely absurd and keeps getting pushed back while people are currently paying for it. You have to deliver something if people are paying something. You, at minimum, have to deliver what you say you're going to, and they just aren't. And don't seem to care and seem to continue to push back stuff, instead of really sitting down and saying - What can we do to honor the commitment that we made? What can we do to deliver this needed service and infrastructure to these communities? They just say - Oh, that's fine if you wait. It's fine if you wait. [00:32:26] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, I guess that's the one thing that gets me about it too - is just the seeming not to care. They just seem so oblivious to it, or not even oblivious, but just dismissive of it, and it sticks in your craw. Not to re-litigate any of this, but I 100% agree with you. You charge people these sorts of taxes - you have to deliver all those sorts of things. Let us not forget that, right or wrong, a lot of people also felt misled about what the cost of this tax was going to be. Part of it was voter - I think they were transparent in terms of saying this was what it would cost for the average car, but I think what people don't - everyone thinks they have the average car. Everyone thinks they have the average car. People who are driving a two-year-old car think they have the average car. I drive a 2006 Chevy Malibu - sometimes I feel like I have the average car. I think people - a lot of people also felt like they were slightly misled about what the cost was going to be, and then however many years later, we don't really have anything to show with it, show for it, at least down here, and we keep getting told it's going to be longer and longer. I don't know. We could talk about this forever, but it's just disappointing to see the follow-through, or the lack thereof. [00:33:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I think it's good to hear. Sometimes - just in Seattle - certainly, a lot to be desired with Sound Transit delivery, but there has been stuff that's already delivered. There is infrastructure that's there. What is frustrating to me is I see infrastructure that does exist going to Pierce County, like the heavy rail Sounder train, which is packed, right? It's not like there's an aversion to transit - what's available there is being heavily utilized. There just doesn't seem to be any acknowledgement or desire to continue to deliver there. It is certainly frustrating - and again, just the delivery is the most important aspect of this whole thing. If you don't do that, everything - everything - goes to waste, and the rhetoric that you use to do it matters. On some more optimistic news this week, we got news that Washington is going to receive $1.2 billion to help address internet affordability and access to high-speed internet. What possibilities does this open up, and what will this do for Washington? [00:35:05] Matt Driscoll: I'm by no means a high-speed internet expert, but I will say that this is and has been a huge issue down here in Pierce County. There are areas of this county - across the Narrows and some parts of the county - where the internet access is almost nonexistent. That creates major challenges for those communities, particularly - I know obviously it was a couple of years ago now - when you start talking about remote schooling, or even as you see an increase of remote work. The internet is like heat and water and gas. If you don't have internet, you are essentially disconnected from the world, disconnected from the way the world works. There are major areas of this county where the internet that we take for granted here in Tacoma would be revolutionary. I don't know all the specifics of the Biden administration's plan - and I don't think we have all the specifics yet in terms of how it might be applied in Washington and all those sorts of things - but I'm hopeful about it, and I think it's much needed. I think that the need to invest in internet infrastructure - certainly, I think we've talked about it a lot in some circles, but I think in the broader national conversation, maybe it hasn't got the attention it deserves. So hopefully this action raises the level of that a little bit and really highlights the importance of it. But again, at the end of the day, at this point, I just think internet's a utility. Everyone deserves to have it - needs to have it - it's not a matter of whether you deserve it or not. It's essentially a necessity of life, whether you're applying for a job or banking. On your list, there was talk of accepting cash. And I know it's not exactly the same, but it's just the way our world works now. And when people don't have access to it, it creates disproportionate impacts, it harms vulnerable communities, it creates an uneven playing field. So anything we can do to expand that access and get people connected, I think is a good thing. And again, the test is going to be in how it's actually applied and what the rollout and end result looks like. But I don't know, you might be more tuned into this issue than I am. What's your take on this? [00:37:43] Crystal Fincher: I agree with a lot of what you said. I agree with the Pierce County Council who deemed broadband internet to be essential infrastructure - absolutely necessary. It is necessary - to participate in our society today fully requires reliable internet access. And last numbers were that 6% of Washington homes still don't have reliable internet access at all, which 6% - that's a tiny percent. When you look at the amount of households in the state, those are so many people being left out and left behind and at a disadvantage in everything in our society - from just access to basic goods and services to employment and the type of work you can do, getting work to schooling. We saw these hybrid models and flexibility with school. Broadband access is absolutely necessary for learning, for homework, just on a regular basis. This is something really important to our society, so I'm excited that we see this investment. And I hope that we do more to solidify equitable access for people in the long term, not just to subsidize service from a couple carriers and provide subsidies. Not that there's no place for subsidies, but certainly the current structure is very beneficial to providers who barely have to compete with anyone. I hope that we do more to ensure flexible open access to allow more competition - certainly more last mile infrastructure investment and creation is needed. And certainly a lot of that will go towards this, but more flexible access, I hope, is a long term result from this. [00:39:35] Matt Driscoll: Yeah - are you skeptical of the North Star of public-private partnership? Is that not the good thing I've been told it is - when governments and well-meaning for-profit businesses work together to meet the people's needs? [00:39:53] Crystal Fincher: This is where I admit I've looked longingly at Tacoma for decades with your public utility that you've had there, which I think is the right way to approach this because it is necessary. [00:40:05] Matt Driscoll: Which we tried to give away. [00:40:06] Crystal Fincher: Yes. [00:40:07] Matt Driscoll: Essentially. Just for the record. [00:40:10] Crystal Fincher: There will always, always be some well-funded momentum towards privatization that needs to be addressed and fought against. But yes, I am skeptical of it because look at our system - I'm one of the lucky people with regular internet access, but it still goes out here frequently with no repercussions. There's no real competition. If you're lucky, you have to - the really lucky people have three choices, when there are hundreds of choices between providers for this overall. But we have this monopoly, duopoly system that is just not friendly. And so fitting within that framework is really what a public-private partnership at this point in time would be. And I just think it's a toxic framework that is not there for the benefit of consumers. It's there for the profit for these large corporations. And I don't think that has been serving us very well, especially when you look at other models internationally who are providing much, much higher speeds, much more reliable infrastructure at a much lower cost. But we're not there at this point here. [00:41:23] Matt Driscoll: No, I agree with all that. And to the kind of - I think one of the most important points - that 6% you mentioned, doesn't seem like a lot of folks. But let's be honest about where those 6% of folks likely live and the challenges and the inequities they likely already face. And so it's just like the lack of internet access is just an exacerbating factor on many of the ways that they're already under-resourced and underserved. So it's really important and hopefully we get it right. [00:41:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really important. I also think it's critical for rural communities. This is a humongous issue for our rural areas and just their ability to manage and survive and thrive, especially as some other traditional industries are struggling - that the ability to embrace new industries, to be competitive in our current local and global marketplace really needs broadband access and so many areas still don't have it. [00:42:28] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, totally. And just for the, that's - rural communities are in part what I'm talking about, about being underserved. The inequities we see in Pierce County, in general, between rural communities and places that are more fluent and more urban - it's significant. We focus a lot, and rightfully so, on inequities we see in our cities and along demographics and those sorts of things. But the rural-urban divide in terms of what those folks, the services those folks have, what's available to them is - it's steep and it makes it much, much harder to have an even playing field if you're a - say, a kid that comes from a rural community. [00:43:19] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And we will just close today talking about other good news - in my opinion, good news - which you alluded to before, which is the King County Council passed legislation to require businesses in unincorporated King County to take cash payments - because there are movements and some businesses have wanted to not take cash, to require electronic payment, which can disenfranchise a lot of people and keep a lot of people out. What's your view of this legislation? [00:43:51] Matt Driscoll: Oh, this brings me back, actually. It's funny - somehow when I'm on the show, I always end up divulging more than I anticipated to - but so let me just say there was a time in my life, many years ago, where I didn't bank. And the reason I didn't bank is because I was, it's because I didn't have any money. It's because I was poor and it's because you run into continual issues with - and this was more at the start of the corporatization of banks and everything becoming a Bank of America or a Chase - but you run into the overdraft fees, pretty soon you owe $300 on your checking account and you don't have $300. And pretty soon you're just cashing your checks. And I lived like that for a significant amount of time. And it is hard, but it's also the reality that a lot of people face. There are very real reasons that traditional banking, or the cards, or swiping, or paying on my phone - people don't have access to it. And so I think the acknowledgement that we can't just leave folks out to dry and force them to use a system that frankly is oftentimes exploitative - banking just is. I'm a firm credit union guy now, but still, it's - I'm sure we've all heard a million times - it's very expensive to be poor. And this is just - the move toward not accepting cash, or card only, or electronic payment only - it's just another way, another burden that gets placed on folks who don't have a lot of money. So I'm happy to see it. I think you should be - frankly, I think you should be required to take cash. I don't think it should be optional. I certainly understand with businesses who would consider it easier. This is another topic entirely, but there's a Subway sandwich shop by my house. And I think just in relation to crime or fears of crime, they've got a big sign up that says - Card only, we don't take cash. And I think there is part of it - a very small part of it - it's maybe kind of folks trying to grapple with that, but overall I think it's good news. Like you said, I think businesses should have to take cash. I think most comfortable Americans don't understand what it's like to not have a lot of money and how hard it actually is to access those sorts of things that a lot of people take for granted. And so I think it's good. I think it's an important acknowledgement. [00:46:58] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree and appreciate your perspective on that. It's very important. I know Transit Riders Union did a lot of advocacy with that, so I appreciate that and congrats to them for helping to pass that. Thank you to the councilmembers - it passed on, by one vote. So appreciate the councilmembers who did vote on that. And it is very important. To your point, I think a lot of people don't realize how hard and how expensive it is to be poor. And that being poor is only a result of irresponsibility and bad morality - that is so far from the truth. And my goodness, the people who are poorest generally know where every single penny is going to a much greater degree than a lot of people who are comfortable that I know. It's not an issue of morality, it's not an issue of responsibility. It's an issue of poverty and inequality. And the way to address it is not to further disenfranchise people and to exclude people from society even more. So I'm certainly happy to see this legislation passed. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, June 30th - every week I say the date and it surprises me, time just evaporates. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful cohost today was metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll. You can find Matt on Twitter @mattsdriscoll, with two L's at the end. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. It really helps us out. You can get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.  

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and David Kroman of the Seattle Times discuss the state special session and its work on fixing Washington's drug possession law, a facelift for Memorial Stadium, a settlement in the case against former Mayor Durkan's deleted texts, the filing deadline for Seattle City Council candidates, and a battle over... lawn mowing on the east side of Lake Washington. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by political consultant and urban farmer, Heather Weiner. They talk about the newly uncovered messages that reveal former Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan allegedly ordered the abandonment of SPD's East Precinct, where the “Blake fix” stands after its failed vote in the legislature, the remaining need to address renter protections after the legislature passed major legislation to address the housing supply and affordability crisis, the success of the King County Crisis Care Centers levy, and the failure of the Kent School District bond underscoring the need for bond reform and for putting school measures on primary and general election ballots. 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, Heather Weiner at @hlweiner.   Heather Weiner Heather Weiner (she/her) is a political consultant with 30 years of experience on labor, environmental, LGBTQ, racial justice, and reproductive rights issues. She focuses on ballot initiatives, independent expenditures, legislative, union organizing and contract campaigns. She's a recovering lawyer.   Resources Teresa Mosqueda, Candidate for King County Council District 8 from Hacks & Wonks   ““Please Stop on the Teams Chat”: New Records Expose Mayor Durkan's Role and Others in Abandonment of East Precinct” by Glen Stellmacher from The Urbanist   “WA Legislature fails to pass new drug law; special session likely” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   “No Clear Path Toward Criminalizing Drugs in Washington” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “5 big things Washington's Legislature passed in 2023” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Final state transportation budget boosts funding for highways, ferries, traffic safety and the Climate Commitment Act” from Washington State House Democrats   “Washington Legislature increases support for free school meals” by Griffin Reilly from The Columbian   “Washington State Rakes In Revenue From Capital Gains Tax” by Laura Mahoney from Bloomberg Tax   “Voters approve King County's crisis center levy” by Michelle Baruchman from The Seattle Times   “Voters turn down Kent School District bond measure” by Steve Hunter from The Kent Reporter   Find more stories that Crystal is reading here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I am a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our 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 to leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I chat with Teresa Mosqueda about her campaign for King County Council District 8 - why she decided to run, the experience and lessons she wants to bring to the County from serving on the Seattle City Council, and her thoughts on the major issues facing residents of the County. Today, we are continuing our Friday shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show, today's co-host: political consultant and urban farmer - who now even has chicks - Heather Weiner. [00:01:26] Heather Weiner: Hi, Crystal - so nice to talk with you again. [00:01:29] Crystal Fincher: Nice to talk with you again. I guess I should clarify - chicks as in mini-chickens. [00:01:32] Heather Weiner: Well, I have had many chicks, but now I'm married. Yeah, I have four baby chicks in my office right now under a heat lamp - getting them settled and we'll move them out to the henhouse probably in about five or six weeks. So you may hear a little bit of baby chirping in the background here. [00:01:48] Crystal Fincher: A little bit of baby chirping. I did hear the chirps - they are adorable. I actually got a sneak peek and now I want some chicks. [00:01:57] Heather Weiner: Everybody does - you can't go back. [00:01:59] Crystal Fincher: Yes, yes, yes. Okay, I guess we'll start out talking with the news that broke yesterday on a long-standing story - stemming from the abandonment of Seattle PD's East Precinct, which happened in the middle of the 2020 protests amid a lot of controversy - sustained abuses and excess physical abuse by police against protesters and residents of the City. And in the middle of that, the abandonment of the East Precinct - which was at first almost tried to, spun as protesters forced them out - lots of hyperbole on Fox News and conservative media, all that kind of stuff. But for quite a long time, they said they had no idea who made the call to abandon the precinct. [00:02:48] Heather Weiner: But you know that Spiderman meme - where the Spiderman is, all the three Spidermans are standing in that triangle pointing at each other? This was a live-action Spiderman meme where we just had all of these high-ranking officials, high-paid officials within Seattle City government and the department pointing at each other and saying - It's your fault. No, it's your fault. No, it's your fault. But look at this news from internal chats that are coming within the Seattle IT department - who know better than to delete their text messages and their chats - saying the order came directly from Durkan, at exactly the same moment that Chief Best, then-Chief Best, was telling reporters there's no order to evacuate the East Precinct building. So liars are lying. [00:03:31] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so it turns out Jenny Durkan ordered the Code Red and wow, there's been a lot of obfuscation about this. And even in these - in this records request and what was released - it is clear they are bending over backwards to avoid discussing this in a disclosable way, to avoid discussing this in a way that would be illuminated by issues like this. But they didn't get everyone in on the conspiracy in time. However, they did catch someone being like - Hey, hey, hey, hey, don't discuss this on the Teams chat. [00:04:01] Heather Weiner: Right. It literally says - Do not discuss this on the Teams chat - which was revealed in the public disclosure request. [00:04:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and - [00:04:08] Heather Weiner: I wonder why all those text messages between Best and Durkan were lost forever. [00:04:13] Crystal Fincher: Lost forever. [00:04:14] Heather Weiner: Oops, I dropped my phone in saltwater. [00:04:17] Crystal Fincher: And there's still an ongoing investigation into that. As a reminder, public employees can't delete records, not disclosable records. And this may be something for - we've talked about this before in the program - but for people outside of government, outside of politics, outside of that world may be like - Texts, they're deleted. I delete texts all the time. Everyone in the public sector knows that you don't do this. There are people in positions who handle these. You're constantly getting - Hey, this request came, do you have this document? Or where was this? We're responding to this. This is a regular course of business, and they clearly were trying to hide what was happening. Big controversy - texts from Carmen Best, from Mayor Durkan were deleted. Mayor Durkan is a former federal prosecutor who has been living in this world forever, who had to be retrained even on prior issues when she was with the City. And then those mysteriously deleted texts, which looks more and more like they were intentionally deleted in order to hide this information. [00:05:19] Heather Weiner: And now former Chief Best is now directing security at Microsoft, right? She got a nice hefty landing pad there for when she left. And so despite the fact that her veracity and her transparency are now deeply in question, she is getting paid - I'm going to say a lot of money - [00:05:38] Crystal Fincher: Oh, a ton of money. [00:05:39] Heather Weiner: -working across the water for Microsoft. I saw former Mayor Durkan at LAX a couple of weeks ago walking by and I have to say - [00:05:48] Crystal Fincher: I was about to be like - in Seattle? I could just see her - [00:05:50] Heather Weiner: No, at LAX - she was walking at LAX. [00:05:51] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all. [00:05:53] Heather Weiner: I just kind of stopped and looked at her. Of course, she didn't recognize me - who would? But I just - [00:05:57] Crystal Fincher: I would, Heather Weiner. [00:05:58] Heather Weiner: Ah, thank you - how many five foot tall - anyway, I'm not going to put myself down. So anyway, I did see her walking by and I did almost want to walk up to her and be like - What were you thinking, lady? But I didn't - nobody's happy transferring planes at LAX - even somebody who did that, I don't need to heckle them. It's also super interesting because there are so many lower-level employees, whether they're employees of the Seattle Police Department or Parks Department or wherever, who know that they will lose their jobs if they delete emails, text messages, anything that is subject to public disclosure requests. And so to have your highest ranking people doing that - you know who has not been mentioned in any of this is the current Chief of Police, who was an Assistant Chief at that time. How is, how, I'm always curious about why Diaz somehow was either not included in this chain, or hasn't ever been implicated in what's going on here. Was he just really - just not involved at all? That's crazy to me. [00:06:56] Crystal Fincher: I have no idea. Also haven't seen his name mentioned in this, but - [00:07:00] Heather Weiner: No, I know. I've asked reporters - Is Diaz literally nowhere here, or did he just do a spectacular job of cleaning out his records? [00:07:08] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. [00:07:09] Heather Weiner: Don't know. [00:07:09] Crystal Fincher: Don't know, but this is the saga that won't end. And to your point, this is really about accountability. This is about - do rules apply to everybody, and do people - do public servants have an obligation to the people? [00:07:22] Heather Weiner: You're starting to make a case now about what's happening in the State Legislature with transparency there, and where reporters and open government folks are really putting a lot of pressure on the State Legislature to open up their records. And legislators say - Look, I can't make decisions, I can't go through drafts, I can't do any of this - if I feel like all of it's going to be subject to public scrutiny when it's not final yet. It's legal - involving lawmaking, so therefore it is protected under legal exemptions. What do you think about that? [00:07:52] Crystal Fincher: I wonder why that's different than any of the other legislative bodies, like city councils across the state or county councils, who have more generous and open transparency policies. And again, this is happening on the public dime. There is a measure of accountability here, especially when so consistently through these records requests, we find out such egregious information. Just as a reminder - it wasn't any external investigation, it was a public records request that - in the City of Kent - uncovered that there was a Nazi assistant police chief. And that is a literal statement - literal Nazi, with Nazi symbols, and a Hitler mustache, and literally all of that - that only came to light because of public disclosure requests. And in this time where we have so many fewer reporters covering what's happening across the state and they only make it to the biggest things because they're stretched that thin, transparency becomes even more important. Because there may not be someone there to answer the questions, to cover how something came to be - this is our only record of how it came to be. And people should see who is influencing policy. [00:08:58] Heather Weiner: Right, and how the sausage was made. Listeners, you will be shocked to hear that good and bad politicians out there get around this by using their personal phones. Now, they're not supposed to use their personal phones for official taxpayer funded business, but they do. And so even if we did get a lot of those text message records about what was happening around the East Precinct, one can imagine that probably there was a lot of conversations going on - unrecorded conversations on the phone, in person, undocumented conversations, but also conversations on personal cell phones. Now again, I just want to point out - if any other lower-level employees were caught doing this, they would be fired, right? Cops would be sent to OPA. All kinds of things would happen. But when you're a higher-level political appointee, apparently, you get off scot-free. [00:09:41] Crystal Fincher: You do. [00:09:42] Heather Weiner: Speaking of cops - you want to talk about the Blake - what's happening with Blake, and what's happening there? [00:09:49] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, let's talk about what's happening with the Blake decision. So we just had the end of the legislative session - a lot of bills were passed before then, but some of the most contentious bills took 'til the very last day or two to get decided. [00:10:04] Heather Weiner: Last hour. Oh my - as usual - I just feel for everybody working three in the morning, four in the morning. It must be just absolutely exhausting. [00:10:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, when the Legislature does that - just the amount of work that support staff have to do to support the entire operation, to keep information moving under these incredibly tight deadlines. They're working so hard and so long. I think - so the Blake fix, in year's time? Time is an interesting thing for me these days. A few years back - yeah, our State - [00:10:35] Heather Weiner: Not yesterday, but also not 10 years ago. [00:10:37] Crystal Fincher: Yes. More than a year ago, less than 10 years ago - which anything in that zone consistently gets confused for me now. Yes. Our State Supreme Court invalidated - basically said the law about personal possession of substances, of drugs, was invalidated - took the law away. And so it instantly made possession of drugs legal. There was nothing illegal to do with the possession that didn't do with anything with paraphernalia, with selling or distribution, all those other peripheral things still remained in place. But for possession - [00:11:14] Heather Weiner: Personal use possession. [00:11:16] Crystal Fincher: Yes. And so under a certain threshold, or thresholds that come into play sometimes in policy with this. So in year before last, our Legislature - this happened during the legislative session, actually. And so they said - Oh my goodness, we can't let this stand. Even though best practices, sound public policy says that our really expensive and damaging War on Drugs has failed and treating substance abuse issues like a public health crisis and problem is the way to make progress in actually dealing with addiction, actually getting people off of drugs and getting people healthier, and reducing all the impacts surrounding that by crime and different things. But our Legislature basically said - We are not comfortable with that, and so we're going to re-institute a penalty - a misdemeanor - add some diversion in there, fund some kind of diversion-root-cause-drug-court-type things across the state. But they put a sunset clause in that law and said basically - Summer 2023, this is going to sunset, basically expire and terminate on its own. And in the meantime, that'll give us time to figure out something else that we want to do, or stay on the course. But the concern about invalidating that law at the state level was that municipalities, localities, counties, and cities, and towns can make their own laws if they want to in the absence of a state law on that issue. So some have said - Well, it's going to be more confusing to have a patchwork of different drug possession laws across the state, which is not ideal. It's not ideal. But the question is - is that more harmful than what this proposed fix was, which wound up being a gross misdemeanor - which is different than a simple misdemeanor and can come with sometimes financial penalties and jail time that exceeds that of the lowest level felonies. And so from a - we have talked about on this show - but jail, carceral solutions, do not reduce recidivism any more than non-carceral solutions. Throwing someone in jail doesn't reduce their likelihood of committing a crime in the future. And certainly in the case of substance use disorder, it does not address any of the issues about that. And all it does is destabilize and usually throw people further into addiction, further away from being able to rebuild their lives and get healthy again. So this debate is taking place, while evidence and data and lots of people are saying that. But you also have people who really advocate for punitive punishment measures. And even though we have spent decades and billions, if not trillions, of dollars on this War on Drugs, domestically and internationally, it's as bad as it's ever been. [00:14:06] Heather Weiner: Yeah, and it's a war on people who have an illness. It is a disease. And it's a public health issue, not a crime issue. And so to put people in jail who have alcoholism - we've already been shown that does not work. It's the same thing with addictions to other substances. It just doesn't work. And in fact, you're right - it makes it worse. So now we see local folks - Reagan Dunn, three of our City Councilmembers here in Seattle - who are proposing instituting their own gross misdemeanor rules in their jurisdictions. And it's going to cost more in taxpayer dollars to house people in jail - who are going through withdrawal, who are going to have massive health problems, and then are going to get out and not have money and not have support - than it would to put them in housing. [00:14:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And to - [00:14:56] Heather Weiner: And if the real problem here is that we, as the public, don't want to see people suffering on the street - how is it that paying more for them to go into jail than to put them into supportive housing is going to solve the problem? It doesn't make any sense to me. It's not a solution. It is painting over the parts of your house that are disintegrating, that are moldy and disintegrating, and they're trying to paint it over instead of dealing with the leak in the first place. Wow. That was a really stretched out analogy. Not sure that anybody should use that. All right, anyway. So it doesn't make any sense to me - you're right. It's political posturing, coming into election time and municipal election time. Yeah, it's going to be super interesting to see how this is used. And the local news media has been doing this, not just here in Washington state but around the country, has been using this fear around people who have a disease - and they are using that as a fear to other people, but also to cause political dissension in our country. And it is not as bad in Seattle as everybody is saying. Yes, we do have a problem, but it is not as bad as what the news is portraying. It is part of the fear mongering. [00:16:10] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I don't think there's anyone who really, who doesn't want to do more to address this problem or doesn't acknowledge that substance use disorder is a problem - that we don't want to be seeing this, that it can lead to other things. We all know and understand that. We just want to do something that actually fixes it instead of landing us in the same place we've been for the last 30, 40 years under this War on Drugs, where we just punitively punish people for that. And - [00:16:38] Heather Weiner: For a disease. [00:16:39] Crystal Fincher: For a disease and I - or, there are also people who just use substances who are not addicted and based on what we classify as an illegal drug or not - there are people who drink alcohol socially. [00:16:53] Heather Weiner: I'm one. [00:16:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that's a drug. [00:16:54] Heather Weiner: I'm one. I have been seen with - the fact that the mayor is now proposing open container rules in certain neighborhoods, where people can walk around with open containers - but they're not allowed to be seen with a different substance? Yeah, just the irony, the inconsistency - call Alanis Morissette. [00:17:10] Crystal Fincher: The irony and inconsistency and - look, drug laws, very punitive drug laws have been a major contributor to mass incarceration, to an incredibly disproportionate impact on Black and Brown people. And what we're seeing now. Yeah, I have some thoughts. So one - [00:17:32] Heather Weiner: Do you? [00:17:33] Crystal Fincher: I do. [00:17:33] Heather Weiner: Maybe you should start a podcast. [00:17:35] Crystal Fincher: This should not be a surprise to a lot of people. But this posturing and grandstanding, just - number one, there is talk of a special session. And they're trying to figure out if they can get to a place on this, where they can agree and do something that's actively being talked about. There may be a special session. This has been reported on. So because they're working on this and because people at the county level are talking about dealing with this - all this talk from mayors and city council members is just premature. It's putting the cart before the horse. And it's grandstanding. And it's so plain to see. Allow the people who are working on this to continue working on this. Notice they didn't have any issue with doing that over the past few years. They just recognize that - Ooh, maybe this is an issue we can capitalize on. But I would caution them that it didn't turn out too well for them last year when they tried to bombard, to flood the zone with all of the voter, direct voter contact, media talking about crime and drugs. And they're gonna try and crack down and make drugs illegal again, all that kind of stuff. [00:18:48] Heather Weiner: Look, let's go ahead and let's blame people who are actually symptoms of the larger problem. And the problem is number one, we don't have enough affordable housing. Number two, we have a ton of people who are suffering from trauma and for all different kinds of way - whether it's in the military, in their own households, in their own family. And one of the ways that the body responds to trauma is to try to find a way to not feel the trauma. And that's a lot of what substance use disorder is. Three, we - the Republicans and some Democrats 12 years ago - cut massive funding from mental health and addiction services. And now we don't have enough places for people to go, as we see where the hospitals are overloaded with people who are suffering from mental health disorders. And now the chickens have come to roost. Look, I brought it back to chickens. [00:19:33] Crystal Fincher: There you go. You have brought it back, we're full circle. [00:19:36] Heather Weiner: Brought it back to chickens, to the chickens. [00:19:39] Crystal Fincher: To the chickens. [00:19:40] Heather Weiner: So these are all symptoms of this massive problem. Inslee tried to do something where he wanted to float a massive bond to raise money for housing - that didn't pay out. Some Democrats at least tried to raise some money from a REET on luxury housing and massive buildings that would fund affordable housing - a tax on real estate sales. The real estate lobby killed, the realtor lobby killed that. We tried to get rental caps this year to make sure that landlords, corporate landlords are not egregiously raising rents and causing economic evictions and destabilizing communities - that didn't pass. So let's just crack down on people and put them in jail. Are the jails empty? Is that what's going on? Is there a massive demand? [00:20:20] Crystal Fincher: Oh, totally empty. We're totally not experiencing issues of overcrowding, suicides, deaths from illness, injuries, understaffing - none of that is a problem that they're actively having to spend millions of dollars to deal with and facing lawsuits. No, not a problem at all. But yes, that whole situation is there. So we'll see how this unfolds. But I also want to - some people have tried to characterize this as a Democrat versus Republican issue - on the drug - it is not. This is an issue where there are a variety of stances on the Democratic and Republican side, really. And Democrats control the Legislature and they came forward with a bill, after all the talk and compromise, that landed at gross misdemeanor. The sky-is-falling argument was - Well, we have to do this because otherwise they're going to really criminalize it locally. So this is good enough. I have noticed that no proposal from conservative or Republican mayors or city councils have gone further than the Democratic legislature did. So were they negotiating themselves down? Again? [00:21:21] Heather Weiner: Fair. [00:21:22] Crystal Fincher: And is what we're actually going to wind up with worse than having that statewide? Would we rather have a significant recriminalization statewide, or have lower penalties and more treatment access across the board, or in more places in the state? That's something that they're going to have to deal with, but - [00:21:41] Heather Weiner: When do we think this special session might be called? It feels like there is a hard deadline, right? Of June. [00:21:47] Crystal Fincher: It feels like it, but I don't know. I have no inside information on those conversations or anything. [00:21:53] Heather Weiner: And when they have a special session, they can only address the issue that the special session has been called for. So there's no sneaking other things in there at the same time, which is good. Although there's a lot of things that were left unfinished. [00:22:04] Crystal Fincher: There is. And also legislators don't like special sessions often because it takes them away from campaigning - because they can't raise money while they're in session. [00:22:14] Heather Weiner: That's another reason why we need a full-time legislature and not a legislature where people have other jobs that they have to go do. They're paid so little, they have to have other jobs. And as a result, they just don't have time to do all the things that need to get done. And they don't have time to do it in a really thoughtful way, unfortunately - that things do get rushed. [00:22:30] Crystal Fincher: And that's why we have a disproportionate amount of wealthy and out-of-touch people in our legislators. [00:22:36] Heather Weiner: And white. Yes. And why we keep losing our legislators of color. [00:22:40] Crystal Fincher: Talking about some of the other things you touched on that we were able to see at the conclusion of the Legislature, of this legislative session - certainly, as we talked about last week, some significant movement on some housing bills. But as you mentioned, no relief for renters, which is a major component of keeping people in housing, preventing displacement, and keeping housing more affordable. [00:23:03] Heather Weiner: Yeah. 40% of Washingtonians are renters - 40%. That's a significant portion. And our rents are skyrocketing. There's articles in Crosscut about Walla Walla - retirees who are getting pushed out, they're having to do all kinds of crazy things in order to keep their housing. And a lot of this is because corporate landlords are using algorithms - kind of like what Airbnb does - to jack up prices in response to how the other corporate landlords are doing things. And so I wouldn't really call it collusion, but they are using these formulas to maximize the amount of profit that they make. And as a result, what we're seeing is massive community destabilization. Single parents with children have to move their kids from school district to school district. Retirees, our elders are leaving their neighbors - they don't know anybody around them, they don't know how to ask for help. Our veterans, who may already be facing a lot of challenges, are also being moved and destabilized. It's not good for communities. It's not good for Washington state. And when I see things like in today's news where they say - Half of people are thinking about moving out of Washington state - they don't really say why, but the reason is the rent is too high. It's time for the State Legislature to do something to provide relief for 40% of the state's residents. And I myself am a landlord - I have a small house that I rent out and I 100%, like many landlords, support rent caps and rent stabilization. [00:24:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I didn't even know you were a landlord. [00:24:36] Heather Weiner: Well, landlady. I don't know. It's kind of gendered. [00:24:40] Crystal Fincher: And yeah - I could talk a lot about that. But there are, we are suffering certainly at the hands of big corporate landlords. And they love nothing more than to try and paint all of the landlords - it's we're just little ma and pa, just we just had an extra house, and we're just out of the kindness of our hearts, just being housing providers. Some lobbyists are calling them housing providers. They're not housing providers. They're housing dealers. [00:25:05] Heather Weiner: I know - it's like job creators, right? [00:25:07] Crystal Fincher: Which is fine, but let's call it what it is. [00:25:10] Heather Weiner: Look, the way that the law was drafted, that was supported by the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, the way that the law was drafted is for the first 10 years of a building's - that a building is, or a unit, is being rented out - there's no rental cap on there as it adjusts to the market rate, figures out what's going on. And then you could always increase the rent once somebody moves out. But if somebody is living in that unit, you can't raise the rent - according to this law, you couldn't raise the rent more than 7% based on inflation and essentially economically evict them. And there is nothing wrong with that. There were lots of landlords who came out - family, mom and pop landlords, like me - who came out and said - Yeah, that sounds completely reasonable. That's what I would like to do. But it's the big corporate real estate lobby that once again came in and killed it. [00:25:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - once again. And so I guess what I would say is - there was a big, broad coalition that was put together by the legislators who sponsored this legislation - by organizations, activists, Futurewise certainly was huge in helping to get this passed. I hope that coalition stands up as strongly over the next year - through the next session - for mitigations, for rent relief, for helping people stay in their homes. Because that is as critical to getting costs in line, to keeping people in the communities where they are and their houses where they are, and reducing homelessness. It is as critical - this isn't an either-or - this is we absolutely need both. And so I hope this coalition continues to show up for the communities that have showed up for them and work to get this passed. Also, just want to talk about a couple other things they were highlighting. The budget was worked on until the very end. Democrats are touting investments in ferries, some modest investments in traffic safety. We had the first allocation of funds from the Climate Commitment Act that came in - still need to dig more into that to see where it's going and if they are living up to their promises to make sure that they are centering communities that are most impacted by climate change and pollution. And also workforce investments, workforce equity investments across the board. They did increase the cap for special education, which does increase funding, but not nearly at the level that is needed. There was a bill that didn't make it through that started off as free lunch for everyone, which we've talked about a few times before on this show, which - was a huge supporter of and thinking that - Of course, that totally makes sense. How is this controversial? Unfortunately it was - there was a trimmed down bill that increased access, that increased the number of people that could get school lunch programs. Basically, I think it's in schools or districts that met a certain threshold - if a kid asked for a free lunch, then it could be given to them in those districts. I want to say that it was 50 - I'm just throwing out numbers, but I'll figure that out and put it in the resources and show notes. But it was a trimmed down bill. A lot of good things happened - like many sessions - a lot of good things happened. A lot of disappointing things happen, and we just move forward and we continue to work and we continue to push and we hopefully continue to hold our legislators accountable for the decisions that they're making. [00:28:29] Heather Weiner: Let's have - let's end on a good note, on a positive note. Here's some good news. So article just came out in Bloomberg Tax - I know you read that every morning, Crystal, I know you do - and the new capital gains tax that was passed about two years ago is now finally being collected. The Washington Supreme Court ruled that it was legal and it's now being collected for the first time. There were estimates by policy experts that it would be, probably in the first year, somewhere around $450, maybe $500 million raised from taxes on the sales of huge stock market gains. Doesn't apply to 99.8% of us. And they thought it would raise maybe $500 million. According to the Department of Revenue, $833 million raised for schools, childcare, preschool, and other education. Amazing amount of money. But here's what you got to think about is how rich are people that they are having stock market gains where a 7% tax on their stock market gains over a quarter of a million dollars is raising nearly a billion. That's a lot of money being moved between stocks over there in rich people land. I couldn't believe it. It blows my mind. [00:29:37] Crystal Fincher: It is - absolutely, and more there. So I also hope that the work of the wealth tax picks up next session because it's absolutely needed and we can see how much of an impact that it does make. Also, we had a special election this week. In King County, there were - depending on where you were at - everyone voted on the Crisis Care Centers Levy, which passed. And so we are going to be having five new regional crisis care centers in the County. There are also provisions for helping to boost the workforce, increase the staffing levels in an area that's already really stressed and really hurting for staff. And what was your take on this? [00:30:18] Heather Weiner: I think it's great, but also people are going to come into these crisis centers and where are they going to send them? There's not any housing. So I think it's a great idea. It's a good first step to get people through. But I'm concerned that you're still in crisis at the end of the day. [00:30:32] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I feel similarly - a lot is going to be about the implementation. We absolutely need more resources. And if this is done well, and if this is done right, it'll be helpful. We have also heard a ton of stories about challenging care, especially when that care is involuntary - when someone is in a major crisis. And so I think it's going to be really paying attention to the implementation of this and making sure that they are following best practices, and that people are treated with dignity and respect, and really the focus is on their healing over everything else. We'll see how it turns out, but I deem it to be a helpful - these are absolutely resources that we need. And we can do this better than we have done it before. And we should - we owe it to everyone to do that, so we'll see. Also, Kent School District had a bond vote, also on this same ballot, that failed. School bonds raise for buildings, for capital expenditures - those races, elections carry a higher threshold to pass a bond. It's 60% as opposed to 50% - which is a big, big difference between 60% and 50%, when you just look at elections across the board. This one actually didn't even make 50%. And I, once again, am begging school boards, people in school districts to stop putting these ballot measures on special election ballots. Put it on the general election ballot. If you must, put it on the primary ballot. But stick to those, especially in a district like King County, when turnout is everything. When it comes to these school levies, school bonds - having them in higher turnout elections obviously is going to increase the support. In the same way that we know in Seattle - if it's a very high turnout election, that's going to be a more progressive election than a really low turnout election. So let's just stop doing this, please. Do you have any thoughts about special elections and school levies? [00:32:25] Heather Weiner: Look, the big thing is we keep going back to the people over and over again to pass what are essentially regressive taxes, whether it's for the school levies or for the crisis center. I want to point out that one of the major funders of the crisis center levy - which I supported - one of the major funders was John Stanton, who is on the wall of shame for his work to kill the capital gains tax, to hit up the taxpayers to pay for his stadium to the tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars. And yet he wants to put a regressive tax on the rest of us. The solution here is not to keep passing, or trying to pass, these little regressive taxes to patch the leaky roof. See, I'm back to that analogy. It is to pass wealth tax and other taxes on the incredibly super rich billionaires and ultra millionaires that we have in this state. [00:33:13] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, April 28th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is political consultant and urban farmer, Heather Weiner. You can find Heather on Twitter @hlweiner, that's W-E-I-N-E-R. You can follow me on Twitter at Hacks & Wonks - that's @HacksWonks. Or you can follow me on Twitter @finchfrii, or on Blue Sky, or basically any platform at finchfrii - that's F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. 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 Tuesday topical and Friday week-in-review shows 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 official hacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily Newsbrief for Thursday, February 23rd, 2023. Rowdy Christian Merch Plug: If you’re a fan of CrossPolitic, or the Fight Laugh Feast Network, then surely, you know we have a merch store right? Rowdy Christian Merch is your one-stop-shop for everything CrossPolitc merchandise. We’ve got T-Shirts, hoodies, hats, but we’ve also got specialty items like backpacks, mugs, coffee, even airpod cases! Visit Rowdy Christian Merch at rowdychristian.com, and buy that next gift, or a little something for yourself. Again, that’s rowdychristian.com. https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/21/biden-admin-religious-student-groups-protections-campus/ Biden Admin Looking To Remove Religious Student Groups’ Protections On Campus The Department of Education (DOE) announced a proposal Tuesday rescinding a Trump-era policy that prohibited universities from receiving federal funding if they restricted religious student group activities. The 2020 policy, initially signed by former President Donald Trump as part of an executive order in 2019, was proposed to prevent universities from censoring the speech of religious students on campus, according to the Washington Post. The DEO’s recent announcement indicates that President Joe Biden is looking to end the policy, claiming the protections caused an “unduly burdensome role” for the department. “[T]he Department believes it is not necessary in order to protect the First Amendment right to free speech and free exercise of religion given existing legal protections, it has caused confusion about schools’ nondiscrimination requirements, and it prescribed a novel and unduly burdensome role for the Department in investigating allegations regarding public institutions’ treatment of religious student organizations,” the announcement read. “We have not seen evidence that the regulation has provided meaningfully increased protection for religious student organizations beyond the robust First Amendment protections that already exist, much less that it has been necessary to ensure they are able to organize and operate on campus.” The announcement came from Nassar H. Paydar, Assistant Secretary of Postsecondary Education, who explained that since September 2021 the DOE had been looking into current policies regarding the First Amendment that “impose additional requirements on its higher education institutional grant recipients.” Paydar noted that during that time, the DOE determined that the 2020 policy had placed a burden on the higher education system and did not provide any “meaningfully increased protection for religious student organizations.” In 2020, Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told the Washington Post that the rule protects religious students from being “forced to choose between their faith and their education” and would also protect religious universities from being turned away for federal funding because of their religious affiliation. The public comment phase will begin on Wednesday, Feb. 22, and remain open for 30 days for anyone to comment and provide their thoughts on the proposal, according to the announcement. https://www.newsweek.com/alaska-republican-touts-benefits-children-being-abused-death-1782972 Alegislature in Alaska caused outrage after questioning whether the death of child abuse victims could be "a cost savings," because it would mean they don't need "government services" later in life. Republican David Eastman, who sits in the Alaska House of Representatives, made the comment on Monday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. The committee was meeting to discuss how children are impacted by physical or sexual abuse, as well as witnessing domestic violence within their family home. Lawmakers were shown a study indicating each incident of fatal child abuse costs society $1.5 million, a figure reached by assessing the impact of trauma and the child's loss of earnings over a lifetime. However, Eastman was unimpressed, and questioned whether fatal child abuse could be economically beneficial to wider society, an argument he claimed to have heard. Eastman said: "It can be argued, periodically, that it's actually a cost savings because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise be entitled to receive and need based on growing up in this type of environment." The remark horrified Trevor Storrs, president of the Alaska Children's Trust (ACT), who hit back describing the loss of a child as "unmeasurable." Democratic Representative Cliff Groh, who used to work as a prosecutor covering child abuse allegations, said he was "disturbed" by Easterman's comment. Representative Sarah Vance, the Republican who claims the House Judiciary Committee, said Easterman, who doesn't serve on any committees, had been at the hearing "at my invitation." Vance later suggested Eastman had been trying to make an argument against abortion, which some consider to be "child abuse." Speaking with the Anchorage Daily News via text message, Eastman said: "I was pleased to hear ACT advocating against child abuse, but a child's value comes not from future productivity, but from the fact that every child is made in the image of God." https://www.foxnews.com/media/seattle-police-defunding-crime-ravages-locals-huge-crisis Seattle reverses course on defunding police as crime ravages locals: 'A huge crisis' Seattle residents Victoria Beach, Eli Hoshor and Jonathan Choe said police shortages have left their city in dire straits in the aftermath of officials' anti-law enforcement rhetoric. Homicides skyrocketed by 24% while motor vehicle thefts climbed by 30% in the city last year. Overall crime ticked up by 4%. Mayor Bruce Harrell pushed for increased police presence to curb the issue Tuesday, saying, "We need immediate action and innovation to respond to our public safety issues… Seattle saw a 4% rise in reported crime last year… We need more officers to address our staffing crisis." Still, some residents' outlook is less than optimistic. Piro reported data from Seattle's city's budget office showing funding for law enforcement increased for the first time since a major slash was made in 2020. Hoshor, a resident, says the uptick is not enough to reduce crime. "The crime is just getting worse and worse," he said. "There's a homeless encampment that's right next to my son's school that's been there for over a year, and it's doubled and tripled in size. Choe, a reporter from the area, slammed the "Defund the Police" movement for being behind the crime rise as well as the "woke" activist class who he said are perpetuating the problem. He added that seeing how "Defund the Police" supporters respond to Harrell's push for more police and the uptick in funding for the department should be "interesting." https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-seattle-forced-to-pay-3-6-million-in-2020-autonomous-zone-damages-to-business-owners?utm_campaign=64487 Seattle forced to pay $3.6 MILLION in 2020 CHAZ damages to business owners The city of Seattle has agreed to pay $3,650,000 in damages to business owners who brought suit after the deadly 2020 Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) damaged their business, property, and violated their constitutional rights. The group had originally been seeking $2.9 million. The city has until March 3 to pay the sum as part of a settlement revealed last week. According to court filings regarding the settlement, $600,000 will go toward attorney fees for the more than a dozen plaintiffs. The settlement came just weeks after a federal judge imposed sanctions against the city for deleting thousands of text messages between Seattle officials including former Mayor Jenny Durkan, former police chief Carmen Best, and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins during the armed occupation by Antifa and BLM rioters of 6 square blocks of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The CHAZ, also known as the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest or CHOP, was established by activists on June 8, 2020, after Seattle police were ordered by police leadership to abandon the department’s East Precinct during the riots that rocked the Emerald City in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minn. on May 25, 2020. Video of his death emerged, setting off months of riots in the midst of a pandemic. https://twitter.com/i/status/1270925505190146048 - Play Video Zone occupiers refused to allow police into the area. Rapes, robberies, and murders spiked 250 percent in the 6-block area during the occupation. The zone lasted 3 weeks before it was finally broken up by police on July 1, 2020, after two fatal shootings and rioters vandalized then Mayor Durkan's home. https://twitter.com/i/status/1271249933765656578 - Play Video According to court documents, business owners alleged that city officials’ "unprecedented decision to abandon and close off" the 16-block section of the neighborhood "subjected businesses, employees, and residents to extensive property damage, public safety dangers, and an inability to use and access their properties." It was revealed after the occupation that Seattle officials, including former Mayor Jenny Durkan, former police chief Carmen Best, and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins deleted thousands of text messages from their city-owned phones regarding the zone, including communications with the infamous “warlord” of the autonomous zone, Raz Simone. US District Judge Thomas Zilly previously sanctioned the city and thereby allowed the jury to view the missing evidence as a strike against the city in the case. Zilly Wrote, “City officials deleted thousands of text messages from their city-owned phones in complete disregard of their legal obligation to preserve relevant evidence. Further, the city significantly delayed disclosing … that thousands of text messages had been deleted” and could not be reproduced or recovered.” https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/npr-layoffs-10-percent-job-cuts-john-lansing-1235331693/ NPR to Cut Workforce by 10 Percent, as Advertising Slowdown Hits Public Media “Our financial outlook has darkened considerably over recent weeks,” Lansing wrote in a memo to staff Wednesday. “At a time when we are doing some of our most ambitious and essential work, the global economy remains uncertain. As a result, the ad industry has weakened and we are grappling with a sharp decline in our revenues from corporate sponsors. We had created a plan to address a $20M sponsorship revenue falloff for FY23 but we are now projecting at least a $30M shortfall. The cuts we have already made to our budget will not be enough.” So Lansing says that most of NPR’s open jobs will be eliminated, and that it will be reducing its existing workforce by 10 percent. More than 700 employees work at the public media firm. Lansing also suggested that the necessary job cuts will result in a more refined mission for NPR as an organization, writing that “some work will need to change or stop entirely,” and that NPR’s executive committee is figuring out where it needs to continue investing, and where it should pull back. Some of NPR’s most popular programs (on both terrestrial radio and in podcast form) include Fresh Air, Planet Money, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me, and Up First. It also has a sizable news division that produces journalism that runs across its programming. Accountable2You Jesus is Lord. In public and in private, every area of life must be subject to his Lordship—and our use of technology is no exception. What captures our attention on the screen either glorifies or dishonors our Lord. That’s why Accountable2You is committed to promoting biblical accountability in our families and churches. Their monitoring and reporting software makes transparency easy on all of your devices, so you can say with the Psalmist, “I will not set anything worthless before my eyes.” Guard against temptation with Accountable2You, and live for God’s glory! Learn more and try it for free at Accountable2You.com/FLF https://www.boundingintosports.com/2023/02/former-nfl-player-eric-johnson-among-8-people-arrested-for-human-trafficking-gang-charges/ Former NFL Player Eric Johnson Among 8 People Arrested For Human Trafficking & Gang Charges Johnson, 46, played in The League from 2000-2005 with the Oakland Raiders, Atlanta Falcons, and Arizona Cardinals. He’s now part of an apparent trafficking ring that stands accused of multiple acts involving four adult women and one female minor. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr says the LOTTO Gang members – including Johnson – are facing charges of trafficking of persons for sexual servitude, violation of the street gang terrorism and prevention act, conspiracy to violate the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act, aggravated assault and kidnapping. Eric Johnson, former Atlanta Falcon charged in human trafficking, racketeering case- Play Video While he’s certainly not a household name by any means, Eric Johnson is known for one significant moment in NFL history. He scored a touchdown in the Raiders’ 48-21 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII. He blocked a punt and then returned it for 13 yards for the score.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily Newsbrief for Thursday, February 23rd, 2023. Rowdy Christian Merch Plug: If you’re a fan of CrossPolitic, or the Fight Laugh Feast Network, then surely, you know we have a merch store right? Rowdy Christian Merch is your one-stop-shop for everything CrossPolitc merchandise. We’ve got T-Shirts, hoodies, hats, but we’ve also got specialty items like backpacks, mugs, coffee, even airpod cases! Visit Rowdy Christian Merch at rowdychristian.com, and buy that next gift, or a little something for yourself. Again, that’s rowdychristian.com. https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/21/biden-admin-religious-student-groups-protections-campus/ Biden Admin Looking To Remove Religious Student Groups’ Protections On Campus The Department of Education (DOE) announced a proposal Tuesday rescinding a Trump-era policy that prohibited universities from receiving federal funding if they restricted religious student group activities. The 2020 policy, initially signed by former President Donald Trump as part of an executive order in 2019, was proposed to prevent universities from censoring the speech of religious students on campus, according to the Washington Post. The DEO’s recent announcement indicates that President Joe Biden is looking to end the policy, claiming the protections caused an “unduly burdensome role” for the department. “[T]he Department believes it is not necessary in order to protect the First Amendment right to free speech and free exercise of religion given existing legal protections, it has caused confusion about schools’ nondiscrimination requirements, and it prescribed a novel and unduly burdensome role for the Department in investigating allegations regarding public institutions’ treatment of religious student organizations,” the announcement read. “We have not seen evidence that the regulation has provided meaningfully increased protection for religious student organizations beyond the robust First Amendment protections that already exist, much less that it has been necessary to ensure they are able to organize and operate on campus.” The announcement came from Nassar H. Paydar, Assistant Secretary of Postsecondary Education, who explained that since September 2021 the DOE had been looking into current policies regarding the First Amendment that “impose additional requirements on its higher education institutional grant recipients.” Paydar noted that during that time, the DOE determined that the 2020 policy had placed a burden on the higher education system and did not provide any “meaningfully increased protection for religious student organizations.” In 2020, Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told the Washington Post that the rule protects religious students from being “forced to choose between their faith and their education” and would also protect religious universities from being turned away for federal funding because of their religious affiliation. The public comment phase will begin on Wednesday, Feb. 22, and remain open for 30 days for anyone to comment and provide their thoughts on the proposal, according to the announcement. https://www.newsweek.com/alaska-republican-touts-benefits-children-being-abused-death-1782972 Alegislature in Alaska caused outrage after questioning whether the death of child abuse victims could be "a cost savings," because it would mean they don't need "government services" later in life. Republican David Eastman, who sits in the Alaska House of Representatives, made the comment on Monday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. The committee was meeting to discuss how children are impacted by physical or sexual abuse, as well as witnessing domestic violence within their family home. Lawmakers were shown a study indicating each incident of fatal child abuse costs society $1.5 million, a figure reached by assessing the impact of trauma and the child's loss of earnings over a lifetime. However, Eastman was unimpressed, and questioned whether fatal child abuse could be economically beneficial to wider society, an argument he claimed to have heard. Eastman said: "It can be argued, periodically, that it's actually a cost savings because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise be entitled to receive and need based on growing up in this type of environment." The remark horrified Trevor Storrs, president of the Alaska Children's Trust (ACT), who hit back describing the loss of a child as "unmeasurable." Democratic Representative Cliff Groh, who used to work as a prosecutor covering child abuse allegations, said he was "disturbed" by Easterman's comment. Representative Sarah Vance, the Republican who claims the House Judiciary Committee, said Easterman, who doesn't serve on any committees, had been at the hearing "at my invitation." Vance later suggested Eastman had been trying to make an argument against abortion, which some consider to be "child abuse." Speaking with the Anchorage Daily News via text message, Eastman said: "I was pleased to hear ACT advocating against child abuse, but a child's value comes not from future productivity, but from the fact that every child is made in the image of God." https://www.foxnews.com/media/seattle-police-defunding-crime-ravages-locals-huge-crisis Seattle reverses course on defunding police as crime ravages locals: 'A huge crisis' Seattle residents Victoria Beach, Eli Hoshor and Jonathan Choe said police shortages have left their city in dire straits in the aftermath of officials' anti-law enforcement rhetoric. Homicides skyrocketed by 24% while motor vehicle thefts climbed by 30% in the city last year. Overall crime ticked up by 4%. Mayor Bruce Harrell pushed for increased police presence to curb the issue Tuesday, saying, "We need immediate action and innovation to respond to our public safety issues… Seattle saw a 4% rise in reported crime last year… We need more officers to address our staffing crisis." Still, some residents' outlook is less than optimistic. Piro reported data from Seattle's city's budget office showing funding for law enforcement increased for the first time since a major slash was made in 2020. Hoshor, a resident, says the uptick is not enough to reduce crime. "The crime is just getting worse and worse," he said. "There's a homeless encampment that's right next to my son's school that's been there for over a year, and it's doubled and tripled in size. Choe, a reporter from the area, slammed the "Defund the Police" movement for being behind the crime rise as well as the "woke" activist class who he said are perpetuating the problem. He added that seeing how "Defund the Police" supporters respond to Harrell's push for more police and the uptick in funding for the department should be "interesting." https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-seattle-forced-to-pay-3-6-million-in-2020-autonomous-zone-damages-to-business-owners?utm_campaign=64487 Seattle forced to pay $3.6 MILLION in 2020 CHAZ damages to business owners The city of Seattle has agreed to pay $3,650,000 in damages to business owners who brought suit after the deadly 2020 Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) damaged their business, property, and violated their constitutional rights. The group had originally been seeking $2.9 million. The city has until March 3 to pay the sum as part of a settlement revealed last week. According to court filings regarding the settlement, $600,000 will go toward attorney fees for the more than a dozen plaintiffs. The settlement came just weeks after a federal judge imposed sanctions against the city for deleting thousands of text messages between Seattle officials including former Mayor Jenny Durkan, former police chief Carmen Best, and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins during the armed occupation by Antifa and BLM rioters of 6 square blocks of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The CHAZ, also known as the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest or CHOP, was established by activists on June 8, 2020, after Seattle police were ordered by police leadership to abandon the department’s East Precinct during the riots that rocked the Emerald City in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minn. on May 25, 2020. Video of his death emerged, setting off months of riots in the midst of a pandemic. https://twitter.com/i/status/1270925505190146048 - Play Video Zone occupiers refused to allow police into the area. Rapes, robberies, and murders spiked 250 percent in the 6-block area during the occupation. The zone lasted 3 weeks before it was finally broken up by police on July 1, 2020, after two fatal shootings and rioters vandalized then Mayor Durkan's home. https://twitter.com/i/status/1271249933765656578 - Play Video According to court documents, business owners alleged that city officials’ "unprecedented decision to abandon and close off" the 16-block section of the neighborhood "subjected businesses, employees, and residents to extensive property damage, public safety dangers, and an inability to use and access their properties." It was revealed after the occupation that Seattle officials, including former Mayor Jenny Durkan, former police chief Carmen Best, and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins deleted thousands of text messages from their city-owned phones regarding the zone, including communications with the infamous “warlord” of the autonomous zone, Raz Simone. US District Judge Thomas Zilly previously sanctioned the city and thereby allowed the jury to view the missing evidence as a strike against the city in the case. Zilly Wrote, “City officials deleted thousands of text messages from their city-owned phones in complete disregard of their legal obligation to preserve relevant evidence. Further, the city significantly delayed disclosing … that thousands of text messages had been deleted” and could not be reproduced or recovered.” https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/npr-layoffs-10-percent-job-cuts-john-lansing-1235331693/ NPR to Cut Workforce by 10 Percent, as Advertising Slowdown Hits Public Media “Our financial outlook has darkened considerably over recent weeks,” Lansing wrote in a memo to staff Wednesday. “At a time when we are doing some of our most ambitious and essential work, the global economy remains uncertain. As a result, the ad industry has weakened and we are grappling with a sharp decline in our revenues from corporate sponsors. We had created a plan to address a $20M sponsorship revenue falloff for FY23 but we are now projecting at least a $30M shortfall. The cuts we have already made to our budget will not be enough.” So Lansing says that most of NPR’s open jobs will be eliminated, and that it will be reducing its existing workforce by 10 percent. More than 700 employees work at the public media firm. Lansing also suggested that the necessary job cuts will result in a more refined mission for NPR as an organization, writing that “some work will need to change or stop entirely,” and that NPR’s executive committee is figuring out where it needs to continue investing, and where it should pull back. Some of NPR’s most popular programs (on both terrestrial radio and in podcast form) include Fresh Air, Planet Money, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me, and Up First. It also has a sizable news division that produces journalism that runs across its programming. Accountable2You Jesus is Lord. In public and in private, every area of life must be subject to his Lordship—and our use of technology is no exception. What captures our attention on the screen either glorifies or dishonors our Lord. That’s why Accountable2You is committed to promoting biblical accountability in our families and churches. Their monitoring and reporting software makes transparency easy on all of your devices, so you can say with the Psalmist, “I will not set anything worthless before my eyes.” Guard against temptation with Accountable2You, and live for God’s glory! Learn more and try it for free at Accountable2You.com/FLF https://www.boundingintosports.com/2023/02/former-nfl-player-eric-johnson-among-8-people-arrested-for-human-trafficking-gang-charges/ Former NFL Player Eric Johnson Among 8 People Arrested For Human Trafficking & Gang Charges Johnson, 46, played in The League from 2000-2005 with the Oakland Raiders, Atlanta Falcons, and Arizona Cardinals. He’s now part of an apparent trafficking ring that stands accused of multiple acts involving four adult women and one female minor. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr says the LOTTO Gang members – including Johnson – are facing charges of trafficking of persons for sexual servitude, violation of the street gang terrorism and prevention act, conspiracy to violate the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act, aggravated assault and kidnapping. Eric Johnson, former Atlanta Falcon charged in human trafficking, racketeering case- Play Video While he’s certainly not a household name by any means, Eric Johnson is known for one significant moment in NFL history. He scored a touchdown in the Raiders’ 48-21 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII. He blocked a punt and then returned it for 13 yards for the score.

Today's episode is a recording of a live forum between Seattle Municipal Court Judge candidates - Judge Adam Eisenberg and Pooja Vaddadi for Position 3, Nyjat Rose-Akins and Judge Damon Shadid for Position 7. The forum was live streamed by Hacks & Wonks on October 12, 2022 and moderated by Crystal Fincher.   Resources Find links to the YouTube video and transcript here   Campaign Website - Judge Adam Eisenberg   Campaign Website - Pooja Vaddadi   Campaign Website - Nyjat Rose-Akins   Campaign Website - Judge Damon Shadid   Register to vote, update your registration, see what's on your ballot and more here   Past felony conviction? Information on re-registering to vote at the Washington Voting Rights Restoration Coalition   Transcript [00:00:00] Bryce Cannatelli: Hello everyone. This is Bryce from the Hacks & Wonks team. Today's episode is a recording of our City of Seattle Municipal Court Judge forum which was originally streamed live on October 12. You can find video from the event as well as a full text transcript on our website officialhacksandwonks.com. Thank you for listening! [00:00:34] Crystal Fincher: Greetings, everyone. My name is Crystal Fincher. I'm a political consultant and the host of this candidate forum tonight. Welcome to this Hacks & Wonks 2022 Primary Candidate Forum for City of Seattle Municipal Court Judge Positions 3 and 7. For those who need a refresher, the Seattle Municipal Court handles all misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor crimes, civil infractions, and other offenses authorized under the Seattle municipal Code and Revised Code of Washington statutes. Misdemeanors are crimes where the maximum sentence is 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. Gross Misdemeanors are crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine, including offenses such as driving under the influence, domestic violence, theft, and trespass. Infractions are acts that are prohibited by law but are not legally defined as a crime, like parking tickets and traffic or non-traffic infractions. And Civil Offenses are filed with the court when the City of Seattle seeks enforcement of its fire code, housing, and other city ordinance violations. The majority of the Seattle Municipal Court Judges' time is dedicated to jury trials and pretrial hearings. They also hear sentencings, arraignments, reviews, non-jury, or 'bench' trials, and can perform marriage ceremonies. Seattle Municipal Court has seven judges who are elected to four-year terms. Every other year, the judges select one judge to act as the Presiding Judge for a two-year term. The Presiding Judge's responsibilities including: overseeing the magistrates, lead the management and administration of the court's business, recommend policies and procedures that improve the court's effectiveness, allocate resources that maximize the court's ability to resolve disputes fairly and expeditiously, and determine judicial assignments. We're excited to be able to live stream this forum on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Additionally, we are recording this forum for rebroadcast and later viewing. We invite our audience to ask questions of our candidates. If you're watching a live stream online, then you can ask questions by commenting on the live stream. You can also text your questions to 206-395-6248, and that number will scroll at the bottom of the screen. The candidates running for City of Seattle Municipal Court Judge Position 3 with us right now are - in alphabetical order - Adam Eisenberg and Pooja Vaddadi. And for Position 7 we have - again, in alphabetical order - Nyjat Rose-Akins and Damon Shadid. A few reminders before we jump into the forum. I want to remind you to vote. Ballots will be mailed to your mailbox starting Wednesday, October 19th - that's this coming Wednesday. You can register to vote, update your registration, and see what will be on your ballot at MyVote.wa.gov. I want to mention that tonight's answers will be timed. Each candidate will have one minute to introduce themselves initially, and 90 seconds to answer each subsequent question. Candidates may be engaged with rebuttal or follow up with questions and will have 30 seconds to respond. Time will be indicated by the colored dot labeled "timer" on the screen. The dot will initially appear as green, when there are 30 seconds left it will turn yellow, and when there are 10 seconds left it will turn red. You will be muted when time is up. Now we'll turn to the candidates who will each have one minute to introduce themselves, starting with Adam Eisenberg. Then Pooja Vaddadi. Next Nyjat Rose-Akins. Finally Damon Shadid. So starting with our first candidate. [00:04:13] Judge Adam Eisenberg: Good evening. Municipal courts present a unique opportunity for restorative justice and diversion. For many of the people who come before me, this is their first stop in the legal system - I want it to be their last. I grew up with an abusive father and I know that treatment is critical to healing survivors, families, and abusers. That's why I helped create the Domestic Violence Intervention Project, a community-based program that serves as an alternative to jail. DVIP provides individualized treatment to break cycles of abuse and trauma. I'm proud to be the only LGBTQ+ member of the Seattle Municipal Court bench. Before being appointed in 2017, I had 25 years of experience as a prosecutor, civil defense attorney, magistrate and commissioner. I believe my diverse background is why I've been rated "Exceptionally Well Qualified" by the King County Bar and four minority bar associations. It's also why I've been elected Presiding Judge by my peers and why I have the support of Supreme Court Justices Yu, González and Whitener, local district Democrats, the unions that represent our court clerks and many more. Thank you. [00:05:11] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. And next. [00:05:17] Pooja Vaddadi: Okay, sorry - thank you. My name is Pooja Vaddadi and I'm running for judge in Seattle to serve the community that raised me and bring about a positive change in the culture of Seattle Municipal Court. I'm a career public defender and my platform is centered on a recommitment to fairness, compassion, and restorative justice. At this time, I've been endorsed by every Democratic organization in Seattle and King County that has endorsed in this race, as well as the Washington Young Democrats, the Democrats for Diversity and Inclusion and the National Women's Political Caucus. Aside from three legislative districts, these endorsements are exclusive. I always planned to run for judge, but I wish that I didn't have to run right now. Practice at Seattle Municipal Court showed me a toxic and biased judiciary acting against the interest of public safety and undermining the institution of the court. I'm running now because it is urgent that we change direction. This campaign is about the people of Seattle. As a public defender, I came to understand the specific challenges that prevent misdemeanor defendants from interacting productively with the criminal justice system. I'm running to bring the court back in touch with the law and with the circumstances of those it serves. [00:06:17] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Nyjat Rose-Akins. [00:06:21] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Thank you. Good evening. My name is Nyjat Rose-Akins and I'm running for Position 7 on the Seattle Municipal Court bench. I love Seattle. I became a U.S. citizen here, but I've seen the breakdown in collaboration across the city. I'm running to help repair that breakdown to improve the community's confidence in the court and to return to an individualized approach to judicial decision-making. I'm running because I've spent the last 12 years working with victims and managing relationships - the community relationships with police. In my 12 years at the City Attorney's Office, I've partnered with businesses, government officials, community members, and law enforcement. I've seen firsthand that issues affecting communities are rarely resolved in silos. Real change takes collaboration from all those involved, a willingness to listen, and the ability to have the courage to say when things are not working. I am running for Seattle Municipal Court to make it better. Thank you. [00:07:20] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Damon Shadid. [00:07:22] Judge Damon Shadid: My name is Judge Damon Shadid. I've been a judge at Seattle Municipal Court for the past eight years. For the past four years, I've been presiding over the majority of Seattle Municipal Court's therapeutic courts - including Community Court which I helped found, Mental Health Court which I helped expand, and the Consolidated Calendar which I was able to create in partnership with other criminal legal system organizations. All of these programs have one thing in common. Accountability is best sought through rehabilitation, not through holding people in jail. Without rehabilitation, we are not going to make our community safer - and that's what all of my programs do. It is an individualized approach to find out what people's barriers are and to help them connect with the vital social services that will help them exit the criminal legal system. I'm proud to be endorsed by the Progressive Voters Guide, by The Seattle Times, by nine Supreme Court Justices, by many labor organizations, as well as community leaders, including - [00:08:31] Crystal Fincher: Thank you, I believe that's your time. Our first question will begin with Nyjat Rose-Akins, then follow up with Damon Shadid. What is your evaluation of the Community Court system? What is working and what's not working? [00:08:46] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Thank you for that question. My evaluation of the Community Court system that is run out of Seattle Municipal Court is that it is not working. I have been partnering with members in the community as well as businesses and really trying to understand what is happening in that court. As a prosecutor - when I initially started at the City Attorney's Office in 2010 - I worked in Community Court. So I understand how the program is supposed to work. And currently I do not believe it's working because right now it seems as if it's a very indiscriminate approach to low-level crime, meaning it seems as if all types of crimes can come in regardless of what that individual may be doing in the community and whether or not that individual continues to commit crime even after being in Community Court. For instance, an individual - me reviewing the docket in the court, the court dockets - I've seen individuals with six, seven, eight crimes all at one time in Community Court. That shows me that that is not working. And low-level crime should be something very small. However, I'm seeing crimes where individuals are stealing thousands of dollars, $970 from businesses and Home Depot and Target. So my issue with it is that it doesn't seem to be working and we continue to just recycle people in and out without any real solution. [00:10:19] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Judge Shadid. [00:10:22] Judge Damon Shadid: It's interesting. My opponent has never appeared in Community Court, which I founded - she was in a prior iteration of Community Court. But let me give you some numbers to show you how Community Court is working. 80% of the graduates of Community Court have no further criminal law violations - 80%. That's over two years that we ran the numbers and the graduates are not coming back in the criminal legal system - that is results that work. Let me tell you something else - now, Community Court was created in a collaboration with the City Attorney's Office and with the Public Defender's Office. We meet every two weeks, we tweak the program, we make it better. And in all of these meetings - my opponent has never come to the meeting, has never offered any sort of critique of the court, but instead has come from the outside where she's only reviewed dockets, but never actually been in the court, never been in the meetings. If she had been in the meeting, she would know that they work. She would know that we're collaborating and she would know that what we are trying to do is bring accountability through rehabilitation and it is working. Of the people who come to court, 90% of those people enter Community Court. Of those 90%, 75% graduate. And of those graduates, 90% don't re-offend in the next two years. Those are real numbers. Those work and we should keep going with Community Court, make it better, and expand it. [00:11:48] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Pooja Vaddadi. [00:11:54] Pooja Vaddadi: Thank you. I believe a lot of Community Court is working. I've had a lot of clients that cycled in and out of Community Court and have been met with very many resources through that court. What I've noticed that hasn't been working is that a lot of roadblocks have been set up by the City Attorney's Office and a majority of the judges have more or less gone along with what the City Attorney proposes - and that is to exclude everybody off the High Utilizer Initiative list. That list is made up of people who have severe mental illnesses and people who are homeless and struggling with desperation and poverty. And I believe those people are the people that would benefit the most from a court like Community Court. Certain people on that list are also part of the Trueblood class and should just not be capable of being prosecuted because of the severity of their mental illness as well. And so Community Court obviously would not be the right place for them. But again, prosecution or keeping them off of any kind of diversion list is not going to help people who just cannot be prosecuted because of a mental illness. I believe that the Community Court can work better if the City Attorney, the Public Defenders and the Judges - again - decide to work together and come to a policy that works for everybody on the same page. I don't think it's working right now because people are butting heads in the court and in the Public Defenders and the City Attorney. People need to be on the same side and that's the side of public safety and helping prevent poverty and homelessness. Thank you. [00:13:24] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. And Adam Eisenberg. [00:13:27] Judge Adam Eisenberg: Yes. So the thing that's most important to understand about Community Court is it's a triage court. It's meant to get people in the court system and out of the court system as quickly as possible, hook them up with social services, give them - if we can get them to housing, get them to housing - and move them on. The reality is some folks don't fit in Community Court. And while I don't necessarily agree that coming up with a list of 109 people or 110 or whatever is the best solution, the reality is that we need to figure out a way of addressing the folks who commit very low-level crimes, but don't succeed in Community Court. That's what this group is about. The group that doesn't succeed that keeps coming back. So while there's a great success rate as Judge Shadid talks about, how do we address the folks that don't fit? There is a dispute between the prosecutors and the public defenders - the prosecutor has discretion, judges have discretion as well. And I think over time we'll see that those folks will try to figure out more services that we can provide them with. But the reality is not everybody fits in Community Court and that group is the group we have to figure how to target. Thank you. [00:14:31] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Nyjat asked for some rebuttal time. [00:14:36] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Thank you. I just wanted to address the 80% of people who go into Community Court graduate. That number is very skewed because when you do review the court docket, there are also a number of people who fail to appear or don't even show up for court. So I believe that is a skewed number based on the fact that there are multiple Community Court offers, but a number of people who do not show up for court. Additionally, the City Attorney tried to negotiate and opt some people out because they felt they - [00:15:12] Crystal Fincher: That is time there and just another reminder - rebuttal is a 30-second period. Does anyone else want any rebuttal time, or are we good? We will move on to the next question. And we'll start with Judge Shadid. We have seen news of overcrowding in jails, asks from various jail employees - including corrections officers and public defenders - saying that they don't currently have the staffing to safely man the jails, asking to reduce the population. Should that be taken into account by judges when imposing sentences? [00:15:51] Judge Damon Shadid: Well the short answer is "No, but..." And there's a big but there - and that is that the criminal legal system should be steering away from incarceration because we know incarceration doesn't help people... the criminal legal system. And as a deterrent, it is very, very controversial of whether or not a jail deterrent is actually effective. What we need to do is be expanding programs for diversion, expanding programs for rehabilitation - that's what I've spent my career doing. That's why I created the new Community Court. That's why I brought together a Consolidated Calendar where people who are already working in the community with case workers can come on one-stop shopping to a court and can resolve their cases many times without the need of jail. That's why I've expanded Mental Health Court - so that we can create release plans for the most dangerous, most vulnerable in our community - people who need close supervision, and so we can release them with very close supervision with the aid of a court clinician. This is the direction the court should be going. Accountability should come from rehabilitation, from a person's willingness to engage with the social safety net services. I am proud to say that Seattle Municipal Court has not been booking people in jail up to the level of beds that we have available. We consistently come under that and we have lowered that number every year. And one of the big reasons, of course, is because of our diversion programs and I'm very proud of that fact. [00:17:20] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Next up is Nyjat. [00:17:26] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Yes, there has been a lot of issues with King County Jail, and as Judge Shadid stated, the court is not in charge of the jail and can't necessarily tell the jail what to do. I do think the court does have to factor that in when people are trying to be admitted into the jail and the jail is closed. So I think those are definitely some considerations that should be made when you are looking to maybe sentence someone to jail or determine whether bail is warranted. But I think that is done on a case-by-case basis. [00:18:03] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Adam Eisenberg. [00:18:08] Judge Adam Eisenberg: Thank you. I think the reality is judges are very much aware of the crowding in the jail. The job that we have is to decide - in this particular case, is this person a safety threat to the community? And that's really what drives most of the decisions to whether someone is going to be in jail or not. Is there substantial likelihood they're going to commit a violent crime? Are they going to interfere with the administration of justice? And then to a lesser extent, whether they're going to show up to court or if they've failed to show up multiple times. We are very much aware of the limitations of the jail. And there's also issues with staffing in general - because of COVID, they're not able to staff as well. So it's very challenging. We are booking fewer people - we've been doing that ever since COVID started. So I think that that shows that judges are very much aware of it. But at the end of the day, it comes down to - in this particular case, is this person a danger to the community or not? That's the primary driver of why someone's held in jail. And the judge has to make a decision based on that. Thank you. [00:19:06] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. And Pooja. [00:19:09] Pooja Vaddadi: Thank you. I do agree with Judge Shadid. The court should be steering away from incarceration. And so while over-crowding for sentencing should not necessarily be taken into consideration, I do think that sentencing needs to be, that culture around sentencing needs to change dramatically. Studies have shown that public safety is not improved with increased rates of incarceration. In fact, a lot like what Judge Shadid was saying as well, studies have shown that diversion programs really do help to promote public safety. With the increased rate of incarceration, with the increased rate of jail sentences between 15 to 60 days - all it does to the individual is destabilize them. Their mental health deteriorates significantly when in jail. They're faced with the overcrowding problem. They're faced with dealing with individuals that they'd never encounter in the system. And they're also cut off from all resources. I've had clients that have had a lot of problems getting their mental health meds or any other kind of medical assistance while in jail. And all it does is cut them off from the resources that can help them re-enter society more effectively, that can help them not reoffend in the future. We should focus more on diversion programs. We should teach individuals who do touch the criminal justice system to reincorporate with society a little bit better. That is what improves public safety. [00:20:40] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. And for this next question, we will start with Adam Eisenberg. What factors do you consider in granting and setting bail amounts for defendants? Should it strictly be based on whether or not someone is dangerous to society or a safety risk, therefore kind of making bail irrelevant, or does bail have a role to play in your court? How do you evaluate that? [00:21:06] Judge Adam Eisenberg: So judges are guided by Criminal Rule 3.2, which does provide that the least restrictive means is what's appropriate. And in order to set bail, you have to decide that there's a substantial likelihood someone's going to commit a violent crime if they're released, substantial likelihood that they will interfere with the administration of justice or witnesses - which could be violate no-contact orders, or continue to drink and drive after they've been charged with a DUI, or fail to appear. That is the legal requirement that we have. We're also supposed to consider whether the person has the ability to pay or not. The bail system was created over 100 years ago in our state through statutes that seem very out-of-date and don't really apply to the modern world, because clearly people who have financial means are able to bail out easier than those who don't. Although there is the Northwest Bail Fund, which actually is able to bail people out who aren't able to afford it up to a certain level. As a judge, those factors are the factors that are the ones that I'm guided by. In looking at a particular case, is this person a danger to the community? That is the primary concern that I have. The bail system is not a perfect system. California is experimenting with a no bail or bail, so you either decide to hold someone or you release them and there's not an option to bail them out. I don't know if that's a better system or not, but I'm guided by the rules and I apply it in a case-by-case basis. Thank you. [00:22:32] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Next up will be Pooja. I'll just repeat the question. What factors are considered in granting and setting bail amounts for defendants and what do you believe should be the primary consideration? [00:22:46] Pooja Vaddadi: Thank you. So that's correct - the setting of bail is determined by CrRLJ 3.2. It is what needs to be considered when determining whether a person should be released or not, or what the terms of that release are. It does need to be the least restrictive means. What I believe that a lot of judges do frequently forget though, is that the presumption of all pretrial release is actually release. Bail is not at all presumed. What this means is that unless the prosecutor can meet a very high burden in proving that that person is either a danger to the community, at risk of interfering with the administration of justice, or a risk for failure to appear - that person needs to be released from jail. The problem with bail right now is that the danger seems to be - the level of whether that person is a risk to community safety seems to be driven by how much that person can afford. The bail system, as everybody knows, is not perfect. In fact, it is incredibly flawed and it seems to incarcerate more people who simply are poor rather than anybody else. The bail and the setting of bail is also guided by the constitution and it never should be excessive. A judge needs to consider whether the setting of bail is going to do more harm than good. I've seen a client that was bound for diversion and dismissal made homeless by a capricious application of unnecessary bail in this court and I do think that the individual needs to be taken into consideration with this. Thank you. [00:24:19] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Damon? [00:24:23] Judge Damon Shadid: The plain fact of the matter is that all cash bail discriminates against poor people. That is just a fact. There's no getting around it. If you set bail on somebody, a rich person can afford to pay to get out, but a poor person can't. And that's why judges need more tools when it comes to release. That's the whole point of the Community Court, the Mental Health Court, and the Consolidated Calendar - is to give us more tools to allow people to be released on structured release programs that help them connect with services - even predisposition - so that they're safer in the community. Now, I've also started a larger project called the Jail Release Toolkit that I plan to start in Seattle and provide - and that's to try to give judges more options for structured release plans that conform with Rule 3.2, to allow us to follow the laws. Now, it also can't be ignored that the Supreme Court, when COVID started, very much told the judges that we need to only hold people in jail pretrial if they are a substantial risk of committing a violent crime. And so we've been following that, and we've learned really important things from that - and that is we don't have to hold as many people in jail pretrial as maybe we thought we did. And I think a lot of judges have learned from that as well, and so we're really in a great place right now where I believe judges are open to alternative structured releases that can make the community safer instead of just using jail. [00:25:55] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Nyjat? [00:25:57] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Yeah, so the presumption of release is where I start when reviewing a person's case. However, as everyone has said, the court is bound by looking at Rule 3.2. And other than whether or not someone is likely to commit a dangerous offense, you also will have to look at whether or not someone is actually going to come back to court. And if someone has a very high failure-to-appear rate, you have to maybe consider - if I release this person, will this person come back to court? For misdemeanor cases, the point of having alternatives and other types of programs is that these cases need to be addressed relatively quickly, and we can get the services to the people who need it. So in addition to maybe looking at someone's failure-to-appear history, maybe some other examples of things that can be done is maybe electronic home monitoring and/or day reporting, because the point is to make sure that people do not lose contact with the court. And how can we increase contact with people who are committing crimes in our community? [00:27:08] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. And we will start this with Pooja. If you observed a party in your courtroom being poorly represented by an unprepared or ineffective lawyer, how would you handle the situation? [00:27:22] Pooja Vaddadi: So a judge cannot get in between a client and their attorney. It's not my position to do that. All I can do is preside over the law. Now I'll have to rule, however - everything presents in there - and hopefully one of the attorneys speaks up in objection to the way that the representation is going on, but I can't let my personal bias get in there. Just because I think I might do the job differently doesn't mean that I would do it better than the attorney that's doing it right then and there. I should never be the one, as the judge, to substitute my own judgment for how an attorney is handling their case. They have the personal experience with their client. They have the personal experience with their particular case - the victim of the crime, the police officer, whatever it is that they're dealing with - they have that experience to know how to handle that case. Now if I do think that somebody is being unethical or anything like that, that might be a different situation where a judge might have the ability to rule on a particular ethical violation - something that is bound by the law. But again, I would never replace my own judgment nor question the authority of an attorney when they're dealing with their own case - that undermines the credibility of every attorney in that courtroom and it undermines people's confidence in the court. Thank you. [00:28:37] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Adam? [00:28:40] Judge Adam Eisenberg: Thank you. Well, I think that generally what Ms. Vaddadi has said is correct - the judges are not to interfere. However, there are certain circumstances - one day when I was a prosecutor actually, the defense attorney was drunk in the middle of a trial and her own attorney - the client is like, Your Honor, my attorney is drunk. And then the judge said, Judge Eisenberg - or sorry, Adam Eisenberg, I was his prosecutor - do you notice that she's drunk? Well, I'm sitting fairly close by and it put me in an awkward position, but the bottom line is that case resulted in a mistrial. And so there are circumstances where - and they're very rare, honestly - most attorneys that appear in front of us do a really good job. They may make tactical decisions that you might go, Why did you make that tactical decision - after the fact. But that's the area where the judge absolutely cannot invade. If you make a tactical decision to enter, submit evidence or not submit evidence - that's totally within the discretion of the attorney and the judge has to back away. If you have a situation where an attorney is obviously drunk in court or otherwise incapacitated in a way that's severe, you have to take some action. The nicest thing to do is reach out to the supervisor, ask the supervisor to come down, talk to the attorney, see if they can gauge what the situation is. In the case of the drunk attorney, that resulted in a mistrial. So that's an extreme case, I've only seen that once in the 30 years I've worked in the court system, but those things do happen. Thank you. [00:30:08] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Nyjat? [00:30:14] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Yeah, I think if I see someone in the courtroom that is treating their client badly and I'm on the bench - and it seems as if it's more than just a tactical decision, maybe it just seems as if it is just treating someone inhumanely - I would likely take a sidebar or maybe take a recess and take both prosecutor and the defense attorney into chambers and just basically explain what I'm seeing because judges can't have ex parte contact. So I would probably make a note of it to the attorney - that this behavior is not appropriate - especially again, if it's outside of trial tactics and it's just behavior that's just inhumane or treating their client disrespectfully, I would likely address it in chambers. [00:31:19] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. And Damon? [00:31:22] Judge Damon Shadid: We are very lucky in Seattle Municipal Court to have a very high level of representation both from the private bar, the Department of Public Defense, and the City Attorney's Office. I never stop being impressed with the level of representation that we have, but that doesn't mean that sometimes there doesn't come an attorney who comes and is doing a poor job representing their client. And what we have to avoid here is we have to avoid - one, the client not getting a fair shake. And number two, a setup for ineffective assistance of counsel so that all the work that went into that trial, all the jurors, all the court staff, and everyone else who spent days trying to go through this trial only to have it overturned because there was ineffective assistance of counsel. Now, I'll tell you what I wouldn't do. I certainly wouldn't take them into my chambers - I think that would be unethical. It needs to be on the record - everything you say needs to be on the record so the public can hear it. I would very much try not to embarrass the attorney in front of their client, and that's when a sidebar may be appropriate as long as it's recorded. But if the attorney doesn't seem to be catching on, then the case has to be continued so that they can get prepared. Or, as Judge Eisenberg said, sometimes it will rise to the level of a mistrial. So while I would normally keep hands off as much as I can, I'm not going to let a defendant and my court be misrepresented by an attorney. [00:32:55] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. I now have a question submitted from the audience during this forum, and it's a two-part question really. One, do you consider any types of crimes to be victimless? And for those that aren't, how will you work to assure that victims are listened to and considered when imposing a sentence or adjudicating a case? And we will be starting with Nyjat. [00:33:23] Nyjat Rose-Akins: I apologize. I didn't hear the last part. Do you consider any types of crimes victimless? And I didn't hear the last part of the question? [00:33:30] Crystal Fincher: Sure. How does each candidate work to assure that victims are listened to and considered when imposing a sentence or adjudicating a case? [00:33:42] Nyjat Rose-Akins: So do I think any crime is victimless? No, I do not. I think some cases are definitely going to be more impactful to victims. But I believe when people are committing crimes, even low-level crimes - if it's a crime that continues to be done every day, it is impacting the community. The community is the victim if people are calling the police or observing this behavior. So even though all crimes are not going to be created equal, some crimes are definitely going to be more severe than others and impact more people. But I think for - to make sure that victims are being listened to, I think the main thing is to make sure that they have a seat at the table, they understand the process, they understand what the court is doing. What I've realized over the last number of years is that a lot of people really don't understand how the court functions or how it works. So I think the prosecutor's office - they have victims advocates that - I think it's good for them to talk with the victims to make sure that they understand the system and what and how things are happening. And even make sure that they come to court to see the process. [00:35:06] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Damon Shadid? [00:35:13] Judge Damon Shadid: Sure, there are some victimless crimes - failure to transfer title, driving with license suspended in the third degree - I have trouble figuring out who would be a victim there. But I, in general, agree with my opponent that it's a matter of impacting - how does it impact the community? How does it impact the individual? Now in Washington, we have a Victims Bill of Rights. It used to only apply to felonies, but now it applies to misdemeanors as well. But I've always followed it, even before it applied to misdemeanors. If a victim comes into my court and wants to speak at any level of the prosecution, I will allow them to speak because it's difficult to come into court. It takes a lot of bravery to speak to the judge and to face the person who may have abused you. And so that person should be given a high amount of respect. But on the flip side of that, that person should be given a lot of respect if they, for instance, do not want to continue with prosecution. So you have to listen to both sides of it. As far as community crimes like that, there's a reason why we call it Community Court. And the way that we have people give back to the community is through things like community service work, or things like that that are going to actually give back to the community that's been taken from. So yes, victims will be listened to at all stages of the proceedings, and I have tried to do that. [00:36:40] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Pooja Vaddadi? [00:36:44] Pooja Vaddadi: By definition and in general, no crime is going to be completely victimless and especially not in a strictly criminal court. I do agree with Judge Shadid - there are certain crimes like driving while license suspended or any licensing-type situation that is a failure to pay fines - I find it hard to believe also that there would be a real victim attached to that. But property crimes, thefts, whatever - the ordinary administration of justice is the tool by which we address these wrongs. However, the temptation for any judge is to substitute their outrage for the narrow bounds of sentencing permitted under the laws - and it's a challenge that we must rise to be impartial. It's essential not to misapply the law or you do risk revictimizing everyone through a second trial. That includes oversentencing, because you as a judge may think that a certain crime is particularly outrageous, but the worst thing that can happen is for that case to come back to court for a second time for a retrial or a resentencing where the victim has to, again, readdress the court to get any kind of recourse. That's traumatizing for anybody involved in the system. I do think it's important to listen to victims as well, especially when the court is trying to help that individual. Sometimes there are victims that come into court that wish to have the no contact order lifted so that their partner can support their lifestyle and their children. And I've seen this court deny administratively those requests to rescind the no contact order. And I would like to prevent that. Thank you. [00:38:20] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Adam Eisenberg. [00:38:24] Judge Adam Eisenberg: Thank you. Yes, as everyone has mentioned, there are a few categories of crimes that perhaps are victimless, but most of the crimes that appear in front of us have some sort of victim. I'm most involved in the domestic violence cases. And one of the things that's unique about the Domestic Violence Intervention Project, which is the diversion program that I've described in my opening that is an alternative to jail for domestic violence offenders, is an individualized approach and a multidisciplinary team that includes victim advocates. So the voices of victims, not necessarily the victim of the particular crime, but victims - community victims or community advocates who are very familiar with the survivors of domestic violence are able to provide input into how to manage the intervention. The goal, of course, is to make it safer for the victims. We take victims very seriously - I know all my colleagues do when they come to court and wish to explain what they experienced. Sometimes they have to do it through the trial, sometimes they have to do it at sentencing. But I think even low-level crimes - if the victim wants to come to court and present, certainly the Revised Code of Washington provides for that - for them to be able to explain. And I think the court has to hear and consider their opinion, their concerns along with the other evidence that they've heard when they make a decision. So victims' voices are very, very important in our court. Thank you. [00:39:45] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. And thank you to the audience for that question. This next question will start with Judge Shadid. We've had several high profile incidents in Seattle where police officers' accounts of events may have differed from video evidence and other things turned up in subsequent investigations. Do judges have any responsibility or role in interrogating the honesty of police and law enforcement in the court? [00:40:12] Judge Damon Shadid: Well, that is a very difficult question because it depends on what stage of the proceedings that you're in - whether or not you're in a pretrial, a motion, or a trial - and what would be appropriate in each case. What I will say is this - if a police officer breaks the law by perjuring themselves in court, that police officer should be subject to the laws just like any other person who comes into the court and they should be prosecuted. I've never actually seen a police officer prosecuted for perjury, but I have seen police officers lie on the stand in my eight years. And that's pretty shocking to me - police officers not only should be held to the same standard as everyone else, but they should be held to a higher standard. And they should not be coming in to lie in order to get somebody convicted. They need to be able to prove their case just based upon the truth. What I will say is that - at least the prior administration of the City Attorney's Office regularly dismissed cases when they saw a discrepancy between the police officer's testimony and contravening evidence. I think that's the right move. But unless it meets a very high standard, a judge is not able to dismiss the case themselves, it is incumbent upon the prosecutor to do so. If there is a motion to dismiss, then the defense attorney would have to make their proof based upon the rules, particularly 8.3. [00:41:42] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Nyjat Rose-Akins. [00:41:49] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Sorry. I agree with my opponent that everyone has a role when it comes to the court, and the court cannot necessarily just summarily dismiss a case that has been brought by the prosecution. I will say that the court can - there are many points in a case - for instance, if there is information about an officer, for instance, they call it Brady information - so it's information that the prosecution has to turn over and if they do not turn that over, then the court can entertain motions to dismiss because that is a huge violation. So if an officer has been found to have lied on the stand or any other behavior that has been deemed under Brady that needs to be disclosed to defense. So those are some ways that the court can, I guess, intervene when there is an issue with an officer specifically. But yeah, so that is the main thing - I would say that as I myself have actually prosecuted a police officer - because I truly believe that we all should be held to the same standard. [00:43:15] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Judge Eisenberg. [00:43:19] Judge Adam Eisenberg: So you asked the question, can judges interrogate? Well, it's not really our role to necessarily interrogate. However, in certain hearings, we do have the opportunity, as the fact finder of the hearing, to ask questions. I can give you an example of a stage where I did find there was not probable cause for arrest and it was based on how the officer behaved. The officer saw the defendant driving late at night at a high rate of speed - that was pretty clear. He pulled him over and he asked him to step out of the car and he said - I smell some alcohol, I would like you to do some field sobriety tests. The defendant was very polite - I don't want to do any field sobriety tests because I know what happens next. If I do field sobriety tests, you take me to jail. And the officer's like, No, I'm not going to do that, but I just need to know. And what happened was 15 minutes of the officer trying to cajole the defendant to take field sobriety tests and the defendant clearly didn't want to. The defendant was Black, the officer was not. There was some question as to whether this was racially biased or not - it wasn't 100% clear, but it was very suspicious. And at the end of the probable cause hearing, I determined there wasn't probable cause for the arrest - the officer did not have enough information and the case was dismissed. Unfortunately, the officer left the courtroom before he could hear my ruling, but it was a very troubling situation. And that's a circumstance where a judge can see what an officer is doing because my job is to determine whether there's probable cause. And at that point, I could say the officer was inappropriate in what he did. [00:44:46] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Pooja Vaddadi. [00:44:50] Pooja Vaddadi: And so I agree with pretty much what everybody else has said already. It's not necessarily a judge's role to take it upon themselves to litigate a case where an officer maybe is lying or engaging in any misconduct. But I have seen, as a public defender, police officers engaging in racially biased policing, which in my opinion is bad and sometimes in a lot of cases worse than perjury in court. The judge is a gatekeeper for evidence and has the power to address Brady issues or entertain motions to dismiss under circumstances that Ms. Rose-Akins actually described. And they should. There must be some distance between judges and the police so that they don't enjoy a special relationship and show any kind of bias towards any officers that are in that court. I've taken a case to trial actually in which a white officer investigated a scene for 40 minutes before releasing one person and then pretty much deciding that he smelled alcohol on my client's breath. The officer in that situation was a white man. My client was a Black driver. Such a case would raise a suspicion for me, although there is not much I can do in that situation unless the defense attorney does raise a type of motion. And then we are then faced with the ability for me to make a decision on whether that officer should testify or whether there needs to be some other kind of hearing to exclude that kind of testimony. Judges are bound by the law and that is how they need to operate. But we shouldn't let people with a lot of authority just get away with blatant disregard for the law. [00:46:26] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. This next question, we're going to start with Adam Eisenberg. What do your endorsements say about you and what do you think your opponent's endorsements say about them? [00:46:41] Judge Adam Eisenberg: Well, I've been endorsed by The Seattle Times, eight of the nine sitting justices on the Supreme Court, retired Justice Bobbe Bridge, judges across the state who I've worked with on committees on statewide issues related to domestic violence, related to how do we have a jury trial in the middle of COVID - which I was assigned to be on the task force for that - on various rules that I have been engaged with. And I've also been endorsed by the union that supports our court clerks, I've been endorsed by public defenders, prosecutors, defense attorneys - male, female - and I've been rated Exceptionally Well Qualified by the bar associations I listed. I think that says that I try to do the best job I can and it seems like the legal community recognizes that. My opponent has been endorsed by a lot of the - I've been endorsed by some of the legislative districts, she's been endorsed by all of them. And she's been endorsed by, I believe, a lot of the progressive diversity groups. I don't really have a thought on what that says, but I'm very proud of the endorsements that I've gotten, including The Seattle Times - and including former Governor Christine Gregoire and many, many other Seattle City Councilmembers and County Councilmembers. So I feel like I have a pretty diverse background of support. Thank you. [00:48:07] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Pooja Vaddadi. [00:48:11] Pooja Vaddadi: I believe that my endorsements, which are all of the Democratic organizational endorsements - I believe that they say that people are looking for a change in Seattle - they're dissatisfied with the way that the judiciary has been operating, they're dissatisfied with the way that the City is being policed right now. What they see is an increase in crime and a decrease in the amount of services that are there for the people of Seattle - there has been an increase of homeless people on the streets, there has been an increase of encampments. And the judiciary and the leadership in Seattle has been doing nothing about that. And people are ready for a change - people are ready for the type of perspective that I bring there. My campaign is staffed by dozens of defense attorneys who are actually afraid to publicly endorse, or who aren't permitted by their leadership to endorse. My opponent's endorsements do tell me that there are two versions of him. There's the version of my opponent that his personal friends see - I'm sure he is a great friend. But there is a version of my opponent that I know there. And unfortunately, a lot of people are not able to speak publicly about some of the behavior that they've seen on the court. And I have their support and their volunteer, I have their support in private. But I do have the support of a lot of organizations that are looking to make a change in Seattle right now and I plan on doing that. [00:49:44] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Judge Shadid. [00:49:48] Judge Damon Shadid: I am proud to be endorsed by every civil Democratic organization and every one of those are sole endorsements. I'm proud to have the endorsement of eight current and former Supreme Court Justices, and community leaders, elected officials like Larry Gossett - who is my personal hero - Girmay Zahilay, Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos, Senator Rebecca Saldaña, City Councilperson Teresa Mosqueda, Tammy Morales, Andrew Lewis, Debora Juarez. I'm very proud - I've also got community leaders, including the president of the statewide NAACP endorsing me, 75 judges - elected judges across the spectrum. And I've actually gotten The Seattle Times and the Progressive Voters guide to agree that they should endorse me solely, which I don't know how many of us can brag that. So I'm very, very pleased with my endorsements - I think it's great. My opponent's been working hard. She's gotten some endorsements from judges and from former Mayor Durkan - who was a former prosecutor - as well as former Governor Gregoire, another former prosecutor. Her support definitely comes from the prosecution - that is clear - and she's been a career prosecutor all her life and so that makes a lot of sense to me. You go to the people that you know and who you've worked with in the past. But my support comes from across the spectrum - it's not single-focused. [00:51:20] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Nyjat Rose-Akins. [00:51:23] Nyjat Rose-Akins: I think my endorsements say that I'm not a politician. My endorsements say that I decided to run for this office because I believe that I am qualified. I'm endorsed by people who know my work and know what I have done and what I've done for the City for the last 12 years. I've been basically behind the scenes for the last 12 years, and this is my first time saying - I am going to put myself out there and be in the forefront because I know that I can make Seattle Municipal Court better based on all the work that I've done over the last 12 years collaborating and partnering with communities and with government officials. So I believe that's what my endorsements say about me. In regards to my opponent, I believe - he's been a sitting judge for the last eight years, so he has made those relationships. And usually, in all honesty, judicial candidates have difficulty because judges do not like to endorse against a sitting judge. So I think the fact that I've been able to get some endorsements from judges and retired judges - and mainly some Seattle Municipal Court judges, retired Seattle Municipal Court judges - I think that shows that I am more than capable of fulfilling this position. [00:52:52] Crystal Fincher: Thank you very much. Now, we also asked each candidate to submit a question to ask their opponent. We will cover some of those questions right now. We will begin with a question from Judge Adam Eisenberg to Pooja Vaddadi - and I will read it verbatim. Candidates for judicial positions usually get vetted by the King County Bar Association and the minority bar associations. It's a rigorous process in which each bar association reaches out to more than 30 attorneys familiar with your work on the bench, and conducts individual interviews with the candidates. I've gone through the vetting process and have been rated "Exceptionally Well Qualified" for Seattle Municipal Court by a number of associations. Why have you chosen not to be vetted? [00:53:43] Pooja Vaddadi: So the answer to this question comes in two parts. I'm running a lot earlier than I meant to because it's urgent to bring change in the leadership in SMC. The court has been failing the people of Seattle. I saw that when I was a public defender in that court and I'm still seeing it right now. I enjoyed my career as a public defender and I was not planning on doing this quite this soon in my career, but here we are and I'm needed. Second, from what I've seen, judicial ratings seem to measure nothing more than tenure. Tenure and how often you've pro temmed in the court or tenure on how long you've been on a bench. They obviously don't look at practitioner surveys, they don't look at staff reviews and complaints, overturns on appeal for constitutional violations, or courtroom demeanor. I don't know if these bar associations have sat in my opponent's courtroom for a lengthy period of time. I don't think that I would have had a fair shake in front of these judicial ratings because they would have held my lack of tenure against me. I know I can do this job and I know I will be good at it. Thank you. [00:55:01] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Now I'm going to ask a question for Judge Adam Eisenberg from Pooja - verbatim. There's nothing more stressful than representing a client who is innocent and falsely accused; or when an innocent defendant insists on pleading guilty to get out of jail or to avoid a penalty for going to trial. Can you tell me about a time that these have happened in your courtroom and how you were personally impacted?? [00:55:55] Judge Adam Eisenberg: If someone's entered a guilty plea in front of me, I have to read the facts - and if there's a basis to support the plea, I have to accept the plea - so I'm not really sure there's - I understand the perspective of being a defense attorney and having a client who's doing something perhaps that you don't agree with or wish they would make a different choice. But people do make these choices to plead guilty for a variety of reasons and I don't often have - I very seldom have any understanding of why they're doing it specifically and their attorneys don't share that information with me. When someone enters a guilty plea, I try to give - if it involves a jail sentence, I try to give an appropriate sentence. If it's a guilty plea, the vast majority of times I agree with whatever the sentence is because it was a negotiated plea between the defense and the prosecution. If the defendant has agreed to a negotiated plea, I have no basis to disregard that. The perspective of a defense attorney isn't the same as the perspective on the bench when you hear someone entering a guilty plea. That's what I would say. Thank you. [00:57:07] Crystal Fincher: Pooja has asked for a rebuttal to that. [00:57:13] Pooja Vaddadi: Oh, sorry. I guess I needed to unmute. I just want to tell a brief story. I had a client in Snohomish County that was held on a DUI. It was a second lifetime DUI and he was held on a substantial amount of bail, a decision that a judge made. There was no blood test results yet and so we did not know what his Blood Alcohol Content was or if he had any drugs in his system. The prosecutor offered him a sentence that would have taken - and trial would have taken a lot longer to go. The point is - I'm running out of time - the point is he did have to plead guilty - [00:57:49] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Judge Eisenberg has also asked for a rebuttal. [00:57:55] Judge Adam Eisenberg: I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry about this situation that happened with her defendant that she represented in Snohomish County, but that doesn't really have anything to do with me or my court. [00:58:06] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Now I'm going to ask a question from Nyjat Rose-Akins to Damon Shadid. How does the court monitor a participant's connection with meaningful services if multiple cases are dismissed within 14 days of entering into Community Court? [00:58:28] Judge Damon Shadid: Each individual who comes into Community Court is vetted by a judge for their appropriateness to enter the court. They have certain - we call them connections - that the person has to make in order to graduate from the court. There are different levels of connections - 2 weeks, 30 days, and 45 days that the person goes through. But here's what's really important to remember. This is a predisposition court. We connect people with services and then it's the City Attorney who moves to dismiss the case. This is what the City Attorney has agreed to. The City Attorney has never sought to change when they dismiss the case and it is their discretion to do so. We monitor to make sure they've made their connections, to make sure they've done a life skills class, to make sure they've done community service. We individually structure the program to make sure that we're addressing their specific barriers. But this is really important - it takes multiple connections to services for them to take. And so this criticism that - Oh, you're not holding them there long enough - well, how long do you expect someone to keep coming to court for a trespass or for a theft of socks? The actual rehabilitation has to match the crime has been committed and that's what we're trying to do. If a person's not willing to make those connections, they are prosecuted in mainstream court to the full extent of the law. [00:59:59] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. I now have a question for Nyjat Rose-Akins from Damon Shadid. When I ran for Judge 8 years ago, I ran with specific plans for expanding and revitalizing Seattle's Therapeutic Courts. Over the past 8 years, I've delivered on those promises. I've not seen or heard any specific policy proposals that you would enact if you became a judge. Please give specific details of a policy proposal you would enact if elected. [01:00:28] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Thank you. So - when elected, I plan to revamp Community Court - reset the standards of accountability and requirements, review individual case history to determine if they are currently a good fit, limit the number of cases that can be addressed at one time, review the types of cases that are eligible, and redefine what is considered low-level crime. With doing that, I'd like to incorporate more probation and social services support to track and assist with program progress and participant needs. Also collaborate with more social service providers to bring them to the court to create a one-stop shop for individuals. I also want to collaborate more with nonprofits, other government agencies to create a pipeline - a proper pipeline for housing, mental health treatment, and job placement. I also would like to work more with probation services and resources, renew day reporting options - which would allow maybe Zoom options for people to check in with probation and not always have to come into court. And also maybe get more funding - not maybe, really try to get more funding - on electronic home monitoring for indigent defendants. So those are a few of the things I plan to do once elected. Thank you. [01:01:55] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Judge Shadid has asked for a rebuttal. [01:02:00] Judge Damon Shadid: Sure. So the one policy proposal my opponent has is to reform the court that I created, which is very interesting because she works for the City Attorney's Office and she has never come to a meeting [garbled] in court. She's never bothered to actually get to know what the court is. Instead, she's read a few dockets and she thinks she has an opinion on it. But why hasn't her boss ever asked for these changes? They haven't. So if she had been in the court for the past eight years, she'd know that we're already doing these things and that her policy is not policy. [01:02:37] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Nyjat, you have rebuttal time. [01:02:42] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Thank you. I think it is somewhat disingenuous to say that the City Attorney's Office has never asked to make some changes to Community Court. I believe the City Attorney's Office requested trying to opt some people out because they had way too many cases and my opponent said no. And that is why there was an issue with the high utilizers. Aditionally, revamping Community - we had 90 seconds to speak - I brought up one specific thing in regards to Community - [01:03:19] Crystal Fincher: I will allow a second round of rebuttals for both of you since we are in this conversation here. Judge Shadid. [01:03:26] Judge Damon Shadid: Community Court took two years to negotiate. My opponent doesn't seem to understand that all changes to Community Court have to come through negotiation. Her boss came to me with a requested change, which I disagreed with. That is how you negotiate. That requested change then went to the full bench and the bench voted to adopt the change. That's what negotiation is and that's how you create programs. [01:04:00] Crystal Fincher: And Nyjat. [01:04:01] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Yes, thank you. I also had the opportunity to review Community Court outside of Seattle. I went to Auburn Community Court and that program is a model structure for what a community court should be - where individuals actually engage with resources - it's a one-stop shop where they can come in and actually get the services they need and actually check-in with the court, check-in with their defense attorney, and check-in with the prosecution on a weekly and sometimes bi-week, bi-monthly basis based on the type of court. [01:04:37] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Now, these probably will be quick questions, but we'll see - two short ones - and we will begin with Nyjat Rose-Akins. Have you ever been disciplined by the bar association or state commission on judicial conduct? [01:04:53] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Have not. No, I have not. [01:04:56] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. And Damon Shadid? [01:05:00] Judge Damon Shadid: No. [01:05:02] Crystal Fincher: And Pooja? [01:05:05] Pooja Vaddadi: No. [01:05:07] Crystal Fincher: And Judge Eisenberg? [01:05:09] Judge Adam Eisenberg: No. [01:05:10] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Next question - are there any specific types of cases in which you know you'll have to find it necessary to disqualify or recuse yourself? We will start with Damon Shadid. [01:05:28] Judge Damon Shadid: There have been times when I've had to recuse myself. I was a public defender for quite some time before and I've had clients come into my courtroom who I represented in the past and I certainly recused myself from those cases. There have been times when I've made mistakes and I've agreed to recuse myself from a case. It happens to the best of us. It's very important to me that there is not only the fact of an impartial judge, but the appearance of one as well. And so if I even suspect that somebody is perceiving me as not being impartial, I'll recuse myself most of the time, unless I think that the attorney is forum shopping. So yes, a judge should be ready to recuse themselves whenever they feel that it's in the best interests of both the community and the defendant. [01:06:19] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Nyjat? [01:06:23] Nyjat Rose-Akins: Yes, I think the fairness is very, very important in court, so I would likely - I have not had to recuse myself as I've been pro temming in court, but I believe I would likely recuse myself from friends and/or people that I have worked closely with in the City Attorney's Office or even in City government. [01:06:49] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Adam Eisenberg? [01:06:55] Judge Adam Eisenberg: There have been some cases where I've had to recuse myself because I either knew some of the parties, or there was an incident with my neighbor that was reported to the police and I was actually a witness. So I made sure, right out of the gate, that when the case came to our court - because I suspected it would, based on the charge - I went and talked to the Presiding Judge and said, I can't have anything to do with this case because I saw the police arrive last night at the house. So those things happen - obviously, that happens very, very rarely. But otherwise, recusal is normal when you know parties or you have information about the case that you shouldn't have had, you heard - because of a neighbor talking or whatever. But there's not a particular type of case that I recuse myself from. It's really a - it's a case-by-case cir

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and David Kroman of the Seattle Times discuss a reversal for Bruce Harrell regarding pay for human resource workers, a new investment in community court, finding a new (old) home for Seattle's parking enforcement officers, former Mayor Durkan's missing texts, and a major issue with sidewalk accessibility around our state. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and David Kroman of the Seattle Times discuss a budget crisis that's not going away during the Council's summer recess, an investigation into missing text messages from former Mayor Durkan and other top city officials, a proposed ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, a question about regional rail from a podcast patron, and a look a plan to remove a section of Highway 99 in Seattle's South Park neighborhood. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with Pastor Carey Anderson about his campaign for State Representative in the 30th Legislative District - why he decided to run, how the last legislative session went and his thoughts on addressing issues such as housing affordability and zoning, homelessness, public safety, LGBTQ+ rights, and climate change. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find more information about Pastor Carey at https://www.electpastorcarey.com/   Resources Campaign Website - Pastor Carey Anderson: https://www.electpastorcarey.com/   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. Well, I am just delighted today to welcome to the program, a candidate for State Representative in the 30th Legislative District down in Federal Way, Pastor Carey Anderson. Thank you so much for joining us today. [00:00:53] Pastor Carey Anderson: Crystal, it's an honor to be with you, and let me just say right off the bat - thank you for inviting me to be a part of this wonderful, wonderful podcast. I'm just elated to be invited today, and I appreciate the work that you do. [00:01:09] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much. I appreciate the work that you do, my South King County brethren and leader of so many, and just appreciate the time that you've taken to join here. So I guess I wanna start off asking - you've done so much, you've accomplished so much. What is it that made you think - you know what, it is time for me to run for office? [00:01:33] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, that's an excellent question. Let me say to our audience - the 30th district is a new district, and I'm running to bring proven new leadership to the new 30th District. The realignment of the boundaries from the 2020 Census shows that Federal Way is a BIPOC-majority city now, the 30th District is growing. I live in Federal Way, I'm the pastor of First AME Church in Auburn and Seattle - Seattle is the mother church. And about 19 years ago, we saw the trend of gentrification and so we started a satellite in the south portion of King County. So, First AME Church is the oldest Black church in the state - 1886 - and so, we see it as a part of our mission to always speak truth to power. So I am running to bring proven new leadership to the new 30th District. And if I could just take a moment - when we're talking about the crime, we're talking about the homeless, we're talking about the issues of housing, we're talking about funding of our schools, we're talking about public safety. Well, these are things that I have been doing in my entire ministry - 44 years in ministry, 38 years as a senior pastor, 18 years as the pastor of First AME Church - matter of fact, in its 100+ years of existence, I'm the longest serving pastor. My boots have been on the ground, fighting all of those things and addressing all of those things. And I want to do it in this open seat - no one has ever served the new 30th District before. And it is time for proven new leadership for the new 30th District. And I'm sure we'll get into some of the specifics a little later. [00:03:34] Crystal Fincher: Well, and looking at this new 30th District - you're running for the seat that is being vacated by Representative Jesse Johnson, who has done a lot of work in the community, certainly made his imprint on the Legislature in the time that he was there. Some of that, including police accountability legislation and other legislation that we saw passed in 2020, and then rolled back in 2022, along with a number of other things. We're dealing with a - how we're gonna treat revenue - are we gonna raise more progressive revenue, or move - continue to move - in a regressive direction. Action on the transportation package, stagnation on affordable housing and the middle housing bill there - as you evaluate this past legislative session, what did you think about it? What did you agree with? What did you disagree with? [00:04:40] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, first of all, let me commend the work and applaud the work of Representative Jesse Johnson. When he was first running for City Council, we supported him. When he went into the State Legislature, First AME supported him. He came and presented at our church and at both campuses, matter of fact, and we supported him wholeheartedly. I was disappointed to see him leave the seat because we need that type of leadership. And certainly with the police accountability reforms that he pushed through the Legislature - it was a herculean job, but the job is not complete. And so when we talk about fighting crime, let's just stay right there for a moment. I applaud the work of our police force and law enforcement. However, I don't believe that we should put the entire burden of fighting crime on the police. There are other matters and other variables that go along with property crimes and low-level offenders such as drug abuse, mental health, and some of those types of things that cause an environment for crime. And I am trained as a substance abuse counselor, I am trained - I'm the only candidate trained in mental health. I did it, I've been doing it for some 30+ years. And so these are some of the other things that we must address because when we talk about crime and we talk about housing, it's not enough just to find affordable housing and place people in affordable housing. But many times, if they have mental health issues, if they have, if they're suffering from addiction, we need wraparound services. And so this is going to take critical thinking, it's going to take people that have been in the field to know what to say, how to say it, and drum up the support to build collegiality - to really change our community and change the 30th LD. So these are some of the things that I hope to bring to the State Legislature, as a legislator. [00:07:00] Crystal Fincher: You talked just a little bit, just now - obviously issues of addiction, in addition to homelessness. Housing affordability is such an important issue and one that a lot of people are struggling with - the cost of rents have been skyrocketing, cost of daycare skyrocketing - so much is making things really hard for people just to survive. They can be working one, two jobs - it's still not enough. Minimum wage is not sufficient for allowing people to live independently and to afford an average rent. What should be done to make housing more affordable in the 30th District? [00:07:47] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, thank you for that question - it's really a challenging question, but I do want our audience to know, I've been involved in affordable housing for many, many years, even in my first church in Nevada - we built housing, affordable housing for seniors. First AME Church has been involved in the housing arena through our nonprofit since 1969. And we had three apartment complexes in Seattle, and we formed about five or six years ago - the FAME - Equity Alliance of Western Washington, which is another housing corporation that I serve as the chair of the board. And we just broke ground in January of this year on a $36 million, 119-unit complex - the Elizabeth Thomas Holmes - in South King County. So we're moving down this way - it's an issue that's very personal to me, I've been involved in it. I know that we have to find more housing for struggling families, and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund has money in it. We got to move it quickly and quicker than we have been moving it so that we can build a housing inventory for persons that are really trying to build a home for their loved ones, their children, their families, for sustaining the family unit. And these are things that I've been involved in, engaged in - and you would not imagine, Crystal, how many people come to First AME Church asking for rental assistance, needing food - which we try to provide on a regular basis, since the pandemic in particular. And we do that because we understand the need - I see it on a regular, regular basis. We even have a home, a parsonage - that we rent it out, bringing it out for, since my time, is 18 years at First Family Church. And so during the pandemic, those families that were living in the home could not pay their rent. And so we elected a moral decision to let them stay and not evict them. Matter of fact, we were - they were part of the persons that came for food every Friday in our Friday drive-by - I'm not talking about shooting, I'm talking about groceries. And so we would feed them, give them groceries - I'm not talking about meat, cheese and milk. I'm talking about more than that - meats, vegetables, wholesome grains - so that the family could be fed a nutritional meal. And also we provided vaccinations for COVID-19, as well as boosters. We continue to do that, and so we boosted and vaccinated over 6,000 people - and fed them as well. So we elected to eat the rent so that these families could stay in their home and not be put out on the street. And the Lord makes a way, somehow. So, we're involved in it and engaged in housing - I will continue to do that as a State legislator. [00:11:14] Crystal Fincher: One of the big issues this past legislative session was the missing middle housing bill. And you're absolutely right - we need to designate more housing as affordable housing, find affordable housing. One of the big problems is just that there just is not the supply of housing at all - of all different types and at all levels. Here in the state, we have not been building to keep up with the increase in population and the trends in the flow in population. And so allowing more density, more inclusive zoning was put on the table and all of the data shows that's a necessary ingredient of increasing affordability, of helping to stem the skyrocketing costs of rent and housing. Would you have voted for that missing middle housing bill? [00:12:16] Pastor Carey Anderson: Yes, I would. And let me say this - we have to have more deep-dive conversations for this issue of affordability and housing. And the conversation should center, not so much on - do we wanna build a threeplex or a fourplex in a single-family neighborhood - or what do we really value? If we as a state, if we as people value sheltering and allowing people the opportunity to live a decent life like you are living, then we're gonna have to have those types of conversations. But I believe that there are ways in which we can build housing in single-story homes and two-story homes that are aesthetically beautiful. It would not really disrupt the aesthetic beauty of the community and the neighborhood. These are discussions that I believe would prove to be very valuable instead of just a NIMBY attitude, because today they're homeless, today they're in need - but you miss a couple of paychecks yourself, you get laid off of your job, let another pandemic come and affect and impact your family - you may be the one next in line. And so we have to be very careful at the rocks we throw and the fingers we point because it could easily - you could be up today and you can be down tomorrow. So it's a collective effort - it's going to take collective and courageous conversations so that we could truly address the problem of affordability and density and providing the needed housing inventory for families to live sustained lives. [00:14:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Absolutely well said. We talked about public safety earlier - certainly talked about policing, have talked about the need to intervene in a lot of different ways. Safety is a really big conversation, and right now there are a lot of people in our communities fearing for their safety. Hate crimes are near all-time highs, we're seeing hate and bias-motivated crimes, we're seeing harassment and targeting of the LGBTQ community and others for their ethnic heritage, for their religion. What do you say to people who right now are scared and worried, and who are looking at the two parties going in very different directions, and worried that they can't count on the Supreme Court for safety or rights anymore, and increasingly they're relying on local leadership to make sure that people are safe and respected and protected in communities. What do you see as your responsibility in that area, and how will you lead to make sure that everyone in our communities feel safe? [00:15:36] Pastor Carey Anderson: Thank you. Excellent question, Crystal. Public safety is a major issue today, and I believe that we have made some major strides, but there's still a long way to go. And as I had said earlier, I believe that - I don't believe that we should put the entire burden on fighting crime left to law enforcement. When George Floyd was murdered and the unrest happened in Seattle in particular - but across the country - the East Precinct in Seattle was overtaken by the protestors. The East Precinct in Seattle is two blocks from First AME Church. I led the charge in convening the mayor and her staff, the Chief of Police at the time and her command staff, and the leaders of CHOP to come to First AME Church - there was about 75 of us in total. We did so with the sole purpose of learning how to talk, learning how to listen to one another. You have to understand - lives had been lost, bloodshed had been spilled on the pavements and on the streets of our cities behind the George Floyd murder. But out of the conversations - without news media, without the news outlets, without reporters - we were able to come and de-escalate the tension. And out of that, we were able to encourage Mayor Durkan, who was serving at the time, to put money into the BIPOC community - $30 million. She formed a task force that I was privileged to be a founding member of - the Equities Community Initiative Task Force - where we put together teams to talk about what are the central and acentric needs of our BIPOC community. Housing was one, entrepreneurship, looking at closing the wealth gap between Black and Brown people against the dominant culture. And so if we were able to do that there, I believe through our State Legislature, we can form ways of bridging some of these issues. Let me say this, Crystal - every first responder doesn't need to have a gun and a badge. Some of the things that we're dealing with now, we need to put funding into training more officers, law enforcement sensitivity training, cultural sensitivity training. I'm an endangered species as an African American male, even at my age - I'm not 25 - but I'm still an endangered species when pulled over by law enforcement. And so we've got to find ways of how to communicate better, how to empower faith groups, how to empower addiction counselors, how to empower and utilize mental health professionals and social workers to become our first responders. There was a time, a couple of summers ago, when the City SPD, Seattle Police Department, used the United Black Christian Clergy of Western Washington, which I'm a member of, and they would call us in dire situations with street violence amongst gangs. And we were able to find family members, we were able to find gatekeepers to try and de-escalate some of the violence as opposed to law enforcement just going in and pointing a gun and wearing a badge. I think that we must work collectively in this issue, if we're going to really bring about public safety, [00:19:35] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree with that. And then also talking about people's basic rights and people remaining safe regardless of who they are, what their background is, what their gender or sexuality is. [00:19:52] Pastor Carey Anderson: And can I say this - when you talk about the LGBTQIA+, we have to understand - they are a part of our community, just like we are a part. There's a collective we, and the Pride Parade in Seattle was right at the Central and the Capitol Hill area - where is First AME Church, right in the Capitol Hill area. We have always been, and there were even members of the 30th LD Dems, who said I was a homophobe. I said, how dare you? If you even Google Pastor Carey Anderson, you will find out that we are a welcoming church, a welcoming faith group. I am certainly not a homophobe - if anybody is, it's you - because we have always had our doors open for any and everybody. And we'll continue to do that - that's who we are, that's our value. God is a God of love. And so we must precipitate that type of love no matter who you are, and whose you are, because we're all children of God. I have walked with our Jewish brothers and sisters when Temple De Hirsch - our sister congregation right across the street from First AME Church, within walking distance - when they were defaced, their building was defaced, there were bomb threats. I stood with the Jewish brothers and sisters - Rabbi Weiner is a brother of mine from a different mother, we eat together, we worship together. And the Muslim community - we are tight with them - when they were going through threats, bomb threats, defacing of their temples and their mosques, we were right there with them standing by their side. And when Mother Emanuel AME Church back in 2015 lost nine people inclusive of the pastor - this is an AME church. First AME Church was the hub for the Seattle Pacific Northwest area, and we held prayer vigils, we led a 3000-person march through the City, and we engaged peace talks, and with celebratory singing. But we have to stop the killing, and this is what it's about. This is who we must become, and this is what I want to do, as the next voice in Olympia for the 30th District. I'm not talking about what I'm going to do, I'm talking about what I've done and what I continue to do. [00:22:40] Crystal Fincher: And I guess my question - especially, you've been doing work - in your capacity as a State legislator, particularly at this time where there are so many attacks on people because of their identity. And as we see rhetoric ratcheting up - the type of rhetoric that we know leads to violence - what more can be done to protect our LGBTQ community legislatively, to help protect people's rights, to help keep people safe, to help people just feel loved and seen in our community. What can be done in your role as a legislator? [00:23:26] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, first of all, we need to enforce our equal protections under the laws even more. And we've got to not just put it out there in writing, but we must practice it indeed. We must have an open-door policy, we must train the legislators in terms of what a community looks like from people that are other than you. They look different, they have different values and culture, but they're still a part of this community. So I can love you no matter who you are. Although you may not have the same value that I have - just because you're a person, I am obligated to love you, and to stand in your shoes, and to understand your pain, understand your wants, and understand your desires and your hopes. This is what we must do if we're gonna represent all of the people that we are elected to serve. [00:24:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We also are facing a climate crisis. We are at a point where climate change is happening, we are experiencing extreme heat, extreme cold events, flooding. Marginalized people in our community, lower-income people, BIPOC communities are being hurt worst and first by this climate crisis. And we have work to do to keep it from getting worse, we have work to do to mitigate the impacts that it's currently having. So I guess in - as you're looking at running, as you're looking at legislating, what action would you take to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution? [00:25:19] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, first of all, when the dominant culture sniffs, has the sniffles, those who are in poverty, those who are living beneath the poverty line, catch the flu. And so we've got to, first of all, realize the disparities, the health disparities. I'm so thankful for the Governor's supplemental budget, that calls for $64 billion, over $64 billion, of priority areas. One of those areas is climate. And so I would be supportive of the Governor's supplemental budget for 2022. Also, when we look at that, one of the other priorities is that of poverty. One in five persons are living in poverty. There are 1.7 million people in this state that are living in poverty. So when we're talking about climate change and gas emissions and things of that nature - trying to be a 2035 clean air environment, which is a very ambitious goal to meet, but we gotta start somewhere. But when we look at the disparities, 1.7 million are living in poverty. And then when you go a little deeper, you find out over half, or nearly half, are people of color. So we are the ones that are the most impacted, as you have so eloquently said. So as a State legislator, I would be in support of the Governor's supplemental plan and would be pushing for the implementation of it. I'm not gonna be Black when necessary and BIPOC when convenient. I am who I am, and these are priorities and we've got to speak truth to power. We've got to have these courageous conversations and that's what I'd be willing to do, as your State legislator. [00:27:16] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely - also in this, transportation is the sector most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions in our state. We just passed, as a state, a transportation package that had record investments in transit and mobility - which we all desperately need - but also continue to widen highways and invest billions in doing that. And especially with the impacts, as you just talked about, in the BIPOC community - just people who are in close proximity to roads and highways - the pollution that comes from those are disproportionately causing asthma, heart disease, lung disease in our communities. We now have tons of data showing that widening highways doesn't reduce traffic, it increases traffic and increases emissions. Would you be supportive in future highway packages of highway expansion, or do you think we should cap it at where it's at and focus on investing more in transit and mobility solutions for people who walk, bike and ride. [00:28:43] Pastor Carey Anderson: Yes, excellent question. I think we need to take a serious look at a moratorium on expansion for our highways and really look at some of the measures to bring public transportation and make that more accessible. Here in the 30th District, the transportation - Sound Transit - is moving this way. And a lot of people, though we may live in the Federal Way, 30th District area, we are working in Seattle - let's be clear about it. And so, once that is really completed - that project - that will help ease some of the traffic flow and the emissions that are going out, because I'd rather spend a minimal amount of time and read a book while I'm traveling quickly and swiftly to my job in Seattle, than being stuck in traffic and then having the propensity to get into an accident or having someone hit me or falling asleep while we're in a dead zone deadlock and gridlock and those kinds of things. So I know that a lot of the transit money has already been bonded out. So it's gonna be a difficult thing to look at, but I'd certainly be in favor of a moratorium. [00:30:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that makes sense. And as you are considering your race, your opponent, just the dynamics of what is happening in Federal Way today and what residents are going through and what they want. Why are you the person who they should choose to represent them? [00:30:33] Pastor Carey Anderson: Russell Wilson used to say this when he was with the Seahawks - why not me? So, when we look at public safety, when we look at safe neighborhoods, funding our schools, affordable housing, quality healthcare for seniors, clean environment, and issues surrounding equity for all - I'm the only candidate who has been a K-12 public school teacher. And I'm for state funding - I'm the only candidate who has championed $400 million of state funding for immediate reinvestment into our communities. We've got a $200 million allocation that's gonna drop next month. And the RFPs are soon to be online. And so I was one, along with four others, who helped champion that $400 million state funding for immediate reinvestment into our communities. I'm the only candidate who has been using our church as a clinic for patients, for COVID vaccinations and boosters, and feeding people - to the tune of feeding, we've done nearly 15,000. For boosting and vaccinating people, over 6,000. And we continue to do that through partnerships. I'm the only candidate that provides jobs through affordable housing - our affordable housing projects and my church-based nonprofit organizations. And as I had said earlier, our project just broke ground in January 2022, providing 119 units of affordable housing at a cost of over $36 million. No one else has done that, no one else has been involved in leading the community. I'm just talking about - I'm not talking about Emmett Till, but I am talking about Trayvon Martin, I am talking about Michael Brown, I am talking about the mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. I am talking about George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery. First AME Church, through this pastor and the leadership that I provided for this community - I was the one out in the street, I was the one organizing these marches along with my colleagues, I was the one that's speaking truth to power, I was the one that convened the mayor, the chief of police who has endorsed me. WEA has endorsed me, the Retired Public Employees Council has endorsed me, and we're still getting endorsements as we speak - because my boots are on the ground. You don't have to wait for Day One to start pushing the button - what are you gonna do? I'm gonna continue to do what I've always done. And so this is my pledge, this is who I am as a person - and preaching and politics have never been separated in my book. And from the historical tradition of the African Methodist Episcopal Church - we were the first to seek public office in state and federal levels in our denomination and have led the charge and led the way. The Reverend Raphael Warnock is standing on the shoulders of historical path and I'm standing on those same shoulders. [00:33:48] Crystal Fincher: We're at an interesting time in our country and there certainly is a lot going on. You're coming to this race as a pastor. Your faith has informed how you have walked through life and how you have chosen to serve others in the community. We also see examples of some people who may be opposing you in this race, and some churches that are much more exclusive, that talk much more pointedly about who is and who is not welcome, who is and who is not moral or just or right in our society, allowed in our society. And we're having lots of conversations about what is the appropriate delineation between church and state. As someone whose faith is important to them, who you are walking into this role as a pastor, what role does faith play in how you serve, and I guess, through this candidacy. And what would you say to people who look around at other examples of religious leadership that they don't feel loved or included by - that you, as a pastor, would be the right choice. What would you say to folks who are thinking that? [00:35:17] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, you've asked a series of questions, actually. I would like to start by saying - we sang a song when I was coming up in California and They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love. And so my faith is rooted and grounded in love - love for neighbor, and love for self, and love for a community. And so, this is what informs my walk, it informs my talk. I want to be able to stand in the shoes of other people. It's not until you stand in their shoes that you understand their pain, and once you understand their pain, then you can begin to have discussions on how to mitigate the pain, how to address the pain, and how to walk with them through the pain. And so this is what I endeavor to do. The Bible says in the New Testament - we walk by faith and not by sight. So faith is what leads me, every morning, to get up. And it doesn't matter to me if you're Muslim, Jewish, atheist, or whoever you may be. You are a person, you are valued, and you are loved. What is it that we can do to help your walk? What is it that we can do to inform your viability, sustainability for you and your family and your loved ones? That's what we should be about. [00:36:57] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much, Pastor Carey. If people wanna find out more about your campaign or get involved, where can they go to find out more information? [00:37:06] Pastor Carey Anderson: Google me and go to my, our website - Pastor Carey Anderson or Reverend Dr. Carey Anderson. But our campaign website is electpastorcarey.com and you can go there, and we're still getting lots of hits and the phone number is there 253-296-6370. Well, you're welcome to join us, you're welcome to wave with us, you're welcome to walk with us, you're welcome to phonebank, textbank with us, and to follow us as we follow our call and commitment. So, these are simple ways, but it means so much - reaching people one at a time, one neighborhood at a time, one household at a time, one person at a time. And that's what we're about. [00:38:05] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today, Pastor Carey Anderson. Thank you so much - we'll continue to follow you on your journey. [00:38:14] Pastor Carey Anderson: Thank you for having me, Crystal. It has certainly been an honor, and it's certainly been a joy to see the work that you and your team are doing. And I am not going to turn this off. I'm gonna keep you in my heart and I'm gonna keep the work that you do in my soul. So thank you so much. God bless you and God keep you. [00:38:37] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. 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 delivered 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 at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with Emily Alvarado about her campaign for State Representative in the 34th Legislative District - why she decided to run, how the last legislative session went, and her thoughts on how to address housing affordability and zoning, Washington's regressive tax structure, homelessness, climate change, public safety, drug decriminalization, COVID response and recovery. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Emily at https://www.facebook.com/emilyforwa.   Resources Campaign Website - Emily Alvarado: https://emilyforwa.com/   Transcript   [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I'm very pleased to welcome to the show - Emily Alvarado, who is a candidate for the 34th District State Representative seat in Position 1 - welcome to the show. [00:00:48] Emily Alvarado: Thank you so much, Crystal. It's good to be here. [00:00:51] Crystal Fincher: Good to be here, great to meet you. I wanted to start off just talking about what made you choose to run? [00:00:59] Emily Alvarado: Yeah, well, I'm running for the State Legislature because I believe that government has an obligation to meet the basic needs of all people, and because I've spent my entire career in public service fighting for just that. I'm a lawyer - I went to the University of Washington School of Law, where I was a Gates Public Service Law Scholar. I'm a Latina, raised in a multicultural household, and I'm committed to advancing racial equity and defending civil rights. I'm the child of public school educators and the parent of two kids in Seattle Public Schools, and I care about the future of our public education and the future of our environment. I'm also running because housing is a human right - everyone deserves access to safe, affordable housing, and I'll bring over a decade of experience to the Legislature to address housing affordability. [00:02:00] Crystal Fincher: Well, that is a huge thing - it's a crisis, as you are very aware of. So what should we be doing to make housing affordable, and is part of the solution increasing density in single-family neighborhoods? [00:02:16] Emily Alvarado: Yeah, thanks for that question. Clearly, our housing system is broken and needs to be repaired. We do not have enough housing choices throughout the state. We have a shortage of hundreds of thousands of homes to meet the needs of people, so we do need to pursue options to create more housing choices in all communities. We need duplexes, triplexes, ADUs in all communities - so we have options for multi-generational households, for first-time home buyers, for seniors to live with their grandchildren, so that we can have inclusion and diversity. We need more density by our public transit investments so that people can have access to their jobs and to transit, and we can address climate change through our housing policy. We need more from the market, and we also know that the market is necessary, but it's not sufficient, to solve our affordable housing crisis. It has not, and will not, be able to serve the needs of extremely low income people, people with no income, people on a fixed income, people working part-time jobs at minimum wage. So I think we also need significant and deep and sustained investment in publicly-financed, permanently affordable housing - including housing to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness, like permanent supportive housing, which is the proven evidence-based cost-effective and humane solution to addressing homelessness. And we need deep public investments in housing for seniors, for people with disabilities, for low income working families - we need those investments. And third, to help take bold action for housing, we need to make sure that we're protecting tenants and homeowners. Tenants cannot be subject to excessive year-over-year rent increases that exceeds the wages and wage increases of normal families. We can't have year-over-year rent increases that really hamstring people on fixed incomes. So I would take action to make sure that we're providing stability and that we're providing access for tenants. We have to make sure that people who have criminal histories have access to housing, so we're not continuing recidivism and a cycle of incarceration. So there's a lot of steps to take on housing, and I'll put together that bold plan rooted in experience, a deep understanding of what all levels of government - local, state, and federal - what we can do to work together. And I'll build coalitions because this is urgent and it's time to take action now. [00:05:15] Crystal Fincher: You bring a wealth of knowledge with you as a former director of the City of Seattle Office of Housing - you talk about a lot of different tools and we certainly need to be taking a lot of action, varied types of action, to address this crisis. So it sounds like social housing should be on the table, rent control should be on the table - have all of the tools available at our disposal - and those are the types of things that you would be voting to enable or implement if you were in the Legislature. [00:05:46] Emily Alvarado: Absolutely. We need all of the tools and we need significant resource to invest to make the tools actionable. We know that - [00:05:57] Crystal Fincher: Where do we get those resources? [00:05:59] Emily Alvarado: Right. Well, we know that Washington State has the most regressive tax system in the entire country where poor people, low income folks are disproportionately paying a higher percentage of their income to contribute to really critical public necessities - like housing, like education and childcare, like shared investments in transportation and our infrastructure. I believe we need to fix our regressive tax system and we need to do so with urgency. I support a range of strategies to create more progressive revenue, and I think we need to act quickly because that's the kind of scale and resource that it's going to take to solve our most pressing issues. [00:06:49] Crystal Fincher: I think we absolutely need so many of these things - that you are bringing tools to the table that have been shown, have been proven to help in these crises. Looking at how we've been handling the homelessness crisis - you talked so eloquently about supportive housing being critical - we have seen over the past few years, an approach that - it seems sweeps-focused and the criminalization of homelessness and moving the unhoused population around. Okay, you can't be here - we're sweeping your location without providing those services, or without ensuring that services that are relevant to the people needing them are available. Have we been taking the wrong approach by doing that? And what should we be doing? [00:07:51] Emily Alvarado: It's not acceptable to simply move people experiencing homelessness from one place to another. What people need is housing, and they need services and supports to live healthy and stable lives. What we're seeing right now are the outcomes of 40+ years of intentional policy from the federal level - disinvestment and privatization that has really exacerbated and created the homelessness crisis that we see today. Housing is one of the issues in our country where - there is no entitlement to housing. At the federal level, if you need affordable housing, if you have an extremely low income, you apply to a lottery to receive a Section 8 voucher. We can't have a lottery system driving the extent to which people are able to meet their basic human needs. We need to ensure that all people have access to housing. And I think first and foremost, that means that we need our federal government to step back up and reinvest in housing, and reinvest in human services and in social services, and in homelessness supports like through the McKinney-Vento Program, like through the Section 8 voucher program, like through investments in public housing and the National Housing Trust Fund and HUD 202 and 811 - so many sources that we've seen disinvestment from. We need the federal government to reinvest. While they're working on doing that, we need to continue to take action at the local and at the state level to meaningfully solve the problem. And we know what works. As I mentioned earlier, permanent supportive housing works - to move people into a home and give them the necessary behavioral health, substance abuse, social supports that they need to be stable and safe. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to adequately and sufficiently scale up our permanent supportive housing response to be able to provide the housing that's necessary. In addition, Washington has one of the worst behavioral health systems in the nation. And so we've seen that people's behavioral health challenges have increased significantly throughout the pandemic, across the board - in our schools, in jails, in hospitals, and on the street - you see this and yet more than half of the people who need support of mental health services can't access those services. There's nowhere to go. And the people who are providing those services are burnt out and there's not enough of a workforce to be providing adequate mental health and behavioral health supports, especially when people are in a time of crisis. We have to invest deeply in our behavioral health system - make sure that it's a one-stop place where people know how to get care and treatment. And I believe that those kinds of investments that I would work deeply on as a State legislator, paired with really thoughtful, scaled investment in permanent supportive housing and other measures to address poverty like universal basic income and other kinds of supports will make a meaningful difference - and we'll actually solve homelessness and provide dignity and stability to people who are suffering. [00:11:36] Crystal Fincher: So we just came out of a legislative session where some good things happened, some not so good things happened. What was your evaluation of this past session? [00:11:49] Emily Alvarado: Yeah, well, I think there were some significant record investments in areas in which we have under-investment, and we showed that the Legislature can lead. Good examples are in housing - the Legislature made record investments in housing, both in purchasing and acquiring buildings to help move people out of homelessness into housing, new resources for the state Housing Trust fund to invest in community development, equitable development, and affordable housing projects across the state. New resources in housing, especially to help make sure that frontline human service and homeless service workers have compensation for the hard work that they've done during the pandemic. On that end, there were great strides. Similarly, record level of investments in transportation with a real emphasis on creating investments in mobility, in electrification, in buses and Metro and ferries. Those really show that we're moving in the right direction of knowing where we need to invest our resources. Unfortunately, I think we didn't make as strong strides on the policy end. And I know that it was a short session and I look forward to entering the Legislature next year with some strong plans to really move the needle, especially on housing policy, but on other issues as well. We need to make sure that we're bringing together coalitions of people and we're establishing policies and plans now, that can help impact generations to come. Another place where generational-level policy is needed is around planning in our communities for growth. It was really unfortunate last legislative session - that we lost the chance to include in our Growth Management Act and in our comprehensive planning policies - a focus on climate change and on environmental justice. We could have said that all communities under GMA that are planning are prioritizing efforts to address climate change, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce vehicle miles traveled. And instead, we were not able to bring that across the finish line. I'll work hard to make sure that, from a policy perspective, in addition to investments, we're planning thoughtfully on issues like climate change, like housing, like healthcare - to make sure that we have strong, progressive, forward-looking policy. [00:14:44] Crystal Fincher: I think you bring up a number of excellent points. And I do think it was really critical that we saw the types of investments in mobility and transit, and the types of transportation that will move us into a sustainable future. One of the things that a lot of folks talked about and saw was that while we were doing that, which is great, there were also a significant amount of investment in highway expansion and the types of things that - if we take two steps forward with the record transit investments, we take a step back with increasing, continuing to invest in highway expansion. Should we be investing in further highway expanse? [00:15:31] Emily Alvarado: I don't believe that's our priority. I don't think that investments in highway expansion have ever demonstrated that they serve the needs of community in a way that really focuses on equity, that focuses on mobility, that focuses on livability for communities. I would prioritize continued investments in public transportation, in connectivity, in multimodal transit and mobility - to make sure that people can really access communities in a way that is effective, efficient, affordable, and also people-centered. That's the kind of communities that we need to be building for our climate future - we need dense communities where people can walk, where we can have thriving small businesses, where people can bike, where people can commute with their children safely from one place to another. And as a legislator, those are the kinds of investments I would prioritize. [00:16:37] Crystal Fincher: I definitely want a legislator who prioritizes those types of things - will make life just better in so many ways for so many people. What more should we be doing to meet our 2030 climate goals? There's a lot of action that has been taken, but it doesn't have us on track to achieve our goals yet. What more do we need to do? And what will you lead on? [00:17:01] Emily Alvarado: Yeah, well, we obviously have a lot more to do. We have to move towards electrification of our transportation system, and we need to do so urgently and aggressively, and I'd support all of those efforts. As I've mentioned before, affordable housing policy is climate policy. And until we create the policy to build a future of having dense, compact, livable communities, we are never going to address the emissions that come from driving. And we need to prioritize that - one of the things that the state can be doing is to have more alignment in our investment around housing and transportation. I've spent a lot of my career at the local level working on equitable transit-oriented development - really making sure that we're purchasing property or using surplus property by our transit investments to create dense, affordable housing with community facilities, with cultural assets, so that we can both avoid or mitigate or prevent displacement. And also, so that low income people have an opportunity to live in communities by jobs and by transit - many of whom are the most transit-dependent people in our state. So alignment of our housing and transportation investments can make sure that we're creating the dense communities that are needed. We also know that from a carbon emissions perspective, our housing stock is one of the greatest drivers of carbon. And so we really need to take seriously an effort to not only build towards the future, where we're building buildings that are climate resilient, but also looking at our existing building stock. We need new financing tools, new partnerships to meaningfully upgrade and retrofit our existing buildings to move away from fossil fuels towards electrification. And we need to do so with a prioritization on the people who are low income so that they are achieving the benefits, not only of climate justice, but also of electrification, which can bring air conditioning as we see changes in our weather and climate. [00:19:32] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. [00:19:32] Emily Alvarado: So I'll pursue continued strategies to build climate resilience through our housing policy. And lastly, Crystal, I don't want to move on from this topic without saying that - a focus on our climate justice work has to be environmental justice. We need to be investing in communities that are most impacted by air pollution, by water pollution - whose impacts are often aligned with the same impacts of housing policy, including redlining and racially restrictive covenants. We need to start by investing in those communities through grants and partnerships and resources so that there is genuine environmental justice planning that happens, that helps to build the policy platform and strategies for our future. And those are the kinds of strategies that I would follow and invest in. [00:20:32] Crystal Fincher: Our Legislature certainly would benefit from an increased focus and centering and prioritization of that, and I appreciate you prioritizing that. We, in this last legislative session - the Democratic majority and the Legislature overall also took some new action, reversed some prior action - when it comes to public safety and police accountability reforms. Do you think they did the right thing? [00:21:05] Emily Alvarado: I completely support the efforts that were made two years ago to make sweeping reforms in police accountability. And I'm glad that we really took the steps to take meaningful action - it's necessary. I would not have supported the rollback of those laws. That's not the right direction. We need to be intentional and focused on addressing racial bias in policing, on addressing over-policing of communities of color. And I would make sure that we continue to have systems of accountability that can help to repair trust and help to get us back on a path towards real community-led, community-driven public safety. I think, outside of the conversation about the police accountability and police reform measures, we need to take public safety seriously by investing deeply in communities that have been impacted by violence and by intentional disinvestment for decades. And I would start by making sure that people have access to basic needs of housing, healthcare, education, that we have investments in youth activities, in civic infrastructure, in community facilities - so that we have healthy communities. We know that healthy communities are safer communities, they're less violent communities. That's where I believe that true public safety begins. I also think, as I mentioned before, that we need to be investing in a system of crisis response that's actually meeting the needs of what crisis people are facing. If people are facing a behavioral health crisis, we might want to respond with a behavioral health response rather than a police response - and law enforcement agrees with that. So again, we need investments in those kinds of behavioral health crisis responses so that we can meet people where they are and treat people as they need to be treated. I also believe that we need to seriously address gun violence in order for our communities to be safe. I appreciate the efforts of the state to create the new Office of Firearms, Safety and Gun Prevention, Violence Prevention. As a legislator, I would make investments in that office. I would scale the work of that office and make sure that they are prioritizing - themselves - investments and a commitment to communities that are most impacted by gun violence. [00:23:57] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely makes sense. Another area that does impact how safe we are - how we're meeting people's needs who are in crisis - are those who are dealing with substance use disorder. And we've had this War on Drugs that - it's pretty universally recognized as a failure and ultimately as counterproductive. What should the approach to possessing drugs be - should it be treated as a criminal activity or a public health problem? How would you address that? [00:24:29] Emily Alvarado: Yeah, I would definitely start by treating substance abuse as a public health problem. And we know right now that - one, our laws have primarily been designed in a way to focus on criminalization and to focus on over-policing of communities of color. That's how our drug policy for decades has been designed at the federal level and locally. We need to undo those kinds of policies. We also need to make sure that people who are often caught up in systems of incarceration - that we're putting better interventions in place. People should not go to jail because they have a substance abuse disorder. They should be treated for the substance abuse disorder. And that's an investment in public health, that's an investment in our healthcare systems, and in investing in public health and healthcare in a way that's also meeting people where they are - through community-based health care centers, through street-based outreach and services, so that people can get treatment. As I mentioned earlier, too, part of the cycle of recidivism and incarceration is because we put intentional barriers up that don't allow people to live healthy, stable lives. We need to take action now on ensuring that people who have criminal history in the criminal justice system can access housing. People need to be able to have safety and security of a home - and without that, there continues to be people who are caught up in systems over and over again. And then our laws on drug possession and others become other tools by which we continue incarceration. I'll oppose those. [00:26:32] Crystal Fincher: We are still in this time where COVID is spreading, still impacting people. In fact, right now the rates are increasing and even the hospitalizations are increasing. And it seems like a lot of people have just decided to be done with COVID, even though COVID has not yet decided to be done with us. What more should the Legislature be doing to help prevent the spread and mitigate the impacts of COVID? [00:26:59] Emily Alvarado: Yeah, well, first of all, we need to make sure that our healthcare system, which has been serving and supporting people through the pandemic for three years now - over two years now - has the resources that it needs to really serve people. And we know that right now we have a nursing shortage. We know that many of the people who work in the healthcare industry are burnt out, or are quitting, and are overworked. And we need to address that kind of a staffing issue if we want to provide adequate safety for our community, and we want to provide appropriate health care for our community. So I would work on efforts that didn't move forward last legislative session - to make sure that we have staffing safety for nurses and for nursing workers, so that we can have a strong, robust health workforce. We need that as part of our future. We also have to continue to invest in the underlying systems that make people feel comfortable taking days off when they're sick and being at home with their children. Unfortunately, we do have so much economic insecurity and job insecurity that people can't be at home. I'll fight hard for safe workplaces and to make sure that we work on policies so that when people are sick, they can be at home. I'm proud to have support from many labor organizations because I'll fight to make sure that workers can put themselves and their health and their safety before overworking. [00:28:53] Crystal Fincher: Well, and as we conclude this conversation today, I'm wondering - if you're talking to a voter, who's trying to decide between you and your opponent, trying to decide who's most aligned with their values, who they can most count on to fight for what they need - what would you tell them in terms of you versus your opponent and how they should approach that decision? [00:29:20] Emily Alvarado: Look, I believe that we can build a future that works for all Washingtonians. I am hopeful. I believe that investing in robust housing, in healthcare, in childcare, in education and infrastructure - I believe that's absolutely necessary to build strong communities and a thriving middle class. In a state and a region with incredible opportunity, I believe we can have shared prosperity, I believe we can solve our biggest challenges. The difference between me and my opponent is that I've spent my entire career working for social justice. I've spent my life fighting for families who need housing, for individuals experiencing homelessness, for people who want connection and belonging, and for communities who want safe thriving neighborhoods. I have a track record of not only advocating, but also on delivering, on implementing policies, on investing in housing and services for people who need it, and advancing creative solutions. My track record and demonstrated commitment is clear. My personal commitment to social justice and progressive change is clear, as is my ability to bring people together and solve our biggest challenges. [00:30:42] Crystal Fincher: Appreciate that. And just final question - as director of the Office of Housing, certainly you have a lot of responsibility. You were working within an administration that some people have a lot of questions about when it came to their commitment, particularly with former Mayor Jenny Durkan, to the same kinds of values that you talk about. How would you characterize your work within that administration, or your work despite that administration - whichever one is more appropriate - when people are trying to figure out how you fit within that and how you were aligned with Mayor Durkan and her approach? [00:31:21] Emily Alvarado: Yeah, thanks for that pointed question - I appreciate it. I think that the track record that I have of creating progressive outcomes as director at the Office of Housing, at one of the more challenging times of our recent history with tense political tensions, is demonstrative of my success and the effectiveness that I would bring to the State Legislature. I got things done at a time when council and the mayor didn't agree. At a time when I didn't always agree with the mayor, we still moved progressive policy. Just remember - during that time, I was able to make record investments in affordable housing - record investments. I made the greatest number investments in BIPOC-led community-based housing organizations that have ever been made. We implemented a permanent supportive housing pilot to triple our annual production of permanent supportive housing as a COVID response, including by using federal resources. We got more resources to buy buildings and buy land - to move people out of homelessness. We passed record policies on addressing displacement, community preference policy - making sure that communities can stay in place and access affordable housing. I created a rental assistance program during COVID and invested in BIPOC-led, community-based organizations to provide resources to the most impacted communities. I implemented foreclosure prevention policies targeted in communities facing the highest risk of displacement. So outside of the administration, I delivered clearly on the values that I hold dear and I'm transparent about. I worked deeply with community and maintained and built strong, authentic community relationships. And I brought people together to get things done - that's what we need in the Legislature - someone who's going to bring people together and get progressive policy accomplished. [00:33:45] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for your time today, for this conversation, and appreciate the time that you spent. Thank you so much. [00:33:53] Emily Alvarado: Thank you, Crystal - I appreciate it. [00:33:55] Crystal Fincher: I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. 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 & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. 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 at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

On today's week-in-review, Crystal is joined by staff writer covering Law and Justice at The Stranger, Will Casey. After another difficult news week across the nation and locally, Crystal and Will wade through the latest controversies facing Washington's police departments. They break down the revelation that SPD has not been investigating adult sexual assault cases, and why this is more of an issue of priorities rather than staffing. They also question Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell's accountability for the actions of the department, which he leads. Next they look into Pierce County Council candidate Josh Harris's shooting of a man Harris alleges stole from him and ask why Auburn's police department put the image of an officer accused of multiple murders on their recruitment banner. For housing news, Crystal and Will question the usefulness of Bruce Harrell's new Homelessness Data Dashboard and ask why landlords are enraged over the Seattle City Council's proposal to ask them to report the rents they're charging renters. Finally, the show wraps up with a check-in on controversy surrounding former Mayor Jenny Durkan's missing text messages, and how it's one example of why Washington's Public Records Act needs to be updated to meet our modern era.  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, Will Casey, at @willjcasey. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Seattle police stopped investigating new adult sexual assaults this year, memo shows” by Sydney Brownstone and Ashley Hiruko from The Seattle Times and KUOW: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/seattle-police-halted-investigating-adult-sexual-assaults-this-year-internal-memo-shows/   “Auburn officer charged with murder featured on department's recruiting banner” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/auburn-officer-charged-with-murder-featured-on-departments-recruiting-banner/   “This Auburn cop killed 3 and injured others. His department didn't stop him — outsiders did” by Ashley Hiruko and Liz Brazile from KUOW:https://www.kuow.org/stories/this-auburn-cop-killed-3-and-injured-others-it-took-outsiders-to-stop-him   “Pierce County candidate with pro-law enforcement platform shoots at suspected car thief”  by Patrick Malone from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/pierce-county-candidate-with-pro-law-enforcement-platform-shoots-at-suspected-car-thief/    “Seattle greenlights minimum wages for app-based delivery drivers” by MyNorthwest Staff from MYNorthwest: https://mynorthwest.com/3499857/seattle-city-council-passes-payup-legislation/    “Harrell's New Homelessness Data Dashboard Invites More Questions Than It Answers” by ​​Natalie Bicknell Argerious from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/06/02/the-urbanist-podcast-harrells-new-homelessness-data-dashboard-invites-more-questions-than-it-answers/    “How Many Dashboards Does it Take to Build a House?” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/05/31/74506931/how-many-dashboards-does-it-take-to-build-a-house   “Pedersen Pisses Off Seattle Landlords: Is the rent too high? The City wants to know, but landlords don't want to say” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/06/01/74545296/pedersen-pisses-off-seattle-landlords “Did Our Last Mayor Commit a Felony? Washington's Public Records Act Needs An Overhaul” by Will Casey from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/06/02/74581748/did-our-last-mayor-commit-a-felony   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 during 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 on the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome to the program for the first time today, today's co-host: staff writer covering Law and Justice at The Stranger, Will Casey. [00:00:55] Will Casey: Thanks for having me, Crystal - excited to be here. [00:00:57] Crystal Fincher: Hey, excited for you to be here - excited that you're at The Stranger covering Law and Justice. We all need great coverage of law and justice and wow, there is no shortage of law and justice news this week. So want to start by discussing a revelation that made my jaw drop, and made me gasp, and made me absolutely infuriated and perplexed - the news that Seattle police stopped investigating new adult sexual assault cases this year. What is going on? [00:01:34] Will Casey: Well, the mayor would like you to believe that a staffing shortage at the Seattle Police Department is responsible for their inability to process these new allegations of sexual assaults. To be specific, they are still investigating cases that involve children, but these are for new allegations of assault against an adult. And unfortunately, the mayor's not really telling the whole story there because other police departments in our area and nationally are also dealing with the labor shortage, but they have not made the same decisions in terms of how they allocate their existing staff out of the unit that's supposed to be handling these kinds of cases. [00:02:19] Crystal Fincher: That's right. And even within our department, every type of department has not seen decreases. They have moved people out of these investigative positions into other roles. What does that look like in the police department? [00:02:37] Will Casey: Well, so you probably heard a lot last year, during the mayoral campaign, about 911 response times. This is the frequent calling card of the more-law-and-order folks who want to conjure this image of - this resident's in distress, trying to get help and not having it come, while they're presumably being made the victim of a crime. Well, here we have actual victims of real crimes who are trying to ask for help from the Seattle Police Department and getting basically silenced. So, while they've shifted deputies and investigators out of this unit, they're moving people into things like these hotspot policing efforts or other just general patrol duties in attempts to presumably reduce those 911 response times. [00:03:24] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And operation support has seen an increase, actually, in the amount of personnel allocated to that in the past couple years, despite the shortage - as they're calling it and dealing with it - the shortage of police that we have here. And just what is the rationale behind saying these other things are priorities more than investigating violent sexual assault? [00:04:00] Will Casey: Honestly, I can't personally vouch for the rationale that's backing this up. The only comment that our City leaders have offered on the record to The Seattle Times here is just that the mayor finds this situation "unacceptable." They noted that they tried to interview several other City councilmembers about the issue - they all ducked from being interviewed on the record. Chief Diaz says that - if we don't have an officer to respond to the sexual assault, then we're never going to be able to have the follow-up to investigate it. And so that's - and at least from him - why they seem to be maintaining the patrolling staffing levels rather than this investigative situation. But that doesn't really seem to be offering much comfort to the advocates for survivors of sexual assault who are bringing these criticisms to the public's attention. [00:04:54] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And beyond that, it continues to be perplexing to me how the mayor is finding himself becoming aware of this right now. As the executive of the City, he is in charge of this department - the police chief reports to him. Lots of people - I hear talking about the Council - the Council can pass policy, they can fund things. But operationally, administratively - all of that falls under the control of the mayor's office. So how - one, either how does the mayor not know this is happening, or are they doing this despite different direction - which we've seen examples of that happening before - where is the disengagement? How is it okay that policy like this is being enacted and the mayor doesn't know? Are there any steps taken to get answers about that, to address that? How are they saying they plan to increase monitoring of what's going on within the police department if stuff like this is happening without him being notified of it? [00:05:58] Will Casey: It's hard to say, honestly. And I think that there's some other details here in The Seattle Times report that really call into question the mayor's surprise - that at least that he's expressed - about this issue. Because it seems as though he doesn't have any difficulty getting SPD to allocate resources when he does have a policy interest in something - so notably the department's alternative response team, which is the unit that responds to homeless encampment removals. Monisha Harrell on the show a couple of weeks ago - that unit is now staffed by twice the number of officers on the sexual assault unit, after an additional seven patrol officers were added to that unit. And then you also have twelve detectives, compared to the four in the sexual assault investigation units, devoted to property crimes. So that's three times the number of detectives we have - looking at things like catalytic converter thefts, as opposed to sexual violence. So I don't know, maybe the mayor has an explanation for that, but it's not one that's been heard by the public thus far, at least. [00:07:07] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it's perplexing, especially as we're hearing plans from the City Attorney for people who would previously be eligible for Drug Court or other court - that they're cracking down harder on them. How is it that we are finding ways to invest more, change policy, apply resources in different directions when they have an initiative, when they have an idea - but stuff like this has to be uncovered by reporters outside of the City to even begin to get answers or to see what's happening. It's just really, really perplexing and outrageous, especially given so much work done legislatively to make sure that all of the things downstream, especially when it comes to sexual assault, are being investigated, are they taking rape kits and processing those in a timely fashion. And I don't think anyone anticipated that the next problem we were going to be encountering is just police deciding not to investigate sexual assault at all. And if you're trying to project a safer image for the City and that you're taking action to make people safer, which is absolutely necessary, it seems like this would be a critical component of that. So it just feels very disjointed, very disappointing, and really infuriating that these decisions can be made that are so at odds with public safety. Another thing at odds, seemingly, with public safety that we saw this week was with Pierce County Council candidate, Josh Harris, who's running on a pro-law enforcement platform. People may be familiar with his name from a while back when he bailed out the police who had killed Manny Ellis - very, very problematic. Well, just recently he decided to go into an encampment where he felt some things had been stolen and engaged in an altercation with someone. The altercation escalated, police were - the story's murky - police were there, told him to stand back and stand by, somehow the person who they were engaging with got into a car. They're saying that the car went in the direction of Josh Harris and potentially charged at him. Josh Harris, then in front of police, fired into this car - does not seem like police fired into that car - really confusing what happened. And then somehow this person was not stopped, wound up back in the encampment - where Harris and a partner went in and took some things they said were stolen. They didn't say they were stolen from them, they didn't say how they knew that there were stolen, they were just a variety of things that evidently they're characterizing as stolen and we're not questioning this yet. But it just seems like we have seen more incidences of people feeling like they can go into encampments and communities where people are living, who don't have other shelter, and just assume that they're places of crime - to have no problem victimizing people, don't seem to have to substantiate whether or not something was indeed stolen, and hey - if something's stolen, someone should be able to get it back. We have processes for that that people should follow. But seeing this escalate to violence, seeing people go into these encampments armed with guns is just asking for a violent situation to happen. It's asking for people to get shot and killed. There have been several examples of this happening and why is this person running for office - who seems to have some kind of a complex that he needs to go and do this macho thing - it just seems really problematic. This is someone running for office in Pierce County right now, and I hope more people start talking about this and examining this and really getting to the details of this situation and his prior situations. 'Cause there seems to be a history of problematic or questionable activity here. Just really concerning. [00:11:37] Will Casey: Yeah, and the only thing I have to add to that is - this is not an isolated trend, data point here, right? We're seeing across the country, in contested Republican primary after primary, this is just becoming part of - this vigilantism is becoming part of their mainstream rhetoric. And I think that that's - frankly, very deeply troubling for our ability to continue to maintain our democracy and yeah, not the kind of moral leadership you'd like. But the sad fact is I doubt there are very many of his base voters who are going to have a problem with this behavior. [00:12:16] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and that's the challenge. And I just hope that, as these things that happen are covered, that they're covered critically and that facts are verified and that accounts are verified because the framing of this sometimes seems really problematic. And it's just also worth mentioning the fact that although we have some real troubling characterizations and narratives about unhoused people and crime, the fact is that there are few people in society who are more frequently victims of crime than the unhoused population. It's a very, very vulnerable place to be - there was talk this week about potentially - Reagan Dunn, actually, introduced the idea of basically mapping where every unhoused person is and stays. And there's just a ton of concern by a lot of people about that. Because one, as we just said, unhoused people are already extremely vulnerable, are frequently victims of crime, are much more vulnerable than most of the rest of us. And we have seen, from reporters who have been very inappropriate in the way that they have tracked down and covered and photographed and videotaped folks in these encampments, and people feeling like they are entitled - if they know where one of them is - to walk in, to harass them, to assault people there. We've seen this happen several times. And so anytime you target a group and just point a big red arrow at them and say there they are, while simultaneously dehumanizing them with rhetoric and talking about how much of a problem they are - we know that's a recipe for violence, and we know that's a recipe for targeting. So no, we don't want to do that and that's a bad thing, Reagan Dunn - among the number of variety of bad things that Reagan Dunn seems like he's doubling down on doing. But aside from that, also - Auburn, City of Auburn, featured a police officer - who is currently charged with murder - who is featured on the department's recruiting banner. They were at an event, banner sitting here - big picture, officer's smiling - well, it's an officer who's charged for murder. What is the deal here, Will? [00:14:43] Will Casey: When you literally have a poster boy for your department being someone who's currently facing an accusation of murder and has a history of killing several other civilians while on duty, that's a problem. And I think, especially in this atmosphere of new-found focus not just on big city police departments, like Seattle's, but also how these same dynamics are playing out frequently with far less oversight in these smaller towns and cities throughout the state. And I think - what this shows is that there's a culture issue here in Auburn, at least in their police departments, with not being concerned, apparently, with the image that they're projecting into the community. And this is not someone who, at least from my perspective, it seems like you'd want to be holding out as a representative of the kinds of officers you're looking to hire, if you're really interested in changing the culture of the police department. KUOW has done a fantastic investigative series documenting all of the various moments throughout this officer's lengthy career - where he's been involved in violence repeatedly, has not found not been held accountable for any kind of discipline. And frankly, you shouldn't have to look at anything other than his own hands to tell you that he's someone you should be worried about. He's got tattoos that show - frankly, very common slogan - I guess, is the right word, motif - among the more extreme police officers that refer to being judged by 12 - meaning 12 jurors in a courtroom, presumably for reviewing some sort of act of violence that they engaged in, rather than carried by 6, which is - or 8 sometimes - referred to pallbearers bearing a coffin. And this is kind of warrior mentality where you're always under threat, the people who you're supposed to be protecting and serving are a constant possible source of danger to you, and if you "fear for your life" - that really does need to shift. This particular officer also has a combat veteran background, and there have been reports from within the department of people trying to get the Auburn PD to take some practice steps, get him some specialized counseling that may be necessary for someone adjusting to a civilian, law enforcement position. And it's just apparently never stuck. So, we have a lot more work to do in following the story and keeping everyone's attention trained on it - that pending murder charge will next be at issue in the public, possibly this September, because the judge overseeing that case just had to issue a continuance in the scheduled trial date for June. [00:17:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and just the family dealing with this - it's really hard. The family is very disappointed, very dismayed that - one, this officer did have a history, it was not addressed before. Unfortunately, he killed their family member and egregious enough - we all know how high the bar is for a police officer to get charged - he is charged. He's just waiting to go on trial, and unfortunately this trial keeps being delayed, which is very painful for the family. And just - there are people attached to this, these are real stakes and real people who are being impacted by this. And it just makes it that much more insulting that all of this is there - that we talk about wanting to keep people safe and healthy and whole, and treating people with dignity and respect - and wow, how this is not happening in the operations. And I just cannot - I cannot imagine being a family member of this person and then reading that he's literally the poster boy for the department. Just very, very disappointing. The department did say - well, hey, this is an old poster, this was before this happened and before he was charged with murder. It didn't happen before he killed other people - he has killed two other people, injured others aside from that. And so, they are putting that kind of behavior and history and record up on display. And so the question is, so who are you actually looking to recruit with this? What message are you sending? What does it say about the culture of the department? And I just hope that we begin to grapple with those questions as a community because it's absolutely necessary. In some better news this week, Seattle City Council passed PayUp legislation. What does this do? [00:19:56] Will Casey: Effectively, this is going to give a whole slew of app-based gig workers - finally - a minimum wage, which is a huge, huge deal. There's a little bit of back and forth in the final version of the law that got passed - Councilmember Alex Pedersen introduced a late amendment that did exclude a certain category of workers from the legislation, which was strange because he was the original sponsor of the bill. So it's not often you see - [00:20:26] Crystal Fincher: Andrew Lewis! [00:20:27] Will Casey: Oh, I'm sorry - did I say - yes, yes, yes - sorry, I made the frequent mistake of confusing him with the two other squishy progressives from the Council - my apologies to Andrew. But yeah, so anyway, he did undermine his own bill here in a relatively strange move that he said was to "take down the temperature on the issue." But that didn't really seem to happen because advocates for the workers are very upset that that exemption was inserted last minute into the legislation. But the large takeaway here is - this is still a significant step forward for a large class of employees who - Uber and Lyft, and these similar-style companies have been fighting tooth and nail in every state that tries to do this - to keep these people from getting a fair wage. So, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth here, I guess. [00:21:21] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. This is a step forward - it does meaningfully help a lot of drivers in the City, so this is a good thing, this is helpful. It would have been nice if it could be good for more people - we talked about that a lot last week. Councilmember Tammy Morales did offer an amendment that was passed that says they will take up legislation for the people left out of this bill - the marketplace workers who were excluded from this bill in that amendment that you just spoke about - that they will take that up by August of 2023. So there is now a date attached to it. One of the issues last week was - yeah, we'll get to it. But there was nothing concrete following that, there was no - well, when are you going to get to it, when are you going to address it if it's not here. And so now we do have a date, so hopefully app-based, or marketplace app-based workers, will also be included. But that's a very positive thing, very helpful. A number of these app-based service companies were very much in opposition to this, certainly were pushing for the amendment that Councilmember Lewis eventually passed for this bill. But it is a step forward, and I do not think it is too much to say that everyone deserves to make the minimum wage. And that just because you have figured out some technological loopholes does not absolve you with the responsibility for paying people who you're profiting from - to be clear, who you're profiting very handsomely from - a minimum wage. It's the least that should be done. So this week also, in City of Seattle news, Mayor Harrell introduced a new homelessness dashboard. What happened here? [00:23:09] Will Casey: Well, we've got a bunch of the data we already have now being aggregated into one place with some data visualization that made a tech worker friend of mine send me a long string of Twitter DMs talking about how terribly organized and poorly visualized the data is. And so - and his criticism is not the only one. My colleague at The Stranger, Hannah Krieg, had an excellent piece talking to some of the folks at Tech 4 Housing, who are experts in this field, and included an excellent breakdown of - that basically this dashboard presents the point of view that homelessness is a problem for the people seeing it, rather than for those who are experiencing the lack of shelter. And for me personally, I think this is going to be - a little bit of background here - part of the reason that the City is so concerned with visualizing this data and proving that they have the shelter capacity is that there's a federal lawsuit out of the Ninth Circuit, which is where Seattle resides, that effectively makes it illegal to do the encampments sweeps that the administration has been engaging in, unless there's adequate shelter available for everyone who's being forced to move. And so that's why you'll hear City officials so focused on this idea of referrals and saying that they had available capacity, without really ever getting into the details of - are you actually getting these people housing? Just - it was available, technically. And so we can't be punished by the courts for sweeping the problem to some other part of the city. [00:24:50] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it is - it is a challenge. And we've certainly talked about before, talked about even last week, the issue with that shelter - just because we're hearing shelter is available, an offer of services was made, does actually not mean that those services were applicable to the person who they were made to. Someone may have a job that requires them to work hours later than the shelter will accept people. Well, the offer was made - that person couldn't accept them - and you're making someone choose between having a job and spending a night somewhere. And to be clear, many of these shelters, it is a night. This is not housing. This is oftentimes a bed. If we're talking about congregate shelter, those for a variety of reasons can - not be safe places, not be places that help people become more stable. And oftentimes in these shelters, you have to leave early in the morning with all of your possessions - it's not an easy thing to do. Anyone suggesting that people who are unhoused are somehow getting by in the system, or doing this because it's easy, or because they're lazy - does not understand what being out on the street is actually like. It's a dangerous place, it's a scary place, it's a very destabilizing place. And to help people get back to the point where they can find stability for housing requires stabilizing so many things in their lives that are made worse by the trauma and experience of being on the street. So it is actually important - if we're going to solve this issue, there has to be housing for people, not a shelter bed. I am pretty fed up with just talking about shelter bed capacity. Is it better than nothing? Sometimes, actually not all the time. And we actually need, we do need to have capacity to get people out of extreme heat or extreme cold, those situations, but we are doing nothing to address the problem. And in fact, making it worse if we just force people to start over and over and over again, get the little bit of their lives and stability that they've gotten, and the bit of community that they've built to help them try and - one, just stay alive and two, get things together enough where they can just get a little bit more and get more stable - to just keep sweeping and moving and sweeping and moving. And it just is not working, and for as much money as we're spending on all of this sweeping, on all of the resources going into this - we could be spending that on housing, we could be spending that on services. We are throwing a ton of money at this in ways that are only moving people around and not getting anyone actually off the street, or very few people off the street, while more people are falling into homelessness. So it's - if you listen to this show, you know how frequently frustrated this is. But I - yes, this is a dashboard. Yes, we are tracking this. I want it to be more than checking off a box to justify sweeps. And I think that's the bottom line. And I am hoping to see some evidence that this is coming online. There has been hopeful talk. There has been talk about providing services - there've been too many sweeps that have not had them at all. And so when is it going to start? I would like to see that more than a dashboard in terms of this. But we will continue to follow how this progresses - it has just been frustrating to continue to watch us relocate people and not do that. Also want to cover - this week, an interesting situation with talk about requiring landlords to disclose the rent that they're paying. What is happening here? [00:28:49] Will Casey: Well, it seems like Alex Pedersen - I'm getting my white male councilmembers correct now - might've pissed off a few members of his base in pushing forward this legislation. It actually caused a relatively interesting 5-4 split among the Seattle City Council. It wasn't your traditional divide between conservatives and progressive factions. On the conservative side, you had Sara Nelson and Debora Juarez voting No - each of them had their own reasons. Dan Strauss and Teresa Mosqueda also voted No - Mosqueda mostly due to the budget concerns with implementing this bill. But he did get support from Andrew Lewis, Lisa Herbold, Tammy Morales, and Kshama Sawant - who are all in favor because in their perspective, if you're already doing the paperwork to advertise the units and pay taxes on the income that you're gathering from these investments - passively I might add - it shouldn't be that much more of an effort to collect some of that data and report it to the City on a regular basis so that we actually have an idea of what it costs to live here. It'd be very, very helpful for a lot of things the City's trying to do. [00:30:10] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. A number of cities across the country are moving in this direction - Seattle is not unique in doing this. And originally I misspoke - I said the rent that landlords are paying, I meant to say the rent that they're charging - but this is good and useful information. And absolutely will help inform policy and determine what is appropriate, what is not appropriate, and what action could or should be taken to help address this affordability crisis which we are absolutely in the middle of. And so having this happen is - having landlords at the table is perfectly fine, but we need all of the information. If they're giving us input on how this might be onerous or how this is affecting their ability to do this or that, then let's see the data for that. We ask that for so many other people and so many other ways - hey, to get rent assistance, we make people divulge lots of things about their income and living situation and personal life - and the hoops that they have to jump through just to do that. They're asking for a ton of information from renters about their qualifications, they're running background checks. We're only asking for them to divulge the rent that supposedly they're advertising what they're charging - they may be unhappy for people to see if they raise the rent in exorbitant amounts. I know a number of people who've had their rent raised by over 30%. Someone close to me had their rent raised by over 45% - it's egregious, and so this is an issue that I'm sure that they may not want lots of visibility on, but - hey, everyone else is required to put in a whole lot of information, to divulge a lot of information - we're in a crisis. This is the least they could do. And to the point that Hannah Krieg covered, and that you mentioned, they're already doing it. We're just organizing it in the same place - for a dashboard - we know how much the City loves the dashboard. Let's get a dashboard together. But I think this is a good situation, I commend Alex Pedersen for stepping up to address this crisis, for talking about this very common sense, really low-effort step that can be taken to help get more information on how we can solve this. And understanding that his constituents are his residents and people who are afraid of being priced out of the places where they're at. The City has - about half of its residents are renters. This is a pressing issue for so many people, so commend him and the rest of the councilmembers who did vote to support this. It's really important. And people really are expecting action to be taken. And so I'm happy that they're heeding that call. Another issue this week that we've talked about before and that you covered was - hey, what's going on with those texts that were deleted? Was that a felon - like it wasn't supposed to happen. They're saying it's a crime, a serious crime - a felony in fact - for things like that to happen. And so the question has been, are you going to refer this for investigation? Who can do this? Why isn't it done? What is going on? [00:33:34] Will Casey: Well, this was a very wonderful deep dive into a realm of a lot of people not wanting to admit anything was their fault, which is a lovely place to be. And as - I cannot believe I'm about to say this, but this is the cost of not having an effective opposition party - because if King County had a Republican Party that was remotely capable of winning any elections, we'd have a partisan incentive for someone to dig into the truth of what's going on here. And we'd actually benefit from a little bit of competition, but currently everyone who's involved. [00:34:14] Crystal Fincher: Well, the Republican Party has resources that make them effective as an opposition party, but there could be other opposition parties that were stood up - technically it wouldn't have to be a Republican Party, although they are more integrated statutorily into our system. But anyway - keep going. [00:34:29] Will Casey: Yes, yes, yes - trust me, I'm the last person who's going to wish for success for any Republican candidates. But my point being that this is a situation where - normally, this is where the political realities of government tend to work towards the interests of people actually finding out what's going on. Instead - here, we have a bunch of political allies - Bob Ferguson at the Attorney General's office, Governor Inslee, Dan Satterberg - all kind of just doing the Spiderman meme of pointing at each other and saying - it's your responsibility to kick this off. But actually, in reporting this out this week, what I learned is that the real culprit here, I think, is just a lack of stewardship at the Legislature in how this law is written. So the Public Records Act has been updated several times, it's something that voters put onto the books through initiatives at various points in Washington State's history - that part of the law is very well tended to. However, it only really includes civil penalties for agencies who fail to produce a given record on the required timeline, or if there is some other - hey, they're being overly aggressive about the redactions that they're making in providing these sorts of records. So there's a specific grant of civil action authority for any private person to sue a government agency and say - hey, you were supposed to get me this record by X date. It's now Y date. Where's the paper? The problem is there's also a separate law on the books in a different part of the RCWs that makes the willful destruction of a public record a felony. And that's what the publicly available information suggests Mayor Durkan and/or former Chief of Seattle Police Department Carmen Best may have done with their messages. That law was last substantively amended in 1909. And in speaking with legislative staff, they agreed with my guess - which is that this was something that's a relic of back in the pioneer days - when one small town would lead a raid onto somebody else's records office and burn all of the deeds so that they could just take over their farms or mining stakes or whatever. So what needs to happen, in the next legislative session, is for the Legislature to specifically grant the authority of - either to the County Prosecutor or the Attorney General - but basically make it very clear that if we ever encounter a situation like this again, there's a very specific person whose job it is to investigate. And so we don't end up with this farcical game of hot potato that's going on right now. [00:37:15] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it is farcical - to be clear. And even - you touched on in the article that you wrote, which we will be including in the show notes, along with the other articles that we've discussed - was that - just incentives for accountability aren't there, they're actually pointing in the other direction. And so if there is no expectation that - hey, if I do something that I shouldn't do here, or if there's no record of other people being held accountable for those same things. And - hey, it would be easy for me to do this thing that I'm not supposed to do, and then just cover up that I did the thing that I'm not supposed to do - because the penalties of doing what I'm not supposed to do are greater than just covering it up and all that kind of stuff. And this is what we see. And especially that it was not just one person, it was multiple people involved in these incidences, and so it seems like - hey, we are trying to get rid of a record of what happened. And so many troubling things that happened - this is around the time when the precinct was abandoned. And again another issue of just - we find out that either there is no control or negligence or a refusal to own decisions that were made from the Mayor's office - but very troubling things that are happening that the public is owed - is literally owed - and just no accountability for that. So there needs to be, this should not be a my-team-versus-your-team type of thing. As we've seen in so many different instances, if we let this go now and even if - hey, well, that's my buddy, that's my team, that's my party, whatever it is - someone else is going to get a hold of it that you don't like and do worse. We have seen so many different examples of this. These are just good governance things that should not only apply to people who you are in opposition to politically - they're best when they apply to everyone, and they serve everyone better when they do apply to everyone, and we should find out what happened with these and there should be accountability attached to that. And I just wish we would take that more seriously. It would do a lot to create more trust in people in institutions. We're at a time right now where there is a crisis of confidence in all of our institutions, and only bad things happen in society when people lose trust in the institutions that are supposed to provide an orderly way of resolving disputes, find out information, talking about who has power and how they're able to wield it - all of those things. If we don't trust, if the public doesn't trust how that happens, then people start to take things into their own hands and use their own means - and that never turns out well, it never ends peacefully. [00:40:22] Will Casey: Yeah, and I think that there are some people who I think are looking at this as - oh, there's just a couple of people who've got it out for Mayor Durkan and they just don't want to let this go or move on - and we need to unify and heal after the 2020 protests. And I cannot disagree with that strongly enough - because in criminal law, we talk all the time about how we have to have these harsh sentences as a deterrent for criminal behavior, as if someone who has no other way to put food on the table except for stealing that food is going to think about the consequences of like - oh, well, down the line, this is going to mean X, Y, or Z for me. But here - these are sophisticated actors, right? These are people with power and leverage and public office who have the ability to make a cold, calculated decision about whether or not - how likely it is - they're going to get caught. And if they are, how bad are the consequences going to be, really? And we've already seen this trend continue in a disturbing way. This didn't make it into the piece that I wrote this week, but it's been reported elsewhere. We've seen similar issues with deleting texts at the Washington Redistricting Commission when they just blew past their midnight deadline. And voted without actually having maps in front of them. And so I think that this is a live issue, this is a real problem for people's faith in government, as you pointed out. And it's frankly, not that hard to fix - one-line amendment to say it shall be the responsibility of the Attorney General's office to investigate whenever there has been a destroyed public record - would solve this entire problem. [00:42:03] Crystal Fincher: It would, and it certainly needs solving and we certainly should have some accountability to this. I'm sure we'll be talking more about this subject more in the future as developments unfold, but it's just a challenge. There's lots that's been challenging this week, lately. We don't even get into the national stuff here - that's enough. And then just to see these types of events and headlines on a local level is challenging, but it is possible to create positive change. There are some good things happening and ways that we can all engage to make this better. And part of what we want to do in talking about this is to - like we say - understand what's happening, and why it's happening, and what we can do about it. And we see what's happening, and got further insight into the why this week and the levers that we can use to fix it. And so certainly is something that people need to do - is to advocate with their legislators that - hey, this is something that is an easy fix, a quick fix, and that should be fixed, and that we're expecting to be fixed. So hopefully that does happen. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks today, this Friday, June 3rd, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistant producer Shannon Cheng and help with Bryce Cannatelli. Our wonderful co-host today is staff writer covering law and justice - and if it wasn't clear to people, who is also a lawyer who is a reporter, which is helpful when reporting on law and justice and it shows - Will Casey. You can find Will on Twitter @willjcasey - that's C-A-S-E-Y. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii. Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. 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 at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On today's week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Executive Director of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. They discuss the death of the missing middle housing bill in the legislature and why creating affordable housing requires creating more housing, the legislative worker sickout in response to their Democratic bosses failing to pass legislation allowing them to unionize, Mayor Harrell's State of the City address and the Partnership for Zero plan to address homelessness in downtown Seattle, the end of Seattle's eviction moratorium and what that means 10,000 tenants at risk of eviction, and the end of vaccine requirements in King County. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Doug Trumm, at @dmtrumm. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources "Why Washington state's missing middle housing bill died” by Joshua McNichols for KOUW: https://www.kuow.org/stories/why-washington-state-s-missing-middle-housing-bill-died   “Over 100 Washington Legislative Workers Call Out Sick in Protest of Working Conditions” by Rich Smith for The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/02/16/66845792/over-100-washington-legislative-workers-call-out-sick-in-protest-of-working-conditions    “Harrell Pledges SPD Staffing Surge in State of City Speech” by Doug Trumm for The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/02/16/harrell-pledges-spd-staffing-surge-in-state-of-city-speech/    “Mayor Bruce Harrell Made a Bunch of Promises in His First State of the City Address” by Hannah Krieg for The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/02/15/66787839/mayor-bruce-harrell-made-a-bunch-of-promises-in-his-first-state-of-the-city-address   “Private Donations Will Fund “Peer Navigators,” Launch Plan to “Dramatically Reduce” Downtown Homelessness” by Erica C. Barnett for Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/02/17/private-donations-will-fund-peer-navigators-launch-plan-to-dramatically-reduce-downtown-homelessness/    “Seattle's eviction moratorium to end” by Ashley Archibald for Real Change News: https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2022/02/16/seattle-s-eviction-moratorium-end    “Warning of ‘wave of evictions,' Sawant calls for extension of Seattle eviction moratorium” by Nick Bowman for MyNorthwest: https://mynorthwest.com/3351303/kshama-sawant-extension-seattle-eviction-moratorium-february-2022/    “King County will close rent assistance program to new applicants as money dries up” by Heidi Groover for The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/king-county-will-close-rent-assistance-program-to-new-applications-as-money-runs-out/    “King County to drop COVID vaccination requirements for bars, restaurants on March 1” by KING 5 Staff for KING 5: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-king-county-vaccine-mandate-business/281-7a9b5968-f579-4a15-b486-49161cf4ef52    Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program today's co-host, Executive Director of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. How are you doing, Doug? [00:00:51] Doug Trumm: Great. Thanks so much for having me. It's always fun to be on this podcast - it's the best podcast in town, I think. [00:00:57] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much and I am a huge fan and always informed by The Urbanist - so great work, you and the entire team. I wanted to start off talking about where we're at in Olympia and in particular, some things that did not go very well - some bills that were really widely supported, certainly that I was a fan of, dying. The first being the middle housing bill that did not make it past cutoff. It looked like it might have had the votes, but it did not ultimately get a floor vote. What happened here? [00:01:39] Doug Trumm: Yeah, that one really hurt. We got pretty invested in that and hoping this would finally be here. And we knew it'd be uphill since they've tried before and it's failed, but having the governor behind it, it seemed like there was a little extra energy this year. But it totally just crapped out in the finish line. We kind of had a proxy vote for the Accessory Dwelling Unit reform bill that did make it through and it's going onto the Senate. So we kind of have a good sense of which Democrats jumped ship - we can lose some of them, we have a big enough majority. Republicans tend to oppose this kind of stuff - even though they like markets, they don't like cities, so it kind of cancels out. And they don't really like markets when it counts. So this one - a lot of the legislators on the Eastside - they didn't vote for the ADU bill, the Accessory Dwelling unit bill - so it's likely they didn't vote for the missing middle bill because that was even more density in single family zones. Even though there was all these measures to make it measured - whether it had originally started at the half mile of major transit for most of the changes - and that got watered down, it wasn't enough - watered down to a quarter mile. Just between some of those more, I guess, wealthy suburban legislators and then you had Association of Washington Cities banging the drum against it and really turning up the heat against it. It seemed like they put enough headwinds to stop it. And of course The Seattle Times deserves a shout out on this one as well - they hate anything that might offer more affordability to people who are don't already own homes. [00:03:26] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And this was so important because it was key to the discussion of housing affordability. And also conversations about housing affordability are also tied to those with homelessness. We don't have enough housing for the people who have moved here and continue to move here. What we can't do, even though oddly sometimes people seem to suggest it, is just turn off the spigot of new people entering into our communities. People move here, businesses start, they hire people, they create jobs, which lots of people talk about as a wonderful thing. Jobs for the people who are here - plentiful jobs is a great thing. But for people to move and live near where they work, they need housing near where they work. And we have been behind on keeping up with the amount of housing that we have, in comparison to the people moving here. That makes housing more expensive. We can't have a conversation about making housing more affordable without also making it more plentiful. All types of housing - this particularly addressed middle housing, so just market rate as - and market rate doesn't specify a price point, it basically means not subsidized - just as any to developer would build. It was so important to get moving on this - had a ton of momentum. You talked about a number of people who had advocated against it. There was also a piece that Joshua McNichols from KUOW wrote yesterday, talking about what went wrong and a lot of people are looking at Representative Gerry Pollet - [00:05:03] Doug Trumm: Rightfully so. [00:05:04] Crystal Fincher: - from Seattle's 46th legislative district, in North Seattle - and attributing the failure to his insistence on the watering down that you talked about. And basically saying, there was an agreed upon framework that did seem to have broad support and potentially the votes. But once his insistence on watering it down happened, the coalition that had been carefully brought together, and everything had been stakeholdered, and some broad agreements that were previously made were broken - and everything fell apart. In this article, it says Pollet, his changes, "took all the air out of the room ... Once you start amending what had already been agreed upon, it throws a wrench into it, and all of a sudden, this person doesn't like it, this person's not going to vote for it, and it just becomes a mess." Certainly, lots of people, lots of entities who are invested in high property values and exclusionary zoning, advocated against it. But it really is unfortunate to see that it didn't make it this year and that every city is on its own to try and address this affordability problem. And it would've been so much better to have the opportunity to spend the next year with a unified approach across the state to get more people able to afford more housing in more places - it really does benefit us all. [00:06:36] Doug Trumm: And it's really bad out there - I don't know if people who own homes have - I guess maybe they're checking their value on their home occasionally for kind of investment purposes. But we've seen home prices go up 20, 25, 30% in one year - that's insane - that kind of pace - we're going to be San Francisco very quickly. I don't think that's what we want to be - a place where only rich people can live. It really was - the timing was right, I think - and hopefully next year they can pick up where they left off. But I don't know what these legislators are looking at that they don't see this as a crisis. Because there's just not many options for people who don't own homes. [00:07:21] Crystal Fincher: There really is not. Another major issue in Olympia that seemed to have broad support - a bill with a ton of co-sponsors - you would assume given how much Democrats have talked about the importance of supporting workers, supporting unions, about workers having protections, about that being a core Democratic value and one of the things that sets Democrats apart from so many others. And so many legislators just continually talking about how important that is - that the bill to allow legislative workers to unionize would be a sure thing, would be no problem. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. And that bill, which seemed to have enough votes to pass, was prevented from making it to the floor and therefore appears to have died. Unless Speaker Jinkins brings it back by designating it Necessary to Implement the Budget - without legislative workers, I think, they would have a hard time getting out the budget and implementing it. [00:08:30] Doug Trumm: That's a good point. That's a good point. [00:08:32] Crystal Fincher: But unfortunately, as it stands now, the speaker has not indicated any desire to do that and the rhetoric has been, from the legislators - it's so close, there are just a couple things that need to be ironed out, and this year we just didn't have the time to do it, and we'll get to it next year. Which is odd because Joe Fitzgibbon was also talking about being a leader in initially introducing legislation similar to this in 2012, so if it's been worked on since 2012 - [00:09:06] Doug Trumm: 10 years now. [00:09:07] Crystal Fincher: Why is it not already ready? What is going to happen in the next year that hasn't happened in the last 10? And how are you looking your workers in the eye after talking about how important it is to allow workers to unionize, how important unions are in protecting workers and building strong families and communities, and making sure everyone has a livable wage and working conditions that are not hostile - that if bad things happen, there's fair recourse and a process that people can follow. And just say, "But not you. Not when it comes to us." This is infuriating, personally. If you follow me on Twitter, it is just hard to see how this doesn't look hypocritical. Just absolutely hypocritical. And in response, a hundred workers called out sick in protest of those working conditions. We'll see where that goes, but my goodness. How did you read this? [00:10:16] Doug Trumm: I mean, I knew that they weren't well paid, but it was shocking to me looking again at what they're listing these jobs at - still - in the year 2022. They're listing these jobs at like $42,000 to start or something like that. These are people who have to split time between Olympia - and the example they gave was someone going back to Bellingham - that's not a cheap place to live. There aren't many cheap places to live in this state. It's been expecting people to live off of $42,000 and they work insane hours all year long because when they're not in session - and when they're in session, they're expected to be at beck and call basically - but when they're not in session, they're expected to do constituent services. So it's a full gig for them even if the legislators themselves have their side hustles and their jobs they go back to. I just think it's a basic fairness principle and so many government workers do get the benefit from unions. But the people really in the trenches of making our government work better, hopefully - but they're the ones who would do it if we can - they're not getting those benefits. And it sort of reminds me of the same principle we just talked about in the housing bill, where they're for progressive things so long as it's not in their backyard. And once it's in their backyard, they kind of walk away from that. I really want to see people just start leading where it matters the most to them - start being the change they want to see in their backyard. [00:11:57] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. This is another issue where - yeah, Republicans aren't in favor of it - they're not at the front of the union parade, certainly. But Democrats have majority in the legislature. And so this is an issue where if Democrats are aligned, it happens. So who is the Democrat, or Democrats, who are opposing this? That has been opaque. And what is the party's - if not responsibility, but just kind of obligation and stance on an anti-union Democratic legislator? Should they be a Democratic legislator? Is that consistent with values? What does that say for where the party is? Lots of talk about big tents - but parties are based on values and built on coalitions around values. And some things may differ, but there are things in the party platform for a reason. There is a statement of value and principles to say - anyone can sign up if you agree with what we stand for - these principles. Certainly, allowing workers to unionize is one of them. To your point, legislative staffers work really, really hard. There are lots of stories about working 20 hours of uncompensated overtime a week, especially during session. They are working to death. If your model is based on exploiting workers - having them work for more hours than originally bargained for, in a way that turns out to be not a living wage, when you look at the hours that they're putting in and the demands of the job - why are you allowing that? That is actually completely in your control. It is not good for policy - to have policy making rely on the exploitation or the reliance on paying workers less than they deserve, less than they need to afford the basics of life. These are kind of the core basic things that we talk about and it's just - [00:14:16] Doug Trumm: Yeah, and there's a huge amount of turnover - Rich Smith's article in The Stranger pointed that out. And that's not good for policy making either. These are jobs where - if you can - in your first year, I'm sure you're just learning the ropes. If you can get someone who's been there for a handful of years, they're going to be able to really do a lot more with the position, really. Because they're the people really writing the laws and digging into these pieces of legislation, so it's just such an important position to treat like such a throwaway - like intern out of college kind of job or something - that's just an afterthought. We wonder why union rates are dropping. If Democrats aren't willing to stand up for stuff like this, what hope is there to sort of defend our rights in the private market and everywhere? This sort of erosion of unionization is sort of something we have to fight on a lot of fronts. And this is just an easy one that should be a gimme. [00:15:20] Crystal Fincher: Should be a gimme. Should have been an automatic. But for some reason we are having a challenging time with that. Next up, we will pivot to the City of Seattle - Mayor Harrell gave his State of the City speech this week and unveiled plans in a number of areas, including a surge in police staffing that he's planning. What did you take away from that element and from the rest of his speech? [00:15:50] Doug Trumm: In a way, there was some that was refreshing at this speech - I'll start with the good. Mayor Durkan's last speech was 6 minutes long and as you could expect, didn't hit on much. This speech was 32 minutes long, so in length, he wins. And he mentioned 8 Councilmembers by name. He's really trying to sort of, at least symbolically, repair some of the relationships with Council that Durkan really ran into the ground. And sometimes Council was an equal partner - they would spar on issues - but oftentimes there was some real strange hills that were died on that [inaudible]. So Harrell, at one level, just looks like an improvement over Durkan, but that's a low bar or thing. The amount of actual policy detail in the speech was low and that's not completely abnormal. But this is also a mayor who ran on how ready he was to hit the ground running and I haven't seen a lot of that yet. He teased his announcement yesterday of "Partnership to Zero" in that speech. And we now know what that announcement was - it's a $10 million donation from different corporations and rich people to run their peer navigator program. But it's only for one year, so I don't know. As far as the whole scale of the homelessness crisis, that's not a big deal really. I mean, it's a little help, but this is a billion dollar problem with a $10 million donation. He said he was going to basically bring everyone inside within a couple years, and that's not the pace that we're on right now. Really the biggest focus of his speech was giving SPD more funding and staffing them up. There was a lot of big rhetoric about how important that would be - response times going down - but the factor remains that there's really constraints that he has on how quickly he can staff up. So netting an additional 35 officers like Mayor Durkan aimed to do, and that was hoping that attrition rates slowed down - that's not going to lead to a dramatic difference in response times. Especially if there's also all this hotspot policing and all this other stuff going on as well - that all takes resources. They're pulling the same lever, but there's only so far that that can take them. I think there's some definite potential holes in his plans emerging. But it's still too early to tell with the scant amount of details exactly where he is headed and how that might kind of come apart. [00:18:43] Crystal Fincher: At least rhetorically, there's some attempt to identify issues with each councilmember that they can work on together. Coalitions are really important in politics - you don't pass policy without them. And coalitions are often around issues, and some issues you may agree with and some you don't. If you can work together with a councilmember, and it's not just friction for friction's sake, or berating out of grudges, certainly it is good to find ways to accomplish - there's so much that needs to be done. There was a lot of talk about not needing to - looking at parks and encampments of parks and the stress that we don't need to choose between treating people with compassion - compassion is becoming a word that is one of those words that's so overused - but treating unhoused people with compassion and finding them housing and clearing out parks so that regular people, people in neighborhoods with houses and resources, can enjoy them. Which is always interesting rhetoric, but that set up up with a number of these things - that we can make more people in this city feel more safe and take on issues of police reform, and have more cops and do the surge. These issues and tensions - that have been tensions for a reason, because at the end of the day, there are some choices that are very clearly made and others that aren't - but upfront saying, we can try and do this all together. Certainly, with the announcement on the $10 million for the Vision to Zero - the response to get people, particularly in downtown Seattle, housed. If you just say that as a goal, it's wonderful. One thing that we know we all need, are people to work with the population. And so funding folks who can meaningfully connect people who are out on the street with the services that they need is great. The most important thing that unhoused people need is housing. They also need all the other services to stay in that housing. But there is no solution to homelessness without housing. He had brought up that they're relying on the 2,000-3,000 units of supportive housing that's supposed to come online in the next year to two years. He also had a caveat in there that that timeline might be put in jeopardy by concrete companies not coming to an agreement with their workers and so that's got to be taken care of. We had a conversation last week on this show where - I think it was last week - Heather Weiner pointed out that, instead of just saying this may be delayed, and you guys should get back to the table and figure something out - as if they hadn't been kind of doing that the whole time. Back in the McGinn administration, he said, "Hey, either work gets done on time or we're fining you according to the contract that is there. You have an obligation to have a workforce that is prepared to work on this project. That was part of the deal. Come to a fair agreement and get to work." And putting pressure on the companies who are most in a position to make that happen. Harrell has chosen not to go that route - and just to say, get back to the table - and if it doesn't go well, has basically put an asterisk by a number of the things that they're trying to accomplish. And say if it doesn't, looks like that's going to be what I'm going to point to as the reason why. We'll see how that progresses. We'll see if we're going to do something different this time than we did before. And I think there is a recognition in some of the rhetoric that I heard from him that - like Durkan's peer navigator program was kind of a farce - in that, the term "offering services" actually didn't technically mean offering services. It means that they kind of went down a checklists and, do you need this? Do you want housing? Do you want to go to a shelter? Oh, well, the shelter may not accept their pet, their shelter doesn't let them enter after 8:00 PM, but they have a job that lasts beyond there so they can't go. The services may not fit what they need at all - they're not services available to them, but that could still qualify as offering and refusing services. I hope we see something different this time. I hope we have a bigger conversation about philanthropy not being a reliable or effective way to fund basic necessities in society. And that looking at the JumpStart Tax - is a much more effective solution. If these companies would just pay the taxes that they would fairly owe, we'd have more than enough money to address this. This is actually a tiny drop in the bucket. [00:23:50] Doug Trumm: I'm sure some of that $10 million came from corporations that were a part of that lawsuit to try to block JumpStart, so it's sort of - they're going to give you some crumbs and they try to take back the loaf. It's definitely frustrating and it seems like some of these issues - we just need a firmer stand, it can't be mealy-mouthed on it. If he wants this concrete strike to end, like you said, take a stand and do what McGinn did. I'm sure we could have the strike done a little quicker if there was pressure of fines. And on homelessness, I don't know where these encampments are supposed to go, because we know we don't have enough shelter to bring everyone inside at once and WSDOT wants them off there right-of-way, as we saw in that announcement and Harrell was excited about that. We want them out of parks and we want them out of downtown, so basically the three main places where encampments are. They're going to need a lot of shelter and housing if all three of those plans are going to be realistic, because that encompasses the majority of encampments. [00:25:04] Crystal Fincher: There are a number of organizations involved in this. A number of people in orgs who do have experience both lived and professional on how to address this - I hope they are listened to as this takes shape. There's going to be work done on how specifically all the funds are going to be allocated, there are some broad strokes - around 30 navigators pointing towards this amount of housing, in this year timeframe. We'll see how that unfolds and we'll definitely be following it as it does. But - [00:25:38] Doug Trumm: And sweeps are definitely happening, and what those folks tell us is that - that damages their relationships, especially when they're last minute. We were hearing of a lot of a last minute sweeps where they say, "Oh, this is sidewalk, so we can clear you at any time - one hour's notice." That's what I hear from Real Change and other folks that are doing that work, is that the pace of sweeps - we can call them removals if Mayor Harrell prefers, that's his preferred term - but to hire all these peer navigators and say, "Good luck. We just shuffled everyone around. Go find them." I don't know. That doesn't seem like the most efficient way to do that. [00:26:17] Crystal Fincher: We will keep following it. The other significant news which arrived earlier was that Mayor Harrell announced that he is going to end the eviction moratorium in Seattle at the end of February. And after that, the tsunami of evictions can once again resume and folks can be evicted for nonpayment of rent. As we know, lots of people - through no fault of their own, through no fault of their company - wound up out of a job for an extended period of time because of the pandemic. This was a widespread problem that necessitated a widespread solution. The goal of the moratorium was to - one, as lawmakers were trying to figure out, Hey, how do we get out of this solution? No, we can't leave landlords, especially small landlords, just holding the bag for potentially a couple years of unpaid rent. But it really is damaging to our entire society to allow people to lose their housing, and all of the problems become more expensive for us to handle when a person does that. The consequences to society when a person does that are much more expensive than just publicly doing what it takes to keep them in their homes. A solution was made. Funds were provided and distributed at the county level. Unfortunately, the county started to distribute that - and even with a slow start, the eviction moratorium was extended to help the county catch up with the problem. Unfortunately, they caught up and they ran out of money. There are over 10,000 tenants in King County who are on the list who qualified for assistance, but unfortunately, they just ran out. There has been no appropriation from anyone to backfill that. We know that we're dealing with around 10,000 tenants, who as of March 1st, can be evicted. We're doing this at a time when we're just trying to get our arms around, as we just discussed, the problem that already exists. It feels like we're trying to mop without turning off the faucet. We're just going to increase the pressure of the faucet while not doing much more mopping. It would be great if we just turned the faucet off. It'd be great if we just stopped the possibility of people being evicted and figure out how to backfill this funding, so we can maintain the stability of our regional economy, of our neighborhood businesses, and all the rest. How do you see this? [00:29:12] Doug Trumm: Yeah, I was also kind of flabbergasted that they didn't at least try to top up that eviction protection rental assistance program, as they ended the moratorium. I was hoping there would be more of a seamless hand off. But that program being out of money as they end the moratorium just seems like a bad idea. I don't know what the urgency to end the moratorium is - it's been in place for almost two years. We have a lot of data that it's been very effective in slowing the pace of evictions, in the time of great upheaval and economic turmoil and public health turmoil. I don't know why landlords suddenly need to be doing this. I mean, certainly there's been this program that was helping them too - as far as the eviction protection rental assistance program - gave them their income back. Putting more money in that would've been a win-win. But I don't know. Yeah. It's certainly likely to lead to displacement and likely homelessness. Just digging yourself in deeper, like you said. I hope that they may reconsider. I know, Councilmember Sawant's already introduced legislation. Morales sounded pretty concerned about this decision to end the moratorium so soon. There are programs in place like the Winter Eviction Moratorium that help a little bit, but not as extensive as the full eviction moratorium under the mayor's ruling. I don't know. It's going to - I guess we're just deciding the pandemic's over, as we're seeing with mask mandates and then other stuff. I know people emotionally are ready, but I don't know - this whole follow the science stuff - I'm not sure if that's exactly what's happening right now. [00:31:12] Crystal Fincher: Well, I mean, lots of people have talked about - there is a difference in between the statements - the number of cases are falling, is not the same as the number of cases are low. In fact, we still have caseload that is much higher than most other points during this pandemic. Spread is not low. It is lower than it has been. We have fallen off of our most recent peak, which is the highest peak we have had so far. We still have a lot of people in our community - people under five, immunocompromised people, just people who are vulnerable - who are relying on the rest of us still being protected, and providing protection, and providing accommodations to make sure we keep everyone safe. That has seemed to fall out of the conversation. Just kind of - it's time and if you don't like it, if you don't feel safe, then just stay home. As many people point out, especially for people who are disabled, who have chronic illness - sometimes they're relying on home health aides coming into their homes. They don't have to be masked if they've been exposed other places. You can't even stay home and avoid the risk. But we actually shouldn't be encouraging a society where some people are not allowed to participate in it. And the conversation just about living with the pandemic, as now it's endemic, does not mean you just throw up your hands and do nothing. It means that you take the precautions and the preparations to say, okay, this is a thing and let's figure out how we can operate safely for all of us. Let's make sure that we're preparing for this next variant - there's already news about a B2 variant of Omicron that may be more transmissible and more dangerous healthwise than the original - because we're doing nothing to stop the creation of all of these variants. I feel for people in that position, I feel for people in our community. I still am not in the place where I am comfortable just throwing caution to the wind and saying, "Everything is fine. We don't need any precautions anywhere." Removing the vaccine mandates - [00:33:43] Doug Trumm: Yeah, that was shocking. [00:33:45] Crystal Fincher: - from restaurants and different places. I feel for our frontline workers and retail workers, who now are going to be in a really difficult position once again - having to weigh their own safety, the safety of family, or people that they may live with or be in constant contact with, and an increasingly hostile public to public safety measures. And the onus being put on them to negotiate that, while making low wages. We're just asking so much of them. It just puts even more pressure and stress on it. We will continue to talk about this and pay attention to what's going on - and just try and be good community members and make sure all of us have the opportunity to participate in society and thrive. With that, we have arrived at our time today. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7FM on this Friday, February 18th. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng and our wonderful co-host today was Executive Director of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. You can find Doug on Twitter @dmtrumm, that's D-M-T-R-U-M-M. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii. Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us 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 at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

On today's week-in-review, Associate Editor of The Stranger, Rich Smith, joins Crystal to discuss the investigation finding that SPD improperly faked radio chatter about Proud Boys and escalated and inflamed tensions as CHOP formed, and a Kent PD Assistant police chief being asked to resign for posting Nazi insignia and his wife hiding critical social media posts on the city's official social media accounts. They also chat about bills to pay attention to as the legislative session starts on Monday, as well as what Mayor Bruce Harrell's inaugural press conference revealed about his plans and priorities.    As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Find the host, Crystal on Twitter at @finchfrii, and find Rich Smith at @richsssmith  Resources “Seattle police improperly faked radio chatter about Proud Boys as CHOP formed in 2020, investigation finds” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-police-improperly-faked-radio-chatter-about-proud-boys-as-chop-formed-in-2020-investigation-finds/   “Kent assistant police chief disciplined for posting Nazi insignia, joking about Holocaust” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/kent-assistant-police-chief-disciplined-for-posting-nazi-insignia-and-joking-about-the-holocaust/   “Social media posts criticized how Kent police handled Nazi controversy — but they were hidden by chief's wife” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/criticism-of-kent-police-nazi-controversy-was-hidden-on-social-media-by-police-chiefs-wife-who-ran-the-accounts/   “A Big List of Bills to Track During Washington's 2022 Legislative Session” by Rich Smith from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/01/06/64661375/a-big-list-of-bills-to-track-during-washingtons-2022-legislative-session   “Harrell Pledges Bold Agenda in Inaugural Speech” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist:  https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/01/04/harrell-pledges-bold-agenda-in-inaugural-speech/   “It's up to Harrell to Save Renters in Peril” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/01/07/64713950/its-up-to-harrell-to-save-renters-in-peril   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 on the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome to the program again, today's cohost, Associate Editor of The Stranger and noted poet, Rich Smith. [00:00:50] Rich Smith: Good to be back - thanks Crystal. [00:00:52] Crystal Fincher: Good to have you back. Well, we have no shortage of things to talk about this week. And you know what? The SPD just keeps popping up into the news - it doesn't seem to end. And this week, we learned that police improperly faked radio chatter about Proud Boys as CHOP formed in 2020. What happened here? [00:01:19] Rich Smith: Yeah. Well, it was June 8th, which was the day that the cops had abandoned the [East] Precinct, and lifted the barriers, and allowed protestors who had been gathered at that intersection in Capitol Hill - for several days being variously gassed and beaten up for making vocal their criticisms to the police, and occasionally throwing a rock or two. They released the barricades, let the protestors walk the block that they wanted to walk, and then yeah, and then left the - and then went about their business, basically. And then after that, the cops hopped on the scanner, where they communicate with one another about crimes stuff, reports - stuff that's going on around town, and invented a hoax. They fabricated a maraudering gang of Proud Boys, a violent group known to brawl people in the streets, seek out anti-fascists and beat them up, suggested that they were armed with guns - and it was four cops who were enacting this ruse. And the ruse was overseen and approved by the two commanders, including the Captain of the East Precinct, which was the one that the cops had just abandoned. On Wednesday, the Office of Police Accountability determined that this ruse improperly - or not improperly, sorry - this ruse added fuel to the fire of the situation - it was not a de-escalation tactic to claim that there was a roving gang of white supremacists looking to crack some Antifa skulls downtown. But there was no recommended discipline for the cops who participated in the ruse, and the two cops who signed off on the ruse are no longer employed at SPD. And so- [00:03:48] Crystal Fincher: It's all good, evidently. [00:03:49] Rich Smith: That's what's going on - right, yeah. [00:03:52] Crystal Fincher: I mean, from the OPA, their finding was just, "Shouldn't happen, but don't do it again. We're not looking at this in the context of everything else that has happened." And I mean, just underscoring that - no, it absolutely was not a de-escalation tactic. Yes, it absolutely inflamed tensions. Because this was not some nebulous threat, this was not some theoretical violent threat - these were people who had enacted violence upon protesters recently before that. There was a legitimate fear. [00:04:32] Rich Smith: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I walked through with the protesters - the barriers that were lifted - when they were happening. I was interviewing people, hearing the chatter and the gossip as that place where eventually the Free Capitol Hill that became CHAZ, that became CHOP - that autonomous zone around the precinct was forming. And the number one thing I heard, the number one concern I heard were these rumors of Proud Boys coming around the neighborhood. They're armed, they're dangerous, they're looking for Antifa. And there was concern that the Proud Boys were going to burn down the precinct and blame it on the Black Lives Matter movement, so suddenly there was this need to protect, ironically, the precinct from an attack. And a need to kind of hunker down and barricade the zone, and protect themselves against the threat that the cops had just invented over the scanner. And you're right, that they also had further reason to believe that these rumors were true, because the day before, a man named Nikolas Fernandez allegedly drove his car into the side of the protests, had shot with an extended clip a man named Dan Gregory, and then ran to the front of the police line, where he was welcomed with open arms, potentially because his brother worked at that very precinct. Now, the defense for that case says that the guy was just confused, and he was on his way to work, and there was road blockages, and so he didn't know what to do, and he suddenly ran into this protest - yada, yada, yada - he's got his story. But, this is all to say that the protestors were very afraid of people attacking them in cars, were very afraid of Proud Boys coming, burning down the precinct, shooting them up in retaliation for the protesting. And this ruse by the SPD was just bad policing - it inflamed the situation, to quote the OPA, but it also was the reason that CHOP formed. It might not have been the only reason, of course, it was non-hierarchical structures there - everyone was there for their own shit. But, that was the word on the street in the moment - was Proud Boys are coming, we've got to circle up, we've got to protect ourselves - and that was the staging grounds for CHOP. [00:07:21] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and certainly aided the fortification, obviously. Everybody was there, principally initially, mainly, to protest violence against Black lives, particularly from the state. But in the moment, certainly, especially looking at tactics to maximize the effectiveness of this direct action, fortification was what made the most sense when you have an armed threat approaching you, and you're trying to assert your First Amendment right to protest. That is what they inflamed, what they created. And I don't even think, certainly in the aftermath of this, "Hey, this is a commonly used de-escalation tactic." Clearly they wanted to just mess with these protesters and to create chaos, and to provoke action that they could act against. [00:08:26] Rich Smith: Yeah. What was his name - Brian - he was the captain of the East Precinct who now works for ADT, I think, down in Texas - the home security firm or whatever. Anyway, the guy who perpetuated, or who approved the ruse - when asked about it by Myerberg, or investigators with OPA - said that the reason for the ruse was they wanted to let the protestors know that cops were still out there doing stuff, that their position had not been weakened despite the fact that they literally had just abandoned the East Precinct - or a couple hours before - slash, they also wanted to do the ruse because they hoped it would draw protesters away from the precinct, and then, I don't know, maybe give them an opportunity, give the cops an opportunity to retake the precinct that they had already decided to abandon, again, as far as we know, themselves, without telling - [00:09:28] Crystal Fincher: Themselves, yeah. [00:09:30] Rich Smith: - without telling the mayor, who was supposed to be the overseer of the cops. They're Durkan's cops, acting on their own extremely bad, extremely wounded impulses. And they were clearly - it doesn't take a Psych major to determine that they were clearly wounded - and they wanted to show the protestors that the cops were still the top dog, that they still had the power, and the way that they decided to do that was to do what any bully or big brother would do, which is say there's a big, scary monster coming to attack you. And you're going to wish you had us to protect you, you know what I mean? And the protesters - they felt the need to defend themselves, felt the need to suddenly defend the property so that they didn't get accused of burning down a precinct when they didn't even do it, didn't want to hurt the movement. And so, this happened. And then the response from City officials so far has been fun too - newly elected mayor, Bruce Harrell, released a statement saying like, "That sucked. Don't do that, that's totally bad, that's wrong. Don't do this - this ruse was bad." And, what was the action he's going to do? He's going to go down there and talk to Interim Police Chief, Adrian Diaz, and tell him that that's unacceptable behavior, and stuff like that. So, that's nice - the chief is going to get a talking to. And then the Public Safety Chair of the City Council, Lisa Herbold, released a statement saying that what she's calling for is for the cops to fully implement ruse training. [00:11:20] Crystal Fincher: Ruse training? [00:11:22] Rich Smith: Yeah, ruses are acceptable - cops can lie to people in order to arrest them, or get evidence from them - so long as they don't quote the, according to state law, shock the conscience. A cop can't say there's a nuclear bomb headed this way or whatever, just to get someone to move somewhere. They can't do anything that shocking. This maraudering gang of Proud Boys coming to attack you - that would, I think, falls into the bad ruse category. Anyway, OPA - the cops were supposed to fully implement training recommendations on ruses, they had only partially done so according to Herbold. And so, she wants to get those fully implemented - you've got to tell all the cops about how to do ruses properly. And she also wants the ruses fully documented - that was another recommendation from the OPA - every time they do one of these ruses, they should write down that they have done the ruse so that we can go back later and determine whether or not it was a good ruse or a bad ruse. Or, we don't get in a situation like we were in today, where it comes out a year and a half after - like this vital piece of a narrative that the City is telling itself comes out a year and a half afterwards - thanks to, shout out to Omari Salisbury at Converge Media, who asked the cops for body cam footage of these Proud Boys that they were supposedly tracking. When his request turned up nil, OPA initiated their investigation. And also several, I should mention, journalists at the time - particularly Matt Watson, aka Spek - immediately thought that the ruse was a ruse. [00:13:24] Crystal Fincher: He called it at the time, yeah. [00:13:28] Rich Smith: He called it at the time, yeah. And communicated that very clearly, and brought receipts. And so, that prompted questioning from journalists that eventually, through the process of gaining public records and initiating investigations with the OPA, comes out with this vital piece of the story of the protests of 2020. [00:13:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting - one, just the story, and just the - obviously the story on its own is egregious, just another egregious example. But also another example of the loss of control of the department - this was not a mayor directing or controlling anything - nothing in that narrative was directed, influenced, controlled by the mayor. And also, nothing in that narrative, according to the information that's publicly available, was directed or controlled by the Police Chief at the time, Carmen Best. These were officers who had basically gone rogue, and made these consequential, harmful, dangerous decisions on their own with no recourse. We're now finding out about this months, years after the fact - and then following up with laughable accountability, honestly. I mean, if ruse training is what comes out of this, I don't know how people are really looking at that as anything that meaningfully addresses this issue here - both with this specific issue - and with SPD overall. I hope that that was just an idea in the beginning, and we're going to get to the meat of accountability coming up, because that seems wholly just insufficient. [00:15:28] Rich Smith: Yeah, I'm skeptical, yeah, of this reformist answer that the City leaders are currently taking, which is to - you have Bruce Harrell doing an appeal to authority saying, "I know what I'll do, I'll go to the chief, and then we'll have this top-down answer," which is pretty typical, I think, of Harrell's impulse just as a leader. He's constantly talking about how he's going to bring the right people together, he knows everybody in the City, everybody knows him, it's a real top-down kind of coach approach. And so it makes sense that he would be like, "I know what I'll do, I'll go to the lead of the organization, Diaz, and say, 'Hey, this is unacceptable, tell everybody to quit this, whatever.'" Okay, so that's one - that's his approach to this reform. Herbold is saying, "We need more oversight over the cops lying, we need more records of this stuff, we need more training." But, the thing that seems to actually work, and what we're finding out as a result of many of these OPA investigations, is that the cops who perpetuated this bullshit are no longer at the department. And they're no longer at the department not because reformers rooted them out, but because of the Defund movement, which created a culture around policing that is inherently skeptical, that demands real accountability, that says, "You can't be hitting us, and we're going to film you when you do," that demands more of cops, and that doesn't - yeah. And so, that seems to be the thing that worked to root out a number of these officers who've gone rogue, or whose mission as officers don't align with the City's mission - I'll just say that. [00:17:25] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. [00:17:26] Rich Smith: Defund worked - I don't know what to tell you. It probably rooted out more bad apples than any consent decree could have. I really should put asterisks all over that, I don't have any numbers or whatever. But just anecdotally, every time they go to discipline one of these guys, they're not there anymore. And it's for a reason. [00:17:50] Crystal Fincher: I would say increasingly - I think that there's still a number up there. But, certainly increasingly, and certainly it's because there has been pressure applied and accountability demanded, and increasingly made possible by the Defund movement and its demands, and holding other lawmakers accountable for enacting that through policy and through investigation and action. So, we will see how that continues. This is not the only police story that came up this week. In my city of Kent, Washington, we - it came out - have a police chief, an assistant police chief, who displayed literal Nazi propaganda, who was disciplined for posting a Nazi insignia, and joking about the Holocaust. The more that we learn about this, the worse that it gets. He admittedly joked about the Holocaust, he admittedly - this was a long-running thing. He had shaved his facial hair once into a Hitler mustache, and repeatedly told a joke to the effect that - just a horrible joke, horrible anti-Semitic joke, obviously this is all anti-Semitic. And word was given that the discipline for this - for an assistant chief who had repeatedly joked about the Holocaust, who had acted consistent with Nazi behavior and literally posted Nazi insignias on his door in the police department - was a two week suspension. That's what initially came out. [00:19:34] Rich Smith: That'll do it. [00:19:35] Crystal Fincher: Obviously, public outcry. Obviously, a response from other City officials caused the mayor to reconsider and announced that she will be asking the union for this officer's resignation. Now obviously, firing may not be as simple in all of these situations to have it stick, but you can certainly act that way and then be like, "Okay, well, we dare you to try and get your job back, you person who are comfortable with Nazi actions and cosplay, and spreading that nasty infection to the rest of the department." I should note that this was caught because a detective under this assistant chief's command reported him after this insignia had been up for four days. One reported him - everyone else in the department, I'm sure, was not comfortable reporting an assistant chief to this. To me, this speaks a lot about the culture that is currently happening there - that this can happen and only one, thankfully one, but only one reported this. And my goodness, if the recommendation that comes back after an investigation is two weeks, then doesn't that indicate that this entire system is broken? There's a lot more broken here. [00:21:07] Rich Smith: Yeah. I mean, if you can't fire a Nazi cop for putting Third Reich insignia outside of his office door - and he wasn't just like some cop, right? [00:21:22] Crystal Fincher: Nope. [00:21:22] Rich Smith: This guy was the head of the Department of Special Investigations and Detective Unit - [00:21:28] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, Assistant Chief. [00:21:30] Rich Smith: Assistant Chief, yeah. And this guy's safe space sticker is a couple of Nazi patches. It's just - the plausible deniability stretches the bounds of the imagination. He says that he didn't know that the insignia was Nazi stuff, it was from a show. So, if you're fighting an improper dismissal case or whatever, it just - I guess this is where you end up in the process, with a two-week suspension. But you're right, you could try to fight it a little bit harder, and push and push and push on this guy's counter-story, and really continue to gather more of this evidence that he was just flagrantly doing Nazi stuff in the Kent Police Department. [00:22:23] Crystal Fincher: Openly in the Kent Police Department. And if you can't fire a Nazi cop, who can you fire? The investigation found - he tried to say, "You know, despite making anti-Semitic jokes, and despite giving myself a literal Hitler mustache - that Nazi insignia that I posted on my door, I had no idea it was actually a Nazi insignia." And the investigation found that that was not the case, the investigation found that he knowingly posted that, knowing that it was a Nazi insignia. Everything about this screams Nazi cop, because literally Nazi cop. And so, this is a situation - to me - and for a lot of departments when they have egregious actions like this, and then they say, "Well, given the how - with the cop contracts oftentimes are - it's hard to fire them. If they went through arbitration, they'd wind up back on the force." Well, test it, test it. Say, "We're making a stand. And if you force us, perhaps, but we're not doing this willingly." Make that stand. And so, I suppose that is now where the mayor is at, asking for the resignation. If he says no, then what? Kick him off - get him out. [00:23:46] Rich Smith: You know, I think maybe we should do anti-Nazi training. But, anti-Nazi is a little just one-sided, so we probably should do anti-extremist training. [00:23:55] Crystal Fincher: Oh my gosh. And look, I live in Kent - it is not like I haven't noticed the increase in Blue Lives Matter stickers on police vehicles, which has been an issue in other cities. And there's been pushback against in other cities - certainly this has been brought up and basically ignored by City leadership. Would love to hear some accountability on that. There's a lot to find when you look into the City of Kent. [00:24:26] Rich Smith: Yes, yeah, and there should be more - yeah, much more scrutiny on a lot of these, the goings-on in these suburban cities. But, just the whole Nazi cop thing, or alleged Nazi cop thing goes back to this - how do you change the culture in these institutions? And the reformist answer seems to be - you change it by training, you change it by putting pressure on the higher-ups to be accountable to the people they oversee - these are their answers. It just goes back to how challenging it is going to be for reformists to really change the culture of these institutions, especially when the culture right now of these institutions is self-victimization, a feeling like that they're the guardians, literally, against chaos in society. And a number of them are attracted to - everyone goes where they're flattered - and so the cops are going to conservative wings of political thought, where they're bathed and flattered. And this is all contributing to being a little bit more permissive of the old Nazi insignia on the door. I don't know how you rearrange that without drastically changing who a cop is and what a cop does. I think that that's where you have to start making change, rather than saying like, "We're going to tell your boss on you," or, "We're going to train you to not be a Nazi." I think that those reforms haven't worked, as well as- [00:26:09] Crystal Fincher: They have failed. [00:26:10] Rich Smith: Yeah, yeah. [00:26:12] Crystal Fincher: They have failed. [00:26:13] Rich Smith: And yeah, going back to what I said earlier, the Defund movement did more to root out these kinds of cops than any of these reforms seem to. I don't know that for sure, but that seems to be what we're learning anecdotally. [00:26:25] Crystal Fincher: Well, it certainly has brought - it says in no uncertain terms that the resources that we continue to dedicate to the things that have not worked, that have not worked to make us safer - bottom line - and that have not worked to curb this behavior in all of these departments. It has not worked, so why are we continuing to dump more resources in the same types of things? We're at a time now where we just had a lot of new lawmakers sworn in - lots of city councils, new mayors sworn in - and they have the opportunity to lead in a different way than we've seen before. We have a new legislative session that's about to start, and there's the opportunity there for them to take substantive action to fill in the gaps in accountability that exist. And I would just urge these people to look at these situations, and to look at how inadequate our laws, regulations, have been in addressing this - and understanding the need for more accountability. That we've tried training, we've tried all of these types of, "Don't you see how bad this is?" And the only thing that seems to be effective at getting people to see how bad it is is treating them - is acting on our behalf, as if it's actually bad - and holding people accountable. We're having this conversation at the same time that we have a new City Attorney in Seattle who is talking about prosecuting crimes. We are more comfortable as a society talking about the consequences for stealing a loaf of bread than we are for being a Nazi assistant police chief, and I am just sick of it. I cannot stand it, and I urge people to take substantive action. It is time to be bold - this is why people were elected. Please do something. [00:28:18] Rich Smith: Would you mind for a moment if we did see what the legislators are up to over - [00:28:21] Crystal Fincher: Let's look at that - you actually - there was a wonderful article that you wrote about this that covered a lot of this. And one directly ties to - a number directly tie to policing. One, an issue directly tied to the lying - ruses in SPD. What is on tap in the legislative session that's about to start on Monday? [00:28:55] Rich Smith: That's right. We've got a 60-day session coming up - short session - mostly just tweaking stuff going on, mostly just kind of working multi-year bills that people know are going to take a bunch of time to get over the finish line. And of course, we've got to pass, I think, around a $60 billion supplemental budget, so there's some consideration about how to use a lot of one-time millions and one-time federal funding. But, there is some policing stuff going on in terms of the proposed bills, thus far - related to lying - House Bill 1690, if you want to follow it, Rep Strom Peterson, of all people - a Democrat - wants to render inadmissible evidence gathered from cops who lie to suspects during interrogation. So that, if passed - if a cop is interrogating somebody and they invent a ruse or a lie - say, "Your dad told me you did it, your friends told me you did it," and that produces a false confession or some piece of evidence that is going to be submitted in court later. This law passes and says, "We're not going to take that evidence." So, the thinking being that that would deter cops from using this tactic to produce evidence, which would be no good to them in a court anyway. So, that wouldn't stop cops from using ruses of the kind that helped to start CHOP in the City. But, it would potentially lower the use of this tactic, which young people are particularly vulnerable to. For instance, the Central Park Five - they picked them up because the cop lied and said that their friends had already ratted on them. And so, they drew false confessions that way. More recently, in 2019, I think a Seattle police officer was interrogating a guy who they suspected of hitting a bunch of parked cars - didn't injure anybody, but the cop told him that he had left one person in critical condition. A little while after that, the guy, feeling so sad that he had done something that killed somebody - he thought killed somebody - committed suicide as a result of that. So, I don't know if it should be illegal for cops to do ruses. But, these kinds of - I'm sure that they don't want to unilaterally disarm when suspects themselves do ruses to try to escape accountability from laws that we decide that we want as a society or whatever. But, there should be some guard rails around how badly you could lie, to what extent evidence produced through this really tricky, potentially disastrous tactic can be used. And, that seems like a good one in particular. [00:32:15] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and there's a lot of others. I mean, you've rounded up - there's gun legislation to ban high-capacity magazines, close the ghost gun loophole. There's bills to address income inequality - work continues with Rep Noel Frame. And work on the guaranteed basic income policy, sponsored by Liz Berry. Lots of good stuff in there, lots of criminal justice reform, a number of them - bill to allow for the legal grow and therapeutic guiding of trips for psilocybin - which has been legalized in a lot of other places. Certainly, the frequently-talked about Washington Cares Act, and figuring out what to do with that. Environmental bills to reduce emissions from gas companies, to make buildings more efficient, make packaging more recyclable. One that I am tracking closely and in favor of - by Mia Gregerson - to move local elections to even-numbered years with Rep Debra Entenman. A lot of stuff there - are there any other ones that stick out to you? [00:33:26] Rich Smith: Yeah. The big one for me, this year, that I'll probably be screaming about - I won't be alone in it, I'm sure, is Senate Bill 5670, House Bill 1782. They're identical bills - it's just the House bill and the Senate version - sponsored by Mona Das in the Senate and Jessica Bateman in the House. And it would legalize multi-unit homes statewide - I don't know how you want to put it - abolish single-family zoning statewide under certain criteria. That criteria, not to bore people, but everywhere within a half a mile of rapid transit - that is like bus stops that come every 15 minutes, rail, ferry stop - you're going to legalize up to sixplexes, basically. And then cities with lower populations, under 20,000, they'll have to take less density. I think it goes down to quads. And then cities under 10,000, they have to take duplexes. There's an alternative for cities who don't want to do that - where they have a formula - and then they get to put the density wherever they want to, but they can't perpetuate racism in doing so. So, that's kind of the basic structure of the bill. Oregon has already legalized apartments and homes and multi-unit homes everywhere. California has already legalized apartments and multi-unit homes everywhere. Minneapolis has done this. The sky hasn't fallen. It's absolutely necessary because we have a 250,000 unit-strong housing deficit. This has tragicomically - sorry, this has raised the price of homes to tragicomically high levels. The only place a first-time home buyer can afford to live is in like, Ferry County. There's six counties, there's seven counties, in the eastern part of the state where you can technically afford to buy a home if it's your first one. Everywhere else is astronomical and damn-near impossible to own affordably. We're only building 44,000 units a year, so that's not going to keep up with the number of units we need to solve this housing crisis. They've been trying to pass this bill for four years, and this year there's some reason for excitement, because Governor Inslee has put his weight behind it. However, there's still plenty of opposition - you've got the Association of Washington Cities, which represent cities, which are filled by NIMBYs, because they think that adding more density is going to lower their property values, which is going to tank their retirement prospects, because we live in a society that for some reason links the price of our house to whether or not we get to comfortably retire in old age. That's a separate episode. But, there's a lot of strong opposition to this bill, so - at a press conference yesterday, the leadership didn't sound too enthused about it. So, it's going to take a big - if you want to try to save the housing crisis with a market-based solution this year, you're going to want to be tracking this bill. And every time it gets a hearing you're going to want to sign up to talk about it, say how much you can't afford a house in your own neighborhood, et cetera. And you're going to want to push your lawmakers, because right now they're hearing from NIMBYs - the default is, don't allow this density. So, yeah. [00:37:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And many of them live in those neighborhoods, and have those tendencies themselves - [00:37:16] Rich Smith: That's right. [00:37:16] Crystal Fincher: - realistically, and are hearing this from their literal next-door neighbors. So, it is critical that people make a phone call, send an email to your legislator to say, "Hey, absolutely support this. I'm excited about it. I am expecting you to support it and will be paying attention." And to sign in when the bill has a hearing as it goes through the process. People have to know and hear from people who want this legislation, because NIMBYs mobilize for this, always, big time. And, they're in the minority. We see poll after poll that says that they are not the majority here, but the majority isn't used to advocating in the same way and pushing those same levers of power for these issues. And we really need to. [00:38:02] Rich Smith: Yeah. And it's hard to tell - and you've got to do it blanket. You can't assume because you think you have a progressive representative that they're going to be automatically on board. You cannot name one Democratic Senator in the Senate right now who is like - you could name any of them, and then say, "This person is going to vote against this bill," and that would make sense to me. I don't know who opposes it, but there's a reason it hasn't passed in four years. There's a reason why Mona Das has to keep trying, who's a renter by the way. She's also a mortgage broker, but she's also a renter. And, so any one of these people could be problem children to getting this, again, market-based solution. I mean, we're talking about letting people build. I thought that this was what you all were about, you know? I thought you guys were super into this kind of thing. But yeah, so, anyway, this is all to say - don't give your representative the benefit of the doubt because you think they're progressive. They could be a NIMBY in hiding, you know? [00:39:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely correct. Well, I just want to take these last few minutes on the show to talk about another event that was covered this week - the Bruce Harrell inaugural press conference. After being sworn in, he made a speech - we now have Mayor Harrell, Mayor Durkan is no more - no more in office, she's certainly around - who knows where she's going to end, like go, I don't know, maybe she's going to run away from Seattle. But, Bruce Harrell is here, and he made a very bold-sounding speech. And I just wanted to talk about a few of the specifics in his speech, or what he brought, and some of them had specifics. One kind of immediate thing - he's still weighing whether to extend the eviction moratorium, which ends on January 15th. Obviously the Rona is here, the Omicron variant is just continuing to dance through our lives. We are in the middle of a pandemic, we aren't beyond it - certainly parents are struggling with how to approach school, schools are struggling to just be staffed at a level that they can have staff in classrooms. Now we're not even at just teachers in classrooms, just any adult staff member is filling in in many places, in many districts. It's a hard thing. And in the midst of this obviously we're still dealing with the same issues of people taking care of sick relatives, people they are living with, living with immunocompromised people. And so, we don't know - he said he would be looking at the data and figuring that out. So, we can expect an upcoming announcement on whether or not that's going to continue, and I'm sure your feedback on whether he should continue that would be helpful. Chief Diaz is - oh, go ahead. [00:41:05] Rich Smith: Yeah, just to add, there was an important report in The Times this morning that the County doesn't have enough money to handle all of the rent assistance applications that has come its way. So, there's 10,000 requests for rental assistance that the County is not processing - [00:41:25] Crystal Fincher: Oh my gosh. [00:41:26] Rich Smith: - as of November. The County asked for $120 million from the Feds to cover the gap. So, if Bruce doesn't - I mean, and so - that's 10,000 people who say that they're behind on rent - in King County - I don't know how many particularly in Seattle. If Harrell lifts the eviction moratorium, that's that. And then those people could face eviction for non-payment of the rent. [00:41:57] Crystal Fincher: That's the trigger, yep. [00:41:58] Rich Smith: And so, that's something to - hopefully that the Harrell administration is considering. And also he says that he wants to strike some kind of balance between keeping vulnerable people housed, and making it so that vulnerable landlords don't feel like they have to sell their rental property and potentially decrease the rental housing stock. That's another conversation, but this is what he's balancing. Okay, he hinted that he was going to maybe rewrite some version of the moratorium, maybe he'll just keep it for another month based on The Seattle Times report, the amount of need that's out there. But, it's a huge problem, it's a big thing that the Harrell administration needs to deal with right now, and it's happening next week. [00:42:49] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - very, very big thing. And that was a very important data point to be considered. Another one - Chief Adrian Diaz might stay - Bruce Harrell didn't say that he was definitely going to leave, that they had some evaluation to do, that he needed to set expectations, and they needed to talk about those. And so it's possible that Chief Diaz stays, or that he embarks upon a nationwide search. He brought up that the City will pursue climate policies towards net zero emissions so that there'd be an early focus on electric cars. But that there weren't many specifics there, so we will wait to see what happens there. You know, another big thing that I was not expecting - that was intriguing, actually - and that could turn out to be very good. He said that he wanted to provide healthcare for every Seattle resident. That would be big, that would be awesome if that actually turned out to be every Seattle resident, if that included mental healthcare - like comprehensive healthcare for every Seattle resident would be great. Announced that as an initiative, where they said that they're coming up with the parameters to evaluate who does and who doesn't have healthcare so far, and figuring that out. So, we still have to see what the specifics of this are going to be. [00:44:15] Rich Smith: Yeah, finding money in the City budget - if it takes any money to provide healthcare for people as a City, finding that money in the City budget sounds like a real challenge. But, it's a worthy one. I don't know of many municipalities that offer healthcare for all in this way. I think New York City - Bill de Blasio did one - I should have looked that up before we started talking. But yeah, it seems like it would cost a lot of money, and he's got Tim Burgess on the case, the Strategic Initiatives Lead that he hired - former mayor, former City Councilman of many years, I think 12, don't quote me on that - and Burgess is a former cop, but he has led, I think, on some health initiatives. He made a big deal out of the Nurse-Family Partnership whenever he was on the Council. So, it's not crazy to have him do this - he's created healthcare policy, or worked on healthcare policy before. There's another person who's working with Burgess on this, I can't remember her name. But, in any event - so yeah, it would be a big deal, it would be cool, it will be interesting to see what they end up doing. From the sound of it, it was like, "We've got to get a dashboard spreadsheet of who's sick first," and yeah. [00:45:44] Crystal Fincher: One of my takeaways was that this is going to be an administration that loves dashboards - there was talk about data and dashboards for everything. We'll see how that turns out, but that certainly was a big, bold proposal that would be a huge win for everybody. [00:46:02] Rich Smith: Yeah. [00:46:03] Crystal Fincher: For residents of Seattle. He also talked about making noticeable change, noticeable progress, on housing people, on reducing our unhoused population - in the first quarter, I believe he said. And so, I'm going to be excited to see how he conducts that. He said that he's excited to get people into housing. And if he can get people into housing and there's a noticeable difference, I don't know anyone who is opposed to that. Now, if this is a sweeps-based solution, I think there's a lot of people who are not going to be happy with that. But it will be very interesting to see - again, they said that they're still collecting a lot of data, but he said that is one area where we can expect to see noticeable improvement. So, I truly hope - I don't think there's anyone who does not want people to be housed who are not housed. And I hope that there's listening to people who are telling people - there's this narrative about "refusing services." When people are offered services - that can be a very misleading statement - because a lot of times those services aren't available or applicable to their situation. But also, there are reasons why the services available may not meet the needs of the people on the ground. And so, I hope we're listening to what people say will meet their needs, and build towards what will meet their needs and solve this issue and house people. If that happens, I think we're all waiting to applaud Bruce Harrell for that. [00:47:33] Rich Smith: That's right. And he also said - on the getting houses for those people to live in, or for everyone to live in - he talked about housing for all, and making sure everyone had an affordable place to live. His first action was going to be to - he did an executive order to look at permitting processes. And it sounded like he wanted to streamline permitting - which is a thing that people say, but that's going to be interesting to see what he gets back. I mean, permitting - what's he going to get? It's a bunch of ideas that sound good on their own. So if he gets a list back and sees what kinds of permitting people need to do to build housing, what's Bruce Harrell administration going to get rid of? Are they going to get rid of design review, are they going to get rid of MHA, are they going to get rid of sprinklers for town homes, are they going to get rid of environmental review? I wonder if the Bruce Harrell administration is going to get rid of any of these processes that have built up around building housing. We know what it's going to take to get housing for all, and it's a billion dollars a year for 10 years, with the current affordable housing scheme that cities have concocted. Or, it's going to take massive investment in public or social housing, so we can put people inside. And so, maybe streamlined permitting can work a little bit, but it'll be interesting to see how we want to streamline that process. Not saying that there's not room for improvement, there definitely is. I don't give a **** about design review, I imagine the Harrell administration does. But, maybe they don't - I don't know, surprise me. Yeah, there's a lot more reporting to do on this. [00:49:30] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I mean, it will be interesting. Also, there is a - on the subject of zoning specifically - was a little bit fuzzy on that, but he said, quote, "We'll fill in the gaps where zoning is already available for housing and construction and density. And our Chief Operating Officer, Marco Lowe (a name that Hacks & Wonks listeners will be familiar with, as he's a co-host sometimes on Hacks & Wonks) who not only has deep experience in City Hall but also actual experience in the housing industry, will lead this critical effort. So, as we embark on a City-wide master plan update - and again, it's time for that master plan update. As many of you are aware, we'll look at opportunities to address every neighborhood to address the shortage of quality housing at every income level." So, not specifics there - a plan to address it, a point person named, and Marco Lowe to do it. And so, eager to see what results from that, but certainly results are needed. [00:50:26] Rich Smith: More power to - let them know, Marco. [00:50:34] Crystal Fincher: Marco's certainly competent, on the case, and I hope that they can make substantive progress. I believe Marco can - hopefully the intentions of the administration are truly to do that. And again - that happens, everybody wins. People are waiting to applaud that. [00:50:55] Rich Smith: It'll be an interesting four years. [00:50:57] Crystal Fincher: It will be, it definitely will be. Well, thank you. [00:51:00] Rich Smith: If he brings back the Sonics, that's going to be eight years. I've been telling you, this is the one thing - anyway, I don't want to start a new topic, but it'll be an interesting four or eight years depending on whether or not Bruce Harrell brings back the Sonics. [00:51:14] Crystal Fincher: Look, you know what? If he brings back the Sonics - yeah, that's going to be a whole thing, that's going to be a whole thing. And my goodness, looking at some of these other clubs around the country. And look, I don't want to take a team from the other city, but they have really messed things up in Oklahoma City. Wow, they did not earn the Sonics, they did not. They are a mess, they are trifling and shady and ridiculous and shameful. And anyway, I mean, I'm a Lakers fan, so you know. But I mean, the Sonics have a place in my heart. Kevin Durant has a place in my heart, we just - we need the Sonics back here. All right. We are more than beyond our time, but I just want to thank everybody for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM, this Friday, January 7th 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler, with assistance from Shannon Cheng. And our wonderful co-host today was Associate Editor of The Stranger, Rich Smith. You can find Rich on Twitter @richsssmith, with three S's in the middle. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts, just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live show and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us 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 - all the great articles that we talked about - at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in, we'll talk to you next time.

In this second part of a discussion with Executive Director of America Walks and former mayor of Seattle Mike McGinn, we reflect on Mayor Durkan's term and legacy, discuss the mayor having more power than the council to drive change on the ground, Mayor Harrell's predecessor and an ongoing pandemic creating a taller task than usual for an incoming mayor, and some advice from McGinn for Mayor Bruce Harrell as he begins his term.    As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com.    Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Mike McGinn, at @mayormcginn. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and David Kroman of the Seattle Times discuss the behind-the-scenes battle over who's going to be the new Seattle City Council President, what Mayor Harrell's new team indicates about his priorities, the legacy of Mayor Jenny Durkan, and a new look at a troubling transportation trend.  Plus, David reveals the secret of what it takes to make great wine (hint: it might not be the grapes, after all). If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

New Year's Eve is Jenny Durkan's last day in office, and her legacy is now up for debate.  Sandeep and Erica dive into the juiciest issues she faced during her mayoralty including an unflattering nickname, homelessness, police reform, protests, and political labels. They also speculate about what might be different under Mayor Bruce Harrell, who is being compared to other blue city mayors, including the incoming mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. If you like Seattle Nice please help support this pod on Patreon https://patreon.com/seattlenice?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=creatorshare     Support the show

THE THESIS:  Everything Jesus did, preached and modeled, The Party does in reverse. In so doing, and whether they know it or not, the functionaries of The Party have chosen sides against God.   THE SCRIPTURE:  Philippians 2:6 -  “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage …” Philippians 2:8 - “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Luke 2: 4-7: “4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.” THE NEWS: Twitter: “Doxxing is bad.” - Also Twitter: “How can we put this guy on blast?” Kim Potter found guilty in the shooting of Daunte Wright COUNT I – Charge: First-Degree Manslaughter Predicated on Reckless Use/Handling of a Firearm GUILTY COUNT II – Charge: Second-Degree Manslaughter GUILTY Judge orders Potter taken into custody without bail. Attorneys ask for arguments on the issue. Not a danger to the public, has made all court appointments, it's Christmas season, will seek dispositional departure due to clear remorse. Ask that she not be incarcerated until sentencing. Deep roots in community, not a flight risk. Prosecution asked she be taken into custody immediately. Customary to take into custody upon conviction for this level of crime. Potter not living in state, aggravating factor. Will be seeking Blakely sentencing enhancement. [AUDIO] -  Alec Bladwin was a free man for Christmas.  THE MONOLOGUE Calif. police claim DA recommended $0 bail for man charged with kidnapping, having sex with minor Even after firing some 70 police officers over the mandate, Mayor Durkan retains her full contingent of SPD bodyguards. Coronavirus outbreak sidelines ship whose crew is fully immunized, Navy says Justice Department and CFPB Put Landlords and Mortgage Servicers on Notice About Servicemembers' and Veterans' Rights Bill Gates Wants to 'Cover the Sun' to Help Counter Global Warming A great Bill Gates Parody   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Crystal sits down with Amy Sundberg to walk through how the Seattle City budget process works as well as how and when to get involved in making your vision of the future a reality.  Note: This episode was recorded in late September and references parts of the process that have already happened. A key opportunity to provide public comment happens this week on Wednesday, November 10th at 5:30p so listen up and then make your voice heard! 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. Subscribe to Notes from the Emerald City  and follow Amy on Twitter at @amysundberg. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Notes from the Emerald City - newsletter on Seattle government and policy: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/amysundberg Converge Media - Budget School: https://www.whereweconverge.com/post/understanding-the-city-of-seattle-budget-converge-media-launches-budget-school Seattle City Council - Budget Process: http://www.seattle.gov/council/issues/past-issues/budget-process Seattle City Council - Sign up for Public Comment (opens 2 hours before start of public comment period): https://www.seattle.gov/council/committees/public-comment “Seattle mayor proposes increasing police staffing in 2022 budget” by David Kroman from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/09/seattle-mayor-proposes-increasing-police-staffing-2022-budget Mayor Durkan's Proposed 2022 Budget: https://www.seattle.gov/city-budget-office/budget-archives/2022-proposed-budget Solidarity Budget: https://www.seattlesolidaritybudget.com/   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're thrilled to be joined once again by Amy Sundberg, author of Notes From the Emerald City and co-chair of the Seattle Committee of People Power Washington - Police Accountability. Thanks for joining us again, Amy. [00:00:51] Amy Sundberg: It's great to be here. [00:00:53] Crystal Fincher: Well, I am excited to have you here once again. We have spoken about the excellent newsletter that you have - your coverage consistently of City Council meetings, City meetings and hearings, and your live tweets, and recaps in your newsletter - which is an excellent resource for people who are looking to follow civic processes in the City of Seattle. Today, I'm excited to talk about the budget, which most people generally are not excited to talk about - the budget. But it's actually a really big deal. And that process is just kicking off here in the City of Seattle. And this is super consequential because it affects everything. This is how we determine what gets spent on what, who gets what and where and how, and who doesn't. And there's a lot involved with it - there's a lot of confusion. Because of that, a lot of people typically don't engage. And so I thought it'd be helpful to do this show today, just to give people an overview of what the budget is, how it's composed, just what's going on with it right now, and how they can get involved if they're looking to make a difference in the issues that they care about. And with that, I guess I would just start off by asking, what is the budget? What does it fund? How is it composed? [00:02:12] Amy Sundberg: Yeah. So I also am excited to talk about the budget today. Because you're right, it is very consequential. It makes a huge difference in individual's lives, which is something I think can get kind of lost in the weeds. But it does really impact every one of us who live in Seattle. So the budget, I mean, it is in many ways similar to a household budget that you might have for your own finances - in that it tracks what revenues the City is bringing in and then it tracks the expenditures - how that money is going to be spent over the course of a year. This budget that we're talking about will be for next year - 2022 - and it's a total of $6.6 billion. But only about $1.5 billion of that is in the General Fund, which is most of what the budget process is regarding - still a lot of money though. [00:03:17] Crystal Fincher: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:03:19] Amy Sundberg: And it funds a lot of the services that we enjoy here in Seattle. And I'm just going to give you a - [00:03:27] Crystal Fincher: And some we don't. [00:03:28] Amy Sundberg: And some we don't. Yeah. Some we might not agree with - exactly. So it covers everything from transportation - so that's public transit, building and maintenance of roads, bridges, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, safety features. Funds libraries, one of my personal favorites. It funds parks and recreation. Homelessness services, including both shelter options and wraparound services - childcare assistance, food assistance, rental assistance, developing more affordable housing in our city. A small budget for arts and culture. A lot of offices - so the Office of Construction and Inspections, the Office of Planning and Community Development, the Office of Civil Rights. A lot of administration - so all of the City employees who work to run all of these offices. Public safety, and that isn't just the police department - that's also the fire department, that's 911 dispatch, that's the Office of Emergency Management, Seattle Municipal Court, the City Attorney's Office, and any alternate responses. So all of that is covered by the budget and more. [00:04:55] Crystal Fincher: Okay. And so that's a lot. And a lot of times, one of the questions that I've heard frequently is, "Okay, well, if you've got $6 billion and it's a huge number. If the Office of Arts and Culture is asking for this tiny amount, why can't you just move some money over here, over there?" Can you just take money from one department and give it to another? How does the budget work? How does the General Fund work? [00:05:26] Amy Sundberg: So the reason I specify that only a $1.5 billion was in the General Fund is because that's basically what the Councilmembers are deciding what to spend during this budget process. A lot of that other money is already allocated, and it's not allowed to be spent for anything else. Some of that is because it's - I mean, it comes from various taxes. And as part of those taxes, there was an agreement that it would be spent only on certain things. And part of it is because certain fees that you might pay will go back to fund whatever department they came from. So if you pay a parking ticket, that's going to go back into the Department of Transportation, and that's the only place that money can go. Or if you pay a park fee to rent out a picnic area, that's going to go right back into Parks. So a lot of the money is tied up in various ways. And one of the biggest examples of that is utilities - Seattle Light and also the Public Utilities. They generate a lot of revenue - from your electricity bill - and that's put right back into their budget, so that's not available for other uses. [00:06:44] Crystal Fincher: So some money comes with - by law - with strings attached. You can't decide to spend it in a different way. Some money comes with no strings attached. That no strings attached money is the General Fund. And that is where the conversation centers at times like now, when we just heard that the mayor announced what her budget was. Really, when they're talking about more money for this, less money for this, it is really in that $1.5 billion allocated to the general fund. [00:07:14] Amy Sundberg: Exactly. And the budget that just came out this week - that's the mayor's proposed budget. So she's put together kind of a proposal - she's talked to all of these City departments that I was talking about and heard kind of what they need, what they've been spending. And there's a Budget Office of the City that looks through all these things, thinks about what the priorities are, and puts together this proposed budget - that then is transmitted to the City Council to review and consider. [00:07:46] Crystal Fincher: So let's talk more about the process that is just kicking off now. The mayor proposes a budget - what happens between, "Okay, now this budget is proposed" and when a budget is approved and money starts getting spent? [00:08:05] Amy Sundberg: So it is a about eight week process to approve next year's budget. And it's supposed to be done - I think by law it has to be done by early December. But we're expecting it to be done the Monday before Thanksgiving. So exactly eight weeks. And basically, the Council will go through an eight week deliberative process about the budget. Built into that process are lots of opportunities for the public to weigh in on what their priorities might be. And we can talk about that a little bit more later. But also they - so right now this week, we're going through and having presentations from different City departments - to kind of hear about this proposed budget and why it is the way it is, and what these departments were thinking about in terms of these dollars being spent. After that, we go into Issue Identification. So that's when kind of Councilmembers flag different areas that they want to dig deeper into to see what the impacts might be, different investments they might want to make, things they might not want to spend as much money on, and get a lot of analysis from their Central staff. Then they propose some amendments to the proposed budget and they discuss those amendments. And eventually the Committee Chair, who is Councilmember Mosqueda, creates a Balancing Package. So what that is - is basically, she's kind of looking at these conversations they've been having, and looking at Issue Identification, looking at the amendments that they've been discussing, and she tries to find all the areas in which they have a general consensus as a Council in terms of how they want the money to be spent - what they can all agree on pretty easily. And that will all go into this Balancing Package. And it has to be balanced - so it has to - it can't be - you can't spend more than you have. Then there's another round of amendments and they have to have at least three Councilmembers who will sign on to each of these amendments so that you don't get any - basically to save time so that there's not tons of amendments that only one Councilmember is going to support and have no chance of actually making it into the budget. They vote on those amendments, they vote on the whole package in Committee, and then it moves to the Full Council where they do the final vote. And it's important to remember that that final vote on the budget has to be passed by a three-quarters vote, which is not true of most legislation that goes through City Council. So seven out of nine Councilmembers have to vote to approve the budget in order for it to move forward. [00:11:14] Crystal Fincher: Okay. That's good to know. And that is different than most other stuff, like you just said. And FYI, I mean, this is a lot of detail - it's a complicated process. You are doing an excellent job breaking it down for us in a way that the average person can digest. And I should mention, we're talking about the budget - Converge Media has a very detailed multi-hour series that really gets into the granular detail of the entire budget process. But wanted to just give people, here right now, the opportunity to get an idea of what the overall process is to make it easier to understand and engage with if you want to. Okay. So we're at the point where we understand the timeline. It actually sounds like it's important to get involved earlier in the process so that if you see an area in the budget that looks concerning to you, you can communicate with your Councilmembers, flag that as something that you feel is a major concern. Hopefully, get at least three Councilmembers who are willing to say, "Yeah, what is currently down on paper does not look good to me. Let's actually hold this as something that we're not saying we're good with and that we'd really like to hopefully change and reserve for further discussion and amendment." So what does that timeline look like in there before they have to - when should people be getting involved with this process and when is it best? [00:12:51] Amy Sundberg: To be honest, I think that people should be involved throughout the process for the optimal results. I realize people only have limited bandwidth, but I think there are important things going on throughout the eight weeks. I do agree with you that if you get in earlier, it kind of flags for Councilmembers what their constituents want, right? What is important, what are the actual community values? But, I mean, also sometimes towards the end of the process, the Councilmembers benefit from having a little public pressure to kind of push them maybe a little outside of their comfort zone or to try to just make sure they stick with what they were kind of thinking of. Sometimes they get a little cold feet and need that extra support at the end. So I think, more than a specific time, is if you can get involved at any time, that's definitely better than if you don't get involved at all. [00:13:59] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. And you just raised another good point - that Councilmembers need to hear from you. They need to know where the community is - and pressure, accountability, communication, whatever you want to call it - is necessary and makes a difference. We saw in the - was it the last budget go around? [00:14:18] Amy Sundberg: It was, yeah. [00:14:18] Crystal Fincher: Here where - [00:14:19] Amy Sundberg: It was a big deal. [00:14:21] Crystal Fincher: Public pressure made the difference between a vote to reduce funding for the SPD - in one of the only cities in the country to actually take that vote - and have the Council united on that with a budget vote that requires seven out of nine members, which is a really big deal. It took every single bit of public pressure to the very last moment to get that accomplished. So it's not something that's futile. It has made a difference. We talk about voting and candidates a lot and I certainly believe in that, but that is not enough. People have to stay engaged throughout these processes and hold Councilmembers accountable to their promises and to their constituents. And so the more involvement - the more consistently people can be involved - the better. Now we just talked about dates for things and when that's going to come about - let's talk about how the budget relates to public safety, which there's actually a lot of news about right now and where a lot of people are concerned. [00:15:29] Amy Sundberg: Yeah. So, I mean, there's been a big discussion in Seattle about public safety overall. And there have been demands from some community members - and specifically the Solidarity Budget - as a group who have been pushing for a divest and reinvest strategy for the Seattle Police Department. And so what that means is basically taking some of the money out of the Seattle Police Department and investing it in other community-led public safety alternatives. The idea is that true public safety is not always supported at its best by SPD. And that there are other solutions that might give us better and more equitable outcomes for everyone that's living in the City. So a big point of contention then ends up always being the Seattle Police Department's budget. I will say that last year, 22% of Seattle's General Fund was given to SPD, which is - 22% is a significant percentage of the overall. [00:16:57] Crystal Fincher: It's a significant percentage. [00:16:58] Amy Sundberg: Of money. And that being said, it was - 2021 was the first year that we saw the SPD budget go down in actual dollars, as opposed to increasing. Now that's not true if you factor in inflation, but it's still very significant. In 20 years, that was the first time that that happened. And that was because of community, because - frankly, because of all of the protests for racial justice that were happening all last summer and fall - put enough pressure to get that change brought into reality. [00:17:40] Crystal Fincher: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [00:17:40] Amy Sundberg: But that being said, no police officers were laid off. There was talk of doing that - there was talk of out-of-order layoffs. It turned out that wasn't a thing that is legally possible and no officers got laid off. There were increased number of attrition - so a lot of officers were choosing voluntarily to leave for various reasons. So we did get some shrinkage of the force, but that was the primary driver of it. [00:18:17] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so - oh, go ahead - [00:18:22] Amy Sundberg: So I was just going to say - and so this year we have to then revisit that entire conversation when we're deciding how to allocate public safety money. And the mayor's proposed budget kind of gives us a starting point so to speak, of where that conversation is going to start. And the total SPD budget is only - she's only a proposed an increase of $2.5 million. So it would be going up again - but that's a fairly small amount in the grand scheme of how much it often goes up from year to year. [00:19:07] Crystal Fincher: So less than what people say, but still not reducing the funding of the police, which is what- [00:19:12] Amy Sundberg: Yes. It's definitely. [00:19:13] Crystal Fincher: - a number of Seattle voters have voted for - and voted for Councilmembers to enact. And certainly is part of a big conversation that we're having right now. But an area where - Durkan has seemed pretty determined not to reduce funding. So given that it is that amount, it seems like the focus is more on being able to say that she's not reducing funding of SPD instead of having that really fund anything substantial and with that amount of money. [00:19:50] Amy Sundberg: Yes. I mean, and it's definitely not divestment - it is holding fairly steady. And you'll see one of the interesting things in terms of media coverage - you'll see that a lot of media saying she's proposing addition of 35 net officers. What that actually means is hiring 125 officers next year, because they're anticipating 90 separations - 90 officers are going to leave. They're going to hire 125, so that's 35 additional officers - that's what she's proposed. And there's a couple - on the one hand, you can say, "Well, they're hiring a bunch more officers instead of either just letting it stay the same or reducing." And then another narrative that I'm sure people will be hearing in upcoming weeks is, "Well, but there's actually less funded positions for police officers in this budget than there was in the last budget." In 2021, there were 1,357 FTEs - so sworn officer positions funded, not actual officers that we had - but the money was there for them. And this year there's only 1,230 funded. So that's going to be one place that I think we're going to see pushback in terms of - actually we're shrinking the SPD - because we don't have these positions that are open and not filled that we're still pretending might be able to be filled. But I would like to say the counter-argument to that view is that there's a long pipeline for getting new officers into the force because of just all the training and all of the vetting that has to be done, et cetera. So if we're already lower in terms of how many officers we have - we can spend that time building to a higher number of officers again, or we can spend that time and that money instead building alternate community led responses. There is a choice there. [00:22:08] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely - and certainly an area where people can make their opinions heard. And this year is - "exciting" is always interesting to use in terms of a budget for wonky people like us - but this time there actually is a reason to be excited, I think, because there is a budget that's being introduced by organizations in the community called the Solidarity Budget. What is that? [00:22:36] Amy Sundberg: So the Solidarity Budget is really exciting - and it's a coalition of groups who have put together basically a plan of how community would like to see the money be spent in Seattle in 2022. And it's a coalition of many groups. I know they had a goal to get a hundred endorsing organizations - I don't know if they quite reached that yet. But it's organizations like 350 Seattle, Decriminalize Seattle, the Black Action Coalition, the Transit Riders Union, et cetera, et cetera - it's a large number of local organizations. And they have various - basically policy and budgetary goals that they present in this document, called the Solidarity Budget, that asks for various investments into community. And part of it is based on the idea of divesting from the police department, as well as the Municipal Court and the City's Attorney's office - and then reinvesting that money back into community priorities, whether that be housing, Green New Deal - or other priorities - alternate responses for public safety, et cetera. And there's a 65 page document kind of laying out all of their ideas. [00:24:11] Crystal Fincher: So that's really interesting, and we're probably going to be seeing an increased level of advocacy and activism because of that - in addition to just more people being interested, particularly after the activism with recent budgets and what's been going on there. So as people look to get more familiar with the Solidarity Budget, the City budget, and what's going on, what do things look like in the next couple weeks in terms of activity with the budget and how should people go about making their concerns known? [00:24:48] Amy Sundberg: Yeah. There's several options. So this week, we're just having overviews from the departments. So basically, we're all getting up to speed on what this proposed budget is and what the City departments think they need. And then next week we kind of get a breather to process through it all. And the week after that, which is the week of October 11th - then we start diving into Issue Identification, so getting deeper into the weeds of these various issues. There are several opportunities to get involved as a private citizen. There are three public hearings during this budget season, and the first one is October 12th - so a great time to get in early - at 5:30 PM. And then there's another public hearing - November 10th at 5:30 PM. And the last one is November 18th during the day at 9:30 AM. So if daytime is better for you, they wanted to give both options. Also, all of the budget meetings have a 20-30 minute public comment first thing in the morning at 9:30. But even if you don't want to give public comment, you can also - you can call your Councilmember's office, you can email them - I email mine all the time. You can set up meetings with them - some of them have regular office hours. I know some of them go to Farmer's Markets occasionally - I know the weather is shifting, so I don't know how much longer that will be going on. Sometimes they have Budget Town Halls in a district that you can attend and ask questions or make comment at that point. So there are a lot of ways to kind of let your Councilmember know what you're thinking and what your concerns and priorities are. [00:26:41] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And I think it is really important to understand that your Councilmember is your Councilmember. They're your representative and they need to know what you think in order to represent you. And if something isn't clear, you can ask them questions and ask them to explain some things - they really are there to serve you. And this budget is there to serve everyone in the City - that should be the goal. And so I hope that people engage with this and just start to get more familiar with what's being talked about and what's not. Because they're so used to this process almost being opaque with hardly anyone paying attention. And it's exciting when more people get involved, because generally that produces a budget that addresses the needs of more of the community. [00:27:31] Amy Sundberg: Yeah. And it's exciting when people realize that this actually really affects them personally. This isn't just some abstract cloud that you don't have to think about. It's something that is going to impact your daily life in the future. [00:27:45] Crystal Fincher: Yep. Thank you. So thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today - appreciate it and we will certainly be providing all of the links to everything we talked about here in the show in the episode notes. And if you have any questions or any specific questions - issues you want addressed - feel free to shoot us a message. Message me on Twitter and we will continue to stay engaged here also. Thanks so much, Amy. [00:28:11] Amy Sundberg: Thanks for having me. [00:28:12] Crystal Fincher: I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. 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, wherever else you get your podcast - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. 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 at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

But there are holdouts, including more than 200 police officers. KUOW's Katie Campbell reports.

Mayor Durkan will address the citizens of the CIty of Seattle on Monday with her proposed budget. We will broadcast the Mayor live and then follow up with a budget analysis show hosted by Kevin Schofield of www.SCCInsight.com and Omari Salisbury of Converge Media.

The city's new “Jump Start” payroll tax is shaping up as a point of tension between the council and Mayor Durkan.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan on Tuesday extended an eviction moratorium until January, as a city council committee pushed forward two new measures to help renters.After falling earlier in the pandemic, rents in the city are rising again.“We brag about our higher minimum wage but it doesn't even come close to covering the average apartment,” said Kate Rubin of the housing justice group Be:Seattle.Right now, Seattle landlords are required to give a 60-day notice if they raise the rent by more than 10%.On Tuesday, a council committee advanced a requirement for a six-month notice before increasingJoin your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW, and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic.https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/durkan-extends-eviction-ban-as-renter-protections-advance-at-city-council/ar-AAOGhFz?ocid=hplocalnewsSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/seattlerealestatepodcast)

3PM - Mayor Durkan's budget plan // Seattle shootings // Reactions to Seahawks loss // Dave Grohl helps Seattle bass player who stopped gunman See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris Sullivan's Chokepoint -- light rail extends to Northgate // Hanna Scott on Treehouse winning a Classy award // Jeff Gilbert on Ford's $11 billion bet on electric vehicles // Hanna Scott on Seattle renter protections/ Mayor Durkan's budget proposal // Dose of Kindness -- feeding the linemen who are still fixing Louisiana // Gee Scott on the fun of meaningful September Mariners baseball // David Fahrenthold on the looming government shutdown/ the various Trump lawsuits See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seattle's next mayor will have to decide how and when the city unwinds its pandemic evictions ban, because Mayor Durkan just extended it to January. How does this end? And where is the money that's supposed to be helping people out? Seattle Times real estate reporter Heidi Groover explains.Follow us on Instagram for even more Seattle Now! We're @seattlenowpod.

Last Friday, Crystal and Executive Director of America Walks (and former Seattle mayor), Mike McGinn, talked for so long that it made for a two-part show! In the second half of the conversation, Mike and Crystal get into the SPD's calls being predominantly non-criminal, the surge in gun violence in Seattle and the need for the new mayor to respond with the police force they have (not the one they wish they had), the benefits of decriminalizing jaywalking, the continued refusal by the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission to request an investigation into Mayor Durkan's alleged illegal deletion of text messages, and the vital importance that the law be applied equally to all people - regardless of whether or not they are a public employee or an elected official. 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 Mike McGinn at @mayormcginn. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Resources: “Nearly half of Seattle police calls don't need officers responding, new report says” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/nearly-half-of-seattle-police-calls-dont-need-officers-responding-new-report-says/  “Seattle police intervening in fewer mental health calls, data shows” by David Kroman from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/09/seattle-police-intervening-fewer-mental-health-calls-data-show  “Durkan Won't Sign Crowd Control Weapons Bill, Raises Specter of Court Challenge” by Paul Kiefer from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/09/07/durkan-wont-sign-crowd-control-weapons-bill-raises-specter-of-court-challenge/  “Seattle gun violence surges in 2021, as police force dwindles” by Angela King and Dyer Oxley from KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/stories/gun-violence-surges-in-seattle-over-2021 “King County's rise in gun violence doesn't have an easy explanation” by Nate Sanford from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/09/king-countys-rise-gun-violence-doesnt-have-easy-explanation  “Our Letter on Decriminalizing Jaywalking: California Could Demonstrate National Leadership by Passing Timely Legislation” from America Walks: https://americawalks.org/our-letter-on-decriminalizing-jaywalking-california-could-demonstrate-national-leadership-by-passing-timely-legislation/  “Seattle 911 response times climbed in summer 2020. Now, police and activists debate what comes next.” by Lewis Kamb, Daniel Beekman, and Manuel Villa from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-911-response-times-surged-in-2020-now-police-and-activists-debate-what-lessons-to-draw/  “Recidivism and Reentry: What makes people more or less likely to succeed upon release?” from the Prison Policy Initiative: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/recidivism_and_reentry/  “Employees who blew whistle on Seattle mayor's missing texts file lawsuit against the city” by Lewis Kamb and Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/employees-who-blew-whistle-on-seattle-mayors-missing-texts-file-lawsuit-against-the-city/  “Mayor's office knew for months Durkan's phone settings causes texts to vanish, emails show” by Lewis Kamb, Daniel Beekman, and Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mayors-office-knew-for-months-durkans-phone-setting-caused-texts-to-vanish-emails-show/  “Obama leaves Trump a mixed legacy on whistle-blowers” by Eyal Press from The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/obama-leaves-trump-a-mixed-legacy-on-whistle-blowers  “Thousands of Washington state workers seek exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandate” by Joseph O'Sullivan from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/thousands-of-washington-state-workers-seek-exemptions-from-covid-19-vaccine-mandate/  “Seattle police union pushes back on Jan. 6 investigation” by David Kroman from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/07/seattle-police-union-pushes-back-jan-6-investigation  Transcript:

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan says she wants to improve policing in the city, but City Council members recently overstepped some legal boundaries to do so.

This week Erica C. Barnett of Publicola joins Crystal to dive in to the breaking news about Mayor Durkan intentionally causing her texts from last summer to disappear, why folks experiencing homelessness face more harm from congregate shelters than from encampments, the deep deficiencies of "Compassion Seattle" Charter Amendment 29, and the map of González versus Harrell voters breaking down clearly along income lines. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Erica C. Barnett, at @ericacbarnett. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Mayor's office knew for months Durkan's phone setting caused texts to vanish, emails show” by Lewis Kamb, Daniel Beekman, and Jim Brunner of The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mayors-office-knew-for-months-durkans-phone-setting-caused-texts-to-vanish-emails-show/  “When a homeless encampment was cleared, no one went to a shelter. The reasons are complicated” by Daniel Wu from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/when-a-homeless-encampment-was-cleared-no-one-went-to-shelter-the-reasons-why-are-complicated/  “The C Is for Crank: Correcting the Record on Compassion Seattle” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/07/13/the-c-is-for-crank-correcting-the-record-on-compassion-seattle/  “The City's Progress Report on Homelessness Is Also a Reality Check” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/07/27/the-citys-progress-report-on-homelessness-is-also-a-reality-check/  “Beware of the feel-good news story” by Samantha Grosso from Vox: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/11/26/20982211/feel-good-news-inspiration  “2021 Primary Precinct Results Show Familiar Rich vs Rent-burdened Battle Lines” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/08/19/2021-primary-precinct-results-show-familiar-rich-vs-rent-burdened-battle-lines/  "In King County, pollution makes ZIP codes predictors of your health" from University of Washington: https://depts.washington.edu/urbanuw/news/in-king-county-pollution-makes-zip-codes-predictors-of-your-health/  “National Environmental Public Health Tracking: Community Design” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/tracking/topics/CommunityDesign.htm “Fine particulate air pollution associated with higher risk of dementia” by Jake Ellison from University of Washington: https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/08/04/fine-particulate-air-pollution-associated-with-higher-risk-of-dementia/  “King County rent relief still slow to reach tenants” by David Kroman from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/08/king-county-rent-relief-still-slow-reach-tenants  “The Severe Health Consequences of Housing Instability” by Frances Gill from The People's Policy Project: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/07/09/the-severe-health-consequences-of-housing-instability/    Transcript:   [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight in the local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind the scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost live shows where we review the news of the week. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show, and today's co-host, Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola and author of Twitter, a Memoir Of Drinking Relapse And Recovery, Erica Barnett. I was just having a conversation with a friend who was in the middle of reading your book and they were loving it. [00:00:51] Erica Barnett: So awesome. That's so good to hear. [00:00:53] Crystal Fincher: Yes. And it's now available in paperback. So pick it up wherever you pick up your books. Well, I wanted to start off by talking about news that broke... Well, kind of news. More news about Mayor Durkan's missing texts and missing texts from the mayor's office. The mayor knew for months, the office knew for months what was causing those texts to vanish. They were acting like it was a mystery, not sure what happened, but a review of messages and the fruit of public disclosure requests reveal that they've known the whole time because they did it. What did you think about this story? [00:01:27] Erica Barnett: Well, I mean, as you said, it's breaking news that's not really breaking. I mean, anybody reading these stories that have been coming out in The Seattle Times over the last few months is probably scratching their head going, "How could you just accidentally on purpose delete months of texts?" And of course it was done intentionally. I mean, it reminds me a little bit of like, when celebrities say something really inappropriate on social media and then claim that their Instagram was hacked or their Twitter was hacked. I mean, it was never a particularly believable excuse that somehow there had been a technical glitch that had conveniently deleted months of texts relating to the protests last summer. And as we're finding out more details, of course, it's coming out, that they were not believable because they were not true. So it's a real bummer for the city that they're going to have to be dealing with this and the city attorney's office is going to have to be dealing with this for months, if not years after Jenny Durkan leaves office, because there are more important things in the city to be handling. And the lack of disclosure and the decision to deny information to reporters, including myself, is going to have ramifications long after this particular mayor leaves office. I mean, I hope it ultimately leads to some stricter public disclosure requirements at the city. State has pretty good public disclosure laws, in my opinion and the problem is always in the implementation and in people taking them seriously or not. [00:02:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. It is. And whether people take them seriously and I'm still frustrated at the different levels of accountability that we hold our powerful privileged and some public officials to, this is a potential felony. Jenny Durkan, on purpose, changed a setting to cause those texts to automatically be deleted after a set period of time, which was not legal, which is a potential felony. This is a former federal prosecutor who is intimately familiar with disclosure requirements and rules. And I mean, there's a reason why a former federal prosecutor might be concerned about what things may look like if they got out and with an understanding of how to prevent the facts from getting out. This is a mayor who had to go through remedial disclosure training while during her tenure in the city. This is not an accident. This was completely on purpose. This has been a whole charade about, "Well, we're not sure. Who knows. We can probably find and recover this information," and it's so disappointing. It's already cost taxpayers over $200,000, and we're just at the beginning of this process and just... It is so infuriating, it's infuriating. It's frustrating. [00:04:14] Erica Barnett: Well, it's interesting too, the mayor's office. I mean, this information came to The Seattle Times through public disclosure requests. And my understanding at least, in my own personal experience is that the mayor's office is having to go back with a new person, doing these public disclosure requests and essentially redoing them to... And this is not just with regard to text messages, but also emails. I, last week, received some emails from the mayor's office that included her personal city email address, which I have never received a single email that I'm aware of, or that I can recall. It jumped out at me that, oh, all of a sudden, there's this huge batch of emails that has the mayor's actual direct email address on them that came to and from the mayor. I've never received those. Is that because this was just a coincidence that finally, when they were being done by someone working under duress and pressure that they actually turned them over, or is it just while she just never uses this address? I mean, I have no real way of knowing, except that now my public disclosure request responses look very different than they have for the previous three and a half years of this administration. [00:05:20] Crystal Fincher: I, again, just so frustrated. And part of my frustration is that some of this looked apparent. I mean, you certainly called attention to general obfuscation of facts, hiding information, unwillingness to speak to people who they didn't view as friendly to them or willing to carry their talking points. And I think now people... There've been so many mistakes and so many missteps that Durkan has few allies left anywhere, but we could have avoided some of this if the scrutiny that was applied to different officials certainly applied to the city council was applied to the mayor's office from the beginning. So I hope this is a lesson that people from all across the board from all sectors, from all areas pay attention to. Even if you feel like someone is an ally, you still have to hold them accountable. And wow. That just did not happen with Jenny Durkan and I'm thankful it is beginning to happen now. [00:06:22] Erica Barnett: Well, then the election is in just a few months. So we're going to have a new administration, and hopefully this will not continue into the next one. [00:06:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. This week there was a great story in The Seattle Times that reminded me of several stories that you've done on PubliCola, going deeper than just talking about yes, the homeless... We have more unsheltered people. The issue of homelessness is more apparent and present than it's been in our lifetimes. And the reason why people are on the street and not in shelter, sometimes even when shelter space is available is not a simple one. But there are legitimate reasons why people don't want to go to congregate shelter and it's because many of them feel and have experienced more danger in some of those congregate shelters than they have in encampments outside. You've reported on that. There were also shelter acceptance numbers released this week. What have you seen on that? [00:07:22] Erica Barnett: Well, I mean, I think that it should be self-evident to anyone just thinking about themselves and their own life. Just thinking about the way human beings are that, first of all, people don't like to... It is not desirable to sleep in a big room with no privacy, with no safety, with no guarantee that you're going to have a bed in the morning. So that's basic congregate shelter. The city of Seattle has largely moved away from that to enhanced shelter but what that is is slightly less congregate, generally dorm style rooms. You have a little bit of privacy, but I mean, that is still really less than ideal, particularly if you've experienced trauma or violence or had your stuff stolen, or even if you just can't be in a room full of people. For whatever reason, sleeping in a room full of strangers is not appealing to me. And frankly, I've thought about this a lot, if I became homeless myself, I would much rather have some privacy, some sense of safety in a group of people that I know, which is often the case with encampments. People get to know each other, they protect each other. They look out for each other. And so when the option then the city comes through and sweeps and encampment of, say, 30 people who all know each other, who all trust each other, and maybe don't trust anybody else because life has taught them not to trust people, and tells them, "You all have to go to different shelters across the city and you can't take your pets or you can't take your partner," because a lot of these shelters are sex segregated, "You got to get rid of all your stuff." It's not an appealing prospect. So the numbers that came out recently show that the shelter acceptance rate, which is an unfortunate term, because it implies you're accepting or rejecting an option that is great, which is really simplistic, but the shelter acceptance rate went up in this last quarter because people are going to the hotels the city has provided, and that's great. Hotels are a much better option than enhanced shelter. But I think that the city is touting it as this incredible achievement, but I think it really speaks more to the fact that the city failed for months and months and months to accept money and to open up shelters in hotels for people. And now, we have just 200 or shelter rooms in hotels for the thousands and thousands of unsheltered people in our city. So the fact that those hotels filled up is not something to be celebrated in an unadulterated way. It's great that some small, tiny percentage of people were able to move into them, but it is still a small, tiny percentage, and the city should've done more and could have done more, much, much, much earlier. And under the Durkan Administration, they chose not to. [00:10:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. and this has been a longstanding problem. It's one of those things that they announced a celebration. I'm sure Durkan is thinking about her legacy and trying to put a good spin on things before she makes her final exit from the mayor's office. But it reminds me of those stories that are presented as feel good stories, like this kid sells lemonade and raises $2,000 for his mom's cancer treatment. And it's just like that is not a happy story. That's a story of failure and burden and deep inequity. And this is what that reminds me of. Compared to the need, we were talking earlier, you mentioned the latest one night count number for unsheltered people in Seattle was around 5,500, and that's usually a dramatic undercount. So using that as a starting point, a very conservative figure, looking at the numbers that the mayor's office is touting is just so woefully insignificant when we do have information on what helps. And it does not escape my notice that what helped make a big dent in that was providing the hotel rooms, which the mayor's office dragged their feet on and didn't get a fee reimbursement for it. It just seems like it's been like pulling teeth to make any progress on the things that have data behind them that we know work. And it's like, "Oh, finally, I did the things that I've been resisting that you have been begging me to do that we know work. And whew, success." And it's just like, "We could be so much further along if you would've just done it sooner." [00:11:34] Erica Barnett: and I will say too, this really speaks to the oversimplification that Compassion Seattle, the homelessness initiative, is doing, because they're saying, basically, "We'll clear the streets." And by that, they primarily mean Downtown Seattle, which is where all their money is coming from. "And to do that, we're going to provide 2,000 shelter beds." It shows how little the backers of that understand about why people accept shelter and why people reject shelter. Again, I don't love those terms, but if you are going to do shelter on the cheap, which is what Compassion Seattle is essentially proposing, you're going to get shelter that people don't want. You're not going to be able to pay for 2,000 permanent or semi-permanent hotel rooms using that money, that Compassion Seattle is proposing to require the city to spend. It's not going to be enough money, and it can't be done that quickly. As we're seeing with the county, it takes time to buy hotels, et cetera. It's just, we have a very oversimplified idea in the city and probably in this country as well of what people actually need, because we think of people too much as just widgets we can stuff into boxes. As we've seen over and over again, they're not, and they have preferences and freewill and choices to make in their lives, just like everybody else. [00:12:58] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And make them just like we make decisions. As you pointed out, would any one of us be excited to spend the night in a room with no walls, with no doors, with a ton of people who we don't know, when we've heard others have had bad experiences in that situation? Absolutely not. That would wear on us after a short period of time. And we're asking people who already are dealing with challenges that are only intensified by being unsheltered to enter into a dangerous and destabilizing environment, and it just makes no sense. I do appreciate that Seattle Times article this week, we'll link it in the episode notes, for making that plain and for really talking about the reasons why what is offered does not fit the need and is actually not a fit or a solution for the problem there. And thank you for pointing out that Charter Amendment 29, known as the Compassion Seattle Charter Amendment, it doesn't provide enough time, it doesn't provide enough money, it doesn't enough shelter to begin to meaningfully address the challenges out there. The amount of shelter they say they're going to provide accounts for less than half of the very most conservative estimate of the need out there. So really, the only change that is definite and codified into the city charter is the ability to sweep people, which is what the financial backers of this initiative have been advocating for, and it's not a surprise that that is really the only thing with teeth and specificity in this initiative. And so I hope we have a more robust and full conversation about that generally throughout this general election time period. There is a lawsuit that the ACLU of Washington, How's Our Neighbors, they've sued that initiative, basically saying that it operates outside of the authority of a charter amendment and is getting into policy details that it is not authorized to do. We'll see how that pans out, but certainly I'm concerned that we're not paying attention to people saying, "This is actually what would help," the people who are most in the position to know what would actually help, and why things that are being offered aren't helping, and it's up to us to listen and respond. I also want to talk this week about a story that I think The Urbanist did a great job in breaking down, which was the 2021 primary precinct results. Now that we finalized where we are at in this election, we have the precinct by precinct results. They've mapped those results, and then also did a really smart analysis on just what that means. And what we see is something that's been familiar to us throughout several elections, where areas of Seattle that are more single-family exclusive, basically people who are well-to-do and wealthy, voted one way, people who are rent burdened voted a different way. And so this is a familiar looking map, but it also discusses also not just the population growth in Seattle, which I've talked about before as being a unique factor in elections here that we don't see in a lot of other areas, because there's been so much growth, even things that happen 5 and 10 years ago are unfamiliar to a significant portion of the population here, like Pete Holmes, his history, and what happened before Ed Murray, and all of that stuff may not be familiar to the tens of thousands of people who weren't here before then. And so, not just that Seattle has grown, but where that growth has occurred and what that suggests about potential voting patterns was discussed in this Urbanist article by Doug Trumm. What do those results look like to you? [00:16:40] Erica Barnett: Well, it feels like every two years or every four years we look at these maps, and it shows that if you have a view of the water, if you live in an exclusionary single-family area, you tend to vote more conservative. I mean, I do think your point is well taken, Crystal. The number of people who are moving here from elsewhere and don't have the same history is going to, eventually, one hopes, reshape our voter map in a more progressive direction. To bring it down to like a very wonky level, and I think this is where Doug took it too, if the city chooses not to do anything about the zoning problem, which is fundamentally a problem of being able to rent in Seattle and the ability of people like me and people who don't make $200,000 a year to live here, that is going to largely determine the course of our future elections. Bruce Harrell has said very, very clearly that he wants to preserve single-family zoning. And in fact, he of all the candidates in this primary election, he was the most clear on this one issue, which is that single-family zoning is extremely important to him and that he believes that we should only allow apartments along essentially car sewers, busy arterials, which is the current situation. And when you have that, what happens is there's not enough housing, people who make under $100,000 a year move out to Issaquah and vote Kathy Lambert out of office maybe, but they're not here to vote for progressive candidates or for more progressive candidates in Seattle elections. I really think that this issue, I mean, it's a bit of a sleeper issue amid all the discussion about homelessness, but it's very related. Lorena González who wants to eliminate the exclusionary single-family zoning map that we've had for many decades now, and Bruce Harrell wants to preserve it as it is with maybe a little bit more density right along those big busy streets. And that is a huge, huge decision that's going to shape the future of our city and who can afford to live here and call it home. [00:18:56] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely is huge and has been a big topic discussion throughout the mayoral race. Look like Bruce Harrell was initially a little bit more muddy on where he stood there, and certainly initially gave indications that he may be open to addressing exclusionary zoning. But as time moved on as we saw his donor list and the list to the PAC supporting him, you get filled with some of those more traditional, downtown conservative interests that talk crystallized on exactly what you said, "Hey, in areas that are already dense, we'll have them accept more density, but we're going to leave those exclusive previously red lined areas alone." And people keep remarking on maps of Seattle. Just like when there's a voting map and there's a map of health outcomes, when all these maps come out, they're really racial and income disparity maps. That's really what we're looking at with every single map that comes out. And unless we change that dynamic, fundamentally, overall, as many cities are doing, I mean, shoot, Olympia is moving in that direction. Portland, so, they're moving in that direction. Unless Seattle does that, we are not going to change this underlying dynamic, which impacts everything. So it's absolutely critical to focus on that issue, to understand where the candidates are. And there is a clear choice in this campaign between Bruce Harrell and Lorena González. And in my opinion, only one of them is offering a solution that will begin to break this disparity that we see over and over again, throughout every election and through so many issues. [00:20:37] Erica Barnett: Just to pinpoint another issue of racial justice, it's income, it's racial equity, but it's also I think more and more about environmental justice, the environmental justice impact of telling people they have to live on these busy streets. And not every arterial is like a zooming highway, but the fact is when you live on a busy roadway with cars on it all the time, your health outcomes are worse. And if you look at racial mapping of Seattle, if you look at income mapping of Seattle and you look at health mapping, it all correlates, and it's in those areas where people live on freeways, where they live along busy six-lane arterials that you see worse health impacts. And so, when we say that, "Oh, we should confine density to these specific areas," what we're also saying is we should confine disparate health impacts to certain areas. So I think for Bruce Harrell to be making that argument is really something people should be looking at and considering as they vote. [00:21:36] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. We're really saying we accept illness in these areas. We accept that we are going to force asthma and heart disease and lung disease in these areas. There are up to 10 years difference in life expectancy within different zip codes in Seattle, primarily due to environmental impacts and racial disparities that we see with that. There's been great data that's come out of the University of Washington over the past several years about this, but it is not minor. And again, we're talking about years of someone's life. Just thinking about how impactful that is, it is unacceptable. And the reason why this doesn't happen in other neighborhoods is because they have the resources to fight for something and to really move the levers of power and get listened to when they find something unacceptable. It's not an accident that this is not happening in affluent areas. What we should be looking to do is say, we deserve every opportunity to be healthy and to thrive as the people who can afford to today. And things are going to have to change in order to make that happen. [00:22:45] Erica Barnett: Absolutely. [00:22:47] Crystal Fincher: Now, another issue that is major, that there was a story about in Crosscut this week is about the rent relief being slow to reach tenants. We talked about this on the show with Rep. Debra Entenman, and she talked about the issue of some landlords being uncooperative through this process. Additionally, in this process, there are bureaucratic barriers that we're seeing. And we've had this long conversation over the past year-plus about the eviction moratorium and how critical that is to keep people in their homes. And, if you ask me, that was absolutely necessary. But that's always been a temporary solution. The only thing that's going to help is getting money in the hands of people or canceling debt, to account for these big rent balances that have been accumulating throughout the pandemic. The only thing that is going to fix this are these programs in this relief, like King County and other counties are in charge of administering. There's a significant amount of money available that can help thousands and thousands of people at risk of being evicted, but that help has been extremely slow to get out to tenants. And this is something that I hope we collectively pay attention to, shine a light on, put pressure on people to do more, to work faster, because this is the difference between people staying in their homes and getting evicted, and that the ability for landlords to evict people is coming up again soon. So if we don't get this money out, we're going to see some of the negative outcomes that we've been working so hard to fight for this long. What were your takeaways from reading the article and looking at this issue? [00:24:19] Erica Barnett: Well, I think you're right. I mean, the eviction moratorium does have to be, it is inherently temporary and I suppose it can just be extended again and again while they work out all these problems. But rent assistance, I mean, this is something we should learn from the pandemic, I think. It's better to find a way to pay people rent assistance than to let them get evicted and become part of the homeless population on our streets, which we have a lot more trouble dealing with than just paying people's rent. And so, if we can't set up these systems where the money gets to people through a less bureaucratic and a less time-consuming. So I mean, the problem seems to be, and I'm just reading the same article as you, but the problem seems to be a problem of bureaucracy, tracking people down, getting the money from the feds, to the county, to the agencies, to the people. And if we can't set up a system where this works efficiently at the end of this process, then the next time there is a big crisis, or arguably in the ongoing crisis that is the lack of affordable housing and a lack of affordability of this region, we're going to be screwed. I mean, I have always said that, and it is not just me, it is data supported that the best thing to do for people who are rent burdened is to help them stay in their homes by giving them money. And so, I would like to see out of this pandemic a more permanent system of doing that so that we don't have the homelessness crisis just continue to get bigger and bigger. Just the stress of dealing with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I've been in debt in the past, without my housing being at risk, and it is incredibly stressful. And my heart goes out to all the people that are struggling with just the stress of that. I mean, even if the outcome in the end is that they get the money that is coming to them, I mean, it's a human tragedy beyond the level of people getting evicted and becoming homeless. I mean, it's a human tragedy that people are having to deal with the amount of stress that is caused by the situation that they did not cause, which is a global pandemic and unemployment and everything that we've seen over the last year and a half. [00:26:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah absolutely, and I appreciate you mentioning that and bringing that up as someone who has also been both broke before, housing unstable, it is tremendously stressful. And there's also been a lot of research that's come out about that over the past few years, about just how much that toll, on top of everything else, takes on your health and wellbeing and ability to even function. That only gets worse if we allow people to then become unhoused. It becomes more expensive for us to publicly deal with it, the health and personal outcomes are certainly more pronounced and severe. And so we have to do everything in our power. And I hope, as Dow Constantine is working through this, these are primarily county issues, that he takes a laser focus on getting this money out to the people who need it. And a lot of it looks like, hey, people have a checklist that they're working on. They've got to tick down the checklist and, oh, there's a problem here, and we can't continue. One organization was rejecting around 75% of applications because they couldn't track people down, they didn't get all the information. That, to me, seems like a signal to go back, to take a look at the checklist and look at how you can work through those barriers, to get the resources to people who need them, how appropriate it is to have those barriers in the first place, and do we need more feet on the street, resources allocated to getting beyond those without just saying, "Well, we can't help." This is a crisis. This is a crisis. And we have to treat it like one and rise to the occasion with the appropriate allocation of resources and attention and energy. So we will certainly be following along with that. We thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, August 20th, 2021. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng and our wonderful cohost today was Seattle political reporter and founder of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett, that's Erica with a C, and on publicola.com. And you can buy her book Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse and Recovery, wherever you like to buy books. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type Hacks & Wonks into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. While you're there, leave a review, it really helps us out. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com, and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in, we'll talk to you next time.

12PM - The Big Lead // More from Durkan, Brandi Kruse chat // Little girl's "viral" letter about masks at school / Cops have to share their socials // Inflation skyrockets // GUEST: Bellingham Peace Health Nurse Nancy, organized a walk out pushing back on vaccine mandates for healthcare workers // Psaki on the Taliban takeover See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2PM - The Big Lead // Q13's Brandi Kruse w/ Mayor Durkan today // Awesome Audio of the Day See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mayor Durkan and Chief Diaz response to shootings Councilmembers Lewis and Herbold response to shootings Community investments & Police Staffing #Breathe4Kaloni Baseball Beyond Border | Students of the Game

Hanna Scott on the backlog of cases at King County Superior Court // Chris Sullivan's Chokepoint -- how to use the new ramp meters at the 167 to 405 merge in Renton // Hanna Scott on Mayor Durkan and Chief Diaz addressing the spike in gun violence // Dose of Kindness -- friends at a funeral home // Gee Scott on the Jan 6th congressional hearing // David Fahrenthold live on the politics of the Jan 6th hearing/ the 2024 race for the White House See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2PM - The Big Lead // GUEST: Karlos Dillard, the man who says a white man confronted him at an Edmonds restaurant that resulted in the misidentification of a Seattle man resulting in his business being doxxed // Mayor Durkan on Seattle gun violence // Awesome Audio of the Day See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join Crystal and recurring guest host Heather Weiner to go over the news this week, including R-90 (the comprehensive sex-ed referendum on your ballot) and whether or not we ought to trust Mayor Durkan's proposals for "reimagining the police." Added bonus: hear Heather say the word "pablum."

Crystal is joined by returning rotating co-host Michael Charles to discuss this week's triumph of the Seattle City Council over Mayor Durkan's budget veto, and how this year's election is shaking up Washington State politics.

Last week was a huge week for the Seattle City Council: They overrode Mayor Durkan's budget veto, which re-balanced the budget away from policing and toward community programs. Councilmember Tammy Morales was at the fore of that effort. So what's coming next? How does Seattle move forward in 2021, toward a more inclusive future?

This week Crystal and rotating guest co-host Erica Barnett dive into how Covid 19 and our poor air quality have affected those experiencing homelessness, and how our elected leaders have either improved or exacerbated the situation. Additionally, they get into fare enforcement on transit, the continuing budget fight between the Seattle City Council and the mayor, and the recall petitions coming for Councilmember Sawant and Mayor Durkan.

Rotating co-host Ashley Archibald of Real Change joins Crystal to recap what happened this week, including Seattle City Council budget talks, whether or not Mayor Durkan has a plan, and the resignation of Merrick Bobb.

In tonights episode I discuss why I am fasting today and how much fun it was being accused of working with white supremacists, again. I interview my pick for WA Secretary of State Kim Wyman about the challenges of campaigning and guaranteeing that every vote counts, plus I get some advice for those of you seeking passports I interview Tim Eyman for Governor about his effort to recall Mayor Durkan and more In Hidden Gems, I review the Netflix show Fear City --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ari-hoffman/support

Over our break for Pride month, there were weeks of protests against police violence and for justice for George Floyd. Since it was Pride month as well, those who are both black and LGBTQ+ in our community felt the moment even more intensely. This week, we talk to three black activists and performers, from Dominique Stevens Stephens (Drag King, Mayor Durkan's Senior External Affairs Liaison ) to Thaddeus (performer, host, songwriter) and to the inimitable Adra Boo (Fly Moon Royalty, Hotels).Dominique Stephens @ 8:50Thaddeus @ 27:40Adra Boo @ 50:46

Hanna Scott on Mayor Durkan's proposal for dealing with "vehicle ranchers" // Chris Sullivan's Chokepoint -- Tacoma's new I-5 ramp meters // Dose of Kindness -- an especially generous Uber driver // Maura Dooley on Colin Kaepernick's job hunt/ Women's soccer pay // Hanna Scott on the statewide Affirmative Action referendum on our November ballot // Rachel Belle on "ghost restaurants"

Chris Sullivan's Chokepoint -- loop detectors! // Julie Rovner on the continued erosion of the Affordable Care Act // Sports Insider Danny O'Neil on UW baseball/ Mariners v Yankees // Glen Weyl, author of Radical Markets, on creating a perpetual national housing auction // David Fahrenthold live on the Trump charity civil case/ immigration policy // Hanna Scott on Mayor Durkan's plans for homelessness and education

Hanna Scott on Mayor Durkan's latest homelessness proposal // Chris Sullivan's Chokepoint -- double whammy weekend of I-5 and Hwy 2 closures // Colleen O'Brien's dose of kindness -- stranger pays for $200 in purchases at Target // Sports Insider Danny O'Neil on the 4th straight Warriors-Cavs finals/ Mariners cool off just a bit // Pamela Falk live on the Babchenko affair