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From a preschool teacher newly inspired to invest at 73 to a lifelong Fool whose Microsoft shares became a 500-bagger, this year-end Mailbag brims with transformational stories. Listeners wrestle with rebalancing versus “never sell,” explore “layering in and out” of big winners like Tesla, and reflect on optimism as both delicate and powerful. David highlights multigenerational lessons—like gifting You Have More Than You Think to a nephew-turned-advisor—and celebrates that it's never too late to start making smarter, happier, and richer choices. This holiday season, embrace the joy of learning from each other, fueling a Foolish momentum into 2025.   Host: David Gardner Producer: Desirée Jones   Companies mentioned: AMZN, CSCO, MELI, META, MIDD, MRK, MSFT, NFLX, NVDA, RCL, SBUX, SHOP, SQ, TMDX, TSLA, WM, WMT

We have new leaders in the Prem as North Middlesex take over the reins. Elsewhere there were a plethora of low-scoring, high-drama affairs; Southgate bounce up to second in Div 1, Harrow suffer their first defeat of the season in Div 2. London Tigers continue their fine form in Div 3, Bessborough and NL Muslims surge away in Divs 4 and 5. It's as tight as ever in Div 6, though. Do tune in to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stock Analysis Report for Middleby (MIDD). Value investing with D'ron Forbes is a household tradition across America. We only do episodes on quality companies that we believe have a strong outlook and are in a healthy financial position. The Equity Channel provides the highest quality stock market analysis to individual investors. The Equity Channel by Division One Finance is where value investors come to stay up to date with what's going on in the stock market and the economy. Follow @D1Finance on Twitter and Instagram for more frequent stock research and analysis.

We hope you've filled out your bracket because we're back with the second match of the March Market Cap Madness Final Four. Today it's the OG, Matt Argersinger up against the globetrotter, Bill Mann! Who will make it to next week's final? You will, Fool! Companies discussed: ELF, MIDD, CCL, ABNB, BRC, EBAY, CRNC, KLG, PAC, BBW Host: David Gardner Guests: Bill Mann, Matt Argersinger Producer: Rick Engdahl

On this topical show re-air, Crystal learns about north King County's innovative new Regional Crisis Response (RCR) Agency with its inaugural Executive Director Brook Buettner and Kenmore Mayor Nigel Herbig. Following national guidelines and best practices for behavioral health crisis care, a five-city consortium established RCR in 2023 as part of a vision to provide their region with the recommended continuum of behavioral health care - which includes someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go. Executive Director Buettner and Mayor Herbig share how the program grew out of a need for a person-centered mobile crisis response, rather than the traditional law enforcement response which is often without the right tools or expertise for the job. They describe the collaborative process of getting buy-in from police agencies, electeds, and city staff to design a service that has evolved from the RADAR co-response program to approaching a 24/7 behavioral health first response. Finally, they cover impressive early results in cost-savings & outcomes and offer advice to other cities looking to bring similar solutions to their own communities. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Mayor Nigel Herbig at @nigelherbig.   Brook Buettner Brook Buettner is inaugural Executive Director of the groundbreaking Regional Crisis Response Agency, which deploys services to people experiencing behavioral health crisis in the North King County community. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and an experienced human services professional with a focus on policy advocacy and program implementation for high-needs populations. During her two decade-long career, she has been focused on transforming systems to meet the needs of individuals who are high utilizers of both criminal legal and health and human services systems. Ms. Buettner holds Masters in Public Administration and Social Work from the University of Washington. Mayor Nigel Herbig Nigel grew up in the Seattle neighborhood of Wallingford, attended Seattle Public Schools, and graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Political Science and Comparative Religion. Nigel and his wife, Tiffany, decided to move to Kenmore when their daughter was a baby as they were looking for a great place to raise their daughter where they could purchase their first home. They have never regretted that decision. Nigel has worked in broadcasting, fundraising, and politics. He currently works at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. Mayor Herbig represents the Council on the Eastside Transportation Partnership (Vice Chair), and the Sound Transit SR 522 Bus Rapid Transit Elected Leaders Group. He also sits on the King County Affordable Housing Committee.   Resources The Regional Crisis Response Agency | City of Kirkland   “RCR Agency Welcomes Brook Buettner as Executive Director” from City of Kirkland   National Guidelines for Behavioral Health Crisis Care - Best Practice Toolkit Executive Summary | SAMHSA   The North Sound RADAR Program | City of Shoreline   King County Outcome Data for North Sound RADAR Navigator Program   “RADAR: Response Awareness, De-Escalation, and Referral Final Evaluation Report” prepared by the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy Department of Criminology, Law & Society at George Mason University   “North King County cities will broaden mental-health response to 911 calls” by Amy Radil from KUOW   “New Crisis Response Center in Kirkland to Serve North King County” from City of Kirkland    “$500k grant from DOJ to help reduce use of police force in North King County” by Hannah Saunders from Bothell-Kenmore Reporter   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. Today, I am very excited to be welcoming Mayor Nigel Herbig - he is the mayor of Kenmore. And Brook Buettner, who's the Executive Director of Regional Crisis Response - a collaboration for a mental health alternative response between the cities of Kenmore, Kirkland, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, and Bothell that's really innovative and I think a number of cities are looking at this in the region - want to just explore what this is. So starting out with Brook, how did you get involved in this work and what interested you in this? [00:01:27] Brook Buettner: Thanks, Crystal - I'm so happy to be here with you. So my background is that I'm a licensed clinical social worker and I also have a background in public administration. And most of my social work career has been in service of folks that have chronic behavioral health conditions, are living homeless, and then have some overlap with the criminal legal system - either with the police, or with having multiple charges around poverty, or around homelessness. So this is a really exciting program for me to be able to be involved in. [00:01:54] Crystal Fincher: Excellent. And Nigel, as mayor of Kenmore, what got you involved in this particular program and work? [00:02:00] Mayor Nigel Herbig: First, I want to start off by saying that I'm a long-time listener, and I'm excited to be here, Crystal - so thank you for having me. Kenmore entered into this work back in - I want to say 2017 or 2018 - when we joined with other cities and King County MIDD funds and started the RADAR program, which was a co-response model across parts of North King County to give folks other ways to have service calls responded to - without the only response being a police response, because I think we all recognize that a solely police response is not always the right answer and is not always in the best interest of everybody involved. And we did that successfully for a few years. And then in 2021, we started larger conversations with the cities of Bothell, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, and then we reached out to Kirkland also, about expanding what we were doing with RADAR and making it into a larger regional model. And so our staff and our councils worked for about a year and a half trying to figure out how that would all work. And what we ended up doing was folding the North King County's RADAR Navigator program with Kirkland's Community Responder program to form a new entity that's regional in nature, is going to have a lot more resources, will be operating more hours during the day - I think we're aiming towards 24/7, I don't think we're quite there yet - and will really be a resource for folks who are experiencing, or decompressing in public, or having some sort of other issues so that they'll get a response that actually meets them where they're at. And gets them help immediately rather than the other alternatives, which are the ER or jail - both of which we know are not ideal for anybody who's experiencing either an issue with drug addiction or a mental health issue. So yeah, it's exciting to see multiple cities all coming together to recognize the issue and working together - 'cause as individual cities, there's no way that we could have done this - little Kenmore could've never done this on our own. But working with other cities, we're gonna be delivering something that I think will be meaningful to folks who are experiencing issues out in the field, and I think we'll be getting better outcomes for everybody. And I think that's something we're very excited about. [00:04:00] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. You talk about how challenging this is for individual cities to address and to deal with. I do think it's notable that there was an attempt, a recognition by Kenmore that this was something that needed to be tackled. There was the RADAR program, previously in place, that you just mentioned - this was built on top of and leveraged with the region. How did the discussions go with the region? How did you get buy-in for taking this collaborative approach? And how did you work through the design of the program? How did that work, Brook? [00:04:34] Brook Buettner: We're very lucky in North King County that there was already a great deal of support for alternatives to police response for people in crisis. As you mentioned, the commitment to the RADAR Navigator program that had been going on for about four years prior to this conversation and showing really successful outcomes for folks. And across our elected officials, our police leadership, and our community, there was a strong commitment to doing things in a new way for people in crisis. And so it was a matter of not having to bring people on board, but just discussing what's our shared vision - what do we want our community to look like and how are we gonna get there? And so it was a big lift for city staff to come up with the agreement, the interlocal agreement, that governs this entity - but it was done pretty quickly in my experience and very well to where we have a strong and robust infrastructure to start really offering these alternative services to folks in crisis. [00:05:29] Crystal Fincher: Nigel, what advice would you give to other cities working through this process right now in terms of figuring out the agreements that are going to govern these collaborative approaches, getting buy-in from various stakeholders? How did that work in your experience and what guidance would you give other folks working through this? [00:05:48] Mayor Nigel Herbig: I think part of what made things work, where we are in North King County, was the fact that we'd already been partnering with other cities with RADAR. But we also have other regional models that we're used to - we're used to doing regional collaboration around here. Kenmore is part of ARCH, which is a regional coalition for housing - which is a multi-jurisdictional affordable housing developer that covers kind of Kenmore and then down to the Eastside. And so we're very used to working in a collaborative manner with our neighbors to address issues that we really can't do, again, by ourselves - we can do affordable housing, but it's very hard for a smaller city, right? It's a lot easier if people are pooling things together. So we already had those models that we were familiar with, which I think really helped some of the conversations - 'cause Kirkland's also part of ARCH, I think Bothell is too. So we're starting from a place where we understand how these models work. I think having trust between the cities is important also. We have good relationships with - I have good relationships with my colleagues in Kirkland and in Bothell and Lake Forest Park and Shoreline - I think that's helpful. And then also having staff that's willing to really dig into the details and work collaboratively with their colleagues is important. A lot of this came out of the fact that - and I think we all recognize this - the state and the county have largely been underfunding our mental health response for a long time. And even on our council, there was some pushback to - this should be a county response, this should be the county's responsibility. And I don't completely disagree with that assessment either, but I think we all recognize that something had to be done. And at the end of the day, sometimes cities just have to step up and figure out a way forward. And it's nice to see five cities coming together to work together towards a solution, while we try to figure out the larger long-term solutions that are truly regional and even statewide, frankly. [00:07:25] Crystal Fincher: So can you walk me through what your most frequent calls look like, feel like, what that process is? I think for a lot of people - they're familiar with the concept of alternative response, they're familiar with how important it is, and understanding that police can't do everything and they are not the most effective response for every kind of crisis - so having a tailored response that is most appropriate and most effective is really helpful. How, as you work through this, what does a typical call look like? What does a typical day look like? [00:07:58] Brook Buettner: In crisis, of course, there's no typical call or no typical day. But we are looking to deploy social workers or mental health professionals on any 911 call that comes in that has some identified component of behavioral health. So that's mental health, or substance use, or some social service need like a homelessness component, a family dynamic issue where it could be helpful to have a social worker there. And then the social workers - we call them crisis responders - the crisis responders are going either in the car with the police officer, or when possible in an independent vehicle and meeting the police officer on the scene. And we are stepping more and more in our community into the space of two crisis responders going to - responding to the scene - without a first responder. And that is really what we call the alternative response model. And it can be anything from somebody that has called 911 because they themselves, or somebody that they care about, is suicidal - has made suicidal statements or gestures. Or someone that is in a community space and is having mental health symptoms or substance use-driven symptoms that are causing them to be troubling to the other folks in that environment. To, like I said, family dynamics where someone calls 911, for example, because their teenager is so agitated and escalated that they become violent. And our crisis responders are very, very good at identifying what's going on, deescalating folks, bringing them down to a level of calm where they can talk through what's underlying the crisis. And then the crisis responder's job is to figure out what to bring to bear on the situation to alleviate the immediate crisis and then connect the person to the system of care so that they don't fall into crisis again. [00:09:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it looks like you've structured the program on best practices for the continuum of behavioral health care starting with having someone to call - we have our 988 line, someone to respond - these crisis responders, and then having somewhere to go once it's determined where the appropriate place is for them to receive the help that they need. Especially when it comes to that somewhere to go, we just passed a county-wide behavioral health center levy that will fund a number of those services and staff. But that's been a big challenge in our region. How have you navigated through this in the program, Nigel, and how's it working? [00:10:14] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Well, I'm really excited. I mean, Kenmore and our partner cities - we're actually out ahead of King County a little bit and had been working in partnership for - I don't know, a little while now, I think going back to 2021 - really reflecting on the lack of a door for people to go to, a place for people to go to when they're in crisis. And working together, we identified funds and we identified a location, we identified our provider, and we will be opening up the first crisis response center for North King County. And again, it's the same cities - it's Kenmore, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, Bothell, and Kirkland - and we're excited to have this model here. They selected Connections Health Solutions, which is a national innovator in the space. They've done a lot of great work in Arizona, and that model is also what I believe the executive based his models off of. And they should be opening up next year, and it's gonna offer a place for people who are facing any sort of mental health issue or behavioral health issue - a place where they can go and actually talk with somebody, regardless of insurance, regardless of where they live, or any of that. It'll give people a place to go, which right now is severely lacking throughout the county. [00:11:23] Crystal Fincher: What happens when there is no place to go? [00:11:26] Brook Buettner: I can kind of speak to that. So in the past, when we encountered someone in the field in crisis, the options were either that they stay where they are, that they go to the emergency department, or an arrest and jail - if it's not safe for them to stay in the community setting or in the home where they are at - safe for themselves or safe for the people around them. And this allows us an alternative to say - Maybe the emergency department is not the right place, and certainly jail is not the right place for somebody in deep behavioral health crisis. We're gonna take them somewhere that we know will accept them, we know will allow them to stay, will provide robust psychiatric and behavioral healthcare, and do discharge planning so that they're walking out with a plan and a connection to ongoing care. Connections, in particular, has a model that has multiple levels of acuity and step-down so that if somebody comes in at the highest acuity, they're in one setting. And as they deescalate, as they get different treatment on board or medications on board, they can step down to a lower acuity setting and even to an outpatient model while they wait to get hooked up with the local behavioral health system of care. And Crystal, you mentioned the behavioral health continuum of care, and I love that you brought that up because this is - North King County is about to have, kind of the first in our state, fully-executed crisis continuum of care when this facility opens up and it's super exciting. [00:12:44] Crystal Fincher: It's very exciting and so necessary. And I appreciate you all doing the work to get this implemented to be a model for the region. Other areas are looking at this - some areas are eager to adopt this and have public safety agencies, police agencies that are willing partners. Others have some concerns and there's almost a concern of - Okay, is this competition for us? Are they looking to move us out? What feedback have you heard from law enforcement officials, and how have they said it's impacted their job and the work that they have to do? [00:13:19] Mayor Nigel Herbig: To be honest, I haven't heard anything negative from our police partners - Kenmore, like Shoreline, contracts with the King County Sheriff's Office - they've been great partners in this. I think our chief is always looking for better ways to interact with folks who are in crisis and this gives him another tool. This gives him more resources to address the problem at hand, rather than only having law enforcement resources to fall back on - and I think he views that as a positive. So I have not heard any pushback from our law enforcement community up in North King County around this, and I think they're looking forward to using this as a resource and being partners in this. [00:13:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. For years and years - going back a decade and more - have heard several officers, chiefs talk about how challenging it is to respond to calls where there's a behavioral health component, or there isn't any illegal activity per se but someone is clearly in crisis, or people are being impacted around them and an intervention needs to take place but a criminal or a legal intervention doesn't seem to be the most positive. Brook, what have you heard from officers who have co-responded on these, or who are looking forward to a complete alternative response? How are they saying it's impacting their work and their ability to do their job? [00:14:37] Brook Buettner: We have been extraordinarily lucky in North King County that we've had support from law enforcement leadership since the get-go. Law enforcement was who asked for this program initially five years ago, saying these are not the kind of calls that we're supposed to be on - we need help, we need support. And so it has been a journey to get all of the responding officers - patrol officers and deputies - socialized to this idea. But once an officer or a deputy sees it in action, it's an easy sell. So what we find is that the more interaction we are having with law enforcement, the more referrals we're getting because they see - wow, that works - or we'll let them know that the follow-up that we did ended up keeping somebody from falling into deep crisis again. And it becomes a really good alternative for them and a good tool in their tool belt. I also am really attentive to making sure that we maintain good relationships on a one-on-one basis with all of our law enforcement partners, so that it's not a pain to have a social worker along but rather a pleasure - to say we're a great team, we work well together. Both sides recognize that each role has something to bring to a highly escalated crisis situation, and both sides recognize where their limits are. And so it's just been a constant growth of support and of buy-in. I've heard from several chiefs that they see shift in the culture - in the willingness to talk about behavioral health in a new way among the community and also within the department - that it opens up conversations that otherwise may not have happened. So it has really been a positive for our five police agencies. [00:16:05] Crystal Fincher: I think that is really an outstanding observation. And strikes me as important, especially as we hear from several police agencies across the state really that they're trying to recruit, they're short on officers, they're having a tougher time on that - and needing to triage their time and resources, and response times being impacted, other things that they're saying are being impacted. How can this help manage the workload for officers and across the public safety continuum? How has that been working? [00:16:34] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Speaking for Kenmore, our officers, right - until we had RADAR in place and until we had these partnerships - if somebody was out on the street decompensating, yelling, screaming, doing something like - like you said earlier, that's not illegal, but is disruptive to the community and the person is obviously in crisis - the only response we had was a police response. And I think even our officers recognize that there are better ways for them to be spending their time than dealing with somebody who's decompensating. It's not what they were hired for, it's not what their expertise is in. And this gives them a tool so that they can - working with the social workers - find what the right response is, hand off the person to the social worker, and then get back to catching speeders or investigating break-ins or whatever it is that they could be doing rather than dealing with the guy who is having a breakdown. So I view this as actually an expansion of our response, if you will - it gives us the ability to respond to more calls on both sides of things, both law enforcement and people experiencing a crisis. [00:17:38] Crystal Fincher: How have you seen that play out, Brook? [00:17:40] Brook Buettner: It is absolutely allowing officers to focus more on life safety and law - criminal law issues - by kind of carving off this segment of the work that comes into the 911 system and routing it to the appropriate resource, the right tool at the right time. I see what we're doing as a third kind of branch of the first response system. Going back again to the continuum of care, the level of care that someone gets should be based on the acuity of their need and of their crisis. And we have outpatient behavioral health for folks that have behavioral health challenges that are at a low acuity level. We have other systems in place that are secondary responses for people that are in crisis. And when people are in very high acuity crisis and 911 is needed, we now have this first response behavioral health tool in our toolbox - that crisis responders that are skilled and trained and experienced in meeting people that are in the highest acuity level of behavioral health crisis, but still not committing a crime. So it is a 911 call - it's not necessarily a law enforcement need, but there is a need for a very high level response - and we're now able to provide that. [00:18:47] Crystal Fincher: Did you have anything to add, Nigel? [00:18:49] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Well, I was gonna say - I think a lot of this came out of the recognition that we've seen over the last 150 years that when your only response is a police response, the outcomes are not ideal. We have seen too many folks who are dealing with a mental health issue - and that is a huge section of our population - it's not something we talk about, but a huge proportion of folks are dealing with some sort of mental health issue. And just because somebody is having a very hard day doesn't mean that they should end up in jail or be put at risk, frankly, of a police interaction. We know that sometimes those interactions can turn out tragically. And being thrown into jail or worse, because you're experiencing a mental health issue, can ruin somebody's life or - and frankly, can ruin not only their lives, but also their kids' lives. When we enter somebody into the criminal justice system, it has long-lasting effects on not just the person impacted, but also their family, their kids, their kids' kids - it can have multigenerational effects on people. And we've seen that play out over the last, well, 50, 100 years. This gives folks, this gives our police officers a different response. And I think it's - that's what I'm excited about - I'm excited that people who are experiencing mental health issues can actually get the treatment they need rather than a pure law enforcement response, because nobody deserves to go to jail because they're having a breakdown. [00:20:12] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it's a shift in how we've been doing things. What are the results that you're seeing from this? Obviously, people are looking to justify these expenditures and implement these in their own areas. What results are you seeing when it comes to amount of calls, recidivism? I know in some other cities, they talk about how many calls come in about behavioral health issues that aren't someone breaking the law but that are someone in crisis, as you've talked about, and how much time that takes up, how many repeated calls those spur, and how much time that demands - just the amount, enormous amount, of resources that demands. How are you seeing that impacted and what results are you seeing from this program? [00:20:55] Brook Buettner: Directly to your question, Crystal, we don't have a lot of data yet on reduction in 911 calls, or 911 dispatch center or officer time. I do have some outcome data though that our King County partners were able to pull together for us for the RADAR Navigator program - that folks that were touched by the RADAR Navigator program - in two years following that program touch, we saw a 67% reduction in adult jail bookings. And that is a tremendous impact. We saw a 60% reduction in behavioral health crisis events. And that is measured by King County's Department of Community and Human Services who oversees the behavioral health system crisis response. They also experienced a smaller 4% reduction in emergency department visits. And of the folks that our program touched, 14% were subsequently enrolled in publicly funded behavioral health services. And I think that's a significant undercount because a lot of the folks in our community do have private pay insurance and so there would be no way to count that. But we know that interaction with this program results in a reduction in jail, a reduction in crisis services, and an increase in engagement with the behavioral health system. And those are all big wins. And to your specific questions, those are the kind of things we're gonna be looking at in our program analysis as we go on. How is this saving on 911 calls? How is this saving on officer time? My dream is that we capture the cost savings of reduction in jail nights and say - let's put that back into the earlier end of the continuum of care and fund diversion, and ultimately fund a robust system of community-based behavioral health care so that people don't fall into crisis. Again, I wanna say we're extraordinarily lucky that our electeds and our city staff are all so interested and committed to doing this kind of analysis and thinking in this way. [00:22:37] Crystal Fincher: Thanks - I appreciate that data, that information - it's really, really powerful. And what strikes me hearing that is that when you talk about being booked into jail, emergency room visits - these are the most expensive parts of our system to use and to utilize. And savings on these are incredible - I'm looking at that reduction in the jail number, and that is a budget-altering number right there. Pretty incredible. And I recognize this is a newer program - certainly you've done the work with the RADAR program, this predecessor, and getting the data there. I'm sure more will be rolling in as this continues and you move on, so that's great. Did you have something you wanted to add, Brook? [00:23:16] Brook Buettner: Yeah, just a thought that this is what we sometimes call a different purse problem - that each of these reductions affects a different financial system. And so part of our work is gonna be pulling together those cost offsets and making sure that the savings are redirected appropriately to meeting people's needs. [00:23:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that is such an incredible problem in the public sector - yeah, this is saving a billion dollars, but if that's spread across a ton of different budgets in different ways, it's a whole different animal than someone handing someone basically a rebate check for a billion dollars. As you look forward, you talked about moving forward and moving towards a program where it truly is an alternative response where there are one or two crisis responders who respond to these calls without law enforcement initially - they can certainly call them in if it's warranted or they need backup. How do you see this progressing with that change and beyond it? What are the plans? [00:24:14] Brook Buettner: First, I'll say that the primary challenge that stands between us and a pure alternative response system is the dispatch question - and the ability to understand when a 911 call comes in, what's really going on - and that is often not clear from a 911 call. So we really wanna work through this very carefully with all of our partners and make sure that we're doing the outreach in a way that's safe and appropriate, that meets people's needs, but also keeps our responders safe. And so that is probably my work for the next two years - is digging into - How do we do call receiving? How do we triage? And then how do we appropriately dispatch the right resource? I have kind of been moving from calling it alternative response to thinking of it as a behavioral health first response. Whatever - when someone is in behavioral health crisis - whatever resource is the right resource. And I can see, for example, that being a crisis responder plus an EMT when someone has or has stated that they will take too much medication - and that's a medical plus a mental health need. Whereas if there's maybe a weapon in play, then that's a law enforcement plus a mental health need. And so thinking of it as a first response system with all of the tools that we need available to our dispatchers. [00:25:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Nigel? [00:25:28] Mayor Nigel Herbig: I think something that Brook kind of glossed over a little bit - but I think is an important thing that we're gonna have to work out - is the fact that we're using multiple different police. We have different police forces, if you will, and different dispatch systems. So like I said earlier, in Shoreline and Kenmore you have King County Sheriff's Office and they're dispatched in one way. And then Lake Forest Park and Bothell, they have their own. And Kirkland, they have their own police officers and they're dispatched differently. And so it does create - it is a complication that I believe we'll work through. And I know with Brook's leadership, that'll get worked out - but it's not as straightforward as just having one dispatch system that we need to educate and get up to speed. [00:26:06] Crystal Fincher: How is this being funded? How much did you have to come up with as individual cities in this regional partnership? How is the funding talked about? Because this is something that has been kind of thorny when we look at the Regional Homelessness Authority, but with this collaboration, how does this work, Nigel? [00:26:25] Mayor Nigel Herbig: I can't get into what the specific numbers are we're spending - I do know it's more than what we were with RADAR. Part of that is because we're expanding things from - we're approaching 24/7 is part of the goal. Part of this is also funded by King County MIDD, the Mental - oh, I don't remember - [00:26:41] Crystal Fincher: I know - I always try to remember what MIDD stands for. [00:26:43] Brook Buettner: Mental Illness Drug Dependency. [00:26:45] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. [00:26:46] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Thank you, I was just digging around. [00:26:48] Crystal Fincher: Very, very useful. [00:26:50] Mayor Nigel Herbig: No, super useful - and they're the reason why we were able to do RADAR and test out, essentially test out the model, set the foundation for where we are now - is because of the MIDD funding. And we're very thankful to King County and Councilmember Dembowski for his help with that. Our expenses are definitely higher than they were in previous years with RADAR - there's no question around that, and it was part of our budget discussions last year. But I think it's something that we're all committed to because we do see the long-term payoffs - not just on our budgets, but frankly in outcomes - and all the councils seem fairly committed to that. So I believe that they - I wasn't involved in these negotiations, staff was - but I believe that they were negotiating based on population and number of hours that would be required to cover each jurisdiction, and then breaking up the cost and using some sort of formula that we all agreed to. Brook can probably speak a little bit more to that, but we got to a place where everybody was comfortable with the investments that we'd be making. [00:27:47] Crystal Fincher: Sure, Brook? [00:27:48] Brook Buettner: Yeah, so like Mayor Herbig said, the MIDD funding has been really foundational to piloting this as the RADAR Navigator Program and even to the expansion. We also have some funding through the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs' Trueblood dollars for Mental Health First, or Field Response teams. And we have had some support from the Association of Washington Cities. And then I'm so delighted that starting this year, we have general fund contribution from each of our five cities. It is per capita-based at this time. We have plans to really keep a close eye on utilization and think about whether some cities have higher utilization and that may affect their contribution rate. But I also have plans to get the payers on the hook for this as well. So when we talked about the wrong purse problem - a 4% reduction in emergency department visits is a big bonus for insurers and for the managed care organizations. And King County Department of Community and Human Services and the behavioral health services organization have been thinking about this as well. How do we get the private insurers to be picking up what they are supposed to be covering for their covered lives around crisis services? There are a couple of folks at the State Legislature that are really thinking carefully about this. And I see us as being kind of a test case outside the traditional behavioral healthcare system to be reimbursed by the health payers for this service that ends up with better outcomes and lower costs over time. [00:29:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. As we move to close this, what advice do you have to other cities approaching this? And what would you tell residents about why this is so useful and so important? [00:29:21] Mayor Nigel Herbig: I think I would advise other cities to take a look at their 911 calls, talk with their police officers - see what sort of calls they're responding to that maybe they're not the best equipped first responder for. I don't think police officers enjoy these sorts of calls on their own. I also think that you can point towards the outcomes that we will have around better results for the people involved, better results for the community, and frankly, cost savings at the end of the day when it comes to jail days and ER visits. And other cities might be big enough to do this on their own, which will make their lives a little bit easier and all of that. But I think other cities - and if you're looking in other parts of the county, there are places where there are multiple cities all right next to each other that could, if they wanted to, join together and do this sort of work. And I would encourage them to have those conversations and really ask themselves - What do they want the response to be when somebody calls 911 in crisis? Because I don't think anybody actually thinks the right answer is a person with a badge and a gun. And I think people need to really reflect on that, and really think about how they truly serve the people that they are working for, and make sure they're doing that in the best and most responsive and person-centered way possible. And this is, I think, a huge step in that direction. [00:30:36] Crystal Fincher: Any final words from you, Brook? [00:30:38] Brook Buettner: I love what Mayor Herbig said - just asking yourselves - What is it that we want people in crisis to get from our first response system? And then from my social-worky side, building relationships across jurisdictions and across sectors to bring - this is very complex - so to bring all the players to the table to offer the kind of response that people deserve when they're in crisis. [00:30:59] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you both to Brook Buettner, Mayor Herbig - sincerely appreciate you spending time with us today and helping to educate us on what's going on there in the north part of the County. And it's certainly a lot to reflect on and hopefully emulate moving forward. Thank you both. [00:31:16] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Thank you. [00:31:17] Brook Buettner: Thank you so much for having us. [00:31:18] 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.

White tie, tiaras and K-pop superstars made for a memorable banquet night in this week's State Visit. Queen Camilla, the Princess of Wales, Princess Royal and Duchess of Edinburgh were a picture of elegance, and every outfit came with a special slice of history. Pod Save the King host Ann Gripper is joined by Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers to relive the highlights, discuss its impact and lament some missed song and dance opportunities. They also reflect on Sarah Ferguson's latest TV gig, Kate's Children In Need opener and whether the Sussexes could be at Sandringham this Christmas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this Election 2023 re-air, Crystal chats with Sarah Reyneveld about her campaign for King County Council District 4 - why she decided to run, the experience she brings as a public sector attorney and community advocate, and her thoughts on addressing frontline worker wages and workforce issues, the need for upstream alternatives in the criminal legal system and substance use crisis, how to improve policy implementation, climate change and air quality, and budget revenue and transparency. 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 Sarah Reyneveld at @SarahReyneveld.   Resources Campaign Website - Sarah Reyneveld   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Hello, I'm so excited to be welcoming to the program today King County Council candidate, Sarah Reyneveld. Hello. [00:01:01] Sarah Reyneveld: Hello, Crystal. Thank you so much for having me today - I'm excited about the conversation. [00:01:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I guess just starting out - we have seen you run for State Legislature before. I'm wondering why you're choosing to run for the County now, and what do you hope to accomplish in that position? [00:01:18] Sarah Reyneveld: Yes, I think that King County Council and the King County is really at a critical point in time, and I'm excited to bring my lived experience as a working parent, a Seattle Public School parent, a transit rider, a union organizer - I helped organize my union of Assistant Attorney Generals - and also my experience as a public sector attorney who has fought for workers and our environment, and as a community advocate working with communities across King County to really make transformative change for workers, working families, and our environment on the King County Council. So for some background - in 2016, I became King County Councilmember Kohl-Welles' appointment to the King County Women's Advisory Board where I had the opportunity to work with communities throughout King County and the King County Council to help advocate for and secure investments in affordable housing, in behavioral health, childcare, and services to support survivors of gender-based violence. I started this work and became the Chair of the King County Women's Advisory Board before the pandemic - and I had two young kids at the time - and we had struggled like so many parents with access to affordable childcare, and the board at that time decided to take up that issue. So we worked on recommendations to expand childcare access for working parents and were able to work together with communities across King County, and the Executive, and King County Council to help reinstate a childcare subsidy, to expand access to childcare for working families, and establish a wage provider boost to help increase pay for childcare providers who are disproportionately women and BIPOC women and immigrants. And then the pandemic hit and I continued to do this work and it really laid bare - staggering inequities and injustices in King County that disproportionately impacted women and our communities of color and immigrants and other marginalized communities, who are more likely to be on the forefront and were experiencing disproportionately - unemployment and financial loss and illness. So as I continue to work on these issues, I saw what an important role King County played in not just responding to the pandemic and now the shadow pandemic, but in really providing public health, and behavioral health, and public transit, and helping with food security and housing. So I'm running for King County Council because I've been doing this work with community and I think the status quo is no longer good enough. We need bold and transformative action to really meet the urgency of this moment. We have a really unique opportunity to create a more equitable economy and a sustainable future for all workers and working families in King County. And I think that King County can and must do more - and my priorities are to create more truly affordable housing to help better meet the behavioral health needs of our neighbors in crisis, to really tackle the climate crisis and protect our environment for future generations, to provide accessible and frequent public transit for all, and to really look at what we can do to reimagine our public safety and criminal legal system. So I'm excited about the opportunity. [00:04:46] Crystal Fincher: I see. Now you covered a lot there. In there, you mentioned caring for workers, addressing housing. One thing called out by experts as a barrier to our homelessness response is that frontline worker wages don't cover the cost of living. Do you think our local nonprofits have a responsibility to pay living wages for our area? And how can we make that more likely with how we bid and contract for services? [00:05:10] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely think that our nonprofits have a duty to pay more in terms of adequately funding - not just contracts - but ensuring that those contracts lead to an equitable living wage and union jobs. And that includes cost of living adjustments and other supports for workers. So right now we have a really high turnover rate for frontline workers and particularly those workers that the County contracts with - I've heard 40-60% turnover rate. And I think we need to address the underlying issue of why those workers are turning over. And the underlying issue - one of them is pay equity and not ensuring that we are paying, particularly our frontline workers, adequately or providing them with the supports that they need. So it's about equitable pay, it's about cost of living adjustments, and it's about ensuring that those workers have access to affordable housing and transit in King County as well - so they can really afford to live where they work. And so I see this issue as very intersectional and something that King County can do more to address. And I would just say, generally, I think we as a society tend to lift up certain sorts of workers - the CEOs of companies, for example. And those people that are really doing the real work of caring for our community - of building our housing, of connecting us through transit, of providing behavioral health services - we don't invest equitably or sufficiently in those workers. And so starting with contracting is critically important, but we need to do more to ensure that we're investing in living wage jobs, and workforce housing, and bonuses, and ensuring that these workers have the supports that they need. And that is part of my vision for building back better and creating a more equitable economy that really centers workers and working families in King County. [00:07:13] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now, would you have voted to approve the transfer of inmates to the SCORE jail to alleviate a lot of the issues plaguing the King County Jail, including overcrowding, lack of water, inadequate healthcare, illnesses, understaffing? Would you have voted in the same way that the King County Council did? [00:07:31] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I want to start with just the conditions at the King County Jail. So the six deaths in 2022 in the downtown jail and kind of the subsequent ACLU lawsuit, I think, show that King County is failing too many criminally involved individuals, particularly our Black and Brown community members and those with chronic behavioral health and substance use issues. I am really concerned about what is happening in terms of inhumane conditions at the jail that include excessive use of solitary confinement, and lack of transportation to medical appointments and court appointments, and delays with mental health and other medical appointments. And I think King County, which is the oversight body of the King County Jail, needs to do more to address these concerns and ensure safety. And these really poor conditions at the jail didn't happen overnight. They are partially caused by lack of adequate staffing - that's been an issue for decades and was exacerbated since COVID. And also issues with an antiquated, really obsolete building. And lack of access to medical care and treatment, as I was stating. So on the King County Council, if elected, I want to work with disproportionately impacted communities and fellow King County Councilmembers to urgently address these issues. I think we need to invest more in restorative justice. And when the King County Council took that vote in terms of transferring those incarcerated folks to SCORE, I think they noted that we need to do more in terms of investing in restorative justice and upstream alternatives to really reimagine our criminal legal system. So first I think we need to prevent and reduce incarceration through investing in upstream - investments in youth and vulnerable adults. And that means doing more to expand effective diversion programs, such as the Law Assisted Diversion Program and Co-LEAD, which has been really effective in diverting folks out of the criminal legal system and out of the King County Jail to begin with. I think we also need to move towards actualizing King County Executive's vision and so many activists' vision of really closing the downtown jail and reimagining and reducing the size of the King County facilities. So in terms of the SCORE vote, I don't think either option were good options. The King County Council arrived at that vote because there had not been enough, really, work done on restorative justice and on the underlying issues around staffing and overcrowding at the jail. And I think keeping vulnerable incarcerated people in a downtown jail that had significant understaffing and overcrowding issues and a lack of access to medicine, or transferring incarcerated people to a facility that had potentially access-to-justice issues is not - neither one of those are good options. And so that's why I want to roll up my sleeves and ensure that we're really investing sufficiently in diversion programs and alternatives - to invest in folks to prevent them from becoming incarcerated in the first place and also move towards reimagining our system. And I will say that I don't think King County Council can address this issue alone. In 2022, there were over, I think, 100 people in King County Jail that were deemed to be incompetent to stand trial in King County that were awaiting a treatment bed. So if we work with our state partners to really fund mental health and ensure treatment for vulnerable populations like this, then we won't have to make these sort of decisions. [00:11:00] Crystal Fincher: So am I hearing that you would not vote - disagreeing with this vote? If in the future a vote were to come up to extend or expand this SCORE transfer or transfer to other jails, does that mean you're a No vote on that? [00:11:13] Sarah Reyneveld: I think that we need to, like I said, invest in alternatives and upstream alternatives to the criminal legal system. So like Councilmember Zahilay and Councilmember Kohl-Welles said - the transfer to SCORE was really not addressing the root cause of the issue. We need to be investing in upstream alternatives and staffing and ensuring that folks within our system are safe. [00:11:36] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now you talked about substance use disorder being so key in treating upstream issues to really address the root causes of what is leading people to criminal behavior. We're dealing with a conundrum. The governor just called a special session following our State Supreme Court invalidating personal substance possession as a crime. Our Legislature took action a couple of years ago to recriminalize it - that has a sunset provision. They were not able to decide on any statewide policy before the session ended, so they're going to be taking that up in a special session. There are conversations about - should drug use be criminalized at all? If it should, is it a misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor, felony? Where do you stand? Where should personal possession of substances be dealt with? How would you handle that? [00:12:27] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think this is an issue that the Legislature has been grappling with and it's really an important issue. And I think we need to be moving away from criminalization of drug possession. Specifically, we moved away from criminalization of drug possession for marijuana - we need to do the same thing with psychedelics and other sorts of drugs that have medicinal and other positive effects. I think when it comes to addressing our fentanyl and heroin crisis, I think that if I were a legislator, I'd probably move in the direction of ensuring that we're looking at the lesser of any sort of crime - which would be a misdemeanor - and looking at pathways to treatment for that use. And I think we have to think about how we can connect folks that are in crisis because of substance use disorder with services. And so to me, it's about what more can King County do - because I'm not sitting in the place of a legislator - to ensure that we're investing in upstream solutions and treatment. And so I think helping to implement the King County Crisis Care Center Levy and ensuring that folks that are in - particularly a substance use crisis, whether - we know that we have a fentanyl crisis. I have worked on litigation to sue Purdue Pharma and understand just the addictive effects of those drugs. And we need to make sure that there's - those folks are connected to Medicaid-assisted treatment on demand, that they're connected to services. And so looking at what more we can do to scale up the crisis centers in an equitable way and preserve and restore beds that are primarily aimed at treating the underlying causes - I think it's critically important. And so one of my priorities, if elected to the King County Council, will be to look at how we're implementing these crisis care centers, how I'm working potentially with the Legislature for additional treatment beds for substance use disorder. I have, as so many people have had, someone in my life that has experienced a substance use disorder issue. And I think it's so hard to navigate the system to even find detox or substance use treatment for someone like me that knows how to navigate systems, much less someone that could be either at-risk at being involved in the criminal legal system or becoming unhoused or dealing with a substance use crisis. And so finding ways in which we can ensure that those that are affected are obtaining treatment, I think is critically important. [00:15:07] Crystal Fincher: You raised a number of important issues there and you touched on helping to get the Crisis Care Centers Levy - which passed - implemented. [00:15:16] Sarah Reyneveld: Yes. [00:15:17] Crystal Fincher: There have been some criticisms and challenges with implementation of programs - at all levels of government, really, but including with the County - and issues of staffing that may not have been foreseen, or challenges run into, communication issues. Do you think there's an opportunity to improve implementation of policy and programs overall? And how do we need to do that? What needs to change in order for that to happen? [00:15:42] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. And I absolutely think there are opportunities to improve policy implementation at the County. One of the things that I really appreciate about King County's work and that I wanna bring as a lens to my work is that I do believe that the best public policy is made - I think Councilmember Zahilay says this in his views and paraphrasing him, but - by those that are closest to the injustice. And so we really need to invest in community-based solution to a lot of our largest challenges in King County. And so I appreciate that on all issues of County government and all levels of County government, whether it be addressing the gun violence crisis or the behavioral health crisis or childcare, we're really investing in community-based solutions. So I think that's critically important, but I think we also have to have a way to measure outcomes in terms of what is the County doing that's working and what is the County doing that's not working. And if we have, for example, a health through housing facility that we have stood up, but it's not being adequately staffed and we're not adequately utilizing it, and really ensuring that vulnerable populations can access housing and those services - we need to look at what more we can do to ensure that that is being used appropriately and we're really maximizing opportunities to make good use of public dollars. So I think we absolutely need to be working with communities and listening to communities and centering their voices. And then I think King County, as a body, needs to work with those communities to make sure that the investments that were being made are working on the community level and that we're really scaling up things that work. And I, as someone who's taught at the Evans School of Public Affairs and has been a policy wonk for years, am really interested in working with community and my fellow councilmembers in doing that work. [00:17:38] Crystal Fincher: So on almost every measure, we're behind our 2030 climate goals. You've talked about addressing climate change and mitigating the impacts of that on people being one of your priorities. We've experienced the impacts from wildfires, heat and cold, floods, et cetera. What are your highest priority plans to get us on track to meet our 2030 goals? [00:17:59] Sarah Reyneveld: Yes, thank you for that excellent question. As an Assistant Attorney General that works to protect our environment and public health, this is an issue that is critically important to me because of the urgency of action and the need to really address this challenge - centering communities in a just transition. So first, I think we need to electrify transportation and invest deeply in transit. We know that to meet our carbon reduction goals, we have to get people out of cars and into transit. And yet we have seen that Metro Transit service has languished since the pandemic and ridership has fallen by half. And those transit delays - I'm a transit rider to work, I take my little boy to daycare downtown with me - and they're disproportionately affecting transit riders, which are working families, BIPOC communities, low income communities, youth, seniors, and others that rely on transit. And it's a transit justice issue. So I have already been doing some of this work, but if elected to the King County Council, I want to continue this work by working with a coalition of transit riders and groups like the Transit Riders Union and Seattle Subway and The Urbanist and others to pass a county-wide transit revenue package to fund a King County Transportation Benefit District, which would supplant the city one and really help us restore an increased Metro Transit service to deliver faster, more frequent, reliable, and zero-emission service that connects all our community members. I think the measure should also ensure that transit is free to those who are cost-burdened. Right now, one of our impediments to increasing transit service and getting people out of cars is the shortage of transit operators and mechanics. And part of this funding package, or looking at other funding sources, has to be to address that issue of recruiting and retaining Metro bus drivers. And that has to include a living wage and additional incentives and supports, including safety supports, to build the workforce of Metro operators. Now, I just spoke to Metro operators at ATU last week, and they told me they're facing significant workplace safety and pay and other challenges that are really contributing to job stress and attrition. So we have to address that underlying issue if we're gonna get people out of cars and into transit. I also think we need to do more to decarbonize our built environment, which is probably the largest carbon emission in King County, through the adoption and strengthening of commercial building codes that will require communities to reduce energy use and also center communities in initiatives such as the Climate Equity Capital Pool to electrify their homes, for electric appliances and retrofits and solar panels. I think there's a lot of opportunities that we can leverage on the federal level to use grants and incentives and rebates to really update the building codes - and achieve these energy efficiencies and decarbonize our environment and our built environment - while bringing workers along. And I think we need to look at passing stronger provisions and incentives to transition off natural gas in a way that brings people and workers along and hastens this just transition to a clean energy economy - because we know that natural gas use in commercial and residential buildings accounts for a really large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions. I would also say that we need to do more to sustainably manage our forests and our working lands to ensure climate-friendly forest management and farming to mitigate climate change impacts and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and look at how we can promote carbon storage in soils and increase the use of green space. I would also say, probably lastly, a large percentage of the carbon emissions in King County result from our food system. So I wanna lead in ensuring that all communities have opportunities to become food producers, to access urban and rural farmland, and that we're really centering disproportionately impacted communities and empowering them to become farmers - particularly in food deserts and ensuring that tribes have access to their traditional food sources and cultural resources. And I've talked a lot to labor about this, and I would say that I believe that we can work towards a just transition to a clean energy economy that really centers workers and equitable pathways to green jobs and apprenticeships, but it's gonna take us building a coalition. And I'm committed to really rolling up my sleeves and working with our labor partners and folks that are disproportionately impacted and our community members to build that just transition towards a clean energy economy and a sustainable community that addresses our climate crisis. [00:23:01] Crystal Fincher: You talked about needing to address the staffing issues in our public transportation department, certainly an issue in Metro that is urgently in need of addressing. We've seen in several other departments - with sheriffs, certainly with municipal police departments in the County - that they're giving retention bonuses, hiring bonuses to help attract people. And what we've seen is - although they are on record saying that that isn't really moving the needle and may not, there are a lot of people in other departments saying that would absolutely move the needle here. Do you support retention bonuses and hiring bonus and some of the things that we've seen for folks working in public safety for other workers? [00:23:40] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. I think we really need to listen to workers, and my platform is all about lifting up and centering and listening to workers. And to me, hiring bonuses are not gonna address the root cause of the issue. And the root cause of the issue is really living wages and supports for drivers. But if hiring bonuses will help certain segments of workers - I did talk to, for example, an ATU bus operator that said that they had hiring bonuses in Pierce County and that they had not yet received any sort of retention or hiring bonus. And so if that's something that's going to help workers feel valued, I think that we do have to look at that as an option. However, it doesn't really address the root cause. And that is we need to support our frontline workers and give them a living wage. So we need to increase base pay for workers. We need to give them benefits - adequate benefits - flexibility, and the working conditions that they deserve. And for some frontline workers, that's gonna mean more investment in safety measures or hazard pay. And for other frontline workers, that may include a bonus. But I think we need to listen to workers, we need to center workers, and we really need to give them living wages, benefits, and the working conditions they deserve. I think you are absolutely right to say that the workforce issue is huge in King County, and we have to do more to address it. When I talk to workers - everyone from grocery store workers to our bus operators, to behavioral health workers - they're really struggling to make a living wage to afford to live in King County, and save for retirement, and raise their kids. And they're really the sheroes and heroes of, I think, responding to the pandemic or the shadow pandemic, but also just of taking care of our communities. And they're really bearing the brunt of our crises - our unhoused crisis, the opioid crisis, the behavioral health crisis. So we at King County have to do better to support them, and that includes living wages, benefits, and working conditions. And I am interested and very committed to doing that work to center workers. [00:25:56] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and you're completely correct that they are bearing the brunt of that. Another issue that kind of delves both into addressing climate change and mitigating the impacts of it and public health is air and clean air within buildings. And this has been increasingly talked about - especially as we've learned more about airborne pathogens, and as we've dealt more with wildfire smoke, and how much we've learned about how pollutants and pollution impact health, impact life expectancy. There are areas in Seattle that have life expectancies years shorter than other areas in the same city. Does the County have a responsibility to provide clean and safe air within its buildings and to try and incentivize that throughout other privately owned buildings and businesses in the County? [00:26:45] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I absolutely think the County has a responsibility - working with our state regulators as well as our federal regulators and policymakers - to ensure that everyone has access to clean air. I see this as an environmental justice issue - you pointed out that disproportionately - communities that live in areas with higher rates of pollution and that are more impacted, disproportionately impacted by climate change are experiencing poor air quality. And I think we have seen through the effects of climate change and really rampant wildfires and other issues, that these are disproportionately impacting our frontline communities and communities that are already overburdened. So I think that one thing that we can do at the King County level is really urgently lead on addressing the climate crisis. And our air quality is just gonna get worse as the climate crisis and the impacts increase. And so I think we need someone that's gonna really roll up their sleeves and provide strong leadership to really address these underlying issues around air and water pollution and to address the climate crisis. And so I wanna do that work with disproportionately impacted communities, and part of that work is really getting people out of cars and into transit. So really think having a strong vision for what that looks like and how to center frontline communities is really critically important. [00:28:18] Crystal Fincher: Looking at the state of this race, you're in a competitive race this time - you were last time, too - but this time you're part of a competitive race. What do your endorsements say about you, and what are you most proud of? [00:28:33] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think I am - just to get back to my roots - I am a public sector attorney, I am a working parent, I am a community advocate, and I have lived in the 4th Council District for 25 years, and really have dedicated my 15-year public service career to advancing progressive policy, legal, and budgetary solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. And I have worked in community to drive progressive policies forward, and I think my endorsements reflect the work that I've done in community. I have endorsements from five members of the King County Council, including Councilmember Kohl-Welles and Councilmember Zahilay, who I've worked with directly around securing access to more childcare, to addressing gender-based violence, to doing more for affordable housing. And I think my endorsements really speak to the depth of work and the way that I have worked to elevate community voices in community and doing that work. I would say that one of the endorsements I'm most proud of is Councilmember Kohl-Welles' endorsement because she's been a mentor to me and I have worked with her on a number of issues to improve the lives of women in disproportionately impacted communities in King County. And I'm also proud of the endorsement from my boss, A.G. Bob Ferguson. I have dedicated my career to being on the frontlines, to helping enforce workers' rights to fair wages to equal pay, to protect our environment. And I've done this work in the Attorney General's office and the fact that I have the support of my boss as I'm running for King County Council, just like he ran for King County Council, and that he's been helping me out on the campaign trail. And ensuring that I'm running a strong grassroots campaign really means the world to me. [00:30:20] Crystal Fincher: Now, we've also talked about how important it is to enact a lot of policy, to take care of people - obviously, we need to address staffing. All of the things that we've talked about today - a lot of them require revenue. We just ran a big levy because we needed the revenue. The list of things that everyone says is necessary, evidently costs more than we have in the budget, so new revenue is needed. What progressive revenue options exist at the County level today, and will you pursue any of them? [00:30:50] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, so I have a long history of advocating for progressive revenue, including the capital gains tax as a citizen advocate and board member of Washington's Paramount Duty. And so I have fought with, alongside a coalition of folks that are really pushing for progressive revenue reform at the state level. I still think there's so much more we can do and look forward to being a strong partner in that work. King County is projected to face revenue shortfalls and has constrained revenue sources. I do wanna fight against austerity budgets and look really critically at how we can obtain authority from the Legislature to pass truly progressive revenue sources that center working people. I think we also need to look at potentially lifting the 1% property tax lid if we can provide exemptions for homeowners and fixed income seniors. But I think the kind of frustrating thing about the County is it is revenue-constrained and that we need to work hard both on the County Council and in partnership with communities to figure out what more we can do to obtain authority to pass truly progressive revenue sources, whether or not that's taxing business or looking at more progressive revenue sources other than property tax and sales tax and some of these use fees. So I'm dedicated to doing that work in partnership with community and I'm really looking forward to that. [00:32:26] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. And with the budget, King County does incremental budgeting making it difficult for the public to understand - making it difficult for some people in government to understand, but especially the public - to understand how King County funds are allocated in the base budget. What can be done to make the budget easier for the public to understand and influence? [00:32:47] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. We need more transparency in the budget process and we need more participation from community at the County level in the budget process. I have testified, for example, funding for the mental health counselors under MIDD. I have testified for affordable housing. I've testified for more childcare funding. And sometimes it's difficult, as the budget comes over from the Executive, to know what's different about the budget, right? And so I find generally that through this work as a member of the King County Women's Advisory Board and as a citizen advocate that King County budgets are not as accessible, for example, as legislative budgets. And more needs to be done to ensure that they're more transparent and accessible, and also that we're ensuring that the public is engaged in the budgeting process and understands it. So I think one of the things that we can do, and Councilmember Zahilay has done such a great job of this, is just explaining the King County budget process - how the budget comes over from the Executive, what the budget looks like, and how to understand the budget. I think another thing we could do is helping to really center folks that historically have not had a seat at the table in the budget process and have been excluded from power structures in developing policy and budgetary proposals - so that those folks are actually involved in the collaboration process through working groups and meetings and collaboration so that we're moving more towards participatory budget models, where constituents are not just involved in testifying, but really involved and actively involved every step of the process and ultimately in the decisions that impact them. So I'm really interested in working with all communities, and particularly frontline communities that are disproportionately impacted by these issues, and to really look to see what we can do towards more participatory budgeting. But first, of course, we have to make that process more transparent. [00:34:49] Crystal Fincher: Now, as we said before, you have at least one opponent now - the filing deadline isn't for a few weeks, couple weeks, few weeks here. So as you're talking to people who are considering who they're gonna vote for in this race, why should they vote for you over your opponents? [00:35:08] Sarah Reyneveld: Thank you. I'm running because I wanna continue the work that I've done with community and elevate community voices here in the 4th Council District and beyond to advance bold and transformative action for workers, for working families, and our environment on the King County Council. And as I said before, I think we're in a critical moment of time, and I am really committed to working with our most impacted communities to ensure that we are building back better and really creating equitable economic recovery that centers workers and working families and leads to a more sustainable future. Like many in our district, I'm a working parent, I'm a public school parent, transit rider, community organizer, and I have really dedicated my career to advancing progressive legal policy and budgetary solutions to some of our most pressing challenges - and I think we've really gotten results. As a member of the King County Women's Advisory Board, I have worked in partnership with community and the King County Council to secure investments in affordable housing, behavioral health, childcare, and services for survivors of gender-based violence. And I really wanna build on that track record. And I think I have the skills to do so - to really center community voices and to advance really bold, progressive solutions. I think there's three things that I would highlight to voters about why they should choose me in a competitive race. One is community - I'm running for the community and have demonstrated a history of leadership in my community, which is really reflected in our campaign's range of endorsements from elected officials to community leaders and labor. And I have lived experience as a mom and union member and transit rider that is not only reflective of my district, but I feel can be valuable on the King County Council. And lastly, I have a demonstrated history of leadership in my community working to build coalitions to deliver on progressive policies for workers and working families. And I think I've demonstrated that I'm unafraid to grapple with and do the real work of really advancing transformative solutions that are necessary at this critical moment in time. And I really look forward to the conversation on the campaign and hopefully to working with my community to ensure equitable economic recovery that really centers workers and working families and creates a more sustainable future for all. [00:37:37] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for joining us today. [00:37:40] Sarah Reyneveld: Thank you so much for having me. [00:37:42] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Santa Rosa 2023   Race Start: August 27, 2023 630am Management: Ventures Endurance   Website(s): https://venturesendurance.com/  https://santarosamarathon.com/race-details/ https://www.marathonguide.com/results/browse.cfm?MIDD=3368230827   Cost(s): $150-200 (approx.) Start Location: Downtown Santa Rosa Finish Location: Downtown Santa Rosa Swag: T-Shirt, Medal- Wine Stopper Prizes: none First Race Year: 2009? Last Race: 2022 Best Times: Jack Davidson 2:17:53 (2023) Christa Dressler 2:57 ( I think, 2023) Strava Link(s): https://www.strava.com/athletes/3230575 (andrew) https://www.strava.com/activities/9732482913 (mark)

Rain (and thunder and lightning) did their best to ruin Week 17, but plenty of cricket was still played. Twickenham blew the title race apart by beating North Midd, Stanmore beat Ealing. Cue a title decider when The Midd travel to Stanmore in Week 18. Elsewhere, Hornsey are champions in Div 1, Kenton gain promotion - in what sounds like entertaining fashion - in Div 2. Plus, the weird and wonderful case of a side declaring (when you can't) and an internal ruck meaning that Ealing Hanwellians don't even take to the field....

Ups and downs galore across the MCCL. North Midd edge away but still a gaggle of teams in contention. Hornsey are up and in the Prem in 2024 whilst top beats bottom in Div 3. Stallions, meanwhile, win a thriller in Division 6. It really is all to play for moving into week 17.

✨

The destiny of the premier league title remains far from certain, but North Midd and Bron both gained valuable ground with wins in Week 13. Poor old Osterley (Div 1) and Tower Hamlets (Div 3) are now mathematically relegated, with United Sports (Div 5) all but certain to suffer a similar fate. Elsewhere, North London hit the top of Div 1, Old Isleworthians stretch away in Div 3 and the previously imperious Friends United have their wings clipped in Division 4.

On this Primary Week re-air, Crystal chats with Sarah Reyneveld about her campaign for King County Council District 4 - why she decided to run, the experience she brings as a public sector attorney and community advocate, and her thoughts on addressing frontline worker wages and workforce issues, the need for upstream alternatives in the criminal legal system and substance use crisis, how to improve policy implementation, climate change and air quality, and budget revenue and transparency. 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 Sarah Reyneveld at @SarahReyneveld.   Resources Campaign Website - Sarah Reyneveld   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Hello, I'm so excited to be welcoming to the program today King County Council candidate, Sarah Reyneveld. Hello. [00:01:01] Sarah Reyneveld: Hello, Crystal. Thank you so much for having me today - I'm excited about the conversation. [00:01:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I guess just starting out - we have seen you run for State Legislature before. I'm wondering why you're choosing to run for the County now, and what do you hope to accomplish in that position? [00:01:18] Sarah Reyneveld: Yes, I think that King County Council and the King County is really at a critical point in time, and I'm excited to bring my lived experience as a working parent, a Seattle Public School parent, a transit rider, a union organizer - I helped organize my union of Assistant Attorney Generals - and also my experience as a public sector attorney who has fought for workers and our environment, and as a community advocate working with communities across King County to really make transformative change for workers, working families, and our environment on the King County Council. So for some background - in 2016, I became King County Councilmember Kohl-Welles' appointment to the King County Women's Advisory Board where I had the opportunity to work with communities throughout King County and the King County Council to help advocate for and secure investments in affordable housing, in behavioral health, childcare, and services to support survivors of gender-based violence. I started this work and became the Chair of the King County Women's Advisory Board before the pandemic - and I had two young kids at the time - and we had struggled like so many parents with access to affordable childcare, and the board at that time decided to take up that issue. So we worked on recommendations to expand childcare access for working parents and were able to work together with communities across King County, and the Executive, and King County Council to help reinstate a childcare subsidy, to expand access to childcare for working families, and establish a wage provider boost to help increase pay for childcare providers who are disproportionately women and BIPOC women and immigrants. And then the pandemic hit and I continued to do this work and it really laid bare - staggering inequities and injustices in King County that disproportionately impacted women and our communities of color and immigrants and other marginalized communities, who are more likely to be on the forefront and were experiencing disproportionately - unemployment and financial loss and illness. So as I continue to work on these issues, I saw what an important role King County played in not just responding to the pandemic and now the shadow pandemic, but in really providing public health, and behavioral health, and public transit, and helping with food security and housing. So I'm running for King County Council because I've been doing this work with community and I think the status quo is no longer good enough. We need bold and transformative action to really meet the urgency of this moment. We have a really unique opportunity to create a more equitable economy and a sustainable future for all workers and working families in King County. And I think that King County can and must do more - and my priorities are to create more truly affordable housing to help better meet the behavioral health needs of our neighbors in crisis, to really tackle the climate crisis and protect our environment for future generations, to provide accessible and frequent public transit for all, and to really look at what we can do to reimagine our public safety and criminal legal system. So I'm excited about the opportunity. [00:04:46] Crystal Fincher: I see. Now you covered a lot there. In there, you mentioned caring for workers, addressing housing. One thing called out by experts as a barrier to our homelessness response is that frontline worker wages don't cover the cost of living. Do you think our local nonprofits have a responsibility to pay living wages for our area? And how can we make that more likely with how we bid and contract for services? [00:05:10] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely think that our nonprofits have a duty to pay more in terms of adequately funding - not just contracts - but ensuring that those contracts lead to an equitable living wage and union jobs. And that includes cost of living adjustments and other supports for workers. So right now we have a really high turnover rate for frontline workers and particularly those workers that the County contracts with - I've heard 40-60% turnover rate. And I think we need to address the underlying issue of why those workers are turning over. And the underlying issue - one of them is pay equity and not ensuring that we are paying, particularly our frontline workers, adequately or providing them with the supports that they need. So it's about equitable pay, it's about cost of living adjustments, and it's about ensuring that those workers have access to affordable housing and transit in King County as well - so they can really afford to live where they work. And so I see this issue as very intersectional and something that King County can do more to address. And I would just say, generally, I think we as a society tend to lift up certain sorts of workers - the CEOs of companies, for example. And those people that are really doing the real work of caring for our community - of building our housing, of connecting us through transit, of providing behavioral health services - we don't invest equitably or sufficiently in those workers. And so starting with contracting is critically important, but we need to do more to ensure that we're investing in living wage jobs, and workforce housing, and bonuses, and ensuring that these workers have the supports that they need. And that is part of my vision for building back better and creating a more equitable economy that really centers workers and working families in King County. [00:07:13] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now, would you have voted to approve the transfer of inmates to the SCORE jail to alleviate a lot of the issues plaguing the King County Jail, including overcrowding, lack of water, inadequate healthcare, illnesses, understaffing? Would you have voted in the same way that the King County Council did? [00:07:31] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I want to start with just the conditions at the King County Jail. So the six deaths in 2022 in the downtown jail and kind of the subsequent ACLU lawsuit, I think, show that King County is failing too many criminally involved individuals, particularly our Black and Brown community members and those with chronic behavioral health and substance use issues. I am really concerned about what is happening in terms of inhumane conditions at the jail that include excessive use of solitary confinement, and lack of transportation to medical appointments and court appointments, and delays with mental health and other medical appointments. And I think King County, which is the oversight body of the King County Jail, needs to do more to address these concerns and ensure safety. And these really poor conditions at the jail didn't happen overnight. They are partially caused by lack of adequate staffing - that's been an issue for decades and was exacerbated since COVID. And also issues with an antiquated, really obsolete building. And lack of access to medical care and treatment, as I was stating. So on the King County Council, if elected, I want to work with disproportionately impacted communities and fellow King County Councilmembers to urgently address these issues. I think we need to invest more in restorative justice. And when the King County Council took that vote in terms of transferring those incarcerated folks to SCORE, I think they noted that we need to do more in terms of investing in restorative justice and upstream alternatives to really reimagine our criminal legal system. So first I think we need to prevent and reduce incarceration through investing in upstream - investments in youth and vulnerable adults. And that means doing more to expand effective diversion programs, such as the Law Assisted Diversion Program and Co-LEAD, which has been really effective in diverting folks out of the criminal legal system and out of the King County Jail to begin with. I think we also need to move towards actualizing King County Executive's vision and so many activists' vision of really closing the downtown jail and reimagining and reducing the size of the King County facilities. So in terms of the SCORE vote, I don't think either option were good options. The King County Council arrived at that vote because there had not been enough, really, work done on restorative justice and on the underlying issues around staffing and overcrowding at the jail. And I think keeping vulnerable incarcerated people in a downtown jail that had significant understaffing and overcrowding issues and a lack of access to medicine, or transferring incarcerated people to a facility that had potentially access-to-justice issues is not - neither one of those are good options. And so that's why I want to roll up my sleeves and ensure that we're really investing sufficiently in diversion programs and alternatives - to invest in folks to prevent them from becoming incarcerated in the first place and also move towards reimagining our system. And I will say that I don't think King County Council can address this issue alone. In 2022, there were over, I think, 100 people in King County Jail that were deemed to be incompetent to stand trial in King County that were awaiting a treatment bed. So if we work with our state partners to really fund mental health and ensure treatment for vulnerable populations like this, then we won't have to make these sort of decisions. [00:11:00] Crystal Fincher: So am I hearing that you would not vote - disagreeing with this vote? If in the future a vote were to come up to extend or expand this SCORE transfer or transfer to other jails, does that mean you're a No vote on that? [00:11:13] Sarah Reyneveld: I think that we need to, like I said, invest in alternatives and upstream alternatives to the criminal legal system. So like Councilmember Zahilay and Councilmember Kohl-Welles said - the transfer to SCORE was really not addressing the root cause of the issue. We need to be investing in upstream alternatives and staffing and ensuring that folks within our system are safe. [00:11:36] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now you talked about substance use disorder being so key in treating upstream issues to really address the root causes of what is leading people to criminal behavior. We're dealing with a conundrum. The governor just called a special session following our State Supreme Court invalidating personal substance possession as a crime. Our Legislature took action a couple of years ago to recriminalize it - that has a sunset provision. They were not able to decide on any statewide policy before the session ended, so they're going to be taking that up in a special session. There are conversations about - should drug use be criminalized at all? If it should, is it a misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor, felony? Where do you stand? Where should personal possession of substances be dealt with? How would you handle that? [00:12:27] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think this is an issue that the Legislature has been grappling with and it's really an important issue. And I think we need to be moving away from criminalization of drug possession. Specifically, we moved away from criminalization of drug possession for marijuana - we need to do the same thing with psychedelics and other sorts of drugs that have medicinal and other positive effects. I think when it comes to addressing our fentanyl and heroin crisis, I think that if I were a legislator, I'd probably move in the direction of ensuring that we're looking at the lesser of any sort of crime - which would be a misdemeanor - and looking at pathways to treatment for that use. And I think we have to think about how we can connect folks that are in crisis because of substance use disorder with services. And so to me, it's about what more can King County do - because I'm not sitting in the place of a legislator - to ensure that we're investing in upstream solutions and treatment. And so I think helping to implement the King County Crisis Care Center Levy and ensuring that folks that are in - particularly a substance use crisis, whether - we know that we have a fentanyl crisis. I have worked on litigation to sue Purdue Pharma and understand just the addictive effects of those drugs. And we need to make sure that there's - those folks are connected to Medicaid-assisted treatment on demand, that they're connected to services. And so looking at what more we can do to scale up the crisis centers in an equitable way and preserve and restore beds that are primarily aimed at treating the underlying causes - I think it's critically important. And so one of my priorities, if elected to the King County Council, will be to look at how we're implementing these crisis care centers, how I'm working potentially with the Legislature for additional treatment beds for substance use disorder. I have, as so many people have had, someone in my life that has experienced a substance use disorder issue. And I think it's so hard to navigate the system to even find detox or substance use treatment for someone like me that knows how to navigate systems, much less someone that could be either at-risk at being involved in the criminal legal system or becoming unhoused or dealing with a substance use crisis. And so finding ways in which we can ensure that those that are affected are obtaining treatment, I think is critically important. [00:15:07] Crystal Fincher: You raised a number of important issues there and you touched on helping to get the Crisis Care Centers Levy - which passed - implemented. [00:15:16] Sarah Reyneveld: Yes. [00:15:17] Crystal Fincher: There have been some criticisms and challenges with implementation of programs - at all levels of government, really, but including with the County - and issues of staffing that may not have been foreseen, or challenges run into, communication issues. Do you think there's an opportunity to improve implementation of policy and programs overall? And how do we need to do that? What needs to change in order for that to happen? [00:15:42] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. And I absolutely think there are opportunities to improve policy implementation at the County. One of the things that I really appreciate about King County's work and that I wanna bring as a lens to my work is that I do believe that the best public policy is made - I think Councilmember Zahilay says this in his views and paraphrasing him, but - by those that are closest to the injustice. And so we really need to invest in community-based solution to a lot of our largest challenges in King County. And so I appreciate that on all issues of County government and all levels of County government, whether it be addressing the gun violence crisis or the behavioral health crisis or childcare, we're really investing in community-based solutions. So I think that's critically important, but I think we also have to have a way to measure outcomes in terms of what is the County doing that's working and what is the County doing that's not working. And if we have, for example, a health through housing facility that we have stood up, but it's not being adequately staffed and we're not adequately utilizing it, and really ensuring that vulnerable populations can access housing and those services - we need to look at what more we can do to ensure that that is being used appropriately and we're really maximizing opportunities to make good use of public dollars. So I think we absolutely need to be working with communities and listening to communities and centering their voices. And then I think King County, as a body, needs to work with those communities to make sure that the investments that were being made are working on the community level and that we're really scaling up things that work. And I, as someone who's taught at the Evans School of Public Affairs and has been a policy wonk for years, am really interested in working with community and my fellow councilmembers in doing that work. [00:17:38] Crystal Fincher: So on almost every measure, we're behind our 2030 climate goals. You've talked about addressing climate change and mitigating the impacts of that on people being one of your priorities. We've experienced the impacts from wildfires, heat and cold, floods, et cetera. What are your highest priority plans to get us on track to meet our 2030 goals? [00:17:59] Sarah Reyneveld: Yes, thank you for that excellent question. As an Assistant Attorney General that works to protect our environment and public health, this is an issue that is critically important to me because of the urgency of action and the need to really address this challenge - centering communities in a just transition. So first, I think we need to electrify transportation and invest deeply in transit. We know that to meet our carbon reduction goals, we have to get people out of cars and into transit. And yet we have seen that Metro Transit service has languished since the pandemic and ridership has fallen by half. And those transit delays - I'm a transit rider to work, I take my little boy to daycare downtown with me - and they're disproportionately affecting transit riders, which are working families, BIPOC communities, low income communities, youth, seniors, and others that rely on transit. And it's a transit justice issue. So I have already been doing some of this work, but if elected to the King County Council, I want to continue this work by working with a coalition of transit riders and groups like the Transit Riders Union and Seattle Subway and The Urbanist and others to pass a county-wide transit revenue package to fund a King County Transportation Benefit District, which would supplant the city one and really help us restore an increased Metro Transit service to deliver faster, more frequent, reliable, and zero-emission service that connects all our community members. I think the measure should also ensure that transit is free to those who are cost-burdened. Right now, one of our impediments to increasing transit service and getting people out of cars is the shortage of transit operators and mechanics. And part of this funding package, or looking at other funding sources, has to be to address that issue of recruiting and retaining Metro bus drivers. And that has to include a living wage and additional incentives and supports, including safety supports, to build the workforce of Metro operators. Now, I just spoke to Metro operators at ATU last week, and they told me they're facing significant workplace safety and pay and other challenges that are really contributing to job stress and attrition. So we have to address that underlying issue if we're gonna get people out of cars and into transit. I also think we need to do more to decarbonize our built environment, which is probably the largest carbon emission in King County, through the adoption and strengthening of commercial building codes that will require communities to reduce energy use and also center communities in initiatives such as the Climate Equity Capital Pool to electrify their homes, for electric appliances and retrofits and solar panels. I think there's a lot of opportunities that we can leverage on the federal level to use grants and incentives and rebates to really update the building codes - and achieve these energy efficiencies and decarbonize our environment and our built environment - while bringing workers along. And I think we need to look at passing stronger provisions and incentives to transition off natural gas in a way that brings people and workers along and hastens this just transition to a clean energy economy - because we know that natural gas use in commercial and residential buildings accounts for a really large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions. I would also say that we need to do more to sustainably manage our forests and our working lands to ensure climate-friendly forest management and farming to mitigate climate change impacts and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and look at how we can promote carbon storage in soils and increase the use of green space. I would also say, probably lastly, a large percentage of the carbon emissions in King County result from our food system. So I wanna lead in ensuring that all communities have opportunities to become food producers, to access urban and rural farmland, and that we're really centering disproportionately impacted communities and empowering them to become farmers - particularly in food deserts and ensuring that tribes have access to their traditional food sources and cultural resources. And I've talked a lot to labor about this, and I would say that I believe that we can work towards a just transition to a clean energy economy that really centers workers and equitable pathways to green jobs and apprenticeships, but it's gonna take us building a coalition. And I'm committed to really rolling up my sleeves and working with our labor partners and folks that are disproportionately impacted and our community members to build that just transition towards a clean energy economy and a sustainable community that addresses our climate crisis. [00:23:01] Crystal Fincher: You talked about needing to address the staffing issues in our public transportation department, certainly an issue in Metro that is urgently in need of addressing. We've seen in several other departments - with sheriffs, certainly with municipal police departments in the County - that they're giving retention bonuses, hiring bonuses to help attract people. And what we've seen is - although they are on record saying that that isn't really moving the needle and may not, there are a lot of people in other departments saying that would absolutely move the needle here. Do you support retention bonuses and hiring bonus and some of the things that we've seen for folks working in public safety for other workers? [00:23:40] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. I think we really need to listen to workers, and my platform is all about lifting up and centering and listening to workers. And to me, hiring bonuses are not gonna address the root cause of the issue. And the root cause of the issue is really living wages and supports for drivers. But if hiring bonuses will help certain segments of workers - I did talk to, for example, an ATU bus operator that said that they had hiring bonuses in Pierce County and that they had not yet received any sort of retention or hiring bonus. And so if that's something that's going to help workers feel valued, I think that we do have to look at that as an option. However, it doesn't really address the root cause. And that is we need to support our frontline workers and give them a living wage. So we need to increase base pay for workers. We need to give them benefits - adequate benefits - flexibility, and the working conditions that they deserve. And for some frontline workers, that's gonna mean more investment in safety measures or hazard pay. And for other frontline workers, that may include a bonus. But I think we need to listen to workers, we need to center workers, and we really need to give them living wages, benefits, and the working conditions they deserve. I think you are absolutely right to say that the workforce issue is huge in King County, and we have to do more to address it. When I talk to workers - everyone from grocery store workers to our bus operators, to behavioral health workers - they're really struggling to make a living wage to afford to live in King County, and save for retirement, and raise their kids. And they're really the sheroes and heroes of, I think, responding to the pandemic or the shadow pandemic, but also just of taking care of our communities. And they're really bearing the brunt of our crises - our unhoused crisis, the opioid crisis, the behavioral health crisis. So we at King County have to do better to support them, and that includes living wages, benefits, and working conditions. And I am interested and very committed to doing that work to center workers. [00:25:56] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and you're completely correct that they are bearing the brunt of that. Another issue that kind of delves both into addressing climate change and mitigating the impacts of it and public health is air and clean air within buildings. And this has been increasingly talked about - especially as we've learned more about airborne pathogens, and as we've dealt more with wildfire smoke, and how much we've learned about how pollutants and pollution impact health, impact life expectancy. There are areas in Seattle that have life expectancies years shorter than other areas in the same city. Does the County have a responsibility to provide clean and safe air within its buildings and to try and incentivize that throughout other privately owned buildings and businesses in the County? [00:26:45] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I absolutely think the County has a responsibility - working with our state regulators as well as our federal regulators and policymakers - to ensure that everyone has access to clean air. I see this as an environmental justice issue - you pointed out that disproportionately - communities that live in areas with higher rates of pollution and that are more impacted, disproportionately impacted by climate change are experiencing poor air quality. And I think we have seen through the effects of climate change and really rampant wildfires and other issues, that these are disproportionately impacting our frontline communities and communities that are already overburdened. So I think that one thing that we can do at the King County level is really urgently lead on addressing the climate crisis. And our air quality is just gonna get worse as the climate crisis and the impacts increase. And so I think we need someone that's gonna really roll up their sleeves and provide strong leadership to really address these underlying issues around air and water pollution and to address the climate crisis. And so I wanna do that work with disproportionately impacted communities, and part of that work is really getting people out of cars and into transit. So really think having a strong vision for what that looks like and how to center frontline communities is really critically important. [00:28:18] Crystal Fincher: Looking at the state of this race, you're in a competitive race this time - you were last time, too - but this time you're part of a competitive race. What do your endorsements say about you, and what are you most proud of? [00:28:33] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think I am - just to get back to my roots - I am a public sector attorney, I am a working parent, I am a community advocate, and I have lived in the 4th Council District for 25 years, and really have dedicated my 15-year public service career to advancing progressive policy, legal, and budgetary solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. And I have worked in community to drive progressive policies forward, and I think my endorsements reflect the work that I've done in community. I have endorsements from five members of the King County Council, including Councilmember Kohl-Welles and Councilmember Zahilay, who I've worked with directly around securing access to more childcare, to addressing gender-based violence, to doing more for affordable housing. And I think my endorsements really speak to the depth of work and the way that I have worked to elevate community voices in community and doing that work. I would say that one of the endorsements I'm most proud of is Councilmember Kohl-Welles' endorsement because she's been a mentor to me and I have worked with her on a number of issues to improve the lives of women in disproportionately impacted communities in King County. And I'm also proud of the endorsement from my boss, A.G. Bob Ferguson. I have dedicated my career to being on the frontlines, to helping enforce workers' rights to fair wages to equal pay, to protect our environment. And I've done this work in the Attorney General's office and the fact that I have the support of my boss as I'm running for King County Council, just like he ran for King County Council, and that he's been helping me out on the campaign trail. And ensuring that I'm running a strong grassroots campaign really means the world to me. [00:30:20] Crystal Fincher: Now, we've also talked about how important it is to enact a lot of policy, to take care of people - obviously, we need to address staffing. All of the things that we've talked about today - a lot of them require revenue. We just ran a big levy because we needed the revenue. The list of things that everyone says is necessary, evidently costs more than we have in the budget, so new revenue is needed. What progressive revenue options exist at the County level today, and will you pursue any of them? [00:30:50] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, so I have a long history of advocating for progressive revenue, including the capital gains tax as a citizen advocate and board member of Washington's Paramount Duty. And so I have fought with, alongside a coalition of folks that are really pushing for progressive revenue reform at the state level. I still think there's so much more we can do and look forward to being a strong partner in that work. King County is projected to face revenue shortfalls and has constrained revenue sources. I do wanna fight against austerity budgets and look really critically at how we can obtain authority from the Legislature to pass truly progressive revenue sources that center working people. I think we also need to look at potentially lifting the 1% property tax lid if we can provide exemptions for homeowners and fixed income seniors. But I think the kind of frustrating thing about the County is it is revenue-constrained and that we need to work hard both on the County Council and in partnership with communities to figure out what more we can do to obtain authority to pass truly progressive revenue sources, whether or not that's taxing business or looking at more progressive revenue sources other than property tax and sales tax and some of these use fees. So I'm dedicated to doing that work in partnership with community and I'm really looking forward to that. [00:32:26] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. And with the budget, King County does incremental budgeting making it difficult for the public to understand - making it difficult for some people in government to understand, but especially the public - to understand how King County funds are allocated in the base budget. What can be done to make the budget easier for the public to understand and influence? [00:32:47] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. We need more transparency in the budget process and we need more participation from community at the County level in the budget process. I have testified, for example, funding for the mental health counselors under MIDD. I have testified for affordable housing. I've testified for more childcare funding. And sometimes it's difficult, as the budget comes over from the Executive, to know what's different about the budget, right? And so I find generally that through this work as a member of the King County Women's Advisory Board and as a citizen advocate that King County budgets are not as accessible, for example, as legislative budgets. And more needs to be done to ensure that they're more transparent and accessible, and also that we're ensuring that the public is engaged in the budgeting process and understands it. So I think one of the things that we can do, and Councilmember Zahilay has done such a great job of this, is just explaining the King County budget process - how the budget comes over from the Executive, what the budget looks like, and how to understand the budget. I think another thing we could do is helping to really center folks that historically have not had a seat at the table in the budget process and have been excluded from power structures in developing policy and budgetary proposals - so that those folks are actually involved in the collaboration process through working groups and meetings and collaboration so that we're moving more towards participatory budget models, where constituents are not just involved in testifying, but really involved and actively involved every step of the process and ultimately in the decisions that impact them. So I'm really interested in working with all communities, and particularly frontline communities that are disproportionately impacted by these issues, and to really look to see what we can do towards more participatory budgeting. But first, of course, we have to make that process more transparent. [00:34:49] Crystal Fincher: Now, as we said before, you have at least one opponent now - the filing deadline isn't for a few weeks, couple weeks, few weeks here. So as you're talking to people who are considering who they're gonna vote for in this race, why should they vote for you over your opponents? [00:35:08] Sarah Reyneveld: Thank you. I'm running because I wanna continue the work that I've done with community and elevate community voices here in the 4th Council District and beyond to advance bold and transformative action for workers, for working families, and our environment on the King County Council. And as I said before, I think we're in a critical moment of time, and I am really committed to working with our most impacted communities to ensure that we are building back better and really creating equitable economic recovery that centers workers and working families and leads to a more sustainable future. Like many in our district, I'm a working parent, I'm a public school parent, transit rider, community organizer, and I have really dedicated my career to advancing progressive legal policy and budgetary solutions to some of our most pressing challenges - and I think we've really gotten results. As a member of the King County Women's Advisory Board, I have worked in partnership with community and the King County Council to secure investments in affordable housing, behavioral health, childcare, and services for survivors of gender-based violence. And I really wanna build on that track record. And I think I have the skills to do so - to really center community voices and to advance really bold, progressive solutions. I think there's three things that I would highlight to voters about why they should choose me in a competitive race. One is community - I'm running for the community and have demonstrated a history of leadership in my community, which is really reflected in our campaign's range of endorsements from elected officials to community leaders and labor. And I have lived experience as a mom and union member and transit rider that is not only reflective of my district, but I feel can be valuable on the King County Council. And lastly, I have a demonstrated history of leadership in my community working to build coalitions to deliver on progressive policies for workers and working families. And I think I've demonstrated that I'm unafraid to grapple with and do the real work of really advancing transformative solutions that are necessary at this critical moment in time. And I really look forward to the conversation on the campaign and hopefully to working with my community to ensure equitable economic recovery that really centers workers and working families and creates a more sustainable future for all. [00:37:37] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for joining us today. [00:37:40] Sarah Reyneveld: Thank you so much for having me. [00:37:42] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

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High scores, low scores, crazy scores; normal service in the MCCL. Richmond and Hornsey come croppers in Div 1, Kenton extend their lead in Div 2. Chiswick back on top in Div 3, Friends United doing well in Div 4. Plus, Northwick Park and Youth Wing serve up plenty of drama in Div 5.

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On this Tuesday topical show, Crystal learns about north King County's innovative new Regional Crisis Response (RCR) Agency with its inaugural Executive Director Brook Buettner and Kenmore Mayor Nigel Herbig. Following national guidelines and best practices for behavioral health crisis care, a five-city consortium established RCR in 2023 as part of a vision to provide their region with the recommended continuum of behavioral health care - which includes someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go. Executive Director Buettner and Mayor Herbig share how the program grew out of a need for a person-centered mobile crisis response, rather than the traditional law enforcement response which is often without the right tools or expertise for the job. They describe the collaborative process of getting buy-in from police agencies, electeds, and city staff to design a service that has evolved from the RADAR co-response program to approaching a 24/7 behavioral health first response. Finally, they cover impressive early results in cost-savings & outcomes and offer advice to other cities looking to bring similar solutions to their own communities. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Mayor Nigel Herbig at @nigelherbig. Brook Buettner Brook Buettner is inaugural Executive Director of the groundbreaking Regional Crisis Response Agency, which deploys services to people experiencing behavioral health crisis in the North King County community. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and an experienced human services professional with a focus on policy advocacy and program implementation for high-needs populations. During her two decade-long career, she has been focused on transforming systems to meet the needs of individuals who are high utilizers of both criminal legal and health and human services systems. Ms. Buettner holds Masters in Public Administration and Social Work from the University of Washington. Mayor Nigel Herbig Nigel grew up in the Seattle neighborhood of Wallingford, attended Seattle Public Schools, and graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Political Science and Comparative Religion. Nigel and his wife, Tiffany, decided to move to Kenmore when their daughter was a baby as they were looking for a great place to raise their daughter where they could purchase their first home. They have never regretted that decision. Nigel has worked in broadcasting, fundraising, and politics. He currently works at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. Mayor Herbig represents the Council on the Eastside Transportation Partnership (Vice Chair), and the Sound Transit SR 522 Bus Rapid Transit Elected Leaders Group. He also sits on the King County Affordable Housing Committee. Resources The Regional Crisis Response Agency | City of Kirkland   “RCR Agency Welcomes Brook Buettner as Executive Director” from City of Kirkland   National Guidelines for Behavioral Health Crisis Care - Best Practice Toolkit Executive Summary | SAMHSA   The North Sound RADAR Program | City of Shoreline   “RADAR: Response Awareness, De-Escalation, and Referral Final Evaluation Report” prepared by the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy Department of Criminology, Law & Society at George Mason University   “North King County cities will broaden mental-health response to 911 calls” by Amy Radil from KUOW   “New Crisis Response Center in Kirkland to Serve North King County” from City of Kirkland    “$500k grant from DOJ to help reduce use of police force in North King County” by Hannah Saunders from Bothell-Kenmore Reporter   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. Today, I am very excited to be welcoming Mayor Nigel Herbig - he is the mayor of Kenmore. And Brook Buettner, who's the Executive Director of Regional Crisis Response - a collaboration for a mental health alternative response between the cities of Kenmore, Kirkland, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, and Bothell that's really innovative and I think a number of cities are looking at this in the region - want to just explore what this is. So starting out with Brook, how did you get involved in this work and what interested you in this? [00:01:27] Brook Buettner: Thanks, Crystal - I'm so happy to be here with you. So my background is that I'm a licensed clinical social worker and I also have a background in public administration. And most of my social work career has been in service of folks that have chronic behavioral health conditions, are living homeless, and then have some overlap with the criminal legal system - either with the police, or with having multiple charges around poverty, or around homelessness. So this is a really exciting program for me to be able to be involved in. [00:01:54] Crystal Fincher: Excellent. And Nigel, as mayor of Kenmore, what got you involved in this particular program and work? [00:02:00] Mayor Nigel Herbig: First, I want to start off by saying that I'm a long-time listener, and I'm excited to be here, Crystal - so thank you for having me. Kenmore entered into this work back in - I want to say 2017 or 2018 - when we joined with other cities and King County MIDD funds and started the RADAR program, which was a co-response model across parts of North King County to give folks other ways to have service calls responded to - without the only response being a police response, because I think we all recognize that a solely police response is not always the right answer and is not always in the best interest of everybody involved. And we did that successfully for a few years. And then in 2021, we started larger conversations with the cities of Bothell, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, and then we reached out to Kirkland also, about expanding what we were doing with RADAR and making it into a larger regional model. And so our staff and our councils worked for about a year and a half trying to figure out how that would all work. And what we ended up doing was folding the North King County's RADAR Navigator program with Kirkland's Community Responder program to form a new entity that's regional in nature, is going to have a lot more resources, will be operating more hours during the day - I think we're aiming towards 24/7, I don't think we're quite there yet - and will really be a resource for folks who are experiencing, or decompressing in public, or having some sort of other issues so that they'll get a response that actually meets them where they're at. And gets them help immediately rather than the other alternatives, which are the ER or jail - both of which we know are not ideal for anybody who's experiencing either an issue with drug addiction or a mental health issue. So yeah, it's exciting to see multiple cities all coming together to recognize the issue and working together - 'cause as individual cities, there's no way that we could have done this - little Kenmore could've never done this on our own. But working with other cities, we're gonna be delivering something that I think will be meaningful to folks who are experiencing issues out in the field, and I think we'll be getting better outcomes for everybody. And I think that's something we're very excited about. [00:04:00] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. You talk about how challenging this is for individual cities to address and to deal with. I do think it's notable that there was an attempt, a recognition by Kenmore that this was something that needed to be tackled. There was the RADAR program, previously in place, that you just mentioned - this was built on top of and leveraged with the region. How did the discussions go with the region? How did you get buy-in for taking this collaborative approach? And how did you work through the design of the program? How did that work, Brook? [00:04:34] Brook Buettner: We're very lucky in North King County that there was already a great deal of support for alternatives to police response for people in crisis. As you mentioned, the commitment to the RADAR Navigator program that had been going on for about four years prior to this conversation and showing really successful outcomes for folks. And across our elected officials, our police leadership, and our community, there was a strong commitment to doing things in a new way for people in crisis. And so it was a matter of not having to bring people on board, but just discussing what's our shared vision - what do we want our community to look like and how are we gonna get there? And so it was a big lift for city staff to come up with the agreement, the interlocal agreement, that governs this entity - but it was done pretty quickly in my experience and very well to where we have a strong and robust infrastructure to start really offering these alternative services to folks in crisis. [00:05:29] Crystal Fincher: Nigel, what advice would you give to other cities working through this process right now in terms of figuring out the agreements that are going to govern these collaborative approaches, getting buy-in from various stakeholders? How did that work in your experience and what guidance would you give other folks working through this? [00:05:48] Mayor Nigel Herbig: I think part of what made things work, where we are in North King County, was the fact that we'd already been partnering with other cities with RADAR. But we also have other regional models that we're used to - we're used to doing regional collaboration around here. Kenmore is part of ARCH, which is a regional coalition for housing - which is a multi-jurisdictional affordable housing developer that covers kind of Kenmore and then down to the Eastside. And so we're very used to working in a collaborative manner with our neighbors to address issues that we really can't do, again, by ourselves - we can do affordable housing, but it's very hard for a smaller city, right? It's a lot easier if people are pooling things together. So we already had those models that we were familiar with, which I think really helped some of the conversations - 'cause Kirkland's also part of ARCH, I think Bothell is too. So we're starting from a place where we understand how these models work. I think having trust between the cities is important also. We have good relationships with - I have good relationships with my colleagues in Kirkland and in Bothell and Lake Forest Park and Shoreline - I think that's helpful. And then also having staff that's willing to really dig into the details and work collaboratively with their colleagues is important. A lot of this came out of the fact that - and I think we all recognize this - the state and the county have largely been underfunding our mental health response for a long time. And even on our council, there was some pushback to - this should be a county response, this should be the county's responsibility. And I don't completely disagree with that assessment either, but I think we all recognize that something had to be done. And at the end of the day, sometimes cities just have to step up and figure out a way forward. And it's nice to see five cities coming together to work together towards a solution, while we try to figure out the larger long-term solutions that are truly regional and even statewide, frankly. [00:07:25] Crystal Fincher: So can you walk me through what your most frequent calls look like, feel like, what that process is? I think for a lot of people - they're familiar with the concept of alternative response, they're familiar with how important it is, and understanding that police can't do everything and they are not the most effective response for every kind of crisis - so having a tailored response that is most appropriate and most effective is really helpful. How, as you work through this, what does a typical call look like? What does a typical day look like? [00:07:58] Brook Buettner: In crisis, of course, there's no typical call or no typical day. But we are looking to deploy social workers or mental health professionals on any 911 call that comes in that has some identified component of behavioral health. So that's mental health, or substance use, or some social service need like a homelessness component, a family dynamic issue where it could be helpful to have a social worker there. And then the social workers - we call them crisis responders - the crisis responders are going either in the car with the police officer, or when possible in an independent vehicle and meeting the police officer on the scene. And we are stepping more and more in our community into the space of two crisis responders going to - responding to the scene - without a first responder. And that is really what we call the alternative response model. And it can be anything from somebody that has called 911 because they themselves, or somebody that they care about, is suicidal - has made suicidal statements or gestures. Or someone that is in a community space and is having mental health symptoms or substance use-driven symptoms that are causing them to be troubling to the other folks in that environment. To, like I said, family dynamics where someone calls 911, for example, because their teenager is so agitated and escalated that they become violent. And our crisis responders are very, very good at identifying what's going on, deescalating folks, bringing them down to a level of calm where they can talk through what's underlying the crisis. And then the crisis responder's job is to figure out what to bring to bear on the situation to alleviate the immediate crisis and then connect the person to the system of care so that they don't fall into crisis again. [00:09:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it looks like you've structured the program on best practices for the continuum of behavioral health care starting with having someone to call - we have our 988 line, someone to respond - these crisis responders, and then having somewhere to go once it's determined where the appropriate place is for them to receive the help that they need. Especially when it comes to that somewhere to go, we just passed a county-wide behavioral health center levy that will fund a number of those services and staff. But that's been a big challenge in our region. How have you navigated through this in the program, Nigel, and how's it working? [00:10:14] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Well, I'm really excited. I mean, Kenmore and our partner cities - we're actually out ahead of King County a little bit and had been working in partnership for - I don't know, a little while now, I think going back to 2021 - really reflecting on the lack of a door for people to go to, a place for people to go to when they're in crisis. And working together, we identified funds and we identified a location, we identified our provider, and we will be opening up the first crisis response center for North King County. And again, it's the same cities - it's Kenmore, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, Bothell, and Kirkland - and we're excited to have this model here. They selected Connections Health Solutions, which is a national innovator in the space. They've done a lot of great work in Arizona, and that model is also what I believe the executive based his models off of. And they should be opening up next year, and it's gonna offer a place for people who are facing any sort of mental health issue or behavioral health issue - a place where they can go and actually talk with somebody, regardless of insurance, regardless of where they live, or any of that. It'll give people a place to go, which right now is severely lacking throughout the county. [00:11:23] Crystal Fincher: What happens when there is no place to go? [00:11:26] Brook Buettner: I can kind of speak to that. So in the past, when we encountered someone in the field in crisis, the options were either that they stay where they are, that they go to the emergency department, or an arrest and jail - if it's not safe for them to stay in the community setting or in the home where they are at - safe for themselves or safe for the people around them. And this allows us an alternative to say - Maybe the emergency department is not the right place, and certainly jail is not the right place for somebody in deep behavioral health crisis. We're gonna take them somewhere that we know will accept them, we know will allow them to stay, will provide robust psychiatric and behavioral healthcare, and do discharge planning so that they're walking out with a plan and a connection to ongoing care. Connections, in particular, has a model that has multiple levels of acuity and step-down so that if somebody comes in at the highest acuity, they're in one setting. And as they deescalate, as they get different treatment on board or medications on board, they can step down to a lower acuity setting and even to an outpatient model while they wait to get hooked up with the local behavioral health system of care. And Crystal, you mentioned the behavioral health continuum of care, and I love that you brought that up because this is - North King County is about to have, kind of the first in our state, fully-executed crisis continuum of care when this facility opens up and it's super exciting. [00:12:44] Crystal Fincher: It's very exciting and so necessary. And I appreciate you all doing the work to get this implemented to be a model for the region. Other areas are looking at this - some areas are eager to adopt this and have public safety agencies, police agencies that are willing partners. Others have some concerns and there's almost a concern of - Okay, is this competition for us? Are they looking to move us out? What feedback have you heard from law enforcement officials, and how have they said it's impacted their job and the work that they have to do? [00:13:19] Mayor Nigel Herbig: To be honest, I haven't heard anything negative from our police partners - Kenmore, like Shoreline, contracts with the King County Sheriff's Office - they've been great partners in this. I think our chief is always looking for better ways to interact with folks who are in crisis and this gives him another tool. This gives him more resources to address the problem at hand, rather than only having law enforcement resources to fall back on - and I think he views that as a positive. So I have not heard any pushback from our law enforcement community up in North King County around this, and I think they're looking forward to using this as a resource and being partners in this. [00:13:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. For years and years - going back a decade and more - have heard several officers, chiefs talk about how challenging it is to respond to calls where there's a behavioral health component, or there isn't any illegal activity per se but someone is clearly in crisis, or people are being impacted around them and an intervention needs to take place but a criminal or a legal intervention doesn't seem to be the most positive. Brook, what have you heard from officers who have co-responded on these, or who are looking forward to a complete alternative response? How are they saying it's impacting their work and their ability to do their job? [00:14:37] Brook Buettner: We have been extraordinarily lucky in North King County that we've had support from law enforcement leadership since the get-go. Law enforcement was who asked for this program initially five years ago, saying these are not the kind of calls that we're supposed to be on - we need help, we need support. And so it has been a journey to get all of the responding officers - patrol officers and deputies - socialized to this idea. But once an officer or a deputy sees it in action, it's an easy sell. So what we find is that the more interaction we are having with law enforcement, the more referrals we're getting because they see - wow, that works - or we'll let them know that the follow-up that we did ended up keeping somebody from falling into deep crisis again. And it becomes a really good alternative for them and a good tool in their tool belt. I also am really attentive to making sure that we maintain good relationships on a one-on-one basis with all of our law enforcement partners, so that it's not a pain to have a social worker along but rather a pleasure - to say we're a great team, we work well together. Both sides recognize that each role has something to bring to a highly escalated crisis situation, and both sides recognize where their limits are. And so it's just been a constant growth of support and of buy-in. I've heard from several chiefs that they see shift in the culture - in the willingness to talk about behavioral health in a new way among the community and also within the department - that it opens up conversations that otherwise may not have happened. So it has really been a positive for our five police agencies. [00:16:05] Crystal Fincher: I think that is really an outstanding observation. And strikes me as important, especially as we hear from several police agencies across the state really that they're trying to recruit, they're short on officers, they're having a tougher time on that - and needing to triage their time and resources, and response times being impacted, other things that they're saying are being impacted. How can this help manage the workload for officers and across the public safety continuum? How has that been working? [00:16:34] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Speaking for Kenmore, our officers, right - until we had RADAR in place and until we had these partnerships - if somebody was out on the street decompensating, yelling, screaming, doing something like - like you said earlier, that's not illegal, but is disruptive to the community and the person is obviously in crisis - the only response we had was a police response. And I think even our officers recognize that there are better ways for them to be spending their time than dealing with somebody who's decompensating. It's not what they were hired for, it's not what their expertise is in. And this gives them a tool so that they can - working with the social workers - find what the right response is, hand off the person to the social worker, and then get back to catching speeders or investigating break-ins or whatever it is that they could be doing rather than dealing with the guy who is having a breakdown. So I view this as actually an expansion of our response, if you will - it gives us the ability to respond to more calls on both sides of things, both law enforcement and people experiencing a crisis. [00:17:38] Crystal Fincher: How have you seen that play out, Brook? [00:17:40] Brook Buettner: It is absolutely allowing officers to focus more on life safety and law - criminal law issues - by kind of carving off this segment of the work that comes into the 911 system and routing it to the appropriate resource, the right tool at the right time. I see what we're doing as a third kind of branch of the first response system. Going back again to the continuum of care, the level of care that someone gets should be based on the acuity of their need and of their crisis. And we have outpatient behavioral health for folks that have behavioral health challenges that are at a low acuity level. We have other systems in place that are secondary responses for people that are in crisis. And when people are in very high acuity crisis and 911 is needed, we now have this first response behavioral health tool in our toolbox - that crisis responders that are skilled and trained and experienced in meeting people that are in the highest acuity level of behavioral health crisis, but still not committing a crime. So it is a 911 call - it's not necessarily a law enforcement need, but there is a need for a very high level response - and we're now able to provide that. [00:18:47] Crystal Fincher: Did you have anything to add, Nigel? [00:18:49] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Well, I was gonna say - I think a lot of this came out of the recognition that we've seen over the last 150 years that when your only response is a police response, the outcomes are not ideal. We have seen too many folks who are dealing with a mental health issue - and that is a huge section of our population - it's not something we talk about, but a huge proportion of folks are dealing with some sort of mental health issue. And just because somebody is having a very hard day doesn't mean that they should end up in jail or be put at risk, frankly, of a police interaction. We know that sometimes those interactions can turn out tragically. And being thrown into jail or worse, because you're experiencing a mental health issue, can ruin somebody's life or - and frankly, can ruin not only their lives, but also their kids' lives. When we enter somebody into the criminal justice system, it has long-lasting effects on not just the person impacted, but also their family, their kids, their kids' kids - it can have multigenerational effects on people. And we've seen that play out over the last, well, 50, 100 years. This gives folks, this gives our police officers a different response. And I think it's - that's what I'm excited about - I'm excited that people who are experiencing mental health issues can actually get the treatment they need rather than a pure law enforcement response, because nobody deserves to go to jail because they're having a breakdown. [00:20:12] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it's a shift in how we've been doing things. What are the results that you're seeing from this? Obviously, people are looking to justify these expenditures and implement these in their own areas. What results are you seeing when it comes to amount of calls, recidivism? I know in some other cities, they talk about how many calls come in about behavioral health issues that aren't someone breaking the law but that are someone in crisis, as you've talked about, and how much time that takes up, how many repeated calls those spur, and how much time that demands - just the amount, enormous amount, of resources that demands. How are you seeing that impacted and what results are you seeing from this program? [00:20:55] Brook Buettner: Directly to your question, Crystal, we don't have a lot of data yet on reduction in 911 calls, or 911 dispatch center or officer time. I do have some outcome data though that our King County partners were able to pull together for us for the RADAR Navigator program - that folks that were touched by the RADAR Navigator program - in two years following that program touch, we saw a 67% reduction in adult jail bookings. And that is a tremendous impact. We saw a 60% reduction in behavioral health crisis events. And that is measured by King County's Department of Community and Human Services who oversees the behavioral health system crisis response. They also experienced a smaller 4% reduction in emergency department visits. And of the folks that our program touched, 14% were subsequently enrolled in publicly funded behavioral health services. And I think that's a significant undercount because a lot of the folks in our community do have private pay insurance and so there would be no way to count that. But we know that interaction with this program results in a reduction in jail, a reduction in crisis services, and an increase in engagement with the behavioral health system. And those are all big wins. And to your specific questions, those are the kind of things we're gonna be looking at in our program analysis as we go on. How is this saving on 911 calls? How is this saving on officer time? My dream is that we capture the cost savings of reduction in jail nights and say - let's put that back into the earlier end of the continuum of care and fund diversion, and ultimately fund a robust system of community-based behavioral health care so that people don't fall into crisis. Again, I wanna say we're extraordinarily lucky that our electeds and our city staff are all so interested and committed to doing this kind of analysis and thinking in this way. [00:22:37] Crystal Fincher: Thanks - I appreciate that data, that information - it's really, really powerful. And what strikes me hearing that is that when you talk about being booked into jail, emergency room visits - these are the most expensive parts of our system to use and to utilize. And savings on these are incredible - I'm looking at that reduction in the jail number, and that is a budget-altering number right there. Pretty incredible. And I recognize this is a newer program - certainly you've done the work with the RADAR program, this predecessor, and getting the data there. I'm sure more will be rolling in as this continues and you move on, so that's great. Did you have something you wanted to add, Brook? [00:23:16] Brook Buettner: Yeah, just a thought that this is what we sometimes call a different purse problem - that each of these reductions affects a different financial system. And so part of our work is gonna be pulling together those cost offsets and making sure that the savings are redirected appropriately to meeting people's needs. [00:23:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that is such an incredible problem in the public sector - yeah, this is saving a billion dollars, but if that's spread across a ton of different budgets in different ways, it's a whole different animal than someone handing someone basically a rebate check for a billion dollars. As you look forward, you talked about moving forward and moving towards a program where it truly is an alternative response where there are one or two crisis responders who respond to these calls without law enforcement initially - they can certainly call them in if it's warranted or they need backup. How do you see this progressing with that change and beyond it? What are the plans? [00:24:14] Brook Buettner: First, I'll say that the primary challenge that stands between us and a pure alternative response system is the dispatch question - and the ability to understand when a 911 call comes in, what's really going on - and that is often not clear from a 911 call. So we really wanna work through this very carefully with all of our partners and make sure that we're doing the outreach in a way that's safe and appropriate, that meets people's needs, but also keeps our responders safe. And so that is probably my work for the next two years - is digging into - How do we do call receiving? How do we triage? And then how do we appropriately dispatch the right resource? I have kind of been moving from calling it alternative response to thinking of it as a behavioral health first response. Whatever - when someone is in behavioral health crisis - whatever resource is the right resource. And I can see, for example, that being a crisis responder plus an EMT when someone has or has stated that they will take too much medication - and that's a medical plus a mental health need. Whereas if there's maybe a weapon in play, then that's a law enforcement plus a mental health need. And so thinking of it as a first response system with all of the tools that we need available to our dispatchers. [00:25:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Nigel? [00:25:28] Mayor Nigel Herbig: I think something that Brook kind of glossed over a little bit - but I think is an important thing that we're gonna have to work out - is the fact that we're using multiple different police. We have different police forces, if you will, and different dispatch systems. So like I said earlier, in Shoreline and Kenmore you have King County Sheriff's Office and they're dispatched in one way. And then Lake Forest Park and Bothell, they have their own. And Kirkland, they have their own police officers and they're dispatched differently. And so it does create - it is a complication that I believe we'll work through. And I know with Brook's leadership, that'll get worked out - but it's not as straightforward as just having one dispatch system that we need to educate and get up to speed. [00:26:06] Crystal Fincher: How is this being funded? How much did you have to come up with as individual cities in this regional partnership? How is the funding talked about? Because this is something that has been kind of thorny when we look at the Regional Homelessness Authority, but with this collaboration, how does this work, Nigel? [00:26:25] Mayor Nigel Herbig: I can't get into what the specific numbers are we're spending - I do know it's more than what we were with RADAR. Part of that is because we're expanding things from - we're approaching 24/7 is part of the goal. Part of this is also funded by King County MIDD, the Mental - oh, I don't remember - [00:26:41] Crystal Fincher: I know - I always try to remember what MIDD stands for. [00:26:43] Brook Buettner: Mental Illness Drug Dependency. [00:26:45] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. [00:26:46] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Thank you, I was just digging around. [00:26:48] Crystal Fincher: Very, very useful. [00:26:50] Mayor Nigel Herbig: No, super useful - and they're the reason why we were able to do RADAR and test out, essentially test out the model, set the foundation for where we are now - is because of the MIDD funding. And we're very thankful to King County and Councilmember Dembowski for his help with that. Our expenses are definitely higher than they were in previous years with RADAR - there's no question around that, and it was part of our budget discussions last year. But I think it's something that we're all committed to because we do see the long-term payoffs - not just on our budgets, but frankly in outcomes - and all the councils seem fairly committed to that. So I believe that they - I wasn't involved in these negotiations, staff was - but I believe that they were negotiating based on population and number of hours that would be required to cover each jurisdiction, and then breaking up the cost and using some sort of formula that we all agreed to. Brook can probably speak a little bit more to that, but we got to a place where everybody was comfortable with the investments that we'd be making. [00:27:47] Crystal Fincher: Sure, Brook? [00:27:48] Brook Buettner: Yeah, so like Mayor Herbig said, the MIDD funding has been really foundational to piloting this as the RADAR Navigator Program and even to the expansion. We also have some funding through the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs' Trueblood dollars for Mental Health First, or Field Response teams. And we have had some support from the Association of Washington Cities. And then I'm so delighted that starting this year, we have general fund contribution from each of our five cities. It is per capita-based at this time. We have plans to really keep a close eye on utilization and think about whether some cities have higher utilization and that may affect their contribution rate. But I also have plans to get the payers on the hook for this as well. So when we talked about the wrong purse problem - a 4% reduction in emergency department visits is a big bonus for insurers and for the managed care organizations. And King County Department of Community and Human Services and the behavioral health services organization have been thinking about this as well. How do we get the private insurers to be picking up what they are supposed to be covering for their covered lives around crisis services? There are a couple of folks at the State Legislature that are really thinking carefully about this. And I see us as being kind of a test case outside the traditional behavioral healthcare system to be reimbursed by the health payers for this service that ends up with better outcomes and lower costs over time. [00:29:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. As we move to close this, what advice do you have to other cities approaching this? And what would you tell residents about why this is so useful and so important? [00:29:21] Mayor Nigel Herbig: I think I would advise other cities to take a look at their 911 calls, talk with their police officers - see what sort of calls they're responding to that maybe they're not the best equipped first responder for. I don't think police officers enjoy these sorts of calls on their own. I also think that you can point towards the outcomes that we will have around better results for the people involved, better results for the community, and frankly, cost savings at the end of the day when it comes to jail days and ER visits. And other cities might be big enough to do this on their own, which will make their lives a little bit easier and all of that. But I think other cities - and if you're looking in other parts of the county, there are places where there are multiple cities all right next to each other that could, if they wanted to, join together and do this sort of work. And I would encourage them to have those conversations and really ask themselves - What do they want the response to be when somebody calls 911 in crisis? Because I don't think anybody actually thinks the right answer is a person with a badge and a gun. And I think people need to really reflect on that, and really think about how they truly serve the people that they are working for, and make sure they're doing that in the best and most responsive and person-centered way possible. And this is, I think, a huge step in that direction. [00:30:36] Crystal Fincher: Any final words from you, Brook? [00:30:38] Brook Buettner: I love what Mayor Herbig said - just asking yourselves - What is it that we want people in crisis to get from our first response system? And then from my social-worky side, building relationships across jurisdictions and across sectors to bring - this is very complex - so to bring all the players to the table to offer the kind of response that people deserve when they're in crisis. [00:30:59] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you both to Brook Buettner, Mayor Herbig - sincerely appreciate you spending time with us today and helping to educate us on what's going on there in the north part of the County. And it's certainly a lot to reflect on and hopefully emulate moving forward. Thank you both. [00:31:16] Mayor Nigel Herbig: Thank you. [00:31:17] Brook Buettner: Thank you so much for having us. [00:31:18] 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.

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North Middlesex's Evan Flowers joins Sal and Dan to talk about The Midd's 2023 so far. In the Prem, Ealing have hit the top and Twickenham have hit the bottom. Richmond continue purring in Div 1 whilst London Tigers pull off a big shock in Div 3. Plus, SKLPC's miraculous last over that got them a tie at Actonians and the strange cheeseburger incident involving North Midd's Director of Cricket..... 

Be a smarter trader and investor with CI Markets. Learn more: https://completeintel.com/marketsIn the latest episode of The Week Ahead, Tony Nash leads an insightful discussion with industry experts Tracy Shuchart, Mayhem, and Albert Marko. The episode covers a wide range of topics, providing valuable insights into the current state of the global economy and geopolitical landscape.One of the key themes explored in the episode is the low crude prices and the upcoming OPEC meeting. Tracy Shuchart analyzes the factors contributing to the downward pressure on crude prices, despite expectations of a seasonal increase. She highlights recession fears and limited market participation as major factors hampering the rise in prices. The OPEC meeting, scheduled for June 4th, becomes a focal point of discussion, particularly in light of Russian overproduction. The experts discuss the potential outcomes of the meeting, including the possibility of production cuts and their impact on countries like India that heavily rely on affordable Russian crude.Mayhem delves into the issue of U.S. Treasury debt issuance and its implications for market liquidity and financial conditions. The recent passage of the debt ceiling prompts an exploration of the upcoming $1.2 trillion of U.S. Treasury issuance. Mayhem provides insights into the expected timing of the issuance and its potential impact on the markets. The experts also touch upon the decline in investor home purchases, questioning whether the rise in interest rates is the sole cause or if other factors are at play. They contemplate the extent of this trend and its potential future implications.Albert Marko leads the discussion on the changing dynamics of the Middle East and the implications for the United States. The UAE's withdrawal from a maritime agreement with the U.S. serves as a catalyst for analyzing the broader challenges in the region. Tensions with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, coupled with evolving U.S. policies, shape the geopolitical landscape. The experts emphasize the need for the U.S. to build strong relationships with important countries like Turkey and Indonesia without excluding other global powers. They acknowledge the complexities of navigating the Middle East and stress the importance of long-term efforts in rebuilding relationships.As the episode concludes, the participants share their expectations for the week ahead. They look ahead to the OPEC meeting and its potential outcomes, considering the impact on global energy markets. Additionally, they discuss the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting and the decision on interest rates, offering diverse perspectives on whether a rate hike is imminent or if the Fed will adopt a more dovish approach.Key themes:1. Why is crude so low? (and OPEC)2. UST Tsunami3. Middle East (UAE)This is the 67th episode of The Week Ahead, where experts talk about the week that just happened and what will most likely happen in the coming week.Follow The Week Ahead panel on Twitter:Tony: https://twitter.com/TonyNashNerdTracy: https://twitter.com/chigrlAlbert: https://twitter.com/amlivemonMayhem: https://twitter.com/Mayhem4MarketsWatch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/O8ot6yHQgqg

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with Sarah Reyneveld about her campaign for King County Council District 4 - why she decided to run, the experience she brings as a public sector attorney and community advocate, and her thoughts on addressing frontline worker wages and workforce issues, the need for upstream alternatives in the criminal legal system and substance use crisis, how to improve policy implementation, climate change and air quality, and budget revenue and transparency. 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 Sarah Reyneveld at @SarahReyneveld.   Resources Campaign Website - Sarah Reyneveld   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Hello, I'm so excited to be welcoming to the program today King County Council candidate, Sarah Reyneveld. Hello. [00:01:01] Sarah Reyneveld: Hello, Crystal. Thank you so much for having me today - I'm excited about the conversation. [00:01:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I guess just starting out - we have seen you run for State Legislature before. I'm wondering why you're choosing to run for the County now, and what do you hope to accomplish in that position? [00:01:18] Sarah Reyneveld: Yes, I think that King County Council and the King County is really at a critical point in time, and I'm excited to bring my lived experience as a working parent, a Seattle Public School parent, a transit rider, a union organizer - I helped organize my union of Assistant Attorney Generals - and also my experience as a public sector attorney who has fought for workers and our environment, and as a community advocate working with communities across King County to really make transformative change for workers, working families, and our environment on the King County Council. So for some background - in 2016, I became King County Councilmember Kohl-Welles' appointment to the King County Women's Advisory Board where I had the opportunity to work with communities throughout King County and the King County Council to help advocate for and secure investments in affordable housing, in behavioral health, childcare, and services to support survivors of gender-based violence. I started this work and became the Chair of the King County Women's Advisory Board before the pandemic - and I had two young kids at the time - and we had struggled like so many parents with access to affordable childcare, and the board at that time decided to take up that issue. So we worked on recommendations to expand childcare access for working parents and were able to work together with communities across King County, and the Executive, and King County Council to help reinstate a childcare subsidy, to expand access to childcare for working families, and establish a wage provider boost to help increase pay for childcare providers who are disproportionately women and BIPOC women and immigrants. And then the pandemic hit and I continued to do this work and it really laid bare - staggering inequities and injustices in King County that disproportionately impacted women and our communities of color and immigrants and other marginalized communities, who are more likely to be on the forefront and were experiencing disproportionately - unemployment and financial loss and illness. So as I continue to work on these issues, I saw what an important role King County played in not just responding to the pandemic and now the shadow pandemic, but in really providing public health, and behavioral health, and public transit, and helping with food security and housing. So I'm running for King County Council because I've been doing this work with community and I think the status quo is no longer good enough. We need bold and transformative action to really meet the urgency of this moment. We have a really unique opportunity to create a more equitable economy and a sustainable future for all workers and working families in King County. And I think that King County can and must do more - and my priorities are to create more truly affordable housing to help better meet the behavioral health needs of our neighbors in crisis, to really tackle the climate crisis and protect our environment for future generations, to provide accessible and frequent public transit for all, and to really look at what we can do to reimagine our public safety and criminal legal system. So I'm excited about the opportunity. [00:04:46] Crystal Fincher: I see. Now you covered a lot there. In there, you mentioned caring for workers, addressing housing. One thing called out by experts as a barrier to our homelessness response is that frontline worker wages don't cover the cost of living. Do you think our local nonprofits have a responsibility to pay living wages for our area? And how can we make that more likely with how we bid and contract for services? [00:05:10] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely think that our nonprofits have a duty to pay more in terms of adequately funding - not just contracts - but ensuring that those contracts lead to an equitable living wage and union jobs. And that includes cost of living adjustments and other supports for workers. So right now we have a really high turnover rate for frontline workers and particularly those workers that the County contracts with - I've heard 40-60% turnover rate. And I think we need to address the underlying issue of why those workers are turning over. And the underlying issue - one of them is pay equity and not ensuring that we are paying, particularly our frontline workers, adequately or providing them with the supports that they need. So it's about equitable pay, it's about cost of living adjustments, and it's about ensuring that those workers have access to affordable housing and transit in King County as well - so they can really afford to live where they work. And so I see this issue as very intersectional and something that King County can do more to address. And I would just say, generally, I think we as a society tend to lift up certain sorts of workers - the CEOs of companies, for example. And those people that are really doing the real work of caring for our community - of building our housing, of connecting us through transit, of providing behavioral health services - we don't invest equitably or sufficiently in those workers. And so starting with contracting is critically important, but we need to do more to ensure that we're investing in living wage jobs, and workforce housing, and bonuses, and ensuring that these workers have the supports that they need. And that is part of my vision for building back better and creating a more equitable economy that really centers workers and working families in King County. [00:07:13] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now, would you have voted to approve the transfer of inmates to the SCORE jail to alleviate a lot of the issues plaguing the King County Jail, including overcrowding, lack of water, inadequate healthcare, illnesses, understaffing? Would you have voted in the same way that the King County Council did? [00:07:31] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I want to start with just the conditions at the King County Jail. So the six deaths in 2022 in the downtown jail and kind of the subsequent ACLU lawsuit, I think, show that King County is failing too many criminally involved individuals, particularly our Black and Brown community members and those with chronic behavioral health and substance use issues. I am really concerned about what is happening in terms of inhumane conditions at the jail that include excessive use of solitary confinement, and lack of transportation to medical appointments and court appointments, and delays with mental health and other medical appointments. And I think King County, which is the oversight body of the King County Jail, needs to do more to address these concerns and ensure safety. And these really poor conditions at the jail didn't happen overnight. They are partially caused by lack of adequate staffing - that's been an issue for decades and was exacerbated since COVID. And also issues with an antiquated, really obsolete building. And lack of access to medical care and treatment, as I was stating. So on the King County Council, if elected, I want to work with disproportionately impacted communities and fellow King County Councilmembers to urgently address these issues. I think we need to invest more in restorative justice. And when the King County Council took that vote in terms of transferring those incarcerated folks to SCORE, I think they noted that we need to do more in terms of investing in restorative justice and upstream alternatives to really reimagine our criminal legal system. So first I think we need to prevent and reduce incarceration through investing in upstream - investments in youth and vulnerable adults. And that means doing more to expand effective diversion programs, such as the Law Assisted Diversion Program and Co-LEAD, which has been really effective in diverting folks out of the criminal legal system and out of the King County Jail to begin with. I think we also need to move towards actualizing King County Executive's vision and so many activists' vision of really closing the downtown jail and reimagining and reducing the size of the King County facilities. So in terms of the SCORE vote, I don't think either option were good options. The King County Council arrived at that vote because there had not been enough, really, work done on restorative justice and on the underlying issues around staffing and overcrowding at the jail. And I think keeping vulnerable incarcerated people in a downtown jail that had significant understaffing and overcrowding issues and a lack of access to medicine, or transferring incarcerated people to a facility that had potentially access-to-justice issues is not - neither one of those are good options. And so that's why I want to roll up my sleeves and ensure that we're really investing sufficiently in diversion programs and alternatives - to invest in folks to prevent them from becoming incarcerated in the first place and also move towards reimagining our system. And I will say that I don't think King County Council can address this issue alone. In 2022, there were over, I think, 100 people in King County Jail that were deemed to be incompetent to stand trial in King County that were awaiting a treatment bed. So if we work with our state partners to really fund mental health and ensure treatment for vulnerable populations like this, then we won't have to make these sort of decisions. [00:11:00] Crystal Fincher: So am I hearing that you would not vote - disagreeing with this vote? If in the future a vote were to come up to extend or expand this SCORE transfer or transfer to other jails, does that mean you're a No vote on that? [00:11:13] Sarah Reyneveld: I think that we need to, like I said, invest in alternatives and upstream alternatives to the criminal legal system. So like Councilmember Zahilay and Councilmember Kohl-Welles said - the transfer to SCORE was really not addressing the root cause of the issue. We need to be investing in upstream alternatives and staffing and ensuring that folks within our system are safe. [00:11:36] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now you talked about substance use disorder being so key in treating upstream issues to really address the root causes of what is leading people to criminal behavior. We're dealing with a conundrum. The governor just called a special session following our State Supreme Court invalidating personal substance possession as a crime. Our Legislature took action a couple of years ago to recriminalize it - that has a sunset provision. They were not able to decide on any statewide policy before the session ended, so they're going to be taking that up in a special session. There are conversations about - should drug use be criminalized at all? If it should, is it a misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor, felony? Where do you stand? Where should personal possession of substances be dealt with? How would you handle that? [00:12:27] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think this is an issue that the Legislature has been grappling with and it's really an important issue. And I think we need to be moving away from criminalization of drug possession. Specifically, we moved away from criminalization of drug possession for marijuana - we need to do the same thing with psychedelics and other sorts of drugs that have medicinal and other positive effects. I think when it comes to addressing our fentanyl and heroin crisis, I think that if I were a legislator, I'd probably move in the direction of ensuring that we're looking at the lesser of any sort of crime - which would be a misdemeanor - and looking at pathways to treatment for that use. And I think we have to think about how we can connect folks that are in crisis because of substance use disorder with services. And so to me, it's about what more can King County do - because I'm not sitting in the place of a legislator - to ensure that we're investing in upstream solutions and treatment. And so I think helping to implement the King County Crisis Care Center Levy and ensuring that folks that are in - particularly a substance use crisis, whether - we know that we have a fentanyl crisis. I have worked on litigation to sue Purdue Pharma and understand just the addictive effects of those drugs. And we need to make sure that there's - those folks are connected to Medicaid-assisted treatment on demand, that they're connected to services. And so looking at what more we can do to scale up the crisis centers in an equitable way and preserve and restore beds that are primarily aimed at treating the underlying causes - I think it's critically important. And so one of my priorities, if elected to the King County Council, will be to look at how we're implementing these crisis care centers, how I'm working potentially with the Legislature for additional treatment beds for substance use disorder. I have, as so many people have had, someone in my life that has experienced a substance use disorder issue. And I think it's so hard to navigate the system to even find detox or substance use treatment for someone like me that knows how to navigate systems, much less someone that could be either at-risk at being involved in the criminal legal system or becoming unhoused or dealing with a substance use crisis. And so finding ways in which we can ensure that those that are affected are obtaining treatment, I think is critically important. [00:15:07] Crystal Fincher: You raised a number of important issues there and you touched on helping to get the Crisis Care Centers Levy - which passed - implemented. [00:15:16] Sarah Reyneveld: Yes. [00:15:17] Crystal Fincher: There have been some criticisms and challenges with implementation of programs - at all levels of government, really, but including with the County - and issues of staffing that may not have been foreseen, or challenges run into, communication issues. Do you think there's an opportunity to improve implementation of policy and programs overall? And how do we need to do that? What needs to change in order for that to happen? [00:15:42] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. And I absolutely think there are opportunities to improve policy implementation at the County. One of the things that I really appreciate about King County's work and that I wanna bring as a lens to my work is that I do believe that the best public policy is made - I think Councilmember Zahilay says this in his views and paraphrasing him, but - by those that are closest to the injustice. And so we really need to invest in community-based solution to a lot of our largest challenges in King County. And so I appreciate that on all issues of County government and all levels of County government, whether it be addressing the gun violence crisis or the behavioral health crisis or childcare, we're really investing in community-based solutions. So I think that's critically important, but I think we also have to have a way to measure outcomes in terms of what is the County doing that's working and what is the County doing that's not working. And if we have, for example, a health through housing facility that we have stood up, but it's not being adequately staffed and we're not adequately utilizing it, and really ensuring that vulnerable populations can access housing and those services - we need to look at what more we can do to ensure that that is being used appropriately and we're really maximizing opportunities to make good use of public dollars. So I think we absolutely need to be working with communities and listening to communities and centering their voices. And then I think King County, as a body, needs to work with those communities to make sure that the investments that were being made are working on the community level and that we're really scaling up things that work. And I, as someone who's taught at the Evans School of Public Affairs and has been a policy wonk for years, am really interested in working with community and my fellow councilmembers in doing that work. [00:17:38] Crystal Fincher: So on almost every measure, we're behind our 2030 climate goals. You've talked about addressing climate change and mitigating the impacts of that on people being one of your priorities. We've experienced the impacts from wildfires, heat and cold, floods, et cetera. What are your highest priority plans to get us on track to meet our 2030 goals? [00:17:59] Sarah Reyneveld: Yes, thank you for that excellent question. As an Assistant Attorney General that works to protect our environment and public health, this is an issue that is critically important to me because of the urgency of action and the need to really address this challenge - centering communities in a just transition. So first, I think we need to electrify transportation and invest deeply in transit. We know that to meet our carbon reduction goals, we have to get people out of cars and into transit. And yet we have seen that Metro Transit service has languished since the pandemic and ridership has fallen by half. And those transit delays - I'm a transit rider to work, I take my little boy to daycare downtown with me - and they're disproportionately affecting transit riders, which are working families, BIPOC communities, low income communities, youth, seniors, and others that rely on transit. And it's a transit justice issue. So I have already been doing some of this work, but if elected to the King County Council, I want to continue this work by working with a coalition of transit riders and groups like the Transit Riders Union and Seattle Subway and The Urbanist and others to pass a county-wide transit revenue package to fund a King County Transportation Benefit District, which would supplant the city one and really help us restore an increased Metro Transit service to deliver faster, more frequent, reliable, and zero-emission service that connects all our community members. I think the measure should also ensure that transit is free to those who are cost-burdened. Right now, one of our impediments to increasing transit service and getting people out of cars is the shortage of transit operators and mechanics. And part of this funding package, or looking at other funding sources, has to be to address that issue of recruiting and retaining Metro bus drivers. And that has to include a living wage and additional incentives and supports, including safety supports, to build the workforce of Metro operators. Now, I just spoke to Metro operators at ATU last week, and they told me they're facing significant workplace safety and pay and other challenges that are really contributing to job stress and attrition. So we have to address that underlying issue if we're gonna get people out of cars and into transit. I also think we need to do more to decarbonize our built environment, which is probably the largest carbon emission in King County, through the adoption and strengthening of commercial building codes that will require communities to reduce energy use and also center communities in initiatives such as the Climate Equity Capital Pool to electrify their homes, for electric appliances and retrofits and solar panels. I think there's a lot of opportunities that we can leverage on the federal level to use grants and incentives and rebates to really update the building codes - and achieve these energy efficiencies and decarbonize our environment and our built environment - while bringing workers along. And I think we need to look at passing stronger provisions and incentives to transition off natural gas in a way that brings people and workers along and hastens this just transition to a clean energy economy - because we know that natural gas use in commercial and residential buildings accounts for a really large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions. I would also say that we need to do more to sustainably manage our forests and our working lands to ensure climate-friendly forest management and farming to mitigate climate change impacts and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and look at how we can promote carbon storage in soils and increase the use of green space. I would also say, probably lastly, a large percentage of the carbon emissions in King County result from our food system. So I wanna lead in ensuring that all communities have opportunities to become food producers, to access urban and rural farmland, and that we're really centering disproportionately impacted communities and empowering them to become farmers - particularly in food deserts and ensuring that tribes have access to their traditional food sources and cultural resources. And I've talked a lot to labor about this, and I would say that I believe that we can work towards a just transition to a clean energy economy that really centers workers and equitable pathways to green jobs and apprenticeships, but it's gonna take us building a coalition. And I'm committed to really rolling up my sleeves and working with our labor partners and folks that are disproportionately impacted and our community members to build that just transition towards a clean energy economy and a sustainable community that addresses our climate crisis. [00:23:01] Crystal Fincher: You talked about needing to address the staffing issues in our public transportation department, certainly an issue in Metro that is urgently in need of addressing. We've seen in several other departments - with sheriffs, certainly with municipal police departments in the County - that they're giving retention bonuses, hiring bonuses to help attract people. And what we've seen is - although they are on record saying that that isn't really moving the needle and may not, there are a lot of people in other departments saying that would absolutely move the needle here. Do you support retention bonuses and hiring bonus and some of the things that we've seen for folks working in public safety for other workers? [00:23:40] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. I think we really need to listen to workers, and my platform is all about lifting up and centering and listening to workers. And to me, hiring bonuses are not gonna address the root cause of the issue. And the root cause of the issue is really living wages and supports for drivers. But if hiring bonuses will help certain segments of workers - I did talk to, for example, an ATU bus operator that said that they had hiring bonuses in Pierce County and that they had not yet received any sort of retention or hiring bonus. And so if that's something that's going to help workers feel valued, I think that we do have to look at that as an option. However, it doesn't really address the root cause. And that is we need to support our frontline workers and give them a living wage. So we need to increase base pay for workers. We need to give them benefits - adequate benefits - flexibility, and the working conditions that they deserve. And for some frontline workers, that's gonna mean more investment in safety measures or hazard pay. And for other frontline workers, that may include a bonus. But I think we need to listen to workers, we need to center workers, and we really need to give them living wages, benefits, and the working conditions they deserve. I think you are absolutely right to say that the workforce issue is huge in King County, and we have to do more to address it. When I talk to workers - everyone from grocery store workers to our bus operators, to behavioral health workers - they're really struggling to make a living wage to afford to live in King County, and save for retirement, and raise their kids. And they're really the sheroes and heroes of, I think, responding to the pandemic or the shadow pandemic, but also just of taking care of our communities. And they're really bearing the brunt of our crises - our unhoused crisis, the opioid crisis, the behavioral health crisis. So we at King County have to do better to support them, and that includes living wages, benefits, and working conditions. And I am interested and very committed to doing that work to center workers. [00:25:56] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and you're completely correct that they are bearing the brunt of that. Another issue that kind of delves both into addressing climate change and mitigating the impacts of it and public health is air and clean air within buildings. And this has been increasingly talked about - especially as we've learned more about airborne pathogens, and as we've dealt more with wildfire smoke, and how much we've learned about how pollutants and pollution impact health, impact life expectancy. There are areas in Seattle that have life expectancies years shorter than other areas in the same city. Does the County have a responsibility to provide clean and safe air within its buildings and to try and incentivize that throughout other privately owned buildings and businesses in the County? [00:26:45] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I absolutely think the County has a responsibility - working with our state regulators as well as our federal regulators and policymakers - to ensure that everyone has access to clean air. I see this as an environmental justice issue - you pointed out that disproportionately - communities that live in areas with higher rates of pollution and that are more impacted, disproportionately impacted by climate change are experiencing poor air quality. And I think we have seen through the effects of climate change and really rampant wildfires and other issues, that these are disproportionately impacting our frontline communities and communities that are already overburdened. So I think that one thing that we can do at the King County level is really urgently lead on addressing the climate crisis. And our air quality is just gonna get worse as the climate crisis and the impacts increase. And so I think we need someone that's gonna really roll up their sleeves and provide strong leadership to really address these underlying issues around air and water pollution and to address the climate crisis. And so I wanna do that work with disproportionately impacted communities, and part of that work is really getting people out of cars and into transit. So really think having a strong vision for what that looks like and how to center frontline communities is really critically important. [00:28:18] Crystal Fincher: Looking at the state of this race, you're in a competitive race this time - you were last time, too - but this time you're part of a competitive race. What do your endorsements say about you, and what are you most proud of? [00:28:33] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think I am - just to get back to my roots - I am a public sector attorney, I am a working parent, I am a community advocate, and I have lived in the 4th Council District for 25 years, and really have dedicated my 15-year public service career to advancing progressive policy, legal, and budgetary solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. And I have worked in community to drive progressive policies forward, and I think my endorsements reflect the work that I've done in community. I have endorsements from five members of the King County Council, including Councilmember Kohl-Welles and Councilmember Zahilay, who I've worked with directly around securing access to more childcare, to addressing gender-based violence, to doing more for affordable housing. And I think my endorsements really speak to the depth of work and the way that I have worked to elevate community voices in community and doing that work. I would say that one of the endorsements I'm most proud of is Councilmember Kohl-Welles' endorsement because she's been a mentor to me and I have worked with her on a number of issues to improve the lives of women in disproportionately impacted communities in King County. And I'm also proud of the endorsement from my boss, A.G. Bob Ferguson. I have dedicated my career to being on the frontlines, to helping enforce workers' rights to fair wages to equal pay, to protect our environment. And I've done this work in the Attorney General's office and the fact that I have the support of my boss as I'm running for King County Council, just like he ran for King County Council, and that he's been helping me out on the campaign trail. And ensuring that I'm running a strong grassroots campaign really means the world to me. [00:30:20] Crystal Fincher: Now, we've also talked about how important it is to enact a lot of policy, to take care of people - obviously, we need to address staffing. All of the things that we've talked about today - a lot of them require revenue. We just ran a big levy because we needed the revenue. The list of things that everyone says is necessary, evidently costs more than we have in the budget, so new revenue is needed. What progressive revenue options exist at the County level today, and will you pursue any of them? [00:30:50] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, so I have a long history of advocating for progressive revenue, including the capital gains tax as a citizen advocate and board member of Washington's Paramount Duty. And so I have fought with, alongside a coalition of folks that are really pushing for progressive revenue reform at the state level. I still think there's so much more we can do and look forward to being a strong partner in that work. King County is projected to face revenue shortfalls and has constrained revenue sources. I do wanna fight against austerity budgets and look really critically at how we can obtain authority from the Legislature to pass truly progressive revenue sources that center working people. I think we also need to look at potentially lifting the 1% property tax lid if we can provide exemptions for homeowners and fixed income seniors. But I think the kind of frustrating thing about the County is it is revenue-constrained and that we need to work hard both on the County Council and in partnership with communities to figure out what more we can do to obtain authority to pass truly progressive revenue sources, whether or not that's taxing business or looking at more progressive revenue sources other than property tax and sales tax and some of these use fees. So I'm dedicated to doing that work in partnership with community and I'm really looking forward to that. [00:32:26] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. And with the budget, King County does incremental budgeting making it difficult for the public to understand - making it difficult for some people in government to understand, but especially the public - to understand how King County funds are allocated in the base budget. What can be done to make the budget easier for the public to understand and influence? [00:32:47] Sarah Reyneveld: Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. We need more transparency in the budget process and we need more participation from community at the County level in the budget process. I have testified, for example, funding for the mental health counselors under MIDD. I have testified for affordable housing. I've testified for more childcare funding. And sometimes it's difficult, as the budget comes over from the Executive, to know what's different about the budget, right? And so I find generally that through this work as a member of the King County Women's Advisory Board and as a citizen advocate that King County budgets are not as accessible, for example, as legislative budgets. And more needs to be done to ensure that they're more transparent and accessible, and also that we're ensuring that the public is engaged in the budgeting process and understands it. So I think one of the things that we can do, and Councilmember Zahilay has done such a great job of this, is just explaining the King County budget process - how the budget comes over from the Executive, what the budget looks like, and how to understand the budget. I think another thing we could do is helping to really center folks that historically have not had a seat at the table in the budget process and have been excluded from power structures in developing policy and budgetary proposals - so that those folks are actually involved in the collaboration process through working groups and meetings and collaboration so that we're moving more towards participatory budget models, where constituents are not just involved in testifying, but really involved and actively involved every step of the process and ultimately in the decisions that impact them. So I'm really interested in working with all communities, and particularly frontline communities that are disproportionately impacted by these issues, and to really look to see what we can do towards more participatory budgeting. But first, of course, we have to make that process more transparent. [00:34:49] Crystal Fincher: Now, as we said before, you have at least one opponent now - the filing deadline isn't for a few weeks, couple weeks, few weeks here. So as you're talking to people who are considering who they're gonna vote for in this race, why should they vote for you over your opponents? [00:35:08] Sarah Reyneveld: Thank you. I'm running because I wanna continue the work that I've done with community and elevate community voices here in the 4th Council District and beyond to advance bold and transformative action for workers, for working families, and our environment on the King County Council. And as I said before, I think we're in a critical moment of time, and I am really committed to working with our most impacted communities to ensure that we are building back better and really creating equitable economic recovery that centers workers and working families and leads to a more sustainable future. Like many in our district, I'm a working parent, I'm a public school parent, transit rider, community organizer, and I have really dedicated my career to advancing progressive legal policy and budgetary solutions to some of our most pressing challenges - and I think we've really gotten results. As a member of the King County Women's Advisory Board, I have worked in partnership with community and the King County Council to secure investments in affordable housing, behavioral health, childcare, and services for survivors of gender-based violence. And I really wanna build on that track record. And I think I have the skills to do so - to really center community voices and to advance really bold, progressive solutions. I think there's three things that I would highlight to voters about why they should choose me in a competitive race. One is community - I'm running for the community and have demonstrated a history of leadership in my community, which is really reflected in our campaign's range of endorsements from elected officials to community leaders and labor. And I have lived experience as a mom and union member and transit rider that is not only reflective of my district, but I feel can be valuable on the King County Council. And lastly, I have a demonstrated history of leadership in my community working to build coalitions to deliver on progressive policies for workers and working families. And I think I've demonstrated that I'm unafraid to grapple with and do the real work of really advancing transformative solutions that are necessary at this critical moment in time. And I really look forward to the conversation on the campaign and hopefully to working with my community to ensure equitable economic recovery that really centers workers and working families and creates a more sustainable future for all. [00:37:37] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for joining us today. [00:37:40] Sarah Reyneveld: Thank you so much for having me. [00:37:42] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

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It's almost hard to be mad when your team loses to one of the best teams in the league, but it's easier when you do so in familiar ways. Horrific free throw shooting, absolutely no coaching to be found, and old vets playing like rookies on basic inbounds plays. The Mavs reminded fans why this team had us depressed before the win streak and we'll be right back to do it again tomorrow night. Yay!!! Enjoy! You can always find Bibs on Twitter @Bibscorner and Reese on Twitter and Instagram @MindofReese. Also, subscribe to MindofReese on YouTube. Finally, ensure you're following the show on Twitter @MavsOutsiders and Instagram @MavsOutsidersPod. Use code TBPN on Draftkings.com or hit the sign-up link here: (https://tinyurl.com/DKAMAZE) for a chance to win BIG! Help support the show and The Basketball Podcast Network. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/LA/MI/NJ/TN/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MI/NH/NJ/NY/OR/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Void in ONT. $150 in Free bets: New customers only. Min. $5 deposit. Min $5 pregame moneyline bet. $150 issued as six (6) $25 free bets. Bet must win. Ends 12/31/22. Stepped Up SGP: 1 Token issued per eligible game. Opt in req. Min $1 bet. Max bet limits apply. Min. 3-leg. Each leg min. -300 odds, total bet +100 odds or longer. 10+ leg req. for 100% boost. Ends at start of final game of the 2022-2023 NBA Season. See eligibility & terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com/basketballterms. You can now purchase the Mavs Outsiders hoodies at the Mavs Outsiders Shop on Etsy. You can also help the show by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We appreciate every listen and, of course, every review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris McKee was on site in Laval, Quebec for The Northern Classic which featured 6 NCAA teams in Canada including Stephen F. Austin, UNC-Greensboro, Montana State, Hofstra, Middle Tennessee & Quinnipiac. McKee speaks with several coaches and players in this episode and also gets an inside look into the SFA locker room and more. www.undraftedfreeagent.com

Alexandra Park's Portuguese run machine, Sharn Gomes, joins Sal and Dan to talk shop. On the field North Midd come a cropper at Twickenham, Harrow Town get promoted from Div 2 and Enfield set out on the Great Escape. Plus, news of 8.50pm finishes, players playing in their 80s and will an Actonians side finally - after a decade long drought - get promoted?

Finchley's Dave Burton joins Sal and Dan to discuss life with Finchley and indeed all the action in and around the MCCL. Bron and Enfield serve up a thriller whilst Kensington & Chelsea score 300 plus and still lose. Harrow St Mary's 4s somehow manage to declare after 20 overs …. and still win! Just an ordinary weekend in the MCCL

Hornsey go run crazy, Osterley & Harrow St Mary's have a wicket-taking fest plus Willow Leather & Swamibapa provide entertaining fair in Division Five.

This episode features a conversation I recently had with some friends on the college campus where we all met nearly two decades ago. Three out of of the four voices featured in this episode met on the campus of Middlebury College (Derek, Bill, Kelly). The fourth voice (Eric) is the partner of our friend and Midd alumni, Lili; and though Eric is not a father, he graciously accepted my invitation to join in this conversation about fatherhood in spite of his initial skepticism. This conversation is special because it marks the first time Derek, Bill, and I spent time together not just as friends but also as Dads. And capturing this moment was a truly special accomplishment. Our conversation was broadly about fatherhood. It is full of empathy, encouragement, gushing over our children, perspective shifts, healing, and lots of laughter and good time as men.Please share your thoughts about this and/or any other prior episode(s) here or there; and rate the podcast as well! You can always now visit the Welcome To Fatherhood website for more information. As always, thank you for spending your Wednesday with us!Theme MusicDreamweaver by Sound ForceFrom Premium BeatShow MusicCartoons by JeesGuyCloud Surfing by Nu Alkemi$tCheckin Bags by ElijahFrom Soundstripe

Sal and Dan welcome Harrow Town's Aravinth Nagarajan on board to discuss their great start to the season and their phenomenal 2021. Wycombe House power on in Div 3, and goodness only knows what was going on at Lanka Lions in Div 4. Plus, trees in the outfield? Dan reveals the grounds where that's happened in the first class arena

The mighty stumble in the Prem as Hampstead spring a surprise on Teddington. Nine teams across the league still have perfect records, news of a 60 point deduction and how many grounds out there have trees in the outfield?

For more information on this topic or to schedule a consultation please visit us at http://WhatIsHashimotos.com Links between thyroid health and brain health. Wow. That's a big subject. so I'll try to keep it short here. There's a link depending on who you are listening to, they might call it crosstalk between the thyroid and the brain. They might cause it the, the, the, the brain thyroid web, there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of terms for it, but there's a vicious cycle between the brain and the thyroid usually starts, usually starts with the thyroid and to keep it basic when you have autoimmune thyroid disease, when you have Hashimoto's okay. Autoimmune thyroid will, when you get a trigger to your thyroid. In other words, if you have Hashimoto's thyroid disease and there's so many triggers, there's the gluten, there's the there's different types of whether they're night shades or lectins, or there's glyco glyphosates, or, I mean, there's just a ton of food ones. There's chemical ones. There's, there's, there's pathogenic ones. There's there's just a hunt there's lifestyle ones. Whenever you introduce one of these triggers into your system depending on your sensitivities, you're likely to set off a thyroid response, cuz you're going to cause too much thyroid hormone to, to be ejected outta your system. This doesn't a lot of different things. Okay. It can cause it can cause heart palpitations, but it can in someone who is prone to anxiety or panic attacks, because they have a easily firing mid midbrain or it's called an a amygdala. That's not the midbrain an easily following a MIDD which is the fear center of the brain that extra thyroid hormone can set that off. And it can cause you to have anxiety or panic attacks in general. Hashimoto's is known to when, when, when it's, when it's active, it's known to increase inflammation to the frontal low and it's known to decrease oxygen to the brain. In general, the inflammation can hit the frontal low when, when you have, so when you have inflammation in your brain, your neurons, which are the, which are the the nerve cells of nerve tissue nerve cells, the neurons, they when they become inflamed they'll become excitatory producing some of the symptoms I just mentioned, but also inflammation will cause your neurons to not be able to make proper neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, meaning serotonin and dopamine means serotonin. I'm not happy. I have seasonal effective disorder, depressed dopamine. I'm not motivated. I'm angry. I wake up tired. And so, and so you put the two of 'em together, you have significant depression and maybe someone who wants to do harm to themselves, this is a chemical issue. And, and so Hashimoto's literally is involved in of those, in all, in all of those factors, Hashimoto's is now being and migraines, migraines, what are migraines, MI migraines, if you break it down to the simplest aspects of it. http://powerhealthtalk.com http://drmartinrutherford.com Martin P. Rutherford, DC 1175 Harvard Way Reno, NV 89502 775 329-4402 http://powerhealthreno.com https://goo.gl/maps/P73T34mNB4xcZXXBA

Miss America's Wellness Advisor Jonathan Bailor talks about the move to judging contestants on optimal health and performance rather than physical appearance,

The complete WVLY broadcast of the Lewisburg at Midd West high school football game from Friday, Sepetember 24, 2021

Advantage North Midd, but Week 17 could be a cracker. Plus, how on earth do you visit every MCCL ground in a day …. and the story ‘goose-poo-gate' in Division 5b

Only six games finished in Week 15, but we move into the limited overs games with plenty of unsolved issues. Sal and Dan talk through the run ins and try to work out who's going up and down

features

The Midd's Joel Hughes joins Sal and Dan to talk about the Midd's rise to the top of the MCCL plus all the week's other news

Title race tightens up and, erm, are Ealing going down? Plus, a spirit of cricket controversy, news of the mother of all batting collapses and a view on the lower divisions from Swamibapa's Shrikant Kerai

Ariel Epstein and Jared Smith are back to give you all the information you need to make it a profitable day in the wager world. Ariel and Jared explain why the Pelicans are just a team with no history and why Zion could fit better elsewhere. They dive deeper into some draft position props for the NFL Draft. Plus, Mid-Major Matt joins to preview the MLB slate today, with props, sides, and totals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

March 1st, Last male guest for this season. To cap off the 10th episode of guest, Talkin'Conversation by rich brings in Mid. On this monday this discuss life and college in the city as Mid goes to Georgia State. (Hooping there i might add)

Hear from a group of Midd students on their thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions of incarcerated felons and ex-convicts in society.

WKOK’s broadcast of the Shikellamy at Midd-West football game from Friday, October 30, 2020 with Kevin Herr and “The Chief” Dave Ritchie.

WKOK’s broadcast of the Shikellamy at Midd-West football game from Friday, October 30, 2020 with Kevin Herr and “The Chief” Dave Ritchie.

Hver natt deler vi seng med tusenvis av små dyr. Vi har latt oss fascinere av midd-fossiler, mikroskop-bilder at et middhjerte som slår, og middens utrolige sexliv.  

The complete WVLY broadcast of the Midd-west at Lewisburg high school football game from Saturday, October 3, 2020.

This week we dive into the Avenger's game and come away with mixed thoughts and some pc glitches. Midd's had his computer crash and is checking out Railway Empire while Jared is playing an anime soccer game called Captain Tsubasa, that's a real thing that we got to talk about. Discord:https://discord.gg/g3Qq46z

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A tank, some toilet paper, and the tundra Donate and become a patron at www.patreon.com/iamthegentry

The Value Guys! discuss: $MIDD, $SKY, $PATK

Middlebury Campus reporter Caroline King curates a collection of ambient audio snapshots sent in my Midd students and faculty, followed by an interview with Middlebury student and musician Tom Gause.

On this episode Toria talks about her trip to Memphis and everything she encountered on the airplanes too and from!

A mini-episode featuring a collage of voices from Reunion Weekend.

The complete Eagle 107 broadcast of the Midd-West at Selinsgrove high school football game from November 1, 2019, the District 4 Class 4A Semifinals.

Midd Moment introduces independent thinkers who create community and inspire positive change. Hear their stories, ideas, and Middlebury connections in conversation with President Laurie Patton.

A ha ha...we're back

On this episode of PSPod, Dr. Rajanikanth Madabushi from the US Food and Drug Administration continues our recent discussion on model-informed drug development (MIDD) and its role in the successful implementation of PDUFA VI. This discussion is based on his co-authored Perspective article (with Drs. Yaning Wang and Issam Zineh) “A Holistic and Integrative Approach for Advancing Model‐Informed Drug Development” which published in the January 2019 issue of PSP. The article is available here.

On this episode of PSPod, Dr. Rajanikanth Madabushi from the US Food and Drug Administration continues our recent discussion on model-informed drug development (MIDD) and its role in the successful implementation of PDUFA VI. This discussion is based on his co-authored Perspective article (with Drs. Yaning Wang and Issam Zineh) “A Holistic and Integrative Approach for Advancing Model‐Informed Drug Development” which published in the January 2019 issue of PSP. The article is available here.

On this episode of PSPod, Drs. Lokesh Jain, Larissa Wenning, and Nitin Mehrotra from Merck discuss the important role model-informed drug development (MIDD) will play in the successful implementation of PDUFA VI. This discussion is based on their Perspective article “PDUFA VI: It’s Time to Unleash the Full Potential of Model-Informed Drug Development” which published in the January 2019 issue of PSP. The article is available here.

On this episode of PSPod, Drs. Lokesh Jain, Larissa Wenning, and Nitin Mehrotra from Merck discuss the important role model-informed drug development (MIDD) will play in the successful implementation of PDUFA VI. This discussion is based on their Perspective article “PDUFA VI: It’s Time to Unleash the Full Potential of Model-Informed Drug Development” which published in the January 2019 issue of PSP. The article is available here.

Mid Toker is a community activist, podcast host, and advocate for legalization of Cannabis in America. Throughout the podcast we discuss the issue of legalization and what this can do for a community. Mid also sprinkles in some great perspective on life and shares his insight. Topics Covered on this podcast: 1. Difference between Cannabis, Weed, Marijuana, ect. 2. How to advocate for Legalization 3. Community Impact of Legalization in Alaska 4. Overlap of STEM and Cannabis Industry You can connect with Midd through his website, facebook, or check out his podcast! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MiddToker Website: https://farnorthtokers.com/?fbclid=IwAR3uNRYskEJpG8t7iY_vm2NwT_O8S19lC_Kxg8ZFI9aWJDpk7pTOnJjlSbY Far North Tokers: https://soundcloud.com/mid-toker

The complete Eagle 107 broadcast of the Midd-West at Selinsgrove high school football District 4-AAAA semifinal playoff game from November 2, 2018.

Midd Toker joins Jessica Veldstra and Denise Thompson in the second part of this two part series to discuss ethical cannabis consumption. Midd Toker gives a shout out to Good Cannabis, a distributor up in Fairbanks, AK.

Midd Toker joins Ethical Quandaries for the first part of this two part series discussing the ethical questions around cannabis use. They give a shout out to Rawganique, a hemp based home goods store.

FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: Dr. Herb London, is president of the London Center for Policy Research and the author of the new book, Leading From Behind: The Obama Doctrine and the U.S. Retreat From International Affairs.

In episode 6, we do a little reading series. We look at Giorgio Agamben, Nietzsche, Chu Tien-Wen, some author whose name I forgot that Joy talked about, and Svetlana Alexievich. We also talk about Charles Murray's visit to Middlebury, and analyze how the right can "trigger" events such as the violent protests at Midd to occur, and then put that reaction into some overarching narrative of theirs that strengthens their side. The question is, can we use this force to trigger the right in effective ways?

Midd vicki was at the playstation experiance last weekend and this is her report on the future of the ps4

You’ve heard about Netflix – but what about Middleby? David Gardner talks about MIDD and four other lesser-known – but compelling – companies.

Sigrid har vært på gamliskonsert og Lisa har vært på audition og blitt flau. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Options Oddities 47: MIDD, MU, SWN Unusual Activity for October 15, 2014: Puts trade in The Middleby Corp. (MIDD) Call spreads trade in Micron Technology, Inc. (MU) Puts trade in Southwestern Energy Co. (SWN)