Podcasts about muckleshoot

What’s Trending: The Washington State GOP endorsed Semi Bird for Governor over the weekend. Was the convention really as chaotic as the media is saying it was? A man was killed at Muckleshoot Casino in a random stabbing. April is distracted driving month. // The antisemitic protests at Columbia University are finally getting called out. A Jewish Columbia University Professor had his security card deactivated. // Jason adopted a dog over the weekend… and he might have been kidnapped.

A week after getting done with Tribal Canoe Journey Paddle to Muckleshoot, the YAI team sits down to reflect on our time, our favorite Canoe Journey stories, and, oh, did we mention Free got new tattoos? Shout out to the West Shore Canoe Family!

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by state politics reporter for Crosscut, Joseph O'Sullivan! They discuss Tacoma for All winning their lawsuit over competing renter protections on the November ballot, mobile home communities organizing against economic eviction, and Washington auctioning off $1B of carbon pollution credits. The conversation continues with reflection on people's concerns over the closure of the Larch Corrections Center, how Bruce Harrell and Dow Constantine's ideas add delay and expense to voter-approved Sound Transit light rail expansion, a questionable use of COVID relief funds for Emerald Downs horse racetrack, and Cruise robotaxis coming to Seattle streets. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Joseph O'Sullivan, at @OlympiaJoe.   Joseph O'Sullivan Joseph O'Sullivan is Crosscut's state politics reporter. Before joining Crosscut in 2022, O'Sullivan spent nearly eight years as Olympia bureau reporter for The Seattle Times. Before that, he covered government and politics at news organizations in Spokane, Wyoming and South Dakota. Resources “The Childcare Crisis with Dr. Stephan Blanford of Children's Alliance” from Hacks & Wonks   “Judge kicks Tacoma council's competing renter protections off ballot” by Heidi Groover from The Seattle Times   “Judge issues ruling in ballot fight between Tacoma, renters group. Here's the decision” by Becca Most from The News Tribune   “WA mobile home communities organize against 'economic eviction'” by Farah Eltohamy and Mai Hoang from Crosscut   “WA's third carbon auction should push pollution credits over $1B” by Donna Gordon Blankinship from Crosscut   “‘Blindsided' by a Washington prison closure” by Laurel Demkovich from Washington State Standard   “Prison closure plan stokes wildfire response worries in southwest Washington” by Laurel Demkovich from Washington State Standard   “Harrell, Constantine light-rail ideas add years, money to Sound Transit planning” by Mike Lindblom from The Seattle Times   “$1.1M in COVID relief steered to Auburn horse racing track” by Brandon Block from Crosscut   “The Capitol Hill Autonomous Vehicle Zone — More driverless robotaxi testing comes to Seattle” by Justin Carder from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I welcomed Dr. Stephan Blanford, Executive Director of Children's Alliance, for a wide-ranging conversation on childcare - its importance, what makes it inaccessible and expensive, and how we can make an impact and fix this crisis. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program for the first time, today's co-host: state politics reporter for Crosscut, Joseph O'Sullivan. Hey! [00:01:22] Joseph O'Sullivan: Hi, how you doing? Thanks for having us. [00:01:24] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you on today. And I wanted to start off by talking about a lawsuit related to a local election in Tacoma - a tenants' rights initiative called Tacoma For All won a lawsuit against the City of Tacoma. This has a bit of a backstory. Tacoma For All collected thousands of signatures to put a pretty substantial tenants' rights initiative on the ballot, only to find out that the City of Tacoma City Council then decided to put their own competing measure on the ballot. At the same time - implementing that measure immediately, depending on what happened with the ballot if that happened. With the Seattle election, with the ranked choice voting or approval voting - and do you want to implement any of these - it's just a confusing thing for a lot of voters. Similar competing measures happened in the Seattle measure - that was basically put on to stop the initial measure. It looks like that was really the intended purpose of the City's measure against the Tacoma For All initiative. They were able to nip that in the bud with a judge finding that, although the initiative part of it seemed okay, the way they adopted the ordinance had some problems and issues. So it will not be allowed to appear on the ballot. What are your thoughts on this? [00:02:43] Joseph O'Sullivan: I was interested just reading in The Seattle Times that the City's initiative they approved actually took effect right away. And they didn't really state that clearly. I don't know if it was the ballot language or whatever might have appeared when it was going to go before voters, which - I can't remember having seen something specifically like that, which seems a bit odd and adds to your point that that would be really confusing for voters. At the state level, you can have dueling initiatives go to the ballot. Those are complicated enough as they are, even when they're clearly explaining - you can choose this one, or this one, or neither. But this one seemed pretty unique. [00:03:17] Crystal Fincher: It also seemed pretty unique to me, especially in that - usually, to your point - in the state context, people think of those more as referenda. There's an existing policy that we're going to vote to continue or to stop - I give a thumbs up or thumbs down on. This was not the case. Another interesting aspect of this, which is an element in litigation related to elections, is that the timing really matters. In this, the City could choose to appeal and they have not answered whether they intend to do so or not. But a bigger consideration is their time to appeal before it's time to print these ballots and get this stuff out. There's a lot of administrative work that needs to happen to get ballots out to people on time and that work starts very soon - whether this litigation can even happen before that happens is a question. But very interesting. This is certainly being viewed as a big win for tenants' rights in Tacoma - I certainly think it is. I don't know that I love the precedent, and I guess people will do what they feel to do. I felt like it's justified before - was happy with some results when it happened. It's not like I've universally condemned this before. But always interesting to see the reaction to citizen initiatives. And that sometimes being viewed as a threat to power or not being viewed as legitimate - it's very tangential. But also reminds me of what's happening in Atlanta with Cop City and that initiative there and the challenges that the City of Atlanta has been presenting for those people who collected signatures in that whole process. So just very interesting to see the state of initiatives, both local and statewide, across the country and locally. [00:04:48] Joseph O'Sullivan: Yeah, and here in Washington, we just have such a robust initiative and referenda cultural and legal institution. We've been doing these for so long that it really is sort of a feature of direct democracy, where if you're an elected official, you're always thinking about this - the prospect of voters saying - Hey, we're going to take the decision out of your hands and try and answer it ourselves. And I think the broader thing with this, too, is that - why is rent control being discussed so much now? It's because rent's too expensive. And housing is too expensive all over the state - urban and rural, big city and small. If elected officials can't deal with that - they certainly haven't in the last 10 or 20 years in the way that it needed to happen - you're reaching a point where you're going to have people try and come up with their own solutions. [00:05:28] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Also want to talk about a story that was written this week in Crosscut about Washington mobile home communities organizing against economic eviction. What is this and what's happening? [00:05:41] Joseph O'Sullivan: So there is a Port Orchard-based company that has been buying up mobile home parks. We had a great story by some of my colleagues about residents in these parks. They're getting rent increases, they're seeing fewer services, more fees - like utility fees that weren't broken out and now they're added on to the rent that's already gone up. I don't think we've had a lot of this in Washington state, but when you have these big investment firms or real estate companies that buy up rental houses and then raise the prices - and you've seen that in other states a lot - there seems to be a little bit of a flavor of that in just this one kind of company that's doing this. And again, to go back to what we were just talking about, housing prices and the price of rent are probably certainly the single biggest cost issue for people in Washington state. And so this sort of dynamic is agitating and people are trying to find ways to respond to it. [00:06:29] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And especially with mobile homes - a long, long time ago, I was a land use and planning board on Kent's planning commission, and we had an issue like this - couple issues like this come before the board. It was then that I learned just how tenuous these situations, particularly in mobile home parks, are just because it's a bit of a different situation than homes. I think we need action on all of it. But mobile home communities and people who live there are particularly vulnerable because they're bringing their mobile home - it's theirs, generally, or sometimes they rent it - but it's not their land. So people go - Okay, well, just move the mobile home. It's a mobile home - it's mobile. You can't make it there, move it somewhere else. And mobile homes are notoriously difficult to move, depending on the condition. They may not be able to withstand a move. It's not as simple as just moving it. But you have this situation where - okay, if someone gets evicted and you can't move it, or it's really expensive, cost prohibitive, what happens? You potentially don't just lose your right to be on that plot of land, but you can lose everything. If you can't move the home, you can't be there. It can be destroyed. It's really a troubling situation. And so to have these situations with economic eviction, where it's nothing that the tenant has done - there's no "you did something wrong, you haven't been paying your rent," - it's we're jacking up the price that we know you can't afford, knowing that we're going to get you out of there and get in a tenant who's going to pay these new high prices. So it's basically just built-in displacement - that's what an economic eviction is. And so part of the conversation - this is where people live, this is a basic need that people have. And treating it as just a commodity - Well, it's a business and we have a right to make a profit and you can do that - is that where we want to be as a society with housing and the problems that it's causing? [00:08:22] Joseph O'Sullivan: Yeah, and I don't think there was data on this in the story, so I'm a little anecdotal. But it's also not like an apartment where maybe there's some 25-year olds and your rent's getting jacked up. And that's bad - that's an issue. When you're 25, you're younger, you're more resilient, more of your life is ahead of you - maybe you can figure it out. But at least some of the families in here - older and maybe have less mobility in their life, or maybe have been through enough things or have enough burdens on them too - so that kind of adds to what you're talking about too, is the instability of it. It's a potential to do pretty bad damage when you displace people. [00:08:55] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, people who fall into homelessness after being evicted - especially with an economic eviction from mobile home communities - that's not an insignificant number. There has been organizing around this in various communities for a while - certainly a number that I'm aware of in South King County, was an issue in SeaTac not that long ago in elections in the past few cycles. So I'm happy Crosscut wrote about this. I hope that we continue to raise not just consciousness about this and awareness, but that policymakers see the need to address this in a meaningful way. And in the absence of that, you see what happened with Tacoma for All or in Federal Way with their renters' rights initiative, or so many other cities - where if the people who are elected fail to address this, residents will. And it's a crisis now - I think we need to center the people who are at risk of homelessness or at risk of economic disaster and really find a way to prevent economic eviction, make housing more affordable across the board. Also want to talk about - we've been dealing with wildfires, smoke off and on, including this week. What's supposed to be helpful in this whole process is the state's relatively new cap and trade program - cap and invest as they call it - which creates these carbon auctions. So Washington's third carbon auction looks like it's going to push the total amount of pollution credits over $1 billion. Big number. What do you think about this, what's happening? [00:10:24] Joseph O'Sullivan: Big number. The policymakers and the lawmakers are probably pretty happy about that. But they're so early in a very new and complex law - and the obstacle state officials and politicians will have to clear is to take this money and find ways to use it that will actually really meaningfully impact emissions and also provide more resilience to safeguard communities. We're probably a ways away from seeing how these investments that are just starting to be made now - how they pay off down the road. [00:10:51] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. What we were sold were there would be some short-term gains, some immediate investments that could have immediate impacts. Overall with this - I've talked about this several times on this program before, many people do know how I feel about this - but we have a lot of evidence that suggests that the cap and trade system itself is not effective at reducing emissions. What can, potentially, are the investments from this revenue that is raised. If it's invested in the right way, that perhaps can impact this. And this is so much money - these cap and trade programs are great at raising revenue, and this revenue is exceeding projections. Does that also mean that we're going to have pollution exceeding projections, that there's more pollution going on than we accounted for that needs to be lowered? Don't know. We'll have to see. But really the bottom line is we need to reduce the amount of carbon that we're releasing into the atmosphere. We need to do it really quickly. We're already experiencing the impacts of climate change, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. And we better act quickly and very intentionally to make sure that it does get better without getting worse than it has to at this point in time. So we'll see. There were certainly a lot of promises, a lot of talk, a lot of concern, especially from frontline communities, those impacted most - Indigenous Native communities, BIPOC communities - who are the ones who are generally hit worst and first by climate change. And so we'll see if they live up to their commitments to meaningfully invest in these communities to mitigate the damage that is already happening. But I hope a lot of people are paying attention to this. I hope people are engaged in this. This is a significant issue, significant investment. As we've seen with so many other things, a lot can go right and a lot can go wrong - it just really depends on how they are. We also see when there's money like this available, some people see the opportunity for a cash grab. And like with some COVID relief funds, see an opportunity to get their hands on some stuff. I hope that our policymakers, that people in these departments managing this, are really careful and intentional about that. And most of the time, they are and they tend to be. I just hope this is something that everyone keeps a close eye on and holds our Legislature accountable to in the long term. [00:13:10] Joseph O'Sullivan: Yeah, I think that, to your point also, where money shows up, power does too. And even within the Democratic caucus, probably even within progressives within the Democratic caucus, you can find different approaches. Everybody has a different priority for the climate projects they want to do, or - Oh, we'll focus on transportation versus communities, or with a limited amount of dollars. Then you're trying to find consensus within your own team or among the people that are administering the money. And it's probably not going to be perfect, whatever it is. I think some of these things - we may not be able to look until 10 years from now. Did we electrify our transportation system? Did that happen? Did we do enough resilience? Because what happens if five of the projects go really well and five don't? How do you assess that? And how do they tweak it down the road? I think some lawmakers, at least - if not most of them - that were working on this law, hope that someday it'll join up with some of the other cap and trade markets, like in California, in Canada. Does this become part of a larger system? Is that a way that's going to be effective and move forward? Is it not? I think some of these things, unfortunately, time will tell. [00:14:16] Crystal Fincher: Time will tell. We are linked with California. That may create some issues. California has notoriously oversaturated their market with credits and are now trying to deal with that, which basically means that there is more pollution that they have in their system, that they baked into their system, that they have to now reduce. But we'll see. And to your point, sometimes with this, any little thing that goes wrong, people are prepared to jump on to - if they don't like the policy overall, that's a reason to get rid of it. I think what's fair to say is that in any big undertaking, no matter what it is, there are going to be challenges and roadblocks. And it's really about how vigilant people are being to spot them and find those before they create too much damage or waste too much money - that they course correct when that's happening. This is new. So there is - in any new thing that you're putting together, whether it's in the public or private sector, there are going to be lessons learned, there are going to be things that happen. But they don't have to be big boondoggles. We don't have to justify the wrong thing just because it's something that we did. So I hope that there is a recognition that - hopefully most of the things do go right - some things will go wrong. How do we address it when it does? How do we correct it? How do we hold ourselves accountable? So we'll see how that proceeds. We'll continue to pay attention to it. I hope everyone everywhere pays attention to it because, my goodness, the impacts that we're already enduring from wildfire smoke - to just the wildfires and the devastation that we've seen globally, but even just in our state have been pretty horrific - to extreme heat, to extreme cold. It's just concerning. And our infrastructure is not up to it today. So hopefully we spend and meaningfully invest in fixing that. Also want to talk about a plan for prison closure that was just announced - that has some people raising their eyebrows to the plan, and other people raising their eyebrows to the reaction to the plan. What's happening here? [00:16:13] Joseph O'Sullivan: The Department of Corrections announced that they were going to close one of our 12 prisons, large corrections facility, which is down in Southwest Washington - Clark County. The announcement was made either last month or in June - that drew some immediate outcry from the Teamsters Union that represents corrections officials. It's not like if you're an employee, you can transfer five miles down the road - you would have to move probably across the state somewhere to get a comparable job at another facility if you wanted to keep doing that. More recently, Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz has noted some concerns about the move since some incarcerated wildland firefighters are based down there. Of course, Southwest Washington - you're near the Columbia River Gorge and some pretty vast tracts of forest land and wilds, and they get fires down there. And the Public Lands Commissioner is concerned that this is going to take some capability to quickly respond to fires. The Inslee administration has signaled that our numbers are declining for incarcerated people, they don't need all the space that they have right now. And so, yeah - I don't know - it's a tough decision either way. But when I did an early story on this, and then I was reading - the Washington State Standard had some good coverage on this - it's just like when you have to consolidate school districts or something too. Nobody's ever happy to lose the school in their community. And there's a little bit of a feel of that too. [00:17:26] Crystal Fincher: There's some of that. For me - and maybe it's a different perspective than a lot of people have - I was dismayed in reading this because we've talked a lot about incarceration and its effectiveness on this program. And incarceration doesn't do a good job of reducing recidivism rates. Evidence shows that's not the case, which is why - looking at low-level offenses - sending people to prison for that is more likely to create more crime than it is to reduce it, which is one of the reasons why this low-level facility is closing. For the amount of money that we spend to incarcerate each person each year, and for that to not result in making us any safer is a problem. What I find so problematic with this is that we are talking about several reasons for keeping a prison open that have nothing to do with public safety. We're not doing it to keep the community safe, but we're keeping it to improve the economic conditions - through jobs or through support or through others - of other people. Wow, that's really troubling. Incarcerating people as a jobs program, which is - Oh man, we're going to have to relocate. We're going to have to do different things - that's not the purpose of incarceration. And not that those changes are not real in those people's lives - they absolutely are, and that's unfortunate - but to do so at the expense of incarcerating someone and making our community less safe doesn't seem like it makes much sense. And then also talking about - Well, these people are critical to wildfire fighting. Okay - it was in 2020 that the rate for a fire, an incarcerated fire[fighter], was $0.62 per hour. Particularly troubling because until very recently, we then prevented them - if they got out - from working as firefighters. So we're calling what they're doing so important and critical, yet we're not treating the people who are doing it that way. That just seems like expendable bodies. And if it's more convenient for us to keep people locked up and take away their freedom because it gives us benefits as a community that have nothing to do with public safety but are economic or others, then we start getting into conversations about slavery. And like the documentary 13th, which does a good job of talking about this, which I just find troubling. This was a decision that I know some people were very unhappy with - that's certainly a conversation to be had for here in the long term. But I just can't condone or agree with or get with the justifications that I am seeing in here that this is critical. And then even trying to say - Well, it's good for the people who are working. Well, if we really cared about that, then wouldn't we be paying them a fair wage for what they're doing? Wouldn't we be fast-tracking them into this career once they got out? We aren't doing those things, so it doesn't really seem like we're doing this because we care about them. It seems like we're doing this because some people feel it's more convenient for us. And that's not something we should be doing with people's freedom, in my opinion. [00:20:26] Joseph O'Sullivan: And interesting - as we're talking now, I'm thinking just covering wildfires and covering prisons. And there's both of them. Wildfires is a little different recently as more houses are burning and more acreage - people are starting to key in. But for many years at the Legislature, the Department of Natural Resources couldn't get more funding for more wildfires - this was even predating Hilary Franz, back to Peter Goldmark - they'd come begging the lawmakers in budget season - Hey, we need more capability to fight fires, we need more help, we need more staff, we need more resources. And the Legislature, after years of that, has started just in the last couple of years. And at the same time, properly funding the prisons so they deliver the services that they need to, like health care, is also something that's often on a lower priority. There's not a lot of special interests or big lobbying push to make sure an incarcerated person is getting the cancer treatment that they need or able to get to doctors' appointments. And that doesn't necessarily win you votes at the ballot box. And that's not to say that lawmakers are all cynical and they don't want to do that stuff ever. But every program is competing for limited money during the budget. And these are examples of things that have been underinvested in previously. The Department of Corrections says they're going to save some money by closing Larch. Where does that money go from here? I think that's an interesting question. And I guess we'll see. [00:21:39] Crystal Fincher: And these are complicated - because if you're just looking at this in a silo, if you're just in the Department of Natural Resources and just looking at your position and your job and the budget - yeah, these are questions that are going to come up. Okay, we do need more wildfire fighting resources. We don't have the budget for that. Where is that going to come from? Something is going to suffer here. And those are real questions that people have. I do think it's the responsibility of leaders to look at the system more comprehensively to say - Okay, what are we actually doing here? And are we getting the impact for our community out of this that was intended? And to say - I know that funding is in silos, I know that these decisions are happening in lots of ways all over the place. But if we're getting to the point where we're keeping people incarcerated because it will employ people at the prison - is that who we want to be as a society? And I think we need to name that and call it out explicitly and deal with it. Not that it's going to be easy to deal with, but ignoring it just really seems incorrect to me. This was an interesting read. And I understand how - in a silo - the reaction makes sense. But I also think that we have to do better. Also want to talk about - this week, Harrell and Constantine going back to the drawing board, at least partially, with Sound Transit planning and that adding millions of dollars and years to our Sound Transit planning timeline - for an initiative that was passed six years ago, I think, that we're still really waiting to get moving on, it feels like. What's your reaction to this? [00:23:21] Joseph O'Sullivan: I think that this is emblematic of one of the biggest issues in American democracy. And this goes back to the housing, too - is that it just takes us so long now to do anything, to build anything, to try and fix any problem, that by the time you get something built, it's like - Oh, great. We got a new light rail line. Then we're going to have half a million more people in the region - that's a number I just made up in my head, but you get the point, right? - it just takes so long to do this stuff. And then by the time it gets done, there's already new problems or other problems. There's so much more growth. And then you just start all over. And we see that with trying to build high speed rail all over America. We see that trying to build just houses and communities. There's a fantastic article I just read about how it was going to take years - there was a school closing down for renovation somewhere, there was space right across the street - a college. But they couldn't send the high school students over to use empty college buildings, because the college is zoned different, and you can't have secondary school in there. And I think this was over in New York or something. It was just - there's an easy solution to a problem, but we have all these local processes that slow everything down and don't allow for communities to nimbly fix anything. Of course, communities also struggle to nimbly fix anything, because everybody disagrees and doesn't want stuff built next to their house or something. And I think there's a little bit of that - at least in The Seattle Times coverage that I was reading about some of these stations - in where you're going to put them, and how disruptive it's going to be. I don't know. How does that get fixed? [00:24:47] Crystal Fincher: We get bogged down in process. And some people are like - Eh, it's just process. There's nothing you can do about it. And if you know me personally, we've had this conversation. So Seattle and Los Angeles started talking about their light rail systems at the same time. Los Angeles has built out a network, and they certainly have their own challenge and they certainly have process. But once they make a decision - and it seems like in other places, once they make a decision - it's less likely to be changed, delayed intentionally - not that cost delays and time delays don't happen, they absolutely do elsewhere. But the process involved with it is just more kludgy here. And people are more likely to say - Okay yeah, the residents here voted for this. This big corporation has a problem with it, and maybe we can change it to make them happy. And we just get so bogged down in that process. And it seems like we have leadership that is comfortable with getting bogged down in that process. And all the time that they took, you look at the - I was here, I think you were too - the drama about the State Route 99 tunnel. [00:25:52] Joseph O'Sullivan: Oh, sure - yeah. [00:25:53] Crystal Fincher: And then seeing what we ended up with, which is not quite what we were sold. And it's not surprising to me that some of the same people involved in that decision and how that ended up are involved in this decision and how it ended up. I think here it's people using process to mitigate impacts to interest groups that they're aligned with, really. It's not like there weren't decent plans here. But it seems like if there are big concerns from money interests - and it's not just on one side of the spectrum, it could be on multiple sides of the spectrum - that can interrupt process more here than in some other places after a decision has seemingly been made. Not that other places don't dither and debate about decisions. But my goodness, after a decision has seemingly been made, we find new and innovative ways not to find a way to move forward. [00:26:46] Joseph O'Sullivan: Yeah, I haven't covered City politics in a while, but I always feel like Seattle's interesting. It always seems to me - just reading coverage from afar - that it's a feature of Seattle politics, where it seems like there's always a lot of whiplash on the issues of the day, where - Okay, we're going to go on this course. And oh no, now we're going to reverse. And then, oh, three years later, we're going to go back to this. It's difficult to tackle really long-term issues. [00:27:10] Crystal Fincher: Then we suffer from the consequences of not addressing those issues, and here we are. So I hope that gets resolved quickly and we get to building. Also, want to talk about a story that was in Crosscut about COVID relief funds related to something we were talking about earlier - where $1.1 million in COVID relief was steered to the Emerald Downs Auburn horse racing track. What happened? [00:27:38] Joseph O'Sullivan: This was part of the American Rescue Plan Act, which was part of the federal COVID relief - which, of course, was just a torrent of money coming into the state - helping state government, local government, schools, and everything stay afloat during the pandemic. A lot was used for rental assistance, other programs, it helped pay for COVID testing and vaccines and stuff. And in Crosscut, we did a story about $1.1 million that go into Emerald Downs, which is the horse track in Auburn, to help them stay afloat or mitigate the impact of the pandemic - there's at least one expert that questions whether the money could be used like that. And maybe that pops up as a question down the road, where the state will have to backfill that money if there's some determination that it wasn't useful there. To me, reading that story, it seemed like an echo of the stadium stories you always have in local politics, right - who's going to pay for these big public things and then taxpayer dollars go toward it or something, or there's a question about that - I don't know. What do you think? [00:28:34] Crystal Fincher: It's interesting. Obviously, maintaining jobs was a priority in trying to - especially for businesses that had to shut down. And I'm not familiar with the particulars of Emerald Downs' operation throughout the shutdown - I think I remember them pausing activity - dealing with that, you could justify that. Was that the most pressing need coming at this time? That's also curious. And was that necessary? is a question. I do think that the bigger issue for me is that - one, accountability, and two, the impact of direct relief versus relief that is filtered through people with a lot of money and allowed to trickle down to people with money. It seems like any time we have a big program like that to - one, I think it's good to get direct money to people who are the most impacted, to the people who are not receiving an income through no fault of their own. But I do think that we do need to do more direct relief, unless we're giving it to the business who then is going to give it to employees. Or we need to do a better job of accounting for - okay, this is to save jobs, it's to compensate employees. Are we making sure that they're doing that and not using it to provide a bonus to executives or to expand a footprint somewhere, upgrade facilities, or something like that? Which, depending on how that happens, the case could be made if they're doing air filtration - that could be argued. But it's just always notable to me how it seems like certain people need to get a cut if relief is going to be provided to people on the ground. So I don't know that this is a boondoggle - I'm not going to say that this was a misuse of funds, not saying that - I don't have enough information to say that. But it just is something else that - did this go through all the due diligence that it should have. And given how much due diligence we make really poor people go through, how much surveillance we put really poor people under - it really is noticeable how different the requirements, the hoops you have to jump through, and the scrutiny is on who we hand out money to and how much is handed out to them, under which conditions based on - okay, this is a big established business, or this is someone who lost their job and this relief is going to make the difference between them having a home or not. [00:30:59] Joseph O'Sullivan: Just broadly, it's interesting - horse racing is a very old school sport, I don't know how long for the world - if it's going to be around in 50 years or not. And it's a unique area where you've got the Horse Racing Commission that oversees it, the track itself is owned by one of the tribes - I believe the Muckleshoot tribe - it just seems like a very unique set of circumstances, too. And I don't know how that interplays with the decisions that are made to put money there. [00:31:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And is fundamentally a betting facility something that we want to be prioritizing? I don't know. They are saying they're looking to the issue of whether it was an allowable use or not - that doesn't seem to be a hard yes, there's a question mark attached to that. We'll see what happens. But I do think it's good to look at where and how we're spending this money, and are we getting the results that were intended - I think that's a good thing overall. Final thing I wanted to talk about today - autonomous vehicles are coming to Capitol Hill in Seattle, which is raising a lot of eyebrows for people. What did you think of this? [00:31:58] Joseph O'Sullivan: I don't totally understand why it's needed. People have been getting around - Uber and Lyft, we did those the last 15 years. And before that, there were taxis. I just don't understand the argument for why they would be necessary for a major life improvement and - I don't know. What do you think? [00:32:16] Crystal Fincher: The promise of autonomous vehicles - philosophically, right? - driving is not comparatively an unsafe form of transportation when you look at the other forms. So if you can do something to make it safer - hey, that's great, right? That was the initial premise. In reality, taking into account that premise is based on functioning, tested, safe technology - oh, these cars are automatically going to be safe. But what is happening is that the cars are not delivering. The technology is not delivering on its promise, at least not yet. And so while it still is not, and while they're having - depending on where they're at - safety problems. And there's lots about Tesla's autopilot feature, which is less advanced than some of these other ones. But for all of them - the reason why they're working in Capitol Hill is because they need more testing. And they need to really figure out wet and hilly environments. So people on the street are guinea pigs while they figure this out? We're seeing in San Francisco, these cars get confused and blocking intersections - couple accidents recently, one ran into a fire truck. And they're behaving in ways that the companies who are designing them are not expecting, which is worrisome, right? We just don't know what we're getting. There's the promise of the technology, and there's the reality of today - those are two very different things. And putting this questionable technology, with vehicles that can kill people - this isn't Amazon testing out a little delivery drone, this is a multi-thousand pound piece of steel that can run over people. And just to put that out with not a lot of scrutiny, no real legislative or policy intention, and basically - okay, if they attest that they'll have a person in the car who can intervene. So with this city really looking like it's a guinea pig for these companies to figure out and iron out their technology, it's just really questionable. And the difference in process for this compared to - look at the process that a bike lane, that the scooter and bike share went through? And evidently for this, you just have to submit an application saying that there will be a person in the car who will be ready to intervene if something happens - which is better than fully autonomous cars that are happening in San Francisco and elsewhere right now - but it just seems like maybe we aren't considering everything with this. But we'll see. It's happening. [00:34:47] Joseph O'Sullivan: Yeah, and to your earlier point, too, technology always gets the benefit of the doubt. The starting point of our thoughts are never is this for-profit thing that's being sold going to increase the quality of our lives? It's never that. This is something new, this is something amazing - and the default is just to accept it. We see that with - the State Legislature debated for a few years to try and pass a data privacy law, never got it for various complicated reasons, couldn't do something. But even that, that they were trying a few years ago - that was 15 years after private companies started taking all of our data for every little thing and using it for their own profit. And we just - as a society - we don't place any skepticism upfront on technology, and we generally newaitit to find out what happens afterward. [00:35:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and the challenging thing is that there aren't people waving warning flags about - we've seen how this play ends before - it's not great. And looking at the challenges happening in San Francisco, but we'll see. Evidently, this is happening. What my hope is is that there are trained employees as drivers who are taking the role of needing to intervene potentially seriously. I think that's better than just laypeople or no one in there. But it seems like we should probably talk about this and figure out - with intention - what we want this to accomplish and what the outcomes are, so we can see if it is delivering what we want it to deliver while we allow a company to use people in our streets as guinea pigs, basically, for their profit. [00:36:17] Joseph O'Sullivan: Yeah, I'm not sure that a solution like this is getting at sort of the root problems, which is often just another thing that - yeah, I don't know that this is going to solve everything around pedestrian safety and traffic congestion. [00:36:31] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and the fact that - if we're looking at other cities, it may actually make it worse with the current level of technology. We will see and will certainly continue to follow this as it proceeds. And with that, thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, September 1st - my goodness, September already - 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is the phenomenal Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today: state politics reporter for Crosscut, Joseph O'Sullivan - thank you so much for being on the show. [00:37:02] Joseph O'Sullivan: Thank you for having us. [00:37:03] Crystal Fincher: You can find Joseph on Twitter @OlympiaJoe. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. And you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii - and on most other platforms @finchfrii. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of the podcast of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

It's Indian Relay weekend at Emerald Downs! Qualifying heats begin on Friday night, continue on Saturday and culminate in the Muckleshoot Gold Cup Championship on Sunday. It's great action, horse racing of a different variety. The Black Lodge Singers, Ryan Yellowjohn Hoop Dance and more among the entertainment on Track Level. Gayle Skunkcap Jr, publicist for Indian Relay racing, joins the podcast. Emerald Downs offers its first two Thoroughbred stakes races of the meeting Sunday with the Auburn Stakes for three-year-old colts and geldings and the Seattle Stakes for three-year-old fillies. Both races are at 6 furlongs. Trainer Blaine Wright, who's won three straight Auburn Stakes and four of the past six Seattle Stakes joins Joe, Vince and Bill on the podcast. Wright will saddle Clovisconnection in the Auburn, a winner of three races in California since last fall.

This conversation with Kevin Simmons was so beautiful to me. In fact, we talk about beauty a few times, but especially at the end when we talk about the Tribe of Israel. Kevin shares how he didn't always have an easy-go with the melding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his heritage--until he saw it! When it all came together for him, he knew it was true. And now he shares that with friends, with clients, with family, with everyone. Sometimes he uses words. But probably more often he lives it, like the wonderful influential people in his life lived their testimonies. It felt pretty special to be included in his list of answers for when he asked Heavenly Father what to do next. But it wasn't just me he was supposed to share his testimony with--it's you too.

The Bruins are in town. Mike Benton recaps the Muckeshoot Indian Tribe partnership ceremony in a chat with CEO Tod Leiweke, while a matchup with Boston on deck with John Forslund and Bruins radio voice Judd Sirott.

UW Tacoma Associate Professor and Ed.D. Director Robin Zape-tah-hol-ah Minthorn has collaborated on a new book called "Indigenous Motherhood in the Academy." The book is a collection of short essays written by Indigenous mothers who work in higher education. The stories from these mothers are honest, and at times, difficult. We'll talk about the book, the process of putting it together as well as the challenges facing Indigenous mothers in academia. We'll also talk about the process of writing a book during the pandemic as well as the pandemic's impact the contributors personal and professional lives.Muckleshoot cohort:https://www.tacoma.uw.edu/soe/EdD/muckleshoot-cohort

Featuring Warren King George (Muckleshoot), historian, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe

Gasworks Park in Seattle is a great park for a lot of people. It's also a historic Coast Salish fishing site, and the first stop on this audio tour that immerses us in the stories and languages of the Salish Sea area. What does it mean to live in a place for thousands of thousands of years? Did you know that there are geoduck clams older than Washington State? Indigenous Coast Salish peoples continue to steward this land and preserve its language, despite settler colonialism, industrialization and gentrification. Listen to connect to the Salish Sea area, as a step towards creating healthier human relationships with this changing ecosystem.  “As young as I can remember, it has been the beach and the water that my existence has been drawn to.” “Treaties are guaranteed by the Constitution, yet they are broken every day by environmental degradation.” “I think I can feel where water is. I use it to orient myself. Once I feel where is water, I can then figure out where I am.”“It's such a soft feeling.”“You know the history of the Ship Canal, don't you?”“The river and salt water have been important to our people since the beginning of time.” Part story, part sound collage, this piece is scored entirely with the sounds of the waters and animals who live in and around the Salish Sea. Voices featured are: Ken Workman (Duwamish), Warren King George (Muckleshoot), Michelle Myles (Tulalip), Archie Cantrell (Puyallup), LaDean Johnson (Skokomish), Owen Oliver (Quinault / Isleta Pueblo), Lydia Sigo (Suquamish), Randi Purser (Suquamish), RYAN! Feddersen (FLOW artist, Confederated Tribes of the Colville - Okanogan / Arrow Lakes), and Eric Autry (Seattle Public Utilities), Joseph Sisneros (UW) and Jeanne Hyde (The Whale Museum). Created by audio artists Jenny Asarnow and Rachel Lam (Anigiduwagi enrolled Cherokee Nation), this audio experience is intended to be listened to on site or anywhere you listen to podcasts.To listen on site, start at Gasworks Park. Follow the route along N Northlake Way and the Burke Gilman trail to the entrance of the Ship Canal at the Fremont Bridge; and then return the way you came.  Commissioned with SPU 1% for Art Funds.Administered by the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.City of Seattle, Bruce Harrell, Mayor.

In 2021, Fort Nisqually Living History Museum brought together a panel of historians to discuss the legacy of the Puget Sound Treaty War (1855-1856). With representatives from the Muckleshoot, http://www.nisqually-nsn.gov/ (Nisqually), http://www.puyallup-tribe.com/ (Puyallup), http://steilacoomtribe.blogspot.com/ (Steilacoom), and https://squaxinisland.org/ (Squaxin Island) Tribes, as well as Fort Nisqually Living History Museum and HistoryLink.org, the panel introduced a new dialogue among diverse communities impacted by the War and its aftermath. The Indigenous Voices Podcast is an extension of this award winning series. The podcast uplifts tribal voices in the telling of Puget Sound history, sharing tribal knowledge and expertise with wider audiences. This podcast is generously supported by the City of Tacoma Historic Preservation Office and the Tacoma Arts Commission.

“Running for survival is not political. [Saying] ‘Stop killing Native women' is not political. Representing myself as an Indigenous person is not political.” Rosalie Fish (Cowlitz & Muckleshoot) is an activist and student-athlete running Division I Track/Cross-Country at the University of Washington. After a successful run at the junior college level running for Iowa Central CC, she joined the 2021-22 UW Track and Cross-Country recruiting class. She was the first member of her tribe to sign a National Letter of Intent for college athletics. Rosalie is well-known for her advocacy work in bringing awareness to the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, & Two-Spirit+ epidemic. She gained global attention in 2019 when she followed in the footsteps of Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel by painting a red handprint over her face during competition the WA state track meet and running honor of her missing relatives. In this conversation, we talk about what her experiences as a Native student-athlete, and particularly a runner, have been like since high school. We also talk about her training, life as an athlete at the Division I level, and goals for the future.   In This Episode: “‘When I run about it, people will notice': Rosalie Fish runs for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women,” by Dave Trimmer, SeattleTimes.com, June 7, 2019. “Rosalie Fish Is Taking Her Activism for MMIW to the University of Washington,” by Taylor Dutch, RunnersWorld.com, April 8, 2021. We Need to Talk on CBS: Rosalie Fish is a Beacon of Hope Wings of America Grounded Pod Episode 1 – Jordan Marie Daniel “Jordan Marie Daniel ran and prayed for 26 #MMIW names at 26.2 mile Boston Marathon,” by Vincent Schilling, com, April 23, 2019. Urban Indian Health Institute – Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls 2018 Report The Way of the Househusband on Netflix   Follow Rosalie Fish: Instagram: @rosaliefishx   Follow Grounded Pod: Instagram: @groundedpod Twitter: @groundedpod Facebook: facebook.com/groundedpodwithdinee   Subscribe, Listen, & Review on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Soundcloud | Stitcher   Music by Jacob Shije (Santa Clara Pueblo, NM). This podcast was made possible through the Tracksmith Fellowship Program.

Shane Moses is an Indigenous youth from the Muckleshoot, Warm Springs, and Modac tribes, who currently resides in the Muckleshoot reservation. This episode centers around his reflections on dealing with misconceptions/stereotypes, healing generational trauma, and the aspirations he has for other Indigenous youth. 

Where Roses Grow—a podcast spotlighting youth activists on Muckleshoot land, what is currently known as Auburn, Washington.

Emerald Downs enters its final two weeks of racing for 2021 with tight races for leading owner, trainer and jockey. Racing this Saturday night, Sept. 18, at 6:30 pm (Pacific) and 2:30 pm on Sunday. Refreshed every Thursday by Vince Bruun, check out "News and Notes" at emeralddowns.com for updated info on the entire meeting. Horse Racing NW guest is Sharon Ross, half of the Washington Hall of Fame trainer team with husband Larry. The Ross' have been a tremendous addition to this state's Thoroughbred racing since their first season at Longacres in 1981. They won the first EmD training title in 1996 and, along with Jim Penney, are the only conditioners to win The Mile at both Longacres and Emerald Downs. You'll be amazed to hear when Sharon's last "day off" training was!

Three weekends of Thoroughbred action remain at Emerald Downs for 2021. Great races exist in the drive for leading owner, trainer and jockey. Stakes races this weekend include the $50,000 Washington Cup Juvenile and Juvenile Filly sprints. The track's all-time leading trainer, Frank Lucarelli, has four entered between the two stakes and he's the guest on this week's show. The 2021 Muckleshoot Gold Cup highlights horse racing action at Emerald Downs this weekend! Over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, September 10-12, it's Indian Relay Racing at its finest with $67,000 in purse money to be awarded. Free admission all day Friday and the first Thoroughbred race on Saturday goes at a special time of 5:00 pm. 18 teams make up the 2021 Gold Cup, including 2019 champs, River Road of Montana.

Today on the show Seattle mayoral candidate Colleen Echohawk joins Crystal to talk about her plans to tackle the homelessness crisis within 14 months, how she will reform public safety, and why indigenous perspectives and leadership are so important in our country. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Colleen Echohawk, at @ccechohawk. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “The COVID pandemic split the King County homeless system in two. A year later, the differences remain stark” by Sydney Brownstone: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/the-pandemic-split-the-homeless-system-in-two-a-year-later-the-differences-remain-stark/ “COVID-19 and the overwhelming demand for basic needs” by Andrea Caupain Sanderson: https://crosscut.com/opinion/2021/02/covid-19-and-overwhelming-demand-basic-needs “How Compassion Seattle could shape the mayoral race” by Joni Balter: https://crosscut.com/opinion/2021/05/how-compassion-seattle-could-shape-mayoral-race “Echohawk Emergency Housing Action Plan” from the Echohawk campaign: https://www.echohawkforseattle.com/emergency-housing2 Community Police Commission Recommendations tracker: https://www.seattle.gov/community-police-commission/current-issues/recommendations-tracker “Where Seattle is on police reforms, one year after protests” by David Kroman: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/05/where-seattle-police-reforms-one-year-after-protests “Afternoon Fizz: ‘A Dictator Posturing As a Mayor,' Another Preventable Disease Outbreak, and CPC Challenges Cops' Crowd Control Plans” from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/04/22/afternoon-fizz-a-dictator-posturing-as-a-mayor-another-preventable-disease-outbreak-and-cpc-challenges-cops-crowd-control-plans/#more-17527   Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.  Today we are so excited to have joining us, candidate for Seattle mayor, Colleen Echohawk. Thank you so much for being here. Colleen Echohawk: [00:00:59] Thank you. I'm so glad to be with you today, Crystal. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:01] Yeah. Okay, so I'm excited. What actually caused you to want to join this mayor's race at this time? Colleen Echohawk: [00:01:10] Well, thank you for asking the question because if you had told me like a year ago that I would be doing this, I would be surprised. I think that there's two things that really propelled me into this race. Number one is I work with our homeless community, I've supported our homeless community for many years now - believe in them deeply. And I am just so frustrated about what has happened. We've had almost six years of a state of emergency and the crisis has only gotten worse. There were moments through the pandemic - the second thing that just really pushed it - where our homeless community, our larger community, was just in pain and in agony because we were shutting down libraries, we were shutting down community centers, we were shutting down my own Day Center. Then we were telling people, "You have to wash your hands. That is sanitation. That's how you're going to keep COVID away." And then our homeless community was just left out in the rain to just have to poop on the sidewalk because there is no bathrooms. And it just got to a point where I just felt like - if I have some skill in this role, and I do, and if I can bring that to the mayor's office and offer that kind of leadership to actually solve this problem on behalf of the 12,000 plus people who are experiencing homelessness, then I should step up. There's just a real crisis of Black, indigenous, and people of color communities are vastly overrepresented and we haven't had enough leadership that represents our community. So that was the other part of just-- I was raised to step up to situations and that's what I'm doing. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:00] Well, you certainly bring up a lot of correct and valid issues that - man, this pandemic really did lay bare the inequities that already existed and then made them worse - and specifically with our unhoused community. There's an initiative right now, Compassionate Seattle that - frequently, initiatives are responses to a failure of leadership and as you said, we've had this crisis for quite some time. This initiative is now up. We've talked about it before on the show. I guess I'm wondering, one, do you support Compassionate Seattle? And if not, how does your vision differ? Colleen Echohawk: [00:03:39] Yeah. Well, I think that what we're seeing, and you've talked about this already, is that this is what happens when you declare an emergency and the problem only gets worse for the next five years. We have people trying to fill the vacuum that was created by years of inaction at City Hall. I, in some ways, and, well, in many ways, I appreciate that someone is trying to get something done. I appreciate that. That is a good thing. I think something that's really hard for me with Compassion Seattle is that people that I have worked with for years and years, people who are national leaders around homelessness, they helped really craft this. I saw the very first draft, and then I saw the last draft. We all can see the last draft, and it's night and day from what it looked like. But I think there's some very significant problems. The number one thing is that the funding - that is not at all adequate funding just to solve this crisis that we're in, so that's the number one thing. The second thing is it's weird to change the City Charter. I don't think that's a good way to do governance - it's like amending the Constitution. I just don't think that's the right way of doing it. And then, third and probably the most important piece, is that they did not spend enough time working with our Lived Experience Coalition. There were a couple of people who had lived experience of homelessness, who did give their opinions and were part of the final design, but I think that we have a very strong Lived Experience Coalition. I think they should have a say in this.  So, I am struggling with it because of all those factors. I don't think I will personally vote for it. But I am supportive that people want to do something and have pushed this forward - and we'll see what happens. I think that there is a lot of opposition - even on the right - to it, which is fascinating. But what I hear and I see from Compassion Seattle is that people are frustrated and angry that we have not done this work in the way that we should, and they want to get something done. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:00] Okay, so what I heard from you wasn't quite a No - you're struggling with it, and you've certainly identified some of the issues that a lot of people have with it. I guess one of the opportunities that you have is - if you're elected mayor, that you get to fill that leadership vacuum that created this initiative anyway. So why not just vote no and then do what you should be doing in the first place? Colleen Echohawk: [00:06:23] Well, I just said that I'm not going to vote Yes on it. I think that the hard thing for me, like I mentioned earlier, and we actually talked about this before starting - is I have some really good people, friends, who were a part of it and I see why it's so hard. But I think the funding mechanism is the main reason that I'm not going to vote for it. I think we have to have more robust funding mechanisms. In our plan, that we have on our website, and invite people to take a look at it - in fact, we're going to drop some really nuts and bolts things today - goes far beyond what the Compassionate Seattle initiative has. We're calling it 22 steps to get all the people that are outside into housing in 14 months. I think that having 1,000-2,000 emergency housing units is not enough. These are human beings, these are children, these are elders. We have to have initiative right now - treat this truly like the emergency that it is - and get people inside. And that's what I'll do if elected mayor. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:35] What are some of those steps? What are some of the specifics that people can see you take - that demonstrate you're treating it like the crisis that it is - and that actually work to solve the problem and you're laying out in 14 months? That's ambitious. Colleen Echohawk: [00:07:48] Yeah. Well, it's ambitious and it comes from years of experience of working with our homeless community. The number one thing, the moment that I am elected, we will use the transition period to identify hotels, identify unused land, identify - if it's tiny homes or whatever - find those spaces immediately so that the moment we get into office, we can just hit the ground running on getting this work done. We know that we're going to have to have an all-of-the-above approach on the emergency housing. And I do want to say something quickly - one of the answers and the biggest answer to homelessness is permanent housing. That's just the reality. We have to have that in our minds and recognizing that as a goal. But while we're doing that, we also have to have the emergency housing that gets up and running. And so, we will use all-of-the-above approach, find the land so we can move all the RVs onto that land, and offer really good services.  We have a plan for a 100 outreach workers to build those relationships. The outreach workers we help to hire from the Lived Experience Coalition and other folks with lived experience, and build those relationships. We saw, through the pandemic, the program Just Cares. I was honored to participate in that program. We were able to build those relationships in those encampments, move the entire encampment into a hotel. And they went willingly - we weren't sweeping people. They were just going because it was a better option. And so- Crystal Fincher: [00:09:37] Well, that's a good point. Colleen Echohawk: [00:09:37] Yeah. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:38] Do you ever see a reason to sweep people? Colleen Echohawk: [00:09:41] No. No. I think that with good engagement - with talented and good outreach - you don't have to sweep. You can go out there and build that relationship and get folks into housing and security. These are human beings. Let's not forget that. That's the other thing that I think - the reason I'll be a good mayor is that these are not numbers to me. These are people that I know, and love, and appreciate - and I'm willing to get out there and take the responsibility to find the kind of housing that's going to work for them. This is an opportunity for Seattle - we either can create the right leadership in the mayor's office or not. We have to do something. These folks deserve for someone to fight for them, and I will be that person to fight for them. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:39] When you talk about - certainly, permanent housing is the ultimate solution to homelessness - we also have an affordability crisis. How do you address that? What's the answer? Colleen Echohawk: [00:10:53] Yeah. We are quickly moving towards - only the very, very rich can enjoy this city. Honestly, that really bothers me. This is a Native city, this is a Coast Salish city. We have legislation in 1865 that said Native people cannot be in the city limits. We pushed out our Muckleshoot community, whose land we're on right now - the City of Seattle is. And so, we have to find ways to stop the gentrification and to bring back our community into Seattle. We need to really understand the affordability crisis, and that's going to be rezoning. There's just no way around it. We, in our campaign, are talking about the middle. What does that look like? How can we get there? There are ways that we can do the rezoning work with the neighborhoods, with public space designers, and make sure that we are doing it in a good way. But we cannot continue as we are. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:04] What is that way? We hear about NIMBYism. We hear people vehemently opposed to changing the culture of the neighborhood and wanting things to maintain exactly the way that they are. And people - they're afraid of their property values and all of that - so what is the answer? How do you see you can come to - what is that middle ground? Colleen Echohawk: [00:12:29] Yeah. You're hitting the proverbial nail on the head. I think a big part of what we are missing is vision. That has been something that was frustrating for me from our current mayor and the previous mayor as well - not communicating effectively about what this city should look like, and even not communicating what the plan is around homelessness or whatever issue that we're dealing with. As mayor of the City, I will be communicating - I will let people know what the plans are, and I also hope to really help people understand a vision for equity and racial justice in our city.  We have to realize - I drove through Ballard the other day. There's Black Lives Matter signs in so many houses all through Ballard. If you believe that Black Lives Matter, then you believe Black people deserve great housing in our city. If you believe Black Lives Matter, then you believe that that kid in the South End who has high rates of asthma and going back and forth into the emergency room all the time because of the air quality, you believe that we have to make changes and implement our climate policies. I am going to help our region - help Seattle - understand what it truly means when we grab onto these slogans. That will be my vision. That will be what I will be very clear about from the get-go and through this campaign. And so, we have to just understand, and if we really want to be a progressive city and live out these values, then we're going to have to change. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:26] You talk about that - so many people do have those signs in there. I've talked about before - allyship is a verb - and does raise the question, "Are you acting like those Black lives matter or is that just a convenient sign to have in the yard?" I do think that that value is shown through zoning. I also think that value is shown through how we keep each other safe, and protect our neighbors, and relate to each other. That certainly has to do with the conversation around policing and public safety here. You were appointed by the former mayor to the Community Police Commission. Just looking at the work that you've done there and the insight that you have - what do you think was positive - from what you did from the Community Police Commission? Where do you think we need to go, specifically policy-wise, with policing in Seattle? Colleen Echohawk: [00:15:21] Well, I love that you said the positive part of it. That's important. I want to recognize that. There are some incredibly dedicated people in the Community Police Commission - Reverend Walden. There's just a tremendous amount of people who have ensured that our police accountability that is in place right now through the consent decree - that it happened. We have certainly had rousing meetings. If you've never gone to a Community Police Commission meeting, they're lively - let's say that - because the issue is so close to home. As leader of the Chief Seattle Club, we serve the family of John T. Williams. It is very close - many of the people that I know and love walked alongside John T. Williams all the time, and they are petrified and afraid of Seattle Police Department. We have many people, and I don't know if folks recognize this - in our homeless community - sadly, we have physical and sexual assaults that happen. They will not report. They do not want to talk to Seattle Police Department and they continue to have to deal with so much trauma that we can't actually wrap our arms around because of the fear of Seattle Police Department. And so, the work there has to change. I'm also really proud of the Seattle Community Police Commission - that we stood against the 2018 contract. I personally went with members of the Commission to the mayor's office and we pleaded with her to not move forward with this contract. And now we can see, over the summer, the terrible outcome of that. I have competitors - opponents - in this race who voted for that contract. As we move forward in police accountability, we need to have a leader who is going to be courageous and take a stand. That's going to be with-- the two most important things we're going to see come out in the new mayor's office is hiring the chief of police and, of course, the contract. Both of those places will require community-led focus and work with the Community Police Commission. One of the things that has been hard as a Community Police Commissioner - is that we often are ignored by the mayor's office - time after time after time. In fact, there's now a dashboard on the Community Police Commission website that shows all the times that we've been ignored. I am committed to that commission. I'm committed to actually, having been there, increasing the power and authority of that commission. And not just the commission - I want to be working with the community as well. The commission can only represent so much. But we are committed, and you can see this in our plan on the website, to bi-monthly meetings with community around policing and making sure that we are understanding where we're headed as a city. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:48] Well, and you mentioned the two big things - they're huge - in terms of the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract, in addition to hiring a new police chief. With that contract, I mean, that dictates so much - even beyond the police chief's control. I guess the first question is, would you need the 2017 ordinance to be included in that contract? If it didn't include those elements, would you sign that contract? What are the bright lines for you when it comes to that negotiating and what you need to see from that contract - to make sure that it's going to serve the residents - all of the residents of Seattle? Colleen Echohawk: [00:19:25] I think that the crowd control issue is something that is on top of mind for our residents in Seattle. Demilitarizing the police. Those are the things, to me, that are top priorities when it comes to the contract. We cannot relent. We have to have better outcomes when we - we will have other protests. That is clear. We're going to have more protests. I am behind that. I know it can help, that it can make change. But we have to make sure that crowd control - what happened over the summer - never happens again. And so, those are two places in the contract that are going to be key for me. The other thing, and the state legislature has pushed some of this far, and hopefully we can go even further in future legislative sessions - but we have to hire a chief of police that will truly hold our police department accountable. And what I mean by that is that right now, when a chief... Which by the way, chief... That, to me- Crystal Fincher: [00:20:45] Yeah. You know what? Yep. Colleen Echohawk: [00:20:47] ... it's weird. It's weird. I think Toronto has changed that from a word that has been co-opted from the Native community. It's a very weird thing, but it is what it is. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:02] We could do a whole show. There is so much language that even just internally, in my business, that we've talked about, that is so common in business language and common language, that is just co-opted there. Colleen Echohawk: [00:21:15] It is. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:16] It really is discomforting. Colleen Echohawk: [00:21:20] It is discomforting. It's not something that is helpful in our work towards equity. But anyways, it is what it is. The chief of police will need to be holding folks accountable - that means disciplining and not being afraid of disciplining. That means when we fire someone, and then it goes to the arbitration board, and they come back and they say, "You know what? You have to keep this person in the department." Our plan says that person never goes near public. And I can tell you from personal experience about that - is that I have seen with my own eyes a Seattle police officer follow a native homeless man who is - he jaywalked in Pioneer Square. Everyone jaywalks in Pioneer Square. He's jaywalking and eventually they take him to the ground and I saw it, I put in my protest at Office of Police Accountability. They said, "No, sorry. The officer was fine. He was doing his job." But what was weird to me is that later on I had someone in our organization, another staff member say, "Hey, Colleen, look at this video." It was a YouTube video - that same exact officer and that same exact man - going at it again and taking him down to the ground again. I cannot believe that that was not intentional - that jaywalking, with the same guy, same officer. And so, when we know that an officer has been disciplined for something like that, that officer doesn't get back on the street. I'm going to hire a chief of police that will say, "You know what, I'm going to follow the direction of the mayor. We're not going to have bad cops out there on the street. We just cannot do it." That's something that is doable right now, right? Because the contract is the contract - I believe in arbitration, we've got to support our unions. But we can actually do something to keep bad cops off the street. And that's one of the key components of our plan. I feel it so deeply - I've experienced it myself and we have to do better. We have to change. Crystal Fincher: [00:23:33] So I just wanted to clarify - do you support the 2017 Police Accountability Ordinance and including that as a minimum or requirement in a new police contract? Colleen Echohawk: [00:23:46] Yeah. Absolutely, and I appreciate you saying a minimum because there are things about the 2017 accountability that we need to take further. I mentioned in our earlier conversation that I've put in my own complaints to the Office of Police Accountability, and I did not get responses that were adequate. So we need to change some of those things there. I think that the next contract - we should make it even stronger, have more accountability. Also, one thing that I really care tremendously about is that we find ways to ensure that the Community Police Commission has a stronger voice. That's something I would also be advocating for in the contract that's coming up. Crystal Fincher: [00:24:30] Well, we are also still in the middle of a pandemic. Colleen Echohawk: [00:24:32] Yeah. Crystal Fincher: [00:24:34] We can see the end, hopefully - and Seattle's doing a job that's better than most in terms of vaccination rates. Still, definitely, improvement can be made. But there's still a lot of people struggling. There's still a lot of people out of work. We saw where a lot of the haves didn't really feel much pain throughout the pandemic. But, man, the have-nots have been hurting, are hurting worse, and they're still hurting. People in Seattle, from service workers to artists, are still out of work. A lot of our small businesses are still trying to figure out a way to stay afloat, if they haven't already been forced to close. What do you see as the path forward? I guess, starting with, do you support the JumpStart Tax? Colleen Echohawk: [00:25:24] Absolutely. Yes. We have to have further revenue and we have to do better of ensuring that our communities - I come from the Native community - the Black community, the other people color communities, that we are accessing these resources that are coming out of City Hall. The Office of Economic Development - they had grants. But those grants - I'm dying to do an audit on those. I am almost sure that our small businesses who are BIPOC did not have fair access to those. I asked - I get my nails done, and I went and was talking to my friend who owns the business. She's Vietnamese, English is the second language - she's an incredible, incredible human. I said, "Well, did you get a grant?" And she said, "Nope." I said, "Did you get PPP?" "No." I think that as mayor, because I come from a place of working for some of the most vulnerable people in our community - that's my lens. Those are the people that I'm going to be thinking about and wanting to hear their voices, wanting to see their leadership, and make sure that that person out there in this nail salon and suffering through this crisis. I'm so glad that her business is up and running, but it is still - there's a lot of people who were getting their nails done who aren't back.  So that, to me, is of utmost importance. I am eager to get in there and be supporting communities of color. The other thing I'll add, just around the pandemic, is health equity. One of the things that just really pushed me into doing this, as well - is understanding how COVID impacted communities of color - understanding that as a Native woman, I was much more likely to be hospitalized If I contracted COVID, much more likely to die of COVID. That was something that was just so hard for us when we were working with our homeless community, who are Native - was we had people out there who their first language was their Native language, and there's not many people like that anymore. We had people who know the culture in a way that no one else knows because there's so few of us left. Keeping those elders alive was such a big priority for me during this pandemic. So health equity will be of utmost importance. I've been meeting regularly with Black birth workers and talking to them about what our plans could be in the mayor's office, and we'll continue to flesh out those policies. But I can tell you that health equity will be a lens for me. One of the folks that are endorsing me, that I'm very proud of, is Dr. Ben Danielson. I will be asking for his advice and mentorship through this process of what we should be doing to understand the health impact, and the long-term health impacts of COVID on our community, and especially some of our communities that were hit the hardest by it. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:53] Well, there are a few Seattleites with more credibility when it comes to health equity and just overall community health than Dr. Ben Danielson. So it would be great to know that he would be an advisor to the mayor's office. I guess, looking at that - what do we need to do, moving forward, in terms of - you talked about disparate impacts to BIPOC people in communities. Pollution - lots of times people think of climate change - in addition, pollution, are two big issues facing all of our community, but particularly the BIPOC community. How can you impact that? What plans do you have as mayor to reduce pollution and the effects of that - that are literally taking years off of the life of residents here in the City? It's very different, depending on what your zip code is. What can you tangibly achieve? Colleen Echohawk: [00:29:57] Yeah. There's a lot out there that is super exciting. We're working around food access and food sovereignty systems, working with the Muckleshoot tribe. We have Valerie Segrest who's supporting our campaign and is helping lead some of that policy. Public transportation is a big part of what we need to do in order to change our outcomes around carbon emissions. 60% of our carbon emissions right now are coming from cars. So I am a huge proponent of more transportation making Seattle truly workable. Right now it's too hard to connect to things. In 2018, my family and I were able to go to Japan. That city - man, it just - that country, Tokyo specifically, works. You can just be on public transportation. And so, we have to have vision for that. But beyond all that, there's a lot of policies out there - we're pushing out our own policies, everyone on the campaign trail right now is pushing out policies. But we've had policy after policy after policy - and every year, our carbon emissions get worse. I'm curious what 2020 will look like because of COVID. But there's a disconnect, and what we have to realize is that we need courageous leadership. We need someone who is going to say, "We are going to get there. We are going to become denser." That's the other issue - we have policy, we know what the policies are - but will we have the courage to change, is something that I am thinking about all the time. My whole career has been about making change. My whole career has been about standing up and saying, "Hold on a second. How can that be, and how can we ensure that our communities of color, our Native communities are going to thrive in these situations?" And so, I will bring that same lens to the mayor's office. It is time for us to get serious about climate change. And the other thing I'll add to that is - I'm really excited about working with our tribes who have a government-to-government relationship with the city of Seattle, which is Suquamish and Muckleshoot. I like to say that we'll know that we have turned the corner on climate change when you look at a Puget Sound and it's abundant, full of orcas - because then we know that our salmon are in clean water and they are thriving. And then we know that our kid out in the South End is breathing clean air - and it is a part of a whole system. That's where I want us to get to. That's my vision. We have to be able to make those changes, and have the vision for it, and make it happen. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:58] You mentioned that the proportion of pollution that is directly attributable to cars and vehicles - at least one of your opponents is highly in support of free transit for all. Do you also support that? Colleen Echohawk: [00:33:15] Yeah. I'm worried about the funding. But absolutely, I think that there is such - it would make the difference. I think that people would get out there and get on public transportation if it was free, but I don't know exactly how we're going to pay for that. But we do have - we have a friend in the White House, at last. And looking at those federal dollars is something that I will be aggressive about. I have a pretty good track record of raising money. My agency at Chief Seattle Club - we're raising tons and tons of money. I have gotten very good at doing that - and I will do that at the federal level, I'll do that at the local level - and get those dollars in. I'm sorry, I got a little sidetracked about raising money there because I get excited about that. But yes, free transit is a really, really great idea. But as the CEO of the City, the mayor of the City, you've got to know where the dollars are coming from, and that's the only concern. I would love to see that. And we already are doing some good things there. The ORCA LIFT program is really powerful, it's doing good things. And I think finding ways to make sure that that is more accessible to our community should be a priority of our mayor. Crystal Fincher: [00:34:39] So you wouldn't stand in the way of the policy, but finding funding for it may not be a priority of a Echohawk administration. Colleen Echohawk: [00:34:48] My first priority of an Echohawk administration is to solve the crisis of homelessness. Having 5,000-6,000 people sleeping outside - I feel like it's immoral in a city like Seattle. And so that will be my first priority. That's where any funding that we have out there - it's got to go towards that. And then, once we get that settled, we have a 14-month plan for getting folks who are living outside inside. Then I'll be looking at other priorities like free transit, because it is a beautiful idea and I would love to see that happen. Crystal Fincher: [00:35:26] So in a sea of candidates who are saying that addressing the homelessness crisis is also a priority, what will - from a voter's perspective, from a resident's perspective - how will an Echohawk administration be visibly, tangibly different than all of your competitors? Colleen Echohawk: [00:35:45] Well, I think number one is that I have a proven track record of solving homelessness. In the past seven years at Chief Seattle Club, we've housed 681 people. We're building $180 million of affordable housing. I'm the only candidate that's built affordable housing. It's also the main reason I'm jumping into this race. I am not going to be a career politician. I am jumping in this race because I am frustrated, I care about our homeless community, I care about our larger community, and I have the skills to get it done. I think that is something that truly sets me apart. No one else has ever been successful at actually housing people, and I care about them. I was taught to jump in when there is people who are hurting. I grew up with parents who literally would pick up hitchhikers off the side of the road, and then they would live in our house if they were homeless. That is where I come from. And so, that's what I'll bring to the mayor's office. Crystal Fincher: [00:36:57] I mean, and you say you don't want to be a career politician, so do you have a term limit in mind? I always wonder that when people say that. Is there a maximum term that separates you from being a politician to a career politician? Colleen Echohawk: [00:37:10] I don't know. This is hard. Everyone was like, "Colleen, campaigning is hard. Being in this world is hard," and it is. And so, I don't know how much of this I want to do. I think that if we're successful in our first year, which I think we will - in our first four years, which I think we will be. I think that the City of Seattle needs to have a two-term mayor. We haven't had one in a really, really long time, and we need some consistency. It's part of the reason that our climate policy hasn't gotten to where we want it to get. So that could be it.  But I don't have any ambitions to be a Governor or a Senator, or - I like Seattle. When I was thinking about doing this, I had an opportunity come up in DC. And I was talking about my sister who lives in DC - she's like, "Colleen, why would you do that? You love Seattle. That's your place." And I was like, "Okay." That was helpful for me. Seattle's my place. I look forward to - I have a lot of other things I want to do in my lifetime. But if I can support our community now, I really believe that you should do that.  Well, and the other thing that's exciting for me is that - to be the first woman mayor, indigenous mayor of a major city is really cool for me. I have a daughter who has the most incredible leadership skills. When she was three, she told me she wanted to be the leader who's in charge of the other leaders. I love that. I'll never forget it. I mean, she should be President of the United States someday. If she can see that her mom, a Native woman, was able to be the mayor of a major city in this country, and is willing to take on the hard parts of it - because it is hard. She's saying to me sometimes like, "Wait, you're not getting done with work until like 8:30?" or whatever. But I want her to see that Native leadership and indigenous perspective's important for our country, and I love that part of it. It's something that we need. I want my daughter to see that you can do it, and that you should do it - if you have a call for leadership and you have a call to serve the community, so that part is pretty cool. Crystal Fincher: [00:39:49] Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today and have this conversation, and look forward to seeing how the race unfolds. Colleen Echohawk: [00:39:56] Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Crystal Fincher: [00:39:59] Thank you for listening to Hacks and Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Two Washington Cup races and the Gottstein highlight week #15 at Emerald Downs. The Muckleshoot Tribal Classic pits full brothers Papa's Golden Boy and Gold Crusher meeting for the first time while Alittlelesstalk is a strong favorite to take her fourth local stakes victory in the Filly & Mare. Spectacular juvenile Dutton headlines the Gottstein's ten-horse field. Breeder-owner-author Tim Floyd is a guest interview. Floyd is connected with top racemare Alittlelesstalk and second-time starter Myuddermamasapaint in the Gottstein. Also interviewed is Papa's Golden Boy co-owner Jeff Lusk, speaking to their speedster's development and chances for Muckleshoot victory. Preview, recap, stats, trivia and selections.

Learn more at GrowingOldProject.com.  Subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, and follow the Growing Old Project on Instagram.  This series was created in collaboration.   Created by:Lylianna Allala, Colleen Echohawk, and Tamara Power-Drutis Produced by:Katie Mosehauer Written by:Tamara Power-Drutis Narrated by:Zoey Echohawk-Hayashi, Collen Echohawk, Lylianna Allala, Tamara Power-Drutis along with various members of the Growing Old team. Music for the series by:Black Stax, Glass Heart String Choir, Lacey Warrior, and Talaya Logan Marque Studios with engineering and mixing by Katie Mosehauer and Greg Fields and mixing and mastering by Pierre Ferguson. Music in Episode 8 by:  Chris Zabriskie, C. Scott, Kai Engel, and Tamara Power-Drutis.   Recording by:Katie Mosehauer and Tamara Power-Drutis In Partnership With:Chief Seattle Club and Earth Day Northwest 2020

Learn more at GrowingOldProject.com.  Subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, and follow the Growing Old Project on Instagram.  This series was created in collaboration.   Created by:Lylianna Allala, Colleen Echohawk, and Tamara Power-Drutis Produced by:Katie Mosehauer Written by:Tamara Power-Drutis Narrated by:Zoey Echohawk-Hayashi, Collen Echohawk, Lylianna Allala, Tamara Power-Drutis along with various members of the Growing Old team. Music for the series by:Black Stax, Glass Heart String Choir, Lacey Warrior, and Talaya Logan Marque Studios with engineering and mixing by Katie Mosehauer and Greg Fields and mixing and mastering by Pierre Ferguson. Music in Episode 7 by:  Glass Heart String Choir (Ian Williams and Katie Mosehauer), Black Stax, Kai Engel, Chris Zabriskie, and Tamara Power-Drutis.   Recording by:Katie Mosehauer, Tamara Power-Drutis, and Katie Myers In Partnership With:Chief Seattle Club and Earth Day Northwest 2020

Rosalie Fish is a member of the Muckleshoot and Cowlitz tribes and is a competitive runner and college student. Rosalie made national headlines when she painted a red hand over her face in order to represent Missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). She also painted the MMIW hashtag on her leg and ran races for specific Indigenous women. Her actions of bravery have helped spark greater awareness about this issue and the issue of violence within a larger North American historical context.Rosalie and I talk about Native Art, philosophical questions, running, something and nothing and making a difference. Rosalie is a hero and an inspiration.  

Murder is the 3rd leading cause of death for Native American women and is a normalized part of growing up on a reservation, so for 18 year old Rosalie Fish of the Cowlitz and Muckleshoot tribes, running came from a place of healing. Rosalie uses her platform as a multiple time high school state champion in Washington, and now as a collegiate runner at Iowa Central Community College, to advocate for indigenous rights and to give a voice to those silenced by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic (MMIW). Hear from Rosalie on topics such as how “racism against native Americans is ingrained in our athletic society”, respectful ally-ship, the importance of mentors and community connections, transitioning to collegiate running, and how her mindset shifted from running for a PR to running “so that [her] relatives would be seen”. Info on the Violence Against Women Act: https://www.fcnl.org/updates/reauthorize-the-violence-against-women-act-with-strong-provisions-for-native-women-1582 Rosalie's TedTalk: https://www.ted.com/talks/rosalie_fish_running_for_missing_and_murdered_indigenous_women Info on ending Native American mascots: http://www.ncai.org/proudtobe

Seattle is one of the wealthiest and fastest-growing cities in the nation, but that growth has come often at the expense of the Indigenous people who first lived here. In a forthcoming piece in Bitterroot and the South Seattle Emerald, writer Marcus Harrison Green examined how Native citizens in Seattle are pushing for greater representation, and how non-Native Seattle residents and officials can improve the relationship with Indigenous residents of this traditional Coast Salish territory. Green joined along with Fern Renville and Russell Brooks for a panel discussion moderated by Bitterroot editor Maggie Mertens, exploring ways the city can best recognize its Indigenous roots and residents, and whether reparations should be a component of that process. Russell Brooks (Southern Cheyenne) is the executive director of Red Eagle Soaring Native Youth Theatre in Seattle. Marcus Harrison Green is the publisher of the South Seattle Emerald. Rachel Heaton (Muckleshoot) is the co-founder of Mazaska Talks, a tool that supports community divestment from banks that finance fossil fuel development. Maggie Mertens is the managing editor of Bitterroot magazine. Fern Renville (Dakota) is the CEO of SNAG Productions. Robin Little Wing Sigo is the director of the Suquamish Research & Strategic Development Department and a member of the Suquamish Tribal Council. Presented by Town Hall Seattle, South Seattle Emerald, and Bitterroot.

Limo whiners;  Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill;  ZorkFest:  Cocktail party;  Anthony Curtis;  Dinner;  Charity craps tournament;  Panels;  Podcasters After Dark;  The Zorkie Award;  Melanie hits a royal flush;  "Muckleshoot!"  Deep Stack and Comb-Over;  360 Vegas Vacation meet-up at Downtown Grand;  South Point Kentucky Derby trip report;  TI trip report;  Sports wagering begins in Delaware;  Belmont Stakes;  World Cup

Consoling losing players;  "Take that, Harrah's!";  Dr. Mike's favorite craps bet;  Working vs. not working on the come-out roll;  The Las Vegas/Gambling podcast community;  World/Whirl bet;  Horn High Yo;  The worst casino giveaways;  If craps went away, what would you play?  What's that clip at the end of each episode?  Are there craps advantage players?  Our wives are saints;  Smartest and dumbest craps bets;  "Muckleshoot!";  Will Justify win the Belmont Stakes?  One craps table for the rest of your life;  Play at a crowded table or an empty table?  Dr. Mike's keno basic strategy;  We lose the Zorkie

Supreme court opens the door for sports wagering;  Preakness Stakes;  Weird experience with an "advantage player";  LA to Vegas canceled;  Professionals and gambling;  Original name of Resorts World Catskills;  Correct pronunciation of Muckleshoot;  Tribal-state compacts;  Non-gambling things to do in Las Vegas;  Pai Gow Poker "insurance" bets;  Money has a different meaning in a casino

“It wasn’t all about spirituality, all about mother nature or charity. It was  ‘I’m a Native person, here are my values and I’m going to kick ass.’ It was a much more three-dimensional view of who Native people are.” Who could get Natives to buy fewer Pendleton blankets and instead buy blankets created by Natives? Louie Gong. Louie Gong is creating his own energy right now, and I’m digging it. Louie is Nooksack, and grew up both in Canada and the U.S. He also runs Eighth Generation, a company that makes blankets, jewelry, phone cases and more. His stuff is fresh and more importantly, Native designed and owned! The journey to business owner and cutting-edge designer was not a straight path. Louie lived on his own in high school. Like a previous NextGen Native, he used this independence to hone his grind and hustle. Rather than falling through the cracks, he played sports, but then had to find ways to get home, pay rent, etc. His grades did suffer, however. Louie admitted that he did not like learning the way the school was trying to teach him, resulting in his poor GPA. Despite the high school grades, Louie decided he wanted to attend college. College counselors and others did not support his zeal. Only one teacher helped him apply for colleges. Louie remembers this vividly, and it called out his inner fight and determination. Years later, Louie would attend the school no one thought he would, and got his Masters degree to become a guidance counselor. To this day, he visits the teacher who believed in him. He continued his personal growth by traveling abroad for the first time, teaching English in Korea. Completely on his own in Korea, he learned how to put himself out in the world and take more risks. This would be crucial for his eventual life as an entrepreneur. Louie started to hone his artistic skills working for the University of Washington. But it was while working for the Muckleshoot tribe where he started to find his calling. He helped paint drums for a giveaway to coincide with the tribe’s hosting of Canoe Journey. Eventually, he turned his passion for Northwest coast Salish art into a sustainable business that while based on his art, is not dependent on galleries. Most people probably know Louie’s work from the blankets he recently has launched. The demand is through the roof. Eighth Generation blankets have some beautiful designs and more importantly are authentically Native. I’m inspired by Louie’s work. Not that he is a business owner, or fashion designer, per se, but because he’s been able to create in his own image-being both traditional and modern, not limiting himself to any segment of a market or playing to someone else’s notion of who he is as a Native person. We should all work to be even a bit more like Louie.

Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project Meeting January, 2011