Podcasts about north seattle

3pm: Guest – Rudy Pantoja – North Seattle “Aurora” native and community advocate on the history of the Aurora problem and the failed efforts to fix them // A quick recap of the John Wilson saga

6pm: Guest – Rudy Pantoja – North Seattle “Aurora” native and community advocate on the history of the Aurora problem and the failed efforts to fix them // Marc Andreessen on Biden Meeting 

After less than 18 months in office, Councilmember Cathy Moore, representing District 5 (North Seattle), announced she will be resigning her position effective July 7. Swinging into immediate action, Erica and Sandeep (David is away, gamboling and gallivanting in distant parts) weigh in on this emergency episode of the podcast with their red hot takes on this surprise bombshell announcement. While Moore ascribes her decision to step down to personal and medical reasons, speculation is rampant that Moore's dissatisfaction with the job and unhappiness with the harsh criticism the Council sometimes faces also played a central role in her decision. Rest assured, we fully indulge this speculation, while offering our takes on Moore's legacy and assessing where she sat on the Council's ideological spectrum. Given the timing of Moore's decision, her seat will not be up for election until 2026, so we close with what early names we're hearing bruited about for who the Council might appoint to replace Moore until then. Our editor is Quinn Waller.  Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSend us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comHEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller. Support the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comHEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller. Support the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

Three teenage boys in North Seattle allegedly stole a shotgun… and condoms. The port of Seattle says they’ve seen less traffic due to tariffs. Washington’s birthright citizenship case is going before the United States Supreme Court. Left wingers are livid that Trump is admitting white South African refugees. // LongForm: GUEST: State Rep. Travis Couture on Democrats plan to take money from Washington’s most vulnerable and give it to illegal immigrants.  // Quick Hit: Washington’s public library systems is dealing with looming cuts due to the state’s budget deficit. Stop/start tech on cars could go away soon. Fingers crossed.

The Trump Administration is seeking a new interpretation of the 14th amendment to end birthright citizenship. A Seattle CEO has a very interesting way of raising awareness for the homelessness crisis. The Trump Administration has begun the process of firing Biden-era holdovers. // LongForm: GUEST: Ryan Ferrie is a North Seattle business owner that decided to close up shop due to the dangerous environment around his building. // Quick Hit: Al Sharpton threatens to boycott companies that are doing away with DEI.  

What’s Trending: WA democrats push unemployment insurance for illegal immigrants. A North Seattle business has decided to close down due to rampant crime. The FBI agent that said the attack in New Orleans was not terrorism has been reassigned. Two school levies for Seattle are on the ballot next month. // LongForm: GUEST: Brian Williams is an Elder at Living Word Ministry, which has come under siege with vandalism. // Quick Hit: A small town in Colorado is going up against the state over illegal immigration.  

What’s Trending: Boeing cowers after Seattle Times asked about “surveillance.” A man is in critical condition after being stabbed in North Seattle. West Seattle has matched its record high for homicides. Guest: Silent Majority Foundation General Counsel Pete Serrano goes over their lawsuit against Bob Ferguson over his COVID vaccine mandate as Attorney General. // Big Local: Edmonds is likely ditching its fire department in favor of annexing with South County Fire. Will it get rid of its police department too? Ruston bans late night booze sales. A Mountlake Terrace senior center is using virtual reality headsets for its residents. // An LA Times columnist quit after the paper’s move to become more fair and balanced.  

"Hello? Is it me you're looking for?"In November of 2014, 6-year-old Julia Potter went missing. She was last seen in the care of her father, Jason, who'd had a scheduled visit with Julia that fateful weekend. As police would later learn, Jason had willingly fled from his North Seattle home, having informed his lawyers beforehand that he was "going off the grid."In the years that have passed, rumors have swirled around where Jason and Julia have been. Some theorize that Jason's family and friends, scattered throughout western Washington, have been providing them shelter. Police speculate that the two may have fled to Asia. Others believe the two may be living in the wilderness of Washington state. However, nearly a decade after Julia's abduction, her mother continues to hold out hope for her safe return...Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal WhelanMusic composed and created by Micheal WhelanLearn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.meIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

What’s Trending: Authorities in Snohomish County have arrested two suspects for a series of home invasions targeting Asian communities. A man in North Seattle was attacked by his dogs after he allegedly abused and neglected them. Actor Rob Schneider has come and addressed his daughter Elle King calling him a “toxic” father. // Big Local: Tacoma Police Department is sending out unarmed officers to lower priority calls. Whatcom County has installed what is effectively a Narcan vending machine. A new audit found that Marysville school district may become insolvent. // The Washington Post is looking into journalist Taylor Lorenz’s alleged Instagram post that called Joe Biden a war criminal.

Luke and Andrew check-in after yesterday's big bracelet-making party at Andrew's Eagles club in North Seattle!

Luke, Andrew and Jon wrap-up this year's TBTL-a-Thon by talking about eel farming and begging the listeners to help them make bracelets. Sign-up here to join the TBTL bracelet-making party at Eagles Aerie #1 in North Seattle on Sunday, July 28th!

Feliks Banel LIVE at SEA Airport for the celebration of 75 years since the facility's construction // D.W. Gibson on the 1999 WTO riots and his book, "One Week to Change the World" // Dr. Neal Chatterjee on his research to use AI to predict cardiac arrest // Daily Dose of Kindness: A school teacher in the UK uses a unique way to teach their students // Gee Scott on residents of North Seattle policing prostitution without law enforcement interference

Community members greeted kids on their way into Garfield High School in Seattle's Central District, after Mt. Zion Baptist Church, and the organization 100 Black Parents organized a massive show of support. Classes started up again Tuesday morning after a shooting on campus that claimed the life of 17-year old student, Amarr Murphy-Paine.  The shooter, believed to be another high school aged boy, has not been found or identified by Seattle Police.  Monday, a 15-year-old boy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, among other charges, in the shooting death of a classmate at Ingraham High School in North Seattle in 2022.  In the wake of that shooting, Seattle Public Schools and local elected leaders pledged to step up mental health support for students and improve safety on school campuses and in surrounding neighborhoods. But nearby gun violence has since repeatedly shattered the peace at Garfield, putting the school on lockdown, and now another Seattle student has lost their life at school.   So – what's the answer? How do we protect kids at school –  the place where the LAST thing they should be worried about is dodging gunfire? GUEST: DeVitta Briscoe, Gun Violence Prevention Liaison for the city of Seattle, and founder of the Black Women's Coalition to End Violence.LINKS: KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/stories/gun-violence-prevention-advocate-starts-work-in-seattle-mayor-s-office South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/tag/devitta-briscoe/ Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/a-lesson-from-my-losses-we-cannot-afford-to-completely-dismantle-the-police/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What’s Trending: A small group of protesters are demanding accountability for two Seattle police officers involved in a physical altercation at a bus stop last week. There was a shooting in North Seattle that caused a three-car collision. 84,000 fentanyl pill were seized in Seattle in a massive drug bust that took over a year. Democrats are taking a victory lap by spinning the latest jobs report. // Big Local: Renton Police Department are beginning to deploy drones for data and evidence collection. Thurston County is employing new technology on their police cars to assist with pursuits. Police impersonation scams are spreading to Lynnwood and Olympia now. // At a recent show in Berkeley, California, comedian Bill Burr proclaimed he hates liberals. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss splits with her former co-star Jerry Seinfeld on political correctness.

What’s Trending: Israel made a number of strikes inside Iran in retaliation to Iran’s drone attack attack last week. Antisemitic protests broke out at Columbia University. Drama ensued at the Washington GOP Convention. // A vehicle smashed into the entrance of North Seattle motorcycle shop. The DOJ is creating a carjacking task force in Seattle. // The ninth circuit court of appeals ruled that Seattle Police couldn’t arrest a street preacher for inciting hostility.

What’s Trending: There’s been a huge spike in bank robberies in North Seattle. Can anyone decipher what Joe Biden just said? At the behest of China, Apple has removed WhatsApp and Threads from its app store. Guest: A Lake Washington School District mom is horrified by the antisemitism she has seen on campus. // Big Local: A gang in Eastern Washington was arrested in Yakima for running a cockfighting ring. A judge has put a teen shooting suspect back into custody after his mom turned him in. A man in Sumner has plead guilty to living under a fake identity for 25 years. // Joe Biden claims that his uncle was eaten by cannibals during WWII.

What’s Trending: There’s been a huge spike in bank robberies in North Seattle. Can anyone decipher what Joe Biden just said? At the behest of China, Apple has removed WhatsApp and Threads from its app store. Guest: A Lake Washington School District mom is horrified by the antisemitism she has seen on campus. // Big Local: A gang in Eastern Washington was arrested in Yakima for running a cockfighting ring. A judge has put a teen shooting suspect back into custody after his mom turned him in. A man in Sumner has plead guilty to living under a fake identity for 25 years. // Joe Biden claims that his uncle was eaten by cannibals during WWII.

What’s Trending: A 17-year-old in Federal Way broke into 69 cars in 24 hours. The Federal Way Mayor and Police Chief have previously called on Washington’s police pursuit ban to be repealed. We Heart Seattle intervened to clean up a homeless encampment in a North Seattle neighborhood. Two Texas homeowners are furious after a squatter refused to leave their home and the police won’t remove him. // Migrants in Kent that that were on the verge of getting kicked out of a hotel have had their stay extended due an anonymous donation. The Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson has order workers at City Hall to return the office… and they’re not happy about it. // UN Climate Adviser Ayisha Siddiqa claims that climate change is caused by white men. 

3PM What’s Trending: Trump posts a statement on twitter after becoming canidate for Rebuplican party. Seattle voters come together to fill out their ballots. A bill is passed that could lead to the banning of Tik Tok, and multiple representatives and senators have express concerns over freedom of speech. People in North Seattle are up in arms after a man is shot and killed at  a gas station. // A teacher in Mukilteo has been spreading antisemitism over social media posts and has supported antisemitism groups with her assistance raising funds. // Democrats have been trying to share the narrative that inflation is down. But no where near as down than when trump was in office.   

Listen to the Be Bold for Jesus Podcast to be encouraged, inspired and empowered to go out and share your faith with others. Today we are hearing from Keith Carpenter.Keith is the Pastor of Epic Life Church in North Seattle, which he planted in 2009. He has been married for 32 yrs, with four sons, one daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter. Keith leads a pastor network in North Seattle of 23 churches and is highly engaged in the business district of Aurora Ave. N. in the NORA neighborhood, and has led Epic Life in starting a for-profit coffee business-as-mission, a food bank, and a non-profit organization that leads the neighborhood in bringing life to the community, called For North Seattle.  Pastoring in North Seattle along the Aurora Corridor has been a daily challenge as Epic Life engages with marginalized people, crime, homelessness, prostitution, and businesses of ill repute. This challenge is also instrumental in a very diverse community of believers. Keith also leads ministry trips into southern Peru, coffee-origin trips to Nicaragua, and prayer Hikes through western China's Tibetan region in places where the Gospel has never been heard and there are no existing Christian witnesses. Epic Life – John 10:10 (epiclifechurch.org)

Tim Gaydos in for Jason Rantz  What’s Trending: A grim record was hit in the City of Seattle with another homicide, multitude of problems continue on Aurora Ave in North Seattle and Erin Goodman with SoDo BIA talks about rampant crime issues in Seattle. // Keith Carpenter, Pilgrim Coffee, discusses the problems he sees as a business owner on Aurora and how to deal with the sex trafficking crisis. // Interest rates are going down just a bit—will it last?

What’s Trending: PCC leaves downtown but Seattle is still thriving apparently, Rantz feels bad for a sandwich owner gone missing and Kia's are not getting insured anymore.  LongForm: Andrew Steelsmith is a North Seattle resident who is tired of gunshots and crime in his neighborhood.  Quick Hit: Five Democrat mayors demand an “urgent meeting” with President Biden over immigration concerns.

Bryan hit a deer with his car. World Series route last night. A woman had a spider living in her ear and Bryan empathizes with her plight. Elon Musk says the corrosive effect of Twitter led him to buy the company. Crazy Code Pink protesters interrupted Anthony Blinken's testimony during a Senate hearing. // Israel admits it targeted a leader of Hamas when it bombed the site of a refugee camp in Gaza. Bryan tells people to sell their Kias as they're being stolen at such a high rate. // John Kirby mocks Putin after the Russian dictator blamed outside influences for a mob that attacked Jews at an airport in Dagestan. North Seattle residents voice concerns about increased crime on Aurora and one of the main issues is the enforcement of laws on the books. 

Seattle will dispatch civilian crisis responders to certain 911 calls, North Seattle teens are being mugged on their way home from school, and cyclists to get a safer path in Ballard. It's our daily roundup of Seattle's top news stories from host Paige Browning.We can only make the KUOW Newsroom Podcast because listeners support us. You have the power! Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW.

Former judge Cathy Moore and equity consultant ChrisTiana ObeySumner clash over police funding, drug law in race for North Seattle's District 5.

Ketchup, ranch, and Taylor Swift. It's 100 years to the day of the founding of the Walt Disney Company and Bryan notes how the company has changed over the years. KNOW IT ALL: 1) Hammer assaulter is in custody. 2) Bluefin tuna washes up on Orcas Island 3) Huskies secured a huge victory over the Ducks on Saturday. 4) RV camp growing in North Seattle. // Bryan bought a used car and is loving it. It's been a week since Hamas carried out its atrocities and headlines still say an Israeli invasion is 'imminent', but it has yet to occur. Bryan says SNL's cold open that featured Pete Davidson was profound. // Adult star Mia Khalifa deplatformed after comments which seemed to indicate she supports Hamas. Hezbollah may be getting involved in the conflict in the Middle East from the north. Rite-Aid files for bankruptcy and there's a tie-in with the opioid epidemic. 

In this episode, I had to opportunity to interview Mauri about the birth of her son Elio. She talks about the adventure of getting from Widbee Island to her hospital in North Seattle during labor and the importance of postpartum preparation. Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only with no intention of giving or replacing any medical advice. I, Kiona Nessenbaum, am not a licensed medical professional. All advice that is given on the podcast is from the personal experience of the storytellers. All medical or health-related questions should be directed to your licensed provider. Books:Taking Charge of Your Fertility-Toni Weschler,MPHLike A Mother-Angela GarbesBumpin'-Leslie SchrockThe Fourth Trimester-Kimberly Anne Johnson The Birth Partner-Penny Simkin Pregnancy Childbirth and The NewbornResources:Ginger Chews for NauseaPenny SImkin Childbirth Education CoursesBone Closing CeremonySupport the showThank you so much for tuning in to this episode! If you liked this podcast episode, don't hesitate to share it and leave a review. It really helps bring the podcast up for others to find and listen to as well. If you want to share your own birth story or experience on the Birth As We Know It Podcast, head over to https://kionanessenbaum.com or fill out this Guest Request Form. Support the podcast and become a part of the BAWKI Community by becoming a Patron on the Birth As We Know It Patreon Page!

On this Tuesday topical show, Crystal chats with Joy Hollingsworth about her campaign for Seattle City Council District 3. Listen and learn more about Joy and her thoughts on: [01:07] - Why she is running [02:11] - Lightning round! [08:51] - What is an accomplishment of hers that impacts District 3 [11:31] - City budget shortfall: Raise revenue or cut services? [14:27] - Climate change [16:37] - Bike and pedestrian safety [20:03] - Transit reliability [22:30] - Housing and homelessness: Frontline worker wages [24:38] - Public Safety: Alternative response [28:15] - Community surveillance vs safety, stance on ShotSpotter [30:16] - Childcare: Affordability and accessibility [32:57] - Small business support [36:49] - Difference between her and opponent As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Joy Hollingsworth at @JoyHollings.   Joy Hollingsworth Joy Hollingsworth is a candidate for the Seattle City Council in District 3. Born and raised in the historic Central District, a neighborhood her family has called home since the 1940's, she is the product of a long line of educators and civil rights leaders. Joy works to build community by establishing relationships based on trust and commitment. She played basketball in college at the University of Arizona and earned her Master's in Education from the University of Washington. Joy currently works at a nonprofit that supports over 400 food banks, meal programs and schools and, prior to that, worked as the Operating Officer and Policy Analyst for her family's business.    Resources Campaign Website - Joy Hollingsworth   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Well, I am very pleased today to be welcoming Seattle City Council District 3 candidate, Joy Hollingsworth, to the program. Welcome, Joy. [00:01:02] Joy Hollingsworth: Thank you, Crystal - very excited to be here. [00:01:06] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you here. And the first thing I'm wondering is - why are you running? What made you decide to run, especially this year? [00:01:15] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, when I was doorbelling, someone asked me - Why would you wanna put your hand in a blender and turn it on? And that was their way of asking me - Why would I wanna run for city council? But the biggest thing - 39 years living in the district - and I have seen how public policy has really impacted our community and the missing link of implementation and impact in the interpretation of that policy. So I've been on the tail end of it through - whether it's gentrification, small businesses being ravaged, through seeing our youth - all these different issues, I've seen it firsthand. And I thought that Seattle Council needs a person that has that historical perspective, but also can add to the future of our city - and I'm really excited for that opportunity. [00:02:01] Crystal Fincher: Well, there is certainly a lot of opportunity ahead of us, both to fix a lot of things that have been plaguing us for a while and to build on an exciting vision for the future. We're gonna do things a little differently than we have done in some prior years' candidate interviews - and helping to give voters an idea of where you stand on a wide variety of topics before we get into the detail, as we normally have our conversation, and doing a little bit of a lightning round with yes or no questions here. So I have a little list here. We'll go through these yes or no's pretty quick. Starting off with - this year, did you vote yes on the King County Crisis Care Centers levy? [00:02:41] Joy Hollingsworth: I voted absolutely yes. [00:02:43] Crystal Fincher: This year, did you vote yes on the Veterans, Seniors and Human Services levy? [00:02:47] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:02:48] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote in favor of Seattle's Social Housing Initiative I-135? [00:02:54] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:02:55] Crystal Fincher: In 2021, did you vote for Bruce Harrell or Lorena González for Mayor? [00:03:01] Joy Hollingsworth: I voted for Bruce Harrell. [00:03:03] Crystal Fincher: And did you vote for Nicole Thomas Kennedy or Ann Davison for Seattle City Attorney? [00:03:09] Joy Hollingsworth: I voted for Ann Davison. [00:03:10] Crystal Fincher: And did you vote for Leesa Manion or Jim Ferrell for King County Prosecutor? [00:03:16] Joy Hollingsworth: Leesa Manion. [00:03:17] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote for Patty Murray or Tiffany Smiley for US Senate? [00:03:22] Joy Hollingsworth: Patty Murray. [00:03:23] Crystal Fincher: Do you rent or own your residence? [00:03:27] Joy Hollingsworth: Actually rent my house from my family - so I rent. [00:03:29] Crystal Fincher: Are you a landlord? [00:03:33] Joy Hollingsworth: I am not. [00:03:34] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to require landlords to report metrics, including how much rent they're charging, to help better plan housing and development needs in the district? [00:03:42] Joy Hollingsworth: Absolutely. [00:03:43] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to provide additional funding for Seattle's Social Housing Public Development Authority? [00:03:50] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:03:51] Crystal Fincher: Are there any instances where you support sweeps of homeless encampments? [00:04:00] Joy Hollingsworth: No, connecting them to resources - next to, if it was next to a school, that's a in-between for me. [00:04:08] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with King County Executive Constantine's statement that the King County Jail should be closed? [00:04:15] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:04:16] Crystal Fincher: Should parking enforcement be housed within SPD? [00:04:20] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:04:21] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to allow police in schools? [00:04:26] Joy Hollingsworth: Community resource officers, yes. [00:04:30] Crystal Fincher: Do you support - and that's an armed officer in the school? [00:04:35] Joy Hollingsworth: No, not an armed officer - a resource officer that's not armed. [00:04:40] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Do you support allocation in the City budget for a civilian-led mental health crisis response? [00:04:47] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:04:48] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget to increase the pay of human service workers? [00:04:53] Joy Hollingsworth: Absolutely, yes. [00:04:54] Crystal Fincher: Do you support removing funds in the City budget for forced encampment removals and instead allocating funds towards a Housing First approach? [00:05:06] Joy Hollingsworth: Is there a maybe answer to that? [00:05:08] Crystal Fincher: You can say maybe if you want. You can say maybe. [00:05:12] Joy Hollingsworth: Maybe, thank you. [00:05:13] Crystal Fincher: Do you support - I mean, some might call it a waffle, but we'll also call it a maybe. And we do have plenty of time after this to get into the nitty gritty. So you don't have to just leave it at a yes or no. We will talk more about that later. [00:05:26] Joy Hollingsworth: Thank you. [00:05:26] Crystal Fincher: Do you support - yes, of course. Do you support abrogating or removing the funds from unfilled SPD positions and putting them toward meaningful public safety alternative measures? [00:05:38] Joy Hollingsworth: Maybe. [00:05:38] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocating money in the City budget for supervised consumption sites? [00:05:44] Joy Hollingsworth: No. Are you talking about for - sorry, for - no, I'll just, no. [00:05:52] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Do you support increasing funding in the City budget for violence intervention programs? [00:05:58] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:05:58] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't give the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of the Inspector General subpoena power? [00:06:08] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:06:10] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't remove limitations as to how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian? [00:06:19] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:06:20] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that impedes the ability of the City to move police funding to public safety alternatives? [00:06:29] Joy Hollingsworth: Maybe. [00:06:31] Crystal Fincher: Do you support eliminating in-uniform off-duty work by SPD officers? [00:06:38] Joy Hollingsworth: Maybe. [00:06:40] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans and non-binary students are allowed to play on the sports teams that fit with their gender identities? [00:06:48] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:06:49] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans people can use bathrooms and public facilities that match their gender? [00:06:55] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:06:56] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with the Seattle City Council's decision to implement the JumpStart Tax? [00:07:01] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:07:02] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to reduce or divert the JumpStart Tax in any way? [00:07:07] Joy Hollingsworth: No. [00:07:08] Crystal Fincher: Are you happy with Seattle's newly built waterfront? [00:07:14] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, so far. [00:07:15] Crystal Fincher: Do you believe - okay. Do you believe return to work mandates like the one issued by Amazon are necessary to boost Seattle's economy? [00:07:27] Joy Hollingsworth: No. [00:07:28] Crystal Fincher: Have you taken transit in the past week? [00:07:32] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:07:33] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Have you ridden a bike in the past week? [00:07:36] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:07:37] Crystal Fincher: Should Pike Place Market allow non-commercial car traffic? [00:07:42] Joy Hollingsworth: No. [00:07:43] Crystal Fincher: Should significant investments be made to speed up the opening of scheduled Sound Transit light rail lines? [00:07:52] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:07:54] Crystal Fincher: Should we accelerate the elimination of the ability to turn right on red lights to improve pedestrian safety? [00:08:03] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes. [00:08:06] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever been a member of a union? [00:08:09] Joy Hollingsworth: No. [00:08:10] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to increase funding and staffing for investigations into labor violations like wage theft and illegal union busting? [00:08:18] Joy Hollingsworth: Yes, absolutely. [00:08:19] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever walked on a picket line? [00:08:23] Joy Hollingsworth: No. [00:08:25] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever crossed a picket line? [00:08:28] Joy Hollingsworth: No. [00:08:29] Crystal Fincher: Is your campaign unionized? [00:08:34] Joy Hollingsworth: I don't believe so. No, but they're allowed to. [00:08:38] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, if your campaign staff wants to unionize, will you voluntarily recognize their effort? [00:08:43] Joy Hollingsworth: Oh, absolutely. [00:08:45] Crystal Fincher: Well, and that is our little lightning round here - that was pretty painless, I think. So looking at what's going on in the district, lots of people look to work that people have done to get a feel for what you prioritize and how qualified you are to lead. Can you describe something you've accomplished or changed in your district that's tangible to the residents, and what impact it has had on them? [00:09:11] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, a couple things. From one aspect, which I can think of, the first thing I ever did was turn our unit that my grandmother purchased in 1949 into a triplex back in 2001. And people might think like - Oh, that was just one thing that you did, but I can't begin to tell you the impact that had on our community, especially for people not knowing how. And we hosted a listening session, a technical assistance program where we showed people how to be able to turn their house into a triplex - from permitting, to construction, to financing, to implementation, to all these different things. And that was through our church, that was through different organizations - through the Urban League. And so that was like one of the first things that I did as a young person back in 2001 when I was like 17, 18 - I joined our family 'cause I had a lot of experience, even as a young age, learning how to do that. The second piece is the food insecurity piece. For the last three years, I've been on the frontlines of food insecurity, ensuring that organizations outside of the traditional food bank sector - and that means people that are organizations that are receiving federal funding - so the organizations outside of that, whether that's the mom who started a food pantry in her apartment complex or the church group, ensuring that they had food. And that was all the way from Africatown to King County Equity Now, Byrd Barr, Cooka T with Feed The People, the Madrona Pop-Up Pantry - just ensuring that they had food and resources for sustainability into our district. Those are the two main things that I can think of off the top of my head in the district. And last but not least, our family has a cannabis farm and we were on the frontlines of ensuring social equity - and the biggest piece that I know that we were a part of was the $200 million that is gonna be reinvested through the Department of Equity and the Department of Commerce. Right now, you can go and look at those grants and those can be reinvested back into communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs - and that was the Central District that was ravaged in South End. So those three main things - the cannabis equity, the food equity piece, and then the housing piece. [00:11:31] Crystal Fincher: So the City of Seattle is projected to have a revenue shortfall of $224 million beginning in 2025. Because the City's mandated by the state to pass a balanced budget, the options to address the upcoming deficit are either to raise revenue or cut services. How will you approach the issue of how the City collects and spends money on behalf of its constituents? [00:11:56] Joy Hollingsworth: I think the first piece, and I've said this often, about our budget is - would love for us to have a full examination audit to ensure that where we're spending money, what is it going to different places. Right now, a lot of people are feeling like they're not even receiving the type of services that they should be from our city through their property taxes, through all the different revenue streams that are happening in our city. We're not able to meet some of the basic needs. So I'd like us to do a full examination - how we're spending money first off. And then the second piece is - okay, now we know how we're spending money. I'm a small business owner. I know every nook and cranny how money's spent and where it goes in and comes out. And then we can figure out revenue sources to figure out how we allocate it to those. And I know the state just passed a capital gains tax, there could be a vacancy tax - all the different pieces that the task force has come out and recommended for us - to increase JumpStart tax, the CEO tax. There can be so many different pieces - high earners tax - I think those are on the table. But I think the first step is for us to understand where the money's going, how it's being spent, where it's allocated, and ways - are there more efficiencies that we can be able to put in place? [00:13:14] Crystal Fincher: So you talked about the state's action, the report that did come out from the council about options for raising revenue. Do you support or plan to advocate for any of those options in particular, or any others that you have? [00:13:29] Joy Hollingsworth: I would love for us to look at a high earners tax - I think that would be an ideal place to look at - also a CEO tax. It's not to say I'm against a capital gains tax. However, it's hard to base a tax off of a stock market and how that can fluctuate, and I would hate for us to project a budget based on a stock market and then stuff happens and we can't be able to provide those services. So those three - increasing a JumpStart tax would be on the table as well that we can look at that piece as well - but yeah, high earners, JumpStart Tax, and a CEO tax. [00:14:07] Crystal Fincher: So in favor of those. So would you be a no vote on capital gains? [00:14:11] Joy Hollingsworth: Not to say I wouldn't be a no. I would love - if we did vote yes, it would have to also be another tax associated with that to balance it out in case - I would hate to project revenue based off of a stock market, how volatile it is, that's all I'm saying. [00:14:27] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now on almost every measure, we're behind our 2030 climate goals, while experiencing devastating impacts from extreme heat and cold, to wildfire and floods. What are your highest priority plans to get us on track to meet 2030 goals? [00:14:44] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, so we definitely have climate goals. One of the things that's not talked about is how much food is wasted in our city and how much that contributes to our climate piece. So for example, Spokane - 70% of their food is donated, 30% is purchased from a lot of their food banks. Seattle, it's reversed - 70% is purchased, 30% is donated. That is a food waste issue - 40% of our food is wasted. Every time you eat a hamburger - one pound - you are contributing 65 emissions of gasoline into our atmosphere. And so I'm vegan - I'm not trying to make anyone vegan - but understanding that a lot of times, a lot of our carbon emissions is food. And in Seattle, a lot of it is through transportation, obviously. And so those two biggest pieces - the food piece of it is ensuring that we can have a better system - how we get food into different spaces and food access points before it's wasted, because a lot of it is. And one thing that scares me a lot is food - I don't think a lot of people understand how important food is to our society and health and environment. But also is to ensure that we have equitable transportation policies. And right now what's going on is in District 2 - even though I'm in District 3 - a lot of the bus lanes are sitting empty. A lot of the transit options are being cut in South End communities. And so a lot of people down here would love to ride the bus. They'd love to have sidewalks. They would love - in North End and South End - we don't have a lot of sidewalks and pedestrian accessibility. I would love for us to champion more of the equitable side - climate justice - rather than just so much of infrastructure as we've been investing in, which is great, but it needs to marry the equitable piece as well. [00:16:37] Crystal Fincher: Now, when it comes to transit and transportation - as you just talked about - we are having a pedestrian and bicycle safety crisis. Do you view this as a crisis and what would you do to address it? [00:16:51] Joy Hollingsworth: Do I view the crisis of us not implementing a lot of bike lanes and pedestrianizing streets and safety piece? Oh yeah, absolutely. It's definitely a crisis. Look, North Seattle and South Seattle are the places that don't have adequate sidewalks. And so you have to design - in order for us to encourage people to use the buses, to use transit, you have to design it for a way we want people to interact. So sidewalk accessibility - ensuring that every sidewalk, or excuse me, every crosswalk next to a school should be lit - every single one. It used to be, you would press a button, it lights up for our kids to be able to walk to school. Also, we have to ensure that a lot of the sidewalk repairs, we have yet to - around Cal Anderson, you see a lot of the sidewalks are bumpy, they come out, they're not accessible for mom and strollers or someone that has a wheelchair. We have forgotten a lot about the infrastructure piece, like just the basic day-to-day stuff. And we've jumped over that to, you know, think about these grandiose things instead of really focusing, you know, micro issues that are within our community. [00:18:10] Crystal Fincher: So with so much needing to happen, what would you prioritize and how do you balance the competition between car infrastructure and that for pedestrians and bikes? [00:18:22] Joy Hollingsworth: A lot of people in Seattle feel like it's the War on Cars and it's not. It's about ensuring that we have safe transportation, whichever way you want to use that transit - whether it's bus, biking, walking, or, you know, using a vehicle. And so what's happening is - what I would love to prioritize are bike lanes that are, you know, not connected within our city. I think about 12th Avenue from Volunteer Park all the way up to Beacon Hill - that is a train wreck of a street. And so understanding, you know, we need protected bike lanes so people can be able to get from Volunteer Park up into the I-90 corridor, if they want to go east, or continue up into the Chief Sealth Trail - that place - ensuring that our sidewalks, accessibility around Cal Anderson Park or other places around our city are accessible and ADA specific so people in wheelchairs can be able to use them. I also want to champion, like I said, the crosswalk piece around schools. We have a number of schools in our school district from Meany over on John Street - that's where I live off of - those crosswalks are really dangerous, especially if you're coming east and the sun is shining right in your eyes, you can't even see the crosswalks. People can't even see people at times. So there's some high-need areas right now, but those would be some of the main pieces. So, you know, obviously bike lane infrastructure, the sidewalk infrastructure. And also too, we talk about how we want people to be in electric cars - it's hard to find an electric charging station around Seattle. And that infrastructure, you go to LA or other places, they're everywhere. And so if we want to invest in that infrastructure, we have to start doing it now. [00:20:03] Crystal Fincher: So right now, you know, speaking of transit - transit reliability is a problem right now. Between operator shortages and other things, buses just are not showing up when they're scheduled or supposed to for a lot of people - impacting ridership. Now, King County Metro and Sound Transit are county and regional bodies, but what can the City do to stabilize transit reliability? [00:20:28] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, one of the biggest things, Crystal, is we could make it affordable for a bus driver or a mechanic or someone in the working class to be able to live here. A lot of times I go on Twitter and - my favorite place - and you see, you know, people are talking about the late 8, or ghost buses that are not showing up, or just, you know, different issues that they've had with transit being late, or just certain different aspects. But we also have to understand that there are people driving these buses. And a lot of those people cannot afford to live in our city and they have to drive from Puyallup, from Tacoma, from wherever to live here - or there's a shortage on mechanics. And so we definitely want - I think the City can do a better job of making housing affordable, championing workforce housing specifically. There's a lot of people that make above affordable housing salaries, but not enough to make ends meet. And they are really struggling right now because we are pressing out our middle class and making it super unaffordable to live here. And so, you know, championing those pieces - whether if you're an essential worker, from someone who's a social worker to a teacher, to a first responder who is not with, works in the city, I'm talking about first responders that work, that do the contract work, that are, you know, the ambulance workers that might not be a Medic One - they're outside those systems that make minimum wage, which is ridiculous as they're saving lives. And then our bus drivers - they should have options for workforce housing, voucher programs, just like people do in affordable housing. And I think that would really help alleviate a lot of the housing costs that are going on and make it more accessible for people. And then the hiring bonuses, you know - police are at $30,000 and then we're offering a Metro rider $3,000, or Metro driver $3,000. Why can't that be the same, you know, or more closer to where we're making it more, you know, attractive for people to be drivers and operators - I think is important. [00:22:30] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I wanna keep talking about housing and homelessness, because one of the things called out by experts as a barrier to the homelessness response is - like you were just talking about for bus drivers - frontline worker wages that don't cover the cost of living for the city. Do you believe our local nonprofits have a responsibility to pay living wages for our area? And how can we make that more likely with how the City bids and contracts for services? [00:22:55] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, first of all, absolutely nonprofits should. We know they're squeezed, but I'll go back to this with the City piece. It's hard to be at the City to talk about how we should be paying living wages to folks and try to say - Hey, nonprofit, you need to be paying this. - when the City can't even do that right now. And they're in a contract dispute to figure out livable wages and, you know, cost of living increases, and the 1% that was tried to provide to them - which is ridiculous when Tacoma, you know, I think was at 6%. And, you know, what we have to do - so the first thing I'd love to do is for the City to get on point to ensure that - hey, we have livable wages, cost of living, so we can show nonprofits how to do it. But the other piece is - for the contracting piece, there should be a requirement for a certain standard of livable wages for, you know, people that are bidding for contracts. If they're gonna bid for a contract, they should be able to pay their staff a certain amount. The challenge with a lot of that is that a lot of these nonprofits ramped up their programming during COVID - they got a shot in the arm from the federal government. And so now they have expanded their programming, they expanded their staff. If you look at a lot of the [Form] 990s in nonprofits, you have seen them grow tremendously where they went from a staff of 50 to 100, or a staff of 30 to 100. I mean, it's wild. But to see that growth - obviously the need is there - and so now they're struggling with new sources of revenue and what that looks like. And so ideally it would be great for us to have that requirement that they have to pay a certain wage to their staff in order to get a contract. [00:24:37] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. And also wanna talk about public safety, which is a big concern - particularly alternative response, because while other jurisdictions around the country and even in our region have rolled out alternative response programs to better support those having a behavioral health crisis, Seattle is stalled in implementing what is one of the most popular and widely-supported ideas by voters in the city. Where do you stand on non-police solutions to public safety issues? And what are your thoughts on civilian-led versus co-response models? [00:25:11] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, okay, so the public safety thing - look, I was the first one to come out and took heat for it from different news, well, from one news outlet, regarding my stance on police saying - Hey, I would love for us to have number one, better relationships with police officers. And I'd also love for us to - not love - but also for us, hearing from community members that they would like some type of police presence in their community to respond to certain Priority 1 and Priority 2 calls that are happening in their community. The second piece with that is it's not one or the other, it's also in addition to that - like you said, having other response models to different situations and activities that are going on in our city. Number one, being our Health One department through our Fire Department - they can alleviate a lot of the calls that are being transferred to SPD that should be responded by a medical professional or social worker that is equipped with a - someone who's doing pairs with the Health One piece, which is phenomenal. And we can ramp that up immediately - they already have the system, they have the stats to go with it, they can receive more funding. The third piece to that, which a lot of people have been asking for, are these situations where armed police officer's not required, maybe not a Health One person is not required - it should be like a mental health service provider. But a lot of the mental health service providers are also asking for potentially an officer to back them up in case something happens as well. And so it could be a co-response model as well. And I think a lot of those are needed because a lot of the calls that are coming into SPD are - officers not necessarily required. Now, the activity that we've seen in the district - from Asian families being targeted to just the other day, this young lady was carjacked at my parents' house in Rainier Beach, two houses down, by gun. The activities that we're seeing - a lot of them, unfortunately, are done by a lot of our youth and our kids that are being taken advantage of from certain adults in certain aspects. And so that tells me that our youth don't have a lot of stuff to do because they're doing other activities - and that we can deviate, have a diversion program like Choose 180 and Marty with Safe Passages and Community Passages - these gun violence prevention programs where we can create environments where they have things to do after school. They have Late Night to go to a community center. Back in the day, we'd go to Late Night, 9 to 11, to play basketball all day. You had something to do. Get them off their cell phones and reconnected and engaged with community. 'Cause right now they don't have a sense of being, a sense of belonging - and the pandemic really exacerbated a lot of those issues with our youth. And so we have to do a better job of investing in the mental health piece and in the afterschool activities for our kids. And in-school mentoring, which is huge. [00:28:15] Crystal Fincher: I also wanna talk about the sometimes friction between community surveillance and community safety. We have had proposals ranging from ShotSpotter to various cameras and license plate readers, various monitoring and hotspot focusing. Do you think those are effective, or do you prefer one over another? How do you process that, and consider that, and what would you advocate for? [00:28:44] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, not the license plate readers - that would not be one that I think would, that I would support. I definitely went back and forth with the ShotSpotter piece just because of the technology of being able to identify specifically where shots were coming from. And I think it's really hard to - now, with the increase of gun violence and what's been going on in a lot of the shootings and someone being able to buy a clip off whatever to turn their 9 into a little mini gun - which is wild to me - that you can be able to shoot off so many rounds from a Glock. The ShotSpotter thing, I think, is a conversation I definitely want to revisit with community. I sat in those meetings, I heard from people, they talked about - some people just wanted to do a certain area, some people wanted to just test it out. I think it's worth revisiting to ask community like - Hey, is this something that we think is needed? Not necessarily like - Hey, police department, is this gonna be helpful? But like community - Do you think this is gonna be helpful for you? Would you want this? - and I think it's worth a conversation again. [00:29:57] Crystal Fincher: So I mean, definitely some people in community are in support of it, some people are opposed throughout Seattle. Would you vote in favor of implementing a ShotSpotter pilot or trial? [00:30:10] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, I probably - I probably would. I probably would, Crystal. Yeah. [00:30:16] Crystal Fincher: Okay, I also wanna talk about childcare and how onerous it is on residents of Seattle and beyond to afford now - news that the average cost of childcare is more expensive than the cost to send a child to college. It is breaking the bank for a lot of families and really taking people out of the workforce - locking them into poverty. Is this something that you've thought about, and what would you do to address it? [00:30:45] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, I thought about this all the time - ran into a mom who said she lost her childcare just because she received a dollar wage, a dollar increase per hour. And so she didn't meet the threshold income for being able to receive a certain childcare, which is crazy. And right now our city does a really bad and poor job of creating environments that are inclusive, that are encouraging, and that create and help small - not small families - but young families into our city. And a form of childcare besides what the City can do, obviously, to add childcare to one of their benefit packages. And I'd love to see how when we do forums, there's childcare provided. I'd love to see how businesses and different companies - they include childcare in some of their packages when they're trying to get certain employees, which should be for everyone. But also our community centers used to be a form of childcare for folks. And right now when we underfunded community centers, afterschool programs, different summer activities for parents that used to be free - we really deleted a lot of the affordable childcare that was like the original affordable childcare. Not saying - okay, we're gonna give everybody a certain amount of money, but it's like, hey, we're gonna create these free activities for kids. I worked at an afterschool program where you could drop your kid off at 7:00 AM. And after they got off at 3 PM, we would go pick the kid up at their school - our transportation program was our most valuable program for parents - pick the kid up. And then after we picked the kid up, we'd bring them back, they'd do their homework, then they'd go in the gym - they would practice. By 7 PM, that parent knew that kid was fed, they finished all their homework, and they were tired, and they were gonna go straight to bed. To me, a lot of these nonprofits and a lot - we have to fund more of those. There are a lot of nonprofits, there are a lot of organizations and community groups that can and want to do that - they don't know how to scale up, they don't have the funding to do that. And those have to be different forms of childcare for our kids, and we're just not doing a good job of that right now. [00:32:57] Crystal Fincher: Now, I also wanna talk about business and about the economy. Seattle has a very diverse business community, District 3 has a very diverse business community. We have some of the largest corporations in the world headquartered right here, or right next door, and a vibrant community of small businesses. And I wanna talk in particular about the small businesses, especially in D3, because they do collectively impact our local economy so much - and they are dealing with a lot of challenges. And you yourself, as a small business owner, I'm sure are aware of that. What can we do, or what should we be doing to better support our small businesses and jumpstart our economy with them? [00:33:45] Joy Hollingsworth: Over during the pandemic, 6,500 small businesses either closed, or permanently closed, in Seattle. And when the big businesses left downtown, the small guys, small businesses stayed open. The mom and pops stayed open, the little restaurant on the corner, the coffee shop - they made it work, they're resilient. And what I've been hearing from our small businesses that have been here for years, people that might have been born and raised here that have small businesses, or just started here new businesses and brought all this together is that they want to feel a part of the revitalization piece. Because right now they feel like a lot of the focus has been on our big businesses here. We have our Amazon, we have our Starbucks, we have Expedia, Alaska Airlines - we have so many different businesses that are here that create, they're a part of our ecosystem. But we also have our small businesses that have not - number one, had a seat at the table, have not been prioritized, who have - contribute to our tax revenue, contribute jobs, great paying jobs, create a small business - from cleaning up their sidewalk and contributing in that way, or creating places for people to build community. And so one of the things that I would love for us to champion, particularly within Capitol Hill and the Pike/Pine Corridor, is if you go - if you walk from our, what do you call it, our waterfront, our newly formed waterfront, and you continue up into downtown, you go through Westlake, you go up and then you see our huge, brand new, shiny convention center, it stops right there. And then you look up and you're like - Am I supposed to pass that overpass or not, or what is going on there? And so it's very dangerous - the sidewalks haven't been widened, it's not cleaned properly, it just looks like really - it's not well lit, it looks really dangerous. And so wanting to create this entry into Capitol Hill from downtown, so we can encourage people to come up as we are getting our economy stemmed from downtown. And the second piece is, bringing Black businesses back to the Central District. A lot of those businesses don't have a BIA, or Business Improvement Association - they're not a part of a Chamber of Commerce. These are businesses that - from Simply Soulful to Monica's Hair Care - all these different businesses that want to come back in the Central District. They also want to feel like we are - there's a landmark - like people were encouraging people to come in the CD, we're creating programs that are just for them. They have access to Office of Economic Development with special, with intentional programming options and grants. And I think that's really important for me as well. So those two biggest things where they felt like they have a seat on the table, they have a voice to be able to advocate for them - it's huge - and we're not always just prioritizing what we think as the big businesses in Seattle. [00:36:47] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. Now, you are in a race right now - with your opponent and you looking competitive - for voters that are trying to figure out the difference between you two and make their decision about who they should vote for, what do you tell them? [00:37:06] Joy Hollingsworth: Yeah, I don't say one's better than the other. I say - Hey, this is my unique perspective. - a nonprofit leader, a small business owner, a family that grew up in the district for 39 years that has a historical perspective, someone that has experiences on being on the tail end of policy and understanding how it impacts our community and understanding and knowing what's missing as well. Someone who's going to listen, and we're building our priorities literally block by block - it's not what Joy's agenda is, it's not what I think the district should have - it's literally what I've been hearing. Our priorities are shaped by block by block people. And I'm also - if I'm wrong, I'm wrong - and I am humble about it, there's no ego. I wanna work with people and push stuff forward and figure out how we can find common ground and commonality. And I think that's the one thing that I would love to be able to bring to our city council - is that type of mentality with an optimistic outlook. It's hard to stay positive and be optimistic, and have something to look forward to, and think about how great our city is when there's so many problems that we've had. But I also think it takes someone crazy enough to figure out and be finding the opportunity and the optimism in certain things to inspire people to get stuff done. So we're not always having this friction and hitting heads - so I think that's important. [00:38:34] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for taking the time today to share who you are with us and what your plans are - very much appreciated - and we'll continue to follow your path on the campaign trail. [00:38:46] Joy Hollingsworth: Thank you, Crystal. And I really appreciate this opportunity to connect with you - it was fun. And I love your plants in the background - the listeners can't see, but you have nice plants. [00:38:55] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

For this Tuesday show, we present Part 1 of the Hacks & Wonks 2023 Post-Primary Roundtable which was live-streamed on August 8, 2023 with special guests - journalists Daniel Beekman, Guy Oron, and Melissa Santos. In Part 1, the panel breaks down primary election results for the crowded Seattle City Council races in Districts 1 through 5 - looking at how vote shares, campaign finances, redistricting, candidate quality, endorsements, and more played a part in who came out as the top two. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the roundtable releasing this Friday for more election analysis! As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's special guests, Daniel Beekman at @DBeekman, Guy Oron at @GuyOron, and Melissa Santos at @MelissaSantos1.    Resources Hacks & Wonks 2023 Post-Primary Roundtable Livestream | August 8th, 2023   Transcript [00:00:00] Shannon Cheng: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Shannon Cheng, Producer for the show. You're listening to Part 1 of our 2023 Post-Primary Roundtable that was originally aired live on Tuesday, August 8th. Audio for Part 2 will be running this Friday, so make sure you stay tuned. Full video from the event and a full text transcript of the show can be found on our website officialhacksandwonks.com. Thank you for tuning in! [00:00:37] Crystal Fincher: Hello everyone - good evening. Welcome to the Hacks & Wonks Post-Primary Roundtable. I'm Crystal Fincher, I'm a political consultant and host of the Hacks & Wonks podcast and radio show. And today I'm thrilled to be joined by three of my favorite hacks and wonks - local reporters - to break down what happened in last week's primary election. We're excited to be able to livestream this roundtable on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Additionally, we are recording this roundtable for broadcast on KODX and KVRU radio, podcast, and it will be available with a full text transcript on officialhacksandwonks.com. Our esteemed panelists for the evening are: Politics and Communities reporter for The Seattle Times, Daniel Beekman. Staff Reporter for Real Change, covering local news, labor, policing, the environment, criminal legal issues and politics, Guy Oron. And Seattle Axios reporter, Melissa Santos. Welcome everyone. So I think we will get started talking about Seattle and all of these races for Seattle City Council. This is a year where we had some redistricted council districts in Seattle - we had a number of incumbents decide not to seek reelection, and a few who did - and some really interesting results. So I think we'll start in District 1, which is in the West Seattle area, where we see a result of Maren Costa with the lead - currently at 33.16% - and the second person getting through the primary, Rob Saka, with 24% here. So I guess just starting out - how are these candidates positioned, and what do you think this primary says about the state of the district and the state of this race going into the general? Starting with Daniel - what are your thoughts here? [00:02:47] Daniel Beekman: Oh, yeah, good questions - I'm interested to hear what the other folks have to say. I guess the one thing that strikes me about the race is that, like in - I think - every other race of the seven districts, we're going into the general election with a candidate who was endorsed by The Stranger's editorial board and one endorsed by The Seattle Times editorial board - which operates separately from our newsroom. And that's pretty typical for Seattle City Council elections. And maybe even without those endorsements, this race and others would have ended up the way they did - but I think that's something to note in this race and others. The other thing that struck me about this race is two pretty interesting candidates, background-wise - especially to some extent in Seattle politics with Costa. Doesn't really fit the - if there's a typical sort of Seattle candidate, especially in the left lane - the progressive, more progressive lane. I don't know if she fits quite into that. She doesn't come from a - she hasn't worked at the City Council, she doesn't come from the County or State Labor Council, she hasn't been steeped in local Democratic legislative district politics or anything like that, I don't think. She's from the tech world and was an activist in that world. So I don't know - I found that interesting, I don't know if that's a major takeaway - but it's something in that race that I think will be interesting to watch going forward. [00:04:41] Crystal Fincher: Go ahead, Melissa. What did you think? [00:04:42] Melissa Santos: I will be curious. It's really hard in a race where there's - what, we have eight candidates here again, or was it actually nine, eight in this one as well - to predict how the votes that the candidates didn't get will shake out. I'm really curious to see where Phil Tavel's votes go because - he ran last time too - and again, more one of the more business-friendly candidates in this race. And I'm just not sure that there'll be a one-for-one accounting for those votes, necessarily, when you come into November. Theoretically, those votes would go to the more central lane candidate, who is Rob Saka. But I don't know that that math is a direct line when there's a lot of time between here and November. And also, they're just - sometimes people are really attracted to someone's personal story in these races, right? We're focused as reporters and commentators sometimes on - who's the moderate, who's the lefty, or whatever. And sometimes I don't know that voters always are. Maybe there's one particular idea they had, that they talked about at the door, that people were into or a percentage were into. And there's also progressive candidates here that had some votes that are not making it to the primary, so I just don't know - I have zero idea how the votes for the non-winning candidates will shake out. [00:06:06] Crystal Fincher: What do you think, Guy? [00:06:08] Guy Oron: Yeah, I think to start - with all these Seattle races, I think the biggest message is that most people didn't vote. 64% of folks didn't vote in these elections. And it'll be interesting to see where those people land in the general. It did seem like a very competitive race - all these City Council races - but especially the open ones. And I think Maren was able to really use her credentials as an activist to get a lot of support among progressives, and while the more right-of-center lane was a little more split between Phil and Rob Saka. And it'll be interesting to see how it measures up. I think right-leaning candidates won just about 50%, compared to progressive ones that won about 45%. I was doing some rough arithmetic earlier - it is pretty narrow margin. It'll be interesting to see how it goes. [00:07:18] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this is a race where it looks like this is going to be a competitive race in the general election. We did see an interesting role that donors played in this race where there were some substantial fundraising numbers from a number of candidates, even several who didn't make it through. I think there were a few who eclipsed $50,000 who did not make it through the general election. And then you have the two that did make it through raising a considerable amount of money, in addition to an independent expenditure on behalf of Rob Saka that made some news - for a Trump-supporting donor included in there and certainly more business-aligned candidate there. How do you see the role of donors and money and the way that the primary election shaped up, and what do you think that says about the general election? - starting with you, Guy. [00:08:15] Guy Oron: It'll be interesting to see. I think with Democracy Vouchers, it really changes the game and allows people who don't rely on corporate donations to run. And I think that gives Costa an edge there to fight at least an even battle. It'll be interesting to see if this election is more like 2019, where corporate donations sparked a big backlash, or more like 2021 when they got folks like Davison over the line. [00:08:49] Melissa Santos: The independent expenditures, I think, will be interesting to watch because theoretically the Democracy Vouchers do even the playing field. But once you get all that independent expenditure money in there, it's not limited in the same way. So I do think we'll see this huge flood of outside money going forward. And I am watching how - whether that kind of undermines the intent of the Democracy Voucher program. We've had a few years now where we've watched how this plays out. But particularly this year, I'm looking at that because I just think there will be a lot of outside money. And there already has been in this race in particular - maybe not a lot yet, but more than in other races, of city council races - and that can tip the scales. But like Guy said, there has been backlash before. We certainly saw that with the $1 million Amazon donation to the Chamber's PAC that kind of seemed to have that kind of resurgence of the progressive candidates in protest a few years ago. [00:09:53] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, I think it would be right to expect big outside spending in this race and some of the other races that look like they could be very competitive - that seems very likely. And one of the sort of quirks of this race in terms of spending in the primary was that there were some candidates - as you mentioned Crystal - like Stephen Brown got under 10%, spent money or raised quite a bit of money. But a fair chunk of that, I think - just looking, $34,000 or something like that was from himself, I believe. So that kind of tips the scales sometimes, or it can be confusing looking at the overall totals. But yeah, this is one of those races where I would be surprised if there wasn't a lot of independent spending in the general election. [00:10:52] Melissa Santos: You're saying bagels can't buy a City Council seat, Dan? Is that what you're saying? [00:10:57] Daniel Beekman: I'm just saying that this City - what was it? The mailer - This City deserves better bagels? [00:11:05] Melissa Santos: Bagels. Yeah, maybe that wasn't effective - maybe a different audience, maybe next cycle. [00:11:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see. And another race where sometimes people just have a ton of money and they think - I have a ton of money, I can loan myself money, donate to the campaign. But more often than not, we see those predominantly self-funders not necessarily finishing all that well. It actually does take the support of people in the community and those donations are basically a measure of support from people. And that seems to be important in overall results. I do want to talk about District 2 now, which includes the Rainier Valley, southeast Seattle. And that is where incumbent Tammy Morales is facing Tanya Woo, who will be proceeding through to the primary. And this is one of those races where in Seattle we see numbers shift from Election Night to others - this certainly was no exception, a race that shifted. And as we stand now, Tammy Morales - over 52% of the vote here, 52.26%. Tanya Woo with 42.58%, so about a 10-point spread. This is one of the races where people were wondering if there was going to be a backlash to the council that showed up. Lots of talk going in about - Oh, the council may not be popular or have high approval ratings. I've noted several times, similar to Congressional approval numbers, those don't really have much bearing to individual Congressional results. Here to individual city council results, this is seemingly a strong finish for Tammy Morales as an incumbent here. How did you see this race, Guy? [00:12:52] Guy Oron: Yeah, I think initially on Election Night - oftentimes media covers it as a definitive - especially not local media, but national media. It did seem close, but the fact that Tammy Morales won by 10% - got over 50% - that's huge for her. And I think it will be very, very hard for Tanya Woo to unseat her at this point. And it shows that Morales has a lot of support from a lot of the district. And so, especially considering the fact that Harrell went really hard supporting Woo and it looks like that didn't work out too well for him. [00:13:36] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree, Daniel? [00:13:38] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, I think to an extent. Definitely the race swung a lot - I think more than any other from Election Night to now - although other races did also have a leftward swing with the later ballots. It looks like to stand any kind of a chance, Tanya Woo will have to - she's a first-time candidate and raise her game, her candidate game, in the next couple months. And also it will be interesting to see - what I was looking for on Election Night - will that race be close enough for the people who fund those independent expenditures to decide that they want to get in? I don't know, but maybe they weren't necessarily expecting her to - Woo to come out on top, but maybe they're looking at - Well, is it close enough to make it worth our while to spend? And if I was her, I wouldn't want to hear the race described like that. But I think it's just reality as people are looking in from the outside and they're making decisions about where their money is best, would best be spent. So it'll be interesting to see if - what calculation those folks make - whether people think it was close enough to be worth pouring money in or not. [00:15:13] Melissa Santos: Because remember - this was one of the least crowded races. It was just Tanya Woo, Tammy Morales, and then Margaret Elisabeth who got less than 5% of the vote. So it's not one of those sort of mystery, how did the vote split situations as much. This one is more likely to be pretty predictive of the general election. And yeah, there's only so much money to spend - even though we talk about tons of money in politics, people don't want to just throw it at nothing. And I don't think it's a lost cause - I think Tanya Woo has a chance - it doesn't look as good as it did on the night of the election for her. [00:15:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. This - to your point, Melissa - more than the others, I think - one, could be viewed through the lens of, Is this a referendum on Tammy Morales and/or the council? And also, this is one where it does pretty much reflect what the race is going to be in the general election. I don't think we've seen a situation before, barring a massive scandal, where an incumbent has finished with over 52% of the vote and lost. To your point, those trying to figure out - there are a number of open seats, there are certainly seats that some people want to pick up - Is it worth spending in those and this one? - is going to be part of the calculation that people make. But this is a harder one - it's hard to see incumbents losing in this kind of a position. How do you see the general election shaping up here, Daniel? [00:16:49] Daniel Beekman: I think we know what kind of a race Tammy Morales is likely to run because she's - I think she's run similar races to some extent, when she won her seat and then the race before that when she nearly unseated Bruce Harrell. So I think we know what that's going to look like. I think the question is more how Tanya Woo is going to try to make up the vote she didn't get or gain in the general - what that looks like, whether that means leaning into her, more into her sort of community work in the CID [Chinatown International District] , or if it means hammering on a particular issue like public safety or something like that. So I think that's - I don't know - but that's what I would be looking for is where this sort of question lies. But, yeah, I think it's - incumbents don't get knocked off very often. I was trying to think - I probably should have just looked it up, but I was trying to think before this about when's the last time the Seattle City Council incumbent was unseated and I was thinking about Jean Godden losing in the 2015 primary in a crowded race. But I think I could be totally spacing on a more recent one. But that seems like, in my mind, the most recent one and that's eight years ago now. [00:18:21] Crystal Fincher: Go ahead, Melissa. [00:18:22] Melissa Santos: I have a barking dog, so I'm trying to spare everyone from that. But yeah - now that I think about it - I was thinking - time is flat to me at this point, but Richard Conlin was a couple years before that. So what you're saying may be very well the most recent. We haven't seen a lot of incumbents go down and have those dramatic flips recently. It has happened, but not super recently. I will say - for Morales, since Sawant is leaving the council, she is, I think, the most - in this traditional lens of going back to who's left and who's center, right? Morales is the sort of furthest left member I think we have up for election this year. So the fact that she did get pretty good results in the primary, it suggests to me that there might not be this huge, huge upswell of being fed up with far-left City Council politics. There's certainly things people are unhappy with - we've seen polling that says people want more action on stuff - housing, homelessness. People want action. They want things to change, but they don't - necessarily voting out the most liberal candidates at this point. [00:19:31] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And I think, I've talked about it before in other places, but sometimes we hear about polling a lot and it's - Well, people are unhappy. And that's a reflection on people being unhappy with City councilmembers and approval ratings are low. And I think there are a lot of people who are unhappy with the state of things today, but I think sometimes we make assumptions about why that is and assume that that automatically means that they're unhappy with their councilmember. And that's not necessarily the case. I think that this is yet another example of that, where we need to go further and ask - Okay, so you're not happy with the state of things. Is it because - when it comes to public safety, do you want a more punitive and carceral approach, or do you want more intervention and community violence intervention and more addressing root causes? And I think if you look at the people on the ground in Seattle, they do want to do more to address some of the systemic issues that we have, to address some of the root causes, get more to prevention instead of trying to respond to so much after the fact. And I think that these results - almost in this race more than others - where there was a direct contrast between the two and a direct policy difference between the two. And we saw voters basically affirm that the direction Tammy Morales is heading is one that they're, that most are happy with. And especially in a lower turnout primary election, in an off-year, this is where you would expect unhappiness to really materialize if there was a desire to - kick all the bums out, that saying for people who are elected, but that didn't seem to materialize with two of the three incumbents finishing over 50%. And the third with the plurality of the vote there. How do you think this moves forward with that, Guy? [00:21:37] Guy Oron: Yeah, I do think it's a vindication for some of the people who were in the Solidarity Budget coalition, who are supporting decriminalization and defund, that maybe they see that one of the councilmembers that stood by their side got over 50%. I think they'll be reassured by that. I do think Tanya Woo got a lot of support in the CID and was able to really voice to that neighborhood that has been ignored a lot in the media by policymakers - or used as tokens, but not actually given proper seat at the table. So I think even if Morales wins the general election, that'll be something on the top of her priorities - is to better address the CID. And I think that was something that Woo was able to bring, even if she doesn't win in the general. [00:22:36] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Go ahead, Daniel. [00:22:39] Daniel Beekman: Oh, I was just going to say - and there's also sort of the differences district-to-district and candidate-to-candidate where - definitely Tammy Morales had a, looks like a strong result. On the other hand, you saw Dan Strauss trying to distance himself from some of his pro-defund advocacy from back in 2020 - I think I saw a mailer. And so whether he's right or not, he's obviously a little bit concerned about some of that coming back to bite him with voters in his district, so there's some differences district to district as well. [00:23:24] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree with that. Another district - District 3, where Councilmember Kshama Sawant will not be seeking reelection, so this is for the person who will succeed Councilmember Sawant. And so in this race, we have the two making it through - Joy Hollingsworth with 36.89% right now and Alex Hudson being the second, making it through with 36.52%. Another very crowded race - this is a very close result, maybe the closest result. And two very different candidates than the current incumbent. What do you think this says about the district, and what do you think this says about the race? - starting with Melissa. [00:24:12] Melissa Santos: It is really close - you're less than a percentage point between these candidates now that we've seen the results shake out. And it is another situation where you have Joy Hollingsworth being the Seattle Times Editorial Board-endorsed candidate - not the newsroom, but the editorial board - and Alex Hudson being the Stranger-endorsed candidate up against one another. However, it's interesting to me because Alex Hudson is then - would be in the camp of being this more progressive candidate, right? - which in certain ways, she is. She's a long-time transit advocate and is - I remember, one time, her doing a video of confronting Tim Eyman, the anti-tax initiative pusher. And so she's done those sorts of things, but she's also someone who's worked a little bit more within the establishment than - certainly than Sawant, for instance - lobbying, building coalitions. So we're not seeing, and this has been said a lot about this race and I'm not the only one to say it, but we're not seeing anyone who wants to burn the barn down here in this race in the same way. We're not seeing a Socialist candidate in the same way even, and I'm actually - I haven't talked to these candidates as much as Dan and Guy probably have, but I actually think they're closer together on some issues than maybe it appears from those divergent endorsements. And I think some of that is likely to come to light during the general election, and it's possible that their positions don't as neatly line up necessarily with this sort of pro-business and labor/left activism, although in some ways they do. [00:25:45] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree, Guy? [00:25:48] Guy Oron: I definitely agree that it's a huge change from Kshama Sawant and either one of the candidates won't be Socialists. And so I think that'll be something for Seattle left to think about - how do you build momentum for a more broad base, long-term institutional victory - to get five council seats at least instead of just one. And that's - they have to go to the drawing board and think about that long-term. But in terms of Hudson and Hollingsworth, I think Hudson started off a little slow, but managed to snag some important endorsements - and that's credit to her and her long-time presence in the policy world in Seattle. And I think Hollingsworth also is a very compelling candidate - I've seen her at so many different events in the community. She really shows up - for example, when Nurturing Roots was closing back in March, not even in her district, but she was the only candidate to show up and show support. So I think that's credit to her and really cultivating her base in the CD [Central District] . And I definitely think it will be a tight race. Progressives did - all the progressive candidates together did win about 4 or 5% more than the more moderate candidates, so it'll be interesting to see if Hollingsworth can manage to build a coalition of moderate liberals and especially in the CD, turn out folks who aren't voting just to get over the line. [00:27:30] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree, Daniel? [00:27:32] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, I guess this is a race where Bruce Harrell has endorsed Joy Hollingsworth, right? So it'll be interesting to see what kind of impact that has, if any, that can be discerned - Mayor Bruce Harrell. Alex Hudson has a varied background, but coming out of the Transportation Choices Coalition - which is transit advocacy but labor-aligned - and in the world of the big players in Seattle politics and been a policy and politician factory. Rob Johnson, a councilmember, was the Executive Director there. And Jessyn Farrell, former state lawmaker, and other people - so it's been churning out folks into government, so that's interesting. But I think Melissa and Guy covered a lot of this, so I don't have a whole lot to add. I had noticed just on social media a little bit - and I should say that I'm not, I should shout out my coworker Sarah Grace Taylor, who's been doing a lot of the coverage of the City Council races this year for us rather than myself, so I'm not the expert - but just on observing on social media, I feel like I've seen a little bit of different emphases in how the two candidates are positioning themselves. Joy Hollingsworth trying to emphasize her community ties. And Alex Hudson - I just saw on the way over to do this - talking up transit as an issue. Obviously because she's - that's some of her background. But also she must think it will play well with voters saying - in that district that's pretty transit reliant. [00:29:32] Melissa Santos: In theory, Joy Hollingsworth would be the candidate who's newer to politics - in theory - if you look at them. However, Joy is coming from a family of sort of political legacies in a way as well. Her grandmother Dorothy was the first African American woman elected to the Seattle School Board - and I think that's part of her community story a little bit that Joy is playing up - being from the Central District, being part of the legacy of people making change and pushing forward, which is interesting since she's the more establishment candidate endorsed by the mayor. But that's why the dynamics of this race are a little interesting to me. Because the narrative is not as clean as what we've looked at - races in the past where it's, again, lefty versus more business friendly Democrat kind of races in Seattle. [00:30:26] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's spot on. And this is a district where there's a Socialist as an incumbent. This is arguably the most left district in the city that doesn't quite have a candidate that speaks to that far left end that Kshama Sawant does. And I do agree that there are potentially a number of overlaps or places where the policy differences may not be as clear from the very beginning. So I think this is going to be a race where it's going to be important to examine where the candidates stand. It's going to be important to understand where the differences are and to really understand what they're bringing in terms of - not just votes, but where they're willing to lead and push, perhaps, the council. What are going to be their signature issues? And what are going to be the issues where they may just be an additional vote? I think that there's a lot that people still don't know, and this is going to be one of the most interesting districts for trying to ferret out what those differences and contrasts are. Also notice that fundraising in this race - again, a lot of money raised throughout the district. This is a race - we saw the result being very close - also the amount raised, both raising about $94,000 there. And so this is another race where both seem to have a lot of fundraising capacity. Is this going to be a race where outside entities get involved? And I also think those outside entities are going to be listening for cues from each of those candidates. Who do funders see as their ally on the council? Who does labor see as a stronger ally on the council? I think that there's still more that they're figuring out here. And those donations, those types of donors and those endorsements, are also going to do a lot of speaking for these candidates about where they stand and how they're likely to govern. [00:32:26] Melissa Santos: I was surprised that - based on just fundraising - that Alex Cooley didn't do a little bit better because they raised $95,000 as well. I don't know if any of you can explain what happened there, because I expected a better showing for that amount of money - I thought, I don't know - just looking from the outside at it. [00:32:42] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, I didn't follow it close enough to know - was it mostly Democracy Vouchers? [00:32:46] Melissa Santos: Yes, must be. Yeah, it's a mystery to me. [00:32:50] Guy Oron: He was the only candidate to run on a platform of only taking Democracy Vouchers and he didn't accept private donations, which I think is an interesting platform and could prove compelling if you think about - I'm not beholden to any interests, only the people. But I think his ground game was strong, but he didn't have a lot of institutional support from people like The Stranger, and so that's why he fell short. [00:33:22] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, and to pick up on something that you mentioned when you introduced the race, Crystal - it's interesting to think about - Sawant won her seat in 2013, so 10 years ago. And to think about how much District 3 - those neighborhoods, like Capitol Hill and the CD, have changed in the last 10 years. And think about is that why we didn't get someone with Kshama Sawant's politics in this race? Or is it because people are tired of her personally and that's soured them? But they narrowly voted down a recall just recently, so they're not that sick of it. I don't know, I find that interesting to ponder on whether the fact that there are two very unlike-Sawant candidates and two non-Socialist candidates going into the general election has anything to do with her or not, has anything to do with changes in the electorate or not. I don't have the answer, but I'm intrigued by that question. [00:34:37] Crystal Fincher: I don't have the answer to that one either, but I do think this is a race where endorsements mattered a lot because it was hard, just on the face, to see some of the automatic differences between the candidates in a way that you can in some of the other districts perhaps. And so this is another one where we talk about the importance of The Times and The Stranger endorsements and that certainly carried through here, in people looking at The Stranger as a cue to see who is considered to be the most progressive. Lots of times people are doing the same thing with The Times on the other side, if they want a more moderate presence on the council. And so I think those endorsements really mattered - in this race in particular - but in several of them overall. Also want to talk about the District 4 election. Now this is a district where - we talk about change over the last 10 years - this is certainly a district where I think recent results that we're seeing there reflect an evolution of the district and a change in this district. And so both with redistricting here and in this race, probably one of the cleanest lines between what is considered traditionally someone in the progressive lane and those traditionally in a moderate to conservative lane. How did you see this race shaping up, Guy? [00:35:59] Guy Oron: Yeah, I think it echoes the last 2019 elections, but now Ron P. Davis is number one instead of Alex Pedersen, so that's a good sign for him. And he is the strongest non-incumbent candidate in Seattle, winning 45% of the vote. It does seem like, with more development and just growing density, there are changing demographics. So it could be an opportunity for a pretty dramatic swing towards the left in this district. But still, the more moderate conservative candidates won about 55% of the vote together - Wilson and Maritza Rivera. So it'll be very competitive, and I think it all relies on if Ron can turn out all the students to vote for him who tend to lean more progressive. [00:37:04] Crystal Fincher: How do you see this race, Melissa? [00:37:07] Melissa Santos: Theoretically, it would make sense to add together those sort of more centrist candidates and say - Oh, they got 55% - and I don't disagree with doing that, Guy. The thing that was weird to me is - and I wish I had in front of me at the moment - but there was a mailer that went out and Crystal, you saw this and I just think Dan, you also probably saw this - but where it didn't, it seemed like Wilson was going after Rivera, who was closer to him politically, than he was going after Davis. And there were checkmarks and it's like Davis got more checks being aligned with Wilson than Maritza Rivera did on this particular advertisement and mailer. And I don't know if that kind of communication is going to then make some people think that Davis is more aligned - people who voted for Wilson - if they're going to think, go forward thinking Davis is more their guy than Rivera. Or there's a lot of election communication still yet to happen, so I guess all of that can be reset. But it seemed like that was one of the primary communication that's happening in that district. And it may have disrupted the dynamic in a way of the sort of candidates and saying - Oh yeah, this is now my candidate since mine got knocked out since they're the most similar. And so I'm not sure how that will carry out forward going with this election into the general. [00:38:23] Daniel Beekman: Yeah, that's interesting - whether that mailer will stick in anyone's mind and sour them on Rivera when they might not otherwise be. I think probably what Ken Wilson was going for there was just looking and assuming that - Well, Ron Davis is getting through, it's between me and Maritza Rivera about who's getting through on the other lane, and so let's see if I can make that happen without - like we were talking about - one of these newspaper endorsements. And it didn't work as much as he needed to, at least. Yeah, District 4 is interesting. Shaun Scott ran - I think running as a Democratic Socialist to some extent in 2019 - ran Alex Pedersen really close in District 4 in that year. And I guess my sort of what I'll be watching for in this one is how Ron Davis moves forward - whether he tries to draw really sharp contrast between himself and Maritza Rivera and he thinks that's the key, or if he tries to tack to the center a bit to try to win over some of those maybe slightly more moderate voters or Ken Wilson voters in some way. And I'll just tell a sort of funny story. I went out on Election Day to do some just person-on-the-street voter reporting. And it was funny because I was in District 4 and District 5 for a while talking to voters. And I had two voters - one was this sort of like older boomer, typical Seattle boomer voter, and to some extent - whatever that is. And I said - What are you thinking about? And most of the people I talked to didn't have some sort of mega-narrative about the Seattle election cycle, like we're going to throw out the lefties or we're going to do this. It was more - they're kind of grasping at straws a bit in my little unscientific sample size. But this somewhat older voter said - Well, I care about trees and I went to this tree protest in Wedgwood for Luma the cedar tree. And Ken Wilson was there and he seemed to care, so I'm voting for him - that's a big reason. And then I talked to a voter - more lefty-seeming voter in her 20s, I think - elsewhere, I think in the U district. And they said - Well, I care about climate change and I went to this protest for the cedar tree. And Ron Davis was there, so I'm voting for him. So I don't know if that means anything, but it just goes to show - yeah, so it will be interesting to see, does Ron Davis lean into the tree protest? Or does he lean into let's densify and tax big business? [00:41:30] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this is going to be interesting. And those anecdotes are always so interesting, and I think underscores just from the inside-a-campaign candidate perspective - three quarters of the job, three quarters of the work is in showing up, whether it's on someone's doorstep, whether it's at an event. People want to see that you're actively engaged in the community and in the issues that they care about. So I would just encourage all of the candidates to do that. And the more you can talk to regular voters, the better. But this is an interesting race here. This is another race where we also saw an independent expenditure on behalf of, or in favor of, Maritza Rivera here. And it is an interesting race where - I don't know that this race, these votes consolidate cleanly pre-mailer in the way that they would expect. On top of that, this is a district that, a similar district, just last year elected Darya Farivar. And you think that the general election electorate is going to look more similar to what we saw in an even-year election then - that certainly is more progressive than that district and that area has been for a while. So are we seeing a shift in the preferences of a district? Are we seeing a shift in the issues that are concerning people? Certainly housing affordability is a major issue throughout all of Seattle, but also playing out in this district where I think the previous calculus and assumption was that this is a district full of NIMBYs and they seem to be voting in the opposite direction now. So this is going to be a really interesting race to pay attention to and one that may attract a lot of outside money because there are clearer lanes with a moderate in the race seemingly and a progressive - and looking to really pick up the seat for one or the other. Also want to talk about the District 5 race, which is another interesting, exciting race and was a pretty close race. So we have Cathy Moore here - close overall, especially for the second and third place finisher here - so Cathy Moore finishing with 32.26% of the vote, ChrisTiana ObeySumner - they're finishing with 21.38% of the vote here. How did you see this vote shaping up in the primary? Nilu Jenks is finishing currently in third place, just outside of making it through the primary. Guy, how did you see this developing? [00:44:19] Guy Oron: Yeah, I think the District 5 race was by far the most fractured and we had, I think, tied for the most amount of candidates. And so people - I think a lot of people voted for their first choice and I think ChrisTiana was able to be a sort of dark horse and come out on top. I think a lot of people were expecting Nilu Jenks to win, and so now those voters will have to decide whether they prefer Moore or ChrisTiana - and I think that will decide which way the district goes. But I think North Seattle is not usually thought of as a progressive stronghold, but I think it is surprisingly pretty progressive in terms of where people are voting. And I think people have all sorts of politics, like chaotic politics, where they support trees and density - and how do you reconcile those two, and I think that's up to the candidates to show that they're more well-spoken and have a stronger vision about integrating these various contradictions. [00:45:32] Crystal Fincher: What do you think, Melissa? [00:45:34] Melissa Santos: I was just reviewing some of the candidates' sort of statements and where they're coming from - it does encapsulate to me a little bit - you have Cathy Moore talking about public safety. All the candidates are talking about safety and should be talking about public safety probably, but she's coming at - literally in her voter guide statement says - I'm the pragmatic solution - very much very focused on capturing that center lane, people who might want to see a little bit more timely police response is a huge part of her platform. And again, everyone wants the cops to probably, I think, to respond to emergencies probably. I don't think there's too many people saying - well, okay, I retract my statement. It's a very complicated issue, actually. But I mean emphasizing that - as opposed to emphasizing housing and upstream solutions to homelessness, which is where ChrisTiana was doing with her statements. I just think we have a lot of contrast between people talking about housing, to be honest - housing, housing, housing on one side and then people talk about public safety sometimes when you get - in the more traditional races where you get those center lane candidates. And housing is a message that's resonating with people. People, I think, want housing to be a thing. And again, for instance, we had this Social Housing measure pass earlier this year and I think that kind of - Tammy Morales, again, who is leading in her race and getting good, has really been supportive of that social housing measure and finding money to actually implement it. And as far as District - back to District 5 - I think ChrisTiana ObeySumner is also talking about those sorts of things more so than cops and hiring more police, and I think that there's people who want to hear them talk about that. And there certainly were other candidates in this race talking about different solutions to some of the sort of agreed upon crisis we see - maybe homelessness and housing - but I think those sort of holistic solutions, people are listening to that in an interesting way in some of these races. And this is an example of that to me. [00:47:48] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this is a race where I think there was a broader range of viewpoints represented in this race across the spectrum that we see in Seattle. There was Tye Reed also in this race, who was very involved in the Social Housing initiative and that passing, and taking up a left mantle. But a number of progressive candidates - I think, yet again, this was another race where people were trying to figure out who was most aligned with their beliefs and that may have been not as easy as some people would have thought at first glance. And so another race where I think the endorsements from The Times and The Stranger were once again consequential. But I also think this is one where - a lot of times, I think we underestimate sometimes just individual candidate attributes, individual candidate performance, how people are connecting. And especially with how close this race was, particularly between the second and third place finishers - ChrisTiana ObeySumner and Nilu Jenks - I think ChrisTiana did a more effective job at clearly articulating where they stood on issues. And that was more of a challenge for Nilu Jenks, where some people left with some impressions based on what they said and they said things that gave other impressions to people. And so voters trying to reconcile who these candidates are and what kind of votes to expect, endorsing organizations trying to ferret out what kind of votes should they expect from these - I think that this is an example of being clear about where you stand is helpful in getting through to establishment people, getting through to voters, and making the kinds of connections that get you through to the general election. What do you think, Daniel? [00:49:50] Daniel Beekman: I was going to say - yeah, I don't have a lot to add, I don't think, about these particular two candidates. But I spent some time on Election Day - again, my very unscientific sample size, by the Lake City Library and a lot of people were talking about homelessness and people were talking about public drug use. And it will be interesting to see how these candidates navigate some issues like that. I do think that the questions about prosecuting people for using drugs in public - that has been in the headlines recently at City Hall, so that will likely in this race and others be something that is talked about. But Guy mentioned Darya Farivar's - or maybe you did, Crystal, or both of you - that election that she ran and won last year. And I would think that candidates in both District 4 and District 5 might want to be looking at that - and some of it is just about a candidate and their personality and what they have going for them. But if you're a smart candidate in those districts, you're looking at that race and - what did she do? And also just reminded me that - in terms of sort of some changes politically - is that on issues like criminal justice or the legal system, on issues around housing - both zoning, which is traditionally very much a city issue, but also on funding affordable housing - it seems like there are more of those conversations and more action happening in Olympia than there was some years ago. And I don't know if that sort of makes some of these City races feel a little bit less urgent for folks, but it's something that's occurred to me where - some years ago when there was just nothing happening in the State Legislature, when people are looking for help or for change, it made City elections that much more high stakes, but maybe that's been changing a little bit. [00:51:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I also think this is an interesting race just because of the expanded representation that could potentially be coming to the Council - non-binary person, disabled BIPOC person - and that kind of representation being really important. We're seeing so many other members of the community deal with challenges and access issues related to that, that some lived experience could be very enlightening and helpful in crafting solutions that meet the needs of everyone in the City. So I'll be interested to see that explored throughout the general election. And just figuring out, once again, where these candidates stand on issues. There's going to be a lot that the City Council is going to be dealing with over the next several years. And so I hope that there really is an attempt to figure out where the candidates stand and what solutions they feel - not just that they're willing to vote for, but that they're really willing to lean on and try and craft solutions with their colleagues on this for. [00:53:06] Shannon Cheng: You just listened to Part 1 of our 2023 Post-Primary Roundtable that was originally aired live on Tuesday, August 8th. Audio for Part 2 will be running this Friday, so make sure to stay tuned. Full video from the event and a full text transcript of the show can be found on our website officialhacksandwonks.com. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks, and you can follow Crystal @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thank you for tuning in!

6am Hour: Trump indicted with 13 charges by Georgia grand jury over attempt to overturn 2020 election, 18 other defendants named // Dolly Parton to visit Olympia to celebrate 65,000 enrolled WA children for Imagination Library // A massive fire at a homeless encampment in Seattle sent smoke pouring across nearby apartments in South Lake Union; Seattle drug use cases in limbo as new state law goes into effect // Lars Larson joins John to talk about the Trump indictments 7am Hour: How an obscure country artist

Join the gang as we venture to another of North Seattle's finest! The Caroline Tavern, a real "everybody knows your name" type of bar. Listen to tales of neighborhood capers and local union bosses. Check it out! Recorded live at The Caroline Tavern on 07/06/2023.Follow the Dim Lights & Stiff Drinks podcast on Facebook (DLandSD), Twitter (@divebarsseattle), YouTube, and Instagram (seattle_dive_bar_podcast). Share, like, follow, and subscribe!Check out the Dim Lights & Stiff Drinks podcast website (dimlightspodcast.com) for more details and additional episodes. Support Dim Lights & Stiff Drinks with PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/dim-lights-stiff-drinks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's Trending: Another I-90 brick thrower is being reported, Movie Review: Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning Part One is… so much fun and a shooting in North Seattle last night.Big Local: Tacoma church calls on Vatican to prevent closure, farmer helps Pierce Co. deputies make arrest and Pierce Co. homeless village facing backlash.You Pick: Trans cyclist banned from women's cycling series.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Monologue: A food pantry in North Seattle is shut down over code violations. The Interview: Chris Sullivan explains some emergency I-5 repairs that will really make traffic a nightmare.The Interview: Michael Johnson (South Tacoma Business District Association board member) explains the desperation behind businesses looking at electrified fencing to protect against crime.LongForm: Josh Hammer (constitutional law attorney and Senior Editor at Large for Newsweek) breaks down today's two huge cases on affirmative action and religious liberties, and previews tomorrow's rulings on free speech and student debt forgiveness.Quick Hit: A report says Bill Gates asked inappropriate questions to prospective employees.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In her first interview since announcing she will not seek re-election, Seattle City Council President Debora Juarez opens up to the Chino Y Chicano about her decision.  In a wide ranging, personal and blunt conversation, Juarez speaks out about the 2020 Seattle protests over the murder of George Floyd, and how her refusal to back a pledge to defund Seattle police brought protesters to her home where she and her family were subjected to verbal and physical threats. Juarez says what happened then, along with the lack of support from fellow council members that supported the defund movement, and current divisive politics played a role in her decision to not seek a third term. Debora Juarez was elected to the Seattle City Council's District 5 in 2015. She is the first council member elected to represent  District 5 which covers North Seattle, after the council went to a district system.  In addition, Juarez is the first Native American elected to the Seattle City Council and the first to serve as council president. Read:https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/buoyed-by-poll-seattle-mayor-harrell-should-go-big-on-public-safety/Read: https://crosscut.com/news/2023/01/two-seattle-asian-american-community-newspapers-go-out-printRead: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/leesa-manion-sworn-in-as-king-county-prosecuting-attorney/Read: The Best & Worst Awards for 2022https://i0.wp.com/nwasianweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/04-05-Matt-and-Gei-1.jpgRead Marcus Harrison Green's Seattle's Times column about Black Youth suicide. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/more-black-kids-are-dying-by-suicide-the-reasons-unfortunately-arent-surprising/

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes:- Spotify is oppressing the show with their copyright claims, so guess what censors, I did a little f you at the beginning!- I had a prophetic dream...- New plank to my presidential platform: Make Altoids more popular again!- Is Witcher 3 a masterpiece of a video game?- How the best sports video games show how very simple mechanics can still be fun- Explosion at the Pennsylvania chocolate factory- US bombs Syrians in Syria, Saudi Arabia potentially on the verge of reestablishing ties with Syria- Washington State senator Maria Cantwell is an attack dog for Microsoft against SonyAll of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show!Visit the website: societyshow.netContact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.comFollow the show on twitter: @society_show

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes: - A heartfelt apology to my community for the poor audio quality from last episode- New presidential planks: Abolish Daylight Savings Time- Other new presidential plank: Bring back Pilotwings!- An anonymous listener wrote a poem for my campaign- US neocons sabre rattling against Mexican cartels, and how invading Mexico would be an act of war against them- The CIA, in collaboration with a favored Mexican cartel, likely ordered the assassination of a DEA agent who was onto the Iran-Contra Affair- Our tech reporter left his wife for an AI, then gets whiney when she doesn't remember- AMLO recently semi-nationalized the Mexican lithium industry, goes after lame organization called INE- The Democratic Party self-sabotages by potentially banning TikTok- Imran Khan's background, and how he became such a prominent figure in Pakistan - The US's alleged interference in Pakistan, urging the government to get rid of Khan, which they did- The confusion from major protests, police raids, court cases, and much more revolving around Imran Khan in PakistanAll of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show!Visit the website: societyshow.netContact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.comFollow the show on twitter: @society_show

Hello Beautiful people! We have the pleasure of welcoming Katrina Johnson to Everythang Culture. Katrina Johnson is a commissioner, social justice organizer, advocate, and spokesperson for her family in June of 2017, after her first cousin Charleena Lyles was killed in her home in North Seattle after police officers responded to the location to investigate a burglary, Charleena had reported. Katrina is a core member and executive director of Families are the Frontline. They provide rapid response to help families nationwide who have lost their loved ones to the police use of deadly force. Katrina works with other families who have lost loved ones to the use of deadly force in Washington state, as well as local nonprofits working to improve policy on the use of lethal force, emphasize de-escalation, reduce instances of deadly force, and improve police-community relations. Katrina gathered signatures for I-940 and supported the resolution negotiated by De-Escalate WA and law enforcement leaders that resulted in House Bill 3003, modifying I-940 after it was adopted by the legislature. Katrina has been a guest speaker in various cities and states on police reform, served as a panelist in the Greater Seattle Area, nationally, and internationally on police reform and Washington state-sponsored violence. Katrina organizes events and authored an op-ed piece for BET.com. Katrina is Everythang Culture! You can find her at: IG: @TrineBean17Email: JohnsonTrina63@yahoo.comYou can find us at:Www.EverythangCulture.comIG/Facebook/Tiktok/Tumblr: EverythangCulture Twitter: EveryTHGCulture Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3MhNfR2sXgOOXq8rcymG7j?si=_auxt7T_SXmsikc1YBuutwApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/everythang-culture/id1455598116?i=1000589629014YouTube: https://youtu.be/2A1FeTJP1WQSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/everythang-culture-podcast/exclusive-content

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes: - Sadly, this episode's recording sounds worse than normal -- the production team screwed up! - Late Night at the Chuckle Cafe: What's going on with all these damn genders? - The USA is READY for a podcaster president - One of the planks of my platform: Abolish filing taxes - Another plank of my platform: Bring Fritz-Kola to the US! - Welcome former African warlord Joseph Kony to my 2024 campaign! - I can't relate to the young people, what do they like? - The Last of Us model of apocalypse, eliminating most of the world's population - There have been many apocalypses throughout history, what about a "small apocalypse"? - Silicon Valley Banks failure and bailout - How China helped Saudi Arabia and Iran re-establish ties - The major protests and strikes in France over pushing the retirement age back 2 years All of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show! Visit the website: societyshow.net Contact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.com Follow the show on twitter: @society_show

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes: - Christian is running for president 2024, as a MLM Prachanda Path Costanzaist -As I campaign against too bright headlights, a Big Headlight stooge stormed the stage - Pablo Escobar's former pet hippos have turned into an invasive species in Colombia - The Native American Indian bones passed down for generations, used as teaching aides at UC Berkeley - The Democratic Republic of Congo asks France for sanctions against Rwanda - Tensions heat up between Congo and Rwanda, due to Tutsi rebels in east Congo - Interview with Bunker Boy, a strange anonymous listener who is obsessed with bunkers - Filipino politician was killed by group of assassins while visiting constituents - Nobel Peace Prize winner from Belarus detained for 10 years for planning protests - Sketch: People worked really hard at the office! All of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show! Visit the website: societyshow.net Contact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.com Follow the show on twitter: @society_show

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by elite advocate, member of The Urbanist Election Committee, and Political Manager at the Washington Bus, specializing in legislative advocacy and electoral organizing with young people, Jazmine Smith! They catch up on legislative updates from Olympia, including free school meals and other education bills, housing and transportation, public safety, voter rights and name change legislation. They also discuss the legislature's desire to exempt themselves from many public disclosure requirements that other elected officials are subject to. They also discuss the state's first auction of carbon pollution allowances after the passage of the Climate Commitment Act and what that might mean for green investment and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, several school districts planning school closures and layoffs because of funding shortfalls that require legislative funding to solve, the impact of SNAP food assistance benefit reductions for families. Crystal and Jazmine conclude with a discussion of speed camera traffic safety enforcement in response to the need to improve safety on our streets and the impacts of police increased surveillance within BIPOC and lower-income communities, as well as some proposed mitigations to those issues. 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, Jazmine Smith at @jazzyspraxis. Jazmine Smith Jazmine Smith is the Political Manager at the Washington Bus, specializing in legislative advocacy and electoral organizing with young people.   She also is an urbanism organizer, serving on The Urbanist's Election committee, with the Queen Anne Community Council as the Transportation Committee co-chair, the Uptown Alliance's Land Use Review Committee and is a WSDCC Rep for the 36th LD.   Resources “Marc Dones and the State of King County's Homelessness Crisis Response” from Hacks & Wonks   “Announcing our 2023 Legislative Priorities!” | The Washington Bus   “WA legislators scrap plan for free school lunch for all students” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times   “Washington's Middle Housing Bill Is Still Alive with Further Amendments” by Stephen Fesler from The Urbanist   “As Density Bills Move Forward, It's Statewide Housing Goals vs. "Local Control"” by Ryan Packer from PubliCola   “This WA bill could make it easier and safer to change your name” by Taija PerryCook from Crosscut   “New Drug Possession Bill Emphasizes Coercive Treatment” by Andrew Engelson from PubliCola   “Member of WA's ‘Sunshine Committee' quits, cites lawmakers' inaction” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times        “WA's government transparency committee is ready to call it quits” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   “WA enters new era of putting a price on greenhouse-gas pollution” by Hal Bernton from The Seattle Times   “Cap-and-trade takes Washington businesses, ratepayers into the unknown” by Don Jenkins from Capital Press    “First auction held for ‘licenses to pollute' in Washington” by Bellamy Pailthorp from KNKX   “Seattle Schools notifying employees of possible layoffs” by Monica Velez from The Seattle Times   “Local school district estimates $12 million deficit without staffing, program changes” by Aspen Shumpert from The News Tribune   “Everett schools may slash 140 jobs to deal with $28M deficit” by Jerry Cornfield from The Everett Herald   “Additional pandemic-era SNAP benefits to end March 1” by Bridget Chavez from KIRO 7 News   “Seattle has ignored concerns over SPD use of surveillance technologies, community members say” by Guy Oron from Real Change News   “What's Next for Traffic Cameras in Seattle?” | Whose Streets? Our Streets!   “OPINION | Seattle's Automated Traffic Cameras Disproportionately Target Neighborhoods of Color” by Ethan C. Campbell and Nura Ahmed for The South Seattle Emerald   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday midweek show, Marc Dones, CEO of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, returned to catch up on how the response to the homelessness crisis is faring since our conversation last year. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome to the program for the first time today's cohost: member of The Urbanist Election Committee, one of my favorite follows on social media, and Political Manager at the Washington Bus, specializing in legislative advocacy and electoral organizing with young people, Jazmine Smith. Hey! [00:01:18] Jazmine Smith: Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. [00:01:22] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you, excited to welcome you for the first time and so serious when I say that you're one of my favorite follows on social media all across social media, whether it's Twitter or TikTok or whatever. But there's a lot happening this week, starting with what's going on in the Legislature, which you are involved with a lot there and following closely. So what are we excited about? What are we sad about? We just passed another cutoff, meaning that if bills didn't make it through the hoops that they needed to that some people have issues with calling them dead, but at least dormant until next session at minimum. So what is still alive and what's not? What's caught your eye? [00:02:07] Jazmine Smith: Yeah, the ones that I've been mostly following are the ones that we cover for work because we have a whole lot of different issues that we're covering four main buckets and so I've been really focused on those. One of the big ones being the wealth tax and guaranteed basic income that's the tax the rich, fund the people stuff. The free school meals, which had a floor vote yesterday and we'll talk more about. But a whole host of democracy access bills as well, and just making sure that we improve our system every way. So there's a lot going on and it's been wild trying to keep track of all of them. [00:02:46] Crystal Fincher: It is. Let's talk about the school meals because this is a bill that I was extremely excited about. We have tons of data, even got more through the pandemic and some of the extra provisions that were provided that show providing meals and assistance to kids helps reduce hunger. And hunger is an impediment to learning. So this should be something that is uncontroversial yes, we're requiring kids to be in school, we should feed them while we're there. This is uncontroversial and sailed through to passage, right? [00:03:21] Jazmine Smith: Right? You would think. I remember back when - I was teaching before this, I was working in elementary school - and during COVID and that shift back to in-person that happened in that spring, it was so nice having kids just be able to grab their lunches - we were doing half days and whatnot - and breakfast and not have to worry about checking in, and getting the codes in, do they have money for this? And then there were a number of students that I talked to that don't normally pick up lunches, but really appreciated the opportunity to have some extra food and whatnot. It was really great to see and I was really excited to hear in the fall that this was a priority for not just OSPI, but from the Legislature. And so that's why when fiscal cutoff hit last week - and it was really surprising to see that it had been reduced down. [00:04:15] Crystal Fincher: So when you say reduced down, what has happened to the bill? [00:04:19] Jazmine Smith: So it went from free school meals for all, breakfast and lunch, to being specifically targeted at K-4 schools and with specific percentages of free and reduced lunch qualified students. So it's no longer a universal for all - which is what was promised - what we were doing during the pandemic, and what I think the starting point and ending point should be. [00:04:46] Crystal Fincher: And there's a big conversation tangential to this about means testing and how that adds an additional layer of bureaucracy at quite a significant expense. And as we talk about school funding later, that absolutely contributes and makes a difference in how that cuts a lot of people who are still in need and even some who may qualify - that is a barrier to access. And means testing, being one of those - I don't want to say neoliberal - but one of those ideas that came with justifications like - we can't allow people who are just rich, who can pay for it to do it. But why not - why is it wrong to feed kids who are hungry, no matter what their background is? And again, if we're requiring them to be there, why don't we just do that? But throwing means testing back into this and paring it down so much is certainly not what we wanted to see - better than nothing, definitely - but let's push and do all we can. There are Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and we have a Democratic governor, so this was something that I was hoping could get through. When it comes to school funding, there are also challenges across the board that several school districts are paying attention to when it comes to special education funding and different things like that. Where do we stand in terms of education policy in this legislative session? [00:06:17] Jazmine Smith: We have a lot of catching up to do with funding for schools - that's where issues with the wealth tax will come in - and just how dramatically underfunded our schools are, both in the general, but also in special ed programmings. And so was, again, really excited to see special education funding remove a cap - we should be supporting all of our students, but then that gets switched back. And so we have a lot of catching up to do and we need to fund our schools and I'm not seeing that happen to the level that it needs to. [00:06:53] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. What is happening in terms of housing and transportation? [00:06:58] Jazmine Smith: Housing - we have a lot of bills coming through where we're attacking all issues. We've got transit-oriented development, TOD - wanted to, thinking about transit on demand, like I wish - transit-oriented development. And then the missing middle bill being back - watching for that - it passed through the House and wanting Senate to keep it going through the - we've been hearing a lot of conversations. And so with the city council meetings that I've been popping in on, watching - we're hearing a lot from different governments being nervous about 1110, the missing middle bill, and a lot of conversations about local control and whatnot. But this is beyond a local control problem. This is a problem where we need all the housing everywhere and we need to be doing everything we can. And it's been shown that local control hasn't been working. And when each individual city and town says - We're not against housing, we just don't want housing here - who are we excluding and where are we passing the buck to? And where are people allowed to live? And then it's just a rehash of the 1923 problem where zoning restricted all of these places where people could live and created the problem where we're standing now with the Comp Plan - comprehensive plan process. [00:08:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and so middle housing is still alive - increasing development near transit centers and in more dense areas are still alive. But we've talked before about a lot of cities talking about the issue of local control saying - Hey, yeah, there may be a problem, but one-size-fits-all policy from the state is not how we feel comfortable addressing this. That if we could make our own requirements that fit our own city - what works for Seattle is not necessarily what works in Spokane or Cle Elum or Gig Harbor and different things. And so we all need to do this differently. The challenge in what a lot of people are saying and what has grown the coalition in support of this legislation has been - Well, you've been saying that for years. And we've been waiting for you, while you've been saying that for years, to take the action that you feel is appropriate for your city. And what has happened in most cities is that no action has been taken, while housing prices continue to skyrocket. A lot of times we hear about these pricing issues, predominantly in Seattle - is the highest-priced region, area in the state - but this is impacting Spokane, it's impacting Southwest Washington, Pierce County. It's a statewide issue. And since cities have not taken appropriate action to address the massive housing shortage driving an increase in long-term prices across the board, it's now time for the state to step in and take action, which is how a lot of these things work. But that has resulted, as these conversations happen, in - some might call it negotiation, others might call it watering down or compromise in these bills. And so when they talk about the requirement of cities going from - Hey, any city with 6,000 residents or, and now that's moved to 25,000 residents. Okay - bigger, larger-size cities we're exempting, smaller cities we're exempting the types of areas that this would apply to. If they're in a watershed or different types of areas of development, they're exempting them. So these are the conversations going on in these negotiations. It looks like certainly these bills will pass. The question is how will they be amended and what compromises will occur in order to get them to pass both houses. So they continue to move through the process, but this is an area where staying engaged is definitely helpful. Now there's another bill that I think is really important to talk about - in addition to rolling back police pursuits, which we've talked about before - and now they're asking to expand, once again, the conditions under which they can pursue vehicles. They can pursue vehicles now. Sometimes in the conversation, it sounds confusing - and some people talk about it as if they're prohibited from pursuing anyone now, but they certainly can. But there's another piece of legislation which would make it more efficient, easier, more streamlined to change someone's name. And this is very impactful for the trans community, for people who've experienced intimate partner violence, for refugees who - having an old name and some of the requirements like advertising publicly that you intend to change your name - we don't require that for a lot of other things. These are unnecessary hoops to jump through. They also cost money. We have to have people to administer these things and especially with all of the attacks on the trans community, particularly, but also in terms of intimate partner violence - if someone has a stalker, advertising publicly, Hey, I'm changing my name, just flies in the face of the safety that people are seeking from changing their name. If someone can just easily find out that they're changing their name, that doesn't address any issue there. So excited to see that moving through the process and hope it does. Any other legislation that you have your eye on right now? [00:12:39] Jazmine Smith: We've got a couple of democracy-related bills that we've been following - updating the online voter registration system is going to make it more accessible. Currently, if you have a driver's license, that's the only way - or Washington state ID - that's the only way to utilize the online voter registration system, which leaves out a lot of folks who are recently moved, don't have that specific form of documentation - and that's disproportionately impacting of poor folks, folks who are experiencing homelessness that might've lost their ID, young people who are not interested in driving. I know I've heard that there's a huge bump in young people that just aren't interested in being drivers at this point, and so they don't have a driver's license and there's barriers to that. So that has passed. It has a hearing in the House side now. And then also updating the automatic voter registration so that it - the way it currently sits, folks are asked when they're updating their driver's license or going and registering for the first time - and it can put people who aren't actually eligible to vote in a position where they might accidentally register, not realizing. 'Cause different countries have different rules on who can and can't vote and whatnot. And just in a quick transaction, then, that could put someone's future citizenship at risk because they accidentally registered - so making that both more streamlined and safer for everyone involved. And then also moving city and town elections to even years. So we did that in King County this last election and there are other jurisdictions, say Seattle, that want the opportunity to be able to have their elections when the most people are voting - when they have a full electorate of young people, Black and Brown people, the people who don't have water views, being fully represented and having that turnout that we want in any election. Any representative should be representing their whole community of constituents. And so allowing other towns to join in - will be really exciting to see that move. [00:15:00] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And then when it comes to some of the public safety bills - unfortunately, the bill banning solitary confinement has died again this year. They're still working on the legislation in response to the Blake decision from our State Supreme Court, which - that decision made personal possession of substances - just decriminalized them, legalized them across the board. Our Legislature stepped in a couple of years ago and set some uniform standards that did recriminalize them across the state, albeit lesser penalties. And it looks like they're staying on that path with that legislation this year. The reason why they have to take it up is that there was a sunset provision in the prior legislation for this year. So they have to do something new and it looks like they're not substantively changing, necessarily, their approach to that. They're not looking at decriminalization further, it appears, but we will see. And the deadline for bills to make it out of their house of origin is March 8th, which will be coming up next week. So we will certainly see then what has survived and what has not. Also in news this week - just looking at some legislative transparency problems. While they're doing all this legislating and having all these conversations - there's a lot of information, a lot of deliberation, a lot of communication and testimony that happens. And they talk about their actions and their reasoning. And typically this is available to the public via public disclosure. Lots of times we see in the paper - investigations or information that is found via requests for this information, because these are public servants being paid for with public dollars. The theory is, and how it has worked largely, is that their work is subject to public disclosure and accountability. And the Legislature holds themselves to some different standards, and it has been continuing to raise eyebrows. What is happening here? [00:17:07] Jazmine Smith: That's what I really wanna know, and that's the heart of the question - is what is happening. And with legislative privilege - finding that line between working on the bills and the issues and all of the different nuances - but we do have a right to know what's going on - why did this bill die? What happened behind the scenes? And not all of that is in the public record. A lot of that is conversations that you're having with a person face-to-face or whatnot. But been seeing in the courts with a lawsuit regarding legislative privilege, and also some things that came up last year that were subject to a public disclosure request. And now we're starting to get bits and pieces through someone who used to work at the Legislature, Jamie Nixon, and what they've been able to release. Their Twitter has been keeping a lot of information up-to-date, but then also different reports from other folks following the Legislature. So it will definitely be interesting to see - what is going on, how does legislative privilege hide what's happened, and what is that line? We're still actively working on an issue, but everyone deserves to know - why aren't things getting passed? Why did this happen? What is the background on all of these issues? [00:18:30] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and essentially to your point, what they're doing is claiming legislative privilege for things that - if they were discussed or happened in other areas of government, if it was a city council or a mayor or county council, school board, that they would be subject to disclosure - but we're receiving heavily redacted documents in response to public disclosure requests and them saying - No, we don't have to turn this over. And over time, they continue to implement exceptions and loopholes for different situations or circumstances where they don't have to disclose public documents. And this has raised the ire of certainly several journalists, of the Washington Coalition for Open Government. This is not really a partisan issue - this applies to both parties. There was a hearing where there was a Republican member defending these exceptions, and we've had plenty of Democrats do that, but it does raise questions about - if we don't know what's going into these deliberations, if there is no lever of accountability, what is really happening behind closed doors - and does that foster more productive, ethical, legal conversation? Or even just - there may be plenty of things that don't have anything to do with legality, not saying that people are doing things wrong, but the public should be able to see how decisions are made, how these discussions are going, and there is significant resistance to doing that to the degree that has become the standard for everyone else in the Legislature. I hope that there are more people there that see the light. There is basically a committee that has been tasked with doing this that is basically throwing their hands up. A lot of people are throwing their hands up - they've had some resignations 'cause they're going - What is the point at this point in time? They seem to be fighting back, not taking our recommendations as they once did, and moving in the opposite direction. So we'll continue to follow that and see how that pans out, but it certainly is a challenge. And we see the importance of public records in so many different things, whether it was understanding how dysfunctional our redistricting process was and what happened with that, whether it was issues like deleted texts that we've seen in the City of Seattle and elsewhere - a lot of investigations and accountability work and making sure that people are just doing what they're supposed to be doing is brought to light as a result of these public disclosure requests. So hopefully we see progress on there. Another thing that happened this week that's pretty significant is a big new step as a result of the Climate Commitment Act, which was a huge monumental piece of legislation meant to address climate change - to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by establishing a price for carbon and essentially setting up a market where there is a cap - saying, Hey, we say that this level of pollution that's currently going on, we're gonna cap it at this level. If you wanna pollute above that level, then you have to buy these credits - or essentially get a permit to pollute above and beyond the established cap. And over time, that cap is supposed to ratchet down - impacting the price that organizations, companies, particularly ones that pollute, and reduce and emit a lot of greenhouse gases can emit. And so whether they are called pollution coupons or credits or that, we just had our very first auction in the state where organizations bought those credits to be able to essentially pollute. Now, a criticism of this system is that - can you really bank on reducing emissions if all someone has to do is pay to continue polluting. And the number of credits you make available - does that negate the cap, if you just continue to allow people to buy pollution credits basically and continue to do that - which in other areas where this has been implemented, most notably in California, hasn't gone well in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So we'll see how that works in our state. But one thing that's undeniable is that this raises a ton of money. This is supposed to raise hundreds of millions just with this first quarterly auction. Over the first couple of years, it's supposed to raise over a billion dollars. And this money raised is supposed to go into investments that help transition to a green economy, to things that reduce greenhouse gas emissions - whether that's electrification, whether that's different initiatives that reduce commuting, whether that's transit, or helping transition companies that are heavy polluters and workers of those companies who are being impacted by the change in their industry to different sectors, investing in solar, the green economy, just a bunch of things. So it'll be interesting to see what these - to get the final tally on what was raised from this auction this time and follow the process to see how those are going to be invested. And to see if the promise of listening to impacted communities - the communities that are hardest hit by greenhouse gas emissions, by climate change and pollution - are we focusing investments in the areas where they're needed most? Are we helping rural areas transition in this area? So a big opportunity, certainly, and look forward to following through this process to see how that turns out. What do you think about it? [00:24:22] Jazmine Smith: I think that any way that we can bring in more money for the state is great. We have a lot of different areas that we need to address the revenue deficit. If we can't fund schools, then where are we going to - where's the line? Everything, so looking specifically at cap and trade and whatnot, agree that I'm skeptical about anything stopping pollution, especially when you're giving these licenses to pollute, but at the very least, we should be able to have the revenue available to start doing that transition. And I know that with the gas tax and all of those things, then we can only use them on specifically cars and whatnot. So being able to have that freedom and different areas to invest in more green areas and having a green economy would be very great. [00:25:24] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. In other statewide news, there is - education is so integral in everything that we do in our economy, in terms of public safety, just in the future for our kids. And several school districts around the state are really struggling right now, because despite it being enshrined in our Washington State Constitution as a paramount duty to fully fund the public education, we are not doing that in a number of school districts, including Seattle, Everett, the Peninsula School District, and others are saying - Hey, we've been saying we're at a funding crisis. We've been raising this alarm and now we are at the point where we're going to have to lay off employees, we're going to have to make cuts in really significant ways. Several districts are talking about school closures and consolidating things, which is just extremely disruptive to kids and to communities. And this is really a result of a shortage of funding there and over-reliance on local levies and bonds that - in the absence of state funding, they have to pass property taxes and increases in property taxes in order to fund the areas of public education that are necessary that are not being funded by the state. And everything from special education to librarians to school nurses to different arts and cultural programming, just what is required for an education that fully prepares people to be successful in life, however they define that, are on the chopping block. How do you view this and what's the way out? [00:27:07] Jazmine Smith: Yeah, as someone that came from an elementary school up in Ballard - so there was a lot of PTA funding that supported the school, nice-sized auctions and whatnot. It was still funding staff members - the counselor at the school was partially funded by PTA funding, folks at the front desk that are absolutely crucial to making sure that everything runs smoothly in the school - these are the folks that are gonna be first on the chopping block. And those staff members that are those connection points with students who are struggling, who might be the ones that are organizing backpacks of food to go home over the weekend, and the counselor that you talk to about what's going on. These are the people that are facing layoffs because we are not funding our schools, because there's massive deficits and that we're over relying on, as you said, those levies. And it just hit this breaking point. And I know that we had the McCleary decision a while back and there was some influx of funding that happened that did help raise wages - wages are still too low for what is appropriate for education professionals and whatnot. And here we are with Seattle with $100 million deficit, Peninsula Schools, Everett - millions of dollars that are leading to 70 here being laid off. And it's just heartbreaking for the children, for the community, for what happens when neighborhood schools close and consolidate, and the disruption that has, the additional barriers that that poses on families. I remember when we had to move to a temporary school and it was on - still in North Seattle, but on the other side - so all of those families that had to commute for multiple school years outside of their district - and so to, or not outside of their district, but outside of their attendance area and whatnot. And so really frustrating to see - when it's entirely preventable - again, we have a trifecta, we have a Democratic governor and Legislature - we can fund schools. It's our duty to fund schools and we're not doing that. And it's hurting a lot of our communities. [00:29:36] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely is. It is once again, not lost on me that when it comes to our public education system, even within the same district, it is predominantly the schools that are attended by a larger percentage of lower income students or BIPOC students who are being disproportionately impacted - whether it's from school closures or cuts that are going to impact them - they always seem to be on the chopping block first there. And this is not an exception, whether it's the conversations happening right now about potential school closures in the Bellevue School District or what we've seen continuing to happen in Seattle, different districts - it really is a big challenge. And really more districts are sounding the alarm and saying - Hey, we see a number of districts struggling with this now. This may not be us today, but hey, State of Washington and Legislature, if you don't take action this year, this is gonna be us next year. This is something that is a structural problem with education funding throughout the state. And although school boards can certainly impact and school leadership can certainly impact the conditions around that, everyone is starting from behind square one because of these structural deficits and inefficiencies that can only be addressed by our State Legislature. And again, the mandate was clear from this past election - even in battleground districts - lots of Democrats ran on the importance of fully funding public education. This is not controversial. This is supported by the public by and large. There were a number of teacher strikes that were trying to avert issues like this earlier in the year. And so I really hope our Legislature, particularly Democrats who are in power in the Legislature right now, step up to help address this significantly. Also, a challenge that a lot of people are facing this week - especially as so many more people are struggling with the rising costs of housing and food and everything - is a cut to SNAP benefits or Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Programming benefits for people, whether it's EBT, food stamps, however you wanna call it. Hunger is a problem and we have no excuse in this country to have people being hungry. We have no excuse in this state. But we are seeing, as of March 1st, a reduction in the pandemic-era increase to SNAP benefits. So people, as of March 1st, who are receiving food assistance are going to be receiving about $90 less per month, which is very significant. We saw that additional investment reduce child hunger and reduce child poverty by significant substantial amounts, and allowing this to expire and go away is disappointing. But it really has an impact on a lot of people and a lot of news reports are saying - Hey, food banks around the area are expecting a real big influx of people relying on them to feed their families, because not only is this cut happening - and it would be painful at any time - there are so many more increases in food costs overall. Food is just more expensive than it was a year ago, two years ago. And so I hope for everyone listening, you do donate to your local food bank. If you can, help people who are hungry - donate to your local mutual aid organizations - because we're about to see more people fall into hunger and be exposed to poverty now with that. How do you feel about this? [00:33:16] Jazmine Smith: It's really frustrating. I think when we first lost the child tax credit that was expanded, then that was something that - it was not only like losing something that really helped a lot of people during the pandemic, which is still going on. So the first level of everything is that we are still in a pandemic and still living with all of the inflation and all of the issues that are still around with the pandemic - increased health costs and whatnot. So it's still happening even if we've declared that the state of emergency is over. And so first thing when the state of emergency was pulled, both at the state and federal level, is that all of these things that have been helping people - having access to certain levels of healthcare, being able to take a COVID test and get free COVID tests without having to worry - that writing on the wall of everything falling. And now to lose SNAP benefits, or have that drastic reduction, is not only devastating and frustrating from that aspect of people are still needing it and more so right now. But also just - for what reason, why would we do this? And there's - we can't pretend that people aren't still struggling with the pandemic, that it's gone, and that everything's all right, and everything can go back to normal - it can't. We need to continue to be supporting all of our communities through everything. [00:34:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. In other news, we certainly have talked over and over again about our street and traffic safety crisis that we're facing across the board when it comes to cars speeding, acting irrationally, hitting pedestrians and people on bikes - this is happening so frequently. We are seeing so many challenges. Just a couple miles away from me, a few nights ago, there was a fatal hit and run from someone who hit a pedestrian on a street. We've seen several other vehicle collisions in the region this week that have resulted in major injury or death of pedestrians - certainly talked a lot about this on the show. And one potential fix that has been talked about is automated traffic enforcement - speed cameras, basically. And hey, this is something that we don't rely on traffic stops, just sees if you're speeding or not. This has been implemented in some school zones. They're talking about implementing it in others, and potentially expanding to other areas in the city and areas where there are a higher amount of vehicle-pedestrian collisions. And lots of people going - Hey, these speed cameras do show that they reduce speeding, they reduce collisions and injuries. While also - the fact of the matter is that the communities impacted the worst, the people who were being hurt and the communities where these deaths are occurring are predominantly lower income and BIPOC communities because of the historic lack of infrastructure investment and safety investments that occur in other areas. So these accidents, because of the way these communities have been built and designed, are more likely to happen in these areas. But if we do focus solely in these areas, not only does that potentially have the benefit of addressing these traffic collisions and making the area safer, it submits these communities to increased surveillance. And there are talks about expanding the use of cameras or the availability of data and information from these cameras for uses beyond traffic. So this is in the realm of possibility. And if we're saying - Hey, if we're talking about in the south end on Rainier Avenue, and hey, if you're down there - everyone who drives by, everyone who walks by is gonna be on a camera, they're gonna have their license plate scanned, they're gonna do that - that can potentially be used for any kind of situation. We have seen this repeatedly result in increased interactions with police, increased scrutiny in these areas that doesn't occur in other areas. That doesn't mean that these problems are not occurring in other areas. It just means that we're not looking for them to the degree that we are in lower income and BIPOC communities. And there is a very valid conversation to be had about - do we allow the expansion and the proliferation of surveillance of communities of color, basically. And we have to talk about this. This is an impact that should not be ignored. And someone who cares deeply about pedestrian safety and mobility and absolutely wants action to be taken on this, I also do not want to subject these communities to continually expanding surveillance, and the consequences and harm that results from that. So this is something that is a conversation that's talked about. Guy Oron had an excellent article about this - I believe the South Seattle Emerald, had a great piece on this. But as this conversation evolves and adds this tension between - hey, this is something that can increase safety, and also this is something that can increase harm - are things that we have to continue to grapple with and that the community needs to be involved with working through this. How do you feel about this? [00:38:37] Jazmine Smith: It's definitely complicated because that gut instinct is that if it is proven to change driver behavior and whatnot, then in that sense, then it works where it's at or where it's put in place. And so it should be everywhere - or to a certain extent - it certainly shouldn't be concentrated on communities of color, which is where there currently are a lot of focus points. And so it is that balance between wanting people to be alive, not wanting people to have to risk crossing Rainier and worry about their family all being hit in one interaction with a vehicle. But at the same time, I guess I hadn't realized that there was - I just assumed that all of the cameras everywhere are always watching - I'm just so numb to this current state of the surveillance state. There's cameras on top of the sign across the street from me and whatnot. I remember asking my landlord - You think that they can see into my apartment and whatnot? There's so much surveillance going on. And I guess part of my question is - How much is already happening just universally, but at the same time not wanting to expand it, expand that harm. And I think a bigger emphasis needs to be put on designing safe streets from the get-go. Putting that design - and I know we've already built out a lot - and so it's patching up as things come up and whatnot, as buildings get built and whatnot. We can't just reinvent the whole city in one snap. But yeah, that first investment should be in designing streets and fixing streets to be safer for everyone as we walk by, while not focusing on that punitive element. And finding ways to address driver behavior that isn't in that punitive way, but really just encourages safe behavior. So it's really complicated in that - well, what works and what has been working, versus what is best for communities and what is most equitable across the board. [00:40:56] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And the point you raised about it needing to be everywhere are some points that people say - Okay, if we are gonna do this, we should be mitigating the potential harm. We should be making sure we're doing this in as equitable a way as we can. Certainly to your point, the road design impacts more than enforcement will, certainly. This is a conversation that we've been having, especially with the recent release of the Seattle Department of Transportation's Vision Zero review, which lots of people noticed did not seemingly adequately address the impact of road design or plans to impact design to address this. But when it comes to cameras, one of the suggestions was - Okay, so make sure they are distributed equitably throughout the city. Make sure they're not just concentrated in certain areas. We have an interest in people not speeding or driving dangerously in all areas of the city. So let's not just concentrate it there. Let's do it in all areas. And suddenly when you talk about implementing something in Laurelhurst, people get more concerned about what the potential ancillary impacts could be. And so that's a positive thing. And we're not only doing that. Another suggestion that was brought up was - currently right now, the revenue from traffic cameras goes into the Seattle General Fund. And in many cities, it goes into general funds because - certainly this is not just a Seattle-only problem, several cities have traffic cameras and are contending with this across the state - and it largely goes into general funds. And if this becomes a revenue driver, if the goal isn't simply making the streets safer, and the goal becomes - in declining revenues and things you want to fund, this is another area of revenue. It is not, personally, what I think - is not a productive, is not a good place to be to rely on enforcement for revenue. That is a bad incentive and incentivizes them to continue to find things that go wrong - in fact, to not address some of the structural design issues because - Hey, we're getting revenue from the way things are happening now. So restricting that - instead of going to the general fund, restricting it to investments in traffic safety and road safety, maybe dedicating it to being able to implement some of the design changes that would make things safer. But if we restrict that and only allow reinvestment in areas that increase safety, that seems like that's - one, more aligned with what this revenue is really targeted for and supposed to do and reduces the incentive for ticket's sake. Because when it comes to cameras, they do ticket a lot more than officers just standing in different spots will, which is one of the reasons why it's more effective. It's always there, and it targets everyone. But it does then create this as a revenue line item. So lots of people, as we've seen in many different areas, will do toxic things, whether it's seizing property or giving speeding tickets to raise revenue, and that is not a positive thing. So we'll continue to follow this conversation. We will continue to follow along and see how this goes. The Seattle Department of Transportation, certainly - and I'm sure many others across the state - are interested in community feedback about this as they try and navigate through this issue. Automated enforcement is one thing that a lot of cities across the state are looking at to address pedestrian safety. So this is something that lots of people need to engage with and need to make sure that we just don't implement this willy-nilly and have unintended consequences, which sometimes may not be as unintended if people see this as a potential for revenue. So to reduce the harm done on the other side - because harm is harm, and increased targeting, increased stops and contacts that are concentrated in one community does lead to a lot of the problems that we've seen in trying to reduce that. So we'll continue to follow along with that. That is our time today. So we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, March 3, 2023. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today is a member of The Urbanist Election Committee, one of my favorite follows on social media, and someone who is doing the work every day as the Political Manager at The Washington Bus, as a volunteer for so many other issues, and specializing in legislative advocacy and electoral organizing with young people, Jazmine Smith. You can find Jazmine on Twitter @jazzyspraxis. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me @finchfrii, two i's at the end. 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 podcast to hear the full versions of our Friday almost-live show and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you, Jazmine, for joining us, and we will talk to you next time.

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes: - Mexican President AMLO moves to semi-nationalize the lithium industry - The protests about AMLO and his attempt to make an independent election monitoring agency - The Felipe Calderon administration and their ties to the Sinaloa Drug Cartel - I will be running for president 2024!! - My platform: I will ban too-bright headlights! - As president, I will advocate for vegetable oil in diesel engines - What's the deal with people in first class getting on the plane first? - Our tech reporter interviews a sentient AI - I interview Georg Fugger of the Swabian Fugger family of Kirchberg und Weissenhorn - Billionaire Gautam Adani, officially denounced by the show, has been allegedly been doing major fraud All of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show! Visit the website: societyshow.net Contact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.com Follow the show on twitter: @society_show

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes: - After my "pro-secondhand smoking" statements last episode, I have been cancelled, and offer my condolences - My thoughts on political and social differences between the US and Mexico - The show's returning intern: Ben Laden - Top 10 reasons Ben dropped out of Chico State University - The balloons shot down by the US military - My interview with show organist Roy Dickerson - The earthquake in Turkey and Syria, and the propaganda around international aid - The US (allegedly) blew up Nordstream 2 pipeline - Funeral for my intern who died in a Tesla explosion All of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show! Visit the website: societyshow.net Contact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.com Follow the show on twitter: @society_show

6AM Hour -- The mystery of a cash machine hauled out of an illegal encampment in North Seattle remains just that nearly a week later; Only one person living in a homeless encampment underneath the Ship Canal Bridge in Seattle has agreed to accept shelter. Now neighbors are concerned that camp isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Rising crime and a shortage of police officers is leading some downtown Seattle businesses to hire private security guards in record numbers // Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Lyons killed in Pine Hills shooting // GUEST: Randy Pepple from ShiftWA.org joins John to discuss Blaine amendments // Colder than Hillary's heart this morning in the Pacific Northwest...and more powder than Hunter's last birthday! Lars Larson joins John to talk about the weather in Portland 7AM Hour -- One year into the war between Russia and Ukraine, John Carlson reflects and asks listeners to weigh in what the conflict means for our interests. If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, Could NATO borders 'no longer be an obstacle'? // Piece of meteorite recovered in south Texas 8AM Hour -- Orlando TV news journalist and a 9-year-old girl are killed in shootings near an earlier homicide scene and A bill working its way through the state legislature would put an end to traffic stops for minor violations. // Female fashion designer alleges Sam Brinton wore her clothing that disappeared from airport in 2018 // GUEST: Matt Williams, Hiring Manager for ALLRED Heating Cooling Electric joins John to talk about a great outreach partnership with Lowes

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes: - The show's intern, Napoleon Hitler, tragically perished in a Tesla explosion - The Silver Lining with Mark Silver: Trump polls higher than DeSantis in a poll - is he reclaiming his throne? - A respiratory illness spreads in North Korea -- it may be covid, but DPRK won't confirm because they had claimed to have defeated covid - Rwanda attempts to shoot down Congolese airplane - Nigeria opens a Chinese-built deep sea port - You've heard of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), but what about MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey)? - More on South Park, and how it has some bad messages, but ultimately, the messages they choose to advance are bold - Christian takes a strangely PRO-secondhand smoke position? - Mel Gibson's antisemitism - The recent coup of Pedro Castillo in Peru - Turkey obstructing Sweden's NATO membership, ostensibly for allowing Quran burnings - This episode was sponsored by Blackrock All of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show! Visit the website: societyshow.net Contact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.com Follow the show on twitter: @society_show

On this Hacks & Wonks Week in Review, political consultant and show host Crystal Fincher is joined by fellow political consultant and urban farmer, Heather Weiner, for an enthusiastic conversation looking ahead to the 2023 Washington state legislative session, reviewing key announcements from a party leader and a city councilmember who aren't running again, and discussing what makes for effective political mail.  Crystal and Heather start the show looking at what's coming in the 2023 state legislative session. They highlight housing, drug possession laws, childcare, and education as key areas that our representatives will be working on in Olympia, and point out the mandate voters gave our leaders by electing for fighting for progressive reforms last November.  This week, state Democratic Party Chair Tina Podlodowski announced she will not be running for state chair again. Crystal and Heather review Podlodowski's accomplishments as chair and compare her tenure to other state parties like New York. In more local news, Seattle City Councilmember Alex Pedersen announced he will also not be running for re-election this year, meaning that now three city council seats will not have an incumbent in their race.  After a brief discussion about Seattle's I-135 Social Housing initiative, which will be decided on a February 14th ballot, Crystal and Heather have an in-depth conversation about what makes for effective political mail. It's an informative discussion from two highly-accomplished experts in the field that you won't want to miss!  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host Heather Weiner at @hlweiner.   Heather Weiner Heather Weiner (she/her) is a political consultant with 30 years of experience on labor, environmental, LGBTQ, racial justice, and reproductive rights issues. She focuses on ballot initiatives, independent expenditures, legislative, union organizing and contract campaigns. She's a recovering lawyer.   Resources   Hacks & Wonks twitter - 2022 Stats    “Inslee Rolls Out ‘Substantial and Audacious' Housing Agenda in Budget Proposal” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   “Voters sent clear message to WA leaders for 2023 Legislative session” by Andy Billig from The Seattle Times   “In 2023, WA lawmakers will decide the legal future of drug possession” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut    “Missing Middle Housing Reform Returns for 2023 Legislative Session” by Doug Trumm, Stephen Fesler, & Natalie Bicknell Argerious from The Urbanist   “What WA voters want to see from the 2023 legislative session” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   “WA Democratic Party Chair Tina Podlodowski stepping down” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   “Alex Pedersen Not Seeking Second Term on Seattle Council” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “WA Supreme Court clears way for state to collect capital-gains tax” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times   House Our Neighbors website - I-135 Overview and Text   “Catch Up on Seattle's Social Housing Ballot Measure at Our January Meetup with Tiffani McCoy” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. If you missed our Tuesday midweek show, we had an enlightening discussion with Senator Manka Dhingra, Chair of the Senate Law & Justice Committee in our State Legislature and our State Senate, where we talked about the tough issues of her committee, the tough issues her committee will take on this legislative session. Find it in the resources below or on our website, officialhacksandwonks.com. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available on our website and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: political consultant and urban farmer, Heather Weiner. [00:01:15] Heather Weiner: Good morning, afternoon, whatever day it is for your listeners - time of day - Crystal Fincher. [00:01:20] Crystal Fincher: Hey, hey, hey. [00:01:22] Heather Weiner: So happy to be invited back. I really thought for a moment there that I had just completely bungled it and would never be invited back. So can't tell you how excited I am to be here in 2023. [00:01:34] Crystal Fincher: Now hush about you bungling stuff. You remain one of the most admired and in-demand political consultants - and wonderful mentors and friends to so many of us. [00:01:49] Heather Weiner: Oh, I love this part of every podcast, whether it's this one or anybody else's, where people just give each other big air kisses. So big air kiss to you, Crystal Fincher. [00:01:58] Crystal Fincher: Big air kiss to you. I love it, and I love that - yeah, we get to talk to great, awesome, incredible dynamic people and learn from your wisdom. And just get a chance to say Hi, because we get so busy sometimes that it becomes hard. So I - we're listening to each other's voices. But while we record, I can see your face - this gives me an excuse to see your face. [00:02:27] Heather Weiner: Well, good morning. Listen, I am so excited about today's conversation because - as you know - it is not quite Christmas Eve for all of us hacks and wonks. But it's pretty exciting - I would say maybe more like right before 4th of July - because the fireworks are going to start exploding on Monday when leg session comes in - in Olympia - and we're already seeing pre-filed bills, people are already starting to stake out their positions. [00:02:53] Crystal Fincher: They are. [00:02:54] Heather Weiner: Yeah, it's going to be very interesting - with the Democrats coming in just fired up to get some stuff done. [00:03:01] Crystal Fincher: Love it. Legislative Session Eve basically. Before we even get to that, I did just want to take a moment. We, the team here - Bryce Cannatelli, Shannon Cheng, and I - looked back at our 2022. And usually we don't do this publicly, but we thought - we actually did a lot of work this past year and we just did a little 2022 In Review. We actually did 97 total episodes in 2022, which is a lot - 71 total guests, 25 interviews with elected officials, 4 candidate forums. We did a lot of work, a lot of shows. And the podcast overall - I was just saying yesterday - it, for being just this completely niche, really wonky local government politics and policy podcast, which - I was like, Okay, maybe seven people will listen to when we started out, but I just think it's really important to talk about these issues. It's become bigger than I ever thought it would. And I just really appreciate all of the listeners and people who engage. We are really passionate about just engaging in our community, including our local government. This is how we shape who we are and tomorrow - I've said before - getting involved in local government is organizing. [00:04:33] Heather Weiner: And it's, and it's fun. [00:04:35] Crystal Fincher: It really is. And you can make a difference, you can change things - you have so much impact locally. And so I hope, as we talk about this, people see that and feel that - and get activated and involved. But anyway, just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone. We do this podcast in the middle of all of the rest of our work - this is a side project and not what we do actually full-time - we're political consultants. And squeezing this in between everything is a lot of work - it takes a lot of time - but we feel it's important, and we enjoy it, and we enjoy interacting and speaking with all of you. So thank you once again. And on to a legislative preview. What can we look forward to this legislative session, Heather? [00:05:33] Heather Weiner: First, let's just say that the Democrats are coming in and saying that they are being given a mandate by the voters. I don't know if you read Andy Billig's op-ed in The Seattle Times where he laid out, Hey, we won big this year and we have a mandate to address racial equity, to address homelessness, housing, tax fairness, the environment - and we're ready to do it. To which Danny Westneat, ever playing the devil's advocate and a grumpy old man like Walter Matthau, suddenly wants to say - No, you didn't really get a mandate. You just lucked out because of Dobbs and Roe V. Wade. I think Danny is reading the room wrong. I think Andy Billig totally has it. The voters want more progressive policies, they want to see Washington become a better state to live in, and they want the super rich to pay for it. And I'm very excited to see what this legislative session comes up with. Top of the agenda, of course, is from Governor Inslee's budget, which he announced right at the end of the month in December - where he dropped a bombshell saying he wants to run a statewide referendum that raises money for housing. And I think that's an amazing, fantastic idea - and we're hearing a lot of support from Republicans actually - even Braun is out there talking about middle-income housing, which is fantastic. We need to make sure that we don't lose sight of what the real - the other big crisis that is in front of us every day, which is the lack of low-income housing. I'm really hoping that the Legislature is going to take that by the horns and run it through this year. What else are you seeing, Crystal? [00:07:19] Crystal Fincher: I am definitely seeing that. I think, in housing, it is really interesting to see the increase in momentum, support - even just from last legislative session - for taking action on middle housing, or the ability to build in more places to increase the housing supply in the longterm. Also remains to be seen if there is enough momentum to, as you just mentioned, address lower-income folks and their ability to afford housing, keeping people in their homes, renter protections, those types of things. We will see how that lands in this Legislature. I think - seeing momentum on some public health issues - they're going to have to address the Blake fix, or the legislation that was brought about from the Blake decision from our State Supreme Court addressing personal possession of drugs and substances. And in addressing that, they're going to be forced to take that on this session. And we actually had a great conversation with Senator Manka Dhingra in our midweek episode about that. I think one thing that people are wondering about is just in the issue of education - we saw so many strikes by public educators really standing up for their kids and especially bringing attention to how short-staffed and underfunded our special education system and resources are - [00:08:56] Heather Weiner: And childcare. [00:08:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And although there was some improvement made on that in the short term - really what was made plain - is that there needs to be some statewide fixes. We have to more fundamentally address education. And I don't know if that's going to be addressed this session, but I think that's another area where voters spoke loudly and clearly - from people who were really articulating the importance of that as candidates and also that we just saw in the support of teachers. It's always interesting when those strikes happen and people are trying to figure out - okay, is there going to be pushback against the strikes? Is there going to be support? And in district after district - doesn't, didn't matter whether it was in a metropolitan area, suburban, rural - those teachers had the support of the families and the parents in their district and a recognition that we have to do better. So I do hope that we see action taken on that. And I think they can expect to face questions if that doesn't look like that happens. [00:10:05] Heather Weiner: So let me pivot on that one and say - earlier this year, we heard from a lot of school districts that said they might have to do more levies in order to fund their needs - whether that's basic construction, repairing these aging schools, funding special ed programs, funding general programs. And what happens is when they pass a levy, that's through a property tax and that property tax means that the lowest income people are the ones who end up paying the greatest percentage of that. So I am very excited to see in the Governor's budget that he is already taking into account the capital gains tax, which is going to the Washington Supreme Court for a hearing on the 26th of this month. He's already assumed that will be upheld as constitutional and has incorporated that money into education, particularly preschool help for low-income families and expanding childcare opportunities for all families. I'm very happy to see that - I think that's pretty exciting. But did you read this Elway poll that Crosscut did? Yeah - talking, asking voters what their highest priority issues were. I thought that was also super interesting because I find the Elway polls skew pretty conservative - and sometimes they're worded a little conservative for me, sometimes I don't really buy them - but I actually got polled on this, so I was very excited to see where I was. And more than a majority of the voters do support the Governor's proposal - raise a $4 million bond for homelessness and housing. They support more funding for education. They want the Democrats to move forward on these progressive policies. I think the Republicans are going to be smart this year. I don't think they're going to pick fights on the dumb issues for them - I don't think they're going to pick fights on choice, I don't think they're going to pick fights on LGBTQ issues. I think they're going to pick a fight on taxes and I think they're going to pick a fight on decriminalization. I think that's where they think they can start to wedge people and start to pull some of the moderate conservative Democrats with them. What do you think? [00:12:10] Crystal Fincher: You know, that's such an interesting issue. Speaking of public polling, every time this is polled - and it has been several times - the public is ahead of where our legislature is and the public is clear about - on issues of legalization, that they want a public health approach. We can look around and see that the War on Drugs has failed, right? We've been trying this for 40, 50 years and has not worked, even though that it's taken a ton of resources. And so they do want a different approach and to stop doing the things that haven't worked. And so it's really interesting because the public is there. And when it's put in front of the public, they vote in that direction. But some of our legislators are behind where the public is, and we hear concerns from them that frankly we don't see. Even in King County, when vote after vote, we see people and candidates who have articulated a more evidence-based approach to these things - that takes into account where criminalization is counterproductive, and doesn't make people safer, and doesn't get us closer to where we need to be as a society. [00:13:30] Heather Weiner: And is a waste of taxpayer dollars, honestly, right - incarceration. [00:13:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it is really inefficient and expensive. And so that's going to be interesting - to see if people follow where evidence is and it's very clear, or if they don't - I don't know where the Legislature is going to land on that. [00:13:49] Heather Weiner: I feel like it has less to do with facts and it has more to do - I know this is going to shock you and all of your listeners - that politics and policy may not have anything to do with facts, and may have more to do with personal experience. And I think there are many legislators and many of us who have people in our lives who we love and care about who struggle with substance use disorder. And I think that those stories of people who we love and care about because - who are struggling with substance use disorder and face incarceration if they ask for help and so they refuse, they cannot ask for help because they are afraid of incarceration. I think that if some of those stories can come out, that if legislators have courage to share their personal stories with permission of the people involved, of course, I think that will be almost as persuasive - if not more persuasive - than the facts. Because it is the dehumanization of people who suffer from substance use disorder, which is a public health issue - it is a mental and public health issue - that people who suffer from that are demonized and dehumanized. And while we continue to allow that to happen, I don't think we're going to get very far. So let's use those personal stories. Let's have the courage to come out with our own personal stories about substance use disorder - for me, it's a lot of red wine - to get people to talk about it and take away the stigma and get some solutions on the table. [00:15:15] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. So it's going to be interesting to see. There certainly will be a lot that unfolds during the session and we will continue to pay attention to what happens, but certainly it's going to be, it's going to be an interesting session and I think beyond everything, you're absolutely right. There is a mandate to act and people are expecting action. Another piece of big news this week - seeing a series of big news where people announcing that they are not running for the seats that they hold. And I guess starting off is one that's not technically a public official, but is very visible in politics and policy in Washington - Tina Podlodowski, the State Chair of the Washington State Democrats, announced that she is stepping down from her position. What did you think about this? [00:16:07] Heather Weiner: Well, first - I am a big fan of Tina Podlodowski's. I think she has done an absolutely amazing job as Chair. She's raised more money. She has focused on Field instead of a lot of internal stuff. I think she's revolutionized, not revolutionized, but certainly taken the State Dems into a much better direction. And even just from going from caucus to primary system - all of it, I think, has been better for the State Dems in general. So I'm a big fan of Tina's. I think we need to remember what the State Chair does. So whoever is in that position is the face and voice for the State Party. They get to be the bad guy in a lot of ways. They get to be the attack dog, and that's the role that they have to play and sometimes it makes them unpopular. I think that they need to raise a lot of funds. They need to make a lot of friends and be close to the establishment - raising that money - while at the same time answering to the grassroots and more radical elements of the party who actually show up, knock doors, and do the hard work. It's a difficult position and I think whoever runs for it, and we'll know on January 28th who wins that position, has got to be prepared for walking that tightrope for the State Dems. I've seen that Shasti Conrad has already announced that she's running and has lined up a very impressive list of endorsers. So I know we both are Shasti fans and as the current Chair of the King County Democrats - or previous Chair of the King County Democrats - I think she's well positioned to take that role on. What do you think? [00:17:55] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, completely agree with you. And just - on Tina - that is a position that is really hard to get kudos for when you're doing things right. You're always making someone unhappy if you're doing things right. But what a contrast between the successes that we've had and built on in Washington state and the mess that we see in a state like New York. [00:18:18] Heather Weiner: Oh, right. [00:18:21] Crystal Fincher: That state party has just managed to really mess things up so severely that the entire country is paying for them - potentially just the composition of the House and the majority - looks like New York is responsible for messing that up. And just the calamity that is George Santos who - is that even his real name? Who has lied about everything under the sun? [00:18:53] Heather Weiner: Look - Tina is regarded by many of the state chairs around the country as one of the best in the country, because of what she's done with the State Party here. And I do want to say there's been a lot of criticism of her. I also am a woman who sometimes says things that piss people off. But I will say that, Look, if her name was Tim Podlodowski, she may have gotten a little bit less of the criticism for being the badass that she has been. Now, the next person who comes in is probably going to want to heal some of the intraparty wounds and build some bridges back. And I think that person has to be prepared to do some of that. But again, the State Party is often an unrecognized powerhouse behind many campaigns, Congressional campaigns, our recent campaign with Senator Murray. And the people who do that really hard work behind the scenes do deserve to be recognized - shout out to all of the State Dem staffers. [00:19:55] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We also saw news of Alex Pedersen on the Seattle City Council announcing that he will not be running again. [00:20:04] Heather Weiner: Number three - we have three open seats in Seattle. [00:20:08] Crystal Fincher: So what is this landscape? What does this mean for the City of Seattle? [00:20:13] Heather Weiner: First, let me just say - to everybody who's been asking, I am not working on any candidate campaigns in Seattle because - [00:20:18] Crystal Fincher: Ditto. [00:20:19] Heather Weiner: I can't do it anymore. It's just too emotional. It just wrecks me too much emotionally. It's just not good for my mental health, and my wife will kill me if I work on another candidate campaign in Seattle. So this is super interesting because I think that Bruce Harrell is actually still pretty popular in the City. I think that he - if nothing changes wildly between now and August, I think that his anointed candidates will definitely come through primaries, if not win. So I think whoever's running right now has to be ready to not attack Harrell and to be in a position to talk about how they're going to improve things or work with the current mayor. The current mayor is not - I do not get the sense that people are ready to hold this current mayor accountable for anything. They still like what he's doing. They think he's a nice guy. There's not been a major snowstorm or police shooting. So as far as the general public is concerned, Harrell's all right. And I think Inslee is actually giving Harrell and a lot of other city leaders a great out by running - going back to this bond initiative - by running this massive bond initiative referendum to fund housing and homelessness, because that is the major issue in major cities around the state. And in this way, the city leaders will be able to point to that, talk about how that's going to be the solution, and are able to walk away from it. [00:21:41] Crystal Fincher: I don't know that I necessarily agree with that. [00:21:43] Heather Weiner: Please - I love it when you disagree. [00:21:45] Crystal Fincher: I think that it's up in the air - and this is so interesting because this is like the conversations that we have amongst ourselves elsewhere - so I think the City is in a very interesting place. I think the City is progressive and frustrated at not feeling like issues are getting better, and not seeing issues get better that have been talked about as the most important issues - the crises that we're facing, yet still not seeing substantive or tangible improvement. And I think also - just looking at these last November elections - we see, especially in areas like North Seattle that have been traditionally thought of as more moderate - definitely look like they're different, like they're significantly more progressive than they were. And it makes sense when you think about the increase in renters, that the pressures on people of even generous incomes being able to afford the increasing and astronomical rent, just being able to enter the housing market in Seattle close to services and the City or being displaced further out from that. And so I think that you see the foundation of a more progressive shift, which we have seen a trend towards more progressive policy over the past several years overall. Now, this is an odd year. We're not going to see the same level of turnout, which is why we talk about even- versus odd-year elections this year - and that is a headwind. So it's going to be really interesting to see. And I actually think the individual candidates are going to make a difference. How can they articulate a vision of what they can get done positively that's not based on - to your point actually - what they dislike or grievances that they have, and more of a vision for what they can accomplish. How can they work together with people to do that? But I do think that people are more on guard than they used to be for - I'm the adult in the room, and I'm the conciliator and the person who can bring everyone together to find a place where everyone agrees and we can move forward, because - [00:24:07] Heather Weiner: I'd vote for you. I vote for you - that is the speech. You're probably right. And let's remember that in this year, the seats that will be open or up for re-election are going to be the district seats. So in this case, people who are currently going to stay in - like Tammy Morales, Dan, or Kshama - are going to have to show what they have done for the district. And people who are running for those open seats are going to have to be super hyper local focused on their district. What are they going to do for West Seattle? What are they going to do for North Seattle? And talk about that rather than the City around - and I think it's going to be a lot of geographic discussions, a lot of very specific - here's what we're doing for this park, here's what we're doing for this intersection - neighborhood community talk rather than the citywide referendum. [00:24:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that. [00:25:01] Heather Weiner: Yay, you agree! I was really looking forward to a smackdown though. One day, Crystal will just - it won't just be this chorus, and one day we'll have a fight about something and it will be really, really cool. I'll find something we disagree on - it's gonna be like mayonnaise versus mustard or something. [00:25:18] Crystal Fincher: Oh my goodness, there will be something someday. [00:25:22] Heather Weiner: So I just want to point out one more time for your listeners that there's two really big things happening the week of January 24th. One is this Washington Supreme Court hearing on the capital gains tax, which has enormous implications - not just for $500 million of funding a year for childcare and education that comes from the super super super rich, but also for our tax structure overall in the state. And the second is - much more micro - is the election of the new Washington State Party Chair two days later. So that's going to be a really interesting week. I can't wait to see who you have on that week to discuss what's happening there. [00:26:04] Crystal Fincher: It'll be interesting to see. We also have a couple of things. We have a special election coming up in many jurisdictions in the state, including the City of Vancouver, Washington. But particularly in the City of Seattle - on February 14th, there will be a special election. If you know me, you know that I am not a fan of these February, April special election dates just because they are notoriously low turnout, but there is going to be a vote on social housing. Speaking of the motivation to address homelessness and housing affordability in this crisis, this is going to be on the ballot. We actually have a show coming up about this topic, but this will give Seattle the opportunity to establish a public developer - that establish publicly-owned, permanently affordable, cross-class communities with resident leadership - and basically establishing a type of social housing where it takes away the privatization, capitalist profit motive basically, of housing that we've seen where people are looking to create increased profits and income from raising rents. And really take away the ability to raise it and use resident funds to fund just the maintenance and upkeep without the pressure in - that happens in conjunction with the private sector - to continue to raise rents and hopefully create more sustainable, affordable, publicly-owned social housing that can start to address this housing affordability crisis and put in place a new and different model that isn't as reliant on federal funding, on federal income guidelines - and just give the City more flexibility to address its own issues. So this is going to be a really interesting thing that we have coming up. Ballots will be mailed on January 27, so that's coming sooner than we think. How do you see this playing out? [00:28:20] Heather Weiner: Who is going to come out and oppose this? That's really what I want to know. I haven't heard that much from opposition right now, and I think it's really just going to be about how it's framed for the voters. I'm thinking a lot about ranked choice voting and how that kind of was the sneaker issue that came in. And at the last moment, they sent out really good mail - shout out to Moxie Media for some really good mail on that campaign - and won, not by a landslide - but won on a confusing campaign. So I wonder if this is maybe the sneaker issue also - that there isn't really a well organized opposition and it gets through. [00:29:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And I think how this is explained to the masses is going to be the thing. I actually completely agree - [00:29:08] Heather Weiner: Again! [00:29:09] Crystal Fincher: - just in the shout out with - on an issue that on its face is confusing to explain to voters - in what we just saw with ranked choice voting beating out approval voting. I think that was a great example of looking at - just when you have to communicate this simply to the masses - man, the ranked choice voting mail was excellent. The way that was communicated to all of the people - there are the people who pay attention, which is not a big percentage of people. We're abnormal. If you're listening to this show, you are abnormal. [00:29:41] Heather Weiner: You're just now noticing that we're abnormal. You want to know how abnormal I am? Every piece of political mail that comes into our household - my wife knows to set aside for me because I keep it in a folder. I just keep all of the mail. I hoard it because I love to go back through it later and see what people did, what they didn't do. Look at you - you do the same thing - you have - Oh my gosh, you have Teresa Mosqueda - look at you with all that mail. [00:30:08] Crystal Fincher: That is me pulling up my - [00:30:10] Heather Weiner: That is sexy. That is - I'm coming over for a date. I'm gonna bring a bottle of wine, some candles, and we're going to go through your mail, your political mail - [00:30:18] Crystal Fincher: We're going to go through mail. [00:30:19] Heather Weiner: I always vote late, just so I can get the mail and I can see how people are doing it. And I like to play the guessing game of which firm did this mail - because there are certain firms that shall go unnamed that just do the same boilerplate, same design over and over and over again - and I can spot them a mile away. And then there's some people who just look like they did it with a Word doc and just threw it together - maybe on purpose, maybe not. And then there's sometimes just really highly polished, really engaging, creative stuff. So I love to hoard the mail. I've got a whole box over here, Crystal - come over, honey, put on something comfy, and we'll go sit on the couch and go through it together. [00:30:59] Crystal Fincher: Oh, we're going to do that. I will bring my accordion file full of stuff. [00:31:07] Heather Weiner: I'm not going to cheat on you - not cheating on you, honey. I also want to say a shout - a big warning to some folks out there who have sent out recent mail - it's called householding. When you do not send five pieces of mail to the same household - it's annoying to the household and it looks like a waste of money. It looks like your consultant's not doing a good job, so - to certain people who have sent out mail recently and not householded, you need to have a conversation with your people. That is a waste of postage. It's a waste of - it's a waste of postage when it really comes down to it. [00:31:41] Crystal Fincher: It's a waste of postage, it's a waste of - yeah, it's a waste. [00:31:45] Heather Weiner: It's called householding. [00:31:46] Crystal Fincher: It is. And every year someone wins the - I-spelled-our-candidate's-name-wrong-on-the-mail lottery. [00:31:53] Heather Weiner: Can we do an episode where all we do is just go through and make fun of ourselves and other people who make huge mistakes on mail - including me, by the way. I mean, that word "public" - it's often, loses the L. [00:32:05] Crystal Fincher: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Yeah, there are, there are a lot - yeah, you would be, you would be surprised. [00:32:14] Heather Weiner: Also, I recently saw a piece of mail where "county" lost the O. [00:32:19] Crystal Fincher: Oh no. [00:32:23] Heather Weiner: Yeah. [00:32:25] Crystal Fincher: There are all sorts of things that go wrong with mail and it still has - mail still has some utility. Obviously - [00:32:37] Heather Weiner: Oh - mail still has some utility? I think mail has increased in utility over - since COVID. Tell me, tell me why you think it still has utility and then I'll give you the counterpoint. [00:32:46] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely still has utility - one, especially during COVID when Field was impacted - that's a challenge. But it's so hard. Basically I think that you have to do everything, that you have to try and get to people in every way - I have to show you the commercials that we did. [00:33:05] Heather Weiner: Oh, I'd like to see them. Oh, I've seen a couple. I've seen a couple. They were really good. [00:33:09] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. But it's just hard, and I think lots of people who don't do this don't realize how hard it is just to get people's attention. The hardest thing to do - for a candidate or an issue - is not necessarily to beat your opponent. It's just to let people know that you exist. It's to break through all of the noise - because people are sick and tired of political stuff anyway. And there's so much happening, especially like last year when we had competitive Congressional races in many districts and legislative races, and there are so many political messages flying, there are five different mailers landing in mailboxes every day. Everything is a commercial in the middle of everything and just everything is that - it's hard to break through. And so really trying to stand out and in ways that are - that get you in front of the eyeballs of people - even if it's just the few seconds between when they pick up their mail and walk to the recycle bin, or they're half paying attention to a commercial. Hopefully people are making it to the doors also, but that's hard to do in a citywide election, in a City of Seattle. And maybe you can get to 50,000 people, but what are you going to do for the other 150,000-200,000? [00:34:31] Heather Weiner: Look, mail is not - if you're down by 10 points, mail is not going to win, is not going to win it for you. But if you're down by 1 or you need to - you are tied - mail can definitely make the difference. And let me tell you why. Let me tell you why, Crystal. Number one, it gets - you definitely are getting into the household, right? It's not like digital, it's not like TV - you know that that voter - it's getting into that voter's household. Number two, you can micro-target the messaging to that household, unlike other ways. You can do that with digital somewhat - but really with mail, you can do an excellent job. And the third is voters want to make the right decision. They want information and to have that written information in front of them - that's comprehensive, that's just not a pretty picture and a whole bunch of endorsement logos, but actually has some - what am I saying? - some crunchy information in it. Voters want that and will keep it. And particularly people say, Oh, younger voters, they don't check their mail. Younger voters find mail to be - I don't know - quaint and interesting, and like to get letters and like to get things that are personally addressed to them because it makes them feel like - 'cause they're real people. So I am - I actually think mail is more effective and more important than ever right now. And I am not solely - I will do mail for campaigns, but I am not pitching my firm as a mail campaign. I'm just saying in general, do not discount it. And do not get yourself all, get your panties all in a twist about TV and cable and everything all the time - broadcast TV, God forbid - spend that money on getting to the people who vote. [00:36:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think so. And also, especially in a vote-by-mail state - we're a 100% vote-by-mail state - mail is in the same medium as the ballot and the information that they're getting. Mail absolutely matters and it is one of - still - the most efficient methods to get to people that you can't talk to personally. [00:36:27] Heather Weiner: Well, I just would like to invite you to come over one night and take a look at my mail. [00:36:31] Crystal Fincher: Mail - it's a very vulnerable thing. It's a very sensitive thing. People are very sensitive about their mail. There is actually a reason why we have not done a mail breakdown on-air because people are very sensitive. [00:36:46] Heather Weiner: There are people who will never come on your show about their mail [00:36:49] Crystal Fincher: About their mail - and all of us are - it's not like every piece of mail I do is excellent, or dynamic, or on purpose. [00:36:56] Heather Weiner: We could do noteworthy mail - how about that? I would love to do one - it'd be hard to do on a podcast 'cause people can't see it, but I would love to do - it's like one of those cooking shows where you can't taste what the people are talking about - but I would love to do one going through, like over the years, some really noteworthy mail. And I've got a couple that are just - there's one, there was a piece where it had a black hole cut out in it, and it was talking about how something was a waste of money and it was a black hole - that was by a consultant from the East Coast. There's another consultant who did a piece of mail - attack mail in a leg race that was real - oh no, it was in a city council race - that was horrible and awful, and I think won that election for that candidate. So I would love to go through that sometime - that'd be really fun. And also it would be really interesting to a niche audience of approximately 12 people, Crystal, so maybe not. [00:37:51] Crystal Fincher: Oh, I mean - we would have 32 people who were riveted in that conversation. I don't want to rip people live on-air. [00:38:04] Heather Weiner: Let's just only talk about noteworthy things. [00:38:06] Crystal Fincher: Yes. And my biggest note - usually my biggest thing - is just trying to overcommunicate on mail. There - you can, if you try and say too much, you actually end up saying nothing. 'Cause people do need to be able to get what your - pick up what you're putting down at a glance. And then give them some hooks for a little bit more stuff. But you make that hard to do when you bury stuff in text. But anyway, we can talk about mail forever. But we will wrap up today's show. And thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, January 6th, 2023. [00:38:45] Heather Weiner: Oh my goodness. [00:38:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's January 6th - a happy Insurrection Anniversary and Speaker Groundhog Day on the federal level. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today is political consultant and urban farmer, Heather Weiner. [00:39:03] Heather Weiner: Thanks for having me. [00:39:04] Crystal Fincher: You can find Heather on Twitter @hlweiner and that's H-L-W-E-I-N-E-R. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, that's two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. Please leave us a review if you like us. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes: - South Park, and how tv can never really be as controversial, in the same way anymore - Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and Ash being written off Pokemon - The ideology of the oligarchs like eugenics, Effective Altruism, voluntary human extinction, and future obsession - The Moneyball-ification of society, and how people treat everything like a video game to min/max - How tech oligarchs care first and foremost about capital preservation, and how that informs their ideology - Rene Girard, and his claimed connections to Peter Thiel - A true blue old school real American hardass on fentanyl and sissy boy commentators - CBS's Pubescent Sheldon episode 3: Hanging out with Grandpa Richard Hermitage All of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show! Visit the website: societyshow.net Contact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.com Follow the show on twitter: @society_show

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes: - The CIA podcast Langley Files, and how horribly it does at describing the CIA - The CIA's presentation that they are apolitical and do not write policy - The Plame Affair and the the reveal of Valerie Plame, a secret CIA agent to the American public - How Valerie Plame is the side-effect damage of a pro-war smear campaign - The entanglement of journalists and politicians sharing information - The parallels between Russiagate and the Plame Affair - Elden Ring, Homefront: the Revolution, Pokemon Violet and Scarlet, Sekiro, and more video games All of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show! Visit the website: societyshow.net Contact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.com Follow the show on twitter: @society_show

The Society Show with Christian Patterson is a podcast about society, featuring DJ Ski Doo and the Society Show Soundboard Band, with World Renowned Organist Roy Dickerson! It is now the new era of the Society Show - Season Seven, recorded live(-to-tape) at the beautiful Lorena Bobbitt Theatre in beautiful North Seattle. This episode includes: - A sponsorship by Burger King! Whopper whopper whopper whopper! - The CBS/NPR/Society Show crossover: Pubescent Sheldon's Thanksgiving with Adnan Sayed - A spate of mail bombings in Spain seemingly targeting pro-Ukrainian politicians and manufacturers - New York City's new policy to involuntarily detain people into mental hospitals - MAiD, Canada's euthanasia program, and how it applies to mentally ill people All of that, and much much more, this is the Society Show! Visit the website: societyshow.net Contact the show at societyshowpodcast@gmail.com Follow the show on twitter: @society_show

Pain is really weird, scientifically speaking. It's not just a message from injured tissues to be accepted at face value, but a complex experience that can be influenced by your brain. In this week's episode, both our storytellers explore the aches, pains, and discomfort that come with life. Part 1: While Renee Joshua-Porter is in labor, she starts feeling a horrible stabbing pain in her back. Part 2: Despite being in excruciating pain, Gretchen Douma worries getting a knee replacement will ruin her blossoming acting career. Renee Joshua-Porter is a multi faceted performing artist, Counselor and Chaplain. She is the Founder of The Burning Bush Family Foundation Inc., whose mission is to provide educational and recreational programs through the arts. A first generation American born to Panamanian parents, she grew up listening to and sharing stories. Renee is grateful for meeting Tracey Segarra who first showcased her storytelling on New York stages. Renee is married with three adult children and a dog named Beau. Gretchen Douma is a stage, screen, and voice actor who has been working in theater for more years than she'll usually admit to. She has performed in Seattle, the Twin Cities, NYC, England, and, on Zoom (thank you, COVID). Also a playwright, Gretchen has several short works and two full-length plays under her belt. The most recent, Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down, is a dark comedy about the ghosts and memories that just won't leave us alone. Her most terrifying out-of-body experience was doing stand-up at Seattle's Comedy Underground. For years a huge fan of storytelling, Gretchen has only recently jumped into this world as a storyteller herself. It has been thrilling so far. She loves dark chocolate, murder mysteries, and escaping to her backyard garden in North Seattle (where she lives with her wife, Nina, and their two miniature Australian Labradoodles). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's Trending: Student relief reactions from Democrats, a North Seattle homeless camp problem is solved and Thurston County has rabid bats. // Big Local: Grant County man was not planning a mass shooting, a Parkland man is robbed off a dating app and a Whatcom County food bank is seeking donations. // A Utah teacher has a classroom set up for 'non-white students' See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.