Podcasts about Pioneer Square

Michelle Dean is a brand marketer turned barista from South Florida. Though her former day job in marketing brought her to Seattle in 2022, family, community, and her coffee bar, Bonhomie Coffee, have made Seattle home. Michelle is Haitian-American and spent most of her life in Florida. Before earning her MBA from Georgia Tech, Michelle's marketing career began in church ministry, managing communications for a South Florida congregation. Since then, she's managed category wide strategic growth channels, owned the P&Ls, and led cross functional teams for multimillion dollar consumer packaged goods brands. She also has led brand strategy for an online automotive retailer and for kid tech products.Inspired by her Haitian heritage, in 2024, Michelle and her wife Victoria opened Bonhomie Coffee, a Haitian-inspired coffee bar situated in Pioneer Square. What started as a weekend side quest has become a space for lovers of coffee and culture. She is passionate about wellness, running, rest, pizza, and Jeff Probst. @bonhomiecoffeebar, @michelle.lately

Arrests have been made in last week's Pioneer Square triple homicide, experts are expecting a challenging fire season in Washington state, and the Space Needle has a new upgrade, in the form of a giant glass elevator. It’s our daily roundup of top stories from the KUOW newsroom, with host Paige Browning. We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Seattle Now in your feed. Got questions about local news or story ideas to share? We want to hear from you! Email us at seattlenow@kuow.org, leave us a voicemail at (206) 616-6746 or leave us feedback online.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joe Biden announced he has diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. A man was attacked in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood when he refused to give several people his food. A shooting killed three people in Pioneer Square over the weekend. // The New York Times published a garbage story about Trump’s approval rating. Tim Walz compared ICE to the Gestapo during a University of Minnesota commencement address. Jason got called a lemming by Chris Cuomo. FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino say that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. // Edan Alexander received a heartwarming phone call from President Trump.

5pm: Top Stories - Recaps and Updates // 3 killed, 1 critically hurt in Pioneer Square shooting // King County shootings drop, but kids with ‘Glock switch’ machine guns are the new warning sign // Man stabbed after refusing to hand over food to group in Belltown // Family of Ashli Babbitt awarded $5 million settlement // Los Angeles barbershop blasts ‘Baby Shark’ to ward off homeless // What the Hur Recordings Tell Us About Biden’s Memory Decline // White House fires back at special counsel report, Harris calls descriptions 'politically motivated' // Joe Biden's Cancer Diagnosis Shouldn't End Scrutiny of the Cognitive Decline Cover-Up // Letters 

Police are still looking into a deadly weekend shooting in Pioneer Square, Governor Bob Ferguson has one day left to approve the state budget, and Tesla regret comes in a satirical form. It’s our daily roundup of top stories from the KUOW newsroom, with host Cat Smith. We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Seattle Now in your feed. Got questions about local news or story ideas to share? We want to hear from you! Email us at seattlenow@kuow.org, leave us a voicemail at (206) 616-6746 or leave us feedback online.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In honor of May’s Hunger Awareness Month, we’re joined by Michelle Douglas, CEO of Emergency Food Network // Randy Brooks, founder and winemaker at Bacovino, tells us about their new waterfront tasting room in Pioneer Square // Spring Pasta Dishes // Liz Philpot, founder of Eat Seattle Tours, shares what’s new on their latest food tours and programs // Chef Rasyidah Rosli is going to transport us to the bustling streets of Thailand’s famous Chatuchak Night Market // Pastry Chef Brittany Bardeleben from Hot Cakes is here to talk springtime desserts // And of course, we’ll wrap up today’s show with Food for Thought: Tasty Trivia!

We're talking all things architecture, design, and tall buildings! Julia is responsible for shaping Seattle's skyline with her signature skyscrapers like Skyglass in SLU. We find out how she is able to push the boundaries of what's possible, her thoughts on sustainability, and her most impactful piece of architecture that changed the course of her life.Top Stories1. Belltown high-rise sells for over $100MPSBJ article2. Pioneer Square hotel to be carbon positivePSBJ article3. Developer to start Ballard mid-rise apartment projectPSBJ article4. Bill to end landmark abuse likely to passPSBJ articleAbout guest Julia Nagele - Senior Principal and Director of Design and Architecture at HEWITT:Julia brings more than 20 yrs experience shaping complex urban environments. She has won many awards for her skyscrapers in Seattle. She also serves as an Affiliate Assistant Professor at the UW's College of Built Environments. Prior to this, she ran her own interior design company.About host Rachel Horgan:Rachel is an independent event producer, emcee and entrepreneur. She worked for the Business Journal for 5 years as their Director of Events interviewing business leaders on stage before launching the weekly podcast. She earned her communication degree from the University of San Diego. Contact:Email: info@theweeklyseattle.comInstagram: @theweeklyseattleWebsite: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theweeklyseattle.com⁠⁠

Voters in Seattle are overwhelmingly supporting a tax on big businesses to fund a social housing developer. Now, that developer has to build housing or snap up an existing building. KUOW reporter Joshua McNichols tells us what comes next and how soon we can expect it. Watch Mayor Bruce Harrell's 2025 State of the City Address here. Watch Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal's community forum here. Learn more about Jazz Night in Pioneer Square here. We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Seattle Now in your feed. Got questions about local news or story ideas to share? We want to hear from you! Email us at seattlenow@kuow.org, leave us a voicemail at (206) 616-6746 or leave us feedback online.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What’s Trending: The Washington State Supreme Court is a hearing a case about bans on high capacity magazines. The FBI has decided to disband its DEI office. A man was stabbed in the neck near Pioneer Square. // LongForm: GUEST: Fox News at Night Host Trace Gallagher breaks down the latest in LA fires and the political fall out. // Quick Hit: Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent got in an argument during his confirmation hearing with Bernie Sanders over Joe Biden’s claims about oligarchy in America.  

Soundside will be off the air on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. We will be back with some fresh new stories Jan. 2. For today, we’ve revisiting a mix of some of Soundside producer Alec Cowan's favorite segments from this past year, including his patrol with a pair Seattle's "real-life superheroes" and the musicians keeping jazz music alive in Seattle. We also have one new story for you, courtesy of producer Jason Megatron Burrows. 2024 was the 50th Anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. Burrows explored how the game is staying up to date after 5 decades of gameplay, and its attempt to stay relevant in 2025. Hear and read the original stories below. Stories Featured: KUOW - A night on patrol with Seattle's 'real-life superheroes' KUOW - Jazz has a storied past in Seattle. But what about its future? KUOW - Soundside looks back at the 50th Anniversary of D&D Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Pacific Northwest's rise to cultural prominence in the 1990s—through movements like grunge and Riot Grrrl—was rooted in earlier artistic and social currents that fused homegrown creativity with global influences. Larry Reid, a pivotal figure in the region's cultural renaissance, joins us to share untold stories of how the Pacific Northwest transformed from relative isolation into a vibrant hub of innovation, with an impact felt worldwide. In this first episode of a two-part series, Larry takes us back to the transformative 1970s and '80s—a time when underground art, LGBTQ+ expression, punk rock and feminist voices converged in powerful ways. He reveals overlooked connections between these cultural forces and post-war fine art movements like pop art and post-modernism, showing how they laid the groundwork for the explosive creativity of the 1990s. According to Larry, this interplay of “high” and “low” art gave the Pacific Northwest a distinct cultural edge, setting it apart from other underground scenes across the country. From founding Rosco Louie, a groundbreaking art space in Seattle's Pioneer Square, to leading the Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA), Larry's visionary leadership united artists, writers and performers who redefined the region's identity. His vivid reflections bring this era to life, revealing how the Pacific Northwest's underground culture became the foundation of a global artistic movement. “Back then, Seattle was still relatively small and isolated. Our counterculture scene probably consisted of 200-300 people. There were very few spectators. Almost everyone involved was a participant. It was an exciting time to be in Seattle for that formative period of what later had a huge influence globally on pop culture.” ~Larry Reid

This Pioneer Square music and drinking establishment opened less than a year ago, but we're giving Baba Yaga a free pass because the building it occupies has so much Seattle dive bar history. Plus, Baba Yaga is just dripping with all the dive bar vibes we love. Join the crew as we explore dive bars past, present, and future in this historic 1890's Pioneer Square landmark. To keep it real, we're joined by the Prince of Pioneer Square himself, Lloyd Gregory. Recorded live at Baba Yaga on 10/17/2024.Learn more about the Pioneer Square Summer Fest, markets, and meetups at https://pioneersquaremarket.net/ 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. And head over to our Patreon page (dim_lights_stiff_drinks) to help fund the shenanigans. 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.

6pm: Tacoma police chief placed on leave, and city won’t say why // Councilmember Tanya Woo calls for action to protect community from late-night violence // Jake was jumped by a gang outside of a Pioneer Square nightclub // Man charged in murder of 80-year-old Seattle dog walker deemed incompetent to stand trial // Is the Birthday Paradox real?

3pm: Tacoma police chief placed on leave, and city won’t say why // Councilmember Tanya Woo calls for action to protect community from late-night violence // Jake was jumped by a gang outside of a Pioneer Square nightclub // Man charged in murder of 80-year-old Seattle dog walker deemed incompetent to stand trial // Is the Birthday Paradox real?

We know a few things about the woman known as Lou Graham, for sure:  She was a brothel madam in Seattle at the turn of the century. And she's immortalized in one of the city's popular ghost tours.  Maybe you've even felt her spiritual presence while passing through tunnels underneath Pioneer Square. Beyond that, facts are sparse. But plenty of legends about Graham's life and impact on Seattle are served up to tourists and YouTube viewers who care to search her name.   From Geographics: “Technically sex work was illegal, so Graham made sure to have the ladies registered as “seamstresses” on the books. From Women Being Podcast: “Graham was an advocate for women's rights and social justice, and supported the women's rights movement, including the Seattle chapter of the NAACP. She died in 1903 a feminist icon.” It turns out, most of that is TOTAL BUNK.But the truth behind those fables – and a journalist's search to find it – may be even more illuminating.   GUEST: Hanna Brooks Olson, author of “Notoriously Bad Character: The True Story of Lou Graham and the Immigrants and Sex Workers Who Built Seattle” RELATED LINKS: https://hannabrooksolsen.com/  The Many False Histories of Lou Graham | Medium See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seattle Met described Marcus Lalario as Seattle's Kevin Bacon – you can connect him to a ton of ventures and a lot of people. Whether it's the Seattle music scene, nightlife, fashion or restaurants, Marcus Lalario has had a major impact in how we experience this city. Jon and Marcus talk about his fairly unusual start in the nighttime economy; his HOMETEAM and Darkalino's enterprise; the Pioneer Square neighborhood; how fatherhood has changed him and more. Join us for Seattle City Makers with Jon Scholes and guest Marcus Lalario.

AGREE TO DISAGREE: "COPS" coming back to Spokane // Famous cocktail bar coming to Pioneer Square // GUEST: James Lynch on the trial of Auburn officer Jeff Nelson // WE HEAR YOU! and WORDS TO LIVE BY

What do we learn when an anthropologist and a historian talk about food? Across endless eras, landscapes, and civilizations, humanity's relationship with food has played the part of one of the landmark features of culture and community. We feel this on both the micro and macro scale — from learning a recipe passed down through generations of one's own family to the excitement of exploring an unfamiliar local market in a city far from home. Culinary curiosity invites us all to the table, and through their new book, Ways of Eating, authors and storytellers Benjamin Wurgaft and Merry White are here to serve. Wurgaft and White aim to introduce readers to the interwoven worlds of global food history and food anthropology, exploring how we're not just what we eat, but where, why, and how we came to eat it in the first place. Throughout their collaborative work, Wurgaft and White embark on a world tour of anthropological accounts and vivid storytelling, paying visits to Panamanian coffee growers, Japanese knife forgers, and the medieval age of women brewing beer. Ways of Eating explores the influence of migration and politics in shaping both group identity and global culinary practices, from the Venetian spice trade to the Columbian Exchange to the parallels between ancient Roman garum and contemporary Vietnamese nớc chấm. There are as many dynamics at play across the world of food anthropology as spices in a well-stocked pantry, and Ways of Eating seeks to understand and follow them from the plate back to the kitchen, the farm, and the field. Co-authors Benjamin A. Wurgaft and Merry I. White are a son and mother duo with backgrounds in history, philosophy, anthropology, and the social study of food. Merry White is a Professor of Anthropology at Boston University, with a specialization in Japanese social and food culture. Their previous publications include White's Coffee Life in Japan and Wurgaft's Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food. This is their first book written together. Born in New England, Peter Miller is a graduate of Williams College and Harvard Graduate School of Education. He moved to Seattle in November 1970, a time when one could rent a home from a nearby phone booth with the instructions, “the key is under the mat, I will come meet you this week.” In 1975, Miller opened a bookshop in Wallingford, with its first lecture series featuring Tom Robbins and Alan Furst. In 1980, he opened an architecture bookshop in Pioneer Square, relocating it to the market in 1983. Thirty years later, he moved again to Belltown, in association with George Suyama Architects. The shop is now situated in Pioneer Square between First Avenue and the water. Additionally, Miller served as a member of the Seattle Design Commission from 1998 to 2001. Peter has authored three books: Lunch at the Shop, Five Ways to Cook Asparagus, and How to Wash the Dishes, with a fourth book set to be released in May, titled Shopkeeping.   Buy the Book Ways of Eating: Exploring Food through History and Culture Third Place Books

Pacific Northwest comedy fans will know this Legend, and others will be happy for the introduction. Almost Live! is a relic from an age when a local tv station could afford to produce its own comedy show, often besting the network offerings in terms of laughs per minute. Originating on Seattle's KING TV in the 1980s, Almost Live! originated as a talk show with comedy bits, but soon morphed into a half hour sketch show aired just before Saturday Night Live. The cast and the writing were superb, and the local flavor given to the sketches led to "water cooler" recaps throughout the next week. Eventually the show fell victim to budget cuts imposed by new out-of-state station owners, but it's a measure of Almost Live's impact that several partial reboots have been tried (with some success), there's a big YouTube library of shows and sketches, and a fun podcast tracks down the cast today. As always find extra clips in the comments, thanks for sharing our shows, and if you are driving in Ballard, keep your speed to 7 MPH. Want more Almost Live! Part of Almost Live's charm is they could get all manner of local celebrities to get in on the fun. The Lame List featured top Seattle metal musicians proclaiming their opinion on current events. https://youtu.be/hGpBnB-jYa8?si=O9jxm7xo06IR4dPF John Keister presided over Almost Live and his monologues and news parodies dipped deep in the well of Northwest Lore -- as in the case when WSU became a dry campus. https://youtu.be/NkaYaxRF2Dc?si=gLnbvxpS6DHvBhtF Almost Live managed a tone of affectionate irreverence about all things Seattle -- especially the neighborhoods. Case in point -- The Ballard Driving Academy. https://youtu.be/nyz6mkvlEgA?si=8-_BQgHu8hDVU8v8 Like any good sketch troupe, Almost Live! cast members had their niches, and Pat Cashman excelled as a master of characters -- especially those commercial pitchman. Match that talent with the fact that an exotic rug store in Seattle's Pioneer Square was always "going out of business" and you get comedy gold. https://youtu.be/erCFOteg_t4?si=W2_HrYZQIEmrLxa9

Avery Barnes is the owner of Taswira, which is a African focused boutique turned art gallery. She was a Seattle Restored participant and was able to become a long term tenant in her space located in Pioneer Square. Avery Insta: @iknowavery @taswira.africa NAST Insta: @nastpodcast Recorded at NAST Studios www.naststudios.com

The Black Panther Party's Seattle chapter is drumming up new plans, more than 40 years after it disbanded.A group devoted to preserving Black Panther history plans to open a museum in Pioneer Square early next year, bringing attention to the ways the Panthers influenced Seattle then, and still do now.Seattle Times Race and Equity Reporter Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks is here to tell us about it, with some help from Elmer Dixon, a founding member of Seattle's Black Panther chapter.Read Alexandra's full piece: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/traces-of-seattles-black-panthers-are-all-around-if-you-know-where-to-look/We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. You have the power! Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/seattlenowAnd we want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram at SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback online: https://www.kuow.org/feedback

Totem Star is a recording studio for Seattle area youth ages 14 to 25. The organization recently moved to a new 2,000 square foot space on the second floor of Seattle's King Street Station in Pioneer Square. That's where Totem Star will live rent free for the next 60 years, thanks to a lease from the city. KEXP's Emily Fox talks with Totem Star co-founder Daniel Pak about the impact of Totem star since it launched as a mobile recording studio that could fit in a suitcase 14 years ago.   (Pak shares how Totem Star was inspired after a mix tape project he did with youth who had just been released from juvenile detention. After the project wrapped up, a third of the youth had been readmitted to detention. The youth had said having access to youth recording studios might have kept them out of trouble.)Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/sound/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's Trending: the comedy club and bar Capitol Hill cancelled the gigs of four "politically incorrect" stand-up comedians after community backlash. GUEST: State senator Mark Mullet (D-Issaquah) explains how rent control was killed - and an update on unemployment for strikers.  // Seattle had an especially violent weekend, including a shooting in Pioneer Square overnight, a shooting on the light rail train at the University Street station, a stabbing in Cal Anderson park, a stabbing at the McDonald's on 3rd and Pine and a stolen SUV tried to hit several homeless people check location). // Former Seahawks player Richard Sherman is expected in court after being arrested for DUI over the weekend, and a nursing student in Georgia was murdered by an illegal immigrant with multiple previous arrests.   

Unacceptable: A homeless man who dug up a Seattle park has now built a cabin. KNOW IT ALL: 1) Richard Engel, in Kyiv, over-simplified World War II history. 2) Alexei Navalny's body was turned over to his mother. // Bryan says Gavin Newsom wants to be President but is busy playing games when it comes to his support of Biden. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was booed at a Trump event. // Ryanair cuts flights due to lack of planes delivered by Boeing. Murder in Pioneer Square gave way to a memorable 'man on the street' interview. 

Join us for a conversation with landscape and urban designer Andrew tenBrink of NYC-based Field Operations as he reveals Seattle's new downtown Waterfront Park project, which he has managed since 2010. From the cobblestones of Pioneer Square to Belltown's crowded skyline, Andrew's block-by-block tour through the 20-acre park demonstrates how this new landscape reflects community priorities. Along the way, he spotlights contributions of local partners. These include architects and artists, tribes and Urban Natives, the City of Seattle and the Office of the Waterfront and Capitol Projects, as well as cultural consultants and garden designers. Indigenous food sovereignty advocate Valerie Segrest (Muckleshoot) drops by to share thoughts on placemaking and history. Valerie explains how the interpretive horticultural exhibit she designed for the new Overlook Walk invites visitors to gaze across the Salish Sea while learning about Native cultural ecosystems. These walkways, stairs and plazas connect the Seattle Aquarium's new Ocean Pavilion at the shoreline with Pike Place Market. Andrew's inspiring stories reveal how a brilliant framework can express the civic dreams of multitudes. They demonstrate how city dwellers are most grounded when connected with nature, with themselves and with one another. Listen and learn how these new public spaces reflect the varied histories and cultures that define a great city and that will shape its future. "Outdoor space has always been at its best when people use it as a part of their daily lives: You take a stroll in the park, you unwind, you de-stress, you take your kids to the playground. These are the indelible things that exist across the world across time.” ~Andrew tenBrink

In a controversial incident in Seattle's Pioneer Square, a fire, allegedly started by a homeless individual trying to stay warm, ravaged a renowned art gallery, destroying precious artworks including a Picasso and a Rembrandt. The fire, which erupted in the back alley of the Davidson Gallery, quickly engulfed the building, jeopardizing over 18,000 artworks collected over 50 years. Gallery manager Rebecca McDonald described the loss as painful, highlighting the wide historical range of the damaged art. The incident has sparked debate over the city's policies towards homelessness, with criticisms directed at the permissiveness towards makeshift shelters and fires in public spaces. This event underscores a broader societal issue where the negligence towards homeless populations can lead to unintended yet disastrous consequences, challenging cities like Seattle to rethink their approach to homelessness and public safety. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darien-dunstan3/message

5pm - GUEST: KATE STONE - Today’s MLK marches co-opted by Pro-Palestine protesters // Experts warning against viral tiktok skin treatment that can be fatal… and, worse yet, it can turn you blue // Speaking of blue people… Everyone’s heard of the blue Fugates of Kentucky, right? // A homeless person trying to stay warm in Pioneer Square started a fire that resulted in an art gallery losing a Picasso AND a Rembrandt // Tech breakthroughs featured at CES 2024… Including a tongue-controlled mouse, and the first REAL AI robotic companion // John used to be a gameshow host at CES! // LETTERS

Mayor Frank Ivancie, Pioneer Courthouse Square's most intransigent opponent, gleefully declared the project “dead” in a 1982 speech. In doing so, he accidentally galvanized the citizen group that would prove him wrong. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405c.pioneer-courthouse-square.html)

The RailSpur project in Pioneer Square is a remarkable transformation of nearly an entire block. Urban Villages President Jon Buerge joins the podcast to explain how RailSpur is elevating the concept of mixed-use properties; how his approach to development is guided by the firm's name; his views on the future of the office; the new tenants at RailSpur and more. Join us for Seattle City Makers with Jon Scholes and guest Jon Buerge.

Dani Cone got into the coffee business more than 30 years ago, “barista-ing” her way through high school and college. Three decades and three successful businesses later, Dani's Cone & Steiner general store is doing brisk business in multiple locations, including Pioneer Square. On each leg of her journey, Dani has been guided by her grandma Molly's advice: be good and do well. In this episode of Seattle City Makers, Jon and Dani dig into the challenges of steering her business through the pandemic, her current endeavors, advice for entrepreneurs and the impact of Taylor Swift's record-breaking crowds.

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and David Kroman of the Seattle Times discuss a new police accountability report, a plan for more rooftop amenities in Pioneer Square, homeless sweeps during All-Star week, concerns for small businesses, and a major challenge for Metro Transit to handle desperately needed bus repairs. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

In this episode we learn the inspiring origin story of the Indigenous foods-focused ʔálʔal Café in Pioneer Square, from former manager Anthony Johnson who played a major role in bringing its vision and values to life.And check out Native American Food Sovereignty AllianceThanks to our sponsor of this episode:Eat Local Firsthttps://eatlocalfirst.orgFollow us on Facebook and Instagram @fieldtoforkpodcast

Pioneer Square-based defense attorney Shira J. Stefanik assists clients who may be facing criminal charges. Visit https://stefanikdefense.com for more details. Law Office of Shira J Stefanika 119 1st Ave S Suite 500, , Seattle, WA 98104, United States Website https://stefanikdefense.com/ Email prc.pressagency@gmail.com

It's been 50 years since Elliott Bay Book Company opened its doors and there are a lot of differences between June 1973 and June 2023: Amazon and Ebooks arrived, while Borders came and went, Elliot Bay moved from its original Pioneer Square to 10th Ave on Capitol Hill, and new owners took the helm. Through all the changes, the business remains a literary hub for the city.We can only make Soundside because listeners support us. Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW:https://www.kuow.org/donate/soundside

Special episode! We record right in the heart of Pioneer Square's inaugural Summer Market and Music Festival. Across the street from the festival main stage in Occidental Park is The Meyer bar, owned and operated by our good friend Avout. Not only do we chat with Avout about the history of The Meyer, Lloyd Gregory the mastermind behind the Summer Market stops by to tell us about putting together downtown Seattle's funkiest music festival. Recorded live at The Meyer on 06/10/2023.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: A one-year-old in Mill Creek died due to fentanyl exposure, Pioneer Square is seeing businesses return to office and Gov. Inslee has repealed the state vaccine mandate. // Chaos is expected at the border after Title 42 expires. // West Virginia coach Bob Huggins used a slur on a radio show.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Alaskan Way Seawall, which stretches from just north of Broad Street south to Washington Street beneath Pioneer Square, is responsible for creating the flat ledge of land on Seattle's center waterfront. The shallower portion south of Madison Street was built in the 1910s and 1920s, while the more problematic and challenging northern halkf wouldn't be finished until 1936.. In order to create stable, level ground on which to construct streets, install railroad tracks, and manage passengers and freight travelling between land and sea, a quarter million cubic yards of fill were poured behind the wall. The central waterfront was redefined by the barrier, which also made room for a north-south transit corridor that would soon supplant the central waterfront's traditional nautical operations.Listen now to learn more about this fascinating and challenging project to tame the Seattle waterfront!A special thank you goes out to Al Hirsch for providing the music for the podcast, check him out on YouTube.Find merchandise for the podcast now available at:     https://washington-history-by-jon-c.creator-spring.comIf you enjoy the podcast and would like to contribute, please visit: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/EvergreenpodIf you have any questions, episode ideas you'd like to see explored, or just have a general comment, please reach out at Historyoftheevergreenstatepod@gmail.comTo keep up on news for the podcast and other related announcements, please like and follow:https://www.facebook.com/HistoryoftheevergreenstatepodcastFind the podcast over on Instagram as well: @HISTORY_EVERGREENSTATEPODCASTYou can also find the podcast over on YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/@historyoftheevergreenstatepodThank you for listening to another episode of the History of the Evergreen State Podcast!

3pm - Rantz: Seattle councilwoman a ‘hard pass' on punishing drug crime // Oregon tells a cautionary tale about drugs, but we're not listening // Open containers in Downtown? Mayor proposes 'Sip 'n Stroll' idea for monthly Pioneer Square event // McDonald's logo has sexy hidden meaning — and fans are shocked // Writers vote to strike in move that could bring Hollywood to a halt See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What about your intuition?Have you ever come across a decision that is logically right but deep inside you know it feels so wrong? Have you ever felt like doing something just because you feel like doing it and not because you are compelled to do so? Deirdre Wilcox says neural pathways shape our experiences and can either expand or limit them. Deirdre is interested in helping people see things from a different perspective, make friends with their shadows and inner critic, and name their superpowers. By doing so, they can optimize their experiences and live in a more soul-aligned way. Deirdre believes that we all have wisdom and clarity within us that we can tap into through our intuition. We use our intuition in mundane ways, such as choosing what to wear or what feels right to us. Deirdre encourages people to start honing this sense and use it with more confidence and greater application. By doing so, we can cut through a lot of stuff and be more accepting and compassionate towards ourselves, living with fewer apologies. In this episode you'll hear: - How Intuition or Gut-feel has shaped and changed her life. - Learn to understand the Inner feeling and how to use it properly. - The benefits of following your Intuition. - The difference between the Inner Critic and the Gut-feel. - Learn how to hone this skill and use it in everyday life situations. Deirdre Wilcox is a healer, a teacher, a therapist, and an artist. She helps women in her Soul School. She teaches Yoga and Wellness. She started as a Pre-Med student but her intuition and drive to Healing Arts led her to switch to Psychology and Sociology and got her degree in it. She also became a licensed massage therapist and registered yoga teacher. She loves painting and reading books in her free time. Her paintings are exhibited in Pioneer Square, Seattle. Where to reach her: www.deirdrewilcox.com

In another blow to downtown Portland real estate, the owner of Jackson Tower, a landmark building that overlooks Pioneer Square, has defaulted on a loan from JPMorgan Chase, court filings show.Jackson Tower Partners LLC, the owner of the 12-story beaux arts office building in the 800 block of Southwest Broadway, borrowed $11.5 million from JPMorgan Chase in 2018, and missed its first loan payment on Nov. 1, 2022, according to a complaint filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court on April 5.JPMorgan Chase asked the court to appoint a receiver—a neutral third party who manages an asset during a legal dispute and is often charged with selling an asset to repay a loan. The court granted JPMorgan Chase's request for a receiver on April 11, court records show.Asked why her client defaulted on the Jackson Tower loan, California-based attorney Sherry DuPont blamed “the deterioration of downtown Portland.”Support the showSign Up For Exclusive Episodes At: https://reasonabletv.com/LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos every day. https://www.youtube.com/c/NewsForReasonablePeople

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

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by Guy Oron, Staff Reporter for Real Change! They start with a discussion of Friday's Washington Supreme Court ruling that the capital gains tax is constitutional and what that means for the state's residents. Then they discuss a tragic eviction in Seattle and a court ruling that landlords can ask about criminal records.  They chat about Howard Schultz stepping down early as the CEO of Starbucks, workers protesting before their annual shareholder meeting, and some shareholders' and white collar workers' desire for Starbucks to improve their behavior and relations with unionizing workers. They follow with the Seattle Chamber of Commerce's desire to gut JumpStart tax funds for downtown, despite the popularity of the tax and need for continued investment in other neighborhoods and small businesses.  They close with a discussion of where the Sound Transit CID station debate stands, as well as talk about the significance of Pierce County passing a local tax to fund housing services. 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, Guy Oron at @GuyOron.   Guy Oron Guy Oron is the Staff Reporter for Real Change, covering local news, labor, policing, the environment, criminal legal issues and politics. His writing has been featured in a number of publications including the South Seattle Emerald, The Nation and The Stranger. Raised in Seattle, Guy brings a community and student organizer perspective to their journalism, highlighting stories of equity and justice.   Resources Dahlia Bazzaz and What's Happening in Washington Education from Hacks & Wonks   WA Supreme Court upholds capital gains tax by David Gutman and Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times    Seattle landlords can ask about criminal records, court rules by Heidi Groover from The Seattle Times   Councilmember Invites Landlord Who's Suing City to Lead “Housing Provider” Panel from PubliCola   Seattle DSA Statement on the Death of Eucy Following the Attempt to Evict Her by King County Deputies | Seattle DSA   Will City Hall give downtown Seattle a tax break? by John O'Brien and Dyer Oxley from KUOW    Howard Schultz Will Step Down From Starbucks to Spend Less Time Getting Owned by Union Organizers by Tori Otten from The New Republic   Starbucks workers protest before annual shareholder meeting from The Associated Press   Starbucks shareholders to vote on proposals for labor probe, succession planning by Amelia Lucas from CNBC   Comptroller Lander and Coalition of Investors File Shareholder Proposal at Starbucks on the Rights of Workers to Organize | NYC Comptroller   Placement of future CID light rail station sparks heated debate, strains relations by Guy Oron from Real Change    What We Know About Sound Transit's Alternatives to a Chinatown Station by Doug Trumm and Stephen Fesler from The Urbanist   Sound Transit is Not Ready for Its Big Chinatown Station Decision from The Urbanist Editorial Board       Light Rail Board Members Seek Middle Ground as Plan to Skip Chinatown, Midtown Stations Moves Forward by Erica Barnett from PubliCola   From the Other Side of I-5: Little Saigon Weighs In On Sound Transit's Light Rail Expansion In the CID by Friends of Little Sài Gòn for PubliCola   Preserve Chinatown or Fuck Over Transit Riders Forever? by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   Pierce County just passed a new tax and funded a homeless village. That's a big deal by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   Pierce County Council votes on sales tax to address housing crisis. Here's the decision by Becca Most from The News Tribune   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday midweek show, Seattle Times reporter Dahlia Bazzaz returned with a rundown of education issues across Washington state, including why budgets are a mess, how the Washington State Legislature is and isn't addressing it, the Wahkiakum Schools lawsuit addressing capital construction costs, and shifts in enrollment patterns in Washington schools. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program for the first time, today's co-host: Staff Reporter for Real Change covering local news, labor, policing, the environment, criminal legal issues and politics, Guy Oron. Hey! [00:01:30] Guy Oron: Hi, thank you - I'm so glad to be here. [00:01:32] Crystal Fincher: I'm so excited to have you here - have been appreciating your coverage of all of those issues for a while now, so excited to be able to talk about the news this week. And we just got a big piece of breaking news this morning - finding out that the capital gains tax has been found, by our Washington State Supreme Court, to be constitutional. What did they say? [00:01:59] Guy Oron: Yeah, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the capital gains tax is not a property tax and that it is legal, which is a huge win for the Washington Democrats and the governor, who signed the bill into law in 2021. [00:02:15] Crystal Fincher: Yes, absolutely. There was question about - okay, we have - our State Constitution prevents an income tax from being enacted, any graduated income tax is not considered constitutional at this time. This didn't address that issue - basically it accepted that the capital gains tax is an excise tax, so the Court didn't visit, revisit all the rulings that classify income as property and that being a way to clear the way for a graduated income tax. We will address that a different day at some point, I'm sure, but for now, the capital gains tax is found to be constitutional. And this is really big for a lot of funding going for schools, for daycare, for a lot of family support. And this is a tax that is going to only impact - what is it - the top 0.2% of Washingtonians, I think that was, while easing some of the burden or allowing people who are lower income, middle income to really get more bang for their buck in the types of services that are going to be provided here. [00:03:24] Guy Oron: Yeah, it's really a game changer because the state has operated for so many years on this austerity mindset where they have to decide between schools and other public services. And so this will give some breathing room for families, the vast majority of families in the state. [00:03:44] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. So looking forward to see this implementation continue - yeah, and so with only two-tenths of 1% of Washington taxpayers seeing enough profits on capital gains to pay this tax - which is a 7% tax on stock sales, extraordinary profits exceeding $250,000 annually - exempting real estate, retirement accounts like IRAs, family-owned small businesses and farms, among other things. It is just something that lots of people have been waiting to find out if this is going to go through, and that will enable about $500 million extra a year to be raised, just from this tax on two-tenths of a percent of Washington state residents. Also this week, we got news that a landlord court case - another one decided - that it is not legal for the legislation that Seattle passed - to try and help ease people back into the community, help people with access to housing who have been convicted or previously incarcerated - preventing landlords from being able to ask on an application if someone has been convicted of a crime before. That was ruled unconstitutional - landlords can do that, continue to do that. How do you think this is going to play out? [00:05:10] Guy Oron: Yeah, I was very surprised by the Ninth Circuit's reasoning - because on the one hand, they acknowledged the importance of remedying discrimination against people who have been incarcerated. But on the other hand, they ruled that it was too broad - banning landlords from finding out someone's criminal history. And so it does seem like there's still room for the City to challenge the ruling and try to still mitigate that, but it is a blow for renters and people who are fighting against the criminal legal system and trying to get folks reintegrated into society after experiencing the harms of mass incarceration. [00:05:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And that's so major, because so many people have had some kind of conviction or even just an arrest. Yes, especially with so many people who have convictions - because we have been in this era of mass incarceration, a significant percentage of our community has been arrested, has been convicted of some crime at some point in time. And we talk about the housing crisis, homelessness crisis - people not being able to afford homes - but also being able to qualify for an apartment, to be able to rent a place is challenging. And if we're serious about wanting to create a safer community, wanting to create a community where more people can have their needs met, where fewer people are victimized or harmed - certainly helping to make sure that people have access to housing is one of the most basic and fundamental things we can do. So there still - once again, is a significant percentage of people in Seattle, but obviously most other cities have not passed this legislation - and so lots of people across the state still facing challenges being able to access housing overall. So we'll see what the response to this is, but definitely a challenge. Also in the news this week is a really unfortunate - really, really tragic - story this week of a really fatal eviction where a young woman ended up taking her own life, where a deputy was shot, and just a tragedy that unfolded because of an eviction - an attempt to serve an eviction notice and forcefully evict this - which really seemed to throw this person into crisis. And the community overall has really largely reacted to this and I've actually been, through this tragedy, heartened to see the reporting from a variety of news outlets really talking about the root causes of this issue - in failing to take action to keep people in their homes, to prevent eviction - resulted in so many people getting harmed, and so many people being less safe, so many people being scarred after this, and a life being lost. How do you see this? [00:08:24] Guy Oron: Yeah, it's just such a tragic incident. I know Eucy was a member of the Seattle DSA community and of mutual aid and other community organizations in Seattle and so I just - my heart goes out to her and everyone who was touched by her presence in the community. I think this case really is the tip of the iceberg, and really shows the structural violence of evictions and our current housing crisis. And so many people have - it's so violent that people have to move every six months, every year or two, every time they get a rent increase. And you just think about children and having to switch schools every year. You have to think about the mental health impacts and stress that it takes to not only find a deposit and pay all the short-term rental fees on top of rent, but also just how difficult it is to exist in society when rents are so high. And so this case really shows how difficult and how much violence our current housing system inflicts on people. [00:09:42] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and we can do better. We have to do better, we need to do better. And that's the thing that gets me with so much of this. Some of the discourse I see or talk - What are you talking about? Why are you even, basically, caring about the humanity of this person? A law enforcement officer was shot, and we should note that we do not know by whom at this point in time. We do know that Eucy died by suicide. And just a really unfortunate situation. And if we get away from blame, if we get away from this kind of toxic discourse that talks about - if people deserve help, deserve a second chance, deserve grace, deserve housing, deserve basic needs met - when we don't focus on that and we allow things to get this far down the road, it is very expensive. As a community - beyond the life lost - this is destabilizing for a ton of people. This has endangered law enforcement lives - this is not good for them either - this is putting them in danger and in harm's way. It's hard to see who wins. Certainly a landlord now has a clear house, but at what cost? The cost is so high, it doesn't have to be that high. We can do better than this. And I think this underscores the real toll that is taken - we hear statistics a lot of times - and the eviction moratorium saved this many people from being evicted. But when you look at the cost of one person, the impact of one person - it really underscores how urgent it is to act to keep people in their homes, to get their basic needs met, and to find a different way that takes into consideration the health and safety of the community in a much better way than we do now. Also this week, we learned that the Chamber is interested in looting the JumpStart Tax and lowering the B&O Tax in an attempt to jumpstart and revitalize downtown. What's your take on this? [00:11:57] Guy Oron: I think it is very much out of step with much of the community right now that are suffering. We know that during the COVID-19 pandemic, small businesses, workers, even people who work in white collar jobs - right now with all the layoffs going on - are suffering. For example, with the interest rates, it's really hitting - we've seen with SVB's bank shutting down, it's really hitting the tech sector hard. And so most of the economy and most people are suffering. The one group that hasn't been suffering very much are people who own land, and property, and businesses. And to see the Chamber of Commerce, which represents organizations like Starbucks, like Amazon - all these companies which have reported record earnings in the last year - all of them now targeting this small tax, which is a couple million dollars for some of these businesses. In total, I think less than $300 million a year is raised through the JumpStart Tax, if I'm not mistaken. And so it seems like they're trying to take advantage of the economic downturn to redistribute more wealth from workers to the rich. And I think for folks who want to advocate for the whole community and not just a small segment, they should really be skeptical of the claims the Chamber's making. [00:13:24] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this is part of the ongoing conversation of revitalizing the downtown core. Lots of concern is being heard from people who want to "get back to normal" - whatever that is - from pre-pandemic times, where people were going into the office five days a week. Because of the way that our downtown, many downtowns are designed - people commute in to the downtown core and they commute out of the downtown core. And so much of the businesses, services, structure of downtown, economic structure of downtown is based on just that - servicing commuters, so restaurants and services. But really it's a different downtown after 6-7 PM with so many people clearing out. Through the pandemic, certainly people reduced going to the office. Now patterns have changed where we're seeing less than half, about half of what pre-pandemic foot traffic from people who work downtown was - which is impacting many businesses, which is concerning a lot of people. I think the question really is - should we keep chasing the structure and economy of yesterday that just doesn't look like it is relevant or valid moving forward into the future? If we want to consider downtown just for commuters and focus on the revitalization efforts, return-to-work efforts, and everything going there - we miss the opportunity to make a downtown for today and tomorrow. To make a downtown that's a cultural destination, that's a community destination, and not just a business and commuting destination. I put that just there - businesses are absolutely vital - we need jobs, we need people hiring and thriving, and we certainly need a healthy economy. But again, at what cost? The reason why we have the JumpStart Tax is because most people recognize that businesses, especially the larger businesses, were not paying what most people considered to be their fair share. And this imposes a fee on every employee making over $150,000 for businesses of a certain size. So really it's about mitigating the impacts that their employees have, that their business has instead of solely reaping the benefits of all of the resources - human and otherwise, that this community provides - that they are able to use to drive up the record profits that you referenced. So it's a really interesting conversation. And the other interesting dimension is - certainly, downtown is an important, vital neighborhood. So are lots of other Seattle neighborhoods. And we're now in a situation - once again, in a situation where downtown is really asking for resources from other neighborhoods. And are other neighborhoods are gonna settle for that? Are residents of other areas gonna say - We have to address housing in our neighborhood. We have to address crime in our neighborhood. We need to make our streets safer, healthier. There's so much on the docket to do. Do we need to be taking money out and deprioritizing our needs to move more money over, redirect money to downtown and those purposes - which goes against the JumpStart Tax, which is very popular with Seattle residents and really bailed the City out of a really harmful budget shortfall. So it's gonna be interesting to see how this shapes up - seems like every election is, at the end of the day for the Seattle Chamber and many large corporations, a referendum on taxes for them and an attempt to reduce taxation for them. So we'll see how this all unfolds, but certainly interesting to follow. And once again, we're seeing what's behind a lot of the rhetoric and candidates that we're hearing from out there - and really another bullseye on the JumpStart Tax. In related big corporate news, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is stepping down. What did we hear with this news? [00:17:49] Guy Oron: Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise just because he was slated to step down at the start of April, and he ended up stepping down two weeks early. This comes as he's been engulfed in a lot of controversy over retaliation against union organizers. At the same time, Starbucks has been making record profits alongside other corporations. And this kind of motivated the union to hold a big rally on Wednesday, and there were hundreds of union members and supporters who showed up in SoDo. At the same time, over a hundred stores across the country went on strike as well. And I think this is a turning point. I think we might see some change. It also happened, this also happened at the same time as a shareholder meeting, where there were multiple resolutions sponsored by different shareholders who are concerned about the impact that union busting might have on the reputation of the company. And so it'll be interesting to see if the pressure from workers from the bottom and pressure from some stakeholders and shareholders will together combine to make some change. And maybe we'll see a shift from Starbucks corporate to be a little more amenable to the union. [00:19:16] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's gonna be interesting. Like you said, they have their annual shareholders meeting. Starbucks is important - it's a big corporation - but it's a big corporation that seems as dedicated as any corporation to union busting in every single way that they possibly can. Howard Schultz was certainly the union buster-in-chief and union busted in ways that were not just distasteful and unethical, but also illegal. The National Labor Relations Board found many instances of illegal union busting activity. And so they seem to be on the tip of the spear of being willing to do whatever they feel it takes to battle unions, whether it's shutting down stores and trying to do the redirection by blaming crime - but the stores that they're shutting down seem to just predominantly be stores that are attempting to unionize, or just don't fit within their profit plans. But also just the amount of hostility towards workers - firing people who are organizing, wielding benefits as a weapon - there was coverage before of potentially even using gender affirming care, women's reproductive care as a wedge issue in attempts to unionize. It is just really unfortunate. And so there were some votes on whether to reassess their labor stance in the shareholder meeting. I don't know how much is gonna come from that - those are certainly non-binding. There is some shareholder sentiment to, at least in terms of rhetoric and outward appearance - from at least a marketing perspective - to not be so hostile to workers, as more and more people across the country definitely understand the plight that their workers are going through more than the plight of the CEO and the highly-paid executives fighting against people just being able to afford the basic necessities of life. So we'll see how Starbucks' new CEO, how their shareholders try and push the corporation - but they've got a long way to go. And certainly even if they were to change some rhetoric, lots of people would need to see changes in behavior - immediate good-faith negotiation with many stores that have opted to unionize that now need to negotiate their contracts and seeing them. But it seems also - as we talked about, I think last week or week before - white collar workers in Starbucks headquarters have also voiced concerns and are calling on Starbucks to do better for their workers. So we'll see how this continues to unfold, and how the new CEO stakes their claim and what path they set. Other really big news this week, in the Puget Sound area, is the Sound Transit CID conversation - CID station conversation about where to site stations and spines for the upcoming lines planned for Sound Transit. What is being talked about and what is this about? [00:22:41] Guy Oron: Yeah, this has been a huge issue across Seattle, the Seattle area, for the past couple of weeks. Sound Transit in 2016 passed a ballot measure called ST3, which authorized funding for a new line that would service both Ballard and West Seattle. And now is the process where the agency needs to find locations for a second tunnel and where those stations are gonna be located at. And so over the past couple of years, the Chinatown International District community has really pushed back against some of these plans. Initially the agency really disregarded completely the community perspective and just started drawing on a map. And they drew proposals for Fifth Avenue, which is right next to Uwajimaya and the gate kind of near Chinatown, and that really angered community. And after basically unanimous pushback, they shelved that proposal. And so now they have one proposal for a Fourth Avenue shallower, which would build a station in between Union and King Street Station. And more recently, a couple of months ago, local leaders - Constantine, Dow Constantine and Bruce Harrell - came up with a second proposal to put two stations right outside of the neighborhood, one in Pioneer Square and the other one kind of in the north end of SoDo. And so this proposal was seen as more a way to mitigate some of the direct impacts of construction on the neighborhood, but it's also caused a lot of controversy because it would make transferring from some lines more difficult. Someone who's coming from Ballard and wants to go take the Amtrak, for example - with the north-south proposal, they would have to get off in Pioneer Square and wait another 10 minutes. And similarly, someone coming from the south end, from Rainier Valley, they would also have to either - to get to the Amtrak, they might have to walk another 5-10 minutes. And certain areas of the CID will be farther than with the Fourth Avenue proposal. And so there's a lot of trade-offs in terms of prioritizing transit accessibility, especially if we think about the climate impacts of mitigating car use. And so those are some of the concerns that transit advocates have brought up. And also, some of the progressive organizations in the CID have really pointed to some of the issues with Fourth Avenue, including potentially 9+ years of construction closing down Fourth Avenue and where will all those cars that kind of use it as a mini-highway - where will they go? And they're very concerned that a lot of them will cut through the neighborhood and increase smog and congestion, and make it harder for people who are actually going to the CID to go there and really make the neighborhood much less livable. And so some of these concerns are really important to consider, especially given the history of the City screwing over the neighborhood time and time again - whether it's building I-5 through the neighborhood, the King Dome, and other kind of mega-construction projects that have really devastated communities there. [00:26:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, Sound Transit tunnel, deep-bore tunnel - several projects have caused a lot of harm and strain to the CID. And I think what a lot of people are saying, 'cause some people are just - Construction is construction. Everybody deals with it. You gotta, it's gonna inconvenience some people. But the issue is - man, the CID seems to be expected to absorb the inconvenience much more frequently, similarly to the way we see disinvestment in South Seattle. Some areas of the City - which have predominantly BIPOC, predominantly low income, much higher percentage of disabled residents who are there - and experiencing the harm from these impacts from construction. And they're saying - We're tired of being the people who have to absorb the brunt and the majority of the impact, or we're always on the chopping block when it comes to what we need. And over and over again, we see it happen where we're experiencing challenges that other areas of the City are not expected to deal with to the same degree. And they're sick of it, frankly. And a lot of people are saying - Okay, is there a path forward where we can mitigate some of these impacts while still looking at and studying these other stations? So there was a meeting yesterday where they agreed to move forward on what you were talking about - studying, building out these new options and what the impacts and the ramifications and the actual projected cost is. How do you see the conversation about mitigating the impacts of this station happening? What kinds of things are they talking about? [00:28:03] Guy Oron: Yeah, a big thing is transit, the traffic congestion, and how you would mitigate traffic congestion into the neighborhood, regardless of which proposal Sound Transit takes up. And I think that is something where the agency will have to be a little more robust than just promise. They will have to compensate the neighborhood in various ways, as well as also compensating the First Hill neighborhood, of course - because that neighborhood hasn't really been serviced by either of the proposals, especially areas like Harborview. I think the agency should look into maybe funding more frequent bus service to that neighborhood as well. Another issue is, of course, equitable transit-oriented development. And I think the agency has an opportunity to use some of its eminent domain powers to maybe help construct more affordable housing - because that's a huge concern that wherever you build a new light rail station, developers will buy up the land - and then the prices will go up - and build market-rate apartments and price out a lot of the existing residents. So those are some of the concerns that Sound Transit and local leaders will have to look to address. [00:29:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I guess I gave my two cents before - which isn't really two cents - on the planned station alignments. I do think the community most impacted, most at risk for displacement and harm should be centered in this conversation. There certainly are people on all sides. There's a broad, diverse array of opinions, but we should hear all of those opinions from that community. We're hearing varied concerns from the community. I think my reflection is based on seeing a lot of people discussing this, a lot of people who are not from the community or tied to the community. And looking at transfer times, which is important - rider experience is absolutely important - but as they do that, to continue to focus and highlight and uplift and listen to the concerns of the residents there. So often when we're in these battles - in a lot of people's minds, it's just refute the argument, get them to vote, and move forward. Downplay the argument - No, that's ridiculous. We should move forward with that. That's a bad idea. And what we're hearing from the community is regardless of which option there is, no matter what option we choose, there are challenges that need to be addressed meaningfully. And I would say to those activists - no matter what option you're supporting - mitigation for the CID, mitigation for First Hill needs to be a part of that. And in so many of these proposals, when we wind up in this situation right here - where community is voicing concerns and people outside of the community are making decisions - so often there's rhetoric - We hear you, we'll totally take care of you. But the things they're asking for are not written into legislation. They're just winks and nods and promises and - Don't worry, we'll take care of it. And then when it's time to take care of it - invariably for a variety of reasons - it doesn't get taken care of, the ball gets dropped, promises get broken, things that they were told were possible are no longer possible. And they end up even more jaded than when they began because they voiced their concerns, they were told that they were heard, they were assured that they would be taken care of, and then they were left out to dry. And so I hope advocates for this really focus on listening to the community, amplifying their concerns, and bringing those concerns to electeds and demanding that mitigations be codified as strictly as everything else. And to not just rely on promises and hopes, and we should be able to do that, and if we get funding. If we are concerned about equity in moving forward, then we need to make sure that we're all moving forward together - and that means standing up for voices that are traditionally talked over, minimalized, overlooked, and making sure that they are actually taken care of. Not saying that everyone's gonna walk away from this happy at the end of the day, but we can ensure that fewer people walk away from this harmed at the end of the day. I think that's everybody's responsibility, and they should really reflect on if they are doing that, they should reflect on if they are talking over people, they should reflect on how to amplify voices, and move forward with that in mind. [00:32:48] Guy Oron: And something I really wish was that this conversation didn't get so polarized, and that communities would listen to each other a little more - be more cognizant of the privilege they are coming into these conversations with. And really direct their fire not at each other, but upwards towards the agencies, towards politicians. There's no shortage of places that Sound Transit needs to be held accountable for, and I think it is unfortunate to see some of that energy be directed between different progressive people who want to do right by their communities. And so I would encourage, like you said, hopefully more cognizant, thoughtful advocacy in the future. [00:33:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. The last thing we'll cover today is Pierce County passing a local tax to fund housing services. What will this do? The final thing we'll talk about today is the Pierce County Council passing a local tax - one-tenth of 1% sales tax increase - to fund affordable housing, as well as approving a pair of ordinances that set the stage for construction of a micro-housing village for people experiencing chronic homelessness, which is a big deal. It's really a big deal because, as I look at this - and I'm old, so I remember things from a long time ago, a lot of people may not - but this Pierce County Council, Pierce County being purple, the Pierce County Council being split - and being able to pass a tax with a majority is something that would not have happened 10, 15, 20 years ago. This is a council that had a strong Republican majority, and the recently retired Derek Young stepped down - he was term limited out actually from the Pierce County Council - was part of really starting to turn the Pierce County Council and Pierce County policy from red to purple and even blue in many circumstances. This passed with a veto-proof majority. A number of people that Derek Young helped to recruit were there, so now that he is no longer on the council, this is the last piece of legislation passed with him as a prime sponsor. It started while he was still on there, and it is continuing now. But I do think this is a testament to how important local organizing is, how important it is for our elected leaders to continue to build leaders in their community, to help give people opportunities for leadership, and to help shepherd people into positions that can make an impact like this in the community. This is not the first action that Pierce County has taken to address major structural issues - certainly within public health and public health centers, housing, the environment - many different issues that they have taken action on. And now with housing, seemingly still being ahead of our State Legislature and several other cities here. But I just think it is something that will absolutely do good and that is possible, was made possible by some real serious continued organizing and investment and leadership from people and leaders within that community. So excited to see that, excited to see another major city in the state take a significant step to try and address this housing affordability and homelessness crisis that we have, with significant investments and delivering on what voters basically have given people a mandate to do. Voters are expecting action to address this housing affordability crisis and homelessness crisis. And can talk about minor changes in policies and this and that, but until we actually make solid investments, have dedicated revenue streams to fund continual improvements, we're not gonna make the progress that we need to. And so kudos to the council Democrats on the Pierce County Council for passing this, despite some opposition from Republicans there - but definitely delivering for what the voters have asked for in Pierce County. [00:37:00] Guy Oron: Yeah, this new tax really shows that leaders across the state are starting to take this - the housing and homelessness issue - seriously, and really understand how dire the situation is. So it's great to see other counties, like Pierce County, start to take action and so I commend them. [00:37:20] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on today, Friday, March 24th, 2023. I can't believe it's so late in March, but I can believe my brackets are on fire - okay, I just had to throw that in. It's March Madness, my brackets are amazing at the moment - we'll see if that still holds by next week. But thank you for listening. This show is produced by Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is Staff Reporter for Real Change covering local news, labor, policing, the environment, criminal legal issues and politics, Guy Oron. You can find Guy on Twitter @GuyOron, G-U-Y-O-R-O-N. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, it's 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 the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. And if you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Sound Transit made a big decision about the future of light rail in Seattle this week, which Erica covered in Publicola.  "After five hours of public testimony and a lengthy, often contentious debate, the Sound Transit board voted Thursday to adopt as its “preferred option” for the light rail extension through downtown Seattle a last-minute, back-of-the-napkin alternative that eliminates two long-planned stations serving the Chinatown-International District (CID) and First Hill neighborhoods in favor of new stations at Pioneer Square and just north of the current Stadium Station. " Sandeep and Erica discuss and debate the board's decision.  This episode was brought to you by:You Know Me Now podcast DonateSupport — You Know Me NowMagic Consulting206-999-4071reachgabemagic@gmail.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/gabe-meyer/If you want to advertise, please contact us realseattlenice@gmail.com@realseattlenice on TwitterIf you want to help support the show, please donate!  Our Patreon link is here.Support the show

The proposals for Sound Transit's promised light rail expansion are coming in fast ahead of today's board vote.Late yesterday, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell offered a substitute motion that would include stations North and South of the Chinatown International District that would serve the CID and Pioneer Square.Disruption is imminent with any expansion.But for the people who live in the C-ID it's more complicated.  Northwest Asian Weekly reporter, Mahlon Meyer is here to shed some light.We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/seattlenowAnd we want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram at SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback online: https://www.kuow.org/feedback

Meet Sara Upshaw, owner and team lead at OHSUN Banchan in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood.    Her Korean deli & cafe has been getting quite the buzz, and all well deserved!   While Sara is known in the food industry for her Korean flavors ( see her blog Kimchi Halfie and her authored cookbook,"Korean Barbecue at Home"), she has recently overcome hurdle after hurdle from opening a restaurant in a city struggling to recover post pandemic style. Hear Sara share about how,  despite the delays and hurdles, she's managed to express her passion for people and food through the art of Korean banchan.    She brings forward so many incredible flavors and recipes, thanks to the inspiration of her culture and dear Halmoni (grandmother, Oh Sun Pak, whom the deli is named after).   Not only that, her food is 100% gluten free-a rarity gem find for any Korean food or plant based, gluten-free eater!  Score!Listen to her speak to her corporate turned restauranteur dream come true-and the community that came around her, fueling her to serve the same to them for as long as she can.Thanks to OHSUN for hosting Social Creative Workshops at one of our Culture Club dinners.  A stellar private event for hungry diners from over 14 neighborhoods all looking to celebrate Asian culture and food from a woman owned, local restaurant with tasty Banchan !  Go, visit and enjoy OHSUN!  Tell her Amy sent you :)OHSUN Banchan Deli & Cafe: www.ohsunbanchan.comInstagram: @ohsunbanchanKimchi Halfie: @kimchihalfieSocial Creative Workshops | Social Creative Conversations PodcastAmy Vallejo | founder, co-collaboratorwearesocialcreativeworkshops@gmail.comwww.wearesocialcreative.com@socialcreativeworkshops

On today's show a listener went down to Pioneer Square during rush hour and sang a Metallica Christmas carol for tickets to the show. We also heard some worthless knowledge about the Atlanta airport and Drew has a sketchy prowler in his neighborhood.

Last week, a new clinic opened its doors in Pioneer Square. The Seattle Indian Health Board's newest center is located on the bottom floor of the new ?ál?al building, which means home in Lushootseed – at the Chief Seattle Club. And with it's creation, people will now be able to receive wraparound services at the club that are all managed and run by Indigenous people.

This episode of the Klyph Notes Live took place in the Welcome Dome in Pioneer Square in Portland Oregon. With support from my guy DJ Ambush and a part of The Numberz Black Podcast Fest, part 2 of this two part episode features Portland based artist Rasheed Jamal, a man no stranger to the listeners. One of the most thoughtful guests in the history of Klyph Notes, he shares personal stories of his journey and how challenges lead to growth and where he is in his current creative process. This episode is insightful, entertaining and therapeutic. Listen to episode 141 of Klyph Notes. Photo by: Jason Quigley Subscribe, like, share rate and review on your favorite podcast platform

This episode of the Klyph Notes Live took place in the Welcome Dome in Pioneer Square in Portland Oregon. With support from my guy DJ Ambush and a part of The Numberz Black Podcast Fest, part 1 of this two part episode features Portland based drummer, producer and event curator Tyrone Hendrix. We talk about his number of artists he's played with both locally and internationally, the events he's doing in the city and great story about his family connect. Such a great conversation getting to know more about a great musician and human being. Listen to this live interview, episode #140 of the Klyph Notes podcast.  Subscribe, like, share rate and review on your favorite podcast platform Instagram @tyronehendrix Klyph Notes is supported by Akepele Apparel  The Numberz FM and XRAY FM The theme for Klyph Notes was produced by Theory Hazit Support the movement and become a DJ Klyph patron

Originally from the Minneapolis area, Scott Ward studied commercial design and illustration at the University of Minnesota. Scott has worked as an artist and designer in advertising, clothing design, graphic design, theater design, landscape design, interior design, illustration and murals, and has shown his paintings in many galleries around the country. After his introduction to The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, Scott found himself facilitating creativity groups and eventually becoming a community leader with a focus on community development and engagement. He presently serves as the Executive Director of the Fairhaven Association in Bellingham, WA. Scott still finds time to create art. Timestamp 2:22 Growing up as an artistic kid 3:03 Discovering The Artist's Way 4:26 Being a full time artist-entrepreneur 5:52 Getting into the world of community engagement 7:12 Fairhaven's initial organizational challenges and dealing with them 9:12 The importance of giving credit whenever it is due 12:15 Managing time as an active artist plus community leader 13:55 Drawing up the blueprint for Fairhaven's future 14:23 Working on the Space Needle mural project 18:27 Analyzing elements of Scott's artwork 20:04 Daily routines and rituals to power through the day 23:48 When rejection from priesthood brought clarity to life's purpose 25:30 Leaving a legacy and making a difference 27:15 Dealing with challenging decision making processes 29:16 Painting the big picture: keeping the whole community in frame 30:14 Thoughts about the future 32:56 Change is inevitable - taking small steps as a budding artist Social Media Website: scottwardart.com Instagram: instagram.com/scottwardart/ Facebook: facebook.com/scott.ward.18062 Enjoy Fairhaven: enjoyfairhaven.com Follow Patti Dobrowolski - Instagram https://www.instagram.com/upyourcreativegenius/ Follow Patti Dobrowolski - Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/patti-dobrowolski-532368/ Up Your Creative Genius - https://www.upyourcreativegenius.com/ Transcript Patti Dobrowolski 00:03 Hello, Superstars! Welcome to the Up Your Creative Genius Podcast, where you will gain insight and tips to stomp on the accelerator and blast off to transform your business and your life. I'm your host, Patti Dobrowolski. And if this is your first time tuning in, then strap in - because this is serious rocket fuel. Each week, I interview fellow creative geniuses to help you learn how easy it is to Up Your Creative Genius in any part of your life. Patti Dobrowolski 00:39 Hey, everybody, it's Patti Dobrowolski with Up Your Creative Genius. Oh my gosh, okay, I just want to say: my most favorite person in the world today is on the podcast - Scott Ward. And Scott Ward, if you don't know him, he's an amazing visual artist, who became an accidental Executive Director for the Fair Haven Business Association. It's not really the business association, but the Fair Haven, you know, Association for where he lives. But he is amazing. He's been an actor, he's created clothing. He's done everything possible - interior design, like if you look out in the world, at things, you'll see Scott Ward imprinted on most of them. And he has a beautiful collection of artwork that has really just kept its its beauty over time - I was gonna say it's just so iconic, the stuff that you draw, I have a number of them in my home, I will say - and one of them he gave to us for our wedding, which is just so incredible. So, I thank you, Scott, for being here. Hey, by the way, I didn't mention this, but he also is a musician and singer. Really incredible. Okay. Welcome to the show, Scott. Scott Ward 01:51 Hi, Patti. It's nice to see you. Patti Dobrowolski 01:53 Nice to see you too. And so we haven't seen each other in a long time. Because of COVID - It's kind of a drag. I know but just in another month, I'm going to be standing - hopefully, cross your fingers, you know - side by side with you, that will be so incredible. So, Scott, tell people about you. How did you become an artist? And then how did you end up working as the executive director in Fair Haven? So, get us in the trajectory of how you, from the beginning of time, bring us to the present moment? Scott Ward 02:22 Yeah, it's not the life I ever imagined. You know, I grew up as the artistic kid. That's what I was recognized as, everybody saw me as the artistic kid. And fortunately, I had a couple of really fantastic teachers in Junior High, in high school who globbed on to me and said, "We're going to nurture you as much as we can", and then, you know, after high school kind of pushed me on my way. And then, you know, I went to school and studied fine art, and realized I could never make it as a fine artist; I have to, you know, get jobs that pay me. And so I was doing all that design work that you mentioned: I was doing interior design, and clothing design and graphic design and, um... Patti Dobrowolski 03:00 You had a whole line of cards at one point. Yeah. Scott Ward 03:03 Yeah. I worked for a card company and was just drawing - making little goofy cards. And then in 1994, actually, Patti, you sent me "The Artist's Way" - the book by Julia Cameron. And it had just come out, and at the same time, another friend of mine in Seattle found the book and recommended it, and I thought: I should maybe pay attention to this. And so, you know, over the next few years, I not only studied that book and went through it, but started leading and facilitating groups to get other people to go through that book. And it's a fantastic process. You know, it's set up to be this and discover your creativity, really, it's a whole life purpose kind of process. And so in that I realized, wait a second, I'm being a little hypocritical in that I'm urging all these other people to be artists in the world, and I'm just avoiding it by being a designer, which was not a bad thing - it just wasn't completely who I was supposed to be. And so, you know, I jumped into being a full time artist, like right away. And within six months, I had my first show at this little restaurant in Seattle and sold a few pieces there. And then six months later, I had my very first one person show in this gallery in Pioneer Square in Seattle, where all the- Patti Dobrowolski 04:15 Really, really big deal. Scott Ward 04:17 Really big deal. And you know, the amazing thing that happened there was I sold every single piece in that show. Patti Dobrowolski 04:24 Oh my god. Scott Ward 04:26 Yeah. And so you know, it had to have started as an idea like a full time artist, and then a year later have a sellout show - it was a real fast trajectory. And it was a little overwhelming. I mean, it was stressful because I thought: how am I supposed to live up to that, right? It was like yeah, oh my god, this success is kind of unbelievable. What am I supposed to do with it? And so, I had a little bit of a dip or I thought, you know - can I really do this? But now it's saying that in the next 15 years I was a full time artist and you know, traveled around the country and did shows in a lot of different places and became the representative artist for several different nonprofit organizations and really was having this really fantastic artist's life where I was meeting fascinating, interesting people and going places that I never imagined being and doing a lot of commissioned work. So, creating artwork that never would have crossed my mind. And at the same time, I got to work with you, and this process of your unfolding and the graphic recording and change management stuff, and so learned a lot in that. So, fast forward to being a full time artist: we were living in Seattle, and moved into the Magnolia neighborhood, which is a nice affluent neighborhood that has a little village and my partner, husband owns a little shop there. And I thought, well, you know, I should probably connect with the business community, 'cause sometimes being an artist can be a solitary experience, right? Patti Dobrowolski 05:52 Yes, definitely. Scott Ward 05:52 It's a lot of time at the easel. And if you're at all extroverted, that can become a really challenging life. And so I thought I needed to connect with the community and got engaged with the Chamber of Commerce there. And the Chamber of Commerce, there was kind of a mess. And not kind of a mess, it was really- Patti Dobrowolski 06:12 It was really a mess. Scott Ward 06:13 It was really a mess. And I thought, I think I know a few things that might be able to help them move forward. And so I stepped in and you know, within just a short amount of time became president of that Chamber of Commerce. And I have to say, that really is a lot of the work that I was able to do with you allows me to say to these folks, you know, let's get some clarity in what we're doing here, right? You have a vision, but you're not really living into it. And so let's really revisit that and start to line up with who we're supposed to be in the world. And so I made some changes there, which meant basically a whole turnover in their board. And- Patti Dobrowolski 06:54 Oh, yeah, it was tricky. It was a tricky time. Scott Ward 06:58 It was a tricky time, but I- You know, usually I'm so diplomatic and level-headed, and there were a couple of times where I lost it with them. I'm like: You are like 14 year old kids! I was yelling at them- Patti Dobrowolski 07:12 Oh my gosh. Scott Ward 07:12 You know, it was kind of what needed to happen because they were just stuck in a rut. And so anyway, now we live in Bellingham. And because I had that experience in Seattle, when we came to Bellingham, the little village that we live in is a neighborhood within Bellingham- Patti Dobrowolski 07:29 -called Fairhaven. Scott Ward 07:30 Yeah, Fairhaven. And it's a historic district. It's really sweet. And it's had this community / business association in existence since the mid 70s. So it's been around for a long time. And it was a completely volunteer organization. Patti Dobrowolski 07:45 Yeah. Scott Ward 07:45 And, you know, saying that those volunteers were able to do some really fantastic things over the years, like they really preserved the historic character, they created some wonderful events and some programs. However, there was a lot of dysfunction in what was happening, because the volunteers, they turned to their friends and they'd say: Hey, I want to put a statue in the village green. And their friends would say: Hey, yeah, let's do it. And then they would do it. And then they'd go to the board and say, Hey, we need $45,000- Patti Dobrowolski 08:14 To put that statue up. Scott Ward 08:16 Yeah. And the board would say, okay, great. And they'd kind of rubber stamp it, but there was no accountability, or no- Patti Dobrowolski 08:21 No plan, right. Scott Ward 08:22 No plan and no alignment with everything else that was happening. So every time somebody got a little wind to do something, they would do it. And that caused a lot of rifts in the relationships of the folks that were doing things. You know, it's like this recycled volunteer group that just went through, people would get upset, they get their feelings hurt, you know? And- Patti Dobrowolski 08:44 Yeah, like every volunteer organization, you know, you're like a piece of coal when you go in and you're a diamond when you come out, because- or you're kicked out one or the other before you're a diamond. Scott Ward 08:54 Yeah. And so there was this core group of volunteers that really had been active since the 80s. You know, it's only a handful, like half a dozen of them. And they would, like you said - they'd split people up, they use them, split them out, and became really, really dysfunctional. And so we show up, and of course, they had- Patti Dobrowolski 09:11 And you set up Current and Furbish. Yeah, you have that beautiful little shop there in Fairhaven, and everybody should go see there because it's fantastic. Scott Ward 09:21 Yeah, it's a great little shop and a great little village. And, you know, I thought - maybe I just should be done with this community work because it takes a lot of energy to do that, working with people and all the different personalities - but they came to me and they said: Hey, what do you want to do with us? Because they had written an article about me. So it didn't take long for me to realize that there was a lot of potential here. It wasn't quite as messed up as the Magnolia chamber head. And I saw that there was great potential here. And I also recognize there were some really easy things that could kind of fix what was going on. And that was - you know, one of the things was, in their volunteer organization, they'd never did any kind of acknowledgement - private or public - for their volunteers. There was- Patti Dobrowolski 10:10 Oh my god, are you kidding? Scott Ward 10:11 They didn't send out thank you notes. They didn't really say thank you. They didn't have an end of year celebration and I thought: You know, that one thing would make a huge difference. Patti Dobrowolski 10:24 Yeah, people come back if you appreciate them. That's what it's all about. Scott Ward 10:25 That's exactly what it's about. And then, you know, even just the folks that show up, they want to volunteer for one thing, it's important to acknowledge them, right? It's- Patti Dobrowolski 10:34 Yeah, definitely. Scott Ward 10:35 And even the people that say: Oh, no, no, I don't need anything, do not thank me publicly - find a way to thank them. Patti Dobrowolski 10:42 Yeah, what I love about that is you acknowledge that they have their own way of liking to do that, because everybody's different. So some people, it's mortifying and frightening for them to be acknowledged publicly. So if you can find a way to do it, that gives them the spotlight in their own way. Scott Ward 11:00 That's right. You know, I think it's even as easy as, say, you're in a group, we have monthly meetings, right? And so make sure, like, let's say, John is over there. And John doesn't ever want to be publicly thanked or appreciated, right? Make sure that whoever you're talking to, you say: Hey, I just want you to know that John did most of the work so that John overhears it, right? Then it's this thing where it's private, he gets it, you know, that he's getting it in theory, right? Patti Dobrowolski 11:25 Yeah. Scott Ward 11:25 And that will carry him. Carry him to the next bit of whatever he's doing. Anyway, we come in over - you know, the first few years we were here, I had heard several times, we really have wanted an executive director for a long time. But we just haven't done anything about it. Is this the universe telling me what I'm supposed to be doing? Right? How many times do you have to hear it? Patti Dobrowolski 11:49 Yeah, that's right. That's cool. Scott Ward 11:51 So finally, I just, yeah, went to the board. And I said, okay, it feels like I'm supposed to throw my hat in, help this organization by creating this position. And that's what they did. So that's why I really became the accidental Executive Director. I never intended in doing community work, I thought I was going to be a full time artist. This kind of, you know, exciting life. But I still get to do a little bit of that. Patti Dobrowolski 12:15 Yeah. That's fantastic. So all right. Now you really run Fairhaven, but you're still like a full time artist. Right? So how do you balance all your time of all the things that you're doing, Scott? Cause you have a million things on your plate. How do you organize yourself? Scott Ward 12:32 That's a lot. This kind of counteracts that the artists lifestyle and mindset is that I'm very disciplined. So I know that Thursdays are my studio day, like I have tell everyone - I put on my email, you know, the message, it says, Hey, I'm in the studio today, I'm not going to take your calls. And I'm not going to answer your texts. And so I just really am clear that at least Thursdays, I know, I have a full day of being in the studio. Then, there are other days where I'm a little more flexible about it. But it's- Patti Dobrowolski 13:01 Yeah. Scott Ward 13:01 And then when I'm working for the Association, I'm just really clear like - these are the days I'm available for the Association. But it really is that discipline that makes it happen, otherwise, I don't know how I could do it. It really is a lot. Patti Dobrowolski 13:16 Yeah, I think when you have multiple things going on, it's important to - you have to schedule everything. And you know, people think, Oh, you've got, you know, you've worked for yourself, and so they have lots of free time. And yeah, that free time is filled up with a lot of things that are the behind the scenes part. And you have really finessed that over time, so that you're continuing to show your work, it's really well received, and - you've built Fairhaven into this consistent community engagement, which is awesome. Now you've got like a Draw your Future picture behind you, Scott - did you do that for your organization, for Fairhaven? Scott Ward 13:55 Yeah, for Fairhaven. So three years ago, when I first started the process, we created a strategic plan, because they had had one - we revisited the mission statement, and then created that plan. And so in that three years, we really accomplished everything we had set forth. And so this process now is, what do the next 3 to 5 years look like? So since we've accomplished this, yeah, let's look forward. And you know, this is a fantastic process. People love it. Patti Dobrowolski 14:23 Yeah, it's a little gap analysis, and then you're drawing real time and you're writing words, and you can see, here's this - it's very messy back there. So if you think to yourself: Oh, I can't draw and I can't do that - well, look, it's messy. That's the way we want it to be because you'll call out the things that are most important. And I just want to - for those of you listening, as Scott Ward really has been the behind the scenes studio artist for me for so many years - so these companies that I work with, I often will go in and and I'll do a rough illustration of their vision, but then I bring it home and I have Scott finesse it in the studio. Because I'm not a trained fine artist - you heard him say he was trained - but the stuff is incredible. But I wanted to share this one experience that we had doing a mural for the Seattle Space Needle because I thought this was- So, Scott, tell us a little bit about what happened. When we went in I got a commission to do a mural and the interior for the employees, right. So we ran some focus groups, and then we were going to do this. Now I knew I wasn't a muralist, so I immediately hired Scott to come in - I like wrote him right in the contract, so that I would have someone who actually knew how to do what I said I could do, right? And so, tell everybody what happened. Scott Ward 15:39 Well, we had a lot of things happen. Patti Dobrowolski 15:41 You mean, are you talking about meeting Five Seconds of Summer as they ran past us? (laughs) Scott Ward 15:47 (laughs) It's crazy. But, you know, it was a good process, because we met with all the different department heads and got their input into what this image should be. And it really was - how long was that wall? Patti Dobrowolski 16:01 It was 40 feet. Scott Ward 16:03 Yeah, 40 feet long, and it was just the top half of the wall. So it was this long, skinny- Patti Dobrowolski 16:09 4 feet high and 40 feet long. It was the mural that we did. Scott Ward 16:13 Yeah. And it was kind of basically tell the whole story - the Seattle Center, and the Space Needle. And you know, it was taking all those ideas and putting it into this image, and it really was alike an elaborate map that you would do in, you know, a brainstorming session. It was great. I mean, I loved it. Patti Dobrowolski 16:34 We had a little, a couple of SNAFUs in that though. So okay, so when you do a mural, like you pencil out the whole thing, and just want to say that it didn't totally match the drawing. I was in charge of moving the projector. So that was one of the things that Scott was able to fix. However, we go in to start to- We buy $1,000 worth of these paints, pens, no, paint, what were we- we've got pens- Scott Ward 17:01 We started with the markers. Patti Dobrowolski 17:01 We were going to use Copic markers. So we went in - I had tested it on the paint already, so I knew it would work and we go in on that day to do it. And the first pen stroke that we do, it pulls the paint off onto the pen. So if we spent $1,000 on markers, we were going to spend 5 or 6 thousand dollars to do the whole thing. So I go to Scott: Oh, no, what do we do? And of course, Scott knew the answer - you were like, let's go get some paint pens. Yeah, so we ran to the art store, and then we painted that whole thing together, which was so much fun. Scott Ward 17:38 My favorite was - what was the little misspelling that- Patti Dobrowolski 17:45 It was on the bus. I can't remember what it said, but it was- I missed a letter. Scott Ward 17:51 (laughs) Patti Dobrowolski 17:51 I did all the lettering. I had missed a letter in it. But it made sense. We've made sense, what I had written - but it was a funny in-joke, but they made us change it. I can't remember, I wish I had that here so we could show it off. I'll have to look at it, drop in the picture. (laughs) You know, do you prefer to- You did that that large format with me, but you spend many hours and days- you use some repeat images in your illustrations? What did they mean, and why do you use the same images? Tell me a little bit and give us some insight into your artwork? Scott Ward 18:27 Yeah, you know, I think like most of us, we have recurring themes just in our life in general, right. And I think for me, I grew up in Minnesota, in a Catholic German family, and you know, all those things are very restricted, right. And so, are restrictive. And, especially as a gay man it's really restrictive, or as a little gay boy. And so I think I often paint about feeling trapped or wanting greater freedom. So you know, I did a series of images based around cages, birds in cages, and the birds kind of represent the soul, the cages, the situations I find myself in and then there's- I do a lot about home and feeling, wanting to feel a place of home and, you know, connection. Yeah, a lot of that. And I use a lot of green, because green represents growth and life to me and wanting to really grow into fully who I am. So it's a lot about freedom and belonging. Patti Dobrowolski 19:26 Yeah, it's fantastic. And then you had a whole "Red Ball" series, which was really cool - really, so playful and fun. And all of his artwork has been described as very whimsical and it's really beautiful. It's just incredible. So kudos to you for all that sitting at that easel all that time. But now, tell us - I want to know, like what- and I bet you, other people want to know: what's your day look like? Like, give us the run of show for the whole day for you. So we know, like, how do you stay focused and in yourself and how do you, you know, complete your day, what kinds of things at the end? Scott Ward 20:04 You know - like you, I have a little routine that sets me up for the day. So, the first thing I do in the morning is: with my little pot of coffee, I sit down and I write. I journal every morning - I have journaled every morning, for the last, I'm gonna say 35 years. Patti Dobrowolski 20:22 Yeah. Scott Ward 20:23 And in that, there is this great centering that happens - it allows me to kind of get the menial, gritty stuff out and really focus on what's important. And I can't imagine what my life would be without doing that every single day. And in that, it's also this sense of meditation and contemplation that sets me up in a really kind of peaceful and calm way for the day. Then, I do some kind of exercise: I run about four to five days a week, and we live- Patti Dobrowolski 20:54 - About five miles, right? Five to something miles, like, you're crazy. Yeah, he's a crazy runner. I tried running with him, I just want to say: No, no, I can't really- Scott Ward 21:06 I don't really like running. I don't like running. I mean, I like being done running. And a good run is when I don't realize I'm running, right? Like, when the ideation part of me takes place, and I forget I'm running, that's a good run. (laughs) Patti Dobrowolski 21:20 (laughs) Oh, my god. Scott Ward 21:22 But it's important, because there is also something really valuable in putting your body into a rhythmic mode that brings up the clarity and ideas. So, problem solving and creative processing all takes place in that- Patti Dobrowolski 21:38 -In movement. Scott Ward 21:39 -uh, physical activity. And that takes place in walking, too, especially when you walk alone - if you're walking with somebody, you have a tendency to have a conversation with them- Patti Dobrowolski 21:48 Yeah. Scott Ward 21:49 -which is something different. And so- Patti Dobrowolski 21:51 -then yourself, talking to yourself in your head - or out loud! Sometimes I caught myself talking out loud - I'm like, don't talk out loud, it's no, not appropriate. Scott Ward 22:01 Yeah. And we live close enough to the village, it's a mile. And so we walk - and that walk also is a really important thing, as far as just staying centered. And so then my day, who knows what the rest of the day is going to be like - with the Fairhaven Association, I sit in a ton of meetings. Like I, you know, it's not unusual for me to have five or six meetings in a day. And, you know, that gets to be a long day. So taking breaks in between, getting outside, moving a little bit is important. Patti Dobrowolski 22:29 Getting coffee. Scott Ward 22:30 Getting coffee, yeah, exactly. Chocolate- Patti Dobrowolski 22:35 All the key things. Scott Ward 22:36 Yeah. And then on my studio days, I really just am so focused on being an artist that it really is basically closing the door to my studio, being in there drawing out new images, or - I do a lot of commission work now, like most of what I do is commission work. And so, really, that process is connecting with the client, and getting their thoughts on what they're looking for. And then, you know, it's all about the creative process on that day, and really is staying focused on being an artist and wearing my painted clothes and not caring what I look like or, you know, being seen. And so - but every day is different. And that's what you get when you are working with, you know, all kinds of different people, and creating all sorts of different programs and events. And, you know, there's something kind of exciting about that, I don't know if I could live a life where every day was the same, right? It just wouldn't be stimulating for me or at all fulfilling - I just think there's something really exciting in the uncertainty of what the day is going to play. Patti Dobrowolski 23:48 Well, and also to - I mean, yours is a life of service. Since I met you, you've always been serving someone - you know, in the community, or you served in your church - you served in all these different ways. And so, say a little bit about why you think service is important, or why is it important to you? Scott Ward 24:08 You know, I recognized early on - well, in my 20s, I wasn't that way - I was pretty self serving, and part of it was this sense of survival - just wanting to know how I was going to make it through this life, because I didn't have clarity and, really, what I was supposed to be doing. And once I realized, oh yes, this is what I'm called to do- Patti Dobrowolski 24:27 You were going to be a priest. I mean, that was gonna be true. That's part of your story, was you were going to be a priest. And then when they found out you were gay, that was it. You had to make a choice. Scott Ward 24:35 Yeah, they rejected me. I mean, they out and out rejected me. And so, that was a huge thing, because for me I felt like, you know, I really am called to the spiritual unfoldment. Patti Dobrowolski 24:49 Yeah. Scott Ward 24:50 To have that kind of thrown back at me was really difficult. I thought: Really? I had this understanding that I was supposed to be making a difference. Not in just my life but in other people's lives. And so, it took me a while to bounce back from that - it was one of the best things that ever happened because it really made me clarify what my role was supposed to be. And being a priest - now, when I look back, I think I would have been miserable. Patti Dobrowolski 25:17 Yeah, so I was gonna say that was a good choice. Definitely. How rigid could that have been, yeah. (laughs) Scott Ward 25:25 There's some things about being a priest that I just found out that like- Patti Dobrowolski 25:30 Yeah. Scott Ward 25:30 And so, you know, just this idea of - I want to leave a legacy. And I think when people become parents, I think that's an easy sense of: Oh, yes, I'm leaving something behind in the world that will make a difference, right? Patti Dobrowolski 25:45 That's right. Scott Ward 25:45 And I don't have kids, I won't ever have kids at this point. And I just thought, what can I leave in the world that will make a difference? Yes, I have my art and my mission with my artists to create inspired and inspiring uplifting images, right? And so, yes, I'll leave that. But I also want to feel like I'm leaving my little corner of the world better than the way I found it. And I think, you know, we say I live in service, but there's a sense of selfishness about living a life of service, right? It is about feeling good about what I'm doing in the world. And, and no, that's not ultimately the goal, it is kind of a byproduct of doing good in the world and lifting others up in the world, right there. There is some satisfaction from that. And that, yeah. And so it really is about the wanting to just leave a positive- Patti Dobrowolski 26:41 Also, you know, you're very good about knowing - like, you really have a sense of 'knowingness' about what you like or dislike - and this I admire in you, because I'm not, sometimes not as clear in some areas around this, so I would default to Scott, when I was choosing certain things: "What do you think of that?" But you have a really clear sense. So when you're in a situation where you feel challenged, and you need to make a decision, what do you do to help yourself understand what the right thing is to do? Scott Ward 27:15 I think it's different every time, right? If it involves somebody else, and there is some, maybe, misalignment in what's supposed to happen - I always remember that the other people or person involved has a whole story that has brought them to their perspective, right? And so to honor that, at the same time, you know, I have a whole story that's brought me to my perspective. And, you know, is there something that can happen that honors both of those stories, right? That's always the place I go to, there's got to be - anything's possible, right? So, is there this solution, is there this way forward that gives a nod to both or all sides of what's happening? So that's one way - if it's just me trying to figure out what's going on, it really is going for an extra run, or spending an extra page writing, or going for a walk - it really is putting myself back out into this place of: Okay, let's kind of ruminate. I also say, you know, before I go to bed, before I fall asleep - I will say: Let's find some clarity about this tonight, right? In the middle of the night, let's bring it into our dreams, let's bring it into our sleep, and let it to kind of figure itself out without my getting in the way. Patti Dobrowolski 28:31 Yeah. Scott Ward 28:32 Right? And so all those things are kind of me trying to get myself out of the way because we can be our own worst enemy. Patti Dobrowolski 28:38 Yeah. You know, we have an opinion about what should happen, we have a - you know, we're always trying to make ourselves look good, our ego gets in there, and then instead of trying to see it from a distant field - like I sometimes will put it on a playing field, because like a chess board, and I can see all the players in the field, and then understand what their position is within that chess game, and then help us move closer to alignment - so that eventually, checkmate, and one of us wins. I mean, not in that sense, but you know, there's a solution that's better than both of us. That's fantastic. Scott Ward 29:16 I actually, uh, as an artist, you know, I see people as different colors and shapes, right? And so, you know, I can say: Oh, yeah, that color and that shape will work next to this one, but this one here, it really needs to be moved over the other side of the painting, right? And so, I kind of see it that way, because I'm so visual, that it just is kind of - for me to create a community as an image. And there's care that has to be done in that, because it's not just saying: Hey, you don't get along with those folks. It's like, really - it's putting into this place that you would work really well over here. You'd be so valuable over here. We need you over here, right? And never, ever, put them- Patti Dobrowolski 29:55 - put them outside of the picture. Scott Ward 29:57 That's right. Patti Dobrowolski 29:57 You're out and you're not in the frame. Scott Ward 29:58 Yeah, that's exactly right. There's - Patti Dobrowolski 29:59 I love that - what a fantastic, but - what a fantastic way of envisioning that. Especially when we talk about community, are you thinking about teams? Are you thinking about whoever it is - family, you know, they all belong in the painting, somewhere. Scott Ward 30:13 That's right. Patti Dobrowolski 30:14 Now, when you think about your future, and you envision your future, what's your big thing that you see happening for you? What's the one thing that you think: Oh, this would be so cool. Like, if this thing happened, you know, that's what I do. Sometimes this thing happened, Scott Ward 30:32 If this thing happened...It's interesting, because I really love my life, like I love my life to be - I actually think it'd be greater if we've been closer to each other. Patti Dobrowolski 30:39 Yeah. Guess we need to change that. (laughs) Scott Ward 30:42 Yeah. But, you know, there's, I think, I don't really have any lofty goals anymore. I think it really is just to continue living, and growing a sense of integrity. Like, really being authentic. I remember growing up, and my parents were young, when they had, like, just basically out of high school. And I think they were still kids, right? When I was even six years old, they were in their mid 20s. And so I remember watching my dad, and he still had his high school friends; and when you hang out with them, he was one person; when he was at home with my mom, he was another person; when he was with us, he was another person; when he was with my grandparents, he was a completely different person, right? And I just watched how he kind of morphed into these different areas. And I realized, even then, that I wanted to be who I was, wherever I was - it didn't matter who I was with, I wanted to be me. And so, I've worked really hard to do that. And I wanted to continue to be able to do that, I still find myself, you know, being maybe a little defensive, or, you know, hold back or whatever. But I just want to be fully me, wherever I am. So I think that was kind of a lofty goal. But it's been an ongoing, lofty goal. Patti Dobrowolski 31:53 Yeah, I think, and it's not always easy. I think, you know, a lot of things push, push everybody, you know, our buttons, and then suddenly we're back in an old frame of mind, where we are seeing things from a very black and white perspective, and we're not embracing and we're not, you know, open to whatever's happening. And I just want to say, you're honestly incredible. I just felt - I as a friend, as an artist, as everything that I've seen that you've done - I just have so much love and admiration for you, that I feel fortunate that I got into your schedule to get you on the podcast, so thank you so much for that. But tell the listeners if you would, like, you know, this is all about making change. Like, we need to learn how to pivot easily and be flexible to it. So what would you say to somebody who's listening, you know, who needs to make a change and isn't quite sure how to do it or wants to become an artist and isn't sure how to step out - what would you say to them to help them bring more of their authenticity to the world? Scott Ward 32:56 First, I want to say that change is inevitable, right? You can sit there and say you don't want to change, fight against it - but think something's going to force you to change. And it's gonna be more painful than if you had made that choice yourself. Patti Dobrowolski 33:07 Yeah. Scott Ward 33:07 And then the other aspect of it is, you have nothing to lose by trying, right? Just try. And so, if you're not going to do anything, you're not going to get anywhere - you can sit and imagine things are gonna happen, but without action, nothing's gonna happen. My suggestion always, for folks that say: Hey, I really do want to be an artist - I say, every day, put yourself out there. And it can be the smallest thing - it's sending an email to a gallery or to an agent and just ask for feedback or, you know, find out what the process is. But everyday, one small thing - it could even be looking up another artist and seeing what their art was like, or talking to an artist and just finding out what they did, or what their day is like. But every single day, just do one small thing. And eventually, you'll start to find things that resonate with who you are, as an artist, and doors will start to open. It may not be what you think it's going to be - in fact, I can guarantee you, it's not ever going to be what you think it's going to be - but you have to be open to that, and trust. Trust is a huge thing. And you and I have talked about this many, many times over the years, because we knew each other when none of what we are now in existence or even what we had dreamed about. And so, you know, we, in the process, both recognize that once you put yourself into that - that journey, that you have to trust you're going to be taken care of. And you and I are living examples that that is true - that once you trust that everything you need is going to be there, it will be there. Patti Dobrowolski 34:43 And that - if it doesn't look the way you think it's going to, just keep going, because something better is on the other side - cause you can't vision from our current reality. So we have no idea what the future is really like. So, if you can get way out there - like I always say, put the most outrageous things on your map, the most incredible things - because believe it or not, those are the things that you're going to be sitting there 10 years later saying, I don't know how that happened, but it did. Look, I put it on that map. Scott Ward 35:15 Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think, because I know you, I give you a lot of credit for the life I have. Because it's been that, that idea that, don't be afraid to, you know, have - what's called the BHAG, right? The Big Hairy Audacious Goal, right? Don't be afraid of that, put it out there. Because if you don't ever put it out there, you're never going to get there, you have to be able to do that there. And, you know, this also reflects or goes back to what it's like to work with people - and a group of people is there are no bad ideas. Right? Every idea has validity, anything is possible. And once you step into that - and the other aspect of is: Yes, set those goals, but you have to take a step - there has to be action behind it. You can't just put the goal out there and then anticipate- Patti Dobrowolski 36:02 -and sit in the chair watching TV at home, you know, it's just not gonna happen. You got to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Scott Ward 36:08 That's right, you can do that drawing and put that goal out there. You can dream about it, but you have to start walking toward it. And you know, like we both have said, you start walking, but then the road is gonna turn left when you thought it was supposed to turn right. Well take go left, because that's going to be a more beautiful road than the right would happen. Patti Dobrowolski 36:29 Yeah, that you ever imagined it'll turn into something you never even imagined. Scott Ward 36:34 Yup. Patti Dobrowolski 36:34 Oh my gosh, God, this was so incredible. I got kind of all moved by just the conversation. It's just so- Scott Ward 36:41 Me too. I love you. Patti Dobrowolski 36:41 I love you too. And it's just so great to have you here. I can't wait to have you back, and we'll have to do some kind of annual thing - and we'll just see where it goes. But for everybody that's listening, I encourage you to follow ScottWardArt.com. You know, go there and see what he's doing. If you're in Fairhaven, go to Current and Furbish, say hi to Cameron, his partner, and also find Scott - because where Scott is, a lot of incredible things happen - and there will always be art and there will always be play and there will always be fun, and probably wine too. I'm guessing- Scott Ward 37:14 Well, I don't know- (laughs) Patti Dobrowolski 37:18 There you go. Anyway, I love you so much. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. And so, for everybody that's listening, you know the drill - if you liked the show, you know forward it to your friends or, you know, write Scott an email at scott@ScottWardArt.com - just acknowledge him and then in the way that he acknowledges others, and just go out today and you know what to do, just - if you can - Up Your Creative Genius. Thank you so much, everybody! Patti Dobrowolski 37:51 Thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to DM me on Instagram your feedback or takeaways from today's episode on Up Your Creative Genius - then join me next week for more rocket fuel. Remember, you are the superstar of your universe and the world needs what you have to bring - so get busy! Get out and Up Your Creative Genius. And no matter where you are in the universe, here's some big love from yours truly - Patti Dobrowolski, and the Up Your Creative Genius podcast. That's a wrap!