Podcast appearances and mentions of ron sims

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank!  They cover WA gubernatorial candidate Bob Ferguson's controversial and publicly-mocked  endorsement from former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, an escalating battle over an illegal encampment between the Burien City Manager and King County Executive legal counsel, how a proposed “Renter's Bill of Rights” from Tacoma for All is gathering signatures in Tacoma for a local initiative, the Seattle City Attorney and a right-wing councilmember's plan to rush through a restart of the failed War on Drugs, Seattle's new tree protection ordinance and the first meeting of the Seattle Social Housing Developer Board..  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, Robert Cruickshank, at @cruickshank.   Resources Sarah Reyneveld, Candidate for King County Council District 4 from Hacks & Wonks   @BobFergusonAG on Twitter: “I'm grateful to have the support of former Seattle Police Chief”   @davidstoesz on Twitter: “I recently had a long email exchange with the AG's office about why they didn't investigate Best's and Durkan's missing texts, a felony”    “King County Executive accuses city of Burien of 'lease scheme' to evict people from homeless encampment” by Nia Wong from Fox 13 Seattle   “King County expresses 'substantial concerns' about City of Burien's intention to sweep campers off city-owned lot; won't allow police to help” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog   “Burien City Manager responds to King County's letter warning that police won't help with encampment sweep” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog   “Dueling Tenant Rights Measures Square Off in Tacoma” by Kevin Le from The Urbanist   “Tacoma city officials discuss updates to Rental Housing Code” by Lionel Donovan from KING 5   “Slog AM: Seattle City Council Rushes to Vote on Drug War Reboot, Tacoma Landlords Try to Squash Tenant Bill of Rights, and DeSantis's Twitter DeSaster” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Here's how the new drug possession law in Washington is different that what was on the books“ by Jim Camden from The Spokesman-Review   “Washington's War on Drugs Starts Up Again in July” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “'Real people being represented': Seattle's social housing board is just getting started” by Joshua McNichols, Libby Denkmann & Noel Gasca from KUOW   Find stories that Crystal is reading here Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I chatted with Sarah Reyneveld about her campaign for King County Council District 4 - why she decided to run, the experience she brings as a public sector attorney and community advocate, and her thoughts on addressing frontline worker wages and workforce issues, the need for upstream alternatives in the criminal legal system and substance use crisis, how to improve policy implementation, climate change and air quality, and budget revenue and transparency. 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: Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. [00:01:30] Robert Cruickshank: Thank you for having me back, Crystal. It's always fun to be on the show. [00:01:33] Crystal Fincher: Always great to have you on the show. So this has been an eventful week, but wow - last night, there was a little event that popped up that kind of took the notice of everyone who follows politics basically in Washington state, whether they were on the progressive side, conservative side, or somewhere in-between. That was Bob Ferguson's announcement of his endorsement by former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best. Why did this attract so much attention, Robert? [00:02:03] Robert Cruickshank: Because Carmen Best is one of the most controversial figures in Seattle right now, coming out of the summer of 2020. And as Alexa Vaughn, for example, noted - she runs The Needling - this was posted on the anniversary of George Floyd's murder. And when Minnesota police murdered George Floyd three years ago, as we recall, it sparked a major wave of protest here in Seattle to demand reforms here. And in that response, that protest, Mayor Jenny Durkan and Chief Best systematically deceived the public, deleted their texts in what ought to be a felony, and essentially got away with it. Carmen Best then left her job as Police Chief of Seattle and is now making a fair amount of money as a TV pundit. And so Carmen Best, coming out of that summer, is seen as one of these leaders who sided with the cops against people demanding urgently-needed reform, and is seen as avatar of we-need-to-get-tough-on-crime policies - who has a very poor reputation among a lot of people in Seattle, including Ferguson's base. And that's what happened yesterday, in the reaction, was Ferguson's base - progressive people in Seattle who've been cheering him on as he takes on Trump, as he takes on big corporations - all of a sudden surprised to see him just bear-hugging one of the most notorious figures in recent Seattle history. [00:03:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and adding on top of that - the challenges during those protests, the deleted texts that you mentioned, but also the tear-gassing of neighborhoods. I don't think people understand how radicalizing that was for some neighborhoods in Seattle. They didn't tear-gas protesters. They tear-gassed entire geographical areas. People in their homes couldn't breathe, were severely impacted by that. And where do you go at that point in time? There are protests out on the street. You're at home with your kids, with your family, and getting tear-gassed in your home. That's what happened in Seattle, and people have not forgotten that. That was a radicalizing moment. I think you've seen instances afterwards in just relations and demonstrating that the trust with the police department is completely evaporated. Neighbors banding together to question people being detained for what seems like no reason because they no longer view them and the police as being on the same side after that. They felt attacked. You aren't attacked by people you trust - yeah. [00:04:33] Robert Cruickshank: Well, they were attacked. They absolutely were. And you talk about the stories of tear-gassing the neighborhood. I will never forget hearing at one of the City Council meetings in early June 2020, when this was all going on, a father who lived in an apartment on Capitol Hill talking about how the tear-gas got into his apartment and his newborn baby started crying and having fluid coming from its nose and mouth because it couldn't handle the tear-gas that had seeped in. This is an example of just complete disregard that Carmen Best had for the public. When the Council tried to ban the use of tear-gas, ban the use of blast balls that had been fired at peaceful protesters in June 2020, Carmen Best spoke out against that. So it is a legacy of attacking - with vicious weapons of war - the people of Seattle engaged in peaceful protests during this crucial moment in our City's history. And for Bob Ferguson to tout her endorsement comes off as the state's leading law enforcement guy - that's what he is as Attorney General - embracing Carmen Best and her narrative of what happened. And I think it's a real wake-up call and a shocking moment that maybe needed to happen. Bob Ferguson has had 11 years in office of very good press. He's fought hard for LGBTQ rights. He's fought hard to ban assault weapons. We talked about his lawsuits against Trump and against big tech companies. And rightly, he's gotten a lot of credit for that. But we haven't seen much about his other views on other issues. He hasn't been asked to take a stand on housing, transit, policing. I don't believe he weighed in, at least certainly not in a loud public way, on the question of what to do about the Blake decision. And so as he's launched his "exploratory campaign" for governor, racking up endorsements all over the place - literally left and right - Pramila Jayapal and Carmen Best. He hasn't gotten a lot of scrutiny yet. I think yesterday's move to announce the endorsement of Carmen Best means he's going to start getting a lot of scrutiny. I think the honeymoon for Ferguson, at least in Seattle, is over. Now that may not be a bad thing in Ferguson's political calculation, but I think you saw the governor's race shift substantially yesterday. [00:06:41] Crystal Fincher: I think so too. What do you think went into this political calculation to seek, and accept, and publicize this endorsement? [00:06:51] Robert Cruickshank: I think Bob Ferguson is trying to shore up his right flank. He's probably looking at what he saw south of the border in Oregon last year, where the Oregon governor's race was dominated by questions of public safety. He's seen similar things happen around the country where Democrats are attacked on this. I think he is also seeing that right-wing Democrats, like Mark Mullet, are making noise about running for governor. I think Ferguson feels he has to shore up his position on the right and the way that he can do that is by touting law and order. And in fact, the day before he announced Carmen Best's endorsement, he also announced the endorsement of Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell, who had run for King County Prosecutor last year - losing to Leesa Manion. And Ferrell ran on a more law and order right-wing approach, so there's clearly a calculated effort here by Ferguson to show - at least maybe the media and a certain segment of the electorate - that he's not like those other Democrats. He's not a Seattle Democrat who's, in the parlance on the right, soft on crime. He's going to be tough on this stuff, and I think it means that quite a lot of scrutiny now should be directed his way in terms of asking him where he stands and what he believes on the major issues of crime and public policy. [00:08:03] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. When you see this, especially with such a - at least from the online vocal right - also such a backlash from them. This is one of those where you look at the ratio and people are like, My goodness - there was not a positive reaction to this. It was pretty negative across the spectrum. It was universally negative across the spectrum. Who does this help him with? Who do you think - there's their calculus - but in reality, do you think this helps with anyone? [00:08:36] Robert Cruickshank: I think that Ferguson has been waging a low-key but significant effort to try to win the support of The Seattle Times. He was a supporter of legislation in Olympia this year that would have created some tax breaks for media companies, including The Seattle Times, and Times lobbied hard for it. The bill was also sponsored in the Senate by Mark Mullet, so I think Ferguson is looking at this - trying to make sure that he has The Seattle Times in his corner, certain right-wing Democrats in his corner. But they're not a huge portion of the electorate. The sense I have is Ferguson wants to try to just clear the field as much as he possibly can in advance of the actual election. But there is a huge risk here because in building that coalition, you can't alienate another piece of it. Now, all of a sudden, he's got Seattle voters, who are pretty shocked by the Carmen Best endorsement, taking a second look at Ferguson. That's going to give an opportunity to someone like Hilary Franz, who launched her campaign but otherwise hasn't had much energy or momentum - gives her an opening to maybe try to win some of those Seattle voters over. [00:09:42] Crystal Fincher: There's another element of this that I find interesting, and actually this is the element that I would be concerned about backfiring over the long term - that it could play into a narrative that could turn out to be harmful. It's that - while questions were swirling around what happened with the East Precinct and how that happened, finding out the texts were deleted - which is a significant crime, really - and lots of people asking, Hey, Bob Ferguson, why aren't you investigating this? And him saying, I can't. But as has been covered several times - again recently - he has either referred, or spoken up, or suggested that in other instances. And so if a narrative catches on that - Yeah, Bob's tough if he doesn't have a friend doing something - you know, if a friend is doing one of those things that lots of people find objectionable, it's a different story if it's a friend. If it's a different story, if it's a donor, perhaps. It's a different story - that kind of thing. I would be concerned about that kind of narrative catching on. And so that to me is why - I don't understand - realistically - look, if you're trying to project law and order, he could have done what Jim Ferrell did. That didn't work for Jim Ferrell, but it didn't have this kind of backlash where - hey, different police chiefs - but to choose Seattle's Carmen Best, it just - my goodness, that is an unforced error, it seems. Lots of time left, more than a year in this campaign. Who knows who else is going to get in the race? Lots of time, so I am in no way suggesting this is fatal. He obviously financially enjoys a significant advantage and there's lots of time left. We have seen plenty of politicians at all levels step in it and make their way out. So I'm not saying that this is damning, but it's certainly - to your point - is going to invite more scrutiny than there had been before. [00:11:42] Robert Cruickshank: It is. And I was thinking about this earlier today - we haven't had a contested primary for governor on the Democratic side in Washington state in nearly 20 years. Last time was when Ron Sims and Christine Gregoire ran against each other in 2004. Inslee didn't have a challenge in 2012, and obviously hasn't been challenged since. We might have one now and I think that would be healthy - healthy for the Democratic Party, healthy for the state - to have different ideas out there, candidates running on policy and having to have discussions and debates about that. I think it'd be really helpful. Ferguson has had a lot of momentum early. He's racked up a ton of endorsements, as we've talked about, but he hasn't really been challenged on policy and he hasn't - made very few statements on policy. It was surely a deliberate thing on his campaign's part. That needs to change - that'll make Ferguson a stronger candidate in the general election. And it'll make all of us - whether we're big D, small D Democrats, or just voters who care about the direction of our state - better off when there's a real policy discussion happening in the primary. [00:12:42] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We will continue to follow what's going on with the gubernatorial race, but in the meantime, in the City of Burien, there is a really contentious situation going on right now between the Burien - really interestingly - between the City and King County Executive's legal team. Can you just cover what is going on here? In a nutshell, what is the issue and what's currently happening? [00:13:13] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, the City of Burien - and it seems to be the City Manager in particular in Burien - is trying to sweep a homeless encampment. Now, here in the western United States, we're governed by a Supreme Court - or not, I'm sorry, not a Supreme Court decision, that's important - a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which is one level below the Supreme Court, against the city of Boise, saying that you cannot sweep a homeless encampment without having made real good faith offers of shelter to those people you're trying to remove. At some point, one would imagine some city somewhere will try to take that to the US Supreme Court, which would be a nightmare, because I don't think we'd get a good ruling out of that. But here in the western US, we are all governed by that decision - which is binding from the Ninth Circuit - which means you can't just sweep people without giving them a place to go. That doesn't justify sweeps, but that's the legal ruling that cities operate under. Now, what Burien appears to have tried to do was redefine a city park as a dog park - as private park - in order to get around having to actually offer shelter. Because they don't have an offer, they have nowhere to go - that's why encampments exist - they exist because people have nowhere else to go. And so the City Manager said this is the plan we're going to do. Well, King County Executive's Office slapped down Burien pretty hard and said - You can't do that - that violates the court ruling - and we're not going to provide police support. Burien, like many cities in King County, many smaller cities, doesn't have its own police force. They contract with the King County Sheriff's Office. And the King County Sheriff's Office, after 2020 charter reform, the Sheriff is now appointed by the Executive. So the Executive now has more direct control over the King County Sheriff's Office than it had before. And so what Dow Constantine's office is saying is - We're not going to have police there to help do your sweep. Without police, you're going to have a hard time actually getting people to move. The City of Burien is striking back. The City Manager is disagreeing with this. But interestingly, people like Hugo Garcia, who are on the City Council in Burien, are saying - This is not us. We didn't authorize this. This is the City Manager going out and doing this on his own. And so now you have really a fight over power in Burien and who actually controls these important levers of city government - when it comes to people's shelter - is in question here. So Burien has a lot to sort out. [00:15:28] Crystal Fincher: A lot to sort out. And a little context further with this is - where the encampment is now - arrived there because Burien did previously conduct a sweep at one location that was city-owned. And because sweeps don't do anything to solve homelessness - housing solves homelessness - in an entirely predictable turn of events, the people who were swept wound up in an adjacent city lot because there's nowhere else to go. There was no offer of housing, no shelter. Where do you think they're going to go? Obviously, they're just moving place to place. We know that's how this works - over and over again - it's been covered several times, just locally here. So that happened. And so the Council in a 4-3 - they kind of have a 4-3 moderate to conservative majority there - they decided to enter into a lease with a private entity, and who billed themselves as dog park caretakers, in an attempt to allow them to trespass the people who are on that property as private owner-operators, basically, in a way to get around the City's requirement to do that. Well, that was just blatantly an end-run attempt, which Dow Constantine - wisely and following the law - decided not to adhere to. But now this is an interesting situation. As you said, there are councilmembers who said - Wait, wait, wait, this is not happening. The response to the King County Executive's legal advisor is not coming from us. The City Manager decided to respond on their own. The lease with the C.A.R.E.S. Organization - Burien C.A.R.E.S. Organization - is not executed yet. We don't think it should be. We need to reconsider and talk about this. But it's a legitimate issue. And Burien - frankly, there are a number of cities skirting the requirement to provide housing. That's why we see the whole theater around - they were offered housing and they refused, even if they know that the housing is not adequate, even if they know the shelter is available - them trying to check that off as them basically - checking on their list - okay, we have technically done the thing that will not get this sweep called unconstitutional, hopefully. Even though when it has been brought to court, it's been successfully challenged before. So we'll see how this continues to unfold. But it's kind of a - the equivalent of a constitutional crisis, almost - in a city, like a charter crisis. Who does actually have the authority to do this? Can the city manager act, in his capacity, response to this? Can he act independently of the Council on this response? Who knows? They were talking about an emergency meeting. We'll see what results from that. But certainly a lot of people and organizations are paying attention to this. And it is - it's a conundrum. [00:18:24] Robert Cruickshank: It is. And I think it is another example of the ways in which the regional approach to solving homelessness isn't working right now. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority lost its executive director last week and is spending a lot of money, but what is it showing for it? It's taking forever to get people into shelter. The idea behind the regional approach is - this is a regional problem - let's pool our resources and act quickly to cut through all the bureaucratic silos so we get people into shelter. It's what we all want. It's not happening. And I think - yet again, we're seeing another grand effort to solve homelessness not succeed because we haven't actually tackled the root of it. We're not funding enough supportive, permanently supportive, temporary shelter, whatever it is - it's not being done. The state isn't kicking in the money that's needed. It's hard to get the permitting. It's hard to find the zoning because we've been glacially slow to change zoning. We finally got some of that fixed here in the 2023 session, but - Ed Murray declaring a state of emergency over homelessness in 2015. I remember when I moved to Seattle, a little over 20 years ago, we were in the middle of the 10-year plan to end homelessness. We have these grand efforts that go nowhere. Meanwhile, people are in crisis. People living outside, whether it's in the cold of winter or the heat and smoke of summer, aren't getting their needs met. These are our neighbors who deserve shelter. And government just trying to pass the buck, just trying to appease a few cranky people who don't want to see a tent, but not giving people the help that they need and have needed for a long time. And we need to find actual solutions to get people housed and pay what it takes to do it. Otherwise, we're just going to keep seeing more stuff like this happen. [00:20:01] Crystal Fincher: We are. And we have to contend with the use of resources here. Burien's in a bind now. If they do buck this - and there's been some early talk - we don't need the Sheriff, we can stand up our own department. The reason why they haven't stood up their own department is because it's prohibitively expensive. And they're already spending a significant portion - I think almost half of their general budget - on policing currently. And so the money that we put into these sweeps, the money that we put into litigation, and the challenges of just working through this is all money that is being spent on things that we know are not going to do anything to make this problem better. At the most, you can make it disappear only in the sense that - yes, you sweep someone from one location, they're going to move to another one. Lots of people hope they just move to another one in another city so they don't have to deal with it, but they do. And now every city - look at housing prices, which are the biggest determinant of our levels of homelessness. Lots of people, employed people, families cannot afford housing. There is nowhere for them to go. So if we continue to waste our resources on the things that don't work, we don't have the resources for the things that do. And we're hearing excuses - Oh, we would love to do this. We would love to have more supportive housing. We would love to have more behavioral health supports. We would love to have more people to help shepherd them through this. Well, then stop spending the resources on the things that don't work, and start spending them on the things that do. That's not an excuse when you're making the decision to spend the money on the things that don't work and that are harmful - that should be a point of accountability right there. And instead they're using it to excuse and explain their actions - it doesn't fly. And I hope they do have a robust conversation about this. I know there are definitely councilmembers there who want that to happen, who want to focus on providing housing, and working collaboratively with the King County Executive to get that done. But the majority of the council, unfortunately, did not take that position at that time. I hope some come around and see the light. [00:22:04] Robert Cruickshank: I agree, and I think ultimately this is where the state needs to step in - you talk about how this is a problem everywhere. I took a train up to Vancouver, British Columbia, earlier this year and you could see under overpasses along the entire route, including in Canada, people living in tents, people trying to make - get themselves shelter under an overpass, whether it's rural Skagit County or the suburbs of Vancouver. This is a problem everywhere because we haven't built enough housing. We know that homelessness is primarily a housing crisis. When you don't build enough housing, when you don't have enough affordable housing, you get homelessness. There are the other reasons why an individual may wind up or stay in homelessness - people who have mental health needs, people have drug addictions - and a lot of that develops when you're out on the streets. Plenty of people fall into homelessness without being addicted to a single drug, without having any outward signs of mental illness. But once you're on the street, in what is a fundamentally traumatic situation where you are unsafe and do not have security or shelter, it becomes very easy to develop those other problems. And so housing is that essential piece of solving homelessness, solving addiction, solving all these other things that people need help with. And it's not being done. And asking cities to solve it themselves without giving them the financial support from the state government, or certainly not coming from the federal government - we're about to see massive spending cuts out of the stupid debt ceiling deal. Once again, it falls back on the State Legislature, and ultimately on our next governor, to figure out how they're going to solve it. Because when you leave it up to cities, you're going to get bad decisions. You're going to get things like we're seeing in Burien right now. It has to be solved at a higher level. [00:23:48] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely does. In another city development, there is an attempt to put a tenant's bill of rights on the ballot in the City of Tacoma. What do they want to do, and what would this mean for renters? [00:24:01] Robert Cruickshank: It's a really great thing. I think what you're seeing in Tacoma is a group coming together called Tacoma for All. And what they're trying to put together is something they call sometimes a tenant bill of rights. It's also been called a landlord fairness code. You do a number of great things such as requiring six months notice for all rent increases, relocation assistance for rent hikes over 5%, no school-year evictions of children and educators - that's a great thing to do because the last thing you want is for educators and families and students to be thrown out during the school year. It would ban deadly cold weather evictions, so if we're having a cold snap or a bunch of snow, you can't evict people out into the snow. It would cap excessive and unfair fees and deposits and ban rent hikes when there are code violations. Seattle has a lot of these things already, but Tacoma doesn't. And what a number of renters and advocates have seen in Tacoma is the need to bring those protections to Tacoma, especially because the state didn't do it - the state didn't act on a rent control bill that had been proposed earlier this year. So you're seeing a group of people come together with strong support from labor, from elected officials like Yasmin Trudeau and others, to make the Tacoma for All initiative a reality. They're getting some pushback from the City, obviously, which - the mayor doesn't really want to do this and offered a vague compromise solution but didn't provide details. And the organizers said - No, we're going to go ahead with our own initiative - which I think is the right thing to do. I believe there are three pieces to the stool of solving housing. You need more supply from the private sector. You need more supply from the public sector - things like social housing, public housing. And you also need renter and tenant protections. And Washington has started to add some more private supply, but we need more tenant and renter protections across the state. And so with the State Legislature failing, you're seeing people in Tacoma step up to act on their own, and I think it's a great thing to do. [00:25:53] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. They're in the middle of collecting signatures - early in the month, they had about half of them that they needed. They need to collect a total of 8,000 by June 15th to submit to the City, and they're actively signature gathering now. The Council could take action to put what they propose on the ballot - like you said, they're signaling that they're going to propose something, obviously. They're feeling the need to do something since there is something on the table right now, but don't know what it is. And it does not go as far - at least the indications based on what has been discussed in work groups so far - do not go as far as the Tacoma For All group's does. And it just doesn't seem like it's going to have the teeth. And so they're prepared to take this all the way, to try and collect all of the signatures - they're recruiting volunteers. And so it'll be great to see this get on the ballot and to have a full conversation about it. I do hope the City tries to take an approach that works because this is attempting to solve a real problem. And completely applaud Tacoma For All for stepping up to really address this problem. This is not a partisan issue. This is just a straight affordability issue. And it affects all of us, even homeowners who are happy with the way that their home price is appreciating - and it has quite a bit, I think home values have almost doubled in Tacoma over the past 10 years - but it's making sure that the teachers in our community, the pharmacists in our community, our transit drivers, everyone who is our neighbors, everyone who we rely on to make our communities thrive, really, rely on affordable housing. If your kid gets sick, do you want to be short a nurse because they couldn't afford to buy a million dollar home, an $800,000 home on an average salary? Lots of people are facing this and we have to contend with this. Displacement is already happening, especially on the Hilltop - it is an issue. It's not speculative. It's not in the future. It's happening now and it needs to stop. They can take action to help reduce the harm here. And I really hope they do. [00:28:04] Robert Cruickshank: Exactly. And I love that they're taking inspiration from what has happened in Seattle. A lot of these elements of Tacoma For All come from policies Kshama Sawant has championed. And Sawant, being the very clever strategist that she really is, fought hard for genuine rent control, has been denied it because the State Legislature won't do it. So she said - Okay, I'll go find other ways - any possible thing we can do under the rights that the City has, we're going to do it to protect renters. And it's worked. Not completely, but she can get these policies done and they provide some assistance to renters in Seattle. And Tacoma looking at that saying - Yeah, let's do that too. It's a good example of things we can do with stopgaps, but we still need the state to step in. California and Oregon have passed statewide rent stabilization laws capping annual rent increases. Washington needs to do the same. It is an urgent thing too. You mentioned being a homeowner - I'm a homeowner. My annual rent, so to speak, is capped. If you have a fixed term mortgage - 30 or fixed - that doesn't go up. It might go up a little bit because of property tax changes, but even those are capped - unfortunately, by Tim Eyman. So homeowners have essentially rent stabilization, but renters don't. And I think it's only fair that renters have those same protections too. [00:29:24] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now for the City of Seattle - bouncing back here - Seattle is looking to double down on the War on Drugs. What are they talking about, and how did we get here? [00:29:35] Robert Cruickshank: So this is Ann Davison and Sara Nelson and Alex Pedersen, the right wing of Seattle City government, trying to revive the War on Drugs. They believe that the answer to the fentanyl crisis, and in some ways the answer to visible homelessness downtown, is to criminalize. Let's go back to the War on Drugs - if you're using drugs, if you're a drug addict, the answer isn't treatment, it's jail. The irony here is that a lot of us progressives argue that what needs to happen is - these people need housing, they need treatment, give them a shelter, give them a room with a door that locks. Well, that's what Ann Davison wants to do - she just wants to put them in jail. Jail is a type of housing, but it's not the type of housing that's going to solve someone's addiction. In fact, it's going to make it worse, it's going to add more trauma, it's going to make it harder for that individual to escape the cycle of addiction and whatever other problems they're facing. But there is this desire among Seattle's right, which feels a little bit resurgent - over the last 10 years, the right wing in Seattle was on the back foot as we had a lot of really progressive policies come into place and they were wondering how do they strike back and now, they think they found their answer in really leveraging public concern about public drug use. But we know for an absolute fact that criminalizing the use of drugs does not solve drug problems, it does not end addiction - it's been conclusively demonstrated. Interestingly, the City Council, rather than put this to the usual committee process, is bringing it directly to a vote early next month. That could be read two ways - it could be read as either the City trying to do this quickly and put it into place before the public can react against it, or it's also possible that you have a majority in the Council that doesn't want to do this and wants to kill it quickly before it gets too close to the primary in August. Who knows? But it's an example of this absurd desire among certain people in Seattle to just go back to Reaganism - it's crack down on homelessness by jailing people for sleeping in a tent, crack down on drug abuse by jailing anyone smoking fentanyl. This is just stuff we thought we left behind, but it's an important reminder to those of us who are progressive that we're always going to have to deal with right wingers, even in our own city, even in a deep blue city like Seattle. People are going to keep trying to find ways to poke that electric fence to see where there's a weakness and where they can try to really roll back the progressive policies that they hate so much. [00:32:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's - people who listen to the program regularly know how I feel about this whole thing. It is just really a shame. It is also as important as ever for you to contact your councilmembers, contact the mayor - let them know exactly how you feel about this. I think sometimes, especially in Seattle, it's easy to take for granted once progress has been made, that it's settled. Similar to - we thought Supreme Court law was settled, right? Everything is in flux. And there are people working actively to dismantle the progress that has been made. And counting on people being asleep - they know that they're in the minority. That's why they can't say what they really believe loudly and proudly all year long. And they do tend to strike in these ways that tend to minimize public engagement, support, time - trying to rush this through and let's just get it done. We see this done over and over again. And so I just hope that people understand that there really is a threat of this happening - that Seattle isn't above this, it's not beyond this. This is not something that we can take for granted. And I do encourage everyone listening to contact your City councilperson - contact all the Council people - and let them know where you stand on this, because there's going to be an upcoming vote in early June. And right now it looks like - it seems like - they're leaning towards criminalization and seems like they're leaning towards expanding the criminalization options even from where they were before. So please get engaged. [00:33:43] Robert Cruickshank: I think it's also important to - anytime you encounter a City Council candidate - to make it clear where you stand as well. Because these are - as the campaigns really start to kick into gear here after Memorial Day, as they sprint towards the August primary - we're going to have to tell these people running for the seats, especially where there isn't an incumbent. Quite a few districts like District 1, District 3, District 4, District 5 - let the people know that you are not a fan of criminalizing drugs. You do not want to go back to the Drug War. A lot of Seattle's state legislative representation voted against the gross misdemeanor provisions in the Blake fix that finally came out of the Legislature earlier this month. That was courageous of them - it's a good thing they did. We need to show similar leadership here in Seattle rather than just waltz back down the path of Reaganism. [00:34:32] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Also in Council action this week was a tree ordinance that was passed. How did this develop and what ended up passing? [00:34:42] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, this has been in gestation for a long time. I remember we were talking about tree ordinance back when Mike McGinn was mayor, but it finally came to pass this week. And what the ordinance does - I credit the Harrell administration for this, and I credit Dan Strauss as well for finding a good middle ground that isn't perfect, but a middle ground that tries to harmonize tree policy and housing policy. What's really been going on is a number of people who don't want new density in our city have seized on the idea of trees as the way they can block housing. Oh, we're going to cut down all these trees to build housing. Oh, isn't this terrible? The way we can stop the density that we don't want is to make it almost impossible to remove a tree. And in their mind, a healthy urban forest is threatened not by the climate crisis, but by development. Now, we know this is wrong. The City's own research shows very, very clearly that new development is not a major factor, it's a very tiny factor in the loss of trees in Seattle. The main source of tree loss is in natural areas and parks. And why is that happening? Because the climate crisis. We had, as everyone remembers, that awful heat wave in the summer of 2021. And you saw those cedars go brown afterwards. We then had 120 days without rain in 2022 - that further stressed the trees. And some of these are old, majestic trees planted over 100 years ago in our parks and natural areas that are struggling now to survive in the climate crisis. That's where we're losing trees. Where do we need to get trees, build more trees, plant more trees? In City-owned right-of-way, and especially in southeast Seattle. So the answer here should be rather than give in to what the NIMBYs want and make it almost impossible to build anything new - you've got to harmonize these things. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, which produces those annual reports, has said numerous times that more urban density is a core element of solving the climate crisis, of reducing carbon emissions. And yet some of these NIMBYs want to use trees to undermine that. Now, we can't have one climate policy undermining another. We need to find ways to bring tree protections and housing construction together. And that's what the Harrell administration and Dan Strauss have tried to do. I know there are some housing advocates, who I respect, who are unhappy with some of the exact details of how this went down. I get that. At the same time, I and the Sierra Club believe it's a reasonable compromise that isn't going to hold back housing production. It'll help us have a healthier urban forest while avoiding blaming new density for loss of trees, right? This is a climate crisis issue. If we want to keep our great firs and cedars and other tall trees we love in the City, we've got to tackle the climate crisis. We have to build higher. We have to build denser. That's how we reduce the carbon emissions that is making everything so much hotter and putting these great trees under stress. [00:37:46] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And I think we're seeing a part of a trend here, we're seeing a tactic as part of an overall strategy. And that is from NIMBYs and from the right to co-opt progressive language, to co-opt traditionally progressive causes - and use those to try and sabotage development. And so we've seen this manifest in Seattle with different things or to get their way in a public way - we saw it with bike lanes in West Seattle - they're hard to get, but oh all of a sudden now that it could potentially displace some people who are living in campers, we're all for implementing a bike lane and an accelerated delivery timeline right here, right? We see - we've seen ADA regulations used to - in lawsuits - used to stifle transit mobility improvement. And it's really critically important - and you basically said this - to not give in to the - well, no these are more important than disability access, or this is more important than making sure we do have adequate trees. They want to create the friction between these two groups who are fighting for resources and rights and access. And the key thing to do is to basically join together in solidarity and saying both of these are necessities for our community. We need clean air, and we need everyone to be able to access everything required to live, right? So how do we figure that out? Not we just don't do one, or we just don't do the other. We fight and discount what's needed for the true issue. If we actually get together with people who are being used to do this, we can figure out solutions better and cut out the kind of astroturf middleman, who's just using a different group to try and get their way. It's really cynical, it's really just shameful - but we're seeing this happen a lot. And I - some people's immediate reaction is - I really want this, so I'm going to dig my heels in and say that other thing is bad it doesn't matter. And that's a trap that they want you to fall into, and that's a trap that hurts us all moving forward. We have to work together and make sure that we get our needs met and sometimes it's hard to thread that needle perfectly. Sometimes it's going to leave a lot to be desired, but we really need to keep working to make sure that everyone is getting what they need to be supported in this community. Also an exciting development with Seattle's social housing board having their first meeting. What happened there? [00:40:23] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah they - after the passage of Initiative 135 earlier this year - it created a new board to oversee the social housing authority. And this board is not comprised in the usual way - like typically a City commission or City board is - the mayor gets to make a bunch of picks the City Council gets to make a bunch of picks and they can pretty much pick whoever they want to. In this case though, the initiative stated that the board members had to come from certain backgrounds - he had to pick someone with urban planning experience, he had to pick someone who understands Passivhaus design which is very environmentally friendly. But most importantly, you have to pick a number of people with lived experience as renters or as unhoused folks - and that is what happened with this board. And it's a majority of people, I believe, who are not homeowners. And the idea here is to have this board represent the people, or at least the type of people, who would actually live in a social housing project once we get it built. So they had their first meeting, came together, they elected their leadership. Councilmember Tammy Morales was there and has been really the driving figure in getting this done, and I think one of the few - unfortunately - people on City Council who's really been strongly behind this. I think other councilmembers have been much more hesitant. But social housing is a key part of the solution - there's a great article in the New York Times earlier this week about Vienna - and Vienna has a ton of social housing, and it works really well in having a mix of incomes together, living in the same building where everyone's pulling together to help build a great community. It also includes space for people who are very low incomes or who are formerly homeless, so I think it's really exciting to see this process get underway - a board that is working well together, at least at the start. It seems like Initiative 135 is getting off to a great start, but the bigger question obviously going to be - How do you fund the construction of social housing? The people who wrote the initiative were advised, and I think correctly, that they couldn't do both at the same time - they couldn't create the social housing authority and have a funding source. Well now, we need the City to step up - and this is another thing that we're going to have to see City Council candidates talk about - Initiative 135 passed by pretty healthy margin in the City, it passed in every single Council district. So Council candidates should be on board, but if you talk to some of these folks - they're not all on board. So one of the things that I hope becomes a major issue in the City Council elections this fall is - how are you going to make social housing a reality, how are you going to fund it here in Seattle - because the public clearly wants it and there's clearly a huge need for it. [00:43:00] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. The public does want it - even at the forums that have happened so far - and we know that most people in the public are not tuned into elections yet but there are some who are - and shoring up this early support and making an early impression, especially in a crowded primary, makes a difference. And I will tell you, every forum that I've seen or been at - the public there has had questions about social housing. How are you going to secure funding, how are you going to make sure this implementation goes smoothly? They want to know about it, they want to know how they're going to support it. I fully anticipate this to be a significant issue throughout this entire campaign and beyond. The public voted for it, they want it, they're really curious about it, they're excited about it. And this is something that they feel could potentially put a dent in housing prices and start a blueprint - expand upon the blueprint - of what it looks like to implement this in our state and throughout the region, so really exciting. And with that, I will thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday May 26, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, longtime communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. You can find Robert on Twitter @cruickshank. You can follow Hacks & Wonks @HacksWonks, and you can find me @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live week-in-review and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On today's 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.

Audio recordings of the 2022 Southern Cross Association of Churches Online International Leaders Advance. The Advance is entitled "The Post Covid Church" and was held on 4 and 5 March 2022 via Zoom.

Toxic compounds made land near Libby, Montana uninhabitable. A first-generation college student restored the land with the help of some microscopic organisms. Now Ron is leveraging algae, to protect the environment. Algae growing in wastewater convert pollutants into a resource, that can sustain industries. Listen to this episode to hear how this work is done, and how Ron Sims uses these projects to educate future biological engineers. 

Guest, Ron Sims from the Capital Intermediate Unit, discusses the pathways through computer science and highlights the PAsmart grant program.

President-elect Donald Trump says will nominated Dr. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and a former presidential candidate, to be the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). But as someone who has never worked in government or served at the head of a major bureaucracy, is Carson the right person for the job? KCTS 9’s Enrique Cerna and Political Analyst Joni Balter take up that question and explore the incoming Trump administration with Ron Sims, former King County Executive and the former Deputy Secretary of HUD in the Obama Administration in this Vote 2016 conversation.

TOPICEquitable Opportunities for All People and Communities IN THIS EPISODE[1:50] Introduction of Ron Sims. [3:36] Ron describes his background and his motivation for his work on the environment and social justice. [5:26] Ron talks about the history and current status of the name change of King County. [9:21] Clarification that the official name is still King County, but it is now named after Dr. Martin Luther King, but the area also recognizes the role that other races and cultures play. [12:03] Ron will be giving the keynote address at the 2016 New Partners to Smart Growth Conference and a panel discussion. [12:26] Ron shares the major themes of his keynote. [14:02] Why do you think those who have been focused on improving the built and natural environments are only now realizing that the key to improving our physical environment is greater economic and social inclusion for under-served and disadvantaged communities? [17:09] Where have you seen the biggest advances on issues of access to economic and social inclusion? [23:40] Ron discusses how we can make investments that will fundamentally make a difference. [29:00] Ron shares what the Equity and Social Justice Initiative is trying to accomplish and how it’s working. [33:38] Ron shares one change that would lead to more sustainable and more equitable communities. [33:58] What one action could listeners take to help build a more equitable and sustainable future? [34:12] What does Martin Luther King, Jr. King County, Washington look like 30 years from now?   GUEST Ron Sims is a civic volunteer active in health, education, environmental and social equity issues. Appointed by Governor Jay Inslee, Sims serves as the chair of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange Board. The board is responsible for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in Washington State. Sims is on the Board of Regents of Washington State University. He was appointed to the board by former Governor Chris Gregoire. The Board of Regents is the university’s governing body. Sims is on the Board of Directors of the Washington Health Alliance, formerly the Puget Sound Health Alliance, a nonprofit organization he helped found where employers, physicians, hospitals, patients, health plan providers and others from throughout the region come together to improve healthcare quality. Sims served as the Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development from 2009 to 2011. He was appointed by President Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. As the second most senior official at HUD, Sims managed the day-to-day operations of an agency with 8,500 employees and an operating budget of nearly $40 billion. Prior to his appointment at HUD, Sims served for 12 years as the elected Executive of Martin Luther King, Jr. County (also known as King County), in Washington State, the 13th largest county in the nation with over 2 million residents and 39 cities, including the cities of Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond. As County Executive, Sims was nationally recognized for his work on the integration of environmental, social equity, and public health policies that produced groundbreaking work on climate change, health care reform, affordable housing, mass transit, environmental protection, land use, and equity and social justice. Born in Spokane, Washington in 1948, Sims is a graduate of Central Washington University. ORGANIZATIONThe Equity and Social Justice Initiative of King County, Washington recognizes that economy and quality of life depends on the ability of everyone to contribute. They will work to remove barriers that limit the ability of some to fulfill their potential. They are committed to implementing their equity and social justice agenda, to work toward fairness and opportunity for all. TAKE AWAY QUOTES “It’s something my parents taught: always work collaboratively—you can be surprised at who your friends are.” “If smart growth does what it’s supposed...

Planet Forward hosted a LIVE event during the White House’s GreenGov Symposium, a conference focused on making all levels of government more sustainable. In this week’s webisode, the U.S. General Services Administration shows how restoring a building can change a city, even if it means moving some bats! Click on the video to learn what our esteemed panel (Laura Ipsen of Cisco, Mayor Ralph Becker of Salt Lake City, HUD Deputy Secy. Ron Sims and the SBA’s Sean Greene) think of the innovations behind the GSA new LEED-certified building.

Planet Forward hosted a LIVE event during the White House's GreenGov Symposium, a conference focused on making all levels of government more sustainable. In this segment, Sandia National Laboratories shows the potential of how a little change can go a long way. See how and learn what our esteemed panel (Laura Ipsen of Cisco, Mayor Ralph Becker of Salt Lake City, HUD Deputy Secy. Ron Sims and the SBA's Sean Greene) think of their innovation.

Planet Forward hosted a LIVE event during the White House's GreenGov Symposium, a conference focused on making all levels of government more sustainable. PF Host Frank Sesno led a great discussion between the esteemed panel (Laura Ipsen of Cisco, Mayor Ralph Becker of Salt Lake City, HUD Deputy Secy. Ron Sims and the SBA's Sean Greene) and 6 employees eager to show that their agency (including the National Archives, featured here) could go green.

2006/11/07. King County Executive Ron Sims speaks on leadership, current issues, and takes questions.

2006/11/07. King County Executive Ron Sims speaks on leadership, current issues, and takes questions.