Podcasts about Sdot

Former restaurant and retail journalist Joey Thompson joins us to talk about what new restaurants are opening and which ones are closing. We also cover sports updates, new rules at Pike Place, and the state of journalism.Top Stories1. Restaurant updates: Salt & Straw, Raising Cane's, Eden Hill, and moreSalt n Straw (Seattle Times)Raising Cane's (PSBJ)Eden Hill closes (Seattle Eater)Rapport reopens as Nomadic (Cap Hill)2. Sports updates: Kraken, Storm, SeawolvesKraken head coach changes (PSBJ)Kraken changes season ticket holder packages (PSBJ)Storm media deal (PSBJ)Marshawn Lynch joins rugby ownership (PSBJ)3. Pike Place banning cars in test runPike Place Market banning most vehicle traffic in test run (Seattle Times)4. Crosswalk buttons hackedSeattle crosswalk buttons hacked to sound like Jeff Bezos; SDOT exploring 'stronger security measures' (GeekWire)5. Everett Herald moves officesEverett Herald to relocate to smaller space in wake of layoffs last year (PSBJ)About guest co-host Joey Thompson - PR Manager of Meetings, Visit Seattle (formerly reporter for Puget Sound Business Journal):Joey started as reporter for the Daily Herald of Everett then became the restaurant and retail reporter at the Puget Sound Business Journal before moving to his current role as the PR Manager of Meetings for Visit Seattle. Joey graduated from Gonzaga, where he was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.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: ⁠

Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and Erica C. Barnett, publisher of Publicola, discuss the story behind the City's work on a new crowd control policy for the Seattle Police Department, an update on SPD's 30 x 30 project to increase recruitment of women, departures from the Council and SDOT, and more. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon!Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies - The Beltway BriefingListen for of-the-moment insider insights, framed by the rapidly changing social and...

What’s Trending: Seattle restaurant owners are sounding the alarm ahead of next year’s minimum wage hike. SDOT botched another transportation project. David Axelrod is taking heat for his comments suggesting that Hurricane Helene could hurt Trump’s voter turnout in North Carolina. // LongForm: GUEST: Gordon Chang breaks down the unique threat posed by China, making them our biggest adversary. // The Quick Hit: Joe Scarborough said that the reason Trump wouldn’t go on 60 Minutes is because he is afraid of being fact-checked. Kamala Harris can’t say if it was a mistake to have such lax immigration policies.

What’s Trending: Seattle Voters disapprove of council’s direction // Patty Murray strikes down abortion bill // Bus stuck in snow for 4 hours… SDOT, where were you?! // Commission approves pay raises for Washington judges, governor, lawmakers and others // 2 University of Michigan students help create nation’s first social class and inequality minor. // Central Washington University reaffirms its commitment to fre speech on campus.

Perhaps you've noticed a lot of construction on Seattle streets this year: new bike lanes along MLK, fresh pavement and bus shelters on Madison Street, and sidewalk replacements across the city. That's because the Seattle Department of Transportation has money to spend.  In 2015, voters passed a $930 million transportation levy called “Move Seattle.” And initially, Seattle was slow moving that money out the door. “Move Seattle” expires this year and Seattle voters will likely be deciding on whether to raise their property taxes again for a new transportation levy this fall. And this one is clocking in at over $1.5 billion. Tomorrow, the city council plans to vote on the final version of a Seattle transportation levy that will appear on ballots in November. Guests: Greg Spotts, Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation Related Links: The Urbanist: SDOT Sprints Toward the End of the Move Seattle Era Seattle Times: Sidewalks top of mind for Seattle's priciest-ever transportation levy KUOW: $1B for sidewalks, bike lanes, and road repairs: Seattle transportation levy ahead See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this engaging conversation, the dialogue begins with a heartfelt tribute to our camera guy, Sdot's late mother, allowing us to honor and remember her. The conversation then smoothly transitions into an exciting announcement about an upcoming car show at the Meadowlands Expo Center on August 17th, creating anticipation and excitement among the participants and listeners. However, the conversation takes a significant turn as it delves into a crucial and sensitive topic: abusive behavior in relationships. The participants engage in a thoughtful discussion exploring various themes such as control, grooming, and the profound psychological impact of abuse on the victim. This conversation aims to raise awareness and shed light on the harsh realities faced by individuals in abusive relationships. Furthermore, the dialogue delves into the intricate complexities of communication, self-esteem, insecurity, power dynamics, and toxic relationships. It highlights the reasons why women often find themselves trapped in abusive relationships, focusing on the detrimental effects of low self-esteem and insecurity. The participants emphasize the importance of self-love and the necessity of a strong support system in empowering individuals to break free from the clutches of such destructive relationships. Throughout the conversation, Envy and Gia stress the urgent need for intervention and provide valuable resources for individuals who may find themselves in abusive situations. By offering support and sharing knowledge, they aim to create a society where no one has to endure the horrors of domestic violence alone. This conversation serves as a reminder of the significance of raising awareness and fostering a community that stands against domestic violence. At the conclusion of the episode, Envy introduces an email regarding a recent podcast episode, signaling a transition to another engaging topic for further discussion. Let's talk about it…

Today, Trae sits with some SDOT representatives. First Dan Anderson, the Public Engagement Manager and Levy Renewal Communications Manager joins the show to discuss the transportation levy renewal. Next, Meghan Shepard, Deputy Director of Downtown Mobility talks about her work with the transportation levy renewal and what folks can expect from it.

Today we start with another This 'N That segment with Jerica T as she shows us some items we can all use. Next, Trae sits with Christine Alar, a Senior Transportation Planner for SDOT, to learn more about the bus only lanes on Rainier Ave. Lastly, Trae connects with Shamso Issak, Founder and Executive Director of Living Well Kent to learn about their work and why she started this organization.

They just won’t shut up sometimes. I’m here to leng them quiet. Blup B Listen on Soundcloud Watch on YouTube Track list MC Cobra, Danny JD – The Joke BWK Project – Pillow Talk (Club Mix) Baker feat. SDot – Dream Eliza Rose & MJ Cole – Business As Usual (night shift mix) Hukae – […] The post Garage n Bass To Make The Voices Stop – Episode 399 – Bumpy UK Garage with DJ BrainZ appeared first on UK Garage n Bass From DJ BrainZ.

The Turkeys are back! This time, Sdot joins to give his thoughts on the All-Star and respond to us. Pull up, take a listen and enjoy because this one is a good time!! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aprince15/support

On this topical show, special guest host Shannon Cheng welcomes back Amy Sundberg and BJ Last from Solidarity Budget to discuss how the City of Seattle is rushing to bring three surveillance technologies to the streets of Seattle with minimal public input - a final public meeting happens next week on Tuesday, February 27th, 6pm! Amy and BJ fill Shannon in on Seattle's Surveillance Impact Report process and their concerns that three technologies - Acoustic Gunshot Location System (AGLS, aka ShotSpotter), Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV), and Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) - are being rushed through without providing the public transparency into potential privacy concerns, especially relating to equity and community impact, ahead of their potential adoption. After identifying the problems the City claims to be solving with these surveillance technologies, Amy and BJ discuss how each proposed technology, both individually and in combination, have been shown to be ineffective and at times harmful when used in other cities around the country. They then provide examples of solutions proven to address gun violence that show great promise but are chronically underfunded. Finally, Amy and BJ share a host of opportunities that concerned listeners have to make their voice heard, including at the final public meeting next week on Tuesday, February 27th, 6pm!  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the guest host, Shannon Cheng, on Twitter at @drbestturtle, find Amy Sundberg at @amysundberg, and find Solidarity Budget at https://www.seattlesolidaritybudget.com/.   Amy Sundberg Amy Sundberg is the publisher of Notes from the Emerald City, a weekly newsletter on Seattle politics and policy with a particular focus on public safety, police accountability, and the criminal legal system. She also writes about public safety for The Urbanist. She organizes with Seattle Solidarity Budget and People Power Washington. In addition, she writes science fiction and fantasy, with a new novel, TO TRAVEL THE STARS, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in space, available now. She is particularly fond of Seattle's parks, where she can often be found walking her little dog.   BJ Last BJ Last is a business analyst, and former small business owner, with two decades of budgeting experience across a wide range of industries. He organizes with the Solidarity Budget and Ballard Mutual Aid.   Resources Public Comment Period Opening for the Technology Assisted Crime Prevention Pilot Technologies | City of Seattle Information Technology   STOP Surveillance City - Solidarity Budget Call to Action   Stop Surveillance City Sign-On Letter | Solidarity Budget   “Harrell Plans Hasty Rollout of Massive Surveillance Expansion” by Amy Sundberg from The Urbanist   “Seattle's New Policing Panopticon” by Puget Sound Prisoner Support for Puget Sound Anarchists   The Surveillance Ordinance | City of Seattle   “Mayor Johnson to end ShotSpotter deal after summer, making good on key campaign promise” by Tom Schuba and Fran Spielman from The Chicago Sun-Times   Seattle Police Department 2023 Year-End Overview | Presentation to Seattle Public Safety Committee - February 13, 2024   Dangerous Surveillance #1 - Closed-Circuit Television Cameras (CCTV) | Solidarity Budget   Dangerous Surveillance #2 - Acoustic Gunshot Location System (AGLS), aka ShotSpotter | Solidarity Budget   Dangerous Surveillance #3 - Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) | Solidarity Budget   “Cook County, Ill., officials say ICE using data brokers to purchase protected information” by Lindsay McKenzie from StateScoop   @DivestSPD on Twitter/X: SPD sociopath Micah Smith #7714 involuntarily committed people to score a date w/ an ambulance driver   “OPA Documents Show Current SPD Officer Misused Internal Police Data to Try to Get a Date, “Caused Anxiety and Concern”” by Carolyn Bick from South Seattle Emerald   Rainier Beach Action Coalition   King County Regional Office of Gun Violence Prevention   “Richmond is offering an important lesson on public safety at a critical time” by Justin Phillips from San Francisco Chronicle   “Want to reduce violence? Invest in place.” by Hanna Love from The Brookings Institution   Seattle Solidarity Budget on Instagram   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. [00:00:52] Shannon Cheng: Hello, everybody. This is Shannon Cheng, producer of Hacks & Wonks. I am going to be your special guest host again today, and I'm super excited to be welcoming back to the show Amy Sundberg and BJ Last from Solidarity Budget. Some of you may recall that we did a show back in November about the Seattle City budget process. And we talked at that time about a proposed crime prevention pilot program that included technology such as ShotSpotter and CCTV. Well, today we're sort of doing this as an emergency show because we're trying to follow up on what's happening with the City's process in acquiring and implementing these technologies. So I just really wanted to have these experts back on to fill us in on what's going on and why it's important. So starting off, what is happening? What are these surveillance technologies that are being considered by the City? [00:01:41] Amy Sundberg: Good to be back. We're happy to be here talking about this. Yeah, so there are three different technologies that are currently being discussed and reviewed. The first one is Acoustic Gunshot Location Systems, or AGLS - or colloquially known as ShotSpotter. So I would say as we continue to have this conversation, you should consider those phrases interchangeably. I might say AGLS, I might say ShotSpotter, but it's the same technology in either case. The second one is CCTV, and the third one is a Real-Time Crime Center software. [00:02:13] Shannon Cheng: When we talked about budget back in November, I feel like there were only two at the time. And now we're talking about three - is that true? [00:02:19] BJ Last: Yes, that has come in. They're claiming magically that it's all going to work under the same dollar amount. Back when we talked, it was just the AGLS, the Acoustic Gunshot Location Service, and the closed circuit television cameras, the CCTV. So now it's the Real-Time Crime Center, the RTCC, which is largely just a massive compiler of data that goes and pulls in tech from ShotSpotter, from AGLS microphones, from City-owned CCTV cameras, from privately-owned CCTV cameras, and a bunch of AI algorithms - a real quick overview of what that one is. But yeah, we're now up to three techs as a suite. [00:02:57] Amy Sundberg: I should say, too, that the RTCC software also will integrate the license plate readers, which we just saw a massive expansion of at the end of last year. [00:03:05] Shannon Cheng: Right. Just to remind everybody where we were at at the end of 2023 - during that budget process, funding for this surveillance technology was allocated, and I believe it was $1.8 million total. And of that, $1.5 million was supposed to be for a pilot project for this Acoustic Gunshot Locator System plus the CCTV - and there was no Real-Time Crime Center at the time. And then the other $300,000 was for this expansion of Automatic License Plate Readers that Amy just mentioned. So where are we now with these three surveillance technologies? [00:03:46] Amy Sundberg: Well, we are in the middle of a convoluted process that BJ and I and others have been spending a lot of time trying to understand and to help other people understand. So it's called a Surveillance Impact Review, which all surveillance technologies that are going to be used in the City of Seattle now have to go through this review process because of an ordinance that was passed. [00:04:09] BJ Last: And do you want to give a shout out to who was the primary sponsor of this ordinance? It is our current mayor, Bruce Harrell - just a fun one to know, given with how this process is unfolding. [00:04:21] Amy Sundberg: I actually didn't know that, and that is kind of ironic - so thank you for sharing. So this process has to be done for any technology that is deemed to be surveillance technology, which all three of these technologies have been deemed. And it is a review process that has many steps. We have the draft reports available now, which I believe were filled out by SPD and maybe also the executive's office. And right now we're in the stage where we are able to give public comment. So there has to be at least one public hearing for this report - they are having two public hearings. One of them already happened, and the other one is upcoming on February 27th at 6 p.m. at Bitter Lake Community Center and online, of course. [00:05:14] BJ Last: And I will say this process is being exceptionally, I'd say, rushed and short. So they started taking public comment on February 5th. They stop taking public comment on February 29th. So y'all can do the math - that's well less than 30 days that people actually get to go and provide feedback on this. And as Amy mentioned, there will be a grand total of two public hearings on this. So we're looking at literally less than a hearing per technology being done - three technologies, but only two total hearings. And as a comparison of how this works - Dayton, Ohio, an area I think a lot of people in Seattle would probably look down as like red state, flyover country - when they were looking at adopting just one of these technologies, they had 13 public hearings versus nominally progressive Seattle doing its grand total of two for three technologies. [00:06:05] Shannon Cheng: Okay, so at the end of last year, the City allocated the money for these technologies. Now they're going through this process. As you said, it's this Surveillance Ordinance - so that took effect in November of 2018. It was designed to provide greater transparency when deciding whether the City was going to adopt any technology that is surveillance, as Amy said. And just to be clear, this is not just restricted to the Seattle Police Department wanting to implement surveillance technologies. When I was looking back at some of the past technologies that had to go through this process, SDOT had to do this for some cameras they had for traffic detection to help streets moving smoothly. So this is just - whenever we're implementing something that is going to be observing, it's so that the public and the city council can understand - what are the impacts and are there any concerns that we need to know about before we just roll all this stuff out onto our streets. So that's where we're at. And in the past, I noticed it took them maybe 6-7 months to go through this process. But as you're describing it, BJ, it sounds like it could be less than a month that they're trying to do everything right now. [00:07:16] BJ Last: Correct. They're trying to limit all the public input to less than one month just to go push it through. You did a great job summarizing the Surveillance Ordinance, Shannon. It really was designed so the people of Seattle get to meaningfully - A) find out what surveillance they're potentially going to be impacted to, and B) get a chance to evaluate it so that we don't end up - Oh wow, there's this new surveillance because five people fell for a sales pitch. That people of the city actually got a chance to research the thing, find out what they were dealing with, and that's really hard to say that's happening when you're trying to do three different technologies in less than 30 days. [00:07:50] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, that's a lot of information. I admit I've been having trouble wrapping my head around everything. So it sounds like we're already past the point of one of the public meetings having happened. We're recording this show Thursday, February 15th. The first one happened on Monday, February 12th. So what was that public meeting like? Did they provide in-depth information about the impacts that these technologies might have? And how did people react? [00:08:17] Amy Sundberg: No, I wouldn't say that. About half of the meeting was a presentation about the technologies, but it was more about why they're going to adopt them - what they think will be helpful about the technologies. They didn't really go over any of the negative impacts that we are so worried about. And then there was a chance for public comment. I would say there was about 15 or 16 people who wanted to give comment at this first meeting, which - people didn't have a lot of advance notice. And like you said, it is three different technologies - some of which people are hearing about for the very first time - and they are technical. It does take some time to learn even what they are and how they work and why we should maybe be worried. So 15 or 16, given that, I feel like was higher than anticipated. And what I heard over and over again is people saying - This is too rushed. We need to slow down. We have concerns. We are against this surveillance technology. And also this is too fast, and this process is not serving the people of Seattle well. I would say there was maybe one comment that wasn't that. It was very uniform, in terms of people being very concerned about this. And it was at noon on a Monday, so people are taking their lunch break or time off in the middle of a workday - that's how worried they are, right? I am happy that the second public meeting is in the evening to give a different demographic of folks the chance to come out and give comment. But I still think two one-hour sessions is not sufficient. I will also say that there are other worrisome things about this process. For example, there is a Surveillance Advisory Working Group. And how they plug into this process is once everything else is kind of done, they are supposed to review these reports. And then they complete a civil liberties and privacy assessment, which for a surveillance technology, you can see how crucial that would be. And right now, that group has one confirmed sitting member. So they can't meet quorum, right? And I know that there are some other folks that are lined up, but they do need to be confirmed in the committee first. And again, this is being very rushed - the mayor's office gets to appoint some and then the council gets to appoint some - the timing of it all makes me feel uncomfortable, to be frank. That this is going to be rushed right before these three technologies are going to be discussed - who is being chosen and why? I don't know the answers to that, but these are questions that we're going to have to ask as those appointees come on board. And then they're going to be brand new, and right away have to do this review. Again, a very rushed process. And then perhaps my - all these things are very concerning, but one of my biggest concerns is the Racial Equity Toolkit component of this process. So all of these Surveillance Impact Reports have to have a Racial Equity Toolkit as part of the process. And it's been very unclear as to how - is the Racial Equity Toolkit a concurrent process? Is it a separate process? What is the timeline? What kind of outreach is going to happen? How are they reaching out to the impacted groups? Are they making sure to do so in a way that is best for those groups and to do it in a variety of different ways, et cetera, et cetera? There's a lot of open questions that I have not been able to get answers to thus far. I've been hearing that possibly these public hearings that we're having for the Surveillance Impact Report might be kind of rolled into the Racial Equity Toolkit, which seems inappropriate to me, frankly, for technologies that have such potential for grave misuse and negative impact. As well, we do not yet know exactly where this technology is going to be deployed. We've been told several locations - Aurora Avenue North, Belltown, and the Downtown commercial core - that's what we were told last year. Then a couple weeks ago, they added Chinatown International District - apparently at the last minute, and they don't know where. They've said that it's probably not going to be all of these places, but wherever they're going to deploy this technology, they need to do - in my opinion - a separate RET, Racial Equity Toolkit, because each neighborhood is going to have different dynamics, different demographics, different things going on, different groups that need to be consulted. And I haven't heard about any individual outreach. So it doesn't mean it hasn't happened, but I have been actively asking and I have not been able to find anything out that this is actually happening. As well, you're going to want to look at reports, studies for racial impacts, potentially. Again, I'm not seeing those being cited in the draft report. So it seems like a very slapdash, non-serious job that is being done. And it doesn't seem like the communications that have been sent out to the public don't seem to come from an administration that's serious about equity and social justice. And I'm very concerned, frankly, that I am even having trouble getting my questions answered. [00:13:38] BJ Last: Also, that's a great point on the four different areas that are up for consideration, because there are four areas - again, two public comment periods. Last one that's open is up in Bitter Lake - that is not exactly close to Chinatown International District, that is not close to Belltown, that's not really close to Downtown core. So three of the four areas that could potentially get this will have never even had a public hearing in their area. Fortunately, people can join that remotely, but that's also not even an option for everyone. So they've said this might go out in one of four areas. They're not even trying to do outreach in each of those areas, which is - as Amy said, seems like a problem, and that's something they're not really taking seriously. Same with when they wrote up the Surveillance Impact Reports - there's a section of what studies have they looked at for each technology. And for two of the reports, those are entirely blank. And for one of them, for CCTV, they referenced one study that actually found this has no impact on violent crime. So this seems very slapdash, just trying to push it through, not trying to get the community involved. [00:14:41] Amy Sundberg: We also really expected to see them talking to other cities. None of these technologies are particularly new. A lot of cities have used these technologies, have deployed them in various combinations. I will say also, it is not new to put all three of these technologies together in one place. Chicago, for example, does it - they've been doing it for a while now. And we're seeing a lot of cities backtracking - having had a contract for ShotSpotter or similar technology, and then discontinuing that contract. And just this week, we got the news that Chicago is going to be discontinuing their very large contract for ShotSpotter by fall at the latest. And it seems that it would make sense for a city who is considering deploying this technology to talk to other cities about the experience that they have had, especially if it seems like maybe they've had kind of a negative or mixed experience. [00:15:37] Shannon Cheng: So what I'm hearing from the two of you is that we're on the brink of potentially acquiring or implementing these technologies, which we have some concerns about, that the product of this Surveillance Impact Report process is to provide the city council a holistic view of what these technologies are meant to do, whether they work, what kind of drawbacks they might have. And unfortunately, it sounds like the process that they're going through, there's just a lot of things wrong with it - the speed at which it's going, the incompleteness of their filling out the draft report, the not making sure that the last group who is going to review the report before it goes in its final form to city council even has people on it. It just makes you wonder - it's not like they didn't know this was coming. I remember when we spoke last November - BJ, you pointed out they had been trying to get ShotSpotter since the year before. They had an entire year. Now they've had two years to start planning, filling out this report, getting all these ducks in a row. And it just seems like we're now here at the last minute and there's some kind of false sense of urgency being put on the city council - who is also brand new to all of this as well - to just accept things that are going to have ramifications for everybody who lives, works, or plays in Seattle for many, many years to come. So I feel worried listening to the two of you talk. So that's just the process. What about the technologies themselves? When we hear the word "surveillance," my concerns are my privacy rights - when I just go about my daily life, I don't necessarily want to feel like I am being monitored and all the details of that are being kept somewhere. When people feel like they are being surveilled, there can be a chilling effect on just how they behave - whether that's in public, or where they go, or who they associate with, or what they say. We're trying to live, theoretically, in a vibrant community with diversity in it. And I think that surveillance does have this effect that homogenizes - when people try to play to the camera and make sure that they're not going to get singled out for whatever that is being looked for. And then there's a lot of discrimination when it comes to surveillance - just the way that it's implemented - it's just got issues where the system's just never perfect at understanding what it's seeing. And so unfortunately, biases trickle through. So just generally, that's why surveillance is bad. And so that's why it's really important and why there's supposedly this process where before we undertake letting more of it into our lives, we want to understand what are the issues with it. So here we are - we're in the City of Seattle, we're thinking about implementing these three technologies. Again, that would be the Acoustic Gunshot Location System, the CCTV cameras, and the Real-Time Crime Center. What problem does the City claim that we're trying to solve with these technologies? And does it seem like that they will? [00:18:53] BJ Last: So the claim is that this is specifically for gun crime - which is always the claim that these technologies and a lot of other surveillance technologies use as an excuse - because that is a very real and very, very serious problem. And the thing is, they know it absolutely doesn't work - their technologies don't actually work to reduce that. And that's why you see what their pitch is keeps changing - from, Oh, this is going to prevent or reduce crime, to, Okay, this will help gather evidence for after crime has occurred, to, Maybe this will help the community know to improve the emotional health of kids, to, Maybe this will get people to medical treatment faster. It's just sort of as studies come out showing one doesn't work, they just keep moving the goalposts and moving the pitch. That's why even the technology suite keeps changing. From it's just, Oh you need CCTV - that's gonna solve it - make us a crime-free world, to, Oh, you need Acoustic Gunshot Location, AGLS. Oh no, you need the two of them combined. Oh no, you need the two of them plus RTCC, the Real-Time Crime Center, and all of its algorithms. It just keeps going because it absolutely does not work on this. And this is actually even really reflected in how the City has kept trying to pitch these things. This right now is called the crime prevention pilot - emphasis on the word "prevention." So when they tried to get it back in the 2023 budget, an actual quote from Mayor Bruce Harrell - "Cities across the country have used this as an evidence gathering tool, not a violence prevention tool." So 2023, they're - Nope, no prevention. 2024 budget, they're back to calling it prevention. They're just constantly trying to change what it is. So nominally, it is for gun violence, but we've seen time and again that it does not work for that. Studies that you look at - like Chicago, they found that it's missed hundreds of gunshots in an actual year, while at the same time having an incredibly high false positive rate, with 9 out of 10 alerts being no evidence of any gun crime occurred. CCTV - again, the study that the city mentioned, found that it has absolutely no impact on violent crime rates or clearance. So what it's supposedly for, it absolutely doesn't work and does a whole host of harm in the meantime. [00:21:02] Amy Sundberg: Another way that it's being pitched is to deal with SPD's unprecedented staffing shortages - that's a quote from the report. So conveniently this week, we just had the new numbers released for crime in Seattle in 2023. In terms of staffing for SPD - in 2023, they lost 36 more officers than they were able to hire in the year. So they're a net negative 36 - so it went down - they have less staffing now than they did before. And yet in 2023, they had a 9% reduction in overall crime and a 6% reduction in violent crime. Now, I don't want to be gaming these statistics - what is very serious is that there was a 23% increase in homicide. And obviously, we don't want to see that. But the question is, does staffing actually impact these numbers? Is that the thing that does it? And so in that case, does alleviating this staffing issue with these techs - is that going to have any impact on the numbers? And the studies, in general, say no - with CCTV, it would maybe have an impact on car theft or maybe some types of property crime. But property crime actually went down 10% in 2023 already. The numbers don't really line up either in terms of this unprecedented staffing and needing this technology. And at a certain point, I think you have to do a cost-benefit analysis of what do you expect to potentially gain from adopting a technology versus what are the harms that might happen. And so far, this conversation has been shifting the goalposts a lot on what we hope to gain and ignoring all of the potential and documented in other cities harm that could be caused. And I feel like that's a really unfortunate way for this conversation to be framed. [00:22:53] BJ Last: And before getting into some of the harms, I want to - you mentioned, Amy, that they're using the - what they have been trying to claim since 2019 is a massive police staffing shortage. That is just a complete nonsensical argument for these. Acoustic gunshot Location Services - it's a false call generating machine. I mentioned Chicago found a 90% false positive rate. Atlanta found a 97% false positive rate. That's one of the reasons why both of those cities have stopped using Acoustic Gunshot Location Services. Other cities have as well, with police coming out and saying - This is a massive strain on our resources, because we're constantly getting these alerts that are coming through as, Oh, it's a shots fired incident. We're dispatching cops and they get there and they're like - there's absolutely nothing around. So the claim that this somehow would help for staffing levels is absolutely absurd, when again - AGLS just generates false positives, that's what it does. [00:23:45] Amy Sundberg: Another thing that they're saying is that this would help get more justice for victims and victims' families of gun violence - and that also doesn't seem to be the case. There was a new review that just came out in the last couple of weeks by Cook County state attorney's office in Illinois that found that - they're using ShotSpotter. They found it has, "a minimal effect on prosecuting gun violence cases." And, "ShotSpotter is not making a significant impact on shooting incidents, with only 1% of shooting incidences ending in a ShotSpotter arrest." And then they also said - Also, it's really expensive. - so that's a thing, too. And then I spoke to an expert at the MacArthur Justice Center - attorney named Jonathan Manes - and he says that ShotSpotter doesn't make police more efficient or relieve staffing shortages. He says - Actually, it's the opposite. It vastly increases the number of police deployments in response to supposed gunfire - these false alerts that BJ was talking about - but with no corresponding increase in gun violence arrests or other interventions. And then he went on to tell me that it actually increases response times to 911 calls as a result of flooding the system. [00:24:56] BJ Last: And it isn't just Acoustic Gunshot Location Systems that don't work on this. Again, with CCTV as well - there was a study from Dallas looking into this, and it found it didn't have any impact on clearance rates for violent crime. There was no benefit from actually going and putting out a bunch of CCTV cameras. And this actually corresponds with a lot of the studies done in London that have also shown the same thing - when they put cameras out through the city, they don't see that. The British Home Office looked into 14 different CCTV ones and found that they didn't reduce crime, make people feel any safer. So it's not just acoustic gunshot location, but even CCTV doesn't work, which I feel like for some people - it feels almost counterintuitive on that because we see so much crime dramas and all of - Oh, cameras solve everything - often with someone saying the word "enhance" multiple times and you get perfect evidence that never would have existed otherwise. And that's just not borne out by reality, they just do not do that. [00:25:54] Amy Sundberg: I also just wanted to mention - this is called a pilot project, so it is not necessarily going to have a huge deployment right from the start. But the reason it's still really important to have this public conversation now, as opposed to later, is that this Surveillance Impact Review is happening now. This is our chance to discuss it. And once it passes this review, it won't go through another review if they decide they massively want to expand. So this opens the door to any future expansion that the City might decide that they want to do. And we've seen a recent example with the license plate readers, which did go through a surveillance review process in the past. They had it deployed on only a few SPD patrol vehicles, and now they're going to be on every single patrol vehicle that SPD owns. And that took very little effort. It received very little coverage in the media. So this is our one opportunity to most effectively push back against the broader use of these technologies, even though right now it's just being discussed as a pilot. [00:26:59] Shannon Cheng: So during budget season, as we discussed before, they only talked about those first two - the Automatic Gunshot Locator System and the CCTV - but now they're adding on this Real-Time Crime Center. This is the one that I feel the least familiar with, but it also sounds potentially very insidious. And now they're trying to sell this as a package of these three together, claiming that - maybe these individually don't work that well on their own, but somehow magically, if we combine them together, it's going to completely be a Transformer robot or something and be able to save the world. So my understanding with this Real-Time Crime Center - and this ties into this expansion of Automatic License Plate Readers you were just talking about, Amy - is that it's just trying to basically aggregate a bunch of data from different sources that the police department has and then give this one view or something to some observer to call the shots about what's happening or what's not happening. What really worried me when I was reading about it is that it takes in these sources that maybe the City has deployed around, but it also offers this opportunity for private cameras to be incorporated. So people can opt-in to let their own - whether they have a Ring doorbell camera, that type of thing, or just a security camera at their business or their home - and they can allow, basically, law enforcement have access to that without their neighbors necessarily knowing or people coming into their store. And that doesn't go through a process on its own at all and wouldn't be subject to maybe public disclosure requests to know where the location of those cameras were or where they're being pointed. So what more can you tell me about RTCC? Because I just - I'm worried. [00:28:56] Amy Sundberg: I think you should be worried. Yeah, it is worrisome. And the more I read about it, the more worried I become. You always hope in these situations that you start out being worried and then those worries are ameliorated through gaining more knowledge. But in this case, it is the opposite. I think the ability to plug in all these private cameras into the system is a big issue. The amount of data that is going to be collected - I don't think that can be understated - it's a massive amount of data because it's taking in all the data from all these other surveillance technologies, both the already existing ones like license plate readers and these potential new ones. And then all of these private cameras, which can keep expanding over time without oversight because they're privately owned cameras. So the public doesn't really get to weigh in on those private cameras. They can be pointed anywhere - you are correct. And the City has no control over where the private cameras are pointed. But that data still is then brought back to the software and collated and run through algorithms and available for people to have access to. So that is definitely worrisome. [00:30:03] BJ Last: Yeah, the fact that the City doesn't control where the cameras go - since they now allow the private ones in there - is a huge thing. You may think - Hey, the City wouldn't point a camera at, oh, say, the parking lot of Planned Parenthood or a healthcare facility, because Seattle wants to be a sanctuary city for people seeking abortion healthcare or people seeking transgender healthcare. Hey, a private individual can. The Denny Blaine Beach - we just had that, where someone tried giving the city $550k to put in a playground there to effectively drive a queer beach - to disband it. Hey, they wouldn't have to give the City $550k, they could just point a camera there. So any place, if you were like - Oh, well, the City wouldn't do that because for whatever reason - they wouldn't target any groups. Guess what? Any private individual can go and point a camera wherever they want, and now that's getting fed in. And that is now data that does not need a warrant to be accessed. And so any potentially marginalized group anywhere that Seattle is trying to be a sanctuary city for is completely at-risk off of this. So just all of that is now in play as these private cameras roll out. And beyond private cameras, RTCC, the Real-Time Crime Centers, they're also another Software As A Service, like the Acoustic Gunshot Location. And part of that is they openly brag about how they are constantly rolling out new algorithms as part of your subscription package - A) that really seems like that violates the Surveillance Ordinance because those aren't going up and getting public review as a part of that, so now that can't happen. And then what even are the ones that they're doing? So some of the ones that groups are trying to do is the theory of detecting whether or not someone has a gun on them by using cameras and looking at the way they walk, which unsurprisingly is incredibly inaccurate - as inaccurate as that actually even sounds, just from me trying to describe it. So you now have the potential of - that's now part of the RTCC. So SPD is now going to potentially roll up because - Hey, the camera algorithm thought you had a sort of funny walk, so guess what? The cops are now getting called as if you're someone carrying a gun on you. That is really - like that's so absurd, it doesn't sound like it should be accurate, but that is actually what this is. [00:32:11] Amy Sundberg: I have a couple of other concerns as well - going back to the privately-owned cameras for just a moment. Because they're privately owned, what that means is it makes it more complicated and confusing in terms of restrictions that normally govern the police. So, for example, they wouldn't necessarily have to get a warrant for footage that they normally would be required to get a warrant for. And there's settings that the private users can do, but it's confusing. I don't think your layperson is necessarily going to know what they're opting into. I've spent the last two weeks immersing myself in information about this, and I still find aspects of it confusing. And your average person doesn't have two weeks to do that, you know? So it kind of disrupts the current checks and balances we have around surveillance and police power, which I find very concerning. And then in terms of undermining Seattle's status as a sanctuary city, one of the things that is key to understand about this software is - the privacy of the data is not guaranteed. Once it's in that Real-Time Crime Center software, there's a lot of interagency exchange. So SPD might originally get the data. And then it could be exchanged with another law enforcement department somewhere else. And they could exchange it with another law enforcement department somewhere else. And then it could end up with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], as one example. I asked some experts - because we do have an ordinance here in Seattle that requires that when ICE makes a request, that it be referred to Mayor's Office Legal Counsel when they ask SPD for something. I was like - Well, would that help? But probably not, because of what I just stated - because it can pass from agency to agency to agency. So it's some fourth agency that's giving it to ICE - it's not SPD, so there's no chance to have that interruption there. As well, there are documented cases when a police officer will just give the data to ICE and they'll just - whatever policies are in place, they'll just kind of conveniently ignore that and hand over the data. So the idea really is that once this data is being collected and being collated, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to firewall it, protect it, make sure it stays in a limited space at all. And that has implications, as we've said, to undocumented people. It has implications for people who are seeking abortion - especially from other states where abortion is no longer legal. But we might eventually live in a world where abortion is no longer legal here in Washington state, and then it would apply to anybody seeking an abortion. It applies to all sorts of cases where privacy is really crucial, and not because anyone is committing gun violence - that's not why. [00:35:08] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, that point about who does get access to the data that's collected. It's one thing to have all these things collecting the data, but if it isn't well-protected or there isn't a good system to limit or manage who has access to it, that's very concerning. And as you said, it impacts vulnerable communities first, but ultimately it impacts all of us. When marginalized communities feel like they're being targeted, they tend to go into the shadows and the margins - and that just is not good for anybody. Right after the Muslim Ban, we worked for - trying to make sure that local law enforcement wasn't cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. And one of the arguments was that if undocumented folks can't trust local law enforcement to not turn them in for deportation - if they're a witness to a crime or something like that - they're not going to want to engage and help the community solve these ills. They're just going to go into hiding. And that's just bad for all of us in general. So it's really worrying. And then also, in addition to these unknown other people who have access to the data, Seattle Police Department officers themselves, in theory, might have access to that data. And we have some documented cases, even recently, where they have abused their access to data. Is that correct? [00:36:25] BJ Last: Yeah, yeah - absolutely. That is correct. We have had cases of SPD officers abusing access to data. One of the most famous ones was an officer effectively stalking a ambulance driver, an EMS person, and even having people involuntarily committed just to get to see that EMS person. By the way, they are still on the force. So, you know, in terms of how well our accountability system supposedly works. [00:36:50] Shannon Cheng: Wait, what? Because they wanted a date with the EMS person or something? [00:36:55] BJ Last: Because they wanted a date with them - that they were going and doing that. [00:36:59] Shannon Cheng: Wow. [00:37:01] Amy Sundberg: I would also just chime in and say we're talking about these really harmful impacts to our most vulnerable residents, our most marginalized residents. And I would say that is true across all three of these technologies, and it's documented. In terms of just ShotSpotter - increases pat downs, frisks, increases policing in the more marginalized communities, which tends to be where the microphone arrays are located in a city. And CCTV, it's been shown that people of color are more likely to be surveilled than other folks, so there is a disparate impact. So this is a throughpoint between all three of these technologies in terms of some of my gravest concerns - because again, these are not new technologies, so we've already seen how they've operated in the real world. [00:37:52] BJ Last: Yeah, and just to go on that, a couple of real concrete examples on each of these technologies - of them causing massive amounts of harm and abuse. In Washington, D.C., there was a case of a very high-ranking police officer - believe he was a lieutenant offhand - blackmailing gay men using CCTV footage. UK, case of a CCTV operator - got fired because he kept pointing cameras into a lady's apartment - I'm sorry, a flat, because it was in the UK. Very real risks of harm. Acoustic Gunshot Location - we know Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old that was chased and shot while unarmed by Chicago Police Department because they were responding to a ShotSpotter alert. Just last month in January in Chicago - cops responding to what was listed as a ShotSpotter alert opened fire on an unarmed man that they saw because one of them heard a loud noise when he stepped out of a car. Also out of Chicago - we have seen police officers literally run over gunshot victims because they were responding to ShotSpotter alerts. These are all things of really real actual harm that these technologies have caused. [00:38:57] Amy Sundberg: In addition, once we start talking about algorithms - which is what a lot of these technologies use - the algorithms tend to have racial bias baked into them because they're trained on datasets, and their datasets are informed by the racial bias that created them. So you end up in this loop where people are - Oh, well, the algorithms will solve racial bias. No, that is not true - because the data they're trained on has racial bias in it. So you see it instead perpetuated and potentially strengthened. [00:39:27] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, garbage in, garbage out. In my past life, I hung out with a lot of people who were very technology-focused, and I can see this - Oh, we'll just add all these things together and it's going to work. The problem is that they're trying to model the real world based on these just very concrete assumptions about what cause and effect are, when we know the real world is actually very nuanced and requires a lot of context to interpret. And the problem is with these surveillance things is you're getting a very narrow view of different aspects of the world. So, for example, for the Acoustic Gunshot Locator, you're just getting random sounds. And then okay, maybe now you're trying to match it up with video feed to try to figure it out. And then now you're adding in this algorithm that's going to compile it all together. But the thing is, we're talking about real people's lives at stake - that they're basically experimenting on. This is a testbed for unproven models with real world consequences, and when we're talking about the actual people who live in our city, that if they make a mistake - somebody gets run over or somebody gets shot. Because we've seen that there's this worldview that law enforcement has where they see a lot of things as a threat or they just feel like there's a lot of danger out there when that may not be the case. There's a difference between being uncomfortable and unsafe. And I don't know that these surveillance technologies are really going to help with determining between being uncomfortable or unsafe. In some ways, surveillance technology is allowing them to abstract from the real situation - when you look at things through the camera, you're like, Oh, well, it's a fancy technological solution, so it's got to be right. But you can't just assume that what the camera sees is the truth. [00:41:19] BJ Last: Yeah, and you talked about how these are unknown, haven't been studied - guess what? Stuff that actually reduces violent crime has been studied - this isn't something that we don't know - there are very real solutions on this, which is the much cooler thing. And I'm really happy that we're now transitioning into this, but most of them largely boil down to actually invest in community. Instead of giving the money to a tech company somewhere, invest in the actual communities themselves on that. There are some examples of that - the Rainier Beach Action Coalition - their program of youth violence interrupters, which are people in the community that are out there activating neighborhood street corners, they've been shown to reduce violence by 33%. In terms of that difference on actual invest in community on this - so for that $1.5 million, they could go and actually give 168 young people jobs for two years. So invest in community - it is proven, what Rainier Beach Action Coalition does. You can invest in community, give 168 people jobs, and you reduce violence. Or give the money to a couple big tech companies - that's just one of the things. [00:42:20] Amy Sundberg: We also have this work done in King County through Public Health and the new Office of Gun Violence Prevention. And I sat in on their meeting, giving their briefing to the new council. And for example, they give out free firearm lock boxes. And basically it means that you have a safe place to store your gun - because a lot of times kids get the guns because they're just laying around in a closet or a drawer or whatever. But if you have them locked up, then the kid can't get to the gun and suddenly everybody's safer. So they hand out those for free, which is very effective. They also had a gun buyback that they hosted where people could go and they got gift cards. And apparently it was so well attended last year that they ran out of gift cards before the end of the event. So there is actually an appetite in this community for these sorts of programs. It's more a question, I think, of funding than anything else. Which instead - what we're going to throw $1.5 million away on this technology that we're pretty sure isn't going to work, when we have these things that community wants and that we know will help. And that office also coordinates with the Peacekeepers Collective and their gun violence prevention programs as well. So there is a lot of stuff happening on a local level. And then as well, there's Guaranteed Basic Income, which I always have to give a shout-out to. But the reason I want to shout it out, and one of the reasons I'm so excited about it, is because it has been shown in studies to reduce firearm violence specifically. And also addresses inequality - and what we know, again, from other studies, is that inequality predicts homicide rates better than any other variable. So the more unequal your society is, or your city is, the more likely homicide rates are to go up. So if you address that and give people their basic needs - give them what they need - then that number tends to go back down. And maybe not the sexiest idea ever, but it works. And that's what's important. We've seen a violence interruption program in Richmond, California - which I love to pieces because it's been going on for a long time - it has hugely positive results for that community. And it actually combines the idea of a basic income with other services like mentoring for young people that live in Richmond, California. And like I said, they saw a huge reduction in violence. So you can get creative in terms of how you combine these different elements, but all of them have studies backing them up that show that they're effective in the real world. [00:44:55] BJ Last: Yeah, and that's a phenomenal point, Amy - that it's not even community investments that are specifically linked to this, or specifically targeting - it's not just doing things like cure violence model or gun violence interruption things. Like you mentioned GBI, restoring vacant land - so pretty much making things into little parks, putting out grass and a few trees - that's shown to go and reduce violent crime, including gun crime. Upping the number of nonprofits in the community, mental health treatment facility options - even things like that that aren't specifically directed or don't in their name say, Hey, our mission statement is directly addressing this - these community investments, as Amy said, you reduce inequality, you reduce crime, because that is the biggest thing connecting them. So doing that - reducing inequality, invest in community will actually reduce crime and cut down on gun violence. Whereas giving money again to these three tech companies, that doesn't do that. [00:45:48] Amy Sundberg: I also am really excited about the idea of creative placemaking, as a creative artist myself. That, again, has been shown to reduce gunshot violence - it's putting up art installations and cool, funky, creative plays and concerts. Basically, we have this opportunity to invest in making Seattle a more fun and vibrant and exciting place to be. And that will also reduce gun violence. It's one of these win-win, right? Same with some of these violence prevention programs - you're investing in community and you get the reduction in gun violence at the same time - it's another win-win. As opposed to the surveillance tech, which isn't going to be effective and it has all of these different harms, so it's kind of more of a lose-lose. And when you have win-wins and you get to pick between a win-win and a lose-lose, the fact that we're having this big debate and wanting to go with the lose-lose is a little bit baffling. [00:46:49] Shannon Cheng: And the lose-lose is super expensive - we're talking about $1.5 million now. But my understanding is these companies - they're for-profit companies. So they obviously have business models which range from the subscription services, to just trying to expand their footprint of deployment, to selling their database that they're collecting all this information from us from to other parties who we may not have any control over. It boggles the mind. [00:47:16] BJ Last: It is massively expensive. For just one of these technologies, Acoustic Gunshot Location, Chicago has spent over $50 million over six years. And again, that's just one of these technologies. Seattle wants three. And not to be - Oh, we should be penny pinching to try to reduce gun violence by going with investments like restoring vacant land, placemaking, cure violence models. We shouldn't be doing them because they're cheaper, but A) they work and you can do so much more as you go and invest in that. It goes a lot further, the number of investments you can make. And all of these investments are ones that actually do go and - yeah, make your city cool. Make it a better place, like Amy said, with the creative placemaking, they're restoring vacant land, they cut down on violence, and you can do a heck of a lot more of it than you can if you go for this surveillance tech. [00:48:06] Amy Sundberg: While actually involving community - the people that live here - and giving them the resources and giving them more agency. [00:48:13] Shannon Cheng: Yeah, wow. Well, here on Hacks & Wonks, we interviewed a lot of the City Council candidates - many who are seated now - and I remember hearing a lot from them about really needing to audit the budget and making sure that the money being spent is being used effectively. And so I hope they hear this - pick the win-wins, not the lose-loses. So we're partway through this messy process, which seems like it's being rushed. For our listeners who have listened to this and they have concerns, what can they do about it? [00:48:42] Amy Sundberg: They can do so much. Now is the time. There is a lot that can be done right now. And I really encourage people to get involved in whatever way feels best for them, because there are several options. I'd say the top option is to attend that second public hearing, which again is on Tuesday, February 27th at 6 p.m. - and it's both, there's a virtual option and it's at Bitter Lake Community Center. So I really, really encourage people to go, to give public comment, to support your community members who are in this fight with you. There also are forms online for each of the three technologies, which you can fill out - and you do have to fill it out three times, which I understand is not ideal, but I think, again, it is part of trying to make this process less accessible to community. So if you can stomach it, I say - let's show them that it's not working by filling out those forms. You can call and email your councilmembers because they're ultimately the ones that get the final say - they're going to have the final vote on whether or not these surveillance technologies are deployed. Start talking to them now - it's not too early, it is definitely not too early. Whatever you can do, if they're going to be talking in your community, if they're having a town hall - go talk to them there - the more, the better, frankly. You can write a letter to the editor at The Seattle Times. And again, those are shorter - those aren't op-eds - they're much shorter and easier to do. I encourage you to do that. And Solidarity Budget has put together a letter objecting both to the use of these technologies in our communities and also objecting to this rushed and sloppy process, which you can sign on to. We'll put a link in the show notes for that. You can sign on as a group or an organization, or you can also sign on as an individual. And I really encourage you to do that because it shows that we as a community are standing together. [00:50:38] BJ Last: And follow Solidarity Budget - we will have more updates as this goes. If there are any more educational items that come up or additional ways to give input, we will definitely be sending that out through those channels. As Amy said, there's that hearing coming up on the 27th - you can do public comment. Or you can do comment forms online anytime until the 29th. And talk to your friends about this. This has not been something that has been widely covered - which, by the way, thank you so much, Shannon and Hacks & Wonks, for covering this, because it really hasn't gotten much coverage in local media that there are these three big surveillance techs coming. So there's a chance your friends, co-workers, whoever else you chat with doesn't even know about this. So let them know as well. [00:51:21] Amy Sundberg: I really think that increasing surveillance to this level - this does represent a massive expansion of surveillance in Seattle, and I really don't want to understate that at all - it's a huge expansion. And I really think it's deserving of a really robust public conversation about what we want for our city and what direction we want our city to go into. And I don't want to get into national politics, but you have to think about the national political climate and the ramifications that are coming down the road, too. When you're thinking about increasing surveillance to this level - not only what is that going to enable us to do in June or July when it's first implemented, but what is it going to mean in the future? What is it going to mean next year and in future years, in terms of where your data is going to be, what the laws are going to be, et cetera, et cetera. This is something we should all be talking about, as far as I'm concerned - all the time - we should be talking about this. [00:52:18] Shannon Cheng: Well, thank you so much. We will definitely include all the links to all the information and the resources in the show notes. This show will be airing on February 20th, so you have a week before that final public hearing on the 27th to get your comments in, to figure out how to attend, to tell all your friends to get out there. So thank you so much, Amy and BJ - it's been so great to have you back on again. Bye! [00:52:43] Amy Sundberg: Thanks. [00:52:44] BJ Last: Thank you. [00:52:45] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

The world needs a lot of things, but what it really needs is a show from Dylan. As a Millennial, he feels the world needs more of him. He will even add a third sentence in the description revealing the need for him. Today, Dr. Richie and SDOT zoom in to give insight into Las Vegas during Super Bowl Week, SDOT gives us insight on Barstool's Dozen Live show, and who we think will be the cover athlete of EA's NCAAF 25 game.

Après avoir déployé de nouveaux postes d'aiguillage informatique avec le projet ARGOS, la SNCF compte utiliser la vidéo et l'intelligence artificielle pour améliorer l'expérience des passagers et la sécurité ferroviaire. D'un côté, il y a le projet TNI, qui utilise l'IA pour traiter les flux vidéo des gares et des trains de manière « éthique ». Et de l'autre, il y a SDOT, qui propose plusieurs services et informations aux voyageurs et aux entreprises, et qui est déjà utilisé sur des dizaines de trains TER en France.Tout d'abord, le projet TNI sur le « Traitement numérique de l'image » est le résultat de trois années de recherche portant sur les traitements dits « éthiques » des flux vidéo des caméras installés dans les gares, les trains et à d'autres endroits. Plus précisément, TNI promet d'anonymiser les usagers filmés pour répondre aux normes de la CNIL, et de supprimer toutes les données biométriques. Grâce à ces images anonymisées, les analystes pourront créer des statistiques utiles et ajuster les offres de trains si nécessaire. Il sera par exemple possible de changer de type de train (à un ou deux étages) en fonction du nombre de passagers. Côté sécurité, la détection des mouvements de foule est une fonctionnalité importante car elle contribue à la sécurité des gares et réduit le temps de réponse des autorités et des forces de l'ordre en cas de problème.De son côté, la solution SDOT, pour « Service Digital On Train », annoncée il y a quelques mois au salon VivaTech, sera pilotée par la filiale SNCF Voyageurs et devrait je cite "définir l'avenir du transport ferroviaire". En fait, il s'agit d'une architecture unique qui offre des services à la demande, comme un système d'information qui fournit des données en temps réel sur votre voyage, et la présence de Wi-Fi à bord. Rien de nouveau sur le papier, mais contrairement à TNI, plus de 100 trains TER dans la région sont déjà équipés de solutions SDOT. L'objectif de la SNCF est de continuer à utiliser le SDOT à grande échelle, sur plus de 1000 rames, qui circuleront dans 11 régions du pays ainsi qu'au Luxembourg. Quoi qu'il en soit, ces innovations font de la SNCF un pionnier dans l'intégration de l'IA et des technologies connectées pour améliorer la sécurité et rendre les trains plus efficaces, utiliser moins de ressources et donc verdir encore un peu plus les trajets, même à petite échelle. Peut-être un premier pas pour réconcilier les Français avec les trains. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Après avoir déployé de nouveaux postes d'aiguillage informatique avec le projet ARGOS, la SNCF compte utiliser la vidéo et l'intelligence artificielle pour améliorer l'expérience des passagers et la sécurité ferroviaire. D'un côté, il y a le projet TNI, qui utilise l'IA pour traiter les flux vidéo des gares et des trains de manière « éthique ». Et de l'autre, il y a SDOT, qui propose plusieurs services et informations aux voyageurs et aux entreprises, et qui est déjà utilisé sur des dizaines de trains TER en France. Tout d'abord, le projet TNI sur le « Traitement numérique de l'image » est le résultat de trois années de recherche portant sur les traitements dits « éthiques » des flux vidéo des caméras installés dans les gares, les trains et à d'autres endroits. Plus précisément, TNI promet d'anonymiser les usagers filmés pour répondre aux normes de la CNIL, et de supprimer toutes les données biométriques. Grâce à ces images anonymisées, les analystes pourront créer des statistiques utiles et ajuster les offres de trains si nécessaire. Il sera par exemple possible de changer de type de train (à un ou deux étages) en fonction du nombre de passagers. Côté sécurité, la détection des mouvements de foule est une fonctionnalité importante car elle contribue à la sécurité des gares et réduit le temps de réponse des autorités et des forces de l'ordre en cas de problème. De son côté, la solution SDOT, pour « Service Digital On Train », annoncée il y a quelques mois au salon VivaTech, sera pilotée par la filiale SNCF Voyageurs et devrait je cite "définir l'avenir du transport ferroviaire". En fait, il s'agit d'une architecture unique qui offre des services à la demande, comme un système d'information qui fournit des données en temps réel sur votre voyage, et la présence de Wi-Fi à bord. Rien de nouveau sur le papier, mais contrairement à TNI, plus de 100 trains TER dans la région sont déjà équipés de solutions SDOT. L'objectif de la SNCF est de continuer à utiliser le SDOT à grande échelle, sur plus de 1000 rames, qui circuleront dans 11 régions du pays ainsi qu'au Luxembourg. Quoi qu'il en soit, ces innovations font de la SNCF un pionnier dans l'intégration de l'IA et des technologies connectées pour améliorer la sécurité et rendre les trains plus efficaces, utiliser moins de ressources et donc verdir encore un peu plus les trajets, même à petite échelle. Peut-être un premier pas pour réconcilier les Français avec les trains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle Times City Hall reporter, David Kroman! Crystal and David dig into why Seattle is putting less money into new affordable housing project this year and how this week's launch of a second social housing initiative by House Our Neighbors may be appealing to voters wanting to see progress on the issue. Next, they discuss the pressure on Mayor Bruce Harrell to deliver results now that a City Council friendly to his agenda has taken office and how the new Council's relative inexperience was on display at initial committee meetings. Finally, the show wraps up with a troubling story of the for-profit Tacoma immigration detention center refusing to allow state inspectors access after hundreds of complaints about the facility's poor conditions. 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, David Kroman, at @KromanDavid.   Resources Harm Reduction in Rural Washington with Everett Maroon of Blue Mountain Heart to Heart from Hacks & Wonks   “Why Seattle will fund fewer new affordable housing projects this year” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times   I-136 Let's Build Social Housing | House Our Neighbors   “Seattle's social housing developer proposes payroll tax on ‘excess earners'” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times   “New Social Housing Initiative Would Tax Business to Fund Up to 2,500 Over 10 Years” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “A council of allies in place, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell feels pressure to deliver” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times   “Watch: New Transportation Committee gets intro from SDOT, CM Kettle puts foot in mouth” by Tom Fucoloro from Seattle Bike Blog   @KromanDavid on Twitter: “Councilmember Rob Saka: "Ideally I'd like to have an across the board auditing of the entire city budget, but I am mindful that that is very costly and a time intensive activity. It's not practicable or feasible this year."”   “State inspectors denied entry to privately-run immigration detention center in Tacoma” by Grace Deng from Washington State Standard   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I welcomed Everett Maroon of Blue Mountain Heart to Heart for a conversation about how the opioid epidemic has impacted rural communities in Washington, the damaging role of stigma, what harm reduction is, and why it's so important. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review 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 Times City Hall reporter, David Kroman. [00:01:22] David Kroman: Hello. Thanks for having me. [00:01:24] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Thanks for being here. Well, there is - been a decent amount of news this week. We will start off talking about news you covered about why Seattle is funding fewer new affordable housing projects this year. What's happening and why are they seeming to step back here? [00:01:45] David Kroman: Yeah, it's interesting, and I would say kind of concerning for the general affordable housing landscape. So back to as far as 2018, Seattle has always made these annual announcements of how much money they're going to be putting towards affordable housing. They pair it with federal tax credits and private donations, but it usually ends up being over $100 million a year. Last year, for example, it was $147 million - I think it was about that the year before. This year, the award is only $53 million for new affordable housing projects - that stands out because voters just passed a new housing levy that's triple the size of the one before it. There is still money - less money, but there's still money - coming in from the Mandatory Housing Affordability program. And there's also the JumpStart payroll tax, which is supposed to go towards housing. So all those things together would suggest there's a lot of money for new affordable housing, but the problem is that a lot of the projects that the city has funded in the past are struggling with their finances. The combination of interest rates and some wonky details about what loans they're on mean that these 70 projects or so that are in the works, or at various stages of development, need something in the order of $90 million to prop them up. So it's a frustrating reality for people in the affordable housing world because they want to be building new housing, they want to be putting new units on the market. But because of just the nature of construction industry and where interest rates are at, a lot of that money is getting sucked up into basically paying for housing that we thought we'd already paid for. [00:03:17] Crystal Fincher: So does this money that is usually allocated annually - does it only go to the construction? Does it ever go to propping up other projects? Did this happen by surprise for the city? It doesn't seem like it was telegraphed that it would be this much of a hit. How did this change come about? [00:03:36] David Kroman: Yeah, the Office of Housing always helps out with operations and maintenance, and they see that they have a certain obligation not to just fund the construction, but to make sure that the buildings that they're helping fund function properly and can actually house people. I don't think it's uncommon that they go back and help out buildings that they'd already funded. As far as I know, though, it has never gotten to this size. It was telegraphed actually a few months ago - their initial announcement of how much money would be available suggested that it was going to be quite a bit smaller. I think people thought there were some more technical explanations for that. But what's really happening - in affordable housing, there's basically two loans that these affordable housing buildings get. There's the construction loan, which is what they get to put up the building. And then there's their final loan that they convert to once they've leased up enough of their units and are bringing in enough rent - because, despite the fact that it's affordable housing, the calculations that the banks make around these still require that they're collecting some level of rent from their tenants. Usually that process takes two or three years for them to convert from their construction loan to their final loan. But for a lot of reasons, they're just having a really hard time doing that. They're having a harder time filling their units - I think that's probably worth following up on why that is exactly. And then they're having a harder time collecting rents - some of that does go back to some of the pandemic era policies that were intended to stabilize people in their rental apartments. So they're not able to get to the point where they can get off of their construction loan. And that is a really bad loan to be on for a long period of time, just because the rates and interest rates on those are way higher. And so I think that reality is just coming to pass this year, that basically every single one of these projects is functioning on a construction loan. But if the Office of Housing didn't go back and help them weather this storm, then we're looking at a much worse problem, which is affordable housing buildings that have already been built and people are living in them - but them just basically going belly up or needing to be sold. And so kind of a rock and a hard place for the Office of Housing - they have a choice of spending on new buildings or helping out the buildings they've already funded. The choice in some ways is fairly obvious because you don't want to lose these buildings you've already built. But it does mean that future projects take a fairly significant hit. [00:05:48] Crystal Fincher: Well, it does look like that and it's important to keep these projects moving and healthy so that they don't go belly up or cause a large amount of destabilization in the market. But looking forward, especially with this hit to new affordable developments in an already-crisis level situation with housing affordability, the need for more units to be added - what kind of long-term impact does this look to have? Are we looking at a similar situation next year where we could be looking at a further hit? Is this a permanent injury to affordable housing funding, at least for the short to midterm? [00:06:28] David Kroman: Yeah, it's a good question. I'm not sure, but I do know that something fairly material would have to change between now and next year to make sure that this isn't a problem anymore. The number of units in a building that have to be leased up and collecting rent is like 90%, so it's really high. It used to never be a problem, but it seems like a lot of these buildings are hovering around 80% occupancy/rent collection. So unless the City has some trick up its sleeve for making sure that these buildings are 90% leased up and the people who are in them are paying that rent, it sets up a situation that is out of the City's hands because these are banks making these calls on whether or not they qualify for these cheaper loans. It's not like the City can pass some law that requires the banks to give them a cheaper loan. And so my guess would be it's not a problem that will go away in a year and probably will come up again this time next year. In the past, this has just never been a problem because, unfortunately, affordable housing is in such high demand that banks have never even thought twice about whether or not an affordable housing development would hit 90% occupancy and payment. The deeper concern here is that as banks see that that assumption is maybe not holding up as well, they might be more hesitant to write these loans in the first place. The only sort of cold comfort, I guess, is that this is not really a specific problem for affordable housing. I used to cover transportation - any transportation project is having these massive cost overruns and problems with construction projects too. And so maybe there's a little more leniency on the part of the financers because they understand that this isn't just some negligence on the affordable housing providers part, it's just the reality of the construction industry right now. But that doesn't mean that it's going to start being cheap anytime soon. [00:08:13] Crystal Fincher: Right - that's almost the takeaway. Everything about building housing right now seems expensive and growing more expensive. Inflation has definitely hit every element of it and interest rates are higher than they used to be, and just everything seems to be contributing to a higher overall cost. And so that's a challenge that we're going to have to figure out how to deal with, especially as it would be one thing if this were 15 years ago - We need to make plans because this is going to become a problem if we don't address it appropriately. But this now is a problem, a major problem, crisis level, where from the legislature to different cities are all acknowledging that we do have to build more residential units - at minimum - in addition to a variety of other policies, in order to prevent rents and housing costs from continuing to skyrocket. So here we are again, but not enough money is currently budgeted to go around. Is this a money issue? I know there's also a big budget deficit that they're in the process of beginning to deal with. Did the money just run out? Is this a matter of priorities? [00:09:21] David Kroman: Yeah, there is one lever I think that the City could pull and is pulling that could actually help this a little bit, which is one of the problems is the permitting timeline - for anything really, but affordable housing included - it used to be a year and a half basically just to get all the permits. There has been some legislation passed recently to exempt some affordable housing projects from design review in an effort to speed things up. That could help because then you're not sitting on a piece of property without actually being able to do anything with it. But yeah, it is a money problem because what it is at the end of the day is just things are costing more. The problem is every time there's a property tax levy in Seattle, the specter of levy fatigue is raised. So far, Seattle voters have never hit that - they have handily passed pretty much every property tax levy put before them. But there is, to an extent, an upper limit on how much in property taxes Seattle officials are going to feel comfortable asking voters to fund affordable housing. And if more than 50% of their money is going towards projects that they already thought had been funded, suddenly the political scenario starts to feel a little more fraught. Meanwhile, the other two funds that the City relies on for affordable housing are also no longer guaranteed solid funds. The Mandatory Housing Affordability pot - that depends on there being a lot of development in the City of Seattle. And of course, we've seen permits for new development plummet, which means there's just not going to be as many contributions from private developers toward affordable housing. And then the JumpStart payroll tax, this new city council is thinking already about this $230 million budget gap that you mentioned, and are not the friendliest to the idea of a business payroll tax. And so shifting the JumpStart tax from pure housing purposes to basically budget relief is very much on the table. And I think nonprofit housing developers understand that. So the problem is that in addition to the housing levy, which is robust and large, not going as far as they had hoped, combined with these other two sources of funds either declining or perhaps being repurposed for political reasons, in general, creates a lot of uncertainty among nonprofit housing developers. [00:11:23] Crystal Fincher: It does. We will continue to follow this. Thank you for covering that so comprehensively. Well, and that leads into news this week that House Our Neighbors launched a new social housing initiative, basically Part 2 of their initiative process that they talked about before. What is House Our Neighbors? What did the first initiative do? And what are they launching with this initiative that they just filed? [00:11:51] David Kroman: House Our Neighbors is the political side of Seattle's new social housing developer. 2023, they ran an initiative that set up this public developer that was theoretically going to take money and then either buy or build buildings. On its surface, it sounds a little bit maybe like Seattle Housing Authority, but their focus was going to be on mixed income or housing for not necessarily the poorest residents - 80% to 120% AMI. The idea being that if you're trying to raise a family in Seattle, it's really difficult because it's very, very hard to find two-, three-, four-bedroom affordable apartments. This would fill that gap that they see is missing between the market and government provided subsidized housing. The complaint or pushback on the last initiative was that there weren't any funds to do any of that work. That was intentional on the part of the people who ran the campaign because there are concerns about violating the state's rules against having multiple subjects in one initiative. So this new initiative that they're running would be that second step. It would provide a funding source via a tax on businesses with employees earning more than a million dollars. Their hope is to raise $50 million a year and buy or build around 2,000 units of social housing. I don't know that their announcement was coordinated with the Office of Housing's affordable housing announcement, but the two things certainly are related to each other. [00:13:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And with social housing, it's designed to be permanently affordable, government-owned, mixed-income housing that insulates itself, basically, because it's not part of the private market - where we just got done talking about all of the factors causing price increases in the private market. But because this is public, government-owned, it can move forward with a different model that is conceivably more insulated from market forces, in addition to not having profit pressure attached to it - helping to keep it more affordable with mixed incomes where people paying into the pot help fund the affordable housing for everything else. This did pass in the City of Seattle. And as you said, this was a two-part initiative process. The first part was on whether we were going to establish this public developer. And now comes the time to fund it. So when it comes to funding, what is the funding mechanism? And why was this chosen? [00:14:15] David Kroman: Yeah, the funding mechanism is similar to the JumpStart Tax that we were talking about before, which is it focuses on companies that have an employee making a million dollars or more. And I think the thought behind this - if you think back to the contentious Head Tax debate, which was targeting overall revenue of a business and trying to tax that, that became really contentious because you have businesses like grocery stores that have really high revenue, but super thin profits. So when you have Uwajimaya, for example, testifying against this tax as a beloved local business, people get kind of queasy about it - it basically failed because of that. The argument here is we're not really focusing on the overall revenue. We're focusing on whether or not they have employees that they're paying over a million dollars, because that suggests - if you can pay somebody a million dollars or more, you should be paying some tax on that. And it's a marginal tax, so the first million dollars of that person's salary are not taxed - it's everything above that that is taxed. The City's payroll tax exempts grocery stores and healthcare businesses, or at least healthcare businesses have waiver for a few years. This one doesn't do that. This targets any business that's paying people a million dollars or more. The exact number of businesses that that includes is a little murky. They relied on a couple past legislative efforts at the state and city level to come up with their calculations. If it passed, we'd get a little more sense of who would actually have to pay this tax, but that's basically how it works. [00:15:33] Crystal Fincher: So what they're referring to is an 'excess earners' tax, and it'd be a 5% marginal payroll tax. As you said, if they had an employee making $2 million, the tax would not apply to that first million. It would only apply to the one million above that at a rate of 5%. They're estimating with that revenue source, they could acquire or build 2,000 affordable units over 10 years. What is the timeline for this initiative now? What do they have to do in order to qualify and get it on the ballot? [00:16:06] David Kroman: They have set 30,000 signatures as their goal, and they want to get it by June - because if they got it in by June, that would leave the current city council no choice but to put it on the November ballot. And anybody who's trying to do a more left-leaning progressive initiative wants to get their measure on the November ballot because turnout in Seattle is going to be probably 80% - it's a presidential election - and the progressives of Seattle figure that more turnout favors them. So the goal is November '24. But they said that if for whatever reason they didn't get there, they would run it anyway at a later ballot date. I just think politically, that would be a little more challenging for them. [00:16:40] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. They just filed the initiative. So that process for the initiative to be approved, get to the signature gathering process will be commencing. How does this fit in, in the general overall landscape? Tiffani McCoy, who's the policy and advocacy director with House Our Neighbors, talked a little bit about this happening because there is either not a plan or a deficit in the ability to deliver the amount of housing we need and the type of housing we need at scale. [00:17:11] David Kroman: Yeah, it fits in because the affordable 80% to 120% AMI - there is just not really anybody interested in doing that right now. There have been some one-off projects around the city where a developer, out of the good of their own heart, has said that their building is going to be affordable to a certain level - workforce housing. But you're really relying on individual developers being interested in doing that. Usually those come with time limits, so they guarantee it for 30 years or 40 years or something like that. And then as we talked about before, there's Housing Authority and Office of Housing - it's a small lane, but there is a lane for 0% to probably 60% AMI. But when voters are approving a property tax levy, they're not quite as interested in building housing for people who are making up to $80,000 a year. But when you're looking at how expensive it is to live in Seattle or what the median income is, those people are having a hard time finding places to live and especially raise families in Seattle. And so that is more who this effort is targeted towards, which is fill that gap between 0% to 60% AMI and then 200%+ AMI housing, which there's just not a lot of people out there building that kind of housing right now. [00:18:21] Crystal Fincher: Right. And that matters so much because that is related to a lot of the staffing shortage talk that we hear about, whether it's teachers or bus drivers or healthcare workers or - across the board, we're hearing about workforce shortages, particularly in the City of Seattle and surrounding areas. And a big piece of that puzzle is that people just can't afford to live in the areas where those jobs are. It's way too expensive. So you have people moving further and further out, making it harder to commute in for a job, or just finding a job elsewhere outside of the city. And so housing affordability is an important element in just these conversations about our overall economy, including workforce strength and availability. It is absolutely related to those challenges. So once they made this announcement, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce immediately make a statement that opposed it. I don't know that this opposition was necessarily surprising, but it was an immediate reaction. How did they respond? [00:19:30] David Kroman: No, not surprising at all - they took the JumpStart Tax to court. They clearly don't like payroll taxes on businesses. Their argument was they supported the Housing Levy and they support some level of voter-agreed-upon property tax to build housing for the poorest people. The Chamber's line, and this has been their line and that of other businesses since at least back to 2017 when the first Head Tax debate came up, is this all comes down to supply. That the real issue is that Seattle is zoned in a way that you just can't add more supply, especially in the 60% or whatever it is of the city that's zoned for single family homes. So their argument is you are asking businesses to try and address a very small part of a much larger illness. And in so doing, you're not going to get us to where the city actually needs to be. And at the same time, you're going to materially hurt these businesses at a time when it has been, at least for some of them, sort of a difficult period. I think the counterargument is it has not actually been that difficult of a period for businesses like Amazon. And if you're paying somebody over a million dollars, something must be going okay for you. But I think the Chamber's position does kind of go to this point, which is - you're talking about a symptom when the real cause is just that we have built a system that doesn't allow for new housing construction. [00:20:42] Crystal Fincher: Yes, and it would be less ironic if they didn't seem to also oppose a lot of the rezoning and necessary new construction for that. But I guess it's a comfortable position to be in when you can just oppose things that seemingly have to do with each other. But I do think that's part of the reason why this passed in the first place. This passed after several years of seeming opposition and defeat of efforts to make things more affordable overall, including housing, especially those that are funded with taxes. And that has been a big point of contention between the Chamber and other folks there. The Chamber traditionally takes a - Hey, just don't tax us approach. A lot of their financial support of candidates in elections seems tied to their willingness or unwillingness to tax business. So this has been a long-standing divide that we have here. But I wonder if they've ever wondered if that long-standing hesitance to do that, in the face of skyrocketing costs borne by the regular residents of Seattle and surrounding areas, might have something to do with the alternatives becoming more popular to the point where they pass this in Seattle. So it'll be interesting to see how formal and robust the opposition to this initiative is. But it does seem like this is an alternative that the residents of Seattle are looking at. And as we look forward, especially if the JumpStart Tax is raided for the general fund, some of the other mechanisms that the legislature is looking at right now don't end up coming to fruition - this may be one of the only avenues where it looks feasible that something can actually happen, that there can be funding for, and that we can start to make up some of the gaps that are reopening here in some of the other areas. How do you see the prognosis for this moving forward? [00:22:42] David Kroman: Yeah, I think you're right that this is a lot of voter response to an intractable problem. I think it is true that the underlying problem is supply - I think that's hard to dispute at this point. It's just there are a lot of people coming into the city and just not enough housing for them. And so then, therefore, even old, run-down housing is being competed for - rich people are outbidding people of lesser means for housing that you would not necessarily associate with rich people. A lot of that is enabled by the fact that most of the city - it's just cast in amber and there cannot be any added density. So at a time when the city's population is growing, you've got certain neighborhoods in Seattle where the population is actually decreasing, and I think that is what is driving a lot of rent increases. I think the reaction, though - the problem is now, the struggles are now - and so it's all well and good to diagnose the deep problem and look back at what the city should or shouldn't have done, or what the city should be doing to help this problem in 10 or 15 years. The city could upzone across the entire city tomorrow, and the construction environment - as we just talked about - means it's pretty unlikely that you're going to see a huge influx immediately of new housing and density because it's just not a great time for building new stuff. And so I think that then causes people to look for alternative options. And this is one of them, which is a more direct taxation to construction that is divorced from - well, not entirely divorced because we talked about the problems facing the nonprofit housing world, but more divorced from market forces that, again, perhaps should have been addressed a long time ago. But even if they were addressed tomorrow, would take years, decades, perhaps, to really show meaningful improvements in the affordability of Seattle. And so I think that is why these solutions that the Chamber doesn't like - because they are not market solutions, they are taxation solutions on their clients and the people that they represent, but that becomes more appealing because people want to make some immediate progress in the next year. [00:24:38] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, we will continue to follow that story and the initiative and see how it goes. I also want to talk about a piece that you wrote this week about Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, titled, "A council of allies in place, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell feels pressure to deliver." I think that pressure is an appropriate response - a number of commitments or what he ran on two years ago still has a lot of areas for improvement. I don't know that anyone feels that the type of progress that was indicated or promised has actually happened. But some of that was in his telling because he didn't have a great working relationship with the council - even though they have very distinct roles and responsibilities. But he's saying now, and part of what he said during the campaign - if we have a better working relationship, we could accomplish more. What did this story uncover, what did you talk about, and where does he stand on what he's accomplished and what he's looking to accomplish? [00:25:37] David Kroman: Yeah, I think it's perhaps not quite exactly like having a one-party President, House and Senate, but it's something like that. Because at least since I have been watching City Hall, I would argue that there has been no mayor who, at least on paper, has come into a more favorable political environment than Bruce Harrell does right now. Because he endorsed five people for city council - which I don't think Durkan or Ed Murray dipped that much of a toe into the political scene, so that alone was a big jump into playing politics - and then all of them won. And then he gets this bonus of another one of his opponents, Teresa Mosqueda, leaving to go to the King County Council. So basically he gets six new friendly people on the council, banishes all but Councilmember Tammy Morales as clear opponents to his agenda. And then more than that, if you've been watching the committee meetings in city council this year, their agenda items are what is the Seattle Department of Transportation and what does it do? They are just getting their feet under them. They are still trying to find where the bathroom is. Meanwhile, Bruce Harrell has been in City Hall for 14 years. So all of that added together means there is nothing in his way to basically do what it is that he has envisioned for City Hall. The question is - can he or will he do that? And also it kind of puts to test some of the narratives that were created around what the previous council was at fault for doing. Some of those I think could end up being true, but also I think some of the problems that we're talking about here - fairly complicated and don't just boil down to who exactly was on the previous city council. For example, police recruitment. The mayor has said he wants to grow the department to 1,400. It's a real question of whether the police department is ever going to be back to 1,400. But there's no longer the boogeyman of "Defund the Police" to fault for those challenges - now the rubber meets the road. Can a council that has explicitly said it wants to hire more police officers actually do that? And then if it doesn't, I will be curious to see how voters respond. Will they give him the same level of scrutiny that they gave the council the last few years? That will be interesting to watch. [00:27:35] Crystal Fincher: That will be interesting to watch. I do also find it interesting, from the perspective of his allies that we heard during the campaign, of stuff like "Defund the Police" and blaming some of the inability to achieve what they said they wanted to achieve on that, as if the council had been hostile. But if we look - particularly over the past two years - the council didn't pass up an opportunity to fund the hiring of more police officers. Functionally - policy-wise, budget-wise - they allocated all of the money that was asked for, they allocated bonuses related to that, yet they still ran as if this council was somehow hostile to that issue. It seemed, to your point, like the creation of a boogeyman that didn't exist, and certainly not since he's taken office here. Did that strike you as genuine reasons or reasons that really would have impeded him taking action on some of his priorities that he seemingly talked about? Well, it was because of the council that I couldn't. But on an issue like police funding, where council did provide the funding for that, where council did provide everything that was asked for to do that, yet there still wasn't progress - does that rest on the council or was that another issue? [00:28:51] David Kroman: Yeah, I think if you ask him and you ask the current council, they acknowledge - Sure, they didn't literally defund the police by 50%. And what they did "defund" was mostly a shuffling of the decks.decks -moved parking enforcement to SDOT for a while and they moved 911 to Community Safety. So the police department's budget shrunk, but those functions just moved to a different department. I think they acknowledge - yes, that they didn't cut them. But policing is an incredibly competitive recruiting environment. And I think their argument is. And I do think - yes, they didn't literally defund, but they were pretty public about some of their comments around the police. And I think that that probably had an effect on certain police officers' willingness to stay at the police department and others' willingness to come to the police department - can have a whole debate about the merit or harms of that, but I do think that probably played a factor. But at the same time, I think that there's a lot else going on around that issue of police recruitment that transcends just conversations around "Defund the Police" and what the previous city council did or didn't do. The mayor's office has had a budget for marketing for a couple years now. As far as we know, the recruitment environment has not improved. And so I think there are a lot of technical details that will slowly come out over Harrell's administration that show that the problems - while I do think that whatever the city council's previous image was, made probably a difference around that - I think there's a more complicated story around the mechanics of what recruitment actually looks like. [00:30:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I tend to think that there's a more complicated story around the mechanics of recruitment, particularly because several surrounding departments, including those with staunch supporters of hiring police, of funding police, are also experiencing challenges with hiring. It's hard to find a department around that isn't saying that they're experiencing staffing problems. So it seems to go deeper, in my view, than just that. Can I absolutely say that their willingness to examine the budget four years ago had nothing to do with this now? No, I can't. Certainly conservative elements in talk radio and Fox News continue to make a lot of that and characterize "defund" as a current dominant thought, which I think is just demonstrably false. On top of that, just on that issue, with the understanding and the knowledge that even if you were to hire an officer today, it's going to be a year plus before they can actually be deployed on the streets because of their need to train and go through their requirements. Is there a plan in the interim? We're two years into Bruce Harrell's term now, and it doesn't seem like - okay, barring that, what are we doing? I don't want to say no plan. They introduced a limited partial trial of a co-response model for behavioral health through his new CARE Department. There is that going on in a limited way - would love to see that expanded so it's at minimum around-the-clock, but certainly more than a handful of officers and responders involved there. Certainly in the area of public safety, I think a lot has been examined there. Were there any other issue areas, whether it's homelessness, the City's environmental plans, economic development within the city, that he talked about wanting to deliver or work on in his next two years? [00:32:10] David Kroman: Harrell - I think he's going to be dripping these out slowly. But the thing that I would say stood out to me the most was his comments about the City's relationship to the county. We had seen some comments of his about, specifically the City's relationship to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, leak out unintentionally over the last two years. Fairly clear that he took a skeptical eye toward that body. But now I would say the big change now that he has this friendly council and basically full control of the City Hall is he's no longer saying those things in private. He's being fairly public about - he has a skeptical view of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. And he has a skeptical view of the amount of money that the City of Seattle is giving that body and whether it is doing what he wants it to do. He said basically the same thing about Public Health Seattle King County, which I thought was interesting. I had never heard that relationship come up as one that needed additional scrutiny. But he said that when it comes to the issue of fentanyl, that basically he thinks Public Health Seattle King County should be doing more, and he was wondering why they're not doing more. And so as far as specific policies or legislation he might introduce, I don't have a great read on that just yet. But I do think - and I've heard this from the new council members too - I wouldn't be surprised if we see a fairly dramatic rethinking of how the city and the county work together on some of this stuff. [00:33:25] Crystal Fincher: Interesting. Certainly, it seems like there might be some budget implications attached to that. That might be another reason why we are talking about this now, as the City looks to trim a couple hundred million dollars or make up for a budget deficit of over $200 million that they're facing. Has he been responsive, or did you get a chance to talk about some of the seeming inaction on some of those areas? There certainly seemed to be a number of promises as he walked in and optimism from a lot of people as he took office that - Hey, you're someone with a different vision who's looking to move forward on a variety of things, talking about One Seattle and the vision that he has for that. Has that resulted in or materialized in anything? Is he talking about doing anything specific with that? I think a lot of people are wondering just kind of overall what his plans are. [00:34:17] David Kroman: Yeah, I think so far this has not been the most policy-heavy mayor's office by any stretch. I think back to the Murray administration - before, of course, everything else came out - but that was an office that pushed super hard for the task forces around $15 an hour and housing affordability, the HALA committee, and they would lock people in a room and make them work it out. This is not that office. What we have heard from him is a lot of messaging and, I think, an effort to do perhaps not systemic things, but pushes around certain homeless encampments or priority policing around Third Avenue or 12th and Jackson. And it's kind of these hits and sort of giving a general message about what kind of mayor he is. I think he would perhaps point to some of the rules - tree canopy legislation or things like that. But I don't know that you can point to the first two years of his office and call it a major policy-heavy term. I think there's going to be more pressure on him to be a little more policy-minded in the next two years, because as we just talked about, he's not going to have to do nearly the amount of negotiation with this city council as he would have had to do with the last one. If he comes down to them and says - I think this is really important, we got to pass this. - pretty good chance he's going to get it passed without, there's going to be tweaks and I'm sure there's going to be some nods towards pushback or accountability. But at the end of the day, this is a city council that has kind of adopted the mayor's own One Seattle slogan. When he was on city council, too, I don't know that everyone would have pointed to him, as a city councilmember, as the most policy-driven. He had certain things that he focused a lot on around policing, or he was the one who pushed the hardest for body cameras. And he's pushed hard for some police technologies like ShotSpotter and things like that. But when he was on city council, he wasn't taking the lead on a lot of big, big policy swings. And so far, I would say that's mostly been true for the first half of his term. It's just he's going to have to show some big policy swings, I think, for these next two years - because I do think he's hyper-conscious of his own reelection campaign, is my sense. We didn't talk about that specifically, but I think he's interested in running for reelection. I think it's assumed he will run for reelection. And so he's going to have to build a case for himself to voters in two years from now. [00:36:28] Crystal Fincher: Definitely. I also want to talk about some of the firsts that we saw this week. We saw the Seattle City Council conduct their first committee meeting. The Transportation Committee, chaired by Councilmember Rob Saka, held its first meeting. As you talked about, it was very Intro to or Transpo 101, because these are a lot of new members who are not familiar with the way this functions, who are still just getting their bearings underneath them for how City Hall works, how legislation works, what SDOT does do. They are all very new and are not even coming into this with a policy background in the area that may help. So this is really starting from Step 1 here. What did we hear during this committee and outside of the committee - statements from members of the council this week? [00:37:19] David Kroman: Well, a few things that stood out to me. One, it's starting to hit home a bit that this is just an incredibly green city council. This is two-thirds of people who have not held elected office before - that's not to say that they have zero experience. Maritza Rivera, for example, was a department head, so she has spent some time in City Hall. But at the end of the day, some of the questions they're asking or getting briefed on are things like - What is the Sound Transit Board? Who decides where the West Seattle to Ballard stations go? - things like that. Not to say that they don't know those things, but that's the level that we're at right now in their committee meetings. So that was one thing that really stood out to me, which is - they don't have a lot of time to figure out a lot of these big problems. We're already a month in to the year because they had to spend the first month appointing a new member. Council President Nelson didn't schedule any committee meetings during that time. So it's February and we're doing the briefing meetings. I think that's going to be something to watch. We also heard, I would say - let's call it some acknowledgement of the reality of the situation. On the campaign trail, we heard a lot of talk about "auditing the budget." We really heard it in the applications to fill the vacant council seat, this phrase "audit the budget, audit the budget." It was never super well defined what they actually meant by audit. We heard from Councilmember Saka that a literal audit of the entire budget is something that would take a really long time and be really expensive. And he acknowledged that they're not going to do that, at least not this year. So that raises some questions around what they actually meant when they were saying we were going to audit the budget and how that is materially different from what happens every year with the budget - which is you review what you can, and cut where you think you can cut, and fund what you want to fund. So that was interesting - just there's a certain reality that comes with moving from being on the campaign trail to being in office. [00:39:06] Crystal Fincher: There is a reality about moving from the campaign trail to moving into office. Speaking personally and speaking as someone who is a political consultant, has worked with plenty of candidates. This is something that you hope candidates would have an understanding of while they're running. This is directly related to what their plans are going to be. Certainly, Rob Saka and other councilmembers were asked plenty of times on the campaign trail how they were planning to deal with this looming budget deficit. And part of the background of this is that, "Well, we need to audit the budget" issue - never sound credible or serious to a lot of people because, overall, just a citywide budget audit is not the thing. But as you said, the budget process is what that is. The budget process is continually reviewing, understanding, approving, modifying - what this funding is, how effective the funding has been - that's all part of the standard budget process of the City every year. And so a lot of it seemed like they were trying to avoid talking about what their plans were. They were trying to avoid taking a stance on particularly the progressive revenue that would be needed to close a budget hole like this. And the mayor put together a Progressive Revenue Task Force that came out with options that may seem doable - asked about those, the move from a lot of the candidates, especially the moderate to conservative ones, was to say - I don't know about that progressive revenue, but we really need to audit the budget before we do anything else. We need to take a look at exactly what's being spent where and see if it works and that kind of stuff. But I think we're arriving in another situation where if you actually come in with a plan about what you want to accomplish, that's one thing. If you're coming in trying to avoid talking about what you want to accomplish, that becomes really hairy - trying to contend with and explain once you're actually in office. So now the one thing that people heard you talk about, which seeing response certainly online following these comments, was - Hey, the only thing he talked about was doing audits. And now he's saying that - Well, they can't really do that, we're walking it back, it's not practical or feasible. One, that seemingly could have been something that when people pointed that out on the campaign trail, maybe they should have taken that to heart and come up with a more realistic plan. But also now that we're here, it just seems like maybe there wasn't the kind of understanding related to what they were saying. I hope future candidates look at that and take that under advisement. I hope voters look at that and again, look at the types of answers that you're getting - even though they may sound good in a soundbite, are they actually realistic? Will they actually get done what you want to see happen in the city? Or is it just a line that people are tossing out in order to avoid talking about something else, or because it sounds good as a soundbite? [00:41:57] David Kroman: Yeah, I would say this, though, about the budget. I don't want to sound like I'm defending the City's budget process too much because - it takes you a little while, but it's very easy to see where dollars are allocated, theoretically. It is much, much more difficult to know if those dollars are actually being spent in the way that the city council budgeted them for. We've seen this actually crop up in conflicts between the city council and the mayor's office, which is city council will budget a certain amount of dollars and the mayor's office - not this mayor's office, past mayor's offices - just won't spend it because it wasn't part of their priority. And I think you can look to that conflict and generalize it out a little bit. I don't know that there are great mechanisms to show for sure that when the city council puts money towards a certain thing, it's A) going to the thing that it was supposed to, going out at all - I do think there are probably some amount of dollars that are dedicated and not being spent for whatever reason. I don't think it's corruption or anything like that. It's just staffing and permit timelines or whatever it might be. And then of course, the final question of - So it's gone out the door, is it doing what it was intended to do? I think those are all questions that are probably worth asking. And I'm not sure are always asked in the fullest sense every year during budget. And so I agree that the use of the word "audit" was incredibly fast and loose on the campaign trail. Because when you say "audit," that implies something pretty specific. We have a Washington State Auditor. We have a City of Seattle Auditor. And they do audits, or you can hire people to do an audit. It's clear that audit in the most literal sense of the term is not on the table here because that costs time and money. Close scrutiny of whether the dollars that the City has allocated are being used in the way that people said they were going to - sure, I can buy that a little bit more. I don't know how you bring that more into the process than what's already there. To the new councilmembers' credit, I think there is room there to shed a little bit more light on that end of the budgeting equation than has been done in the past. [00:43:50] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely agree with that. I think you raise a really important point. It's hard to do it comprehensively - doing a deep dive into everything is a challenging thing. I do think that those questions do need to be asked frequently, especially on these high priority items. We definitely have a number of examples in the Durkan administration where they just refused to spend money - if council funded something and it wasn't aligned with the priorities of the mayor's office, the mayor's office just wouldn't spend that money in some instances or would look to divert that money to another area that wasn't one of their policy priorities as they've identified. So certainly just because money is allocated, does not mean at all that it's being spent at all or spent effectively. And I hope council does take seriously their responsibility to make sure that what they intend to happen as they set forth does happen and that money isn't just sitting there - that should be working for the residents of the city. But we'll certainly see what happens there. Last thing I want to talk about today was a story that was really concerning about a for-profit ICE detention center in Tacoma blocking health and labor inspections. What happened here? [00:45:04] David Kroman: Yeah, this was news to me. It looks like the state had tried to pass a law that basically increased access to the ICE facility - a privately run jail, basically - for people who have come into the United States. Because, as we know, there have been a lot of complaints about that facility over the years, but it's always been a little bit of a he-said, she-said situation because there's just such limited access in a way that - not to say that the state or city or county jails are in great shape, but lawmakers have an eye into those places and can see what's going on in there. They just don't with this facility because it's private. And so this bill was supposed to allow that access, but it seems like the GEO group that runs the prison is fighting them super hard on it in court and even barring people from entering. And this is pretty new to me - it seems pretty concerning - something that if you were a lawmaker, you might want to follow up on. [00:45:52] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, these complaints, there were hundreds of complaints - over 200 just between April and November of last year - stuff like insufficient food, misuse of solitary confinement, clothes rarely laundered and returning when they were supposedly laundered wet and dirtier than before, detainees with mental health issues being refused clean clothing. Medical issues, including stroke, paralysis, asthma, internal bleeding. One instance, a detainee with a broken arm was only given ibuprofen and not a cast for days after the incidents. When you talk about the types of violations that can happen when you have people who are 100% under your control, who you control their access to everything - the possibility of denial of that is egregious and atrocious. And so you do have to follow the laws of the state. Representative Lillian Ortiz-Self is trying to work through legislation to ensure that the state can inspect and examine what is happening here so it gets out of the world of he said, she said, and to ensure that they're following the laws of our state. And they've refused. So it is really concerning. A law was passed in 2021 aimed at shutting down the detention center by 2025, but that was ruled unenforceable. It just really is scary to think about - that we have these facilities responsible for people's care, basically, while they're being detained just seemingly unaccountable to anyone, with really catastrophic impacts on people who are jailed or detained here in this situation. And sometimes I'll hear people very flippantly - If they didn't want that to happen, then they shouldn't have done something to land in there in the first place. One, I think it might surprise people, the amount of seemingly innocuous things that can land someone in there. But regardless of how they landed in there, these are still people in the care of the state. And the detainment is what has been called for there, so they're being detained. But that doesn't mean that abuse, neglect, mistreatment is in any way justified. It is never justified. And I just think that we need to look at these things seriously. And when we hear about facilities, with the responsibility on behalf of the state, where they can control people's access to the necessities of life, that we should hold a higher standard than the average private company out there. And it really is just infuriating to me that we seemingly land in these situations where we have people being mistreated and they just seem to not care about the law - it's about the profit - and regardless of how people suffer at their hands in the process of it, I just - these types of stories really get to me. [00:48:54] David Kroman: Yeah, and I think it's why people are so concerned and looking for ways to get more eyes on the private prison industry - just because it is a constitutional right that people, even incarcerated people, have healthcare and food and not inhumane conditions, but just a little harder to make sure that it's not happening when the prison doesn't necessarily need to answer to the voters. [00:49:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully that is something that will change soon. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, February 9th, 2024 - it's my mom's birthday today, as we're recording this February 8th. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle Times City Hall reporter David Kroman. You can find David on Twitter at @KromanDavid, that's K-R-O-M-A-N, David. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me on all platforms at @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else 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 week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical shows delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

This episode we (P.L.A.Z. , S Dot & Esther) talk with hip hop legend Coo Coo Cal!! This episode is full of laughs as we talk, Coo Coo getting the proper respect from his hometown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His documentary on Tubi “THE RISE THE FALL AND COME UP OF COO COO CAL” New hit Single from #DessDior “LEAVE HER ALONE” FEAT #SkillaBaby #Rob49 and #CooCooCal. His relationship with hip hop artist #BabyDrew, blowing up having the number 1 hip hop song on #Billbord while all of his friends went to prison, battling alcohol and drug addiction and more!!! We also talk #ESTHERBAXTER being featured in #Gunna new video #Bachelor!! THIS IS A EPISODE YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS!!!!! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/laplac-brown/support

GUEST: Chris Sullivan on studded tires and snow plows // SDOT to extend bus-only lanes on Rainier Avenue South // WA businesses might have to give unclaimed gift card profits to state // 3 things centenarians regret // SCENARIOS!

WHAT'S NEW AT 10! // Incoming Seattle CM Rob Saka went to war with SDOT over an 8" traffic barrier he compares to Trump's border wall // SCENARIOS!

This episode we (P.L.A.Z, S Dot, John) Talk with the Grammy nominated platinum recording artist, producer, actor, and activist, the Legend “ #BoneCrusher ”! We talk 20 years since the his Number one hit record “NEVER SCARED” was released. How he got the his name, His new single “Victory” & album “The Return Of The Lyrical Giant”, what inspired his style, the Atlanta Hip-Hop sound now vs back 20 yrs ago. Helping the youth & helping #Latto out in the beginning of her career. We also discuss Dr Umar 50 yrs of Hip-Hop take, #Andre3000 new album, Rapid Questions, the #NBA in season tournament, his craziest experience at a live show, WTF & more!!!!  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/laplac-brown/support

What’s Trending: Misinformation still being spread about hospital attack and SDOT makes a multi-million dollar error. Big Local: Inside Bellingham's awful minimum wage initiative, reckless driver in Redmond wrecks small business owners dump truck and students scared after violent incident at Auburn-Riverside HS.   You Pick: Workers United supported Hamas and Starbucks is rightfully not happy about it. 

On this Wednesday topical show, Crystal chats with Ron Davis about his campaign for Seattle City Council District 4. Listen and learn more about Ron and his thoughts on: [01:04] - Why he is running [02:42] - Lightning round! [08:50] - What is an accomplishment of his that impacts District 4 [10:36] - Climate change [12:51] - Public Safety: Alternative response [14:31] - Victim support [16:18] - Housing and homelessness: Frontline worker wages [17:21] - Housing and homelessness: Highest priority plans [20:34] - Bike and pedestrian safety [22:20] - Transit reliability [24:10] - Childcare: Affordability and accessibility [26:10] - Small business support [27:59] - City budget shortfall: Raise revenue or cut services? [30:38] - Difference between him and opponent As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Ron Davis at @seattle4ron.   Ron Davis Ron Davis is a public school dad, law school grad, and tech entrepreneur that has worked for most of his professional life on improving the lives of seniors, workers and patients. He's an active member of the 46th Dems and the Transit Riders Union, where he serves on the progressive revenue committee. He also serves on the boards of Futurewise, Seattle Subway, the University YMCA and the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association, working on housing and climate legislation, transit policy, and on delivering social services to kids and their families, and to young adults.   Resources Campaign Website - Ron Davis   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Well, I am very pleased to be welcoming Seattle City Council District 4 candidate, Ron Davis, to the program. Welcome, Ron. [00:01:01] Ron Davis: Thank you so much for having me, Crystal. [00:01:04] Crystal Fincher: Well, I just am first wondering - why are you running? [00:01:08] Ron Davis: Yeah, that's a great question. So I've been working hard in my community to make it affordable and safe for a long time, and I've reached a point of frustration where I don't feel that the people representing me are doing a good enough job. So sort of backing up into sort of the deeper story - my parents were teenagers when they got pregnant with me - I grew up in the Portland area. And I got very lucky along the way, but some of that was because housing was more affordable then. So while my parents both worked at a diner, my dad was able then to get a job at a factory - minimum wage - but he worked 60, 70, 80 hours a week. It was brutal. And my parents were able to get a toehold in the middle class 'cause they could afford housing and they were actually able to afford to buy a house a few years in. And that became this platform that allowed my sister and I to rise - we both got bachelor's degrees, I got really lucky and ended up at Harvard Law School. And I've landed in this beautiful, comfortable place in Northeast Seattle - where I live in the comforts of the professional class - and I recognize like that was a lot, lot, lot of luck. And it would have been impossible without affordable housing, it would have been impossible without community support. And you just cannot have a journey like mine in Seattle. And that is frustrating to me - Seattle should be a place where people can start a career, raise a family, age in place - and not have to be filthy rich to do it. And so I am fighting to make Seattle a place where people can do those things. And where if people do happen to be unlucky, we come together and we put a floor on how far they fall because it could happen to any of us. [00:02:41] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely could. Now we're gonna switch up the program from what we normally hear, or frequently heard in our previous past candidate interviews, and we're doing a bit of a lightning round- [00:02:52] Ron Davis: Oh, dear. [00:02:52] Crystal Fincher: -here. So just a brief - mostly yes or no, or short answer questions. But just to help the listeners get a better view of who you are on a wide range of topics before we dive into the detail. So starting off - This year, did you vote yes on the King County Crisis Care Centers levy? [00:03:11] Ron Davis: Yes. [00:03:12] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote yes on the Veteran, Seniors, and Human Services levy? [00:03:15] Ron Davis: I did, yes. [00:03:16] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote in favor of Seattle's Social Housing Initiative 135? [00:03:21] Ron Davis: I did. [00:03:22] Crystal Fincher: In 2021, did you vote for Bruce Harrell or Lorena González for Mayor? [00:03:27] Ron Davis: In the general, I voted for Lorena González. [00:03:29] Crystal Fincher: In 2021, in the general, did you vote for Ann Davison or Nicole Thomas Kennedy for City Attorney? [00:03:35] Ron Davis: Nicole Thomas Kennedy. [00:03:36] Crystal Fincher: In 2022, did you vote for Leesa Manion or Jim Ferrell for King County Prosecutor? [00:03:43] Ron Davis: Leesa Manion. [00:03:43] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote for Patty Murray or Tiffany Smiley? [00:03:47] Ron Davis: Patty Murray. [00:03:48] Crystal Fincher: Do you rent or own your residence? [00:03:51] Ron Davis: Currently own - for seven years - rent all before that. [00:03:54] Crystal Fincher: Are you a landlord? [00:03:56] Ron Davis: No. [00:03:56] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to require landlords to report metrics, including how much rent they're charging, to help better plan housing and development needs in the district? [00:04:04] Ron Davis: Yes. [00:04:05] Crystal Fincher: Are there any instances where you would support sweeps of homeless encampments? [00:04:11] Ron Davis: As I understand the definition of sweep, it is where you're clearing a homeless encampment and there's nowhere for people to go - like no actual housing. So no, unless there was some imminent public health risk, like during - there were moments in COVID - but as a general rule, no. [00:04:24] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to provide additional funding for Seattle's Social Housing Public Development Authority? [00:04:30] Ron Davis: Absolutely, and I did some campaigning for I-135 as well. [00:04:33] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with King County Executive Constantine's statement that the King County Jail should be closed? [00:04:38] Ron Davis: Yeah. [00:04:39] Crystal Fincher: Should parking enforcement be housed within SPD? [00:04:43] Ron Davis: No. [00:04:44] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to allow police in schools? [00:04:48] Ron Davis: I think the schools should decide that, but my instinct is no. I think the students have been pretty clear that's what they don't want - they don't want that. [00:04:55] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to allow it? [00:04:58] Ron Davis: Ah, I see. No, not currently - I don't have any reason to think I would. [00:05:02] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget for a civilian-led mental health crisis response? [00:05:09] Ron Davis: Me and two-thirds of Seattle, yep. [00:05:11] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget to increase the pay of human service workers? [00:05:15] Ron Davis: Yes, it's egregious how much they're underpaid. [00:05:18] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Do you support removing funds in the City budget for forced encampment removals and instead allocating funds towards a Housing First approach? [00:05:26] Ron Davis: Yep. [00:05:27] Crystal Fincher: Do you support abrogating or removing the funds from unfilled SPD positions and putting them towards meaningful public safety measures? [00:05:36] Ron Davis: Yes. I do want to clarify - so when we say unfilled, we think the ones that are unfilled or unfillable in this budget cycle - but then yes. [00:05:43] Crystal Fincher: These are yes or no questions. [00:05:45] Ron Davis: Well, it's yes if it's the ones that are fillable or not. [00:05:49] Crystal Fincher: Perfect. So let's do yes or no - we have plenty of time to get into the nitty gritty and detail of all the other stuff. [00:05:55] Ron Davis: Got it. [00:05:55] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocating money in the City budget for supervised consumption sites? [00:06:01] Ron Davis: I do. [00:06:02] Crystal Fincher: Do you support increasing funding in the City budget for violence intervention programs? [00:06:06] Ron Davis: Yes, I do. [00:06:07] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't give the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of Inspector General subpoena power? [00:06:16] Ron Davis: I would oppose such a contract, yes. [00:06:18] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't remove limitations as to how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian? [00:06:29] Ron Davis: Oppose that doesn't remove - sorry, I'm trying to make sure I got the question right. [00:06:33] Crystal Fincher: If they don't remove limitations about how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian- [00:06:39] Ron Davis: Yeah, I would have a problem with that. They've gotta be civilian. [00:06:42] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that impedes the ability of the City to move police funding to public safety alternatives? [00:06:51] Ron Davis: Yeah. [00:06:52] Crystal Fincher: Do you support eliminating in-uniform off duty work by SPD officers? [00:06:59] Ron Davis: I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about, specifically. I'm sorry. [00:07:03] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Will you vote to ensure that trans and non-binary students are allowed to play on the sports teams that fit with their gender identities? [00:07:12] Ron Davis: Yeah. [00:07:13] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans people can use bathrooms or public facilities that match their gender? [00:07:19] Ron Davis: Yep. [00:07:19] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with the Seattle City Council's decision to implement the JumpStart Tax? [00:07:24] Ron Davis: Yes. [00:07:25] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to reduce or divert the JumpStart Tax in any way? [00:07:30] Ron Davis: No. [00:07:30] Crystal Fincher: Are you happy with Seattle's newly built waterfront? [00:07:34] Ron Davis: No. [00:07:34] Crystal Fincher: Do you believe return to work mandates like the one issued by Amazon are necessary to boost Seattle's economy? [00:07:41] Ron Davis: No. [00:07:42] Crystal Fincher: Have you taken transit in the past week? [00:07:44] Ron Davis: Yes. [00:07:45] Crystal Fincher: Have you ridden a bike in the past week? [00:07:48] Ron Davis: No. [00:07:49] Crystal Fincher: Or the past month? [00:07:50] Ron Davis: Yes. [00:07:51] Crystal Fincher: Should Pike Place Market allow non-commercial car traffic? [00:07:55] Ron Davis: No. [00:07:55] Crystal Fincher: Should significant investments be made to speed up the opening of scheduled Sound Transit light rail lines? [00:08:03] Ron Davis: Yes. [00:08:03] Crystal Fincher: Should we accelerate the elimination of the ability to turn right on red lights to improve pedestrian safety? [00:08:10] Ron Davis: Yes. [00:08:11] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever been a member of a union? [00:08:14] Ron Davis: Not unless you count the Transit Riders Union - not an actual worker union - no. [00:08:18] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to increase funding and staffing for investigations into labor violations like wage theft and illegal union busting? [00:08:26] Ron Davis: Yep. [00:08:27] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever walked on a picket line? [00:08:29] Ron Davis: Yes. [00:08:29] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever crossed a picket line? [00:08:32] Ron Davis: Never. [00:08:32] Crystal Fincher: Is your campaign staff unionized? [00:08:36] Ron Davis: We are not. We've encouraged it, but it hasn't happened. [00:08:38] Crystal Fincher: So if your campaign staff wanted to unionize, would you voluntarily recognize their effort? [00:08:44] Ron Davis: Absolutely. [00:08:45] Crystal Fincher: So that's the end of the lightning round - thank you very much for that. Pretty painless, hopefully. Now, lots of people look to work you've done to get a feel for what you've prioritized and how qualified you are to lead. Can you describe something you've accomplished or changed in your district that's tangible or visible to the people who live there and what impact has it had on them? [00:09:06] Ron Davis: That's a great question. In my district - um, depends on who and who it would be visible to, but I can think of a couple, a couple things that would be significant. One is I'm on the board of the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association and one of the areas I'm working on there is transportation - and specifically, transportation and pedestrian safety. So for instance, we had a situation where a number of people were turning out of driveways the wrong direction on a one-way street and it was creating scary conflicts and some residents raised the issue. We raised the issue to SDOT. We've also raised the issue to - I championed us raising the issue to both SDOT and local businesses - we got better signage implemented. We're getting way, way, way less reports of that. Let's see, something that I specifically get credit for. So also we've done - I'm on the board of the YMCA, so I was our biggest fundraiser last year. And we raised thousands and thousands of dollars to get it - to fund scholarships so that young kids could get afterschool care and summer care that was the same care that fully-paying families were getting. And so that was visible, of course, only to those families - we don't identify which families those are because we don't want those kids to experience any sort of identity segregation around that - but that brought a lot of kids into amazing wraparound care. And we also did some work related to that to bringing food into their families. So there's a couple of things I've worked on recently in the district. [00:10:35] Crystal Fincher: Perfect, thank you. Now on almost every measure, we're behind on our 2030 climate goals, while experiencing devastating impacts from extreme heat and cold, to wildfires, floods. What are your highest priority plans to get us on track to meet our 2030 goals? [00:10:52] Ron Davis: Yeah, so number one is we have to address transportation. So 61% of our emissions come from personal and commercial transport in the city. And so to make progress there, we have to make it so that people don't pay a time and safety and reliability penalty for doing something other than riding a car. So that means everything from a better built-out and disability-accessible sidewalk network - and street crossing network that is safe. Bike lanes that are separate and actually protected, and that form a grid that go from where people are to where they want to be without breaks in them where they're risking their lives. And then of course, frequent, fast, reliable transit. All of those things cost money and they also will cost road space. We are going to actually have to - if we want to make it so that people have a real choice, 'cause right now we're putting a huge thumb on the scale - pushing people into cars. If we want people to have a real choice, we're going to have to make genuine trade-offs in right-of-way. So I think that's the biggest - absolute single best biggest - thing we can do. Obviously we need to electrify everything that remains. To support that, we also need to address our biggest other area of emissions, which is housing and commercial buildings, right? And so denser housing is more climate friendly, has lower emissions. Mass timber construction is much lower climate - I'm sorry - carbon intensive at construction. And that denser housing of course supports the kind of transportation network that I just described, so there's a virtuous circle there. The other piece that goes with that is allowing commercial in all neighborhoods without forcing businesses to build extra parking, right - through mandates. And once you do that, then also a lot more trips can be confined to existing neighborhoods and don't even need to be - the person shouldn't even have to be able to ask, shouldn't even have to ask themselves the question of - Do I need to get on a bus or do I need to get on a car? - when maybe they can go a block away or three blocks away. [00:12:50] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now I wanna talk about public safety, particularly while other jurisdictions around the country and several in our region have rolled out alternative response programs to better support those having behavioral health crises - or with a challenge that isn't quite a legal challenge, but needs some intervention - Seattle is stalled in implementing what is a widely-supported idea. Where do you stand on non-police solutions to public safety issues? And what are your thoughts on civilian-led versus co-response models? [00:13:22] Ron Davis: Okay, great questions. So one is we definitely need non-police response to non-police-appropriate calls. And a huge percentage of those calls could be appropriately handled without a sworn officer present. So I believe SPD did a study of itself and said 12% of calls could be immediately triageable. There was an external body that came in and said it was more like 49%. I have not been close enough to that data to know which one is right, but it's a lot. And it's embarrassing, to be honest, that a city as rich and capable as ours has fallen so far behind in delivering on this - especially when we have this massive behavioral health crisis, when we have a shortage of police officers so their ability to respond to every kind of crisis is diminished. We need to be handing off this workload to people who are better trained for it, because - well, A) because they're better trained for it, B) because a lot of those interactions are where some of our more racially inequitable interactions happen with police, and C) so that we can cut response times - which I think should answer the other part of your question. So I don't think co-response is necessary in most cases. [00:14:30] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now, I wanna talk about victims a little bit. There's a lot of people saying they're speaking on behalf of victims, but really speaking over them. And what we actually hear from victims is - is one, they wanna make sure that what happened to them never happens to them or anyone else again. And two, that they want more support and help to recover after what they've just been through. How can we do a better job supporting victims of crime? [00:14:59] Ron Davis: That's a wonderful question. I have thought about certain parts of that - and I'll tell you which parts - and then I think that you've identified a gap in my own thinking, policy-wise. So the part I've thought about is restorative justice programming, where - and I campaigned for Pooja Vaddadi on this because I was very much interested in, now Judge Vaddadi's, championing restorative justice programming - which ultimately bring, when people come into the justice system, makes part of their restoration program not only focused on rehabilitating them and bringing them back to community. But also trying to make whole or right what they - whatever damage they've done - with care to protect victims from having to relive trauma. So I've thought a lot about it from that standpoint, and I've thought a lot about it in our social safety net. What I haven't thought a lot about is direct victim, direct sort of post-victimization programming. So I don't have a great answer, other than to say that you make a really interesting point - which is we love to talk about victims as sort of in the political chess, but too often we're not actually paying attention to them and their needs. And so I would definitely support spending money to make sure that we are taking care of people who've been victimized, 'cause trauma has lasting effects. [00:16:17] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely does. I wanna talk about housing and homelessness. And one thing called out by experts as a barrier to reducing homelessness is that the frontline workers - their wages don't cover the cost of living, leading to shortages and challenges there. Do you believe our local nonprofits have a responsibility to pay living wages for our area, and how can we make that more likely with how we bid for contracts and services? [00:16:45] Ron Davis: Yeah, I do. I do think they have that responsibility and often they're constrained by funding, but often the funder of last resort is us. And so because our contracts - through things like public development agreements, labor harmony agreements, things we do with other contractors - more often for-profit contractors, we can set the terms on which we engage. I think we need to be setting terms that require higher pay. Now, that being said, we can't get something for nothing. And so we can't just say you have to pay more and then not actually provide the funds in those contracts. So we're gonna have to put our money where our mouth is, or our treasure where our heart is - as the scripture says. [00:17:21] Crystal Fincher: What are your highest priority plans to address homelessness? [00:17:26] Ron Davis: Yeah, so I think the data is pretty clear that what causes homelessness to vary by city is housing related, right? So although there are individual causes that push people into homelessness - like mental health, behavioral health issues, or other tragedies in people's lives - the thing that makes homelessness happen in a city is the lack of affordable housing. And so for me, my big focuses there are a mix of supply, subsidies, and stabilization policies. So on the supply side, that means a broad zoning reform - at least tripling the zoning envelope around the city, making sure that no neighborhood is exempt - and creating sort of livable, walkable communities where there's plenty of space to build. And it also means permitting reform, right? So moving to a single-track permitting process - right now we have this dual-track process that's really Byzantine and takes two to three years and it should be more like six weeks to six months - and potentially actually putting a time limit on that and allowing for a builder's remedy. On the subsidy side - even if we get permitting right and zoning right, we start to bend the curve on housing costs and make it so middle-class families can afford to live here again - it's still gonna be tough because this is America and it's an unequal society. And people wanna live in Seattle, so land is expensive. And so we are not gonna be able to meet the needs of all of the market, which means we also need to pay money in - so this is the subsidy side. So aggressive investments in affordable housing, in social housing which is mixed-income, investing in permanent supportive housing for people with chronic behavioral issues, direct subsidies or vouchers for people that appear that they just need a hand up and can get back into the market - you can generally segment the homeless population this way pretty effectively. And then on the stabilization side, displacement often pushes people into homelessness or further down the economic ladder. And so thinking about everything from - I would like to implement now an anti-rent gouging excise tax. I think it would get tied up in court, but I think it actually would be constitutional. It would be a way of sort of backing into something like a milder form of rent control without maybe running afoul of State constitution. I'm fine with the trigger law as well. I would also be interested in something called right-to-return legislation, which basically says - Hey, this is a high displacement risk neighborhood and so if you build here, people need to be able to return at the same price to the equivalent and be compensated in the meantime - which means some of those projects aren't gonna pencil out and it means more housing will get built in richer, lower displacement risk neighborhoods. That's okay. Or it means if people do have temporary displacement that they're gonna land well. I also think just direct aid to folks who appear to be at risk of homelessness - we found in, during the pandemic, is pretty good at - it's one of those pay a dollar in, save seven dollars later and keep people out of actually being on the street. [00:20:17] Crystal Fincher: Sure. [00:20:18] Ron Davis: Oh, I should say tiny homes - that's my other, I forgot one other thing, sorry - tiny homes. I also think we need, I do think we need to get, it's a - think of it as like kind of a tourniquet, right? It's not a long-term solution, but it can protect people and kind of stop the bleeding for folks who are on the street right now and have nowhere to go. [00:20:33] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now it comes to transit and transportation, we have a long way to go to address our current pedestrian and bicycle safety crisis. We are seeing injuries and deaths at record rates and community demanding change. How would you improve pedestrian and bicycle safety? [00:20:53] Ron Davis: Yeah, great question. So, this is one of those things where my money is where my mouth is - just like on the last one, I didn't say I worked on statewide legislation to pass the missing middle housing bill. Here, you know, I'm on the board of Seattle Subway, I previously was on the citizen oversight panel at Sound Transit, I'm involved with Neighborhood Greenways, and working on Lid I-5. I - to me, the only safe street is a street is - that is engineered to be safe. And to be - a street that is engineered to be safe has some of the following features. One is it doesn't have long open stretches or really clear visual lines - long, clear visual lines. Two, it doesn't have really wide lanes or series of lanes. Three, it doesn't have wide crossings. So, some of it is just starting to actually engineer our streets because - in a way that slow people down, because we know that when people do - when there are conflicts and there are collisions and people are going slow - first, there's less likely to be a collision. And second, it's much less likely to be nearly so harmful. I mean, it's killing 30 people a year and injuring countless more. Other things that have been proven to be effective - bike lanes have been proven to just reduce overall harm on a road while not significantly impairing total vehicle throughput, raised crosswalks, better signalization, no right turn on red, as you mentioned earlier. I think we need to put more imperative language in our Complete Streets ordinance so that every time we're touching a road, we are moving it toward genuine safe - making it genuinely safe and complete. [00:22:20] Crystal Fincher: I'm also wondering - we are dealing with transit reliability challenges now with a lot of routes being missed and seeing ghost buses, whether from lack of staffing or because there's just not the funding to continue in some places. What can the City do - recognizing that Sound Transit is a regional entity, King County Metro is a county entity - but what can you do in your capacity as a city councilmember to stabilize transit reliability? [00:22:51] Ron Davis: There's a few things we can do. So one is we could increase funding - direct supplementary funding - from the general fund, we could increase funding through the transit levy - both. And we do, through the transit levy, buy additional hours from Metro so we have those relationships - we can do that. But I would say - just sort of backing out - there's a few gaps that I think are fundamental. So one is - something I loved about the Crisis Care Center levy is that it also included money for building up a workforce with more living wages, with training, with wraparound services to get people actually into that workforce and retain them. I think we need to be doing that for our transit workers and actually making that a career that's viable for more people. Of course, I also think that has to be paired with more affordable housing around here as well. Second, I think, of course, direct funding to make sure that there's enough buses - again, that we have frequency is high, but you mentioned reliability. I think another big piece of reliability is traffic. Much, much, much of our transit - other than a good chunk of Link - mixes with traffic. And so the cheapest, easiest, fastest way to improve that is red paint. So while Bus Rapid Transit is awesome and I love it, it's expensive - the first thing we can do is take our busiest transit routes and convert them to transit-only lanes and make sure that buses get places fast and reliably. And then you've tackled a huge part of the frequent, fast, reliable trio problem. [00:24:10] Crystal Fincher: Now, another challenge that Seattle residents are dealing with is the extremely high cost and sometimes low availability of childcare. And that has so many impacts on our larger economy - even for people that don't have kids, this affects our community. But for those who do, the average cost of childcare is now greater than the cost of college, which is just eye-popping. [00:24:36] Ron Davis: Unbelievable. [00:24:37] Crystal Fincher: How do you propose to help this problem and to help families with this challenge? [00:24:43] Ron Davis: Yeah, I think there's small things we can do, and then there's kind of one larger thing that we can do. So I think on the small side, just building capacity - we did see some success during the pandemic with funds that were set aside to say, make small remodels in an in-home childcare setting that would get a bathroom on the first floor that would allow doubling of the number of children available - things like that, that went a long way. So I think there's some smart things we could do there. I think there's smart things we could do in retooling some spaces downtown, which I think would actually bring more office workers downtown. And certainly exempting childcare from floor area ratio - basically it's free square footage, right, for audience members who aren't that nerdy, although most of your audience, I'm guessing, is a little bit nerdy and probably does know what that is - and allowing it, legalizing it at every neighborhood. I think the longer term, though - at some point, we're gonna have to more seriously fund a direct stream here that ensures that the workers are paid wages that make it viable - make it a viable career. And that the capacity is there, and that the affordability is there. And so for me, I imagine - I think that if I'm not mistaken, I think that economists say an affordable childcare is like no more than 7% of your gross income, I can't remember the exact number - but whatever that is, I think we should be capping it and subsidizing it accordingly. [00:26:08] Crystal Fincher: A lot of good ideas there. I wanna talk about the broader economy a little bit. Seattle has a very, very diverse business community, as does District 4. We have some of the largest companies in the world here, as well as a really diverse and vibrant small business community. And I wanna talk about small businesses who are facing a lot of challenges - I guess from your perspective, what are the biggest challenges that they are facing, and how can you help? [00:26:35] Ron Davis: Yeah, I think the two biggest are the sort of public safety behavioral health crisis that's happening on their doors - 'cause at least when I think of small business, archetypically I'm thinking of our little retail businesses. Although as a former small business owner, I guess there's multiple types, and that was not what I did. But, and then the other is real estate costs, right? It's very, very expensive to run a shop. So if it's expensive, and you're dealing with behavioral health issues at your door, and there's no civilian response you can call, you're really in a world of hurt. And so obviously everything we talked about earlier with public safety is how I would address the public safety issues, as well as I think we should be investing a lot more just generally in drug treatment and supplementing, even supplementing the Crisis Care Center levy in Seattle. But on the real estate side, Andrew Lewis recently proposed some legislation that is sort of the equivalent of a kind of a soft rent control for small businesses. And I'm interested in that, I like that. I haven't studied it closely enough to know exactly like how much, what do I think, what are the right situations? But especially for some of our like historic districts where a lot of those small minority and immigrant owned businesses tend to get started - like the Ave in Seattle - like I think we absolutely need to not have all of those turn into just open air malls like they have everywhere else. And I also think people need to be able to get started here and be successful. [00:27:58] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Now, big issue looming over the City of Seattle is the projected revenue shortfall of $224 million - that's what it's currently projected to be starting in 2025. Because the City's mandated by the state to pass a balanced budget, the options to address the deficit are pretty binary - either raise revenue or cut services. How will you approach the issue of how the City collects and spends money on behalf of its constituents? [00:28:28] Ron Davis: Great question. So one is, I wrote an article a while back that said - it was called "Seattle Needs Money" - and it was related to this exact topic. And it was, my argument was - Hey, this is a shortfall. We're losing a lot of revenue because of things like the real estate excise tax slowing down and we're gonna have to gut essential services or we're gonna have to raise money. And so the best choice of those is to raise money. And by the way, our taxes are really regressive - they fall a lot, much more on working class people, middle class people, poor people than they do on wealthy folks. And so our taxes need to be more progressive - as in they need to take more from people who have more - to rebalance our tax code a little bit. How would I do that? Some of my favorite options right now that I'm interested in and would probably just vote yes on now would be A) we could increase JumpStart - we could increase its scope and we could increase its magnitude a little bit. I think it should run from more like 1-4%, not 0.7-2.1% or whatever it is - I think you're still very much in the safe zone where you're not killing the golden goose or anything like that. Alex Pedersen has proposed a 3% top-off to the 7% tax on extreme capital gains - I think that's also a reasonable idea, I wouldn't do his funny switch with water bills, but it could be a significant - that'd be at least another $30 million. Between those two, you'd start to see a substantial difference. I think a vacancy tax is fine - it's not gonna raise a ton of money. I'm also interested in - I have spoken with some constitutional scholars to make sure this would be cool - but I am very interested in a 1% income tax with a $700 rebate, which would be free or actually a check if you make $70,000 or less, and above that would start to bite at 1% of your income. So it would be de facto progressive, but statutorily it would be written in flat. So between those, you could cover the entire gap and you would have money left over for things like fentanyl treatment, and affordable housing, and standing up a behavioral health crisis response, and offering people transportation choices - which in contrast, my opponent says she wants to do all those things, but wants to cut $200 million, right? You can't just do magic. [00:30:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and I do enjoy hearing concrete ideas - much appreciated for that. Now, as we wrap up today, there are a lot of people trying to make the choice between you and your opponent who you just brought up - trying to determine why they should vote for you versus your opponent. What do you tell voters? [00:30:54] Ron Davis: Yeah, I mean, usually, obviously I'm talking to them and understanding their values and what it is that's important to them, so it kind of depends on the issue. But I would say, like - at a high level, you know, I think we should raise money to deal with our deficit. My opponent Maritza Rivera thinks we should cut $200 million from the general fund, which will impact things like affordable housing, and drug treatment, and civilian responses, and pothole filling, and transit. I think that our city's tax code needs to be more progressive, she does not want to make it more progressive. I'm really focused on housing and homelessness as well as public safety, I think she's kind of only focused on public safety. My public safety plan doesn't ignore what SPD says is possible when it comes to hiring more officers, hers says that we can hire 12 times as much as they say is possible. So I think one of us is much more grounded in reality and aligned with our values, and I think the other is not. One last thing is our histories too are something that are worth looking at, right? I have a history of touching things, and having them go well, and having the people around me say - Hey, this was a really, really good experience. And 26 of 40 of her employees wrote a letter to the mayor not long before she announced that she was running - saying she shouldn't be trusted with City funds and had created a toxic work environment along with her supervisor. So I think the contrast is clear. [00:32:16] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for your time today and sharing your plans should you be elected to city council with all of the listeners today. Thank you so much. [00:32:25] Ron Davis: Thank you so much, Crystal. It's an honor to be on your show - I'm a diehard listener. [00:32:29] Crystal Fincher: Much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this Tuesday topical show, Crystal chats with Tanya Woo about her campaign for Seattle City Council District 2. Listen and learn more about Tanya and her thoughts on: [01:06] - Why she is running [02:02] - Lightning round! [12:49] - What is an accomplishment of hers that impacts District 2 [17:13] - Housing and homelessness: Frontline worker wages [19:36] - Homelessness: Involvement with opposition to SODO shelter expansion [25:15] - Public Safety: Alternative response [27:08] - Victim support [30:52] - City budget shortfall: Raise revenue or cut services? [36:02] - Small business support [39:16] - Childcare: Affordability and accessibility [40:28] - Bike and pedestrian safety [45:59] - Transit reliability [48:02] - Difference between her and opponent As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Tanya Woo at @votetanyawoo.   Tanya Woo My family immigrated to Seattle in 1887. I grew up on Beacon Hill, worked at our family business in the Chinatown International District and now live in Rainier Beach. I've seen how South Seattle has changed. I've seen what happens to neighborhoods that don't have a voice and are expected to just live with bad city policies. I want to change that, and that's why I'm running for Seattle City Council. I spearheaded the renovation of my family's building, the Louisa hotel, that provides small business space and workforce housing. Twice a week, my Community Watch walks around Little Saigon, Nihomachi (Japantown) and Chinatown trying to make our streets safer for everyone, which includes our unhoused neighbors. My work against government discrimination in the Chinatown International District has taught me a very important lesson: the only time people in South Seattle are heard is when we make those in positions of power listen.   Resources Campaign Website - Tanya Woo   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Well, I am very pleased to be welcoming Tanya Woo, Seattle City Council candidate in District 2, to the program. Thank you so much for joining us, Tanya. [00:01:04] Tanya Woo: Well, thank you for having me - I'm really excited to be here. [00:01:06] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you - and just wanted to start off by understanding why you chose to run and why now? [00:01:14] Tanya Woo: Yes, and so this comes from a long history of work in the Chinatown International District, as well as being a lifelong resident here in District 2. Just seeing the effects of the pandemic on our community, as well as seeing all of these high-impact projects that are happening around the Chinatown International District these last four years - and realizing that the district is really fighting for its life, basically. And so we were fighting for a seat at the table, we were fighting to amplify voices and to be heard - and realizing that the best way to get a seat at the table is to fight for it and to run for it. And so after a lot of discussion and a lot of encouragement, I decided to throw my hat into the ring. [00:02:01] Crystal Fincher: Excellent. Well, as we get started on this show - I mean, we do candidate interviews a lot - we're adding a new dimension into the interviews this year, which is a lightning round before we get to the rest of our regular conversation and discussion. And so just a number of yes or no questions, that hopefully are easy, or super one-answer choice questions. So we'll just run through this and then get back to the other questions. So this year, did you vote yes on the King County Crisis Care Centers levy? [00:02:31] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:02:32] Crystal Fincher: And this year, did you vote yes on the Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services levy? [00:02:37] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:02:38] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote in favor of Seattle's Social Housing Initiative 135? ... In February. [00:02:43] Tanya Woo: I may not have voted for that. I may not have voted for that one. [00:02:53] Crystal Fincher: Okay. And in 2021, did you vote for Bruce Harrell or Lorena González for Seattle Mayor? [00:03:00] Tanya Woo: I did not vote in that election. [00:03:02] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Okay, so I guess that covers - let me find that - so City Attorney. Last year in 2022, did you vote for Leesa Manion or Jim Ferrell for King County Prosecutor? [00:03:17] Tanya Woo: Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I don't know which elections I voted for, which ones I did not vote for. [00:03:21] Crystal Fincher: Okay. [00:03:22] Tanya Woo: I'll have to pull up my record to answer. [00:03:23] Crystal Fincher: We will skip the... [00:03:26] Tanya Woo: I am so sorry. [00:03:27] Crystal Fincher: It's fine, it's fine. We'll skip the rest of those. We'll go to the other questions. Do you rent or own your residence? [00:03:34] Tanya Woo: My husband owns the residence. [00:03:36] Crystal Fincher: Okay, are you a landlord? [00:03:39] Tanya Woo: My family is a landlord. [00:03:41] Crystal Fincher: Okay, would you vote to require landlords to report metrics, including how much rent they're charging, to help better plan housing and development needs in the district? [00:03:50] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:03:51] Crystal Fincher: Are there any instances where you would support sweeps of homeless encampments? [00:03:59] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:04:00] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to provide additional funding for Seattle's Social Housing Public Development Authority? [00:04:06] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:04:07] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with King County Executive Constantine's statement that the King County Jail should be closed? [00:04:18] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:04:19] Crystal Fincher: Should parking enforcement be housed within SPD? [00:04:28] Tanya Woo: Oh. I don't think I've ever really thought about this one. Probably yes. [00:04:43] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Would you vote to allow police in schools? [00:04:51] Tanya Woo: I think that's up to the schools. [00:04:52] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget for a civilian-led mental health crisis response? [00:04:59] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:05:00] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget to increase the pay of human service workers? [00:05:03] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:05:04] Crystal Fincher: Do you support removing funds in the City budget for forced encampment removals and instead allocating funds towards a Housing First approach? [00:05:13] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:05:14] Crystal Fincher: Do you support abrogating or removing the funds from unfilled SPD positions and putting them towards meaningful public safety measures? [00:05:24] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:05:24] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocating money in the budget for supervised consumption sites? [00:05:33] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:05:34] Crystal Fincher: Do you support increasing funding in the City budget for violence intervention programs? [00:05:40] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:05:41] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't give the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of Inspector General subpoena power? [00:05:54] Tanya Woo: Do I oppose it? Yes. [00:05:56] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't remove limitations as to how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian? [00:06:05] Tanya Woo: So sorry, can you repeat the question? [00:06:09] Crystal Fincher: Sure, sure, sure. Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't remove limitations as to how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian? [00:06:21] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:06:22] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that impedes the ability of the city to move police funding to public safety alternatives? [00:06:32] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:06:33] Crystal Fincher: Do you support eliminating in-uniform off-duty work by SPD officers? [00:06:45] Tanya Woo: Such as traffic control? [00:06:49] Crystal Fincher: That would fall under one if they're off-duty, I think, yeah. [00:06:54] Tanya Woo: I do not oppose it, so. [00:06:56] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Will you vote to ensure that trans and non-binary students are allowed to play on the sports teams that fit with their gender identities? [00:07:07] Tanya Woo: And this isn't - do I oppose it? [00:07:09] Crystal Fincher: No - will you vote to ensure that - [00:07:10] Tanya Woo: Oh, sorry - okay. [00:07:10] Crystal Fincher: - trans and non-binary students are allowed to play on the sports teams that fit with their gender identities? [00:07:18] Tanya Woo: Oh, I think that's a conversation we have to have with the sports teams, but I would be in support of it. [00:07:25] Crystal Fincher: So when you say conversation to have with the sports teams - if they voted against it, would you support that? [00:07:31] Tanya Woo: I think we have to support - yes. [00:07:33] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so you would support-- [00:07:35] Tanya Woo: If the sports teams voted. [00:07:37] Crystal Fincher: Sports team said that they couldn't play, then they couldn't play. [00:07:40] Tanya Woo: If they had good reason. [00:07:41] Crystal Fincher: Got it. [00:07:42] Tanya Woo: 'Cause I think every sports is different. [00:07:44] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans people can use bathrooms or public facilities that match their gender? [00:07:51] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:07:52] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with the Seattle City Council's decision to implement the JumpStart Tax? [00:07:58] Tanya Woo: I'm so sorry, going back to the gender one - their stated gender or their perceived gender? [00:08:04] Crystal Fincher: Whatever gender they identify as. [00:08:06] Tanya Woo: Okay, yes, then - we need to ensure that it's served - okay. [00:08:10] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with the Seattle City Council's decision to implement the JumpStart Tax? [00:08:17] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:08:17] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to reduce or divert the JumpStart Tax in any way? [00:08:29] Tanya Woo: That's a very complicated question. [00:08:31] Crystal Fincher: Okay, we can leave it as - it's complicated, it's not a yes or no - and we can get to that. We have plenty of time to talk about this in the other questions, so we can cover the details of that. [00:08:41] Tanya Woo: Okay great. Yeah - that's a lot of -- Oh, go ahead. [00:08:45] Crystal Fincher: Are you happy with Seattle's newly built waterfront? [00:08:50] Tanya Woo: Yes, I love the direction it's going in. [00:08:52] Crystal Fincher: Do you believe return to work mandates, like the one issued by Amazon, are necessary to boost Seattle's economy? [00:09:01] Tanya Woo: And that's the three days a week, right? [00:09:05] Crystal Fincher: Theirs is three days a week - whatever, you know, if they're mandating a return and not work from home in whatever form that would be. So it could be three, it could be five. [00:09:15] Tanya Woo: I think yes. Oh, okay. I think it's great to start with three. And then, of course, the willingness to work with families where that could be a barrier - where there's any barriers involved. [00:09:26] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so do you think - I mean, do you think the mandate is necessary or is that it's on a case-by-case basis and-- [00:09:33] Tanya Woo: Well, I think it's necessary to revitalize the downtown area. I know there's a lot of barriers for some people not being able to physically return to work - I think case-by-case in those situations should be allowed. [00:09:48] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Have you taken transit in the past week? [00:09:52] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:09:53] Crystal Fincher: Have you ridden a bike in the past week? [00:09:55] Tanya Woo: No. [00:09:56] Crystal Fincher: In the past month? [00:09:59] Tanya Woo: No. [00:10:01] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Should Pike Place Market allow non-commercial car traffic? [00:10:11] Tanya Woo: Oh, I know that is being talked about right now. I think it'd be nice to not allow it, but I know some of the business owners want it - so I think definitely let Pike Place Market decide on how they want to proceed. [00:10:30] Crystal Fincher: Should we accelerate the elimination of the ability to turn right on red lights to improve pedestrian safety? [00:10:44] Tanya Woo: For all red lights? [00:10:45] Crystal Fincher: Yes. [00:10:47] Tanya Woo: Okay. That would add a lot of needed infrastructure. I would support that, but I think we'd have to put together a plan to be able to carry that out. [00:11:03] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Should significant investments be made to speed up the opening of scheduled Sound Transit light rail lines? [00:11:15] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:11:16] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever been a member of a union? [00:11:20] Tanya Woo: No. [00:11:20] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to increase funding and staffing for investigations into labor violations like wage theft and illegal union busting? [00:11:31] Tanya Woo: Would I support putting money into investigations? [00:11:35] Crystal Fincher: Increasing funding and staffing for investigations into labor violations like wage theft and illegal union busting? [00:11:42] Tanya Woo: Oh - yes. [00:11:43] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever walked on a picket line? [00:11:46] Tanya Woo: No. [00:11:47] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever crossed a picket line? [00:11:49] Tanya Woo: No. [00:11:50] Crystal Fincher: Is your campaign unionized? [00:11:53] Tanya Woo: They have the option to do so, but I do not believe so. [00:11:57] Crystal Fincher: Okay. If your campaign staff wants to unionize, will you voluntarily recognize their effort? [00:12:02] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:12:03] Crystal Fincher: Are any of the staff employed by your businesses unionized? [00:12:14] Tanya Woo: If, are my staff employed by businesses unionized? [00:12:18] Crystal Fincher: Any staff employed by your business unionized? [00:12:22] Tanya Woo: No. [00:12:24] Crystal Fincher: If they wanted to unionize, would you voluntarily recognize their effort? [00:12:28] Tanya Woo: Yes. [00:12:30] Crystal Fincher: Well, look, that's the end of the lightning round - you survived, it's wonderful. [00:12:34] Tanya Woo: Okay great - these are always rough because I feel like sometimes issues are so complicated and there's a lot of gray - it's not always black and white - but yeah, that wasn't so bad. [00:12:45] Crystal Fincher: Which is why we have a robust conversation in front of us to talk about all of that. But I want to start out for - helping to give people a feel for what you prioritize and how qualified you are to lead, which a lot of people see throughout the community. Can you describe something you've accomplished or changed in your district and what impact that has had on residents? [00:13:08] Tanya Woo: Yes. Three years ago, during the pandemic - when there were a lot of pandemic racism, anti-Asian hate happening - our businesses were forced to close down throughout the city. And a lot of people were uncertain and just confused about what was happening, especially in our communities of color. I helped start a group called the Chinatown International District Community Watch. We saw there was a lack and a gap in services between the hours of 6pm and 6am - and that was the time when many of our streets, because of the stay-at-home mandate, it was just a ghost town. And so we wanted to make sure that people felt supported, that our small businesses felt supported in the Chinatown International District - which includes our housed and unhoused neighbors and residents. And so we started like this alternative to policing group that kind of just went through the three neighborhoods - Little Saigon, Chinatown, and Japantown - and just made sure everyone was okay. We believe that building trust between our unhoused neighbors and those who are there at 12th and Jackson engaged in the illegal markets were okay. We always believe that trust was the best way to de-escalate the situation. And they wanted to build connection and build relationships with people to help connect people to resources and to just be there. We wanted to give hope to our seniors and to our small business owners who were working through the pandemic. And so wanted to let them know that we were here and available if they need help - we did senior escorts. We also did something regarding self-defense training, which mainly focused on situational awareness - many in the Asian culture, people don't - there's not a lot eye contact, people are not looking around when they're walking. And so there are a lot instances where our seniors were unfortunately being attacked - we had a hate incident happen within the CID. And so we wanted to be there to show support for the community. And it's been three years and we're still going strong. We kind of segued into different sections. There was a couple of large encampments that had grown in the first, second, or third year. And we started doing outreach and engagement in the encampments - getting to know our unhoused - we saw who was doing what, we saw the [unintelligible] who were engaged in the sex trade, who was engaged in the illegal markets. But we wanted to make sure that people who needed services and help were also being heard. So we were actively going into the encampments during that time - and now that those encampments have been resolved, we're going into Little Saigon area and 12th and Jackson with water bottles and meals. And trying to make that connection - that community cares, we want people to be okay. And we've done things where we've had to administer Narcan and CPR. And we really see that there's a need here. And so I believe that we're very, very slowly - there are many success stories - people who have found housing come back and say hi to us, and they invite us to see their homes. Many people who we have connected to other services, like brought to the hospital - helped bring to the hospital - have come back to thank us. And just seeing that we're making a difference in people's lives, I think brings me worlds of happiness. And so-- [00:17:03] Crystal Fincher: Now-- [00:17:03] Tanya Woo: --that was-- oh, go ahead. [00:17:05] Crystal Fincher: Oh, no, go ahead, finish. [00:17:06] Tanya Woo: Oh yeah, and so that's one of the things I'm really proud of and excited about - that this is continuing. [00:17:12] Crystal Fincher: Excellent. Now talking about homelessness, one thing called out by experts as a barrier to the homelessness response is frontline worker wages that don't cover the cost of living and that impairing the response. Do you believe our local nonprofits have a responsibility to pay living wages for our area, or that this is a problem with the response? And how can we fix it if it is a problem with how the City bids for contracts and services? [00:17:39] Tanya Woo: Yes, I agree we have to pay a living wage and that is a huge barrier. I mean, even if - there's a huge turnaround in a lot of our nonprofits and our services - we have amazing people who are moving on and that turnaround, especially with caseworkers, is a bit detrimental to further relationships with many members of the community who need behavioral health services, addiction treatment, who are partnered with people to lead them through the journey from being unhoused into finding housing. And how important is that we pay a living wage to case managers so we don't see that there's a huge gap in services and that people are being missed or forgotten. And in other service sectors, I think there has to be - we have to meet those needs because the best way to fight homelessness is to prevent it. So especially with City contracts, there has to be - now that many City contracts are being renegotiated - to get a cost of living wage and also a percentage to match, for every single year going forward, the increase in the cost of living. I think that has to be comparable to other cities, other markets that we're seeing. And we have to make it a priority because we have to put people first, and we have to allow people to be able to live here and work here, as well as be able to negotiate these contracts so that they are fair. And also we have to make other, look at other things as well in terms of City contracts - I think trying to employ more minority businesses in City contracts, as well as female businesses, in terms of the larger contract picture is also very important. [00:19:36] Crystal Fincher: Now, you were involved in the opposition to the proposed - it was nicknamed the "Megaplex" - but a services complex for the homeless there. And I think there were legitimate issues raised over the past several years about the CID residents being left out of discussions about what infrastructure is being built and developed, and mitigations or lack thereof. And the CID and its residents experiencing hardships and consequences out of proportion to people in other parts of the city, and that being a growing frustration - and then this happens and it feels like they're repeating the same cycle. While that's competing with the need to provide supportive housing, and to providing behavioral health treatment and services, and places where people can go and be, and offer these services. So if the right place or the right way to do it wasn't with that, what is the right way and the right place to do it? [00:20:41] Tanya Woo: So first off, I want to make it very clear, we're not against the shelter. We were not against behavioral health services. We just wanted a seat at the table. This comes in a long line of historical high-impact projects that received no community input. And we're looking at I-5, we're looking at Sound Transit, we're looking at the stadiums, the Seattle Streetcar - all high-impact projects that have been detrimental, has really affected our community - but there was no community engagement or outreach. And so in the case of this shelter complex, the lease was signed in May, but the community was not notified until September for a facility that was supposed to open in November, December. And we asked, you know - there's something called the Racial Equity Toolkit that we have provided the City that dictates or advises on how to do that community outreach and engagement - and something that we desperately need and would like to see carried out. And so if King County and the City had started community outreach and engagement back in May, this would not even have been an issue. And so basically in September, when we were first notified during a public safety meeting that only contained a few of us, we were asking around - Have you heard about this project? - and no one's heard about it and people were confused. And so we reached out - and we were a community in crisis - and none of our elected officials showed up for us. And so that's why we started protesting, was because, you know, protests that are loudest are the people who are not being heard. We went to King County, we went to City Council meetings - and we realized there are a lot of barriers for how communities of color, especially non-English speakers, communities of refugees and immigrants can engage in the political process. We requested for a translator ahead of time - we're told no, we had to bring our own - and then translation only goes one way, only goes towards the City councilmembers, it does not go back towards the community. And so we were just standing up in between breaks, yelling at the community members - this is what's happening, this is what people are saying. And that's emblematic of what's happening in the entire district. There is just not very much outreach and engagement and we definitely need more of that, we would like to see the table. There were a whole lot of issues that we would like to have been addressed. For instance, there should have been a good neighbor agreement between the community and the shelter that should have been in place when the shelter had opened back in 2020. And there should have also - we were seeing these encampments that were right outside the doors of the shelter - and last year, there were about seven homicides in the CID. I believe all but one were within the encampments. And so we were also asking for safety for our unhoused neighbors and wanted to enter a discussion with a public, a safety plan for everyone, including our unhoused neighbors. And we can go on and talk about all the reasons, I guess, that we wanted that discussion, engagement - and instead of giving that to us, they just decided to cancel the whole project and no one was happy. [00:23:59] Crystal Fincher: Well, and so I guess that's my question - and so if you are in favor of providing services and doing that, where do you think they should be sited in the district? [00:24:11] Tanya Woo: I think that area would have worked, but what we needed was that outreach and engagement. We were getting no information. We were holding our own town halls and reading off what we knew based on media and - of course we had our facts wrong 'cause no one was telling us what was happening. And that was basically - this is why I'm running - we wanted a seat at the table. And it's not gonna be given to us - we have to demand it. [00:24:42] Crystal Fincher: So would you be supportive of starting a new process with that site as the goal, but with the appropriate amount and type of authentic community engagement and collaboration? [00:24:55] Tanya Woo: Yes. And that's all we wanted - was that community engagement and collaboration. And we've historically have not gotten it. And so we feel like our community, that CID community, has suffered from the lack of investments and the lack of attention. [00:25:14] Crystal Fincher: I gotcha. Now I also wanna talk about public safety - and starting talking about alternative response - in other jurisdictions around the country, and in our own region and King County, have rolled out alternative response programs to better support those having a behavioral health crisis. And Seattle is stalled in implementing, which is one of the most widely-supported ideas by Seattle voters and voters in District 2 - which is standing up non-police public safety issues and solutions. What are your thoughts on these and what are your thoughts on civilian-led versus co-response models? [00:25:51] Tanya Woo: Yes. So I believe that Community Watch is a great example of alternatives to policing. And also there are a lot of organizations who do a lot of great and important work in community - We Deliver Care, LEAD, REACH, Co-LEAD, JustCARE - throughout the years that I would love to see grow on a larger scale and be able to support the entire city. I know they have little pockets within the city where they're doing this amazing work and it's working - and I would love to see more of that. That alternative to policing model is present, it's there - we just need to put City funding and City support behind it. So I also believe, like Health One, which pairs a case worker, case manager with a response team definitely needs to be expanded. Having more case workers out there should be a priority. Having case workers with officers should definitely be explored - and so I do support that model. [00:27:06] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now, a lot of times we hear people talking about what victims would want, but in survey after survey and talking to victims directly and BIPOC communities - the community in District 2 is largely at-risk for violence at greater proportions than other places in the city - but largely they say two things. They first wanna make sure that what happened to them doesn't happen again. And they want support - better support - through the systems. We've had business owners in the City of Seattle talk about - Yeah, I can call police, it takes them a long time to respond. But even if they come, it's not really helping me move forward. But something like a victim compensation fund or more support or something like that would happen. - How do you think we could better support victims of crime in the city? And how do you think that might change the overall feeling of safety? [00:28:04] Tanya Woo: Yes. So for example, there have been about 14 robberies in the Beacon Hill, Rainier Beach area - mostly targeting Asian American seniors, but they're targeting young and old people as well. And so in those instances where they're targeting non-English speakers, we're seeing that not only are people not reporting in a timely manner, but they're not reporting at all - because that structure has not been put in place to help our immigrant, refugee, non-English speaking community. There's one survivor who I met recently who was severely traumatized by this experience - this person can't sleep at night, they have nightmares, and it's very obvious they need a lot of support. But that support structure has not been put into place, especially if you're a non-English speaker. So we were working with this person on connecting them to agencies to help - they have a $5,000 Harborview bill that they have to pay, working two jobs each, as well as dealing with all this trauma. And so we need something in place to help survivors, especially the refugee non-English speaking immigrant community members, to have access to these services, to be able to get assistance in paying their bills, or assistance in being able to get therapy, or other help that they may need. And that's - navigating the process is very difficult. Also - with these 14 burglaries - the community was not notified. I don't know why they waited until 14 to get the word out. Even now, we're not entirely sure what the circumstances are. We know that for one instance, this person was followed from King's Plaza - but how do we stop these from happening by watching out for each other? Especially if these are starting out at King's Plaza or other grocery stores, how can we allow for these marketplaces to keep an eye out for each other and make sure that they're not being followed? Just getting the word out is very difficult, and I wish there'd be more City agencies working with our nonprofits and organizational partners who are in these communities to get the word out as well as to help connect survivors to resources. So I agree that there is a huge lack, but I think we really need to work together to build upon what we have. [00:30:52] Crystal Fincher: Now I wanna talk about the City budget - and the City of Seattle is projected to have a revenue shortfall of $224 million beginning in 2025. Because the City's mandated to pass a balanced budget, the options to address the deficit are to either raise revenue or cut services. What approach are you going to take? [00:31:13] Tanya Woo: Ah, I think we have to look at the entire budget and define metrics of success for every single agency and making sure that there are results. We put so much money into KCRHA, which is the Regional Homeless Authority, but there is no metric for success, we don't know where this money is going - well, we have a general idea, but we don't know what the results are. How many people are they housing? I know right now they're going through a process where they're trying to come up with a system similar to that, but I would like to see something done for all government agencies. I mean, for any of us who have ever applied for a grant, we know how arduous it is to just basically name every single line item, and then be accountable for it, and then also show the results to be able to close out that grant. I think we have to hold all our agencies to that same level. [00:32:10] Crystal Fincher: So does that mean that that might be an area where you'd look to cut? Is that what you're saying? [00:32:16] Tanya Woo: Or not cut, but to maybe move around - see what programs are successful, what are not successful, and then invest in the programs that are showing results. [00:32:26] Crystal Fincher: So given that, if the money is just shifted and we're still dealing with a big budget deficit, how would you move to fix that? [00:32:38] Tanya Woo: Ah, then we'll have to look at - so we have to look at our priorities and really focus on those. And so I think it's looking at the overall budget - and yes, I guess, moving money around does equal cuts and other things, but giving a real clear picture of where the results are and moving the money to where the results are, I think, should be the priority. [00:33:09] Crystal Fincher: Okay, I think I've read that you're on record opposing a lot of the new revenue proposals and options. Is that correct? [00:33:17] Tanya Woo: Well, I wanted to see what the Progressive Revenue Task Force was going to put out. And I believe they gave a list of recommendations, and three is moving on to further legislation. And so I do not oppose any of the recommendations so far, but I want to see where the legislation - what the legislation looks like before making a final determination. [00:33:46] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so jury's still out, depends on what ultimately happens. So at this point, is it fair to say that you are not a strong supporter, or won't be leading any charge to implement new revenue, and may be a vote in support or in opposition? [00:34:02] Tanya Woo: Well, from my understanding - the three things that are being pushed forward are just continuations of things that are currently in place. And so I just want to wait and see. [00:34:15] Crystal Fincher: Well, the capital gains tax would be one, or a CEO tax would be another one, expanding the JumpStart tax. Yeah, so those ones are not currently in place. So are you looking to limiting what you would do to things that are already in place, or would you support something potentially beyond that? [00:34:37] Tanya Woo: Oh, I would want to see - I think some of them were not considered - I think the legality of each is being considered. So I probably would not be an advocate for any particular tax currently. I just want to see what legislation gets pushed forward before making determination of which I'm supportive or opposed of. [00:34:58] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so if that doesn't shake out and there isn't any new revenue, how would you propose doing things like supplementing victim services, or increasing public safety, or increasing homeless services that need new revenue? Would that just have to be offset by cuts in other areas, shifting to more higher priority areas on your agenda? [00:35:26] Tanya Woo: Yes, I think it's looking at the budget in its totality and seeing where we can make those cuts and how these programs could be successful because I believe they're in place - we're not reinventing the wheel here - we're just supporting and being able to help build capacity of some of these organizations and nonprofits, as well as I think - communication, outreach, and engagement is really important and making sure that communities of color know what's available and have access or even knowledge of these resources. [00:36:01] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now, I want to talk about small businesses and the economy. You are a small business owner. Seattle and District 2 have very diverse businesses. Seattle has some of the largest corporations in the world headquartered here and some nearby, and also just a vibrant and diverse small business community - which is very important to our local and regional economy and just how the city is developing and feeling. What is most important - what would you lead and do to support small businesses in your district? [00:36:40] Tanya Woo: Yes, my family has been involved with a lot of small businesses. My grandparents had the Moon Temple Restaurant that they worked at for 32 years. Then my parents used that to help fund and open Seattle's first Chinese bakery, the Mon Hei Bakery in the Chinatown International District - I grew up in there, in the bakery, doing odd jobs for 50 cents an hour. And then later my dad - because we were able to build that intergenerational wealth through these small businesses, able to buy the building that the bakery was in. And so realizing how important our small businesses are in terms of being the social center for many community members, also being a safe haven for community as well. And making sure that we have that economic engine to help provide good paying jobs and allowing for many communities to stay in place. And so I think we have to be more proactive versus reactive. We had the broken window fund that really helped a lot of businesses, but the application process was a bit cumbersome and a lot of people who did not understand it. And so I think it'd be nice to have these, like City of Seattle service stations - I know Othello has one, the U district has one - but to have some in locations where small businesses can have access to be able to get their questions answered regarding City resources and being able to get City grants. Now, many of our small businesses are dealing with graffiti and the City will send notices to our small businesses demanding that they pay a fee every single day that that graffiti remains in place. And so having access to government to be able to, to, I guess, push back on these notices, as well as to get help in terms of how to access resources, and also to just basically address their concerns. I know at 12th and Jackson, there is a huge illegal market there, as well as many people using fentanyl - and that's really affected the business community. And so how do we interact with local government and agencies to bring light to this issue, to get more attention, and possibly work with community in trying to resolve and help people. [00:39:16] Crystal Fincher: Now, I also wanna talk about childcare, which is really important. And we recently received news that childcare is now more expensive than a college education - which has a devastating impact on families. Do you have plans to fix this? [00:39:32] Tanya Woo: Yes, I think the City could do a lot to help, I guess, childcare businesses to grow and to help with permitting process for childcare businesses to get started. And looking at - and just basically working in partnership with the childcare business community - figure out what the barriers are in place to provide more childcare. I think also helping accessibility - not only physically, but financially. And also helping with choices, so people are not having to drive across the city to be able to access good childcare options. I think that's something we need to work in partnership with not only businesses, large and small, but also with what families need. So I think there's a lot of work we can do in that area. [00:40:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Also wanna talk about transit and transportation. Pedestrian and bicycle safety has been atrocious. Pedestrians and bicyclists are not currently safe. What would you do to improve that? [00:40:42] Tanya Woo: Yes, I know there's a lot of traffic calming measures that community has been asking for, but SDOT has not been able to put in place. And so trying to find out what those barriers are and - within SDOT itself - be able to implement these traffic calming measures. There are many promises that have been made in these last 10 years and many projects - communities really excited for - that have not been implemented. So I think it's really holding agencies accountable and finding out those barriers are to get through that. And looking, especially in South Seattle, our traffic death numbers have not, pedestrian traffic death numbers have not gotten any better - and I think they're getting worse at this point. So is there - I know there's a lot of discussion groups, a lot of people who are really passionate about this issue - but how do we draw everybody in and make these things happen? And I've heard the frustration where people are - We're gonna go out there and paint that sidewalk ourself, or we're gonna put that planter in - we can't wait for the City to act. - and so how do we allow for these community projects? I know there's been a lot of speed bumps that have been helpful. How do we look at other traffic calming measures and make them happen is of paramount importance. [00:42:02] Crystal Fincher: It is, and I guess, what I'm getting at or what I'm wondering is - there have been a lot of promises made by SDOT, and the City, and various politicians and promises to bring change and it hasn't happened. So how exactly can you hold, what will you do to hold SDOT and your other colleagues accountable if you were to make it onto the council - as well as the mayor - to get action in District 2? [00:42:33] Tanya Woo: Yes, and I think that's the big question that a lot of people are wrestling with. And I think it's just getting down to - what are the barriers? Is there a lack of staffing? Or a lack of permitting - is the permitting process the barrier? Is there a community engagement process that needs to be done? And being able, I think, trying to understand what that barrier is. Is it just not a priority? [00:43:02] Crystal Fincher: If it is an issue of priority, how do you overcome that? [00:43:06] Tanya Woo: I think we have to make it a priority - it's lives on the line here - and we have to draw everyone in. And I know a lot of people have a lot of suggestions, like we need better lighting and that's a bigger infrastructure issue - putting that in place. And there's discussions regarding the traffic signals and cameras, especially. But I think there's a very divided community in terms of how to attack the situation, but I think it's going to have to be a - it's all-of-the-above situation - but I think it's getting SDOT to act is the biggest barrier. And if SDOT doesn't have the capacity, how can we give them the capacity or allow for community members to step in and to help? [00:43:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely allowing community members to step in and act would be good. Unfortunately, SDOT is not that fond of that in many instances, if it's not already part of a pre-planned program. A lot of it seems to be coming down to right-of-way and investment in car infrastructure versus bike and pedestrian infrastructure. And so parking spaces - that type of infrastructure and space that could be used to provide safe facilities there - would you vote to eliminate parking spaces in order to provide safe infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists in your district? [00:44:30] Tanya Woo: Yes, I think that is a - I support that, but I think that's a community-by-community approach. I know for the Chinatown International District - that many people using bikes go through there, yet it's also part of the downtown core where parking is a huge importance, especially since there are many seniors there who cannot utilize the bike lanes or who need those handicap parking spaces. And so I think it's a community-by-community approach and definitely having those discussions is important, but it's a larger picture of how do we - it's growing pains we have - we haven't planned for the city to grow so quickly. So how do we fit that in into our communities? How do we bring in Sound Transit, Metro to offer more consistent schedules? Metro just got some schedules cut and with ST3 coming into place and that discussion happening, we have to involve and look at not only ST3, but bike lanes and draw Metro in on the discussion for a larger planning for the next couple of years so that we set ourselves up for success. [00:45:57] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now transit reliability is becoming an increasingly pressing issue with staff shortages and other challenges creating ghost buses, missed buses, canceled trips, eliminated routes and trips - and it is jeopardizing transit ridership, jeopardizing so much in the city. Now Sound Transit is a regional body and King County Metro is a county body, but what can the City do to help stabilize transit reliability? [00:46:33] Tanya Woo: I think we have an aging workforce that's not being replenished. And so how do we go about that is a good question that needs - I think we need to talk about. Also, I think a lot of - there's a lot of public safety concerns that I think permeates through all of our issues, especially with hearing from - people going to, children going to school being on buses and seeing a drug use happening, as well as drivers having to deal with a lot of behavioral health issues or unhoused residents trying to stay warm or on their buses. And so how do we work together to promote the feeling of safety? And I think it's also looking, trying to offer more routes, more options and choices for people to be able to take the bus and have that system work. I know like a lot of people don't find it reliable because they always complain like - We're waiting longer than we feel like for buses to show up and then there's three or four buses at the same time that shows up - and how do we look at, make sure there's more consistent consistency and more options for people. [00:48:02] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Now a lot of people are trying to make a decision about who they're gonna vote for, about who aligns with their values. What do you tell them in order to help them make their decision between you and your opponent? [00:48:17] Tanya Woo: Yes, and so I've spent my whole life working towards a lot of the issues that I feel are huge priorities for the city - to provide more housing. My family actually went and we - have the Louisa Hotel - recently redeveloped and opened right before the pandemic. We have 84 units of workforce housing, which only charges people a percentage of their income so no one's forced to pay rent they cannot afford. I think we need more of that in the city and I know how to build. And we have about 20 units working with our organization called Housing Connector to be able to house the formerly unhoused, and that organization also pairs people with a caseworker to help partner through their journey from - into finding housing. And I think that's a really important project that many people - or many, I guess, apartment owners - should get involved in. I helped start Community Watch, which I feel like is a great model for alternatives to public safety. And so I see that there is a need, and we have to act, and so I've gone out and done that. We go into our unhoused community - try to bring services and connect people to resources. And so I have a lot of on the ground experience - I'm embedded in community within our encampments, I see firsthand the trickle down effects of policy, and I also see displacement and gentrification - which is something I've been working against my whole life and trying to protect our communities of color from that. And so I know what it's like to be in a community that feels like they're not being heard. To see a community, I guess, being on the list of one of the most endangered neighborhoods of the nation - a list we're not proud of - but we have to do more and we have to act to make sure that no other neighborhood gets put on that list in the City of Seattle and how do we get our neighborhood off that list is really important. So I'm a person of action. And I'm in community and I hear the gunshots every single night where I live - I live in the Rainier Beach area, I work in the CID, I go to the CID and I hear gunshots there and I realize public safety is so important and not a topic that's being addressed by our current councilmember. I agree that police need to be reformed, but we need - my group, we were in place of a shooting and we are not equipped to be able to deal with that and so for that, we absolutely need a police department. But we need a police department that's culturally competent and that will prioritize de-escalation. And so having that in place, I believe, is really important - in partnership with community investments with the community, as well as we need more after-school programs for youth, our community centers, our libraries, and our parks to resume the programming that they had pre-pandemic. And so I think there are a lot of actionable items that can be done to help empower people that could be done that's not currently being done. So there's a lot of work in certain areas that I would like to help implement and those will fall in the three priorities, like with public safety, homelessness and housing, as well as transportation. And so as a movement of action and want to help amplify voices of community and make sure that our communities of color are not forgotten, especially in a district where there is a lot of diversity and we should celebrate that. And so part of the reason why I'm running is because I've seen all this in the last four or three - many years - I've lived here my entire life, I know the communities. And we have to act, time for action is now - we can't just talk about ideology and debate amongst each other about what will work and what not will work - and in the end, not coming to solutions. And this should be a priority - going to solutions and problem solving, and especially making sure that the perfect solution is not an enemy of a good one. [00:53:09] Crystal Fincher: Well, gotcha. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share with us today, candidate for Seattle City Council District 2, Tanya Woo - much appreciated. [00:53:19] Tanya Woo: Thank you - have a good rest of your day. [00:53:21] Crystal Fincher: You too. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Russian Mercenary Group Halts March Towards Moscow and Returns To Ukraine After a Deal With Putin is Reached - but what does that mean for us? // Seattle pride parade makes national headlines // Joe Biden faces new controversy fresh off his vacation with Hunter // Apparently people want to cancel a team because their name is bacon // SDOT is getting billions of dollars to buy electric buses. How are they going to charge them? // A pizzeria is selling drugs. Heisenberg has nothing on these guys! // GUEST: Candidate for Seattle City Council and SPD officer Aaron Marshall joins Ari to talk about his platform // Is the new Star Trek series boring? Ari and Mike discuss the first two episodes of Strange New Worlds // Was there a civil war in Russia over the weekend? // Schools coming up with BS excuses about why they are cutting their budgets

Welcome to The Dull Roar. Session 019 is hosted by SDOT. SDOT is a Baltimore Club Producer and DJ. He is recognized as a trendsetter in the Baltimore club scene. Get ready to move with this one

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by general secretary of the Seattle Transit Riders Union, Katie Wilson! They cover a lot of ground today, discussing Bob Ferguson's unnamed donors, the Burien Planning Commission resigning in protest over “scapegoating” and “lack of action and missteps” by the city council majority and city manager, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell's “War on Health,” reflections following the Seattle City Council mobility-focused forums, the Seattle City Council approving an affordable housing levy for the November ballot, Trans Pride barring Seattle Public Library, King County Council considers mandating that stores accept cash in addition to card or electronic payments, and a Saving Journalism, Saving Our Democracy event on Wednesday, June 21st, at Town Hall Seattle. 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, find today's co-host, Katie Wilson, at @WilsonKatieB, and find the Seattle Transit Riders Union at @SeattleTRU. Resources “Better Behavioral Health Crisis Response with Brook Buettner and Kenmore Mayor Nigel Herbig” from Hacks & Wonks   “Before rule change, AG Bob Ferguson moves $1.2M ‘surplus' to campaign” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   “Early WA governor's race skirmish? Campaign finance loophole scrutinized” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   “Public Hearing to review – and possibly take action against – Charles Schaefer and Cydney Moore will be Thursday, June 15” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog   “King County's letter to City of Burien offers $1 million and 35 pallet shelters for homelessness crisis” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog   “Emotion-packed special Burien City Council meeting results in removal of Charles Schaefer as Planning Commission Chair” by Mellow DeTray from The B-Town Blog   “UPDATE: Total of 9 commissioners, advisory board resign en masse in protest of Charles Schaefer's removal” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog   “Seattle to Launch "War on Health"” by Amy Sundberg from Notes from the Emerald City   “​​Harrell's approach to fentanyl crisis: Heavy on spectacle, light on substance” by Marcus Harrison Green for The Seattle Times   “Community Court Is Dead. What Comes Next?” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Harrell Vows to Pass New Drug Law, Creates Work Group to Find Solutions to the Fentanyl Crisis” by Andrew Engelson from PubliCola   “Mayor Harrell Promises a ‘War on Health,' Not a ‘War on Drugs'” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Midweek Video: Seattle Council Candidate District 3 Mobility Forum” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Seattle City Council District 5 Mobility Forum Video” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “City Council sends $970M Housing Levy to Seattle voters” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   “WA renters need to earn twice the minimum wage to afford rent” by Heidi Groover from The Seattle Times   “Seattle Public Library Kicked Out of Trans Pride After Hosting Anti-LGBTQ+ Activist Kirk Cameron” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Data shows Seattle area is becoming increasingly cashless” by Gene Balk from The Seattle Times   Saving Journalism, Saving Our Democracy – Town Hall Seattle   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen. 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 learned about North King County's innovative new Regional Crisis Response Agency with its inaugural Executive Director Brook Buettner and Kenmore Mayor Nigel Herbig. Following national guidelines and best practices for behavioral health crisis care, a five-city consortium established the RCR program in 2023 as part of a vision to provide their region with the recommended continuum of behavioral health care - which includes someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review 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: co-founder and general secretary of the Seattle Transit Riders Union, Katie Wilson. [00:01:35] Katie Wilson: Thank you, Crystal - great to be here. [00:01:37] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you here again, and just - I am such an admirer of the work that you and TRU do. Just wanted to start talking about - an updated public disclosure report cycle just happened, we're in the midst of a gubernatorial race that has started early. But there was a notable addition to these reports, or occurrence in these reports, and that was the reporting by Bob Ferguson of his surplus transfer. How did you see this? [00:02:10] Katie Wilson: Yeah so basically, Ferguson transferred - I believe it was - $1.2 million from surplus funds from previous campaigns to his current gubernatorial campaign. And it appears as just a big lump sum, so it's not clear who donated this money - what individuals or interests. And because of the timing of the new PDC interpretation of the law, this appears to be technically okay, but it does mean that it's very possible that you have people who contributed to that $1.2 million who are also contributing to his current campaign and therefore going over individual campaign contributions. So you could look at it as a big infusion of kind of dark money into this race if you wanted to. It appears to be technically legal but definitely of, I suppose, questionable ethics in a larger sense. [00:03:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it was really notable. I'd read the reporting looking at it, but when you're looking at a PDC report and you see basically more money undeclared, unassigned to - literally listed under miscellaneous there in the report - it does make you wonder who those people are. Especially since if you work in politics or affiliated with it, you know that it's because of an action by the attorney general - which lots of people agree with - that we can't currently advertise on Twitter or Facebook because they lacked the appropriate reporting requirements. Because that's so important - to see who is giving what - we have stronger disclosure requirements than some other areas. Certainly it's something we take seriously. And so it is interesting to see from the attorney general who did that, just a lot of dark money. This could be an interim reporting thing maybe, he could still report who those donations belong to. As you said, it could run afoul of some of the campaign contribution limits if there are people who gave both to that campaign that he's transferring from and to his current gubernatorial campaign, but it's really a conundrum. Our Public Disclosure Commission recently clarified that you can't make transfers above any campaign contribution limits, but the official notification or the official clarification didn't happen until after this transfer - although they did let everyone know that they were going to be making that rule change. And it was after that notification that this transfer was made. So no, it was probably dicey, a bit questionable - especially because of that, I would expect to see the donors disclosed. I hope to see the donors disclosed - I think it's an important thing that is unambiguously the spirit of the law, if not the letter. So we'll see how this continues. Are there any other notable races that you're paying attention to, notable reports that you saw? [00:05:09] Katie Wilson: Not so much on the PDC side - I think I didn't comb through it as closely as you did. But one more note on the Ferguson thing - I was just thinking, it just brought to mind - I think the reason, part of the reason why it's notable is just the size of the transfer of money, right? $1.2 million is actually quite a campaign fund. But also just, of course, that it is Bob Ferguson - many of us associate him with principles and things like that. [00:05:36] Crystal Fincher: In law and order. [00:05:37] Katie Wilson: Right - in law and order. And so it just makes me think about just the difference between the things that we say that we believe and then how we behave in our own lives. And you think of something like a new tax going into effect - and a wealthy person who supports a tax that is going to require them to pay more money, but then they shuffle things around before it goes into effect to avoid it affecting them as much. Human nature perhaps, but I think we can expect better of our elected leaders. [00:06:10] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Speaking of expecting better from our elected leaders, I wanted to talk about what's happening in the City of Burien. We certainly have talked about this before, after King County Executive Constantine sent a letter that was - I don't know that it was unprecedented, but certainly not something that we see often. After Burien had twice enacted sweeps of homeless encampments - which as we know are advised against by public health authorities, don't have evidence showing that they are effective, usually people just end up moving to another place - that doesn't solve homelessness, it is actually destabilizing. And providing services and housing is what has had a track record of success that's much better than sweeps. But they kept doing it. And then they - and when I say they, I'm talking about a majority of four people on the Burien City Council – in 4-3 votes on the council, voted to move forward with that. And then because they were called out about a law that says if you're gonna sweep, you need to have shelter available - it makes no sense and is unconstitutional to say that someone can't be in a public space without somewhere else for them to go. When that happened, they said - Okay well, we'll try and just do an end run around the law, and we'll lease it to this dog park group - which is a front for people who are just going to use their lease and occupation of that land as a private entity to then trespass people off of that land, so a sweep by proxy. Which Dow Constantine, the King County Executive, saw and said - I can't have our sheriff's deputies participate in this - and those sheriff's deputies are the ones who are actually providing police services to the City of Burien - saying that this is unconstitutional, we can't be a part of it. But at the same time, offering help to get through the problem, offering $1 million, offering several pallet shelters - I think it's 100 pallet shelters - for people and space in order to put that. Which most cities, I think, would be jumping up and down, celebrating, saying - We need all the help we can get. [00:08:18] Katie Wilson: You would hope, but most cities - you think most cities in King County would be jumping up and down to start a sanctioned encampment in their city? [00:08:31] Crystal Fincher: I think many would. I think more would than you think. Now, that caveat comes with they may sweep in addition to that, I don't know that they would stop the sweeps. But I do think that most would take that money and identify places in the same way that they've identified places in these contentious meetings for shelters and different locations and the conversations that we have with that. Not that it wouldn't have any friction, but most cities have taken advantage of funds in this area. It is definitely more unusual to say - No thanks - to a million bucks, especially when the problem is chronic. They have swept three times now and the people just moved to another location - 'cause surprise, they have no other home to go to. And if there is no shelter, then what? So shelter has to be part of this. And hopefully we proceed beyond shelter and really talk about housing and helping transition people into that. So this is just a conundrum. But the escalation came when the City Council tried to censure a member of the Planning Commission and a City Councilmember who were actually trying to do the work of finding housing for people - accusing them of interfering. And it just seemed like a really ugly thing - that they felt like they were being called out, showed in their reaction to King County Executive Dow Constantine's letter. Just seems like taking offense to even being questioned about this tactic - again, that is against best practices - and feels like retribution, and really unconstitutional retribution. What's your view on this? [00:10:09] Katie Wilson: Yeah, this has been a really contentious public issue in Burien for a little while now. And I think that the bigger issue that we're dealing with here is the spread of the homelessness crisis. Of course, the homelessness crisis has been regional - not just in Seattle - for a long time, but I think that there's been an intensification over the last few years and especially coming out of the pandemic as rent increases, not just in Seattle, but in some cases even more so in other cities around the county have just shot up, right? So you've had double digit percentage rent increases in many, many cities around the county, including Burien. And so I think that that has led to, been a big factor in increasing numbers of unsheltered homeless people in Burien and other cities outside of Seattle, so that it's becoming a more visible and urgent public problem for them. And I think that there's a lot of kind of wishful thinking on the part of both some elected officials and a lot of people in Burien that this isn't really a Burien problem, right? Like maybe these people could just go to Seattle or something, right? So I think that there's a - and we saw this play out too in the fight in Burien about permanent supportive housing recently, right? So there's a reluctance to invest in things like shelter and services in the city, and a desire that the problem just goes away or goes somewhere else. So that's, I think, the bigger picture. And the specific grounds on which the councilmember, Cydney Moore, and the Commissioner Charles - and I'm forgetting his last name now - that this meeting was held, hearing was held last night to potentially remove Charles from the commission and to censure Cydney on the council was that they had - when these sweeps were happening - they had allegedly talked to campers and helped them to find somewhere else to camp. And so I think the idea was that it was improper for these public officials to basically tell people - Here. You can camp here. - when it's technically illegal. And so this hearing took place last night and the outcome was that the - Charles was actually removed from the commission, something that the council had the power to do. And they did that by a 4-3 vote. And in the end, Cydney Moore was not censured. There was a proposal to postpone discussion indefinitely that passed, so that didn't happen. The council does not have the power to remove a fellow councilmember - that can only happen through an election. If they had had the power to remove her, would four of the councilmembers have voted to do so? We'll never know. But they decided not to censure her, knowing that she's going to still be on the council, at least through the elections. [00:13:06] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and at least in elections - there are active elections going on here. We have two people who have been strong proponents of these sweeps, who have spoken against King County Executive Dow Constantine - two of them are running for election. One running for a King County Council seat - Sofia Aragon, running against Teresa Mosqueda. Another running for Burien City Council seat - Kevin Schilling, with two opponents there. And it was really interesting this week - there were endorsement meetings held in a variety of LDs - Burien is in both the 33rd and the 34th Legislative District. So hearing local Democratic organizations talk about this - and it is just confounding - 'cause there's such a misalignment between what you hear coming from the legislative districts and the Democratic base in these areas in the city, and some of the elected officials. So there seemed to be a strong repudiation - certainly a decline to endorse Kevin Schilling again, same with Sofia Aragon. And so it just seems like there are signals coming from people that this is not the right solution. And even if people don't know what to do about the problem and are - I see this as a problem, I'm not sure what to do. It feels like everybody is going - But why would you pass up some help and maybe a path forward? Why would you pass up a million dollars? And talking about passing up - that this offer was made earlier this month, late last month - and they haven't even taken it up, considered it. We still have people living outside. And they had this special meeting to consider kicking this planning commissioner off of the Planning Commission, censuring this councilmember - yet, they're still not even taking time to discuss this offer. Focusing on solutions, getting to work - no matter what your viewpoint is or what you're working on - seems like that would be what would satisfy most people, at least make some progress moving forward on whatever it is that they're going to decide to do. But it seems like they're doing nothing and refusing any offers of help, both financially and otherwise. So many times it's the - Well, how are you gonna pay for it? Someone else is willing to pay for it. The hardest part of this is already taken care of. So I hope that they do take action to move soon. We have seen already some repercussions from this council action and seeing several people from some Burien commissions have resigned - one from an Airport Commission. In fact, not only an airport commissioner, but several members of the Planning Commission are resigning from their seats. And a statement that is released - was just released here while we're recording - the statement says, "We, the undersigned, are resigning from the Burien Planning Commission effective immediately. We've lost confidence in our city council's ability to lead. Over the past several months, it has become clear to us that there is a majority on the council, specifically, Mayor Aragon, Deputy Mayor Schilling, and Councilmembers Matta and Mora, who are unwilling to discuss issues of affordable housing, homelessness, and poverty in Burien. Instead, they have spent valuable time and resources seeking someone to blame for their lack of action and the missteps of the new city manager. Planning Commission Chair Charles Schaefer fulfilled their need for a scapegoat, and they removed him from his position last night while still refusing to take action to address the homelessness crisis that impacts Burien as much as any other city in our region, state, or county, or country. In addition to being unproductive, this action raises significant concerns for us all about our own constitutional rights as individuals serving our city." So we will continue to pay attention to what is happening here, and see what happens. Also want to cover this week - Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell - I don't know if he meant to say this or what, but announced his "War on Health" this week. What happened here? [00:17:17] Katie Wilson: Okay, what a situation. So I think - I guess the idea is that - we all hate the War on Drugs, so we're gonna go for a War on Health instead. Yeah, bad marketing. So the background of course is the City Council vote recently on basically copying the new state drug law into Seattle's code so that the City Attorney Office can prosecute drug possession and public use in Seattle. And that vote ended up failing due to a last minute switch by Councilmember Lewis. And Lewis subsequently said that he would vote for it, but only if there was a process to stand up some new alternative to replace the community courts that City Attorney Ann Davison had unceremoniously dissolved. And so this announcement by Bruce Harrell was of a task force - I'm now forgetting the name of the task force, Crystal, maybe you can help me out - and so the idea is that this very diverse task force, people coming from many different perspectives are gonna come together and they're gonna figure out the solution. We're gonna have more diversion programs, we're gonna have ways for people to avoid just spending a long time in jail for drug possession or public use. And then Seattle is going to pass this law at least partially recriminalizing drugs. And then, everything's gonna be great. So that's the Harrell version of what happened. [00:19:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it's interesting. And it was the Fentanyl Systems Work Group - a subset of the Fentanyl Systems Work Group that was originally put together as part of an effort to revitalize downtown - so now there's a shift, in a subgroup made of that. It was noted that - he said that we need to take a public health approach. There are no public health representatives on this large and broad task force, but it just - if you know me, we've probably had this conversation, but - at some point in time, we have to stop trying to task force our way around problems. We've known of this crisis for quite some time. We've had staff dedicated to figuring out what to do with this crisis. This is a big problem. I don't think that the issue is that people don't know what the problem is, or what the options are on the table - we've been discussing this as a community for quite some time. It really is just - what are you going to do about it? And of course, no one is going to be - everyone is not going to be happy with whatever decision is made, but there needs to be action taken. Hopefully that action is aligned with best practices and what we have seen work elsewhere. But it seems like this is a half-baked response and kind of a flat-footed response to the council declining to do what they were doing there. But even if they would have passed that - that doesn't take care of the crisis. We're talking about criminalization here. We're not talking about the things that actually get people out of addiction, that gets fentanyl off of our streets, that does address public use - which is a problem and needs to be taken care of. I think a lot of people's frustration is just - why do we keep spending time and money either doing nothing, or doing things that have already failed? It would be great if we could spend time and money on things that have a shot at working and have shown that they have worked elsewhere. [00:20:59] Katie Wilson: Yeah, totally. And a couple of things that jumped out at me, reading some of the coverage of this - I thought Marcus Harrison Green had a good op-ed in the Seattle Times about it. And one of the things that he pointed out is that many people start using after they become homeless, right? And so in that context, throwing someone in jail - which is incredibly expensive, even if you do it compassionately, as Harrell has promised compassionate arrests or whatever - and then eventually they're back out on the street where they're more likely to overdose is a really bad idea. And I think that Erica Barnett, in a lot of her coverage of this and related ideas, points out repeatedly that the idea that jail is gonna be just this nice kind of sobering up period, and then you're gonna come out and be much more likely to get treatment and services is really wishful thinking. And in one of the pieces on PubliCola about this, Lisa Daugaard points out that the really critical issue is actually finding funds for recovery services for people with substance use disorder, especially people who are homeless. And that's really, I think, the elephant in the room in terms of what we're not talking about when we're creating this task force to come up with policies and everything. It's just not being willing to reckon with the scale of the resources that are gonna be needed to actually provide the housing and give people the services that they need. And this is something that I think - not to say that that's not gonna be talked about, I'm sure it will be talked about - and it will be talked about in the fall budget process this fall. And that just really makes me nervous - because as someone who's on the City Revenue Stabilization Work Group that's thinking about how the City should deal with an impending general fund shortfall, there's not gonna be a lot of money sloshing around that is just waiting to be allocated to things like this. So I think there's gonna be some really challenging conversations coming up about how we fund these extremely underfunded needs. [00:22:59] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I also wanna talk this week about a number of candidate forums that were held in the City of Seattle from organizations focused on mobility and disability throughout the community - a large coalition of those. And so there were council forums held in several districts. I moderated one of them, another one ended up being canceled - it was a District 4 forum - in honor of the strike at the University of Washington. Any takeaways that you had from these forums with Seattle City Council candidates? [00:23:35] Katie Wilson: Yeah, and by the way, side note - congratulations to UAW 4121 - I believe they've settled their strike as of yesterday. So that's awesome. But yes, so there was going to be a District 4 candidate forum and that's been - hopefully will still happen at some point, but was canceled in solidarity with the strike. But over the last couple of weeks, a large coalition of organizations - including the Transit Riders Union and other groups that work on transportation, climate, and disability issues - hosted forums in the three other open seats, so District 1, District 3 and District 5. And you can watch all of them - so they were recorded, I think The Urbanist might've run articles with links, they're on YouTube. And full disclosure - I did not attend all three forums, I have listened to a lot of it - but my overall impressions were hopeful, but also cynical. So I think a lot of the candidates in all of these races gave a lot of really good answers, made commitments, said that they support much greater investments in multimodal infrastructure. They understand that over 60%, or 66%, of Seattle's carbon emissions come from transportation. They need to really do mode shift - give people realistic options that aren't driving. They support one of our, TRU's issues - trying to get Seattle to pass legislation to require large employers to pay for transit passes for their workers - something that we were working on before the pandemic and was interrupted, but we would love to see happen at some point soon. So lots of good answers. I think the challenge that I see is that when I think about, for example, our current City Council and the kind of answers that they would give to those same questions at a candidate forum, I think a majority, probably a super majority would also give great answers to those questions. And one of the things that we've experienced over the years working with allies to try to get Seattle to do better on these transportation issues is just how short the good intentions and commitments fall in practice often. So for example, it's one thing to say that you support building sidewalks in all the places in cities that don't have them. How are you gonna come up with the astronomical funds that are required to do that? It's one thing to say that you support a connected network of bus lanes and bike lanes throughout the city. How are you gonna behave when there's big political conflicts because you're trying to take space away from cars? And another thing that we've experienced is that even when we have a council that is pretty good on these issues - if we don't have an executive who's right there with them and going to cooperate on implementation, the council can even pass things, like dedicate money for multimodal investments. And then those things don't happen because the mayor doesn't actually support them. And so the money doesn't actually get spent on those projects and things just get delayed and delayed and delayed out of existence. So that's the caution, but we'll see. I think I don't have very much of a sense in a lot of these council races of where exactly things will land after the primary, but I'm hopeful that we'll get some councilmembers in there who care about these issues and will at least make a good effort to move forward. [00:27:08] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I definitely share the takeaways that you have. I also found it notable - one, on a number of the questions - yeah, the answers were more agreeable than initially thought, even specific answers. I also think - and heard it from them directly - they were surprised at hearing figures like 40% of residents of Seattle use non-car modes of transportation, yet only 4% of the SDOT budget is dedicated to those modes - and just that big contrast there. And they were very unaware of that contrast. I think there's a lot of people who, because of the way that media coverage has been over really the past decade plus, that more money and resources are dedicated to this than actually are - and really seeing how little comparatively is budgeted for people in cars versus everyone else doing everything that's not in cars is really stark, and they seemed very surprised by that. And I hope that helps to frame just why we're in the situation we're in, and why we have so far to go, and the urgency is so strong right now. So hopefully we do get some good policy wins out of this, ultimately, when these races shake out. Also want to talk about the Housing Levy being approved. What did the City Council do this week? [00:28:38] Katie Wilson: Yeah, so the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to send a $970 million Housing Levy to the November ballot for voters to vote on. This is a seven-year property tax levy, so that $970 million is spread over those seven years. And this would be used to construct and operate new affordable housing. It would be used to subsidize affordable home ownership. It would be used to raise wages for workers in the supportive housing and services sector. There's a big chunk for rental assistance, some other things. And it's a significantly larger levy than the one that is expiring - I believe it's like over three times bigger than the previous one. And of course that is, I think, probably an appropriate response to the scale of our housing prices. I guess what I would say is that it's tough - because we're chasing the private market. So as rents in the private market and housing costs, home prices in the private market just shoot up and up, it becomes more and more expensive - more and more people on the lower end cannot afford to rent, let alone buy in our region. And so then that demands more and more public resources to create housing that they can afford. And to me that - so it's tough because you look at the Housing Levy that's just expiring and it was very successful, right? It actually created more housing than it had been projected to. And then in addition, we have other funds that are going into building affordable housing, like the JumpStart big business tax - a big chunk of that is going to fund affordable housing and that's been incredibly successful. You look at the list of projects around the City that have benefited from money from JumpStart and it's a long list. And so this funding that we're putting into affordable housing is really a success story, but you look around and you don't see that reflected in general kind of feeling of - this city is becoming more affordable. And that's really just because we have - so much of the housing is still stuck in this kind of dysfunctional private housing market that is just going up and up and up. So yeah, that's what's happened. [00:31:02] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And your point about - progress is absolutely being made, that's just a factual statement - but we still have the conditions that are creating this problem. And it's like you have to plug the leak in the boat if you're going to successfully bail it out, and we haven't adequately plugged those leaks. The wages required - there was an article about this this week - the wages required to just afford rental housing, let alone a home, are astronomical. What were your takeaways from that article and how does that contribute to this problem? [00:31:39] Katie Wilson: Yeah, totally. And that's the annual Out of Reach report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition - so every year they come out with a big report about every state in the country, every county in the country that kind of looks at what is the wage that a full-time worker would need to make in order to afford housing in that region. And basically what the report showed is that here in Washington, in the state - not just in King County - a Washington renter needs to earn $30.33 an hour to afford the typical one-bedroom apartment in the state without spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs. And then in the Seattle area, that's even higher. So a renter would need to make $40 an hour, over $40 an hour to afford that market rate, standard one-bedroom apartment. And these are significantly higher numbers than last year's report - I believe it said they're about 20% higher than last year. And so what that tells us is that even though - luckily, here in Washington state and in the cities in King County that have established higher minimum wages, those wages are indexed to inflation - so we do get an annual inflation adjustment upward. That adjustment is not sufficient to make up for the rising cost of rents in our region so that lower-wage workers are definitely falling behind. And that $40 an hour figure is really interesting because it basically means - you look at the wages in Seattle, SeaTac, and now Tukwila, which starting on July 1 is going to have a minimum wage of $18.99 for most workers - those are getting up toward $20 an hour. But looking at this, it's like you would actually need two adults working full-time at those higher minimum wages to, with any comfort, afford a one-bedroom apartment in King County. So it really just shows how even as there are these efforts going on - this year, ballot initiative in Renton and work that TRU is doing with allies in Burien and unincorporated King County to try to get more jurisdictions to raise minimum wages - we're trying to get them to raise up to around $20 an hour, right? $19 or $20 an hour. And that's great, but man, it still doesn't mean that you're going to be able to afford housing easily. So yeah, it's a problem. And I think like this and thinking about the Housing Levy and just how far we have to go to make this region affordable, I think it really also underscores the need for social housing and how important it is that the City does a good job of following through on Initiative 135 and getting that started, so that we can start expanding the non-market housing sector - serving not just the very lowest income levels, but people even of all income levels - because really only taking housing out of the private market, ultimately, is going to fix this problem. [00:34:41] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And a reminder that there is an option for taking some housing out of the private market in the City of Seattle with the - Seattle's public developer that has been established. And as we talk about these City Council elections coming up, really making sure that there are plans that these candidates have to fund this developer and to pursue this is going to be very important. Also this week, we saw an announcement from Trans Pride that they are no longer welcoming the Seattle Public Library at their event. What happened here? [00:35:16] Katie Wilson: Yeah. Trans Pride basically announced that Seattle Public Library is not welcome at their event due to a number of issues, but I think the most recent one - and maybe the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak - was the library's allowing Kirk Cameron to host a talk in a library auditorium. I believe this was last month. Kirk Cameron being a former child TV person - I never saw him, I don't remember who he was - but who is now an anti-LGBTQ+ activist and has written children's books about the dangers of Pride. And so the library, as a public institution, says that it has legal obligations to not engage in viewpoint discrimination and has to allow any group or individual to rent its meeting spaces. And Trans Pride has responded by uninviting the Seattle Public Library from participation in the upcoming event. [00:36:24] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And this to me is a situation where - yes, the library is correct that because of First Amendment issues, they do have to accept facility rentals from there. But Trans Pride also absolutely has the right to determine who is and isn't welcome at their event, and especially in today's environment where safety is of paramount concern. Yeah, I think in this situation, both parties have the right to do what they do. I've seen some reaction in going - questioning whether Trans Pride can even do this. They absolutely can. This is what consequences are. And while it does appear that the Seattle Public Library, and most public libraries, do have to rent to their facilities to people for events and they can't choose who does and doesn't get to do that - it is unambiguously clear that Kirk Cameron is espousing harmful and dangerous rhetoric that's false, and it winds up endangering our trans community. And yeah, absolutely, they're not going to be welcome at an event where their institution can participate in making Trans Pride and the people in our community less safe. It's pretty straightforward. You have no right to participate in everybody's events - if they don't feel comfortable with you there, then that's that. So to me, this is just the library made its decision that it felt that it had to make, and Trans Pride made their decision that they felt that they had to make - and that's just that. [00:38:03] Katie Wilson: Yes, and PubliCola has done a lot of good coverage of this issue, so go there to read more. [00:38:09] Crystal Fincher: We will, of course, be linking that article in the show notes. Also wanted to talk about an upcoming vote this week with the King County Council about whether to mandate that stores in the county, or at least in unincorporated King County, continue to take all forms of payment, including cash. Why is this such an issue? [00:38:29] Katie Wilson: Yeah, so article in this week's Seattle Times from Gene Balk talking about how cashless payment and refusing to accept cash is becoming a more and more common thing in the Seattle area. And this is timely because there is actually legislation before the King County Council, championed by King County Councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles, that would require businesses - most businesses in unincorporated areas of the county, which is the jurisdiction that the King County Council has jurisdiction over - would require them to accept cash as a form of payment. This is something that I don't believe any jurisdiction in Washington state has done yet, but it's not unusual in other parts of the country. So New York City, San Francisco - there's a bunch of cities. And even a couple of states - I think the entire state of New Jersey, there might be a couple more - have passed legislation that requires businesses to accept cash payment. And obviously for a lot of us, we just walk around with a card and that's fine and it works for us. But especially seniors, immigrants and refugees, people with privacy concerns - either from experience with or fear of identity theft, domestic violence survivors, houseless people - there's demographics that are much more likely to rely on cash for most or all daily transactions. And if you're in one of those - in that situation - then if you have more and more businesses not accepting cash payment, then you get effectively locked out of the local economy. And so this legislation is coming to the full King County Council next Tuesday for a vote. It's not guaranteed to pass - so I think that there's definitely some reluctance on the part of some of the King County Councilmembers to vote on this. So if you think this is important, now's a good time to email in to your King County Councilmembers and maybe consider testifying next Tuesday. But yeah, I think unincorporated King County has a chance here to set an example for other jurisdictions in the area. [00:40:44] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And that great reminder to make your opinion known to your city council - County Councilmember - if you can. I was just in Santa Monica, California a couple weeks back, and they had businesses that had signs in their shops that they don't accept cash. This is a thing that can happen in this area. And it does seem to be a reaction to not wanting "those" people around. And there are lots of reasons why someone may prefer to use cash over other means, or may have to use cash over other means - and discriminating based on the type of payment just doesn't seem wise or prudent. And especially as we see so many forces working on excluding people from so many other places in society, we certainly don't need to contribute to the acceleration of that. So I also want to talk about an event taking place next Wednesday. What's happening? [00:41:47] Katie Wilson: Yes. So next Wednesday, 730 PM, at Town Hall Seattle, there is a forum that is co-sponsored by South Seattle Emerald and Real Change called Saving Journalism, Saving Our Democracy. And this is going to be a conversation about the challenges that news outlets, especially local news outlets, are facing these days keeping the lights on and providing adequate coverage of local issues. And the panelists include Jelani Cobb, who is the Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, and Michael McPhearson, who is the Editor of the South Seattle Emerald, Florangela Davila, who is a journalist who's worked at a bunch of different outlets, and Frank Blethen, who, of course, is the publisher of The Seattle Times. And the moderator is going to be Delores Irwin, co-chair of the League of Women Voters of Washington, which actually - earlier this year - put out a really great study called The Decline of Local News and Its Impact on Democracy, which charts the struggles that newspapers, in particular, in Washington state have faced over the last decades and kind of the dwindling news coverage in a lot of areas of the state, creating news deserts. So I think it's going to be a fascinating conversation. And I happen to know that there will be some potentially actionable policy proposals that will be discussed that could turn into interesting campaigns in this area in the near future. So I definitely encourage people to attend the event, get involved in the conversation. [00:43:39] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And I am a big fan and supporter of both Michael McPhearson and Florangela Davila - we are fortunate to have them both in our local media ecosphere. And certainly, this is part of a broader national conversation. But looking forward to see what's discussed. It's critical to our democracy, it's critical to just our everyday lives - the quality of representation and policy that we see - and how people and organizations and institutions are held accountable. So it makes a big difference - I hope people definitely tune in and attend - we will put a link to that in the show notes also. And with that, I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, June 16, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is co-founder and general secretary of the Seattle Transit Riders Union, Katie Wilson. You can find Katie on Twitter @WilsonKatieB. You can find Seattle Transit Riders Union on Twitter @SeattleTRU. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. And 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 week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel talks with Seattle Department of Transportation Director Greg Spotts to discuss the plan to reduce right turns on red lights in downtown Seattle, the challenges of implementing Vision Zero to eliminate traffic injuries and deaths in Seattle by the year 2030, and a proposal to untangle a decades-long political dispute over reconnecting Seattle's streetcar system. Super Mega Bonus: a discussion that involves the word "keytar." To access this patrons-first podcast earlier than anyone else next time, support Seattle News, Views and Brews on Patreon!

41 talks about their rise, group dynamic, the industry, their influences, and more! ----- 00:00 Intro 0:05 Adam introduces Crew 41 and they explain why Tata didn't show up, 41 describes how they met  1:00 Kyle Rich and Jenn Carter talk about being African and having a connection to each other 3:00 Jenn Carter talks about growing up as a tomboy, being considered one of the guys and not getting treated any different  5:00 Flakko asks Jenn about guys hitting on her, and she corrects Flakko immediately  8:40 Flakko asks Jenn about reactors and trolls saying they were going to assault her, and how she views reaction channels    10:10 Crew 41 on when their music started to become big, Adam asks about the song Deuce and choosing that EDM beat  13:50 Flakko praises Tata's growth as a rapper, crew 41 talks about his energy  15:00 Adam talks about Kyle Richh being a star, and says usually there's one star in a group, linking up with Asian Doll and talk about her GoFundMe 18:00 Flakko speaks about Asian Doll calling herself the Queen of the Drill Music, Jenn talks about being picky with beats  20:10 Flakko asks about the beef with Sha EK, Kyle Rich claims the beef is over and don't remember why how it started   24:00 Crew 41 on wanting to spread positivity in music and Kyle Richh explains more about making N*tti B*p , 41 calls out Adam for doing the dance 26:40 Kyle and Jenn say close friends have been leaking their music behind their backs, the consequences to those responsible, Jerry and Moe 32:30 Adam asks why Kyle Richh has two H's in his name, Flakko asks about other crews dissing them and Bubbas channel getting shut down  35:20 Kyle Richh speaks on getting in a fight at a college, says he never got any jewelry snatched 38:30 Kyle Richh on his parents making him go to college, making music instead of going to class, Jenn talks about taking breaks from college to do music  43:00 Kyle Richh speaks about new rappers dissing them, and not acknowledging them, meeting other Nigerian rappers  48:00 Flakko talks about Afro Drill music and asks Jenn and Kyle if they would use that style  50:00 Kyle Richh says he's inspired by Chief Keef, Playboy Carti, and Michael Jackson, calls himself a rockstar 54:00 Adam asks who surprised them the most by reaching out to them 55:30 Jenn and Kyle give their top 5 best rappers, saying rappers like Kay Flock, S Dot, and Dougie B 59:40 Flakko asks what's next with the music and signing to a major label ----- NO JUMPER PATREON http://www.patreon.com/nojumper CHECK OUT OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5te... FOLLOW US ON SNAPCHAT FOR THE LATEST NEWS & UPDATES https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_... CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE!!! http://www.nojumper.com/ Follow us on SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ENxb4B... iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/n... Follow us on Social Media: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_... http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper https://www.facebook.com/NOJUMPEROFFI... http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm Follow Adam22: https://www.tiktok.com/@adam22 http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by 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!  During this Seattle-centric episode, they discuss Mayor Bruce Harrell's State of the City speech, the SDOT Vision Zero report about traffic safety, the passage of first in the nation caste legislation, what's next for social housing, questions from the oversight board for the scope of King County Regional Homelessness Authority's five-year plan, an increase in violence against unsheltered people, and the outlook for downtown Seattle. 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 The State of the City is Vibes by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola  In State of the City, Seattle Mayor Harrell emphasizes crime, downtown by Sarah Grace Taylor from Seattle Times Vision Zero | Our top-to-bottom review provides a roadmap and new actions to reverse challenging trends in traffic safety by Seattle Department of Transportation Seattle must do more to prevent traffic deaths, report says by David Kroman from Seattle Times Councilmember Tammy Morales responds to the release of SDOT's vision zero review: "this report stops short of calling for dramatic or swift action to combat the unprecedented number of collisions, injuries, and fatalities on our streets, particularly in District 2.” by Tammy Morales on Twitter Seattle becomes the first city to ban caste discrimination by Lilly Ana Fowler from KNKX Opinion: Confessions of an American Caste Traitor by Prashant Nema from South Seattle Emerald What's next now that Seattle's Social Housing Developer initiative has passed by Capitol Hill Seattle Study: Human Service Wages Are Even Worse Than You Imagined by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola  Violence Against Unsheltered People Spikes, Social Housing Moves Into Startup Mode by Publicola Plan to Eliminate Visible Homelessness Downtown is “Clearly Behind Schedule,” but Backers Remain Optimistic by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola  Oversight Board Questions Price Tag, Exclusion of Tiny Houses from Homeless Agency's Five-Year Plan by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola  As Downtown recovers, Seattle reimagines what it could be by Josh Cohen from Crosscut  #ThePostman - D'Vonne Pickett Jr. Memorialized With Street Sign in the Central District by Cesar Canizales from Converge Media Qualified Immunity Bill Passes Key Hurdle as Other Criminal Justice Reforms Stall Out by Andrew Engelson from Publicola 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. Today, we are 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. [00:01:11] Erica Barnett: Hi, Crystal. Great to be here. [00:01:13] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back. I want to start off talking about an annual event that happens in the City of Seattle every year - the State of the City address by Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell. What did he say and what was your impression of his State of the City speech? [00:01:31] Erica Barnett: As I said in my headline and a story I wrote about this, the message that I got from it was vibes. What I mean by that is it was a lot of positive talk about the future of the city - everything's looking brighter - the future of the city is bright, optimism, innovation, Downtown that's going to be wonderful for everyone. But a lot of what he actually proposed or said he's going to do in the coming year, which is the point of the State of the City speech, was either stuff that he promised in his first State of the City speech last year or sort of small scale stuff - white papers, activation plans, executive orders, and a vision for the future of public safety - which is basically what he said last year as well. So not a lot of substance - quite a lot of fluff and good vibes talk - which resonated really well in the room, I have to say. It felt like a good speech, but when you read the words or paid attention to them at the time, there just wasn't a whole lot there. [00:02:37] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing - and you called this out also in your article, I think - is that especially on the heels of Mayor Jenny Durkan, who was not the most charismatic mayor that we've ever had and didn't particularly seem to enjoy the job, Bruce brings charisma to his speeches, to his interactions with people - and that goes a long way to building goodwill, at least in the reception of what he's saying. The vibes feel good, but as you said, it wasn't packed with substantive promises, goals, but there were a few that were included in there. What did those include? [00:03:17] Erica Barnett: Yeah. So he said - so I mentioned this "downtown activation plan" - so reading between the lines, he talked about how great it is that Amazon is forcing people to come back to work, essentially - which a lot of them are not very happy with - but saying that as everybody returns to work and downtown kind of returns somewhat to normal, we're going to activate it, there's going to be new small businesses and storefronts, art spaces, possibly - and again, this gets into kind of the vague part - he kept saying may, possibly, maybe we'll have an arts corridor, a 24/7 street, this kind of vision of downtown, but yeah, as far as concrete actions, he says there'll be a plan. He also said there's going to be a new executive order about fentanyl and other synthetic drugs. Again, executive order - I don't know what that - that can mean a range of things. It's not the same thing as legislation. And then he says that he's going to propose a suite of legislation to hire more officers and release a vision for the future of public safety, which again - I think that what that actually translates to, particularly on the recruitment side - is they're going to hire a marketing manager who's going to do some ads. He mentioned digital ads aimed at Gen Z trying to get more younger recruits, but yeah - again, really, I'm really reaching to find substance because there just wasn't a lot of it there. [00:04:44] Crystal Fincher: There was not - it doesn't appear - did he say anything about the planned public safety department that has been talked about for a year now? [00:04:55] Erica Barnett: Oh, yeah. So that was another thing that he talked about in his first State of the City speech. He said within the year, we'll have a plan for this department - and I don't remember the exact language or whether there's anything solid there - but this year, a year later, he's saying that pretty soon there's going to be a white paper that sort of lays out what this department might look like. I think that that's a really good example of something where - he does not deliver on that third department, which is supposed to be a kind of non-police public safety response department. It does have a name, which is the CARE Department, the Civilian Assisted Response and Engagement Department - so they've gotten that done. But if he doesn't deliver on that this year, I think there's going to be some pushback, maybe, for not actually accomplishing all these lofty goals. It's been more than a year and he hasn't delivered on it yet, but a white paper is, allegedly, coming. [00:05:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I think a lot of people are definitely looking forward to the white paper as a precursor to further action. Hopefully, certainly people want to stand up responses that are appropriate to the type of call that are coming, and there seems to be a broad recognition - because of the creation of this department and certainly by the residents - that a variety of different types of responses are needed. Having a cop with a gun show up to every single circumstance doesn't make sense, and certainly with the staffing challenges that they say they have doesn't seem to be the wisest thing. So it looks like we're going to stay tuned for the white paper. How that translates to actual action and creating this department and getting this off of the ground, which they have been talking about, remains to be seen. [00:06:45] Erica Barnett: And I will say the white paper was supposed to be out last year. It was - the deadline was fourth quarter - the sort of loose deadline was fourth quarter of last year, so it's late. [00:06:54] Crystal Fincher: That seems to be a recurring theme, but we will continue to pay attention with eagerness and an open mind to see what actually happens. Another long-awaited report this week was the Vision Zero report that was just released yesterday. What is this and what did it say? [00:07:14] Erica Barnett: Yeah, speaking of things that are behind schedule - this was supposed to come out last year and got delayed. It was billed as a top-to-bottom review of Vision Zero, which is the plan to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. It is titled the Top-to-Bottom Review of Vision Zero, which I find funny just because it's so literal. But what does it say? Basically it says the City has taken a lot of great actions to try to reduce traffic deaths and where it hasn't been able to take actions, it has tried really hard. It's a defensive report in a lot of ways - blaming other agencies, blaming the state and the fact that the state has control over a lot of our streets like Aurora, and then outlining a bunch of different steps that the City could take in the future to try to reduce deaths and serious injuries, most of which I should say are pretty underwhelming. There's a top five list that includes stuff like phasing in an unknown number of additional "No Turn on Red" signs downtown in time for tourist season - and I'm quoting here, "in time for tourist season and the Major League Baseball All-Star game." Another one is to accelerate leading pedestrian intervals, which is where if you approach an intersection, the light will turn for pedestrian first so you can start crossing before cars start coming. So we're going to do more of that. So it's a lot of - let's do a little more of the things that we're already doing and maybe that'll work. Nothing particularly bold in terms of things like street design that allows cars to drive, or for people to drive as fast as they do - mostly focused on individual behavior, automated traffic enforcement, that sort of stuff, but no real big bold vision here. [00:09:08] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I was a little bit surprised by its billing as a top-to-bottom review, and that doesn't seem to be necessarily what we received. It seemed to be a review of things that they were doing - and I don't know if I want to say avoidance - but not necessarily on focusing on many things that as you said, weren't already planned. There was not an analysis, as Ryan Packer pointed out on Twitter, of what was the impact of reducing speed limits. Was that helpful? Was that not helpful? That was certainly done as part of the Vision Zero program. Also as you said, there seemed to be no focus on road design, which has so much to do with whether or not it's possible for drivers and cars to even get into those dangerous situations. I saw Councilmember Tammy Morales released a statement calling out the same thing that you did - Hey, this seems to lack design features. She said that she would be helping identify some of the missing money to finish going after grant money to implement projects that had already been planned, but that were in jeopardy or delayed because they did not have the funding. But also it seemed like there was a lack of recognition of just the severity of the problem. You just pointed out - Hey, we want to have this done basically for tourist attractions - while every day we are seeing people being killed and maimed by these pedestrian collisions. And so it just doesn't seem like there was the kind of urgency or thoroughness. And maybe this was something where - hey, they started this and there was a limited scope. They realized it was a problem later on and the report didn't quite get there? Seems like they should have realized this has been a problem for quite some time, given all of the discussion around it. But left a lot of people wanting, I think. What are you looking forward to seeing come out of this? [00:11:08] Erica Barnett: I hope that SDOT will listen to some of the feedback. Just looking through the summary report, which is the one with more graphics and stuff, it just feels like - and again, this was late, so they spent extra time on it, or waited to release it - but it just feels like a book report that somebody did at the last minute before it was due. There's data in here that goes all the way back to 2011 - the 25 mph issue that you were mentioning. So it says, Oh, it does, 25 mph is good and here's how we know - it's data from 2018. Data from 2018 is now almost five years old and that is before the City actually implemented more widespread 25 mph speed limits. So I don't know, did it do anything? Did we study that? Are we studying that? There's just so much missing information in here. And I'll just reiterate - in this 22 pages, a chart is repeated twice. I don't know if anybody copy edited it, if that was intentional. There are two pages that are just a graphic and a big - a blue field. It just, it feels like - and do those things matter? I don't know. It makes it feel like there's a lot of filler in here. And when you look at the content, it's just really like back patting - let's do more of the same and that'll maybe make things better, and blame for why they can't do certain things. [00:12:28] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I don't think this is egregious in terms of the report and how it's put together, but I think people are feeling particularly frustrated because this is an emergency. This is a crisis. This is something impacting the health and wellbeing of so many residents, and so many others are at risk, by just the design of the roads and the community. And so it just feels like maybe it wasn't done, or it's not conveying the urgency of the situation, and really conveying that they are planning to do everything they can to reduce this for the residents that live here now, not the tourists coming into town. I know that SDOT and the City has plenty of people who care, who I'm sure are balancing issues of funding and staffing and prioritization. So what I don't want to do is imply that everybody involved with this is careless and doesn't - I think that a lot of people care very deeply about this. But it does come to prioritization - from the executive on down - and maybe there's a tension between what people know is helpful and right to do and what is actually being authorized and funded. And the people pushing for accountability have been pushing on those meaningful levers beyond rhetoric, saying - Okay, what is actually going to be done? What is being built, revised? Let's put this into action. So eager to see the issues that they identified get into practice and hopefully this is definitely a springboard for more. And I think the way they characterized it was also - these actions to build momentum towards further actions with the first five things that I think they identified. So we'll continue to pay attention. [00:14:14] Erica Barnett: One of the action plans in this, which I thought was an action plan - one of the actions is to create an action plan. And it's - Okay, wait, I thought that this was supposed to be the action plan. When is the action plan coming? So I don't know how long people are willing to wait for an action plan since this top-to-bottom review took all the way into February, more than a year into Harrell's term. So we'll see. [00:14:36] Crystal Fincher: It feels a lot like the infamous Seattle process, but we will see. One thing that happened that made national headlines this week was the passing of first-in-the-nation caste legislation led by Councilmember Sawant - what does this do and why did it happen? [00:14:56] Erica Barnett: Essentially, it adds a caste to the list of protected classes in the City's anti-discrimination laws. So those laws protect people from discrimination on the basis of gender, race, disability, etc - and so it adds caste to that list. And the concern as I understand it, and I did not cover this story myself, but is - there is in fact caste discrimination among, against people of South Asian descent, particularly in the tech sector. And that this is a problem that was brought to Councilmember Sawant - and she proposes legislation, which as you said, is getting national and international coverage because it's the first of its kind in the US. [00:15:37] Crystal Fincher: It is. And it didn't pass without some pushback and controversy. What were detractors of the legislation saying? [00:15:46] Erica Barnett: There was quite a bit of controversy. And again, I'm going to do this - I'm going to explain this at a very high level because I'm a little out of my depth and I don't want to misstate anything - but the controversy revolved around whether this was discriminatory against Hindus in America, because it calls out that caste discrimination among Hindu castes and against people in lower castes. And so there was opposition from a Hindu American saying that it'd create a discriminatory system. There was also opposition on the City Council itself from the one person who voted against it - Councilmember Sara Nelson, who said essentially that it was unnecessary, agreed with some of the arguments against it, and also said that it would open the City to litigation and she didn't want to take that risk. [00:16:29] Crystal Fincher: And she was notably the only councilmember to vote against that - all of the others present did. I will say - I appreciate the conversation that this legislation has opened up. Certainly I have done a lot of learning around this issue - was not up to speed and familiar, still not completely, but it does highlight how many things that can seem invisible and innocuous to people who are not familiar with this - just as covered in some of the articles and coverage about this, just questions like, Hey, do you eat meat? That may seem innocent and unproblematic to people who are listening to that - can be very impactful and discriminatory in this context. So I appreciate the opportunity to learn more. And this has been covered and lauded across the country, really, and covered in international papers. So certainly groundbreaking legislation led by Councilmember Sawant. Also this week, we saw continuing coverage of the winning social housing legislation, which I'm still personally excited about - the opportunities that this unlocks and also just starting to figure this whole thing out. I'm sure it's not going to happen without some bumps and bruises along the way, but that's how new legislation and new programs and implementations work. What is next in the implementation process for social housing? [00:17:56] Erica Barnett: So I talked to both of the proponents, Real Change and House Our Neighbors, as well as former House Speaker State Rep Frank Chopp, about this. And what's happening in the immediate term is Chopp - in the Legislature session that's going on now - is trying to get funding to basically pay for the agency's first 18 months or so of operations, the new public developer. The City of Seattle is obligated to provide in-kind assistance, but of course they have their own budget challenges and so this would essentially provide state funding through the budget to get them up and running and allow them to set up a taxing proposal, which then might have to go before the voters again - in yet another initiative - if it is a local tax. Chopp also said, when we talked, that there could be some state options - like there's an expansion that's being proposed of a real estate excise tax that would create sort of a new tier of taxing for property sales over $5 million. And there's a local option there that could be used for social housing, he said. There's a number of different possibilities that they're considering, but they've got 18 months to figure that out and potentially get something on the ballot and pass to actually pay for the housing. [00:19:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And there's also going to be a board established and some hires made. What will that process look like? [00:19:19] Erica Barnett: They're making a couple of hires. So that would be - that's something that $750,000-800,000 would pay for is - I believe it's an Executive Director and a Chief Operating Officer. And then the board is going to be made up of 13 people - 7 of them would be appointed by the City's Renters' Commission. And then it's - the other 6 are appointed by various folks - the mayor, the City Council, and some other local groups with housing expertise. And that board - Tammy Morales is spearheading getting that process rolling. And then the board starts meeting and starts discussing all these things that we're talking about - how to move forward. They're going to be the decision makers. And ultimately, that's a temporary board. Assuming housing does get built, there's going to be a new board that's going to be made up mostly of people who actually rent in the buildings. But that's a few steps down the line. [00:20:07] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So we will continue to follow the implementation, follow what's happening with this. But that initiative is passing, will become official - I actually forget the day that the election is certified - but coming up here soon. [00:20:21] Erica Barnett: I think it's today, February 24th - if not, it's Monday. [00:20:23] Crystal Fincher: Okay. Yeah - excellent. Thank you - I'm like, it's around now, but so it will be officially official soon. Again, just bang up work to the people doing that and looking at how many of the volunteers are pivoting now to the Renton minimum wage initiative that is happening. I'm just excited about what organizers are doing in the region to try and help improve the everyday lives of folks. Also this week, we saw some King County Regional Homelessness Authority meetings - discussion about their scope and budget moving forward. What were those conversations? [00:21:05] Erica Barnett: Yeah. The regional authority has released its five-year plan and it's in a draft form - it's going to be finalized, I believe, in April. And it's a somewhat novel approach to doing an implementation plan for an agency. Basically what they've done is created a plan that would end unsheltered homelessness within five years and at huge cost. You've probably discussed this on Hacks & Wonks before, but the price tag is in the billions per year plus billions more for capital costs to set up shelters and other types of temporary housing. And there's been pushback from - everyone from Councilmember Andrew Lewis in Seattle, to regional leaders, to Claudia Balducci from the King County Council, to Mayor Bruce Harrell saying - This is a nice aspirational plan, but we can't even come close to actually doing this. Just one year's worth of funding for this plan is two City budgets. There's been pushback about whether this is realistic, can we start smaller? And it's almost like the opposite of the Vision Zero plan - it's too ambitious in some ways - some would argue. I think the agency would argue that it's not too ambitious, it's just realistic. But there is a gap between reality on the ground right now, in terms of the agency's funding and reality as they define it, which is we need to spend these billions of dollars to actually address the problem. [00:22:31] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we actually have a conversation with the head of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, Marc Dones, coming up on this week's midweek show where we go into that in a little bit more detail and why that's necessary, what that's comprised of. But I think there is a big conversation to be had. They're saying that they need more federal dollars and support, that there needs to be a lot more financially. I think they're really saying - Hey, now that we have gotten staffed up, have started to implement the plan, and we're doing some targeted things that are working - it's time to scale this up. And the real conversation seems to be, can we afford to scale it up? And if not, where does that leave us and what do we do? So that'll be interesting - to see how this conversation unfolds, and how cities view their contribution to this regional solution, and their individual responsibilities within their city - how they balance that and what types of approaches they move forward with. But it does seem like there are some things that are working and that are positive that should be, hopefully will be expanded. Certainly I think most people agree that the job is not done, more needs to be done. And so what is enough is really going to be part of a conversation. And people who are elected are going to have to stand up for what they've advocated for and what they're saying to attempt to address the challenges here. But it'll be interesting to see. Also in related troubling news, we got more evidence and information about violence against unsheltered people. What did we learn? [00:24:10] Erica Barnett: This is really troubling. The issue of homelessness and the issue of public safety are often conflated, with people saying that having homeless encampments nearby is unsafe for nearby children, people living in houses nearby. But in reality, the people who are most vulnerable in living in encampments are the people in the encampments themselves. So a new crime report from SPD showed a 229% increase in hate crimes, specifically targeting homeless people because they're homeless. Police Chief Adrian Diaz told me that this is an example of people "taking things into their own hands" because they're frustrated with encampments existing in their presence and the associated litter and perceived just disorder that goes with that - they've been attacking more homeless people. Additionally, there's been more gun violence deaths involving people who are homeless. So it's incredibly dangerous to be homeless and it's becoming more dangerous. And I think this gets lost in conversations about whether violent crime is up or whether property crime is up. A lot of these victims are people experiencing homelessness themselves. And I really think that gets lost in narratives about homeless people being inherently dangerous or a threat to neighborhoods. [00:25:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it has been a chronic problem, has led to them specifically being targeted, dehumanizing language around them. And certainly regionally, we've seen a lot of direct attacks on their - I'm thinking of a couple in Tacoma right now where people went in there because of narratives about them being criminals, going in to find stolen property, and it winds up with violence - but without that stolen property. It's a challenge, and I hope we understand how vulnerable that population is and we follow the data and evidence about what seems to be effective in addressing those issues. Certainly we hear a lot about downtown Seattle. And there was an article this week, and continued conversations that we have in the region, in the wake of Amazon announcing that they are recalling people back to the office on at least a part-time basis and requiring people work from the office, which Mayor Bruce Harrell applauded and said was a good thing. But the state of downtown, the state of the central business district - should it be and remain and should we try and invest resources in keeping it predominantly a business district? Or are people really looking for something else? What was your take on that article and on the conversation about what we should be doing with downtown? [00:26:52] Erica Barnett: Yeah, it's been really interesting to see the backlash among Amazon employees themselves to this idea that they are - to not the idea - to the mandate that they go back to work three days a week. The City, of course, has a two day a week mandate that is observed by some and ignored by some, I would say. And I think that the State of the City speech actually highlighted this kind of dichotomy that you're talking about, because on the one hand, Harrell said, It's great that Amazon is coming back downtown and we're going to have this dynamic downtown that returns to normal again. And at the same time, he was saying - maybe, in that list of maybes that he had - Maybe what downtown looks like is going to be different, and we'll have housing in some of these office spaces and other types of businesses in the retail spaces. And so I think that we're still figuring that out. But I just do not believe that we're going to return to the way it was before, because I think a lot of people have realized that they're more productive at home, they've realized that not getting paid for a long commute that is essentially unnecessary to doing their job feels unfair. And there's a whole lot of reasons that people liked working from home during the pandemic - people who have caregiving responsibilities have had a lot more flexibility to do that stuff. And primarily, we're talking about women with those responsibilities. So I don't think it's going to work to just say - everybody has to come back to the way it used to be. We also have a tight labor market, so forcing workers who can leave and take other jobs to do something like come back to downtown Seattle is not going to work in the short term for sure. [00:28:30] Crystal Fincher: And this is being lauded because some people are saying, Great, this is going to be great for businesses downtown revitalizing, re-energizing downtown Seattle in this circumstance and situation - because foot traffic, as measured by downtown employees, has been down under 50% to what it was pre-pandemic levels. And although hotels have seen basically a return to pre-pandemic level activity from people traveling, visiting - they are not seeing that in terms, or coming from workers. And so it seems like there are a number of signals from the public saying, Okay, downtown should have another purpose besides just a place that people commute to and from to work. And that comes with its own challenges and that - it's long been a problem. Even in terms of just public safety and having safe activated spaces - meaning spaces where people are at - it's not like you're in a desolate, barren area after 7, 8 PM and people have left for the day. There's not that much going on in the core of downtown. Also more people live downtown now than have ever before - thousands more people than at the beginning of the pandemic. And just basic things like childcare and just some basic things to have and raise a family are missing in downtown and people need to go to other neighborhoods. And it seems like people are looking to downtown Seattle and a lot of other downtowns to fulfill desires for culture and community a lot more now, or to a much greater degree than they were before, where it was just business. And so re-imagining or reconstituting downtowns where maybe driving to the office every day is not the main draw - seems like that has to be a focus for the future or else downtown is going to get left behind. How do you see that? [00:30:29] Erica Barnett: Yeah. This is a conversation that has been going on for almost as long as I have lived here, or actually probably longer, about downtown. Especially - when I moved here more than 20 years ago - downtown really shut down at night. And I'm downtown at night a fair amount - I think that the sort of tumbleweeds idea that downtown just turns into, rolls up the blinds or whatever the saying is - it's not that - at 5 o'clock, it's not - that's exaggerated. There are people downtown now, especially Belltown bleeds into South Lake Union - there's stuff going on. But the thing is, we've been saying for decades now and more intensely lately, I think with the pandemic, that downtown needs to have a different focus and different reasons for people being there other than office work. And yet, we still have, again, a mayor saying maybe that's something that should happen. If you're the mayor, or you're a City leader, there are things you can actually do to make it affordable for childcare to be downtown. And I won't go into all the different mechanisms for stuff like that, because it's pretty boring. But the only thing the mayor mentioned was changing zoning codes to allow housing - and actually housing is already allowed everywhere downtown. What you need to do is provide incentives and money to make it possible to convert office buildings into housing, because that's not going to happen by just saying, Maybe it should. And so we just haven't seen action on these things. And it actually does take action and money and spending to make some of these things happen. Childcare is not going to materialize because we wish it into existence. Neither are art spaces, all these things - we have to take action, there have to be grant programs, there has to be actual legislation and priorities and spending - because we can't just wish it into existence. It hasn't worked so far. And it's not going to work now. [00:32:21] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree with that. Lots of talk about activating spaces, vacant storefronts. I think he did say that there was going to be a pilot, or actually not even a pilot, a competition to kick off innovation for how to convert commercial spaces into residential spaces - which has its share of complications and isn't necessarily simple and straightforward, can be done. But it does seem like we're in the beginning stages and just dipping our toe in the water a little bit with a number of these things instead of taking concrete action, which I think a lot of people would be eager to see. So that's another thing we'll continue to stay on top of and see how that unfolds. We do thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, February 24th, 2023. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was 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. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and you can find me there also @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get the 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.

This week, a spanking new addition to the Seattle convention center has a hefty price tag. The city teamed up with SDOT to give 10,000 residents in affordable housing free unlimited orca cards. And we take a look at the *inner* beauty the city's multifamily housing has to offer. Converge media's Besa Gordon, and political consultant Crystal Fincher join us to break down the week.After CA mass shootings, here's where to find AAPI mental health services in King, Pierce countiesWe 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 @SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback online: https://www.kuow.org/feedback

On this week's Hacks & Wonks, Crystal is joined by Executive Director of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. Crystal and Doug quickly run through news items about progress on Washington state's capital gains tax, a discussion on the worsening traffic safety crisis, and labor stories about Amazon's questionable fulfillment of a court order and the federal government's blocking a railway workers strike ahead of the holidays. Public safety news out of Pierce County includes the start of embattled Sheriff Ed Troyer's criminal trial and troubling news about an officer charged in Manuel Ellis' death having been flagged for violent behavior during their academy training. Doug and Crystal then discuss the gulf between reality and rhetoric that has appeared in media reporting on crime and law enforcement and how it reaches into electeds' handling of issues like decriminalization of simple drug possession at the State Legislature, outcry over a miniscule portion of the Seattle Police Department budget not being funded in the City of Seattle budget process, and the campaign messaging of the King County Prosecuting Attorney's race. On a hopeful note, Leesa Manion's solid win in the King County Prosecutor's race and her strong performance - across the county, across cities, and across legislative districts - serves as a referendum for voters rejecting punitive measures and signifies an appetite for root cause-addressing, data-driven solutions that work. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Doug Trumm, on Twitter at @dmtrumm. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “WA Supreme Court clears way for state to collect capital-gains tax” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times    "The Urbanist's Ryan Packer Discusses Worsening Traffic Safety Crisis on KUOW" by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Labor board blasts Amazon's "flagrant" attempt to flout court order“ by Emily Peck from Axios    “Biden signs rail agreement into law, thwarting strike“ by Shawna Chen from Axios   “Criminal trial begins in Sheriff Ed Troyer's false-reporting case” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   “Academy warned Tacoma of violent training episode by officer later charged in Manuel Ellis' death” Patrick Malone from The Seattle Times   “Washington should be a leader in ending the War on Drugs” by Mark Cooke from ACLU-WA   “Nelson, Pedersen, and Sawant Dissent Ahead of Final Vote on Seattle Budget” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Public Safety Politics and the Even Election Reckoning” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher - 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. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's cohost: Executive Director of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. Welcome! [00:00:52] Doug Trumm: Hey, thanks for having me. It's such a busy news week - it's really going to be a slog to get through it all. [00:00:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah we will make an attempt. I guess, starting off with some statewide news that isn't ultimately the news that everyone is waiting for, but kind of a pit stop along the way - the Washington Supreme Court clears the way for the state to start collecting capital gains tax. So what happened here? [00:01:16] Doug Trumm: It's still just an early - not a ruling, but just a decision on the Court's part - not to issue an injunction. But hey, that's a really good sign because if the Court was leaning towards invalidating the capital gains tax, they probably would have issued an injunction. But at the same time, you don't want to read too much into these tea leaves, but certainly the fact they can start collecting the tax makes this start to feel pretty real. [00:01:41] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I would agree - don't know what's going to happen yet. I think lots of people are hoping that we do get a favorable ruling for the capital gains tax, but there still is the big issue of whether this counts as, officially, an income tax, which would make it unconstitutional under our Constitution. Many interpretations show that it is not, but we are waiting for the ruling to definitively decide that from the Supreme Court, which I think we're anticipating getting early next year. Is that the case? [00:02:14] Doug Trumm: Yeah, that sounds about right. And there's a lot of ways they could rule. But yeah, certainly one of - the hope, I think, is that they would create a new category of - income actually being income, which in our state - oddly, it's not. So that's what creates this huge hurdle to doing progressive taxation - is that it counts as property, and property you have to tax flat. And progressives - we're not trying to argue for a flat income tax. We want a graduated progressive income tax. So if they get a really favorable ruling, that will open the door to that and suddenly there'll be a lot more options on the table and hopefully Democrats actually take them. [00:02:53] Crystal Fincher: I definitely hope so. Also in the news, one of The Urbanists' own, Ryan Packer, was on KUOW discussing what is really - our own crisis here locally, and a nationwide crisis in traffic safety. What is happening here? [00:03:13] Doug Trumm: Yeah, Washington state really echoes the national trend. And the national trend does not mirror the international trend, which - most industrial nations are getting much safer. They've used the pandemic, sort of as a catalyst in a way, to encourage people to take transit, or walk, or bike or - hey, the roads aren't as busy, let's do this project now and make the streets safer. That's really not the approach we've seen in the United States and in Washington state. We've kind of spun our wheels and we've let projects kind of get behind schedule because of the pandemic. And that's happening globally too in some cases, but usually the vision's only getting sharper. So this is reflected in the data and the New York Times had a piece about this this week - Emily Badger - and the US is up 5% during the pandemic in traffic fatalities. But almost every other major nation, it's going down significantly - so it's a bad case of American exceptionalism. We were so excited for our transportation reporter, Ryan Packer, to be on KUOW to talk about this - their reporting is really raising this issue locally a lot. And they really, at all these meetings where some of these decisions quietly get made, whether that's a transportation safety advisory commission or some obscure regional body. But mostly, there's little efforts here and there to improve safety, but we're not seeing the wholesale re-envisioning of streets or strategy that has really been effective in other countries and bringing down collisions and deadly crashes. [00:05:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think so. And we continue to see this tension here, in the United States and locally, between designs that are car-centric being more dangerous for everyone else on the road. And investments in transportation, in pedestrian mobility, bike and transit access and mobility - and it seems like the more we design roads and transportation through ways principally for, primarily for cars and prioritizing their needs above everyone else's, that we come out with these outcomes that are just less safe and too often fatal for all of the other kinds of users. [00:05:50] Doug Trumm: Yeah, exactly. And the American system doesn't even treat pedestrian safety as a category of car safety when they give out their gold, whatever-rated car safety awards. If - you can have a three-ton car that maims pedestrians, but if the person inside is fine - oh, that's safety rated - great. So there's certainly federal stuff, but Ryan and The Urbanist, in general, we've really focused on - what are these projects at the City level? Unfortunately, the clear epicenter of this crisis in Seattle is Southeast Seattle District 2, Tammy Morales' district - and she's been a champion. She's recently told me - hey, I didn't think I was going to become the traffic safety person when I first ran for office, but given my district, this is - I really am. And she didn't say this, but implicit in this is our Transportation Chair hasn't really been focused on that - Alex Pedersen - and we'll probably get into that some more when we talk about the budget, because that's - the investments we're making aren't completely safety-focused, as you alluded to. And we have projects queued up to make it safer to bike and walk in D2, but there was just a wave of delays - projects pushed back one year, two years from the original timeline. There's supposed to be a safe bike route through Beacon Hill, there's supposed to be a safe protected bike lane on MLK Way - but those projects are behind schedule. As far as we know, they're still happening, but if you were - if this area is responsible for over half of the - D2 is responsible for over half of the traffic fatalities in the whole city - the last thing we'd want to be doing is delaying those projects in that district. [00:07:39] Crystal Fincher: Seems so - it doesn't seem to make much sense - same with just connecting sidewalks and neighborhoods that people have been waiting for decades to happen and still hasn't. So long way to go there. Also this week, we had a number of events, news happen in the labor realm - couple of items that affect us locally. One - so Amazon just had a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board directing them to correct some of their action, which they still seem to be just not doing. What's going on at Amazon? [00:08:19] Doug Trumm: Yeah, they think they're kind of above the law when it comes to this. They were supposed to read out this ruling saying - hey, you can't be fired for union organizing, or even having discussions with union organizers, or being union-curious. But instead of just following the order to the letter of the law and reading that out to all their employees, they chose specifically the shift change and then just played a video. So the Labor Board was pretty upset about that because this was a court order, they were supposed to follow it - but they weaseled their way out of it in a very corporate lawyer-y kind of fashion where theoretically just maybe - if you squint your eyes, does this qualify for following the order? I don't know. Alexa, read order. I don't know how you could get - this ruling actually to get to the people, but they're figuring out a way not to do it. [00:09:16] Crystal Fincher: One of the interesting things here - employers are responsible for letting their employees know what their rights are. Amazon has bent over backwards not to do that. This is another example of it. We also see Starbucks bending over backwards to be hostile to the union and we continue to see those actions, and then being called out by the National Labor Relations Board also. And this week, of course, we saw - yesterday - Congress take action to avert the railroad strike by passing legislation that still denies railroad workers any kind of paid sick leave, which just should be the most basic thing that every employee everywhere is entitled to. And just beyond disappointing to me personally - to a ton of people - that we had particularly a Democratic president and right now a Democratic Congress who acted against workers and against unions and their ability to take sick pay. It's just bad all the way around, and it feels like they were thrown under the bus because of the threat of bad things happening if they strike - instead of that being the key that says, wow, these really are essential employees. And hey, there have been billions in stock buybacks recently and hundreds of millions of compensation over the past few years for executives. Maybe they can also spare a sick day and to pressure the companies to provide that very, very, very basic thing for employees. Just very disappointing for me personally. How did you feel about that? [00:11:01] Doug Trumm: Yeah, that was disappointing and Amtrak Joe really let us down. I think it's odd that employees are held hostage to how valuable their work are, right? Their work is, right? Because everyone's - we can't have rails shutting down right in the middle of the holiday crisis when all these companies are trying to make a ton of money for themselves and have a strong Q4 and really try to get some blood flowing in this economy. But instead of going - oh yeah, so I guess we should pay those workers well to make sure that happens, and give them the sick time they're asking for and the benefits - it's just force it through because we create a vision of a crisis if they are actually allowed to use their union rights. So it just goes back to 1880s again of the rail barons and the laws that they got passed - that they're able to compel the workers in this way and have Congress step in. But it certainly is not - hopefully not the end of the story. Hopefully they can actually get real sick pay, especially in a time of a lot of viral spread - both in the COVID realm and really bad flu season. This is upending their lives when they get sick and it doesn't have to be this way. So it's disappointing, and I saw Mayor Harrell decided to pile on with that and say it was great that they'd broke the strike, and work in that he still supports workers' rights and everything - I think you can't have it both ways in this case. You can't One Seattle your way out of this one - you're either with the workers or you're not. [00:12:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, pretty cut and dry there. And what I just think is so shortsighted is that this policy is partially a response to being short-staffed. They are already facing staffing shortages. We are already at the breaking point where if - right now, under the current staffing levels, if an employee is sick, if someone does miss a day, that can create chaos in the system because there aren't enough people to cover. And this just perpetuating a system that is hostile to workers, where workers can face discipline for any unplanned absence - and people get sick and families get sick, as we all know - this is an inevitability. That if you're subject to discipline for that, they're seeing more people just leave, instead of have their career of however many years or decades end with them being disciplined for taking care of their sick kid. So we are already setting ourselves up for massive disruptions by making this worker shortage worse. We see things like this happening in education, in healthcare, in transportation - across the board - with public transit systems and others. So we just need to really take a look at what we're doing here and - are we setting ourselves up for the same problems that we swear we have to take action like this to avoid, when really we're just making it more of an inevitability that it does eventually happen. I hope we all learn from this and do better and hold our public officials accountable for doing better. Also in the news this week, speaking of holding public officials accountable, the criminal trial for Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer just started. This is the trial about him making a call, that was allegedly a false report, accusing a newspaper delivery person - a Black man who was delivering newspapers - of being suspicious, acting nefariously. He said that his life was threatened by the newspaper carrier, which does not - at least through all the reporting initially, did not seem to be supported by other accounts in what happened. He ended up being charged and now the trial has began. They sat the jury. Opening statements happened. Testimony has begun. What has happened in this trial that's been notable so far? [00:15:22] Doug Trumm: They use the same strategies they always use, it seems like - it's pretty clear that this police officer clearly didn't act as you'd want someone to act. Now he's trying to get out of it claiming - okay, I did feel threatened or I did. And it's how it plays out every time and a lot of people were willing to go along - suddenly this violence incident that this Sheriff deputy caused - suddenly it's not his fault because something else, and it just seemed like hopefully we're finally learning from that. But we've seen a lot of other cases where it's enough for some people to exonerate someone. I don't know - it's frustrating that this is how it always goes, but maybe eventually this line will go stale. [00:16:13] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we will see. This is one where it's interesting because - for the day job and for this podcast, following the news is useful. But for my own personal sanity, this is a situation where often I find my inclination is to disconnect from - definitely the daily news, the drumbeat of news about this - just because some of the early signals, decisions, indications from this trial feel really familiar to me. Meaning that - man, we've seen so many of these trials end and the police officer, sheriff ends up being found not guilty, gets off regardless of what looks to be very obvious evidence to many people in the public. And I just - this will be very disappointing once again, if that does happen, but we will see what happens with this trial and continue to follow it for you all. Also, there was news that came out about an officer that wound up being charged in Manuel Ellis's death, having a very violent episode previously, and that not being heeded after that was communicated to the Tacoma Police Department. And so tragic. Can you detail what we found out here? [00:17:44] Doug Trumm: Yeah, I really encourage everyone to read about this story because it really makes you question how these systems are working and how this can happen. Because this officer - Rankine, I think is his name - was in the police academy. They identified that he had an issue with violence and with - I forget what they called it, "code black" or something like that - basically just shutting down and going tunnel vision, not hearing the outside world once he's in that mode. And it's related to his combat service as a veteran - obviously, that's a complicated issue - we're very, very glad that people serve, but that doesn't necessarily mean we want to put them on the frontlines interacting with the public if they have these unaccounted-for issues that are identified by the police academy. The police academy trainer decided to write a note, his superiors after a couple of days forwarded it to the Tacoma Police Department who was sponsoring him to be in this police academy and said - hey, we're worried about this guy. He had this violent incident where he shot someone during a training simulation who was not someone - the training simulation was supposed to be how do you de-escalate the situation, how do you - and the person was not cooperating, to be clear - and it was a virtual simulation. But the trainer was - why did you do this? And he couldn't really explain it because he went blank or whatever, and thought he had done fine because, I guess in the military, that's what he was conditioned to do and had seen a lot of violent episodes - but hadn't really made the connection that now you're in a civilian setting and you're supposed to be de-escalating situations instead of fighting your way out of them. And what ended up happening, despite the police academy issuing this warning saying - hey, maybe don't take this guy actually - the Tacoma Police Department still took him, didn't really make any accommodations, or - it's not clear that they warned his - the rest of the people he'd be working with, basically just treated him like one of the guys. They did put him on desk duty initially, but I think that's just what rookies kind of do. Then they put him on patrol with another rookie and it was not even a couple months - it was less than a year - and he had already, this happened. It was clearly a tragic incident waiting to happen and it did happen. It leaves us with a lot of questions like - is the police academy - is a little note in your file enough, or should he fail out of the academy? That's one odd thing about this case - they didn't fail him. The other odd thing is that even with this big warning, this huge red flag, Tacoma PD didn't do anything and now they're stonewalling the reporters from The Seattle Times and all the other newspapers that are knocking on the door, and they're just kind of clammed up about it, but it's clear they messed up in a big, big way. [00:21:03] Crystal Fincher: It's just one of those things that makes you want to once again ask - what are we doing here? If there is behavior that is so violent that you feel that you need to warn someone else not to hire him, why are you passing him? To the question that you just asked, why does that person pass the academy in the first place? Why was that not heeded when they were hired? Okay, they were hired and brought onto the academy. Why was no corrective action taken, no additional guidance? And yes, this wound up very predictably. The warning was given because it could be foreseen that this would wind up in unjustified violence to a member of the public - which it did, resulting in that person's death. This is a person, right? And it's just - if we can't weed out someone who even before they get in the system are demonstrating unacceptable violence - violence that you have to tell someone to look out for - what is the point of anything? There is this characterization by people, who I believe are acting in bad faith largely - that any kind of talk of accountability is antithetical to safety, it makes us less safe, it's hostile to police officers, and is not worth pursuing. And if we do, we're making life harder for them. If they're saying this is what belongs in their ranks, if they're saying that this is acceptable for passing and getting in, and then hiring without anything - then this is unacceptable. They're saying - they've said that their own policies were violated - this is seemingly saying that the warning came from them not meeting their own standards. If they can't hold themselves to their own standards and weed people out who don't fit that, then someone else has to. And evidently those aren't really their standards if they can't adhere to them. So someone has to, otherwise we're just letting - in this situation - basically killing machines out onto the street. And we have to do better. And it just makes no sense that we are entertaining people who say that this is bad for police officers. Acting against policy should not be bad for them. If so, we should have discussions about the policy, but this doesn't make any sense. And if their job truly is to protect and serve, and someone is acting completely against that, then acting more in concert with that and making sure that happens should be a welcome development. And over and over again, the public continues to vote for real accountability and reject those kinds of disingenuous arguments that - hey, you got to "back the blue" or nothing else. People can be happy to have a police officer there, that they're happy to have a police officer when they call 911 and show up, and still believe that there should be guidelines for their conduct and behavior that guide them and that they should be held accountable to - just like everyone else with every other job in this society. It just is so infuriating that - hey, this is predictable, it's foreseeable. And just with a shrug. [00:24:50] Doug Trumm: Yeah, and it wasn't his first time - [00:24:52] Crystal Fincher: Right. [00:24:53] Doug Trumm: - using basically a chokehold-type thing. And he had another I-can't-breathe incident and they just were like - oh well, it happens. And if he says - oh this person was threatening or violent - they kind of just, even though after the whole George Floyd thing - there's one thing that I thought was kind of the lowest hanging fruit - okay, we probably shouldn't use chokeholds anymore or knee on people's back, but this is exactly what this guy was doing. And he suffered no consequence for it until he killed someone. [00:25:27] Crystal Fincher: Acting against policy. And as we have seen with so many of these incidences, that there have been several occasions where officers who wind up killing someone - use violence unjustifiably, use violence against policy in situations before the killing occurs - which there is no discipline for. It is time for them to be held accountable to the job that the public believes they were hired to do. Just like all of us. That's not hostile. That's just common sense. So we'll see how that continues. It is just another infuriating, devastating, tragic element of Manny Ellis's death that is just - it's tragic. [00:26:21] Doug Trumm: Hopefully we learn from it. And I think it relates to how we get so breathless and just completely operate on fear and desperation - we have to hire, we have to reach some sort of set number of cops and then we'll feel safe. But when you get that desperate and you just want to add ranks so you can put out your press release to claim victory on that - you're hiring the bottom of the barrel. If we were serious about safety, we wouldn't worry so much about that number as flunking people out of the academy who are killing machines. You have to put accountability ahead of "let's just hit a number," "here's the right response time," "here's the right number of officers" - those are important things, but you can't get so blinded to them that you're taking terrible cops. [00:27:13] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and that makes the community less safe. The academy warned that - Hey, putting this officer on the street may make the community less safe, this is acting against public safety, we don't want people to be victimized unjustly by violence - and that was the warning that came with this officer - and look. We'll continue to see how this happens. Also kind of teeing up this week were some articles just talking about the War on Drugs - how much of a failure it has been - which is very timely because in this upcoming legislative session, which we're starting to see a flurry of activity with. And our new legislators now down in Olympia - and getting set and oriented and all of that to start the session next month - is that the Blake decision, which a couple years ago the Supreme Court basically decriminalized or invalidated the law that criminalized simple possession of any substances. Our Legislature subsequently acted to bring a uniform policy across the state and kind of instituted a new method of criminalization - some of it was lighter criminal penalties, but still criminal penalties for substance use and possession - in the face of a ton of evidence and data that shows that - Hey, criminalization is actually not an effective intervention. We've seen the entire War on Drugs. We've seen what has happened there. If we actually treat this as a public health problem and not as a criminal justice problem, we are much better off. There was a survey of Washington state voters - a poll taken - and in that poll, 85% of likely voters - the poll was in June 2022 of this year - 85% of voters believe that drug use should be treated as a public health issue and not a criminal justice issue. And this really sets the tone and provides a mandate for our Legislature, which has to take up the Blake decision and the Blake legislation again this year - because there was a sunset provision in it that is now up this year - to actually make good on this policy. How did you read this? [00:29:45] Doug Trumm: It seems like the public's at a different place than some of the very serious, centrist, establishment Democratic leaders on this who are - the likes of Chris Gregoire, who are saying - Oh, we really need to get - go back to our old policy where - it was drug possession was fully criminalized and it was just one strike and they could, people could be locked up for simple possession. And I think they portray that it's really important to dealing with downtown disorder, or crime, or whatever. But that's not really where the people are at, and this three-strike provision probably does make it, if you're only listening to cops, annoying - 'cause they feel like these warnings are letting people off the hook. But with jails being pretty full right now, you start running into this problem of where are are we putting people? We've done this drug war thing a long time, it hasn't really worked, the people are ready for a public health approach instead of a punitive lock-them-up approach. We just saw that with the election of Leesa Manion for King County Prosecutor that - the people went with the person who was willing to do diversionary programs that try to get people help and not load them up with jail time and fees, but instead give them an opportunity to get back on their feet and better themselves and think about rehabilitation instead of just ruining someone's life. I think the people are ready to take a different approach - I don't know how far folks, both in terms of the State Legislature and the public, if they're - maybe not ready for a Portugal-style solution, but I really think they're ready to have that conversation rather than just go back to the old way of doing things. I think the - maybe one of the things will come up is fentanyl - it really is a scary drug in terms of what it can do to a person and how likely it is to overdose - I'm sure they'll try to use that and maybe fentanyl is treated a little bit differently than other drugs, but it seems like a lot of substances doesn't - I don't know why you immediately lock someone up for having possession of a set quantity. It's sort of like - we got to get this person help, but jail isn't help. [00:32:11] Crystal Fincher: And jail doesn't help, and it actually does more harm than good in this situation. It makes our streets less safe. People are less stable, more prone to commit crime, when they get out - and more prone to continue to use. We've seen all of this and again, this is just about possession. This doesn't impact any laws on selling, or distributing, or anything like that - those still remain and that's not part of this discussion. But it would be good for them to act in alignment with where the evidence and data show - we are made more safe, and people are made more healthy and less likely to use and abuse drugs and other harmful substances. So we will continue to follow this throughout the legislative session and see what happens. Also big news this week - the Seattle City Council passed their budget. What did we get? What are the highlights and lowlights of this budget? [00:33:19] Doug Trumm: Yeah, it was a marathon day to wrap up the amendments and do all the speeches on Monday and Tuesday - I guess the really marathon day was the Budget Committee last week. It always is a slog at the end and it's tough to know everything that's happening, but ultimately the budget is - there's a lot of different takes on it, there's a lot of perspectives. But ultimately what happened is largely - Mayor Harrell's budget is reflected in the Council's balancing package. They did make some significant changes, but nothing enormous. And the issue that they're dealing with is that there is a large budget shortfall. It started out at $141 million at the beginning. And then they got the news that the projections had gotten a lot worse late in the game - so that any hope of Council just adding a bunch of new investments in evaporated, once they got that forecast that Real Estate Excise Tax was going to be way down - that was the main thing that took a bite out of the budget. And we use that REET money to fund a lot of our infrastructure investments in this city. So from a transportation focus, I was pretty disappointed to not see more investments in street safety. They did make some. Councilmember Tammy Morales really fought for her district - as we mentioned earlier - epicenter of the safety crisis. So she got a proviso to make sure that they improve the bike lanes in Southeast Seattle to have harder infrastructure, so you can't just run over those flex posts and injure someone on the bike lane or the sidewalk. That's one positive add, but it was just a proviso, so hopefully SDOT does the right thing and implements it rather than kind of wiggling out of it. But by and large, transportation didn't get a ton of adds and Mayor Harrell's budget didn't make a ton of new initiatives or pushes there, so that's one thing that fell victim to that shortfall. But a lot of the action was around public safety and that's where we saw a lot of the grandiose takes on - especially on the centrist side of - Oh, this was a disaster. End of the day, the Council funded 99% of the mayor's SPD budget. They're making a really big deal about this 1% - and within that 1% that the Council did do cuts was the ShotSpotter gunfire detection surveillance system, which has a really - it has a track record - it's been implemented in a lot of cities and that track record is not very good. It doesn't really, there's no correlation to it decreasing crime, leads to a lot of false calls - those false calls can then cause over-policing of communities of colors where they're implemented. And it has in, in instances, led to violent altercations between cops who are like - Oh, the gunfire thing said there was a gunshot here. And sometimes it's slamming a car door, or firework, or something - could set something off - or backfiring car, I guess. So what are we doing here? This is not evidence-based practice - Council made the budget safer, but if you listen to Councilmember Sara Nelson or Councilmember Alex Pedersen, who voted against the budget, and then some of the press releases that were fired off shortly after - the Chamber actually sent the press release before the final vote, but right after the Council briefing. They said - this is, these are public safety cuts. And the other big thing that happened was - there's 80 positions that were unfilled of actually 240 total unfilled positions at SPD, because they're having a hard time recruiting faster than they're losing officers, which relates to a national trend of a lot of attrition and police officers and not as much new people entering the profession. But they eliminated 80 positions off the books - because when they leave those 240 empty positions, that means that those, that money goes into SPD's budget every cycle. And it throws out the balance of the whole thing because you're - basically all the extra money goes to SPD instead of just being in the General Fund for them to debate and figure out where to go. It can go back into public safety investments and that's what happened this time, even with the eliminating the budgets. But basically a lot of people tried to turn that into - they were cutting officers - but they fully funded the mayor's hiring plan, which - they're going to hire 125 officers, which they hope - that's then 30 new, net new officers. But that wasn't good enough for those two councilmembers and for the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. So they both kind of opposed this budget. And that seemed to be pretty upsetting to Budget Chair Teresa Mosqueda, because she had worked with both of those Councilmembers Nelson and Pedersen and had put their amendments into the budget - some of them. And she thought that spirit of compromise would lead them to vote for it, but they did not. And so it almost - this budget almost failed because it needed six votes. It only got six votes because of those two defections, plus Councilmember Sawant makes it her tradition and has always voted against the budget. And she's coming at it from the opposite direction of - Hey, let's invest more in social services, and let's tax the rich, and increase the JumpStart payroll tax - is her argument, the last few years. And she specifically said - I'm not chucked in with Pedersen and Nelson. So yeah, it ended up being kind of a mess messaging-wise, but largely this budget was reflecting Harrell's priorities, plus a few of the Council's. And it made the most of a really downward trend in revenue - and that was by virtue of JumpStart payroll tax kind of papering over some of the holes, and also then letting them make a record investment in housing. So housing definitely did well. There were some Green New Deal priorities. And it's a really big budget, so I'm kind of - broad strokes here - but if I'm missing anything, Crystal, let me know. But yeah, it felt bizarre to me that the the debate about it was so far from the reality. And I guess these few million dollars in the police budget are enough to cause these votes against, and the Chamber to be really upset, and saying this is public safety cuts. But it largely seemed like much more collaboration and kumbaya between the mayor and most of the council, with Budget Chair Mosqueda and Mayor Harrell complimenting each other about how well they work together. [00:40:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I think what we're seeing is reflective of some of the reality versus rhetoric that we see on a national level, that we see with conservative Republicans, even the MAGA Republicans, where the rhetoric just doesn't match reality. But the rhetoric is a tactic to eventually shift people's perception of what reality is. It doesn't matter what happened if you just keep saying something else happened - Oh my gosh, this is, you know, horrible. We didn't get anything we're asking for. We need to move in this completely different direction - people start to absorb that and pick that up. As we saw this week with the New York Times - basically admitting without participating, pointing the finger at themselves - saying, Yeah, rhetoric about public safety was really disjointed from the actual facts. There are tons of stories, but when you look at the actual crime rates, they weren't actually high. Media did this. And they very conveniently left out that they were at the top of the list of media doing that. But it felt like that's similar to this conversation. This rhetoric is completely detached from what happened in the budget and from what's happening on the ground - yeah, majority of what Harrell asked for was in there. One notable exception was the ShotSpotter technology as you covered, which actually didn't have a big, a huge price tag compared to some other things. But it's still money that, especially in a shortfall, can be better spent to make people safe. And I think that's where a lot of people are at right now. It's just - lots of people are worried about safety, but where they continue to vote, and how people on the ground continue to vote in elections is - yes, we do want our communities to be safer, but we recognize that the public safety equation is bigger than just policing. We have to talk about interventions that are appropriate for the crises that we're facing. Just sweeping and moving around and criminalizing people who are unhoused is not making that problem any better, it's making it worse. So instead of investing money continually in sweeps and in criminalization and carceral solutions - Hey, what if we actually use that money to put people in houses - that actually is a solution to that problem. Other cities are doing that with success. We could be doing that. Hey, if people are having behavioral health crises, what if there was actually treatment available for them and a way for them to get the issues that they have addressed? Jail is not that. Arresting them is not that. And we still have, and prior to some of the heel digging-in that police unions have done over the past few years, there were tons of officers and unions who admitted that freely - hey, we go into a situation where someone's called us and someone is having mental health issue - jail isn't going to do anything for that. If anything, it may destabilize that situation more and put them further away from help and make that situation worse. We actually need interventions that are appropriate for the challenges that we're facing. We have to deal with extreme poverty. We have to deal with people who are in crisis. We really do not need to deal with it like New York is signaling they're going to deal with it - in mandatorily incarcerating people. We see that we have problems here in our state and a lawsuit that's currently being filed with people with behavioral health problems struggling in our current jail system and not getting their needs met, and their whole process is being delayed sometimes with no foreseeable end because we don't have enough resources in that direction. So people want that, but they don't want this continual one note - Hey, it's either police or it's nothing. And we'll see where it's going - as we hear a siren in the background here, appropriate - but yeah, it's just the rhetoric doesn't match the reality. The saddest thing is that the public sees it and our leaders are behind where the public is at - and they keep asking and they keep voting for something different. And we have leaders that are just stuck on the same thing, and I think that frustration and tension is growing. And it feels like they're ratcheting this up for the 2023 City elections coming, and they're going to try and make this a flashpoint for those conversations. But I think that's not a very wise strategy, because the public has not been going for it. We just had an election where it's pretty clear they did not go for that argument in many different ways at many different levels. This is not just a Seattle thing. This is a King County-wide thing, a State of Washington thing. And it's time that they take heed instead of pushing on, just kind of - despite all reason and evidence to do this. [00:46:15] Doug Trumm: Yeah. It's pretty clear they're telegraphing this is their signal when you have your press release fired up before the budget's even officially passed. And in the case of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, that these are public safety cuts. Nelson - and Pedersen is the one who's up for re-election - they really complimented the way he voted on that as far as voting down this budget over this tiny, tiny bit of disagreement over the police budget that they blew out of proportion. Apparently deleting these 80 out of 240 unfilled positions - you know, sending the wrong signal and is - people, the public trust has been damaged now. And it's just - get me to the fainting couch - they can add back these positions anytime. No other department in the whole city would ever have this many, anywhere near this - 240 empty positions - you just keep the money. And they get to - SPD gets to put it wherever they want in their department, basically, because of the way they don't eliminate those positions, and just Council and the mayor - tell them which parts they wanted - who would run an organization this way? If you don't have, if you're not paying for something - why are you still paying for it? It just, it - I dunno - it drives me nuts. It goes back to that sort of frenzy and the sort of fear mongering around crime - where if we don't just heap gobs of money at the police department - we're not talking about Defund, we're not talking about reducing the amount of - the headcount at SPD. We're just saying - how are you spending this money? Can we spend this money wiser? If we have less officers, we need to be spending the money wiser. We can't just have it be a slush fund, like we saw in - I think it was 2018 or 2019, right after they passed the budget - the average police compensation went up to like $157,000 per officer. This one officer made over $400,000 because they were just letting the overtime fly like hotcakes. And an officer working 80-hour weeks - is that making us safer? It doesn't really seem like the way to do it. You kind of put yourself in between a rock and a hard place because they also fight the alternatives - they say they're for a mental health professional showing up for those crisis calls, but then they block the program to actually set up an alternative emergency response. And that's what SPD has been up to the past few years. As Councilmember Lewis and Mosqueda and others have fought to set up - like Denver has - a alternative response, and they make up excuse after excuse. They say maybe the police actually have to be there. They dispute their own study that showed that most of these calls could be done without an armed officer there. But yeah, it just - there's nothing evidence-based or strategic about this kind of election-based fearmongering, just kind of opportunistic way of dealing with this problem. People wonder why this problem is festering - there has been a troubling trend over the last nine years - of corporate mayors that the Chamber and all these other centrist forces and Seattle Times have endorsed. They're not making the problem better, but they keep running on it like they are. So it really is - it's created a weird thing. And I wrote about how this sort of relates to us holding our mayoral and council elections in odd years when the electorate is smaller and they can kind of dominate the debate among this crowded, smaller electorate - tends to be more homeowners, tends to be wealthier and whiter than the population at-large. So it works in the odd year. But as we saw with voters passing even-year election reform - they're not asking for these elections to be in odd years, they'd rather them be in even years. And the County is going to make that move for Executive and Council races, and a few others like County Assessor - county-level races. But we actually need state permission to do that for the municipal level. So hopefully we get that because if we're going to solve this problem, it makes sense to have the broader segment of the electorate actually weigh in on that rather than purposely choosing a low turnout election to make all these decisions. So that's one thing I hope happens out of this, but don't hold your breath because I think they like it that way. [00:50:54] Crystal Fincher: They absolutely do seem to like it that way. And you did write a real good article breaking this phenomenon down. It's just frustrating to see voters - they are frustrated about public safety. They do know that we could be doing better, while seeing people continue to make decisions in the opposite direction. And when they are given a voice, it's definitive in one direction. And we just - the King County Prosecutor race that we just had was really a referendum on this entire argument. And mirrors what we saw in 2020, with the King County Charter Amendments. This is not just a Seattle thing. This is a countywide thing. One of the things I think people try and dismissively do i - oh, this is just, it's only a thing in super liberal Seattle, progressive Seattle, and no one else wants this. And we continue to have voters say - no, no, actually this is what we want - all over the county. And places where their electeds really are under the impression that - hey, the public, maybe they do just want more police officers, or I'm afraid to say anything different because they may not accept it. Public's already there, as we continue to see. And my goodness, in these Council elections coming up, there could not be a more clear mandate of movement in one direction in literally every district in the City. To enormous degrees - Leesa Manion's victory was large throughout the county. Yes, in Seattle - it was decisive and humongous. And in each of the council districts, it was - it was just really - it's just really something. I'm sitting here working in elections and you try and understand where voters are, understand where policy is - what's effective, where things need to move - and they're actually in alignment. And the barrier is - there seem to be some in media who are very stuck on not wanting this to happen, and a number of elected officials who believe them. And it's just continuing to be frustrating. But we see, in so many cities and so many districts - whether it's City Council districts, County Council districts, cities, precincts - across the board, they prefer a balanced, comprehensive approach to public safety and outright reject what we heard from Jim Ferrell - the more punitive - Hey, we need to crack down on things, make crime illegal again - understanding that punishment doesn't equal safety. And we would all rather be safe. We've tried punishment for decades and it has not resulted in a safer community for all of us. It has actually hurt it. And people want to be safe. They want to do the things that make us safe, and they understand - more than where a lot of leaders do - what the evidence says about that. So it's just really interesting. Was there anything noteworthy or unique that you saw in election results about that? [00:54:20] Doug Trumm: Yeah. I think it bears underscoring that the - very, very much the same coalition that was behind Republican now-City Attorney Ann Davison was the people behind Jim Ferrell, who was also a former Republican. Now, they both claim that they're Democrats now, but very much still act like Republicans. And there was a lot of Democrats - Sara Nelson endorsed Jim Ferrell and it didn't seem to help him very much in Seattle because, or her in Seattle - it helped her opponent, I guess, his opponent in Seattle. Leesa Manion cleaned up in Seattle - and that was part of her victory, but she won by 18 points. So it wasn't just Seattle, although Seattle was her strongest base of support. So it really seems like what an odd-year electorate does - electing a Republican in Ann Davison to be their City Attorney. And it's odd that we elect city attorneys - it doesn't really need to be that way. But they worked people up about crime and they did support Ann Davison, but in a much larger electorate just one year later they overwhelmingly supported Leesa Manion who's very much - let's stay the course, let's keep these diversionary programs. So whatever mandate Ann Davison thinks she had is absolutely gone. And all these people who are calculating - oh, maybe we can, maybe this whole region is just going to go tough on crime. It's just not happening. And the even-year election helps - we had reasonably good turnout. But the numbers are such that I wouldn't want to be Ann Davison going up for re-election, but hopefully we can get some of that turnout bump into the council elections because that's really what's at play here is - we've seen what an even-year electorate wants, and can we make that also what an odd-year electorate wants? But yeah, these crime narratives aren't connecting in the even year. Leesa Manion just did surprisingly well, considering - the way the race looked beforehand. One poll showed them tied right before the election, but clearly - A) their polls might've been a little bit overestimating support - and some of that goes into people didn't think that young people would turn out. And young people did turn out in relatively high numbers in this election. And hopefully that's a sign of things to come as well. It's just - that's what happens in odd years - why they're so much more conservative - is a lot of that younger vote kind of fades and a lot of communities of color and renters also fade. So you're left with the rest, which is the more conservative side of things. But it doesn't - people can - if we make clear what the stakes are, we hopefully can sustain some of that even-year turnout, but it also just - election year reform also would make this a lot simpler. So I can't underscore that enough. It drives - yeah, it's sort of odd that we are stuck in this predicament of - it's clear what people want, but because of odd years, we have to fight twice as hard. So yeah, I think these results really are - suggest potentially that 2021 - in Seattle's case - where we saw a lot of centrists come into power, might've been a bit of an outlier. It doesn't necessarily mean all these people are weak in their re-election hopes, but all the talks about Seattle's now drifting conservative - I don't see it. [00:58:02] Crystal Fincher: And there was a backlash and - I feel like I've been on a small island, with just a few others, who have said the entire time that that race was an outlier. One, Seattle is different than a lot of other areas. If there really was a wholesale pushback on that, we would have also seen that in suburbs, we would have seen that in different areas. We actually saw the opposite happen in suburbs, where they elected - a number of suburbs elected more progressive officials than they ever had before - who were speaking strongly about making the community more safe with comprehensive public safety policies and really rejecting the punitive policies. The race in Seattle was an odd race - you had an incumbent who lost in the primary, you had two really unknown people who both - didn't really consider themselves to be Democrats, so there were unalignments. You had massively different levels of spending and different levels of voter communication. And, from a political consulting point of view, you have to talk to all of the voters who are voting in the election. It's wonderful - and canvassing and doorbelling is great - but you just cannot canvass a city as big as the City of Seattle in one election cycle. And that's what we saw happen. There was a lot of canvassing, but a lot less direct voter communication. You may make it to 50,000 people with that canvassing, but you got to talk to the other 200,000 - and that happens with direct voter communications. And they were just massively, massively outspent. And the spending that did happen was really late for the progressive candidates, so if you aren't known, and if your opponent can define who you are - and spends half a million dollars doing so - that's going to carry the day and it did. But that is a unique kind of nuts-and-bolts-of-campaigns thing that was apparent to a lot of people before the election results. So that's not just hindsight is 20/20 things - those were, as that was shaping up - that was concerning to a lot of folks who were looking at and participating in those elections. And so we had before that, the 20 - well, we did see a direct public safety vote in the King County Charter Amendment votes, which wound up largely like these wound up. And just looking at these 2022 King County Prosecutor results - again, people try and characterize this as a Seattle thing - but Renton, Newcastle, Mercer Island, Sammamish, Issaquah, Bellevue, Bothell, Kenmore. Those cities are not what I think a lot of people would group into the Seattle progressive bucket, and were firmly in the side of Leesa Manion and rejecting punitive public safety policies. As we look at the Blake decision and people, looking at - well, people are scared, it's really worrisome to look at that. We're talking about - the 45th, the 48th, the 41st, the 11th, the 33rd LDs, right - these are not Seattle-based LDs. These are North and Eastside, Vashon Island, like these - everywhere around the county, voters are very decisively saying - we want to move in a direction that evidence points will make us more safe. And I just really hope that our elected officials stop listening to some of the detached rhetoric and start looking at the evidence and what their constituents are saying - because those who aren't are going to pay a price. And it's really important to take a look at what results actually are, and tether ourselves to reality here, and call out the reporting and the characterizations that are not tethered to reality. That's going to be an important thing. [01:02:33] Doug Trumm: Hey, there was this Seattle Times editorial this morning that was mad at Bruce Harrell for not being louder about the huge public safety cuts to his budget - the 1% that we mentioned earlier. Why isn't he getting in the arena? That's what Blethen and his buddies said, and it's - okay, that's crazy - first. But also, maybe this is saying that some of the politicians see the writing on the wall that - okay, this isn't like a home run issue for them like they maybe thought. They have to kind of actually try to moderate and have compromise and have a truly, comprehensive public safety plan instead of putting lip service to the alternatives and just being all police all the time. I don't know if that's what went into the thought of Harrell not getting into the arena, like the Seattle Times Editorial Board asked him to, but yeah - it certainly is unhinged. And it - Fox News always has a ton of crime coverage right before elections, and then it drops in half - there's been a study on this and after the midterm. So suddenly it's not prime all the time when you turn on Fox News - there's a reason for that. It's calculated, it's manipulation, it's election manipulation. And a lot of these other papers, including The Seattle Times, do that as well. I haven't seen the studies see that it's dropped in half, but that's part of the whole game and it's part of why the playing field isn't even. But I think, eventually, you have to have actual truth to what you're saying, or it starts just not connecting where we're at then. [01:04:17] Crystal Fincher: Well said. And with that, we thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, December 2nd, 2022. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was Executive Director of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. You can find Doug on Twitter @dmtrumm - that's two Ms at the end. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me @finchfrii. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. 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 soon.

On this week's Hacks & Wonks, Crystal is joined by friend of the show, defense attorney, abolitionist and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy! They start catching up with the Seattle City Budget. The City Council revealed their proposed budget earlier this week, and in general it proposes putting back funding for programs that were originally given fewer resources under Mayor Harrell's proposal - most notably restoring the raises for frontline homeless service workers, which were cut in Harrell's budget. The Council's proposal also uses JumpStart funds as originally intended, cuts ghost cop positions, and eliminates funding for the controversial ShotSpotter program. After the horrific incident last week that involved a shooting at Seattle's Ingraham High School, students staged a walkout and protest on Monday to ask city leaders for resources to help prevent gun violence. The students are asking for anti-racism and de-escalation training for school security, assault weapon bans, and more school counselors and mental health resources. What they have made clear they don't want is more cops in schools, but despite that Mayor Harrell and some of his advisory boards are advocating for an increased police presence in schools. Housing updates this week start with positive news: Mayor Harrell is asking for affordable housing to be exempt from the much maligned design review process. Allowing affordable housing to skip design review will encourage developers to build affordable housing, and will help us battle our housing shortage faster than we could otherwise. In frustrating housing news, KING5 released some upsetting reporting outlining some overt racial housing discrimination against Black families in Seattle, including one story about family who received a significantly higher appraisal when they dressed their home to look like it was owned by a white family.  Carolyn Bick from the South Seattle Emerald reported on potential City and State records laws violations by the Office of Police Accountability. The OPA has been manually deleting emails, or allowing them to automatically be deleted, before the two-year mark prescribed by City and State laws. It's another example of a city office failing to hold itself accountable to basic records standards.  The Seattle Department of Transportation seemed to once again be more responsive to concerns about administrative liability than community concerns about pedestrian safety amid rising fatalities. When locals painted an unauthorized crosswalk at the intersection of E Olive Way and Harvard, SDOT workers removed the crosswalk within 24 hours. This is happening while many people and business owners, most notably Councilmember Sara Nelson, have been placing illegal “eco blocks” without removals or consequences.  Finally, the Chair of Washington State Democrats is being criticized for threats to withhold resources against Washington House candidates if they showed support for nonpartisan Secretary of State candidate Julie Anderson. This is a high-profile extension of a question that party groups–big and small–are dealing with: how do we handle Democrats' support of nonpartisan or third party candidates?  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, on Twitter at @NTKallday. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “City Council's ‘anti-austerity' budget package: Aiming JumpStart back where it belongs, preserving parking enforcement's move out of SPD, nuking ShotSpotter, and giving mayor his ‘Unified Care Team'” by jseattle from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog   “Morales Hopes to Resurrect Social Housing Amendment That Didn't Make Balancing Package Cut” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Learn more about how to get involved in Seattle's budget season at this link.   “Care, Not Cops” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Seattle proposal would free affordable projects from design review — and give all developers path to skip public meetings” by CHS from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog   “After a low appraisal, Black Seattle family 'whitewashes' home, gets higher price” by PJ Randhawa from KING5   “Why housing discrimination is worse today than it was in the 1960s” by PJ Randhawa from KING5   “OPA May Have Broken City and State Records Laws By Not Retaining Emails” by Carolyn Bick from The South Seattle Emerald    “SDOT Decries Tactical Urbanism While Allowing Eco-Blocks All Over the City” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola    “Rent a Capitol Hill apartment from one of these companies? You ‘may have rights under antitrust laws to compensation' as lawsuit alleges price-fixing violations in Seattle” by jseattle from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog “Scoop: State Democratic Party chair under fire for alleged threats” by Melissa Santos from Axios   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. Full text transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show, today's cohost: defense attorney, abolitionist and activist, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. Hey. [00:00:54] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Hey - thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. [00:00:57] Crystal Fincher: Welcome back. Great to have you back. So we have a few things going on this week. We will start with the Seattle budget. The mayor introduced his budget a few weeks back - this is now the Council, and the President of the Council, being able to introduce their own budget and their take on things. What did you see here that was notable? [00:01:21] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I think the things that were really notable were that JumpStart was headed back to where it was originally planned. That tax was created for affordable housing and things like that, and the mayor tried to take it a different direction that I don't think addresses the City's needs at all - so it was good to see that. Keeping - not giving SPD the money for those ghost cops - the officers that don't actually work there, that haven't actually worked there for a while - their salaries, SPD was allowed to keep for a long time, and so taking that away. And I think really most importantly - to me, given what I do - is taking out the money for ShotSpotter, which is something that the mayor has pushed really hard for, but has shown to not work and actually be detrimental to marginalized communities in other cities. And that was a million dollars, so it was great to see that taken out. [00:02:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that was definitely an improvement, I think, in a lot of people's minds. That was something that did seem to be oddly championed by the mayor and very few other people, regardless of what their political orientation or leaning is. It is just something that - a decade ago, people were wondering if it had some potential, and then it was implemented in a number of cities with a number of very well-documented problems. One thing that it does not seem to be able to accomplish is to reduce gun violence, which is its ultimate goal. But it did introduce a lot of other problems. It was expensive. It seemed to increase surveillance and harassment, particularly of Black and Brown communities, without intervening or interrupting any kind of violence. And that is just an inexpensive and ineffective use of funds. Given a budget shortfall, it seems like we should not be wasting money on things that have proven not to work and not to make anyone safer. I think another notable difference in this budget, between the mayor's budget, was he had proposed a reduction in salary for some of the frontline workers for homelessness services and outreach services there. Those are critical positions and crucial to being able to address homelessness, reduce homelessness. A lot has been covered over the years across the country about how important having comfortable, well-paid frontline workers is so that they're not living in poverty, they aren't in unstable positions - creating a lot of turnover and uncertainty with the workers on the frontline - so that they do have the capacity and ability to do that kind of frontline outreach work and getting people into services that meet their needs. And so there was definitely a repudiation of the idea of reducing their pay and making sure that their pay will continue to rise with the cost of living and the Consumer Price Index. So that was nice to see. A few other things, like you talked about, just making sure that the JumpStart funds, which it seems now everybody is acknowledging, have been very helpful. And even people who previously opposed it are now backing its use to backfill their own plans. But really just making sure that it is spent in a way consistent with its original charter, basically. And so more of a right-sizing and being more consistent with the spending that Seattle voters have backed, that these candidates were elected and reelected with mandates to go forward with - that we're seeing that there. Moving forward here, there was just an opportunity for public comment earlier this year. There is one more opportunity for councilmembers to introduce amendments to this budget before it's going to be ultimately passed. So I encourage everyone, if you have thoughts about the budget, we'll include some links just explaining it. There was a really good Capitol Hill Seattle story just breaking down the budget and what's happening there to make sure we go there. But a few notable other investments from there include $20 million each year for equitable development initiative projects that advance economic opportunity and prevent displacement. $20 million Green New Deal investments each year, including $4 million to create community climate resilience labs. $4.6 million for indigenous-led sustainability projects and $1.8 million for community-led environmental justice projects. $9 million for school-based health centers, which is a really big deal, including a new $3 million across the biennium for mental health services in response to the demand for more health providers from teachers and students - we'll talk a little bit more about the student walkout and strike and their demands later in the show. Also created a combined total of $1.5 million for abortion care in 2023, to ensure access to reproductive care for uninsured people in Seattle. And a $253 million investment into the Office of Housing for affordable housing - and that's over $50 million more than the last budget for building rental housing, more supportive services, first-time ownership opportunities. I know a lot of people are also hoping that Councilmember Tammy Morales' proviso makes it back into the budget to support social housing and securing City-owned property for rental housing that has a much better shot of being able to be affordable for regular people working in the City, especially those who don't have six-figure incomes and can't afford a million dollar home. This is going to be crucial to making sure that we have dedicated land and space and capacity to build permanent affordable housing. [00:07:54] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, and I hope that makes it back in very - I really hope that makes it back in. The thing that I see with the Council's - what they're proposing to put back in, or the changes they're making from Harrell's budget - is most all of them address things that would enhance public safety. And when I hear about things like old technology that's been shown not to work, that gives more or giving more money to police or things like that, I think people think that that's about public safety, but it's not. Those are reactionary things, those are things that have been shown not to address the problems, we really do need to be looking at those upstream things like housing, helping marginalized communities, mental health - all of these things are things that are actually going to result in more safety for everyone. And so I'm happy to see that their proposals are addressing those things. And I hope that they make it into the final budget. [00:08:52] Crystal Fincher: I agree. And I also think that we saw - with just these past election results that we received - that residents of Seattle, really across the county, but especially in Seattle, once again, show through their votes for candidates who are talking about addressing root causes, the rejection of candidates for the Legislature for King County Prosecuting Attorney who were talking about punitive punishment-based approaches, lock-em-up approaches, which the city and the county continually have rejected. And I think voters are just at the point where they're saying, no, please listen - you have already increased funding for police, but we have these big gaps in all of these other areas that we need you to address and fill, and it's - just talking about police is doing the overall public safety conversation a disservice because it takes so many other things to make sure that we are building communities that are safer, and where fewer people get victimized, and where we are not creating conditions that cause disorder. And so I hope that they are listening. And I hope that that gives both the Budget Chair and councilmembers faith and strength and motivation to move forward with these kinds of investments in community - that center community and that center addressing the root causes of crime, preventing crime - which is the most important thing that we can do. I don't think anyone is looking around and saying - things are great, things are fine - but I think people are fed up with the inaction or bad action and ineffective action taken. So we will stay tuned and continue to report on that. [00:10:47] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Very helpful. [00:10:47] Crystal Fincher: We just alluded to, but talked about this week - following last week's shooting of an Ingraham High School student by another student - extremely extremely tragic situation - that student wound up dying. This is a traumatic thing for the school community to go through, for the entire community to go through. And we saw students walk out to cause awareness and with a list of demands. What were they demanding? [00:11:19] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I'm not going to get it perfectly off the top of my head, but they want more resources for students. They want more mental health care. They want access to those things. They want things that are preventative. They're not asking for punitive retribution or more metal detectors or cops in schools or something like that. They're asking for things that are actually going to be preventative, that are going to encourage the wellbeing of all students. And they know that that's what's going to keep them safe. And from what I've seen from SPS - they seem responsive to those demands in some way. It remains to see what will be actually followed through on. But the response I've seen so far from SPS, just being the parent of an SPS student, is that they are listening to what these kids are actually saying and what the data actually shows will make these kids safer. So I find that to be hopeful. I hope you can verbalize what their list of demands were more succinctly than that, because I don't want to misrepresent what they're saying at all. But when I read through what they were asking for and saw what they were asking for, it was all stuff that was aimed at prevention - because that's what - they don't want to be shot. And that's very valid. And they shouldn't have to worry about those things. And the things that have been implemented for years, like more police in school, those lockdown drills and things like that - it's not working. It's just like we were talking about with the budget stuff, we need to get to those root causes. [00:13:04] Crystal Fincher: You're exactly right. And what these students want really does, to your point, cover the gamut of preventative measures. So there are a few different things. One, they want the district to increase anti-racist and de-escalation training for any security at Seattle Public Schools. They also demand that the state update safe storage laws and ban assault rifles. Students asked the Council to reroute $9 million from SPD to pay for counselors. They want one counselor - to be paid a living wage - but at least at a ratio of 1 for every 200 students. Right now, the district is averaging about 1 for every 350 students, so that is a significant increase in counselors. But I don't think there is anyone here who does not acknowledge the need for more mental health resources for students. And this is especially pronounced in the middle schools across the district. So that is a pretty substantial one. They did say that they don't want cops in schools. They don't want the introduction of more guns, more people with guns in schools - but they want the things that will prevent them. They want mental health resources and community-based resources, therapy resources, and intentional de-escalation and communication training, DBT therapy training - really for students there, so they can figure out how to use words to disarm and de-escalate conflicts instead of getting physically violent, encouraging gun violence, that type of thing. They really want to - they understand that there's a gap with many kids that they're trying to navigate through and this is a normal thing for students anyway. We need to equip them with the tools to work through conflict, to work through their emotions, even when they're very big. They recognize that and they're calling for that. So these are all things that are backed by data and evidence, that have shown to reduce conflict, to reduce violence of all kinds, definitely gun violence. And that are evidence-based, have worked in other areas - pretty reasonable. And so there are a few areas where this could come from. They're certainly asking the Legislature for action, but also with the City and the mental health money. I think Teresa Mosqueda said that she was allocating $2 million and saying that's a down payment on what the students are asking for. Another source that was talked about by some people online was the Families & Education Levy in the City of Seattle, which is tailor-made for things like this. And so that, I think, should be part of this conversation going forward. But we absolutely do need more mental health resources in the schools. And we heard that post - as students were returning back to school after schools were closed due to COVID, and as they were returning, there were certainly a lot of parents who wanted to reopen schools, get their students back in there, but also talked about the challenges that students were dealing with - with anxiety and a range of mental health needs. They seemed to acknowledge that students, in connection with violent events happening and needing to deal with that - we need to figure out a way to get this done. I think the student demands are entirely reasonable and the entire community needs to listen. Now, one dimension of the story that we have seen, there was a story - and I forget at this point who came out with it - but it was like the district is exploring basically putting armed police officers back in school. Upon reading the story, it was like no, actually the district, no one in the district was considering that. The students specifically said they didn't want that. School board members said that they were not currently examining that. But it does seem like the mayor and some of his advisory boards are advocating for armed police officers to return to schools. It seems like the people directly impacted are saying, no, please no, again, not anymore. But the mayor has a different viewpoint here. How do you see that? [00:17:57] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: First of all - yes, the student demands are very reasonable and it's, I don't know, I'm constantly impressed by youth - just how informed they are, the way they present their ideas, and just - they're deeply rooted in this. They are the ones that are impacted. We didn't have to deal with this growing up. I didn't have to deal with this growing up. I didn't have to deal with COVID. I didn't have to deal with the Internet. I didn't have to deal with guns in schools. This is new territory for these kids and they are the ones that are able to tell us what they need and they do so so well. And it is backed by data and research. And I think the mayor has suggested or wants to do this cops-back-in-school thing, but kids know this isn't what has made us safe. We have seen very, very good - horrible, tragic examples of how school resource officers fail to keep kids safe. And I think a lot of people's eyes have been open to that. And while I see the suggestion, I acknowledge the suggestion, I don't think it's serious. I don't think you can keep talking about more cops, more cops - putting more cops here - and be serious about safety. We know that doesn't work. And I think that there's enough kids, there's enough parents, there's enough people, there's enough people on the Council that know these things that - if he wants to push forward that kind of agenda, I think the pushback is going to be really big. And we can't keep pretending that that's the solution - I think that a lot of people are ready to stop doing that and to be able to push back. And I love this walkout. I think it's so encouraging that these kids are really pushing for what they know to be true. And they're not just sitting there saying, there's nothing we can do about it. They know that there's something they can do about it. So I think that's very encouraging. And I would expect that any sort of really serious pushing forward of that idea of more cops in school, I would expect there to be really very large community and student backlash to those ideas. [00:20:15] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think there would be pretty ferocious backlash to that. We will see how that proceeds and continue to keep you up to date on that. Now, something that Bruce Harrell announced this week, that actually seems like it's going to have a positive reception and that can move things in a positive direction - he's looking to exempt affordable housing from design review - from the much-maligned design review process. What's he proposing to do here? [00:20:47] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: He's proposing sort of a moratorium on affordable housing projects having to go through design review. So if people don't know - design review is a lengthy process where there's - I'm doing air quotes - "community input" on housing design, and it really drags out housing projects for so long. If you see an empty lot and there's a billboard up that says that they're going to build a nine-story building with mixed use - there'll be commercial space on the bottom - and then nothing happens for years and years and years. There's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the primary ones is that really long design review process, which is shown not to be actually that democratic when it comes to the community. So exempting affordable housing from that is such a huge and awesome idea that I think someone said, why didn't we do this before when there was a homelessness crisis declared? Ed Murray could have done this when he declared that crisis, but instead that there's all these projects that are languishing and really upping the price for developers to even build these things. So I think there's - not only is it going to get affordable housing built more quickly if this is actually implemented, which I hope it is, but it's also going to make building affordable housing more attractive to developers because just having that land sit there and having those plans sit there for years and years - it makes it very expensive for developers to undertake projects. And when they do, they're going to want to get as much return on their investment as possible. And so you have to make up for those lost years of the land just sitting there. And so allowing this to go forward is going to provide more housing for the community, which we desperately, desperately need, but it's also going to encourage developers to build affordable housing over other types of housing. So I think this is fantastic and I really hope it goes through. [00:22:55] Crystal Fincher: I think it is fantastic. I think this is a good example of listening to the community. This is a win all the way across for developers who are trying to build projects more economically and more quickly, for just the community who is waiting for housing prices to be more affordable - and not just because interest rates are changing the equation for a lot of people, but to get more supply online quickly. And so this was done with Mayor Bruce Harrell and with Councilmembers Dan Strauss and Teresa Mosqueda. And it would begin a one-year interim period exempting affordable housing projects from design review and then use that trial year to conduct what Harrell says will be a full State Environmental Policy Act review of legislation to try and make this exemption permanent. And so it would permanently exempt, or they're hoping to permanently exempt, housing projects from design review - exempting housing projects that use the mandatory housing affordability program to produce their units on site for a two-year pilot and also allow other housing projects to choose whether to participate in full design review or administrative design review as a two-year pilot. So this is something that hopefully does get more affordable housing units online quickly, cut through the bureaucracy - so a positive development here and excited to see it. What I was not excited to see was a story on KING5 about one of the elements that is part of the wealth disparity, the wealth gap that we see. We've seen stories, sometimes from across the country, talking about whitewashing homes and homes owned by Black people getting lower appraisals than other homes for no other reason, seemingly, than that they're Black. And this happened with a Black family in Seattle who got an initial home appraisal - they had their family pictures in there, they had some African art up. The home was visibly owned by Black people. So with this, this family got an appraisal that was initially $670,000 - under the median home price in Seattle. They thought - well, that seems low, that seems out-of-spec for what we've seen others in this area. So they decided to take down their personal pictures. They put up pictures from a white family. They had a white friend stand in the house presented now as if it was owned by a white family. And instead of the $670,000 appraisal, they got a $929,000 appraisal. The only difference was that it was a home owned by a white person, that appeared to be owned by a white person, versus one that is owned by a Black person - right here in Seattle. What did you think of this? [00:26:09] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Personally, I was not surprised. I saw that this had happened in other areas. I think there was a famous example from a couple of years ago where the difference was half a million dollars. But I think that there's an idea that - in Seattle, we're so progressive, we're so liberal that this kind of thing doesn't happen here. And it does. And I think it's dangerous to think that it doesn't. I think that the Black community gets gaslighted a lot about these things when this is a really clear, very obvious example. But how many other times has this happened? Probably quite a bit. And it's really contributing to the wealth gap. And this is something that Black people have been saying for years has been happening. And it's just now starting to catch on. People are starting to catch on that this is a thing. And when I say people, I mean people who are not Black because they already know about this. But it's really starting to be something that's obvious, that's happening here, that's happening everywhere. And there's all of these little things that happen to maintain that wealth gap - because it's the appraisal value, it's also Black homeowners being targeted for mortgage takeovers by banks, by realty companies. This is not something that a lot of white homeowners deal with - I think in one of the articles, a parent had died. And so then they kept getting calls from different groups asking to buy the home for cash and asking to do some sort of weird backhand reverse mortgage and things like - there's a lot of predatory things out there aimed at Black people and Black homeowners that white homeowners don't deal with. And I'm glad to see KING5 do this story. It's awful that it's happening, but I think the public needs to know that this is something that's happening and that in progressive Seattle, we are not - by any stretch of the imagination - immune to things like this happening on a regular basis. [00:28:23] Crystal Fincher: We are not at all immune. It impacts us in so many ways. Just where we still deal with the legacy of redlining and where Black people in Black communities have been. And then as there is this new displacement happening - that kind of difference in home valuation can very much determine whether that family can afford to buy again in Seattle or be forced out of Seattle. This is just such a major problem and just another manifestation of it here. So yeah, unfortunately not something that I found surprising, but just still really infuriating all the same. And I just hope more people wake up to see what's happening and engage in how they can help make this community more inclusive and do the work that needs to be done because there is work that needs to be done. [00:29:15] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Absolutely. [00:29:17] Crystal Fincher: Other news this week - the Office of Police Accountability may have broken records laws in what - how they've been operating. What happened here? [00:29:29] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: So in this case, I believe Carolyn Bick from the Emerald had put in a public disclosure request for some emails. And what she got back from OPA was that they didn't retain it because they followed SPD's policy of record retention, which is different than the City's policy of record retention, which - they say they're part of SPD or they initially said they were a part of SPD, but they're not. They're not a law enforcement agency. They're a City agency. But I would like to point out one thing too - that the City's record retention policy is wild compared to other bigger entities. If you're a City employee, you're required to archive emails or communications that could be of public interest. So instead of automatically retaining everything and then deleting spam or needing this manual deletion, you have to manually save it. But what's in the public interest is huge. So there should be a default to be saving these things all the time. And of course, we've seen with other communications, like the mayor's texts or Carmen Best's texts, that absolutely those things should have been saved and they set them to delete instead. I think the argument here is about what is the record retention policy for OPA and it's just - it's just interesting that this is the Office of Police Accountability, but yet they're not accountable for their own record keeping. And then the City Attorney's Office said, we can't give you an answer to the question about, do they have SPD's retention policy or the City's retention policy? They said that calls for a legal opinion, so we can't give you one - which to me is just like, what do you do then? Isn't that your job - to make those determinations? So just another way that the Office of Police Accountability is - it's just an HR department for SPD. They just whitewash everything and put righteous complaints through a long bureaucratic process that they tell people to trust in, that ends at being a big old nothing - that even that process - that they can't keep correct records for. So it's shocking really just how much it is all the time that we're hearing about this stuff. [00:32:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's what is notable to me. It's just yet another thing from a body that is supposed to hold other entities accountable - and seems to have challenges doing that - just seeming to skirt accountability itself and being a hub of so much controversy. Just really makes you evaluate - what is the purpose, what is happening, what is going on? Are we doing more harm than good here? And it just seems like we don't ever receive answers, that there are very alarming things that happen. And the answers are to - well, we'll reshuffle some staff and we won't really address the substance of what happened. We'll just call it a day, wrap it up, put a stamp on it, and close it out. We just won't talk about it anymore. It's just - what is happening, why are we doing this? And jeez, if this is just going to be a farce, can we just save the money and do something else? Why are we investing in something that continues to break rules, and to seemingly break accountability processes? Just really confusing there. [00:33:30] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, very much so. [00:33:32] Crystal Fincher: Also really confusing this week - SDOT once again very quickly erased a crosswalk - a crossswalk that a community put up at a dangerous intersection, that is clearly an intersection where people are designed to cross - indicated by the curb cut and the ADA-compliant rumble strip. But it was a dangerous place to cross. It was a place where community had brought up concerns that had seemingly not been listened to or addressed. They decided, as has happened before in the City, to put up their own crosswalk to increase the safety of people who need to cross the street. And there are people who need to cross the street more safely. But once again, seemingly - within 24 hours, I think - SDOT appeared and took action, not based off of calls for increased safety and taking action to make this intersection more safe, but came and removed the paint creating the crosswalk, saying for reasons of safety and liability, they can't stand by and let the community paint a crosswalk, even if it is painted to standards. But they immediately removed it. And the new head of SDOT said, hey, we are trying to move in a new direction, but we can't. We'll never be comfortable with people painting their own crosswalks for liability reasons. And then receiving pushback from the community saying, we ask you to take action to make this more safe. You don't. People get killed on the street. People get run into and hurt. Our street designs are nearly exclusively car-centric in most of the City. So hey, neighbors took action to make the road safer for their neighbors, for kids who need to cross the street, for elderly people, disabled people who need to cross the street. And it just seems that the action comes when people take their own actions - [00:35:50] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Sometimes [00:35:51] Crystal Fincher: - to make the street safer. That will get resources out to remove it, but we don't seem to be wanting to deploy the resources necessary to make these intersections safer. How did you see this? [00:36:05] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, I applaud the effort of the community to make those streets safer. And I thought that the reasoning given - safety and liability - was thin. There's nothing about not having a crosswalk that makes it safer, obviously - that's what the community has been complaining about. And in terms of liability, it's always interesting to me that the liability that they're talking about is liability for a crosswalk that, "shouldn't be there," that they didn't sanction. But apparently there's no liability for people who are continually injured or killed in a place where the community has asked repeatedly for a crosswalk. And I think that it seems disingenuous to me. And yes, and it doesn't really mesh with the other things that they're talking about. So they can have someone come out and pressure wash off something that's supposed to be for community safety - like you said, for kids, for elders, for disabled people, for everyone - because we all walk if we're able. But the streets belong to everybody. But then they'll have someone come out and pressure wash this crosswalk off overnight. But at the same time, we have seen, for over a year, these ecoblocks, the big concrete blocks - that I think the most famous example of them is Councilmember Sara Nelson putting them around her business - so RVs, or people who are unfortunately having to live in their car, can't park near her business. Those are popping up all over the City now. And SDOT says, we're unwilling to pull people off safety projects to move those. But yet, they'll get someone out there overnight to erase something that's making public safety, but they won't do anything about these ecoblocks. And I think that's really another disingenuous argument, because there is more that they could be doing about that. There's ticketing. There's not just going and every day removing whatever's put there. There's a lot of things - there's fines, there's ticketing - that they could do to discourage this, and they're just not doing it. And to me, I think back to 2020 - when SPD built that ecoblock fort around the East Precinct and the West Precinct too. They built a little fort out of these City-owned ecoblocks around their precinct. And when there was things that ecoblocks were needed for, the City said, we don't have any more ecoblocks right now because they're being used for SPD's fort. And so now it seems like we have a glut of ecoblocks in the city - they're just everywhere. So I don't really understand where they're coming from. If they're not coming from SDOT, where are they coming from? And if they're not coming from SDOT and these are people buying ecoblocks and putting them there - on city streets - seems like it would be fairly advantageous for SDOT to go and pick them up. They're on public property. We didn't have enough of them before. Why not just collect them then? Or like I said, especially when they're on a private business, there's so much more the City could be doing about it. And obviously there's someone on the Council that does it. It's never been addressed. And it shakes, I think, people's faith and trust in City government and City agencies when they so clearly don't - their actions don't match up with what they're saying that they want to do. And so I expect more of these sort of crosswalks to pop up. And the community has been having these conversations with SDOT forever and nothing has happened. If this is what's moving the conversation forward, if this is what's creating safety - to me, that's the most important thing. People shouldn't be dying on the street. That's the most important thing. So whatever creates safety, whatever moves that conversation forward to protect people's lives, I think that's great that the community is doing that. I hope it pushes the conversation forward and really creates this infrastructure that we so desperately need. [00:40:45] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree. I think those ecoblocks - some people I've seen refer to them now as Nelson blocks since Councilmember Sara Nelson, despite seeming acknowledgement that they are illegal, continues to use and deploy them and exclude others from public space that they are entitled to be in. And that just does not seem to be a priority, like some other things in this community that seemingly have lower costs or impacts. But just, yeah, that the responses don't seem to make sense. The interventions don't seem to be consistent. And I would really like to hear a coherent and consistent approach to safety in Seattle. Or at least start by understanding and acknowledging that what is happening is unacceptable. And instead of running to defend - and I understand that there are concerns about liability, that is a fact - but we do need to expand the conversation to - let's be not just concerned about getting sued, let's be concerned about one of the residents in the City, that we're responsible for, being killed. Because that is happening. And what are we doing to mitigate against that risk? - is really the bottom-line question I think people want some better answers to. [00:42:12] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, and they deserve them. [00:42:14] Crystal Fincher: They do. Another activity that maybe deserves - some Capitol Hill tenants are suing some landlords. What's happening here? [00:42:22] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: So they are suing - there's, I don't know if people know this, but there are a few corporations, big housing corporations that own a lot of the housing in Capitol Hill and all around Seattle. And so many of them have started using an algorithm, through a company called RealPage, that collects all the information about whatever the company-owned property is, but then also all of the surrounding properties - to raise rents. So to tell landlords the maximum asking price that they can have for rent, based on what's going on around the city, around the neighborhood, from all this data from other places. And it's caused a lot of - and it's something that these big companies can hide behind for rental hikes too - they say, oh, a computer algorithm sets our rental prices and this is what it's set as. And RealPage CEOs have been very open about saying this is more than most landlords could ask for - I wouldn't feel comfortable as a human being asking for this rent, but it's set by a computer, so I can't do anything about it. And it's really caused rents around Seattle and Capitol Hill to skyrocket. There's many factors that go into skyrocketing rents, but this is absolutely one of them. And so the lawsuit is alleging illegal price fixing by these tenants, or by these landlords. And they're not the small mom-and-pop landlords that we're talking about. We're talking about the big housing conglomerates that own so much of our rental housing here in Seattle. And it alleges that it's basically illegal price fixing by having all of these groups that just continuously raise the rent - at the same time, along the same lines - and it's driving up prices everywhere. And I'm very happy to see this lawsuit personally. Rents are out of control in Seattle, and some of that is tied to supply, obviously. Obviously, there's no doubt about that. But what we don't need is businesses taking advantage of data aggregation to make rents go higher and higher and higher. And what I hear sometimes is - the market supports this. And I think that's a really misguided argument. People need housing. It's very, very dangerous to live on the street. Nobody's living on the street because that's a good time. No one's having an urban camping vacation out there in the middle of November. People don't want to live on the street. Housing - like food, like water - is something that we all need. So just because the market supports it doesn't mean it's affordable or good for the rest of the city. When people are paying 50% or 60% of their income to rent, that hurts everyone. That makes it - as food prices go up, as rent goes up, we have people that have to lean on social services. They have to go without things that are - really, it's a detriment to our entire community. So I'm very happy to see this lawsuit. Anything we can do to bring rents down and rebalance the - there's never going to be a full balance between landlord and tenant, obviously, but there needs to be some sort of rebalancing that's going on to make it so people can actually afford to live in this city. [00:46:01] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We still have areas in the state where people's rent can double. We still have areas just - where we are displacing people in the name of profit. And this is an essential need. This is something that people need to survive. We are seeing an explosion in homelessness because people cannot afford a place to live. Fundamental causes of homelessness are the inability to afford rent. People try and blame - people dealing with substance use disorder or people with mental illnesses - and those are issues and often become worse issues after someone is out on the streets because that is such a rough environment. But the biggest contributor is the inability to pay rent. And that's why we see other areas that have higher instances of people dealing with substance abuse, higher instances of people dealing with those issues - that don't have the degree of homelessness that we do in areas like Seattle, where things are just simply so unaffordable for so many. So we absolutely need to do that. To your point, we need more supply and action - to get more supply is great, but we aren't going to fully address this issue until we bring this landlord and renter situation into greater balance, until there are more rent controls, renter protections in place. That is also a necessary piece of this scenario. And taking this action is necessary - what we've seen has been predatory and has contributed to homelessness. And if we don't get a handle on this, we're not going to get more people housed anywhere around here. So I think this is a justified action. I think that - no, we actually need to stand up and say, you are not entitled to ever-escalating and increasing profits on the backs of people who are providing valuable services and who are valuable people in our communities. We just can't allow that to happen. It's not that - no one can make a profit, right? It's not that we're outlawing being able to be a landlord. But there are responsibilities that should come with that. This is not just a great area for profit and speculation. You're dealing with people in their housing, you're dealing with families in their housing. And there should be a greater amount of care and responsibility that we demand from that. So I am also happy to see this happening. [00:48:55] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah. I also think it's important to realize that when there are so many housing - when there are so many landlords and companies raising these rents - like you said, they are also causing homelessness. These rising prices cause homelessness. So what is actually happening is they are externalizing the cost of homelessness to the community while they make ever greater profits. And as I really like to point out - that this is to the detriment of everyone. So it is the community that is paying for them to make ever greater profits. And that's what we're really talking about. It's not just, people should be able to make money - of course they should be able to make money - but this is something that you can't ignore. This is not like an expensive handbag. People need shelter. And so when we are talking about those things, there will be a community cost if those things aren't brought back in line. And it's important to recognize that the market can't fix all of this. There has to be something else when it comes to things that people - that are basic human needs. And I like the idea that housing is a human right. We need it. We can't live without it. And I think that more and more people are getting behind the idea of that - that housing is a human right, that we all deserve the dignity of living in a home. But I also hope people realize that it is these profiteering landlords that are externalizing the cost of their profits to the community. So yeah, I welcome this too. It's hopeful. [00:50:45] Crystal Fincher: It is. And the last thing we'll cover today - there was a story by Melissa Santos in Axios talking about the State Democratic Party Chair under fire for being a staunch defender of Democrats Steve Hobbs, and really discouraging and going after folks who endorsed non-partisan Julie Anderson and her race against Democrat Steve Hobbs for Secretary of State. You have Joe Fitzgibbon, who chairs the House Democrats Campaign Committee, saying that Tina made threats about withholding resources from Washington House candidates because Democratic House Speaker Laurie Jinkins supported the non-partisan candidate instead of the Democrat. And then you have folks - Tina Podlodowski, certainly, but also others saying that - hey, this is what happens in the Democratic Party. Either you back Democrats or you're not. You're free to support who you want, but not within the Democratic Party. How did you see this? [00:51:58] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: I thought this was a kind of a nothing, really. She's the Chair of the Democratic Party. Think whatever you want about Democrats - the job of the chair of the Democratic Party - there's many things to it, but pushing forward Democrat candidates, Democratic candidates, and a Democratic agenda is what she does. And I was really surprised - the headline of the article, which I know is not written by the journalist, said something about "alleged threats," which makes it sound so much more intense than it was - I think that it's - we really need to get serious about politics and about what we're doing. Republicans are on board with just voting for whoever has an R by their name, and that's something that Democrats haven't necessarily been doing. They've been trying to do that, but they haven't necessarily done it. But to think that the Chair of the Democratic Party is not going to try to push hard for Democratic candidates - I just thought was ridiculous, really. It just seemed like an absurd story. I have a limited - I had a limited experience with politics, but from what I experienced - this was nothing. This was really not much compared to what actually goes on in politics. To me, this just seems like she's trying to get Democratic candidates in there, which is what she's doing, that's what she's supposed to be doing. So I thought it was a kind of a weird story - the way it was framed, the choice of using the word "threat" without really talking about, until much later in the story, about what those "threats" really were - which were not direct, and which were about using Democratic Party funds and resources. And those are things that she's responsible for. I just really thought it was a kind of a nothing of a story, really. [00:54:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think what made it a story was that you had a House leader making these accusations directly, and that's something that we don't really see that often. And I think just the - I think it is largely to be expected that a Democratic Party Chair is not going to be happy with the endorsement of a Democrat. I think what caused more of the question is not just saying, hey, Joe Fitzgibbon or Laurie Jinkins, you took this action, and therefore I'm not happy with this - with you - and maybe not supporting you, but the extension to Democratic candidates overall across the state, potentially, because of that. Which Tina Podlodowski and her team said wasn't serious and was par for the course, after being confronted with the existence of them, after I think initially saying that nothing was said. But then, I think this is interesting - not necessarily for this instance - although I do think there's a healthy conversation to be had about is holding the support of unrelated candidates fair play or not. But also just because it does talk about - in this instance, we're talking about a nonpartisan - some of these issues become very simple if we're talking about Republicans. They become a little more complicated when we talk about nonpartisans, when we talk about - especially in the Seattle area - folks from the DSA or People's Party, who may not label themselves as Democrats, but may be aligned on values. And so, is the Democratic Party a party of a label where just the - vote blue, no matter who - if they have a D by their name, great. Or is it a party of principles underneath that label, and you're more searching for someone who adheres to those principles, which may be someone who doesn't necessarily identify as a Democrat. I think that this conversation has been happening within local party organizations for a while, and different LPOs [Local Party Organizations] have come up with different stances themselves. Some are fine with endorsing folks outside of the party if they align on values, and others are very not fine with that. I think we see where Tina Podlodowski and the State Party is on that. But it is, it's not a straightforward equation. Because you do have these resources for the - it is the Democratic Party - doesn't prevent anyone from aligning with another party in doing that. Although that's a flip remark - if you're a Democrat or if you're a Republican, that alignment comes with significant resources that are available or not available with that. So I think, especially with those resources at stake, especially with candidates who may not be affiliated, I understand where people paused and said, wait, what is going on here? But I do think there's a bigger conversation to be had just within the party about - is it about a label? Is it not? Usually that's a much simpler equation when you get to a general election in a partisan race, but we had a situation with a nonpartisan running. And in Seattle - in city council races and other local races, we have situations where non-Democrats run, who are in the same place or further to the left of Democrats. So it just really depends here. But I think there is further exploration and conversation that needs to happen about this, even on the local level. [00:58:21] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Yeah, I think that's - those are all really good points. And I guess, when I was running, I saw people in the LDs going hard for Nikkita Oliver, who didn't identify as a Democrat. And a lot of non-endorsements of Sara Nelson, for instance, who was a Democrat. And to me, it seemed like there was robust conversation in the LDs and they did not all agree. And they did not all do the same thing. And I - yeah, I think there is room for conversation about that. To me, it just - I get a little bit - it seems very - what am I trying to think of? What am I trying to think of when something's pot-kettle-type thing - like the right does this stuff constantly. And there's a total double standard when it comes to liberals, Democrats, progressives, the left. And I ran in a race where my opponent was not nonpartisan, but presented themselves that way. And it's hard to know, as a voter, what you're truly looking at. And so I wish - yeah, I think there - I definitely agree there needs to be a more robust conversation. At the same time, I think the Chair of the Democratic Party should probably be - whoever the Democratic Party has endorsed would be like someone that they would be pushing forward. But yeah, it does get really murky. And you're right, it comes with a lot of resources and access to voter databases and things like that - that has been shared with some groups and not others. There is - it isn't a straightforward situation, like it is with the right, where it's just - he's the nominee, so that's who we vote for - which is also breaking down on the right, it seems like, because they seem like they maybe took that too far. But there's a lot of nuanced conversation that needs to take place. [01:00:28] Crystal Fincher: And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, November 18, 2022. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co host today is defense attorney, abolitionist and activist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. You can find Nicole on Twitter @NTKallday - that's NTK-A-L-L-D-A-Y. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. Please leave us a review 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. [01:01:19] Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: Thanks for having me - this was great.

Texters respond with their opinions on Trump's third run for President//SDOT removes a rogue crosswalk//Reunion tours and the Elvis movie.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shawn Carrington is a native of Philadelphia, PA. He is a student and servant to God, his family, and his community. He is a graduate from Columbia Southern University class of 2020 with an M.S. in Organizational Leadership and a B.S in Business Management concentrating in HumanResource Management. He completed a graduate certificate program at Southern New Hampshire University, 2018 on Leadership of Non-Profit Organizations. He also graduated from Lee Senior High School Class of 1990 in Sanford, NC.Shawn has held numerous leadership positions throughout his 24-year military career, enlisting in the United States Army (USA) on May 27th, 1992, and retiring as a Sergeant First Class (SFC) from the United States Army on June 1st, 2016. He attended basic training at Fort Jackson,SC and advanced individual training at Fort Belvoir, VA.Currently, Shawn owns and operates two Limited Liability Companies (LLCs). His global brand is “MrShawnBiz.” SDot, LLC created in 2012, is a Real Estate Investment, Asset Management company, and SDotBiz Connections, LLC was formed in 2016 as a Strategic Leadership Consulting Company. Shawn is also the National Commander for NAMVETS, a 501c3 veteran service organization assisting veterans worldwide.Connect with Shawn Carrington: www.mrshawnbiz.comDr. Virginia LeBlanc “DocV”, The Pivot MaestroDr. Virginia LeBlanc (DocV) is a highly sought multi‐disciplinary expert and global thought leader delivering value across industries world‐wide sharing key ingredients to successfully pivot through transition gaps, earning her the nickname “THE Pivot Maestro.” Her work leading major change initiative with Joint Forces commands at the Pentagon, Department of the Navy, Booz Allen Hamilton, Indiana University, and the National Pan‐Hellenic Council birthed her passion in personal wellness and transformation through transition founding Defining Paths (DP)—not only a company but a heart‐centered, socially conscious movement and network for thought leaders, change makers, legacy builders, and purposed entrepreneurs—healing, rebuilding, and transforming lives and businesses from the inside out.A Holistic Coach, particularly serving retiring military and women leaders in career‐life transition, DocV specializes in putting YOU back in business guiding clients through next steps facing fears, connecting the dots, and thinking without a box while to live inspired with a “be your own boss” mind‐set.Dr. LeBlanc is the international bestselling author of Love the Skin YOU'RE In: How to Conquer Life Through Divergent Thinking, her autobiographical love‐letter to “Society” on socio‐cultural conditioning and how she overcame to define her path.Learn more at https://linktr.ee/definingpaths.Define Your Pathhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/define-your-path/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/ep-27-shawn-carrington-define-your-path-with-dr-virginia-leblanc-docv-the-pivot-maestro

Before taking the top job at SDOT, Greg Spotts was in Los Angeles, leading the city of L.A.'s street services bureau. Soundside host Libby Denkmann spoke to Spotts about some of his priorities for the department in his first year on the job, Vision Zero, and creating a more climate-resilient transportation infrastructure.

WHAT'S NEW AT 10! GUEST: Chris Sullivan on the new SDOT director // Only one major city ranks higher than Seattle for remote work // GUEST: Darren Dedo on the crime story of the day // SCENARIOS!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The major arterial was abruptly closed about two and a half years ago,

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 land swap between Seattle and King County for the troubled City Hall Park location, a move by Mayor Harrell to revivify business in Seattle emerging from the pandemic, a suprising new SDOT Director candidate, a demand for the SPD to prioritize sex assault cases, and a new challenge arising from peer-to-peer car sharing. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

GEE & URSULA AGREE, TO DISAGREE // “Slow the Flock Down”. SDOT and Portland's Dept of Transportation are using this new slogan to get drivers to slow down.  Clever or corny? // WE HEAR YOU! and WORDS TO LIVE BY See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 the Seattle City Council's upcoming announcement about Sound Transit light rail alignment, a reconsideration of Mayor Harrell's first veto of his administration, a look at the impact of the Supreme Court's EPA decision on our state, the future of City Hall Park, and questions about a new director for SDOT. If you like this podcast, please support it on Patreon! 

On this week episode Marcus is joined by guest co-host S Dot Giles and they take the show poolside. Marcus and Sdot talks about the heat and the high ass gas prices. Marcus and guest show producer Dave go back and forth about nothing but you can decide. This episode is short but sweet because it was hot that day....Thank you!! Poolside Papi!!

On this week episode Marcus is joined by guest co-host S Dot Giles and they take the show poolside. Marcus and Sdot talks about the heat and the high ass gas prices. Marcus and guest show producer Dave go back and forth about nothing but you can decide. This episode is short but sweet because it was hot that day....Thank you!! Poolside Papi!!

THE MARIJUANA EPISODE IS HERE!!! Tco Riaz and Kitami Safiya talk WEED with Ganjapreneur Herbal Route Essentials also know by his friends as S Dot or Shane Carter. They share laughs while remembering their first affairs with bud and he even teaches them some new things. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lifeofabeatnikpodcast/message

What's Trending: More details come from Uvalde, Texas, along with more questions, and SDOT removes a community painted crosswalk. Tacoma Parks hosts ‘white staff only' meeting to fight white supremacy violence. The word “chief” will no longer be used in reference to job titles in the San Francisco Unified School District.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this weeks episode, Sdot gave us a overview on his vacation back to the mother land

On today's week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter, editor of Publicola, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. They discuss a proposed bill that passed the Senate that would create an office to address highway encampments, why unions are split on the Uber and Lyft driver protections bill, automatic ticketing through camera enforcement in Seattle, a heated conversation among Sound Transit leaders about safety, whether we can address encampment shootings with more housing, and the Approval Voting initiative that would allow you to vote for every candidate on the ballot.  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 C. Barnett, at @ericacbarnett. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “With Advocates Watching Closely, Legislators Propose Office to Respond to Encampments” by Leo Brine from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/02/28/with-advocates-watching-closely-legislators-propose-office-to-respond-to-encampments/    “Pallet, a For-Profit Provider of Utilitarian Shelters, Could Be a Contender for County Funding” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/03/02/pallet-a-for-profit-provider-of-utilitarian-shelters-could-be-a-contender-for-county-funding/    “Unions Split on Deal to Expand Uber and Lyft Driver Protections Statewide” by Rich Smith from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/03/03/67552231/unions-split-on-deal-to-expand-uber-and-lyft-driver-protections-statewide    “SDOT's automatic ticketing traffic camera program begins” by Adel Toay and Cody Miller from KING5: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/sdot-automatic-ticketing-traffic-cameras/281-4ec1edd7-1821-4916-b0e6-5678a382a9ea   “New traffic camera enforcement begins in Seattle. Your fine comes later” by Mike Lindblom from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/new-traffic-camera-enforcement-begins-in-seattle-your-fine-comes-later/    “Sound Transit Leaders Call Trains Dirty, Dangerous; San Francisco's Experience with Sanctioned Camps; New Poll Tests Harrell Priorities” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/02/25/sound-transit-leaders-claim-trains-too-dirty-dangerous-to-ride-san-franciscos-experience-with-sanctioned-encampments-new-poll-asks-about-harrell-priorities/    “Councilmember Touts Shelters as Solution to Encampment Shootings” by Paul Kiefer from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/03/02/councilmember-touts-shelters-as-solution-to-encampment-shootings/    “Election Nerds Feud Over Whether or Not Approval Voting Violates Voting Rights” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/03/01/67571578/election-nerds-feud-over-whether-or-not-approval-voting-violates-voting-rights    Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I am 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. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: 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. [00:01:00] Erica Barnett: Great to be here. God, that bio just keeps getting longer and longer, doesn't it? [00:01:03] Crystal Fincher: I mean, you manage to fill your day with a few things. Not sure how you have the time to fit everything in but you manage to with grace. Welcome back. [00:01:14] Erica Barnett: Thank you. [00:01:16] Crystal Fincher: I think I want to start off talking about a piece of legislation that has been proceeding through our legislature to respond to encampments, particularly those on the sides of state-owned freeways and right of ways. What is happening with this bill? [00:01:37] Erica Barnett: Well, this bill - today as we're recording this, it's 9:30 in the morning on Friday - so today is the cut-off for bills to get out of the opposite chamber. And so we don't know what's going to happen with this particular bill. It's a short session and so this could die this year, but I think that the concept either way will live on. The idea is to basically create a new office with funding, with about $50 million worth of funding, to deal with encampments, as you said, in public rights of way that are owned by the state highway department. The proponent of the bill, Patty Kuderer from Bellevue, has said that her intent is to really work on housing and sheltering people - emphasis really on sheltering I think, getting people out of the highway rights of way, and into shelter, and then eventually into housing. But the text of the bill itself doesn't really stipulate that. The main point of the bill is to sort of give an opportunity for the state to get people out of areas where they are visible, because it has been very challenging, I think, for the state to do that as opposed to the City of Seattle and other cities. And then the bill is attached to a budget request from Jay Inslee, the governor, that would essentially fund more shelter but there's not - this is one of those situations where there is an intent and there is the text of the bill, and I think the text of the bill actually matters a lot more than the intent. [00:03:18] Crystal Fincher: Definitely, the text of the bill matters a ton more than the intent. I am known for telling a lot of people - if it's not in the text, it does not exist, because that is really the case. And in this case, with this bill, it has been amended since it passed out of the Senate. It's now in the House, and there were a number of specifics eliminated - language regarding the number of persons, specifically reducing the number of people in public rights of way, establishing the office to deal with that and the roles within there. Also eliminated provisions to require coordination teams and outreach teams and the data analysis. We have talked about this bill on Hacks & Wonks before and one of the big items in the bill that they had touted before was - hey, we're actually going to track people and make sure that they're getting services or that we understand what their needs are, where they are in the process. That's also been eliminated. There's a lot that's vague within this bill. Certainly the idea and I think the goal of getting people into housing is what just about everyone wants - to not have people be in those rights of way and into housing, but definitely wanting to avoid just sweeping people - which again, conversations with homelessness have to start with housing. The issue with homelessness is that people lack housing. Sometimes there are other issues that contribute to that but the common thing with all unhoused people is that they lack housing and that is part of the solution. Without that, we're simply just moving people around and not really addressing a major core element of really getting people off of the street and into shelter. Where does this look like it's headed to go? Do we have any idea of the prospects of it today, or is it just a wait and see what happens with this vote? [00:05:28] Erica Barnett: I think it's a wait and see what happens, but I do want to mention that even if this particular bill doesn't go forward, Governor Inslee has made a more than $800 million budget proposal to fund various items related to homelessness. I think it's really important to look at what that actually does. He was in Seattle this week at a tiny house village talking about tiny houses as an example of housing - and he used the word "housing" - and that his proposal would pay for. He has $335 million in that proposal to pay for various kinds of capital projects, but those capital projects really emphasize shelter and tiny houses are a form of shelter over housing in some ways. It feels like, as I've been covering homelessness over a period of years now, it feels like we are going from a place where we were talking about housing first, which is the concept that you don't need to be ready for housing and that housing is the first step to solving your other problems when you are homeless, to talking about let's get people out of the public spaces and let's get them into shelter and then eventually at some point down the road we'll talk about housing. It's the same thing we're seeing with this bill from Patty Kuderer is the idea that priority number one has to be - gosh, we've got to get people out of these public spaces because - I would say, cynically, because they are visible there and because people complain about them and what's the easiest way to do that? Well, let's put them in shelter. And so we're going back to - a concept that has been rejected 10, 15 years ago has come all the way back around for different reasons, but it's the idea that we take people off the street, put them in shelter, eventually maybe they get housed. And I think that's backwards. [00:07:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. It definitely does seem backwards and is related to another article that was in PubliCola this week - on a more local level, Seattle - where an organization, a company, a social benefit corporation - which is a little bit different in supposed intent than a traditional corporation - that builds tiny homes. But those tiny homes are actually really basic and part of the rationale for having them be less, I guess, homey, comfortable, aesthetically pleasing than some of the other tiny homes that are currently in use and in consideration to be built and expanded are that - hey, this is supposed to be temporary so they don't need anything aesthetically pleasing, they don't need anything excessively comfortable, because we want it to be temporary and that might help to get it out. And that, to me, was just an interesting framing in that it is okay to talk about building in discomfort to encourage people somehow to make that temporary, as if there isn't inherent discomfort in being on the street or in a tiny space with a few shelves. I don't know that people need to be uncomfortable to want to gain more stability and move more. It's just a whole interesting conversation. I do completely agree that the conversation does need to start with housing and that as we've discussed before on this program, housing, especially moving away from non-congregate shelter and when people do have a space of their own, where they can close and lock a door, they have access to all of their facilities, it helps to stabilize them. It helps create the conditions that allow them to solve any other issues that are contributing to homelessness and has been demonstrated to do that with a much greater degree of success than people in congregate shelters where people are sometimes laying feet away from each other in the same room with just a lack of privacy and security. We will certainly be continuing to follow all of the dimensions of this conversation as we proceed. Another bill that I wanted to just mention real quick that we have our eye on and that, again, will have a vote today is a bill that is getting some coverage in The Stranger and I saw a couple more articles this morning in The Times and elsewhere - where there is a bill where unions are split on expanding some driver protections to Uber and Lyft drivers, ride share drivers. A bill that has passed one chamber is currently in the opposite chamber right now - would increase the pay floor for drivers, provide benefits like sick time, worker's compensation insurance, discounts on some elements of insurance coverage. And some local unions are in favor of it with drivers saying, "Hey, this is going to be an immediate significant pay raise." Some of those drivers are on public assistance. Others are barely scraping by and saying, "This will be meaningful and basically help me to get off public assistance, help me to gain more financial independence this year if it passes." The context of this, though, and what has caused other unions and especially on the national level some disagreement is that, overall, a long standing conversation has been, "Hey, our ride share drivers and a lot of workers in this gig economy, just misclassified as independent contractors in the first place." Right now, a number of them and a number of labor organizations have long contended that they meet the qualifications of employees, and therefore should get benefits and protections that employees get instead of just being completely on their own and classified as a contractor. And wanting to continue to fight that bill - that fight, feeling that this bill, if it passes, will undercut that larger effort in making that case. We don't know if this is going to pass or not. It looks like today is going to be the deadline to see if that happens, so we will continue to follow that and have an update on that next week. Also, wanted to just dive into a couple of City of Seattle things. First off, traffic camera enforcement is about to start in a new way in Seattle. What's happening with that? [00:12:22] Erica Barnett: This may feel like new news to people because it has been a few months since it was announced, but the City is going to start enforcing things like - primarily bus lane violations, so those red lanes that say Bus Only, that you may be driving your car in, hopefully not, are now going to be enforced with traffic cameras. So you can get a ticket, you'll get a warning, and then you'll get on a second offense, I believe, it's a $75 fine. I think there's also penalties for blocking the box, which is basically pulling out into the line of traffic when you are not allowed to go, so blocking traffic in that way. I think there's going to be a lot of complaining about this. I've noticed that all the coverage so far has been here's how you can avoid getting these tickets - you do this. You know, I come at this from both perspectives, right? I'm a bus rider and I also have a car. And is it annoying to have to, I don't know, be on the part of the road that cars are supposed to be on, because you have to wait in a line of cars? Yeah. That's part of being part of traffic. When you're out there, you are causing the problems that you are complaining about. I think this is hopefully going to not only address the problem that we see all the time of people just casually driving along in the bus lane, but it's also going to pay for bike and pedestrian improvements. I believe the first round of money is going to go to pay for crossing signals for people who are site impaired, vibrating signals and the like, and so that's great. It's going to actually pay to help people who are vulnerable roadway users as opposed to those drivers who want to get ahead by a few seconds. [00:14:18] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and blocking the box is a nightmare for everyone, drivers included. It just creates gridlock. Like literal gridlock. It's really interesting. The first offense will actually be a warning. The second, you get a $75 fine, so actually on the scale of fines, this is lower on the list than a lot of other types of violations. It is just enforcing an existing law that hopefully should get everyone moving more safely and smoothly and help to reduce gridlock on streets. There are currently six locations that'll be covered - most of them downtown, a couple elsewhere - but we will see how this pans out. Hopefully, it does help fix the problem of people just blocking the box and sitting in the middle of the street and being where they should not be, an impediment to others. [00:15:16] Erica Barnett: Just thinking about that is just making me so annoyed because I work downtown and just having to walk around cars into the middle of the street because they want to wait there in the middle of the street instead of waiting like 10 feet back, it's just infuriating. Hopefully, this will make a difference. [00:15:32] Crystal Fincher: Hopefully so. I also wanted to talk about a meeting that Sound Transit had where their leaders seem to detest the very product and service that they're responsible for providing and expressed their dismay and revulsion at the idea of even using that service. It was a pretty incredible meeting in what was said there. What transpired there, Erica? [00:16:03] Erica Barnett: Yeah. I covered this last week. This was a Sound Transit meeting where the agency got a presentation on issues around safety and sanitation and reports of drug use. The context of this is that there's been this ongoing debate about whether what Sound Transit needs is to really crack down on riders who are not paying their fare. Right now, people are not paying to get on the train to a large extent and whether Sound Transit needs to really hire a bunch of new security officers, they're very short-staffed from what they want to be. During this conversation, a couple of Sound Transit board members, including Pierce County Executive, Bruce Dammeier, who was a former Republican state senator, said that he considers the trains to be "unsanitary, unsafe," and he said, "I wouldn't ride it." This sort of created a little bit of a pile-on with other board members agreeing that the trains are just indefensibly gross and sort of overrun - they made it sound like New York City in the 1970s. And Claudia Balducci - and again, Dammeier said he wouldn't ride it. I'm going to assume that means he does not ride the train. Claudia Balducci, who is a King County Councilmember from Bellevue, cut in and she's often the one person jumping in to say, "Hey, wait a minute" during these conversations. And she said, "Look, I ride transit all the time. I never stopped riding Sound Transit throughout the whole pandemic and I don't know what you're talking about." She said, "Have I seen unsanitary things on the train and situations that aren't ideal and the train isn't sparkling clean at all times? Sure, but I've never felt unsafe. The description you're providing just doesn't represent reality at all." And in a way, she is kind of the lone voice saying that at a lot of these meetings, which I don't know how much longer she wants to be the lone voice because it must be very frustrating to hear her colleagues who don't ride the trains talk about how disgusting they are. I will say, I agree with her. I don't think they are disgusting at all. I think we can have a conversation about whether people should be paying their fare. We have a system now where we charge fare and they need to - if the goal is to get people to pay fare, they need to figure out a way to do that. But framing it as sort of the trains have been taken over by disgusting, awful people is not helpful toward that goal. [00:18:54] Crystal Fincher: It's not helpful. It's counterproductive and, I mean, frankly, I have wondered, especially listening to so many of those comments from especially Republican legislators and city-level elected people, was just what really is their intention with Sound Transit and the service. It does not sound at all like they are invested in transit service. It sounds like this could potentially be a pretext for dramatically slashing funding, which has been on the table, continues to be on the table, and I just grow concerned that there is such a disconnect with people who express that they have no interest in using the service or seeing what it is in real life, which just is odd. You think that you would want to use and see what you're responsible for managing, but it is worrisome. Also as someone else who takes public transit in addition to drives, my assessment is similar to Claudia Balducci. Have I seen things before that are not ideal? Absolutely. Is it this - do I feel unsafe on a train? No. I cannot recall a time when I have felt unsafe on a train, with the exception of the times - including one time I was singled out by fare enforcement who I guess assumed that I didn't pay. I had. They eventually saw that. But I have never felt unsafe from other riders on the train. The other kind of context that I just continually am flabbergasted by is just the fare box revenue projections. They had it at 40%, which is a lot higher than similar agencies, other agencies in the area. They're currently at 5%. I just don't understand - even if you accepted everything that they had said, and while we completely need to pile on the fare enforcement officers, or whatever the name is that they're being called right now, to get people to pay - if they were to triple the amount of people who were paying, it gets us to 15%. How then are you addressing that gap? It almost seems like a distraction tactic, or a way to get away from the underlying fundamental fact that their revenue plan is unsustainable and unrealistic, and that they're going to have to implement another plan if they want to get there. I just don't see any way that you're going from 5% to 40%. I just don't understand how that seems realistic. Also, I don't understand how we're investing all of these money and these officers, and getting people to pay, and the fines that people pay do not go to Sound Transit. They go to the court system, but that money isn't being recovered by the agency, which is what most people assume and that's how you're recovering the cost of the enforcement officers who were there. It just seems like a humongous cost with no pay-off. I just don't understand. It has been confusing to me for a long time. [00:22:29] Erica Barnett: I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that - let's just take as a baseline, I think that there's a really interesting and important conversation to have about whether transit should be free - but taking it as a baseline that it is not free and that people are supposed to be paying a certain amount to ride, 5% is laughably low. To me, I look at that and it's like - well, okay, King County Metro does not have that low of a percentage of people paying and it's partly because Sound Transit decided not to have any physical barriers at stations, but they're not having a real conversation about how to get that amount up. What they're saying is we need more security, because we're at 65% of where we want to be and we need more fare ambassadors, which are what they've temporarily replaced fare enforcement officers with, who still go around and check fares but they don't issue tickets. They're saying we need more of the things we're doing, and it's obvious that the things they're doing are not working. But there's not a real conversation happening about, why is that? Sound Transit board member Kent Keel often will go back to this idea that there are teenage boys who are sort of bad actors, who choose not to ride, even though they could afford to pay. He says, "based on my own experience as a youth" but the fact is, that cannot possibly be the explanation for 95% of people not paying or whatever it is, the incredibly high percentage of people not paying. They need to figure out what's going on and figure out a way to address it because just having fare enforcement - fare enforcement has punitive elements, it results in fines that, as you say, don't go to the agency. It tends to be enforced in a way that is racist, that is class-biased, and that is pretty ineffective. If they're going to charge fare, they need to have a real conversation and I have not really seen that happen yet. [00:24:40] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. We will continue to keep an eye on that also, but I can't say that I am particularly encouraged. All right. Now I want to talk about Councilmember Andrew Lewis proposing shelters as a potential solution to encampment shootings? Tell me about this. [00:24:58] Erica Barnett: When you put it with a question mark like that, it sounds like such an unrelated thing but - there have been a number of encampment-related shootings, shootings in and around encampments. It is just the case - this is something that outreach workers talk about all the time, that people in encampments tend to, A) protect themselves, so there's a lot of guns in encampments, especially large encampments and, B) have a need to protect themselves because of things like disputes over unpaid debts. That was a very common one that people mentioned to our reporter Paul Kiefer when he was reporting the story. The solution to those problems is multi-faceted, but part of the solution is not being in an encampment. Encampments are crowded, they're dangerous, they are chaotic often. Again, particularly, large encampments. The idea is if people can get into, specifically shelters that are geared toward helping people with criminal justice involvement, like the shelters that are operated by JustCARE, then that gets people on a path toward resolving some of the problems that are putting them in danger, such as debts and such as drug-related problems. JustCARE is a program that is quite expensive. It costs about $10 million a year to operate at the scale that it's currently operating at, which is 150 shelter beds that are in hotel rooms. There's going to be a battle over whether to fund this program this year. The City is going to be facing a lot of budget cuts this year because a lot of funding for things that they have been paying for on an ongoing basis is going to run out, because COVID funding is running out, so there's going to be budget cuts. The question is does the City want to continue funding this program that is arguably very effective but also very expensive. [00:27:12] Crystal Fincher: It looks like the price tag on this that PubliCola has reported is it's $7.3 million per year for 150 beds? [00:27:22] Erica Barnett: To be clear, it's actually about $10 million a year to continue the program is what the City Council has calculated. That's the budget add they would be looking at. And they're trying to find a way to fund it that's outside the general fund, so that doesn't affect all of these other budget priorities that they want to pay for, but that is going to be a long and complicated discussion that is just getting started now. [00:27:47] Crystal Fincher: Well, and I'm curious about the issue - obviously, we need solutions to gun violence - there is too much. There needs to be interventions in a variety of areas. How does gun violence or the prevalence - do we know an idea of the percentage of shootings that have occurred in encampments versus others in the City? What percent of gun violence does it account for? How many instances have there been? Do we have more information just about the scope of the problem within encampments? [00:28:27] Erica Barnett: According to our reporting at PubliCola, about 6.5% of the City shootings took place in encampments at the beginning of the pandemic, and then by December of last year that had really dramatically increased to about a quarter of the shootings in Seattle. It is a marked increase and also just a significant percentage of the overall shootings in the City as a whole. [00:28:54] Crystal Fincher: I am assuming that we also have information that it is not near that number for housing solutions that are talked about here. [00:29:06] Erica Barnett: We have definitely not quadrupled the number of housing solutions. I mean, what the City is talking about doing right now with JustCARE and also with tiny house villages and other non-congregate shelter options - which, again, as we said, are not housing. They're talking about essentially preserving what's already there, so not kicking people out onto the street and then allowing more people to go through those programs as the people in the programs move into permanent housing. This is just something we're going to run into, I think, a lot with the end of COVID and the end of emergency funding for things related to COVID. We're going to have to decide what our priorities are. The idea that people should not be sleeping on mats on the floor six inches away from each other became pretty commonly accepted over the last two years. We ideally don't want to have these congregate shelters anymore, but the problem is now we've got to figure out how to pay for them and so it's a matter of priorities. I think that the Council is really going to have to face that this year. Just like city councils and legislatures all over the country, because we made a shift during COVID and it's going to be a decision now whether we take a step backwards or continue the programs that we've established that are working and potentially expand them. [00:30:31] Crystal Fincher: When is the Council going to take this up? When is a decision being made? Is there an opportunity for the public to weigh in? [00:30:38] Erica Barnett: This is going to be a budget matter. It's a question that's going to really come into play later this year, over the summer and going into the fall. The budget gets adopted before Thanksgiving every year, but the mayor proposes his budget at the end of the summer and the council debates it into the fall. I think that is when the debate is going to happen, but it is really already starting now. One way the public can weigh in is when these meetings happen, there's often an opportunity for public comment. This meeting last week was a City Council committee meeting where Andrew Lewis, the Chair of the Homelessness Committee, just asked for a presentation. You can always contact your councilmember at any time, of course, to say this is my budget priority, I really want the Council to consider funding this program. And I'm sure listeners know this but you have a districted councilmember, there's a councilmember for seven different districts in the City, and then there are two at-large councilmembers, Sara Nelson and Teresa Mosqueda, who is the Budget Chair. [00:31:52] Crystal Fincher: Got it. Interesting. And starting to see more of an intersection in conversation between issues like housing and public safety and others. Certainly, we know that there's a lot of root causes and contributors to the outcomes to things like homelessness and of violence and I do think that it is healthy to have a discussion about what does contribute to that. I do hope - this reminds me of the SPD staffing conversation that we had last week with Mike McGinn on the Week in Review, and others have also talked about where - if the solution is more police, which Mayor Harrell has certainly touted and is advocating for, those will not be on the street for, at least, a year. Even if they hired new police now, it is actually a long time before they get trained and are available to serve on the force and be out on the street. There needs to be something in the interim if that's what you're proposing is going to help to make people safe - that could work when they get on the street but what is going to happen in the meantime? This seems like another issue where, certainly, I think it's a good thing to have more transitional housing available, more of all types of shelter and housing available, but in the short-term, is there also more of a plan to address issues like gun violence, which has grown in encampments. In the meantime, what is happening there? I know Mayor Harrell has a scheduled announcement later this morning about public safety. We will certainly follow along with what happens there but as of yet, we don't know the details of what he's suggesting. I also wanted to talk about an initiative that is having signatures being collected on the streets of Seattle right now, and that will influence the type of voting, of a method of voting, that people might potentially use in Seattle. What is happening with this? [00:34:14] Erica Barnett: This is a proposal called approval voting. Please don't make me explain it in any thorough way because, like a lot of proposals to change the way we vote, it is complicated. Basically, it would allow voters to choose everyone that they like on a ballot. So if you're looking at a ballot for City Council and there are 17 candidates, you can choose 1, you can choose 5, you can choose all 17. The argument for this, if I understand it correctly, is that it sort of rounds off the - and this is being put forward by a former City Council candidate, Logan Bowers, who came in I believe last in his election - ran against District 3 Councilmember Kshama Sawant. So his argument is it rounds off the radical edges, the right and the left, and chooses more popular candidates, which opponents are saying that just means more centrist candidates. That's the argument for and against it. I'm going to present my own argument against this and other proposals to change the way we vote, which is that it, as I said, it's complicated and it requires voters to essentially do a massive amount of research, understand the pros and cons of every single candidate on the ballot, because you're not just picking one person. You're potentially picking every single person on the ballot, or all but one, or all but seven. Any time you introduce new sort of levels of gamesmanship and machination and complication to voting, I think that that has a suppressive effect on voting. And I think that what we would see, if this was passed, or, frankly, if ranked choice voting, which is another alternative that's being pushed right now - although, it's not quite as far along - if that is passed, I think you'll see people looking at their ballots and saying, "Nope" because our ballots are already really long. We have lots and lots of people running, which is great, but there are certain ballots that we've had in the past where there are dozens of people just in a couple of City Council races or in the Mayor's race. And so, I think introducing more complication is just going to lead to fewer people voting. I think we saw that in New York City where ranked choice voting was implemented and it was the lowest voter turnout in a generation and it elected Eric Adams. [00:36:56] Crystal Fincher: Not a fan of that Eric Adams. Not a fan. I tend to agree with your assessment of this approval voting. I kind of get the initial appeal if people are just listening - sometimes there is a number of people, like we just saw in the last mayoral election, and you might think I actually like a few of these candidates. I don't want to be forced to pick just one. You can vote every one who you would be okay with getting into office, but I do think the criticism of that - if you have to pick something that everyone agrees on, you tend to get something that lots of people don't love and is kind of centrist, is kind of there - there was a pizza analogy. It's like if you have to order a pizza that everyone likes, you generally are just going to end up with a cheese pizza, which is usually not what most people want, and if you like pineapple, you're out of luck and if you're vegan, you're just going to starve to death. I think that there's some issues here. It is also interesting, given that that's an item that people have identified with that - this initiative has several corporate donors tied to it, including AmazonSmile, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others. It is really interesting to see the group that is coalescing and funding this, but it does appear to be well funded - close to $245,000 raised so far. It's going to be really interesting to see how this lands. I am a fan of ranked choice voting, over this if we are to choose, but I agree and have talked about before - whether it's ranked choice voting, whether it's this - any change in voting and any substantial change can be passed off as minor or trivial or this is going to be great. Just about every proposal I've seen has dramatically underestimated the amount of funding and resources and time that is necessary to educate voters about this. The kind of direct, in-person sustained outreach that is needed to help people understand this change. If you doubt that, just look at the amount of our ballots right now that are rejected because people forget to sign the outside of the ballot. Any kind of change is not intuitive to a substantial portion of the population and some people are not very online, some people are not tied to institutional government news updates. People who primarily speak other languages, people who are working, low income are all traditionally more disenfranchised when it comes to changes like that. And so, in any one of these proposals, I haven't yet seen anywhere near the kind of investment and time that is needed for that. You know, it's expensive. No one likes a big price tag when it comes to policy and people tend to shy away from that, or think that, "Hey, the news can cover it and we can get the word out online." That is not sufficient. I just hope that as we continue to discuss these, particularly in the ranked choice voting conversation, we devote more of our energy and resources to making sure on the front end, a year plus before it would be implemented, that there are the resources dedicated to make sure that we're not leaving anyone behind when we make these changes, because that is what happens. We know that's what happens. It's routinely happened. It also just impacts perception of the system. It's not the - we've implemented ranked choice voting before here in the state, in Pierce County. And the failure of it can largely be attributed to people not being familiar or educated enough about what that process is and then being confused and upset and angry and then repealing it. We just have a long way to go. I don't think approval voting is it, but it looks like people may have this as a choice coming up in November on their ballots. We will continue to follow it. And with that, I think we will call it a day, today on Hacks & Wonks. Thank you for listening today, March - I can't believe it's March already - March 4th, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler and assistant producer Shannon Cheng, and our wonderful co-host today was Seattle political reporter and founder of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @EricaCBarnett, that's Erica with a C, and on PubliCola.com. You can buy her book Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse and Recovery. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. While you're there, leave a review, it really helps us out. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

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