Podcasts about seattle metropolitan chamber

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Bill Radke discusses the week's news with South Seattle Emerald's Lauryn Bray, Seattle Times Jonathan Martin, and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rachel Smith. We can only make Week in Review because listeners support us. You have the power! Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/weekinreview  We want to hear from you! Leave us feedback at https://www.kuow.org/feedbackSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hacks & Wonks Week in Review: Presidential Primary, Legislative Retirements, Police Recruitment in Seattle, Seattle Public Schools Board, and Burien Gets Sued Presidential Primary Takeaways  In this week's presidential primary, Trump and Biden secured enough delegates to clinch their parties' nominations. While Trump's impact worries moderate Republicans in Washington like Dave Reichert, Biden faces pressure from the "uncommitted delegates" protest vote demanding an end to violence in Gaza. Washington Legislative Retirements  Several longtime Democratic legislators, including Frank Chopp and Karen Keiser, announced their retirements after the recent session. This exodus provides an opportunity for a new generation of more progressive leadership. Police Recruitment in Seattle  The Seattle City Council discussed subsidizing housing and lowering standards to recruit more police officers amid a staffing shortage. However, mounting evidence and feedback from police suggest the culture within the department and lack of accountability are deterring recruits, not council rhetoric or compensation. Seattle Public Schools Board Appointments Seattle Public Schools is in the process of selecting two people to fill vacancies left by two departures from the Seattle Public Schools Board. Highlighting the diverse range of candidates, including labor leader Joe Mizrahi and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce's Sarah Clark, the segment explored the potential policy implications and the importance of educational governance in the city. Sheriff Sues Burien Over Unconstitutional Anti-Camping Ordinance  Burien passed a stricter anti-camping law aimed at homeless individuals, which the King County Sheriff's Office refused to enforce as likely unconstitutional. In retaliation, Burien moved to defund the county's contracted police services, prompting criticism that it is escalating rather than solving homelessness. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Robert Cruickshank, at @cruickshank.   Resources Tacoma City Councilmember Olgy Diaz Shares Strategies for Running for Office from Hacks & Wonks   “Trump and Biden win Washington's presidential primaries” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “How did Washington's 'uncommitted' voters do on presidential primary night?” by Katie Campbell from KUOW   Senate Democratic Caucus Status | Northwest Progressive Institute   “Shaun Scott Is Running for the State House” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Longtime Washington state senator is leaving, but not right away” by Jerry Cornfield from Washington State Standard    “Sam Hunt to retire from the Washington State Legislature after many decades of service” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate   “As Seattle police applicants lag, City Hall looks to bureaucracy” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times   “Higher salaries? Subsidized housing? What will it take for Seattle to recruit and retain more police?” by Casey Martin from KUOW     “Seattle School Board narrows candidate field for open seats” by Sami West from KUOW   “King County files complaint over Burien's anti-camping ordinance” by Jadenne Radoc Cabahug from Crosscut   “VIDEO: Sheriff files legal complaint against City of Burien regarding constitutionality of its expanded camping ban; City responds” by Scott Schaefer from The B-Town Blog   “Burien's anti-camping ordinance is not an answer to homelessness” by The Seattle Times Editorial Board   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here  

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.

URSULA'S TOP STORIES: More Boeing woes // Big local layoffs // Seahawks coaching search // WA Hospitality Association and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce call for killing gift card cash-out bill // WE NEED TO TALK. . . about 50% of American renters who can't afford housing

On this topical show, Crystal welcomes Renton City Councilmember Carmen Rivera and Raise the Wage Renton Steering Committee member Maria Abando to learn more about the upcoming citizen initiative on the February 13th special election ballot. Modeled after the successful Raise the Wage Tukwila initiative that passed with over 80% of the vote in 2022, community organizers in Renton are campaigning to raise their city's minimum wage to keep up with surrounding cities like SeaTac, Tukwila, and Seattle. Maria and Carmen discuss how the ability to earn a living wage uplifts everyone, the signature gathering learning curve their coalition experienced, and the reaction - both positive and negative - to the effort. With ballots arriving in mailboxes this week and a well-funded opposition materializing, Maria and Carmen share how folks can get involved and help their campaign across the finish line. 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, find Maria Abando at @maria_abando, Councilmember Carmen Rivera at @riveraforrenton, and the Raise the Wage Renton campaign at @RTWRenton.   Resources Raise the Wage Renton   Donate to the Raise the Wage Renton campaign   City of Renton Initiative Measure No. 23-02 | King County Elections “Minimum Wage Initiative Launches in Renton, Builds Off Successes in South King County” by Christopher Randels from The Urbanist   “Renton $19 minimum wage measure qualifies for February special election” by Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks from The Seattle Times   “Renton City Council Rejects $19 Minimum Wage but the Fight Continues” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “Renton voters to decide on city's minimum wage increase in February” by Bailey Josie from The Renton Reporter   “Renton residents, city leaders weigh in on raising minimum wage to at least $19” by KIRO 7 News Staff   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. I'm really excited about today's conversation with folks from the Raise the Wage Renton campaign. Today, I'm being joined by Renton City Councilmember Carmen Rivera. Hey, Carmen. [00:01:05] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: Hey, how you doing? [00:01:07] Crystal Fincher: Doing well. And also Maria Abando on the Raise the Wage Renton Steering Committee. Hey. [00:01:14] Maria Abando: What's up? What's up? [00:01:16] Crystal Fincher: So I am so thrilled to have this conversation. We have previously talked about other minimum wage increase campaigns. We eagerly spoke with, and then followed, and then celebrated the success of the Raise the Wage Tukwila campaign from last year. Last year, 2022? One of those years - time is weird for me these days. But now Renton is up to the plate. And so starting off, I just want to start with why this issue is so important - how did this even become an issue in Renton in the first place? - starting with Carmen. [00:01:52] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: Thank you so much for having us on and sharing the space with us. This was born actually from a coalition of organizers and labor union workers that really found that there was a need in Renton. When you think about Renton, you may not fully understand or know that she is 60% non-white, she is the fourth largest city in King County, the eighth largest city in Washington state. We have about 21% of our population at or below two times the poverty level, 8% at or below the poverty level. And almost half of our city are renters, with the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment at about $2,195. And so - yeah, yeah. We're right there on par with Seattle, so invite me back when you want to talk about tenant rights and tenant protections in Renton - because we do not have any more than what the state allows. We do not have any increases, and so that's another aspect of this that - happy to talk more on. But all that intertwines with having a livable wage - something that makes it just a little bit easier for people to not only just survive in Renton, but thrive. And so when organizers came to me in January of 2023, they presented this initiative that was pretty much a copy-and-paste from Tukwila. And we met and we spoke about it, and I didn't agree initially with all aspects of the initiative. However, organizers felt very passionate about it - they did some outreach. They stuck with what they had and they started gathering signatures. And I felt that it was important for me to use my position and my platform to endorse and support their campaign and help get the message out there. Because this represents not only over 6,000 workers who live and work in Renton, but 50,000 who also commute into Renton, the 45,000 who commute out of Renton - possibly to chase higher wages. So there is a lot going on here and a lot of people who can be directly and indirectly impacted by just increasing the minimum wage by a few dollars, so people can have a little bit more of a cushion. And I think Maria can really speak more to the coalition and the grassroots organizers who are really leading this initiative across King County where it's most needed - because we saw in a report from The Seattle Times in June of 2023, that you need to be making close to $30 an hour to afford to live in King County. And that isn't exempt in South King County, where we're a very diverse city and some people are just surviving barely. [00:04:16] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now, Maria, what brought you to this work, and why was this so important to address right now? [00:04:24] Maria Abando: Yeah, yeah. So I was one of those organizers that came to Carmen asking for her to endorse and join us as well. But really, I feel like the origins of this campaign are really community, you know, that there's no other way to put it. And I think it really was community that was continuing to do the work post the Tukwila campaign with Transit Riders Union and also with the Stephanie Gallardo campaign - the Gallardo campaign for Congress in 2022 in Washington's 9th Congressional District, where we did end up doing work in Renton and across South King County. And so genuinely, a lot of those same folks from TRU, from the Gallardo campaign, recognized that we - regardless, temporary campaigns, they end. But when you do have true community-based organizing, this ensures that once those temporary campaigns are over, the movements continue, right? And in those campaigns - these were movements where we're talking about uplifting the oppressed, uplifting the poor, the working class people. And in general, I think, reminding our communities how powerful we are when we come together and fight together for a more just world - whatever that looks like, and particularly here in Renton - raising the wages. So it's a lot of those same organizers - myself, Guillermo Zazueta, who's chairing the campaign, Bailey Medilo, Aram Balsafi, Michael Westgaard, even some of our same volunteers and our canvass hosts - Christina Mann and Ben Warden - and so on and so on. I wish I could name more. But I do think that it's important to uplift those names because we are a community, right? It's not just Carmen, it's not just myself - there's so many of us working behind the scenes. And there are a lot of folks from those previous campaigns that happened to call Renton their home. And so after those campaigns were over, we knew we wanted to pivot, attempt to do this type of work in Renton, and started to begin really filling out our leadership and filling out our volunteers from Renton residents - because we knew we had to make a really intentional effort to make sure that Renton residents were the ones that were the leading voices, and everyone else just comes in and supports. But we all also, I think, have felt really inspired. We know that we are walking in the path that has been paved before us with the - of course, 2015 historic victories in SeaTac becoming the first city in the U.S. to adopt a $15 minimum wage. And of course, Seattle following suit after that. And it was 2022 - of course, Tukwila passing their ordinance mandating a $19 minimum wage after that as well. And, oh my gosh, being able to receive over 80% of the vote, which, again, incredible. And then there's more happening, right? There have been efforts in Burien. I know that last year, King County councilmembers were proposing a near identical $19 minimum wage for unincorporated King County. So all of this is, I think, coming to a point in terms of why is this important, right? Again, it's about uplifting the poor and uplifting the working class - and everyone else who benefits from that. But also, I think if we're zooming out and looking at this regionally - thinking about what happens to the neighboring cities, to the neighboring towns, to those neighboring suburbs when one major city raises their wages significantly, right? And the answer to that, I think, is that the region must follow. So Carmen speaking to the ways that there are thousands of folks that commute out in order to chase those higher wages. So your highways, your transit systems - they're flooded with people flocking to chase those higher wages. We know that what ends up happening when you end up commuting to work in a different city with higher wages - you also end up spending your money in that other city as well, instead of the city where you live. Because you're maybe getting your coffee, maybe getting some food, maybe hanging out afterwards in that city. Or you're just losing a lot of time - people commuting an hour to work and commuting an hour back, which could be time spent with family or doing things that you care about. And we also know, and I can say personally from my perspective as a Black and Filipino woman, that Black and brown folks are often the ones that are in these surrounding cities and towns because of gentrification. And Carmen has uplifted that Renton is very diverse - it is a majority-minority place. And so we know, keeping all of those things in mind, that this is something that uplifts everybody. When Renton workers are able to earn a living wage, everyone benefits - and especially folks that are having to commute, especially folks that are really struggling to make those ends meet. And putting more money in folks' pockets to be able to spend that money on basic necessities like childcare, healthcare - and are in general less likely to miss rental payments and less likely to be able to lose stable housing. So I think all this is really, really important. [00:09:55] Crystal Fincher: It's super important, and especially as wages haven't kept up with just about anything over time. But my goodness, the cost of housing is just out of control and has been out of reach for someone making minimum wage. And that is just fundamentally not the kind of community that we want to build. It's not what we think of when we think of "the American dream." It's not what we think of when we think of - Hey, get a job, work hard, and you'll be able to support yourself. You should be able to do that - that's what giving up your time and labor should be able to provide. And it used to, and it doesn't now. We've got to get that back to the right place. Now, I want to talk about what this initiative does. Reading from the ballot text - this proposed ordinance requires employers to pay a minimum wage based on that established by the City of Tukwila - which we just talked about raised their minimum wage. Offer additional hours to existing part-time employees before hiring new employees or subcontracted services - which is something that many cities and states have moved to, something that just makes a lot of sense and is more fair for workers. To not retaliate against employees exercising rights created by the ordinance and comply with administrative requirements. If enacted, the ordinance cannot be repealed without voter approval. And so this is for the February 13th election, a special election date. So make sure people are ready for that February 13th election. You will get a clue when you get your ballots in the mail, which will be mailed on January 24th. You can register to vote online. You can register online up until February 5th. You can register up until Election Day - even on Election Day - at the County Elections Office in Renton, up until February 13th, the date of the election. So you said this was largely based off of Tukwila's initiative - it refers to that in the ballot text. When putting this together, was it looking at - Tukwila and Renton seem to be pretty similar, this meets the needs. Were there any conversations about things specifically for Renton? How was this initiative put together, and how is it decided what was needed for Renton? [00:12:13] Maria Abando: So we definitely ended up working hand-in-hand with Katie and Artie from Transit Riders Union to see what was successful and to see what wasn't successful - for the most part, though, they were just successful with their campaign. And we did think about Renton and we were really recognizing that it's a very different place. Tukwila was fairly small. Renton has, I believe, over 60,000 just workers themselves that would be impacted by this - it's a lot bigger. It has some waterfront property kind of neighborhoods within the Kennydale area. It has The Landing, of course, which is a major shopping center where many, many folks come - not just from Renton, but from outside Renton as well - to be able to shop and spend money. And so we were really trying, I think, to do our best to recognize that because it was so much bigger and because the communities, I think, are - I wouldn't say more diverse than Tukwila, but just fairly expansive, there's just a lot there in Renton - that we wanted to talk to as many people as possible and grow a coalition with as many people as we possibly could. And so we really started with really working with our councilmember, Carmen Rivera, as much as we could. But also reaching out to as many labor unions as we could. We were really proud to get the very early endorsement from the Renton Education Association, which is our teacher's union. And then many unions followed suit - UAW 4121, UFCW 3000, the Teamsters, the MLK Labor Council, to name a few, and just so on and so on - and to ask their Renton members as well, what types of things are they looking for? What types of things that they foresee? What types of challenges might they foresee? And everyone was really communicative with us, which - we really appreciate it. And I think we really started to try and figure out our strategy based off of what our community was saying and really trying to let those Rentonites lead. But I also will say we had to learn some of this stuff along the way, Crystal. We had to learn - I think we had a little bit more of learning what didn't work that hopefully can be used with other campaigns in the future, because we know this movement is going to keep on and keep on. One of the things that we learned, for example - this journey was a long one in terms of gathering signatures to be able to qualify for the ballot at all. And of course, we launched in January of 2023. And so here we are on the special election in February 2024. So we obviously shot our shot for November and we weren't able to qualify there, despite the fact that we did, in total, gather over 17,000 signatures, made over 50,000 door knock attempts, engaged over 150 volunteers, distributed nearly 12,000 campaign flyers, and even employed part-time canvassers and signature gatherers to be able to make all of this happen. What we learned was signature gathering in places like Renton that has a huge also community of unincorporated King County, that we were going to have to be a little bit more strategic about that because folks might have a Renton address, but that actually be in unincorporated King County. And so they actually can't sign those petition forms to be able to qualify for the ballot. And so we didn't know that. We were out there tabling in The Landing, doing what we need to do, trying to chat up all the people that were coming through and educate them on what we were trying to do. And the reception was really, really lovely. And people were signing. And we didn't realize that some of those Renton addresses were in unincorporated King County. So that was a hard lesson that we had to learn and recognize that our efforts are best spent at the doors, despite the fact that we would be able to get a lot more signatures doing tabling. We had to recognize that it's not about quantity, right? It's a quality thing. I think we felt a lot of urgency and had to check ourselves on our values - that it's not about the urgency of this so much as it's about really improving the conditions of workers in Renton. And so we had to hit those doors in the areas that we knew would be able to vote for this. We had to have those conversations with those folks - genuinely get their feedback - and also work with businesses as well. So we've had multiple business walks - walking to chat with the small businesses downtown - to also get their feedback and get what their thoughts and their support in this as well. So I think, in general - trying some things, realizing some things that didn't work, and just continuing to be flexible and stay really grounded in what we're trying to do here. [00:17:08] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now, what has the reception been like, Carmen, from your colleagues on the council? [00:17:16] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: I'm so glad you asked me that, Crystal. It has been mixed, and I think that's very reflective of the Renton community. Our council is very reflective of Renton, and something that Maria lightly touched on was - and I'm going to say it a little bit more candidly - this is probably the most conservative city that these organizers have attempted to pass such an initiative. I could arguably say that Seattle, SeaTac, and Tukwila - at the time that these initiatives were passed - were less conservative. And that being said, we have an interesting mix in Renton. We have a very changing tide of new Rentonites, young families starting out here, diverse majority, people of color. And we also have a lot of people who have been here for generations. And we have a lot of history with Boeing - being the home of Boeing - and union workers and labor workers. And so, some of my councilmembers did not agree with more aspects of the ordinance than I, but I think that they had differing opinions and they felt it was more important to leave it to the voters to decide if we should be raising the minimum wage in a place like Renton, or if it's going to be something that we decide. And they felt it was more important for the voters to decide. [00:18:37] Crystal Fincher: Right, because there was an opportunity for the council to choose to enact this without this having to go to the voters. The council could have made this happen - certainly a number of residents were asking the council to do just that. Residents, organizations, some small businesses that we saw in the area saying - We don't need to go through the time and expense of an election, we can just make this happen when we know it's the right thing to do. The majority of the council opted not to do that, so it is going to residents. Maria, what has been the feedback that you've been receiving from residents and businesses in Renton? [00:19:12] Maria Abando: So we've had a lot of feedback, a lot of concerns - of course. As we've kind of touched on, things are really, really expensive. And whether that's rent, whether that's cost of your groceries, cost of your fuel, whatever - folks are really struggling to make ends meet. So it's no surprise that when we talk about raising the minimum wage, there are folks who would get concerned that this is just going to end up raising the costs of everything else. And the fact of the matter is that isn't true. We have seen that after SeaTac and Seattle raised their minimum wages years ago, the vast majority of businesses ended up doing just fine and didn't have to really raise prices too much, or have to hurt businesses or force them to close. Studies actually show that raising the minimum wage does benefit small businesses by doing lots of things like reducing employee turnover and absenteeism, because not as many folks are going out and chasing those higher wages. It increases worker productivity because workers are feeling good, earning a little more, feeling proud to work where they work because they're treated right. It puts money back into the local economy because it increases, for us as consumers, our purchasing power. You got a little bit more money to spend at the Renton farmer's market. You got a little more money to spend downtown in Renton businesses. And overall, just helps ensure that working families can afford to live in Renton. So I think there was some pushback around - Are things going to get more expensive? Is this going to hurt small businesses? And we know studies show that that's not the case. I also think that we have gotten some feedback at the doors where folks might say - Yeah, isn't raising wages something that our legislators are supposed to do? Our councilmembers - isn't that something they're supposed to do? Isn't that something that unions do? Like I'm part of a union, and unions are the ones who negotiate wages for me. So that's something that we've heard. And of course, of course, right - in a perfect world, yes, our councilmembers, our legislators would do this. We know that the fight for higher wages does need a multifaceted approach and is connected to so many other pushes. We do need unions to continue to be empowered to negotiate higher wages for workers. And again, that's why we're super proud to have the support - I named a few of the unions, but there are, I think, 15 endorsed local labor unions. And I didn't mention, but thank you, Carmen, including the Boeing Workers Union, which is IAM&AW 751. The healthcare workers unions, public school teachers unions - the Highline Education Association included. We saw 2023 being a strong year for labor and for labor unions - from Starbucks to the UW grad students and so on and so on. And so, yes, of course, we want unions to be able to do this. And that's why they are working in-hand with us as well to make sure that we hit this from a really multifaceted approach. And two, are our legislators supposed to be doing this? We've hit on this a little bit. Yes, our coalition did show up strong at a December 4th Renton City Council meeting asking our Renton City councilmembers to just pass this outright. We had done a small letter-writing campaign to them, and so we did get folks to send over a hundred letters to our Renton City councilmembers before that meeting that were asking them to pass this - many of them unique. And like you have hit on, Carmen was our lone supporter. There were others that - on the council - more conservative members that ended up speaking against it. One of the councilmembers, even before it got started - perhaps seeing the amount of people that showed up - made a proposal at the start of the campaign to reduce the amount of time that people that showed up could testify and could speak. That was tough to see. But after meeting with more councilmembers and continuing to uplift why this is important, we were proud to be able to get the endorsements of two more councilmembers after that - Kim-Khánh Văn and Ryan McIrvin. And so we can see that we are gaining steam. And even when we can't necessarily do this by city council, the people can coalesce and come together and raise wages ourselves. [00:23:37] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: And I do want to add that we got real direct feedback - part of the initiative, you have a position open up - you have to offer those hours of that position to any part-time employee before you hire a new employee to ensure that you are not taking advantage of your employees by only having them work part-time so you do not have to pay them benefits, which is a way that we've seen employees and part-time employees and minimum wage employees be exploited. And so that was one of the things, I think, a lot of feedback was given. And when you look at the money - and always follow the money - 60% of the City of Renton revenue comes from our business taxes and sales taxes. And so the business community has a very heavy influence in politics - understandably so - and especially organizations that might be a little biased when it comes to advocating for workers over business interests and, in my opinion, corporate greed. [00:24:33] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, certainly all feedback is welcome. Everyone in the community has a stake in this - whether they're an employer paying people, whether they're an employee, other people who live and work in the city, other organizations and entities. But it really is about how out of balance things have gotten. And being responsive to community needs - it is not easy to collect that amount of signatures. I think for people who are not acquainted with signature gathering, it's like - Oh, you know, you just need a few thousand signatures. 10,000- 20,000 - just as many people thought - just set up at The Landing, or go to Renton River Days, or do whatever you want to do - gather a bunch of signatures there. Those are the worst places to gather signatures when you're in a place, especially like Renton, that has a high volume of people commuting in and out to work, the high volume of people, like you talked about, living in unincorporated King County and not Renton proper - the municipal boundaries. So it does take going door-to-door, it does take a long concerted effort, and it does take legitimate interest from the residents in the city. And so to me, what was striking was to see how dismissive some councilmembers were to the residents of the city who didn't just sit at home and think - Ah, this would be good. But took a step to say - You know what? I actually want this to change. I believe this should change. I believe this specific policy should be enacted, and I'm willing to go this other route if the council doesn't enact it themselves. That, to me, should have been a sign to the council - okay, let's at least listen. Let's see if maybe there's something workable here that we can work with, even if there was a compromise, right? Some kind of responsiveness to the residents who live there. Unfortunately, we didn't see that. But there is an opportunity for the residents to do this themselves, which we've seen them do in other cities. And in other states, frankly - some southern states have raised their minimum wage in places that people consider to be really conservative, are saying it's in the community's interest to make sure that we aren't trapping people in poverty by enabling them to work without making a wage that can support the basics in our own community. Everyone loses when that happens. And so this is why I'm excited and gratified to see this happen and this step be taken in response to what the residents have asked for via petition. So now we're at the point where this is now a campaign. And a lot of times when campaigns happen and you're like - This is a good thing - especially when we're talking about issues impacting the business community, opposition occurs. Opposition appears. And that is what's happened here in Renton. So what have you seen with this opposition and how are you countering that, Carmen? [00:27:30] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: Yeah, it's been interesting to see the opposition pop up. It came very quickly and very swiftly. And this was something that we were afraid of and tried to anticipate when we wanted this to be adopted outright - and that was my argument. We saw in 2022 the lowest voter turnout since 1936 in recorded King County history - incredibly concerning because people are a little, I think, apathetic and tired around politics and who can blame them? And so when the opposition came - almost a week after the meeting where we decided to place this on the ballot - the Washington Hospitality Association, the Washington Retailers Association, the Seattle Hospitality for Progress, all tried to create a No-PAC to campaign against raising the minimum wage. And they have raised, I believe, close to $96,000 at this point. [00:28:25] Maria Abando: Seattle Hospitality for Progress itself dropped $20K at the start of the year, which is a whole thing. [00:28:30] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: And it's just happening so quickly - that's the other aspect of it. We've been working on this movement for a year. And in that time, we've raised maybe $75,000 in a year. And from organizers - no corporations - organizers and organizational groups that are about people and community and coalition building. And in a matter of days, almost $100,000 has been raised by these corporations. And mind you, these are the corporations that are going to be most directly impacted. How the ordinance reads - and this is not being advertised specifically by the Renton Chamber of Commerce, which is believed to be an apolitical organization. However, they've gotten very politically involved - the president and CEO has become one of the champions, again, in the No campaign - using her platform and privilege to actually spread misinformation and to fearmonger some of her small business owners and some of the members of her Chamber. There is no information being spread in the business community, sadly, that if you have fewer than 15 employees, you're entirely exempt from this initiative. This initiative will not apply to you if you have fewer than 15 employees. If you have anywhere between 15 and 499, it is more of a tiered-step system, where I believe it's $2 the first year and then $1 every year after that. And so there is a more understandable system there when you explain it like that. And the direct impact, which is why we have this No-PAC created, is going to be to Walmart, Home Depot, Applebee's, Red Robin, Topgolf, World Market, LA Fitness, Starbucks, McDonald's, Fred Meyer, Safeway, gas stations, Target - those are the individuals that we're asking to pay just a few more dollars so people can have a little bit more comfort to live. And so I want to ask voters, and even those who are campaigning against this initiative - the entire No-PAC - can you really look me in my eye and tell me that the person who makes your coffee in the morning, or the person that you order your food from, or the person who checks you out, or helps you out at putting stuff away at Walmart, or helps direct you at Home Depot, or is working at Fred Meyer - doesn't deserve a livable wage? And that is going to be an interesting conversation to have on January 31st when we actually are going to be debating this at Carco Theater in Renton. [00:30:49] Maria Abando: And many of those corporations are making record profits right now, and they can easily afford a modest wage increase for their lowest paid employees. I also have some questions and concerns about the Renton Chamber of Commerce spearheading a lot of this opposition work, because they are supposed to be an official 501c6 - nonpartisan, apolitical, receives public funds to be able to maintain operations - and being a top contributor to the No-PAC is concerning. And I'll be honest too - although I wasn't as super familiar with the Renton Chamber of Commerce when I was jumping into this, I am absolutely familiar with the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Folks who have been around in Seattle labor conversations - the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber were the ones that filed that lawsuit against the JumpStart Tax in 2020. They were crying that the JumpStart Tax was taking away the right of residents to earn a living wage - so they do know the concept of what a living wage is, which is funny because the JumpStart taxes for qualifying businesses taxed 0.7% for every employee making over $150,000. So if you're telling me $150,000 of a salary is a living wage, then okay - say that then. And then I think it increased for employees that are going over $500,000. So these folks know what a living wage is, and they spread misinformation to protect their bottom lines. I also have to just shout out and appreciate the dope Hacks & Wonks episode at the end of last year that Shannon moderated with BJ Last and Amy Sundberg from Solidarity Budget - when they were highlighting, again, that it wasn't just back in 2020 that the Chamber was getting involved with this. The Chamber was still involved now - they called out how the Seattle Metro Chamber has still been trying to pause the JumpStart Tax. And I believe it was Shannon as well that reminded us all that 15% of the JumpStart Tax revenue is supposed to be going towards small businesses. So if the Chamber is supposed to be supporting small businesses, why are they trying to prevent that 15% from going to small businesses in support of them? The Seattle Hospitality for Progress - again, the group that dropped that $20,000 into this No-PAC at the beginning of the year - happens to share an office in the building and work, probably together, with the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Washington Hospitality Association. So they want to spread misinformation and say that - Oh, you know, this whole initiative is folks coming out of the region coming to change the identity of Renton - which is a little bit of dog whistling, in my opinion - but also not being transparent of the fact that they are pouring in thousands from other cities to be able to try and stop this from happening, something that will deny the lowest wage workers a living wage and continue to place the burden on the lowest wage workers of Renton. [00:33:57] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: It's disappointing. I believe chamber of commerce organizations are important. I think they're a valuable part of the community. I think that there is a lot of potential when it comes to chamber of commerce because you do want a small business community that is thriving. And you want a small business community that can grow, and I appreciate that. It's really just unfortunate where you see certain biases and power plays being utilized. And that's really just doing a disservice to the community because a very new Renton, a growing type of Renton, is coming here. And I think they're very scared of that. I think it threatens what they believe to be kind of their way of life. And I think there's a lot of emotion at play in terms of who's supporting this initiative and who isn't. And I just want us to all be able to have a wholehearted conversation without emotions and feelings. [00:34:49] Maria Abando: And at the end of the day - regardless of the opposition - we are very, very positive, Crystal. We know that we have a really, really strong winning strategy. And that winning strategy is engaging community. At the doors - I mentioned some of the questions and the feedback, but I didn't mention how many people were just immediately so overwhelmingly supportive as well. Many people recognizing - yes, things are so expensive. And so, yes, we need this. I know people who are working low wage jobs and I know folks who could really use this. So we engage community. We engage our unions. We are going back and engaging our signature signers, since we did have so many of those folks sign and so many of those folks write letters and express support. We're, again, engaging those businesses. And finding ways to continue to register voters and expand the electorate so that we can just turn out the vote. So I think the opposition is going to opposition. And we're just going to continue to keep on marching, keep on pushing, and don't stop until we win a more livable wage for folks. [00:35:57] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: And I think you bring up a really good point, Maria - because what we've also seen in King County over the years is the more that there is a nasty No campaign, it actually gives more power to the initiative and the campaign that is happening. And we've seen kind of these hateful campaigns backfire. And that's really my hope - because we've been on the ground for over a year - meeting with residents, outreaching to community, working with workers and business owners and community organizers and unions to make sure that we can get this passed. Because I think if we can get this passed in Renton, we can see this passed in other South King County cities. And I think that is also what is scary to the Washington Hospitality Association, the Chamber, and this No-PAC - because this will signal a changing tide. [00:36:44] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I think the time is now. This is a really important and necessary thing to do for our communities. And hearing some of the opposition saying that this isn't the role of local government, but fighting against minimum wages overall - I think this has been said several times online - but that's basically their admission that they would be paying you less right now if they were legally allowed to. I don't think anyone thinks that's where we need to be. In this era where we are hearing of record profits - billion dollar profits - looking at CEO and executive compensation in the tens or hundreds of millions, the idea that raising the minimum wage - the wages of your lowest wage workers, and not all of your middle management, not your executive pay and compensation packages. Not any of that contributes to higher prices - when we've seen pay stagnate and prices climb anyway. So it really isn't an issue. This threat, I think, is losing teeth of - Well, if we raise low wage workers' wages, then things are going to get more expensive for you. Well, you haven't done that and things have gotten more expensive and now no one can afford it because wages are too low. So we really need to address this and we need to give people in communities power to buy from the businesses in their communities. What we see when lower wage workers make more is that has a direct and immediate impact on local businesses, on businesses inside that community - because now people do have the money to spend on it. So I'm eager to see this - looking forward to the remainder of the campaign. If people want to get involved in this campaign and help spread the word before the February 13th deadline for this election, how can they do so? [00:38:28] Maria Abando: Yes, so we definitely need people's support. We need folks to give what they can, especially volunteering. And so you can get involved at raisethewagerenton.org. Additionally, I would not be doing my due diligence if I did not come to all of y'all and remind everybody that these types of efforts do take funds. When we are up against large PACs that are being able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, it makes it more important for us to be able to send out mailers and have yard signs. We are hoping to raise $10,000 before Election Day to help dispel some of the lies and the misinformation that the No-PAC are sending out and also just to uplift the coalition and uplift the positivity of what we're bringing. And so I really, really ask everybody to consider, if you can, to also donate. And you can do that at bit.ly - so it's short link bit.ly/GiveRTWR - and that RTWR is capitalized. So please, please, please, folks - regardless if you're in Renton or not, we really, really need and appreciate the support. I also just want to uplift just again from a personal standpoint that we're in a moment where we are seeing 67% of Black folks in Renton living in poverty. We are seeing 72% of Latino folks living in poverty as well. And so just again, the recognition that we are really working to uplift folks like this. This is not only a struggle for labor. This is a racial justice struggle. This is a struggle, in general, for anybody that is struggling right now. And so we are committed to standing and staying in this fight for the long run, regardless. We know that this campaign is going to end and we're going to keep on pushing. Even after this campaign is over, our PAC does not dissolve. We are going to continue to stay and continue to walk businesses, continue to educate folks on what they can do to support with implementation, what they can do next. Maybe we work with Carmen on tenants' rights. Maybe we continue to take what we've learned and see if we can support in the coalitions in other cities to be able to get this done. So really, this is not something that's going to be over in February. We need folks to sign up. We need folks to help us knock doors. We need folks, if you happen to be in a South King County city - that you're hoping to see this be implemented in your city as well - join now. Join now. Because community endures, and we're going to keep on going. [00:41:20] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: Absolutely. And I would also ask - what is really forgotten by people who only live in Renton and only have ever lived in Renton is that there are people who used to live in Renton who would like to move back to Renton. There are people who are only living outside of Renton temporarily - I lived in Seattle for a minute, I owned in Redmond for a hot second. And I wanted to also come back home to Renton. And I was privileged enough to be able to do so. Not everyone has that ability. And so I meet students, I meet young graduates. I meet people that are either from Renton, they lived in Renton for a minute, or they got priced out of Renton - they want to come back to Renton. And if you have any tie to Renton, if you know anybody in Renton - if you care about South King County - help us get out the vote. Please, I am begging of you, so we do not give this election up to the old Renton that does not want to include the new, diverse, forward-thinking, progressive Renton. I want to involve all Renton, and so I want to make sure all of Renton is going to be able to vote in February. So my ask is please text your friends, post on your TikTok, your Twitter, your Facebook, your MySpace, your Snapchat, your Instagram, whatever. Just get the vote or get the word out there that we need to vote and get those ballots in by February 13th if you live in incorporated Renton - please. Because what we've also seen is the Washington Hospitality Association has bragged on their podcast about pushing off the unincorporated King County raise the wage initiative that Girmay Zahilay introduced last year. And so we need to really combat, again, corporate greed, corporate PACs, the Washington Hospitality Association - and advocate for workers and those that really need this, because that's who I'm fighting for. [00:43:02] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, we will include links in our episode notes to the campaign and where people can get more information and get more involved. We thank you, Maria and Councilmember Carmen, for taking the time to help educate us about the Raise the Wage Renton campaign. Thanks so much. [00:43:21] Councilmember Carmen Rivera: Thank you. [00:43:22] 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.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! They discuss the latest in Burien's non-addressing of homelessness, new revenue options presented for Seattle, whether primary results mean Seattle City Council incumbents are doomed or safe, and how candidates who support police alternatives led in primaries. The episode continues with how Mayor Harrell's $27M for drug diversion and treatment adds no new funding, Seattle adding new protections for app-based workers, and signs of a late-summer COVID surge. 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 “No Solutions for Unsheltered Burien Residents After Another Contentious Council Meeting” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Proposals to Close City Deficit Prompt Immediate Backlash from Businesses, Business-Backed Council Members” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “The Seattle Process Strikes Again” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   Final Report of the Revenue Stabilization Workgroup | City of Seattle   “Are Incumbent City Councilmembers Doomed? The Seattle Times Sure Hopes So!” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Candidates who support police alternatives lead primaries in Washington cities” by Scott Greenstone from KNKX Public Radio   “Harrell's "$27 Million Drug Diversion and Treatment" Plan Would Allow Prosecutions But Add No New Funding” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Seattle City Council adds more protections for app-based workers” by Sarah Grace Taylor from The Seattle Times   “Early signs suggest WA could see a late-summer COVID wave” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state, through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. 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, today's co-host: Seattle political reporter and Editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. [00:01:08] Erica Barnett: It's great to be here. [00:01:09] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back and certainly a number of things to talk about this week. I think we'll start off talking about the City of Burien and the continuing saga - and kind of city crisis - surrounding their handling of people who have been camping because they are homeless. There was an offer of assistance made from the County, there was some work going on - and this is happening with a fractured Council majority and Council minority, usually voting 4-3 in these things. There was a meeting that happened this week. What happened at that meeting and where do things stand now? [00:01:48] Erica Barnett: At the meeting, there were no decisions made, but there was a long discussion of the timeline of what has happened so far. The City Manager presented his version of events in which the City of Burien is held harmless, did nothing wrong, has tried earnestly to come up with alternatives for these folks - and it is a few dozen people - but has just failed or been thwarted at every turn. Several dozen people have been moved from place to place since they were originally swept from a site outside City Hall and the Burien Library. And now they are living at a couple sites - or until this week, were living at a couple sites - in Burien. A group of people were swept out of a site next to a Grocery Outlet and across the street from a Family Dollar by a private company that has gotten a lot of positive attention from the Council majority, which is run by an individual named Kristine Moreland and offers what their website refers to as sweep services - removing people - and this group claims that they have housed folks. What appears to have happened, and I'll be writing more about this later this week - on Friday, probably as you're listening to this, it might be up - what appears to have happened is that they have been relocated into a hotel for a week or so with no apparent plan to do anything beyond that. As I wrote this week, there's no real solution in sight and the County's money is contingent on them finding a location in the City of Burien or getting another city to agree to take Burien's homeless population on. That money could go away. [00:03:20] Crystal Fincher: It's a shame that the money could go away. Something that struck me as unfortunate this entire time is, as you say, this isn't about thousands upon thousands of people. This is actually a situation where it seems like it's possible - working with partners, working with the resources that the County has provided in terms of cash and tiny homes - potentially house most or all of this population, to work through this. This seems like something that is fixable and achievable, and something that Council could be looked at as an example of how to work through this and manage this issue in your city. It appears that they just continue to run from that and double down on these criminalized solutions that have just moved people from literally one lot to another, sometimes across the street from each other. This is in a pretty small area of the city where these encampments and sweeps have taken place. And so just watching the City continue to not try to solve this problem is exceedingly frustrating. [00:04:24] Erica Barnett: To be fair to the City - I try to be fair always, but to take the City's perspective - I can see an argument that a million dollars is really not enough. You can't house people for a million dollars. You can shelter them temporarily. And that is what the County has proposed. But that is a small caveat to the fact that the City, right now, is showing a lot of mistrust for traditional partners that actually do this work and are telling them there is no housing, that it's incredibly hard to house people, and they have to go through a whole process. And they're showing a lot of mistrust of LEAD and REACH, which have been working down in that area for a long time, and showing a sort of almost naive trust of this new organization that is run by one individual who says that she can solve all of their problems and that it's easy. One thing I didn't mention is they put on the table the idea of contracting with this organization run by Kristine Moreland - it's called The More We Love - it's a private group, it's not a nonprofit. So they're talking about spending money on her group because she has said that it is very easy to house people. [00:05:25] Crystal Fincher: Wow. That would be an interesting use of public funds. [00:05:29] Erica Barnett: There's a lot of questions about whether they can actually do this, like where the funds would come from. If they would take away REACH's money, that's federal money - she would need to have a lot more assurances and perhaps a nonprofit, which as I said she does not appear to have, to do that. They've started going down that road. The mayor proposed last week that they start working on looking into contracting with this group. It is very much on the table and could happen or could start to be discussed seriously within the next couple of weeks. [00:05:58] Crystal Fincher: Very interesting. We will continue to follow this, as we have been doing. I also wanted to talk about significant news this week in the City of Seattle, where a revenue workgroup presented options for potential progressive revenue options in the City of Seattle. What happened with this and what options are on the table? [00:06:18] Erica Barnett: This workgroup has been meeting for a while - it consists of folks with the mayor's office, City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda is the co-chair, then some business groups, some labor groups - including the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which had an interesting reaction this week. But the workgroup eventually came up with a set of policy options - they're saying they are not recommendations - and they considered 63, they narrowed it down to 9. And the top three are the ones that the City could move forward with right away. Those are, in order, increasing or changing the JumpStart payroll expense tax and letting those monies flow into the general fund, implementing a City-level capital gains tax - which the City believes it could do without a ballot initiative or permission from the State Legislature. And then a new tax on CEOs that have a very high ratio of pay compared to the average employee in a company - essentially a surcharge on the JumpStart Tax to companies that have extremely well-paid CEOs. I should mention this is all to close a pending revenue gap in 2025 and beyond of hundreds of millions of dollars. They've got to figure out a way to narrow this gap either by cutting spending, by increasing revenues, or most likely some combination of both. [00:07:39] Crystal Fincher: These are certainly interesting options. You noted that these are not recommendations, they're simply presenting options - which makes me wonder about the coalition that was at the table here, the participants in the workgroup, the elephant in the room of sometimes these workgroups are really just attempts to get the business community on board with a tax. It doesn't look like they accomplished that here. What are the dynamics of the groups who were involved in putting these options together? [00:08:10] Erica Barnett: Yesterday, a member of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce sent out a statement saying - Seattle revenues are at an all-time high and spending is unsustainable - repudiating the idea that we need new taxes and suggesting that the real problem is the City Council is just spending frivolously. The report the revenue stabilization task force put out talks about spending and notes that the amount the City has been spending has been going up roughly in line with inflation and labor costs. There's some mandatory COLAs [cost-of-living adjustments] and pay increases that have happened that have been very necessary to keep folks more in line with the private market to actually keep people working for the City, which has faced problems with hiring just like every other workplace. There isn't necessarily a lot of evidence that the City is spending out of control, at least according to this report that the Chamber itself signed off on, but they have indicated that they're gonna come out hard against it - not clear in what way, but they certainly have sued over other taxes, including the JumpStart Tax in the past. More to come, I'm sure, but they have indicated that they are not on board with these options, which would tax businesses essentially and tax some of their members. [00:09:24] Crystal Fincher: As you mentioned, they opposed the JumpStart Tax, they opposed previous taxes. Here, they frequently act as an organized opposition to taxation, particularly taxation that involves the business community. Lots of people talk about Seattle process and how we will workgroup and task force something to death - that certainly is the case. But when a number of candidates run, or when we've heard in press conferences with the mayor and talking about One Seattle - and if we can just get everyone seated around the table and get everyone talking, surely we can hammer out something and agree and be able to move forward in community and coalition and with buy-in. The problem is that other people are too contentious and they wanna do things without the buy-in of everyone, but I will get everyone together and do that. That's certainly not unique to Bruce Harrell - we heard that from Mayor Ed Murray, from Mayor Jenny Durkan, from several City councilmembers - they just needed to get people together. In another one of these workgroups, they did bring everyone to the table and the same disagreements, the same lack of alignment that was evident before this was put together surfaces now. It's time to make a decision for a lot of people. If everyone doesn't agree to do something, then it's on pause, it just doesn't happen. Or is it going to be moving forward with options that may have the support of the general public? Certainly a number of these options poll well and the candidates who have advanced them are winning most of these elections. Are they willing to move without the support of the business community or potentially setting up another showdown with the business community? That's a question that has yet to be answered. [00:11:10] Erica Barnett: I would not dismiss this necessarily as just another example of Seattle process going nowhere. I think the last revenue stabilization task force, of course it was called something else but, came up with the JumpStart Tax, which is a payroll tax on highly-compensated workers at extremely large employers - that has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars a year and really addressed the revenue shortfalls during COVID. I think that business community aside - and Alex Pedersen, City councilmember who is an ally of the business community, sent out a press release poo-pooing the proposals or the policy ideas - this will probably lead to some action by the council. They have to do something. They are facing a really grave situation. There are other task forces that have met and not really done much in similar situations. The council and the City - the mayor and the council have to pass a balanced budget every year. If they've got a $250 million shortfall in a budget, they've got to address that. Looking at and talking to Teresa Mosqueda, the chair of the committee, one of the co-chairs of this task force, and the Chair of the Finance Committee yesterday, they're looking at those first three options very seriously. There's probably a council majority right now to support one of those options. Depending on how fast they move on this, it could be a new council that may be less friendly. We'll see. They have to do something. I don't see cutting that much of the budget as an option. [00:12:28] Crystal Fincher: The Chamber is staking out the position that the only thing that they are willing to discuss - from their perspective right now - is cuts and not focusing on the revenue-generating options, some of which were considered more progressive than others by many people. So what are the next steps here? [00:12:46] Erica Barnett: Council Central Staff is going to do an analysis of these options, probably - again, with the emphasis on those ones that the council can do on its own. Then there will be policy recommendations and legislation, presumably, to pass some version of one or more of these options. There are six other options, some of which would require the Legislature to pass legislation allowing the City to implement some of these taxes - that's a longer-term strategy that the council says it's going to engage in. The short-term perspective is they're going to start working on this stuff. When it comes to the Chamber, they are not all-powerful - their job is generally to oppose taxes on their members. They did that last time - they lost in the court of public opinion, and they also lost in court - now we have the JumpStart payroll tax. I don't know if that experience is going to make them reluctant to challenge an expansion of that tax or any of these other taxes. They have not been successful so far in preventing taxation to close these revenue shortfalls, to pay for housing and homelessness solutions - their opposition just means the business community is against this. It doesn't mean that it's not going to happen. [00:13:53] Crystal Fincher: That's a very good point. Also want to talk about a piece you did in PubliCola this week as a response to some at The Seattle Times suggesting the three incumbents in Seattle City Council races that are running again - each of whom lead their race, two of whom with over 50% of the vote - are somehow not safe. Did that pass the smell test? [00:14:18] Erica Barnett: They presented a theory in this editorial - described as a hopeful theory on their part - that the incumbents are in trouble if they end up with less than 55%. They said that this was just the general consensus of election watchers. I don't know - I'm an election watcher, you're an election watcher - this is not my consensus. And nor, when I look back at the numbers, is it reflected in reality. An incumbent might have a somewhat tough race if they are under 50% of the vote in the primary. There's just so many reasons - among which is, as you said, they're all above 50% now. The primary electorate tends to be more conservative. The incumbents that The Seattle Times wants to defeat are all more progressive than their opponents. The primary election turnout was incredibly low. Some of these folks in the races with lots and lots of candidates where there wasn't an incumbent were winning by a few hundred votes. The Times really is hopeful they will be able to finally rid themselves of candidates, or of City councilmembers like Tammy Morales, who is very much leading her Seattle Times-endorsed opponent, Tanya Woo, Dan Strauss, who's leading Pete Hanning. And Andrew Lewis, who actually is looking the weakest right now - he is under 50%. His opponent, Bob Kettle, is unlikely to get a bunch of business community backing in District 7, which includes downtown. All the incumbents are looking strong right now. [00:15:41] Crystal Fincher: That seems to be the consensus from the election watchers I'm aware of, many of whom are actively involved in several elections. Incumbents just don't lose from this position. We rarely, if ever, see that. It's rare to see, even in open seats, for people to finish over 50% and then not win, which doesn't mean that - barring scandal or something wild happening, there are a lot of unknowns - to suggest that this indicates trouble is really stretching it. We will continue to follow those elections. We just did a Post-Primary recap show, which we will also be releasing on the podcast - you can hear more about our thoughts on those. [00:16:22] Erica Barnett: The one example I was able to find in history where it came close to what The Times was saying was Richard Conlin, who I think ended up under 50% in his primary against Kshama Sawant. And Sawant won by a very narrow margin in her first election. It does not illustrate The Times's point because Sawant is obviously far to the left of Richard Conlin, who was a standard moderate Democrat liberal. They really just don't have any examples to back up these kind of sweeping conclusions that they're making. [00:16:51] Crystal Fincher: They don't. They're having a challenge reconciling the results of the race. They were setting it up, from an editorial perspective, that Seattleites are really unhappy with the council and that unhappiness meant they wanted a change and more moderate candidates, they were unhappy with the direction of the City. I've talked about several times - the City doesn't necessarily have a direction - you have a mayor who is more moderate, you have some councilmembers who are more progressive, others who are more moderate depending on the day of the week. You need to get into an examination of the issues and where Seattle voters generally are on issues is more progressive than what The Times usually articulates. It'll be interesting to see how they evaluate these races and their endorsed candidates and their chances. What do voters really expect to see? What do they not want to see? What do they find unacceptable? Questions that oftentimes are left unexamined by seemingly the parties who could do well to examine them the most. Also want to talk this week about an article that actually talked about candidates who support police alternatives are leading primaries, getting through to the general election. Some of those candidates really want to focus on those alternatives. Many of them want those alternatives in addition to police or to be able to dispatch a more appropriate response - whether it's a behavioral health crisis, someone dealing with substance use disorder, homelessness - dispatching responders who may not be armed police, but who are equipped to handle the problem at hand, which oftentimes even police will tell you they are not the best equipped to handle things that are not of a criminal nature. What did this article find? [00:18:27] Erica Barnett: People are interested in alternatives to police. There has been a lot made of the idea that there is this backlash to "Defund the Police." The City of Seattle did not defund the police. In 2020, there was a real movement for change that organized under that name. They were advocating for funding alternatives and using some of the money that is currently used for armed police officers. When you frame it in a way that does not use those words - "defund the police" - that is what people want. I do not cover cities outside Seattle, which this article focused on, but I think that is definitely what we've seen in Seattle where folks who have said they would ensure that there are 5-minute response times to 911 calls, like Maritza Rivera in District 4, or folks who have run on an expand-the-police platform, like Olga Sagan, who was a primary contender against Andrew Lewis in District 7, and I think ended up with 19% of the vote and is out. Those folks did not fare as well as people who said - I want to fund alternatives and come up with a way to respond to crisis calls, for example, without sending out cops. [00:19:35] Crystal Fincher: Voters do want to be safer and feel safe. They recognize that conversation about public safety and how we keep people safe is a lot bigger than just policing. If you listen to elected officials speak or you listen to campaign rhetoric, you would think it was either we invest in hiring a ton more cops and keep doing that, or we do nothing and lawlessness reigns. No one wants lawlessness to reign. No one is proposing to do nothing. There are alternative solutions, there are other responses, there are cities implementing this. One of the things in this article is that this is not just a Seattle phenomenon. In fact, many other cities - Bellingham, Spokane, Tacoma - other cities around the region who are moving forward with this and who have candidates really wanting to examine how to best keep people safe and prevent crime in addition to responding to it, taking a more comprehensive look at how do we address all of these issues. It's another signal that voters want to hear more comprehensive plans for how people plan to keep the community safe, want to use more tools at folks' disposal. And I hope candidates see that and recognize that and come with some real serious proposals to help their communities become safer. [00:20:54] Erica Barnett: I think too, it speaks to some failures of the media - and we're talking about The Seattle Times - but broadly the debate about policing has been misrepresented as defund the police versus public safety. Everybody wants to feel safe in their communities. And the people who have advocated for reforms and for funding other alternatives are just as interested in public safety and community safety as "Refund the Police" or "Overfund the Police" crowd. They clearly outnumber that crowd. There are a lot of nuances within that first group of folks who want community safety, but would like to see alternatives. It is much larger than just the police can and should do everything alternative. [00:21:37] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Also want to talk about something that you covered that we didn't get to last week because of all the election news, but I think is important to talk about since we are trying to deal with issues like drug addiction, substance use disorder - this may fall underneath an alternate response. But the City of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced $27 million for drug diversion and treatment options as a new attempt to implement the drug prosecution legislation that previously failed on the council. What is he actually proposing? [00:22:12] Erica Barnett: The coverage of this was so frustrating to me, including in outlets that I think ordinarily do a very good job of breaking stuff like this down. I did write about the $27 million and I asked - What is this $27 million? - because it's not in the legislation. The Seattle Times said that it was in the legislation - that is not true. The legislation itself essentially just reintroduces the drug criminalization ordinance, which would allow Ann Davison, the City Attorney, to start prosecuting drug users and adds a phrasing that says the police department must adopt a policy in the future that prioritizes diversion when people are arrested for drugs. $27 million was a separate announcement that Harrell made as part of announcing this legislation. And what it is, in fact, is $7 million in underspending, so money that the City failed to spend in previous years, will be put forward to some kind of capital investment. So like a building - unclear what that will be, but it'll have something to do with treatment. So very vague, but $7 million in money that the City has left over. The other $20 million is funding from the two opioid settlements with the companies that the Attorney General of the State of Washington secured earlier this year - that $20 million trickles into the City of Seattle over 18 years. The rate of inflation being what it is - in 2034 or 2035, $1 million is not gonna buy a lot. It doesn't buy a lot now. It's really overstating the case to say that this is $27 million. It's two different kinds of money - one is this tiny trickle of a little bit of money that's gonna come in every year for the next 18 years. [00:23:49] Crystal Fincher: When I first saw that announced, my initial questions were - Where is this money coming from? We saw something similar to this back with the Compassion Seattle Initiative - okay, we tried to advance some legislation, it failed. So let's add some money to it to make it seem compassionate, that nods to the things that actually do have broad public support. It's money that is in other buckets that we're transitioning to this bucket, and it's looking big, but we're gonna be spending it over a long period of time - so it's not really an investment of a rounding error over what we're doing right now. Certainly looking at the scale of the problem - doesn't seem like it has a chance of doing much to meaningfully impact that at all. In fact, it seems like it might be an inefficient way to spend this money. Maybe this would be an area where you could look at what would function more effectively. But it seems like it's acceptable, with policy that we've seen coming out of this mayor's office, to cobble together these kinds of funds and announce it as if it's - Hey, we're making a significant investment here. Look at the details and they're underwhelming. I hope that there is more to the plan than this. [00:25:05] Erica Barnett: I should correct myself on that $7 million - it's actually not probably gonna be spent on new buildings. The mayor spokesman told me that it'll provide capital funding to prepare existing facilities to provide care and treatment services for substance use disorders. Again, very vague - not a lot of money spread over, potentially, a lot of different facilities. And as we discussed, the City has this huge looming revenue shortfall. They don't have a lot of money. They don't have $27 million to put into anything new. And so I think this speaks to the fact that we are actually going to address the problem just of opioid addiction. It is going to cost a lot of money and it would require actual new funding. It's not something that the City is generally responsible for - public health is the responsibility of the County primarily. The City is out here claiming to have the solutions in hand and it's really incumbent on reporters and just on the public to be aware of what this really means, which is not a whole lot. [00:26:03] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it will be interesting to see how this lands - with the council taking this up, where this is gonna go. I would love to see significant funding put in this and enough where it looks like it could make a difference in the area. We'll see how this shakes out. Also wanna talk about a positive thing - I think to many people, myself included - that happened this week and that is the passage of new protections for app-based workers in the City of Seattle. What did this legislation do? [00:26:32] Erica Barnett: Yeah, the City has been working for months, it feels like years, on legislation to help protect app-based workers - folks like Uber drivers, grocery delivery app workers - from being deactivated in the apps and effectively being unable to earn a living. The workers have argued they are subject to unfair deactivation by companies, retaliatory deactivation, this sort of thing. The legislation would say they have a right to appeal if they are deactivated. It also sets out some guidelines for deactivation. It is a first step toward protecting folks who are working as "gig workers," who have few labor protections. It's not a lot different than being a freelance writer or a contractor, but with low hourly pay and without the protections that you have being an employee of one of these companies. It's a BS job designation, but the gig economy operates on workers who have very few protections, very low pay, and has insisted that their workers are not employees because that would afford them protections that most people with jobs have. City of Seattle is taking steps to try to give them some of those protections, although they're still not employees and still don't have the protections that they deserve as members of the labor force. [00:27:50] Crystal Fincher: An important element here is how these platforms and gig work companies advertise themselves to people who could work on their platforms. They do signal - Hey, this is a way to achieve financial stability. This is almost like building your own business or a new way to have more freedom, yet still be able to pay your bills and live the life that you want. But the way that you could get kicked off of these platforms could be completely arbitrary with no recourse. And as you said, this is really about having a way to appeal these decisions that sometimes are made without the involvement of any person - some algorithm determines that something didn't go well and it could get that wrong. We see plenty of times where automated decisions, whether it's an algorithm or AI, do not make the just decision. And having someone's livelihood that depends on that should come with more protections, more assurances, or at least a consistent process that could be followed. So I am happy to see this pass. This is continuing to grow and a really substantial area of our economy and a lot of our neighbors rely on this kind of income - having that be more predictable and stable with more of a process for people to understand how it works and how they can operate within it is a positive thing. [00:29:11] Erica Barnett: Firing a writer because of negative comments in the comments section of a blog - the customer is not always right - and in a normal job, if you've got a complaint from a customer, you would have the opportunity to state your case to your employer. In this case, as you said, it's determined by algorithms that are not transparent. You really have no recourse. [00:29:29] Crystal Fincher: Legislation was crafted with the input of these app companies too. I think Lisa Herbold was quoted as saying, she made some modifications to make sure - after hearing feedback from these companies - to do all that they could to make sure that they were being explicit about action taken to protect people's safety or those kinds of urgent situations. This is really getting at the element of people being able to understand the rules and the processes they have to adhere to. And finally this week, I wanna talk about a story that maybe a lot of people are seeing anecdotally. We've been seeing news across the country about wastewater detection of COVID increasing. It looks like we are going to see a late-summer COVID wave here in Washington state. What's going on with the 'VID? [00:30:21] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I know tons of people who've gotten COVID recently. It's very alarming. People are slacking off, or have been slacking off for at least a year or so, with COVID thinking that it's over, the pandemic emergency being declared over and people aren't wearing masks. There's obviously a surge. I read a really alarming story about the impacts of long COVID, which we really have yet to reckon with. It was a story about just how much it affects your cardiovascular health and the rate of heart attacks going up in younger people. It's very alarming and it's still a very serious disease - even if you aren't showing symptoms, even if you're showing mild symptoms, it's very scary. I traveled recently and I was guilty of not wearing my mask as much as I probably should have. And I was lucky I didn't get COVID, but it's still coming for all of us. [00:31:09] Crystal Fincher: It is still coming for all of us. I did travel recently, was masked during travel. Doesn't happen to everyone, but a significant percentage of people who have mild initial infection can come with all of these side effects. We just don't know yet. This COVID has not been around long enough to know what the long-term impacts are. My biggest learnings during COVID is how viruses operate overall and how it's not unusual for a wide variety of viruses to be an initial flu-like illness, like how HPV is tied to cervical cancer. I'm certainly not an MD - look this up yourself, follow guidance. It does seem like we should be more cautious about transmitting viruses overall, COVID or not. If wearing a mask can keep me from having that, I think that's a positive thing. We need to continue to focus on responses that make shared spaces safer, looking at ventilation and air filtration and treatment. I hope those conversations are still ongoing in policy circles - certainly they're important. It's unfortunate that we have relaxed masking in places where people don't have a choice to be, like on public transit or in healthcare settings, where they're more likely to see more sick people and the people who are there are more likely to be vulnerable. You can't not go to the doctors when you need help or you're relying on treatment. [00:32:33] Erica Barnett: One reason I am less vulnerable is because I work from home. The City is currently still debating whether to and how much to force people to come back into work at the City of Seattle. Amazon - I saw a story today that they are monitoring people using their badge swipe-ins to police whether people are following their work-from-the-office mandates. There's so many benefits to letting people work from home. I find it very discouraging that part of the debate seems to have been settled in favor of the you-must-work-at-the-office crowd. It is protective to be at home and not be out in crowds of people who may be less cautious and getting you sick. [00:33:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. I'm definitely a proponent of working from home - I am doing that as we speak - that's a privilege I have that a lot of people don't have. If you do come down with something, you can test for whether it's COVID or anything else. And employers making sure that they are giving their employees leave, which is a big problem, particularly in service industries. And with that, I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, August 11th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng, who is incredible and amazing and talented. Our insightful cohost today is Seattle political reporter and Editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter at @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me on all platforms @finchfrii, that's F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, 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 shows and our Tuesday topical interview shows delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full text 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.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell joins the Chino Y Chicano to talk about the state of the city.   A recent poll commissioned by the Downtown Seattle Association and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce found the Mayor with a 67 percent favorable impression among the respondents.  However, the poll also found that 60 percent of respondents felt the city is on the wrong track. Mayor Harrell weighs in on the polling, along with his vision to revitalize downtown, concerns about public safety, homelessness, a growing fentanyl crisis, the city council, planning for the unpredictable and growing up bi-racial. Read:https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/buoyed-by-poll-seattle-mayor-harrell-should-go-big-on-public-safety/Read: https://crosscut.com/news/2023/01/two-seattle-asian-american-community-newspapers-go-out-printRead: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/leesa-manion-sworn-in-as-king-county-prosecuting-attorney/Read: The Best & Worst Awards for 2022https://i0.wp.com/nwasianweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/04-05-Matt-and-Gei-1.jpgRead Marcus Harrison Green's Seattle's Times column about Black Youth suicide. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/more-black-kids-are-dying-by-suicide-the-reasons-unfortunately-arent-surprising/

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.

This week Erica has some "Seattle Nice" things to say about Seattle's new Republican City Attorney Ann Davison. Plus, the pod debates a new  Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce poll that confirms everything Sandeep believes about Seattle voters.  If you like Seattle Nice please help support the pod on Patreon. Any monthly level is very welcome, and it will qualify you for upcoming members-only events and special content.  https://patreon.com/seattlenice?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=creatorshare Support the show

The infrastructure law provides the most significant investment in passenger rail in U.S. history, but substantial hurdles - including a powerful cartel - stand firmly in the way of a real national network. In this episode, learn the ways the infrastructure law paves the way for a better future for passenger rail along with the significant obstacles that it failed to address. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish YouTube Video What is the World Trade System? Contributors to Supply Chain Issues Matthew Jinoo Buck. February 4, 2022. “How America's Supply Chains Got Railroaded.” The American Prospect. “Cartel.” Merriam-Webster.com. 2022. “Energy Group Joins Shippers Alleging Price Fixing in Rail Transport.” January 6, 2020. The Houston Chronicle. Testimony of Dennis R. Pierce. Passenger and Freight Rail: The Current Status of the Rail Network and the Track Ahead. October 21, 2020. 116th Cong. U.S. Internal Revenue Service. December 31, 2019. “IRS issues standard mileage rates for 2020.” Dangers of Monster Trains and Rail Profiteering Aaron Gordon. Mar 22, 2021. “‘It's Going to End Up Like Boeing': How Freight Rail Is Courting Catastrophe.” Vice. U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. Dec 29, 2020. “Accident Report: Collision of Union Pacific Railroad Train MGRCY04 with a Stationary Train, Granite Canyon, Wyoming, October 4, 2018” [NTSB/RAR-20/05 / PB2020-101016.] Marybeth Luczak. Nov 30, 2020. “Transport Canada Updates Rail Employee Fatigue Rules.” Railway Age. U.S. Government Accountability Office. May 30, 2019. “Rail Safety: Freight Trains Are Getting Longer, and Additional Information Is Needed to Assess Their Impact” [GAO-19-443.] Christina M. Rudin-Brown, Sarah Harris, and Ari Rosberg. May 2019. “How shift scheduling practices contribute to fatigue amongst freight rail operating employees: Findings from Canadian accident investigations.” Accident Analysis and Prevention. Jessica Murphy. Jan 19, 2018. “Lac-Megantic: The runaway train that destroyed a town.” BBC. Eric M. Johnson. Dec 6, 2017. “Growing length of U.S. freight trains in federal crosshairs after crashes: GAO.” Reuters. Cumberland Times-News. Aug 12, 2017. “Last of Hyndman's evacuated residents return home.” The Tribune Democrat. Jeffrey Alderton. Aug 5, 2017. “Propane fire out at Hyndman train crash site, residents await news of when they can return.” The Tribune Democrat. Jeffrey Alderton. Aug 3, 2017. “Train derailment destroys Bedford County home, forces evacuation.” The Tribune Democrat. New Jersey Department of Health. Revised June 2011. “Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet: Sodium Chlorate.” Stephen Joiner. Feb 11, 2010 “Is Bigger Better? 'Monster' Trains vs Freight Trains.” Popular Mechanics. Lobbying and Corruption “CSX Corp: Recipients.” 2020. Open Secrets. CSX Corporation Lobbying Report. 2020. Senate.gov. “Union Pacific Corp: Summary.” 2020. Open Secrets. “Union Pacific Corp: Members Invested.” 2018. Open Secrets. Union Pacific Corporation Lobbying Report. 2020. Senate.gov. What you really pay for TV Gavin Bridge. Oct 27, 2020. “The True Cost to Consumers of Pay TV's Top Channels.” Variety. Laws H.R.3684 - Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Sponsor: Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) Status: Became Public Law No. 117-58 Law Outline DIVISION A: SURFACE TRANSPORTATION TITLE I - FEDERAL-AID HIGHWAYS Subtitle A - Authorizations and Programs Sec. 11101: Authorization of appropriations Authorizes appropriations for Federal-Aid for highways at between $52 billion and $56 billion per year through fiscal year 2026 (over $273 billion total). Authorizes $300 million for "charging and fueling infrastructure grants" for 2022, which increases by $100 million per year (maxing out at $700 million in 2026) Authorizes between $25 million and $30 million per year for "community resilience and evacuation route grants" on top of equal amounts for "at risk coastal infrastructure grants" Authorizes a total of $6.53 billion (from two funds) for the bridge investment program Sec. 11102: Obligation ceiling Caps the annual total funding from all laws (with many exceptions) that can be spent on Federal highway programs. Total through 2026: $300.3 billion Sec. 11109: Surface transportation block grant program: Allows money from the surface transportation block grant program to be used for "planning and construction" of projects that "facilitate intermodel connections between emerging transportation technologies", specifically naming the hyperloop Sec. 11508: Requirements for Transportation Projects Carried Out Through Public Private Partnerships For projects that cost $100 million or more, before entering into a contract with a private company, the government partner has to conduct a "value for money analysis" of the partnership. Three years after a project is opened to traffic, the government partner has to review the compliance of the private company and either certify their compliance or report to the Secretary of Transportation the details of the violation. The certifications or violation notifications must be publicly available "in a form that does not disclose any proprietary or confidential business information." DIVISION B - SURFACE TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENT ACT OF 2021 TITLE I - MULTIMODAL AND FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION Subtitle A - Multimodal Freight Policy Sec. 21101: Office of Multimodal Freight Infrastructure and Policy Restructures/eliminates offices at the Department of Transportation to create an Office of Multimodal Freight Infrastructure and Policy The person in charge will be appointed by the President and has to be confirmed by the Senate Authorizes "such sums as are necessary" Subtitle B - Multimodal Investment Sec. 21201: National infrastructure project assistance Authorizes $2 billion per year until 2026 ($10 billion total) on projects that cost at least $100 million that include highways, bridges, freight rail, passenger rail, and public transportation projects. The Federal government will pay a maximum of 80% of the project costs. Sec. 21202: Local and regional project assistance Authorizes $1.5 billion per year until 2026 ($7.5 billion) (which will expire after 3 years) for grants for local transportation projects in amounts between $1 million and $25 million for projects that include highway, bridge, public transportation, passenger and freight rail, port infrastructure, surface transportation at airports, and more. Sec. 21203: National culvert removal, replacement, and restoration grant program Authorizes $800 million per year through 2026 ($4 billion) for grants for projects that replace, remove, or repair culverts (water channels) that improve or restore passages for fish. Subtitle C - Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Reforms TITLE II - RAIL Subtitle A - Authorization of Appropriations Sec. 22101: Grants to Amtrak Authorizes appropriations for Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor at between $1.1 billion and $1.57 billion per year through 2026 ($6.57 billion total). Authorizes appropriations for Amtrak in the National Network at between $2.2 billion and $3 billion per year through 2026 ($12.65 billion total). Sec. 22103: Consolidated rail infrastructure and safety improvements grants Authorizes $1 billion per year through 2026 ($5 billion total) for rail infrastructure safety improvement grants Sec. 22104: Railroad crossing elimination program Authorizes $500 million per year through 2016 ($2.5 billion total) for the elimination of railroad crossings Sec. 22106: Federal-State partnership for intercity passenger rail grants Authorizes $1.5 billion per year through 2026 ($7.5 billion total) for grants to states to expand intercity passenger rail grants Subtitle B - Amtrak Reforms Sec. 22201: Amtrak findings, mission, and goals Changes the goal of cooperation between Amtrak, governments, & other rail carriers from "to achieve a performance level sufficient to justify expending public money" to "in order to meet the intercity passenger rail needs of the United States" and expands the service areas beyond "urban" locations. Changes the goals of Amtrak to include... "Improving its contracts with rail carriers over whose tracks Amtrak operates." "Offering competitive fares" "Increasing revenue from the transportation of mail and express" "Encourages" Amtrak to make agreement with private companies that will generate additional revenue Sec. 22203: Station agents Requires that at least one Amtrak ticket agent works at each station, unless there is a commuter rail agent who has the authority to sell Amtrak tickets Sec. 22208: Passenger Experience Enhancement Removes the requirement that Amtrak's food and beverage service financially break even in order to be offered on its trains Creates a working group to make recommendations about how to improve the onboard food and beverage service The report must be complete within one year of the working group's formation After the report is complete, Amtrak must create a plan to implementing the working group's recommendations and/or tell Congress in writing why they will not implement the recommendations The plan can not include Amtrak employee layoffs Sec . 22209: Amtrak smoking policy Requires Amtrak to prohibit smoking - including electronic cigarettes - on all Amtrak trains Sec. 22210: Protecting Amtrak routes through rural communities Prohibits Amtrak from cutting or reducing service to a rail route if they receive adequate Federal funding for that route Sec. 22213: Creating Quality Jobs Amtrak will not be allowed to privatize the jobs previously performed by laid off union workers. Sec. 22214: Amtrak Daily Long Distance Study Authorizes $15 million for an Amtrak study on bringing back long distance rail routes that were discontinued. Subtitle C - Intercity Passenger Rail Policy Sec. 22304: Restoration and Enhancement Grants Extends the amount of time the government will pay the operating costs of Amtrak or "any rail carrier" partnered with Amtrak or a government agency that provides passenger rail service from 3 years to 6 years, and pays higher percentages of the the costs. Sec. 22305: Railroad crossing elimination program Creates a program to eliminate highway-rail crossings where vehicles are frequently stopped by trains Authorizes the construction on tunnels and bridges Requires the government agency in charge of the project to "obtain the necessary approvals from any impacted rail carriers or real property owners before proceeding with the construction of a project" Each grant will be for at least $1 million each The Federal government will pay no more than 80% of the project's cost Sec. 22306: Interstate rail compacts Authorizes up to 10 grants per year valued at a maximum of $1 million each to plan and promote new Amtrak routes The grant recipient will have to match the grant by at least 50% of the eligible expenses Sec. 22308: Corridor identification and development program The Secretary of Transportation will create a program for public entities to plan for expanded intercity passenger rail corridors (which are routes that are less than 750 miles), operated by Amtrak or private companies. When developing plans for corridors, the Secretary has to "consult" with "host railroads for the proposed corridor" Subtitle D - Rail Safety Sec. 22404: Blocked Crossing Portal The Administration of the Federal Railroad Administration would establish a "3 year blocked crossing portal" which would collect information about blocked crossing by trains from the public and first responders and provide every person submitting the complaint the contact information of the "relevant railroad" and would "encourage" them to complain to them too. Information collected would NOT be allowed to be used for any regulatory or enforcement purposes Reports to Congress will be created using the information collected Sec. 22406: Emergency Lighting The Secretary of Transportation will have to issue a rule requiring that all carriers that transport human passengers have an emergency lighting system that turns on when there is a power failure. Sec. 22408: Completion of Hours of Service and Fatigue Studies Requires the Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration to start pilot programs that were supposed to be conducted no later than 2010, which will test railroad employee scheduling rules designed to reduce employee fatigue. They will test... Assigning employees to shifts with 10 hours advance notice For employees subject to being on-call, having some shifts when those employees are not subject to being on-call. If the pilot programs have not begun by around March of 2023, a report will have to be submitted to Congress explaining the challenges, including "efforts to recruit participant railroads" Sec. 22409: Positive Train Control Study The Comptroller General will conduct a study to determine the annual operation and maintenance costs for positive train control. Sec. 22418: Civil Penalty Enforcement Authority Requires the Secretary of Transportation to provide notice and an opportunity for a hearing to "persons" who violate regulations requiring railroads to report information about railroad crossings. Eliminates the minimum $500 fine for violating the regulations Allows the Attorney General to take the railroad to court to collect the penalty but prohibits the amount of the civil penalty from being reviewed by the courts. Sec. 22423: High-Speed Train Noise Emissions Allows, but does not require, the Secretary of Transportation to create regulations governing the noise levels of trains that exceed 160 mph. Sec. 22425: Requirements for railroad freight cars placed into service in the United States Effective 3 years after the regulations are complete (maximum 5 years after this becomes law), freight cars will be prohibited from operating within the United States if it has sensitive technology originating from or if more than 15% of it is manufactured in... "A country of concern" (which is defined as a country identified by the Commerce Department "as a nonmarket economy country"). Countries on the nonmarket economy list include... Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus China Georgia Kyrgyz Republic Moldova Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Vietnam A country identified by the United States Trade Representative on its priority watch list, which in 2020 included... China Indonesia India Algeria Saudi Arabia Russia Ukraine Argentina Chile Venezuela State owned enterprises The Secretary of Transportation can assess fines between $100,000 and $250,000 per freight car. A company that has been found in violation 3 times can be kicked out of the United States transportation system until they are in compliance and have paid all their fines in full. These rules will apply regardless of what was agreed to in the USMCA trade agreement. Sec. 22427: Controlled substances testing for mechanical employees 180 days after this becomes law, all railroad mechanics will be subject to drug testing, which can be conducted at random. Bills H.R.1748 - Safe Freight Act of 2019 Sponsor: Rep. Don Young (R-AK) Status: Referred to Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials 03/14/2019 Hearings Leveraging IIJA: Plans for Expanding Intercity Passenger Rail House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials December 9, 2021 During the hearing, witnesses discussed plans for expanding intercity passenger rail in their states, regions, and networks, and how the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was recently signed into law, will support these efforts. Witnesses: Stephen Gardner, President, Amtrak David Kim, Secretary, California State Transportation Agency Kevin Corbett, President and CEO of New Jersey Transit, Co-Chair, Northeast Corridor Commission, On behalf of Northeast Corridor Commission Julie White, Deputy Secretary for Multimodal Transportation, North Carolina Department of Transportation, Commission Chair, Southeast Corridor Commission, On behalf of the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the Southeast Corridor Commission Ms. Donna DeMartino, Managing Director, Los Angeles – San Diego – San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency Knox Ross, Mississippi Commission and Chair of the Southern Rail Commission Clips 8:52 - 9:12 Rep. Rick Crawford: Finally, any potential expansion of the Amtrak system must include the full input of the freight railroads on capacity and track sharing issues. The ongoing supply chain crisis only further emphasizes the value of freight railroads and efficiently moving goods across the nation. The important work the freight railroads cannot be obstructed. 16:49 - 17:10 Rep. Peter DeFazio The law is pretty clear: preference over freight transportation except in an emergency. Intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation and using a rail line junction crossing unless the board orders otherwise under this subsection. Well, obviously that has not been observed. 22:05 - 22:24 Stephen Gardner: With the $66 billion provided to the Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak we and our partners can finally have the chance to renew, improve or replace antiquated assets like the century old bridges and tunnels in the Northeast, inaccessible stations around the nation, and our vintage trains. 23:44 - 24:11 Stephen Gardner: Additionally, we'll continue to work collaboratively with our partners where they see value in working with other parties to deliver parts of their service and with new railroad entities that aim to develop or deliver their own service. We simply ask that key railroad laws like the Railway Labor Act and railway retirement apply to new entrants, that the federal government gets equity and accountability for investments it makes in private systems, and that any new services create connections with Amtrak's national network 1:25:00 - 1:25:37 Stephen Gardner: We've been working very closely with a variety of host railroads on opportunities to expand, notably Burlington Northern Santa Fe and our work to expand the Heartland Flyer service between Texas and Oklahoma and potentially extend that North to Wichita, Newton, in Colorado along the front range also with BNSF, to look at opportunities there. With Canadian Pacific we've been having really good conversations about launching a new service between the Twin Cities, Milwaukee and Chicago. Similarly, I think there's opportunities for that Baton Rouge to New Orleans service that Mr. Ross mentioned. 1:54:24 - 1:55:10 Rep. Chuy Garcia: You've each had different experiences with freight railroads as the host railroad for your respective services. What can Congress do to help you as you discuss expanding and improving passenger rail service with your freight railroad? You'll have about 15 seconds each. Knox Ross: Congressman, thank you. I think it's enforcing the will of Congress and the law that set up Amtrak in the beginning is, as the Chairman talked about, in the beginning, that people have a preference over freight. Now we understand that we all have to work together to do that. But we think there are many ways that Amtrak and other other hosts can work together with the fright to get this done, but the law has to be enforced. 1:55:14 - 1:55:30 Julie White: I would say that the money in the IIJA is going to be really important as we work, for example, on the S Line it is an FRA grant that enables us to acquire that line from CSX and enables us to grow freight rail on it at the same time as passenger. 1:58:05 - 1:58:23 Rep. Tim Burchett: Also understand that Amtrak is planning to either expand or build new rail corridors in 26 states across the country over the next 15 years and I was wondering: what makes you think Amtrak will turn a profit in any of those communities? 1:58:43 - 1:59:29 Stephen Gardner: But I would be clear here that our expectation is that these corridors do require support from states and the federal government, that they produce real value and support a lot of important transportation needs. But we measure those not necessarily by the profit of the farebox, so to speak, even though Amtrak has the highest farebox recovery of any system in the United States by far in terms of rail systems, we believe that Amtrak mission is to create mobility, mobility that creates value. We do that with as little public funding as we can, but the current services do require support investment and I think that's fair. All transportation modes require investment. 2:00:12 - 2:00:24 Rep. Tim Burchett: Since you mentioned that you needed more funding down the line, don't you think it'd be better to make your current service corridors more profit -- or just profitable before you build new ones in other parts of the country? When Unlimited Potential Meets Limited Resources: The Benefits and Challenges of High-Speed Rail and Emerging Rail Technologies House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials May 6, 2021 This hearing featured twelve witnesses from a range of perspectives, exploring the opportunities and limitations associated with high-speed rail and emerging technologies, including regulatory oversight, technology readiness, project costs, and available federal resources. Witnesses: John Porcari, Former Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Transportation Rachel Smith, President and CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Phillip Washington, CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Danielle Eckert, International Representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Carbett "Trey" Duhon III, Judge in Waller County, TX Andy Kunz, President and CEO of the US High Speed Rail Association Carlos Aguilar, President and CEO of Texas Central High Speed Rail William Flynn, CEO of Amtrak Josh Giegel, CEO and Co-Founder of Virgin Hyperloop Andres de Leon, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Michal Reininger, CEO of Brightline Trains Wayne Rogers, Chairman and CEO of Northeast Maglev Clips 8:37 - 8:48 Rep. Rick Crawford: Rail is also considered one of the most fuel efficient ways to move freight. On average freight rail can move one ton of freight over 470 miles on one gallon of fuel. 18:05 - 18:46 Rep. Peter DeFazio: You know we have put aggregate with the essentially post World War Two, mostly the Eisenhower program, $2 trillion -- trillion -- into highways, invested by the federal government, a lot of money. But post World War Two $777 billion into aviation, airports, runways, air traffic control etc. And, and we have put about $90 billion total into rail. 22:45 - 23:25 John Porcari: As I evaluated ways to increase capacity in the Baltimore-New York City corridor, these were my choices: I could add air capacity between BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport and New York with 90% federal funding for runway and taxiway improvements, I could add highway capacity on I-95 to New York with 80% federal funding, or add passenger rail capacity with zero federal funding for that 215 mile segment. A passenger rail trip makes far more sense than driving or flying, yet passenger rail capacity was the least likely alternative to be selected. So if you wonder why we have the unbalanced transportation system we have today, follow the money. 23:26 - 23:54 John Porcari: It's an extraordinary statement of state priorities that the California High Speed Rail Authority's 2020 Business Plan anticipates 85% of its funding from state sources and only 15% federal funding for this project of national and regional significance. This is a remarkable state financial commitment and a clear declaration of the state's project priorities. Yet there's no ongoing sustained federal financial partner for this multi year program of projects. 23:54 - 24:28 John Porcari: To match the people carrying capacity of phase one of the high speed rail system, California would need to invest $122 to $199 billion towards building almost 4200 highway lane miles, the equivalent of a new six lane highway and the construction of 91 new airport gates and two new runways. The San Francisco-Los Angeles air loop is already the ninth busiest in the world, and the busiest air route in America. Doesn't it make sense to prioritize this finite and expensive airport capacity for trans continental and international flights? 24:28 - 24:40 John Porcari: For California the 120 to 209 billion of required highway and airport capacity as an alternative to high speed rail is double the 69 to 99 billion cost estimate for phase one of the high speed rail system. 25:05 - 25:18 John Porcari: Providing real transportation choices at the local and state level requires the establishment of a Passenger Rail Trust Fund on par with our Highway Trust Fund and Airport and Airway Trust Fund. 48:00 - 48:23 Trey Duhon: Texas Central promised this project was privately financed, and everything they've done today, including the EIS was based on that. So we say let it live or die in the free market and invest our tax dollars in more equitable transportation solutions. We should not have to pay for another train to nowhere while having our communities destroyed by the very tax dollars that we work hard to contribute. 49:48 - 50:42 Andy Kunz: High Speed Rail can unlock numerous ridership opportunities. Essential workers like teachers, police and firemen in the high price Silicon Valley could find affordable housing options with a short train ride to Merced or Fresno in California's Central Valley. Residents of Eugene, Oregon could access jobs in Portland's tech sector or booming recreational industry with a 35 minute commute. A Houston salesperson could prepare for an important client meeting in Dallas with dedicated Wi Fi and ample workspace while gliding past the notorious congestion on I-45. A college student in Atlanta could make it home for Thanksgiving in Charlotte while picking up grandma along the way in Greenville, South Carolina. International tourists visiting Disney World in Orlando could extend their vacation with a day trip to the Gulf beaches of the Greater Tampa Bay area. 51:41 - 54:58 Andy Kunz: High Speed Rail has an unmatched track record of safety. Japan, with the world's first high speed rail network, has carried millions of people over 50 years without a single fatality, in comparison as many as 40,000 Americans are killed every year in auto accidents on our highways. 52:22 - 52:45 Andy Kunz: China has invested over a trillion dollars in high speed rail, allowing them to build a world class 22,000 mile network in 14 years. Not taking a pause, China plans to construct another 21,000 miles of track over the next nine years. Modern infrastructure like this fuels China's explosive economic growth, making it challenging for us to compete with them in the 21st century. 52:46 - 53:10 Andy Kunz: On the other side of the globe, the United Kingdom is currently doubling their rail network with $120 billion investment. France has invested over $160 billion in constructing their system. Spain's 2000 mile High Speed Rail Network is the largest in Europe, costing more than 175 billion. These are considerable investments by nations that are similar in size to Texas. 1:08:00 - 1:09:00 Rep. Peter DeFazio: Are you aware of any high speed rail project in the world that isn't government subsidized? I know, Virgin in, you know, in Great Britain says, well, we make money. Yeah, you make money. You don't have to maintain the rail, the government does that, all you do is put a train set on it and run it. John Porcari: Yeah, that's a really important point, Mr. Chairman, virtually every one that I'm aware of in the world has had a very big public investment in the infrastructure itself, the operation by a private operator can be very profitable. I would point out that that is no different, conceptually from our airways system, for example, where federal taxpayer investments make possible the operations of our airlines, which in turn are profitable and no different than our very profitable trucking industry in the US, which is enabled by the public infrastructure investment of the highway system itself. 1:09:46 - 1:10:37 Philip Washington: The potential is very, very good to make that connection with the private railroad. And actually that is the plan. And we are working with that, that private railroad right now to do that. And that connection with the help of some twin bore tunnel will allow train speeds to be at anywhere from 180 to 200 miles an hour, getting from that high desert corridor to Los Angeles. And so it's a it's a huge, huge effort. It links up with high speed rail from the north as well, with the link up coming into Union Station as well. So I think the potential to link up both of these are very, very great. And we're working with both entities. 1:11:31 - 1:12:13 Philip Washington: Well one of our ideas very quickly is right now we have as you know, Mr. Chairman, assembly plants, assembly plants all over the country what we are proposing is a soup to nuts, all included manufacturing outfit in this country that manufactures trains from the ground up, forging steel, all of those things. So we have proposed an industrial park with suppliers on site as well to actually build again from the ground up, rail car passenger rail car vehicles and locomotives. It is the return of manufacturing to this country as we see it. 1:21:16 - 1:21:50 John Porcari: We have 111 year old tunnel in New York, we have a B&P tunnel in Baltimore, that Civil War era. Those are not the biggest obstacles. It is more a question of will. What we want to do as a country in infrastructure, we do, and we've never made rail, really the priority that that I think it needs to be. And we've never provided meaningful choices for the states to select rail and build a multi year rail program because we don't have the funding part of it. 1:21:55 - 1:22:19 John Porcari: Our passenger rail system in the US is moving from a survival mode to a growth mode. And I think that's a very healthy thing for the country. Whether you're talking about our cross country service, one of the coastal corridors or the Midwest service, all of that is really important. In just the same way we built the interstates, city pairs aggregating into a national system, we can really do that with the passenger rail system if we have the will. 1:27:13 - 1:27:41 Rep. Michelle Steel: My constituents are already taxed enough, with California state and local taxes and skyrocketing gas prices making it unaffordable to live. I just came back from Texas, their gas price was $2 something and we are paying over $4 in California. We must preserve our local economy by lowering taxes not raising them. And we must not continue throwing tax dollars into a high speed money pit. 1:30:53 - 1:31:11 Trey Duhon: The folks in Waller county the folks that I know, a family of four is not going to pay $1,000 To ride a train between Houston and Dallas, when they can get there on a $50 tank of gas an hour and a half later. It's just not going to happen. So it's not a mass transit solution, at least not for this corridor. 1:48:56 - 1:49:25 Andy Kunz: The other big thing that hasn't been mentioned is the the cost of people's time and waste sitting stuck in traffic or stuck in airports. It's estimated to be several 100 billion dollars a year. And then as a business person, time is money. So if all your people are taking all day to get anywhere your entire company is less competitive, especially against nations that actually have these efficient systems, and then they can out compete us 2:03:52 - 2:04:13 Seth Moulton: And I would just add, you know, we build high speed rail, no one's gonna force you to take it. You have that freedom of choice that Americans don't have today and yet travelers all around the world have. I don't understand why travelers in China should have so much more freedom than we do today. In America, high speed railway would rapidly rectify that 3:01:09 - 3:01:27 Josh Giegel: In 2014 I co-founded this company in a garage when Hyperloop was just an idea on a whiteboard. By late 2016 We began construction of our first full system test set, dev loop, north of Las Vegas. To date we've completed over 500 tests of our system. 3:01:38 - 3:01:48 Josh Giegel: Today we have approximately 300 employees and are the leading Hyperloop company in the world and the only company, the only company to have had passengers travel safely in a Hyperloop. 3:01:48 - 3:02:33 Josh Giegel: Hyperloop is a high speed surface transportation system. Travel occurs within a low pressure enclosure equivalent to 200,000 feet above sea level, in a vehicle pressurized to normal atmospheric conditions, much like a commercial aircraft. This, along with our proprietary magnetic levitation engine, allows us to reach and maintain airline speeds with significantly less energy than other modes of transportation. Not only is Hyperloop fast, it's a high capacity mass transit system capable of comfortably moving people and goods at 670 miles per hour with 50,000 passengers per hour per direction, on demand and direct to your destination, meaning no stops along the way. 3:02:54 - 3:02:58 Josh Giegel: We achieve all this on a fully electric system with no direct emissions. 3:11:34 - 3:11:53 Mike Reininger: Since our 2018 launch in Florida, we operate the only private high speed system in the US, showcasing the potential of American high speed passenger rail. We carried more than a million passengers in our first full year and learned a lot that is worth sharing from the investment of over $4 billion over the last 10 years. 3:12:45 - 3:12:57 Mike Reininger: We use existing road alignments and infrastructure corridors to leverage previous investments, reduce environmental impacts, lower costs, and speed execution as a basis for profitability. 3:13:00 - 3:13:28 Mike Reininger: In 2022, we will complete the extension into the Orlando International Airport, making our total route 235 miles, linking four of the largest cities in America's third largest state. 400 million annual trips occur between these cities today, 95% of them by car. By upgrading a freight railway first built in the 1890s and building along an Express Highway, we leveraged 130 years of previous investment to support our 21st century service. 3:13:31 - 3:13:51 Mike Reininger: Brightline West will connect Las Vegas to Los Angeles, where today 50 million annual trips and over 100 daily flights occur. Traveling on trains capable of speeds of 200 miles an hour using the I-15 corridor, but cutting the drive time in half, Brightline West's better option expects to serve 11 million annual riders. 3:14:56 - 3:15:08 Mike Reininger: Consider allowing private entities to become eligible parties for FRA grant programs by partnering with currently eligible applicants as a simple way to stretch direct government investment. 3:29:39 - 3:29:54 Rep. Rick Crawford: Amtrak announced plans to expand its routes including to several small cities where there doesn't appear to be enough demand or population to warrant those new lines. Can you guarantee that those new routes will be self sustaining and turn a profit or will they lose money? 3:38:42 - 3:38:55 Bill Flynn: 125 miles an hour on existing track infrastructure is high speed. The newest Acelas we ordered will have a top speed of 186 miles an hour. 3:36:46 - 3:37:05 Rep. Seth Moulton: What is the top speed of the Acela service? Bill Flynn: The Acela service in the southern network, Washington to New York, top speeds 135 miles an hour, and then in New York to Boston top speed of 150 miles an hour across different segments of the track. 4:11:57 - 4:12:30 Bill Flynn: When we think about NEPA and the other permitting processes that take place, and then ultimately into construction, on many major projects, we're talking a decade or more. So without the visibility and predictability and the certainty of funding, these projects are all affected, they ultimately become more high cost, and they take longer than they should. So if I were to recommend one policy action, creating a trust fund, or trust fund like structure, for intercity passenger rail would be key. Full Steam Ahead for Rail: Why Rail is More Relevant Than Ever for Economic and Environmental Progress House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials March 10, 2021 The hearing explored the importance of rail to the U.S. economy and as a tool to mitigate climate change. Witnesses: Shannon Valentine, Secretary of Transportation, The Commonwealth of Virginia Caren Kraska, President/Chairman, Arkansas & Missouri Railroad Greg Regan, President, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO Tom Williams, Group Vice President for Consumer Products, BNSF Railway Clips 18:17 - 18:50 Shannon Valentine: One of the worst rail bottlenecks, mentioned by Chairman DeFazio, along the east coast is at the Potomac River between Virginia and DC and it's called the long bridge which is owned by CSX. The bridge carries on passenger, commuter, and freight rail, nearly 80 trains a day and is at 98% capacity during peak periods. Due to these constraints, Virginia has been unable to expand passenger rail service, even though demand prior to the pandemic was reaching record highs. 18:50 - 19:42 Shannon Valentine: Virginia has been engaged in corridor planning studies, one of which was the I-95 corridor, which as you all know, is heavily congested. Even today as we emerge from this pandemic, traffic has returned to 90% of pre-pandemic levels. Through this study, we learned that adding just one lane in each direction for 50 miles would cost $12.5 billion. While the cost was staggering, the most sobering part of the analysis was that by the time that construction was complete, in 10 years, the corridor would be just as congested as it is today. That finding is what led Virginia to a mode that could provide the capacity at a third of the cost. 20:34 - 20:43 Shannon Valentine: According to APTA rail travel emits up to 83% fewer greenhouse gases than driving and up to 73% fewer than flying. 20:58 - 21:22 Shannon Valentine: Benefits can also be measured by increased access to jobs and improving the quality of life. The new service plan includes late night and weekend service because many essential jobs are not nine to five Monday through Friday. That is why we work to add trains leaving Washington in the late evening and on weekends, matching train schedules to the reality of our economy. 52:23 - 53:06* Rep. Peter DeFazio: I am concerned particularly when we have some railroads running trains as long as three miles. And they want to go to a single crew for a three mile long train. I asked the the former head of the FRA under Trump if the train broke down in Albany, Oregon and it's blocking every crossing through the city means no police, no fire, no ambulance, how long it's going to take the engineer to walk three miles from the front of the train to, say, the second car from the rear which is having a brake problem. And he said, Well, I don't know an hour. So you know there's some real concerns here that we have to pursue. 1:23:25 - 1:24:15 Shannon Valentine: When we first launched the intercity passenger rail, Virginia sponsored passenger rail, back in 2009, it really started with a pilot with $17 million for three years from Lynchburg, Virginia into DC into the new Northeast Corridor. And, and I had to make sure that we had 51,000 riders and we didn't know if we were going to be able to sustain it. And in that first year, we had 125,000 passengers. It always exceeded expectations for ridership and profitability. And today, that rail service which we now extend over to Roanoke, and we're working to get it to Blacksburg Christiansburg is really one of our most profitable rail services. In fact, probably in the country. It doesn't even need a subsidy because they're able to generate that kind of ridership. 2:10:21 - 2:12:11 Shannon Valentine: Our project, in my mind, is really the first step in creating a southeast high speed corridor, we have to build the bridge. In order to expand access, we need to be able to begin separating passenger and freight. And even before that is able to occur, building signings and creating the ability to move. We took a lot of lessons from a study called the DC to RDA again, it's the first part of that high speed southeast corridor. For us, it was recommended that we take an incremental approach rather than having a large 100 billion dollar project we're doing in increments. And so this is a $3.7 billion which is still going to help us over 10 years create hourly service between Richmond and DC. It was recommended that we use existing infrastructure and right of way so in our negotiations with CSX, we are acquiring 386 miles of right of way and 223 miles of track. We are also purchasing as part of this an S line. It's abandoned. It goes down into Ridgeway, North Carolina from Petersburg, Virginia, just south of Richmond. Because it's abandoned, we have a lot of opportunity for development for future phases or even higher speed rail. And we actually included part of Buckingham branch, it's an East West freight corridor that we would like to upgrade and protect for, for East West connection. All of these were incremental steps using existing right of way and tracks and achieving higher speeds where it was achievable. Examining the Surface Transportation Board's Role in Ensuring a Robust Passenger Rail System House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials November 18, 2020 Witnesses: Ann D. Begeman, Chairman, Surface Transportation Board Martin J. Oberman, Vice Chairman, Surface Transportation Board Romayne C. Brown, Chair of the Board of Directors, Metra Stephen Gardner, Senior Executive Vice President, Amtrak Ian Jefferies, President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of American Railroads Randal O'Toole, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute Paul Skoutelas, President and Chief Executive Officer, American Public Transportation Association Clips 27:31 - 27:59 Daniel Lipinski: Unlike Amtrak, Metra and other commuter railroads do not have a statutory federal preference prioritizing commuter trains over freight trains. Additionally, commuter railroads generally do not have standing to bring cases before the STB. Therefore, commuter railroads have very limited leverage when it comes to trying to expand their service on freight rail lines and ensuring that freight railroads Do not delay commuter trains. 35:42 - 36:27 Rep. Peter DeFazio: In fact, Congress included provisions to fix Amtrak on time performance in 2008. That is when PRIA added a provisions directing the FRA and Amtrak to work to develop on time performance metric standards to be used as a basis for an STB investigation. Unfortunately, those benefits haven't been realized. It's been 12 years since PRIA was passed. If our eyes metric and standards for on time performance were published this last Monday 12 years later, for the second time, and after this long and unacceptable delay, I look forward to seeing an improvement on Amtrak's performance both in in my state and nationwide. 38:01 - 38:32 Rep. Peter DeFazio: Worldwide, I'm not aware of any railroads, passenger railroads, that make money, although Virgin claims they do in England because they don't have to maintain the tracks. Pretty easy to make money if all you have to do is put a train set on it, run it back and forth. That's not the major expense. So, you know, to say that we shouldn't be subsidizing commuter or we shouldn't be subsidizing Amtrak is, you know, is just saying you don't want to run trains. Because everywhere else in the world they're subsidized. 43:45 - 44:30 Ann Begeman: Most intercity passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which is statutorily excluded from many of the board's regulatory requirements applicable to freight carriers. However, with the enactment of the Passenger Rail Investment Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIA) which both Chairman Lipinski and Chairman De Fazio has have mentioned in their opening comments, as well as the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of 2015. FAST Act, the board assumed additional Amtrak oversight responsibilities, including the authority to conduct investigations under certain circumstances, and when appropriate, to award relief and identify reasonable measures to improve performance on passenger rail routes. 1:02:24 - 1:03:07 Stephen Gardner: Congress created Amtrak in 1970 to take on a job that today's freight railroads no longer wanted. In exchange for contracts assumption of these private railroads common carrier obligation for passengers and the associated operating losses for passenger service, the freights agreed to allow Amtrak to operate wherever and whenever it wanted over their lines, to provide Amtrak trains with dispatching preference over freight, and to empower what is now the STB to ensure Amtrak's access to the rail network. It's been nearly 50 years since the freight railroads and agreed eagerly to this bargain. And yet today, many of our hosts railroads fall short and fulfilling some of these key obligations 1:03:28 - 1:04:38 Stephen Gardner: Since our founding, Congress has had to clarify and amend the law to try and ensure host compliance. For example, by 1973, the freights had begun delaying Amtrak train so severely that Congress enshrined this promise of Amtrak preference into federal law, and in 2008, delays had gotten so bad that Congress created a new process to set Amtrak on time performance and provided the STB with the authority to investigate poor OTP. But for several reasons, these efforts haven't remedied the problems. For Amtrak and your constituents that has meant millions of delayed passengers and years of impediment as we try to add trains or start new routes to keep up with changing markets and demand. As the AAR are made clear and its litigation opposing the PRIA metrics and standards rule, many hosts see supporting our operation not as their obligation to the public, but as competition for the use of their infrastructure. But Amtrak wasn't created to relieve host railroads of their requirements to support passenger trains. It was created to help them reduce financial losses and ensure that passenger trains could still serve the country 1:04:38 - 1:05:15 Stephen Gardner: We need this committee's help to restore your original deal with the freights. For example you can provide us as you have in the moving forward Act, a way to enforce our existing rights of preference. You can make real Amtrak statutory ability to start new routes and add additional trains without arbitrary barriers. You can create an office of passenger rail within the STB and require them to use their investigative powers to pursue significant instances of for OTP. You can require more efficient STB processes to grant Amtrak access to hosts and fairly set any compensation and capital investment requirements. 1:06:19 - 1:07:57 Stephen Gardner: A rarely heralded fact is that the U.S. has the largest rail network in the world. And yet we use so little of it for intercity passenger rail service. A fundamental reason for this is our inability to gain quick, reasonable access to the network and receive reliable service that we are owed under law. This has effectively blocked our growth and left much of our nation underserved. City pairs like Los Angeles and Phoenix, or Atlanta to Nashville could clearly benefit from Amtrak service. Existing rail lines already connect them. Shouldn't Amtrak be serving these and many other similar corridors nationwide? 1:12:34 - 1:12:57 Randall O'Toole: Last year, the average American traveled more than 15,000 miles by automobile, more than 2000 Miles, road several 100 miles on buses, walked more than 100 Miles, rode 100 miles by urban rail, transit and bicycled 26 miles. Meanwhile, Amtrak carried the average American just 19 Miles. 1:13:35 - 1:13:55 Randall O'Toole: In 1970, the railroads' main problem was not money losing passenger trains, but over regulation by the federal and state governments. Regulation or not, passenger trains are unable to compete against airlines and automobiles. A 1958 Interstate Commerce Commission report concluded that there was no way to make passenger trains profitable. 1:14:52 - 1:15:20 Randall O'Toole: The 1970 collapse of Penn Central shook the industry. Congress should have responded by eliminating the over regulation that was stifling the railroads. Instead, it created Amtrak with the expectation that it would be a for profit corporation and that taking passenger trains off the railroads hands would save them from bankruptcy 50 years and more than $50 billion in operating subsidies later, we know that Amtrak isn't and never will be profitable. 1:15:40 - 1:16:10 Randall O'Toole: When Amtrak was created, average rail fares per passenger mile were two thirds of average airfares. Thanks to airline deregulation since then, inflation adjusted air fares have fallen by 60%. Even as Amtrak fares per passenger mile have doubled. Average Amtrak fares exceeded airfares by 1990 despite huge operating subsidies, or perhaps as has well predicted, because those subsidies encouraged inefficiencies. 1:16:50 - 1:17:15 Randall O'Toole: Today thanks to more efficient operations, rail routes that once saw only a handful of trains per day support 60, 70 or 80 or more freight trains a day. This sometimes leaves little room for Amtrak. Displacing a money making freight train with a money losing passenger train is especially unfair considering that so few people use a passenger trains, while so many rely on freight. 1:17:15 - 1:17:25 Randall O'Toole: Passenger trains are pretty, but they're an obsolete form of transportation. Efforts to give passenger trains preference over freight we'll harm more people than it will help. 2:42:40 - 2:43:50 Stephen Gardner: We think that the poor on time performance that many of our routes have is a significant impediment to ridership and revenue growth. It's quite apparent, many of our passengers, particularly on our long distance network, that serves Dunsmuir, for instance, you know their routes frequently experience significant delays, the number one cause of those delays are freight train interference. This is delays encountered, that Amtrak encounters when freight trains are run in front of us or otherwise dispatching decisions are made that prioritize the freight trains in front of Amtrak. And the reduction in reliability is clearly a problem for passengers with many hour delays. Often our whole long distance network is operating at 50% or less on time performance if you look at over the many past years. Even right now, through this period of COVID, where freight traffic has been down and we're only at 60% over the last 12 months on time performance for the entire long distance network. 2:52:44 - 2:53:23 Stephen Gardner: The difference between the US system and most of the international examples is that the infrastructure is publicly owned, publicly owned and developed in all of these nations, the nations that Mr. O'Toole mentioned, there is a rail infrastructure entity and they're developing it for both passenger and freight in some of those locations are optimized for passenger service primarily, that's for sure the case. China is a great example of a nation that's investing for both as a massive freight system and an incredible amount of investment for passenger rail. And again, they see high speed as a means of dealing with their very significant population and efficient way. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

On this mid-week show, Crystal interviews Sara Nelson, candidate for Seattle City Council, Position 9. Sara gives revealing answers to questions about some of the pressing issues facing 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 guest, Sara Nelson, at @sara4council. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources: "City and Town Forms of Government (Mayor-Council Form)" from the Municipal Research and Services Center (MRSC): https://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics/Legal/General-Government/City-and-Town-Forms-of-Government.aspx#mayorcouncil "Seattle Passes Covid Relief & JumpStart Spending Plans" by Matt Landers: https://thegsba.org/about-us/blog/gsba-blog/2020/07/20/seattle-passes-covid-relief-jumpstart-spending-plans Basics of JumpStart Seattle: https://council.seattle.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/JumpStart-Narrative-Final.pdf "The JumpStart Seattle Spending Plan Is a Good Step Forward" by Matthew Lang: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/07/20/44125416/the-jumpstart-seattle-spending-plan-is-a-good-step-forward "Durkan Is Bothching Homelessness Policy and Blaming Journalists for the News" by Doug Trumm: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/03/02/durkan-is-botching-homelessness-policy-and-blaming-journalists-for-the-news/ "Why does prosperous King County have a homelessness crisis?" by Benjamin Maritz and Dilip Wagle: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/why-does-prosperous-king-county-have-a-homelessness-crisis King County Regional Homelessness Data Dashboard: https://regionalhomelesssystem.org/regional-homelessness-data/ Basics of SPD Crisis Response Team from the Seattle City Government website: https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/crisis-response-team   Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are very happy to have joining us with the program, Sara Nelson, Seattle City Council candidate for the second time. And announced for the position being vacated by Council President Lorena González, so an open seat with a few different challengers - her being one. Thank you so much for joining us, Sara. Sara Nelson: [00:01:13] Thank you for having me. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:16] What motivated you to run for office again? Sara Nelson: [00:01:20] Well, in a sense, everything has changed and nothing has changed. The pandemic has really, really hurt Seattle's working families, small businesses, and I am running because I believe that I have the practical experience leadership to get us on track for an equitable economic recovery. My background is already in public service. I worked for Seattle City Council for about 10 years - in way back when - from like 2002 to 2013. And I also own a small business, Fremont Brewing - and I think that's a good combination to work toward reopening our city and bringing back jobs. And also tackling some of the ongoing long-term problems like housing affordability and homelessness that we don't seem to be making progress on. Crystal Fincher: [00:02:23] Starting with the issue of homelessness, what do you think we need to be doing? Sara Nelson: [00:02:27] I believe that we, first and foremost, have to stop talking about the homeless as a monolithic block of people, because they're individuals who have become homeless for such a wide variety of reasons - either simply losing the job, can't pay rent, all the way to dealing with mental illness and substance abuse disorder, and then fleeing domestic violence. So we need to meet people where we're at and to do that, we have to understand the people that are living unhoused right now. And we don't have a good grip on those subgroups of people. And so first of all, we need to better understand that and then figure out what services are needed for these different groups. How much will that cost? Who's providing these services already? Are there gaps and overlaps?  And just really focus on, first and foremost, getting people into stable housing. I believe that permanent supportive housing is something that we should be prioritizing. However, we could bring those units online faster through land use changes and some regulatory changes so those units can be less expensive to build. But before we get there, I'm down with tiny home villages and hotel rooms, whatever it takes, but that should be our focus. And in addition to addiction and mental health services. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:58] Now, currently there are plans for bringing on tiny homes. There are plans for some transitional and permanent housing - lots of people are arguing that we need more. Do you think those plans are in line with what you are proposing or are they different? Sara Nelson: [00:04:16] I think they are, but something's not working. Everybody says, "Yeah, I'm for housing." But we've doubled the homelessness budget in the past three years, I believe. And the problem's only getting worse, so something is not working. And I think it lies in how our response is structured. I've already explained that a little bit. We've got service providers who are not meeting benchmarks and their contract keeps getting renewed, so we have to look at who are we contracting with and is that a good use of public resources? Everybody, every candidate will say, "Yeah, I'm for housing." But I am for effective solutions.  And look, we declared homelessness an emergency five years - six years ago now in 2015. Look around - we're not treating it as an emergency and it should be all hands on deck. Yes, other cities in the region need to pitch in, because Seattle can't go it alone. But we need to respond to this as we would a public health crisis. As if it were something as important as COVID, and with compassion and resolve. That's the energy and that's the approach that we should be taking. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:43] Gotcha. And in this situation, I think it's important for people to understand how you agree and differ with both the council and the mayor in this situation. Of course, there's a regional conversation, as you've talked about. There are a number of people who have critiqued the mayor for not spending the money that the City Council has budgeted and allocated for some of the housing. And then other critiques that she hasn't moved with enough urgency. Do you see challenges on the mayor's end? Do you see them solely on the council end? What's your viewpoint on that situation? Sara Nelson: [00:06:23] Well, to your first point, I'm not going to comment on. So basically it depends on where that money is coming from, those new resources. Now I don't know if I'm understanding the specifics well, but when you allocate a whole bunch of money, that's coming from somewhere else. And so if the mayor vetoed that, it might be because she was concerned that those dollars wouldn't be going for a basic service or something like that. And that is what our City should be focusing on also. So Council holds the power of the purse. Therefore, it all does come down to City Council. It's their responsibility to make sure that those dollars are going for the most effective solutions. The mayor can come out with a lot of different plans and initiatives and foci, et cetera, but Council is going to do what it's going to do when it comes to the budget and where those dollars go. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:30] Gotcha. Now, I think you've previously said that you don't believe any additional revenue is necessary - any additional taxes or allocation is needed - to address the issue of homelessness and to house people. Is that consistent with what you believe? Do you think there's enough money allocated already? Sara Nelson: [00:07:48] It's a little bit more nuanced than that. I think that statement came up in talking about JumpStart, which taxes jobs, basically. And I'm concerned about that for two reasons - number one, we should not be penalizing jobs. We need more jobs. The companies that have those jobs should - I don't believe even though they're large and people might say they might represent politically something that people can rail against. The fact is that what happens to large businesses trickles down through our local economy and ends up affecting small businesses - supply chain partners and businesses where employees go to recreate - because we're an ecosystem. So if you're - if that statement that no new revenue is needed - it was coming from something that I was talking about related to JumpStart, then I agree with myself still. But I believe when it comes to new revenue, the City has not shown, this Council has not shown that they can spend money wisely. When I say that I don't want, that new revenue is not needed, I want to see a different approach. I want to see measurable results with the money that they have right now, which again, we've increased every single year. So until Council can show - I don't know - I believe that new revenue will be needed. And I also believe that other cities should pitch in, and that we need to build capacity for substance abuse, disorder, treatment, and mental illness treatment. But just throwing a new revenue stream at a problem without fixing the way decisions are made, or understanding of the folks that are actually suffering, then I'm not going to jump in and say, "Yes, new revenue," until I can see that Council is taking a different approach and committed to spending our resources wisely, whether they're new or existing. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:18] So I'm trying to parse that a little bit. And so you're saying you want to see results, maybe new revenue will be needed, but you're not sure. So do you think there is enough money right now to address the problem? Sara Nelson: [00:10:32] I will say, that as a candidate, I am not privy to the detailed information. And I think that it would be irresponsible for any candidate to say, "No." We've seen the McKinsey reports, we've seen - there are widely varied numbers about how much we need - is it $400 million? Is it $200 million? It's a lot of money and we don't necessarily have it right now. But what some people aren't talking about is jobs. And I believe that that should be a focus in this homelessness conversation because workforce development is a big part of my platform - because my first priority is economic recovery. Because so many businesses have closed or moved away, and so many people are out of jobs - that should be our focus. People need to earn and they need to have work - and that means helping getting out of this crisis while helping struggling small businesses keep the people that they've got hired working. And so Fremont Brewing was hit hard by this pandemic, but we managed not to lay anybody off - we kept everybody employed, we increased everyone's hourly wages to make up for their lost tips. And others were not as fortunate, so I don't see Council acting with any urgency to address the needs of small businesses like mine.  And why am I going off on what appears to be a tangent, and you're thinking, "She's not answering the question." Because a big part of assessing the need is finding out what do people need to get back to work. And that is why I'm a big proponent of apprenticeship utilization requirements that contractors - and well, that unions fulfill. There are a lot of different apprenticeship programs and different organizations that are focused on helping people that have been taken out of the workforce. Maybe they have cycled through the criminal justice system, or they don't have skills, they're coming out of a foster care history. And I was visiting the Iron Workers and I saw an apprenticeship program focused specifically on this population. So let's also start talking about jobs before we just pick a number out of the air and say, "Do we have enough money? Do we need more money? Where's that money going to come from to address this problem?" Crystal Fincher: [00:13:16] Well, and that's a really important point. I did not think you were going off on a tangent. I think the recovery is a central issue in Seattle for residents, for small businesses, certainly. There's been a lot of conversation about this - certainly the greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce or the main Chamber in Seattle has opposed the JumpStart tax that you - or the JumpStart recovery package - which includes a tax that you referenced before. There's been a lot of conversation, I think, that you alluded to it - that politically, people may oppose it because that's something that, frankly, Amazon opposed. And a number of people are viewing the Chamber increasingly as almost a lobbying arm for Amazon, and not as much for a number of the small businesses that are there. And seeing some bifurcation of the interests of huge multi-billion dollar organizations - multi-hundred billion dollar organizations - versus Mom-pa businesses, the small businesses throughout Seattle that have struggled and are struggling to get through this pandemic, as you talked about. Having to navigate what are you going to do with employees throughout the meandering maze of opening, partial opening, reopening, and how to navigate that. I know that the Greater Seattle Business Association called the JumpStart recovery package very important - said that they had worked with the Council on that, and that it included critical economic relief for small businesses and families in Seattle. And called some of the investment, including $18 million that goes to support small businesses, critical to the recovery. Sara Nelson: [00:15:10] How did - can you - I was trying to figure that out, because I heard Council say that, and I haven't seen the $18 million for small businesses - but what form did that support come in? Crystal Fincher: [00:15:26] Yeah. So there's $3.6 million for small business direct cash assistance, with 20% going towards childcare, so workers and owners can both go back to business while schools are closed. $14 million for flexible funding to allow businesses to pay staff, vendors, clean, operate - so kind of the immediate business support, and then the other support across the vendor ecosystem. And $300,000 for technical assistance to navigate opening and operating under and post COVID-19 - with navigating regulations and the requirements there. So it's a significant sum of money that the Greater Seattle Business Association, the GSBA, is saying was developed directly with input from their members and that they feel is critical to the economic recovery. With that, I know you said that you don't support the JumpStart economic recovery. How do you parse that small business relief versus your opposition - as a small business owner? Obviously, we're both sitting here as small business owners talking about this. Do you feel that helps? Do you feel it doesn't help? Where are you at on that? Sara Nelson: [00:16:50] Well, I'd say that, just like people living unhoused, the business community is not a monolithic block. And Fremont Brewing has been a member of GSBA - and we brew a Pride beer and we have given significant amount of money to their scholarship, or to their scholarship fund, so I very much respect the GSBA. And I believe that they made a decision. I'm not going to comment on what I think about their support, or get into who's right and who's wrong. I can also say that I know that 70% of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber members are small businesses. Of those, I think 50% have 10 employees or less, so who has more small business credit? I don't know. I just say that, in my mind, we are an ecosystem and we really do have to be careful about how it ends up. Not just how the revenue will end up helping - that is good. Thank you for informing me of that. However, there will never be enough money to help some struggling small businesses - $3 million, et cetera. What we have to do is help small businesses survive through policy. And I've got a long list of policy proposals that I go into in excruciating detail on my website. But so - we can help small businesses. But I'm talking about potential unintended consequences to the business community as a whole, so that is just what I'm getting across when I was talking about how tax policy does reverberate sometimes in unintended ways. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:47] Well, I got you. And you have talked about - both in terms of your view towards raising revenue, towards addressing the unhoused population - and you talked about needing increased money for substance use disorder and treatment for people who are struggling with that in all various forms. And that you've gone through experiences that have changed your perspective somewhat -  Sara Nelson: [00:19:15] Yeah.  Crystal Fincher: [00:19:15] I guess, ideologically. There was an article written saying that hasn't necessarily changed your policy, but I guess, how has your experience -  what has your experience been? Sara Nelson: [00:19:29] Well, let me tell you - this is what happened. I saw my drinking take an uptick. So this is all contextualized within the framework of - yeah, I own a brewery. So anyway, my drinking took an uptick during COVID and I was working at home isolated, unsupervised. And I realized that it was only going to go in one direction. My dad was an alcoholic and it wasn't until - he tried to quit drinking several times - it wasn't until he went to an in-person treatment program that he was able to get and stay sober for 20 years. So I decided that I was going to skip all those steps of going to AA and trying to stop drinking and all that stuff. And I just went in, and I was able to do so because I have good health insurance, and even if it weren't accepted, I could probably scrape enough money to pay outright. So that is what is wrong - is that too many people do not have access to help. That was driven home to me going through that.  I also met a lot of people who have lived on the streets, who have had to steal to support their habit. And so I feel like, when I say it didn't change my policies - but it humanized the people that sometimes you don't even get to know, you just drive past on the streets, or walk past in our open spaces. So that is a little bit of how I changed personally through that experience. And that is why I believe that we have not quantified the magnitude of this problem within our broader homelessness crisis, but we should be doing that. And I don't know - I've asked around, I asked the County, I have asked City people - how many beds are available if somebody wants to get clean right now? And I don't know the answer to that. It's probably not enough. And so we need more capacity, and we need to focus our dollars there. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:54] Well, the answer is definitely not enough. And I do want to absolutely say - I am happy and thankful you were able to recognize that you were dealing with substance use disorder and get treatment. It's what a lot of people, especially through the tough times of the pandemic and the increased isolation and stress, have had to deal with. So you certainly are not alone in that. I'm very thankful and relieved that you are in recovery. Sara Nelson: [00:22:25] Over seven months now. Crystal Fincher: [00:22:26] Congratulations, that's very great. And you've talked, as you did just now, about how this helped - in your words - humanize others who have dealt with this issue. Which is, I think, a very useful and helpful thing. One thing I have noticed, you're - Sara Nelson: [00:22:47] You know what, so I just had this idea when you were talking. It is the human, because we do - this is such a - people respond so viscerally to this - to issues and seeing encampments, et cetera, across the range of a political response. And - I know, but - Crystal Fincher: [00:23:14] Well, I guess I have a question here. Sara Nelson: [00:23:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead - I'm not going to ramble anymore. Crystal Fincher: [00:23:20] My question is - the way you talked about homelessness, certainly in your last campaign versus now, is definitely different. From what I've read, you certainly credit your going through substance use disorder yourself for helping you to see and understand the issue. But a lot of the rhetoric around it has not changed. And an abundance of data has been out there - about people experiencing homelessness are not a monolith and the different reasons why, and the counts about people who are out there, and the proposed housing units necessary, and the type of services that have helped. You certainly talk a lot more about the need for treatment and treating the human, even if that hasn't translated to any difference in policy. So is having to go through it yourself in order to see, or to humanize other people experiencing the problem with that issue - do you see any of that, potentially, in other issues? Whether it's racial equity or policing - that maybe that was a blind spot that you had in similar areas before, because you had not personally gone through it. And there may be context that you're missing in the conversation - that maybe believing other people's experiences, even if you haven't gone through it, may be warranted. Sara Nelson: [00:24:50] Yes, absolutely. I mean, I've never been to jail. But - that's perhaps a lot to do with the fact that I am white. You know, I never got a DUI. But so I think that I could have got in a lot worse trouble, but I was privileged to not have encounters with law enforcement, and I believe that my whiteness does play into that. So - and I was in treatment with a lot of Native Americans and Black people who talk about how - our experiences are different, basically what I'll say. And so that did help bring that home. I can understand it intellectually. I did my anthropology PhD research on the intersections of gender, race, and class in policing. But it's not until you get into a situation like mine, where you think - There but for the grace of God go I. If your question is, does my experience bleed into other policy areas? Yes, it does. And - go on. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:10] Oh well, I did want to ask about your perspective on public safety. From what I've read you've certainly been critical of the Council's actions with regard to reducing funding for SPD. You felt that former Chief Carmen Best was treated unfairly, and it was a shame that she left. And - Sara Nelson: [00:26:37] It was more than a shame. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:40] And I also read that you applauded work people did to address racial equity concerns in policing. So the - if - I guess - what is it that you were applauding, or what action have you agreed with that the Council has taken to address problems and inequalities, specifically with SPD's policing and approach? And - Sara Nelson: [00:27:15] I haven't seen - frankly - I haven't seen - I have to interrupt. I have not seen racism in policing being addressed by what Council has done so far. To me, what ended up happening was that - you know, so - what I applaud is that there was a lot of attention and effort to address this finally. But I don't - I do not see, and maybe you can tell me - how cutting the police has addressed racism in policing, or has addressed the numbers of Black and Brown people being stopped. Or any of those things that need to be addressed, which absolutely has to be addressed, through reforms.  And I think that one way to go about - so basically, everybody is going to say, "We're for public safety, we want communities to be safe." Okay. I think that that is something that we agree on, but how do we get there? What I disagreed on was - committing to a certain percentage of defunding the police without a plan for keeping people safe and without broad consensus in the Black community is the wrong approach. Right now - Crystal Fincher: [00:28:44] Well, here's a question with that.  Sara Nelson: [00:28:47] What?  Crystal Fincher: [00:28:47] Broad consensus in the Black community. Do you see broad consensus in the white community? Sara Nelson: [00:28:53] No, but - I am - okay - Crystal Fincher: [00:28:56] So do you expect there to be a difference in the Black community? Do you - that there would be broad consensus? Sara Nelson: [00:29:03] That is a fair point. Then, let's just say - without broad consensus in the community. Crystal Fincher: [00:29:12] So, I guess the question would be - is that a number of people would argue that consensus would manifest itself in the elections that we have, and the people that we elect, and the policies and initiatives that are supported and not supported. And the Council that was elected certainly wanted to move in a different direction and largely pushed by community demands and concerns. So my question -  Sara Nelson: [00:29:50] Which community?  Crystal Fincher: [00:29:52] What would you -  Sara Nelson: [00:29:53] I mean, so, so -  Crystal Fincher: [00:29:55] Seattle. Seattle residents. And so if we look at the vote for the Charter Amendments - Sara Nelson: [00:29:58] Okay, well I was referring to the Black community because the Black community has been most targeted by systemic racism in policing. So that is why I did call out that community - because we have to be talking about the people that are most vulnerable to police misconduct, and racism, and targeting. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:22] Sure. So what do you think should happen? What changes would you propose? Sara Nelson: [00:30:28] I think that - that it would be - that recruiting officers - so there's the police contract, which is for the most part, kind of a closed door negotiation. And then there are other reforms that can be advocated on the part of Council and one - and worked with - is that I believe that recruiting officers from the communities that they serve is a potential way of overcoming some, some - at least language and some cultural barriers - as well as building in accountability because you're less likely to discriminate against somebody that you actually see in a grocery store or in your neighborhood somehow. So that is one way that we can go about it. I think that also supporting bills that really do address accountability at the state level is important. I know that there was a whole bunch of legislation that came out and that is great. So whatever leverage Seattle can bear on our legislative agenda with our delegation is good. And - Crystal Fincher: [00:31:48] Well, I guess - fundamentally, in your capacity as a Seattle City Council member, not withstanding any other jurisdictional action taken by the legislature or anyone else, are there any policies that would fundamentally change, within the practice of policing, that you would support or that you feel are necessary? Sara Nelson: [00:32:15] Yeah. I think that we need to bring back the Crisis Intervention Team. Because - that - that, you know - I think his name was Derek - that was a situation that was tragic. And we need to -because we do have folks and unfortunately, police are often called respond to mental health. And that is an area that there is agreement in - I'm going to interrupt myself now - but there are -  the cops are responding to situations that are better responded to by social service professionals. And to the extent that we can offload some of those responsibilities and build capacity in social services - I do agree with. And I think that advocates and officers agree on this point. So how that happens? I would have to understand the budget better and the staffing models that are in place.  What I think has worked is more of a community policing model that builds relationships. And building relationships that are positive between our law enforcement folks and the community is a way of building trust and also preventing crime. So that is the kind of focus that our - our whole approach should be - how do we make our communities safer and let's do that. And a blanket commitment to a certain percentage cut - I don't think gets us there, because as I was saying - right now, people are less safe simply because the response time to Priority 1 911 calls is 14 minutes. And a lot of bad can happen in that amount of time. So let's agree on the goal - improving public safety, and treating everybody in the community with respect and dignity, and stop racist policing - and then go there. Instead of just picking a number out of the air. Crystal Fincher: [00:34:31] Well, I certainly think that one, a lot of the discussion on the table goes far beyond the number and does fundamentally get into some substantive changes, and alternative programs, and public safety programs, and models. And I wish we had much more time to dive into this. I think it would actually be fascinating and enlightening if we did. But unfortunately, our time has come to a close for today, but I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to speak with us here at Hacks & Wonks. And if people want to learn more about you, where can they go? Sara Nelson: [00:35:09] They can go to saraforcitycouncil.com. S-A-R-A-F-O-R-citycouncil.com. Crystal Fincher: [00:35:22] Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

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Learn about the latest in local public affairs in about the time it takes for a coffee break! Brian Callanan of Seattle Channel and Kevin Schofield of Seattle City Council Insight discuss the Council's proposal for a "poverty defense" for misdemeanors, an emerging Seattle Mayor's race following Jenny Durkan's decision not to run again, a lawsuit from the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce over the City's new payroll tax for big businesses, and much more! Plus: Kevin's 5-part recipe for turning store-bought cake mix into a treat that's indistinguishable from homemade is not to be missed. If you like this podcast, please support us on Patreon!

Today journalist Erica Barnett joins Crystal to dissect Mayor Durkan's decision not to run for re-election, Renton's continued attempt to use zoning laws to oust homeless folks, shelters, and services, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce's challenge to the JumpStart payroll tax, and the SPD being held in contempt of court for their use of force last summer. A full text transcript of the show is available below, and on the Hacks & Wonks blog at https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/post/week-in-review-with-erica-barnett. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and Erica Barnett @ericabarnett, and on Publicola.com. Find Erica's book, Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, online or at your local bookseller. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Articles Referenced: Anti-Homeless Shelter Bill Moves Forward in Renton from Publicola https://publicola.com/2020/12/09/anti-homeless-shelter-bill-moves-forward-in-renton/ Federal District Court Judge Finds Seattle in Contempt of Crowd Control Injunction by Paul Kiefer https://publicola.com/2020/12/07/federal-district-court-judge-finds-seattle-in-contempt-of-crowd-control-injunction/ Find more work by today's co-host, Erica Barnett, at https://publicola.com/ Full Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host Crystal Fincher. On this show, we gather insight into state and local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide the behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. 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, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse and Recovery, Erica Barnett.  Erica Barnett: [00:00:40] Great to be here, Crystal.  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:42] And great to have you here. So we will dive right in. And big news of the week that we started off the week with is Jenny Durkan announced that she will not be seeking re-election - very consequential news for the city. And so just wanted to get your thoughts on what drove that decision and what does that mean now? Erica Barnett: [00:01:03] I mean, my thoughts, just having observed Mayor Durkan for three years are that she really didn't like the job. And particularly the job of being mayor in a pandemic, at a time when there is a racial reckoning taking place that involves protests, particularly protest against her and her leadership. And during a time of economic collapse nationwide - it's a time of a lot of bad news, as everybody is well-aware, and it's a hard job in good times and it's a hard job, especially in bad times. And I think she just, in some ways, was not really fully prepared for what the job entailed and the criticism that she would be subjected to in such a prominent position. She'd never held elected office before and, I think, came in believing that this was essentially a managerial job and a communications job. And in fact, it's much, much more than that to be the mayor of a major city with lots of problems, including, I didn't even mention, the crisis of homelessness which has gotten so much more visible on her watch.  Crystal Fincher: [00:02:09] Well, I think you nailed that analysis and kind of put your finger on what a lot of people don't pay much attention to is - what is the job of the mayor? And it's a lot more broad than when someone's just thinking about, off the top of their head - if they don't have much experience with it, there's so much more to it than just managing the city. And also in situations where someone's not used to being under a microscope with every decision that they're making, and criticism is coming, no matter what decision you make - to be able to accept that and deal with it and work with that - it seemed like that was always a struggle for her. Just dealing with criticism and understanding that that's something that happens and instead of trying to avoid it at all costs - not successfully, or adeptly, navigating through that. That seemed to be a continuing struggle for her and I think you nailed it - she seemed to just really not want to be there increasingly as time has gone on. Erica Barnett: [00:03:17] Yeah. I mentioned that I think that she sees being the mayor as largely a communications job and I want to expand on that a little bit. I think that if you look at her messaging and the messengers that she uses to get her message out and just, her general spin on every event, whether good or bad, has been that things are good and getting better. And that just simply doesn't work in 2020, and also it's not believable. And I think that that really hampered her ability to respond in real time to events like the Black Lives Matter protest, for example. Her response was essentially to double down initially and say, We're doing everything right and that Seattle is a model for police reform in the country. She said that many times, and then flipped it at a certain point and said, You know what? Fine. Here's a $100 million that we're going to spend - first, she said on black communities and then she said on BIPOC communities - without actually having any sort of plan for how to do that and just saying, We'll figure it out later.  As it turned out, that was a pretty rash promise because it relied on revenues that were already dedicated and promised to other sources, including by the mayor herself. There's $30 million in there that she had already promised to equitable development - and so, it just felt like a lot of her careening from position to position was based on, if not real polls, kind of an invisible poll in her head about what would make people react to her positively. I, obviously, I'm not inside the mayor's brain, but that's what it looked like from the outside and it often resulted in a lot of really inconsistent seeming policies. And it also led to, I think, a feeling that it's hard to trust what the mayor's position is, or policy is, on an issue and on any given day, 'cause it could change tomorrow, based on who she wants to please on that day. So I think that - no politician can ignore opinion polls and no politician can ignore what people are saying about them, but I'll just give one example. The mayor's office reactions to things on Twitter was pretty extreme. I think that - just the pushback that I would get personally, for stuff that I would say on Twitter, or things people would respond to me saying that I had no control over, was pretty strong from the mayor's office. And my advice about Twitter and I don't always take this is, It's like riding on a waterfall and it disappears after a minute. And, if you make an error, you correct it. If you don't like something, everybody's gonna be yelling about something else in five minutes. But I don't think the mayor was really able to heed that advice. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:53] I think you're right. And the issue of trust - when you talk about the community needing to trust the message that they're hearing from the mayor and from the mayor's office, eventually wound up being irretrievably broken. And I think that she eventually came to see that. But the struggle through that, like you were talking about - her responses to, during the protests, to what the police were doing and our ability to see something that she is denying while we're watching video of that thing happening - it was jarring for a lot of people and a number of her supporters that came in, as she came in, became disillusioned. People who were already frustrated with the messaging and pace of progress became even more vocally disillusioned. And it just continued to be a consistent problem.  We have seen, and it looks like there's going to be another rehashing of the "Seattle is Dying" - fabricated, largely exaggerated, I won't say documentary, but spin - on homelessness and crime in Seattle. And for residents of Seattle that never rang true. And so the effect that people thought that that would have on elections never materialized. I think on the flip side, with a number of the things, as you pointed out, Jenny Durkan saying, Things are great and they're getting even better. We're working on it and it's awesome and don't you believe your eyes. And people are looking around and going, No, it's not - the problem's getting worse and the things that you say are happening are not. And we understand this is a hard problem to fix, but we want to see you try and not just lie to us with a smile on your face. And that was continually a challenge. And especially in municipal positions, from big cities to small, you're living in the same conditions as your residents and you're telling them what's happening on their streets and in their neighborhoods. And they can see, outside their window, if what you're saying rings true or not. This is not like a legislative position or something in Congress where you can make a speech and take a vote and it just seems very disconnected and the expectation of accountability doesn't squarely land on you. That's the case in Seattle and it just seems like she wasn't prepared for her word and her actions to be the end-all and be-all, her needing to take a side, her needing to make definitive decisions and be accountable to those decisions in the public. So now that we are here and she has announced that she's not running for re-election - what does this do to the political landscape in Seattle? Erica Barnett: [00:08:31] Well, I think that it is going to be, I think it's going to be a very crowded mayoral race as it was last time. I wouldn't be surprised to see 20-25 people jumping in. I think that Lorena González - and I'm terrible, I should say, at predictions, I always need to caveat that - but I think Lorena González, City Council president, is likely to get in. And of course, Teresa Mosqueda is another council member whose name is being thrown around - I think that's a little less likely. I mean it's - running for mayor is a tough decision because it's a bad job and so, it's often hard to get that many really qualified candidates out of that 20 or 25 that we've been seeing in recent years. So I think it'll be really interesting to see - Jessyn Farrell, who ran last time and who PubliCola, then the C is for Crank, endorsed, is supposedly thinking about it, as is Brady Walkinshaw, who ran for Congress and lost. And so, I think it's going to be a crowded race with some familiar faces, probably some unfamiliar faces. And yeah, I mean, that's basically all we can predict right now.  Crystal Fincher: [00:09:40] Do you think there's going to be an advantage or a disadvantage to those running from their council positions, if one or more current council members get in? Do you think that's an advantage, a disadvantage, or how do you think that plays out? Erica Barnett: [00:09:55] Well, that's a really good question. The city council is broadly incredibly unpopular and the mayor is also not super popular, but in a way, these are judgements of positions rather than judgments of people. I do think if you're running as an incumbent city council member, that is a tough thing you have to overcome. I do think, though, that the citywide city council members may have a little more popularity - and I haven't seen specific polling on this, I just know that a lot of the district council members are less popular than they were when they came in and certainly than the mayor. So I think it is a disadvantage to run from a council seat, but on the other hand, you do have name recognition, so that certainly helps. I'm trying to think of the most recent council member who was elected mayor, if any, and I am drawing a blank right now. So, I'm not sure - it certainly doesn't convey any obvious advantages other than name recognition, obviously.  Crystal Fincher: [00:10:56] Yeah, that does seem to be the case and I'm drawing the same blank that you are.  Erica Barnett: [00:11:01] I can think of lots of them who've run - Bruce Harrell, Peter Steinbrueck - I mean, plenty of candidates for mayor among the council, but none successful.  Crystal Fincher: [00:11:10] Yeah, certainly going to be interesting to see how this plays out and how they engage with the competing and pressing priorities in the city. Well, talking about other cities, that brings us to Renton, and we talked about this a bit last week on the show, but Renton is adopting legislation that will effectively ban future homeless shelters and set an eviction date for the current tenants in the Red Lion. This certainly - my view is that this is a very bad thing, but also as you have pointed out and discussed, it's also bad for the regional approach to homelessness that's so often talked about. You want to give a bit of background on this? Erica Barnett: [00:11:53] Sure. So the City of Seattle and I believe 39 other suburban cities are joining into an agency called the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. And the idea is that having a centralized authority will create or enable a regional approach rather than the city-by-city approaches that we have had over the years. And that authority has had a lot of bumps along the way. The selection of a director for the authority, known as the CEO is very slow. It's been - it was supposed to happen in September. The latest timeline has it happening now in February. So, hard to say how that's going to go, but the problem with regionalism and the problem always has been that a lot of these cities that are outside Seattle want to have their own approaches to homelessness and a lot of times those approaches are a lot more punitive than what Seattle would like. So that tension does not go away just because you create a regional body and say, We're regional now. The cities did not initially want to participate unless they got a significant amount of leverage on the various boards that are on the governing board that oversees the authority. And they also didn't want to pay taxes to support the authority. They got both of those things, but now as we're seeing, individual cities, not just Renton, but, cities are cleaving off in various ways. One thing that happened recently was a bunch of cities, I think half a dozen, including Renton, adopted their own versions of local sales taxes to pre-empt the King County sales tax that's going to pay for homelessness. And those local versions can pay for things that are not specifically oriented to homelessness, like housing for essentially middle-income people. So I think that tension is going to continue and it's going to continue to hamper the ability to have an actually regional approach. Renton is already talking about sub-regional authority, which is, I think in some ways, a synonym for city authority, which is what we already had before this whole effort started.  Crystal Fincher: [00:13:51] Right. So how is Renton going about trying to evict these people from the Red Lion?  Erica Barnett: [00:13:57] This legislation is land use legislation and it is essentially zoning them out. So the legislation does two things - it says that everybody, that most of the people at the Red Lion currently, have to be out as of June 1st, so the end of May -  by putting a cap on the number of people who can be there. So it would be 125. Right now there's about 235 or so people living there. Then after that, at the end of the year, everybody would have to be out. So no matter what happens with the pandemic, which is the reason everybody was moved so swiftly from the Morrison Hotel and other DESC facilities in Seattle to the Red Lion. No matter what happens with that, they've got to be out. And then the second thing it does is it adopts new rules for - new zoning rules - for shelters, which Renton says - shelters are currently illegal 'cause there's no zoning that explicitly allows them. I think that's a novel interpretation of what zoning is for. We don't have any rules like that in Seattle at all. And the rules say that no homeless service provider can serve more than a hundred people total. And that includes shelters and any other homeless services you might have, either co-located or at a facility. So no more than a hundred - hard cap. And they have to be half a mile from each other, only in certain industrial zones, well-removed from people, and there's also tons of rules around how the shelter providers are supposed to manage the conduct of the people who stay there, which is kind of an outrageous demand in my view, because they are human beings and they have civil rights and I think a lot of the conduct requirements really infringe on those rights.  Crystal Fincher: [00:15:40] I completely agree with that. And this is just a reminder that you're listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM. I'm your regular host Crystal Fincher, and today we have a guest co-host, Seattle political reporter, Erica Barnett. And so they are really appearing to use zoning as a tool to exclude. Which, certainly, zoning laws have a history of that use and then being wielded that way. But you talked about one of their interpretations being novel. How standard does what they're doing appear to be overall with how zoning laws are implemented and used? Erica Barnett: [00:16:20] Well, I think it's - I can't speak to every single zoning law in the state obviously. I haven't done a review, but I know that in Seattle, the biggest city in the state, zoning, and traditionally everywhere, zoning is used to regulate things like density and also environmental hazards. So you might have industrial zoning that says the buildings can't include residential and also it has to be far away from people because there are environmental hazards associated with a steam plant, or whatever, or manufacturing business. Zoning is not traditionally used to exclude - well traditionally, it was certainly used to exclude people of color from certain areas of cities - but today in 2020, we use it to do things like regulate height, and regulate density, and regulate how many people can live in an area versus what kind of businesses can be located in an area - do we let big box stores go there? We don't use zoning to say that if people are of the class that is houseless or homeless, they cannot be here. I think that is a really, really dangerous road to start going down, and the reason I say it's a novel interpretation is that the city of Renton, I think, really rushed this legislation. I think it's pretty poorly written and they revised it a whole bunch of times in response to specific legal objections that could open them up to lawsuits. And they have been trying to get the people kicked out of the Red Lion for a really long time. They initially said that this is a violation of a different part of the zoning code, saying that there's a dispute over whether it's a hotel use or whether it's a use that's not explicitly allowed, and that's happening on separate tracks. So, they're trying every tool they can and they don't have a lot of tools to ban homeless people because there aren't a lot of tools to ban homeless people. It's not people's fault that they become homeless, and tools that are laws like sit-lie laws and saying that you're not allowed to loiter, are increasingly considered to be civil rights violations and also racist. So this is a different approach that takes a very kind of, cold and analytical-seeming concept of zoning, and says that it applies here. But what they're really trying to do is send these folks back to Seattle and their comments at council made that pretty clear. Everybody said, This is a Seattle problem. Seattle created it. They need to go back there and that's what's really going on.  Crystal Fincher: [00:18:51] That does appear that is what's actually going on. They're attempting to act like their city doesn't have an inherent problem with homeless people, that they are somehow coming from different cities, and that if you treat them with full humanity and decency, that only entices them and incentivizes them to stay, when we know that's just factually untrue. So it looks like this is going to be taken up again on a meeting with the council on Monday night, is that correct?  Erica Barnett: [00:19:26] That's right. And that'll be a final action. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:30] So it certainly looks like this is what the council intends to do, but for people who are able - making comments, making phone calls, certainly making sure that people are on record saying that this is not the default position of the general public in Renton and in the area. And that this is really an inhumane response to a really human problem. So looking next - issues where residents and businesses are struggling. The JumpStart payroll tax was an attempt to generate revenue to help people impacted by COVID, the pandemic, and everything that has resulted. And the Chamber of Commerce has brought a lawsuit against it. What's happening there? Erica Barnett: [00:20:19] Well, the lawsuit - this is from the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce. And essentially what they're saying is that this amounts to, just getting outside of the jargon of the lawsuit, they're saying this is an income tax effectively. Specifically, they're saying it's a tax on the right to do business and they're calling on a 1952 precedent that involved a license that people in Bellingham, I believe, had to get to basically work and that was overturned. And so, again, speaking of novel approaches, I think this is a novel approach and I don't know that it will necessarily be successful. It seems like a pretty weak argument. But it's interesting - I mean, I think a lot of people at the city were surprised that the Chamber decided to take this kind of Grinch-like action, it was described to me by someone at the city, and sue over this. It only affects a small percentage of businesses in the city making revenues of over $7 million and with employees with pay of over $150,000/year. And as you said, the JumpStart Tax for the first couple years, it's COVID relief. And a lot of that is COVID relief directly to small businesses. And so, for the Chamber of Commerce to be opposing relief for small businesses is directly, it seems, conflicting with their mission, which is to support businesses of all sizes and not just the Amazons and the Facebooks and the Googles of Seattle. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:46] Well, and this is certainly that issue brought out into the light. This has been a criticism of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and of several - saying in larger cities, really saying, Who are you representing? The majority of your membership is small businesses and they oftentimes have fundamentally different challenges and concerns than the largest corporations in the world, like the Amazons and Microsofts and Googles. And the issues that they have pushed hard on or run on, oftentimes seem to have been at the direction of the mega-corporations and not of the neighborhood businesses that many residents patronize and who hire our neighbors to a large degree. And so there really does seem to be a real conflict of interest and a need for a reckoning and accountability for whose agenda are they really pushing. And I hope this is a conversation that the wider business community in Seattle has, because when we only focus on the mega-corporation interests, we all lose out, and it is small business who employs the majority of people. They're individuals and don't individually wield a lot of power, but collectively, they really determine the direction of our local economy. And so to see help - that are keeping the doors open in these small businesses and that are keeping people employed - being directly challenged and Amazon looking to snatch money out of people's hands and the hands of small business is pretty blatant and overt. And people are literally asking, Is this now an Amazon lobbyist? Or is this an organization that represents the biggest, the interest of small businesses in the city? So it'll certainly be interesting to continue to watch how that unfolds.  Erica Barnett: [00:23:46] Yeah, I'll just add one quick thing. I mean, the JumpStart Tax is explicitly designed to go - to have preference for brick and mortar businesses. And a lot of the complaints about what's happening "downtown", and what you're going to see in the latest KOMO propaganda film on Saturday is that there's - is that the downtown is dead, the businesses are boarded up, and there's too many homeless people wandering around, and all that kind of stuff. Well, guess what? This tax pays for brick-and-mortar businesses to help them stay open. It also pays for, specifically for homelessness programs, and homelessness prevention and rental assistance, so that more people don't become homeless. So I would say that even the non-targeted provisions of this legislation would actually help the businesses that are complaining about the state of downtown right now. Crystal Fincher: [00:24:40] Certainly appears to be the case. Now, this week, we also saw SPD have a case ruled against them and they were held in contempt by a judge. What happened with that?  Erica Barnett: [00:24:55] Well, essentially, there were a lot of complaints regarding the protests that started back in June about police use -  indiscriminate use - of weapons, so-called less-lethal weapons, like blast balls and tear gas and pepper spray. And several of those - the judge found several of those to essentially be credible and held them in contempt of this injunction that he issued back in June saying that SPD could not use force against peaceful protestors. So, it's a very, it's a meaningful ruling. I think we'll see what the penalties are and, and whether it has any kind of long-term impact on SPDs practices, but it is unusual for the city to be held in contempt in this way. So it's certainly meaningful in that way.  My reporter Paul Kiefer said that, reported that, the mayor's office couldn't find any similar cases like this in their review. So it's certainly unprecedented and unusual. But we'll see what the penalties are and we'll see what - whether it has any kind of impact on the upcoming police negotiations or on police practices. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:00] That will be interesting to see. And especially with some of the arguments that SPD was making - that as long as they can show that their officers were instructed not to do something - if they do it, then it's not SPDs fault. Even if that appears to be habitual behavior - just the throwing up of hands and say, Well, we told them not to do it. So what - how can we be responsible for that? How are we to expect that an organization currently under a consent decree for an excessive use of force would have officers that do that, despite being told not to several times? So it seems like there is a continuing resistance - none of us are surprised, right - about any kind of accountability, taking any kind of responsibility, for what officers are doing on the ground. And this contempt order also explicitly acknowledged that officers were acting independent of any regard for their own personal safety. So many defenses of this are like, Well, what do you expect if someone tries to assault an officer, which no one is condoning of anyone. But what we have seen several times is that there was no threat - no physical threat, no assault, no feeling scared that something imminent was about to happen - this was just a response and basically, explicitly said, a response to the message Black Lives Matter than to the protestors. Erica Barnett: [00:27:26] Sorry, sorry that I interrupted you there - just to your point - the judge noted that one of the officers ordered an officer to use a blast ball to "create space" between officers and protesters, which is not a response to any kind of use of force or any kind of bad behavior at all from protesters. It's just - it was just kind of indiscriminate - and blast balls are very potentially harmful and damaging weapons.  Crystal Fincher: [00:27:52] Extremely. There are instances of journalists' eyes being put out with blast balls and people of the public's eyes being just exploded by blast balls. There's actually a little support group just for that specific thing throughout protests in the country. It is an alarming and depressing thing. And what a lot of people wonder is, Okay, so a judge has ruled they've been held in contempt. So what happens to them? Is there a penalty? Is there a consequence? Erica Barnett: [00:28:21] I mean, there could be a financial penalty for sure. I think that - that again remains to be seen, but they could have to pay out. There's a lot of plaintiffs in this case, as you might imagine - not just Black Lives Matter of Seattle King County, but the ACLU and a number of individuals who say they were harmed by SPD's use of force. So financial penalties are something that the city is used to dealing with, but they also don't like to pay them. So conceivably that could change officer behavior, but I think, what it's going to come down to ultimately is the police contract, is police leadership. We have an acting police chief right now and ultimately whether we get a mayor, or whether this mayor decides to take a hard political and public stance against some of these actions, which the current mayor has not.  Crystal Fincher: [00:29:14] Got it. But I do want to thank all of you for listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM on this Friday, December 11th, 2020. Our chief audio engineer is, at KVRU, is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our wonderful co-host today was Seattle political reporter and founder of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericabarnett, that's Erica with a C, and on PubliCola.com. And you can buy her book Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery on Amazon or through your independent bookseller. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, and now you can follow Hacks and 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 mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. And you'll notice in the show notes there are now full text transcripts of the audio shows to further the accessibility of the podcast. So thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time.

Attorneys for the city of Seattle are getting ready to defend a new tax on big businesses now that the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is suing the city over it.

This is a special edition of the podcast that was recorded on Thursday, November 5th, two days after the 2020 election. While we now know the results of the election, this conversation still provides such honest and optimistic insight shared between three well-known regional leaders. We were lucky enough to have Colleen Echohawk, Executive Director of the Chief Seattle Club; Girmay Zahilay, King County Councilmember for District 2; and Markham McIntyre, Acting Chief Executive Officer of The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Spanning commerce, legislation, and Native-led human services; our guests come from a variety of backgrounds and expertise but what ties them all together is the push towards creating a more inclusive region where everyone thrives. That is the vision we need for 2021 and beyond! The trio shared their unsettled yet hopeful thoughts on the outcome of the 2020 election, the experiences and history that makes them who they are, and the exciting projects they are working on. Markham talked about Housing Connector, which bridges the space between landlords and those in need of housing. He also pitched the great work of Green Plate Special which operates in the Rainier Valley. They work with local youth and teach them how to farm, cook, and share through the power of food. Girmay spoke about the Youth Achievement Center which would provide housing and supportive services for young people in the Southend. They are currently working on a capital campaign to raise more funds and we will share more information when it comes available. The councilmember also highlighted two King County charter amendments that can reimagine how the county moves forward with public safety and makes the King County Sheriff an appointment position and not an elected one. Colleen talked about their ?al?al project to build housing in Pioneer Square. She talked about the park next to their location and how they are re-imagining from an indigenous land usage. You can follow this project on The Growing Old podcast (found on all major podcast services) and their Instagram account @GrowingOldProject. They will cover this development in their second season! She also spoke about the Equitable Recovery and Reconciliation Alliance. It’s a way to get past the lip-service of many well-intentioned white relatives but to actually follow the leadership of BIPOC peoples in a way that values that Coast Salish values of welcoming and inclusivity. This will show up on the Chief Seattle Club website in a week or two! Special thanks to Big Phony for providing music for the We Belong Here podcast. 

"Racism is a pandemic. Whether it's tech, or whether it's any other form of business, we have the need for a vaccine that's going to stop it. And I think that can take many forms."  Those are the words of Adriane Brown, an Axon and eBay board member, former Intellectual Ventures president, and venture partner at Flying Fish Partners. She was speaking during a conversation about race and the tech industry, organized by GeekWire as protests across the country demand racial equity and justice following the death of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of white police officers. The conversation was hosted by Former Tacoma Mayor and past Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce CEO Marilyn Strickland, a candidate for U.S. Congress. Also participating were Leafly Chief Product Officer and longtime Seattle entrepreneur Dave Cotter, and Remitly CEO and co-founder Matt Oppenheimer. In recognition of Juneteenth, commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, we’re presenting Part 2 of the conversation in this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast. Listen above and continue reading for highlights. You can also catch up with Part 1.

Jasmine Donovan is the President and CFO of Dick's Drive-In Restaurants. Being the granddaughter of one of the founders, she has worked in the business several times since she was 16 years old and started working full time on the executive team in 2013. Jasmine stepped into the role of President when her father, Jim Spady, retired in March of 2019.  Jasmine is on the board of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Mary's Place, and The Forum Foundation. She was recently recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal as a Woman of Influence for 2019. She graduated from Hillsdale College with a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Chemistry in 2006.  Jasmine joined the Navy after college and was assigned as an instructor at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command in Charleston, South Carolina. During her service, she was the Public Affairs Officer, earned her Master Training Specialist certification and was the Division Director of the physics teaching division. While in Charleston, she also earned her Master's degree in Business with an emphasis in Finance at Charleston Southern University. She currently resides in North Seattle with her husband and two sons. In this episode… Being in the military is a great experience and there's a lot to learn from being in service. Things such as discipline, leadership, and being of service to others are learned while in the military, and it’s a great place to start practicing persistence and how to manage through a crisis. Jasmine Donovan knows this first hand because her time at the Navy was one filled with enriching experiences that prepared her for when she eventually took the helm of their family business, Dick’s Drive-In Restaurants. Being part of the business for a long time and developing the need to serve others has led her to make decisions that has not only allowed their company to help others in times of crisis, but also to maneuver beyond the challenges posed by being in one. Join Andrea Heuston in this week’s episode of Lead Like a Woman as she talks to Jasmine Donovan, about what it’s like to be the first female President of one of Seattle's top restaurants. She also talks about the philosophies her grandfather had for the business and how it made their business stand out from competition, how she applies the things she learned while in the Navy to their company, and her future plans for Dick's Drive-In Restaurants. Stay tuned. 

A special GeekWire Podcast discussion hosted by Marilyn Strickland, former CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce; with Dave Cotter, Leafly chief product officer; Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer; and Adriane Brown, Flying Fish Partners venture partner, Axon and eBay board member and former Intellectual Ventures president. Read more: ‘It’s on us to dismantle racism.’ 10 steps tech and business leaders can take toward equity

Today, in reaction to the uprisings in Minneapolis and across the nation, to help us understand and to talk about what we can do, we speak first with Fox Hampton with Black Lives Matter Seattle King County, and then with John Miller with the Department of Human Resources with King County who is also a co-founder of a Black African affinity group for KC Employees. Then, as part of our coverage of the Congressional race in the 10th CD, with speak with former Tacoma mayor, and former Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce CEO, Marilyn Strickland. Links: https://www.stricklandforwashington.com/ "Settlers": https://www.amazon.com/Settlers-Mythology-Proletariat-Mayflower-Kersplebedeb/dp/1629630373/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MRNV95OYHFFX&dchild=1&keywords=settlers+book&qid=1590789648&sprefix=settlers+book%2Caps%2C439&sr=8-1 SUGGESTED ACTIONS FROM BLACK LIVES MATTER SEATTLE - KING COUNTY: 1. We're giving $500 to Louisville Community Bail Fund. Help pay bail to demonstrators arrested in Louisville protests. Organized by Black Lives Matter Louisville. https://actionnetwork.org/f…/louisville-community-bail-fund/ http://blackliveslouisville.org/ 2. We're giving $500 to the North Star Health Collective We originally wanted to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which is directly helping individuals arrested in the recent protests. However, the MFF is urging people to donate to other groups, such as the North Star Health Collective, a group of medics who specialize in supporting protestors fighting for justice. https://www.northstarhealthcollective.org/donate https://www.northstarhealthcollective.org/ 3. We're giving $500 to Black Visions Collective. Black Visions is a Black queer/trans led org who are in Minneapolis and have been on the frontlines of the protests. https://secure.everyaction.com/4omQDAR0oUiUagTu0EG-Ig2 https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/ 4. We're giving $500 to Reclaim The Block. RTB is a coalition that pushes the city of Minneapolis to divest from policing and instead fund community-centered health and safety programs. https://secure.everyaction.com/zae4prEeKESHBy0MKXTIcQ2 https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/ 5. We're giving $500 to the George Floyd Memorial Fund. Funds will help support the Floyd family as they grieve, arrange a funeral, prepare for legal proceedings, and care for George Floyd's children. https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd 6. We're giving $500 to the Columbus Freedom Fund. The CFF is bailing out protestors in Columbus, Ohio who were arrested when demonstrating in response to Breonna Taylor's and George Floyd's murders. https://www.paypal.me/columbusfreedomfund https://www.facebook.com/pg/CFFOhio/posts/ 7. We're giving $500 to the NYC Liberty Fund. The Liberty Fund is a charitable bail fund that servers all areas on New York City, including areas where https://www.classy.org/give/204448/#!/donation/checkout https://www.libertyfund.nyc/

Sage is recreating seats of power for and by womxn of color so that our workforce reflects what womxn of color bring to the table: resilience, ROI, and liberation. Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno is an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker and changemaker. As co-founder of Future For Us, a platform dedicated to advancing of womxn of color through community, culture, and career development, Sage has galvanized a nationwide movement to build a future of work reaching new levels of growth through diversity, equity, and inclusion. Starting her career in pay equity, she provided 4,000+ women with the tools and resources they need to advocate for themselves at work and, as a result, negotiate $500K in salary increases and secure 150 promotions. Sage is an amplifier, advocating for womxn of color at work in top publications and organizations - from Forbes, NPR and GeekWire to SXSW, the Women’s March, Microsoft, Starbucks, and more. Sage has gathered a groundswell of support and recognition - a clear signal that our cities, companies, and economy are ready and already fighting for equity at work. Recent accolades include Rising Star Awards from Seattle’s National Organization for Women and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, KUOW Radio’s Boss Tactician Award, University of Washington’s Community Leadership Award, and a nomination for Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2020. She was recognized as one of Seattle's Most Influential People of 2019 by Seattle Magazine. Sage is a native Hawaiian who looks at systems, processes, and people with an indigenous lens to leave a better world for generations to come. Her story - your story - our story - continues. Follow her work on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Medium.  Stay connected with Sage & Future For us Future for Us Website Follow Future for Us on Instagram: @futureforus.now Follow Sage on Instagram: @sageq Like Future for Us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/futureforus.now Follow Future for Us Twitter: @futurefor_us

In this episode of Lean the F*ck Out, we talk with Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno and Aparna Rae about the organization they founded, Future for Us, and the work they are doing to help companies grow and recruit womxn of color. Through Future for Us, Sage and Arpana are building an intentional community for womxn of color to build careers and life’s they want and support one another throughout the process. Future for Us Episode Highlights: Future for Us is an intentional community for womxn of color that started in Seattle. There is not a womxn of color pipeline problem, companies are missing out on hiring already qualified and ready womxn.  Womxn of color are ready and coming together to support one another and get better jobs. Future for Us’ ambition is for womxn of color to be leading at the highest levels of corporations. Womxn of color need to build community and support among each other to make this happen. Connecting with others like you in a community like this, allows you to learn from those that are similar to you. We are all different and not always cohesive and can teach each other through our own lessons. Companies: It’s not enough to say you want diversity, you have to back it up through evidence within your staff. Womxn looking to len the f*ck out: lead by example. Give others the courage they need to do the same. Leaning the f*ck out is what we owe ourselves so that the next generation can walk lighter.  We have the opportunity and privilege to do the work now, unlike many womxn before us. Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno Sage is recreating seats of power for and by womxn of color so that our workforce reflects what WoC bring to the table: resilience, ROI, and liberation. Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno is an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, and changemaker. As co-founder of ​Future For Us​, a platform dedicated to advancing of womxn of color through community, culture, and career development, Sage has galvanized a nationwide movement to build a future of work reaching new levels of growth through diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Starting her career in pay equity, she provided 4,000+ women with the tools and resources they need to advocate for themselves at work and, as a result, negotiate $500K in salary increases and secure 150 promotions. Sage is an amplifier, advocating for womxn of color at work in top publications and organizations - from Forbes, NPR and GeekWire to SXSW, the Women’s March, Microsoft, Starbucks, and more.  Sage has gathered a groundswell of support and recognition - a clear signal that our cities, companies, and economy are ready and already fighting for equity at work. Recent accolades include Rising Star Awards from Seattle’s National Organization for Women and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, KUOW Radio’s Boss Tactician Award, University of Washington’s Community Leadership Award, and a nomination for Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2019.   Sage is a native Hawaiian who looks at systems, processes, and people with an indigenous lens to leave a better world for generations to come. Her story - your story - our story - continues.  Aparna Rae Aparna is recreating seats of power for and by womxn of color so that our workforce reflects what WoC bring to the table: resilience, ROI, and liberation. Aparna is an educator, innovator, and disruptor working at the intersection of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and organizational design. Her decades-long career in workforce development has advanced thousands of individuals in under-resourced communities through culturally relevant resources and leadership.  Beginning her career at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Aparna developed and deployed UBC’s first open journaling system, democratizing research for all, not just the wealthy few with journal access. Aparna has since launched a number of groundbreaking equity initiatives, including​ ​Project Feast​, a platform providing employment pathways for immigrant and refugee women in the food industry, and​ ​Firki​, a highly scalable, nationwide teacher training portal in India.   Today she is co-founder of ​Future For Us​, a platform dedicated to advancing of womxn of color through community, culture, and career development, and ​Moving Beyond​, an impact practice that operationalizes DEI and supports fund managers, wealth advisors, investors, philanthropists, and social innovators creating positive impact for people and the planet.  Aparna believes in the power of story and frequently shines a light on equity at work as a presenter, keynote speaker, and panelist. Her voice and vision has been covered in Seattle Business Magazine, Forbes, Geekwire, The Seattle Times, and more.  Growing up in 5 countries, Aparna witnessed the power of diverse voices early in life. This concept continues to be reinforced personally and professionally: diversity and inclusion is a pathway to success.  You can find Sage and Aparna online at: Linked In: linkedin.com/company/future-for-us Facebook: facebook.com/futureforus.now Instagram: instagram.com/futureforus.now Twitter: twitter.com/futurefor_us If you like the bumper music in each episode, you can hear more from Gretchen’s bands at leanthef-ckout.com/music.

Markham McIntyre, chief of staff of Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce jumps on and talks Seattle politics with David.  We start with what his organization does and how it relates to the restaurant industry.  We talk about working with Seattle Restaurant Alliance and current issues affecting them, namely staffing.  We talk comprehensive immigration reform from the local, state and federal levels.   Policy change.  And how individuals can affect those changes.  We get into homelessness.  Rent control.  Zoning.  Transportation.  Responsiveness.  And holding local politicians/city council responsible to the community.  Communication and frustration.  Transparency.  Talk a lot about leadership, and that anyone can throw their hat in the political ring.  We end with an example of Pioneer Square and how the Pioneer Square Alliance fostered the beautification of a historically shady area of Seattle.   This was a really informative conversation about passion for making your community better, the mechanics of policy change, and following your heart.

This is a guest episode of the new podcast Under Construction, from the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, featuring a conversation with my GeekWire co-founder John Cook, talking with the podcast's host, Seattle Metro Chamber CEO Marilyn Strickland. For more episodes, check out seattlechamber.com/underconstruction, or subscribe at soundcloud.com/seattlechamber.

On today’s episode we bring back former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland, whose final term ended in December 2017. She’s been serving as the president of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce since February.  We asked...