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Thank you so much for listening to this podcast whatever podcasts you listen to anywhere in the world. For comment and/or inquires please contact me at Shawn47k@gmail.com Shawn's Steals CFB(Week 4) & NFL Picks(Week 3) 2024-25 CFB  2024- 25 Week 4                                          Point Total                     Over or Under?                                        USC at Michigan- USC                                             46.5                                    Under Miami at South Florida- Miami(FL)                            65                                      Under Utah at Oklahoma St- Oklahoma St                         52.5                                    Over Kansas St at BYU- Kansas St                                  47.5                                    Under                                  James Madison at North Carolina- UNC                   47.5                                    Under                                   TCU at SMU- TCU                                                     57.5                                    Under         Tennessee at Oklahoma- Tennessee                       57.5                                     Over Shawn's Steals NFL Picks 2024-25 Week 3                             New England at N.Y. Jets- N.Y. Jets                           37.5                                  Under Chicago at Indianapolis- Indianapolis                         42.5                                   Over Philadelphia at New Orleans- New Orleans               49.5                                   Over     L.A. Chargers at Pittsburgh- Chargers                       36                                    Under                Denver at Tampa Bay- Tampa Bay                             39.5                                 Under Green Bay at Tennessee- Green Bay                         36.5                                  Under            N.Y. Giants at Cleveland- Cleveland                           38.5                                   Under      Carolina at Las Vegas- Las Vegas                             40.5                                  Under Detroit at Arizona- Detroit                         52.5                                   Over          Miami at Seattle- Seattle                                             41                                     Over Baltimore at Dallas- Baltimore                                    49                                     Over San Francisco at L.A. Rams- San Francisco             43.5                                 Over Kansas City at Atlanta- Kansas City                           46.5                                 Under Houston at   Minnesota- Minnesota                             45.5                                 Over    Jacksonville at Buffalo- Buffalo                                    45.5                                 Over            Washington at Cincinnati-Cincinnati                           48.5                                   Under                      

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we take a closer look at the earnings reports from Microsoft and Amazon this week, as a litmus test for artificial intelligence demand and the state of the economy. We also consider the implications of Boeing's new CEO being based in the Seattle region, discuss a new AI tool that aims to streamline marketing tasks, and weigh in on the backlash to Google's Olympics ad for its Gemini AI chatbot Microsoft capital spending soars to $19B, betting big on AI, as Azure growth underwhelms Wall Street Amazon sales come up short, profits nearly double Amazon looks to reduce costs to compete more aggressively on price as consumer habits shift Boeing chooses its next CEO — and he will reportedly be based back in Seattle Seattle tech vets launch 'Spok,' an AI copilot that aims to streamline marketing tasks – GeekWire CNBC: Google pulls AI ad for Olympics following backlash With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop and editor Taylor Soper.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Tuesday's edition of WagerTalk Today, $2 Tuesday handicapper Tokyo Brandon joins Steve and Teddy to give MLB predictions today. Marco D'Angelo gives his NBA Playoffs betting preview and Art DiCesare closes out the show giving a general betting market update from the other side of the counter!Introduction 00:00Tokyo Brandon: MLB - Brewers vs Pirates K Prop 2:44Tokyo Brandon: MLB - DBacks vs Reds Pitcher Prop 7:30What Did Bettors Learn 18:27Marco: MLB - St. Louis at LA Angels  = St. Louis 1st 5 innings -140 23:00Marco: MLB - Kansas City at Seattle = SEATTLE -0.5 1st 5 Innings -120 29:08Teddy: NBA - Timberwolves vs Nuggets 37:10Arthur DiCesare 39:49

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll! With two weeks left in the State legislative session, Crystal and Matt dig into several bills with potential for huge impact and needing public support to get across the finish line - HB 2114 (rent stabilization), HB 1932 (even-year elections), and SB 6105 (Stripper Bill of Rights). See the resources section for links to contact your legislators about each of these bills! Next, they discuss the promise of the City of Tacoma's detailed Anti-Displacement strategy, Mayor Bruce Harrell pledging no new taxes at his annual State of the City address, and no charges against the SPD officer who killed Jaahnavi Kandula. 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, Matt Driscoll, at @mattsdriscoll.   Resources Why Seattle's Proposed Surveillance Mash-Up is a Lose-Lose with Amy Sundberg and BJ Last of Solidarity Budget from Hacks & Wonks   “Pass bill limiting rent hikes to help stabilize households” by The Seattle Times Editorial Board   “Seattle's LGBTQ Communities Demand Rent Stabilization” by Rich Smith from The Stranger   HB 2114 - Improving housing stability for tenants subject to the residential landlord-tenant act and the manufactured/mobile home landlord-tenant act by limiting rent and fee increases, requiring notice of rent and fee increases, limiting fees and deposits, establishing a landlord resource center and associated services, authorizing tenant lease termination, creating parity between lease types, and providing for attorney general enforcement.   HB 2114 - Send a comment to your legislators   “NPI's even year elections bill advances out of Senate State Government Committee” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate   HB 1932 - Shifting general elections for local governments to even-numbered years to increase voter participation.   HB 1932 - Send a comment to your legislators   “Why a dancer with Tacoma ties is fighting for WA's 'Stripper Bill of Rights'” by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   Strippers Are Workers Campaign   SB 6105 - Creating safer working conditions in adult entertainment establishments.   SB 6105 - Send a comment to your legislators   “Some Tacomans are being pushed out of their neighborhoods. The city wants to intervene” by Shea Johnson from The News Tribune   Anti-Displacement Strategy | City of Tacoma   “Mayor Bruce Harrell Promises to Deliver Bare Minimum at 2024 State of City Address” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   “$230 Million Deficit Hangs Over Annual Harrell Speech” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “King County Prosecutors Decline to Charge SPD Officer for Killing Pedestrian” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   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 shows 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, our producer Shannon Cheng was guest host and welcomed back Amy Sundberg and BJ Last from Solidarity Budget to discuss how the City of Seattle is rushing to bring three surveillance technologies to the streets of Seattle with minimal public input. Make your voice heard at the final public meeting next week on Tuesday, February 27th at 6 p.m. 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: Metro News columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll. [00:01:31] Matt Driscoll: Thank you for having me - it's always wonderful to be here. And of course, as luck would have it, hammering started in the background. Hopefully that's not too annoying, but yeah - it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. [00:01:42] Crystal Fincher: Excellent - love having you back. Well, we have a couple weeks left in this legislative session, which is scheduled to end on March 7th. Houses have already gotten done passing legislation that originated in their chambers, now the other chambers are taking up things. And there's a few bills that I wanted to talk about that are trying to make it through, that a lot of organizations have as policies, and that would be really impactful to residents throughout the state. The first one is one talking about rent stabilization - different than rent control - rent stabilization basically limits rent and fee increases during the year. So this is something that a lot of renters have been talking about. We've certainly covered the housing affordability crisis at length on this program, but it really is a challenge for renters facing seemingly endless rent hikes. And those rent hikes currently don't have any caps. We've seen instances of rent literally doubling in some places, but fees 20-30% increases annually, which is way beyond the cost of inflation, generally, and really challenging for people to be able to afford. This has been cited as contributing to income inequality, to our homelessness crisis, and to just regular affordability, to displacement. Really challenging, so one thing that has been in the works for over a year has been the effort to try and limit rent increases. This bill would limit rent increases to 7% during any 12-month period, which is still a pretty substantial increase for most people - but within the realm of reality and affordability and achievability for a lot of people. How do you see this bill? [00:03:38] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting and it is very similar to a citizens' ballot initiative that we covered here in Tacoma last election cycle, which did place some rent increase limits on local landlords and some caps on local fees. To me, it's kind of the other side of the coin - although this coin is probably not a coin, it has a bunch of sides. But we talk a lot about just the affordable housing crisis and the need to build more housing of all kinds, particularly affordable housing - being able to meet all sorts of different economic demographics with that. And this is another side of that, which is people faced with the crisis of housing, calling on lawmakers and policymakers to enact some protections and some regulations to keep them from just getting gouged and forced out financially. And particularly in this bill and in the initiative that ended up passing just barely in Tacoma, I mean, the rent increases and the fees that they still allow are not insignificant. And the fact that we see the pushback to it that we do, particularly from landlords' associations, and conservative lawmakers, really speaks to how out of whack the market is. If you can't get by by raising rent 7% annually, I think it raises questions. Now, there are, I think, some legitimate concerns about how far to crank that lever, because I personally believe at some point, if you do crank it too far, you are going to impact the "mom and pop" landlords who do exist, who are real providers of legitimate affordable housing to people and housing to people that they might not be able to get otherwise. So I do think you have to walk that balance. Certainly to me, this bill seems reasonable, but I'm sure for a lot of lawmakers, it comes down to that question of how much reach do you want the government to have in dictating what are supposed to be those free markets we love so much in this country. But really, this conversation is indicative to the crisis that's happening in cities across Washington and across certainly the West Coast, where the cost of housing is just greatly outpacing any income growth or job growth that we might have. People are freaked out, and rightly so. You talk about all the necessities, whether it's food or - there are safety nets for that. But I think the housing one is one that feels really close because there aren't safety nets. If you lose housing, you lose housing. If you need to go to a food bank, you can go to a food bank, but there's not a house bank. And so it'll be interesting to see what happens and then see where the momentum goes on this. [00:06:02] Crystal Fincher: It will be interesting to see where the momentum goes. And you raised a good point in talking about the Tacoma Renter Protection Initiative, which is similar to other renter protection initiatives and legislation we've seen in various cities throughout the state - whether it's Spokane, Bellingham, Tacoma, Federal Way, we've seen local communities across the state take action on this because this is plaguing communities. That housing expense is almost everyone's biggest expense and so if that is skyrocketing, that's taking families' available discretionary income, that's impacting the local economy, and obviously causing a lot of housing insecurity that is really putting a lot of people in tough positions, and communities in tough positions, and governments and how to deal with that. And it's so much more expensive to deal with once it gets to the crisis level - once someone is displaced or can't afford housing, loses their apartment. All of those are really, really expensive to deal with from a city and county perspective. So I am hopeful that this legislation passes. It's currently in the Senate and it faces an uncertain future, so this is going to be one where community feedback to all of your legislators is really going to make a difference on this - particularly your senators, because they're going to determine the fate of this. There are a number of people on the fence - some moderate to conservative Democrats who have voiced some concerns. Jamie Pedersen is working on this in the Senate - has expressed some reservations, but has certainly heard a lot of feedback from his constituents who overwhelmingly are renters in his district. We'll see how this turns out, but this is one where - for folks listening - if this is something that's a priority to you, reach out to your senators. Fortunately, we make it really simple in Washington to be able to send communications about legislation. We'll also put links in the show notes to make that easy. But they're going to need to hear from you on this - certainly would be a big step forward for the state in terms of renter protections here. Also want to talk about another bill, which we've certainly talked about before and recently in our conversation with Andrew Villeneuve in one of our Tuesday topical shows, that the Northwest Progressive Institute has been very active with. The even-year elections bill, which has advanced out of the House and then advanced out of the Senate State Government Committee. So it's looking fairly positive, but still has to go through some more hurdles. This would enable cities and towns to choose to hold their elections in even-numbered years instead of odd-numbered years. This is a big deal because turnout is much higher in even-numbered years. And as we've seen in the state of California, when we do put those other races - municipal races, local races - on the ballot with those national races, people still vote, still great turnout, even better turnout than they would see in those odd-year elections. We just got done with an election in November that had the lowest turnout since we've been keeping records here in Washington. It is a problem. We're deciding elections with sometimes close to only 20% of the residents participating in the election - that's not representative. I don't think that's doing anyone any favors. The more people who can participate, the better. I also sometimes hear - This is all a progressive conspiracy to turn things out because we see so many elections that trend progressive in the end. And one thing that I would remind people is Seattle is a very visible place. Seattle has more progressive voters than conservative ones, so certainly elections in Seattle and therefore King County do trend as ballots are counted in the final days - those late ballots certainly do trend in a progressive direction. That's not the case statewide. It really just depends on what the local population is. If we're looking at southwest Washington, for example, those often trend red in a lot of those swing districts there. It just really depends on what there is on the ground. And even in those situations, I still think it's better for more people to participate in elections, and voting, and deciding what their communities are going to look like. What do you think about this bill? [00:10:23] Matt Driscoll: First and foremost, Crystal, it's awfully generous of you to acknowledge that even where there are more conservative voters, it's better for more people to vote - that's very bipartisan of you, I appreciate that. This is one of those ones that makes me question myself - am I a super liberal hack? Because there really doesn't seem to be a good reason not to do this, in my mind. At the end of the day - participation in democracy, in our elections - the more people, the more registered voters we can get involved, the better. That's what we should all want. None of us should be afraid that our arguments should stand up and they don't - if they're in the minority, they're in the minority - that's the way it's supposed to work. I will say that there's also part of this that frustrates me because we do look at those even-year versus odd-year elections, and one of the reasons that this gets cast as perhaps a progressive-motivated thing or a progressive scheme is because in those odd-year elections, the voting demographic does skew older, whiter, landowner, property owner - that's real - and i guess the frustrating part about it is just progressives could vote. I just went through that election last November and it was brutal to go through the endorsements. I do think election burnout is real. It does feel like there's always an election. I think we got to be generous to the general public and realize that most people are just trying to get through their lives, and put food on the table, and get their kids to school, and all that. And I think we're asking a lot of them to constantly be kind of in election mode, which is certainly how it feels. But at the end of the day, if progressives are concerned about the disparity, they could just vote in odd-year elections and they just don't - historically - we talk about it every time until we're blue in the face, and then they don't. But full circle - this is about participation. Whether we like the reality or not, the reality is people don't vote in off-year elections nearly as much as they do in the even year. We have historical data backing this up. And I also think it's important to note that all this bill will do is give places the ability to do it. It doesn't dictate it. It's local control of it. If you want to make that change, you can. So to me, again, I don't see an argument against this. It seems like a no-brainer, but so little is a no-brainer when it comes to Olympia. [00:12:34] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree with what you're saying. And as this makes it through and follows the path that a lot of bills do, one of the things that happens is amendments are offered and sometimes accepted. So this passed the House. Once it did arrive in the Senate, it received some amendments that passed out of committee. I'm not in love with these amendments. One of them not only requires the city to basically opt-in legislatively and pass an ordinance to say we're going to do this, but now it requires a popular vote from the people. So the city has to both adopt an ordinance or policy by its legislative body- [00:13:10] Matt Driscoll: An odd year? Do they have to vote in an odd year? Is that part of the stipulation? [00:13:15] Crystal Fincher: You know, it probably is. And yeah, it would have to receive approval from its voters. Now, this is something where the voters vote for their city council or their town council - whatever their government legislative body is, usually a city council - who make decisions like this all the time. Putting this out to a public vote is a costly endeavor. Elections aren't free. You have to pay to administer them, it's costly, it's time-consuming. And as you say, this is probably going to be on another odd-year election ballot. This is pretty simple. I wish we would let people and the electeds that they selected make these decisions. I would love to see that amendment taken out before it does get to a final vote, but we'll see how it goes. It would be progress either way. Definitely better than nothing, but would love to see as much good as possible and not add another hurdle to this that is seemingly unnecessary and also costly at a time when a lot of cities and counties are dealing with budget deficits and are really trying to trim costs instead of add them. Another bill that you covered this week is about a proposed Strippers' Bill of Rights that's currently in Olympia. What is happening with this and what would it do? [00:14:29] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, I mean, I kind of became mildly fascinated with this over the last week because it was pretty new territory for me, to be honest with you. So basically, the background on it is adult dancers, strippers in Washington essentially lack a whole lot of protections that I was, for one, shocked to hear didn't exist - like requirements of clubs to have security. In recent years, there have been some slight upgrades, installations of panic buttons and stuff, but really it's kind of a Wild West out there in terms of staffing, and training requirements, and de-escalation requirements. And basically, whether you frequent strip clubs or not, just picture a strip club and think of all the things that you would assume would be in place to protect people and employees and the reality is that many of them don't exist currently. And so this bill would do a lot of that around training, de-escalation, that sort of thing - which all, to me, feel like no-brainers. And I think in the legislature's view - from the testimony that I've heard, at least in the House - it seems to be a shared sentiment. Where it gets tricky is this bill also opens the door for the legal sale of alcohol in strip clubs. And at least initially going into it, for me, it's a juxtaposition until you get into it. Because on one hand, you're talking about safety and regulations. And then - oh, yeah, we're going to add alcohol - and you're like, what the? that doesn't necessarily seem like that's about safety. But at the end of the day, as I learned and wrote about - and others have written about it plenty this session - essentially the deal for strippers is they pay a nightly rate, if you will, to work, to perform. They're independent contractors. They're not employees of the strip club. So you will end up owing $100, $200 just to start your shift. And then the money that you make in the process of your job, after you pay that back, that's what you make. One, that's clearly exploitative. It sets up bad situations, as you can imagine. But the reality of it is because there's no legal alcohol sales in Washington strip clubs, that's really the only financial model that exists for club owners. And so it puts pressure on them to exploit the dancers. And then that puts pressure on the dancers to maybe ignore warning signs about things that make them uncomfortable because they're all of a sudden in financial distress trying to pay what they owe just to work. So it just creates this whole set of tensions that I think - really a lot of the supporters of this bill would argue - really decrease the safety in these clubs. So this bill would do all of that - it made its way through the Senate, it's now over to the House, it's out of committee as of earlier this week. But the hang up is going to be around that alcohol point. I think most lawmakers seem to agree with the safety measures, but there's hang up around the alcohol and how that works. We could go into the weeds - some legislators think that the Liquor Cannabis Board already has the ability, they could just make a rule. Liquor Cannabis Board says - No, we need you to grant us the licensing authority, yada, yada, yada. It's all very complicated, but it's going to come down to the booze. [00:17:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and this is really interesting - I personally am absolutely in support of this. Strippers are workers. They deserve protections that any worker deserves. Employers have an obligation to protect their employees, or in the case of independent contractors to protect the people who they are making money from when they work in their establishment. As you said, this does require adult entertainment establishments to provide dedicated security personnel during operating hours. It does establish restrictions on the leasing fees charged to not exceed what a dancer can make so they don't go into debt while they're dancing - that serves no one. It also requires adult entertainment establishments to provide mandatory training to their employees on first aid, conflict de-escalation, and identifying and preventing human trafficking, sexual harassment, discrimination, and assault. Expands certain safety requirements, including key padlocks for locker rooms, cleaning supplies, and certain safety signage. And then, as you said, it prohibits the Liquor and Cannabis Board from adopting or enforcing a rule that restricts the exposure of certain body parts or that restricts sexually-oriented conduct. That particular element, I believe, came out of the targeted enforcement of gay establishments in the City of Seattle - seemingly with these lewd laws - saying that those can't be in the proximity of alcohol, which just seemed really out of touch, antiquated, potentially a way to harass the LGBTQ+ community, and just not something that is consistent with the values - certainly that we hold in Seattle, but in Washington state, as we've shown. So I do hope this gets through. The alcohol issue - for me, I trust the strippers working in the establishment to know what's safe for them and if they're advocating for this and saying this is part of what we need to have a safe and sustainable environment, I trust them with that. There are plenty of situations where we allow alcohol where, if you take away the purity-attached issues to it, that seem to me to be dicey in a lot of situations. I'm also someone who it's just like - Wow, we have parking lots at bars. Doesn't that seem like it's setting up a very problematic thing? So that's a much broader conversation there. But if the strippers don't have a problem with it, I don't have a problem with it, really. They know the business and their environment much better than I do, certainly. [00:19:48] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, I just think the whole thing's fascinating because I was talking to Laurie Jinkins about this last week when I was reporting on it - and she comes from a public health background. And her basic reaction to it is the expansion of alcohol is not good - she points to health data. I think you can certainly make that argument, but it's very interesting what you hear from folks working in the industry, and they a lot of times will compare it to Oregon. And admittedly, I'm going to lose any Pierce County street cred here, but it's been a long time since I've been inside a strip club - but I've never been in one in Oregon. What they say is - Look, in Oregon, whether you agree with strip clubs or not, they're actually a place that legitimate people might want to hang out because you can get a drink and maybe you can get some food, and if that's what you're into - entertainment - it works for you. And guess what you have in Washington? Strip club, honestly, is almost the last place you would want to hang out unless you were really driven to go to a strip club. Door charges are insane, you're buying $15 Cokes, there's nothing to drink, there's nothing to eat, it's empty and kind of sad. And lo and behold, what do you get? You get the folks who are choosing to go to those establishments - and I'm trying not to paint with a broad brush here, but I think we can all imagine the scene that this creates. And then when you really talk about the fact that you've essentially created an economic model where the clubs in Washington rely on taking income straight from the dancers as opposed to everywhere else, where they make their income off the booze and the food - like every other sort of nightlife establishment. You can see how that would even out the relationship or the power dynamic between the dancer and the club, where here the club has all the incentive to suck as much as possible out of the dancer, and the dancers are in tough positions where they're trying to make it work. So I think it's fascinating. And again, this is not very satisfying, but it'll be very interesting to see where this goes in the coming days. [00:21:41] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely will be. And I agree, it will be very interesting to see where it goes. Moving on from legislation and where things stand there, there was something that I wanted to talk about that I found really interesting and perhaps a model that other cities may be able to look at, depending on how this turns out. And that is a plan from the City of Tacoma to prevent displacement in the city. And this is in addition to a housing affordability action plan that was adopted by the City that they seem to have been making positive progress on. But a specific anti-displacement strategy that consisted of 21 actions, including buying property to build affordable units in areas that have a high risk of displacement, requiring owners of subsidized properties to issue notices if they intend to sell, or opt-out, or refinance. But really saying it's as much of a problem that people are being economically displaced, forced out of neighborhoods - we're losing the culture and character of our neighborhoods, we're losing cohesive communities that are being displaced - and the fallout from that is undesirable. So often we hear in other conversations about zoning - maintaining the character of the neighborhood - well, the people are essential to the character of the neighborhood. And when the people are being lost, that's a problem that the City of Tacoma has recognized and is taking action on, which I think is very commendable. What do you see in this anti-displacement strategy? [00:23:12] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, I think it goes back to that multi-sided, not-a-coin thing I was talking about earlier. Well, we've got the need for housing and you've got policy pushing to place some regulations and protections for tenants. This is another part of that where cities, certainly in Tacoma, are recognizing that the economic realities and the housing realities in the city are, in fact, displacing untold number of people. We've been seeing it here for a long time. Hilltop is often painted, at least regionally, as the epicenter of it, where we've had Link Light Rail expansion and we've seen the housing going in, and if you see a lot of families that have been here for a long time getting pushed out. This is an acknowledgement of that from City leaders, and so I think it's commendable, they get credit. Of course, the cynic can me points out that cities, including Tacoma, are great at coming up with plans - we already had an affordable housing action strategy, and now we've got our anti-displacement strategy, and we passed our anti-racism legislation with 21 bullet points of what we commit to do. And at the end of the day, the proof's in the pudding and people are still getting pushed out. And so the hard part is the work of - is the city actually going to acquire land and do the sorts of things that it lays out as its vision? I've been here long enough to have seen lots of visions - very few of them have come to full fruition - it's usually you get pieces and then a crisis pops up or some other thing happens. And so we'll see what happens at the end of the day, but certainly if nothing less, it's an acknowledgement of those very same forces we started talking out with at the beginning of this show of just the crazy increases of the cost of living, particularly of the housing. I hear from Chamber of Commerce types sometimes who point out - You keep saying rents are skyrocketing and really it's raising similarly to everything else. Yes, everything's getting more expensive. And yes, in theory, there have been some income gains - although I think it's totally fair and accurate to say they have not kept pace with the cost of living. But I just think housing is that one that people feel just so closely and it feels so razor thin and desperate that lawmakers, city council - here in Tacoma - are hearing it loud and clear from their constituents who are actively being pushed out or just looking around and realizing that one wrong move and they would no longer be able to afford to live here. I don't take any shame in admitting that's certainly my family's situation - if we had not purchased our house when we purchased our house, we could absolutely not live where we live today. We would be in Parkland, somewhere other than that - and that's just the reality. And so again, we'll see what comes long-term, but it's an acknowledgement and it's an important one, and I think it's right. [00:25:40] Crystal Fincher: I also think it's right. This affects everybody. A lot of times I hear a lot of people say the same thing you did - Well, thank goodness we were able to buy our house at the time that we did because we certainly couldn't afford it now. This is an issue that is really affecting seniors in the community and whether they can age in place - whether they can remain in the communities that they have built their lives in, that they have relationships in, that is so important to maintaining their own safety net as perhaps their abilities evolve and change as they age. Lots of people need to downsize houses, need to have more accessible homes. And right now in many communities - certainly in Seattle and Tacoma, but also many of the suburbs - it is not possible to buy in the same area and get something similar that you would there. They're looking at a much different quality of life if they were to do that, or they need to move far away, basically, from perhaps family, support systems, the doctors that they've seen forever, the people who've been helping them in their lives for so long, and really lose touch with those things that keep them healthy and supported. And often their family too - and their families aren't able to afford to move in and live in the same area - it's really a problem that a lot of families are facing in this multi-generational way that is really, really troubling. And I'm glad this is being addressed. [00:27:05] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, it's just a subset of the folks being affected by this - you probably know the data better than I do - but if you want to be terrified at some point, look at the data about the number of people moving into retirement age and that age bracket in the next decade or more. It's a significant amount of people. And if we don't come to terms with the fact that our economy as it currently stands, particularly in relation to housing, is just cruel and out of whack right now - there are going to be countless people really with no flexibility, nowhere to move, creating those situations that you just described where you get stuck. You have a house you probably can't look after anymore. You can't afford to move anywhere else. You don't have whatever it would take to get into senior - I mean, it's terrifying. And so one small part of a bigger pie of the economic cruelty that we have, but it's a big one. And so I'm hopeful, but again, cities are great at the plans and the bullet points and the statements of great aspiration. The proof is in how it pans out. And so I think it's important for people to keep an eye on it and keep folks accountable, so it's more than just talk. [00:28:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely agree with that. Getting more into the details of this, there were a number of actions - I was happy to see that this was a pretty comprehensive report - there are metrics to track over the time. As plans from cities go, especially ones that we're seeing these days in major cities, it at least had a lot of detail - that they'll either follow or they won't - but certainly a lot less vague than some of the plans that we see elsewhere. Some of the other things included were expanding one-time cash assistance to keeping families housed, offering incentives for developers to build affordable housing in at-risk areas, prioritizing new units to be rented or sold to at-risk or displaced residents, focusing down payment homebuyer assistance in high-risk neighborhoods, or reducing the cost to build accessory dwelling units. In addition to proactive rental inspection programs or community land trust with the intention of preserving affordable housing, increasing funds to the City's tenant protection program and housing assistance contracts, or creating a property tax relief program. The strategy also called for the City to consider establishing a reparations committee that would research the possibility of reparations for historical racist policies, particularly because BIPOC communities have been disproportionately displaced. Those communities have been decimated - they're far less than half of what they initially were, and that percentage is still declining there. It is a challenge - they're being disproportionately displaced, and certainly reparations are being looked at in a variety of areas and is justified. We'll see how this does play out, but I'm excited. The plan excites me because it was quite detailed. We'll also link that in the show notes for people to read themselves and see the data behind the policies, the justifications behind them, the metrics that they'll continue to be tracking, and what their metrics for progress are. It'll be interesting to see, but we talk about affordability under a whole umbrella of a homelessness crisis, the housing crisis - but it is going to take addressing these discrete elements, each one by themselves, and a plan to address all of them. And I think Tacoma is certainly showing leadership so far in that area. Also want to talk this week about Mayor Bruce Harrell delivering his 2024 State of the City address. This is his third State of the City address since he has been elected, these addresses are annual. He touted some reductions in crime, which I'm sure everyone is happy to see. He talked about the CARE Department that they established, which has started with a small trial of a co-responder model during limited hours during the day. Hopefully we will see that expanded - certainly, to at least cover 24 hours throughout the day, and more than a handful of responders there - that would certainly be welcome. And I think polling continually shows that residents want to see this expanded and available at all times and in all areas. He also made news with basically a no new taxes pledge, which is very different than what he said before. He said that he'd be looking to implement progressive revenue. He convened a task force to look at different progressive revenue options because there's a $250 [million] budget shortfall that the City is going to have to deal with this year. And he basically said - Hey, we're not going to raise taxes. I'm not going to support any raising of taxes. Our challenges are much more fundamental to that. We need to basically look at every inch of the budget and re-examine what we're doing. This seems aligned with Council President Sara Nelson's pledge and op-ed where she said not only was she looking to not implement new taxes, but also cut taxes for business. This is also at a time when they're saying they're going to increase funding for public safety. So this seemingly indicates, particularly if they're looking at cutting taxes - but really either way, whether they do or don't cut any taxes - some pretty significant cuts for services and programs throughout the city that don't have to do with public safety. And this has a lot of people alarmed. How did you see the State of the City address? [00:32:31] Matt Driscoll: What I always enjoy about our conversations is I view all this stuff from afar, from Tacoma. I know what Tacoma and Pierce County budgets look like, and I know what Seattle and King County budgets look like -and there's part of me that looks at that, and if you guys can't figure it out with the resources you have already? But I also acknowledge that the challenges in a place like King County and Seattle are not insurmountable, but are sizable. And when you look at budgets and you look at the need for these services and potential of cuts, it's very real and it could be not good for a lot of people. From a broader perspective, I do think the dynamic and the shift that we've seen in Seattle is interesting - particularly as it relates to homeless response as an example of that, because there was a development where some funding appears like it's going to get taken back from the King County Regional Housing Authority. And I do think from the broad constituency that is now reflected in certainly the city council - and you could argue in Mayor Harrell's election as well - there's a dissatisfaction with the amount of money that we are spending towards trying to address some of these problems and the actual outcomes that we are seeing. And I think a lot of that is very natural because the positive outcomes of homeless response are difficult to track. People always want to break it down - we spent this much and we housed this many people. The reality is it's just not that simple. There's more human nature involved in that. But at the same time, I do believe - and I think Seattle in some ways can be the poster city for this - is it's understandable when people look at the more progressive side of homeless response and say - You're basically advocating that we can't sweep encampments, what we see around us is okay. But I think for most people, when they look around and the problems that they see and the suffering they see, it feels not okay. A lot of times, from one side of it, the solutions you get are really long-term. And because of the way these debates stick us into stupid corners, it starts sounding like you've got one side advocating for - Shut up about the encampment in front of your business, just deal with it. And I think that, at some extent, bleeds into the electorate where they start having pushback to that. And I feel like that's the tension point where Seattle's at - yes, it's a progressive city. Yes, people genuinely want humane responses to the homelessness crisis. They're not looking to criminalize people. They're not looking to make matters worse. They want to address the underlying root causes and the lack of housing and the lack of everything that we need. But at the same time, the status quo is unsustainable. I think you see that in some of this talk of re-evaluation of what we're doing, is it working? And those can be tricky evaluations because like I said, they're not always straightforward. And I think there's a lot of good work being done. And I think attempts to purely quantify it in hard data can be suspect. But at the same time, I don't think it's entirely wrong when people say we're spending a lot of money, we've been talking about this a lot, and all I see is it getting worse. And so that's a very rambly way of - my view on Seattle politics from 33 miles away. [00:35:33] Crystal Fincher: Well, there's a lot there to talk about. I absolutely agree that people see the problem getting worse and are frustrated by that. And hear the amounts of money that are being spent and are wondering if that's effective or not - because the amounts do sound big. With the budget in Seattle - Seattle is unique in the state, in the types of industry that it has and the types of companies that it has. And Seattle certainly gets a lot from those companies. But I also feel we absolutely need to talk about and acknowledge that those companies get a lot from Seattle. As of a few years ago, Amazon had more office space in the city of Seattle than any corporation in any other city in the country. So great - Amazon is hiring. But Amazon is also taxing our infrastructure. They're causing a lot of stress on the roads - people talk about potholes and trucks - and well, Amazon is impacting a lot of that. Amazon is a lot of the impacts on our transit network. Amazon is impacting just the use of our resources, right? And Amazon is benefiting from the great resources that the city of Seattle does provide. And again, this goes both ways. Certainly people benefit from being employed, but we can't say - And that's it, that's the end of the story. There's also the desire to have those corporations, some of the richest ones in the world in Seattle, pay their fair share. In our state - as we've talked about, our regressive state tax code without an income tax - I do think there's a very valid conversation, especially in a city that has as many high-earners and as many mega-corporations as the city of Seattle does, whether people are paying their fair share. And when you look at how residents in the city of Seattle vote, that answer continues to be - No, we don't feel like everyone's paying their fair share yet, and we need to move further in that direction. City government currently, both the council and the mayor, seems to feel differently. So that will be a continuing tension that carries on. We'll see what happens, but certainly looks to be a bumpy ride coming up. The last thing I wanted to talk about this week was the announcement that there are going to be no charges for the officer who killed a student, Jaahnavi Kandula, as he was driving 74 miles per hour down a city street - the speed limit is 25 miles per hour - responding to a call. This is the incident that a lot of people probably became familiar with because they heard another officer, who is also the vice-president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, mock her death - saying that her life didn't have value, basically laughing about it in just a really sick and sadistic way. No charges will be faced by that officer either. For the officer who was mocking, the rationale that the county prosecutor gave was that it's up to the Office of Police Accountability in Seattle to determine what, if any, discipline should be faced by that officer. And then for the officer who actually ran over this young woman, just saying there was not enough evidence to show that basically he was acting recklessly. And a lot of people's response to this has been if driving 74 miles per hour with no indication that it is in a different category of emergency, certainly - and really responding to a call that police are not needed at and that other cities don't have police responding to those calls, but that's a side issue - but hey, if that's not reckless, then what is? And so we're again in a situation where the law feels woefully inadequate. And we have the county prosecutor saying - Okay, but according to the law, this would be tough, if not impossible, to prosecute and get a guilty verdict. And people looking at the common sense of it and saying - But that just doesn't make sense. Can we drive 74 miles per hour on a city road and have no consequences for any actions, any harm that results from that? And so we're once again in a situation where our laws seemingly have endless loopholes or exceptions for people who work in public safety that don't seem to apply to the rest of us. How did you see this? [00:39:53] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, we're certainly tackling the big ones on today's show, aren't we? I mean, to me, and I realize that this is a difficult view to articulate fairly, and I'm going to try my best because people feel very passionate about it for a lot of reasons. But I think two things are true. One, creating the type of police force that we need does demand accountability. There has to be accountability. And I think right now, a lot of folks genuinely feel like there is no accountability. Attempts are made to hold police accountable for what many feel are reckless, or dangerous, or whatever behavior. The result we get is - well, it wasn't illegal, it was fine. And so accountability has to be part of that, but I don't think you can change police culture through accountability. I feel like what this situation represents is more the reflection of a police culture, particularly in the mocking comments. I don't know enough about the intricacies of this case to re-litigate it. I've read the same things you read - I know the speed, the lack of lights, I also know the prosecutor came back - the interviews with other people, that they heard it, that the student seemed distracted. I don't feel prepared to re-litigate that exact string of events. What I will say is when you're in an emergency or your family members in an emergency, you'd probably want the first responders driving 75 miles an hour - maybe not 75, but you get my point. I do think there has to be leeway in the law that gives first responders and cops the ability to do things that otherwise would be considered reckless. I think that needs to happen, but I think the problem we run into is that responsibility that we've given to a police force - the police force, their culture, doesn't reflect those values that are behind that. In a perfect world, if we had the police force we had, they would use these powers responsibly. But a lot of times what we see - and again, particularly in the commentary, that's what feels inhumane. The cop who was involved in the accident, it sounds like they were distraught at the scene - I don't know what's going on with them. But I know when people hear cops talking about this person's life in a way that assigns it no value, it feels like a reflection of police culture that feels above the law, and feels drunk on power, and feels reckless. So if this cop had been charged with this, I don't know what it would have changed. I do think accountability is necessary, but I think the bigger problem is the police culture we have. And maybe, best case scenario, we're in the process of slowly transforming our police forces to - hiring the type of people and weeding out the bad - I don't know if I have a lot of faith in that. But it's not going to happen overnight. My overarching point is - yes, you need accountability, but I don't think accountability can be your vehicle towards the change that we need, if that makes sense. [00:42:49] Crystal Fincher: It makes perfect sense. I completely agree with that. It's just a really, truly unfortunate situation. And this young woman deserved better - from everybody, at all points in time from this. And I hope we take this seriously as a community, both locally and statewide, and really do look at issues with culture and start to get to the root of that problem. And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, February 23rd, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Metro News columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll. You can find Matt on Twitter or X at @mattsdriscoll, with two L's at the end. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me at @finchfrii, with two I's at the end, on all platforms. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday 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.

Es lief nicht gut für die Panthers beim Auswärtsspiel in Seattle. Im lautesten NFL Stadion hatte die Offense einige Probleme und auch bei der Defense lief es nicht wirklich besser. Wie geht es nach diesem 0-3 Start weiter? Das besprechen wir natürlich in dieser Folge. Viel Spaß beim hören und Keep Pounding!

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Publisher of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm! The show kicks off with a rundown of The Urbanist's primary election endorsements, followed by discussion of a Federal Way shooting that raises lots of questions, the Burien council majority's continued failure on homelessness response, Ed Murray being spotted at political events, a court ruling that Seattle's primary encampment sweeps tool is unconstitutional, and a Mayor Harrell change of heart on South Lake Union light rail stations. 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, Doug Trumm, on Twitter at @dmtrumm.   Doug Trumm Doug Trumm is Publisher of The Urbanist, where he has contributed as a writer and editor since 2015. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at UW in 2019 with a concentration in urban policy. As a car-free renter living in Seattle, his policy focuses include improving transit and street safety and tackling the housing affordability crisis. His cat Ole is a national treasure.   Resources “Carrie Barnes, Chair of the King County Democrats” from Hacks & Wonks   “2023 Primary Election Endorsements” from The Urbanist   “The Stranger's Endorsements for the August 1, 2023, Primary Election” from The Stranger   “Seattle Times editorial board endorsements: Aug. 1, 2023, primary” from The Seattle Times   Endorsements from PubliCola   Progressive Voters Guide from Fuse WA   2023 Policing and Public Safety Voter Guide - Seattle City Council from People Power Washington   “Person killed during drive-by shooting in Federal Way, police say” by Lauren Girgis from The Seattle Times   “Burien still can't decide whether it'll take homelessness offer” by Anna Patrick from The Seattle Times   “After Refusing Shelter Offer from King County, Burien Proposes Camping Ban” by Erica Barnett from PubliCola   “Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announces his resignation on September 12, 2017.” by Nick Rousso from HistoryLink.org   “City's Primary Tool for Sweeping Encampments Without Notice Ruled Unconstitutional” by Erica Barnett from PubliCola   “Harrell Advances New Denny Station Options That Could Delay Ballard Link” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Transit Advocates Push to Save South Lake Union Light Rail Station” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Ballard Link Extension: South Lake Union Stations Webinar #2 | Sound Transit   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. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I chatted with Carrie Barnes, Chair of the King County Democrats, about how the county party engages in local elections and politics to improve lives in our area. Today, we are 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: Publisher of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. Hey. [00:01:20] Doug Trumm: Hey, good to see you - thanks so much for having me. [00:01:22] Crystal Fincher: Very, very happy and excited to have you. And as we sit here, people have ballots at their homes - you should have received your ballot - if you haven't, you should pursue getting another one or tracking down where that is. But primary election is in full swing. The primary election end date is Tuesday, August 1st. And wow, there have been a lot of endorsements, including endorsements from The Urbanist. Who did The Urbanist decide to support in several different races? And what was the approach The Urbanist took to making these endorsements? [00:01:58] Doug Trumm: Yeah, we are excited to announce our slate. I'll, I guess, start with how we got there, which was a painstaking process - we've done it the same way, going back six, seven years. And that involves - first, the questionnaire to get people on the record about some issues important to urbanists and Safe Street advocates and housing advocates. And then after they've submitted their questionnaire, we invite them in for actual interviews that are now happening over Zoom - which has been convenient, I think, for everyone, since we're covering a wide area. We probably should have been doing this the whole time - save the candidates time and you get through more candidates. And it's about a 25-minute interview and you learn a little bit more - when you get a vague response in a questionnaire or some issue becomes relevant that maybe wasn't when you sent out the questionnaire. And then we debate what we felt about it. And luckily we didn't have any big fights this year, but obviously some disagreement. And I guess I can start with the Seattle City Council. We also endorsed in Bellevue this year, but where we endorsed, there's not a primary - so not the big fireworks that rolled that one out, but there will be more in the general. But we'll start in order. District 1 in Seattle - Maren Costa, we liked. She's a climate activist and clearly had the best housing platform. A slam dunk as far as what urbanists are looking for, I think, as some of the other candidates were much more wishy-washy about how much housing are they going to allow and how many ways are they going to allow to block it. Costa was pretty clear - I want housing. And then in [District] 2, we liked the incumbent, Tammy Morales. She's been the most strident Safe Streets advocate in the council, so we need someone like that 'cause it's very hard to get Safe Streets projects done. And her district is also in most in need of it, and she's been very clear about that. So it just seems like we need a strong voice, especially in that district. D3, we went with Alex Hudson. We thought she had the most policy chops experience - a lot of progressives in that race, but we thought Alex had the most ability to get it done. In D4, we liked Ron Davis. Didn't really seem to be anyone else who wanted the progressive mantle in that race, and maybe that's a credit partially to Ron Davis being a strong candidate. And we think he is really clear about where he stands and not very politician-y in that way, which is refreshing - was very clear about he wanted a lot of housing in the Comp Plan update that's due next year. Just to underscore that it's a really consequential election because that Comp Plan update is happening next year and a lot of big stuff happening next year, so definitely don't sit out this election. And Ron seems like the person clearly who actually believes in urbanism, believes in 15-minute cities, and things that can make it easier to get around the city as well. Competition just isn't very good. Then in D5, we went with Nilu Jenks. And that is interesting, right - so maybe I get your take on that rather than keep grandstanding here with our endorsements - but we liked Nilu a lot, but then it turned out The Stranger went with ChrisTiana ObeySumner, who we didn't get a chance to interview, otherwise we might have been so inclined potentially - just couldn't get that scheduled. So we ended up going with Nilu, who is pretty strong on most of our issues - was clear she was for housing abundance. And we didn't love some of her police takes, but we thought she was the best candidate we interviewed. And then The Seattle Times went with Cathy Moore. D5 is a weird race because Cathy Moore is now the de facto business chamber candidate, but there aren't as clear of lines. Did you have anything on that or should I keep going? [00:05:18] Crystal Fincher: I think you should keep going and I will chime in at the end. But I do agree that is a race with a number of very interesting candidates that I think are all worthy of looking into. And I think looking deeper into, particularly ChrisTiana ObeySumner and what they're doing is warranted. [00:05:36] Doug Trumm: Yeah, we're gonna continue to try to get that interview scheduled, so there's always potential in the general - it can be different. Also, who knows who's gonna make it through that primary, so it could be a very interesting field - there's a lot of candidates who have a decent shot. Tye Reed also has the Transit Riders Union endorsement and some other progressive endorsements, and is running probably farthest to the left. We wrote in our write-up that we liked Tye as well, but we just thought Nilu had the stronger chance in the general and also a little bit more of a bridge builder. Then moving on to D6, we went with Dan Strauss. We weren't terribly excited about it. He's been someone who's definitely tacked to the center and to the right. And his district has too, so maybe that's just survivalism, but we don't think those votes are good - I'm thinking of his recent vote that gave Ann Davison the power to lock poor people and drug users on the street. It just seemed like a forced vote - there wasn't actually a treatment plan and a diversion plan offered, but on pinky swearing - I don't know how you would take that pinky swear from Ann Davison. So that was a culmination of a continuing slide to the right, especially on safety. And he's been all right as Land Use Chair, but also has moved fairly slowly. But compared to Pete Hanning, his main competition, Dan's still clearly better so we went with Dan. And then D7, we went with Andrew Lewis. We thought Andrew Lewis and Dan Strauss were very similar - they both reflected as progressives and there was always questions about how progressive they really are, but I think Andrew's done a better job than Dan at defining himself and taking some brave votes here and there - he's been more accessible in explaining his waffles, rather than waffle-and-hide - I think that waffling is indicative of his kind of process to get somewhere. I'm not sure, always, what Dan's thinking. So we went with Lewis. The people running against Lewis also are all running pretty far right. It wasn't like there was someone who was gunning for The Urbanist endorsement in that race. But I think Lewis, as Chair of the Homelessness Committee, has done some good stuff and been very clear about trying to set up a alternate response and really hammering on that, so he's definitely worthy of a second term. We also endorsed in King County Council. One really hard race for us to endorse - because we had so many candidates we liked and we really went back and forth about how to do it - we ultimately decided not to do a dual. But in District 4 of the King County Council, which is Northwest Seattle, we went with Becka Johnson Poppe. And she works at King County now as a Budget and Policy Director, and that experience pushed her over the top for us. She's someone who already can hit the ground running. She knows this stuff inside-out and she has credibility - she is a progressive and has pushed on stuff. And one thing we're really watching on the King County Council is Metro Transit service - it's not where it was pre-pandemic, there's less frequency. And she's someone who's been clear about county-wide Transportation Benefit District, which could fund bus service and get us back to that pre-pandemic level eventually. Oddly, the King County Council's been dragging their feet on that and letting obstacles stand in the way rather than solve those obstacles, which is always frustrating to see. I think getting some new people in there, maybe they can take more of a problem-solving approach rather than - We can't get enough bus drivers, so I guess we're gonna accept mediocrity from our transit delivery. [00:08:32] Crystal Fincher: If that would have been a dual endorsement, who would have been the other? [00:08:36] Doug Trumm: Probably Jorge Barón. The vote didn't go that way, so I couldn't say for certain how it would have went. We liked all three candidates in that race, so I think it would probably have been Jorge - who got in late, but has an incredible record as far as leading [Northwest] Immigrant Rights Project. He's led that organization, has done incredible work. We certainly heard from him how he was going to apply that background to advocating for people of color communities in the county and understanding their issues better. And even though you're not gonna be determining that policy at the county level, you are doing a lot of policy that still affects people's livelihood. So liked Jorge Barón - he ended up getting The Seattle Times endorsement, he's pretty progressive for a Seattle Times endorsement. It might just be a reflection of three pretty progressive people in the race. Did The Stranger also go with Jorge? [00:09:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, he nailed what many candidates don't usually nail, which is getting both The Times and The Stranger endorsement. That doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it is usually a very encouraging sign for that candidate. But you're right, this is a race where there are only good choices. And so it just depends on your personal preferences and who you think can best carry out the vision - three solid candidates, each with impressive resumes and impressive experience. [00:09:49] Doug Trumm: Yeah, the third being Sarah Reyneveld, who got the Transit Riders Union endorsement, and I think a handful of labor endorsements. And has also been someone who's been active on transit issues - that countywide Transportation Benefit District, or other funding measures, to get the county back on track. Another open seat in the County Council in District 8, a more West Seattle-type area all the way to Burien and Tukwila. We went with Teresa Mosqueda, which was an easy choice for us, especially after her main competition - Burien Mayor Sofia Aragon - has been on this get-the-homeless-people-out-of-our-city-and-not-provide-services tangent now. So Teresa Mosqueda has been a great City Councilmember in Seattle, and obviously it'd be tough to see her go. She has a clear plan of how she's going to continue working on these issues at the county - transit, housing, healthcare, and childcare kind of being the pillars of her platform. And yeah, she's just someone who got a lot done, including JumpStart, which was the biggest step forward for progressive tax reform in Seattle in maybe ever. So I think that kind of resume is tough to beat. [00:10:49] Crystal Fincher: And that makes sense. There are a number of races for people to choose from this year - definitely going to be reshaping what the Seattle City Council looks like, with so many vacancies and so many open seats and new candidates that are going to be coming aboard. I think it's a solid group of endorsements. There are arguments that can be made for some other candidates in some of those races. I think District 5 is one of those where there are a number of good choices. You talked about Tye Reed, who was instrumental in the passage of social housing in Seattle - making that happen, getting that passed, and has been an organizer for a while around a number of different issues in the city. No one can question Tye's dedication to these issues and real personal investment - and making sure it can get better. We talked about ChrisTiana ObeySumner and Nilu Jenks, so we'll see how that race turns out - that's going to be another interesting one to check out. So we'll leave that there. We'll probably include links to other endorsing entities - just as you try to make up your mind as a listener and a voter - just to give you resources there to assist with those. Also want to talk about a number of other things, but we will go to this brief story about a drive-by shooting - evidently, sheriff deputies were on-site. There's not much that's been reported, and it really seems like the reporter dictated an initial statement from the police and didn't ask any questions. I'll read it to you, and then we can talk about it. Title - Person killed during drive-by shooting in Federal Way, police Say. A person was killed during a drive-by shooting while King County Sheriff's Office deputies were performing a wellness check early Saturday morning in Federal Way. Officers were attempting to check on the person seen behind a property in the 3900 block of South 320th Street shortly before 3 a.m. when two vehicles sped off and two shots rang out. Sheriff's spokesperson, Sergeant Eric White said the person was hit by gunfire and died at the scene. Deputies followed the two vehicles but they got away. No arrests had been made as of Saturday afternoon. Several businesses are located in the area of the shooting. That's the whole story. That's quite an interesting tale. What is your initial reaction to this, Doug? [00:13:16] Doug Trumm: Yeah, it's a head scratcher - have a story, we don't have a lot to go on. It tears down the mythology of what policing can do, especially with us rolling back our police chase limitations and letting police go hog wild in these chases again - at this past session at the State Legislature - because of pushback from the police lobbying forces. Theoretically, they were gonna do these chases and catch people exactly like this. They saw someone doing a drive-by shooting and they were in their cars, conceivably - this is the perfect time to do that chase. And yeah, it didn't work out, so it just underscores that using police chases is such a uncertain and certainly dangerous type of way to try to apprehend criminals when you can easily just ID the car and catch up with them later. And there's so many pedestrians and other bystanders that die in these chases - there really has to be a good chance of a good outcome, like some sort of win, to deal with that collateral damage. That's the first thing that popped into my mind. And the drive-by was apparently someone else. All these police press releases, reported with very little critical eye - when police are involved, they put it in passive voice and passive action. But because of that way they write the press releases, you wonder - Did the police open fire? Did they do anything? - we don't have that information yet. It was reported as a drive-by, so one would assume it wasn't just police opening fire during a wellness check. Were these people involved in the wellness check at all? - you end up with more questions than you have answers. In real-life situations, you realize there's so much that could go wrong. [00:14:42] Crystal Fincher: So many questions I have - a person was killed during a drive-by. Okay, so King County Sheriff's Office deputies were performing a wellness check. First thing, Federal Way has its own police department - doesn't contract with King County for its deputies. So these deputies, for some reason, responded instead of the Federal Way Police Department. Was it in response to a call? Who called it in? But they decide to go by themselves. Why were they on scene? So they were attempting to check out a person behind a property, they say, when two vehicles sped off and two shots rang out. I notice it doesn't say those shots came from the vehicle - it's vaguely worded and isn't useful, especially when there's so much that can be consequential, based on their characterization of what happens. Then the Sheriff's spokesperson said the person was hit by gunfire and died at the scene - I'm wondering if this reporter did anything but dictate this statement - did they ask anything about this? This is just a very vaguely worded statement. Deputies followed the two vehicles, but they got away. Again, this is a situation where even with the police pursuit law, they would have been able to follow them, but they said they needed a rollback to be able to catch criminals like this, and evidently that's not the case. What happened here? So no arrests have been made, no information has been shared that we've seen. What was the make and model of the car? Any description of the people inside the car? What came of that whole thing? There's no information. So if we take what they say at face value, what a spectacular failure in public safety. You have two officers on-site, and a person still gets murdered according to this account? All the excuses of they need more officers, they need more funding, we need to be able to have the officers nearby, on-site to protect people - there were two here, and they couldn't protect one person. How does that happen? Why does that happen? What was the situation? Was something missed? Did they not see people prowling in the area? What a failure. They assume that the shots came from this vehicle that killed this person. How do we not have a description of the car, a license plate, the people inside, any followup on that? Where does this case stand? None of that information provided. If police departments want to restore trust, if they want to have people work for them - those are the kind of answers that people want to see. Do people want to work for a department that can't stop a murder when two deputies are on scene, that can't apprehend a perpetrator when they have a zero-second response time and they can immediately respond? What is the purpose and utility here? And are they doing the work to figure out how to keep this from happening again, to figure out how to actually ensure safety? Unfortunately, too often that is not the case. And that's if you take everything just at face value here. It would be great to see some supporting information - some dash cam, body-worn camera video - just to see what happened, how this happened, and does the evidence match up with the narrative here? There is work that the Federal Way Police Department needs to do, that many departments need to do, and that the King County Sheriff's Office needs to do to rebuild trust within the community. [00:17:54] Doug Trumm: Why even run the story if you have so little information? It plays right into the police narrative. [00:17:59] Crystal Fincher: Yep, definitely a decision that The Seattle Times should dive into and ask themselves a lot of questions - about how this came to be published and what information they were relying on. Also wanna talk about the City of Burien and their continuing shame, really. The council majority deciding that not only do they wanna refuse the offer of shelter - the million dollars, 30-some odd Pallet shelters on provision, 100-ish parking spaces to backfill some space that a dealership was using. They are turning all that down and moving towards just a blanket camping ban in the city, which we've seen fail in so many other cities, but they are determined to do it themselves. This again is happening on a 4-3 council vote. The council majority, unfortunately, is winning this. What do you see happening here? What's your reaction to this, Doug? [00:18:57] Doug Trumm: Yeah, it's pretty sickening. I don't know that folks necessarily saw this coming. We saw some progressives elected onto the Burien City Council, so there was some hope that they were actually going to be looking towards making progress on this issue, doing things that actually work in the long term - rather than sweeping it under the rug and pushing it to other cities. But the four centrists on Burien City Council continue to hammer on this issue - they're not taking this offer of help that very few other cities in the region have, with so few strings attached, to a million dollars worth of housing for their homeless people. It's the type of thing that makes your head explode because - if you're mad about homeless people, having more roofs over the people's heads is the most direct way of dealing with that. And they had a million process complaints, like - Oh, what's gonna happen in five years or whatever? We're gonna be on the hook. It's just that type of thing that they wouldn't ask for any other offer of a million dollars from the county - suddenly they want a 20-year plan for this when they have no plan themselves. It's really, like you said, shameful. They've lost the majority of their Burien Planning Commission, as you've talked about in this podcast before, because of this move when the mayor decided to remove the head of the Planning Commission and then some other Planning Commissioners quit in protest. We all covered all that, but the one thing that's gonna happen if that commission continues to be unfilled is it's gonna slow down the production of housing in Burien - large projects have to go to that commission. If that happens, you're exasperating your housing shortage - they're creating the problem that they're complaining about. It's maddening, it's not treating these folks as human beings - I think it was Stephanie Mora referring that they should poop in doggy bags like they're dogs - it's clearly dehumanizing language. I think should be disqualifying for holding this office, but hopefully they lose their seats. For now, they're the people making policy for a city of about 50,000 people - it's crazy. [00:20:43] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it absolutely is. And as you talked about, Mayor Sofia Aragon, Deputy Mayor Kevin Schilling, Councilmember Jimmy Matta have been part of making these decisions that are unconscionable. This is really a depiction of this soft, kind of progressive rhetoric with a wink and a nod. In previous statements, they had talked like - We definitely want to sweep, but we'll do it in a nice way, in a compassionate way, in the progressive way. But when it comes down to it, they really weren't interested in that at all. They just wanted to get people away and using very dehumanizing language. The real tell is - the place where they usually make an excuse and get away with it - We don't have the money. We don't have the resources. If we could, we would, but we just can't - we don't have anything, I'm sorry. So the only choice we have is to sweep because we just don't have the choice to do anything else. King County basically called that bluff and said - Okay, we've got a million dollars for you. We've got Pallet shelters ready to go. We've got a location that we can partner with. And hey, this dealership is gonna be impacted? We'll provide 100 parking spaces, which is larger than their inventory. - every objection, every excuse, every hurdle that they had was basically responded to by the county. And by the way, kudos to Dow Constantine and his office for taking a stance and for trying to constructively work with the City of Burien. There sometimes have been criticisms for Dow doing that in South County. He is doing it here. And Burien and the Council majority - they turned all that down. They could have already housed the people there. This would make a meaningful, visible, substantial difference in their situation overnight - once this is implemented - and they just decided not to. They're just looking for a ban. Bans are wholly ineffective, as the prior sweeps were wholly ineffective. And they just moved people from one location to another and making, as you said, the problem they're allegedly trying to fix even worse. This is just a continuing shame and negligence from the council. These people are their constituents - whether someone has a home or not, these are Burien residents - and their job is to help them and to serve them. And they refuse to do so. And it's shameful. It's pathetic. [00:22:59] Doug Trumm: Hopefully they come to their senses - this 4-3 split has been pretty durable. [00:23:03] Crystal Fincher: We will see what the primary elections hold. Sofia Aragon is running currently for King County Council against Teresa Mosqueda. I don't think anyone really expects Sofia to win this race. But it is really important to make sure people don't just rest on their laurels and sit on the sidelines. And even in this primary, even when it seems like one person is clearly more qualified than the other, you actually need to vote and make your own choice. [00:23:28] Doug Trumm: These are like conservative trial balloons - they're testing the waters - can Democrats get away with very conservative Trump-esque rhetoric, dehumanizing homeless people, pandering to cops in completely unaccountable ways? They want to see if that works. I don't know if Sofia is connecting these two - it seems like she would be when she declares for office for the King County Council race. But maybe her calculation is this makes her more popular. And I think it's really incumbent upon people who don't agree with that to actually turn out to an odd-year election, because it's validating that approach. And you're going to see more and more of it if people get rewarded for that. [00:24:05] Crystal Fincher: That's blatantly the calculation that they're making. Kevin Schilling has an opponent - Patricia Hudson - running against him right now, who is the progressive choice who is endorsed by King County Democrats. I mean, they received a very unusual letter of rebuke from the King County Executive's office, also from the 33rd District Democrats, which encompasses part of Burien. And the other part of Burien is the 34th, who also submitted an open public letter of rebuke. Anyone who calls themself a Democrat on record, locally, is outwardly opposing it. And it hasn't stopped them. In fact, they seem to be using that as cred. So this is important. These are still the people in office. They do need to be held accountable, and people need to make their voices heard. Another disillusioning development we've seen over the past couple of weeks is Ed Murray evidently popping up at political events around the region and definitely catching a number of people off guard. There seem to be some people who are okay with it. But just as a reminder - Ed Murray, former legislator, former mayor of Seattle, had to resign in disgrace as mayor of Seattle after credible allegations of molestation of underage people who were under his care and also potentially a family member. Also troubling was his response using someone's background against them - they were going through hard times as unhoused youth working with LGBTQ youth, who oftentimes very unfortunately are disowned by family, kicked out of the house, and left in very vulnerable positions - to then cite that vulnerable position as a reason why someone may not be believed was really victim blaming. The entire community, who has so many people who have been victimized - was a re-victimization to hear that. But he's been out of the public eye for a while and seems to be doing a soft launch to get back in. What's your reaction to this? [00:26:04] Doug Trumm: With someone like that who's had such a long political career, they don't start going to political events just for fun. They're plotting getting back into politics. He's clearly testing the waters here, seeing if he can get back into politics. He's seeing if he can get acceptance enough to the point where he can run for something again or be a campaign manager. I don't think it should happen. And it's also not a pleasant experience for folks who did have a negative reaction to his handling of that situation - making it very hard for his accuser to come forward because he was using the whole weight of his office against that person. That's not how you handle it if you're a leader - you don't victim blame. Luckily, he finally resigned, but he was going to hold on to that office with everything he had. [00:26:44] Crystal Fincher: I also think that's a low bar. It's wholly inappropriate for him to be in these. There's been no atonement. There's been no acknowledgment of what he's done. And while I don't believe in throwing people away forever, there has been nothing to indicate that he acknowledges what he's done, that he's attempted to make amends to his victims. In fact, that seems quite the opposite. He's just hoping to pick up where he left off. I think it is going to be really interesting to survey who is okay with him being at political events, and at their political events, and who is not - and what that says about different people as candidates. Who is finding this troubling and who is finding it just fine? I'm curious about where he does feel welcome and why, and what that says about those spaces. We will see how this continues to unfold throughout the city. And if you spot Ed Murray, shoot me a message. Also, a pretty significant court ruling this week came in about encampment sweeps, particularly about the City of Seattle - Seattle has been sweeping too broadly and is unconstitutional in its application. When there's clearly a risk to public safety or they are blocking completely a sidewalk, there is cause for encampment sweeps. But they've been doing it too much and for reasons that are too broad - they need to effectively offer shelter and provide shelter if they're going to sweep people. Without that provision of shelter, there's nowhere else for someone to go. It is illegal to say you can't exist here - in essence, you're saying you can't exist anywhere. And this court ruling was powerful with some pretty clear statements calling the current policy dehumanizing, destabilizing, and counterproductive. How did you see this? [00:28:31] Doug Trumm: The two individuals who brought it - their story was so tragic - they mentioned losing wedding rings, family heirlooms, because they've just been repeatedly swept while they're getting services or going to work or whatever. One person mentioned losing their work boots and then that jeopardized their employment and that sunk them deeper into the spiral of homelessness. They kept getting these last-second-notice sweeps because they were supposedly an obstruction. If the definitions are broad, they don't have anywhere to go. The ruling says the two main ways they were bending this rule is they were defining the blockages - 50% blockage, it becomes 100% blockage in their eyes, or even a 30% blockage - because some of these sidewalks in downtown are fairly wide. And unfortunately, some sidewalks in our city are pretty narrow. Often folks aren't trying to block the whole sidewalks. They're trying to go somewhere they can and not fear that their stuff's gonna get snatched up and taken away. They lost all these valuable possessions, including their wedding ring. What are we doing here? This cruel unusual punishment that rises to a constitutional violation and this judge issues this ruling. Now the City's gonna have to rethink how they do this. The other main way they avoid the Boise ruling, Martin v. Boise, is they say that anything in the park is an obstruction - because someone wants to use that particular part of the park, even if it's some secluded, say in the forest, in a large park when 99% of the park is still accessible. Part of Mayor Harrell's campaign pledges to clear the parks. Some of the parks are clearer than they were when he took office, but others still have encampments and it goes to this whack-a-mole approach of you're constantly chasing people around the city at great expense and great suffering to some individuals, like the two that brought the suit, and we haven't made durable progress. [00:30:11] Crystal Fincher: Another event this week with Sound Transit - Mayor Harrell is up for a Denny Station on West Lake Avenue again. How'd this happen? [00:30:19] Doug Trumm: Hey, I gotta give credit to grassroots organizers there - there's a lot of people involved. Seattle Subway sent, I think, over 6,000 letters via online petition. Uptown Alliance got a lot of letters because they were also very dismayed to see that the station on the eastern edge of their neighborhood was suddenly gonna disappear - at a whim - six, seven years into this process. And what was happening here, if you didn't follow this story, is there's gonna be obviously this new Ballard Link Light Rail line that will go from Downtown to Ballard. And on the way, it's gonna pick up Denny Triangle, it's gonna pick up South Lake Union, it's gonna pick up Uptown. And these were gonna be really high-use stations, but there's one problem in that some of the corporations and real estate interests in Denny Triangle were not excited about the station location. Folks like Amazon, Vulcan, were lobbying against this location because they didn't like the closure of Westlake Avenue, they said, which South Transit at this point in this process was estimating a full closure of four years. They're putting the station right under Westlake so they do have to mine it, it's gonna be closed for that part. But they realized that they could put decking over the top - they didn't propose that initially 'cause it's more complicated and expensive. But they realized they could do that, obviously, if the alternative is putting some station two blocks to the west, which is what the proposal that came forward out of this last-minute wrangling - wasn't in the DEIS, the draft environmental impact statement. So that means it requires more planning and process. So there's two public meetings online that Sound Transit is hosting - I think one of them is today and the other one is a couple of days from now - we can link to that in the notes maybe. But because this shifted-west alternative came forward late in the process, was proposed as a way to alleviate these concerns from corporations and real estate - they had to do this process. The mayor backed it at a meeting last month, I think it was, but then last week he walked that back. He said - You know what? We really need to keep the South Lake Union Station because what happens with shifting the station west is it gets super close to the other station on Aurora, which is a major bus artery. - so that's where a lot of people were going to transfer from bus to rail. And it would put you closer to Uptown too if you're headed to the eastern part of Uptown. So the shifted-west alternative consolidates the two stations into one. And that's what sort of set off all these alarm bells with Seattle Subway and Uptown Alliance and the urbanists and others that - Hey, why are we dropping a station? And they presented to Uptown Alliance - Sound Transit did two days ago, I think it was - and apparently the consolidating those two stations, they shared their ridership analysis, which was new information. It's gonna cost about 10,000 riders - someone who was at that presentation told me. And that's a pretty big deal - 10,000 daily riders. So the mayor didn't have that information last week when he made his statement - he said he was still waiting for ridership to confirm his decision, but he said he's starting to lean Westlake and just wants a good mitigation plan, which I don't know why we couldn't start there from the first place - because we're seeing across, especially the Ballard Link Station, that there's lots of changes that are happening because people don't like the construction period and don't think the mitigation plan is very good. And there may be something to that. The mitigation plan should be really good, but rather than focus on the mitigation, we've been just tossing around all these different ideas and extending the - what that means is you have to do a whole new study and that delays the whole project. So maybe small progress there on the Denny Station decision - we can focus on how to do that right and get a good construction mitigation plan, rather than last-minute options that are un-vetted and are going to require another year or two of study. [00:33:51] Crystal Fincher: And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, July 21st, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful cohost today is Publisher of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. You can find Doug on Twitter @dmtrumm, that's two M's at the end. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. And you can find me on all platforms - Bluesky, SPILL, Twitter, all of them, Mastodon - @finchfrii, that's two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to 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.

Show topics: VP Kamala is in Seattle // Seattle center is becoming a homeless encampment // Chucky Schumer and Stacy Abrams get caught on hot mics // Hispanic congresswoman gets denied membership in Hispanic caucus // Facebook gets fined for violating WA election laws but Ari is actually on team FB // Manufactured drama in the Oregon governors race by the Dems // SCOTUS orders WA school district to give a a job back to coach who prayed on field // Disney on Ice is coming to Kent and Everett // Lawsuit filed against Jay Inslee and Democrats

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with Pastor Carey Anderson about his campaign for State Representative in the 30th Legislative District - why he decided to run, how the last legislative session went and his thoughts on addressing issues such as housing affordability and zoning, homelessness, public safety, LGBTQ+ rights, and climate change. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find more information about Pastor Carey at https://www.electpastorcarey.com/   Resources Campaign Website - Pastor Carey Anderson: https://www.electpastorcarey.com/   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Well, I am just delighted today to welcome to the program, a candidate for State Representative in the 30th Legislative District down in Federal Way, Pastor Carey Anderson. Thank you so much for joining us today. [00:00:53] Pastor Carey Anderson: Crystal, it's an honor to be with you, and let me just say right off the bat - thank you for inviting me to be a part of this wonderful, wonderful podcast. I'm just elated to be invited today, and I appreciate the work that you do. [00:01:09] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much. I appreciate the work that you do, my South King County brethren and leader of so many, and just appreciate the time that you've taken to join here. So I guess I wanna start off asking - you've done so much, you've accomplished so much. What is it that made you think - you know what, it is time for me to run for office? [00:01:33] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, that's an excellent question. Let me say to our audience - the 30th district is a new district, and I'm running to bring proven new leadership to the new 30th District. The realignment of the boundaries from the 2020 Census shows that Federal Way is a BIPOC-majority city now, the 30th District is growing. I live in Federal Way, I'm the pastor of First AME Church in Auburn and Seattle - Seattle is the mother church. And about 19 years ago, we saw the trend of gentrification and so we started a satellite in the south portion of King County. So, First AME Church is the oldest Black church in the state - 1886 - and so, we see it as a part of our mission to always speak truth to power. So I am running to bring proven new leadership to the new 30th District. And if I could just take a moment - when we're talking about the crime, we're talking about the homeless, we're talking about the issues of housing, we're talking about funding of our schools, we're talking about public safety. Well, these are things that I have been doing in my entire ministry - 44 years in ministry, 38 years as a senior pastor, 18 years as the pastor of First AME Church - matter of fact, in its 100+ years of existence, I'm the longest serving pastor. My boots have been on the ground, fighting all of those things and addressing all of those things. And I want to do it in this open seat - no one has ever served the new 30th District before. And it is time for proven new leadership for the new 30th District. And I'm sure we'll get into some of the specifics a little later. [00:03:34] Crystal Fincher: Well, and looking at this new 30th District - you're running for the seat that is being vacated by Representative Jesse Johnson, who has done a lot of work in the community, certainly made his imprint on the Legislature in the time that he was there. Some of that, including police accountability legislation and other legislation that we saw passed in 2020, and then rolled back in 2022, along with a number of other things. We're dealing with a - how we're gonna treat revenue - are we gonna raise more progressive revenue, or move - continue to move - in a regressive direction. Action on the transportation package, stagnation on affordable housing and the middle housing bill there - as you evaluate this past legislative session, what did you think about it? What did you agree with? What did you disagree with? [00:04:40] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, first of all, let me commend the work and applaud the work of Representative Jesse Johnson. When he was first running for City Council, we supported him. When he went into the State Legislature, First AME supported him. He came and presented at our church and at both campuses, matter of fact, and we supported him wholeheartedly. I was disappointed to see him leave the seat because we need that type of leadership. And certainly with the police accountability reforms that he pushed through the Legislature - it was a herculean job, but the job is not complete. And so when we talk about fighting crime, let's just stay right there for a moment. I applaud the work of our police force and law enforcement. However, I don't believe that we should put the entire burden of fighting crime on the police. There are other matters and other variables that go along with property crimes and low-level offenders such as drug abuse, mental health, and some of those types of things that cause an environment for crime. And I am trained as a substance abuse counselor, I am trained - I'm the only candidate trained in mental health. I did it, I've been doing it for some 30+ years. And so these are some of the other things that we must address because when we talk about crime and we talk about housing, it's not enough just to find affordable housing and place people in affordable housing. But many times, if they have mental health issues, if they have, if they're suffering from addiction, we need wraparound services. And so this is going to take critical thinking, it's going to take people that have been in the field to know what to say, how to say it, and drum up the support to build collegiality - to really change our community and change the 30th LD. So these are some of the things that I hope to bring to the State Legislature, as a legislator. [00:07:00] Crystal Fincher: You talked just a little bit, just now - obviously issues of addiction, in addition to homelessness. Housing affordability is such an important issue and one that a lot of people are struggling with - the cost of rents have been skyrocketing, cost of daycare skyrocketing - so much is making things really hard for people just to survive. They can be working one, two jobs - it's still not enough. Minimum wage is not sufficient for allowing people to live independently and to afford an average rent. What should be done to make housing more affordable in the 30th District? [00:07:47] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, thank you for that question - it's really a challenging question, but I do want our audience to know, I've been involved in affordable housing for many, many years, even in my first church in Nevada - we built housing, affordable housing for seniors. First AME Church has been involved in the housing arena through our nonprofit since 1969. And we had three apartment complexes in Seattle, and we formed about five or six years ago - the FAME - Equity Alliance of Western Washington, which is another housing corporation that I serve as the chair of the board. And we just broke ground in January of this year on a $36 million, 119-unit complex - the Elizabeth Thomas Holmes - in South King County. So we're moving down this way - it's an issue that's very personal to me, I've been involved in it. I know that we have to find more housing for struggling families, and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund has money in it. We got to move it quickly and quicker than we have been moving it so that we can build a housing inventory for persons that are really trying to build a home for their loved ones, their children, their families, for sustaining the family unit. And these are things that I've been involved in, engaged in - and you would not imagine, Crystal, how many people come to First AME Church asking for rental assistance, needing food - which we try to provide on a regular basis, since the pandemic in particular. And we do that because we understand the need - I see it on a regular, regular basis. We even have a home, a parsonage - that we rent it out, bringing it out for, since my time, is 18 years at First Family Church. And so during the pandemic, those families that were living in the home could not pay their rent. And so we elected a moral decision to let them stay and not evict them. Matter of fact, we were - they were part of the persons that came for food every Friday in our Friday drive-by - I'm not talking about shooting, I'm talking about groceries. And so we would feed them, give them groceries - I'm not talking about meat, cheese and milk. I'm talking about more than that - meats, vegetables, wholesome grains - so that the family could be fed a nutritional meal. And also we provided vaccinations for COVID-19, as well as boosters. We continue to do that, and so we boosted and vaccinated over 6,000 people - and fed them as well. So we elected to eat the rent so that these families could stay in their home and not be put out on the street. And the Lord makes a way, somehow. So, we're involved in it and engaged in housing - I will continue to do that as a State legislator. [00:11:14] Crystal Fincher: One of the big issues this past legislative session was the missing middle housing bill. And you're absolutely right - we need to designate more housing as affordable housing, find affordable housing. One of the big problems is just that there just is not the supply of housing at all - of all different types and at all levels. Here in the state, we have not been building to keep up with the increase in population and the trends in the flow in population. And so allowing more density, more inclusive zoning was put on the table and all of the data shows that's a necessary ingredient of increasing affordability, of helping to stem the skyrocketing costs of rent and housing. Would you have voted for that missing middle housing bill? [00:12:16] Pastor Carey Anderson: Yes, I would. And let me say this - we have to have more deep-dive conversations for this issue of affordability and housing. And the conversation should center, not so much on - do we wanna build a threeplex or a fourplex in a single-family neighborhood - or what do we really value? If we as a state, if we as people value sheltering and allowing people the opportunity to live a decent life like you are living, then we're gonna have to have those types of conversations. But I believe that there are ways in which we can build housing in single-story homes and two-story homes that are aesthetically beautiful. It would not really disrupt the aesthetic beauty of the community and the neighborhood. These are discussions that I believe would prove to be very valuable instead of just a NIMBY attitude, because today they're homeless, today they're in need - but you miss a couple of paychecks yourself, you get laid off of your job, let another pandemic come and affect and impact your family - you may be the one next in line. And so we have to be very careful at the rocks we throw and the fingers we point because it could easily - you could be up today and you can be down tomorrow. So it's a collective effort - it's going to take collective and courageous conversations so that we could truly address the problem of affordability and density and providing the needed housing inventory for families to live sustained lives. [00:14:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Absolutely well said. We talked about public safety earlier - certainly talked about policing, have talked about the need to intervene in a lot of different ways. Safety is a really big conversation, and right now there are a lot of people in our communities fearing for their safety. Hate crimes are near all-time highs, we're seeing hate and bias-motivated crimes, we're seeing harassment and targeting of the LGBTQ community and others for their ethnic heritage, for their religion. What do you say to people who right now are scared and worried, and who are looking at the two parties going in very different directions, and worried that they can't count on the Supreme Court for safety or rights anymore, and increasingly they're relying on local leadership to make sure that people are safe and respected and protected in communities. What do you see as your responsibility in that area, and how will you lead to make sure that everyone in our communities feel safe? [00:15:36] Pastor Carey Anderson: Thank you. Excellent question, Crystal. Public safety is a major issue today, and I believe that we have made some major strides, but there's still a long way to go. And as I had said earlier, I believe that - I don't believe that we should put the entire burden on fighting crime left to law enforcement. When George Floyd was murdered and the unrest happened in Seattle in particular - but across the country - the East Precinct in Seattle was overtaken by the protestors. The East Precinct in Seattle is two blocks from First AME Church. I led the charge in convening the mayor and her staff, the Chief of Police at the time and her command staff, and the leaders of CHOP to come to First AME Church - there was about 75 of us in total. We did so with the sole purpose of learning how to talk, learning how to listen to one another. You have to understand - lives had been lost, bloodshed had been spilled on the pavements and on the streets of our cities behind the George Floyd murder. But out of the conversations - without news media, without the news outlets, without reporters - we were able to come and de-escalate the tension. And out of that, we were able to encourage Mayor Durkan, who was serving at the time, to put money into the BIPOC community - $30 million. She formed a task force that I was privileged to be a founding member of - the Equities Community Initiative Task Force - where we put together teams to talk about what are the central and acentric needs of our BIPOC community. Housing was one, entrepreneurship, looking at closing the wealth gap between Black and Brown people against the dominant culture. And so if we were able to do that there, I believe through our State Legislature, we can form ways of bridging some of these issues. Let me say this, Crystal - every first responder doesn't need to have a gun and a badge. Some of the things that we're dealing with now, we need to put funding into training more officers, law enforcement sensitivity training, cultural sensitivity training. I'm an endangered species as an African American male, even at my age - I'm not 25 - but I'm still an endangered species when pulled over by law enforcement. And so we've got to find ways of how to communicate better, how to empower faith groups, how to empower addiction counselors, how to empower and utilize mental health professionals and social workers to become our first responders. There was a time, a couple of summers ago, when the City SPD, Seattle Police Department, used the United Black Christian Clergy of Western Washington, which I'm a member of, and they would call us in dire situations with street violence amongst gangs. And we were able to find family members, we were able to find gatekeepers to try and de-escalate some of the violence as opposed to law enforcement just going in and pointing a gun and wearing a badge. I think that we must work collectively in this issue, if we're going to really bring about public safety, [00:19:35] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree with that. And then also talking about people's basic rights and people remaining safe regardless of who they are, what their background is, what their gender or sexuality is. [00:19:52] Pastor Carey Anderson: And can I say this - when you talk about the LGBTQIA+, we have to understand - they are a part of our community, just like we are a part. There's a collective we, and the Pride Parade in Seattle was right at the Central and the Capitol Hill area - where is First AME Church, right in the Capitol Hill area. We have always been, and there were even members of the 30th LD Dems, who said I was a homophobe. I said, how dare you? If you even Google Pastor Carey Anderson, you will find out that we are a welcoming church, a welcoming faith group. I am certainly not a homophobe - if anybody is, it's you - because we have always had our doors open for any and everybody. And we'll continue to do that - that's who we are, that's our value. God is a God of love. And so we must precipitate that type of love no matter who you are, and whose you are, because we're all children of God. I have walked with our Jewish brothers and sisters when Temple De Hirsch - our sister congregation right across the street from First AME Church, within walking distance - when they were defaced, their building was defaced, there were bomb threats. I stood with the Jewish brothers and sisters - Rabbi Weiner is a brother of mine from a different mother, we eat together, we worship together. And the Muslim community - we are tight with them - when they were going through threats, bomb threats, defacing of their temples and their mosques, we were right there with them standing by their side. And when Mother Emanuel AME Church back in 2015 lost nine people inclusive of the pastor - this is an AME church. First AME Church was the hub for the Seattle Pacific Northwest area, and we held prayer vigils, we led a 3000-person march through the City, and we engaged peace talks, and with celebratory singing. But we have to stop the killing, and this is what it's about. This is who we must become, and this is what I want to do, as the next voice in Olympia for the 30th District. I'm not talking about what I'm going to do, I'm talking about what I've done and what I continue to do. [00:22:40] Crystal Fincher: And I guess my question - especially, you've been doing work - in your capacity as a State legislator, particularly at this time where there are so many attacks on people because of their identity. And as we see rhetoric ratcheting up - the type of rhetoric that we know leads to violence - what more can be done to protect our LGBTQ community legislatively, to help protect people's rights, to help keep people safe, to help people just feel loved and seen in our community. What can be done in your role as a legislator? [00:23:26] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, first of all, we need to enforce our equal protections under the laws even more. And we've got to not just put it out there in writing, but we must practice it indeed. We must have an open-door policy, we must train the legislators in terms of what a community looks like from people that are other than you. They look different, they have different values and culture, but they're still a part of this community. So I can love you no matter who you are. Although you may not have the same value that I have - just because you're a person, I am obligated to love you, and to stand in your shoes, and to understand your pain, understand your wants, and understand your desires and your hopes. This is what we must do if we're gonna represent all of the people that we are elected to serve. [00:24:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We also are facing a climate crisis. We are at a point where climate change is happening, we are experiencing extreme heat, extreme cold events, flooding. Marginalized people in our community, lower-income people, BIPOC communities are being hurt worst and first by this climate crisis. And we have work to do to keep it from getting worse, we have work to do to mitigate the impacts that it's currently having. So I guess in - as you're looking at running, as you're looking at legislating, what action would you take to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution? [00:25:19] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, first of all, when the dominant culture sniffs, has the sniffles, those who are in poverty, those who are living beneath the poverty line, catch the flu. And so we've got to, first of all, realize the disparities, the health disparities. I'm so thankful for the Governor's supplemental budget, that calls for $64 billion, over $64 billion, of priority areas. One of those areas is climate. And so I would be supportive of the Governor's supplemental budget for 2022. Also, when we look at that, one of the other priorities is that of poverty. One in five persons are living in poverty. There are 1.7 million people in this state that are living in poverty. So when we're talking about climate change and gas emissions and things of that nature - trying to be a 2035 clean air environment, which is a very ambitious goal to meet, but we gotta start somewhere. But when we look at the disparities, 1.7 million are living in poverty. And then when you go a little deeper, you find out over half, or nearly half, are people of color. So we are the ones that are the most impacted, as you have so eloquently said. So as a State legislator, I would be in support of the Governor's supplemental plan and would be pushing for the implementation of it. I'm not gonna be Black when necessary and BIPOC when convenient. I am who I am, and these are priorities and we've got to speak truth to power. We've got to have these courageous conversations and that's what I'd be willing to do, as your State legislator. [00:27:16] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely - also in this, transportation is the sector most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions in our state. We just passed, as a state, a transportation package that had record investments in transit and mobility - which we all desperately need - but also continue to widen highways and invest billions in doing that. And especially with the impacts, as you just talked about, in the BIPOC community - just people who are in close proximity to roads and highways - the pollution that comes from those are disproportionately causing asthma, heart disease, lung disease in our communities. We now have tons of data showing that widening highways doesn't reduce traffic, it increases traffic and increases emissions. Would you be supportive in future highway packages of highway expansion, or do you think we should cap it at where it's at and focus on investing more in transit and mobility solutions for people who walk, bike and ride. [00:28:43] Pastor Carey Anderson: Yes, excellent question. I think we need to take a serious look at a moratorium on expansion for our highways and really look at some of the measures to bring public transportation and make that more accessible. Here in the 30th District, the transportation - Sound Transit - is moving this way. And a lot of people, though we may live in the Federal Way, 30th District area, we are working in Seattle - let's be clear about it. And so, once that is really completed - that project - that will help ease some of the traffic flow and the emissions that are going out, because I'd rather spend a minimal amount of time and read a book while I'm traveling quickly and swiftly to my job in Seattle, than being stuck in traffic and then having the propensity to get into an accident or having someone hit me or falling asleep while we're in a dead zone deadlock and gridlock and those kinds of things. So I know that a lot of the transit money has already been bonded out. So it's gonna be a difficult thing to look at, but I'd certainly be in favor of a moratorium. [00:30:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that makes sense. And as you are considering your race, your opponent, just the dynamics of what is happening in Federal Way today and what residents are going through and what they want. Why are you the person who they should choose to represent them? [00:30:33] Pastor Carey Anderson: Russell Wilson used to say this when he was with the Seahawks - why not me? So, when we look at public safety, when we look at safe neighborhoods, funding our schools, affordable housing, quality healthcare for seniors, clean environment, and issues surrounding equity for all - I'm the only candidate who has been a K-12 public school teacher. And I'm for state funding - I'm the only candidate who has championed $400 million of state funding for immediate reinvestment into our communities. We've got a $200 million allocation that's gonna drop next month. And the RFPs are soon to be online. And so I was one, along with four others, who helped champion that $400 million state funding for immediate reinvestment into our communities. I'm the only candidate who has been using our church as a clinic for patients, for COVID vaccinations and boosters, and feeding people - to the tune of feeding, we've done nearly 15,000. For boosting and vaccinating people, over 6,000. And we continue to do that through partnerships. I'm the only candidate that provides jobs through affordable housing - our affordable housing projects and my church-based nonprofit organizations. And as I had said earlier, our project just broke ground in January 2022, providing 119 units of affordable housing at a cost of over $36 million. No one else has done that, no one else has been involved in leading the community. I'm just talking about - I'm not talking about Emmett Till, but I am talking about Trayvon Martin, I am talking about Michael Brown, I am talking about the mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. I am talking about George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery. First AME Church, through this pastor and the leadership that I provided for this community - I was the one out in the street, I was the one organizing these marches along with my colleagues, I was the one that's speaking truth to power, I was the one that convened the mayor, the chief of police who has endorsed me. WEA has endorsed me, the Retired Public Employees Council has endorsed me, and we're still getting endorsements as we speak - because my boots are on the ground. You don't have to wait for Day One to start pushing the button - what are you gonna do? I'm gonna continue to do what I've always done. And so this is my pledge, this is who I am as a person - and preaching and politics have never been separated in my book. And from the historical tradition of the African Methodist Episcopal Church - we were the first to seek public office in state and federal levels in our denomination and have led the charge and led the way. The Reverend Raphael Warnock is standing on the shoulders of historical path and I'm standing on those same shoulders. [00:33:48] Crystal Fincher: We're at an interesting time in our country and there certainly is a lot going on. You're coming to this race as a pastor. Your faith has informed how you have walked through life and how you have chosen to serve others in the community. We also see examples of some people who may be opposing you in this race, and some churches that are much more exclusive, that talk much more pointedly about who is and who is not welcome, who is and who is not moral or just or right in our society, allowed in our society. And we're having lots of conversations about what is the appropriate delineation between church and state. As someone whose faith is important to them, who you are walking into this role as a pastor, what role does faith play in how you serve, and I guess, through this candidacy. And what would you say to people who look around at other examples of religious leadership that they don't feel loved or included by - that you, as a pastor, would be the right choice. What would you say to folks who are thinking that? [00:35:17] Pastor Carey Anderson: Well, you've asked a series of questions, actually. I would like to start by saying - we sang a song when I was coming up in California and They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love. And so my faith is rooted and grounded in love - love for neighbor, and love for self, and love for a community. And so, this is what informs my walk, it informs my talk. I want to be able to stand in the shoes of other people. It's not until you stand in their shoes that you understand their pain, and once you understand their pain, then you can begin to have discussions on how to mitigate the pain, how to address the pain, and how to walk with them through the pain. And so this is what I endeavor to do. The Bible says in the New Testament - we walk by faith and not by sight. So faith is what leads me, every morning, to get up. And it doesn't matter to me if you're Muslim, Jewish, atheist, or whoever you may be. You are a person, you are valued, and you are loved. What is it that we can do to help your walk? What is it that we can do to inform your viability, sustainability for you and your family and your loved ones? That's what we should be about. [00:36:57] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much, Pastor Carey. If people wanna find out more about your campaign or get involved, where can they go to find out more information? [00:37:06] Pastor Carey Anderson: Google me and go to my, our website - Pastor Carey Anderson or Reverend Dr. Carey Anderson. But our campaign website is electpastorcarey.com and you can go there, and we're still getting lots of hits and the phone number is there 253-296-6370. Well, you're welcome to join us, you're welcome to wave with us, you're welcome to walk with us, you're welcome to phonebank, textbank with us, and to follow us as we follow our call and commitment. So, these are simple ways, but it means so much - reaching people one at a time, one neighborhood at a time, one household at a time, one person at a time. And that's what we're about. [00:38:05] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today, Pastor Carey Anderson. Thank you so much - we'll continue to follow you on your journey. [00:38:14] Pastor Carey Anderson: Thank you for having me, Crystal. It has certainly been an honor, and it's certainly been a joy to see the work that you and your team are doing. And I am not going to turn this off. I'm gonna keep you in my heart and I'm gonna keep the work that you do in my soul. So thank you so much. God bless you and God keep you. [00:38:37] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. 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 episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

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Show notes:Links:Sweaty StartupHook RelaySpider seasonWrite for HoneybadgerAutomated transcript (only about 75% accurate)Ben  So I've been, I've been using Hook Relay over the past week and I got to say, there's nothing as useful as using your own product to make you see places where the product can be improved. So I've, I've opened a couple of issues. Yeah, yeah. And uh, I mean, they're not, they're not major things, but it's like, oh, it would be nice if this was different, would be nice if that was, you know, different. And it's been, it's been good. So I'm, I'm looking forward to having those things done making the product better. And we, uh, you know, we talked about spending some more time, uh, development time on really the other couple next coming weeks and months because I've had some, some customer requests coming in. So Ben  it's always a good feeling like when people are actually using it and saying, oh yeah, I like it, but couldn't do this like, Oh yeah, I could do that. It's fun. I love it. I love being developer and just building stuff. So much fun. Yeah. Josh  Yeah. Looking at our, our dashboard, we've got uh, got a few New year's is coming in. Got some a little bit more revenue than last time I looked at this, so that's cool. Starr  Yeah, that's good stuff. You know, it's the season for it. The, the pacific Northwest summer is long gone and we're just into the dark, wet now. We've gone through a spider season. Yeah, I mean, right, you've got um, yeah, you've got the summer, you've got spider season, you've got dark with it. Josh  Is that from that like list of pacific Northwest Seasons or whatever, that's like . Starr  You can, you can call me out on that. I was hoping to um, I was hoping to plagiarize. Josh  We should, we should put that in the show notes if we can find it though. That's a pretty good one. Starr  Yeah, that's a good one. Josh  I don't remember them all, but Ben  I'm definitely, definitely more productive in the winter time because like, I'm not outside playing, I'm inside hunkering down from the rain, the cold, so I'm like, I might as well do some code. Josh  Yeah, Starr  I mean, personally, I kind of um like I kind of stopped going on my morning walks in the summer because there's too many amateurs out. Yeah. And I started again once the fall comes, once it starts getting dark and drizzly and those are my favorite morning walks. Josh  Nice even in the rain. Starr  Yeah, especially in the rain, get out. Yeah, that's why you have a nice like Gortex raincoats and my scoots. Yeah, it's all about the gear. Yeah, it's uh, I don't know, this is very pleasant. I like it. The, yeah, the summer here, like it's nice, but after a while, the sun just, just starts getting to me. It's just like, I can't escape it. It's just boring into my eyeballs. Ben  It is truly a thing around here when the sun has been out too long has been to many is people do get a little so crazy. Like I need some wet and so the first rainy day comes, you can just feel the relief. It's just, it's just, I don't know how to describe it. It's just a sense of community, like relieved that things are back to normal. There's, there's precipitation again. Starr  Yeah, I came up with a theory and I have no idea how valid the series, so I'm just going to throw it out there because it's unfounded and I'm wondering, so like I realize this, this winter, this, yeah, this fall as I'm going out. It's like, okay, like the reason I, like this is because like everything is more muted, right? And I get over stimulated very easily. So, you know, noise and late and all that just kind of does it to me. Starr  And but when it's like dark and gray, like for like, I don't know, this may just be my, my perception, but like the water vapor like mutes the sound a little bit or something. It's not quite everything. Like all the edges are more round and pleasant, nothing is quite as sharp and stab. E And so yeah, and Seattle Seattle is like the pacific northwest in general. It's just like, it draws in like all the computer nerds, all the, all the people who just like it here and like that kind of environment. So it's like, oh do we all just, you know, we all have like sensory issues. I don't know. Josh  That's why all the tech companies are in Seattle. Yeah, probably. I think I need to get an office still because I think like, I think, I think Ben's right, like I I also would be more productive in the winter, but like working from home in the winter with with uh like Kindergartners is a a different experience than working at home in the dark by yourself. It's a bit of a challenge. So yeah, Starr  when you turn on the lights while you're working, you don't just leave them off. Josh  Yeah, sometimes I leave them off. Oh yeah, Starr  that's because you're a real hacker, I've been doing more marketing stuff lately. So I turn the lights on. I use light mode. Josh  I mean you probably forgot how to touch type, you know, and use them with you shut up, Starr  shut up. Shut up, you shut up. I get to say that. Not you. Josh  So you have to have the lights on. I'm sorry. Starr  Yeah, I don't have one of those keyboard with a blank key caps. Josh  Like truth be told. I've been um doing a lot less programming than I used to as well. And it's, it started to bother me a little bit lately. So I've been trying to find ways to get back into it because I'm like, if I'm gonna like forget how to build a rails app if I don't, if I don't like, you know, do some do some work. Ben  We do have like  items in our backlog for Honey badgers. It's true. She can find something to do. Yeah. Josh  I don't know, it's just weird like having like a legacy rails out for so long um Like even when you are working, like even when you do work in it, it's still like, I don't know, like your, it's, you know, I'm like not utilizing a lot of the knowledge that I built up like, like we we all built up working on client projects, like where you're constantly solving new problems and like building things out. Like a lot of those decisions are already have long been made in a honey badger app. So it's like, yeah, it's, it's weird. It's a little bit different. Ben  That's been nice about having the side project because like starting a new rails app and making new decisions and trying the new things and new toys like hotwire and you know, stimulus reflex, all kind of stuff. Like it's, it's been, it's been fun. But hey, you know, maybe uh you know, talking about client work like, hey, take on some client work, right? It could uh do something completely different and take on Josh  an option for sure. Yeah, I thought that could be fun. Ben  Good old days Josh  build a green field, a green field ap Yeah, Josh  this I mean, I think we're talking about like the problem of like what to do with your time when you're, you're like app is like nine years old and stable and, and you have all this time on your hands and you know, want to still build new things, right? Starr  Yeah, I've got a question like for, I mean, y'all probably don't know because you haven't been freelancing for a while. But to all the freelancers out there, do do people still um do people still higher developers to build like, you know, facebook for x. Like it's like, I just remember working on so many like facebook for so and so um facebook for um nurses, facebook for, you know, whoever and it turned out the facebook for all those groups with facebook, Josh  right? Was that before facebook groups. Starr  I think so. Yeah. Yeah I think so it was. Yeah. It's just weird Josh  because it's like I was our era I mean like for sure like our era freelancing was the facebook for ex Yeah Starr  because like the social media like the social network had just come out that movie about facebook and so I really wanted to be the next facebook by copying facebook for some vertical. Ben  I was just I was thinking back to the are kind of projects that we built you know, talking about the facebook for X stuff and uh I think I was like what was my favorite project and the one that I can remember maybe so I guess it's probably my favorite because when I remember the most and remember the most kindly is the Montessori project that we did. That was a lot of fun. Yeah. Remember started a lot of work on Josh  that project. Still around you know. Ben  Yeah, it's like still making bank. Mhm. It's gonna be like  years older now by now or something. Yeah. That's awesome. I wonder if it's still on rails too. Josh  Yeah Caitlin was doing some shopping for the kids last night and she was looking at Baden kids brand. There are many many Baden and I don't know if that name rings a bell with you Ben but it doesn't because they were one of the they were one of the affiliate shops with today shop flashbacks man. I'm much. Yeah I have all these like I've had all these like kids kids clothing brands like just like programmed into my brain for the last  years now. And now that I actually have kids like they're all resurfacing. So Starr  that's where that was like another that was like another um era which was the um it wasn't the facebook for X. It was the product aggregator. Like we're gonna make we're gonna make a website that aggregates lots of products across you know for different companies and we're just gonna be like an affiliate. We're gonna be really good. S. E. O. Josh  Yeah it was like the um and and that trend was like kind of I mean amazon was definitely around then but it was like I think these days like amazon is now where everything is pretty much aggregated like that. So this was like I don't know it seems like pre pre amazon like at least in their current scale. Starr  Yeah I mean amazon missed out on that. Sweet sweet. A sai Buri affiliate money though. Uh huh. Or it's like you got I don't know what it was like  or  bucks if he was an affiliate could like sign somebody up first. The scam a sai buri like subscription service. Well what it was just affiliates but it was a scan because it was recurring charge and people weren't familiar with getting recurring charges. Yeah so um well you don't Josh  want to boost your health just once. Oh no. And then lose out on all those benefits. So you're really I mean that's like in the that's in the interest of the customer star. Starr  Exactly. One of my friends worked um back then worked at a ah the call center for a bank and like half of her calls or just people like what the hell? Like why am I keep getting charged for this? Josh  Like all of your support requests or start with what the hell you work in a bank. Ben  Yeah. There's a lot of fun things to do when the projects are new and it's all green field. But then, you know, there's also fun things to do when the projects are nine years old. You know, like I was pleasantly surprised on monday morning to find that our database server had failed on sunday morning. You know, it's like, Oh really? That that happened. But our our high availability set up actually worked and the fail over happened and it's just like nothing, nothing happened. I mean these days of course you? Re wild, you would not even set that up, right? You just use already s or you would, you know, there's there's like a gazillion post graze as a service services out there now. But you know, back in my day, you know, we had to push the bits uphill both ways. Right. Mhm. Josh  So yeah. Imagine if the database server failed in like year two. Yeah, back on, back on snickers. Starr  Yeah. Yeah. Well our servers were named after candy bars. Candy bars were Josh  still I love that. We're still on first name first name basis with all of our old servers. Ben  Uh My favorite tricks though, Josh  tricks. Yeah, Starr  I mean it makes sense why that whole hosting platform didn't really work out for us because Trix are for kids been. Ben  I know, I know, but then my kids were young enough then it made sense. Josh  Yeah, these drinks, we should build a we should we should do a client project just for fun. I mean and obviously Starr  obviously right, Ben  your friends but of course is gonna be for money. Yeah. Josh  The great thing about client projects is like you get to build them and then and then you get to like, never see them again. Ben  It's like, it's like, it's like being grandparents right where you can send the kids back to the parents like oh we'll have some fun, will spoil the kid and then send them back to be the parents so you can grow this little rails app and you can have some fun with it and then send it off, you know? And Josh  yeah, yeah. And then you're like, you're like, oh I wonder what happened to deteriorate. Starr  Like a couple of years later, you were like, oh, I wonder what happened to little timmy and see a google him and he's dead. Uh huh. Josh  Yeah. Four little timmy. Mhm. Yeah, there's um I unfortunately I think a lot of my old client projects are in that category, but I think that's just kind of the way it goes. Ben  But you know, I remember the primary struggle that we had the with the ones that didn't, one that weren't reported means I was like, what do we do with it now? Because we like to building new things, but we didn't really like running them, you know, we didn't wanna be on the hook. And so it was like, it's great, you have this new app go enjoy, right? And they're like, yeah, but you know what about something breaks? It's like, oh, well, good luck, you know? Yeah, I Josh  was thinking about that recently, like, like does that still fly? Like what do people do these days? Like, I don't know. Ben  I would like to know Josh  if you have a non technical, like, I don't like, to be honest, um you had a knack for like finding those people that seem to been because like, you find these people that are just like nontechnical. They they just have an idea like, you know, they're like, like Star said, like the whatever facebook facebook for X people, but like, they just have you just build it for them? And then yeah, they would kind of just be like, now I'm I'm like, I'm a tech founder now, Starr  can I tell a funny story about um So I used to live in Tulsa Oklahoma is where I went to college and live there for a little while after and one day I was at like a local coffee shop and there was this guy who actually, I saw a couple times at the coffee shop who just um was chatting up the brief, such adding up everybody around him about this app idea. He had um called the love button, which is just, oh my God, like that, that name, but it's called the Love button. And uh basically it's not, it's not a dating app though, which is like, you know, you're winning when you have to explain that your product name isn't what people think it is originally at first glance, it's not a dating app. It's a uh Starr  it's about like you can put in like what do I love to do? I love carpentry so I can press the love, but you have to press it, it's important. And then it um he didn't say this, but I was sort of imagine like a slot machine type, you know, spinning type thing, like whirling and then it pops up the people nearby you who also love that thing so you can stalk them. Uh huh Ben  uh huh. I was with you right up to that Stockport. Starr  I mean, well, I mean that's I had at that part, but I mean, it's like we've seen what happens to the internet, we've seen having to go, Josh  it just like has their contact information. Like it's a Starr  yeah, it's just, it's like, it's a way for, yeah, it's a way for people to have uncomfortable interactions. So it's like, Ben  it's like chatroulette but in real life, Starr  in real life. Yeah, I'm just sitting there like why the hell would anybody ever consent to that ever? But maybe I wasn't the target market, you know, Ben  mm maybe, maybe not just trying to think. You definitely want to involve a map of nearby welded locations for people to meet up. Josh  Maybe you just don't love anything enough to press the button. Yeah, maybe you like really have to be into something Starr  and then it just shames you. It's like, hey, what's the matter? Josh  I mean like to be fair like craigslist exists and like people, people do like respond to all kinds of things on craigslist and I'm sure are not in well lit locations. So you know, maybe this, maybe this love button app has like a, you know, has like a pivot or something. Starr  Yes, I mean, I don't know, maybe he was going to pivot it to grinder, who knows? Ben  Yeah, Well, you know, another option to just building apps would be buying apps right? We could hang out on micro require and, or flipper or someplace and uh, you know, for these for these developers who built the thing and don't want to run it. You can just buy it and then we can run, Josh  no, I think there's, I think there's probably something there potentially for us because we, we have some of the experience now that maybe they don't, they didn't um, you know the people that someone that just build something to a certain point. So, and we have a marketing engine so we could potentially like acquire something and then plug it in to our existing systems. So that could be fun. Like, you know, I mean like this is like instead of, you know, like, like I got a friend in construction and him and his dad like flip houses, you know, like that's the, the thing they do but are, are flipping houses is like flipping flipping SAs apps I think because you know, that's like our, maybe someday you'll be um flipping saps with your, with your boys. But Ben  mm hmm. Uh huh. We'll have a show on tv about that, you know, let's take it to the next level. Instead of just buying zaps and flipping it. Let's, let's get investors. Let's get some, some, some of the partners up in here and we can use their money to go buy the apps and then we'll run them for a while. Then maybe sell them. Then we can be like those cool kids that are out there like buying all these as apps and doing the investment thing, right? Josh  Yeah, I like it. These are good ideas Starr  are private and private equity firms. The cool kids. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I guess you're right for some value of cool, right? Ben  If you ask the private equity firms, they will say yes, they are the cool kids. Starr  Yeah. Josh  There's a lot of new types of private equity these days. It seems Josh  okay. Yeah. We need to take stuff. Ben  Yeah exactly. Take advantage of this new micro pipeline like you know, tiny seed and calm fund, right? We need to, we need a pipeline like okay, those are the feeding into the pipeline and then we do some magic somewhere along the process, right? And then outcomes bigger companies and we make money somehow. It's kind of funny but I think we can make it happen Starr  if you just took all those platforms up to each other in a circle, you get uh infinite motion machine, right? Oh. Mhm. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger until somebody goes to jail. Josh  I thought you got like an R. Burrows. So I hear you pronounce that the snake eating its own tail. Starr  Yeah. Ben  Or we could go in a completely different direction. I saw a tweet from Patio  this morning where he was uh he was referencing a tweet from sweaty startup and if you don't, if not familiar sweaty startup, you really got to go check that out because that's, that's some cool stuff. Like he hangs out and read it, his cool beans. We'll put some links in the show notes if you can check it out. But somebody started up dude uh he bought like a storage company, self storage company and like applied software to the process because like they were still like, you know, pushing paper around or whatever. It was old school and then really like juice that business and made it pretty cool investment and so Ben  thinking, yeah, we could, we could do that, we could go, we could go old school and get all these old school businesses that are not online and apply our our marketing juice and Josh  tear it up. I'm down to buy like a brick and mortar. Yeah or something. Um Just first of all though, you can't introduce what the startup guy as sweaty startup guy. He's the tomato guy right? Like this is the guy that was like trying to sell like it was like bragging about how he could like whatever like like grow a tomato farm to like a billion dollars. But he Ben  was sweating startup guy before he was tomato guy. Josh  Well because that was, you don't start that was an epic troll. Did you did you catch that at the end? Like it's it's pretty amazing like. Yeah, it turns out that guy really like that. Really not like he knows his shit apparently. And I mean like probably also know like I'm like having like followed him a little bit like seen some of the things he said like I might be inclined to like listen to him on the tomato thing, Josh  Maybe I can make a fortune of tomatoes, you know. Mhm. Ben  Mhm. As long as you don't live in Seattle where it rains nine months out of you. Ben  Yeah, no sweat. He started like I've been following him on Reddit for the longest time and I just love, obviously not every idea is genius, right? But I do love his approach. Like get in there, do the work, do the work that other people aren't willing to do or that people are just haven't really caught on to yet. Like one of his, one of his classic things is like just go start a pressure washing company right? Go knock on your neighbor's doors and see if they want their driveway pressure washed and then and then pressure wash it right? And then you do that and you get some gaming experience and you provide a quality service and lo and behold now you've got a business, right? So I think I just like his his ethos of just go in there, Ben  do the work and try to make it happen as opposed to right, You know. Mhm. Sit back and complain or whatever. You know, it's just kind of like the I just like that I would Josh  I would hire that person by the way um because I could use some pressure washing like the moss around my house is just out of control Ben  really. Again pacific northwest Yeah, Josh  you know that's pretty cool. Um And I like the just the thought of like I mean they're so it feels like there's so many um little I mean there's so many business problems out there that are in the real world that will they need a software solution and um will eventually happen. Um It just like it seems like in order to solve those problems you have to have some sort of like actual like proximity to the problem. So like maybe the way to like get into those problems is just to go out and start doing more stuff in the real world and see where you know like see where the pain points are. Ben  So you're saying if you want to build software for dentist you've got to become a dentist. Josh  Yeah. I don't know like at least like yeah work it in reception or something or have a lot of cavities just go like do stuff for oh yeah, just be a repeat customer for this. Ben  Yeah. Yeah. I just I just love how there's so many ways to make money on the internet. It's amazing. Starr  Yeah but the sai buri opportunities are long gone. That started a long time ago unfortunately. Josh  I think we'll see more. We'll definitely see more internet scams in the future though. So hope is not lost. Ben  You mean like thank goodness. Josh  Oh shots fired. Josh  I like I really want to see just like a like a smart contract. MLM. I mean like I think there might be something out there, but like, I want to see one. I just want to see one succeed, you know? Um Ben  Okay. You have to, you have to be the change that you want to see in the world job. Uh huh. That means you have to do it yourself. Josh  I know. I don't know if I can, I just don't understand that world. Like, I don't know. Like, I'm sure I could go like build, yeah, like comprehend the technology. But I just, I don't know. I'm just not motivated to at all. Like I've kind of tried a little bit, but Ben  yeah. Yeah. I'm still the old guy shaking fist at cloud stage of N. F. T. S. I'm like, I don't get it. Get off my lawn. Yeah. Josh  Well, there will be something there. I'm sure the FTS necessarily just in, in the, in the technology in the future. Ben  But my one of my sons who's really into tech and keeps on top of these things every time I say N. F. T. He's like money laundering. I think that's a really Matic response. It's like, well, okay, I'll trust you Josh  get that kid. A twitter account. Ben  Yeah. That's, that's interesting. Things like my kids not into facebook, not into twitter, you know, there's not Starr  social network for old. Tiktok Ben  absolutely hate Tiktok. Yeah, It's like, it's the opiate of the masses. It's like, well, okay, that's technically. True. Starr  Yeah. I don't know. I really like to talk. It really depends on like, where um like what like you follow and all that. It's, you know, it's just like twitter and that really? Josh  Yeah, yeah, I, I signed up for a Tiktok account recently just to check it out and see like what, where the rabbit holes go and um kind of scared me a little bit, but I mean maybe that's because I was like trying to see how bad it was versus how good it was. So maybe I should do a different experiment where like, I only Starr  like the trick is to take on cat videos or whatever trick is to like follow the things that you like and then you'll get more of those and all the things you don't like, you'll get more of those, Ben  yep. So you said it was scary was more or less scary than kid Youtube. Josh  Uh I haven't really, I don't know like, I mean just the whole idea of Kid Youtube is scary, so it might be just different kind of different things, but just like the algorithm, like the algorithmic bubble that Tic Tac seems to create. Like, I mean, all of these, all of those services have that, but like maybe it's because like the videos are so short and there's so many like strangers that you can end up following or whatever, but it just seems like you could like someone who doesn't understand how that works, could easily end up in some sort of like alternative universe. Uh you know, Yeah, yeah, again, I have Starr  used as um I don't know, it's interesting to me because it's like much more than other, much more than other services. You can really see the algorithm at work. Like be like, okay, you're, you're like testing me to see if I like this um carpentry videos where people take these very expensive, expensive looking hand planes and then like play like take minute lee thin shavings of very expensive looking wood. Um So you watch the whole video, so I'm gonna give you like three more of those. We're gonna see how you do on those. And um and then like sometimes it gives you things that you're just like, nope. So it's like, I just don't want the algorithm just just see that I'm watching this, so I'm just not even gonna try. Josh  Yeah. You have to like, you have to tend to tend your algorithm. Yeah. But in order to do that, you have to understand that that's what you're doing. I think we're in a good position to do that. Yeah, Starr  But also just like the tactic, the tactic, What am I saying? The content on Tiktok? I think it's in my brain, it's I'm just nothing I say is like everything I say is it's going to become some variant of Tiktok um the content I found it's like, I don't know, like, I I and much happier, like looking at Tiktok because it's like you know, I don't know, I guess I'm just looking at happy or content. The Josh  content is so like the whole like the niche aspect of the content, like you said, like the narrowest type of video, like, like a hobby but where people are like, you know like whatever creating very thin strips of wood and there's some sort of like, you know, just like they can feed you very specific types of videos to see like and then you can get into that like specific like subset of like whatever woodworking video. It's not you're not even into woodworking at that point. You just ended this like very like Misha part of it. Starr  Yeah. I don't know. That's well, see I'm sure I'll get bored bored with it eventually. Josh  I don't think you will. Starr  You know, it's ever renewing stream of just Josh  delicious content. I trust trust algorithm, you trust, Starr  I trust in the algorithm to josh to Josh  keep you to keep you engaged. Yeah. Yeah. Starr  Okay um you all have been listening to another episode of founder quest if you want to um review us on apple podcast or whatever it's called these days, go for it. Um You want to write for our blog and we've got to write first page on there at honey badger to I  slash blog um scan for the right for us link, that's your first assignment. Um Until yeah. Until then. Um See you later. 

SEATTLE — Seattle mayoral candidates Lorena González and Bruce Harrell will participate in their first live broadcast debate of the campaign season this Thursday, Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. “Business and the Economy” will be the theme of the first debate. A second debate focused on the theme of “Public Health and Safety” will take place on Thursday, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. Both debates are sponsored by the Washington State Debate Coalition (WSDC) and will be held at Cascade Public Media studios.

Intro: How was the week?   NFLFIrst NFL Sunday Last weeks NFL Gambling corner: 4 - 3 Chargers -170 at Cincinatti over at 42 UNDER - win Bears v Lions under at 42.5 - lost total 50 Saints -185 vs Tampa Bay - Win LA Rams upset of the week going up against Dallas at home Cowboys spread and Over 1-1  Monday night Steelers v Giants Titans v Broncos. Titans -135 and the over at 41 1-1   49ers at Jets - Deans lock of the week. Under at 41.5 Packers over Lions - Brandons lock Favories at 209 Saints over Raiders - Ryans Saints -245 5.5 spread Patriots at Seattle - Seattle favorites at -200. Spread at 4 Bills at Dolphins - Bills favorite at -250 KC at Chargers: KC favorite at -410 Ravens at Texans - Ravens favorites at -330 Spread at 7 Upseat of the week: Giants 205 at Chicago   MLB: Padres v Dodgers series. Drop is 1-2 Dodgers first team to clinch Tatis slumped. Hoz out Game 3 bullpen game   Tatis up for MVP?   NHL:Dallas Stars win series, waiting for the TB v NY series TB up 3-2 tied 1-1 in the 3rd   NBA:Heat take game 1 on a huge block by Bam Clippers lose series to Nuggets. Go to face Lakers in western championship series

Listen and see who I think the Arizona Cardinals, Los Angles Rams , San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seattle should sign to potently make there team a lot better --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Why aren't home prices dropping on a national basis? How can this be with 26 million Americans unemployed? With businesses shut down, people at home, and restrictive social interaction on real estate transactions it seems like prices should be dropping. But are they are not. Join Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he discusses what is happening with pricing in Seattle on this episode of the Seattle Real Estate Podcast.Here are some of the topics discussed:Why limited inventory prevents prices from dropping Why this slowdown is so different than 2008When will the market turn back aroundAre sales happening nowHow many homes are being taken off the marketAre multiple offer situations still happeningWhy Seattle real estate stays so consistentReal estate in Seattle holds valueAre home prices dropping in Seattle? Seattle housing market forecast 2020Seattle home prices increasing in some markets

BGVV-265_Thầy Giảng Tại Seattle_SEATTLE_05-06-1982 Podcast ChannelsVo Vi Podcast-Van DaoVo Vi Podcast-Bai GiangVo Vi Podcast-Nhac Thien

Local 12 digital sports columnist and editor Richard Skinner was joined by Rick Broering to discuss a variety of topics including the Bengals, Reds, college football, NFL, and college basketball. Those topics include: * The biggest storyline in the Bengals' season-opener at Seattle * Seattle's defensive line could be a nightmare matchup for the Bengals * Is it reasonable to expect John Ross to make an impact against the Seahawks? * The Bengals added two new players * The Bengals extended Giovani Bernard's contract * What August told us about the Reds * Grading Ohio State QB Justin Field's debut performance * How much does the Ohio State fanbase care about Luke Fickell's return to Columbus? * Betting lines for college football and NFL * Smarter money: Jared Goff's contact extension or Ezekiel Elliott's contract extension? * UC's landed two new basketball commits in the 2020 class

The guys recap week 1 of the preseason and all that doesn’t matter in preseason games. Then it’s time to update training camps as they end. What’s going on with Dak, Zeke, and Amari? QB controversy in Seattle? Seattle goes to Minnesota while Dallas goes to Hawaii to play the Rams. What do the guys expect to see in week…Continue Reading→

The World's biggest Protestival, Seattle Hempfest, deserves an enormous amount of credit for the progress towards legalization that we enjoy today. Founded in 1991, this annual gathering of activists, enthusiasts, and casual users as well as non-users, has captured the attention of this cultural movement from people around the globe. In today's politicized landscape of Cannabis, the event is more important than ever, representing an homage to the rights we citizens have gained, as well as a triumphant display of unity in the face of progress that remains to be made toward full Cannabis normalization. Presently, the city of Seattle and the Liquor and Cannabis Board are actively attempting to silence the right to publicly celebrate this controversial plant. Please join the Leaf Life team as we touch on the amazing journey of legendary co-founder Vivian McPeak while he reminisces about the early struggles and shares his outlook on the battle for the future of Hempfest. GUESTS: Vivian McPeakCo-founder of Seattle Hempfest, former rock star hopeful, all-around badass. SUBJECT DISCUSSED IN SEGMENT 1: The World’s First Cannabis Profestival SUBJECT DISCUSSED IN SEGMENT 2: Maintaining Relevance GREG THE GUINEA PIG: Dave Sloan Co-owner of Herb’s House Cannabis retail shop SPONSORS:Herb's House Avitas American Extracts Acme DieselDabstars HypeHerbally STONEY BALONEY EPISODE:PEOPLE AND THEIR ANNOYING KIDS Don't Forget to Subscribe to the Show!

SEATTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please vote.  Please. morrisonicpod@gmail.com