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Today Crystal is joined by a very special co-host and KIRO 7 political reporter, Essex Porter! They cover what happened in this week's primary elections, whether or not there were any real upsets or surprises, and we may see over the next few months heading into the November general election. 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 Essex at @EssexKIRO7.    Resources “Harrell, González will likely compete to be next Seattle mayor” by David Kroman from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/08/harrell-gonzalez-will-likely-compete-be-next-seattle-mayor  “Incumbent Pete Holmes slips to third place in Seattle city attorney race after Thursday's ballot count” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/incumbent-pete-holmes-slips-to-third-place-in-seattle-city-attorney-race-after-thursdays-ballot-count/  “6 takeaways from ballots counted Tuesday in Seattle area's 2021 primary election” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/6-takeaways-from-ballots-counted-tuesday-in-seattles-2021-primary-election/  “Primary election results: Harrell, González lead mayor's race” by Crosscut Staff: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/08/primary-election-results-harrell-gonzalez-lead-mayors-race  Read Hacks & Wonks interviews with candidates that are likely to move on to the November election: Mayoral candidate, Lorena González: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/f9428eab/conversation-with-lorena-gonzalez-city-council-president-and-mayoral-candidate  District 9 City Council candidate, Nikkita Oliver: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/300d5a84/nikkita-oliver-activist-organizer-city-council-candidate  District 9 City Council candidate, Sara Nelson: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/29584c47/discussion-with-sara-nelson-city-council-candidate  City Attorney candidate, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/20c5baf6/nicole-thomas-kennedy-candidate-for-city-attorney  King County Executive, Dow Constantine: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/1e6eecae/a-chat-with-dow-constantine-king-county-executive  King County Executive candidate, Senator Joe Nguyen: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/listenpodcast/episode/1e38d0ac/meet-senator-and-kc-exec-candidate-joe-nguyen-again    Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] 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. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows, where we review the news of the week. Welcome to the program - I'm extremely happy and excited to welcome today's co-host, KIRO-7 political reporter, Essex Porter. Hey Essex! Essex Porter: [00:00:54] Hello, and good to be here. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:57] Excellent to have you here. Well, I'm thrilled to have you on the program. You are known to everyone as the person who lets us know what's going on with politics here locally on TV. So we just had a big primary election earlier this week and we have vote-in-mail here in the state, so we don't get all of the results on Election Day. We get them in batches in the days - on Election Day and throughout the week. Usually most races are clear by the end of the week, and most races are clear with one or two hanging in the balance. So I guess, starting with the mayor's race, what was your feeling on just the result that we got? Essex Porter: [00:01:45] The result was not surprising. We expected former City Council President Bruce Harrell to be in the lead on election night and he is. We pretty much expected current City Council President Lorena González to come in second and make the November ballot - and she did. The other two - three and four - Colleen Echohawk, number three, Jessyn Farrell, number four. That was pretty much expected as well. And the Northwest Progressive Institute poll pretty much nailed where they would come in. I think they were tied pretty much in that poll, or close to tied in that poll. And that's exactly the order they showed up in. So we have the November election matchup that we expected, but we'll see if there are surprises between now and November. It's a long time away. Crystal Fincher: [00:02:41] It is a long time away - a lot of communication yet to go. Where we stand today, and today we're recording this Friday morning - people will be starting to listen to this on Friday afternoon. We still have yesterday's results. We don't have the Friday results in yet. There are probably going to be another 20,000-ish votes counted today in Seattle is what we're anticipating. But as it stands right now, Bruce Harrell is just shy of 37% - 36.9%. And then Lorena González is at just shy of 30%, so 29.6%. With Colleen Echohawk further behind, in third place, but at 9% - I think that's further behind than a lot of people expected her to be. Some of the polling showed that she was closer, that she had a potentially significant upside after people heard her message and how she talked about herself. Why do you think that that result didn't line up with expectations? Essex Porter: [00:03:46] Well, yeah, interestingly and the only poll I'd really seen, was the public one by Northwest Progressive Institute, which had her roughly where she is ending up, as I recall. I think it had her right at 8%, but there was a large number of undecided people in the race. Perhaps for Colleen Echohawk, who has been a very strong candidate when you see her in person - but of course it's hard to meet everybody in person, and you really have to get a message out there when you are someone who has not been in the headlines of the public eye for as long as Councilmembers Harrell and González had been. Now Colleen Echohawk has a very public profile, she's just not as well-known. And I think the result can be heartening for her and her supporters, and can point certainly to a future in Seattle politics, even if she's not going to be on the ballot this November. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:00] Absolutely, and I think you nailed it. It really is, for people who pay attention to politics - a number of people who listen to this podcast are more plugged-in than the average person when it comes to political news. So we can - we're more exposed, we're more in tune with all the news coming out - where the candidates stand, who they are, what their histories are. But the average Seattle voter is not us. We are abnormal. The biggest opponent for a candidate is not the person or people who they are running against. It's everything else in a voter's life that is competing for attention. There's a lot going on right now in the world. We're dealing with a pandemic, people are figuring out what they're doing with their kids and school and work and home and remote, and just a lot going on, in addition to everything else that's going on in life. And so lots of people don't start paying attention until they notice that they get their ballot in the mail and their voter's pamphlet. And in that time, you really have to communicate really effectively with a message that penetrates and captures people's attention. Certainly that's simpler to do when there's familiarity with a candidate. So people who had been Councilmembers and incumbents enjoyed that. They'd been on ballots before, voters were already familiar with them. People who voters weren't very familiar with in the mayor's race, they just didn't seem to - their message didn't seem to penetrate. So, but as we've seen with a lot of other races, this can certainly set someone up for a future successful race, now that they're more widely known, more broadly known, and people have gotten a little bit more of a chance to get to know who they are. Essex Porter: [00:06:44] I got to talk to a few voters on the day before the election and on Election Day. The sense I got from voters was certainly - coming out of this pandemic and having a nice weather summer, and for, at the time before the election - things were relaxing and people were enjoying getting out, enjoying maybe taking a little bit of a vacation trip. I talked to one person, I asked him why he was voting so late, "I'm voting so late because I just moved and I needed to get the ballot at the new address. Soon as I got it, I came and I voted." People have things going on in their lives. But what's one of the thoughts I have is that - I wonder if the atmosphere will be changing. Because in the last few days of the election and this week and continuing on, there is more concern about COVID. There is more of a restrictive attitude as the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID begins to impact our lives here in the Seattle area and the Northwest. There is a concern that the psychological, if not physical opening we have, will be closing back down. That may also be on voters' minds as they go into November. That will be one of the things that's overhanging that vote as they make choices. Crystal Fincher: [00:08:12] The Delta variant is here and prevalent. So we'll see how that continues to line up. Another interesting thing I was looking at is obviously - we have the Compassion Seattle initiative coming up on the November ballot, and we had the major candidates basically all line up on one side or the other of the initiative. And that acted as a dividing line between where candidates stood. Are they more of a law and order-focus candidate, looking at issues that may bring more criminalization or certainly codify some criminalization of homelessness into the City Charter with sweeps, in addition to some other elements and in that - Essex Porter: [00:09:01] And I have to say, that's one of the arguments over Compassion Seattle - as to whether it does criminalize homelessness and poverty. Whether it does make it more likely and give more approval to sweeps. I mean that's going to be one of the big debating points. There are supporters of Compassion Seattle who don't necessarily see it that particular way. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:27] Absolutely. And certainly the language about it, right? Compassion Seattle - this is a compassionate solution to this challenge that we're facing. Everyone seems to agree that it's a problem. Which part of that they find to be the problem is up in the air. Is it that they have to see and deal with people being homeless? Is it that they are feeling uncomfortable about it and wanting them to be removed, or swept, or other things happen? Is it an issue of services? Certainly the initiative does address services. People talk about how effective that is and is it really more than what we're doing now? And many people say that it is 1% more perhaps, but perhaps more restrictive, but - Essex Porter: [00:10:18] And as I talk to voters - and again, this is a small number of voters I'm talking with, as I'm working on deadline and meeting people at random at the ballot box. But as I talked to voters, when they mentioned homelessness, all the voters I talked with started out with a feeling of compassion for those who are homeless, who may be forced to sleep on the streets, or camp in a tent. And then as you listened to them, even if they didn't say who they liked in the mayor's race, it was clear that they kind of divided. There were people who spoke compassionately about those who are homeless, who felt to me - is that they would be more inclined to support Bruce Harrell. There are others who talked very much the same way, who felt to me - they would be more inclined to support Lorena González or Colleen Echohawk. The Northwest Progressive Institute poll has Compassion Seattle at, I think, it's 61% support. So it just seems to me, there's a lot of people across the mayoral candidate spectrum who support Compassion Seattle. It may not be that a vote for one person as mayor is a vote against Compassion Seattle. That's what it will be interesting to see work out in November. Crystal Fincher: [00:11:48] It'll be interesting to see it work out in November. And interesting to see how the vote share was turned out based on where the candidates were at. Candidates who supported Compassion Seattle got more votes than candidates who didn't in the primary. But we do have Bruce Harrell who said that he is supportive of Charter Amendment 29 and Lorena González who opposes it. Essex Porter: [00:12:16] Yeah, that's going to be one of the key things that differentiates those candidates, because there's actually a lot that's alike about those two candidates. But we'll be looking for what the differences are. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:24] Will be interesting to see how that turns out. We also got results in the City Council races. I don't think many people are too surprised to see Teresa Mosqueda, the incumbent, in Position 8 with 56%. Kenneth Wilson is going to also make it through to the general, at 17%, but that race is looking pretty settled. In the Position 9 race, Sara Nelson is in the lead as we speak, with 42%, followed by Nikkita Oliver - they have 36%. And then Brianna Thomas in third place, with just about 14%. So it looks like Nikkita Oliver and Sara Nelson are making it through to the general - two very different candidates. Two other candidates who line up on opposite sides of the Compassion Seattle debate, they're on different sides on the JumpStart tax, the head tax, many different things. So that certainly is going to be a race where voters have a clear choice. Essex Porter: [00:13:31] Yeah. Now that is absolutely true, and I talked briefly with Sara Nelson before the election, because by total coincidence, she doorbelled my house. And you look through the doorbell camera and think, "Hey, that's somebody I recognize," but when we talked, at least the public polling did not have her in the lead in this race. She sounded very concerned, and while I haven't spoken with her after the election, I suspect there are few people as surprised as she is, that she did so well in this race - that she has a strong lead at over 40% of the vote. And this race, I think, will be probably more for the folks who are interested in policy, and follow policy - because they do differ so much on policy. They are both seasoned at creating policy, and evaluating policy, and taking stance on policy. So it's going to be going to be a very policy-oriented City Council race. Because they diverge very much, ideologically, people are going to have that choice you're talking about. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:05] Yeah, I mean, Nikkita has certainly talked a lot about policy. And one of the nice things about that race is that it has been so policy-focused - in their debates, especially with Brianna Thomas, there were definitive policies, plans laid out. I think it's going to be interesting to see the contrast between Nikkita and Sara. I interviewed both of them earlier, we'll link both of those interviews in the show notes to this show, but very different approaches. It feels like they're taking different stances to even the conversation about policy. Essex Porter: [00:15:45] I think Sara Nelson will be running a message that, "I'm a business woman. I've been at City Hall. I've worked policy in City Hall. I'm a business woman too. So I know how what happens at City Hall impacts business. I don't necessarily have all the answers, but you can be comfortable with my approach and my thought process." I suspect that's the kind of message that she'll be trying to get out there. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:17] I anticipate the same, and I anticipate to see a lot of the downtown and business interests that have traditionally been associated with the Chamber to consolidate around her. And to see a lot of the more progressive interests consolidate around Nikkita. We'll see how that goes. Essex Porter: [00:16:38] That might be the race that's not going to be settled by Friday after the November election. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:43] After the November election, that may be tight, but we'll see. Now there is a race that, as we sit here on Friday morning, still is not decided. Not enough for either, for any of the candidates, to have definitively declared victory or conceded and that is the City Attorney's race. And my goodness, is this a race? So as we are sitting here, after the results release on Thursday - Ann Davison is at 34.5%, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy is at 33.19%, Pete Holmes is at 32.02%. Talking to the campaigns, it looks like they're anticipating 25,000-40,000 more ballots perhaps. But this is an unusual situation, in that the incumbent Pete Holmes is now trailing - unless he significantly improves his vote share in today's count, it's looking like he's not going to make it through the primary. Essex Porter: [00:17:54] This is, at the moment, the classic example of late votes lean left. The total on election night had Holmes in third place. The total on Wednesday night had Holmes moving up just barely to second place. And now, the total on Thursday night, where the late ballots are finally counted - those ballots that went in the mail on Monday maybe, or went in the mail on Sunday, some of the ballots that went into drop boxes late on Tuesday - those are the ballots that have been counted. And they push Nicole Thomas-Kennedy ahead of Pete Holmes again. We both have seen it often - once that trend gets started, it doesn't reverse - the Friday ballots just confirm it. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:49] Yeah, they do. So it is looking highly unlikely that Pete Holmes is going to end up making it through. The other thing is that they're strongly trending for Nicole Thomas-Kennedy in yesterday's count. If you look at just yesterday's count, there were just over 28,000 ballots counted yesterday. Nicole Thomas-Kennedy got 37% of those ballots, Ann Davison 33%, and Pete Holmes 29%. So it's just - that trend is going to have to move sharply. And when you start thinking about what it's going to take to close that gap, you start looking at numbers, he's going to have to clear 35% to closer to 40% of the remaining ballots to look like he has a shot. That just doesn't seem consistent with anything that we've seen so far. Essex Porter: [00:19:45] Yes, exactly. So now we have to contemplate what happened to Pete Holmes? Here's a three term incumbent, taking a position on criminalizing poverty, basically, that a lot of people favor. I mean, his criticism is that he is not tough enough on people for petty crimes like shoplifting or petty theft. But his stance has been to focus on those he perceives as true dangers in society, and that's not most of the people who come across for misdemeanors. Most of those are not necessarily violent crimes. So he's taken a stance that a lot of people on the left would support, but somehow that wasn't enough? Crystal Fincher: [00:20:40] Well, it's interesting, because he certainly, when he came into office, he certainly came in as someone who was more reform-minded from his predecessor - in talking about stopping prosecuting some marijuana, crimes, stopping - being more friendly to nightlife and entertainment venues, that kind of thing. But what Nicole Thomas-Kennedy spent a lot of time talking about was there have been certain areas where they stopped that focus, but my goodness, there's still a lot of criminalization of poverty. And prosecutions of what seemed to be misdemeanors that are so minor that it's certainly costing the City more to prosecute it, than they're getting from the prosecution. And that criminalizing people in that situation actually is more likely to make the problem worse and more expensive to solve, than to fix it. So she has talked more about addressing root causes, taking an approach that helps get people on the right track, as opposed to just criminalize people and have them going in and out. So he took heat for not being progressive enough and for criminalizing poverty too much on one end. On the other end was for people who think he's just been too soft on crime, look at everything happening, you've got people going for that, "Seattle is dying" narrative. And just on the hard side saying, "Oh, he's a liberal and letting everyone off, and crime is running rampant." But then there's also people saying, "I just see ..." I think it doesn't help that a lot of people associate, wrongly, I should point out, wrongly associate homelessness with criminality. People who are unhoused are more likely to be victims of crimes, than they are to perpetrate them. I also think a lot of people don't understand that he is dealing with misdemeanors and that felonies, or most serious crime, is handled from the King County Prosecutor. So I think he's also taking heat for a lot of people's perception that crime is up, and some types of crimes are up. Overall crime is down, some violent crimes are up. So he's also taking heat for that perception. And then also, he just didn't really seem to care about campaigning for a while, until it became clear he was in danger. And then it seemed to be too little too late, with some faux pas added in some late interviews and statements. Essex Porter: [00:23:20] Yeah, I haven't taken a look at the crime numbers, even for the non-violent crime, so I can't immediately confirm that overall crime is down. And it may not matter, unfortunately, exactly what the numbers are, because it is what the feeling is, right? Crystal Fincher: [00:23:45] The perception - exactly. Essex Porter: [00:23:47] It's the perception. I spoke with Ann Davison after the election, and one of the phrases that she uses and I think is going to be at center of her campaign, is that she's going to, "Center the victims," and that's the language she uses. It's going to be a victim-centered approach. I think that's the kind of approach on public safety issues - because we're going to have public safety issues that are going to be headlines about some terribly unfortunate things that happen between now and November, that will be happening every week. When she talks about centering victims, I think that is going to be a strong counter to Nicole Thomas-Kennedy if she is in the November election, who is going to be talking about a wholesale change. She calls it abolition, and people are going to be weighing again, the stark contrast between Ann Davison, who maybe will take a more conservative approach than many people would like, and Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, who may be taking a more progressive approach than many people feel comfortable with. It's going to be which person can make people feel comfortable with their approach to public safety. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:22] Yeah, absolutely. And basically, Pete Holmes not making it through the primary, as looks likely - certainly we'll have a much clearer idea about that after today's results. But if you're asking me, it doesn't look good for Pete Holmes. It's - there's an admission that what is going on now hasn't worked. And so people want a new approach - is that new approach more of a, "Hey, let's just crack down on people and arrest them, get them in jail," or is it, "Let's treat some of the root causes." And I think, as you articulated, Ann Davison's position and what she may be talking about. I think Nicole Thomas-Kennedy is going to be focusing a lot on what we have done hasn't worked. And what we hear proposed is more of exactly what has not worked on this level. A lot of clarifying and educating that we aren't talking about violent crimes. And that's where a lot of the disdain and discomfort comes, when people think, "Well, we can't just have people assaulting people on the street and facing no penalty. And what are we doing?" And that's a scary prospect for a lot of people. So I think hearing her talk about, "Okay, what does this mean in the role of City Attorney. And how do we change our approach?" I think that's going to be a really interesting and enlightening dialogue. I think people are going to hear some things from both candidates that are different than what they were expecting. So it'll be interesting to see how this continues to evolve through the general, but I'm excited about the conversation that will happen because of this race. Essex Porter: [00:27:11] Yeah, and I think it's going to get some national attention as well, because I think, more than the mayor's race, it'll be a clearer choice of where Seattle wants to go. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:23] Absolutely. And I mean, Hey, we're in the City who has a socialist on the City Council, who the DSA is not just a synonym for the Downtown Seattle Association, it's the Democratic Socialist. And they are a significant force here. We have a candidate who identifies as an abolitionist proudly, who is making it through a primary, beating the incumbent. So, I mean, this is, even for people in a primary election, which is usually a more conservative voting group compared to a general election voting group, there's a lot of receptivity to Nicole Thomas-Kennedy's message, which I think was surprising to a number of people. But I think people need to understand that there is a feeling that what has happened isn't working. And people do want reductions in crime, people do want to feel safer. But it's just, what is it that actually does make us safer? And that conversation and the details and the contours of it are one I'm excited to have. Essex Porter: [00:28:39] Yeah. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:41] Well, I think we are coming up on our time. I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to join us today, Essex on July ... Geez, listen to me - Essex Porter: [00:28:52] It's already August. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:52] I'm going to edit that. Essex Porter: [00:28:55] Don't edit that. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:57] I'm totally editing that. Maybe I'm editing that. I'm all over the place, but I appreciate you listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, August 6th, 2021. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler and our wonderful co-host today was KIRO-7 political reporter, Essex Porter. You can find Essex on Twitter @EssexKIRO7. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. While you're there, leave a review, it really helps us out. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time. Essex Porter: [00:29:50] Bye-bye.

Today Crystal in joined by Tiffani McCoy, Advocacy Director at Real Change, to discuss Charter Amendment 29, commonly known as Compassion Seattle. This amendment will appear on your November ballot, and would codify encampment sweeps into our city charter. Tiffani and Crystal discuss the misleading way this amendment is being messaged, what the actual cost of the amendment would be, and why its backers should make us wonder if it's really intended to solve the homelessness crisis, or just remove houseless people from our sight. 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 Tiffani at @TiffaniMcCoy1. You can also find updates on the work of the House Our Neighbors Coalition at houseourneighbors.org, or follow them on Twitter at @houseRneighbors.   Resources ”Compassion Seattle Amendment Faces Scrutiny from Democratic Group and Homeless Advocates” by Chetanya Robinson from the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/24/compassion-seattle-amendment-faces-scrutiny-from-democratic-group-and-homeless-advocates/ “Seattle chamber appeals dismissal of lawsuit against city's ‘JumpStart' payroll tax” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-chamber-appeals-dismissal-of-lawsuit-against-citys-jumpstart-payroll-tax/ “Sweeps Continue in Seattle: Perspectives from the Street” by Luke Brennan from the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/14/sweeps-continue-in-seattle-perspectives-from-the-street/ “Interim Guidance for Homeless Service Providers” from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/homeless-shelters/plan-prepare-respond.html “'Every Community Should be Using FEMA Dollars' for Hotel-Based Shelter. So Why Isn't Seattle?” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/03/18/every-community-should-be-using-fema-dollars-for-hotel-based-shelter-so-why-isnt-seattle/ “The Cost of ‘Compassion'” by Kevin Schofield from the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/07/17/weekend-long-reads-the-cost-of-compassion/#:~:text=Compassion%20Seattle%20Cost%20Analysis&text=Here%20is%20their%20report.,annually%20in%20ongoing%20operational%20costs. “The C Is for Crank: Correcting the Record on Compassion Seattle” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/07/13/the-c-is-for-crank-correcting-the-record-on-compassion-seattle/ “How many homeless people in Seattle are from here?” by Scott Greenstone from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/do-homeless-people-come-to-seattle-for-help/ “Regional Homelessness Director Marc Dones: ‘The Driver of Homelessness Is Economic.” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2021/07/26/regional-homelessness-director-marc-dones-the-driver-of-homelessness-is-economic/ “Myths and Facts of Homelessness in Washington State” from the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance: https://www.wliha.org/sites/default/files/myths.pdf   Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Tiffani McCoy who's the Advocacy Director at Real Change, and I wanted to have Tiffani on to talk about Charter Amendment 29, the Compassion Seattle - so-called Compassion Seattle - Charter Amendment to address homelessness in Seattle. Thank you so much for joining us, Tiffani. Tiffani McCoy: [00:01:13] Crystal, thank you so much for having me to talk about this important issue. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:17] Absolutely, I appreciate it. So I guess, just to start, what is Charter Amendment 29? Tiffani McCoy: [00:01:26] Yeah, Charter Amendment 29 is being peddled as a solution to the homelessness crisis in Seattle - that's verbatim what people heard on the street when approached by a paid signature gatherer. But Charter Amendment 29 includes no new solutions, no new funding, and would codify the forced removal of our unhoused neighbors into the City Charter, which is basically the same as our City's constitution. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:56] Okay, and so they're saying, "Hey, this will solve homelessness and we're going to do it in a compassionate way. After all, our name is Compassion Seattle. It dedicates resources for services that are badly needed. It guarantees that there's going to be housing built. And it makes sure that we can do something to actually take care of people and get them off the street." Is that accurate to you? Tiffani McCoy: [00:02:24] Yeah. So if the backers of Charter Amendment 29 - which are real estate developers, millionaires, and corporations - if they were true about solving this crisis, they would compassionately put their money where their mouth is. And they would stop recycling the false claim that we simply just need to spend our dollars better to solve homelessness. And they would also stop trying to characterize sweeps - the forced removal, the displacement of unhoused neighbors - as compassionate. And the question really is - should real estate developers dictate who lives in Seattle? Should millionaires dictate who lives in Seattle? Because according to this Charter Amendment, these folks who are bankrolling this are saying that they get to dictate who lives in Seattle. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:15] Well, and it certainly has been reported on - that it is primarily funded by downtown Seattle business interests, who frequently talk about taking a more hard line or more criminalized approach to addressing homelessness. And I guess starting at the point of, "Okay, what does it actually do?" They're saying, "Hey, we're dedicating resources to addressing homelessness that have not been there before." I think the number is 12% of housing dollars going towards being mandated to be spent on this. Is that tangibly better than where we're at? Is that a significant improvement? Tiffani McCoy: [00:03:55] Yeah, what you're saying is really important to kind of suss out, and I really think that this tweet by Erica C. Barnett captures it just really specifically. This Charter Amendment doesn't fund anything. It merely says that the City must shift existing resources to create 2,000 new shelter beds so that parks can be clear for housed people to use. That's the essence of this Charter Amendment. It doesn't fund anything. Right now, the City of Seattle spends roughly $11 million a year already on housing and homelessness. This Charter Amendment requires 12%, so $18 million more to allegedly "fund," and I say "fund" in quotes - wraparound services, mental health treatment, diversion programs, parks cleanup, sweeps of folks, and also to build 2,000 shelter or permanent housing units. That's fanciful thinking. That's why this is an empty promise. There's absolutely no way that this will fund all of those mechanisms. And actually, recently, a lot of City Council members actually asked the Seattle central staff - it's the City Council's research body - "What would this actually cost us if it were enacted?" And those figures are daunting, and I think that all listeners should go and look for that report - because it looks like to enact Charter Amendment 29, it would cost between $20 to $180 million a year to do. And the lower end of $20 million is assuming that the funding of diversion programs, the funding of mental health services, the funding of wraparound services, is already happening in the City. So those boxes are already checked and that's how you get that low end number. So, no, this doesn't fund anything. This would fund shelter beds over permanent housing, which we know under a housing first model, is the preferable range. That's the true way to get folks off the street - getting them into housing. So, no, this isn't something. This is nothing. And it is being pushed by these big business interests that just very clearly want to influence City Council and mayoral races through buying a law and putting it on the ballot at the same time. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:23] Well, I mean, there definitely have been people who have speculated that the reason why Charter Amendment 29 is on the ballot is to help the more conservative candidates, or candidate for mayor, as it will turn out, in the general election. So, the motivations have been called into question, especially since a number of the donors previously simply advocated for more sweeps before, but then came back with the language of compassion wrapped around this. And some of the issue that you brought up about the funding - really leading with saying, "Hey, this is going to provide so much funding. We are dedicating so much to this," without mentioning that, "Hey, almost all of that money is already allocated on being spent - that is already in effect - and the new funding, any new funding that is provided for it, doesn't necessarily mean that it will provide 2,000 new units." We don't know exactly - there's no mandate on what those units have to be. There's no mandate on what the service has to be. And we're in the midst of a situation where money has been allocated, for actually years, in the City of Seattle to build more housing - and delays and bureaucracy in the mayor's office have prevented that from coming to fruition. So I know one of my initial concerns looking at it was, "Okay, so you say that you've allocated money for doing it, but we are currently in a situation where the money can be sitting there for years with nothing happening." Meanwhile, we would have codified in our City Charter, which is basically the city's constitution, that you can now sweep these people off of the streets - which is important because these sweeps have been ruled in several courts to be unconstitutional because there is no place else for them to go. So if the City doesn't provide some option for people to go, it can't outlaw people's existence in public and say, "No matter how you exist, if you can't afford a house, its going to be criminal." As you look at this, what are, I guess, the biggest barriers that we need to address overall to get this fixed and does the Charter Amendment make any attempt to address those or not? Tiffani McCoy: [00:08:51] Yeah. So you brought up a lot in there, a lot of really important points. And I want to really kind of hone in on the funding aspect and how you've aptly described kind of the blocking of progress by the backers of Charter Amendment 29. I mean, these are the same folks that have stepped in full-on to stop any progressive revenue measure to actually fund the crisis. The Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association have a lot of overlap, but actually we're litigating against the JumpStart progressive revenue source - that about $150 million a year would go towards building deeply affordable permanent housing, which we know we desperately need. And they litigated against that to try to not have that go into effect. The judge ruled against their efforts to block that funding, but they've appealed and they are still trying to fight to make sure funding for housing doesn't happen. So that also calls into question their flowery, slick PR, "We want to get everyone inside." If you truly did, you wouldn't be blocking a progressive revenue measure. You would be helping to support that. I also think that getting into this - is this something? Sure, I'll admit that 2,000 more shelter beds would be helpful, but I'm also going to tell you, based on vendors that we've talked to at Real Change, mutual aid folks that go out and do outreach - shelter bed, mat on the floor, congregate shelter is not at all wanted. It's not desired. It is not taken. Even though we've moved in positive ways during the pandemic away from congregate shelter, there's nothing in this that guarantees that that won't happen - that these won't be mat on the floor, in at 8:00p, kicked out by 6:00a, not being able to bring a pet, not being able to bring your belongings and your partner, et cetera, et cetera. So this is a false solution. And not only that, it does absolutely nothing for 50% of our unhoused neighbors currently living outside, and it does nothing to deter the inflow of homelessness. It has nothing about eviction protection or just deeply affordable housing. Generally, it's an empty promise to end homelessness and it grossly sensationalizes our most vulnerable residents for political gain. Crystal Fincher: [00:11:21] Well, and I think you raised some important points - one, looking at really criminalizing the most vulnerable residents - putting them at risk of being swept - and really it's important to think about - when you are unhoused and you are really carrying all of your belongings with you, being swept means someone coming and just taking all of your things, and oftentimes, despite assurances that have happened in the past saying, "Well, we try and spare people's belongings," frequently they do not. So someone who is just trying to cobble together anything that they can, maintain their few possessions, have some kind of sense of continuity and history - we look at all of the things that we keep around our houses and imagine you just trying to keep a few things and someone just deciding one day that they're going to come and remove it all, when you have nowhere else to go and don't have ample time or opportunity to move or to relocate. And as you said, this also doesn't mandate any kind of productive housing. We were actually able to get a lot of data throughout this pandemic as congregate shelter - people just kind of in one room on cots or mats all together - became a public health risk because of the pandemic. And so there was a shift to housing people in hotel rooms. And the difference between being among a bunch of other people who you don't know - concerns about your safety potentially, your belongings, whether or not they're going to be stolen, it not being a place where you can just be, like in your house all day long, you have to clear all your stuff and leave and then come back oftentimes. The difference between the stress and anxiety that causes, and then being able to have a room to yourself, a door that locks, a place where only you have access to your belongings - just that measure of peace and ability to exhale, just removing that really mental health barrier of the burden of not having any privacy, set people up for so much more success and there are much better outcomes. So being that this doesn't even mandate that, "Hey, we're going to make sure that we provide the type of shelter and housing and individual rooms that increases the likelihood for success," seems like that's a big glaring oversight to me. And one of the criticisms is that, "Hey, this was crafted by the people who just want to sweep people." They actually did not include the impacted populations in this group. Sure, they had a couple people from service providers who may stand to profit from this initiative and see revenue result from it, but people who are actually living on the streets - who can provide great feedback on what would actually be helpful, what can actually get people over the hump and into, not just housing, but be stable in their housing - were excluded from this process. And so a lot of what we're seeing that has been helpful in other circumstances is not even included in this. As you look at it, what do you see as some of the major oversights? Tiffani McCoy: [00:14:48] I mean, all of those oversights you just mentioned are critical and point towards the pretty clear fact that this isn't about housing our neighbors. This is not about building housing for folks to have inside. This isn't about stemming the economic impact, which is creating homelessness in the first place - rising rents, wages that are decreasing, the pandemic. This isn't about any of that. This is truly just about buying a law to influence City Council and mayoral races. I mean, the Chamber of Commerce had a stunning defeat - and the Downtown Seattle Association - in the 2019 races, spending millions of dollars to try to influence and they lost most of those seats. So they're doing it in this backdoor way, again, by sensationalizing homelessness for political gain. I also like to think of this as just very clearly, Mayor Jenny Durkan's dream scenario for sweeps. This is how she has moved the City since she has stepped into office. We used to have mostly 72 hour sweeps and now the predominant amount of sweeps are very last minute - no services, no outreach there. You've got to throw your stuff away and just get on with yourself. And I mean, incredibly traumatizing. Sweeps are traumatizing all the time, no matter what, no matter if you have 72 hours, if you have a week, two weeks. It's the City, it's the state telling you, "You don't belong here. You need to find somewhere else to go, and we're not going to help to actually stem what brought you into this position in the first place." So it's just overall just smoke and mirrors and it's just so unfortunate and deeply disturbing and gross because we do know what can address this crisis. And instead of being able to focus on that, these corporations and big businesses are still trying to operate like a parallel government in that they get to decide equally with folks that we elect into office how the City should run. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:57] I think a lot of this fundamentally goes down to the - I think there's just "conventional wisdom," which is not tethered to reality - but just that, "Hey, people shouldn't be on the streets and for some reason it is more of a problem for me to see people who are homeless than for people to actually be unhoused. And they just need to go somewhere else and they just need to move somewhere else and it's their fault anyway. They're probably using drugs. They're a source of crime." And I think we really have to grapple with the amount of people who are underneath this impression - sometimes media coverage and what gets sensationalized exacerbates that impression - that homelessness, really when a lot of the interests, especially pro Charter Amendment 29 interests talk about it, they talk about it in terms of a crime problem. As if, one, this is a major or significant source of crime in that people who are unhoused are somehow not victims more often than perpetrators of violence, and some of the most vulnerable people in our society that need protection. But how do you address to people that, "Hey, just step back for a second - just criminalizing this. Here is why throwing someone in jail if they're in a tent on a sidewalk doesn't work?" How do you talk about that? Tiffani McCoy: [00:18:35] That gets into a lot of the framing that Charter Amendment 29 is using around this. They always highlight one of the first couple things is one, that this is about us getting people off the streets, and then the second and third thing is usually about, we need more mental health service and addiction treatment. So they are perpetuating the myth that the vast majority of people are living outside because of a drug and alcohol problem and mental health problem. And we know that's not the case. In fact, just this last week, Marc Dones was interviewed by PubliCola. Sorry, I'm in the office so there's a phone ringing in the background. But Marc Dones, who's the new head of the Regional Homelessness Authority, just said that it's really about 15 to 20% of those living outside have severe behavioral health or substance use issues. The vast majority of folks experiencing homelessness can't afford to get into housing. He says it is an economic issue and not at all because of - that the main driver is not drug and alcohol issue, as Charter Amendment 29 backers would have you believe. So, in the face of all of this evidence, we know again the political impetus for Charter Amendment 29 is about sensationalizing those things that you mentioned about people not wanting to see visible poverty, about people seeing mental health issues happening in public when they're walking to get coffee or to lunch. It's not about a humane approach and look at how our economic system is failing humans. It's about, "You are a bother to my eyes. I don't want to see it. Let's sweep you off to somewhere else." So we need to get back into realizing and absorbing and embracing that this is an economic issue through and through - not just even in Seattle - nationwide. We don't have housing as a human right. We don't allow housing to meet your needs based on your income. It's just like a completely gross upside down system and until we start to truly realize that this is an economic issue, that rent is too high, that we don't have deeply affordable housing - at the end of the day the question is, who gets to decide who lives in Seattle? That's what I would say to that person. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:01] I think those are all excellent points and I do think that we have work to do and that we need to hold more of our media accountable in the wider ecosystem. There's been a lot of excellent reporting on this from some of our local papers and local media outlets, but there's also been some problematic local reporting. And so we really have to, I think, call out when there are obviously misleading, obviously non fact based, non data based narratives that frequently make homeless people increasing targets of violence and absolutely stigmatize it. Because to your point, and there was just another study that came out - I think it was this past week - that yes, homelessness is an economic problem. More people are homeless because they cannot afford to pay for a place to live than any other problem. And in fact, being homeless exacerbates all of the other problems. So allowing people to become homeless actually makes all of the other problems worse. It's not that those other problems start and then homelessness suddenly spontaneously erupts. This is a problem of affordability fundamentally and prioritization of making sure everyone does have a home and that this is accessible to live in. So I guess one of the biggest issues to me is that I think there is a considerable - polling continuously reinforces that there is a huge percentage of the population who, I think, a lot of times feel like, "Hey, I don't know what the ultimate decision is to fix this. There have been a lot of people trying for years. I've heard it talked about for years. It's been declared an emergency and only got worse. And I hear this bickering about it. And it seems like no one who's been elected whose job it has been to fix this has been up to the task of getting this fixed, so at least this is something because what's the alternative?" So when you hear that, and what's the alternative - what should be happening for people sick of seeing nothing happening - what should be happening? What is possible? What can be done in the short term to make a big impact? Tiffani McCoy: [00:23:34] Yeah, I want to go back to that media accountability, because I think it's key. We have to, as a society, move past this idea of respectability politics and call it out as we see it. We're in a climate crisis. I have a young daughter who's two. I'm terrified for the next generations and myself, all of us, for what's going to happen. There are massive things that we should be focusing on instead of me fighting a bunch of rich people who want to influence city politics by buying a law. That's what I'd like to do, but back to the media - we have to hold them accountable. The Seattle Times is playing a really, really egregious role in not being objective whatsoever in this. They very much want this to pass. They make that super clear in all their writing. They aren't publishing any op-eds that shows, like the House Our Neighbors Coalition who's fighting to defeat this Charter Amendment. They're not running any op-eds from anyone in the community and we've had several people send in. They're not going to run that, just not at all going to give that viewpoint. We also need to hold the people that are in power accountable, like truly, truly accountable. If you look at the mailers that are going out for City Council races - one of these mailers by Jessyn Farrell shows the list of neighborhoods that are going to be the priority for encampments should she become mayor. That is a very clear dog whistle and violent actually. And it's a dog whistle that everyone- Crystal Fincher: [00:25:11] Wait, she released a sweep priority list? Is that what you're saying? Tiffani McCoy: [00:25:14] I'm going to show you it. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:15] Okay, so we can see each other on video on this podcast. So... Oh, look at that. There's a whole map. Tiffani McCoy: [00:25:25] These are the priorities. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:28] I am looking at this. It does exist. And so looking at Jefferson Park, Lake City Park, Occidental Square, Haller Lake, Ballard Commons, North Aurora, any public school property with unsheltered people. What that tells me is that, once again, although they seem to be bending over backwards to avoid talking about the one thing that this actually does that's new or significantly different, and that is codify sweeps in the City Charter, which is basically the city constitution - which I continually, and we're deep into this podcast now, but I also have to say is against King County Public Health guidance in the middle of a pandemic and against CDC guidance in a pandemic as being very unhealthy and likely to spread the virus doing sweeps. And we see this determination to not just move forward, but to make it impossible for anyone to keep people from being able to sweep and to basically enact a criminalized or just basically razing people's abodes. So we have a challenge here, but I guess I'll go back to the question. For someone who's saying, "I am so fed up with this problem being this problem, and it's not my job to fix it. Elected people haven't fixed it. This seems like it may do something new to address the problem." What are the alternatives? What should people be pushing for? What do we know works? What can be done in the short term to make a significant impact? Tiffani McCoy: [00:27:17] I'm glad that we were able to go back to that. Thank you for going on that tangent of that dog whistle to all of those neighborhoods, "I will be there for you to make sure you don't see visible poverty." That's across many different candidates. You can tell which ones have adopted Charter Amendment 29 language and are putting it in their mailers. But to what can happen now - I think that we just do have to take a step back and look at how disastrous this mayor has been for this crisis and for, I mean, lots of things, but let's just stick to this crisis. She has left time and time again money on the table from the federal government to bring people inside. She decided not to take up FEMA money to put folks inside and COVID-19 money to put folks into hotels. She's just left millions of dollars on the table and folks, I encourage you, if you want to read more about that to just Google anything about Seattle and COVID money being left on the table. So that could have put hundreds of our unsheltered neighbors inside, into a room of their own, where they have that agency and safety. So we just didn't take that money that would be basically no strings attached from the federal government. What also can be done right now is folks can, especially if they're in the business community, demand that the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association drop the litigation against the JumpStart progressive revenue because that will put into the hopper thousands of units. We also just need to look at zoning, just have to be very real about it. There's a recent racial equity toolkit analysis that came out on, I can't remember the name of it, The Urban Village Strategy. Not only is it showing the deep racist roots of so many in the city of Seattle, but how it makes it impossible to solve the housing crisis because of all of the single family zoning. So we have to look at that. That is starting to happen immediately at the City Council, so getting involved in those fights to make sure that we change zoning so that we are able to... Sorry, a phone is going on in the background. So that we're able to actually create density and affordable housing across the whole city and not just have these very white dominant spaces that are protected. I would also say, RV safe lots. Real Change fought for some of the federal money that just came through for RV safe lots. We have about 1,500-2,000 folks living in their vehicle and we just always forget them. We don't do anything to meet their needs. So we need to like massively expand those. We did win some funding through the federal money that came down. There is a second round, so Real Change is going to keep fighting for that, so stay tuned. We need to get like thousands of those. We need to start talking in the thousands, not the hundreds or the dozens of units. And then I would say investing in housing first. I mean, we'll see what House Our Neighbors becomes after November 3rd, but those are a couple of things to plug into now. But I also recommend folks look at the House Our Neighbors Twitter because we are actively plugging people into fights that will make a difference right now. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:21] Perfect. So where can they find you? What is the House Our Neighbors Twitter? Tiffani McCoy: [00:30:27] I think it's just house and then the letter R... Yeah, it's @houseRneighbors, and neighbors is spelled out, on Twitter. Same with Facebook. Our website is houseourneighbors.org, but the our is spelled out. And yeah, we're on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Get involved. We've been tabling for a couple of weeks now. We also did some decline to sign petitions and we had people actually remove their signatures as well, because just going back to something you said Crystal, this is a slick PR campaign. They have millions of dollars behind them. They paid $180,000 to get signatures collected and when people are starting to learn about the disingenuous nature of this and who's backing it, they reached out to us to remove their signature. And one woman was crying and not to like politicize this, but she just felt ashamed that she was duped, as she says, by this. But we do want to solve this crisis as a community - you're completely right - it's just this is not the way to do it and it would actually cause a lot more harm and, as you said, it would cost way more money. Crystal Fincher: [00:31:37] I mean, this seems like it's going the way of several other issues - whether it's how we address substance use disorder and substance use, to how we just address issues of general affordability in society and workers' rights. There are very well-funded efforts afoot to keep things the way that they are and the way that they are has been harmful. And the attempt to move in a more positive way, which in this situation is not throwing people into jail or throwing away all of their belongings and just telling them to move somewhere else. That actually does nothing to address the issue, the fundamental problem, which is that that person does not have a place of their own to stay. For most people, the reason why is because they can't afford it. That is the primary reason. Nothing else is more of a cause. And that this population is more at risk of being victimized and harmed, not more likely to do harming or to be victimizing others. And so to prioritize taking care of people who need a home, and as you said, there is no substitute. We have to build places for people to live. There are not enough places. There are not enough affordable places. We have to address all of that. There's encouraging conversations happening within the mayoral race right now and City Council races. Certainly, there are candidates like Bruce Harrell and Jessyn Farrell and Casey Sixkiller who are supporting Charter Amendment 29. But there's a lot who aren't. Basically, the rest are not. And so those conversations and really giving the investments that are being made, like you said, even the JumpStart tax that was just passed with investments there, there is actually action being taken. I think part of the issue is some of the stuff that is taken and that we are seeing is working is very contrary to the narrative that has been set out by some of the hard line interests that we've seen come out of downtown from the DSA and the Chamber. So, part of the answer I think is to see the investments that are now being made through, to see now that the Regional Homeless Authority has a leader and direction for that work to be done and to continue with the work of building homes for people and addressing affordability. There really is no other sustainable solution. So thank you so much for joining us today. And again, if anyone has any questions, wants to get involved, we'll put all of this information in our show notes and they can reach out to you again on the House Our Neighbors Twitter or Facebook or website, I assume, and reach out to you there. So thanks so much, Tiffani, for joining us today. Tiffani McCoy: [00:34:47] Thank you Crystal. I appreciate the opportunity. Crystal Fincher: [00:34:47] Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks 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. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Today Crystal is joined by Amy Sundberg, author of Notes from the Emerald City, and Dr. Shannon Cheng, Chair of People Power Washington to talk about public safety policy in Seattle and King County. Amy gets into the serious issues present in Seattle's Office of Police Accountability (OPA), failing so spectacularly that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said that the process “cannot be remedied.” Shannon follows up with updates about King County's appointment of a new Director of the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight (OLEO), the continued wait by the families of police shooting victims for inquests into their deaths. They also discuss the People Power Washington Voter Guide that details where Seattle and King County candidates stand on public safety issues.  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal on Twitter at @finchfrii. Subscribe to Notes from the Emerald City here, and follow Amy on Twitter at @amysundberg. Read People Power Washington's voter guide here, and find Shannon at @drbestturtle on Twitter.   Resources Notes from the Emerald City - newsletter on Seattle government and policy: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/amysundberg People Power Washington - 2021 Voter Guide: https://www.wethepeoplepower.org/voter-guide-2021 “Investigation calls for firing 2 Seattle police officers over insurrection” by David Kroman from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/07/investigation-calls-firing-2-seattle-police-officers-over-insurrection “Councilmember Herbold on OPA Findings Surrounding SPD Officers' Attendance of January 6 Insurrection” from the Council Connection: https://council.seattle.gov/2021/07/08/councilmember-herbold-on-opa-findings-surrounding-spd-officers-attendance-of-january-6-insurrection/ “OIG Memo Reveals Serious ‘Deficiencies' in OPA Protest Investigation That ‘Cannot Be Remedied'” by Carolyn Bick from the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/30/oig-memo-reveals-serious-deficiencies-in-opa-protest-investigation-that-cannot-be-remedied/ “OIG Partial Certification Memos Raise More Concerns Over OPA Investigations” by Carolyn Bick from the South Seattle Emerald: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/07/13/oig-partial-certification-memos-raise-more-concerns-over-opa-investigations/ Information on the King County Public Safety Advisory Committee from KingCounty.gov: https://kingcounty.gov/elected/executive/constantine/initiatives/public-safety-advisory-committee.aspx Interviews with final candidates for the Director of the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight from KingCounty.gov: https://kingcounty.gov/independent/law-enforcement-oversight/DirectorOLEO.aspx Information on the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight (OLEO) from KingCounty.gov: https://kingcounty.gov/independent/law-enforcement-oversight.aspx “Families of people killed by police are left without answers while King County's inquests are stalled” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/families-of-people-killed-by-police-are-left-without-answers-while-king-countys-inquests-are-stalled/ “Washington Supreme Court reinstates King County inquest system that expands inquiry into police-caused deaths” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-supreme-court-reinstates-king-county-inquest-system-that-expands-inquiry-into-police-caused-deaths/   Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. So today I'm excited to have two people who are not new to Hacks & Wonks joining me - Amy Sundberg, who is an activist with People Power Washington, she writes Notes From the Emerald City - excellent newsletter - you should subscribe. And she has always done just extremely useful live-tweet threads of Seattle City meetings and hearings. So if you want to know what is happening in the City of Seattle that oftentimes gets lost in the filter of reporting - you can only say so much in a story - and really figure out where every Councilmember is at, what everyone has said, and what is happening in the City, Amy Sundberg is an essential follow on Twitter and an essential newsletter subscription. And also with us is Dr. Shannon Cheng, Chair of People Power Washington, and works with me at Fincher Consulting - who is just a powerhouse when it comes to everything public safety and accountability. And definitely wanted to talk with you both about what is happening in the world of public safety in Seattle and King County, because we're getting close to an election where a number of the candidates have different stances on different issues. I want to make sure that we can review where everyone is at, understand what's happening, and what's going to be on the agenda for people facing election, and just understand how we can interact with the process. So thank you both, Amy and Shannon, for joining me. Amy Sundberg: [00:02:28] It's great to be here. Crystal Fincher: [00:02:29] So there is a lot that has happened since we spoke to you both last, and I guess we can kind of cover it all. I suppose I'll start with the findings on the insurrection and where that stands. We've talked a little bit about that on the show, but can you recap what was found with regard to Seattle Police Department officers found to be in DC at the insurrection, and what Councilmembers and electeds have said about it? Amy Sundberg: [00:03:01] Sure. So as far as we know, there were six SPD officers who were present in Washington DC on the day of the insurrection. That's as far as we know - so there could be more, but six we know of. And so they were the subject of the OPA's investigation. And what the OPA found was that two of those six officers definitely trespassed and definitely witnessed illegal activities. And they discovered that through shared video from the FBI. My understanding is that Director Myerberg hasn't yet seen the video, but he's seen stills from the video that firmly place these two officers at a place and time where it was clear that they couldn't have not known what was happening. Three officers were exonerated - it looks like they attended the rally and then left and didn't participate in the insurrection. And then one officer - there's inconclusive evidence. Basically they don't have solid evidence that places him in a place where he would have been doing something illegal, but we're not really sure what was happening with him. So, it also appears that the two officers who were definitely involved in illegal activity lied about it during the OPA investigation, which by itself is an offense that can lead to termination of employment. But right now we're waiting for - there's a hearing with Interim Chief Diaz on August 5th, when he'll decide what to do about the case. Termination has been suggested by the OPA, I will say. Crystal Fincher: [00:04:59] Well, and the Chief had previously said that he would fire anyone who was found to be participating in the insurrection. So certainly would expect to see his decision to be consistent with that. They do have the opportunity to basically appeal and go to arbitration - is that correct - if they are fired? Amy Sundberg: [00:05:19] Yes, that is correct. Director Myerberg has said that he is confident he has a strong case that would hold up under an appeal, but of course we'll have to wait and see what happens. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:32] We'll have to wait and see what happens. That process doesn't always turn out as it seems it should. What have Councilmembers said about it, and where do they stand on the issue of whether the officers should be fired or not? Amy Sundberg: [00:05:46] Well, Council President and mayoral candidate, Lorena González - she has said that the two officers should definitely be terminated. And then she thinks that all six of them should be disciplined in some way, although she doesn't go into details about that. Councilmember Herbold, who is the Chair of Public Safety, has a little bit of a stronger take. She thinks they should all be fired - potentially, at least. Her take on it is interesting. She wants to try to look and see if the officers knew before they were traveling to DC that this insurrection was going to take place - if they were aware of the threats of violence and overthrow that were kind of flying around the internet around that time. Because if they were aware, that's a different matter than if they just went to a rally. So there's a lot of question as to what is protected speech and what isn't, especially in the case of a police officer. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:58] That certainly is curious. We've talked about it here on this program before - to me, just the fact that you are attending an event - flying across the country to attend an event called Stop the Steal, whose premise is that the election has been stolen from predominantly people of color in predominantly areas with large Black populations, when the rest of us could see that there was violent talk leading up to the insurrection. Seems curious that just attending that doesn't seem to be a glaring, concerning piece of conduct in and of itself that would make me question if those officers are treating members of the public fairly and what feedback from their interactions has been. So we will see what happens with that. There's a lot to be talked about in terms of discipline and accountability investigations and there has been a lot that has been uncovered about that process. Can you brief us on what happened with the OIG and OPA? Amy Sundberg: [00:08:14] Yeah, sure. So the OIG certifies each of the OPA's investigations, and then they sometimes do partial certifications. And in that case, there's a memo attached that the public can access and read. And I will say that 96% of OPA cases, the OIG gives a full certification and they say this is fine, this is great. And 4% of the cases they disagree with something that happened with an investigation. But we're, I think, very lucky in that we have a journalist Carolyn Bick working at the South Seattle Emerald, and they have been really digging in to some of these partial certifications of the OIG for these OPA investigations, some of which have to do with protest cases from the last year. And that really gives us insight into where these investigations can go wrong and how the accountability system in Seattle is working in practice.  So I think one great example of this is the SPOG headquarters protest, which happened on September 7th of last year, 2020. So the OIG certifies based on timeliness, objectiveness, and thoroughness. And so if it's a partial certification, that means that not all three of those will be certified. So in this particular case, the investigation was found to be neither objective nor thorough. So there's two out of three that they did not hit the mark on.  So I don't know if you remember this protest, but it was when a bunch of protesters went to the SPOG headquarters. It was a peaceful protest. And then, from a lot of bystanders' accounts, suddenly some police on bicycles arrived and things got hairy - there were blast balls, pepper spray, a lot of people got arrested. And there were a lot of complaints about this made to the OPA, because it seemed like it was a peaceful protest and that there was no need for that kind of escalation. So this investigation of the OPA was problematic because, I mean, the OIG said, and I'm quoting directly here, "No further investigation is being directed at this time because OIG finds the deficiencies of the investigation with respect to thoroughness and objectivity cannot be remedied," meaning it's such a mess of a case that nothing can be done. So I went through and read through the article enumerating what went on with this investigation. And I made a list of all the issues that the OIG called out about this investigation. And there were eight separate issues. It wasn't like one or two little minor problems - like the entire investigation was kind of flawed from its heart. Basically it looked like the OPA was crafting a case to support a certain narrative - the narrative of the SPD - that they were attempting a targeted arrest of someone who had an incendiary device and that is why the protest got so out of control. However, there was a lot of additional evidence that showed that fairly early on, it became clear that there was in fact no incendiary device. That it was a trash bag. And at a certain point when they were arresting the man with the trash bag, he dropped it or they took it from him or something, but you could see trash falling from the trash bag. So it was very clear at a certain point what it was. But for example, in the investigation, evidence about the fact that the suspect was potentially carrying a trash bag, that there was trash that you could see falling - that was all omitted from the investigation, which is extremely sloppy if nothing else. Like that's the kindest thing you can say - Crystal Fincher: [00:12:56] That's the most generous interpretation, but given the context that this is happening in, I doubt that was an accident. Amy Sundberg: [00:13:03] But also things so egregious - that the sergeant who made that arrest of that man who was maybe holding an incendiary device but wasn't - they didn't interview that sergeant at all during this investigation. There was another named officer who was present and he was also not interviewed. There was no probable cause analysis done to figure out how likely it was trash bag versus incendiary device. There was body camera footage of the man holding the garbage bag and the report said there was no such footage. So the list goes on and on - it doesn't take an experienced investigator to see that this investigation was very deeply flawed. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:04] In fact, it's almost farcical to call it an investigation. This by all accounts appears - and from Seattle's own internal and investigative arm, or from the OIG - that this due diligence that you would find in an investigation was not done, as you just detailed, part of the problem. And it was all helpful to the narrative of the officers.  And the question is really - when we have evidence of so many things that have gone wrong, when the department for things that we've seen with our own eyes on video and other things has admitted, "Yes, there was wrongdoing here," that there actually is not a disagreement on whether things were problematic and have said, "Yeah, there's been issues before." So when there's reason to question different accounts of things that happen and someone makes a complaint where there's lots of independent witnesses and in fact complaints made to spur an investigation that this didn't appear to be right, the body that is supposed to be the arm of accountability that is set up to say, "We're going to be the ones investigating whether something wrong happened or not," just seemed to be there to rubber stamp whatever the officers say - just seems like it continues to reinforce - this is actually something that we can't reform, that tinkering around the edges is not going to fix this. As we hear a siren going on outside at the same time - that nothing, that we can't fix this. We actually have to completely rebuild, reframe, and reconstitute this in a completely different construction - that we can't rehab this. That investigation was so mixed up and so messed up, it couldn't be fixed. What else is going on in all of the other investigations? What shot do we have at actually addressing these issues if we don't get to the root of this? Amy Sundberg: [00:16:18] Yeah. It definitely undermines the credibility of our accountability arm - that, I think, the City of Seattle has kind of patted it itself on the back for having this model of accountability and I've heard Director Myerberg pat us on the back for that as well. But it has some pretty deep flaws.  Crystal Fincher: [00:16:43] Irreparable flaws, it would seem, in my opinion. We will certainly see what the response is. The City, like with so many things, seems to be either taking issue or ignoring it from what I've seen. Have you seen any other response from the City on this report and what needs to be done to fix this? Amy Sundberg: [00:17:06] No, I haven't seen anything official, or unofficial for that matter. I don't think enough people are talking about it. So, it's good that we're talking about it now. Crystal Fincher: [00:17:18] Yes. Well, I also want to talk about King County and what is happening with the Sheriff's department - including in this process of going from and implementing the changes that were voted on with the changes in Charter Amendments, including finding some new personnel and moving forward with the appointment of a Sheriff and no longer electing a Sheriff. So where does this whole process stand now?  Shannon Cheng: [00:17:50] Yeah, thanks Crystal, for bringing up King County, because I think sometimes there's so much happening in Seattle that we can kind of overlook that we also have a County level Sheriff's office that has also had its own problems with accountability and transparency. So as you mentioned, last year in November, the County overwhelmingly supported Charter Amendments 1, 4, 5, and 6, which were about public safety and policing. Charter Amendment 5 was changing the Sheriff's position from elected to appointed and so they are currently in the process. They put together an advisory committee with representation from across the County and from different groups - to put together a set of values that they should be looking for in the next Sheriff. So that committee is currently meeting and I think they're trying to set up ways to gather community input. It sounds like the County Council is also doing their own process of figuring out how to get community input, as well as the County Executive, who is doing his own third branch of getting community input. So it's not clear yet that they are ready and prepared to take all the community input, but when they get around to it, it sounds like there should be a lot of different avenues because there's at least three different branches of people trying to work on that.  And so initially they were trying to rush the appointment and try to do it, I think, before the end of the year, but the timeline has just been super tight. And so in order to get back everybody's input into what we should be looking for in the next Sheriff, and then be able to do a nationwide search - it doesn't look like it's going to happen before the end of the year. So this will probably happen sometime in 2022, which will also be potentially when we might have a new County Executive and new County Councilmembers who would have input into that situation. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:55] And what have the stances of the County Councilmembers been in terms of what they're looking for and what this process is going to be? Shannon Cheng: [00:20:04] I don't know if that's entirely clear yet. I think a lot of focus has been being put into setting up the process and not so much yet talking about the end result of the process. So Councilmember Zahilay chairs the Law and Justice Committee, and so they put together the ordinance that established this community committee that is going to be informing the process. And so I don't know yet that there has been statements from them of what they are looking for. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:40] Okay, so in addition to a new Sheriff, we're also going to be, at the County level, hiring a new Office of Law Enforcement Oversight head. Where is that process? And, I guess, how is that playing out? Shannon Cheng: [00:20:56] Yeah. So this is happening right now. So what happened is last year the previous director of the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight did not get reconfirmed by the County Council, so they started a search for a new one. And what happened is they are now at the point where they've chosen two finalists. And last - well, so we're recording this on July 21st - by the time this airs, it will have been two weeks since they held some community meetings where the community had an opportunity to come out and meet both finalists, ask them questions, learn kind of what their history is, where they stand, what kind of vision they have for what they would do if they were chosen to be the new director. And so, County Council was supposed to select the finalist on July 20th, a Tuesday, but then something happened in that meeting and they decided to punt the decision for a week and put it to the Full Council. Which was kind of confusing to me because all of the Council is on the committee that was trying to make that decision, so basically they were just trying to buy themselves more time. So now I think that the day that this episode is planned to air is the day that the County Council will be voting and selecting one of the two finalists. And so this is important - because at the Seattle level, we just heard from Amy just how dysfunctional our supposed model accountability system is. And we've had similar issues at the County level. So the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight - its goal is to represent the interests of the public in its efforts to hold the King County Sheriff's Office accountable for providing fair and just police services. And many listeners may have heard of cases such as Tommy Le, who was killed in Burien, and then there appeared to be somewhat of a coverup around that. And so the role of OLEO is to do independent investigations into these egregious things that happen within the Sheriff's office. But similar to Seattle, the OLEO doesn't necessarily have the right powers, or teeth, or authority to be able to actually hold officers accountable. So for example, they don't have full subpoena power. They can make recommendations but there's nothing that says that those recommendations need to be acted upon or followed through on. And so this is something that with the Charter Amendment last year and then earlier in 2015, we've been trying to give OLEO more power, but there's been a huge pushback from the Sheriff's office to give it to them. Crystal Fincher: [00:23:51] So I guess, are we walking into another situation with this, where regardless of who the head is, if they don't have any teeth, what is it going to accomplish? And I guess looking at different levers of accountability, whether it's OLEO or even the inquest process, what shot do we have? Where does the inquest process stand? Shannon Cheng: [00:24:18] Yeah, so the inquest process is another one of these places where it sounds like a place where we would be able to achieve accountability, but then when you dig deeper you find out that the whole process has been undermined to the point that it's just kind of in name only. So the King County inquest process is meant - so this covers any officer-involved shooting in King County, whether it's by the King County Sheriff's Office, or within a contract city that the King County Sheriff's Office runs, or within Seattle Police Department, or any other municipal police department such as Auburn, Kent, Federal Way - these cities all have their own police department. So whenever any death occurs at the hands of officers within King County, then there is supposed to be an inquest process. And so the inquest is a fact-finding hearing where we learn sort of what happened in that case, but it has no - again, similar to OLEO - anything that comes out of the inquest, there isn't an official process by which any recommendations need to be implemented. And so what happened was a couple years ago, Executive Constantine, kind of at the request of some families who felt like the process was very unfair, tried to implement some reforms. So some of these were things like - trying to make it not as lopsided towards the officer. For example, it was trying to provide the families legal representation that was paid for by the County. The County pays for the officers to have legal representation, but they weren't supporting the families of the loved ones. So things like that. So what happened is he established these reforms with the Executive Order, and then the King County Sheriff's Office, the City of Seattle, Cities of Renton, Federal Way, Auburn, I believe - they all sued to say that these reforms were not allowable and they didn't like them. And then at the same time, families of loved ones who had died also sued because they felt like the inquest reforms had not gone far enough. And so what this caused was just this stalemate where there's, I think, now a backlog of 40 cases. These are 40 individuals who have died at the hands of law enforcement in King County and their families have not had the opportunity to have an inquest, to kind of get any kind of closure as to what happened to their loved one. And because this is all held up in court, or was held up in court, none of those could proceed. But so, an amazing thing did happen, which is that the Washington State Supreme Court issued a decision that not only allowed the inquest reforms to move forward, but it actually added something that makes them stronger. So initially what the inquest is trying to find out is kind of more about like the facts of what happened, that kind of thing. But what the Supreme Court said was that they should also look into whether the act of the officer killing the person was criminal in nature. And so this is important because if this finding came out - again, the inquest process on its own doesn't force any kind of accountability to happen, but you could see that if a finding came out about a case where they said, "Yes, the officer acted criminally," then that would pave the way for a prosecutor - perhaps the King County Prosecutor, perhaps the Attorney General of Washington - to file criminal charges against the officers and hopefully achieve accountability in that way. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:02] Well, it seems like we just have a continuing mountain to climb when it comes to accountability - and we get good news, and some legislation gets passed, and there's a new process or office. And then we get news like we did from the Office of the Inspector General saying that OPA is toothless and just rubber stamping was happening. So we will continue to keep our eyes on this.  I especially wanted to talk about this now because there's a lot going on in the world of public safety in Seattle and King County. We have the city-wide elections for everything from the Seattle City Attorney, which is critical in these types of decisions and what is defended and not defended - just the stance on public safety and accountability is for people and SPD - in addition to the mayor and the Council who are setting policy at a City level. You are with People Power Washington, and you actually are trying to inform voters because of this also. What have you guys put together? Shannon Cheng: [00:29:21] Yeah. So if you have felt frustrated listening to the first part of this show - at how either incompetent or inept everything sounds - you should be angry, and then you should realize that you have power to do something about it. So we have local elections happening this year that are critical to how we move forward in the next four years. The people who we elect are going to get to do things such as select new heads of law enforcement. So in Seattle, we're going to get a new police chief. In King County, we're getting a new sheriff.  They are also going to be influencing the process by which we negotiate the collective bargaining agreements with our law enforcement guilds and associations. So much of what has stood in the way of accountability - the OPA not having the teeth to be able to do anything, or OLEO not being actually respected as an independent oversight body - is because of the collective bargaining agreements that we have with either the Seattle Police Officers Guild, SPOG, or the King County Police Officers Guild. And so both of these contracts, I think SPOG's is already expired and up for renegotiation and I think the King County Guild's contract is expiring soon. So how the next set of agreements with those guilds gets negotiated will determine whether we are able to oversight bodies that can actually give us true accountability, by which I mean something that is robust, transparent, and that the community can actually trust. It's not just going through an exercise of we did something and then it turns out that Amy can find out there were eight different things wrong with what was done, right? That does not foster trust in the system and so that's what we need.  And the last thing is just - all these electeds are going to get a say in what our budgets and what our priorities and values are in our communities. We're going to be tackling the economic recovery from the pandemic, trying to address systemic racism in all of our public safety solutions and the criminal legal system. How are we going to deal with homelessness and the climate crisis? Are we going to pick people who are going to act in ways that are equitable to everybody and reduce harm? Or are we going to stick with people who just want to do status quo and like incrementalism? The clock is ticking and we need to act decisively. So I just really encourage - So to finally answer your question, Crystal, is that our group has put together a voter guide about these issues that surround specifically policing and public safety. So we drafted questionnaires about these issues that matter at the City of Seattle and the King County levels. We also did one for the City of Burien. And we sent them to everybody who's in the primary and got answers back, and so we've put together a guide. You can see it on our website - it's wethepeoplepower.org, and then it should be pretty easy to find the voter guide from there. And yeah, you can see the full answers of what candidates said about the questions we asked about these issues, such as the accountability ordinance, the inquests - all of that is up there. I encourage people to look at them and read the answers that people actually wrote back. They're in long form and I think, yeah, we can hopefully get a more nuanced view of how candidates would approach these problems. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:57] Absolutely helpful. Sometimes it's hard to get a lot of that information all in one place. There has been so much that's happened over such a long period of time, and some of the stuff that candidates have done have been very visible. Some of them are elected and we can see what they've done. Other things, even for the electeds, have not been very visible and some people may not know where candidates stand and what their, I guess, long form takes on issues are. Sometimes in forums there's only time to give a yes or no answer - it's in the middle of a lightning round - when really understanding their perspective and where they're coming from and how they would answer a question in longer than 30 seconds, especially questions as important as how do we keep our community safe and how do we hold accountable people who really hold people's civil liberties in their hands and should be held to a very high standard. So I appreciate both of you taking the time to come onto the program. Again, this is critical. Again, where can people go to find that information on the People Power website? Shannon Cheng: [00:34:11] Yeah. So our website is wethepeoplepower.org. And I would also like to add that in addition to the candidate questionnaires, we've also written up issue explainers. If you hear the term Consent Decree, or police accountability ordinance, and you don't know what that necessarily means, we've tried to write up easier-to-understand explanations of what those are, so that when you do read about what the candidate said, you hopefully have a little more context for what they're talking about. And the final plug is just - please send us feedback about the guide - we are trying to make this to be helpful for you, the voter, to understand the differences between your candidates, because these decisions are really important. So anything that you think would be more helpful to include, or if the explanation doesn't make sense to you - too short, too long - we would love to hear it. And then the other thing we would love to do is try to expand to other jurisdictions for the general election. So if you live somewhere that's not represented in our voter guide and you passionately care about these issues in your local community, reach out to us and we would love to work with you to try to include it and educate constituents in your own community. Crystal Fincher: [00:35:17] Okay, so if people want to get in contact with you with feedback, or just find out more about you on other platforms, how can they do that? Amy Sundberg: [00:35:26] Well, in addition to our website, you can also reach us on Twitter - it's @PeoplePowerWA. Crystal Fincher: [00:35:32] Thank you very much. I appreciate you spending the time with us today. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks 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. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes.  Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Today Crystal and local political consultant Heather Weiner discuss the record-breaking heatwave we're going to experience this weekend, how we can support our unhoused neighbors through these dangerous heat conditions, Uber paying a historic wage theft settlement, Amazon being taken on by the Teamsters union, developments in the mayoral race, AND the organizers of Capitol Hill Pride submitting a fragility-infused complaint against Taking B(l)ack Pride, resulting in major backlash and several cancelations for Capitol Hill Pride. ALSO: See resources below for locations to cool down this weekend and how you can support our unhoused neighbors in this heat. 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, Heather Weiner, at @hlweinder. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Excessive Heat Warning: Cooling Centers Open Across Seattle https://alert.seattle.gov/2021/06/25/excessive-heat-warning-cooling-centers-open-across-seattle/ Cooling centers in King County: https://kcemergency.com/2021/06/24/cooling-centers-in-king-county/ Find cooling locations, open libraries with air conditioning, and other ways available to cool down here: https://durkan.seattle.gov/2021/06/city-of-seattle-opens-additional-cooling-centers-and-updated-guidance-for-staying-cool-in-extreme-heat%e2%80%af/  “Western heat wave threatens health in vulnerable communities” by Anita Snow: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/western-heat-wave-threatens-health-in-vulnerable-communities/  “City Prepares For Extreme Heat By Opening Cooling Shelters, Finally Getting Around To Fixing Water Fountains” by Carolyn Bick: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/24/city-prepares-for-extreme-heat-by-opening-cooling-shelters-finally-getting-around-to-fixing-water-fountains/  CID Mutual Aid: https://twitter.com/CIDMutualAid/status/1407774391551860739 Transit Riders Union Solidarity Fund: https://data.transitriders.org/forms/tru-solidarity-fund/ “Uber to pay $3.4M in settlement for 15,000 Seattle drivers' unpaid sick leave, back wages” by Mike Lewis: https://www.geekwire.com/2021/uber-pay-3-4m-settlement-seattle-drivers-unpaid-sick-leave-back-wages/  “The Teamsters Want To Unionize Amazon Workers. Here's What That Means” by Andrea Hsu: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/1009213361/the-teamsters-want-to-unionize-amazon-workers-heres-what-that-means  “Amazon employees accuse the company of union-busting after it removes workers from an internal directory” by Jason Del Rey: https://www.vox.com/recode/22348389/amazon-union-phone-tool-warehouse-workers-tier-1-staff-directory  “Meet Seattle's 2021 candidates for mayor” from The Seattle Times: https://projects.seattletimes.com/2021/seattle-mayor-candidates-primary-mayoral-election-guide/  “Homeless Advocates Launch Campaign Against ‘Compassion Seattle' Charter Amendment” by Natalie Bicknell: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/05/28/homeless-advocates-campaign-against-compassion-seattle/  “Seattle Eviction Moratorium Extended As Council Passes More Renter Protections” by Jack Russillo: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/22/seattle-eviction-moratorium-extended-as-council-passes-more-renter-protections/  “BIPOC Pride event gets support after ‘reparations fee' complaint” by Venice Buhain: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/06/bipoc-pride-event-gets-support-after-reparations-fee-complaint  TAKING B(L)ACK PRIDE: https://www.seattlepride.org/events/taking-black-pride    Transcript Full transcript will be added in the next 48 hours.

Today Crystal is joined by candidate for Seattle mayor, Jessyn Farrell. They discuss why she supports the Compassion Seattle charter amendment and how she would uniquely respond to Seattle's affordable housing crisis, how she would go about hiring a new police chief and negotiating the new SPOG contract, the importance of transit in our region, and expanding our idea of green jobs. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Jessyn Farrell, at @jessynfarrell. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources "Homeless Advocates Launch Campaign Against ‘Compassion Seattle' Charter Amendment" by Natalie Bicknell https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/05/28/homeless-advocates-campaign-against-compassion-seattle/   Why we're challenging “Compassion Seattle” https://transitriders.org/blog/2021/05/07/why-were-challenging-compassion-seattle/   "Homeless Advocates Challenge Compassion Seattle Ballot Initiative" by Erica C Barnett https://publicola.com/2021/05/06/homeless-advocates-challenge-compassion-seattle-ballot-measure/   There is no Compassion in Seattle's Proposed Charter Amendment by Kshama Sawant https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/05/21/57559745/there-is-no-compassion-in-compassion-seattles-proposed-charter-amendment   “Mayor Durkan, if you care about public health, stop the sweeps” by Julianna Also, Omid Bagheri Garakani, and Miranda Vargas: https://southseattleemerald.com/2020/05/27/opinion-mayor-durkan-if-you-care-about-public-health-stop-the-sweeps/    “Would Compassion Seattle lead to fewer tents or more? Nobody knows” by Katie Wilson: https://crosscut.com/opinion/2021/05/would-compassion-seattle-lead-fewer-tents-or-more-nobody-knows    “Timeline of Seattle Police Accountability” from ACLU Washington: https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-seattle-police-accountability    “Union negotiations loom over the future of policing in Seattle” by David Kroman: https://crosscut.com/news/2020/10/union-negotiations-loom-over-future-policing-seattle    “Eight big things the Washington State Legislature passed in 2021” by Melissa Santos: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/04/eight-big-things-washington-state-legislature-passed-2021    “Seattle Times sues City of Seattle over Jenny Durkan's missing text messages during protests” by Asia Fields: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-times-sues-city-of-seattle-over-missing-durkan-text-messages/    ‘Major area' of Seattle could forbid most cars under city's new, greener transportation plan” by Michelle Baruchman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattle-releases-goals-to-electrify-transportation-system/    “What Seattle's Permanent Stay Healthy Streets Could Look Like” by Ryan Packer: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/05/07/permanent-stay-healthy-streets/    Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind the scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today we are thrilled to have Jessyn Farrell, who is a candidate for Seattle mayor joining us today. Thank you so much, Jessyn. Jessyn Farrell: [00:00:58] Thank you so much, Crystal. It's really exciting to be here. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:02] Thank you. Exciting to have you. So what caused you to want to jump into this mayor's race and with everything going on in Seattle, say this is the right time for me to step in and lead? Jessyn Farrell: [00:01:13] Yeah, that's a really -- that is the question. And I'll just start by saying, I think this is a real existential moment for this city. Are we going to really become that city of justice and shared prosperity that I think we all hope for in our hearts, or are we going to keep going in this status quo way where we are not able to get in front of our biggest challenges? Whether it's homelessness or truly re-imagining public safety, the affordability crisis. A city needs people. And if people can't afford to live here, that's going to be really hard. Climate change. And then also just the basic city services like being able to fill potholes and fix those high accident locations on Rainier Ave, or deliver sidewalks to those communities like Pinehurst that have always wanted them and have never had them. There's just this real sense that I share that we are just not living up to our potential. And when Seattle is at its best, we are truly showing the rest of the country how to do things. And so I'm running because I believe deeply that we can do that. I think we need a leader that has the chops, that's done this before, but at the same time is not mired in the same old city hall stasis and infighting that we've been stuck in for years. So I'm running because I think I can tackle the job. And again, I just think that we're at this real inflection point for the city and we need to do better. And we can. Crystal Fincher: [00:02:49] So thinking specifically about Durkan's administration, current mayor, Jenny Durkan, what can voters expect to see reverse in terms of her policies? What differences will be most noticeable in a Farrell administration than they saw in the Durkan administration? Jessyn Farrell: [00:03:06] Well, let's start with some of the biggest issues and then we can go down to the more day-to-day issues. We've now been in a crisis around public safety for years. And of course, it was really instantiated and a laser-like focus became put on ourselves in the social justice uprising of a year ago, but we've had literally a year to make progress on transforming public safety. And to me, the core value is that every single person in our community should be able to go about their day-to-day lives and feel safe. And for our Black and Brown friends and neighbors and family members, that too often isn't the case. And I think about Charleena Lyles, for example, who was calling for help and was killed by police. I think about friends who might be hesitant to get in their car because they're fearful of getting pulled over. I also think about the public safety issues. If you're a small business owner, facing theft. If you are facing domestic violence. There are a lot of different ways that people don't feel safe in our community. And we had this opportunity to build a shared vision and that was just a real failure of leadership from the Durkan administration to lay that out and to help get us there. The public wants to do this. It is so clear. And so that's a real key failure and that's something very clearly I would do different, laying out a vision based on some of those things I just said and then really tackling the specifics. Sweating the details really matters. How are we actually going to do crisis response so that people are helped rather than harmed? How are we going to do transportation enforcement? And I should just take out the word enforcement, how are we going to do transportation safety without the enforcement piece that can often be a consequence or having harm be a consequence? So though that's a real particular area, but we can talk about homelessness, we can talk about climate change, and I hope we get a chance to. But I'll stop and let you ask some follow-up. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:14] Well, so you talk about that. You bring up homelessness. There have been a number of excellent forums, one last night, which I hope a number of the viewers also watch and partake, but you had the opportunity to speak alongside other candidates about homelessness in particular and issues such as using FEMA funds and the mayor's office's failure to fully take advantage of those funds, the issue of homelessness sweeps, Compassion Seattle. So I guess I would say starting with that Compassion Seattle initiative, do you support that? Do you not? And looking at the approach that's been taken with sweeps, how do you address just the issue of people immediately on the street and people looking to address that by simply sweeping them, and how do we actually get people into homes? Jessyn Farrell: [00:06:12] And those are really among the core questions of this campaign. So I'll just start with the short answers. I do not support sweeps. They are inhumane and they don't work in terms of helping people move into housing. And the thing that is shocking to me is that we have now been doing sweeps for years and years and years. And again, when I talk about this status quo in City Hall and this inability to really stop doing things that are both harmful and ineffective, that's what I'm talking about around what's compelling me to run and why we need a change in leadership. Now, Compassionate Seattle, I'll just say I support it. I have taken a very close read and it, in my reading, does not mandate sweeps. At the end of the day, it's a little bit of a Rorschach test for the mayor. It is only as good as the next mayor's commitment to helping people get into housing, connecting them with the supportive services, and then finding the funding. That's another place where there is a gap in the Compassionate Seattle initiative, because to really get to that place where we've built the 3,500 units that we need for permanent supportive housing, you have to have new funding. That said, to me, Compassionate Seattle is more of an indictment of the politics around our inability to move forward. For those of you who are transit nerds or were around 15 years ago during the Monorail era when we voted on the Monorail over and over and over again, we turned to the initiatives and the initiative process in this community to bypass failed leadership. We do that at the state level, we do that at the local level. And that to me is what this is about. The thing that Compassionate Seattle does that is positive on the policy side, I talked about a couple of the deficits. So I think it charts a pretty consensus path around what it is that we need to do, which is to say, we need more homes, we need more places for people to be, and we need more permanent supportive housing. And so to me, the question then is what person in this race is best positioned to actually deliver and turn words into action? We don't need another election cycle of empty promises and Seattle process. It's really time to help people get into stable housing because that is what every human deserves. Crystal Fincher: [00:08:46] Well, that's really interesting because I do agree with you in that initiatives are generally a response to a failure in elected leadership and saying, "Hey, our electeds aren't getting it done." We evidently have to put together something to do ourselves. And certainly this administration, Jenny Durkan had laid this out as one of her top priorities. We have an emergency declaration about homelessness and we still seem to be stuck certainly not making the progress that we seem to need to make. You identified some of the major deficits of it. Even with the funding, there are many people and lots of writing that has critiqued it for only being a couple percentage points above the current level of funding that we have. And it's very dicey about the timing of that funding and the mix of housing or the lack of mix of housing that that would then provide. If an initiative like this is a response to failed leadership and you're touting your ability to bring strong leadership, would it be better then to not have to codify these deficits and significant problems, especially amid a lot of the criticism and say, "You know what? We don't need this initiative. We don't need to settle for some of the problems that it has. I can handle this. I'm making this promise that I'm not going to fail you like other prior leaders have failed and I can actually address this in the most beneficial way without those deficits." Why are you choosing to support the initiative instead of maybe taking that route? Jessyn Farrell: [00:10:15] Yeah, I think that there definitely is a critique of is the initiative process the best policy-making tool, right? It's a really blunt instrument. But what I would say is the benefit if this passes, and my sense is that it quite likely will, it creates a very clear consensus around what the policies are that we need to be doing and it codifies them. And we can then stop arguing about, well, is it housing first or is it mental and behavioral health services? Actually, it's both. And we need to be deploying our resources in a way that is the most effective to get people the services and housing they need. So to me, the biggest benefit is the rhetorical benefit of being able to say, "Look, Seattle has a lot of consensus on what it is that we need to do." We can stop arguing about navigation teams, which have been controversial and ineffective. We can stop arguing about, again, that housing versus services discussion. To me, it provides the framing up of the path that we need to go in. And again, the reason I say it's only as good as the next mayor because you still have to do the work of implementing it. You still have to do the work of filling and building on the funding issues and not eviscerating other important City services, whether it's the fire department or parks or -- actually, parks are held harmless I think in the initiative, very cleverly I suppose -- but libraries for example. So again, to me, it provides the rhetorical benefit and it means that we can then move off of the policy debate that we have been spinning in for the last six years and we can dive into the implementation and funding debate, which is where we really need to be putting our time. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:10] I see. And you actually do raise a point in there about needing to implement and actually deliver. That has certainly been an area that has been critiqued in the current administration. And, hey, we're announcing a policy and just the details of that policy and getting it implemented, working alongside the city's partners and vendors and through various departments seems to be consistently yielding troublesome feedback and delays and seeming miscommunications or lack of communication. One element that people have noticed with prior mayors, this one and that I have spoken on also, is the executive position is different fundamentally than a legislative body like the legislature, which you were a part of, or the city council. It is an executive position. The buck stops with you and you're actually in charge of managing the operations of the city and making sure everything gets done. And at the end of the day, people are looking to you. If something doesn't happen, it's on you. How do you, coming from a legislative body, think that you're well-equipped and well-suited to handle an executive position and the management of the city? Jessyn Farrell: [00:13:28] Well, it stems fundamentally from my belief about what politics is. And at its very best, it is the mechanism that allows us to collectively solve our problems through governance. And that the skillset that a mayor has to have is really twofold. It is the political arts that actually really matter, again, because government is about collectively solving problems, at least my belief about progressive, effective government is. And then it absolutely is administrative. And I am a former legislator and we can talk all about that piece because being able to work with the legislative body matters. I have also worked at the executive level in a large agency. I worked at Pierce Transit during the Great Recession where we had the heartbreaking job of having to cut service by 30% because of the sales tax decline. And that was a large agency with a large budget, a unionized workforce. And so I have a real appreciation for the administrative side and how important being a great leader of an organization matters. And to me, it starts from the administrative standpoint. And again, that is not the only skillset that a great mayor needs. You need to be able to run the organization, run the city. You need to be able to work and respond to and iterate with the public because fundamentally the public is your boss. You need to be able to do the work of getting your priorities through the legislative body, the council. So the skillset of a mayor is more complicated than that of a legislator for sure. But I just would say that I do have experience in the large organization front as well as, again, the legislative piece, but also the community engagement and receptivity and, fundamentally, collaboration. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:37] Well, thanks for that. And that certainly is management of a large organization and a complicated organization. Another area that you mentioned you had a difference of approach with the current administration was public safety. It looks like a lot of people are talking about a different approach. One item just kind of on the top of the agenda is the SPOG contract coming up, the police union contract that is being negotiated. And we've been having a lot of conversations about police contracts, about how we need to reimagine and restructure policing. So I guess one general -- what are you looking at in terms of a difference? And specifically, what policies would you look to implement or change? And then in terms of the contract, are you going to draw bright lines in terms of accountability like codifying the 2017 Ordinance in a contract or refuse to sign it if it doesn't? Where do you stand on that? Jessyn Farrell: [00:16:36] Let's start with that because that, to me, was one of the biggest travesties of that 2017 contract. And just to go back to a theme we talked about a little bit again, the public weighed in on police accountability through 940 because the public was angry that the elected officials at the city level in Seattle and other places were not addressing the deep harm that is occurring, particularly in Black communities. And so I just point to that because that's another example of that kind of bypassing elected leadership, but then I just can't... It was just shocking that the mayor would negotiate and the council would approve a contract that undermined those very things the public had weighed in on saying this is something that we care about. So number one, I am committed to not signing a contract that is not codifying and does not -- let me put this in the positive:  I will sign a contract that is building on the good work that the legislature did around accountability, whether it's de-certification or use of force or many of the other things that they worked on. Our city contract has to be building on that and furthering that. So that's something that is really important. And I'll also say that I don't go into a negotiation with SPOG lightly. Public negotiations are really hard. And having a background in negotiation, I have negotiated lots of tough bills. I didn't negotiate a contract at Pierce Transit, but have some experience at that level. So the negotiating skillset actually really matters. Even if the mayor isn't literally at the table, but being able to oversee and be held accountable for that, that really matters. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:44] I just want to clarify real quick, you mentioned the work that the legislature had done. I think you also meant the work that the city council did with the 2017 Ordinance. Is that accurate? Jessyn Farrell: [00:18:53] Yes, it is. Thank you. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:54] Okay. All right, thanks. Jessyn Farrell: [00:18:56] Thank you for clarifying that. Yep. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:59] And then as far as just specific policies you would look at, including how we approach staffing, where do you plan to act in moving forward with SPD? Jessyn Farrell: [00:19:11] So I think that, again, the priorities specifically for me would be - number one, building on, again, what the legislature did around -- and I'm talking about this current, this most recent legislature -- around use of force decertification. I think there's another world around really tightening up our management of overtime. That is something that really drives the budget and that really matters. But then beyond the contract, the contract is really important and having the four corners of that contract reflect our city's values is important. But then the staffing level conversation really has to be driven by our values. And that's why I started out at the beginning of this conversation kind of laying out this idea of what it means to feel safe in this community, because that means that we have to stop doing the things that are making people feel unsafe and we need to continue to do those things that are working. And again, I can be very specific because this is where the details really matter. Crisis response, we do not need armed, uniformed police officers in many, many, many kinds of crises. We need to be working with community-based organizations, we need to be working with a caseworker style model. And there are really great things that are happening on the ground already in Seattle and we need to be scaling those. And we need to be recognizing from a government standpoint that as we are relying and shifting the work of particularly crisis response onto community-based organizations, we need to be partnering with them to build up their own internal capacity. We need to be recognizing that building relationships with -- maybe if we're talking about the homeless population, for example, takes time, and we need to be creating our budgets and accountability mechanisms based on that knowledge. We can't flip a switch and expect suddenly we have trusted relationships. You have to take time to do that. So that's crisis response. And I talked about transportation enforcement and transportation safety. Specifically, what that means - there's disparate enforcement based on your race in this city - jaywalking, transit fare enforcement, bike helmet laws. We need to be looking at other mechanisms to make sure that people are safe. Like getting rid of jaywalking laws, for example -- it doesn't really promote pedestrian safety. So we should be doing other things. Same with speed. Speeding cars in neighborhoods, for example. There's actually a lot of stuff we can do with the built environment to slow down cars, give drivers the signals that they need to be going at a lower speed, whether it's curb bulb-outs, roundabouts, street trees, those kinds of things that remove the need for an armed police officer enforcing speed. Traffic safety cameras, for example. So those details really matter. And those are two areas that I would really focus on in year one, because I think that's where a lot of harm is happening. Crystal Fincher: [00:22:24] Sure. And what's going to be your approach for hiring a new police chief? Jessyn Farrell: [00:22:31] Number one, the first and core value that a new police chief has to have is to be a partner in the project of transforming public safety - and has to embrace that and see the role of the police chief as being someone who is able to build bridges and really be a change leader. And that's hard, right? But there are people who have track records of being able to do that within organizations, who have that skillset. And again, I think that the biggest thing that we need to be doing is to say we have transformed our public safety model in Seattle so that we are prioritizing what it means to truly feel safe. And again, it's that going about your day-to-day lives, but one thing I didn't mention is it is also all of those economic, social, and cultural supports that create a thriving community. And the police chief fundamentally has to see himself or herself or themself as a partner in that. Crystal Fincher: [00:23:37] That makes sense. Are there any litmus tests that you're requiring of the chief or any chief that would serve in your administration? Jessyn Farrell: [00:23:49] That is a good question. Again, I think the litmus test for me is show me that you have done hard things. Show me that you have led an organization from point A to point D. We don't need to just get to point B, say we're doing our reforms and stuff like that. We need to fundamentally get to a place where our police response is not necessarily the first response for every single 911 call, right? That said though, I do want to mention there are things that I think a police response still really matters in. The detective work that goes into things like that spate of catalytic converter theft. That requires a lot of background work, or the work, and this is really important, the Regional Domestic Violence Unit. They are tasked with implementing our Extreme Risk Protection Order law, which takes guns away from abusers. And that requires a lot of work and it's upfront work that's not in the moment of crisis. And that's why I think that's the kind of work that you need to keep. And city council and the mayor cut that unit in the summer in that kind of reflexive moment, again, where we had an opportunity to really say, this is what we mean by public safety and we're going to really build budgets that actually go to that. But we haven't done that in this last year. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:16] I think you raised a good point. I think that there is absolutely a conversation for, especially in the investigative work in trying to stop activity like that. There is certainly a case for that. Part of that question is - did the city council and mayor actually cut it, or did the department say that they were going to have to divert officers away from it, thereby closing those and that becoming part of the conversation and conflict around staffing levels and needing to have patrol cops out. And if staffing drops, then patrol cops take precedence over those other specialized, like elder abuse and domestic violence investigation roles? Jessyn Farrell: [00:25:58] Right. All I can say about that is, "Show us the texts." We really actually need to see how those decisions unfolded so that I can answer that question because that actually matters, right? And then related to that, that gets back to that point to me around the police chief needing to be a true partner in the transformation, and that is hard. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:23] I have to say, I love your response of, "Show us the texts." I was watching a forum when you brought that up again when the deputy mayor, Casey Sixkiller, disputed what had been reported through several investigations and news reports about FEMA funding and whether or not they spent what was available to them in full. And you bring up a relevant point and that so much of accountability and the ability to understand what happened is tied to those texts and information that, for some reason, has been deleted or hidden or is unavailable or whatever. So I just appreciate that. Jessyn Farrell: [00:27:09] Yeah, I just have to underscore that trust in government is a real issue in this city. And part of that is because institutions have not worked for people, particularly Black and Brown communities, low income communities. And can we pause for a moment because my cat is really -- Crystal Fincher: [00:27:31] I am so amused by your cat and the meows in the background, but sure, we can pause. I think it's fine. Jessyn Farrell: [00:27:37] So I just want to talk a little bit about that issue of trust in government and how important it is in this moment because our institutions have simply not worked for a lot of people in our community or have actively harmed them - and particularly Black, Indigenous, communities of color, low-income communities. And so this issue of truth actually really matters because truth is a really core element of trust and it's a really core element of healing. And we're in this moment in this city where we actually need to be talking truthfully about many things, right? Whether it is race or wealth, but also how we are making decisions and how people in power are making decisions. And we shouldn't be afraid of the truth. The truth becomes a mechanism, again, for our ability to solve problems together. And at the end of the day, that to me is what government is really all about. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:39] I agree. Now, we are still in a pandemic. There is light at the end of the tunnel. We are doing, especially compared to the rest of the country, pretty well in Seattle and in King County in terms of vaccination rates. We're looking at a full reopening coming up in around a month it looks like, on June 30th I think is the date that has been targeted. But here in the city, we're still seeing a number of people struggling directly because of the pandemic. There are still many small businesses, the ones that have survived because a lot certainly haven't, struggling and people still looking for work. The service industry certainly has been struggling in several sectors and our arts and cultural communities have been absolutely devastated. I guess one is the question of the JumpStart Tax, which certainly has a lot of relief available for those specific entities and people struggling with housing, especially as we approach the end of the eviction moratorium. So do you support that? And then what is your approach for helping people who are struggling, businesses who are struggling to get back on their feet? Jessyn Farrell: [00:30:01] This to me is a moment where the lack of creativity and willing to be big and bold and try new things is most lacking. And because the crisis is so profound and the small business community is the heart and soul of so many of our neighborhoods, having a city where artists can afford to live and perform and create is another thing that is the soul of our city. So these are real -- like, I started out at the beginning by saying, we're in an existential moment for this city. Those are things that are existential. And we could have come up with solutions that really were able to put money in the pocket -- to help small businesses get through this. Really transform affordable housing. Like we've done the eviction moratorium. That has been the right thing to do, but what are we going to do about the rent debt? What are we going to do about the slow rolling eviction crisis that may start happening? We've had this opportunity to really leapfrog over -- we talk about the pandemic shining a light on all of these societal problems. We have not used this moment to leapfrog over the policy solutions that have been inadequate. And honestly, even the old progressive checklist -- by old, I mean now like a year old -- but the older progressive checklist of what we need to do isn't good enough anymore. And so that to me was just -- this has been a missed opportunity. Now, I was the chair of the governor's Safe Work and Economic Recovery Taskforce and we focused on small businesses. And there were a lot of businesses that were left out of the federal PPP program, particularly Black and Indigenous-owned businesses that did not have traditional banking relationships. So I worked with that group to come up with a $50 million program targeted at those businesses that were left out of PPP, but that $50 million program needs to be $500 million. And again, going forward, we know that the relative capitalized value of Black-owned businesses is so much less than white-owned businesses. The mayor can be taking a really active role in creating access to capital, not necessarily with city dollars, but doing the work to convene and create access to banking relationships, the technical support and expertise, that startup capital. There are just so many things that small businesses want and need. And just like the delivery of city services, it should be really easy to get a business license. You should not have to worry about going out of business because the city's closing your block to fill in a pothole in front of it, right? There are all these street-level issues that the city can be doing much better on. So that's one area I'm really passionate about. And same thing with artists. Artists have really suffered, especially performing artists. And attacking the affordability crisis mattered pre-pandemic and now it really matters because we need to make sure this is a city that artists can live in. Crystal Fincher: [00:33:14] Completely agree there. So do you support the JumpStart Tax? Jessyn Farrell: [00:33:17] Oh, sorry about that. Yeah, I absolutely support the JumpStart Tax - for a couple of reasons, not just because of what it's being spent on, but it really gets at, I think, our shared values of everybody in our city should be participating in helping pay for the high quality services that we all want, right? We all know we have the most upside-down tax code in the country -- although maybe we've now moved down a couple of notches because of the capital gains tax that was passed by the legislature -- but to me, it's just this basic idea that our corporate community, our highest, most wealthiest folks in the community should just be paying into the basic social contract so that we have services that make this a really great city. And to me, that's not controversial. Crystal Fincher: [00:34:06] It certainly shouldn't be controversial in my opinion, but for some reason it is. Jessyn Farrell: [00:34:11] I know. Crystal Fincher: [00:34:12] Well, another thing that I don't think should be controversial is wanting to make sure that people can travel throughout the city even if they don't have a car. And regardless of whether they are walking or biking or driving or some combination, that they can safely and reliably get to where they need to go and get to where they want to go. What are your plans for ensuring that happens? Jessyn Farrell: [00:34:38] Yeah, that is such a great question. And obviously you know my love language is transit and transportation. So I think that the core animating values for me around transportation and mobility are that it's a way to create freedom and agency and access for all of us. For people who may have special needs, for our youngest community members, for our oldest community members, for folks who can't afford to have a car. And then you have the added benefit and urgency of actually having to address climate change. So let's figure out how to help everybody have true mobility while reducing climate emissions at the same time. And so we have a really robust climate plan that really talks about these issues around equity and agency and mobility for everyone on my website, jessynformayor.com, but some of the hallmarks are 100 miles of Stay Healthy Streets. One of the things we found out in the pandemic is that people really like the Stay Healthy Street model. It's been awesome. And we should be vastly expanding them and I think really using a mobility-based model like -- where do people need to get to in their neighborhoods? What does a Stay Healthy route to your park look like? What does a Stay Healthy route to your business district look like to be able to get to a medical appointment? So that you're really focusing on not just like active transportation and being able to remove cars from the environment, but really helping people get to where they need to go. So that's something that is really exciting. Another piece is adding 100 miles of bus lanes and moving into free fares. Crystal Fincher: [00:36:24] Free fares! Jessyn Farrell: [00:36:25] Yeah, free fares. Here's the thing - farebox recovery, to use our transit speak, hey, it funds some of our transit services. There's no doubt about it. But it's a range - on so-called less productive routes, it's 11%. Maybe to the very most productive route, it's in the lower 20s. So it's just to say -- it definitely has a budget impact, but these are dollars that we can figure out how to supplant. And the benefits are so profound because we know that you look at the U-Pass model at the UW and what the UW did in the early '90s. They had 70% of people driving alone. They came up with this awesome program called the U-Pass program where they provide a very cheap or free bus pass. They'd contract with Metro and have awesome transit service from all around the region. They'd jack up parking prices and they'd have great walking and biking infrastructure. And lo and behold, their mode shift completely flipped. So in a few years, they had just 30% of people driving onto campus. And that set of policies actually revolutionized transportation in our region and across the country because those are the things that give people great options for getting out of their cars. And part of that is that free transit piece. So that has to be part of our suite of policies. And then it gets at the equity piece, it removes the fare enforcement and the harm and the potential for harm, again, that Black and Brown friends and neighbors and community members may experience. So there's a lot of benefits. Crystal Fincher: [00:38:07] Well, I appreciate it. And I guess, following onto that, that also has the benefit of helping to reduce emissions that are both damaging to climate and also emit harmful pollutants in the air, which also tangibly, demonstrably hurt people. So how are you going to be pushing towards further meeting our climate goals and reducing the harm caused by pollution in our city? Jessyn Farrell: [00:38:38] This is something that I am 100% committed to. We need to achieve Net Zero by 2030. And there are several very specific actions that I would take. Number one, I would hire a deputy mayor who is solely focused on climate and climate justice and is empowered to work across every department, to work with stakeholders, to work with the community, to really craft and help prioritize policies that promote resiliency, that create better health, that actually reduce climate emissions, and that are really focused on cutting family costs. One of the things I know you know so well is that in the broad environmental movement, we often - we, particularly the traditional white environmental movement - don't spend enough time focusing on the cost side of this and how we are really focusing on cutting family costs as we're doing things like designing new transportation improvements, right? And making sure that we're not raising people's costs and creating economic harm as we're trying to solve and get in front of our climate crisis. Crystal Fincher: [00:39:49] Right. Jessyn Farrell: [00:39:49] So that's one thing, having a deputy mayor that is really focused on that. Obviously, all these great transportation things. The affordable housing crisis is also climate crisis. People need to be able to live in the city, live close to where they work, and that is inherently more carbon efficient. And so that's a piece of it. Also the green economy. One of the things that I think is really important is that we expand what we mean by the green economy. I love green infrastructure jobs. They're awesome. But we also need to be thinking about all those jobs that are inherently low carbon. What if we looked at caregiving jobs as green jobs and created the same commitment for living wage jobs for caregiving jobs or artists? Creating art is inherently low carbon - I guess, unless you're like doing a performance art piece of burning a field of petroleum, right? But that's not typically what's happening in Seattle as performance art, but it really -- art should also be part of this idea of what a green job is so that we can be building out economic plans that are also prioritizing the economic stability and the ability of people who are in these jobs to thrive. And that's something to me that is also part of the climate conversation. Crystal Fincher: [00:41:07] Well, I agree. I certainly also thank you for taking the time to spend with us today and have an extended conversation about your plans for the City of Seattle. And I hope that as we continue to move forward we have more opportunities to share a dialogue like this. But thanks so much for joining us today. Jessyn Farrell: [00:41:25] Thank you so much. It was a real pleasure. Crystal Fincher: [00:41:31] Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in Hacks & Wonks into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time. 

Today Crystal is joined by Nikkita Oliver: Seattle activist, community organizer, lawyer, educator, and now candidate for Seattle City Council, Position 9. They get in to the transformative change needed to our systems of public health, public safety, and housing, how mutual aid is being incorporated into Nikkita's campaign, and the virtues and challenges of being an outsider in our political system. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Nikkita Oliver, at @Nikkita4Nine. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Nikkita Oliver Focuses on Mutual Aid, Community in Campaign for City Council” by Chamidae Ford: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/03/20/q-a-nikkita-oliver-focuses-on-mutual-aid-community-in-campaign-for-city-council/  “Nikkita Oliver's Vision for Public Safety Goes Way Beyond Defunding the Police” by Nathalie Graham: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/04/20/56698867/nikkita-olivers-vision-for-public-safety-goes-way-beyond-defunding-the-police  “King County's new youth jail and the false promise of ‘zero youth detention'” by Nikkita Oliver: https://crosscut.com/2020/02/king-countys-new-youth-jail-and-false-promise-zero-youth-detention  “Seattle City Counsil passes ‘JumpStart' tax on high salaries paid by big business” by Daniel Beekman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-city-council-passes-new-jumpstart-tax-on-high-salaries-paid-by-big-businesses/  “New laws aim to keep people from losing their homes in Washington” by Melissa Santos: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/05/new-laws-aim-keep-people-losing-their-homes-washington  “Encampment Sweeps Take Away Homless People's Most Important Belongings” by Rick Paulas: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74pay/encampment-sweeps-take-away-homeless-peoples-most-important-belongings  “Timeline of Seattle Police Accountability” from the ACLU of Washington: https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-seattle-police-accountability  “Nearly 200 cops with credibility issues still working in Washington state” by Melissa Santos: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/04/nearly-200-cops-credibility-issues-still-working-washington-state  Learn more about Creative Justice at https://www.creativejusticenw.org/    Transcript

Today Crystal is joined by friend of the show Mike McGinn. They dissect Joe Nguyen's challenging of Dow Constantine for King County Executive, the massive transportation package that squeaked by the legislature at the last minute, its anachronistic focus on building new highways, and how trying to please every interest group means the public's interests get left behind. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Mike McGinn, at @mayormcginn. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Joe Nguyen challenging Dow Constantine for King County executive” by Melissa Santos: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/04/joe-nguyen-challenging-dow-constantine-king-county-executive  “Dow's $100 Million Convention Center Bailout Plan” by Doug Trumm: https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/12/08/dows-100-million-convention-center-bailout-plan/  “Washington House passes carbon-pricing bill with promise of a 5-cent gas tax for transportation projects” by Joseph O'Sullivan: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/washington-house-passes-carbon-pricing-bill-with-a-5-cent-gas-tax-for-transportation-projects/  “‘Forward Washington' Leaves Safety Behind” by Ryan Packer: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/04/19/forward-washington-leaves-safety-behind/  “The legacy of racism built into Northwest highways and roads” by Knute Berger: https://crosscut.com/opinion/2021/04/legacy-racism-built-northwest-highways-and-roads    Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host.  Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host: activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks, the excellent Mike Yeah, McGinn. Mike McGinn: [00:00:51] I'll take excellent. That's pretty darn good. Most days I just feel kind of mediocre. So, you know, Friday afternoon excellent goes a long way. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:59] I think you're pretty excellent. I think you are also a pretty excellent Seattle mayor as people know. Mike McGinn: [00:01:06] Oh, you know, there's a few things I'd do over, but that's a different show. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:12] Well, you know, I think I want to start off the week just by talking about the latest big entrance into the realm of political candidates. Joe Nguyen has announced that he is taking on Dow Constantine for King County Executive. How do you think things started with the rollout there? Mike McGinn: [00:01:33] Well, I think that he has a great reputation and he's developed a lot of support. He - my one experience with him was when I was working with Feet First, a statewide pedestrian advocacy organization. He appeared on a webinar and I was really impressed with Joe then, just his values, and his style, and his approach. I think the big thing on this race to think about is - I think it's an outsider year, Crystal. I don't think this is an insider year. I think it's a year where people don't underst-, you know, people are pent up, they're frustrated around, particularly around issues like homelessness. We even see crime going up, you know. There's just, I think, a general sense that government, local government, isn't competent and that's going to be a real challenge for any incumbent. And this goes for where somebody who's in office or previously held office, and the mayor's race as well.  And so Joe is an elected official, but he's a relatively new one. He's younger, he's coming from outside the system. And I think that's going to be a big challenge for Dow. I think Dow also has the challenge - we were mentioning this earlier. You know, when someone's been in office a long time, and Dow has been in office a long time - the strategy to do that, to not get a serious challenger in a primary or a general, and Dow has not really had a serious challenger since he was elected - is you kind of deliver enough to every major constituency group. Labor, business, environmental - to keep them on the sidelines, so they don't finance a challenger. Now that's a great strategy for staying in office, but it turns out it's a really bad strategy for delivering the types of results that the public can see and appreciate, you know? And it's a strategy that works for awhile - because if nobody's financing a challenger, if there isn't a lot of criticism coming from other people who are driving media of the incumbent, you know, you can end up without a challenger and you can end up in basically a strong position for a long time, but that strategy works until it doesn't. And the point at which it doesn't is when the public decides - you know, time for change, incumbent's not getting it done, there are big problems, and we need a new face to do it. And I think that's where Dow is going to have a lot of - I don't know if Joe's gonna win, but if he doesn't win, he's going to give the incumbent a hell of a scare. So I think there's going to be a really serious race. And that's how this one's going to go down. I think the same dynamics, by the way, or perhaps even more strongly, are in play in the Seattle's mayor's race. If you, if you're attached to the way things have been done, you're going to have - you're facing a headwind. If you're coming in from the outside, you're going to have a better shot. Crystal Fincher: [00:04:34] Yeah, certainly as a challenge, I agree with your assessment and it's really challenging. People right now are more impatient, I think voters are more impatient than we've seen. That there are so many people who are in such close proximity to crisis in one way or another, and feeling pressure and anxiety in one way or another, in multiple ways. And that they're looking at a political system that they feel has not met the mark, they feel is not operated with the urgency that they see problems in their lives demand and that we're facing societally. And so it becomes very hard when people are like - it is time for change and it's actually time to get serious about this change - and all this incrementalism, it's going too slow, it hasn't worked, it's just perpetuating the problems. And it's really hard, from an incumbent's position, to make the case that you are the person to implement the change that people are demanding when you have overseen the status quo for years. And I think Dow ran into that a little bit this week, even in navigating through Joe Nguyen's announcement and being asked about it and, you know - Yes, I'm ready to implement new changes, looking forward to appointing a sheriff, and looking at those things. And people are going, How are you going to lead change when you're the one who's presided over the status quo? How does that work?  Mike McGinn: [00:06:06] You express that more articulately than I did, Crystal. I mean, you really - the point you make, too, about the economic distress that people are facing. So we've got Democratic politicians who say, You know, we really care about inequality. We're going to do something about it. We really care about climate. We're going to do something about it. We really care about the people out on the street. We're going to do something about it. And your point is dead on - you can't credibly claim that when you've been in office a long time and the problems seem to be continuing. And it's harder for executives than legislators - they can always blame the other people in the legislature. But when you're an executive, it's an even harder spot to be in. And again, I think that the dynamic is in part - you say defense of the status quo or presiding over the status quo. That's also wrapped into the strategy that I was saying of - you make sure you give everything to every major constituency group. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:05] Yep. Mike McGinn: [00:07:05] You know, when you do that, you're just not teeing yourself up to really get at root problems in the same way. Because if you did that, you would make, depending on what side of the spectrum you're coming from - from the side of the spectrum I'm coming from, you'd make a bunch of people really mad at you - people with money and power. And if you want to avoid that, then, and not have them finance a challenger, well, you're not going to be looking at the type of taxing policies or regulatory policies that can really get at, or spend spending policies, that can really get at the heart of climate or inequality or racial injustice. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:44] Yeah, I think you're right on. I think we saw an example of that in the past year with Dow Constantine's announcement that he planned on leading a bailout of the convention center, which is, you know, certainly making a lot of moneyed interests and people who would be financing challengers very happy, but the public immediate response to that was very different. It's just like, Whoa, where are we coming up with these hundreds of millions of dollars in the middle of a pandemic with all of these other people in pain? Is that the wisest expenditure right now? Is that the most effective and productive way we can spend this money, when we're trying to prevent people from falling into homelessness and climb out of this pandemic and recover as a community, without leaving folks behind. And that seems to be the question of this recovery. There are a lot of people - we just saw Amazon's record-breaking, eye-popping earnings again. We've seen grocery store earnings, you know, be sky high. The rich are doing just fine throughout this pandemic and the people who've done well - Mike McGinn: [00:08:56] The convention center is - it's not just the bailout of the convention center, right? And of course there are two processes, right? There's a process for if you want to raise money for one thing, it requires extensive public hearings, it may require a public vote. But if it's a process to raise money to bailout the convention center, it just happens. Boom. There it is at the City Council - County Council, excuse me. There are two processes, but it's not just the bailout. The convention center itself is like a $1.7-1.9 billion project that is financed primarily by hotel taxes, taxes on hotels. How do we decide that we should tax hotels to build a convention center instead of say taxing - and that's visitors from out of town - instead of say, taxing hotels and the visitors from out of town to pay, to help with the transit or housing of the people that clean their rooms, clean their bathrooms, and change their sheets. Like why do we put the money there, in the convention center, instead of into this. And that's another great example of - nobody voted on that convention center. It's a special taxing district created by the legislature, with the authority to levy these taxes without any public vote. So we create these systems that can funnel close to $2 billion to this one structure - by the way, it also takes property off the tax rolls for the city of Seattle. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:30] Yes, it does. Mike McGinn: [00:10:31] Right, like that's another aside. You know, the streetscape will be horrible - this big, chunky building. But all of those things are asides to the fact that - we wire the system to deliver benefits for a certain portion of the population, and the portion that already is doing pretty well, and we don't take care of the public. And it can take a while for the public to catch up with that. Because the politicians are out there saying - I care about inequality, I care about climate, I care about racial injustice, I care about service workers. But they're not seeing the results, the public isn't seeing the results. So yeah, Joe's in the race - he's a new guy and he's against Dow Constantine who's been there for 12 years. Yeah. If I'm a betting man, I'd bet on Joe, but who knows how this works? Crystal Fincher: [00:11:19] Who knows how it'll work? I definitely see it being a competitive and lively race. I definitely see this leading a conversation that permeates throughout all races. About, to the point that you just made, who is our policy designed to help? Who is it designed to overlook? Why are we continuing to reinforce existing systems that create and reinforce inequity and inequality? I think it's high time to have conversations about that. I think Joe Nguyen is really eager to have those conversations. Mike McGinn: [00:12:02] He's keen to have that conversation, right? Crystal Fincher: [00:12:04] Yeah. Yeah, and is not afraid, not bashful, not afraid. They certainly have not been shy about going after Dow Constantine on social media and Twitter and being, you know, feisty in the replies, and with a lot of people agreeing. And I think Dow - part of the challenge when you have been a safe politician for quite some time, is that it is not natural to respond to an attack - for politicians and people. And I think they're trying to figure out exactly what their message is going forward. And that's just not as simple and automatic as a lot of people would wish. So I think they're working through that, and certainly Dow has a lot that he can stand on in terms of a record. I think we're going to hear a lot about that. You know, he - it's hard to paint him as bad, but it's hard to paint him as great, and a leader. Mike McGinn: [00:13:06] I would totally agree. It's - one, I'd agree is, it's hard to paint him as bad. I mean, I've worked with Dow Constantine and he's - I know which direction he'd like things to go in. It's just that he's in this position of - he's had his turn. And I think that's a very tough position. And, you know, he's had a good turn. He's had three terms. That's a good long turn to have a shot at things. And in that case, it doesn't have to be personal for the voters to decide they might want to go in a different direction. You know, they don't have to have personal animus towards an incumbent in that situation to want to make a change. I mean, I could - it's not exactly comparable, but Larry Gossett and Girmay. I mean, I admire the hell out of Larry Gossett. The guy is a hero, but the voters can say it's time for someone else to have a turn. And that's - that may be the case here for Dow. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:02] Yeah. And in that situation, I think that it - that race could have turned out very different if there were a different challenger. But there was someone who voters felt comfortable to carry on the legacy that he established and lead in the world that we're living in today with the urgency that's necessary. And I feel like there is a similarity there. Obviously different contexts, but voters, like you said, can make this decision without having to dislike Dow, and can fully respect Dow, and still find themselves making a different decision. Mike McGinn: [00:14:40] Absolutely. Absolutely. There's a little bit of a segue here. There's a little bit of a segue here. We were talking about promises and rhetoric and action. And you promised me we'd talk a little bit about one of my favorite topics - transportation. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:58] Transportation and climate. And geez, how they're such universal topics in everything that we're dealing with. And we just had the end of the legislative session last weekend and they, despite going into the final weekend saying we have no time, we aren't going to be able to pass anything, not a transportation package. Lo and behold, few guys spent the weekend in a room and hammered it out. And what did we get with that transportation package, Mike McGinn? Mike McGinn: [00:15:33] Well, what's amazing is that this isn't even the big transportation package, that one is still promised for the future, right? But in this specific transportation package that they funded, we continue to see the same investment in highway expansion that we've seen before. You know, if you go through what was in the project, we're still going to run State Route 509 through a neighborhood, that if you look at it, is a primarily Black and Brown neighborhood. At the federal level, they're talking about taking money out of - they're talking about investing to remove highways that divided Black and Brown neighborhoods. In the state of Washington, we're about to punch through - 509 - through a neighborhood that's just south of Sea-Tac airport, which is primarily Black and Brown people. So it's been on the books for decades. The highway builders have wanted to finish the highway. And even though we now know about climate change, and the effect of highway building on climate change, even though we know about the effects of pollution on the lungs of the people who live near highways, even though we know about the history of racist siting of highways, we're still gonna do it here because that's been what they've wanted to do forever. And it's - that's not the only one in the package. We're widening 405, we're widening I-5 in stretches, we're widening I-90, we're completing the North Spokane highway, which just supports sprawl as well.  So it's, uh, you know, did I say wider 405? Like it's pretty much a couple of billion dollars, this year, to make highways wider. You know, this is at the same time that Sound Transit is trying to figure out, Where do we find the money, in the recession, to keep our promises to the voters, right? So it's in the same exact time. So we have not really changed direction. And the amount of money in this state transportation bill for active transportation, you know, like walking and biking or transit, remains extremely small in relation to the billions that we see going towards highway expansion. It's not even maintenance. I get it. If you need to repave a road, if you need to take care of a bridge - I mean, we know that the City of Seattle. Yeah, this was also in the news. The City of Seattle has hundreds of millions of dollars of bridge maintenance that they need to do in the coming years. That could all be paid for with state gas tax, as well as bridges across the state. Because state gas tax pays for roadways, whether it's a highway, whether it's a local street, whether it's in a city or town or at the state level. We could take all of that money, put it right into maintenance for cities and towns, reduce the property taxes that have to go to that, so that cities and towns could have more money to support other things, or who knows? Maybe they might reduce taxes, although I wouldn't bet on it. But we could do that. That would be a choice to spend our gas taxes on taking care of what we have, reducing the burden on cities, instead of expanding highways. It's just ridiculous. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:52] Well, it's just so - Mike McGinn: [00:18:53] Sorry, I just got going there, Crystal. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:55] No, I love it. It is spot on. And it is, to your point, ridiculous. It's ridiculous that, as you point out, this is happening while federally, we are finally having conversations that are addressing the reality that we're facing today. The reality that roads are not this benevolent, wonderful, unifying force. We absolutely have to maintain and take care of our existing infrastructure, but we don't have to expand a damaging and dangerous and unhealthy infrastructure. And there is no greater source of pollution than the transportation sector. And so if we are going to make changes, it absolutely has to involve the transportation sector, or else we're just taking one step forward and two steps back.  Which we have done in this legislative session, coming out of Washington. And enabling revenue that comes from attaching a price to carbon, and then enabling that to be used to further enable pollution by creating more roads. We're doing this while we have projections that show that people are not going to be using freeways to the same degree. And that was just hyper-accelerated by the pandemic and people commuting remotely. So fewer people are driving than have ever been before. Lots of people are loving the idea of not returning to a commute. Driving isn't something that - a lot of people have this nostalgic view. It is not that romantic thing for everyone anymore, particularly in our current context, when it just basically equates to a commute, which is not fun or pleasant for anyone.  And more people are looking to live closer to work, or to be able to work from home, to be able to walk to the store and not have to get in your car and drive to enjoy a night out or to go grab a bite to eat. People want to be able to live, work, and play in their own neighborhoods and communities. And that's actually a healthier way to develop communities and a healthier way to live. In this context, for us to then, in a state that is supposedly super progressive, super Democratic, and to just double down on pollution when we knew better. They knew better than this. They made a decision that it didn't matter. And we just have to do better than that. We have to do better than electing simply people with D's by their name, who are fine making the same decisions that we've always made. We have to look deeper into the values and intentions and look at records and say, Is this consistent with someone who is going to make the right decisions moving forward? There are some choices that need to be made.  Mike McGinn: [00:21:53] Well, you know, that's a topic, right? Like this is Democrats in the legislature, and to some degree, the choices made by advocacy organizations themselves. Transportation and climate advocacy organizations, as to what they view as politically possible. So, in 2007, I was a volunteer leader of the Sierra Club and we were presented with being asked to support what was then called the Roads and Transit ballot measure. And it also had billions in highways in it, including a lot of the projects we're talking about now. It was coupled with giving Sound Transit the authority - it was coupled with what we would now call Sound Transit 2 - was one big package. It was sent into the region, Puget sound region, to vote on - whether we want to expand highways and expand rail at the same time.  In the Sierra Club, we made a political calculation. And we made a political calculation that we could beat it, and that we should beat it, because the highways were worse for the climate than transit was good for it. And it was not a worthwhile trade. And even more than that, building the highways was inconsistent with the massive reductions in emissions we needed to make. It didn't put us on a pathway to success, regardless of how you counted the exact amount of carbons saved or lost from each activity. And our political calculation was that there's actually not that much public demand for highways. That when you combine an environmental message of don't make climate change worse, along with the natural resistance of voters to spending, raising their taxes to pay for something they don't care about that much, that we could beat it. And we did. Now, it turns out that light rail is really popular, right? So when they came back with light rail alone, they got 60% of the vote. In the prior year, the Roads and Transit package got like 44% of the vote. I'd have to look it up. I think it was 44%. So that was the difference - you got rid of the highways - support for the package went up 13% and you got to majority viewpoint.  Now that lesson - that it's worth building a coalition that - you take the environmental component and you put that on top of the anti-tax component, and there's not a majority for highways. Yet, somehow or another, the advocacy groups go into every legislative session with the viewpoint that new highways are inevitable. And because they have that viewpoint, the other side says, Well, we're going to hold - you got to support the highways if you want more transit. That's what happened the last major package. Or in this case, if you want to get a carbon fuel standard, a low carbon fuel standard, or you want a cap and trade bill, you're going to have to support the next highway bill.  And the analysis is all done based upon looking at this set of people in Olympia as to what's possible, rather than looking at where public demand lies. And I don't know, I guess what I'd say to the activists is, and the advocates out there, If someone's trying to put you in a box, right? And the box is - you have to support all these bad things if you want the thing you want. Well, you can either accept the box or you can try to kick out one of the sides. And in this case, kicking out one of the sides means raising hell, going to the public and organizing, and holding your champion's feet to the fire and say, No, we're not going to make that deal. And honestly, let's just think about this. If you were in there - if I were in there and I had somebody saying to me, a Democrat saying to me, Look, you gotta sign off on the bad highway, or else you'll never get what you want. I'd be like, could you put that in writing for me? I'd like to take that out to the public. I'd like to tell everybody what you just told me. Let's see if you can stand there. Let's see how long you can stand there saying we're not going to take action on climate, which the public cares about a lot more today than they did in 2007 when we defeated it. You tell the public they can't have highways, they can't have road maintenance money. You know, they can't have a transportation bill, because that's what you believe. Let's go. Let's see how you stand up to the public on that. But that's a different attitude than, Ah, we got to get something. I guess we have to give up stuff. I guess we just have to accept the parameters of the debate that's laid out by the people that want the highways. You know, someone's trying to put you in a box, kick out one of the sides, try to change it. That's the job of an advocacy organization. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:48] It is absolutely the job of an advocacy organization. And we have seen a lot, a number, we've seen some willing to do that. We have seen others who are, who have been unwilling and - Mike McGinn: [00:27:00] Well let's name a couple of names, at least on the positive side. Disability Mobility Initiative, Front and Centered, the Urbanist - for saying, No deal. Don't make a deal. Stand up for what's right. And your backstop is not, again, not counting all of the carbon atoms that are flowing from this or being reduced by that. But it's like, what's possible given where the public is and these folks are taking the harder stance.  I think of Bill McKibben and 350. They decided to make the Keystone Pipeline an issue. If you're like one of the real climate policy wonks, you might say, Well, there are other things that are more important to reducing emissions than stopping that pipeline. And if you were a political realist, they'd say they were political realists - Well, you can't stop that. That's too far down the line. Well, look what happened when they made that their signature effort? Not only did they end up stopping the Keystone Pipeline, they built power to stop other things as well. So that's, I think, you know, a lesson that I think the advocates here need to need to adopt. Which is let's build power by aligning ourselves with public attitudes and picking out the things that are obviously bad and trying to stop them. And presenting a different vision of how to get to a finish line rather than this compromise incrementalism, where I'm not sure if it's one step forward, two steps back, or 1.1 steps forward and 0.9 steps back. Let's get out of that, man. We got to get, we gotta eliminate carbon from the system.  Crystal Fincher: [00:28:36] You gotta be running forward. Mike McGinn: [00:28:38] All the steps going forward. You gotta be running forward. Right. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:41] We can't take these little baby steps. We can't stand in place. We have to be unambiguously moving rapidly forward. I would also underscore when other organizations like 350 do make priorities, and do lift up what the community is asking for and what communities themselves know they need to be healthy and whole. And standing with native and indigenous communities, who are quite justified in demanding that their land not be sullied and poisoned by pipelines. And looking at that as a path forward. This is what happens when we walk side by side with community and what we all know is correct. And everyone has ownership of what is happening.  I think that there's - the Front and Centered coalition of almost 70 organizations state-wide certainly stood up and made their voices heard in this debate and will continue to. And acquitted themselves well throughout session and beyond. And really, it is important to know who's willing to speak truth to power and where an organization's priorities are. Are they in maintaining their access to power, and just the proximity to power, and just feeling good that they're standing next to someone viewed as powerful and influential? Or are they actually trying to get good policy passed, to prevent bad policy from being passed, and really deliver results for their members and their community?  Because at the end of the day, we just saw more - another article this week about another study about just the impacts of pollution on communities of color. And there - it's not philosophical, it's not theoretical. Pollution is killing communities of color. Killing communities of color. And you can see that happening with rates of illness and rates of death. You can see that in Seattle, in just the difference in life expectancy between folks in Magnolia or Laurelhurst and others in South Seattle and Georgetown. And it's just, it is just so frustrating to watch people settle for proximity to power instead of demanding what's really going to work. Mike McGinn: [00:31:26] It's such an important point that you raise. Which is for an advocacy organization to ask, to really examine what is the source of their power - is really what you're asking. And what a powerful point about the Keystone Pipeline, as well. That working in alignment with the interests of the tribes increased the power of the environmental organizations. It didn't decrease it, it increased it. And that's a really powerful lesson. Groups that think, as you've pointed out, if a group thinks that their power comes from their policy knowledge - like there's a little bit of power there. It's nice to win the argument, but if logic and rationality and policy expertise were enough to win the arguments, the Democrats would be destroying it right now. But it's not, it's just not. Nor do - people also sometimes think the source of their power is their working relationships with elected officials or their access. But they confuse how - they confuse how democracy is supposed to work. Because as soon as the elected official knows that your power derives from your access to them, now they hold power over the advocate because they can deny access at any time. And that just saps the strength of advocacy. So I'm always - what I'm always looking for is - where groups that understand that their power has to be rooted in their ability to mobilize public demand for the outcomes, that they want to tap into the public demand that already exists and move it. That's a source of power that - and let's face it, the other side gets that too. You know, they do it with - they get the Koch brothers to give them billions of dollars to run campaigns. They're working on it as well to try to demonstrate that their power comes from the public, not just from their dollars. But if we really believe our power comes from the public, that the people are with us, then let's play that way. And that I think is the biggest - is the issue. I think a lot of organizations think their power comes from their knowledge, or from their access, or their relationships. And it's just at the end of the day, that power is not very strong. It's just not very strong in - against the other side. Crystal Fincher: [00:33:53] I agree. And that's actually one of the big lessons, kind of working lessons, that I learned from you, actually. Was just the power of community and coalition and to stitch that together in the face of established power on side. How to stitch that together and apply pressure to get the outcome that you want. And the power of coalitions to be able to do that - to pressure electeds, even through the prospect of an initiative or, Hey, we're going to take this action on our own. You have the opportunity to do the right thing and you can get the credit if you do. Otherwise, we're moving forward and we're doing this thing. So what's it going to be. And that being an effective lever to move policy. So, you know, you have practiced this for a long time. Mike McGinn: [00:34:44] I have, and I haven't always won either. Let's be really clear about that, but at least I took a swing at it. You know, who knows - you might, at least take a swing, at least take a swing at trying. 'Cause if you play by Olympia's rules, Olympia is going to win. If you play by those rules, you you're guaranteeing a loss at the outset. If you play the other way, and say, No, we're going to try to bring some new power into the relationship to try to upset the conventional wisdom about what is or is not possible. You might not win, but you might win. And that's far better than guaranteeing being stuck in this kind of incrementalist status quo. And people get to go home with a victory, and legislators get to say we did something. And then you get this cycle where everybody gets to say, Well, it was good enough. It was good enough. And we're all really good for it. And you know, it kind of ties back to the comment we were making about Joe Nguyen versus Dow - that works until people realize, Nah, things aren't really getting solved and it's not really getting at the heart of it. Crystal Fincher: [00:35:53] Yeah, I agree. Well, that brings us to our time here today. I'm so thankful you were able to join us today. Thank you for listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM on this Friday, April 30th, 2021. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. Our insightful co-host today was activist, former Seattle mayor, and Executive Director of America Walks, Mike McGinn. You can find Mike on Twitter @mayormcginn, 'cause he's still mayor in our hearts and we're denying the one that is there. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced to the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time.

Today Crystal is joined by the legend that is Monisha Harrell to talk about public safety and policing bills in the state legislature, Bruce Harrell's run for office, and mainstream Seattle politics finally realizing that there is more than one Black leader in Seattle. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Monisha Harrell, at @RuleSeven. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Learn more about the passage of Initiative 940 last fall here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/initiative-940-modifying-law-regulating-police-use-of-deadly-force-holds-strong-lead-in-tuesdays-returns/  Read about how previously fired cops end up back on the force here: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/04/how-fired-cops-win-their-jobs-back-arbitration  Read the recent Crosscut in-depth report on cops with credibility issues still working in Washington State (by friend of the show and previous guest, Melissa Santos): https://crosscut.com/news/2021/04/nearly-200-cops-credibility-issues-still-working-washington-state  Learn more about the bills discussed on the show today here: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/03/12/ground-breaking-police-accountability-bills-pass-the-house-await-senate-consideration/  Follow all police accountability bills before the legislature this year here: https://www.seattle.gov/community-police-commission/current-issues/state-legislative-agenda/bill-tracker    Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind the scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.  We are thrilled today to be joined by Monisha Harrell. Thank you for joining us, Monisha. Well, I just wanted to take some time to actually read your full bio, which I'm indulging myself in doing. Because a lot of times we hear about people - we see you in one capacity or another capacity. Lots of people know you're the Board Chair for Equal Rights Washington, you've done work around politics and around legislation and policing, but they don't know the full story. And I just enjoy, especially for women and people of color, just to really understand what you've done and what you've been involved in. So let me tell you who Monisha Harrell is. She's a Seattle native, Board Chair for Equal Rights Washington, and she chairs the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund. She served as a fellow for Lifelong AIDS Alliance, co-chair of the Capitol Hill LGBTQ Public Safety Task Force. She's an appointee of the City of Seattle's 2017 search committee for a new director of police accountability and co-chair for the De-escalate Washington Campaign Committee, requiring deescalation training for all law enforcement officers in the state in 2018. The Stranger named Monisha one of the smartest people in Seattle politics - I concur - in 2013. And she was most recently honored as the Greater Seattle Business Association's Community Leader of the Year for 2018. As chair of Equal Rights Washington, Monisha helped lead the work to ban conversion therapy for minors in Washington state, pass an updated uniform parentage act to support LGBTQ families, and banned trans panic and gay panic as legal defenses for violence against the LGBTQ community - still such a critical issue. Harrell was recently appointed in July 2020 by Governor Inslee to serve on a task force to provide recommendations for legislation on independent investigations involving police use of force, and recently completed work as a member of the Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson's Hate Crime Advisory Working Group. In 2019, Monisha participated in a leadership exchange program with the American Council of Young Political Leaders, supporting LGBTQ community advancement in both Thailand and Malaysia. Monisha owns and operates a small marketing firm, Rule Seven, focused on offering community-driven outreach and engagement. She has an undergraduate degree from Columbia University and an MBA from the University of Washington Foster School of Business. In 2017, she was named the University of Washington Consulting and Business Development Center's Alumni of the Year.  Man, Monisha. You - that's Monisha, and I have admired Monisha and watched her just do her thing and impact policy and politics and life for a lot of people - we were just talking, for a decade plus now. And just seriously, one of the smartest people in Washington politics - in politics period. If you want to figure out a successful path for whatever you want to do, Monisha can make that happen, so I am just thrilled to have you on the show today. Monisha Harrell: [00:04:10] Thanks so much, Crystal. It's hard to believe it's been a decade of working together. It's amazing because one, I don't feel that old, but I learned so much from your leadership in those early phases, particularly of politics and really learning how to navigate political circles, particularly as a young Black woman. It's been a great decade together and looking forward to many, many more decades ahead for us. Crystal Fincher: [00:04:48] Absolutely. I mean, you've gone global with your influence and advocacy, so I'm just watching and cheerleading from the sidelines over here. But what I wanted to talk about - something you're involved in - in a variety of ways and have been, are the policing bills going through the legislature right now, the entire conversation about what we need to do and how we need to change that. I guess starting off, and just a recap or overview in what is happening in Olympia right now? There was lots of fanfare going into the session in response to demands from community that we finally take action to stop some of the abuses and the violence that we have seen from police, and just the absolute lack of accountability in so many spaces. What is on the table to address that right now? Monisha Harrell: [00:05:48] Yeah, absolutely. I'll start back with Initiative 940, De-Escalate Washington. That work was really - it was really interesting because there wasn't a lot of political will around it back when that work was beginning in 2016 and 2017. There were a lot of people in positions of power who really believed that the work around police accountability was being kind of blown out of proportion. Communities of color, particularly Black communities, have often been the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to, "No, please listen to us, this is important, and this is serious." And the great thing about the work with De-Escalate Washington was it hearkened back to "The Four Amigos", right? Communities from different segments of the state coming together and saying, "We're going to use our collective power in order to create the change that we know we need to see." And people said, "If you pass Initiative 940, you'll have people leaving policing in droves. You'll never have enough police to be able to fill all the spots." And here's what happened. We knew the public was with us. The public wanted reform and the people spoke, and the people spoke loudly. Halls of power weren't ready to address policing issues that our communities were.  Fast forward to last summer, to George Floyd. And if we had voted on De-Escalate Washington last summer, the numbers would have even been higher. But we knew that that initiative was just the beginning. We knew that there is no one single piece of legislation - to be candid, there's not 10 pieces of legislation - that are going to solve the problems that we need to solve around police accountability. And so, 940 was a start. And the tailwinds of last year gave us the political power to be able to go back to legislators who were like, "Our districts are basically up in arms. What do we do?" And then we had their ears - "Okay. We've been trying to tell you what to do. But now that you're saying, what do we do? Here's the package." And that's where we ended up this year. I'd love to talk just a little bit about some of the package that was offered and some of what's moving forward. Crystal Fincher: [00:08:28] Yeah. What is in that package? I mean certainly, we did see protests and just people sick and tired of seeing over and over again, violence against - disproportionately - people of color. But certainly dramatically impacting the disabled community - I mean, communities far and wide, this is affecting all of us. And then no accountability afterwards. It just feels like this lawless attack on community, where we are actually powerless. If someone who's not wearing a badge commits a crime - that should never have happened, but when it does, there is accountability. But if you have a badge, it's just completely different. How is that being addressed with legislation? Monisha Harrell: [00:09:20] The interesting thing that we learned, and I'll say it over and over again, there's no one piece of legislation that's perfect and that will fix everything. One of the things we learned from Initiative 940 was - we passed a law that required de-escalation training for all law enforcement officers in Washington state, that required an independent investigation for lethal use of force incidents by law enforcement. And what we found is that - we expected, naively, officers of the law to follow the law. But without teeth, Initiative 940 was ineffective. It was legally put in place, but we found that there were so many police departments and law enforcement agencies that weren't following it. And so, that's not a mistake that will repeat again. That is something that we learned from that. And so, this year's police accountability legislation shows, actually, that we've learned and we're beginning to put teeth in some of what is being passed as legal. I'll kind of start with Senate bill 5051, sponsored by Senator Jamie Pedersen. That bill has a pathway for de-certification for law enforcement officers that have histories of misconduct. Prior to this bill, and as it stands right now - we haven't passed it yet - but prior to, if you have an officer that's got a history of misconduct in one department, well they basically can just say, "Well I'm about to get in trouble for all this stuff over here, let me go 10 miles down the road to that police department." And then they get a whole clean slate. The investigation at the previous department - it ends - and over at this new department, they have a brand new record and they're a shiny new officer again. And what we've found is that, it's those officers - these incidents like George Floyd, they don't just happen. Derek Chauvin, he had a record of misconduct. If in Minnesota, they had a way to begin to de-certify officers that have records and histories of misconduct, he wouldn't have even been on the job that day. So we as Washington State, we've taken that responsibility to say, "No, you can't just switch departments and get a clean record. We're actually going to ensure that your history follows your career. And if you're not deserving of a badge and gun, a state sanctioned badge and gun, then you shouldn't have a state sanctioned badge and gun." That's the gist around Senate bill 5051. It looks that it will be passing this year. It's cleared both the Senate, and then it's cleared the House committee. It's just ready to come to the Floor for a vote. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:20] That's really interesting, and on that issue, certainly, it is a big problem where officers can just department hop, to escape their past. And they do successfully escape them. Monisha Harrell: [00:12:35] Look at Ian Birk, right? Everybody said that the John T. Williams shooting was unjustified, and what did he do? He left Seattle and he went to Shoreline. So again, 10 miles north, and he's got a whole new career. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:50] Yeah. It's a big problem. It looks like that's going to pass. Is there anything else that looks like it's also going to pass? Monisha Harrell: [00:12:58] We surprisingly got a really sturdy slate this year - not that there's not more to do - but another one and I'll relate it again back to the Chauvin case and George Floyd's death. We have Senate bill 5066, which is duty to report and duty to intervene. What that bill basically says is - if you are an officer and you see another officer using excessive use of force, you now have a duty, a responsibility - a legal responsibility - to intervene in that excessive use of force in order to save that person's life. So unlike in the case of George Floyd, where you saw officers standing by, it would now be illegal for them to just stand by and watch another human being be murdered, when they have the power to do something about it. That originated in the Senate and is ready to come to the House. Another one passed both chambers yesterday - it passed the Senate last night, which was House bill 1054, which is law enforcement tactics bill. And again, I'll go back to the George Floyd case just because it's such a good example of all of the things that can go wrong and that have gone wrong. But in House bill 1054, it will ban choke holds and neck restraints, as well as a few other police tactics - no-knock warrants, in the case of Breonna Taylor. It would ban those police tactics for all law enforcement officers in Washington State. These are good practices. These are good policies. They're not theoretical, because we can point to the real life cases of where, with this in place, we would have saved lives. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:56] It certainly appears that those bills do have legs and that they are an improvement over current policy. I don't think that there's many people who are earnestly trying to address this issue, who don't think those are improvements over good policy. It is - just looking at the conversation and where we are now - is so much different than where we were 5 years ago, 10 years ago. And even just in the public conversations around the idea of reform, they're like, "Okay, we're actually over reform. It's time to transform and to reconfigure, to fundamentally revisit how we address the structure and function of public safety and policing. Down to examining - why do we need an armed response to the wide variety - to everything, really, right now - and how do we change that? And do we need police to respond, period? And models of community-based alternatives to an armed police response or a police response, period. And people saying, "We don't have the time to keep tinkering around the edges and for incremental change in the public safety process, because people continue to die." Even when it's not the worst case scenario with dying, people are having their civil rights violated, their lives turned upside down. Even if they're unjustly arrested because they were over policed and now they're saddled with legal bills and missing work, just to get out of something that they never should have gotten into. Looking on the front end - Monisha Harrell: [00:16:50] Yeah. Crystal Fincher: [00:16:50] Can that be addressed in the legislature? How do you see that? How do you address that? Monisha Harrell: [00:16:56] There are so many people in this fight, and in this battle, right? I'm one person, one type of person. I always say when you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I'm a policy person, so I'm dealing with it from a policy perspective because that's where my expertise is. I am grateful, grateful, grateful for the folks who, maybe they're not the policy person, but they put the boots to the ground and they protest. They give us the wings to be able to do this policy work, right? I have had many great and wonderful conversations with Nikkita Oliver, and we have a different approach to how we show love within community and how we do this work. You need all types. You need all types of leadership to be able to step up and step into the places where they provide expertise to do it. We don't talk enough about things like, do we need an armed response? The answer is no, we don't always need an armed response. In fact, there's probably very few times where you actually need an armed response to a certain situation, particularly because, and this is where Nikkita and I will probably agree, a lot of times 911 is called after the incident. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:22] Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Monisha Harrell: [00:18:22] So you don't need an armed response when the incident has passed. Now we have different approaches for how to get there. But I think what we're working for, I think ultimately the vision of what we're working for in community, is very similar, right? We need less policing, right? We need more resources so that there's a requirement for less policing. We need more money into education and social services, so that we can spend less on what is called criminal justice. I don't think anybody is disagreeing with all of those things. We don't want to spend our money punitively. We want to be able to pool our resources into what lifts us up, not what holds us down. What people may think are very different people - we're actually not that different. We're just working from different angles. We have different perspectives and we have different strengths. You need all of those different strengths to be able to come to the table, to be a part of the conversation, to figure out where do we go and how do we get there, right? What I'll also say is - you made me think of it with the choke holds - it's not just that they cause death. We're talking about the scars that they leave on communities. If you cut off somebody's oxygen for a minute, you may not leave them without life, but you leave them without brain. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:04] Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Monisha Harrell: [00:20:07] Seconds without oxygen is brain death. So maybe they are still walking of this earth and their body is living, but you've left them with mental impairment, permanent lifetime mental impairment. That's what we're talking about, right? There are better solutions and we have to be willing. We have to be willing to work towards those better solutions. Crystal Fincher: [00:20:32] We do. And I appreciate, just you addressing that in your response and talking about - people have different expertise and are in different lanes. And that we need all of those lanes. We need all of those lanes pushing, in order to actually get change accomplished. Pushing in just one of those is not sufficient. I think we have seen, in a variety of situations - that okay, if people are only paying attention in the policy sphere with no connection to community, with no mandate from folks in the community and in the streets - that that leaves people in a position where they don't have power on the inside. And if we're only talking about what's happening in terms of protest and community engagement, then turning that into policy or impacting the institutions that really, whether we choose to or not, we have to engage with in our daily lives - that there is no change made there. And that things stay as they are, and the status quo is unacceptable. So it really does take pushing by people in politics and policy, and community organizations engaging in meetings and on the street - to get it all done. And there are so many conversations about, "Well, which way is better? Either or. Do we do this or do we do that?" And my response to that is always, "It takes all of it." We make a change when we are pushing in all of our different lanes to get that accomplished. I appreciate your lane, it's necessary. I appreciate the lane of people who are in the streets and holding power accountable that way, because that is a lever of accountability and necessary. It just takes all of it. We can't just say - we can't do part of it. It's unfortunate that people who are being harmed have been the ones who've had to mount up and lead in fixing the issue. That should not be the case, but unfortunately, that is the situation that we're in right now. Monisha Harrell: [00:23:05] Absolutely. It's always been an and. It's always been an and. You need Rosa Parks and Medgar Evers. You need Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King. You need James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry. You need and, and a call-out, right? And we need our allies. Sometimes you're going to be the leader, and sometimes you're going to be an ally - and if you see a situation, the best way to get this work done is to join in community with others, where sometimes you're going to be the leader and sometimes you're going to be an ally, but you have to add your strength in order to change these systems. Because these systems - power will never concede itself, we know that. We hear that over and over again. Power won't concede itself, but if we work together, we can do anything. Crystal Fincher: [00:23:55] Absolutely, and I'm glad you brought that up because that is actually one of the things that I personally appreciate most about you - is that you're always willing to be an ally. People see when you're out in front, but I have been able to see several opportunities across several policy spheres, and in community, in organizing, supporting, where you've just been like, "Hey. However I can help, however I can support. I know how to do this and the other. I can make a connection." You have always offered yourself as a resource and as an ally in supporting. I know that has been instrumental in so many things happening in so many different areas. Just the amount of policy that you have been involved in across the sphere - in campaigns, elections, ballot initiatives - the list is long that people know about, but where you have been really supportive and instrumental in your knowledge has been helpful, that list is much more broad. Monisha Harrell: [00:25:02] I've had so many people invest in me, right? It's a requirement. It's a requirement to be able to give back, because - I never know what the story is that people think of me or see of me, but I was born to two teenage parents. My mom was still in high school - I'm in the 1976 Garfield yearbook in the little nursery that they had there, right? And yet, I have still had people who have invested so much in me, who have given so much of themselves, so much of their time, their energy, their wisdom, and I feel the responsibility to pay that forward. I really do feel like, despite the hard times, I have been incredibly fortunate. The only way for me to show that, my love language, is paying that forward to other folks. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:03] Well I've been a beneficiary of that, I appreciate it. I know many others who appreciate it. And yeah, I'm just thankful.  Now, I do have to ask you about your uncle. I don't know if people know your last name is Harrell. You share a last name with Bruce Harrell, who is a former Seattle City councilman. He was briefly the mayor. Monisha Harrell: [00:26:36] Five days. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:36] Five days. And now he is running, for the second time actually, running to be Mayor of Seattle. And he has caught my attention. Monisha Harrell: [00:26:48] Yeah. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:49] Principally for a couple of statements that he's made on this subject of policing. One, when he - I think it was when he was announcing and he was talking about the subject of policing - and said that the first thing he's going to do, is have officers watch the video of George Floyd and sign a pledge saying that that's unacceptable. And then last week, few days ago - time is running into itself for me. But within the past week, said another statement, "Hey, if I'm mayor and we go a week without having a shooting or a murder of a Black person, we're going to go to the precincts and high five the officers." Monisha Harrell: [00:27:43] Yeah. So here's what I'm going to say. He is actually quite smart and he is good for sound bites, right? He gives a sound bite that gives people something to talk about. You have to get to the bottom of - but what is he really getting at? What is he actually talking about? And what he's talking about is culture change, right? We have to have a culture change in policing, and particularly at SPD, in order to be able to effectuate real change. And it's an example of a thing that would be done, but not the only thing done. It's an example of, how do you ensure that if you're going to invest in an officer, if you're going to invest training in an officer, education into an officer, support into an officer, that you have a baseline to even start with. And so, watching the George Floyd video - it shows - can this person even admit at a baseline level that that is wrong? If they can't admit that's wrong, then any amount of education or training that we try to put into this person is going to be wasted. They're not who we spend energy on. It comes out sounding really simplistic, because it's a sound bite versus what you're actually getting at, which is not everybody is suited to be an officer. And we have to admit that. We have to admit that there are people - not everybody is suited to every job. And how do you just, at a baseline level, root out who is not suited for that job? And so you get this over simplified example. But it's actually - as an example, it shows you what kind of conversations we have to be willing to have. We have to be willing to say, "This person is not suited for this role. We are not going to expend education and resources into trying to train this person for something that they are just - we can't teach this value. If you can't see this and say that's wrong, there's no amount of sitting you behind the desk and training you, that is ever going to get you to the point where you realize that that's wrong."  I get it. It's definitely something that people talk about, but hopefully they also kind of get to the deeper issue around that, which is we have to determine who has the basis, who has the heart, to do public service and public safety, be a servant leader in that way. And who just, it's not a job that's a fit for you. It's not going to be a job that's going to be a fit for you. And we need to move you on. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:38] I appreciate your perspective and context around that. That certainly is a conversation worth having, and one I think that we should. I'm looking forward to the full, robust debate about policing in Seattle overall, from all of the candidates and evaluating who is best suited, in terms of the ability to lead, and enacting the policies we need with a sense of urgency that it requires. I'm looking forward to that continuing throughout the place. And what else I appreciate about this, is that we have a number of people of color running. We have more than one Black person in the race. We have some of everybody. I've said this before and I think is useful - we aren't all the same. We are not a monolith. We have different opinions and different approaches and we have the opportunity... Monisha Harrell: [00:31:34] Thank God people are realizing that, right? Crystal Fincher: [00:31:36] Right. Monisha Harrell: [00:31:36] Thank God we don't have to all be the same person anymore. Crystal Fincher: [00:31:40] Yes. For those candidates whose perspectives I find myself aligned with and others where I don't, I do think that it is useful for the wider community to see a range of opinions and perspectives addressed, because that's absolutely true and valid. We know that. We've known that, but sometimes the wider community has a harder time engaging. I feel like it's been in the past year or two, where they stopped referring to people just as "Black leaders." Monisha Harrell: [00:32:19] Right. Crystal Fincher: [00:32:20] That's okay, we don't elect Black leaders. For other people, they use their title. For this person, it's "Black leader." Is there anything else to the story? Or they'll just be like, "activist." Monisha Harrell: [00:32:33] It's always funny, because I was always like, "When did we vote? When did we ..." Crystal Fincher: [00:32:35] Right. Monisha Harrell: [00:32:36] And that - to be candid, that's annoyed me, beginning from the '80s. When I started kind of thinking about it, they would say "Black leader" and then they would have somebody talking on the news and I thought, "Well, who elected them to speak for all of us?" I appreciate the fact that there's more nuance these days. I have to give some credit to social media for actually allowing us to have more of a voice, because if we were relying on mainstream media, we'd still have just one Black leader. I'm grateful that we get to have a few at this juncture. I get to be on this program with one of our Black leaders, so I'm happy that we get a full ... Look, this is radio, so y'all can... Crystal Fincher: [00:33:24] I am not claiming that title, just to be clear - I'm a political consultant with a podcast. That's it. Monisha Harrell: [00:33:30] Look, I want people to understand - Crystal and I have a deep, deep respect for each other, but could not be more different. Crystal is on this radio show looking fabulous right now, and I'm sitting here in some Adidas sweatpants. So I just want you all to know that there is many, many ways to be, and we deserve the humanity to be able to be all of those things and the entire robustness of how that shows up. Crystal Fincher: [00:33:57] Oh my goodness. Okay. Yes, all of these things.  Okay. We're in podcast only time and not in the airtime on the radio. Let's just be real - I'm here. I just got into wigs, y'all. They're so simple and easy and wonderful. Look! I threw on this wig. I'm looking at Monisha on this online chat - weird seeing each other, just we're not putting out the video on the podcast - but I mean, look, it's just a wig. It's just a wig and I have my other wig that you saw that I was wearing yesterday in the meeting that we were in about something else. It's totally - it's a different color. It's a different length, but they all take about two minutes to put on... Monisha Harrell: [00:34:43] I'm just saying ... Crystal Fincher: [00:34:44] ... and look like I actually did something. Monisha Harrell: [00:34:45] ... you look ready to go out. And I look ready to go take a nap. Crystal Fincher: [00:34:49] And what you see, is just the very top. Look, you don't see the below the screen situation happening right now. It's not consistent, I'll just tell you that. It is not consistent with what this appears to be. And even this is optimized for two minutes. Just in the interest of realness, I think you probably spent more time getting ready and prepared than I did today. I'm fairly positive about that. Monisha Harrell: [00:35:19] Not in this Zoom world. In this Zoom world, I only gotta dress from the shoulders up. Crystal Fincher: [00:35:24] That's the situation. And that's probably more information than you bargained for, podcast listeners, but there you go. That's real. This is where we're at.  Well, I appreciate you taking the time to join us and talk to us today. I appreciate you, Monisha, period. I appreciate you addressing your uncle's comments and providing some more context and the basis for a useful and necessary conversation. Just thank you. Monisha Harrell: [00:35:56] Yeah and I appreciate being here. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, Crystal. And I listen to your show, I'm a big fan. I like Hacks and Wonks, and I hope more people are listening, because they will learn as much about politics from you as I have learned from you. So it's a great opportunity. Crystal Fincher: [00:36:18] You're too kind and I appreciate it, but thank you everyone and enjoy your day. Thank you for listening to Hacks and Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost live shows and our mid-week show, delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes.  Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Quitting to Win with Crystal Waltman As a young woman, Crystal was a high-achieving athlete with a competitive drive. At only fourteen, she was already playing varsity volleyball which created a lot of pressure, expectations, and social anxiety. Around the same time, she discovered drinking, which seemed like an easy way to escape these pressures. When she went to college, her drinking progressed, and the cycle continued. "It was all about playing hard, studying hard, winning, and then blacking out again." Later on in life, after becoming a mom, Crystal fell into what we often hear described today as "Mommy wine culture." She tried to manage her drinking as best as possible, but she just couldn't stop on her own. After asking her neighbor how she was able to stop drinking, she was taken to her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Her sobriety date is March 22, 2015. Today Crystal is a coach, public speaker, and author who truly believes in recovering out loud. You can find her book, "Quitting to Win" on Amazon. Do you want to take your recovery to the next level? Sobriety Engine is an incredible online community where you can find a ton of great tips, tools, and support from other men and women in recovery. Visit SobrietyEngine.com to join today. If you're ready to get fit and start living a healthier lifestyle while supporting your sobriety then you can learn more about having Jonathan as your personal fitness and nutrition coach at RCVRHealth.com

This week, Crystal Jacobs Berry shares the story of her Wedding Pavilion ceremony with first look and portrait session at Magic Kingdom, followed by brunch and cake at the Grand Floridian Cafe. Crystal and Mark chose Sago Cay Pointe when they booked their wedding, prior to the pandemic. But they ended up switching to the Wedding Pavilion in order to avoid having to wear masks during the ceremony. Today Crystal talks about  Disney’s COVID-19 policies for the ceremony and the portrait session, how she ordered her two-tier naked cake from Grand Floridian Private Dining, and her best advice for anyone wondering if they should postpone their COVID-era Disney wedding. Click here to see all the photos!

Today Crystal and co-host Erica Barnett of Publicola give us an in-depth update on homelessness, and what is being done (or not being done) to address the underlying conditions that cause it. And they ask the question: can homelessness be an issue that is solved through a reginal commission, or is it something each city in the Puget Sound needs to innovate around on their own? As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii. Find today's co-host, Erica C. Barnett, @ericacbarnett. More information is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Read about the Regional Homelessness Authority here: https://publicola.com/2021/03/02/fizz-as-homeless-authority-regroups-citys-homelessness-division-is-at-the-breaking-point/ Learn about King County's recent use of hotels in order to house those experiencing homelessness here: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/02/can-king-county-keep-using-empty-hotels-fight-homelessness See coverage of the recent Denny Park encampment removal here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/at-denny-park-city-is-quietly-trying-to-sweep-homeless-campers-without-police/ Learn about the continually changing way the mayor is seeking to address homelessness here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattles-homeless-shelter-surge-unveiled-with-fewer-shelter-beds-more-questions/ Dive into all Erica C. Barnett and Publicola's coverage of current events at publicola.com.   Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host Crystal Fincher.  On this show, we talk policy and politics with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today we're continuing our Friday almost-live show where we review the news of the week.  Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host, Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery - Erica Barnett. Erica C. Barnett: [00:00:51] Thank you so much for having me. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:54] Thank you for joining us again. There's a number of things that happened in the past week to talk about. I wanted to talk about a story that you have been covering in detail at PubliCola, and that is funding for JustCARE running out and the mayor's office raising objections to taking federal money to run the hotels. So do you want to talk a little bit about just what has transpired? Erica C. Barnett: [00:01:20] Sure, so there is a program called JustCARE, which is run by the Public Defender Association here in Seattle, that moved about 130 people off the streets in Pioneer Square and the International District into hotels. And they are still there - they're staying in hotels with County funding, but that funding is running out on March 15th unless the County and or the City can come up with money to pay for it.  Separately, or separate and related, there is the issue of FEMA funding, which I've covered a lot on PubliCola - which is basically since the Biden administration came in, they have decided to reimburse cities for a lot of different things that are related to the COVID disaster. But one is shelter and specifically shelter in hotels, and everything that's reimbursable is reimbursable at a hundred percent and most things are reimbursable. The mayor's office has expended, I would say an extraordinary amount of energy, raising objections to this idea of taking this federal funding that is a hundred percent reimbursable. So the city could be spending money on hotels - and a lot of cities have done this already, San Francisco actually just expanded their program by 500 more rooms - and getting reimbursement of a hundred percent of the costs that are eligible, which again is most of the costs. This relates to JustCARE's because they say that the City should be seeking FEMA reimbursement to expand the program and to continue the program. But the city says that that's not possible for a whole host of different reasons, or rather the mayor's office says this. City Council disagrees with her position, pretty much across the board. But the upshot, I mean, is basically because the mayor is the one who makes these funding decisions ultimately, we have not sought FEMA funding for hotels, and we have not expanded the city's hotel based shelter program to anything remotely like what other cities on the West Coast are doing. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:36] Well, and that's really interesting. And one of the questions was - is there just a philosophical difference from the mayor's office and the approach that certainly Council has favored - for putting people without homes up in hotels. Does that seem to be a genesis of some of this conflict? Erica C. Barnett: [00:03:55] Well, I would say, I mean, I can't sort of get into the mayor's mind and her philosophy. The mayor, I should say, also doesn't talk to me directly. She has not granted a single interview with PubliCola or my previous website - it was called The C Is for Crank - since she became mayor. And I've asked many times, so I'm not going to get into her psychology, but I do think that her policy position has been that hotel based shelters are not a good solution. I mean, she obviously has supported other types of shelters for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. One is congregate shelter - she's opened up a lot of mass shelters run by mostly The Salvation Army. And she has expressed support for tiny house villages, which is another kind of non congregate shelter. But when it comes to hotels, for whatever reason, I mean, since the very beginning of the pandemic, she has vehemently opposed doing the kind of expansion that cities like San Francisco and LA have done. Now, the City is finally preparing to open its very, very first two hotels, hopefully later this month, at the end of March or so. That's going to shelter around 200 or so people. But I mean, we're talking about a year, more than a year, into this pandemic and we are just now getting the first couple of hotels that are being funded by the City. Now there are other hotels that various service providers have been running on their own and in some cases with City funds, but as far as these kind of federally backed hotels, we're just totally behind the curve on other comparable cities. And I don't know about the philosophical reasons, but certainly the policy has been, and the result has been, that we do not have many hotel based shelters and we have a lot of big mass congregate shelters. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:57] All right, from what I've read, it seems like the mayor's office has said, Well, this isn't something that FEMA can reimburse in full, so that's why we've decided to not go after it. Erica C. Barnett: [00:06:13] Yeah. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:14] But the City Council has said, Well, if we can be reimbursed in part, isn't that still worth it? What is the thought behind that argument? Well, I mean, obviously, again the mayor is not sharing her intimate thoughts with you, but what has been I guess, the basis of their argument there? Erica C. Barnett: [00:06:35] Well, a couple of things and I think it's actually even a little more complicated than that, because the mayor's office insists and has said over and over to me - and this is when I talk about extraordinary energy, I mean, I have just in my inbox just email, after email, after email from the mayor's staff saying why I'm wrong, and why the City Council is wrong, and why service providers are wrong, and why other cities are wrong, and why everybody is wrong, except the mayor. What they would say is that they believe that no services of any kind are reimbursable by FEMA, so staff at the shelters - the mayor's office says are not reimbursable. Just basically any kind of services beyond running a bare bones hotel, where they drop off a meal a couple times a day and provide security and cleaning, the mayor's office says nothing beyond that is reimbursable. That is not in my report, according to my reporting, according to looking at other cities and according to talking to multiple service providers, that is not true. What is not reimbursable is case management and things like behavioral health care. In San Francisco, that's amounted for about 15% of the total costs. So if you're talking about 85% of the cost of hotels being reimbursable at a hundred percent - so that's free money that San Francisco is receiving. And what they do have to figure out how to pay for is the remaining 15%. And that is not me making up a number. That is actually what the San Francisco Chronicle reported this week as what FEMA has, in the real world, chosen not to reimburse for. I mean, it's just a matter of whether you believe other cities' experience and service providers or whether you don't. The other objection the mayor's office has raised, beyond whether any of this stuff is reimbursable, is that it's onerous in their words, or in the words of a memo from their budget director - it's onerous to fill out all the paperwork and to kind of dot all the I's and cross all the T's to get FEMA reimbursement. It's extremely complicated. And from everything I understand, that's absolutely true. It's super complicated to get money from FEMA - we all know this. The question is, do you decide to do the hard thing and make that choice to do the complicated paperwork and to do all the documentation, or do you say it's too hard? And so far the City has said it's too hard. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:15] Well, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong - I saw statements from, I think Councilmembers Lorena González and Tammy Morales saying, Yes, it may be hard, but we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to fulfill our obligation to our tax paying residents. And try to do everything we can to jump through whatever hoops necessary to get this reimbursement. Has there been other statements on behalf of the Council, or what have they shown their direction will be with this? Erica C. Barnett: [00:09:53] Well, I think the Council - I mean, Andrew Lewis, Teresa Mosqueda, Tammy Morales, have all kind of expressed this frust... Dan Strauss. This week at Council - have all expressed this frustration with the fact that they can allocate funding, but in Seattle, the way our system works is whatever the City Council budgets in their budget authority, the mayor doesn't have to spend. And so if they were to say, We're going to allocate or we're going to express a policy position that FEMA funding should be used, the mayor's office doesn't have to pay any attention to that. And so I think they're using their bully pulpit to sort of say this should be a priority and it is a priority for us. But if the mayor's office chooses not to spend that money or not to seek that money, the Council really can't do anything. And that's just kind of a quirk of the way our system works. But ultimately it is in the mayor's hands. Crystal Fincher: [00:10:53] And is that where we stand now - the mayor has to decide or gets to decide what the direction will be, so we may not actually pursue getting this FEMA reimbursement? Erica C. Barnett: [00:11:04] Well, I think yes. And I also think that looking retrospectively, I mean, the problem too is that FEMA funding, and this is one of the objections they raised to the very concept. FEMA funding right now runs out in September - now that could conceivably be extended. But the problem is that we didn't do this from the beginning. I mean, the money was reimbursable at 75% even under the Trump administration. And now it's reimbursable at a hundred percent going all the way back to January 2020, so had we been funding hotels using this money from the very beginning as other cities have done, it would all be reimbursable now. Everything that is eligible would be reimbursable, so it's almost, I don't want to say it's too late to even be having this conversation, but this conversation definitely should have happened earlier. And I think we'd be in a very different place now if we'd had this conversation a year ago, instead of now. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:06] Yeah, it definitely would have been nice to have earlier. It feels like a lost opportunity and a really disappointing oversight on behalf of the mayor's office. But I guess we are here now and hopefully they will pursue moving forward with that. In a related issue, with the County, I wanted to talk about the Regional Homelessness Authority and where it stands, and what's next, and is there even a next? What's going on with that? Erica C. Barnett: [00:12:40] Well, as you know, Regina Cannon from Atlanta was offered the position - she's with C4, I think it's C4 Innovations. It's a consulting firm that works on homelessness, and she was offered the position of CEO of the Authority, which is basically the Executive Director. And she turned it down. And the reasons she turned it down are not entirely clear, but my reporting indicates that one is that this entity is maybe ungovernable because the idea of a regional authority is that you bring together all these disparate cities, and unincorporated areas, and Seattle, and the King County government itself. And they're all going to get together and agree on essentially a unified regional approach to homelessness. And we've seen again and again, that many of these cities do not agree with the quote unquote Seattle way of doing things, which has been a huge issue from the beginning. What are the right solutions to homelessness? Does it include harm reduction based drug treatment, all sorts of things. Right now where they're at is - they're basically going back to the drawing board. When I say they, I mean the implementation board for the Authority. They're going back to the drawing board and looking at the 17 applicants that applied for the position and considering are any of these folks qualified and somebody we would pick to fill that position. There's the runner-up - is a person named Marc Dones, out of Brooklyn. And I believe Brooklyn - in New York City. And they may decide to take the position, but I think the larger question is - is this authority going to work? Is it governable, and is it going to be a better system than we have in place now, which is essentially all the various cities doing their own approaches to homelessness. And I mean, I think the jury is very much still out on that. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:04] You're listening to Hacks and Wonks with your host Crystal Fincher on KVRU 105.7 FM. Yeah. And certainly I've noticed, and there's been lots of coverage on other challenges, not even on homelessness, but just on a variety of issues, whether it's transportation, the approach to COVID and quarantine sites - that there have been challenges between the County and Executive's office and communication with a number of cities in the County. Certainly with a number of South County cities feeling like they haven't had an adequate seat at the table for many decisions, so it seems like there are challenges overall in being on the same page regionally. And certainly with this issue, there has been a wide variety of approaches and stances with this. So what does it look like for a path forward? What are the options? Erica C. Barnett: [00:16:11] Well I mean, one option, the sort of nuclear option would be to say, Look, this regional authority is not going to work. Right now what it consists of is essentially two boards that are - there's like a governing board and an implementation board, and I won't bore you with the details of what the difference is. And there's some staff, but it's very bare bones at this point. It was supposed to be stood up many months ago. And the original plan - they're basically six months behind schedule now. And it's unclear how much this latest setback is going to put them further behind schedule. So nuclear option is saying, You know what, we need to go back to the drawing board. We need to sort of take all the homeless services that Seattle has been doing and retain them at the City of Seattle and beef up the division that actually does that work and is still doing that work now, and figure out a way forward. And I'll add, this is something I covered this week as well. The Homelessness Division within the City of Seattle's Human Services Department is down to about half of what it was a year ago. And they're doing more work than ever before. And people are leaving because they've gotten layoff notices because of this Regional Authority. And there's just like no certainty, so the more people leave, the more work is left for everybody else, the more burned out everybody gets. And so there's a real brain drain that's happening, as the Regional Authority process kind of continues to stall. Another option is hire somebody from that pool, maybe hire Marc Dones, the runner-up or somebody else who was in the pool, and just kind of keep chugging forward. But I think there's a tremendous amount of frustration among the people who actually provide services to people living on the streets and people living precariously unhoused, because ultimately that's who is supposed to be served by this governance board, governance authority, or the regional authority rather. And I think it's, I don't know. I think just personally I find these endless conversations about governance and structure and process rather frustrating, because what gets lost is that people are dying on the streets and there are thousands of people unsheltered. And the idea that like, there's going to be a perfect process that the County and the cities come to an agreement on that's going to solve the problem is just an illusion. I mean, it's about spending, it's about how we allocate dollars, and it's about getting people into housing and getting people into services. And I think that just really gets lost and has gotten lost for six months in these just endless discussions about how do we structure everything. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:14] I think that's an excellent point and true. That we've gotten away from the fundamental reason why we're having these conversations in the first place - is we need to get people into housing. And I almost feel like that getting away from the fundamental issue and talking about the scale of the problem, compounded by the current COVID pandemic and the challenges that we're facing with recent, very cold weather. And just how hostile it is to be outdoors, that this is a real challenge. And lots of people are interested in not necessarily continuing to talk about how we're facing a big, if not even bigger problem, four years after they talked about having bold big solutions that were going to make a big difference. It seems like this is going to be a significant issue once again, leading up into the mayoral elections. And so I guess, how do you see things moving forward in this conversation with the candidates who are running for City and Council positions? Erica C. Barnett: [00:20:34] Well, what's so interesting to me so far is I get information about polls all the time from - just from readers and people I know who've taken polls. And the issue that all of the polls I have heard about so far ask about - they ask about homelessness, but they also ask about the quote unquote state of downtown, which is I think related to homelessness, but is really conflated with homelessness in these polls. And is going to be a big issue during the campaign. So I think candidates are going to have to answer questions about what are you going to do to quote unquote clean up downtown? And by clean up downtown, I mean, what the sort of dog whistle is there is of homeless people. There's a lot of people living in tents downtown. There's a lot of people living in tents in Pioneer Square and there's just a tremendous amount of suffering and people living unsheltered. I think that's going to be a huge issue. And I think that the dividing line is going to be sort of what sort of approach are the various candidates going to take to this really kind of neighborhood specific question of cleaning up, quote unquote. Again, I'm putting giant scare quotes around that - downtown. Is the response, Well, the issue isn't downtown, it's homelessness and people congregate downtown for reasons. And if we address those reasons, they will not live downtown. Or is it we need to sweep the parks downtown. There was a big sweep of Denny Park, just north of downtown this week. Is it we need to - I mean, I think we'll hear people saying things like, on the more conservative side, saying things like we need to tell them that they can accept services or be arrested, or told to move along. And so I mean, this has been a dividing line, I think in recent elections, period. But I think the pandemic and the fact that a lot of businesses have been closed, and unsheltered homelessness has become more visible as we've talked about before. It's visible because we're not moving people from place to place as much. It's not that it was better before and now all of a sudden, we have this huge homelessness crisis. It's that it's visible to us. I think that's going to be the number one issue during the campaign - the sort of joint quote unquote public safety issue of having visible homelessness and the homelessness issue itself. Crystal Fincher: [00:23:15] Yeah. And I really appreciate you putting that in its proper context. In that those big scare quotes around cleaning up downtown, really being just a workshopped PR massaged way to say, What are you going to do to prevent me from having to see people without homes and to see people on the sidewalks? And that's a very different conversation than saying, How are we going to address the issue of people not having homes? How are we going to house these people and put them on a path to stable housing, stable permanent housing. And it is going to be a very big issue. And we hear the different shades of the Seattle is Dying narrative, which very much talks about homelessness as an issue of crime and vagrancy. And one, homelessness itself being compared to a crime. And two, people without homes being assumed to be hostile and criminal and needed to be dealt with by authorities in some way, instead of helped. They need to be policed or given ultimatums that they need to adhere to and abide by, or they don't have the right to not be in jail. Because they don't have a home or the ability to pay to afford one and so... Oh, no, go ahead. Erica C. Barnett: [00:24:58] I was just going to add, I mean, to the criminality question - it is absolutely true that people commit survival crimes all the time. I mean, I live next to a store that gets ripped off on a weekly basis. And I'm not saying that those are good crimes, or that it's okay to have a society where people shoplift and sell things in order to survive, or in order to sustain an addiction. That's not a good society to live in. And the root causes are not addressed by sort of saying, Well, the behavior is the problem and we need to police the behavior. No, the behavior is not the problem, the homelessness is the problem, the addiction is the problem. There are root causes to these things. And so this is me editorializing, very strongly, that I do think that we should have a downtown and we should have a city where people are not running shoplifting rings and where people are not stealing things to survive. But I don't think that the solution to that is criminalizing the root causes of that, which is what you do when you just throw people in jail and don't treat the underlying condition, which may be homelessness, which may be poverty, which may be addiction, or some combination of all those things and more. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:29] Absolutely. And definitely, we don't want anyone to be victimized in any way at any time. It is not more okay for one group to victimize than others. I think we do need to focus on root causes and solutions. And I also think that what is really easy to do and that we see flavors of the same story - is a person who is homeless committed this crime. We see that very often. That crime may be committed by other groups at a much higher percentage than people without homes. And that context is never provided in there either. And so there is also this inclination, more so by some elements of the media than others, to suggest that crime is being driven by homelessness when there are lots of other causes and lots of other perpetrators besides people who don't have homes. But what that does do - by perpetuating stereotypes that certain crimes are committed predominantly by one group of people when that's not the case, is it creates a lot more hostility towards people without homes. It creates, as we've seen, people who don't have a problem going up and harassing, sometimes assaulting, destroying the property, pushing for these sweeps - it creates victimization. And oftentimes we see people who are emboldened by believing what they hear when that's not true. And so I definitely appreciate you clarifying and speaking out against that and not being part of that problem. I certainly want to underscore, whenever we do talk about this, that the different ways that people talk about it - one, indicate where they're coming from or who their sources of information are. And two, we do need to put this information in the correct context - that we need to solve homelessness, we don't need to clean up downtown. And use that type of terminology for suggesting that we should just get people off of the street. And that you should be suspicious and not happy with people who put this problem in the context of, I want you to prevent me from having to be aware that other people are suffering, as if that in and of itself is suffering. The suffering is the actual suffering. Having to see the suffering is a signal of how bad that suffering is, and is not in any way justifiable to suggest that someone just shouldn't have to look at it or deal with it. We are responsible for solving this issue and that's where we should go, so that certainly is me up on a soapbox. I'm okay to be on that soapbox, but feel very strongly about that. And again, that type of rhetoric leads to victimization of people who were already in vulnerable positions in the first place. And I do not want to see more of that happening. With that said, we are right about at the time, we could certainly discuss a lot more, but time is preventing us from doing that.  I do appreciate all of you listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, March 5th, 2021. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our wonderful co-host today was Seattle political reporter and founder of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett, that's Erica with a C and on publicola.com. And you can buy her book Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery wherever you want to buy your books. Lots of great independent booksellers here. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii at F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed.  Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time.

Today Crystal and co-host Heather Weiner get into all things Seattle mayoral and city council elections, including: Who has thrown their hat into the mayoral race? Who is likely to in the near future? How will the Chamber and Amazon money affect these elections? Will big grocery store chains, some disgruntled by the $4 hazard pay increase recently passed by the city council, show up as major financial contributors? (Also, Trader Joe's is being pretty cool.) 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, Heather Weiner, at @hlweiner. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Articles Referenced: Follow the South Seattle Emerald's coverage of the mayoral race here: https://southseattleemerald.com/?s=mayor Learn more about Democracy Vouchers, and how you can use them, here: http://www.seattle.gov/democracyvoucher  Learn how to testify remotely before the legislature, and how to follow bills here: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/01/how-follow-and-participate-washington-state-legislature    Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources are available in the show notes with the podcast and at officialhacksandwonks.com in the episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host renowned political consultant, Heather Weiner.  Heather Weiner: [00:00:49] Hi, more like infamous.  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:53] Well, certainly known for doing lots and lots of good work - groundbreaking, nation-leading work. So I am pleased to have you on the program again and eager to dive into these issues.  Heather Weiner: [00:01:05] Oh my gosh. I love podcasts and how they spend the first couple of minutes telling each other how much they love each other.  Crystal Fincher: [00:01:12] Well, see the awesome thing about having a podcast is it does give me an excuse to talk to people who I adore and admire and who are doing incredible work. So this is - this is really a bonus and a perk.  Heather Weiner: [00:01:23] Yeah. I love - I love all the different, incredible guests that you've had on.  All right. What are we talking about this week? Crystal! I'm so excited. Like, it's like, it's kind of like Christmas. It's not quite Christmas. It's more like - I don't know - hmm, more like opening, like Thanksgiving for political folks right now. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:41] For political folks - or maybe it's like Christmas Eve for political folks in Seattle - as we like unwrap the presents, you know? Get the few early ones on Christmas Eve and unwrap the presents that are political candidates for mayor and city council. And we had some more announcements this week. So I guess looking at the mayor's race to begin with, what's the shape of the race right now? Heather Weiner: [00:02:06] Yeah. Well, okay. First, full disclosure - I'm currently working with Lorena González. I'm helping her out with some comms work, but that's only for a couple of weeks just to help her get off the ground on her campaign. So full disclosure there. So you'll know that I'm not biased when I say, Wow, Lorena González is so - but yes, I'm - I think this is pretty big news. You know, the city council president is running for mayor. I think she is definitely has the biggest name recognition of anybody who's in the race right now. But there's also some really great people who have already declared like Colleen Echohawk, Lance Randall, and Andrew Grant Houston, all of whom are people of color, which is just amazing to have that deep of a bench and so many great leaders of color running for mayor. I just think it's wonderful here in Seattle.  Crystal Fincher: [00:02:52] Yeah. And we're seeing that increasingly, and to me it is positive and notable because so, you know, we need representation and power across the board - certainly within the political system and within policy places, in addition to others. And the leaders that we have and kind of also breaking through what so many people do very often - it's assume, you know, well, there is a Black opinion and there is a, you know, Latino or Hispanic opinion. There is an, you know, like Asian people believe - as if, you know, that is one category with an opinion. And to me one of the very healthy things is that we can have conversations about the various experiences we've had and the perspectives that we have and they're nuanced and varied. And that is - that reflects reality. And so to be able to have that seen more widely, hopefully, normalizes that, Hey, you know, I'm just going to look to one person from all of the non-white groups, because we have no problem distinguishing between white people and well, this is an environmental candidate, this is someone who is representing business and everything and in past elections we certainly have - Okay, well, that's - that's the candidate from the Black community. That's a Black candidate and it is not that simple. And so we do have a wonderful representation of Seattle so far, and there's also some other folks rumored at getting in. So who else might join the race?  Heather Weiner: [00:04:32] Well, we're still hearing rumors about Bruce Harrell, former city council member. We're hearing rumors about Jessyn Farrell, who is a former state legislator . Possibly Nikkita Oliver, question mark. So there's a lot of people out there who are still thinking about running. I think it's going to be a crowded race. If you remember, when we had an open seat after Ed Murray, we had dozens of candidates running. Full disclosure - I worked for Cary Moon during that campaign. And here we go again.  Crystal Fincher: [00:05:02] Here we go again. So we're getting to the point where many candidates are announcing here in this February and through March timeframe. Usually candidates are in if they're going to be in by that time, although there could be some after. But how are people, I guess, after their rollouts and their campaign announcements - how are they positioning themselves? Heather Weiner: [00:05:26] Yeah, I was just going to ask you that question. How are they positioning themselves? I mean, who here is the, you know, in that list of people we've talked about is the Chamber candidate? Who is the far left candidate? None of these are really that clear. Even for Lorena, there's quite a bit of conversation about collaboration, about bringing sides together, about not having the yelling and frankly, a lot of hate speech that has been coming towards the Council and between the council and other folks for the last couple of years. It's no secret that the Council and the current mayor have had a rough start - now in year three - on their working relationship.  And you know, there's also confusion among the public about, well, what does the City Council really do? So I wondered - Crystal, if we could just kind of review that for a second. Let's do a quick Civics 101 here and remind ourselves that when you talk about the City Council, it's the same as talking about Congress essentially. The City Council reviews the budget, they make legislation, they make specific policy, they pass laws - but then it is up to the mayor's office and the enormous amount of people who work for the City of Seattle to implement those policies, to spend that budget wisely. And I think that Durkan - and I'm saying this on behalf of myself, not on behalf of anybody's campaign - I think Durkan has done an excellent job of - anytime there was a problem, putting it on , putting the blame on the City Council instead of taking responsibility for herself.  Crystal Fincher: [00:06:55] She is a masterful blamer - I would agree with that. Heather Weiner: [00:06:59] So I think - and I think the public and some members of the press have bought it. I've been making jokes all day today that the cruise ship industry is going to be closed this year. And because of some rules that Canada is putting forward - not allowing them to dock. And why aren't we blaming that on the City Council too? So I'm really very curious to see how these different folks who are running, who are all - seem to be kind of rushing for the middle, except for maybe Andrew Grant Houston - how they're going to handle that. Well, that was not anybody like a candidate calling. Sorry. So I think it's going to be super interesting to see how that positioning is handling out. And I think a lot of what's happening at this moment is people re-introducing themselves to the public.  Crystal Fincher: [00:07:43] And I think the re-introductionis needed and useful. And also, with the rollouts that they have  and the interviews that candidates have done in various places. And I will say the South Seattle Emerald has done an excellent job with the various candidate interviews and getting more detailed than we often see in an initial interview certainly - is that it's not immediately apparent that people are trying to position themselves as, Well, I am the Chamber candidate, and I am the candidate of the people, and the left progressive candidate. And it really has been an issues focused conversation so far. But how do you see things shaping out, moving forward? Do you see front runners in this race? Do you see people starting with clear advantages in their position?  Heather Weiner: [00:08:38] Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, obviously Lorena González is the front runner here. She has the fundraising base, she has the name recognition, she has the knowledge - deep inside knowledge - of how the City Council works. She's well-known as a civil rights attorney in this town. Remember - she was the lawyer who fought for victim - fought for justice for the victim of the infamous "I'm going to beat the Mexican piss out of you" incident with SPD. So she's very well known, but Colleen Echohawk is also very well-known. She's got within certain circles, you know - she's known for her advocacy on housing affordability and philanthropy. She's on the board of the Downtown Seattle Association. So she's pretty well-known too. So I don't know - I think it's going to be interesting to see how that works out. I'm also very curious to see what happens with the independent expenditures. Now, as you remember, because it wasn't that long ago - it was 2019 - Amazon dumped $1.5 million into trying to elect their slate of candidates. And they also put - big businesses also put, including Comcast, put a million dollars into electing Durkan. So who they gonna put their money behind this year is really the question. There's been some rumors the Chamber is going to stay out of it, but we've been seeing a lot of other stuff happening that indicates, Nah, they're not gonna - they can't resist.  Crystal Fincher: [00:10:07] They have never been able to resist and I don't think that this is going to be any different. They certainly seem - while they still may have a question, perhaps, on who they'll ultimately support. They certainly seem to be moving in the direction of preparing that support and putting themselves in a stance to activate for their candidate once they're chosen and official.  Heather Weiner: [00:10:31] Let's - I mean - now the Chamber is going to argue and I think Tim Burgess and Tim Ceis, that people who are really - who are advising, who are the consultants on this, I think they're going to start arguing that things have changed in the last two years. And they have - but not because of anything the City Council has done. I mean, look, we're in the middle of a pandemic, right? Once every hundred years that something like this would happen. Poverty is on the rise because people have been unemployed. There's less money circulating through our economy right now. People are facing eviction, they're facing mental health issues and also substance use disorder issues. Yeah. Crime is going up right now. Yes - people - we are seeing increased homelessness and all of these are symptoms of the larger issue of wealth inequality and what's happening with our economy under COVID. They're going to try to put all of that - the increased visualization of poverty, which is what homelessness is - they're going to try to put that on the City Council. And I don't know if voters are going to understand the big picture macroeconomics here.  Crystal Fincher: [00:11:36] And I certainly do see a tendency - certainly from the mayor - and she seems to have gotten that from those interests as she was running - to blame everything on the City Council. We have seen several times over the past couple years that when the Council and the mayor have disagreed, the Council with the support of the public seemingly behind them, has overridden the mayor. And seemingly won the argument with the support of the public.  Heather Weiner: [00:12:07] This mayor is probably the least enthusiastic about interacting with the public of any mayor - well before COVID - and seemed a little bit sour on the job from day one. And so I'm not surprised that she doesn't want to run again. It is a hard job. And I will have to say that almost every reporter who interviewed Lorena González this week asked, Why do you want this job? It is not an easy job, right? We've got a city that is very much divided. We've got massive wealth inequality. We are seeing the impacts of 100 years of racial discrimination, of gentrification. We are, you know - and expecting a mayor to come in and solve all of those problems. And that's a really big burden. That's a really big job.  Crystal Fincher: [00:12:56] It is a big job and it is coming with more expectation of accountability and accountability in more visible ways than we have seen before. The public seems to be more engaged and less willing to tolerate rhetoric and really looking for action. Someone's going to have to prove that they have a plan that they're willing to fight for and implement. How do you think the candidates are positioned to do that?  Heather Weiner: [00:13:22] Yeah. I think the only candidate - now look, I sound like I'm campaigning, please forgive me, okay? I do think the only candidate, really, who knows how to work with the Council is the current Council President. Crystal Fincher: [00:13:35] You're listening to Hacks and Wonks with your host Crystal Fincher on KVRU 105.7FM. Heather Weiner: [00:13:45] There's two seats coming up, also at the same time - the election - even if both of those seats went to conservative candidates , the mayor, a progressive mayor, would still have a majority on the Council. So I think there is a really good position here to get quite a bit done, at least in the first two years of whoever the next mayor's reign is. And I'm wondering - let's talk about those seats. So Teresa Mosqueda, I think, thought for a couple of minutes about running for mayor, decided not to do it, has already qualified for democracy vouchers in one week, is on a fundraising tear. I think she's scaring off any other challengers to her - I don't think anybody's going to want to do it. She's already pretty popular.  And then you've got the seat that's being vacated by Lorena that's coming open and that's where everybody is flooding in.  Crystal Fincher: [00:14:30] We saw Sara Nelson declare for that seat either yesterday or the day before - this week, certainly. And she has run before. She's a business owner. She's had the support of CASE, the Chamber's campaign arm before. And so how, I guess, as she's running, how is she positioning herself and what did she present as her plan and viewpoint in her rollout?  Heather Weiner: [00:14:56] Yeah. Her talking point was - we need the perspective of a business owner on the Council. People don't remember though - that actually Sara Nelson was a staffe , City Hall staffer for quite a few years. I believe - I know that she worked for Conlin - I'm going to have to fact check this. Anyway, I know that she worked for Conlin and she is trying to say that she needs to be the business representative. I think what's going to happen though, is when people take a look at her positions and also her backers, they're going to see the same big corporate folks that we've always had. So that's going to be interesting. Ryan Calkins is also rumored to be thinking about this. He is currently a Port Commissioner.  Also a small business owner. And has been, in my view, really moving his own positions way to the left over the last year which is interesting - handsome, tall white guy. We've also heard rumors about Scott Lindsay who - former candidate for City Attorney - who lost badly to Pete Holmes. And who also has been working closely with KOMO and SPOG to foment, you know , anger towards the City Council.  And then we've also heard rumors about Brianna Thomas who's a friend of the show - I know she's been on the show before . Who is also a Lorena González staffer, who also has been named as a possible person who might be running. So that's - and I think actually Brianna has, and I'm not just saying this because I personally like her a lot - I actually think she has a good chance. Voters like to elect former City Hall staffers. Lisa Herbold - former city hall staffer. Dan Strauss - former City Hall staffer. Alex Pedersen, former City Hall staffer. All of these folks - Andrew Lewis, right - used to work at City Hall. So all of these folks are folks who have been elected by the voters. I think she has a good chance.  Crystal Fincher: [00:16:44] I think she has a good chance. And I think that particularly with her - especially right now and just talking about - voters want someone who is prepared to get the job done and start executing and delivering without just talking about what is needed without the knowledge and ability to get it done. As that - as Lorena González's chief of staff - she has been intimately involved with getting policy through and implementing the passage and the implementation, the design of legislation that can withstand the legal challenges. You know, it's as important to make sure your policy can stick as it is to pass it. So I think the combination of her experience kind of within that system and also additional experience at the legislative level and then bringing a community-oriented perspective into the office and really being able to fight for what community is standing for. I know that Lorena has talked about how important Brianna has been in not just reaching out to the community which she's been very  helpful with, but also in bringing the community perspective into the office. And to say, Hey, as a Black woman, this is not trivial - being afraid for ourselves and our family, as we walk out on the streets and not knowing if we're going to see someone come home again, or if they're going to be you know, harassed for, you know, either from the police or from, you know, Proud Boys roaming the streets without consequence or a variety of things. So, so being strong in that perspective has certainly, I think, helped policy in Seattle , been valuable for Lorena, and what voters are looking to see in their representatives today. Heather Weiner: [00:18:35] Yeah. And I know you said earlier at the show - that just because you're a person of color does not mean that you just singularly represent the people who you ethnically or racially identify with. But I do - I do think from a just, you know, your average voter perspective, seeing a Black woman on the City Council would be great because we do not have any Black representation right now.  I mean, but let's talk a little bit about what's happening on the money front. So right now, most of these candidates are using democracy vouchers - which I love, it makes me so excited. I mean, Seattle - you're awesome. You are using democracy vouchers to support the candidates that you want. This is the best way to overcome big money in politics. The other thing I want to point out is the rules have really changed for independent expenditures this year. Lorena, actually - don't I just sound like I'm promoting her constantly on this podcast? Are we going to have to declare this to the PDC as an in-kind contribution? You know, she was originally an ethics and elections commissioner. And now as a legislator with the City Council, passed some really remarkable reforms to campaign financing so that corporations that have a significant foreign presence are seen as foreign contributors and cannot participate in independent expenditures. So that is really interesting. And it's going to be interesting to see if Amazon and these other big corporations are legally able to put money into PACs like People for Seattle.  Crystal Fincher: [00:20:06] Yeah. And they, you know, last time around, they basically said, Here, have a blank check - whatever you want to spend, you can. To the point that they were - they were spending so much, they were running out of ways to spend it. So checking the influence of large actors, especially, who may not have the interest of the City of Seattle as their primary motivator , is something. I think that they'll find a way to participate within this campaign, but I do think you made an excellent point about democracy vouchers helping to check the power of corporations  like Amazon and of those with the most money - which buys the most communication and allows you to attempt to drown all of the other voices out. And we saw that firsthand, last city council election, where really it was because the people were engaged and did not appreciate Amazon trying to buy their candidates. And buy their way onto the City Council and influence on it, especially since the policies that they were fighting against were ones that Seattleites supported by a wide margin. You know, the Head Tax is popular among people in Seattle. The only entity that seems to be against it is Amazon and therefore the Chamber, which seems to closely follow Amazon's legislative and policy agenda.  Heather Weiner: [00:21:35] Look, I mean, Amazon still polls high in this city, you know, their political game-playing not withstanding. We - people still like Amazon. We like having our packages coming to our house. We like how the ease of Amazon, like voters still like Amazon. So - but they do not like Amazon trying to deliver a slate of candidates. So I don't know that they're going to be able to do it. And honestly, how do you spend money this year, Crystal? So remember there's no political advertising on Facebook in the state of Washington. Or - and Google says they don't allow it either in the state of Washington although people get through. Twitter definitely doesn't allow it anymore. So in terms of social media advertising and fundraising, that's off the table. You definitely want to have people knocking doors then, right? But how are you going to knock doors during COVID? We saw that Mark Mullet did it. He hired - he hired people and I think that's what helped him - pushed him over the edge. But how are you going to do it? How are you going to spend that money?  You know, I think folksCrystal Fincher: [00:22:33] are going to try it at the doors. I think that is going to happen. I think that we'll see a lot of digital advertising money spent. And so, although it may not be on Facebook and Amazon, it'll be on every other site you go to. And those, you know, customized ads that are served up. And I think that we are going to see, you know, an onslaught of radio and TV and mail and, and kind of going back to the old standbys. And frankly, what a lot of those entities are used to doing and have done for decades, really. And just trying to out-communicate on the airwaves and in the mailboxes.  But we will see - I think that people really saw the power of democracy vouchers before. And I think one thing that's underestimated is that not only does it give people the power to compete with big moneyed interests, with being able to broadly appeal to the residents of Seattle and have that add up. But it also gets people engaged to a greater degree than they did without them. The democracy voucher isn't just, Hey, one transaction, let me hand this over. It really does create a deeper bond or a deeper level of engagement with the candidate. So I think that right now we're going to see candidates have to not just be the candidate of the Chamber or with supportive unions - that they're going to have to speak to people and get the support of the public as much as they ever have before and not rely on, you know, Hey, look at my friends over here. They're going to do the heavy lifting of this independent expenditure communication without them having to make their own case and be a credible candidate that people feel is up to the task of handling the crises that we're facing.  Heather Weiner: [00:24:26] Yeah. You know, I know we only have a couple more minutes left, but I want to just say, I think one of the big players that we might see this year coming into the City Council and mayor's race might be the big grocery stores. They are big in the news this week - suing, well, some of them are - suing to stop their own workers from getting hazard pay in the grocery stores. I mean, these are people who are supposed to be the heroes, the frontline workers. People who are exposing themselves to hundreds and hundreds of people who might have COVID every single day. They are getting sick. They are the ones absorbing the impacts of this. And the grocery stores which are getting amazing amounts of profits during COVID - because we're all buying our groceries and not eating out - don't want to pay that money. And they are going to - they're suing, they're saying it's unconstitutional. They're really raising a fuss. Except - and PCC, which is supposed to be progressive, you know, co-op, awesome place to shop - is one of the people who are screaming the loudest. Except, and this blows my mind - Trader Joe's. You know, LA has done the same ordinance - Trader Joe's just went ahead and said, You know what? Good idea. We're going to do it for all workers across the country. Everybody gets $4 an hour raise.  Crystal Fincher: [00:25:44] Which was incredible to see and really did not do service to their similar, large grocers who as you said, despite reaping windfall profits since the beginning of the pandemic, have said, Well, we can't afford this. This is gonna make the price of groceries go higher. You know, the sky is going to fall. Don't pay attention to our exorbitant executive pay. But if we give these employees on the frontlines who are risking their lives 4 more dollars - things are going to be horrible.  Heather Weiner: [00:26:16] Yeah. We're going to have to raise prices - blah, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, these same corporations are buying back their own stock, right? Or giving out big dividends. Their shareholders are making a bunch of money - a grocery cart of money, Crystal. Yeah. Anyway, so look for them to get, to be involved in the play. And again, they're beseeching Mayor Durkan to veto this. I don't know if she is going to do it, but I know the City Council has enough votes to override it. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:43] Well, and my goodness, you would think that Mayor Durkan would be chastened a little bit about, you know, when the Council acts in service of the people and I then move to veto it - it doesn't turn out well, it's going to get overridden and then she's just sitting there once again as someone who tried to get in the way of progress and was just repudiated by everyone. And this seems like, you know, it seems like a bad argument on its face. And one that doesn't really have a shot in Seattle 'cause as you said, these corporate executive shareholders are reaping a lot of profit and have not had the experience that so many regular people, and certainly that many of their employees on the frontlines have, in the pandemic. And struggling to pay bills, and dealing with being exposed and trying not to bring that home to other family members. And to have the CEO of PCC fight against it as she's flying to Australia.  Heather Weiner: [00:27:49] Really?  Crystal Fincher: [00:27:50] Literally. Literally was fighting against the $4 hazard pay as she's tweeting online about loving her second home and getting ready to go to Australia. I'm like, Read the room, read the room. And as you have Whole Foods CEO, again, trying to put a progressive face on a company and him saying, Well, if people would just eat better, they would be healthier - wouldn't even need health insurance. Because certainly eating well prevents injuries from car accidents and cancer and you know, just how ridiculous and detached and entitled these people making these arguments are and it's pretty transparent. So this is going to be interesting, and I do think that they're going to play a greater role in attempting to shift the discourse. And it'll be interesting to see how that is responded to and how they receive that.  Heather Weiner: [00:28:48] Well, I can't wait to talk to you about this more. I think I'm coming back next month. Let's - let's check in and see what happens.  Crystal Fincher: [00:28:55] Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, February 5th, 2021. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. and the producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. Our wonderful co-host today is Seattle political consultant Heather Weiner. You can find Heather on Twitter @hlweiner. You can find me at Twitter @finchfrii. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts, just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live show and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. And you can 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 and we'll talk to you next time. 

Today Crystal talks with returning guest Marcy Bowers from the Statewide Poverty Action Network. Mary gives an update on the continued struggle for low income families as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, and how the Washington State legislature is seeking to address this. A huge takeaway from this episode: Get involved and give the legislature your input! Resources: Follow the working families tax exemption discussed on the show here: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=1297&Year=2021&Initiative=false  Provide your input by calling the legislative hotline at 1-800-562-6000. Sign up to participate in committee hearings before the legislature here: https://leg.wa.gov/legislature/Pages/Participating.aspx  Read Marcy's op-ed advocating for continued financial support for low-income communities in our state here: https://crosscut.com/opinion/2020/06/ongoing-stimulus-low-income-residents-can-save-wa-communities  Transcript: Crystal Fincher (00:13): Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into the local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind the scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.   Today, I'm happy to announce that Marcy Bowers is our guest. She's the Director of the Poverty Action Network, and we are thrilled to have her with us today. I guess I would just start off by asking, what does the Statewide Poverty Action Network do and what brought you to the organization?   Marcy Bowers (01:07): Well, hi. Thank you so much for having me today. It is always a pleasure to talk to you and to be here. Poverty Action is an organizing and advocacy organization. We believe that organizing is a key component to doing advocacy work and policy change work. We work with people with low incomes from around the state, we hear from them about what policies we should change, and then we work with them to share their stories and to change those policies. And that is at the state level.   And I got into this work, it goes back a long time. I grew up with a single mom. She had to make all sorts of creative choices when I was a kid about how we were going to afford some of the basic food items, and it really stuck with me about - you really can't have real justice and you can't address a number of sociological problems if you are not addressing poverty as a key part of that challenge. And so I feel really lucky that I get paid to do organizing on something I might do as a volunteer without it.   Crystal Fincher (02:16): This is so critically important right now. This is on a lot of people's minds, even more now because of the pandemic and how much this is stressing people's finances. More people than ever are out of work. It's a very challenging time for people health-wise - lots of people don't have insurance and they're trying to navigate through that. That is a very oftentimes cost prohibitive and can put people in financial jeopardy, just dealing with that system. And the housing prices are through the roof. The minimum wage has not kept up with inflation. And so everything has gotten more expensive. People are not getting paid enough to keep up with it. This is a really big problem. I guess when you're looking at the state of things right now in Washington, where are we and what can help?   Marcy Bowers (03:14): That's a big question, but I think you are absolutely right, that it is harder and harder for people to meet their basic needs to make ends meet. We travel around the state hosting listening sessions - of course this year they've been on Zoom, to hear what people have to say. And probably the number one and number two things that we hear are, we don't have enough money and the costs are going up. So it's a big economic observation that people make, but it's something that people who are living with this reality day-to-day will also tell you are their top two concerns across the board.   I think one thing that is always interesting when you kind of look at these big picture things is that often the big economic picture masks some of the deeper disparities, whether that's looking at our economic numbers, excuse me, as a state by race, whether that's looking at the numbers of people who are living in deep poverty. Those numbers have all gotten worse. Even before the pandemic, those numbers were moving in the wrong direction. More people were living in deep poverty. The disparities for black and indigenous women in particular were going up. And those were trending in the wrong direction. And I would say that the pandemic really has done two things there. One, it's made those things worse. Amazon stakeholders and shareholders are doing great right now because everybody also turned to online shopping, but that hasn't changed in most low-income communities and communities of color.   The other thing I think that the pandemic did was put a spotlight on the disparities that we had before. I think for people who are falling on hard times for maybe the first time in their life, they had the opportunity to say gosh, maybe I do need to rely on some forms of assistance every once in a while. Maybe there is a role for government to play in some of this. Maybe we don't have to assume that businesses will fix all of this and the private sector will fix all of this.   I absolutely agree with you that we are in really difficult, hard times economically for a lot of people, and there's a lot to be sad and disappointed and frustrated about. And I think there are glimmers and moments of hope to look for around how people's perspective on this is changing. Obviously the pandemic does not care whether you are wealthy or not, as it's attempting to infect your body.   Crystal Fincher (05:58): Right. And it doesn't care if you're wealthy or not, or if your neighbors are. And the pandemic has definitely reinforced to a lot of people that we're all connected in ways that maybe we didn't appreciate enough before, and both the health and economic wellbeing of our neighbors impacts our lives too. And the better we're all doing, the better we all do. You talk about some glimmers of hope. Right now we are at the beginning of the state legislative session and, as you alluded to, people who are extremely well off, the uber rich have actually gotten richer during this pandemic. And it's also made people at the bottom struggle even more. The issue of income inequality and the difference in what we're asking, the burden that we're asking the extremely rich people to bear versus poor people, couldn't be more different. And there are some proposals to address this in the legislature. What can help?   Marcy Bowers (07:07): I think so my first glimmer of hope, and I appreciate that you just serve that up to me on a T, is I do think the proposal to tax capital gains and to use some of that to fund a Working Families Tax Credit or a state version of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, I think that's getting more traction than it's ever had before. I think it is being talked about fairly seriously now. I think there are more votes than we've seen. I will tell you sort of on an organizational, personal note, we worked really hard on getting the bill introduced to reform - reform's not the right word. You can edit me out later. To update and modernize the Working Families Tax Credit and make it more inclusive. That bill was introduced on Monday and by Tuesday we had 46 sponsors in the House on that bill. That is almost 50% of the State House signing on to create and fund and modernize an Earned Income Tax Credit. And that also makes it eligible to ITIN filers, who are often, but not always, immigrant tax filers. A little known other community of people who often use ITIN filers are domestic violence and intimate partner violence survivors. For confidentiality, they use a number that's different than their Social Security number when filing. And so that would be opening up the tax credit to them, but then also making it more available to the people at the lowest income levels in our state.   That is a big glimmer of hope to me. That's a ray of hope, maybe more than even a glimmer, but that has so much traction and so much excitement. And the governor has been talking about it, which is also really exciting.   Crystal Fincher (08:55): That is very exciting. And I'm really happy to hear that it does include a lot of immigrant communities that are so often excluded from safety nets and help, which doesn't make much sense overall when we look at the impact that that has on our communities and the benefit that it would offer our communities to take care of people who are such a critical and instrumental part of our community. They've been left out of previous COVID relief and so much, so that is very welcome news to hear that they aren't being left behind this time.   And other communities, like you talked about, the intimate partner violence, people who've experienced that. Oftentimes there are several groups who are overlooked, and so kudos for making sure that you're bringing everyone along, which of course an organization like yours should be doing, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. So, that's great.   What exactly would this do? If someone is in a position to receive this, what could they expect?   Marcy Bowers (10:07): The short version of the story is they can expect some cash. So the way we have modeled it is starting at the very lowest income scales, you get the full benefit, which would be - around $500 would be the benefit, and then it scales up a little bit more with kids. And one of the things, in addition to it just being cash that people can spend however they want and need to meet the needs that they have in their families, is that there's not hoops to jump through to get it. I am a big believer in our state's safety net programs. I think it is absolutely crucial to do that, and I am troubled by how many hoops people have to jump through to just get basic assistance. And I think one of the amazing things about something like this is it's a little bit like a stimulus check, or we're calling it a recovery rebate, where you just get it. You don't have to jump through hoops. You don't have to spend a bunch of time proving your hardship. You don't have to tell your trauma over and over and over again. You just get to receive cash without a bunch of strings attached to it, that you can spend on whatever you and your family need.   That, to me, is also something that gives me a lot of hope - that that conversation where we might, as a society, stop questioning the decision making abilities of people who just don't have money, but somehow they can't make a good position. That narrative needs to go. And I think this is another glimmer of hope that this is getting traction and we are beginning to see a shift in how people talk about this kind of stuff.   Crystal Fincher (11:45): I completely agree. The conversation around direct cash assistance, which is the most effective way to provide help, and, as you talked about, it has a direct stimulating effect on the economy. So much data to back that up, that if we give people who need it the most – money - they spend it on things they need in their communities. It helps all of our local businesses who are employing our other neighbors. It just makes sense.   You talk about we don't make people jump through hoops. The conversation has evolved on this and I have learned a lot over time on this. We talk about, well, what if people get it who don't deserve it or who don't need it? When we put so many barriers before people, it just makes it harder to get it to the people who really do need it and it just prevents it from helping the people who it needs to help and stimulating the economy.   If we need to claw back money, you want to do that. You can do that through taxation on the other end, but it should not slow down how we help people and the assistance that we provide. So I appreciate you driving that conversation and you driving that policy, because it is critically important and we need it now more than ever. Families need it now more than ever, and it's really time we stop enabling conversations that make it seem like being poor is some kind of moral failing, a lack of education, that they're just not worthy of having nice things, needing to prove that they deserve it somehow. People deserve to have their basic needs met and to not be insecure with housing or food or any of their other necessities. So thank you so much for doing work in that area. I'm really excited to hear that it's had such a positive reception so far.   What's the bill number and what can people do if they want to support that, or I guess, how should they contact their legislators? I assume it will be having a hearing at some point in time, so how can they help advocate for this?   Marcy Bowers (14:06): Well, the bill number is... There will be a Senate bill in the coming days, but right now the House bill number is 1297. So one, two, nine, seven, and the prime sponsor of it is Representative Thai, and I think she's done an amazing job. I think this is sort of this other piece of the conversation that would give me a glimmer of hope, and then I really will come back and answer your question about how to be involved - is that I think after the 2020 election, we also saw a new class of freshmen that is our most diverse in history. So based on our most racially diverse, more women than we've ever had before, more of a diversity of experiences, more people who have an experience with poverty and hardship. There's a previously incarcerated legislator now, there's organizers, and that is also very, very, very exciting to me as an organizer, to see people who are excited to come to the legislature and represent their history and their communities and their stories, and speak up and upset a little bit of the status quo that sort of holds things exactly where they've been.   Crystal Fincher (15:17): You're listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. And our guest today is Marcy Bowers from the Statewide Poverty Action Network.   Marcy Bowers (15:32): As far as how to take action, there will be hearings coming up, but probably the easiest thing to share over the radio about how to take action is the legislative hotline number. And that phone number is 1(800) 562-6000. And I love the legislative hotline number because you literally call it and some actual live people answer the phone and they take your address and they ask you what you want to tell your legislators, and they literally type a message that goes directly to your legislators.   Just on a funny note, I made it my personal mission one year to have the hotline receptionist, or the folks who answered the call there, to know who I was, and so I called the legislative hotline every single day for an entire legislative session. Until finally toward the end of session, it was maybe sometime in March, I called and they said, "Legislative hotline, what's your message?" And I said, "Hi, this is Marcy." And they were like, "Hi, Marcy." I felt like I had had a big achievement.   Crystal Fincher (16:48): Oh my goodness. That makes sense. And great tip because super easy, super accessible, to call in and they will give your message to your legislator. Because sometimes it can be hard to figure out, who should I even talk to? Who are my legislators? What's going on? Another thing, as I think about it, that is a little bit different this year, that is definitely different this year, but that can make engaging with your legislators more accessible, is that because we are in this pandemic, they are having a lot of committee meetings and committee hearings via Zoom. And people can sign in and testify via Zoom from wherever they're at. So this has made it a lot more accessible and possible for people to get involved. They don't have to drive to Olympia to have a hearing.    They just started not that long ago having satellite sites but still, you had to get to a satellite site. Now you can sign on to Zoom, as so many of us have done so often, especially since the pandemic. So that's another option that's available if people are following the bill number. And you can Google it, it'll take you to the page and it'll actually just tell you when the - you can see when committee meetings and hearings are coming up, if you want more information on that or any other bills. So just ways to get more involved.   I mentioned before we started recording, speaking of the new legislators that are in, we have a very diverse class and just elected a number of black women into the legislature. I just received Representative Kirsten Harris-Talley's first legislative email update, and so that just made me feel warm and fuzzy as I was reading that, so that was a little exciting shortly before we started recording today.   I guess that goes into other questions. So we've got capital gains, we've got tax credit relief. What else is there that can help, either in the legislature or even looking at policies that could be helpful at the more local level, whether it's through cities with city councils or county councils. What are policies that we need to be implementing right now and what are policies that people can go to their elected representatives to say, this is what we are expecting you to do to help?   Marcy Bowers (19:29): I think it's a good question. It's a big question, again. You're good at the big questions. I think if I were to try and think about kind of what a theme is for this - and it is that individual families and small communities cannot do this alone. And what we need are some of the bigger institutions of our world to play a part in this. Part of why I frame it that way is that during the last recession, almost across the board, states and counties and municipalities did a ton of cost cutting and austerity measures. They gutted their budgets. And some of our priorities this year are still pieces of undoing the mess that was done during the great recession a decade ago. And so I think that if I were to try and think about thematically what is it that the state and local governments need to do, it is to recognize that now is the time for investing in our communities, for bolstering and shoring up the economic situations of our institutions and of our communities and our families. That this is not the time for sort of belt tightening and all of those other weird euphemisms we use for essentially eliminating social programming. Now is not the time for that.   I think that message is being heard. I think that's being heard at many levels at this point. And I think that it needs to be a continuous drum beat. And I think one of the key clear components, in addition to direct cash assistance, that I am probably most worried about at just about every level of government is what to do when the eviction moratoriums end. How are we going to ensure that people have some way to pay their back rent, to pay their current rent, to pay their future rent, and not have an incredibly huge spike in homelessness. That it would be not only cruel, but it would also be a public health nightmare in addition to that and on top of that.   I think cities are looking at this. I think counties are looking at this. I know the state is looking at this. Theoretically Congress is looking at this. And I think that that component of having a plan for what happens when eviction moratoriums. And when eventually when these sort of state of emergencies end, all of these measures that we have rightfully put in place during this emergency at all levels of government - at some point they're going to end - and it would be a gigantic mistake and incredibly cruel and set us back in a public health measure if we don't have a plan for what happens when the state of emergency is officially over.   Crystal Fincher (22:33): What should that plan be? I mean, is it wholesale forgiveness? There are questions related to that in terms of small landlords versus large or corporate landlords. It seems like there needs to be rent forgiveness and some mortgage relief for smaller landlords. What is the package of remedies that you're looking at to actually address this? Because you're exactly right. We're kind of kicking the can down the road - we're literally kicking the can down the road, and pressing a pause button, but we are not undoing the accumulation of debt.   As we all know, if people are having a hard time paying their bills right now, there's no way they're going to come up with oftentimes 5 or 10, a multi-thousand dollar balloon payment on top of all of their other bills. That's just not realistic. So we're going to be looking at an eviction tsunami whenever this ends. And, like you said, it would be a public health crisis. It would be a public budget crisis. As you talked about, those austerity measures are actually more expensive in the long run. It costs less to keep someone in their home than to remedy the situation once they do become homeless and experience all of the other challenges that are related to that. We do pay for that as a society. We cannot act like we don't experience consequences from allowing our neighbors to become homeless.   If we can take action to prevent that, that is the responsibility, and the lesson that we've learned from going through this before, as you mentioned. So what should be put into place in tandem with the ending of the eviction moratoriums?   Marcy Bowers (24:34): I should be clear, I'm not a housing policy expert. We've got some good friends who do that. But I do think it is probably some combination of rental assistance, some forgiveness in some settings, probably some payment plans, some additional work on building more housing, because I think that's one of the aspects that isn't talked about quite as much - is that rightfully there's fewer evictions, but that also means that the people who were homeless at the beginning of an eviction moratorium didn't actually see any turnover in the existing housing stock, so they have been having a much harder time finding a place to live.   So we still have, even with all the temporary measures, we still have this problem of a lack of affordable housing. I don't want to totally take our eye off the prize of the need, it's not even a prize, take our eye off the larger problem of needing more affordable housing overall. I suspect, not being a housing expert, that it will be a variety and a combination of things. I know our parent agency provides nonprofit housing and it was a pretty interesting budget conversation when we had no income from our very low income tenants for 8 months of a 12 month fiscal cycle. And I'm aware of that challenge across non-profit housing as well. And I don't think they should be evicted and have to pay their rent right now when there's no opportunity for work.   Crystal Fincher (26:18): Part of this conversation as a society that we have to reckon with, that, I think, our common discourse does not currently, is we have to be realistic about what the consequences are of the actions that we take. And we hear so often, there was just another very online conversation about raising the minimum wage and all of the various reactions to that going, "It's going to put everyone out of work and it's going to make a Big Mac cost $20," which is all of the conversation that we hear every time that the minimum wage is raised. And as we saw in Seattle, the sky did not fall. In fact, it helped a number of people and businesses.   As we are navigating through this, I think we need to be realistic in that, yeah, we are asking people who have $60 million to maybe have $57 million. That we're going to ask them to carry some kind of tax burden. We don't have an income tax in this state. We have the most regressive tax structure, meaning that we ask poor people to pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes than we ask rich people, and we have a system of fees to compensate for the taxes that we are not asking from people who can so easily afford them.   We have billionaires that are here in our state, who have gotten billions of dollars richer just during the pandemic, and what we're really talking about is, should we be putting people onto the street or should we be asking people like Jeff Bezos to maybe deal with $298 billion instead of $300 billion. That's what we're talking about. And I think that we just have to continue to focus on really having the scale of the conversation and what is a consequence of asking for a tiny percentage more in taxes for people who actually can't spend the amount of money that they have in their lifetimes versus the consequences of not providing those taxes and not having any way to keep people in their homes, or keep them fed, or to have those necessities in life. That's certainly a soap box that I have hopped on before, I'll continue to hop on, but I am comfortable asking someone to scrape by with $57 million instead of $60 million, because it can benefit so many other people.   I guess as we are wrapping this up, what message would you send to people who are listening, whether they're in the position of being in need of help right now or wondering what they can do to help?   Marcy Bowers (29:17): I think my message is, in some ways, it's always the same, which is that now is the opportunity to speak up. Now is the opportunity to tell people why this is important, to speak your truth to power, to stand up. I think as the Trump administration comes to a close, I think we saw the consequences of staying silent when voices really needed to come out and say something different. And this is the time. This is our time. This is the time to come out and say, this is what we want to see, this history is unjust and it can be fixed. Policy problems and a decision to not have a capital gains tax or an income tax is what got us into this mess and changing that policy can help be part of the strategy to get us out of this mess.   It's time to stand up and say something and to not be afraid that your voice doesn't matter. I've heard often over the years, "Well, I don't know. I'm just one person. Does it really matter?" And it really does. Legislators hear a whole lot of facts and figures, they get a lot of statistics, they get a lot of dollar amounts, but what they don't necessarily get a lot of are people telling them why a change is needed and how it would impact them. Whether that's calling the hotline number, whether that's signing up to testify via the legislative website. Even if it's not, even if you're not ready to testify, you can still sign up and say, I'm pro this bill, or I'm con this bad bill. You don't have to be ready necessarily to speak up. You can just be ready to put your name out there, excuse me, and say you support something. But now's the time.   Crystal Fincher (30:58): Well said. Very well said. Thank you so much for joining us today. We will include in our show notes, as we do all the time, a full text transcript of the show in addition to the audio, and we will include links to both the information about the bills that we talked about and information on how you can sign up to testify or just to signal that you are for or against a particular bill. So make sure to make your voice heard, the legislature is considering these issues right now, and it really does matter if they hear from you or not. That does make a difference. Thank you so much, and we'll talk to you next time.   Marcy Bowers (31:43): Thank you so much.

Today Crystal is joined by a new co-host for our weekly show, the inimitable Marcus Green! Crystal and Marcus get in to the inauguration, how we need to continue to be involved in policy after the election, the Seattle Police Department's response to officers who attended the Capitol Hill insurrection, and the refusal of some police officers to wear masks – even when at a hospital. A full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii, and follow Marcus Harrison Green at @mhgreen3000. Learn more about Hacks & Wonks at www.officialhacksandwonks.com. References: Hear how to pronounce Vice President Kamala Harris' name here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYkZkpLQUS0 Learn about why it's important to pronounce names correctly here: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210108-the-signals-we-send-when-we-get-names-wrong Read Seattle Times coverage about the SPD officer's refusal to wear a mask here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/spd-reaffirms-mask-guidelines-after-hospital-incident-that-blew-up-on-twitter/ Check out The South Seattle Emerald's continuing coverage of the upcoming Seattle mayoral race here: https://southseattleemerald.com/tag/seattle-mayoral-race/ Read guest Marcus Harrison Green's Seattle Times column here: https://www.seattletimes.com/author/marcus-green/ Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with Political Hacks and Policy Wonks to gather insight into state and local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a guest cohost. Welcome to the program today's co-host and publisher of the excellent South Seattle Emerald and columnist with the Seattle Times, Marcus Harrison Green. Welcome Marcus!  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:00:31] It is such a pleasure to be here, Crystal. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a long time coming and I'm glad that I'm here. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:39] Absolutely a long time coming. I'm such a fan of your work of the South Seattle Emerald. I have just followed you for so long - your writing, your columns, everything that you're doing. And now the South Seattle Emerald is a resource that I and so many people refer to every day for critical information about our community. So I am just thrilled that you are here. And so what happened this week? Just a couple things, right? Not too much. Pretty low-key, I guess. So starting off, what, what kind of everyone was paying attention to for so long - the culmination of the 2020 election. This week we had the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. So there was a lot surrounding that - I guess, your thoughts on the events of the day? You know, we were kind of holding our breath to see if there was going to be any violence that day. Lots of people have feelings about, Okay, so what does this actually mean in terms of changes of policy moving forward? As you are absorbing this, I guess, what did you take from the inauguration and what are your views on what lies ahead? Marcus Harrison Green: [00:01:51] Yeah, I mean, I, it's a small thing, but it was - I was like, I was hoping that the Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who swore in Kamala Harris, would have gotten her name correct.  Crystal Fincher: [00:02:04] It's not a small thing, and it is a significant thing and - Marcus Harrison Green: [00:02:08] It is a very, very significant thing. You're watching it and you're like, Ooh, 'cause you're seeing it in her eyes. It's just like, but you know, but other than that, right, the rest of the day in terms of the inauguration day seemed to go off pretty much without a hitch relative to what many people were expecting. Like, I'll say this. I mean, I certainly was on alert for any violence that was going to take place, but it, you know, it's really was a fairly low-key day in the sense that it was somewhat normative, right? And, and I think that was - I think that was the main message that they were trying to convey, right? I mean, as much as I've been critical over our past presidents and heck, this one, that we are newly - our new president as well. If there was sort of something about - and look, all inaugurations are propaganda, let's be honest. But there was something about, right - seeing all the past presidents there together. You know, obviously it's a photo-op, but sort of this message of, Okay, we've gotten through sort of this one bout of chaos, most likely to go through another bout of chaos, but at the very least it was like, we can be calm and assured and breathe at least a sigh of relief for 24 hours. And I think that's really kind of what the nation needed regardless of, you know, what, where you fall along the spectrum.  Crystal Fincher: [00:03:42] Yeah, I agree. I mean, one of the, just kind of huge picture hallmarks of democracy is the peaceful transfer of power. And this has not been a completely peaceful transfer of power, but there is something to just the, the ceremony of handing off power. This is not something that - I think we've seen - we can take for granted. So now that we've been able to move on, I mean, I certainly saw a lot of conversations from people going, You know, there, there are some problematic histories and issues that we have with, you know, Joe and Kamala. This isn't going to be any different and why is this worthy of celebration? And I think that we can hold space for multiple things at one time when we look at this inauguration. Certainly, people may have issues - and justified issues - with some of Kla Harris's policies and Joe Biden's policies. I am one of them.  And , but I do think that there is space and it is okay and, and shoot - with all we've had to endure, it is okay to, to take a moment of joy and celebration and commemoration to mark us seeing a, you know for me, certainly - a Black woman , an Indian woman being inaugurated as the Vice President of the United States of America. This is something we have never seen before and, and little boys and girls growing up now can say, Oh, this is something that, that is normal. This is in my realm of possibility. I see someone there and can put into context that they belong there. It does not seem foreign anymore and, and, you know, certainly they're going to be facing a lot of obstacles and, and everything that is the challenge of running federal government and trying to move policy. But I do think that - and also celebrate that - Wow, one, we just got rid of a nightmare and you know, at least we are not going to be continuing to head full speed down that road. Now we're gonna, you know, push in the right direction as hard and as fast as we need to? To be determined. But for that day, I am, am with everyone else and saying, let's pause and celebrate. Let's feel this joy. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:06:08] Right. It's more of a - it's almost like a holiday of catharsis, right? In the sense of, No, it's going to take a much more than, right, an hour and a half inauguration to heal true. But at the very least, it's sort of a, Hey, we can stop. And we can just pause, and we can reflect, and we can - I mean, I hate to admit this - but like I found myself singing with the Garth Brooks, you know, during the Amazing Grace rendition. And I'm just , you know, I had to almost catch myself. I'm like, You know what? Whatever, right? I mean, I mean, this is a time to invite a level - yes, of healing. But let's be honest though - a level also of accountability, you know, in our country. Right. And you can't have healing without accountability.  Crystal Fincher: [00:06:59] Right.  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:06:59] And you know one of the things and look - I think, quite frankly, the, you know, Biden's speech - it was a little overblown with some of the praise and, and the lauding of it - I think Chris Wallace called it "the best he had ever heard." I'm like, come on.  Crystal Fincher: [00:07:12] Oh my gosh.  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:07:14] But I mean, it was, it was definitely better than his predecessor's. Crystal Fincher: [00:07:17] Yes. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:07:18] But , right - exactly.  Crystal Fincher: [00:07:20] And I think that's - that's an example of moving forward - like, okay, we have to recalibrate the bar that we have. The previous bar from the previous president was, you know, underground. And so, you know, yes, it is better than that, but, but how can you not be? And so it's kind of this recalibration of, of the standards that we hold people to. And, and also, yes, it is better, but that doesn't mean it's where we need it to be. And we do need to continue to advocate and push and be involved to stay engaged and hold this administration accountable. Just because someone has the D next to their name and you voted for them does not mean that, that they are above all criticism and critique, they don't need to be called in or called out - they absolutely do. And that's how we actually get progressive policy - that I'm a fan of, obviously - progressive policy. But that's how we get policy passed - is by continuing to hold people accountable and making sure they hear our voices. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:08:24] Well and I think, yeah. And I, and I think to your point in what a lot of criticism has been lobbed already, right, at Biden and Harris for some of their past policy misdeeds - you know, everything from, you know, helping shepherd the crime deal to when Harris was the AG over there in, in California, essentially wanting to jail folks for - for parents, for truancy, if you will. I think that at the end of the day it's also like, look, politicians aren't static, right? They're reactionaries. And so the thing - the thing that they react to, right, is their constituency and their base and to movements, right? And so at the end of the day, it's up to us to hold folks accountable who are supposedly on our side, right? I mean, that wasn't that of the prior administration. That is at least ostensibly this administration. And so I think it has to be pushed, right? It's that old apocryphal story of FDR - he's talking to somebody , you know, from a, I want to say it's a labor union - and he says, you know what? I agree with everything that you said, but you gotta go make me do it. You gotta make me do it, right? And so I think, you know, we're in this position right now with Biden-Harris - we gotta go make them do the things that we think are the best possible things in terms of, you know, progressive legislation and moving this country in a direction that , you know, is equitable for everyone. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:41] Completely agreed. And, and, you know, on that same vein of staying engaged, it's not just on the federal level - the local level counts too. And, and a lot of the changes that people are really pushing for across the board, and certainly that protests are focused around, and that will bring equity in all of the areas that we need to - require action at the local level. And, and the City of Seattle is a perfect example. And we have a police department in Seattle that refuses to take a seat, really , and continues to stay making headlines for all of the wrong reasons. And, and the community being engaged is the reason why - why we're also able to, to have these issues and items surfaced and why we're one of the only cities in the country-  like one of three, I think it is - who actually reduced the funding of the police department. But I mean, this week we saw - you know, more officers were in DC during the "Stop the Steal" rally, which just the premise of the event is so problematic. Marcus Harrison Green: [00:10:51] Yeah, we thought it was only two. And now it's five. It's yeah.  Crystal Fincher: [00:10:54] Now it's five that we know of so far. And so, you know, this is a continuing challenge. More officers were there. You have a police guild chief - head - who is, you know, Mike Solan, who just was called on to resign by several members of the community and the City Council because of his false and inflammatory statements about an insurrection , an anti-democratic attempted coup. So, so do we trust this mindset with policing? I mean, the structure of the department is something that we can certainly spend a lot of time, and have before, talking about. But my goodness, just on a daily basis -  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:11:39] Yeah that is like an absolute, no - I mean, it's been that way forever. I'm a lifelong Seattleite. I mean, it's been that way since I've lived here - so, which has been all my life. Goodness. I - where to begin - I think the press conference that interim Police Chief Diaz held earlier in the week where he said you know, that he would fire any police officers that were, that were proven to have been involved in the actual insurrection, in riots. And then he sort of goes on to say, But you know, if they were just there to protest and, you know, and had the belief that the election was stolen, then, you know, that's, that's a different thing. I'm thinking like - these are public servants who are tasked, right - they are public servants tasked with protecting people. I would want to say, could they at least have some, like, I don't know, relation to reality? I mean, that, that bothers me - that bothers me that they would think that this - the election is stolen. I mean, that, that, that shows their character and that shows right, also their thought process. I don't want somebody like that with the license to kill. I'm just sorry.  Crystal Fincher: [00:12:50] A hundred percent. And, and to be clear, not just stolen, but stolen by Black people fraudulently voting - and in a mass conspiracy across the country to upend an election. Like that - and so all of the Black people's and Black areas' votes should be invalidated. That is where they're at. And so I don't feel comfortable with that as yet another thing that we are contending with and, and I think we have to address - we absolutely have to address this culture. We can't act like that has nothing to do with how they would be performing their job. It has everything to do with how they would be performing their job. And they are taking this direction from someone who has said "it's okay to rough them up a bit," who has encouraged police violence, who has excused murder from white people and from police officers, and has advocated for the death of Black people who are innocent and just existing. So it absolutely has to do with how they police and, and the attitude that they take. And this is on the heels of other news this week, that as we've all seen numerous times - Seattle police officers , several of them, many of them, refuse to wear masks when this is required, when they are interacting with several members of the public in vulnerable places. And there was a tweet that a nurse made who was at a local hospital who recounted the experience from a night prior saying that, Hey, there was a Seattle Police Department officer in here who was not wearing a mask. This was near COVID patients. This was in a hospital. Obviously these are people who are ill or with compromised immune systems and every precaution needs to be taken - there at the very top of the list of places where we need to be careful. And when asked to put on a mask, got an attitude, refused to, and so you're looking at an officer of the law who can detain whoever he wants, who really has the authority in that situation to - to violate people's rights and put people's health in jeopardy and like, this is a real threat - you're in a hospital, you might be killing people. You might be giving people an infection that will kill them. And, and to do that with impunity and to have that attitude, that that is okay, is just so far beyond unacceptable. And I don't understand how, how this has been able to linger for so long - watching so many police without masks on.  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:15:27] It's - it just goes back to, right, I mean, the whole thing with power corrupting. And police officers for too long in our society have been too powerful, quite frankly. And that - you can't tell me that that mentality, right, doesn't start to become a part of you, where it's like, I - I can enforce and lay down the law, but I don't need to be subject to it myself. And I mean, it's just the whole not-wearing-a-mask thing - it's just ultimately, right, a microcosm, an epitome - of the whole fact that police officers largely do not want to be held accountable for their actions. You know, this whole mask situation is just, you know, the microcosm of that. And the fact is when you also ask them to be accountable, then it's all of a sudden it's, Well, we can't do our jobs, or we're being attacked, or this and that. And it's like, at the end of the day, nobody is drafted to be a police officer. You are - you voluntarily entered into this, and so that you should have guard rails to what you can and can't do, especially if you are given such an outsize, I don't wanna say, you've been given sort of an outsize presence within our society. So you should also have an outsize responsibility. Unfortunately doesn't seem like too many people want to buy into that.  Crystal Fincher: [00:16:35] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, we have the saying, "With great power comes great responsibility," for a reason. And it's true. We are not advocating that they go home injured. We're not advocating anything. We just don't want our rights to be violated. And given that they have the power to - to violate them - that they can detain people, that they can , you know, strip people of their freedom , interrogate people - they have the ability and the authority to go so far beyond what every other citizen, resident can, that - that they should be held to a higher standard. This is something so simple and obvious that we have to continue to push back on the idea that, that, no, we shouldn't question anything. We should just let them do whatever they're doing and whatever request they make, whether it's legal or not, whatever mood they're in, whatever whim , you know, they feel, we just need to capitulate and obey and, and do whatever they say at whatever time. That's not how this works. It's certainly not how it should work. And, and if that is happening, it should be completely , you know, overhauled and fixed. And so there's so much work to be done.  You know, it was very revealing to see the support for the [King County] charter amendments in the November election, especially one having to do with reforming and bringing more accountability to the Sheriff's office. Because a lot of people are under the impression that, Oh, only, only Black people care about this. Only these young, you know, radicals and left-wing progressives and Antifa, as if that's an organized thing, only cares about that. And, you know, to see a super-majority of cities in King County come out strongly in support, in favor of reforming - it just really underscores that this behavior has persisted and has been so visible that - no, we're actually in agreement as a society, whether in the suburbs or not, whether you're in high income or low income areas - people understand this needs to change and have voted to change it. And in the City of Seattle, the numbers are, are huge - astronomical in support. So, you know, this idea that, Oh, people just want law enforcement officers to keep doing what they're doing and they support them. You know, I think people want to, you know, say, Hey, let's all work together to keep each other safe, but, but that means that we have to keep each other safe. And if there are members of our community that are not feeling safe, we have to do something about it. So I'm definitely gratified to see that people are willing to vote for change at the ballot box. And I hope, especially as we have city council elections, the mayor election coming up this year in 2021, that we - that they see that the residents across the board in Seattle are demanding change and willing to vote for it. And, and to take that also as a caution - that if they're acting against that, then that is a problem for them at the ballot box also. This is something that the residents of Seattle want and the most important poll that could possibly be taken - the one that actually happens when people vote - supports it. So we'll have to see what happens.  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:20:06] I'm cautiously optimistic, Crystal.  Crystal Fincher: [00:20:09] I am cautiously optimistic too. And by the way, you at the South Seattle Emerald are running an excellent series - so people should stay tuned to the South Seattle Emerald because you have interviews with people who have declared that they are running for mayor so far and will continue doing that. So people should definitely know that that is a resource for finding out where people stand right now. I know that, you know, as I was reading - certainly went into more detail with one candidate in particular than I had seen anywhere else. So I appreciate how thorough you're being in examining who these candidates are and the issues that they support .  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:20:51] Appreciate that, Crystal. And you have - I have to say it, especially because it's your show - you have definitely helped with sourcing of, of some questions. So you are the mayoral whisperer is what I'm going to start calling you. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:04] I don't know about that. I've just been around long enough to to have absorbed that over time. I think that's it. And I'm just approaching dinosaur status, pretty much. So I wanted to talk about, just a little bit, about the candidates that have announced so far. I guess, looking at the City of Seattle elections - what is on-deck, I guess, for the next few months at least? We're going to see more people announcing their candidacies - what types of issues, I guess, are immediately on the docket for them right now? I anticipate, certainly, dealing with COVID - getting the vaccinations out. What are we looking at there?  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:21:45] I mean, obviously COVID - we're still in the midst of a pandemic and then the same crisis that we've had - that have yet to be fully satisfactorily addressed. And I'm talking about homelessness, obviously - affordable housing, income inequality here in the city. How do you balance companies paying their fair share, but also I think things that keeps some companies here for quote, unquote, create jobs and so forth. So it's not going to be an easy task. I mean, I think, you know, love or hate our current mayor - I think her tenure has definitely shown that it is a extremely hard job in a city that is changing, evolving, and has multiple interests that quite frankly, don't always align. So it is going to be tough. I don't know if there can be a unifying force, if you will, in terms of the mayoral candidates who have already declared and some who I've heard are considering running. That being said, I don't know if we necessarily even need a unifying force, right? I think we need strong leadership in this city. And it's yet to be determined who can provide that type of leadership.  Crystal Fincher: [00:22:46] Yeah. I, I definitely agree with that. I think that we have seen , certainly, with Jenny Durkan , before her, with Ed Murray, that there seem to be a desire to not make people unhappy. And wanting to please everyone. And as we all know, especially when it comes to being the head of a major city, that doesn't work. And that's just going to get everyone mad at you. And it's a recipe for paralysis. And when there are pressing urgent problems that you're dealing with, you know, that usually winds up moving you backwards. And, and we have seen, throughout the 10 years of both of them, moving backwards on the issue of homelessness, income inequality, housing instability, so many factors. And so I certainly am hoping for someone who is willing to be a strong leader and who is not going to be kind of that same, well, let's, let's try and find a consensus and let's try and, you know, take a uniform approach. And I've commissioned four task forces to take a look at that. And you know, I'm not going to implement any of their recommendations, but treat their report as like a win. We cannot afford - literally, residents can't afford to have that happen anymore. People are, are trying to avoid COVID, trying to stay in their homes with the highest unemployment rate. So certainly a challenge moving forward. And we'll just have to see how it unfolds.  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:24:19] Crystal, I do want to ask you this - I mean, you talked about the, our last two mayors. Like I could not tell you who their base actually was, right? I mean, you know, like who, who are these people's base, right? Like, I can't tell you who Jenny Durkan's base is right now. Might be one of the reasons she's not running for reelection.  Crystal Fincher: [00:24:37] Aside from the Chamber?  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:24:41] Right. Right. But obviously, Chamber support isn't enough, in and of itself, to, to, to gain you friends. And, you know, enduring influence in the city - and endearing, I should say - well, endearing and enduring influence in the city. So how do you, I mean, how do you - how would you suggest - if you were giving free advice, if you will, to our next leader, whoever whomever that might be, what would you tell them? Crystal Fincher: [00:25:13] I mean, so I guess I should say this. Obviously coming , having worked on Seattle mayoral campaigns before, having you know - knowing people who worked within several campaigns, probably had a little bit more visibility into the coming together of, of policy. You hit the nail on the head and that you actually have to have a base of residents who vote in the city. And, and that's a challenge. And, and so my advice would be to be who you are and lead according to your values - that's really all you can rely on. And, and that actually builds trust with voters. I think people underestimate that, that - if you give voters a clear understanding of, of what your values are, and the lens through which you process information and policy - that even when you disagree, even, even when they don't see eye-to-eye, that if you're able to explain to them - this is how I came to this decision. This is how I come to these decisions and the same way that, you know, this policy that you supported. There's a reason why I did that. And, and this is the reason why I did this and to be transparent. And certainly that's not going to please everyone, but people would be surprised. Many politicians would be surprised that that does carry weight with a number of voters. And that they feel that if you are straight with them and that you actually care about helping them - that's really what they're looking for. Not, well, if I do this, I'm going to make this person unhappy. And gosh, my re-elect is going to need an endorsement and financial support from that organization. And, Oh, these, you know, this trade organization that's, you know, headed by people who don't even live in the city - that becomes so problematic. And so I think you just have to be where you are and, and that has to match where the voters are. And really if that doesn't match, then you aren't right for the moment anyway. You're going to have to make your case. And, and if they decide to go in a different direction, that's what happens. But, but the way that you actually build power and build political capital is by saying - you know what, I'm going to lead in this direction and then leading in that direction and, and bringing the coalition with you that comes. Your mandate comes from being elected and people need to understand that. And operate accordingly.  Marcus Harrison Green: [00:27:36] Crystal's mic drop.  Crystal Fincher: [00:27:39] Well, I thank you so much for joining us today. You know, this has been a wonderful conversation. Again, I encourage people to continue to read the South Seattle Emerald and support the South Seattle Emerald financially because it's such a necessary media platform here in the city. And thank you to everyone for listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, January 22nd, 2021. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our wonderful co-host today was South Seattle Emerald publisher and Seattle Times columnist, Marcus Harrison Green. You can find Marcus on Twitter @mhgreen3000. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type Hacks and Wonks into the search bar and you will get our almost-live show and our midweek show sent directly to your podcast stream. And of course we will have a full audio transcript available for people there and the links to articles and information that we referenced in the show. So thanks for joining us and talk to you next time.

Today Crystal and Ashley Archibald, local reporter and friend of the show, get in to what is going on with Covid-19 vaccine distribution, the local ramifications of the white supremacist insurrection in Washington, D.C., and the Seattle Police Officer's Guild president cosigning their actions. 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, Ashley Archibald, at @AshleyA_RC. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Articles Referenced: Vaccine reserve was exhausted when Trump administration vowed to release it, dashing hopes of expanded access by Isaac Stanley-Becker and Lena H. Sun, The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/01/15/trump-vaccine-reserve-used-up City Council members call for Seattle police union president to resign after Capitol remarks by David Gutman, The Seattle Times https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/pressure-mounts-on-seattle-police-union-president-mike-solan-following-capitol-siege-remarks-city-council-members-call-for-resignation/ SPD confirms two officers at U.S. Capitol riot, CPC seeks documents, and calls increase for SPOG president to resign by Paul Faruq Kiefer and Andrew Engelson, The South Seattle Emerald https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/01/11/spd-confirms-two-officers-at-u-s-capitol-riot-cpc-seeks-documents-and-calls-increase-for-spog-president-to-resign/   Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with Political Hacks and Policy Wonks to gather insight into state and local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a guest co-host. Welcome back to the program today's guest, local journalist, Ashley Archibald.  Ashley Archibald: [00:00:25] Hi, thank you for having me.  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:27] Well, there certainly has been a lot that's transpired since the last time we have spoken . You know, so much has gone on - we had the insurrection and attempted coup at the Capitol, we have ongoing talks of violence, Joe Biden is supposed to be sworn in next week and Trump heading out. There is a lot going on locally still - Session just started - there's just so much happening - in the middle of a pandemic. So I guess the first place that we should probably start is just talking about where we stand with COVID and vaccinations. And when thinking about this show earlier in the week - thought, well, you know, we'll talk about how the vaccination - how vaccinations are running under the capacity that we have and we're having a hard time in this state and nationally, kind of across the board, getting all of the vaccine into people's arms. But actually this morning, there was a new dimension and wrench thrown into this story. Do you want to talk about that Ashley?  Ashley Archibald: [00:01:34] Sure. So the Washington Post came out with a story, and if somebody else got it first, my apologies, I saw it in WaPo. The Washington Post came out with a story that basically said that the reserves that we thought we had at the federal level of this vaccine that was supposed to make sure that people who got their first dose would also get their second doesn't exist. So earlier in the week, when the federal government said that they would be releasing all of the vaccine that was available and expanded the ability of people to get it to basically anybody over 65 from the previously a bit more constricted criteria, that was just impossible because they don't have additional doses of this vaccine, which is a little bit mind-blowing. Crystal Fincher: [00:02:19] It's absolutely mind-blowing. And just as a reminder, these vaccines are not a one shot deal. What was studied and what these vaccines are designed for is - two shots, around a month apart , and really designed - for the full efficacy, for the full effectiveness, you need both shots. That's what gets you to the 95% number that they achieved and observed in their clinical trials. So the thought was, Hey, America is starting out with 40 million doses. The federal government, from their own mouth, said, Hey, we're going to hold back 20 million of them, understanding that people need to get the second dose. So we'll get out the 20 million - get the first dose, get them scheduled for the second - but we know that we'll have 20 million people vaccinated with two doses. We're holding it back to make sure that everyone can get their second dose. States made plans based on that information. People have proceeded according to that. In the interim, some conversation did start - because we're in a pandemic that is spreading so rapidly, and this new strain is spreading so rapidly, and reports today say that they expect the new strain to be the predominant one in America by as early as March. And they said, Okay, well, you know, we're going to hold these back. And a lot of people said, Well, maybe just give everyone one and to help speed up the effort, we're gonna reduce the requirements and just anyone over 65 is now what the administration is recommending. And the CDC recommended just to give it to everyone over 65. States are in process, Washington is in process of developing high-volume vaccination sites, mobile vaccination sites, thinking that there is another 20 million doses being distributed throughout the country - we're going to double our supply. Only to hear this morning that, Hey, never mind. There is no more vaccine coming. You actually already have almost all of it. So this vaccination effort is so far behind and now half the small scope that we thought it was going to be. And for just the average person who is not a frontline health worker or first responder, I mean, we may not get the vaccine for, until late this year. What, what does this mean for the overall effort? Ashley Archibald: [00:04:51] Well, it's not good. It's not great, Crystal. I mean, we were already behind, we were already deploying these shots very slowly. There's a writer with The Atlantic whose name is, I believe, Zeynep Tufekci, and she's been very critical of the rollout of the vaccine, not specifically in Washington state, but in general, because people have been fairly precious about how they're releasing this. And it varies so much state by state, but the overall vaccination rate has been quite slow in general. And I understand why they were doing that - because they do want to prioritize people who are most at risk, like healthcare workers, frontline workers, essential workers, people in nursing homes, that sort of thing. And that does make good sense, but sometimes the perfect has been the enemy of the good here and we need people to be getting these shots in the arms. Because at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter if we have the extra 20 million doses of vaccine if we're not actually putting it in needles and injecting it. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:58] Right. And that has been a huge problem - here in Washington state, less than a quarter, less than 25% of the vaccine that we currently possess has been administered to people, has gotten into people's arms. And so, as this is raging, and as businesses are closed, and everything is on pause as we try to get this under control, it's pretty important to try and get this on track as soon as possible. And certainly , localities have been underfunded. They've requested a significant amount of funding from the administration to build out the necessary infrastructure to get this virus, to get the vaccine into people's arms , and have been denied that funding - it's been delayed. There's some that was part of this most recent package passed that is going to start to help the states, but that's just coming now. And so there's still a lot of infrastructure that is in process of being built, but now it looks like we may be - you know, we need to get the existing vaccine out and kind of do a surge with that, but at the same time, we seem to be building infrastructure that there is no vaccine left to use it for. So this just continues to be a mess and depressing and people's lives continue to be affected. People continue to get sick and die. You know, this has major consequences and will cost lives. And certainly a lot of wheels have been spinning - trying to get the infrastructure in place to deliver 40 million doses. And now we have half of that. It's just frustrating to be just a regular person and just to see this spiraling downhill and think, When is it going to stop? Even the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be getting further away again.  While we're dealing with this pandemic, we're also dealing with a wave of very violent and insurrectionist white supremacists that are roving the country. And we are not exempt from this locally , here in the Seattle area, and as a matter of fact, members of our own local police departments made their way to DC to try and overthrow the government. And on top of that, the head of the Seattle Police Guild made horribly false, demonstrably false, unprovable and inflammatory allegations - somehow in his logic, blaming Black Lives Matter for the Trump supporter insurrection at the Capitol. And sticking by it - doubling down on it. So, many people have called for his resignation, including the Seattle City Council, people who've been sympathetic to him in the past. He has been radicalized and his rhetoric continues to prove it. How do you see this week and what is happening within the police department and SPOG in regards to this insurrection and what it says about the state of law enforcement? Ashley Archibald: [00:09:11] It is - I mean, first of all, yes, it is demonstrably false that the insurrection on January 6 at the Capitol building where, you know, the Capitol was taken over and lawmakers were threatened , was a result of Black Lives Matter activists. And we are, we can - even us, who have no special knowledge, I feel, can feel very comfortable saying that - because I've read the articles. I have seen some of the quoted chats - this was planned in some part out in the open, it was encouraged by the President of the United States. You know, this is not, this is not a false flag operation by any stretch of the imagination. There's no evidence to suggest that - it's a little bit wild. At the same time, I think that it was also interesting to watch that information about the participation of SPD officers drop at like 9:30 on a Friday night. The Friday night news dump usually doesn't - usually doesn't mean like Friday, middle-of-the-night news dump, so that, that was unexpected but certainly noted by people who are interested in this information. And I think that, we will see what SPD does with that. It seems from the statement released by interim Chief, Adrian Diaz, that if people were simply there exercising their First Amendment rights in the places where it was legal to do so - they probably will not see consequences for that. It would be more of the actual, you know, storming of the Capitol that people need to have avoided. I think that is - that's basically what he said, right?  Crystal Fincher: [00:10:49] Yeah. That is what I recall him saying. Saying if they were part of the storming of the Capitol, they would definitely be fired, but that would have to be proven. If they weren't part of that activity that - he commented on being fired. I don't know if he commented on there being no disciplinary action, but certainly drew a distinction that just being in DC was not going to be the determining factor. And as I look at this, there are two issues - clearly , you know, someone that was involved in the storming of the Capitol - not only should they be fired, but you know, charges would be appropriately brought as they're being brought in the other cases. I mean, this was done with the explicit intent and, you know, planned intent, as we see with so many of their videos and social media posts leading up to this event. They planned to interrupt the process of certification. They planned, as federal  prosecutors have detailed and reiterated this morning, they planned to violently overtake and physically detain legislators and people working in the Capitol. This was a coup attempt. You know, no - no two bones about it. Not technically - this was literally a coup attempt. So it was literally an interruption and a direct attack on the peaceful transfer of power. And, you know, fortunately employees there had the foresight to take out the elector ballots so they could be counted later on - otherwise we could be in a humongous, constitutional crisis right now. So one, they may not be charged, but certainly the event was billed as Stop the Steal. The only reason to go was if you felt so strongly that there was widespread voter fraud, despite 60 lost elections, and hearing all of the rhetoric blaming massive voter fraud, committed by - coincidentally, conveniently - Black people. And the attempt at invalidating predominantly Black and Latino votes in key states - is scary to think about that mindset, that conspiracy theory taking hold so deeply, that they aren't just spouting that in their conversations here. They're flying to DC to be part of a group whose explicit purpose was to Stop the Steal, allegedly, of the election. This attitude is terrifying - and the Seattle Police Department, and we're finding out that several off-duty cops from several departments across the country, were police. And Capitol police talking about how many of the people in the mob were flashing their police badges at them - that they were off-duty, but they were law enforcement taking part in the activities to interrupt the election on the 6th. To me, we have the information that we need to understand further, Wow, how toxic is that? How toxic is that belief? And if someone believes all the things that are being said - to lead them to fly to DC, because they're so upset at the things that they've heard from Trump mouths and the mouths of other white supremacists, to stand side-by-side with people with Confederate flags and Camp Auschwitz T-shirts - open, proud white supremacists. Law enforcement has been infiltrated. The SPD has been infiltrated. This is not surprising, not shocking. I mean, we've seen this, we've seen them protect people with these beliefs in protests downtown. But it just continues to show how broken these processes are and how urgent it is that there be accountability tied and massive culture changes.  Ashley Archibald: [00:15:07] We exist in a society where people are engaged in two completely different realities. And I don't know what you do to overcome that. I don't think everybody in that crowd genuinely believed that the election was stolen. I don't know that - that's just, I find it difficult to believe - how about that? But some people are true believers. Some people truly believe that the election was stolen, that Trump is here to save us from a cabal of like, Well, I mean, we don't even need to get into the QAnon stuff - that's just a whole other thing. But it's - people live in bifurcated realities and I don't know what to do. I don't know what the answer is - to bring people back to what I consider to be evident on its face, which is Trump lost this election. And what we saw on January 6th can be described in no other ways than trying to overturn a certified election in what we like to call, but I would argue isn't really, the world's oldest democracy. Like it's just - it's maddening.  Crystal Fincher: [00:16:21] Yeah, it is - it is maddening. And I actually want to underscore something and to not minimize it. I mean, to be clear, this was a publicly pre-planned event. You know, this is something that Trump and his cronies organized and paid for. Trump spoke at the event. This was a planned event with the title of Stop the Steal, with the  explicit pre-stated purpose of - come to stop the stealing of the election by Joe Biden. So for anyone traveling to DC for this event, it seems to be a necessary prerequisite that they think that this - that they have fully bought in to the conspiracy that there was widespread voter fraud, widespread enough that it would have changed the election. And it should have been a landslide in favor of Trump, which we know has been rejected, in every legal and serious forum we have in the country. But as you stated, that doesn't prevent people from falling prey to the conspiracy and the depth of disinformation. And of people who are completely separated from the reality as we see it and do genuinely believe that this election is being unfairly stolen from Trump and the QAnon stuff - it is, it sounds almost laughably ridiculous, right? But there are tens of millions of people who believe it.  Ashley Archibald: [00:18:01] And rejected by Republicans - rejected by Republican Secretaries of State - who, I mean, I'm not trying to lionize some of them - they have participated in what I consider to be voter suppression, hands down - especially, you know, look at Georgia. But for their own self-interest they're saying - minimally, you could say, I ran this election. This election was run correctly and you lost. And those people have been, for their  trouble, been given death  threats and told that they're the enemy and that sort of, I mean, it's just, it's amazing. It's a cult of personality that I don't - I don't fully understand.  Crystal Fincher: [00:18:44] Right. And it's hard - it's hard to understand because it is such an extreme view that seems so detached from reality. That it is - that it seems like it should be literally unbelievable, but we have watched, we have witnessed, the increased radicalization of people here. And it's concerning. And the problem we now find ourselves with is that these people are able to remain separated from the reality as we see it - they have an entire media ecosystem. They have an entire social media ecosystem - that was somewhat disrupted this week by the purging of so many QAnon, alt-right white supremacists , Trump conspiracy, election conspiracy  websites. And Twitter, Facebook , Amazon has stopped hosting people, so there has been some de-platforming of some of the most visible people. But this is the Republican party. There are a small percentage of Republicans who have publicly said, This is actually not theft. But the very telling thing is that there are more Republicans who have refused to say, Hey, that's not true - it's a conspiracy. Or they've just flat out promoted the conspiracy themselves and far worse. We have congresspeople and state representatives who are QAnon believers. They were elected really recently. And they're sharing this information openly. We have lawmakers at the federal level who are refusing to go through metal detectors and disobeying orders of police , of the Capitol police, daily. They just do not feel that they are subject to the same laws and rules that we are, and they are operating with the encouragement of supporters, a base that they have cultivated, that cheers this lawless activity on. So they continue.  Ashley Archibald: [00:20:58] Going back to what you mentioned on the social media front - of those accounts being taken down. Obviously, Parler was basically got rid of when Amazon stopped hosting it. But it was one of the funnier things when you saw personalities complaining about how they'd lost tens of thousands of followers. And I'm like, Guys, why are you telling on yourselves? Like, is that really, is that really what you want to broadcast right now? Just shhhh - it's okay. You don't have to say it. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:25] Yes - to see how many open racists and insurrectionists are in your network - and it is wide and vast. But I think that's - that's what we need to contend with - is that these are not people - there were many comments and I've heard a lot of punditry - trying to suggest that these people were downtrodden, economically anxious, didn't really know what they were saying, didn't really know that - didn't plan violence. Who was to see and to know that something like this could happen and subsequently, a ton of video footage, a ton of posts, where they are explicitly, frequently, broadly - planning, explicitly planning, violence . You know, they had blueprints and plans. And we're talking about locations that they needed to get to. They were talking about who they needed to detain. They beat savagely, viciously, several police officers who were there. This was a violent mob and, and yes, and killed an officer. This is a violent mob that was explicit about their violent intentions and that continues to be explicit about their continued violent intentions. And I still feel like so many people just do not take threats of violence from white men, in particular, seriously. Oftentimes because they don't feel like they're a direct threat. And I think the action that we saw was because this was a situation where, Hey, actually, a number of the people who can pass laws and institute consequences for this were directly threatened. They had to shelter and they were in immediate danger of physical harm. I just think that they're detached from understanding that there's a lot of people in this position today, and these people are among us. The people at the Capitol were not downtrodden, poor - the picture of, They're just turning to this because they're struggling and, you know, they're just having a really challenging time. These were CEOs, there were several legislators. These are former military, former and current police officers. This was an upper middle-class  crowd, actually , by and large. And so we need to contend that these are the people that we are interacting with every day. And to somehow act as if this can't permeate your communities, and you don't have a responsibility to say something when someone pops up with a conspiracy theory - to say, You know, actually, no, we're not going to normalize that. We're not going to act like that's rational. It is not and it's dangerous to continue this line of thought. That this has to be confronted and called out. And we can't allow beliefs like this to go on unchallenged because they have for too long and this is the result.  Ashley Archibald: [00:24:25] That being said, I'm kind of circling back to what you had mentioned at the top of this topic. You know, I very much doubt - unless interim Chief Diaz actually takes action, I really don't see the SPOG chief, the SPOG union head going anywhere. I mean the City Council and the Mayor's office and people who are otherwise, I would classify as pro-law enforcement, asking him to step down is one thing. But Mike Solan was elected by  70% of the SPOG membership, if I recall correctly . You know, people have - people seem fine with this kind of rhetoric coming from the head of the union.  Crystal Fincher: [00:25:03] Well, definitely - certainly a number of the police officers, the ones who elect the SPOG head -certainly are okay with it. Unfortunately, SPOG, you know, Solan is paid for by our tax dollars. He is on the public payroll and so there should be some public accountability for what he says. And certainly, he's poisoning the waters for the negotiations that are upcoming. He has continued to take belligerent , violent, mocking stances and using that kind of rhetoric. He has defended  what has been objectively viewed and legally ruled to have been abusive, civil rights violating behavior - has made inappropriate jokes about violence committed by officers. And when you are in a position with so much power, there is a higher standard of accountability that should be instituted. We've talked about this, you know, broadly - just in the overall police accountability conversation, but my goodness, how much more clear and obvious do you need to make it? That there is a dangerous mindset that has taken hold with too many officers within SPD. And to see that these beliefs are being supported by so many officers, that this attitude and stance is not found to be objectionable, and that there have been officers that went to DC to be part of the Stop the Steal activities that Trump called for - we need massive changes.  And we saw with the [King County] Charter Amendment [6] vote that people, not just in Seattle but in a super-majority of cities in the county , want substantive reform. The unique thing is that even when you listen to police talk - they talk about calls that they don't feel that they are the appropriate response for. They talk frequently about not wanting to be social workers and that not being an effective place and way for them to intervene. Why don't we listen to that? But we do need to talk about what the structure and purpose is - what we actually want our officers doing. And if they're in a place where they are indoctrinated with a demonstrably false conspiracy theory that Trump won this election and are taking action, significant action, based on that - how is that influencing the communities that are also being blamed for the stealing? What kind of resentment are they harboring? That that is not only what they believe , but what they are so dedicated to, that they would invest their own resources. And how are they enacting and carrying that belief through their actions and interactions with everyday people. I don't like the implications of that. I think we've seen numerous examples of what happens, and we've seen the continuum of attitude and behavior that leads to people's civil rights being violated and the over policing, over-incarceration of poor communities and communities of color.  So thank you for listening to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, January 15th, 2020. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our wonderful co-host today was local journalist and friend of the show, Ashley Archibald. You can find Ashley on Twitter @AshleyA_RC. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type Hacks and Wonks into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live show and our mid-week show sent directly to your podcast stream. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Today Crystal is joined by political consultant and friend of the show, Heather Weiner, to discuss the news of the week, including:  Jay Inslee's new capital gains tax proposal and its prospects this legislative session. Deb Haaland, the first indigenous person to be appointed to run the Department of the Interior. Jenny Durkan's renewed focus on clearing out homeless encampments, against public health advice. A full text transcript of the show is available below, and on the Hacks & Wonks blog at https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/post/week-in-review-december-18-2020. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and Heather Weiner at @hlweiner. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com. Articles Referenced: Inslee unveils Washington budget proposal with taxes on capital gains and health insurers to fund COVID-19 recovery by Joseph O'Sullivan, The Seattle Times https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/inslee-unveils-washington-budget-proposal-with-taxes-on-capital-gains-and-health-insurers-to-fund-covid-19-recovery/ History Walks With Deb Haaland to the Department of the Interior by Charles P. Pierce, Esquire https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a35013654/deb-haaland-interior-department-joe-biden/ Interim Guidance on People Experiencing Unsheltered Homelessness from the Center for Disease Control https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/homeless-shelters/unsheltered-homelessness.html Full Transcript: Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with Policy Wonks and Political Hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work, with behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.  Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows, where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host: local political consultant extraordinaire Heather Weiner.  Heather Weiner: [00:00:46] Hi Crystal! So nice to be here.  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:49] So excited to have you back on! And we have a lot to dive into and we will start with Governor Inslee's budget - and he is proposing new revenue - he's ready to tax the rich. Is everyone else ready? What are your thoughts on this development?  Heather Weiner: [00:01:06] Oh boy, I have so many thoughts on this development. So first of all, Governor Inslee is now in his third term. It does not look like he is going to be leaving to join the Biden administration, which some had been speculating on. The positions - and we'll talk about that a little bit more - about who is being picked for some key spots. So Jay is here, and Jay is the Honey Badger of Governors right now. He is out there - he just rolled out a four days - exhausting everyone, including the press - as he, without any apparent fatigue, started just rolling out his plan for racial equity, his plans to combat climate change, his plans to help small business owners, and his plans to pay for it by taxing the rich ... finally. Crystal, you know - I don't know if your listeners do - that Washington is the worst in the country. We are #51, including DC. We are the worst in the country when it comes to taxing the poor and not taxing the rich. In other words, if you are a low-income person, 17% of your income likely goes to taxes. If you're a high-income person - and by high-income, I mean millionaire - likely somewhere around 3% of your income goes to state taxes. It's time we fix that. And Jay Inslee has proposed something that will help take us from worst to best.  Crystal Fincher: [00:02:29] Literally it will bring us to the best.  Heather Weiner: [00:02:35] Well, not single-handedly, but it's a plan to get there.  Crystal Fincher: [00:02:38] Gotcha. So what is he proposing?  Heather Weiner: [00:02:42] So Jay - I'm sorry, we're not on a first name basis - he doesn't ever call me up and say, Heather! So let me just say ... I wish he would though - call me anytime, Jay! So Governor Inslee has proposed something he's proposed in previous budgets - and that is to tax capital gains. Capital gains from the sales - large sales, windfalls - from the sales of stocks, bonds, other intangible type passive wealth - wealth that people make off of doing nothing other than just letting their money continue to sit there. This is not a tax on the sale of your house, the sale of your small business, anything like that - it doesn't apply to retirement funds. Just if you were a gazillionaire, like, I'm not going to name names, Jeff Bezos, and you are making millions and millions of dollars every day. You will then have to pay about 9% of your profit to the state to help pay for small business support, helping struggling families, and public health. And I think that's a great first step.  Crystal Fincher: [00:03:47] It seems like an excellent first step and something that, as you said, had been proposed before, but didn't progress through the session or have much of a strong push. This seems like the case is different this year. Do you think there's a chance in the legislature? Heather Weiner: [00:04:04] Yeah, I do. I do. I think there's a big chance. And I'm going to tell you - I'm going to tell you why Crystal. Number one - we are in a huge economic hole right now in the state of Washington. You know, we still have a quarter of a million people laid off without work, small businesses - we've had 2,000 restaurants alone - just restaurants - close permanently here in Washington state. We're in tough shape right now and it doesn't look like it's going to get better in 2021, honestly, even with the vaccine. So we've got to do something and we've got to do something now. And so I think the pandemic is really lighting a fire underneath the shoes of our legislators. The second thing that's happened is the elections. Although the makeup of the House and Senate haven't changed dramatically in Olympia, we are seeing a lot of new people coming in - freshmen who very much support progressive revenue - T'wina Nobles, one of your former clients, to name one - who are going to be out there advocating for it and a lot of the older legislators who've retired were still kind of stuck in the nineties. So I'm hopeful that that will work. This is - listen, capital gains is the very least that we can do - it is passive wealth. It only applies to the very, very wealthiest people here in Washington state. It is the least that we can do. There's a whole bunch of other things we can do - taxes on big corporations that have been making so many big profits off of, and during the pandemic, not to name any names, Amazon - and all different kinds of loopholes that we have been overlooking for the rich and the very wealthy for years at the expense of the health of our state. I'm psyched. I'm ready. I'm like, Go Jay, go.  Crystal Fincher: [00:05:49] I am ready also, especially on the heels of, as you referenced, so many loopholes and tax giveaways to some of the wealthiest corporations in the state with absolutely no accountability tied to it. We saw a record-breaking hundreds of billions of dollars given to Boeing with no jobs guarantee attached, and they just started laying people off and then announced that they're leaving town. If we can have no problems shoveling money to those with resources, how in this pandemic and emergency that we have, do we not show ourselves as eager to make sure that we're taking care of people - by taxing and just asking people to pay their fair share as they do to a greater degree in every other state. It just seems fairly basic, particularly in light of the fact that we're hearing that the congressional stimulus relief package is really disappointing, lackluster - probably does not include any bailout or help to local and state governments. So help that people even thought was coming in the midst of this emergency is not, and it really is up to us to provide for our own residents. And the only way we can do that is if everyone pays their fair share, and we don't continue asking those with the least to bear the greatest burden. So I'm excited. The House is saying that they believe they have the votes to pass this, which is really exciting. There's a number of new members in the House - I think they have a lot of new energy. I think that a lot of the new members on Finance are excited to push this through. And so it really looks like it's going to be a question about, is there the political will to do this in the Senate? I know a lot of people have that will - is it going to be enough? And I think that paying attention to where all of our Senators stand is going to be really important.  Heather Weiner: [00:08:02] Yeah. Agreed. For example, let's talk - well, last time I was here, we talked about Senator Mark Mullet and he is once again, a key vote out in Issaquah. This is the guy who last time has held up all kinds of things by sitting on these Senate committees and voting with Republicans. So I am hopeful that Senator Mullet is going to be changing his tune a little bit, or that the rest of the Senate Democratic leadership is going to be willing to override him and move forward. We'll see what happens. Again, this is a great first step I think Jay is doing - I'm sorry, Governor Inslee - is doing the right thing. Now it's up to the legislature to really find a progressive revenue package that again, takes Washington state from being worst in the nation to eventually - I think we should be the best. We've been the best on minimum wage, we've been the best on LGBTQ rights. We should be the best when it comes to revenue. Crystal Fincher: [00:08:56] We should be the best and on so many other issues in other areas, we're leading the country in terms of policy and we're setting the standard with, as you said, minimum wage, with paid sick leave, with so many different things - and to be this behind on the revenue that funds everything else and makes those things more possible for more people, I would think that we would be more excited to get this going. So hopefully this is the year and hopefully people look around at the need, which is only going to increase in 2021, and they get on board. And I guess, kicking this off, obviously session is going to be starting in January - on January 11th. Is there anything else that you're keeping your eye on that looks like it's going to be a topic and going to have legislation moving forward in this session?  Heather Weiner: [00:09:49] So it's super interesting because the legislature is going to be doing a lot of their deliberation by Zoom online. I think the whole apple cart is going to be turned over. The first thing we're going to see is a lot of legislators wanting to do a lot more grandstanding because there's going to be a lot more people watching them, a lot more constituents who have the time and the access online to comment and to see what they're doing. At the same time, leaders have said that they want to limit their legislative work to focus on the pandemic and dealing with our budget crisis. So I think there's going to be some really interesting things happening. We see a little bit about police reform, a lot about racial equity work, a lot about the environment, moving forward. I don't know - I think a lot of those small bills, the little gifts to lobbyists that we often see, may not get through this year. So I don't know - we'll see what happens. I'm really excited, though, about the access for the public to watch the sausage being made and to hold their legislators accountable. And I think our legislators who are more social media savvy, like Joe Nguyen, for example, are just gonna, mmm, they are just gonna rock it. I think it's going to be a real fun time to watch. And since I'm not as excited about the Seahawks this year, unfortunately, this is my new sport that I'm going to be just yelling at the TV about.  Crystal Fincher: [00:11:08] Well, I will out myself as a 49ers fan - I'm a huge 49ers fan. I have been a 49ers fan for my entire life. So, you know, that's just too bad. We'll see what happens with the Seahawks - Russ looks a little challenged right now. I don't know what's going on with that, but I also will not talk about what's going on with the 49ers.  Heather Weiner: [00:11:30] Right, all right, right, right, right, I know. Someday Crystal, we're going to have a long podcast where we're just going to talk about women's basketball. Someday I'm going to suck you away from the NBA and into the WNBA where the basketball is just amazing. But we'll talk about that some other time.  Crystal Fincher: [00:11:44] I am on board. We can talk about that another time - I'm down to talk about the Storm - anytime, anywhere we go. But you know, I share your enthusiasm and excitement about this session, and the possibility for the public to engage to a greater degree than they have before, to participate without a lot of the barriers that we've seen before - because of the pandemic - the opportunity to be able to offer testimony remotely and to really standardize having all of this available, not just on TVW when you have to happen to tune in, but available via Zoom where the public can participate - where the legislators can see how many people are paying attention, and who is paying attention, and they know that eyes are on them in a way that they were not able to see or feel before. And I think, especially in light of the protests that started in the wake of George Floyd, and here locally, Manuel Ellis, and that have continued to now and continue still, there is a greater degree of interest and attention still being paid that I think is going to be fairly unprecedented. And that excites me. Heather Weiner: [00:13:03] Yeah, it's fantastic - and as I've said to a couple of legislators, I hope that you keep the Zoom and public testimony, electronic public testimony, available. It certainly increases democracy and we've seen that with the Seattle City Council this year, where so many more people are able to testify when they weren't able to physically come down, both for income issues, work issues, and physical ability. So this is - I think it really improves democracy, I think it's great. Of course, I say that 'cause I usually agree with the people who are testifying - if it was a whole bunch of people that I disagreed with, I would say shut it down. Crystal Fincher: [00:13:41] Well, I think what we see is - most of the public is representative of the people who don't set aside time and have the privilege and ability to do nothing but pay attention to those meetings and attend those meetings. And usually the people who do - have more resources, are members of majority populations and communities, and certainly do not face some of the same barriers and challenges that people who have been marginalized and who don't have the resources that they do. So that is most of us. And so when more of us - just regular people - and, you know, obviously I work in politics, I'm not really that regular, I'm a little weird - but for just the average person, they're more represented when we expand access. And that's really what we need to continue to do - I think being forced to do this through the pandemic has just really brought on so many accommodations and changes in process that should have happened a long time ago, and that we need to continue to explore - how we can expand this access and make it even more accessible to people. With that, we can look at the Biden administration planning, and they're in the process of their transition. Certainly, Trump is still trying his little - literally coup - to defy the will of the people, and despite losing over 30 court battles, being turned away from courts at every level and the Supreme Court - thoroughly, handily, completely, he has lost the election and the electors have now voted. Biden is the President-elect. So he's moving forward, despite all the noise from everyone else. And he's moving forward with some particular picks for his cabinet that have a lot of people excited. You want to talk about that?  Heather Weiner: [00:15:53] Yeah - I'm so excited about the Department of Interior pick, which is Deb Haaland. Deb is a Native American woman from New Mexico. She was just elected in 2018, first Native American woman from that district to come in, and she has already just hit historic levels by being tapped to be the new Secretary of Interior.  Now I used to be a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. for 10 years. My job was to lobby the Department of Interior specifically on environmental issues. And it always shocked me that they had a very large bureau that went almost unmonitored, called the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And the Bureau of Indian Affairs has wreaked havoc on Native American families and tribal governments for over a century. And here, finally, is a badass Native American woman, who is coming in to take over not just the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the entire Department of Interior - and that includes Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service - it's just going to be - and the National Park Service. It's just going to be an amazing shift, both in representation and leadership, but also in the policy and direction for the Department of Interior. Go Deb Haaland - what an amazing feat - and kudos to Joe Biden for picking her. We had heard that Governor Jay Inslee - my beau, my boo - was considered for that appointment. Of course I was a little bit disappointed that he wasn't picked, but Deb Haaland, I'm going to give it 10 - 10 stars on that one. Great, great pick.  Crystal Fincher: [00:17:38] Great pick. And Biden is being universally lauded for that pick - a number of people have been lobbying for Haaland's appointment to that position for quite some time. And across the spectrum of Democratic leanings, she has been extraordinarily qualified. She has already set the course - one of her tweets on Thursday was, Hey, in four years, Trump failed Indian country and only broke more promises. It was exacerbated by the administration's failure to take this pandemic seriously - looking forward to turning the page on this dark chapter. So we are going to see a radical change from certainly this past administration, but also our past period. And hopefully this can start to right some of the wrongs, mend some of the broken trust, and really get to work on really moving forward - considering everybody's needs, and living up to the promises and the potential that we have when we all respect each other and move forward together. Heather Weiner: [00:18:46] And, you know, when people say that elections don't matter, this is a great example of where elections do matter. That by having President-elect Biden in leadership - he is able to pick amazing people like Deb Haaland to dramatically change the on-the-ground daily lives of other human beings. And I think that that right there makes it worth, makes it worth the votes. You know, I'm not as thrilled with some of the other picks or I'm a little befuddled, shall we say, by some of the other picks, but this one's pretty good.  Crystal Fincher: [00:19:22] That one's pretty good. Also, another pick - Biden's pick to head the EPA, Michael Regan - from North Carolina, African-American man, who comes with a long history of accomplishments. But certainly, in terms of the environmental movement and policy and priorities, this pick has been involved in environmental justice movement, has been involved in the EPA for over a decade - really understands that this isn't just a niche concern as it had been viewed by some in the past, but this really impacts us all. Climate change is not affecting us in the future - our environmental priorities - air pollution, water pollution - is something that is impacting communities today. And that, especially, is impacting communities of color, low-income communities, to a greater degree than others. And understanding that that is as much a health issue, as it is a racial equity issue and a social justice issue, is something that he certainly understands and a lot of people are excited about that pick. Again, similarly, some thought that this could be a place where Jay Inslee could fit into this administration and were considering that. But if the pick isn't Governor Jay Inslee, then this certainly is a great alternative.  Heather Weiner: [00:20:54] And I do have to say that as much as you and I would have loved a little bit of the drama that would have come from Jay leaving, because then, of course, we would have the cascade of - then Bob Ferguson runs for Governor and then who runs for AG, and so on. Despite the fact that we're not going to have that tea to drink, we are going to, at least, have some stability and really focused leadership out of our executive branch. So I'm very excited about that.  Crystal Fincher: [00:21:21] Very excited about that too. And he's putting forward a budget that here, on the state level, I am digging, and I want to see passed and want to see him continue to push this forward. And he certainly has been a strong and steady hand in leading throughout the pandemic. You know, from the very beginning - and charting the course and putting Washington on more stable footing than most other states in the country, so we're still happy to have Jay here, and look forward to his leadership throughout this pandemic and meeting the needs of the people who need it most. So speaking of leaders, that brings us to Mayor Durkan, who isn't viewed quite as magnanimously or positively as Governor Inslee. And so this week - we know that last week, Mayor Durkan announced that she will not be seeking re-election. And I don't know if she feels like that frees her up to do more of what she was trying to do before with no apologies. But this week she decided to proceed with evicting people who have no homes from Cal Anderson Park, even though there are no homes for them to go to. What do you think about that, Heather?  Heather Weiner: [00:22:46] I am heartbroken this morning - 10 people have been arrested already today - protesting the eviction of people who were living in tents in Cal Anderson. Look, I agree with everybody - it's not the thing I want to see in the middle of my park - is people - I don't like to see human suffering. I like to turn away and not look. But as human beings, we have to witness that this is what has happened with our massive wealth, inequality and housing crisis in Seattle. And here we have actual human beings who are living out in the cold, in the rain. They have nowhere to put their trash. They have nowhere to cook and they have chosen a safe place, which is a park in the middle of a very busy district next to a community college, next to Seattle U, next to a lot of businesses. So businesses started complaining about there being people living in the park there and today , SPU and then the Seattle Police Department went in and started clearing people out. And they were met with protesters, and the protesters were doing their thing and 10 of them have been arrested so far. Look, I mean, City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda pointed out in an email today, and a statement today, that there is no housing - safe, COVID-safe housing available. No COVID-safe shelters, even - not even just talking about housing, but just daily shelters. There's no COVID-safe daily shelters available. Where are people supposed to go? And so they're just going to continue moving their stuff from place to place and in misery - why are we doing this? Why are we spending taxpayer money doing this? It boggles my mind and also boggles my mind that Durkan's not being held accountable for this. The story that the news media are talking about right now are blaming the protestors and blaming the people living in tents, instead of blaming this administration for not coming up with a solution - that means renting hotel rooms, opening up unused City buildings to make sure that there are places where people can safely get out of the rain and the cold.  Crystal Fincher: [00:24:59] It is infuriating. It's infuriating for a number of reasons. First and foremost, we need to acknowledge and understand that these sweeps are specifically recommended against by the CDC and by public health authorities, including King County Public Health, because in a pandemic, this increases the chance and exposure of people to COVID-19. And this is a population that is also specifically vulnerable, more vulnerable than average. They're an at-risk population for COVID-19 and now you're increasing the likelihood of them being exposed, and everyone involved in this effort - it is so deeply irresponsible from a public health perspective and flies in the face of guidance. So at a time when she's saying she wants people to do what's necessary to keep each other safe, it would be nice if she did that herself, and didn't defy the CDC in order to push out people from a place where, at least they have a stable place that they can call their own and they can sleep right now in the pandemic, and not push them out because some people get their feelings hurt and get riled up by having to see them, as if that is the offense and not that someone doesn't have a home - when, as you said, there are many, so many hotel rooms available. There are so many vacant spaces available. And in a time when we have the hospitality industry, in particular, asking us to help them because they're struggling - rooms aren't being rented - wow, this does seem like it makes sense - that this can meet a number of needs if we were to partner or procure those rooms for people who did not have a place to live. And this is also happening in the face of State Supreme Court ruling that says that you can't kick someone, you can't remove someone who does not have a home, from public property if there is nowhere for them to go. And that's what we're talking about here and what infuriates me about Durkan - one of the things that infuriates me about Durkan - is that her and her administration seemed to put so much effort into acting like they were solving the problem, and a public relations effort with a Navigation Team who wasn't obligated to offer real services, and who was actually working in tandem with police officers to sweep instead of spending that money and effort and time on actually just providing people with housing. And it's so frustrating and it's so upsetting and angering, that the focus is on people who are upset by visible poverty - as if just the threat to their idyllic vision that other people - "those people" - shouldn't be around here and I shouldn't be subjected to them is just maddening and against everything that we should be standing for. It's offensive - protestors were out there for the same reason - they're out there for other items that are unjust. This was an unjust, unwise, and unhealthy action, and I hope we see the end of these when Durkan leaves.  Heather Weiner: [00:28:40] Yeah. Well, let's see if people are gonna run, if somebody's gonna run on fixing homelessness, like she ran on in 2017 - that was her major issue. And in fact, I remember the Chamber of Commerce ads in support of her, specifically showed tents in parks and said if her opponent, Cary Moon, was going to win, there would be more tents in parks. Guess what? Durkan won. We see tents in every single park - and it's not because she's not being tough enough. It's because there is nowhere else for people to go. And when you tell people to go get a job, to get themselves "cleaned up", to deal with substance use disorder or other mental health issues - suddenly, we are in a chicken and egg scenario because there is no way for someone to get a job or to deal with mental health or substance use issues when they are just trying to survive in a cold wet tent. Crystal Fincher: [00:29:41] Absolutely. So I - we will certainly be hearing more about this. There is certainly a lot of resistance to this effort and obviously, one of the reasons why Durkan is choosing not to run again is it looks unlikely that she would have been elected again, because she and her leadership and policies are unpopular with the majority of Seattle residents. So we'll continue to stay tuned.  I thank you for tuning in to Hacks and Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM this Friday, December 18th, 2020. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our wonderful co-host today was Seattle political consultant, Heather Weiner. Thanks for joining us, Heather.  Heather Weiner: [00:30:30] Oh, so nice to chat with you and I'm happy to come back on again soon.  Crystal Fincher: [00:30:35] Thank you. You can find Heather on Twitter at @hlweiner. And you can find me on Twitter at @finchfrii. And now you can follow Hacks and Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, and 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. 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. We'll talk to you next time.

It's time for a very special "Big Game" edition of Crazy Girl Confessions. Today Crystal called in and she ruined the "Big Game" party for everyone last year! She took a brick and destroyed the satellite dish, but why did she do that?

Today Crystal and I talk about some advice that Albert Einstein gave to a friend written inside a bible. His advice was about the bible itself. Here is the article: https://www.foxnews.com/science/bible-signed-by-albert-einstein-in-1932-given-to-friend-sells-for-68500-at-auction-in-nyc Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/twolightspodcast/ Twitter: @TwolightspodEmail: TwoLightsPodcast@Gmail.comWeb page: https://twolightspodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Mister Exposition by Kevin MacLeod Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by FreeMusic109 https://youtube.com/FreeMusic109

Today Crystal and I talk about how being alone is so tough and in some cases deadly. I was up half the night so my thoughts seemed to go everywhere. Where does life begin?Just because you are “Living” does that mean it’s worth living for?Suicide is at an epidemic level. However, I think this podcast topic could put a dent in it. Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/twolightspodcast/ Twitter: @TwolightspodEmail: TwoLightsPodcast@Gmail.comWeb page: https://twolightspodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Mister Exposition by Kevin MacLeod Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music provided by FreeMusic109 https://youtube.com/FreeMusic109

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and according to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 8 women will develop invasive breast cancer sometime during her lifetime.* Today Crystal is talking with Amy Brands, a young woman for whom this topic hits very close to home. As a busy 34-year-old mother to a school-aged daughter, Amy was stunned to hear her doctor say the words, “You have cancer.” Listen as she shares her personal breast cancer journey and the advice she would offer to other women who are faced with a similar path.Read more information at www.joniandfriends.org/podcast*www.cancer.org/cancer/breast-cancer/about/how-common-is-breast-cancer.htmlFind cancer-related resources from Joni Eareckson TadaDiagnosed with Breast Cancer: Life After ShockFacing Trials with Joy - Cancer and Beyond*Joni and Friends was founded in 1979 by Joni Eareckson Tada who in a diving accident was left a quadriplegic at 17 years old. Ministry began as Tada, joined by friends around her kitchen table, responded to letters she received from people with disabilities in search of support. Over the past 40 years, the ministry has grown to serve thousands of people impacted by disability worldwide: Joni and Friends has delivered more than 150,000 wheelchairs and Bibles through Wheels for the World and provided Christian care to 63,000 special needs family members through Family Retreats. The organization also equips individuals and churches with disability ministry training and provides higher education courses through the Christian Institute on Disability. For more encouragement, download the Joni and Friends radio podcast in English or Spanish, and view inspirational videos on the Joni and Friends website.www.joniandfriends.org*

Typical Siblings: Joys and Challenges We know that disability impacts the entire family, but sometimes we can miss the impact that it has on the typical siblings of a brother or sister with special needs. Today Crystal talks with Dennis Spivey and Jessica Johnson about the joys and challenges that have shaped them as siblings and what they think you should know about siblings. If you are a typical sibling, know that your challenges are shaping you and your life will be blessed and positively impacted because of your sibling with a disability. Download a free chapter about siblings from Real Families, Real Needs at www.joniandfriends.org/podcast Hear from a teenage sibling at www.joniandfriends.org/i-want-her-to-know Joni and Friends was founded in 1979 by Joni Eareckson Tada who in a diving accident was left a quadriplegic at 17 years old. Ministry began as Tada, joined by friends around her kitchen table, responded to letters she received from people with disabilities in search of support. Over the past 40 years, the ministry has grown to serve thousands of people impacted by disability worldwide: Joni and Friends has delivered more than 150,000 wheelchairs and Bibles through Wheels for the World and provided Christian care to 63,000 special needs family members through Family Retreats. The organization also equips individuals and churches with disability ministry training and provides higher education courses through the Christian Institute on Disability. For more encouragement, download the Joni and Friends radio podcast in English or Spanish, and view inspirational videos on the Joni and Friends website. www.joniandfriends.org

Today Crystal tries her hand at announcing with John Robert out for the day and it doesn't go so well. The crew talks about Denver's arcade bar scene, the King of Kong and his downfall, Dark Souls delay and what works for combating online bullying and what doesn't.

Today Crystal broadcasts live from Las Vegas, the ladies of The JV Show try Beatboxing, Celebrity Spin talks Halsey's feminism and Katy Perry on American Idol, Natasha takes another swing at a JV Show pet by playing another round of Yup Nope, and The Ladies Room talks about how they feel about men's butts.

Today Crystal & Andrew talk about the church as a business is it good/bad?...oh and it's all recorded in the car on the way from Houston to Odessa