Podcasts about vashon island

Cassie Abel had a different road than most to the ski industry. While her peers were spending as much time as possible on snow, Cassie was winning 4 State Championships in HS before her Hall of Fame collegiate career. After a stint of a 9-5 lifestyle, Cassie got sucked into the ski industry, first with resort marketing, and then on the brand side with Smith.  But when her dream job left town, Cassie stayed back in Sun Valley, started a PR agency,  eventually jumped into entrepreneurship with her Ski and Mountain Bike start up, Wild Rye. This is fun episode with a passionate, tenacious, awesome person.  Maro LeBlance asks the Inappropriate Questions. Cassie Abel Show Notes: 4:00: Chelsea Handler, Vashon Island, K2, Elite HS, 4x State Champion, and College  21:00: Best Day Brewing:  All of the flavor of your favorite IPA or Kolsch, without the alcohol, the calories or sugar. Insta360 Cameras:  The only action sports cam that matters. Get a free gift with purchase over at the site. 24:00: Work, coaching, getting a job at Targhee, Smith, and the decision. 42:00: Elan Skis:  Over 75 years of innovation that makes you better. Outdoor Research: Click here for 25% off Outdoor Research products (not valid on sale items or pro products) 45:00:  Leaving Smith, PR, starting a brand, challenges, buying her partner out, big accounts, and what's her end game  63:00: Inappropriate Questions with Maro LeBlance

Click HERE to send us a text message! Tensions are rising on Vashon Island, as threats to life and limb come at our investigators. Doctor Jensen forgets his fake name almost immediately. Sofie takes care of Mercy, who takes care of some kittens. Julian flirts with a vaesen.You can find exclusive Spirits and Monsters of Old Seattle merchandise at our store! https://www.bonfire.com/store/spirits-and-monsters-of-old-seattle/You can also join us on Patreon for exclusive episodes and behind-the-scenes content! https://www.patreon.com/c/SpiritsandMonstersofOldSeattleOur opening theme is “Myths and Legends” by Robert Bruckmayer which you can pick up at his bandcamp or stream on Spotify.  Our episode music is created by Andreas Lundström. You can hear more of his work on the Sweden Rolls podcast or on Spotify. This episode featured the song Vestiges by artist Thwhalee.Do you have questions or comments about the show? Send them to old.seattle.pod@gmail.com, we would love to hear them!

Margo is joined by Jill Labieniec, an illustrator, designer, and endlessly curious maker living on Vashon Island in the heart of the Pacific Northwest. Working primarily with watercolor, Jill's whimsical illustrations and patterns have found homes on everything from fabrics and home goods to books, stationery, and editorial projects. Alongside her illustration practice, she has a deep love for working with her hands—sewing dresses, making shoes, and shaping clay—guided by a belief that art should help people create spaces where they can rest, daydream, and grow. In this episode Jill reflects on her winding creative path—from a homeschooled childhood centered on making, through art school and freelance work, to building a creative career that prioritizes curiosity, balance, and day-to-day happiness over rigid labels or prestige. In this conversation, we discuss: Jill's creative beginnings and how family life and early making shaped her career Moving through art school, freelance work, and product-focused creative paths What it really means to build a sustainable creative career over time Letting go of fancy titles and external validation in favor of daily fulfillment Balancing freelancing, creative freedom, and personal happiness Jill's thoughtful, intuitive approach to social media and sharing work online Working both digitally and analog—and the joy of seeing art come to life on physical objects, especially ceramics Embracing curiosity, trusting the creative process, and tuning out the noise Connect with Jill: Website: https://www.jill-labieniec.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jill.labieniec/ Connect with Margo: Website: www.windowsillchats.com Instagram: @windowsillchats www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill https://www.yourtantaustudio.com/thefoundry  

Click HERE to send us a text message! We are back in Seattle and starting up a new mystery! Brutal killings are happening on the sleepy town of Vashon Island, and Doctor Jensen's name has been written in blood. What connection could he have to this community?You can find exclusive Spirits and Monsters of Old Seattle merchandise at our store! https://www.bonfire.com/store/spirits-and-monsters-of-old-seattle/You can also join us on Patreon for exclusive episodes and behind-the-scenes content! https://www.patreon.com/c/SpiritsandMonstersofOldSeattleOur opening theme is “Myths and Legends” by Robert Bruckmayer which you can pick up at his bandcamp or stream on Spotify.  Our episode music is created by Andreas Lundström. You can hear more of his work on the Sweden Rolls podcast or on Spotify. This episode featured the song Vestiges by artist Thwhalee.Do you have questions or comments about the show? Send them to old.seattle.pod@gmail.com, we would love to hear them!

This is the second of two special holiday episodes of Broadway Nation. Just like the first, this is an audio version of a Broadway Nation Live! performance that was given in December of 2019 at the Vashon Center For The Performing Arts on Vashon Island, WA. If you prefer to watch a video of this performance you can stream it on their website at: vashoncenterforthearts.org In Part One we looked at how the Jewish-Russian immigrant songwriter, Irving Berlin — in addition to being one of the prime inventors of the Broadway Musical — also created an entirely new category of popular song: “the Christmas Standard.” In this episode we explore how Berlin was aided and abetted in that endeavor by the son of Irish and German immigrants from Washington State who became one of the most popular performers of all time — Bing Crosby. Along with Judy Garland I call Bing one of Broadway's greatest stars who never appeared on Broadway. But first, we start off with Albert Evans' amazing in-depth analysis of the genius of Irving Berlin, and the inspiration and craft that is behind the most popular song of all time. As you will remember, the last episode ended with me introducing Albert and asking him this question: “Why? Why is White Christmas the most popular song of all time?” You won't want to miss his answer! This live show features musical performances by Cayman Ilika, Eric Ankrim, Chris DiStefano, and Albert Evans.    Happy New Year! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a special holiday reprise of one of Broadway Nation's most popular episodes: It's an audio version of a Broadway Nation Live! performance that was presented in December of 2019 at the Vashon Center For The Performing Arts on Vashon Island just outside of Seattle, WA. Several previous episodes of Broadway Nation have explored the crucial role that the Jewish Russian immigrant songwriter, Irving Berlin, played in the invention of the Broadway Musical. This time I share the story of how he also invented an entirely new category of popular song – the Christmas standard.   This live show features musical performances by Cayman Ilika, Eric Ankrim, Chris DiStefano, and Albert Evans.  Happy Holidays! Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! I want to thank our Broadway Nation Patron Club members, such as Larry Spinelli, whose generous support helps to make it possible for me to bring this podcast to you each week. If you would like to support the creation of Broadway Nation, here is the information about how you too can become a patron. For a just $7.00 a month you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions of many of the discussions that I have with my guests — in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions. You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast.  All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgement of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation, there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: ⁠https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/⁠ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we get to know Amanda Knox! Amanda is an exoneree, journalist, advocate, author, host of the podcast ⁠⁠Hard Knox⁠⁠, and a fellow islander. Many people around the world are familiar with Amanda's story, but we go way beyond the headlines in this conversation. We chat about Amanda's newest projects -- her second book, ⁠⁠FREE: My Search for Meaning⁠⁠, and the Hulu/Disney+ mini-series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox -- and why they are more accurate than earlier portrayals of her story. She shares about her many passions, including reclaiming her story, criminal justice reform, and comedy! Amanda also gets personal, sharing her deep ties to Vashon and the Pacific Northwest and her experience as a famous person living in a small town.

Happy Thanksgiving you turkeys!  Enjoy an interview with the gin-u-wine heirs to the Blackball Ferry legacy, brought to you by Friends Of The Boaty Show. Skip to that at around 26:00, or dig in for  your dose of BS silly with an epic Old Boat Ad and Steph's stories from the largest outdoor hot tub park in North America... Spa Nordique!  Boaty Show hats are now available at www.theboatyshow.com/merch. We love you and are thankful for you, thanks for listening!    Jeff: Hi. If you enjoy the Boaty Show, you may enjoy my new audiobook. It's about AI and how we can live with it. You Teach The Machines: AI on Your Terms. Out wherever you get your audiobooks. By me, Jeff Pennington. [Music] Jeff: Welcome back listeners. I'm Jeff Pennington. I'm joined by my co-host... Steph: Stephanie Weiss. Jeff: Sipping on her coffee. It is Sunday, still morning. We, uh, we both have fires going. Mine's downstairs, Steph's is right in front of her in her living room. We're remote, and it's been a minute. We're not gonna talk about that. We're just gonna jump right back in. Right? Steph: Yeah, let's jump right in. Jeff: Jump right in. Like it's summer and we're going swimming again. Steph: Exactly. Exactly. Jeff: We have, uh, we have a show today. We're gonna do a segment on the Puget Sound ferry system—the history of. And we're gonna do, uh... what do we got? We got a "Old Boat Ad" from Jay. He was touring down in, uh, Whatchamacallit, Florida? Sarasota. He sent a picture of an alligator, which I will contend is Boaty. Steph: You want my opinion on that? Jeff: I want your opinion on that. Steph: I mean, it does... it does get from one place to the other. I don't know if they do that without getting wet, but yeah. I admit, boat adjacent. If you've seen an alligator, you wish you were in a boat. I mean, I can think of many ways that alligator is Boaty. Yes. Jeff: That was... that was excellent commentary. Thank you very much. Steph: You're welcome. Jeff: Wait, when you were down there last winter for the fundraising visit and you found that waterfront, that waterfront bar that served like drinks in buckets or something? Were there any alligators around then? Steph: Yeah. Well, yes. We were told there were alligators around, but I didn't see an alligator. But I did see lots and lots of signs about the alligators. Remember the signs? Jeff: In particular that it was alligator mating season. Steph: That's what it was! Yes. "Do not approach the mating alligator" or something super weird like that. Like... yes. That's right. Jeff: And then we did a whole... we did a whole, I mean we might have had a series of bits on alligator mating. And why you weren't supposed to go in the water when they were mating? Was it because it was gross? Because it's like, you know, it's the water that they're mating in and what's all that about? Or because you don't want like the throes of alligator mating ecstasy to like, end up with you getting like, you know, I don't know. Maybe they like bite each other in the midst of all that and you don't want to get confused... like get a body part confused. Steph: Right. Is there more traditional aggression? Right. Are they more aggressive when they're mating? These are questions. And then we had—I think we ended up really wondering whether that was a deep water thing or just a shoreline thing. Like if you're out in the middle, do you have to worry about that? Remember? We had this... this was a whole conversation. Jeff: I think... but I do think that it's ridiculous because... because like, if you see alligators whether they're mating or not, could we all just assume you don't go in the water? I just seems unnecessary, but... Jeff: And we'll count that as the only answer worth taking away because I only recall the questions we had at the time. Uh, and I don't recall any resolution of any of this. So, um, interesting though that Jay... winter-ish, maybe mating season or not. It looked like the picture was a solo... solo alligator. It was just, just an alligator. Unless maybe it was an alligator couple and you couldn't see the other alligator because that alligator was underwater? Steph: Like... that just occurred to me when you said... great minds think alike. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Steph: We should ask Jay. Jeff: We should ask Jay what was going on. Steph: Or not so great minds think alike. Jeff: All right. All right. So I think we should lead off with, uh, since we're talking about Jay and his trip through Florida—he played at least one show down there, I saw a picture of a backyard concert, looked lovely. Or an outdoor concert I shouldn't say, I don't know if it was backyard or not, looked lovely. And, uh, he sent a boat ad. And since this is his favorite segment, we're gonna do it. Steph: Mmm. Do it. [Music: Old Boat Ad Jingle] Jeff: It's... I can't... It's been so long that we've done this that when we were in the middle of doing it all the time, it seemed completely normal. And now when we're like... we're like four months away from doing it regularly or whatever, and it's like holy [bleep]. What the hell is this? That was a song about old boat ad copy from Jay and that was like... like, you know, I don't know, six months ago I was like, "Well yeah, of course Jay's gonna make a song saying 'Come on Jeff read those vintage boaty advertisements, give us some of them old boat ads.'" And that was like in the midst of it, it was like "Yeah fine." And now it's like, what the [bleep] is this? Oh my god! Steph: And people want... people are like, "Hey man when are you gonna start making that show again?" 'Cause they want this nonsense! Jeff: Oh god. That makes me so happy. It's good to be weird. Steph: It's good to be weird. Jeff: Okay. All that aside, notwithstanding. Let's do it. Okay. Jay found this ad in the wild. I don't know where it was. Um, I'm looking at the picture. It looks like it's in a frame. Maybe it was in like... I'm gonna say it was in a bathroom at a bar that he was at, or a restaurant perhaps, and it was above the urinal and he saw this. It was right in front of his face. "You can't blame a guy for boasting about his new Mercury. Not only pride of possession, but downright satisfaction comes with the ownership of a new Mercury Outboard Motor. When you put a Mercury on a boat, you are completely confident of quick, easy starting and effortless 'hold the course' steering. You know that there will be instant response to every touch of the throttle. Whether you want a burst of flashing speed or just a ripple of hushed power for the slowest possible trolling. The new Mercury with 'Full Jeweled Powerhead'—bears repeating—Full Jeweled, yes like bling bling jewels, Full Jeweled Powerhead gives you greater all-around mechanical efficiency and endurance never before known in an outboard motor. Yes, with your Mercury, you'll experience that pride of possession realized only by those who own the finest." Scrolling down through the ad... that was the main copy presented next to uh, a lovely couple in a, looks like a Penn Yan outboard skiff uh, with an outboard obviously on the back. Um, she of course is reclining. He of course is driving. Um, and he's holding his hand out like, "Ah! Oh my god this is great!" Like out to the side like, "Can you believe it?" "Of course, of course this is great." Um, he doesn't look so polished, he's kind of look got... he's got some bedhead and a t-shirt on. She looks put together. Um, so he must have a great personality. Steph: [Laughs] Jeff: So scrolling down there's like more details. Um, mostly for him because there's like cutaway diagrams and whatnot. So: "The Rocket. A six horsepower precision-built alternate firing twin with sparkling power that will plane a boat beautifully. Yet throttle down for... oh, yet throttle down to a hush for continuous trolling. Another exclusive Mercury first." This is more on the Full Jeweled Powerhead. "Mercury's Full Jeweled Powerhead. Mercury engineers have developed a method of using roller bearings on wrist pins, crank pins, and crank shaft. It results in reduction of mechanical friction, new power and smoothness, readier response to the throttle, many more months of service-free operation than any outboard with conventional plain bearings." "The Comet. A smooth running 3.2 horsepower single. The ideal family outboard. Just right for your car-top boat or the average rental boat. Mercury. Own a Mercury. Matchless and outboard excellence. Kiekhaefer Corporation, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Outboard Motors. Portable Industrial Engines." There you go. Old Boat Ad. Steph: I have a lot of questions. And an observation. Jeff: Go. Steph: I love how the masthead of this ad if you will—I don't know if that's the right word for it—but it's a... it's a bubble, it's a like a word bubble coming from the guy in the boat, right? "You can't blame a guy for boasting about his new Mercury." I love like the... I love all of the like the um... how proud you should be. Like there's a lot of like, you know, you just... you're just going to boast and it's going to be like everyone's going to be impressed with you. There's going to be "Pride of Possession." Which I think is very interesting. And then what is going on with the jewels? I don't understand the jewels and why are we talking about jewels? There's no jewels in this. Jeff: There's roller bearings. Steph: What is that? And how is it like a jewel? Is it a ruby? Jeff: Well, my guess is given that this is setting the guy up to boast, if it was made out of ruby it would have said that, right? But I can say... Steph: I agree. Jeff: I can say that I don't know whether it's jeweled or made out of a jewel or not. But uh, different... there's different kinds of bearings. I know a little bit about bearings. Not a lot. Steph: Didn't we talk about bearings once before? Jeff: I'm sure we did. I'm sure we did. Steph: I like this sentence... I like this sentence a lot. "The Mercury engineers have developed a method of using roller bearings on wrist pins, crank pins, and crank shaft." What? Jeff: Uh, I don't know what a wrist pin is. I don't know what a crank... was it a wrist pin and a crank pin? Steph: Wrist pins and crank pins. Yeah. Things I didn't know about. But I love... I also love that they're getting into this level of detail right in the ad. This is the good old days. You know what I mean? Like this is... this is the least reductive ad I've ever seen. They're really... they're just... they hit you a little bit with the ego in the top and then they get right into the deep, deep details. I think this is lovely. It was... it was lovely to listen to. Jeff: So you got... I don't know what those pins are. The crank... I don't know. Let's not talk about why you've got bearings or what they're on, but ball bearings are balls. And... Steph: [Laughs silently] Jeff: ...you're laughing silently with our... Steph: Wrist bearings are wrists? Crank pins are cranks? I don't know. Jeff: No. We're not gonna talk about that stuff. We're just gonna talk about the bearings. So you got ball bearings which are spherical, okay? And then you've got roller bearings which are like a... in my mind it's a bearing that's made of a... it looks like a rolling pin, okay? And a ball bearing can... can bear weight while moving in all directions because it's a sphere. Steph: 360. Jeff: Yup. 360 times 360, right? In any direction. And then a roller bearing can bear... bear weight while moving just in like one direction back and forth. One plane I guess. And uh, I know roller bearings because there are conical roller bearings on boat trailers in the hubs of the boat trailer. Um, because the... and they're almost like a rolling pin shape except they're flared a little bit at, you know, toward one end so it's like a slight cone shape. And that's because the axle on your boat trailer has a slight taper to it. And so the wheel spinning on those bearings on that slightly tapered axle shaft has to be slightly... has to match that taper as it spins around and around and around. Um, now, that being said, going from, you know, roller bearings to "jeweled"? That's... that's what I'm talking about right there. Yup. Steph: Full Jeweled. Yeah. I mean I don't know. I guess... you know how I feel about this stuff. I kind of love things that I don't understand and there's a lot here I don't understand. And I think this is a lovely... so we've got two en... Is the Rocket one and the Comet is the other? They have space names. Amazing. Jeff: Yeah. And this was before... this might have been early space era. Yeah. Steph: Yeah. Early space race. Jeff: It look... I like that it's like, it's just a little boat. Nothing fancy. It's just a little tin can. Steph: Yeah. Rockin' out. Or having a great time. They're all proud... proud of themselves. Jeff: They mentioned "Car Top Boats" which was a... that was a big deal in the expansion of boating into the middle class. And... yeah. So Penn Yan, the boat manufacturer, my understanding is they hit it big for the first time with car-top boats. So Penn Yan Car Toppers, you'll still see those around sometimes. And that was like what pontoon boats and jet skis are doing... they did for boating then what pontoon boats and jet skis are doing now. Which is just making it way more accessible. Steph: I hear you. Jeff: Yeah. Steph: I hear you. "There it is. Just right for your car-top boat or the average rental boat." Got it. Yeah. Jeff: Yeah. Give me... give me more opportunity to get in the water without having to be a rich guy with my own dock or a yacht or anything like that. Steph: Mm-hm. Equal opportunity boating. Jeff: E... E... E-O-B. E-O-B-B. Equal Opportunity Boating Board. Okay. Enough of that. Steph: Yes. That's a... that's a worthy goal. Jeff: All right. We're gonna move on to our... our next topic. Which, you know what? Let's... let's step back. What have you been doing lately? Steph: Mmm. That's a great question. Um... Jeff: Have you gone anywhere? Have you gone anywhere fun? Steph: I did. I went to the... I went to the Spa Nordique in... in Chelsea, Quebec. Yes. I did do that. I was... show before the show we were chatting about this. Yes. I did go there with my friend Julie, my personal historian. And we had a wonderful time. Jeff: What is the Spa Nordique? Tell us... You walk up to the Spa Nordique. What's the experience? Steph: Okay. So real... so real quick. It's like... it's not like a spa like people usually think of a spa. It's a "thermal experience." It's got this whole Nordic vibe to it. Everything's made of wood. And it's a very large... it's many acres. And it has tons of different ways to get warm and cold in water. And also not in water. So, for example, there's like ten different outdoor hot tubs scattered all over the place. And there's like fifteen different kinds of saunas. There's like a earth sauna and a barrel sauna and a Russian sauna and a whatever. There's like... And then there's um, also like steam rooms. And there's cold plunges, which is not for me, but for other people. And there's places to eat and drink. And that's it. And you put on a robe, you leave your phone and all your [bleep] behind and you just wander around in this environment for the day. It's very affordable. Like sixty bucks for the whole day, like US. And it is very beautiful and it's very calming. And very relaxing. And it's delightful. And I would recommend it to everybody. So I've been there probably four or five times. And um, it's close, you know it's like two hours away from here. It's not far. And I think it's the largest spa in North America. But it's not like busy feeling. It's very calming and relaxing. Jeff: We're gonna... we're gonna back up to the very... one of the first two... two of the first words you said which was "thermal experience." Steph: Yeah. That's what they call it. Um... yeah, I don't know. I guess you're just getting in warm water. And then you're supposed to get in cold water cause it's good for you, but like I said, that's just not for me. But um... but you know like, it's like good for you. I don't know. You're supposed to like steam yourself and then get... We were... it was like snowing when we were there. There was actually a hail storm that happened. Like a full-on hail storm um, when we were sitting in one of the hot... my favorite hot tub which is like a hot spring kind of a thing. It's up at the top. And um, they totally just started hailing. And it looks like... like accumulating in our hair. It was very exciting. Jeff: Thankfully... thankfully accumulating in your hair and not like... they were baseball sized and like braining you and knocking you out. Steph: Right. No, they were not baseball sized. Which is good news. They were small and they were accumulating and it was very snow monkey. The whole experience is like just being a snow monkey for the day. That's it. That's how... Jeff: Can you make this up? Thermal experience. Be a snow mon... have a... have a thermal expe... we're gonna have to write an ad for this. Have a thermal experience as a... be a snow monkey for the day. Steph: I don't know why that's not their tagline. For... I don't know why not. It makes no sense. Jeff: So the other thing that grabbed me about... about this is you said you leave your phone behind. Which I think is probably healthy because that means that um, people aren't like nervous about somebody taking a picture of them when they, you know, take their robe off and get in the... in the tub or whatever. But also, dude, anything that people do where they leave their phones behind... those are becoming more and more valuable experiences as people just come to the conclusion that their phone makes them sick. And I had this experience recently... did... did an um... one of my book events at uh, the Poor Sethi headquarters in Brooklyn. In Gowanus. Uh, the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. And afterward, my... my daughter Mary Jane was there uh, and it was the first time she'd come to see one of these... these talks. The book talks. And uh, she brought a few of her friends who had moved to New York after graduating... they all graduated last spring. And they were so psyched. They're like, "Oh my god. Why does it feel so... so like novel to get together in person in a room and talk about something and talk to... with each other?" Because it was a... it ended up being a really interactive session. People were going back and forth to each other. And I started to fade a bit into the background which is what I go for with these... these events. They're kind of like group therapy community workshops about, you know, AI in your life. Not so much what AI is, but like how AI merges into your life. Anyway, at Spa Nordique, it's a thermal experience minus your phone. And you're there for the day or most of the day because you want to get... you want to get as much thermal experience as you can for your sixty dollars. So that's a day without your phone. That's freaking awesome. Steph: Yeah. And when I fir... when we first started going a few years ago, it was pretty much like "Don't bring your phone in here." Like it was like a kind of a rule. Now it's like um, you're allowed to bring your phone, but most people don't. So every now and then there'll be somebody with a phone. But the other funny thing is that... that you know, it's an adjustment going... like you said, you go for the whole day because it's... it's big, there's you know places to stop in and have a bite to eat or get a beverage or whatever. So you really do stay there for a while and you do really disengage from the sense of time. And it's funny how many times you're like, you know, think of things that normally you'd be looking up to your phone but you just don't do it cause you can't. But my... but one funny... one funny thing that happened when we got there was... um... when you first walk in on the left there's this very cool like... like experience. Like it's like a... like they do a Boreal Forest experience and they like um, they like wave branches around and like whatever. So that happens at certain times. So do we really want to do it? Because afterwards you were like rub salts all over your body and then there's like a flash dance bucket that you dump on yourself... you really... you have to be... obviously you need to get involved in something like that. So we were looking at the times. And then we were like... and like Julie and I together are like we're always like a little on the spazzy side anyway. Like it's always... things are always just awkward and weird and great. And like... so we were like, "Okay. So we can come back at one at eleven? Or maybe..." And then it's in like... it's like Canadian time so it's like 1300 and 1500 and we don't know what that means. It's complicated. So it's just... it was so hard. We were like talking about it and... and then this... and we were like, "How are we gonna come back? How are we gonna know when to come back because we don't have phones?" And then um, so then a nice young man who worked at the spa went by and we asked him... The other thing is just constant like language situation going on about wheth... you know we don't speak French. Everybody else does. So you know... and they're very sweet about it. But you know you always have to navigate the fact that you're speaking English. And so we in English ask this nice young man what time it is. And he paused. And I thought maybe it was just because he had to switch into English in his brain. I don't know why. But and he looked at us. And he was like, "Well, right now it's blah blah blah o'clock," and he like explained what time it was and um, the fact that it would be this time in an hour and a half we could come back and the thing would do it again. And then he kind of like looked at us and we were like, "Okay great thank you." And we left. But then later when we came back to actually do the experience, I... we were sitting in the sauna and I looked out and there is a clock so big. Like so big. It's hu... it's huge. It's like... it's like seven feet across. And it was right behind... right behind us when we had asked the guy what time it was! And we realized that like the long pause was like, "Should I just tell them that there's a clock right there? Or should I just be really nice about this and just answer the question and not point out the clock?" Like for sure he was like... are these people being... is this wrong? Are these people... Jeff: Are they... are they messing with me? Steph: ...messing with me? And and he's... he's Canadian but he's also French Canadian so like he he also like... because if you're not French Canadian and you're Canadian the stereotype is like you're just super nice and you're just gonna be super nice and... "Oh of course I'll just tell you what time it is." If you're French Canadian you might be like, "You freaking idiot. Like... I'm glad that you're up here... I'm glad that you're up here you know spending your money even though we can't freaking stand you because you're from America, but..." Steph: It was a lot... there were a lot... yes, there were a lot of components. I love the fact that I think a little bit he was just like, it seemed like if he was like, "Dude, literally a clock right there," then it just would have felt a little less polite. So he didn't say that. And then we had to discover the clock on our own. And um, it was amazing and hilarious. So that was, again back to the time thing. Jeff: I have more soapbox about about that. Um, I'll... I'll do it... I'll do it briefly and try not to go on um, and make it annoying. But uh, when you... you treat your watch as your... as your timepiece... I'm sorry. When you treat your phone as your timepiece, and then you don't have your phone, you end up lost. And you can't conceive that there might be a giant clock on the wall. Although maybe you can conceive of it and you just because you're having a nice day with some beverages and with Julie you don't con... conceive of it. But anyway, this is why I'm always on Instagram, I'm always posting uh, these Sheffield watches. Because if you put on a watch that's just a watch on your wrist and it's not an Apple Watch like all of a sudden you've got the ability to tell time without necessarily getting hit by a bunch of distractions which an Apple Watch is gonna do to you, which pulling... pulling out your phone is gonna do to you. And I'm... I'm huge on this for my kids. I'm like, "Hey like... if you're looking at your phone to tell the time you're like, I don't know, half the time you get pulled in because you see a notification. And now you're looking at your phone more. And now you're more te..." Oh wait, I said I wasn't gonna keep going on and get on my soapbox but... Steph: No, but I hear what you're saying. And at first I was kind of like... you know, I have a thing about Apple Watches because they were like they're meant to be like they don't want to make you... to help people avoid pulling out their phone all the time. But they actually just make people look super rude because you look like you're literally just like, "Um, I don't have ti... like every single time something goes off you're like, 'Uh, is this over? Is it time...?'" You know what I mean? So um, but I hadn't thought about that cause you're right. Whenever you look at your phone, of course there's gonna be notifications and all that's gonna pull you in. And that's... it's a very good point. So yes to watches. Agreed. Jeff: Yep. And I'm gonna I'm gonna bring this all home and make it all Boaty. Ready? All right. Spa Nordique is... Spa Nordique is Boaty because in Iceland outdoor hot spring fed pools and indoor became about because the rate of death by drowning amongst Icelandic fishermen was so high because it's the freaking North Sea. And the last thing you want to do there and there aren't any lakes, right? But the last thing you want to do there is learn how to swim in the ocean. But so that meant the entire population of Iceland whose entire existence was supported by fishing... nobody knew how to swim! And it became a... a public safety, public health, community health like anti-drowning initiative to start... to create public outdoor hot springs... public outdoor hot tubs so that people could learn to swim. Uh, and they sprang up all around the country and it became like part of the culture that you go there to learn to swim but then you also go there to hang out with each other. And um, that's all so that people in Iceland can go fishing, if they go in the drink uh, survive... have a great chance of survival. Boaty. Right? Um, also the... the watch thing. If you have to pull your phone out to tell what time it is while you're out in a boat, you might drop your phone on the deck. You might drop your phone in the drink or off the dock. You also might get distracted by your phone and you're... when you're driving a boat or you're out there in a boat, you probably shouldn't be distracted because A, that means it's taking away from the enjoyment and B, because you might run into something. So... Boaty. Boom. Done. Okay. Steph: So... so learn to swim in a hot spring and buy a watch. Boom. Jeff: And have thermal experiences. Steph: Oh. Jeff: Um... Missy just texted me and called. Um... they just got hit from behind on 76. They're all okay. The cops are there now. Uh oh. Steph: Whoa. Jeff: Hold on a sec. Let me... let me communicate. Steph: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Jeff: Everybody's okay. They don't need me to call or come pick them up. All right. Good. Well how about that? Steph: Do we have to move on? Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Steph: I have... I have a th... I have a... one of my... I'll just tell you and you can always like edit this out later if it's boring. But one of the things that's funny about it is when you're at the spa you can tell which are the hot pools and which are the cold pools because there's nobody in the cold ones, right? Um, but there was this one that Julie and I found and they had... they tell you like the temperatures and um, it was empty and we were walking around and it is... I think they said it was like 69 degrees or something like that? But there's nobody in it and it feels cold but then we realized, wait, that's like the river temperature. That's like the temperature of the river, right? In the summer. And then we got in this cold-ish thing and then it was... and that but we got used to it really quickly and it was really delightful and lovely. So we think of it as like that's like the river temperature pool and we... that's the only cold-ish pool that I get in. But it's very nice. Jeff: That... that's awesome because if the river temperature hits 69 degrees we're probably bitching about it cause it's too warm. Steph: Exactly. Exactly right. Jeff: That's awesome. All right. All right we're gonna move on. Uh, next segment. Um, we're gonna play an interview which was uh, listener submitted. So Rob uh, shared this. Some friends of his recorded an interview with the heirs, the descendants of the founder of the Black Ball Ferry Fleet in Puget Sound, Seattle. So we're gonna play that and then uh, I did a bunch of research on all this that we'll talk about after the interview. So here it is. [Interview Segment] I am standing here with the heirs of the Black Ball Line. Yeah. A couple of them. Was that heir or errors? Errors. Probably errors. Doug and Chris McMahon are standing here with you. Doug and Chris McMahon. And our great grandfather was Charles Peabody who came out west in 1885 and started the Alaska Steamship Company and then the Puget Sound Navigation. They were flying the Black Ball flag, which his family owned on the East Coast from 1803 forward. The Black Ball flag's been flying... Nice. ...and uh, his son... I have one on my travel trailer and every time I go camping we post our big full-size flag. Just... it still flies around the region. Yes. She's... she's still flying. And flies in Portland too. So... So and then the state bought it... the ferries in the 50s. And turns out they stopped making money. Started running in the red. Yeah. So. Yeah. So can you give me a brief history of why it's a Black Ball and with a white circle and red in the middle? Well so that's from the Coho. Right. And so the Coho was the last Black Ball ship that's flying. And so they licensed the flag but they added the white circle. And why did they choose that? Well because it was part of the whole ferry system. Okay. And when the Coho started, the Coho started right after... But the original Black Ball flag, which was a red flag with a black ball only, no white circle, was also researched as um, like some kind of a maritime victory award for ships. You know when they when they won a battle or did something good like cannon-neering or something, you know grenade throwing, they would be awarded the flags and they would fly the flag. So it's one of them. I don't recall exactly which one. And the original Black Ball ships that sailed from Brooklyn to uh, England and mainland Europe and back, um, had a Black Ball flag that was a swallowtail flag. So it wasn't a rectangle, it was swallowtail and a giant black ball on the main sail. And they were the first company... Rad. Like pirates. It does look like the hurricane warning flags too. People often catch us about that which is typically a square black in the center of the red. But in some regions it's a round circle just like Puget Sound Navigation's Black Ball flag. Just a couple specific places. They were the first shipping company to leave on a scheduled date. So they were... in the mid 1800s a ship would leave when it was full. Ass in seat. We're leaving at this time. That's right. And the Black Ball said "We're leaving on this date, empty or full." So they changed the industry then. Yeah. So when we were kids we used to get to ride in the wheelhouse every once in a while. Oh yeah. Or if we were with our Grandpa downtown and you'd see all these, you know, basically old men at the time in the 60s, right? On the... on the waterfront. He'd walk up to half of them because they all knew who each were. You know, they worked in shipping or the shipyards together. Yeah. Did he know Iver Haglund? Yes. They lived near one another up in West... up in West Seattle at Alki. Yeah so he absolutely knew Iver Haglund. We also have a relative who was a bank robber. So you know, they... they ran... Keep clam. Keep clam. One of his brothers... One of his brothers was a bank robber. Spent his lifetime in prison. Was on Alcatraz. That's awesome. Twice. So you know... Captains of Industry and... not. Yeah. Pioneers. Pioneers. Please introduce yourself again. My name's Doug McMahon. I'm from Portland, Oregon. And I'm Chris McMahon, Doug's brother. And where do you live? Uh, Des Moines, Washington. Right up here just across the way. Originally from Portland though. We're both from Portland. So nice to meet you. Thank you so much. [End of Interview Segment] Steph: Yeah. But that is... that is... that is very cool. And I think like the... the boat itself is really cool too, right? I remember we talked about the boat once a while ago. Jeff: Yeah. Well there's the... there's the Kalakala and then there's the Coho. The Kalakala is like this really wild uh, streamlined early streamlining Art Deco looking um... I don't know why I say Art Deco I don't really know what that means. Uh, ferry. And then um, and that's that thing's like I think it's just sitting there... maybe it already got broken up. Uh, but it was derelict for a long time. And then the Coho is still operating, which we'll get to. I'm gonna talk this through in a little bit. All right so. Steph: Okay. Jeff: Puget Sound Ferries. So Puget Sound is surrounds Seattle. It's like between Seattle and Victoria British Columbia and there's island after island after island. It's probably my second favorite watery place that I've been to um, after the St. Lawrence River because there's just so much going on. Um, I like islands and inlets and... Steph: It is beautiful. Jeff: Yep. So uh, this presented a big challenge for getting around back in the day. Uh, because if you wanted to get out to one of these islands cause there's timber out there or other resources or because you wanted to live out there, um, yeah you had to take a boat. And the shortest distance between two points on land on the quote mainland was sometimes a boat, not or by water, not necessarily over land. So uh, there were ferries that that got established. And the... there's like three big eras of ferries um, in in the Puget Sound. The first is the "Mosquito Fleet" era which was like 1850s to the 1920s. And it's when people really nailed down and commercialized the... the ferry as transportation infrastructure and the waterways are now how people get around, right? Um, and it helped develop the region. So um, like before the 1880s or so uh, it was all about steamboats. And the... the first steamships that got there cause you had to go basically either come from Asia or go around uh, the tip of South America back in the day before the Panama Canal to get to this place. So the Hudson Bay Company sent the SS Beaver in the 1830s which showed how uh, steam power... Steph: Beaver... Jeff: Yeah yeah... Steph: [Laughs] Thank god for the Canadians. All right. Jeff: The Hudson's Bay Company sent the SS Beaver like around the horn uh, even better... Steph: [Laughs] Jeff: In the 1830s. So uh, all of a sudden like you've got a steamboat that's like cruising around Puget Sound and it works out. Um, and the... the Americans, I think the Canadian... I don't know a lot about the Canadian history of the West Coast but the American history of the West Coast uh, was like, you know okay... 1849, 49ers... uh, the West like opened up in a... the West Coast opened up in a big way because of the Gold Rush. Um, but then timber became a huge deal. Probably more money made in timber than in uh, gold at that point. But the first American steamboat was the SS Fairy. Okay? Begins scheduled service in the 1850s and it linked uh, Olympia and Seattle. And roads were hammered. It was just mud, you know, nothing was paved. Uh, you definitely wanted to be on a... on a steamer. Maybe a sidewheeler like, you know, old-timey sidewheelers on the... on the Mississippi. Um, but it was really the only way that mail and your goods and s... goods and people got from town to town on the Puget Sound. So that was like early steamboats pre-1880s. And then in the 1880s uh, it really started to take off. So as the area developed, the... the something happened called the Mos... the Swarm, right? So the swarm of the Mosquito Fleet. Hundreds of small um, independent privately owned steamships pl... basically started creating a dense network and they were all competing with each other. Cause like all you needed was a boat with a steam engine and you could get going. Um, and there were some some famous boats during this time. Fleet... Mosquito Fleet boats. And this was not like, you know, so-and-so owned the Mosquito Fleet, it was just like "Hey there's a swarm of boats out there we're gonna call them and they're all small so we're gonna call them the Mosquito Fleet." Uh, and this is where the names get names get more lame. The SS Flyer, the SS Bailey Gatzert. Steph: Okay. I like SS Fairy. Direct. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and and then there's this huge opportunity and this dude named Charles Peabody who we heard about. We heard from his descendants uh, and we heard about the Black Ball uh, right? From his descendants just a minute ago. Charles Peabody. He shows up with this... this family history of the uh, Transatlantic Fleet where they innovated and um... this is something you're pretty psyched about which is like "Oh okay we're gonna have scheduled service instead of just waiting until we've got a full load and then we'll go. We're gonna leave at noon." Steph: Mm-hm. Yeah. Well I just think it's interesting like I... I remember we talked about this pr... I guess you said maybe with Rob a while ago. I find it fascinating the idea that you would get on a boat and then just wait for enough people to get on the boat to have to leave. That's... I could see how that would be disruptive to your day. Jeff: Yeah. Steph: Maybe hopefully those peop... they didn't have watches. But um, but they uh... but then yeah I guess I would appreciate the fact that you had some general idea of when it might leave. But I can see how the risk would be uh, you had to travel empty some so maybe you just had to... more reliable. It was a leap of faith, right? They were like, "If we make it more reliable then people will use it more." Right? Jeff: Yeah. And scheduled service for trains was probably a thing but, you know, when you've got this big boat you definitely don't want to... you don't want to go empty. And so I can see the commercial interest in like a full boat being there but also like then you're leaving out a lot of people who were like "I don't want to sit around and wait for this." Um, anyway. I don't know. Charles Peabody. Uh, so he... he's a descendant of the people that started the Black Ball Fleet way back in the early early 1800s. He shows up out there and starts buying up the swarm. Um, he creates the Puget Sound Navigation Company, PSNC, in 1898. And then just starts buying up competing Mosquito Fleet companies. Like he bought up the White Collar Line. Steph: Mmm. Jeff: Don't know why it's called White Collar Line. Um, going to guess it was fancy. Uh, and eventually becomes the... the biggest operator. Steph: You said fancy? Jeff: Fancy. Steph: Okay. Jeff: And then what Peabody did, based... based on this research is he figured out that the automobile was gonna be a threat, okay? To... to the ferry fleet because now you've got cars. People buy cars, they want the roads to get better so that they can drive their cars. The roads do get better so more people get cars to drive on those roads. So then he figures out that this is a threat and starts converting his ferries to carry cars. And the rest of the Mosquito Fleet, many of whom he'd bought up in the first place, but the rest of the Mosquito Fleet that hadn't been acquired by the Puget Sound Navigation Company... they're not... they're not as like strategic as he is. They don't start converting their boats to carry cars... he does. So they die off. No more. Right? So now he's got a monopoly. And uh, he officially at... at this point adopts the Black Ball Line as its name. Um, and the flag that we heard about, the red and black ball uh, flag in the in the late 20s. Um, coincidentally also around the time of Prohibition and tons and tons of smuggling of da booze from Canada into the US. I am not... I'm not accusing the Black Ball Line of being involved in smuggling um, but it was going on. And uh, there was succession also in the family. Alexander takes over um, from his dad uh, and uh, they really nail down... And then ah this is where... so then they launch the Kalakala. K-A-L-A-K-A-L-A. Kalakala in 1935. This is the streamlined Art Deco ferry that uh, that we we talked about last time and our friends Rob and Jen and Byron uh, actually went out and checked out um, while it was still floating. And it's just like really cool. Looks like um, you know uh, like early streamlined locomotives and trains. That kind of thing with like really neat windows and and that sort of thing. Um, but that becomes the international symbol of the fleet. Everybody's super psyched about it. Um, so that was like 20s, 30s. And then World War II hits. And um, labor organizing really took off around World War II. Uh, and the ferry workers started unionizing and uh, probably pushing back on on pay and working conditions and hours and stuff. And this monopoly uh, had, you know... being a monopoly is great unless there's a strike. And then your... you know your workers strike and your boats aren't running and people are like "Well [bleep], I gotta get around." So now maybe they figure out that they don't have to take the ferry. Take their car on the ferry, take their truck on the ferry and they um... they go elsewhere and that starts to... to put pressure on the ferry. But also like if you've got to raise wages, um, now your... your margins are lower. Blah blah blah. So um, ultimately uh, the... you know the... there was a... a wartime um, freeze in wages and operations but the... the unions um, really pushed for better wages which put a bunch of strain on the... on the company. And the... the only way that... that the Peabodys could make this all work was uh, with a big fare increase. So they um... pushed for a 30% fare increase to cover their costs. Um, and the... they had... it had gotten to the point where they were being regulated at this point because it was, you know, privately operated transportation infrastructure that everybody relied on. Um, so they were regulated and the state said "Nope." So like, you know, a public utility commission has to negotiate rate increases with their state regulator. So same thing happened here. Um, and Peabody says "Give us 30% more." State says "Nope." And Peabody says "All right, F you." They shut it all down. They shut it all down. And that stranded uh, like all the commuters. And people were super pissed at them for shutting it down. Um, which then turned it into a political moment. And uh, the... you know people, businesses said "Take over this... this as an essential utility." And that's when uh, Washington State purchased all this stuff from... all the ferries and the whole system from the uh, the Peabodys. From the Black Ball Line. And that created the Washington State Ferry System. And as you heard in the... in the um, interview, uh, was running... ended up running at a loss. I don't know if it still does, it may as... as a lot of public transit infrastructure does. Um, but the state bought out the Black Ball Line in... in 51. And um, they bought it out for 4.9 million dollars which in like "today dollars" is still not even that much I don't think for, you know, 16 ships, 20 terminals uh, which is what it was at the time. Um, but anyway they buy it out and start operating on... in June of 51. And uh, the state said "Hey we're just gonna do this until we build all the bridges everywhere." Uh, which didn't really happen. Um, and the Washington State Ferry uh, system just change... they basically uh, did away with the Black Ball livery. Which is like the Boaty way of saying how you paint [bleep]. Um, what colors. Um, so they went from orange to green. Uh, but the... the company, Captain Peabody, Alexander, um, and his family retained the route... the international route between... between Seattle and Victoria. And that is the MV Coho which still runs uh, and it's still the Black Ball Ferry Line. And it um... basically gives you a through line from like the original Transatlantic Fleet that did scheduled service for the first time ever um, and, you know... you're on board or not we're leaving at noon. Through line from like the early early 1800s all the way through to today. The Black Ball line has been continuously running or the Black Ball uh... the... Black Ball family or I'm sorry the Black Ball line has been continuously running cause the Coho is still going. Was launched in 59 but it uh... it's still the um... it's still a major private auto ferry line in the region. And international. So goes back and forth to Canada. Which is what you did when you went to the Hot Springs as well. Steph: Um, yeah. I love that. I love that it's still running. I didn't realize that. Jeff: Yeah. The Coho. I... I was out there for work years ago and I thought about taking um, taking the ferry up to Victoria. There's a high speed... and I don't think it's the Coho. There's a high speed ferry that runs also. Um, it may even go further than Victoria but uh, cause I was like "Oh man it'd be pretty cool to do a day trip to just like take the ferry from Seattle up through the Sound to, you know, wherever. Like get off get a... get some poutine and then come back." Although it's the West Coast I don't know if poutine... I don't know if poutine made it out there or maybe they call it something else. I love ferries. Steph: I do too. And I... I've actually been to that part of the world only one time, but I was... I went to a wedding on Vashon Island. And then um, so yeah I was to... completely taken with how watery and boaty it was and we totally took a ferry there and it was amazing and I loved it. And yes, I agree. Ferries are fun and um, that's some... that's some very cool history. I like it. Jeff: Yeah. Well we're gonna... we're gonna wrap up now. Um, because uh... I just got a call and a text from my wife and she... Steph: Yeah. Jeff: She and Mary Jane... so Missy and Mary Jane got rear-ended. I think Toby too. Got rear-ended on the highway. And uh, they don't need a ride but just in case they do I want to wrap it up. Everybody's okay. Nobody got hurt. Steph: Yeah. Sounds good. Good. Good. Jeff: Yeah. Um, but couple things. One, I am currently wearing a Boaty Show hat. And uh, the hot admin, the lovely Melissa, set up a freaking e-commerce website so that you listeners if you would like can buy a Boaty Show hat and we will ship it to you. We don't really make any money on this. It's... it's all uh, basically break-even. Um, but that can be found at thebodyshow.com/merch. M-E-R-C-H. Merch. Thebodyshow.com/merch. They're... I'm very excited because I've got a big head and we have an extra large hat. Which means that if you usually put like the... the little snappy back thing on like the last two nubbins, the snap back on the last two nubbins... on the XL Boaty Show hat you get... you get to at least on my head you get five nubbins. You can snap five hat nubbins. And it... and it doesn't look like you're cramming a tiny hat on top of your big head. So that's exciting. Uh, there's... there's Heather Grey, Dark Grey, and Navy Blue. And uh, would love it if you guys ordered some um, because uh... it's... it's a cool hat. It's got the boat tractor on it. Steph: Mm-hm. It's the holiday season. Time to go buy some merch for your friends and families. Everybody needs a Boaty Show hat. Jeff: Yeah. Also these were made by Bolt Printing who who we talked uh, about on the show once upon a time. Uh, they're really cool people and... Steph: You love them. Jeff: I do. I do. And they made a video of the hats getting made that I'll I'll try and repost. Um, and the other thing is that my book is out. So is the audiobook. So You Teach The Machines: AI on Your Terms is available on everywhere you get your audiobooks. Uh, Audible, Amazon, Apple, and then like 35 others. So if you don't mind listening to my voice, uh, I read the book and people are finding it really helpful. And uh, you can support the show and us doing this silly stuff by buying hats and checking out the book. We are gonna wrap it up. Steph: And next time we get to do Photo of the Week. Jeff: Oh yes! Yes. We're bringing back Photo of the Week next time. Um, there have been a bunch of submissions while we've been on our hiatus and uh, we can't wait. So like next week will probably mostly be Photo of the Week discussions. Jeff & Steph: [Singing together] Yo ho ho, that's it for the Boaty Show. Pack the cooler, grab the lines, let's go go go. Yo ho ho... Jeff: That's it for the Boaty Show. Boom we are out. Say bye-bye Stephanie. Steph: Bye-bye Stephanie.  

Today, Thursday, November 6 on Urban Forum Northwest: *Washington State Representative Brianna Thomas (D)-34th LD represents constituents from Pioneer Square, West Seattle and Vashon Island talks about her legislative priorities and what the state can do to provide assistance to citizens who are being impacted by federal policies. *Washington State Representative David Hackney (D)-11th LD his district encompasses Renton and parts of Kent, WA. He is member of the Budget Committee and he sounds the alarm of the state's economic shortfall. He is also an advocate and leader on the states public safety policy and reforms. *The following will pay tribute to the late Dr. Charles H. Mitchell, Jamal (Martin) Wyatt was a close friend and a University of Washington Husky football teammate of Charles aka Charlie, Audrey Mitchell Jones and Paul Mitchell Charles sister and brother talk about the Mitchell family history and specifically about their brothers accomplishments on and off the field where he was an All American University of Washington Husky football player that went on to play professionally with the Denver Broncos. He became president of Seattle Central Community College and later became Chancellor of Seattle Colleges. His Memorial Service will be Saturday, November 8 at 2:00 pm (PST) at Club Husky 3800 Montlake Blvd. North. *Randolph Cross, Executive Secretary, Seattle's Royal Esquire Club invites you to First Friday and provides information on some of the activities planned for the month of November. Urban Forum Northwest streams live at www.115okknw.com. Visit us at www.urbanforumnw.com for archived programs and relevant information. Like us on Facebook. X@Eddie_Rye.

Today, Thursday, November 6 on Urban Forum Northwest:*Washington State Representative Brianna Thomas (D)-34th LD represents constituents from Pioneer Square, West Seattle and Vashon Island talks about her legislative priorities and what the state can do to provide assistance to citizens who are being impacted by federal policies. *Washington State Representative David Hackney (D)-11th LD his district encompasses Renton and parts of Kent, WA. He is member of the Budget Committee and he sounds the alarm of the state's economic shortfall. He is also an advocate and leader on the states public safety policy and reforms.*The following will pay tribute to the late Dr. Charles H. Mitchell, Jamal (Martin) Wyatt was a close friend and a University of Washington Husky football teammate of Charles aka Charlie, Audrey Mitchell Jones and Paul Mitchell Charles sister and brother talk about the Mitchell family history and specifically about their brothers accomplishments on and off the field where he was an All American University of Washington Husky football player that went on to play professionally with the Denver Broncos. He became president of Seattle Central Community College and later became Chancellor of Seattle Colleges. His Memorial Service will be Saturday, November 8 at 2:00 pm (PST) at Club Husky 3800 Montlake Blvd. North.*Randolph Cross, Executive Secretary, Seattle's Royal Esquire Club invites you to First Friday and provides information on some of the activities planned for the month of November.Urban Forum Northwest streams live at www.115okknw.com. Visit us at www.urbanforumnw.com for archived programs and relevant information. Like us on Facebook. X@Eddie_Rye.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, we sit down with Abigail Lawson of Studio Stillpoint! Abby is a yoga teacher, a community builder, and a small-business owner on Vashon Island. With the help of a diverse group of fellow teachers, Abby curates a variety of yoga classes, community gatherings, and holistic practices at Stillpoint. Join us to hear how Abby first fell in love with yoga, her passion for community, and why she loves calling Vashon Island "home" after traveling all around the world. Abby shares her vision for Stillpoint and why wellness, at both individual and community levels, is more important than ever during these challenging times. Studio Stillpoint: www.studiostillpoint.com*Please note that Abby leads a fabulous free yoga class for youth at 9am on Fridays*Abby's Instagram: @abigailmlawson

Waymo is facing resistance from Seattle rideshare drivers. A bizarre story about California Congressman Eric Swalwell. Guest: KIRO News Radio’s Chris Sullivan gives an update on I-5 traffic and the crackdown on truck drivers who aren’t proficient in English. // Big Local: The Federal way light rail station is slated to open in December. The Vashon Island food bank is bracing itself for SNAP benefits drying up. // Fridays with Jake Skorheim on trick-or-treating.

Kimberly is joined by luminary thinker Dr. Betty Martin as they discuss the evolution and impact of the Wheel of Consent, a vanguard model for enthusiastic consent, asking for what you want, and living out embodied intimacy. Dr. Martin, who developed the model, shares her journey from creating the wheel through her hands-on workshops to writing a book so the wheel may reach an even larger audience, with Kimberly noting just how deep of an impact Betty's work has had on Kimberly's teaching and offerings. They explore the challenges of enthusiastic consent, the importance of feeling with one's hands, and the universal nature, as well as the cultural nuances, of touch and sex. Betty emphasizes the need for accurate teaching and the development of the wheel of consent in various fields, including therapy, businesses and social justice. The conversation highlights the significance of embodiment and the incomparable emotional impact of present and thoughtful touch.   Bio Dr. Betty Martin spent her childhood in a large family and her youth in experimental communities, learning about people in more groups than she can count. Founding a co-housing community with countless hours of meetings taught her the value of excellent facilitation. Now she enjoys helping others learn the skills she picked up along the way.  She graduated Chiropractic College in 1976 and practiced for almost 30 years, including several body-mind integration modalities. She has taught Peer Counseling for teens and adults, Educational Kinesiology and other bodywork for professionals, sexuality workshops for women, gender liberation, and boundary and communication workshops of many flavors, including Cuddle Party. After retiring from her Chiropractic practice on Vashon Island, she moved into Seattle and opened a private practice as a relationship and intimacy coach, where she guided people through somatic experiences, sometimes erotic and sometimes not, so they could learn how to be comfortable in their own skin and experience pleasure in ways that supported their development.  It was during those years of working with hundreds of people that she noticed and developed the Wheel of Consent, a practice and a model of taking apart receiving and giving. She started sharing her experience with other practitioners and developed the 5-day training, Like a Pro, focusing on the Wheel, communication and professional standards.  In 2018 she co-founded the School of Consent, where she has trained numerous facilitators of Wheel of Consent workshops, and a handful of faculty to teach Like a Pro. She is happily handing over teaching to those she has trained, and these days contributes to other organizations' trainings and presents to various professional groups. She also enjoys offering supervision and mentoring to practitioners. She once again lives in community and is the proud mom of 3 and grandma of 2. What You'll Hear Dr. Martin's background in chiropractic, body-mind integration modalities, and her development of the wheel of consent Betty's 13 year writing process and how her clients led her to constantly evolve her concepts for the book The development of the Three-Minute Game the value of taking turns and asking for what you want Why receiving can often be harder than giving. The importance of touch and attention to intimacy Why training new teachers is so important to Dr. Martin They discuss cultural differences as it relates to touch and sex The emergence of the term enthusiastic consent The reach of The Wheel of Consent from relationships to communities to businesses to social movements The exercise of waking up the hands to improve ability to feel with them   Resources Website: https://www.wheelofconsent.org/ Ig: @drbettymartin Book: https://www.wheelofconsent.org/thebook Activate Your Inner Jaguar: Sexuality and the Nervous System sign up link is here

Lola Michelin, BSc, LMP founded the Northwest School of Animal Massage in 2001. She has practiced animal massage for over 30 years and massage for people since 1998. A graduate of the Animal Science program at Michigan State University, she has work experience in both the veterinarian and zoological fields. Currently, Lola maintains a private practice for animals in addition to teaching and curriculum development. She consults with zoological park veterinary teams and owns Paxhia Farm, an equine retirement and rehabilitation facility on Vashon Island. She speaks and writes regularly on the topic of animal bodywork and is active in promoting standards of practice and legislation for the industry. Her interests include equestrian competition and foxhunting. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines and she appears on television and radio as an advocate for animal therapies.

Michael Fanning - Windermere Ask a Coach Podcast HostDavid RushExperience: 35 years in real estate (since 1990)Market Area: Green Lake and surrounding Central North Seattle neighborhoodsBusiness Focus: Sphere-based business serving longtime clientsContact:Jill SjolinExperience: 25 years in real estateMarket Area: Woodinville office, serves 405/I-5 corridor from Seattle to Skagit and San Juan countiesSpecialties: Second homes, island properties, boating clientsBackground: Former Nordstrom employeeContact:Rebecca EspinozaRole: Windermere Relocation Referral Services CoordinatorExperience: Since late 2015Service Area: Manages referral placements across Windermere's footprint and beyondContact:Host introduction and guest backgroundsMarket areas each agent servesOverview of Windermere's geographic footprintDavid's early experience trying to manage referrals independentlyThe importance of not working outside your expertise areaJill's confidence in Windermere's network qualityComparison to "Nordstrom of real estate companies"Flexible communication options with referring agentsSame-day referral placement examplesRebecca's quick response times and problem-solvingCase study: Last-minute weekend referral successInternational referral capabilities and challengesDavid's story about Vashon Island referral replacementJill's experience with client preference mismatchesRebecca's immediate response to issuesImportance of follow-up and trackingAverage referral fee: $3,200Potential annual income from 4-5 referrals"Surprise check" factor - passive income benefitImportance of detailed client information gathering2-business-day turnaround standard (often within hours)Geographic scope: Domestic US coverage, some internationalLeading Real Estate Companies of the World partnership30-day follow-up protocolAdministrative handling and payment guaranteeCost structure: 30% referral fee (20% to referring agent, 6% to network, 4% to department)Conversion rate: 89% vs. 25% industry standard for self-placed referralsAdvice for agents considering DIY approachComparison to FSBO seller mentalityIntegration into listing presentationsSphere of influence opportunitiesRetirement relocation trendsMultiple-destination shopping supportJanet Weldon for Eastern Washington, Idaho, and MontanaEncouragement for both agents and potential relocating clientsFinal advice and contact details for all guestsCall to action for ratings and topic suggestionsHost contact: fanning@windermere.comProfessional referral services provide higher conversion rates (89% vs 25% self-placed)Average referral fee of $3,200 creates significant passive income opportunityQuick turnaround times (often same-day placement in populated areas)Comprehensive geographic coverage across domestic US with international capabilitiesBuilt-in quality control with problem resolution and agent replacement when neededAdministrative burden removed from referring agents with full tracking and payment handlingLeading Real Estate Companies of the World networkWindermere's franchise footprintInternational referral partnerships"Getting Referrals Without Asking" by Stacy Brown RandallFor more episodes and coaching resources, visit the Windermere Ask a Coach podcast series.

On this episode of Blurry Creatures, we dive into a personal UFO encounter in 1975 on Vashon Island. Becky shares her personal story—one that begins in childhood and weaves through a series of bizarre encounters, missing time, and high strangeness that finally caught up to her on Halloween night. From lights in the sky to possible abductions, this quiet corner of the Pacific Northwest holds secrets that refuse to stay buried. Is Vashon Island just another beautiful place—or a government involved hotspot for something much stranger? blurrycreatures.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The biggest story out of Washington is the Republican spending bill or, as the President has branded it: the One Big Beautiful Bill.This bill would solidify much of the President’s agenda, but its future in the Senate is unclear some Senate Republicans are balking at the estimated 3.3 trillion dollars it would probably add the national debt. To talk about the future of this 1,000-plus page piece of legislation, Sound Politics sat down with Representative Pramila Jayapal, who represents Seattle, Shoreline, Vashon Island and Burien in the U.S. House of Representatives. Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/politics. Sound Politics is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. Our editor is Gabriel Spitzer. Our producer this week is Hans Anderson. Our hosts are Scott Greenstone and Libby Denkmann. And we want to hear from you! Send us your politics questions by emailing soundpolitics@kuow.org or give us a call at 206-221-0511.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's episode, we get to know Susan Ross, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and owner of Susan Ross & Associates here on Vashon Island. With over four decades of experience in therapy, Susan is passionate about supporting islanders with their mental health, especially overcoming traumas and conditions like PTSD, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. Susan sheds light on several popular and effective modalities, including EMDR and neurofeedback -- a method that uses electrical impulses from the brain to create new pathways and reduce reactivity. Join us to hear about Susan's personal journey to therapy, her special interest in helping neurodivergent people, and her own reflections on the value of mental health support.Susan's webpage: https://www.susanross.com/

You know how music can transport you back to a certain era in your life? I'll never forget gathering in college dorm rooms and tiny apartment living rooms with all my girlfriends in our twenties as we watched Grey's Anatomy. The show wouldn't have been the same without its unforgettable soundtrack, especially during those nerve-wracking ER scenes or the slow-burn love story between Meredith and Derek.So much of that iconic sound came from The Fray, the Denver-based band fronted by the haunting, heartwarming voice of lead singer Isaac Slade. I first met Isaac at The Nantucket Project and was instantly struck by his unique mix of humor, vulnerability, and grounded wisdom. His childhood was shaped by a loving, religious family that encouraged his musical passions. That support led him to gather friends and form The Fray, a band that would go from playing tiny venues to topping charts, dominating TV soundtracks, and selling out stadiums across the world.Isaac's voice helped define an era, but behind the music was a story few of us ever heard. In this honest, soulful conversation on this week's Cracking Open episode, we dive into:✨ The rise of The Fray and the whirlwind of early fame ✨ The toll of success and the mental health struggles it sparked, including on-stage panic attacks ✨ His decision to step away from the spotlight and embrace a quieter, more grounded life ✨ Why putting your oxygen mask on first is one of the most radical acts of loveIsaac didn't leave the band because he stopped loving music. He left because he needed to love himself—and his family—more fully. After years of sold-out tours and chart-topping songs, he found healing in the everyday: parenting, slowing down, and opening a record shop on Vashon Island, off the coast of Seattle.As I waited for him to join this conversation, I couldn't help but smile, remembering those college days when The Fray's music helped me survive heartbreaks, insecurities, and burnout. His voice once soothed my confused, overwhelmed soul. And now, nearly 30 years later, we're sharing stories about embracing the beautiful mess of life and doing what it takes to stay on the treadmill of adulthood.

In this episode, we get to know Aimée Cartier! You may know of Aimée from her Voice of Vashon show, Intuition For Changemakers. In this episode, we chat about Aimée's work as a psychic guide and intuition and empath teacher who supports her clients and students as they align with their own highest good. Aimée shares her personal story and how she realized her psychic gifts, and the unique opportunities and challenges she finds in this work. We also discuss "Intuition for Activists", a free online event for Vashon residents that Aimée is hosting this Saturday, April 19! You can register now for this free event here.Aimée's website: https://aimeecartier.com

Join us to meet Katelyn Costley! Katelyn is a licensed midwife and the executive director of Vashon Island Midwifery, an organization providing personalized and accessible reproductive, pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum health and education services to birthing families on the island. Katelyn shares her journey into midwifery - inspired by her own personal childbirth experience - and her vision for a more personalized, holistic model of reproductive care for people and families. Join us to hear Katelyn's personal ties to Vashon, her insightful reflections on island life, and all the ways she and her team support our community every day.Katelyn's website: https://www.vashonislandmidwifery.comInstagram: @vashonislandmidwifery

In this episode, we get to know Ainslie MacLeod and Christine Love-MacLeod! Ainsley is an internationally-acclaimed past life psychic and author, and he has broken into the mainstream media through appearances on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and Oprah's Super Soul podcast. Christine is a grounded spiritual mentor, and together they explore the significance of past lives in understanding one's current existence and purpose. They delve into the nature of soul types, soul ages, and the connection between past life experiences and present-day fears and blocks. They also share personal stories about their relationship -- including their "meet cute" moment here on Vashon Island -- and how they complement each other's different needs for connection and solitude. Whether you've ever pondered the concept of past lives or not, we think you will find this conversation fascinating.Website: https://ainsliemacleod.comAinslie's Instagram: @ainslie_macleodChristine's Instagram: @christinelovemacleod

Join us on Power of Place for a conversation with Safa Jneidi and Iyad Alati. Their stories transport us to the ancient souks of Aleppo, Syria, where Iyad's family once traded fabric along the storied Silk Road—a place they never imagined leaving. Now, they've built a new life on a quiet, forested island in the Pacific Northwest, bridging cultures through resilience, community, and the flavors of home. Through vivid recollections, Safa and Iyad share a 400-year family history woven into the fabric of Aleppo's 2,300-year-old Al-Madina Souq—a labyrinth alive with the scent of cumin and saffron, the clang of copper trays, and the steady hum of daily trade. More than a marketplace, the souk was home, an inseparable thread in the tapestry of their lives. It was also a place where tradition was preserved and passed down—not just through commerce, but through food. As with most Aleppians, cooking for Iyad and Safa was both a skill and a language of connection spoken through slow-roasted lamb, fragrant cardamom, and freshly baked flatbreads, each dish a bridge to memory and tradition. Then, in 2012, war came. Forced to leave, they fled to Turkey, where Iyad worked in restaurant kitchens to survive. Later, they resettled in the U.S., passing through Tukwila, WA, before finding an unexpected home on Vashon Island—a rural community in the Salish Sea, accessible only by ferry from Seattle and Tacoma. The bustling Al-Madina Souq, the world's longest covered market, now lay in ruins. In its place, misty forests and quiet shorelines became the backdrop to their new life. Listen as Safa and Iyad share how, in exile, cooking became something more—a bridge between past and present. They recount the challenges of acquiring a small food cart, transforming it into Iyad's Syrian Grill, and introducing their island neighbors to the flavors of Aleppo: smoky, spice-laden lamb skewers, fragrant hummus, and flaky, pistachio-studded baklava. Through these dishes, they stayed rooted in their heritage while building something new. Just as Aleppo's merchants dream of restoring the bustle of commerce to their city, Safa and Iyad share the trials and triumphs of building a new livelihood—one meal at a time. Their journey proves that building a new life is about holding onto a vision, nurturing it, and carrying it forward—wherever home may be. “If you're working very hard and if you're working from your heart to improve something or to add something to this community, you will reach it.” ~Safa Jneidi

Rep. Brianna Thomas has done a lot of things in her life, and they all led, in one way or another, to the day she was sworn in as Washington state's newest representative. Today we talk about some of those stops along the way, and what she has planned for this new experience.

Join us to meet Bill Moyer, the Executive Director and co-founder of the Backbone Campaign, a movement-building organization based here on Vashon Island. Bill chats with us about the origins of the Backbone Campaign, their art-driven activism, and some of their most memorable campaigns -- including helping to organize the community to block the development of a gravel mine on Maury Island in 2008. Bill tells us about a life-changing experience that solidified the backbone metaphor, shares why he's excited about the future of U.S. rail transportation, and discusses how his childhood experiences informed his passion for activism that drives social change. Find Bill at Backbone Campaign: https://www.backbonecampaign.org

Focusing and Self-Discovery with Jeffrey Morrison on The Living Process with Greg Madison. Episode 28 In this episode, I welcome Jeffrey Morrison who is well-known in our community as a Focusing Oriented Therapist and Teacher of Focusing. Jeffrey and I outline his interesting journey from philosophy and theology through existential-phenomenological therapy into the world of Focusing and Gendlin's philosophy. We discuss the importance of structure when teaching a natural process, as well as psychedelics and the role of death awareness in developing spirituality. We touch on Jeffrey's interest in trauma, neuroscience, the role of the physical body, and also how Focusing can help us avoid joining the polarised conflicts that are plaguing our world. Jeffrey studied philosophy, and religion before concentrating on psychology after being exposed to Focusing. He has worked in various settings with adolescents, parents, and teachers. He has trained in Family System Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, meditation, aspects of Feldenkrais, Zen, and recently co-wrote a chapter on Polyvagal Theory and trauma. He operates his clinical practice as well as offering certifying courses in FOT in Seattle and Vashon Island, Washington, as well as online. He is a Certifying Coordinator with The International Focusing Institute. Episode 28, The Living Process with guest Jeffrey Morrison https://youtu.be/l9eLZ6pfg3k The Living Process - all episodes and podcast links: https://www.londonfocusing.com/the-living-process/ YouTube video channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC0TgN6iVu3n9d9q2l43z1xBMYY3p9FQL The Living Process on the FOT Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx3FqA70kQWuHCHmEiZnkn1VcrRIPbcvk For more information on Jeffrey and his work: Seattle Focusing https://seattlefocusing.org Morrison Therapy https://morrisontherapy.com Focusing-Oriented Therapy for the Treatment of Trauma (Jeffrey Morrison and Riley Patterson) in the edited book Experiential Therapies for Treating Trauma (Eds. Senreich, Straussner, Dann, Routledge 2025). #somaticexperience#trauma#Focusing#Gendlin#Bodytherapy#Zen#Experientialpractice#bodymind #thelivingprocess#buddhist #psychotherapy#mindfulness #spiritualawakening #experientialpractice #thelivingprocess

      Bill Moyer calls himself  a radical solutionary. He's the author of the book Solutionary Rail, a people powered campaign to electrify US railroads and open corridors for a clean energy future.  He also hosts the new podcast Reconnect America and posts essays on Solutionary Rail at Substack. The campaign has evolved into a national effort to put US rail infrastructure back in service of the public interest over Wall Street profit. He  lives with his wife and daughter in the woods of Vashon Island, WA in the Salish Sea.

Margo shares a personal episode, reflecting on the incredible four-year journey of the podcast and its vibrant community. She opens her heart about her own transformative experiences, the courage it takes to embrace life's uncertainties, and the magic of real connections. Whether you're a loyal listener or tuning in for the first time, this episode is an invitation to celebrate growth, creativity, and the beautiful moments yet to come.   Topics Discussed: Reflecting on Growth: Finding new perspectives and embracing the lessons from the journey. Trust in Connection: The value of real conversations and authenticity in building bonds. Navigating Change: Margo's move to Vashon Island and the power of trusting her inner knowing. Vulnerability and Handling Doubts: The role of vulnerability in fostering meaningful relationships and navigating pivotal life decisions. Impactful Feedback: How listener feedback continues to move and motivate Margo. Defining Success: Encouraging listeners to focus on how they want to feel rather than what they want to achieve. Celebrating Diversity: The importance of inclusivity and creating supportive environments in our communities.   Take your creativity to new heights and turn your passion into a purpose-filled path by joining The Foundry. A monthly membership for creatives. Connect with Margo: www.windowsillchats.com www.instagram.com/windowsillchats www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill

Rabbit Hole Detour: Unhinged on Vashon IslandHey there, rabbit holers! Join Shea and Jody as they take a detour from the usual Pacific Northwest rabbit holes into the hilariously unhinged world of the Tyrant In Training podcast. This week, Shea recounts her wild adventure on the show, where she transformed Vashon Island into a feline-worshipping theocracy, Felis Supernus. Dive into Shea's imaginative escapades as she becomes the high priestess of a cat cult, complete with cat hair clothing, child acolytes, and a creative take on island governance. Discover how Vashon Island's quirky community of hippies and anti-vaxxers were woven into this fictional tale, and laugh along as Shea and Jody explore the absurdity of it all. From cat-themed attire to the logistics of a feline paradise, this episode promises to tickle your funny bone and maybe even inspire a new appreciation for your feline friends.Don't miss the chance to hear more about the Tyrant In Training podcast, where Shea's fantastical ideas were brought to life with the help of the hilarious host Kevin Ryan. Plus, get ready for Kevin's upcoming guest appearance on Rainy Day Rabbit Holes!

Island Spring Organics on Vashon Island, Washington, uses soybean pulp and whey to help power its tofu production. Learn more at https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/.

Join us for a special Tacoma Beer Week episode of Rainy Day Rabbit Holes as we dive into the intriguing world of Tacoma's infamous bootlegger, Pete Marinoff. We sit down with historian and author Brad Holden, known for his captivating accounts of Pacific Northwest history, to explore the life and legacy of Marinoff during the Prohibition era. Discover how this notorious figure left an indelible mark on Tacoma's history, the underground world of bootlegging, and the local culture of the time. Whether you're a history buff, a beer enthusiast, or just curious about Tacoma's colorful past, this episode is a must-listen! Resources & Links: Brad Holden's Website: www.bradholden.org Tacoma Beer Week: www.tacomabeerweek.com Connect With Us: www.rainydayrabbitholes.com https://www.facebook.com/RainyDayRabbitHolesPodcast/ Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review! Shea will be participating in the Alzheimer's Association Walk to End Alzheimer's®! Join the Limitless Studio Team or donate! https://act.alz.org/site/TR?fr_id=18005&pg=team&team_id=896308 Shea's Tyrannical Takeover! Ever wondered what it would be like to rule your own island? Shea recently joined the Tyrant In Training Podcast to explore her hilariously wild vision! As the newly crowned High Priestess of Felis Supernus Island, Shea kicked all the rich hippies off Vashon Island and transformed it into a paradise for cat worshippers. Her cult reveres the cat god Bastet, and the island is now home to thousands of adored felines. But that's not all! With an army of loyal orcas by her side, Shea has her sights set on conquering a region of the U.S. – all in the name of Felis Supernus, with zero repercussions. On her island, Shea has created a thriving industry of clothing made from cat hair, offering the ultimate in feline fashion. But beware: in her quest for efficient production, she may have done away with pesky child labor laws! Listen in for an unhinged ride filled with laughter as Shea shares her tyrannical plans, including her unique official title and island bans! Check out the episode for a dose of comedy and creativity: Tyrant In Training Podcast: Shea Drury - Rainy Day Rabbit Holes and Cloudy Night Cat Worshipper Don't miss it! https://tyrant-in-training.podcastpage.io/.../shea-drury... https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561701940656 @tyrantintraining

The U.S. presidential race has undergone a big transformation.  But has anything changed for Democrats who voted "uncommitted" in Washington state's presidential primary? As the party prepares to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris in a virtual role call vote, an uncommitted delegate says Harris needs to show more separation from President Biden on the war in Gaza before she will earn his support. Guest: Yaz Kader, uncommitted delegate for Washington's 7th congressional district, which encompasses most of Seattle and Burien, as well as Vashon Island, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline, and Normandy Park. Relevant links: Seattle Times: WA to send 2 ‘uncommitted' delegates to Democratic National Convention Washington State Standard: Harris snags support of Washington Democratic delegates See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Born and raised on Vashon Island, Washington, Jacob Plihal wasn't super excited to start rowing (ugh, spandex!), but in 2012 a knee injury prompted him to give up his basketball dreams. With prodding from his physical therapist, and then motivated by friend, classmate and Jr. National Team rower Mia Croonquist, he climbed the ladder to Northeastern University team captain, then the U23 National team, and most recently was named to the 2024 U.S. Olympic team in the men's single. At 6'10”, Jacob has a clear view of the world's biggest rowing and athletic achievement: Paris 2024. We really appreciated his honesty about working for over a decade through both success and disappointment. About turning down opportunities because funding wasn't available. And about having to work around limited mobility in his knee. He credits sticking to the grind and figuring out what works (and what doesn't) to being stubborn. For all these reasons, we're rooting for Vashon Island's hometown kid this summer at the Olympic Games Paris. QUICK LOOK 00:00 - Episode Lead-In 01:22 - The Huddle 02:13 - On a scale of 1-10, Jacob's rowing week was a 7 02:37 - The Hot Seat Q&A 03:53 - Growing up with freedom to explore on Vashon Island, WA 05:21 - Rowing origin story: A serious knee injury as a teen changed Jacob's athletic path  08:42 - Rehabbing an injury while you're still growing, and working around limited range of motion today 10:23 - Being a member of the Green Racing Project at Craftsbury Outdoor Center 12:28 - Playing it safe before the big show 14:10 - The idea of making a national team was planted very early 16:55 - What the heck is the Regatta of Death? 21:06 - What's on your mind on the starting blocks in Lucerne? 23:30 - Rowing Fillipi's biggest single and testing out various Concept2 blades 24:15  - Hometown response to qualifying for the Olympics 26:00 - Making the most of being an Olympian in the community 27:47 - Olympic race date/time and getting a new Fillipi in Paris 29:27 - Jacob explains the perfect stroke and a Kris Korzeniowski drill to help you get there 31:50 - Tara and Rachel's move into sculling in 2024 for Race Around the Rock 34:57 - Rowing with Isaiah Harrison (6'9”) vs Don Williams (6'2”) 36:00 - SSN Events & Announcements . To see photos of Jacob Plihal, and get links to the people, clubs, and events mentioned in this episode, check out the show notes on our website. . This episode was made possible in part by Live2Row Studios, Breakwater Realty, RowSource, and our Patrons. . Steady State Podcast is written, produced, hosted, and edited by Rachel Freedman and Tara Morgan. Tara provides additional audio engineering and is our sponsor coordinator. Rachel manages the website, social media, and e-newsletter. Our theme music is by Jonas Hipper.

3pm - I-5 Stabbing/Shooting mashup… What the heck happened?! // The ol’ Blackberry Bush nightmare come true // Tacoma’s new logo has the internet divided // Fast Ferry service between downtown Seattle and Vashon Island expanding next week // GUEST - CHARLIE HARGER - PREVIEWING THE DEBATE // Harry Potter watercolor fetches almost $2 million at auction

As you have likely noticed in this month's episodes, we have moved from the stars to the soil. We will spend the next several episodes exploring edges and ecotones - spaces rife with the very best type of tension. The tension that inspires growth, expansion and action. Today, I am talking with artist, edge-walker, and dear friend Perri Lynch Howard about her experiences in a variety of ecotonal landscapes.Perri is an artist dedicated to forging new narratives from the front lines of climate change. Working in the context of extreme environments is an essential aspect of Howard's practice, driving her curiosity to seek a deeper sense of place, beyond the dichotomy of near and far. Her artwork resides within the emerging genre of New Polar Aesthetics, expressed through painting, drawing, sculpture and sound.In this episode, Perri shares three of her unique, ecotonal field recordings with us as a way to explore the edges both within and without. We will hear the sounds of Vashon Island, the Great Basin Desert, and Svalbard and throughout we discuss:Non-judgement Listening for the truth of the momentThe relational words we use when discussing the land and ourselvesReciprocal relationship in the time of climate crisisThe first rule of field recording AND meditating (!!)At the end, there is a guided meditation experience of the Vashon Island soundscape as an opportunity for you to explore your own relationship with edges. Thank you to the residencies and agencies that provided the time, space, and resources for Perri to record these incredible landscapes - The Arctic Circle Residency, PLAYA Artist Residency, Vashon Artist Residency, The Puffin Foundation, Artist Trust, and Quiet Parks International.Finally, deep gratitude to Nick McMahan for editing and the sound design of this episode, and to Brianna Nielsen for production support.Learn more about: Perri Lynch Howard: https://www.perrilynchhoward.com/Nick McMahan: https://www.nickcmcmahan.com/Brianna Nielsen: https://www.instagram.com/brianna_podcastpro/Please sign up for my newsletter at merylarnett.substack.com to access these meditations as stand-alone audio files for your daily practice. Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.cominstagram.com/merylarnettyoutube.com/@themindfulminutepodcast

In the late 1970s, a strange group of folks arrived on Vashon Island, WA. Seemingly overnight, 60 men, women and children set up military tents and portapotties and got to work transforming 58 acres of pristine coastal forest into a religious commune.  Under the direction of their charismatic leader Lou, and his surly wife Mary Lou, the Wesleyan Cult built homes and a life for their community on their private compound.  Rumors swirled around town as islanders wondered what this new group was up to. As we find out this week, it was much weirder and more sinister than anyone could've imagined.In this week's episode, we have the absolute honor and privilege of interviewing Deb Donner, survivor of the Wesleyan Cult. Deb will walk us through her experience with the cult from the beginnings of the group, to the cult fleeing Illinois and arriving on Vashon, all the way to her courageous escape. Please join us in bearing witness to Deb's incredible story of survival and strength.Happy Haunting! 

Building a cidery and orchard from scratch on an Island in the Puget Sound in Washington State was a major career shift for Laura Cherry and her husband. Now in its 2nd decade, Dragon's Head Cider has started true to its traditional english cider roots and added a taproom downtown this fall. Laura joins me to reflect on her cider journey and celebrate the community that she has built under the cider apple and perry pear blossoms. Dragon's Head CiderSHOP!Terms: Methode champanoise - a sparkling wine production method whereby wine undergoes a second fermentation process in the bottle to produce carbon dioxidePet nat - A wine process made according to the ancestral method, the result of a single, continuous fermentation.Cider Education Resources:Cider & Perry AcademyCider Institute of North AmericaThank you to Tony Stuck for the awesome intro/outro music and to Mary Ann King for the amazing pod art that you see for every episode. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with a family member, a friend in the alcohol industry, or even just a stranger on the street! I so appreciate your support. For more information about me and this podcast visit us online at drinksbizwomen.com or follow the podcast @drinksbizwomen on FB and Instagram. Talk to you soon! And thanks for joining me today!

What can we learn about the inner life from Orthodox Christian Monasticism? I wanted to find out, so one beautiful day in November, I made my way up to All Merciful Savior Monastery on Vashon Island, Washington, there to speak with Abbot Tryphon. From the Lutheran tradition, to secular universities, to the field of psychology, to chaplaincy, to Orthodox Christanity, and from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco to Southern Oregon to the Puget Sound, Abbot Tryphon has seen many things, learned many more, and has a story for all of them. In our series of interviews, he tells of his life growing up, his education, the power of love, the power of the home life, major challenges facing today's youth, what he's learned through physical fitness, through psychology, what ultimately brought him to the Orthodox Faith, why reading about the faith isn't enough, and why we need community. Some of his ideas are extreme(which is normal from the monastic world) but his bearing is gentle. Sit with him a while and you see that he deeply cares about people and wants to see them growing and thriving in the faith. Listen along, and let us know what you think! The Outer Circle Inner Stillness is made possible by support from listeners, patrons, likes, and shares. To learn more about how to support the podcast, visit www.patreon.com/outercircle.  Rhys Pasimio can be found through www.patreon.com/outercircle and on instagram at @newpattrencounseling and through New Pattern Counseling at www.newpatterncounseling.com, and is always happy to dialogue with listeners bringing honest questions! Abbot Tryphon can be found at abbottryphon.com. There you'll find links to his Facebook, Youtube, Telegram, and other platforms. And if you can, try to visit him in person at the monastery! - https://vashonmonks.com/ #abbottryphon #monk #monks #monastic #monastery #orthodox #orthodoxy #orthodoxchristianity #christianity #easternorthodoxy #vashonisland #spirituality #religion #sobriety #community #relationships #healing #psychology #technology #church

S6E2 - Bruce Anderson has been working with the Core Gift Discovery process for over 30 years, and in this episode, he shares how understanding and embracing your Core Gift can guide your decision-making and empower you to live a more purposeful and impactful life. Bruce also shares the power of recognizing and nurturing your Core Gift and how this can bring about personal growth, community building, and a sense of thriving and healing both at an individual and collective level.Discover your Core Gift »Learn more about the Core Gift Institute »More about Bruce...Bruce is the Executive Director of the Core Gift Institute. His primary work is helping  individuals and organizations use the power of gifts in their daily life. The Institute offers nine different learning events related to specific practices to discover and use gifts, takes small groups on gift-reflective pilgrimages in Europe, offers one-to-one private coaching, and trains and certifies folks from all walks of life to want to use the facilitated Core Gift Discovery process in their work as coaches, educators, community-organizers, therapists and organizational development consultants. He lives on a small plot of land on Vashon Island, Washington where he tends to his gardens, chickens and family. 

Are you dreaming of starting your own small-scale flower farm? In this episode of the Backyard Bouquet Podcast, host Jennifer Gulizia interviews Erin Simmons, a successful flower farmer and mom of four. Erin shares her journey from being a lobbyist to trading in her high heels for muck boots and pursuing her passion for flower farming on Vashon Island.Erin provides valuable insights and advice for aspiring flower farmers, including tips on growing dahlias, daffodils, and zinnias, finding the right sales outlets, and the importance of connecting with mentors in the industry. She also opens up about the challenges of balancing family life and farming, offering valuable lessons on prioritizing and finding a healthy work-life balance.Whether you're a backyard gardener looking to take your passion to the next level or someone interested in the world of flower farming, this episode is packed with wisdom, inspiration, and practical advice. Tune in to learn from Erin's experiences and discover how you can let your backyard bloom with a small-scale flower farm of your own.In this episode, you'll hear about: 00:02:03 – Erin's background and journey into flower farming 00:06:06 – Involving her children in the flower farming process 00:11:05 – Growing daffodils and Erin's favorite varieties 00:13:00 – Erin's favorite dahlia varieties 00:23:23 – Erin's favorite moments and experiences in flower farming 00:25:50 – Tips for buying dahlia tubers and finding new varieties 00:31:04 – Advice for starting a cut flower garden 00:36:37 – Selling flowers and finding sales outlets 00:40:03 – Balancing flower farming with family and personal health 00:44:31 – Plans and goals for the 2024 flower farming season 00:48:15 – Valuable advice for aspiring flower farmers 00:53:23 – The importance of mentors and community in flower farmingEpisode Show Notes: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/2024/01/23/small-scale-flower-farming-with-erin-simmons-handpicked-homestead/Learn more about Erin Simmons & Handpicked Homestead https://www.handpickedhomestead.com/ https://www.facebook.com/HandpickedHomestead***Rate, Review, & Follow The Backyard Bouquet***If you enjoyed this episode, will you please consider leaving the podcast a review? Your review helps make the podcast more discoverable to others and allows me to continue creating more episodes. I'd love to know what you enjoyed most about the episode.New episodes are coming every Tuesday to help keep your garden blooming!JOIN THE BACKYARD BOUQUET COMMUNITY ON FACEBOOKhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/cutflowergardeningSign up for my newsletter: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.myflodesk.com/nlw4wua8s3The Flowering Farmhouse: Instagram | Facebook | Pinterest | Website

Marsha has an exciting addition to our fiber adventures. A new loom! Plus we have project updates and some listener comments.  Full notes with photos and links can be found in the podcast section of our shop website: TwoEwesFiberAdventures.com Join the community on Ravelry or become a patron and support the show on our Patreon Page. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Subscribe on Android or Subscribe on Google Podcasts Marsha's Projects Malabrigo Nube Merino Braids: Have two braids in the color way 855 which is a blue green. Finished the first braid and started second Camella Hat: by Katie Pomper. Using Meeker Street Olive's Outerwear DK in the colorway Dragon's Breath.  Nanny Meier Tea Cozy: Inspired by Lily Pulitzer colors. Using Cascade 220 in hot pink and lime green. Finished first side. Socks: Using Knitterly Things Vesper Sock Yarn in the colorway Sum-Sum-Summertime. Heels and toes will be Dream in Color Mini Smooshy in the colorway Bermuda Teal.  Fine Sand: by Heidi Kirrmaier. Using West Yorkshire Spinners Illustrious in the colorway Claret. I washed and blocked the body. Seems okay but I would like it a bit roomier. I'm still thinking about what I want to do next.  LeClerc Nilus Jack Loom: Pick it up January 8th from a weaver on Vashon Island. Have lots of lace weight alpaca that I plan to weave a shawl. Kelly walked me through the math with her Two Ewes Weaving Calculator and  Sample Weaving Calculation. Kelly's Projects Finished the  Purple/Gray socks for Robert. The yarn is Comfort and Joy. I wasn't familiar with the dyer but it turns out to be a yarn particular to the Purls of Joy yarn shop in Healdsburg, California. I bought three skeins of their sock yarn at the very last Stitches event and I still have two to use. Sewing together the Dozens of Little Squares. I am making strips of 14 squares each. I'll run out of squares and need more when I have 15 strips of 14. I'm currently on the 8th strip.  Started a Sockhead Hat with Punk Rock Unicorn Dirty Neon. Ravelry Tips and Tricks Ravelry users seem to be back up. Numbers of users online are showing in the mid 4000s each time I log on. For a few years they have been in the 3000s at the highest. This number is on the main page. If you click on it you can see more user stats. For example, the most users online at the moment I clicked were from the US, followed by Germany, then Canada, and then the UK. There was one person from Antarctica online at the time that I clicked. There were over 600,000 active users in the last week.  Other Stuff My Subversive Cross Stitch Calendar 2024 and how my year is going so far.  Jill sent a message that Stephany Wilkes was interviewed on The Long Thread Podcast. We interviewed her in November of 2018 back in Episode 101 and it was a fun conversation. BTW, that's the same episode that Marsha started the Clare Garland Rabbit.  Margaret (marginmirror on Ravelry):  Maybe someday if you decide to venture north and east to Alberta you'll visit us up here at our fibre (that's how Canadians spell "fiber") festivals -- and sample our sturdy, wooly wool (Dorset/Suffolk and the like) and locally-raised alpaca -- and our imported (merino) indie-dyed wool. You'd LOVE "Fibre Week" in mid-June at Olds College (Olds, Alberta) -- though I think at least one of you might have scheduling conflicts. Check out Central Alberta Rural Spinners on Facebook...just because. Events  Winter Weave Along starts October 1 and goes through March 31. Join the fun in our Ravelry group!  Florida conference, Orlando, 19th through 22nd (Orlando World Center Marriott)

Washington State Senator Joe Nguyen joins the Chino Y Chicano to talk about the critical issues facing lawmakers in the 2024 legislative session. Nguyen is a Democrat. He was elected to the state senate in 2019. He  represents the 34th District which includes White Center, West Seattle, Vashon Island, and part of Burien.  Nguyen is chair of the Senate Environment, Energy & Technology CommitteeI. In this session, he will play a major role in writing the state budget. Read: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/sinclair-nixes-univision-affiliation-ending-local-spanish-broadcasts/Read: https://www.chronline.com/stories/group-of-washington-state-faith-and-community-leaders-call-for-cease-fire-in-israel-hamas-war,329305Read: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/us/lahaina-fire-families.html#:~:text=The%20F.B.I.,survivors%20wonder%20what%20comes%20next.: Read:https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/apr/15/fentanyl-involved-in-more-than-half-of-overdose-de/Read: https://pharmacy.wsu.edu/2021/08/23/how-one-professor-is-combating-a-silent-epidemic-in-eastern-washington/Read:https://www.courts.wa.gov/appellate_trial_courts/supreme/bios/?fa=scbios.display_file&fileID=gonzalezRead: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/seattle-libraries-transit-branch-into-social-work-to-take-on-mental-health-drug-use/: Read:https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/buoyed-by-poll-seattle-mayor-harrell-should-go-big-on-public-safety/Read: https://crosscut.com/news/2023/01/two-seattle-asian-american-community-newspapers-go-out-printRead: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/leesa-manion-sworn-in-as-king-county-prosecuting-attorney/Read: The Best & Worst Awards for 2022https://i0.wp.com/nwasianweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/04-05-Matt-and-Gei-1.jpgRead Marcus Harrison Green's Seattle's Times column about Bl...

This is the second of two special holiday bonus episodes of Broadway Nation. Just like the first, this is an audio version of a Broadway Nation Live! performance that was given in December of 2019 at the Vashon Center For The Performing Arts on Vashon Island, WA. If you prefer to watch a video of this performance you can stream it on their website at: vashoncenterforthearts.org In Part One we looked at how the Jewish-Russian immigrant songwriter, Irving Berlin -- in addition to being one of the prime inventors of the Broadway Musical -- also created an entirely new category of popular song: “the Christmas Standard”. In this episode we explore how Berlin was aided and abetted in that endeavor by the son of Irish and German immigrants from Washington State who became one of the most popular performers of all time -- Bing Crosby. Along with Judy Garland I call Bing one of Broadway's greatest stars who never appeared on Broadway. But first, we start off with Albert Evans' amazing in-depth analysis of the genius of Irving Berlin, and the inspiration and craft that is behind the most popular song of all time. As you will remember the last episode ended with me introducing Albert and asking him this question: “Why? Why, is White Christmas the most popular song of all time?” You won't want to miss his answer! This live show features musical performances by Cayman Ilika, Eric Ankrim, Chris DiStefano, and Albert Evans.   Happy New Year! Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! I want to thank our Broadway Nation Patron Club members, such as Larry Spinelli, whose generous support helps to make it possible for me to bring this podcast to you each week. If you would like to support the creation of Broadway Nation, here is the information about how you too can become a patron. For a just $7.00 a month you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions of many of the discussions that I have with my guests — in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions. You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast.  All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgement of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a special holiday reprise of one of Broadway Nation's most popular episodes: It's an audio version of a Broadway Nation Live! performance that was presented in December of 2019 at the Vashon Center For The Performing Arts on Vashon Island just outside of Seattle, WA. Several previous episodes of Broadway Nation have explored the crucial role that the Jewish Russian immigrant songwriter, Irving Berlin, played in the invention of the Broadway Musical. This time I share the story of how he also invented an entirely new category of popular song – the Christmas standard.   This live show features musical performances by Cayman Ilika, Eric Ankrim, Chris DiStefano, and Albert Evans.  Happy Holidays! Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! I want to thank our Broadway Nation Patron Club members, such as Larry Spinelli, whose generous support helps to make it possible for me to bring this podcast to you each week. If you would like to support the creation of Broadway Nation, here is the information about how you too can become a patron. For a just $7.00 a month you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions of many of the discussions that I have with my guests — in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions. You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast.  All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgement of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vashon Island, Washington-based guitarist Jamie Stillway joins us to talk about the latest addition to the Fretboard Journal podcast network, Guitar for Introverts!  Once a month, Stillway will interview her favorite artists and players and have a "quiet conversation" about art, inspiration, and life. She describes it as "On Being but with musicians..." For her first episode, she interviews singer-songwriter Anna Tivel. We also talk about Stillway's recent contribution to the FJ print edition, interviewing Joanna Sternberg.    Subscribe/follow Guitar for Introverts via Apple Podcasts and don't forget to leave us a review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guitar-for-introverts-with-jamie-stillway/id1719909054 The show is also available on Spotify or fretboardjournal.com.   Registration is now open to attend our 2024 Fretboard Summit: https://fretboardsummit.org/ If you enjoy this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider joining the Fretboard Journal's new Patreon page. Subscribe to the Fretboard Journal: https://shop.fretboardjournal.com/products/fretboard-journal-annual-subscription Our podcast is sponsored by Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar, Peghead Nation (use the promo code FRETBOARD and get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription); and Stringjoy Strings(get 10% off your order with the FRETBOARD discount code). This episode is also sponsored by iZotope. Use the discount code FRET10 to save 10% off of your Izotope order. 

Liz Peterson is an Advanced Intuitive Energy Healer, Reiki Master, Spiritual Coach, Podcaster, and the author of her new book, My Mom Died Last Night. My shared death experience. A memoir of death, grief, and afterlife communication. She has been a lifelong student of healing and metaphysical topics. Uses her natural born abilities, and her personal journey of healing, transformation, and empowerment in everything she does. She is the host of the “Raise the Vibe with Liz” podcast. Her show is dedicated to bringing today's psychics, healers, way showers, inspirational speakers, and ascension leaders to an international audience. Liz has interviewed guests such as Ainslie Macloud, Neil Donald Walsch, Robert Waggoner, Dr Steven Farmer, Mark Anthony, and many more. Mother of 4, Liz lives on Vashon Island, where she enjoys all life has to offer. It's her mission to assist others on their spiritual journey of inner awakening, healing, and self-empowerment, with love and compassion. Check out Liz at her website https://raisethevibewithliz.com/ and her Instagram https://www.instagram.com/raisethevibewithliz/. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we sit down with Odin Lonning! Odin is a prolific and award-winning Tlingit artist based here on Vashon Island. Born and raised in Alaska, Odin has a deep knowledge of and relationship with the natural world that is reflected and celebrated in his art. With his wife Ann Stateler, who many of us know as Orca Annie, Odin is a tireless advocate for the rights and health of the iconic Southern Resident Killer Whales. Join us to learn how Odindiscovered and nurtured his interest in Tlingit art, including dance, song, and visual arts, and hear stories about some of his iconic projects. Odin shares with us why he is so inspired to teach and share his deep knowledge of art and his respect for nature during this chapter of his life. Odin's website: http://www.odinlonning.com/

On this Election 2023 re-air, Crystal chats with Teresa Mosqueda about her campaign for King County Council District 8 - why she decided to run, the experience and lessons she'll bring to the County from serving on Seattle City Council, and her thoughts on addressing progressive revenue options, public service wage equity and morale, housing and homelessness, public safety, transit rider experience, climate change, and budget transparency. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Teresa Mosqueda at @TeresaCMosqueda.   Teresa Mosqueda As a Progressive Labor Democrat, Teresa Mosqueda is committed to creating healthy and safe communities, investing in working families through job training, childcare and transit access, and developing more affordable housing for all residents. She brings a proven track record of successfully passing progressive policies and building broad and inclusive coalitions. Teresa was named one of Seattle's Most Influential People 2018 for acting with urgency upon getting elected, received the Ady Barkan Progressive Champion Award from Local Progress in 2019; and earned national attention by leading the passage of JumpStart progressive revenue to invest in housing, economic resilience, green new deal investments, and equitable development. Prior to elected office Teresa worked on community health policies from SeaMar to the Children's Alliance, and championed workers' rights at the WA State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, where she helped lead state's minimum wage increase, paid sick leave, farmworker protections, workplace safety standards, and launched the Path to Power candidate training with the AFL-CIO.   Resources Campaign Website - Teresa Mosqueda   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. I am very excited today to have joining us - current Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who is a candidate for King County Council District 8, which covers Seattle - including West Seattle, South Park, Georgetown, Chinatown International District, and First Hill - as well as Burien, part of Tukwila, and unincorporated King County - in White Center and Vashon Island. Welcome to the program - welcome back. [00:01:22] Teresa Mosqueda: Thank you so much for having me back - I appreciate it. [00:01:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. So I guess the first question is - what made you decide to run for King County Council after being on the Seattle City Council? [00:01:35] Teresa Mosqueda: I've been really, really honored to be able to serve the full City of Seattle - 775,000 residents at this point - to be able to pass progressive policies like progressive revenue through JumpStart, Green New Deal and affordable housing that it was funding, to be able to quadruple the investments in affordable housing, to expand worker protections. But the truth is, we know that much of the population that I was elected by - the folks that I really center in my public policy - also work and have family outside of the City of Seattle. And in many ways, I want to build on what I've been able to accomplish in Seattle - investments in affordable housing, investments in new career pathways, good union jobs, to expand on the childcare and working family supports that I've centered in my work on City Council. But in order to reach the broader population of working families who are just outside of Seattle's borders but may work in Seattle and come in and out of the City - I want to create greater equity and stability across our region - the County is the place to do it. And in terms of stability, the County is the only place that has purview over public health, has the purse strings for behavioral health investments. And so if I want to complement efforts to try to house folks and create long-term housing stability, especially for our most vulnerable community members, the County is the place to do that - through investments in behavioral health, by sitting on the Public Health Board, by being directly involved in the budget that has purview over public health and behavioral health investments. I see it as an extension of my work at the City to create housed and healthy communities. And it actually goes full circle back to my roots where I started my career in community health. It is exciting opportunity, and I see it as a growth and expansion of the work that we've done in Seattle. [00:03:24] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. You talk about progressive revenue - the JumpStart Tax, which is a really, really important source of revenue that has been so helpful for businesses in the City, for residents, so many people in need - and has been a benefit to the City, especially in this time of a budget downturn in that the JumpStart Tax helped to bail out a budget shortfall there. So this revenue seemed to come just in time. You had to fight for it. You led the fight for it. What lessons do you take out of that fight to the County, and what progressive revenue options are there at the county level that you would be willing to pursue? [00:04:05] Teresa Mosqueda: I think one major lesson is how I've approached building these big progressive policies that have not only earned the majority of votes, but the vast majority - if not unanimous vote sometimes - that have withstood the test of time, have not been overturned, and have not been overturned by legislative councilmatic action nor by the courts. I will take with me to King County the ability to build these broad coalitions. And think about JumpStart - who was there when we launched it? It was ironworkers and hardhats, along with business entrepreneurs from both small and large business, with community and housing advocates standing collectively together to say - We will not only stand by this progressive revenue, we will stand by it knowing that it's five times the amount of the previous policy and it's twice as long. That's a huge effort that took place to try to get people on the same page, and we had to - with growing income inequality, growing needs, an increase in our population. There was no other option. This had to succeed, and so I will take that same approach to King County Council. So much is on the needs list right now in the "wake" of the global pandemic. We have the ongoing shadow pandemic. We have increased needs for mental health and community health investments. We have increased needs for food security and housing stability. There is not an alternative. We must invest more and we must do it in a way that withstands the test of time, like I've done on Seattle City Council. So for me, it's the how I bring people together that I will bring to King County Council. And I think it's also the what - not being afraid to push the envelope on what's possible. Many people said it was impossible to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights - and we got sued, and we won. People said it was impossible to legislate having hotel workers get access to guaranteed healthcare at the gold level, protections from retaliation, maximum workload. We not only passed that in legislation, but we withstood that in the court. And the same is true of JumpStart. We withstood multiple litigation attempts to try to take away JumpStart, and it's withstood the test of time. And I'm excited to see what else we can do in a city that sees so much growth but incredible inequity across our region - to bring people together to address these pressing needs. [00:06:24] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. You talked about housing and homelessness, and one thing called out by experts as a barrier to our homelessness response is that frontline worker wages don't cover their cost of living. Do you believe our local service providers, a lot of whom are nonprofits, have a responsibility to pay living wages for the area? And how can we make that more likely with how we bid and contract for services at the county level? [00:06:54] Teresa Mosqueda: Yeah, two things I would say. One is - absolutely, we need to make sure that folks who are working on the frontline as human service providers - think folks who are the counselors to youth, or people who have mental health or substance abuse needs that we need to help address so that they can get stably housed, think about services to our vets and seniors. These are workers on the frontline who rely on relationships and have skills, expertise in the human service category. They need to have investments in these deeply needed services. And in order for us to create greater stability, we need to be paying them living wages. I say "we" - because this is not about the nonprofits needing to pay them more. It is about we, the public entities, needing to increase our contracts to these organizations who then employ people to be on the frontline. For better or worse, we have a human services system that has largely relied on contracting out critical services that are arguably public services. They are supported by public dollars, and we, public officials, have a responsibility to pay those organizations enough so that they can invest in the wages for frontline workers. That is what I have tried to do at Seattle City Council. The first year that I came in at Seattle City Council, the Human Services Coalition came to me and said - We have not had a cost of living increase in 10 years. To not have a COLA in 10 years for most workers in our region and across the country is unheard of, but it's especially unheard of for the very folks on the frontline trying to address the most pressing crisis in our country right now - and that is housing instability and homeless services. So we worked in 2019, and we passed the Human Services cost of living adjustment - that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what needs to be addressed. The historic and chronic underfunding of these positions still needs to be addressed. We are not going to be able to close this gap of 40, 50, 60% turnover in our critical organizational partners, organizations, if we don't address the wage stability issue. So I think actually going to the County and bringing that experience of having worked directly with the human service providers and hearing their stories about why it was so critical not only to have a cost of living adjustment, but to get at this chronic underfunding is going to be really coming at a pivotal moment. Seattle does have a cost of living adjustment. I want to bring that cost of living adjustment to King County and collectively with Seattle, I want to work to address the underpayment for human service providers as well. [00:09:26] Crystal Fincher: There's been a lot of action when it comes to addressing housing and homelessness from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to new legislation, and potentially even more legislation coming out through the end of this legislative session. We're currently recording this in mid-April, so it may come out a little bit further when there's a definitive answer for everything that happens. But amid a lot of this work that is currently being implemented or has just been authorized, there's a lot in process but still seemingly a lot more that needs to be done. What would your top priorities be to make a noticeable and meaningful difference in both homelessness and housing affordability if you're elected to this position? [00:10:11] Teresa Mosqueda: Resources for housing is critically needed across King County. Resources will help local jurisdictions be able to implement the new requirements that are going to be coming forth from our State Legislature, which - I want to thank our State legislative members - every year they go to Olympia and every year we ask them to be bold - be bold on housing solutions, recognizing that housing is the solution to being houseless. Housing helps people who have multiple compounding factors get healthy, get stable, and be productive members of our community. Housing is the solution to this biggest crisis that we see, not only in Seattle and King County, up and down the West Coast, but across our entire country. We have not built enough housing to house our current population plus the population who will continue to come to our region. So one of the things that I think I can take to the County is the desire to make sure that local jurisdictions, whether it's Burien or Tukwila, or unincorporated areas like in Vashon and Maury Island or in White Center - that they have resources as well to help build the type of housing that's being requested from the State Legislature - to do so in accordance with their Comprehensive Plan so that people can implement it in the time frame that works for those local jurisdictions, but to help them take away the barrier of not having enough resources. Seattle is unique in that we have pushed forward different resources. We have different types of tax revenues - thanks to JumpStart, for example - but in areas that don't have those type of resources, I hope the County can continue to be a good partner, in addition to the state, to build the type of diverse housing that we're now going to be required to build and hopefully we can do even more. The State Legislature is actually creating a new floor. We should be building upon that, and where we can go higher and denser - that is good for the local environment, it is good for the local economy, it's good for the health of workers and small businesses. And it's what I've heard from Vashon Island to Tukwila - people have said, "We don't have enough workforce housing." Small business owners have said, "I don't have enough workers in this area because they can't afford to live here." So I want to hopefully break down misperceptions about what type of housing we're talking about. We're talking about housing for seniors and vets, kiddos, youth, workers. We're talking about supporting the creation of that housing with additional revenue - that's one of the things I'd like to bring to the County. And to also recognize that when we have diverse economies that are prosperous, it's because workers can live next to their place of employment. Workers can walk to their childcare. We don't have time to spend two hours in the car commuting back and forth - that's not good for our health, our family's health, and it sure isn't good for the health of our planet. So it's a win-win-win, and I think that's something that I can really bring in as a County Councilmember - the knowledge that these local jurisdictions want to do more, but sometimes are limited with their resources. And wherever I can, I want to help step up and provide that support. [00:13:08] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Public safety has also been an area where the County continues to make a lot of news, has a lot of responsibility - they operate a jail, and that has itself made a lot of news. Over the past couple years throughout the pandemic, some of the employees of the jails - the guards - other people, the Public Defenders Association have called out overcrowding conditions, unsafe conditions in the jail. There's been times where the jail has not had clean water, several illness outbreaks, people not being treated correctly. It seems to be a really bad situation. Recently, the King County Council just voted to extend a contract to rent additional beds from a SCORE facility in Des Moines. This, during a backdrop of events where the King County Executive has made a promise to close the King County Jail, but it seems like we're getting further away from that, or at least not getting closer to that. Would you have voted to extend the SCORE contract? And should we close the jail? What is your vision for the short term? [00:14:17] Teresa Mosqueda: I think that the move to close down a jail that's both outdated and unsafe is not only good for the inmates, it's good for the folks who are working there. I think this is another example of where there's a false perception of sides. People who work within the jail, as well as those who are incarcerated, have expressed their not only horror when seeing mold and deterioration of the building, but it is extremely unsafe as well - as you mentioned - due to overcrowding. There's a few things that I think we can do. Number one, we should address upstream - who was being sent to these facilities in the first place. In a presentation that the Seattle City Council received from the City Attorney's Office, there was a large number of people who were initially booked and jailed, and ultimately were released because there was no grounds to put forward charges. And I think we need to stop the habit or the practice of putting folks in that situation to begin with. Even if they are not incarcerated for long periods of time, the fact that people are being jailed - especially youth - creates consequences down the road, mental health consequences, consequences for your housing, for your livelihood, your employment. And the negative impact of just being booked in the first place - both for the physical health of somebody, but also the trajectory of their life - is quantifiable. It is known, and we should stop that practice early. I agree with the effort to move folks into a situation that is healthier, but I also want to continue to look at how we can reduce the chance that someone is ever incarcerated in the first place, invest more in restorative justice practices. I'm optimistic by some of the conversations I've heard from folks in the community, specifically in Burien, about the ways in which some of the initial conversations have taken place with the Burien City Police Chief Ted Boe, and some of the commitments that have been made to try to look at restorative justice differently. And I think that holistically we need to look at what leads someone to be in that situation in the first place and back up to see what additional community investments we can be making so that people can have greater access to economic security, community safety, and reduce the chance that someone ever interacts with the carceral system to begin with. [00:16:40] Crystal Fincher: What do you think, or for people who are considering this voting decision and who are looking around and who are feeling unsafe, and who are not quite sure what the right direction is to move forward, or what can be done but feel like something should be done - what is your message to them? And what can make us all safer? [00:17:01] Teresa Mosqueda: There's a few things that I think have really come to light, especially during the pandemic. We tell people to stay home to stay healthy. Well, if people don't have a home, they can't stay healthy. If we can think about the increased situation where many of us have probably seen loved ones in our lives - whether it's family members or friends - who have turned to substances to cope, to self-medicate with the stress, the trauma, the isolation that has only increased during the pandemic. I hope there's greater empathy across our community and across our country for why people may be self-medicating to begin with. And I think if we think about these recent examples of where we have seen people become more unstable in their housing situation or turn to substances because of increasing stress and pressure, that hopefully there's greater empathy for why it is so critical that we invest upstream. It is not an either/or - it's creating greater balance with how we invest in community safety, in what we know equals the social determinants of health. When we invest in housing, it helps reduce the chance that someone is going to engage in criminal activities later in life. When we invest in early learning, in job opportunities, in youth interactive programs, when we invest in even gun reduction and youth violence reduction strategies, it helps create healthier individuals and healthier populations, reduce the chance that someone ever interacts with an officer to begin with. These are public safety investments, and they shouldn't be seen as a separate silo from "traditional safety." It actually saves lives, and there's a huge return on investment when we make some of these upstream program policies a priority. I think it actually creates healthier communities, and for those who are looking at it through the economic lens, healthier economies - knowing that that return on investment has been proven time and time again. And it's good for individuals and community health as well. [00:19:02] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now, there's a shortage of workers across the board - certainly King County is included in this shortage of county workers in several areas, including in many front-line positions that impact public safety - maintenance, care, health - all of those that are crucial to delivering services and help that the residents of the County need. We've seen hiring, retention, and referral bonuses for public safety employees. Do you think we should be considering those for other employees? [00:19:39] Teresa Mosqueda: Absolutely. This is part of the conversation that I raised while at Seattle City Council. There is, I think, a detrimental impact to workplace morale across public servants when we're not uniformly treating people the same. It's not what I feel, it's not that that's my perception - that's actually coming from workers within the City of Seattle who completed a survey that our Human Resources Department, in addition to Seattle Police Department and other Seattle agencies, completed to ask, "What would you like to see? How would you feel if certain employees got a hiring bonus or retention bonus?" And overwhelmingly, workers in public service said that they thought that this would hurt morale - if existing public servants weren't treated the same. I mentioned that in the Human Services category, there's a 40% to 60% turnover rate for our nonprofit organizations who are helping folks on the frontline. There's a huge turnover rate, as well, within our Human Services Department - we've had to freeze the hiring, and reduce hours, and reduce positions. Public libraries, community centers are front-facing programs for the community during COVID and we are slowly starting to scale those back up, but they're nowhere at capacity right now. And what workers themselves have said within the City of Seattle is - they want to see greater strategies for retention. Investments in childcare keeps coming up. Investments in more affordable housing keeps coming up. And if you want to look specifically at the Seattle Police Department, the officers themselves said that they did not think that hiring bonuses was the way to address retention and morale issues - that played out in their comments in the press, as well as the survey results that we saw. I think that there's a more equitable approach that we should be taking. I think that we should be looking at how we recruit and train and incentivize people to come to public service overall, whether that means you're coming in to work as a firefighter or a police officer, or whether that means that we want to recruit you to be serving the public in libraries or as a lifeguard - which we don't have enough of - or as a childcare provider, which we don't have enough of. We should be looking across the board at these public service programs and figuring out ways to both address retention and morale, and to do so equitably. And to listen to what workers have said - they want housing, they want childcare, they want regular and routine transit. And they want us to, especially within the City of Seattle, address disparity in wages for folks of color and women compared to their counterparts. Those are some things that I think we should be taking on more seriously. [00:22:17] Crystal Fincher: Definitely. Now, you talk about people saying they want regular and routine transit. Lots of people want that. Lots of people - more importantly - need that, are relying on that. And there's been lots of talk about the rider experience around safety on transit, but also about the availability and accessibility of service and all-day service - not just some of those commuter-centric commute-time service bumps that we've seen. What would your approach to Metro be as a councilmember? [00:22:50] Teresa Mosqueda: So I appreciate that you raise safety because it is an issue that comes up for riders as well as the drivers. Members of ATU, who drive buses around King County, have expressed increased concern around their safety. Whether they're driving in the day or night - given COVID has increased interpersonal violence across our country, they are on the receiving end of that as well. So I'm excited to talk with ATU, with members who have been out on the frontline as our bus drivers, as well as riders to talk about how we can improve safety for everyone. That is - again, on the preventative side, trying to figure out ways that structurally and through public policy we can ensure that riders and drivers are safe. There's also two things that drivers have talked to me about and folks within King County Metro. They say there's a lot of focus on new routes and how do we expand routes - routes, routes, routes - which I also agree with. But they've also brought up that we need to continue to invest in the people, maintenance, and operation to make sure that there's enough people to be working on existing routes and new routes to come. Similar to housing, we don't want to just build units. We want to make sure that for those who need personnel in those units to make sure that folks stay stably housed, we're investing in the workforce to ensure that that housing, that that unit is successful. We need to be looking at investments in the workforce, recruiting folks to come to these good living wage union jobs, and to be thinking about how we improve retention and stability as well. And for as far as maintenance is concerned - thinking more about how we can invest in greener fleets, greener maintenance opportunities, and ensure that those vehicles are running well and routinely. So those are two of the things that have come directly from the frontline drivers themselves. And then more broadly - workers. You mentioned all-day services. I would also argue all-night services to the degree that we can add additional stops, because many of the childcare providers who are coming in early in the morning, construction workers who are coming in early in the morning, janitors who might be going out late at night, talk about how they have to rely on vehicles because there are not times that the buses are showing up to get them to work and back home in time. So I think that it's multi-prong. But again, I think the common ground here is that the workers in this sector are agreeing with the recipients of the service. And collectively, I'm hoping that we can address safety, workforce needs, and increase routes as well. [00:25:23] Crystal Fincher: Definitely, and I really appreciate you bringing up the workforce needs. I know a couple people who use transit regularly but ended up getting vehicles because of the unpredictable cancellations due to staff shortages, whether it's maintenance or drivers, just making it unreliable to get to work on time. And already the time taken to commute that way is a lot, so that would improve the experience greatly - definitely appreciate that. Transit is also very, very important to achieving our climate goals. And by most measures, we're behind on our 2030 climate goals - while we're experiencing devastating impacts from climate change, including extreme heat and cold, wildfires, floods. What are your highest-priority plans to get us on track to meet our 2030 climate goals? [00:26:17] Teresa Mosqueda: One thing might surprise folks in that category - probably not a huge surprise for folks who have heard me talk before - but I think if we can invest in additional housing, dense housing across our region, it will actually reduce CO2 emissions. And it's really common sense, right? We are the third-highest mega-commuter city or region in the nation. We have more people who are commuting back and forth to work than most of the country. And the reason is because they can't afford to find a house near their place of employment. If CO2 emissions from cars - single-occupancy cars - is the number-one contributor to pollution in our region, I believe that is at the top of our list for helping to reduce our carbon footprint across the country and across the globe. We should be increasing density. We should see it not only as a good economic stimulant, what's right to do for workers and working families, but it is one of the best things that we could also do for our climate. I think that there's - again, a misperception or a false divide between folks who are environmentalists and want to see more trees, and their perception that additional housing or density takes that away. It does not. We can both create setbacks for higher buildings and use the airspace to create living opportunities, while we plant additional trees and preserve old growth. I've gone to at least three ribbon-cutting ceremonies for Habitat for Humanity, who created - basically - townhouses connected altogether. We don't have a lot of row houses in Seattle, but row houses, if you will, around trees created in the shape of a U with old-growth trees in the middle - allowing for greater shade, and a play area for kiddos, and a place to sit for elders. It is very much possible to build dense housing options and preserve old growth while planting new trees. So I think in addition to creating density, we can plant more trees. We can do more to incentivize good living-wage jobs in industries that are cleaner. I heard from our friends in Georgetown Community Center that they had to beg and plead for one of the local industries to incorporate more greener options for a glass manufacturer down there. And we should simultaneously be seeing the opportunity to promote good jobs as a requirement for also promoting good green jobs. And I worked very hard with members of both the environmental community and the labor community in the past to push Just Transition policies - to ensure that as we transition to greener economies or greener manufacturing strategies, that we're preserving good living-wage jobs and, even better, preserving good union living-wage jobs. So I look forward to making sure that we have denser cities, that we have greener cities, and that we have greener industries. [00:29:13] Crystal Fincher: Now, King County does incremental budgeting, making it more challenging for people to understand how county funds are allocated in a base budget. The budget is known as one of your areas of strength. What do you think can be done to make the budget process easier for the public to understand and influence at the county level? [00:29:35] Teresa Mosqueda: I've been really proud of what we've been able to accomplish in Seattle. And coming from working the halls of Olympia on behalf of the Washington State Labor Council for eight years and then for three years before that with the Children's Alliance, I was used to this concept of having these biennial budgets that needed to be seen in full, that you could see the red line to know what was the investment from last year versus the upcoming year. Unfortunately, the City of Seattle doesn't have such a budget document. It's basically like single pages - page after page of narrative descriptions of what the dollars will do. That's fine for some budget notes, but what I think we are working towards in the City of Seattle - a preview for folks who love budget talk - is we're going to one day have a true biennial budget and an actual budget document where you will be able to see the red line, either additions or subtractions to specific programs so that everyone knows what is being invested in, how funding is changing, and where priorities are showing up in the budget. I am excited about being able to build on that work that I've done in Seattle, especially as Budget Chair, in some of the most pressing economic times in recent history, starting in 2020. And have been able to not only allocate millions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act, but also to create greater transparency in how we budget. One of the things that I think is maybe misunderstood out there is the way in which we've helped to provide transparency in the entire budget, but specifically the Seattle Police Department. It had not been exposed year-over-year that Seattle Police Department actually had about $40 million that was rolling over year-over-year on top of funding that the chief, that the mayor, that the department had acknowledged they could not use. And in a time where we saw an economic crisis on the horizon, growing needs in our community, and knew that that was $40 million that was not going to be put to use, not going into direct services for the community - and for those who wanted to see additional officers, wasn't even going to be able to use to increase the hiring plan. It's good budgeting to be able to make sure that that funding is transparently accounted for in the General Fund - and where we can deploy it to things like food, housing, childcare, economic security for small businesses that we do so. That's something I'm really proud of - that we were able to show what the full picture was, not only for that department, but for all departments. And to make some important investments in mental health services, behavioral health services, youth violence, gun violence reduction strategies - things that similarly invest in community safety, but we were able to show where those line items move. I will bring to King County Council the ability to structurally push for greater transparency for members of the public, encourage us as the legislative branch to own the separate but equal branch of government that the council is as the legislative branch, and ensure that the public has an opportunity to dive into the proposal that comes from the executive, just like the proposal that comes from the governor to the State Legislature. You receive that, you dissect it, you talk to community about what it means - and then ultimately the legislative branch reconvenes, reconfigures the budget, and presents it to the executive for a signature. It's good governance, it's good transparency. I think it's understandable from folks across whatever political spectrum - it's important to have budget transparency and accountability, and that's what I've been able to accomplish in the City of Seattle. [00:33:02] Crystal Fincher: It is, and I think there are a number of people, especially listeners to Hacks & Wonks, who do enjoy budget conversations, who would definitely look forward to more budget transparency at the County level, like you've been working towards at the City level. As we close here and as people are going to be making the decision about who they're going to be voting for for this County Council position, what is your message to voters and people listening about why they should choose you? [00:33:30] Teresa Mosqueda: I'm very thrilled to be in this race for King County Council. I think I have not only proven that I'm an effective legislator at the council level, but that I know how to center folks who have been left out of policy conversations in the room, but more importantly - follow the lead of those who've experienced the injustices over the years. We have been able to move historic, monumental, national-headline-grabbing policies within the City of Seattle in my now going into six years in Seattle City Council. And it has been done, I believe, in a collaborative way, in a way that has made transformational change, and in a way that I think has always centered - been centered on my progressive commitments to investing in working families, folks of color, and the LGBTQ community, workers to ensure that there's greater opportunity and prosperity. And creating housing and stability - that is something that is good for our entire community. I do this work because it's all about how we create healthy communities. You have to have investments in good living wage jobs and housing stability and opportunity education to have self-determination and control over your own life and your own decisions. And I think through public policy, through investments with public resources, we can create greater opportunity across our county. I am excited, as well, to be coming to this race as a woman, as a Latina, as a Chicana - poised to be the first Latina ever elected to King County Council. And with a King County population that is made up of half people of color and a quarter immigrant and refugee, it is critical that we have more voices with folks who have the lived experience coming from communities of color serving in these positions. I think that's why I've been able to effectively and efficiently move policy through so quickly - because I have put at the front of the line many of the community members who are often left out of policy discussions. I hope to bring in my commitment to working with folks who are workers, women, folks of color, members of the LGBTQ community to hear more about what we can do at King County Council. I know I have big shoes to step into with Councilmember McDermott and his commitment to public health, working with the LGBTQ community, his tenure in the State Legislature - and I'm also excited to add to that and serve our broader region and our growing needs. [00:35:59] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much, Councilmember Mosqueda, for spending this time with us today and having this conversation. Sincerely appreciate it, and we'll certainly be following your campaign eagerly over the next several months. Thank you. [00:36:13] Teresa Mosqueda: Thank you so much - I appreciate it. [00:36:15] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Inspire Your Buyers: Go to Market with a Story That Sizzles by Bruce Scheer About the Book: Inspire Your Buyers provides a proven, tested model to develop a compelling go-to-market narrative that will accelerate your revenue growth while rapidly bringing your product, marketing, and sales teams into alignment. Bruce Scheer developed this revolutionary go-to-market narrative model over the course of his twenty-five-year career, helping several industry giants, including IBM, Microsoft, HP, Google, Alcatel-Lucent, and McKesson rapidly grow their revenue with their go-to-market narrative. Bruce's go-to-market narrative model will give you the edge you are looking for in achieving your business growth goals. Using real examples from his career, Bruce offers actionable insights on how to: Target the right buyers Spotlight their Big Problem Help them envision their Desired Outcome Show how your Big Solution will deliver the Desired Outcome Develop a set of prescribed Next Steps that will help you and your buyers move forward faster, closing more deals with a higher close rate Communicate your narrative through simple, unforgettable visuals People act based on emotions, and the best way to inspire them to take action is through narratives. With this book, you will learn how to engage your buyers in a compelling go-to-market narrative that makes them the hero and inspires them to take action with you and your solution. About the Author: Bruce Scheer is an author, international keynote speaker, and the CEO of InspireYourBuyers.com. He has applied and honed his go-to-market narrative development model with industry giants such as IBM, SAP, Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Google, Adobe, Citibank, Motorola and numerous startups around the world. He is the President of the National Speakers Association Northwest and – he and his wife live on Vashon Island, in Washington State during the summers. And, interesting fact - in the winter, he and his wife travel throughout North America, living in an Airstream trailer. Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/inspire-buyers-bruce-scheer

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank! They discuss a poll showing that Seattle voters want a more progressive City Council, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction overseeing more and more school districts in budget crisis, gubernatorial candidate Mark Mullet getting financially backed by charter school advocates, and Bruce Harrell's ethnic media roundtable not going very well. The conversation continues with the possibility of a $19 minimum wage for unincorporated King County, internal drama within top brass of the Seattle Police Department, and reflection on a consent decree ruling that ends most federal oversight of SPD. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Robert Cruickshank, at @cruickshank.   Resources “Ending Youth Incarceration with Dr. Ben Danielson of AHSHAY Center” from Hacks & Wonks   “Poll: Seattle voters want new direction on City Council” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   “State will keep fiscal tabs on three cash-starved Washington school districts” by Jerry Cornfield from Washington State Standard   “WA Supreme Court sides with state in suit over school building costs” by Dahlia Bazzaz from The Seattle Times   “Big checks for a pro-Mullet PAC” by Paul Queary from The Washington Observer    “Harrell asks for better relations with ethnic media” by Mahlon Meyer from Northwest Asian Weekly   “King County looks at $19 minimum wage in unincorporated areas” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times   “King County Councilmembers propose $19 minimum wage for Skyway and White Center” by Guy Oron from Real Change   “Seattle police chief's alleged relationship with employee prompts inquiries, roils department” by Ashley Hiruko & Isolde Raftery from KUOW   “Judge ends most federal oversight of SPD, after 11 years and 3 chiefs” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times    Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I welcomed Dr. Ben Danielson, director of AHSHAY (Allies and Healthier Systems for Health and Abundance in Youth) Center for an important conversation about ending youth incarceration. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review show where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long-time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. [00:01:19] Robert Cruickshank: Thank you for having me back again, Crystal. It's always a pleasure to be here reviewing the week with you. [00:01:23] Crystal Fincher: Always a pleasure and I wanna start out talking about a poll that came out this week, sponsored by Crosscut - an Elway Poll - showing that voters seem to want a more progressive City Council. What did this poll reveal? [00:01:38] Robert Cruickshank: It's a really interesting poll. Crosscut's headline says - Seattle voters want a new direction on the City Council - but if you dig down with the poll itself, it's clear that there's strong support for a more progressive direction. One of the questions they ask is - Who are you more likely to vote for? A progressive candidate, a centrist candidate, or no opinion. The progressive candidate, 49%. Centrist candidate, 37%. And no opinion, 14%. That actually matches pretty closely some of the results we saw in key City Council primary elections last month. In District 1, for example, District 4, District 6 - you saw pretty similar numbers with a progressive candidate getting close to or around 50% and a more centrist candidate getting somewhere between the upper 30s and low 40s. We have a poll, we have the actual election results from the primary - now that doesn't guarantee anything for the general election. But evidence is starting to pile up that - yes, Seattle voters do want a new direction and it's very likely they want to be a more progressive direction. We've lived for the last three years - certain media pundits and media outlets, like KOMO or The Seattle Times, pushing really hard this narrative that Seattle wants a right-wing turn, Seattle's fed up with a progressive City Council, we're fed up with homelessness, we're fed up with crime - we want to turn to the right, darn it. The poll results and the election results last month just don't support that argument at all. Yes, voters are unhappy and voters are looking at what the progressive candidates are saying and thinking - Yeah, that's how we want to solve this. Yes, we want to solve homelessness by getting people into housing. Yes, we want to solve crime by having all sorts of solutions - including alternatives to policing, alternatives to armed response - to help address this problem. And I think that some of the media outlets and Chamber of Commerce and others, who keep pushing this Seattle-wants-to-turn-right narrative, are just trying to will a story into existence, try to will that reality into existence - but voters are making it clear they're not going along with that. [00:03:28] Crystal Fincher: It really does make some of the rhetoric that we hear over and over again sound like astroturfing, sound like a marketing project - because like you said, over and over again, these election results and these polls just repeatedly tell a different story. For example, we've talked on this show before about stopping with just - Hey, are you happy with the way things are going or are you dissatisfied? And if people say they're dissatisfied, there's been this assumption - that means that they want to get rid of progressive councilmembers and progressive policy. And that has never borne out in the data. One of the questions - On the issue of homelessness, if you had to choose, what approach should have the higher priority for city government resources? One option is: Moving the tents out of parks and public areas and moving their occupants into temporary shelters - which is a nice way to say sweeps - 41%. The other option: Developing permanent housing and mental health services for people experiencing homelessness - 55%. This is not controversial - we've been talking about this on this show for quite some time, lots of people have - these are serious policies backed by evidence and it just makes sense, right? And it makes you question how deeply invested are people in the narrative that Seattle is fed up and they want a really punitive law and order, harsh lock-'em-up approach to things - that just doesn't play out. What we're gonna see in this general election, as we've seen before - it looks like we're anticipating some of the same type of communication, same type of commercial, same type of mailers trying to use those same tired depictions of homelessness as if the people who are homeless are the problem and not the fact that they don't have homes to live in. And Seattle sees that. They see that over and over again. And what we see is there is this attempt, especially around public safety rhetoric, to make it just very flat. Either you want more cops and you support cops and Blue Lives Matter and all of that, or you hate safety and you love crime and you don't want anything. And just making it either you're defund or this Antifa radical, or you're wanting more law and order on the streets. It just doesn't turn out that way. People want serious solutions. We've been doing the same things over and over again. And the public is begging these people to keep listening, but it just doesn't work. Like you said, a plurality here prefer a progressive candidate - 12 points higher than a more moderate candidate, as they put it - conservative wasn't a choice in here. Centrist and progressive - as is the way in Seattle - the way things are usually discussed. Also, when they asked about priorities - How are they evaluating candidates for City Council? It's really interesting. The top answers were: Do they support creating a new department for non-police emergency response, Do they support city funding of substance abuse treatment for people in public housing - both of those at 72%. If you're in the 60s, that's automatic win territory. 72%, it's - how wild is it that this is not on the top of everybody's agenda? Then we move down to - looking at the lower end - the lowest, actually, was: Supporting a three-year moratorium on the Jumpstart tax - that actually made people more likely to vote against someone for voting against a moratorium on that tax, which we've seen the Chamber float and other allied business interests trying to siphon some of that money or reduce the tax that they're paying. And voters are clearly saying no. And people who advocate for that are going to be hurt by taking that position in this general election. So this is just really interesting. One of these questions: Support for Bruce Harrell's agenda. One, I want someone to define what that agenda is - great to ask that in a vague way - what does that mean? And I would love for people to talk - when they talk about the mayor's agenda, Bruce Harrell's agenda - define what that is. I think that's a tougher task than many people might assume at first glance. What else did you see here? [00:07:38] Robert Cruickshank: There are a couple of things that stood out. You talked about taxes. They asked - How should Seattle cover a budget shortfall? 63% want a new business tax, 60% are willing to tax themselves - this just bolsters the point you just made that, contrary to what the Chamber wants, there's no support out there for slashing business taxes. We want to tax the rich more. And so that's another reason why progressive candidates are going to do well. Something you said resonated about the astroturfing. And you see these efforts to try to create outrage about different public safety issues. We saw some of that this week, where Sara Nelson had a stunt press conference in Little Saigon - which is facing issues, and the community of Little Saigon deserves to be heard and deserves to have their needs addressed. That's not what Sara Nelson was there to do. She was there to have a press conference stunt where she could stand there with Tanya Woo and say - Where's Tammy Morales? Why isn't Tammy Morales here? The answer is, as Tammy Morales explained, Tammy wasn't invited because Tammy was also at the Transportation Committee hearing in City Hall doing her job and asked where's Sara Nelson? The answer is Sara Nelson's out grandstanding. She's also the same person who's floating things like moratorium on the JumpStart Tax, floating things like sweeps and crackdowns on visible drug use. Sara Nelson somehow snuck into office in 2021 and thinks somehow that the City is supporting her agenda - whatever that might be, whatever right-wing cause she has at the moment - that's not where the electorate is right now. And I think that's all they have - are stunts - because their actual agenda is unpopular. And I think you're going to start seeing - as a campaign heads into the heat of the general election, the same playbook we've often seen from more centrist candidates. And Jenny Durkan was an expert at this - of just bear-hugging progressive positions, making themselves sound more progressive than they truly are - to try to get elected because they know that's what the electorate in Seattle wants. And then once in office, the mask comes off and they turned out to be the Chamber candidate that they always were. So that's something that the actual progressive candidates are gonna have to watch out for. And voters are going to need to be very careful in discerning between these candidates. Who's just mouthing the rhetoric that they think is going to get them elected? And who's a genuine and proven commitment to these ideals? - Who's really fought hard for taxing the rich? Who's fought hard for affordable housing? Who's fought hard to get services and shelter to people who are unhoused? - rather than people who are just maybe grandstanding on it because they think that's how they're gonna win. [00:10:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I think you bring up a really important point. It is that discernment. Some of the justification I've heard for people who are very invested in the "Seattle has taken a right turn" try and retcon the justification - well, voters wanted a conservative business owner and they really want that perspective on the Council. They want someone who's gonna knock heads and get tough. But people so easily forget - that's not at all how Sara Nelson ran. Sara Nelson ran as an environmentalist, as someone who wanted to reform the police department - those were her top-line messages in her communications. She wasn't talking about being a business owner, she was not talking about being tough on crime - she initially started that in the very beginning in the primary and that fell flat. And so they switched up real quick and all of the communication looked like it was coming from a progressive. They used the word "progressive" 72,000 times - Oh no, we're the real progressives here. And it didn't turn out that way. And as you said, once she was elected, the mask came off and we continue to see this over and over again. The moderate playbook, the conservative playbook is to mimic progressive. It's to use that same language. It's to talk about issues in a similar way. Leave yourself a little wiggle room to not commit, to not give a hard and fast answer to something so that when you are elected, you can say - Well, I didn't exactly say that - or - I didn't take a position on this. And we see this over and over again. I hope it doesn't happen again this time, but there's going to be a lot of money spent to try and do this again. And at some point we just have to say - We've seen this before and we've had enough, and we want people who are seriously engaging in how to solve the biggest problems that we face. Because Seattle voters are really frustrated - they are fed up, but fed up with not being listened to. I do congratulate this poll for going beyond just the - Are you happy and unhappy? - and asking the why - What direction do you want to go into? What policy solution do you prefer? And as I suspected, the answers are very enlightening and give you an eye into what voters are really thinking and considering. And I hope all of the candidates - and the electeds who aren't even on the ballot - take heed. I also want to talk about school districts - right now, just as school is starting over again - facing budget crises and just a world of hurt. What's happening here? [00:12:28] Robert Cruickshank: As schools are starting across Washington state this year, there are some schools where teachers have gone out on strike, mostly in Southwest Washington - places like Evergreen Schools in Vancouver, Camas in Clark County - and that's worth watching and we're supporting teachers. In addition, we're starting to see an even more ominous trend of districts needing the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, OSPI, to actually oversee their budgets. They need OSPI monitoring because they're in such deep financial straits, primarily because this Legislature continues to underfund our schools. The Legislature doesn't give schools enough money to cover their basic operations, especially in an era of inflation. And so you have at least three school districts that we know of so far, Marysville, La Conner, Mount Baker - these are all in Northwest Washington - are under OSPI oversight for budgets. It's the most, at any one time, in several years - since at least a great recession. OSPI is quoted as saying this is unprecedented. And they don't think it's gonna stop there. It's just the tip of the iceberg - as more and more districts face problems, as federal stimulus money goes away, as levy equalization dollars start to drop, as regionalization money - which is designed to help districts afford to pay teachers what it actually costs to live in their community - that starts to go away from the state. The state continues to underfund special education. And just this morning before we went on air, we saw the State Supreme Court ruled against the Wahkiakum School District in Southwest Washington, their case where they were trying to get the state to be held responsible for the cost of school construction. The Supreme Court said - No, the state and local governments, local districts are gonna have to share that - even though it takes 60% of voters to approve a school bond for construction, those often fail. And small communities like Wahkiakum, small logging community on the Columbia River, don't have the property tax base to keep their schools in good repair. So what we're seeing is the Legislature, and now the Supreme Court, continue to hand blow after blow to local school districts. And this is alarming, not just because it leads to cuts and even school closures - something they're considering in school districts like Seattle - that's bad enough. But when you start to see state oversight in management of districts, that's when I think red flags should really go up. There's things like appointing emergency fiscal managers - in the state of Michigan and other states where Republicans took over - that led to huge cuts to schools, where these emergency fiscal managers would come in and turn schools over to charter school operators, they tear up union contracts, they would make all sorts of cuts to libraries and music and other important services. Now, we're not seeing that in Washington state yet, but that architecture is now in place. And if the wrong person gets elected governor or the wrong party takes over the Legislature, all of a sudden these school districts could be losing local control over their basic dollars and spending to the state. So this is a unfolding crisis that the State Legislature and the Democratic majority there continue to ignore, continue to not take seriously - even though it remains in the Constitution, literally their paramount duty, to provide ample provision for funding, not just enough. The open dictionary says more than enough. No one can look at a public school district anywhere in Washington state and say schools are getting ample funding. They're just not. And this crisis is only going to grow worse. We're only going to see further cuts to schools, further closures, larger class sizes, teachers leaving - unless the State Legislature steps in. [00:16:00] Crystal Fincher: We do have to contend with the fact that this is happening with the Democratic majority, right? Even more frustrating where - this is another issue voters support in such huge numbers - adequately, amply funding education and raising the revenue because revenue is needed to amply fund education. It's really frustrating. And so I guess my question for you, because you do pay such close attention - I do recommend people follow Robert for a variety of things, but his insight on education policy is really valuable - how do we fix this? Is it all on the Legislature? Where is the fix here? [00:16:39] Robert Cruickshank: The fix is at the Legislature. Local school districts can only do so much. A 60% threshold has not been changed by the Legislature - they have the ability to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to change that, that never happens. But even more, the Legislature has also capped a local operating levy. Seattle, which has a very pro-tax population, would happily tax ourselves a lot of money to have amazing public schools. We can't do that because we're prevented by the State Legislature. And the obvious reason, of course, is Seattle has such valuable property because we have Amazon, Vulcan, other large corporate property owners here who will ensure that the Legislature doesn't do that. So we have a State Legislature and a Democratic majority that is just unwilling to take on the big corporations and the wealthy to fund our public schools. They point to the capital gains tax. And yes, that was an important victory in 2021. And it's raising almost double what was expected. But of course, there's a caveat there. They cap the amount of money that goes to the Education Legacy Trust Fund - anything above that is supposed to go to school construction, which is great - we just talked about the Supreme Court decision and how local governments and local districts in rural Washington definitely need help funding schools. That's great. But what happens when you don't have the ability to pay the teachers to go into those buildings? When you don't have the ability to provide the books, materials, the music classes, the arts classes, the small class sizes that we voted for in 2014? The Legislature proposed a wealth tax last year - 20 out of 29 Senate Democrats, 43 out of 58 House Democrats supported it as co-sponsors. Surely there were many more who weren't sponsors who were on board. The bill never even made it out of committee in either chamber. At some point, we have to look at the State Legislature and the Democrats, even the progressives - even the Democrats we like and support strongly - haven't stuck their necks out for education, haven't stepped up to say we're gonna fix this. They aren't recognizing the crisis that's there and that's what we have to do. We have to point the finger at the Legislature and go to them at their town halls, to their offices, committee meetings in Olympia, testify virtually if that's possible again in January and make it crystal clear - this is a crisis, it is dire, and you have to fix it. And the only possible source of the fix is the Legislature. [00:19:02] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Thank you for your insight on that, and we do have to get involved. We have to make sure they hear our voices, demanding that this happens. And while they're at it - to provide free school lunches for all school kids. Also several other states - I think we're at 11 so far - are doing the same, putting us to shame. All states should have this and so we have a lot of work to do. Also wanna talk about a candidate for governor - Mark Mullet, current sitting senator out of the 5th legislative district, being backed by charter school money. What's happening here? [00:19:42] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, Mark Mullet, a very right-wing Democrat - he probably would have been a Republican if he didn't realize that being a Democrat would get him elected more easily out there in Issaquah. He's been hostile to teachers' unions for a long time, notoriously hostile to other unions - very nearly lost his reelection in 2020 to Ingrid Anderson, a progressive nurse. Mullet only prevailed by 58 votes, but continues to act as a very right-wing Democrat. And he's always been in love with charter schools - he's been a major obstacle to getting the Legislature to fully fund our public schools. He sits on the Senate Ways and Means Committee. He works with centrist Democrats, corporate Democrats, and Republicans to try to block bills that would fund our schools. And in return, he's now gotten at least $25,000 from a charter school PAC to help fund a super PAC in support of Mark Mullet's run for governor. Polls continue to show so far that Mullet is trailing pretty badly here in the governor's race - Ferguson still has the lead, but it's early. We're well over a year away from the general election for governor. But Mullet clearly is staking his claim as the right-wing Democratic candidate, and the candidate of now folks who wanna privatize our public schools and spread charters everywhere. And as we've seen in other states, charter schools are really problematic. They don't really meet student needs on the whole. Their outcomes aren't better for students. And they're often fly-by-night operations - they'll close in the middle of a school year and then leave students just high and dry. But it's really revealing that Mullet is taking, or at least getting supported by, so much money - that's not a direct donation to his campaign, but it's clear that they are running a super PAC explicitly in support of Mark Mullet. It's a real sign - that's where his bread is buttered - by big corporations and school privatizer money. So something that I think voters are gonna wanna pay pretty close attention to as the campaign for governor starts to heat up next year. [00:21:33] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I do have to tell you, it is very concerning how unstable charter schools seem to be. How many - we see openings and then we see closings. And that just hardly ever happens with public schools. When it does, it's under financial duress and usually over the objections of all of the parents. But this has been something that we've seen with frequency with charter schools here in Washington. But yeah, definitely worth paying attention to that - and what that agenda is by the folks who have that super PAC and what other interests they're in-line with are really troubling. So we'll continue to pay attention to that. I also wanna talk about a story that came out - I actually think it was late last week, this is a short holiday week and so kind of trickled out - but it was a story about Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell's roundtable with some of our local ethnic media outlets. We have wonderful, rich ethnic media outlets here in Washington State - all throughout the state, definitely here in King County. And the mayor's office seemed troubled by the lack of positive stories coming out, and so invited a number of these journalists to - it looks like City Hall - to have a little roundtable conversation. How did that turn out? [00:22:56] Robert Cruickshank: Well, it's interesting. Many mayors have met with our local ethnic media - it's a good thing for them to do in and of itself - Mike McGinn did a great tour of them back when I worked with him in 2011. So it makes sense for Harrell to try to reach out, but it doesn't seem to have gone very well. And according to at least one of the reports that was there, the mayor wasn't happy about the meeting being recorded - said he could speak less freely. But I think when you're dealing with journalists, any public official should know that's how journalists like to operate - they wanna record everything. And it just seemed like the mayor wanted to make it very personal and wanted to get good coverage out of these outlets. And that's just not how you actually should be approaching these media outlets to begin with. These folks want respect, they wanna be treated as serious journalists - which they are. And I think that for a mayor to come in the way it appears Mayor Harrell did, I don't think it's gonna serve his needs and certainly not the needs of those ethnic media outlets. [00:23:49] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, this was covered in Northwest Asian Weekly and it was really a jaw-dropping read because it does seem to start off - Bruce Harrell is a charismatic guy and there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with wanting to open lines of communication, to air out any challenges - I think that's a positive thing. Where I think this took a bad turn was this assumption that they should put aside their professionalism, put aside the obligation they have to report - and to seek information and accountability - and just play along, go along with what he says. And the one thing that caught my eye, which maybe it didn't - well, a few things caught my eye - but one thing that I found troubling in here, which may not be an overt red flag and who knows what he actually meant by that, but there was an allusion to - Hey, there's Comcast money - anyone who works in the City of Seattle is aware of how much Comcast money there actually is in the City. But he said - Hey, the city might be able to facilitate ethnic media getting involved in Comcast channel 21, while also him saying that they were dying - which those ethnic media outlets directly challenged and he seemed to not accept or be willing to do. But dangling - Hey, there's more access, there's more information here for you if you play along. And that's the unspoken part of this. And even if that wasn't intended - I don't know what he intended - but as a public official, you have to be aware of when you're holding that much power, when you have that much control of resources and influence over people who are wielding those resources, and you have access to a bigger platform, and you're saying - Hey, I can help you out with this - there's the implication, if you aren't explicit and careful, saying - If you scratch my back too, if you ease up on the criticism, if you stop asking troubling questions. It seems like they heard that in this meeting and seemed to react - one, just mischaracterizing where they're at and they're not sitting here asking for handouts, they're not asking for anything unearned - they are professionals who put out great products, who many of us consume regularly and they're a part of our media ecosystem that too many people just leave out. And they're saying - No, we're not dying, we're here and we're thriving and we just want answers to our questions. We just want invitations to invites that other reporters are getting invites to. And there seem to be questions with that, as well as some offense taken to them asking just regular general questions. One reporter, a Black reporter from a Black media outlet, brought up - Hey, we're having a really hard time getting straight answers from your police department. Bruce Harrell is literally the executive to talk to for that - they answer to Bruce Harrell, he is in charge of the police department. And his response - You're the only one who's had that problem. I think everyone listening knows that they're not the only ones who have that problem. We've seen that across the ecosystem in various places, particularly to people who don't cover City Hall sympathetically, and that's just really troubling. You're there and you're not listening to the reporters who are reflecting their communities and trying to get information that is really important to the communities they serve. And the dismissiveness was just really troubling. [00:27:27] Robert Cruickshank: It really is. And I think it goes to the concerns that those media outlets have had for a long time. They wanna be taken seriously and deserve to be because they're serious journalists - doing serious journalism that is read and respected, not just in those communities they serve, but around the City. And yet they struggle to get invites to press conferences, they struggle to get responses from City departments, they struggle to get included in stories, they struggle to get their basic inquiries addressed. And they understand that a lot of the City's media relations folks, whether it's the mayor's office or City departments, don't always take them seriously. So to have the opportunity to sit down directly with the mayor is hugely important for these outlets - not only to show that they matter, but to get answers and to get things fixed that need to be fixed in the way the City is interacting with those media outlets. And yet for it to go this way, it just, in their minds, likely justifies a lot of concerns they had all along. It's not going to assuage them at all. And from the perspective of supporting local media outlets, it seems like this should have been handled better. Even from Bruce Harrell's own perspective, it could have been handled better. 'Cause now he's got a story that makes him look bad and raises questions about the way his office is responding to some of the most important media outlets in the City. I think it's - to insinuate that they might be dying goes right to the heart of the problem. These media outlets have been thriving for decades. And it's not easy for any media outlet to survive these days, large or small, no matter what community they serve. And the last thing they want is to be dismissed again - in this case, dismissed as potentially just on the brink of death. I mean, who knows how many of the TV stations are on the brink of death, right? Seattle Times - who knows how long the Blethen family is going to want to keep running it until the family decides to sell it out to Alden Global Capital, which will just gut everything for parts. It's important to treat these media outlets and their reporters with respect, no matter who it is in elected office or whatever City department you're in. And so I hope that the mayor's office puts that right. [00:29:29] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely agree. Also want to talk this week about a potential $19 minimum wage coming to unincorporated King County. What's being proposed? [00:29:42] Robert Cruickshank: King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay is proposing a $19 an hour minimum wage for unincorporated King County - so that's outside of a incorporated city. So cities like Seattle, SeaTac have obviously raised minimum wage. Tukwila has raised it, Renton - which is on the ballot this year - likely to pass. But there are about a quarter million people in King County who are not in a city. They live in a community, sometimes, or maybe they don't live in a formal community, maybe they're out in more rural parts of the county - but they're part of King County. And what Girmay is recognizing is there's an opportunity to help them. So what he wants to do is raise the minimum wage for those parts of King County, for those 250,000 people - which is a substantial number of people - to make sure that they can also benefit from a higher minimum wage and raise it to $19. We all know how inflation is hitting people, especially the rise in cost of housing - and Girmay's done a great job trying to address housing as well in his role on the King County Council. But this is a great step forward for the King County Council to not just sit by and say the minimum wage is a city issue or it's a state issue. No, they have a quarter million people they can help right now. And to step forward and propose this, I think, is the right thing to do. I hope that all candidates for King County Council embrace it. I hope that the current councilmembers embrace it and pass it as quickly as they can, because I think this is an important step for folks living in those communities. [00:30:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And they shouldn't be left out of the progress that many of the people who've been able to live in cities have been benefiting from. And sometimes we think unincorporated King County and people just think - Oh, it's just a few people living out in the boonies. You talked about how many people there are, and these are places like Vashon Island, Skyway, White Center - where there are a lot of people - these are our neighbors. They just happen to be in an area that wasn't formally incorporated. And so I see this as definite progress. We have a ways to go to get wages to a place where they're really funding people's lives today. Rents are so high. The cost of living has increased so much. Rents, childcare, these massive costs that are so huge and that are preventing people from being able to fully participate in society, to be upwardly mobile, to live the life that they choose. We know we can do better. We know we owe this to the residents. And I think this starts for businesses that employ more than 500 people. This is [not] burdening small businesses. It just seems like this is really the logical thing to do. Medium-sized businesses with 16 to 499 employees would be given a four-year transition period, but it's really important to get this on the way. This is a very popular policy also, fortunately. And so I am optimistic that this will pass and hope it has the unanimous support of the council. [00:32:25] Robert Cruickshank: I hope so too. It should be unanimous. I'd like to see Dow Constantine come in strongly for it as well and help use his power and influence to get it done. It should be an issue in the council races - between Teresa Mosqueda and Sofia Aragon, for example. I think it's a really important contrast that can be drawn. [00:32:40] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I wanna close out talking about a couple of stories revolving around the Seattle Police Department. The first is a story that broke - I think it was KUOW reported on it - but there have been rumors dogging Seattle Police Chief Diaz about an alleged affair or rumored affair. However, lots of people are really wondering whether to question this because it also may be rumors intended - falsely made up - intended to de-credit the chief and speed his way out. And people are trying to weigh which one of these this is. What happened here and what do you see going on? [00:33:26] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, this is a sadly typical situation that we've seen in SPD over the years - where different elements of the command staff start sniping at each other and trying to take each other down, rather than focus on their jobs. It's unclear and we don't know - and I don't really care - what Chief Diaz is doing his personal time. Obviously, if it's an employee, then you gotta make sure all rules and ethics are respected - but if people are also throwing around insinuations, that hurts the woman in question. You don't wanna make a woman who's working in SPD subject to these rumors - not just that makes Chief Diaz look bad, the department look bad - you're sullying someone's reputation here. It shouldn't be sullied. But the bigger question here is - what does it say about SPD and what does it say about how it's being run? We're in the middle of a wave of burglaries that people are complaining about, and complaining about slow SPD response time, people complaining about safety on our roads. And I will say just yesterday near my home in Northgate, I saw a driver go right through a red arrow, turning into an intersection - it wasn't like it turned red right as they were entering, it had been red for some time when they entered - in front of a police car. And the officer did nothing - just let it happen and no enforcement at all. People complain about the number of homicides that are happening. It's a real crisis out there, and concerns about is SPD really doing all it can do to investigate these? Is it doing all it can do to close burglary cases? And yet what do we see SPD doing? Their command staff are sniping at each other and spreading gossip and rumor, whether there's any truth to it or not. And I think it's just a sign of how dysfunctional SPD has become. I think it's also a sign that we need strong leadership to reform this department. We'll talk about, I know, about the consent decree in a moment, but it's clear that there are ongoing management problems. And it raises the question - do we need a external chief to come in, who isn't part of all these rivalries and gossip and jealousies, to come in and put a stop to a lot of this? But it's just a sign - that these rumors are reaching the media - that SPD's commanders are not focused on the job they say they're focused on. They're happy to blame the City Council, which has no operational control over SPD, which hasn't said a word about defunding the police since they - for a hot minute in the summer of 2020, very gingerly cut a piece of SPD's budget, ever since then they've been showering as much money as they can on the police department - trying to ply them with recruitment bonuses and making it very clear - Oh no, we're not gonna defund you anymore. Sorry, forget about that. The City Council is not the problem here. There's a real problem with how SPD is managed. There's a problem with the command staff. And Council doesn't run that department - as you said earlier, the mayor does. And so we need to see how Bruce Harrell's going to respond to this too, because it's becoming increasingly clear that SPD isn't getting its job done. [00:36:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it's not getting its job done in any way - people are suffering - and the most cynical thing is there've, no surprise, been SPOG communications in various places literally touting - Detectives haven't been able to respond to this commercial burglary for two weeks and it's 'cause we were defunded. As you said, defunding did not happen. In fact, their funding has increased. They keep giving money to these people despite staffing shortages in other departments too. If that would help, that would be one thing. But even police officers are on record saying - Yeah, these hiring bonuses are not gonna get more people in the door, keep people. Retention bonuses aren't gonna keep people. That's actually not the problem. The problem is not financial anymore. But it's really troubling just that everyone's eye seems to be off of the ball. And everyone's eye seems to be in a different place than where Seattle residents can see they need to be. As we talked about earlier with those poll results, Seattle residents want a more comprehensive response. They want responsiveness from the police department and they want to shift out responsibilities, assets to manage things in a way that does ensure they can get the service level they expect from the police department - and get other community violence interventions, diversion programs, other community safety initiatives up and running. And they just seem to be focused on literally everything but that. And at a time where everyone is facing this challenge of trying to manage, whether it's crime or behavioral health crises or everything that we're dealing with, they need to do better. We need Bruce Harrell to get this under control - what dysfunction and what disarray - he needs to get a hold of this. [00:38:01] Robert Cruickshank: He really does. Again, the mayor runs the police department. The mayor has operational control. It's not the City Council. And I think we need to see that leadership from the top to really fix what's gone wrong at SPD. [00:38:12] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now I wanna talk about big news that broke last night - that a judge just ended federal oversight of SPD after 11 years. Now you were in the administration that saw the consent decree established. What is the legacy of this consent decree, and where do we go now that federal oversight is largely ending? [00:38:34] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, the consent decree has its pros and cons. The upside is, and always was - and this is why many in the community demanded it and went to the DOJ in the first place in 2010 and 2011 - they felt they needed a federal judge, a federal monitor and the US Department of Justice to come in and force SPD to improve its use of force policies, to address concerns about biased policing, and ultimately also added in were - later in the process - concerns about how it manages demonstrations. So it's a pro - is that you get an outside body that is widely trusted, certainly when Obama ran the DOJ and now that Biden does, to come in and force the changes that SPD wasn't willing to make and the City wasn't able to make. The downside though is it's a federal legal process that is fairly limited in what it can cover. You're at the mercy of the federal judge, the federal monitor - who wound up stepping in the summer of 2020 to undermine some of the efforts that were taken to reform the department, including cutting SPD's funding. So its coming to an end doesn't mean that SPD has been fixed. What it means is that in the eyes of this judge, the specific conditions laid out in the 2013 consent decree, in his mind, have been achieved. And what does that mean for people here in Seattle? It doesn't necessarily mean that SPD is a clean bill of health and is now operating in a much better place than it had been before. And in fact, the federal judge did retain jurisdiction over use of force and of how discipline is managed. He cares a lot about the contract - having raised significant concerns about the previous SPOG contract that was done in 2018. But it goes back to something that I remember Mike McGinn saying a lot in 2012, 2013 during this whole negotiation process around the consent decree - pointing out correctly that lasting reform isn't gonna come from the federal government, it's gonna come from the community, and it's going to depend on the ability of City Hall to make change in SPD and make it stick. And he took a lot of heat for saying that. People thought he was trying to keep the DOJ out - he wasn't. He welcomed the DOJ, he was always honest about that, direct about that. But I think he was right. He was right then and right now that with the federal government largely stepping back - not completely, but largely stepping back - bringing an end to much of the consent decree, it's now up to us. It's up to us as a city, as a community, and especially our elected officials in City Hall to actually make sure that what we want done at SPD, what we want done with public safety more broadly happens. As we talked earlier in this podcast, there's a lot of support out there in the public for non-armed response to crime. People want it, it polls off the charts. We still haven't seen it. The mayor's office keeps promising and promising, keeps getting delayed and delayed. This mayor has been in office a year and a half now, and it's time to see it come to fruition - that's going to be another important piece of how we handle policing and public safety in the City - is to have armed officers doing less of it or focusing on the things they need to focus on and not the things where they don't need to be focused on. But we'll see what happens there because as we've seen all along, this is really up to the community to make these reforms stick. The DOJ had its role and we can ask how effective was it really - again, the ending of the consent decree doesn't mean SPD's fixed, it just means certain boxes got checked. But I think we have to see what happens out of City Council elections this year and what the mayor's going to do to address ongoing problems with the police. [00:41:59] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. All with the backdrop of negotiations happening now for the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract - and that will set the tone for so much moving forward. It's going to be interesting to see how this proceeds. [00:42:16] Robert Cruickshank: Yeah, it really will. And I think that SPOG contract is going to be crucial - and who gets elected to the City Council this fall will play a really big role in how that negotiation winds up. [00:42:26] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely will. And with that, we'll conclude this week-in-review. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, September 8th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful cohost today was Chair of Sierra Club Seattle, long-time communications and political strategist, Robert Cruickshank. You can find Robert on Twitter - and multiple platforms, I think - @cruickshank. We're all around. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter. You can find me on most platforms as @finchfrii. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.