Toxic work environments reported at both the Washington governor’s office and the Seattle mayor’s office
Seattle News:
First off, let’s catch up on last week’s public safety committee meeting, which featured a presentation about the CARE alternative response team from CARE Chief Amy Barden.
As of last week, the CARE teams are responding city-wide, 10 hours a day, seven days a week. Thus far they have answered 1,648 calls, of which 30-40% is giving someone a ride. Barden mentioned that the CARE department, which currently consists of the CARE alternative responders and 911 dispatch, needs more administrative support in order to grow.
However, CARE is currently limited by the SPOG MOU to an upper limit of 24 responders, which is not enough to meet the current demand of calls, let alone an expansion that would grant more coverage across the city 24/7. HB 1816, which I reported on last month, might have rectified this issue, but unfortunately it didn’t receive a floor vote last week so is effectively dead.
It is unclear to me if the previous MOU with SPOG has done enough to establish the CARE team’s body of work for them to expand without further bargaining, as I have heard different answers to this question, which hinges on how the MOU is interpreted.
It is also unclear to me if there is any other avenue beyond further bargaining with SPOG to move the CARE team away from dual dispatch so they’re able to respond to calls without police being present. It is very clear at this point that doing so would be safe (a fact we already knew from the data from alternative response teams doing similar work in other cities). Barden says some SPD sergeants feel comfortable clearing CARE teams to answer calls alone over radio channels, while others do not.
Barden is adamant that public safety in Seattle would improve if she were able to send the best first response. At the council meeting, she cited the NICJR report on 911 calls in Seattle, saying that the study said 80% of calls had nothing to do with criminal behavior or law enforcement and that only 6% of calls had some kind of criminal implication. She also emphasized how much money the City would save by dispatching the CARE teams more often.
Some councilmembers were very critical of Barden’s efforts thus far, saying she isn’t doing enough. They didn’t all seem cognizant of the barriers erected by the SPOG MOU, in spite of the fact that several journalists have covered this issue, and at some length.
Some councilmembers seemed to be unaware that many services have been perennially underfunded and not scaled up to the level of need. Happily, PubliCola covered this, writing, “One thing Barden didn’t bring up explicitly is that the CARE Team can only refer to services that are available, and that those services—including long-term treatment, case management, housing, and even basic detox—are not as ample and widely available as council members repeatedly suggested. Nor is it a great use of resources to send people through inadequate light-touch services again and again, Barden noted.”
Councilmember Martiza Rivera asked why Barden hasn’t taken on the role of coordinating services for folks in need, including with community-based organizations, which she said is directly in the CARE department mandate. Barden said that Senior Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess hasn’t given her license to take on that aspect of the department’s work yet because he thinks she lacks capacity.
Two more interesting things of note from this meeting: Barden said SPD put together a work group last year to reassign call types. The results of this work are that in February of 2025, 911 received 50% fewer Priority 1 calls than in February of 2024.
Secondly, Councilmember Cathy Moore, who was perhaps the most adamant in repeating how many services are already available for people in need, stated her interest in increasing involuntary confinement. “Your civil liberties do you no good if you’re dead,” Moore said.
I hope that, especially in these times, we can see the dangerous slippery slope to which that argument leads. I have written before about how when it comes to people’s rights around involuntary confinement in Washington State, amendments have chipped away at the original robust law, making it easier to force involuntary treatment on vulnerable people. And at a time when Americans’ civil rights are under direct and robust attack, Moore’s words perhaps do not land the way she intended.
The Mayor’s Office held a press conference this week to celebrate the expansion of the CARE teams city-wide.
In other news, there has been a second SODA order issued, this time in the CID. However, Davison says there have actually been three SODA orders and one pending SOAP order. She says the reason these aren’t being used more often is a combination of police officer training taking time and judges not granting these orders as part of their rulings.
Late last Friday, KUOW broke the news of former Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell, also the niece of Mayor Bruce Harrell, speaking out about the toxic working environment of the Mayor’s Office. As KUOW reported, “She describes the mayor’s office as being a dog-eat-dog environment where white male advisors vied for power and influence. She said her experience, as a high-level woman ignored by the mayor and his lieutenants, is not unique at City Hall.”
The article continues, “KUOW spoke with six other women with ties to the mayor’s office who supported Monisha Harrell’s account of a boys’ club environment where women were condescended to and shut out of important meetings, even though their roles would suggest they be included.”
Tying into the above story, PubliCola reported on several women who have decided to come forward in the wake of a mayoral staffer being accused of sexual assault. The King County Prosecutor’s Office has not yet made a charging decision in this case, but several women have come forward to tell their own stories about their interactions with former external affairs director Pedro Gomez, which appear to illustrate a pattern of behavior that involves Gomez making promises to help women professionally while bragging about his influence, plying them with large amounts of alcohol that they feel pressured to accept, and then making sexual advances and/or trying to get them to a private location.
It is worthwhile to read both of the above articles in their entirety.
Washington State News:
Washington State Senate and House Democrats plan to release their budget proposals on Monday, March 24.
The news from this week’s updated state revenue estimate was not good. While the state is expected to bring in $54.4 million more than expected in the 2023-2025 biennium, it is expected to bring in almost $900 million less in 2025-2029, leading to a total further deficit of $845 million. This is on top of the already existing deficit that Governor Bob Ferguson most recently estimated at $15 billion over the next four years.
Senate Democrat budget leaders just released their 2025 revenue proposal, which is admirably ambitious, given the scope of financial problems confronting the state. I will be writing at more length about this soon, but in addition to one version of a wealth tax and a state-level Jumpstart-like tax, the package does include lifting the 1% annual cap from property tax increases, which would give King County a fighting chance to eventually recover from their current tough budget situation.
Meanwhile, Ferguson’s office has been undergoing quite a shakeup. Last week, his legislative director Joyce Bruce quit, following the recent resignation of his deputy legislative director Shawn Lewis, which raised troubling questions about the working environment at the governor’s office and left it short-staffed in the middle of a challenging legislative session.
This week, top Ferguson aide Mike Webb, who had worked for Ferguson since at least 2012, resigned with this statement: “I deeply regret that the allegations of a hostile work environment have created an unhelpful distraction that impacts the team’s ability to do their work, as well as my ability to be effective in the near term. To be blunt, given the stakes of the work ahead, I cannot stomach that.”
Ferguson is expected to retool his administration in the wake of these resignations, and some state lawmakers are hoping for a re-set.
Ferguson is also garnering criticism from state workers over his proposal to furlough government workers one day a month to save money. However, it is unlikely that state Democrats would support this proposal.
Finally, if you’re wondering why universal health care for Washington State is not on the agenda for this legislative session, The Stranger writes about what happened to the proposed bills.
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