November 2025

It’s been a hard month for license plate readers in Washington State

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Seattle News:

Katie Wilson will be Seattle’s next mayor, and Seattle’s 2026 budget has been adopted! Whew, what a month. 

I wrote my take on the budget last week, a few days before its final passage. You can also read a list of budget amendments proposed by the councilmembers and PubliCola’s budget wrap-up. 

No budget discussion would be complete without noting both the efforts on the parts of councilmembers to limit the Mayor-elect’s budget flexibility. There are also deep concerns over the likely loss of federal funding for housing and homelessness programs via the Continuum of Care funds from HUD, especially permanent supportive housing funding. 

A coalition of states, including Washington, has filed a lawsuit against HUD over the above policy changes.

King County has selected Connections Health Solutions to run the new crisis care center in Capitol Hill. Connections already runs the crisis care center in Kirkland and is a national company as opposed to a local community based provider. 

DivestSPD published some charts last week about changes at the Office of Police Accountability (OPA). According to Divest, the OPA only fully investigated 23% of complaints in 2025 compared to 37% in 2023, when the department was under the leadership of former Director Gino Betts. 

OPA contact logs have also increased from 16% in 2022 to 28% in 2025, so it will be interesting to hear from the OPA next year (now under the leadership of Bonnie Glenn) as to why this is the case. 

For those interested in the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise (FEPP) levy spending plan, the Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL) is holding four community outreach/conversation sessions in December, for which you can RSVP:

  • Tuesday, December 2, 5:30–7:30 PM at the Magnuson Community Center, 7110 62nd Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98115 
  • Wednesday, December 10, 5:30–7:30 PM at the Ballard Branch – Seattle Public Library, 5614 22nd Ave NW, Seattle, WA 98107 
  • Thursday, December 11, 5:30–7:30 PM at Denny International Middle School, 2601 SW Kenyon St, Seattle, WA 98106 
  • Tuesday, December 16, 5:30–7:30 PM at Rainier Community Center, 4600 38th Ave. S, Seattle, WA 98118 

Divest SPD reported that less than 10% of 2025 SPD recruits were women, a blow to the department’s 30×30 initiative. 

Skeptics of the initiative point out that women making up 30% of the police force wouldn’t necessarily fix the systemic issue of police violence. Also concerning is the department’s efforts to recruit women without a clear plan in place to address what appears, from both lawsuits and conditions documented in a 30×30 report published in September 2023, to be a hostile workplace for women. 

New Councilmember Eddie Lin was sworn in today. Councilmember-elect Dionne Foster and Mayor-elect Katie Wilson won’t be sworn in until the beginning of 2026, but because Lin’s seat was being held by an appointee, he was sworn in early. 

For the same reason, King County Executive Girmay Zahilay was sworn in today. 

Surveillance News:

I wrote about Washington cities’ struggle with what to do about Flock Safety license plate readers (ALPRs), both because of the evidence that the data is being shared with federal agencies, including ICE, and because of a recent lawsuit brought by the cities of Stanwood and Sedro-Wooley in which ALPR video was deemed to be within valid public record parameters. As a result, many Washington cities have paused or delayed their ALPR programs. 

In the summer, I reported that it looked like the King County Housing Authority’s (KCHA) ALPR camera data had been shared with federal agencies such as ICE. KCHA has since decided to end their ALPR pilot. 

Since I wrote the article, Stanwood and Sedro-Wooley have appealed the court decision about whether ALPR video counts as a public record, and residents of Olympia are asking their city council to shut down their Flock ALPR program.

There are also new records showing that ALPR programs are being used to surveil protesters and activists, including in Washington state. 

Meanwhile,The Intercept found that fusion centers were being used to surveil pro-Palestine protests on at least five college campuses across the country. Fusion centers were established after 9/11 to better enable information sharing between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, including campus police. 

“The normalization of intelligence sharing between campus police departments and federal law enforcement agencies is widespread across U.S. universities,” the Intercept wrote.

Washington State News:

Governor Bob Ferguson made an appointment to fill the upcoming vacancy on the Washington Supreme Court: Colleen Melody, who spent the last decade working at the Attorney General’s office leading the civil rights division (a position to which she was hired by Ferguson). While at the AG’s office, Melody was deeply involved in filing lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s executive orders during his first term from 2017-2020. A career government lawyer, Melody has never before served as a judge. 

Melody will serve as a Supreme Court justice for 2026, but she would have to run for election next November in order to retain the judgeship. The big question to consider, should she choose to run, is her stance on the legality of a wealth tax in Washington state. 

The latest state revenue forecast showed a slight uptick in revenue projections for the current biennial budget (2025-2027), but not enough to make much difference. Talk abounds about potential new revenue sources for the state. It’s unclear if we’ll see a repeat to this year’s legislative session when Ferguson said he’d veto any budget proposal that included a wealth tax. 

Ferguson is expected to release his budget proposal before the end of the year, giving us a few weeks to review it before the next state legislative session begins on January 12. 

Recent Headlines:

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Will Katie Wilson be a Sea Change for Seattle?

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Election News:

It feels like for the last week, it’s been all Seattle mayoral election, all the time! But it looks like Katie Wilson squeaked out the win in what is likely to be a sea change for Seattle. 

In other Seattle election results, Alexis Mercedes Rinck handily won reelection as a councilmember, and Dionne Foster beat incumbent Sara Nelson as the other city-wide councilmember. Eddie Lin beat Adonis Ducksworth for the D2 council seat. 

For Seattle City Attorney, Erika Evans beat Republican incumbent Ann Davison. I chatted with Evans on the phone a few days after the election, and we discussed her vision for the office. 

The new (and much larger) Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise (FEPP) levy passed, as did the B&O tax restructure championed by Rinck. The spending plan for the FEPP dollars will be decided next year, including whether any of those dollars will go to police in schools, so that will be something that bears watching.

In King County, Girmay Zahilay will take over as King County Executive, beating out Claudia Balducci, who will remain on the King County Council. Zahilay is vacating a seat on the council, so look for a replacement to be appointed soon. Otherwise, on the King County Council, it was an election for the incumbents, with the open seat in District 5 going to Steffanie Fain. 

I also want to give a shout-out to Burien! Their progressive slate of councilmember candidates all won their races.

You might also want to check out my colleague Ryan Packer’s article about 6 election bellweathers, which include a city council race in Bellevue in which incumbent Conrad Lee has finally been unseated after… 32 years.  

Seattle News:

I wrote an article about Mayor Bruce Harrell’s response to the threat of escalating ICE enforcement and the possibility of President Donald Trump sending the National Guard to Seattle. I discuss Harrell’s proposed law enforcement mask ban and Rinck’s proposed Statement of Legislative Intent that will require the Seattle Police Department to report on their implementation plan for the two executive orders. 

This is a tough one because looking around the country, it looks like the most impactful/successful resistance to ICE is coming directly from the streets. So far, responses from city and state governments have been less productive. 

Budget Chair Dan Strauss announced his 2026 budget balancing package. There was enough money for him to provide funding for each councilmember to address at least some of their priorities. The councilmembers will be voting on amendments to the balancing package this Friday, November 14. The amendments have not been released to the public as of publication of this newsletter, giving very little time for review.

The final budget vote is expected to be on Friday, November 21. 

There’s been a shakeup at SPD, with Chief Shon Barnes firing two of his top civilian command staff members: Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey and General Counsel Rebecca Boatright. It is unclear if the Mayor’s Office was involved in this decision in any way. This might mark a preference to move away from civilianization at SPD, a position that would certainly make the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) happy. 

Barnes also named Captain Jim Britt as the new commander of the East Precinct. Britt was formerly in charge of SPD’s real time crime center, and I haven’t yet heard who will be taking his place in such a highly technical role. 

It looks like it might not be just SPD that has a problem mistreating their women employees. The Seattle Fire Department’s (SFD) former head of human resources, Sarah Lee, has filed a $2.5 million claim against the department. Lee, who was fired in September, says she was let go in retaliation for standing up to workplace misconduct and discrimination against women in the department. Her claim contains details of 14 different allegations.

The Seattle Times wrote, “Lee’s filing speaks of a department that broadly mistreats women.”

Lastly, this afternoon, city council voted to confirm Bonnie Glenn as the new director of the Office of Police Accountability OPA). This is a bit surprising as in the past, the public has been able to hear from finalist candidates for the OPA director position and submit their questions to potentially be answered. This time there’s been no public engagement that I’m aware of and the appointment is simply being rushed through. 

However, the appointment of Glenn is only for a one-year term (until the end of 2026) to complete the term of former director Gino Betts. Wilson will be able to select her own candidate if she so chooses for a term beginning in 2027. 

My journalist colleague Glen Stellmacher has some direct and concerning experience with Glenn in her role as the interim OPA director. He says he had to file a bar complaint against Glenn before she would begin an investigation about an SPD intelligence officer who “knowingly lied to investigators about SPD’s use of informants during the 2020 protests.”

King County and WA State News:

King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda has a few interesting addendums to the 2026-2027 county budget that made it into the budget striker. One proviso will require the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPAO) to provide data on reoffending rates for youth subject to traditional prosecution. This data will allow a more meaningful analysis of the recidivism rates for youth participating in diversion programs. 

Mosqueda has a second proviso that will require the creation of a master list of surveillance technology being used by any King County department. She is interested in such a list as her office works to develop a surveillance technology ordinance for the county. 

On the state level, the Senate Democratic Caucus is discussing the idea of a “millionaires tax.” The proposal being discussed would levy a 9.9% tax on adjusted gross income over $1 million. The Democrats would have to pass this new tax during an election year, however, and Governor Bob Ferguson has proven to be resistant thus far to passing progressive taxes, having quashed the much-discussed wealth tax earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Senator June Robinson, the Democrat’s chief budget writer, has told her colleagues not to put in any new requests for funding for 2026. Since Ferguson approved the state’s budget in the spring, revenue forecasts have been grim and there is likely to be a large shortfall to deal with in the short legislative session this winter. 

Ferguson will submit his budget proposal in December in advance of the legislative session in January.

I do have an article coming out very soon (maybe tomorrow morning?) with more about license plate surveillance being used for immigration enforcement across Washington state, a recent Public Records Act lawsuit, and more, so keep an eye out for that. 

Recent Headlines:

 

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