City Attorney’s Office

State millionaires income tax: a big swing among budget cuts

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Seattle News:

Last week I chatted with Hannah Sabio-Howell, who is challenging Washington State Senator Jamie Pedersen for his seat in the 43rd LD. I expect this to shape up to be an interesting race!

I also recently covered the current backlog over at the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, and how City Attorney Erika Evans is planning to adjust workflow to try to deal with it. Evans also said the office needs more money, which could be difficult given Mayor Katie Wilson recently asked all city departments to prepare a list of potential cuts for this year’s budget season. 

And I reported on SPD’s committee report in response to a budget SLI passed last November on their federal immigration enforcement policies. I used quotes liberally in this article because it was one of those meetings where I felt it was important for people to know what had been said. 

I’ll have an article out very soon about the detention facilities moratoriums in Seattle, King County, and elsewhere, as well as some more news out of the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. 

SPD has claimed that its real time crime center has tripled “the odds that a victim receives justice.” PubliCola wrote about what this means, pointing out that SPD is defining “receiving justice” as arrests made (with no details about prosecution, jail time, or how the RTCC was involved), which can also result in overpolicing.

Almost a month ago, CARE Chief Amy Barden attended a Public Safety committee meeting to reiterate what she’s been saying all along: that the new SPOG contract approved in December is preventing Seattle’s CARE team from doing their jobs. I was on vacation at the time, but Erica Barnett wrote a great article on the topic, which also links to her live reporting on Bluesky. 

Memorably, Barden was chided by Councilmember Martiza Rivera for being honest about the impacts of the new SPOG contract on the CARE team. 

“I agree there’s plenty of work to go around, and we need to work together,” Rivera said. “And so what I would like to see is working together, less accusatory language, and how can you be, you know, a person of change, to really work together to make things happen. So rather than constantly pointing out maybe the negative and what is not going well, let’s hear about what is going well and how you can help make things better.”

From her words, it sounds like Rivera doesn’t want to hear about the negative consequences of her vote on the SPOG contract, nor does she appear to want to grapple with the reality that the police are blocking the effective deployment of alternative response in Seattle.

WA State News:

The big news has been the passage of the millionaires’ income tax after over 24 hours of debate in the House. It even looks like Governor Bob Ferguson might agree to sign it! In return, lawmakers have rolled back last year’s increase on the estate tax, bringing down the top rate from 35% to 20%.

Included in the millionaires tax is a rollback of a sales tax on services passed last year, set to take effect in 2029. Because cities and counties collect sales tax (not just the state), this repeal will have an effect on local municipalities’ bottom lines, as well as Sound Transit’s finances.

The legislature also passed the state’s operating budget. There is already an $878 million budget hole expected for 2027, which will have to be dealt with next session. Legislators used the rainy day fund and a few discontinued tax breaks to try to close this year’s budget gap, which was worsened by the state having to pay large amounts on lawsuit payouts for government misconduct. The budget includes cuts to child care, Transition to Kindergarten, and local effort assistance money for public school students.  

The ALPR bill also made it through concurrence and is on its way for the governor’s signature. I’ll be writing in detail about what’s actually in the final bill and what it means for surveillance in the state.

On Flock license plate readers specifically: Flock updated its terms and conditions on February 16, 2026, making several changes. Of particular note, Flock now has a perpetual license to use Customer Data (meaning even after a specific contract ends or is canceled) and Flock is now allowed to use all Customer Data for its own product development. The terms for privacy commitments around training data have been removed from the new contract, including the commitment to never sell or share the training data with third parties. 

Other changes have been made, including making the agreement governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, after mandatory mediation and arbitration. You can read about all the changes here.

Recent Headlines:

State millionaires income tax: a big swing among budget cuts Read More »

Seattle and King County on a bumpy road due to Trump administration chaos

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What I’ve been working on:

I’ve had four articles out at The Urbanist in the last two weeks, which is more than usual, hence the delay in this edition of Notes from the Emerald City. 

Top of mind for me, I’ve been working on two pieces covering local impacts of the Trump administration thus far.

 Seattle and King County Grapple with Federal Disinvestment and Threats primarily covers the financial and budgetary impacts of the federal administration on Seattle and King County. Long story short, we’ve got a rough ride ahead. 

Seattle Gears Up to Fight Back as Trump Eviscerates Funding, Rights primarily covers the impacts on civil rights and vulnerable communities, including coverage from Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck’s first meeting of the Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes. I also cover the danger to the Pacific Northwest’s electricity supply and how the University of Washington is being impacted (although there is more recent news on that in the recent headlines below as well). 

I hope these two articles can get people up to speed on what’s going on and prepare for the struggles ahead. 

I wrote a piece about new SPD Chief Shon Barnes, who appeared before the City Council’s public safety committee for the first time at the end of February after being on the job for one month. 

Finally, I covered Mayor Bruce Harrell’s recent proposal to renew Seattle’s democracy voucher program, going over the program’s successes as well as reforms that might be needed. This program is the first of its kind in the country, and after 10 years, we have some idea how it is working. 

Other Seattle news:

This week, there was new coverage of the surveillance pilot starting soon in Seattle, and it includes a map with the proposed locations of 20 CCTV cameras in the CID. 

The CARE department presented to the public safety committee this week. In a testament to how busy I’ve been writing, I haven’t yet watched it, but I heard some councilmembers were criticizing the program. More on this when I’ve had a chance to catch up. 

The City Attorney’s Office is requesting to add more staff to their Federal Response Team in response to President Donald Trump’s chaos. No details yet on how many staff or how much this might cost.

PubliCola reported on a $40,000 two-day media training held by SPD in March and June of 2024, saying, “This is how-to-boil-water stuff: At some point, someone probably has to tell you how to do it, but it probably doesn’t require hiring a $40,000 consultant.”

Prism reported on the backchannel coordination between Seattle’s Federal Monitor for the consent decree, Antonio Oftelie, SPD’s general counsel Rebecca Boatwright, and SPD’s then-Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives Chris Fisher. The article cites conversations between the three at some length. As the article states, “While the Seattle Police Department (SPD) struggled with accountability in 2020, the federal monitor tasked with overseeing police reform was privately seeking input from the very department he was meant to regulate, according to documents obtained by Prism.”

New media analysis

A new Media Matters analysis of online shows found that 9 out of the top 10 online shows they assessed were right-leaning. Right-leaning online shows had nearly five times as many followers and subscribers as left-leaning online shows. 

Over a third of the shows said they were apolitical, but when analyzed, 72% of those “apolitical” shows were found to be right-leaning. Of the top nine right-leaning shows (only one left-leaning show makes the top ten at all), four are identified as news and politics, with the other five being instead called comedy, education, and society and culture. 

As an increasing number of Americans rely on these online shows and podcasts for their news, we can expect the impacts of this disparity to continue to grow. 

Recent Headlines:

Election Season:

 

Seattle and King County on a bumpy road due to Trump administration chaos Read More »

More ghost cops found in Seattle’s budget as Council wonders how their “new crimes” will impact expenses

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Seattle News:

On Monday, the budget committee heard issue identification presentations from their Central Staff on SPD (memo), the CARE department (memo), SFD, and LAW (memo), which in addition to the City Attorney’s Office also included issues related to the Seattle Municipal Court (SMC). 

SPD:

It turns out there are more ghost cop positions than SPD’s Executive Director of Budget and Finance Angela Socci admitted to in SPD’s budget presentation a few weeks ago. Who would have thought! A reminder that SPD Captain James Britt also gave extremely misleading statements a few months ago about SPD’s current real time crime center, saying it had never been operational when there is proof it was being used back in 2020. 

Central Staff identified 35 additional ghost cop positions in the proposed budget, which account for an additional $6.5 million per year. In the proposal, SPD has 1076 FTE funded for sworn officers, but based on their hiring and separation estimates won’t be able to get past 1041 FTE. 

Per Greg Doss from Central Staff, 154 FTE from SPD were immediately not funded, 23 FTE were unfunded to put $4.3 million back into the General Fund, and 23 FTE were unfunded to provide $4.3 million for more SPD overtime. This is how the 1076 number was reached.

SPD is also receiving an additional $10 million in overtime for “emphasis patrols” in 2025, but that amount is not yet included in the 2026 budget. Doss suggested Council might want to spend the newly found $6.5 million on providing $10 million in additional overtime in 2026. 

No mention was made of the $1.5 million for hiring bonuses that Socci had indicated in the previous SPD presentation was also being funded by salary savings. 

Council President Sara Nelson said the council has “created a few new crimes” and wondered why overtime wasn’t projected to go up even further as a result. 

The parking enforcement officers (PEO) also have 19-20 vacant positions (out of a total 104). One suggestion was to use some (or all?) of this salary savings to fund two new training positions to help streamline the PEO hiring and training process. 

Council also discussed SPD’s 30×30 initiative, which has a goal to hire more women officers at SPD. There will be a more detailed presentation on this initiative at the end of the year after budget season is over. Possible measures being discussed are more flexible work schedules and flexible round-the-clock child care. 

Councilmember Robert Kettle took the opportunity to once again blame the previous council for current staffing at SPD.

CARE:

Central Staff explained that the CARE dual dispatch has been difficult to implement because the CARE team is designed to respond to Priority 3 and 4 calls, but they have been located in places with a large call load of Priority 1 and 2 calls. This means officers aren’t available to be on the scene for the lower level calls, preventing CARE from doing anything but sitting around and waiting for them, often for so long that they are no longer needed once SPD arrives. 

Thus far CARE has only been dispatched less than twice per month. They are more often requested as a secondary response, often to provide transport. 

However, starting on October 8, CARE made operational changes to proactively drive around and respond to “quasi-medical calls,” increasing their activity. However, Health One will soon begin responding to behavioral health calls so there is some confusion as to the distinction between Health One and the CARE team.

The CARE team has been limited to the dual dispatch model due to the SPOG contract. 

Another policy consideration was related to data collection by CARE, which isn’t as robust as hoped, at least partly because the team is being dispatched so infrequently. The council is considering a state of legislative intent (SLI) to have CARE develop more robust data collection.

A new Seattle Restoration Director position is also being added to CARE. This person, who has already been hired, is coordinating the work done by the Downtown Activation Team (DAT) and might have a much expanded role in future to help re-envision 911 response in the city with the potential for many different services/people to be dispatchable. 

Kettle said the City needs to take SPD from being so central to its public safety response. He mentioned the roles that public health and public services have to play in public safety overall,

LAW and SMC:

LAW is worried because they will potentially be losing two civil attorney positions and one criminal attorney position in 2025. In addition to keeping that criminal attorney, they’d like to hire an additional “floating prosecutor.” 

Central Staff also identified that additional funding for implementation of new policies enacted in 2024 such as SOAP, SODA, the new street racing ordinance, the re-criminalization of prostitution loitering, and the new SCORE jail contract, has not been included in Harrell’s proposed budget. 

SMC has said they will probably need an additional $196,000 in 2025 and $520,000 in 2026 to transport defendants to and from the SCORE jail. Otherwise they would need to spend even more money for a new judicial department that could manage all the virtual hearings for those housed at SCORE. 

Kettle said he is worried about the health of the “criminal justice system.”

Other Seattle News:

The city council also received the updated revenue forecast for 2025, which was mixed. JumpStart and REET revenue looks like it will be slightly up, but General Fund revenues will be down by around $20 million (driven by lower sales and B&O taxes), a further gap for the city council to fill. 

This week the new police officer training academy in Arlington celebrated a soft opening. The facility is expected to be open fully by 2025 and could speed up training times for police officers.

The results of the gender-based violence prevention services investment passed in the 2024 budget have finally been announced. 

The Stranger drills down deeper on the new less lethal weapons legislation being proposed by Harrell, including a lift on the blast ball ban. You can read some of the justification being presented for this proposal in my consent decree article from last week. 

A Washington state defense attorney, John Sheeran, has been indicted for allegedly smuggling drugs into the King County Jail. Drugs he is accused of smuggling include methamphetamine, ketamine, buprenorphine, and THC. He was the defense attorney who initially represented Ed Troyer, the Sheriff of Pierce County, in the suit regarding the Black newspaper carrier. Troyer is not running for reelection this year.  

The Seattle Student Union is asking for more money in the Seattle budget for student mental health services and also wants a student advisory council to be established to have a larger voice in how any money is spent. 

Other Stories:

Austin Field writes about the new public defender caseload standards that are currently being considered by the state Supreme Court. He argues that public defenders are the main line of defense against law enforcement vigilantism. He writes: “To be clear, reducing public defender workloads isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats or even prosecutors versus defenders—some prosecutors acknowledge the need for better public defense. This caseload fight is about democracy versus authoritarianism.”

You can provide public comment to the Court about this matter here. 

Meanwhile, a Washington state watchdog office recently published a report finding that prisoners in solitary confinement in Washington state aren’t receiving basic quality-of-life care and are subject to “dehumanizing and traumatizing” restraint practices. 

Unsurprisingly the Washington Department of Corrections argues that they need more money to make progress on their goals related to solitary confinement. 

The Washington State Standard reports:

 “But Seevers, with Disability Rights Washington, said that there are several easy policy changes that the agency can make to reduce solitary confinement without additional funding, such as raising the standard of proof for infractions, as people are often put in solitary confinement while awaiting a decision on disciplinary action. “DOC has demonstrated that they’re not going to make changes unless there’s a legislative mandate for them to do so,” Seevers said.” 

Recent Headlines:

More ghost cops found in Seattle’s budget as Council wonders how their “new crimes” will impact expenses Read More »

How the democratic process in Seattle is being undermined by the City Attorney’s Office

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There hasn’t been a huge amount of news as we all recover from the long weekend, but let’s look at what we’ve got this week.

Seattle News:

This weekend there was follow-up on a story I wrote last March about Seattle Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi. If you remember, the City Attorney’s Office (CAO) announced they would file an affidavit of prejudice against Vaddadi on all criminal cases going forward. Six months later, this tactic to prevent Vaddadi from hearing criminal cases is ongoing. 

Now Judge Vaddadi, recently returned from maternity leave, has published an op-ed in The Stranger sharing her perspective on this unprecedented step on the part of Davison. 

In her own words: “This behavior has a significantly negative impact on the Court and our democratic process. If prosecutors can effectively nullify a sitting judge this way, we do not have real elections. To my knowledge, this is the first time in Washington history that a prosecutor has made it so a particular judge will never hear any criminal cases.”

Vaddadi claims every detail named in the memo written by then-Criminal Division Chief Natalie Walton-Anderson, who now works for the Mayor’s Office as the Director of Public Safety, is false, and many of its false claims, even were they true, do not reflect the bias of which Vaddadi has been accused. Neither Vaddadi nor any reporter has been able to obtain the details for the cases cited in the memo. Vaddadi is blunt in her op-ed: “The CAO has failed to provide any evidence of this case simply because it does not exist.”

The memo in question was circulated only a few weeks after Vaddadi had disqualified a prosecuting attorney from a case due to a “potential ethics and evidentiary issue,” the only decision made by Vaddadi that the city has appealed. Her decision was later held up by the Superior Court. 

As budget season quickly approaches, it is also relevant to point out that not only do these blanket affidavits undermine the democratic process of electing judges in Seattle, they are also costing the city additional money, as it now needs to hire pro tem judges to cover the cases Vaddadi is not able to hear. 

In other news, Seattle kids returned to school on Wednesday, and there is a report that on the first day of school, an SPD officer sat in Garfield’s parking lot most of the day. Two security guards were also observed patrolling, and some members of Community Passageways were present at lunchtime. 

King County News:

Following the King County Council’s vote last week to support a non-binding motion to keep its youth jail (The Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center) open, The Stranger reported on how Councilmember Girmay Zahilay’s vote in favor of this motion seems to contradict his 2019 platform to “dismantle our current youth prison model.” The article speculates that Zahilay might have chosen to vote in this way due to a desire to become the next King County Executive; if he’s preparing for a run next year, he might benefit from distancing himself from the “radical” left. 

However, Zahilay  told The Stranger that his position on youth incarceration hasn’t actually changed that much, and that the community groups that helped him develop his platform back in 2019 were in favor of his amendments to the recent motion, which was originally put forward by Councilmember Reagan Dunn. 

Current Executive Dow Constantine, on the other hand, is sticking with his decision made in 2020 to work towards closing the youth jail. He told The Stranger, “The youth justice system does not produce the outcomes we all want, which are safe communities and healthy kids.”

As the narrative of increasing youth crime begins to spread both locally and elsewhere in the nation, The Stranger provides an important counterpoint by looking at local case referral numbers: juvenile crime at present seems about on par with pre-pandemic numbers. Bookings into the youth jail are now also about on par with pre-pandemic numbers. Both these numbers had dropped in 2020 due to the pandemic.

The main difference between pre-pandemic and now appears to be that youth are more likely to be using guns, which is a strong argument in favor of investing more heavily in the County’s  gun violence prevention programs that are perennially underfunded. 

King County’s budget season begins at the same time as Seattle’s, with Constantine’s proposed budget dropping on September 24 and council budget briefings beginning on September 25. 

While King County usually does a biennial budget, for this budget cycle they will only be preparing a budget for 2025 in order to avoid budget season overlapping with elections for county offices. Voters recently approved elections at the county level to move to even years, which means those elected for office in 2023 and 2025 will only serve three-year terms. Four-year terms will resume beginning for those elected in 2026. 

Recent Headlines:

 

How the democratic process in Seattle is being undermined by the City Attorney’s Office Read More »

Seattle Homicides Down in 2024 in Spite of SPD Staffing “Crisis”

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Seattle News:

PubliCola broke the news this weekend that SPD knew while he was still in training that Officer Kevin Dave, the officer who killed Jaahnavi Kandula last year, had a “checkered history” at the Tucson Police Department, which fired him in 2013. As a lateral hire, Dave received one of the controversial $7500 hiring bonuses from Seattle. His history in Tucson included a possible drunk driving incident and a “preventable collision,” and he was the subject of five other investigations in his 18 months there, including one for violating general standards of conduct. 

As of the end of March, homicides have decreased in Seattle by 36%, Axios has reported. In hard numbers, there were 9 homicides in the first three months of this year that took place in Seattle, as compared to 14 that took place during the same period last year. And Axios further reported that “Detective Brian Pritchard, a spokesperson for the Seattle Police Department, told Axios that as of April 9, there have been 12 homicides in the city this year, compared to 19 in the same period in 2023.” Axios also said “at this pace, the homicide rate in the U.S. could match its level in 2014, when many cities saw 30-year lows in violent crime and homicides.”

This backs up local journalist Guy Oron’s numbers finding that SPD staffing and crime rates don’t correlate at all.

Mayor Bruce Harrell has announced he has submitted emergency legislation to amend Seattle’s Fire Code and allow the fire department to order and execute demolition of vacant buildings that present a fire hazard. There were 130 fires in vacant buildings in Seattle last year. The legislation will be co-sponsored by CM Bob Kettle and CM Tammy Morales and will go through the public safety committee.

City Attorney Ann Davison has hired Fred C. Wist II to fill the Criminal Division Chief position. Wist comes from the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, where as PubliCola reported, he came under fire for investigating a special drugs investigations unit, several members of whom later sued him, another deputy prosecutor, and several sheriff’s department officials. Wist uses a sheriff’s badge with a “thin blue line” mourning band as his profile picture on Facebook.

The Criminal Division Chief at the Seattle City Attorney’s Office was previously held by Natalie Walton-Anderson, who notably wrote the memo outlining the strategy for the office to file affidavits of prejudice in all criminal cases against Seattle Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi. Walton-Anderson resigned soon after the hung jury in the case the office brought to trial against a Stop the Sweeps protester. 

Public Safety Civil Service Commission (PSCSC) Director Andrea Scheele attended a Community Police Commission (CPC) meeting this week, where she pushed back against several assertions made by Council President Sara Nelson. She said Seattle using the NTN test instead of the PST test in the past has never been a deterrent for applicants, that the PSCSC already has regular contact with applicants as soon as they apply, and that customizing the PST test would not take 8 weeks as Council President Nelson suggested but more likely 6-12 months. 

The CPC will be holding a community meeting on Tuesday, April 23 from 5:30-7:45pm at Van Asselt Community Center on 2820 S Myrtle to discuss the recent proposed SPOG contract in a “guided conversation.” And there will be light snacks!

Recent Headlines:

 

Seattle Homicides Down in 2024 in Spite of SPD Staffing “Crisis” Read More »

All Kinds of Power Struggles in Seattle This Week

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Seattle News:

This week there are some interesting follow-ups on developing stories we’ve discussed in the past.

First, Publicola reported that CM Nelson plans to propose legislation that would require the Public Safety Civil Service Commission (PSCSC) to switch police officer tests to the Public Safety test. The current National Testing Network test is more rigorous and was developed with the City of Seattle’s consent decree in mind. The Public Safety test, on the other hand, has a 90% pass rate on the first try. Contrary to what Nelson said in the previous public safety committee meeting on the topic, this seems likely to in fact compromise the standards for police officers in Seattle.

But the plot thickens! The PSCSC has sole authority over developing and holding testing, and changing this would require a law change. From the Publicola article: “Courts have upheld the PSCSC’s authority in the past, Scheele notes. “The last time the Council passed an ordinance undercutting the commission’s independence it had to be repealed,” she said, after a state appeals court ruled that the city council acted outside its authority when it passed a law moving many of the PSCSC’s “substantive” duties, including officer testing, to the city’s Human Resources Department.” So a court case regarding this issue may be in our future. 

Meanwhile, hiring new officers has become difficult across the country and is much more likely to be related to the fact that perceptions of being a police officer have shifted and people aren’t as interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement. 

Relatedly, SPD issued a tepid and disingenuous defense of their treatment of female officers. On the same day, KUOW published an investigative report on sexism and harassment within the department that emphasized how scared these female officers were to even speak to the press: “These women started talking with each other and agreed to speak with KUOW on condition of anonymity, because they feared retaliation. Floyd was the only one to let KUOW identify her. The women said that if found out, they could be investigated for speaking to the press without permission. One woman shook through her interview with KUOW. Five women declined to speak with KUOW, saying through intermediaries that they were scared of retaliation.”

In other news, City Attorney Ann Davison charged the six protesters at a City Council meeting in February with gross misdemeanors for trespassing. And we also got some more information about why Davison might have made the decision to disqualify Judge Pooja Vaddadi from all criminal cases at Seattle Municipal Court. The Stranger reported that Davison asked a higher court to review Vaddadi’s decision to disqualify an assistant city attorney from prosecuting a case. The day after this decision of Vaddadi’s was the day then-Criminal Division Chief Natalie Walton-Anderson sent out the infamous memo that I covered here, announcing the new policy of disqualifying the judge from all future criminal cases.

The Stranger published an in-depth piece on the problems currently faced by Seattle’s dual dispatch program, aka the “alternative” emergency response program that doesn’t follow the best practices of such programs run elsewhere. Ashley Nerbovig reports that the program is currently underutilized and mostly getting referrals from SPD instead of from 911 dispatch. Here is a particularly pertinent quote from the article:

“Right now, Smith acknowledges the City is watching whether this program can exist without pissing off either the police or fire union. Police union president Mike Solan has expressed a distaste for police alternatives, appearing to view them as an insult to SPD officers. The City’s contract with SPOG prevents it from shifting any work from sworn-officers to civilians without negotiations. Given how much leverage the City has already given away in the MOU, and given the repeated emphasis from the Mayor and the council on hiring more police officers as the only solution to public safety concerns, it seems unlikely that they’ll push hard to take lower-priority work off the plates of officers who constantly complain about having all this low-priority work on their plates. The other lingering question is whether the City plans to actually fund the program long-term.” 

Finally, Publicola reported on two smaller stories. First, the City Council are having embarrassing budget conversations in which they call out problems of efficiency with the budget that do not in fact exist. And second, CM Bob Kettle exposed City Hall to COVID when he knew he’d been exposed but did not choose to work from home until he got a positive test. For those who are unaware, it is in fact possible to spread COVID before you test positive. 

Jail News:

The Seattle Times reported about a 24-year-old who hung himself while in the Klickitat County Jail last year while withdrawing from fentanyl, which highlights how underprepared many Washington jails find themselves for dealing with the current fentanyl crisis. The article says, “As of 2019, Washington’s county jails had among the highest death rates in the nation. Suicide has been the leading cause of death in the state’s jails and in jails nationally.”

And Publicola reported on the death of a woman in the SCORE jail last year. She died of dehydration, malnutrition, low electrolyte levels and renal failure. 4 people died in the SCORE jail last year, which is a very high number given its population. About the fatality report, Publicola had this to say: “The report said Majoor was well-known to staff at SCORE and implied that this may have led to inadequate care: “Over familiarity with the decedent and previous detox experiences were discussed as possible issues.””

At the King County Law and Justice committee meeting this past week, councilmembers discussed the plan to close the County’s juvenile detention facility. In 2020 Executive Dow Constantine promised to close the facility by 2025, but that date has been recently pushed out until 2028, and judging by the committee discussion, is likely to be pushed out even further. Indeed, some councilmembers did not seem convinced that actual achievement of zero youth detention will ever be possible.  

The main points of contention appear to be whether the newly proposed respite and receiving centers for youth would feature locked doors and what the differences might be between security and safety. 

Councilmember Jorge Barón spoke eloquently about the problem, saying, “It strikes me as a failure of our society that we have people at a young age engaged in harm-causing behavior, including very serious criminal behavior. We need to really reflect on that. What kind of society are we creating and how do we change that?” He spoke about how the current system contributes to harm-causing behavior rather than reducing it. 

The County will start public engagement on the Care & Closure plan soon, as well as releasing recommendations for improvements that can be made to the existing facility that can be included in Constantine’s budget proposal this fall. Meanwhile, the advisory committee will continue to meet to hash out the question of security vs. safety.

Recent Headlines:

All Kinds of Power Struggles in Seattle This Week Read More »

Are $230 Million in Seattle Budget Cuts Even Possible? Budget Director Says No.

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Seattle News:

This week at Seattle’s Public Safety committee meeting, the committee discussed SPD testing, recruiting, and retention. Then on Thursday night, Mayor Harrell hosted a public safety forum at the Seattle Public Library. He plans to hold more informal public safety forums by precinct in the month of April.

Fascinating things were said at both of these meetings, and I’m currently working on a longer piece analyzing them more thoroughly. More on this, hopefully next week! 

City Council is teed up to vote on a resolution at next week’s 3/19 meeting that appear to eliminate several Statements of Legislative Intent (SLI) passed by last year’s Council. One of the SLIs not appearing on the new list is the request for an evaluation of Seattle’s current gun violence prevention programs. More specifically, the SLI requested that “HSD and CSCC/CARE perform a gap analysis of the City’s current and priority investments in gun violence prevention as compared to the recommendations in the King County Regional Community Safety and Wellbeing (RCSWB) Plan, and identify complementary, duplicative, or gaps in services provided by the City and King County.” 

It is ironic that at a time when the city is trying to pressure through three concerning surveillance technologies with the justification that the city is struggling with gun violence, they are not willing to even finish a basic evaluation of already existing investments that won’t cost a penny.

Following up on the news about the City Attorney trying to disqualify Judge Vaddadi from hearing cases, the Seattle Times reports that certain defense attorneys are independently trying to find a way to fight back by having Vaddadi sign subpoenas and then arguing her signature on these documents means she shouldn’t be unilaterally removed from hearing the cases:

“In an interview, Vaddadi confirmed attorneys had sent her “fewer than a hundred” subpoenas to sign, which she did, but said she was unaware of any strategy by attorneys to get her back on the calendar. She, and at least some of her colleagues, interpret the court’s rules to mean that any judge can sign any subpoena sent to them.

“I would never strategize with one party or another, that would be incredibly unethical,” she said.”

Regarding Seattle’s upcoming enormous budget deficit, Crosscut recently reported that Julie Dingley, the city’s budget director, had said they will not be able to make $230 million worth of cuts by the beginning of 2025, and has suggested they will have to come up with one-time strategies to stagger implementation of such a large amount of cuts. It’s worth noting that Seattle is required by law to have a balanced budget. 

The same article reports that Councilmember Kettle supports having JumpStart tax funds go directly to the general fund to help balance it instead of honoring the spending plan for the tax that is currently in city statute. The JumpStart tax is currently the top source of funding for affordable housing in the city, so redirecting it in such a way would have consequences to the already meager store of affordable housing. 

Election News:

Tanya Woo has officially declared her candidacy for the Seattle City Council seat that she currently holds as an interim appointee. No other candidates for the seat have yet filed.

Perennial state lawmaker Frank Chopp has announced his retirement, and Shaun Scott has announced his candidacy to take over the 43rd Legislative District seat. And he is coming out swinging! Here is the first paragraph of his press release announcing his candidacy:

“The past four years have dealt a lifetime of challenges to residents of the 43rd Legislative District. The working class has seen costs of living increase, while major corporations dominate local elections and evade taxes. Renters can’t afford rent. For young people, the reality of a permanently altered climate lingers like smoke. Students are punished for attending state universities with a life sentence of debt. Disabled and immunocompromised Washingtonians enjoy few public accommodations, and Long COVID looms as a public health emergency. While Washingtonians hope a Democrat-controlled State Legislature and Governor’s office will support staple programs such as special education funding and the resumption of free meals in public schools, MAGA Republicans in cahoots with the billionaire class have launched initiatives to rollback recent state-level wins on climate sustainability and fair taxes.”

Scott is the Policy Lead at the Statewide Poverty Action Network, which is the advocacy arm of Solid Ground, which was founded by his predecessor Chopp. He is known for his run for City Council for D4 in 2019, a race he lost to Alex Pedersen by 4 points while being wildly outspent. Scott also authored the state-level guaranteed basic income (GBI) pilot in 2022.

King County News:

The Washington State Bar Association recently passed new standards for public defenders that will reduce their caseloads. While these standards will affect the entire state, they particularly impact King County because attorneys in King County are required to follow standards that the WSBA adopts.

Publicola reported that Executive Constantine was “alarmed enough” about this possibility that he had his general counsel send a letter to the WSBA asking them not to adopt these new standards. It is likely he is concerned about how this will impact funding for public defense, given the County is currently facing a two-year $100 million budget deficit. 

Publicola said: “According to DPD director Anita Khandelwal, that means the county must either hire enough attorneys—along with support staff like paralegals, social workers, and investigators—to meet the new standards or invest in alternatives to prosecution and incarceration, reducing caseloads by reducing the number of cases.” But Khandelwal argues it doesn’t have to be a budget question, as the County has three years to potentially ramp up alternative programming that would reduce their dependence on the traditional criminal legal system.

Recent Headlines:

 

Are $230 Million in Seattle Budget Cuts Even Possible? Budget Director Says No. Read More »

The Exodus of Inmates from the King County Jail Continues

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We’ll start off this week by looking at Chloe Cockburn’s recent reporting on the current landscape of policing in the United States. Police have already killed hundreds of people in 2023 (220 to be precise, and keep in mind we’re only two and a half months into the year). That figure is up 6% since 2021. 

She also reminds us of a Gallup poll conducted at the end of April-early May of 2022, saying:

“If you were just going by media commentators you would have thought that support for reforms had completely collapsed in the face of rising concerns about crime. On the contrary:  45% of Americans in 2022 supported eliminating police enforcement of nonviolent crimes, and 44% supported eliminating police unions. Moreover, 15% of Americans support eliminating police departments entirely, while Black Americans support this at the rate of 21%.”

I bring this up because I know some of you are disheartened by recent developments in the Washington state legislature. It is important to remember in spite of what the media might be saying, there is still an appetite in the United States for taking a different avenue to public safety that is more equitable and less harmful. The work being done in this space matters.

Seattle News:

This past Tuesday Seattle’s Public Safety and Human Services committee discussed the Seattle City Attorney’s Q4 2022 report. In Q4, the City Attorney’s Office received 2,740 referrals from SPD. For pre-pandemic comparison, the SPD gave 3,529 referrals in Q4 of 2018 and 3,724 referrals in Q4 of 2019. These referrals were all misdemeanors, as the City Attorney’s Office doesn’t deal with felony charges. 

The Seattle City Attorney’s Office also announced a 50% decrease in their case backlog over the course of 2022. The office filed 1,323 cases and declined 3,336 cases in Q4. Many of those declined cases were part of the aforementioned backlog. The office also took the opportunity during their presentation to discuss the difficulties recruiting and retaining prosecuting attorneys given their relatively low salaries compared to salaries of prosecutors in other cities.

At the State of Downtown event on Tuesday, Mayor Harrell said he wants to change significant laws to improve public safety, but he declined to give any details on what those laws might be. Stay tuned!

King County News:

Erica C. Barnett reports that this past weekend 50 inmates were moved from the King County Jail to the Maleng Regional Justice Center (MRJC)  in Kent. The MRJC is also suffering from insufficient staffing. According to the Department of Adult & Juvenile Detention, most of the people who were moved are facing misdemeanor or non-violent felony charges.

If you remember the plan discussed by the King County Law & Justice committee last week to move 50 additional inmates to SCORE in Des Moines, the Public Defenders’ Union is now trying to get an amendment added to that legislation that would codify the Department of Public Defense’s visitation needs and require some reporting. This legislation is due to be voted on by the full King County Council next week. 

Meanwhile, the Bellevue City Council approved funding for teams to provide public safety on public transit including the light rail. I’ve heard this new transit unit will consist of 7 armed officers who will patrol light rail stations and transit hubs. A community forum to discuss this new, already funded unit was held this past Tuesday evening.

Washington State News:

Taija PerryCook had a very informative article on the new 988 system in Crosscut. My takeaways:

  • Crisis Connections, which answers King County’s 988 calls, has experienced a 25-30% increase in calls since 988 launched last July. 
  • Before 988, Crisis Connection answered around 40% of calls within 30 seconds. Now they are able to answer 90% or more within 30 seconds.
  • 95% of calls are resolved over the phone. Fewer than 2% of 988 calls end up involving the police or EMS. 
  • For the 5% of calls not able to be resolved over the phone, speed of that response is critical. There is currently a bill in the state legislature that would increase funding for rapid-response teams. This bill was passed in the House and is now being considered in the Senate.

Recent Headlines:

 

The Exodus of Inmates from the King County Jail Continues Read More »

Questions About SPD’s Risk Managed Demand Report Overshadowed by the Start of Budget Season

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If you want to read about SPD’s Risk Managed Demand presentation, you can skip straight down to the “Seattle’s Public Safety Committee Meeting” section. But first, budget news!

Seattle’s Proposed Budget

Amy Sundberg
The first Seattle Select Budget committee meeting of the season has begun. I’m not going to live tweet the whole meeting, but I’ll try to tweet the things I find interesting.
You can see the Mayor’s proposed 2023-2024 budget here and the Budget Office’s presentation on it here. You can read local coverage of the budget here and here, and coverage of the Solidarity Budget here.
Let’s dive in and see what’s in this proposed budget relating to public safety.
First of all, SPD. The SPD budget in 2022 was $353m, and its proposed budget for 2023 is $373.5m, which is close to a 6% increase.
The bulk of this increase–almost $20m–is due to the Mayor’s proposal to move the parking enforcement officers (PEOs) back into SPD from SDOT. The stated reasons for doing so are that it will save more than $5m in overhead costs that SDOT needs to house the PEOs but SPD wouldn’t need, as they didn’t lose any overhead dollars when the PEOs left their department, and the PEOs would regain access to certain SPD databases, which would remove the basis for unfair labor practices. In addition, it sounds like the culture of the PEOs hasn’t yet shifted away from a more police-oriented feel. Mayor Harrell mentioned this might not be the final home of the PEOs. Reasons for keeping the PEOs in SDOT include maintaining promises made to community in 2020 to work to move civilian functions outside SPD; allowing closer collaboration between PEOs and SDOT to make our streets safer using more strategies than just ticketing; and leaving the PEOs where they are until a final home for them has been decided (I’m assuming the Mayor was referencing the possibility of housing them in the third public safety department he envisions).
In addition, the Mayor plans to reinvest about $17m of salary savings in SPD back into the department. This salary savings is realized through ghost positions within SPD that remain funded even though they will not be able to be filled during 2023. This money is to be used for the following investments:
  • $1.3m for addt’l police equipment, which is mostly weapons;
  • $4.25m for recruitment and retention bonuses;
  • $2.6m in addt’l overtime;
  • almost $3m for more technology projects;
  • $1m for a gunfire detection system, ShotSpotter;
  • $250k for Harbor Patrol;
  • $490.5k for a mental health practitioner;
  • $168k for a new OPA employee
  • $446k for relational policing, about which we have no details
  • $424.9k to transfer 1 IT employee and 2 LAW employees into SPD
Also in the budget for HSD are $4.3m for the Seattle Community Safety Initiative and $1.5m for the King County Regional Peacekeepers Collective, as well as $502k for victim advocates. The $1.2m allocated for alternative emergency response in the mid-year supplemental is retained, along with an additional $700k, all of which is currently sitting in Finance General until the Council decides which department to move it into. That $700k appears to be the only new investment allocated for community-based public safety alternatives, as the SCSI and the Peacekeepers were already funded in last year’s budget.
Controversially, the proposed budget includes legislation that would cap future liability for inflation-based increases for human service contracts at 4%. For reference, over the 12 month period ending in June 2022, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers increased 9.1 percent. It’s important to understand that these human service providers are public safety workers performing essential public services and already tend to be underpaid and are currently also understaffed. In a budget in which both police officers and fire fighters are being offered recruitment and retention packages, this legislation is a slap in the face to these essential workers, for whom it basically results in a pay cut.
Key Dates in the Seattle Budget Process:
October 11, 5pm: First evening public hearing
November 7: Chair’s Balancing Package introduced
November 8, 9:30am: Morning public hearing
November 15, 5pm: Second evening public hearing
November 16: Budget committee votes on balancing package
November 21: Budget committee vote on budget in the AM; final Full Council vote on the budget at 2pm
Public comment will also be heard at the October 11 and October 25 budget meetings at 9:30am, and probably one or two budget meetings in November as well.

King County Proposed Budget:

Executive Dow Constantine proposed his King County 2023-2024 budget on Tuesday. You can read about new investments being made in the law & justice category of the budget here and the complete rundown on the law, safety, & justice can be found here.
Some highlights:
  • $9m to the Regional Peacekeepers Collective
  • $2.3m to the Sheriff’s Office for a new gun violence unit and for detectives for the major crimes unit
  • $21m for 140 Metro “transit security officers” whose duties are not yet clear
  • $2.1m for behavioral health co-response unit expansion, which still involves sending armed officers to behavioral health crises
  • $5m for body cameras (this will take some years to implement)
  • $6.3m for jail-based opioid treatment programs and services for people being released from jail with substance abuse disorder
You can make public comment on the budget in person or virtually on the evening of Wednesday, October 5 at 6pm, and there are two in person only public comment opportunities on October 12 and October 19 at 6pm. There is one additional opportunity for public comment on November 8 at 9:30am. You can also email the King County council members directly about the budget. Suggested scripts are forthcoming from People Power Washington.

Seattle’s Public Safety Committee Meeting

The last Public Safety and Human Resources committee meeting until the end of budget season was held this Tuesday. Among other issues, the CMs discussed the City Attorney’s Office Q2 report and the SPD’s long-awaited Risk Managed Demand report.

Amy Sundberg
Good morning and welcome to Seattle’s special Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting. We’re starting with a bunch of appointments.
The City Attorney’s Office Q2 report showed how much faster the office has been making its filing decisions. The number of filed cases has more than doubled, in spite of misdemeanor referrals from SPD being down. They have also been declining fewer cases. Just as filed cases have risen dramatically, so have referrals to Community Court and Mental Health Court.
You can see the Risk Managed Demand (RMD) presentation here and the technical brief here. SPD requested to do this research before an alternative emergency response program was designed here in Seattle.
The analysis looks at injuries associated with the final 911 call type using a matrix of likelihood and severity. SPD had to manually upgrade or downgrade slightly more than 50% of the 356 call types, meaning the matrix worked less than half of the time, which caused some concern to CMs. Also causing concern was the belief this report was supposed to be analyzing the risk to call responders, while instead it uses the risk to the subject as a proxy for that, leaving out data from calls that involved use of force. If this sounds convoluted to you, you are not alone.
CM Mosqueda questioned whether, given the issues with this new report, the NICJR findings weren’t just as sound while also giving concrete policy changes that this new report doesn’t give. CM Herbold was concerned, given that 50% of the time call types were either upgraded or downgraded, that we need to understand what policies, principles, or rules lead to those judgment calls of how to change call type classification.
CM Lewis brought up Denver’s successful STAR program that answers calls that this new RMD report would suggest should go to some kind of co-response instead. In response, Dan Eder of the Mayor’s Office said the RMD report can’t answer CM Lewis’s questions, explaining that this risk analysis isn’t determinative of the most appropriate kind of program to design or call types to assign to a new program. Which begs the question: if this research doesn’t answer these questions, why are we a.) spending tons of taxpayer money on it, and b.) allowing it to drastically delay implementation of any alternative emergency response program?
CM Herbold said this RMD report shouldn’t hold up implementation of a new alternative response as discussed in the term sheet between the Mayor’s Office and Central Staff, and announced the next Public Safety committee meeting will take place on Tuesday, December 11 at 9:30am.

Other News of Note

Seattle’s Redistricting Commission voted to approve an amendment that unites Magnolia into District 6 and divides the Fremont neighborhood into three districts: D4, D6, and D7. As Doug Trumm writes: “[Commissioner] Juárez also pointed out that this was a significant departure from the Redistricting Justice for Washington Seattle maps that had the most positive comments throughout the process, which is why the commission’s initial proposal had largely been based on that map.”
It is worth noting that Magnolia is predominantly zoned for single family housing, while a large part of Fremont is within an urban village and is more renter-friendly. You can give public comment on this new plan on Saturday, October 8 from 10am-12pm via Zoom or in the Bertha Knight Landes Room on the City Hall 1st Floor.
King County leaders held a press conference to announce a $1.25B plan to address the behavioral health crisis, which will involve a new property tax levy that will be on the ballot in April 2023.
Last Friday Seattle’s Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights & Culture committee discussed the participatory budgeting process, and they’ll be back to discuss it further on December 9. The timeline for PB is as follows: planning and design will happen in fall of 2022; idea collection and proposal development will happen in winter of 2022-2023; proposal development and voting will happen in spring of 2023; and funding will be provided to the winning projects in summer of 2023.
A forum was held for Seattle Municipal Court judge candidates Pooja Vaddadi and Adam Eisenberg. You can watch it here.

Recent Headlines

Questions About SPD’s Risk Managed Demand Report Overshadowed by the Start of Budget Season Read More »

A Road Map for the Fall

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Seattle News

Hannah Krieg
Today the council will vote on hiring bonuses for cops. An organizer, TK, from Every Day March called into public comment to accuse the council of lying to Black organizers about their commitment to police accountability and reform during the summer of 2020.

Yesterday the Seattle City Council voted to pass the SPD hiring incentive legislation 6 to 3, with CMs Morales, Mosqueda, and Sawant voting against it. You can see CM Morales’s remarks about why she didn’t support this bill here:

Councilmember Tammy J. Morales
We have a LOT of challenges in this city that cannot be solved with a badge and a gun: inadequate housing options, homelessness, limited behavioral health services.

That’s why I voted no on hiring incentives for SPD yesterday. It passed @SeattleCouncil 6-3. Remarks below:

1/10 https://t.co/AtkCR6oq5f

I-135, Seattle’s social housing initiative, has turned in more signatures and is now aiming to be on the ballot in February 2023, pending signature verification.
The Seattle Times reported that in Q2, the Seattle City Attorney’s Office filed 1,708 cases, an increase of 124% from the same quarter last year.
At Wednesday’s Finance and Housing committee meeting, CMs received the city’s revenue update, and it’s not looking great for 2023 and 2024. The August forecast for 2022 comes in at $1,745,610,000. whereas the August forecast for 2023 is $1,519,120,000 and the August forecast for 2024 is $1,557,310,000. It’s worth noting those forecasts for 2023 and 2024 are the baseline forecasts, not the pessimistic ones.
Erica C. Barnett
Seattle Councilmember @CMTMosqueda has proposed using some JumpStart payroll tax revenues to once again pay for general-fund services in light of the city’s ongoing budget shortfall; funding would come from excess/higher-than-anticipated JS revenues. /1

CM Mosqueda has proposed using some of the JumpStart tax revenues to continue paying for general fund services in 2023 and 2024 to help fill the revenue vs. expenditure gap. The Mayor is also pulling together a progressive revenue task force to look for potential new sources of revenue for the city (think more in the 2025 range for when this could kick in). This news sets the stage for the upcoming budget season.

Looking forward….

The City of Seattle goes on its two week summer break starting on Monday, August 22. Unless something mind-blowing happens during that time, I’m not planning another edition of the newsletter until after Labor Day. But fear not, Budget Season will be upon us before we know it.
Upcoming Dates of Note:
9/13 9:30am: Seattle Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting, where there will be a Q&A with OPA Director nominee Gino Betts
9/20 2pm: potential final Council confirmation vote of Gino Betts as OPA Director
9/25 11am: People Power Washington’s General Meeting; come if you want to hear me talk about budgets (and honestly, who doesn’t want to hear that?)
9/27: Mayor Harrell transmits Seattle’s proposed 2023 budget; Executive Constantine transmits King County’s proposed 2023-2024 budget
10/21: Ballots for the General Election are mailed out to WA voters
11/8: Election Day!
11/22: potential final Council vote for Seattle’s 2023 budget

Recent Headlines

WA state delays watchdog reports on prisons, concerning advocates | Crosscut

WA state delays watchdog reports on prisons, concerning advocates | Crosscut
Washington’s prison oversight agency shelved half a dozen reports that were underway when its inaugural director departed last November.
crosscut.com  •  Share
TV News Is Ignoring the Eviction Crisis - by Adam Johnson

TV News Is Ignoring the Eviction Crisis – by Adam Johnson
After running nonstop sob stories about put-upon landlords in 2021, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News have largely ignored the devastating spike in evictions in 2022.
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Local Leaders Announce New Coalition to Address Behavioral Health Crisis - The Stranger

Local Leaders Announce New Coalition to Address Behavioral Health Crisis – The Stranger
Local leaders announced a coalition to address King County’s behavioral health crisis, but no one is sure exactly how much it will cost or who will foot the bill.
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A New Agency Seeks to Hold Washington’s Killer Cops Accountable - The Stranger

A New Agency Seeks to Hold Washington’s Killer Cops Accountable – The Stranger
Family members who have lost loved ones to police violence hope a new statewide oversight agency will end the practice of police investigating police.
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A Road Map for the Fall Read More »