CPC

We’re all waiting to find out exactly how austere the new WA state budget will be

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Seattle News:

Last week I dived into the recent Seattle Auditor’s Office report on gun violence patterns in Seattle for The Urbanist.

At the public safety committee meeting on April 8, Chief Innovation Officer Andrew Myerberg presented on the search for a new Office of Police Accountability (OPA) director. The search committee consists of Councilmember Bob Kettle, SPD Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis, CPC co-chair Joel Merkel, and Lisa Daugaard, the co-executive director of PDA. The first consideration date for candidates is today, 4/25, interviews of finalists will be all day 5/16, and meetings with stakeholders (the three police accountability bodies and SPD) will be on 5/22. 

Mayor Bruce Harrell expects to announce his hiring decision sometime in early June. As with the most recent police chief search, there is no public engagement scheduled around this hiring decision. 

There will be a special public safety committee meeting on Tuesday, April 29 to discuss Seattle’s police accountability system, including moving forward with the appointment of Eci Ameh as Executive Director of the Seattle Community Police Commission (CPC).

As has been previously reported by Guy Oron in Real Change, homeless encampment sweeps have escalated a large amount during Harrell’s tenure as mayor. And now The Seattle Times is even reporting on the story, writing, “To hide from the city’s escalating pace of encampment removals, homeless people say they are hiding deeper in the woods, where assaults, overdoses and emergencies can go unnoticed. Some say they’ve given up on setting up a tent altogether, leaving them less visible but more vulnerable to the elements and predators.”

Seattle has also lost 130 shelter spaces since 2022. Existing spaces are full (95%, which accounts for time spent in turnover). 

PubliCola reported that there have only been five SOAP orders issued since the law was passed more than seven months ago. Four of the five orders were against men who were indigent (making less than $24,000/year or showing they can’t afford an attorney). 

PubliCola also provides important context: “At a time of mass deportations and crackdowns on even legal immigrants, it’s also noteworthy that, according to public defenders, most of the men who get busted for patronizing street sex workers are immigrants. White men have more discreet ways of buying sex, and they’re more likely to be represented by private attorneys, rather than overworked public defenders.”

Meanwhile, in an Urbanist op-ed, Nathan Rouse, who is a candidate for Seattle City Attorney, comes out strong against cash bail for nonviolent misdemeanors. It’s worth reading what he has to say, and he includes many links for those interested in learning more. I’m curious what his opponents think about bail reform and whether this will be an issue on which the candidates differ. 

King County/WA State News:

My latest article is out at The Urbanist today, looking at the intersection between what’s going on with the state budget right now and how that will impact King County, with a particular focus on the bill that would have lifted the property tax revenue growth cap and the bill that would allow municipalities to raise the sales tax 0.1% as an additional “public safety” tax. 

In a letter delivered today, King County Councilmembers Girmay Zahilay and Rod Dembowski ask Executive Shannon Braddock to propose this new sales tax. Last I heard, neither councilmember had signed the letter to Ferguson asking for him to reconsider his resistance to the property tax cap lift. 

It should be an exciting few days in Olympia as this legislative session is slated to end this Sunday, April 27. A few news tidbits in the meantime: the bill to create a permit-to-purchase program for guns has been passed by both chambers and will become law if Ferguson signs it. It looks like the Senate might be creating the wealth tax “test balloon” that Ferguson indicated might be acceptable to him. And Senate Democrats have proposed a 55% cut to abortion access funding in the state, right at a time when medical agencies providing these services are under severe attack from the federal government. The House Democrats have preserved this funding, and we’ll find out soon if they prevail in this matter. 

King County’s 2024 Point in Time Count was released this week, saying 16,868 people experienced homelessness on any given night in 2024. This is 26% higher than in 2022. Homelessness continues to disproportionately affect communities of color, including Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic people. 

There are more than two people per every shelter space in King County, and in North King County, this number is much worse at 9.6 people per bed. You can read more about it at PubliCola.

Meanwhile, PubliCola also reported that the current state budget cuts funds for former Governor Jay Inslee’s right-of-way program, which resolves encampments on state-owned rights of way through extensive outreach. 

National News:

Jeff Asher, a nationally recognized crime data analyst, released an essay announcing that crime is down down down. His own words: “All we can say with certainty is that major crime — as counted by the FBI — almost certainly declined quite a lot in the first quarter of 2025. These would be record levels of decline for most crime types if they held up for the full year.”

I’ll add my usual disclaimer about taking crime data with at least some salt.

Recent Headlines:

 

We’re all waiting to find out exactly how austere the new WA state budget will be Read More »

Seattle is the only large city in the US that hasn’t had a homicide in 2025

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Seattle News:

Seattle is the only large American city that has not yet experienced a homicide this year. 

There was a public safety committee meeting on Tuesday where councilmembers discussed the new less lethal weapons legislation. I wrote about that meeting for The Urbanist. Warning: at times it got rather colorful!

Today, the Council narrowed down the list of candidates for the open D2 council seat from 20 applicants to 6 finalists: Chukundi Salisbury, Mark Solomon, Adonis Ducksworth, Thaddaeus Gregory, Edward Lin, and Hong Chhuor. There will be a public forum for these finalists on Tuesday, January 21 at 5:30pm at Columbia City Theater, hosted by Seattle CityClub. Current councilmembers will make their final selection on Monday, January 27. 

Pedro Gomez, who served as Mayor Bruce Harrell’s director of external affairs, has resigned after facing rape allegations from someone with whom he was having an after-hours business meeting. Marcus Harrison Green interviewed the woman pressing charges who was torn between her views as a prison abolitionist and her desire to protect her community and hold Gomez accountable.

This week PubliCola followed up on the 30×30 pledge made by SPD to have 30% of their sworn staff be women by 2030. In 2024 86% of the 84 new officers hired were men, a number reflective of gender breakdown in applicants more generally.

PubliCola also reported that Kevin Dave, the SPD officer who was fired last week, two years after hitting and killing Jaahnavi Kandula, has appealed his firing. The Public Safety Civil Service Commission held an initial hearing on this appeal on January 16, but the case could take a long time to be decided.

King County News:

King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay was just unanimously chosen by his fellow councilmembers to be the Chair of the King County Council. He is also running for the County Executive position in November, as is fellow Councilmember Claudia Balducci. 

King County Council has a vacancy due to Dave Upthegrove’s recent election to Public Lands Commissioner. Councilmembers will have to select someone to fill Upthegrove’s spot, and committee assignments are expected to be made in February. 

WA State News:

Last week I went down to Olympia for a special media event before the legislative session began this Monday, January 13, which I found very enlightening. As a result, I wrote a piece for The Urbanist: Ferguson Pushes Budget Cuts as Washington Legislature Seeks New Revenue. 

As my readers doubtless know, I cover Seattle’s budget season in some detail every year, and I was pleased to be able to apply some of that budget knowledge to understanding what’s going on with the state’s budget right now. I posted on Bluesky that the state budget that gets passed this year will have reverberations for years to come. We’re still experiencing consequences from the austerity practiced at the state level from the Great Recession, so that gives you an idea of how impactful lawmakers’ choices are this year: how much and where will they cut, what programs will they delay (and what will their plan be for making sure the delay isn’t permanent?), and will they pass new revenue options to help ease the difficulty? 

Even the legislature’s decision as to whether to raise the property tax cap for local municipalities (cities and counties) will have strong ripple effects either way, as King County, for example, continues to struggle with its budget as its revenues have had no way to keep up with expenditures due to the high inflation a few years ago. 

On Wednesday, our new governor, Bob Ferguson, gave his inaugural address, which seems to have made Republicans happier than Democrats. You can read a recent interview with Ferguson here. Ferugson also signed three executive orders on his first day: one to work to protect reproductive rights in Washington and two related to housing regulations and permitting. 

Nick Brown, the new Attorney General taking over the office from Ferguson, is unhappy about the cuts Ferguson has said he wants the office to make. The Seattle Times reported that Ferguson protected the office’s funds while he was Attorney General but as governor has changed his tune. Brown opposes the cut, saying it will impact the office’s ability to take on civil rights and anti-trust cases.

In Praise:

I was thinking over the winter vacation about how to incorporate joy, hope, and a positive vision into the work I do. For those of you who know me personally, it will come as no surprise that these are part of my daily project of living, and yet it is also true that in my journalism work, I am most often covering very serious topics that can be emotionally taxing and discouraging to engage with. 

I also think that political thought does not need to be inherently bleak and depressing, a statement which I realize is especially bold on this particular weekend. But perhaps it is more important now than ever to remember this. 

For an example, I offer up the novel I’ve been working on for the past year, the second in the Satori Chronicles series, entitled Stars, Hide Your Fires. The first novel in that series was distinctly a dystopia, but this new one is not. This new one imagines how a society could be better: not perfect, not a utopia. Indeed, one of the main themes of the book is that societies cannot be static and perfect but must be continually invested into and engaged with or risk falling into complacency and potential injustice. But better. 

In the process of writing this novel, I’ve realized that what seems on the surface to be a simple act–to imagine a world that is a bit better than this one or the dystopia portrayed in the first book–can feel subversive. It was, it turns out, not always easy to imagine such a world and how to set an interesting story within it. It was certainly more difficult than following the tried and true path of the dystopia. In spite of its challenges, it has been a rewarding experiment, trying to create this more positive vision. 

In that spirit, I am experimenting with adding this “In Praise” section to the newsletter. I have been waffling about it, not wanting to create more work for myself, but this morning I was reading Orwell’s Roses, a book by Rebecca Solnit, and I came across this quotation from George Orwell and realized I’d made up my mind:

“A correspondent reproaches me with being ‘negative’ and ‘always attacking things.’ The fact is that we live in a time when causes for rejoicing are not numerous. But I like praising things, when there is anything to praise, and I would like here to write a few lines–they have to be retrospective, unfortunately–in praise of the Woolworth’s Rose.”

What a wonderful thing to publish in a column! Orwell wrote this at the beginning of 1944. Now here, at the beginning of 2025, some of us might also feel like the causes for rejoicing may not be numerous. But that doesn’t mean it’s not valuable to take some time to appreciate the roses. 

Recent Headlines:

 

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Seattle capital gains tax dead…for now

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Seattle Budget and Progressive Revenue:

At long last, this year’s Seattle budget season is over, with the Seattle City Council voting 8-1 to pass the new 2025-2026 budget. You can read my takeaways from the budget here. You can also read what The Stranger and PubliCola have to say about it.

I hopped on the internet last week to point out that the 2% city-wide capital gains tax had a 4-4 vote (with Councilmember Tanya Woo abstaining), which meant that once Councilmember-elect Alexis Mercedes Rinck takes over this week, there are theoretically enough votes to pass the excise tax. My “theoretically” was doing a lot of work though, as five votes is not a veto-proof majority, and Mayor Bruce Harrell is on the record as opposing this tax. I also thought a few of the votes might not be solid, which was later evidenced by Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth changing her vote from yes to no for the extremely weak reason that the legislation received a committee recommendation of “Do Not Pass.” PubliCola posits that Councilmember Dan Strauss’s vote in favor might be “squishy” as well. However, we’ll probably be hearing more about this tax, as both Councilmember Cathy Moore and Councilmember Tammy Morales have said they’ll bring it forward again next year.

A new poll from the Northwest Progressive Institute shows strong support for new progressive revenue in Seattle. Check out the findings:

“NPI’s most recent survey of the Seattle electorate, which fielded a couple weeks ago, finds that only a quarter (25%) of Emerald City voters back the mayor’s proposal, with nearly-three fifths (58%) expressing support for an alternative approach — namely, levying new taxes on wealth that would keep essential public services funded and allow better than anticipated Jumpstart revenue collections to flow to the vital priorities that former Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda’s enabling legislation specified, like housing.”

Other Seattle News:

Gino Betts, the Director of the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) has resigned. OPA Deputy Director Bonnie Glenn will take over as interim director. Betts’s last day is December 13. 

We can expect some new legislation from Harrell creating two new misdemeanors, one for illegal street vending and one for interfering with City employees. 

SPD has adopted a new emergency driving policy. PubliCola reports that “though Merkel said he was skeptical that SPD officers will now face stronger discipline for unsafe driving, he does believe the new policy spells out what officers need to consider to improve safety.” Merkel is currently the co-chair of the Community Police Commission (CPC).

The King County Jail’s booking restrictions for misdemeanors booked by SPD have been officially lifted as of November 1.

The South Seattle Emerald has been doing investigative reporting on the infamous 2020 Proud Boys ruse, with both an exploration of personal impacts the ruse had on protesters active at that time and a more in-depth investigation of the ruse itself. The latter piece says that while an OPA investigation of the ruse found that six SPD officers were involved, the Emerald has determined that upward of 30 SPD officers appear to have been involved, many of them not being investigated and some of them since being promoted. 

I found this analysis of the recent Seattle Council seat election to be both interesting and amusing: “To wit, Rinck’s victory was a repudiation not so much of what the centrist City Council promised to do, but the fact that, handed a mandate of sorts in the 2023 election, it’s done what every Council does in Seattle: nothing anyone who doesn’t work for Publicola could explain to you.”

The Stranger recently ran two op-eds also about the Council seat election: How Alexis Mercedes Rinck’s Victory Reclaimed Public Safety as a Progressive Issue and its rebuttal, Hiding Centrism in Progressive Clothing. Both talk about the public safety messaging utilized during Rinck’s recent successful campaign but take vastly different lessons from it. 

King County News:

You can check out my recent article at The Urbanist on the public defender crisis, and specifically on what that crisis is likely to look like on the ground. This is likely to be a pressing issue for years to come so worth getting up to speed on now.

King County Executive Dow Constantine announced he won’t be running for re-election next year, leaving the top post at the County up for grabs after sixteen years. Current King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci has announced her run for the position. Current King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay is widely expected to run as well. 

King County passed its 2025 budget last week. A tougher budget season is anticipated next year for the 2026-2027 biennium, with a projected $150 million shortfall.

Recent Headlines:

Seattle capital gains tax dead…for now Read More »

More jail beds for Seattle

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Seattle News:

Next week the Washington State Supreme Court will hold a hearing on public defender caseload standards. This is a case that could have wide-spread implications and is worth following. 

King County Office of Public Defense Director Anita Khandelwal announced her resignation this week. Her last day will be October 4. Matt Sanders will be replacing her on an interim basis; appointing a new director will probably take several months. 

The Seattle City Council went ahead and passed the SODA, SOAP, and prostitution loitering laws on Tuesday, after hours of public comment that was mostly against the new legislation. I wrote an article tying together the recent Supreme Court Grants Pass decision with Seattle’s attitude towards sweeps and these new laws.

The Stranger reported that “precinct data casts doubt on whether most voters who live in these areas support these policies. In half the zones, voters cast ballots against the current city council members in the 2023 election.” This could forecast potential electoral backlash against some current council members in 2027.

Earlier today, Seattle and King County announced they’ve come to a new agreement about the King County Jail. According to the press release, “the revised agreement updates rates that have been in place for many years, while allowing the City to use up to 135 jail beds and lift booking restrictions for misdemeanor crimes prioritized by the City of Seattle.” 

Seattle intends to spend $24 million on the King County Jail contract in 2025. The city’s recent contract for a SCORE jail pilot was not mentioned and is presumably proceeding as planned, adding another 20 or more beds of jail capacity for the city.

The council finally decided to add an alternative to I-137 funding social housing to the ballot in February, when the initiative will be decided during a special election. The alternative calls for the JumpStart tax to fund the PDA at $10 million a year for five years, thereby pitting affordable housing against social housing. Given that the Council’s suggestion would potentially rule out social housing’s mixed income model, it wouldn’t be creating true social housing in a way that would be likely to succeed.

This alternative may be vulnerable to a legal standard of what an appropriate alternative measure would be, however. Further, former City Attorney Pete Holmes says the actions thus far of the council could be seen as a “voter suppression tactic” in violation of the City Charter. This possibility could open up certain council members to a recall. 

Seattle Budget and Public Safety Meetings Next Week:

On Monday 9/23 at 9:30am the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development committee will have a special meeting to vote on new legislation that would make SPD hiring bonuses permanent. This legislation would also increase hiring bonuses for lateral hires (officers from other departments who already have experience) from $30,000 up to $50,000. New recruits would continue receiving a $7,500 hiring bonus. 

This proposal would cost about $1.5 million per year and come out of SPD’s budget, most likely from “salary savings.” 

As PubliCola reported, “There is little evidence to suggest that Seattle’s already generous one-time signing bonuses have increased police hiring (and substantial evidence to suggest that one-time bonuses are ineffective as a hiring and retention strategy).”

Public comment will be heard at the beginning of this meeting. 

On Tuesday, 9/24 at 9:30am the Public Safety committee will meet to vote on new surveillance technology being deployed by SPD, namely CCTV cameras and RTCC software. You can read more about this so-called Technology-Assisted Crime Prevention Pilot in my previous pieces on the subject here and here. 

One of the amendments planned for discussion would expand the area of the pilot focused on Aurora by several blocks, increasing the price tag on the proposed technology. Were the current amendments to be adopted, the cost would be $1.3 million for CCTV cameras and another $0.40 million for the new RTCC software, a number that has changed from the original budget attached to this project. We may learn more about the ongoing costs for this pilot program in the proposed budget next week. 

Councilmember Saka would also like a feasibility study on expanding the pilot to other areas including West Seattle.

It is noteworthy that the city’s Surveillance Advisory Working Group do NOT recommend implementing either of these technologies in a pilot program at this time. 

Public comment will be heard at the beginning of this meeting. 

On Tuesday, 9/24 at 2pm Mayor Bruce Harrell will present his proposed 2025-2026 budget.

On Wednesday, 9/25 at 9:30am Central Staff will be giving council an overview of the proposed budget. Unless things change, public comment will be heard at the beginning of this meeting.

Starting on Friday, 9/27 at 9:30am the council will begin hearing budgetary department presentations. As of now, public comment is also supposed to be heard at the beginning of this meeting, but this is subject to change. 

Recent Headlines:

 

More jail beds for Seattle Read More »

Criticism of the Council’s new proposed drug and sex work laws continues

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Happy Seattle City Council recess! Let’s take a look at what’s been going on the last few weeks.

Seattle’s proposed SODA/SOAP laws:

Perhaps the biggest local public safety story of the past two weeks has been the proposed SODA and SOAP legislation. You can read my summary and analysis of the two bills over at The Urbanist. 

KUOW reported on the differences in crime rates on Aurora in Shoreline as opposed to Seattle:

“[Jim Hammond] pointed to the 8-foot-wide sidewalks, and medians planted with trees, which he said can prevent collisions and provide more safety for pedestrians. These and other upgrades took twelve years and cost $140 million dollars. But Hammond believes they do more to deter prostitution and other types of disorder than the city’s criminal penalties.

“Environments matter,” he said. “If it looks well cared for, and you know people are going to continue to care for it, it just has a different effect on the behavior people are going to engage in in that space.””

The South Seattle Emerald ran an opinion piece discussing the harm caused by a video Councilmember Cathy Moore screened at an open city council committee meeting that showed sex workers walking up and down Aurora Avenue without their consent.

PubliCola did an analysis showing that focusing on “johns” or sex buyers has not historically reduced sex work taking place on Aurora and has a disproportionate impact on Black and Latino men. It also found from court data that SOAP orders were rarely enforced against men. The article quotes Gordon Hill, deputy director at the King County Department of Public Defense as saying, “I think what this law does is going to be incredibly disproportionate. It’s going to be people with immigration challenges, it’s going to be poor people, it’s going to be people of color. So the degree to which it works at all is only going to [exacerbate] the inequities in our criminal legal system.”

Overall there has been a lot of resistance to the proposed SOAP bill. Less featured in articles has been the similar SODA bill that targets downtown and CID drug users. But this bill also has concerning ramifications, as I explain in my article:

“The SODA bill would make it much easier for the City Attorney’s office to criminalize poverty and substance abuse disorder. As it stands now, when someone is arrested for public drug use, their drug use must be proven in court. This requires sending samples to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory, which is currently backed up. But if someone is put under a SODA order, they can later be arrested for violating that order, and their drug use never has to be proven in order for them to be convicted of a gross misdemeanor.”

The Martin Luther King Jr. County Labor Council just adopted a resolution against both these pieces of legislation. 

The public safety committee will take up these two bills again on Tuesday, September 10. 

Other Seattle News:

I also had a piece in The Urbanist about the newly announced school safety plan for the 2024-2025 school year. 

Here are the investments being made:

  • $5.6 million for additional school-based mental health counselors and a health coordinator totaling 42 new positions (City of Seattle)
  • $2.4 million for telehealth therapy services (City of Seattle)
  • $4.25 million for violence interruption programs in partnership with community-based organizations, including safe passage programs, new violence intervention specialists working directly out of focus schools, individual case management for those students most likely to experience gun violence, and a new family resource fund. (City of Seattle)
  • $2.3 million for increasing staffing on the safety and security team, including hiring an executive director of student and community safety, and school infrastructure such as cameras, perimeter fencing and gate improvements, and classroom door lock enhancements (Seattle Public Schools)

The city’s $12.25 million investment is all coming from the tiny increase in the JumpStart payroll tax passed by the city council during last year’s budget deliberations. However, both the Mayor and the Council declined to spend the full $20 million amount available this year in spite of students’ urgent requests for further assistance. It will be interesting to see if the full $20 million amount is included in Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed budget coming out on September 24.

The Community Police Commission (CPC) continues to implode. PubliCola announced on August 23 that the CPC had hired an acting director to fill in for current Director Cali Ellis, who is on administrative leave. Then, less than a week later, PubliCola reported that the new acting director is already leaving for a new position.

Former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz is still classified as Police Chief three months after his removal from the position and is still being paid more than $28,000 per month. Interim Chief Sue Rahr is also being paid, and the total annual compensation for keeping both Chiefs on the books would be almost $700,000. It’s enough to make one wonder how concerned City Hall really is about the upcoming budget deficit.

The new city council continues to receive high levels of criticism for behavior opponents characterize as “undemocratic.” 

The Stranger ran down many of the issues, flubs, and concerning choices coming out of the council so far this year:

“After the City’s unofficial legislative session ended this month, it doesn’t look like the council pleasantly surprised any of their progressive constituents. Instead, the council steamrolled them, stifled them, betrayed them, belittled them, and arrested them–all in the service of a wealthier, older, and whiter Seattle. The only pleasant surprise came in the form of the body’s incompetence and fragility, which delayed some of its most egregious attacks on working people and the poor.”

And an op-ed in The South Seattle Emerald states:

”Policy disagreements can be intense, but we expect our civic leaders to avoid making it personal and focus on legislating. Despite their repeated commitments and pledges of “good governance,” this does not appear to be a core value of the current council majority.”

King County News

The King County Council has been having an interesting week when it comes to youth detention. The Law & Justice committee was slated to once more discuss their legislation changing definitions of what constitutes “solitary confinement” for youth. However, they chose to defer that discussion to allow for feedback from the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention (DAJD). King County will soon enter their budget season, meaning if they don’t hold a special meeting, the council committee won’t be able to take up this work until after a new budget has been approved later in the fall.

The King County Council also passed a non-binding resolution proposed by Councilmember Reagan Dunn committing to keep the Patricia Clark Children and Family Justice Center open. This is in opposition to Executive Dow Constantine’s 2020 commitment to close the youth jail, a promise he postponed earlier this year. All councilmembers voted in favor of the resolution except Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who was absent.

As PubliCola reported: “As of today, there are 59 young people, from 12 to 18 years old, incarcerated at the youth jail, with another 48 on electronic home detention; 61 percent of them are Black.”

King County Metro reported on their highest one-day total ridership in the last four years. About safety, they said: “Security incidents in 2023 were down 12% from 2019 (before the pandemic) and down 22% from the peak in 2020. Drug-related incidents in April 2024 were down 55% from April 2023.”

Recent Headlines:

 

Criticism of the Council’s new proposed drug and sex work laws continues Read More »

Seattle City Council Gets a Little Bit Messy

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Seattle News:

First off, allow me to highlight my article last week at the Urbanist about the new rushed SCORE jail contract being considered by Seattle City Council. The contract was then passed by full Council vote last Tuesday. 

In fact, that meeting on Tuesday, August 6 was such a doozie that I was hearing about it even though I was on vacation. The Council was supposed to vote on whether to put I-137 (funding for social housing) on the November ballot, and for this reason Council President Sara Nelson said she was limiting public comment to one hour even though many people had signed up to speak out against the new jail contract. 

After the public comment period, Councilmember Bob Kettle moved to remove the procedural vote on putting I-137 on the ballot from the agenda, citing some unknown last minute legal concerns. What these legal reasons might be is unclear, as any legal issue with the initiative itself would likely be a matter for the courts, not the City Council. The delay passed on a 7-1 vote, with Councilmember Cathy Moore abstaining and Councilmember Tammy Morales voting against. Morales suggested that delaying the vote would open the councilmembers up to a recall.

A recall would require making the argument that the Council was acting in a political manner by deliberately intending to place the initiative on a less advantageous ballot by delaying it until a special election in February. The longer they wait to act upon the initiative and the more other business they do while waiting, the more they open themselves up to a potential recall challenge. 

However, at this Tuesday’s (8/13) full Council meeting, during the I-137 agenda item, the council had someone available to answer questions, and not a single councilmember availed themselves of this opportunity. There wasn’t any discussion or conversation about the initiative. In comparing this initiative to Council actions around previous initiatives, one could begin to build a case that this is a deviation from established practice, which is what would be required to show political intent and support a recall action. 

For now we’ll wait and see if the council advances a serious alternative to I-137 and how long it takes them to accomplish this.

Meanwhile, at last week’s meeting, those present for public comment, many of whom hadn’t been allowed to speak, were understandably upset by the delay of the I-137 vote, especially considering that had been the stated reason for not letting them speak. The meeting was interrupted by their protests, and after taking two ten-minute recesses, Nelson gave up and conducted the rest of the meeting remotely.

The SCORE jail contract was passed with an amendment that requires the Mayor’s office report on operational issues with the new plan. However, the amendment did not require that any fixes be found for issues, and the total price tag of the new contract is still in question.

This Tuesday, August 13, was also a big day for the Seattle city council. In the morning the public safety committee met to discuss the new SODA and SOAP legislation that further criminalizes drug use and sex work, including by establishing specific geographic zones where people can be banned from entering due to previous arrests. I’ll have an article out in the Urbanist next week with more analysis, but in the meantime, you can read a lot more about it here:

Then at the afternoon full council meeting, the council voted on the mid-year supplemental budget. Councilmember Tammy Morales made one last attempt to recover the remaining $10 million promised to students for mental health resources during budget season last year, but she was thwarted by Councilmember Dan Strauss, who proposed an amendment allocating $2.25 million of those dollars. His amendment passed with a unanimous vote. 

The new supplemental budget approved by Council this week included $800,000 for additional SPD marketing, for which the city is already paying $2.6 million in 2024.

The Council will be on their summer recess starting August 19 through Labor Day. Publication of Notes from the Emerald City might be a bit sporadic during this time, but fear not, I am busily gearing up for budget season!

Other News Tidbits

You can take a look at SPD’s new animated recruitment ads here.

Seattle’s latest budget forecast saw next year’s budget deficit expand by another $7 million. The deficit is now believed to be more than $260 million.

The City of Seattle learned of additional money coming their way from opioid settlements, and Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the expenditure of $2.85 million to support additional bed capacity at Valley Cities Recovery Place Seattle in Beacon Hill. The investment will pay for approximately 13 additional detox and inpatient treatment beds that could serve as many as 150 people per year. 

‘Operation Safe Transit’ is a pilot program operated by King County and the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) launched on May 1 to “make transit safer, combat crime, and provide behavioral health supports and resources, particularly along the transit corridor in downtown Seattle.” So far the initiative has resulted in 86 arrests. Since May, the King County Jail has made exceptions to bookings for misdemeanor crimes committed in the transit system at the request of KCSO.

PubliCola did a great job documenting the dysfunction and problems at the Community Police Commission (CPC), one of Seattle’s three police accountability bodies. 

Important dates coming up: 

  • On August 27, the full King County Council will consider whether to support the eventual closure of youth detention as has been laid out by Executive Dow Constantine. 
  • On August 28, King County’s Law & Justice committee will once again take up the matter of youth solitary confinement.
  • Also on August 28, there will be a Seattle Public School school board meeting, the final one before the new school year begins. 

Recent Headlines:

Seattle City Council Gets a Little Bit Messy 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 »

Court Ruling Yet Another Example of SPD’s Racial Bias in Action

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Personal News:

We’ll dive into the news of the week in just a moment, but I did want to take the opportunity to mention I had a book come out last week! I was supposed to write about it in last week’s newsletter, but I was so distracted by learning that the new drug criminalization legislation was almost exactly the same as the previous version that I forgot to include it.

Book cover of TO TRAVEL THE STARS with a couple dancing in close embrace with a starry space background

TO TRAVEL THE STARS is a Young Adult science fiction novel that is a retelling of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE in space. If that sounds appealing either to yourself or a teenager in your life, I hope you’ll consider picking up a copy.

Seattle News:

The Seattle Times reports: “A federal judge has found evidence Seattle police stopped and detained a Black delivery driver at gunpoint because of his race, then illegally searched his trunk in a 2020 incident detailed in a civil rights lawsuit now headed for trial.” Incidentally, SPD doesn’t have a policy for what is known as a “high-risk vehicle stop” as took place in this incident, and when the OPA suggested SPD develop one, Chief Diaz refused. This ruling means the City has been found liable for the illegal search, and the trial would determine the amount of damages owed.

Captain Brown, one of the officers named in the case and the new acting commander of the South Precinct, recently wrote a letter of his expectations to his officers and supervisors. Erica C. Barnett at Publicola reported that this letter “included an exhortation to “take care of our own” by handling “minor misconduct” internally, rather than reporting it to the Office of Police Accountability. The letter also said officers should view themselves as forces of “good” whose job is to “intervene and stop evil” in the world.” When questioned about the letter, Brown said he didn’t intend to disparage the OPA. 

Brown has been the subject of 14 complaints since 2015. The OPA investigated the case involving the Black delivery driver detailed above and dismissed the racial bias complaint against Brown as unfounded, a decision the federal judge obviously disagreed with. This discrepancy between the OPA’s findings and the Judge’s ruling is another blow to the legitimacy of Seattle’s accountability system.

Seattle’s three accountability bodies all sent representatives to the joint Public Safety and Human Services committee and the Labor Relations Policy Committee (LRPC) public hearing on Tuesday night about expectations around a new Seattle Police Management Association (SPMA) contract. The purpose of the meeting is for the LRPC to consider the public’s input before establishing bargaining parameters. The old SPMA contract expires at the end of this year, and a public hearing must be held at least 90 days before the City and the SPMA enter negotiations.

The public meeting was sparsely attended, with many commenters noting the insufficient amount of notice they received that the meeting was taking place and one commenter suggesting the hearing was “performative and pointless.” The Community Police Commission (CPC) had a few requests for the Council to consider, including details around the 180-day clock for OPA investigations, how long and in what situations personnel files should be preserved, and reform to secondary employment of officers, while also noting their concern about the biased culture prevalent within SPD. 

Still centered in conversation was the 2017 police accountability ordinance that has never been fully implemented due to conflicts with the SPMA and SPOG contracts. Unfortunately this failure has sometimes meant a continued focus over the past several years on trying to implement this ordinance instead of pushing for greater gains or other ways in which public safety in Seattle might become more equitable.

There will be a special meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services committee on Monday, August 14th at 2pm to discuss the new drug criminalization legislation. Now is the perfect time to email your councilmembers or plan to give public comment. I’ve already written at length about some of the problems with this legislation the last time it was introduced in early June. BJ Last has a new op-ed in The Stranger about some of the budgetary concerns with this bill.

The bill won’t be voted on in Full Council until sometime in September after the City Council’s two-week summer recess from August 21 to September 4.

The Revenue Stabilization Workgroup has issued a final report on options for further City revenue and will be delivering a presentation on Thursday, August 10th to the Finance and Housing committee. Among the options identified for revenue are increasing the Jumpstart payroll tax, instituting a city-level capital gains tax, and instituting a high CEO pay ratio tax. 

I particularly recommend you check out the Transit Riders Union’s Revenue Options Report, which outlines 26 different revenue options and how to make them more progressive. For example, the City could institute a flat 1% income tax, which would not be inherently progressive, but by pairing this tax with tax credits, rebates, or a basic income program, it could be made more progressive.

The mid-year supplemental budget passed out of Full Council yesterday. The package includes $1 million to expand opioid addiction treatment in Pioneer Square and $1.6 million to the Community Safety and Communications Center (CSCC) to hire new staff for their dual dispatch pilot.

A state appeals court issued a stay that will allow Seattle to continue its practice of no-notice sweeps–for now.

The Public Safety and Human Services committee met this week and heard reports from the Seattle Community Safety Initiative (SCSI) and the King County Regional Approach to Gun Violence. The Regional Peacekeepers Collective (RPCK) is expanding into Skyway, as well as adding service hubs in Kent and Burien.

Recent Headlines:

Court Ruling Yet Another Example of SPD’s Racial Bias in Action Read More »

Another Egregious Example of SPD Culture in Action

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Seattle News:

Some shenanigans late last week in Seattle in preparation for All star week, as reported by Ashley Nerbovig:

“Meanwhile, the City so highly prioritized the removal of unhoused people around the stadium that on Friday morning SPD had two detectives from the department’s Special Victims Unit—one of whom investigates domestic violence cases—standing around waiting for one man to pack up his tent and move along. A police lieutenant with SPD’s Directed Outreach Unit, which typically works with the City’s Unified Care Team, stood around waiting as well.”

And what’s going on with Seattle’s drug criminalization task force? Well, it’s been broken into three different groups (court system issues, treatment, and enforcement), and only the court issues group has met so far. The group appears to have agreed that the best course forward involves expanding the Vital program and LEAD, since the Seattle Municipal Court has no additional capacity for more cases and the King County Jail would be unable to increase bookings. Erica C. Barnett with Publicola reports:

 “Lewis said that now that the work groups are meeting to discuss the best way to respond to public drug use, the legislation making public use a gross misdemeanor in Seattle is “almost a Macguffin”—a device that gets the plot going, but isn’t particularly significant in itself.”

On Wednesday, Mike Carter at the Seattle Times broke the story that in January of 2021, a breakroom in the SPD’s East Precinct featured a mock tombstone marking the death of Damarius Butts, who was killed by SPD officers on April 20, 2017. The breakroom was also decorated with a Trump 2020 flag and a protestor’s sign saying “Stop Killing Us.” SPD has so far refused to apologize to Damarius Butts’s family. As Mike Carter reports:

“Ann Butts, the young man’s mother, said his family misses him every day. “I can’t express how hurtful it was to learn that SPD endorsed joking about the killing of my son by displaying a fake tombstone with his name on it,” she said in a statement through her attorney, former King County public defender La Rond Baker. “I didn’t think SPD could take more from me,” she said. “I was wrong.””

At Tuesday’s Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting, the three accountability bodies–the Office of Police Accountability (OPA), the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and the Community Police Commission (CPC)–gave their mid-year accountability presentation. Of particular note, thus far in 2023 there has been a 46% increased in cases sustained by the OPA, from 13% sustained in 2022 to 19% sustained in 2023. Allegations of use of force have increased slightly in 2023. And if you were wondering what ever happened in response to the infamous Proud Boy ruse of 2020? OIG recommended a new SPD ruse policy in October of 2022, and the draft was submitted to SPOG for review in December 2022. Seven months later…nothing has moved forward. 

There was also a discussion about the CPC’s recent move to no longer allow public comment at its twice-a-month meetings. Co-chair Reverend Harriet Walden said this change was made because she feels threatened by the presence of public commenters, and she referenced their loud voices. She said the commenters are not interested in building the CPC, which seems to imply a resistance on the CPC’s part to hearing criticism from the community. She also said she will call SPD the next time the commenters come to a meeting if she feels threatened; one of the regular commenters is Castill Hightower, the sister of a man who was killed by an SPD officer during a mental health crisis, who could suffer additional trauma if forced to interact with the police in this way. 

CM Lewis said getting rid of public comment altogether goes further than what is generally expected of government practice and suggested the CPC instead develop new policies and procedures to protect commissioners as necessary.

The bill changing certain aspects of the governance of the CPC was also up for discussion and vote. It was confirmed that adding a new Deputy Director position would require an additional $191k to be allocated to the CPC beginning in 2024. Activists oppose passage of this bill without a public forum on its impacts and an audit of the CPC; they are also calling for the CPC to divest itself of involvement in the new Affected Persons Program. The bill passed out of committee with an unanimous vote, with CM Mosqueda being absent, and will be voted on in Full Council on July 18. 

Finally, People Power Washington has released their Voting Guide for the Seattle City Council primaries. Check it out!

King County News:

On Monday, the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs released its annual crime report. As Amanda Zhou from the Seattle Times reports: “In King County, officials saw most violent crime slowly trend downward the first half of 2023, dropping from a high point during the height of the pandemic. But the county’s homicide rate was relatively steady through the first quarter of 2023, with a slight rise compared with the same period last year.”

Washington State

The Office of Independent Investigations, a new state agency, is now ready to begin reviewing past cases where police officers used deadly force. Members of the public can submit previous cases for review here. The office has not yet started investigating new incidents of deadly force.

Recent Headlines:

Another Egregious Example of SPD Culture in Action Read More »

Seattle to Launch “War on Health”

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Seattle News

Mayor Harrell has announced the formation of a 24-member Fentanyl Systems Work Group to work on addressing the opioid crisis, using the baffling tag phrase “war on health”. He expressed his support of passing a city ordinance to allow the City Attorney to prosecute drug possession and drug use in public while also providing more treatment and diversion options. The timeline for the work group to come up with a plan is tight, with the goal to be finished by July 1, the date that the new state law goes into effect. To be clear, if the City were to miss this deadline, nothing particularly catastrophic would happen; Seattle never moved to adopt the State’s temporary new drug law passed in 2021 into the municipal code. It will be interesting to see what agreements the 24 people in this work group will be able to reach in only a few weeks, or if they instead end up blowing past the deadline.

CM Lewis is talking about the possibility of a new therapeutic court, which could potentially replace the recently ended community court. Meanwhile the City Attorney’s Office will be dismissing around another 1,000 misdemeanor cases filed before 2022. 

SPD has referred the case of Officer Kevin Dave, who hit and killed pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula this January, to the King County Prosecutor, who will decide whether to charge Dave. It is unclear whether SPD referred the case because they believe Dave may have committed a crime or because they were required by law to do so. 

More lawsuits related to the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020 have been filed: Molly Moon’s ice cream shop and Hugo’s Properties LLC are both suing the City. The family of Antonio Mays Jr., who was killed near the CHOP in the summer of 2020, are also suing the City, former Mayor Durkan, and CM Sawant. The missing text messages will almost certainly be relevant in all these cases.

CM Pedersen has proposed a capital gains tax for Seattle. The 2% tax would replace a current tax on water bills, a move some opponents have criticized because low income households are eligible for a 50% discount on their water bills, meaning removal of the water tax might mostly serve as a subsidy to well-off homeowners. However, the implementation of a capital gains tax and the removal of the water tax are being moved through Seattle City Council as two separate ordinances, opening the possibility that the capital gains tax may be passed without repealing the water tax.

A US District Court has issued an injunction against Seattle enforcing its ordinance banning graffiti, saying it is likely too broad and might violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. From The Stranger:

“In response to the order, SPD released a statement saying cops could do nothing about property damage. Of course, SPD failed to mention the reason for the order—SPD officers blatantly abusing their power to arrest as a way to discourage free speech. In any case, the City Attorney’s office clarified that the order only applies to the part of the ordinance that describes damage done by writing, painting, or drawing on property. People can still complain that the judge decriminalized graffiti.”

The Community Police Commission (CPC) has requested changes be made to the 2017 accountability ordinance, all of which are directly concerned with the CPC’s operations, including adding additional stipends, adding constraints to stipends, changing the CPC’s ability to remove commissioners, and deleting the phrase “to help ensure public confidence in the effectiveness and professionalism of SPD” from the description of the CPC’s role. Some of the changes appear to be reflective of some of the recent struggles the CPC has been undergoing.

Meanwhile Castill Hightower, sister of Herbert Hightower Jr, who was killed by an SPD officer, has said the CPC is continuing to “silence, undermine, belittle, mock and now threaten with violence the very communities they were initially created to center.” She asks that they stop their interference with creation of the Affected Persons program and relinquish control over the complainant appeals process, among other demands. The CPC was originally supposed to create such an appeals process, but after years of delay, that duty was transferred to the group working on developing the Affected Persons program. You can read her full letter here.

Recent Headlines

 

Seattle to Launch “War on Health” Read More »