elections

Washington State Supreme Court justice races remain ones to watch in November

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Washington State Temple of Justice. Photo by Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The initial results of the Washington state primaries shed some light on how the races are shaping up for the five all-important state Supreme Court justice positions up for grabs in November. While later returns tend to favor progressives, the early numbers make clear that at least some of these races will not have a foregone conclusion in the general election. 

These justice races are always tricky because candidates are not allowed to say how they would rule on specific questions. Instead, they can be asked more general doctrinal questions, and their past records can be combed through. Most observers rely on a combination of endorsements and contributions to determine in which lane a candidate is running. 

There is already big money in these justice races, with candidates reporting raising almost $2.5 million so far. And that number is sure to grow in the next three months.

As I reported this spring, money spent on state Supreme Court justice races across the country has surged over the last few years, while the use of dark money in elections has greatly increased since the Citizens United ruling in 2010. 

For the two candidates appointed by Governor Bob Ferguson since he began his term, there is an assumption – whether warranted or not – that they would likely rule in favor of the millionaires tax, which Ferguson has staunchly supported. The millionaires tax would levy a 9.9% tax on incomes above $1 million, and should it survive the legal and electoral challenges against it, it would be likely to be seen as a cornerstone progressive achievement for Ferguson and the state Democratic party.   

The safest justice seat in this election cycle is clearly that of incumbent Debra Stephens, who has served on the court for almost 20 years. With a commanding 54.53% of the initial drop, Stephens is running far ahead of her closest challenger, Todd Bloom, who garnered about 27% of the vote. 

For justice position 5, Ferguson appointee Theo Angelis is neck and neck with more conservative Dave Larson: Angelis has 34% of the early vote and Larson a bit more than 32%. However, candidate Sharonda Amamilo, who is considered to be more progressive than Angelis, received 21% of the vote. It’s difficult to imagine an Amamilo voter pivoting to vote for Larson in the general election, which means the results of this race might rest more on turn-out. 

It’s worth remembering that Larson lost narrowly to state Justice Sal Mungia in 2024. Mungia, who was backed by progressives, won by only 0.7 points or about 20,000 votes. 

While Angelis has raised $350,000, Larson isn’t that far behind at $296,000. 

On the surface, the justice position 1 race looks pretty clear-cut, with recent Ferguson appointee Colleen Melody taking 51.20% of the vote. However, third place candidate Laura Christensen Colberg, who currently has 18.19% of the vote, ran on an explicit anti-appointee platform, which means many of her voters may instead opt for second place candidate Scott Edwards, who currently has 30.31% of the vote. If so, this race could end up being much closer than it currently looks. 

On the other hand, Melody has currently raised more than double the donations of Edwards, which should help her maintain her lead. 

Conservatives have criticized the two appointee candidates for state Supreme court, calling out the electoral benefit granted by their appointments leading to “incumbent” status as well as their perceived political ties to Ferguson. We can expect to see more attacks along these lines going forward into November.  

The justice position 3 race, with no incumbents, is much too close to call. We have three candidates with similar numbers of votes; conservative David Stephens with 35.79% of the vote is followed closely by both candidates to his left, Jaime Hawk with 32.92% and Mike Diaz with 30.94%. In a Stephens-Diaz match-up, it seems likely many of Hawk’s voters would go to Diaz, but in a Stephens-Hawk match-up, it’s possible some of Diaz’s voters would opt for Stephens instead. 

Both Hawk and Diaz – at $218,000 and $275,000 respectively – have significantly out-raised Stephens, who has only raised $40,000 thus far. 

Finally, we have justice position 4, which with only two candidates, didn’t go through the primary selection process. Moderate candidate Sean O’Donnell is facing progressive candidate Ian Birk, and both candidates have accumulated large war chests, with O’Donnell at $281,000 and Birk at $364,000. 

At one point, Full Court Press, a dark-money group that focuses on supporting and recruiting conservative judge candidates in Washington state, operates under the umbrella of Project 42, one of whose founders is Brian Heywood. Let’s Go Washington, Heywood’s political action committee (PAC), is bankrolling a ballot initiative against the millionaires tax as well as two anti-transgender initiatives.  

Full Court Press featured Larson and O’Donnell on a now-deleted “prospects” page on their website. O’Donnell told me back in April that he had asked to be removed from the website as soon as he learned about it, but the association with the conservative group might still impact his chances in the general. 

The current Washington state Supreme Court is considered to be one of the United States’ most progressive – especially when it comes to matters of civil rights – and most influential courts. While the legal question of the millionaires tax is expected to be heard in front of the court in the next year or so, that is only the tip of the iceberg when considering the large impact the court has on the lives of Washingtonians. 

The court is one of the most crucial institutions safeguarding the state from what many see as an increasingly threatening federal government. 

Articles on the Bite of Seattle shooting and SPD Chief Shon Barnes’ resignation:

Recent Headlines:

 

Washington State Supreme Court justice races remain ones to watch in November Read More »

SPD police chief loses his cool

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Seattle News:

I’ve been closely covering the debate around universal school meals for students in Seattle, which you can read about here and here. Right now it looks like Seattle might get both universal school meals starting this fall and a voucher-based food program for weekends and school breaks. Today, Mayor Katie Wilson and the Seattle City Council released a joint statement indicating both branches of government are on board with the plan.

The City Council will be voting on a proposal to fund the universal school meals through the general fund on August 4 as part of their mid-year supplemental budget deliberations. 

I’ve seen a lot of speculation that one or more Seattle city councilmembers might have purposefully blocked Mayor Katie Wilson’s universal school meals proposal in order to tank her political capital and have a more successful mayoral run against her in 2029. I cannot say what lies in the hearts of the councilmembers, but something else to consider is the fact that the council isn’t particularly politically aligned with the mayor and might not be worried about crossing her in the same way they might have feared crossing Mayor Bruce Harrell, who helped many of them get elected. 

In the last few weeks, I also wrote about both the D5 Seattle City Council seat race and the 46th LD state representative race.

I’m sure you’re all aware of the tragic shooting at the Seattle Center during the Bite of Seattle food festival on Sunday. PubliCola reported that SPD Chief Shon Barnes was out of town at the time of the shooting, and indeed, was scheduled to be out of town until mid-August, in spite of summer tending to be a time of increased violence overall, and gun violence in particular. 

At a press conference about the shooting on Monday, Barnes snapped at a reporter from The South Seattle Emerald who was asking about his traveling habits, and his chief of staff Alex Ricketts had to step between Barnes and the reporter and escort Barnes away. You can watch the video clip here.

At another press conference today, Barnes was asked about the incident with the reporter and said it merely illustrated his passion for being a police officer. Someone has filed a complaint with the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) about the incident. Barnes was also asked again about his travel schedule, a question he tried to dismiss as quickly as possible.

Other News:

ICE is still getting Washington state data to assist in their immigration enforcement efforts, according to KUOW, meaning the state’s sanctuary law isn’t being fully enforced. This is in spite of the state denying tens of thousands of requests from ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and Customs & Border Patrol. According to KUOW’s article:

““The records we’re getting show that the rejection doesn’t stop them from getting the data,” said Angelina Godoy, director of the UW Center for Human Rights. “They get rejected using one [Originating Agency Identifier] and then just submit their request under another one. There are thousands of still-open [Originating Agency Identifiers] they can use.””

Leaked video from the San Francisco Police Department’s drone program has shown one of the privacy risks of this surveillance technology. Ben Werdmuller, the senior director of technology at ProPublica, wrote an essay on his personal site about the more inherent problems with such ubiquitous surveillance. Furthermore, Werdmuller wrote that the police drones in San Francisco have had no impact on crime. 

Meanwhile, LAPD announced they will be letting their contract with Flock Safety expire. As 404 Media reported, “Notably, the decision came after an audit of ALPR technology found that, in a two-month period, the LAPD had improperly “investigated” 161 people whose cars were flagged as stolen in the LAPD’s ALPR system but were not actually stolen.” Here is that audit. 

Last week, the Renton City Council voted to continue to pause their use of Flock Safety stationary license plate readers in the city. However, they voted to resume use of in-vehicle license plate readers (these readers are from Axon, not Flock). It became clear during the councilmember discussion that in practice, the in-vehicle license plate readers will also not be used at present since they are not compliant with the new state law regulating the use of license plate readers (the same issue faced by the City of Seattle). While a technical fix might be possible to resume use of the Axon in-vehicle license plate readers, it is unclear if and when that will happen. 

Recent Headlines:

SPD police chief loses his cool Read More »

PROTEC17 moves to help the CARE team do their jobs

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Seattle and King County News:

This will be a short edition of Notes From the Emerald City, as I don’t have a lot to say about many of the recent headlines. This may well be because I am in the middle of writing a very intensive piece that is taking up most of my brain bandwidth at present, but in any case, today I’m going to keep things short and sweet. 

I’ve been covering some election news in the past few weeks. I was able to sit down and have a long conversation with Jaelynn Scott, who is running to become a Washington state representative for the 37th LD. If you’re interested in learning more details about Scott and her policy positions, this one is for you.

Also in election news, Toshiko Hasegawa and Rebecca Saldaña–both running for the District 2 seat on the King County Council–released their public safety platforms last week. I spoke with both of them, and while the platforms are similar in many ways, I tried to tease out the differences in both platforms and experience. 

And this week, environmental justice group Got Green released a report alleging that the Seattle Housing Authority’s public housing is “unsafe and unhealthy.” I read through the report and attended the rally about it so I could give you the most important details.

In the latest addition to the CARE team saga, PROTEC17, the union representing City workers, has filed an unfair labor practice against the City and SPOG saying that the section in the new SPOG contract regulating crisis response should be thrown out since the CARE workers’ union was not engaged with about their scope of work. 

The other headline I want to call to your attention is PubliCola’s recent article about the new forensic report on the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA), which shows their finances in pretty rough and messy shape. 

Earlier today, Erica Barnett attended the KCRHA meeting discussing the report, and I’d like to highlight some information she posted about the meeting. 

“This presentation, which sheds more light on the concerns the auditors raised, is more devastating than the audit themselves,” Barnett wrote. “What Nurse is describing is what “would be required” for stabilization—a complete overhaul of the entire organization.”

Other important details reported by Barnett: the KCRHA has a negative cash balance of $63 million as of March 2026, and addressing the issues uncovered in the report could take a year or more and cost millions of dollars. There was also no evidence found of corrective action taken by KCRHA after their negative audits from 2023 and 2024. 

 Recent Headlines:

PROTEC17 moves to help the CARE team do their jobs Read More »

Big business goes hard against social housing funding in Seattle

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Seattle News:

First off, we have an election on Tuesday, February 11, which is very soon! Recent polling shows Prop 1A (which funds social housing) and Prop 1B (which takes some JumpStart money and puts it towards something that isn’t actually social housing) being very close. The Northwest Progressive poll shows 33% of Seattleites prefer option 1A, while 31% prefer 1B. 

A large amount of money has recently been spent to push 1B. As Real Change reports, “The campaign is largely sponsored by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and its membership, which includes many of the region’s largest businesses.” This includes a sizable donation from Amazon. These are the same donors who donated heavily to our current mayor and many current city councilmembers, and who are known for their failed attempt to buy the City Council elections in 2019. Mailers are being sent by the campaign against 1A that feature statements that frankly are lies. 

Here is a list of recent articles about these social housing propositions:

The same poll also features ratings for our local elected officials up for election this November:

  • Mayor Bruce Harrell: 36% viewed favorably, 52% viewed unfavorably
  • City Attorney Ann Davison: 31% viewed favorably, 31% unfavorably
  • Council President Sara Nelson: 24% viewed favorably, 44% unfavorably
  • Councilmember Alexis Rinck: 30% viewed favorably, 25% unfavorably

The poll also included ratings of job performance for all the Seattle councilmembers, none of whom fared particularly well. Only Rinck and Nelson had ratings over 20% approval, although in most cases those who were unsure made up 50% of those polled. 

Meanwhile, 46% of likely Seattle November voters said they would support a Democratic challenger for Seattle City Attorney running against Davison, while only 32% said they’d vote to reelect her. 

Speaking of Davison, she has a new challenger for Seattle City Attorney in Nathan Rouse, who currently works as a King County public defender. I’m hoping to sit down for an interview with Rouse soon, and one of my top goals will be to help folks differentiate between Rouse and Rory O’Sullivan, who announced his candidacy for the position last year. 

If you want to go ahead and hear more from O’Sullivan right now, he published an op-ed this week about his ideas about how the Seattle City Attorney could combat “the harm and chaos caused by Trump.” 

In other Sara Nelson news, her office released a campaign message without doing their proofreading first.

After The Seattle Times published an article about how the new SODA laws passed by City Council last year are not being used (it’s been invoked a single time since it went into effect in October), Nelson took to Twitter with a statement that appears to blame SPD for not implementing her pet legislation. 

King County News:

King County Executive Dow Constantine released an executive order this week that will streamline and simplify the county’s inquests related to law enforcement-caused deaths.

King County appears to be engaged in an interesting political strategy to try to encourage the state legislature to raise the cap on property tax increases for municipalities. King County is currently facing a $150 million budget deficit for 2026-2027, which the county will have to address this fall during budget season. The budget proposal recently  released by Constantine cuts over $85 million from the criminal legal system, which is unsurprising given what a large portion of King County’s discretionary spending goes to public safety. But cuts to other departments could be equally crippling. 

Particularly hard hit in Constantine’s proposal would be the King County Sheriff’s Office with a $30.2 million cut and the Department of Community and Human Services with a $25.2 million cut. The Department of Public Health would receive a $17.6 million cut, and the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and the Superior Court would both receive $15.5 million cuts. 

HB 1334, which would raise the property tax cap for municipalities, receives its first hearing in the House Committee on Finance on Tuesday. 

WA State News:

Washington State’s spending to settle lawsuits and tort claims that allege negligence or misconduct of state agencies has been rising rapidly. The state paid out $281 million in fiscal year 2024 and $223 million in fiscal year 2023. Before that, the average annual cost was $123 million. A lot of the additional cost comes from suits against the Washington State Department of Children, Youth & Families that runs the state’s child welfare investigations and foster care system. 

New governor Bob Ferguson is even less accessible to the press than his predecessor Jay Inslee. Since assuming his new role about a month ago, he hasn’t held the traditional weekly press conference. His office has also been lax about notifying the press about the Governor’s upcoming public appearances. 

Lastly, The Urbanist ran an op-ed this week warning that the election for a Washington State Supreme Court judge last year, in which Sal Mungia only narrowly beat Dave Larson, a dark money-backed conservative, might presage a future in which dark money wins out and puts conservative judges preferred by wealthy backers on the bench in 2027 and 2029. The piece also has some suggestions about how to avoid this outcome. 

Recent Headlines:

Big business goes hard against social housing funding in Seattle 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 »

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 »

A Mixed Seattle Budget, While a $221 Million Deficit Still Looms

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Seattle News:

This week the Seattle City Council voted on all the amendments for the 2024 budget. Votes of particular note are as follows:

  • The funding for ShotSpotter remains in the budget, with CMs Strauss, Lewis, Juarez, Pedersen, and Nelson voting in favor. (This is in spite of a press release from City Council PR talking about how bad ShotSpotter is.) This also means services for tiny house villages will be cut in 2024. The next step to implement ShotSpotter in Seattle will be a surveillance impact report (SIR), which includes a racial equity toolkit.
  • The Council increased the JumpStart tax a small amount to generate $20m in order to fund mental health supports for Seattle’s students. Voting in favor were Mosqueda, Sawant, Herbold, Morales, and Juarez. The Stranger covered this vote as well.
  • A proviso telling SPD to re-initiate a contract with Truleo was passed, in spite of objections from ACLU Washington.
  • Both amendments offering additional resources for domestic violence victims were passed.
  • The $4.5 million for SPD special events bonuses to support the MOU with SPOG was included in the budget, taken from planning reserves. The vote on the actual MOU will take place at Full Council sometime in December. 
  • All human service workers, including those working under Continuum of Care contracts, received their 2% raise.
  • Funds were added to increase food security and violence prevention programs, and a SLI was requested to evaluate current gun violence prevention programs.
  • Money was removed from SPD for the Affected Persons Program, and money was added to HSD ($100k) for the same, to be contracted out to a community-based organization.

You can also read a budget wrap-up at Publicola.

Some light was also shed on the new progressive revenue sources conversation. As previously mentioned, the JumpStart tax will be increased to generate an additional $20m. CM Pedersen would like to repeal a water fee and use a 2% city-wide capital gains tax (with a $250k standard deduction) to make up the lost revenue. Projections show such a capital gains tax might generate $38 million, although it comes from a small pool of taxpayers and has an unusually high degree of uncertainty, due to market volatility and the ability for taxpayers to potentially avoid the tax by declaring a permanent home outside Seattle. CM Pedersen’s hope is that the repeal of the water fee and passage of the capital gains tax would be revenue neutral. The Council could, however, choose to pass only the capital gains tax in order to try to begin to address the 2025 budget deficit.

As for the CEO high pay ratio tax that we’ve been hearing about, we learned bad news. The original plan was to build this tax as another level of the JumpStart tax, which would make it easier to implement. However, doing it in this fashion would only generate about $7.5 million annually, which is much lower than expected. There are potentially other ways to implement a tax like this that don’t use JumpStart as a vehicle and might collect significantly more revenue, but the work has not been done by the City to enable this at present.

If the Council’s budget passes next week without substantial changes, the revenue deficit the city will be facing in 2025 stands at $221 million. The Budget Committee will vote on the final budget package on Monday, November 20, with a Full Council final budget vote on Tuesday, November 21. There will be one additional budget meeting on Thursday, November 30 for CMs to vote on the capital gains tax and water fee as well as various budget processes and transparency legislation. These further budget-related matters will receive a Full Council vote in December.

We also learned a bit more about the MOU with SPOG. First, the special event bonuses will expire at the beginning of 2026 and will not be automatically included as a line item in the full SPOG contract currently being negotiated. Second, the MOU will allow SPD officers to clear the scene for the new CARE responders without being physically present if they so choose. And third, the $225 bonuses were calculated to basically provide SPD officers performing a special events shift with double time pay (normal overtime is time and a half) at their current pay rate. However, when their pay rate goes up in the next SPOG contract, the bonus will remain at the same amount. You can read more about this at The Stranger.

The plan is for this MOU to be voted on at Full Council on Tuesday, December 5 at 2pm. There will be an opportunity to give public comment at this meeting.

In other labor news, the office of Mayor Harrell sent a condescending email to city workers with tips about spending less money. The reason these workers are struggling financially? Because they are not being given raises commensurate with inflation. Classy move.

In election news, it looks like the Seattle City Council will move further towards the center, a movement that has been ongoing as is exemplified by votes this year for the drug criminalization bill and ShotSpotter, among others.

Housekeeping:

As I don’t expect much to change with Seattle’s budget at this point, and due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I’ll be taking the rest of November off. There’ll be another edition of the newsletter published the first week of December.

Recent Headlines:

A Mixed Seattle Budget, While a $221 Million Deficit Still Looms Read More »

Will Seattle Pay SPOG a Premium to Let Others Help SPD with its Staffing Woes?

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Seattle News

Most of this week has been elections, elections, elections. As of this writing, a few Seattle councilmember races are still too close to call, but we’re seeing a definitive shift to the right.

It looks like CM Mosqueda will be moving over to the King County Council next year, and she has announced she intends to step down from Seattle City Council at the beginning of next year, when the new Council will be able to appoint a replacement. In the meantime, she’ll be busy getting the 2024 budget passed as well as finishing up other budget work.

SPD Detective Cookie Boudin has followed up her spring tort claim by suing the City. She is seeking an unspecified amount of damages, saying she’s spent her whole career dealing with a pattern of racist harrassment. The trial date has been set for November 4, 2024. 

KUOW reported that a cooking show/class at PCC hosted by SPD Chief Diaz and special guest former Chief Best cost the city $2000 in overtime this past Saturday, as five other SPD employees were paid to attend: two bodyguards, a community outreach officer, a patrol officer, and an executive assistant. Four more similar events have been scheduled and in total could cost more than $9000 in overtime. “Current numbers show the department will be between $1.5 to $4.6 million over budget by year end, Jamie Housen, spokesperson with the mayor’s office, wrote by email. He said overtime costs were mostly to blame.”

The Firefighters have reached a tentative contract with the city that isn’t good news for workers. It gives minimum annual wage increases of 2-4%, as well as a 4.5% raise in 2022 and a 5.5% raise in 2023. Given these rates don’t keep up with the rates of inflation during those same years, this represents a wage cut in real terms. This could bode poorly for the Coalition of City Unions, who have currently been offered a 2.5% wage increase. As Erica C. Barnett writes: “In contrast, Seattle police officers received a 17 percent pay increase after their last contract negotiation, with retroactive pay increases between 3 and 4 percent a year for the years they worked without a contract. The city council approved hiring bonuses of up to $30,000 for police last year.”

Seattle Budget and the SPOG MOU 

Seattle’s Budget Committee will be meeting on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next week to discuss budget-related legislation and councilmember amendments. Votes on amendments are expected on Tuesday 11/14, with Wednesday’s meeting most likely to consist of discussion of budget proposals and progressive revenue options that aren’t needed to balance the 2024 budget.

There will be an opportunity to give public comment on Monday, November 13 at both 10am and at the public hearing at 5pm. Solidarity Budget will be hosting a budget rally outside City Hall on Monday starting at 4pm. Suggested talking points for public comment and emails are available here.

Solidarity Budget co-hosted a webinar on Wednesday with ACLU Washington on the problems with the ShotSpotter surveillance technology that is currently being given funding in the 2024 budget. You can watch the webinar here, look at the slides, and find more talking points about ShotSpotter here. One of the amendments slated to be voted on next week will require a racial equity toolkit be done on this technology whenever it is moved to a new neighborhood, as opposed to the original plans announced by Senior Deputy Mayor Burgess to only require an omnibus Surveillance Impact Report (SIR). Another amendment would take the $1.5 million currently allocated for this technology and instead spend it on mental health services for tiny house villages, which are currently funded at significantly lower levels in 2024 than they were in 2023.

This week the city also announced a proposal for a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG). You can read the Central Staff memorandum on the MOU on page 42 and the full text of the MOU on page 51 of this packet.

The MOU accomplishes three things:

  • It would allow the city flexibility to sometimes use parking enforcement officers to staff special events.
  • It would allow the city to implement its dual dispatch emergency alternative response program. In spite of all the hype around the launch of this pilot, it turns out that until and unless this MOU is agreed upon, police can actively request CARE members only after they’ve arrived at and secured a site for Wellness Check and Person Down Calls, meaning it’s not even a true dual dispatch yet.
  • It would allow the city to use park rangers at parks outside of the downtown area.

There are several problematic aspects of the MOU. Perhaps the biggest one is the agreement to give officers who volunteer to staff special events an additional $225 bonus for each shift worked (in addition to any relevant overtime pay). This bonus is projected to cost $8 million in additional funds through the end of 2025. So here we have a situation in which firefighters are taking a pay cut in real terms if they accept their proposed contract while police officers are getting further bonuses beyond overtime for working special events, increasing SPD’s budget bloat even further at the expense of other core city services.

The rationale behind this odd choice is that right now SPD can only staff these special events through mandatory overtime, which is putting a strain on their workforce. But SPOG is only willing to give these officers relief by allowing other people to do some of the special events work if their officers get paid an extra bonus. Meanwhile, SPD once again went significantly over their overtime budget this year and yet are still willing to spend $2000 in overtime for a cooking class, as mentioned above. 

I’ll also note that once a new section involving extra pay is added to police guild contracts, it tends to be very, very difficult to remove later. Not to mention that this doesn’t appear to show particularly good negotiating tactics on the part of the city, who are still working with SPOG to agree upon a new contract almost three years after its expiration.

Another problematic aspect of the MOU has to do with the new dual dispatch pilot. This MOU restricts the number of responders that can be hired by CARE to 24 FTEs, meaning SPOG gets to determine the size of the pilot. It restricts the call types to which they can respond to only Person Down and Welfare Check calls, hence the Director’s reluctance to suggest response to any other call types. In addition, according to the MOU, dispatching CARE responders is not to affect the number of police dispatched to any given call. And CARE responders will be required to write a report that is available to SPD officers, which could potentially dissuade people who are already wary of the police from being willing to use this new program.

The budget amendment funding this MOU will be voted on next week and provide $4.5 million of funding to cover SPD special event bonuses for October thru December of this year and 2024. It is unclear how this extra expenditure will be balanced in the budget. The legislation related to the MOU will be on the Introduction & Referral calendar on November 21 and is expected to be voted on at Full Council sometime during the first half of December.

Recent Headlines:

Will Seattle Pay SPOG a Premium to Let Others Help SPD with its Staffing Woes? Read More »

Budget Amendments are Coming!

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Seattle News

Budget

In budget news, Budget Chair Mosqueda released her balancing package late last week. Yes, ShotSpotter is still in there, and I encourage you to continue to tell your councilmembers about all the problems with it. 

Councilmembers had to turn in their budget amendments by noon on Tuesday. We will hear all about them at the budget meeting on Friday 10/27, with a chance to give public comment at 10am. 

I will be giving a virtual budget workshop with journalist extraordinaire Ryan Packer, sponsored by The Urbanist, on Monday, October 30 from 7-8:30pm, where we’ll fill you in on everything going on with those amendments, answer questions about the budget process, and more. Sign up for your free ticket here.

Elections

Money is pouring into the Seattle city councilmember races, with real estate companies and other business interests outspending labor 4 to 1, supporting the more conservative candidate in each race. Amazon tried a similar spending strategy back in 2019 only to have most of their preferred candidates lose, but it remains to be seen whether Seattle voters will be equally savvy this year. If big business wins out this year, The Stranger has shared some insights of what we can expect.

Dual Dispatch

CARE’s new dual dispatch alternative response program has officially launched. I have already covered this program in depth, but I will note the pilot is initially focusing on downtown, including the CID and SODO.

New Drug Law

The ordinance criminalizing public drug use went into effect last Friday, and SPD was ready. On Friday afternoon they targeted 12th Ave S and Jackson St in the CID and 3rd and Pine downtown and arrested about two dozen people, ten of whom went to jail. Chief Diaz says he intends to run similar operations on a weekly basis. This would seem to lend credence to the capacity concerns around the LEAD diversion program.

Other Seattle News 

The King County Prosecutors’ Office has hired an independent investigator to look into the death of Jaahnavi Kandula due to a potential conflict of interest of having SPOG being involved in the initial investigation. The work is supposed to be completed sometime in November.

The South Seattle Emerald did a great write-up of the new, very promising Guaranteed Basic Income program being run by Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services. This is the first GBI program in the country focusing exclusively on Indigenous communities. Their director, Patanjali de la Rocha, was one of the panelists for Solidarity Budget’s GBI panel earlier this month. 

Recent Headlines

Budget Amendments are Coming! Read More »

The Seattle War on Drugs Redux

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Seattle News:

Everyone is talking about the primary results, with some commentators claiming a progressive victory and other publications saying November looks dire for progressives. As always, a strong push to turn out the vote is likely to favor progressives, who will also need to keep fundraising to match the big business dollars pouring into their moderate opponents’ coffers.

Mayor Harrell has announced new “War on Drugs” legislation. As Erica C. Barnett in Publicola reports (bold-faced mine):

“So what does the bill actually do? Exactly what an earlier version of the bill, which the council rejected 5-4, would have done: Empower City Attorney Ann Davison to prosecute people for simple drug possession or for using drugs, except alcohol and marijuana, in public. The substantive portion of the bill, which comes after nearly six pages of nonbinding whereas clauses and statements of fact, is identical to the previous proposal.”

CM Lewis, who voted against the earlier, very similar bill back in June, has said he now plans to co-sponsor it. You can’t make stuff like this up.

He told The Stranger “his time on the Mayor’s workgroup assured him the City intends to front-load treatment rather than send people to jail.” However, the new legislation would not require front-loading treatment, and much of how the system would work in practice would be up to the discretion of the City Attorney–the same City Attorney who unilaterally shut down Community Court only a few short months ago. As The Stranger reported:

“King County Public Defenders Union President Molly Gilbert wanted to empower Seattle Municipal Court judges to divert cases when cops arrest someone, but instead the bill leaves all the power to dismiss charges in the hands of the City Attorney.”

Much of the reporting on this legislation has emphasized the Mayor’s $27 million dollar plan. Not only are none of these new dollars, it is critical to emphasize $20 million of this amount is expected from an opioid lawsuit settlement that will be paid over the next 18 years, a detail that demands scrutiny. Calling this a $27 million plan seems to be a rhetorical hat trick bordering dangerously close to dishonesty, given it will only result in an additional investment of $1.15 million per year for programming.

According to the press release, the remaining $7 million will go “toward capital investments in facilities to provide services such as post-overdose care, opioid medication delivery, health hub services, long-term care management, and drop-in support.”

CM Herbold has said she will hear this legislation in the Public Safety and Human Services committee before the summer recess (August 21 – September 4), which would mean it would have to be on the agenda next Tuesday, August 8.

Seattle’s Public Safety and Human Services committee and the Select Labor Committee is having a special hearing at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, August 8 to hear an introduction to collective bargaining with the Seattle Police Management Association (SPMA), followed by a period of public comment. The SPMA represents fewer than 100 SPD lieutenants and captains, making it much smaller than the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG). The latest SPMA contract was approved last June and lasts through the end of 2023. The City is required to provide a public hearing at least 90 days before opening negotiations with the SPMA to allow the public to weigh in on what should be included in the new contract. 

The SPMA contract is often considered to set the stage for what is possible in the SPOG contract, as SPOG tends to take a more hardline approach to contract negotiations. One unfortunate aspect of both of these contracts is that they tend to linger for years after their expiration before a new contract is agreed upon, creating the necessity for a large dollar amount going towards back pay. While most labor unions do negotiate for back pay should their negotiations run long, this would normally only be for a relatively short period of time (for example, six months). Compare this to the more than two and half years of back pay in play within the SPOG contract currently being negotiated, a number that could easily grow to three or even three and a half years. The evergreen nature of these police guild contracts doesn’t incentivize the guilds to come to an agreement with the City.

On the morning of Thursday, August 10 at the Finance and Housing committee meeting, the Progressive Revenue Stabilization Workgroup will issue its recommendations. Given the $200 million gap between 2025’s projected revenue and expenditures, it behooves the City to consider any options presented very seriously indeed.

King County News:

A fight involving eight kids broke out at King County’s youth jail last week, leading to more room time for kids in the jail this past weekend. Executive Constantine has committed to closing this jail by 2025, but while the daily average population had dropped to 15 in 2021, that number started to creep back up in 2022 and is now up to 34.7. The population the day of the fight was 41. The average length of stay per kid has also increased. The King County Executive Spokesperson Chase Gallagher says the plan to close the jail remains on schedule.

Recent Headlines:

The Seattle War on Drugs Redux Read More »