Category: Police

City Council, Density, education, Mayor Wilson, Police

This Week on PubliCola: August 2, 2026

Police chief resigns, Burien city manager fired, school meals resolved, and much more.

By Erica C. Barnett

It was a busy, busy week for PubliCola, with news about now-former Seattle police chief Shon Barnes starting on Sunday night, when we broke the news that he was out of town during the mass shooting at Seattle Center, an absence we later learned contributed to a five-hour delay in information getting out about the incident. I spent the week burning up the phones and breaking news.

Meanwhile, on KUOW’s Week In Review this week, two guests (including one of KUOW’s editors) dedicated a huge chunk of time to insulting PubliCola and our work, calling me an “influencer” who just “hung out a shingle” and “called myself a news person.” (They didn’t name PubliCola directly, but every reference was to our reporting).

KUOW editor and reporter Catherine Smith and their guest Angela Poe Russell, who’s making the rounds as a Barnes defender, erroneously claimed that every police chief going back to Gil Kerlikowske has been out of town as much as Barnes has. “Don’t give us one-sided narrative and call it journalism,” Russell said, and Smith agreed that I didn’t have the goods, saying it was not “fair” for me to “criticize him for that when other chiefs travel like that.”

Russell and Smith presented zero evidence for their assertions. Smith claimed her story this week included information about those past chiefs’ schedules that contradicted my reporting, but it did not; the only “reporting” she had on that subject was a summary of a spokesman saying “Barnes’ level of travel is consistent with past chiefs of police.”

Then Russell said biased and false reporting like mine was why people should support public radio like KUOW instead The host of Week In Review, a show on which I am sometimes a guest, did not push back as the two women insulted me and said my work this week was inaccurate. (For the record, I’ve been a full-time reporter in Seattle since 2001, and at PubliCola since 2009—and I stand by my reporting).

So! This is your reminder that PubliCola is a paywall-free independent news source brought to, and our ONLY source of funding is direct contributions from readers who appreciate this work. If you can, please consider making a one-time or ongoing contribution via Patreon, Paypal, Venmo, or check, or subscribing to my Substack newsletter below. Thank you for reading and supporting PubliCola!

Monday, July 27

Council’s School Meals Plan Will Require Cuts to Other Services

An early plan by city councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth, Dionne Foster, and Dan Strauss to dip into the city’s general fund to pay for universal school meals would have required Mayor Katie Wilson to come up with cuts elsewhere totaling around $3 million. The proposal, which changed later in the week to one the mayor and council could both accept, came after Hollingsworth and Foster proposed delaying universal school meal funding to pay for take-home food vouchers for low-income kids as part of the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise (FEPP) levy.

Seattle Police Chief Out of Town During Mass Shooting

I broke the news on Sunday that then-police chief Shon Barnes was out of town at a conference in Dallas during a shooting at Seattle Center, part of a planned absence of at least two weeks during the height of the summer’s public festival season. As I previously reported, Barnes’ family and permanent home are in Chicago, where he has traveled frequently, and he also spent much of his time as chief giving keynote speeches and attending out-of-town events.

Tuesday, July 28

Confrontation With Reporter Was Just “Passion on Full Display,” Police Chief Says; OPA Complaint Filed

When South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash asked Barnes about my reporting on his frequent absences from the city, Barnes lashed out verbally; his chief of staff and longtime friend Alex Ricketts inserted himself physically between Barnes and Nash and hustled Barnes away. Asked about his outburst at a press conference, Barnes claimed he was just being “passionate about what I do as a police office.” One person who disagreed with Barnes’ takeaway filed a complaint against him with the city’s Office of Police Accountability. Although KUOW’s story described the OPA complaint as a mere assertion by me as an individual, I obtained a copy of the complaint and quoted it in my piece.

Wednesday, July 29

On Narrow Vote, Council Gets Rid of Local Appeal Process that Delays Land Use Legislation

On a 5-4 vote, with Bob Kettle serving as a swing vote, the Seattle City Council approved legislation to eliminate one of several avenues for opponents to appeal land-use legislation, such as the city’s comprehensive plan. The bill, sponsored by Councilmember Eddie Lin, eliminates pre-legislative appeals to the city’s hearing examiner while still allowing people to appeal legislation to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or to King County Superior Court after it passes.

Partial, Altered Schedule Shows Police Chief Out of Town Nearly 7 Weeks So Far This Year

A partial schedule that was altered to removed time then-police chief Barnes had previously planned to be away in August showed that the chief was out of town, mostly at conferences and visiting his family, about seven weeks over less than three months. (SPD only provided an accurate schedule between March 29 and July 26; Barnes had also planned time off in August, but the schedule was altered to show him in town after the shooting). In other words, Barnes was out of town or otherwise not on the job at least 40 percent of time time during the 17 weeks for which SPD provided his schedule.

Multiple Sources Say Police Chief Barnes is Out; Mayor’s Office Not Responding to Questions

As of Wednesday, what we knew about Barnes’ departure was vague and unverified; my sources told me Barnes had started calling some of his captains to say he’d been fired, and that he had been seen entering Wilson’s office late in the day and leaving a couple hour later. At the time, Mayor Katie Wilson’s office was not responding to questions; later, it would become clear that she had asked him to resign and he had refused, launching negotiations over a settlement that would not wrap up until late the following day.

Thursday, July 30

Burien Council Fires Controversial City Manager

Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon, who’s been on paid leave pending an investigation into his conduct on the job, was fired by the city council this week. In addition to months of pay while the investigation was ongoing, he’ll get six months’ salary as a settlement—about $117,000. You can read about some of the many issues that have been raised about his performance in my post.

Mayor and Council Say They’ve Found Money for Universal School Meals After All

As mentioned above, the mayor and city council manage to identify “underspend” in the 2026 budget that will pay for universal school meals, with the FEPP levy picking up the tab for both low-income food vouchers and universal school meals the following year. The city is banking on the success of the so-called millionaires’ tax at the ballot box in November to pay for school meals after that.

Police Chief Shon Barnes is Out, His Deputy Andre Sayles Will Serve as Interim Chief

Mayor Wilson made it official at 3:30 on Thursday afternoon: Police Chief Shon Barnes resigned and will be replaced on an interim basis by one of his two deputies, Andre Sayles. Negotiations over the terms of Barnes’ settlement stretched into Thursday, contributing to a frustrating delay in information out of the mayor’s office.

Friday, July 31

Wilson, New Interim Police Chief Sayles Address Barnes’ Ouster, SPD’s Future

At a packed, rowdy press conference, Wilson and new interim chief Sayles took questions about Barnes’ resignation and the mayor’s plans for appointing a new police chief. I reported that Barnes will receive a total of $700,000 as a settlement. Although reporters repeatedly demanded that Wilson lay out her reasons for firing Barnes, the settlement agreement reportedly includes standard non-disparagement language that would prevent Wilson from going into too many specifics.

(That didn’t stop the Seattle Times editorial board from accusing her of firing Barnes to create a “distraction” from her incompetence and saying without specific reasons, the public would be right to believe he was “scapegoated.”)

Also this week: We did two Seattle Nice podcasts about the police chief’s departure—recording one on Wednesday, during the chaotic period when rumors were swirling and we didn’t know the details, and another on Saturday, after the mayor’s decision was official and Sayles (whose family also lives out of state) was officially the interim chief. The second one is behind a paywall as bonus content—subscribe to Seattle Nice on Patreon to listen now, or check out the preview first!

 

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Police

Wilson, New Interim Police Chief Sayles Address Barnes’ Ouster, SPD’s Future

By Erica C. Barnett

This post has been updated to include the information that former chief Barnes is receiving a $700,000 payout to leave the city.

A press conference with Mayor Katie Wilson and new interim Police Chief Andre Sayles revolved, somewhat predictably, around questions about why Wilson didn’t talk to the press sooner both after Sunday’s mass shooting and yesterday, when she finally announced at 3:30 that she had asked for Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes’ resignation.

Sayles, Barnes’ replacement, was previously the police chief of Beloit, Wisconsin, a small town near the Illinois border. Barnes hired Sayles as his second deputy chief as part of a hiring spree that included several other brand-new executive positions. During the press conference, Sayles confirmed that his family, like Barnes’, lives in Illinois (not Wisconsin, as I previously reported); property records indicate they live in a town called Belvidere, just across the Wisconsin border.

“I do frequently go back to visit my family, probably about every eight weeks or so, but my wife spends most of her time out here with me” at a second home in East King County, Sayles said. “We’re looking to make this our home. It’s our area that we can retire from one day. But right now, we have kids that we need to get settled, and one day we’ll make this area our home.”

Wilson emphasized the need for the next permanent police chief to live here full-time and be part of the Seattle community. Unlike Harrell, who appointed Barnes with no public process, Wilson said she’ll appoint a search committee “that reflects the full diversity of Seattle to conduct “a meaningful engagement process.”

Reporters, including many TV reporters who spent much of yesterday fuming about the lack of information from the mayor’s office, also asked why the mayor was firing a chief who’s popular with so many current council members.

Five council members issued statements (and several did interviews) yesterday excoriating the mayor for firing Barnes. Four of the five (Rob Saka, Joy Hollingsworth, Maritza Rivera, Bob Kettle, and Debora Juarez) are centrists elected as a bloc in 2023 and most explicitly supported Harrell over Wilson last year. (Juarez, who described herself as an “elected leader” in an interview with KOMO, declined to run for reelection in 2023 and was appointed last year to replace Cathy Moore, a member of the Class of 2023 who quit less than a year and a half into her term).

Asked about the council’s opposition to her decision, Wilson said, “As the executive of the city, I do have a different window into our police department,” adding that she was confident that she made the right decision.

As I reported yesterday, one reason police took so long to release information about Sunday’s shooting was that the police chief, who spent much of his time out of town and whose family lives in Chicago, was at a conference in Dallas. Barnes reportedly wanted to be briefed on the shooting before he would allow SPD assistant chief Tyrone Davis to brief the press, who had gathered at the scene of the shooting and spent hours irritably standing around waiting for information on the shooting.

Wilson has not directly explained the reason for yesterday’s delay in releasing information. However, my own reporting indicates that Barnes did not agree to a settlement until late afternoon—a full day after rumors that he had been fired began swirling.

Barnes will receive a settlement of $700,000—about two years’ annual salary—as part of his agreement to step down. Wilson wouldn’t say how much he’ll receive; I’ve filed a records request for that information.

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I was able to confirm that Barnes gets to keep the entire $50,000 “lateral hiring bonus” he and several of his new staff received when Harrell hired him, a story I broke last August. The city approved the lateral hiring bonus during what Harrell and most of the city council claimed was a police hiring “crisis,” and it was designed explicitly to recruit “new police officers”—not top executives—from other police departments. Under the law, any officer who receives the bonus and doesn’t remain at the city for five years has to pay the bonus back on a pro-rated basis, so Barnes has received an exemption from that requirement.

Although the mayor declined to elaborate on why she gave Barnes the boot, it’s clear that his temperament and frequent travel out of town, both to his family home in Chicago and to conferences around the country, were factors in the decision. Barnes was also reportedly unpopular with many rank and file officers, and gave short shrift to the CARE Team, a group of social workers created to respond to 911 crisis calls that don’t require police. Barnes did not meet with CARE Department Chief Amy Barden for more than a year, and CARE has been hamstrung since last year by a police union contract that restricts what kind of calls they can respond to.

In searching for a new chief, Wilson said, she’ll be looking for a person “who can earn the respect of our police force while also leading needed changes to culture and protocol in a way that’s firm and fair. I will be looking for someone who can practice clear communication in stressful situations. I will be looking for someone who is consistently present in Seattle, keeping travel to an appropriate minimum, and who also ensures that when they are away, there is sufficient SPD leadership in town to guide our city from any emergency.” Wilson also name-checked the CARE Team, saying she wants a police chief “who understands the value of our alternative crisis response system, our CARE and fire departments, and our service providers.”

We discussed Barnes’ ouster, which was still unconfirmed at the time we recorded, on this week’s edition of Seattle Nice, and will be doing another episode over the weekend, so stay tuned.

Mayor Wilson, Police

Confrontation With Reporter Was Just “Passion on Full Display,” Police Chief Says; OPA Complaint Filed

After the chief twice mischaracterized PubliCola’s reporting, SPD confirmed the chief planned two weeks off before Sunday’s tragedy at Seattle Center.

By Erica C. Barnett

During a briefing on the mass shooting at the Bite of Seattle at Seattle Center on Sunday, Police Chief Shon Barnes responded to a few questions about his claim that PubliCola’s reporting on his whereabouts and schedule has been inaccurate. (Yesterday, Barnes lashed out at South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash, who politely asked about my reporting on Barnes’ planned two-week absence, saying my stories were “wrong.” Clips of the confrontation quickly went viral.)

After telling me (inaccurately) that I had reported he would be out of town for “the entire month of August,” Barnes said, “I have a medical procedure on Friday. If I’m good to go, I’ll be in the office as my usual cheerful and bubbly self. But if not, I’ll take all the time that I need to make sure that that I’m okay.”

Barnes did not answer my followup question about how long he had originally planned to be out of the office before the shooting forced him to return from a conference in Dallas. (“Asked and answered,” he said.) After the press conference, SPD media staff told me the two weeks he had planned to take off actually extended from July 22 to August 3, with a planned return on August 4. The comms folks didn’t how much additional time the chief might have to take off because of his medical procedure.

Another reporter said she wanted to give Barnes an opportunity to “quash” criticism of his “heated exchange” with Nash about my reporting.

Barnes disputed that characterization, told the reporter, “I respect our media,” and said his reaction—which prompted his chief of staff, Alex Ricketts, to insert himself between Barnes and Nash and hustle the chief away—was just an example of being “passionate about what I do as a police officer” and “community member.”

“Sometimes that passion is in full display, especially if someone is questioning my work ethic or my integrity,” Barnes continued. “You know, having a two-year-old shot should evoke strong emotions in people.”

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Since his confrontation with Nash, at least one person has filed a complaint against Barnes with the city’s Office of Police Accountability, alleging that he violated a section of SPD’s policy manual that requires SPD employees to “treat everyone with respect and courtesy, guarding against an officious or overbearing attitude and refraining from language, demeanor, and actions that may cause the individual feeling belittled, ridiculed, or intimidated.”

Referring to published videos of the confrontation, the complaint continues, “Connor appears fearful and intimidated by Chief Barnes in this video. This violent outburst coming from the Police Chief, who is presumably armed during this encounter is completely unacceptable. Officers would be disciplined for behaving this way toward any community member. The fact the Chief left the room and then returned to begin this confrontation makes this more concerning.”

At Tuesday’s press conference, Barnes took another opportunity to dispute something I reported. Since former mayor Bruce Harrell hired him as interim chief in December 2024, Barnes’ wife and kids have continued to live in their family home in Chicago while he rents an apartment in Seattle. More than a year ago, I reported that Barnes was out of town for more than half the weekends during a four-month period for which I requested his schedule.

Asked how often he’s in Chicago (by—credit where it’s due—right-wing activist Jonathan Choe), Barnes again mischaracterized my reporting, saying “any reports that I’m gone every weekend are grossly misstated. I don’t have that kind of money.” (Since he brought it up, Barnes makes $373,000 a year and got a $50,000 signing bonus when he started.)

“I’m here in Seattle. I love the neighborhood that I live in. I love my community. They love me. They know me. They see me all the time,” Barnes said. “So I feel good about being here in Seattle. I love this community.”

City Council, education, Mayor Wilson, Police, Poverty

Seattle Police Chief Out of Town During Mass Shooting

 

 

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By Erica C. Barnett

Editor’s note: This post, originally part of today’s Morning Fizz, has been updated and expanded to include new information.

Yesterday’s mass shooting at Seattle Center, in which a gunman killed three people and injured five more, was the type of violent incident that, historically, has prompted Seattle police chiefs to rush to the scene to demonstrate the seriousness of the situation and answer questions from members of the press.

But the city’s current police chief, Shon Barnes, was nowhere to be seen on Sunday. As he has been for many weekends since he took the $373,000 job in December 2024, Barnes was out of town. According to multiple sources, Barnes planned to be out of town until mid-August, taking several weeks away from Seattle during the period when shootings and other violent incidents are most likely to occur. Barnes also took two weeks off during the most recent winter holidays, including New Year’s Eve.

As we’ve reported, Barnes rents an apartment in Seattle and makes frequent trips to his family residence in Chicago, where his wife and kids live full-time. Last year at this time, PubliCola reported that Barnes’ schedule showed he spent most weekends, beginning on Friday afternoons, out of town, attending conferences, going to events related to his college fraternity, giving keynote speeches, or spending time with his family in Chicago.

PubliCola sent detailed questions about the police chief’s whereabouts to SPD on Sunday night and Monday morning and had received no response or acknowledgement by late morning. However, Barnes’ Facebook page, where he has chronicled many of his trips, indicates he was at a conference for the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives in Dallas. He was back in Seattle this morning for a press conference on the shooting at City Hall.

(After this post went up, a city spokesperson contacted us to ask for a correction, saying we had inaccurately claimed Barnes was in Chicago, which we did not; our article this morning included the paragraph above about Barnes’ attendance at the NOBLE event. Despite the apparent urgency of this call, SPD still has not responded to any of our questions sent over the past two days.)

Barnes, who received a $50,000 recruitment bonus to leave his previous job as police chief of Madison, WI, was also out of town during a major SPD incident last May, in which police pepper-sprayed and arrested dozens of counter-protesters at a rally and concert held by anti-trans right-wing activists at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill, Seattle’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood. Barnes’ family also lived in Chicago while he was Madison’s police chief, although those two cities are only about a three hours’ drive apart.

During a press conference late Monday morning, a reporter asked Barnes if he was out of town this weekend, as I reported on Sunday. His response: “I wish I had a crystal ball and we could schedule gun violence but we can’t.”

At the end of the press conference, Barnes snapped at South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash, who asked him about my reporting that he is out of town a lot. FOX 13 anchor Hana Kim posted video (above) that showed Barnes becoming “confrontational,” as Kim put it, snapping, “I have been here working as hard as I can for this city from the day I got here. Do you got that?”

As Nash continued to ask his question, Barnes cut him off. “No, no, you listen to me.”

“The reports are that you are not in town—often,” Nash persisted. “Their reports are wrong. You understand that?” Barnes said, as his chief of staff Alex Ricketts pushed himself physically between Barnes and Nash, saying, “Let’s go, man. Let’s go. Let’s go” and escorting Barnes back inside the mayor’s office.

We’ve reached out to the mayor’s office about Barnes’ outsize response to the question about his schedule and will update this post if we hear back.

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Police

Mayor’s Press Secretary Departs, Budget for Police Salary Hikes Tops $80 Million

1. Sage Wilson, Mayor Katie Wilson’s press secretary, is leaving the mayor’s office after less than seven months on the job, after deciding he’d be more effective as an advocate for progressive causes outside the mayor’s office than inside it. Wilson, who previously worked in media relations for the labor advocacy group Working Washington and the progressive policy group Civic Ventures, doesn’t have a job lined up yet; his last day will be in early August.

Sage Wilson is just the latest in a string of mayoral staffers to leave Wilson’s office, and the second top communications staffer. In June, as we reported, Wilson asked her communications director (and Sage Wilson’s boss), Seferiana Day, to resign after a string of bad press for the mayor, much of which occurred while Day was on medical leave. After Day’s departure, the mayor’s office hired Crystal Nicole Fincher, the political consultant, podcaster, and co-owner of KVRU Radio, to join her team temporarily as a big-picture communications consultant, and brought on longtime SDOT spokeswoman Dawn Schellenberg as a temporary media relations staffer.

Day’s old position has been posted publicly, but the mayor’s office has reportedly been talking to Gregory Joseph, until recently the communications director for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. (Editor’s note: This story originally said Joseph was the Alliance’s current communications director. A representative from the group reached out to let us know his “role ended in June.” We regret the error). Several sources have told PubliCola the mayor’s office has interviewed Joseph “informally,” although the official line is that they haven’t done any interviews yet and are considering any and all candidates for the job. (The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the communications director position Wednesday morning).

Prior to joining the Alliance, Joseph was in the news in New Orleans for allegedly misusing $51,00o in city funds to create campaign mailers for his boss, then-mayor LaToya Cantrell, during the final stretch of an ultimately unsuccessful recall campaign against her.  Joseph was later accused of violating procurement policies with a no-bid contract as well. According to local media reports, the council found Joseph guilty of violating city policies, gross misconduct, incompetence and neglect of official duty and unanimously voted to suspend his pay, effectively firing him.

Another Wilson staffer, city council liaison Tracey Whitten, just went on an extended medical leave, telling the City Council in an email that she plans to return in November.  In her absence, Karem Levitas, a senior policy advisor to the mayor who spent a decade as a policy staffer for the city’s Office of Labor Relations, will take over.

The relationship between the council and mayor, as we’ve reported, has been rocky, thanks in part to early friction between councilmembers and two Wilson staffers, Jonathan Grant (who resigned in May) and Kate Kreuzer (reassigned to a different job two weeks before Grant was asked to step down).

Asked about mayor-council relations during a media availability earlier this week, City Council President Joy Hollingsworth gave an equivocal answer, saying the relationship was new, still  “building,” and getting better over time. But she also said Wilson’s team didn’t talk with the council before introducing their Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise levy spending plan, which led to a heated debate over whether to use levy funds to pay for universal free lunches or targeted spending on take-home food for low-income kids.

” I do not like a food fight,” Hollingsworth said. “Number one, if I were to have a conversation with the mayor about this plan before they announced it in April, I would have said let’s lower the [eligibility] threshold to 30 percent”—making schools eligible for free meals when 30 percent of their kids qualify for free and reduced lunches—”instead of 40 percent. … let’s get those schools that are on the bubble for the first year, and then the next year we can expand it.”

2. The city’s midyear supplemental budget is usually as boring as its name. This year is largely no exception—the proposal, before any council amendments, keeps the city’s 2026 budget mostly in balance, with just $500,000 in additional spending that does not have an identified funding source. (The council adopts supplemental budgets every year to keep spending in line with expectations and make any changes that the original budget, adopted every November, didn’t anticipate.)

But the staid supplemental does include a potential warning sign: The budget update assumes the city will spend just over $80 million this year paying retroactive (2024-2025) and current (2026) wage increases for SPD officers (represented by the Seattle Police Officers Guild) and officers with a rank of lieutenant or captain (represented by the Seattle Police Management Association), combined.

This total is about $12 million less than the city estimated back in 2025, when the fiscal notes, or cost estimates, for the new contracts totaled a little more than $90 million. And that was back when SPD estimated it would hire 100 new officers this year; more recently, the department said they were on track to hire 167 new cops, a pace that could require them to slow down hiring unless the city gives them even more money.

City budget director Aly Penucci told PubliCola the city already set aside enough in reserves for just this kind of budget uncertainty, and noted that $90 million represented the “estimate of what the potential maximum exposure would be that is refined as more information is known.”

Even so, the big numbers are ominous news for next year’s budget, for which Wilson has asked every department (including SPD) to come up with cuts of 5 to 10 percent. (The city is facing a deficit of about $175 million next year). Some on the council have reportedly signaled intent to hold the line on police spending, aka business as usual, giving SPD whatever it needs to hire as many new recruits as can walk through the door and meet the minimum standards.

With various public safety departments, including fire and police, taking up almost half a billion dollars,  holding police harmless this year will require bigger cuts to other city departments. Boring though supplemental budgets may be, the debate over whether to slow down police spending is shaping up to be the major battle of the upcoming budget season.

City Council, homelessness, Mayor Wilson, Police

Seattle Nice Discusses Mayor Katie Wilson’s Track Record at Six Months

By Erica C. Barnett

On Seattle Nice this week, Sandeep, David, and I discussed the mayor’s track record at six months in, starting with her approach to encampment sweeps, which have continued at a steady clip through the new mayor’s tenure.

Some Wilson never promised to “stop the sweeps”—before she ran for mayor, we had her on the podcast to talk about a piece she wrote for the Stranger titled “Where the Left Went Wrong on Homelessness”—but she did say she would moderate the aggressive sweeps of the Harrell administration. Wilson also set an aspirational goal for new shelters (specifically, tiny house village units): 500 by the World Cup, 1,000 by the end of this year.

So far, the Wilson administration has fallen far short of that goal, and sweeps have continued apace. (Wilson has also embraced Purpose Dignity Action’s approach to encampment resolution, which involves longer-term outreach and shelter or housing options that are actually tailored to people’s needs, but that sort of solution is limited by funding and political will).

In an interview published in two parts on PubliCola last week, Wilson said it was important to keep “high-priority” areas like parks and sidewalks clear. Discussing her comments on the podcast, I said sounded an awful lot like the way her predecessor Bruce Harrell justified accelerating sweeps, saying it was important to keep parks and sidewalks open for their intended use.

Sandeep argued that Wilson is “charting a new path for the left” by reversing the “stop the sweeps” attitude that led the city to stop removing encampments during the pandemic. As I repeatedly interjected, the business-backed mayor at the time, Jenny Durkan, actually stopped sweeping encampments in response to guidance from the CDC during Trump’s first term, and the sweeps were quickly resumed once the immediate emergency was over. At no time was “the left” in control of the city’s sweeps team during those years.

Wilson has also faced headwinds that Harrell didn’t, including conflicts with the council—some self-inflicted, others a matter of ideological differences.

As we discussed, one of the items Wilson ticked off in her list of achievements—securing funding in the Families, Education, Preschool and Promise (FEPP) levy plan for universal school meals—was undermined the very day of our interview, when Council President Joy Hollingsworth and Councilmember proposed using the school-meal money to pay for vouchers for weekend and holiday lunches for low-income kids. The debate over whether children’s access to food at school should be means-tested or universal is still ongoing.

The upcoming budget will also be a test of both mayor-council relations and Wilson’s ability to get her priorities through the legislative process. We discussed the challenges the mayor will face while navigating likely spending cuts (Harrell, who was running for reelection when he drafted his final head-in-the-sand budget, knowingly left Wilson with a starting deficit of $140 million, which has risen to around $175 million), including council members who oppose any slowdown in SPD hiring.

During our interview, Wilson said she’s retaining Police Chief Shon Barnes. But I heard an unspoken “for now.” Sandeep, citing unnamed sources “in her orbit,” says I’m wrong. Who’s right? I’m sure we’ll talk about that more on a future episode!