Tag: City Attorney’s Office

Courts

Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi Files Bar Complaint Against City Attorney Ann Davison and Her Former Criminal Chief


Vaddadi says City Attorney Ann Davison’s office made “counterfactual, false, and defamatory” statements to justify a decision to prohibit the judge from hearing misdemeanor cases last year.

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi has filed a formal complaint with the Washington State Bar Association against City Attorney Ann Davison and her former criminal division chief, Natalie Walton-Anderson, over their decision last year to preemptively disqualify her from hearing any criminal cases by filing a Affidavit of Prejudice in every case that lands in Vaddadi’s courtroom, disqualifying Vaddadi from hearing these cases.

The bar association has the authority to take disciplinary action against any state-licensed attorney, up to and including disbarment.

By prohibiting Vaddadi from hearing misdemeanor cases, Davison effectively overturned the 2023 election in which voters elected her to the bench. Davison announced her decision in a memo and press release last year.

Davison’s decision prompted the Seattle Times to publish a contemptuous editorial excoriating the “uninformed voters” who elected Vaddadi and calling her a biased ideologue—a term they never used to describe conservative firebrand Judge Ed McKenna, whom the editorial board described as a victim when progressive city attorney Pete Holmes called him out for blatantly political rulings and public statements.

For more than a year, Vaddadi’s job has consisted primarily of reviewing traffic tickets. That changed somewhat in February, when the City Attorney’s Office stopped disqualifying her automatically from cases that don’t involve allegations of domestic violence or DUIs. When these cases come up, a pro tem judge or magistrate usually has to sit in, at the city’s expense. “It’s almost like paying an eighth judge to preside in criminal court,” Vaddadi said.

Davison and Walton-Anderson—who is now Mayor Bruce Harrell’s chief public safety advisor—claimed last year that Vaddadi was biased and incompetent, vaguely citing several cases in which, they alleged, Vaddadi had improperly released a defendant, failed to find probable cause when probable cause existed, and showed what they described as “a complete lack of understanding, or perhaps even intentional disregard, of the evidence rules, even on basic issues.”

Vaddadi’s complaint eviscerates those claims, calling them “counterfactual, false, and defamatory.”

“The statements were untethered to a specific proceeding and published in part to provide political cover for a far-reaching blanket [Affidavit of Prejudice] policy of unprecedented scope,” Vaddadi wrote. “The effect of the policy was to exclude me from hearing all misdemeanor cases for most of 2024, which strained court resources and resulted in litigation against the City of Seattle.”

The Washington Community Alliance and three Seattle voters sued the city for disenfranchising voters by disqualifying Vaddadi last year. 

“It was a tough year,” Vaddadi told PubliCola on Thursday. “There’s this scathing piece of writing that’s published [and repeated] in the media, to my colleagues and the people I respect, and I know it’s full of lies. And what is awful is, because she’s the city attorney, and Natalie Walton-Anderson is now head of public safety at the mayor’s office, they have a powerful voice. And they’ve used it to spread these lies about me, and people believe them—and that’s really hard.”

Vaddadi said that, contrary to what Davison and Walton-Anderson claimed in their memo, no one from the city attorney’s office ever reached out to her to discuss their concerns, or took any of the other other avenues that were available to them before announcing she would be disqualified from all misdemeanor cases.

Municipal Court Judge Damon Shadid, speaking on his own behalf and not as a representative of the court, said the decision to completely exclude Vaddadi from hearing misdemeanor cases appears to be unprecedented. “In the history of the state of Washington, no prosecuting attorney has ever used the affidavit of prejudice to this decree—not even close,” Shadid said. “This blows every other blanket AOP situation out of the water. And it’s worse, because they never came to Judge Vaddadi with their concerns.”

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“This feels to me like they are exploiting a loophole in the democratic process and the legal process in general,” Vaddadi said. “There are avenues to complain about judicial conduct,” such as the Commission on Judicial Conduct and the court process itself. But “they’ve only appealed one case that I’ve ruled on”—a case in which Vaddadi disqualified an assistant city attorney, Victoria Pugh, from prosecuting a case in which she was also a witness. (The city attorney’s office appealed that decision and a Superior Court judge sided with Vaddadi.)

It was that case, Vaddadi believes, that made Davison and Walton-Anderson come gunning for her. “Such retaliation is improper use of the City Attorney’s authority and was calculated to damage my reputation and to chill judicial independence and integrity,” she wrote in her complaint.

A spokesman for Davison’s office said they had not yet seen Vaddadi’s complaint and therefore could not respond to it before publication.

A key claim in Vaddadi’s complaint is that Davison and Walton-Anderson fabricated or misrepresented cases Vaddadi heard in order to make her sound incompetent, then refused to provide case numbers in response to requests, including media requests. (The city attorney’s office did not provide these case numbers when PubliCola asked for them last year).

This made it hard for her to prove she did not do the things the city attorney’s office accused her of doing, Vaddadi said, such as as improperly dismissing a DUI case, allowing someone who had committed domestic violence to go free, and dismissing a case against someone who failed to comply with treatment—claims Vaddadi says are inaccurate or misleading.

Shadid confirmed that the city attorney’s office “refused to produce the case numbers to me” when he asked on three separate occasions.

Vaddadi disputes the city attorney’s characterization of several cases Davison and Walton-Anderson described in their memo, something she said she was unable to do until members of the public managed to figure out which cases Davison was describing and show that the facts didn’t match the city attorney’s descriptions.

“I knew from the moment they filed [the blanket affidavit of prejudice] that everything in that statement was false, but at this point, I’ve got the cases that they described, with the actual case numbers, and nothing really matches up,” Vaddadi said.

“By comparing the actual records to the summaries in the Memo, it is a trivial exercise to demonstrate that the Memo’s description of my record contains factual statements that Ms. Walton-Anderson and Ms. Davison knew were false at the time the Memo was published,” her compalint says.

Vaddadi said “the most egregious fabrication” of several “directly falsifiable” cases was a case in which, according to the city attorney’s memo, she dismissed a domestic violence case “even though it was clear that the defendant never got on the transport van to [American Behavioral Health Services] to fulfill his residential treatment requirement that was part of dispositional continuance.”

According to Vaddadi’s complaint, almost everything about this description was false or misleading, including the gender of the defendant (she’s a woman), the reason she “never got on the transport van” (she was in a wheelchair and the van driver “refused” to take her), and the disposition of the case (it was continued, not dismissed, and Judge Faye Chess later dismissed it.)

In a letter responding to a bar complaint by Seattle resident Bennett Haselton, an outside attorney for Walton-Anderson said the original order didn’t rest on any specific cases, but acknowledged that the city attorney’s office had some of their facts wrong in the van case. Shadid said the city attorney’s office should have corrected their original memo and redacted their claim that Vaddadi mishandled this case, but they have not done so.

Reiterating the arguments she made in a statement published by the Stranger last year, Vaddadi wrote that contrary to what Davison and Walton-Anderson claimed in their memo, they never met with her to discuss any concerns about her rulings or purported bias toward defendants.

Vaddadi said Davison and Walton-Anderson’s statements closely resemble the “actual malice” standard required to prove libel against a public official—a high bar that requires proof that someone made a false statement, knowing it was false or with “reckless disregard” for the truth, in a way that harmed the person the statement was about.

According to Vaddadi, the city attorney’s statements didn’t just damage her reputation, making it harder for her to be reelected or get other jobs in the future; they also made her the target for “a barrage of vile, racist, and threatening communications directed personally to me,” forcing her to take steps to protect herself and her family from threats.

Presiding Municipal Court Judge Anita Crawford-Willis declined to comment on Vaddadi’s bar complaint. “Judge Vaddadi is a duly elected judge and valued member of the Seattle Municipal Court bench,” she said.

Shadid, who has picked up some of Vaddadi’s cases and administrative work, said that seeing “a promising young judge, a woman of color, being attacked in this way has really affected other women of color and other people in our court.”

Vaddadi said she wants more than just the ability to preside over cases as an elected judge; she wants to fix the damage to her reputation Davison’s office has caused over the past year.

“I’m looking for the truth to come out and for my reputation to be restored … and I’m looking to do my job that I was elected to do,” Vaddadi  said. “I have never filed a bar complaint in my life, and I would hope that I don’t ever have to do it again … but at some point, bad conduct needs to be addressed.”

 

Courts, Drugs

Ann Davison’s New “Drug Prosecution Alternative” Is Just the Community Court She Ended Two Years Ago

Seattle Municipal Courthouse

By Erica C. Barnett

City Attorney Ann Davison, who unilaterally ended the city’s therapeutic community court two years ago, announced yesterday that she’s rolling out a new option for people accused of drug misdemeanors, such as the recently adopted laws against using or possessing drugs in public spaces. The office announced the new “drug prosecution alternative” in a press release after the Seattle Times posted a story about it yesterday morning.

According to the announcement, “The Drug Prosecution Alternative will provide an incentive for defendants arrested for drug use and possession to connect with services and commit no new law violations to have their drug cases dismissed.”

The new alternative will include a “warm hand-off” from the court to the city’s Community Resource Center, where they will be able to access resources directly. After that, if they don’t violate the law for 60 days, their charges will be dismissed. This process will, in theory, free up the city attorney’s office to focus on other cases instead of going through a discovery process for every drug case they pursue.

If most of that sounds awfully familiar, it should. The structure of the new “drug prosecution alternative” is identical to the community court Davison shut down two years ago as the fentanyl epidemic raged. Put another way, what Davison is proposing is effectively a restoration of the old community court.

When Davison’s office announced it was ending community court two years ago, they derided the court as as ineffective and soft, in part, because defendants retained their right to trial and were not required to do community services as a condition for receiving services.

At the time, the office called this work requirement a non-negotiable “central component” of community court. “Community service was an essential and fundamental component of the original conception of Community Court, then-criminal division chief Natalie Walton-Anderson (who is now Mayor Bruce Harrell’s public safety director) wrote.

The new drug prosecution alternative has no community service requirements. Nor does it require defendants to give up their right to trial.

Municipal Court Judge Damon Shadid, who ran the old community court, wrote a proposal for a revamped version of community court back in 2023 in response to Davison’s concerns. Among other concessions to Davison, Shadid proposed eliminating a  “level 1” track that allowed people to attend a life-skills class and get their charges dismissed and starting defendants at Level 2—going to an appointment at the service center.

Davison’s new proposal is substantively identical to what Shadid recommended in 2023.

Shadid said he was glad that Davison had come around on community court, retaining the elements he said were essential to its success when he tried to save a version of the  court two years ago.

“I am pleased that the city attorney has adopted the Seattle Municipal Court Community Court structure for Drug Diversion Court,” Shadid said. “Ensuring defendants don’t have to give up rights to receive services allows us to start connecting defendants to services on their first court appearance.”

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Advocates generally agree that existing services are inadequate, particularly for unhoused people with severe substance use disorders.

Although the new adjudication process will be almost identical to the old community court, some of the details are new. The court will require participants to go through an initial urinalysis and a substance use disorder assessment, which will likely require the city to pay for a new staffer to do this arguably unnecessary task. (Assessments determine the severity of a person’s substance use disorder; someone arrested for using fentanyl on a sidewalk probably doesn’t need a test to know that he’s using drugs problematically.)

According to Tim Robinson, a spokesman for the City Attorney’s Office, “Substance abuse assessment assists in determining the level of care necessary.” As for the new drug test requirement, Robinson said, “a clean UA can lead to an expedited successful completion in the program. A dirty UA would not provide that same expedited pathway, but the individual could end up successfully completing the program and having their charges dropped.”

The new version of community court also gives the city attorney, not the court, sole authority to determine who is and isn’t eligible—another concession Shadid included in his2023 proposal. Davison’s office said they didn’t plan to apply any specific criteria to cases, but would instead decide on a “case by case” basis. “It is a complex endeavor,” Robinson said.

Previously, Davison excluded everyone on her list of frequent misdemeanor offenders (so-called “high utilizers”) from community court. This was problematic, even arbitrary, at the time; it may be even more so now that drug use is itself a misdemeanor, because the rule would explicitly exclude frequent drug offenders from services designed to help them out of addiction.

Courts, Elections

PubliCola Questions: City Attorney Candidate Nathan Rouse

By Erica C. Barnett

Nathan Rouse, a public defense attorney who works on felony cases for King County, is challenging City Attorney Ann Davison, a Republican, from the left, saying he’ll use his background in public  to refocus the city attorney’s office on victim restitution, fighting companies that bilk renters and workers out of their money, and routing misdemeanor defendants into evidence-based alternatives to jail, like the STAR Center for unhoused people with high service needs that’s opening near the King County Courthouse later this year.

Rouse grew up in a Quaker family in Philadelphia, and says that background led him to public defense—eventually. Before becoming a lawyer, Rouse spent a year juggling college and a brief career as a professional cyclist (his grades suffered, so he decided to focus on school), then worked at private law firms and as a judicial clerk before joining King County Public Defense in 2021.

Rouse is the third person running against Davison, who is in her first term. We spoke last week.

PubliCola (ECB): Tell me a little about your background as a public defender and how you believe that experience prepares you for this role.

Nathan Rouse (NR): As a public defender you see, directly and daily, the failed approaches to criminal justice in the criminal legal system. You see clients being cycled in and out of court and in and out of jail. You see the impact of that on your clients, and you see the failures of those approaches to actually provide any meaningful public safety to the community or provide any meaningful support to victims of crime.

I love being a public defender, but one of the things that’s really hard is that the deck is stacked against you, and you end up feeling pretty powerless a lot of the time. So I was really motivated to run in order to pursue meaningful reform of the system that actually accomplishes things like public safety and support for victims and sets people up for evidence-based treatment and recovery. It’s not like I have a silver bullet for any of this, but I can absolutely see clear examples of where the current approach is failing, and there’s a much better way to go about it.

ECB: What are some of the policies Ann Davison has implemented that you’ll focus on reversing or improving if you’re elected?

NR: I would not prioritize filing cases over getting results in those cases. And I think that’s what you really see right now. In the current city attorney’s office, you see a lot of filings, but if you look at their data, the results are not great. They’re not even getting good results in the most serious threats to public safety, like [domestic violence] or DUI cases, there’s a really, really high rate of dismissal of jury trial sets that are just dismissed by the city attorney’s office. They’re also declining an even higher rate of DV referrals than Pete Holmes’ administration did.

I think getting rid of community court was a disaster. Say what you will about community court, in terms of the way it was being used previously, but the problem with just getting rid of it and not replacing it with anything is then you’re just relying of jail and the diversionary programs that are available out there to solve all the problems that we all see on a daily basis.

Especially when we have really good new treatment options that are coming online through places like King County and at the state level, there’s a real opportunity for a place like the city attorney’s office to partner with these new evidence-based programs. There’s the STAR Center that’s opening on Third Avenue, the medication-assisted treatment that’s happening, the new facility that’s right across from the King County courthouse on Third Avenue as well. The Kirkland Crisis Connections Center that just opened—there’s just a lot of really promising stuff that’s coming out and being opened. There’s an opportunity to partner with these organizations and apply for grant funding, and really use community court as something that could be a connection point for services.

It’s a total myth that people just\ want to be addicted to drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine and don’t want any help, and they’re just taking advantage of everybody. That’s just not true. People really, really want support and they really want help. But if you don’t have meaningful support that extends beyond, say, a couple-week program at the beginning, it’s not going to work. It’s a recipe for relapse and basically continuing down the same path. So at the city attorney’s office, you can’t just think about filing cases. You have to think about, what’s the purpose of filing this case and what’s the outcome going to be? And you have to look at the data and the evidence that tells you about that.

ECB: So are you saying that you would file fewer of the types of cases the current city attorney has emphasized—like trespassing and shoplifting cases?

NR: I’m not going to say I wouldn’t file any of those cases, but I do think that I would file fewer of them and explore other opportunities to divert them to programs like LEAD. It’s a really popular, effective program that should be fully funded. Obviously, I can’t fund it as a city attorney, but I can be a liaison and advocate for it at the City Council.

Erica Barnett  Has the high utilizers initiative caused harm, and it something that you would eliminate if you’re elected?

NR: Yeah, I would eliminate it. I don’t think it’s effective, for a few reasons. Number one, I think more than half of the folks that were on that list were not competent to stand trial. That means that folks are being prosecuted and the cases are just being dismissed. And then another case comes up, and the same thing happens, and that’s a waste of resources. So that’s one issue.

Another is the idea of disqualifying them from community court. You can’t just give up on people. You need to continue offering the resources. Because the reality in a misdemeanor prosecution system, which is what the Seattle City Attorney’s Office engages in, is that everybody is going to be back in the community relatively soon. What are we doing to actually interrupt the cycle of crime and addiction and mental health issues that are that’s occurring over and over again?

Another thing that’s true about the high-utilizer initiative is that well over 50 percent of the folks on that list had housing instability issues. So I think it’s just another example of promoting rhetoric over results.

ECB: You’ve said that the city attorney’s office needs to proactively work to protect workers and tenants from things like wage theft and rent gouging. What can the city attorney’s office do on those two issues specifically?

NR: I think one good example of a place where the city attorney’s office could advocate for legislation is in the area of algorithmic rent price fixing, like the RealPage company that is using algorithms to set rent and causing rent inflation. San Francisco and Philadelphia have basically created legislation banning that type of price fixing in the rental markets. So I think that’s a good example of where you can use advocacy for legislation to protect tenants.

ECB: And wage theft?

NR: Millions and millions of dollars are stolen each year from hard-working people and the Office of Labor Standards in Seattle does a great job investigating these complaints. And when OLS refers an investigation to the city attorney’s office for prosecution, the city attorney’s office has to be ready and willing to pursue those cases. My understanding is there hasn’t been a robust appetite for prosecuting those cases as there could be, and the city attorney’s office should absolutely be messaging and broadcasting their willingness to prosecute those cases and go after folks that are stealing money from hard-working people.

ECB:  We all tend to focus on the criminal side of the city attorney’s office. But are there issues on the civil side that you’re going to want to prioritize, or other kinds of less headline-grabbing issues that the city attorney actually spends a lot of time dealing with that you would want to focus on?

NR: The city has an opportunity to file lawsuits. Pete Holmes did that with Monsanto, and Davison’s office settled it for, like, $160 million for the city. So going back to RealPage—is there an opportunity for the city to be suing a company like that to protect residents of our city and seeking a settlement or some kind of judgment in that case?

I’d also be interested in setting up a more robust victims’ compensation fund on the criminal side. And that could be something that’s explored as a legislative opportunity, if there’s a way to work with the City Council on something like that. I think that would be popular, because businesses and small business owners that are victims of crimes—they’re not getting restitution from the people that are being prosecuted, because the folks that are being prosecuted don’t have the means to pay restitution. They can’t even afford an attorney, for the most part. So why isn’t there a way to reallocate funds from excessive prosecution to setting up a more robust victims’ compensation fund?

There’s an ordinance that requires the property owner to clean up graffiti within 10 days, or something like that, or else they get penalized by the city. Why are we shifting those costs to private businesses? I mean, I don’t really think that graffiti prosecution is worthwhile in any sense. But I think that we need to look at the ways that the city shifts costs to private business owners, and are there ways to make people whole when they’re victims of property crimes.

ECB: Ann Davison is a Republican, which is not a great place to be politically in Seattle right now. In what ways do you think her party affiliation should alarm Seattle residents voting in this nonpartisan race?

NR: I’ll start with the premise of leaving the Democratic Party in 2020 to become a Republican, when Trump was in his first term. That choice right there is pretty concerning to me, because the Republican Party is the is the party of Project 2025, and all of the various attacks on individual liberties that have occurred since.

Now we have Trump back again, is this the right leader to defend the city of Seattle against attacks from the Trump administration? You know, Pete Holmes was one of the first to file a sanctuary cities lawsuit against the Trump administration. And Davison, some time after it was actually filed, joined the lawsuit that was filed by King County and San Francisco and Portland and some other cities. But there was hesitation there. The hesitation, plus the explanation for doing it, was concerning to me, because it wasn’t phrased in terms of, we need to protect the residents of Seattle. It was phrased in terms of, we need to protect our local police resources so they can be used to solve local crimes, [rather than] we need to fight back against racism and racist attacks on immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers. So that concerns me.

I also think that the decision to join that lawsuit was motivated by the fact that it’s an election year, and I think the same is true of the announcement the other day that they’re ramping up efforts to hire more people to join the city attorney’s office to work against the Trump administration, or whatever those positions were characterized as. So I don’t think that she’s the right person to be in charge of that office at this time.

criminal justice, Elections

PubliCola Questions: City Attorney Candidate Erika Evans

By Erica C. Barnett

Ann Davison, Seattle’s one-term Republican city attorney, is vulnerable.

The reasons are both obvious—did I mention she’s a Republican? How about the fact that she became a Republican after Trump’s first election?—and not-so: Davison has led the way on some initiatives that have proved to be quite controversial, including punitive crackdowns on drug use and sex work, but can’t point to measurable results, such as fewer people using fentanyl in public or a reduction in sex trafficking—the ostensible reason for reintroducing the city’s “prostitution loitering” law.

Three candidates have stepped forward so far, all running against Davison from the left. Erika Evans, until recently an assistant US Attorney at the Department of Justice, says her experience in both the federal government and the city attorney’s office, where she worked in both the civil and criminal divisions under former city attorney Pete Holmes, gives her a unique perspective on the role.

Evans has also worked as a pro tem municipal court judge outside Seattle, is past president of the Loren Miller Bar Association, and co-chaired the Washington Leadership Institute, which helps lawyers from underrepresented groups develop their careers.

We spoke on Monday.

PubliCola (ECB): Tell me a little bit about yourself and your background.

Erika Evans (EE): I was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington. My grandparents instilled the values in me, early on, of standing up when something’s wrong and of standing up for community and public service. Before I started law school, I wrote a letter to myself about why I wanted to be an attorney—to serve and represent my community—and that’s what I’ve done.

I’m running because my values, and the reason why I became an attorney, were completely obstructed in my previous role as an assistant US Attorney, with the crazy executive orders that have come down from the Trump administration. They are completely counter to the values that I hold. I’m someone that is willing to fight and go up against Trump for what is happening. People are scared. That’s why I’m running for city attorney— because I have the values and experience to fight Trump.

ECB: Were you laid off in the recent purges or did you resign—and what were your responsibilities there?

EE: I resigned last Friday on my own terms. I wasn’t fired. I didn’t take Musk’s deferred resignation offer.

I was one of the civil rights coordinators. We were responsible for the prosecution and investigations of hate crimes and also violations by law enforcement officers who violate people’s rights. I was also in the violent crimes and terrorism unit. I’ve been involved with getting hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills off the street, getting unlawful firearms off the streets.

ECB: As a federal employee, I’m sure you have lots of thoughts about what the Trump administration is doing to gut the justice department and the rest of the federal government. Where do you think the city attorney’s office could be stepping up to speak or act out against the administration, and how has Davison’s office fallen short?

EE: The city attorney absolutely does not need to be afraid to challenge President Trump and stand up to him. We need to make sure that Seattle is safe for all people. I think a big role the city attorney’s office can play right now is bringing affirmative litigation when it affects the city of Seattle as well as partnering with the attorney general on some of these issues.

A big failure we’re seeing is [Davison] hiding and not doing anything and not saying anything when people are really afraid right now. I was speaking with a professional who said they recently started bringing multiple pieces of ID around with them in Seattle because they were scared of being identified as potentially an immigrant.

Ann has isolated herself. She quit the Democratic Party to become a Republican during the Trump administration. She’s not in community and just not being responsive to what’s going on, and that’s not leadership.

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ECB: What did you think of Davison’s decision to join the lawsuit challenging Trump’s executive order threatening to pull federal funding out of sanctuary cities like Seattle, which came a couple weeks after it was filed?

EE: I think it was obviously too late when she jumped in. She also did it at a time when she was getting pressure from the mayor to do something. She also defined [the issue] as local control and that’s weird—it’s not what this is about. This is about protecting our community members who live here—our neighbors, our friends, and people we care about and love. She’s done the bare minimum, and that’s not what our city deserves at all.

ECB: What are your top priorities if you’re elected and how will you distinguish yourself from the current group of candidates, which also includes Rory O’Sullivan and, in the left lane, Nathan Rouse?

EE: My top priorities are public safety, leading with a restorative justice model, and not being afraid to fight back for our community and the city of Seattle. What sets me apart is my lived experience, my professional experience, and my community leadership. Navigating the world as a Black woman, running for an elected prosecutor position in a world where our work will affect communities of color, coming from a background of being a federal prosecutor and actually doing the work of prosecuting in the federal courts, and community leadership, being the head of the largest diverse bar association in our state.

ECB: Davison has been very proactive on legislation, actively advocating for laws like SOAP and SODA, which target drug users and people who pay for sex. Is there legislation that you will push for if you’re elected?

EE: I think that while the city attorney is not a legislative role, there’s definitely room for using the power to advocate. At the end of the day, our values are: We care about community and people being safe, we want people to have homes, we want people who are dealing with addiction to have treatment. Those are the values that Seattleites care about.

When we’re talking about SOAP and SODA, there were a lot of promises from Ann on that. We’ve seen from the Seattle Times article that it’s not even being enforced. There’s way more effective tools for going after things that matter. That’s the experience I have—going after high-level traffickers, understanding the dynamics of that, knowing how to partner with our federal prosecutors that are doing that work.

ECB: Some have accused Davison of being slow to prosecute crimes like domestic violence and DUI, blaming the crime lab backlog for the DUI cases. Would you prioritize these kinds of cases above other cases like drug arrests and prosecutions under the new SOAP and SODA laws?

EE: I think that comes from just a lack of experience. It’s not fair to communities when we’re having drivers that are driving intoxicated and putting others at risk and there’s no accountability. It needs to be swift.

I think Ann’s high-utilizer [initiative] definitely has an overemphasis on incarceration, and people are cycling through that without exiting to long-term solutions. There needs to be behavioral health and resources for people that are going through a revolving door, not just locking people up.

ECB: Can you respond to the argument that jail gives people a “time out” and an opportunity to become clear-headed enough to think about treatment, stable housing, and other services they may not be clear-headed enough to consider when they’re out on the street?

EE: Being at the federal level, I saw that drugs get into the jails and people use drugs in jail all the time. I prosecuted someone that was smuggling them in. Jail is not really a place to have the resources and support people need.

ECB: Do you think the city attorney was right to end community court, and would you try to replace or revive this resource?

EE: I think it was a disaster to get rid of community court. When you’re talking about opportunities for people to get a case dismissed and comply with services and get help, that should definitely be available.

ECB: As city attorney, you’ll have to defend the city even when you personally don’t agree with its actions. How will you handle that part of the job? And is there anything the city attorney’s office can do upstream to reduce the number and size of these settlements, which continue to grow every year?

EE: Working in that office on the civil side, I had cases where the city was our client, and SPD is our client too. On the other end, there were cases I worked on where we were representing the city because officers were suing the city. That’s absolutely what part of the role is—you have a responsibility to city of Seattle agencies and you’re their attorney.

It’s important to try to avoid things in the first place, and I’m thinking of the precinct liaisons that are in every police department precinct and how we are training offices to interact with communities to avoid those lawsuits. And experience is needed at that top level—someone that’s actually done those cases and knows some of the pitfalls that can be resolved.

ECB: Ann Davison is a Republican. In what ways should that a concern to Seattle voters going into a second Trump administration?

EE: We are at a terrible and crazy time where we have attacks on communities of color, on LGBTQ+ communities, on our immigrant communities, on our identities. All of that is stuff that Trump has told us he is going to be coming after and has come after. All these things put our communities at risk. People are scared right now, and having [a city attorney] that is not saying anything is disgraceful. And we absolutely need someone that understands the federal system, that has served in it and is willing to fight against Trump and all the things that are coming. We need to be not just reactive—we need to be proactive.

We talked about my decision to leave my position. We got a note and an executive order from Pam Bondi and the White House. It said that as US Attorneys, we are Trump’s lawyers, and that is their interpretation of the law. They were completely taking away our independent discretion. You asked about Ann during a Trump administration. It hones the importance of having a leaders that understands their oath is to the constitution, upholding the law, and protecting people. That is what I represent and the job I will do as city attorney and that is something that has been lacking.

City Council, Parks, Transportation, Trump

SoDo Housing Plan Advances, Republican City Attorney Says Trump Immigration Order Violates “Local Control,” Saka Says No to Restrooms, Yes to Cars
The city’s most deadly areas for people walking, biking, and rolling are in South Seattle, including Rob Saka’s West Seattle district.

1. A proposal from Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson to allow up to 990 units of housing near the city’s two stadiums as part of a new “makers’ district” passed out of Nelson’s committee last week, but it faces an uncertain future at the full council, where two staunch opponents—Bob Kettle and Dan Strauss—will make their case that allowing apartments in a historically industrial area will decimate the city’s maritime industry.

The Port of Seattle and maritime industry unions have argued that allowing people to live near the stadiums—primarily on First Avenue South—would add so many cars to the area that trucks moving to and from the industrial waterfront would get stuck in traffic, making Seattle less competitive with other port cities. They also argue that the proposal reneges on the city’s promise to preserve existing industrial zoning in perpetuity, and that it’s a dangerous and environmentally unhealthy place for people to live.

In a 13-minute speech, Kettle hit all the highlights of this argument, saying the area is vulnerable to a Love Canal-style environmental disaster, that the Port itself is vulnerable “in a cutthroat shipping industry,” and that the geology of the area, which was built on unstable “fill,” would leave residents vulnerable to liquefaction in an earthquake, even if the new buildings were built according to modern earthquake standards.

“How about if you’re walking your dog in this little area, in this little neighborhood, you know, what happens?” Kettle said. “You’re trying to play catch with your kid, or you’re trying to bring in your groceries—a code-enforced building is not going to help you when you’re out there walking the dogs.”

Proponents argue that the area hasn’t been industrial for years (besides entertainment businesses like the Showbox SoDo and a strip club, it’s mostly abandoned and underutilized warehouses), and note that hotels and offices are already allowed in the area under the industrial lands update the council passed in 2023. (And, of course, the maritime workers who oppose housing also work every day in the same liquefaction zone).

“If thought this would this was going to damage irreparably the port, or put it into a position within 100 years where it would not be a strong, viable entity, I would not be doing this,” Nelson said.

The proposal, which passed 3 to 2 (with Mark Solomon and Maritza Rivera supporting Nelson and Joy Hollingsworth joining Kettle in opposition), will go to the full council on March 18.

 

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2. City Attorney Ann Davison put out a statement last week denouncing efforts by the Trump administration “to coerce local authorities and to commandeer local jurisdictions into carrying out the duties of the federal executive branch, while punishing those who dissent.”

Davison is a Republican who was active in the “Walk Away” movement headed up by “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorist Bradon Straka, one of the January 6 rioters who was later pardoned by Trump. She ran for City Council against Debora Juarez, lost, ran for lieutenant governor as a Republican, lost againagain, and became city attorney after defeating a police abolitionist in the backlash election of 2021.

Davison issued the statement after joining a lawsuit that accuses Trump of violating the Constitutional separation of powers by unilaterally directing the government to withhold federal funds and take legal action against “sanctuary” jurisdictions, like Seattle, that bar police and other officials from assisting with federal immigration enforcement.

Davison’s statement stuck mostly to the strict legal questions raised by the federal order (although it did take a moment to praise “our diverse, vibrant, and invaluable immigrant communities.”) “This is an issue of federal overreach into areas of local control,” the statement said.

The statement marked a departure for Davison, who has not previously weighed in on partisan politics. Whether Davison voted for Trump, Harris, or another candidate in 2024 is unclear; her office did not respond to a question about whether she supported Trump. Her past campaign donations include small contributions to former Republican secretary of state Kim Wyman and Joshua Freed, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor who went on to head the King County Republican Party and condemned Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment after the January 6 riots.

3. City Councilmember Rob Saka took a couple of strong stands in the past week.

First, during a presentation about an audit that found deficiencies in the Seattle Parks Department’s cleaning and maintenance of park restrooms, Saka argued against expanding public restrooms.

“[M]embers of the public always want to expand the number of restrooms, not just in Seattle, but in LA and across the country … and I don’t—I’m not sure that’s the best approach here in Seattle at this point, at this juncture, unless and until we’re in a better position to make better progress on addressing the cleanliness and accessibility [and] properly maintaining our existing restrooms,” he said.

Had Saka been around five years ago, he might have been aware of a different audit from the same office—this one recommending that the city open more 24/7 restrooms, specifically to help people living unsheltered who have “extremely limited options to avoid open urination and defecation, especially during the night.” Had he been on the council the following year, he might have taken part in a debate over  whether homeless people deserved access to restrooms and running water during the pandemic (the city decided they didn’t, and homeless Seattle residents experienced repeated outbreaks of hepatitis A and shigella.)

Then, during a presentation on traffic violence earlier this week, Saka apparently felt compelled to respond to a comment made by Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck about her decision to live car-free. “I appreciate Councilmember Rinck’s point of view,” Saka said, but noted that even in dense San Francisco, where he vacationed recently with his family, people still have cars.

“As vibrant as their transit system is, I was struck by the fact that nearly every street, arterials and non-arterials alike, on both sides of the road, there was there was parking!,” Saka said. “Parking! Available on both sides of the street! [Which] again, highlights the importance of choice! These modes are a choice. And even in San Francisco, the second most dense city in our in our country, people still choose to drive.”

One thing Saka may not have noticed, especially if he wasn’t driving, is that it’s incredibly hard to find a parking space in most of San Francisco. There are simply too many cars for the limited number of spaces, and most neighborhoods have residential parking zones, restricting visitors to no more than a couple of hours. Except in areas with heavy car traffic (like downtown, where some parking lanes convert to driving lanes at rush hour), Seattle also generally has parking on both sides of the street.

Courts, Elections, Police

PubliCola Questions: Seattle City Attorney Candidate Rory O’Sullivan

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle’s Republican city attorney, Ann Davison, ran unsuccessfully for state and local office twice before defeating abolitionist Nicole Thomas Kennedy in 2021. Davison said she became a Republican in 2020, during the first Trump administration. Now, she wants to continue directing the city’s legal branch during Trump’s second term.

The city attorney’s office will decide whether, and how hard, to fight federal efforts to track down undocumented immigrants and their families, and weigh those decisions against the potential loss of federal funds that help pay for things like housing, transportation, and human services. Whoever wins the position will also have to advise a very green city council on legislation, defend the city in police misconduct lawsuits, and decide how and whether to prosecute a maze of new laws designed to crack down on drug users, sex workers, and people living outdoors.

Election reform and tenant advocate Rory O’Sullivan says he’s the best fit to lead the city attorney’s office through these uncertain times. A former managing director at the Housing Justice Project, democracy voucher enthusiast, and onetime candidate for state senate, O’Sullivan now runs his own law firm helping primarily low-income people get the unemployment benefits they’re owed. He also helped create the city’s public election funding program and served on the commission that redrew Seattle’s city council districts.

I sat down with O’Sullivan in Columbia City last month. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

PubliCola [ECB]: We haven’t talked in a long time—maybe since you were seeking the 37th District seat. So tell me a bit about why you’re interested in this position.

Rory O’Sullivan [RO]: I think the city attorney’s office has an opportunity to do a lot of good things, and I’ve been really disappointed in the direction that that current city attorney is taking things. The office has an opportunity to work with the Seattle Municipal Court on therapeutic court options instead of closing down community court, as Ann Davison has done. They have an opportunity to negotiate contracts with the jails to ensure that jails are providing appropriate services so that when somebody is released, they’re going to be in a better position to succeed.

The city attorney’s office also has an opportunity to do really good enforcement of some of Seattle’s wage ordinances. The way Seattle’s labor laws are enforced is that we have the Office of Labor Standards, and they do the investigation, and they have an enforcement opportunity. But when an employer is resistant, the case gets referred to the city attorney’s office for litigation.

I think that Office of Labor Standards just doesn’t want to refer cases over, because they’re worried that the city attorney is not going to handle it properly, because Ann Davison has questioned the those attorneys on the positions that they’ve taken against employers. [I would make] sure that the folks at the Office of Labor Standards have confidence that the city attorney is going to take these cases seriously. I think just an immediate change of philosophy at the top is going to change a lot of things pretty quickly.

ECB: What are some of the policies that Ann Davison has put into place in her time at the city attorney’s office that you would want to reverse?

RO: Ann Davison closed down community court. I would want to reinstate therapeutic court options to ensure that we’re giving folks the services that they need to avoid interacting with criminal legal system in the future and reduce recidivism.

ECB: Community court is very easy to end. You just refuse to send cases there. It doesn’t have any cases. It shuts down. It seems harder to reopen and fund again from scratch.

RO: What Judge [Damon] Shadid and [former city attorney] Pete Holmes set up before is, they had gotten grant funding. They had partnerships with Seattle-King County Public Health. All of that infrastructure is there and there are still grants that you can apply for. Obviously, it would be a lot better if you had partners in the city council and the mayoral administration who were on board with it as well. And yes, it’ll absolutely take time. It’s not something that you can just snap your fingers and make happen. But I think there are opportunities there.

ECB: What’s the next item on your list?

RO: Ensuring that the office is appropriately spending resources on things like DUI and DV prosecution. Right now, the office is way behind on DUI prosecutions. There are multiple cases where somebody has been arrested for DUI, the case has been referred to the city attorney’s office, the city attorney’s office sits on it, and then the person reoffends. So  we are being put in danger, our public safety is worse off, because the current city attorney is prosecuting protesters and spending resources on other things that don’t improve public safety.

ECB: A lot of Ann Davison’s priorities are law now, like the “stay out” areas for drugs and prostitution and the law allowing police to arrest people for using drugs in public How will you unwind those priorities, given that those laws are on the books?

RO: One of the things that makes the city attorney position a powerful position is you have prosecutorial discretion. When Pete Holmes came into office, he immediately dismissed every single marijuana possession case that the city had, and he did not file any new ones. So as the city attorney, you can decide what you’re going to prosecute and where you’re not going to prosecute. If there are statutes that you think are not a good use of the city’s resources, you do not have to pursue those cases.

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