City Council, Elections

PubliCola Questions: Seattle City Council District 5 Candidate Julie Kang
Source: Julie Kang campaign

By Erica C. Barnett

This year, voters in North Seattle will be choosing a councilmember to replace former District 5 councilmember Cathy Moore, who quit a year and a half into her four-year term. The district has lacked an elected councilmember for an unusually long time thanks to the timing of Moore’s resignation, which came just a few days too late for the city to schedule a special election for the district. As a result, former councilmember Debora Juarez has served as Moore’s city council-appointed replacement since mid-2024.

North Seattle’s choices in this long-awaited election are FairVote Washington political director Nilu Jenks, a second-time candidate for this position, and longtime university educator Julie Kang. Seattle Nice, the podcast co-hosted by me, political consultant Sandeep Kaushik, and longtime radio journalist David Hyde, will be hosting a live debate between the two candidates at the not-quite-in-D5 National Nordic Museum at 6:00 tomorrow, October 21; if you can’t make it, we’ll be publishing the whole debate on our podcast the following day. Election Day is November 3, but please vote early if you vote by mail, or drop your last-minute ballot in your nearest drop box before 8pm on November 3!

 

Julie Kang is a first-generation immigrant who grew up in Los Angeles, came to Seattle as a PhD student at the University of Washington, and has worked for UW, Seattle University, and Seattle Public Schools as a teacher and administrator overseeing professional development for decades.

Kang also co-founded a bank serving Korean American clients, Pacific International Bank, in 2001, to make it easier for immigrants rejected by traditional banks to access capital. The bank merged with a larger institution in 2013 after a series of headline-grabbing financial controversies.

“A lot of the board members with deep pockets did not want to contribute more, and that was one of the reasons” for the financial crisis at the bank, Kang said. “And so, by default, as the only woman and the only bilingual board member, they said, you figure out a solution.” Kang said her mother used BBCN Bank in California, “and I know they were interested in coming up” to Seattle, so she managed the merger. Kang is no long affiliated with the bank.

Kang has lived in North Seattle for about 30 years; she’s endorsed by the Seattle Times, former councilmember Sara Nelson, and current Councilmembers Bob Kettle and Maritza Rivera and Council President Joy Hollingsworth.

Our interview, conducted last week at Pilgrim Coffee just off Aurora, has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

PubliCola (ECB): The mayor just put out a budget that you have said was pretty fiscally responsible­.

Julie Kang (JK): Yes—the fact that we have not only closed [the deficit] but also anticipating that we’re not going to keep asking for these one-time things.

I believe that we need to have right amount of first responders to respond in a timely manner. So the fact that [Wilson] decided to add 66 [officers through 2027], I was like, okay, that could be the number. But I also want to make sure everybody understands that even though North Seattle’s District Five is made up of about 100,000 people, the reality is we have 250,000 people during the day. So when we have first responder calls, we need to account for that. At our Northwest Hospital, we have beds and facilities for 70 emergency visitors a day, and now they’re getting more than 130—that’s almost double. We need to think about that. When we have so many of the permanent and supportive housing [buildings], that requires 1.4 times more firefighters. This allocation of first responders based on the number of residents may not be the right approach.

ECB: Let’s talk about Aurora. Both you and your opponent, I think, believe that public spaces around Aurora need to be safer, particularly when it comes to sex trafficking and gun violence. Beyond more police or surveillance cameras, what’s your public safety plan for Aurora?

JK: We really can’t afford to have more police for everything, right? The CARE Team, when there’s behavioral wellness checks, I think they should be able to go and do those things. That’s what they’re supposed to do. And I know that there’s all of the contract issues—that sometimes because there is a possibility of a weapon or you know they’re armed, officers have to go first. But I think we need clear rules and responsibility. We got to get them to the table and have that conversation.

But what I have committed to is I want to be physically present. I want to sit at my district office. And when people think about a district office, is it fancy? Is it expensive? No. We have so many storefronts. I’m already [upstairs at] the Lake City Library at least once a week. I just need to be present because District Five hasn’t seen their council members, haven’t had the emails or phone calls returned. And how do I know? Because I’m the one who’s been the squeaky wheel, emailing behalf of my elderly neighbor, or the young, busy people who don’t have the time to always use the [Find It Fix It] app, right? So I think that establishing trust in the government, it’s important. And for me, that’s showing up. That’s the first step. So I want to set up my district office. And people have said [mimicking fear] “Oh, Aurora,” and I remind them, I lived here for 10 years. I have faith, and I know that I’ve come this far. I am gonna be fine. I grew up crossing through MacArthur Park [in LA] every day to get to the library,

ECB: The barricades are still there—

JK: They’ve been there for over 100 days.

ECB: Do you think they’re working to reduce gun violence?

JK: No, they’re not working. Well, it’s quieted down a little bit, but if you walk two blocks over, it has shifted. And if you go in the morning, you can see the foils, the condom wrappers, the needles. Those are not things that our children should be seeing. We’re normalizing this behavior. So I think a lot of my advocacy work comes from the seven-year-old, 10-year-old Julie, who did not have a choice but to go through MacArthur Park to get to the library at the end. You know, as a latchkey kid, there was no other options. But we’re in 2026, and we are still fighting, and our daughter, 22 years old now, born and raised in North Seattle—we had to have those discussions. Why can’t we enforce the laws that we have? As soon as you get over to 145th to Shoreline, why is it that their streets are clean and people understand that there are rules and we’re not going to be permissive about violent crimes?

ECB:. My understanding is that they invested quite a bit of money in improving the street design to make it safer, and Seattle has not done something similar.

JK: Even in speaking with [King County Prosector] Leesa Manion extensively, she always reminds me she’s the same King County prosecuting attorney for other places where things are working. So again, if you were here 24/7, you would understand the urgency. Aurora is in a state of emergency, and we have put a few Band-Aids here and there, but we haven’t gotten to the root of the issue.

We want to protect the victims and we want to be able to provide the mental care or the housing and all of the services that we need, right? But we should go after the johns and the pimps. I know [City Attorney Erica Evans has continued to point out that there’s over 5,000 cases [backlogged]. But I also know that there’s a little bit of disconnect between the King County and the city.

So when I changed my position on [surveillance] cameras, it’s because as a naturalized U.S. citizen, and I am also serving on the King County Immigration Commission, and we didn’t know how that information was used. Of course, surveillance—you know, I don’t want it either. But I talked to a lot of the people, including the 50 blocks of neighbors and Councilmember Kettle, and spoke with the North [SPD] Precinct and did a ridealong. And I know that nothing is 100 percent safe, but at least there are safeguards and some things that we’re doing about retention that are in place. I’m not saying it’s perfect. I thought, well, if the community most impacted wants it, let’s use it, but we can’t just use that. [alone] It’s only a tool, right?

ECB: Have you seen evidence that the cameras are working?

JK: Well, this morning when they talked about the shooting last night, at least there was a little bit of the footage from the shooting, [Editor’s note: The footage was from business surveillance cameras, not city-operated CCTV.] And again, you can have all the footage you want, but it’s what you do with it. But if you don’t have the footage, my understanding is that you can’t even open up a case. So we need evidence. And it’s interesting that we’re relying on neighbors and other people to have evidence. And I recently heard somebody says, “Oh, you can plug in your business camera to the police camera [system]. And I just thought, “Wow, we are now asking our business owners to take on that responsibility.”

ECB: A big concern for surveillance opponents is the possibility that ICE could get access. They just need to file a subpoena. And there’s a lot of faith being put in this into Axon, the company that provides Seattle’s surveillance cameras, to do the right thing and not share this footage with bad actors. I think those are legitimate concerns.

JK: That’s true, and that’s the risk. That’s why when I spoke with people who are against cameras and I proposed, what if we built our own system, they said, actually, they could live with that. So again, let’s not continue to have this fear get in the way of what our neighbors, our constituents are feeling. And if we already have the cameras on, and we’re able to maintain the terms of the contract that say long the footage can be on our servers, by the time you get a subpoena, you know, maybe [the footage will] be gone. And my understanding is we don’t keep anything unless it’s in an active investigation.

How long have we had it since all of the ICE stuff? I’ve been going to Common Power to create whistle kids since last November. It’s been over a year, right? And we also know that that’s not working perfectly because our neighbors continue to get taken at Home Depot, Lowe’s, and in our neighborhoods.

ECB: Going back to Aurora for a sec: The city hasn’t funded a lot of resources for women wanting to leave the sex trade or escape trafficking. Do you have a plan to help the women and girls working in parking lots on Aurora?

JK: We have Aurora Commons, which is one of the few resources up in North Seattle. And Liz [Vivien], the ED, you know, told me yes, they’re able to provide the OB/GYN care with the UW hospital. But if we happen to have somebody who steps up and say, “I want to get out of this business,” she doesn’t have shelters she can refer them to. We should be able to say, Julie came in for service. She needs housing. She needs the mental health [services]. She needs X, Y, and Z. And our case managers should be able to make sure that we are following through and delivering services. And I’m doing to make sure that when we advocate for funding, I want us to be connected to the outcomes and the return on investment. I think we have been compassionate, but if we’re compassionate without accountability, we’re just investing more and more. And I think that’s where the fatigue comes. 

ECB: I hear “we need more accountability for spending” from candidates every year, and I often wonder what that is supposed to look like.  Because we do have audits, we do have staff that review the budget, we have an entire budget office that looks at how money is being spent. What additional accountability are you looking for?

JK: But Erica, you also know that a lot of audits have been incomplete and are still pending. For me, that’s not acceptable. And again, going back to my university budget experience, being a project manager is when we develop a program, we review it on a quarterly basis, and we also measure that against the outcomes, the deliverables. I think on the council we also need somebody with that level of expertise. So, if we have that oversight and accountability, I don’t think we’re going to lose money or have some of the challenges that we’ve had.

ECB: Your opponent has said that District 5 needs to have community violence interrupters like the ones working in South Seattle, and also that the city should invest more in putting CARE Team members up here. How do you think your approach differs from hers when it comes to, not just Aurora, but public safety in North Seattle generally?

JK:  In terms of prevention, there’s so much that could be done, even with our two high schools and two middle schools. And not only as a mother but as a teacher, I’m already working with the principals on safe routes to schools. I’m asking, how did a 15-year-old [at Ingraham] get access to a gun? Where did that come from? And did that student have at least one person that they could confide in? So I want to make sure we focus on a lot of the interventions in schools and in community centers.  I think that’s, again, where me showing up and having the years of experience mentoring students, and mostly students of color, is going to be a benefit.

We’ve also heard from the community meeting that happened on Aurora Commons when the mom said, “My daughters are being approached with lots of cash.” The community leaders are already trying to do so much, but most of these meetings—actually all of the meetings that I’ve gone to, the people who are the decision makers, the elected officials, they are not there. There’s so much that could be accomplished by attending, listening, and activating the leaders who already come with a lot of the lived experience and solutions based on those experiences.

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ECB: Speaking of students, are you supporting or opposing the two statewide initiatives—the one banning trans girls from girls’ sports and the one that allows parents to see their kids’ school counseling notes?

JK: As teachers, we think it’s important for all children to be welcome and included, and any act of harm or hate is unacceptable. That said, I think parents have made some comments, and the students also have voiced their comments. So, for me, again, it’s listening to the constituents and the people,

ECB: But do you support the initiatives or oppose them?

JK: So, at this time, as much as I respect everybody’s identity, I just want kids to play sports. I don’t know if we need to go and do biological testing to see where they stand.

ECB: The other initiative would essentially give parents the right to see any notes that were taken about confidential conversations they had with adults at school.

JK: Right now, there’s already that protection for the kids after 13. [Editor’s note: Kids 13 and over have the right to obtain confidential mental health care in Washington state, but this does not apply to school counseling.] I understand there’s some arguments about if every kid is able to make those decisions. But I’m gonna go with supporting the kids. [Editor’s note: After our conversation, Kang reached out to clarify that she opposes both initiatives].

ECB: Do you support the proposed comprehensive plan rezone around the new Pinehurst light rail station, which has been delayed by appeals, and would you change it in any way?

JK: Right now, neighbors are in limbo about what is happening with their housing. We expect 90 percent of riders to get there using other modes of transportation. But the reality is, they’re saying, “My front yard is becoming a parking lot.” 

I definitely support that we should do density. But before we get there, you also know that we lost power multiple times, right? So we know our electric grids, our sewer systems, all of the infrastructure is also outdated. I want to make sure we take care of those infrastructures before we keep building more units, because losing power is something that the people who are already there and have been neighbors for a long time are negatively impacted by. People are losing their precious groceries. It’s $100, $150 to fill up your grocery cart, if that. So I want to make sure that we grow the community with the infrastructure and make sure that we are taking care of the sidewalks, because walkability is huge if you’re going walk to the station. And right now we have some areas that are very disconnected.

ECB: Do you support Mandatory Housing Affordability, which encourages growth in some former single-family areas?

JK: I’m actually happy with Councilmember Foster’s plan to give some relief, because what I have learned is we are missing so much revenue that was generated through the permits, creating workforce jobs for builders and plumbers. When I think about quick permitting, it’s not that we lessen the requirements, but right now that sequential model, I just don’t understand. So I think we have to look at the whole system and break it into chunks where we can have predictability. Because anytime they’re waiting for a permit, that’s lost opportunities.

ECB: The city plans to revamp the whole MHA system in the next couple of years. What do you think needs to change about the program?

JK: Well, right now I think we have to incentivize builders to build and build the right kind of housing. It doesn’t make sense if you have one lot, and you want to build eight different million-dollar tiny homes, because I think then we are going to compromise some of those mature trees that I also love. So maybe we can be creative about creating a fourplex. Everybody wants to not have their shared walls, but I also think being able to look into your neighbor’s living room with those small spaces—I’m not sure if that’s the right thing. And in LA, we had a lot of fourplexes, triplexes, and that’s how we were able to even afford our first home, because we could live in one and rent out the others and make the mortgage. So I think we have to be more creative in working with you architects who are thinking about protecting the green space and being able to build in a way that meets our neighbors’ needs.

I mean, we are number four in terms of the city rankings, and when I talk to people, it’s because of the beautiful green space, and I think that makes Seattle Seattle. And if we are going to continue to build and get rid of these 100-year-old mature trees that are healthy, I think we are not thinking about our next generation. I mean, we think about climate change. We think about all of the positive things from trees. And yet when we keep saying we’re going to just build, build, build, I don’t think that is the right answer for the next generation.

Business, City Council, homelessness, housing

Greater Seattle: We’re Number 1 (in Home Listings Jump); Small Biz is in a Bad Mood; and Sweeps are Not a Solution

by Josh Feit

More Sweeps ≠ Less Homelessness 

During last week’s city council budget hearings, Ballard council member Dan Strauss channelled a business owner in his district to give a speech criticizing Mayor Wilson. There’s an encampment in front of the business, Strauss said, leading to this dais grandstand: “We have seen in this last year, since last October, a complete change in the city and how effectively the city is addressing homelessness.”

He continued: “I have a business in downtown Ballard that had an encampment in front of their business last October and .. it wasn’t moved until, I believe, March. And that person reported to me that they have had an encampment on one of the four blocks around their business—and it’s a small block—270 days out of the last 365 days.” This demonstrated, Strauss said, that “just the ability to interact with and work with people has changed from a three-week cycle to a three-plus-month cycle”.

What Strauss’ (and his constituent’s) sidewalk tent example actually shows is not that we need more sweeps, but the opposite: Sweeps don’t work. They simply push homeless people around the city. Logically enough, in the context of an ongoing, active sweeps campaign, an encampment has now landed on this particular doorstep. Sweeping the people living in that encampment to another part of Ballard just means that a different business will eventually end up in Strauss’ ear.

Consider: Wilson is actually doing more sweeps than her tough-love predecessor, Bruce Harrell. According to the UCT’s own records, they’ve done more than 150 full encampment removals this year, compared to 112 by this point in Harrell’s term. According to the UCT’s “site journals,” the team rarely connects encampment residents to shelter.

Complaining about a homeless encampment in front of a business as an argument for more sweeps—when the people at that encampment were likely swept there in the first place—reminds me of the illogical days when neighbors argued against upzones on the grounds that they would make housing more expensive even as housing prices were skyrocketing under the strict Seattle zoning that prevented building more housing.

Seattle Home Listings Increase > Home Listings Increase in All Other Metro Areas

This brings me to the post-single-family-zoning-only Seattle housing market. According to Zillow data for September 2026, Seattle has the biggest percentage increase in home listings for US metro areas. Seattle’s current 14,877 listing represented a 20.3% increase from September 2025.

With housing prices dropping 1.1% month over month and 2.2% year over year, Seattle is a buyer’s market right now.

Rents, by the way, dropped .2% in September and ticked up only minimally, and far below inflation, at 1.8% year over year with typical rent at $2,250.

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Cutting $950,000 is Not a Good Look 

As I’ve noted before in this column, I’m frustrated with Mayor Wilson’s approach to reviving Seattle’s business climate. Following the recommendations of a report her Office of Economic Development commissioned, the mayor seems focused on prompting more tech-adjacent startups as opposed to girding existing small businesses. The thinking goes that tech businesses have a disproportionately positive impact on jobs and the local economy. But my thinking is that indie businesses, just like childcare and affordable housing, are prerequisites for economic growth. Indie small businesses, for example, bring the crowds and lines that make cities vibrant. Lines around the block at clubs are a public policy win for a city.

I’ve been asking managers at bars and shops lately what the city could do for them right now. One thing I’m consistently hearing has to do with the costs of repairs and infrastructure upgrades—how those costs, often related to city inspections, can be debilitating. One manager, who recently oversaw the closure of a longtime North Seattle business (and still manages a couple more across the city), gave a specific example about graffiti, reporting that the cost of  repeatedly cleaning up the graffiti —as the city requires—became onerous for the neighborhood bar that closed.

I’m not convinced graffiti cleanup could sink a healthy business, nor do I think the city’s fixation on graffiti —particularly under Mayor Harrell, who actually funded anti-graffiti education for kids—is discerning policy. But I took this bar manager’s request for city support in earnest—and, lo and behold, it turns out Wilson’s budget cuts $950,000 for a program that helps private business owners clean up graffiti on their buildings.

As a council Central Staff memo put it, “The proposed budget would not continue funding for these services and [Seattle Parks & Recreation’s] ability to offer private property owners graffiti abatement services would be significantly impacted.”

I tend to filter the business-lens on local politics with skepticism, but as a Wilson fan I must say, when the bad-mood example from a bar manager tracks so succinctly with Wilson’s new budget, the mayor’s got a problem. I’m not saying reinstating a graffiti cleanup contract is the answer. I’m saying Wilson’s angle on what’s ailing Seattle’s economy has the wrong emphasis.

Josh@PubliCola.com

City Council, Elections, homelessness, King County, Police

This Week on PubliCola: Council Opponents Bash Mayor’s Balanced Budget, Controversial Cop Gets Slap on Wrist, $17 Million Deficit at KCRHA, and More

By Erica C. Barnett

First things first: We’re hosting a City Council debate! Come to the National Nordic Museum (2655 NW Market St.) to hear from the candidates for City Council in North Seattle’s District 5, Julie Kang and Nilu Jenks. (PubliCola will be running interviews with both candidates, conducted last week, before the debate). The outcome of this election will impact the balance of votes on the council, so it matters to the entire city. Hope to see you there!

On to the week’s news:

Monday, October 12

No, King County Didn’t Write a $10 Million “Blank Check” for Youth Homelessness

Danny Westneat’s latest column for the Seattle Times condemned a proposed sales tax increase of of 0.01 percent, claiming the (maximum) $10 million it could bring in annually amounted to a “blank check” for the county to fritter away on… whatever, we guess. In fact, the county will adopt a spending plan for the money as part of its budget process, and has identified half-dozen specific youth and family homelessness programs to receive the money. That’s not the only thing Westneat got wrong in his column, as we learned from doing some basic reporting.

Tuesday, October 13

Greater Seattle: A Supermajority, a Mistake, and a Chance

In this week’s column, Josh Feit considers what it will mean if progressive Nilu Jenks wins the D5 council election, praises SDOT’s decision to (finally) charge for parking in one West Seattle neighborhood, and has praise for Metro’s workhorse Route 7, which King County is planning to eliminate and replace with a RapidRide with far fewer stops.

Wednesday, October 14

Council Critics Accuse Wilson of Creating “the Unfund Budget”

Councilmembers who opposed Katie Wilson’s election as mayor can’t help themselves, it seems: They’re claiming her proposed budget defunds (or as Bob Kettle puts it, “unfunds”) the police department, encampment sweeps team, and graffiti removal efforts. They also seemed caught off guard by budget problems plaguing SDOT, despite their own adoption of a budget last year that included a large and growing deficit at the department.

Thursday, October 15

Regional Homelessness Authority’s Overspending Grows to $17 Million, According to New Report

Turning Point, the consultant hired to reconcile the King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s budget after a forensic audit found widespread irregularities earlier this year, discovered a nearly $17 million net deficit in the agency’s accounts, the result of excessive administrative spending on staff and the implementation of SalesForce to manage homeless services grants. The money (which includes growing interest on the KCRHA’s massive negative bank balance) will have to be paid, somehow, by the city and county, the agency’s primary funders.

Friday, October 16

Council Budget Fizz: Rinck Wants to Fund Survivor Services, Saka Wants to Defund Restrooms, and Strauss Says the Mayor Is Weak on Homelessness

A week of all-day budget meetings included more convoluted Wilson-bashing, as Rob Saka came out against Wilson’s proposal to add more of the same kind of public restrooms Saka added funding for last year, and Dan Strauss accused the mayor of being “uncomfortable” addressing homelessness after she proposed moving the city’s encampment response team back to the Human Services Department, rather than keeping it under her direct control.

And, earlier in the week, Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck proposed adding $8 million to the budget for organizations that help survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking. HR1, Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” drastically cuts funding for these services.

Complaints Filed Against Pass-Through Campaign Funding Group Created by Former Councilmember Sara Nelson

Former Councilmember Nelson’s new group, Seafor, promises to keep its donors’ identities “private,” funneling money to elections through political action committees that will only show Seafor as the donor. They’re doing a “test run” with Julie Kang, funding a PAC that is spending $30,000 on her behalf. Except—oops—you aren’t actually allowed to conceal the source of campaign funding in this way. A progressive group has filed two complaints against Seafor and its affiliated “news” website, CivicTide.

Cop Who Encouraged Fellow Officers to “F___ People Up” At Pro-LGBTQ Counterprotest Gets Written Reprimand

Seattle police lieutenant Matthew Didier, who was caught on tape encouraging officers to go hard on people protesting a far-right anti-trans rally at Cal Anderson Park, will get a slap-on-the-wrist written reprimand for his actions. Interim police chief Andre Sayles said a critical review of the incident earlier this year “made clear that our department did not understand the depth of concern within the LGBTQ+ community before this event.”

Also this week: I was a guest on CityCast Seattle, where we discussed Rinck’s “Seattle Stands With Survivors” budget proposal, a recent lawsuit filed by a woman who said the University of Washington failed to protect her from the frat member who raped her, Saka’s bizarre 180 on public restroom funding, and our favorite pizza places in Seattle (shout out to Dantini!)

Police

Cop Who Encouraged Fellow Officers to “F___ People Up” At Pro-LGBTQ Counterprotest Gets Written Reprimand

By Erica C. Barnett

Matthew Didier, the Seattle police lieutenant who was caught on body camera footage encouraging his fellow officers to “fuck people up” at a counterprotest during the far-right “Mayday USA” rally in Cal Anderson Park last year, has received a written reprimand for his actions that day. Didier’s statements to his fellow officers, who he said would be “going in with guns blazing” and were “here to fuck people up now,” have made him a symbol of police intolerance to the city’s LGBTQ+ community, which turned out to protest the anti-trans event held, provocatively, in the middle of Seattle’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood.

PubliCola broke the story about on the light disciplinary decision, made by interim Police Chief Andre Sayles, on Bluesky Friday afternoon.

The video of Didier’s directives went viral earlier this year.

“We are about to do some fucking work, but we’re going in this time with guns blazing and all our pieces in place. We we we are past talking to people. We’re here to fuck people up now,” Didier can be heard saying in the footage. “We’re done with these guys doing this shit. They’ve pushed the envelope, and now they’re going to get the full fucking deal.”

Officers responded violently to the counterprotests. During the event, police used pepper spray and other “less lethal” weapons against demonstrators, throwing many to the ground and arresting 23 people. SPD officers also used bike rack-style barricades to prevent protesters from entering the rally area and arrested people for pushing against or knocking over barricades that had been linked together and placed at the top of a hill.

On Friday night, Interim police chief Andre Sayles issued a statement saying he followed SPD’s principle of “progressive discipline” in issuing a written reprimand to Didier. Sayles noted that Didier had only “minor prior disciplinary history” and that his decision fell “within the range” of what the Office of Police Accountability recommended.

In Seattle, complaints about police officers, except the police chief, go through OPA, a semi-independent body (it’s housed in the police department) that reviews each complaint. If OPA decides a complaint is warranted, it will sustain the complaint and recommend discipline to the chief, who ultimately makes the call.

According to the closed case summary for thje investigation, OPA found that Didier had acted in an “unprofessional, escalatory, and disrespectful” manner.

Didier’s “statement appeared to reflect an intent to use impermissible force against the counter protesters. Such a viewpoint undermines public trust in [Didier] and SPD because it erodes the legitimacy of SPD’s objective to uphold every individual’s constitutional rights and created an impression that [Didier] viewed the purpose of officers being ‘here’ was to “fuck people up.”

The OPA recommended light discipline for Didier, ranging from an oral reprimand to two days’ suspension.

DivestSPD reported that there had been sustained findings in the case last month.

In a statement to PubliCola, SPD cited mitigating factors for the decision to give Didier a slap on the wrist, noting that he “voluntarily participated in the Sentinel Event Review. The employee was forthcoming and engaged with community panelists. The employee accepted responsibility and willingness to learn from their actions,” an SPD spokesperson said.

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However, the investigation shows that Didier made many excuses for his behavior and statements, including short staffing at SPD, the fact that officers were called to police the counterprotest on short notice, and a supposed incident from 2020 when, according to OPA’s summary of Didier’s explanation for his actions, “officers had to stand in line, observe crimes, and take no action.”

In his statement, Sayles said the sentinel review “made clear that our department did not understand the depth of concern within the LGBTQ+ community before this event, and that our actions that day damaged trust. I accept that finding.”

“We have already begun this work, and we will continue it. That includes acting on the OIG’s recommendations, strengthening our crowd management practices, expanding the work of our LGBTQ+ liaison and advisory council, and engaging directly with community organizations before — not after — events that affect them.”

Last December, Sayles filed a sweeping OPA complaint against a longtime officer who spoke, with SPD’s permission, at a rally against two anti-LGBTQ initiatives. In the complaint, Sayles said he believed the officer was spreading “inaccurate and untrue things” about the initiatives. (The first initiative would ban trans girls from playing children’s sports; the second would give parents access to all notes about conversations their kids had with trusted adults at school.) The source of Sayles’ information, it would turn out, was right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse, who ran an online campaign to get the officer fired. Kruse volunteers and raises money for the campaign behind the two initiatives.

The OPA dismissed two other complaints against Didier—one alleging he and other officers failed to use de-escalation tactics, and one saying he targeted a protester because of their political views or perceived LGBTQ+ status. “SPD officers, including [Didier], were on site to support everyone’s rights to free speech and peaceably assemble, enforce the law, preserve order, protect people, and preserve property,” the OPA report says.

A “Sentinel Review” of SPD’s response to the counterprotest, conducted by the city’s independent Office of the Inspector General, concluded that SPD officers demonstrated a bias against counter-protesters who showed up to demonstrate against the right-wing event, referring to protesters as “transtifa” and assuming “that the rally organizers represented no real threat, while assuming that “‘black bloc’ and ‘antifa’ are established, hierarchical organizations intent on inciting disorder and criminal activity.”

Mayor Katie Wilson said in a statement: “Like many people in Seattle, I was disturbed to see what occurred at the protests at Cal Anderson in 2025. I’ve spoken with Interim Chief Sayles to understand the disciplinary measures taken in this incident. It is the role of the Seattle Police Department to serve and protect the people of Seattle, and to do so with respect, dignity, care, and consideration— especially for our most vulnerable community members. I will continue to work with the leadership of SPD to ensure that the culture of the department fully reflects and upholds my expectations and this commitment.”

Elections, public disclosure

Complaints Filed Against Pass-Through Campaign Funding Group Created by Former Councilmember Sara Nelson

 

From Seafor’s website.

By Erica C. Barnett

The Progressive People Power (P3) PAC, a group that supports lefty candidates and causes, has filed dual complaints with the state Public Disclosure Commission and the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission against Seafor, a new organization set up by former city councilmember Sara Nelson to support centrist candidates.

The crux of both complaints is an allegation that Seafor is illegally funding election campaigns without revealing its donors, which is illegal under state law.

Specifically, the complaints charge that Seafor is a political action committee disguised as a C(4) (yes, pronounced “Seafor”) nonprofit advocacy group, and that the purpose of the organization is to serve as a pass-through for anonymous political donations to campaigns. This would be illegal, because state law requires PACs—unlike nonprofit political groups—to disclose their donors, so that the public can see which people and organizations are bankrolling outside campaigns for candidates.

“If you are an organization in Washington state raising money for politics and then spending money on politics, then you are a political committee. You have to report where your money came from,” Dmitri Iglitzin, the attorney who filed both complaints on behalf of P3, said Wednesday. “The source of political expenditures can’t be cloaked through an intermediary entity.”

Iglitzin filed the complaints before Seafor funded a last-minute $30,000 independent expenditure, by a new group calling itself North Seattle Neighbors, on behalf of District 5 City Council candidate Julie Kang, who came in second in the August primary, trailing frontrunner Nilu Jenks, a progressive, by 21 points. North Seattle Neighbors registered as a PAC just days before a state deadline for independent expenditure campaigns to file, meaning that it’s no longer possible for anyone to register a similar campaign on Jenks’ behalf. It has since reported one additional $5,000 donation, from the founder of a private equity firm.

The complaint notes that Seafor’s website explicitly says one purpose of the group is to elect a “pragmatic majority” of “moderate candidates” to the city council, starting with the District 5 race. The site describes Seafor as a “permanent civic organization” that “recruits candidates, funds their campaigns, defends them between elections, and stays in the field after November.”

What’s more, Seafor’s site touts the fact that “Donor identities are not publicly disclosed,” allowing people who spend on local campaigns to keep their donations “private.”

From Seafor’s website.

“Washington’s 501(c)(4) structure protects the privacy of businesses and individuals historically punished for backing fiscally responsible causes,” the website guarantees. “Many of our supporters operate businesses, sit on boards, or hold positions where political activity isn’t tenable.”

Nelson, the founder of Seafor, initially responded to a phone call but did not respond to followups. The other governors of the group are former councilmember Tanya Woo, lobbyist Dan McGrady, and former Nelson policy director Erik Nielsen. Jordan Royer, the VP of external affairs for the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association (and a longtime background player in conservative Seattle politics), registered the North Seattle Neighbors PAC.

“Seafor just donated $30,000 to a political campaign. So where did that $30,000 come from? We have no idea,” Iglitzin said. “But we know from Seafor’s website that they’re raising money to make political expenditures in the fifth [council] district, which makes Seafor a political committee. The fact that Seafor then goes and says, by the way, give your money to us and no one will know that you gave it to us, just shows that they know exactly what they’re doing.”

The city’s rules for registering as a political committee go further than the state’s; Seattle requires any PAC that raises or spends more than $5,000 to register as a PAC and disclose its donors. Seafor has spent $30,000 so far—five times the legal limit—and, according to reporting in Geekwire, had a budget of $163,000 through September.

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Both complaints also allege that Seafor’s affiliated website advertising “news about city hall,” CivicTide, is also subject to city and state public disclosure rules, because it’s part of the larger Seafor political action group. Unlike actual journalism and commentary, the complaint says, CivicTide’s opinion pieces and AI-powered meeting summaries are part of a political campaign to support candidates, so their funding, too, is subject to public disclosure.

The SEEC complaint also alleges that Seafor is operating illegally as an unregistered grassroots lobbying group. Under the city’s grassroots lobbying rules, groups that raise and spend money to lobby the city on issues, including advocacy for legislation, have to register as lobbyists, which Seafor hasn’t done.

The Ethics and Elections Commission seems most likely to take up the complaint, since it deals with a local campaign; also, the PDC is facing a significant complaint backlog due to hundreds of complaints filed by a single person. On Thursday, SEEC director Wayne Barnett would only confirm that he had received the complaint.

The strongest case that Seafor violated election laws is almost certainly the fact that it advertises itself as a “private” way to fund “serious candidate support” without disclosing who is behind that funding. It’s “really blatant,” Iglitzin said.

The most recent comparable case he could think of, he told me, was a case involving the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a group of corporations including PepsiCo and Kellogg’s that poured millions into a 2013 campaign against a genetically manufactured organism (GMO) labeling initiative without disclosing the source of the money. A protracted lawsuit eventually resulted in the group (now known as the Consumer Brands Association, paying a $9 million fine, including a $3 million donation to food-security nonprofits, in 2022.

Seafor’s $30,000 spend on Kang’s behalf doesn’t compare to the food brands’ massive donation to the anti-GMO campaign. But it is, as Seafor points out repeatedly on its website, merely a “test run” for the “2027 progressive majority play,” when seven city council seats will on the ballot.

City Council, homelessness, human services, Mayor Wilson

Council Budget Fizz: Rinck Wants to Fund Survivor Services, Saka Wants to Defund Restrooms, and Strauss Says the Mayor Is Weak on Homelessness
City Attorney Erika Evans speaks at a press conference about Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck’s budget proposal at City Hall on Wednesday.

1. Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck announced Wednesday that she’ll propose adding $8 million to this year’s city budget to restore services for domestic violence and sex trafficking survivors that the council funded on a one-time basis last year, and expand services and shelter for victims of gender-based violence that are losing federal funds due to the passage of HR1, Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

The money, Rinck said at a press conference on Wednesday, would help fund legal services, flexible funding for needs like apartment deposits and childcare during court dates, support groups and counseling for survivors and their children, and prevention programs like consent education and bystander intervention.

“Gender-based violence is not inevitable. It is learned, which means it can be unlearned, and it also means it can be stopped before it starts,” Rinck said.

City Attorney Erika Evans said she started her term this year with a backlog of 1,700 domestic violence cases, which has resulted in some victims, like a woman she identified as “Sarah,” waiting years for her case to go to trial. “She said waiting two years made her feel like Seattle didn’t care about what happened to her,” Evans said. Councilmember Dionne Foster said she’ll propose a one-time add to next year’s budget that will help close that backlog; we’ve reached out to her for more details about that separate funding proposal.

HR1 cuts millions of dollars for survivor services and domestic violence prevention programs, impacting groups like the  King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSARC). Meanwhile, changes and cuts to grants made through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development have left local survivor housing programs with less ability to provide shelter and housing to people fleeting abuse.

“The administration has proposed cutting the Office of Violence Against Women by 29 percent. It has moved to terminate millions of dollars in federal grants to hundreds of organizations. It has cut housing assistance,” Rinck said. “Every one of those cuts has an address, and too many of those addresses are right here in Seattle.”

Rinck didn’t offer specific details about her proposal on Wednesday, saying she’ll introduce a detailed budget amendment next week.

2. The city’s Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts, whose October revenue forecast has recently provided the city council with more (projected) money to play with in its November budget, had sobering news on Friday: The new forecast projects just $7.8 million in additional revenues between 2026 and 2028 compared to previous forecasts. In reality, the true number will be $2.8 million in the negative, city economist Jan Duras told the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council, because the city intends to continue exempting health care providers from the JumpStart payroll tax.

The city also expects revenues to dip below previous forecasts in 2028.

What this means for the council’s budget deliberations is that for all their bluster about funding more police, more surveillance cameras, more Unified Care Team staffers, and more firefighters, they’ll be facing an even tougher budget reality this year. Funding everything council members have said they hope to add to the budget would cost tens of millions of dollars, which would require equivalent cuts to other parts of the budget. So far, no one on the council has said where they plan to cut (or what budget tricks they plan to use on the budget they received from the mayor’s office, which shows a positive balance through 2023) to pay for those additions.

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3. During one of several all-day council budget meetings this week, City Councilmember Rob Saka took several minutes to rail against Mayor Katie Wilson’s proposal to install 12 new restrooms, including two permanent Portland Loo-style restrooms at parks in Northeast and Southeast Seattle, using both general-fund and King County and Seattle parks levy revenues. Wilson’s proposal would also add 10 new Throne restrooms, like the ones installed in Pioneer Square earlier this year, across the city.

Overall, Wilson’s budget includes about $6.5 million, roughly half of that from the King County and Seattle parks levies, to pay for the new permanent and prefabricated restrooms, along with maintenance and renovations at existing parks restrooms, including at Judkins and Cal Anderson Parks.

Saka, who has previously complained that restrooms in his West Seattle district are poorly maintained and covered with graffiti, characterized the new toilets as a waste of money given the poor condition of the permanent restrooms in other Seattle parks. (His comments came during a discussion of the city’s parks and recreation budget; the restroom spending is spread across several budget areas).

“We’re a year plus away from an audit, a damning, scathing audit, that revealed can’t get our own house in order—quite literally, bath house in order!” Saka siad. “We can’t even solve the problem of maintaining properly our existing restroom inventory fleet. And how many new bathrooms are proposed for expansion under this? And yes, my council district is the worst off. It’s no secret, in terms of inability to properly maintain because of graffiti and vandalism our existing restroom fleet!. And now we want to expand, create new shiny names, and we can’t take care and look after the things that we have properly today.”

Saka’s opposition to new public restrooms represented a dramatic reversal of his position just one year ago, when he added $1 million in funding to then-mayor Bruce Harrell’s budget for new public restrooms in his district. Citing the exact same “scathing audit,” Saka argued last year that his district should be prioritized for new Portland Loo-style restrooms.

Adding these restrooms, Saka argued, would help “to harden the parks restrooms, to make it more tamper resistant, to make it more vandalism resistant, to make it more graffiti resistant.” Funding restrooms in his district, Saka said, was a way of respecting “the gravity and severity of the underlying problem at issue” in the audit.

Saka’s total reversal on the issue of public restrooms may seem perplexing, but two things have changed. First, this year’s proposed new restrooms are not in his district. And second, the mayor is Katie Wilson, a person many on the council, including Saka, seem determined to oppose even when it means they have to completely reverse positions.

4. For another example, look no further than Dan Strauss’ dark insinuations on Thursday about Wilson’s proposal to move the city’s huge (more than 100-member) encampment sweeps team out of her direct control and into the Human Services Department, which oversees homelessness programs and, until Harrell vastly expanded the city’s encampment removal apparatus, oversaw previous iterations of the team.

Logically, taking the UCT out of Wilson’s office is a way of depoliticizing it, and that’s how a staffer characterized the change. Council central staffer Ann Gorman said, “this was undertaken in order to protect the UCT across mayoral administrations, so that it continues” no matter who is in office. “To someone who is interested in the continuation of the UCT, that’ss good news that would seem to reflect the the achievement of efficiencies.”

Strauss said he took “a little bit of issue” with Gorman’s comments, calling the claim that moving the sweeps team back to HSD would insulate it politically “the largest pile of horse pucky I’ve ever seen occur in my life.” The city needs “executive leadership”—that is, direct control by the elected mayor—for the UCT to be effective, Strauss said.

The real reason Wilson wants to move the team, Strauss continued, is that she doesn’t want to deal with homelessness—quite a thing to claim about a mayor whose budget includes $37 million for new shelter, far more than any of her predecessor’s budgets.

“I believe that that transfer happened because the mayor is likely uncomfortable addressing homelessness, because addressing homelessness requires both a lot of compassion and firm boundaries, and it can be very uncomfortable,” Strauss said. 

Strauss also assailed Wilson for using existing funds—$3.5 million—for an RV safe lot where people living in RVs could access services and shelter and move toward housing. Strauss wants to use that money on his plan to eventually ban RVs from the city, with a transitional period where people currently living in RVs would be required to register with the city and accept services and shelter offers. Strauss said he was “deeply disappointed in the lack of collaboration from the Wilson administration regarding this funding, and my door remains open.”