Civil Rights, discrimination, Mayor Wilson

Allegation: Civil Rights Office Director, Staff Went to Strip Club During City-Sponsored Civil Rights Trip

By Erica C. Barnett

A recently concluded investigation into Seattle Office for Civil Rights director that Derrick Wheeler-Smith details allegations that Wheeler-Smith went to a strip club in Alabama during an official City of Seattle-sponsored trip to civil rights history sites in the South, along with other men who were on the trip, according to sources familiar with the incident.

A report on the investigation concluded that Wheeler-Smith subjected “a subordinate employee to unwelcome conduct of a sexually explicit nature during a work-related trip” but did not specify that the conduct that made the employee uncomfortable involved going to the strip club with his boss.

The report, for which PubliCola has filed a records request, also found it more likely than not that Wheeler-Smith made “repeated comments of a sexual nature” to employees.

Mayor Katie Wilson’s office has not responded to multiple requests for comment about the future of the office. Wheeler-Smith, along with his deputy, Fahima Mohamed, has been on administrative leave since March.

The January 2023 trip, organized by a group called the Empower Initiative, included visits to important sites related to the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, including the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, and the Alabama State Capitol. Staff from then-mayor Bruce Harrell’s office, SOCR, the city’s Office of Arts and Culture, and the diversion group Community Passageways, a city contractor, also reportedly went on the trip.

The Empower Initiative, run by consultant Ben McBride, offers these trips, or “learning labs,” as a “team building experience [that] translates the concept of belonging from inspiring theory to real-life practice,” according to the organization’s website.

On the final night of the trip, several of the men, including Wheeler-Smith, left their hotel in Birmingham and went to a  strip club to celebrate a staffer’s birthday, according to accounts of the incident.

Others who participated in the civil rights tour included city staffers who did not accompany the men to the strip club. It’s unclear how many of these staffers were aware of their colleagues’ nighttime jaunt.

Not only was the secretive all-male side quest arguably inappropriate for a city-sponsored trip, the Office for Civil Rights’ mission includes promoting gender equality and empowerment, a commitment staffers would later accuse Wheeler-Smith of flouting on numerous occasions.

As we reported earlier this year, employees accused Wheeler-Smith of making inappropriate sexual comments, belittling Black women, and dismissing staff concerns about the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people, Asian Americans, and Latinos targeted by ICE, among other marginalized groups.

A spokesperson for SOCR responded to PubliCola’s questions about the investigation and alleged strip club visit by saying, “I don’t have that information, and the Department is otherwise not allowed to comment on an open HR investigation.”

The head of the Empower Initiative, Ben McBride, recently wrote a Subatackpraising Wheeler-Smith; the post, titled “A Leadership Journey of Becoming” called the SOCR director “one of those rare leaders who understands that structural work and inner work belong together.”

The Empower Initiative was one of the partners for SOCR’s planned “Bridges of Belonging Community Storytelling Showcase,” along with We Deliver Care, Community Passageways, and Beautifulle LLC. Wheeler-Smith’s half-brother Davis founded Community Passageways and another diversion group that contracts with the city, Choose 180. He is also aco-founder of We Deliver Care, which is run by Wheeler-Smith’s wife Stephanie. Beautifulle was founded by Wheeler-Smith’s former boss at the religious nonprofit World Vision, Leonetta Elaiho. The Bridges of Belonging event was postponed indefinitely in March.

Editor’s note: This story originally mis-identified Davis’ current role with the three group he co-founded. We apologize for the error.

 

Drugs, education, homelessness, human services, King County, LGBTQ+

This Week on PubliCola: June 20, 2026
KCRHA associate director William Towey

KCRHA says the county and city owe it $8 million, county councilmember plans to eliminate successful harm reduction program, and much more.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, June 15

Regional Homelessness Agency Says King County and Seattle Owe It $8 Million

In a comment that came as a surprise to many on the county council, King County Regional Homelessness Authority associate director William Towey said the city and county owe the KCRHA $8 million—the same $8 million an audit found the agency couldn’t account for and that may need to be “written off.” KCRHA CEO Kelly Kinnison couldn’t be at the meeting because she was on vacation.

Tuesday, June 16

County Human Services Director Calls Councilmember’s Contract Approval Proposal an “Overstep”

King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski has proposed a budget amendment that would require the county’s Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) to submit a letter for county council review every time they execute or make any amendment to a contract in the Best Starts for Kids program, which was subject to an audit that found potential fraud and abuse in a subset of “high-risk” contracts. DCHS director Susan McLaughlin said the idea was a vast “overreach” that would not improve oversight.

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Wednesday, June 17

County Councilmember Dembowski Wants to Defund Successful Harm Reduction Program

In a separate amendment, Dembowski has proposed eliminating all funding for a county program that distributes safer smoking supplies to drug users. Opponents of harm reduction have targeted the program, which the county credits with more than quadrupling the number of people who come in to clinics where they can (and do) access other services, including case management, STI testing, and treatment.

Thursday, June 18

Right-Wing Activist Accused of Assaulting Security Guard While Trying to Force His Way Into Pro-LGBTQ Event

Jonathan Choe, a former KOMO reporter who now works for the Discovery Institute and Turning Point USA, showed up to the campaign kickoff for No Hate in WA State and tried to force his way inside, allegedly hitting a security guard in the back of the head, according to a police report. The campaign is working to combat two anti-LGBTQ+ statewide initiatives, including one that would ban trans kids from playing sports.

Friday, June 19

Here’s What Being a “Child Care Candidate” Actually Means

In an op-ed directed at all the candidates who say they support universal child care, SEIU 925 political and legislative director Erin Haick lays out a road map for what that means in practice—standing firm against additional cuts, paying child care workers like the professional educators they are, and right-sizing subsidies so they actually make it possible for people to pay for child care.

Also this week:

  • On Seattle Nice, we interviewed DCHS director Susan McLaughlin about how DCHS is addressing the findings of a damning audit that found potential waste and abuse in programs aimed at helping youth, among other topics—like the future of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
  • I went on KUOW’s Week In Review this week, where KUOW reporter Scott Greenstone, Republican former city attorney Ann Davison, host Bill Radke and I discussed the news of the week, including a report from a downtown business group that says downtown is struggling and it’s all the fault of taxes on big business (spoiler: It isn’t.)
  • ICYMI, I was also on Crystal Fincher’s Hacks and Wonks podcast last week, where we talked about the city’s data center moratorium, the latest light rail ridership numbers, ongoing challenges the CARE Team of unarmed first responders face, mostly from the Seattle Police Department, and more.

 

education, Guest Contributor, legislature

Here’s What Being a “Child Care Candidate” Actually Means
Photo by BBC Creative on Unsplash

By Erin Haick

Everyone loves child care, especially in an election year.  Candidates for the Legislature, City Council, and County Council are promising universal child care, because it’s a real problem that child care is so expensive for parents while providers make poverty wages. Child care is easy to love, but policy and funding fixes are much harder.

So the first question: Why is it so expensive? First, child care isn’t babysitting. High-quality early learning means credentialed educators, and enough of them to give a toddler a lot of one-on-one attention. It means warm, safe, nurturing environments filled with bright colors and toys. Early learning professionals take continuing education classes just like other educators, and use a quality curriculum that teaches infants, toddlers, and pre-k at each age, from numbers and letters to how to play well with others.  

And unlike public schools, child care businesses pay for labor, rent, supplies, insurance, and more from the individual tuitions of individual families. The math just isn’t mathing anymore.  

In 2021, the Legislature passed SB 5237, the Fair Start for Kids Act—a road map for making child care more affordable for parents and more sustainable for providers. Gone was the cap of 33,000 households (in a state of 3.5 million) who could get help paying for care, imposed a decade prior during the Great Recession. Under Fair Start, a family of three earning an extravagant $4,317 a month (about $52,000 a year) was newly able to access assistance. Subsidy rates increased for providers, helping to stabilize these small, typically women- and immigrant-owned businesses. And family income eligibility was scheduled to go up 10 percent in 2025 and again in 2027.  

If the Legislature had kept the promise of Fair Start for Kids, a family of three in 2025 making (again, an extravagant) $83,000 a year would have qualified for state help, and their child care costs could have dropped from $2,000 or more a month to $215. When affordability is the issue of the day, this is functionally a serious pay raise. Fair Start laid out a road map to helping not both low-income and middle-income families, and thousands of working families were signing up for this program that helped their kids get a Fair Start while they went to work.

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Today, those promises are gone, eliminated by multiple years of state budget shortfalls and child care, which lacks the constitutional protections of public education, being treated as discretionary spending.  

The first test for leaders who want universal child care is simple: Will they say no to further cuts?  Will they protect provider sustainability and family access, in a world where more than a billion dollars was already cut out of early learning in 2025?

So first, stop the bleeding. Next, remember that help paying for child care is only valuable if the care exists to be paid for. In 2025, New Mexico got headlines for being the first state to offer no-cost child care to all families, but they forgot about the workforce. The state’s own estimates identified a shortfall of nearly 16,000 physical slots and at least 5,000 new professionals needed to staff them. Today, many families have access to a subsidy they cannot use because the care provider is not there.

The warning for Washington: Expanded eligibility will fall short if the state continues to cut or lets the workforce shrink. Families need open doors, staffed classrooms, and providers who can afford to stay.

So what should elected officials do?

  1. Commit to no more cuts to child care.  Governor Ferguson’s most recent budget proposed that child care account for 40 percent of budget cuts. This month, he told agencies like the Department of Children, Youth, and Families to prepare for “significant cuts” this winter. Washington should not balance the budget by making child care more expensive for families or harder for providers to deliver.
  2. Treat child care workers like the professionals they are with wages, benefits, real career pathways, and retirement security. Today, unionized child care providers —the largely Black, brown, and immigrant women who uphold our economy—are prohibited by law from bargaining over retirement. Washington cannot keep asking workers to carry the system while denying them the tools to stay in the field.
  3. Pay for the actual cost of care. Washington requires high quality care from providers, but the subsidy rates don’t cover those same costs. A bill to reform how these rates are set has languished for two sessions. When rates are uncompetitive, providers make rational economic choices, like reducing their enrollment of low income families or raising rates on middle income families to make up the difference.  

This election season, it’s easy to say you want universal child care.  The real test is how leaders support the workforce that make access to care for families possible in the first place.  

Erin Haick is the Political & Legislative Director at SEIU 925, which represents more than 19,000 workers in early learning, K-12, higher education, and public service across Washington State.

LGBTQ+, Media

Right-Wing Activist Accused of Assaulting Security Guard While Trying to Force His Way Into Pro-LGBTQ Event


The Turning Point USA activist was trying to force his way into the “No Hate in WA State” campaign kickoff at Neumos when he allegedly struck a security guard in the back of the head.

By Erica C. Barnett

Security at Neumos on Capitol Hill called police on Turning Point USA activist Jonathan Choe last night after Choe allegedly hit a security guard in the back of the head while trying to force his way inside the private No Hate in WA State campaign kickoff.

A Seattle Police Department spokesman said Choe left the scene after Neumos security called the police to report the assault.

According to a police report on the incident, Choe attempted to push and shove his way into the event, which kicked off the campaign against two far-right statewide initiatives on the ballot in November. The first would prevent trans girls from participating in school sports; the second would eliminate privacy protections for kids who reveal confidential information to school officials, including mental health counselors.

The latter proposal would force school districts to out LGBTQ kids to their parents and reveal private health information, such as whether student has asked about reproductive health care, if they have revealed that information to a trusted adult at school.

Choe, who is Korean American, was filmed outside Neumos yesterday, screaming nonsense like “I identify as a Black man!” “you’re wearing a wig!” and “you’re all white supremacists!” before attempting to force his way inside.

The police report notes that Choe also called the security guard a “white supremacist” for denying him access to the private campaign kickoff.

This is not the first time Choe has allegedly assaulted someone and then fled the scene. In 2024, he punched a trans woman and dragged her down the street by her hair, later claiming without evidence that she had “bumped” him; he fled that scene after throwing a metal baton he was carrying into the street.  Earlier this year, he filmed himself clubbing a protester outside a far-right rally and concert at City Hall; the protester he attacked was arrested, while Choe was not.

Choe even harassed supporters of Mayor Katie Wilson at her inauguration, shouting “he’s trantifa, he’s trantifa” while filming random people at City Hall.

Choe films constantly on his phone, but has never posted video that shows anyone actually assaulting him—despite frequently claiming to be the victim of left-wing violence. His typical MO, documented yesterday in videos that show him trying to provoke people into physical fights outside Neumos, is to claim that someone he is harassing has attacked or touched him in order to claim “self-defense” when he attacks them physically.

At yesterday’s event, Choe predictably yelled “don’t touch me!” at people who were not touching him, posting the video on X and claiming “the transgender mafia targeted me with death threats and also challenged me to a fight.” (Watch Choe’s own edited video to see what a snowflake this man is—in reality, people were pointing out that Asian Americans are also targets of white supremacists.)

Choe describes himself as a journalist. He was fired from his last journalism job, as a reporter the right-leaning KOMO TV station, after promoting the Proud Boys hate group with a promotional video scored with a far-right anthem known as the “Männerbund” In a Twitter post accompanying the video, Choe invited people to attend a Proud Boys rally in Olympia and listen to what they had to say.

We’ve reached out to Neumos management and will update this post if we hear back.

Addiction, Drugs, King County

County Councilmember Dembowski Wants to Defund Successful Harm Reduction Program
Source: ADAI, University of Washington

By Erica C. Barnett

Earlier this month, King County Council budget chair Rod Dembowski quietly slipped an amendment into a nearly 400-page supplemental budget proposal that would prohibit the county from spending any money buying or distributing safer smoking supplies, such as pipes and foil, to drug users.

The county’s public health department only runs one needle exchange, where drug users can also access services and treatment medication, but the county distributes supplies to nonprofits that provide similar services, making the potential impact far more significant than the small amount—around $14,000— the county has spent so far this year on pipes and smoking supplies.

King County Public Health (KCPH) estimates that staff distribute safer smoking supplies at the downtown needle exchange for 15 to 20 hours a week, “translating to an estimated $83,000 annually for staff time,” according to KCPH spokeswoman Sharon Bogan. “During these interactions, staff are also connecting individuals with tools to prevent overdose, offering connections to treatment, and addressing client needs,” Bogan said.

King County hands out some of these supplies at its own needle exchange, downtown, and also distributes them to other organizations, including the Hepatitis Education Project and the People’s Harm Reducation Alliance.

Dembowski did not respond to several requests for an interview.

Opponents of harm-reduction approaches, such needle exchanges and the distribution of overdose reversal drugs, argue that making drug use safer merely “enables” drug users to stay addicted. The Trump administration has aggressively rejected harm reduction in favor of punitive approaches, including in recent policy guidance for federal shelter and housing funds.

King County, however, has long embraced harm reduction, which reduces the spread of infectious diseases like HIV and attracts drug users who would not otherwise come in contact with health care and treatment providers. The downtown needle exchange, for example, provides treatment referrals and “warm hand-offs” to the Pathways treatment clinic located in the same location; refers people to detox and medication-assisted treatment; provides case management and connections to housing, food and shelter; and hands out the overdose reversal drug Narcan, among other services.

“Distributing pipes and foil allows Public Health to build trust among people who use drugs. By building this trust, we can reduce preventable deaths, interrupt the spread of infectious diseases, and serve as a bridge to treatment and recovery,” Public Health’s Bogan said. “Discontinuing pipe and foil distribution means that we will lose our connections to people in our community who use smoking supplies and do not inject and who rely on our services.”

Source: ADAI, University of Washington

Caleb Banta-Green, a research professor at the University of Washington’s Addictions, Drugs, & Alcohol Institute (ADAI). said he “was saddened and surprised to see King County do something that appears to be following in the footsteps of the federal government’s really ill-informed approach.” When politicians actually visit harm reduction programs in person, he said, they often change their minds, “because it’s not just giving things to people. It is health promoting and it is literally about engagement and helping people.”

A survey ADAI conducted last year found that in 2025, opiate and meth users overwhelmingly switched from injecting drugs to smoking them, a change (compared to ADAI’s 2015 survey) that corresponded with a dramatic reduction in people showing up at sites that provided clean needles.

In King County, the reduction in injection drug consumption led to a reduction from 25,000 annual visits, or “encounters,” with the public needle exchange program to a low of 12,000 in 2022. After the county began handing out pipes and foil, that number rebounded, from 20,000 in 2023 to 60,000 in 2025, according to the county’s public health department.

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“There has been a dramatic shift in a decade from heroin to fentanyl, and from injecting to smokin—that is how people are consuming substances, and if we want to keep providing public health services for people who consume substances, we have to be adapting to that,” Banta-Green said.

Smoking from dirty or broken pipes, or using cheap, thin foil as a smoking surface, both pose their own safety risks, such as facial wounds and burns—making it a good idea for drug users to replace pipes and only use thick, high-quality foil. But coming in for safer supplies has another benefit, ADAI’s research found: It keeps people from injecting drugs, which is much riskier and can lead to abscesses, infections, and collapsed veins.

At needle exchange sites that didn’t offer smoking supplies, participants were far more likely to have injected drugs (70 percent) than at sites that offered smoking supplies (35 percent), according to the survey. At those same sites, 83 percent of participants said they would “like to get free, clean pipes or foils to smoke opioids, cocaine, or meth,” and 75 percent of the people who injected drugs but were interested safer smoking supplies said they would “inject less often”  if smoking supplies were available.

“All of the evidence points to the same thing, which is when you make smoking supplies available, people will inject less, and if you take smoking supplies away, people will start injecting more,” Banta-Green said.

The county council is scheduled to vote on the full supplemental budget next Tuesday.

human services, King County

County Human Services Director Calls Councilmember’s Contract Approval Proposal an “Overstep”
King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski

By Erica C. Barnett

King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski has proposed an amendment to the county’s budget that Department of Community and Human Services director Susan McLaughlin said will have “devastating impacts” on the county’s ability to deliver services through Best Starts for Kids, a countywide levy that pays for child care subsidies, mental health support, after-school programs, and other services for parents and kids.

An explosive audit last year found poor financial oversights, waste, and potential fraud in four Best Starts programs, and a followup investigation by the county’s ombuds office found that fraud, waste, and abuse “in some cases likely occurred” and that conflicts of interest were common.

Many of the community groups DCHS decided to contract with during and after the pandemic were considered “high risk” because were completely new to government contracting; the audit focused on these programs, according to DCHS Director Susan McLaughlin, “because issues had been raised around them” within DCHS. In April, the county auditor found that DCHS had made significant progress on audit recommendations, improving training and awareness.

Dembowski’s amendment would require DCHS to send a “notification letter” to the county council every time the department executes or amends any of the hundreds of Best Starts for Kids grants and contracts. Amendments can involve contract extensions, additional funds, or changes to underlying “boilerplate” county contract documents that require edits to many contracts at once.

Each letter would have to certify that the contractor has adequate staff and systems to both administer county programs and report back regularly on outcomes; that the grant advances BSFK goals and has measurable outcomes; and that neither the agency receiving the grant nor of its leaders or managers has ever been involved in financial misconduct, among other requirements.

McLaughlin, who was appointed permanent DCHS director this afternoon, called the proposal an “overstep” that would likely add months of additional process to each Best Starts for Kids contracts without meaningfully increasing oversight of the programs.

“I can certainly understand what the intention is behind this kind of legislation, but honestly, that amended amendment is not only unprecedented, but would really have devastating impacts on DCHS, on Best Starts for Kids, and our ability to deliver on the work,” she told me on the latest episode of Seattle Nice, where we interviewed the DCHS director about the audit and other issues.

“The administrative burden alone would be enormous. I mean, we’re talking about hundreds of contracts, because it includes not only new contracts, but any amendment. … So you’re talking about delays of potentially up to a couple of months in the work, for in my opinion, very little gain.”

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Although Dembowski’s specific proposal did not come up during a public hearing on McLaughlin’s appointment last week, Councilmember Claudia Balducci pushed back on Councilmember Rhonda Lewis’ suggestion that the county is currently overcorrecting in response to the audit and investigation findings. “I just feel I have to say in this moment that we have a problem with how the public perceives us right now, and I don’t believe we should be talking about overcorrection when we have not yet corrected that problem,” Balducci said.

Earlier this year, Dembowski proposed adding a new layer of oversight for DCHS by funding an Office of the Inspector General—in addition to the county auditor and ombuds—to investigate and look into complaints about contractors themselves.

Dembowski did not respond to requests for comment Monday and Tuesday, but we’ll update this post if we hear back.