Courts, legislature

Most Men Prosecuted for Sex Buying Don’t Reoffend, Report Suggests
The county prosecutor says locking up men who attempt to pay for sex would reduce demand, but the defense department says the evidence suggests otherwise.

By Erica C. Barnett

A new report from the King County Department of Public Defense about misdemeanor arrests for “commercial sexual exploitation,” or paying for sex, found that virtually none of the men prosecuted between 2022 and 2025 (typically in SPD stings) has been prosecuted again. DPD has argued that this lack of recidivism proves there’s no need to make the offense a felony. Last year, the King County Prosecutor’s Office pushed for state legislation that would do just that, using lurid stories about sex traffickers, accompanied by unredacted images of beaten women, to argue that sex buyers are complicit in abuse.

Most of the 81 cases DPD reviewed resulted in what’s called a dispositional continuance, in which a person agrees to diversion—typically, a class on the consequences of buying sex (“john school”) and community service. None of those men were caught reoffending, suggesting that misdemeanor prosecution—and perhaps the embarrassment and shame of being caught—was enough to convince them not to reoffend.

“These findings clearly suggest that a misdemeanor offense is sufficient to deter people from engaging in this behavior, even one that uses a diversionary response” like sex buyers’ classes, DPD special counsel for criminal policy and practice Katie Hurley said. “And so, there’s no showing that a higher level, a more serious level offense is needed, and the misdemeanor response appears more than sufficient to deter repeat offending.”

The prosecutor’s office disagrees with this assessment, arguing that sex buying should come with harsher penalties, including jail time, in order to end the demand for sex work. In a recent statement, prosecutor Leesa Manion said prosecuting traffickers and pimps alone “won’t fix this problem” of sex trafficking. “Children, women and others from vulnerable communities continue to be exploited because they are in high demand by buyers. We’re fighting for state legislation to protect and increase resources for trafficking survivors by holding sex buyers accountable for using their money to buy sexual access to vulnerable people.

“Until that changes, we will continue to see the wild west of human trafficking, violence, and misery taking place along Aurora,” Manion said.

There are other possible explanations for the apparent lack of recidivism by men who buy sex, including the possibility that they do offend again but haven’t been caught.

Hurley said that if harsher consequences were necessary, more misdemeanor cases would lead to jail time, rather than dismissal. “You’d expect that people would only talk about needing a higher-level response if they were really maximizing the response available within the misdemeanor system, but in fact we see the opposite,” Hurley said .”We see the vast, vast majority of these cases being dismissed with dispositional continuances or for other reasons, and we see the recidivism rate being exceedingly low, and we’re seeing no real jail time imposed for these offenses.”

Although the prosecutor’s office often argues that wealthier white men are most likely to pay for sex in general, most of the men who actually get prosecuted for the offense are men of color, and a hugely disproportionate percentage are Latino, as PubliCola has previously reported. In the cases DPD covered in its report, 44 percent of the men prosecuted for sex buying were Latino (compared to 8 percent of the King County population), and 53 percent required an interpreter because they didn’t speak English.

One possible reason for the racial imbalance is that most of the prosecutions appear to have originated with SPD stings in the Lowe’s parking lot at 125th and Aurora, a place where Latino day laborers congregate. The police department trains female officers to pose as sex workers, then swoops in, using multiple teams of officers to grab and arrest one man at a time.

PubliCola reviewed about 35 of the cases in DPD’s report, and all but one originated in stings at 125th and Aurora. This area is about 20 blocks north of the area where neighborhood residents and business owners have sought help from the city to address gun violence related to sex trafficking.

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“Increasing the penalties and collateral consequences (such as adverse effects on housing, employment, and immigration) for people prosecuted in these cases would only further entrench existing racial and ethnic disparities in Washington’s criminal legal system,” DPD’s report concludes.

“To the extent that the claim that the majority of people who buy sex are wealthy white men, the ‘tool; of prosecuting people through sting operations by SPD on Aurora Avenue North will not reach the supposed majority of potential buyers – further undermining the claim that classifying this behavior as a felony will be an effective deterrent for that population.”

Casey McNerthney, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, said the discussion over how harshly to penalize sex buyers often ignores the perspectives of sex trafficking survivors, ” who we can say without speculation are disproportionately from marginalized communities, including people of color, kids from the foster care system, and people from the LGBTQIA+ community. The KCPAO’s support in the last session was rooted in what we have learned from extensive conversations with sex trafficking survivors and the lasting trauma that they endure.”

SPD stings, however, don’t involve actual sex workers—and do nothing to help victims of sex trafficking, for whom the city and county provide very few direct resources compared to their huge investments in policing and prosecutions.

We discussed the debate over sex work prosecutions, along with my recent reporting on another staff departure from Mayor Katie Wilson’s office, on the Seattle Nice podcast this week.

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Poverty

Universal School Meals Delayed In Favor of Grocery Vouchers for Low-Income Families

By Erica C. Barnett

After weeks of debate that revealed widespread public opposition to a plan to delay funding for universal school meals, a city council committee approved the change today. The proposal, part of the spending plan for the Families, Education, Preschool and Promise levy,  delays funding for a new universal free school breakfast and lunch program for at least a year to fund a grocery voucher for low-income families to buy meals during school breaks and weeds, using $3 million from the first year of the school meal plan to fund $3 million in food vouchers over six years.

According to a memo on the amendment, which was sponsored by Council President Joy Hollingsworth and Councilmember Dionne Foster, the $500,000 annual program will serve “up to 5,000 families annually.” At that level, the program would be able to provide $100 a year to each family.

The idea behind the substitution, according to its sponsors, was twofold. First, the city doesn’t know yet if voters will uphold the millionaires’ tax in November; that tax is supposed to fund universal school meals statewide starting in 2029, in November. Because the money for universal meals may not materialize, it’s risky to fund it locally on a short-term basis.

The second argument, and the subject of the greatest public outcry, was that the poorest students should get priority over those whose parents can afford to pay for meals at school—that is, those who qualify through an annual income verification and application process. Universal school meals might provide food for all children, but the poorest kids are going hungry at home, too, proponents argued, so that need should take priority—at least until we know whether state funding for universal school meals is secure.

“Equity does not mean providing the exact same investment for every student regardless of need,” Hollingsworth, said. “It means directing resources where barriers remain the greatest, and that was my goal with this amendment.”

Both Hollingsworth and Foster complained from the dais about the way their proposal has been portrayed by opponents and members of the media, zeroing in on the term “means testing.”

“‘Means testing—I don’t know where that came from,” Hollingsworth said. “That was not something we ever put out.”

Foster echoed Hollingsworth’s criticism, saying, “It has been very difficult to have these conversations and to listen to some of the narrative out there.” Fresh Bucks, an unrelated voucher program that helps low-income people buy produce at farmers’ markets, is also targeted at low-income people, but no one describes that program as means-tested, Foster said. “And I wonder why that is.”

Means-testing is a term that means, simply, requiring people to prove their income is lower than a specified threshold in order to qualify for benefits. Put another way, it is what happens when the government sets income thresholds that define “need,” and makes people prove that they lack the means, or income, to fulfill that need themselves.

To qualify for reduced-price or free school meals in Seattle, a single parent with one kid has to make less than $39,000 in gross (not take-home) income a year, or $757 a week—approximately Seattle’s minimum wage. For a two-parent family with two kids, that goes up to $59,000, or a total gross income of $1,114 a week. About 50 Seattle schools offer free lunches to all kids because more than 40 percent of parents have qualified for the program. But anyone who makes more than the cutoff is ineligible for help—and to as many public commenters pointed out, there are plenty of people who make more than the bare minimum who struggle to pay their monthly bills in Seattle.

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Although Hollingsworth suggested there would be little to no administrative burden for low-income parents to apply for and get accepted into the new low-income food voucher program, Rob Saka disagreed. Saka spent years in and out of foster care and was raised by a single dad who worked hourly warehouse jobs. From age 9 to 18, Saka said, he only went to the doctor a handful of times and never went to the dentist, because his dad’s hourly warehouse jobs didn’t provide health insurance.

“We qualified for free and reduced lunch, which means we would have also likely qualified for Medicaid,” Saka said. “But I never went to the dentist, and only went to the doctor a handful of times in nine years, because of the severe, significant, nontrivial, and substantial administrative paperwork burden imposed on people that need these valuable resources.”

In a statement, Wilson said, “While I am disappointed with the decision to delay universal meals for a full school year, I respect the Council’s process and know we share a commitment to addressing food insecurity. I am proud that the amendment passed by Council commits the City to universal school meals in 2027. That means up to 6,800 students who currently fall through the cracks will have access to free breakfast and lunch, families will save roughly $1,200 a year, and there is a path to end the stigma around food insecurity in our schools.”

The Hollingsworth-Foster amendment pushes universal school lunches off until 2027. But it also, importantly, still assumes that the millionaires’ tax will be implemented in the future and will start paying for the program in 2029. If voters reject the millionaires’ tax, or a court overturns it, it’s unclear what will happen next year, which would have been Year 2 of Wilson’s universal school lunch program. If the statewide tax tax fails, the current plan would fund universal school meals for just one year, unless the city decided to make universal meals a local funding priority in the future.

Had the universal meals program passed, kids would have been able to get breakfast and lunch at school every day without having to demonstrate that they truly “need” it, at a cost of a few million dollars a year. That’s real money, but it also pales in comparison to what the city spends on other priorities, including $80 million in salary increases for police this year alone.

 

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Police

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

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

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

Day’s old position has been posted publicly, but the mayor’s office has reportedly been talking to Gregory Joseph, currently the communications director for the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility. Several sources have told PubliCola the mayor’s office has interviewed Joseph “informally,” although the official line is that they haven’t done any interviews yet and are considering any and all candidates for the job. (The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the communications director position Wednesday morning).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

City Council, housing, Mayor Wilson

With Major Reforms Years Away, City Could Make Temporary Changes to Housing Fees Next Year
Downward trend: Permits to build new housing have continued to plummet, exacerbating Seattle’s housing shortage.

By Erica C. Barnett

Although a proposal to temporarily slash the Mandatory Housing Affordability fees paid by developers in most residential zones appears dead for this year, the City Council’s land use chair, Eddie Lin, said to expect legislation early next year that will address what housing developers have identified as a critical problem:  The fees, which pay for affordable housing, have become make-or-break for new housing projects thanks to the skyrocketing price of construction since MHA passed seven years ago.

As we’ve reported, developers sought a two-year, 80 percent reduction in MHA fees earlier this year, arguing that the development “pipeline” in Seattle is drying up; without the temporary cut, they argue, they won’t be paying any MHA fees because new housing simply won’t get built.

Mayor Katie Wilson had planned to propose a bill backed by the Housing Development Consortium, a large coalition of affordable housing developers and advocates, when the deal fell apart. Groups like the Seattle Renters Commission argued that cutting MHA fees would eliminate a key source of funds for affordable apartments, and council support for the bill also seemed on the verge of evaporating when Wilson pulled the bill.

Lin, who supported Wilson’s proposal in principle, said he supports both short-term MHA. fee relief and long-term reform. “MHA was never supposed to be a completely static thing. … It should be more responsive to updates in our zoning, updates into the housing ecosystem.” But, Lin added, “that’s going to take years, and we need to do something in the short term. And I think the pressure for that is only going to continue to build as permits continue to plummet.”

So far this year, according to the city’s housing dashboard, developers have filed permits have been filed to build just 1,137 new housing units citywide, down from 8,600 during the same period in 2020, when new permits were at their peak.

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“Hopefully we’ll be able to do something in early 2027” to provide a short-term solution to MHA fee pressure, Lin said.

In a bit of positive news, the latest report on MHA, from the city’s Office of Housing, shows that fees brought in about $47 million last year, reversing what appeared to be a long-term decline. But the gains are likely short-term, for a couple of reasons. First, more than half of last year’s MHA fees, around $24 million, came from just four large apartment buildings, according to the report—and nearly half of that amount, $10.6 million, came from a bond-financed senior housing project for the nonprofit Horizon House, a large windfall from an unusual type of project.

The second reason next year’s MHA fees are likely to drop off is that most of the remaining 2025 money, more than $20 million, comes from new housing (generally townhouses) in areas zoned for low-density developments. These low-rise (or LR) zones are almost certain to see a major drop-off in new housing permits thanks to legislation, passed last December. that allows up to eight apartments per lot in former single-family areas, which are not subject to MHA fees.

The Office of Housing report acknowledges this new reality, noting that “MHA-applicable townhome development could fall off going forward,” as developers start building in neighborhood residential areas to spare themselves the expense of MHA fees.

“Until we update MHA, especially in the LR zone, we’re going to see development in neighborhood residential, for better or worse,” Lin said. “Because why would you build an LR if you can build the same thing in neighborhood residential?”

City Council, Density, Mayor Wilson, Poverty, Transit

This Week on PubliCola: July 18, 2026

A marathon debate over transit funding, Katie Wilson’s flight patterns, a bill that would limit endless land-use appeals, and more news from the past week.

Monday, July 13

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

On the first of two podcast episodes this week, we discussed how the mayor is doing at six months, focusing on her approach to encampment sweeps (she’s doing them), her progress toward her shelter goals (falling short, but better than her predecessor Bruce Harrell), and the likelihood of budget cuts this year (thanks in large part to spending commitments Harrell made, without regard for future budget impacts, right before the 2025 election.)

Tuesday, July 14

Voting “Yes” On Prop. 1 Will Fund the Library System We Deserve

Guest columnist Brittney Moraski, who’s the advocacy chair for the Seattle Public Library Foundation Board, makes the case for the August library levy measure, which will expand collections, spiff up the aging downtown library, and fund programs like No Late Fines and Peak Picks—not to mentiona quarter of the library’s staff.

Seattle May Actually Limit Anti-Housing Land Use Appeals

Legislation from Councilmember Eddie Lin would get rid of land-use appeals to the city’s hearing examiner, which currently give people who oppose density the ability to stop zoning legislation and comprehensive plan updates in their tracks. The bill would still leave two other post-legislative appeal options open.

More People Will be Eligible for Utility Discounts

City Councilmember Dan Strauss’ legislation expanding eligibility for the city’s Utility Discount Program, which provides deep discounts to ratepayers who qualify, passed easily this week.

Wednesday, July 15

As Mayor, Katie Wilson Doesn’t Travel Much. When She Does, You’ll Find Her in 23F.

Unlike her predecessor Bruce Harrell, who spent large chunks of his term traveling, along with his wife, to conferences and junkets around the nation and world, Mayor Wilson has only left Seattle on city business two times in her first six months, and only once on the city dime. Also unlike her predecessor, Wilson travels in coach—Harrell used his personal wealth to pay for first-class upgrades, including five-figure plane tickets and five-star hotels.

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Thursday, July 16

Land Use Appeal Reform Moves Forward

The land use appeal reform bill we covered earlier in the week passed out of the land use committee, and heads to an uncertain vote at the full council.

Council Splits on Funding for School Meals

The city council appears to be split on a Families and Education Levy spending proposal from Joy Hollingsworth and Dionne Foster that would delay funding for universal school meals, which Wilson previously identified as one of her key accomplishments, and use the money instead to pay for take-home food vouchers for low-income kids. Eddie Lin told us it would take a lot to convince him to vote against universal school meals.

Friday, July 17

After Marathon Meeting, Council Committee Passes Wilson’s Transit Measure Mostly Intact

It took almost three and a half hours of speeches (and one called question—someone on the council’s reading Robert’s Rules!) but a committee of all nine council members ended up approving Mayor Wilson’s proposed transit sales measure mostly intact. Proposals to cut the size and duration of the tax failed, and there are lots of directives to report on this and that, but chalk this one up as a victory for the mayor. Once it passes full council, the proposal will head to voters in November.

Seattle Nice: Taxing for Transit, Nude Beach Ruling, and Mayor Wilson’s Frugal Flights

On the second episode of Seattle Nice this week, we talked about that marathon transit discussion, along with my story on Wilson’s travel and a court ruling this week that will allow the nude beach at Denny Blaine Park to remain nude, but not “lewd.”

Also this week:

I was a guest on Rachel Horgan’s The Weekly podcast, where I talked about what it takes to sustain a podcast long-term, the story of how Josh and I founded this independent news site in 2009 and how my business model works now, and what’s been going on in Seattle politics lately. Rachel covers local business news and a lot more every week.

If you’d like to read an entertaining blow-by-blow of Thursday’s big transit tax debate, I covered it live, in way more detail, on Bluesky.

 

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Taxes, Transit

Seattle Nice: Taxing for Transit, Nude Beach Ruling, and Mayor Wilson’s Frugal Flights
File:Blick aus dem Flugzeug.jpg
Only losers think this view is cool, apparently. Lully, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Erica C. Barnett

Unlike the Seattle City Council, we sped through several local topics on Seattle Nice this week, discussing the Seattle Transit Measure that passed a key council committee yesterday, along with a proposal that would upend Mayor Katie Wilson’s plan to start funding universal school lunches next year using a local levy that pays for education.

During our discussion of the transit tax, Sandeep argued that there needs to be a point when Seattle stops routinely raising taxes, particularly regressive sales taxes (the transit measure renewal would impose a 0.3 percent sales tax, up from the current 0.15 percent). I agree, especially about sales taxes—if it’s gonna get challenged anyway, the legislature should just pass a true progressive income tax—but I also buy the argument that affordable, accessible transit saves low-income riders more money than the tax will cost.

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Worth noting: The incremental sales tax increase will cost the median Seattle household, with an income of $124,000 a year, an additional $29 a  year. Although Bob Kettle and Maritza Rivera expressed concern for, as Rivera put it, “our low-income folks,” low-income Seattle residents will pay significantly less than that median burden—more like an extra buck a month. That isn’t to say the sales tax isn’t regressive (meaning it falls disproportionately on poor people, who spend more of their income on purchases), but it’s important to put the actual cost in perspective. If people are able to take fewer trips in their cars, or get rid of their cars entirely, thanks to better transit service, that dollar a month is well worth it.

 

We also talked about a local judge’s ruling that will allow people who visit the beach at Denny-Blaine Park, a historic LGBTQ-friendly nude beach, to taking their clothes off. The city still has to take unspecified actions to abate the “public nuisance” of “lewd” behavior, a term King County Superior Court Judge Samuel Chung used 35 times in his 14-page ruling.

Also, I made two apparently necessary clarifications on my story about Katie Wilson traveling in coach, which blew up on Bluesky while I wasn’t looking.

1. My headline did not mean Wilson LITERALLY PURCHASES SEAT 23F every time she travels. I thought this was super obvious, but some people did not and they have very strong feelings about it.

2. Window seats are great, it is normal to want to look out, and a ton of y’all have very weird (passionate!) feelings about the type of people who do or do not prefer window seats and those who do or do not pull the shade down, blocking off the view. (Apparently people who like to look at clouds are babies.)

3. Presumably anyone who reads PubliCola already knows this, but to those admonishing me WHY ARE YOU COVERING THIS INSTEAD OF NEWS, I post news stories that are not about the mayor’s flying habits all week, every week, right here on this very wonky, very in-depth local news site (which you can support right here!)