homelessness, King County, LGBTQ+, Mayor Wilson, Police, Privacy

This Week on PubliCola: August 23, 2026
King County’s uncanny AI “trainer”

KCRHA Layoffs Begin, SPD Chief Files Unfounded Complaint Against Detective, Privacy Advocates vs. Surveillance Cameras and More

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, August 17

Greater Seattle: Junk Fees, Recalling Wilson, and Ron Davis’ Post-Election Fixation

In his latest column, Josh says Katie Wilson is doing what she said she would do—working to make housing more affordable—even though it pisses off people who supported Bruce Harrell, like the North Seattle couple seeking to recall her. And in what turned out to be a very controversial hot take (at least among Ron Davis supporters), Josh calls the former legislative candidate’s 3,000-word newsletter—which spun a conspiracy theory about why the Stranger didn’t endorse him that the Stranger’s union took the trouble to correct—unhinged.

Tuesday, August 18

As KCRHA Begins Layoffs, Union Suggests Cutting Top Executives First

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is beginning to scale back, as the city and county take over contracts after a damning forensic audit revealed serious financial issues. The initial layoffs reportedly hit some divisions the agency will still need going forward, while protecting top executives. In a blistering letter, the union representing many KCRHA staff said the agency could save more than half a million dollars by eliminating the jobs of CEO Kelly Kinnison and her deputy William Towey.

As Business-Backed Poll Says Most Support Police Surveillance Cameras, Privacy Advocates Raise Security Concerns

A new business-backed poll showed a huge spike in support for police camera surveillance across Seattle—but the questions are worded in such a pro-surveillance way, it’s hard to know how much organic support the poll represents. Meanwhile, privacy advocates who toured SPD’s surveillance HQ said what they learned made them even more concerned that surveillance footage could escape containment and get into the hands of ICE or hackers.

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Thursday, August 20

King County Enlists Uncanny AI Videos for Ethics Training

King County is using what it calls an “innovative tool” to train 4,000 executive branch employees on how to prevent waste, fraud, and misuse of public dollars: A series of short videos in which an uncanny AI avatar recites scripts about various training topics. The county’s IT department produced the videos using a company called Synthesia, which aims its product at small businesses.

Drop in Mayor’s Approval Rating Follows Anti-Wilson Media Frenzy

The Chamber released another poll result this week: Mayor Wilson’s approval rating has dropped to 37 percent. That’s hardly surprising, given that public opinion doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the media (particularly TV and radio) have spent weeks calling Wilson incompetent, blaming her (and not SPD) for a delay in information after the Bite of Seattle shooting, and relentlessly covering a doomed recall effort against her.

Report: Police Contract Severely Limits CARE Team’s Ability to Do Their Jobs

A report from the city’s Office of Inspector General concluded that the new contract between the city and the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) drastically limits the ability of the CARE team of civilian first responders to respond to crisis calls. But CARE Chief Amy Barden sees some reason for optimism in the most recent numbers, which show that the team is now responding to more calls than in previous years.

Friday, August 21

Interim Police Chief Sayles Filed Complaint Against Hate Crimes Detective for Speaking At Pro-LGBTQ Rally

Interim police chief Andre Sayles filed a complaint against a longtime SPD detective who spoke out against two right-wing initiatives aimed at LGBTQ kids. The detective had permission to speak at the rally, but after hearing complaints from, among others, right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse, Sayles claimed she refused to follow his orders and lied about what the initiatives would do—either of which would be a fireable offense. Sayles’ complaint was quickly dismissed (an investigator called it an infringement on the detective’s free speech rights), but the incident led the detective to retire rather than return to work after a sabbatical.

LGBTQ+, Mayor Wilson, Police

Interim Police Chief Sayles Filed Complaint Against Hate Crimes Detective for Speaking At Pro-LGBTQ Rally

“Any further investigation would violate [the detective’s] constitutional rights and open the city to a lawsuit,” an investigator concluded when dismissing Sayles’ complaint.

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle interim police chief Andre Sayles filed a complaint with the Office of Police Accountability against a veteran detective (and onetime leader of of SPD’s hate crimes unit) over a three-minute speech she gave at a No Hate in WA State rally last November, when Sayles was deputy chief. Sayles accused detective Beth Wareing of failing to follow a lawful order and dishonesty— fireable offenses that could have cost the 29-year police veteran her job, her law enforcement certification, and her ability to testify in court as a police officer.

“In her speech, Det. Wareing made several comments that lacked credible facts related to the potential exposure to sexual assault by adults on youth, especially females and persons who identify as LGBTQ+,” Sayles wrote. “In the attachments, I’ve attached an email along with the video of Det. Wareing speaking.”

The links Sayles provided included two videos by right-wing commentator Brandi Kruse, who attacked Wareing at length on her show on December 11 and December 15, calling her comments “genuinely disgusting.” On the December 11 segment, Kruse said she had contacted SPD about Wareing’s comments and “prayed to God” they would take action against her. Addressing Wareing, Kruse said, “do you really think there is going to be no ramifications for just lying through your teeth as a Seattle police detective?”

Sayles filed his complaint on December 15, the day the second segment ran. The complaint broadly parroted Kruse’s talking points, alleging that Wareing “was insubordinate, violating the guidelines he set out for her, and that she was dishonest in saying inaccurate and untrue things during the press conference,” according to OPA’s summary.

Kruse says she didn’t personally file a complaint against Wareing or talk to Sayles directly. “I made it clear how I felt about her comments on my show,” she said. “A police detective should not be abusing their position to fear monger parents about a topic as serious as sexual abuse. That’s grotesque. I am not surprised there are complaints against her—there should be.”

Investigators who looked into Sayles’ complaint disagreed—and swiftly. On January 8, OPA let the city’s Office of Inspector General, a separate police oversight body, know that they were expediting and dismissing the complaint, finding that Sayles’ claims were unfounded and may have violated Wareing’s right to free speech.

In a memo proposing the dismissal language, OPA noted pointedly that political statements  “are protected free speech and political activity” under state law, legal case law, guidance from the Seattle Ethics and  Elections Commission, and SPD’s own police manual. Wareing, the dismissal continued, “was also not insubordinate as she did in fact follow the guidance she was given” when she sought, and received, explicit permission from Sayles to speak at the rally.

“Any further investigation of [Wareing] would violate her constitutional rights and open the city to a lawsuit,” the memo concluded.

For Wareing, who was on sabbatical pursuing a PhD when she spoke at the rally, the complaint was a shocking attempt to curtail her free speech and smear her after a long career as a hostage negotiator, bias crimes expert, and clinical counselor. As the direct result of the complaint, she said, she decided to retire from SPD and pursue a different career.

“Chief Sayles’s complaint was poorly considered, unprofessional, and an attempted violation of my First Amendment rights,” Wareing told PubliCola. “It was a decisive factor in my decision to retire rather than remain at SPD after sabbatical, ending a career that was my passion for 29 years. This conduct should concern every officer at SPD.”

PubliCola has confirmed that Mayor Katie Wilson knew about Sayles’ complaint against Wareing, and its dismissal, before she chose him as interim chief three weeks ago.

Wareing’s comments at the No Hate rally were a personalized version of the basic talking points against the two anti-LGBTQ initiatives, funded by right-wing billionaire Brian Heywood through his group Let’s Go Washington. No Hate In WA State, known last year as Washington Families for Freedom, argues both initiatives would put children at risk.

The first initiative would give parents access to all their child’s school records, including confidential counseling notes, with no exceptions for parents with histories of abuse. The second would require girls to submit to genital inspections to prove they have vaginas as a condition of participating in sports. Although student athletes are required to have physicals to ensure they can play without injury, there is no genital inspection requirement for girls, nor is any student required to show a doctor their penis or vagina so that schools can categorize them into teams by sex.

Wareing had written authorization from SPD, including direct permission from Sayles, to speak at the event in her own personal capacity, as long as she didn’t say she was representing or worked for SPD, which she did not. In her remarks, Wareing said the two initiatives “serve to stigmatize LGBTQ+ children and put them at greater risk of harassment, assault, abuse at home, homelessness, and death by suicide.”

The anti-trans initiative, Wareing said, “would increase the risk of sexual abuse for girls participating in sports” and “is not something I would put my child through.”

The second initiative, eliminating students’ ability to speak privately with school counselors and staff about sensitive topics, such as gender, abortion, and sexuality, would make abused children especially vulnerable, Wareing continued, “I recall many times teachers and school counselors have been a primary support person for a child at risk, and my heart would be broken for them if they were forced by an unjust law to report a child’s private information, even if it puts a child at risk of injury.”

In an interview with OPA investigators, Sayles admitted that he did not read either of the initiatives he accused his own detective of lying about before filing his complaint, according to OPA’s investigation file.

PubliCola sent Wilson’s office a list of detailed questions on Wednesday, including why she did not consider Sayles’ unfounded complaint against Wareing disqualifying, what Sayles told Wilson when she asked about the complaint, and whether Wilson believed Wareing’s comments were inappropriate

A staffer responded, “We have discussed the investigation with Interim Chief Sayles. He will continue being an inclusive leader, protecting all Seattle residents, workers, and visitors, especially those furthest from social justice, including the trans community. Seattle is a place where everyone should feel safe.”

In response to detailed questions, SPD provided a similar statement, emphasizing that “the employee [Wareing] was cleared of all wrongdoing.” The spokesperson did not mention the finding that Sayles may have violated Wareing’s right to free speech and opened the city up to a lawsuit.

“Since his arrival, Chief Sayles has been a part of the SPD LGBTQ+ committee and remains focused on creating a safe city for all who live, visit, and work in Seattle. He has committed to building community connections to help develop a sense of welcomeness that fosters this safety,” an SPD spokesperson said.

Under Barnes, SPD made a series of unforced errors that alienated many in the city’s LGBTQ community and led to multiple discrimination lawsuits (including one that quotes Barnes’ chief of staff, Alex Ricketts, as saying, “We’re not here for the gays.” SPD has also struggled to hire women under Barnes and is unlikely, at the current rate, to come close to its adopted goal of having a 30 percent female recruit class in the next three years. Wareing, who worked on the 30 x 30 initiative, just became one more female SPD officer on her way out the door.

Mayor Wilson, Police, public safety

Report: Police Contract Severely Limits CARE Team’s Ability to Do Their Jobs
Flow chart demonstrating how a CARE dispatch proceeds when a 911 operator directs the team to respond to a call directly.

By Erica C. Barnett

A new report from the city’s Office of Inspector General confirms what Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) Department Chief Amy Barden has been saying for more than a year: The new contract between the city and the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG), which was put on a fast track last year after Katie Wilson beat incumbent mayor Bruce Harrell, drastically limits the ability of the CARE team of civilian first responders to respond to crisis calls, which is the entire the reason they exist.

Although many other US cities now have crisis response teams who have replaced police for calls that don’t require armed officers or where police may make the situation worse), Seattle has increasingly lagged behind. When Harrell announced the new contract, he emphasized the fact that it allowed CARE to respond to calls without police in tow—what’s known as a “primary” response—for the first time since its inception, in 2023.  A Until last year, police had to be present, at least initially, during every 911 response.

But the new contract also included a memorandum of understanding between the city and SPOG that dramatically reduced CARE’s ability to respond to the type of calls that were supposed to be its raison d’être: Welfare checks, “person down” calls, and nuisance calls.

The agreement, which CARE had no role in crafting and did not approve, “prohibits CARE response to calls involving substance abuse, persons in homeless encampments and on private property, and individuals in crisis,” according to the report. “This excludes a significant portion of the population CARE was intended to serve.”

“CARE’s scope of work remains significantly impacted by the terms of the SPOG contract,” the report says. “Even as the SPOG contract adds a new response type, expands call types, and removes the cap on new staffing, it also further limits the CARE Team.”

 

In a statement, Mayor Katie Wilson’s office said the review “places an important spotlight on limitations placed on CARE crisis responders under the SPOG collective bargaining agreement negotiated by the prior administration. Seattle’s residents have been unambiguously clear in their demand for an alternative response to emergency calls, and the CARE crisis responders were curtailed by past City leadership, through no fault of their own.”

Barden said she sees some positive news in the most recent data from the report, which show a 32 percent uptick in CARE responses compared to the previous 12-week average. “I think this is due in part to the team being available early morning, and in part due to stronger relationships with the SPD precinct captains and more clarity about what constitutes a crisis call that is clinical in nature and most appropriate for the CARE team,” Barden said.

Wilson’s office said the mayor is  “optimistic about the positive and productive collaboration Interim [Police] Chief [Andre] Sayles has formed with the CARE department and other community safety partners. That commitment to partnership will be an essential qualification for our next permanent chief.”

The team is planning to start operating out of library branches with a high number of crisis calls, and is launching a partnership with the downtown jail to intercept people leaving jail who need services, which Barden said should use up the rest of the 32-member team’s capacity. “I anticipate that these strategies will create more work than we currently have staff for, so I am not concerned with the existing limitations explained in the OIG report,” Barden said. The  city’s 2026 budget included funding for 48 CARE crisis responders, but Barden said she thought it made sense to spread out or slow down hiring in light of the current economic forecast and $175 million budget deficit, which could force cuts to many city departments.

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Without a change to the underlying SPOG contract, however, CARE remains severely limited in its ability to accomplish its original remit of responding to 911 calls in the place of police. The current contract runs through the end of next year.

“Dual dispatch,” which was previously the only way CARE could be sent out on calls, is limited in new ways under the MOU, the OIG report notes; officers who would previously have been directed to call CARE to provide assistance can now “take immediate action if they believe it is appropriate” without calling the team at all. Another problem, according to the report, is that SPD’s very slow response to low-priority calls that require dual dispatch under the contract means that “community members do not receive help when they need it, even if CARE is available,” undermining confidence in the team.

A large number of the calls CARE responds to—388 in the first three months of 2026—originate with police who respond to calls and then, after determining they’re appropriate for social workers, refer them to CARE. These calls, known as “SPD request” in the report, are the most common way the CARE team gets dispatched, followed by dual dispatch, primary dispatch (meaning 911 directed the CARE team to go to a call), and on-views, in which the CARE team witnesses an incident or situation where they can help and self-dispatch by responding in real time.

All of the restrictions in the SPOG contract apply to every kind of CARE response. For example, if CARE first responders saw someone in distress while walking through downtown Seattle, approached, and saw signs the person was using drugs, they would have to walk away and call SPD to the scene. Under the SPOG contract, SPD sergeants can override any 911 operator who decides to dispatch the CARE team to a call. The OIG report doesn’t indicate how often that happens.

 

 

Crime, King County, Mayor Wilson, Police, public safety

King County Enlists Uncanny AI Videos for Ethics Training; Drop in Mayor’s Approval Rating Follows Anti-Wilson Media Frenzy

1. King County is using what it calls an “innovative tool” to train 4,000 executive branch employees on how to prevent waste, fraud, and misuse of public dollars: A series of short videos in which an uncanny AI avatar, wearing a tech CEO-style quarter-zip fleece, recites scripts about various training topics in front of shelves filled with leather-bound books.

According to a King County spokesperson, the videos are part of a new training protocol the county instituted “as part of Executive Girmay Zahilay’s Better Government actions,” after an audit found potential fraud, waste, and abuse of funds in youth contracts overseen by the Department of Community and Human Services.

A quick reverse image search found dozens of identical-looking videos produced for a wide range of small companies, from a “dental AI” company to a rare-earth metal dealer to a flower shop.

Usually, the AI speaks with a plummy British accent, but occasionally it speaks in other languages, like German, or in the American accent King County’s IT department chose for the training videos. The county’s spokesperson said they used a company called Synesthesia Limited because it allows text-to-voice script conversions.

The King County spokesperson said the AI videos are based on an anti-fraud training DCHS launched in April, and said the content was generated by humans at DCHS, “in consultation with King County’s Finance and Business Operations Division.”

King County IT put together the videos using a company called Synthesia, which costs the county about $900 a year. According to the spokesperson, the IT department approved the use of the company under the county’s AI policy.

“King County embraces the use of innovative tools, including AI,” the spokesperson said. “The training went through multiple reviews internally to ensure accuracy, the AI-generated presenter has been disclosed to staff, and no prohibited County data was provided to the AI service.”

We think they dost protest a bit too much. Our question was, “Does DCHS believe this kind of AI talking head video is an effective training tool, and if so, why?”

​

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2. The Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce released another batch of poll results on Thursday. (The first poll, done in collaboration with Challenge Seattle and released earlier this week, purported to show overwhelming support for police camera surveillance in Seattle neighborhoods). One poll question found that Mayor Katie Wilson’s approval rating has slipped 20 percentage points, to 37 percent; the other showed broad public support for a long list of potential public safety strategies and interventions.

Local media outlets interpreted the results as bad news for Wilson, which is certainly the case with her approval rating. But it’s worth noting, as my friend and colleague Marcus Harrison Green did on Bluesky, that approval ratings don’t exist in a vacuum: The same media that’s dutifully reporting on the mayor’s drop in support has also spent the last several weeks falling over themselves to blame Wilson for a delayed press conference after a shooting at the Bite of Seattle last month and suggest that she fired former police chief Shon Barnes on a baseless whim. (Marcus, citing his podcast co-host Nora Kenworthy, also pointed out that the backlash is transparently gendered, and I’ll add that it’s also ageist—no one would say Bruce Harrell had no right to fire his department heads or tell them what to do.)

As we’ve noted, Wilson had many pre-existing reasons for letting the police chief go—beyond his embarrassing explosion at a reporter who asked him a question, arguably a fireable offense in itself. And many in the mainstream press have done a disservice to their profession by failing to ask basic questions Barnes’ role in delaying his own department’s press conference while he waited to be briefed from his hotel room in Dallas. The press, as much as any official action or press release, create public opinion, and they’ve been working overtime to make Wilson look feckless, incompetent, and out of bounds.

The responses to the public safety questions, which the Chamber characterized as a sign of  “growing concern among voters about public safety,” are not so much… that, as they are a sign that people continue to support a combination of punishment (arrests and jail) and services (treatment and housing). Although the Seattle Times (which ran the news under the headline “Seattle voters are done waiting on public safety, new poll finds”) was “staggered” by the fact that people like ideas like foot patrols and drug treatment, these concepts generally poll well, as do ideas like banning encampments near schools and in public parks.

None of the coverage I’ve seen added much context to the poll results. Context like: SPD has said it lacks the resources to do regular foot patrols , or the fact that the city already prohibits sleeping in parks. The wording of questions like these is both misleading (suggesting that the mayor could do these things but is refusing) and designed to elicit a positive response. They are, in other words, predictable. But to a mainstream press invested in promoting a narrative of “socialist failure” (Wilson, who’s overseen steady improvement in public safety and increased police hiring, is hardly Leon Trotsky), the results of a business poll are just more evidence the mayor is refusing to give voters what they want.

 

Mayor Wilson, Police, Privacy

As Business-Backed Poll Says Most Support Police Surveillance Cameras, Privacy Advocates Raise Security Concerns
Community Not Cameras coalition member A.J. Randall speaks at City Hall on Monday while Noah Willams films.

By Erica C. Barnett

As a new poll appeared to show strong support for police surveillance in Seattle neighborhoods, a group of police camera opponents said a visit to SPD’s surveillance headquarters raised more concerns about the security of Seattle’s surveillance footage and the potential for outside actors, such as ICE, to access and use the footage.

Mayor Katie Wilson paused expansion of the cameras, and turned off some cameras the city activated during the World Cup, until an outside consultant, NYU’s Policing Project, can complete a privacy and safety audit of the system. That review is supposed to be finalized next month.

The poll, released by Challenge Seattle—an alllance of 23 businesses started by former Gov. Chris Gregoire—and the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce, indicates overwhelming support for police camera surveillance across virtually every demographic group. But there are a couple of reasons to suspect that organic support for SPD cameras may be lower than the 75 percent topline Challenge Seattle and the Chamber are touting.

First, each of the three questions pollsters Fulcrum Strategy Group asked includes several positive claims about cameras, followed by a very brief description of opponents’ position.

For example, the question that yielded a 75 percent support rate was worded this way:

The Seattle Police Department sometimes uses cameras in designated public spaces after a 911 call to assist in an active investigation. These cameras do not use facial recognition technology or AI and are monitored by civilian employees, not police officers. Supporters of this policy say that it has helped catch suspects who have committed violent crimes and helps reduce crime rates. Opponents say that this kind of surveillance infringes on civil liberties and invades privacy. Knowing this, do you support or oppose allowing the use of cameras after a 911 call to assist in an active investigation?

Even with such a biased description of the cameras and SPD’s Real Time Crime Center (RTCC)—supporters who claim the cameras reduce crime are observing that crime went down over the past year and crediting cameras as the cause—just 45 percent of respondents said they strongly support the cameras, while another 30 percent said they “somewhat” supported them after “knowing” the information included in the question. The poll says 55 percent of people who self-identify as progressives also support the cameras, though the data they released doesn’t break down how much of that support is in the tentative “somewhat” category.

More telling, perhaps, is that another recent poll conducted by the same consultant, this one sponsored by the Chamber alone, found that support for cameras—as well as policies that restrict where people accused of misdemeanor drug crimes can go—was about the same in May as it was one year earlier.

In both 2025 and 2026, 51 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “Recent laws like adding street cameras to help track crime and restricting people from returning to places where they’ve committed crimes are making Seattle safer and reducing crime.” Just 16 percent of those “strongly” agreed with this more neutrally worded statement. Meanwhile, 48 percent disagreed, up from 46 percent last year. With a 3.9 percent margin of error, that’s an even split.

Opponents of surveillance cameras have argued that if people knew more about how their information could be used—and SPD’s lack of direct authority over camera footage owned by its vendor, Axon—they would be less likely to support  expanding the cameras into more and more parts of the city. On Monday, a group of advocates from the Community Not Cameras coalition toured the RTCC and, according to Transit Riders Union member Noah Williams, reached some “very scary” conclusions about who can access the footage and how well it’s protected from outside interference.

“When the SPD and the mayor’s office and city staff tell you that the footage lives on our servers until it is called up, that is true,” Williams said at a press conference immediately after the coalition RTCC visit. The problem, he continued, is that access to the system is managed by a cloud vendor controlled by Axon, a private company, which can access footage directly, stream it on their own cloud-based platform, and push software and configuration changes without telling SPD.

“And if they can do it, so can anyone who hacks them, and so can the federal government,” Williams said. “And the city will have no idea.” The system operates on a public-facing website that does not require a virtual private network (VPN) to access, Williams said, making it easier for hackers to “start trying to find vulnerabilities” in the system.

Phil Mocek, a privacy advocate with the coalition, said the visit made him more convinced that SPD has a “Swiss cheese” system with many open pathways for Axon—or Flock, should the two companies ever merge—to access footage and information from the RTCC’s surveillance cameras as well as automated license plate reader software. SPD halted its use of Axon’s ALPR system earlier this year, when legislators passed new restrictions on ALPR use, but coalition members who went on yesterday’s tour said they learned that the software can only be disabled by Axon.

After the RTCC visit, several of the anti-surveillance activists said Lee Hunt, one of the executive staffers to former police chief Shon Barnes who plans to leave the department next month, “blew up” at the group and “stormed out of the room” twice in response to their questions.

A spokesman for SPD confirmed that Axon is able to push updates to its software, but said “all new functions are supposed to remain ‘off’ by default.”

The spokesman said camera footage is “stored locally” and cited a policy that says Axon “shall notify SPD if the Contractor receives a warrant or subpoena seeking SPD data for any purpose, including purposes related to immigration status, reproductive healthcare, or gender affirming medical services, unless prohibited by operation of law in which case, the Contractor will notify SPD about the warrant or subpoena and action taken when that prohibition is lifted; and, the Contractor shall retain or use in-house legal counsel to object to any warrant or subpoena on the grounds that Contractor does not have possession, custody or control over SPD evidence.”

homelessness

As KCRHA Begins Layoffs, Union Suggests Cutting Top Executives First
KCRHA associate director William Towey

By Erica C. Barnett

An initial round of layoffs is imminent at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. Management reportedly informed the agency’s executive leadership team last week which staffers will lose their jobs in late August or early September. Agency CEO Kelly Kinnison told city and county leaders basic details about the layoffs in a weekly meeting last week.

The job cuts are part of a transition plan that will move most of  the homeless service contracts KCRHA currently oversees back to the city of Seattle and King County, which managed them before KCRHA took them over in 2021.

In April, a forensic audit found that the KCRHA lacked basic financial controls and used casual accounting practices to keep track of and balance its budget, lost track of at least $8 million in spending, and had an ongoing, steadily growing negative cash balance that required it to take out ever-larger loans from the county, resulting in interest payments that the agency couldn’t afford.

Since then, agency leaders have downplayed the problems and blamed them on early mistakes by previous KCRHA management, including founding CEO Mark Dones. As Kinnison and her recently hired deputy, William Towey, insisted the problems identified in the audit were fixable, the city and county worked out a plan to largely dismantle the agency. King County and Seattle are now in the process of taking back control of homeless contracts the two governments previously controlled and staffing up with the expectation that KCRHA will dramatically reduce its workforce.

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A KCRHA spokesperson would not provide details about the layoffs last week. However, KCRHA staffers have expressed concern that some of the initial job losses will be in areas the agency still needs to do the work it will retain for now, like the “point-in-time count” of the region’s homeless population and the region’s annual application for federal homelessness dollars, rather than the areass where KCRHA staff will soon be redundant, such as the program and finance divisions.

Last week, staff represented by the PROTEC17 union sent a letter to the agency’s governing board urging the board to lay off Kinnison and Towey, whose combined compensation tops $600,000—”the direct financial cost of five to six full-time operational staff,” the letter says. “In a crisis, preserving positions that directly manage vendor contracts, coordinate shelter logistics, and administer Coordinated Entry produces a far higher operational yield than maintaining executive overhead.”

The union members also cited controversies that, they argued, could put the KCRHA’s reputation at continued risk, including bias complaints and allegations of retaliation as well as evidence that Kinnison sought to withhold records from public disclosure, in potential violation of the state Public Records Act.

“In a crisis, preserving positions that directly manage vendor contracts, coordinate shelter logistics, and administer Coordinated Entry produces a far higher operational yield than maintaining executive overhead.”

The finance committee of the agency’s governing board is reportedly scheduled to discuss the layoffs in their meeting on Thursday. However, unlike governing board meetings and a June finance committee meeting, this meeting will not be open to the public. According to the agency spokesperson, a resolution adopted in June making the committee an advisory, rather than decision-making, body meant its meetings no longer have to be public.

KCRHA currently has 73 staff, a number that includes one of the seven new positions the governing board approved, at Kinnison’s request, back in June. (None of the other positions were filled.) The agency has overspent its administrative budget by as much as $1 million so far this year.

“We anticipate there will be further staff reductions in 2026 and 2027 as contracts fully transition back to the City and County,” the KCRHA spokesperson said. “During the transition there will be functional overlap, with KCRHA managing 2026 contracts into early 2027 for closeout—while the City and County hire staff in 2026 and prepare to onboard the 2027 contracts.”

Kinnison will be out of the office later this week and will not be at the finance committee meeting; Towey will (not for the first time) attend in her stead.