City Council, Density, housing

On Narrow Vote, Council Gets Rid of Local Appeal Process that Delays Land Use Legislation

 

Opponents of Seattle land-use legislation will still be able to appeal to King County Superior Court or the Growth Management Hearings Board.

By Erica C. Barnett

On the narrowest possible vote, the Seattle City Council approved legislation yesterday that will eliminate one of several avenues for opponents to appeal land-use legislation, such as the city’s comprehensive plan. The bill, sponsored by Councilmember Eddie Lin, eliminates pre-legislative appeals to the city’s hearing examiner while still allowing people to appeal legislation to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or to King County Superior Court after it passes.

Currently, hearing-examiner appeals are one of many tools that people and organizations opposed to apartment construction use to delay or stop development.

Yesterday’s four-hour meeting, which I covered live on Bluesky, featured the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has long characterized debates about housing in Seattle. Public commenters who opposed new housing, mostly older white homeowners, argued that denser housing harms the environment by removing individual trees when homeowners sell their houses to developers (opponents refer to these lawn-based tree removals as “clear-cutting”), and contribute to climate change that kills salmon, orcas, and birds.

Although opponents have repeatedly raised the specter of Seattle turning into New York City (the horror!) the comprehensive plan, currently delayed indefinitely by an appeal that began at the hearing examiner’s office, would in fact allow modest new density in a few dozen small areas citywide, all within a block or two of major transit stops.

One speaker suggested that the city just convert all the vacant commercial buildings downtown into housing and let renters live there. (This isn’t really a new idea: “Solutions” that involve moving all renters into segregated areas are exactly what we have now, with new rental housing mostly confined to highways and busy arterial roads). Another said councilmembers who supported Lin’s appeal reform bill are just like Trump, because they’re taking away the civil rights of local density opponents the same way Trump is taking away the civil rights of Black voters and immigrants.

Councilmember Rob Saka, a former Facebook attorney and Air Force veteran who proposed an amendment to Lin’s bill that would have restored the appeals the underlying legislation sought to eliminate, also invoked “civil rights” in a speech excoriating his colleagues for violating “fundamental due process rights, free speech rights, the right of people to petition their government for redress of grievances. These rights form the bedrock of our democracy, and these rights are enshrined in our Constitution,” Saka said.

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Later, after Lin confirmed with a staffer that there’s no Constitutional right to appeal land-use legislation to a hearing examiner in Seattle, Saka said, “Even if it’s not a right, we heard dozens of people today say, from their perspective, that it is a right.” As I noted yesterday, that is not actually a point—just because a political faction uses highfalutin language about “rights” and “democracy,” that doesn’t mean their feelings trump the law. Allowing property owners to endlessly delay housing for renters by appealing land-use changes is arguably pretty anti-democratic in itself, especially when it halts legislation before the public legislative process can begin.

After Saka’s amendment failed (even Maritza Rivera voted against it), the final vote ended up being a nail-biter. Rivera, the council’s most consistent opponent of pro-housing legislation, said she of course wants to see more housing, but doesn’t support “taking something away” from her constituents. Debora Juarez, a former elected councilmember who was appointed to serve out Cathy Moore’s term last year, said she wanted to “err on the side of giving a little bit more… because that’s due process, and that’s what the people want.”

Bob Kettle, who represents downtown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia, ended up casting the surprise swing vote (Joy Hollingsworth, who abstained from voting in committee, voted no), but not before chiding housing proponents, mostly younger renters, for using rhetoric he called inappropriate.

Kettle says it's not "right to declare our neighbors are weaponizing" the appeals process because of the war in Iran and the gun violence epidemic. Of course he is only chiding people on the pro-housing side. The anti-housing folks have been vitriolic, but he isn't tone policing them.

— Erica C. Barnett (@ericacbarnett.bsky.social) 2026-07-29T00:35:34.683Z

Lin, who’s emerging as a pro-housing star on the council, said little before the final vote, which took place at nearly 6:30pm. Earlier in the meeting, however, he did take a moment to respond to commenters who likened new housing to toxic waste and highway expansions. “I don’t think housing and future residents are toxic waste or pollution that need to be studied for years and years and years on end,” Lin said. “I believe housing is a human right.”

Although yesterday’s 5-4 vote to eliminate hearing examiner appeals won’t prevent housing opponents from challenging land use changes in court or to the state Growth Management Hearings Board, the change will allow the legislative process to move forward during appeals, and puts Seattle in line with Bellevue, Everett, King County, Tacoma, King County, and many other local jurisdictions that don’t allow this kind of pre-legislative appeal.

Mayor Wilson, Police

Confrontation With Reporter Was Just “Passion on Full Display,” Police Chief Says; OPA Complaint Filed

After the chief twice mischaracterized PubliCola’s reporting, SPD confirmed the chief planned two weeks off before Sunday’s tragedy at Seattle Center.

By Erica C. Barnett

During a briefing on the mass shooting at the Bite of Seattle at Seattle Center on Sunday, Police Chief Shon Barnes responded to a few questions about his claim that PubliCola’s reporting on his whereabouts and schedule has been inaccurate. (Yesterday, Barnes lashed out at South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash, who politely asked about my reporting on Barnes’ planned two-week absence, saying my stories were “wrong.” Clips of the confrontation quickly went viral.)

After telling me (inaccurately) that I had reported he would be out of town for “the entire month of August,” Barnes said, “I have a medical procedure on Friday. If I’m good to go, I’ll be in the office as my usual cheerful and bubbly self. But if not, I’ll take all the time that I need to make sure that that I’m okay.”

Barnes did not answer my followup question about how long he had originally planned to be out of the office before the shooting forced him to return from a conference in Dallas. (“Asked and answered,” he said.) After the press conference, SPD media staff told me the two weeks he had planned to take off actually extended from July 22 to August 3, with a planned return on August 4. The comms folks didn’t how much additional time the chief might have to take off because of his medical procedure.

Another reporter said she wanted to give Barnes an opportunity to “quash” criticism of his “heated exchange” with Nash about my reporting.

Barnes disputed that characterization, told the reporter, “I respect our media,” and said his reaction—which prompted his chief of staff, Alex Ricketts, to insert himself between Barnes and Nash and hustle the chief away—was just an example of being “passionate about what I do as a police officer” and “community member.”

“Sometimes that passion is in full display, especially if someone is questioning my work ethic or my integrity,” Barnes continued. “You know, having a two-year-old shot should evoke strong emotions in people.”

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Since his confrontation with Nash, at least one person has filed a complaint against Barnes with the city’s Office of Police Accountability, alleging that he violated a section of SPD’s policy manual that requires SPD employees to “treat everyone with respect and courtesy, guarding against an officious or overbearing attitude and refraining from language, demeanor, and actions that may cause the individual feeling belittled, ridiculed, or intimidated.”

Referring to published videos of the confrontation, the complaint continues, “Connor appears fearful and intimidated by Chief Barnes in this video. This violent outburst coming from the Police Chief, who is presumably armed during this encounter is completely unacceptable. Officers would be disciplined for behaving this way toward any community member. The fact the Chief left the room and then returned to begin this confrontation makes this more concerning.”

At Tuesday’s press conference, Barnes took another opportunity to dispute something I reported. Since former mayor Bruce Harrell hired him as interim chief in December 2024, Barnes’ wife and kids have continued to live in their family home in Chicago while he rents an apartment in Seattle. More than a year ago, I reported that Barnes was out of town for more than half the weekends during a four-month period for which I requested his schedule.

Asked how often he’s in Chicago (by—credit where it’s due—right-wing activist Jonathan Choe), Barnes again mischaracterized my reporting, saying “any reports that I’m gone every weekend are grossly misstated. I don’t have that kind of money.” (Since he brought it up, Barnes makes $373,000 a year and got a $50,000 signing bonus when he started.)

“I’m here in Seattle. I love the neighborhood that I live in. I love my community. They love me. They know me. They see me all the time,” Barnes said. “So I feel good about being here in Seattle. I love this community.”

City Council, education, Mayor Wilson, Police, Poverty

Seattle Police Chief Out of Town During Mass Shooting

 

 

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A post shared by Hana Kim (@hanakimontv)

By Erica C. Barnett

Editor’s note: This post, originally part of today’s Morning Fizz, has been updated and expanded to include new information.

Yesterday’s mass shooting at Seattle Center, in which a gunman killed three people and injured five more, was the type of violent incident that, historically, has prompted Seattle police chiefs to rush to the scene to demonstrate the seriousness of the situation and answer questions from members of the press.

But the city’s current police chief, Shon Barnes, was nowhere to be seen on Sunday. As he has been for many weekends since he took the $373,000 job in December 2024, Barnes was out of town. According to multiple sources, Barnes planned to be out of town until mid-August, taking several weeks away from Seattle during the period when shootings and other violent incidents are most likely to occur. Barnes also took two weeks off during the most recent winter holidays, including New Year’s Eve.

As we’ve reported, Barnes rents an apartment in Seattle and makes frequent trips to his family residence in Chicago, where his wife and kids live full-time. Last year at this time, PubliCola reported that Barnes’ schedule showed he spent most weekends, beginning on Friday afternoons, out of town, attending conferences, going to events related to his college fraternity, giving keynote speeches, or spending time with his family in Chicago.

PubliCola sent detailed questions about the police chief’s whereabouts to SPD on Sunday night and Monday morning and had received no response or acknowledgement by late morning. However, Barnes’ Facebook page, where he has chronicled many of his trips, indicates he was at a conference for the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives in Dallas. He was back in Seattle this morning for a press conference on the shooting at City Hall.

(After this post went up, a city spokesperson contacted us to ask for a correction, saying we had inaccurately claimed Barnes was in Chicago, which we did not; our article this morning included the paragraph above about Barnes’ attendance at the NOBLE event. Despite the apparent urgency of this call, SPD still has not responded to any of our questions sent over the past two days.)

Barnes, who received a $50,000 recruitment bonus to leave his previous job as police chief of Madison, WI, was also out of town during a major SPD incident last May, in which police pepper-sprayed and arrested dozens of counter-protesters at a rally and concert held by anti-trans right-wing activists at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill, Seattle’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood. Barnes’ family also lived in Chicago while he was Madison’s police chief, although those two cities are only about a three hours’ drive apart.

During a press conference late Monday morning, a reporter asked Barnes if he was out of town this weekend, as I reported on Sunday. His response: “I wish I had a crystal ball and we could schedule gun violence but we can’t.”

At the end of the press conference, Barnes snapped at South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash, who asked him about my reporting that he is out of town a lot. FOX 13 anchor Hana Kim posted video (above) that showed Barnes becoming “confrontational,” as Kim put it, snapping, “I have been here working as hard as I can for this city from the day I got here. Do you got that?”

As Nash continued to ask his question, Barnes cut him off. “No, no, you listen to me.”

“The reports are that you are not in town—often,” Nash persisted. “Their reports are wrong. You understand that?” Barnes said, as his chief of staff Alex Ricketts pushed himself physically between Barnes and Nash, saying, “Let’s go, man. Let’s go. Let’s go” and escorting Barnes back inside the mayor’s office.

We’ve reached out to the mayor’s office about Barnes’ outsize response to the question about his schedule and will update this post if we hear back.

City Council, education

Council’s School Meals Plan Will Require Cuts to Other Services (Reposted)
Council President Joy Hollingsworth speaking outside council chambers earlier this year.

By Erica C. Barnett

Editor’s note: This post, originally part of today’s Morning Fizz, has been reposted as a separate piece in order to expand today’s other Fizz item, about Police Chief Shon Barnes’ absences from Seattle.

I was out of town for a couple days last week, so I was a few hours late to the news that three Seattle City Council members—Joy Hollingsworth, Dionne Foster, and Dan Strauss—announced they had found a win-win solution to the problem created by a Hollingsworth-Foster amendment repurposing funds that were supposed to pay for universal school meals in the upcoming school year. The amendment, which took $3 million out of universal meals by delaying that program a year, will pay for $500,000 in annual grocery vouchers for up to 5,000 poor families each year, according to the sponsors.

The council’s big fix: Keep the vouchers, and fund universal school meals—at an annual cost of $3 million—out of the city’s general fund, starting with this year’s supplemental budget.

By the time I read about the proposal, there were already a number of stories and social media posts describing the amendment as a solution that gave everybody what they wanted—the FEPP levy could still fund food vouchers for the poorest kids, while the council would use existing money to make universal school meals happen in time for the upcoming school year. “Seattle City Council proposes plan to fund free meals for all school kids,” went a typical headline.

I found the tone of the coverage perplexing. It was as if people forgot that the term “general fund” means “entire discretionary budget for the year” and that the mayor and council are currently facing a budget hole of at least $175 million. Any time the council or mayor add a new obligation into the budget, they have to cut funding in another part of the budget to make it balance. This isn’t deep budget lore; it’s basic math.

Mayor Katie Wilson was less than impressed with the proposal, noting in a statement that she looked forward to “seeing which critical services they plan to cut from the general fund to make their numbers work.”

Proponents of the amendment delaying universal school meals by a year, which passed 6-3 last week, said they wanted to wait to see what happens with the statewide tax on income above $1 million a year, which is supposed to fund universal school meals statewide. That tax is up for a referendum vote in November and could still face challenges in court. If the tax fails, the city will still have to come up with a long-term funding plan to pay for universal school meals in future years.

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.