Mayor Wilson, Seattle Nice

Seattle Nice: Are These Three Local Controversies All About Union Power?

By Erica C. Barnett

This week’s podcast, as I promised last week, featured just me, Sandeep, and David, and guys: It got LIVELY.

First, we talked about some behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt that the Seattle Times missed in its coverage of local union backlash to Mayor Katie Wilson’s ouster of Dawn Lindell as the CEO of Seattle City Light. Thousands of IBEW77 union members signed a petition demanding Wilson rehire Lindell in what the Times described as widespread employee “concern by her decision to fire the utility’s previous CEO and her initial pick for her replacement.” Meanwhile, the MLK Labor Council, a union of unions, passed a resolution demanding more transparency into the process of hiring Lindell’s replacement.

But there’s more to the story—according to multiple sources in the city, an IBEW (and former MLK Labor Council) leader lobbied Wilson hard to oust Lindell and appoint her as Lindelll’s replacement; after that didn’t happen, according to internal city sources, the unions started their full-court press against Wilson. Both IBEW77 and the MLK Labor Council endorsed former mayor Bruce Harrell.

In another city union-related story, SPOG—the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild—negotiated a ludicrously generous police contract last year that also happens to restrict the CARE Team of unarmed first responders from actually doing first response. This week, CARE Department Chief Amy Barden was extremely candid about the limitations the police contract imposes on her team of social workers, which she said SPOG has interpreted to include any area from which a person could be trespassed, such as parking lots or even sidewalks adjacent to a private business.

I’ve been reporting since last October about the explicit restrictions, which prohibit CARE from responding on their own to calls if there is drug paraphernalia in the area, if the person is inside a car or building, if there is evidence that any crime has taken place, or if a minor is present. (Yes, Seattle is so committed to alternative response that they signed a contract saying police, not social workers, are best suited to help vulnerable young people.)

The additional restrictions SPOG is claiming now make it clear that the police guild, at least, doesn’t want CARE to succeed. And as Police Chief Shon Barnes confirmed at the committee meeting last week (when he said, among other things, that he doesn’t want cops “relegated” to doing cop stuff), there’s no internal pressure at SPD for the union to renegotiate the agreement so CARE can actually do their jobs.

We also discussed my story about Seattle Office for Civil Rights Director Derrick Wheeler-Smith, whose employees have accused him of discrimination and retaliation. Through their union, PROTEC17, some staffers asked Wilson to remove him before she started her term, saying his behavior rose to the level of “just cause” that’s required from removing the SOCR director.

Addiction

In Rare Tragedy, Man Dies Inside Rainier Beach Library Branch
Image via SPL.org.

By Erica C. Barnett

A 41-year-old man died at the Rainier Beach library just after 3pm February 13 after library staffers tried but were unable to revive him with Narcan and CPR. The library shut down for the rest of the afternoon.

According to library spokeswoman Laura Gentry, library patrons “alerted staff that there was something wrong with a patron at the computer area”; thinking the man had overdosed, a staffer administered Narcan while other staff called 911. The 911 call taker told them to try CPR, but library staffers and medics who showed up a few minute later couldn’t revive the patron.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office later reported that the man died of “chronic alcohol use disorder,” not an overdose. According to the CDC, about 178,000 people die in the US from excessive drinking every year.

It’s extraordinarily rare for a patron to die inside a library, although several people have died of overdoses outside library branches after hours. The experience of witnessing someone can be extremely traumatic, especially for workers whose jobs don’t ordinarily involve trying to save lives. Gentry said staff who witness a serious or traumatic incident get access to resources including free counseling, and can ask to move to a different location or take leave if they aren’t ready to return to work.

Staff don’t receive any specific training in recognizing alcohol-related medical emergencies, and training on how to respond to opioid overdoses is optional, Gentry said.

Elections, LGBTQ+, Mayor Wilson

Former City Department Director Broke Election Law; City IT Director Resigns; LGBTQ Advocates Call for Removal of Civil Rights Director

1. Seattle’s IT director since September 2024, Rob Lloyd, step down on March 27. “Leading IT and our dedicated teams in service to Seattle has been an honor,” Lloyd said in an email to staff. “Thinking more on recent events and transitions, it’s clear that this is the right time. I wanted you to hear this directly from me and as quickly as possible.”

A spokesperson for Mayor Katie Wilson confirmed Lloyd’s resignation but did not respond to questions about whether he had been asked to leave. In an email to IT staff, Wilson did not exactly gush about Lloyd’s tenure.

“We would like to acknowledge and thank Rob for his service and the work he performed during his time with the department,” the mayor wrote. “We appreciate his contributions to our technological operations. I wish him the best.”

Tracye Cantrell, the department’s assistant chief technology officer, will take over as interim director, Wilson told IT staff.

Lloyd, a Bruce Harrell appointee, was a gung-ho AI proponent who advocated for funding a number of new AI programs at the city—including an $800,000 program that will replace permitting functions previously performed by workers at the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections. That program will purportedly “streamline the permitting application process and improve customer services using Artificial Intelligence and data integration.” Lloyd also implemented a public-facing AI chatbot called “SEAMore Voice” and a separate internal generative AI system from Microsoft called NebulaONE.

2. The Friends of Denny Blaine are calling on Mayor Wilson to remove Seattle Office for Civil Rights Director Derrick Wheeler-Smith in response to allegations of anti-LGBTQ bias made by his staff in interviews with PubliCola for a story we published earlier this week. The group of advocates got together after learning that a wealthy homeowner, Stuart Sloan, was working with then-mayor Bruce Harrell to install a children’s playground at the longstanding nude beach, effectively shutting it down.

Several SOCR staffers told PubliCola that Wheeler-Smith and his deputy director, Fahima Mohamed, made insensitive comments and dismissed LGBTQ+ rights in general, including one staffer who said Mohamed laughed in front of staff at a text message Harrell sent Sloan saying “I share your disgust” about the beach. Staffers said Wheeler-Smith, whose previous employer was a Christian nonprofit that does not hire people in same-sex relationships, frequently sidelined LGBTQ+ rights or treated them as insignificant.

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“The Office of Civil Rights is entrusted with enforcing our city’s equity initiatives and safeguarding the rights and dignity of all marginalized communities within Seattle, including LGBTQ+ people,” the group wrote on Instagram. “The statement ‘l share your disgust’ is not neutral language; it perpetuates a long legacy of marginalizing and dehumanizing language targeting LGBTQ+ individuals in public spaces. For SOCR leadership to treat this rhetoric in such an offensive and dismissive manner undermines community trust in the department, and calls into question its legitimacy as a department claiming to hold a commitment to civil rights.”

“This concern is compounded by the broader reporting showing repeated dismissal and minimization of LGBTQ+ civil rights issues within the department,” the post continued. “Seattle’s commitment to LGBTQ+ equality cannot be symbolic. It must exist from the top down, and if the Office of Civil Rights of all offices cannot be trusted to genuinely foster those values and protect the rights of LBGTQ+ people, there can be no trust in any city department, and the sincerity of all commitments to being a welcoming city” to LGBTQ+ individuals must be called into question.”

3. The state Public Disclosure Commission ruled on Tuesday, February 24 that former Seattle Office of Economic Development Markham McIntyre broke the law when he used an internal City of Seattle Teams chat to solicit contact information from city department heads on behalf of Harrell’s reelection campaign. But they decided not to issue a fine or other penalty beyond a written admonishment. “Staff expect that you will refrain from any use of city equipment, staff or other resources for any effort tied to support or opposition of a candidate or ballot measure,” PDC Executive Director Peter Lavallee wrote.

Lavalee’s ruling reveals that after the Harrell appointee obtained the directors’ personal emails last August, he followed up with an email on September 8. It read: “A little while ago, I asked for your personal information. Part of my intent is to help the campaign. If you are not OK with me sharing your contact information with them, please let me know by tomorrow night. For those you are interested in helping out: we need ideas! Yes, we can do all of the traditional campaign activities (door knocking, phone banking, etc.) but is there something special that we could contribute as City leaders? Now’s the time to get in the game!”

State law prohibits public employees from using their office or any public facilities for campaign purposes. PubliCola reported exclusively on McIntyre’s request for department director’s private contact information in October.

Paul Chapman, who filed the complaint, filed a similar complaint with the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission. SEEC director Wayne Barnett dismissed that complaint on Thursday, writing, “Having reviewed the PDC’s letter of February 24, I agree with their conclusion that the evidence collected (and summarized in their February 24 letter) does not warrant further investigation. Mr. McIntyre is no longer a City employee, and Bruce Harrell lost his bid for reelection.”

housing, legislature

Elevator Followup: Reform Bill Watered Down
Dinkun Chen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Josh Feit

The state legislature got stuck on the second provision of the elevator reform bill we reported on earlier this month. The evidently controversial section would have directed the state’s Department of Labor and Industries to support harmonization between national and international elevator standards

Currently, elevators cost three times as much in the US and Canada as they do in the rest of the world, thanks to inflexible standards that limit elevator production, installation, and repair to a handful of companies. Among other issues, elevators have to be much larger here than in other countries, where builders can choose from a much longer roster of safe, reliable elevator companies.

The legislation, which passed the senate early this month before getting amended in the house this week, would still shrink elevator size requirements in smaller apartment buildings; that provision was a YIMBY goal to help lower costs for missing-middle housing. But the harmonization standard was meant to elevate Washington as a national example and lead other states to follow suit in a challenge to the elevator industry’s monopolistic hold over the US. That larger goal could have helped bring down elevator costs across the board.

As they say: follow the money.  While several groups testified in  favor of the original bill, including both the commercial real estate association and  housing density environmentalists from Futurewise and Sightline, there was only one opponent: The National Elevator Industry, Inc. Their lobbying firm? McBride Public Affairs.

It’s not so much that the elevator industry is writing gargantuan checks to McBride ($9,000 in total from the NEII and elevator company TK Elevator combined this month.) It’s that McBride’s list of clients—AMGEN, Boeing, Honda, McDonald’s, Uber, Molson Coors, and it goes on—means McBride has a hold over legislators. McBride’s client list is so all-encompassing, they also represent NAIOP WA, the real estate advocates who testified in favor of the legislation.

One of the main proponents of the bill is elevator reform advocate Stephen Smith; he wrote an influential in-depth study of the elevator industry oligopoly and its inflationary hold on the North American market. Smith wouldn’t speak to the behind scenes efforts of his foes to sway votes. But he quipped: “I hope it isn’t an anticompetitive effort to keep barriers to entry in the market and stop smaller manufacturers from entering.”

Morning Fizz, Police

SPD’s National Recruitment Push Includes Police Chief’s Alma Mater; Chief Attended Tiny Desk Concert with Security In Tow

1. Seattle Police Department officers are traveling across the country on a college recruitment tour, including a five-day trip this week to the Central Intercollegiate Athletics Association (CIAA)  basketball tournament in Baltimore. The CIAA includes a dozen Division II Historically Black Colleges and Universities, including Police Chief Shon Barnes’ alma mater, Elizabeth City State University in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

A spokesperson told PubliCola last week that the department also “plans one coordinated annual recruitment trip that includes multiple universities in close geographic proximity, including several Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Consolidating multiple campus visits into a single trip allows for efficient use of travel resources while expanding outreach to historically underrepresented populations in law enforcement. These efforts are intentional, strategic, and aligned with our long-term workforce diversity goals.”

The SPD spokesperson said the inclusion of Barnes’ alma mater, which has about 2,300 students, was coincidental.

“The department prioritizes events that provide demonstrated applicant yield, and broad and diverse candidate pools,” the spokesperson said. “Our goal is to use our finite recruitment resources where they will produce measurable impact while expanding awareness of opportunities in Seattle.”

A majority of the CIAA colleges have fewer than 2,000 students, and several have student bodies in the hundreds. The spokesperson said SPD has no specific metric for measuring whether a recruitment event was an effective use of city resources, such as the number of people who applied after an event.

“Recruitment success is measured through overall applicant pipeline growth, diversity metrics, and long-term hiring outcomes rather than a single-event numeric target,” the spokesperson said. “Since implementing a more strategic and dedicated recruitment approach, SPD has seen applicant numbers reach historic levels.”

In fact, recruitment spiked shortly after the city signed a labor agreement with the police guild that boosted starting salaries to nearly $120,000, and more than $126,000 after a six-month training period, making Seattle one of the highest-paying police departments in the country. The raises represented a 42 percent pay boost over just five years.

The recruitment tour has included other stops outside the Pacific Northwest. This month alone, according to SPD’s recruitment events page, SPD has sent recruitment teams to a women’s softball tournament in Clearwater, Florida, as well as a Rutgers University event in Piscatawy, New Jersey; the University of Idaho; Brigham Young University; Utah Valley University; and Utah State University.

With the exception of the CIAA schools and Rutgers, most of the colleges and universities where SPD is holding recruitment events, including those in the Pacific Northwest, have student bodies that are more than 70 percent white.

The spokesperson said Barnes did not participate directly in the recruitment events.

Conservative talk show host Jason Rantz reported today that SPD was the “corporate sponsor” for the CIAA tournament and wrote the group a $25,000 check. We have reached out to SPD to ask whether they believe this sponsorship complies with state law prohibiting gifts of public funds.

Screenshot via YouTube.

2. Barnes did take a trip to Washington D.C. recently, accompanied by his security detail, where he attended a recording of a Tiny Desk Concert by Jill Scott, part of the long-running NPR series. A photo Barnes posted on Facebook shows him in the crowd, along with two members of his security.

SPD did not immediately respond to a question about how much it cost to provide Barnes with security while he attended the NPR concert. A spokesman told us late Wednesday afternoon that Barnes was in D.C. last November to attend the Active Bystander for Law Enforcement conference, “a nationally recognized program that trains officers to intervene when they spot officer misconduct and provides resources for officer health and wellness.”

Mayor Wilson

After PubliCola Story Details Discrimination Claims, Civil Rights Office Director Accuses Deputy Mayor of Threats and “Defamation”
Seattle Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt: Not a source.

By Erica C. Barnett

On Tuesday, after PubliCola reported on turmoil at the city’s Office for Civil Rights, SOCR director Wheeler-Smith sent a lengthy email titled “COMPLAINT re DEPUTY MAYOR Brian Surratt” to the city’s Human Resources department and the City Attorney’s office, cc’ing a list of city officials, reporters, and editors (though not PubliCola).

“I write to submit a formal complaint against Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt who engaged in workplace misconduct by threatening me while I was on vacation celebrating my 50th birthday,” the email begins. “Given the city’s efforts to tarnish my name, character, and reputation through defamatory accusations and allegations, I thought it imperative to get my complaint filed quickly despite being on FMLA to support my mother” through a health challenge.

The complaint is based on two assertions. First, Wheeler-Smith says Surratt told him to resign before my story came out or it would be “really bad” for him. Second, he says Surratt and possibly other Wilson cabinet members “worked in tandem” with me to craft a false story about Wheeler-Smith based on “anonymous sources, mistruths, and misrepresentations.”

“It is devastating to learn that people in the Cabinet would work to coordinate such a piece going so far as to direct a few disgruntled staff—current and former—to the reporter,” Wheeler-Smith claimed.

PubliCola’s story was about allegations by Wheeler-Smith’s employees that their boss and his deputy engaged in “discrimination, retaliation, harassment, and mismanagement,” in the words of a memo to Wilson from their union, PROTEC17. Acting on behalf of represented staff, PROTEC17 asked Wilson to remove Wheeler-Smith shortly before she took office. Under a law passed in 2017, the SOCR director can only be removed for “just cause.”

Nine current SOCR employees and one who recently left the department spoke with me on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation. In all, I spoke with about a quarter of SOCR’s current staff.

Surratt, Wheeler-Smith claimed, had informed him on February 7 that “a story would be coming out from Erica Barnett and that it was really bad.” Wheeler-Smith wrote that this was the first time he had heard of such a story, and that he was “flabbergasted” at this news.

In fact, I told Wheeler-Smith I was writing a story more than a week before he said Surratt contacted him. On January 29, I reached out to Wheeler-Smith directly and through SOCR’s communications staffer, Sage Leibenson, describing each of the allegations individually. I requested a phone or Zoom interview with Wheeler-Smith but said “email is fine” as an alternative, and I included dozens of detailed questions.

My email concluded, “‘I apologize for the voluminous number of questions in this email; however, I always think it’s better to put everything out there than for anyone to be blindsided by allegations or concerns that they were unaware of or would like the opportunity to respond to.”

After I received no response to that email, I sent the list of questions again on February 20, writing, “I’m following up on these questions. I’m planning to publish a story next week about the union’s request, on behalf of staff, for Director Wheeler-Smith to be removed for cause and the experiences described to me by staff, and I’m re-sending these questions to provide another opportunity to respond.” I never heard back.

In the email he sent Tuesday, Wheeler-Smith said he knew Surratt was “the source” for my story, because he had “made a rookie mistake. Generally, when someone can point to a story coming out, its author, and its contents—they were in fact the source. … It is devastating to learn that people in the Cabinet would work to coordinate such a piece going so far as to direct a few disgruntled staff—current and former—to the reporter.”

Surratt was not a source for the story. Wilson’s office did not respond to PubliCola’s questions on Tuesday.

Wheeler-Smith alleged that during their call on February 7, Surratt said he should resign or “things would ‘get really ugly’ for me.” Quoting a text message he sent Surratt, his complaint continued, “I am confident that an investigation will absolve me of any wrongdoing and I will be vindicated. I am in discussions with counsel about legal action to protect my character and reputation given the defamatory nature of the allegations.”

“I would urge [Human Resources investigators] and the City Council to redirect their energy from these baseless claims and examine why 50% of Black department heads have been relieved of their duties under this administration,” Wheeler-Smith wrote. “This alone signifies why I must stay and so must this Department.”

Wilson replaced two of Harrell’s seven Black department heads: former transportation department director Adiam Emery, who was previously Harrell’s deputy mayor, and Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs director Hamdi Mohamed, who spoke with PubliCola about her departure last month.