City Council, Crime

Maritza Rivera Overstates Gun Violence, Pushes Mayor to Pre-Commit to Handpicked “Focused Deterrence” Contractor

By Erica C. Barnett

City Councilmember Maritza Rivera misrepresented the number of fatal shootings in Seattle by an order of magnitude earlier this week, claiming at a council public safety committee meeting that “fatal shootings in 2012 were 211, and in 2024 there were 541. And post-pandemic, it increased exponentially.”

Councilmember Rob Saka chimed in, saying that gun violence was “the one unique outlier” among crimes that has continued to increase year over year.

In reality, according to King County data, there were 19 firearm homicides in 2012 and 21 in 2024. (Between 2012 and 2024, there were a total of 120 such homicides in Seattle.) Although that is an overall uptick of two deaths, the actual homicide rate was lower in 2024 than in 2012, despite a post-pandemic upswing, because Seattle’s population grew by nearly 200,000 in those 12 years.

The numbers Rivera cited appear to come from this March 2025 city audit, which found that there were 211 and 541 reports of shots fired citywide in 2012 and 2024, respectively.

So why does Rivera’s alarmist overstatement matter? Because she’s using those numbers, and other claims about the rising danger of living in Seattle, to pressure Mayor Katie Wilson to bypass ordinary contracting processes and sign a $418,000  gun violence prevention contract with Rivera’s handpicked consultant, the National Network for Safer Communities.

NNSC, a project of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, pioneered the concept of “focused deterrence,” in which teams of police officers, social service providers, and community leaders focus their efforts on young men deemed most likely to engage in gun violence, with services on the front end and the threat of increasing consequences, including jail, if they commit violent crimes.

Wilson has said she plans to make focused a key component of her gun violence strategy, which she plans to announce next week. But NNSC is not the only consultant the city could choose to contract with to implement focused deterrence, a concept that has been around for decades; Seattle has used versions of focused deterrence off and on since at least 2009, when the city first launched a “drug market initiative” that offered low-level drug offenders the choice of treatment or jail. 

The reason Wilson must hire this specific contractor, Rivera explained, is because unlike “some organizations” King County has partnered with, NNSC “includes law enforcement” by design. King County’s Regional Peacekeepers Collective focuses on preventing gun violence through public health interventions.

Rivera credited NNSC with reducing violent crime in cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Stockton, CA, and Chicago. On KUOW this week, she explicitly credited NNSC with reducing gun violence in Baltimore.

But Baltimore, as Rivera surely knows, actually stopped contracting with NNSC after two efforts at reducing gun violence in partnership with that contractor failed to show results. The current, successful model is a more comprehensive approach that includes a type of focused deterrence developed at the University of Pennsylvania, but also “community violence intervention, victim services, improved investigations, and sustained leadership from City Hall,” according to this overview.

It’s unusual, though not unprecedented, for a city council member to insist on hiring a specific contractor for such a large contract. (NNSC facilitated a symposium Rivera convened on gun violence earlier this year.) Rivera has continued to flog the issue, castigating Wilson via press release for telling KUOW that the city needs to be methodical in its approach to gun violence rather than rushing forward with a single “premature, very large investment in an out-of-state organization.”

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Failing to contract with NNSC, specifically, Rivera said, would send a message to “the people of Seattle” that the city doesn’t want to “stop future tragedies.”

Rivera’s resolution passed out of committee 3-0, with Eddie Lin abstaining.

Mayor Wilson

Consultants, New Staffers Fill Out Mayor’s Communications Team

1. Mayor Wilson’s communications office, which has seen a number of shakeups recently (including the recent firing of digital communications manager Amy Piñon and a series of temporary press secretaries), now has a permanent communications director for the first time since Wilson fired her original communications director, Seferiana Day, in June.

PubliCola first reported the new hires on Bluesky yesterday.

Wilson has also hired a new public safety advisor, South Seattle Emerald founder Marcus Harrison Green; Green will report to public safety director Alison Holcomb. (Green says he’s leaving journalism behind to take the gig.) And she has a new city council liaison, Amanda Pleasant-Brown, who was most recently the government relations supervisor for King County Metro.

The council relations position could be more crucial than the mundane title suggests. Wilson has struggled to build relationships with the legislative branch after a rocky start; as we’ve reported, the council felt sidelined and insulted when Wilson’s team failed to consult them on crucial shelter legislation and then tried to order them to pull the bills when they weren’t exactly what the mayor’s office wanted. The previous council liaison has been on extended medical leave since June.

Tara Lee, Wilson’s new communications director, most recently worked for Washington’s health insurance exchange and was previously the comms director for former Gov. Jay Inslee. Prior to that, she was the director of communications and outreach for the Washington Budget and Policy Center, the influential lefty economic think tank.

Wilson is also expected to announce a new press secretary soon. That person hasn’t signed a contract yet, so we’re not including their name here. We are nice, okay?

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2. Crystal Nicole Fincher, whose $58,000 strategic communications contract with the Wilson Administration wraps up this month, isn’t the only outside consultant Wilson has hired in recent months. And while the contracts themselves are all relatively small (especially compared to, say, the six-figure contract former mayor Harrell handed Tim Ceis to lobby Sound Transit before a crucial vote), their details reveal where the mayor and her team perceive gaps that her (until recently, fairly itinerant) staff can’t fill.

Robert Cruickshank, the Mariners-capped Instagram commentator and former Mike McGinn communications staffer, will receive $10,000 to write the mayor’s upcoming budget speech. along with “significant policy speeches on priority topics as assigned by the Communications Director,” according to his contract.

Another former mayoral staffer (for Greg Nickels), Marianne Bichsel, has a one-month contract “to provide strategic communications advice to City leadership and staff on emerging and sensitive issues.” The contract, for an initial $15,000 with a possible extension for $5,000 more, was signed on August 19 and was reportedly for crisis communications related to the fallout after the Bite of Seattle shooting. We’ve reached out to Bichsel and will update this post if we get any additional information.

As we’ve reported, local media and centrist political leaders have hammered at Wilson over her response to the shooting and decision to fire former police chief Shon Barnes, blaming her for decisions SPD made to withhold information from the public for hours after the shooting was over.

Oliver Miska, a political consultant and former campaign manager for 37th District state House candidate Jaelynn Scott, has reportedly also been hired to do social media work for the mayor’s office, although his firm does not appear to have an official contract yet.

The Management Action Center, a lefty leadership coaching firm based in Washington, D.C., has a $7,000 contract to “support a member(s) of the Mayor’s Office team in navigating leadership challenges, strengthening management skills, and developing practical strategies for real-time workplace situations” through biweekly coaching sessions.

The mayor’s office did not respond to our questions about her consultant roster or whether the mayor herself (or another staffer in her office) has been getting management lessons. We’ll update this post if we hear back.

 

City Council, homelessness, Transportation

Saka’s Messy Transportation Bill Gets Messier; Controversial Group We Heart Seattle Makes City’s Official Volunteer Day Roster
Councilmember Rinck wanted to know why Saka gave the council just one day to propose amendments to legislation he hasn’t even formally introduced yet.

1. While much of the city council was on vacation, transportation committee chair Rob Saka apparently spent his two-week summer break padding out his already messy Vision Zero legislation, which is now much longer—but no more substantive—than the draft he introduced as an “information item” in late August.

Saka first rolled out his three draft bills one day before Mayor Katie Wilson issued several substantive executive orders on traffic safety, in what seemed like a clear attempt to get ahead of the mayor’s announcement. (Saka declined to participate in the mayor’s event, which two of his colleagues attended). At his committee meeting on Tuesday, Saka emphasized the fact that his legislation technically came out first.

“I suppose great minds can arrive at some of the same intersections as we appear to have done and aligned on from a legislative and executive perspective, and that’s a good thing. I’m pleased to see additional complementary actions from the mayor,” Saka said. 

But Saka still hasn’t formally introduced his legislation, which remained an “informational item” on Tuesday’s agenda. And his latest draft bills remain almost entirely nonsubstantive, requesting reports from the Seattle Department of Transportation, issuing recommendations on truck side guards to protect cyclists and pedestrians, and giving SDOT the “authority” to do various things that it already has the authority to do. Even sections that appear to require SDOT to produce various reports are essentially just requests, since SDOT does not answer to the city council. (Generally speaking, if the council really wants a department to do something, they pass a budget “proviso” that conditions funding on whatever action the council wants.)

One thing that can be said for Saka’s legislation: It’s definitely longer now, with more statements of purpose than there are letters in the alphabet. Ordinarily, these kinds of statements are known as “recitals” and they occur at the beginning of a bill to establish the purported reasons the legislation is necessary. (See, for instance, the 23 “whereas” clauses used to justify the 2024 ordinance reinstating a ban on “prostitution loitering.”)

But in an unusual twist, Saka is proposing to give each of these individual statements more force by including them in the bill as official findings, which could be used in the future to interpret whether legislation complied with the council’s intent.

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To put this in concrete terms: Saka’s proposal, everything from A., affirming that Vision Zero is “effective,” to Z., stating that 26 percent of streets lack sidewalks, to CC., affirming that the city supports union labor, would have the force of law. Item L., affirming that “Each life lost or constrained due to crashes represents not only loss and grief for affected loved ones but an individual’s unrealized potential,” would be become part of the ordinance itself.

Editor’s note: This story originally said the findings section of Saka’s Vision Zero ordinance—the one with Sections A through CC—would go into the Seattle Municipal Code. In fact, they would become part of the adopted ordinance, but not the municipal code. Findings have more weight than recitals, but less than a law such as a speed limit. We regret the error.

Saka wants to pass his bills out of committee on September 17, which means that even though he hasn’t formally introduced them yet, any amendments are due today. Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, sounding incredulous, said yesterday, “I’ve never seen an amendment deadline for a piece of legislation that has not formally been introduced yet.”

Councilmember Eddie Lin said he would like to hear from SDOT before voting on the bill, but Saka said there was no need. “In fact, it’s pretty standard practice, when we talk about who’s at the table, to have our central staff at the table, sometimes community at the table, but not having the executive branch. This is a legislative effort. This is a legislative effort, I want to underscore,” Saka said. The rest of the council will now have to decide if they want to give Saka his way or put the legislation off until after the budget—or indefinitely.

2. This year’s citywide day of service—rechristened “Show Up, Seattle!”—includes an encampment “cleanup” event hosted by We Heart Seattle, a local group whose founder, Andrea Suarez, regularly teams up with right-wing influencer Jonathan Choe on videos where they harass and shame unsheltered people.

Former mayor Bruce Harrell’s office rejected We Heart Seattle’s initial application to participate in the day of service in 2022, but since then, they’ve gotten the OK every year.

That’s despite a controversial reputation and accusations that they frequently throw away people’s possessions and occupied tents.

In addition to arguing that homeless people “refuse” treatment, Suarez has railed against Narcan distribution and argued for “banning tents” on the grounds that they “enable” homeless people to keep living outside with addiction. (A 2022 story in Willamette Week quoted Suarez saying that giving people food and clean needles amounted to “coddling” a baby in his “crib.”)

The group’s Gresham, Oregon-based co-founder, Kevin Dahlgren, pled guilty last year to identity theft, theft, and misconduct after stealing from at least one unsheltered person as well as the city of Gresham.

We Heart Seattle is currently under a state investigation for allegedly failing to train its volunteer staff on how to properly pick up and dispose of hazardous materials, including needles. Suarez has portrayed herself as a victim of state overreach, using the investigation as an opportunity to fundraise for the group.

A spokesperson for the Department of Neighborhoods, which now sponsors the day of service said We Heart Seattle met the criteria to qualify for its day of volunteerism.So far, just four people have signed up, although don’t be surprised when the group posts—as it did last year—that the city-sanctioned event was a “truly epic” success.

Civil Rights, Mayor Wilson

Investigation Report: Trip to Strip Club on Civil Rights Office Trip Was Sexual Harassment

By Erica C. Barnett

An investigation into complaints against the director of Seattle’s Office for Civil Rights (SOCR), Derrick Wheeler-Smith, found that Wheeler-Smith sexually harassed a male employee by accompanying him to a strip club during a city-sponsored trip to historic civil rights sites in Alabama in 2023.

PubliCola reported on the investigation’s general conclusions in June; two weeks later, we reported on allegations about the strip-club outing. The full investigation report, which PubliCola obtained through a records request, ties those two stories together, confirming that the sexual-harassment finding was related to the strip-club outing.

It also provides additional details about some of the other allegations that the investigators did not believe rose to the level of harassment, including misogynistic and transpobic memes Wheeler-Smith and the employee shared over texts.

The investigation was prompted by a memo from PROTEC17, the union that represents many SOCR employees, containing allegations that Wheeler-Smith and his deputy, Fahima Mohamed, had engaged in discrimination, harassment, and intimidation against civil rights office staff.

“The investigation included a review of OCR employees’ allegations that Wheeler-Smith and/or Mohamed engaged in unwelcome conduct or comments based on religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity” the investigation report says. “However, even assuming all the information provided during the investigation was true, those allegations did not rise to the level of conduct protected by” the city’s rule against discrimination and workplace harassment.

The investigation, which wrapped up in June, found that Wheeler-Smith sexually harassed his male employee, who was also a longtime personal friend, “by taking [the employee] to a strip club on a work trip.” The employee told investigators he didn’t feel he could say no to going to the strip club, given that Wheeler-Smith was his boss. Wheeler-Smith said he only went to the strip club because the employee said he wouldn’t go without him.

Investigators found that the misogynistic texts did not constitute sexual harassment because they were not “unwanted,” and that a change in the employee’s work assignment wasn’t retaliation for comments the employee made about trans women at a group training.

Nor, the investigators found, was it sexual harassment when Wheeler-Smith told a group of staffers a story about accidentally ending up a a swingers’ resort with his wife and being propositioned, or when he gave a toast at a work event that concluded, “May all your ups and downs be in bed,” which some staffers found offensive. (Wheeler-Smith told investigators that by “ups and downs in bed,” he meant getting up in the morning and going to sleep at night.)

Wheeler-Smith sent one of the memes we previously reported on—a fake image of Kamala Harris with bruised knees captioned, “CONGRATS to Kamala on her new promotion! I don’t know how you did it!”—with the message, “This innanet is undefeated.” According to the report, Wheeler-Smith told investigators the message was meant to  “show his distaste for the vile and disrespectful meme,” but his employee said he took the comment to mean the meme was “spot on” and “accurate as hell.”

In another message, Wheeler-Smith sent an X thread by Kanye West that concluded, “WIVES SELL PUSSY FOR LIFE,” saying Kanye was “saying some wild shit but he got a point here.”

A text between SOCR director Derrick Wheeler-Smith and his employee about a trip to a strip club during a civil rights tour of the Deep South

The texts Wheeler-Smith sent the employee also included a meme of a Black woman posting, “My throat hurt but my baby got uniform clothes,” and a screenshot that read, “12 years ago today. my friend Dave came out running and screaming ‘ITS A BOY!!!’ With tears streaming down his face…We never went back to Thailand again.”

According to the investigation, Wheeler-Smith said he exchanged texts with the employee, a longtime acquaintance, out of deference to an elder. “According to Wheeler-Smith, the Black community respected its elder members,” the investigators wrote. “[The employee] was a seventy-year-old Black man. As a result, [the employee] set the tone of their friendship.”

Wheeler-Smith has been on paid administrative leave since March; Mike Chin is currently serving as the second interim director of the department.

PROTEC17, along with the chairs of of the four city commissions SOCR oversees—the LGBTQ,  Human Rights, Disability, and Women’s Commissions—have called for Wheeler-Smith’s removal.

Unlike most department heads, the SOCR director is not an at-will employee. A law passed in 2017 prohibits the mayor from removing the SOCR director except for “just cause.” The provision was meant to shield the office that enforces civil rights laws from political interference and retaliation, but it also makes the prospect of firing the SOCR director challenging and legally fraught.

A spokesperson for Mayor Katie Wilson said the mayor’s office “is completing its review of the investigation report and determining next steps. We expect that process to be complete by early October and can share a fuller update on the outcomes of this process, at that time.”

 

Density, Mayor Wilson, Transit

Greater Seattle: Late Press Conferences, On-Time Buses, Selfish Housing

By Josh Feit

Five and a half hours > A half hour

As they spin headlines to make Mayor Katie Wilson look bad, local TV news’ populist schtick fails news reporting basics. Taking the word of an unnamed source from SPD who says the press conference after July’s Seattle-Center shooting was delayed because Wilson was waiting on “dignitaries” (the governor and the Seattle congresswoman) is a delusional account if you actually read the email and text message threads from that night.

What the behind-the-scenes conversations between the mayor’s office and SPD show is that as soon as 6:30, immediately after the shooting, Wilson was looking to her staff and to SPD to assess the possibility of going to Seattle Center to make a statement. SPD, however, told her to hold off as they secured the scene. They then withheld critical information—namely, that the shooting wasn’t terrorism or a mass shooting, but a personal fracas, keeping the public largely in the dark for five and a half hours, between 7:30 and 1am when they put out a blog post about the incident. The police were also in delay mode because they were waiting for (now former) chief Shon Barnes to get a briefing and hold a Teams call with elected officials..

This chaos stalled Wilson’s trip to Seattle Center. But when she finally got there shortly after 10 pm, and a presser was ready to go, (with the SPD still reticent on the details) there was a wait of less than half an hour for Governor Ferguson and Congresswoman Jayapal to arrive—far less than the length of time SPD kept critical information from the public.

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The 8 > The L8

My favorite way of judging the mayor—and one that is actually populist (despite the convoluted right-wing notion that riding the bus is somehow elitist)—is by keeping my eye on the infamous (L)8 bus.

Wilson, the founder and former co-director of the Transit Riders Union, has thrown money, fresh paint, and SDOT planners at the historically sluggish, major east-west route. The first part of her plan—an eastbound bus-only lane on Denny—went into effect on August 24. And as part of Wilson’s plan, Metro added more buses the same week.

And, well, well, well. It’s still early (and there are more fixes to come), but dramatic signs of improvement are already clear. On-time performance  jumped to from 68.6 percent percent to 77.8 percent between this August and August 2025, an increase that only includes one week of improved service on the 8. So far in September, on-time performance has continued to climb, to 78.5 percent.

The 7,203 average daily riders (July’s numbers) who rely on the 8 likely appreciate Mayor Wilson’s focus on the basics; as a regular rider, I know I do.

Living Alone ≠ The Housing Crisis

The Seattle Times’ FYI Guy claims the sharp increase in people living solo is “eating up” units, saying we could address most of the housing crisis without building new housing if those selfish singles would just “double up.”

First of all, my own FYI: People who “live alone” don’t live alone. We’re living in multifamily buildings with plenty of other people. This type of dense housing is better for the environment and brings down rents.

The Seattle Times column goes onto to pooh-pooh the idea that rigid zoning is the culprit, even though Seattle’s suburban character notoriously limits mutlifamily housing in the city.

So, I guess, for my contribution, I should ask someone to move in with me in my 350-square-foot apartment to lower regional housing costs while those who eat up 5,000-square-foot lots should continue to manspread.

Josh@PubliCola.com

homelessness, King County, LGBTQ+, Mayor Wilson, Police, public safety

This Week On PubliCola: Katie Wilson is Jimmy Carter, Key Shelter Provider Closes Abruptly, SPD Delayed Information on Shooting

Inside a Pallet shelter.
Inside a Pallet shelter.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, August 31

Poll Tests Anti-Density Messages

A new poll sponsored by groups like Tree Action Seattle and Seattle Residents for Responsible Growth tested out messages opposing the city’s comprehensive plan update (currently tied up in litigation), which would allow modest density increases in areas directly adjacent to existing frequent transit stops and small commercial areas.

Mayor Wilson Does Damage Control

Less than a day before we published our story about interim Police Chief Andre Sayles’ complaint against a detective who spoke at a pro-LGBTQ event, Mayor Katie Wilson assured the city’s LGBTQ Commission that the complaint was less significant than it turned out to be, angering some commissioners.

Ron Davis Has Another Anti-Stranger Manifesto

Former legislative candidate Ron Davis just won’t let the Stranger’s decision to endorse a different candidate go. In a 3,300-word email, he told campaign supporters he has a plan to neutralize the power of the paper’s endorsements, which he called corrupt and oligarchical.

Tuesday, September 1

Greater Seattle: Katie Wilson is to Jimmy Carter as Zohran Mamdani is to Barack Obama

In this week’s edition of his column, Josh says Katie Wilson has a Jimmy Carter problem—unlike NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, she hasn’t dazzled the media with her charisma (and yes, the fact that he’s a he and she’s a she is a factor). Plus, some plaudits for a rare win for affordable homeownership in Seattle.

Wednesday, September 2

King County Assessor Wilson Misused County Resources Amid Stalking and Harassment Allegations: Report

A report from the King County ombuds office concluded that King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson misused county resources to negotiate a lease for a vacation home, violate a domestic-violence protection order, attempt to get the sheriff to visit his ex’s home, and set up campaign meetings to do damage control amid negative media coverage of the allegations against him. Wilson has been ordered to pay a $20,000 fine for the violations.

Thursday, September 3

Pallet, Company That Built Just-Opened Interbay Shelter, Closes Abruptly

Pallet, a nine-year-old company that produced utilitarian individual shelter units, went out of business suddenly this week. The company partnered on the city’s latest modular shelter in Interbay, and was expected to be a key player in Mayor Katie Wilson’s ongoing shelter expansion push.

Friday, September 4

Mayor Wilson Says City Will Improve Crisis Communications In Wake of Shooting

In response to a communications breakdown after a shooting at Seattle Center in late July, Mayor Wilson announced changes she says will improve public access to information during future public safety emergencies. In the future, the city plans to release information within an hour of an incident whenever possible, and push information out on Alert Seattle, an opt-in app. Additionally, no more than three members of SPD’s executive staff can be out of town at a time—during the shooting, the police chief and both of his deputy chiefs were in other cities.

Messages Show SPD Primarily Responsible for Information Gap After Bite of Seattle Shooting

Hundreds of pages of Teams and text messages released by the mayor’s office on Friday reveal that almost all of the delay in disseminating information about the Bite of Seattle shooting resulted because SPD failed to update the public after an initial, alarming X post immediately after the shooting. Mayor Wilson’s office was indecisive about whether to send her to the scene of the shooting (ultimately doing so under media pressure), but her absence, and a brief wait for other elected officials to arrive, did not significantly contribute to the delay, and messages show her team repeatedly and unsuccessfully urging SPD to let the public know what was going on.