By Erica C. Barnett

Text and phone messages obtained through a public records request suggest that Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon actively involved himself in city contract negotiations to ensure that The More We Love, a group that conducts private encampment sweeps, received a contract to resolve encampments for the city. The group, run by Kirkland real-estate broker Kristine Moreland, became a subcontractor to the local business advocacy group Discover Burien after Moreland was apparently unable to secure the level of insurance the city requires for contractors.

Bailon has repeatedly distanced himself from the city’s actions on behalf of The More We Love, going so far as to note, in a memo to the Burien City Council in November, that the “City is not involved in the process to recruit or select a subcontractor.”

Even as he was claiming to be disconnected from the selection process, Bailon was in almost daily conversation with Moreland about the contract, exchanging at least 32 text messages with Moreland and talking to her on the phone at least eight times—for a total of nearly an hour—during the three-week period of October immediately before he signed the contract. At the end of the month, when it looked like the contract would collapse because Moreland’s group couldn’t get insurance, Bailon and city staff scrambled to switch the contract over to Discover Burien, with The More We Love as a subcontractor, sending a flurry of messages between the early morning and evening of November 1 to ensure that a new contract was drafted, executed, and signed that day.

The text messages between Moreland and Bailon consist mostly of back-and-forth discussion about the details of her contract, including when Moreland’s group will get paid. In one mid-October exchange, Moreland asked if she could invoice for future work immediately and get paid in 30 days, which she said would help her “float the insurance cost.”

After “checking with Finance,” Bailon responded: “We could accept an invoice right away, but couldn’t actually commence the process for payment. That is the initial response from Finance. We’re checking for more detail.” One minute later, Bailon added, “The bigger problem is that we have a process that pays for work performed instead of in-advance. Depending on the contract, [i]nvoices typically include a report of the work performed during the pay period.” This policy—perform the work, then get paid—is standard for human-services contracts in the city of Seattle, and ensures that contractors don’t take money and then fail to perform the work they were hired to do.

After Discover Burien told Moreland they would serve as lead contractor for The More We Love’s encampment work, there was apparently another wrinkle: Debra George, Discover Burien’s director, wanted $4,000 to administer the contract, and Moreland objected.

“I am stuck on this to move forward with the contract. I just want to help the humans and move on,” Moreland wrote. “I was unaware that Debra was taking 4K from her side. She didn’t disclose that to me when we said we were ready to sign. I am happy to meet her in the middle or see if you guys can bridge her need to get paid. Can we work together and move on so we can get to work. I appreciate you.” Later, Bailon told Moreland he had “‘I increased the amount to $48 k, per our discussion” (in fact, the contract was for $49,000); the city manager can sign a contract of up to $49,000 without a public process.

As we’ve reported, Moreland was sanctioned in 2020 for violating consumer mortgage lending laws, and was allowed to keep her license in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in fines that she has since failed to pay. Additionally, she has faced criminal and civil charges related to an alleged DUI and unpaid bills; in November, the King County District Court issued a judgment against Moreland in favor of Bank of America, which sued her for allegedly failing to pay $33,000 in credit-card debt.. She also distributed private personal and medical information about various homeless people in Burien to city council members, the Burien police chief, and the owner of a real-estate company.

The flurry of activity (and sole-source contract) on Moreland’s behalf is in marked contrast to Bailon’s response to another potential contractor that wanted to work with the city to shelter Burien’s homeless population, the Low Income Housing Institute. LIHI submitted a proposal for a tiny-house village that Bailon dismissed as unrealistic, telling Burien Mayor Sofia Aragon that LIHI was “skating on thin ice” with the city because they emailed an “unsolicited” proposal to city officials. “I am unsure as to why LIHI has commenced a full-court press on this issue of a village (tiny home, pallet) in Burien, but their efforts have included attending nearly all Council meetings over the past two months,” he commented in an email to a city of Seattle staffer.

Burien banned sleeping in public during nighttime and early-morning hours; the ban went into effect November 1.