SOAP zones, Renter Protections, Firefighters vs. “Woke” Department, and More
Monday, August 26
Listen: PubliCola on KUOW and Hacks and Wonks
Sandeep and I went on KUOW’s Seattle Now last week to talk about the latest election news, including King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove’s 51-point margin of victory in the race for Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands.
Also, I went on Crystal Fincher’s Hacks and Wonks podcast, where (in addition to the lands commissioner results) we discussed the city of Seattle’s upcoming budget process,; Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore’s proposal to reinstate old-school policies empowering police to crack down on sex work on Aurora; Moore’s plans to repeal protections for renters passed over the past several years; and more.
City Councilmember Cathy Moore has said she will amend her legislation bringing back a repealed law against “prostitution loitering” so that the only people who can be banished from “Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution” (SOAP) zones are men buying sex. But a PubliCola analysis of more than 15 years of court data shows that focusing on sex buyers did not result in a decrease in the sex trade on Aurora and in other SOAP zones. It also had a highly disproportionate impact on Black and Latino men, including many immigrants and non-English speakers.
Tuesday, August 27
Seattle Nice: Is Downtown “Revitalized and Transformed” Yet?
On Seattle Nice, we discussed a new report on Mayor Bruce Harrell’s “Downtown Action Plan,” which promised to revitalize downtown Seattle with a combination of civic boosterism, crackdowns on encampments and drug users, and incentives for businesses to locate in the area. Sandeep (a work-from-the-office guy) says more people need to sacrifice for the good of the downtown economy and start commuting again; I (like all right-thinking people who have the luxury, a work-from-home gal) disagree.
Wednesday, August 28
In a reversal from commitments made in 2020, the King County Council expressed their support for keeping the youth jail open, at least until there are better alternatives at some point in the future (wait… wasn’t that what a task force spent the last several years working on?) Bottom line: The dream of closing down the youth jail is over.
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Just weeks after her appointment to head up the struggling Community Police Commission, acting CPC director Bessie Scott is leaving for a new position as city manager for Antioch, California. Also: MLK Labor condemns the city council’s proposals to crack down on sex workers and drug users, which include new banishment zones for drug users, and SPD’s $3.4 million marketing contract now includes recruitment ads on podcasts.
Friday, August 30
The former deputy fire chief and another white firefighter created a fake “proud Latino” from South Park to complain about the term “brown out,” supposedly to demonstrate department leadership were too focused on being “woke, hundreds of Signal messages obtained through a citizen records request reveal. The messages also show department staff trading vaccine conspiracy theories, using homophobic slurs, and providing packaged, “paint by numbers” stories to right-wing media.