Cascade PBS Ditches Local News, Harrell Budget Pushes off Tough Choices, Right-Wing Activist Tests Anti-Trans Messaging, and More
By Erica C. Barnett
Monday, September 22
City’s Growth Plan Update Maintains Seattle’s Suburban Character, Including Mandatory Parking
After a whirlwind of meetings to consider more than 100 amendments, the city council passed the first part of a 10-year comprehensive plan update that will allow small apartment buildings in about 30 new “neighborhood centers,” along with a few other modest concessions to the fact that Seattle is a growing, renter-majority city, not a small town with suburban neighborhoods connected by “urban villages.”
Cascade PBS Lays Off News Staff, Citing Federal Cuts
Cascade PBS, which owns the 18-year-old news website Crosscut, announced it will be eliminating all local news coverage and laying off 16 news staffers. While Cascade justified the decision by citing $3.5 million in federal funding cuts, critics asked why the station couldn’t cut elsewhere, or delay cuts in light of a recent surge in donations.
Tuesday, September 23
Seattle Nice: CARE Team Expansion and a Missed Opportunity for Neighborhood Businesses
On this week’s podcast, we discussed Mayor Bruce Harrell’s recent proposal to raise sales taxes 0.1 cents—as authorized earlier this year by Gov. Bob Ferguson—to fund, among other public-safety programs, the expansion of the CARE team, a group of social workers that responds to calls that don’t require police. We also dug in on the council’s rejection of a comp plan amendment that would have allowed new corner stores to stay open past 10pm and allow bars close to where house owners live.
Wednesday, September 24
Harrell’s Latest Budget Spikes City’s Deficit by Piling On New Spending In Election Year
Mayor Bruce Harrell’s election-year budget, released in a slick Seattle Channel-produced video on Tuesday, piles on even more new programs than last year’s despite ongoing revenue shortfalls as the nation heads toward a possible recession. The budget plunges the city into the red immediately after next year, and funds many critical long-term needs, such as immigrant protections, with one-time funds.
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Thursday, September 25
The Siren Song of Forced Drug Treatment
In a guest editorial, HaRRT Center co-director Susan E. Collins explained why calls to forcibly remove people from the streets and place them in locked treatment facilities are misplaced. An expert in her field who is sober herself, Collins brings stats and research to an emotional conversation about how to help people who may appear incapable of helping themselves.
Katie Wilson announced that she wouldn’t participate in a debate co-sponsored by Sinclair affiliate KOMO TV unless the conservative media company reversed its decision to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel’s show. (Harrell said she was being “hypocritical” because she supported moving an anti-trans hate rally in the city’s LGBTQ neighborhood to a different park.) Sinclair reinstated Kimmel the following day.
Friday, September 26
New Poll Tests Messages on Initiatives Opposing Trans Girls in Sports, Student Privacy
Brian Heywood, the right-wing megadonor who tried to kill the state’s long-term health insurance and Climate Commitment Act through voter initiatives last year, is testing messages for two new initiatives this year. The first would ban tran girls from school sports; the second would allow parents to snoop into their kids’ school counseling records, among other privacy violations. One test message claims that “men” are now playing against girls in public schools.
Digging into Harrell’s Campaign “They Aren’t From Here” Homelessness Talking Point
In campaign messaging and in his budget speech (arguably a campaign speech in itself!) Harrell has claimed that 70 percent of people who are homeless in Seattle are actually from somewhere else, using the stat as an argument that Seattle is doing more than its fair share to address a countywide homelessness problem. But that statistic turns out to be deeply flawed.
City Councilmember Maritza Rivera launched into the council’s 2026 budget process by telling city department staffers that she still lacks enough information, nearly two years into her term, to know whether the LEAD diversion program, the CoLEAD encampment resolution program, and the Equitable Development Initiative are working. She also said she doesn’t support “Housing First,” then described it—inaccurately—as handing out housing to people with complex needs and leaving them there.
RECENTLY Burien received $87 million for a homeless shelter for families and women from Amazon, Mary’s Place – but NOT a place for men and boys. Burien, notoriously, has never had a homeless shelter it sponsored or provided. It passed up $1 million offered by King County and 35 small houses for a Little Village to help address this problem. “Not in my backyard” would describe our City Council’s view on the problem. Note: 75% of homeless in King County are male.