By Erica C. Barnett
Mayor Katie Wilson is a renter on Capitol Hill, giving her a unique perspective that differentiates her from any previous mayor, and she plans to keep renting through her term. On this week’s episode of Seattle Nice, we discussed how Wilson’s personal experience renting in Seattle (and struggling to afford escalating rent) may have impacted her decision to go “bigger, taller, and faster” on what’s left of the city’s comprehensive plan update.
In Wilson’s tree-lined neighborhood, single-family houses and apartment buildings mingle effortlessly with newer townhouses and condos, all within a short walk of multiple bus routes and a light rail station. In other words, this mayor has actually experienced the benefits of renting in a neighborhood with lots of trees, walkable amenities, and frequent transit, making her less susceptible to NIMBY arguments that apartments destroy neighborhood “character” or make neighborhoods unlivable.
As Sandeep pointed out, public opinion in Seattle has moved consistently in a YIMBY (yes in my backyard) direction for at least the past decade. That’s good news for Seattle’s renter majority—brand-new housing, though not affordable in itself, takes pressure off Seattle’s acute housing shortage—and bad news for NIMBYs who want Seattle to stay the same as it was when they bought their houses for $23,000 in the ’70s.
We also discussed Councilmember Maritza Rivera’s still-vague proposal to “audit Human Services Department contracts.” Sandeep and David think it seems like a pretty good idea in light of an audit at the county’s equivalent department that found widespread problems among “high-risk” contracts—why not “look under the rock” and see what’s there? “From my side, we’d want to make that a campaign issue,” Sandeep said—perhaps previewing what Rivera’s reelection campaign will look like?
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I countered that as with the Equitable Development initiative, Rivera seems to be fixating on contracts in one specific area (the DCHS contracts were largely first-time contracts with small Black- and brown-led nonprofits) rather than considering which type of contracts across all city departments are worth scrutinizing for waste, fraud, and abuse. (I also noted that the smaller contractors targeted in the DCHS audit do not generally contract with the city.) Sandeep said these kinds of contracts came out of the “peak woke period” after COVID and so should be subject to greater scrutiny.
As I reported, auditing $300 million in human services contracts is far more complex than the kinds of audits Seattle’s auditor typically does, and would tie up resources for years at a small office with just five audit staff. Just as a factual matter, I’ll stand by what I said on the podcast: No matter how much we agree that it would be great for all public contracts to face close scrutiny (no one supports waste, abuse, or fraud), given that the city will never have the resources to audit every contract, the city has to make choices. If that choice is always to audit human services providers and never audit police spending, for instance, that’s an expression of priorities, not an objective assessment of what kind of city spending merits extra scrutiny.
Both Rivera and Hollingsworth are the most vulnerable in next year’s election, as centrism is dead in Seattle, and was a one-off in the aftermath of the chaos on Capitol Hill following the murder of George Floyd. If we run STRONG progressive candidates against both, they are toast.
No one can take you seriously about waste and abuse in contracts if you are unwilling to audit police contracts which represent a much greater share of the budget. Either you are serious about ALL waste and abuse or you are just pushing the centrist-right-wing agenda in Seattle by going after only human services.
I would normally agree with you on this. However, I think the more pressing issue is why does the City Auditor’s department only have 5 auditors staffed? For a city with almost $9 Billion in appropriations, 5 auditors can’t do being that adequate of a job. I would say that we should be pressuring to city to scale up resources for this department before we ask them to audit either SPD or HSD contracts. If you go to https://www.seattle.gov/cityauditor/reports#2025 you’ll see 7 reports published for 2025.
Yes, we should beef up the auditor’s office, and, yes, we should audit ALL departments, not just human services. The centrist-right-wing focus on human services is meant to undermine and derail ongoing efforts to get people housed, stabilized, and matched with an array of wrap-around services so they can declare Katie (and Girmay) a failure in addressing the homelessness crisis. We cannot lose sight of this fact when talking about auditing for waste and abuse in the use of government funds that does not include the largest share of city funds going to the SPD. The centrists-right-wing in Seattle who just got CREAMED in the last election are doing what Trump Republicans do at that the national level of focusing on “welfare fraud” rather than the much greater fraud and waste in the defense budget.
Erica, why aren’t you asking the mayor why the City Auditor’s department only has 5 auditors when it should have at least 15 auditors?
I’m all for auditing $300 million in human services contracts. Tax payers and the public should know how public funds are being spent. It’d help justify the next time tax levies are put on the ballot related to funding for human service contracts.
Wow – so Erica does not believe that City Governments highest function should be to make sure taxpayer money is spent effectively and efficiently? That IMO would provide the highest form of respect to taxpayers while keeping Seattle more Affordable!!
“deep woke period” ? I know he’s a colleague and all, but using phrasing like that tells me he’s not a very serious person.