A forensic audit finds widespread problems at the homelessness agency, county workers rally against in-office mandates, and a ton of other stories you may have missed this week.
Monday, April 20
SPD Gives Medal to Officer Who Chased Man Into Traffic, Leaving Carful of Kids Behind
The Seattle Police Department put out a video congratulating officer Albert Khandzhayan for apprehending a man who had kidnapped his wife’s three children by breaking the window of her car, dragging her out, and driving off with the kids inside. The video includes disturbing audio from the woman’s panicked 911 call; when we contacted SPD, they expressed “regret” for posting the audio without asking the victim’s permission.
Update: After we posted about the video, SPD removed it from Youtube and their website, replacing it with a note said in part: “Recognizing the potential harm this post may have caused, we have removed the video originally posted here.”
County Assessor, Charged With Stalking, Posts Taunting Pics as Council Again Demands His Resignation
King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson posted multiple photos of himself in a tub, shirtless, on Instagram and Facebook Stories, with captions flaunting the fact that a judge ruled he did not have to wear a previously ordered ankle monitor because of a medical condition he claimed requires him to soak both legs every day. His next hearing is May 5, when PubliCola hears he may be asked to address the flippant posts.
Tuesday, April 21
Will Dialing Back Fees on Housing Fix Seattle’s Construction Crash?
On our first of two Seattle Nice episodes this week, we interviewed land use and housing consultant Natalie Quick and the city’s former chief operating officer Marco Lowe about why developers are asking holiday from Mandatory Housing Affordability fees, which pay for affordable housing but are bringing in less money as housing development slows.
Union Members, King County Employees Protest Three-Day Office Mandate
Members of the PROTEC17 union, including King County employees, protested King County Executive Girmay Zahilay’s three-day-a-week return to office (RTO) mandate, which county employees have called punitive, expensive, and counterproductive. Many of the county’s far-flung workers have never been to physical offices, so “return to office” is a misnomer.
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Wednesday, April 22
Seattle Times Fails to Credit PubliCola for Reporting on County Assessor’s Social Media Posts
The Seattle Times failed to credit PubliCola’s original reporting on County Assessor Wilson’s disappearing social media posts, instead representing the find as their original reporting. This is not in keeping with bare-minimum standards for crediting other news sources when doing followup coverage of a story another media outlet broke.
A devastating forensic audit found multiple serious issues with the way the regional homelessness authority ran its finances, including casual accounting practices, commingling of restricted funds, consistent negative balances, and millions of dollars in overspending and money that the agency was unable to account for. The audit led local officials to issue statements calling for accountability and, in some cases, the immediate dissolution of the agency.
Thursday, April 23
Fulfilling a Campaign Promise, Wilson Announces Denny Way Bus Lanes Coming This Year
Mayor Katie Wilson announced a two-phase plan to add a dedicated bus lane along the most congested part of Denny Way, between Lower Queen Anne and Capitol Hill, and create a new pathway to the South I-5 on-ramp. The two-phase plan will fulfill a campaign promise to address chronic delays on the bus route known derisively as the “L8.”
Alarming Audit, Missing Millions: Is the End Nigh for KCRHA?
In our second podcast this week, we discussed the implications of the KCRHA audit for the future of the long-embattled agency. The audit, I argued, is most concerning for what it reveals about the agency’s lax financial controls and casual accounting practices, which included allowing the same person to oversee expenditures from approval to validation that the expense was appropriate and calculated and logged correctly.
Friday, April 24
KCRHA Board Will Meet Today to Discuss Disastrous Forensic Audit
I previewed the KCRHA board meeting to discuss the audit, including the agency’s own preemptive efforts to suggest things were well under control.
Also this week: On Friday, I covered the KCRHA board meeting in detail, including CEO Kelly Kinnison’s insistence that the audit didn’t find fraud and that no money went “missing.” In a presentation, the auditor corrected those claims and added texture to some of the dry details in the audit, including the KCRHA’s extensive use of a private temp staffing agency that charged large commissions and the widespread use of credit cards without clear authorization or line-item receipts.
Coming up: On Monday, I’ll be on City Cast Seattle discussing the audit findings and what they mean for the future of the agency. Tune in!