Elections, Mayor Wilson, Police

Mayor Replaces More Harrell Department Heads, SPOG President Endorses Mini-Mike, Tanya Woo (Maybe) Rises Again

1. Mayor Katie Wilson announced two new department heads on Friday. She’s replacing her predecessor Bruce Harrell’s finance director, Jamie Carnell, with city and county budget veteran Dwight Dively; and she’s replacing Harrell’s Office of Economic Development director, Markham McIntyre, with his deputy, Alicia Teel, on an “acting” basis.

Dively was budget director at the city until 2010, when then-mayor Mike McGinn replaced him with a former King County deputy budget director, Beth Goldberg. (McGinn said Dively had failed to adequately plan for the budget shortfalls of the Great Recession).

Then-King County Executive Dow Constantine snapped Dively up, and he remained in charge of the county’s budget until the election of Girmay Zahilay, who assigned him to help head up the Department of Community and Human Services after ousting Kelly Rider, who was head of DCHS for a little less than two years. Many inside the city bemoaned Dively’s ouster and considered his move a trade in the county’s favor (although Goldberg had her fans!)

McIntyre spent a decade in various executive jobs at the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce (which recently changed its own leadership, hiring former state legislator and state Department of Commerce director Joe Nguyen to replace Rachel Smith). McIntyre brought Teel over from the Chamber, where she worked for more than 15 years. (Editor’s note: This story originally said McIntyre served under Jenny Durkan, which is not the case. We regret the error.)

McIntyre was a Harrell campaign stalwart. PubliCola reported last year that he used an internal City of Seattle Teams chat to ask for city employees’ personal contact information on behalf of the Harrell campaign; those who provided their info received solicitations to support Harrell “in the home stretch.”

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2. The Tanya Woo rumor mill chugged back into operation this week. Unconfirmed, but we’re hearing that the onetime Seattle councilmember (appointed to a citywide seat after losing to Tammy Morales in District 2, Woo ran a second time, losing to Alexis Mercedes Rinck), has reportedly been testing the waters for another campaign—this time aiming her sights at the state.

We heard this week that Woo may run for the state house seat that will be vacated by 37th District representative Chipalo Street, who recently declared his candidacy for the state senate seat being vacated by Rebecca Saldaña, who’s running for King County Council Position 2, occupied until recently by now-King County Executive Girmay Zahilay. (Zahilay’s longtime chief of staff, Rhonda Lewis, is in the position on a temporary basis). Seattle Port Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa recently announced she is also “considering” a run for Zahilay’s former council seat.

3. After setting right-wing activist hearts aflame by making the baseless claim that Mayor Katie Wilson has ordered cops to stop arresting people for drug crimes, Seattle Police Officers Guild president Mike Solan announced on his “Hold the Line” podcast last month that he won’t seek reelection.

Apparently, Solan has already selected his heir apparent—Ken Loux, a 10-year SPD officer whose talking points suggest SPOG is under siege by powerful enemies, rather than coddled by city officials who just handed the union a 42 percent raise.

“Make no mistake: Seattle’s politics have veered sharply left, unleashing a storm that threatens to dismantle everything we’ve built brick by brick,” Loux says in his campaign video over shaky images of Mayor Wilson and City Councilmembers Dionne Foster and Alexis Mercedes Rinck. “SPOG is staring down its most brutal years yet—a relentless assault on our unity, our resources, and our resolve.”

Solan’s headshot looms above Loux’s image on his website, making the younger man look like the Son of Solan. A Mini-Mike, if you will.

Guest Contributor, legislature

Legislators Must Save Washington’s Talking Book and Braille Library
A Perkins braille typewriter

By Anna Zivarts

It’s the end of a long day in front of my computer screen. And if I’m honest with myself, even before I sat down to work, I was up reading on my phone for a couple hours before that. My head aches and all I want to do is close my eyes. But it’s bedtime and my kid wants a story. So I pull out my phone again, willing myself through another chapter.

Many of us feel like we spend too much time on screens. But, for me, reading print books isn’t really an option. I was born with nystagmus, a neurological condition that makes my eyes shake and makes it really hard for me to read regular-sized font. By using my phone or a laptop, I can enlarge the font, and that reduces the eye strain. Even with large fonts, by the end of a long day, I feel the tension around my eyes spreading into a headache. 

I love reading. Since childhood, books have been a way to picture a world that I couldn’t always see with my own eyes. Which is why, as reading text became painful, I started to dream of reading with my fingertips: I really wanted to learn braille. 

Like any language skill, braille is much easier to learn when you’re young. This has become very apparent as I try to learn braille alongside my kid, who has been getting instruction since kindergarten. He particularly enjoys grading the homework he’s assigned me; more often than not, I end up with a negative number of stars. 

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Being the only kid at school who’s learning braille is a lonely path, which is why I was so thrilled when I learned about the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library and the services they offer for young readers. Through their youth program, my kid has participated in summer reading challenges, and most recently joined their braille pen pal program. 

Last week, we sat together as he used his Perkins brailler (an awesome manual braille typewriter with six large keys, one for each of the dot cells used in braille letters). His excitement around connecting with another young person who is also learning braille was apparent as he peppered me with questions. Where did she live? What grade was she in? Would she know the special braille contractions he was using? Then for my homework assignment, he insisted I type a letter to my friend who is learning braille and proceeded to correct all my typing errors. 

But like so many critical services, the Talking Book and Braille Library is facing funding cuts. Declining Washington State revenue from document-recording fees meant that last year, the library had to lay off staff and make cuts to programming—including story times, low-vision workshops, and braille instruction. 

The library is seeking $3 million from our state’s general fund this year to prevent further cuts. At risk of elimination is their audio and braille production capabilities. As a local author published by a small press without the ability to produce an audio version of my book, I was frustrated that my work wasn’t going to be available to blind readers. But thanks to the Talking Book and Braille Library, my book is being recorded and will be released soon. This production capacity ensures that books by Northwest authors are accessible to people who can’t read standard print, not just here in Washington state but to people living throughout the US through the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. 

Now is not the time to walk away from funding public services and institutions that bring our communities together. The $3 million funding the Talking Book and Braille Library  is seeking from our state’s general fund is a small ask. I urge our legislators to find the money to support this critical resource. 

Anna Zivarts is the parent representative on WTTBL’s Patron Advisory Council and a Seattle-based author of When Driving Isn’t an Option, Steering Away from Car Dependency (Island Press, 2024).

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City Council

New Year, New City Hall: Progressives Take Office, City Council Reorganizes
City Attorney Erika Evans at her swearing-in on Tuesday.

By Erica C. Barnett

Note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Joy Hollingsworth and Dionne Foster were the first two out gay/queer Black women to serve on the Seattle City Council. I incorrectly omitted Sherry Harris (1991-1995). I regret the error.-ECB)

A week of inaugurations wrapped up in city council chambers on Tuesday with the swearing-in of new Seattle City Councilmember Dionne Foster, along with reelected Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, and the selection (which we previewed in a Fizz item in November) of District 3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth as the new city council president. (District 2 Councilmember Eddie Lin, elected along with Foster last year, took office in November because he was replacing an appointed councilmember, Mark Solomon).

Only District 5 Councilmember Maritza Rivera (who misspelled both Rinck’s and Foster’s names in a newsletter congratulating them on their wins) was absent from the room; she attended remotely.

Several city hall staffers we’ve spoken to this week described a new feeling of “lightness” at City Hall since the new cohort of elected officials, including Mayor Katie Wilson, took office.

One day earlier, new City Attorney Erika Evans was sworn in at the Bertha Knight Landes Room at City Hall, by US District Court Judge Richard A. Jones. Invoking the example set by her grandfather, Lee Evans—who, as an Olympic gold medalist, made history as one of several Black athletes who raised their fists in a Black Power salute during the 1968 Olympic games—Evans said, “When we were seeing clear rollbacks in civil rights, I knew I needed to make a decision, just like my grandfather did, to stand up and fight back what was happening. That is the vision I’m bringing [to] this office.”

Councilmember Foster—the third openly queer Black woman to serve on the council, after Hollingsworth and Sherry Harris—had a huge cohort of fans in the audience, as did Hollingsworth, who will be the first Black woman to ever serve as council president. The council president is in charge of central staff, committee assignments, and administrative decisions about the council; she also appoints the council’s labor committee. That committee’s members serve on the Labor Relations Policy Committee, which negotiates city contracts, including police contracts.

Historically, it’s been a pretty low-key position; Sara Nelson, the most recent council president, politicized it, firing a widely liked council central staff director and enforcing a strict return-to-office policy for staffers while she herself attended many council meetings remotely.

Hollingsworth. the consensus pick after brief internal campaigns by Councilmembers Dan Strauss and Bob Kettle, seems likely to return the presidency to its less-partisan past. The first indication of this, on Monday, was the fact that the council approved her new role unanimously, with no other nominees. Hollingsworth praised each of her colleagues in turn, including the absent Rivera: “There’s due diligence, and then there’s Councilmember Rivera diligence,” Hollingsworth said. (Rivera is known for asking questions about policies she opposes long after they’ve been thoroughly answered).

The second indication of the council’s more progressive makeup was the new committee assignments that the council also approved on Tuesday. While some committees will remain largely the same (Bob “permissive environment” Kettle will continue to lead the public safety committee, while Rob “Pothole King” Saka will continue to head up transportation), others are led by, and stacked with, the council’s progressives—Foster, Rinck, and Lin.

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Rinck, who previously headed up the Sustainability, City Light, Arts and Culture Committee, will now lead a new Human Services, Labor and Economic Development committee, with Foster as her co-chair. Housing, once lumped in with human services under the Debora Juarez- (and before her, Cathy Moore-) led Housing and Human Services Committee, will be part of a new Housing, Arts and Civil Rights Committee led by Foster, with Lin as her cochair. Lin will head up a reconstituted Land Use and Sustainability committee, with Strauss as vice chair and Foster and Rinck as members.

And the progressive triumvirate of Foster, Lin, and Rinck will all serve on two committees headed up by two of the council’s centrists—Saka’s transportation committee and Rivera’s Libraries, Education, and Neighborhoods committee. (See all the new committee assignments here).

On top of those changes—all standard after any election—the council is also going through a total staff reorganization, starting with the creation of a new executive administrator to oversee all council staff and serve as a kind of buffer between the council president and legislative staff, who include not just central staff but the city clerk, public disclosure officers, and IT and communications staff). Ex-council president Nelson announced the changes in late December, including the news that “as recommended by HR,” her own chief of staff, Jeremy Mohn, will fill the role on at least an interim basis.

According to a December 19 email from Nelson, the new administrator will “ensure continuity of departmental operations across CP administrations and allow for the Council President to better focus on governance and policymaking”; she added that council HR recommended appointing Mohn to the position “given his extensive familiarity with departmental processes and issues.”

City Council

SPD Chief Barnes Hires Two Harrell Staffers to Executive Positions, Saka Hires Ex-Cop Who Ran for Council

1. On Monday, Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes announced permanent replacements for the two civilian command staff members he fired late last year, along with a newly created position of deputy chief of staff. The two fired staffers, ex-general counsel Rebecca Boatright and ex-chief operating officer Brian Maxey, have filed a tort claim against the city alleging Barnes retaliated against them for giving advice he and his inner circle disagreed with, and discriminated against Boatright based on her gender.

Among the advice Boatright and Maxey gave Barnes and his chief of staff ewre a suggestion that they take concerns from the LGBTQ+ community more seriously including pushback over police raids at a longstanding nude beach. To that suggestion, Barnes’ chief of staff Alex Ricketts allegedly responded, “We’re not here for the gays.”

Two of the new staffers will join Barnes’ team directly from former mayor Bruce Harrell’s office.

Maxey will be replaced by Sarah Smith, a public safety advisor to Harrell who previously worked as a policy staffer for Jenny Durkan. In addition to her time at Harrell’s office, Smith’s resumé includes a brief stint at the fire department, where she “ideated, organized, and executed EMS staffing for events,” according to her LinkedIn page. Before that, she worked as a program manager at the YMCA and a manager at Specialty’s, a now-defunct bakery in downtown Seattle.

Another Harrell staffer, Cindy Wong, will become deputy chief of staff under Alex Ricketts, a new position. Prior to former chief Adrian Diaz, SPD had not had a “chief of staff”  since 2001, when an assistant police chief held the job as an informal secondary title. Wong is the author of a children’s book with a background in human resources who had worked for Harrell since 2023.

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SPD did not respond to questions.

Boatright will be replaced by her former deputy, Cherie Getchell. “Please join me in welcoming each of these women to their new roles,” Barnes wrote in an email to all SPD staff. “Their extensive experience and deep commitment to public safety in our community will be instrumental in guiding us through SPD’s next chapter.”

Combined with the five new positions Barnes added when he came on as chief last year—Ricketts, new Assistant Chief Nicole Powell, executive director of crime reduction Lee Hunt, new Deputy Chief Andre Sayles, and Chief Communications Officer Barbara DeLollis, all making well over $200,000—Barnes now has the largest executive staff of any police chief in recent memory.

Mayor Katie Wilson’s office had no comment on Barnes’ hiring of the two Harrell staffers.


2. Across the street at City Hall, the new year began with two departures from City Councilmember Rob Saka’s office, where no staffer (other than chief of staff Elaine Ko) has lasted longer than 16 months. On Monday, a new Saka staffer started work—former SPD lieutenant Brendan Kolding, who will be Saka’s policy director.

Kolding’s name may be familiar. In 2019, he ran for City Council against then-incumbent Lisa Herbold and later endorsed Phil Tavel, a conservative two-time candidate for the position, on a platform that included setting up FEMA-style camps and moving unsheltered people into them. (He lost in the primary). Although Kolding told reporters he quit SPD to run for council, the Seattle Times reported that he actually resigned in lieu of termination after an investigation concluded he had harassed a coworker and lied about it to the police chief.

Some of Kolding’s political views appear to be at odds with some of the lofty rhetoric Saka adopted when he voted against the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract last year. His most recent post on X, from 2024, is a reposted SPOG endorsement for then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert. Kolding has also reposted content from SPOG leader Mike Solan,  Turning Point USA activist Jonathan Choe, and former city councilmember Sara Nelson. 

Kolding was also fond of posting photos of his ballots, including votes for Nelson, former city attorney Ann Davison, and—whoops—Phil Tavel, who ran against Saka in 2023.

Courts, Drugs, Mayor Wilson, Police

SPD Chief Sent Email Overstating New Drug Diversion Policy, Sparking False Narrative in Right-Wing Media
Police Chief Shon Barnes speaks at a press conference last year.

Chief Shon Barnes apparently didn’t consult with LEAD or the city attorney’s office before telling police they should start referring every drug arrest to LEAD.

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes sent a memo to officers last week directing them to refer most people caught using or possessing drugs in public to LEAD, the pre-booking diversion program that provides case management and other services to people accused of low-level criminal activity.

“Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program,” Barnes told officers in an internal email. “All instances of drug use or possession will be referred to Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD)—a program designed to redirect low-level offenders in King County from the criminal justice system into supportive social services.”

The announcement by Barnes appears to have been a dramatic overreaction to an internal memo from City Attorney Erika Evans directing her prosecutors to refer drug use and possession cases to an internal team to determine if they are eligible for LEAD. This represents a shift from the policy established by Evans’ predecessor, Ann Davison, who allowed people charged with misdemeanor possession or drug use to avoid charges by getting an addiction assessment and not getting arrested again for six months—the opposite of a therapeutic approach.

“The LEAD Liaison Team will assess previous attempts at engagement with the referred individual in consultation with LEAD,” Evans’ memo, which PubliCola received from her office, said. “If the referred individual has failed to demonstrate a sustained level or engagement with the LEAD program or has refused to engage with a LEAD case manager, the LEAD Liaison will assess the most suitable subsequent action in consultation with the Criminal Division Chief.”

Barnes responded to Evans’ memo by sending an email blast to all SPD officers saying that “Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program,” an inaccurate description of Evans’ directive to her staff. Barnes continued:

If an individual fails to comply with the LEAD program, traditional prosecutorial measures will apply. As you know, LEAD is a familiar alternative-to-arrest program that we have been utilizing for some time. This change aligns with Seattle City Ordinance 126896. Please note that this diversion does not apply to individuals who are ineligible for LEAD or to those arrested for selling or delivering controlled substances. User-quantity cases may be diverted; sell-and-deliver cases will not.

My expectation is that officers will continue to charge individuals for drug use or possession when appropriate-for example, when the activity occurs in public view or when probable cause for arrest is established.

The announcement quickly blew up thanks to an inaccurate story by KOMO, which reported—apparently without speaking to LEAD, Wilson’s office, Barnes, or Evans—that Wilson herself had “ordered officers to stop arresting people for open drug use.” (The origin of the accusation: Bombastic police union leader Mike Solan, who recently announced he won’t run for reelection). Right-wing social media accounts ran wild with the fake version of the story, forcing Wilson to issue a statement: “You’ll know when I announce a policy change, because I’ll announce a policy change.”

(Apparently, it didn’t help: Wilson was mobbed by TV cameras after Evans’ inauguration Monday afternoon at City Hall.)

In her statement, Wilson affirmed that her public safety policy includes “enforcement of the possession and public use ordinance in priority situations and ensuring that the LEAD framework and other effective responses to neighborhood hot spots are implemented with an appropriate level of urgency, sufficient resources, and a commitment to results.”

This, in effect, is what the city’s policy toward low-level drug crime was prior to 2023, when Davison and then-mayor Bruce Harrell pushed to change city law to empower SPD to start arresting people for simple drug possession and public use.

Although Barnes insisted that the policy hasn’t changed, he also referred to “this change” in the same email email. Many officers interpreted Barnes’ contradictory memo as a directive to no longer arrest people for drug use and simple possession but instead refer them straight to LEAD.

The police chief didn’t bother seeking information or feedback from the organization that runs LEAD, Purpose Dignity Action, before emailing officers about the change in policy, and he exaggerated the policy change by portraying as a kind of blanket amnesty for misdemeanor drug crime. Even if the PDA wanted to take on “all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use” they couldn’t afford to. LEAD had to stop taking community referrals into the program after the drug law passed in 2023, and a $5 million budget boost last year will only fund another 500 to 600 slots in the program this year.

LEAD co-director Brandi McNeil said that’s “a significant number,” but it’s well “below the total number of people who would qualify and be appropriate candidates for LEAD. We will need to strategize with police, prosecutors, the Mayor, the Council, and County officials (our funders) to focus that capacity on high priority situations and individuals.”

LEAD tries to take on clients who are likely to benefit from their services, as opposed to everyone who has been accused of a particular misdemeanor. “Part of our job is to accurately forecast what capacity we will have, and to work with our partners to decide which, among the pool of people who chronically commit law violations related to behavioral health issues or poverty, should be prioritized for our available slots,” McNeil said.

Barnes also misstated the criteria for LEAD eligibility, saying people arrested for selling or delivering drugs are ineligible for the program; in fact, LEAD began as an effort to benefit this specific group of people, who were cycling through courts and jail without getting any assistance for the underlying issues that were causing them to earn a living through illegal means. LEAD still serves people accused of selling up to 7 grams of drugs, which means almost anyone involved in low-level drug sales is eligible for the program.

Finally, Barnes’ description of the conditions in which “officers will charge” people for public drug use are confusing and ambiguous: “Probable cause” is supposed to exist before officers make any arrest, and it’s unclear what distinction Barnes is making between “public drug use” and drug use that “occurs in public view.”

SPD did not respond to questions sent last week attempting to clarify what Barnes meant by these distinctions. However, they did send out an email to media in response to the right-wing blowback on Monday. “To be clear, nothing has changed when it comes to police continuing to make drug-related arrests in Seattle,” Barnes said in the statement (emphasis in original), adding that police will “continue to make arrests for drug-related charges if they have probable cause.”

 

Mayor Wilson

Mayor Wilson’s Team Grows With Addition of High-Profile Reformers and Housing Leaders

By Erica C. Barnett

New Mayor Katie Wilson is filling out her org chart with some high-profile names, starting with two longtime advocates for civil rights and criminal justice policy reform, according to multiple sources familiar with the new additions.

Alison Holcomb, a longtime ACLU-WA policy director who’s currently deputy general counsel to King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, will be in charge of public safety initiatives—a marked change from ex-mayor Bruce Harrell’s public safety director, Natalie Walton-Anderson, who came straight from city attorney Ann Davison’s office and echoed ex-deputy mayor Tim Burgess’ support for more punitive approaches to crimes related to drug use and poverty.

The second advocate is Lisa Daugaard, the co-executive director of Purpose Dignity Action and the MacArthur Award-winning founder of the LEAD diversion program. Daugaard, who has been advising Wilson as a member of her transition team, will step in on an interim basis to advise Wilson on public safety and homelessness. Jon Grant, the longtime chief strategy officer at the Low-Income Housing Institute and a two-time Seattle City Council candidate, will be Wilson’s senior policy advisor on homelessness.

Holcomb will be working under Mark Ellerbrook, a longtime manager and division director at King County’s housing and community development division who is currently King County Metro’s capital division; Ellerbrook, in turn, will report to the mayor’s new Director of Departments, Jen Chan.

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Other new hires include Esther Handy, the former City Council central staff director, who will serve as a policy advisor, and Alex Hudson, the current director of Commute Seattle and former director of the Transportation Choices Coalition who ran for City Council in 2023, losing the District 3 race to Joy Hollingsworth. Sejal Parikh, a longtime labor leader who previously worked at the city chief of staff for former City Couniclmember Teresa Mosqueda, will be Wilson’s deputy policy director.

Wilson has announced she is keeping a number of department heads, including Human Services Department director Tanya Kim and Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes, while jettisoning others, such as Seattle Department of Transportation Director Adiam Emery. One department director whose job remains up in the air is Office of Housing Director Maiko Winkler-Chin, whose supporters reportedly sent a flurry of emails to Wilson’s team over the past few days asking the new mayor to retain her.

A representative from Wilson’s office confirmed the names of the new hires. This is a developing story and will be updated when we have more information about individual positions.