As they spin headlines to make Mayor Katie Wilson look bad, local TV news’ populist schtick fails news reporting basics. Taking the word of an unnamed source from SPD who says the press conference after July’s Seattle-Center shooting was delayed because Wilson was waiting on “dignitaries” (the governor and the Seattle congresswoman) is a delusional account if you actually read the email and text message threads from that night.
What the behind-the-scenes conversations between the mayor’s office and SPD show is that as soon as 6:30, immediately after the shooting, Wilson was looking to her staff and to SPD to assess the possibility of going to Seattle Center to make a statement. SPD, however, told her to hold off as they secured the scene. They then withheld critical information—namely, that the shooting wasn’t terrorism or a mass shooting, but a personal fracas, keeping the public largely in the dark for five and a half hours, between 7:30 and 1am when they put out a blog post about the incident. The police were also in delay mode because they were waiting for (now former) chief Shon Barnes to get a briefing and hold a Teams call with elected officials..
This chaos stalled Wilson’s trip to Seattle Center. But when she finally got there shortly after 10 pm, and a presser was ready to go, (with the SPD still reticent on the details) there was a wait of less than half an hour for Governor Ferguson and Congresswoman Jayapal to arrive—far less than the length of time SPD kept critical information from the public.
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My favorite way of judging the mayor—and one that is actually populist (despite the convoluted right-wing notion that riding the bus is somehow elitist)—is by keeping my eye on the infamous (L)8 bus.
Wilson, the founder and former co-director of the Transit Riders Union, has thrown money, fresh paint, and SDOT planners at the historically sluggish, major east-west route. The first part of her plan—an eastbound bus-only lane on Denny—went into effect on August 24. And as part of Wilson’s plan, Metro added more buses the same week.
And, well, well, well. It’s still early (and there are more fixes to come), but dramatic signs of improvement are already clear. On-time performance jumped to from 68.6 percent percent to 77.8 percent between this August and August 2025, an increase that only includes one week of improved service on the 8. So far in September, on-time performance has continued to climb, to 78.5 percent.
The 7,203 average daily riders (July’s numbers) who rely on the 8 likely appreciate Mayor Wilson’s focus on the basics; as a regular rider, I know I do.
Living Alone ≠ The Housing Crisis
The Seattle Times’ FYI Guy claims the sharp increase in people living solo is “eating up” units, saying we could address most of the housing crisis without building new housing if those selfish singles would just “double up.”
First of all, my own FYI: People who “live alone” don’t live alone. We’re living in multifamily buildings with plenty of other people. This type of dense housing is better for the environment and brings down rents.
The Seattle Times column goes onto to pooh-pooh the idea that rigid zoning is the culprit, even though Seattle’s suburban character notoriously limits mutlifamily housing in the city.
So, I guess, for my contribution, I should ask someone to move in with me in my 350-square-foot apartment to lower regional housing costs while those who eat up 5,000-square-foot lots should continue to manspread.
1. A recent messaging poll by a group calling itself the “Green Neighborhoods Coalition” tested talking points against Mayor Katie Wilson’s proposal to finally get moving on the the Seattle Comprehensive Plan, which has been mired in appeals for more than a year. Activists who oppose the plan claim that allowing modest new apartment buildings in and around Seattle’s suburban-style single-family enclaves will “deforest” Seattle, result in the deaths of orcas and salmon, and lead to untold environmental devastation.
The comprehensive plan, which has been pushed back repeatedly since early 2023, epitomizes the concept of “endless delay”—or the “Seattle Process,” if you prefer.
The poll, conducted by Fulcrum Strategy Group (the same pollster behind recent Chamber and Challenge Seattle polls), describes Mayor Katie Wilson’s “taller, denser, faster” approach to the comprehensive plan neutrally, as a series of zoning changes designed “to more quickly address Seattle’s affordable housing crisis by supporting faster development of apartments and condos across Seattle with a particular focus on greater density transit corridors.”
Then, it tests detailed negative messages among people who say they support “a more deliberate approach” to development, including the argument that building more housing will destroy “parks, trees, and greenways”; that the approach “shortchanges climate resiliency” by “ignoring” climate change and “long-term environmental resiliency”; and that (finally) moving forward on the comp plan is a way of “cutting corners, taking shortcuts, excluding community voices, and trying to rush a decision.”
Andrew Thibault, the co-founder of Fulcrum, said the Green Neighborhoods Coalition’s messaging was not “NIMBY/anti-density.”
Editor’s note: This post originally said that the Seattle Parks Foundation was “the group behind” the Green Neighborhoods Coalition. They are the Green Neighborhoods Coalition’s fiscal sponsor, not a direct funder. We regret the error.
2. Less than a day before we published our story about interim Police Chief Andre Sayles’ complaint against a detective who spoke at a pro-LGBTQ event, Mayor Katie Wilson was at a meeting of the city’s LGBTQ Commission, doing a bit of preemptive damage control. At the time of the Thursday night meeting, Wilson’s office still had not responded to our questions for the story we published the following morning.
According to three commission members, and as reported by Seattle Gay News, Wilson and a staffer told the commission our story was basically toothless—specifically, that Sayles had only asserted that the detective, Beth Wareing, represented herself as an SPD detective in violation of orders not to do so. Wilson explained the issue as a “procedural” problem rather than a serious overstep by Sayles, one commissioner said, and let the commission know the case had been dismissed.
Not only did Wareing not mention her affiliation with SPD at the No Hate in WA State press conference, this was not the most incendiary allegation Sayles made against her. He also alleged that she lied about what two anti-LGBTQ initiatives would do, which would be a violation of SPD’s policy against dishonesty and a fireable offense that could have ended Wareing’s career. (She retired rather than continuing at SPD after a sabbatical as the direct result of Sayles’ unfounded complaint). According to OPA, Sayles’ claims against Wareing risked violating her right to free speech.
Jessa Davis, the co-chair of the LGBTQ Commission, said she was most concerned that Sayles seems to have taken right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse at her word that Wareing lied about what the initiatives would do. Kruse, Davis said, is a “political activist who has publicly advocated in support of these ballot initiatives that the detective was speaking against.” In fact, she’s being investigated by the state Public Disclosure Commission for her advocacy work on behalf of the initiative sponsor Let’s Go Washington, which the PDC calls an in-kind contribution.
“We’ve seen SPD officers engage in political expression before, including statements that many people in Seattle and in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community find deeply troubling,” Davis said, pointing to the double standard that allows SPD officers to express right-wing viewpoints freely. “If we’re going to protect the officers’ rights to political expression, then the rules have to be applied consistently.”
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Wilson’s office said they didn’t have complete information about Sayles’ allegations when they spoke to the LGBTQ+ Commission, and that they were trying to be “transparent and provide them with information” before PubliCola’s story went up. “It was meant to be a high-level heads up, not an attempt to minimize the story or explain it away,” a spokesperson said. “In part, the briefing was for Mayor Wilson to express her expectation that Chief Sayles would be an inclusive leader.”
According to the spokesperson, Wilson had only read the closed case summary about the complaint, which did not include most of the information we reported, when she addressed our story at the meeting.
“The Mayor had only received very high-level information about the case,” and was “actively working with OPA to obtain additional documentation. We believed it was important for us to share with the community the limited information we had received.”
Some commission members, however, left the meeting feeling reassured that Sayles had done nothing serious, and that PubliCola’s story was about a minor incident that fizzled—rather than a serious complaint that led a 30-year detective to leave the department in frustration and disgust.
3. Ron Davis, the former 46th District legislative candidate who ran as an urbanist alternative to state Rep. Gerry Pollet, sent out yet another 3,300-word manifesto to his supporters last week, this one all about the Stranger and its failure to endorse him. In Davis’ mind, this decision was not based on the paper’s actual assessment of him and his candidacy, because that process would have obviously led them to endorse Davis over Will Dreher, the other candidate in the race.
Instead, Davis’ theory is that the “oligarchs” who bought the Stranger (and got rid of three staffers Davis preferred to the current staff) 1) forced the editorial board to endorse Dreher after voting for Davis and 2) maybe (?) told the union that represents Stranger workers to write a statement saying that the board really did prefer Dreher, not Davis, which Davis argues is impossible without interference by publisher Brady Walkinshaw, who knows Dreher. (He also knows Davis, by the way, and endorsed him personally for city council in 2023.)
Assuring readers that he “consulted heavily with two STEM PhDs” in his analysis, Davis spins out a theory in which the Stranger’s endorsement is “always decisive” for lefty candidates, across “hundreds” of past elections, and that there is a knowable, specific “Stranger bump” that applies to all of those candidates, and which Davis should have rightly received.
The whole tendentious essay is almost a textbook definition of correlation-causation confusion, all leading up to Davis’ argument that the new, crowdsourced “Lefty Cheat Sheet” can be a viable alternative to the Stranger’s endorsements, whose “buyout and behavior” have “dismayed and betrayed” its readers.
Candidates are often pissed that they don’t get endorsements. Davis is the first one I can recall who has turnsd a grudge against the Stranger into a proto-crusade against the paper’s endorsements in general. The truth, as Josh argued last week, is almost certainly much more banal—the Stranger met Davis, and they weren’t impressed by him. That should lead to self-reflection, not a multi-volume conspiracy theory.
4. We discussed a counter-complaint against Sayles, KCRHA’s handling of recent layoffs, and Davis’ post-election meltdown on last week’s episode of Seattle Nice—give it a listen if you haven’t already!
Mayor Katie Wilson, with new interim chief Andre Sayles at far left
By Josh Feit
PubliCola isn’t making endorsements this year, but election season (see item 3 below) gives me the perfect opportunity to debut this new opinion column with its simple premise: X > (is greater than) Y.
1) The Case for Firing SPD Chief Shon Barnes > The Case for Keeping Shon Barnes
The case for firing police chief Shon Barnes, a holdover from the Harrell administration, might seem disproportionate to the happenstance of being out of town during a shooting (and subsequently fucking up media briefings on the shooting because of your absence).
But if you’re a regular PubliCola reader, you know there are plenty of reasons beyond Barnes’ alarming OOO MO that made him an odd fit with Wilson’s progressive administration. Among them: His aversion to the CARE Team; SPD’s violent treatment of counter-protesters at an anti-trans rally in Cal Anderson Park; lawsuits accusing him and his team of discriminating against women and LBGTQ staffers; the department’s ongoing failure to recruit more women, and his questionable hiring and promotiondecisions.
Wilson can get pretty anxious about diverging from Seattle’s older Black community, which I think partially explains why she recently disappointed her activist base on surveillance cameras. But Wilson is also known for listening to the facts, assessing the situation, and acting accordingly. Thankfully, in weighing Barnes’ rocky tenure against the vague call for stability, she made the right call last week.
And by the way: Barnes’ recent chest-forward display of toxic machismo (after a South Seattle Emerald reporter dared to ask him about Erica’s reporting on those frequent absences) was red card material. If not a fireable offense in its own right, Barnes’ playground behavior surely gave Wilson an unnerving reminder of why he wasn’t a fit.
2) Seattle City Council Members Eddie Lin, Dionne Foster, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Bob Kettle, and Dan Strauss > Seattle City Council Members Joy Hollingsworth, Debora Juarez, Maritza Rivera, and Rob Saka
A million years ago, I used to write a column on Seattle City Hall called Five to Four. So pardon me for being extra excited about a narrow city council vote last week that distinguished the pro-housing council members from the anti-housing council members.
Erica has the rundown on the 5-4 win for Southeast Seattle Councilmember Lin’s pro-density legislation that will stop homeowners from turning the Seattle Hearing Examiner into a weapon against renters and new housing, something NIMBYs have been doing for the 20-plus years I’ve been reporting on this issue. I just want to add: WTF Joy Hollingsworth? You represent one of the most progressive, densest, renter-centric districts in the city. What’s the gatekeeping about?
3) Ron Davis (and even Will Dreher) > State Rep. Gerry Pollet
In this year’s North Seattle election battle between mansplainers, longtime North Seattle rep Gerry Pollet (D-46, N. Seattle) versus know-it-all housing pundit Ron Davis, at least Davis is the YIMBY in the race. Pollet is a NIMBY who spent the bulk of his tenure as housing committee chair stalling legislation that would have created more housing in his district. The pro-housing, urbanist wing of the Democratic Party eventually got fed up with Pollet and removed him as chair of the housing committee.
In addition to supporting upzones as a way to increase density, Davis also supports hacks to the building code that will allow more density without changing overall zoning, such as Sightline initiatives like parking, stairway, and elevator reform; Davis has been a regular contributor to Sightline, the state’s leading pro-housing, urbansit think tank, and is endorsed by Mayor Katie Wilson and The Urbanist.
Private attorney and first-time candidate Will Dreher is a former clerk for liberal SCOTUS Justice Elena Kagan and a DOJ prosector who went after J6 rioters. He’s also, yikes, a former clerk for pre-SCOTUS Brett Kavanaugh who signed a letter supporting Kavanaugh’s nomination in June 2018. However, three months later Dreher and two other clerks withdrew their support, calling on the FBI to reopen its background investigation into Kavanaugh over Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her.
Dreher’s focus is on corporate accountability, particularly when it comes to the environment and regulating A.I. He’s been endorsed by A-student progressive Seattle City Council member Dionne Foster and progressive City Attorney Erika Evans.
Slow growther Pollet has been endorsed by the Seattle Times of course.
Police chief resigns, Burien city manager fired, school meals resolved, and much more.
By Erica C. Barnett
It was a busy, busy week for PubliCola, with news about now-former Seattle police chief Shon Barnes starting on Sunday night, when we broke the news that he was out of town during the mass shooting at Seattle Center, an absence we later learned contributed to a five-hour delay in information getting out about the incident. I spent the week burning up the phones and breaking news.
Meanwhile, on KUOW’s Week In Review this week, two guests (including one of KUOW’s editors) dedicated a huge chunk of time to insulting PubliCola and our work, calling me an “influencer” who just “hung out a shingle” and “called myself a news person.” (They didn’t name PubliCola directly, but every reference was to our reporting).
KUOW editor and reporter Catherine Smith and their guest Angela Poe Russell, who’s making the rounds as a Barnes defender, erroneously claimed that every police chief going back to Gil Kerlikowske has been out of town as much as Barnes has. “Don’t give us one-sided narrative and call it journalism,” Russell said, and Smith agreed that I didn’t have the goods, saying it was not “fair” for me to “criticize him for that when other chiefs travel like that.”
Russell and Smith presented zero evidence for their assertions. Smith claimed her story this week included information about those past chiefs’ schedules that contradicted my reporting, but it did not; the only “reporting” she had on that subject was a summary of a spokesman saying “Barnes’ level of travel is consistent with past chiefs of police.”
Then Russell said biased and false reporting like mine was why people should support public radio like KUOW instead The host of Week In Review, a show on which I am sometimes a guest, did not push back as the two women insulted me and said my work this week was inaccurate. (For the record, I’ve been a full-time reporter in Seattle since 2001, and at PubliCola since 2009—and I stand by my reporting).
So! This is your reminder that PubliCola is a paywall-free independent news source brought to, and our ONLY source of funding is direct contributions from readers who appreciate this work. If you can, please consider making a one-time or ongoing contribution via Patreon, Paypal, Venmo, or check, or subscribing to my Substack newsletter below. Thank you for reading and supporting PubliCola!
An early plan by city councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth, Dionne Foster, and Dan Strauss to dip into the city’s general fund to pay for universal school meals would have required Mayor Katie Wilson to come up with cuts elsewhere totaling around $3 million. The proposal, which changed later in the week to one the mayor and council could both accept, came after Hollingsworth and Foster proposed delaying universal school meal funding to pay for take-home food vouchers for low-income kids as part of the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise (FEPP) levy.
I broke the news on Sunday that then-police chief Shon Barnes was out of town at a conference in Dallas during a shooting at Seattle Center, part of a planned absence of at least two weeks during the height of the summer’s public festival season. As I previously reported, Barnes’ family and permanent home are in Chicago, where he has traveled frequently, and he also spent much of his time as chief giving keynote speeches and attending out-of-town events.
When South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash asked Barnes about my reporting on his frequent absences from the city, Barnes lashed out verbally; his chief of staff and longtime friend Alex Ricketts inserted himself physically between Barnes and Nash and hustled Barnes away. Asked about his outburst at a press conference, Barnes claimed he was just being “passionate about what I do as a police office.” One person who disagreed with Barnes’ takeaway filed a complaint against him with the city’s Office of Police Accountability. Although KUOW’s story described the OPA complaint as a mere assertion by me as an individual, I obtained a copy of the complaint and quoted it in my piece.
On a 5-4 vote, with Bob Kettle serving as a swing vote, the Seattle City Council approved legislation to eliminate one of several avenues for opponents to appeal land-use legislation, such as the city’s comprehensive plan. The bill, sponsored by Councilmember Eddie Lin, eliminates pre-legislative appeals to the city’s hearing examiner while still allowing people to appeal legislation to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or to King County Superior Court after it passes.
A partial schedule that was altered to removed time then-police chief Barnes had previously planned to be away in August showed that the chief was out of town, mostly at conferences and visiting his family, about seven weeks over less than three months. (SPD only provided an accurate schedule between March 29 and July 26; Barnes had also planned time off in August, but the schedule was altered to show him in town after the shooting). In other words, Barnes was out of town or otherwise not on the job at least 40 percent of time time during the 17 weeks for which SPD provided his schedule.
As of Wednesday, what we knew about Barnes’ departure was vague and unverified; my sources told me Barnes had started calling some of his captains to say he’d been fired, and that he had been seen entering Wilson’s office late in the day and leaving a couple hour later. At the time, Mayor Katie Wilson’s office was not responding to questions; later, it would become clear that she had asked him to resign and he had refused, launching negotiations over a settlement that would not wrap up until late the following day.
Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon, who’s been on paid leave pending an investigation into his conduct on the job, was fired by the city council this week. In addition to months of pay while the investigation was ongoing, he’ll get six months’ salary as a settlement—about $117,000. You can read about some of the many issues that have been raised about his performance in my post.
As mentioned above, the mayor and city council manage to identify “underspend” in the 2026 budget that will pay for universal school meals, with the FEPP levy picking up the tab for both low-income food vouchers and universal school meals the following year. The city is banking on the success of the so-called millionaires’ tax at the ballot box in November to pay for school meals after that.
Mayor Wilson made it official at 3:30 on Thursday afternoon: Police Chief Shon Barnes resigned and will be replaced on an interim basis by one of his two deputies, Andre Sayles. Negotiations over the terms of Barnes’ settlement stretched into Thursday, contributing to a frustrating delay in information out of the mayor’s office.
At a packed, rowdy press conference, Wilson and new interim chief Sayles took questions about Barnes’ resignation and the mayor’s plans for appointing a new police chief. I reported that Barnes will receive a total of $700,000 as a settlement. Although reporters repeatedly demanded that Wilson lay out her reasons for firing Barnes, the settlement agreement reportedly includes standard non-disparagement language that would prevent Wilson from going into too many specifics.
(That didn’t stop the Seattle Times editorial board from accusing her of firing Barnes to create a “distraction” from her incompetence and saying without specific reasons, the public would be right to believe he was “scapegoated.”)
Also this week: We did two Seattle Nice podcasts about the police chief’s departure—recording one on Wednesday, during the chaotic period when rumors were swirling and we didn’t know the details, and another on Saturday, after the mayor’s decision was official and Sayles (whose family also lives out of state) was officially the interim chief. The second one is behind a paywall as bonus content—subscribe to Seattle Nice on Patreon to listen now, or check out the preview first!
Opponents of Seattle land-use legislation will still be able to appeal to King County Superior Court or the Growth Management Hearings Board.
By Erica C. Barnett
On the narrowest possible vote, the Seattle City Council approved legislation yesterday that will eliminate one of several avenues for opponents to appeal land-use legislation, such as the city’s comprehensive plan. The bill, sponsored by Councilmember Eddie Lin, eliminates pre-legislative appeals to the city’s hearing examiner while still allowing people to appeal legislation to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or to King County Superior Court after it passes.
Currently, hearing-examiner appeals are one of many tools that people and organizations opposed to apartment construction use to delay or stop development.
Yesterday’s four-hour meeting, which I covered live on Bluesky, featured the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has long characterized debates about housing in Seattle. Public commenters who opposed new housing, mostly older white homeowners, argued that denser housing harms the environment by removing individual trees when homeowners sell their houses to developers (opponents refer to these lawn-based tree removals as “clear-cutting”), and contribute to climate change that kills salmon, orcas, and birds.
Although opponents have repeatedly raised the specter of Seattle turning into New York City (the horror!) the comprehensive plan, currently delayed indefinitely by an appeal that began at the hearing examiner’s office, would in fact allow modest new density in a few dozen small areas citywide, all within a block or two of major transit stops.
One speaker suggested that the city just convert all the vacant commercial buildings downtown into housing and let renters live there. (This isn’t really a new idea: “Solutions” that involve moving all renters into segregated areas are exactly what we have now, with new rental housing mostly confined to highways and busy arterial roads). Another said councilmembers who supported Lin’s appeal reform bill are just like Trump, because they’re taking away the civil rights of local density opponents the same way Trump is taking away the civil rights of Black voters and immigrants.
Councilmember Rob Saka, a former Facebook attorney and Air Force veteran who proposed an amendment to Lin’s bill that would have restored the appeals the underlying legislation sought to eliminate, also invoked “civil rights” in a speech excoriating his colleagues for violating “fundamental due process rights, free speech rights, the right of people to petition their government for redress of grievances. These rights form the bedrock of our democracy, and these rights are enshrined in our Constitution,” Saka said.
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Later, after Lin confirmed with a staffer that there’s no Constitutional right to appeal land-use legislation to a hearing examiner in Seattle, Saka said, “Even if it’s not a right, we heard dozens of people today say, from their perspective, that it is a right.” As I noted yesterday, that is not actually a point—just because a political faction uses highfalutin language about “rights” and “democracy,” that doesn’t mean their feelings trump the law. Allowing property owners to endlessly delay housing for renters by appealing land-use changes is arguably pretty anti-democratic in itself, especially when it halts legislation before the public legislative process can begin.
After Saka’s amendment failed (even Maritza Rivera voted against it), the final vote ended up being a nail-biter. Rivera, the council’s most consistent opponent of pro-housing legislation, said she of course wants to see more housing, but doesn’t support “taking something away” from her constituents. Debora Juarez, a former elected councilmember who was appointed to serve out Cathy Moore’s term last year, said she wanted to “err on the side of giving a little bit more… because that’s due process, and that’s what the people want.”
Bob Kettle, who represents downtown, Queen Anne, and Magnolia, ended up casting the surprise swing vote (Joy Hollingsworth, who abstained from voting in committee, voted no), but not before chiding housing proponents, mostly younger renters, for using rhetoric he called inappropriate.
Kettle says it's not "right to declare our neighbors are weaponizing" the appeals process because of the war in Iran and the gun violence epidemic. Of course he is only chiding people on the pro-housing side. The anti-housing folks have been vitriolic, but he isn't tone policing them.
Lin, who’s emerging as a pro-housing star on the council, said little before the final vote, which took place at nearly 6:30pm. Earlier in the meeting, however, he did take a moment to respond to commenters who likened new housing to toxic waste and highway expansions. “I don’t think housing and future residents are toxic waste or pollution that need to be studied for years and years and years on end,” Lin said. “I believe housing is a human right.”
Although yesterday’s 5-4 vote to eliminate hearing examiner appeals won’t prevent housing opponents from challenging land use changes in court or to the state Growth Management Hearings Board, the change will allow the legislative process to move forward during appeals, and puts Seattle in line with Bellevue, Everett, King County, Tacoma, King County, and many other local jurisdictions that don’t allow this kind of pre-legislative appeal.
A marathon debate over transit funding, Katie Wilson’s flight patterns, a bill that would limit endless land-use appeals, and more news from the past week.
On the first of two podcast episodes this week, we discussed how the mayor is doing at six months, focusing on her approach to encampment sweeps (she’s doing them), her progress toward her shelter goals (falling short, but better than her predecessor Bruce Harrell), and the likelihood of budget cuts this year (thanks in large part to spending commitments Harrell made, without regard for future budget impacts, right before the 2025 election.)
Guest columnist Brittney Moraski, who’s the advocacy chair for the Seattle Public Library Foundation Board, makes the case for the August library levy measure, which will expand collections, spiff up the aging downtown library, and fund programs like No Late Fines and Peak Picks—not to mentiona quarter of the library’s staff.
Legislation from Councilmember Eddie Lin would get rid of land-use appeals to the city’s hearing examiner, which currently give people who oppose density the ability to stop zoning legislation and comprehensive plan updates in their tracks. The bill would still leave two other post-legislative appeal options open.
City Councilmember Dan Strauss’ legislation expanding eligibility for the city’s Utility Discount Program, which provides deep discounts to ratepayers who qualify, passed easily this week.
Unlike her predecessor Bruce Harrell, who spent large chunks of his term traveling, along with his wife, to conferences and junkets around the nation and world, Mayor Wilson has only left Seattle on city business two times in her first six months, and only once on the city dime. Also unlike her predecessor, Wilson travels in coach—Harrell used his personal wealth to pay for first-class upgrades, including five-figure plane tickets and five-star hotels.
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The land use appeal reform bill we covered earlier in the week passed out of the land use committee, and heads to an uncertain vote at the full council.
The city council appears to be split on a Families and Education Levy spending proposal from Joy Hollingsworth and Dionne Foster that would delay funding for universal school meals, which Wilson previously identified as one of her key accomplishments, and use the money instead to pay for take-home food vouchers for low-income kids. Eddie Lin told us it would take a lot to convince him to vote against universal school meals.
It took almost three and a half hours of speeches (and one called question—someone on the council’s reading Robert’s Rules!) but a committee of all nine council members ended up approving Mayor Wilson’s proposed transit sales measure mostly intact. Proposals to cut the size and duration of the tax failed, and there are lots of directives to report on this and that, but chalk this one up as a victory for the mayor. Once it passes full council, the proposal will head to voters in November.
On the second episode of Seattle Nice this week, we talked about that marathon transit discussion, along with my story on Wilson’s travel and a court ruling this week that will allow the nude beach at Denny Blaine Park to remain nude, but not “lewd.”
Also this week:
I was a guest on Rachel Horgan’s The Weekly podcast, where I talked about what it takes to sustain a podcast long-term, the story of how Josh and I founded this independent news site in 2009 and how my business model works now, and what’s been going on in Seattle politics lately. Rachel covers local business news and a lot more every week.
If you’d like to read an entertaining blow-by-blow of Thursday’s big transit tax debate, I covered it live, in way more detail, on Bluesky.
