Category: education

City Council, Density, education, Mayor Wilson, Police

This Week on PubliCola: August 2, 2026

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!

Monday, July 27

Council’s School Meals Plan Will Require Cuts to Other Services

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.

Seattle Police Chief Out of Town During Mass Shooting

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.

Tuesday, July 28

Confrontation With Reporter Was Just “Passion on Full Display,” Police Chief Says; OPA Complaint Filed

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.

Wednesday, July 29

On Narrow Vote, Council Gets Rid of Local Appeal Process that Delays Land Use Legislation

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.

Partial, Altered Schedule Shows Police Chief Out of Town Nearly 7 Weeks So Far This Year

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.

Multiple Sources Say Police Chief Barnes is Out; Mayor’s Office Not Responding to Questions

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.

Thursday, July 30

Burien Council Fires Controversial City Manager

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.

Mayor and Council Say They’ve Found Money for Universal School Meals After All

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.

Police Chief Shon Barnes is Out, His Deputy Andre Sayles Will Serve as Interim Chief

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.

Friday, July 31

Wilson, New Interim Police Chief Sayles Address Barnes’ Ouster, SPD’s Future

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!

 

City Council, education

Burien Council Fires Controversial City Manager; Mayor and Council Say They’ve Found Money for Universal School Meals After All
Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon

1. Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon was fired by the Burien City Council earlier this week on a 4-1 vote, with Councilmember Kevin Schilling absent. His last day will be August 27.

The firing followed a council vote more than three months ago to put Bailon on paid leave while an outside consultant, Kathleen Haggard (of the Haggard-Ganson law firm) conducted an investigation into his conduct as city manager. The council has discussed this investigation in executive session, but has not made any of the details public; PubliCola has requested a copy of the investigation report.

A short list of issues that have come up during Bailon’s tenure as city manager would take up many paragraphs, but they include: Shooting down efforts to stand up a homeless shelter on land owned by the city, threatening to sue a church that hosted an encampment; turning down $1 million in shelter funding from King County; berating council members over their views on homelessness, filing a complaint against one of those councilmembers over his tweets, demanding the removal of Burien’s police chief, and spending much of his time calling 911 on unsheltered people in the park outside his office.

Although the resolution passed this week cites the investigation findings, Bailon was officially fired without cause, allowing him to collect six months’ pay as severance, in addition to receiving his full salary during his nearly four-month leave. During this time, the city of Burien has also been paying interim city manager Bob Larson to serve in Bailon’s stead.

We’ve asked the city for Bailon’s exact salary. According to the Washington Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials, Bailon made $224,664 in 2024, up from $215,000 when he was hired in 2022. Extrapolating from that two-year cost of living adjustment, Bailon’s. current salary is a little under $235,000, meaning he’ll receive around $117,000 in severance pay.

During the meeting, Schilling went on a brief tirade after Mayor Sarah Moore opened up public comment on Bailon’s firing, which the council had just officially announced (although Schilling telegraphed that it was happening earlier, before the council went into executive session.) Opening public comment at 10pm, when “no one’s here,” was a “charade” and “ludicrous,” Schilling said. “This is pretty crazy, Mayor,” Schilling said.

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Then, referring to the one person who remained in council chambers and wanted to speak, Schilling said, “The only member of the public who’s here is Quinten [Thompson], and Quinton’s here because he gets driven home after the council meeting.” Thompson, who frequently attends Burien council meetings, uses a wheelchair and gets around via Access van.

Schilling complained that all the comments would be in favor of removing Bailon, then left. Alex Andrade, the one vote in Bailon’s favor, called a point of order to tell a speaker that it was “improper” for him call the behavior that got Bailon fired “abusive.”

Former city councilmember Cydney Moore, speaking during public comment, said it was “incredibly disrespectful and dismssive the way that the current, present audience member was referenced by somebody on council as though their presence is not absolutely intentional and not just passive because they are waiting for a ride. That’s a member of our community who is very active and should be treated with … respect.”

2. After a public outcry, the Seattle City Council has backed down on a proposal to trade universal school meals for low-income grocery vouchers during the upcoming school year, announcing earlier this week that they have reached a deal with Mayor Katie Wilson to provide both immediate universal meals and the vouchers by using “underspend” from an unspecified city department.

The council faced backlash from supporters of universal school meals when they voted 6-3 for an amendment to the spending plan for the Families, Education, Preschool and Promise Levy, sponsored by Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth and Dionne Foster, that delayed funding for universal meals until the 2027-2028 school year. The amendment took $3 million that would have funded universal school meals starting this year and redistributed it across all six years of the levy to provide $500,000 for food subsidies for up to 5,000 low-income families, or about $100 per family per year.

The new spending plan keeps the food vouchers, which supporters say will provide meals for low-income kids on weekends and over holidays during the school year. Funding for school meals would come from the levy beginning in the 2027-2028 school year under the plan announced this week. The proposal doesn’t address what the city will do if a state tax on income above $1 million is overturned by voters in November or subsequently by a court challenge; instead, it assumes the tax will begin funding school meals statewide in 2029.

 

City Council, education, Mayor Wilson, Police, Poverty

Seattle Police Chief Out of Town During Mass Shooting

 

 

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A post shared by Hana Kim (@hanakimontv)

By Erica C. Barnett

Editor’s note: This post, originally part of today’s Morning Fizz, has been updated and expanded to include new information.

Yesterday’s mass shooting at Seattle Center, in which a gunman killed three people and injured five more, was the type of violent incident that, historically, has prompted Seattle police chiefs to rush to the scene to demonstrate the seriousness of the situation and answer questions from members of the press.

But the city’s current police chief, Shon Barnes, was nowhere to be seen on Sunday. As he has been for many weekends since he took the $373,000 job in December 2024, Barnes was out of town. According to multiple sources, Barnes planned to be out of town until mid-August, taking several weeks away from Seattle during the period when shootings and other violent incidents are most likely to occur. Barnes also took two weeks off during the most recent winter holidays, including New Year’s Eve.

As we’ve reported, Barnes rents an apartment in Seattle and makes frequent trips to his family residence in Chicago, where his wife and kids live full-time. Last year at this time, PubliCola reported that Barnes’ schedule showed he spent most weekends, beginning on Friday afternoons, out of town, attending conferences, going to events related to his college fraternity, giving keynote speeches, or spending time with his family in Chicago.

PubliCola sent detailed questions about the police chief’s whereabouts to SPD on Sunday night and Monday morning and had received no response or acknowledgement by late morning. However, Barnes’ Facebook page, where he has chronicled many of his trips, indicates he was at a conference for the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives in Dallas. He was back in Seattle this morning for a press conference on the shooting at City Hall.

(After this post went up, a city spokesperson contacted us to ask for a correction, saying we had inaccurately claimed Barnes was in Chicago, which we did not; our article this morning included the paragraph above about Barnes’ attendance at the NOBLE event. Despite the apparent urgency of this call, SPD still has not responded to any of our questions sent over the past two days.)

Barnes, who received a $50,000 recruitment bonus to leave his previous job as police chief of Madison, WI, was also out of town during a major SPD incident last May, in which police pepper-sprayed and arrested dozens of counter-protesters at a rally and concert held by anti-trans right-wing activists at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill, Seattle’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood. Barnes’ family also lived in Chicago while he was Madison’s police chief, although those two cities are only about a three hours’ drive apart.

During a press conference late Monday morning, a reporter asked Barnes if he was out of town this weekend, as I reported on Sunday. His response: “I wish I had a crystal ball and we could schedule gun violence but we can’t.”

At the end of the press conference, Barnes snapped at South Seattle Emerald reporter Connor Nash, who asked him about my reporting that he is out of town a lot. FOX 13 anchor Hana Kim posted video (above) that showed Barnes becoming “confrontational,” as Kim put it, snapping, “I have been here working as hard as I can for this city from the day I got here. Do you got that?”

As Nash continued to ask his question, Barnes cut him off. “No, no, you listen to me.”

“The reports are that you are not in town—often,” Nash persisted. “Their reports are wrong. You understand that?” Barnes said, as his chief of staff Alex Ricketts pushed himself physically between Barnes and Nash, saying, “Let’s go, man. Let’s go. Let’s go” and escorting Barnes back inside the mayor’s office.

We’ve reached out to the mayor’s office about Barnes’ outsize response to the question about his schedule and will update this post if we hear back.

City Council, education

Council’s School Meals Plan Will Require Cuts to Other Services (Reposted)
Council President Joy Hollingsworth speaking outside council chambers earlier this year.

By Erica C. Barnett

Editor’s note: This post, originally part of today’s Morning Fizz, has been reposted as a separate piece in order to expand today’s other Fizz item, about Police Chief Shon Barnes’ absences from Seattle.

I was out of town for a couple days last week, so I was a few hours late to the news that three Seattle City Council members—Joy Hollingsworth, Dionne Foster, and Dan Strauss—announced they had found a win-win solution to the problem created by a Hollingsworth-Foster amendment repurposing funds that were supposed to pay for universal school meals in the upcoming school year. The amendment, which took $3 million out of universal meals by delaying that program a year, will pay for $500,000 in annual grocery vouchers for up to 5,000 poor families each year, according to the sponsors.

The council’s big fix: Keep the vouchers, and fund universal school meals—at an annual cost of $3 million—out of the city’s general fund, starting with this year’s supplemental budget.

By the time I read about the proposal, there were already a number of stories and social media posts describing the amendment as a solution that gave everybody what they wanted—the FEPP levy could still fund food vouchers for the poorest kids, while the council would use existing money to make universal school meals happen in time for the upcoming school year. “Seattle City Council proposes plan to fund free meals for all school kids,” went a typical headline.

I found the tone of the coverage perplexing. It was as if people forgot that the term “general fund” means “entire discretionary budget for the year” and that the mayor and council are currently facing a budget hole of at least $175 million. Any time the council or mayor add a new obligation into the budget, they have to cut funding in another part of the budget to make it balance. This isn’t deep budget lore; it’s basic math.

Mayor Katie Wilson was less than impressed with the proposal, noting in a statement that she looked forward to “seeing which critical services they plan to cut from the general fund to make their numbers work.”

Proponents of the amendment delaying universal school meals by a year, which passed 6-3 last week, said they wanted to wait to see what happens with the statewide tax on income above $1 million a year, which is supposed to fund universal school meals statewide. That tax is up for a referendum vote in November and could still face challenges in court. If the tax fails, the city will still have to come up with a long-term funding plan to pay for universal school meals in future years.

City Council, Development, education, Mayor Wilson, Poverty, Taxes

Land Use Appeal Reform Moves Forward, Council Splits on Funding for School Meals

1. A city council committee voted to move legislation forward on Wednesday that will—if it passes full council next week—shut down one avenue of appeal commonly used to slow down zoning changes that allow more housing in Seattle. The bill, sponsored by land use chair Eddie Lin, would eliminate appeals to the city’s hearing examiner over zoning legislation and changes to the city’s comprehensive plan, which is currently delayed by environmental appeals that began at the hearing examiner’s office.

Hearing-examiner appeals can delay legislation by months or years even if they are unsuccessful, as the vast majority are; the council spends most of the fall focusing on the city budget, so a delay of a few months can mean legislation won’t be heard until the following year.

Lin’s bill wouldn’t eliminate the right to appeal specific projects, and it would still leave two (arguably more relevant) avenues for appeal: Once legislation is finalized and adopted, people can appeal to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or sue in King County Superior Court. Those two avenues don’t stop legislation in its tracks the way “pre-legislative” appeals to the hearing examiner do.

Dan Strauss and Joy Hollingsworth abstained from voting, saying they still had questions about the proposal, leaving Lin, Dionne Foster, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck to vote it through.

Before the vote, opponents raised familiar objections, along with a novel one. The familiar: By eliminating land use appeals to the hearing examiner, the council was “muzzling the voices of the citizens who elected you to serve us” and ignoring the plight of salmon, orcas and birds. The novel: If the council passes the legislation, no one will have the right to appeal the siting of any data center in Seattle in the future.

Councilmember Dionne Foster addressed both objections. “From my perspective, cities are an incredibly important element to how we combat climate change—growing in a way that is responsible, growing in a way where we take into account that so much of our pollution comes from transportation-related emissions,” Foster said. “If we fail to do our job and build substantial and affordable housing… you also have environmental impacts.”

Foster also confirmed with a staffer that because data centers are “projects,” people will still have a right to appeal any data center proposal to the hearing examiner, if and when the council lifts the current moratorium on data centers. “I I think that’s an incredibly important distinction to make,” she said.

2. Foster and Lin are on different sides of another issue—a proposal, co-sponsored by Foster and Council President Joy Hollingsworth, to delay funding for universal school meals from the spending plan for the Families, Education Preschool, and Promise levy and replace it with vouchers for qualifying low-income families to buy food on weekends and holidays during the school year.

Mayor Katie Wilson’s spending proposal would pay for free breakfast and lunch for every Seattle school student for the first two years of the levy, with the assumption that voters will uphold the statewide “millionaires tax” (a proposed tax on annual income above a million dollars) in a referendum challenge this November. If this happens, and there are no additional legal hiccups, the statewide tax would start paying for universal school meals in 2029.

Foster and Hollingsworth’s proposal would address uncertainty around the millionaires tax by taking universal free school meals off the table for the first year of the levy; if the high-earners’ income tax holds, it can pay for universal school lunches starting in 2029, and if it doesn’t, the city won’t be on the hook. Meanwhile, Foster said the alternative plan will provide groceries to low-income kids who need food the most.

“I genuinely think it’s a balanced amendment,” Foster told PubliCola earlier this week, noting that dozens of Seattle schools already have universal free lunches through the state Community Eligibility Provision, because more than 40 percent of their students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.

Opponents of the amendment have argued that means-testing programs for basic needs like food stigmatizes lower-income kids and may leave some students hungry, including those whose parents don’t sign up for income-based programs or who struggle to pay for food but aren’t poor enough to qualify.

Foster said she’s aware of those critiques. “The intent is not, ‘Here’s a hoop that we want you to jump through.’ The intent is to get more resources to the kids who are low-income or who have those financial gaps,” she said.

Lin said he doesn’t doubt Foster and Hollingsworth’s commitment to food access, but says he’s leaning strongly toward supporting universal school meals over income-based vouchers. “I know they have very valid concerns, and there’s concerns about what’s going to happen with the millionaires tax, but at this point I have a hard time imagining not supporting” Wilson’s proposal, Lin said. “I think there’s widespread support for universal free lunch, not just here but across the state.”

City Council, education, Mayor Wilson

Council Proposal Would Delay Universal School Lunch Program, Fund Means-Tested Food Vouchers Instead
Hanan Sherka, a youth and community organizing coordinator at the food-justice nonprofit FEEST. Seattle Channel screenshot

By Erica C. Barnett

When I spoke to Mayor Katie Wilson on Tuesday, one of the key accomplishments she name-checked was her proposal to provide universal free meals for all students at Seattle Public Schools, which she announced—alongside SPS superintendent Ben Shuldiner—two months ago. Part of Wilson’s Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise (FEPP) levy implementation plan, the program would cost about $3 million a year and would eliminate the stigma of the current free-meal program while establishing food as a basic right for Seattle schoolchildren. (Voters passed the FEPP levy last year.)

Later that same day, City Council President Joy Hollingsworth threw this achievement into question, proposing an amendment (co-sponsored by Councilmember Dionne Foster) that would eliminate funding for free school breakfasts and lunches for at least the first year of the levy to fund a new, means-tested vouchers for low-income kids to get meals during holiday breaks during the school year and on weekends. That program would cost $500,000 year, funded by spreading the $3 million one-year cost for universal meals over the six-year levy term.

Like Wilson’s original plan, Hollingsworth’s proposal assumes the statewide millionaire’s tax will pay for universal school meals after the 2027-2028 school year.

In a statement to PubliCola, Wilson said, “I included universal school meals as a core priority in the FEPP Levy Implementation and Evaluation Plan because no child should be expected to learn while hungry. This is a basic human need that reflects a core value of the people in this city. K-12 education is free and universal and the basic nutrition you need to be ready to learn should be free and universal too.

“We estimate that families will save roughly $1,200 per year through this program,” Wilson continued. “Students and families at schools that don’t currently offer universal school meals are counting on us to deliver this for them this school year.”

At a FEPP Committee meeting on Wednesday, Hollingsworth said her amendment was a matter of racial justice for Southeast Seattle, where food insecurity is highest in the city and where there is only one food bank that receives state and federal funding for emergency food assistance.

“I wanted to put this out here for conversation, for us to have a really, really intentional conversation about equity,” Hollingsworth said.

Foster, likewise, argued that feeding the poorest kids should take priority over providing meals to all kids, including those who wouldn’t qualify for free or reduced-price meals under the current means-tested program.

“I am so committed to making sure that our kids, our babies, our students aren’t going hungry in our city, and I think what we are trying to put forward in this amendment is a question and conversation about what is the right way to approach that,” Foster added.

“It’s not about the concept of gutting universal free school lunch. It’s about, we have low-income kids, kids who are qualified for free and reduced lunch … who are also going hungry during school breaks, during week during weekends.”

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Public commenters who spoke to the amendment were overwhelmingly opposed to the tradeoff Hollingsworth and Foster are proposing, arguing that requiring parents to prove they’re poor enough to qualify for food vouchers would perpetuate the stigma that surrounds poverty. The voucher proposal, several noted, would exclude kids whose families are just above the income cutoff—less than $60,000 for a family of four—and those who don’t fill out the paperwork to prove they qualify.

“Even if all students who qualify were to apply and use the program, a family of four or two adults are working full time, making just minimum wage would not qualify for free or reduced lunch,” said Hanan Sherka, a youth and community organizing coordinator at the food-justice nonprofit FEEST. Quoting a student at Chief Sealth High School, Sherka continued, “‘Need is defined very narrowly, and universal school lunch would unburden many families who don’t qualify, but are still struggling financially in the current economic climate.'”

Lilliane Ballesteros, the executive director of Latino Community Fund of Washington State, told the council that means-tested programs create barriers to participation, and “we see that when barriers are set up, families suffer. When families face administrative barriers, they do not access the food and resources they need, and students do not thrive.”

Wednesday’s meeting was the first opportunity for councilmembers to explain their proposed changes to Wilson’s proposed implementation plan; the 11 council amendments just became public late Tuesday afternoon.

Rob Saka was the only councilmember to sound a note of alarm about the food-voucher proposal. Saka said that while what Hollingsworth and Foster are ” trying to do here is is expand the pie … I’m just concerned about the potential delay [to universal meals], and what that portends for affordability, what that portends for stigma, social stigma for students, [and] what that portends for the long-term educational readiness of our future workforce.”