Category: Elections

City Council, Elections, homelessness, King County, Police

This Week on PubliCola: Council Opponents Bash Mayor’s Balanced Budget, Controversial Cop Gets Slap on Wrist, $17 Million Deficit at KCRHA, and More

By Erica C. Barnett

First things first: We’re hosting a City Council debate! Come to the National Nordic Museum (2655 NW Market St.) to hear from the candidates for City Council in North Seattle’s District 5, Julie Kang and Nilu Jenks. (PubliCola will be running interviews with both candidates, conducted last week, before the debate). The outcome of this election will impact the balance of votes on the council, so it matters to the entire city. Hope to see you there!

On to the week’s news:

Monday, October 12

No, King County Didn’t Write a $10 Million “Blank Check” for Youth Homelessness

Danny Westneat’s latest column for the Seattle Times condemned a proposed sales tax increase of of 0.01 percent, claiming the (maximum) $10 million it could bring in annually amounted to a “blank check” for the county to fritter away on… whatever, we guess. In fact, the county will adopt a spending plan for the money as part of its budget process, and has identified half-dozen specific youth and family homelessness programs to receive the money. That’s not the only thing Westneat got wrong in his column, as we learned from doing some basic reporting.

Tuesday, October 13

Greater Seattle: A Supermajority, a Mistake, and a Chance

In this week’s column, Josh Feit considers what it will mean if progressive Nilu Jenks wins the D5 council election, praises SDOT’s decision to (finally) charge for parking in one West Seattle neighborhood, and has praise for Metro’s workhorse Route 7, which King County is planning to eliminate and replace with a RapidRide with far fewer stops.

Wednesday, October 14

Council Critics Accuse Wilson of Creating “the Unfund Budget”

Councilmembers who opposed Katie Wilson’s election as mayor can’t help themselves, it seems: They’re claiming her proposed budget defunds (or as Bob Kettle puts it, “unfunds”) the police department, encampment sweeps team, and graffiti removal efforts. They also seemed caught off guard by budget problems plaguing SDOT, despite their own adoption of a budget last year that included a large and growing deficit at the department.

Thursday, October 15

Regional Homelessness Authority’s Overspending Grows to $17 Million, According to New Report

Turning Point, the consultant hired to reconcile the King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s budget after a forensic audit found widespread irregularities earlier this year, discovered a nearly $17 million net deficit in the agency’s accounts, the result of excessive administrative spending on staff and the implementation of SalesForce to manage homeless services grants. The money (which includes growing interest on the KCRHA’s massive negative bank balance) will have to be paid, somehow, by the city and county, the agency’s primary funders.

Friday, October 16

Council Budget Fizz: Rinck Wants to Fund Survivor Services, Saka Wants to Defund Restrooms, and Strauss Says the Mayor Is Weak on Homelessness

A week of all-day budget meetings included more convoluted Wilson-bashing, as Rob Saka came out against Wilson’s proposal to add more of the same kind of public restrooms Saka added funding for last year, and Dan Strauss accused the mayor of being “uncomfortable” addressing homelessness after she proposed moving the city’s encampment response team back to the Human Services Department, rather than keeping it under her direct control.

And, earlier in the week, Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck proposed adding $8 million to the budget for organizations that help survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking. HR1, Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” drastically cuts funding for these services.

Complaints Filed Against Pass-Through Campaign Funding Group Created by Former Councilmember Sara Nelson

Former Councilmember Nelson’s new group, Seafor, promises to keep its donors’ identities “private,” funneling money to elections through political action committees that will only show Seafor as the donor. They’re doing a “test run” with Julie Kang, funding a PAC that is spending $30,000 on her behalf. Except—oops—you aren’t actually allowed to conceal the source of campaign funding in this way. A progressive group has filed two complaints against Seafor and its affiliated “news” website, CivicTide.

Cop Who Encouraged Fellow Officers to “F___ People Up” At Pro-LGBTQ Counterprotest Gets Written Reprimand

Seattle police lieutenant Matthew Didier, who was caught on tape encouraging officers to go hard on people protesting a far-right anti-trans rally at Cal Anderson Park, will get a slap-on-the-wrist written reprimand for his actions. Interim police chief Andre Sayles said a critical review of the incident earlier this year “made clear that our department did not understand the depth of concern within the LGBTQ+ community before this event.”

Also this week: I was a guest on CityCast Seattle, where we discussed Rinck’s “Seattle Stands With Survivors” budget proposal, a recent lawsuit filed by a woman who said the University of Washington failed to protect her from the frat member who raped her, Saka’s bizarre 180 on public restroom funding, and our favorite pizza places in Seattle (shout out to Dantini!)

Elections, public disclosure

Complaints Filed Against Pass-Through Campaign Funding Group Created by Former Councilmember Sara Nelson

 

From Seafor’s website.

By Erica C. Barnett

The Progressive People Power (P3) PAC, a group that supports lefty candidates and causes, has filed dual complaints with the state Public Disclosure Commission and the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission against Seafor, a new organization set up by former city councilmember Sara Nelson to support centrist candidates.

The crux of both complaints is an allegation that Seafor is illegally funding election campaigns without revealing its donors, which is illegal under state law.

Specifically, the complaints charge that Seafor is a political action committee disguised as a C(4) (yes, pronounced “Seafor”) nonprofit advocacy group, and that the purpose of the organization is to serve as a pass-through for anonymous political donations to campaigns. This would be illegal, because state law requires PACs—unlike nonprofit political groups—to disclose their donors, so that the public can see which people and organizations are bankrolling outside campaigns for candidates.

“If you are an organization in Washington state raising money for politics and then spending money on politics, then you are a political committee. You have to report where your money came from,” Dmitri Iglitzin, the attorney who filed both complaints on behalf of P3, said Wednesday. “The source of political expenditures can’t be cloaked through an intermediary entity.”

Iglitzin filed the complaints before Seafor funded a last-minute $30,000 independent expenditure, by a new group calling itself North Seattle Neighbors, on behalf of District 5 City Council candidate Julie Kang, who came in second in the August primary, trailing frontrunner Nilu Jenks, a progressive, by 21 points. North Seattle Neighbors registered as a PAC just days before a state deadline for independent expenditure campaigns to file, meaning that it’s no longer possible for anyone to register a similar campaign on Jenks’ behalf. It has since reported one additional $5,000 donation, from the founder of a private equity firm.

The complaint notes that Seafor’s website explicitly says one purpose of the group is to elect a “pragmatic majority” of “moderate candidates” to the city council, starting with the District 5 race. The site describes Seafor as a “permanent civic organization” that “recruits candidates, funds their campaigns, defends them between elections, and stays in the field after November.”

What’s more, Seafor’s site touts the fact that “Donor identities are not publicly disclosed,” allowing people who spend on local campaigns to keep their donations “private.”

From Seafor’s website.

“Washington’s 501(c)(4) structure protects the privacy of businesses and individuals historically punished for backing fiscally responsible causes,” the website guarantees. “Many of our supporters operate businesses, sit on boards, or hold positions where political activity isn’t tenable.”

Nelson, the founder of Seafor, initially responded to a phone call but did not respond to followups. The other governors of the group are former councilmember Tanya Woo, lobbyist Dan McGrady, and former Nelson policy director Erik Nielsen. Jordan Royer, the VP of external affairs for the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association (and a longtime background player in conservative Seattle politics), registered the North Seattle Neighbors PAC.

“Seafor just donated $30,000 to a political campaign. So where did that $30,000 come from? We have no idea,” Iglitzin said. “But we know from Seafor’s website that they’re raising money to make political expenditures in the fifth [council] district, which makes Seafor a political committee. The fact that Seafor then goes and says, by the way, give your money to us and no one will know that you gave it to us, just shows that they know exactly what they’re doing.”

The city’s rules for registering as a political committee go further than the state’s; Seattle requires any PAC that raises or spends more than $5,000 to register as a PAC and disclose its donors. Seafor has spent $30,000 so far—five times the legal limit—and, according to reporting in Geekwire, had a budget of $163,000 through September.

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Both complaints also allege that Seafor’s affiliated website advertising “news about city hall,” CivicTide, is also subject to city and state public disclosure rules, because it’s part of the larger Seafor political action group. Unlike actual journalism and commentary, the complaint says, CivicTide’s opinion pieces and AI-powered meeting summaries are part of a political campaign to support candidates, so their funding, too, is subject to public disclosure.

The SEEC complaint also alleges that Seafor is operating illegally as an unregistered grassroots lobbying group. Under the city’s grassroots lobbying rules, groups that raise and spend money to lobby the city on issues, including advocacy for legislation, have to register as lobbyists, which Seafor hasn’t done.

The Ethics and Elections Commission seems most likely to take up the complaint, since it deals with a local campaign; also, the PDC is facing a significant complaint backlog due to hundreds of complaints filed by a single person. On Thursday, SEEC director Wayne Barnett would only confirm that he had received the complaint.

The strongest case that Seafor violated election laws is almost certainly the fact that it advertises itself as a “private” way to fund “serious candidate support” without disclosing who is behind that funding. It’s “really blatant,” Iglitzin said.

The most recent comparable case he could think of, he told me, was a case involving the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a group of corporations including PepsiCo and Kellogg’s that poured millions into a 2013 campaign against a genetically manufactured organism (GMO) labeling initiative without disclosing the source of the money. A protracted lawsuit eventually resulted in the group (now known as the Consumer Brands Association, paying a $9 million fine, including a $3 million donation to food-security nonprofits, in 2022.

Seafor’s $30,000 spend on Kang’s behalf doesn’t compare to the food brands’ massive donation to the anti-GMO campaign. But it is, as Seafor points out repeatedly on its website, merely a “test run” for the “2027 progressive majority play,” when seven city council seats will on the ballot.

Elections, Mayor Wilson, Police

Former SPD Chief Lands on His Feet, Sound Transit Removes Candidate’s Photo from Station, More Moves at Wilson’s Office

1. As we reported on Bluesky Tuesday afternoon, former police chief Shon Barnes got a soft landing after Mayor Wilson asked him to resign, a belabored process that ended in Barnes getting a going-away gift worth almost $750,000. In his new gig will be heading up “public safety programs and strategy” for Mission Ready Technologies (or Mission RT), a Scottsdale, AZ-based company that appears to sell surveillance technology, computer-aided dispatch systems, AI-based 911 response software, and other tech tools to state and local police agencies.

In a long LinkedIn statement that three different LLM detectors assured me was 100% AI, Barnes said he’ll “focus on helping state and local public-safety agencies connect their operational needs with technology, strategy, and organizational readiness” in his new position. The details of the former chief’s new job—like what he’ll actually be doing on a daily basis—are pretty vague, but it sounds like they could involve a lot of travel to cities whose police departments are implementing new technology. Neither Barnes nor Mission RT’s press release said whether Barnes will be renting in Arizona or working remotely from his home outside Chicago.

2. Julie Kang, a candidate for Seattle City Council Position 5, got prominent placement at the grand opening of Sound Transit’s new Pinehurst station on September 30, courtesy of a large photo featuring Kang, her husband, and their daughter placed prominently at the station, The photo was one of a series featuring community groups that had supported the station just east of I-5 at NE 130th Street, and it identified Kang’s family as representatives of the Haller Lake Community Club. Kang posted it on her Instagram page.

 

Sound Transit did the photo shoot on June 30; Kang entered the race late last year.

According to Sound Transit spokeswoman Rachelle Cunningham, Kang was “nominated, selected and photographed as a representative of the Haller Lake Community Club” and her photo was “randomly selected as one of the photographs to be featured at the station.”

At least one community member had a problem with the transit agency giving a candidate such prominent billing just weeks before the election, and complained to Sound Transit shortly after the station opened. The agency acted fast. By Friday night, two days after it went up, the photo of Kang and her family was gone.

Asked about the swift removal of the image, Cunningham said, “we heard concerns from community members about the photos and the perception of agency funds being used to support a campaign. Sound Transit does not endorse political candidates, and the photos were removed Friday.”

Sound Transit emailed Kang late Friday afternoon to let her know the photo was coming down . In response, Kang wrote, “When our family agreed to participate in the community photo shoot, we did so because representation matters to us. As an Asian American family, we wanted our community to be visible in the public spaces and transportation system that belong to all of us. At the time, I had no expectation that I would someday be a candidate for Seattle City Council.”

“I respect Sound Transit’s responsibility to remain neutral in elections. At the same time, I hope you will reconsider whether removing a longstanding community image simply because one of the people pictured later became a candidate is the appropriate way to maintain that neutrality.”

Kang told PubliCola she was referring to her general support for the light rail station, not the photo shoot in June.

3. Ansel Herz, the former Stranger reporter who’s spent the last decade or so doing comms for progressive candidates and causes, will take over Mayor Katie Wilson’s press office as press secretary and digital strategy director next Wednesday. Wilson has had a string of temporary press secretaries since Sage Wilson left in June, including, most recently, Alex Hudson, the former Transportation Choices Coalition director, who’ll return to her previous role as a transportation policy advisor.

Alex Gallo-Brown, a longtime who was glued to her side on the campaign, will no longer be Wilson’s director of community relations; instead, he’ll step into the newly created position of  “senior advisor on public engagement.” Matt McIntosh, another Wilson campaign staffer who’s currently a community relations manager, will be Wilson’s interim community relations director. The change means that Gallo-Brown will no longer be directly managing staff, but will have more direct control, along with Herz, over Wilson’s online communications.

As we reported, Wilson fired her digital communications manager Amy Piñon earlier this year, hiring a temporary contractor to do social media in her stead.

Wilson’s communications office has had extremely high turnover since she took office, the result of both firings (Wilson axed her original comms director, Seferiana Day, in June) and voluntary departures, like former press secretary Wilson’s. The turmoil reflects, among other issues, an ongoing tension between campaign loyalists who came into office wanting to blow up the old, institutional ways of doing things and government veterans with experience working in those institutions.

Wilson recently hired Tara Lee, a longtime comms professional who’s worked for former Gov. Jay Inslee as well as the Washington Budget and Policy Center, the nerdy left-wing think tank, as communications director.

City Council, Elections, LGBTQ+, Mayor Wilson

Council Learns What “One-Time Funding” Means; Podcaster’s Advocacy for Anti-Trans Campaign Didn’t Violate Election Law

1. City council members who funded an unsustainable budget last year by using one-time dollars to fund tens of millions in new spending are finding out this year what “one-time funding” means.

For years, the council has used a combination of one-time spending and magical thinking to approve new budget adds every year, without creating any kind of plan to pay for them in the future. Last year alone, the council added $78 million in one-time spending to a budget that was already deeply unsustainable. (If you search the budget they approved, you’ll see that the phrase “one-time funding” appears no fewer than 107 times!)

One-time does not mean “actually forever, but we’ll find money for it later (wink).” It means one-time—as city budget director Aly Pennucci repeatedly had to remind outraged councilmembers, who complained that programs they failed to fund for more than one or two years had somehow vanished in Wilson’s budget. These included subsidies for private inpatient rehab, a “district fund” for each councilmember, and a long list of small-business assistance programs. (The budget does include between $10 million and $15 million to make some of the council’s 2026 additions permanent.)

Well into the third day of departmental budget presentations, Rob Saka wanted to know why Wilson was not funding a homeownership program the council funded with one-time dollars last year. Pennucci gave the same explanation she’d been giving for days. Saka, using his oratorical shouting voice (if you watch council meetings, you know the one), responded: “So I hear you saying, it’s not technically a cut, because it was a one-time add!”

To his credit, unlike other councilmembers, Saka did not follow up this comment by continuing to refer to the reduction in one-time funds as a cut.

There was one instance when a council member objected not to the end of one-time funding, but to Wilson’s decision to find money for a priority the council and Harrell previously paid for with one-time funds. Dan Strauss zeroed in on $$4 million for food banks and hot meal programs the council funded on a one-time basis this year. These funds, Strauss said, should be closely scrutinized, because unlike public safety, “providing food is not a charter responsibility.”

Bob Kettle brought up a similar objection when he suggested that the Office of Housing could address some of its own significant budget shortfall by building less affordable housing and counting projects built by the Seattle Social Housing developer, which is separate from city government, toward Seattle’s total number of affordable housing units.

Thinking of affordable housing in the city as one big thing, Kettle said, could help the council “ameliorate” some of Wilson’s “wrong choices”—like setting theoretical caps on police hiring after 2028—by freeing up funding for other council priorities. Counting those units as Seattle affordable housing “could provide some flexibility in the budgeting process because, hey, you know, [the social housing developer has] also got their shoulder in and they’re working hard to contribute to the overall process,” Kettle said. 

Social housing (which the council’s centrists tried to stop) is funded by a dedicated payroll tax, and was designed to create a new kind of mixed-income public housing in which higher-income renters subsidize lower-income renters. It is quite different than the subsidized affordable housing OH funds and builds, and the two aren’t fungible. Getting rid of some low-income subsidized housing would actually eliminate housing for low-income people,

(As an side: Elected officials who support more funding for police often raise this claim about “charter responsibilities,” as in “public safety is our number one charter responsibility.” But actually, the charter lays many other basic responsibilities city government is supposed to address, and “health” actually comes before “safety,” followed by “environment” and “general welfare.”)

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There was also a lot of—what’s the technical term?—nonsense and grandstanding from the council, particular when the Seattle Department of Transportation presented its budget. Struass, in particular, took the opportunity to gripe about hyperlocal issues in his neighborhood, including the fact that King County Metro cut hours on his bus route, which he has consistently characterized as the only bus route from Ballard to downtown Seattle. (It is not). You can read about more of those on my Bluesky.

One other exchange I do want to highlight is Strauss’ suggestion that the city is wasting money by allowing the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to serve as the Continuum of Care for the region. “A bureaucratic system from the county” is “creating inefficiencies for us,” Strauss asserted, adding “I don’t think we have time for that.”

While there have obviously been massive financial problems at the KCRHA—which is why the city is reasserting control over the homelessness contracts it funds—the continuum of care is a federally mandated system that oversees applications for federal funding for programs across King County and its 39 cities. It has never been at the city of Seattle, and a recent forensic audit did not identify it as a source of financial issues.

2. As a few others reported last week (when I was out of town), the state Public Disclosure Commission dismissed a complaint against Let’s Go Washington, the group behind two initiatives targeting children’s rights at school, on September 23. The complaint was filed by Washingtonians for Ethical Government, a nonprofit established in 2015. I reported on the initial complaint back in May

The first initiative would ban trans girls from playing sports in school and require children to prove their sex assigned at birth, through a medically unnecessary physical exam if they don’t have a longtime pediatrician willing to attest that they possess a vagina. The second would give parents access to any notes teachers or counselors make about conversations with students, including conversations about sensitive topics they may feel uncomfortable or unsafe broaching at home, like gender, abortion and birth control, and sexuality.

The complaint alleged that right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse, who has served as a de facto spokesperson for the campaign, was doing official campaign work when she spoke on the campaign’s behalf. In short, WEG argued that Kruse’s speeches at campaign rallies and fundraisers constituted work on behalf of the campaign, and the campaign should have either compensated her for that work or reported it as an in-kind contribution. The PDC disagreed, agreeing with Kruse and the campaign that the podcaster is just a regular campaign volunteer expressing her personal opinions, and distinguishing her “keynote” speeches to Republican Party groups from her campaign speeches because she does “significant advance planning” for the former.

Kruse argued that the promotion does for the campaign on her own podcast isn’t political advertising either, because the campaign does not directly “control” what she says there. (In theory, she could say something that cast the campaign in a poor light, though she never has). The PDC didn’t address that defense.

Density, Elections, LGBTQ+, Mayor Wilson, Media, Police, Uncategorized

Poll Tests Anti-Density Messages, Mayor Wilson Does Damage Control, and Ron Davis Has Another Anti-Stranger Manifesto
Source: Fulcrum Strategy Group poll

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!

Elections, legislature, Mayor Wilson, Media

Greater Seattle: Junk Fees, Recalling Wilson, and Ron Davis’ Post-Election Fixation

By Josh Feit

8 > 75

Seventy-five dollars was the cost of an unfair “notice fee” that then-PubliCola freelancer Katie Wilson cited when, as a crusading writer in 2023, she wrote a piece for us condemning junk fees—the insidious add-ons that landlords pile onto renters to increase the actual amount they pay every month. These fees include things like “administrative” fees, charges to receive packages, and unspecified “service” charges. Wilson’s $75 “notice fee” example was “for preparing and giving the notice” that a tenant had to remove a potted plant from their balcony.

Eight is the number of votes now-Mayor Katie Wilson got last week, when the city council unanimously passed her legislation banning these junk fees. (The vote excluded Maritza Rivera, who had to recuse herself because she owns a rental property). A 2025 Urban Institute study found that these types of arbitrary and undisclosed fees can add between 10 and 30 percent to base rent.

As chair of the Housing, Arts, and Civil Rights Committee, A-student Councilmember Dionne Foster sponsored Wilson’s priority legislation, noting that the fees disproportionately hit Black residents, seniors, young renters, and working-class people.

Trump’s Case Against U.S. Olympian David Hearn for Vandalizing the Reflecting Pool (since abandoned by Trump’s own DOJ) > North Seattle Couple’s Case for Recalling Katie Wilson

Speaking of the misconception that Mayor Wilson is flailing: It seems unlikely that the recall request submitted against Wilson last week (by a north Seattle couple who are angry about the way Wilson handled the Seattle Center shooting and her overall approach to crime) will get far.

Like in cities nationwide, crime is down in Seattle this year.

The recall proponents must show and detail malfeasance or a violation of the oath of office. Those claims need to pass muster with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and then the King County Superior Court. If that happens, the aggrieved duo needs to get 69,000 valid signatures to send the recall effort to the ballot.

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0 > $6,250  

$6,250 is what third place North Seattle state house candidate Ron Davis spent on political consultants in the runup to the August primary. $0 is what the Stranger is paying to live rent-free in Davis’ head.

I do not come to praise the Stranger. I was the news editor there for nine years two decades ago, built a dogged news section (that included ECB!), established and forged the influence of  the SECB (Stranger Election Control Board), and have since watched from afar as the news section has lost its credibility and the paper has lost its way (long before Brady Walkinshaw took over.) And so yes, I agree that their outsized influence over elections is a drag.

But Ron Davis’ recent sour-grapes email to his supporters about the Stranger—in which he even seems to take issue with the fact that they make endorsements— says more about him than about the paper. For starters, his conspiracy theories about Walkinshaw’s centrist agenda make little sense when you consider the paper endorsed socialist Kshama Sawant along with a slew of progressives, such as Kelabe Tewolde, Nilu Jenks, Rebeca Saldaña, Nicole Macri, Teresa Mosqueda, Gabe Rothstein, and Rob Foxcurran. (They also have a legit, self-avowed Marxist on their staff and editorial board who wrote a pro-Sawant piece in advance of her primary challenge against Rep. Adam Smith.)

Ah. But they didn’t endorse Ron Davis. I don’t know why they didn’t; he’s a dedicated YIMBY and they probably should have supported him to emphasize why the NIMBY incumbent in the race, Gerry Pollet, is the wrong choice. But neither the revolution Davis believed he would bring to Olympia nor Stranger-endorsed second-place challenger Will Dreher’s bland agenda points to oligarchic marching orders from on high. And if the Stranger is the compromised avatar of centrism Davis thinks it is, why does he want their endorsement so badly (doth protest way too much)?

Davis is not the first person to base his whole campaign on getting the Stranger’s endorsement in the primary (it’s every local consultant’s “knowing” advice.) But sending out a 3,000-word concession email with a section—a section!—titled “Educate my community on how the recent purchase of The Stranger by still-anonymous wealthy investors had corrupted a once-reliable ally in the progressive movement” is not healthy behavior.

Josh@Publicola.com