Category: Mayor Wilson

Mayor Wilson, Uncategorized

Mayor Wilson’s Inner Circle Is the Opposite of a Boys’ Club

She’s also announcing new department heads at a rapid clip, replacing a dozen Harrell appointees in her first few weeks.

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson continues to fill out a cabinet made up almost entirely of women—a casual first for a city whose last mayor, Bruce Harrell,  was accused by his own niece (and former deputy mayor) of running the office as a toxic boys’ club.

A list circulating at the city this week, which included details about the subject areas each new staffer will be involved in overseeing, included the following names. These are in addition to several PubliCola previously reported, including City Operations Director Jen Chan, Chan’s deputy, Mark Ellerbrook, and Executive Operations Managers Alison Holcomb and Esther Handy.

Holcomb’s overseeing all the public safety departments, while Handy will oversee small departments like the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and the Office for Civil Rights as well as Finance and Administrative Services, a catchall department that includes everything from managing city buildings to issuing pet licenses.

OCR’s former policy director, Caedmon Cahill—who left in the last year of Harrell’s term—is Wilson’s new general counsel.

Except where noted, everyone on Wilson’s office staff has the title Executive Operations Manager—another departure from Harrell’s office, which eventually had all manner of special advisors, directors, and people with corporate-sounding titles like “Chief People Officer.”

Kristina Pham, Director of the Cabinet & Sub Cabinet. Pham comes from City Light, where she was an organizational change manager in charge of a small team; in addition to heading up the cabinet, she’ll oversee the city’s IT department.

Lindsay Garrity, who’s worked on homelessness under former mayors Durkan and Harrell,  will oversee homelessness, HSD, the King County Regional Homelessness Authoirity, and the Unified Care Team. The choice of Garrity is somewhat surprising, given her extensive ties to previous administrations and their approach to homelessness, which focused largely on encampment removals and dashboard-level demonstrations of positive progress. Garrity worked under Harrell’s deputy mayor overseeing homelessness, Tiffany Washington, for years, both in the mayor’s office and when Washington was in leadership positions at the Human Services Department.

Lynda Peterson, who’s currently the managing director of Cultivate Learning at the University of Washington, will oversee the Department of Education and Early Learning as well as the Department of Neighborhoods, Office of Economic Development, and Public Health.

Hannah McIntosh, a former Seattle Department of Transportation chief of staff who went on to work at King County Metro and the Port of Seattle, will oversee three of the biggest departments—SDOT, City Light, and Seattle Public Utilities.

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Rachel Schulkin, the longtime communications director for the Parks Department, will oversee parks, libraries, Seattle Center, and the waterfront.

Sunaree Marshall, who’s currently director of housing and community development for King County’s Department of Community and Human Services, will oversee housing, the planning and construction departments, and the Office of Sustainability and the Environment.

PubliCola has also learned that Adrienne Thompson, announced internally as the city’s new Labor Relations director, will not be taking the job. In an internal email, the city’s HR director, Kimberly Loving, wrote that Thompson’s appointment “will not move forward. In the near term, the Labor Relations team will report to me. This approach best supports continuity and stability while broader alignment work is underway.” We’ve reached out to Wilson’s office and will update if we hear back.

On Wednesday, Wilson announced she’s replacing five department heads and keeping several others.

The highest-profile of these—and the subject of the most speculation among the housing advocates and developers PubliCola’s been talking to—is the Office of Housing, where Harrell appointee Maiko Winkler-Chin will be replaced on an interim basis by current deputy director Andréa Akita.

A.P. Diaz, Harrell’s parks superintendent, is also out; he’ll be replaced by deputy director Michele Finnegan, also on an interim basis.

Beto Yarce, the former CEO of a nonprofit that helps women and people of color access small business capital (and a onetime City Council candidate) will head up the Office of Economic Development, replacing Harrell appointee Markham McIntyre.

Just over a week ago, the state Department of Commerce announced that Yarce would be their new assistant director of community engagement and outreach. The announcement is no longer on the department’s website but is currently still up on their Facebook page.

Lylianna Allala, the current interim deputy director of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, will take over as director; the interim director, Michelle Caulfield, will go back to being deputy. According to Wilson’s announcement, Allala headed up the city’s implementation of the Green New Deal and was a climate policy staffer for Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal.

Quyhn Pham, the head of Friends of Little Saigon—a community group that created the Phố Đẹp (Beautiful Neighborhood) plan for the neighborhood, which emphasizes community building and safety over police enforcement—will head up the Department of Neighborhoods, replacing Harrell appointee Jenifer Chao.

Amy Nguyen, the former public art director and interim deputy director for the Office of Arts and Culture, will replace Harrell appointee Gülgün Kayim.

The department heads Wilson’s office announced she’s retaining include Rico Quirondongo from the Office of Planning and Community Development, Office of Intergovernmental Relations director Mina Hashemi, and Office of the Ombud director Amarah Khan. That’s in addition to Police Chief Shon Barnes and Human Services Department director Tanya Kim.

Wilson is replacing Harrell’s appointees at a rapid clip. At this point in his term, Wilson’s predecessor Harrell had replaced just five of Durkan’s department directors; Wilson has replaced almost a dozen.

Advocates for one department head Wilson recently fired, City Light’s Dawn Lindell, showed up at this week’s City Council meeting to criticize Wilson’s decision to replace the utility executive with environmental attorney and former EPA administrator Dennis McLerran. “Dawn is the first CEO in more than a decade to have a clear positive impact on utility,” City Light engineer Aimee Kimball said. “She has dedicated significant time and effort to addressing long standing issues of sexism, racism and alcoholism that were ignored by the prior leadership at Seattle City Light and the city for decades.”
Another speaker, electrician Peter Miller, said he and others he works with were “shocked” by the decision. “We’re just mad and can’t believe what happened, and we don’t know why,” he said. Later, Councilmember Bob Kettle agreed Lindell had begun addressing “very grave challenges” at City Light, and suggested that her firing may represent a failure of “good governance.” Kettle closed his statement by reading an additional written comment from Miller. “Someone in the mayor’s office has absolutely lost their mind,” Kettle read. “Firing Dawn Lindell is a catastrophic mistake.”

legislature, Mayor Wilson, podcasts, Police

This Week on PubliCola: January 18, 2025

SPD Is Still a Boys’ Club, the Wilson Era Begins, and More.

Monday, January 12

Seattle Homelessness Programs Get Temporary Reprieve as Anti-Trump Lawsuit Moves Forward

Seattle’s permanent supportive housing programs got a temporary reprieve from federal funding cuts, when the US Department of Housing and Urban Development walked back its new rules limiting the kind of housing programs that are eligible for federal assistance. But uncertainty remains about this year’s funding; and in 2027, all bets are off.

Seattle Nice: City Attorney and LEAD Founder Set the Record Straight on Drug Diversion

On the first of two Seattle Nice episodes this week, we talked to City Attorney Erika Evans and LEAD diversion program founder Lisa Daugaard about Evans’ plans to divert misdemeanor drug defendants into services instead of jail. Last week, the head of the police union falsely claimed that Mayor Katie Wilson had declared amnesty for all drug defendants.

Tuesday, January 13

Legislation Would Give Prisoners Serving Long Sentences a Path to Release

Washington state has no parole, meaning that people must serve out their entire sentences before they can be released. State Rep. Tarra Simmons has proposed a bill that would allow some incarcerated people to ask a judge to reconsider their sentences, something only prosecutors currently have the authority to do.

Wednesday, January 14

In 2025, 90 Percent of New SPD Hires Were Men

The Seattle Police Department hired only 17 women in 2025—just 10 percent of 165 new hires last year. That’s a significant dip from SPD’s already dismal numbers in 2024, when just 14 percent of the 84 people SPD hired were women. It’s also less than half the average for police departments across the US.

Thursday, January 15

Bills Would Crack Down on City Efforts to Banish Homeless People, Shelter, and Housing

Pro-housing state legislators want to stop cities from taking advantage of loopholes that have allowed them to prohibit market-rate and emergency housing, and to revent cities like Seattle from banning ground-floor apartments, among other proposals to crack down on local NIMBY policies.

New Police Directive: “Be Respectful,” “Don’t Interfere” When Responding to Calls About ICE Raids

A new Seattle Police Department directive tells officers to exercise caution and beat a quick retreat if there’s any possibility they may be in danger from ICE in Seattle, adding that cops should in no circumstances “interfere in federal immigration enforcement actions.” It’s a far cry from Police Chief Shon Barnes’ headline-grabbing statement, back in July, that he would probably be arrested for resisting federal intervention in the city.

Wilson Issues Orders to Speed Up Transit and Shelter, Will Replace More Harrell Appointees

Mayor Katie Wilson issued two executive order on Thursday. The first is aimed at speeding up the production of shelter in the run-up to this year’s World Cup games and beyond. The second will help speed up the city’s slowest bus, the 8, by finally painting a long-planned bus lane on Denny Way.

Also this week, Wilson replaced the directors of City Light, Labor Relations, and other city departments.

Friday, January 16

Scott Lindsay, Deputy for Ousted City Attorney Ann Davison, Doesn’t Mince Words

Voters soundly rejected Republican city attorney Ann Davison last year, but her deputy, Scott Lindsay, says her policies cracking down on drug users and shoplifters were popular, sound policies that helped neighborhoods that are being “destroyed” by people with addiction and “prolific offenders” who commit a large percentage of the city’s misdemeanor crime.

 

homelessness, Mayor Wilson, Transportation

Wilson Issues Orders to Speed Up Transit and Shelter, Will Replace More Harrell Appointees

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson issued two executive order on Thursday. The first is aimed at speeding up the production of shelter in the run-up to this year’s World Cup games and beyond. The second will help speed up the city’s slowest bus, the 8, by finally painting a long-planned bus lane on Denny Way.

Wilson announced the orders at a meeting of her transition team at El Centro de la Raza on Beacon Hill.

More news is expected out of Wilson’s team in the next week, including the dismissals of several high-profile department heads appointed by her predecessor, Bruce Harrell.

City Light CEO Dawn Lindell, appointed in 2024, is out, internal sources tell PubliCola (no word on her replacement yet). So, we’ve heard, is interim Office of Labor Relations interim director Chase Munroe—a Harrell appointee who worked, on city time, on behalf of the Royal Esquire Club, a private men’s club with longstanding ties to Harrell. Adrienne Thompson, a onetime labor policy advisor to ex-mayor Jenny Durkan who applied for the labor relations in 2022, will reportedly be Munroe’s replacement as interim director.

Other departments that could see changes in the next week include the Office of Housing (currently headed by Maiko Winkler-Chin) and the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (headed by Hamdi Mohamed, who’s also a Seattle Port Commissioner.)

Wilson’s first executive order, on homelessness, sets a deadline of March for a multi-department work group to “identify all possible financial incentives, permitting changes, and policy changes” that could help the city build new shelters and housing quickly. The group will also “identify City-owned property that could be used temporarily or permanently to support shelter and housing opportunities.”

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The order also directs the city’s Office of Intergovernmental Relations to work with other governments to identify additional public land that could be used for shelter and housing, and directs the Human Services Department to identify existing shelter programs that have room for expansion.

Wilson has pledged to add 4,000 new shelter beds and housing units by the end of her term, with a short-term goal of adding 500 before the World Cup games here in June.

Wilson will have to find funding for the new shelter projects in the existing city budget. Last year, the city council set aside a little over $11 million to help address potential funding cuts from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, which had changed its guidelines for funding housing projects to emphasize short-term housing over the type of permanent housing projects that rely on HUD funding locally.

After a judge ruled that HUD couldn’t change its standards in the middle of a funding cycle, the department allowed the application process to move forward under the old criteria. HUD could still pull the rug out from under providers by refusing to fund projects next year, but if it doesn’t, that $11 million could be used to fund Wilson’s shelter push.

There’s also the 116-member Unified Care Team, which removes encampments and costs the city upward of $30 million a year. Although the council adopted a Rob Saka-sponsored amendment prohibiting Wilson from spending the UCT’s budget on other purposes, some creative reallocation could put the giant team to better use.

Wilson said she’s evaluating how the UCT prioritizes encampments for removal and may change them. As an interim step, Wilson halted a planned removal of an encampment in Ballard after meeting with encampment residents earlier this week; on Thursday, she said she wanted to gain an “understanding, from the perspective of folks who are living outside, what can we do to make the process of an encampment removal more comprehensible and just maximize the the opportunities for people to get into a better situation.”

Wilson’s second executive order directs the Seattle Department of Transportation to immediately paint a long-delayed bus lane on Denny Way, a change that will help the most infamously delayed bus in the city, Metro’s Route 8, be a little less late. Last year, under Harrell, SDOT rejected the bus lane, arguing that giving buses priority would make drivers late. Wilson said the bus lane would run, at a minimum, from Fifth Ave. to Fairview, the most congested section of the route.

“I know the feeling of waiting at the stop for the bus to come and it’s 30 minutes late or 40 minutes late,” Wilson said. “I know the feeling of sitting on the bus knowing that you could be walking up that hill faster than that bus is going.”

City Council, Crime, legislature, Mayor Wilson, Police

This Week on PubliCola: January 10, 2026

Discussion about this post

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Elections, Mayor Wilson, Police

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Courts, Drugs, Mayor Wilson, Police

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

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

By Erica C. Barnett

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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