Category: Media

Mayor Wilson, Media, Police

Messages Show SPD Primarily Responsible for Information Gap After Bite of Seattle Shooting

 

The messages also reveal that Mayor Wilson was indecisive about going to the scene of the shooting while advisors gave conflicting recommendations and TV reporters speculated about why she wasn’t there.

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson’s office released hundreds of pages of internal Teams messages and texts between her staffers, herself, and Seattle Police Department officials from the night of the July 26 mass shooting at the Bite of Seattle and in the days following the shooting. (Full documents available here.)

The messages, which do not include communications between SPD officials except where the mayor’s office was included, show two things. First, that the mayor’s office dithered and debated whether Wilson herself should go to the scene of the shooting for three hours before she finally went to Seattle Center, partly in response to TV reporters criticizing her for not being there.

And second, that the primary reason for the delay in information, as well as almost all of the delay in holding a press conference that night, was that SPD delayed the release of information repeatedly, withholding any new information information from the public and press until the press conference finally took place around 11pm.

SPD, the messages show, knew critical details about the shooting, including the fact that it was not a random mass shooting or terrorist event within an hour of the shooting—that is, before 7:30pm—but did not put any of that information out broadly until after 1:00 in the morning on July 27.

The messages include texts from mayoral communications staffer Jonah Spangenthal-Lee to SPD Chief Operating Officer Sarah Smith asking her why SPD had not provided any information since a tweet warning the public of a shooting with “multiple shooting victims” at Seattle Center at 6:29pm. “Sarah, where is SPD”s statement?” Spangenthal-Lee wrote at 8:36. “It’s been two hours since you guys have posted anything? Even some tweets at this point…”

A few minutes later, Spangenthal-Lee told other mayoral staffers in an internal Teams chat, “It’s fucking embarrassing that SPD has waited HOURS to put anything out. … I’m just saying this is a massive fucking disaster and hit to public trust.”

Responding to the text, Smith wrote,”The team is actively handling the situation on the ground and with the media on scene. Still very chaotic right now. We will have more information out soon. A few minutes later, Wilson’s interim communications director, Dawn Schellenberg, wrote that another SPD staffer was “working on getting something on Twitter”—the only social media site SPD uses. Moments later, Smith corrected her, saying SPD would have no further updates until “after 9.”

Wilson’s own statement on the shooting went out at 8:46. It did not include information SPD was still withholding, including the critical information that the shooting appeared to be between groups of people who knew each other and that there was no need for he general public to be afraid.

At 9:26, Smith sent an update: Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis, who was filling in because Barnes and both his deputy chiefs were out of town, would be doing media interviews at 10pm; SPD would put up a Blotter post “right afterwards.” Ultimately, the press conference was delayed until almost 11pm, with both Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and Governor Bob Ferguson, who had driven into town from Olympia, in attendance.

None of the messages include an order from the mayor’s office to withhold information from the public so that “dignitaries” could arrive at Seattle Center, as one of SPD’s communications staff told TV reporters who have repeatedly suggested that this was the reason SPD did not release information to the public all night.

While SPD was withholding information and failing to communicate with the press, a chaotic debate was going on within the mayor’s office about whether she should go to the scene of the shooting. The discussion began shortly before 6:30, when Wilson said she was available “as needed” and her interim communications director, Dawn Schellenberg, said Spangenthal-Lee had said she should go to Seattle Center. The mayor’s public safety advisor, Alison Holcomb, advised against this “until we know more.”

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At 7:26, Wilson texted, “It would be good to get clarity soon whether we’re planning a public conference tonight v. tomorrow morning, so we can communicate that to other elected officials. (Just talked with Ferguson and Jayapal. Ferguson is in Olympia but can head this way shortly.)”

Holcomb replied, saying to wait until after a conference call for elected officials that was being organized by SPD. That conference call didn’t take place until around 9pm, possibly because Barnes wanted to get briefed on the situation from Dallas before participating in a call with elected officials. (A release of similar internal Teams chats and text messages from SPD would shed light on what Barnes and other SPD officials were doing between approximately 7:30 and 9:45.)

By around 9:40, it was still unclear whether the mayor would go to Seattle Center. At almost 9:30pm, Spangenthal-Lee wrote, “I reaaaaaaally think the mayor should go down there,” but Holcomb disagreed, writing, “Harborview, where victim’s families are, makes more sense, and I’m not sure that makes sense.”

“Media aren’t looking for an in-depth conversation about gang violence, they’re. looking for sound bites,” Holcomb continued. “Good time for the Mayor to be letting first responders do their jobs and not be armchair quarterbacking.”

Around the. same time, Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt, who had been on the scene for two hours, told Wilson, “I just talked to [Assistant Police Chief] Davis. His recommendation is no.” In other words, shortly before 9:40, SPD was still saying the mayor should not come to Seattle Center.

But after KOMO reporter Chris Daniels called the mayor, and another KOMO reporter said on air that they would expect the mayor to be there if she was in town, Wilson wrote, “We should consider whether I should come down to talk to KOMO, if that expectation has been created. I’m sure they would love to spin an ‘absent mayor’ story.” (Daniels has been among the mayor’s harshest critics, and a chief ringleader of the narrative that the mayor was solely to blame for the lack of information about the shooting.) “I’m inclined to have you come down,” Surratt responded. 

Wilson was on the scene less than a half hour after that text, shortly after 10pm. The press conference happened shortly before 11.There was a brief delay for Ferguson and Jayapal to arrive from other parts of Seattle, but it was, at most, around 30 minutes—at the end of a long night in which SPD had still put out no information beyond its initial, alarming post on X saying that multiple people had been shot.

SPD’s first post on the evening’s events went up early the following morning, at 1:08 am.

Wilson and interim Police Chief Andre Sayles announced some changes to how police and the mayor’s office will communicate with each other and with the public earlier this week. The city’s Office of the Inspector General is supposed to release a report about the communications breakdown sometime this fall.

Editor’s note: This story originally reported that Chris Daniels was on the scene at Seattle Center; he was not. We regret the error.

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

labor, Media, podcasts, Police

Former Chief Barnes’ Top Staffers Leave SPD, KOMO Reporters Leave Union, and More

1. Two top staffers hired by former police chief Shon Barnes are leaving SPD. Chief communications officer Barbara DeLollis, who’s been on leave caring for a family member on the East Coast, will not return to Seattle, and Lee Hunt, Barnes’ Executive Director of Crime and Community Harm Reduction, Lee Hunt, is retiring, according to SPD. Both will be gone by early September.

Shortly after his confirmation last year, Barnes brought on a number of new executive-level staffers, including a second deputy chief, now-interim Police Chief Andre Sayles; a chief of staff, Alex Ricketts, DeLollis; Hunt; and an additional assistant chief, Nicole Powell. New positions had to be created for Sayles, Hunt, and Powell, and DeLollis’ title was new.

The chief of staff position, which had not existed since 2001, was revived by former chief Adrian Diaz for Jamie Tompkins, who was fired, along with Diaz, after an investigation found they lied to cover up an improper relationship. Ricketts, who also worked alongside Barnes in Madison and North Carolina, remains at SPD for now.

SPD Chief Operating Officer Sarah Smith (another Barnes hire) said Hunt “has given notice to the department of his upcoming retirement in September. … We are deeply appreciative of his insight and work on stratified policing within SPD.” Stratified policing consisted of focusing on crime “hot spots” and focusing higher-ranked officers on “high-priority” crimes and geographic areas. Of DeLollis, Smith said, “We will miss her passion for transparent communication and really hope her family is well.”

DeLollis made $230,000 a year. Hunt, who—like Ricketts—previously worked with Barnes in North Carolina and Madison, made $320,000 a year. Not counting Ricketts and DeLollis, and setting aside the $50,000 bonuses Barnes, Sayles, and Powell all received under an incentive program created to recruit rank-and-file officers, the newly created positions cost the city almost a million dollars a year. The city is facing a minimum $175 million budget deficit, and Barnes reportedly resisted reducing the size of his unusually large executive staff to help close that gap.

In addition, Barnes received a total settlement worth at least $741,000 (including that $50,000 bonus, which the city let him keep) in exchange for not suing the city.

DeLollis, a former corporate communicator and luxury travel writer, has scrubbed her LinkedIn page of any references to SPD, where she worked for more than a year. Her page now says she has been communications director for Harvard’s Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society since 2022.

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2. KOMO News reporters and anchors voted narrowly—9 to 7—to leave their union, the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) on Wednesday, with another half-dozen members apparently declining to vote. Unless SAG-AFTRA challenges the proceedings—unlikely, given that they reportedly raised no objections during or leading up to the vote—KOMO’s on-air talent will no longer be represented by a union.

As I reported last week, there are a number of reasons some at KOMO wanted out of the union, including the fact that they negotiate their contracts individually, rather than through SAG-AFTRA, whose contract guarantees a minimum salary that is much lower than the anchors and reporters make. The group already gets its health care through Sinclair, which owns KOMO, rather than the union.

3. I was a guest on Brian Callanan’s News, Views, and Brews podcast this week, where we had a great conversation about Barnes’ resignation (including my reporting on the ex-chief’s frequent absences from Seattle, which a recent guest incorrectly claimed was false or fabricated) the recent primary elections, and the passage of Mayor Katie Wilson’s legislation banning rental “junk fees.” Check it out.

City Council, labor, Mayor Wilson, Media, Police

This Week on PubliCola: More Details on Barnes’ Absences and Departure, KOMO May De-Unionize, and More

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, August 3

New Column! Introducing Greater Seattle

PubliCola co-founder Josh Feit has a new column based on a simple premise: X > (is greater than” Y, as in “The Case for Firing SPD Chief Shon Barnes > The Case for Keeping Shon Barnes,” the first of three Greater Than items this week.

Tuesday, August 4

Issues With Former Police Chief Barnes Weren’t Just About His Travel or Where He Lived

A lot has been made (appropriately so) of former police chief Shon Barnes’ outsize response when reporter Connor Nash asked him about my reporting on his frequent absences from Seattle. But Barnes’ tenure in Seattle was already tenuous, thanks to a litany of other issues ranging from SPD’s treatment of the LGBTQ+ community under his leadership to his seeming lack of interest in partnering with the city’s team of trained mental health first responder.

Wednesday, August 5

Kettle Blames Mayor for “Unconscionable” Delay in Surveillance Expansion

When City Council President Joy Hollingsworth introduced a proposal to spend $250,000 in funding for surveillance cameras that can’t be used this year to hire violence interruptors from We Deliver Care, Councilmember Bob Kettle had a bit of a meltdown, saying he would vote against the entire midyear budget if they didn’t set the money aside for cameras (which the budget director had just explained could not be spent on cameras this year).

SPD Puts Former Chief’s Calendar in “Lockdown”

We would finally get a (mostly) complete copy of former chief Barnes’ camera later in the week, but as of Wednesday, SPD told us to file a records request and wait. Last week, they said they’d be able to provide Barnes’ schedule no problem, but after he left, they said it was “locked down” in some way and no longer accessible. 🤔

Thursday, August 6

Former Police Chief’s Payout Will Be Higher Than Previously Known

PubliCola reported exclusively that former chief Barnes’ would get an even larger payout than the $700,000 package that was previously known. Read on down the list for more details on the extra bonus he received when he signed a no-sue agreement.

KCRHA Still at Full Staffing as Contract Transition Begins

The city and county announced this week that they’ll be hiring 23 and 11 new staffers, respectively, to manage the transition of homeless service contracts as the King County Regional Homelessness Authority shrinks down to just a few “core” functions. Although the “rightsizing” was announced more than a month ago, the KCRHA has not made any layoffs, and still has 73 employees.

Friday, August 7

A More Complete Calendar Shows Former Police Chief Was Out of Office Almost 40 Percent of the Time This Year

Remember how a bunch of local commentators went on KIRO, KUOW, and other local shows to call my reporting dishonest, unfair, and false last week (and how one of them said I should be “ashamed”?) Hopefully they saw this post, which confirms that Barnes was, or planned to be out of town or otherwise off duty, including at his family home in Chicago, at least 12 weeks this year—including three weeks from late July to mid-August.

Barnes Got An Additional $41,000 Payout

On Friday, PubliCola exclusively obtained the details about Barnes’ vacation payout: Despite being out of town 40 percent of the time, he still somehow had 29 days’ paid time off accrued, according to the city. The additional money—a little less than a minimum wage worker makes in Seattle, btw—brings Barnes’ total payout to more than $741,000.

KOMO Reporters Will Vote on De-Unionizing

Reporters and anchors at KOMO filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to end their representation by SAG-AFTRA; the vote’s next week. One likely factor behind the push is that the staffers all negotiate their own contracts individually, and SAG-AFTRA’s guarantee is reportedly far below what any of the on-air talent makes.

Also this week: I made the rounds of local podcasts, talking about Barnes’ resignation, Tuesday’s election results, and other news from this week with City Cast Seattle, KUOW’s Seattle Now, and as always, our weekly podcast, Seattle Nice.

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labor, Mayor Wilson, Media, Police

Barnes Got An Additional $41,000 Payout; KOMO Reporters Will Vote on De-Unionizing; PubliCola Makes the Podcast Rounds

KOMO News Logo Vector (.SVG + .PNG)

1. On August 12, the reporters, anchors, and other on-air staff at KOMO TV, a station owned by the conservative media company Sinclair, are scheduled vote on a proposal to leave their union, the Screenwriters Guild/ American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The action, known as a decertification petition, was filed with the National Labor Relations Board last month, with reporter Jeremy Harris submitting the paperwork.

The group of KOMO staffers who want to leave the union is represented by the National Right to Work Foundation, a national anti-union organization.

It would be easy enough to characterize Sinclair staffers as anti-union activists politically aligned with their bosses and a controversial national anti-labor group. KOMO’s anchors and high-profile “talent,” including vocal Katie Wilson critic Chris Daniels and “Seattle Is Dying” creator Eric Johnson, who’s now retired, skew conservative.

But the issues at play in KOMO’s union debate seem a bit more complicated. On-air reporters and editors typically negotiate their own individual contracts with management, rather than working through the union, and the minimum union guarantee for reporters is reportedly in the mid-five figures—far below what most on-air reporters and anchors actually make. The group already gets its health care through Sinclair, rather than the union. Union dues cost money. All of that has prompted a robust internal debate at KOMO about whether union representation is worth it.

Holding a decertification vote requires a petition signed by at least 30 percent of represented staff; the KOMO petition reportedly received more than 60 percent support.

Patrick Semmens, a spokesman for the NRWF, said the KOMO staffers reached out to the group for legal representation. Semmens didn’t offer specific details about why KOMO’s reporters and anchors wanted to de-unionize, but said typical reasons include the union’s responsiveness—”sometimes they aren’t around except when it comes time to pay dues”—the cost of dues, and political objections to unionization.
No one from the anchors’ and reporters’ group was authorized to speak with PubliCola on the record. SAG-AFTRA’s local representative did not respond to a call and email Thursday.

2. Former police chief Shon Barnes will receive 29 days of additional full pay, on top of his previously reported $700,000 payout, PubliCola has learned—a total additional payout of $41,653. Mayor Katie Wilson’s office confirmed this additional payout on Friday.

The total Barnes will receive in exchange for signing a settlement, which includes a stipulation that he won’t sue the city, now tops twice his annual salary. Barnes was police chief for just over 17 months.

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It’s unclear how much official time Barnes took off during 2026; we’ve asked SPD and the mayor’s office how much paid time Barnes got off each year and whether it rolled over from year to year. As we’ve reported, Barnes had planned to be out of town for 12 weeks through August 10 of this year; that includes time spent at his family home in Chicago as well as vacation time and conferences.

3. I talked about Mayor Katie Wilson’s decision to part ways with former police chief Shon Barnes, Tuesday’s election in legislative and local races, and more news from this week on three different shows this week, two of them with my Seattle Nice co-host Sandeep Kaushik. In roughly descending order of spiciness, they are:

  • Seattle Nice (in which Sandeep, David, and I debate how Wilson handled the Barnes decision and whether anyone pays attention to which legislative candidates the mayor endorses—also embedded below);
  • KUOW’s Seattle Now (Sandeep and me again, talking with Patricia Murphy about the same topics, with a dash of public radio politesse and zero cusses!
  • City Cast Seattle (with host Jane Hu and the Seattle Times’ tech reporter Alex Halverson, also about elections and the police chief, plus what’s really going on with the big local companies’ AI spending).