Category: Morning Fizz

City Council, Courts, Drugs, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz

City Attorney Wants to Bring Back Drug Banishment Zones, Harrell’s Chief Labor Negotiator Is Out
Seattle’s SODA areas, circa 2005

1. City Attorney Ann Davison’s office reportedly plans to bring back so-called Stay Out of Drug Area (SODA) orders, a change that may require legislation, PubliCola has learned. SODA orders, which the city stopped issuing under former city attorney Pete Holmes, banish people who have committed drug offenses from engering areas with “continuous drug activity,” as a state law authorizing such exclusions puts it, for any reason; people who violate the law by going into these parts of the city can be prosecuted for a separate crime.

In the past, these orders were commonly used by Seattle police and the City Attorney’s Office to target people who violated the city’s (since overturned) drug loitering law or who were caught using or selling drugs in public, including cannabis. SPD’s policy manual still includes descriptions of 17 SODA areas from which people convicted of drug offenses can be banned.

Studies of SODA areas in Seattle have found that they can exacerbate biased policing when police target people of color, as well as people who appear to be homeless, for exclusions from large swaths of the city, including the areas where most social services are located.

“[C]ompliance with banishment orders is frequently complicated by the fact that the spaces from which people are banned usually offer crucial opportunities for social contact and relationships,” two researchers, Katherine Beckett and Steve Herbert, concluded in 2010.  A 2021 community task force report found that SODA areas can also “isolate people from their friends, families, and communities within areas like downtown Seattle, the Central District, and much of Southeast Seattle, which are considered drug areas.”

The most likely initial SODA areas would be in downtown Seattle, where the sidewalk at Third and Pike is often so crowded with drug users and buyers that it’s unnavigable, and at 12th and Jackson, where razor wire and fencing around a single block has simply moved a market for drugs and stolen goods into the immediately surrounding area.

Councilmember Cathy Moore previously said she plans to revive a repealed law banning “prostitution loitering” on Aurora Ave. N; she did not respond to a request for comment on potential SODA legislation. The city has also issued “Stay Out of Prostitution Area” orders to sex workers in the past, and also had a “drug loitering” ordinance that has since been overturned.

The city attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

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2. Mayor Bruce Harrell’s labor relations director, Shaun van Eyk, is out after two and a half years on the job. Van Eyk, who previously spent almost six years as the labor representative for the city’s largest labor union, PROTEC17, announced the news on LinkedIn, saying he had “recently stepped down” from the position.

A spokesperson for Harrell confirmed that van Eyk had “stepped down as Director of Labor Relations,” and said the mayor’s deputy general counsel, Chase Munroe, is the interim director. Munroe was a legislative aide to Harrell for almost six years, until Harrell left the city council in 2019; he got his law degree and founded a sports law agency before rejoining Team Harrell in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The city’s labor relations director represents the city in negotiations with city unions, like PROTEC17; earlier this year, the city approved a contract providing cost of living increases totaling 9.7 percent—a significant boost from Harrell’s initial offer of 1 percent. As labor relations director, van Eyk was also a party to the city’s contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild, which gave police retroactive pay increases of 24 percent, making SPD the highest-paid department in the region.

Van Eyk did not respond to requests for comment.

City Council, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz, Police

Rahr Pledges No Personnel Changes at SPD, Reinstates Assistant Chief Put on Leave By Diaz; Saka Proposes Expanding Transportation Levy
Interim Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr, speaking at a press conference at City Hall this week

Is it even a Friday without a bunch of late-breaking local news? We think not!

1.  John O’Neil, a Seattle police captain who has been accused of sexual harassment and retaliation by his female subordinates, will continue to direct SPD’s public affairs office, that office confirmed on Friday—contradicting claims from inside the department that O’Neil was seen clearing out his desk on Wednesday, when Mayor Bruce Harrell announced former police chief Adrian Diaz will be reassigned to “special projects.” 

O’Neil, like Diaz, is facing multiple lawsuits and internal complaints from women alleging sexual harassment and retaliation. Three of the women who have filed lawsuits left the public affairs office, including two—Valerie Carson and Judinna Gulpan—who took demotions in order to be reassigned. The decision to retain him in light of allegations similar to the ones against Diaz reads as a vote of confidence in O’Neil and his leadership.

In an internal email on Thursday, Rahr wrote that her number one goal was to “bring stability and continuity” to the department. “I have no plans to make personnel moves, especially at the command level.”

At Wednesday’s press conference, Rahr declined to condemn SPD’s current culture, saying she’s concerned about the culture in all police departments across the country. “I don’t think [SPD is] worse or better than others; I think we have work to do in every department,” Rahr said. “One of the reasons I was very anxious to jump in is, I think the Seattle Police Department is open to doing something meaningful, and implementing systemic change.”

2. Despite her pledge, Rahr did make one top-level personnel decision this week—she reinstated Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis to full duties, just eight days after Diaz put him on administrative leave while the Office of Police Accountability completes an investigation into allegations against him. PubliCola first reported the news on Twitter at 1:30 this afternoon.

Rahr did not say why she decided to restore Davis to his position.

In a brief email to SPD staff, Rahr wrote, “I want to let you know that based on newly available information and a review of the OPA investigation”—which has not been completed—”I have restored A/C Davis to full duty, effective immediately. I am looking forward to having the full team, working together.”

3. Finally—and file this under “more next week”—the city council’s transportation committee chair, Rob Saka, will propose an amended, $1.55 billion Seattle Transportation Levy next week that would increase funding for sidewalks, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, Safe Routes to School projects, transit security officers, and bridges, among other spending areas. The plan would add $100 million to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposal, which Harrell himself boosted by $100 million earlier this month.

Saka’s plan would provide an additional $63 million for new sidewalks; $6 million for transit security, including additional security guards; and $10 million for additional EV charging stations, among other changes.

To make up for some of the new expenditures, Saka’s proposal would cut funding for a new “Neighborhood-Initiated Safety Partnership Program”—a plan to build 16 street-safety projects initiated by neighborhoods based on local conditions and safety concerns—from $41 million to $25.5 million. Harrell’s original plan, released in April, included $48 million for neighborhood-initiated projects.

Saka’s proposal would also set minimum spending requirements for new sidewalk construction, bridge maintenance, arterial street maintenance, and electric vehicle charging facilities, and adds new references to auditing, good governance, and accountability. The council’s special committee on the transportation levy, which Saka chairs, will meet on Tuesday, June 4, at 9:30 am.

Correction: This article originally misstated the details of Saka’s plan, using the numbers from Mayor Harrell’s May proposal instead of those from Saka’s amendment.

City Council, homelessness, King County, labor, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz

Harrell Discusses Gig Worker Minimum Wage Repeal, Burien Restrictions Could Prohibit Tiny House Village

1. Organized labor groups like the MLK Labor Council and Working Washington have vociferously opposed a proposal from Council President Sara Nelson to slash delivery drivers’ wages and roll back their legal rights, showing in council chambers and writing letters urging the council to vote against Nelson’s bill (which, notably, does not eliminate the $5 fees the companies added to orders when higher wages went into effect last year.)

In recent weeks, those same groups have been throwing their weight behind Mayor Bruce Harrell, reminding him none too subtly of his past commitments to labor priorities. In the last two weeks alone, the Labor Council nominated Harrell for a “Best Elected Official” award, and Working Washington all but fêted him during a City Hall celebration for the 10-year anniversary of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage.

Nelson’s bill seems likely to pass, but it could be amended; or, if the vote is 5-4, the mayor could veto it. On Friday, Harrell told PubliCola it’s still “too early to say whether I would [veto] or not,” but he still has a lot of unanswered questions about the legislation, including “why people are not using the service, why small businesses have not been getting orders, [and] what is the cause” of the slowdown in deliveries since higher wages for workers went into effect and the delivery companies imposed a $5-per-order fee.

“Are they sharing and being transparent with the information for us, as policymakers, to make good decisions? We have to have that information. And if we’re not accomplishing that, we will never achieve the [other] goals, which are driver equity and pay and small business revenue growth.”

The debate over the legislation, Harrell continued, “seems to be really fraught with conflict, and it doesn’t seem to be coming together [to a point] where all of the stakeholders can agree on their goal.”

The council’s governance, accountability, and economic development committee, which Nelson chairs, has its next meeting on Thursday, May 9, where they’re expected to discuss the proposal.

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2. The Burien City Council will vote Monday on a proposed zoning change to allow transitional housing, including tiny house villages, on certatin residentially zoned property in the city. The legislation came out of a lengthy debate last year over whether the city should accept $1 million King County offered the city to build a tiny house village; and, if so, where the village should go. The city council eventually settled on a piece of property owned by Seattle City Light.

However, the proposal as written may not be viable. Because of an amendment inserted in the zoning proposal by Councilmember Stephanie Mora, a consistent opponent of the project, transitional housing can only be located on properties that are between 1 and 2 acres in size—and the City Light property is 4.6 acres, according to King County property records.

A spokesperson for the King County Regional Homelessness Authority said KCRHA staff have asked for clarification about Burien’s plans, including whether the city plans to subdivide the site so that the parcel where the village is located does not exceed two acres.

A spokesperson for the city of Burien said the proposal, which is currently on the council’s consent agenda, still isn’t final. “Until the City Council votes on Monday, there is still potential for the proposed ordinance to be amended.”

The legislation limits the total number of people—not buildings—at any transitional housing project to 30, which would result in a smaller tiny house village than most of those operating in Seattle.

The City Light property won’t be available forever. According to a City Light spokesperson, “The site is being held for a proposed future substation to meet projected demands through our comprehensive electrification planning efforts. Incidental use of the property is permitted on an interim basis only and in coordination with all partners involved.”

Also on Monday, King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall and Burien Police Chief Ted Boe will be part of a “public safety roundtable” to discuss public safety and mental health and addiction responses in Burien. The sheriff’s office provides police services through an agreement with Burien, and is currently suing the city over a total ban on “camping” that the county’s lawyers have called unconstitutional.

Because Boe, as a representative of the sheriff’s office, has said he won’t enforce the ban, the city has countersued the sheriff’s office for breach of contract; directed city staffers to stop paying the police department’s invoices; and called for Boe’s ouster, prompting outrage from veteran police officers loyal to the popular chief.

According to the B-Town Blog, Bailon responded to the announcement of Monday’s forum by demanding the removal of all references to Burien and the Burien Police Department from the materials for the event, claiming that “Burien’s name and logo to add credibility to King County’s proposed roundtable”—arguably a dubious claim, given the ongoing chaos caused by the city’s actions.

City Council, Morning Fizz, Police

Officer Who Joked About Pedestrian Death Will Speak on Traffic Safety at Conference; Moore Calls for “More Vice Squads”

1. Daniel Auderer, the Seattle Police Officers Guild vice president who was caught on tape joking with SPOG president Mike Solan about the death of Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old student who was killed last year when SPD officer Kevin Dave struck her in a crosswalk while driving 74 miles an hour, was reassigned to low-profile office duties while the Office of Police Accountability investigates multiple complaints against him.

Despite Auderer’s notoriety, he will appear on a national stage in August, when he will be one of two speakers from the Seattle Police Department at national traffic safety conference put on by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Washington, D.C.

UPDATE: After this post published, a spokesman for SPD contacted PubliCola to say that Auderer is not “representing” the department at the conference, but could not explain why Auderer and another officer, Tom Heller, are listed on the IACP’s program as Seattle Police Department representatives. The spokesman said SPD is not paying for Auderer to travel to or appear at the conference and did not receive a request for him to attend the conference and speak.

According to the program for the IACP’s Impaired Driving and Traffic Safety Conference, Auderer will lead a workshop called “Becoming a Pickup Artist: How to Get More Out of Interviews,” where he’ll teach other officers how to get accurate information out of crime victims, witnesses, and suspects “using only the power of human psychology.”

“From the roadside to the interrogation room, learn how to use human memory, perception, and motivation to improve investigations,” the panel description promises.

Asked about Auderer’s D.C. appearance and his current assignment within the department, a spokesperson said, “We don’t have any further updates or information concerning Auderer other than what has previously been provided.”

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2. Expanding on her proposal to restore a former law against “prostitution loitering,” City Councilmember Cathy Moore told a North Seattle public safety group yesterday that she would like to see “more vice squads” on Aurora Ave. North, a stretch of road where sex workers have congregated for decades.

“I know that SPD is doing their best, I think they have two vice officers. They need more vice squads,” Moore said. Mayor Bruce Harrell, Moore added, “is not coming to the table on this, and they’re not showing up in a way that they need to show up on Aurora. I have reached out to their office to talk about this. We as a council can’t do it all alone. They are in charge of everything [including] the resources.”

Councilmember Moore said she asked Police Chief Adrian Diaz for an update on SPD’s response to a damning report that revealed a widespread culture of misogyny in the department and “I did not receive a response.” She also called SPD’s PR response to four women’s lawsuit against the department “highly unacceptable.”

Moore, who represents North Seattle’s District 5, made her comments at a forum sponsored by the North Precinct Advisory Council Wednesday night. The forum also included District 4 Councilmember Maritza Rivera (Northeast Seattle) and District 6 Councilmember Dan Strauss (Northwest Seattle).

Rivera expressed her support for Moore’s proposal to bring back the prostitution loitering law, saying it was part of a “holistic” approach that should also include traffic calming measures to slow down cars on Aurora and give the area more of a “neighborhood feel.”

The city council repealed laws against prostitution and drug loitering on the recommendation of a work group convened in 2015 to support and reduce barriers for people with criminal history. According to the work group, the prostitution loitering targets people who are “already at high risk for trafficking, abuse, and other exploitation”—disproportionately women of color—and puts them at further risk. Prostitution itself is still illegal, but the city has only made 25 prostitution arrests since 2019.

3. Moore, along with her council colleagues Bob Kettle and Rob Saka, issued a statement Thursday morning expressing support for an independent investigation Mayor Bruce Harrell announced earlier this week, after four women announced their intent to sue over allegations of sexual harassment by Police Chief Adrian Diaz and communications office director John O’Neil. “We must address barriers to recruiting and retaining women sworn officers to make desperately needed progress on our public safety crisis,” she said.

Asked about the allegations at Wednesday’s meeting, Moore was more explicit, saying she asked Diaz for an update on SPD’s response to a damning report that revealed a widespread culture of misogyny in the department and “I did not receive a response.”

SPD’s “public relations response” to the charges was “highly unacceptable,” Moore added. The department issued a statement responding to the women’s claims that essentially called them all liars, saying their allegations were based on “individual perceptions of victimhood that are unsupported and – in some instances – belied by the comprehensive investigations that will no doubt ultimately be of record.”

 

 

homelessness, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz

Morning Fizz: New City Attorney Hire, Changes Coming at KCRHA, Council Seeks “Reversal” of Pandemic Travel Trends

1. City attorney Ann Davison has hired a former Pierce County deputy prosecutor, Fred Wist II, as her new criminal division chief; he’ll replace Natalie Walton-Anderson, who resigned last year.

According to Davis’ announcement, Wist “oversaw the elimination of a backlog of thousands of cases and worked with stakeholders to more efficiently move cases through the criminal justice system” in Pierce County. There’s scant information about Wist online, and several people who routeinly deal with the city attorney’s office said they had never heard of him; his Facebook page—where he uses a sheriff’s badge with a “thin blue line” mourning band as his avatar—is mostly inactive.

Wist was in the news a few years ago, though, when his office investigated the actions of a special drug investigation unit led by Lt. (and 2021 Pierce County Sheriff candidate) Cyndie Fajardo, finding they had committed potentially dozens of policies and procedures, including falsifying a police report to protect an informant. Fajardo and eight deputies later sued Wist, another deputy prosecutor, and several sheriff’s department officials, accusing Wist and the other defendants of harming their reputation for “political” reasons; the prosecutors put some of the officers on a “Brady” list of dishonest cops, preventing them from testifying in court.

One of the council’s resolutions seeks to “reverse” the following trends “to pre-pandemic” status: “disruptions to transportation patterns and behaviors, which have resulted in sustained trends including increased remote work, intra-neighborhood trips, and use of public right-of-way for people uses, alongside reduced downtown commute trips and an associated decline in transportation revenues.”

2. On Thursday morning, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s governing committee, made up of elected officials, could discuss plans to reorganize the embattled agency’s governance structure to give more power to elected officials and less to the experts and people with direct experience of homelessness who make up the agency’s implementation board. (Representatives from actual homeless service providers are explicitly barred from serving on this board.)

This would be the long-awaited showdown over who is in “charge” of the agency, and could result in a singular new board made up mostly of elected officials with a handful of homelessness experts in the mix—a change that would effectively hand power to the elected officials who ceded authority to experts when the KCRHA was created in 2019.

While that discussion has been going on, the homelessness authority has decided to forge ahead with its search for a permanent CEO—a process that two powerful members of the CEO search committee, Seattle Chamber CEO Rachel Smith and former governor Christine Gregoire, told committee members and Mayor Bruce Harrell they wanted to halt. Interim CEO Darrell Powell, Harrell’s pick for the temporary position, is reportedly one of the top contenders for the permanent job.

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3. Earlier this week, the City Council’s transportation committee approved several amendments to Mayor Harrell’s Seattle Transportation Plan, including one intended to “identify the Council’s priorities for future renewal of the Move Seattle Levy.” As we’ve reported, advocates for active transportation and safer streets have asked the city to increase levy spending on transit, sidewalks, and safety improvements, which Harrell’s proposal cuts in favor of huge new investments in roads and bridges that primarily serve cars.

So what are some of the council’s top priorities? In addition to sidewalks and street calming to “deter… drive-by shootings” near schools and in areas with high levels of “vehicle-involved [gun] violence,” one of the council’s resolutions seeks to “reverse” the following trends “to pre-pandemic” status: “disruptions to transportation patterns and behaviors, which have resulted in sustained trends including increased remote work, intra-neighborhood trips, and use of public right-of-way for people uses, alongside reduced downtown commute trips and an associated decline in transportation revenues.”

In other words: People need to re-commit themselves to hated commutes, stop working from home, stop patronizing businesses inside their own neighborhoods (so much for the 15-minute city?) and make room for cars in streets that transformed during the pandemic into safe places for kids to play. It’s a weird juxtaposition: Full-throated support for sidewalks in neighborhoods (and, thanks to an amendment from Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, traffic calming improvements on Lake Washington Boulevard) combined with a hellbent insistence on getting everyone back on the road to their downtown cubicles.

Other council goals for the plan: “Improving on-time performance of transit in the Denny Way corridor,” home to the perpetually delayed Route 8; including funding for traffic calming on Lake Washington Boulevard (courtesy Joy Hollingsworth) and, as we’ve reported, Bob Kettle’s amendment to “exclude funding for the Pike Place Event Street”—a concept-level plan to periodically kick cars out of Pike Place Market and allow people to enjoy the space—from the transportation levy.

 

City Council, homelessness, King County, Morning Fizz

Morning Fizz: COVID at City Hall, Why “Consolidation” Won’t Fix the City Budget, and More on Burien’s Efforts to Kill a Church Encampment

1. Seattle City Councilmember Bob Kettle recently contracted COVID after coming in to his City Hall office while a family member was home sick with the highly infectious disease. During the period when he was not yet testing positive, he and his staff continued to work at City Hall without wearing masks, according to sources on the floor.

Although Kettle told PubliCola that he personally stayed home for a week after his first positive COVID test (including five days after his symptoms receded), his presence on the second floor during the time when his family member was sick unnerved at least one council member, Tammy Morales, who wrote in an email to the city clerk and council HR, “I just learned that a couple folks on the floor are home with Covid. Can I ask you to send around our policies to remind folks WHEN TO STAY HOME.”

According to a staffer for his office, Kettle “took multiple tests and the moment he received a positive result, he immediately began to work from home, and followed the five-day protocol once he received a negative test(s).” The city asks employees to isolate for five days after a positive test and stay home if they still have symptoms; however, even asymptomatic people can be contagious. Kettle and a staffer confirmed that no one else in his office contracted COVID from him.

Council president Sara Nelson and other council members have frequently touted the benefits of in-person work to council members and their staff as well as the recovery of downtown businesses. The council now holds all its meetings in person; previously, some council members attended remotely, including one council member with a young child and one who is immunocompromised.

Saka and Strauss are correct that the city has arborists in multiple departments. It has a total of two: One in the Parks Department, and one in SDOT. It’s unclear how moving both positions into one department or the other would save the city money.

2. Facing the largest budget shortfall in recent history, many city council members have latched on to the idea that city departments are inefficient and full of costly redundancies—a problem council budget committee chair Dan Strauss has recently taken to illustrating with the example of city arborists. “We have multiple different departments that have arborists,” Strauss said at a committee meeting last month, and “I think it makes more sense to have them all in one department.”

Earlier this week, Councilmember Rob Saka took up the mantle, calling the city’s many arborists the “canonical example” of the need for “consolidation” at the city on an episode of the Seattle Channel’s “City Inside/Out,” which features panel discussions with city council members.

“Do we need 17 different departments with arborists, or can they sit under one [department]—parks, for example, or whatever it is. But we need to better consolidate our functions, services, our lines of business, avoid duplication of efforts, [and] I think we’ll achieve some some great savings through that,” Saka said.

Curious, we looked to see how many arborists the city has and in how many different departments. As it turns out, Saka and Strauss are correct that the city has arborists in multiple departments. It has a total of two: One in the Parks Department, and one in SDOT. It’s unclear how moving both positions into one department or the other would save the city money.

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3. As PubliCola reported late last year, Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon failed to inform the city council about a letter from Deputy King County Executive Shannon Braddock telling him the city needed to come up with a plan to spend $1 million the county was offering to build a shelter or lose the money.

Bailon sat on the letter for a week before telling the full council about it, claiming he was too busy responding to to emails opposing a temporary encampment at a local church that was run by a nonprofit started by then-council member Cydney Moore.

Although Bailon later changed his story, documents obtained through a records request show that he did spend a great deal of time responding to opponents of the encampment and raising questions about its legality. Those emails included:

• A note to the Burien fire chief asking him if the city could ensure that all the tents at the encampment would be “flame retardant”;

• An email to Burien Police Chief Ted Boe asking him to send an officer to a meeting to refute “potentially false claims” by the encampment’s sponsor that sex offenders would be barred from the encampment (which they were);

• An email warning the superintendent of the Highline Public School District about the church encampment’s “proximity to Highline High School” and claiming that the encampment violated city law;

• At least seven emails to people who wrote him to oppose the encampment, saying he was “very sorry to hear” about the problems the encampment would cause them and encouraging them to attend an upcoming meeting where they could express their opposition.

The encampment closed in February.