Category: podcasts

City Council, Elections, housing, podcasts

Another Tree Petition, Another Council Staff Departure, and Another Round of Election Results
Google image of the site before demolition; the “million dollar house” is the white house in foreground, with the closest tree to the property visible on the right.

1. More than 400 people have signed a Change.org petition imploring the city to “Save Three Sisters Park in Ballard,” which the petition page describes as “a trio of trees that must be over 100 years old” that, the petition claims, are now threatened by development.

“What was once a quiet refuge could soon be overshadowed by development. Someone’s living room window will be mere feet away from what was once a community space. All for what? So that some corporate entity can replace the existing million dollar home with SEVEN million dollar homes. Lining the pockets of capitalism.”

Just a few problems with that description. First, there’s no park called “Three Sisters Park”—as with other campaigns to whip up opposition to new housing, the petitioners have anthropomorphized the trees. (See also: “Luma,” “Kaia,” “Astra,” and of course, “Grandma’s Cedar.” Second, the “park” isn’t even a park—it’s a stand of three Western Red Cedars on what’s known as an “unopened street end,” like a planting strip that functions as a barrier to traffic, owned by the Seattle Department of Transportation. (The trees’ age is unknown).

Third, and most important: The trees aren’t threatened by the development next door. According to an SDOT spokesperson, “There are no current plans to prune or remove the Western Redcedars.If construction requires pruning in the future, the developer will need to file an amendment to the permit. This would be reviewed by SDOT Urban Forestry to assess the necessity and impact. If approved, the work would need to be completed by a Registered Tree Service Provider (RTSP).”

In addition, the developer, MRN Homes, plans to plant four new trees on a site that currently has nowsignificant trees, just bushes, adding tree canopy in the future. (It’s also ironic that the petition posits proximity to trees as a bad thing for people living in these future townhouses, when their more common tactic is to claim people living in new buildings will lose the benefits of shade if trees are removed).

Finally, it’s pretty disingenuous to claim that a “million-dollar home” is being replaced by “seven million-dollar homes.” MRN, a local Seattle builder, has built some large, almost-million-dollar townhouses in the city. However, their smaller townhouses sell for a more typical-for-Seattle price of around $700,000—not affordable housing, by any stretch, but considerably more in reach than the $2 million to $3 million single-family houses currently for sale in the neighborhood near this development site.

As for the “million-dollar home” that was on the site—an 875-square foot, 2-bedroom house from the 1960s? That “house” was valuable not because of the house itself but because of the land underneath it, which is zoned for multifamily use.

2. City Councilmember Maritza Rivera has lost another legislative assistant—the fourth person to leave the position in the 19 months Rivera has been in office. Unlike most other council members, Rivera has just two legislative assistants, or LAs—longtime aide Wendy Sykes, and another position that has gone under several different titles in Rivera’s brief time on the council, including “policy lead,” “policy director,” and “district director.”

The turnover rate is higher, by far, than in most council offices, which tend to have more staff and retain them longer. (Only Rob Saka has had similarly high staff turnover).

The latest staffer, who we were unable to reach, lasted less than six months. That’s actually a better record than some of Rivera’s previous staffers, who’ve lasted between four and six months. In 2023, according to the Stranger, 26 employees at the city’s Office of Arts and Culture signed off on a letter complaining about a toxic environment at the office, quoting workers who called her a micromanager who treated them with condescension.

3. Friday update: Yup, Thursday’s results were an anomaly. As of the latest vote count, Katie Wilson leads the mayor’s race with more than 50 percent of the vote, to Harrell’s 41.7 percent. That’s a terrible result for an incumbent.

Thursday’s election numbers, which reflected the second set of ballots counted since Tuesday (election night), saw a notable shift away from the progressive trend in Wednesday’s results, moving the needle back slightly toward centrist incumbents. In the latest batch of about 32,000 ballots, challenger Katie Wilson led Mayor Bruce Harrell 47 to 45; challenger Erika Evans led incumbent City Attorney Ann Davison 53.4 to 36.7; and challenger Dionne Foster led incumbent Sara Nelson 54.9 to 39.3.

Overall, Wilson is currently leading Harrell 47.8 to 43.8, Evans is leading Davison 53 to 36, and Foster is leading Nelson 55.4 to 38. Rinck has 76.7 percent of the vote.

It’s unclear why Thursday’s ballots swung slightly back toward centrist candidates. Thursday’s count may have included ballots mailed before election day, while Wednesday’s reflected ballots dropped off at drop boxes on Tuesday; later votes almost invariably trend more progressive.

In the race for City Council in District 2—the seat currently held by appointee Mark Solomon—city land-use attorney Eddie Lin was leading SDOT outreach staffer (and former Harrell transportation advisor) Adonis Ducksworth by 46 percent to 30 percent overall, reflecting a slight gain by Lin (considered the more progressive candidate in this race) in the latest round of ballots, in which Lin got 47.7 percent to Ducksworth’s 30.4.

As of Friday, there are about 15,000 Seattle ballots left uncounted.

4. If you couldn’t get enough of Sandeep and me beefing over the election results, and/or if you’d like to hear what an actual current council member thinks Tuesday’s election means, check out Week in Review on KUOW this week, with host Bill Radke, City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, and us two chuckleheads. It’s a fun, lively listen.

Elections, podcasts

🚨🚨Seattle Nice: Election Results Emergency Edition!🚨🚨

By Erica C. Barnett

We recorded this week’s Seattle Nice podcast on Wednesday, just before the afternoon drop of results from King County Elections reinforced what was already clear on Election Night: Progressive candidates swept the local primary election in Seattle, coming in ahead of incumbents in the races for mayor, city council, and city attorney.

And it isn’t just a challengers-vs.-incumbents phenomenon. Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who was winning her 2024 race with 76.6 percent of the vote as of Wednesday afternoon), is poised to overtake Sally Bagshaw for the second-highest showing, by percentage, in any council primary election; first place is held by former councilmember Sue Donaldson, who won 81.5 percent in her primary in 1991.

Looking at just the latest batch of election results from Wednesday (which I’ll update to reflect Thursday’s vote drop when it arrives), challenger Katie Wilson was beating incumbent mayor Bruce Harrell 48 percent to 43.5 percent; challenger Erika Evans was beating incumbent city attorney Ann Davison 53 percent to 35.8 percent; and city council Position 9 challenger Dionne Foster was beating incumbent Sara Nelson by 55.8 to 37 percent.

UPDATE: Thursday’s results looked much more like election night, with Wilson leading Harrell, just in the new batch of votes, 47 to 45; Evans leading Davison 53.4 to 36.7; and Foster leading Nelson 54.9 to 39.3. Overall, Wilson is currently leading Harrell 47.8 to 43.8, Evans is leading Davison 53 to 36, and Foster is leading Nelson 55.4 to 38. Rinck has 76.7 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, in the race for District 2, city land-use attorney Eddie Lin was leading SDOT outreach staffer (and former Harrell transportation advisor) Adonis Ducksworth 46 percent to 30 percent overall.

So what’s behind these results? I think it’s two things. First, people are terrified about what Trump’s policies will mean for Seattle, and they don’t see city leaders—particularly Republican city attorney Ann Davison—addressing the situation with urgency.

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Second, and related: Four years since the backlash election of 2021, voters have had plenty of time to see results from the people they elected, and they’re not impressed. Affordability is an urgent issue to Seattle residents struggling to live in an increasingly expensive city, but the council, mayor, and city attorney have focused more on arresting drug users and increasing fines for graffiti than providing affordable housing and services for people in need. Seattle has seen what the leadership of Ann Davison, Sara Nelson, and Bruce Harrell looks like, and they aren’t impressed.

Sandeep disagrees that people are concerned about, or even aware of, the policies Seattle leaders have been passing and overlooking over the last four years. He argues that local politics are now nationalized, and that fear of Trump has translated into a kind of throw-the-bums-out overreach that has resulted in a “lurch to the left” among Seattle’s “fickle” vote base. In this theory, Ann Davison lost not because she relentlessly promoted and passed policies that are broadly unpopular, from ending therapeutic court to reinstating ineffective banishment zones for people caught using drugs, but because she has an “R” by her name.

And David kind of agrees with both of us, saying people are “taking out their anxieties and their frustrations about the status quo against the incumbents who are in office,” but also that Katie Wilson is speaking to the concerns of ordinary people—like why a slice of pizza in Seattle costs $8.

Listen:

City Council, Courts, Elections, Mayor Harrell, podcasts, Taxes

Seattle Nice: Seattle Sues Trump, Camping Ban Proposed, Business Tax Hike Heads to Ballot

By Erica C. Barnett

On this week’s episode, we discussed the broader implications of a proposed ballot initiative that would make it illegal to fall asleep outdoors anywhere in unincorporated King County. If enacted—proponents are still gathering signatures to put it on the ballot—the measure would make it a misdemeanor to sleep outdoors.

The proposal does stipulate that the sheriff’s office should only enforce the sleeping ban if shelter is available, but includes a carveout for situations where an officer believes someone poses a risk to himself or others, which is mechanically similar to Seattle rules allowing no-notice sweeps if someone is causing an “obstruction” in any public space, an exemption the city has interpreted quite liberally.

Whether the proposal ends up passing or not, it’s part of a broader growing intolerance for people who are visibly homeless in public spaces—one that goes hand in hand with anti-Housing First efforts to force people into treatment while they’re still homeless or unstably housed.

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We also discussed the proposed Seattle ballot measure that would raise business and occupation taxes on high-grossing businesses, using the proceeds to support housing stability, food security, shelter, substance use disorder treatment, and transportation. (The bill was originally more limited, but councilmembers piled on new spending categories and exemptions last week). After amendments to exempt Fred Hutchinson Cancer Care Center and Children’s Hospital from the tax, it will—if it passes—bring in about $90 million a year.

The three of us debated whether the tax proposal was, as Sandeep suggested, “rushed” forward to give Mayor Bruce Harrell a last-minute boost before the primary election (mail in your ballots or drop them off at an official ballot drop box before Tuesday night at 8pm!)

Harrell has certainly jumped on more than one progressive bandwagon in recent weeks to bolster his lefty bona fides in his race against progressive labor and transit activist Katie Wilson. In addition to coming out for the B&O tax, which Rinck was reportedly working on long before Harrell got wind of it, the mayor just endorsed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration filed by City Attorney Ann Davison—another local official who appears to be in for a tough reelection battle and could benefit from being able to say she proactively sued the Trump Administration, even if it took her until the week before Election Day.

Addiction, homelessness, podcasts, Trump

Seattle Nice: Is Trump’s Executive Order the End of Housing First?

By Erica C. Barnett

Freaked out about the Trump Administration’s latest executive order, which calls for “ending crime and disorder on America’s streets” by ending Housing First, arresting people with addiction and mental illness, and punishing people for sleeping outside?

Our guest on Seattle Nice this week, Lisa Daugaard, says people should read past the scary headlines and the tough-guy hyperbole of Trump’s press release and look at what the executive order actually does. Daugaard, the co-executive director of Purpose Dignity Action (formerly the Public Defender Association), is a longtime proponent of housing first—the theory that stable housing is a prerequisite for long-lasting recovery. After reading the order, she told us she believes it was written by people who knew what they were doing.

For one thing, the order doesn’t explicitly call for defunding anything, except (entirely theoretical—that is, nonexistent) federally funded programs whose purpose is “only [to] facilitate illegal drug use and its attendant harm.” Although the order does call for more civil commitment, it doesn’t change the law in places like Washington State, which already has laws allowing involuntary commitment in some circumstances. In some circumstances, Daugaard said, the order holds out the possibility of more funding for evidence-based programs.

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“They’re certainly trying to accomplish some turning of the ship, and I think in most respects … this is not terribly problematic, if maybe not problematic at all, and maybe holds out the prospect of increased resources in areas where we really need those,” Daugaard said. “So I think in general, people are responding to the politics and not to the language of the actual order, and that that’s understandable, but maybe not wise.”

I pushed back a bit on Daugaard’s apparent optimism—which, to be clear, does not apply to the entire Trump Administration and its policy apparatus—noting that even if smart people who care about health and human services wrote it with the intention of making it as harmless as possible, the Trump Administration is unpredictable and has a history of not following the law. Sandeep added that right-wing activists are already portraying the order as a devastating loss for “the homelessness industrial complex.”

Daugaard said left-leaning activists and leaders shouldn’t take the bait. “We need to define ourselves as largely aligned with the values that this order enunciates and lower the temperature by saying that’s the [what the order calls for is] the work we want to do,” she said. “We don’t want to leave people camping in public. We don’t want to foster lifelong drug use with a low ceiling on people’s recovery capacity. And we need additional resources to make that a reality.”

Elections, LGBTQ+, podcasts

Seattle Nice: Is the Progressive Left Back?

By Erica C. Barnett

We had a great time recording the latest episode of Seattle Nice live at the 43rd District Democrats’ meeting on Tuesday, where we discussed the primary election, offered some unsolicited advice to a local candidate who happened to be in the audience, and said “fuck” a lot (Sandeep) and made ill-considered predictions (me.)

The big question on the table: Will the backlash to Trump’s tax cuts for millionaires and service cuts for the rest of us translate to a local anti-establishment election? In 2021 (when business-oriented, pro-sweeps Mayor Bruce Harrell and Republican City Attorney Ann Davison were elected) and again in 2023, when voters replaced most of the city council with a crop of candidates who promised to “audit the budget” and attributed the decline in police hiring to low morale brought on by pro-“defund” incumbents, Seattle rejected a progressive agenda.

Could this year bring around a course correction? Katie Wilson seems to have Harrell running scared, Davison has several very viable opponents, and progressive Dionne Foster is running a strong, if low-key, campaign against centrist Council President Sara Nelson. Even Joe Mallahan, defeated by Mike McGinn in 2009, is trashing the mayor over his enthusiasm for encampment sweeps, which have indisputably pushed people living unsheltered in downtown Seattle to Belltown, the International District, and other parts of Seattle.

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We also discussed the baffling recent decision about nudity at the longtime nude beach at Denny-Blaine Park: A King County Superior Court judge (Samuel Chung, not up for reelection until 2028) ordered the city to come up with a plan to stop public masturbation and lewd behavior—which a wealthy adjacent property owner insists are rampant—and “nudity as constituted at the park.” I am obviously not a lawyer, but I’m not sure how an injunction that gives police the power to determine whether nudity is “constituted” properly—or if it’s inherently lewd—can withstand legal scrutiny.

Nudity is legal in Seattle. As I noted on the podcast, I was walking on the downtown just last weekend when a bunch of naked people—by appearance, almost all cisgender men—rode their bikes along the new bike path, in full view of God and everybody. There’s a transparent double standard at work here, I argued—while LGBTQ+ sunbathers are presumptively indecent, a parade of naked men on bikes is just another fun part of life in quirky Seattle.

 

 

City Council, Elections, podcasts

Seattle Nice: Seattle Solved All the Crime, So We’re Talking About Graffiti

By Erica C. Barnett

Because there are no other public-safety issues in the city of Seattle, our main topic on Seattle Nice this week is one of the mayor and council’s top current priorities: Cracking down on graffiti— already a crime!—with a new law imposing a per-tag fine that’s higher than the ones for animal cruelty or (and I know people really feel strongly about this one) cutting down trees.

Proponents on the council, echoing Republican City Attorney Ann Davison, argue that statistical data shows that the most prolific graffiti artists and taggers are white, middle-class men with plenty of money to pay for attorneys or fines—yet for whom, they also claim, the new fines will be an effective deterrent.

I pointed out that their “data” is based on a statistically insignificant sample, ranging from several dozen people (for the city’s race and gender breakdown) to a majority 17 individuals (for the purported income data.) David argued that these statistics are still valid, and that I believe we should “only use demographic data when it’s politically convenient.” And Sandeep agreed with me that we shouldn’t use fake stats to justify new crackdowns, but for a different reason—he said  talking about the racial demographics of taggers at all is a kind of “identitarian” (i.e. woke) policy that the city should stay away from in general.

For the record, I do think it’s ridiculous that the city is trying so hard to prove that Seattle’s graffiti artists and taggers don’t slot easily into stereotypes, but I also think we shouldn’t be spending so many resources ensuring Seattle’s walls remain bare and gray. I actually think both my co-hosts agree with me about this. As much as Sandeep likes to cite statistics from unknown stories that, according to him, prove that the broadly discredited “broken windows” theory works to deter crime, he had to admit that he doesn’t really consider graffiti a top public-safety priority.

We also talked about a new pro-Bruce Harrell message testing poll that attempts to sell the idea that mayoral candidate Katie Wilson is the second coming of Kshama Sawant. Even Sandeep—who usually leaps at a chance to tie progressive candidates to the former city council member, who left the council more than a year and a half ago—agreed that it’s ridiculous to paint the thoughtful, wonkish Wilson as abrasive, politically conniving, and “loud,” but don’t be surprised if you receive a mailer this fall showing Wilson and Sawant Photoshopped together like they’re running on the same ticket.