Seattle prepares to repeal restrictions on “less-lethal” weapons, SDOT loses a leader, and much more.

Monday, December 9

Police Deny Request to Produce Records in a Timely Fashion; Burien City Manager Filed Complaint Against Progressive Council Member

Two stories to kick off the week: First, an update on the Seattle Police Department’s ongoing refusal to follow a settlement prohibiting its practice of “grouping” multiple public records requests, including PubliCola’s, into a single mega-request, a delay tactic that keeps public records out of view. Also, we learned that Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon filed a complaint against a city council member who raised concerns on X about the number of high-level staffers leaving the city.

Tuesday, December 10

Discussion of Women at SPD Skips Over Men’s Behavior

SPD has set a goal of having a 30-percent female recruit class by 2030, and has begun laying out steps toward that goal. Despite women in the department consistently reporting a culture of misogyny created by men, most of the recommendations focus on creating more flexibility for women to raise babies and young children.

City Transportation Director Greg Spotts Will Leave After Two Years on the Job

Greg Spotts, appointed by Mayor Bruce Harrell in 2022, will leave the department in February. Urbanists liked Spotts because he advocated for (and oversaw the construction of) bike lanes and pedestrian safety improvements, like restrictions on right turns at red lights; these priorities may have put him at odds with Harrell, who has not placed much emphasis on Vision Zero despite mounting road fatalities.

Thursday, December 12

Legislation Would Remove Restrictions on SPD’s Use of “Less Lethal” Weapons for Crowd Control

The city council is considering legislation to get rid of existing restrictions on the use of “less lethal” weapons for crowd control, which SPD has called unworkable and has ignored in favor of its own internal “interim policy.” The bill would allow SPD to set its own policies, subject to a general list of “values and expectations,” and is seen as a final step to end a 12-year-old federal consent decree.

PubliCola on News, Views, and Brews: Less-Lethal Weapons and Two High-Profile Departures

I went on Brian Callanan’s “News, Views, and Brews” podcast this week to talk about the less-lethal weapons legislation, Spotts’ departure, and the ongoing fallout from last week’s news that Tammy Morales is leaving the city council a year after winning reelection.

Friday, December 13

Old-Fashioned Furor Erupts Over Plans for Adult Cabaret License in Ballard

Opponents of a bar that plans to feature burlesque, drag, and other adult entertainment in its upstairs event space have tried to stir up opposition to the venue, arguing in a petition that a “strip club” in Ballard will hurt property values, lead to crime and prostitution, and harm area children.

SPD defies a legal agreement to produce public records, Tammy Morales says she’ll step down, Alexis Mercedes Rinck steps up, and more

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, December 2

SPD Is Still Delaying Public Disclosure by “Grouping” Records Requests, In Defiance of 2023 Settlement

The Seattle Police Department told PubliCola last week that they are “grouping” our 12 outstanding records requests and responding to them one at a time, rather than working on multiple requests at once, in defiance of a settlement with the Seattle Times that prohibited exactly this practice. SPD responded to our questions about how this could possibly be legal by reiterating that this is their policy.

Tuesday, December 3

Separated at Birth: “In this House” Seattle Liberals and Project 2025

In the latest edition of his Maybe Metropolis column, Josh Feit finds clear parallels between Project 2025’s plan for housing in the second Trump Administration and the priorities of liberal Seattle NIMBYs in Seattle: Both want to preserve single-family neighborhoods at any cost.

Wednesday, December 4

City Councilmember Tammy Morales Will Leave the Council In January

Seattle’s lone remaining progressive council member, Tammy Morales, told PubliCola this week that she’s leaving the council just one year after winning reelection. In our interview and her public announcement, Morales described a “toxic” workplace in which her six new colleagues oppose her legislation reflexively, shut her out of meetings, insult and berate her on the dais, and make it nearly impossible to do her job.

Thursday, December 5

Newest City Council Member “Deeply Saddened” By Morales’ Decision to Step Down

When Alexis Mercedes Rinck handily defeated appointee Tanya Woo (whom Morales also beat in 2023), Seattle lefties assumed the two women would form a small but mighty progressive bloc on the council. Now, with Morales leaving, Rinck says she’s hoping the council will “take a breath” and work to create a work environment where people with different political views can work together.

Friday, December 6

Seattle Nice: Should Tammy Morales Have Stayed on the Council?

In an especially heated episode of Seattle Nice, Sandeep argued that Morales should have stopped “bitching” and stayed on the council, David said she should have stuck it out unless she had “serious mental health concerns,” and both guys made what I consider a false equivalency between public commenters and protesters who were rude to past council members and the workplace behavior Morales described.

Monday, November 18

Last-Minute Amendments, Lack of Transparency Characterize New Council’s First Budget

The city council, which has six new members, raced through this year’s budget process, wrapping things up about a week earlier than usual. The process was less transparent than any budget in recent memory, with last-minute amendments and few opportunities for the public to get a clear sense of what the council was doing, much less weigh in, before consequential votes.

Tuesday, November 19

Seattle Nice: Dow Constantine’s Legacy as King County Executive

On this week’s episode of the podcast, we talked about the county’s longest-serving executive, Dow Constantine, and his imprint on the county, including the light rail system, public health, ballot measures that have funded human services, shelters, and mental health care, and his big plans to redevelop Pioneer Square.

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Thursday, November 21

With Only Morales Voting “No,” City Council Passes Budget That Repurposes JumpStart, Cuts Jobs

Big-picture, the 2025-2026 city budget prioritizes police, funds unprecedented surveillance to enforce new laws designed to penalize sex work and drug use, and cuts dozens of jobs, including the people who work to reduce workplace discrimination and keep the city’s critical IT systems running.

Despite an ongoing structural deficit, the budget also includes more than $100 million in new spending, funded with the JumpStart spending tax, which the council permanently converted from a dedicated funding source for affordable housing, Green New Deal priorities, student mental health programs, and other spending categories into an all-purpose revenue source for the city’s general fund.

Saturday, November 23

Office of Police Accountability Director Out, Local Capital Gains Tax Loses Momentum, and More

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the departure of Office of Police Accountability director Gino Betts on Friday afternoon; Interim Police Chief Sue Rahr and OPA employees recently raised concerns that Betts had slow-walked major investigations on serious alleged misconduct while focusing on minor misconduct cases. Also, the council’s vote against Councilmember Cathy Moore’s proposed capital gains tax grew more lopsided at the full council meeting, a bad sign for its future passage. And Joy Hollingsworth dismissed Logan Bowers, her extremely online (and extremely opinionated) staffer, just before the budget vote.

Budget debates, Trump-era worries, speeding cops, and more.

By Erica C. Barnett

I was busy watching (and live-posting about) the City Council’s budget committee meetings this week, so posting on the site was a little light on Thursday and Friday (more on that at the bottom of this post). Beyond the budget, this week’s posts included a piece by Josh about what’s worrying him this week, news about SPD’s internal policy on speeding, a post about (yet another) anti-trans group renting space from the Seattle Public Library, and more.

Monday, November 11

Capital Gains Tax, JumpStart Spending Plan Top Council’s Budget Agenda This Week

Big-picture, the biggest proposed changes in the city’s 2025-2026 budget are an amendment from budget chair Dan Strauss to end the city’s short-lived commitment to spend the proceeds from the JumpStart payroll tax on a list of specific categories, including housing and youth mental health, and an effort by Cathy Moore to pass a 2 percent tax on capital gains that would impact fewer than 1,000 people in the city. The council is currently poised to gut JumpStart and reject capital gains.

Tuesday, November 12

Three Things I’m Worried About: Trickle-Down Bullying; Martial Law; and Acquiescence

Josh Feit writes about what’s worrying him about Trump’s victory, including a resurgence of abusive social behavior, harsh crackdowns in the very cities that progressives wrongly consider “blue islands”; and a widespread posture of resigned acquiescence among liberals and leftists who are exhausted and confounded by Trump’s victory

County Says They Have “No Intention” of Turning Sobering Center into a Secure Facility for Drug Law Violators

A micro-example of the new City Council’s approach to the budget (in general: blustering confidence about policy prescriptions combined with righteous indignation at any suggestion that they don’t know everything already) is Maritza Rivera’s proposal to spend city resources researching whether King County’s sobering center could be a locked facility for people arrested under the city’s new anti-drug laws. As I reported, Rivera never reached out to the county, and they have no interest in changing the purpose of a facility that’s been around for decades.

Seattle Police Department Updates Its Emergency Driving Policy

Almost two years after officer Kevin Dave struck and killed 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula in a crosswalk while driving 74 miles an hour, SPD has updated its policy on speeding to include more detailed, but still imperfect, guidelines about when emergency driving is allowed.

Wednesday, November 13

Afternoon Fizz: Burien City Manager Filed Complaint Against Public Commenter; Seattle Library Hosts Another Anti-Trans Event

Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon filed a formal complaint against a local public commenter for advocating for a higher minimum wage in the city, accusing her of breaking a law that bars public officials from electioneering. And the Seattle Public Library is once again renting its facilities to an anti-trans group, saying it can’t refuse to rent to any person or organization unless they explicitly threaten violence.

Thursday and Friday, November 14 and 15

Budget updates on Bluesky

As I mentioned, I’ve been updating readers about the city’s budget discussions on Bluesky, so if you aren’t following me there, you’re missing out on a lot of fascinating real-time updates and analysis that provide insight into how the council, and especially the five brand-new members, is navigating the complex budget process and each other this year. Follow me, PubliCola, and the podcast I do with Sandeep Kaushik and David Hyde, Seattle Nice.

The city hasn’t fixed its budget problems. Also: Interim police chief Sue Rahr, changes at the homelessness authority, and surveillance cameras coming to a neighborhood near you.

Monday, October 7

Interim SPD Chief Sue Rahr: “I’m Super Optimistic About Where We’re Headed”

In a broad-ranging interview with PubliCola, interim Seattle police chief Sue Rahr discussed the city’s new drug use and prostitution banishment zones, what kind of hiring standards the city should use for new officers, and what’s going on with the search for her replacement.

Wednesday, October 9

Harrell’s Budget Projects $158 Million Deficit, Suggesting the City Isn’t Done Using JumpStart to Fix Shortfalls

Dipping heavily into the JumpStart payroll tax fund, which is supposed to pay for affordable housing, to fund general-fund needs like police and transportation was supposed to fix the city’s massive budget deficit. But in the mayor’s budget, the deficits start growing again in 2027, which will likely mean more raids on JumpStart in the future.

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Thursday, October 10

“Disempowering”: Advocates Decry Decision to Reduce Role of People Who’ve Been Homeless at Homelessness Authority

The mantra of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority has been to center people with lived experience of homelessness and including them in decision-making roles. But a new agreement removes people with lived experience from positions of authority at the agency, which will now be governed by a panel of elected officials, leading many advocates to cry foul.

Friday, October 11

Council Splashes Out on Surveillance Cameras and Cop Hiring Bonuses, Lashes Out at Civil Rights Office for Raising Equity Concerns

Also this week, the city council approved $50,000 police hiring bonuses and a police surveillance camera pilot that will cost more than $6 million over two years, including salaries for 21 new police officers. Responding to a sober report from the city’s Office for Civil Rights that recommended more community engagement, council public safety committee chair Bob Kettle said, “Seriously? ‘Expand outreach to pilot communities’? I say expand your outreach to the Seattle City Council!”

The new city council takes on its first city budget and the council candidates take on our policy questions. 

Monday, September 30

Why Does the Mayor’s Budget Use Outdated, Inaccurate Estimates for JumpStart Spending?

This year, Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed a budget that uses most of the revenues from the JumpStart payroll tax, which is supposed to primarily fund affordable housing to fill a massive general fund deficit. Not only that—the budget ensures that the funding that actually goes to the tax’s original spending priorities will decline in real terms every year, by setting a baseline far below actual tax collections and increasing it every year by less than the rate of inflation—ensuring that as long as revenues from the tax keep increasing, more and more can be siphoned off.

Tuesday, October 1

What Seattle Will Lose If It Loses the Seattle Channel

Harrell’s budget would eliminate all original programming, along with the entire web team, at the Seattle Channel, the city’s award-winning municipal broadcast channel. We talked to current and former Seattle Channel employees and contractors about what the city will lose if Harrell manages to shut down what makes the channel unique among its peers.

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Thursday, October 3

Seattle Nice: Listen to the City Council Debate Before You Vote!

On Tuesday, my Seattle Nice podcast co-hosts and I hosted a City Council debate at Town Hall Seattle, where Tanya Woo and Alexis Mercedes Rinck answered tough policy questions in front of a raucous crowd. If you missed it, you can still listen to our live recording by tuning in to this week’s edition of Seattle Nice.

Friday, October 5

Seattle Budget Update: Rob Saka Has Questions

Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka has been raising a lot of questions during this year’s budget presentations. Questions like: Are school zone speeding cameras bad? Should the city keep its ceremonial horse patrol, which mayors have been trying to get rid of since the McGinn administration? And can we “bodega our way out of” food deserts?

Saturday, October 5

Seattle Nice Minisode! Who Won the Seattle City Council Debate?

We did it! We managed to make a mini-episode that didn’t go as long as a regular episode! In this one, we discuss how the candidates for the citywide Seattle City Council seat, Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Tanya Woo, performed at the Seattle Nice-moderated debate on Tuesday at Town Hall.