City Council, Mayor Harrell, public safety, Taxes

Council Takes Up Harrell’s “Inherently Unsustainable” Budget; New Spending Includes $800,000 in Speculative AI Spending
Mayor Bruce Harrell, speaking at AI House in September

1. Your sales taxes are going up next year, thanks to a vote by the City Council Tuesday that approved a 0.1-cent increase that can, in the future, be used for any “public safety” purpose, including programs the city is already funding through its general fund.

The new tax, authorized earlier this year by the state legislature, will add $23.7 million in new funding to the budget to pay for 24 new CARE Team first responders, keep the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program going, and fund treatment, firefighters, and other non-police public safety programs. It also includes $15 million to supplant general fund spending on CARE, giving the city $15 million more to use on any purpose.

But, as a City Council central staff memo on the budget notes, there’s nothing in the state authorizing legislation that requires the city to use the new sales tax on new programs. (The original idea behind the legislation was that cities would use the tax increase to pay for police.)

According to the central staff analysis, Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed budget is unsustainable and relies heavily on fiscal sleight-of-hand to come up with a balanced budget in 2026, tumbling precipitously into massive deficits in 2027 and beyond. These tricks include relying on a one-time $141 million fund balance left over from 2025, which won’t be there to balance the budget next year; funding programs that will be necessary long-term, like food assistance for people losing federal benefits, with one-time resources, so that they don’t count toward future deficits; and assuming a $10 million “underspend” every year in the future, allowing the mayor’s budget team to chop $10 million off each year’s expenditures automatically without actually making cuts.

Referring to the fund balance, the memo notes, “The Mayor’s reliance on this $141 million one-time resource to balance his proposed spending for 2026 reflects the inherent unsustainability of the 2026 Proposed Budget, and demonstrates the basic magnitude of the mismatch between the City’s expenditures and its reliable, on-going revenues.

This damning assessment by the council’s own central staff could have implications throughout the budget, which the city council will begin discussing in detail today. What it could mean for the public safety sales tax, specifically is that, if the council passes Harrell’s unsustainable budget mostly as-is, future councils (and a potential future mayor Katie Wilson) could choose to use the money not to fund CARE and LEAD and treatment, but to pay for police, fire, and other basics that would ordinarily be paid for by the general fund.

In other words: Like the JumpStart payroll tax fund, which was supposed to pay for specific program areas (housing, small businesses, Green New Deal, and equitable development), the public safety tax could be used in the future as a slush fund to pay for programs that have historically been funded out of the city’s general budget.

The proposed budget adds about $53 million in new spending compared to the endorsed 2026 budget.

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2. One of the new initiatives Harrell’s proposed 2026 budget would fund is Permitting Accountability and Customer Trust (PACT) program—an $800,000 proposal that will purportedly “streamline the permitting application process and improve customer services using Artificial Intelligence and data integration.”

Callie Craighead, a spokeswoman for the mayor, told PubliCola the city hasn’t picked a vendor for the PACT funding yet. “The integration of AI tools is part of the City’s most concerted effort to date to reduce permitting time, making it faster and easier to build housing across Seattle,” she said.

Harrell is all-in on AI; at an event at the startup incubator AI House last month, he told the crowd, “If you’re thinking, ‘Maybe there’s an opportunity to monetize these things the city’s working on, that’s fair game, by the way. Faster permits—we know that AI can play an incredible role there. …  Time is money, and to the extent we can reduce permit processing times, this would be an added benefit for everyone involved in that process.”

Craighead said the new “AI tools” will help permit applicants catch errors before they submit applications; help “staff apply City code more consistently and efficiently, [and help] the City find opportunities to simplify and streamline policies.”

There are some companies that claim to reduce permitting times using AI chatbots and near-instant plan reviews, but it’s unclear to what extent these tools can actually supplant the human workers who currently work with developers and homeowners on permits and ensure compliance with the city’s complex codes by, for instance, talking to people and answering questions directly and inspecting conditions on the ground.

Moving away from actual employees to tools created by AI startups—a change the city’s new AI plan refers to delicately as “workforce transition”—will face strong opposition from the city’s unions (the largest of which, PROTEC17, has thrown its weight behind Harrell’s opponent Wilson), and potential opposition from the public as well. Replacing public workers with software could also have implications for the local economy, which is increasingly tilted in favor of wealthy tech-sector workers. And, of course, the current frenzy of AI hype could turn out to be just that—hype.

The city’s new AI plan says the “City’s AI Proof of Value framework ensures pilots are judged on clear objectives, business value, responsible use, and long-term supportability, not hype-fueled adoption we hear from sales staff.” Which seems, I don’t know… a little doth-protest-too much?

Drugs, homelessness, podcasts

Seattle Nice: CoLEAD Brings a New Approach to 12th and Jackson

By Erica C. Barnett

This week’s special guest on Seattle Nice, Purpose Dignity Action’s Director of Outreach and Special Initiatives Nichole Alexander, spoke with Sandeep and me about the work PDA’s CoLEAD program is doing with drug users at a longtime “hot spot” in the Chinatown International District.

Centered on 12th and Jackson, the area has been a frequent target for police operations, encampment removals, and city-led outreach efforts over the past decade.

The PDA’s CoLEAD program, formed during the pandemic to relocate people from encampments on state highway rights-of-way into hotel-based lodging with intensive case management, saw results—according to Alexander, 95 percent of people they worked with moved into hotel-based shelters funded by the state, and 70 percent ended up in permanent housing. That program, known as the Encampment Resolution Program, lost state funding, and now CoLEAD is focusing its much more limited resources helping people around 12th and Jackson by offering them a safe, private place to stay—something Alexander says is a prerequisite for longer-term stability.

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Unlike the city’s Unified Care Team, which moves people from place to place while offering shelter referrals to some, CoLEAD spends weeks getting to know people individually and listen to their needs before moving them inside.

“I hear a lot of people say folks don’t want to come inside, and that is not what we find,” Alexander told us. “We find 95% of folks really do want to come inside. They just want something that’s going to be safe for them. They want to be able to close the door, use a toilet safely, have case management that cares—and have that long-term care, not just a quick answer.”

We also talked to Alexander about her personal story, the debate over whether jail and involuntary treatment lead to lasting recovery, and the misconception that low-barrier shelter or housing is inherently chaotic and destabilizing.

David was out this week, but we’ll all be back together next week for a special election episode!

Police

Seattle Spent Thousands on “Organized Retail Theft” Operation at Marshall’s, Arresting Five and Recovering $400 in Merchandise

By Erica C. Barnett

Last week, the Seattle Police Department announced it had completed a successful “Organized Retail Theft Operation” at the Westwood Village mall in West Seattle, arresting five shoplifting suspects at “retail store … which suffers a significant amount of theft.” That retail store is Marshall’s, which, according to police, is a frequent target for shoplifting.

The merchandise police recovered, which included warm clothing such as knit caps and sweatshirts, had a total value of $406. (SPD’s post, which calculates the total as $460, does not match with the amounts catalogued in the police reports.)

In addition to the five people arrested for theft, police arrested another man on outstanding warrants and booked him into SCORE jail in Des Moines.

It’s unclear why SPD described these arrests, which occurred individually throughout the day, as “organized retail theft.” The total amount of merchandise the officers recovered was well under the legal threshold for a charge of organized retail theft under state law, which defines that term as a theft by a group of people, or by just one person, of merchandise with a total value of more than $750.

Asked why SPD considers the Marshall’s arrests an example of organized retail theft, an SPD spokesperson responded, “Charges for cases are determined by prosecutors. While we arrest individuals for probable cause of a crime, that is where the process ends for us.”

Conservatively, the operation may have cost the city upward of $10,000, between the ten officers who played direct or peripheral roles in the one-day sting and the cost of jailing several people on misdemeanor theft charges, including two who remained in jail for almost a week.

Mayor Bruce Harrell and Police Chief Shon Barnes have frequently talked about the urgent need to hire more officers in order to address violent crime and other critical public safety issues. For many years, SPD has had a program that allows security officers to apprehend shoplifters themselves and file “security incident reports,” which have the same weight as a police report, saving the department the hassle and expense of going to stores in person, arresting people, and booking them in jail.

SPD would not provide copies of the incident reports for the arrests. Instead, they provided narrative summaries from which the identity of each officer involved in the operation was redacted, while the names of all but one of the suspects—a man in a wheelchair who allegedly stole several pairs of children’s shoes and was not booked into jail—were included in the narrative.

The narrative, and the three full police reports we were able to obtain by cross-referencing other publicly available records, said, “The mission of this operation is to disrupt shoplifting, the trafficking of stolen goods, criminal activity and other criminal activity that negatively impacts the public’s quality of life in the City of Seattle.”

When we asked for the reports, a representative for SPD’s public affairs office responded, “You will have to submit a PDR [public disclosure request] for the full police reports as SPD Policy prevents me from releasing them.” In fact, SPD’s policy manual says, “Media Representatives May Obtain Copies of Police Reports Through the Public Affairs Unit,” as opposed to through the public disclosure process. We have asked SPD to explain why they appear to be violating their own policy.

The three police reports we obtained, along with the summaries of two additional cases provided by SPD, show that SPD dedicated at least 10 officers and detectives to nabbing four people for stealing small, low-value items. The merchandise SPD recovered included three pairs of children’s shoes ($26 a pair), beanies ($7 each), cologne ($10),  two sweatshirts (at $30 each, the highest-value items stolen), and a pet toy (price unknown).

At least ten officers were involved in the bust, including at least two sergeants; their salaries, according to publicly available records, range from $129,313 to $161,470, or between $62 and $78 an hour. An SPD spokesperson said it was too soon to know whether any of the officers received overtime pay for participating in the operation. During the sting, a detective sat in the security office along with Marshall’s security guards and directed officers to arrest people who appeared to be stealing, according to police reports.

The cost of arresting and jailing people isn’t minor. Booking a person into the King County Jail on misdemeanor theft charges costs the city a minimum of $665, a price that includes a one-time booking fee of $278.60 and a daily  “maintenance fee” of $386.36 for every day a person remains in jail.

Three of the four people booked at the downtown jail have been released; one served a night in jail, while the other two were there for six days and seven days, respectively. The fourth person was initially arrested for shoplifting but was booked on two felony warrants and remains in jail; the city isn’t charged for felony bookings.

Asked what the police department hoped the Marshall’s operation and similar stings would accomplish, the SPD spokesman said, “The goal  of retail theft enforcement is to encourage people to follow the law.”

 

Elections, Mayor Harrell

Harrell Says King County Public Health is “Failing Us,” Talks Tough on Trump, and Muses About an AI Wall Where You Can Ask MLK What He Had for Breakfast
Mayor Bruce Harrell and FamilyWorks Executive Director Marcia Wright-Soika at a recent debate hosted by the Seattle Human Services Coalition

By Erica C. Barnett

As readers may know, I’ve spent much of the last month attending Seattle mayoral debates and live-posting about them on Bluesky. Typically, the dynamic is this: Mayor Bruce Harrell criticizes his opponent, Katie Wilson, for having “no experience” in various areas (housing, budgets, managing people, etc.), and belittles her while refusing to use her name. In response, Wilson defends herself with facts about her experience, achievements, and plans, often stumbling a little in the face of broadsides that may include five different inaccurate claims about her; Harrell is fond, for example, of claiming “she is one of the chief architects of the Defund [the Police] movement,” an absurdity that erases the Black leaders who began the movement in response to police violence against Black victims, like George Floyd, Breonna Tayler Eric Garner.

Over the weekend, though, Harrell had the rare opportunity to participate in a “debate” without his opponent present, after Wilson pulled out of the so-called “Great Debate” at the Washington Athletic Club at the last minute on Saturday afternoon. (Wilson’s campaign said she was sick; the debate’s emcee, Harrell supporter Julius Caesar Robinson, told the crowd, “She wants me to to pass on her apologies, which I am not!”) For a reporter in the audience, it was also a rare opportunity to see the usually unsmiling mayor in a friendly crowd—the debate was sponsored by We Heart Seattle, the Seattle Police Officers Guild, the state Realtors Association, and the Discovery Institute, among other right-leaning groups.

In contrast to his usual dour appearance when forced to share a stage with Wilson, Harrell was garrulous, expansive, and casual, often stopping to shout out people he recognized in the audience and ramble for minutes at a time about whatever was on his mind, be it the Mariners (“we’re playing some really, really good baseball this year) or the role AI will play in Seattle’s arts and culture (“The reason why culture and art is so strong is you’re going to see a heavy AI influence in it,” he said.)

And speaking of AI: During a rambling response to a question about how he would keep businesses in downtown Seattle, Harrell said he had great hope that AI startup incubators like AI House, on the downtown waterfront, would help produce “experiential activities” that would get people to come downtown. Those might include dog parks, day cares, restaurants, music, and interactive video, he said.

“We want video activity. And I gave an example to someone. I said, Imagine how cool would this be if we had like, a 10-foot wall. It’s interactive and it’s historical. And you could talk to Martin Luther King, and you could say, ‘Well, Dr, Martin Luther King, I’ve always wanted to meet you. What was your day like today? What did you have for breakfast?’ And he comes back and he talks to you right now. How cool would that be if we have a series of historical figures that we all could agree on, that we respect. And then it stops off, and we can watch the Mariners beat Toronto for the championship. That’s where downtown is heading, and our think tanks—my think tank that I’ve convened—are coming up these kinds of deals to make sure our downtown is vibrant and we get employees back. I think we can lead the way.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, Dr. Bernice King, asked people to stop making AI versions of her father just last week. A spokesperson for the King Center in Atlanta said she’ll be issuing a statement soon about AI replications of her father’s likeness.

Harrell’s off-the-cuff musings about an interactive fake MLK in downtown Seattle weren’t the only unusually candid comments he made at the friendly event, which ended in a standing ovation. I’ve gathered a few of his remarks here, all from an audio recording and edited lightly for accuracy from my live AI (yes, there are good uses for it) transcript—a fact that I’m noting, mostly, because Harrell took a moment out of his comments to say that he hoped I was quoting him accurately.

On whether he “punches down” against his opponent, who founded the Transit Riders Union and led successful minimum-wage efforts in Tukwila, Burien, and unincorporated King County:

“I haven’t done anything that I would consider punching down. … I’ve tried to argue with facts. I said in a debate, I think we had two debates a couple days ago, and I said my opponent has never hired one employee, and my opponent said, That’s not true. And then her campaign manager said, she hired me. And then I said to my opponent, well, how many employees have you hired? And my opponent wouldn’t ask the question. I don’t think that’s punching down. I said that my opponent ran a $200,000 budget, and last year they lost $21,000. The year before that, $38,000. The year before, $46,000. They had zero employees. … So when I cite facts like that, I don’t see that as punching down.” (Wilson has said that as head of the Transit Riders Union, she recruited volunteers, not paid employees. TRU’s IRS filings show negative income but positive assets, like many nonprofits.)

On dealing with the Trump administration:

“Dealing with Donald Trump is very, very hard because I don’t understand the end game. I have an idea of the end game, which is not healthy for America as far as I’m concerned. It’s my personal belief, and it’s more my style to understand the president. I actually had a one on one with President Biden several times, a one on one. Not a lot of people can say that. We would take a walk. I had one on ones with Vice President Harris. How many people could say— I’m very proud of that. I’ve had some great opportunities here. I believe there’s a sacred pact between the federal government and the city. They should help us with transportation projects, cancer research, public safety, infrastructure. So to answer your question directly, I’ve been very aggressive on our executive orders, because no one believes. Remember, I was a linebacker. A linebacker, and I’m not particularly big. I played against people who are much bigger. I’m tenacious.” (Harrell went on to praise Police Chief Shon Barnes, a “superstar,” and detail the executive orders I wrote about here, which include a local law banning federal agents from wearing masks to conceal their identities.)

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On whether he’ll require protesters “dressed in black bloc” to take off their masks too: 

“I think what you’re talking about are masks with the intention, perhaps, to take some kind of aggressive action which could result in someone being unsafe. And I don’t think that’s right at all. I have to respect the fact that some people—we were all wearing masks about three and a half years ago, and there could be code restrictions or health concerns where some people need to wear masks. So the reason I mentioned that is because when looking at the mask law, I asked the question, well, can’t—how far we can we go with masks in case someone still has a respiratory issue and have to wear masks? And so what we’re trying to do is make sure that masks with the intent to camouflage themselves, to exert force over people, is not what we want, and we’ll prohibit that. So I’m all for that, but I have to recognize that people will have health conditions that may require some level of mask, and we have to respect that.”

On “good protest”:

I expect people to use their voices. You all have loud voices. You know how I know? ‘Cause I hear them sometimes. And we don’t want you poking the bear. We don’t want you falling for the bait. And so we also want to do some training on what First Amendment good protest looks like, because I don’t want any of you to be charged with obstruction of justice. You heard my [police] chief ask many of you, have you ever heard of Willie Grimes? … If you go back in history books, this was a person that when the National Guard federalized, he was killed. … There are many incidents in our history when there was peaceful protest that resulted in violence. So we want to make sure that you all know the do’s and don’ts of peaceful protest to protect you as you raise your voice.”

On the “failing” Seattle/King County Public Health Department:

“Now, one thing that I did ask when I first got elected, I really wanted to serve on the Board of Health because I thought I should implode it. Remember, the health department is a $3.5 billion organization run by the county. …  There are many cities like Berkeley that run their own health department, and there’s an effort underway on a national basis for cities to get close to running their own health departments, becoming what they call a continuum of care. Now, why would cities be interested in doing that? I’ll tell you why. Because during COVID, the monies went right to the cities, and they found out cities were nimble. They knew their constituents better. They knew their streets better than the county. I know the streets better here in Seattle than the county.

“Okay, so part of the challenge, Andrea, is that I can’t tell them how to do their job, because this enabling of [public drug use] often is exacerbating the problem. … And so I struggle a little bit with the Health Department. When I say this during these debates, my opponent will say, you’re passing the buck. I don’t pass any bucks. I’m an empowered person. But I have to acknowledge that there are structural issues of how the health department are doing their job, and we are all suffering as a result of that. So I’m on top of the issues. We’re working on it now, and I will guarantee you that we’re making changes to our relationship with the county, because I’m paying into a system that, I think it’s failing all of us. So we’re moving very recently because, because I realized the system was failing. …”

“What I want to see from the health department, and I won’t denigrate any of these fine people work with health department. I will not do that. But here’s the challenge, Andrea, I never see them when I—if you and I took a walk out on Third Avenue, we’ll see people that are not fulfilling their lives. So what I’m asking my group is, where are these health workers? Many of them are fine people. So what I want to see—every time I see someone dying or sick, I want to see them getting help.”

On his work ethic:

“Anyone that works around me knows that I outwork everybody. I will. I’ll work seven days a week, 12, 14, hours a day. My people that work with me, they are amazed with the energy, I have an amazing wife. In any debate, I always have to find her, because she’ll always say, smile, Bruce, smile. They take pictures of me. I’m looking at myself expressing joy at the love of my life.”

A full recording of the Q&A session with Harrell is available here. 

I’ve also posted a rough transcript here.

Addiction, Courts, Mayor Harrell, Police

This Week on PubliCola: October 11, 2025

Controversial cop promoted, then demoted, by new police chief, Harrell says he has a plan for addressing food deserts and potential federal troop invasion, and more.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, October 6

Seattle Nice: Harrell Talks Tough on Food Deserts and Homelessness

On this week’s podcast, we discussed Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposal to ban restrictive covenants that limit the size of grocery stores and pharmacies. Harrell pitched theas one solution to the problem of “food deserts”—areas with few grocery stores (or pharmacies) where residents have to travel long distances to get basic items—but how impactful would it really be?

Tuesday, October 7

SPD Chief Puts Cop Who Called 2020 Protesters “Cockroaches” In Charge of East Precinct

Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes quietly removed the East Precinct’s gay acting commander, Doug Raguso, and placed a newly promoted captain, Mike Tietjen, in charge. Tietjen was at the center of two high-profile incidents during protests against police violence in 2020, including one in which he was reprimanded for failing to report fellow officers for harassing a trans woman while he was in the car.

Wednesday, October 8

Three Key Questions to Save Our Light Rail Future

In a guest op/ed, King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci made the case for considering a light rail alternative that would reduce the cost of the over-budget Ballard-to-West-Seattle light rail extension by running all three rail lines through the existing downtown tunnel, rather than digging an entirely new one.

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Harrell Says SPD Will Stand Strong Against Federal Invasion; SPD Promotes Former Deputy Chief Who Said Aurora Sex Workers “Enjoy It”

Two stories in Wednesday’s Afternoon Fizz: First, Mayor Bruce Harrell introduced two executive orders that, he said, will help protect Seattle against federal troops by banning face masks and training police and city employees on how to respond to ICE. Also, the SPD promotions Barnes announced internally last month include a new captain whose controversial remarks about sex workers were one of the reasons he was demoted in 2019.

Thursday, October 9

Reversing Decision, SPD Removes Controversial Captain Tietjen from East Precinct

Two days after PubliCola exclusively reported that Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes had promoted controversial police lieutenant Michael Tietjen to captain and put him in charge of Capitol Hill’s East Precinct, Barnes announced internally that he was removing Tietjen and appointing a new commander for the precinct. In his email to command staff, Barnes blamed others for the decision.

Friday, October 10

Banishment Orders and Mandatory Addiction Assessments Haven’t Helped Drug Users, Court Records Show

A recent review of court records showed that two people have been jailed, so far, for violating orders to “stay out” of designated “drug areas.” The city’s new drug diversion alternative, implemented by City Attorney Ann Davison, does not include mandatory services, and a recent review by the county public defender’s office showed that almost no one who used this alternative ended up in treatment.

Addiction, Courts, Jails

Banishment Orders and Mandatory Addiction Assessments Haven’t Helped Drug Users, Court Records Show

By Erica C. Barnett

Since the city reinstated an old law allowing judges to banish people from certain areas if they’re accused of violating Seattle’s drug laws, two people have been arrested and jailed for violating Stay Out of Drug Area orders. The first case involved a woman who was originally arrested in Westlake Park in downtown Seattle after police looked into her open bag and saw a container with white powder inside; after spending almost two weeks in jail, she was banned from the central business district. Six weeks later, she was arrested again when police saw her in the area.

The second person accused of violating their SODA order was a man who was arrested twice within four days, both last month, for smoking crack in Belltown. He was banished from the Belltown SODA area but didn’t leave; instead, he was arrested again two days later when police saw him in the same area.

Both were referred into a “drug prosecution alternative” proposed by City Attorney Ann Davison to replace Community Court—an alternative to prosecution that Davison unilaterally ended. in 2023. (Public drug use and simple possession weren’t misdemeanors in Seattle until the city passed a law in 2023 enabling Davison to prosecute these cases.) At the time, Davison argued that community court was a failure, in part, because many people didn’t show up for their first court appearances.

Davison’s new “alternative” court option requires people to get assessed for substance use disorder—a step that’s arguably unnecessary for most of the people prosecuted for using drugs in public, since the Venn Diagram of people who use drugs on the street and those with addiction are basically concentric circles—and to stay out of trouble for 60 days. People can also choose to opt in to services at the court’s community resource center when they get their assessment.

A recent report from the King County Department of Public Defense, which provides attorneys to indigent defendants, found that just six of more than 200 misdemeanor drug cases Davison’s office filed between January and August of this year resulted in a defendant completing treatment or receiving a court order compelling them into treatment. As with community court, more than half of the defendants Davison prosecuted for drug use or possession failed to show up in court and had bench warrants issued for their arrest.

Tim Robinson, a spokesman for Davison’s office, said the drug prosecution alternative “connects the defendant to a meaningful drug evaluation and referrals to service providers” at the resource center.

Robinson noted the city attorney’s office doesn’t offer the drug prosecution alternative to everyone; people office considers “repeat prolific defendants” are ineligible, as are people who have been through the alternative process before. In contrast, “Community Court was mandatory for a wide variety of crimes, even for prolific repeat defendants,” Robinson said.

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One problem with Davison’s new alternative, critics have argued, is that it eliminates the mandatory services that were an integral part of community court and replaces those services with the threat of arrest, jail, and prosecution. For people with severe substance use disorders who don’t have a way of using drugs indoors and out of sight, this creates a ticking clock to avoid arrest, but doesn’t guarantee (or require) services that could help them stop using drugs.

PubliCola found eight cases over the past month in which Davison’s office referred defendants to the alternative court process. All of these cases are still open. In each case, the person arrested stayed in jail at least overnight; the woman who was arrested in Westlake Park for violating her SODA order was jailed for 13 days in July, when she was initially arrested, and another night in October, when she was found inside the downtown SODA area. Seattle pays King County a one-time fee of $279 for every misdemeanor jail booking, plus a daily fee of $386 for every day the person remains in jail.

When Seattle Municipal Court Judge Damon Shadid proposed a compromise alternative after Davison eliminated community court, he suggested eliminating this “Phase 1” engagement and jumping straight to Phases 2 and 3, plus a new fourth phase—a concrete appointment with a service provider, followed by short-term and long-term engagement phases that could include housing, treatment, and ongoing case management.

Instead, Davison kept Phase 1—requiring defendants to go to the resource center for an assessment—and eliminated all the other phases, replacing the carrot of services with the stick of arrest, prosecution, and potential jail time.

Robinson said Davison “continues to be optimistic that it can be an effective public safety tool that will create meaningful opportunities for positive impact on the lives of those who struggle with addiction.”

Davison is up for reelection in November. Her opponent, Erika Evans, got 56 percent of the vote to Davison’s 33 percent.

erica@publicola.com