City Council, housing, Taxes

City Plans Major Overhaul of Affordable Housing Tax-Break Program
An MFTE building, Mad Flats, on Capitol Hill

By Erica C. Barnett

The city is getting ready to overhaul a program that provides tax breaks to developers who agree to keep 25 percent of their apartments affordable for 12 years (or 20 percent if 8 percent of the units are two-bedroom), known as the Multifamily Tax Exemption program (MFTE). It’s the city’s main program for providing housing affordable to moderate-income people; as of November 2024, according to a University of Washington evaluation of the program, there were nearly 7,000 income-restricted units in Seattle as a direct result of MFTE tax breaks

The MFTE program has been overhauled several times in its 27-year existence; the current program, known as “Program 6,” has been in place since 2019. In that update, the City Council imposed a cap on rent increases of 4.5 percent a year and reduced the maximum income for eligibility, opening up the program for lower-income renters.

While those changes made more people eligible for MFTE units, they also made developers less likely to participate in the voluntary program. As construction costs ballooned starting in 2019, market rents in Seattle softened, making MFTE units less competitive with the market–and the program less appealing to developers who might otherwise participate in it.

According to the UW study, “The City of Seattle has a difficult responsibility to calibrate the relationship between the costs of the program (benefit to developers) and the public benefits it delivers (more affordable housing). As the City pushes for greater public benefits, the program becomes less attractive to developers. This is the central tension.”

The proposed update, known as “Revised Program 7” to distinguish it from an earlier proposal that came out of the city’s Office of Housing, would set new (generally higher) rent and income limits for most of the affordable units created under the MFTE program, adjusting eligibility standards so that the program would be geared toward people earning between 40 percent of Seattle’s median income for the smallest units to 90 percent—about $113,000 for a two-person household—for two-bedrooms.

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Updating the tax-break program has been fairly uncontroversial so far—somewhat surprisingly so, given some council members’ recent opposition to other proposals that would encourage new housing, such as density increases in the comprehensive plan, on the grounds that they aren’t tailored to very low-income people.

It may help that the council’s most vocal opponent of such measures, Cathy Moore, is off the council and no longer chairs the Housing and Human Services Committee, which discussed the legislation last week. During public comment at last week’s housing and human services committee, just one speaker vociferously opposed the proposed changes to the program: Longtime Phinney Ridge neighborhood activist Irene Wall, who argued that MFTE was “a failed program” that served too few people for the amount it costs homeowners like herself in additional taxes.

“The Office of Housing spent months trying to figure out what to do with this program,” Wall said. “They asked tenants if they like their rent reductions in their new buildings, but there was no outreach to any of the taxpayers who are funding this graft. Why are the taxpayers not considered equal stakeholders in this scheme?”

Overall, a median homeowner in Seattle spends $145 a year in property taxes to offset the taxes developers who participate in the program don’t pay in exchange for providing affordable housing.

Council President Sara Nelson, who has frequently beat the drum for more “workforce” housing, called MFTE “a program that’s extremely important because it it makes it easier to build housing across the board.”

The proposal would also replace a 4.5 percent annual cap on rent increases with the statewide rent cap (which doesn’t currently apply to MFTE buildings) of 7 percent plus inflation or 10 percent, whichever is smaller. Separate from the legislation, Office of Housing director Maiko Winkler-Chin told the council that OH is simplifying the income verification process for renters, which can require prospective tenants to fill out a lengthy, complex application for each MFTE unit they apply to rent.

“The city doesn’t have any program that supports workforce housing besides MFTE, really, for rental units,” Nelson said. “And that, I would say, is the greatest need because of the sheer numbers of people that fall within the category.”

The council, which is currently on its annual two-week summer recess, has until September 3 to propose amendments—for example, adjusting the maximum income levels so that higher-income renters are ineligible for the program—in advance of the next meeting to discuss the program on September 10.

Elections, Mayor Harrell

Harrell Fared Worst In Southeast Seattle District He Once Represented on City Council
Mayor Bruce Harrell on primary election night

By Erica C. Barnett

An analysis of primary election results shows that Mayor Bruce Harrell lost badly in the primary on his own home turf—Southeast Seattle’s 37th District, where he won just 36 percent of the vote to challenger Katie Wilson’s 56 percent. Overall, Harrell didn’t win a majority in any Seattle legislative district except the sliver of the 32nd that dips down into Seattle from Shoreline, but his 47-42 victory in that area represented a majority of less than 5,000 votes.

Although the 37th LD, which roughly overlaps with the council district Harrell represented between 2015 and 2019 (the boundaries were redrawn in 2022) also went for Harrell’s opponent, then-councilmember Lorena González, in 2021, the gap was much smaller—González had 36 percent to Harrell’s 33 percent, with the remainder going to other candidates.

That’s a major comedown from Harrell’s 2015 election to represent City Council District 2, when he got nearly 62 percent of the primary vote and went on to narrowly defeat Tammy Morales, who won election to the same seat four years later. Harrell was an incumbent, but ran for the Southeast Seattle seat after the city switched to district elections.

González was the more progressive candidate in the 2021 race, so her supporters serve as a rough proxy for Wilson’s voter base.

In other legislative districts that are fully or mostly located in Seattle, voters flipped from supporting Harrell in the 2021 primary to supporting Wilson this year. These include the 34th District (West Seattle), the 36th District (Queen Anne, Magnolia, Ballard), and the 46th District (North Seattle). Harrell also lost to González in the 11th District, which included some of South Seattle, in 2021, but that area was also redistricted and the part that was in Seattle is now in the 37th. In the 43rd District, which includes Capitol Hill and the University District, Harrell trailed Wilson by 14 points, 40 to 54.

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Harrell will have to close a nearly 10-point gap with challenger Wilson if he wants to win reelection in November—a feat that, as we documented last week, no sitting mayor has accomplished in at least the last 28 years.

Of course, the electorate itself changes between the August primary and the November general election, when turnout is generally higher—about 40 percent of Seattle’s registered voters, or around 200,000 people, voted in the primary, a number that will likely spike well above 50 percent in the general). And people can change their minds and vote for a different candidate in the general, including voters who chose one of the six candidates who didn’t make it through.

But there are reasons to expect that that last group of voters won’t move the needle much in Harrell’s direction: Unlike in the 2021 election that made Harrell mayor, when nearly 34 percent of voters went for candidates other than Harrell or González, the other candidates split just 8 percent of the vote this year, which doesn’t “free up” many voters to choose Harrell or Wilson.

When we asked Joe Mallahan, a candidate to the right of Wilson whose votes would theoretically go to Harrell, if asked if he was voting for Harrell, he responded “fuck no” and said he’s supporting Wilson.

Crime, Elections, LGBTQ+, Mayor Harrell, Police

This Week on PubliCola: August 16, 2025

A closer look at Ann Davison’s record, police chief gets recruitment bonus, new details in Adrian Diaz investigation, and more.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, August 11

Ann Davison Promised to Resolve Cases Faster and Punish the Most Serious Violators. Did She Deliver?

Reporter Andrew Engelson did a deep dive into the data on embattled City Attorney Ann Davison’s 2021 campaign promises, finding that while Davison did speed up filing on some misdemeanor cases, more cases have ended up dismissed or with no conviction than under her predecessor, and she has filed domestic violence cases much more slowly.

Tuesday, December 12

Police Chief and Deputy Chief Received Recruitment Bonuses For Bringing on New Staff

New Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes and Deputy Chief Yvonne Underwood received recruitment bonuses of $1,000 each for bringing on two executive-level staff (the two each got a bonus for recruiting the same new deputy chief and Barnes got a separate bonus for hiring an assistant chief). The bonuses were created with the intent of hiring more officers who can respond to calls, not executive staff.

Thursday, December 13

Christian Nationalist Rally by Anti-LGBTQ Group Will Take Place at Cal Anderson Park

As of Thursday, the city had exhausted all legal options for preventing an anti-LGBTQ Christian nationalist group from holding a concert and rally in Cal Anderson Park, and queer organizers were planning counter-programming with cooperation from city officials. On Friday, when the permit was to be announced, PubliCola learned that the city was working on a last-minute solution in which the group would voluntarily hold its “Revive in ‘25” event elsewhere.

Mayoral Challenger Katie Wilson Closes In on 51 Percent; Council Moves to Expand Police Camera Surveillance

In Thursday’s Afternoon Fizz, we took a look at historical election numbers to consider the likelihood that Harrell will be able to come back from a 10-point primary election loss to challenger Katie Wilson. And the council moved closer to expanding the city’s brand-new 24/7 police camera surveillance to new neighborhoods, including the Central District, Capitol Hill, and the stadium district.

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Harrell’s Chief of Staff Leaves Mayor’s Office

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s longtime aide, chief of staff and general counsel Jeremy Racca, is leaving the mayor’s office to move to New York after a month-long leave of absence. Racca is the first high-level staffer to leave Harrell’s office after the election. The departure led to a shuffling of personnel in Harrell’s office, elevating deputy mayor Tiffany Washington, who has played a top role on homelessness policy, to a new position of chief deputy mayor.

Friday, August 15

Witnesses In Diaz Investigation Say Former Chief “Obsessed” Over Affair Rumors, Asked Employees to Use WhatsApp to Evade Disclosure

Newly release interviews with former police chief Adrian Diaz’ staff include new details about incidents that led the people surrounding Diaz to believe he was covering up an affair with the woman he hired as his chief of staff, including a late-night visit to an abandoned park in North Bend and an alleged directive to use encrypted messaging to communicate as a way of avoiding public disclosure.

Police

Witnesses In Diaz Investigation Say Former Chief “Obsessed” Over Affair Rumors, Asked Employees to Use WhatsApp to Evade Disclosure

SPD employees described several incidents that made them uncomfortable, including a 2am call to a park in North Bend and a request for makeup wipes in Diaz’ official city vehicles. 

By Erica C. Barnett

Newly released records from the investigation into alleged misconduct by former police chief Adrian Diaz include previously unreported interviews with two staffers who were close to Diaz.

Mayor Bruce Harrell fired Diaz in December, six months after removing him as chief, after concluding he violated SPD policies by having an “improper… intimate relationship” with his chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins, failed to disclose the relationship, and lied about it to investigators. Diaz created a position, chief of staff, for Tompkins, who resigned amid allegations of dishonesty in November.

PubliCola obtained the investigation records, which include interviews with a member of Diaz’ security detail, Tay Gray-McVey, and his executive assistant, Tricia Fuentes, through a public disclosure request.

Investigators found that Diaz had violated SPD’s policies on dishonesty, professionalism, avoiding or disclosing conflicts of interest, and improper personal relationships, and that Tompkins had not only lied to investigators but falsified evidence by disguising her handwriting in an effort to prove that she didn’t write a love note to Diaz on an Star Wars-themed birthday card.

Diaz, who is married to a woman, went on a local right-wing talk show last June to announce that he was gay, using this claim as a defense against the affair allegations as well as several harassment and hostile-workplace lawsuits by women in the department.

In his interview, which took place in January, Gray-McVey described several incidents that helped confirm his belief that Diaz and Tompkins were having an affair.

In one incident, Gray-McVey described driving out to a park in North Bend, where Tompkins lived, at around 2:00 in the morning to provide a jump to Diaz’ city-issued Chevy Tahoe, which had a dead battery. As he worked to get Diaz’ truck up and running, he said he noticed Tompkins was sitting in the passenger seat. Gray-McVey said he never spoke with Diaz about Tompkins’ presence, but told the two people present at the interview, “I’m sure we, all three of us, can figure out what two adults are doing in a park after hours in a car.”

Shortly after the encounter, Gray-McVey said, Tompkins gave him a bottle of Crown Royal with a note saying “‘Thanks for saving the day,’ or something to that effect.”

Gray-McVey also mentioned two incidents that involved Tompkins’ heavy makeup. According to Gray-McVey, before Tompkins was hired but while Diaz was spending significant time with her, the police chief began requiring all his cars—the one he drove and the ones driven by his security detail—to be with makeup removal wipes. “I think they [were] used to remove the makeup that might be on him,” Gray-McVey said.

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During a convention in San Diego, Gray-McVey continued, Tompkins escorted Diaz back to his hotel after a night of drinking with other police chiefs from around the country. The next morning, when he walked by Diaz’ room, he noticed a stack of towels on a cart outside the room, including some that were visibly smeared with makeup. They could have been someone else’s towels, Gray-McVey conceded.

Gray-McVey said his experience working for Diaz while Tompkins was in the picture, which he said began well before Diaz hired her, was stressful and contributed to a “rough patch” in his life.

Fuentes, who also worked directly for Diaz as a senior executive assistant, also described the stress of being viewed as disloyal by Diaz, telling investigators her previously positive relationship with her boss began to change after she questioned his request to notarize Tompkins’ hiring documents personally, a request that fell outside the normal hiring process and was something she didn’t ordinarily do.

Later, she said, after Diaz became “obsessed” with finding out who was spreading rumors about him and Tompkins, he asked her and another staffer to start using WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging app, instead of text messages to communicate with Diaz and other SPD staff. City employees’ texts are subject to public disclosure, both on their city-issued phones and on personal cell phones if they pertain to city business, and employees are not supposed to use encrypted apps to get around public disclosure laws.

Fuentes, who previously worked on public disclosure requests, recalled to investigators that during a closed-door meeting, Diaz said, “‘The media is making a lot of requests for text messages, so… if you guys could download WhatsApp, that’s how I want to communicate from now on.'” Fuentes said she told Diaz using WhatsApp to evade record requests would violate public disclosure law, and that she would continue using text messages instead. Diaz said “‘that’s fine’ … But from then on, again, I felt a shift in our relationship and the openness.”

For instance, Fuentes recalled, Diaz changed the way he dealt with public disclosure requests for text messages. Previously, she told investigators, “I’d usually stand in front of [Diaz or a deputy or assistant chief] and I’d say, ‘Okay, give me your phone,’ and I’d … do the search, and show them.'” Over time, though, that changed, and Diaz “just handled it himself. … He’d have me still type up the form with, ‘Oh, there was nothing responsive,’ and then he’d sign it.”

On one occasion, Fuentes said, Diaz found out about a records request seeking information about his schedule and told her “I need to find out who this guy is. … “He said, ‘Well, I’m being followed and I believe that that requester knows Jamie’s ex-husband.’ It was just—I couldn’t follow. It was like this long conspiracy theory.”

Fuentes corroborated previous SPD accounts that Diaz became convinced that someone was planting listening devices in his office, and said he “became obsessive on the rumors” about him and Tompkins—sometimes spending “a lot of his workday” in his office with Tompkins discussing who might be spreading rumors about them. “That’s not the normal behavior of a chief of police, especially when we’re in a time when we were having you know such short staffing and crime and all that,” she told investigators.

Around that same time, she said, the way Diaz talked in her presence became more “crude”—she said he talked about how Tompkins was “constantly being sent dick pics,’ [and] I was like, Why is he telling me this?” Diaz also commented frequently on Tompkins “looks… and her makeup and her hair,” and “about her not leaving her house unless she’s got her hair and makeup done. .. I just remember thinking that was kind of a weird—a weird, out-of-nowhere thing.”

On another occasion, he said “something incredibly crass”—after egging Fuentes on to agree that one of her coworkers looked good in his new suit, Fuentes said Diaz told them the coworker “was over with me at the mayor’s office today and the mayor whispered, ‘I’d fuck him in that suit.'” Asked about this account, a spokesman for the mayor’s office said “this absolutely didn’t happen,” and noted that Diaz was fired for dishonesty.

Records reveal that Diaz, who was prohibited from talking about the investigation into his alleged misconduct, was formally admonished last October for sharing information about the case in violation of a direct order from then-interim police chief Sue Rahr. An investigative supervisor with the OIG warned him that failing to follow orders or violating investigative protocols could result in additional misconduct charges.

Diaz, through his attorney, declined to respond to questions. “This matter involves ongoing litigation, and the individuals you reference below are fact witnesses in the case. For those reasons, we will not be answering questions or providing comment at this time,” attorney Joseph P. Corr said. “That being said, Chief Diaz continues to deny any wrongdoing in connection with his former employment with the City of Seattle and/or his relationship with Ms. Tompkins.”

Mayor Harrell

Harrell’s Chief of Staff Leaves Mayor’s Office

 

By Erica C. Barnett

Jeremy Racca, a longtime aide to Mayor Bruce Harrell who has served as his chief of staff and general counsel for the past several years, is leaving the mayor’s office, citing health and family concerns. Racca, 40, has had two heart attacks in recent years, and took an unpaid leave of absence last month.

During that absence, Racca took a job at a New York City law firm while still an employee at the city. “I wasn’t willing to quit and lose insurance until I got another job,” he said.

Racca said Harrell, who served three terms on the council before becoming mayor, “has been a big part of my life for 15 years. I believe in him and I believe in the administration. But at this time, I do have to prioritize my health, and having two very significant cardiac events before the age of 40 is a warning sign.”

He said the recent primary election results, which have Harrell trailing challenger Katie Wilson by almost 10 points, weren’t a factor in his decision.

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Racca says he plans to split his time between New York and Louisiana, where his 94-year father lives.

In an internal email to staff, Harrell said he was “proud of Jeremy for making this decision and want to express my eternal gratitude for everything he has done to support our administration.”

Harrell’s Chief Innovation Office Andrew Myerberg, who has been Harrell’s interim chief of staff for the past month, will take over as chief of staff, while Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington, will have a new title, Chief Deputy Mayor. Deputy Mayor Greg Wong will add General Counsel to his title.

While “we’ll also miss [Racca’s] humor, empathy, and friendship,” Harrell wrote, “thanks to the team that we have collectively developed, I am confident we will continue to execute at the same pace and quality that the people of Seattle have grown accustomed to.”

City Council, Elections, Privacy

Mayoral Challenger Katie Wilson Closes In on 51 Percent; Council Moves to Expand Police Camera Surveillance

1. Katie Wilson, the labor organizer and transit advocate who’s challenging Mayor Bruce Harrell, is on target to come out of the August primary with around 51 percent of the vote, with Harrell trailing 10 points behind at 41 percent. It’s a huge political victory—passing 50 percent against an incumbent mayor backed by almost $800,000 in pre-primary spending sends a strong message that voters want change—and puts Wilson in an extremely strong position to win in November.

A look at historical vote totals shows why Wilson is on track to win.

To start with, Seattle has not reelected a single incumbent mayor since 2005, when Greg Nickels defeated a nominal challenge from a UW professor named Al Runte, beating him in the primary by a 35-point margin. (Nickels got his comeuppance in the following election, when two challengers, Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan, nudged him out in the primary).

Additionally, it’s been almost 25 years years since a mayoral candidate has come in second in the primary and won in the general election, which happened most recently in 2001. In that race, the two frontrunners, Mark Sidran and Greg Nickels, were neck and neck, and both advanced to the general after knocking out incumbent Paul Schell. Nickels went on to beat Sidran 50-48.

You have to go back even further, to 1997, to find a comparable gap between the two mayoral frontrunners. In that case, though, the ultimate winner, Paul Schell, won decisively in the primary, beating neighborhood activist Charlie Chong by just under 6 points going into the general. As a weak incumbent, Harrell appears more likely to follow the path of his five most recent predecessors who each failed to win reelection.

2. The city council’s public safety committee unanimously approved bill expanding police camera surveillance into three new neighborhoods on Tuesday, rejecting one accountability-focused amendment from progressive Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck and passing an amendment from Joy Hollingsworth that limits the new CCTV cameras around Garfield High School and Playfield, which is in her council district, to three arterial streets—East Cherry, 23rd Avenue East, and South Jackson St.

Rinck isn’t on the committee, so she couldn’t vote; committee chair Bob Kettle sponsored her amendments as a courtesty.

Another amendment from Rinck, aimed at ensuring that police report back on whether SPD had provided camera footage to any outside entity in response to court orders or subpoenas, passed unanimously.

The expansion of camera surveillance is now on a glide path for approval by the full council.

Once the new cameras are up and recording, Hollingsworth said, “I’m going to continue to be listening to community and trying to address a lot of concerns that they have with the cameras and making sure that we are not violating people’s civil liberties.”

An amendment from Joy Hollingsworth restricted surveillance cameras around Garfield high school to the arterials marked by the blue lines on this map.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Council President Sara Nelson asked a staffer if the cameras would ever be trained on “residential streets.” In reality, they already are—because of Seattle’s zoning laws, apartments are heavily concentrated on arterial roads, and streets where Seattle is currently placing most of its new surveillance cameras are no exception. Although SPD has said it will blur out images of residential buildings, renters coming to and from their homes will frequently be caught on SPD’s surveillance cameras, along with anyone who patronizes businesses, goes to (or has kids in) school, spends time in parks, or visits a public library branch in the areas under SPD surveillance.

The committee also rejected two amendments by progressive Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck. The first would have required any future evaluation of the cameras to include a controlled assessment to determine whether the cameras were meeting the city’s stated goals for deploying them—deterring violent crime, human trafficking, or persistent felony crime.

If the assessment found that the cameras were failing to meet those goals, the mayor would “consider” discontinuing them. “We, as an elected body, should be instilling trust in our community and not pushing for expansions of programs before getting data and information about their effectiveness,” Rinck said.

Committee chair Bob Kettle said it was likely the cameras would accomplish lots of other important goals, beyond the ones supporters have used to justify their expansion, such as aiding in prosecutions, reducing response times, and improving the relationship between SPD and the public, much as Saka said body-worn police cameras have. Juarez added that the city “would have a hard time measuring and enforcing whether or not the cameras are actually deterring violent crime, because if we could do that, we would have done that.”

Nelson then piled on the anti-data train, saying that “it’s very difficult to draw causal conclusions based on an evaluation because many things could be impacting the trends that we have seen.”

Nelson, Kettle, and other council members have consistently blamed the previous city council for causing police to leave the city for by demoralizing them with talk of reducing SPD’s budget in 2020, despite the lack of data to support this claim.