City Council, Elections, King County, Transportation

County Council Gives Itself a Little ($315,000) Gift; Saka’s Effort to Divert Traffic Safety Funds to Sidewalks Fails

1. CORRECTION: The original version of this story suggested that Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, who did not respond to our initial request for comment for this story, had used his additional funds to pay for a mailer to his constituents. This was inaccurate—Zahilay did not use the funds for the mailer. We regret the error. 

All nine King County Councilmembers got an unexpected gift last month: a $35,000 add to each of their district budgets, to be spent any way they want.

The one-time funds, allocated by verbal agreement in an obscure (and non-televised) meeting chaired by County Council Chair Girmay Zahilay, was originally going to be a loan to each office, payable next year, but the four members of the committee agreed that requiring repayment in a tight budget year might put councilmembers in a tight position next year. (The county is facing a $160 million two-year budget deficit).

Instead, the committee opted to use “underspend” from last year’s central administrative budget, which totaled about $1 million, to pay for the one-time $315,000 add. Underspent funds become available in the next budget year.

Balducci opted out of the money, saying her office did not have a deficit.

In an email to Zahilay late last month, Balducci wrote, “I want to go on record as saying I don’t think we should do this. I believe it is bad practice and possibly borderline unethical…. It is a bad look for the council to lard up our own budgets this way, especially as I am hearing this additional funding is possibly being used for public communications from offices whose members are up for election.”

2. City Councilmember (and transportation committee chair) Rob Saka tried unsuccessfully to redirect future revenues from new speeding cameras toward new sidewalks, rather than the Automated Traffic Camera Fund, which is slated to receive 20 percent of the revenues from five new 24/7 speed enforcement cameras across the city. (The rest will go into the city’s general fund). Saka’s proposal would have reduced funding for traffic safety programs by 25 percent.

The state legislature adopted new regulations on automated traffic cameras last year, including a change to allow civilian police department employees, rather than just sworn officers, to review traffic camera tickets.

During public comment, several traffic safety advocates asked the council not to divert funding for sidewalks. “The reality is that pedestrians in Seattle, by and large, are not dying because of a lack of sidewalks,” pedestrian and bike advocate Ethan Campbell said. “They’re getting injured and killed while trying to cross roadways designed for high speeds,” like an 83-year-old woman who was struck and killed by a driver who fled the scene in SoDo earlier this week.

The money in the traffic safety fund would pay for safety projects, including improvements that “support equitable access and mobility for persons with disabilities; transportation projects designed to reduce vehicle speeds; and pedestrian, bicyclist, and driver education campaigns.” Saka’s amendment would have also routed 15 percent of revenues from red-light cameras to sidewalks by reducing the amount that goes to traffic safety projects by 25 percent (from 20 to 15 percent) and cutting the amount of red light camera revenues that go into the general fund.

Saka had more success with an amendment asking the Seattle Department of Transportation to “review and evaluate” a specific list of 10 locations as possible sites for the five new speeding cameras. The list is a familiar one: It consists of places where people tend to race their cars late at night. In the past, Saka told SDOT representatives that there was no need for them to come up with their own list of locations for speed cameras, because the council had already did their work for them by making the list of racing sites.

In reality, the 2024 state law requires cities to do an equity analysis before siting traffic cameras; that analysis has to “show a demonstrated need for traffic cameras based on rates of collision, reports of near collisions, travel by vulnerable roadway users, evidence of vehicles speeding, and anticipated or actual ineffectiveness or infeasibility of other mitigation measures.”

Most of the locations on Saka’s list, notably, are not on the city’s own Vision Zero High-Injury Network.

City Council, Renters

The Most Common Reason for Past City Council Recusals: Owning Rental Property

By Erica C. Barnett

As the city council considers eliminating the requirement that council members recuse themselves from matters in which they have a financial interest—a change that would, at the very least, eliminate pressure for landlords Maritza Rivera and Mark Solomon to sit out an upcoming vote to roll back laws that help tenants avoid eviction—we took a look back at the other times city council members have recused themselves in the past.

Currently, the city’s ethics code requires all city employees, including city council members, to recuse themselves from taking action on anything that would present a financial conflict. (The code also requires employees to disclose other potential conflicts to the head of the city’s Ethics and Elections Commission).

As we’ve reported, it has been extremely rare for city council members to recuse themselves because of financial conflicts in the past; looking through a list of past “disqualifications” maintained by the City clerk, we found nine potential examples of such recusals between 2001 and 2025. (The numbers are not exact because, in some cases, the disclosure form explaining the reasons for the recusal was not available online).

In addition to those recusals, there were dozens of examples in which council members sat out votes because they had a direct interest (such as when a council member was getting an appointment and didn’t want to vote for himself or herself) or when the interest was direct but not financial, such as several instances in which then-councilmember Bruce Harrell sat out votes that would benefit the University of Washington because his wife Joanne was on the school’s Board of Trustees.

What’s interesting about the council’s past financial conflicts—and is directly relevant to the timing of the proposal to loosen the city’s ethical standards for council members—is that most of them involved legislation that would benefit or harm council members directly because of property they owned, including rental properties.

If the ethics changes, sponsored by Councilmember Cathy Moore, pass quickly, Solomon and Rivera will be under no official obligation to abstain on legislation Moore plans to introduce in the next few weeks that would alter the city’s landlord-tenant rules.

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According to multiple sources familiar with internal deliberations on the plan, Moore’s bill would eliminate the winter and school-year eviction moratoria, raise the minimum fee for late rent from $10 to $50, and repeal a law requiring landlords to allow renters to add new roommates to their lease without asking permission first.

Landlords and property owners on the city council haven’t always recused themselves from voting for (or against) their own interests. But they also have done so, with some regularity. In 2013 and 2018, for example, then-councilmember Sally Bagshaw sat out votes establishing new taxes for property owners near the waterfront and downtown, respectively, citing the fact that she lives in the area and would have to pay both taxes (which were approved).

Harrell and former councilmember Mike O’Brien recused themselves from multiple votes on the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance (RRIO), which requires landlords to register their rentals with the city and allow regular inspections, because they were both landlords at the time (according to campaign finance reports, Harrell no longer owns any rental property.)

Jan Drago, who lived in Pioneer Square, also recused herself from legislation that allowed more density in her neighborhood. (This was in the era before district elections, which pretty much sent that sort of recusal out the window.)

And Jean Godden and Tom Rasmussen recused themselves from voting on a deal with Triad Development that was supposed to build a 650,000-square-foot office and residential tower in the hole in the ground across from City Hall (stop by that block sometime if you want to know how that project went), although public records and media coverage from the time don’t indicate why (and I don’t remember.)

And, of course, Tanya Woo (very reluctantly) recused herself from a vote on legislation that would have lowered the minimum wage for “gig” delivery workers, because she and her husband own a restaurant. Woo’s family also owns an apartment building that provides affordable housing under a tax-credit program.

In those cases, council members’ recusals didn’t affect the vote. But they could in the case of Moore’s rental housing legislation, which faces stiff opposition from tenant advocates (add tenants themselves). If the new law was in place now, Rivera and Solomon (who own a single rental apartment each and earn between $0 and $29,999 a year from rental income, according to their campaign finance reports), would only have to disclose their conflicts, rather than determining with Ethics and Elections whether they’re conflicted out. Without their votes, the legislation would face a tougher path to passage.

The city also keeps records of city officials’ conflict-of-inflict disclosures, which include everything from personal or family relationships (as when Harrell appointed his niece, Monisha Harrell, as senior deputy mayor) to business ownership (Council President Sara Nelson disclosed her ownership stake in Fremont Brewing, but did not recuse herself, during a vote on the city’s maritime-industrial land use policy.)

Most of these documents are straightforward descriptions of a potential appearance of conflict. One, though, is the exact opposite: A defensive letter from Rob Saka, who added $1.5 million to last year’s budget to turf the field where his kids play, and Saka coaches, Little League.

Saka began his “disclosure” by noting that he was only making it because he recently “became aware of certain criticism from a member of the public that there was an alleged appearance of a conflict of interest” in his budget add.

Saka goes on to cite “numerous calls for more turf playfields from members of the public” and an “extensive consultation process” that just happened to conclude that the field where Saka coaches his kids was the best candidate for a new turf field. Also last year, Saka set aside $2 million to remove a road divider that prevented drivers from making a left turn across a double yellow line into the preschool his kids attended, which he compared to Trump’s border wall.

Courts, Police, public disclosure

Seattle Police Guild Sues Police Department Over Public Records Delays
Photo by Derek Simeone, via Wikimedia Commons, cc-by-2.0 license

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle Police Officers Guild has filed a lawsuit against the Seattle Police Department over its practice of “grouping” multiple public disclosure requests from a single requester and responding to them one at a time, a policy that allows SPD to sit on more recent requests for years while slowly fulfilling older ones.

The lawsuit stems from nine requests SPOG filed between 2020 and 2025; the oldest, from March 11, 2020, is more than five years old. SPOG is asking the police department to hand over the records and pay its attorney fees.

“Our biggest gripe,” SPOG president Mike Solan said, is that SPD has determined that SPOG is a “high user” of the system, “and therefore it will take too long to process [our requests.] And for us, when we see other entities granted what appear to be really quick turnoarounds, in terms of days, if not a week, when we’ve got yearslong requests that are not being granted, there’s something not right with the system in terms of being fair and balanced.”

Earlier this year, the Seattle Times sued SPD on similar grounds, alleging that SPD was failing to follow the terms of its earlier settlement over the grouping issue. In that settlement, SPD explicitly agreed not to group records requests made more than eight weeks apart—not just for the Seattle Times, but for everyone.

The records SPOG is seeking range from videos of what the lawsuit refers to as the 2020 protests, which the lawsuit refers to as “riots,” as well as records about officers’ job assignments; the city’s decision in early 2020 to reconstitute its encampment removal team, which had included police; and documents related to the city’s adoption of Workday, a new payroll system that has issued inaccurate paychecks to many city employees, including police.

“When applying the Grouping Policy, SPD processes only one grouped request at a time, placing the others on hold as if the PRA obligations are suspended,” SPOG’s lawsuit says. “This practice adds lengthy delays to an already slow process for obtaining SPD records, and signals to the requester that any additional requests will be futile.”

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SPD’s public disclosure division allows requesters to pick a single request for a public disclosure officer to answer, in its entirety, before starting on the second request on the list. “In other words,” the lawsuit says, “the City deliberately creates a circumstance where a requestor is required to acquiesce to the City’s improper Grouping Policy in order to supposedly enable the City to process a request that is more important to the requestor.

As we’ve reported previously, PubliCola currently has nine requests stuck in the grouping process, with SPD working on just one request. At SPD’s current rate of progress, we don’t expect answers to most of our requests for many years, if ever, and have more or less stopped filing requests. By creating a policy that allows SPD’s legal department to delay records requests indefinitely SPD has effectively overturned the state Public Disclosure Act for anyone else who files multiple records requests.

Several years ago, compounding this problem for members of the press, SPD’s media relations department began responding to basic media questions by telling (certain) reporters to file a records request—knowing full well, based on experience, that filing a request was about as effective than screaming into a hole in the ground. (The media folks got better once Sue Rahr replaced Adrian Diaz as interim chief a year ago; the public disclosure response team, which is part of SPD’s legal division, did not.).

City Attorney Ann Davison’s office filed a terse response to the lawsuit that denied the allegations but did not go into detail about why they believe SPD is in the right. Davison’s office declined to comment.

“We hope that this lawsuit will illustrate our concerns with [SPD] not following the rules,” Solan said. “I think that is a fair thing to ask: Change the policy and grant us our public disclosure requests.”

 

City Council, labor

Minimum Wage Advocates Countersue Burien; Council Bill Says Conflict of Interest Recusals Are Bad for Democracy

1. Legislation from City Councilmember Cathy Moore that would loosen the city’s ethics code to allow council members to vote on issues where they have a financial conflict of interest, as long as they disclose the conflict, is now available on the city’s website, along with a staff report outlining the (thin) justification for the proposal.

“This legislation would ensure fuller representation by providing additional opportunity for Councilmembers to participate in legislative matters in which they have a financial interest or other conflict of interest,” the memo says.

Currently, council members are supposed to abstain from votes if they have a financial conflict—for example, if they stand to make or lose money if a piece of legislation passes. The most recent example of this was when Tanya Woo recused herself from a committee vote on a proposal to lower the minimum wage for delivery workers; she and her husband own a restaurant.

Historically, it has been vanishingly rare for council members to actually recuse themselves from votes, including when legislation will clearly impact them directly; Airbnb impresario Mike O’Brien, a progressive past council member who owned and rented out several houses, proposed and voted on legislation imposing new regulations on Airbnb owners, for example.

Weakening the ethics rules further would just ensure that recusal is completely off the table, even in the case of egregious conflicts of interest—like a council member approving legislation that would increase the value of their own property, or create a job for a family member.

According to the memo, “This legislation would ensure fuller representation by providing additional opportunity for Councilmembers to participate in legislative matters in which they have a financial interest or other conflict of interest.”

By exempting the council from recusal requirements, the staff memo notes, Moore’s legislation would create a double standard for financial conflicts: Other elected officials and city employees would still be required to recuse themselves from making decisions when they have a financial interest in the outcome.

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2. Quick update on the city of Burien’s lawsuit seeking to overturn a new, voter-approved minimum wage: In April, the Transit Riders Union and Katie Wilson (who’s now running for Seattle mayor) countersued the city, saying that Burien illegally rejected the minimum wage initiative and attempted to interfere with the campaign for a higher minimum wage by passing a lower minimum wage after the measure qualified for the ballot.

The lawsuit accuses Burien of violating the 1st and 14th Amendment by depriving people of the substantive right to vote and of violating the state constitution, which designates the right to petition the government through initiative as a fundamental right under the US Constitution.

As we’ve reported, the minimum wage initiative raised Burien’s minimum wage to the same minimum wage as Tukwila’s, currently $21.10 an hour. The minimum wage passed by the Burien City Council would require employers to provide “total compensation,” including tips, health care, and other benefits, of $19.66 an hour; tipped employees and anyone who receives benefits worth more than $3 an hour would receive the state minimum wage of $16.66 an hour.

“In addition” the countersuit says, “Burien has failed to pay the legal minimum wage required by the Initiative and is currently advertising positions for less than the minimum wage adopted by the Initiative.”

As of today, three of the five jobs the city of Burien is advertising pay less than the voter-approved minimum wage, including two that pay just $17.81 an hour.

 

Addiction, podcasts

Seattle Nice: New Hope for Fentanyl Users

By Erica C. Barnett

A new way of administering buprenorphine—a gold-standard medication that combats opioid addiction by reducing the need to use drugs like fentanyl to function—is helping people reduce their fentanyl use without the painful withdrawals that keep many users away from other versions of the medication.

The Downtown Emergency Service Center started using the new injection protocol on a pilot basis last year. It’s less complicated than other methods (like taking sublingual films every few hours) and doesn’t require people to “kick” opioids before starting treatment, making it easier for people to keep using it.

The new protocol, which we discuss with three special guests from DESC this week, has dramatically increased the number of patients who return for their second monthly injections, an important milestone that shows people are staying involved with treatment. People with severe substance use disorders, particularly those without housing, face many hurdles to long-term recovery, but often the first step to stability is escaping a cycle of dependency that can be all-consuming.

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Seattle elected officials have become fond of fantasizing about changing laws to make it easier to involuntarily commit people whose drug use occurs in public to mandatory treatment. But as our guests told us, the issue is not that people don’t want to quit.

“One thing that this protocol is showing is that so many people don’t need to be forced into treatment,” DESC medical director Richard Waters told us. “They will come running to it when they have awareness that what’s being made available is better than what they had been familiar with before.”

Our guests this week are DESC director Daniel Malone, medical director Richard Waters, and registered nurse Penelope Toland.

City Council, Elections, housing, Police

This Week On PubliCola: May 3, 2025

SPD celebrates a hiring surge that included a net gain of zero women; campaigns heat up as filing week approaches; and much more

Monday, April 28

Could a Sales Tax Hike for Criminal Justice Programs Save the County’s Budget?

King County Council chair Girmay Zahilay and budget chair Rod Dembowski want the county to impose a new sales tax of 0.1 percent to boost funding for the county’s criminal legal system, including sheriff’s deputies, prosecutors, public defenders, and diversion programs. The tax could help close the county’s $160 million budget shortfall.

Tuesday, April 29

SPD Celebrates Its Hiring Spree. The Only Thing That’s Missing: Women

As the Seattle Police Department faces multiple lawsuits by women alleging harassment, discrimination, and a toxic work environment, new police chief Shon Barnes and Mayor Bruce Harrell touted an uptick in police hiring, with a large group of men standing as a backdrop. So far this year, SPD has hired 60 new cops, just five of them women.

Campaign Fizz: Does Mallahan Think He Can? And: This District 2 Candidate’s Net Worth Dwarfs the Entire City Council’s

Joe Mallahan, the T-Mobile executive and 2009 mayoral candidate who lost to Mike McGinn in that year’s general election, is reportedly considering a run against Harrell. And Takayo Ederer, a Seward Park resident who’s been raising money to run for City Council District 2, has more household wealth than the entire current council combined.

No, the Library Did Not Tell Employees to “Capitulate to Fascism”

A story on a new website started by a former Stranger reporter claimed, incorrectly, that the Seattle Public Library has ordered its staff not to record ICE raids in library buildings and to stand by and do nothing if ICE shows up. The site’s editor claimed SPL was “capitulating to fascism,” and doubled down on most of the inaccurate claims in the initial piece, which continued to spread online (and cause misguided alarm and outrage) all week.

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Wednesday, April 30

SPD Is Losing Women As Fast As It’s Hiring Them; State Budget Defunds Successful Encampment Program

Not only is SPD failing to come close to its stated goal of hiring a 30-percent female recruit class by 20230, it’s going backward; this year alone, five women have left the department, canceling out the five new female hires. And the legislature chose not to save a successful program that helped people living in encampments come indoors and find housing, treatment, and other services through intensive case management.

Thursday, May 1

Ann Davison’s New “Drug Prosecution Alternative” Is Just the Community Court She Ended Two Years Ago

Two years have gone by since Republican City Attorney Ann Davison unilaterally ended community court, which allowed some people charged with misdemeanors to bypass prosecution if they connected with social services. Last week, Davison rolled out a new “drug prosecution alternative” that is structurally identical to community court—and it doesn’t include some of the features Davison said were non-negotiable, like mandatory community service as a condition for receiving city services.

Friday, May 2

Privately Owned Trees Are Better Than Trees in Parks and Public Spaces, Councilmembers Argue

Council members have come up with a lot of ways to say “we should force more people to retain trees on their private property” over the years, but “private trees are better because street trees are expensive and get in the way of theoretical future projects” was a new one for me. The argument for forcing people to keep private trees always comes up in the context of developments that would allow more people to live in former single-family neighborhoods; “saving” a tree usually means preventing someone from building denser housing

Who’s Out (and In) in Local Elections, and What Will Happen if the City Weakens Conflict-of-Interest Rules?

Update on Mallahan: He’s still calling around, but apparently not getting any bites from local consultants. Update on Ederer: We hear she won’t make her campaign official during filing week, which runs from May 5-9. Finally, we put a council proposal to weaken the city’s ethics rules in a recent historical context.