Guest Contributor, housing

The City Council Should Restore Affordable Housing to the Stadium District 
Map of the stadium district
Map of the stadium district (outlined in thick black line)

By Joshua Curtis and John Marchione

In September 2022, after years of study, the City of Seattle finally released a much-anticipated Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) analysis of proposed changes to the City’s maritime and industrial strategy. That document, released  after years of discussion and consideration by the industrial lands task force convened by then-mayor Jenny Durkan, set forward a “Preferred Alternative” that called for allowing a limited amount of affordable workforce housing in the immediate vicinity of Lumen Field and T-Mobile Park.

But because of a behind-the-scenes lobbying push from the Port of Seattle and the Longshore Union, the City Council ended up adopting an industrial lands package that stripped out the housing from the Stadium District. That decision, driven largely by political calculus rather than sound policy, essentially killed a broadly endorsed vision for a vibrant “maker’s zone” in the immediate vicinity of the stadiums that would combine street-level light industrial and artisanal manufacturing uses—think breweries, distilleries, or a clothing manufacturer with a retail storefront—with that housing.

It’s time to correct that mistake.

Council President Sara Nelson introduced legislation last month that would restore the maker’s zone vision and add back the opportunity for about 1,000 mostly affordable housing units to be constructed in the north part of the SoDo neighborhood, providing a real opportunity to address our housing crisis. It would also take a big step toward reinvigorating small maker’s businesses that are slowly being pushed out of the city—like the 700 diverse urban manufacturers and producers represented by Seattle Made, one of the broad coalition of organizations supporting Nelson’s. And it will create greater vibrancy and improved public safety in an area directly adjacent to Pioneer Square and the Chinatown/International District (CID).

All of this can be accomplished while preserving our industrial economy and keeping well-paying blue-collar jobs in Seattle. As the Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development Director’s Report, transmitted to the council along with the industrial lands legislation, clearly stated: “OPCD’s independent analysis leads us to believes that some limited amount of housing would be compatible with the surrounding use pattern and would not cause additional adverse impacts on nearby industrial activities[.]”

The plain fact of the matter is that the transitional area immediately adjacent to the stadiums has changed so much that it no longer makes sense to consider it exclusively industrial. A significant portion of the area around the stadiums, primarily south of the ballpark, is characterized by deteriorating buildings and vacant lots. No actual industrial activity remains, nor will it ever return, because the high value of the land in that area makes industrial uses on those sites cost-prohibitive.

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The area around these public facilities is already zoned for commercial use, including bland mid-rise offices, which, if developed, will actually bring more traffic to the area than a mixed-use maker’s zone would. The area benefits from an expanding transit system: It is less than a mile from two light rail stations, which currently have the lowest and third-lowest ridership of the 19 stations on Sound Transit’s north-south 1 Line, largely because almost no one lives near them. And it directly abuts the Pioneer Square, Waterfront, and CID neighborhoods. As the environmental study concluded, the opportunity to create a mixed-use district around the public stadiums would ease the transition between Pioneer Square and the CID and the industrial areas to the south. These spaces can help to build employment and entrepreneurial opportunity within communities of color that often face intimidating barriers to entry.

To achieve all this, the inclusion of a threshold level of workforce housing is essential, both to help underwrite projects that include these maker’s spaces and to contribute to the city’s critical housing supply. We know this because an outside, expert analysis jointly commissioned by our two public boards in 2022 found that this sort of maker’s zone would not pencil and would not be developed unless a threshold level of housing was included.

Support for this plan is strong. In a 2021 poll, 87 percent of registered voters favored the inclusion of some residential uses in this area. Earlier this month, an impressive coalition of groups, including unions, small businesses, affordable housing developers, the Mariners, and many others joined with the two public boards stewarding the public ownership of the stadiums to urge the council to pass this important legislation.

There is a once-in-a-generation opportunity here. Reviving the maker’s zone idea would allow the Stadium District to accommodate light manufacturing along with a modest mix of affordable and market-rate housing. This would be a big step toward solving multiple problems, would make much better use of the underutilized land around the stadiums, and would transition well to the maritime and industrial areas of the waterfront.

———————————-

Joshua Curtis is the Executive Director of the Washington State Ballpark Public Facilities District. John Marchione is Executive Director of the Washington State Public Stadium Authority.

City Council, podcasts, Seattle Nice

Seattle Nice Interviews New City Council Appointee Mark Solomon

 

Councilmember Mark Solomon being sworn in on January 27

By Erica C. Barnett

Our special on the Seattle Nice podcast this week was new Seattle City Council appointee Mark Solomon, who has vowed to serve as a “caretaker” for the District 2 position previously held by Tammy Morales. Morales resigned last year because of what she described bullying and gaslighting by her newly elected council colleagues.

Solomon lost to Morales in 2019 and sought the citywide council seat that ultimately went to the person Morales defeated in 2023, Tanya Woo, making him the second person appointed to the council after District 2 voters rejected them in favor of Morales.

We asked Solomon about his lack of a voter mandate, and about issues ranging from the use of blast balls to disperse crowds (he says they could have saved Kristopher Kime’s life during Mardi Gras 2001) to the use of neighborhood and park activations to move “negative activity,” such as drug markets, away from longtime hot spots like 12th and Jackson.

We also discussed the council’s upcoming deliberations and vote on the city’s comprehensive growth strategy (AKA the comp plan). Mayor Bruce Harrell’s first public comp plan proposal eliminated about 24 “neighborhood centers”—nodes of density within 800 feet of major transit stops—that were in the original draft of the plan. While a later version restored six of the original 48 centers (in north Magnolia, High Point, Beacon Hill, Fremont, and Hillman City), homeowners have mobilized against allowing three- to six-story apartment buildings in some of these areas, including Queen Anne, Madrona, and Maple Leaf.

Councilmember Cathy Moore has explicitly said she wants to remove the proposed Maple Leaf neighborhood center, saying she is “not prepared to sacrifice this particular—my particular—neighborhood” to allow denser housing.

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During the appointment process, Solomon answered “no” to the question, “Do you support decreasing the number of proposed neighborhood centers?” During our interview, however, he sounded more ambivalent, saying, “I can’t say absolutely no, because I want to hear from community.” Many “communities,” Solomon said, “did not feel like they were engaged in discussions of the plan.”

“So if, for example, the people on Magnolia or around Haller Lake are saying, ‘No, we don’t want this,’ that voice should be heard,” Solomon continued. “So let’s convene more community meetings. Let’s get more community input and hear that.”

The city’s Office of Planning and Development began taking public comments and doing outreach to communities across the city, including presentations, public meetings, contracts with community groups, and an online hubs, at the beginning of 2022. The feedback ultimately included tens of thousands of written comments. Since the city released the draft plan last March, OPCD held five engagement sessions about the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the plan, had open houses in all seven council districts, met with and did presentations for dozens of neighborhood groups, hosted 15 online meetings, and created a map-based online engagement hub that garnered nearly 6,000 public comments.

During our conversation with Solomon, I suggested that more engagement would be unlikely to change the minds of people who oppose allowing density—that is, renters—near their houses.

The city has until June to comply with a state law requiring cities to allow up to four units of housing, or six if two of the units are affordable to low-income people, on residential lots in traditional single-family areas, like the ones that make up about three-quarters of Seattle’s residential land. That compliance is baked into the comprehensive plan.

Listen to hear that discussion, and to hear Solomon’s thoughts on new police chief Shon Barnes, as well as proposals to roll back renter protections like $10 late fees and the winter eviction moratorium.

 

Elections, Guest Contributor, homelessness, housing

Social Housing Is a Homelessness Solution
Image via House Our Neighbors! website

By SHARE and WHEEL

Homelessness is a housing problem.

More affordable housing means less homelessness. It’s really that simple.

SHARE and WHEEL are grassroots organizing efforts of homeless and formerly homeless people. Social housing is in alignment with our values: Caring for each other, creating relationships across divisions, and self-governance.

Ending homelessness requires addressing the needs of our whole community. Working people become homeless every day, priced out of their housing by arbitrary rent hikes. Even middle-income people can become homeless after a major car accident or a catastrophic illness. A New York Times article showed that the housing crisis is impacting working people at all income levels, everywhere in the United States. As housing inaccessibility moves up the income ladder, more and more people at all income levels will become homeless—and homeless deaths will continue to rise.

Social housing is public housing for all income levels. It would remain affordable in perpetuity, with no risk of your building being sold off to market development and no penalty for success if your income becomes “too high to live here” while being still too low to live anywhere else. It will also be governed by the tenants. From our self-managed shelters and projects, we know that governing and making decisions together builds community.

Housing people with a range of incomes together builds community. A city segregated by income and class is a fractured community. We like building relationships across divisions like rich/poor, housed/homeless—in fact, we recommend it. Housing that includes a range of income levels facilitates that. It also stabilizes neighborhoods to prevent further displacement of low-income residents.

In February 2023, Seattle voters expressed their overwhelming support for social housing: 57 percent of Seattle—a majority in every district—supported Initiative 136, which created the social housing developer.  In 2024, 38,000 voters signed an initiative to fund that project with a progressive tax. Instead of increased property taxes, as most of Seattle’s affordable housing is financed, I-137 proposes a tax on businesses that pay any employee over a million dollars a year: 5 percent on every dollar over $1,000,000. The Seattle Social Housing Development Board (SHDB) can use this income as collateral for bonds that will fund housing construction and building acquisition.

A small faction is challenging this initiative, pushing for an alternative that narrowly focuses on low-income and homeless populations. Last year, the Seattle City Council refused to put the initiative on the November ballot, later voting to put Initiative 137, now Prop 1A, on the ballot in February, along with the council’s own alternative proposal, Prop 1B. The council proposal raids the JumpStart tax proceeds for $10 million a year and restricts the funded housing to 80 percent or less of Area Median Income.

We, actual homeless people, oppose raiding the JumpStart tax, which is intended for traditional low-income housing. We oppose strangling the new social housing developer by funding one fifth of what’s requested. And, most strongly, we oppose canceling the will of the voters who support mixed-income housing in which the rents from higher-income tenants will subsidize the rents of lower-income tenants.

We need solutions, not obstruction. Delay means higher rents, increased homelessness, displacement of marginalized communities, and pricing out low- and middle-income workers.

We are appalled that the Seattle City Council refused the will of Seattle voters by not putting I-137 on the November ballot. We need solutions, not obstruction. Delay means higher rents, increased homelessness, displacement of marginalized communities, and pricing out low- and middle-income workers.

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Who are we?

SHARE (Seattle Housing and Resource Effort) is a grassroots organizing effort of homeless and formerly homeless men and women. We facilitate six indoor shelters, two Tent Cities, lockers, a hygiene center, and a housing for work program, all self-managed by participants.

WHEEL (Women’s Housing, Equality and Enhancement League) is a grassroots organizing effort of homeless and formerly homeless women. We facilitate two staffed, low-barrier women’s shelters and we do Women in Black vigils whenever somebody homeless dies outside or by violence in King County.

Both of our organizations are homeless-led. Self governance and self-management are essential values to us. Participants, not staff, maintain and manage SHARE shelters and Tent Cities.

We advocate for systemic changes to end homelessness. It isn’t enough to get people out of homelessness. We want to stop people from becoming homeless.

Opponents say the Social Housing Development Board is too inexperienced to be in charge of a housing developer. But housing boards do not draw architectural designs. Boards set policy and practices. Existing low-income housing developers lack lived experience with poverty and homelessness, and their policies and practices are sometimes bad for their tenants. The SHDB includes seven members with lived experience, providing a real voice, which can complement existing efforts and provide valuable new perspectives on housing development.

The SHDB also has more members experienced in construction than the biggest existing low-income housing developer does. Its inaugural Chief Executive Officer, Roberto Jiménez, has an impressive background in affordable housing and community development.

Opponents also say we should only concentrate efforts on people who are currently homeless. “Prioritize those most in need” sounds sensible, even virtuous. What it means in practice is “Sacrifice vulnerable people for other vulnerable people, so that we don’t have to raise taxes on wealthy people.” Opponents are acting as if this is a zero-sum game. We need to both work upstream to STOP people from becoming homeless and also work to get those who are currently homeless back into housing.

Some opponents object to the tax not having an expiration date, after which it would have to be renewed. To be useful for ongoing construction, or as collateral for bonds, the funding stream has to be dependable, not subject to changes in political administrations. This is why property tax levies do not have an expiration date.

The alternative funding proposal, taking $10 million from the JumpStart fund, raids money set up by a progressive tax to avoid creating a new progressive tax.

In the midst of an escalating homelessness crisis, skyrocketing rents, and growing income inequality, social housing is more crucial than ever. SHARE and WHEEL stand firmly behind social housing initiatives, recognizing them as a vital tool in fostering equity, stability, and thriving communities.

Vote YES on Prop 1A.

 

 

Media

Two Stranger Reporters Resign After Investigation Into Allegations of Ethical Breaches

By Erica C. Barnett

On Friday, January 31, two reporters from the Stranger, Hannah Krieg and Ashley Nerbovig, resigned their positions after the Stranger’s owner, Noisy Creek, the Noisy Union, and the two women reached a separation agreement, resolving an investigation involving allegations that Krieg and Nerbovig were dishonest and engaged in bullying and harassment in their capacity as Stranger employees.

The Noisy Union, a unit of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, represents editorial and tech staffers at the Stranger, Everout, and the Portland Mercury, which are all owned by Noisy Creek. Until her departure, Nerbovig was president of the Noisy Union.

The Stranger initially put the two on leave on or around January 16. It was the second time Nerbovig had been placed on leave during her two years at the paper; the first came after she posted a tweet joking about the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, which led to a torrent of right-wing threats against her and other Stranger staffers, leading the paper to shut down its office for five days.

In a joint statement posted on social media Friday afternoon, Noisy Union and Noisy Creek said that while the investigation was unable to substantiate the “original allegations,” all parties agreed it would be a “fair solution” for the two to resign.

After this story was published, Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild Courtney Scott reached out to say, “We feel the employer made a good faith effort to engage with the union and give due process despite having no agreed upon language or legal obligation to do so,” given that Noisy Union members don’t have a contract with Noisy Creek. “We decline to comment further on the details of the investigation or private union meetings.”

Initially, according to sources inside and outside the Stranger, the “original allegations” included the charge that Krieg and Nerbovig had attempted to “lock down” a cover-up story about an inappropriate encounter that occurred last October between the Stranger’s former editor-in-chief, Rich Smith, and now-Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck. After Noisy Creek bought the paper, Smith was replaced by Hannah Murphy Winter and returned to his former job as news editor, where he supervised Nerbovig and Krieg.

The two were accused of failing to disclose Smith’s ethical breach to their editors, then attempting to conceal the fact that they had been aware of it for months by lying to colleagues, management, and their union about both the incident itself and how and when they first found out about it, multiple sources inside and outside the paper confirmed.

Additionally, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of events, the pair bullied and harassed at least one other Stranger employee as part of their efforts to keep the story from getting out.

Nerbovig and Krieg also contacted people outside the Stranger, including individuals close to Rinck, and asked them to deny that the incident between Smith and Rinck ever happened, external and internal sources told PubliCola.

In journalism, having an intimate relationship with someone you cover is a conflict of interest. Separately, newsroom staff who are aware of a conflict of interest, or other serious ethical breach, involving another staffer have an obligation to disclose the conflict, and an additional obligation not to lie about it when asked. Attempting to get others to help conceal the truth is also an ethical breach and a violation of journalists’ obligation to be honest.

These ethical obligations—avoid and disclose conflicts of interest; be honest—apply to all newsroom staff and are a bedrock of ethical journalism that reporters and editors, publications, and the unions that represent journalists have a vested interest in upholding. The Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, for instance, notes that “Journalists should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived,” and says that journalists must “be honest” and “ac[t] with integrity” on the job, and “avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility.”

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Other, publication-specific codes of ethics spell out more specific obligations relating to honesty, conflicts, and the obligation to disclose information that could damage a publication’s integrity.

PubliCola spoke with ten sources with direct knowledge of events described in this story, including sources inside and outside the Stranger and the union. All requested anonymity.

According to internal and external sources, Nerbovig and Krieg didn’t just fail to disclose the ethical breach by Smith when they first learned about it in October—they told their editors, colleagues, and fellow union members and union leaders that they had just learned about it for the first time in January, and that they got the information from another Stranger staffer who they said was repeating a rumor, not solid information.

In fact, according to multiple individuals who spoke with them directly, the pair were aware of the incident almost immediately after it happened and began openly talking about it with people outside the Stranger shortly after it occurred. It didn’t take long for the story to spread throughout Seattle’s tight-knit local political community; by election night, November 5, it was circulating in the room at Rinck’s victory party.

The Stranger did not launch a formal investigation until January; it is unclear precisely when management became aware of the allegations. According to internal sources, Nerbovig, in her capacity as president of the Noisy Union, called a union meeting to discuss the allegations and drum up support for herself and Krieg after the investigation began last month.

According to Stranger sources, Guild leaders believed the false version of events presented by Nerbovig and Krieg—one in which the two were guileless victims— and began considering a full-throated mobilization on their behalf. The decision to jump straight to a mobilization was unusual, according to union sources, given that the two had not been disciplined and the union had not gathered all the facts about the case yet.

Because they don’t have a contract yet, Stranger employees don’t have access to a formal grievance process, but can file Unfair Labor Practice complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.

Additionally, according to internal sources, the union argued that the investigation should be limited to internal allegations, rather than “external” issues such as whether Krieg and Nerbovig asked people outside the Stranger to back up a false story for them. As a result, the investigation was limited to allegations involving the Stranger and its staff, which appears to be one reason, according to sources, that the joint union-management statement says the “original allegations” were “not substantiated.”

The executive officer of the Newspaper Guild, Courtney Scott, and Noisy Creek management both responded to our questions by referring us to their joint statement. Prior to working for the Guild, Scott was a labor organizer with UNITE Here, which represents workers in the restaurant and hospitality industries, and the Actors’ Guild; they do not have a background in journalism, according to their public bios on LinkedIn as well as members of the newspaper guild.

As late as last week, according to sources with direct knowledge of the situation, the Guild was preparing to mobilize members in favor of Krieg and Nerbovig—at least somewhat convinced that the two women had been manipulated by Smith and were now being unfairly blamed for his actions. (Smith was fired last year; Nerbovig and Krieg, along with other members of the local media, publicly decried the decision, with many accusing Noisy Creek founder Brady Walkinshaw of having it in for him.)

The union scheduled an emergency meeting to interview Krieg, Nerbovig, and two of their colleagues last week, according to internal sources and communications, but then called it off the following day.

One revelation that the union became aware of late in the investigation—and that reportedly helped sway the union from going any further in defense of Krieg and Nerbovig—was evidence that they had engaged in a bullying and harassment campaign against at least one colleague, according to multiple sources inside and outside the Stranger.

This new evidence was compelling enough that it was a key reason the union decided to stop backing Nerbovig and Krieg last week, according to sources familiar with the union’s reasoning.

After the meeting was canceled, the union and management agreed on the joint statement and the two reporters were given the opportunity to resign with severance. (Several sources confirmed that Krieg was initially offered the opportunity to stay at the Stranger in a different role.) Both were asked to sign a mutual non-disparagement agreement that that would prevent each party to the agreement— Noisy Creek and its two former employees—from publicly criticizing the other.

Non-disparagement agreements are less restrictive than nondisclosure agreements, which impose broad confidentiality requirements and significant restrictions on speech.

After resigning, Krieg posted on X that she did not sign the separation agreement.

Mayor Harrell, Police

Incoming Police Chief Shon Barnes: “Our Job Is to Prevent Crime”

By Andrew Engelson

On Thursday, PubliCola sat down with incoming Seattle police chief Shon Barnes, who has served as the chief of police in Madison, Wisconsin since 2021. Barnes has 12 years of command-level police experience and worked as a civilian police accountability executive in Chicago, where he helped create training programs designed to meet the conditions of a federal consent decree with the Department of Justice, which mandated police reforms. Seattle has been under a similar order since 2012.

Mayor Bruce Harrell has touted Barnes’ leadership in helping the Madison Police Department achieve a police force that is 28 percent women, atlhough that figure declined to 21 percent in 2024. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

PubliCola (AE): You’re taking over for the a chief who’s faced a lot of issues, including discrimination and harassment claims and a climate that’s difficult for female officers. The mayor has said one of the reasons they chose you is that Madison is making good progress on the 30/30 Initiative. What have you done to improve things for female officers, and what would you do here to reset the climate?

SB: I think it’s important to note that the culture and climate in Madison was set years before I showed up. They had a chief, David Cooper. David came to Madison from Minneapolis, and he was chief for twenty years, and he was the first one to say: Hey, why are all the women in [the] juvenile and traffic [divisions]? And he changed that culture. 

Some of the things we’ve done under my tenure in Madison are making sure that people have the opportunity to do special teams and special assignments, making sure that people are trained and get the same opportunities as everyone else. It’s really a zero tolerance culture for any behaviors that would be misogynistic or sexist. 

AE: What specifically would you do here? Are you willing to clean house and fire people, if needed, and hire new people?

SB: The answer is, yes, you have to hold people accountable. Accountability is looking internally first and asking yourself: As the leader or chief, did I set people up for success? Do people know the culture, which is what you will and will not accept? Do they know the rules? Have they actually had training on this issue—or did we just watch a PowerPoint and scroll through it? Having some substance behind it, I think, is very, very important, and that’s something that I will certainly do: make sure that everyone knows what the culture is, what the rules are, and that everybody feels comfortable.

AE: You’re coming into a police department where there’s been a culture of retaliation within the accountability system. The Office of Police Accountability director recently left amid questions about whether OPA was delaying investigations into Diaz. Officer Kevin Dave killed a pedestrian and officer Daniel Auderer made horrible comments about her death. What can you do to reassure folks that there’s going to be some teeth to accountability?

SB: Everything that you stated didn’t happen overnight. So if you’re suggesting that there is a culture of non-accountability, then it’s going to take some time, I will admit, to fix that. And if the accountability system is broken, and you can’t go to OPA and get a fair shot, then we need to fix that, and we need to make sure that people are being held accountable. I’m the only police chief in the country that’s worked for civilian oversight and been a police chief. The issue is that when the process isn’t fair, timely and thorough—that’s going to be my responsibility. Because if I want to complain, or I have a complaint and I don’t believe in that [process], then guess what happens? People start not talking. Bad behavior starts to grow. 

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AE: The police officers guild negotiated for a pretty tough contract, and the city didn’t really get any concessions in terms of accountability. 

SB: It’s going to take some time for me to dig into what they’re asking for. I do believe they’re involved in some negotiations. Now, usually the chief is not involved in that. But one thing I will always advocate for is accountability, on both ends. Accountability for myself and making sure people know what the culture and the rules are. It has to start with me and my integrity.

You mentioned the line of [previous] police chiefs. I don’t know them. I can’t speak for them. But I can speak for myself. And when they see me being professional—the way I speak, the way I talk, the way I interact with people, that sets the culture and tone for everyone else. And on the back end, I’ll do everything I can to make sure that people feel comfortable, and that they have somewhere to go if they want to file a complaint and that they feel like that complaint has merit.

AE: The city has adopted new drug use laws and they’re doing more rigorous policing in places like downtown. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a broken windows approach, but it’s this idea that we may need to arrest more people. Where do you fall in the spectrum between cracking down, arresting more folks, versus diversion or providing more services?

SB: Let me be very, very clear. Our job is to prevent crime, and sometimes the presence of police in dealing with crime doesn’t always signal that we’re doing the greatest job. And so I think the mayor is right when it comes to partnerships and working to clean up areas, making sure people get the help they need. It’s just unfortunate that in this country, sometimes you don’t get help until you’re justice-involved. That’s counterproductive to how I’ve always looked at policing. Coming up as a young officer, I’m always around officers and supervisors who didn’t want to arrest people—we’d talk or work our way through problems. So that’s kind of my DNA.

But I do believe that there’s crime and there’s fear of crime. And so what I do hear a lot is that people are fearful when they are walking in places and they see someone suffering from a mental health episode, or someone who may be unsheltered, or even graffiti and aesthetics. We know the “broken windows” [approach] wasn’t the thing that reduced crime in the 1990s. But that doesn’t mean we have to let things deteriorate. We have a responsibility, I think, to the community. 

AE: One of the last steps for SPD to come out of the consent decree is a new policy on crowd control. Right now, the city council is looking at allowing blast balls, among other changes. There’s concern in the community that there may be more protests during the Trump era. How will you reassure folks that we’re not going to have a situation like we did in 2020?

SB: I think the situation in 2020 was a little different, in  that the focus of the protest was on the police. I think that changes how you operate. But I want to be clear. I want to make sure that we have the best possible tools available to protect everyone.

AE: Including blast balls?

SB: Including blast balls. But I want to make sure that we don’t have to use blast balls. And that starts long before a protest even starts, with community dialogue, with making sure we have an understanding. But as someone who’s from a part of the country where the police truly treated people poorly who were protesting, I will tell you this. I will do everything in my power to prevent ever having to use any of those tactics, even if I have to get out there and stand there myself. 

I have seen it firsthand. In 2020 when I was a police deputy chief in North Carolina, we had two things going on at the same time. We had Confederate statues in the middle of town. And we had people protesting the killing of George Floyd. And [protesters supporting Confederate statues and BLM protesters] converged together. It was a situation where, as a commander, I’m not going to be in a command center. I was on the ground trying to de-escalate the situation. And I will do that here if I have to. Because I do not believe in those tactics against our community members. I will do everything in my power to prevent that.

AE: After the Abundant Life school shooting, you said you supported putting police officers in schools. That’s a controversial prospect here. Would you push for that in Seattle?

SB: I would support that, under my definition of school resource officer (SRO), and that is police officers who are in school to support the school and to ensure that students do not get arrested. I was a public school teacher, which is how I got into this. I was an SRO, and then I supervised SROs.

My SRO program that I supervised doesn’t fit the definition of what I have heard throughout the country. It makes me sad when I see police officers dragging kids out of chairs because they don’t want to do homework. That’s not the program I was involved in. Our officers were out of uniform. Most of their time was spent in or around the neighborhoods. They had a one-minute response time to the school. They didn’t do school discipline. They were involved in mediation. They were involved in talking to parents. They’re involved in conflict resolution. We taught classes. When I was a SROm I would teach literature classes, because I love literature. I think it’s about redefining what that program truly is, before I would ever ask to bring SROs back to the schools.

AE: My daughter went to Garfield, where there was a shooting last year. And I think students of color and families are extremely skeptical of SROs. Having an officer in a school is going to be a hard sell.

SB: I can understand that. I have a Black son. If you tell me that if he goes to one particular place, and he has a 70 percent chance of being arrested, I would say that I want him to go somewhere else, unless we fix that. I think there’s a lot of smart people in this city, and I always believe in being collaborative, not simply imposing your will. I’m not that kind of person. But I do believe we have enough smart people that we can figure it out.

City Council, Development, labor, land use

Proposal to Allow Affordable Housing Near Stadiums Reignites a Familiar Debate Over Industrial Land
City Councilmember Bob Kettle yells at building trades union leader Monty Anderson. Remember when this council came into office, promising to restore “civility” and bring a new era of “collaboration” to City Hall?

By Erica C. Barnett

City Council President Sara Nelson has reintroduced a proposal, shelved in 2023 to secure the Port of Seattle’s support for an overhaul of the city’s industrial zoning, that would allow up to 990 units of “industry-supportive housing” —half of them affordable to people making 90 percent or less of Seattle’s median income—on two blocks of land just south of Lumen Field.

Although the city’s original “preferred alternative” industrial lands policy included this housing, the final version adopted in 2023 excluded housing from the area.

While the Port has argued that allowing housing near industrial areas will permanently harm Seattle’s maritime and industrial sectors, housing advocates point to an environmental impact statement done specifically for the industrial lands update that concluded housing is compatible with the kinds of businesses that are now allowed around the stadiums, like breweries, art spaces, and retail stores attached to clothing manufacturers.

In last week’s meeting of Nelson’s governance and accountability committee, representatives from the Port and maritime unions squared off against affordable housing advocates (the Housing Development Consortium), neighborhood business groups (the Alliance for Pioneer Square), and the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council, which argued the zoning change would bring thousands of new jobs to the area.

Port Commissioner Fred Felleman said the Port had agreed to allow hotels around the stadiums, but “long-term housing in industrial zone without basic amenities is unacceptable and compromises our ability to attract new tenants. Please don’t put housing in conflict with job growth.”

Former Redmond mayor John Marchione, who now heads up the Washington State Public Stadium Authority, countered that the zoning change would create a “new, fully formed community with “jobs, housing, transportation and entertainment.” The area is less than a mile from two light rail stations, which currently have the lowest and third-lowest ridership of the 19 stations on Sound Transit’s north-south 1 Line—largely because almost no one lives near them.

Panel members told the council they agreed to put off the housing question until a later date in order to ensure that the industrial lands policy—which had been in the works for years—would pass with the backing of the Port, which had threatened to withhold support for the plan if it allowed housing near the stadiums. The new policy barred housing in a small area called the Stadium Overlay District, which includes two blocks just south of T-Mobile Field and a long, skinny strip of land next to Terminal 46, known as the WOSCA site for its former owner, WOSCA Terminals.

As part of the 2023 deal, Washington State Public Stadium Authority consultant Lizanne Lyons told the council, Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office told  the housing advocates to come back in the future to seek zoning change to allow housing in the two blocks south of the stadiums. (The WSPSA owns Lumen Field.)

“It was frankly at the 11th hour that we were informed that the deal we thought we had, that we had been told we had, [to allow up to] 990 units of housing in the stadium district were taken out,” Lyons said. “We were told that the timing was sensitive … ‘Come back in a year and get the zoning change you need to enact the housing that we have repeatedly told you you could have.'”

The Port and longshore union argue that allowing apartments in the area would create traffic bottlenecks for trucks and make it impossible for Terminal 46—which currently serves as storage space for imported cars—to be used for container shipping in the future. Before the council can take up any proposal to allow housing near the stadiums, Councilmember Dan Strauss said, they must first make sure they know how that terminal will be used in the future, what kind of development will take place at the WOSCA site (a decision that won’t happen until after the World Cup games next year), and how any new housing will impact freight traffic in the future.

“There are other ports to the north and south that could just as easily take this traffic, and it would be a shame if they start taking our cargo because I- 90, that connects Seattle to the heartland of America, into Boston, can’t get through that last half-mile at the end to meet the port,” Struass said.

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The city’s final Environmental Impact Statement concluded that while housing growth can increase car traffic, it could also lead to better infrastructure for transit, pedestrians, and cyclists in “areas with histories of long-term underinvestment” like SoDo. The FEIS did also found that there would be no “significant adverse environmental impacts” from adding 990 new housing units in the area.

As Mike Merritt, a former senior executive policy advisor at the Port of Seattle, recently wrote in Post Alley, low shipping volumes—not traffic on and around I-90—have led to slowdowns and closures at several Seattle terminals, including Terminal 46, which has not had container service since 2019.

Housing opponents have also argued that the city has failed to consider the potential impacts of natural disasters or an emergency that requires the military to access Seattle by sea.

Channeling these arguments, Kettle said the city had failed to consider the possibility of several types of potential disaster on people living in the area. “There’s not been any talking about Love Canal-type considerations for this location,” Kettle said. Moreover, “SODO is between two fault lines [and sustained] great damage from earlier earthquakes, like in 2001 … These considerations have not been talked about— liquefaction zones, tsunami, in terms of the elevation, the inundation of the water. … We look at the LA fires right now, we look at the hurricanes in the Gulf, in Florida. These are major considerations.”

Instead of standing for “Final Environmental Impact Statement,” Kettle quipped, FEIS should have stood for “Flawed Environmental Impact Statement” because “it didn’t really address some of the unique circumstances” in the two-block area.

In fact, the EIS did consider geological hazards, traffic impacts, and the other potential issues Kettle and Strauss identified. In a section about geologic hazards, the EIS notes that “modern building codes” are designed to mitigate against risks associated with earthquakes in historically industrial areas across the city, including in existing residential neighborhoods like Pioneer Square, Ballard, and Georgetown.

“With mitigation, all these impacts together would not be considered significant,” the EIS concluded. If the Big One hits, of course, it won’t really matter if you live near the stadiums or elsewhere in the city; all of Seattle, but especially areas near waterfronts, will face catastrophic destruction.

Panel member Monty Anderson, head of the Seattle Building & Construction Trades Council, said he was familiar with all the arguments against housing near the stadiums—particularly the ones about future uses for the WOSCA site and Terminal 46.  “‘What if the Coast Guard comes? What if they build an arena? What if we get offshore wind?'” Anderson said. “Everybody knows that it’s just delay.”

Lyons, from the stadium authority, noted that it’s been decades since the two blocks south of Lumen Field have been used for industrial purposes. “It’s a lot of vacant buildings and deteriorating warehouses and vacant lots,” she said, plus “some good development on First Avenue South.”

Apparently responding to public commenters who argued that having more street-level activity would improve public in the area, Kettle said that wasn’t true—just look at downtown, Belltown, and the Chinatown-International District, which have lots of people but also lots of crime. “If residence was the determining factor of public safety, those should be the three safest places in the city. But they’re not.” Legislation the council passed last year, including surveillance cameras, higher pay for police, and “stay out” zones for people who use drugs in public, create “the conditions for safety,” Kettle said; “housing itself will not.”

Later in the meeting, Kettle lost his temper at Anderson after the union leader commented that some people had been “fed lines” and  “talking points” by opponents of the housing proposal. “We all do that,” he said. Although the remark seemed to be aimed at the longshoremen who testified earlier, Kettle seemed to take  it as a personal attack.

Cutting Anderson off, Kettle said his views on industrial land policy are based on his “service as a naval officer, an international security expert [who] understands international trade,” as well as his “studies,” “academic experience,” and time on the Queen Anne Community Council. “I’m not being a mouthpiece for anybody that’s out here, and I just want to make that point clear,” Kettle said.

That prompted this dramatic exchange, which began when Anderson responded to Kettle:, “Since you’re so intelligent and smart and I’m just a stupid Mexican construction worker, I’ll bide down to what you think I should—” At that point, Kettle, visibly shaking with anger, began shouting:

After the meeting settled down, Kettle said he “respect[ed]” Anderson, but did not apologize for his outburst.

Nelson’s committee will take up the legislation again in February.