homelessness, Seattle Nice

Seattle Nice: Did the Left Get It Wrong on Homelessness?

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle Nice welcomed another (!) special guest this week, bringing housing activist, writer, and occasional PubliCola contributor Katie Wilson on the podcast to talk about an article she wrote for the Stranger, “Where the Left Went Wrong on Homelessness.”

The premise of Wilson’s piece is that while left-leaning homeless advocates in Seattle are generally correct about the root causes and effective solutions to the homelessness crisis (cause: Lack of housing; solution: More housing), they often fail to acknowledge the impact people living on the streets can have on other people just trying to live and work in the city.

“Drugs? Housed people use them too. Anyway, it’s common for people to get addicted after they become homeless. Trash? Actually, a lot of it is opportunistically dumped from passing cars. Bodily excretions? We need public restrooms. Shoplifting and crime? The claims are overblown. Anyway, homeless people are more often the victims of crime than the perpetrators. Feel unsafe? It’s all in your head, really you just don’t want to look at poverty.”

As I told Katie, I’ve definitely made most of those arguments—mostly because I personally find them compelling, not because I think someone who wants to arrest people for public urination actually believes homeless people don’t need to pee. Nonetheless, I’m intrigued by the idea that there might be a way for the left to reframe our arguments in a way that captures the hearts and minds of people who actually do want solutions (not just sweeps) but feel frustrated by the city’s lack of visible progress.

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Wilson believes that the left needs to be advocating for something, rather than just against policies that haven’t fixed the problem. (“Stop the Sweeps,” for example, doesn’t answer the question: And then what?) As an example, she said we ought to be “aggressively pushing for” the expansion of programs like JustCare, which resolves encampments by working with people over a period of weeks to identify shelter, services and housing appropriate for each individual.

Wilson also told us she wonders now if defeating Compassion Seattle—a Tim Burgess-backed ballot measure that would have directed the city to use existing funds to pay for 2,000 new shelter beds—was the victory it appeared to be. After all, the defeat of that proposal was followed immediately by the election of a slate of centrist-to-conservative local politicians like Sara Nelson, Bruce Harrell, and Ann Davison (an literal Republican). Even if the 2021 backlash election was inevitable, Wilson says, a legally binding shelter mandate could have forced the city to build a lot of shelter, fast, reducing pressure from the “Seattle Is Dying” crowd to take more drastic actions.

While I can definitely see the benefit of investment in shelter, I countered that there are many people living in and around Seattle who will never accept any solution that involves spending taxpayer money on the long, difficult work of helping people recover from addictions, find stable housing, and gain financial stability without resorting to survival crimes. Those people aren’t part of “the left,” broadly defined, but they play an outsize role in our public policy, especially now.

Listen to the discussion, which also features Sandeep arguing for more involuntary commitments and David wondering how much the media are to blame for promoting simplistic narratives about homelessness, below or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

 

Courts, homelessness

City of Burien Makes Unsheltered Homelessness a Crime

By Erica C. Barnett

With surprisingly little discussion, the Burien City Council passed a new law on Monday night criminalizing unsheltered homelessness in the city. The law bans unsheltered people from “camping” or “storing property,” such as tents or sleeping bags, anywhere in Burien, including sleeping in vehicles, making it one of the region’s harshest anti-homeless laws.

The legislation, which the King County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it will enforce, was rushed through as emergency legislation—meaning that it will take effect immediately—because, according to Burien City Attorney Garmon Newsom III, it creates an “incentive” for homeless people “to actually accept the offer of shelter treatment, [and] if there’s housing, housing.”

Last year, Burien passed a new law barring unsheltered people from “camping” in the city at night, and created a map where sleeping at any time was banned. The law also gave city manager Adolfo Bailon unfettered authority to expand the boundaries of “areas protected from unsheltered homelessness” at any time.

The King County Sheriff’s office, which provides police services to Burien, challenged that law on the grounds that it violated a Ninth Circuit ruling that barred encampment sweeps unless shelter was available. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling in the case Grants Pass v. Johnson, and the sheriff’s office now says it will enforce the new ban. Driving the point home, the law specifies that “[t]here is no requirement that beds, housing, shelter, or treatment be available, offered, or sought before enforcement of this ordinance.”

Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall said her office believes that “this ordinance, as written, is enforceable, as it no longer contains vague language found from the prior ordinances nor does it allow the city manager to rewrite the boundaries of the no-camping zones at any time without notice. That said, I am asking the men and women of the King County Sheriff’s Office to continue to lead, as they do each day, with outreach and compassion while continuing to engage with regional service providers whenever appropriate.”

Newsom called the sheriff’s previous refusal to enforce the ban an “emergency” in itself—one that outweighed the “concern” that “the weather does seem to be arguably colder than it might typically be.” The sheriff’s office, he continued, was still “in violation” of its contract to provide police services, “but [it’s] less about the money and more about the impact, which is that it allows people to not have the incentive to actually accept the offer of shelter, treatment, [and] if there’s housing, housing.”

The city, Newsom continued, has been more than generous with its homeless population, permitting two buildings for formerly homeless people—a 95-unit permanent supportive housing project for chronically homeless people, run by the Downtown Emergency Service Center, and a 90-unit building for low-income families that will be operated by Mary’s Place. “It’s not as though Burien has not done anything in support,” he said.

Last year, Burien replaced its outreach provider, the established outreach organization REACH, with a group started by a Kirkland real estate broker called The More We Love, which began as a business offering private sweeps at a price of $515 for each “camper” it removed.

Councilmember Stephanie Mora called the city’s earlier partnership with REACH  “a massive failure” that didn’t house people or take them off the streets. “So I was very excited when we were able to cut that contract and give it to a new provider who could provide housing, and has been providing housing” to unsheltered people in Burien, she said. “I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but our streets are cleaner. We don’t have encampments anymore. We don’t have tents outside.”

Although Bailon claimed TMWL “created” a previously unidentified “housing option” for people removed from Burien encampments, the organization has never publicly presented any evidence showing it has provided housing to anyone, or that the people it directs to available shelter beds have ended up in housing or treatment.

Burien does not have a year-round shelter, and a 95-unit permanent supportive housing building run by the Downtown Emergency Service Center is reserved for chronically homeless people with disabilities. DESC confirmed that The More We Love has not referred anyone to its apartments in Burien.

Ironically, given how often Burien leaders claim Seattle is sending its unsheltered people to their city, the encampment Mora celebrated The More We Love for resolving was only closed down after the King County Regional Homelessness Authority—not The More We Love—transferred people living outdoors in Burien to temporary lodging in Seattle. Another Burien-based nonprofit provided short-term hotel stays for a handful of encampment residents.

The concept that people prefer to be unsheltered than “accept” housing and services is a longstanding myth grounded in a paternalistic belief that homeless people are lazy, entitled, or just don’t want to follow rules, like prohibitions on alcohol and illegal drugs in shelters.

In reality, the number of unsheltered people eclipses the number of shelter beds, and unsheltered people frequently articulate specific reasons they don’t want to sleep in crowded rooms full of strangers, including the lack of privacy, theft and assaults, curfews, and dehumanization by staff. People with addiction and mental health issues may also be banned from shelters for exhibiting the symptoms of their diseases.

Three homeless Burien residents, along with the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, sued Burien over its previous ban, arguing that it was vague, overbroad, and unenforceable. This morning, the city of Burien filed a motion arguing that because the city has now passed a new law that bans sleeping outdoors or in vehicles without exceptions, any complaints about the previous law are moot, and that the only remaining issues are whether a ban on unsheltered homelessness violates state constitutional strictures against cruel punishment, unlawful search and seizure, or restrictions on the right to travel.

Yesterday, the ACLU of Washington submitted a letter to the Burien City Council opposing the new ban, noting that even though Grants Pass removed a legal restrictions on sweeping people when no shelter is available, “the Court also acknowledged the need for humane and reasonable approaches to homelessness. The decision does not mandate the criminalization of homelessness, nor does it absolve local governments of their responsibility to provide adequate shelter and services.”

Councilmembers Hugo Garcia and Sarah Moore voted against the ban. Garcia called it an “emergency that’s not really an emergency” that would further endanger families with parents who could soon be facing deportation under Trump’s sweeping anti-immigration plan, and Moore highlighted the cruelty of banishing people without offering them anywhere to go.

“I will not vote to become a city that practices banishment,” Moore said. “I will not vote to become a city that ignores the reality of people’s bodies existing in time and space. I will not vote to become a city that commits to future planning for shelters and housing while giving itself a pass to ban people now in the present. I will not vote to be a city that offers a severe weather shelter on a 32-degree day and exile on a 33-degree day.”

City Council

Third Time’s the Charm for City Council Appointee Mark Solomon

By Erica C. Barnett

After several delays to address technical problems with the A/V system in council chambers (eventually, the two council members who were attending remotely joined the meeting and voted through somebody’s cell phone, which was propped in front of a mic), the city council chose Mark Solomon to represent Southeast Seattle’s District 2—and lead the council’s land use committee—until the general election in November.

Solomon, a crime prevention coordinator for the Seattle Police Department and a former intelligence officer for the US Air Force, has tried to join the council twice before. In 2019, he ran for the open District 2 seat and lost to Tammy Morales by more than 21 points. Four years later, when the council needed to fill an open seat, he tried again, but the new council already had its heart set on Tanya Woo, who had just lost to Morales the previous year. This time, it took five rounds of voting before the council chose Solomon over mayoral transportation staffer Adonis Ducksworth,

From the beginning, though, Solomon had a plurality of four (out of eight) council votes, with two other candidates—assistant city attorney Eddie Lin and Parks and Recreation employee Chukundi Salisbury—each receiving one vote in the early rounds.

Solomon, like the other candidates, pledged to address the longstanding market for drugs and stolen goods at 12th and Jackson, saying he would implement Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. CPTED is a set of strategies designed to send signals that a location is hostile to crime, such as bright lights, surveillance cameras, tall fences, and the removal of trees and bushes that people might be able to hide behind.

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As land use chair, Solomon’s job will include working on the much-delayed 2025 update to the city’s comprehensive plan, which Morales recently told PubliCola she had hoped to amend to get more housing in the Rainier Valley and to protect “neighborhood centers”—about 30 locations across the city where three-to-five story apartments would be allowed within 800 feet of frequent transit stops.

Solomon, who pledged last week to oppose removing any neighborhood centers from the comprehensive plan, hesitated when reporters asked him about that pledge and his general approach to land use shortly after he took the oath of office, then said that yes, he supports all the neighborhood centers. But, he continued, it’s important not to “concentrate” new housing, especially affordable housing, in Southeast Seattle.

“There are some neighborhoods who don’t want change, don’t want eight-story [sic] apartment buildings in their community,” Solomon said. “That’s understandable, but we are one Seattle, and Seattle needs to come together so that it’s not all concentrated on North Rainier and D2—it’s spread out. … Quite frankly, right now, D2 has a lot of density. … So when it comes to the low income housing, workforce housing, I want to spread the wealth throughout the city and not just concentrated in D2.”

Solomon also said he plans to revisit the tree ordinance, a priority of North Seattle Councilmember Cathy Moore, and to emphasize anti-displacement measures in the comprehensive plan to “ensure that we keep people in their homes [so they] have the opportunity to build generational wealth.” He also talked up the idea of a “storefront improvement fund” to pay for business improvements like lighting, better locks, and planter boxes to “bollards or planter boxes to prevent vehicles from smashing into the businesses.”

He also addressed the optics of the council appointing someone voters in District 2 rejected to represent them—first, by appointing unsuccessful D2 candidate Woo to a citywide council seat, and now by appointing him to replace Morales.

“The thing I’d like to point out to folks is, while council member Morales and I were rivals for the position, even after the election, we did work together,” Solomon said. “So for  those who may be disappointed that you know, I’m now their representative. If you don’t agree with me, fine. I’m still going to advocate for you. I’m still going to work for you. I’m still going to try to make things better by delivering services for the community.”

City Council, podcasts, Police, public safety

This Week on PubliCola: January 25, 2025
Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka raising one finger in the air
Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka, five minutes into a yes/no question

The council weighs a critical appointment, a cop gets sentenced for murder, and firefighters triple their salaries with overtime.

By Erica C. Barnett

Tuesday, January 21

Seattle Nice: Our 2025 Predictions!

PubliCola founder and columnist Josh Feit joined us on the Seattle Nice podcast this week to discuss our predictions for 2025, including MAGA’s emergence in Seattle, David’s predictions for this year’s February and November elections, Sandeep’s expectation that Seattle will continue its “malaise” era, and my worries about Seattle’s readiness for immigration raids and the likely withdrawal of federal funding during Trump 2.0

Wednesday, January 22

Council Forum Skips Past Land Use to Focus On Seward Park Drivers, Beat Cops, and “the Threat of Sound Transit”

The city council is preparing—for the second time in a year—to appoint a new member, this time to represent Southeast Seattle in the seat formerly held by Tammy Morales. Unfortunately, the one and only public forum for the six finalists focused on micro-issues and complaints the city council has no power to address—like “why can people who I don’t know park in front of my house?”

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Thursday, January 23

Auburn Cop Convicted of Murder and Assault Is First Sentenced Under 2018 Accountability Law

An Auburn police officer who was convicted of murdering and assaulting Jesse Sarey, a 26-year-old homeless man who was experiencing a mental health crisis, was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison under a law passed by voters in 2018 that reduced the high burden of proof for police misconduct.

Friday, January 24

Nearly 200 Firefighters Made More than $200,000 Last Year, Amassing Thousands of Hours of Overtime

Last year, 180 Seattle Fire Department employees—almost one in five—made more than $200,000, doubling or tripling their salaries by working thousands of hours of overtime. Of those, 19 made more than $300,000, sometimes averaging 120 hours a week or more under a system that places almost no limits on how much overtime a firefighter can accrue.

Saturday, January 25

Six Applicants Make Their Case to Become the City Council’s Newest Member

The council applicants made their cases before the city council for nearly two hours on Thursday, answering questions that ranged from “where did you go to middle school?” to “how will you approach the city’s comprehensive plan?”

 

City Council, Elections

Six Applicants Make Their Case to Become the City Council’s Newest Member
The six city council candidates hesitate before holding up cards in response to Rob Saka’s question: “Yes or no, would you definitively rule out running this year, 2025, if appointed?”

By Erica C. Barnett

The city council is about to choose a new council member to fill Tammy Morales‘ old District 2 seat, after narrowing down the field of 20 qualified candidates to six men.

After a chaotic public forum that focused primarily on how much the applicants seat support cops, cars, and keeping Sound Transit out of Chinatown, Seattle residents got one last chance to hear from the applicants on Thursday, when each finalist delivered a prepared 3-minute speech and answered questions from all eight current council members.

But if viewers were hoping to learn more about how each of the candidates would handle the primary responsibilities that will face them over the next nine and a half months—updating the city’s comprehensive plan, overseeing the council’s land use committee, addressing ongoing budget shortfalls amid the likelihood of federal funding cuts—the council often undercut that goal. Rob Saka went on forever. Dan Strauss asked everyone where they went to middle school. Joy Hollingsworth asked, “What about the children?” And Cathy Moore requested commitments to revisit the tree code to place more restrictions on tree removal to prevent density in single-family areas.

Each council member had ten minutes to address the finalists, and most of them gave each applicant at least a minute or so for a short answer to each question. The exception was Saka, who spent more than six minutes winding up to a confusingly worded yes or no question (basically: would the candidates run for election or be a “caretaker”)? and took several more minutes to ask a second question about the comprehensive plan. As a result, the six men  had just two minutes, altogether, to explain their priorities and goals for the city’s comprehensive plan, a complex land use document that governs how and where the city will grow over the next 20 years. As Saka’s time wound down, two of his colleagues could be heard, on the Seattle Channel live stream, snickering and saying “oh my god,” respectively, and council president Sara Nelson gave them a few extra minutes so they could all say a few words.

For the record: Chukundi Salisbury and Mark Solomon, who have both previously said they would not run for election, were the only two who raised their green check mark cards.

Two quick notes: As in the public forum last Tuesday, many of the applicants’ answers were about issues or proposals the council has little or no control over, like specific Seattle Department of Transportation projects or how police officers should be deployed. To me, this suggests a misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) of what the council does, which has sometimes been a problem with the current council (see, for example, Saka’s frustration that he can’t just order SDOT to remove a curb that prevented him from turning left into a parking lot.)

Second, the new council member will chair the land use committee, so they ideally should have some land-use expertise; while experience as a neighborhood advocate is useful for a district council member, they’ll also be making decisions on technical issues that impact the whole city.

Finally, the fact that all six finalists are men is noteworthy, perhaps especially so because some of Morales’ colleagues and detractors dismissed her stated reasons for resigning—feeling bullied, gaslit, and excluded from important conversations—by suggesting she just wasn’t “tough” enough for the job, a common criticism of women who complain about workplace mistreatment. In modern history, there has never been another all-male panel of finalists for an open council seat.

Hong Chhuor

Nominated by: Sara Nelson

Chhour, the Chief Development and Communications Officer at Friends of the Children and co-owner of King Donuts, emphasized his ties to the immigrant and Asian American/Pacific Islander community and his commitment to improving public safety in Little Saigon. Like finalists Mark Solomon, Adonis Ducksworth, and Eddie Lin, Chhuor said his top priority on the would be to “address the travesty that is occurring at 12th and Jackson in Little Saigon.”

Quote: In response to a question from Dan Strauss about how he would “approach the dichotomy of our city need for housing and density with neighbors’ concerns that they don’t want their neighborhoods to change,” Chhour said: “I want to ask, why do we limit ourselves to that dichotomy? Could we take a moment to consider that the narrative around changing the character of our neighborhoods is a form of gatekeeping, and are we really a society in this city that wants to default to, ‘I got here first, and therefore I get to make the rules’?”

Adonis Ducksworth

Nominated by: Dan Strauss

Ducksworth, a Seattle Department of Transportation employee since 2016 (and transportation policy advisor to Mayor Bruce Harrell since 2023), talked about his experience volunteering with recovery-based groups like the Union Gospel Mission and his efforts to get a skate park in Rainier Beach, which he identified as one of his top priorities.

Quote: In his introductory comments, he said there were “five things I will be prioritizing for the district over the next 10 months, and these are things that I know can be done. Number one, address the state of emergency in the CID and Little Saigon. Number two, make Rainier Avenue safer. Number three, adopt a resolution that outlines a framework for how the city should be engaging with the community. Number four, host SPD recruiting and outreach fairs in every District Two, neighborhood. And number five, we need to give kids a different path. That’s why I want to break ground on the Rainier Beach skate park this year.”

Mark Solomon

Nominated by: Maritza Rivera

Solomon, a crime prevention coordinator for the Seattle Police Department since 1990, said he would prioritize building generational wealth by promoting Black homeownership and keeping Black homeowners in their houses, noting that he can only afford to live in the city because he lives in the house his grandparents built. He also said he’s prioritize traffic safety in Southeast Seattle and building more sidewalks.

Quote: In response to a question from Rinck about what the city should to do respond to federal retaliation, such as the withdrawal of funds, against sanctuary cities like Seattle, Solomon said, “Just looking at the executive orders that have flown out of the past couple days does give me pause, and it made me think—’Okay, if you’re going to deny us money because we’re a sanctuary city, I’m going to go find my own money? I’m going to go find different sorts of funds, so I don’t have to rely on you.’ That’s one of the reasons I’ve been advocating for us to explore a public bank…. where we can set this up to borrow against our own assets to fund our own projects, so we don’t have to rely on the feds for [that] funding.”

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Chukundi Salisbury

Nominated by: Rob Saka

Salisbury, a longtime Seattle Parks Department employee and founder of the group Black Legacy Homeowners, touted his volunteer experience and emphasized his long history in Seattle. (His mother, former Community Police Commission co-chair Harriet Walden, spoke in his favor during public comment). In response to the sanctuary city question, Salisbury said he would look at “leaning in to private industry, not just taxing them, but asking them to really protect us as a sanctuary city.”

Quote: “My number one priority … would be strengthening the anti-displacement framework in the comp plan. We know that if we do not strengthen this anti-displacement framework, 20 years from now, there will not be a Black community, and many of our other BIPOC neighbors and the like who are most at risk for displacement will not exist here. And so this is one of the most important things to me. We got to be here to even work on these things.

Thaddeus Gregory

Nominated by: Joy Hollingsworth

Gregory, a land use attorney the son of Municipal Court Judge Willie Gregory, came across as the candidate with the most direct knowledge about land use. He also ticked several urbanist boxes—supporting safe bike infrastructure, supporting neighborhood corner stores (which are currently illegal), and revisiting minimum parking requirements, which can dramatically increase the cost of new housing.

Quote: In response to Moore’s litmus-test question about trees, Gregory responded: “Our tree code works to a certain extent, but sometimes more flexibility needs to be allowed. When that flexibility is there, we need to make sure that, as we develop, if any trees are taken away, we replant—twofold, threefold, fourfold. We have a goal of having a 30 percent tree canopy. It’s something that I think Seattle should absolutely aspire to and achieve. We can do it using the comprehensive plan, using the tree code. I think that we should revisit the tree code examine how we can both incentivise development and to use new development to spur more trees in our communities.”

Edward Lin

Nominated by: Alexis Mercedes Rinck

Lin, an assistant city attorney who previously worked as a private-sector land use attorney, emphasized the need to accommodate growth while preventing displacement through programs like the Equitable Development Initiative and “gentle density—duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, where somebody can age in place, and we can really build wealth within the community and not just have it go to outsiders.”

Quote: “Our schools are struggling, and educational inequality in Seattle is some of the worst in the nation. And what I’ve realized is a lot of things that happen outside our communities, whether it’s housing and homelessness or gun violence, those have huge impacts in our schools. And the [Families and Education] levy, things like kindergarten readiness, wraparound services, providing food and summer programs—those are huge ways that we can make a real difference in D2. … I’d love to lean into things like high school internships and, connecting our youth to the enormous wealth and job opportunities in our region, whether that’s the trades or tech companies or maritime industries or police.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote to Lin. We’ve replaced the quote with something Lin actually said, and we regret the error.

public safety, Uncategorized

Nearly 200 Firefighters Made More than $200,000 Last Year, Amassing Thousands of Hours of Overtime
Seattle Fire Station Tim, by Joe Mabel, via Wikimedia Commons

By Erica C. Barnett

Last year, 180 Seattle Fire Department employees—almost one in five—made more than $200,000, doubling or tripling their salaries by working large, and sometimes mind-boggling, amounts of overtime. Of those, 19 (20 if you count Fire Chief Harold Scoggins) made more than $300,000, with several reporting salaries close to $400,000—a level that puts them in the ranks of Seattle Police Department officers like Ron Willis, who was recently suspended for working excess overtime after making almost $400,000 last year.

PubliCola obtained Fire employees’ pay information, including a breakdown that accounts for vacation, leave, overtime, and other pay codes, through a records request.

Most of the SFD employees who made over $300,000 reported working thousands of hours of overtime, on top of the 90.46 hours they get paid for every two weeks.

The highest-paid SFD employee was Captain James Hilliard, a 32-year veteran who added $180,000 to his $120,000 salary by working 2,335 hours of overtime, reporting more than 200 hours of overtime in each of five different months in 2024. Another captain, Michael Frediani, more than tripled his $105,000 salary—to $384,000—by clocking in for 1,726 hours of overtime, including 252 in December alone.

But it wasn’t just higher-ranking firefighters who cleared the $300,000 bar.

Under their union contract, Seattle firefighters automatically get paid for about 2,350 hours in a year, including vacation, sick time, merit pay, holidays, and other time off. Many Seattle firefighters in the top income bracket were paid for 4,000, 5,000, or even 6,000 hours, most of that in overtime.

Firefighter Daniel Kieta, whose base salary in 2024 was $95,000, more than tripled his pay to $315,000, receiving pay for 6,000 hours on the clock last year, including almost 2,400 hours of overtime. That works out, on average, to 45 hours of overtime for each 45-hour week. But it wasn’t distributed evenly. Last June, for example, Kieta reported working 267 hours at regular pay and 283 hours of overtime, for an average of 128 hours a week, more than 65 hours a week of that in overtime.

Darren Schulberg, a firefighter since 1991, reported working 5,730 hours in 2024, including 2,405 hours of overtime; those hours helped boost his annual pay from $86,635 to $322,775. In June, Schulberg added 259 hours of overtime to 254 hours at regular pay, for a an average of 120 hours a week.

And Jason Lynch, a firefighter with a base salary of $97,000, made an additional $238,000 in overtime, including 441 overtime hours in December. All told, Lynch reported working 688 hours in December, for a average of 155 hours a week that month. (There are 168 hours in a week).

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Firefighters can take rest breaks during long shifts, so these extraordinary hours include some down time for sleep. PubliCola has asked SFD if there are any other factors that would account for firefighters working 120-, 130, or 150-hour weeks.

These are far from the only Seattle firefighters who reported working more than 5,000 hours last year; in the $200,000 to $300,000 range, at least 30 firefighters said they worked between 4,002 and 5,278 hours.

SFD did not respond to a request to make firefighters at the top end of the overtime range available to talk about what their shifts are like.

In 2022, the Seattle Times ran a piece about firefighters working record overtime hours the previous year—claiming that firefighters like Kieta were “forced” to work thousands of extra hours because “unprecedented staffing shortages.” At the time, the department had 1,026 firefighters, about 50 fewer than it does today. Fire department spokesperson Kristin Hanson said the department is still facing a shortage, as more officers retire and recruitment lags. Currently, she said, 130 firefighter positions are vacant, after 232 retirements between 2020 and 2024.

But that doesn’t entirely account for employees like Kieta, who the Seattle Times highlighted as the top member of what the paper called the “4,000-hour club”—firefighters who were paid for working more than 4,000 hours in a year.

While staffing shortages explain the need for overtime, they don’t explain why it’s distributed so unevenly. Nor is it clear how supervisors, or firefighters themselves, determine when excessive work hours start to affect a firefighter’s ability to do their job, including responding to emergencies.

Unlike many other city employees, firefighters can volunteer for virtually unlimited overtime. Their union contract allows them to work 60 hours in a row, take 12 hours off, and then do it again. Working that schedule, a firefighter could amass 144 hours in a week. On top of that, Hanson said, a firefighter could amass more hours, up to 168, if they worked overtime at special events or were deployed to a large emergency event, like a wildfire or natural disaster.

According to Hanson, “Overtime hiring within the Seattle Fire Department is a fair and procedural-based process” based on the firefighters’ union contract. When firefighters sign up for overtime shifts, the person with the lowest number of overtime hours gets first crack at available overtime, for instance.

“As members approach higher amounts of overtime, additional hiring rules come into play all with the focus of a fair and equitable hiring process,” Hanson said.

Beyond rules designed to give everyone at the fire department a chance at overtime, the only real limit on a firefighter’s ability to work nonstop is their own level of fatigue: Emergency responders need to be alert, and a tired firefighter, like a tired cop, could be prone to making critical (and potentially fatal) mistakes.

But the only person who determines whether a firefighter is too fatigued to work is the firefighter himself. According to the firefighters’ contract, “Members are responsible for monitoring their state of readiness. When a member’s scheduled shift falls on the second consecutive shift and the member is not adequately rested to perform their duties, the member will inform his or her supervisor and request time off using sick leave, merits or other personal compensatory time.”

If a firefighter decides they can work 144 hours in a week,  in other words, that’s up to them. And hiring more firefighters, which SFD has been doing, clearly isn’t going to stop people from trying to amass as much overtime as possible.

There’s another potential motivation, beyond earning more money in any given year, for firefighters to try to boost their pay. The size of a firefighter’s pensions most of which are managed and funded through a state system called LEOFF, is determined by their five top-paying years—a powerful incentive to boost their “high five” numbers, especially they approach the end of their careers.

The city’s spending on the fire department has increased in recent years, although Hanson says the extra overtime is balanced out by the money the department saves by not being fully staffed.