Tag: Charleena Lyles

Mayor Harrell, Mental Health, Morning Fizz, Police

Council IDs Funds for 911 Alternative Pilot, Prosecutor Won’t Pursue Charges Against Police Who Killed Lyles

1. City council members Lisa Herbold and Andrew Lewis, who have advocated for creating an alternative response system for 911 calls that do not require police, sponsored a change to the city’s 2022 budget that sets aside $1.2 million originally budgeted for former mayor Jenny Durkan’s “Triage One” program to pay for a future “alternative response model” for these calls.

Although the money is currently frozen—Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office wants to reserve it to help backfill an anticipated budget shortfall next year—the amendment moves the money out of the Seattle Fire Department in case the council and mayor’s office can agree on a pilot proposal this year.

As we’ve reported, the city has backed away from its initial commitment to quickly fund alternatives to traditional police-based 911 response, made in the immediate aftermath of citywide protests against police violence sparked by the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and recently outlined a process for standing up a new public safety department in 2024. Council members have expressed frustration about the slow timeline, arguing that the city could create a pilot program now and see how it goes, rather than waiting years to start.

Using the cost estimates for Triage One, Lewis had council staff create a spreadsheet with a very rough estimate of what a pilot civilian response program, along the lines of CAHOOTS in Eugene, OR or the STAR program in Denver, would cost. The total for a three-person pilot—”basically one van,” Lewis said—came out to about $940,000, or about one-quarter of one percent of the $355 million the city budgeted for the police department last year.

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Lewis noted that the cost could be lower if, for example, the new team used existing city cars instead of buying a $100,000 new custom Ford F150 (Durkan’s Triage One budget called for three) or if they found space that cost less than the previous estimate of $20,000 a month.

Ultimately, it will be up to Harrell’s office to decide whether they want to spend the money on a pilot program for new responders, or to help fill the city’s budget gap, which could total well over $100 million. The city budget office will release its latest revenue forecast next month.

2. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg announced Thursday that he would not prosecute the two police officers who shot and killed Charleena Lyles in her apartment in 2017, citing the fact that the law in place at the time effectively exonerated officers who acted “without malice and with a good faith belief that [a shooting] is justifiable.”

In a memo explaining his decision not to prosecute, Satterberg cited testimony during the inquest from experts who agreed “that the use of deadly force was necessary given the circumstances.” Hearing similar testimony, Satterberg wrote, “a criminal jury would likely conclude that the use of deadly force was necessary.”

An inquest earlier this month found that the officers did not violate the law or SPD policies on use of force when they killed Lyles, a 31-year-old Black woman whose history of mental illness was known to both officers, in 2017.

After voters passed Initiative 940 in 2018, the state legislature removed the “malice” standard and required officers to go through additional training in de-escalation and mental health.

In a memo explaining his decision not to prosecute, Satterberg cited testimony during the inquest from experts who agreed “that the use of deadly force was necessary given the circumstances.” Hearing similar testimony, Satterberg wrote, “a criminal jury would likely conclude that the use of deadly force was necessary.”

The inquest process itself is designed to make very narrow determinations about responsibility; in Lyles’ case, the six-person jury was only instructed to answer “yes,” “no,” or “unknown” to a list of 170 factual questions. King County reformed its inquest process in 2018 to give families access to an attorney and to give inquest juries more latitude in deciding whether officers followed department policy. The inquest into Lyles’ shooting was only the second inquest, and the second to find a police shooting justified, since the state supreme court allowed inquests to restart under the new rules last year.

criminal justice, King County

Jury in Charleena Lyles Inquest Says Police Followed Policy in Shooting 30-Year-Old Black Woman in Crisis

By Erica C. Barnett

A King County inquest jury concluded that Seattle police officers Jason Anderson and Steven McNew used reasonable force when they shot Charleena Lyles, a pregnant Black woman with mental illness, seven times in her apartment in 2017, killing her.

The jury, whose charge was determining whether the two officers acted reasonably and within SPD policy when they shot Lyles, said McNew violated the department’s policy on less-lethal weapons because he was not carrying his Taser at the time of the shooting, but agreed that a Taser would not have been a “a reasonably effective alternative to the deadly force” used against Lyles, who was holding a small paring knife when she was killed.

The jury’s findings followed seven days of presentations and witness interviews, including graphic photos of Lyles’ body and testimony from neighbors and a fire department officer who hurried Lyles’ children past her body and out of the apartment. After a court official finished reading the jury’s conclusions, Lyles’ father, Charles Lyles, shouted at Anderson and McNew, “You killed my daughter! Fuck you!” twice and told them they would have to answer to God before being ordered to leave the room.

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The inquest into Lyles’ killing was delayed while King County revamped its process for reviewing shootings by officers, removing the inquiries from the court system and ensuring that families have legal representation. Despite these changes, the structure of an inquest remains rigid: In Lyles’ case, the six-person jury was charged with answering more than 120 yes/no questions, such as “at the time Officer Anderson or Officer McNew fired his handgun at Ms. Lyles, did it appear that a reasonably effective alternative to the use of deadly force existed?” to determine whether the officers violated the laws and Seattle Police Department policies that were in place at the time. On most questions, the jury was unanimous.

After the ruling, the attorney for Lyles’ family, Karen Koehler, said in a statement that the family “does not blame the jury” for finding that SPD followed its policies, because “SPD’s policies practices and procedures are designed specifically to allow an officer to shoot and kill a person in mental crisis with a paring knife.”

Officers knew that Lyles had a history of mental illness when they responded to her 911 call reporting a burglary in her apartment; just two weeks earlier, she made a similar 911 call and, after officers arrived and began taking her statement, suddenly started acting erratically and making statements that indicated she was in a mental health crisis, saying the officers were “devils” and “members of the KKK,” according to court records. She also pulled out a large pair of scissors.

In the six months prior to her death, Lyles had also called police more than 20 times, often to report domestic violence and assault by the man who fathered two of her four children. When McNew and Anderson arrived at her sweltering apartment, Lyles was wearing a long, heavy black coat—a fact that neither officer registered as a sign she might be experiencing a mental health crisis, according to testimony.

“During the 7 days of the inquest proceeding a solid and unflinching blue wall justified each and every action of its officers,” Koehler said. “the message is clear: if a person is in a mental health crisis and has any type of sharp edged instrument, tool or weapon – do not expect them to survive if 911 is called in Seattle. Charleena Lyles, a pregnant mother of four children with three at home, called the police for help, went into mental crisis and was shot dead.  The findings of the inquest are nothing for the SPD to be proud about.”

The Seattle Community Police Commission, one of three police accountability bodies at the city, said in a statement that they were “disappointed” by the findings and the additional trauma the process created for her family, adding that they still support the revamped inquest process. “Police officers should be equipped with the right training and tools to deescalate and prioritize life” when they know a person is in crisis, the CPC said. “Despite Lyles’ small statute, neither of those things happened in this case.”

In a statement, Mayor Bruce Harrell called Lyles’ killing “a tragic event that rightfully shook our community” and pointed to the need for more “reforms and improvements” within the police department. “I continue to believe we are asking the wrong questions – not whether the use of lethal force was justified, but whether it was necessary. Could we have ensured officer safety and saved a life? How can we improve training and adopt practices that reflect a commitment to ensuring lethal force is used only when absolutely necessary?” Harrell said.

King County prosecuting attorney Dan Satterberg said yesterday that his office would review the jury’s findings and decide whether to charge either of the officers with a crime.

A spokesman for City Attorney Ann Davison said, “We hope the completion of this inquest and the findings of the inquest jury provide some semblance of closure to the family, officers, and the community. We thank the jury for their time, attention, and service.”

Cops, Courts, Mental Health

Family of Charleena Lyles Reaches $3.5 Settlement with City of Seattle for 2017 Shooting
Charleena Lyles (Courtesy of the Lyles family)

By Paul Kiefer

After a grueling 13-hour mediation on Monday night, the family of Charleena Lyles reached a $3.5 million settlement with the City of Seattle and two Seattle police officers, ending a four-year-long wrongful death lawsuit that began when the officers shot and killed Lyles in her Magnuson Park home in June 2017.

“This has been a horrible case. Shameful,” said Karen Koehler, the lead attorney representing Lyles’ family, during a press conference at the Stritmatter law firm on Tuesday afternoon. On a television behind her, Lyles’ eldest daughter—watching from her aunt’s house in California, seated in front of a Christmas tree—leaned off-screen to cry.

Lyles, who was 30, called 911 from her apartment on June 18 to report a burglary. She was known to the Seattle Police Department—and to Seattle’s criminal legal system in general—both as a survivor of domestic violence and someone struggling with mental illness. At times, her illness escalated into full-blown crises. Only two weeks earlier, for instance, officers arrested Lyles in her apartment after she brandished a pair of scissors and threatened to transform into “the wolf” while reporting a domestic violence incident. After pleading not guilty to harassment and obstruction charges in Seattle Municipal Court, Lyles appeared in Seattle’s mental health court on June 13, where a judge ordered the county to release her from jail.

Lyles did not know officers Jason Anderson and Steven McNew, who appeared at her door on June 18 to respond to her burglary report. On his way to the low-income housing complex where she lived, Anderson received an alert on his in-car monitor about Lyles’ recent mental health crisis; he called for backup from McNew, who had received crisis intervention training. But when they arrived at her apartment, Lyles’ family said, the officers were woefully unprepared.

In the family’s original lawsuit, attorneys argued that Anderson and McNew failed to perform their duties by entering Lyles’ apartment without a de-escalation plan. McNew, the more experienced officer, allowed Anderson to take the lead; at times, McNew turned his back to Lyles.

Anderson looked up from his note pad and saw Lyles holding a knife. From her family’s perspective, she was spiraling into another crisis. The family argues that the officers should have cleared the knives from Lyles’ kitchen counter to reduce the chance of a confrontation.

Anderson immediately drew his gun and pointed it at her. McNew, snapping to attention, told his partner to use a Taser to subdue Lyles. “I don’t have a Taser,” Anderson replied.  Although all SPD officers are required to carry a “less-lethal” alternative to their gun, Anderson had left his Taser in his locker because its battery was dead. According to Lyles’ family, both officers then escalated the confrontation by shouting at Lyles to “get back.” When she didn’t, the pair shot her seven times. As she lay dying, her infant son crawled onto her chest. Three of her four children were only feet away when she died.

The Office of Police Accountability ultimately suspended Anderson for two days as punishment for not carrying his Taser, but SPD determined that the shooting was justified, in part because Lyles’ bulky coat might have deflected a Taser, but especially because Lyles was carrying a knife—a reason, the department argued, for the officers to believe their lives were in danger.

Lyles’ family’s lawsuit didn’t focus on whether the officers were in danger. “We went to state court and brought a negligence allegation,” said Edward Moore, another attorney for the Lyles family. “That allowed us to look at the officers’ actions leading up to [the shooting.] We were allowed to make allegations that they didn’t plan properly … They had been trained on de-escalating knife attacks with tasers. It would have required an additional officer, and it would have required a Taser.” Continue reading “Family of Charleena Lyles Reaches $3.5 Settlement with City of Seattle for 2017 Shooting” →

Courts, criminal justice, King County, Police

In Victory for Families of People Killed by Police, State Supreme Court Allows Inquest Reforms to Proceed
A portrait of Charleena Lyles on Capitol Hill in June 2020 (Flickr: Derek Simeone; reproduced under a Creative Commons license)

By Paul Kiefer

The Washington State Supreme Court sided with the families of people killed by police officers in a unanimous decision Thursday, restoring reforms to King County’s inquest process that have stalled since 2018 under pressure from law enforcement agencies.

The ruling brings a close to a lawsuit filed against King County Executive Dow Constantine last year by the families of Damarius Butts, Isaiah Obet, Charleena Lyles and seven other people killed by law enforcement officers in the county in 2017. It also opens the door for inquests—a type of fact-finding hearing in which a jury reviews the details of a death and decides who is responsible—to resume in King County after a four-year hiatus. 

Tiffany Rogers, Charleena Lyles’s sister, told PubliCola the four-year legal battle was exhausting for her and other family members of people killed by police. “It was painful, and it was painful for a long time, but we’re doing this so that other families don’t have to,” she said.

King County first overhauled its inquest process in 2018, when, under pressure from police accountability groups, Constantine implemented a slate of changes intended to improve transparency and give victims’ families a say in what information inquest juries hear. The changes allowed attorneys representing victims’ families to take part in inquest hearings for the first time and empowered juries to determine not only what happened in a police shooting, but whether the officers involved complied with their department’s policies and training.

In the ruling, the court concluded that all of the reforms supported by the families, including the changes introduced in 2018 and the reforms the families sought in their lawsuit, can move forward. In fact, the court noted that state law not only allows, but requires, inquest juries to consider whether an officer committed a crime.

Before announcing the reforms, Constantine had placed a hold on three pending inquests into the deaths of Butts, Obet, and Lyles. But when reforms took effect and the county began preparing to start the three inquests, a problem emerged: Under the executive order, the officers’ attorneys couldn’t participate if the officers themselves refused to testify. When the officers involved in Butts’ death declined to testify, the inquest couldn’t move forward.

The families filed a lawsuit in 2020, hoping to fill the gap in Constantine’s reforms by compelling the officers to testify. The families also called for another change to inquest procedures: allowing jurors to consider whether the officers involved in a shooting broke the law. “The inquest can be a useful tool to investigate police killings of community members, but the panel must answer whether the officer committed a crime for the process to have any teeth,” said Amy Parker, an attorney with King County’s Department of Public Defense who represented Obet’s family.

Meanwhile, several law enforcement agencies—the Seattle Police Department, the King County Sheriff’s Office and municipal police departments in Auburn, Renton, Kent and Federal Way—also sued Constantine, aiming to invalidate all of the recent changes to the inquest process. According to the agencies’ attorneys, the inquest reforms already underway in King County would put police officers at a serious disadvantage when facing a jury. The lawsuits forced the county to suspend the new reforms and put a stay on any new or ongoing inquests.

When the case came before King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector in July 2020, the law enforcement agencies prevailed; Spector ruled that Constantine’s reforms threatened officers’ rights to counsel and struck down most of the changes to the inquest process. By that point, SPD had backed out of the lawsuit under pressure from members of the city council and the public, leaving the other agencies to carry on the suit.

The state supreme court entirely reversed the course of the case on Thursday, dismissing Judge Spector’s ruling as “wrong as a matter of law.” Continue reading “In Victory for Families of People Killed by Police, State Supreme Court Allows Inquest Reforms to Proceed” →

Addiction, Affordability, criminal justice, Density, Development, Election 2017, homelessness, land use, neighborhoods, Transit, Transportation

The C Is for Crank Interviews: Jenny Durkan

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Former US attorney Jenny Durkan has been pigeonholed—unfairly, she says—as the “conservative” candidate in the race for mayor, where “conservative” is a term broad enough to include a longtime activist for LGBT causes, former Obama appointee, and advocate for supervised drug consumption sites. She’s caught flak for her style (too stiff and inauthentic, some say), her views on homelessness (more conservative than ex-mayor Ed Murray’s, by some measures) and her tendency to respond to questions in elliptical, lawyerly soundbites (many of which have been edited out of this interview, because nobody wants to read those.) As the candidate with the support of Seattle’s business establishment (as well as most of the local labor groups), she’s also widely considered the frontrunner in the race, and has enjoyed a large spending advantage over her opponent Cary Moon—in addition to outraising Moon in absolute dollars ($727,689 to Moon’s $231,331, of which $111,521 is Moon’s own money), a business backed political action committee, People for Jenny Durkan, has raised $124,600 so far for an independent-expenditure campaign on Durkan’s behalf.

I sat down with Durkan in September.

The C Is for Crank [ECB]: There has been a lot of talk by candidates this year about revisiting the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda, particularly the amount of affordable housing developers should have to provide and whether single-family areas should be opened up to other types of development, like duplexes and row houses. Would you revisit any part of the HALA agreement?

JD: I never use the word ‘revisit.’ I think it is absolutely clear that we cannot bring on board the number of affordable housing units we need without the private sector participating strongly, and the only way you’re to do that is through a series of incentives. So I think we have to keep the part of HALA that is going to give us the ability to bring on more affordable housing, and as we roll it out, we have to make sure that there aren’t unintended consequences—that we aren’t impacting neighborhoods, communities, or families in ways that we didn’t think about.

I think we just have to make sure that we are looking at it how we implement it and make sure it makes sense. We’re getting two, three, four, five years away from when the deal was made and the marketplace is growing. So have we gotten that ratio of required housing and public benefit for housing right, or is there more room there? Should we have transportation impact fees? Should we have park impact fees? We  don’t want to kill the development, because there’s no question that we’re going to get more dense, but as we do that, can we squeeze out of that growth the benefits we need [such as] affordable housing [and] transit-oriented development?

ECB: Do you think Murray made the wrong decision by taking a proposal to allow duplexes and other modest density in single-family areas off the table, and would you revisit that decision?

JD: I think it was the smart thing politically to pull that off the table, because I think the whole thing would have collapsed if the mandatory [affordable housing] fees collapsed. We would not have the resources to bring on anywhere near the affordable housing we need. To pull the rug out from under the deal and be left with nothing—it would have crushed us as city.

ECB: Murray also cut ties with the neighborhood district councils, which prompted quite a backlash from single-family homeowners who say their views are no longer being heard at City Hall. Would you restore city funding and support for those groups?

JD: I would have neighborhood councils. They’d be configured differently, but I think we suffer way too much from top-down right now, and part of the reason there is so much anxiety in neighborhoods and communities is the city has quit listening to the neighborhoods’ needs. I’ll give you an example. I was down in Rainier Beach the other day and I spent several hours with the community and youth down there, because when I was US Attorney, I’d helped them get a grant for youth violence prevention, and I wanted to get updated on what’s working and  what’s not working. And they’ve done amazing things. Even with the huge amount of displacement, the increased violence, the deaths they’d seen, the community is fighting to maintain its place.

“What I hear from West Seattle, Ballard, Greenwood, Capitol Hill—everyone feels like they’re not being listened to, and I think you have to do that. Government exists to serve the people.”

 

But they’re not getting the help they need from the city, because the city has quit listening to them. From the activists to the kids, you will hear, ‘We think we’ve figured out a path out for youth violence prevention, for activating our corners, for having corner greeters, for empowering businesses, for helping bring business back here. I think that the support the city had historically given them has eroded. You can’t do neighborhood work from city hall. While you have to have a vision and policy that works for the whole city and move people beyond some of their own vested interests, you also have to listen to what they think the solutions are for their own communities and neighborhoods.

ECB: So did Murray’s decision to take some power away from the neighborhood councils make that harder?

JD: No, again, I really want to make clear that I don’t want to talk in terms of, ‘Do you agree with what Ed did?’ I’m telling you what I would do. I think you have to have a very vibrant Department of Neighborhoods that works with people in communities and listens to people and talks to people. As I understand it, in some neighborhoods, it became the same people showing up all the time, so it was a very limited spectrum of voices. My view is, the answer is not to shut down those voices—the answer is to bring more people in. Maybe not at the same room at the same time, but you can have more meetings at different times. You can have virtual meetings. You reach out in all the ways you can to get more voices in. What I hear from West Seattle, Ballard, Greenwood, Capitol Hill—everyone feels like they’re not being listened to, and I think you have to do that. Government exists to serve the people.

ECB: Opponents of supervised drug consumption sites have filed an initiative to ban the sites throughout King County. What’s your take on that lawsuit, and do you think Seattle will ever actually get a supervised-consumption site?

JD: I think the city of Seattle should consider joining that suit and challenge it in their own right. [Ed: Since our conversation, the city has expressed its intent to join the lawsuit.] [Beyond that,] I don’t think they have the ability to stop the city from doing what it wants. If I’m mayor, we’re going to go ahead [with a supervised consumption site] and we’ll take the legal challenge, because the city of Seattle does not depend on King County for its rights. It has its own statutory rights, and one of those is to decide what it needs to do for the public health and safety of its people.

There’s no question in my mind that consumption sites are something we need to have as part of the health care response to a health crisis on our streets. Right now, we’re in a place where we give clean needles to people and tell them, ‘Go use it in the car, in the doorways, in the parks.’ It makes no sense. And for me, what’s most important is, if you read the task force recommendations, it’s not just a place where people can go and use drugs. It is a place where there will be health care workers, where they may get hooked up with addiction services and counseling and treatment. It may not ‘take’ the first time, the third time, the fifth time, the tenth time, but for somebody, it might eventually work, and that’s what we have to provide them, is that option. And they will never get it if they’re in the doorway or on the street corner.

 

“I think it was the smart thing politically to pull [allowing duplexes and row houses in single-family areas] off the table, because I think [HALA] would have collapsed.”

 

Right now, it’s being portrayed in such an unfair way. People might be surprised that a former federal prosecutor would say we should do this, but what is the alternative? I live downtown right now. My partner and I went out to dinner the night before last. In a three-block walk, we saw three different homeless people shooting up heroin, three who probably just had, and a couple of people looking to score. That’s in three blocks! What we’re doing right now is not working, and what we did in the ’90s didn’t work. I was in the front row. I was a criminal defense lawyer and saw that the war on drugs was really a war on addicts, and that’s who we locked up. And if we don’t have public health response to this crisis, we will end up in the same bad place. So we have to try things that are different. Will it work perfectly? Absolutely not. Is one site enough? Of course it’s not. But we have to show that there can be a different response that might work for some people some of the time.

ECB: Do you think the city has been moving in the right direction on homelessness, in terms of both encampment sweeps and the way the city spends its service dollars?

JD: I think what we’ve been doing on homelessness isn’t working. I think we have not done some of the really hard things we have to do to really move the dial. Number one is, we have to get real and we have to get forward-leaning on addiction services and mental health services.

I think the Navigation Teams are a mechanism for trying something different, and I think that from all the reports I’ve heard, from people who’ve been working with them, they’ve had some good successes. In my view, we have to get people out of tents and into treatment. When I talk to the various providers and the people working with the homeless, their estimates are that a significant majority of the hard-core chronic homeless are suffering either from mental illness, drug problems, or a combination of the two.

 

ECB: You’ve opposed opening up the police union contracts to observation and participation by the public. Given that the police department is still under a federal consent decree and the police union has been reluctant to institute reforms, why do you oppose opening up the contracts, and what would you do to increase transparency at SPD?

 

JD: There is no question, with Trump as president and the Janus decision coming down, that the right-to-work forces are going to be emboldened and they’re going to be coming after workers’ rights. In that context, I think it is irresponsible for anyone to say, ‘Let’s do their work for them and open up collective bargaining.’

Second, I’ve tried to talk to [reform advocates] and say, ‘Okay, what parts of police reform are they not doing because it’s against their contract?’ And the answer I’ve gotten back is, ‘Nothing.’ So the question of whether we can see what they’re bargaining is separate from the question of whether they’re doing it and if it’s effective. Going into police reform, we had a list of things we had to do, and so it wasn’t a question about, were they going to do them? A judge was ordering them to do it. So then the only part we aren’t seeing is what are we going to pay them to do it. And that all comes out when the city council has to vote on it, so there is more transparency than people think there is. My question would be, what things do people feel they don’t know?

 

“I’ve tried to talk to [reform advocates] and say, ‘Okay, what parts of police reform are they not doing because it’s against their contract?’ And the answer I’ve gotten back is, ‘Nothing.’ So the question of whether we can see what they’re bargaining is separate from the question of whether they’re doing it and if it’s effective.”

 

ECB: One thing we don’t know might be whether the city is going to pay cops a huge bonus just for wearing body cameras, for example.

JD: But we will know that when the contract gets presented and has to be voted on. We’re not in the room, but we set out the guiding principles—which I think the public has a right to do—and we see things that are going to be in the contract. Once we have the inspector general stood up, once we have the [Community Police Commission] more fully staffed, part of their function is going to be setting what those goals and policies are going to be. There will be transparency into that, because their job is to bring in the voices of the community and to report back. So we have built in already, I think, the ability to have more transparency, and I think some people just aren’t aware of it.

ECB: If the issue isn’t the police contract, then why do you think we’re stalled on police reform?

JD: I actually don’t think we’re stalled on police reform. I think we’re stalled on implementing some of the ordinances that I think will give greater civilian accountability. [Ed: The city can’t implement police-reform legislation until Judge James Robart signs off on the proposed reforms.] In terms of what’s actually happening on the ground—de-escalation policies, crisis intervention training, body cams—it’s all moving forward.

ECB: If that’s true, then how do you explain incidents where de-escalation training clearly didn’t work, like the shooting of Charleena Lyles?

JD: The Charleena Lyles thing shows us that reform is never done. Since the changes [requiring SPD officers to go through crisis intervention training], significant uses of force are down 60 percent in three years. That’s amazing. Charleena Lyles was a horrible, horrible crisis. I think we failed her as a society in so many ways even before the police got to the door. She had been living on the street, and she got into housing, but clearly still had issues with domestic violence, mental health issues, a single mom, and from what I can tell from the public record, about the only time she got provided services was when she was arrested and in jail. That’s the only time we as a society did anything for her. And so we have to change that equation where, if we are going to get people off the street and into housing, we also have to provide them the social services, the network, the support that they need day to day.

 

ECB: Your opponent has said she’ll expedite Sound Transit delivery to Ballard and West Seattle by loaning Sound Transit funds to build those segments more quickly. What would you do to help Seattle get its final two segments of light rail faster?

JD: The way we can best speed up ST3 is through accelerating the siting process. That’s the longest lead time that you have in these megaprojects, and we unfortunately tend to do those things very sequentially—environmental impact statement, community input, three different site alternatives, then SDOT weighs in… We can’t afford to do that. If I’m mayor, we’re going to try to do things, instead of sequentially, in collaboration. We know where the lines are going and there’s only so many locations that the transit stations can go. Let’s start doing the process now. Let’s not wait for all the alternatives. Let’s start engaging the noisy neighborhoods and the community voices now, and start having that robust dialogue. If you wait for two years, three years to engage, then you getting those intractable fights that seem to delay things forever. With these big projects, if you let them get away from you, they will get away from you. If you deal them at the beginning, you can impact how long they take.