Tag: city contracting

Courts, criminal justice, homelessness, King County, Morning Fizz, Parks

Prosecutor Dan Satterberg to Retire, More Fallout From No-Bid Encampment Cleanup Deal, US Attorney Joins Davison Team

1. King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg announced on Friday that he will not seek reelection in 2022, bringing an end to 37-year career in the King County Prosecutor’s Office, including four terms as the elected prosecutor.

In the 15 years since he was first elected, Satterberg has gradually shifted the attention of his office toward alternatives to prosecution. Those efforts included supporting diversion programs for people arrested for drug offenses years before a state supreme court decision overturned Washington’s felony drug possession laws in February 2021. Under Satterberg’s leadership, the prosecutor’s office also launched a sentencing review unit as part of an effort to remedy excessively long prison sentences.

Under Satterberg, the prosecutor’s office has participated in a push to scale back the use of juvenile detention in the county, relying on both diversion programs and an overall decline in juvenile crime. However, Satterberg has opposed closing down the county’s juvenile jail, and has voiced skepticism about efforts to reform Washington’s juvenile sentencing laws. In December 2020, Satterberg tried to appeal a pair of Washington State Supreme Court decisions expanding judges’ discretion to consider the age and maturity of juvenile offenders as mitigating factors when sentencing or re-sentencing them; the US Supreme Court later declined to hear Satterberg’s appeal.

Satterberg’s support for diversion programs has drawn the ire of some law enforcement allies, who blame his increasing focus on alternatives to detention for a recent rise in violent crime. But criticism has come from both sides: During the 2018 election, he faced a challenge from public defender Daron Morris, who criticized Satterberg for participating in a county-wide crackdown on sex work.

Since the start of the pandemic, Satterberg’s office has faced a backlog of felony cases fueled by court closures and staffing shortages. At the same time, law enforcement agencies across King County referred nearly a quarter fewer felony cases to the prosecutor’s office in 2021 than the pre-pandemic average, adding to an overall decline in the number of charges the office files each month in court.

In the final year of his term, Satterberg plans to expand a diversion program for first-time property crime felonies to serve adults, in addition to those younger than 18.

Satterberg’s chief of staff, Leesa Manion, announced her intention to run for Satterberg’s position in November. Manion is the first person to announce their candidacy for the office, and she follows in Satterberg’s footsteps: Before he led the office, Satterberg was the chief of staff to the late King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng.

King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski also filed his candidacy for the position on Friday, as did Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell.

2. The Seattle Parks Department issued a violation and ordered re-training for the head of its encampment cleanup team after the employee approved a no-bid, no-contract deal to pay a company owned by a current city employee to remove trash from encampments, in violation of city contracting policy.

PubliCola learned of the violation from documents obtained through a records request. The notice of violation also raises questions about whether crew members for-owned company, Fresh Family LLC, paid its workers prevailing wages, a requirement for city contracts. According to a spokeswoman for the parks department, the prevailing wage for encampment cleanup crew members is $54.62 an hour; the department “is working to clarify whether Fresh Family failed to pay prevailing wages,” adding that “there was some discrepancy related to prevailing wages that SPR is working to address.”

Fresh Family’s owner, Debbie Wilson, is a former Parks Department employee who now works for City Light; the company received at least $434,000 in payments from the city over two months, according to invoices provided in response to PubliCola’s records request. The most recent invoice is for work performed on November 30, the day before PubliCola contacted Parks to ask about the company and three days before we ran a story about the unusual no-bid, no-contract deal.

Ordinarily, companies that do encampment cleanups are hired through what’s known as a blanket contract; when the Parks Department hires a company to remove an encampment or clean up garbage or other waste, they are required to choose from a list of companies that are included in this blanket contract.

The department can hire companies that are not on the list under one of two circumstances: If a contract is under $55,000 (which requires soliciting at least three bids), or if none of the companies on the list are available to do the work. Neither of these conditions were met when the city hired Fresh Family LLC to do encampment cleanup work during October and November.

According to the Parks Department spokeswoman, the department “will be providing this employee [Waters[ with a training that covers the full contracting process: vendor selection, contract creation, direct payment, coding, invoicing, and all city policies pertaining to the contracting process. This is a training that is given to staff periodically and again to specific staff when needed.”

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3. Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison announced on Friday that she has hired former US Attorney Brian Moran to help her office process a backlog of more than 4,000 misdemeanor cases and to advise her on “near term criminal priorities.”

Former President Donald Trump appointed Moran to serve as the US Attorney General for the Western District of Washington in 2019, with support from Washington Senators Patti Murray and Maria Cantwell during his confirmation process. At the request of the US Department of Justice, Moran resigned from his post in February 2021 alongside 54 other Trump-era US Attorneys.  Continue reading “Prosecutor Dan Satterberg to Retire, More Fallout From No-Bid Encampment Cleanup Deal, US Attorney Joins Davison Team” →

homelessness, Parks

Parks Department Hired Company Run by City Employee for No-Bid Encampment Cleanup Work

The Seattle Parks Department, which conducts encampment sweeps and cleans up trash at encampment sites through Seattle’s Clean City Initiative, hired a company owned by a current City of Seattle employee to do nearly half a million dollars’ worth of encampment cleanup work, despite the fact that the company was not on the city’s list of approved contractors to perform this work and does not have any contract with the city.

The company, Fresh Family LLC, is owned by a city employee named Debbie Wilson, who registered the company with the secretary of state’s office this past May. Wilson, who worked as a parks maintenance aide for the Parks Department until taking a job with to Seattle City Light in 2017, declined to comment when PubliCola contacted her by email and phone.

Ordinarily, when a company wants to work for the city’s encampment cleanup crew, they must wait for the city to run a formal bidding process for inclusion in the city’s “blanket contract”—essentially, a list of pre-approved sanitation companies that the parks department can call on to do cleanup work. When the encampment cleanup team goes out to remove or clean up waste in and around an encampment, they are supposed to draw exclusively from this list, using other suppliers only if no company on the list is able to do the work. The only exceptions are for contracts under $8,000, which do not require any bidding process, or under $55,000, which require the city to get written quotes from three different companies.

Not only is Fresh Family not on the city’s blanket contract list, they aren’t in the city’s contractor database at all, because they don’t have a contract with the city. “There is no contract,” the Parks spokeswoman, Rachel Schulkin confirmed. Instead, it appears that Fresh Family was simply told to do the work and submit invoices to the city. As of December 2, Fresh Family had charged the parks department about $425,000 for its work, Schulkin said.

The circumstances that led the city to hire Fresh Family as an encampment cleanup company outside the ordinary process and without a formal contract are convoluted and still somewhat mysterious.

There are several steps that someone in a position to approve large contracts would have to take, and a great deal of information they would have to overlook or misinterpret, to select a brand-new company without a city contract to do encampment cleanup work.

According to Schulkin, a Parks Department employee selected Fresh Family as an encampment cleanup provider after locating them in the city’s online business database, which includes all “companies, including women and minority-owned businesses, who have expressed interest in doing business with the City.” The database includes a column, labeled “WMBE—Ethnicity,” that identifies the “ethnicity” (or race) of the owners of Women and Minority-owned Business Enterprises (WMBEs). Schulkin said the employee misunderstood the designation “B” in this column, assuming that it stood for “Blanket” (as in a blanket contract) rather than “Black.”

As of mid-November, according to weekly “snapshots” of Clean City work provided by the Parks Department, Fresh Family was still doing encampment cleanup work, although Schulkin said the department has since stopped using the company and has informed Wilson she would need to go through the ordinary open bidding process the next time the city seeks new encampment cleanup providers. 

“We are remedying this situation with providing this employee and their team with better training on City contracting policies, reexamining our department accounting controls and contract management systems, as well as working with the City’s [Finance and Administrative Services] … to find out how we can better prevent this type of mistake, and catch it sooner should it occur again,” Schulkin said.

The Parks Department did not respond to repeated questions about which employee approved Fresh Family to perform encampment cleanup work. August Drake-Ericson, the former manager of the Human Services Department’s erstwhile Navigation Team, is now a strategic advisor for the department’s encampment cleanup team, which is headed by senior manager Donna Waters.

Schulkin characterized the error that led to the no-bid, no-contract approval as a simple “mistake” involving a misunderstanding of what the letter “B” stood for in the city’s business database. But there are several steps that someone in a position to approve large contracts would have to take, and a great deal of information they would have to overlook or misinterpret, to select a brand-new company without a city contract to do encampment cleanup work.

In addition to B for Black, the city’s “ethnicity” designations include A for “Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander,” W for White, N for “Native American or Alaska Native” and “H” for Hispanic or Latino.” A link to information about what each letter under “ethnicity” stands for is at the bottom of the search page.

What the Parks Department is saying is that whoever approved Fresh Family as an encampment cleanup provider overlooked both the column heading (“WMBE & Ethnicity”) and the link explaining what the letters meant.

Assuming that is what happened, and that the unidentified employee in charge of deciding which companies receive encampment work believed that “B” meant “Blanket,” that employee would also have to have believed that a company that had been in existence only a few months was already part of the blanket contract. All seven companies in the blanket contract were initially approved in 2017. Continue reading “Parks Department Hired Company Run by City Employee for No-Bid Encampment Cleanup Work” →

Addiction, City Council, Courts, Crime, criminal justice, homelessness, housing, human services, Mayor Durkan, Mental Health, Morning Fizz, Parks, Poverty

Morning Fizz: As City Hall Moves Closer to Agreement on Homeless Outreach, “Seattle Is Dying” Star Claims the Council Wants to Legalize Crime
Screen shot from “Seattle Is Dying”

1. Scott Lindsay, a former mayoral public safety advisor whose report on “prolific offenders” featured prominently in the viral “Seattle Is Dying” video, published a broadside against city council member Lisa Herbold yesterday on the website of a new political nonprofit called Change Washington. In the piece, Lindsay accuses Herbold of sneaking legislation into the 2021 budget that would  “create a legal loophole that would open the floodgates to crime in Seattle, effectively nullifying the city’s ability to protect persons and property from most misdemeanor crimes” and “negat[ing] the majority of Seattle’s criminal code.”

Change Washington was incorporated at the end of 2019. Its principals are former state Sen. Rodney Tom, a conservative Democrat from Medina who caucused (and voted) with Republicans; Sally Poliak, a “centrist Republican” political consultant in Seattle; Steve Gordon, a Republican donor from Pacific, WA who runs the anti-tax group “Concerned Taxpayers of Washington State“; and former Zillow executive Greg Schwartz, who left the company last year vowing to focus his energy on “Seattle’s chaotic streets and government.”

In his post, Lindsay refers to himself as a “dyed-in-the-wool blue Democrat.”

Lindsay’s claims about legalizing crime come from an extremely broad reading of a draft bill crafted with input from Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now and posted on the website of the King County Department of Public Defense. Lindsay appears unaware that these groups participated in the drafting of the bill, and even claims that they have never expressed any support for its basic concepts. And despite Lindsay’s claim that Herbold is using an elaborate “backdoor” strategy to “[keep] the proposed legislation almost entirely hidden from the public,” Herbold has not actually proposed any legislation. Council staffers are still working on a draft, one of many bills the council will propose as part of the budget process.

Nor would the bill Lindsay incorrectly identifies as Herbold’s actually legalize crime. Instead, the county public defenders’ draft proposes several new defenses against prosecution for crimes that result from poverty or an unmanaged mental health or addiction disorder. Among other (welcome) changes, the bill would prevent prosecutors from throwing a person with untreated mental illness in jail because he broke a store window during a psychotic episode, or pressing charges against a hungry person because he stole food. It would not create a get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone who commits a crime and then claims to have—as Lindsay glibly puts it—”depression, anxiety, etc.”

Herbold says it’s high time the city reconsider its approach to offenses that result from poverty and lack of access to health care and housing. “As we’ve seen in the massive national and international protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, it is past time that we reexamine our systems which often perpetuate homelessness and economic instability,” she says. “The City currently spends approximately $20 million a year on incarceration, which is known to significantly increase the risk of housing instability and homelessness.” The council will discuss the proposal at its budget meeting Wednesday.

Lindsay’s arguments will almost certainly find purchase in right-wing talk radio and on TV chat shows whose ratings depend on keeping audiences in a perpetual state of fear. There will always be a large contingent of people, even in liberal Seattle, who don’t believe that crimes that result from poverty or untreated mental illness really exist. To these people, Lindsay’s assertion that defendants would only have to “claim drug or alcohol addiction” or fake a mental illness to evade justice will make sense. It’s easier to believe in a world where shady defense attorneys argue, as Lindsay predicts they will, that “drugs are a ‘basic need” for someone with a substance use disorder” to than to consider the possibility that throwing people in jail for being addicted, mentally ill, or poor doesn’t actually work.

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2. After the city council passed legislation establishing a new “outreach and engagement team” to coordinate the city’s response to unauthorized encampments, you might think Mayor Jenny Durkan would be thrilled. After all, the team keeps most members of the Navigation Team on the city payroll, while leaving the question of what, exactly, the team will do.

Instead, the mayor responded to the 7-1 vote by reigniting the debate over the council’s 2020 budget rebalancing package, which Durkan vetoed (unsuccessfully) after the council voted to eliminate the Navigation Team. In a statement Monday night, Durkan characterized the council’s vote as a decision to “restor[e] funding for the Human Services Department to coordinate homelessness outreach” and called the legislation “similar to previously proposed legislation negotiated in August” that would have kept the Navigation Team intact.  Continue reading “Morning Fizz: As City Hall Moves Closer to Agreement on Homeless Outreach, “Seattle Is Dying” Star Claims the Council Wants to Legalize Crime” →

City Council, City Hall

Sawant Spent $46,000 in City Funds on PR Consultant

Screen shot 2015-11-16 at 12.23.00 PMSocialist council member Kshama Sawant, who frequently uses her council podium to rally her supporters around causes beyond the council’s reach, spent nearly $50,000 in city money on a public relations consultant to rally support for pet causes such as rent control, and to meet with individuals and groups who were not among Sawant’s allies, among other duties. The consultant, hired as a “strategic public relations expert,” went on to work on Sawant’s campaign and had previously worked on the 15Now campaign closely associated with the Socialist council member.

Between April 17, 2014, and December 31, 2014,  Sawant’s office spent $46,000 on an unusual contract with Jeff Upthegrove, who also served as treasurer to the Sawant-affiliated 15Now campaign in 2014 and went on to be one of Sawant’s paid political advisors. The contract was unusual both because of its size (according to city contracting records, it was one of just four contracts over $40,000 with the legislative department signed that year), but because of its purpose: To advise Sawant prior to council meetings, serve as a proxy for Sawant in meetings with constituents, and mobilize stakeholders—supporters—to show up at Sawant events and rallies like the one she held at City Hall in support of rent control. Council contracts for other offices were typically related to research and analysis work in complex policy areas, such as a $246,000  contract with the University of Washington to study the impacts of a $15 minimum wage, or $43,000 for a “Seattle Gang Needs Assessment” from Arizona State University.

Upthegrove says his role was basically that of an adjunct, non-political staffer, a way around the limitations the city places on council members’ budget. Every year, each council members gets a set budget for office expenses, including staff, which the council member can divvy up as he or she pleases. Traditionally, council members have divided up their staff budget between two or three staffers, or occasionally four, who do the core work of advising he council member and running her office.  The problem with just hiring Upthegrove outright, according to Upthegrove, was that although salaries come out of a council office’s budget, health care doesn’t, and hiring so many staffers would have put a strain on the legislative department’s benefit pool.

It’s worth taking a step back here to point out that this story was being shopped around before the election by Sawant opponents, which shows you how badly they wanted to see the popular member go down to defeat November 3. As we know, that didn’t happen. But the story of how and why a council member came to spend so much city money on a PR and outreach consultant remains interesting, because it’s extremely unusual, if not unprecedented, for a council member to hire a consultant who also happens to be a political advisor to serve as a de facto staffer.

An analogous example, one council observer argues, would be if Christian Sinderman set up shop in Tim Burgess’ office and met with constituents on his behalf. And in fact, none of the other five-figure contracts with the council are remotely similar. Most are consultants—firms or individuals—hired to advise a council member, or the council, on specific complex issue areas, like how to implement universal preschool, or the pros and cons of a municipal bank. Hiring a consultant to do the work staffers would ordinarily do, like interacting with constituents and setting up meetings, is unusual, according to council staff.

Obviously, that doesn’t happen (nor does Sandeep Kaushik set up a laptop and card table in the mayor’s office.) And Upthegrove says he did abide by the rules, signing in when he came to brief Sawant before committee meetings and spending “most of my time working at home to follow the rules laid out for contractors.” The council sign-in sheets shed little light on what Upthegrove was up to when he visited Sawant; a typical visit is marked as “discussion” or sometimes “housing” or “City Light issues.” Most days, Upthegrove’s contract said he clocked in for 6 to  8 hours doing things like “meeting prep, and “post meeting debrief.”

The unusual arrangement kept Upthegrove out of the office, organizing turnout at events like Sawant’s July forum on rent control at City Hall and meeting with constituents in Sawant’s place. Critics, including her campaign opponent Pamela Banks, frequently complain that Sawant doesn’t meet with people who don’t agree with her, while people who are Sawant advocates insist she’s extremely accessible, including to those with whom she disagrees.

Sawant did not return a call for comment. But Upthegrove confirms that he did meet with Sawant’s political opponents, including “folks who didn’t have a great relationship with Sawant, like [developer lobbyist] Roger Valdez. I would meet with Roger occasionally—not to insulate her, but so I could introduce his point of view.” Upthegrove says he also “met with a lot of people she did like to meet with as well. … I didn’t just meet with people that she didn’t want to meet with. I met with people who were her allies or sometimes people that she didn’t have time to meet with.” Upthegrove’s invoices do not generally detail who was at the meetings he held, only that they were generally with “stakeholder groups.”

Upthegrove says “the notion of folks who can’t get meetings with her,” promulgated most recently by Banks, who said she couldn’t get Sawant to meet about expanding the CareerBridge jobs program, isn’t accurate. “That was a function of the volume of people that wanted to meet with her and the choices she made. She would pick and choose based on what was most important or what staff believed would add the most value to her policymaking, so some people didn’t get meetings and were upset about it.” He says Banks sent a single email seeking a meeting to Sawant’s intern, and “it was lost amongst hundreds of other emails that came in on a daily basis. … I don’t think those kinds of decisions were ever based on political malice or wanting to exclude political enemies or exclude people who disagreed with Kshama.”

After a brief period as an official (though temporary) Sawant staffer, Upthegrove returned to his consulting firm, Sound Consulting. According to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, she paid him $2,500 this year for campaign consulting services.