Tag: John Arthur Wilson

Media

Seattle Times Fails to Credit PubliCola for Reporting on County Assessor’s Social Media Posts
Yeah, we’re showing ’em again

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle Times failed to credit PubliCola’s original reporting on King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson yesterday in a story titled “King County Assessor In Hot Water After Social Media Post.”

The King County Council discussed our reporting yesterday before voting to send a letter to Wilson demanding his resignation in light of new charges against him for allegedly stalking his ex-fiancée, Lee Keller, and violating a restraining order.

On Monday, April 20, PubliCola broke a story about two Instagram and Facebook posts in which Wilson appeared to flippantly celebrate a judge’s decision that he would not have to wear an ankle monitor, overturning an earlier order after Wilson claimed he had to to fully submerge both his legs every day due to a medical condition called lymphedema. The monitor was supposed to ensure Keller knew right away if Wilson came within 1,000 feet of her.

As we reported, both posts showed Wilson, shirtless and smiling at the camera, in a hot tub. The first, posted on Wednesday, April 15—the day the judge lifted the ankle monitor requirement— read, “What a great night to just soak in the tub and let your cares float away.” The second, posted two days later, said, “Great to soak my legs after a productive and successful week.”

Our story circulated widely on social media and was one among the reasons county council members said it was time for Wilson to step down. Prior to voting on the letter Tuesday afternoon, County Councilmembers Sarah Perry and  Teresa Mosqueda both cited PubliCola’s coverage directly. “I want to appreciate the reporting from Erica C. Barnett,” Mosqueda said, “in terms of the journalism that was done after that court hearing.”

The Seattle Times reported on that meeting and the social media posts, presenting the news as their own original coverage, last night, and included a screen shot identical to one of the two PubliCola posted on Monday. They did not link PubliCola’s coverage or credit our work, despite the fact that it had been widely circulated and even cited directly in the meeting the Times was covering.

This was not the first, or even the twentieth, time the Seattle Times has failed to credit PubliCola’s original reporting when writing their own followups on stories we broke.

Editorially, the Seattle Times often complains about the demise of local news reporting in areas outside Seattle, focusing exclusively on the closure of small print newspapers. In their own city, however, they seem more than happy to lift smaller outlets’ work—not just from PubliCola but the Urbanist, Capitol Hill Seattle, and many smaller outlets. Editors at the Times, who are ultimately responsible for deciding whether to credit outlets where stories originated, have ignored every request for a link and credit that I’ve ever sent them, demonstrating that they think it’s fine to run roughshod over local reporters in their own backyard.

While it might sound like a small thing—a series of rude social media posts by a local politician is hardly Watergate—the cumulative impact of the Times’ routine failure to credit small outlets like ours is significant. Compared to PubliCola, the Seattle Times is a behemoth, with revenue from ads, sponsorships, foundation grants, and paid subscriptions to both their print paper and their paywalled online content. When the local paper uses PubliCola’s work without credit, our original reporting becomes invisible—Google results promote the bigger outlet, other outlets link to the Times, and before you know it, it’s their story, even when it was our reporting.

This, of course, is the part where I encourage you to support PubliCola, and also all the other scrappy local outlets that are out here busting our asses to report news the big daily paper is more than happy to ignore—or scoop up a day after we publish and present as their own. With rare exceptions, we all see each other as part of an ecosystem, covering stories and neighborhoods that the big daily paper and TV stations ignore. The Seattle Times’ management has shown over and over again that they don’t see itself as part of this same ecosystem, which is a shame. If they’re the only one left standing, think of all the stories that won’t get covered.

King County

County Assessor, Charged With Stalking, Posts Taunting Pics as Council Again Demands His Resignation

By Erica C. Barnett

On Tuesday, the King County Council will take up a motion to send a letter to King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson demanding his immediate resignation. Wilson was charged late last month with stalking his ex-fiencée, Lee Keller. This will be the second such action by the council, which unanimously passed a resolution calling for Wilson’s resignation last year after Keller provided new evidence of Wilson’s harassment in a petition for a protection order and dissolution of their domestic partnership.

Wilson, who refused to step down, was arrested less than a month after that vote for showing up at Keller’s house in violation of the protection order. He’s now facing charges of stalking, a gross misdemeanor, and under a five-year no-contact order.

Last week, a judge reversed an order that would have required Wilson to wear an ankle monitor to ensure that he stays at least 1,000 feet away from Keller. The decision came after Wilson argued that he has a medical condition that requires him to soak both his legs every day, which would damage the ankle monitor.

Just hours after his hearing, Wilson appeared to brag about the ruling by posting a photo of himself, shirtless and in a tub, on Instagram and Facebook. The caption read: “What a great night to soak in the tub and let your cares float away”—an obvious reference to his victory in court hours earlier.

Three days later, Wilson did it again, posting another semi-nude photo of himself in the hot tub under the taunting caption, “Great to soak my legs after after (sic) a very productive and successful week.”

Wilson has claimed that a medical condition called lymphodema requires him to completely submerge both legs in water every day. In court, Keller said that for the four years they were together, he never had the condition in both legs. After deciding Wilson could go without the ankle monitor, Seattle Municipal Court Judge Andrew Simon advised Keller to figure out how record any calls from Wilson and to take screen shots if he contacts her by text or email.

The county council’s letter demanding Wilson’s resignation reads, in part,

You have been embroiled in a domestic violence dispute for over two years, accused of stalking and harassing a King County resident. The King County Superior Court found enough evidence to issue a temporary protection order as well as a restraining order to prevent you from contacting that same King County resident due to your repeated stalking and harassment. The petition for the restraining order also alleged that you improperly used county resources to engage in the stalking, which would be a violation of the public trust and unacceptable.

These allegations and court orders have caused irrevocable harm to the public’s trust and faith in you as a public servant and elected official. You have fully lost our confidence in your judgement and ability to perform the duties of your role. It is for this reason that the King County Council unanimously passed a motion calling for your resignation on June 10th, 2025.

When an elected official breaks the public trust like this, it’s not possible to effectively serve the public and execute the duties of their office free from distraction. Our residents rely on the Office of the Assessor to provide critical County functions and, at this point, they would be best served by your resignation.

The county council has no power to remove Wilson, an independently elected official; only the voters can do so, by holding a recall election.

Courts, King County

King County Assessor Won’t Have to Wear Ankle Monitor in Stalking Case
Seattle Municipal Courthouse in downtown Seattle.

By Erica C. Barnett

King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, who was arrested and charged with stalking last year after he showed up repeatedly at his former fiancée Lee Keller’s house in violation of a no-contact order, will not have to wear an ankle monitor, a Seattle Municipal Court judge ruled Wednesday. The monitor would have alerted Keller if Wilson violated the order by coming within 1,000 feet of her.

Wilson—who failed to show up at his scheduled hearing yesterday, citing confusion about the date— told Seattle Municipal Court Judge Andrew Simon that he has a medical condition, called lymphedema, that requires him to soak both his legs every day; the ankle monitors the city uses are not supposed to be submerged in water. Addressing the court this morning, Keller said that in the four years she was involved with Wilson, she had never seen him soak both his legs because of this condition.

Wilson’s attorney, John Polito, suggested he was being targeted because he is a public figure. “If his name was John Smith, I’m not sure he would be here in this position,” Polito said. (Wilson has refused to resign from his elected position).

Simon said he saw no other choice than to reverse the previous order that Wilson wear an ankle monitor. He asked Keller if she has a smartphone, so that she’ll have “a way of recording any phone calls in the moment.” He also advised her to take screen shots if Wilson attempts to contact her by email, text message, or over social media, “and of course, then you can report that to the city.” If Wilson violates the order, Simon said, he’ll be arrested again.

“He will not be violating this order, and if he does, he will incur this Court’s wrath… its legal wrath,” Polito said. Wilson agreed emphatically, saying. “Let me assure you, I will have absolutely no contact with Miss Keller for as long as I live. We are done.”

In a statement, Keller said, “My only goal is to be protected from further contact with John Wilson.  I expect he will obey the court’s very clear order and refrain from contacting me.”

From a 2025 conversation between John Arthur Wilson (messages in white) and Lee Keller. Source: Case file

According to Keller, Wilson contacted her repeatedly after he was arrested for stalking her last year. She provided two screen shots of messages Wilson sent through a shared scheduling app on March 27, shortly before she obtained a new protection order against him last week. The messages referred to an event Keller was attending that night; while she was there, she said, he posted a Facebook reel that showed him at a bar two blocks away.

Keller first obtained a protective order against Wilson in 2024. At that time, she accused him of creating fake social media personas to contact her after she blocked him; taking photos of her without her knowledge and texting them to her; tracking her whereabouts, and showing up at her home uninvited. That August, Keller said, Wilson contacted the employer of a man she had dated to falsely accuse him of sexually assaulting her in an attempt to get him fired.

Although Keller and Wilson briefly reconciled, she got another protection order against him the following year, after he refused to stop contacting her despite her pleas to leave her alone, according to Keller’s account. In one message, Wilson responded to Keller’s all-caps demand that he leave her alone by saying “never,” then continuing to text her. In an effort to get that protection order overturned, Wilson attempted to paint Keller as vengeful and unstable. He was arrested outside her house three weeks later.

Even before Wilson’s arrest, the entire King County Council demanded he resign his elected position as county assessor. His term ends in December. Wilson’s next court date, for a pre-trial hearing, is scheduled for May 5.

Courts, Mayor Wilson, Parks

King County Assessor Says He Can’t Wear Ankle Monitor In Stalking Case Due to Medical Condition, Burien Puts City Manager on Leave, and More

1. King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson failed to appear at his court hearing in Seattle Municipal Court on Tuesday, where he was scheduled to explain why “medical issues” prevent him from wearing an ankle monitor while he awaits trial on charges of stalking his ex-fiancée, Lee Keller. Wilson’s attorney said his client was confused about the date. The court will hold another hearing tomorrow so that Wilson can attend.

According to a court filing, Wilson told a staffer for the company that provides GPS monitors, Sentinel, that he can’t wear a monitor because he “must regularly soak both legs in water to help reduce swelling” from a medical condition. “Sentinel policy states that the GPS device must not be submerged in water,” the “failure to enroll” filing says. Wilson also said he has to wear compression socks and “reported the device felt tight and indicated that additional space would be necessary to allow him to properly remove and put on his compression socks. Due to these factors Sentinel did not enroll Mr. Wilson on the GPS with exclusion zones obligation.”

Wilson was arrested earlier this year after showing up repeatedly outside Keller’s home in violation of an existing no-contact order. In court filings last year, Keller detailed Wilson’s history of stalking and harassing her over a period of several years. Seattle Municipal Court magistrate Noah Weil issued a five-year no-contact order against Wilson last week  and ordered him to wear a GPS monitor that would alert Keller if Wilson comes within 1,000 feet of her. During that hearing, Wilson said he would have “no problem” complying; the ankle monitor was meant as an assurance that he would not violate this protection order as he has with previous orders to stay away from Keller.

2. The Burien City Council decided, in a closed-door executive session, to place city manager Adolfo Bailon on administrative leave last night, voting 4-3 to remove him and direct the city’s contract interim city attorney, Ann Marie Soto, to find an interim replacement.

The reason the city has a contract city attorney is that Bailon summarily fired former City Attorney Garmon Newsom III earlier this month, PubliCola has learned. (Newsom would have been the person providing legal advice to the council as they discussed whether and how to remove Bailon). This could be among the reasons the council’s four progressive members voted to place Bailon on leave after a lengthy executive session with Soto Tuesday night.

Officially, the council has not given a reason for removing Bailon from his position, and PubliCola was unable to get any councilmember to comment on the record about what led them to consider removing him in the first place. (Executive sessions are closed to the public and considered attorney-client privileged.) Administrative leave is paid and is not considered punitive in itself.

However, it’s not hard to imagine any number of possible reasons beyond Bailon’s decision to fire the city attorney. Back in 2023, the city council (then dominated by more conservative members) stood by Bailon as he shot down efforts to stand up a homeless shelter on land owned by the city, threatened legal action against a church that hosted an encampment, turned away $1 million in shelter funding from King County, and more.

Bailon also berated council members who disagreed with his political views on homelessness, filed a complaint against Councilmember Hugo Garcia over  tweets, demanded the removal of the King County sheriff’s deputy who served as Burien’s police chief, and apparently spent much of his time calling 911 on unsheltered people in the park outside his office, among many other actions that arguably stretched the limits of his authority as a city employee.

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Under Burien’s city manager-council form of governance, every city employee technically works for the city manager, and he works for the seven-member city council. Three years ago, an outside firm resigned over what they described as the council’s refusal to take critical evaluation of Bailon’s performance seriously. With a council less sympathetic to Bailon’s actions and political opinions, he could be on his way out after four years in the role, for which he is paid around $240,000.

3. Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced the dates for Seattle’s annual “Bicycle Weekends” event, in which the city opens up Lake Washington Boulevard in Seward Park to cyclists and pedestrians during summer weekends. And unlike her predecessor, who killed longstanding plans to install stop signs and speed humps on the dangerous lakefront boulevard, Wilson is expanding the safe-street program to include nearly every summer weekend, except during Seafair, and three holidays.

That means that cyclists and pedestrians, including wheelchair users, will have access to the roadway more summer Sundays than any year in the past. Under Harrell, who lives nearby, the car-free celebration happened only on alternate weekends, for a total of 20 days. Wilson is expanding that to 15 summer weekends and a total of 33 days, including three holidays. Details (including where drivers can park outside the car-free zone) on the city’s website.

City Council, Drugs, Elections, homelessness

John Wilson Drops Out of Race He was On Track to Lose, We Heart Seattle Lashes Out Against Harm Reduction

1. King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, who was arrested last week outside his former partner Lee Keller’s home for allegedly stalking and harassing her, ended his campaign for King County Executive yesterday, announcing the decision on Facebook.

Every single member of the King County Council, including the two frontrunners in the county executive race, Girmay Zahilay and Claudia Balducci, has called on Wilson to not just drop out of the race but to step down from his current elected position, which he will hold until next year unless there’s a successful recall campaign.

In his Facebook post, Wilson said he was dropping out because “personal matters have drawn attention away from critical issues” in the campaign. “I’m grateful for the support I’ve received and look forward to continuing to serve the residents of King County in my role as Assessor.”

Wilson, who was running as a law-and-order candidate, wasn’t likely to beat either of his better-known and better-funded opponents in the primary, so dropping out of the race with just a few weeks left was a largely symbolic act.

Wilson has been prolific on Facebook both before and after his arrest, posting subtle digs at Keller and writing darkly about enemies who are purportedly trying to take him down. In June, Wilson posted a photo he took with Keller during a brief reconciliation in May. “Shown recently to a member of the news media, the reporter said Ms. Keller looked happy and not at all afraid” in the photo, Wilson wrote. “As you can see from the photograph, Ms. Keller took the picture at 3:15 PM that afternoon.”

Keller has a protection order against Wilson barring him from contacting or coming within 1,000 feet of her. Earlier this week, the Snohomish County Prosecutor declined to immediately file criminal charges against him; a civil case, in which Wilson is seeking the termination of Keller’s protection order, is still moving forward.

2. During a council committee meeting to discuss a proposal from Council President Sara Nelson that would dedicate up to 25 percent of a forthcoming public safety sales tax to addiction treatment, We Heart Seattle founder Andrea Suarez showed up for public comment armed with what she described as “methamphetamine pipes and foil that are handed out” to drug users in Belltown, along with a rubber strip she described as a tourniquet for drug injection. “We have to stop handing out tourniquets and pipes and foil and cookers,” Suarez said.

Handing out safer smoking supplies is a form of harm reduction for drug users, who might otherwise use pipes contaminated with infectious fluids or unknown drugs or sustain burns from thin grocery store aluminum foil, among other risks. Opponents of these measures, like Suarez, say they enable people to keep using drugs.

Suarez, who stood behind Nelson at the press launch for her proposal last week, lashed out at two of the organizations that were about to discuss their work and take questions from the committee. We Heart Seattle is an anti-harm reduction advocacy group that “cleans up” occupied homeless encampments and directs people to abstinence-based treatment programs, including a high-barrier program in Oregon that kicks people out if they relapse.

Zeroing in on Purpose Dignity Action (co-directed by Lisa Daugaard) and the Downtown Emergency Service Center (headed up by Daniel Malone), Suarez said, “I ask my colleagues to stop [distributing smoking supplies] within your low-barrier housing. It’s not working, and I don’t hate the player. I hate the game. I hate that you have a fentanyl smoking shack in the back of your hotel, Lisa.” (The PDA has what amounts to a safe smoking site outside one of its residential buildings). “I respect you, the person, the colleague, but I can’t get behind that.”

“I toured the Canady House at DESC—the carpets are pitch black, rats, rodents, bugs,” Suarez claimed. The Canady House is a 15-year-old permanent supportive housing building that has been the target of regular outrage from right-wing personalities and activist groups like the Discovery Institute.

Daugaard won a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2019 for creating the successful LEAD diversion program, which has been replicated all over the US. DESC provides housing, shelter, and health care to homeless Seattle residents with complex physical and behavioral health care needs that make them effectively ineligible for other types of housing; they’ve won numerous national awards over their many years in Seattle, including several for their low-barrier “wet” housing on Eastlake.

During the presentation, Daugaard brought up the fact that the legislation says “up to” 25 percent of the proposed 0.1-cent sales tax increase could go to treatment. If the legislation was tweaked to say “at least,” Daugaard said, that would set a floor, rather than a ceiling. Nelson later said she heard a similar idea on a recent episode Seattle Nice, where both Sandeep and I agreed that it would be great to see 100 percent of the public safety sales tax go to behavioral health care.

City Council, Courts, Elections, King County, Trump

Poll Tests Message that Katie Wilson is “Angry,” “Divisive,” and “Loud”; No Charges Yet for County Assessor Accused of Stalking
Screenshot from poll testing messages against mayoral candidate Katie Wilson.

And: Three City Councilmembers declined to sign on to an anti-Trump letter; guess which ones!

1. Two online polls that went out to voters via text this week tested messages for Mayor Bruce Harrell and against Transit Riders Union leader Katie Wilson, who’s challenging Harrell. While one of the polls included some messaging against another Harrell challenger, Joe Mallahan, the two surveys focused on anti-Wilson messaging. (Pollsters use messaging polls to see what kind of talking points voters find persuasive.)

Survey takers were asked to respond to each negative message by indicating whether it made them more or less likely to vote for Wilson, and how much each message moved voters away from Wilson. (The poll also included a handful of pro- and anti-Harrell messages).

The questions generally portrayed Wilson as an “angry and divisive,” Kshama Sawant-aligned socialist who wants to disband the Seattle Police Department and tax businesses and residents out of the city.

“Katie Wilson will raise taxes on working families and small businesses,” one test message said. “We can’t afford a self-described socialist who plans to raise taxes even higher when so many working families are struggling to make ends meet in our city.

“Katie Wilson is an advocate for the ‘defund the police’ movement that is out of touch with what our city needs,” another survey question said. “We can’t afford a mayor who thinks policing is unnecessary.”

One question asked respondents to weigh in on messaging about Wilson “supporting former city councilmember Khama [sic] Sawant” and “the politics of shouting, accusing, and undermining fellow Democrats.” Another message claimed Wilson is “more interested in being the loudest voice in the room and less interested in bringing Seattle together and actually solving our problems.”

If Harrell (or his independent expenditure campaign) decides to paint as Wilson loud, angry, and divisive, that will be news to anyone who’s ever met her. A soft-spoken, thoughtful policy nerd, Wilson’s chief political flaw is that she prefers long policy explanations to easy soundbites and is incapable of adopting the glad-handing, style-over-substance approach of lifelong politicians like Harrell.

2. The Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office has declined so far to file charges against King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, who was arrested last week for stalking and violating a protection order obtained by his ex-partner Lee Keller. The prosecutor is still weighing the evidence and could file charges in the future.

Wilson is running for King County Executive. The King County Prosecutor’s Office handed the case over to Snohomish County to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Keller went to King County District Court on Monday seeking an extension of a restraining order from May that prevents Wilson from contacting or coming within 1,000 feet of Keller. According to Keller, Wilson has repeatedly violated the restraining order by texting Keller and showing up at her house, church, and events where she is present.

However, a court commissioner denied that request and granted a 90-day continuance on the case, which leaves the restraining order in place for at least 90 days but offers no guarantee that Keller will remain protected after the court takes up the restraining order again.

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The Snohomish County prosecutor has not given any timeline for considering additional evidence, and can decline to press any charges against Wilson if they choose. Wilson was arrested when he returned to Keller’s home after showing up there earlier in the evening last Wednesday night; he stayed overnight in jail but was released the next day after paying bond on $50,000 bail.

3.  On Tuesday, City Councilmembers Sara Nelson, Maritza Rivera, and Bob Kettle declined to sign a letter denouncing the Trump budget, which will take health care, cash assistance, and food benefits away from millions of Americans while giving massive tax breaks to the rich and spiking the federal budget deficit to unprecedented levels. So far, the letter has been signed by 80 elected officials from across the Puget Sound region.

The letter, which progressive Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck distributed and sent to local media last week, also calls out “austerity measures” advanced by Governor Bob Ferguson and imposed by state legislators earlier this year. It calls on state and local leaders to “develop meaningful solutions to protect residents,” including progressive revenue measures like the “Seattle Shield” business and occupation tax increase Rinck and Harrell proposed last month.

Kettle said that as someone who has spoken about the need to preserve and de-politicize federal disaster relief, “I appreciate the intent of this,” but said he is “not one to sign on letters like this… just as a matter of fact of how I do business.”

Rivera echoed Kettle, saying that while “I agree with the spirit of the letter,” she was also choosing not to sign it. “I wanted to, for the record, state that I do not agree with this federal administration… it is just gross and disgusting,” Rivera said.

Nelson gave the most detailed explanation for her decision not to sign on to the letter: “I feel uncomfortable calling out the governor when he signed legislation that came from, obviously, the legislature,” she said. Nelson also said she wasn’t sure about putting the city of Seattle seal on the letter (alongside those of a dozen other cities) or about encouraging other governments to enact progressive revenue like the Seattle Shield proposal, which Nelson has raised skeptical questions about.

Like Kettle and Rivera, Nelson took pains to say that she doesn’t support the Trump budget either. “I’m not going to sign the letter, but I do want to express that I share in the spirit and the thoughts that are that I believe are motivating the expression of this outrage,” Nelson said.