Tag: tim burgess

Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz

Burgess Threatened US Post Office Over Graffiti; OPA Clears Officers Who Arrested Protesters for Using Sidewalk Chalk

1. Earlier this year, as part of the the city’s efforts to spiff up downtown Seattle in the runup to MLB All-Star Week, Mayor Bruce Harrell wrote the US Postal Service with an urgent request: Let the city cover the outside of your building at Third and Union with murals or wall banners to help “improve conditions on the street.” At the time, there were several large graffiti tags on the outside the building along with someunpainted plywood panels.

“The City wants to make sure our downtown looks clean and feels safe. However, the current condition of the Post Office is inconsistent with our goal,” Harrell wrote on June 2, in a letter hand-delivered to the local acting postmaster. “The City will pay all costs associated with the murals or wall banners.”

As anyone who frequents downtown Seattle knows, the city plastered the neighborhood with large paste-up portraits of players in the weeks before the All-Star Game; for a while, working in the area was a bit like living inside a promotional installation for baseball.

When the USPS declined the city’s offer to decorate their building, mayoral advisor Tim Burgess responded by threatening legal action.

“The City may be compelled to take action regarding the graffiti on the building, violating the city code,” Burgess wrote on June 20. “Your building looks terrible and contributes to blight.” In a copy of the letter PubliCola received through a records request, those two lines were highlighted for emphasis.

One week earlier, US District Judge Marsha Pechman had issued an injunction barring the city from enforcing its law against graffiti, agreeing with several protesters arrested for chalking outside SPD’s East Precinct that the law is overbroad and likely unconstitutional. However, the mayor’s office noted, Burgess’ threat referred to civil action, which is different than the criminal charges at issue in the federal case.

“I would also point out that the University District post office has a mural painting on it that the UW completed. So permission can be and has been granted in the past,” Burgess’ email continued.

The US Postal Service responded to Burgess’ threat by, in effect, rolling its bureaucratic eyes. “Considering how agitated they are about the exterior, is there a reason we cannot get a coat of paint put on the outlined areas right before the all-star game next month?” a local USPS customer relations manager wrote to USPS higher-ups. Six days later, the postal service sent its response to the city—photos of the building, its exterior wall painted flat government gray and “ready for All-Star game this week.”

The mayor’s office confirmed this sequence of events.

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2. Speaking of the graffiti injunction: On August 1, the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) dismissed a series of complaints against six police officers who arrested the four protesters who subsequently sued the city, concluding that the arrests did not constitute biased policing or retaliation against the protesters for chalking messages that criticized police.

In the report, OPA director Gino Betts agreed with the arresting officers that the arrests had nothing to do with the content of the chalked messages, which criticized police, but were “based on property damage—which [an officer who witnessed the arrests] described as a crime—and the cleanup efforts that would ensue rather than the community members’ positions.” At the time, Betts’ report notes, the law banning any kind of alteration to public property was in effect, so the protesters were breaking the law by chalking messages on the temporary walls surrounding the East Precinct.

Additionally, according to the report, at least one of the officers who made the arrests didn’t see the specific messages, “undermining the allegation that [one of the officers] retaliated based on the political message inscribed on the wall.”

In her preliminary injunction against the city, Judge Pechman wrote that the officers clearly retaliated against the four protesters, using the “astonishing degree of discretion” police have under the current law to “to retaliate against criticisms written by Plaintiffs, four peaceful protesters who Defendants arrested for writing political messages in ordinary charcoal and children’s sidewalk chalk in an open and traditional public forum. Defendants selectively enforced [the law] against Plaintiffs’ criticisms while tolerating politically neutral and pro-government chalking,” such as pro-SPD messages chalked on sidewalks by police supporters. “Such viewpoint discrimination,” Pechman wrote, “the Constitution does not allow.”

homelessness, Mayor Harrell

At Mariners’ Request, Mayor’s Office Pushed for Encampment Removal to “Make Opening Day Great” Last Year

By Erica C. Barnett

For weeks, the city has been scrambling to make downtown Seattle, Pioneer Square, and the stadium district inviting to the tens of thousands of people expected to pour into the area this week for All-Star Week. In addition to trash pickups and temporary park “activations” (pickleball, a free outdoor roller rink), the city has flooded the neighborhood with police; last Friday, in tiny Occidental Square alone, PubliCola counted at least eight officers, six park rangers, four private security guards, and about a dozen Downtown Seattle Association ambassadors.

And, of course, the city is sweeping unsheltered people by removing tents and RVs from the area.

Last week, Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office categorically denied that the encampment and RV removals had anything to do with the big baseball event, telling the Seattle Times that the sweeps were based on an “objective prioritization matrix” that naturally leads to frequent encampment removals in the area.

PubliCola has filed a records request to find out more about the process that led to the recent removals.

“Opening day for the Mariners is April 15th and they would like to ensure that the public has a good experience. Can you let this team know what you can do to make opening day great?”— Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington to Seattle encampment program manager Donna Waters, April 2022

In the meantime, here’s how Harrell’s office dealt with demands by the Mariners to remove encampments around T-Mobile Park, where the All-Star Game is happening, in 2022: By sending a message to the city’s encampment program manager, titled “ACTION ALL – HIGH PRIORITY T-Mobile Park,” asking for an encampment removal in time for opening day along with “clean-ups throughout the [baseball] season.”

The urgent request was prompted by an April 6, 2022 email from the Mariners’ executive vice president and general counsel Fred Rivera, who complained that there was new “encampment activity” that “happens to be in the path between stadium station and the ballpark, which thousands of fans will access on the 15th.”

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“Is there anything that can be done to prioritize this area, support shelter placements for individuals encamped here, and clean-up in advance of April 15th and potentially throughout the season?” Rivera wrote.

Three minutes later, Harrell’s strategic initiatives director Tim Burgess responded to Rivera personally, copying Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington, “who leads these issues. I’m sure you will see some action soon,” Burgess wrote. The following day, Washington forwarded Rivera’s email to Donna Waters, who heads up the encampment program for Harrell’s Unified Care Team, describing it as “a request from the WA State Ballpark public facilities district.”

“Opening day for the Mariners is April 15th and they would like to ensure that the public has a good experience,” Washington wrote. “Can you let this team know what you can do to make opening day great?” Waters responded that the city was continuing to do trash pickups and cleaning in the area, but did not say anything about removing the encampment.

“How is this looking for Friday’s opening day events? Will there be a removal before Friday or Friday morning?

“Unfortunately, no we do not have the capacity to complete a removal by Friday.”

“Ugh.”

Several days later, Burgess followed up. “How is this looking for Friday’s opening day events?” he wrote. “Will there be a removal before Friday or Friday morning?”

“Unfortunately, no we do not have the capacity to complete a removal by Friday,” Waters responded.

Burgess then forwarded Waters’ email to then-deputy mayor Kendee Yamaguchi, along with a one-word comment: “Ugh.”

The encampment the Mariners, and Burgess, wanted to remove in 2022 included approximately seven tents and six individuals. In contrast, the encampments and RVs that were removed in the runup to the All Star Game displaced an estimated 24 people living in tents, along with 15 RVs.

In response to questions about efforts to remove tents in time for the Mariners’ Opening Day in 2022, mayoral spokesman Jamie Housen said the city does “not have a standard practice” for removing encampments for large events, and noted that the encampment “was not removed before Opening Day but was closed at a later date.” The SoDo neighborhood, he added, “has the highest number of verified tents and RVs in our database. “As such, outreach, remediation, and resolution efforts continue to be a focus in the neighborhood.” This is almost identical to what the mayor’s office said this year to justify encampment removals in the same location.

City Council, City Hall, Courts, Morning Fizz, Police, Uncategorized

Harrell Announces Key Staff, Veteran Budget Director Departs, Council Adopts New Rules and Transparency Requirements

1. Mayor-elect Bruce Harrell announced a list of top staff on Monday headlined by his campaign manager, niece, and now incoming senior deputy mayor Monisha Harrell.

But the biggest throughline in Harrell’s list of appointees wasn’t family—Harrell, who was omnipresent during her uncle’s campaign, was widely expected to take on a key role in his administration—but the elevation of so many longtime insiders to top roles in the new administration.

Of the ten appointments announced yesterday (and an eleventh, Chief of Staff Jennifer Samuels), all but one are current or recent city of Seattle staff, and half are current appointees or allies of outgoing Mayor Jenny Durkan.

Tiffany Washington, the former head of the city’s Homelessness Strategy and Investment division, is currently Durkan’s deputy mayor, and will continue in that role under Harrell. Julie Dingley, the incoming interim budget director (more on that in a minute), is Durkan’s interim Innovation and Performance director and the former lead budget staffer in Durkan’s office. Adiem Emery, the new Chief Equity Officer (“tasked with delivering on the mayor-elect’s vision to make tangible progress embedding equity across City departments and programs,” according to a a press release), is currently a division director at SDOT.  Pedro Gómez, the incoming head of external affairs, is currently director of Small Business Development for the Office of Economic Development. Harrell’s longtime council aide Vinh Tang works in the city’s IT department.

And former city council member Tim Burgess, who will head “strategic initiatives” in a position listed just below Harrell’s two announced deputy mayors, is a longtime Durkan ally—and, of course, Harrell’s former colleague.

Filling out the list are several longtime insiders who worked elsewhere in the city or are returning after an absence. Chief operating officer Marco Lowe (who will focus “on driving efficiencies in Seattle’s public utility agencies, making Seattle government more transparent and accessible, and streamlining housing and infrastructure construction,” per the press release) worked in two mayoral administrations; policy director Dan Eder is deputy director of the city council’s central staff; and chief of staff Samuels worked for Harrell’s council office.

In fact, besides Monisha Harrell—who serves as deputy monitor overseeing the federal consent decree over the Seattle Police Department—the only City Hall “outsider” on Harrell’s team is former Seattle/King County NAACP leader Gerald Hankerson, who will be Harrell’s external affairs liaison.

“One of the issues over the past few years on the council is that it hasn’t always been completely clear when a deputy of the mayor is speaking for the mayor, and I don’t think there will be any ambiguity at all that when Monisha speaks, she is speaking for her uncle. I think that’s one of the advantages of having a family member in a position like that.”—City Councilmember Andrew Lewis

City Councilmember Andrew Lewis, a member of the public safety subcommittee of Harrell’s transition team, said he has “a lot of confidence in [Monisha Harrell’s] commitment” to pursue non-police responses to emergency and crisis situations. “That’s the real nucleus for moving forward on this intractable argument that we’ve had around what the future of policing is going to be—how can you set up response alternatives?” Lewis said.

The city’s ethics code only raises conflict-of-interest alarms when a city employee supervises an “immediate family member,” which does not include nieces or nephews. (King County’s law is both more prescriptive—the Harrells would be considered each other’s “immediate family”— and slightly more vague.) Former mayor Charley Royer, who served three terms, appointed his brother Bob deputy mayor in 1978, a position the younger Royer held for more than five years.

Lewis said he believes having a mayor and deputy mayor who are related could be an asset. “One of the issues over the past few years on the council is that it hasn’t always been completely clear when a deputy of the mayor is speaking for the mayor, and I don’t think there will be any ambiguity at all that when Monisha speaks, she is speaking for her uncle,” Lewis said. “I think that’s one of the advantages of having a family member in a position like that.”

2. Seattle City Budget Office director Ben Noble announced last week that he is leaving the city after more than 20 years. A longtime city council central staffer who became central staff director in 2006, Noble took over the reins at the budget office in 2014 under Mayor Ed Murray and continued in the position under Durkan, where he often found himself on the opposite side of testy exchanges with his former colleagues over Durkan’s approach to budgeting.

In recent years, Durkan repeatedly attempted to fund her own annual priorities using funds that had already been committed to other purpose (in one case, by Durkan herself), sparking heated debates between the council and the budget office. Last year, Durkan vetoed both the budget and legislation funding COVID relief, both times unsuccessfully.

City Councilmember Alex Pedersen prevailed Monday on a change to the city council’s rules that will allow him (and other council members) to abstain rather than vote on council resolutions unrelated to city business, like the one praising Cuba for its response to the COVID pandemic last year

In a letter to city staff, Noble provided little detail about why he is leaving, calling it “very much a personal decision.” Whatever prompted it (former colleagues speculated burnout, but Noble demurred), his departure opens up a major position in the Harrell administration—and represents a significant loss of institutional knowledge, brainpower, and longstanding relationships between the executive and legislative branches.

3. City Councilmember Alex Pedersen prevailed Monday on a change to the city council’s rules that will allow him (and other council members) to abstain rather than vote on council resolutions unrelated to city business, like the one praising Cuba for its response to the COVID pandemic last year. The legislation was part of a package of council rule changes that will, among other things, move City Council meetings to Tuesdays and limit the amount of time council members can speak to a pending motion. The new rule, which Councilmember Lisa Herbold opposed as vague and open to “unintended consequences,” says that council members can abstain from any resolution that, according to the council president, “does not pertain materially to the City of Seattle.”

Pedersen has long complained that nonbinding resolutions, many of them proposed by his ideological opposite Kshama Sawant, are pointless wastes of the council’s time; in early 2020, he proposed and passed a sarcastic resolution condemning “all forms of oppression affecting communities throughout the world—a response to a Sawant resolution in on national policy in India and Iran.

4. Pedersen cast the lone “no” vote against legislation that will require incoming city attorney Ann Davison to notify the council within 90 days of making changes to, or eliminating, the city’s pre-filing diversion programs, and provide quarterly reports to the council about the effectiveness of diversion. Continue reading “Harrell Announces Key Staff, Veteran Budget Director Departs, Council Adopts New Rules and Transparency Requirements” →

Elections, homelessness, Mayor Durkan, Morning Fizz, Police

Compassion Seattle Predictions, Street Sink Challenges, and Another Durkan Task Force Releases Recommendations

1. At a panel discussion hosted by GeekWire last week, two prominent supporters of the “Compassion Seattle” charter amendment on homelessness said voters should not read anything into the fact that the group does not, as they initially claimed, have widespread support from Seattle homeless service providers.

Late last month, in a story first reported by PubliCola, the group was forced to take down its endorsement page because many of the homeless service providers listed on the site have not actually endorsed the measure. The charter amendment would require the city to fund new shelter beds and behavioral health care from existing resources while enshrining the city’s authority to sweep encampments in Seattle’s constitution.

“Not one of those nonprofit leaders has retracted the statements they made talking about the charter amendment and why it’s a good thing,” Compassion Seattle founder Tim Burgess said. Rachel Smith, CEO of the Seattle Metro Chamber, added, “Many organizations have a process to go through [for endorsements] so I don’t think that is indicative of where they may be. … All those organizations have made statements about how they informed the language, and I think their own words are what we should lean on when we talk about about how they think about this.”

Several service providers, including the Public Defender Association, the Downtown Emergency Service Center, and the Urban League of Seattle worked with Compassion Seattle to soften the language of the initiative, which originally focused primarily on removing unsheltered people from public spaces. However, it’s far from clear that any of these groups will formally endorse the measure.

2. One of the many challenges the city has cited to explain the slow rollout of public handwashing sinks is the difficulty of disposing “graywater”—the runoff from sinks, washing machines, and showers. Unlike stormwater runoff, which flows directly into Puget Sound through the city’s storm drains, graywater (like raw sewage) has to be cleaned and processed through the city’s sanitary or combined sewer system—there’s even a federal consent decree saying so.

If the street sinks program founders, it may be because the city chose to be inflexible not just on optional requirements, like graffiti-resistant materials, but on how it empowers street sink providers to comply with the law.

The city has awarded contracts to two groups, both contingent on solving the issue of graywater disposal along with a host of other issues. The Clean Hands Collective, led by Real Change, has proposed a simple basin, fed by a regular garden hose, that would drain into a planter filled with soil; Seattle Makers, a South Lake Union makerspace, has proposed letting the water in its “handwashing station” prototype drain into a 50-gallon tank, which they would either clean with chlorine tablets or haul away to an SPU facility for disposal.

“Basically, for version 1 of this, we’re going to have to take out the [dirty] bucket and replace it and we have to figure out where the city wants us to drive that bucket of water,” Devin Barich, a volunteer with Seattle Makers, said. Barich also said Makers was considering adding “cleaning tablets” to the dirty water in the hope that that would make the water clean enough to pour down the storm drain. Continue reading “Compassion Seattle Predictions, Street Sink Challenges, and Another Durkan Task Force Releases Recommendations” →

Business, Economy, Elections, homelessness, legislature, Morning Fizz, Police, State of Washington, Taxes

Ballot Measure Would Reinstate Sweeps, Harrell Joins Mayor’s Race, and Republicans Hedge Bets on Capital Gains
The look on mayoral candidate Bruce Harrell’s face when KOMO TV’s Jonathan Choe asked how he felt about Black-on-Asian crime, given that “you’re biracial, your mother is Japanese American and your dad’s Black”

1. After months of will-he-won’t-he speculation, three-term former city council member Bruce Harrell announced Tuesday that he’s running for mayor. As a well-known political figure who will likely have support from the Seattle business community, Harrell joins the ranks of instant frontrunners in the race, which also includes current city council president Lorena González, Chief Seattle Club director Colleen Echohawk, South East Effective Development director Lance Randall, and city council aide Andrew Grant Houston.

At a press conference outside Garfield High School, his alma mater, Harrell said he would seek public-private partnerships to fund investments in solutions to homelessness, clean up city parks where unsheltered people have taken long-term refuge during the pandemic, and work to “reimagine” the city’s police force rather than defunding it.

In a conversation with Fizz after the announcement, Harrell said the biggest problem at city hall, Harrell said, is a “lack of relationships”—between the mayor and council, the council and departments, and with outside organizations like Seattle Public Schools.

True to his past campaigns (in addition to serving three terms on the council, Harrell ran for mayor in 2013, receiving 15 percent of the primary vote), Harrell focused on style, more than policy, in our conversation. “Quite honestly, I am attracted to a situation that requires rebuilding,” Harrell said. “It’s sort of easy to hop into a leadership position when an organization is going smoothly and is high-performing. It’s a different skill set for someone to consciously jump into a situation that is plagued with dysfunction, and that doesn’t bother me.”

But he did have a few specific policy prescriptions. He said he would work to revitalize neighborhoods including, but not limited to, downtown, by promoting not just brick and mortar businesses but partnerships between small businesses (particularly women- and minority-owned) and larger ones—a kind of “business-to-business on steroids” approach to saving local businesses. “The first thing we must learn how to do is recycle our money within the economy by making sure the relationship between small businesses and big business is intact,” Harrell said.

He also said he would propose divvying up $10 million between the seven council districts so that the council member from each geographic area could determine, through conversations in that community, what local priorities should be funded. Asked how this would differ from the ongoing participatory budgeting process, which is supposed to determine how the city will spend $30 million set aside for alternatives to policing last year, Harrell said, “I think participatory budgeting is a step in the right direction, but what it still doesn’t do, I think, is have each council member directly accountable to their particular constituents in their community.”

Harrell, who grew up in the Central District and often talks about his deep roots in Seattle, provided more details about his platform in an “open letter” Tuesday morning.

2. Another former city council member, Tim Burgess, is preparing to propose a ballot measure that would change Seattle’s constitution (known as the city charter) by directing the city’s Human Services Department to fund mental health and substance abuse disorder treatment, expand access to shelter, and “collaboratively work with other City departments to ensure that City parks, playgrounds, sports fields, public spaces and sidewalks and streets (“public spaces”) remain open and clear of unauthorized encampments.”

The proposal would mandate (but not fund) new shelter and services and reinstate sweeps, including the removal of encampments that pose a “public health or safety risk,” a term that is not defined and would be subject to interpretation.

The proposal does not appear to include a funding plan.

The charter amendment would require HSD to create a plan to provide services to people living unsheltered (along with individual written “service plans” for every person living unsheltered in the city) and would “require the cleaning and removal of unauthorized encampments in public spaces as these services are available.” In addition, any encampment that poses “a public health or safety risk may be immediately removed,” the proposed amendment says.

In plain language, the proposal would mandate (but not fund) new shelter and services and reinstate sweeps, including the removal of encampments that pose a “public health or safety risk,” a term that is not defined and would be subject to interpretation.

It also directs HSD to work with prosecutors, police, and public defenders to create new “diversion” programs for people who commit non-violent offenses; these programs would include unspecificed “treatment programs as an alternative to incarceration.”

Burgess did not respond to a request for comment.

Support PubliCola

If you’re reading this, we know you’re someone who appreciates deeply sourced breaking news, features, and analysis—along with guest columns from local opinion leaders, ongoing coverage of the kind of stories that get short shrift in mainstream media, and informed, incisive opinion writing about issues that matter.

We know there are a lot of publications competing for your dollars and attention, but PubliCola truly is different. We cover Seattle and King County on a budget that is funded entirely by reader contributions—no ads, no paywalls, ever.

Being fully independent means that we cover the stories we consider most interesting and newsworthy, based on our own news judgment and feedback from readers about what matters to them, not what advertisers or corporate funders want us to write about. It also means that we need your support. So if you get something out of this site, consider giving something back by kicking in a few dollars a month, or making a one-time contribution, to help us keep doing this work. If you prefer to Venmo or write a check, our Support page includes information about those options. Thank you for your ongoing readership and support.

To place a charter amendment on the ballot, proponents must get signatures from as many registered voters as 15 percent of the turnout in the most recent mayoral election, or about 33,000 people. After that, the city council can choose to enact the amendment, put it on the ballot, or add their own alternative to the mix. This last scenario played out in 2014, when the council proposed an alternative to a preschool initiative that opponents said gave too much power to unions. The council’s winning alternative was sponsored by Tim Burgess.

3. Despite claiming the Democrats’ capital gains tax legislation (SB-5096) would put an unconstitutional law in place, Republicans are worried that if it passes, taking the law to the Supreme Court will backfire and open the door for an income tax.

Luckily for the Republicans, moderate Democratic Senator Steve Hobbs (D-44, Lake Stevens) added an amendment to the capital gains tax during  the Senate vote that stripped the bill of its emergency clause and took out language saying that the revenue from the legislation is tied to government functions. Legislation with an emergency clause, or legislation that includes language saying it’s necessary to support the functioning of state government, can’t be overturned by voter referendum. The removal of both sections clearly signals that opponents prefer to leave the bill open to a statewide referendum, rather than battling over its legality in court. Continue reading “Ballot Measure Would Reinstate Sweeps, Harrell Joins Mayor’s Race, and Republicans Hedge Bets on Capital Gains” →

Addiction, City Council, Elections, homelessness, legislature, Mayor Durkan, Morning Fizz

Fizz: Burgess Previews Encampment Initiative, Nguyen Mulls Bid for County Exec, and “Opening the Door” to Hotel Shelter

1. At a meeting of the Queen Anne Initiative on Community Engagement last week, former city council member Tim Burgess outlined the contours of an initiative that will be filed in the coming weeks that would fund new homeless services with existing city dollars and effectively reinstate the city’s Navigation Team, which removed encampments from public spaces until the city council dismantled it as part of the budget process last year.

PublICola reported on a poll about the potential initiative in February.

Sounding very much like a man in campaign mode, Burgess told the group, “The tent encampments that we see in our public spaces have essentially become permanent because the city government has no specific plan to help the people in those encampments or to make certain that our parks and public spaces remain open and available to everyone.” (In fact, one large and obvious reason encampments have become “permanent” is that a global pandemic made it impractical and unsafe for the city to dislocate people living unsheltered, and the city has consistently failed to provide adequate shelter or housing for the thousands of people living outdoors).

“What we need,” Burgess continued, “is a plan —a specific plan that focuses on what I believe is the primary presenting issue for most of the individuals in these encampments, and that is their medical condition,” including addiction and mental health challenges. Those issues are difficult to address while a person is living unsheltered, Burgess said, so the solution is to provide them with shelter or housing and address their health conditions at the same time.

So far, so good: Burgess clearly understands that it’s next to impossible to get healthy, or sober, while living on the street: Housing, or shelter at an absolute minimum, is essential to any kind of recovery from physical or behavioral health conditions. But the next leap he takes is troubling: If shelter is available but a person refuses to take it, he said, the city should have the authority to permanently remove them from a public space in order to make it available to the rest of the public. “We’re governed by the court decision”—Martin v. Boise—”that says we can’t force people… to leave unless we offer accommodation where they can go.”

It’s unclear how the initiative to reinstate sweeps and pay for housing and health cafe would be funded, or how it will get around the requirements imposed by Boise.

2. After PubliCola’s relentless coverage of Mayor Jenny Durkan’s decision not to seek FEMA reimbursement for hotel-based shelters, city council president (and mayoral candidate) Lorena González issued a statement about her recent conversation with FEMA administrators, which she said affirmed for her that even if federal funding isn’t “guaranteed” (which it never is in advance), “we can be confident that non-congregate shelter is FEMA reimbursable in eligible circumstances.”

In other cities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, FEMA has paid for hotel-based shelter for people living unsheltered who suffer from conditions that make them vulnerable to COVID—a standard that covers most chronically homeless people.

Durkan has insisted that FEMA will not reimburse the city for any services at hotel-based shelters, and has objected to the federal agency’s “onerous” application requirements. Continue reading “Fizz: Burgess Previews Encampment Initiative, Nguyen Mulls Bid for County Exec, and “Opening the Door” to Hotel Shelter” →

Addiction, Drugs, Elections, homelessness, labor, Mayor Durkan, Morning Fizz, Police, Taxes

Durkan’s Hot-Mic Moment, Two Potential 2021 Initiatives, and Former Sheriff Rahr Steps Down

1. Prior to her State of the City remarks earlier this week, Mayor Jenny Durkan made a hot-mic comment deriding Council President (and mayoral candidate) Lorena González; the comment came during some apparent technical difficulties immediately before the livestreamed speech.

“Slow down a little bit, please,” Durkan says to someone off camera, apparently referring to her remarks on the screen in front of her. “There’s, like, all sorts of shit gone now,” she continues, laughing. “We’ll just go to the top and I’m going to, like, do the best I can.”

“If it was easy,” Durkan continues, “it’d be Lorena’s rebuttal.”

Durkan then proceeded to deliver a State of the City speech that clocked in at just over six minutes—the shortest, by far, in recent memory.

Per custom, Council President González, who announced she’s running for mayor after Durkan announced late last year that she would not seek a second term, did provide a response to Durkan’s State of the City speech. However, far from criticizing the mayor or her comments,  González actually thanked Durkan and city employees for “working hard to keep our City government running smoothly every day since the pandemic first hit our region a year ago.”

During a Town Hall Seattle forum on women in politics on Wednesday night, Durkan said she decided not to run for a second term, in large part, because if she stayed in the race her opponents would “feel like they have to be oppositional,” even if they agree with her, “because they’re running against me or supporting an opponent.”

“At the end of the day,” she added, “that was my job: Doing what was right for the city.”

Despite Durkan’s insistence that running for reelection during a crisis would elevate politics over what’s “right for the city,” campaigning for office while running the city isn’t unprecedented or irresponsible. In fact, it’s a standard part of a mayor’s job description.

2. Former city council member Tim Burgess and SoDo Business Improvement Area director Erin Goodman have formed a political action committee to support an initiative related to drug use, homelessness, and behavioral health in Seattle. The new PAC, called Seattle Cares, has received an initial $15,000 contribution from the Downtown Seattle Association. Last election cycle, Burgess formed a PAC with the similarly anodyne name People for Seattle, which worked to defeat council members Lisa Herbold and Kshama Sawant and to oppose then-candidate Tammy Morales.

Although the committee has not filed initiative language yet, clues can be found in a poll PubliCola reported on earlier this month, which asked respondents about their support for a ballot measure that would give police additional tools to remove homeless people from public spaces, apparently in combination with some kind of behavioral health and addiction treatment funding.

The poll asked respondents their opinion of a Seattle ballot initiative that would use existing government funds to support treatment for mental illness and drug addiction while giving police more authority to “intervene” if people experiencing homelessness didn’t accept the “help” they were offered. The hypothetical ballot measure, according to the poll, would also re-establish the police-led Navigation Team, which removed encampments across Seattle until the city council eliminated the team in last year’s budget.

Support PubliCola

If you’re reading this, we know you’re someone who appreciates deeply sourced breaking news, features, and analysis—along with guest columns from local opinion leaders, ongoing coverage of the kind of stories that get short shrift in mainstream media, and informed, incisive opinion writing about issues that matter.

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It’s unclear where the funds for the measure would come from or what kind of “behavioral health” and addiction services would be offered to people experiencing homelessness. Supporters of encampment sweeps, quoted in media such as KOMO TV’s “Seattle Is Dying” series, often tout non-evidence-based approaches such as involuntary treatment for people with addiction. Burgess said Thursday that the official committee filing “was meant to comply with legal requirements but we are still debating and crafting what we might do, if anything.”

3. Speaking of polls, another poll in the field this month—this one funded by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21— asked about a potential city policy that would impose a surcharge on medical marijuana, specifically, to fund training and certification for people who sell cannabis products. The poll framed the new certification program as an opportunity for professional growth and a way of promoting equity among cannabis retailers, and tested a message positioning the surcharge as a way to fund improved service and support for medical marijuana consumers. Continue reading “Durkan’s Hot-Mic Moment, Two Potential 2021 Initiatives, and Former Sheriff Rahr Steps Down” →

campaign finance, City Council, Elections, featuredslider, headliner, homelessness, human services, Mayor Durkan, Morning Crank, Politics

Morning Crank Part 2: Homelessness Division Loses Another Key Player; Burgess Can’t Quit the Council

1. As I mentioned on Twitter last week, Navigation Team outreach leader Jackie St. Louis announced his resignation last month and his last day was last Friday. St. Louis did not return my calls asking about his decision to leave the city back in June, but he had recently been reassigned to a new position as “manager of unsheltered crisis response” in the Homelessness Strategy and Outreach division—a reassignment that could be interpreted as a demotion. Tiffany Washington, the erstwhile director of the homelessness division, also quit recently to become deputy director of the city’s Department of Education and Early Learning.

“So, this is where this part of my story ends. Not how I would have intended it to. Not how I would have envisioned it, but I accept that this is the way that it is supposed to be. Because a good name is worth more than any earthly reward, and integrity should never be entrusted to those who it is a stranger to.” – Former Navigation Team leader Jackie St. Louis, whose last day was last Friday

St. Louis told homeless service providers about his departure in a brief email. It read: “I wanted to take the time to thank you for your partnership over the years under what have been trying circumstances. I also want to wish you well and offer well wishes as you forge ahead with your respective missions. Though differing, they all help to try and create a better community for all those who call it home. Today will be my last day at the city.”

His departure letter to colleagues was significantly more dramatic. “To live is to wage war: war with the external forces that threaten our existence but even more so the war we wage with our own selves,” it began. “They tell us that history is told from the perspective of those who survive to recount that which has transpired. I challenge that assertion, because amongst us live and toil those who bear the scars of battles long since waged.

“It is not those who survive who tell those stories as much as it is those who still retain the desire of sharing the morbid details of things which they have most likely experienced as an observer. …

“The jury is still out on whether my ‘work’ here resulted in any significant impact for those whom it was intended. Yet, I am certain of the fact that I have been deeply impacted by your word and deeds. They have moved me toward being a better, more humble, more courageous, and resilient version of myself. …

“So, this is where this part of my story ends. Not how I would have intended it to. Not how I would have envisioned it, but I accept that this is the way that it is supposed to be. Because a good name is worth more than any earthly reward, and integrity should never be entrusted to those who it is a stranger to.”

St. Louis concluded by thanking a long list of colleagues. They did not, notably, include either Washington or Johnson.

Support The C Is for Crank
Sorry to interrupt your reading, but THIS IS IMPORTANT. The C Is for Crank is a one-person operation, supported entirely—and I mean entirely— by generous contributions from readers like you. If you enjoy the breaking news, commentary, and deep dives on issues that matter to you, please support this work by donating a few bucks a month to keep this reader-supported site going. I can’t do this work without support from readers like you. Your $5, $10, and $20 monthly donations allow me to do this work as my full-time job, so please become a sustaining supporter now. If you don’t wish to become a monthly contributor, you can always make a one-time donation via PayPal, Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7) or by mailing your contribution to P.O. Box 14328, Seattle, WA 98104. Thank you for keeping The C Is for Crank going and growing. I’m truly grateful for your support.

2. The Navigation Team also came up in a recent mailer from former mayor Tim Burgess’ PAC targeting city council incumbent (and Burgess’ former colleague) Lisa Herbold, who is running for reelection. In the mailer, Burgess’ group, People for Seattle, accuses Herbold of “vot[ing] to cut funding for the Navigation Teams tasked with reducing homeless camps.” This is inaccurate—as I reported at the time, although Herbold joined other council members in seeking a smaller permanent increase in the size of the team than Durkan initially requested, they ultimately gave the mayor everything she wanted, finding funds to marginally increase human service provider pay while preserve the increase in funding Durkan requested.

Burgess, who retired in 2017, has remained unusually active for a former elected official. Burgess’ PAC, which has raised more than a quarter-million dollars, has also sent out mailers accusing Kshama Sawant challenger Zach DeWolf of offering “more of the same” in an effort to boost Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce-endorsed candidate Egan Orion through the primary. This week, Burgess also sent an email to council members admonishing them directly for defying Durkan with their vote to create a dedicated fund for the soda tax, providing the language of the original bill establishing the soda tax, and suggesting four things the council “could have” done instead of creating the dedicated fund.

Burgess’ attempts to influence not only council votes, but the makeup of the council itself, have prompted some on the council to joke that he should probably just run for council again.

City Council, City Hall, Elections, endorsements, homelessness, Mayor Durkan, Morning Crank, Parks, Police

Morning Crank: Seattle vs. Broken Windows, Burgess vs. “Ideology,” Showbox Contract Suspended

 

In SODO and Georgetown, lots of arrests and a focus on clearing out RVs, and just one referral to Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, for 1,500 hours of emphasis patrols.

1. On Wednesday, the city council’s public safety committee got into a philosophical discussion about the”broken windows” theory of policing with representatives from several city departments, during a presentation on Mayor Jenny Durkan’s decision to extend “emphasis patrols” in seven neighborhoods beyond the initial 30-day period announced at the end of April. The patrols have been controversial, with critics contending that the seven neighborhoods—which include Ballard, Fremont, and Pioneer Square—were chosen based on the volume of complaints from residents rather than the presence of actual crime. (The mayor, for her part, said that she was unaware of any such criticism).

Council members Lorena Gonzalez and Teresa Mosqueda pushed SPD strategic advisor Chris Fisher and assistant chief Eric Greening to explain the difference between “broken windows” (the widely debunked theory that graffiti, panhandling, vacant buildings, and other types of “disorder” create an atmosphere that leads people to commit more crime), and the theory behind the emphasis patrols. The theory, popularized by George Kelling and James Q. Wilson, was implemented in cities across America throughout the 1980s and 1990s and has become synonymous with zero-tolerance policing and Rudy Giuliani’s New York City.

Fisher called this a misinterpretation. “Different people have different interpretations of broken windows,”  Fisher said. “I think the original theory involved working with the community… [and] I think some departments, some other researchers or practitioners, took it as meaning zero tolerance. [They] didn’t involve the community, and they just decided they were going to arrest everyone for everything, but that wasn’t the intent of broken windows.”

Highfalutin theories aside, it’s notable that the Durkan administration appears to be explicitly embracing the broken windows theory, in the form of ramped-up arrests for low-level crimes in the emphasis areas (broken down by neighborhood in the report) and neighborhood “cleanup” efforts that include removing graffiti, getting rid of newspaper boxes, and cutting back vegetation as well as removing more encampments without prior notice or offers of outreach or services.

Christopher Williams, the parks department director, pointed to a skatepark in South Park where workers have picked up litter, gotten rid of graffiti, and cut back vegetation, all “things that really emphasize that broken window theory—the quicker we can clean it up, the more that gives a message to the community that this is a cared-for, loved space and the community tends to treat it that way.” Williams also said his department is “treat[ing] single tents and encampments like stand-alone obstructions and we will have those removed immediately, for the most part,” rather than providing 72 hours’ notice and offers of shelter and services to encampment residents.

Council members, including District 4 representative Abel Pacheco, still seemed unsatisfied by SPD’s explanations for how the seven neighborhoods were chosen, an issue Fisher seemed to chalk up to the way the information was being presented, rather than the information SPD has provided to the council itself. “I asked for data about why these specific neighborhoods were chosen, and I believe the answer I got from you was that it was [a] combination of data … and calls and complaints that were generated from neighbors,” Mosqueda said. “To me, that’s not a quantitative way of explaining why we’re going into certain neighbors.”

In Ballard and Fremont, lots of calls for service from neighbors contributed to the decision to add patrols.

Fisher (essentially repeating what he told the council back in May) said the neighborhoods were chosen based on “an increase in calls and crime and complaints.” For example, “Fremont was our hottest neighborhood … in terms of an increase in reported crime and calls for service. It was sort of the clear winner,” Fisher said.

Support The C Is for Crank
Sorry to interrupt your reading, but THIS IS IMPORTANT. The C Is for Crank is a one-person operation, supported entirely—and I mean entirely— by generous contributions from readers like you. If you enjoy the breaking news, commentary, and deep dives on issues that matter to you, please support this work by donating a few bucks a month to keep this reader-supported site going. I can’t do this work without support from readers like you. Your $5, $10, and $20 monthly donations allow me to do this work as my full-time job, so please become a sustaining supporter now. If you don’t wish to become a monthly contributor, you can always make a one-time donation via PayPal, Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7) or by mailing your contribution to P.O. Box 14328, Seattle, WA 98104. Thank you for keeping The C Is for Crank going and growing. I’m truly grateful for your support.

2 . Former council member and mayor Tim Burgess sent out an email Wednesday telegraphing which city council candidates his blandly named political action committee, People for Seattle, will be supporting in the August primary elections. Not too surprisingly, they overlap 100% with the candidates endorsed by the Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy (CASE), the political arm of the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce, with the exception of Districts 6 and 7, where People for Seattle did not make a recommendation. The candidates People for Seattle (and CASE) support for Districts 1-5, in order, are: Phil Tavel, Mark Solomon, (former Burgess aide) Alex Pedersen, and council incumbent Debora Juarez.

Burgess’ group, in other words, is snubbing two of Burgess’ own former colleagues, Lisa Herbold (D1) and Kshama Sawant (D3) in favor of candidates who, as Burgess put it in his email, can “best lead our city forward and change the current approach at the City Council.”

People for Seattle currently has about $220,000 in the bank, much of it raised in $5,000 chunks from developer and tech industry folks like Clise Properties CEO Al Clise, Amazon senior vice president Doug Herrington, developer Richard Hedreen, telecom moguls Bruce and John McCaw, and billionaire Mariners owner John Stanton. So far, they owe EMC Research $40,000 for polling, presumably to test messages like the one Burgess underlines in his email: “Please spread the word that we need a new City Council that gets back to basics and focuses on our city’s most pressing challenges. We want the next City Council to bring us together with solutions and not divide us based on ideology.”

Because there’s nothing “ideological” about calling Seattle a “Mecca [for] homeless,” opposing the streetcar and Sound Transit 3, or denouncing the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda as a “backroom deal for real estate developer upzones.”

3. Last month, a King County Superior Court judge dismissed every one of the city of Seattle’s arguments in favor of recently adopted legislation that prevented the owners of the downtown Showbox building from selling the property to a developer. The legislation, which supporters pitched as a way to “save the Showbox,” added the two-story unreinforced masonry building to the Pike Place Market Historic District across the street for an initial period of six months; that period was later extended until December of this year because two consultants hired by the city’s Department of Neighborhoods said they needed more time to evaluate a proposal to make the building a permanent part of the Market. The consultants were charged with doing public outreach and determining whether it made sense to include the Showbox building, which the city recently upzoned twice in an effort to encourage density downtown, in the Market.

DON now tells The C Is for Crank that the department has suspended its contracts for the two consultants, Stepherson and Associates (a communications firm) and AECOM (an engineering firm). Although the firms were hired back in February, it appears that they didn’t do much work until very recently; according to a Department of Neighborhoods spokeswoman, the city has only paid out about $24,000 of their original $75,000 contract—$12,000 to Stepherson and $12,554 to  AECOM.

City Council, homelessness, Seattle magazine

City’s Homeless Spending Plan Cuts Downtown Restrooms, Laundry Facilities

This story originally appeared at Seattle Magazine. 

Source: Wikimedia Commons

On Monday, the city’s Human Services Department released a list of programs, operated by 30 local organizations and agencies, that will receive $34 million in restructured homeless service contracts. The announcement was the culmination of a years-long process to move the city toward performance-based human service contracting and to reward service providers that emphasize moving homeless Seattle residents into permanent housing quickly. Those that provide longer-term housing assistance or other services that aren’t strictly housing-related, like hygiene centers and overnight shelters, were deprioritized.

“I recognize this is a huge change, but it’s a huge change motivated by the scale of the need that we face on the streets of Seattle,” interim mayor Tim Burgess said Monday. (On Tuesday, Burgess was replaced by new Mayor Jenny Durkan.) “Business as usual is really not an option, because we’re not moving enough people off the street and into permanent housing.”

The funding changes announced on Monday could have a major, and highly visible, impact on downtown, because they eliminate or reduce funding for three downtown hubs where homeless people can use the restroom and shower: The Women’s Referral Center in Belltown, run by Catholic Community Services, the Urban Rest Stop, run by the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), and the Compass Housing Alliance’s Hygiene Center in Pioneer Square.

Without access to these restrooms during the day and (in Urban Rest Stop’s case) for part of the night, homeless advocates say unsheltered people will have no choice but to relieve themselves wherever they can—including alleys, parks and business doorways. “It’s going to be another sanitation nightmare,” LIHI director Sharon Lee predicts.

City Council Human Services and Public Health Committee chair Sally Bagshaw says she thinks that once new 24-hour shelters the city plans to fund get up and running, they’ll be able to fill the gaps left by the loss of the hygiene centers. “There are 22 enhanced shelters” in the funding plan, Bagshaw says, referring to shelters that offer case management and help getting into housing, “and of those, 21 have showers.”

Additionally, Bagshaw says, people who need to take a shower during the day already have access to showers at six of the city’s community centers (none of them downtown). “Is it perfect? No. But part of the goal here is to use our money in a way that’s going to move people through shelter and into permanent housing.”

According to the brief explanations the human services department provided for why it did not renew some grants, the hygiene centers’ missions were not directly focused on “moving people from homelessness to permanent housing” because they only provided basic hygiene services.

Lee says that LIHI’s Urban Rest Stop, whose funding will be cut by nearly 50 percent, will have to reduce its hours, which are currently 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. “If you go in there at 5:30 in the morning, it’s packed full of people” showering, washing their clothes and getting ready for work, Lee says. “If you take that away from people, it’s going to lead to more problems and more misery.”

Lee points to a recent Hepatitis A outbreak in San Diego that resulted from a lack of access to showers, restrooms and handwashing facilities for homeless people in that city. The outbreak spread throughout the unsheltered population and is now being called an epidemic. According to a memo the King County public health department sent to service providers in September, “the disease is closely associated with unsafe water or food, inadequate sanitation and lack of access to hygiene services.” In another memo, the department noted, “Good hand-washing is essential.”

The lack of 24-hour public restrooms downtown is a longstanding issue: People have to relieve themselves somewhere and in the absence of public restrooms, they tend to do so wherever they can. The downtown business community, Lee predicts, “is going to be really affected, because no longer can a merchant say [to a homeless person], ‘Go down the street to the Urban Rest Stop.’”

The Downtown Seattle Association, which runs an outreach team of 10-plus people, also lost about half a million dollars a year, initially declined to comment. But after this story published, its senior media relations manager James Sido reached out with a statement.

“Given the concentration of homeless individuals living downtown, and our long-standing relationships with this population and other downtown stakeholders, we were understandably disappointed to learn that we will not be among those organizations receiving city funds as of Jan. 1,” he wrote. “We are currently considering an appeal, and also discussing the program’s future with staff and leadership. Without city funding, the size and scope of our outreach program must shift.”