April 4, 2025 • 37 mins
On this week-in-review, Crystal Fincher and Erica Barnett discuss:
🙅♂️ Ferguson against wealth tax
⚖️ WA joins lawsuit on public health funding cuts
👩💼 Braddock appointed acting KC Exec
💸 Moore skips public bidding process for $1M
🤷♂️ Saka denounces “defund”
As always, a full text transcript of the show is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.
Follow us on Bluesky at @HacksAndWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Bluesky at @finchfrii and find today’s co-host, Erica Barnett, on Bluesky at @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Hacks & Wonks.
I'm your host, Crystal Fincher.
On this show, we talk with policy wonksand political hacks to gather insight
(00:20):
into local politics and policy inWashington state through the lens of those
doing the work with behind-the-scenesperspectives on what's happening, why it's
happening, and what you can do about it.
Today, we're continuing our Fridayweek-in-review shows, where we review
the news of the week with a co-host.
Welcome back to the program, friendof the show and today's co-host:
Seattle political reporter, editorof PubliCola, and co-host of the
(00:42):
Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett.
Hey, Crystal.
Hey, glad to have you back.
Well, we have a number of things to coverthis week, starting with our governor, Bob
Ferguson, calling a press conference toannounce that he does not intend to sign
a budget that includes wealth taxes thathave been proposed by the Legislature.
(01:06):
What happened here?
What did he say was hisjustification for this?
And what was the legislative reaction?
Well, Ferguson basically said that hebelieves that a wealth tax is risky,
that it's going to be subject tolawsuits and won't be able to close
the budget gap for the state withinthe timeframe that it needs to be
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closed - that's his rhetoric, anyway.
I think that the Legislature is reallyin a bind now because both the House and
the Senate had been relying on the ideaof a wealth tax, or some form of tax on
wealthy people - whether it's a payrolltax like JumpStart or this wealth tax.
And now they're kind of having to go backto the drawing board while meanwhile,
(01:47):
Ferguson has said he is committed tospending $100 million on new funding
for police officers across the state.
So they have until April 27thto figure this out, and they're
in a pretty big bind right now.
So what are legislative leaderssaying in response to this?
So I think legislators are expressingfrustration about this decision.
(02:11):
But also now turning to other possibletaxes - like a business tax, which
would be similar to Seattle's JumpStartTax, which would be essentially
a payroll tax on large companieswith highly compensated employees.
That's one possibility.
There are different proposals toadjust the cap on property taxes.
(02:32):
Right now, property taxes locallycan't go up more than 1% a year,
which creates obvious problemswhen inflation is above 1%.
So there's proposals to look at thatand ease that cap up a little bit.
But there are going to have tobe significant cuts if Ferguson's
proposal to completely eliminate thewealth tax possibility goes forward.
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And I also don't know what wouldhappen in the case where - and this is
pretty unlikely - but in the case wherethey said, Okay, and passed a budget,
Ferguson vetoed it, and then they'dhave to go back to the drawing board.
I don't actually know how that scenariowould play out, but it is a different
scenario than we had with Jay Inslee,who was open to these kinds of taxes.
And Ferguson is just much morefiscally conservative than Inslee was.
(03:17):
Yeah, it's really interesting - justas someone observing this whole
process - that this is happening ata time where there is more public
support for taxing the rich thanthere has been in recent memory.
Where there seems to be growing, Iguess, acceptance that the extremely
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wealthy are not paying their fair share.
And looking at that, it's interesting tosee Bob Ferguson talk about this in terms
of - spending is the problem, spendinghas gotten out of control, and that's
what we need to get back under control.
Interestingly, in The SeattleTimes, which is not known as
a super progressive outlet.
(04:00):
And Danny Westneat, who is not knownas a super progressive columnist.
And a UW Economics professor, who hadpreviously been maligned for moonlighting
with right-wing groups, actually raisedan alarm that Danny Westneat wrote about
in a column this week, saying - Wait aminute, Washington state, at this point in
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time, is operating like "a tax haven likethe Cayman Islands" for the uber wealthy.
The lack of an income tax, the lack ofcertain progressive taxes are really
creating an upside down tax system.
So this seems to be a problemof funding and revenue more than
it is a problem of spending.
(04:43):
Bob Ferguson clearly disagrees withthat, but it'll be interesting to see
what the Legislature comes back with andhow the public responds, especially as
we're seeing so many cuts from federalsources - and that being such a wild
and unstable and unpredictable thingto look forward to on the horizon.
(05:04):
It'll be interesting tosee how this all lands.
Well, and I will say, it'sabsolutely true that as a state,
we could be a model for the nation.
And say - Look, we're going torespond to these coming cuts and the
cuts that have already come to thestate from the federal government.
And we're going to take care of people,and we're going to pass a tax on the
wealthy in order to supplement some of theservices that we are going to be losing.
(05:28):
And that is not what Ferguson is doing.
And interestingly, to point out oneproposed cut that he has proposed making
- the Attorney General's office, whichBob Ferguson used to head, he was AG
before becoming governor - he's proposedcutting their staff and their essentially
ability to litigate these Trump cases.
And so I don't know what goes on inBob Ferguson's mind - I'm not a state
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reporter, I don't have access to thegovernor - but some of these decisions are
rather baffling in the national context.
When in the first Trump administration,we really were a leader in the country
in fighting some of the Trump policies.
And now I think we could be aleader fighting the Trump cuts.
Yeah, and it almost feels like
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the conversation Bob Ferguson ishaving is from like, 20 years ago.
It sounds so much like what we wereheading into with the '08 recession,
where we did respond with austerity.
And I think a lot of people haveconcluded we paid for that a long
time and decided to move awayfrom that tactic because it really
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didn't appear to work for our state.
This economist, Harvard PhD, used torail against high taxes in Washington,
but now he's saying we used to getcalled the Soviet of Washington.
Now we're a place to offshore money.
And so, he says, "in the strangelandscape of Washington state" now, he
looked at the payroll tax and concludedit's a reasonable way to raise needed
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revenue now for public services.
And saying that because we don't relyon things like an income tax or more
progressive taxation, where most ofthe burden is placed on those at the
lower end of the economic ladder andthose at the very high end are kind of
skating scot-free, that we're relyingon population booms, we're relying a lot
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on construction and consumer purchasing.
And we're recording this on Thursdaymorning as our stock market is taking
a dive in response to tariffs andwhat that might mean in the long term.
And those don't seem like veryreliable forms of revenue.
So is this a continuing problem that we'rewalking into, that we're just not solving?
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Because we refuse to look at revenue andwe're trying to rely on cuts when spending
does not appear to be the main problem?
So we'll continue to followthis - we will see where that lands.
They have until April 27th tonegotiate this, to end this current
legislative session on time.
(08:01):
Hopefully, they areable to accomplish that.
I also want to talk about Washington statejoining a multi-state lawsuit against the
Trump administration for cutting billionsin public health funding that we're
already feeling here in Washington state.
What is this lawsuit seeking to do?
Essentially, this lawsuit, which isWashington state along with 24 other
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states, is trying to block the federalgovernment's termination of $11 billion
in grant funding that goes to publichealth agencies across the country.
And, according to KUOW's reporting, ifthe Trump administration is successful
in doing this, Washington state standsto lose around $159 million, which
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is significant - it gets to what wewere talking about earlier - when
these massive cuts are coming toWashington state, it's going to have
an impact, particularly if the budgetends up also being an all-cuts budget.
It definitely will.
And this KUOW articlealso gave some examples.
Like mobile health clinics - those onesthat travel to different neighborhoods,
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because it is not the simplest andeasiest thing to travel increasingly
long distances, as a lot of localhealth providers have shuttered
and consolidated to receive care.
Vaccination events that our communitiesrely on to remain healthy, especially
as we're seeing things like measlesand the third announced case in
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King County come - one of the mostcontagious pathogens that we face here
- just keeping us safe through that.
Behavioral health providers - things likesubstance abuse treatment, behavioral
health treatment are so critical.
And, as we have recognized,especially recently in this region,
critical to just our entire publicsafety and public health landscape.
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And we have worked so hard tostand up some new programs, new
capacity - and that is now also beingjeopardized and undercut by these cuts.
We're just facing a lot here thatis on the table for cuts that we
don't really have any identified wayto replace at this point in time.
(10:15):
So this lawsuit is, as yousaid, seeking to prevent that.
One of the other things that's gettingcut - both King County and the City
of Seattle, and probably other citiesas well, I'm most aware of the city of
Seattle, there's just a lot of cuts thatare going to have an immediate impact.
As part of this MAHA - Make AmericaHealthy Again - so-called plan, RFK Jr.
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announced that the U.S. Government iseliminating SAMHSA, which is the addiction
treatment and behavioral health arm ofthe government, which is going to have
massive implications to mental healthtreatment, to behavioral treatment, and
to addiction treatment across the country.
And I think that locally, you know, justthe other day, I was hearing the City
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Council in Seattle talking about howthey're going to rely on this federal
agency that no longer effectively existsto help with substance use treatment
and provide technical assistance.
And I'm sorry, it's gone.
So I think the local impacts of thisare going to be absolutely massive.
And we're bracing for it, but Ithink we're really not prepared.
(11:19):
Yeah.
Valley Medical Center, a hospital andmedical center in Renton, has already
announced over 100 staff cuts as a resultof these funding cuts, which is just
massive to the entire South End - so manypeople rely on Valley Medical Center.
Talking about Care-A-Vanevents on Facebook.
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UW has talked about funding cut forcontagious disease notification - work
that started with the WA Notify,WA Verify apps, but was expanded to
measles, tuberculosis, foodborne illnessoutbreaks, food recall information.
We've seen more thanour share of those here.
All of that information - getting known,understood, and disseminated to the public
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- is frequently reliant on these federalfunds, and they have just disappeared.
So it's really challenging.
I am glad to see that Washington isjoining this lawsuit, but I think just
the magnitude of states involved in thisreally underscores how impactful this
is - whether it's a red state, blue state,everything in between - these are going to
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hurt people on the ground pretty severely.
Also, another local impact that we'reseeing from federal actions is that
Washington Head Start staff werelocked out and fired due to Trump cuts.
What happened here?
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Yeah, the Seattle office of HeadStart was just shut down abruptly.
And all the staff there - and I thinkit's a small number of staff, but they
do tremendous amount of work overseeingHead Start across the region - they
were just told that they're fired.
And it's part of thismassive wave of layoffs.
But it means essentially that thisoffice that served Alaska, Idaho, Oregon,
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Washington is simply closing down.
And I'll point out the HUD office, too.
There's just all of these regionaloffices - a lot of them are located
in Seattle - that administer all kindsof services, including Head Start, but
also assistance to housing agenciesjust across the board are just being
shut and supposedly consolidated intothis new Make America Healthy agency.
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But it's going to mean massiveimpacts on this federally funded,
very successful preschool programthat has been around for decades.
Absolutely.
More than 15,000 Washington childrenare enrolled in Head Start programs.
This office oversaw programs inWashington, Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon.
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I do think it's notable - you kind ofsaid, it's a very small number of people,
but they do a whole bunch of stuff.
And that's the story for a lotof these cuts that we're seeing.
I've heard justifications forthis as - Oh, it's inefficient.
Oh, it's just a waste of money.
But we actually haven't seenthat substantiated at all.
In fact, what we've seen are thesesmall groups of people, these
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regional offices being responsiblefor coordinating and managing so
much throughout an entire region.
And these closures - they talk aboutconsolidating into other areas - I
think it is important to note that thisdoesn't appear to have been planned.
There doesn't appear to havebeen any notice provided.
These people left work one daylike they were coming back in
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the morning, and in the morningthey found themselves locked out.
They weren't even able to get back intothe offices to get their stuff, according
to the association's executive director.
They were just locked out.
So any kind of planning to transitionthis work, to quantify what they're doing,
and to offload that to someone who may beremaining with the agency - the kind of
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planning that responsible organizationsdo when there is downsizing, or when there
is restructuring - that has not happened.
That is not happening.
This is just abruptly terminating.
And they do manage somuch around the state.
In fact, a number of the organizationsthat receive funding that they do manage
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are due for renewals as of July 1st - morethan 70 grant recipients or providers are
facing a July 1st grant renewal deadline.
If they aren't renewed,programs will shut down.
So it's just really achallenging situation.
Obviously, there are a number of peoplelobbying to save Head Start, which
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is such a benefit to our community.
The amount of money invested in earlylearning pays back multiple times over
in the benefits to the community - weall benefit from this happening.
And it's just really challenging tosee this happening without there being
much of a plan or way to mitigatethe negative impacts resulting.
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Also want to talk about ShannonBraddock being appointed
interim King County executive.
Who is Shannon Braddockand how did she land here?
Shannon Braddock was the deputy countyexecutive, but she has been around
in the county for a really long time.
She started out as an aide toCouncilmember Joe McDermott.
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And has just been really crucialto both the County Council,
where she worked for a long time.
And then Dow Constantine, shestarted working for in 2017.
And she's run for office a couple timesand lost, but she is sort of regarded as
the person who will be - I think somebodysaid a steady hand at the tiller - and
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she's going to be in this position.
Well, actually, we don't know howlong right now because she is - just
a slight clarification - she's acting-
Thank you.
-King County Executive, whichis just this weird distinction.
Acting and interim soundlike they're the same thing.
But if she does not get appointedas interim - so there's a second
step that would have to happen, orthat has to happen for her to be
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essentially the county executive- and that has not happened yet.
And I think there's some debateinternally on the County Council
about who should fill that role andwhether it should be Shannon Braddock.
I think it probably will endup being Shannon Braddock.
But it's a little up in theair - and there was kind of a weird
executive session that they wentinto when they voted on Shannon
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Braddock - and so there's a littlebit of up-in-the-air quality to her
permanent appointment through November.
Very interesting.
Certainly for people who have workedclosely with King County Government and
its many initiatives, Shannon Braddockhas been intimately involved in many
of them and has been a steady hand inguiding the county for several years.
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So I don't think many people aresurprised at all by this selection
- it seems like it makes sense tothe overwhelming amount of people.
Dow Constantine has just been hiredby Sound Transit to be their new
CEO - that's what opened up this slot.
And whoever is ultimately the interimcounty executive - presumably Shannon
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Braddock, we'll assume for now - will holdthis until the new executive takes office.
Shannon Braddock is not currentlyrunning for this position.
Running for the position are KingCounty Councilmembers Claudia
Balducci and Girmay Zahilay, as wellas King County Assessor John Wilson.
And so we will have a new countyexecutive, but until then, the county
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still needs to operate, especiallyas we deal with not just the everyday
business of the county, which is enoughin and of itself, but a lot of the
unexpected happenings, like we justtalked about from the federal government.
So we will continue to follow that.
Now what I do want to talk about isa story you wrote about Seattle City
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Councilmember Cathy Moore awarding$1 million to The More We Love,
a service organization, withouta competitive bidding process.
So can you just tell us what happenedhere and what this process was?
Yeah, so I'll start by just kind ofexplaining what The More We Love is.
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It's an organization that came onmy radar because I was covering
homelessness in Burien, which haspassed a total ban on sleeping outdoors.
And this group, The MoreWe Love, started coming up.
It was started by a Kirkland - I believe,former real estate broker named Kristine
Moreland, hence The More We Love.
And she basically came in and saidshe could do a better job than all the
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other existing homelessness groups ingetting people into shelter and housing.
And so the City of Burien endedup ending a contract with REACH,
which is a longstanding homelessnessorganization, and giving it to her group.
Now, by all accounts, her group fillsa niche in Burien and does get people
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into detox and shows up and takespeople to shelter, things like that.
So, fast forward to now, there has beena competitive process underway to award
some portion of $2 million - I thinkit's about $1.2 million - that Cathy
Moore got in the Seattle budget lastyear to basically create a "receiving
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center" for people who are tryingto escape the sex trade on Aurora.
And so Kristine Moreland and TheMore We Love once again started
popping up - this time in Seattle.
They have never been activein this space before.
They are not sort of one ofthe groups that was lining up
to compete for this contract.
And a competitive bidding process wasunderway - the various groups have
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been meeting to sort of talk aboutwhich niches each one could best
provide in bidding for these contracts.
And the RFP, which is a request forproposals, was going to go out in May.
And quite a bit of money has beenspent on this process, too - just
convening these meetings, citystaff being dedicated to this work.
And Cathy Moore decided that insteadof doing this, she was going to direct
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the City's Human Services Departmentto award all of the money to Kristine
Moreland and The More we Love.
And the Human Services Departmentdoesn't actually - it's not under the
City Council, but they agreed to do it.
And so that's what's happening now.
So The More We Love is going to getthis contract for - basically, to take
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women from Aurora down to its existinghouse that they run now in Renton.
So it's just - sorry for thelong, long windup, but that's kind
of the backstory and the story.
No, that's a really importantwindup and really important context.
And I actually wanted to geta little bit more context.
So part of the issue here is thatessentially there was a public bidding
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process and the outreach and the workthat goes into that being teed up.
And that was essentially justterminated, or they just bypassed that.
Why are public biddingprocesses important?
Why do cities view that asbeing in the public interest?
Well, there's a lot of reasons.
I mean, the public deserves to knowwhere its money is being spent.
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And the way that this money wasallocated last year, Cathy Moore
could have written it so that it wasessentially directed at The More We Love.
City does that all the time, usuallyfor smaller contracts, where they'll
say an organization that doesthis and this and this, and it's
obvious which organization it is.
She didn't do that.
And so that launched this competitiveprocess that was supposed to be
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somewhat public, and where peoplecould go and they could look at
the proposals that everybody made.
And the Council itself could havea discussion about which of these
proposals made the most sense,how they made sense together.
Decisions about major, large amounts offunding - and $2 million is a large amount
of funding - are meant to be made both inpublic and not unilaterally by one person.
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And so it is a problem.
Another issue is that we tend to,in the city, try to take equity and
diversity and inclusion into account.
And there's been a longstanding sortof issue in the sexual exploitation
survivor space about white-ledorganizations being put at the head
of things and getting all the money.
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And I think that theseorganizations are very cognizant
of that or trying to address it.
And so this is basically a brand new tothis space, white-led organization that
Cathy Moore, white councilmember, isjust unilaterally handing money to, while
there's all these Black-led organizationsthat had hoped to compete for it.
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And so there's an equityissue as well, I think.
Absolutely.
And the public has an interest inknowing it's not getting ripped off.
The public has an interest in knowingit's not throwing good money after
bad and buying a lemon, essentially.
And it seems like bypassingthe competitive process doesn't
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give people much confidence thatthey're not getting ripped off and
that they're not buying a lemon.
The More We Love is new to thisspace, and they don't appear to have
any kind of track record here - orcertainly not a substantial one.
It does not mean that they can't dothe job, but it does mean that they
should be responsible for demonstratingthat they can and how they will
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do that - which is usually what isinvolved in a public bidding process.
And now we don't know - is whatwe're paying for their services
two, three, four times as high as wewould be with another organization?
We don't even know theanswer to that question.
But that's one of the things thata public bidding process seeks to
understand and ensure doesn't happen,that - Hey, we are advertising a
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uniform set of needs being addressed.
How can you do that?
At what price?
And so we don't know if this isthe best deal we've ever seen, or
the biggest ripoff we've ever seen.
And that is a stunning question tobe left with for a contract this
size, particularly when the cityis facing a budget deficit and
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decreased funding from other sources.
And also, are they able todeliver on these services?
What capacity do they have?
We don't know that answer.
And I think in your previous reporting,you had also covered that - in
reviewing work that they had donein other sectors, it was unclear
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specifically what they had delivered.
They sometimes providegeneralities, kind of an overview.
But specifically, what the moneyhas brought, what the results have
been doesn't appear to be clearto anyone at this point in time.
Yeah.
As I reported, they provided ayear-end report to the City of Burien.
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And this was not required, so it's notlike there were - to be fair, there
weren't like specific parameters theywere supposed to fulfill in this report.
But still, it's a five-page documentthat says that The More We Love
assisted a certain number of people.
About 300 - and of those, they saidthere were 25 survivors helped.
And don't know what that means.
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And the information we have about theirservices in Renton is pretty sketchy, too.
They have a house - as I mentioned,they bought a house down there
last year and are putting up somecommercially sexually exploited
women trying to leave the sex trade.
But they're saying that they canmassively expand services at that
house to accommodate somethinglike 25 women, and I'm not sure how
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that's going to physically work.
But also, I mean, there's acouple problems with that.
Ordinarily, there's lots of organizationshere in Seattle, and they provide
different types of services to thesewomen who are trying to get off
the street on Aurora, and no oneorganization provides all the services.
And what Kristine Moreland'sgroup is saying is - We will
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provide all the services.
And hopefully they willwork in collaboration with
some of these other groups.
But I think that it will bechallenging because they are in
Renton and most of these other groupsare located where the services are
actually needed, which is on Aurora.
So this house is 20 miles away, andI think that that is a significant
problem that the Council just didn'tget an opportunity to even talk about.
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Because this money, as I said,has just been directed to them.
Has Cathy Moore or anyone else onthe Council responded to some of the
criticism and blowback that they'vereceived as a result of this decision?
Not to me.
Cathy Moore did not respondto my request to talk to her.
But I think that she has been prettydefensive whenever she's been sort
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of pushed on anything that she hasproposed that has been controversial.
On this specific issue, it justhasn't really come up - because
it was just a unilateral thing,and she directed HSD to do it.
And HSD is an executive department - theydon't really have to talk about it.
They just can spend money if themayor's office tells them that they can.
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And so that's what happened in this case.
So a lot of the responsibility - tobe fair to Cathy Moore, she made
this decision, but the mayor's officedid not have to go along with it.
And ordinarily, we haveseparation of powers.
And I would expect a mayor'soffice that was engaged on this
issue to ask a few more questionsthan it seems like they did.
Interesting.
(28:38):
Well, we will continueto follow how that goes.
Final thing I want to talk about wasCouncilmember Rob Saka denouncing the
defund movement through a resolution.
What did this resolution do, if itdid anything, and what did it say?
Well, ironically, this Councilgot elected saying, among other
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things, that the last Council wasperformative and constantly passing
meaningless, non-binding resolutions.
And yet, Saka introduced and spentquite a bit of time talking about
this resolution, which is entirelyperformative and non-binding.
Don't care what the Council says - therewas a lot of rhetoric from everybody about
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how this makes it possible for the consentdecree to be lifted, and that this means
that more people are going to apply tobe police in Seattle, etc. It doesn't.
All it does is say that the era of"defund," which never happened - you
have to say it every time - we didnot defund the police in Seattle.
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But that era when people on the Councilwere openly discussing the idea of taking
some money from the police department andputting it into community-based public
safety organizations - that that is over.
Now, it's been over since 2020,but this Council has been, frankly,
rather obsessed with the 2020 Council.
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And continues a year and three monthsin to blame that Council for all
the problems of the city, and thisis just another way of doing that.
Well, and it's so interesting tome because we're a year and three
months into the newest members'terms, but Sara Nelson, Mayor
Bruce Harrell were elected in 2021.
(30:26):
Yeah.
And so we have been inthis new era for years now.
After promises of hiring tonsand tons of new cops - that
have not quite come to fruition.
After tons of promises about improvingservices, improving police response time
(30:47):
and responsiveness, and reducing guncrime and all of these kinds of things.
And it's striking to me that we're nottalking about what we can do to better
address the many things that have beenpromised and not delivered, and yet
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just passing a non-binding resolutionabout things that happened years ago.
Yeah.
Did they address that at all?
Well, it will shock youto know that they did not.
And the one councilmember who mighthave pushed back, Alexis Mercedes
Rinck, was not present - I'mnot sure why she was not there.
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So there were only six councilmemberspresent - Dan Strauss and Cathy Moore
had asked for absences several weeks ago.
But yeah, they didn'treally get around to that.
Saka kind of gave a long, discursivelecture about how the last Council
was a bunch of white saviors andthat they didn't represent the
views of Black and Brown people.
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And that he's never met another personin his community that - and he didn't say
what community he meant by that - but inhis community that opposes more funding
for police, that doesn't want more police.
And I thought that was particularlyinteresting that he said that the last
Council was white saviors, when a majorityof that council were women of color.
(32:10):
So his speech was pretty - likeall Rob Saka speeches, he hit on
a lot of points multiple times.
But I think that if defund is dead,it's really time for the Council
to stop talking about it and startactually taking action and implementing
policies that promote public safety.
And they point to these 14 public safetybills that they say they've passed.
(32:32):
And I would say, of those14, the substantive ones
were the SOAP and SODA laws.
And the rest are like signing off onsurveillance policies that SPD has, which
the last Council did, too - but theydon't get credit for those as public
safety bills because they're really not.
Interesting.
Well, it will be interesting tosee, especially as we head into
campaign season, how they docharacterize the records there.
(32:56):
And to be fair - it's not fair tosay that they haven't been talking
about anything else entirely.
Curious to see so much time spenton that non-binding resolution.
But there was seemingly substantiveconversation held by Sara Nelson and
the Council this past week about gunviolence, reducing gun violence and
(33:16):
findings from the City Auditor on that.
And I think you have a storycoming out about that soon.
Yeah, I do.
I'm actually talking to theCity Auditor today, Thursday,
about this audit that came out.
And it has some recommendations forhow the city could - I guess, to use
the parlance that they love - eliminatesilos and reduce gun violence, by
(33:37):
doing what a lot of other citieshave done, including Baltimore.
And having tables where public healthauthorities and police and community
groups sit down and talk about ways toreduce known hot spots for gun violence,
to address those, and just a whole host ofother things that are in place elsewhere.
(33:58):
This conversation at the Council - itgot a little heated between the mayor's
office and both Sara Nelson and MaritzaRivera on the Council, because the
mayor's contention, or Deputy MayorTiffany Washington's contention, was that
this audit was unnecessary because thecity is already doing all these things.
And the audit says explicitly thatthe city is not doing these things.
(34:20):
So those were verycontradictory statements.
The auditor was sort of sitting there atthe table with the mayor's office folks
and with SPD, so it was a little awkward.
But Rivera got pretty passionate,saying - Look, gun violence is
not getting better in my district.
It's getting worse.
And she pointed to Magnuson Park,which is one of the hot spots that
the audit identified as a place wherethere have been a number of shootings.
(34:43):
And she basically said - Why aren'twe doing anything about this?
Why are you always back heresaying that you can't get anything
done or you're trying your best?
And the mayor's office essentiallysaid - Well, we've had all these great
recommendations since the last audit,which was in 2012, but the Council
has stymied us every single time.
She didn't provide anyspecific examples of that.
(35:05):
But 2012 was a long time ago.
Bruce Harrell wasn't mayor,but he was on the Council.
He was a councilmember, yes.
And so that was interesting.
So, yeah, I think there's quite a bitof tension there that we're going to
continue to see play out over whetherthe city and the mayor's office and SPD
are actually addressing gun violencein a meaningful way, or just sort of
(35:27):
running around and being reactive.
Which is essentially one of the audit'sconclusions - that SPD is reacting and the
mayor's office is reacting, but people arenot talking to each other and they're not
talking to King County Public Health inany structured, meaningful, ongoing way.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And not only was Bruce Harrell acouncilmember, but so was Tim Burgess,
(35:49):
who is a deputy mayor with the city, so-
Right.
-curious to see the past versions ofpeople who are now in the mayor's office
blamed for work of those same people nowin the mayor's office not getting done.
But we will be eagerly awaitingyour story and appreciate your
(36:09):
informative and enlightening coveragethat we always receive about this.
And with that, we thank you forlistening to Hacks & Wonks on
this Friday, April 4th, 2025.
The producer of Hacks & Wonksis the incredible Shannon Cheng.
Our insightful co-host today wasSeattle political reporter, editor
of PubliCola, and co-host of theSeattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett.
(36:32):
You can find Erica on Bluesky at@ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com.
You can follow Hacks & Wonksand me on Bluesky as well.
You can catch Hacks & Wonks on ApplePodcasts, Spotify, or wherever else
you get your podcasts - just type"Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar.
Be sure to subscribe to get the fullversions of our Friday week-in-review
shows and our Tuesday topical showdelivered to your podcast feed.
(36:55):
If you like us, leave areview wherever you listen.
You can also get a full transcriptof this episode and links to the
resources referenced in the showat officialhacksandwonks.com.
Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next
(37:16):
time.
Welcome to Hacks & Wonks.
I'm your host, Crystal Fincher.
On this show, we talk with policy wonksand political hacks to gather insight
(00:20):
into local politics and policy inWashington state through the lens of those
doing the work with behind-the-scenesperspectives on what's happening, why it's
happening, and what you can do about it.
Today, we're continuing our Fridayweek-in-review shows, where we review
the news of the week with a co-host.
Welcome back to the program, friendof the show and today's co-host:
Seattle political reporter, editorof PubliCola, and co-host of the
(00:42):
Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett.
Hey, Crystal.
Hey, glad to have you back.
Well, we have a number of things to coverthis week, starting with our governor, Bob
Ferguson, calling a press conference toannounce that he does not intend to sign
a budget that includes wealth taxes thathave been proposed by the Legislature.
(01:06):
What happened here?
What did he say was hisjustification for this?
And what was the legislative reaction?
Well, Ferguson basically said that hebelieves that a wealth tax is risky,
that it's going to be subject tolawsuits and won't be able to close
the budget gap for the state withinthe timeframe that it needs to be
(01:27):
closed - that's his rhetoric, anyway.
I think that the Legislature is reallyin a bind now because both the House and
the Senate had been relying on the ideaof a wealth tax, or some form of tax on
wealthy people - whether it's a payrolltax like JumpStart or this wealth tax.
And now they're kind of having to go backto the drawing board while meanwhile,
(01:47):
Ferguson has said he is committed tospending $100 million on new funding
for police officers across the state.
So they have until April 27thto figure this out, and they're
in a pretty big bind right now.
So what are legislative leaderssaying in response to this?
So I think legislators are expressingfrustration about this decision.
(02:11):
But also now turning to other possibletaxes - like a business tax, which
would be similar to Seattle's JumpStartTax, which would be essentially
a payroll tax on large companieswith highly compensated employees.
That's one possibility.
There are different proposals toadjust the cap on property taxes.
(02:32):
Right now, property taxes locallycan't go up more than 1% a year,
which creates obvious problemswhen inflation is above 1%.
So there's proposals to look at thatand ease that cap up a little bit.
But there are going to have tobe significant cuts if Ferguson's
proposal to completely eliminate thewealth tax possibility goes forward.
(02:54):
And I also don't know what wouldhappen in the case where - and this is
pretty unlikely - but in the case wherethey said, Okay, and passed a budget,
Ferguson vetoed it, and then they'dhave to go back to the drawing board.
I don't actually know how that scenariowould play out, but it is a different
scenario than we had with Jay Inslee,who was open to these kinds of taxes.
And Ferguson is just much morefiscally conservative than Inslee was.
(03:17):
Yeah, it's really interesting - justas someone observing this whole
process - that this is happening ata time where there is more public
support for taxing the rich thanthere has been in recent memory.
Where there seems to be growing, Iguess, acceptance that the extremely
(03:39):
wealthy are not paying their fair share.
And looking at that, it's interesting tosee Bob Ferguson talk about this in terms
of - spending is the problem, spendinghas gotten out of control, and that's
what we need to get back under control.
Interestingly, in The SeattleTimes, which is not known as
a super progressive outlet.
(04:00):
And Danny Westneat, who is not knownas a super progressive columnist.
And a UW Economics professor, who hadpreviously been maligned for moonlighting
with right-wing groups, actually raisedan alarm that Danny Westneat wrote about
in a column this week, saying - Wait aminute, Washington state, at this point in
(04:21):
time, is operating like "a tax haven likethe Cayman Islands" for the uber wealthy.
The lack of an income tax, the lack ofcertain progressive taxes are really
creating an upside down tax system.
So this seems to be a problemof funding and revenue more than
it is a problem of spending.
(04:43):
Bob Ferguson clearly disagrees withthat, but it'll be interesting to see
what the Legislature comes back with andhow the public responds, especially as
we're seeing so many cuts from federalsources - and that being such a wild
and unstable and unpredictable thingto look forward to on the horizon.
(05:04):
It'll be interesting tosee how this all lands.
Well, and I will say, it'sabsolutely true that as a state,
we could be a model for the nation.
And say - Look, we're going torespond to these coming cuts and the
cuts that have already come to thestate from the federal government.
And we're going to take care of people,and we're going to pass a tax on the
wealthy in order to supplement some of theservices that we are going to be losing.
(05:28):
And that is not what Ferguson is doing.
And interestingly, to point out oneproposed cut that he has proposed making
- the Attorney General's office, whichBob Ferguson used to head, he was AG
before becoming governor - he's proposedcutting their staff and their essentially
ability to litigate these Trump cases.
And so I don't know what goes on inBob Ferguson's mind - I'm not a state
(05:49):
reporter, I don't have access to thegovernor - but some of these decisions are
rather baffling in the national context.
When in the first Trump administration,we really were a leader in the country
in fighting some of the Trump policies.
And now I think we could be aleader fighting the Trump cuts.
Yeah, and it almost feels like
(06:09):
the conversation Bob Ferguson ishaving is from like, 20 years ago.
It sounds so much like what we wereheading into with the '08 recession,
where we did respond with austerity.
And I think a lot of people haveconcluded we paid for that a long
time and decided to move awayfrom that tactic because it really
(06:30):
didn't appear to work for our state.
This economist, Harvard PhD, used torail against high taxes in Washington,
but now he's saying we used to getcalled the Soviet of Washington.
Now we're a place to offshore money.
And so, he says, "in the strangelandscape of Washington state" now, he
looked at the payroll tax and concludedit's a reasonable way to raise needed
(06:54):
revenue now for public services.
And saying that because we don't relyon things like an income tax or more
progressive taxation, where most ofthe burden is placed on those at the
lower end of the economic ladder andthose at the very high end are kind of
skating scot-free, that we're relyingon population booms, we're relying a lot
(07:17):
on construction and consumer purchasing.
And we're recording this on Thursdaymorning as our stock market is taking
a dive in response to tariffs andwhat that might mean in the long term.
And those don't seem like veryreliable forms of revenue.
So is this a continuing problem that we'rewalking into, that we're just not solving?
(07:40):
Because we refuse to look at revenue andwe're trying to rely on cuts when spending
does not appear to be the main problem?
So we'll continue to followthis - we will see where that lands.
They have until April 27th tonegotiate this, to end this current
legislative session on time.
(08:01):
Hopefully, they areable to accomplish that.
I also want to talk about Washington statejoining a multi-state lawsuit against the
Trump administration for cutting billionsin public health funding that we're
already feeling here in Washington state.
What is this lawsuit seeking to do?
Essentially, this lawsuit, which isWashington state along with 24 other
(08:24):
states, is trying to block the federalgovernment's termination of $11 billion
in grant funding that goes to publichealth agencies across the country.
And, according to KUOW's reporting, ifthe Trump administration is successful
in doing this, Washington state standsto lose around $159 million, which
(08:45):
is significant - it gets to what wewere talking about earlier - when
these massive cuts are coming toWashington state, it's going to have
an impact, particularly if the budgetends up also being an all-cuts budget.
It definitely will.
And this KUOW articlealso gave some examples.
Like mobile health clinics - those onesthat travel to different neighborhoods,
(09:06):
because it is not the simplest andeasiest thing to travel increasingly
long distances, as a lot of localhealth providers have shuttered
and consolidated to receive care.
Vaccination events that our communitiesrely on to remain healthy, especially
as we're seeing things like measlesand the third announced case in
(09:29):
King County come - one of the mostcontagious pathogens that we face here
- just keeping us safe through that.
Behavioral health providers - things likesubstance abuse treatment, behavioral
health treatment are so critical.
And, as we have recognized,especially recently in this region,
critical to just our entire publicsafety and public health landscape.
(09:53):
And we have worked so hard tostand up some new programs, new
capacity - and that is now also beingjeopardized and undercut by these cuts.
We're just facing a lot here thatis on the table for cuts that we
don't really have any identified wayto replace at this point in time.
(10:15):
So this lawsuit is, as yousaid, seeking to prevent that.
One of the other things that's gettingcut - both King County and the City
of Seattle, and probably other citiesas well, I'm most aware of the city of
Seattle, there's just a lot of cuts thatare going to have an immediate impact.
As part of this MAHA - Make AmericaHealthy Again - so-called plan, RFK Jr.
(10:38):
announced that the U.S. Government iseliminating SAMHSA, which is the addiction
treatment and behavioral health arm ofthe government, which is going to have
massive implications to mental healthtreatment, to behavioral treatment, and
to addiction treatment across the country.
And I think that locally, you know, justthe other day, I was hearing the City
(10:58):
Council in Seattle talking about howthey're going to rely on this federal
agency that no longer effectively existsto help with substance use treatment
and provide technical assistance.
And I'm sorry, it's gone.
So I think the local impacts of thisare going to be absolutely massive.
And we're bracing for it, but Ithink we're really not prepared.
(11:19):
Yeah.
Valley Medical Center, a hospital andmedical center in Renton, has already
announced over 100 staff cuts as a resultof these funding cuts, which is just
massive to the entire South End - so manypeople rely on Valley Medical Center.
Talking about Care-A-Vanevents on Facebook.
(11:42):
UW has talked about funding cut forcontagious disease notification - work
that started with the WA Notify,WA Verify apps, but was expanded to
measles, tuberculosis, foodborne illnessoutbreaks, food recall information.
We've seen more thanour share of those here.
All of that information - getting known,understood, and disseminated to the public
(12:05):
- is frequently reliant on these federalfunds, and they have just disappeared.
So it's really challenging.
I am glad to see that Washington isjoining this lawsuit, but I think just
the magnitude of states involved in thisreally underscores how impactful this
is - whether it's a red state, blue state,everything in between - these are going to
(12:28):
hurt people on the ground pretty severely.
Also, another local impact that we'reseeing from federal actions is that
Washington Head Start staff werelocked out and fired due to Trump cuts.
What happened here?
(12:49):
Yeah, the Seattle office of HeadStart was just shut down abruptly.
And all the staff there - and I thinkit's a small number of staff, but they
do tremendous amount of work overseeingHead Start across the region - they
were just told that they're fired.
And it's part of thismassive wave of layoffs.
But it means essentially that thisoffice that served Alaska, Idaho, Oregon,
(13:11):
Washington is simply closing down.
And I'll point out the HUD office, too.
There's just all of these regionaloffices - a lot of them are located
in Seattle - that administer all kindsof services, including Head Start, but
also assistance to housing agenciesjust across the board are just being
shut and supposedly consolidated intothis new Make America Healthy agency.
(13:35):
But it's going to mean massiveimpacts on this federally funded,
very successful preschool programthat has been around for decades.
Absolutely.
More than 15,000 Washington childrenare enrolled in Head Start programs.
This office oversaw programs inWashington, Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon.
(13:57):
I do think it's notable - you kind ofsaid, it's a very small number of people,
but they do a whole bunch of stuff.
And that's the story for a lotof these cuts that we're seeing.
I've heard justifications forthis as - Oh, it's inefficient.
Oh, it's just a waste of money.
But we actually haven't seenthat substantiated at all.
In fact, what we've seen are thesesmall groups of people, these
(14:21):
regional offices being responsiblefor coordinating and managing so
much throughout an entire region.
And these closures - they talk aboutconsolidating into other areas - I
think it is important to note that thisdoesn't appear to have been planned.
There doesn't appear to havebeen any notice provided.
These people left work one daylike they were coming back in
(14:43):
the morning, and in the morningthey found themselves locked out.
They weren't even able to get back intothe offices to get their stuff, according
to the association's executive director.
They were just locked out.
So any kind of planning to transitionthis work, to quantify what they're doing,
and to offload that to someone who may beremaining with the agency - the kind of
(15:06):
planning that responsible organizationsdo when there is downsizing, or when there
is restructuring - that has not happened.
That is not happening.
This is just abruptly terminating.
And they do manage somuch around the state.
In fact, a number of the organizationsthat receive funding that they do manage
(15:28):
are due for renewals as of July 1st - morethan 70 grant recipients or providers are
facing a July 1st grant renewal deadline.
If they aren't renewed,programs will shut down.
So it's just really achallenging situation.
Obviously, there are a number of peoplelobbying to save Head Start, which
(15:50):
is such a benefit to our community.
The amount of money invested in earlylearning pays back multiple times over
in the benefits to the community - weall benefit from this happening.
And it's just really challenging tosee this happening without there being
much of a plan or way to mitigatethe negative impacts resulting.
(16:14):
Also want to talk about ShannonBraddock being appointed
interim King County executive.
Who is Shannon Braddockand how did she land here?
Shannon Braddock was the deputy countyexecutive, but she has been around
in the county for a really long time.
She started out as an aide toCouncilmember Joe McDermott.
(16:35):
And has just been really crucialto both the County Council,
where she worked for a long time.
And then Dow Constantine, shestarted working for in 2017.
And she's run for office a couple timesand lost, but she is sort of regarded as
the person who will be - I think somebodysaid a steady hand at the tiller - and
(16:56):
she's going to be in this position.
Well, actually, we don't know howlong right now because she is - just
a slight clarification - she's acting-
Thank you.
-King County Executive, whichis just this weird distinction.
Acting and interim soundlike they're the same thing.
But if she does not get appointedas interim - so there's a second
step that would have to happen, orthat has to happen for her to be
(17:19):
essentially the county executive- and that has not happened yet.
And I think there's some debateinternally on the County Council
about who should fill that role andwhether it should be Shannon Braddock.
I think it probably will endup being Shannon Braddock.
But it's a little up in theair - and there was kind of a weird
executive session that they wentinto when they voted on Shannon
(17:39):
Braddock - and so there's a littlebit of up-in-the-air quality to her
permanent appointment through November.
Very interesting.
Certainly for people who have workedclosely with King County Government and
its many initiatives, Shannon Braddockhas been intimately involved in many
of them and has been a steady hand inguiding the county for several years.
(18:02):
So I don't think many people aresurprised at all by this selection
- it seems like it makes sense tothe overwhelming amount of people.
Dow Constantine has just been hiredby Sound Transit to be their new
CEO - that's what opened up this slot.
And whoever is ultimately the interimcounty executive - presumably Shannon
(18:27):
Braddock, we'll assume for now - will holdthis until the new executive takes office.
Shannon Braddock is not currentlyrunning for this position.
Running for the position are KingCounty Councilmembers Claudia
Balducci and Girmay Zahilay, as wellas King County Assessor John Wilson.
And so we will have a new countyexecutive, but until then, the county
(18:52):
still needs to operate, especiallyas we deal with not just the everyday
business of the county, which is enoughin and of itself, but a lot of the
unexpected happenings, like we justtalked about from the federal government.
So we will continue to follow that.
Now what I do want to talk about isa story you wrote about Seattle City
(19:14):
Councilmember Cathy Moore awarding$1 million to The More We Love,
a service organization, withouta competitive bidding process.
So can you just tell us what happenedhere and what this process was?
Yeah, so I'll start by just kind ofexplaining what The More We Love is.
(19:36):
It's an organization that came onmy radar because I was covering
homelessness in Burien, which haspassed a total ban on sleeping outdoors.
And this group, The MoreWe Love, started coming up.
It was started by a Kirkland - I believe,former real estate broker named Kristine
Moreland, hence The More We Love.
And she basically came in and saidshe could do a better job than all the
(19:59):
other existing homelessness groups ingetting people into shelter and housing.
And so the City of Burien endedup ending a contract with REACH,
which is a longstanding homelessnessorganization, and giving it to her group.
Now, by all accounts, her group fillsa niche in Burien and does get people
(20:19):
into detox and shows up and takespeople to shelter, things like that.
So, fast forward to now, there has beena competitive process underway to award
some portion of $2 million - I thinkit's about $1.2 million - that Cathy
Moore got in the Seattle budget lastyear to basically create a "receiving
(20:41):
center" for people who are tryingto escape the sex trade on Aurora.
And so Kristine Moreland and TheMore We Love once again started
popping up - this time in Seattle.
They have never been activein this space before.
They are not sort of one ofthe groups that was lining up
to compete for this contract.
And a competitive bidding process wasunderway - the various groups have
(21:04):
been meeting to sort of talk aboutwhich niches each one could best
provide in bidding for these contracts.
And the RFP, which is a request forproposals, was going to go out in May.
And quite a bit of money has beenspent on this process, too - just
convening these meetings, citystaff being dedicated to this work.
And Cathy Moore decided that insteadof doing this, she was going to direct
(21:27):
the City's Human Services Departmentto award all of the money to Kristine
Moreland and The More we Love.
And the Human Services Departmentdoesn't actually - it's not under the
City Council, but they agreed to do it.
And so that's what's happening now.
So The More We Love is going to getthis contract for - basically, to take
(21:47):
women from Aurora down to its existinghouse that they run now in Renton.
So it's just - sorry for thelong, long windup, but that's kind
of the backstory and the story.
No, that's a really importantwindup and really important context.
And I actually wanted to geta little bit more context.
So part of the issue here is thatessentially there was a public bidding
(22:10):
process and the outreach and the workthat goes into that being teed up.
And that was essentially justterminated, or they just bypassed that.
Why are public biddingprocesses important?
Why do cities view that asbeing in the public interest?
Well, there's a lot of reasons.
I mean, the public deserves to knowwhere its money is being spent.
(22:33):
And the way that this money wasallocated last year, Cathy Moore
could have written it so that it wasessentially directed at The More We Love.
City does that all the time, usuallyfor smaller contracts, where they'll
say an organization that doesthis and this and this, and it's
obvious which organization it is.
She didn't do that.
And so that launched this competitiveprocess that was supposed to be
(22:55):
somewhat public, and where peoplecould go and they could look at
the proposals that everybody made.
And the Council itself could havea discussion about which of these
proposals made the most sense,how they made sense together.
Decisions about major, large amounts offunding - and $2 million is a large amount
of funding - are meant to be made both inpublic and not unilaterally by one person.
(23:18):
And so it is a problem.
Another issue is that we tend to,in the city, try to take equity and
diversity and inclusion into account.
And there's been a longstanding sortof issue in the sexual exploitation
survivor space about white-ledorganizations being put at the head
of things and getting all the money.
(23:39):
And I think that theseorganizations are very cognizant
of that or trying to address it.
And so this is basically a brand new tothis space, white-led organization that
Cathy Moore, white councilmember, isjust unilaterally handing money to, while
there's all these Black-led organizationsthat had hoped to compete for it.
(24:00):
And so there's an equityissue as well, I think.
Absolutely.
And the public has an interest inknowing it's not getting ripped off.
The public has an interest in knowingit's not throwing good money after
bad and buying a lemon, essentially.
And it seems like bypassingthe competitive process doesn't
(24:22):
give people much confidence thatthey're not getting ripped off and
that they're not buying a lemon.
The More We Love is new to thisspace, and they don't appear to have
any kind of track record here - orcertainly not a substantial one.
It does not mean that they can't dothe job, but it does mean that they
should be responsible for demonstratingthat they can and how they will
(24:45):
do that - which is usually what isinvolved in a public bidding process.
And now we don't know - is whatwe're paying for their services
two, three, four times as high as wewould be with another organization?
We don't even know theanswer to that question.
But that's one of the things thata public bidding process seeks to
understand and ensure doesn't happen,that - Hey, we are advertising a
(25:08):
uniform set of needs being addressed.
How can you do that?
At what price?
And so we don't know if this isthe best deal we've ever seen, or
the biggest ripoff we've ever seen.
And that is a stunning question tobe left with for a contract this
size, particularly when the cityis facing a budget deficit and
(25:30):
decreased funding from other sources.
And also, are they able todeliver on these services?
What capacity do they have?
We don't know that answer.
And I think in your previous reporting,you had also covered that - in
reviewing work that they had donein other sectors, it was unclear
(25:50):
specifically what they had delivered.
They sometimes providegeneralities, kind of an overview.
But specifically, what the moneyhas brought, what the results have
been doesn't appear to be clearto anyone at this point in time.
Yeah.
As I reported, they provided ayear-end report to the City of Burien.
(26:11):
And this was not required, so it's notlike there were - to be fair, there
weren't like specific parameters theywere supposed to fulfill in this report.
But still, it's a five-page documentthat says that The More We Love
assisted a certain number of people.
About 300 - and of those, they saidthere were 25 survivors helped.
And don't know what that means.
(26:32):
And the information we have about theirservices in Renton is pretty sketchy, too.
They have a house - as I mentioned,they bought a house down there
last year and are putting up somecommercially sexually exploited
women trying to leave the sex trade.
But they're saying that they canmassively expand services at that
house to accommodate somethinglike 25 women, and I'm not sure how
(26:54):
that's going to physically work.
But also, I mean, there's acouple problems with that.
Ordinarily, there's lots of organizationshere in Seattle, and they provide
different types of services to thesewomen who are trying to get off
the street on Aurora, and no oneorganization provides all the services.
And what Kristine Moreland'sgroup is saying is - We will
(27:14):
provide all the services.
And hopefully they willwork in collaboration with
some of these other groups.
But I think that it will bechallenging because they are in
Renton and most of these other groupsare located where the services are
actually needed, which is on Aurora.
So this house is 20 miles away, andI think that that is a significant
problem that the Council just didn'tget an opportunity to even talk about.
(27:37):
Because this money, as I said,has just been directed to them.
Has Cathy Moore or anyone else onthe Council responded to some of the
criticism and blowback that they'vereceived as a result of this decision?
Not to me.
Cathy Moore did not respondto my request to talk to her.
But I think that she has been prettydefensive whenever she's been sort
(27:57):
of pushed on anything that she hasproposed that has been controversial.
On this specific issue, it justhasn't really come up - because
it was just a unilateral thing,and she directed HSD to do it.
And HSD is an executive department - theydon't really have to talk about it.
They just can spend money if themayor's office tells them that they can.
(28:17):
And so that's what happened in this case.
So a lot of the responsibility - tobe fair to Cathy Moore, she made
this decision, but the mayor's officedid not have to go along with it.
And ordinarily, we haveseparation of powers.
And I would expect a mayor'soffice that was engaged on this
issue to ask a few more questionsthan it seems like they did.
Interesting.
(28:38):
Well, we will continueto follow how that goes.
Final thing I want to talk about wasCouncilmember Rob Saka denouncing the
defund movement through a resolution.
What did this resolution do, if itdid anything, and what did it say?
Well, ironically, this Councilgot elected saying, among other
(29:02):
things, that the last Council wasperformative and constantly passing
meaningless, non-binding resolutions.
And yet, Saka introduced and spentquite a bit of time talking about
this resolution, which is entirelyperformative and non-binding.
Don't care what the Council says - therewas a lot of rhetoric from everybody about
(29:23):
how this makes it possible for the consentdecree to be lifted, and that this means
that more people are going to apply tobe police in Seattle, etc. It doesn't.
All it does is say that the era of"defund," which never happened - you
have to say it every time - we didnot defund the police in Seattle.
(29:43):
But that era when people on the Councilwere openly discussing the idea of taking
some money from the police department andputting it into community-based public
safety organizations - that that is over.
Now, it's been over since 2020,but this Council has been, frankly,
rather obsessed with the 2020 Council.
(30:05):
And continues a year and three monthsin to blame that Council for all
the problems of the city, and thisis just another way of doing that.
Well, and it's so interesting tome because we're a year and three
months into the newest members'terms, but Sara Nelson, Mayor
Bruce Harrell were elected in 2021.
(30:26):
Yeah.
And so we have been inthis new era for years now.
After promises of hiring tonsand tons of new cops - that
have not quite come to fruition.
After tons of promises about improvingservices, improving police response time
(30:47):
and responsiveness, and reducing guncrime and all of these kinds of things.
And it's striking to me that we're nottalking about what we can do to better
address the many things that have beenpromised and not delivered, and yet
(31:07):
just passing a non-binding resolutionabout things that happened years ago.
Yeah.
Did they address that at all?
Well, it will shock youto know that they did not.
And the one councilmember who mighthave pushed back, Alexis Mercedes
Rinck, was not present - I'mnot sure why she was not there.
(31:28):
So there were only six councilmemberspresent - Dan Strauss and Cathy Moore
had asked for absences several weeks ago.
But yeah, they didn'treally get around to that.
Saka kind of gave a long, discursivelecture about how the last Council
was a bunch of white saviors andthat they didn't represent the
views of Black and Brown people.
(31:49):
And that he's never met another personin his community that - and he didn't say
what community he meant by that - but inhis community that opposes more funding
for police, that doesn't want more police.
And I thought that was particularlyinteresting that he said that the last
Council was white saviors, when a majorityof that council were women of color.
(32:10):
So his speech was pretty - likeall Rob Saka speeches, he hit on
a lot of points multiple times.
But I think that if defund is dead,it's really time for the Council
to stop talking about it and startactually taking action and implementing
policies that promote public safety.
And they point to these 14 public safetybills that they say they've passed.
(32:32):
And I would say, of those14, the substantive ones
were the SOAP and SODA laws.
And the rest are like signing off onsurveillance policies that SPD has, which
the last Council did, too - but theydon't get credit for those as public
safety bills because they're really not.
Interesting.
Well, it will be interesting tosee, especially as we head into
campaign season, how they docharacterize the records there.
(32:56):
And to be fair - it's not fair tosay that they haven't been talking
about anything else entirely.
Curious to see so much time spenton that non-binding resolution.
But there was seemingly substantiveconversation held by Sara Nelson and
the Council this past week about gunviolence, reducing gun violence and
(33:16):
findings from the City Auditor on that.
And I think you have a storycoming out about that soon.
Yeah, I do.
I'm actually talking to theCity Auditor today, Thursday,
about this audit that came out.
And it has some recommendations forhow the city could - I guess, to use
the parlance that they love - eliminatesilos and reduce gun violence, by
(33:37):
doing what a lot of other citieshave done, including Baltimore.
And having tables where public healthauthorities and police and community
groups sit down and talk about ways toreduce known hot spots for gun violence,
to address those, and just a whole host ofother things that are in place elsewhere.
(33:58):
This conversation at the Council - itgot a little heated between the mayor's
office and both Sara Nelson and MaritzaRivera on the Council, because the
mayor's contention, or Deputy MayorTiffany Washington's contention, was that
this audit was unnecessary because thecity is already doing all these things.
And the audit says explicitly thatthe city is not doing these things.
(34:20):
So those were verycontradictory statements.
The auditor was sort of sitting there atthe table with the mayor's office folks
and with SPD, so it was a little awkward.
But Rivera got pretty passionate,saying - Look, gun violence is
not getting better in my district.
It's getting worse.
And she pointed to Magnuson Park,which is one of the hot spots that
the audit identified as a place wherethere have been a number of shootings.
(34:43):
And she basically said - Why aren'twe doing anything about this?
Why are you always back heresaying that you can't get anything
done or you're trying your best?
And the mayor's office essentiallysaid - Well, we've had all these great
recommendations since the last audit,which was in 2012, but the Council
has stymied us every single time.
She didn't provide anyspecific examples of that.
(35:05):
But 2012 was a long time ago.
Bruce Harrell wasn't mayor,but he was on the Council.
He was a councilmember, yes.
And so that was interesting.
So, yeah, I think there's quite a bitof tension there that we're going to
continue to see play out over whetherthe city and the mayor's office and SPD
are actually addressing gun violencein a meaningful way, or just sort of
(35:27):
running around and being reactive.
Which is essentially one of the audit'sconclusions - that SPD is reacting and the
mayor's office is reacting, but people arenot talking to each other and they're not
talking to King County Public Health inany structured, meaningful, ongoing way.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And not only was Bruce Harrell acouncilmember, but so was Tim Burgess,
(35:49):
who is a deputy mayor with the city, so-
Right.
-curious to see the past versions ofpeople who are now in the mayor's office
blamed for work of those same people nowin the mayor's office not getting done.
But we will be eagerly awaitingyour story and appreciate your
(36:09):
informative and enlightening coveragethat we always receive about this.
And with that, we thank you forlistening to Hacks & Wonks on
this Friday, April 4th, 2025.
The producer of Hacks & Wonksis the incredible Shannon Cheng.
Our insightful co-host today wasSeattle political reporter, editor
of PubliCola, and co-host of theSeattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett.
(36:32):
You can find Erica on Bluesky at@ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com.
You can follow Hacks & Wonksand me on Bluesky as well.
You can catch Hacks & Wonks on ApplePodcasts, Spotify, or wherever else
you get your podcasts - just type"Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar.
Be sure to subscribe to get the fullversions of our Friday week-in-review
shows and our Tuesday topical showdelivered to your podcast feed.
(36:55):
If you like us, leave areview wherever you listen.
You can also get a full transcriptof this episode and links to the
resources referenced in the showat officialhacksandwonks.com.
Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next
(37:16):
time.
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