June 20, 2025 • 48 mins
On this week-in-review, Crystal Fincher and Robert Cruickshank discuss:
👑 ‘No Kings’ protests
⚕️ WA immigrants' health data shared w/ feds
🏘️ Housing First works well
🚍 Saka erases advocates, makes deal w/ Curby
🤑 RealPage ban delayed
🎒 School waitlists lifted
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, Robert Cruickshank, on Bluesky at @robertcruickshank.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
(00:21):
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.
This week, we posted a convenientlightning round comparison chart
from our Seattle City CouncilDistrict 2 candidate interviews.
Check out our website if you're tryingto figure out the difference between the
(00:42):
candidates at officialhacksandwonks.com.
And if you're struggling with all theSeattle City attorney challengers,
we also have a chart for them too!
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, friend of theshow and today's co-host: chair of Sierra
Club Seattle, longtime communications andpolitical strategist, Robert Cruickshank.
(01:06):
Welcome back!
Thanks for having me again, Crystal.
Good to be here.
Great to have you here.
Well, we certainly have a fewthings to talk about today, starting
out with the 'No Kings' protestsand ICE activity in Tukwila.
What happened here?
What did we see withthese 'No Kings' protests?
And what statement was being made?
(01:28):
I think that, first of all, you sawwhat appears to be the largest protest
in American history by differentmeasurements - millions of people across
the country showing up in cities largeand small, places urban and rural - to
protest against Trump and the Trumpadministration in many of its forms.
Here in Seattle, at least 70,000people showed up at Cal Anderson Park.
(01:50):
My family and I were there - we broughtthe kids - listened to some great
speakers, including Pramila Jayapaland others, talking about the various
ways in which we need to resist Trump.
One of the things that I think reallyturbocharged attendance at these 'No
Kings' rallies - here, certainly inSeattle, and around the country - is what
we've seen in the last month or so, whichis a massively stepped up effort by the
(02:14):
Trump administration through ICE to roundup, deport, take away immigrants, to
arrest people - roll up to a Home Depotparking lot in southern California in an
unmarked SUV with masks covering theirface and just grab people and drive off.
We also saw things like members ofCongress being arrested, senators
(02:35):
being arrested, New York Cityelected officials being arrested.
These acts of authoritarianism, Ithink, really helped draw people out.
I saw a lot of signs at the rallyin Seattle about ICE - the need
to melt ICE, to abolish ICE, tostand up for immigrants, to stand
up to this authoritarianism.
So I think that while these 'NoKings' protests were planned well in
(02:58):
advance - reacting to Trump's monarchicalideas, his authoritarianism more
generally - I think we're starting tosee a major focus of this become the
horrific abuses of human rights, oflaw, and of authoritarianism in the
administration's anti-immigrant policy.
And it is a blanket anti-immigrantpolicy, to be very clear about this.
(03:22):
That wasn't the only thingthat happened this week.
Late last week, a number of peoplereceived text messages telling them
that they needed to report to a HomelandSecurity facility in Tukwila over the
weekend, which was highly unusual.
And part of what this administration isdoing is putting people in an impossible
position - where you are told you haveto show up for an administrative meeting,
(03:47):
a hearing, whatever - you're told you'vegot to report to Homeland Security as a
condition of your being in this country.
And if you refuse,you're subject to arrest.
However, if you show up,you're also being arrested.
That is where, for example, earlierthis week, New York City Comptroller and
mayoral candidate Brad Lander was at oneof these hearings and standing up for
(04:09):
an immigrant who he was helping - andgot arrested when he questioned this.
Even here in Washington State, formerSpokane City Council President Ben
Stuckart was helping an immigrant friendof his, who he was caring for in Spokane,
when they got called into one of thesehearings and was arrested on the spot.
And Ben Stuckart led an impromptuprotest to try to block the
van from being taken away.
Well, what happened here in Seattle isprotesters showed up at that facility
(04:33):
in Tukwila - used informal, impromptubarricades, tried to block off the
facility and tried to prevent anyarrests, deportations from happening.
What you're seeing here is, Ithink, really important, because
it's a deliberate provocation.
It's a provocation by the Trumpadministration, Stephen Miller - who's
leading a lot of this in the White House- ICE, to not only provoke fear into the
(04:57):
hearts of every immigrant in this country.
But to also pick fights with people whowant to stand up against authoritarianism
and stand up for immigrant rights.
And there's a whole discussion about- Well, do you give Trump what he wants?
But I think
we all have an obligation to stand upagainst authoritarianism when we see it.
(05:17):
We all have an obligation tostand up and resist violations
of human rights when we see it.
And I think what you're seeing lastweekend - whether it is in Tukwila, with
people showing up and creating barricadesto stop deportations, or whether it's
in Seattle, with 70,000+ people showingup to march in the streets - there is
a broad resistance that exists in thiscountry that is feeling emboldened and
(05:38):
empowered and is going to fight back.
And I think that is a verypositive, promising sign.
I think it's a reallypositive and promising sign.
And I think a lot of people are waking upto the fact that if they don't stand up,
there may not be anyone else who does.
We've seen institutions, frankly, fail us.
(05:58):
We've seen that the backstops andthe checks and balances that are
supposed to prevent stuff likethis - that appear to be, on their
face, just plainly unconstitutional- the removal of due process, like
that's just not supposed to happen.
But it is, and a lot of thingsthat we assume were supposed
to stop it have not stopped it.
(06:20):
So really, it is up tocommunities mobilizing.
And I think you raised a really goodpoint when you talk about the provocation
of this activity - the provocation ofcompletely overnight changes of people's
immigration status, of our stancetowards immigrants in this country.
That people who are not identifiable- faces covered, completely nondescript
(06:47):
uniforms, just - we've seen take peopleoff the street, essentially disappear
them, and no one knows where they're at.
That is a provocation, and it'sfrustrating to many people to see the
response to a provocation - a responsethat they want to get, that they know
they're going to get - being coveredas if it's violent on its own and
(07:09):
uncalled for, inappropriate, uncivil.
And it's a response to incivility.
It's a response to what appears tobe unconstitutional, just violating
people's basic rights, and just beingnot compatible with what we consider to
be how we want our communities to be,who we want to be in our communities,
(07:32):
what we value in our communities.
And so I think what we've seenwith a number of these responses
is that they've been effective.
We've had protests that - but for protests- they would have rounded up more people.
They did have plans to escalate activity.
And one thing I think they'refinding - and a lot of people are
(07:53):
noticing - is that it's hard tofight on multiple fronts at one time.
And so the more people who are turningout, the harder it is for them to
act like this is just concentratedoperation and limited bad actors
who are preventing lawful activity.
And I think it's really heartening,too - to not only see people turn out
(08:14):
in Seattle, but to turn out in DesMoines and Federal Way and Bremerton and
Lynnwood and Port Orchard and Bellingham.
And these cities that you don'tnecessarily associate with traditional
political protests - there's aprotest that's going to be there.
And maybe not a big Democratic orprogressive population, but people from
(08:38):
all walks of life, from all backgrounds,from broad ideologies, standing up
together and saying - What we're seeingis unacceptable, and we're willing to
show up and do something about it matters.
I think that's spot on.
I mean, there was maybe a thousandpeople in Wenatchee - so it's central
Washington, rural Washington, places farfrom the usual blue parts of the state,
(09:02):
where there are people speaking out.
And it's hard to speakout in a place like that.
I think people were sharing videosfrom rural Iowa of people coming
into, holding 'No Kings' signs atthe corner of their small town.
That matters.
And you talk about question ofprovocation and how to respond.
Elected Democrats - Chuck Schumer,others - often try to wag a finger and
(09:26):
say, Don't give Trump what he wants.
What he wants, above all else, is the samething any other authoritarian wants - is
for us to silently walk away and give up.
That is, above all, what they want.
The thing they do not want isorganized, sustained resistance.
And giving back organized,sustained resistance is absolutely
essential to stopping this - to have
(09:49):
any chance of restoring a real democracyin this country and hopefully purging
Trumpism and MAGA from our politics,which we have to do at some point.
Absolutely.
I also want to talk this weekabout a revelation that Washington
immigrants' protected health data wasshared with deportation officials.
(10:09):
What happened?
Yeah, this has been a fear for a while.
Washington and other states thatprovide health coverage to undocumented
immigrants and their families - that'sa very good thing to do - it does
involve collecting some health data.
And the promise has always been that thestate will do everything in its power to
prevent that information being shared.
(10:31):
Some of that does wind up in thehands of the federal government.
And when you have Barack Obamain the White House or Joe Biden
in the White House, the privacyof that information is upheld.
But Stephen Miller and his gang inthe Trump administration are trying
to find every bit of information theypossibly can to target immigrants.
And what they got Robert F. Kennedyto do - was to help use his own
(10:53):
authority to try to start gettingat some of this information of who
are the immigrants, where are they,who's undocumented, where are they.
They're doing this massive datahunt across all levels of government
to try to pull everything togetherthey can, because Stephen Miller is
determined to do this mass deportation.
He wants millions of peopleto be rounded up, arrested.
(11:16):
And going after healthdata is one piece of it.
And that's fairly alarming becausehealth data is intensely private and
you need to get healthcare - it'snot something that people can just
neglect without putting themselvesat risk and their families at risk.
And so to see this happen is alarmingin and of itself - it's another sign of
just how right-wing and extreme RobertF. Kennedy Jr. is - but it is yet another
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example of how the basic privacy and ourrights to privacy are under assault, as
part of this widening authoritarianismemanating from the White House, under
the cover of their hunt for immigrants.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think you raise a good pointabout our values here in Washington.
(12:00):
In Washington, we understandthat we're all better when we
all have access to healthcare.
And so this was part of the Medicaidprogram - but federal dollars in Medicaid
are prohibited from being spent onundocumented immigrants, so in Washington
state, we made the decision to say we'regoing to cover it with state funds.
(12:21):
And it was through that decision andcommunication after that that said - 'Hey,
if you're undocumented, that's okay.
You can access healthcare.
We're not going to care about it.
We want everybody to be healthy.
And if people are unhealthy, itmakes everyone else unhealthy.
And so don't worry about that - you cangive us your information, we'll keep
it safe, won't put you in any kind ofdanger.' And then, as part of some data
(12:48):
agreement to share Medicaid data - now,whether that only refers to federally
funded activity or also includesstate-funded activity is a question that
we don't know - but through the collectionof this data, and through basically
giving it to a centralized Medicaid datastore, all of this information was sent.
(13:12):
And as you said, this Trump administrationis going after the lowest hanging fruit
in order to try and make their quotanumbers for deportation - that's been
reported to be 3,000 deportations a day,which they're having trouble meeting,
because, shocking, there did not appear tobe roving hordes of criminal immigrants,
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as they tried to paint the picture of,that these are just people working hard
in their communities, living their lives.
And that information wastaken by Homeland Security.
So now everything from people'saddresses to what issues they were
dealing with, probably employmentinformation was collected as part of
that - all of this personal data isnow in the hands of Homeland Security.
(13:56):
By the way, it wasn't just undocumentedimmigrants - they have anyone's
information, documented or not, citizenor not, in Washington State now.
But it really does raise the questionof - are our state officials being
as careful and judicious with thisinformation as they should be?
Are they understanding that handing overdata has consequences, that collecting
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and storing data has consequences?
Was there thought given into - werethere ways to not hand over this data?
Or did we just do it without question?
I think these are the types ofquestions that need answers.
I think this is something that reallyneeds to be uncovered and dissected to
make sure that it doesn't happen againthroughout any of the state departments.
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I really hope to see a deep diveon this because this is really
consequential - and is the reason why somany data privacy advocates say it's so
important to have policies around this.
It's so critical not to collectthis information in the first place.
I think also underscores how importantit is to pay attention to what's
happening on a state and local level- because what's happening with this
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administration cannot happen withoutthe cooperation and information
from the state and local level.
And if we don't agree with it, whichwe have said at a state level - Bob
Ferguson has talked about not doingthis and has taken this administration
to court previously - then how arewe backing that up with our actions?
I think that's reallyimportant to examine.
(15:28):
Yeah, I think that's right.
And I think there needs to be a fullreview by the Governor's office of
everything the state is doing to protectthe privacy of data, to protect privacy
of individuals, to not cooperate withthis regime in D.C. on any of this stuff.
And Ferguson talks a good game on a lotof things, but this is just as important
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as saying you're going to fight thefederalization of the National Guard.
It's just as important as saying you'refiling a lawsuit against DOGE taking away
previously approved money for the state.
You have to step up and stop - every toolyou have - Homeland Security's attempts
to violate our privacy, to attack ourhuman rights, and to undermine the
(16:12):
promises we made to people in good faith.
Yeah, this is not a theoretical problem.
We are seeing in real-timehow this data is being used.
And that so much of our communityand us as a state - we've said,
We do not agree with this.
So we do expect to see that carriedout from our state and local officials.
(16:33):
Now, I want to talk about - kind ofa ray of sunshine - a bit of good
news that was announced this week.
And that was we received datathat King County's Housing First
initiative boasts a high success rate.
This has been a challenging issueon how to deal with homelessness.
And a lot of people have beenfrustrated for a while, saying - We're
(16:53):
seeing what's working in othercities around the country, and we
just want to do that here, too.
We finally did with HousingFirst - and what did it show?
Well, Amy Sundberg wrote about this atThe Urbanist this week - and King County
released data showing that Housing Firstpolicies work incredibly well - they
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work a lot better than other policy.
95% of people in permanent supportivehousing through the Housing First
program remained housed over a year.
Whereas in emergency housing - whereyou just put people in the first place
you can find and not provide a lot ofsupport, just a roof over the head, which
is valuable, but much less effective - 58%of those folks stayed housed after a year.
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So it's clear that these HousingFirst policies, especially when
they're provided alongside otherservices that people need, it works.
Because homelessness is not amoral failing of the individual
experiencing homelessness, it's amoral failing of the rest of our
society to not meet that person's need.
And if you get them housed and providethe services at the place where
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they're being housed, you are far, farmore likely to actually solve this.
And this just infuriates people on theright wing of our politics - whether it's
Sara Nelson or the Republican Party, orwhoever - because they really believe
that homelessness should be punished.
It should be punished with criminalaction, police action, forcing people
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into rehab - because the assumption isthat the problem is there's something
wrong with you, whether you're in mentalhealth crisis or a drug addiction,
and that's why you're homeless.
Even folks experiencing those problemsfind that under Housing First policies,
they have a better success rate ofgetting treated and therefore being
able to actually sustain housing.
(18:45):
So the record is very, veryclear that Housing First works.
But you're going to, I think, continueto see attacks on Housing First policies
from people - not because it doesn'twork, but it violates the core ideological
belief of people on the political rightthat you have to punish homelessness.
They can't stand anything otherthan punishing homelessness.
(19:06):
They viscerally react against theidea of genuinely helping people who
are experiencing homelessness, eventhough Housing First policies have been
proven again and again and again, tobe the most effective thing you can
actually do to tackle homelessness.
It really is.
And it's not really close, aswe just saw in the comparison
of percentages and results.
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The other element, I think, is thatthe kind of punitive punishment
approach appears to be cheaper upfront.
It's really always more expensive inthe long run because you don't solve
the problem and you're continuallytreating symptoms without addressing
the root cause and the thing thatactually makes the difference.
And we see that in the approach to justsweeps in perpetuity - moving people
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from one place to another withoutreally solving or intervening in the
real issue, versus getting people intohousing - that takes more work, that
takes more coordination upfront, ittakes more of an effort to stand up the
people and the processes to do that.
But once that happens and when that isfunded, it actually does do so much more
(20:16):
to solve the problem, to permanentlyget people off of the streets - where
that's reflected elsewhere in policeovertime, and in these back-end costs
that end up blowing up budgets, butaren't reflected in that initial cost.
Yeah.
It was 10 years ago - 2015 - whenthen-mayor Ed Murray in Seattle declared
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a state of emergency around homelessness.
That's 10 years ago.
And the primary way the City has respondedto homelessness is through sweeps.
They've done some things to investhere and there - there's some money
that went to Tiny House villages,there's some city money that is in
these Housing First programs - but itis not the primary method of response.
They spent 10 years essentially sweepingthe problem all over the city, and it
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isn't getting solved without housing.
Housing First is the first step.
The other thing, of course, you haveto do is try to prevent homelessness
by building more housing of all types,including subsidized affordable housing.
But for those who are already experiencinghomelessness, Housing First policies
are the thing that need to be done.
If we'd been funding this at the scale weneeded - starting 10 years ago, when Ed
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Murray declared that state of emergency- thousands, literally thousands of people
would be housed, they'd be having theirvarious needs met, and there would be
a lot more people still alive today.
Because the death toll of beinghomeless is significant - and
the failure of the city to reallytriple down on these successful
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Housing First policies is a problem.
And we still have people like SaraNelson out there railing against
them at every possible opportunity.
This is something that I think willneed to be a major element of campaigns
in Seattle this year - What arewe going to do about homelessness?
It comes up every two yearswhen there's a City election.
We have the answer in front of us - itis Housing First - and we need to
fund it at the scale that is needed.
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We absolutely do need to fund itat the scale that it is needed.
And it looks like the county is leadingthe way in doing this and showing results.
But as you say, it is as importantto turn off the faucet here.
We're trying to bail out thehouse and the faucet is still on.
And the biggest contributor tohomelessness is high housing costs.
(22:28):
There's a lot of people whotalk about - Oh, you know, it's
addiction, it's criminality.
But the areas with the highest housingcosts - not the highest crime rates,
not the highest rates of addiction, butthe highest housing costs - experience
the highest rates of homelessness.
It is an affordability issue.
It is a housing issue.
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We have to make inroads with that.
We have seen a lot of encouraging activityfrom the state level on down to make
this happen - and that needs to continue.
And that needs to be pairedwith these processes.
But it's a challenging conversationfor a lot of people, because a lot
of times when these conversations arebeing had in the media and presented
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in this left versus right frame, theright frame is - We just need to punish
them, throw them in jail, that'll cleanthem up - without any acknowledgement
that jail is extremely expensive.
It's more expensive thanjust about anything else.
We spend a lot of money on that.
Check public budgets - that's extremelyexpensive - we have to defund other things
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in order to fund that kind of response.
We've had to defund other thingsto fund the endless sweeps
response in the city of Seattle.
Those things don't work.
They're not easy.
It's not as easy as trying tomandate treatment, especially
because that treatment barelyexists - that capacity is low, anyway.
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So to really get to addressing theroot of the problem - and I do commend
King County, both the executive and thecouncil, for leading here and taking
this action - and we do need to see morepeople following if we're as serious
as about addressing this homelessnessproblem as the rhetoric suggests.
But we did also see some challenging newsin that Washington State cut funding for
(24:19):
the homeless encampment removal program,which was also experiencing success.
What was the difference between thisencampment removal program and sweeps?
And why was the funding cut for it?
Yeah, so this started under Jay Inslee afew years ago, and in response to a lot
of visible homelessness along Interstate5 and other state-owned highways.
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And what this program did was eitherrent or outright buy hotel space across
the state to get people out of tents,and into at least a roof over the head.
Now we talked about the HousingFirst policies and how if you have
permanent, supportive housing withwraparound services around them,
you get the 95% success rate.
(25:01):
You still had 58% success withemergency housing, which is what
this Washington State right-of-wayprogram had attempted to do - just
get people in out of the elements.
And that is a good thing to do - ratherthan just destroy someone's tent and
belongings, throw it away and send themsomewhere else, and you lose track - what
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the state was trying to do with thisprogram is to get people actually into
a warm bed with a bathroom, and a doorthat locks, and a roof over your head.
And this was also providing a lot ofsuccess to the people who needed help,
who were living in these tent encampments.
It was also providing political successfor Democrats, who have been getting
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hammered on this issue across the state.
And you can still now driveanywhere in Washington state and
see visible homelessness - thisis not a Seattle problem.
As housing has become moreexpensive in this state,
homelessness explodes everywhere.
And so, Inslee was trying toaddress this with this program.
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But what happened was earlier thisyear - when the State Legislature and
the Governor Ferguson decided they didn'twant to pass a wealth tax - instead,
they issued a whole bunch of budget cuts.
And one of the thingsthey cut was this program.
So their reluctance to truly tax therich and the biggest corporations in
the state meant that a program thatwas providing real beneficial help
to people experiencing homelessness,as well as political benefit to
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Democrats - they just cut it.
There's so many mind-boggling cuts thatthis legislature and governor did this
year out of their refusal to tax the rich- at least at the scale that is needed
- there were some increases in taxes onthe rich that did happen this year,
like increases in the capital gains tax.
So they did some things, but they heldoff on the biggest thing that they
(26:48):
could have done, which is a wealth tax.
And this is the consequence - peopleexperiencing homelessness are going to pay
a price because a program that was givingemergency shelter is now going away.
And Democrats will pay a politicalprice, when homelessness resurges
along these very visible placesall across Washington state.
It is one of these cuts that I'm justlooking at legislators and the governor
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thinking - Is it really worth it to you toappease Brad Smith, the CEO of Microsoft?
Is it really worth it to appease Amazon?
Is it really worth it to appease Boeing?
- to harm homeless folks and harm yourown political prospects by cutting
successful programs like this.
I don't get it.
Yeah.
I mean, the success is in actuallygetting people off of those highway
(27:36):
right-of-ways, off of that property.
Whether you're a Democrat or aRepublican - at the end of the
day, most people are looking aroundand what they can visibly see and
making an evaluation based on that.
You have got to make progresson the problems that you say are
problems and your top priority.
This was doing that.
So to move backwards - I'm in thesame place you are - it is baffling
(28:00):
because this was actually deliveringon promises and on priorities.
And so just a confounding result.
And people say - Ah, in toughbudget times, there are tough
choices to be made - which are true.
But I think you accurately pointedout - they made some choices that made
those choices harder and the optionsworse, by not pursuing the kind of
(28:25):
progressive revenue that they could have.
But also, you do have todeliver at the end of the day.
You do have to improve lifeand conditions on the ground.
So we'll see what happens from here.
I want to turn to the city of Seattle andtalk about a couple of developments here.
First, Rob Saka wanting to makea deal impacting traffic safety,
(28:54):
pedestrian safety in the mostconfounding way, and seemingly by
throwing some people under the bus.
What's the deal here?
So Rob Saka has been on this crusadeagainst a curb that was placed into the
middle of a street in West Seattle aspart of a Rapid Ride transit project.
(29:16):
And this is normally done by SDOT tohelp prevent cars from passing a bus
when it is stopped to pick up passengers.
This helps traffic flow moresafely and smoothly, protects
the bus, protects the bus riders.
The one that Saka objected to hadbeen put in front of a preschool, and
(29:38):
people were no longer able to just turnleft off the street into the parking
lot - you had to go up, make a U-turn,or come around in a different way.
Right?
Big deal - this happensall the time in the city.
It's helping everyone stay safe, right?
If you can't have a car suddenlyturning left out of the blue into
this parking lot where the little kidsare - those kids are safer as well.
But Saka was up in arms aboutthis on the campaign trail.
(30:02):
He's been fighting againstthis curb all along.
And now, activists who are fighting forsafe streets and pedestrian safety in
West Seattle have put up cartoon signsbased on a Brett Hamill comic naming this
divider in the center of the road "Curby."And what Rob Saka did was announce that
SDOT had worked out some sort of solution- where you can park or stop in the bus area
(30:26):
or use the bus lane at certain hours ofthe day, you can make certain turns into
the parking lot, but "Curby" will stay.
And Saka made it clear that he's awareof the "Curby" phenomenon - he's aware
of the criticism by calling it "Curby,"and saying that "Curby" will stay.
That's not all Saka did.
He really doubled down - and he's beenframing this as an equity issue and trying
(30:49):
to paint pedestrian safety advocates assomehow privileged folks who don't care
about working class people because wecan't make a free left turn off a street.
And in this long email - I think itwas over 2,000 words, email blast - he
blamed what he called a "radical proxy'war on cars,'" hypocrisy on immigrant
(31:12):
justice, he talked about that safetyadvocates are "harassing" immigrants.
According to Erica Barnett, who wroteabout this, Saka's equating these
pedestrian safety advocates withTrump and his deportation agenda.
I mean, it's just unhingedstuff from Rob Saka.
I mean, I get that there is adispute about how we use the streets.
(31:34):
I get there is thisdispute about this curb.
Being a local elected officialmeans sometimes you're going to
be arguing over stuff like this.
Right?
When we worked the mayor's office forMike McGinn 15 years ago, this sort
of thing came up - you deal with it.
But you deal with it - hopefully,reasonably - which is just not
what Rob Saka is doing at all.
He's going out of his way to disparageand demean people who are just
(31:57):
fighting for safety, including thesafety of the immigrant families
all throughout the city, includingthose using that preschool.
It's just utterly unhingedstuff from Rob Saka.
It is.
And I think it's important to notethat - one, this is happening against
the backdrop of several pedestrian deathsin his district, which is why there was
(32:19):
such an outcry from every sector of thecommunity - that something has to be done.
Seeing people being criticallyinjured and killed - just trying to
cross some crosswalks, just tryingto cross the street, walk along
the street - has been increasing.
This is a problem.
(32:40):
We talk about the problem of gun violence.
We talk about the problem ofpeople being hurt by other means.
This is as unacceptable.
We don't want people being hurt,succumbing to violence - whether it's gun
or traffic, or whatever else have you.
If there was a major health hazardthat was killing people, people
(33:01):
would be up in arms to address it.
So this is pretty standard there.
And on top of that, some of themost prominent voices in the most
impacted communities by this kindof traffic violence are low-income,
immigrant, people of color - andthey're making their voices heard.
(33:21):
So the kind of disappearing, of erasureof this is pretty offensive to all
of the people in the community whoare in the groups that he's saying
are being harmed, who are standingup to make their voices heard and
saying - 'Hey, I rely on the bus.
I've got to walk there.
My kids have got to walk to the bus totake it to school, and it's dangerous
(33:44):
and I'm scared and I want somethingto be done.' To completely erase those
voices and kind of speak over themis pretty offensive in and of itself.
And so I just - it's reallydisappointing to see this.
It's disappointing to see the attentionand expenditures of money that have
been fighting this problem instead ofgoing to actual solutions to address
(34:09):
and actually solve the problem.
And just the defensiveness aroundthis is pretty mind-boggling
for an elected official.
Yeah, it's very mind-boggling.
As someone who's worked incity government, this is not
how you deal with the public.
It's certainly not how you dealwith the public and expect to be
taken seriously or respected by it.
When you talk about advocacy fromlow-income communities, communities
(34:33):
of color around traffic violence - Idon't believe Saka has done very much
at all to advocate for safety alongthe Sound Transit light rail corridor
and MLK in South Seattle, where wecontinue to see traffic violence, people
getting hit and killed - sometimesby light rail vehicles, sometimes
by cars turning to beat the train.
It is a serious problem.
(34:54):
Tammy Morales and others have spentyears trying to raise concerns about
this - trying to get Sound Transit tostep in and fund it, trying to get SDOT
to step in and fund some of this stuff.
Saka's nowhere to be found.
Saka's not speaking up on this.
And as you point out - instead, he'strying to silence those voices that have
spoken up by trying to make this seem likeelite white folks only care about buses.
(35:16):
Assuming like no low incomeperson in his district's riding
the Rapid Ride - many are.
It's just very self-serving,I think, of Rob Saka in a way
that is fundamentally offensive.
And hopefully this is something thatpeople in West Seattle are paying
close attention to - especially come2027, when Saka is up for reelection.
(35:36):
Absolutely.
I also want to talk about aRealPage ban being delayed.
So what is RealPage?
Why was a ban put in place?
And why is there now a delay?
So what has happened in the last fiveyears is a lot of apartment owners - some
large, some small - have started to usealgorithmic price indexes to set rents.
(36:02):
And what this does is take the normalpractice of a landlord looking at
comps - going on Craigslist and saying,Oh, you have a two-bedroom apartment in
Ballard, what are you renting it for?
Oh, you rent it at $2,000, I can try torent mine for $2,000 - taking that and
turbocharging it by using algorithmsto set rents as high as possible.
It is essentially a form of highlysophisticated, high-tech price gouging.
(36:27):
And it is something that a lotof people in the housing advocacy
movement have called to be banned.
The Biden administration waslooking into this with its
Department of Justice last year.
Many states have taken on bansof algorithmic price fixing.
And RealPage is a company thatis a leader in using algorithms
to set rents as high as possible.
Cathy Moore had been proposing this- maybe one of the only good things
(36:49):
she can do before leaving office nextmonth - but it was going to be fast
tracked and back to the City Council.
But all of a sudden, thisweek, the brakes are pumped.
Apartment owners' lobbyistsare raising concerns.
Property managers are raisingconcerns about - Oh, it could
cause problems in X, Y, and Z ways.
And so all of a sudden, the one, the fewgood things we saw out of Cathy Moore's
(37:11):
office, one of the few good things thatthis City Council was doing to help
renters is all of a sudden stalled.
And I think it's just another exampleof how even something that is pretty
obvious to do, like ban this sort ofprice gouging and ban using high-tech
to gouge renters - you can't get througheasily this Seattle City Council.
(37:33):
It's just one thing after another fromthis current City Hall, targeting the
people who are trying to afford to tolive in this increasingly expensive city.
It really is another confounding thing.
Because among the most popular things- if you poll, if you ask around, and
looking at results of elections - arerenter protections right now.
(37:53):
This is not a partisan issue.
It doesn't matter left versus right.
It doesn't matter whether a city hasa history of voting for Republicans
or Democrats on a local level.
We've seen a number of local initiativesacross the state dealing with renter
protections, and they're passingeverywhere - because people everywhere
are recognizing that the rent is toohigh all over the place, and seeing the
(38:16):
collusion and price fixing happening.
And kind of saying - 'Is it not enoughthat you and your billionaire buddies
are already making out like bandits?
You have to collude to just raise alittle bit more and squeeze out every
last cent of profit from the people whocan least afford it.' It's not enough,
and it's just too much, and it's timepeople start putting some guardrails
(38:39):
around this and standing up and saying- 'At some point, enough is enough.'
And this is beyond that point for justabout everyone, just about everywhere.
So to see this Council, once again, wadeinto an issue like this - where there's
broad public support, similar to howtrying to lower the minimum wage for gig
drivers, pretty universally unpopular.
(39:01):
And they found that out the hardway by trying to proceed with an
unpopular policy and then getting theirsurprised Pikachu face when the entire
community turns out against it - feelslike we're going down the same path.
What we've known is that, you know,there have been rumblings about
weakening of renter protections farand wide for a while now - that this
(39:24):
is something that is on the agenda.
This seems to have beenadded to that agenda.
And anything that can be done to maximizeprofit, to minimize regulation - we're
seeing landlords and some of the bigdevelopers, some of the far-right
elements really advocating for.
(39:44):
This is no different than the bigcorporations on the Congressional
level - just making a play with theirlobbyists to extract every ounce of
profit from us and to reduce regulation.
This is this on the local scale.
And why it's so important to payattention to local elections is
that we're seeing this happen.
And kind of unambiguously, tothe detriment of regular people,
(40:09):
regular renters - which areso many people in Seattle and
increasing number of cities now.
So just challenging to see them wadeinto another issue - hoping people
aren't paying attention, but that wealready know is broadly unpopular.
Out of all the things on their plate thatthey could be addressing, here we go.
(40:29):
Exactly.
And it's striking to me that thisis one of the few things that was
potentially going to help renters.
But this is an anti-price gouging tool.
If you are fleeing a hurricane inthe South, and you stop at a gas
station and suddenly the price of gasis 100% higher than it was before.
Or you stop at a hotel and suddenlya room that was listed the day
(40:52):
before at $100 a night is now $300 anight - people prosecute that stuff.
That's just obvious price gouging,taking advantage of a crisis.
And that's what RealPage exists todo - there's a housing shortage,
and it exists to help people takeadvantage of that shortage by
gouging renters as much as possible.
Banning RealPage doesn't solvethe housing crisis, but it helps.
(41:13):
And it certainly helps - prosecutingpeople who try to take advantage of it
- I'm all for that sort of prosecution.
I'm all for those sorts of bans.
But it's just striking to me how eventhis, which is broadly popular and easy,
struggles to get out of the City Council.
Absolutely.
And the same people advocatingfor the policies that create these
(41:35):
housing shortages are the same peopleadvocating for these policies that take
advantage of that housing shortage.
Same donors, sameelements - and it's a problem.
Last thing I want to talk about todayis that waitlists have been lifted
in Seattle Public Schools - whatthis means, why these waitlists
(41:58):
existed in the first place, and whatthe result of that is going to be.
Yeah, this is an issue that isbubbling up over the last few
months in Seattle Public Schoolsand starting to get wider attention.
I mentioned Tammy Morales earlier- she had shown up at a school
board meeting in April to advocatethat these waitlists be moved.
Sarah Clark and Joe Mizrahi - twoschool board members who are running for
(42:19):
re-election this year - had a great op-edin The Urbanist last month about this.
What happens is - just take a bigpicture view - if you have a lot of
money and privilege in this city,you can send your kid anywhere.
You can send your kid to a publicschool, you can send your kid to a
private school - you have your pick.
But if you don't have thatprivilege - if you're a low-income
(42:39):
immigrant family - you have a schoolthat is assigned to your student.
But what if that doesn't work?
What if that program at that schooldoesn't meet your needs, but something
else nearby in the public system would?
For 50 or so years, Seattle PublicSchools has had a school choice
process - within the public system.
These are people not leaving publiceducation or staying in public
(43:02):
schools - who can apply to sendtheir kids to a different school.
It could be an option school, analternative program, even just a
different neighborhood school, right?
There are stories of immigrantfamilies who want cousins to stay
together - totally reasonable.
But earlier this year, the school districtsaid - We're not going to process any of
these waitlists that had been created toget into these schools, whether they're
(43:23):
neighborhood schools or option schools,because doing so would reward privilege.
Their argument was that - and verysimilar to what you were mentioning
about Rob Saka earlier - that it'sonly just privileged white families who
want to use the school choice process.
And if we do that, then we'regoing to just reinforce their
privilege and undermine neighborhoodschools and hurt kids of color.
Well, at that same school board meetingthat Tammy Morales was at, there were
(43:49):
parent after parent, homes and familiesof color, explaining why it was crucially
important to them that these waitlistsbe moved so their students could go
to the school they wanted to go to.
And it is the case that we've seenhistorically over the last three to
four years, families who don't getthose choice applications honored
increasingly leave the district.
And this is true, particularly inSouth Seattle, where the highest
(44:10):
number of choice applications came in.
And again, these are not people tryingto leave the district, they're not
trying to leave our public school system.
They might just want to send theirkid to a different school down
the road in the same neighborhoodto get a different program.
And public opinion polling shows thepublic gets this - that it's more
equitable to have those options withinthe public system, rather than deny that.
(44:33):
And say the only people who geta different program for their
kid - you have to have money for it.
So I think the advocacy of people likeTammy Morales, Sarah Clark, Joe Masrahi,
and others, parents from across thecity - made a real difference here.
The last thing is that this isall connected to an issue that
has not actually gone away, whichis this idea of closing schools.
One of the things that the districtwas trying to do is starve the
(44:55):
enrollment of the schools they wantto close and manipulating the process
of enrollment behind the scenes.
There is still a desire among atleast three of the school board
members - led by Liza Rankin - toclose a whole bunch of schools.
They didn't do it last yearbecause they couldn't get four
votes - they only had three.
But as the August primary approaches,people need to ask school board
candidates - Where do you stand on this?
(45:16):
Would you vote to closea bunch of schools?
Would you vote to close any at all?
I don't think this has gone away.
And I think the fact that parents wonanother victory - parents across the
city, to be clear - is a sign thatadvocacy gets the goods when you organize.
Absolutely.
Advocacy does get the goods.
Are there any forums coming up?
How can people figure out wherethe school board members and
(45:40):
candidates stand on school closures?
I think there are forums comingup that are being organized.
The school board elections are oneof the key turning points facing
Seattle Public Schools right now.
The other is they're hiringa new superintendent.
And there are public forumshappening this week and next.
You can go to seattleschools.org and findinformation on those forums - to advocate
(46:01):
for what you want in a new superintendent.
And the folks on the board whowant to close schools want to
hire a superintendent who willsupport their school closure plan.
I think it's crucially important insteadthat we bring in a new superintendent who
wants to go in a very different direction.
In Chicago, when Rahm Emanuel was mayor12 years ago, he closed 50 schools.
It was incredibly devastating - not justto the city as a whole, but to Black
(46:24):
and Brown communities in particular.
Chicago's current progressive mayor,Brandon Johnson, came out of the
organizing against those closures.
So you can see what they've done insteadis push for what they call community
schools - where the community, theneighborhood has a real stake in the
operations of that school, where theybring in wraparound services from
the community, community partners,organizations to help provide
(46:46):
the full range of student needs.
That's a model that progressivesaround the country are embracing.
Let's start exploring that here.
I'd love to see candidates for the boardand for superintendent advocate for that.
That's something we need from the public- is more small-d democratization and bring
the public in, especially neighborhoodsthat have been consistently redlined or
(47:07):
shut out of power, whether in the SouthEnd or far North Seattle, where there
are also large immigrant populations.
We can run this district in a betterway if we actually throw the doors
open, rather than have sort oftop-down behind-the-scenes management.
Absolutely.
Well, we will continue to pay attentionand try and keep folks updated there.
And with that, we thank you forlistening to Hacks & Wonks on
(47:28):
this Friday, June 20th, 2025.
The producer of Hacks & Wonks isShannon Cheng - and she's the best.
Our insightful co-host today waschair of Sierra Club Seattle,
longtime communications and politicalstrategist Robert Cruickshank.
You can find Robert on Blueskyat @robertcruickshank.com.
You can follow Hacks & Wonkson Bluesky at @HacksAndWonks.
(47:50):
You can find me on Bluesky at@finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I.
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 thepodcast to get the full versions
of our Friday week-in-reviewshows and our Tuesday topical show
(48:10):
delivered to your podcast feed.
If you like us, leave areview wherever you listen.
Reviews actually make a huge difference.
You can get a full transcriptof this episode and links to the
resources referenced in the showat OfficialHacksAndWonks.com.
Thanks for tuning in andtalk to you next time.
Welcome to Hacks & Wonks.
I'm your host, Crystal Fincher.
On this show, we talk with policy wonksand political hacks to gather insight
(00:21):
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.
This week, we posted a convenientlightning round comparison chart
from our Seattle City CouncilDistrict 2 candidate interviews.
Check out our website if you're tryingto figure out the difference between the
(00:42):
candidates at officialhacksandwonks.com.
And if you're struggling with all theSeattle City attorney challengers,
we also have a chart for them too!
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, friend of theshow and today's co-host: chair of Sierra
Club Seattle, longtime communications andpolitical strategist, Robert Cruickshank.
(01:06):
Welcome back!
Thanks for having me again, Crystal.
Good to be here.
Great to have you here.
Well, we certainly have a fewthings to talk about today, starting
out with the 'No Kings' protestsand ICE activity in Tukwila.
What happened here?
What did we see withthese 'No Kings' protests?
And what statement was being made?
(01:28):
I think that, first of all, you sawwhat appears to be the largest protest
in American history by differentmeasurements - millions of people across
the country showing up in cities largeand small, places urban and rural - to
protest against Trump and the Trumpadministration in many of its forms.
Here in Seattle, at least 70,000people showed up at Cal Anderson Park.
(01:50):
My family and I were there - we broughtthe kids - listened to some great
speakers, including Pramila Jayapaland others, talking about the various
ways in which we need to resist Trump.
One of the things that I think reallyturbocharged attendance at these 'No
Kings' rallies - here, certainly inSeattle, and around the country - is what
we've seen in the last month or so, whichis a massively stepped up effort by the
(02:14):
Trump administration through ICE to roundup, deport, take away immigrants, to
arrest people - roll up to a Home Depotparking lot in southern California in an
unmarked SUV with masks covering theirface and just grab people and drive off.
We also saw things like members ofCongress being arrested, senators
(02:35):
being arrested, New York Cityelected officials being arrested.
These acts of authoritarianism, Ithink, really helped draw people out.
I saw a lot of signs at the rallyin Seattle about ICE - the need
to melt ICE, to abolish ICE, tostand up for immigrants, to stand
up to this authoritarianism.
So I think that while these 'NoKings' protests were planned well in
(02:58):
advance - reacting to Trump's monarchicalideas, his authoritarianism more
generally - I think we're starting tosee a major focus of this become the
horrific abuses of human rights, oflaw, and of authoritarianism in the
administration's anti-immigrant policy.
And it is a blanket anti-immigrantpolicy, to be very clear about this.
(03:22):
That wasn't the only thingthat happened this week.
Late last week, a number of peoplereceived text messages telling them
that they needed to report to a HomelandSecurity facility in Tukwila over the
weekend, which was highly unusual.
And part of what this administration isdoing is putting people in an impossible
position - where you are told you haveto show up for an administrative meeting,
(03:47):
a hearing, whatever - you're told you'vegot to report to Homeland Security as a
condition of your being in this country.
And if you refuse,you're subject to arrest.
However, if you show up,you're also being arrested.
That is where, for example, earlierthis week, New York City Comptroller and
mayoral candidate Brad Lander was at oneof these hearings and standing up for
(04:09):
an immigrant who he was helping - andgot arrested when he questioned this.
Even here in Washington State, formerSpokane City Council President Ben
Stuckart was helping an immigrant friendof his, who he was caring for in Spokane,
when they got called into one of thesehearings and was arrested on the spot.
And Ben Stuckart led an impromptuprotest to try to block the
van from being taken away.
Well, what happened here in Seattle isprotesters showed up at that facility
(04:33):
in Tukwila - used informal, impromptubarricades, tried to block off the
facility and tried to prevent anyarrests, deportations from happening.
What you're seeing here is, Ithink, really important, because
it's a deliberate provocation.
It's a provocation by the Trumpadministration, Stephen Miller - who's
leading a lot of this in the White House- ICE, to not only provoke fear into the
(04:57):
hearts of every immigrant in this country.
But to also pick fights with people whowant to stand up against authoritarianism
and stand up for immigrant rights.
And there's a whole discussion about- Well, do you give Trump what he wants?
But I think
we all have an obligation to stand upagainst authoritarianism when we see it.
(05:17):
We all have an obligation tostand up and resist violations
of human rights when we see it.
And I think what you're seeing lastweekend - whether it is in Tukwila, with
people showing up and creating barricadesto stop deportations, or whether it's
in Seattle, with 70,000+ people showingup to march in the streets - there is
a broad resistance that exists in thiscountry that is feeling emboldened and
(05:38):
empowered and is going to fight back.
And I think that is a verypositive, promising sign.
I think it's a reallypositive and promising sign.
And I think a lot of people are waking upto the fact that if they don't stand up,
there may not be anyone else who does.
We've seen institutions, frankly, fail us.
(05:58):
We've seen that the backstops andthe checks and balances that are
supposed to prevent stuff likethis - that appear to be, on their
face, just plainly unconstitutional- the removal of due process, like
that's just not supposed to happen.
But it is, and a lot of thingsthat we assume were supposed
to stop it have not stopped it.
(06:20):
So really, it is up tocommunities mobilizing.
And I think you raised a really goodpoint when you talk about the provocation
of this activity - the provocation ofcompletely overnight changes of people's
immigration status, of our stancetowards immigrants in this country.
That people who are not identifiable- faces covered, completely nondescript
(06:47):
uniforms, just - we've seen take peopleoff the street, essentially disappear
them, and no one knows where they're at.
That is a provocation, and it'sfrustrating to many people to see the
response to a provocation - a responsethat they want to get, that they know
they're going to get - being coveredas if it's violent on its own and
(07:09):
uncalled for, inappropriate, uncivil.
And it's a response to incivility.
It's a response to what appears tobe unconstitutional, just violating
people's basic rights, and just beingnot compatible with what we consider to
be how we want our communities to be,who we want to be in our communities,
(07:32):
what we value in our communities.
And so I think what we've seenwith a number of these responses
is that they've been effective.
We've had protests that - but for protests- they would have rounded up more people.
They did have plans to escalate activity.
And one thing I think they'refinding - and a lot of people are
(07:53):
noticing - is that it's hard tofight on multiple fronts at one time.
And so the more people who are turningout, the harder it is for them to
act like this is just concentratedoperation and limited bad actors
who are preventing lawful activity.
And I think it's really heartening,too - to not only see people turn out
(08:14):
in Seattle, but to turn out in DesMoines and Federal Way and Bremerton and
Lynnwood and Port Orchard and Bellingham.
And these cities that you don'tnecessarily associate with traditional
political protests - there's aprotest that's going to be there.
And maybe not a big Democratic orprogressive population, but people from
(08:38):
all walks of life, from all backgrounds,from broad ideologies, standing up
together and saying - What we're seeingis unacceptable, and we're willing to
show up and do something about it matters.
I think that's spot on.
I mean, there was maybe a thousandpeople in Wenatchee - so it's central
Washington, rural Washington, places farfrom the usual blue parts of the state,
(09:02):
where there are people speaking out.
And it's hard to speakout in a place like that.
I think people were sharing videosfrom rural Iowa of people coming
into, holding 'No Kings' signs atthe corner of their small town.
That matters.
And you talk about question ofprovocation and how to respond.
Elected Democrats - Chuck Schumer,others - often try to wag a finger and
(09:26):
say, Don't give Trump what he wants.
What he wants, above all else, is the samething any other authoritarian wants - is
for us to silently walk away and give up.
That is, above all, what they want.
The thing they do not want isorganized, sustained resistance.
And giving back organized,sustained resistance is absolutely
essential to stopping this - to have
(09:49):
any chance of restoring a real democracyin this country and hopefully purging
Trumpism and MAGA from our politics,which we have to do at some point.
Absolutely.
I also want to talk this weekabout a revelation that Washington
immigrants' protected health data wasshared with deportation officials.
(10:09):
What happened?
Yeah, this has been a fear for a while.
Washington and other states thatprovide health coverage to undocumented
immigrants and their families - that'sa very good thing to do - it does
involve collecting some health data.
And the promise has always been that thestate will do everything in its power to
prevent that information being shared.
(10:31):
Some of that does wind up in thehands of the federal government.
And when you have Barack Obamain the White House or Joe Biden
in the White House, the privacyof that information is upheld.
But Stephen Miller and his gang inthe Trump administration are trying
to find every bit of information theypossibly can to target immigrants.
And what they got Robert F. Kennedyto do - was to help use his own
(10:53):
authority to try to start gettingat some of this information of who
are the immigrants, where are they,who's undocumented, where are they.
They're doing this massive datahunt across all levels of government
to try to pull everything togetherthey can, because Stephen Miller is
determined to do this mass deportation.
He wants millions of peopleto be rounded up, arrested.
(11:16):
And going after healthdata is one piece of it.
And that's fairly alarming becausehealth data is intensely private and
you need to get healthcare - it'snot something that people can just
neglect without putting themselvesat risk and their families at risk.
And so to see this happen is alarmingin and of itself - it's another sign of
just how right-wing and extreme RobertF. Kennedy Jr. is - but it is yet another
(11:39):
example of how the basic privacy and ourrights to privacy are under assault, as
part of this widening authoritarianismemanating from the White House, under
the cover of their hunt for immigrants.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think you raise a good pointabout our values here in Washington.
(12:00):
In Washington, we understandthat we're all better when we
all have access to healthcare.
And so this was part of the Medicaidprogram - but federal dollars in Medicaid
are prohibited from being spent onundocumented immigrants, so in Washington
state, we made the decision to say we'regoing to cover it with state funds.
(12:21):
And it was through that decision andcommunication after that that said - 'Hey,
if you're undocumented, that's okay.
You can access healthcare.
We're not going to care about it.
We want everybody to be healthy.
And if people are unhealthy, itmakes everyone else unhealthy.
And so don't worry about that - you cangive us your information, we'll keep
it safe, won't put you in any kind ofdanger.' And then, as part of some data
(12:48):
agreement to share Medicaid data - now,whether that only refers to federally
funded activity or also includesstate-funded activity is a question that
we don't know - but through the collectionof this data, and through basically
giving it to a centralized Medicaid datastore, all of this information was sent.
(13:12):
And as you said, this Trump administrationis going after the lowest hanging fruit
in order to try and make their quotanumbers for deportation - that's been
reported to be 3,000 deportations a day,which they're having trouble meeting,
because, shocking, there did not appear tobe roving hordes of criminal immigrants,
(13:34):
as they tried to paint the picture of,that these are just people working hard
in their communities, living their lives.
And that information wastaken by Homeland Security.
So now everything from people'saddresses to what issues they were
dealing with, probably employmentinformation was collected as part of
that - all of this personal data isnow in the hands of Homeland Security.
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By the way, it wasn't just undocumentedimmigrants - they have anyone's
information, documented or not, citizenor not, in Washington State now.
But it really does raise the questionof - are our state officials being
as careful and judicious with thisinformation as they should be?
Are they understanding that handing overdata has consequences, that collecting
(14:19):
and storing data has consequences?
Was there thought given into - werethere ways to not hand over this data?
Or did we just do it without question?
I think these are the types ofquestions that need answers.
I think this is something that reallyneeds to be uncovered and dissected to
make sure that it doesn't happen againthroughout any of the state departments.
(14:42):
I really hope to see a deep diveon this because this is really
consequential - and is the reason why somany data privacy advocates say it's so
important to have policies around this.
It's so critical not to collectthis information in the first place.
I think also underscores how importantit is to pay attention to what's
happening on a state and local level- because what's happening with this
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administration cannot happen withoutthe cooperation and information
from the state and local level.
And if we don't agree with it, whichwe have said at a state level - Bob
Ferguson has talked about not doingthis and has taken this administration
to court previously - then how arewe backing that up with our actions?
I think that's reallyimportant to examine.
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Yeah, I think that's right.
And I think there needs to be a fullreview by the Governor's office of
everything the state is doing to protectthe privacy of data, to protect privacy
of individuals, to not cooperate withthis regime in D.C. on any of this stuff.
And Ferguson talks a good game on a lotof things, but this is just as important
(15:50):
as saying you're going to fight thefederalization of the National Guard.
It's just as important as saying you'refiling a lawsuit against DOGE taking away
previously approved money for the state.
You have to step up and stop - every toolyou have - Homeland Security's attempts
to violate our privacy, to attack ourhuman rights, and to undermine the
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promises we made to people in good faith.
Yeah, this is not a theoretical problem.
We are seeing in real-timehow this data is being used.
And that so much of our communityand us as a state - we've said,
We do not agree with this.
So we do expect to see that carriedout from our state and local officials.
(16:33):
Now, I want to talk about - kind ofa ray of sunshine - a bit of good
news that was announced this week.
And that was we received datathat King County's Housing First
initiative boasts a high success rate.
This has been a challenging issueon how to deal with homelessness.
And a lot of people have beenfrustrated for a while, saying - We're
(16:53):
seeing what's working in othercities around the country, and we
just want to do that here, too.
We finally did with HousingFirst - and what did it show?
Well, Amy Sundberg wrote about this atThe Urbanist this week - and King County
released data showing that Housing Firstpolicies work incredibly well - they
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work a lot better than other policy.
95% of people in permanent supportivehousing through the Housing First
program remained housed over a year.
Whereas in emergency housing - whereyou just put people in the first place
you can find and not provide a lot ofsupport, just a roof over the head, which
is valuable, but much less effective - 58%of those folks stayed housed after a year.
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So it's clear that these HousingFirst policies, especially when
they're provided alongside otherservices that people need, it works.
Because homelessness is not amoral failing of the individual
experiencing homelessness, it's amoral failing of the rest of our
society to not meet that person's need.
And if you get them housed and providethe services at the place where
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they're being housed, you are far, farmore likely to actually solve this.
And this just infuriates people on theright wing of our politics - whether it's
Sara Nelson or the Republican Party, orwhoever - because they really believe
that homelessness should be punished.
It should be punished with criminalaction, police action, forcing people
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into rehab - because the assumption isthat the problem is there's something
wrong with you, whether you're in mentalhealth crisis or a drug addiction,
and that's why you're homeless.
Even folks experiencing those problemsfind that under Housing First policies,
they have a better success rate ofgetting treated and therefore being
able to actually sustain housing.
(18:45):
So the record is very, veryclear that Housing First works.
But you're going to, I think, continueto see attacks on Housing First policies
from people - not because it doesn'twork, but it violates the core ideological
belief of people on the political rightthat you have to punish homelessness.
They can't stand anything otherthan punishing homelessness.
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They viscerally react against theidea of genuinely helping people who
are experiencing homelessness, eventhough Housing First policies have been
proven again and again and again, tobe the most effective thing you can
actually do to tackle homelessness.
It really is.
And it's not really close, aswe just saw in the comparison
of percentages and results.
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The other element, I think, is thatthe kind of punitive punishment
approach appears to be cheaper upfront.
It's really always more expensive inthe long run because you don't solve
the problem and you're continuallytreating symptoms without addressing
the root cause and the thing thatactually makes the difference.
And we see that in the approach to justsweeps in perpetuity - moving people
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from one place to another withoutreally solving or intervening in the
real issue, versus getting people intohousing - that takes more work, that
takes more coordination upfront, ittakes more of an effort to stand up the
people and the processes to do that.
But once that happens and when that isfunded, it actually does do so much more
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to solve the problem, to permanentlyget people off of the streets - where
that's reflected elsewhere in policeovertime, and in these back-end costs
that end up blowing up budgets, butaren't reflected in that initial cost.
Yeah.
It was 10 years ago - 2015 - whenthen-mayor Ed Murray in Seattle declared
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a state of emergency around homelessness.
That's 10 years ago.
And the primary way the City has respondedto homelessness is through sweeps.
They've done some things to investhere and there - there's some money
that went to Tiny House villages,there's some city money that is in
these Housing First programs - but itis not the primary method of response.
They spent 10 years essentially sweepingthe problem all over the city, and it
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isn't getting solved without housing.
Housing First is the first step.
The other thing, of course, you haveto do is try to prevent homelessness
by building more housing of all types,including subsidized affordable housing.
But for those who are already experiencinghomelessness, Housing First policies
are the thing that need to be done.
If we'd been funding this at the scale weneeded - starting 10 years ago, when Ed
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Murray declared that state of emergency- thousands, literally thousands of people
would be housed, they'd be having theirvarious needs met, and there would be
a lot more people still alive today.
Because the death toll of beinghomeless is significant - and
the failure of the city to reallytriple down on these successful
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Housing First policies is a problem.
And we still have people like SaraNelson out there railing against
them at every possible opportunity.
This is something that I think willneed to be a major element of campaigns
in Seattle this year - What arewe going to do about homelessness?
It comes up every two yearswhen there's a City election.
We have the answer in front of us - itis Housing First - and we need to
fund it at the scale that is needed.
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We absolutely do need to fund itat the scale that it is needed.
And it looks like the county is leadingthe way in doing this and showing results.
But as you say, it is as importantto turn off the faucet here.
We're trying to bail out thehouse and the faucet is still on.
And the biggest contributor tohomelessness is high housing costs.
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There's a lot of people whotalk about - Oh, you know, it's
addiction, it's criminality.
But the areas with the highest housingcosts - not the highest crime rates,
not the highest rates of addiction, butthe highest housing costs - experience
the highest rates of homelessness.
It is an affordability issue.
It is a housing issue.
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We have to make inroads with that.
We have seen a lot of encouraging activityfrom the state level on down to make
this happen - and that needs to continue.
And that needs to be pairedwith these processes.
But it's a challenging conversationfor a lot of people, because a lot
of times when these conversations arebeing had in the media and presented
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in this left versus right frame, theright frame is - We just need to punish
them, throw them in jail, that'll cleanthem up - without any acknowledgement
that jail is extremely expensive.
It's more expensive thanjust about anything else.
We spend a lot of money on that.
Check public budgets - that's extremelyexpensive - we have to defund other things
(23:33):
in order to fund that kind of response.
We've had to defund other thingsto fund the endless sweeps
response in the city of Seattle.
Those things don't work.
They're not easy.
It's not as easy as trying tomandate treatment, especially
because that treatment barelyexists - that capacity is low, anyway.
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So to really get to addressing theroot of the problem - and I do commend
King County, both the executive and thecouncil, for leading here and taking
this action - and we do need to see morepeople following if we're as serious
as about addressing this homelessnessproblem as the rhetoric suggests.
But we did also see some challenging newsin that Washington State cut funding for
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the homeless encampment removal program,which was also experiencing success.
What was the difference between thisencampment removal program and sweeps?
And why was the funding cut for it?
Yeah, so this started under Jay Inslee afew years ago, and in response to a lot
of visible homelessness along Interstate5 and other state-owned highways.
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And what this program did was eitherrent or outright buy hotel space across
the state to get people out of tents,and into at least a roof over the head.
Now we talked about the HousingFirst policies and how if you have
permanent, supportive housing withwraparound services around them,
you get the 95% success rate.
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You still had 58% success withemergency housing, which is what
this Washington State right-of-wayprogram had attempted to do - just
get people in out of the elements.
And that is a good thing to do - ratherthan just destroy someone's tent and
belongings, throw it away and send themsomewhere else, and you lose track - what
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the state was trying to do with thisprogram is to get people actually into
a warm bed with a bathroom, and a doorthat locks, and a roof over your head.
And this was also providing a lot ofsuccess to the people who needed help,
who were living in these tent encampments.
It was also providing political successfor Democrats, who have been getting
(25:44):
hammered on this issue across the state.
And you can still now driveanywhere in Washington state and
see visible homelessness - thisis not a Seattle problem.
As housing has become moreexpensive in this state,
homelessness explodes everywhere.
And so, Inslee was trying toaddress this with this program.
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But what happened was earlier thisyear - when the State Legislature and
the Governor Ferguson decided they didn'twant to pass a wealth tax - instead,
they issued a whole bunch of budget cuts.
And one of the thingsthey cut was this program.
So their reluctance to truly tax therich and the biggest corporations in
the state meant that a program thatwas providing real beneficial help
to people experiencing homelessness,as well as political benefit to
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Democrats - they just cut it.
There's so many mind-boggling cuts thatthis legislature and governor did this
year out of their refusal to tax the rich- at least at the scale that is needed
- there were some increases in taxes onthe rich that did happen this year,
like increases in the capital gains tax.
So they did some things, but they heldoff on the biggest thing that they
(26:48):
could have done, which is a wealth tax.
And this is the consequence - peopleexperiencing homelessness are going to pay
a price because a program that was givingemergency shelter is now going away.
And Democrats will pay a politicalprice, when homelessness resurges
along these very visible placesall across Washington state.
It is one of these cuts that I'm justlooking at legislators and the governor
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thinking - Is it really worth it to you toappease Brad Smith, the CEO of Microsoft?
Is it really worth it to appease Amazon?
Is it really worth it to appease Boeing?
- to harm homeless folks and harm yourown political prospects by cutting
successful programs like this.
I don't get it.
Yeah.
I mean, the success is in actuallygetting people off of those highway
(27:36):
right-of-ways, off of that property.
Whether you're a Democrat or aRepublican - at the end of the
day, most people are looking aroundand what they can visibly see and
making an evaluation based on that.
You have got to make progresson the problems that you say are
problems and your top priority.
This was doing that.
So to move backwards - I'm in thesame place you are - it is baffling
(28:00):
because this was actually deliveringon promises and on priorities.
And so just a confounding result.
And people say - Ah, in toughbudget times, there are tough
choices to be made - which are true.
But I think you accurately pointedout - they made some choices that made
those choices harder and the optionsworse, by not pursuing the kind of
(28:25):
progressive revenue that they could have.
But also, you do have todeliver at the end of the day.
You do have to improve lifeand conditions on the ground.
So we'll see what happens from here.
I want to turn to the city of Seattle andtalk about a couple of developments here.
First, Rob Saka wanting to makea deal impacting traffic safety,
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pedestrian safety in the mostconfounding way, and seemingly by
throwing some people under the bus.
What's the deal here?
So Rob Saka has been on this crusadeagainst a curb that was placed into the
middle of a street in West Seattle aspart of a Rapid Ride transit project.
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And this is normally done by SDOT tohelp prevent cars from passing a bus
when it is stopped to pick up passengers.
This helps traffic flow moresafely and smoothly, protects
the bus, protects the bus riders.
The one that Saka objected to hadbeen put in front of a preschool, and
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people were no longer able to just turnleft off the street into the parking
lot - you had to go up, make a U-turn,or come around in a different way.
Right?
Big deal - this happensall the time in the city.
It's helping everyone stay safe, right?
If you can't have a car suddenlyturning left out of the blue into
this parking lot where the little kidsare - those kids are safer as well.
But Saka was up in arms aboutthis on the campaign trail.
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He's been fighting againstthis curb all along.
And now, activists who are fighting forsafe streets and pedestrian safety in
West Seattle have put up cartoon signsbased on a Brett Hamill comic naming this
divider in the center of the road "Curby."And what Rob Saka did was announce that
SDOT had worked out some sort of solution- where you can park or stop in the bus area
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or use the bus lane at certain hours ofthe day, you can make certain turns into
the parking lot, but "Curby" will stay.
And Saka made it clear that he's awareof the "Curby" phenomenon - he's aware
of the criticism by calling it "Curby,"and saying that "Curby" will stay.
That's not all Saka did.
He really doubled down - and he's beenframing this as an equity issue and trying
(30:49):
to paint pedestrian safety advocates assomehow privileged folks who don't care
about working class people because wecan't make a free left turn off a street.
And in this long email - I think itwas over 2,000 words, email blast - he
blamed what he called a "radical proxy'war on cars,'" hypocrisy on immigrant
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justice, he talked about that safetyadvocates are "harassing" immigrants.
According to Erica Barnett, who wroteabout this, Saka's equating these
pedestrian safety advocates withTrump and his deportation agenda.
I mean, it's just unhingedstuff from Rob Saka.
I mean, I get that there is adispute about how we use the streets.
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I get there is thisdispute about this curb.
Being a local elected officialmeans sometimes you're going to
be arguing over stuff like this.
Right?
When we worked the mayor's office forMike McGinn 15 years ago, this sort
of thing came up - you deal with it.
But you deal with it - hopefully,reasonably - which is just not
what Rob Saka is doing at all.
He's going out of his way to disparageand demean people who are just
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fighting for safety, including thesafety of the immigrant families
all throughout the city, includingthose using that preschool.
It's just utterly unhingedstuff from Rob Saka.
It is.
And I think it's important to notethat - one, this is happening against
the backdrop of several pedestrian deathsin his district, which is why there was
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such an outcry from every sector of thecommunity - that something has to be done.
Seeing people being criticallyinjured and killed - just trying to
cross some crosswalks, just tryingto cross the street, walk along
the street - has been increasing.
This is a problem.
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We talk about the problem of gun violence.
We talk about the problem ofpeople being hurt by other means.
This is as unacceptable.
We don't want people being hurt,succumbing to violence - whether it's gun
or traffic, or whatever else have you.
If there was a major health hazardthat was killing people, people
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would be up in arms to address it.
So this is pretty standard there.
And on top of that, some of themost prominent voices in the most
impacted communities by this kindof traffic violence are low-income,
immigrant, people of color - andthey're making their voices heard.
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So the kind of disappearing, of erasureof this is pretty offensive to all
of the people in the community whoare in the groups that he's saying
are being harmed, who are standingup to make their voices heard and
saying - 'Hey, I rely on the bus.
I've got to walk there.
My kids have got to walk to the bus totake it to school, and it's dangerous
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and I'm scared and I want somethingto be done.' To completely erase those
voices and kind of speak over themis pretty offensive in and of itself.
And so I just - it's reallydisappointing to see this.
It's disappointing to see the attentionand expenditures of money that have
been fighting this problem instead ofgoing to actual solutions to address
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and actually solve the problem.
And just the defensiveness aroundthis is pretty mind-boggling
for an elected official.
Yeah, it's very mind-boggling.
As someone who's worked incity government, this is not
how you deal with the public.
It's certainly not how you dealwith the public and expect to be
taken seriously or respected by it.
When you talk about advocacy fromlow-income communities, communities
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of color around traffic violence - Idon't believe Saka has done very much
at all to advocate for safety alongthe Sound Transit light rail corridor
and MLK in South Seattle, where wecontinue to see traffic violence, people
getting hit and killed - sometimesby light rail vehicles, sometimes
by cars turning to beat the train.
It is a serious problem.
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Tammy Morales and others have spentyears trying to raise concerns about
this - trying to get Sound Transit tostep in and fund it, trying to get SDOT
to step in and fund some of this stuff.
Saka's nowhere to be found.
Saka's not speaking up on this.
And as you point out - instead, he'strying to silence those voices that have
spoken up by trying to make this seem likeelite white folks only care about buses.
(35:16):
Assuming like no low incomeperson in his district's riding
the Rapid Ride - many are.
It's just very self-serving,I think, of Rob Saka in a way
that is fundamentally offensive.
And hopefully this is something thatpeople in West Seattle are paying
close attention to - especially come2027, when Saka is up for reelection.
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Absolutely.
I also want to talk about aRealPage ban being delayed.
So what is RealPage?
Why was a ban put in place?
And why is there now a delay?
So what has happened in the last fiveyears is a lot of apartment owners - some
large, some small - have started to usealgorithmic price indexes to set rents.
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And what this does is take the normalpractice of a landlord looking at
comps - going on Craigslist and saying,Oh, you have a two-bedroom apartment in
Ballard, what are you renting it for?
Oh, you rent it at $2,000, I can try torent mine for $2,000 - taking that and
turbocharging it by using algorithmsto set rents as high as possible.
It is essentially a form of highlysophisticated, high-tech price gouging.
(36:27):
And it is something that a lotof people in the housing advocacy
movement have called to be banned.
The Biden administration waslooking into this with its
Department of Justice last year.
Many states have taken on bansof algorithmic price fixing.
And RealPage is a company thatis a leader in using algorithms
to set rents as high as possible.
Cathy Moore had been proposing this- maybe one of the only good things
(36:49):
she can do before leaving office nextmonth - but it was going to be fast
tracked and back to the City Council.
But all of a sudden, thisweek, the brakes are pumped.
Apartment owners' lobbyistsare raising concerns.
Property managers are raisingconcerns about - Oh, it could
cause problems in X, Y, and Z ways.
And so all of a sudden, the one, the fewgood things we saw out of Cathy Moore's
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office, one of the few good things thatthis City Council was doing to help
renters is all of a sudden stalled.
And I think it's just another exampleof how even something that is pretty
obvious to do, like ban this sort ofprice gouging and ban using high-tech
to gouge renters - you can't get througheasily this Seattle City Council.
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It's just one thing after another fromthis current City Hall, targeting the
people who are trying to afford to tolive in this increasingly expensive city.
It really is another confounding thing.
Because among the most popular things- if you poll, if you ask around, and
looking at results of elections - arerenter protections right now.
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This is not a partisan issue.
It doesn't matter left versus right.
It doesn't matter whether a city hasa history of voting for Republicans
or Democrats on a local level.
We've seen a number of local initiativesacross the state dealing with renter
protections, and they're passingeverywhere - because people everywhere
are recognizing that the rent is toohigh all over the place, and seeing the
(38:16):
collusion and price fixing happening.
And kind of saying - 'Is it not enoughthat you and your billionaire buddies
are already making out like bandits?
You have to collude to just raise alittle bit more and squeeze out every
last cent of profit from the people whocan least afford it.' It's not enough,
and it's just too much, and it's timepeople start putting some guardrails
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around this and standing up and saying- 'At some point, enough is enough.'
And this is beyond that point for justabout everyone, just about everywhere.
So to see this Council, once again, wadeinto an issue like this - where there's
broad public support, similar to howtrying to lower the minimum wage for gig
drivers, pretty universally unpopular.
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And they found that out the hardway by trying to proceed with an
unpopular policy and then getting theirsurprised Pikachu face when the entire
community turns out against it - feelslike we're going down the same path.
What we've known is that, you know,there have been rumblings about
weakening of renter protections farand wide for a while now - that this
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is something that is on the agenda.
This seems to have beenadded to that agenda.
And anything that can be done to maximizeprofit, to minimize regulation - we're
seeing landlords and some of the bigdevelopers, some of the far-right
elements really advocating for.
(39:44):
This is no different than the bigcorporations on the Congressional
level - just making a play with theirlobbyists to extract every ounce of
profit from us and to reduce regulation.
This is this on the local scale.
And why it's so important to payattention to local elections is
that we're seeing this happen.
And kind of unambiguously, tothe detriment of regular people,
(40:09):
regular renters - which areso many people in Seattle and
increasing number of cities now.
So just challenging to see them wadeinto another issue - hoping people
aren't paying attention, but that wealready know is broadly unpopular.
Out of all the things on their plate thatthey could be addressing, here we go.
(40:29):
Exactly.
And it's striking to me that thisis one of the few things that was
potentially going to help renters.
But this is an anti-price gouging tool.
If you are fleeing a hurricane inthe South, and you stop at a gas
station and suddenly the price of gasis 100% higher than it was before.
Or you stop at a hotel and suddenlya room that was listed the day
(40:52):
before at $100 a night is now $300 anight - people prosecute that stuff.
That's just obvious price gouging,taking advantage of a crisis.
And that's what RealPage exists todo - there's a housing shortage,
and it exists to help people takeadvantage of that shortage by
gouging renters as much as possible.
Banning RealPage doesn't solvethe housing crisis, but it helps.
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And it certainly helps - prosecutingpeople who try to take advantage of it
- I'm all for that sort of prosecution.
I'm all for those sorts of bans.
But it's just striking to me how eventhis, which is broadly popular and easy,
struggles to get out of the City Council.
Absolutely.
And the same people advocatingfor the policies that create these
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housing shortages are the same peopleadvocating for these policies that take
advantage of that housing shortage.
Same donors, sameelements - and it's a problem.
Last thing I want to talk about todayis that waitlists have been lifted
in Seattle Public Schools - whatthis means, why these waitlists
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existed in the first place, and whatthe result of that is going to be.
Yeah, this is an issue that isbubbling up over the last few
months in Seattle Public Schoolsand starting to get wider attention.
I mentioned Tammy Morales earlier- she had shown up at a school
board meeting in April to advocatethat these waitlists be moved.
Sarah Clark and Joe Mizrahi - twoschool board members who are running for
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re-election this year - had a great op-edin The Urbanist last month about this.
What happens is - just take a bigpicture view - if you have a lot of
money and privilege in this city,you can send your kid anywhere.
You can send your kid to a publicschool, you can send your kid to a
private school - you have your pick.
But if you don't have thatprivilege - if you're a low-income
(42:39):
immigrant family - you have a schoolthat is assigned to your student.
But what if that doesn't work?
What if that program at that schooldoesn't meet your needs, but something
else nearby in the public system would?
For 50 or so years, Seattle PublicSchools has had a school choice
process - within the public system.
These are people not leaving publiceducation or staying in public
(43:02):
schools - who can apply to sendtheir kids to a different school.
It could be an option school, analternative program, even just a
different neighborhood school, right?
There are stories of immigrantfamilies who want cousins to stay
together - totally reasonable.
But earlier this year, the school districtsaid - We're not going to process any of
these waitlists that had been created toget into these schools, whether they're
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neighborhood schools or option schools,because doing so would reward privilege.
Their argument was that - and verysimilar to what you were mentioning
about Rob Saka earlier - that it'sonly just privileged white families who
want to use the school choice process.
And if we do that, then we'regoing to just reinforce their
privilege and undermine neighborhoodschools and hurt kids of color.
Well, at that same school board meetingthat Tammy Morales was at, there were
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parent after parent, homes and familiesof color, explaining why it was crucially
important to them that these waitlistsbe moved so their students could go
to the school they wanted to go to.
And it is the case that we've seenhistorically over the last three to
four years, families who don't getthose choice applications honored
increasingly leave the district.
And this is true, particularly inSouth Seattle, where the highest
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number of choice applications came in.
And again, these are not people tryingto leave the district, they're not
trying to leave our public school system.
They might just want to send theirkid to a different school down
the road in the same neighborhoodto get a different program.
And public opinion polling shows thepublic gets this - that it's more
equitable to have those options withinthe public system, rather than deny that.
(44:33):
And say the only people who geta different program for their
kid - you have to have money for it.
So I think the advocacy of people likeTammy Morales, Sarah Clark, Joe Masrahi,
and others, parents from across thecity - made a real difference here.
The last thing is that this isall connected to an issue that
has not actually gone away, whichis this idea of closing schools.
One of the things that the districtwas trying to do is starve the
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enrollment of the schools they wantto close and manipulating the process
of enrollment behind the scenes.
There is still a desire among atleast three of the school board
members - led by Liza Rankin - toclose a whole bunch of schools.
They didn't do it last yearbecause they couldn't get four
votes - they only had three.
But as the August primary approaches,people need to ask school board
candidates - Where do you stand on this?
(45:16):
Would you vote to closea bunch of schools?
Would you vote to close any at all?
I don't think this has gone away.
And I think the fact that parents wonanother victory - parents across the
city, to be clear - is a sign thatadvocacy gets the goods when you organize.
Absolutely.
Advocacy does get the goods.
Are there any forums coming up?
How can people figure out wherethe school board members and
(45:40):
candidates stand on school closures?
I think there are forums comingup that are being organized.
The school board elections are oneof the key turning points facing
Seattle Public Schools right now.
The other is they're hiringa new superintendent.
And there are public forumshappening this week and next.
You can go to seattleschools.org and findinformation on those forums - to advocate
(46:01):
for what you want in a new superintendent.
And the folks on the board whowant to close schools want to
hire a superintendent who willsupport their school closure plan.
I think it's crucially important insteadthat we bring in a new superintendent who
wants to go in a very different direction.
In Chicago, when Rahm Emanuel was mayor12 years ago, he closed 50 schools.
It was incredibly devastating - not justto the city as a whole, but to Black
(46:24):
and Brown communities in particular.
Chicago's current progressive mayor,Brandon Johnson, came out of the
organizing against those closures.
So you can see what they've done insteadis push for what they call community
schools - where the community, theneighborhood has a real stake in the
operations of that school, where theybring in wraparound services from
the community, community partners,organizations to help provide
(46:46):
the full range of student needs.
That's a model that progressivesaround the country are embracing.
Let's start exploring that here.
I'd love to see candidates for the boardand for superintendent advocate for that.
That's something we need from the public- is more small-d democratization and bring
the public in, especially neighborhoodsthat have been consistently redlined or
(47:07):
shut out of power, whether in the SouthEnd or far North Seattle, where there
are also large immigrant populations.
We can run this district in a betterway if we actually throw the doors
open, rather than have sort oftop-down behind-the-scenes management.
Absolutely.
Well, we will continue to pay attentionand try and keep folks updated there.
And with that, we thank you forlistening to Hacks & Wonks on
(47:28):
this Friday, June 20th, 2025.
The producer of Hacks & Wonks isShannon Cheng - and she's the best.
Our insightful co-host today waschair of Sierra Club Seattle,
longtime communications and politicalstrategist Robert Cruickshank.
You can find Robert on Blueskyat @robertcruickshank.com.
You can follow Hacks & Wonkson Bluesky at @HacksAndWonks.
(47:50):
You can find me on Bluesky at@finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I.
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 thepodcast to get the full versions
of our Friday week-in-reviewshows and our Tuesday topical show
(48:10):
delivered to your podcast feed.
If you like us, leave areview wherever you listen.
Reviews actually make a huge difference.
You can get a full transcriptof this episode and links to the
resources referenced in the showat OfficialHacksAndWonks.com.
Thanks for tuning in andtalk to you next time.
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