Community-Focused Approach: Tariq Yusuf's Plan for Seattle's Future

Campaign Website - Tariq Yusuf

[00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.

Today, we'll be speaking with a candidate for Seattle City Council Position 8, which is a citywide position that represents all residents of Seattle. Former Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda was elected to the King County Council and Tanya Woo was appointed by the Council to temporarily fill that vacancy and this is the election to determine the permanent replacement, who will serve in the seat for the remainder of the term. There are currently four people running for this position - Tanya Woo, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Tariq Yusuf, and Saunatina Sanchez. The primary election on August 6th will select the top two candidates to advance to the general election in November.

Before we dive into the interview, let's briefly review the roles of Seattle City Council and Mayor and why your vote for councilmembers matters so much. City Councilmembers serve as the legislative branch of Seattle's government, while the Mayor leads the executive branch. Councilmembers’ key duties include proposing and voting on City ordinances and policies, reviewing and approving the City's annual budget, providing oversight of City departments and programs, serving on Council committees focused on specific issues like housing or transportation, and responding to constituent concerns and representing their district's interests. In contrast, the Mayor's responsibilities include implementing and enforcing laws passed by the Council, managing day-to-day City operations and City departments, proposing the initial City budget for Council review, appointing heads of City departments and commissions, and representing the entire city in external affairs. In other words, the City Council is similar to a board of directors setting the overall direction and policies. The mayor, on the other hand, is like the CEO responsible for day-to-day operations and implementing the strategy. If Seattle were a ship, the Seattle City Council would be the navigator charting the course and deciding on the destination, and the Mayor would be the captain steering the vessel and giving orders to the crew. Councilmembers shape the laws that affect residents’ daily lives, from housing and transportation to public safety and environmental policies. They play a key role in addressing the city's most pressing challenges and planning for its future. The Council holds significant power in shaping the city's future, ensuring that your voice is heard in the policies that govern the city. That's why your vote for a City Councilmember is incredibly important and impactful. And why Hacks & Wonks wants to help you hear directly from candidates and equip you with the information you need to make the best decision for you and your community.

Today, Tariq Yusuf, candidate for Seattle City Council Position 8, joins us to discuss his vision for Seattle and how he plans to address some of the city's most pressing challenges. Welcome, Tariq.

[00:03:47] Tariq Yusuf: Glad to be here - I've been looking forward to this.

[00:03:50] Crystal Fincher: And we have also been looking forward to it. We're going to start with a lightning round before we get into the more traditional questions here, so we will go through these and just invite your yes, no, or one-word response to these.

Starting off, would you vote to approve the current draft of Seattle's Comprehensive Plan?

[00:04:12] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:04:13] Crystal Fincher: Now, there are only about 8,000 units in King County's system available for over 53,000 people experiencing homelessness. Do you support encampment sweeps when there is no shelter space available?

[00:04:26] Tariq Yusuf: Two words, but absolutely not.

[00:04:28] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to end single-family zoning to address housing affordability?

[00:04:33] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:04:34] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to approve Initiative 137 to fund Seattle's Social Housing Developer?

[00:04:40] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:04:41] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to oppose the addition of a competing initiative to the ballot with Initiative 137?

[00:04:49] Tariq Yusuf: Yes, I will oppose it.

[00:04:51] Crystal Fincher: Do you rent your residence?

[00:04:53] Tariq Yusuf: No, I own.

[00:04:55] Crystal Fincher: That was the next question - do you own your residence?

[00:04:57] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:04:58] Crystal Fincher: Are you a landlord?

[00:05:00] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:05:01] Crystal Fincher: Will you oppose any attempt to weaken Seattle's renter protections?

[00:05:06] Tariq Yusuf: Yes, I will oppose any attempt to weaken - yes.

[00:05:10] Crystal Fincher: Would you have voted to support the Connected Communities legislation?

[00:05:15] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:05:16] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to oppose contracting for jail services separate from the King County Jail?

[00:05:23] Tariq Yusuf: Vote to oppose contracting separate from the King County Jail - yes, I would oppose.

[00:05:30] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to allow police in schools?

[00:05:34] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:05:35] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget for a civilian-led mental health crisis response?

[00:05:41] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:05:42] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget to increase the pay of human service workers?

[00:05:48] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:05:49] Crystal Fincher: Do you support diverting the City budget for forced encampment removals and instead allocating those funds towards a Housing First approach?

[00:05:58] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:05:59] Crystal Fincher: Do you support reallocating unused funds from unfilled SPD positions and putting them toward other non-police priorities in the city?

[00:06:09] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:06:10] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocating money in the City budget for supervised consumption sites?

[00:06:15] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:06:16] Crystal Fincher: Do you support increasing funding in the City budget for violence intervention programs?

[00:06:21] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:06:22] Crystal Fincher: Would you have voted to oppose the retroactive SPOG contract that was recently passed?

[00:06:29] Tariq Yusuf: Yes, I would have opposed.

[00:06:30] Crystal Fincher: Would you have voted to oppose the recent expansion of automatic license plate readers on all SPD vehicles?

[00:06:37] Tariq Yusuf: Yes, I would have opposed.

[00:06:39] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to support shortening the retention time of license plate data?

[00:06:44] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:06:46] Crystal Fincher: Would you support a ban on wearing masks?

[00:06:51] Tariq Yusuf: Would I support a ban on wearing masks? No.

[00:06:55] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans and non-binary students are allowed to play on the sports teams that fit with their gender identities?

[00:07:04] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:07:05] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans and non-binary students are allowed to participate in any extracurricular activity that fits with their gender identities?

[00:07:14] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:07:15] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans people can use bathrooms or public facilities that match their gender?

[00:07:21] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:07:22] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with the Seattle City Council's decision to implement the JumpStart Tax?

[00:07:28] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:07:29] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to divert or reduce the JumpStart Tax in any way?

[00:07:34] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:07:35] Crystal Fincher: Do large corporations in Seattle pay their fair share of taxes?

[00:07:39] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:07:40] Crystal Fincher: Do small businesses in Seattle pay their fair share of taxes?

[00:07:44] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:07:45] Crystal Fincher: In order to address staffing shortages throughout the city and county, should we offer financial incentives to additional key frontline employees, like we have for police?

[00:07:55] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:07:56] Crystal Fincher: In other words, should we do for other employees what we did for police?

[00:08:00] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah.

[00:08:01] Crystal Fincher: Are you happy with Seattle's newly-built waterfront?

[00:08:05] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:08:07] Crystal Fincher: Do you believe more return to work mandates are necessary to boost Seattle's economy?

[00:08:14] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:08:15] Crystal Fincher: Would you have supported Councilmember Rivera's Equitable Development Initiative amendment?

[00:08:23] Tariq Yusuf: This was the one to redirect some funding back to the general fund. Is that right?

[00:08:30] Crystal Fincher: If they didn't spend it by a timeline that was essentially impossible for them to spend it by, yes.

[00:08:37] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, I would not have supported that.

[00:08:40] Crystal Fincher: As a councilmember, would you vote to advance the current draft of Seattle's Transportation Levy to voters?

[00:08:47] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:08:49] Crystal Fincher: As a voter, would you vote for the current draft of Seattle's Transportation Levy?

[00:08:54] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:08:55] Crystal Fincher: Have you taken transit in the past week?

[00:08:58] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:08:59] Crystal Fincher: Have you ridden a bike in the past week?

[00:09:02] Tariq Yusuf: Scooter, technically - two wheels.

[00:09:07] Crystal Fincher: Well, there we go. Have you ridden a bike in the past month?

[00:09:12] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah.

[00:09:13] Crystal Fincher: Should Pike Place Market allow non-commercial delivery car traffic?

[00:09:18] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:09:19] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever been a member of a union?

[00:09:23] Tariq Yusuf: Once, sadly - long time ago.

[00:09:25] Crystal Fincher: Is that sad because you were, or sad because it was only once?

[00:09:29] Tariq Yusuf: It's sad because I work in tech, which is notoriously not unionized.

[00:09:36] Crystal Fincher: So does that mean you would rather be in a union right now or not?

[00:09:39] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, there's some stories that we can dive into that one - but yes.

[00:09:42] Crystal Fincher: I've heard plenty. Will you oppose any effort to reduce funding and staffing for investigations into labor violations like wage theft and illegal union busting?

[00:09:53] Tariq Yusuf: Yes, I would oppose reduction in funding.

[00:09:55] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever walked on a picket line?

[00:09:57] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:09:58] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever crossed a picket line?

[00:10:00] Tariq Yusuf: No.

[00:10:01] Crystal Fincher: Is your campaign unionized?

[00:10:05] Tariq Yusuf: No, but I don't have staff.

[00:10:08] Crystal Fincher: If, once you get campaign staff, they want to unionize, will you voluntarily recognize their effort?

[00:10:14] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:10:15] Crystal Fincher: Have you voted in every general election in the past four years?

[00:10:18] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:10:19] Crystal Fincher: Have you voted in every primary election in the past four years?

[00:10:23] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:10:24] Crystal Fincher: In the past ten years?

[00:10:25] Tariq Yusuf: Yep.

[00:10:26] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote for the King County Crisis Care Centers Levy?

[00:10:30] Tariq Yusuf: Yes, I believe so.

[00:10:32] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote for the Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services Levy?

[00:10:36] Tariq Yusuf: I'm not sure if I was registered in King County then - I might have been in Snohomish County on that one.

[00:10:44] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Did you vote in favor of Seattle's Social Housing Initiative I-135 to establish Seattle's Social Housing Developer?

[00:10:51] Tariq Yusuf: Yes, I did.

[00:10:53] Crystal Fincher: Who did you vote for in your district to represent you in the 2023 City Council race?

[00:11:01] Tariq Yusuf: Trying to remember.

[00:11:03] Crystal Fincher: What district are you in?

[00:11:04] Tariq Yusuf: I can never remember the district boundaries. I'm in Fremont, so that is - I'm just going to look at the district map. I am 6, so Strauss is in my district.

[00:11:19] Crystal Fincher: So did you vote for Strauss or Hanning?

[00:11:21] Tariq Yusuf: I think I voted for Strauss, but I was not super thrilled with either option.

[00:11:25] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. In 2022, did you vote Yes for ranked choice voting?

[00:11:30] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:11:31] Crystal Fincher: Do you support moving Council elections to even years?

[00:11:36] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:11:37] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to renew funding for democracy vouchers in 2025?

[00:11:42] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:11:44] Crystal Fincher: If Seattle Ethics and Elections recommends that you recuse yourself from a vote, will you do so?

[00:11:49] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:11:51] Crystal Fincher: Do you plan to vote to oppose the three statewide initiatives on the ballot - 2109, 2117, 2124 - it's Capital Gains, Long-Term Care, and Climate Commitment Act?

[00:12:03] Tariq Yusuf: Oh, these are the Eyman ones, aren't they?

[00:12:06] Crystal Fincher: Not Eyman, but Heywood, who is like Eyman 2.0.

[00:12:09] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, yeah - no, I'm going to oppose those.

[00:12:12] Crystal Fincher: Are you going to vote for President?

[00:12:14] Tariq Yusuf: Yes.

[00:12:15] Crystal Fincher: Who are you going to vote for?

[00:12:18] Tariq Yusuf: Likely Cornel West.

[00:12:21] Crystal Fincher: Who do you plan to vote to support for Governor?

[00:12:25] Tariq Yusuf: Bob Ferguson.

[00:12:26] Crystal Fincher: Commissioner of Public Lands?

[00:12:30] Tariq Yusuf: Probably Upthegrove.

[00:12:31] Crystal Fincher: And who do you plan to support for Superintendent of Public Instruction?

[00:12:36] Tariq Yusuf: Reykdal.

[00:12:37] Crystal Fincher: Insurance Commissioner?

[00:12:39] Tariq Yusuf: Kuderer.

[00:12:41] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so that concludes our lightning round.

[00:12:45] Tariq Yusuf: Yay.

[00:12:46] Crystal Fincher: So starting off overall, why are you running?

[00:12:51] Tariq Yusuf: Is spite a good answer? I mean, in all honesty - so I've lived in the Seattle area my whole life. I grew up in Seattle, moved up to Everett when my dad was working for the city up there, and then after graduating college and everything, I moved back down to Seattle. And when I was growing up, we relied a lot on the different social programs that we have in Seattle, in the Northwest. Like, I grew up in Section 9 housing, I relied on Pell Grants, I relied on food stamps, I relied on a lot of the programs that kind of help provide a - if not a foundation, a helping hand to make it through life. And the last two decades, and especially the last couple of years, there's just been such a focus on reducing and eliminating in almost like an austerity manner the different social programs because we talk about - Oh, we have a deficit, we have this, we have that, we're worried about getting rid of business and stuff like this. And I have seen a lot of friends and family members of mine slowly been pushed out of the city as a result of it. People who've lived here for one - sometimes two generations - not able to afford living here, not able to afford staying with that community they grew up with. And it became really frustrating because you're constantly seeing how expensive housing is, how difficult it is to live and survive. And it's building our city to a point where we're not building in a sustainable manner. When I was doing the initial research to decide if I was going to run or not, the one statistic that really made me upset was the fact that I think it was something like 90% of Seattle residents are white collar - that is fundamentally not sustainable to have all of the critical service workers and blue collar workers coming into the city from as far out as Arlington or Marysville or Auburn to just support basic functioning in the city. And with the frustration of just not seeing anything done, there's kind of a point where like - okay, I have to stop complaining and start trying to do something. And at the time - I was deciding this kind of end of March, so it was a pretty late decision to enter - I finished my Master in Jurisprudence at the University of Washington to focus on policy in the technology space. And so I was having that conversation with myself, I'm like - I was trying not to fall into the trap of, Oh, I'm a tech person. I can do everything. And can I actually work on thinking things through a policy perspective? And after getting some advice from just people that I've worked with in grassroots advocacy, in policy white papers and stuff like that, I said, Okay, you know what? One, I should give it a shot because it's against my own values to just complain and not do anything about it. And two, it's not a unreasonable stretch of just what I know about myself and what I can do.

[00:16:08] Crystal Fincher: So one of the issues with the current Council is that many of the recently elected councilmembers, which now comprise a majority of the Council, are new to government and public office and don't yet have basic knowledge about how city government operates. What do you bring to the table in terms of relevant experience in that area?

[00:16:28] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I spent some amount of time both in terms of my professional job, which is a lot of internal auditing and compliance to meet primarily federal and state regulations for technology and privacy. I've also spent a good amount of time understanding how legislation happens and how it occurs and where to draw the line between things that should be legislated by Council or Congress or whatever equivalent body, and ones that should be regulations that are brought in by the staffers that specialize and have spent their life in that. And so I think the perspective that I can kind of bring in here is that - having a sense of what the broader policy impact is while also understanding that there is a certain point where It makes sense to consult heavily with or defer to the people who've spent way more time thinking about this than I have. Like the Comprehensive Plan, I think, is a good example of this, where there's a lot of elements there that are really good and important. And I think what you have to do as one of the top-level lawmakers is figure out how do these things all combine together? How do they kind of stitch and mesh together? And I think that is a big part of what we're missing from what's on the Council right now, and that's something I think I can bring.

[00:17:50] Crystal Fincher: So that leads into my next question, which is about the Comprehensive Plan. Right now, there's been a draft released that has received broad criticism from an unprecedented coalition of organizations and businesses representing nearly every sector in the city. How do you feel about the current draft of the Comprehensive Plan and how would you improve it?

[00:18:15] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, it's frustrating. One of the things that I'll disclaimer with is, like, I know there's a lot of people that have worked on parts of this, and most of the criticism I have is with the broader picture of it. Fundamentally, I don't think the Comprehensive Plan is ambitious enough. It feels like it repeats the pattern that we often have in this city of where we'll plan for the next five years or three years, but not beyond that. We saw this with the projecting subway funding in the 70s, we saw this with our decisions to plow I-5 through Downtown - and this feels just kind of another iteration of that. When I look at the Comprehensive Plan, I don't see what the city could be like in 50 years - I see a reflection of where the city is now - which I don't think is a sustainable thing. I want to see a much broader intersectional picture of how the city comes together in different parts, and I think we're basically seeing representations of segmented parts. Like we see a little bit of thing about tree canopy, but nothing about sustainable undergrowth or urban farming, which I think is a really significant opportunity as we're dealing with challenges of climate change. I see conversations about resiliency hubs for climate issues, but not about public health or not about cultural vibrancy and community connectedness. We see things about these urban hubs, but not how people will actually connect to them. We see vague mentions of bringing people back who are displaced, but no actual discussion of where that is. And so I think there's a lot of parts where it falls really, really short. And like if this is our 50-year plan, I don't think it really actually looks 50 years ahead.

[00:20:11] Crystal Fincher: So is there a prior draft or a prior option that comes closer to your vision or that you would be more likely to support? What could voters expect to see you put forth or you vote for?

[00:20:26] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, I need to poke a bit more at the prior drafts - part of it is it's hard to kind of craft the time to look at these along a full-time job. I think that the iterations that I've seen, I think, fundamentally share the same problem where it's very isolated in terms of the approaches they take. When I think about what a Comprehensive Plan looks like, I want to see more of how do we picture the different puzzle pieces of government coming together, right? Like, okay, we talk about, we want to expand. We're worried about - like one of the examples I think of is around food. We talk about how we need climate resiliency hubs, we talk about how we need more housing, but we don't talk about how are we actually going to address the food challenges that come with that? Because those rely on - one, a number of farms and farm workers outside of the city. And two, as we're building out tree canopies or vegetation or whatever, have we even considered building that as part of a long-term food sustainability strategy? Because there's lots of opportunities for urban undergrowth that allows opportunities for urban foraging, like different plants or herbs or berries that are very native to the area that can provide a pretty exciting opportunity. And I think those are the types of solutions I want to see that really fit all those components together.

[00:21:53] Crystal Fincher: The current plan has a set amount of housing that is included - that the city is projected to build or absorb - that does not meet the current projections for population growth in the city of Seattle. How many more housing units would your plan include?

[00:22:09] Tariq Yusuf: I would at least want to match the projected growth amount, which I think was something around 63,000 - I'll have to double check the numbers on that. One of the elements I'd like to look at is - a lot of the development plans don't actually build equitably across the city. It's pretty much expanding more, building more housing in places where we already have a lot of development happening. And it's unfortunate that it kind of trails along the historic redlines, so part of what I'd like to do is actually build out more or less a plan - we have the existing urban centers within the city, and we have some discussion about expanding, slowly lifting zoning restrictions in those areas. But I would like to see - in a draft that I would put together, I want to perhaps have some guidance of how do we expand growth within those different urban centers as more people move to those areas? And does it make sense for us to consider additional urban centers in the city or identify some places where we could really start building that out? Because the current plan doesn't really show that - it's just like, these are urban centers here, and this is roughly, like, we'll do a little bit of upzoning here with no guidance as far as how to expand that. And I think that's what I would want to see, and I think that's what would help us kind of get closer to that number of the growth that we need to have.

[00:23:35] Crystal Fincher: So right now, the city of Seattle, in its current projections, is projecting a $230 million budget deficit, and there do not appear to be enough votes on Council to advance any progressive or new revenue options. Given that, how will you approach creating a balanced budget?

[00:23:56] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, and I think one of the big challenges here that I think sometimes gets lost in these discussions is this election is for the remaining one-year term, so there's a limited amount of what we can actually do. But I think one of the really big things I'd like to look at is making sure that we are spending money effectively within the city. One of the big things I really want to explore that I haven't really heard a lot of, just from conversations with people, is contract and procurement reform, right? The City spends a lot of money on contracting and procurement for a whole bunch of different reasons. At the very least, one of the goals I'd like to set is - are we spending money unnecessarily on contracts that are either negotiated at an overly high price range, especially with a lot of procurement related to the criminal justice system? And if we're spending money, is there a way where we can keep that money centered within our community, and especially among communities that have been historically underprivileged? So-

[00:24:59] Crystal Fincher: So I will pause right there and say a number of the councilmembers who were recently elected talked a lot about exploring, auditing - a lot of them talked about current spending, including current contracting. In fact, I believe Councilmember Rivera said that part of her Equitable Development Initiative amendment was in fact due to exactly what you said - hey, we're trying to spend money more efficiently that we're contracting with people. When it comes to public safety, a lot of that money is directly spent on police, on jails, on direct services. In fact, with the jails, those jails are saying that they're understaffed and under-resourced. So arguably for what that is, there is not enough money being spent to deliver what is traditionally expected there. So it seems like if you're trying to reform, improve, make that more effective or redeploy that, you're talking about decreasing funding or the amount of people that are going to be jailed, decreasing the budget of the police department - and that's kind of the option when it comes to public safety. Otherwise, you're talking about headcount in City departments and City services. So what I'm trying to get to and what I think people are realizing now is the broad statements are hard to make an evaluation and as they're going through this budget process, it is about specifics. So what specifically are you cutting or diverting?

[00:26:25] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, I think you kind of hit one of the really big ones because that's - in a lot of the conversations, the first thing kind of goes through criminal justice, like jails, cops. I think one of the elements I'd like to do that I think goes a little bit further than just like looking at budgets and auditing and headcount is looking at kind of what are we charging different agencies within the city of doing. And I think cops are a good place to start with this because fundamentally the way that we use police - and this is not just a thing in Seattle, this is a thing across the United States - we ask police to do way too much. Fundamentally, if you gave anybody like 6 to 12 weeks of training and then go tell them, solve public safety, that is not setting anybody up for success - whether it's the person in that agency or whether it's the community itself. So part of what I'd like to do is work with experts in this field to figure out what are options that we can use to increase safety within communities to help actually address kind of the key issues here.

[00:27:32] Crystal Fincher: So I want to back up a little bit and get closer to the budget question that we started with - and the overall City budget and finding $230 million, which even if you were to dramatically reduce funding of jailing or policing doesn't close that deficit. So there are tough decisions coming up and a lot of candidates who are going to have to make those tough calls, and it's helpful for residents to know specifically what kinds of things are on the table.

[00:28:03] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, no, that's fair - again, I think one of the things I'll come at this with is that we're not going to solve that deficit in one year. It's going to take a lot of steps. That being said-

[00:28:16] Crystal Fincher: The city does have to, is mandated to deliver, to budget it. They can't carry a deficit. So you do have to find $230 million to close that gap this year.

[00:28:26] Tariq Yusuf: Got it. I mean, I think that short of progressive revenue, I think police is going to be a really big part of it. I want to minimize the impact on a lot of the social services because there's so many people that are impacted by that. I think that a lot of the specific cuts that I would want to look at more are the, I guess, kind of the second tier ones that aren't kind of directly affecting individuals. So-

[00:29:02] Crystal Fincher: So how do you define that?

[00:29:04] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah. So how I would define that is I would want to, and this - again, this, you're choosing between a lot of bad decisions here. I think the big one that would be kind of a lot of the, for lack of a better term, like different industry regulatory parts - excluding labor, because labor I consider a little bit more of a front-facing one. Like either lightening restrictions and regulation on some of those parts to just kind of reduce how much money we're spending in the city there. That being said-

[00:29:37] Crystal Fincher: In city government, there is an Office of Labor Standards. Where else is regulation happening?

[00:29:47] Tariq Yusuf: It's a good - where else are other regulations happening, is your question?

[00:29:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. So you're saying when it comes to regulating industry - not that you don't value it, but that's where you would look, consider that to be a second tier service, I think was the term that you used for it - and a place where you would try to find part of that hefty $230 million to close that big gap. So it does not appear that the city does much of that. So my question would be - one, there's going to have to be a significant amount of cuts. And so if we're looking at different offices, we're looking at different types of positions where right now there's already been shortening of library hours and services, there is the Office of Labor Standards, Office of Civil Rights, Office of Fair Housing, Office of Immigrant Rights. And there is talk of potentially cutting those - City Budget Office, Finance Office, purchasing, contracting bids and proposals, real estate services that have to do with building homes and houses and maintaining roads and streets, and people with the city are engaged in some part of the process of doing business with the city. So what would the first tier, or maybe in the terminology that you used before, the last tier be? What would you prioritize for cutting?

[00:31:08] Tariq Yusuf: I think we may have to pause on a lot of the kind of longer-term investments that we have. We may have to slow down a little bit on new housing construction and other, again, what you mentioned, like a lot of the kind of larger infrastructure investments. Again, it's one of those things where it's not optimal, but unless we can get into a position where we can get more progressive revenue options, I think that's unfortunately what will likely have to kind of hit, in my eyes. My hope is that we can - so this is kind of one of the big parts where I want to find more of those opportunities for community partnership, because the city has a number of services that we offer in some cases jointly with community organizations. And I think one of the big things would be figuring out - okay, which of those services is the city taking on that perhaps we can at least lighten the load a little bit and work with community partners to help kind of fill parts of that gap? Again, it's kind of one of those things where it's not a lot of great options.

[00:32:17] Crystal Fincher: Generally, that's a situation where if it's going to be offloaded, those organizations don't take it on for free - they're contracted to do that.

[00:32:26] Tariq Yusuf: And I think that's going to be the thing is - figuring out kind of the cost, like what would be the cost or grant tradeoff that we'd have to work there. It's a lot of-

[00:32:34] Crystal Fincher: Is there an example of that that you can think of?

[00:32:36] Tariq Yusuf: I think one example is like a lot of the, like we have a number of great immigrant and refugee organizations here - loved ones I've volunteered with - and that have a lot of the community trust and investment. For things where we have kind of immigrant refugee services, finding other places where we can kind of work with different organizations that exist today and shift and contract out and see if that gets us a little bit of extra breathing room and budget. It's difficult because I think there's so many different parts of this that are hard to figure out and looking kind of very abstract. And to be honest, I haven't done the specific line item work to look in more detail, but my hope is that by shifting some money from police, especially some of the unstaffed roles we have, I think that can help with protecting some of the worst service cuts that would end up happening. But overall, we'll have to suspend a lot more, maybe like medium to longer-term projects, like in the next three, four or five years. And then hope that we can build advocacy within the city to kind of really get more pushing towards progressive revenue sources.

[00:33:57] Crystal Fincher: It's tough. And again, I know that you are not just willy-nilly advocating for cutting - this is a very tough conversation, but a responsibility and obligation that the person who is elected to this seat is going to have. And so it's important for people to have that understanding.

I want to talk about public safety. There obviously have been conversations and action with the Council when it does come to public safety, with funding additional incentives for officers and attempts to modify the way we hire and screen for police officers - and a lot of conversation surrounding police-centered enforcement, response to crime, a seemingly more punitive approach to crime, increasing enforcement of misdemeanors and reducing diversion, increasing prosecution and jailing of people, which is leading for a call for additional funding or potentially additional contracting. And it's really setting up a conversation of - how do we allocate money between prevention and response? What does public safety mean to you in the comprehensive sense? And how would you look to allocate action and funding between prevention and response?

[00:35:13] Tariq Yusuf: My personal perspective is that we want to spend much more on prevention than response. I'm fundamentally the kind of person that believes that violence and a lot of crime kind of comes from a lot of other factors that we can tackle at other parts of the chain, whether it's like, I mean, mental health is the one that's always talked about, but other things like food security or a secure living situation or someone just having a difficult time. I think we started working on a really great model with the CARE team, and we've seen that model work really, really well in other cities across the United States - Portland was one of the ones I was following pretty closely when they were rolling that out. So I think I would like to see kind of a shift to those programs specifically. The general theory I have around it is if we're able to kind of have more presence of care in communities, that's what ultimately builds that perception of safety among people around us. And I think fundamentally, the dollars that we spend will go a lot farther and - I'll give an example - School Resource Officers. We could pay for a cop to be at a school, or we could pay for ensuring that every kid gets to eat. One of those is going to be a lot cheaper than the other, and we have a lot of the partnerships in the community to do that. That's one of the things I really want to look at in terms of response, and I think that can help address the concerns of safety in a way that works equitably between the people in the neighborhoods and people who end up on the wrong side of their engagements with law enforcement.

[00:36:59] Crystal Fincher: So I suppose when looking at certainly working within the existing budget, does that mean functionally in your duties on the Council that you're opposing anything that's requiring new expenditures on existing officers? What would you fund from the City perspective?

[00:37:16] Tariq Yusuf: I would generally be opposed to new additional funding to law enforcement. I mean, we've already did the whole thing with the SPOG contract, so there's really nothing I know necessarily that I can do to kind of pull back from that. But I think that we need to look at our public safety investments in the same way we're looking at everything else, where we have a responsibility to address the deficit, we have a responsibility to tackle that, and we have to fundamentally ask - is this worth digging the hole a little bit deeper for us to go into? And I think the majority of cases where a lot of the investments are not necessarily backed with evidence or data that shows that these are actually effective. I can look at ShotSpotter, for example - it's a fancy tech gadget that doesn't really draw a clear path to making our community safer. It's just throwing more money at a problem that doesn't lead to a clear solution, whereas I think we have a lot clearer values for the same dollars.

[00:38:24] Crystal Fincher: Yes. Very glad that the City has decided not to move forward with ShotSpotter itself, although it is moving forward with other automated technologies. So there's been a lot of talk about increasing trust between the community and police, improving the culture and increasing accountability, lots of promises from existing councilmembers to introduce reforms. So what specifically can you do in your position to improve the culture within SPD and increase the amount of accountability when we see things that shouldn't happen, given the constraints that the contract places?

[00:39:08] Tariq Yusuf: Fundamentally, it's going to be a lot of listening and a lot of discussions and working with people within the department. Given the changes that came in the last contract, one of the big things that I want to spend more time on is kind of understanding - at a basic level, just understanding what the officer's perception of their day-to-day is. I don't come from a law enforcement background. I don't come from a family that's been in law enforcement. I fundamentally am ignorant of that. So that would be kind of the first thing. One of the things I suspect that will come from that is - just from the reading and conversations I've had, in looking at the policy - one of the concerns is just a level of preparedness in dealing with the challenges that are coming when you go on to your shift in the day. So I think one of the things that we can do is provide a little bit more clarity in terms of the job description for what are officers doing when they go into work? What are the types of problems they're expected to resolve? And how can we narrow that focus to show that - okay, these are the cases where we need an officer to respond. And clearly define, here's what the kind of standard or state of the art is that we want to hold ourselves and our city to. And I think that goes hand-in-hand with shifting some of that response into non-uniformed officer engagements like what we see with the CARE program. I think a big part of it is going to be looking at dispatch data, figuring out where our resource is going and-

[00:40:32] Crystal Fincher: So, okay - so I have to ask. So these things have been looked at and explored from the City extensively over the past several years. And since the councilmembers have taken office - and as we previously discussed, they are very new - they've actually been reviewing that information there. And so you're running for office, you're going to be taking on these responsibilities as soon as you start. Do you feel like there's a responsibility or an obligation to get up to speed on that and advance some plans or let people know what you think about that information that exists before you're elected, as a candidate?

[00:41:10] Tariq Yusuf: I think there is a responsibility. And I think the challenge is that in running for office, there's a lot of life balance that we have to do. And I think this is something that I've been trying to build a better balance between - doing my main - as much as I'd like to, I can't do this full-time. And I would want to kind of be able to sit more directly and look and read through things and write up - Here's what I think we should do about it. I think the challenge is that there's just a lot of things that I have to juggle between life and work and different things like that. So I think you're right - that's absolutely a standard that we should try to move to. But I think the challenge is that it's kind of like - especially we have the budget - where we are right now is not kind of where we can get with there. And I think one of the things that I have been trying to prioritize in terms of just how I'm looking at things is looking at - okay, trying to kind of create a short list of here's the couple of things that I think I have the time to really dive into and look at and be able to kind of come up with a full opinion on before theoretically hopping into a full-time position. A big part of that is just talking with people and figure out what are things that are on people's minds - like the Comprehensive Plan is a big part of people's minds. So sitting down, taking time to look at that - that was one priority. And so I think that's how I've been trying to make those distinctions, but it's a balancing act, unfortunately, for anybody that runs for office and I think that's one of the challenges.

[00:42:37] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. Okay, so when it comes to safety in schools, a lot of conversations recently about gun violence that we've seen at a number of campuses within the Seattle Public School District, at or near those campuses. How will you, in your capacity as a City Councilmember, help to ensure a community-led approach to improving safety at schools across the district?

[00:43:05] Tariq Yusuf: That's a good question. I think one of the things I would like to focus on, especially since we have the fortune of having full-time councilmembers in Seattle - I want to really, especially with Position 8 being at-large, I want to really build out a much more consistent set of outreach opportunities, both in different neighborhoods and centers, but also among just these different communities. I think, especially with the events of the last couple of weeks, I want to especially have some of those conversations with teachers, with students, and with parents. And so my hope is that most of the time I'm in office is not going to be sitting in a room, it's going to be going to different communities, talking with people, talking with organizations that are helping impact our community in a positive way and figuring out - okay, where are the problems that are facing now beyond what I'm seeing in City Hall? And so that's one of the things I'm trying to, as I find the time, trying to implement, hopefully within our campaign. That's something we would like to do - to actually have at least a virtual just chat about what are things going on in the city and what are things that we should be focusing on. I think there's a lot of opportunity that has not been leveraged on the Council to really bring that radical transparency in government, especially when local government makes such a big impact on everybody.

[00:44:26] Crystal Fincher: Moving to transit and transportation, there has been an epidemic of really driver-caused violence - pedestrians and cyclists being hit by drivers across the city, seriously injured or killed in record-breaking amounts. And it's one of the leading causes of violence in the city of Seattle right now, so it's a major part of the public safety conversation and a crucial element of our transportation and transit conversations. What specifically can be implemented that you can lead on from the Council to reduce the amounts of injuries to pedestrians and bicyclists?

[00:45:07] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, this is - I ended up getting hit-and-run a couple weeks ago on Mercer and the driver just drove away, so myself and a lot of friends have very direct experience with this. I think the starts of what we have in the Transportation Levy address parts of this. I think the challenging part is figuring out what other things we can do, at least within the next year, to try to address parts of it. I think also considering the deficit that we're in - I think expanding initiatives like we have with kind of more directly protected bike lanes, like one of the thoroughfares I take a lot is along Westlake. And there's been construction on actual low concrete curbs and not just the flimsy flex pipes - and so I think those are small things that we can try to do to kind of slowly make those improvements. I think It's not going to obviously solve everything. I think as we start seeing more - we're scheduled to see this year the Lynnwood Light Rail come online, and I think that will hopefully incentivize less driving into the city. And I think that's maybe what we can do within the next year is - find ways where we can incentivize using alternate forms of transportation as a means of just reducing the number of cars on the road in the city. And I think if we can do that, that's a small thing we can do in the immediate case while we work on some of these broader investments.

[00:46:29] Crystal Fincher: Do you support a move to automated traffic enforcement of driving speed and behavior?

[00:46:34] Tariq Yusuf: I do, but I think that there's a lot of caveat there. I work in technology policy and privacy, and so this is something that's very strong on my mind as far as like the context by which - whenever we deploy automated enforcement or automatic cameras or stuff like that, I'm very hesitant as far as the types of places we use them in. So I think that the decision to deploy them needs to be very, very deliberate in terms of - can we draw a clear benefit for this one? For example, the case I was mentioning when I got hit on Mercer - that is a pretty notorious biking intersection to get hit on, so maybe we have an enforcement camera that just focuses on that specifically. And so when there is some kind of detection or some kind of a collision, then you can get a very specific narrowed down purpose for each of those things we put in. So it's kind of a yes with caveats in a lot of ways, because I think you only need a few of these in very like high incident areas, and that can make things a lot better. For example, the cameras we have for enforcing bus lanes - it's only in a few places, but it's very effective where it is - like the two places that come to mind are on 99 when you're coming down, there is a camera that will ticket you if you are driving the bus lane there. Almost nobody is in the bus lane there now. The other one is right on Westlake where the streetcar goes. And if you are in that intersection, it will take a picture there and it'll give you a warning first, and then they'll start ticketing you as an enforcement measure. And so those are two things that just build a little bit of awareness and help kind of reduce the risk in those high incident intersections.

[00:48:11] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. So on almost every measure, we're behind on our 2030 climate goals and experiencing increased impacts from our climate, from extreme heat to extreme cold. We're expecting an influx of climate refugees in coming years in increasing numbers. What are your highest priority plans to get us back on track with those goals?

[00:48:34] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, beyond one year, I think we need more progressive revenue in the city. And I think that's just going to be, it needs to be part of the conversation. In the short term, I think we really need to make sure that we are prepared for dealing with the kind of worst cases. I think what we have, as proposed, for resiliency hubs - I think it's a good start. And I think we can maybe make some good starts on parts of that, kind of prioritizing warming shelters, cooling shelters, and clean air shelters for wildfire smoke. We have some great programs to help add air conditioning to folks who can't afford that, who live in homes that were built without them when we didn't have this situation - and I think that's going to be really helpful. So I think using those strategies will be kind of helpful in at least in kind of getting us through this next year. But again, we need to start focusing on longer-term solutions and actually getting funds for investment. And I think - my hope is that we can build out the case, not just among peers in City Council, but also just across the city that if we are going to be the place where people are going to come to try and survive the climate crisis, we need to demand more investment from the larger businesses that are here because they have been benefiting from what we have here and we need to ensure that we're able to maintain that investment.

[00:49:57] Crystal Fincher: What can be done to improve the business climate in the city, and particularly to support small businesses who may not be in the Downtown core?

[00:50:09] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, I think one of the things I've been thinking about a lot here - and I guess for context, I live kind of in the core of Fremont, and so I've seen a lot of business turnover here. I think one of the big things is transit and being able to get around easier helps everybody, and I think that's going to be a big part of it. I think another thing that I would like to see longer term is kind of finding a way where we can get a little bit more proportional in terms of the way that we tax small and medium-sized businesses. I think when we talk about revenue, the businesses that will be paying most of that are the ones that don't have the ability to find different loopholes and stuff like that. And so honestly, I want to see models of business taxation that maybe go similar to what we have for the JumpStart Tax or what we have for the proposed Social Housing funding, where the businesses that have and are gaining a lot pay a much larger portion of that. I think right now we put way too much of that on small businesses. And like, there's a lot of small family businesses that I grew up with that had to either close or change because it was just too expensive with everything around. So that's kind of what I've been thinking of on that space.

[00:51:30] Crystal Fincher: So looking at more large corporate taxation and increasing that to look to reduce the amount of taxes on smaller businesses in the city?

[00:51:40] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, I think that's right. And I think part of it is the policy principle that I have behind this is that we have a lot of skilled labor in the city that directly correlates to the large profits that these companies are making. And I think that there needs to be some sort of proportionality on that benefit that they're getting. We have, and I think there is an argument to be made here because we have both - despite the challenges we have, we have a very desirable place to live in the United States at the very least. And two, we have a lot of the skill and education institutions, pipelines that help make those companies, corporations run as well as they do. And so I think that that's something I think I would like to have us flex a little bit more as the city. It's like big companies are already getting so much benefit from us. We just need a little bit more to be able to cover the basic essentials of what we need in the city.

[00:52:37] Crystal Fincher: Notwithstanding the gigantic deficit. Going back to the deficit and the budget - right now there does not appear to be the votes to advance any kind of progressive revenue. But there was a report done by the Progressive Tax Revenue Workforce that did advance a number of options - there are existing votes. And who knows, maybe the conversation - when it gets into it, because councilmembers are still learning the basics - may help convince some that whatever pain they estimate in their minds would be caused by new progressive revenue may be changed to say that that would be less of a burden for people than cutting the wide variety of services and programs and stuff. So if you were to advance progressive revenue options, what would they be? What types of progressive revenue do you support for the city of Seattle?

[00:53:30] Tariq Yusuf: Yeah, the biggest source I think is going to be on things like the JumpStart Tax, just payroll taxes generally. We have a lot of companies that pay their employees a very large amount and have plenty of extra to give around for that. And I think one of the largest opportunities that we can have to bring some benefit there. I also want to see something like I mentioned earlier, like a proportional impact - I guess I'm making the terminology up on the fly - proportional profit impact. For example, let's say you have a company that's 100,000 employees, 30,000 of them are in Seattle. Those 30,000 people that are in Seattle are bringing a lot of benefit to this company. And so having some sort of calculated proportion off the benefit that the city is giving to the company as a tax on profits. I think that there would be some opportunity there to be able to bring some of that impact in addition to the other options that we've seen in the progressive tax report.

[00:54:32] Crystal Fincher: Makes sense. So as we move to close this conversation today, right now you're currently running against three other people, including the current occupant of the position. And voters are trying to figure out what the differences are between you all and why they should vote for you above the other candidates. What do you tell voters considering that?

[00:54:54] Tariq Yusuf: What I tell them is that - I think primarily the thing that I wish I saw in more elected officials is the capacity to be honest, transparent, open, and compassionate. That's what I've always felt that I've missed from my elected officials. And that's something that I hope that voters will appreciate - that I may have to make tough calls, and I will have to make tough calls if I make it onto the Council - but knowing that they'll be able to at least have a conversation and that I'll be there to sit and explain and talk with them through it. I'm hoping that resonates with folks, and I think that's what really, I think, differentiates me among the field.

[00:55:41] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for taking the time to join us today.

Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes.

Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

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