Week in Review: October 11, 2024 - with Ron Davis

Ryan Mello Outlines Comprehensive Vision for Pierce County's Future from Hacks & Wonks

“The biggest contrasts in Washington's lands commissioner race” by Melissa Santos from Axios

“Seattle’s new Overlook Walk makes for a seamless downtown adventure” by Sarah-Mae McCullough from The Seattle Times

“Timeline set for Seattle school closures. 5 possible schools yet to be named” by Sami West from KUOW

“SPS board must make it clear the well-resourced schools plan is done” by Sarah Clark for The Seattle Times

“Andrea Suarez Wants to Go Backwards on Homelessness” by Vivian McCall from The Stranger

@analogist_net on Twitter/X: “Right wing candidate for WA state says it’s easy to buy a house — she did it!”

“Seattle increases police hiring bonus to $50,000” by Josh Cohen from Cascade PBS

“Harrell’s Expanded Surveillance Program Clears Hurdle in Seattle Council” by Amy Sundberg from The Urbanist

“Harrell Cuts Social Safety Net to Fund 16% Boost to SPD” by Amy Sundberg from The Urbanist

“40% of Asians face discrimination, survey finds” by Christine Clarridge from Axios

“City of Tacoma unveils its most recent budget proposal” by Mayowa Aina from KNKX

“Tacoma faces $24 million gap in proposed 2025-26 budget. How will the city fill it?” by Simone Carter from The News Tribune

“Hurricane Helene-related delays halt some elective procedures in WA” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times

“State workplace inspectors will have access to immigration detention center in Tacoma” by Bill Lucia from Washington State Standard

Find stories that Crystal is reading here

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[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 Tuesday topical show and Friday week-in-review 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.

If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I chatted with Pierce County Executive candidate Ryan Mello about his comprehensive vision for the county and how he pledges active leadership that emphasizes public safety reforms, affordable housing, environmental conservation, and economic development. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program as a co-host for the first time: Seattle advocate and author of the Rondezvous newsletter, Ron Davis. Welcome!

[00:01:27] Ron Davis: Thank you so much for having me, Crystal. I'm excited to be here.

[00:01:30] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, we've got a lot to talk about today. We'll start off talking about the Commissioner of Public Lands race. You can recall our many discussions about this very, very, very close race in the primary. And now Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dave Upthegrove are competing in the general election. They've had a number of forums lately. And interestingly, in a recent Axios interview with Melissa Santos, Jaime Herrera Beutler, who has avoided answering where she stood on Initiative 2117 to repeal the Climate Commitment Act, said she is going to be voting Yes. She wants to repeal the Climate Commitment Act. She wants to repeal the progress we've made. And she's siding with climate deniers, which is interesting to me because she has positioned herself, or maintained a position that's more moderate - or less extreme is what she's trying to present - than many other Republicans. But this is a pretty mainline Republican effort, and a lot of climate denialists are leading the charge here. How did you read this?

[00:02:46] Ron Davis: Well, first of all, I can see why she avoided telling people for a long time, because this has just got to be an unpopular position. Repealing the Climate Commitment Act is backed, as you've discussed on the show before, by mega-millionaire hedge fund Brian Heywood's group. And the Koch brothers have put money into this, and the cement industry. When your job is to take care of public lands and you are siding with the dirtiest polluters in the world, that's pretty tough. That's a tough position to take. And what's interesting to me, in addition to all of this, is that I-2117, in repealing the act, also will just get rid of a ton, ton, ton of revenue for cleaning up our communities - some of which goes to managing forests. There's a bunch of revenue in there for things like thinning forests, control burns, strategic fuel breaks - the exact tools that a Commissioner of Public Lands needs to be successful. 10% of the money goes to tribes to put into conservation work and resilience work. And then of course, other very critical areas like transit - free transit for kids and electrification. But for someone to be in charge of our public lands to side with the climate deniers, to not be trying to bend the climate curve - which is just putting our forests more and more at risk - and to turn down all this money to actually manage our forests well, I just think that's a testament that she should not be in that position.

[00:04:10] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And as you point out - out of all positions - to say this as someone running for Commissioner of Public Lands is just so out of touch for what Washington residents need. We have been through the era of clear-cutting. We have been through the era of not being concerned about conservation. And we've paid the price with landslides, with completely decimated landscapes and areas with no eye towards environmental conservation. This is just indicative of an irresponsible approach to managing our heavily forested public lands and everything else that comes along with it - so I thought that was actually major. To your point, not surprised at all that she tried to avoid saying that until she was nailed down on this question, but really an interesting take. And again, this is just one of those initiatives that's part of that whole package by uber conservative centimillionaire Brian Heywood that many people are just saying - Hey, just vote No to that package. It's a whole package to try and defund and bring an extremist agenda to the state.

[00:05:24] Ron Davis: I feel like her announcing this is a little bit like saying - Hey, I want to guard the henhouse, but I want you to all know I'm a fox. Like, it's just absolutely nuts.

[00:05:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, in more optimistic news, a big deal happened in Seattle this week. Overlook Walk opened to widespread acclaim. What is this walk and what did you think of it?

[00:05:46] Ron Davis: Yeah, so it's this beautiful space that connects Pike Place Market down to the actual waterfront. We've been waiting for years to see this as the viaduct has come down, and the new street and the new park area has come up. But now the land up above is connected to the land below. And it's created this big, beautiful public area where people can gather. And I think thousands of people showed up this weekend to be there, to celebrate. And it's really getting nothing but praise online and from people I'm talking to. I will say there was one bit of pushback from some folks who did want to point out that - Hey, during the McGinn administration, we realized that we should be making this whole space a park instead of having this large road here, so this could have come faster and been bigger. And I agree with that. And I can also say I'm excited about what has been built, at least in the case of this public space. I think it's going to be a great asset to our city.

[00:06:40] Crystal Fincher: That's exactly where I'm at, as someone who was there at the time - certainly what was being sold. And I mean, this was talked about even before McGinn - back with Greg Nickels, who I think shared the vision of this, but expanded to a much wider degree and a more cohesive connection to downtown. But this is fantastic. It's a tourist attraction. It's a place where people can just be. It's a place where events can be held, concerts can be held. And really just showcases the beauty of Seattle and all of its surrounding area and landscape. It is really easy - this. area is so absolutely gorgeous. We are so fortunate to be able to have the seascape, the landscape, the mountains that we have. It's beautiful. And the Seattle skyline is all right there - you have 360 degree views that are just fantastic at different levels. This is really a place built for people. This is a people-only place. There are no cars in this place, which a number of people commented on and were saying - Hey, pay attention - place that's receiving widespread acclaim is one of the largest car-free areas in the city, so let's figure out how to do more of this. I think this is a great job for this part, delivering on this vision. And I'm excited to spend some time there and to catch some events there.

[00:08:07] Ron Davis: Yeah, it can be a great living room for our city. I love great public spaces, car-free public spaces. And I think you're right - it being so close to nature, to the water, to the views of the Olympics, to downtown - it's just, just gorgeous and we are so blessed. And so, it's neat for us to be able to take some of that space and really make it a place where the people can gather.

[00:08:28] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, now we turn to some more fraught topics. There have been a number of new developments in Seattle Public Schools' plan to close schools - that has gone through iterations. The district said that they were going to reconsider what it was, the superintendent came out and said, - Okay, we're now thinking about closing five schools right now and then we'll evaluate what we're going to close later. And so they had another meeting yesterday - we're recording this on Thursday, so they had another meeting on Wednesday. And there was a parent rally on Wednesday. What were the parents saying and what was decided at this school board meeting?

[00:09:12] Ron Davis: So at the school board meeting, they voted to go ahead and move forward on closing 5 schools instead of 21 or 17. They were saying that this would save about $7.5 million of the $100 million gap. Sarah Clark, who wrote a piece in The Seattle Times this week, opposed this. She voted against it, saying that closures don't make sense at this point, and we need to make sure that we're serving people from all backgrounds and that we're not actually exacerbating the enrollment problems that are actually driving funding down. And then the parents really vocalized something very similar. They said - This is not a plan. You saying we're going to just delay closures to future years is not confidence building. Your plans continue to be inequitable. One thing I thought was so interesting is I saw that a speaker at the board meeting who has Japanese ancestry said that they actually created the Japanese dual-language program in Wallingford as a restorative justice program after the Japanese there had been interned in internment camps in 1942. And here he's run into this situation where SPS is proposing to close John Stanford. So when you see all this sort of equity-washing of what's being done and stuff like that is going on under the surface, you are not in a situation that is either providing equity to students or really building the confidence of people. In addition to that, the most interesting comment I saw about this was from a Blaine parent, and it was featured in a KUOW article. And she said to the board - You have our voices. Ask us how to help you advocate to get the funds. And she was referring to getting the funds at the state. Let us help you. Let us stand with you. Don't force us to stand against you. But as the school board has not gone aggressively after funding from the state, has not gone aggressively after ways to restore its enrollment problems - it's put parents in this position of feeling like, do we have to stand against you or can we stand with you at the state to try to fix this problem? And it continues to be a real mess here in Seattle.

[00:11:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely - Sarah Clark being one of the seven school board directors. And so this coming to a head and really being codified in a vote and direction from the board to the superintendent. So they decided to say they're only closing five schools now. So the 21-school plan is completely off the table for now, at least. That, as you said, they were going to ask the state for $40 million to help with transportation and other supplemental funding. They announced that they'll be announcing the five schools that they're now proposing to close by the end of the month, along with a revised plan that will likely include staff cuts, other cuts to try and bridge the big deficit gap - that's $100 million, even with this revised 5-school closure plan, still only saving $7.5 million of that $100 million. Again, we talked about this before, but that's a very optimistic projection there. Most studies that have been done have found that closures have been much more costly than originally anticipated. And the disruption that it causes - the interruptions and the delays to student learning it causes - really gives a lot of people pause about the issue of closing schools at all. And this is something that the Seattle School District has dealt with before in closing schools. And really, the lesson that I hope people have learned, but it looks like most of the school board members haven't - is that enrollment is cyclical. Enrollment ebbs and flows. Enrollment increases and decreases. And so, after closing schools before - the last time Seattle Schools did this 10, 15 years ago - they then had to scramble to open some, to create additional capacity, to raise more capital funds because enrollment, once again, increased beyond their shrunken footprint. So this is a big challenge. And that one quote that you read from Charlotte Casey, who is a parent at Catharine Blaine K-8, summed it all up. You have hundreds of parents activated. A few hundred showed up at a couple of rallies before, over 100 were at a rally yesterday before the school meeting. These parents are concerned. They're activated. They're ready to hold their legislators accountable for acting to help their kids, their families, and their districts.

[00:13:46] Ron Davis: The school board should look at this as an opportunity because we know we have a structural funding problem at the state level. And the fact that you have all these activated parents, this is a chance to really influence the Legislature. But it seems that they're just going into this cut, cut, cut mentality that, as you noted, just has so much destructive effect and they'll end up having to unwind in just a few years anyway. It just feels like a really sad, lost opportunity to do right by the community.

[00:14:15] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to reiterate that these parents are not happy or relieved that now they've settled on five schools for now. They're reiterating their position that they believe no closures is the only appropriate plan. Obviously, there are going to have to be other mitigating factors here. They are saying you need to make those decisions with parent input, with the input of families that are going to be impacted in this district, to understand what those schools mean to each neighborhood and community. And I think Sarah Clark, in an opinion piece in The Seattle Times, is really in the right place here. She has said - Hey, closures is the wrong way to go. It doesn't fix the structural budget issue. And I think she's asking the right questions here because she said - Hey, this is what we need to address. We need a multi-year plan to close our operating deficit - we need to include revenues in that projection, we need to ask for appropriate funding from the state, that it shouldn't just be a plan that takes cuts for granted, that that's the only thing we're going to be able to do. They need to address the public safety issues at schools. They need to address the longstanding actual issues of equity and inclusion that some have said existing efforts have not adequately handled - and some people have said they've actually moved folks in the other direction. And they need to give parents clarity on how they're going to move forward with universal learning or not moving forward with that - which has had some challenges in implementation, it sounds like, and in teachers' ability to manage that - and whether to move back to the highly capable cohort programming. So she's laid out - Hey, these are the questions we need to be answered. This is the approach that we need to take. And it sounds very similar to what parents are asking for. It'll be interesting to see - whether and if that feedback is taken. Moving forward, it'll be interesting to see how much of that is incorporated in this plan they come out with by the end of the month. We will certainly be following this as new developments happen, as we hear more from the district, and as we hear more from legislators about what they're planning to do to address this.

I also want to talk about some news this week that The Stranger reported on, in a piece that I actually recommend a lot of people read. Andrea Suarez, who is one of the candidates for the 43rd Legislative District race in Seattle against Shaun Scott, the Democrat there, really made it plain that she doesn't really understand or is choosing not to engage with the reality of our housing affordability problem. What did she say? And why did so many people have issues with it?

[00:17:11] Ron Davis: Well, pretty much every time Suarez speaks, she says something controversial and worth calling out. So, one is she made this comment online about how she made only $47,000 and she bought a house in Maple Valley with no down payment - I can help others realize this dream. It's possible.

[00:17:29] Crystal Fincher: And she said that in response to people talking about how expensive it is to rent, basically, in the city of Seattle. Obviously, buying a home is a much higher bar to clear, given the median home price being over a million dollars in the city now. And her response was what?

[00:17:46] Ron Davis: Yeah, it's like - I could afford this. Let me show you how. So then people start jumping on - Looks like you bought your house in 1997 for $144,000. Which I looked that up - that's $1,000/month payment, that's like 800 bucks less than a one bedroom apartment in Seattle right now just to rent. I mean, just completely out of touch, just pooh-poohing people and the real limitations that we all face as we live in this expensive, housing-constrained city. And so it was just - 44% of our households in Seattle spend 30% or more of their income on housing. And Suarez's 47 grand - she's talking about 1997 - that's still more than minimum wage now. And that's when prices were about a sixth of what they are now. And so just completely out of touch with what people are really actually experiencing in Seattle, in addition to the way she's completely out of touch with what's going on in homelessness and what actually cures it and makes it worse - just one more thing.

[00:18:41] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I mean, kind of suggesting - Hey, I was able to buy a house just making $47,000 a year. I'll show you how to do it. Anyone can do it. Just follow my easy plan. That house costs, as you said, $144,000. In today's dollars, that's $587k. Now that reveals two things. One, that's a whole lot more than it originally cost. She'd have to be making $191,000/year in today's money to afford that house with the same income-to-mortgage ratio. Most people in this city are not making $191,000 in their households - that is just really out of touch. And also, $587,000 homes don't really exist in abundance in the city of - like, you know, I think there'd be lots of people hopping on them. But most people are just remembering the glory days that she still seems to be living in. And a lot of people who haven't engaged with this housing market in the last decade or so, who still may be fairly young - they're millennials, they don't consider themselves to be old and stodgy. And they may have challenges that people have had with like student debt, other modern challenges that some older people may not have. But still not understanding that in the past decade, this housing market has just gotten absolutely out of control in terms of affordability, both for renting and especially for owning. And so just to flippantly suggest - Hey, I was only making $47,000 and I was able to do it. I'll show you how - where somehow the problem that people are facing is one of just lack of information and education, and if she just blessed people with her superior knowledge, everything would be fine? Doesn't really sound realistic. Obviously, in this race, Shaun Scott has much more experience in this area, seems to be providing proposals rooted in evidence, and that have been shown to be much more effective in actually addressing the issue of affordability. But wow, this is a challenge.

And in one of those pieces - of the few - this week, I thought it was really appropriate. Because obviously, Andrea Suarez calls herself a Democrat. But one of the things that was also talked about in one of these articles was that no Democrats consider Andrea Suarez a Democrat, no Democratic organization. There are several local Democratic Party organizations for each legislative district in Seattle, so whether you're in the 37th or 46th or 36th or 43rd - each one of those legislative districts has a local Democratic organization that makes endorsements. You've probably seen mail or commercials that talk about those party endorsements. And that kind of is where people take their cue from - Okay, this is someone who is endorsed by Democrats, that has a platform that is consistent with the local party platform. And Andrea Suarez did not tick any of those boxes for any of the local party organizations, same with the King County Democrats. And in fact, the Washington State Democrats viewed her as such a not-Democrat, being so consistent and cozy with and showing up to and committing to speak to Republican events with Republicans that - okay, this is - you hear "Republican in Name Only," this seems to be a "Democrat in Name Only." She's self-identifying as a Democrat, but no Democrats are identifying her as a Democrat. So it's just really interesting to see really Republican ideas being espoused here. And the same kind of challenges that people in the region have had with the lack of a plan from Republicans to substantively address housing affordability - we're seeing the same things reflected with Andrea Suarez.

[00:22:47] Ron Davis: It's worth noting, too - you mentioned the state saying she's outside the tent. I mean, the state is managing a big, complex party. I'm just thinking about Marie Gluesenkamp Perez down in southwest Washington and how centrist of a Democrat she is. They're very diplomatic about keeping that tent big and wide open. And so when you get to the spot where the State Chair, the former State Chair is saying - Not even close - you know that you've really wandered outside the tent. And I think it's clear - she's been out campaigning for Semi Bird, the MAGA candidate. She says that MAGA and Democrats are just as corrupt as each other. This is ridiculous. It's her constitutional right to say what she wants about herself, but I think we need to be clear on what the truth is.

[00:23:28] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely - excellent point. I also want to talk about action that the Seattle City Council took this week to increase hiring bonuses for the Seattle Police Department in their continued attempt to recruit more officers. Their existing plans to recruit officers have not been successful. That seems to be the bulk of their public safety plan and agenda, in addition to approving the use of surveillance cameras for public safety purposes in a few areas in the city with studies to expand that to more. What does this really do? And what has been the reception to it?

[00:24:08] Ron Davis: It depends which set of advocates are looking at it. There's a set of people who are just - all they can think about right now is cops, cops, cops, and they're excited. But there's just not a lot of evidence that signing bonuses like this work. We've been offering big signing bonuses - this just makes them bigger. In terms of the cameras - again, we have this significant budget deficit. We're spending a bunch more money on trying to surveil the public, which may or may not have its benefits or costs, but the ACLU is out there saying - Hey, there's some real dangers here. And at the same time, we are defunding the Seattle Channel, which holds the City of Seattle accountable. We are cutting back on the Office of Labor Standards, which holds big employers accountable. We are handing away our leverage in negotiations with the Seattle Police Officers Guild for accountability. So it just seems that we have a set of folks on Council who are ready, even in the face of a budget deficit, to throw more money at sort of accountability for the public, but not for themselves or big corporations or their backers. And I think it says a lot about their priorities, especially when a lot of this - as I noted at the top with the $50,000 - is performative. We know a lot of this money just sort of goes into the air. It just does not have that much of an effect. And so it doesn't deal with the structural shortage of the number of police officers nationwide and people getting into the discipline. And it's frustrating to watch, but I think it tells us about the values of the Council.

[00:25:39] Crystal Fincher: It is frustrating to watch. And I don't think it's inappropriate to have a conversation - to really have a public conversation, get public input for surveillance. Surveillance comes in many different flavors. It could be speed and red light cameras. It could be this situation. It could be overall monitoring with AI facial recognition that could also be sent to ICE. There are some uses where many people conclude it's more beneficial than not, and there are several that aren't. I think what's alarming to people is that so much of this is happening without appropriate public input. And in defiance of the expert panels and committees and task forces that they themselves and that the mayor has tasked with figuring out this issue, providing a recommendation, and providing guidelines and boundaries across this. That was also the case in this instance, where there were recommendations made that were not followed here. There were concerns raised by experts - that they considered experts, that they looked to and appointed - that when it came back and didn't seem consistent with what they wanted to advocate for, were just ignored. That is very alarming to many people on this issue and many others.

And I think the other thing is that this really kind of incomplete, very narrow view of public safety is problematic. And really is inconsistent [with] where the majority of the city is at. I think it's fair to say, a majority of residents in the city are not saying - We don't want any police to do anything ever. They're saying - There are times when I feel like I need to call 911 and I want a prompt and appropriate response. If life is in danger, if there's a violent situation happening, they want a policeman to respond to that generally - the majority of residents, according to polling. Also, according to polling, Seattle is in definite support of a very comprehensive vision of public safety, as is the police chief. In several interviews, Sue Rahr, our interim police chief, has talked about the fact that police are not the appropriate responders, they're not the appropriate intervention for every problem on our street. And in fact, a lot of the languishing problems. Where people are seeing people dealing with behavioral health crises on the streets - maybe being disruptive but it's not criminal. People dealing with substance use disorder - maybe using, maybe being under the influence publicly, but that's not necessarily a crime in and of itself. Or it's only a crime when it's done outside by unhoused people and not for people who are housed or can go in a privately owned area. And everybody - from prosecutors to public defenders, to police officers, to advocates for reform - say that we need more tools at our disposal to appropriately respond to this. Someone's having a behavioral health crisis - they need appropriate behavioral health intervention. They need a crisis center to go to. They need appropriate social workers and people who can help treat that - get to the root cause, figure out what's happening. Unhoused people in an area - where really right now just existing in some public areas is a problem - well, where can they go? Are there - one, shelter beds that are appropriate to house people with their needs? Are there transitional housing and permanent housing available? Those things that everyone seems to agree are necessary are in such short supply.

And in fact, despite approving this increased spending for police, they're actually defunding a lot of the money for the rest of this stuff. Amy Sundberg had a piece in The Urbanist this week that really did a good job breaking this down. And things that we know address root causes of crime, that have been successful before, that have been as successful as they've ever been - in the administration under McGinn, and Greg Nickels also had a lot to do with that. But cutting nearly a million dollars for food and meal programs, cutting $2 million for the LEAD and CoLEAD diversion programs, cutting $200,000 for pre-filing diversion, cutting $100,000 for survivors of police violence, cutting $450,000 for programs addressing gender-based violence - like intimate partner violence, right? Domestic violence response is being defunded? Reducing by $800,000 for public health programs providing behavioral health services for the Latino community and comprehensive substance use disorder treatment, which is in existing short supply and we need more of. Cutting $123,000 for legal counsel for youth and children, which is mandated by law. Cutting over half a million dollars - $527,000 less rental assistance for tenants, when we know when that doesn't happen, people wind up on the street and we continue to make our problem of unhoused people even worse. It just feels like we're moving backwards and everything that we're doing that could prevent, that can mitigate, that can reduce the amount of people being harmed in the community is being defunded - while we keep throwing the same money at something that hasn't yet worked, and that police themselves are saying this is not the core of the problem. It's really confounding - it just seems fundamentally unserious.

[00:31:25] Ron Davis: You know, it makes me think of the conversation we were having earlier about Andrea Suarez, which is - it's not just the Seattle public and experts that understand that we need to both prevent and respond. It's the entire Democratic Party. And for some reason, our City Council is taking a set of stances around this that are completely out of step with basic Democratic Party policy, which is - Hey, we need to invest in people. We need to make sure they're fed and housed and taken care of. We need to prevent crime. We need to take care of trauma so that trauma doesn't repeat itself. And we need to respond to violent incidents promptly and with the right response as soon as possible. And it just seems that we currently have an administration that pooh-poohs most of that, and really sees the only serious thing as the response - and can't come up with anything better than bonuses to try to get us there, which don't really work very well. So it's extremely discouraging to see in the city of Seattle.

[00:32:26] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I'm going to go even further with that - this is not just advocated by the Democratic Party. A number of these things that are being cut and that are being discounted as not really public safety are embraced and funded in Republican majority government cities. This is not just a Democrat versus Republican issue - this is not that at all. This is what has proven to prevent crime, to keep people from repeating crime, that get people out of cycles of harm. And so, this stuff isn't controversial - like, LEAD is one of the least controversial issues, is in place in other cities. And again, this is not - Oh, the, what people think of or what has been messaged as the law and order community, more Republican, more punitive focus - they actually do like this. And the evidence from it is just very, very encouraging. And so it just seems like there has to be a different agenda than public safety here, because the things that actually make the public more safe are being defunded, while we're increasing the things that have not yet proven to do so from a Council that continues to shine a bright light and demand accountability and reporting and transparency from a number of other types of programs, but seemingly not in what they're doing with public safety. And in fact, not listening to the experts that they have tapped to advise them on these issues. It's pretty stark.

Now, one thing that they did do was increase the funding by about a million dollars - 1% of SPD's budget in total - for the CARE responder program, which is Seattle's version of a co-response program. Which is a good thing, right? That kind of program is necessary, does enjoy support from the majority of the public. That does fill one of those gaps for - hey, this is something that police can't really effectively deal with. But if you can help connect people with services, help de-escalate people, that's much more effective. It's been focused in downtown. They've had some meager expansion. They still seem to be expanding bit by bit. The team is still smaller than what we see in surrounding suburbs that are a tenth of the size of Seattle. So it also is a little bit confusing why so little of the budget increases wouldn't also be spent on that team to try and get it spun up. But we'll probably hear more about that in future budget meetings and committee hearings. It's just a bit confusing and confounding and really makes you wonder if this really is an effective plan for making the city more safe. Because this is not about - hey, we don't need to do anything. Or - hey, we have an answer for utopia tomorrow. There are absolutely very troubling issues. There's recent reporting about issues in Seattle's Asian American community, the AAPI community, where the statistics coming out of there were very troubling and should be unacceptable to anyone looking at that. Everyone should be able to feel safe, to conduct themselves safely, to not feel like they can't go anywhere, have their life or mobility limited for public safety concerns. We have to address that in every area of the city. Their plan seems to be attempting to hire more police. They've been at this for three years now. It hasn't been effective yet - we're still waiting. And surveillance, which doesn't address issues of response time or some of the more fundamental issues, but we'll see how this turns out. It just seems like we're bypassing a number of issues that we know work. We're defunding a number of issues that we know work in favor of really trying to hit this recruitment number in ways that people who have direct experience, like officers, are saying is not the main way that will fix this. We'll see.

[00:36:21] Ron Davis: It feels very performative to me. It feels like running around and throwing blue glitter in the air rather than actually addressing the problem. And it seems to me if they were serious about public safety, they would do what their own experts told them will work instead of defunding it. But here we are.

[00:36:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Now, I do want to talk about another city. Many cities are going through their budget processes right now. Tacoma is going through their budget process - they just released their proposed biennial budget, which does have a $24 million deficit out of its $4.3 billion total budget. So they're taking a little bit of a different approach - there are going to be some things trimmed, some positions not filled. What does their budget fix and approach to this budget look like?

[00:37:09] Ron Davis: So cities and the school boards and things like that all over the state are struggling, in part because things like property taxes can't go up more than 1% a year, and we have this period of fast inflation behind us. So many, many cities are facing the kinds of gaps that we're facing here in Seattle. And it's so interesting to me that, to go just a bit south in Tacoma, they're looking at their $24 million gap and saying - Okay, we can make some little trims here and there, but it's really important. Our people's top concerns are housing costs, homelessness, public safety - we really can't cut these vital services that are holding us back from the brink. And so, they're actually looking at new revenue down in Tacoma. So I see a new excise tax for food and beverage sellers at city-owned indoor venues. They're talking about potentially playing with utility fees a little bit. But basically to close that gap so that they don't have a drop in services and then actually can do some more investment in the community. Even things like - I saw that they're looking at putting in a new tree maintenance crew just to expand their tree canopy. So while in the middle of facing the structural crisis that we're facing in Seattle, Tacoma is facing the same thing. They're saying - Hey, okay, we see this, we're going to fill these gaps, and we're going to keep moving forward. And it's just such a contrast to see Seattle, which historically has sort of prided itself as a leader. But you've got, as you mentioned, Kirkland and other suburbs jumping ahead of us in terms of co-response, or Spokane jumping ahead of us in terms of housing reform. And here, Tacoma jumping ahead of us in terms of treating its budget problems seriously - filling those gaps and making sure the services don't languish. I thought it was a really powerful contrast.

[00:38:43] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, really powerful contrast. And when you actually look at their budget document, it seems like they take a little bit of a different approach than Seattle does. They directly link - they do some surveying, they do some polling of residents. They really do establish - Okay, this is what we're hearing from residents, and so this is how we've responded to it. Really tying it to actually hearing from the community instead of the kind of top-down approach that this Council seems to be taking, and this is what we feel is appropriate - and so we're going to do it and limiting public comment or public feedback in that area. They do have a publicly owned utility, like Seattle, and so they're going to increase fees on that. Seattle also recently announced that they were going to be increasing some of their utility fees. That seems like that's a general trend - the cost of those operations are increasing and that reflects that. But they also have invested in some areas like you talked about - looking at recycling old structures, increasing investment in tree canopy. And also community safety efforts - so fire suppression, 911 dispatch and patrol services. They are going to be increasing their fees for false alarms on public safety, which seems to be another trend in many municipalities. There are lots of false alarms - security systems are as common as they've ever been - they've been more affordable to implement, but also they have been error prone and that is costly to consistently respond to.

Overall, they've also included additional revenue in their budget, which is something that the City of Seattle has said that they're not open to, despite residents consistently saying that they are welcoming of that in polling. But it'll be interesting - they're also going to have a number of upcoming study sessions, upcoming hearings. We'll put that in the show notes. But really interesting to see just the different approaches of different cities to how they approach their budgets. But it's also notable that - I think state legislators have their work cut out for them in a lot of different areas here, because this seems to be a structural budget problem in a lot of cities, a lot of counties, school districts. And counting on unending increasing revenue is not realistic. And there are many restrictions on increasing revenue from the state that are placed on local governments. It's really going to be interesting to see the approach that the Legislature takes to help cities, counties, school districts out in these and in other areas.

[00:41:23] Ron Davis: Yeah, it seems like a lot of people don't realize that the state limits what local governments can do to help themselves. And so, when we say we're running into a structural deficit, it's not just like our people don't want us to raise taxes. A lot of times people are willing to pay more if they can have their services not be interrupted. But all these localities - like our school board, for instance - they are limited in what they can do. And so it will be very interesting to see how the state tries to get at this structural set of barriers.

[00:41:50] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think so. And people want predictability, also. Cities don't have that. Residents don't have that. Because these are structural problems - I was reading a report from 2011 from a different city talking about recommendations for how they're going to move forward with their overall public safety plan. And that and a few others said, as plain as day - Hey, our costs are increasing, led by policing costs. The cost of policing. is growing faster than almost any other element in our budget. And it's going to continue to, and cities are going to have to deal with this. So it's interesting to see that was exactly correct, and cities are dealing with this. And really interesting to see how cities are or aren't approaching balancing those public safety costs with everything else the city is responsible to do and the different approaches that they have.

Now, I do want to just mention - we're recording this on the heels of two major, historic hurricanes that have just occurred on the East Coast. The intensity of hurricanes and the type of damage that results from that intensity is growing. It's becoming more serious. This is a result of climate change that we have created without reducing our emissions that warm the climate and all of the consequences that come from that. So this is pretty much as good as it's going to be for a while. We can expect to see increasing intensity and different types of once in a generation, once in a hundred years, once in 500 year events that we seem to hear of annually increasingly now. And this has impacts. Some people are like - Oh, thank goodness we don't have to deal with hurricanes. That's their problem down there. But really, this impacts everywhere in a variety of ways, and we have to deal with it.

Right now, there is a story coming out of Washington - in several of our hospitals, elective procedures are being postponed because there's now an IV fluid shortage as a result of the hurricane. We remember back during when mitigations were being taken for COVID - where many surgical procedures, other procedures were being postponed and finding out how disruptive that actually is. This is another thing that is disruptive because elective procedures cover a wide variety of things - basically, if it's not emergency surgery, they're rationing IV fluid everywhere. And I've said this many times before, but the infrastructure that we've built in every way is not prepared, was not built to handle the climate that we've built. That has everything to do from the supply chains that we count on, to our food economy that we have, to just our sewage systems, our water systems. We have million people right now in the country without power. Every part of life that we count on was not built to handle this climate that we've created. And that problem is going to get worse. How do you think of this?

[00:45:05] Ron Davis: It's scary, really, but it's a really important reminder. I was thinking about how also this reminded me of the pandemic. And if it taught us anything, it's that supply chains are fragile - we need lots of redundancy - part of building up resilience is redundancy. And there is no escaping this. First, just here in the Northwest - where we're considered sort of lower climate risk - we still have air some summers that we cannot breathe. I have a son who's an asthmatic, and it's a serious, serious problem. And of course, we can have other events that overwhelm our infrastructure, as you just mentioned. But in addition, if it happens somewhere nearby, we may end up with refugees. We may end up with disrupted supply chains, which means a lack of toilet paper as we once had, or IV fluids, critical medicines that keep us alive. It could be anything. And so when we think about climate change, we often talk about how do we hold it to 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees Celsius increases. And that's good - we need to try to take as much heat energy off the table as possible to make it so that disasters like these hurricanes don't just get way, way, way worse. But we are living in an era of climate change. It's already happened. It's going to get worse somewhat one way or another. And so when we think about resilience, sometimes it's hard to picture. I always sort of get this vague picture of an earthen dike trying to keep a river from running over, but it's so much more complicated and so expensive. And it requires such a re-imagination of really how we invest publicly, and we're just so grossly underprepared for it. And to see things in a moment like this, where I-2117 is on the table and we may just get rid of a whole bunch of funding, or where the mayor wants to change the law so he doesn't have to spend as much money on the Green New Deal next year as he would otherwise if he followed the current JumpStart program. This kind of stuff is very short-sighted, and it feels like an easy way to take taxes off the table, because it's all so abstract. Until it's not. Until you don't have IV fluid, until you don't have clean water. And so I just think it's one of those things that feels so remote that we do not take it seriously enough. And we desperately need to - resiliency, specifically.

[00:47:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I hope those are the kinds of things that people really think about and consider as we are voting this year. We do have, like you were talking about, Initiative 2117 on the ballot that would effectively defund our state's entire climate response - the way that we do make our utilities more resilient, hear our communities more resilient, able to handle this. to build redundancy into our system so we're not impacted by any major event that happens elsewhere in our country or in other countries. We have learned that we're so connected in so many ways - as people were thinking about the port strike and everything that that would impact. We are so reliant on all of our systems performing optimally and holding up structurally. And the reality is they won't under this upcoming climate - that we're going to see more disruptions. And it's easy to view them as just - Oh, this is just an emergency, kind of like vehicle collisions. People think - Oh, it's just an accident. There's nothing you can do about it. When there absolutely is several substantive things that have been proven to reduce the occurrence of those. There are several things that we know we can do now - that we've planned, that we've funded, that are now being defunded in several budgets or being proposed to be defunded at the state level - that are to do exactly those things that we know will help and protect people. And we have decisions to make about which direction we're going to go. It is a really serious one, and I hope everyone takes that very seriously.

[00:48:53] Ron Davis: I can't help but think to also bring up I-2066, which is the bill that would basically make electrification incentives, utilities weaning themselves off natural gas illegal. And so that's another one of those examples where A), it's going to make climate change worse if it passes, and B), it's making it hard for cities and counties and utilities to slowly wean us off this volatile, explosive material in our homes. So just one more example of this short-sighted, blinkered response to climate change and an example where we need to push back and say no.

[00:49:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, completely agree. And I would just say - all those statewide initiatives are part of a broader effort to just move in the opposite direction on so many things that we've kind of taken for granted for a long time. But that everyone, that most people - the majority of the state - continually reinforces their support for. So those statewide initiatives are part of that same effort. I know I'm going to be voting No on them. I certainly think that a lot of people should give thought to that and a lot of consideration to that.

Last thing I want to talk about today is an update to an issue that we've talked about several times before - about the Tacoma ICE facility that has been extremely problematic. It's operated by a private entity called the GEO Group that has been denying everyone access into their facilities, which is particularly troubling because there have been a number of deaths - that there have been delays in reporting them, that there are inconsistencies in what we're hearing occurred from their perspective and what other people who have been detained at that facility have said. There seems to be a complete lack of accountability that has resulted in the death of too many people there. We've had Congress members attempt to visit and see themselves - they were barred from entry. We've had state inspectors to see, to come and visit themselves. This is a facility in our state. There are deaths occurring and lots of questions unanswered. This is a company operating this that has been under scrutiny in several other areas for similar problems. They want to see for themselves - Are there safe conditions? Are there safe practices? - and they've been barred from doing that because that's a federal facility, unfortunately, so no local people can have access. The City of Tacoma has tried to take action to say - We're not comfortable with this in our city. We don't want this operating here. And that was litigated and they were found to not be able to do that, by our court system. So there has been a lot of litigation and a number of attempts to be able to get access and find out what's going on.

And finally, a U.S. district judge approved a permanent injunction barring the GEO group from denying the Washington Department of Labor and Industry inspectors access to the site - finally, both sides agreed to the injunction, along with some other terms. So this is certainly a encouraging development. There still is a lot of accountability that's needed about how everything is occurring at that facility and really issues about how much say does a local community have for the federal government operating in and around their communities. That's a big challenge that communities with these facilities are facing, but certainly this has been one of the more troubling and concerning ones. And at least, inspectors are finally getting access and we'll be following up to hear what they do find in their inspections.

[00:52:27] Ron Davis: I noticed that because it's Department of Labor and Industry - I'm thrilled to see them in there just because this is a place that's failed to pay detainees for their labor and they've had court judgments against them for it. But as you mentioned, the deaths - researchers at the University of Washington Center for Human Rights have documented troubling practices, including medical neglect, unsanitary food, reports of sexual assault and abuse. They use solitary confinement more than any other immigration detention facility in the country, which is just horrifying. And the State Department of Health is still fighting this battle to get in and get access. So we're getting just this window into the labor part - and that needs to happen - but there's just so much more peeling back the onion that needs to happen here. And given all of this neglect and this abuse and this hiding, you just got to wonder at some point. Is this company running this site - well, they clearly just shouldn't be - but also at some point, are they opening themselves up to criminal investigation? There's just something very, very wrong here. And I think you're right to say there's this intergovernmental accountability piece, but there's also just a floor that we put on people's human rights and civil rights. And it just seems like this place is going below that floor and then trying to hide it - and it needs to be brought into the light of day.

[00:53:34] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, October 11th, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle advocate and author of the Rondezvous newsletter, Ron Davis. You can find Ron on Twitter at @ronpdavis. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter and you can find me on - I'm on Bluesky a lot more, lots of people are coming over to Bluesky - actually, Fuse has created a handy list of essentially hacks and wonks, hacks and wonky people from across the state working and advocating for progressive change in Washington. That makes it really easy to find our community on Bluesky and helps build in an alternative way to the increasingly toxic now X, formerly Twitter. So that's a little interjection there. But you can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - 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 - we'll talk to you next time.