Week in Review: October 4, 2024 - with Scott Greenstone

Scott’s podcast - Sound Politics

“Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore placed on administrative leave. City provides no reason" by Simone Carter from The News Tribune

“Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore has returned to duty. City offers an explanation” by Peter Talbot from The News Tribune

“Want to know why Tacoma’s police chief was put on admin leave? Tough, city isn’t talking” by Peter Talbot, Puneet Bsanti, and Shea Johnson from The News Tribune

“Seattle shrinks school closure plan” by Denisa R. Superville from The Seattle Times

@SerranoforAG on Twitter/X: “If you’re this hesitant to ride public transportation in Seattle, then we have some serious work to do. No one should feel uncomfortable or scared on our multi-million dollar light rail system.”

“Who Is Rachael Savage?” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger

“Seattle Nice: Listen to the City Council Debate Before You Vote!” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola

“How city leaders want to patch Seattle's $250 million budget deficit” by Clare McGrane and Teo Popescu from KUOW

“Harrell Swipes Affordable Housing Dollars to Backfill Budget, Reduce Service Cuts” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist

“Why Does the Mayor’s Budget Use Outdated, Inaccurate Estimates for JumpStart Spending?” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola

Find stories that Crystal is reading here

Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here

[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 get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review 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're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program for the first time, today's co-host: politics reporter for KUOW and co-host of the Sound Politics podcast, Scott Greenstone. Hey!

[00:01:10] Scott Greenstone: Hey, long time listener, first time... hack? I'm not a wonk, so... Or I'm a secret third thing.

[00:01:18] Crystal Fincher: You're a secret third thing, which is totally fine - you're doing a really good job at the third thing. And I enjoy watching your TikToks and listening to your coverage, so glad to have you on. Well, this has been a full week of news. But we'll start off with the news of Tacoma's police chief being placed on administrative leave last week. And it was a full week before we even found out why - and even when we did, it was kind of a vague reason. What happened here?

[00:01:51] Scott Greenstone: Yeah, so King 5 reports that Chief Avery Moore, who is somewhat new, I think, to this job - and I don't cover Tacoma politics and policing. But anybody who's paid attention to the Manny Ellis case and the things that have gone on in that department in the past - there's another great podcast called The Walk Home, that I will always recommend from my friends at KNKX if you really want to go deep into Tacoma on that. But Chief Avery Moore was taken off the job. He now is back on the job after receiving a verbal counseling from City Manager Elizabeth Pauli. According to statements released by the city, he was placed on administrative leave over his personal use of a city asset and statements relating to that use. And the city manager did not go into specifics. So, verbal counseling - it sounds like there was discipline here, it sounds like the chief used something of the city's for personal use. And we don't know. And will we ever know? It's hard to tell.

[00:02:52] Crystal Fincher: It's hard to tell. And this was such a weird situation because for a week - the news actually leaked to the media. I saw the coverage by Peter Talbot in The News Tribune say - Hey, so basically we've been tipped off that the chief has been placed on administrative leave, but we have no idea why. The next day - still no idea why. The next day - nobody's talking, no idea why - and that is unusual. And then, I think it was late Friday, was updated - Hey, we still don't know why and now the City Council is saying they also have no idea why, the city manager isn't telling and won't tell them anything. And interestingly, when we talk about forms of government - which we've done before on Hacks & Wonks - Tacoma has a weak mayor system. Basically, in some cities, the mayor essentially functions like a council president - they're actually a councilmember and they're kind of the head of the council. If you think about Sara Nelson's duties, they're kind of similar to that - set the agenda, all that kind of stuff. The mayor in Tacoma isn't an executive like it is in Seattle. It's not a separate department. The mayor is not the CEO of the city like Bruce Harrell is. They're a member of the council and the city manager is the CEO of the city - like literally the city manager. And they have the discretion to tell or not tell this information. Interestingly, there have been conversations before about transitioning to a strong mayor system in Tacoma where this could never happen - the executive would know. The executive would be in charge and control here and they could handle it that way. But everyone was in the dark. It was very unusual. And a lot of people were asking - Does this even make sense? Like, how can even our councilmembers be kept out of the information flow here?

And then earlier this week, we got the word from the city manager - finally released this statement. But even this is very vague. Like, what resources were there? Was it they made phone calls they weren't supposed to? Were they using a car in a way they weren't supposed to? Did money turn out missing? Like, who knows? And I think this makes the situation more complicated for the City Council, those who are dealing with this within the city, even the police chief - because now people are just in the position to speculate on what it could possibly be. And to your earlier point, that speculation can get really dicey, really bad based on past events that have happened. So I really hope there is more transparency and more information that comes out about this and that both the council and the residents are able to understand what their public servants have been up to and what discipline there is, and that the accountability was appropriate for whatever transpired. But just a really odd situation.

[00:05:47] Scott Greenstone: Yeah. Don't even get me started talking about different types of city governments. Like Portland is in the middle of getting rid of - it was one of the last commission-style city governments and they're now overhauling it completely. But yeah, when they refer to a strong mayor, when they call Bruce Harrell a strong mayor, they're not referring to the fact he can bench heaps. They're-

[00:06:09] Crystal Fincher: He's a former football player.

[00:06:10] Scott Greenstone: Right.

[00:06:11] Crystal Fincher: I believe he's literally a strong mayor. But in executive function, in government form - yes, absolutely strong mayor.

[00:06:19] Scott Greenstone: I should say Moore said he has accepted his discipline and is ready to move forward in his position as Tacoma's chief of police. We'll see if this is the end of it. Public records requests for personnel issues can be fraught. But hypothetically, if he used a city resource - a taxpayer-funded thing - the press and the public should be able to know what he did with those things. That's the way the public records law is written - I'm not a lawyer, but that's how I understand it. Of course, that's not how those things always play out in the courts, so good luck to the good journalists of Tacoma trying to figure out what happened here and what the full story was. Because why was it so bad that he was placed on leave for a week? That tells me it wasn't just phone calls on a city phone, or at least I would guess. Again, don't know anything about what actually happened.

[00:07:07] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so speculation is really all that we can do at this point in time. But to your point, I do hope that everyone is able to get to the bottom of what happened here.

Now, I also want to talk about the latest developments with Seattle Public Schools. We have talked a lot about what has been transpiring in Seattle Public Schools. Recently, they released their plan to close up to 21 schools, which created just outcry and uproar among families and parents. Hundreds of parents showed up to multiple meetings to voice their displeasure with that. A new parent-led group formed to address this, really fundamentally saying - It's so disruptive to close schools, but also the district has a $100 million deficit and closing 21 schools would only address up to a third of that. And that's in the most optimistic scenario. And so that doesn't even fix the budget problem and would be extremely disruptive. And no one, except for the people who put this plan forward, seem to think this was acceptable. This week, we got news that the superintendent has revised what he has announced. Now, this revision is kind of a revision, but not completely. Some of the headlines read - Oh, the superintendent says now they only plan to close five schools. In reality, the revised plan says they will close five schools next year, or in the 25-26 school year. And then he says - What we learn from this initial set of schools will guide our future action. So in other words - And then we'll close some others - which they obviously would have to take more drastic action beyond just these closures. Because even with the 21 closures, they only saved up to $30 million, leaving another $60 to $70 million to address to close the budget gap. Closing these five schools, where none of them are K-8 option schools, which are very specialized. And also doesn't include those with specialized services like deaf and hard of hearing and dual language immersion - they're not among those five. They also did not announce what those five schools are. They just said that it would be up to five and released selection criteria for those consolidations. So it's different than what they said - obviously not talking about closing 20 schools in the 25-26 school year. But basically saying - Okay, we dialed it back for that one year. But that doesn't address how they're going to continue to address the budget shortfall. It doesn't address the closures that they are implying in future years. What's your take on all this? What did you think when you heard that?

[00:09:58] Scott Greenstone: Oh, man. Like Robert Cruickshank mentioned on your show a few weeks ago when he talked about this original plan, it seemed like a big response from parents once the list actually came out - the original list. And I think one key thing to mention is that these five schools - the superintendent has yet to name them. He will by the end of the month. So we're back in that situation of who knows how many schools they're going to close. We'll know the actual names of the schools and the parents who have their kids going there - they're going to know or at least have the draft list at the end of the month again. But a lot of parents are really fired up and ready to go to Olympia, where the funding actually comes from for a lot of the school's operating budget. I struggle sometimes to understand Seattle Public Schools - just the whole budget situation and the politics and everything like that. But I will say, to take a step back - we talked about this on my podcast Sound Politics on the Thursday episode, which if you listen to this on Friday, I think came out yesterday. Sorry to promo my podcast-

[00:11:02] Crystal Fincher: No, I love it.

[00:11:03] Scott Greenstone: -while I'm talking about schools closing. But we talked about this really important question on our ballots of the capital gains tax. It's a tax that funds - a lot of the funding goes to education and childcare. And there's this very popular poster that you see on cubicles sometimes in Olympia. It's very nerdy. It's called the Washington State Budget Universe. And it portrays the state's budget line items as planets in a giant - I don't know, it's not really a solar system. But the giant planet, the biggest one looming over them all, this Saturn gas giant-looking thing of $32 billion is, of course, the K-12 budget. So the state really controls a lot of the funding around schools. And it looks like this is going to be a question not just here and now and in this election cycle, but going forward to the next legislative session and even further on - because it is the biggest question, I think, in Olympia when it comes to money. And if the capital gains tax is repealed, the questions around funding are going to be even bigger next year.

[00:12:09] Crystal Fincher: That's such a good point and really gets to the root causes of this problem. And to that point, it's not just the Seattle School District that is struggling. School districts across the state are struggling. Marysville is in dire straits right now, but school districts in every county - rural districts are having a really tough time. And school levies, which were not originally intended to be closing budget gaps and making up for the flawed state funding formula that exists now - they're failing more frequently, actually, because they have been asking essentially the community, local communities, to cover what previously came from the state. The needs are great now - mental health support needs, needing nurses and librarians and the things that help people learn, that give kids a well-rounded education, that really support their learning and progress are struggling. And so two big things coming up - yes, the vote that's going to be on the ballot - all those statewide initiatives, which we'll be talking about on a show coming up soon. Those have major implications. The capital gains tax has major implications. And so if those actually pass, that's a big problem. But yes, to your point - absolutely, this is mainly a legislative issue that needs to be fixed. I hope the Seattle Public School Board is really working with legislators and making the case about how important that is. I know other districts across the state certainly are and that action this session is urgent.

But it's a really tough position. And just in looking at it and talking to some other parents who are in the district, there are questions of - Okay, it doesn't seem like it's only five, but more are going to have to come after that. What are the cuts going to be to finish to address this? Does this mean that we're just prolonging the pain over several years? Will that actually be more disruptive? Lots of questions. And so the parent-led group, All Together for Seattle Schools, has gotten together with the parents there and basically said - Still, with how insignificant the savings are in comparison to the deficit with this proposed school plan, why are we talking about closing schools at all when the main problem is something else? So they're still standing against all closures and demanding a more fundamental solution to this problem that includes parents in this deliberation and this decision.

[00:14:48] Scott Greenstone: I do want to point out that Seattle Public Schools has been losing students - I think I read 5,000 students in five years, which affects the funding formula - they don't get as much funding from the state. I haven't dug into the reasons why the superintendent wants to close down schools, but I have to imagine that's part of it. Fewer kids, which is - depending on who you talk to - related to how they're running the schools or related to demographics or a mix of things. But there are fewer kids going to Seattle schools. I'm not saying that that's a reason to shut down schools, but it is a thing to keep in mind when we're talking about this.

[00:15:21] Crystal Fincher: It is absolutely one of the reasons that they've cited - that there's lower enrollment. A lot of parents have pointed out that the high cost of living in the city has driven a lot of people out of the city, particularly those in public schools. It's just really expensive, and there's been a lot of displacement that has affected enrollment in those schools. What we've also seen and what's been talked about in - I think Danny Westneat addressed it, a number of reporters have addressed this as well as others - enrollment is cyclical. These peaks and valleys happened in the late 2010s - about, I guess, 15 years ago now. The Seattle School District was in a similar situation where enrollment had dipped, they were talking about closing schools. By 2012, 2013, enrollment had bounced back and they were talking about building more schools. So this closure, while again, they're looking at - Oh, enrollment is down - and it is, that is a fact. But to close schools when these trends have been shown to happen, what do you do then when enrollment increases again - which it always has and would assumedly do again? Then are we dealing with overcrowded schools? Are we making the transportation problems even worse? Do we then have to try and undo a lot and spend even more money to build new schools after they closed and seemingly mothballed or transitioned the existing sites to other uses? So it's a lot of questions, and I'm not saying that there's some magic answer that is painless here - that is not going to happen. A $100 million deficit means that there will be pain, but I do think it's important to address the actual cause of this and not potentially do things that will make this problem worse in the medium to long term.

[00:17:17] Scott Greenstone: It's interesting. I mentioned the capital gains tax and not to bring up the podcast again, but we talked about the last time the state tried to pass an income tax on the rich was in 2010. It was designed by Bill Gates's dad, is opposed by some other Microsoft people like Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen. But 1098 - I think it was called - it would have taxed the rich, or at least people who make more than $200k, and it would have lowered property taxes. And it failed by a ton. And there is this real question of - taxes are at the basis of this, right? If our property taxes fund our schools, they don't always rise with inflation, which is one of the things here. But if we want to actually right size our tax system, it doesn't seem like Washingtonians actually - in the past - have wanted to do that. Are they going to go for it this time? Maybe. It's a lot different than 2010 now, in America. The mood is a lot different - Occupy Wall Street has happened and billionaires got a lot more rich in the pandemic, so maybe. But generally, Washingtonians have not been into an income tax. They've been into funding their schools and their fire districts with property taxes. Have the property taxes gotten so out of control that, or has the fault in that system gotten so serious that we're willing to maybe try something else? Who knows? We'll see in November, I guess.

[00:18:34] Crystal Fincher: We will definitely see in November. And looking at polling over the last two to three years, what does certainly seem apparent in polling - support for a capital gains tax, support for a wealth tax - there does seem to be the sentiment among most voters that people at the very top of the income scale are not paying their fair share. And that feeling has increased as people in the bottom 95% have increasingly felt the burden of things like increased fees and property taxes and being responsible for paying for more things than they used to - in schools and in several other areas of government. So yeah, it will be really interesting to see the result in November and the action in the legislative session after we see what happens from that.

Now, I also want to talk about a couple of instances this week related to the attorney general race - that is also going to be on our November general election ballots. Democrat Nick Brown is facing Republican Pete Serrano. They had a debate this week. But also this week, Pete Serrano posted a little video on social media of his jaunt up to Seattle's Capitol Hill with Rachel Savage - and they were talking about being scared of riding light rail. He posted a video of them talking about being scared and wondering if she felt safe and okay. And in this video, they seem to be indicating that - oh, we're going into a dangerous area here. And as they walked into the Capitol Hill light rail station, there were just normal people on Capitol Hill walking in, walking out - nothing noteworthy. There was a gentleman sitting on a bench - he was a Black man just sitting on a bench, holding a bag or backpack, minding his own business - that they walked by. But you see them zoom in on him - talking about scary people, insinuating that he was homeless. There was nothing about him that would indicate that.

[00:20:44] Scott Greenstone: Yeah, just a person sitting on a bench. Yeah.

[00:20:46] Crystal Fincher: Yes. And even if he was, he was just sitting on a bench. But there were several people walking back and forth. No one else seemed to even notice or pay attention to him because he was literally just sitting there minding his business. But evidently, that video certainly indicated that they found that Black man sitting on the bench to be scary, to be evidence of disorder and dysfunction somehow. And this seemed to just so encapsulate the conversation that is in place now - because there are these inflated claims and lots of people acting scared of things that people who are actually using the system are not scared of. Meanwhile, it's not like there are no problems - there are things that absolutely need to be addressed. But making boogeymen out of innocent-seeming people just leads us down a path to address problems that don't exist, while we're letting the problems that do exist languish. What did you think when you saw that video?

[00:21:45] Scott Greenstone: I wondered why they didn't go into the actual station. Because what you're left with watching that video is - This person feels unsafe, which is totally fair. I've had loved ones who have had some bad experiences on light rail - like really bad - and you talk to people and there's definitely understandable apprehension at times. But because the video doesn't continue on down into the light rail or show us anything disturbing, you're left to think - okay, this woman feels unsafe because of this Black man sitting on a bench. And intentional or not, that seems to be the message. I think Pete Serrano's campaign is obviously - okay, so there was a report recently from Sound Transit that shows that there's a documented number of crimes against persons that seemed to ratchet up last year, particularly in the later quarters, and has stayed somewhat high. I think crimes against persons in the second quarter of 2024. was over 100, but it was even higher in the first quarter. It really spiked last year. So obviously this is a problem. My question is - Pete Serrano, he's a Republican. He's running hard on this tough on crime thing. It's certainly an issue voters bring up. My question is - someone who rides the light rail and feels unsafe - is that feeling of unsafety going to lead them to vote for a Republican, especially a conservative Republican like Pete? He's defending Gator's Custom Guns in court - they're a gun seller who allegedly broke state gun control laws that passed recently. He has also worked on behalf of just more conservative causes. And I think the last time the state did have a Republican attorney general, he was Rob McKenna. And he was a lot more of a guy who was just kind of in the middle - I talked to him recently about Trump's felony convictions. And his argument was - Yes, Trump should have been convicted, but not with felonies, with misdemeanors. He's that kind of Republican. So it remains to be seen - if folks are so worried about crime that they vote for a more conservative Republican. But you watched a debate with Pete and Democrat Nick Brown, and I'm wondering what your takeaways were from that debate, Crystal.

[00:23:55] Crystal Fincher: There were some really fundamental ideological differences that mirror a lot of differences between Democrats and Republicans. One of them was the issue of abortion, healthcare autonomy. Nick Brown was strongly in favor of ensuring everyone has the right to abortion care. Pete Serrano said - Hey, there's some things that have passed statewide and I'll kind of be okay. But he has defended issues so far - he tried to use the "it's settled law" line that we heard from people before the Dobbs decision. No, that wouldn't happen - it's settled law, it's fine. But there are so many things that aren't settled law, when it comes to people having the freedom to decide their own healthcare with their doctor. One major issue right now is that of folks from other states being able to request information, seek to prosecute people who have abortions here in Washington who may be from other states, or who may have moved here while pregnant and had an abortion, or they just came here after they had an abortion in a state where it's currently outlawed. Texas attempted to do this already. And Nick Brown, certainly Bob Ferguson, are strongly in favor of defending women's right to choose what's right for them and not allowing people from other states to come into Washington to prosecute people in that situation. Pete Serrano hedged on that. He does feel like it is okay, certainly not unacceptable, for other states to prosecute women who come to Seattle, who come to Washington. This is a big issue. We have neighboring states whose residents come to Washington for abortion care. The issue of religious hospitals. There was an issue recently in the city of Los Angeles where a Providence-affiliated Catholic hospital refused emergency abortion care to a woman who wanted to have her baby. They had an unrecoverable emergency at 15 weeks. The babies were not viable. Death, unfortunately, was inevitable. And they did not provide care because of their own internal religious statutes. That was certainly controversial. This is an issue here - I think two-thirds of our hospitals here are religiously affiliated hospitals. That's why people are so eager to pass the Keep Our Care Act in this next legislative session. So issues like that.

Issues, certainly, as you just alluded to about gun control. The residents of this state have repeatedly affirmed that - Hey, we understand that the Second Amendment is there, that people can own guns, but that's not unlimited and we aren't going to jeopardize everybody's safety in situations that we know and have been proven in the most tragic ways to be unsafe and to be unwise. That's why things like background checks, like banning ghost guns, looking at banning these massive magazine stocks - things like that - are things that have passed here, those red flag laws where you can take guns from people who have proven to be dangerous or a threat or in that situation. They have different stances on that, so some really fundamental things. And another divide - Pete Serrano felt that the AG's office, as administered by Bob Ferguson, was too much of an activist department and he felt it needed to get back to basics, to just be advising state departments and kind of limit it to that. The activism is - that's a very subjective word, right? But that is things like the big settlements - going after corporate abuses, going after companies that have recklessly allowed the streets to fill with opioids, companies that have price gouged and scammed Washington residents. Lots of people have received checks as a result of being compensated for money that they shouldn't have been out of in the first place. And that was essentially a recovery on behalf of Washington residents by AG Bob Ferguson and something that Nick Brown has certainly signaled he would want to continue - going after corporate abuses and recovering money that was unjustly taken from Washington residents. So those are all things that were kind of the fault lines in that debate that I saw. Does that jive with your impression of who these candidates are and who they've been representing themselves to be throughout this campaign?

[00:28:30] Scott Greenstone: That's a good question. I have known Nick Brown for a little bit longer. I interviewed him, gosh, when he was U.S. attorney and fentanyl was really the big question. He strikes me as kind of a classic Democrat. He's a very good politician. He was on Survivor randomly in like Season 2 - got voted off very quickly. But I think that he could go much further in politics than on Survivor because the way he talks about these issues convince you that he has progressive leanings, even though that doesn't always show up in the policy. So he's sending people to jail or prison, but he's telling his attorneys - or at least he told me - that he tells his attorneys to always argue for the least amount of time necessary. And some of these folks, of course, being federally indicted drug dealers are like white supremacists in Steliacoom and things like that. So he has a very good resume. He'll probably go very far. The attorney general's office is a good spot to, especially for a Democrat, try and make your jump to governor. Christine Gregoire did it. Rob McKenna tried to do it, didn't do it so well. And those checks that go to people - Bob Ferguson has been criticized for attaching very campaign-feeling literature to them, particularly when those checks go to hundreds of thousands of people, which was not something that past attorney generals - at least that I've talked to - made a habit of. So he's definitely like bumped out of the mold there. And it's done really well for him. Bob Ferguson was able to cast himself as the #resistance attorney general and now that's his brand - that's what people think about. When they got Trump on the mind again. Washington voters will think, or at least he's hoping they'll think - Oh, man, well, maybe I should have a governor who is going to stand up to him.

I think, Pete - when you're a Republican in Washington state, you have to deal with the fact that there's many more Democrats here. And you're going to have to get all the Republicans, a bunch of the independents, and even some Democrats. Obviously, there are Democrats that are fed up with how the management of this state has dealt with or not dealt with crime, drugs, homelessness, all these things. And that's my real question. The polls don't show that that makes them willing to cross the aisle necessarily and vote for a Republican. I spoke to this one voter who is thinking about voting for Dave Reichert, the Republican, for governor. And this voter is a gay man who is just really fed up with crime. But he said - I think Reichert could help wake up the Democrats and make them do a better job of managing public safety in the state. I do worry he'll take away my gay marriage license. I think a lot of people worry about what would he do about abortion. But these are all questions we'll figure out in November when the results come in.

[00:31:10] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And I just need to throw in, as a woman - that's not a response to anything you've said, certainly. But I have heard in various conversations and interviews, the sentiment that - Yeah, you know, abortion is there, but it's not that big of a deal. Or that was a big deal last time, people are over it. Like, that's not as much of a big deal as it was before. And that has almost exclusively come from men. And I just need to impress upon everyone that people being able to make their own healthcare decisions will never not be a big deal. And folks better reckon with that because it will remain a big deal. We'll see how this election turns out - it doesn't mean that Republicans will not be elected, or that makes it impossible. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that that will remain an issue that isn't just - Oh, that's a big one we got to tackle. But that emotionally resonates, that fear is attached to for lots of people. By the way, including men. This is a major issue.

[00:32:14] Scott Greenstone: And you can see that when you look at the ads on both sides. Bob Ferguson carpet bombed the primary with ads about abortion. And Dave Reichert, the Republican, took the extraordinary step of releasing an ad saying he wouldn't do anything to mess with abortion rights in Washington state - which is not common. Usually in political ads, you talk about what you're going to do. You don't talk about what you're not going to do. And so, I think you're totally right that the folks behind pulling the strings and designing the ads and choosing what they're going to run ads about, they know that this is a big issue. So. I think you're totally right on.

[00:32:52] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And the campaigns that are doorbelling, everyone who's talking to regular people - that is always, it has been for the last two years, one of the top things that is on people's minds. Certainly women, not exclusively women - this impacts families. It's a big deal - and I hope everyone understands that, including our Legislature, when thinking about things like the Keep Our Care Act.

Also want to talk about - this week, the Seattle City Council race had a forum put on by Seattle Nice, where Alexis Mercedes Rinck, the challenger to Tanya Woo, the incumbent, for the citywide position that will be on November's ballot. They had a debate. What did you think about it? What were your takeaways from it?

[00:33:38] Scott Greenstone: Yeah, the debate was at Town Hall put on by our friends in Seattle Nice, another podcast that's very informative - hosted by David Hyde, formerly of KUOW, Sandeep Kaushik, a political consultant, and Erica C. Barnett, a journalist covering City Hall in depth. And my takeaways were - and I didn't go, but I listened to it later on - and I think that Alexis Mercedes Rinck continued with this, I think, successful so far tack that she has taken, which is - Look, I'm not an ideologue. I'm not some weird leftist. What I look at is the data and the data is telling us that we need to tax the rich and fund things like social housing. So yes, these are things that leftists like, but the numbers are what's pointing us toward them. And I think that seems to be working somewhat well. I sometimes compare Alexis to Teresa Mosqueda. But whereas Teresa was much more of a movement labor person, Alexis is more of like - well, she doesn't use this word - but like a bureaucrat or like a technocrat, but like someone who looks at the numbers, a smart person. And I think that pitch seems to work okay. Tanya Woo is the incumbent. She tries to bring up the on the ground aspect of her volunteerism that really got her into politics in the beginning - the Chinatown Nightwatch program - it was handing out water bottles. And she says she's reversed overdoses with Narcan and things like that, or at least she said it at the debate. So she's sort of pitching - I'm on the ground and these things. But unfortunately, the debate vibes were bad, in the words of Erica Barnett. People were heckling her and laughing really loud at some of her points. And I think it rankled her. I think in general, she struggles with debates. I hosted a debate with her when she was running for District 2 down in South Seattle. I think she struggles to get her points across. She attacked Alexis over just generally the King County Regional Homelessness Authority's record. One of the things she brought up was that they put forward this proposal that would have cost billions to finally solve the homelessness issue, and it was not well received by political leaders. But I don't know what Alexis's role in that necessarily was and in the end, I think that it might have been more effective if she had stuck to - Well, look, what has the King County Regional Homelessness Authority done? It was supposed to eradicate homelessness. It's been turned into just managing homelessness. But that's probably a little bit too much of a dig at people that Tanya Woo wants to make peace with and be friendly with, including Mayor Harrell, the county executive, or just a lot of the leadership in the region who helped set up King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

[00:36:33] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's spot on. And I think those are certainly some of the fault lines in this race. I think Tanya is coming from a tough position. I don't know that we have seen an incumbent make up the deficit that she has in these circumstances. And what I'm referring to is that Alexis Mercedes Rinck, as the challenger, received over 50% of the vote in the primary - in a crowded primary that included the incumbent.

[00:36:59] Scott Greenstone: Right, with other progressives.

[00:37:01] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, yeah. Two other progressives, the incumbent. And for her to receive 50% of that - general political wisdom is that - Hey, you finished with over 50% in a primary. That's good. If people are looking at making investment decisions over races, that's one where you're like - Okay, well, that race is kind of done. Let's look at other ones that may be more competitive. And particularly noteworthy that this comes on the heels of another loss by Tanya Woo to Tammy Morales. She initially ran against Tammy Morales and was unsuccessful, and then was appointed to this position with the support of the new council majority. So I think part of the problem is she didn't have a winning base of support to begin with, just coming off of defeats where voters said - That's not what we're looking for. And then put in a citywide race. And as you said, she does struggle to articulate her vision, where she stands. She's contradicted herself before - notoriously on the social housing issue, where she said that she would not put forward any competing initiative to the social housing initiative. And then a couple of months later, she is co-sponsoring the movement to add a competing initiative to try and defeat social housing. So that wasn't great, in addition to mixed messaging on progressive revenue, on a number of issues. So there have been issues there. I think this debate - it sounds like it just kind of reinforced that dynamic. It'll be really interesting to see how voters respond, but it certainly looks like Alexis has a lot of energy behind her and is really voicing the feelings of a majority of the residents in Seattle who are struggling with housing costs, who are struggling with just basic issues of security and stability. And who don't agree with the austerity approach that it looks like the council is moving towards and defunding things like affordable housing that the council appears to be poised to do. It is really challenging. So that I thought was interesting this week.

[00:39:16] Scott Greenstone: Yeah, two last thoughts. One about Alexis - she had this great line about, in the Sound Cities Association, she worked with cities around the region, which can vary a lot in politics. And she worked with everyone from MAGA to Marxist, and so she'll work together with people. And I think that is the key, right? She's not really running as a Sawant or even maybe a Morales. But like - what you said - someone who's bringing people together, someone who feels your pain. And Tanya Woo - the last thought I'll have is whatever you think of her, hats off to her, I guess, because she ran last year. She's running again this year. And if she wins somehow, she's going to have to run again next year. She's just filling out the end of Mosqueda's term. Three campaigns in three years. I know you do campaigns every year, but like, do you recommend that?

[00:40:05] Crystal Fincher: It is rough. Some of you may know that after probably a decade of trying, I was able to convince my mom to go for an appointment in the City of Kent. And my mom is a much nicer person than I am. And she basically spent her entire life working to help other people and very much did not see herself as a politician - that was a barrier we had to overcome. It's like - Those are the kinds of people we need in office. And so finally it was an appointment. The guy before had actually committed a crime - stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from his mom, and she got kicked out of her senior home. And so that came to fruition and he was convicted shortly after the election. So it was kind of a full term. So again, I think it was 36, 38 other people - she ended up getting the appointment, with a little help from her daughter on the work side. But there's a reason why she is still there and in a city that has a majority Republican council. But if you get appointed, you have to stand in the next election. So she did that very next election. Then it was up the next year, and then it was like two years after. It was so many campaigns in succession.

[00:41:13] Scott Greenstone: I need to get tips from you on how to persuade my retired firefighter father to run for the Fire District. He just doesn't want to do it. And I think he'd be great.

[00:41:23] Crystal Fincher: Oh, interesting. It helps to have a great candidate who has a great resume. And fortunately, my mother fit the bill there. But yeah, it is rough to constantly campaign. That's actually one of the challenges of Congress, particularly of Congressional House - just they have to fundraise all the time. They have to be preparing for that all the time. And that's rough. That is not fun at all. So I don't envy that in the least.

I also want to talk about a major event in the City of Seattle. So as happens this time of year, Mayor Bruce Harrell has released his proposed budget. The council will then take up the budget, talk about it, hold public hearings, make amendments, and then it's their responsibility to pass the budget. That's one of the things that only the city council is able to do - approve spending. Then it's up to the mayor to spend the money, execute the plans, actually implement the things that are passed within the budget. But he does get the ability to say - This is my vision for the city. This is what I think it will be. Interesting element in this year's budget is that to a degree we have not seen - I don't know if ever is the word, but certainly in our lifetimes - this council has no experience governing or with the budget. So this is a new process. They tried to do some Budget 101 and City 101 stuff leading up to this. But the budget is a complicated document. It deals with every element of the city. And this year, there is a massive budget deficit that they need to make up. And Bruce Harrell gave it a shot. What does his budget do? What are the toplines?

[00:43:07] Scott Greenstone: Yeah, I think you're totally right about the City Council. It's like playing a video game for the first time, but you're playing it on hard mode because a year where we have to cut hundreds of millions of dollars - it is not a normal budget year. And so I think they will probably follow his lead on a lot of stuff. Some of the topline things that get cut in this - there's going to be over 75 people laid off - IT people, HR people, some folks who work in Seattle Channel, which is like City Hall's version of C-SPAN. And then there's going to be cuts for food programs for seniors and communities of color. Parks maintenance and programming is going to get some cuts. So I think they avoided huge, massive cuts, mostly, by taking some money from the payroll tax that Teresa Mosqueda - ding, ding, ding, bring up her name again - passed a few years ago. She called it JumpStart - that branding definitely stuck because people just call it JumpStart now, regardless of whether or not anyone knows what that means. But it's a payroll tax on big businesses. They took a bunch of money from that, which has raised more than folks expected it to. Essentially, because it has raised more, they're able to keep the funding streams that they had originally at the same dollar amount and skim off the top and take the extra money that it's raised - this is my understanding - and put it elsewhere in the budget. So for the most part, it looks like they've avoided giant catastrophic cuts. But these other things are getting some cuts - for instance, they're getting rid of the Mounted Patrol. The horse cops are kaput. Those are the broad strokes.

[00:44:45] Crystal Fincher: Well, yeah. And I think there are two things. One, you're absolutely right. This does take money from a different fund - JumpStart funds affordable housing. So this was passed - it is a payroll tax on big business to fund affordable housing. We're in an affordable housing crisis. This is something that initially Bruce Harrell opposed, the conservative members of the council opposed, the Chamber opposed. But Teresa Mosqueda led its passage, and it was really popular among residents of Seattle because it addressed so many urgent needs that had been getting worse - like affordable housing, funding for small businesses in the city, Green New Deal investments in the city, some health clinics across the city. But a huge amount towards affordable housing. And so what they're doing is they're basically defunding those elements - and defunding affordable housing at a time when housing is as unaffordable as it's ever been in the city - and moving that over to plug the hole in the general fund. They've used JumpStart funds before - smaller portions - to plug smaller holes, but this time it is quite a bit of money. It is defunding quite a bit of help and basically just redirecting this whole thing, saying - I know this was passed with this intention, but we're just not going to do it. A lot of people take big issue with that.

And really, backing up - the issue of cuts and closing this hole is one that they opted into. I don't know if folks recall, but the mayor convened a Progressive Revenue Task Force because lots of studies have shown statewide - also in the city of Seattle - income inequality had grown tremendously. And overall, traditional tax balancing showed that things were way out of balance. And people at the very top, because Seattle does have a much larger percentage of extremely wealthy people - we're not talking about people who make under half a million dollars a year here, we're talking about multiple millionaires, centimillionaires - Seattle has their fair share of those. That they weren't paying their fair share. That we have some of the biggest corporations in the world here - that they also weren't paying their fair share. And that when that didn't happen, people at the bottom of the rung are forced to pay more - because there's a deficit. And if people don't have the Chamber working on their behalf to fight these tax cuts and to spend a million dollars each campaign season to elect candidates who oppose those, then it falls on them. So what you see in this budget is increased fees for just about everything across the board. Anything that had a fee before, that fee is likely to go up. Those fees fall mostly upon people at the very bottom of the income ladder. And so, JumpStart really was an attempt to right-size our tax system. And enjoyed broad support and was so popular they couldn't get rid of it, so they basically decided to take money from that.

Unfortunately, what this does is this is kind of a temporary solution - because the structural problems in the budget exist, which means that next year they're not going to have these one-time funds unless they find another fund to raid or they just continue to do this. And so they're going to have to figure something else out. But even with this - with no additional revenue, which was suggested strongly by the Mayor's task force, which he decided to then ignore. And the council decided to ignore, even though they said that they were going to consider that when they ran for office - they changed their tune after they were elected. And so now we're in the situation where there's no additional or right-sizing revenue. Everything has to be a cut. And so there are layoffs here. There are going to be - I think it's almost 70 people laid off throughout the city. Departments - several of them have had budgets slashed. A lot of the City offices have had definite reductions. There has been a pause on hiring, so people have been having to do more with less for a long time and there are further cuts on top of that. That is reflected into frontline services that the City is taking. If you're waiting for a permit and you've been waiting for a long time - when they cut staff at the permitting office, do you think that problem's going to get worse? Yes, likely. Things like that are things that are at stake and it's really the services and the people at the bottom who once again are being burdened by these cuts, while people at the top of the rung are kind of let off the hook comparatively for what's happening. What did make the news - kind of a topline, despite all of this stuff, was - Oh, the Mounted Patrol is being cut. They haven't actually served a police function in years, so that seems to make sense. But there was something interesting that happened this week in a discussion about that. Do you want to talk about Councilmember Rob Saka's comments about this element of the budget?

[00:49:52] Scott Greenstone: Yes, sure. I should have - I forgot to put in this disclaimer, but I don't cover City Hall because my partner is actually Mayor Harrell's press secretary. So take everything I say about that building and what goes on in it with a grain of salt, as you should with any reporter or media figure. But I do think that Rob Saka is a fascinating person - the city councilmember from West Seattle, who apparently ticked off his opponents so much that all of them, after the primary, endorsed his opponent. I think even the conservative ones endorsed his progressive opponent, which is surprising. And it seems like people in City Hall are kind of ticked off at him too. He goes on very long during these budget hearings. And Dan Strauss at one point said - If you went on two more minutes, you would have had to buy everybody lunch. I think that's like an old tradition in City Hall, which Dan Strauss is into that kind of stuff. But one of the things that he did while filibustering this budget hearing - which I didn't know you could do until I heard of Rob Saka - he read off the names of all the... I'm sorry. This is funny because it seems ridiculous. Obviously, folks are getting laid off. So in a way, it's kind of like - what are you doing? But he read off the names of the horses that were getting rehomed - we're not sure where they're going to go, but he read them all off. Actually, no, he didn't even - he missed some of their names. He missed McLovin. There's one named McLovin. And it's like there are actual folks that are going to get laid off. We might not know their names yet, but if I'm an IT guy and my buddy got laid off and Rob Saka spent a bunch of time during a budget hearing reading the names of the horses - and you were telling me he didn't mention the other layoffs, the people layoffs - I might take a little bit longer on Rob Saka's next computer ticket. Like when he has a tech problem, I might wait a little while to show up if my buddy got laid off.

[00:51:48] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, people may not be super excited. And let me read you what Rob said - and it stood out to so many people who were following this hearing because - yes, they are talking about cuts that are hurting people, that are life changing. Like they're laying off people. You get laid off in the city of Seattle - extremely high cost of living. We're already talking about a housing affordability crisis and people being displaced from the city. And now, you have dozens of people who've just been told that they're losing their jobs, likely, with this proposed budget. So without talking about any of that, without talking about any concern about that - in fact, having previously, in some people's estimation, callously dismissed stuff like that - this is what he said in the meeting. "There's real live animals behind the impacts of these decisions. Specifically, Callum, Blue, Chance, Sebastian, Doobie, and how can I not forget the two lovable barn cats, Sully and Katy Perry [Purry]."

[00:52:56] Scott Greenstone: Justice for McLovin.

[00:53:00] Crystal Fincher: Will someone think of the horses, who I'm pretty positive did not ask to be police horses in the first place, that their happiest time is probably not with someone on their backs and digging into their sides. I think they will be okay. They're just going to like be in a pasture or something - nothing bad is happening to them. They're just going to do more horse things instead of more police things. I think they're probably okay with that, especially in comparison to the residents who have to pay more to do the same things that they were doing because the fees have been increased, the people who are going to lose assistance for affordable housing, the small businesses who are losing the assistance that once existed for them - certainly all of these things in the budget that seem to have an actual impact on people. But the one impact that he found it noteworthy to focus on were the "real live animals" that are impacted by those decisions - that just summed up that whole day, that whole discussion.

But there are going to be additional hearings on this. It is very important to make your voice heard. I know the Solidarity Budget has been organizing in preparation for this. Many community organizations, advocacy groups are diving into the budget details, eager to hear where councilmembers stand on various things, and coming up with action plans. So that's going to be a major, major item for discussion for the remainder of the year. This is the ballgame. The budget is a ballgame for the city. So anything you care about, anything you've advocated for is impacted with the budget. And so, I really, really encourage people to engage and we will certainly be talking more about that on the show.

[00:54:52] Scott Greenstone: Yeah, I misspoke earlier when I said the Mounted Patrol is kaput. The Mounted Patrol has been sunsetted before, or tried to be, and people have saved it. Obviously, there's efforts to save Seattle Channel. But Mounted Patrol is not definitely kaput. The Seattle Channel is not definitely getting rid of original programming. All of this is subject to negotiation with the City Council.

[00:55:14] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I actually do want to step back and really emphasize what you just said. That's a big deal - the Seattle Channel. I know many more people engage with the Seattle Channel than show up to meetings - that is the window into City government for the residents of Seattle. There's a reason why all of these cities - look at all the suburban cities, cities of all sizes - broadcast their meetings, have programs about what's going on in the city. This is a standard thing. The state does it with TVW. This is a best practice - it's standard there. And one, getting rid of all original programming - Brian Callanan has been the journalist there who hosts and leads a lot of the original programming - interviews with councilmembers, insights into what's happening in the city. And is really high-quality programming, really informative programming, a window into the city. And as other people have pointed out, there aren't many long-form discussions with people in office. It's one of the reasons why we do the topical shows that we do on Hacks & Wonks, because there is not much anymore where people actually sit down and get more than a soundbite on the issue of the day from people who are currently in office. And the Seattle Channel does that regularly. That's really important to understand who your councilmembers are, who the mayor is, who people in the city are - what they're doing, how they think, what their approach is. Without that, it becomes really hard for voters to make an evaluation of how people are doing and how to make decisions when they vote. And as troubling, this seems to be another and a seemingly increasing amount of efforts to decrease the amount of transparency and engagement opportunities with the city. City used to have a public-facing directory - they no longer have that. There used to be more public-facing resources - they don't have that. And several, many meetings - I think even most meetings where there's been public comment, certainly of just about every bill that's been in the news - public comment has been reduced. Traditionally, two minutes - it's often cut down to one minute, sometimes it's been canceled or rescheduled at the last minute. People have really been concerned about just basic transparency and engagement with the public. I think that's a legitimate concern. I think that this is a very troubling development. And so ensuring that the Seattle Channel keeps Brian Callanan, keeps original programming is really important to the residents of the city and to just good governments overall.

[00:57:55] Scott Greenstone: I will push back a little bit on this point because - I'm a huge fan of Brian, I've been on his podcast, Seattle News, Views & Brews, and I think what he does is so important, and I totally agree. I don't think voters use it as much as you and I do, especially when we're talking about the original programming - like Book Lust and Art Zone and City Inside/Out - these are not shows that get a ton of viewership, partially because one of the reasons the funding is down is because of a big amount of funding comes from cable taxes. And I do worry that if we switch it up and say, now it's going to be a line item in the budget, it's going to get funded from some other thing that is not like - I don't know, a tax on streamers or something, that's not a bad idea. But if it's tied to how much does the City Council and the Mayor feel like funding Seattle Channel each year - I worry. I'm personally - this is my bias - I'm a little skeptical of government news. My dream would be take it and put it in Cascade PBS or something like that, get some funding that is not the government who it's supposed to be scrutinizing. But I also am not an expert on this. And I am a big fan of Brian Callanan and what he does, and I really hope that that does not go away. I just would stop short of advocating for it to be a line item from the City Council.

[00:59:16] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, certainly there are people who absolutely agree with you. I would say that - absolutely, cable subscriptions have subsided, but like with many other things, a lot of people don't engage with it via cable. They engage with it via the web. And do I think that average person who just gets home from work and is trying to feed the kids is wondering - I wonder what's on the Seattle Channel now, I have to check in. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is that community organizations, advocacy organizations - the people that those people who don't tune in count on to advocate for their interests - do. And that's one of the only windows they have into this. And yes, it's coming from the City, but the interviews are interviews and getting someone on the record is getting them on the record. Even if it's their own voice, their own words - which is essentially what interviews are - they can say whatever they want to say. But are they going to be held accountable to what they've said? Is there a record of what they've said? And as someone who works in politics, I can't tell you how rare that is now, compared to how it used to be. And it's alarming. And we see the results. I see the results. Lots of people who work in politics see the results - in how campaigns are conducted now, the conduct of people who are elected now. When people don't feel accountable, it doesn't matter if they're Democrat or Republican or anything else. If they are confident that they aren't going to be held accountable for what they say or what they do, they operate differently. And we're seeing some of that different operation. And the trend line is not in a good direction. The fewer opportunities that people have or where there's an expectation that - yes, I am a public servant and that serving the public is the primary element of the job - then interfacing with the public in ways that can reach them and that meet them where they are instead of counting on someone to come to a meeting, counting on someone to find a way to get to where their councilmember is at, or to write an email, or make a phone call - that may or may not get answered at this point. That's another issue that's happening is that getting questions answered is harder for everyone across the board right now than it used to be. That the more we just accept that and let that go, the worse things become in a wide variety of ways. So this, to me, is part of that troubling - that this element of a different way for people to engage in government that doesn't rely on them taking a day off of work to go attend a hearing that they might choose to reschedule at the last minute, as has happened before, more than once. That's problematic. So that's where my concern is coming from. Obviously, this needs to be balanced against all the other challenges in the city. There are a lot of painful things that are being weighed and any choice is not ideal. But I think transparency is essential.

[01:02:21] Scott Greenstone: I totally agree with you there. It's certainly something that I value so much as a journalist. And we definitely cannot sit by and let these things go away, as much as I might have concerns with the funding model. But it's true that just the funding model for journalism in general, in the last 20 years especially, is a constant struggle and government has become less transparent across the board as a result.

[01:02:48] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree. And it's not going in a good direction. I just don't want to see City government leave the people of the city behind. And certainly, having strong local media organizations is essential - absolutely essential - as we've seen over the past several years, over the past decade, the entire time.

[01:03:08] Scott Greenstone: We started off this whole week-in-review with talking about the Tacoma police chief. Transparency there is something that the people and the public and journalists are going to have to demand. It's so important. And so definitely, I don't want my comments to be misconstrued as - Oh, who cares about Seattle Channel? It's so important.

[01:03:26] Crystal Fincher: Oh, 100%. But what you said also has to be considered. Does that mean every program continues on there? Does that mean the same amount of departmental staff across the board is dedicated to that? Maybe there are changes within that, but I just hate to see the original programming, the interviews, the opportunity to hear from the people who are working on behalf of the residents of Seattle disappear.

And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, October 4th, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is politics reporter for KUOW and co-host of the Sound Politics podcast, Scott Greenstone. You can find Scott on Instagram and Threads at @scott.memestone and on X at @evergreenstone - I like your names, I like those names - on social media. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on those sites and me on Twitter at @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast 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, please leave a review wherever you listen - it helps out tremendously. 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 episode notes.

Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.