-As 2022 comes to a close,
does Seattle have an upbeat future ahead?
-We've made progress we need to continue to make progress.
-This is our neighborhood!
-Yeah!
-But worries over public safety, homelessness
and racial justice
have hit some neighborhoods harder than others.
-There's a feeling
in the community that we're just being dumped on a lot.
And with tech layoffs, and possibly a looming recession,
Seattle leaders are concerned about what 2023 will hold.
-I do feel like there's a profound sense of equilibrium
that we're searching for in this city.
-How has Seattle fared in 2022?
And what are the year's top stories?
-There's a lot of empty space in downtown right now.
-Our panel of journalists weighs in.
-Next year is really pivotal.
-Those shelter beds are necessary
and they have to go somewhere.
-It's time to reflect on the major headlines
and biggest surprises of 2022 next on, "City Inside/Out."
♪♪
-Welcome to this edition of "City Inside/Out."
I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
As 2022 comes to a close beyond the continuing struggle
of the pandemic, plenty of stories
are pushing to be the top vocal headline of the year.
In Seattle, concerns over public safety and police hiring
have divided our city council
and the rejection of an expanded homeless shelter
in the Chinatown ID neighborhood,
has King County leaders scrambling for answers.
And at the state level, the need to fix a broken drug possession
law demands attention from a legislature full of fresh faces.
This week, it's a review of these top stories
and more from the past year, as we look ahead to 2023.
Read all about it, 2022 was a year
Seattle found itself overloaded with major stories.
And when the Northwest Asian weekly
had a lot to say about them.
-We do have a voice
and I think that this year especially,
we've really just kind of stepped up
the local community and said,
"this is not what we want, listen to us."
-Editor Ruth Bayang and others in the Chinatown ID,
successfully pushed back on King County's plan
to expand a homeless shelter here
and put a plan on hold from Sound Transit,
to build a light rail station
that could severely disrupt this neighborhood
during the construction process.
-There is a feeling in the community
that we're just being dumped, on a lot.
-Bayang agrees that light rail
is a critical part of our local economy
and that more homeless shelters are needed.
But says these projects could be located
in other neighborhoods too.
-Why does it have to be here?
We feel as if other options
and other sites have not been fully explored.
-I'd like to thank everyone for coming out tonight
and setting up our community.
-Bayang says the activism
to fight against anti-Asian hate in Seattle,
which rose sharply during the pandemic,
has also led to even more voices pressing local leaders
to answer their concerns about police staffing levels
and public safety to more top headlines of 2022.
-There has to be real solutions where, you know,
our seniors are not being afraid to walk the streets
and being afraid of being attacked and businesses
are frustrated with someone sleeping on the front door
or urinating or defecating,
you know, all these things matter.
-These things also matter to Rachel Smith,
CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.
-There was a missed opportunity
to rebuild some of the trust
with the public on public safety.
-While the city council fully funded
the Seattle Police Department's hiring plan for next year,
a rift has formed over the removal
of 80 unfilled positions from the SPDs budget.
-The voters are looking for an all of the above approach.
-Smith says the Chamber's ongoing citywide polling,
published again this fall, shows that
Seattleites want the right number of cops on the street,
but also want alternatives to 911,
plus police reform. And that's not all.
-We really want to see more housing built
in more places for more people at more affordable levels.
-The council's move to invest nearly a half billion dollars
in affordable housing over the next two years
is another big story for 2022,
especially in an unsettled job market.
-There is certainly some economic uncertainty
and we are seeing some job losses.
-So looking ahead.
-You know, if I was a candidate in 2023
I would be talking about addressing homelessness,
public safety and how I was going to shift
and push policy to allow for more housing.
-I feel a deep sense of fulfillment.
-After 14 years in Olympia,
Reuven Carlyle knows those issues well.
Going I do feel like there's a profound sense of equilibrium
that we're searching for in this city.
-Carlyle, the outgoing state senator of the 36th district
in Northwest Seattle,
is one of several lawmakers stepping down from local office.
-It's just a number of people
sort of transitioning out of the legislature,
but we have a really strong group of people coming in.
-Democrats gained on their majorities
in the State House and Senate in the recent midterms,
but they have a massive job to do in the next session.
-I don't think most people in Seattle
want ubiquitous decriminalization
of every aspect of fentanyl, heroin and every aspect of drugs
-The Blake decision
from the Washington State Supreme Court last year,
struck down the state's main drug possession crime,
which lawmakers only temporarily fixed in the 2022 session
and passed finding answers to that problem in 2023.
Carlyle says the state will be implementing a new cap
and invest system to reduce industrial carbon emissions,
as well as new clean fuel
and building efficiency measures he's championed
-All of these bills are decarbonization bills,
as well as infrastructure bills and jobs bills.
So it's a real societal shift.
It's an economic shift, and it's a policy shift
-A shift in future, in a region sure
to see more big headlines coming next year.
-We've made progress we need to continue to make progress.
-Seeing the community come together.
I really look forward to seeing more of that in 2023.
-And we have a team of great journalists
to answer some of these different issues and questions
that are going on in the city right now.
And we have with us Amy Radil, a reporter for KUOW,
Amy, thanks for joining us.
-Yeah, thanks.
-We also have with us Mike Lewis,
a writer for Geek Wire, Mike Good to have you too.
-Good to be here. -And we also have Erica C.
Barnett, editor for PubliCola. Erica, good to see you too.
-Great to be here.
-And Erica, let me start with you here over this past week
we learned that Seattle City Council President Debora Juarez
won't be running again a district five, councilmember
Lisa Herbold won't be running again in district one.
Now Juarez had said before, she wasn't gonna run again,
but Herbold is saying I'm out
and we need another progressive and D1 basically.
So all seven district council seats
are up for election next year.
I know that's gonna be fun for me and for you.
But I'm wondering where the political momentum is basically.
Do we look at the midterms at 2022 and say, okay,
there's a progressive push here,
Leesa Manion was elected things of that nature or do
we look at the 2021 election of Mayor Harrell
and city attorney Davison and say,
maybe it'll be a little bit more moderate?
Some thoughts on that?
-Yeah. I mean, I think city council elections
are always really interesting because the outcome
is so determined by who runs, right?
So I think it's very, very hard to predict,
you know, a backlash election,
like I think we saw in 2021 or a super progressive election.
Because what happens is 15 people get in,
you know, two make it through.
It's always a little bit unpredictable.
We're also going to have new districts next year.
-Right.
-We've re-districted the whole council,
so people are going to be running with new constituencies.
-Yeah.
-And there's also going to be rank choice voting,
which also could change the outcome a little bit.
So I think it's really, really hard to say, you know,
where the political shape of the council
is gonna go and you know,
and remember Lisa Herbold's not running because she said,
it is, you know, it's just it's gotten too toxic.
-Yeah. -And I'm in so I always
wonder, you know, who gets into these races,
knowing that it's kind of becoming a worse and worse job.
From the perspective of people running.
-It's a difficult job.
Rank choice voting, as I understand it,
wouldn't be in place until 2027. But we'll see.
I know they do want to try to hurry this this up.
-Yeah, thank you for correcting me.
-Yeah, no. me.
-Yes, you're absolutely right, 2027.
So, I apologize. So new districts next year
and then in the future rank choice.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's important to point that out.
Thank you. Amy, maybe I can just get your thoughts on this.
The impact with the council here,
Juarez Herbold not running again.
District elections are a little different,
they're a little bit smaller, but where do you see
the political winds blowing right now?
-Well, I feel like it's been
pretty healthy dialogue this year.
I mean, we've had kind of a new, you know,
counterbalance of people
who definitely have different positions,
you know, with Sarah Nelson coming on to the council.
-Sure.
-But, I don't know I was thinking about it,
maybe you guys think this is Pollyanna-ish,
but I feel like you know,
there's been pretty healthy discussion.
It hasn't, you know, even in the budget process.
-Right.
-They all acknowledge each other and the mayor
and said, you know, that everyone weighed in,
it was a pretty good discussion.
Yes, there were a few issues of disagreement,
but it wasn't it wasn't that toxic, from my vantage point.
-Yeah, yeah.
-But I think these are going to be open seats,
so no name recognition.
So and it's always hard for us to know how hard these races
going because there's kind of there's not much polling.
-Yeah, yeah.
-They can be really unpredictable so.
-Yeah, the primaries for these things are always nuts.
And you say 15 candidates,
it could even be more so we'll see.
Maybe Mike I can jump into this
with you and Erica brought this up,
the side note that our districts have actually changed boundaries
based on the 2020 census numbers.
So whoever represents District One, that West Seattle area
is going to have to reckon with Pioneer Square and SoDo now.
Then you think about District Six,
where Dan Strauss is right now,
that candidate's going to have to deal
with the perhaps more conservative voters in Magnolia,
who we're also kind of ticked off
that their neighborhood got split up
because of redistricting. Your thoughts on the future?
-That's where I live actually. -Yeah, oh, interesting.
Do you have some thoughts on the future here?
-We are actually staying put as far as who
is representing the district. -I see, I see.
-But I think what's really interesting,
the thing that's and maybe Erica can speak to this,
I'm curious as to when it's going to feel like
they are actually are running in districts right?
When we switched to a district election,
which I think everyone here probably remembers pretty well,
I expected there to be much more
sort of specific district representation
and it still doesn't feel to me like there
is that sort of identity with a district,
that usually comes along with a district based election
and people are worried about their own district
as opposed to city policy. It feels, like it feels less,
how can I put it I feel less new than I thought it was going to.
I thought it was going to feel something like people --
there was a strong identity within a district
and that really hasn't happened.
So to your to your point about all of these seeds being opened.
This is I think going to be, I mean,
it's kind of a full employment app
for political journalists, right?
I mean, it is going to be busy and interesting.
-Yeah.
-And I think that's going to be,
I think that's not only going to be fun,
I think that the nice thing about it
is I think it is going to bring some new faces
and that should be interesting. And I think that to your point,
I think it is a lot more functional now.
-Yeah. -You know, at least at least
having somebody in the mayor's office,
who actually served on the city council,
I think really changed the dynamic.
-I was gonna say in this one Seattle ethic
that Mayor Bruce Harrell talked about,
maybe I can do a 20 second heat check down the line here.
Your thoughts about the mayor's performance in his first year?
He was talking about we're gonna put these divisive politics
behind it we're gonna put
Seattle was dying behind us or whatever else.
Has he come through on that? What do you think Amy?
-There were a couple of good moments this year, I thought.
I was downtown for the tree lighting and the mayor was there
and it was just kind of like, we're firing on all boosters.
Like there's fireworks going off and the lights are going on.
-Sure.
-You know and then it was like,
Okay, we're really trying, you know,
we're really trying to, you know,
be together in our downtown like we you know, like years past.
And the other memory that strikes me
is the memorial for D'Vonne Pickett Jr.
Where the mayor came and spoke and I did feel like there
was some comfort in such a grief stricken event,
in having a mayor who's like, I'm from this neighborhood.
I know this community.
I played sports in the same league.
So there's this sense of being seen and understood,
even though our gun violence is such a terrible problem.
-Yeah. Thank you for that. Some thoughts here Mike,
kind of a heat check on how the mayor's doing?
-Well I think that the mayor,
the mayor has the benefit of following a mayor
who I think got to a place where, where she wasn't that --
didn't seem to enjoy the job at all.
-Yeah.
-And really had gotten tired of it.
And also didn't come from,
I mean you don't become a United States Attorney
without having some political skill.
-Yeah.
-But did not come from elected office.
And I think that Harrell walked into this situation
with kind of nothing but an upward trajectory
and it was going to be like that for him anyway,
and he said all the right things
and he's sort of been trying with some sort of hiccups,
he's been trying to push his agenda
on fixing downtown and tough on crime and things like that.
So I would say that generally speaking,
I mean, if you were to the polling
that I think Danny Westneat referenced in his column
shows him as the most popular politician in Seattle,
so here you go.
So I guess he's I guess by one measure he's doing well.
-Got that going for him.
Erica, heat check on the mayor, some thoughts?
-Sure, I mean, I agree with everything both
of the other panelists have said,
I will say, you know, there's a lot of things
that the mayor promised on his campaign
that he has not come through with.
For example, coming up with 2000 new shelter and housing beds,
he sort of fudged that a little bit so now
it's "I've identified 2000 shelter and housing beds"
which is not the same thing. So I am curious going into 2023
if some of these priorities are going to come back
and you know if council members
and the public are gonna start saying you know,
look, I see a lot of sweeps
happening of homeless encampments
but, you know, but then they pop back up
in my neighborhood two weeks later.
-Right.
-So I mean, there is kind of a honeymoon period
that has lasted a very long time and I think, you know,
2023 will be the time when, you know,
that sort of comes home to roost one way or another.
-Yeah, and we're gonna jump back on the homelessness issue
in just a little bit but, Mike let me jump back to you,
I want to talk about what's happening in downtown
Seattle here. Amy kind of brought this up earlier.
We've got the DSA, these other groups,
really energized by what's happening downtown
and hoping to see an upward trend there,
but we still only have maybe 40% of the workers
who used to be downtown back on the job person,
compared to pre pandemic.
Are those workers going to come back?
Yes or no? What do you think about that?
What does that mean for downtown?
And also we got all these tech layoffs to think about too.
-I don't think we know yet,
what it's going to mean for downtown and certainly --
and we're facing fewer people in downtown
just as a result of layoffs alone.
Right. And we have a whole bunch of people now working remotely.
I mean, Zillow essentially cleared out
an entire skyscraper. So you have that coupled
with the other end of it and the other end of it
is that tourism is kind of back to normal.
The hotel bookings are way up there,
they're essentially pre pandemic levels.
You go down the Pike Market in summer
and it looks as it always did. crowded and you know and busy.
I think that that, on those measures,
on the tourism measures, it's looking pretty good.
On the -- if you have a business and downtown
that is dependent on workers being downtown,
if you're a small restaurant or something like that,
it's still not good, and it's not going to get
I think a whole lot better over the course of the next year.
Recruiters were telling me when I was interviewing them
about a variety of tech stories here in Seattle,
that you cannot expect to recruit talent
without offering a remote work component anymore.
And so once you get to that, that is going to mean people
either are downtown less or not downtown at all.
-Yeah. -And I think that is going
to change the dynamic. Now is downtown,
there's a lot of empty space downtown right now.
A lot of companies, the F5 building they're subleasing,
like a lot of space to other people.
So I think it's a wait and see on that on
when people do come back.
My guess is that it's also one of the it was historically
and I think you're probably more familiar with this,
the fastest growing neighborhood in terms of residents
-Right.
-in Seattle. And so you still got all these people
but if you don't have the tech workers down there,
what happens then is you don't have all of those services
that come along with them.
-Yeah. -And so you end up living in,
I don't know it's not necessarily
a grocery store desert down here.
-No, and I get what you're saying.
-But it's kind of close.
-Yeah, yeah. Maybe I can go to you on this, Amy,
because this whole idea of these workers
not coming back down downtown.
There's also a concern about public safety downtown
that's a big piece of this. And I wanted to talk about this
because crime numbers are starting
to drop slightly in Seattle, but there's still this image
that Seattle might not be a safe place to be.
So thinking about Adrian Diaz,
just about to be confirmed as our permanent police chief here.
You've got Leesa Manion as our prosecutor now,
what impact are those figures going to have?
Are they going to help with this issue?
-Yeah, I mean, I think that the vote for Leesa Manion
was not a huge challenge to what Dan Satterberg's approach
has been, you know, he endorsed her,
she's been, you know, it's been her career.
-Chief of staff.
-Chief of staff in the office.
So, and I think their emphasis has been,
you know, he's been a progressive prosecutor.
But he did say that he thinks some things
like the idea of zero youth detention,
he has said he didn't doesn't think
that that's a realistic notion. So progressive,
but not embracing every single thing on that spectrum,
but really trying to steer especially, young people
and lower level people away from incarceration.
-Yeah.
-So I think that part's going to continue.
As far as chief Diaz,
you know, the department says they're having,
I think, some success in recruitment slightly,
they're still losing a lot of people.
So it just, you know, it can be very,
a very small progress from their vantage point.
But, basically, you know,
kind of slight progress going forward
and he seems to be pretty well regarded,
you know, as far as the new leader for the department.
-So far, so good.
Erica, maybe I can jump on this
other public safety issue with you,
we saw a very visible split in the Seattle City Council
over this decision to remove 80 unfilled positions
from the SPDs hiring authority.
There was a six three vote on the final budget.
Councilmember Sawant always votes against the budget,
but this time, Nelson and Peters have joined her.
Is Seattle going to be able to change this narrative
on public safety after what seemed to me,
a pretty bruising budget process?
-Yeah, I mean, I think people will go downtown
and they can see as Mike said,
you know, it's starting to fill back up.
It's starting to feel, I mean, I never felt that,
like really felt unsafe, but it did feel very empty.
-Yeah.
-So I think there's, you know, there was crime and safety
there's always a perception issue.
But you know, I think too,
with Adrian Diaz coming on as permanent chief,
he was mentioning during his nomination
hearing the other day,
that you know, violent crime is down
and to have the police chief
saying that who's usually you know,
the one out there screaming that they need,
you know, more officers and more money
to sort of acknowledge like, look, things are getting better.
You know, that's, that's a good sign and,
and I do think a lot of safety really is perception
and always is and so,
you know, the police chief is saying it's safer,
and you know, they're hiring more officers,
not very many. They're saying there's going to be
18 net new officers in the next two years.
That's a very small amount,
but it is a trend in the positive direction.
-Right. -So, so I think, you know,
I mean, we'll see what happens with the economy in 2023.
But it certainly feels like things
are on an upward trajectory, at least in terms of perception.
-And I'm going to try to talk about another perception issue
with regard to homelessness here.
And I'm going to try to pick up the pace ever so slightly
with you if I could, this whole idea
of zero functional homelessness downtown.
We've heard Marc Dones, who's the CEO of the King County
Regional homelessness authority, talk about it.
Is it going to happen? Amy?
I know it's a broad question, but let me start with you
on that one. What do you think?
-Well, I think next year is really pivotal.
-It's the test.
-Because as you were saying, the mayor has identified units,
they aren't online yet,
but according to their dashboard,
there's you know, I think like 1000 units
that are supposed to come online in the next year.
So we should really see things happening
as opposed to behind the scenes planning
that was happening this year, from my understanding.
-Yeah. And Erica, let me jump to you on this one
because I previewed a little bit and actually showed
what was happening in the Chinatown ID neighborhood.
They successfully pushed back on the expansion of a shelter there
and I know, you keep very close eye on this kind of a thing.
What does that mean for our shelter beds,
I guess and then, in the bigger picture,
what does this mean for establishing
more enhanced shelter options around King County?
-Yeah, I mean, I think a couple of things
can be true about that shelter in Chinatown,
you know, they did not do adequate outreach,
is kind of the consensus. But at the same time,
those shelter beds are necessary and they have to go somewhere.
There's a high acuity shelter for people
with really intense medical needs.
And that's actually on that dashboard as something
that's coming online, that's not going to happen.
So some of the stuff in the dashboard is like,
off the table.
So you know, I think that the county who are the ones
who kind of caved on that are going to have to figure out
a way to you know, to push back and say,
look, we do have to have shelter somewhere.
Maybe it's in North Seattle, maybe it's you know,
in Queen Anne, but it has to happen somewhere
because otherwise we're not going to see any progress.
-Mike, I think also about a lot of big tech companies,
kind of joining in with this, the Partnership For Zero.
You got Amazon, Microsoft, ponying up nearly $10 million
to work on this issue, specifically downtown.
Your thoughts about this whole zero functional homelessness,
which basically means fewer people are going to
into homelessness than actually going into services,
I should point that out but your thoughts
about this reducing homelessness downtown.
-I think downtown in Seattle
has always been the public face of homelessness, right?
I mean, every one that's where the photos exist.
That's where all the video happens.
That's where people always have
run those photos again and again,
again on web news websites all over town.
I think you see a lot less than that now.
Zero functional homelessness.
I don't know I worry sometimes about effective --
whether effective sloganeering.
-Yeah, the aspirational goals.
-The aspirational goals,
and we know about the what's the pedestrian safety zero?
-Vision Zero. -Yeah.
-You know, what's not met with any sort of
a zero actual outcome, right?
So, I mean, I think it's aspirational.
I think the tech companies getting involved
and acknowledging at least a role in
in driving housing costs beyond what a lot of folks
in town can afford. And that is a component,
obviously a component of homelessness.
-Yeah. -I think the fact
that these companies are getting very involved in that is good.
And I think that Microsoft in particular has,
has a really it has a couple of really interesting approaches
when it's dealing with housing issues.
It's not just one thing, it's doing a variety of things.
-Mmm-hmm.
-I think that this is a sign that these are companies
now sort of moving to that second level
of getting actually more civically involved,
rather than just deciding that this is a town
with a bunch of people we can hire,
let's grow rapidly and all of that.
It seems like a deeper level of civic involvement
and so I guess we'll see how that plays out.
-Thank you for that.
Amy, I want to make sure I talk about this with you,
the move for the legislature
this coming session on the Blake decisions.
This was that 2021 ruling by the state Supreme Court
that basically struck down drug possession
as a felony here in Washington.
State lawmakers made this temporary fix last session.
I don't know if it's working out all that great.
That's some of the reports that I've seen.
But what happens this session with Blake?
-Yeah, so basically, at the end of that said
in the last session, they said okay,
drug possession is going to be a misdemeanor now,
but police need to refer people to services
twice before they can arrest them for that.
-Right.
-So a lot of a lot of people say it's not really,
it's doesn't function very well,
because there's no way to track those referrals.
People move around to different cities.
So it's basically not enforced very often.
So we're close to in practice,
we're close to it being kind of decriminalized,
which is what Oregon has done.
-Meanwhile, some cities and South King County
are so unhappy about this
that they've kind of passed their own drug penalties.
So not that -- we're all kind of positioning
for the next session, I think
and, you know, are we going to go ahead
and completely decriminalize?
Meanwhile, we're supposed to be ramping up treatment
and services to help people with addiction, you know,
regardless of whether we keep it as a crime or not, I think.
So that's kind of you know,
looking towards the session, as far as I can see.
-Yeah, we'll see.
And you had something to say about that Erica.
-Yeah, I mean, from what I'm hearing,
and, you know, I'm not reporting on this heavily yet,
but they're going to you know, essentially,
there's a there's a sunset it's going to this legislation
they passed last year is going to expire
and so they have to pass the legislation.
-Right.
-And what I'm hearing is they're going to probably
turn into a misdemeanor,
and have like these kinds of stages
that you have to go through
leading towards different types of treatment.
Personally, I think that is perhaps a misunderstanding
of both, you know, drug possession,
like not everybody who possesses drugs
needs to go to attend to the addiction treatment.
And also a misunderstanding
of how many treatment beds we actually have.
We are very short of treatment beds.
The county has 244 beds in the entire county
and a larger number in the state of course,
but nowhere near enough.
-Yeah, thank you for that.
I wanted to ask the 30 second version
if I could, Erica,
this initiative that's going to be on the ballot
in February, right around the corner here
was social housing here in Seattle.
I-135. Can you talk about that a little bit?
This would established this public developer
to create this this housing,
and I know there's a lot of question marks around this.
Would you mind breaking that one down for us?
-Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be
for the campaign matter of explaining
how this is different from other forms of public housing.
And I think the campaign's pitch would be that you know,
it's permanently affordable, and it's going to be run
by these kind of panels of tenants primarily.
-Yes.
-And so that's going to be the pitch.
The campaign or the ballot measure does not come with
any actual money attached to it, that has to come later.
So it's sort of a lengthy process
that's going to have to play out for this
to ever actually result in housing.
So this is just the first step in February.
-We will see. That's going to be a very interesting vote.
It is time to wrap up the show.
Thank you for the lightning fast conversation here.
And maybe I could just go down the line.
Here, Erica, a question or a story
that maybe we haven't talked about,
is there a headline you got on your mind?
-Very quickly.
I think the King County Regional homelessness authorities
five year plan is coming out now.
It's supposed to be their plan for the next five years,
not to solve homelessness in five years,
but what they're going to do
and I think it's going to show you know
whether their efforts are going to be different
than previous efforts
of solving homelessness or more of the same.
-Got it. Some thoughts here, Mike,
something you might be working on over the next year here.
-Well, I think what's going to be interesting in Seattle
is this the pressure, the tech salaries have done on --
have contributed to the issue of housing affordability.
I think that that a couple of things are happening.
Those salaries are going to start to flatten to some degree
and you're going to see layoffs in Seattle.
I mean, that's a bad thing.
But I do think that that level of pressure
on housing affordability,
is going to diminish over the course of the next year.
A lot more units are going to be coming online.
It's going to be interesting to see
where the average one bedroom apartment ends up in
Seattle, I think over the course of the next year.
And I think that most forecasters would say
that that's the least when to start leveling off.
-Okay, very interesting to check that out.
Amy, we've got about 30 seconds,
a story you're working on for next year.
-I just take some hope
from some of the kind of new tendrils of growth
that we're seeing like Pioneer Square,
the Chief Seattle Club
opened this beautiful new kind of housing
and cafe, indigenous cafe and medical clinic
and I just you know, it's great to see some beautiful --
you know, with tons of art everywhere.
It's great to see something new and you know,
being born because we've, you know,
we've lost a lot in the last few years.
-That's true.
A happy new year, hopefully on the way.
Thank you all for your input here.
And we will be right back.
-What are people saying on social media
about the biggest headlines if this past year?
One group writes the cost of living in the Evergreen State
is 13% higher than the national average?
The Olympia needs to provide relief
before their tax base finds greener pastures.
Another person says,
we need dense departments around all of these Seattle parks,
so people can get here and actually use them.
We'd like to know what you think.
Send us an email at contact at Seattlechannel.org
Or find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Coming up next time we look ahead
to the start of the 2023 legislative session.
There will be several new faces representing
Seattle and Olympia in January.
Hear from lawmakers about how they plan
to spend a $70 billion budget and solve a major problem
with our state's drug possession law.
Don't miss our legislative preview show next time
on "City Inside/Out."
Happy Holidays. I hope you join us.
♪♪