-I really think that we need new leadership.
-I would say I'm the only candidate with experience.
-After a bruising fall election,
Seattleites will see six new faces on the city council
next year. -Be bold! Be bold!
-This year, city leaders asked for and received voter support
for a $970 million housing levy...
-They must have somewhere to go.
-...on top of a $1.25 billion
crisis-care centers levy in King County.
[ Siren wails ] As 2023 comes to a close,
what were some of the year's top stories?
-You know, there's just that obvious
voter frustration out there.
-Our panel of reporters weighs in.
-Labor money didn't really come into play.
-Fentanyl has changed the conversation so much from 2016.
-How has Seattle fared
and what's the outlook for the year ahead?
Get the scoop next on "City Inside Out."
♪♪
And I am joined by a terrific group of journalists
to break down some of the biggest stories of the year,
including David Hyde, a reporter for KUOW.
David, good to see you. -Nice to be here.
-We also have with us Hannah Krieg,
who reports for The Stranger. Hannah, great to have you, too.
-Yeah, thanks for having me.
-And finally, Greg Kim, a reporter for the Seattle Times
who has a specific focus on homelessness.
Greg, good to have you here as well.
-Thanks for having me, Brian.
-Alright, here we go. David, I'll start with you.
One of the biggest headlines of this past year,
of course, are city elections.
We have a new moderate majority now in the city council
I think it's safe to say.
Four incumbents did not run again.
Councilmember Mosqueda is out, winning a seat
on the King County Council.
You recently profiled Councilmember Kshama Sawant,
the socialist alternative candidate
who did not run again here.
You make the point that she changed Seattle politics.
And I just wanted to ask,
was this election a rebuke of her politics?
How do you look at that? How do you look at her legacy
and the council we're going to have in 2024?
-That's a great question.
I'm not -- I don't think we know yet
if it was a rebuke of her politics entirely.
In terms of her legacy, I mean, I looked at the fact
that she's had a real national impact.
In 2013, when she ran, there were very few socialists
running or winning anywhere in the United States.
-If any. Yeah, right.
-She ran as a proud socialist,
had folks telling her, you know, "Don't bring that up.
Don't bring that up." Said, "No, I'm going to bring it up."
And now you've got, you know, over 100 socialists
in cities across the United States.
The other part that I think you're referring to
has more to do with her style of politics,
working with her Marxist political party,
socialist alternative, to champion legislation,
grassroots activism on the streets,
you know, starting with the minimum wage,
but also bringing folks inside, so, you know, you can go back
and look at all the council meetings where there they were,
you know, cheering her on and supporting her legislation,
but also denouncing the other council members
whenever they would in any way disagree
with any of her proposals or recommendations.
And so I think that's the piece where,
you know, is it going to stay with us?
Well, she says that, you know, if there are issues
that come up, her supporters will be there in City Hall.
And that was a real change, you know,
over the last 10 years, from the more genteel style
of politics that we had in the past.
So I think that aspect of it is still with us,
whether Seattle voters like it or not.
-Yeah. And we will see what happens
when these meetings start happening here.
Hannah, I wanted to talk to you about something you wrote
recently about the business dollars
going towards these independent expenditure committees
that supported many of the candidates who won here.
Those business investments,
I would have to say they seemed to backfire in 2019
and the last election,
but they really seemed to have an impact here in 2023.
What was different this time around?
-A big difference would be that
their counterpart, like labor money,
didn't really come into play in this race.
And I think that's a lot about
labor not really scouting for candidates in this election
and sort of getting --
not getting a great return on investment
from the current council.
I know that God, it was Local 8 or something
spent hundreds of thousands on Andrew Lewis.
And then they didn't even look at him
twice in this election.
It's just like kind of, you know, gauging their budgets.
They spent a lot of money on Lorena Gonzalez for mayor,
and they have other projects that they want to work on.
So I guess they just didn't want to play.
-It's really interesting. And then no independent
expenditures touched that District 6 race
between Strauss and Hanning there.
I thought that was very interesting,
that there were no IECs in the mix on that one.
-Yeah, I mean, business and labor gave Strauss money.
It seems like he's, you know,
done a good job of appealing to business
and sort of had some like pro-cop messaging,
especially in his race.
And they're like, "Yeah, maybe we don't need
to take a chance on this new guy Pete.
Maybe Dan's just fine."
-That's what took him over the top, I think.
Greg, I know that homelessness was a top issue
in this campaign season yet again.
It has been for many cycles now.
I guess I wanted to get your take on this new council.
Do you see them changing Seattle's
approach to homelessness?
-Um, I don't think they'll take a super-strong stance
on the issue right off the bat.
Homelessness is an issue that often takes council members
some time to get up to speed on in terms of best practices,
whether, you know, certain things work or not.
So I can't imagine them changing a lot
from what's being currently done right now.
-Yeah, I'm interested to see how that goes
because we have six new council members coming on
and that learning curve is steep.
But let me stick with you, Greg,
and maybe talk about another major headline
this year regarding homelessness and the KCRHA,
The King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
Marc Dones, former CEO, resigned in May rather abruptly,
and a permanent replacement has not been named as of yet.
The KCRHA has had a lot of problems
paying its bills on time.
The structure of the organization
has definitely caused some friction, too.
I guess I just wanted to ask you, Greg,
where do you think this agency is headed?
Where is our region's response to homelessness headed?
-Yeah. So just a reminder on what this is,
this is an agency that Seattle and King County
formed to try to tackle homelessness across the county.
It's an agency that exists outside
of either level of government.
And as you said, they had a really tumultuous year
where they saw their CEO resign.
As you mentioned, like a lot of the nonprofit organizations
that handle homelessness services
kind of revolted in a way -- they rebuked this organization
pretty strongly.
And so we've had a lot of -- a little bit of chaos there.
And with this new CEO coming in,
I think what Seattle and King County
will really want to see is a little bit of stabilization
of just, "Can we run the day-to-day?
Can we do the nuts and bolts of this?"
-Pay the bills. -Yeah.
-And we have this interim CEO -- Yeah, "can we pay the bills?"
-Right. -And this interim CEO
is already taking that on
in terms of trying to stabilize the ship.
-Helen Howell. -Helen Howell, yeah.
But she's just said that she's leaving.
So whoever they bring on,
I imagine they'll also be looking to find someone who has,
you know, that experience running a large organization
like this, paying their bills.
And I think they'll want to see more of that.
-Yeah. And, David, I guess I'll go to you,
Mayor Harrell and the city council approved a plan
for some more money going to the RHA
for this year's supplemental budget.
So Seattle wants to keep the RHA around.
But I just wonder, some of the other cities in the region,
some of these smaller cities have pushed back.
Do you have some thoughts about the future of the authority?
-We just got news about Kenmore
rejecting a Plymouth Housing facility,
which kind of suggests that maybe that approach,
that regional approach,
there are some question marks surrounding it
and how much other cities are buying into it.
I also kind of wonder who takes responsibility
and sort of ownership for homelessness,
as it's kind of been farmed out
to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
You know, is it -- it's Mayor Harrell's city next year,
it seems like, with a friendly council.
-Sure. -So if things aren't going well,
if we aren't making progress, does the city say,
"Oh, it's the KCRHA" or does the mayor --
does the council sort of own that issue now?
I'm always a little bit uncertain now about
yeah, who takes responsibility for what happens moving forward.
-Do you have any thoughts about the future of the RHA?
-Well, I don't think -- I mean, as you were saying, like,
this is -- like, Seattle is the only one who's really --
not the only but, like, the main buyer, you know,
and I don't think -- -Main funder for sure.
-Right. I don't think that -- I always forget the acronym
so I call it "Kikra," but I don't think Kikra
is, like, safe with Seattle either,
especially with this, like, more moderate council.
I know a lot of the reasons that
Dones left had to do with, like,
like tension with the mayor.
And it's the mayor's city 1,000%, as you said.
And so I know they -- the council gave Kikra
the right amount of money that they wanted this year.
But I know that there's, like, just like a lot of anxiety
in that area of homelessness that maybe it's not going to
get funded to the full extent next year.
-Yeah, KCRHA. I like Kikra a lot better though.
-Right? -Hannah,
maybe a related topic here -- I wanted to talk about voters
definitely wanting to put more money
towards housing this year. Supported a $970 million
Seattle housing levy this fall.
They said yes to a social housing measure,
I-135, back in February, plus, the city council says
it's making its largest investment
ever in affordable housing --
$600 million over this year and next.
I guess I could throw in the yes vote
for the crisis-care centers levy in the mix too.
There was a lot of support for these different issues.
I guess I'm seeing a lot of measures to consider,
a lot of investments to consider,
and I'm trying to figure out what impact
are these investments going to have on our region's problems
with homelessness and affordable housing?
-I mean, it takes a while to build houses,
so we won't know tomorrow. -Yeah. Right.
Right, right, right, right, right.
-I think, um...
Yeah, I think that it's going to take a lot more.
I mean, this, like, all the studies show,
like, I don't know, $10 billion.
So it sounds like a lot. -In terms of what's actually
needed to meet the demand. -For housing.
But it's like, I mean, of course $900 million
sounds like so much money and it is so much money.
But in the scale, it's kind of like...yeah.
-Right. Does it really keep up with the demand?
I think people saw that price tag go up for the housing levy,
but in terms of prices of land and real estate, et cetera.
-There are 3,000 housing units. -Right, right.
Not that much more than the levy did before.
Did you have a thought on this one, David?
-No, just that. Yeah.
I mean, you know, I think that there is this expectation now
that we're going to be making some progress on these issues
and as you say, $1 billion, 3,000 units.
There's also rental assistance. -Yes. Right.
-So it's doing some important things.
But, you know, there's just that obvious
voter frustration out there, and so I guess we'll see.
-Yeah, yeah, for sure. Hannah, I want to jump back to you
to start a discussion about a big debate
over public drug use and drug possession.
This was such a big issue this year.
Can see it on your face there. -[ Laughs ]
-So the council had this measure ready to go in June.
And then council member Andrew Lewis was a late no vote on it.
Probably cost him his job there, led to a revamp
of this version of this -- a gross misdemeanor,
the law that Lewis ended up working on.
The council approved it in September.
I guess I'm just trying to figure out this general move.
Is the council going to get more "tough on crime,"
and big air quotes on that one, with this new drug law in place,
or I'm trying to figure out what impact
will it really have on our drug crisis?
-Totally. I mean, the council
is definitely getting more tough on crime.
You see all those candidates who won except for Morales
supported that drug bill
and the other ones either stayed quiet or didn't support it.
-Right, right. -But I mean,
the direction we're moving in is more --
relying more on jails,
more on cops to rid our streets of people
going through a health crisis. -But does it --
Does it rid us of the overall problem?
-No.
I mean, maybe you'll see that one guy who's, like,
down the street from you using fentanyl,
he'll be gone for three days at a time while he's in jail,
but then he'll come back all the more destabilized from,
you know, going to jail and going through that process.
-You're just not seeing a lot of investment in those
I guess diversions or other things there.
-$27 million. Whatever. -Yeah, yeah.
Okay. Gotcha. Your thoughts, David?
-Well, KUOW did some reporting on the new drug ordinance.
Only 47 arrests,
I think 33 diversions by the end of November.
So, you know, there was a flurry of activity
when the thing first passed,
but it's really kind of not being used,
which is what some of the critics said initially,
is that there wasn't money for treatment.
And, but, you know, and that this ordinance
was kind of smoke and mirrors.
I think it's a little bit unclear still
you know, why that's not happening.
Does the mayor's office need to talk to SPD
and ask them to make it a bigger priority
if this new council wants it to be a bigger priority?
And then, you know, Sara Nelson says she's going to,
you know, make drug treatment a big priority next year,
but where's the money going to come from?
So again, like most of this stuff,
there's just -- there's some questions that we've got about.
-I'm going to come back to you on Sara Nelson in a minute.
But, Greg, I wanted to draw you in
because you recently wrote
about safe consumption sites for drug users,
which the city and county were both on board for
and even approved some joint funding for.
This was back in 2016.
It seemed like a good idea then to local government.
Do you see any appetite for that now
in the midst of our growing opioid epidemic?
-Yeah. Before I touch on appetite for it,
I will say, you know, as we look at the drug crisis,
which, you know, our residents and voters
are saying very clearly they want our officials
to do something about, right? -Yep.
-I think there are different goals
that you can have when addressing the drug crisis,
which I think our other panelists touched on is,
you know, you can have a focus on the aesthetics of streets,
on the priorities for, you know,
people who are not actively in the throes of drug addiction.
Right? And I think that's kind of
where the police emphasis is geared towards.
Right? But as Hannah mentioned,
that studies show that does very little
if not negative impacts towards the people
who are actually experiencing drug addiction.
If you want to make a difference for the people who are,
you know, on the street, addicted to drugs,
that takes a kind of different set of interventions.
So, to bring it back to your point,
to your question, safe consumption sites
is one way that other cities like Vancouver in Canada
have tried to address the crisis for the people who are,
you know, experiencing drug addiction.
Right?
And then back to your original question of like,
what do I think the appetite is here.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-There was a big push in 2016 to add safe consumption sites.
Everyone was like, "Yeah, yeah, let's do it."
And they added money for it. That has fizzled out.
And I don't know that the appetite politically has,
you know, somehow, like, burgeoned back up.
I think a lot of those advocates have kind of seen
the political appetite for it and said, "You know what?
There's not enough here for this."
And so some of those people
who were pushing for safe consumption sites
have partially because of that,
partially because
they've changed their thinking independently
because fentanyl has changed the conversation so much from 2016
in terms of the severity of the crisis,
how often people have to use.
They've changed some of how they think about
what is the right approach to address a drug crisis
for the people who are using drugs.
For example, one of the things is Lisa Daugaard,
who was one of the main proponents
of safe consumption sites back in 2016 through 2018.
She said she no longer, you know,
pushes for safe consumption sites.
That's not part of her thinking anymore.
But, you know, one thing she does do
is she runs some homeless shelters around Seattle, right?
And at those shelters,
they have sites like right outside
where they have like a tent set up.
And for people who are addicted to using fentanyl,
the staff say, "Go use it there,
outside where we have a line of sight on you
so you're not using alone in your room
and have a risk of overdosing alone," right?
-Right. -And so, you know, that's --
In some ways it can be viewed
kind of as a safe consumption site.
But she'll be careful to say that it is not
because she's saying that it is safe-consumption practices
wrapped around, like, a more robust set of, like,
actually changing this person's life
rather than just stopping them from overdosing and dying.
-And Greg gets points
for the most comprehensive answer
to a three-part question. That was well-played, sir.
I did want to ask you, David.
You recently reported on this measure
from Council Member Nelson.
She's been talking about possible involuntary commitment
for people dealing with serious addiction
or behavioral health issues.
Controversial idea, to say the least.
Do you see the city council pursuing this?
-I have no idea. I mean, I -- you know,
it is an issue that's coming up in some other cities.
And, you know, this isn't sort of
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" type
involuntary commitment.
I think the cities that are exploring the possibility
or have implemented -- we're talking about people
who are suffering some --
from severe untreated mental-health issues
or severe kinds of drug addictions.
But, you know, as you mentioned, it's super controversial.
I don't think it's going to be a top priority for Sara Nelson.
Again, it seems like her main issue is drug treatment
on that score.
But it could be something that the city of Seattle
actually talks about in 2024.
And I would say a few years ago,
it's something that was just completely so toxic.
It was off the table. -Right.
-And so that kind of reflects the change
and sort of the moment that we're in.
We've got a lot of problems. And Nelson saying, you know,
maybe this is something we should consider.
I'm not even sure how much of an advocate
for it though she really is. -We will see.
Could very well be a person
who's going to be our next council president.
So it'll be interesting to see. -Yeah.
Do you know something I don't?
-Maybe. I'm going to put a big maybe on that one.
I want to move on to another issue though.
Hannah, let me throw you in here.
Crime and police hiring. Major campaign issues here
during November. City broke a yearly record
for homicides back in September
with just three months left in 2023.
Police department wants to hire more officers.
The city just launched a dual dispatch
911 program to help with those low-acuity calls.
The mayor pushed through this controversial plan
for ShotSpotter gunshot-detection technology.
Is there one of those that stands out
as the biggest public safety headline of the year,
or some thoughts on that?
-I think the thing that comes up the most probably is
the staffing shortage
or the high expectations of the police department
to have more cops than they've ever had before.
But, I mean, I think that's going to be
a huge conversation with the next council
since Sara Nelson was such a huge proponent of hiring.
-Yeah, all these candidates were saying,
"We're going to hire more tomorrow."
And that's not happening anywhere in the country.
-1,400 cops. -Yeah.
-Everyone you know is going to be a cop, you know?
-What does it pay? -Exactly.
$80,000.
-There's a $30,000 bonus if you play it right.
I'm interested in that one, too.
Greg, some thoughts about the biggest
public safety headline of the year.
Anything stick out to you there?
-I mean, I know that there was a lot of noise
made around the ShotSpotter technology.
I don't know if it warranted all the noise that it got.
-Yeah. -It's a, you know, it's only
like $1.5 million budget item.
-Right. -But it is controversial
because, you know, I think studies
have seen that maybe it's not effective
and maybe it exacerbates some inequities in terms
of where policing attention is directed.
-Yeah. -But, you know, I think
it's another example of, like, people
are saying public safety is what we want our officials to do.
And these are our officials responding,
saying, "Look, we're doing."
-Yeah, yeah, that's something they can point to.
Any thoughts there, David, about the big public
safety headline of this year? Anything stick out to you?
-You know, just the reality is kind of grim.
The homicide rate reaching sort of 1990s levels.
I haven't done the math to figure out if that's per capita,
but, you know, high level of homicide rates.
I did a story yesterday, this week about car theft.
And so, you know, this stuff can be sensationalized.
You know, campaigns can sort of amplify
the anxiety that's out there, but I think
people across the political spectrum in Seattle
are concerned about stuff like that and want to see
this next council figure out what to do about it.
-Right, and do things like ShotSpotter?
I mean, just to have some sort of program in place.
I feel like -- -I feel like --
You know, voters don't have the responsibility
of solving problems or knowing if they want ShotSpotter or not.
They're like, "The homicide rate is unacceptable.
It should go down. You guys have to fix it."
You guys -- "You people have to fix it."
-Right, right. Well, fair.
We need to start wrapping up here.
Hannah, I wonder if I could lean on you first.
A headline maybe we haven't
talked about from this past year
or one you're really keeping an eye on for next year?
-Yeah. I mean, I think the big conversation next year
will be around -- and it was this year --
but progressive revenue.
Teresa Mosqueda had these big,
big plans to get more taxes on wealthy --
wealthy people, corporate-- corporations or whatever.
And she kind of left that -- left that to the next guys.
-Left that hanging, yeah.
-And we'll see a lot of the people who got elected
already have said, "Well, we're just going to, like,
look at the budget for a while
and see if we can shuffle some papers and,
you know, find a quarter million doll-- a quarter --"
-Essentially what we're talking about.
More than $200 million.
-Yeah, that's a quarter billion dollars, dang.
-Right, right.
-so I think that will be what we're looking at.
If we can do a capital gains tax
or a raise jump-start through the roof,
so we'll see what they cut.
-That's a big one. And you've done
a lot of good reporting on that one.
I'm looking forward to seeing more on that, too.
Greg, maybe a headline We haven't talked about,
one you're keeping an eye on next year?
-Yeah, I'll stay within my beat a little bit for this.
What we got next year
and with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority
is they have about
200-something million dollars that they manage.
These go to homelessness organizations to do services.
Right? Starting next year, what they're looking at doing
is redistributing that. Right?
Basically deciding from scratch where that money goes. Right?
Over the past so many years, I don't know, half dozen,
they've just kind of rolled over.
"We've been doing the same thing."
They've been going to the same organizations
in the same amounts every year.
And now they're saying "this is an opportunity for us
to redirect that money
in a way that we think is the most efficient,
and we can get the biggest bang for our buck"
and, you know, address, equity and things like that
and other priorities that the organization has.
So it'll be interesting to see how they go about that.
-With a new leader potentially. -With a new leader.
And it requires a lot of trust
from a lot of different stakeholders,
both the nonprofits that organize it
and Seattle, King County.
So it'll be interesting to see how this goes.
It's a big opportunity. -I appreciate that.
David, a last thought here,
a story from this year
or one you're really keeping an eye on next year?
-I think I'm echoing Hannah's point.
You know, next year, the big question for this council
is they say they're going to not raise taxes.
We've got this giant budget deficit that we're facing.
We're going to hire hundreds of new cops.
We're going to be paying for drug treatment.
I don't know how all that stuff pencils out,
and it'll be interesting to see
kind of are they willing to sort of, you know,
decide that they are going to raise taxes
and annoy some of their friends
in the business community or not.
And the voters are going to expect results.
And so can we get results with,
you know, within the current budget?
I think that's going to be an open question
and something we're going to be watching for sure.
-And with so many new council members.
-Yeah, absolutely. -For sure, for sure.
Well, thanks, everybody for your input here.
Appreciate that. And, everybody watching,
thank you for your input too.
What are people saying on social media about the year in review?
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We'd like to know what you think.
Send us an e-mail at contact@SeattleChannel.org
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I'm Brian Callanan.
Thanks for joining us on "City Inside Out."
♪♪