♪♪
-Hello. I'm your host Brian Callanan.
How are Seattle City Council members preparing
for a budget session,
where they're facing a $260 million deficit?
And why are advocated concerned about a new proposal
from the council,
over funding for mental health in Seattle schools?
I'm talking with the council's budget chair,
Council Member Dan Strauss about these issues
and the questions you're sending in too, next on Council Edition.
-If we get a revenue forecast in October,
that is in the negative direction,
we've got a big problem.
-All that and more, coming up next
on City Inside Out, Council Edition.
♪♪
Well, welcome to Council Edition,
I'm Brian Callanan and I'm with Dan Strauss
who represents district six on the council,
which includes parts of Fremont, Green Lake,
Phinney Ridge, Loyal Heights, Ballard, West Magnolia,
I hope I got them all there.
He's also the chair of the council's budget committee,
so he's been a little bit busy.
Council Member Strauss, thanks a lot for taking the time.
-Thanks for having me.
-Alright. Let's jump into it here.
I wanted to start with a look at
the supplemental budget process here in the middle of August.
Which is something the council does
to provide corrections to the already adopted budget.
Specifically, there was a concern over funding
for mental health at Seattle public schools.
Especially in light of the gun violence
we've seen recently at Garfield High and other locations.
Last year the council approved a plan
to provide $20 million for mental health services and gun
violence prevention programs at our schools.
That amount was set to $10 million
in the mayors supplemental budget proposal back in July.
And many public commenters called on the council
to add back that funding.
-This money belongs to our youth.
The previous council made a commitment in response
to the rising gun violence to do something.
Many of you campaigned on this promise to do something
and to advocate for our youth.
And honestly we should not be here, again,
asking for this money.
-And Council Member Strauss,
you added an amendment to this legislation
to bring the amount back to just over $12 million,
but not up to the original $20 million.
And I know we're going to get into the weeds
pretty quickly here.
But I did want to talk about,
how the average person sees this.
They're seeing $20 million promised from last year
and now they're not getting that full amount.
Why not? How do you explain this?
-We're halfway through the year
and I think what's most important is that,
the students need to know,
we want to get them mental health services,
as fast as possible.
So when the,
when Council Member Sawant's amendment passed last year,
there was no plan attached to it.
-No spending plan, yeah.
-It was just, the revenue in the door.
But there was no implementation plan.
And so we got to work real quickly,
the mayors office got to work real quickly.
Without a, usually money,
a plan is created and then money is allocated
so that on January 1st that money can be out the door.
-Okay.
-Because the money came first, the cart became before,
the horse came before the cart.
-Okay, okay, yeah, yeah. -The cart before the horse.
-Yeah, wherever, we got carts and horses, I got you, yeah.
-Because we did the opposite,
in this situation,
we had to quickly create a plan and get that money,
to get that money out the door.
-Okay.
So this is the, okay keep going, please.
-So if we had waited until the fall budget process,
we could've looked at a full school year.
Even just my amendment, that additional 2.25,
I don't know that we can spend $12.25 million
in the next four months.
And what we know is that we need to come back
to this conversation in the fall budget process,
starting next month.
Because kids need the mental health services
that they deserve in their schools.
And we need to support them in that.
-Yeah.
-And so what we're looking at right now is $12.25 million
to be spent in the next four months.
-Okay.
-And then we're going to come back during our
fall budget process and look at how are we moving forward.
I can tell you there's a shortage of counselors,
the school district has,
I won't get into the politics of the school district --
-I understand what you're saying,
these are two different jurisdictions, yeah.
-If I had a magic wand and can spend that $20 million today,
I absolutely would.
I think that there's, even a little bit of,
you heard me say yesterday,
we're going to stretch right now.
We're going to stretch to that 12.25,
because I think that there is some concern
that it can't even all be spent. -Yeah.
-Right. -Right.
-And if the mayors office had waited
until next month to figure,
to allocate the spending plan for a full year,
we could be talking about $20 million
in a more comprehensive manner.
-Okay.
-We're halfway through the year,
we're talking about over half the amount of money.
-Okay.
-I think what the public needs to know
and what students most specifically need to know is,
no it's not the city of Seattle's primary job,
it's the states, even though it's not...
-With education, yeah, right. -...with education.
Even though we're not the school district.
We want them to get the support that they need.
-Okay.
-We want our kids to be safe,
we want gun violence to be reduced around our schools,
in our neighborhoods, in our schools.
And that's commitment we're going to keep.
-Let me followup on this,
because I wanted to point out
that student mental health funding is just one part
of the supplemental budget.
We're talking about the council adding $800,000
to the Seattle Police Departments marketing budget,
expanding care,
Seattle's 911 alternative response,
there are other programs too.
I heard you also say in the diocese
that this supplemental budget process was a dry-run
for the usual fall budget process.
And I wanted to figure out if it was a good dry-run,
because if work on the supplemental budget is involved,
this level of concern packed house,
the commenters and council chambers.
I'm wondering what you're anticipating for the fall?
-What I mean by it was a dry-run is,
that's been the experience every year
we've passed a budget in person. -Yeah.
-I think even for the last four years
we haven't done as much in-person work.
-That's true, okay.
-And what I've really appreciated about this year,
is that we're doing work in-person,
we're doing work on the diocese.
It feels like it did in 2019.
And so, during the last four years
council members could log in via Zoom --
-Yep.
--- for our nine hour meetings.
-Right, they were longer that's for sure.
-Which is different situation than sitting
on the diocese for nine hours.
-Yeah.
-And then, in addition to that,
we've got six new freshman council members.
-Yeah.
-That have not been through a budget process.
-Yeah.
-And I don't know that they're all,
I don't know that they all know
how much time we're going to be spending on the diocese
together, for the next three months.
-I'm going to followup on that in a little bit
and talk about the budget priorities for this fall.
But I did want to talk about another big issue
the council's been wrestling with here in August.
A bill from Council Member Moore regarding SOAP,
stay out of areas of prostitution and SODA,
stay out of drug areas.
So, city attorney Ann Davison has really been advocating
for this for SODA.
Creating areas in downtown Seattle in the CID.
Where any drug crime could lead to gross misdemeanor charges,
up to 364 days in jail, a $5,000 fine.
Then there's the SOAP, an area on North Aurora
from 85th to 145th.
The council is considering a law,
loitering for the purposes of prostitution
as another gross misdemeanor
that would apply in this part of the city.
I saw that SOAP drew the bulk of the speakers in public comment.
Some believe this will be a good tool to clean up crime,
others say this will put more sex workers in jail
and wouldn't provide any meaningful help for them.
-Too many bullets have come within inches
of hitting neighbors.
And too many bullets have hit trafficked girls.
Anyone living in our neighborhood
can see things can't continue this way.
-The SOAP legislation as written unintentionally
targets vulnerable women in the sex trade
who are often victims of trafficking.
It does not propose additional funding or resources,
or have a provision for women who may live in a SOAP zone.
-Council Member Strauss,
I just wanted to get your take on SODA and SOAP.
What impact do you think they'll have
if the council passes these?
-Thanks Brian. I'm still examining both bills.
-Yeah.
-I don't sit on the committee
and I was listening in yesterday to public comment
and the committees work.
What I can tell you at a high level,
or you know, around Aurora especially because,
in north Seattle, my district and,
you know, you mentioned my district,
I'm elected by the people of Magnolia, Fremont,
Phinney, Green Lake, Greenwood, Crown Hill, Loyal Heights.
-I think you got them all, yeah.
-Many others first.
But I represent the entire city of Seattle.
And I think that it's important for all of us to know that,
even though we're elected by a district,
it's our job to represent our entire city.
-Right.
-And so, when I'm looking at what is happening on Aurora,
we know two things.
That things have gotten worse in the last few years
and that we need to address them.
And for me personally, I don't believe
that we should be criminalizing women and others who are,
at the end of the day, oftentimes victims themselves.
-Right. -Right.
And I don't want,
or even if they're choosing that line of work,
putting the criminality on them
is the unintended consequence... -Right.
-...from our need,
our absolute need to disrupt the criminal activity
and the criminal cycles of both human trafficking
and the other criminal activity
that we're seeing on North Aurora.
-Yeah.
-The gun violence, all of that.
And those two things can be true simultaneously
and that's what I'm going to be looking for
as I continue going through this, examining this bill.
-Yeah.
-When I look at SODA, downtown,
there are two things to be true here as well.
-Yeah.
-Which is, fentanyl is like no other drug we've seen.
In my time in office, we went from having very few overdoses,
or poisonings...
-Yes, right. -...poisonings at this point.
And a lot of heroine use.
And that has, we don't see as many needles around the city,
there's less heroine use.
And there's a lot more fentanyl use.
And that has increased the amount of deaths.
-Yes, overdose deaths.
-Whether by overdose or by poisonings.
-Okay.
-And it is very, what the auditor has shown us,
is that those areas are pretty focused
in a few places in our city. -Okay.
-There's a few downtown, 12th and Jackson, around Harborview.
You know, you look at Harborview and it's a health institution.
-Right, right.
-And so, that's how I'm also viewing,
I'm examining this bill,
is to understand what has changed in the last four years.
You know, we don't want to just push this problem
to another place.
-Right.
-And we need to address this fentanyl epidemic
like the problem it is.
-Yeah.
And I can see you wrestling with this, in your mind there.
And I just wanted to talk about this in a bigger picture here
because, bringing back SODA and SOAP zones
is a reversal of what the former council did.
You were part of the council
that repealed these laws unanimously four years ago.
And one of the concerns then
and I think you've brought it up here now is,
you don't want to make,
you want to make sure you're not harming the people
who are the most vulnerable here.
I guess I'm seeing a different approach from this council,
this newer council.
Where are they trying to use more law enforcement potentially
to reach out to people,
potentially to get them into treatment or what have you.
But, definitely using law enforcement first.
And I wanted to talk to you about that,
because it feels like a different approach
from council's in the past.
And, what are your thoughts about that?
-With nine separately elected officials,
being reelected every four years on two different cycles.
You get a lot of different opinions with each individual.
-Okay. -Right.
And, no matter what,
but I do think that even the last council,
and I'm speaking with broad strokes here,
well, actually I'll bring it back to me.
-Okay do it.
-I'm just going to speak for myself here.
Which is, the same for me is true today as it was before.
-Okay.
-I don't want to see people human trafficked,
I don't want to see gunshots in our street,
I don't want to see this criminal activity that is making
people feel unsafe in the neighborhoods that they live.
-Right.
-And I don't want to criminalize women and others
who are doing this work.
-Yeah, okay.
This is going to be the wrestling match,
I know over the next couple of months.
-And I think that there's a pathway forward.
-Okay.
-You know, and that's why I'm taking a lot of work,
taking time to read the bill.
And I think it might take a little bit longer than
other council members might think.
You know, maybe we get it done before budget,
again, not on the committee, I'm not working on the bill,
you know, as the sponsor so.
Speaking a little out of school here.
-No, no, no, I think it's important to look into these
because I think you're saying a lot of things
a lot of council members have said.
They don't want to criminalize that activity.
Council Member Moore has said that as well,
she really wants to go after the John's out there,
she wants to go after the pimps as well.
And I think that's going to be the tough balancing act
here I guess going forward.
Trying to criminalize that part,
but trying to protect and help people who need help,
sex workers for example.
That seems like the big balance here for you.
-That is. -Yeah, okay, alright.
We'll see what happens next with that and thank you.
I want to head back to the budget though, if I could.
And I know you're been watching these numbers a lot more closely
than I have here.
But that budget deficit number continues to creep up.
The recent reports I have seen
indicate the amount is maybe about $260 million here
in the mid-August.
And I wanted to go big picture.
I know people talk to you about this all the time on the street.
How are you going to make up that shortfall?
What do you tell people about this?
-I'm going to take a little bit of a step back.
-Do it.
-And the reason that we had a select budget series this year,
so we started our select budget process in April.
-Right.
-Usually it doesn't start until September.
The reason we did this was to take that ten year
and five year look back.
As to how did we get into a structural budget deficit?
Because again, we pass balanced budgets every year.
They're on the city budget website, anyone can read them,
it's a little dense, but it is publicly available.
And so we had central staff do what is definitionally an audit,
they're not third party from the city council.
-Right.
-And so, they did a deeper view and examination
of where we've come from.
-Okay. -How did we get here.
What is really clear from their analysis is that,
through ten years of high growth,
so high one time funds, low inflation,
we started spending a lot of money.
And that is consistent with how our city grew in a decade.
-I see. The spending was in response to the growth
is what you're saying. -It was paired, right?
And in a lot of ways
when you're growing from a small big city
into a medium sized big city,
we're now the 17th largest city in the nation.
There are adjustments that need to be made
and those come with costs.
-Yeah.
-As the entire national economy has slowed,
you know, I was only four months into my first term
when the pandemic started, --
-Right.
--- which then set off a recession.
During that time we took, we took the time
to not cut peoples jobs.
To not cut people, to not cut programs.
-Okay.
-And we stabilized our city government in a way
that other cities did not. What that did,
using those one time funds to stabilize our city,
during the recession of the pandemic,
delayed those tough decisions until now.
Which is good,
because as I was just mentioning we're now back in-person
and it's a lot easier to do this work in-person.
-Yeah, okay.
-And the entire, the national economy,
if everything goes right, I don't see it would appear.
-Okay. Right there, there you go.
-Knock on wood. -I do the same.
-Which is that if we see next month in September,
the fed lower the interest rate,
and mark the end of our slow recession,
which then begins slow growth.
We will be in a new trajectory.
That still leaves us hanging right now.
Where we have -- we have to address the structural...
-Yeah. -...budget deficit, right?
-It's not just this year, it's going ahead in future years.
-It's going ahead in future years.
And so,
how do we trim down our work while also not cutting programs
that Seattleites need.
While not cutting jobs
that Seattleites do for other Seattleites.
And this is going to be the balancing act
as we move forward,
because if the economic projections do return
in the favorable, let's play this out.
-Sure. -Right?
So, let's say we just do an all cuts budget right now.
And then the economy picks up next year and we're good.
Then we have to go back and rehire
or reprogram everything that we just undid.
-Sure. -What we need to do right now
is be very careful to not over-index in the wrong way
and make sure that we have a plan and a pathway for
if and when the economy begins to recover.
Seattle's local economy has some pretty big red flags
right now though.
In the last quarter our office space got,
our office space vacancy went in the wrong direction by 2%.
While the national average went in the right direction by 2%.
Our sales tax has been down, our real estate excise tax is only,
is starting to come back up, which is good.
And what we see,
because I said on the Seattle city employee
retirement systems board.
-Right. -That does investments.
I'm able to have conversations with market analysts.
-Okay.
-As part of my job as the budget chair.
-Got it.
-And what they're saying is that there is a fair amount
of dry capital,
potential capital to be spent across the nation
and potentially in Seattle.
But what they're looking for is, for the economy to stabilize.
Right, and I put it like this,
in the 1980s interest rates were higher than they are today.
-Yeah. -And there was more growth.
And so I think what folks are looking for right now
is for the soft landing, it what we're hoping for,
knocking on wood again.
-Yeah. -The soft landing next month.
To then begin doing slow growth. -Yeah.
-And so we're going to be watching this all along, right?
-Right.
-There's another revenue forecast that comes in October.
-Right.
Just before you make that decision on the budget there.
-Because again, we have enough money in the city
to make this all work.
But, a lot of that relies on one time funds, you know,
when, I was original co-sponsor of jumpstart.
-Yeah.
-And when we looked at all of those programs
that we wanted to fund, that was based on the economy,
the sales tax, the real estate excise tax.
-Being at where they were, yeah.
-Where they were.
And every single year since
then we've used jumpstart to patch the holes in the budget
for a one-time basis.
-Is that going to happen again?
-I don't know. -Okay.
-You know, this is what we're looking at
as we continue through the fall budget conversation.
And so when I said, dry-run the other day.
-Yeah. That's what it is, yeah.
-We've got a lot of time on the diocese,
we've got a lot of decisions to make,
we have to be doing analysis of incoming information.
Because over the course of three months the information changes,
just with the revenue forecast, in particular.
If we get a revenue forecast in October,
it is in the negative direction, we've got a big problem.
If for some reason the stock market tanks in the next month,
that's what jumpstart is based off of,
that's why it's doing so well.
If the stock market tanks we are in big trouble.
I can tell you that today without jumpstart,
we would've already had to cut programs.
We already had to lay people off.
And it would've had a really negative impact for Seattleites.
-Okay.
-And so, you know, I'm really happy
that jumpstart has been able to stabilize us,
that the one time federal funds were able to stabilize us
during the pandemic.
And now we've got to create a pathway back to stability.
If we want to jump off, you know, go off of a cliff,
it's going to be more painful than if we step down.
And that we have a pathway to land softly.
-Okay.
We will see what these deliberations are,
like looking forward to hearing more about that
with you Council Member Strauss.
I also wanted to talk about this fall season.
It means it's election season too and there's something,
there is one thing that will not be on the ballot,
that's I-137,
a funding measure for the social housing developer
that Seattleites voted to create last year.
The group had the signatures to get this on the ballot
in November,
but the council's effectively pushed this
into February of next year.
Which I know
and you know upset a lot of supporters of the measure.
Why did you vote yes on this plan to have the vote
on social housing happen in February not November?
-Yeah, I expected to already have an executive session
with the law department before taking that vote.
-I see. -That hadn't happened yet.
I won't speak to other council members decisions as to
why or why not that, you know,
why or why did we not have that executive session
before taking that vote.
But the law department hadn't raise some legal concerns
and it was prudent for me to ask them in an executive session,
not going to share what they said, because that's...
-That's not what executive sessions about.
-...attorney client privilege. -Yeah.
-But that was a really important step,
we had that executive session,
I know for me it answered some questions but not all.
I don't know where my other colleagues are at as far
as their questions that they're pondering.
But it, I wish the lawyers were more clear with their advice.
-This is,
I guess I just wanted to get to the bottom line of people
who supported social housing,
more than half of Seattleites did that last year.
What do you want to tell them about where this is right now?
-Well, it most likely going to be on the February ballot.
-Okay.
-From what I can tell,
but again, I can't speak for my other,
separately elected council members
or the council president.
-Okay. -As to the timing of that.
-Okay.
-I've got a couple more questions
that I'd like to get fully answered,
but I think that they are answerable
if the lawyers are a little bit more direct.
-Okay, alright, we got some work to do there.
Thank you for that.
I wanted to talk something else with you.
The mayor recently put out a mandate saying,
all of his executive branch employees
will be expected back to work three days a week,
starting in November.
King County and Sound Transit will do this too it sounds like.
I've received a few emails about this plan
and I wanted to throw this out there.
One person writes this...
There's one point of view. Another says...
Thank you for those emails.
I did want to get your take on
what mandating workers back to in-person work is all about.
I know your staff has been working more than three days
a week, that's for sure.
-Yeah.
I've been five days a week since the mayor reopened offices,
I believe that would've been March of '22.
-Right.
-So, I find this to be in-person work.
But that's very specific.
My staff does work five days a week in,
splitting our team between our city hall office
and our district six district office.
And I would say, what it really comes down to is,
the job and the circumstance. -Okay.
-Where we've had frontline workers working five days a week
throughout the pandemic.
-Okay. -That's a requirement.
And does the job require in-person work or not?
Is that individual caring for children,
caring for their parents, caring for their own health situation?
I think circumstance needs to be taken into account
when we're looking at this.
And then I will also say,
working in-person is really helpful.
I can't tell you how many meetings I have not had to have,
because I ran into someone waiting for coffee
at John's Coffee Cart in city hall.
Or running into them on the bus.
Or running into them walking down the hall.
I ran into a couple people in the elevator yesterday.
And it cleared off two meetings.
Right? -Okay.
-And so, then there's also the learning.
When we're working around other people that are either at
a higher or lower professional level than we are...
-Sure.
-...we're learning and we're teaching.
That doesn't happen as easily when we're working from home.
-Okay.
-And so,
if one of my staff members wants to ask me just questions about
how to do a job,
when they see me in the office they know when I'm free
and it's easy to pop in.
That mentorship is a lot easier to occur than
if we're all working from home
and we have Teams call one another
and then we missed the call and now we've got to call them back.
And suddenly we've spent five minutes just trying
to call each other.
The opposite is true
when you accidentally bump into someone in the elevator.
-Okay. Alright, I'm seeing where you're going there.
I wanted to throw in one last email,
we have just a little bit of time here.
The council put in place some new measures
that curbs street racing.
And I have actually received some emails about that.
I wanted to throw this your way, Eric writes this...
I wanted to throw this out there,
I know you have a background of transportation.
And you still serve on that committee right now.
Some thoughts about more cameras out there,
is that the answer to try to curb street racing,
what do you think?
-Speed cameras are a well loved
and deeply despised elephant. -Both at the same time, yeah.
-Both at the same time.
I can tell you I was doing a walk in district six
just last week about street safety
and how do we both improve the vibrancy of the street
and also make it safer.
-Did a camera catch you, were you speed walking or?
-No, no, no,
but, you know, I had a number of different residents
on the walk with me.
And two of them loved the idea of speed cameras,
two of them hated it.
And so, but what I can tell you is that,
I started working on speed cameras a decade ago.
-Right.
-When I got to work as a legislative assistant
for Senator David Frock from northeast Seattle.
At that time also representing Kenmore, Lake Forest Park.
-Right.
-So this has been a decade in the making.
And what I was also really happy to see
that within the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract
this year,
the ability for non-commissioned officers
are also able to review these tickets.
Because that's going to expand our ability to do it.
To have them --
-Right, actually get processed and, yeah.
-Right. And, you know, I have a number of different streets
that have been requested already in the district.
And it takes bias out of the situation,
either you did or you didn't.
I had a resident come up to me
and really upset about a speed ticket,
a speeding camera ticket. -Yeah.
-And I said, well, must have been in a school zone.
Well it was.
It could've only been during school time.
-Yeah.
-And you were doing over the speed limit, well I was.
-Yeah. -Did you do it again? No.
-Yeah.
-I didn't. -Problem solved, yeah okay.
-And that's important.
Right, I'll share a little bit about myself.
Every year I do a kayak race from Tacoma to Port Townsend.
-Okay.
-It is 70 miles, I have 48 hours to do it,
I typically finish within 24 to 29 hours.
And this last year as I was doing that race,
crossing between Blake Island and Bainbridge,
it was about two o'clock in the morning.
And guess what I heard from west Seattle?
-What's that? Oh yeah, you bet, yeah.
-All the way across the Puget Sound.
-Yeah. This is --
-If I can hear cars revving their engine from
across Puget Sound, how do the people in west Seattle feel?
-I see what you're saying.
This is a topic I know the council's going to keep on
working on over the next couple months.
Council Member Strauss, thank you so much for joining me.
-It's always great to be with you Brian.
-Alright and we'll see you next time on Council Edition.
♪♪