♪♪
-Hello, I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
In the wake of some pointed criticism
from a departing city councilmember,
Seattle leaders have some questions to answer
and a new vacancy to fill.
Plus, councilmembers are reckoning
with a mixed economic forecast
following a challenging budget writing process.
I'm with councilmembers Dan Strauss and Rob Saka
to discuss these issues
and the questions you're sending in too,
right here on "City Inside/Out: Council Edition."
Reform work is a continuous, ongoing journey.
It's a perilous journey towards transformation
that we're all on individually and collectively.
And this police department is no different.
-Because the city of Seattle
is limited to a 1% property tax increase per year,
when we have 7% inflation, it can't keep up.
-All that and more, coming up next
on "City Inside/Out: Council Edition".
♪♪
Thank you once again for joining us
on "City Inside/Out: Council Edition".
I'm your host, Brian Callanan,
and for this episode
we have with us Councilmember Rob Saka,
who represents District 1 from West Seattle
out to Pioneer Square.
He's also the council's
transportation committee chair as well.
Good to have you aboard here, Councilmember Saka.
-Thank you, Brian. Good afternoon.
Excited to be here today.
-Let's do this thing.
Also with us is Dan Strauss,
councilmember from District 6 from Fremont to Ballard.
He's also the council's budget committee chair.
Welcome, Councilmember Strauss.
-Thank you, Brian.
Can't forget Magnolia or Green Lake or Phinney Ridge.
-Absolutely. -I would say, you know,
we're elected by the people in our district
and we serve all Seattle.
-Alright. I was waiting for that list.
Thank you very much.
I do want to bring up, at this time last year,
you were preparing to fill a vacancy
for a less-than-a-year term on the council
with the departure of Councilmember Mosqueda,
the King County Council.
This year, there is another vacancy,
as Councilmember Tammy Morales is leaving her job
with three years remaining in her term.
Her last day is January 6th.
She said a number of things about why she is leaving,
including this letter to her constituents on December 4th,
which read in part...
I know this is a challenging situation for the council,
so I wanted to bring it up right off the top of the show.
Councilmember Saka,
what is your reaction to what Councilmember Morales has said
about feeling attacked, essentially,
and feeling like the council
doesn't have proper checks and balances?
-Yeah, so first off,
I want to thank Councilmember Morales
for her steadfast service to the city over these last five years.
Listen, everyone is entitled to share their own views
and speak their own truths.
And I don't, you know, that -- I respect that.
And, you know,
I can't comment on her perceptions of everyone
or the institution more generally.
But I can self-reflect on how I personally show up
in my interaction and engagement
with Councilmember Morales
and I have been very collaborative and accommodating
and doing my best to work with her,
no different than I have with all of my esteemed colleagues.
And so I'm sorry that she feels that way,
but I do want to thank her for her service to the city,
and I wish her nothing but the best in her future endeavors.
-That whole idea of not having proper checks and balances --
your thoughts there?
-I think we have charter- enshrined checks and balances.
I don't know, like, what does that mean?
Is there a specific solution
that's being proposed, or like...?
I don't...Yeah.
-Okay. Alright.
I wanted to make sure I brought up every piece
that she was talking about here. -Sure.
Councilmember Strauss, maybe I can get your reaction
to what Councilmember Morales has said about,
really, the institution of the City Council,
because I think she had some things to say there
that were -- I know a lot of councilmembers
took pretty hard. -Yeah.
Thanks for bringing this up, Brian.
Because, like Councilmember Saka,
I want to thank Councilmember Morales for her service.
You know, she and I were elected at the same time
and I've served with her
on the Association of Washington City's board.
And you know, what I will say to you
right now is the same -- are the same things
that I've said on the record already.
But to respond to your question directly, you know,
Council President Nelson has handled things differently
than I would have.
I have seen her handle things differently
than the past three council presidents,
Council President Juarez, Council President Gonzalez,
and Council President Harrell.
I'll leave that at that
because I'm not here to air dirty laundry,
but just to say I have seen decisions be made in a way
that I would not have.
But what I shared with Councilmember Morales
on the dais is in her and my first six months,
we faced a pandemic... -Right.
-...a recession, a civil rights reckoning,
and then civil unrest, and all of those things
actually happened in four months.
We just had two months to get ready for the job.
-Right. Right. -Right?
And what I said to her is,
I'm sorry that for these last 11 months,
that her time has been more difficult than those six months.
-Do you believe that was the case?
It just seemed like she was dealing with
things that were worse than the pandemic era?
Is that what you're saying?
-I can't speak for Councilmember Morales.
You'll have to invite her on the show.
But, you know, like, that's what I said to her.
That's how I feel.
And for all councilmembers, this is a hard job.
We saw Council President Debora Juarez have death threats.
We saw Councilmember Herbold have rocks thrown
through her window.
We've seen past councilmembers have their children bullied
at school based off of the decisions
they were making on behalf of all Seattleites.
It's a tough job.
-Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
I would like to move on to what happens next,
because the council now has to appoint someone
to fill the District 2 position in January.
It'll be a roughly 9-, 10-month appointment here.
Then the public would vote for a D2 councilmember
next fall for a two-year term
until the seat is up for vote again in 2027.
Hope everyone's following me on that one.
Councilmember Saka, I received a question
from one of our viewers, Robin, about this,
who asks this...
Are you looking for that candidate for the future
or more of a caretaker for this role?
-Yeah, thank you, Brian, and thank you, Robin,
for that excellent question.
I will share that where I'm currently,
how I'm currently approaching
and thinking about the situation today
at this moment in time, I think we'll have
the opportunity to take this issue up
in earnest once we return
from council recess in early January.
But where I'm at today, middle of December,
I'm currently thinking about a caretaker for this role.
As Councilmember Strauss aptly alluded to,
this is a tough job.
And, you know, it's hard for everyone involved,
and this person, whoever it is, whether they choose
to stay on as a caretaker or, you know,
run in parallel,
like, they're going to have to get up to speed really quickly.
Look, there's a lot of smart people.
I have a lot of smart colleagues on this,
on this -- well, not on this floor,
but on the second floor of City Hall,
and people who have done really amazing things
before they got to this distinguished institution.
And you could be as smart as you want
and be as accomplished as you want,
and you still are going to have a very steep learning curve.
And so, you know,
unlike the citywide selection vacancy process,
this is a much more narrower section and cross-section
of potential candidates. -Right.
-And so I want to make sure that for me personally,
I want to make sure that this person
is set up for success,
that their constituents in District 2
are set up for success,
our colleagues here on the council are set up for success,
and the taxpaying public.
And where I'm thinking about it today,
I think it's a 50, 60 hour a week job, minimum,
to do the day-to-day of our job,
plus campaigning -- an extra 50, 60 on top of that,
if you're doing everything right, at least.
-Mm-hm.
-To get up to speed and do all those things,
it's just a very tall order.
That said, like, you know -- -We'll see what happens.
-The right person might just come out and surprise me.
But currently that's how I'm thinking about it.
I'm thinking about a caretaker only.
-Councilmember Strauss, some thoughts on this.
-I love working with Councilmember Rob Saka.
The man took the words right out of my mouth.
-Okay, you're on the same page there, sounds like?
-Yeah, in the middle of December.
You know, you can't hold me to it.
I might vote for somebody that says that they will run.
But having a caretaker and having somebody
that knows land-use policy,
because we're taking up the comprehensive plan this year.
I'll just kind of riff on what Councilmember Saka just said --
-Please. -...in a different way.
I was staff for City Council for two years
before becoming an elected official.
When I became a councilmember,
I moved my desk probably between 25 and 40 feet.
-Right.
-And I had been staffing elected officials for a decade,
and it was still a steep learning curve.
When I ran for reelection,
I was already a sitting councilmember.
To do that, to do the job
of a councilmember and to run an election --
and I already had experience in both.
I'd already run a campaign,
I'd already been a councilmember,
and now I was doing both at the same time.
That was one of the toughest experiences I've had,
just purely on time, right?
And what is important for me
is that District 2 has a representative
that represents the people of that district,
and that they're able to focus on what they need to.
For me, that means a caretaker who has land-use experience.
That's kind of a very unique skill set,
all combined in one human. -Right.
-If we're not able to find it,
I'm excited for applications to open, I believe on --
-January 2nd, and goes to the 9th.
So get in those applications if you're so inclined.
Let me follow up on a bonus question from Robin
here, if I could.
You're vice chair of the Land Use Committee,
and it's a very important group.
The comp plan set to be updated in a few months.
This is basically the roadmap for
where Seattle is going to grow over the next 20 years here.
How's the Land Use Committee going to work?
I know there's been some stuff going on here,
some other councilmembers stepping up.
-Yes, so I was the land use chair for four years.
-Right. -It was a really fun job.
And land use policy is dense as can be.
I'm excited to remain as the vice chair,
and I'm also excited
that Joy Hollingsworth has been appointed to lead us
through the Select Comprehensive Plan Committee.
That said, as my understanding is,
council president hasn't said anything else,
which is that they will retain that committee chairship,
Land Use Committee, which is --
-That D2 appointee will? Okay.
-That is different than the Select Committee
on the Comprehensive Plan. -Got it.
-The Select Committee is all nine councilmembers.
The Land Use Committee will probably have less work
this year because of the comprehensive plan.
-Okay. -I stand ready to support
Councilmember Hollingsworth in everything that she needs,
and I stand ready to support the appointee,
whoever they are, in managing the Land Use Committee.
-Great. If I could, I wanted to jump back to the budget process
with you, where the Council, of course,
approved an $8.3 billion budget just a few weeks ago.
Councilmember Strauss,
you oversaw this work as the council's budget chair.
Plenty of challenges here,
including a $250 million budget deficit.
Big picture, what messages about the budget
did you want to get across?
-I think we had a $267 million hole.
-Okay. It was rising. -When we got started.
And what was even more challenging
is that we had a downturn economic forecast,
mid-budget. -Mm-hmm.
What that means, for somebody
who doesn't do budgeting work,
the mayor proposed and transmitted a balanced budget.
There was then another hole in that budget that we had to fill.
-Right. An economic forecast showed you
that the future wasn't looking good for certain taxes.
-And in particular sales tax regarding construction.
And so one of the ways that we got into this budget,
the structural budget deficit-- we have the money,
but it's a structural budget deficit.
The way we got into this was a decade of high growth
and low inflation.
So we had one-time dollars
that we could count on year after year for ten years.
And when the construction slowed,
we didn't have that money.
And at the same time, inflation skyrocketed.
Because the city of Seattle
is limited to a 1% property tax increase per year,
when we have 7% inflation, it can't keep up.
And so that's how we got to the situation.
How we're going to get out is a step-down approach.
If we tried to solve a decade's worth of issues in one year,
we would be unnecessarily cutting programs and people
and services everyday Seattleites rely on.
So what we did this year is we did do some trimming.
We did make sure to restore some of the funding
that maybe not, wouldn't have gotten cut
because there was a nice reserve fund created.
We used that reserve fund,
created new policies to make sure
that that Jumpstart reserve fund was refilled
and protected for use, and we're going to --
and we also requested a number of different reports
from this year
that will help us make good decisions next year
in our continued effort of budget reform.
I'll tell you, with six new councilmembers this year,
There was no way that we could have been
as successful as we were without starting
the Select Budget Committee in April.
-That's right. I remember when you did that.
-Most years, the Select Budget Committee starts
in September.
This year, we started in April,
and it was a true pleasure to get to work
with my colleagues every step of the way.
-Yeah, six new councilmembers.
That hasn't happened in 100 years.
-Really? -This was a big year.
Yeah. -100 years?
-That's what I'm talking about.
That's the history of our city here.
-Alright.
We're talking back to Bertha Knight Landes' time.
-That was before the Great Depression.
-Yeah, that's what I'm telling you.
-Right. -So these things do happen.
-Was there nine councilmembers at the time?
-I wasn't there, I wasn't there, I wasn't there.
-That was before Boeing building number two was built.
-That's right, that's right. 1919.
-We were still using the steam plant off the Duwamish.
-Good point. Councilmember Saka.
Maybe some takeaways from your first budget process,
accomplishments, things you wish could happen differently.
What do you want to share? -Yeah.
-So, first off, I want to commend and thank my colleague,
Councilmember Strauss, Chair of the Budget Committee,
for leading such a terrific and collaborative
and excellent overall process.
So kudos, hat tip to you.
We got a lot of things done in the face
of many challenges.
And of course, individuals like myself,
we helped them and we made it even better.
-Okay. Alright, alright. -You did.
The childcare amendments that you brought made it better.
-If you don't say so yourself.
-Okay, okay. Alright.
But, no, a couple quick things
that I'm proud of about this budget,
in addition to all the -- I love everything
he said about putting us on a more sustainable path
to budget reform and initiating that work now,
but some specific investments that I'm proud of.
Look, I ran on a public safety platform when I was a candidate,
and this year we added...
The mayor proposed his original proposed budget,
and we added at least $16 million
of net new investments
on top of it, specifically for public safety.
I'm proud of the fact
that we had historic investments in affordable housing.
I'm proud of the fact that we had,
we funded two non-congregate shelters,
which could include tiny homes,
net new non-congregate shelters in our city.
I'm proud of the fact that we added, increased
our tenants' rights, provided more tenant services.
Yes, childcare program to support working families.
Oh, I can go on and on, Brian. -Okay.
-We did a lot, like, just little nitty-gritty things,
like making sure we have proper communication,
dispatching staff at the call centers
so we can have better response times
for our non-emergency response.
Okay, so there's so much in there that we can all,
I think, be proud of
and ultimately benefits every individual
in the taxpaying public that we all serve.
-Okay, let me pull out one piece of something
you did not do, which was pass a capital gains tax.
I know there was a discussion about this.
It was late in the process.
So I know a lot of people were concerned about that
coming on late,
this proposal from Councilmember Moore.
I remember that you said at the time,
it's the right tax but the wrong time.
And I wanted to understand what that means.
Do you want to try to pass something like this
in the future or what -- what can you tell us
about a capital gains tax here in the city of Seattle?
-It's a great -- it's a great question.
So, yes, I was proud to co-sponsor,
because for the budget you need --
every councilmember needs two co-sponsors.
And I was proud to co-sponsor Councilmember Moore's
proposed capital gains tax.
And ultimately, as you aptly noted, Brian,
I ultimately declined to vote yes for it this year,
this time around, for two reasons -- one,
so some would say, oh, we either have a massive spending problem,
some would say, no, no, no,
not that -- we have a lack of progressive revenue problem.
I think that's a false dichotomy.
I categorically reject that false framing.
It's a false choice.
I think there are compelling elements of both that are true.
And so, but irrespective of where you fall
on the spectrum of spending versus revenue problem,
I think we can all agree that we have an outcomes problem.
Brian, we have a results problem.
-Okay.
-And unless and until we can start making better progress
on showing better results on our existing spending...
-Okay. -...I just can't in good faith,
because I heard this directly from my constituents
over and over and over again during the campaign --
We don't mind, we need to make sure people pay
their fair share.
People don't have a problem with that.
But we also, at the same time, in parallel,
need to make sure we're starting to see better results.
Good news is, early indications --
way too premature to, you know,
wave any mission accomplished banners or anything,
but, you know, early indications of success
since your second term.
-Yeah. Right. Okay. -We took office.
Police hiring up. -Sure.
You know, like, by...Anyway, so we need to collect more data.
And the second reason
I ultimately declined to vote yes this time around,
Brian, is because of the spending plan.
I like some of the options that were included in there
that were proposed.
But, look, I make no apologies about the fact
that I'm just a good old- fashioned infrastructure guy.
I like supporting and investing in
things that put hammers in hands, shovels in grounds,
and put people to work.
And you know, we know we have a huge sidewalk gap,
our bridges need work, and our roads are in --
in not the best state of repair.
So I can't get behind something unless there's a generic kind of
infrastructure thing. -Okay.
-But let us continue to this conversation,
revisit in the future,
because I think it is -- it does reflect low-hanging fruit,
if you will... -Potentially.
-...amongst the options that I've seen so far
in terms of net new revenue options.
-Yeah, the governor, Washington Governor Jay Inslee,
is talking about a wealth tax
right now in his most recent budget proposal.
So a lot of people are talking about this.
Some thoughts about a Seattle-based capital gains tax.
Councilmember Strauss, what do you think?
-Yeah, I voted in favor of it.
And I think that it needs more discussion.
-Okay, yeah. -Right?
We are different than the state.
When we look at substitution effect,
it is hard to move out of the state.
It's easier to move from Seattle to shoreline.
That's, I think,
my chief concern along with the spending plan of
we have a structural budget deficit right now --
if we're going to fund those programs with that spending,
then is that -- are they not being funded
by the general fund anymore?
And are we creating more of a problem down the road
because we, much like the conversations about Jumpstart
that has been used to fund the general fund
in every single year it's been in place.
But I look at it to say,
we need more discussion because of these loose ends.
-Okay. -Right?
Not saying yes or no today,
just that there's further discussion
to be had to make sure
that we get the right policy for the city of Seattle.
-Thank you very much.
I'm going to try to pick up the pace ever so slightly with you,
if I could, to work in some more topics here.
We're recording the show just a few days
before Mayor Harrell is expected to make a big announcement
about who our next chief of police is going to be.
I know it's his decision,
but the council has to confirm this candidate.
What do you want to see in a chief, Councilmember Saka?
-Yes, absolutely. So you're right.
It is ultimately the mayor's decision,
subject to our confirmation process at the council level.
Right? But for me personally,
you know, I'm looking for someone
who can continue the next wave in delivering
the next wave of constitutional policing here
in the city of Seattle,
can continue to rebuild the department...
-Yeah. -...and continue...
Reform work is a continuous, ongoing journey.
It's a perilous journey towards transformation
that we're all on individually and collectively.
And this police department is no different.
And so someone who can continue that work,
take it to the next level.
But importantly,
someone who is prepared to come in with a plan
and ready to execute on how we can more quickly,
efficiently, and effectively
rebuild our depleted officer staffing.
-Okay. -And, you know,
someone with robust community engagement and
stakeholdering skills, you know,
externally in the community, of course, first and foremost,
but also can work closely with our offices to advance.
We do live in a district system.
That is the system that exists today.
-Sure.
-And work just collaboratively
with all stakeholders.
Doesn't matter who it is. -Yeah.
-And so that's kind of what I'm looking for.
-Councilmember Strauss, some thoughts about this.
And I've been thinking about this a lot because all the focus
that's been going on in downtown Seattle, Third and Pine, etc.,
I think some people might say, well, take a look.
A lot of the street disorder has maybe been pushed
into the Chinatown ID and things of that nature.
I'm just trying to figure out what you want to see
in a new chief, and how to handle that piece of it.
I know that's the multibillion dollar question, really,
but what are you looking at in a chief?
Can a chief try to answer some of those issues
with street disorder that we have in Seattle right now?
-Yeah, I'll take us a step back to just say,
when Mayor Charlie Royer passed away, in his obituaries,
it was noted that he worked to bring more accountability
to the police department.
So this is something that's four decades of work in the making.
So we need to have a chief that will ensure that we have a good,
strong accountability and deliver constitutional policing.
And in the way that Councilmember Saka
was just talking about outcomes,
that everyday Seattleites are feeling the outcomes.
Right? Seattleites don't care,
you know, is the money coming from the right pocket
or from the left pocket?
It's a pair of pants, right? -Okay.
-You know, and so what I would say, you know,
if I could have a dream candidate,
it would be a Chief Kathy O'Toole.
I don't think that we'll have her,
but as close to that as we can get,
because she was able to bring both accountability
and higher service delivery.
And so that's what I'm looking for.
-Fair enough.
I want to try to talk about one last topic
if we can squeeze it in here
because you bring up constitutional policing.
The council is going to have a big discussion next year
about the SPD and how they handle crowd control.
This is a huge situation.
The mayor sent down some legislation that would give
police more authority to use so-called
"less lethal" weapons -- blast balls, tear gas, etc.
Councilmember Strauss, you were on the council
that passed a ban on a number of these weapons in 2020, 2021,
in the wake of the BLM protests.
The Department of Justice responded,
stopped those bans going into effect.
Here we are three years later.
The city is still working on this,
and I just wanted to talk about this.
Do you support the mayor's crowd control proposal for the SPD?
Where do you want to guide this conversation?
-Yeah, this is a conversation
that we're digging into up at council right now.
It's going to continue after the council recess.
And so again, if you want to ask me
what my favorite color is today, I can tell you that.
-We're still working on that. -It's a deliberative process,
and that's the benefit of the legislative department.
-Okay. -What I can tell you is in 2020,
I did not see a response that was proportional
to the issues that they were dealing with.
And I think all Seattleites felt that way.
And that was where some of this concern came out of.
Luckily, we're not in the pandemic anymore.
You know, when I started this conversation today,
in those four months, we had a pandemic, a recession,
civil rights reckoning, and civil unrest, right?
And so one of those things would knock a normal person down.
-Sure. -I'm still standing
and sitting with you here today.
I never quit working. -Okay.
-And when we are not in that spiral of crisis,
we're able to be more thoughtful.
And that's what I'm happy about today.
-Okay, Councilmember Saka, some thoughts about crowd control,
where you want to guide this policy.
-Yeah, I want to make sure our department is best positioned
to deliver constitutional policing.
I want to make sure
that our department is best positioned to, you know,
support and not impede the people's constitutional rights,
First Amendment rights to gather
and protest and freedom of speech and assembly
and all of those things. -Yep.
And I also want to make sure, you know,
bad actors aren't allowed to commit bad acts unfettered.
And, you know, we protect people's
personal safety and property rights as well at the same time.
And I think both of those things can coexist in parallel.
And so, you know, I'm going to be looking at this.
I generally like the principle of having flexibility,
but you know,
like, also putting some guardrails around some
of the most sensitive use cases, and so that's kind of generally
how I'm going to be approaching it.
As Councilmember Strauss aptly noted,
we are going through our deliberative process right now.
So stay tuned. -Okay.
-But I think you can expect a thoughtful bill
that flows from this regardless of wherever we land.
And I appreciate the mayor's proposal and his partnership
and working on this so far, and any number of issues
on public safety.
-Fair enough. Lightning round here.
I'm going to try to blaze through one question
we got in from a viewer. It's transportation based.
I'm gonna throw it your way. Eric has this...
Wanted to throw that out there.
I know you've been doing a lot with traffic cameras
and trying to control speed
in a lot of neighborhoods around Seattle.
What do you think of that idea?
-First off, thank you, Brian.
Shout out to Eric.
Thank you for asking such a great question.
Love it. First off, I'll say this.
I think from a state perspective,
I don't mean to, like, dive too deep into the wonky --
-Might have some issues here. -...policy issues.
But I think there might be a prohibition
of some sort for school enforcement cameras off
to send automated tickets off hours or like...
-Okay. -So, I don't know for sure,
but I suspect it's not quite that...
-I appreciate you engaging with this. Okay.
-But that said, there's still the issue
of non-school speed enforcement cameras,
and which is why I am --
because the same issue manifests itself across the issue.
And in my own District 1, you know, huge problem,
known problem areas, Alki and Harbor Avenue,
where there's a lot of runners that generally go,
but people go to congregate and gather and celebrate.
And, but it's all over. It's all over the city.
And Councilmember Strauss has his own challenges, you know,
in his own district.
Which is why the good news, in this most recent budget,
we funded $1.34 million
for the executive department to deploy
non-school speed cameras. -Okay.
-And also, there's some funding
that was set aside under the mayor's original proposal
to expand the number of school speed cameras.
So, this is an issue that's really near and dear
to me personally, my constituents.
And it's an issue that we will continue to make investments in.
And I want these cameras set up yesterday, to be honest.
-Okay.
-But we need to do it thoughtfully as well.
-Okay. Councilmember Strauss.
I wanted to make sure I snuck this in.
You serve on the Sound Transit board.
They're trying to come up with a cool name
for the light rail station
set to open in 2026 near 130th and Roosevelt.
Is it going to be North Seattle Boogie Land,
or what are we looking at here?
-We're not going to call it that,
but North Seattle, Pinehurst, 130th,
and a mix of these combinations are up for debate.
If it was up to me,
I would name it Council President Debora Juarez Station.
Without Council President Debora Juarez,
that station would not be a reality.
-Yeah.
-Unfortunately, that's against the rules.
So the survey is live now until December 23rd.
For everyone to have their voice heard,
you can check out my newsletter,
or you can check out the Sound Transit website.
to fill out the survey and vote on your preference.
So we'd love to hear from you. -Okay.
-Even though we can't name it Debora Juarez Station.
-Alright, we'll see what we can do there.
Thank you very much. -You could write it in, I guess.
-Write-in votes. You got to have those.
That's Councilmember Dan Strauss.
That's Councilmember Rob Saka.
Thank you both for being here.
We'll see you next time on "Council Edition".
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