-Hello, and welcome to "City Inside/Out: Council Edition."
I'm your host, Brian Callanan. The clock is ticking
for the Seattle City Council to select a new member
to fill a vacant District 2 seat.
Plus, some state deadlines are looming, as well,
when it comes to adding more housing and density
to Seattle through a new comprehensive plan.
And what questions do council members have
for a new permanent police chief candidate due
for confirmation hearings in just a few weeks?
I'm talking with Council Members Cathy Moore,
Alexis Mercedes Rinck, and Maritza Rivera for answers
to these questions and the ones you're sending in, too,
next on "Council Edition."
-I'm looking for someone who's going to be collaborative.
We have a lot of work to do.
Someone who's going to be ready to roll up their sleeves.
-Before SPD has the authority
to utilize blast balls in a riot situation,
the mayor has to give approval of that specifically.
-We need a plan that will allow us to build the housing
that we desperately need, and the need is dire.
-All that and more Coming up next
on "City Inside/Out: Council Edition."
♪♪
Great to be back with you on "Council Edition"
here on Seattle Channel.
I'm Brian Callanan, and this month
we have with us Council Member Cathy Moore
representing District 5 in North Seattle.
Great to be with you.
-Thank you, Brian. Very pleased to be here.
-We also have with us the newest member of the council,
Council Member Alexis Mercedes Rinck
from the Citywide Position 8 seat.
Thank you for coming.
-Excited to be back.
-Alright, here we go.
And from District 4 in northeast Seattle,
from the U-Dub up to Wedgwood,
that's Council Member Maritza Rivera.
Great to see you, too.
-Nice to see you, Brian.
Thank you for having me on the show today.
-You bet. Let's jump in here,
and we're recording the show just after the deadline
to apply for this opening on the council in District 2,
after Tammy Morales stepped down,
and there will be a public forum
to meet the candidates on this position on
or around January 21st.
Be on the lookout for that.
The council will make a decision to appoint this new member
who will serve until late November
on January 27th. So, Council Member Moore,
here we go again.
The council did this last January, I know.
What did you learn from that process
that will influence how you make a choice this time around?
-Oh, well, thank you for the question.
Um, last time around,
I didn't meet individually with all of the candidates.
Um, I thought it was important to sort of have
that process be done in public. Um, this time I've decided
that it would give me an opportunity
to learn a little bit more
and have more of a kind of rounded sense
of the person coming before me
to do individual meetings with them.
So I will be meeting with whoever requests to meet
with me individually. -Okay.
-Um, and I think just trying to listen to what
the community concerns are, what the community is looking for,
um, because it is their voice on the On the council.
And another thing that's going to be important to me
is looking at having somebody who's, um, you know,
hopefully has deep ties to the community
and is really able to talk to all
the diverse stakeholders and interests from that community.
-Okay. Thank you very much.
Council Member Rivera, I want to go to you next.
The council has discussed this idea of, okay,
do we want a placeholder in this role?
Do we want maybe somebody would be okay with us
if this person ran for the office for the permanent job
in November to serve out the rest of the term?
What kind of candidate are you looking for?
-Thank you for the question, Brian.
I'm looking for someone who's going to be collaborative.
We have a lot of work to do.
Someone who's going to be ready to roll up their sleeves
and get to working with us.
Someone who -- I agree with, Council Member Moore.
Someone who's going to represent the D2 in this holistic fashion
that they're listening to folks across the district,
because I have heard from some folks in the district
who felt like they haven't been heard in the past,
and we want to make sure everybody is heard.
Um, and like I said,
someone who's willing to come in and do the work.
And so really looking forward to reviewing the résumés
and seeing who's -- who's interested.
-Does that placeholder versus a candidate argument --
does that hold -- or do you have -- have you made
a thought on that or --
-I don't have a thought on that.
It's really more someone who's willing to do the job
and willing to do the work.
And, you know, we'll go from there.
-Okay. Got it.
Council Member Rinck, you're coming into this job
at a very interesting time of transition.
Council Member Morales, in leaving,
made some very critical remarks about the way
she felt she was treated on the council.
And I know you told PubliCola a few weeks ago,
regardless of how people feel about her or her departure,
it's time for the council to take a breath,
maybe try something different
in terms of building a good work environment.
I wanted to ask about that.
How has that effort been going?
How does that dynamic influence
who you want to appoint to this D2 role?
-Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I've been really pleased to share.
I'm pleased to say
that the floor has really welcomed my team in
and I've had already opportunities to work
with each one of the -- of my colleagues
now on a few different issues. I know we'll get to maybe
talking about blast balls in a bit,
and I'm really excited to work alongside Council Member Moore
on some of that legislation.
But I would say, you know, collaboration is key,
and I've come forward to each of the offices to make sure that,
you know, we're building that relationship
and just trying to perhaps change the tone a little bit.
Again, I'm new here [laughs] and so hoping that,
you know, it's a new year, a fresh start,
and we can move forward and have a good year
and get some good work done this year.
-Thanks very much for that.
Council Member Rinck, let me start with you.
I'll ask a way easier question about the comprehensive plan.
I'm kidding on that because this is very complex.
As you know, this is the the road map
we're talking about in growth and -- or, for growth in Seattle
over the next 10 years.
The council recently had its first
special committee meeting on this.
And there's a lot of controversy here.
Would this plan add too much or too little density?
Would it destroy the character of some neighborhoods?
Would it cut down too many trees?
We had one viewer, Gabe,
who wrote in with this very simple
but complex question, too.
You're a renter yourself. I've talked about that with you.
You know what it's like to pay to live in the city.
How do you answer Gabe?
And maybe what is your approach to the comp plan,
especially when it comes to housing,
which is such a critical need? -Absolutely.
Well, starting first and foremost,
yes, I am a renter, and every year I've lived in the city,
my rent has gone up, and that is the experience shared by,
I imagine, a lot of renters in this city,
which represent actually half of Seattle residents.
About half are renters themselves.
We need a plan that will allow us to build the housing
that we desperately need,
and the need is dire,
and we have incredible examples now across the U.S.,
where we've seen cities who have stepped up
and built more housing,
and we've seen that reflect, then, in more affordability.
Minneapolis is one example of a city
that legalized a bunch of housing
and then built a lot more,
and it quickly became a lot more affordable.
It now has some of the most affordable rental prices
of any big city in the U.S., and between 2017 and 2022,
rents actually stayed almost flat and commensurately.
They also experienced a 12% decrease in homelessness
and similarly also in Austin, Texas,
they've built a lot more housing.
They've actually surpassed the demand,
and now they've seen a resulting price drop.
And so being able to allow
for more housing to be built across the city
is a real priority,
and, Brian, trying to make sure we're addressing
our affordability challenges for working folks.
-Thank you for that.
Council Member Rivera, I'll go to you next.
You've raised some concerns about the time frame
of approving this plan.
In June, there are the state requirements for density
that are supposed to go into effect
in all cities in Washington under House Bill 1110.
So it -- it feels a little bit to me
like the clock is ticking in some ways.
And you, I know, are getting a flood of public input
on this plan right now, which one of our viewers, Philip,
asked about.
Can you help us with that thought?
How do you prioritize all the different input
you're getting on the comprehensive plan?
-That's a great question, and
one I had for the Office of Planning and Community
Development at our meeting. I will say, first and foremost,
I do want to say that there is --
you know, everyone agrees,
and when I talked to the many, many constituents
that I knocked on doors on last year before last,
everyone agrees we need more housing across the city.
Everyone agrees that we have an affordability issue.
I am frustrated with the department
for the lack of public engagement.
The Growth Management Act requests --
or not requests, mandates what they call early
and ongoing engagement.
And I feel like the department did engagement,
but it was not broad engagement and so on the back end,
so close to this deadline,
we're seeing constituents feeling
like they didn't know what the plans were going to be.
They didn't feel -- feel reached out to.
They don't understand what all the requirements are,
and many don't might not understand the requirements
and mandates under HB 1110.
And that is all part of what the department,
that type of engagement they were doing.
So this is what I've been very frustrated with
on behalf of the constituents. -And where do we go from here?
And that was my question to the department
from the dais the other day.
I have been told by the department
that and also because, Brian, you know,
that December 20th was the last day at midnight
to give public comment,
and then on January 6th, the department shared their plans.
Some of those plans,
the transportation climate,
all required as part of the comprehensive plan
under the Growth Management Act,
we hadn't seen until they released this on the 6th.
So, you know, that's all frustrating.
It's frustrating for us who have to review all these plans.
And I like to make and we all want to make informed decisions
when we take votes.
And it's frustrating for constituents
who have even less information sometimes than we do.
So that's all been really frustrating.
Department says that they're going to review
all that public comment
in the various forms it came in,
and then they're going to get back to us as to --
I've requested, I will say personally for my district,
for them to share the public comment that they've received
so that I know because I'm not getting everything
they're getting necessarily,
since they ask constituents to email them directly
as they were formulating these plans.
And that makes sense because they were the ones crafting it,
right? -Right, right.
-So hopefully they will be sharing with that with us soon
and we'll go from there, as you said.
-Thank you for shedding some light on that.
And, Council Member Moore, I want to go to you
because I know you have a number of critiques about this plan,
including some concerns about some proposed density
in your neighborhood up in Maple Leaf.
Several viewers wrote in to me about that.
I'm sure you've been hearing from people, too.
They are saying the growth should be encouraged
all over Seattle.
There's a little bit of pepper on these, so get ready.
One commenter said this.
Or Brit put it this way.
Definitely a hot-button issue for a lot of people in Seattle.
I know you have some concerns about this.
Can you talk about this idea that Seattle needs more growth?
It's definitely part of what the state is saying
with House Bill 1110.
What is your response to this
in terms of this comprehensive plan you're looking at?
-Sure, absolutely.
And, I mean, I, too, agree that we need a lot more growth.
I was a proponent of Alternative 5
that was studied by the mayor on the campaign trail,
but I was also very clear in my messaging
that we need to really focus on affordability.
When you look at the figures
that are coming out of the Department of Commerce,
you know, where they say we need 112,000 new units in 20 years.
They break it down by area and median income,
and really where the greatest need is zero to 60, really.
And all of that housing needs to be provided
through subsidy, right?
The market isn't going to necessarily provide that.
So while I understand and do support the need
for increased, like, apartment buildings
and opening up single-family neighborhoods,
I also think it's important not
to necessarily conflate density per se with affordability.
And that I think my message sometimes
gets misconstrued, right?
Um, we need to be opening up those neighborhoods,
but we need to be opening up them in a way
where we are both incentivizing housing-type diversity
so we aren't having a monoculture of housing.
I think if we are able to get diversity of housing,
we are able to actually put forth
more affordability options.
You know, one of the things that HB 1110 requires
is that we have four units in every lot,
and then we can have six if two are affordable.
What if we made two of the four affordable between 80% and 120%?
Because we have -- you know, we need to be a city
where both our pizza delivery drivers, our baristas,
our teachers can afford to live.
I understand the need for having a significant amount
of rental housing.
Um, you know, until 2017, I was basically a renter.
I have rented the majority of my adult life.
I understand the challenges of renting.
I also understand that renting is very unstable.
And so one of the things that I would really like,
and I've continued to talk about and worked on this
in my committee, Housing Human Services,
is how do we expand ownership opportunities,
and they don't necessarily need to be like a single family home.
They can be amending the condo law of Olympia,
looking at other ownership models such as co-ops,
expanding the use of land trusts, right, or land banks.
So there are many other ways
that we can encourage ownership opportunities,
and I think we need to be doing that.
And so that's what -- that's the focus
that I'm bringing to the comp plan.
In terms of the more sort of micro-neighborhood issues,
there, we have to listen to legitimate concerns
about infrastructure and transit
and can they accommodate
and is there a certain level of development that's sustainable,
and let's begin with that and see how it goes.
One thing that my -- I've been a little disappointed is that,
you know, the existing urban villages
and the regional centers were not studied.
And so council had to put funding in for a new EIS.
And so we are not being able --
-Environmental impact statement.
So we are not having the entire package before us.
We're having to take a piecemeal approach.
And so that does make it harder for us to kind of see,
well, how is this piece going to affect that piece,
right, because they all are.
So it's a big -- it's a big issue.
I am very much committed to density.
But density that provides true affordability options.
And I think this is a great opportunity to try
to expand our middle class and opportunities
to enter into our middle class,
for our young people, to keep our elders housed, as well.
-Okay. Thank you.
I need to move on to another topic.
I know there's so much more to talk about with that one,
but there's a very big issue coming up here in January
because the council will be holding confirmation hearings
for the police chief candidate.
Mayor Harrell has chosen Shon Barnes,
who has served as the chief
of the Madison, Wisconsin, Police Department.
He's coming in at a time
when police hiring appears to be ever so slightly doing better,
but public safety concerns --
I'm thinking about areas like Chinatown-ID, especially.
Those are as high as ever.
Council Member Rivera, can I start with you?
What questions do you want to ask Chief Barnes as a candidate?
-Well, first and foremost,
I just want to say
that I really want to have -- I have
a great working relationship with Chief Rahr,
current Chief Rahr, and I hope to have
a robust working relationship with now new Chief Barnes.
Um, we have a lot of public safety issues in the district,
and I want to make sure
that we're going to be great partners,
and he will be a great partner in ensuring focus to the D4
and the D5 and the -- you know, all across the city,
um, and so that's going to be my focus.
And so I will ask questions about that,
about his ideas for ensuring public safety across the city,
particularly since we still only have --
we are down 50% of our patrol officers
in the department.
So what are his plans for ensuring that he's able to,
you know, address the public safety across the city
given that fact? And how else we can partner --
what other things does he need to help recruit
and retain more officers in the departments?
What other tools?
As you know, we passed 11 pieces
of public safety legislation last year.
What other tools can we put in place?
I am very committed to public safety.
It's the number-one priority.
As you know, Brian, it's the reason I ran.
It's the number-one priority in the district that I represent,
and it is something that I really care about
and will ask him about and hoping
that we're able to get,
you know, the partnership that I've had with both,
like I said, Chief Rahr and with Captain Aagard,
who now is assistant chief.
And I'm so happy to hear
that a woman got promoted as assistant chief
in the department.
That's really amazing.
And now there will be a new captain at North Precinct,
which I will also work to have a robust working relationship
on behalf of the district.
-I'm going to come back to one of those issues in a minute,
but, Council Member Rinck,
I wanted to talk to you about this
because you and other council members have talked to me
in the past about the need for a comprehensive
public safety approach, meaning you've got police officers,
you've got groups like the CARE team
and its social service providers,
other city resources, too. Is that a topic
you want to bring up in these confirmation hearings?
I just want to know about your approach to public safety here,
how you want the chief to be involved,
how you want the SPD involved moving forward
when it comes to public safety in the city?
-Absolutely. I really like to think
of public safety as a system,
a system wherein we need to have quick responses to incidents,
and we need to make sure we have the right response
for a given incident that may happen.
We have the CARE team, we have fire,
we have emergency medical, and we have police.
And so making sure that we are really scaling
and getting clear on what are the right things
that officers should be responding to
and making sure that it's a quick response
so we can make sure residents have peace of mind,
but also making sure that we have an accountable body and one
that really is addressing the culture challenges.
So I really do want to have that discussion
with this potential new chief around
how he plans to address some of the very real culture challenges
that, unfortunately,
we've seen be pervasive throughout the department.
I think we'd like to see real remedies to those
to give residents more peace of mind,
particularly communities that have experienced over-policing.
Historically, that break of trust
really affects our ability to, of course,
implement quality city services across the board.
And so that's -- that's something
I'd like to be able to ask and talk about.
And then, of course,
making sure that we have an accountable body
is tremendously important, as well.
-Okay. Thank you. I'm going to pick up on
another culture-of-police issue, if I could.
And Council Member Moore,
I'll bring in here because there are a lot
of different priorities for a new chief.
One that doesn't always make the headlines
is this 30x30 report,
which focuses on hiring women as police officers.
The goal is to increase the representation of women
in police recruiting to 30% by the year 2030,
so this report has highlighted some major problems in Seattle,
from sexual harassment to discrimination within the SPD.
How important is it for a new chief
to right the ship on this issue
and make a deeper cultural change
at the Seattle Police Department?
-Well, as you know, Brian, I began talking about 30x30,
sort of, I think in January
when we had our first public safety meeting.
So it's something that's incredibly important to me.
I think it's essential.
It is part of making the police force representative
of the community that it serves.
And most of the statistics that we have out there
show that women officers do a very good job
at managing conflict.
They tend to use less lethal force.
And they're better at, you know, working with the community.
So I think it's critically important.
It's a big challenge. -Yeah.
-You know, Interim Chief Rahr, she has also been a leader
on 30x30 nationally,
and I think she began to implement a number of changes.
She promoted a number of women in the department,
which was -- she really set the table for that.
And I would like to see new Chief Barnes continue with that.
I'd like to see him address ways of perhaps --
we had talked a lot about providing care --
you know, child care and family responsibility, uh --
-Places for women to breastfeed, et cetera.
There's a lot of things.
-Yeah, but it's also, like, elder care.
And if you have sick, you know, spouse and those things.
So we have to acknowledge sort of family responsibilities
and looking at ways
that the department can take that seriously
and be more flexible.
So -- And in general,
also just continuing to -- to put forth a very strong message
that sexual harassment and discrimination
and kind of an old-boys culture attitude
is not going to be tolerated.
One of the things we're looking at is, like,
allowing some first-line supervisors to discipline,
um, and I think giving greater authority down the line
for smaller sort of infractions,
it will be helpful to continue to put that message across
like we nip it in the bud when we see it.
-Thank you. A lot of questions
it sounds like you have for this chief candidate.
I want to pick up the pace ever so slightly with you,
if I could. Council Member Moore,
can I talk about SOAP and SODA zones with you here?
So stay out of areas of prostitution,
stay out of drug areas.
You sponsored this legislation last year on the council
to help stop gun violence.
But I saw this report in the last week of December,
another shooting in North Seattle.
I know you saw it, too, in broad daylight.
Neighbors are saying this is a known pimp that fired the shots.
They say the SPD doesn't have a policy in place
to enforce SOAP and SODA. Can you tell us what's going on?
-Sure.
So it was a complicated piece of legislation,
and there were basically three pieces.
There was the piece that related to loitering as to sellers,
loitering as to buyers.
And then there was the first-in-nation piece relating
to loitering for the purposes of promoting prostitution,
which was a way to target exploiters, or AKA pimps.
The first piece of that,
the -- the goal of goal of the legislation
was to provide diversion for sellers.
In order to do that,
we need to have trauma-informed outreach and service provision.
And so we needed to create a curriculum for police officers
and then train them on that
and -- and through outreach to service providers.
So that's taking a bit of time to get that right,
and it's really important that we get that piece right.
In terms of the piece of enforcement against buyers,
uh, that -- again, it needs to implement a policy.
I truly have been frustrated with sort of the slowness
of the implementation of that policy,
and the fact that not all officers are aware
that we actually --
that that is now a new tool available to them.
I think that that's picking up. In terms of the first --
the first piece of -- first-in-the-nation legislation
around using -- forcing --
not having to require victims to bring action against pimps,
um, that, too, is taking a little bit of time
with the city attorney's office to figure
out, what is the evidence
that the officer needs to have in order
to build a successful case?
So, again, it's a bit -- somewhat complicated.
They are beginning to work through that.
But I am also beginning to light a fire under people's feet
to say, "I appreciate the thoughtfulness
and the need to get it right,
but we also have these shootings happening in broad daylight
in residential neighborhoods.
We have a tool in place. Please begin to utilize it soon."
-Thank you for bringing all those pieces down.
Council Member Rinck, another public safety issue for you,
if I could.
A question from one of our viewers.
Joe wants to know this.
You spoke at a recent gathering to honor Shawn Yim,
the Metro bus driver who was fatally stabbed
by a rider in the U District last month.
There was a convoy of buses
that passed by City Hall to honor him
just a short time before we recorded this program, actually.
This is King County's Metro system,
but a lot of people in Seattle use it, yourself included.
What can the council do to keep buses safe?
-Yeah, certainly. Well, some may know
I actually don't own a car, and so I have no choice
but to be using our public transit system
and I happily do it.
It is incredible that we have a robust transit system,
and there's absolutely improvements to be made,
but it has served me
and it continues to serve many people across this city well.
I think we have to recognize
that we continue to see a number of conditions on our buses,
social conditions that reflect our lack of investment
in being able to address them.
So we see behavioral health challenges
happening on our buses.
Of course, we know there are a number of folks
who are experiencing homelessness
who may ride a bus all day because that's the warmest
and safest place to be.
These represent our failures
to address these larger social issues.
And so being able to make sure that we're partnering
with the county to really confront
the behavioral health challenges we see on the streets is huge.
But also investing in affordable housing programs,
namely zero to 30 area median income housing
to serve our lowest income community members,
and building more housing.
So really, I see the city's role in this,
given that our buses are King County
and we are clearly a partner and we buy service from them,
but we also have a role to be playing in --
in really investing in addressing these larger
social issues facing our city.
-Council Member Rivera, this happened in D4.
I know you went to the memorial recently for Shawn.
Tell me about this, your thoughts about this.
-So I did. Well, I went to the candlelight vigil
that the union had before the holidays,
and then this morning I went to the memorial.
I'm wearing Shawn's number. -Yeah.
-I did hear this morning,
Metro said at the memorial that they will be installing, um,
uh, kind of enclosing the -- the driver area
-Where they're sitting. Yeah. Okay.
-They will be making that investment.
I was happy to hear it.
Um, obviously that's not the only thing
that needs to be done.
I'll say that this council had --
as part of this budget process,
we included, um, Council Member Saka --
led by Council Member Saka,
who chairs the Transportation Committee,
but also supported by those of us that were here
funding for security on the buses.
So we -- we did that.
Um, and we need to -- to, you know, address --
and this council has also supported as part
of the budget process,
um, ensuring that we have funding for human services.
So we are addressing the homelessness issues,
the mental health, and the drug addiction
because people need services, and people need help.
Um, and that's what, you know, we need to make
sure people have those services and not riding the buses
and not getting the services that they need.
So, um, this council has supported those services,
um, and, you know,
I look forward to partnering with the county,
um, and my colleagues on what more we can do.
-Thank you. Council Member Moore, I only have a minute,
but you've got some really interesting information
you're trying to bring forward about how police control crowds,
blast balls, things of this of this nature,
these less lethal weapons.
Can you try to explain where you want to guide this conversation,
and this legislation that the mayor has handed down?
-Sure. Thank you very much.
And I've been partnering
with Council Member Rinck on this issue.
Um, clearly, you know, public safety is incredibly important,
and we need to be able to manage crowds
if a riot happens, and we need to have a variety of tools
that we can utilize.
Um, but blast balls -- in 2020,
we had the -- the utilization of blast balls
that resulted in serious injuries
resulted in a woman suffering cardiac arrest three times.
You know, experts know
that blast walls do carry a potential risk of lethality.
So what my legislation would do is to say comparable to tear gas
before we are able --
before SPD has the authority to utilize blast balls
in a riot situation,
the mayor has to give approval of that specifically,
and the mayor has to declare a state of emergency,
has to then specifically authorize blast-ball use,
and then continue -- make a new authorization each day
to make sure that we are continuing to address the level
of disorder appropriately.
So that's the main thing.
The other important piece is also making sure
that if we bring in law enforcement
from other jurisdictions to assist us, that if --
that they have to agree to abide by Seattle's policies.
If not, we continue -- we can utilize them,
but in a non-crowd-control role. -Okay. Thank you.
I know there's a lot more ahead on that.
That's all the time we have for now.
We will see you next time on "Council Edition."
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