♪
Welcome to City Inside Out Council Edition.
I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
The City of Seattle is trying to tackle homelessness
with a plan to add 1,000 units of shelter
by the end of this year.
But there's a new audit of the county's
Regional Homelessness Authority that's raising
some new questions.
Plus, there's some added scrutiny
facing Seattle's Vision Zero Traffic Safety Program
program after an alarming spike in pedestrian deaths.
Council members Eddie Lin and Rob Saka are discussing
these issues and answering the questions you're sending in
too, next on Council Edition.
We need to do a better job of bringing people indoors and then
importantly surrounding them with wraparound services.
I have a lot of concerns about citing new mega data centers.
All that and more coming up next on City Inside
Out, Council Edition.
♪
And glad to be with you once again on City Inside
Out Council Edition here on the Seattle Channel.
I'm Brian Callanan and with me this month I have two council
members that are ready to talk about issues that affect you.
First up, Councilmember Eddie Lin representing
District 2 which covers the south part of Seattle, Yesler
Terrace to Rainier Beach.
Good to see you.
Thanks for having me back.
Also with us, Councilmember Rob Saka representing District
1 from South Park out to West Seattle, Georgetown
over to Pioneer Square.
Thank you for being here too.
Thank you, Brian.
Excited to be here.
Yeah, there's a lot to talk about here, some big,
big stories unfolding.
Even as we're recording the show, I want to start with the
city's response to homelessness.
And Councilmember Lin, let me begin with you.
Mayor Wilson has called for 1,000 new units of shelter to
house people who are homeless, which would include services
by the end of the year.
You sponsored some bills to help cut some of the
red tape in that process.
The council's also working on adding units at
existing shelter sites.
Is the city going to hit that number, 1,000 new units?
Because I know council staff wasn't so sure about that.
What's going on?
- Yeah, I'm not sure if we're gonna hit that target number,
but the important thing is to do as much as we can
as quickly as we can, while also being very mindful
and thoughtful of how we're gonna support the residents
in these shelters, how we're gonna make sure
that they're well integrated into the neighborhoods,
address any public safety concerns.
So very supportive.
There was nothing more important to me last year
here on the campaign trail, hearing from residents,
I think we are all frustrated by our lack of progress.
I'm excited that the mayor's office
is taking a more hands-on proactive approach.
In the past, too often we sort of outsourced this
to our nonprofit providers.
We also outsourced it to a bit to the King County Regional
Homeless Authority, and we're gonna talk
about that probably a little bit later.
- But, you know, so I think we need to take ownership
of this issue.
So I think the mayor's office is leading in that
and I'm excited to see that.
And I think what is new is this approach of making sure
that we have robust services on site security,
that people can get mental health, substance use treatment.
I think that that's really the key
to making sure that this works.
And we're gonna have to make sure
that we appropriately fund those services
and that's gonna be the tricky part.
- Absolutely, going into next year.
I know there's been a lot of talk
on the council about that.
Councilmember Saka, I want to talk about a new shelter
that I believe is set to open in your district,
Glassyard Commons, West Marginal Way Southwest, near
the First Avenue South Bridge.
This site would have RV parking, tiny homes as well, with
room for more than 100 people, along with 24-7 staffing.
Is this project on track?
What do you want to say to people in your district,
maybe, who might be concerned about the impacts of this,
public safety, et cetera?
Yeah, so first off, my understanding is the
project is on track.
I've been working now with two administrations to
deliver this project, and it's very much needed.
Yeah, it's been around for a while is what you're saying.
So I would like to see this open up as soon as possible.
Brian, you should know that my council district has the highest
number of RV encampments and very high in tent
encampments as well.
And people want to see us do better
for our unhoused neighbors.
We need to do a better job of bringing people indoors and
then, importantly, surrounding them with wraparound services
to address the various behavioral health needs and
so I say that because my district is disproportionately
impacted by the homelessness crisis that
our entire region is suffering from and I see this
Glassyard site as a critical component of the
broader solution to to better address that.
I'm really excited about the RV
safe lot component where folks have proper access to
sanitation services, cleanup.
And the idea is to get them out of those RVs at
some point too, right?
Yes, absolutely.
But we need to start somewhere.
Okay. And so I'm excited about
the Glassyard site.
That said, I'm also mindful
of some of the very valid concerns being expressed by some
of the surrounding neighbors.
We want to make sure, as we welcome these new
neighbors in, that are—many of which are unhoused
or unsheltered, that we're all living up to
our community agreement—to be good
neighbors to each other.
And part of that is, you know, establishing good neighbor
agreements, or whatever you want to call them—
to make sure that there's a single point of contact where
neighbors can call if they have challenges, issues, concerns,
and address any local issues from that perspective.
Sure. Okay.
I know there's a lot still ahead with that, but
it's going to be a lot of action the next couple of months here.
Absolutely. But I'm excited about it.
I'm interested to see what's next there.
I want to talk about some news really developing as we speak
with regard to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
An audit commissioned by Seattle and King County found
that the KCRHA lacks internal controls and oversight over
its $205 million budget and lost track of at least
$8 million in public funds.
Councilmember Lin, I want to talk about this.
The mayor has some issues about this, I know.
One of your colleagues, Councilmember Rivera, actually
made this statement at a recent press conference.
The evaluation shows a pattern of mismanagement of funds that
can no longer be tolerated.
It is time to find a different way to make this
very important work happen.
Councilmember Dembowski and I will be issuing
companion resolutions to officially call for the
dissolution of KCRHA and a plan for the future that includes all
of us, the city and the county, continuing to work together
to find a better way.
The mayor has said that all options are on the
table but Councilmember Rivera clearly wants the KCRHA to be
shut down county Councilmember Rod Dembowski too is it time to
shut down the KCRHA i think we definitely have to i agree all
options need to be on the table i think we certainly need to
understand what the role of the KCRHA is going forward it's a
very concerning uh audit report certainly want to hear KCRHA's
response to the audit.
But as I was saying earlier,
you know, I think it's critical that we as a city
take a much more proactive role in this, that we take a
more proactive role in siting
locations, permitting.
Really appreciate Councilmember Saka's
leadership in saying, yes, we need more sites in my
district. Too often, you know, we have folks saying not here,
somewhere else and we need folks stepping up to say
we need this here.
And so I think there is a big
question about what is KCRHA's role especially as we
take a more proactive response here.
I also think you know there was good
intentions behind having a more regional collaborative
approach we need that but But I think the cynic in me says
the KCRHA was set up to fail a bit, that we never gave them
the powers that they needed.
We never gave them independent financing tools.
And so we kind of created this agency that was essentially kind
of a pass-through administrator for our funds without any real
tools to solve the problem.
And so we certainly need to reimagine what their role is.
And what would happen to our homelessness response
if it would be dismantled?
What do you think?
Well, if it were shut down, the city would take on,
reassume control of responding solely from a city perspective.
There's inherent challenges and opportunities
associated with that.
But the underlying rationale and motives surrounding
the establishment of the KCRHA was terrific.
The problem we're seeing, and we see in various headlines,
most recently the audit report,
is that we haven't fully—that organization hasn't fully
lived up to its intended goals for any number of challenges.
And check the newspapers for dating back since its inception.
And I am personally gravely concerned about the latest
financial audit and findings and deficiencies noted
in that audit report.
I would like to see prompt, immediate action to
address those findings.
I'd like to see stronger, tighter financial controls.
I'd like to see fast, quick and appropriate remediation
and mitigations in that regard.
I'm not personally in a position to say at this stage
that we should affirmatively and definitively shut
down and abolish KCRHA.
That said, I do think it is fair to say, at least from my
perspective, the future of that organization is very fragile.
One could say the organization is effectively on life support
at this point, subject to to making prompt repairs,
what it's going to take, the transactional,
operational costs, administrative costs of doing
that, because the report expressly said to adequately fix
this, it's going to be a very time and resource
intensive effort.
When you layer that on top of the fact that their
administrative costs are already escalating,
rising, mounting through the roof.
So we need to evaluate.
I favor a more, you know, deliberative
approach and finding what's going to take to make
this right.
But everything is on the table.
All that is to say, everything is on
the table from my perspective.
Councilmember Saka, back to you talking about audits.
You're calling for one focused on our city's
Vision Zero program, which which aims to eliminate
traffic deaths in the city by the year 2030.
So there was a recent report on this that showed overall
traffic fatalities fell between 2024 and 2025 from 31 to 27.
But the number of pedestrians killed jumped from 10 to 18.
Got an email on this from Britt, who writes this.
It seems we spend a lot of Vision Zero money on education.
Why not spend more of that money on road design?
That would make roads safer for the most vulnerable
users, pedestrians, bikers.
That means curbs, Councilmember Saka.
How do you respond to Britt's comment?
How's an audit going to help out here?
I appreciate Britt's comment.
Shout out to Britt.
And proud that we were able to save Kirby.
Yes, we need curbs too.
But in any event, to address the question, I'm calling
for an audit because we are currently not on track to meet
this very ambitious, laudable goal that we all want to see.
The elimination of traffic, deaths, and serious
injuries on our roads.
And while on the one hand, while we've made some great
and encouraging progress, we're still way behind
the eight ball in terms of being in a better position
to actually achieve this.
Now, Brian, an audit is the most powerful, one of the most
powerful accountability tools that we have at our
disposal, certainly from a legislative perspective.
And so that layered with other things, I'm confident
will help make a difference.
The intent there is to, and it's intentionally an outside audit.
SDOT does its own independent reviews and they shall continue.
They should continue that great work.
We also need an outsider's perspective.
And so I've tabulated it up, rough estimate, roughly
just under $900 million that council wrote into the
transportation levy that voters approved in 2024.
roughly almost half of the $1.5 billion eight-year levy
was used for traffic safety investments,
including, by the way, to the commenter's point,
that covers road designs, because under our
Complete Streets Policy, every single time there's
a major rehabilitation pavement project,
the city sort of reimagines the use of that road
and redesigns it and optimizes it for current
and future uses and trends, which includes safety
as an important factor.
So we're spending a lot of money on, as we should, safety.
I just want to see us.
I'm not in the business of having these
lofty, ambitious goals and not doing anything about it.
Now, whether it's the 30 by 30 initiative for SPD female hiring
or this or any other goal, why have a goal if you're not
going to set and enforce high standards and hold yourselves
to the highest, that standard?
And that's what this is all about.
Thank you for that.
Councilmember Lin, I'll throw another email your
way about this topic.
Kyle asks this.
Do you have faith that SDOT will dramatically
decrease crashes on Rainier, MLK, and Aurora by 2030?
What about the rest of Seattle's high injury network?
As you know, there are a lot of issues on Rainier and
MLK in your district there.
I'm thinking about the safety of that area.
How do you respond to that question?
I know the goal was to say zero deaths by 2030.
Is that going to happen?
Yeah, I'm certainly concerned that we are not on track.
I think it's going to require electeds to lean into this
issue, to insist that SDOT take very bold measures.
You know, unfortunately, their North Rainier
is extremely dangerous.
And we just opened up the Jutkins Light Rail Station,
and there's a lot of pedestrian issues with people trying
to get through the on-ramps and off-ramps of I-90.
And, you know, there was a reported death just
recently from an accident.
And, you know, last year I participated with a group
that did a kind of like a funeral walking across the
street at that location.
And, you know, so for that to come true so quickly
is pretty devastating.
And our district has some of the most dangerous roads.
I think Osaka's district as well.
And, you know, there's a few different things in
terms of traffic safety.
It is typically engineering, enforcement and education.
Right. Engineering is certainly the preferred route.
We need to get people to slow down.
We need to make sure that our roads are designed
well with appropriate safety measures for pedestrians, for
bicyclists, for everybody.
But, you know, we also have to look at the other things around
enforcement and education.
You know, even though enforcement is not a
preferred option, that that needs to be one of
the tools in the tool belt.
But most of all, we just need drivers to slow down.
You know, that is the number one reason why we see fatalities
is, you know, the faster you go, the more likely there's going
to be that serious incident.
So we need to do everything we can in that regard.
Thank you.
Councilmember Lin, let me stick with you and talk
about the comprehensive plan process that you're chairing.
This is the roadmap, I should say, for how and where
growth happens in Seattle.
You actually hosted the first public meeting on Phase 2 of
the comp plan a few weeks ago.
Tell me about what you heard at that hearing, and what
does Phase 2 really mean?
Yeah, that is a good question that I'm getting a lot,
because it's pretty confusing for folks, this whole
comprehensive plan process.
We've been going through it for years.
We adopted the comprehensive plan last year, at
the end of last year.
We also adopted the zoning for our neighborhood residential
areas, which used to be our single-family areas.
Now they're neighborhood residential.
We did not adopt zoning for the rest of the city.
And so now we have to go through and adopt that zoning.
And so I'm trying to come up with a good analogy.
not sure if this quite does it, but it's almost like if you were
painting a picture and you sort of, the comprehensive plan
is the broad outline.
Now we're going back and filling in the details,
right? And so, and again, we filled in those details for the
neighborhood residential zones.
Now we have to fill in the details for everywhere
else. We're painting by numbers.
Yes. And we don't have to be super strict on the
lines. There's a little bit of flexibility around those lines,
but we are filling in the exact zoning sort of requirements.
You know, what, you know, how tall you can build, setbacks,
all those details, which really matter.
That's what we're doing for what's called
centers and corridors.
So this is along a lot of our, you know, arterials,
along our frequent transit routes,
also a lot of the new neighborhood centers
and other more dense areas.
Those are the next phases of the comprehensive plan.
- That was a pretty good breakdown.
Thank you.
I've been talking about that plan for a while.
Councilmember Saka, another viewer email coming in
your way about this topic.
Lin wants to know this.
We desperately need housing and better transit everywhere.
Will Councilmember Saka work with pro-neighborhood
center groups, the mayor, and councilmembers to
find a way forward for the Alki neighborhood?
Lin wants to know about the Alki neighborhood in particular.
Any thoughts about that and just how you're approaching
this next phase of the process?
Yeah, excellent question.
Shout out to Lin.
And first off, that was an A-plus summation of
the phase two process.
Thank you, Councilmember Lin.
That's the Transportation Committee chair saying that.
And I love the analogy of painting.
In my head, I had this vision of Bob Ross just painting.
Your hair's a lot shorter.
Puffy little clouds and everything.
But I appreciate Lin's question.
I, during the phase one portion, I met with everybody.
I listen to everybody, in neighborhood groups,
people who are pro-housing, pro-density, pro-trees,
pro-development, all of the above and everywhere in between.
And we're already—my office is already undertaking similar
effort to make sure whatever policy decision I do make on
the final phase two legislation is going to be one that's
That's 100 percent informed by community.
With respect to the Elk High Neighborhood Center, one reason
why I did not support that last year, in addition to the
whole procedural due process or lack thereof—this is essentially
sprung upon communities at the last minute.
Meanwhile, others had years and many months at a bare minimum to
plan and prepare an opportunity to provide feedback, it
just did not meet the evaluation criteria that
we use for determining neighborhood centers.
Now, and one of those pertains to transit.
I would like to see if the city policy direction is to create
a new Elk High Community Center, or excuse me, neighborhood
center, rather, I would love, love, love to see in parallel,
and I'll be overseeing and shepherding this process
from a council perspective during the upcoming potential
renewal of the Seattle Transit measure, let's expand
transit service out there.
So we either revise the evaluation criteria
or make it actually fit.
And so one way we can do that
is expand transit service and I'm excited about
that opportunity.
But, you know, continue to listen to stakeholders
across the board.
- Okay, can I ask you just briefly
on what's happening with data centers in Seattle?
Big headlines on this, I know a lot of people wrote
just about every council member out there.
Some of these big tech companies are saying,
yeah, we need to build data centers here.
There's been a lot of pushback about this.
People worried about environmental concerns
and things of this nature.
What's going on?
- Yeah, no, we have certainly, we're flooded with
quite a few emails.
There's a lot of concern and a lot of it got triggered
by some reporting that there is inquiries about,
and these aren't just sort of your standard data centers.
These were mega data centers, 50 megawatts and up.
- 'Cause the city has some smaller ones, right?
- We absolutely do.
We have quite a few small data centers.
You know, we have big tech, we have biotech,
We have a lot of needs for data, but certainly I have a lot
of concerns about citing new mega data centers in our city.
What we heard from all the reporting is that this would
require enormous amounts of new energy sources.
Besides, at least in other locations, data
centers are consuming massive amounts of water.
I'd be concerned about security issues.
And so, you know, typically, or not typically,
but oftentimes when there's a proposal like this,
it is a newer proposal, some one tool that we
have is a moratorium that buys us some time.
So typically a moratorium would be like
a 12 month moratorium and you develop a work plan
to study the issue.
And it just allows council to have the time
to understand the issue better, to put some
guardrails around it.
And so that's something we're looking into
and something that I would support.
There was just to mention that there were
other councilmembers that had already been looking
into this for a few months, Councilmember Juarez, Council
President Hollingsworth, they were already
looking into it before sort of the firestorm.
But it's certainly something that I think is warranted.
- Okay, thank you for that.
I'm gonna try to fit in a big question
about public safety if I can.
And Councilmember Lin, you very recently held a public
safety meeting in your district after some concerns about
increased drug use, fires, safety issues, and a number of
Beacon Hill green spaces there.
There's actually been some talk about temporarily
closing Lewis Park near the Jose Rizal Bridge due to
some illegal camping there.
Can you give us an update on what's happening and the
message you have for D2?
Yeah, no.
- So North Beacon Hill, Little Saigon,
and they are very interrelated.
There's just the Jose Rizal Bridge there,
but otherwise it's very similar activity
on both sides of the bridge there.
And North Beacon Hill has experienced a significant uptick
in drug dealing and related fires,
crime in the neighborhood.
And we certainly have to get our handle around this.
And it's a complex issue.
It's obviously related to our homelessness issue.
And I think what we are seeing with our unhoused population
and similar, you know, hot spots for drug activity, for
black market goods, is we are seeing a mix of needs
around, you know, unhoused, mental health, drug addiction.
And the mayor's office has spoken quite a bit about this.
And I think we need to talk more about many of our
unhoused neighbors, you know, are very vulnerable
in terms of public safety, who experiences some of the
most public safety issues.
It's our unhoused.
They're preyed upon.
And I think we need to, you know, deal with that
reality that they are often taken advantage
of by criminal elements.
And so I believe we need to focus more on the folks
that are coming in to take advantage or to take cover
within, you know, they might set up a tent and it's actually
a drug dealing operation.
It's happened before.
or an RV that might be not, nobody's living in the RV,
it's just a drug dealing operation.
And so I think we need to absolutely have increased
enforcement on the drug dealing.
We also need to deal with the black market,
just goods that are happening at 12th and
Jackson that we can all see.
So certainly look forward to working more with
the mayor's office, city attorney, King
County prosecutor.
We need to have an all hands on deck approach.
We need to include the care team to help us with our
behavioral health.
And this is why it's so important
and why I'm so supportive of this proposal
to expand our shelter with super robust mental health
and drug addiction supports.
- Hopefully we'll help in that area.
Councilmember Saka, I'm gonna try to squeeze this in.
I've read recently in the Seattle Times
that City Parks is paying for private security overnight
at Golden Garden Park over in Ballard there over
the summer.
You serve on the Parks Committee and I know
you've been trying to keep Alki Beach safer in your
district for example too.
Is it time to bring private security to more parks
around our city, maybe West Seattle?
What's what's going on with this?
Yes, yes it is time and I would love to
see an expansion of private security, either private
security—so, you're referring to the initiative by
our Parks Department to hire private security.
That would essentially be a second set of eyes.
And if there's a public safety emergency that rises to the
level of criminal activity or conduct, then they
would immediately call SPD.
I would love to see that at—you know, rolled out more broadly
across the city, especially and including Alki
and Harbor Avenue.
Would also love to see additional SPD emphasis
patrols and directed patrols in the area.
I—because of some efforts that we undertook a few years ago
now, including some of these speed humps, we're seeing less
problems speeding and racing.
But the underlying activity, in terms of
excessive noise, partying, the trauma that that has
on impacted residents and neighbors is still
completely out of hand and unacceptable, and
I won't stand for it.
Yes, we need those, and I've already been asking for them.
Okay, great.
We do need to wrap up, and I do want to make sure we take a
look at the latest viral video starring Councilmember Rob Saka.
Were you waiting for that ball to hit me?
Well, guess what?
I'm waiting for our Seattle Supersonics to come back.
And as chair of our city's Sports and
Experiences Committee, otherwise known as STEPS,
I'm doing everything in my power to bring our Sonics back.
Councilmember Saka, pretty incredible video there.
You sponsored a resolution to welcome
the Sonics back recently.
What's the latest?
What's going on?
Well, the latest is we are well positioned as a city, from
a city of Seattle government perspective, to
win a Sonics bid.
Ultimately, those decisions rest in the hands of third parties,
private stakeholders, the of the league, prospective
ownership groups.
All we can do on the city side is ensure
that our city-owned, operated, or co-owned, operated facilities
in the surrounding area is NBA ready.
And proud to share that our Climate Pledge Arena
is a world-class arena, successfully
hosts the storm today.
Why not the new Sonics?
And I think a cherry on top to this would be, and we're
currently exploring right now, a pathway to do that
is to renovate and modernize the Seattle Center campus.
I think the actual Climate Pledge Arena itself is
ready, but more of it.
Why not renovate and modernize and restore the vibrancy
and the beauty of the Seattle Center in parallel?
That would be the cherry on top.
That would be.
Love to see that.
Councilmember Lin, just a quick check on this.
Did that viral video, did it make you feel like you had
a virus when you watched it?
Or what was your thought about it?
As viral as the video is, I actually have not seen it.
I need to watch it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tune in.
But super excited for the potential Sonics return.
You know, we, I think there's no better place to be as
a professional sports team.
No better fans for both men and women's sports.
And super excited to see their return.
Hopefully we have some local high school basketball players.
We got the award-winning Rainier Beach basketball team.
I'd love to see them in some Sonics gear.
- That's great.
Councilmember Lin, Councilmember Saka,
thank you for joining us.
We'll see you next time on Council Edition.
♪ ♪