Are SOAP zones the right way to clean up Seattle?

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde. And I just want to say, you know, last week I was bumped to miss our special emergency August primary podcast with special guest reporter Scott Greenstone joining the show. Scott actually texted me when I was out of town saying that he wanted to do it out of self interest to promote a new KW politics podcast.

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just, I'm just like, Ben, that's how huge this podcast has gotten. We are the biggest podcast in Seattle. People are coming to Seattle Nice for out of self interest. It's shocking. That's where all the cool kids are.

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Can I just say that dashing and Devin air young Scott Greenstone your your KUW replacement like, you know,

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no. I mean, I have to say I'm a huge fan of Scott's and was super happy when he asked to be on this week. I will say I'm not sure if Hannah Krieg of the stranger is available. She didn't ask me to be on. But nevertheless, I'm happy to introduce Erica C. Barnett of publicola. Hi, Erica.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It's me again.

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if political consultant Ben Anderson is available, but that doesn't mean I'm not psyched to also introduce our friend political consultant Sandeep Kashak who is available. Hi, Sandy. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, David.

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Jaden cynical former KUW politics reporter David. I David. I yeah.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: We get a heck of a show. New sex worker laws, drug banishment zones, maybe something about this zany news about council members. Shama. So on. We'll see what we get to. But first, the city seen a spike in visible prostitution, especially up in Aurora.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_01]: The new city council wants to address that. Kathy Moore in particular, who represents District five. You know, we did a show up there talking to some of those nearby residents, a live show. Go check that out in our archives. But she's proposing something called soap zones or a soap zone, which sounds incredibly clean and hygienic. Erica, what exactly is a soap zone?

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I never thought about it that way before. It's a called a state out of areas of prostitution zone. They have been around for or they were around, I should say, for many years until the city until Pete Holmes, a former city attorney, sort of stopped enforcing them.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And then eventually they sort of fell out of fashion. So what they are is zones where if you have been arrested on suspicion of engaging in sex work or theoretically buying sex in this area, which encompasses basically from the shoreline border at one forty fifth all the way down Aurora and a couple blocks on either side down to eighty fifth.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_02]: If you've been arrested, you can get a soap order that says you can't be in that area. And if you're in that area, you can be charged with a gross misdemeanor, which is a more serious charge than the underlying prostitution charges that may be pending against you.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So the new sort of innovation in this version of the soap law is that you don't actually have to be convicted of any crime to be banished from this area. It can be a condition of pretrial release, which basically means if you want to get out of jail, you have to stay out of this area.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_02]: The other thing the legislation would do is reinstate a prostitution loitering law that was overturned by the last council on the recommendations of a reentry work group that was convened under Mayor Bruce, now mayor, then council member Bruce Harrell.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And it would essentially allow police to stop frisk and arrest people based on whether they appear to be engaging in sex work. And so it's a much lower barrier for police to go and sort of confront sex workers than what is required now.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Can I just ask one question about the soap piece of this, which is just how how is that going to be enforced? Like, do we know anything about the mechanics?

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, in the past, the way it was enforced was that essentially a police officer would recognize you. And if you were in the area, which was pretty similar to the area that they're proposing now, this is an old, old law and it was enforced very heavily under Mark Cidren.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they could check your ID, you know, as a pretext to stop you. And if you were under a soap order, you could, you know, you could get in trouble. I don't know exactly how they're going to, you know, if there's going to be any sort of, you know, I hesitate to say upgrade, but any change in sort of how they decide, you know, what kind of exceptions are allowed within the area because before, you know, there's a ton of services, particularly for sex workers in that area.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's a huge, huge, hundreds of blocks. And so before you could show basically you could show your papers. So they would say show your papers, show that you're allowed to be here for this specific purpose.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the police could decide, you know, sort of based on that whether or not to arrest you and take you to jail. So there's going to be some version of that for exceptions.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So, Erica, I want to hear more about what you think about these soap and loitering laws. But let's go to Sandeep for a minute here. What do you think? Are these laws the right laws for Seattle in 2024?

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we need to do something. Yeah, and I think there's a lot of potential here, right? Let's be clear about this. The law has components to it, right? And I think one of the key components that from my conversation with folks in the city is significant is there's a loitering piece of this law that creates a gross misdemeanor, right?

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_00]: If you are loitering in that area, I forget what the language is, but for the intent of promoting prostitution essentially. In other words, if they see you and you're there like sitting in your souped up Camaro and talking to the girls and exchanging money and you're there for four hours and they know you're a pimp, they can get you on what is essentially a pimp loitering charge, right?

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And the reason why that's important, obviously it's illegal to be a pimp now, but it's incredibly hard to make those cases, right? I was told from my sources at the city that, you know, pimping is a felony, but they only make like three or four of those cases on an annual basis despite the enormous amount of prostitution and pimping that's going on in Aurora.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Because in order to make those cases, the prostitutes essentially have to testify against their pimps and for obvious reasons that that's something that happens only in rare circumstances.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And to be clear, it's going to be the same way with this. I mean, you still have to beat a burden of proof.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, but there's a loitering offense where it will be easier for them to get after pimps even if they don't have direct testimony. Basically, if you're there for hours on end and interacting with the girls, they will be able to make these sort of cases, loitering cases against pimps.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the argument that they're making. And the reason why they think that's significantly important is because there has been a significant increase in this sort of activity, right, on that stretch of Aurora and commensurate with that.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: There's been a really big uptick in gun violence on that stretch of Aurora between 85th and 145th. Their shootings on that stretch of Aurora are up 200% this year over last year.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Mahaffey, I forget he's a SPD deputy chief or assistant chief of investigation said that they've recovered just this year alone 450 shell casings on that stretch of Aurora alone.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think this is a great time to point out that when you are describing gun violence and sort of, and I think that the council has done this too pretty effectively, it seems.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, Cathy Moore was encouraging and trying to get people to show up and testify in favor of this based on this idea that sex workers, if you crack down on sex workers and you arrest them, there's sort of this mushy language about diversion in the bill.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But it doesn't do anything for diversion. It doesn't propose new programs. It doesn't fund anything. It doesn't propose funding anything.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you arrest sex workers, then that will reduce gun violence. There has never been and in the central staff memo and the analysis of this, there is no analysis tying this gun violence to the presence of women on Aurora.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And I, you know, I would rather we not use the word girls just don't love that. But there's the nexus and the proof of these connects of this connection is what's missing.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's the same thing as to me as you know, as as the argument for sweeping homeless encampments because there is property crime in a neighborhood.

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that you've got to show that nexus and they're not doing that. Instead, Cathy Moore showed the sizzle reel of people shooting at each other in, you know, in the middle of council chambers, you know, and sort of just said, you see what happens with these, you know, with these prostitutes being allowed to be out there.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And I do just want to respond one thing that you're sort of parroting their talking points too on what we got to do something. I mean, Marissa Rivera said that.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: We do.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And so the so the idea is to do this thing that we had for decades and didn't work. I think that's the opposite of doing something. I think that is, you know, looking at the I mean, there's an entire book called Banished by Katherine Beckett about soap and soda laws and also other types of trespassing laws the city has had in the past showing they did not only do they not work, they have tremendous negative impacts on the people, particularly women, that they are purporting to help.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we can talk about the drug laws, but it's a similar thing. So, you know, I just I think that saying we got to do something but not looking at the efficacy of the thing that we're doing is just it's false promises to these neighbors who are being terrorized by gun violence.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just it's doing something that we have a lot of data on. Like we have time. This is not a new idea.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to break this down because I heard at least two questions this week, Erica, the more professorial of the two with that long winded answer.

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I know a lot about this and he's talking at his ass bullshit bullshit.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_01]: That's ventriloquism on his part. OK, so Erica basically saying two things.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_01]: One, you had used the language saying that there's been a commensurate rise in gun violence.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_01]: That word commensurate sort of doing a lot of work there. You know, what's what's your evidence that the increase in visible prostitution is actually leading to an increase of crime, which we've seen kind of maybe all over the city.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And the second question she had that we could maybe address second is whether or not these loitering and soap laws actually work.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Erica's language. So but start start with the rise in gun violence because I too noted, you know, that use of the word commensurate.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure what what what question you're asking about. There's been a huge spike in what's the link between those two things.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I think when you ask the police and the authorities that are enforcing down there, they say a huge amount of that violence is driven by turf wars between pimps who are trying to control, you know, essentially areas where they can put women out for prostitution.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. I love that police say argument for.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they've said that for a very long time, too.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, as a reporter, I've certainly heard that one.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: We've seen a major increase in gunplay in that area as we have seen a major increase in prostitution.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, basically, I said this before. I'll say it again.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_00]: In recent years, we embarked on what seems to me to be a pretty radical experiment in how we do municipal government, particularly in areas like law enforcement, where we decided that the the punitive elements of law enforcement needed to be greatly,

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_00]: greatly reduced and we needed to focus on the the kind of service and therapeutic aspects of interventions.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. And the results on places like Aurora have been incredibly shitty.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_00]: We've seen a big rise in prostitution up there.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I keep saying rise. Sorry to interrupt, but where's your data on that? Other than observational, you happen to anybody that walked up there over the last couple of years.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not asking about anecdote. I'm asking about data.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Let me ask you this, Erica. Why is there no prostitution north of one hundred forty fifth?

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_02]: There is prostitution north of one hundred forty.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That's almost the difference between.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Let me answer your question. There is there is prostitution north of one forty fifth.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not happening on Aurora. That doesn't mean it's not happening.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_02]: There's this fantasy that you can just get rid of the world's oldest profession by sort of creating these like boundary zones and, you know, and saying like, oh, look, it's not in this place now.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, it no longer exists. No, it's just been pushed somewhere.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And people who work with sex workers and former sex workers say what happens is often it goes down to, you know, it goes down south.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: It goes south of Seattle into places where people are less safe.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, these are people who actually have worked in the industry or the trade rather than, you know, sort of you going to Lowe's and being like, oh, my God, I see three girls here.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Look how bad it's gotten. I mean, I'm not you know, I don't have I don't have data either.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_02]: To be clear, I'm not asserting that that is like not gone up.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just saying you have this confident assertion that prostitution is way up.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And because of that gun violence is way up.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just I don't think that's been proven.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think saying, oh, cops say it's turf wars is the same thing as data.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think if we're going to do this radical, I mean, talk about radical, radical return to the Mark Sidron era, which lasted a very long time, much longer than, you know, any brief thought of not incarcerating people and doing something else.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we need some fucking data to prove that it's going to work.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And all of our data says it says that it doesn't.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00]: So you're you're waving away the idea that that's that the major spike in gun violence has anything to do with that, you know, visible increase in women being prostitutes.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I when I tried that structure, I find it really, really deeply sad.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I it's not a.

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But your solution isn't going to fix the problem that you see.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just going to make it so you don't have to look at.

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't think that's right.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we decided whenever it was five, six, seven years ago that we were going to do this Nordic model, not not focus enforcement on the women who are engaged in prostitution.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_00]: But focus on the on the Johns, right.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_00]: The people.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: But we barely we don't do very much of that and certainly not enough to dissuade the trade from actually going on.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And so in terms of is there other ways that that that could be a much safer, better way to sort of address or normalize prostitution?

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that when we were up at Haller Lake doing our live show, I said there I thought it was a real mistake when the federal government went after back pages dot com.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00]: It was possible when there was a online place where the sex trade could those transactions could happen.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_00]: It was possible that women could participate in that trade without being exploited or pinned.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_00]: But on Aurora, that's really not possible.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where you you have much, much higher levels of degradation and exploitation and and violence.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So the two of you disagree about gun violence and whether or not it's linked to prostitution.

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not even I'm not even saying what I'm saying is there is no data behind this radical shift back to the Citroen era.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's just vibes and feelings.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think vibes and feelings are enough reason for a return to the Citroen era.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_01]: If I could summarize, it seems like Sandeep is quoting the cops.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_01]: You're saying they're not a reliable source of information.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01]: If we move on, your other point was that loitering and soap laws essentially do not work.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you hinted at this.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But in 2020 when when the loitering laws in particular were repealed, there was also a lot of discussion about how they do disproportionately harm marginalized communities.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted to get to whether or not Cathy Moore and this counselor was kind of trying to address that.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But also hear from Sandeep at some point about whether or not what he thinks to your counterclaim, you know, basically saying, look, we know these laws don't work.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So why are we reinstating them?

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'll just say real quickly about the legislation.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It actually it doesn't do anything to help women.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: It talks about diversion.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, despite Sandeep's insistence that we went to this soft era of social work focused interventions and did spend a bunch of money and time on that.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_02]: There are seven beds for trafficked women in the city.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So that is just simply a falsehood that I think is part of the delusion about, you know, 2020 and the Black Lives Matter movement that we actually did anything.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And there are very few things.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, repealing the loitering law was like one of the few concrete things that happened.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And now, you know, Cathy Moore and the counselor are going to undo that.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't think I mean, this legislation clearly and explicitly does not include anything that is non punitive.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_02]: It just sort of says they should go to diversion first, but there is no diversion.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So if you listen to and I want to give credit to Cathy Moore here, I think she's made a pretty articulate case for the approach that she was laying out with this legislation.

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And what she's saying is she's very clearly stating the intent of this legislation is not to throw a lot of women who are engaging in prostitution into jail.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_00]: She wants to create opportunities for intersection and then diversion.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Erica, to your point, it's true that the beds don't exist now.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: But Cathy Moore is also saying very publicly, putting a marker down that during the budget process that's upcoming in the next month, she intends to propose, you know, a significant funding increase to create some of those mechanisms of diversion.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Now we will see what comes out of that and what results out of that.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_00]: But that's the clear point that Cathy Moore was making as she sort of articulated what she wanted to do with this law.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to the prostitutes themselves, we've obviously talked about the other parts of the law, which are where they really want to put a renewed focus on trying to get at the pimps and sort of disrupting the exploitative part of this situation.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_02]: So in any piece of legislation, my rule, I mean, I do read the whereas clauses and in this piece, you're right.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_02]: They go on and on and on and on and on.

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_02]: We care about the women, we care about the women, we care so much, we care so much.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_02]: But really you can disregard all of that because the only part of legislation that matters is not the intent, it is what it does.

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing that this legislation primarily does, leaving aside the clause about pimps, is to target women.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And so the intent of legislation is pretty meaningless if the impact is the opposite.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And in this case, the impact is the opposite.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And when you talk about Kathy Moore is going to create significant new beds, I mean, we all know that there's a $260 million budget deficit that the city is facing.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: What she has said is that she will create or she will put funding into a pilot receiving center, which I don't like.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_02]: That's definitely not beds.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, it is a quote unquote receiving center.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_02]: What I predict will happen is that there will be and I said this in my piece about this, I think there'll be a small amount of money.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I said $85,000.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_02]: That's just a random number.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But some small amount of money will go to a group like REST or The More We Love who have pivoted, I guess, from being sort of a private sweeps company to Outreach and Burian for Homeless People.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And now they're calling themselves a sex trafficking organization, an anti-sex trafficking organization.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So one of those groups, you know, or a different one, will get some money and they'll say, look at this.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_02]: We've created our receiving center.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And that will be that.

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But the impact is what's in the legislation.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_02]: You have to look at the plain language.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_02]: You have to ignore the whereas clauses until there's legislation to back them up, because otherwise it's just, you know, it's just I mean, Sunday, if you hate like fluffy bullshit, I mean, whereas clauses are always some form of fluffy bullshit.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that there's some, you know, from the conversations I have with people at various levels of municipal government, I just don't see some, you know, incredible mean-spirited desire to like start really, you know, throwing the book at, you know, exploited women who are being prostituted out on Aurora.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I just don't think that's where they're trying to go with this.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I think what they're trying to do is make it so that the residents who are complaining about the visible prostitution aren't complaining about that anymore.

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not that they're complaining about it.

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to address the concerns and whether or not that's going to actually help people, Erica's saying she's skeptical.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_01]: She's especially skeptical given the fact that this council is saying it's not going to raise taxes and they're facing a major budget shortfall.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But I want to take the question kind of back to some of the visible drug ordinance questions that we were facing last year.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, has the council yet?

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, they haven't written the budget yet sort of delivered on those promises of, hey, you know, we're not about punishment.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01]: We're about drug treatment.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, do you think that this council is really going to be able to deliver on all of that?

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_01]: All of those promises and adding more promises in this budget cycle when it comes to getting people help with with with drug treatment as well as diversion programs here.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll tell you how much they are not interested in that.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I watched I mean, I've watched a lot of meetings about both of these and heard the concerns from neighbors saying they've been attacked by sex workers and all this stuff.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_02]: But when it comes to drugs specifically, first of all, they're saying they need to have special zones where drug users are not allowed.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And second, and they're saying that's going to finally allow them to really put these drug laws that they passed last year to use.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Second, Sarah Nelson, the president of the city council this week was lambasting and lecturing Brad Finegood, who I consider a friend and an expert on drug treatment specifically with public health of King County.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_02]: She was telling him that it was immoral for the city, for the county to engage in harm reduction by giving out smoking supplies at fixed locations where they can also access HIV tests, you know, treatment for other things, access to drug treatment, wound care, et cetera.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And she was saying that instead of doing any of that harm reduction, the county should really be handing out muffins and socks on the street.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't think they take treatment seriously because they don't listen to evidence.

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I am very, very pessimistic about them actually funding meaningful treatment for anybody with a shirt.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Certainly haven't so far. And again, it's budget cutting time in a month.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, look, I did not listen to that exchange between Sarah and Brad.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_00]: But from sounds like what you're saying, what Sarah's complaint is about is about handing out tin foil to fentanyl addicts.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. And saying that that's not it's not handing it out.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_02]: It's at a fixed location rather than just going out in the streets.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And he explained why, which is because most people are smoking now rather than using needles.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And so the way to get them into access services is to offer them something that they want.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I so this is a practice that's used by folks like I forget what the name is, but the folks that they kind of do the outreach on Third Avenue.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. They or, you know, or some of the lead folks hand out tin foil.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I had a conversation about this one day probably a year ago with Lisa Dugard about it.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And and she said to me, look, it is really controversial.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And she herself said, I wasn't sure this was, you know, a great thing to do.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_00]: What her staff told her about why they were doing it is that it creates an opportunity to engage with people and start to build a relationship with them.

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And so you can have that conversation. That makes us that makes sense to me. Right.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a rational reason. There's no great I don't know that that that there's a great handing out tin foil to federal users is going to keep them from shooting up.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure Brad's that seems like that's what Brad's saying.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. In fact, the reality is that most people are smoking fentanyl now they're not using needles.

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I will tell you that the medical staff at DSC were recently telling me that they're seeing an uptick in shooting fentanyl now, which is very scary.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. This is beside the point. I mean, the point is that people come to needle exchanges to get needles.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_02]: They come to public health locations where they're handing out smoking supplies to get those supplies.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And then that is an access point for them to get other services. Right.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_00]: There's always been a direct public health argument to handing out clean needles. Right.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Because dirty needles spread hepatitis or HIV. And we knew that.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And since the 90s, the evidence is overwhelming that there are direct public health benefits.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Now handing out tin foil isn't the same thing. Right. I mean, there's nobody's getting hepatitis from tin foil or AIDS.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it seems like a little bit of a sidebar to me.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It might be true that there can be no disagreement about the value of that as a harm reduction technique.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But Sarah Nelson can disagree and could have other priorities when it comes to harm reduction that she's intending to fund.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think it proves that she's.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, Sarah Nelson has been on the council for two years. This is not her first time around.

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And the only thing that she has proposed funding is abstinence based treatment at an inpatient treatment facility.

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, this is not the money is out there and it's going to get funded soon.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I suspect it will be Lakeside Mylum, which is an inpatient treatment facility that I went to myself.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, that is one approach. But it abstinence based treatment is not harm reduction.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So I have not seen I've never seen her advocate other forms of other forms of treatment.

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Then it's which is what which is what the promise was. Right.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. I mean, you can have a disagreement about the best techniques of treatment.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But if she if she's actually stepping up and funding treatment that is delivering on the promise.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_02]: If you think that three hundred thousand dollars for abstinence only treatment is effective, you know,

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I can show you all kinds of stats about so that'll buy about, you know,

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_02]: 30 courses of treatment for people at a low cost place like Lakeside Mylum.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And of those 30, you know, it's probably let's say 28 of the people will relapse after they leave.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But we don't know yet exactly what we're going to see in this coming budget cycle. Right.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think that I think that's being a little willfully naive.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that we're going to see a huge investment.

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You're always saying we don't know they're not doing anything.

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_01]: We have to wait until we see the budget.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Now you're saying that you know what they're going to have in the budget, which you may do.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're you're covering it more carefully than I am.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think no, I'm saying I don't think they're going to have huge new investments in new programs

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_02]: other than police programs to and probably not that much there

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_02]: because they've got two hundred sixty million dollars of the budget to cut.

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm just saying realistically, I don't think there's going to be some huge new investment in a huge new program.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Do loitering laws work?

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Sandeep Kashyak, Erica says they don't.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So why are we talking about them? Let's specifically ask about loitering laws.

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_01]: She says they don't work. Why would we do something that doesn't work?

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, first of all, I think what we're doing now clearly isn't working.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, the people I talk to think the way these laws in particular are crafted,

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_00]: the new versions of these laws, which are different from the old lawyer laws that are in the.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_02]: The language is identical, actually.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_02]: The loitering portion of it is identical word for word.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_00]: But the but the but the plus the little clause on the pimp's

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_00]: loitering piece of it is again something that that I think is really,

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_00]: really important here from the folks I talk to as being a particularly important

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_00]: piece of the tool that they've that they want to try to get at what they see as a very,

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_00]: very serious problem that is at the core of some of the exploitation and violence that's happening in that area.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_00]: So I do think that's important. But more broadly, I had a conversation recently with Jordan Royer.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Erica, you know, Jordan.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Jordan was the public safety person in Mayor Nichols's office, right?

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Greg Nichols, who served two terms between 2001 and 2009.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_02]: He was also out protesting for Diaz.

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_02]: He was one of like five people that were out there.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Picking city hall. That may be Adrian Diaz.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he may be an Adrian Diaz fan.

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_00]: But but Jordan made a really strong argument to me that these sorts of approaches actually were paid real benefits.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And they were tools. He was like, look, it's all in how you implement them and what kind of efforts you put into using them and how you use them.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But he said these did these sorts of laws did create opportunities for meaningful diversion and getting people help in cases and that we shouldn't have moved away from them in the first place.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not surprised that somebody from the Nichols administration says that.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And particularly Jordan, who is a very, you know, very law and order focused person who, you know, I mean, it is funny that he was out there picketing for Diaz.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But also he's out there picketing for Diaz.

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, again, that's fine. He can he can feel that way.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the evidence, the data and I encourage everyone to read Catherine Beckett's book about these specific laws because it is a very in-depth study of exactly who was impacted, exactly what they did.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that we haven't talked about enough, and David, you mentioned it, but, you know, it is these laws vastly disproportionately impacted black, cis and trans women as well as just women of color in general.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I mean, we actually do have data.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Jordan Breuer can have his opinions about how things worked 25 years ago.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But I just I just really wish people would look at actual data before making policy when when there is data available.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And on this case, we have lots of data because it was we've had these laws for most of the last 25 years.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It is highly questionable policy, it says, according to Amazon that I'm reading about Catherine Beckett's book.

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It's expensive, does not reduce crime, but does not address the underlying conditions that generate urban urban poverty.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess I guess the question sort of becomes work for who?

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Because part of what Cathy Moore is arguing, isn't she, Erica, that she also serves her constituents who aren't in the sex trade and who aren't pimps and who are just frustrated by all this stuff?

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Some of the folks that we talked to when we did that show up on Aurora Ave.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So she's partly she's proposing this legislation because she represents them and she wants these new laws to work for them, doesn't she?

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I don't think that she considers sex workers among her constituents.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think that's quite clear.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_01]: She may not. I don't know if that's I don't know that.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Does she strike you though?

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, does she seem like kind of like a heartless person?

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I don't know.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying you don't have to be heartless to believe in this stuff.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't think Sundeep and Jordan Roy are heartless or Greg Nichols.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I just think they're wrong.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think you're wrong.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Just a point to make here, because I think, David, you're starting to get towards what are the politics of these laws?

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've been talking about the policy and whether the policies work or don't work.

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_00]: But there's also a whole layer of politics here.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And you're saying Cathy Moore is responding, which she is to really widespread constituent complaints right in that area of North Seattle in the vicinity of Aurora.

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, we heard it when we did that live show at Haller Lake.

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_00]: People ask questions about about that stuff and clearly had some frustrations about it.

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's just because people are upset about visible prostitution.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But again, a lot of those people are complaining about gunshots, gun violence, those sorts of things that they're seeing major uptick in in that area.

[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought it was interesting when they had the hearing earlier this week, unlike typically where you've got a whole bunch of people from the left come in and kind of overwhelm the proceeding.

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was pretty even.

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I will say what was really interesting about that.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and I wouldn't say a whole bunch of people from the left.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_02]: There were a lot of sex workers who were there to advocate for themselves and say this is how these laws affected us in the past.

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is what will happen when you implement them again.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But half the people didn't get to speak and about half didn't get to speak.

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of them actually stuck around until the next meeting.

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And there were I would say Sunday if you had watched that meeting, you would have seen that just about everybody who was unable to speak in the first meeting was speaking against this law against these proposals.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was primarily sex workers themselves who were putting themselves in a pretty arguably dangerous situation by standing in front of this crowd and saying this law is going to hurt us.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_00]: All I'm saying is there was a vocal and energized constituency saying we need help on Aurora and the current situation is untenable and bad.

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. And that to me goes to the politics of this, which is where I know, Erica, you've been the I think you've really been the primary proponent of this kind of meme or frame about the do nothing council.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. I have credit to you.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_00]: You kind of drove that pretty effectively.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And I would still stand by that because they're not they're still not doing anything. They're just repealing shit that was put in place.

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I think these are I think by any stretch of the imagination, these are major laws.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, obviously there are major changes to the way things used to be.

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Major, major changes, major laws. I think they're going to pass.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, they have not passed yet. Right. And they have certainly been any number of false starts from from this council on on proposed legislation in other areas.

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think they're at their strongest ground when they are talking about and moving on public safety issues.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And I my sense is these laws are much more likely to actually be adopted by this council.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing that unifies them. I think they're all over the map on some other issues.

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to public safety, I think there's a majority on this council to take these steps.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And my bet is that there is going to be public support for for for taking these actions.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we'll see over time. I actually think there will be a policy benefit, too.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But since we're making predictions, I mean, I'll just say the soda areas and it's very interesting.

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_02]: They and Davison, city attorney and Kathy Moore and others really emphasize that these soda areas supposedly don't contain any kind of services for anybody.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So nobody's going to be excluded from services. Now, that's not actually true.

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But but the one of the things that Catherine Beckett writes about is that these areas in the past and again, they're very recent past.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Her book came out in 2010. They have an expansionary logic.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And so you start with an area and you say nobody can be in here.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just like the nine and a half block strategy that they that they did before.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So everything all the drug users go to just outside that area.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So, oh, no, now you got to expand it. And it gets bigger and bigger.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And the last time we had soda laws, I mean, it was it was wild.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it was like most of the city you could be permanently banished from.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And you're talking about, you know, like places that people consider their communities.

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Let me just let me just say, I know you referenced it, but we're shifting from soap to soda now.

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sorry. We're talking about the drug areas which stay out of drug area legislation, which I did want to say, Erica, since you your publications called public cola.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought, you know, you might have some sympathy for this, but apparently not.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_01]: That's so let me just ask. So this is Ann Davison's proposal from a little while ago.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. And this would do the same thing. It would exclude people with drug related charges.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not just people that they see using drugs. You have to be arrested and then like what happens?

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_00]: You can get it right. Or Erica, go ahead if you want to.

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_02]: That's accurate. Yeah. Yeah. You can get an order from a judge.

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Or from a judge and you're banned from certain areas like the CID.

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_02]: There's like there's two different areas, one's downtown and one's in the CID.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_00]: What one is that kind of 12th and Jackson, you know, little site Saigon area.

[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And then it's sort of around the blade. Right.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And on the second and third and pike in that area.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Look, the expansionary thing, Erica, I think is real.

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a real point under the previous iterations of the soda laws to your point.

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Forty percent of the city ended up, you know, as a state of drug area.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's obviously absurd. Like most of North Seattle is a drug area.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course not. That's ridiculous. Right.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I do think that you never could have moved there probably.

[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I wouldn't have been able to buy my house.

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_02]: There's no new laws against homeowners who use drugs and overdose and are also overdosing every day.

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_00]: No law against that. That is true.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_00]: That said, this look, this is a seems to me a pretty targeted intervention.

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about a total of 37 blocks in two areas that are high volume drug markets right now.

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think there won't be displacement, Cindy?

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't think people are just going to go right outside and then those people are going to complain and then it's going to get expanded?

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't I, you know, I don't think that they're going to.

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I think they've learned something from the mistakes of the past where it turned into this diffuse nebulous, you know, nothing thing and then fell apart.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think there's some understanding that that was a mistake of the past that they shouldn't repeat.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Will there be some displacement? Of course there will, but there will also be some benefit.

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, I don't think that the nine and a half block strategy back under under Ed Murray was a failure either.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_00]: It made an impact while it was being enforced and executed.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think there's potentially some benefit that will come out of this.

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I've heard about my alternate view of that back at the time.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So feel free to look it up.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I know you did.

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if you think drug use has improved since then, you know, public drug use and that that is the cause.

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_02]: That's an interesting perspective.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_00]: We stopped enforcing our drug laws entirely and things got worse.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_00]: We stopped in that in the pandemic area.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_00]: We stopped cleaning up encampments and things got really worse.

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_00]: In the last seven or eight year, we stopped enforcing on anything related to prostitution and things have gotten worse.

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is what I mean about we went on this kind of pretty radical experiment in kind of new forms of municipal government and they haven't worked.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not just us.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've literally written about prostitution enforcement.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But to finish my point, measure 110 in Portland, right?

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_00]: The state of Oregon, the voters decriminalized use of hard drugs in Oregon in 2020.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_00]: They passed an initiative and the legislature just repealed it because it didn't work.

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Erica says Erica says and part of the issue in Oregon is that the and you've said yourself a lot of it had to do with them not standing up services to go along with that drug decriminalization law.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So you're leaving that piece out and saying, well, let's go back to, you know, soda and soap.

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when it comes to solving these things, let's create exclusion zones.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's not clear that didn't work.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But Erica's point seems to have been throughout this.

[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, this isn't going to work either.

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_01]: It hasn't really worked in the past.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Those concerns about exclusion.

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't kind of get where you're coming from.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if this council isn't going to stand up a whole bunch of new programs to go along with this legislation, it's not going to quote unquote work either, is it?

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that we need a whole bunch of new programs.

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think where we agree is that we need significantly more investment in things like drug treatment, you know, diversion.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. We've talked about in the past.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I've said that the previous version of community court was a joke, right?

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Because it neither had any penalties for anybody who blew it off, but also didn't help anybody either.

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Like a 90 minute life.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_02]: But that's not your changing the subject from David's question, Sunday.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_00]: No, but my point is that there I think there will need to be new investments and there should be new investments in treatment and other social interventions.

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we all agree on that point.

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean that these laws won't work at all.

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. It's just like encampment cleanups.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you've got to clean up encampments, even if, you know, there isn't, you know, we aren't at the point where we can offer every single person like a permanent supportive housing.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_02]: The scenario you're describing is a fantasy, Sunday.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you're describing a fantasy scenario where like we prove it's either we provide everybody everything in the whole, you know, in the whole world or nothing.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what we can enforce any of these laws until we need to address root causes and until we have housing for everybody.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So, Sunday, it sounds like what you're arguing is that, you know, in response, just short version, what you're saying is yes, I think these laws work even in the absence of services.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's plenty of evidence that they don't.

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_00]: There are certainly some services that exist now.

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_00]: They are completely inadequate to the scale of the problem.

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we are fully in agreement on that point.

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I would like to see major new investments in, you know, effective services.

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think you're going to?

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Can we like be in the realm of reality?

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I agree with you.

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we're going to see that right now.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't see it from the last council either.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_00]: We saw a lot of performative bullshit about it, but they didn't actually do it.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not as obsessed with the last council because that covers it.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're obsessed with this one, right?

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Because you ideologically don't like what they're all about.

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I am obsessed with them in that I am a city hall reporter and reports on them.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And when I reported on the old council, I was obsessed with them, according to you, because I report on them.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_02]: It's my job.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_00]: But you are supportive of them and not of this council, right?

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, literally go to my coverage Sunday.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Great place to end.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Go to publicola.com.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Go to publicola.com.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_00]: David, can I make a just a personal announcement I want to make?

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, please.

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_00]: So, hey, just by way of closing, I want to because we were just talking about services.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to give a shout out to Evergreen Treatment Services right there.

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_00]: A major kind of methadone provider and drug treatment provider in the city of Seattle.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And they do incredibly good work.

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And the reason I know they do incredibly good work is because when I moved to Seattle, I was a client of Evergreen Treatment Services.

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_00]: In my early days at The Stranger, I would go down to Airport Way to get my methadone every morning.

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And just the reason I'm bringing this up right now is that they have asked me and I've agreed I'm going to keynote their lunch on September 26.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So it would be great for everybody to turn out and write a big fat check that Evergreen Treatment Services so they can continue to do the incredibly important and good work that they do.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And it'll be kind of, you know, kind of a cool thing for me to get to 20 plus years later, come back and kind of talk about how they help me.

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And even if you can't write a big fat check, seats are at this particular lunch are quite affordable.

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I think they start at $80 to $100 depending on when you get them.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you know if you're hesitating because of that, it's you know, it's pretty affordable.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So go and don't heckle Sunday.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_02]: But you can do it in your mind.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I'm going to you can you can.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I will try to tell some horrifying war stories of my days.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, but I think I think I read a check to not have to listen to the stories that everybody flees.

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Don't I take ETS so you don't have to listen to me?

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Blovey about about heroin.

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_01]: That's it for another edition of Seattle Nice.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_01]: He's Sandeep Kashyak.

[00:44:33] [SPEAKER_01]: She's Erica C.

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Barnett, who didn't want to talk about Shama Sawant today.

[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we filibuster.

[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_02]: She never wants to talk about Shama.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_01]: She's she's repudiated her old political party, South Socialist Alternative.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_01]: She's starting a new party.

[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Socialist Alternative to like not militant enough, according to Sawant.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And she's also saying that she wishes that she were still on the council, that she that she gave up this important Marxist seat,

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01]: which was important not just here in Seattle, but nationally.

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I got to say, I miss having her on the council in a lot of ways.

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm hoping she's going to run again next year.

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_00]: You heard it here first, folks.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Shama Sawant, please, please run against Sarah Nelson next year.

[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's have that show now.

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Get that race.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Run citywide, Shama.

[00:45:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, who knows?

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Sarah Nelson may be running against Bruce Harrell.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And thanks to Quinn Waller, our editor, and thanks to you, our listeners who have been donating on Patreon.

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_01]: We really appreciate all of those donations.

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and last plug, too many plugs here.

[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But we've got a town hall debate coming up.

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_01]: It's official.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be doing a Seattle nice debate at town hall on October 1st for position eight.

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So in the in the large room.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So I imagine there will be I don't know, it seems like a thousand people or something, I think.

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So this is where it turns out.

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_01]: By far could be embarrassing.

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:46:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Our biggest event.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I believe there's like some other lesser debate happening mid-September, but you don't want to you could watch that one and also go to the Seattle nice debate, the more lively and exciting debate, October 1st town hall.

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So get that on your calendars.

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And thanks everybody so much for listening.