Dow Constantine's moving on and Seattle's surprise proposal to tax the rich

[00:00:10] Hello and welcome to Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde with Erica C. Barnett of the Seattle Nice podcast and editor and publisher of Publicola. Hi, Erica.

[00:00:20] In that order. Hi. I got into an election party, by the way, on election night and somebody said, oh, we know you. You're with Seattle Nice. So that's how I'm known now, apparently.

[00:00:31] It's funny. It's funny. Yeah, it happens. Also with us, political consultant Sandeep Kaushik.

[00:00:37] Hey, David. Hey, Erica.

[00:00:40] All right. We got a whole bunch of burning hot topics this week. A proposal to tax the rich.

[00:00:46] Erica's got a piece out about the Sobering Center. But first, Dow Constantines announced he's leaving the King County Council.

[00:00:53] And Erica had to look this up, but Dow took office back in 2009 and he's serving until 2026. So not quite as long as Vladimir Putin.

[00:01:05] That's the measure, right? Yeah.

[00:01:07] That's how we measure all of our local officials.

[00:01:09] Yeah, it's kind of wild. I mean, you know, looking back at local mayors compared to the county executive and particularly Dow's term.

[00:01:19] I mean, he has served a long time and, you know, not without controversy, but not with a ton of controversy.

[00:01:26] Yeah.

[00:01:26] And yeah, I mean, it's just it's the end of an era.

[00:01:30] And he still looks young-ish.

[00:01:32] He does. He does. It's that vegan diet.

[00:01:36] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:01:38] It's the it's not wearing leather.

[00:01:40] Yeah.

[00:01:41] I did Dow's first race back in 2009, the first exec race.

[00:01:45] Well, you take credit.

[00:01:47] Well, back in the grunge era.

[00:01:49] I mean, I helped.

[00:01:50] I helped.

[00:01:51] I mean, there was a big turning point in that race where we we called a press conference and we just like Dow ripped Susan Hutchison.

[00:01:59] Right.

[00:01:59] We were running against a stealth Republican candidate in that race.

[00:02:02] And she she and the Republicans had the year before run a ballot measure to make the county executive race nonpartisan in anticipation of her running so that the media wouldn't talk about the fact that she was a Republican.

[00:02:14] So and they were playing ball with that.

[00:02:17] So we had to do it.

[00:02:18] We called a press conference and denounced her and talked about all of our donations to like Mike Huckabee and stuff like that.

[00:02:23] And and that was a big turning point in the race.

[00:02:26] Anyway, I'm sure I was at that press conference.

[00:02:29] I remember covering Dow back then quite a bit.

[00:02:31] I remember covering Susan Hutchison on Election Day in 2016 when she was chair of the state GOP and was celebrating Trump's first win.

[00:02:42] So she's definitely Republican.

[00:02:44] Right.

[00:02:45] In 2009, she was denying everything and like, you know, saying we were how dare we attack her and say this stuff.

[00:02:51] And it's a nonpartisan office.

[00:02:52] And she was totally Republican.

[00:02:54] Of course she was.

[00:02:54] I mean, it was pretty obvious.

[00:02:56] Yeah.

[00:02:57] Yeah.

[00:02:58] Yeah.

[00:02:58] Anyway, I mean, that race, just to go down memory really, really quickly, like at the beginning of that race, everybody thought Larry Phillips.

[00:03:04] He was the anointed successor to Ron Sims and he was considered the Democratic front runner.

[00:03:09] So we ran a kind of insurgency sort of campaign.

[00:03:13] And then once we became the Democrat attacking Susan Hutchison, that's what kind of flipped us into, you know, through the primary.

[00:03:23] All right.

[00:03:23] Erica, is Dow Constantine leaving to spend more time with his family?

[00:03:28] I believe that's what he said.

[00:03:29] Right.

[00:03:30] He's got he's got a young daughter.

[00:03:31] I don't know.

[00:03:32] That's I just that's my assumption every time.

[00:03:34] It's that's.

[00:03:34] Yeah.

[00:03:35] Yeah.

[00:03:35] I mean, not in that like suspicious way.

[00:03:37] But, you know, I mean, Sandeep can probably talk about this more, but there is, you know, speculation about what he's going to do next.

[00:03:42] We like we've known that he's going to be leaving at the end of this term.

[00:03:46] And by we, I think I mean, you know, people who are politicos like Sandeep, journalists like me.

[00:03:53] I mean, this is this has been widely known for a long time, which I think is why his announcement was so sort of plain spoken and, you know, didn't really give a lot of indication about what he's actually planning to do next.

[00:04:06] But I know there was some speculation that he was going to go to UW and be UW president.

[00:04:11] Is that right?

[00:04:12] And and also some speculation about him going to Sound Transit.

[00:04:17] But, you know, I, Sandeep, you probably have more insight than I do into what the truth is about all of that.

[00:04:22] UW pays better, right?

[00:04:24] Yeah.

[00:04:25] I definitely don't think Dow is done or that he's, you know, kind of waltzing off into retirement or to spend more time with his family.

[00:04:31] I do think, as I understand it, he'd be interested in some further, you know, public facing gig.

[00:04:39] Right.

[00:04:39] I I'm just speculating here, but I've heard as Erica has.

[00:04:45] I've heard both of those posts sort of sort of floated about as potential place landing places for Dow.

[00:04:50] I would think the UW gig is just probably less likely.

[00:04:55] They tend to appoint presidents of major universities tend to come from academic backgrounds.

[00:05:00] So I think that's probably a bit of a stretch.

[00:05:03] But I think the Sound Transit gig is something that could well.

[00:05:07] Anyway, I mean, I don't want to speculate, but but but but could well be something where, you know, we could end up seeing Dow.

[00:05:15] He's I think would be clearly interested in that.

[00:05:19] And the current interim CEO is going to be ending his tenure right around the time that Dow ends his term as as King County executive.

[00:05:30] So I don't have any inside information about the Sound Transit board or what they're thinking is, but that that could potentially be placed.

[00:05:37] Since you both went to Dow's future.

[00:05:41] What about, you know, we used to hear Dow Constantine, future gubernatorial candidate, Dow Constantine, future, I don't know, U.S. senator.

[00:05:49] So is this a disappointment for him that he's heading to Sound Transit as opposed to becoming our next governor?

[00:05:56] Well, we don't know that again, we're speculating about Sound Transit.

[00:05:59] Let's not appoint him CEO of Sound Transit quite yet.

[00:06:03] I would. I mean, I would.

[00:06:04] You know, look, I got my start in government at the county.

[00:06:08] I did two years working for Ron Sims back when I left The Stranger in 2005.

[00:06:13] And back then, the county, you know, used to still get a significant amount of media coverage.

[00:06:19] Right. You know, there was a Seattle Times reporter that was assigned to cover the county, you know, and and there.

[00:06:25] There would be news stories about it nowadays because of the hollowing out of our local media.

[00:06:30] You know, the city of Seattle still gets a bunch of attention, but the county is really, you know, in terms of sort of getting attention and carving identity and building kind of a political profile has become a bit of a backwater.

[00:06:46] It just doesn't get the it just doesn't get the profile.

[00:06:49] All right, Eric, I want to ask about Dow's legacy.

[00:06:52] Lyndon Johnson, known for the Voting Rights Act.

[00:06:55] Barack Obama, Obamacare.

[00:06:56] I know you're covering the county.

[00:06:58] I mean, it's not getting nearly as much coverage.

[00:07:00] It never.

[00:07:01] Well, since I've been here, hasn't gotten as much coverage the city really ever, but used to get more.

[00:07:06] So what's the number one thing you think that Dow will be remembered for?

[00:07:10] Oh, man.

[00:07:11] You know, the number one thing, you know, I don't like these kind of questions.

[00:07:15] Obamacare.

[00:07:16] Because it's impossible to predict.

[00:07:16] Voting Rights Act.

[00:07:17] Yep.

[00:07:18] The Vietnam War.

[00:07:19] I mean, the Vietnam War.

[00:07:20] Come on now.

[00:07:22] So but I do think what he wants his legacy to be is I think this this big shift of the counties.

[00:07:30] This is going to sound boring at first, but bear with me.

[00:07:33] He wants to move all the county stuff, the jail, the county buildings, everything that are currently downtown to this this area in Soto.

[00:07:41] Soto that's owned by this developer named Greg Smith and develop kind of a new shiny residential office commercial area where the county buildings currently are, which is in Pioneer Square.

[00:07:52] And, you know, he's kind of moved heaven and earth to make this happen.

[00:07:55] And and I think that if that happens, which I'm dubious of because it's you know, it's just such a heavy lift.

[00:08:00] And I don't know how much demand there is for commercial space downtown right now.

[00:08:04] But if he makes it happen, I mean, that's going to be an actual like physical legacy in downtown Seattle and Pioneer Square.

[00:08:10] So I think that's what he wants to be his legacy and what he spent a lot of time working on.

[00:08:15] You know, I mean, I think the county handled this is not flashy, but I think the county handled covid very well.

[00:08:21] And, you know, as county executive Dow oversees the public health department.

[00:08:25] And I think they had a very sober, sensible response to covid.

[00:08:30] Dr. Jeff Duchin, public health really kind of steered the Seattle area in that regard.

[00:08:36] And I think calm people down a lot.

[00:08:37] But, you know, I mean, you could rattle off things that health through housing, you know, which provides which provides shelter beds in hotels.

[00:08:47] That was a covid era program.

[00:08:49] The crisis care centers levy.

[00:08:51] I mean, there's just there's there's a lot of stuff.

[00:08:54] You know, he talked about wanting to close down the jail.

[00:08:57] That did not happen.

[00:08:58] He talked about wanting to close down the youth jail.

[00:09:00] That did not happen.

[00:09:01] You know, you could see those things as failures.

[00:09:03] But I mean, it certainly was part of the conversation.

[00:09:05] And last thing, I think the county right now is perceived rightly so as being sort of more left leaning than the city, which has not always been the case.

[00:09:13] So there's been a lot of battles between Dow and the city of Seattle and Bruce Harold, mayor behind the scenes.

[00:09:20] That's just been really fascinating to me as somebody who's watched both for a long time.

[00:09:25] Just just one thing I'd add on the on the legacy front.

[00:09:28] I think Dow deservedly gets credit for the big sound transit expansion that we're seeing now.

[00:09:35] Right. He was sound transit chair and county executive back in 2016 when we ran the big fifty four billion dollar sound transit expansion ballot measure.

[00:09:45] That's another campaign I worked on.

[00:09:47] And and Dow was was instrumental in sort of putting that forward at the time.

[00:09:52] And so a lot of the stuff that you're seeing coming online now is coming out of that measure.

[00:09:57] And that was a that was a Dow Constantine proposal.

[00:10:01] Right. Something he shepherded through as the head of sound as the head of the board of sound transit.

[00:10:08] Here's to you.

[00:10:10] Dow Constantine.

[00:10:13] Erica.

[00:10:14] Some warm fall.

[00:10:15] Yeah, I know.

[00:10:16] Are we pouring one out for our homie Dow Constantine?

[00:10:19] Uh, uh, so Erica brought up, um, you know, the fact that the county is to the left of the Seattle City Council, which seems kind of weird to me because the county, if you look at county election results, voters are not really to the left of Seattle.

[00:10:34] Like if there's a big spending initiative, the city will vote for it more overwhelmingly than certainly parts of King County, especially, you know, southern working class, diverse parts of King County that will often reject.

[00:10:49] Um, tax tax measures at a much greater rate.

[00:10:52] But that brings me to the next question, which is, who do you think, Sandeep, is likely to be?

[00:10:59] Well, we've got some people, some names already.

[00:11:01] So who do you think is going to be throwing their hat in the ring or who is throwing their hat in the ring to try and replace Dow?

[00:11:06] Well, Claudia Balducci, who's on the King County Council, um, longtime county person.

[00:11:12] She ran the jail, the King County jail back in the day.

[00:11:14] Um, a longtime council member from Bellevue is already announced.

[00:11:18] Girmai Zahalai, who's on the King County Council and younger, but kind of charismatic.

[00:11:24] I think quite, um, seen as kind of a rising star, uh, from his perch on the council has not formally announced.

[00:11:34] But I would be shocked if he's not getting in.

[00:11:37] He's basically signaled he's, he's getting in.

[00:11:39] I think, uh, it's fairly likely that the King County assessor, John Arthur Wilson, who's been around for a long time, uh, is probably going to get into this race.

[00:11:51] I haven't heard any other names of, uh, of anybody else, but, but I do think this is shaping up to be, if it is Balducci and Girmai and John Arthur, certainly the, the Claudia Girmai battle will be quite a, quite an epic, you know, internal fight among Democrats.

[00:12:11] Erica, I really want to hear about more about the sobering center and, and really, uh, you know, if you can explain, you know, what this is all about, what a sobering center even is for folks that.

[00:12:21] Aren't following county politics or news, but also the tension between the county and the city.

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[00:13:16] Yeah, well, this actually gets into what you were mentioning about the city being more conservative in some ways now than county government.

[00:13:22] You know, the, uh, the city council has five new members.

[00:13:25] Uh, they are debating the budget right now as we're recording on Friday.

[00:13:28] And one of the things that, uh, council member Maritza Rivera, who's brand new, uh, wants to do, um, as part of the budget process, uh, is to, um, require the city's human services department to do some kind of report that will show future options for working with King County sobering center to turn it into a, uh, sort of locked facility for people who are arrested under the drug law to go.

[00:13:54] Once they, you know, as sort of a type of diversion once they're, um, arrested.

[00:13:59] And then as she puts it to sober up so they can make some rational decisions about their lives and, you know, hopefully go into treatment.

[00:14:06] You know, I mean, I think this is an example of how the city council currently has basically no institutional knowledge on it.

[00:14:14] As it turns out, and from my reporting, I discovered that, um, council member Rivera, uh, never talked to the county and she, um, did not, you know, contact.

[00:14:24] The county's department of community and human services to ask if they wanted this to happen.

[00:14:28] When I called them, um, you know, the director of that department said, we have no interest in doing this.

[00:14:34] And, you know, the county is a separate government city can't really do anything if they don't want to sort of engage in, uh, the, the carceral, you know, the decisions that the, that the city's making, which is to lock people up for using drugs.

[00:14:46] So it's just kind of, I don't know, it's an interesting example, both politically of them being at odds and also just, you know, kind of no, um, either institutional knowledge or interest in or curiosity to kind of figure out if the things they're proposing, you know, are possible or make any sense.

[00:15:04] Yeah, I mean, I, I do think it's interesting.

[00:15:08] It's an interesting observation and I think it's correct probably that the, that the county government right now probably is more left or more progressive or whatever term you want to call it than the, than the city government has been recently.

[00:15:21] And that's obviously a, a, a big and quite recent shift that's happened, you know, and going back to Dow Constantine's legacy, you know, Dow's always been a progressive, right?

[00:15:32] He ran in 2009, that campaign we ran as the progressive in that race in a crowded field of Democrats.

[00:15:37] So it's not surprising that, that, that the county under Dow's leadership has taken a progressive stance, but that said, Dow himself, the executive, and I think the county government and the changes we've seen at the county council have pushed the county significantly more in a progressive direction in the last few years.

[00:15:57] And things like pushing to close, not just the youth jail, but the downtown jail, right?

[00:16:05] Those are things that Dow took up kind of later in his trajectory as King County exec and are obviously big kind of abolition adjacent kind of ideas that, that Dow picked up.

[00:16:17] I mean, Dow was initially a champion of rebuilding the youth jail, right?

[00:16:20] He got, he got shouted down at a state of the budget speech by Nikita Oliver and, you know, some of the abolition folks, and then sort of flipped sometime after that to become, to kind of side with those folks on some of this stuff.

[00:16:35] So, yeah, I do think the county has, has taken a more, you know, left lane, you know, at a time when the city sort of backed away from some of the more controversial left lane stuff.

[00:16:48] Obviously, the tension between the city and the county, what does that meant in terms of the tension between the city and the county?

[00:16:52] Obviously, we just saw this thing blow up over the sobering center, but there was a tension over jail bookings, you know, I mean, there's been a number of things recently, right?

[00:17:02] Well, and there was, there was also, sorry to interrupt, but just another example real quick is the, the so-called home, called homeless megaplex that, you know, that I think Sandeep, you were opposed to, and that Tanya Wu was opposed to, and that ultimately got shut down.

[00:17:14] That was a county project that would have added, I believe, about 60 beds total, some of those shelter in, in Soto, and it got shot down.

[00:17:24] But the county was pretty adamant, you know, for a long time that this project needed to happen.

[00:17:30] And that was Dow.

[00:17:31] Yeah, I wasn't opposed, and by the way, I wasn't opposed to the homeless megaplex.

[00:17:35] I mean, we were actually about to see.

[00:17:36] You were calling out the megaplex, maybe I'm remembering, remembering it wrong.

[00:17:39] Well, I, I, I maybe picked up because it's, it's a, it's a funny phrase.

[00:17:43] I sort of, yes, we both called it the homeless megaplex, but, but no, I actually thought there was a bunch of stuff as part of that that were actually necessary changes.

[00:17:53] Like, I get that there were people in that community that felt like they were constantly being asked to kind of shoulder taking on these, these sorts of services.

[00:18:03] And there was obviously a lot of that stuff.

[00:18:05] I get that, but I actually thought a lot of that stuff was needed and yeah, I thought that was, you know, if I can be critical of Dow here that, that he kind of caved on that.

[00:18:15] Right.

[00:18:15] I mean, there was some blow up in the community and some people yelled that it was racist to put that stuff there.

[00:18:21] And the County, you know, sort of tail between its legs, just kind of threw in the towel and all that.

[00:18:28] You know, one thing I just want to compliment that story one more time, Erica, because I think the media, not only is it not covering King County very well, but they're not really drawing these connections that the two of you did just for those, you know, three or four stories where there is a connection.

[00:18:42] So when voters come and are trying to make decisions about which direction they want the city to go in, well, the city and the county and the state work together.

[00:18:50] And so these are linked decisions.

[00:18:52] And, you know, it's, it's complicated stuff, but sometimes we or people who are in the media, I don't know if I include me in that, but people in the media, you know, don't draw the connections that you all are drawing so well and that Erica did in that story.

[00:19:05] Well, can I make, can I make one other, can I give one other example?

[00:19:08] And the city council right now is ordering the county to do and other governments to do a whole bunch of things.

[00:19:14] And ordering is an exaggeration, but they're saying that they want all these other governments take actions that they have no power to compel them to do.

[00:19:21] Like they want to compel Metro to expand this program of transit ambassadors, which, you know, maybe they support that, maybe they don't.

[00:19:30] But they're saying, you know, that you need to spend money doing this.

[00:19:35] They're doing the same thing, you know, proposing to eliminate the South Lake Union streetcar, which just got defeated.

[00:19:41] But I mean, there was a proposal that was like, let's pave the way toward ending this project, which, you know, is operated by Metro.

[00:19:49] And, you know, I mean, the city has a role, but it's just there's sort of a misunderstanding, I think, of what the city's power is over all these other governments.

[00:19:57] And it's if I was running for county executive, I mean, this is a good time to step in because you could potentially have a lot of power.

[00:20:04] With an inexperienced city.

[00:20:06] And just to build on that, I mean, I mean, the big example of this recently and it had nothing to do with the Seattle City Council, but with the mayor and the executive is the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

[00:20:16] Right. I mean, the departure of Mark Dones, right, who had been the CEO of KCRHA was followed by.

[00:20:26] And this was really, I think, something that was instigated by the mayor and was followed by the mayor bringing in an interim who was very much the mayor's handpicked person as interim,

[00:20:35] who didn't end up lasting and kind of had his own issues and stuff that that blew up.

[00:20:41] But yeah, there was definitely last year a sense that the mayor was stepping in in a very direct way to kind of grab the reins of or at least a semi-direct way of grabbing the reins of King County RHA.

[00:20:58] One other thing, coming back to the issue of jail bookings, because I think this is something that is underappreciated, but the conflict that happened between the mayor,

[00:21:11] this is again between the mayor and the executive on what happened was that during the pandemic,

[00:21:18] King County seriously reduced the number of people that it would accept into the King County jail for obvious reasons about distancing and COVID and all of that stuff.

[00:21:29] Right. But once COVID ended, the county decided it didn't really want to or said, I think part of it was that they didn't want to raise the number.

[00:21:39] Part of it was they said they didn't have the staffing to bring the number back to where it was.

[00:21:43] And so the city really wasn't able to book people that arrested on the streets of the city of Seattle into the King County jail, except in, you know, fairly limited circumstances.

[00:21:53] And that became an issue of ongoing friction for for a couple of years, really, between the city and the county.

[00:22:00] And it's just fairly recently that I think Dow, I think I would have to say, gave in.

[00:22:07] Right. Initially, they said they would start taking people who were arrested downtown.

[00:22:12] And then recently they've just announced that they're going to, you know, they're going to allow, you know, more unlimited bookings for which is what the city's been demanding for a while.

[00:22:21] So anyway, there's another big one where the city sort of pushed really hard in the county and there was a lot of friction for a while.

[00:22:26] But but the county seems to have won that battle.

[00:22:29] I mean, the city seems to have won that battle.

[00:22:30] Eric, Seattle City Council member Kathy Moore proposed a capital gains tax that's going to be voted on, as I understand it, next week.

[00:22:39] This thing is a 2% capital gains tax that would be on top of the 7% capital gains tax that we have now at the state level.

[00:22:48] It's just like exactly identical to the state tax.

[00:22:52] It's got tons of loopholes.

[00:22:53] So most people wouldn't pay it like real estate's exempt.

[00:22:57] The first $250,000 in profit that Sandeep makes when he does a big stock trade, that would be exempt.

[00:23:04] The sale of large herds of cattle apparently is exempt.

[00:23:09] Oh, my God.

[00:23:10] According to my colleague, Joshua McNichols.

[00:23:11] So you benefit too, Erica, with all of your cattle on here.

[00:23:14] With my holdings, absolutely.

[00:23:16] No, I keep those out of state.

[00:23:19] Mississippi with your cattle ranching family.

[00:23:23] We don't talk about that.

[00:23:25] Take that out.

[00:23:26] Oh, God, I'm starting conspiracy theories.

[00:23:29] Anyway, I want to say, like, I'm somewhat surprised that Kathy Moore floated this idea at all since you and I spoke about this exact topic.

[00:23:36] I don't think you're the only one that was surprised, David.

[00:23:39] Last week.

[00:23:40] And we both agreed that we wouldn't see any progressive taxes from the city council.

[00:23:44] But it sounds like we were both right because it's not going to pass.

[00:23:47] Tell me why.

[00:23:48] Tell us why.

[00:23:49] Well, I was, yeah, like you, I was surprised by this.

[00:23:53] And I talked to Kathy Moore about it.

[00:23:54] And, you know, what she said basically was that, you know, while we have the Jumpstart Progressive Payroll tax, that is going to other purposes right now.

[00:24:05] And, you know, she also has a proposal that would limit those other purposes to, I think, 45 percent of Jumpstart.

[00:24:12] Right now it's above 50 percent.

[00:24:13] But anyway, that's a tax that pays for things like housing.

[00:24:17] But she said, you know, we still have other needs.

[00:24:19] And this tax is to pay for rental assistance to tenants, to pay for homeownership programs and to pay for food assistance for people who are food insecure.

[00:24:29] And and so, you know, I mean, she decided that once this thing passed at the state level, again, voters rejecting a repeal, that it was a good time to propose it.

[00:24:39] So, you know, it would only be paid by a very small number of Seattle taxpayers.

[00:24:45] It's you know, it's literally something in the hundreds.

[00:24:48] And then the vast majority.

[00:24:50] About 800, I think about a little over 800.

[00:24:53] Yeah.

[00:24:53] Yeah.

[00:24:53] And so the vast majority of people would not be impacted at all.

[00:24:57] And, you know, in addition to that, I mean, the people that would really be making up the revenues is I mean, it's like a handful of people.

[00:25:05] It's like 100 something people.

[00:25:07] So it's it doesn't affect a lot of people.

[00:25:09] I think that that tends to make it sort of popular because, you know, it's not going to really hit you.

[00:25:15] But, you know, this council, man, they just do not like progressive taxes.

[00:25:21] Rob Saka was saying that, you know, the other day that, you know, this it's it's a it's the right idea at the wrong time.

[00:25:28] And he didn't really define why it was the wrong time.

[00:25:31] But he did say that he thought it would be a good idea to bring back every single year in the future.

[00:25:38] So that was that was his contribution.

[00:25:41] But generally speaking, you know, everybody said that this is just a bad idea and, you know, and too much of a burden on taxpayers.

[00:25:49] So that's that's the council we elected.

[00:25:53] And, you know, I think the better argument against it, and this is one that I believe Sarah Nelson was making, is that it's really volatile.

[00:26:01] And the revenues, you know, the range that they're putting out there is like 15 million to I think 51 million and 16 million to 51 million.

[00:26:11] And that's a huge range.

[00:26:13] So, like, how do you plan around that?

[00:26:14] You can't really do ongoing programs if you don't know how much is coming in.

[00:26:19] And the capital gains tax at the state level has way has gone from way high to way low in just a couple of years.

[00:26:25] It's been in effect.

[00:26:26] So, you know, it's kind of a hard tax to rely on.

[00:26:29] Yeah.

[00:26:29] OK, OK.

[00:26:30] Volatile.

[00:26:30] But, Sandeep, Seattle needs more revenue.

[00:26:33] This city council ran on fixing problems.

[00:26:36] Fixing problems costs money.

[00:26:39] So why wouldn't they vote for this tax?

[00:26:41] Isn't isn't this in their interests and in our city's interests to levy a tax that would be popular, that would generate revenue for stuff that needs fixing?

[00:26:50] Well, and I've not talked to Rob Saka about this, but I think what he meant by the by the phrase that Erica quoted, the right tax at the wrong time, is that he was one of the people that that sort of co-sponsored this or allowed this to move forward with Kathy, even though he's voting against it.

[00:27:04] And so I think what he's saying about it being the wrong time, and I think what a lot of the council members are saying about about why they're voting against it now is because Kathy dropped this sort of in the middle of the budget process without laying a whole lot of groundwork or without developing.

[00:27:22] Sandeep, if you've been watching the budget process, you would not believe how much shit they're dropping with not only no development, but not posting it online or sending it to their council colleagues.

[00:27:32] This is a major new thing and a major and a major new tax.

[00:27:36] Typically, there's a process by which these things happen, right?

[00:27:40] There's like I'm not opposed to a capital gains tax.

[00:27:43] My sense is a lot of the people that are voting against it now, I don't think it's going away.

[00:27:48] I think this is coming back and there's going to be some of them that are going to be willing, David, to your question, to have that conversation.

[00:27:53] But they want a kind of orderly process and they want an assessment of like, hey, is this the best way to direct that money, right?

[00:28:02] I mean, let's do an assessment of our needs.

[00:28:05] I do think some of them are skeptical of doing a tax as well.

[00:28:08] I'm not saying they're all forward.

[00:28:10] Next year, they're going to be like, it's the wrong idea at the right time.

[00:28:12] Well, maybe some of them, I think you might be surprised by some of them.

[00:28:17] From what I hear, some of them, there's some openness to the conversation, but there needs to be some clarity about what's the problems we're solving here.

[00:28:26] What exactly is the scope of the need and how we've done our homework?

[00:28:28] Yeah, I mean, there's been a progressive revenue task force in place.

[00:28:32] They made recommendations.

[00:28:33] There have been reports.

[00:28:34] This council has a tendency to act as though no one has ever looked at any issue before they rested their eyes on it for the first time.

[00:28:42] And, you know, and so we have to inefficiently redo processes that have already been done so that people don't have to go back and do the homework of looking at what previous councils and previous entities have found out.

[00:28:55] So that is just, I mean, that is something that happens across the board on every issue.

[00:29:00] But I think in particular on this tax, I think that, you know, in addition to sort of opposing the concept of progressive revenue in a lot of cases, I mean, they are opposed to what it would fund.

[00:29:11] I don't think this council, you know, by and large, you know, Kathy Moore accepted and Kathy, you know, has talked about how she was a renter, you know, fairly recently in her life.

[00:29:21] You know, really has a whole lot of interest in putting money into preventing evictions.

[00:29:26] I don't think that's their top priority.

[00:29:28] I think they've expressed over the last few days that that's not their top priority.

[00:29:32] And so, you know, I just wouldn't be too wide eyed about them coming back next year and deciding that they're for this.

[00:29:38] I don't know that they'll be for this particular plan or for Kathy's priorities.

[00:29:43] That's the whole point.

[00:29:44] Some of them are like, I'm willing to have a conversation with you about this, but let's figure out, like, you know, you know, some of them may be like, well, let's do more treatment or, you know, for, you know, the fentanyl problem on our streets or whatever.

[00:29:55] Right.

[00:29:56] And some of them, maybe they don't want to do it at all.

[00:29:58] Right.

[00:29:58] And I got to push back on the Progressive Revenue Task Force report as if that was some kind of comprehensive sort of ground, you know, you know, laid the groundwork for this.

[00:30:07] That was a that was kind of a, you know, that was a task force that was deeply divided internally that produced a kind of.

[00:30:16] I mean, it produces fairly short report that just laid out a number of revenue options right here.

[00:30:23] What do you think this comprehensive report is that like Maritza Rivera, for example, is asking for?

[00:30:28] What is it that she is saying she wants that doesn't exist that the city can do?

[00:30:32] Like, like, OK, let's identify what are our top priorities, our top needs.

[00:30:37] And what do we think?

[00:30:38] What do we think the government, you know, initiatives to deal with them would be?

[00:30:43] And let's put a price tag on those.

[00:30:44] They do that through the budget process every year.

[00:30:47] No, this thing.

[00:30:48] First of all, let's be really clear.

[00:30:50] This is a separate standalone ordinance that was introduced in the middle of the budget process.

[00:30:55] Yeah, we've discussed that.

[00:30:56] Nothing to do with this budget.

[00:30:58] Right.

[00:30:58] But you're acting as though.

[00:30:59] Even if it passed now, this would have nothing to do with this current budget.

[00:31:02] Well, I mean, come on.

[00:31:03] If you're going to apply that lens, then, you know, probably 100 of the 180 amendments that

[00:31:07] they've passed so far or proposed so far would also meet that.

[00:31:11] I mean, but but but but more to the point, you say the council needs to identify what their

[00:31:14] top priorities are.

[00:31:15] That doesn't have to happen in the context of a capital gains tax.

[00:31:18] That's something that they do every single year through the budget.

[00:31:20] It is their primary responsibility.

[00:31:22] And so to say that they need a separate process to have any idea what their priorities for are

[00:31:27] is ridiculous.

[00:31:27] I mean, they identified them on the campaign trail.

[00:31:30] Now they've had almost a year to further refine them.

[00:31:33] It's not ridiculous at all.

[00:31:34] What question is still open here?

[00:31:37] It's not ridiculous at all.

[00:31:38] You know, first of all, you know, again, every I think a lot of people were surprised by

[00:31:43] Kathy bringing this forward.

[00:31:45] It wasn't like there was a whole lot of conversation about this.

[00:31:47] And so what you're saying is, hey, Kathy Moore, you know, essentially, you know, came out of

[00:31:52] left field and threw this forward in the middle of the budget process and they should just

[00:31:55] pass it immediately.

[00:31:56] And how dare they like say, wait a minute, like, let's have a conversation about your idea.

[00:32:02] I'm not saying that.

[00:32:02] What I'm saying is.

[00:32:03] Let me finish my point.

[00:32:05] Let me finish.

[00:32:05] OK, but you're overstating.

[00:32:07] What this most resembles to me is, Erica, you will remember this when Mike O'Brien kind

[00:32:13] of came out of left field and threw the head tax idea into the middle of the budget process

[00:32:17] back in whatever it was, 2017 or 2018.

[00:32:22] I can't remember what year that was.

[00:32:23] Right.

[00:32:23] And that kind of also got voted down.

[00:32:26] And then they came back and they had a process and they ended up doing something later.

[00:32:30] Right.

[00:32:30] And even at the time, some of the left lane council members like Lerana Gonzalez were

[00:32:35] like, this is the right idea at the wrong time.

[00:32:37] Right.

[00:32:37] I mean, that's kind of what she said.

[00:32:39] I'm voting against this now.

[00:32:41] But I think you're putting a lot of words in a lot of council members mouths that they didn't

[00:32:44] say.

[00:32:44] I mean, I've been watching these meetings every single second of them.

[00:32:49] And I you know, I would it would be great if there were sort of more cogent objections

[00:32:55] and there have been some.

[00:32:57] But a lot of them are just like.

[00:33:00] Soundbites without a clear explanation of why a tax on 800 people is a bad idea, given

[00:33:07] that there is massive support for capital gains tax at the state level, you know, I'm

[00:33:12] not sure, you know.

[00:33:13] I did the campaign to defend it.

[00:33:15] Yeah, I know.

[00:33:15] Right.

[00:33:16] So I'm not.

[00:33:16] So even if that is sort of the posture, I will be I mean, we can talk about it in a year

[00:33:22] and see if it's come back up and if it passes, because I don't I don't I think you're just

[00:33:26] imbuing a lot more sort of insight and thoughtfulness and and, you know, and sort of specific objections

[00:33:34] that are not really about taxing and about tenants to this council than than what I've heard.

[00:33:40] I think it will come back up.

[00:33:42] I have no idea whether it will pass or not in the in the future.

[00:33:45] All right.

[00:33:45] That's it for another edition of Seattle Nice.

[00:33:48] She's Erica C. Barnett.

[00:33:49] He's Sandeep Kashuk.

[00:33:50] I'm David Hyde.

[00:33:52] Our editor is Quinn Waller.

[00:33:53] And thank you, everybody, so much for listening.