How Badly Did Sound Transit Just Screw Seattle?

[00:00:10] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice, the only podcast that tells you what's really happening in Seattle politics. I'm David Hyde with Erica C. Barnett of Publicola. Hi, Erica. Hello. And political consultant Sandeep Kaushik. Hello, Sandeep. Hey, David. All right. Hello. So I am picturing like hardcore Seattle Nice listeners waiting on pins and needles all week for this big Sound Transit board vote. Like, will Seattle get light rail or is it going to die?

[00:00:40] And then they're reading the headlines and they get a little confused because one major local news outlet has Ballard light rail extensions saved in critical Sound Transit vote. But on Publicola, Erica has Sound Transit sacrifices light rail. So saved or sacrificed super different things. And before we get to it, I just want to point out that I'm happy that the language being used is also sort of foundational to Christian theology, Erica, saved or sacrificed,

[00:01:08] which seems appropriate to me living in Ballard because getting light rail to Ballard is kind of a sacred cause. But what really happened here? Yes. So contrary to the headline, which I put on blast on Blue Sky, and if you go to my Blue Sky account, you can read the original version of the story. Oops.

[00:01:25] What actually happened was that Sound Transit voted to do yet another what they call a realignment, which means basically cutting costs by eliminating, among other things, the Ballard link light rail extension as part of the Sound Transit 3 plan that was voted on in 2016.

[00:01:46] So light rail at this point is not funded to go to Ballard. The only way it's going to happen is if they can come up with cost savings and or new revenues, which would probably have to come exclusively from Seattle at this point or Seattle and King County, but not from Sound Transit. And the new plan, it saves part of a $34.5 billion shortfall. There's still a gap between $9 and $11 billion at this point.

[00:02:15] So addressing some of the shortfall, but not all of it. And the good news for Seattle, if you're a Seattle listener, is that they did manage to finally build or fund, rather, the long, long, long deferred Graham Street Station, which was moved over into the funded category. Now, whether it gets built is still up to, you know, actual funding and design and all that stuff.

[00:02:39] They're apparently still $130 million short on that one, which I just kind of can't fathom because they could just build a platform. It's a station on a flat area that already, you know, has rail running through it. But in any case, that's in South East Seattle. Well, it's been deferred since roughly 2003 with ST1. And now they're saying they're finally going to build it after all these years.

[00:03:05] Well, nice for Graham Street Station resident area residents. But I want to talk about the stick in the eye to Ballard, Sandeep Kaushik. We can afford light rail to West Seattle, but not here to Ballard. What happened? Why the disdain? Why the disdain for me and my fellow Ballardites? Look, I've been talking to a number of people who follow this stuff closely, follow the politics of Sound Transit closely.

[00:03:35] And I think, I don't know whether I'd call it a consensus, but I think a lot of people feel like what happened yesterday is that the more experienced executives in Pierce and Stohomish County essentially outplayed and outmaneuvered the neophyte executives,

[00:03:59] where they got everything they wanted for their communities. Basically, they got the full funding to get to Everett and Tacoma, and they did it at the expense of Ballard. Right? You know, and then they basically said, Seattle, if you want to finish your Seattle lines, you guys can pay for it yourself. Like, we're done. You know, like, we got what we wanted. Yay, hooray.

[00:04:28] And so it really does feel like this was a real loss for Seattle and for a good, functioning, high ridership transit system, too. Well, I mean, and the argument, I think the sort of neutral argument, if there is one for building to Everett and building to Tacoma, which I don't agree with.

[00:04:54] But the argument is that this was what was promised as sort of part of the initial spine, the quote unquote spine that goes currently, you know, from from Linwood down to down to the Rainier Valley or sorry, down to Angle Lake. And so, you know, the idea is, you know, Pierce County, Stamish County have been paying into this thing forever, and they haven't gotten the kind of system that Seattle has. That's that's the neutral way of describing that. But, Sandeep, I think you're right.

[00:05:21] I mean, I you know, I don't know that I'd call Pierce County executive Ryan Mello a seasoned politician. He hasn't been in that position for very long before it was Bruce Dammire. And, you know, maybe I'd love to talk about governance, you know, before too long on this podcast. But, you know, the short the long and short of it is that, yeah, Seattle got if not played, I mean, definitely the losing end of the bargain. I mean, Graham Street Station is a big deal.

[00:05:48] But I think that the fact that I mean, so so as I was saying, it's like it's like a surface level station in the Rainier Valley in a two mile gap between two states. The two stations are already there, Columbia City and Othello. That station should be very easy to build as an infill station. It's not, you know, above ground. It doesn't have a water crossing. It doesn't grow into a subway. And yet it took roughly 30 years to even get to this point from the first sound move measure that included it.

[00:06:17] So what does that say for Ballard? I mean, Ballard is going to be, you know, just infinitely more complex. It's got a ship canal crossing and, you know, a lot of valuable property that they're going to have to acquire in a very dense area. And so, you know, there's going to be tons of debates already have been tons of debates about where the station will go, et cetera. So if Graham took 30 years for a really simple thing that everybody wants, I am not sure we're ever going to see Ballard. I mean, certainly not in our lifetimes.

[00:06:47] But, you know, even if they get like 75 year bonds to build it, I mean, I just I just don't think we're going to we personally here on this podcast are going to see it. And probably a lot of the people who are advocating the young people that were advocating for it aren't either. I want to ask about some of the amendments in a minute, Sandeep. But just what about the ineptitude? Look, first of all, I think Erica's raising a good point about kind of the governance issues.

[00:07:11] And I saw that just the quotes and that stuff that Claudia Balducci, a longtime King County Council member and Sound Transit board member, gave to you, Erica, in your piece about about the kind of longstanding as she sees the governance issues with with with ST. But, yeah, man, I mean, look, even before and let's not sugarcoat this. They're killing the Ballard line. What they're saying is we would love to do Ballard at some point in the future.

[00:07:40] But, you know, there's really no money and we're cutting it. And therefore, you know, yeah, I mean, they basically just killed Ballard. But even before they killed Ballard, look at I did the comms on the Sound Transit 3 campaign in 2016, 10 years ago. Right. And one of our biggest promises in that campaign to the voters was West Seattle to Ballard.

[00:08:04] Right. And as Dan Strauss, the council member for Ballard, has pointed out, huge number of voters in Ballard like voted overwhelmingly for the Sound Transit package to make sure it gets done. And one of the promises that they were going to get light rail. And, you know, the biggest criticism we got at the time doing the campaign was not the cost, $54 billion. It was why the fuck is it taking you all so long to get to Ballard? It's not even at the time we were saying 2035. You're not we're not going to have the Ballard line open until 2035.

[00:08:33] And since then, it ballooned to 2039 and 2042. Then they, you know, and now it's like 20 never. Right. Like, we're not, you know, like, like, we're not going to do Ballard, except maybe one day we will. And what, you know, you know, when money falls from the sky, like along with the frogs or whatever. Like, so this is the question about it. Why are these timelines so insane? Like, if you look at the official timeline for Ballard, even before they cut it, ballot measure passes in 2016.

[00:09:02] Then they say nine years of planning, followed by four years of design, followed by 11 years of construction just to get from downtown six and a half, seven miles to Ballard. That's insane. I mean, it just tells you, like, the process craziness and the governance craziness of this. And this is why it ends up being so expensive. And then they don't do it. Yeah. I mean, the process is the problem. Right.

[00:09:29] I mean, we every time we have a single station to debate, we debate it for years and years and years. There are huge constituencies on every side. And then sometimes we just change our mind, like happened with with Dow Constantine and Bruce Harrell, you know, sort of caving to one faction and moving the Chinatown station out of Chinatown, where it actually makes more sense.

[00:09:55] But there is a vocal contingent of, you know, folks who don't want a station in that neighborhood because they say it'll disturb the neighborhood and, you know, and cause all kinds of problems during construction. And Sound Transit was responsive to that. And if we can talk about governance for just a second, I think one reason that, you know, I chased down Claudia Balducci as she was leaving. She was like an hour and a half late for a party that was being held in her honor.

[00:10:22] And so I talked to her while she was sort of frantically trying to leave. And, you know, and she said, look, like the one of the problems is that we have what I described, you know, in my own words is like this ever revolving cast of characters heading up the Sound Transit board as opposed to people who are actually experts on transit. So shit like this does kind of creep up on them and they find out about it and then they all panic.

[00:10:46] But, you know, there are like lots of decision points along the way where they have made choices that made it more expensive. And, you know, and every year of delay makes everything more expensive, like de facto, just because stuff costs more, construction costs more, labor costs more, et cetera. And so the idea behind having a board that is, you know, perhaps more made up of technical experts or, you know, I mean, there's been, of course, many calls in the past to have an all elected board. I think that's also a bad idea.

[00:11:14] You know, perhaps some could be elected, but but having people who actually know about transit on a transit board, it might actually be a good idea, it turns out. So Scott Kubli told us like it's costing us two to three times more than similar projects in basically any other city in the world, except for maybe New York or Los Angeles. And as Erica said, the process is certainly part of the problem. It's a huge part of the problem. That's why it's taking it takes years longer. It costs way more here.

[00:11:41] And part of it is the kind of politicization. Part of it is a lack of technical expertise or what have you. But a lot of it is that we've just given every, you know, neighborhood or every, every, you know, suburb or jurisdiction this almost near veto power over it, where they get to say, like, if you don't give us this parking garage or this thing or that thing or, you know, to get to hang all these bells and whistles, then we say no.

[00:12:07] And, you know, and then there's years of haggling over what goodies we give to everybody and the costs go way up and the time goes longer. And then the costs rise because we're waiting. So, you know, the whole thing is just a big political clusterfuck. Sorry. He also said that it's not just the various constituencies, it's also the engineers. There's no one really saying to them, is that the cheapest way to do this? Whereas in other countries, France, Europe, they're actually asking those kinds of questions. Whatever.

[00:12:35] I don't know if I, I don't know if I buy that claim from Scott. He may or not be right. But Dan Strauss sent me an email this morning and everybody else that lives in Ballard and is on his mailing list talking about this amendment that's going to require Sound Transit to explore cost-cutting, saving measures. And specifically in the context of Ballard Light Rail, he seemed excited about that. That was Executive Sallies' amendment that he supported. What do you all think about that?

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[00:13:58] Well, I think, you know, I think Strauss at this point is putting a positive spin on really bad news. And I think that's because he's a politician and that's his job.

[00:14:10] You know, I mean, up until like two seconds before the vote, you know, the meeting yesterday, he was arguing that this would be catastrophic for Seattle if they didn't end up voting for his amendment, which would have built essentially what he's calling a starter line from Westlake up to Ballard and deferred a second light rail tunnel through downtown Seattle. That was his proposal and it didn't pass, obviously.

[00:14:35] He actually wrote an editorial in that we ran in Publicola arguing for this and it ran. We got it on the night before the vote. So, you know, he was definitely urging something very different. The amendments that they passed, I mean, essentially say we're going to look really, really hard for cost savings and we're going to look really extra hard to find new revenues. And that's fine. I mean, I guess, you know, you could put it before Seattle voters again.

[00:15:04] I mean, you couldn't put it before just Ballard voters, but it's going to end up being like a Seattle vote if it happens. And I don't know, man. I mean, I think people feel pretty burned in Seattle and particularly people who are, you know, who really were excited about Ballard and, you know, maybe voted for Sound Transit 3 because it would have light rail to West Seattle and Ballard. That's how it was generally referred to in Seattle as the West Seattle Ballard light rail line.

[00:15:30] So, you know, maybe they could pass a new revenue package just for Seattle. But I think that voters, you know, right now are feeling pretty burned, at least the ones that would have been inclined to support that because Sound Transit was supposed to do it. Sandy, I worry about you and your kind of cynicism and shrugging your shoulders. And Eric is saying it's never going to happen. Like, that's probably true.

[00:15:53] However, here's an opportunity to put pressure on Dow Constantine and Sound Transit to actually do that, to really take seriously the possibility of cost-saving measures. And if the county executive and the mayor don't put pressure on him to do that, then, yeah, it's never going to happen. There's never going to be any cost-saving measures. So here's a real opportunity that could be squandered as we just shrug and say, well, it could never happen. It just seems too cynical to me.

[00:16:16] This morning, I talked to somebody, friend, with a lot of expertise, again, around the politics of Sound Transit and all this stuff. And he told me specifically about the amendment that you just cited, David, about, yeah, we've got to look for cost efficiencies, look extra hard or whatever. And this person basically told me, yeah, but if you watch that meeting, I mean, Sound Transit staff basically said in the meeting yesterday,

[00:16:41] hey, we can't revisit any of the foundational assumptions of what we're doing because that would threaten Everett and Tacoma and slow everything down. And therefore, like, you know, this all has to be baked into the cake. And so that amendment is all well and good. But basically, it was already being undercut by what staff was telling the political board and the electage was even in the realm of the possible.

[00:17:08] And they're basically ruling out any kind of thing like we did the episode with Scott Kubli about let's look at a whole different kind of train and stations and automated. That's all kind of they're not going to look at that, I don't think. I mean, with all due respect to Scott Kubli, I don't think that Sound Transit probably was ever going to be likely to go to, you know, a monorail or an automated trains or a gondola or whatever. You know, other alternatives are always proposed as these sort of magical cost saving measures. Nor do I think they're really magical cost saving measures.

[00:17:39] But, I mean, you know, I think Sound Transit, I think in saying that, the deputy CEO, Alex Krieg, you know, I think was also sort of saying that this is another example of something that could cause additional delay. I mean, he was talking about, you know, we'd have to not do environmental review until we figure this out. And that's going to push things back longer. Now, whether that's true or not, or to what extent that's true, you know, I don't know enough to know.

[00:18:05] But it does seem like, you know, revisiting the whole thing at this point, that does seem unlikely to me. I mean, whether it's a good idea, I don't know. I mean, maybe they should just throw the whole thing out and start all over. But if you just look at the way that things actually, in fact, transpire in this region with big projects, it always takes forever.

[00:18:25] And I don't know how we're going to get the process part out of it because I do think that is just such a huge part of the problem that we find, you know, we have five alternatives or ten alternatives for, you know, one fucking train station. Amazon comes in and cries that it's going to, you know, hurt their business during construction. So we have to throw everything back up in the air. And that's just one station in South Lake Union that I'm giving as an example. I think you're right. But both you and Sandeep have been talking about all the whiners and the complainers and all the community members.

[00:18:52] But it's Sound Transit itself and their designs that are so expensive. So why aren't we holding that? Well, it's their contracts that are so expensive. Yeah, it's the whole thing. So they're in charge. Dow is in charge. You know, Executive Zahili and other board members are in charge. We're not in charge. I don't know enough about the process and whether or not that will cost more money in the long run or not. I really don't. But I know they're spending way more than other places now, which leads me to believe that they don't have to be doing that. Yeah, maybe.

[00:19:21] I mean, why do we spend so much money on roads and never say anything about that? You know, I mean, I'm not trying to defend cost overruns. No, you're right. But I'm saying that none of us on this call are experts on the non-political portions of this. And I think to sort of glibly say, oh, it's just those goddamn engineers at Sound Transit that, you know, want the most expensive option. I do think everything is overengineered. I mean, the Graham Street Station is a good example. I just don't know where that's coming from, if it's coming from community pressure or if it's coming from, I mean, Sandeep was talking about goodies.

[00:19:50] I don't think people are getting that many goodies in these stations. I mean, the stations that we got in the Rainier Valley are pretty bare bones and shitty. But, you know, in any case, I don't know what the source of that is. But Graham Street Station absolutely should not be costing, you know, close to $200 million. That seems insane to me. But, like, I don't want to cast the blame on, like, Dow Constantine did a bad job or Alex Krieg did a bad job or some anonymous engineer did a bad job.

[00:20:16] Because I don't think that – I just don't personally know, you know, enough to cast blame on anonymous staffers. I think the politicians and the process are more often the problem just historically with every megaproject in Seattle. I mean, look at the Viaduct. Yeah. I think that's a fair point. But I would say the system here is doing a bad job and it's costing too much and it's taking too long.

[00:20:41] And we're doing things like rather than really – I think the culture – so, David, to your question, first of all, I think the bureaucratic culture of the institution is not conducive to them doing sort of outside-the-box thinking about this. This is very – they're pretty set in their ways. But beyond that, I think there's largely been an enormous amount of public complacency about this, at least to this point, right? And politicians respond to public pressure.

[00:21:11] And if there's no public pressure, they're going to keep, you know, doing what's sort of easiest for them. Now, maybe this will blow up. You know, Dan Strauss, as Eric has written, has been – had been until – now he's kind of trying to put a best face on it right now. But until the moment of the vote was sort of beating the war drums about it and getting some of his colleagues to put out some statements. And so maybe we will see the public start to rise up and say they want something better.

[00:21:39] But until that happens, until we see some sign of that happening, I would not expect some big thing is going to change here. We're going to figure out some new approach. So these amendments are just bullshit. Like they have no intention of holding anybody accountable or trying to save costs at all is both of what your reads are. It's not going to lead to squat. They might spend some money, but it's not going to do anything. I think they might find cost savings. I mean, I didn't say it's not going to lead to anything. But I don't think it's going to be on the magnitude of what it takes to get light rail to Ballard.

[00:22:09] And, you know, and I do think that I mean, I do think that Sound Transit has done some innovative stuff. But it's been like I mean, for example, when there's a huge problem with light rail across I-90 and they had to redo a lot of work. The Claudia Balducci said that they should just complete a starter line in Bellevue and to Redmond and, you know, and complete the rest of the work across I-90 later. They did that. But it was initially met with, you know, a lot of, you know, I would say cynicism and opposition.

[00:22:37] But I think there was a lot of political support for that. And I think you're right, David. That's what's going to happen in order to, you know, in Sandeep, in order to actually get anything to change on this. I just I don't think that they're going to do it alone with these amendments now. Yeah, I mean, I mean, in some sense, that's what Dan Strauss was trying to propose yesterday. Right. Something akin to what Claudia did in on the east side is like, no, let's just start at Ballard and build, you know, this kind of starter line in Ballard.

[00:23:06] And that got rejected yesterday. But yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was a good idea. I mean, like Barbie it for me. But some people decide with Dan, who drives me crazy because he keeps insisting that there are no buses to Ballard, which is not true. I mean, no buses to Ballard after 6 p.m., which is not true. I take the D line all the time. But anyway, in any case, like he's right on this.

[00:23:30] And like and as I as I wrote, you know, maybe a month ago, it is just crazy to me that like more people in in Seattle on the Seattle contingent in the Sound Transit Board are not outraged about this. Like Teresa Mosqueda, who's on the King County Council, was voting for parking garages because they apparently, you know, create jobs. So they redirected 100 million dollars to parking garages yesterday or to a parking garage in Renton. So I don't know.

[00:23:57] I mean, our Seattle reps, I would say, kind of fell down on the job on this one. And Katie Wilson, the mayor, indicated to me just on Wednesday that she didn't I mean, she did not say this explicitly, but she would not say how she planned to vote on the Ballard proposal. She ultimately did vote for it, but it was a pretty easy vote because it was obviously going to lose. So, you know, I just there's not a lot.

[00:24:24] There's not a lot of fierce proponents of this, except for a couple of city council members in addition to Dan Strauss. And I was I was just disappointed and surprised by that. Yeah. Kermi and Katie. Look, I mean, when you look at the Sound Transit Board, Seattle and King County has a lot of juice on that board if they are willing to really apply the, you know, you know, act in unison and apply that kind of pressure. And they didn't.

[00:24:47] There was Kermi and Katie, the exec and the mayor were essentially silent as this as this plan got cooked. Like when I said at the beginning of this, like that they got outplayed by by by Ryan Mello and Dave Summers. That's what I mean. Like like Summers and Mello got together and they said, we're going to prioritize the spine and we're going to get our stuff built. And if we have to like, you know, sacrifice, you know, Ballard or West Seattle, we'll sacrifice one of them.

[00:25:16] And they decided on Ballard for reasons that are inexplicable to also like why West Seattle and not Ballard. I mean, there are all sorts of questions about that, too. Right. Like why? Where does Dal Constantine live again? Yeah, right. I mean, that's the obvious explanation of why. Right. And and, you know, people can do their own. Yeah. Yeah. Math on that.

[00:25:38] But it really did feel like like Seattle and King County just kind of they just sort of everybody's like kind of on that board is like, oh, we just don't want to rock the boat. It's better to just like every, you know, keep everybody happy. And we're all I mean, isn't it isn't it difficult? I mean, I get your argument about the politics, but I mean, speaking regionally, the spine should be a priority for the region. Shouldn't it? I mean, you know, we're writership should be a priority. And that too. That too.

[00:26:06] The point is, it should all be happening and it should be cheaper. But anyway, it's not the point. Yeah. How often? I mean, I don't live in Everett. Everett's a small city compared to Seattle. I will just say that, like that again, Dan Strauss made the very good point that the line to Ballard has by far the highest ridership. Oh, yeah. Any any any other segment. I mean, by an order of magnitude.

[00:26:30] I mean, 100, almost 150,000 daily riders on that segment, you know, and so we can say, well, it's not fair to not get to Everett, you know, or to a Boeing access road is another station in Tukwila where, you know, they are considerably more transit deprived, I would say. But you also have to look at, like, what actually makes sense if you were just looking at this entire system sort of in a politics neutral way? Like, what's the most bang for your buck? Well, like build it and they're going to come.

[00:26:57] It's going to it's going to lead to more affordability for people who are able to take light rail, you know, and that sort of thing. So it's part of I mean, that's why we're all in favor of light rail. And how big do you think Everett's ever going to get? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. But, you know, it's more affordable to build there than it is in Seattle. The point is, though, David, you can't escape the politics of how sound transit works. So if everybody has to jump together, you have to have Pierce, Snohomish and King go together to do anything big. Right. And so.

[00:27:27] So, for instance, if we were on the power line. Yeah. Yeah. If you wanted to get that. So by allowing basically, you know, and kudos to to Ryan and to Dave, they advocated for their constituents and their needs and they got that funded. But they did it at the expense of Seattle. And if Seattle said, no, everybody's going to miss out. They could have come up with some alternative and say, we're not going to quite get to Everett.

[00:27:53] We're not going to quite get to Tacoma and we're not going to quite get to Ballard. But then we're all in it together and we've got all got to come back and figure out how to fund the rest of it. That would have been a political solution that might lead to actually getting it all done. Whereas now they got what they wanted. We didn't get what we needed. And now they're there. They're done. They don't need to do a sound transit for it. Right. Yeah. Well, it's OK, man. We can just we can still do the monorail, guys. It's not a big deal. So it's I was.

[00:28:20] Yeah, I was I was commiserating or reminiscing with Mike Lindblad in The Seattle Times yesterday that like, you know, we both kind of and I've covered transit, you know, more and more and less heavily over the years. But we both started covering transit around the same time. And we both covered the monorail. And like right now, I would be able to, you know, commute like very, very, very easily on the monorail to where I live had it been built.

[00:28:49] And, you know, and I was I was opposed to the monorail ultimately and, you know, and wrote quite a bit about it at The Stranger. But but man, you know, and now we get another one of the stations that is that would have served where I where I currently live is, you know, not only sort of deferred, but I'd say it's on the chopping block. And along with the one, you know, David, for where you live. So, yeah, I still dream the green. Deeply frustrating. Remember the green line, the monorail was, you know, the dreams of the green line.

[00:29:19] And yes, we still now that was 25 years ago, basically. And we're still not ever going to get anything on the west side of the city, like like any kind of transit, fixed rail transit. Right. So anyway, yeah. Well, speaking of the mayor, Erica, briefly, we should mention there was another what's the right word for this? Defenestration. Decapitation. Yeah. In the mayor's office this week. What happened? Yeah. Defenestration from the seventh floor.

[00:29:48] I don't know if their windows open, but they they do have a balcony. Yeah. They the mayor basically pushed John Grant, her main housing and homelessness advisor, to resign as of recording this on May 29th. He's going to be gone as of June 1st. So very, very quick. No two weeks notice or anything like that. And yeah, it's a pretty big deal.

[00:30:13] John Grant has been sort of at the center of a lot of these decisions and also at a lot of the center of a lot of the controversy over the mayor's shelter and shelter plan, her tiny house village plan, which city council did pass. But we've talked on this podcast about sort of some of the backroom controversy with the mayor kind of coming down and dictating what she thought that the council should do and doing so largely through two of her aides.

[00:30:40] One, Kate Kruiser, has been demoted essentially to a non-specified special projects role. I'm sure it's specified internally, but that's all we know about it. And John Grant was was basically shown the door. And so those are two really, really high profile positions. Kate was the chief of staff. And so, yeah, another another pretty significant shakeup.

[00:31:05] And I will say, despite some chatter that this is a sign of chaos in the mayor's office, I saw a bunch of headlines on, you know, right wing radio and Cairo and stuff.

[00:31:15] So I was talking to a centrist friend today and I do have those not just Sundeep to a different centrist friend who said, you know, that they were very impressed that the mayor was being mayoral in that, you know, she was sort of seeing that, you know, this person was not working and letting him go instead of hanging on out of loyalty and doing so in both of these cases. So that person was impressed. But, you know, I don't know what you guys are hearing.

[00:31:44] Yeah. Decisive leadership. That's no look, I actually I was on KOW's Week in Review today and I said, I don't know who your centrist friend is, but I I said something very similar. I'll tell you off, Mike. Yeah, I said something very, very similar. Look, Kate Kreutzer and John Grant are we're not just activist allies of the mayor from, you know, when when she was an activist outside of City Hall.

[00:32:09] They're her personal friends like like, you know, these are longtime personal friends of the mayor that she brought in with her. And I'm sure it's a painful personal decision on her part to, you know, either part ways or or or move them around.

[00:32:28] But she made that decision and she did it because it wasn't working right, because the relationships with the second floor had gotten seriously, seriously frayed, largely because of how these folks had come in and interacted with this separately elected branch, legislative branch of government.

[00:32:50] And I give credit to the mayor for putting the kind of the workings of her office and of municipal government ahead of her personal relationships, you know, in making kind of these decisions. I mean, they're some ways kind of cold blooded decisions. But, you know, she wants to be successful as a mayor. Sometimes you got to be, you know, you know, ruthlessly, you know, rational about what's working and what's not.

[00:33:19] And it seems like she's doing that. Yeah. And I heard that the second floor of City Council floor was was pretty. One of the words I heard was elated. I was on I was on Week in Review with Joy, the council president, Joy Hollingsworth, and she was very diplomatic about it. Whereas I was very blunt about what all I've been hearing since day one about, you know, relationships between these mayoral aides and some of the council members.

[00:33:49] And I'll put it this way. I don't think Joy disagreed. I never saw her disagree with anything I said about how things had gone. Oh, man, they should have had me on during that one. That sounds like a fun show. Yeah, you heard you heard it. Invite Erica on. With Sandeep. With Sandeep. Yeah. That's it for another edition. And Joy. Enjoy. That's it for another edition of Seattle Nice. She's Erica C. Barnett. He's Sandeep Kaushik. I'm David Hyde. Thanks, everybody, so much for listening.