Oops, There Goes Another Million!

[00:00:00] Hi, Seattle Nice listeners, Sandeep here, asking you to consider getting involved with The Block Table Seattle. Every month at the Rabbit Box at Pipe Place Market, The Block Table convenes a happy hour conversation on timely topics of local interest with a wide range of newsmakers, civic leaders, and elected officials. If gathering in a casual setting to engage with smart people about topics of civic interest sounds good to you, please consider attending.

[00:00:26] To find out more, visit www.theblocktable.com and be sure to sign up for the email list to get alerts about each month's event. Thanks. I hope to see you there. Hey, Seattle Nice listeners. Before we get going, we just wanted to invite you all to our upcoming live city council debate. This is Position 5. It's happening at the National Nordic Museum on October 21st, starting at 6 p.m.

[00:00:54] I think doors will open at 5.30 or something like that. Erica, are you excited about this upcoming debate? I'm really excited. We're going to learn more about Julie Kang and Milu Jinks, the two candidates in that position. This is the position that represents all of North Seattle. And it's really flown under the radar this year because it's the only city council position that is up. And I'm excited to hear from these candidates and hopefully learn more about them.

[00:01:22] And I'm going to have some interviews with them on Publicola in the days leading up to the debate. Yeah, this is the race that's – it's a seat currently occupied by Deborah Juarez, who is filling out the remainder of Kathy Moore's term. Kathy Moore resigned early and so we're having an election this year on it just to kind of fill out the remainder of the term.

[00:01:46] And then it will be back – that this seat will again be on the ballot next year as part of the seven district council races that are on the 27 ballot. And so I think you're absolutely right. It's been flying a little bit under the radar screen. We're hoping to kind of bring a little bit more focus and attention on it because there's some very hot button issues in that North Seattle district around public safety, Aurora, Lake City. You know, there's a lot of – and other stuff, you know, going on there. So we're going to be trying to unearth some of that stuff in this conversation.

[00:02:17] Yeah. I mean these are issues that affect the whole city and it'll be an interesting kind of bellwether race in some ways. We've got a lot of city council races coming up next year so perhaps this might be a bellwether, a bit of foreshadowing for what will be happening next year. So starts at 6 p.m. It's the National Nordic Museum. All right. Here's the show.

[00:02:45] 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 and political consultant Sandeep Kaushik. Hello to both of you. Hello. Hey, David. On today's show, we're going to be talking about the mystery of missing monies and money issues in just a minute. But first, the current Seattle transit measure expires next year.

[00:03:14] Prop 1 is on your November ballot. It would replace the current measure, double roughly the sales tax that pays for it. And joining us to make the case for Prop 1, our very special guest, Kirk Hovenkotter. He's the executive director of Transportation Choices Coalition. So thank you so much for joining us. Thrilled to be here, David. All right, Kirk, let's start with a really basic question. If I'm a regular Seattle bus driver, what am I actually going to notice if this thing passes?

[00:03:43] How is this going to change my bus riding life? David, the renewal and expansion of the Seattle transit measure is going to make your bus come more often. It's going to make it come faster and be more reliable. And it's going to make our city more affordable by getting transit passes into the hands of Seattle Housing Authority residents. So, yeah, Kirk, can you elaborate a little bit on that? Because I think, you know, the average voter is going to look at this.

[00:04:08] It doubles the amount of sales tax that they're going to be paying for transit. It does not double the amount of transit that we're going to be receiving from this measure. So can you talk a little bit more about, you know, why that is, why we're not going to see a doubling of transit in this measure? And sort of to David's question, what will the experience be like? You know, what are some of the routes that are being improved potentially through this measure? You know, what's it going to look like if we pass it?

[00:04:36] Yeah, the Seattle transit measure is going to invest $138 million a year into transit in Seattle. About 87 percent of that is going to go to bus service. That means it's going to make buses in the city of Seattle arrive more often, which means less waits. And especially it's going to invest that service into the midday, weeknights and weekends.

[00:04:58] Which is really going to matter for those shift workers, those late night workers, those hospital workers who have to wait long amounts of time for their bus at the end of their shift. It's going to make those buses come more often. And it's going to invest. It's about a 50 percent increase in bus trips over what we've currently paid in the last levy that was approved in 2020. And that is a huge investment in bus service.

[00:05:26] It's one of the boldest investments in bus service by a city in the nation. And like so many other aspects of our society, costs have gone up to deliver that service. And that's why it might not be delivering as much service as past levies have. But it is a huge investment. And it's over 10 years as well. So this is a really bold investment.

[00:05:53] It's a doubling of the sales tax to provide something that Seattle transit riders really want. Their city really needs to thrive. Just real quick, I want to explain to our listeners that this is a city tax. So King County Metro controls the buses. And so basically we pay a little bit more on top of, you know, King County Metro's regular bus service so that we can get a little more bus service here in Seattle. So that's what this measure is.

[00:06:16] Yeah, it's basically buying additional bus hours for the city beyond, you know, what we would get ordinarily from Metro. And I did the last levy campaign in 2020 on this. Though I got to admit, I totally forgotten this was on the ballot. Like, you know, this year. So Kirk, let me ask you to give us a little bit of the history of the process here, right? This was up before council earlier this year. There was some debate about it, right?

[00:06:45] About the size of it. Some of the council members were suggesting, let's just renew this at a little bit lower rate to, you know, kind of maintain existing levels of service rather than adding additional, you know, additional service on. They didn't win that battle. And so now we're talking about an increase, right?

[00:07:05] And just so people know, I think we're talking about, what, 0.3 percent of sales tax above 0.15 percent, which is the expiring levy. Am I right about that? Correct. So it would be a 0.15 percent increase. Back in the summer, the council voted unanimously 9-0 to move this to voters this November.

[00:07:30] And that sales tax increase would be about $29 a year for the average Seattle resident. But that is going to mean more bus service. That is going to make it easier for people to live with one fewer car in the city or without a car. And AAA estimates that the average cost of car ownership in this state is about $12,000 a year from insurance, maintenance, the cost of gas, a car payment.

[00:07:56] The fastest way we can put that $12,000 back into someone's pocket is by making it easier to live with one fewer car or without one. And this is going to do that. Kirk, in terms of the campaign itself, like who's – do you have a – you guys have a political consultant who's doing the campaign? Do you have any kind of organized opposition? I mean typically on these measures these days, there's not any kind of opposition to them. And probably passage here is something approaching a foregone conclusion.

[00:08:24] But correct me if I'm wrong on any of that. Yeah. Well, in 2020, the last measure passed with 80 percent of the vote. That was a historic turnout election and one of the largest wins for a transit measure we've seen across the country. We have an enthusiastic campaign. It's the Hop On Board Seattle campaign that is working to make sure we win. And while I don't think we're going to beat 80 percent, we're going to try our darndest to do it.

[00:08:50] But it's a coalition of advocates, labor, community groups who really want to see this investment. We launched this campaign with a kickoff in September.

[00:09:07] And we have endorsements from across the Seattle political spectrum from Mayor Wilson, Executive Zahalai, all nine Seattle City Council members, labor, including the bus operators union, ATU Local 587, as well as MLK Labor and the King County Democrats. But we do have opposition. Ari Hoffman is going to be the author of the con statement that voters are going to see on their voters pamphlet.

[00:09:34] And we know that affordability is on top of everyone's mind. And when we're asking people to make an investment in their bus system, I mean, that is a tradeoff that people are making. But we really think that this investment is something that Seattle voters are hungry for. They want to be able to take the bus to the new light rail systems that have opened in this region. And this is going to be a way to help them afford their lives in our expensive city.

[00:10:02] Yeah, Ari Hoffman is a sort of hard right local political guy. He's on Twitter a lot and he has a show on KVI, I believe. And I thought his statement was kind of interesting because for a sort of right wing agitator online, his commentary was that this is too regressive because sales tax hits people who are lower income the hardest, which is an absolutely accurate statement.

[00:10:31] I just thought that that was kind of funny coming from Ari Hoffman. Ari ran for city council and that didn't work out. So now he's going to take this cause up and see how that works out, I guess, for him. I mean, look, we all think we need better bus service. We need more light rail to Ballard. But just to push back, your argument about affordability is that people could stop driving. But like, as Erica says, our sales tax is super regressive.

[00:10:59] As it is, it adds basically an extra dollar to the cost of two slices of pepperoni pizza. So there's a balance here, right? Sales tax is not a non-issue and it's a thousand cuts, right? There's nobody suggesting we're going to raise the sales tax by a dollar, but each incremental increase of the sales tax makes it that much more regressive. So I wanted to just ask one more time about that piece of it.

[00:11:22] But also another issue I saw is that the measure doesn't add enough to safety or fare enforcement, that these are things that led some folks to stop riding the bus during the pandemic because they didn't feel safe. So you're adding a lot more service here, including more service at night. But are more people going to feel safe and actually get on the bus, given that sometimes those concerns are maybe irrational? Sometimes they're not, but those concerns are real. Those are great questions.

[00:11:50] On the sales tax, we know that the only thing more regressive than a sales tax is not having the bus service to get you where you need to go. If you have a job at a hospital or at a hotel and you're waiting for a bus that doesn't come, you're paying for that in time. And we would love to have other more progressive options to be able to pay for bus service in our city.

[00:12:16] But the state legislature sets what we can use to be able to raise these funds. We're going to go to the state legislature to ask for more local options this session. But we know that when it comes down to it, transit riders will vote to raise their sales tax for that better bus service that's going to let them get to their job, spend more time with their friends and family.

[00:12:37] And I'd also say that one of the things I'm the most excited about on this measure is that it's going to add 12,000 more ORCA passes for Seattle Housing Authority residents. It's going to get transit passes into the hands of residents in our city who are facing our affordability crisis head on. And it's going to get them transit passes that's going to help them live their lives and stay in our city and take this cost off their plate. People want to feel safe on transit.

[00:13:07] And we know the one way we can make people feel the most safe on transit is having more people on transit. We've seen record ridership from the World Cup. And as we've opened more light rail lines, we're seeing Metro's ridership go just up and towards the right. But we know that standing at a bus late at night or at a bus stop late at night can be really uncomfortable.

[00:13:32] And the way we make that wait more comfortable is by a better stop environment, but also being able to get you on the bus sooner and getting you home. And so that's why I think the investments in bus service are not only popular, but they're the thing that riders really want. And I'd also point out that this investment in bus service that 87% were buying, were buying service hours from King County Metro.

[00:13:59] And as a part of those investments are the service, the security investments that Metro is making. We buy a fixed cost from Metro and included in that, is there investment in security officers on our buses at our bus stop that riders have seen a lot more of since the pandemic? Yeah, I was, I covered this for Publicola, the whole council debate about it. And there was a lot of debate and I believe they added some money for transit security.

[00:14:26] And, you know, my question was kind of, would it be better to have invested more in transit rather than more transit security? But I think you've, I think you've sort of answered that. So I'll move on. I want to go back to something you mentioned a second ago, Kirk, about a local option because the campaign did not propose and the council, you know, didn't take up one local option, which is a vehicle license fee. And so that is something that could be on the ballot today.

[00:14:55] Katie Wilson, our mayor, did not propose that. But it seems like that is a much less regressive option and one that, you know, sort of taxes the thing we want less of, which is people driving on the roads to get the thing we want more of. So why was that not part of this measure? Hey, Seattle nice listeners. Seattle politics got you low.

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[00:15:55] That's Ikes.com. Erica, you're absolutely right. It is less aggressive, but the M-VET just didn't raise that much. This is this 0.3% sales tax is going to raise $138 million, which is a lot of bus service. It's a 50% increase in bus service. The M-VET just didn't raise that much to deliver that much more bus service.

[00:16:22] And I think that's why focusing on the sales tax to deliver as much as we can was key. And it just creates a simpler message to deliver to voters. And I do think we want to look in the legislature for other options beyond the M-VET. People feel really strongly about their car tabs, especially their sound transit car tabs.

[00:16:45] And this was the sales tax is just one of the tools we're given by the legislature and the one that we led with because it met the demand that we were seeing from transit riders. I mean, I assume part of this is that the previous initiative, which would have been countywide to pass a vehicle license fee or an M-VET failed.

[00:17:03] And when we talked to Mayor Wilson about this, she said that basically the M-VET license fee is unpopular and that it was more of a political consideration. But, you know, I assume that was also part of the calculus here. Yeah, absolutely. And as well as the sales tax doesn't fall on some of the costs that are most top of mind for people, their groceries, the price of gas, things like that.

[00:17:32] So, well, I'm not going to offend that it isn't as progressive as other funding options. It was a tool that we had. And this is the way that we could get bus service running more often, the quickest for Seattle residents. So, Publicola ran an op-ed recently by Anna Zivarts of the Non-Drivers Alliance. And she was arguing that replacing Metro's Route 7, which is the workhorse route that goes down Rainier into Southeast Seattle, with a rapid ride, which is something that's in progress right now.

[00:18:00] It's not related to this transit measure, but it would have fewer stops. And so her argument is that people who are most reliant on the bus, you know, people with vision impairment, for example, are going to be left out because these stops are going to be so far apart. And so there's a debate going on over that. And I'm just curious if TCC has taken any position on that. Yeah. I mean, as a statewide organization, we don't typically dive into stop-by-stop conversations or route-by-route. But the rapid ride R is a great investment.

[00:18:29] I mean, this is going to bring frequent, reliable service to one of the busiest transit corridors in the city and in the state. And we were proud to help support the Seattle transportation levy that made a bunch of investments into Rainier to make it easier to walk to the Jenkins Park light rail station, as well as these rapid ride R stops.

[00:18:54] I think, one, no matter what, we've got to make sure that rapid ride R gets built and this project keeps going. It's a big investment in transit in a corridor that really deserves it. So, one, it's not something we dive into stop-by-stop, but this is a really key transit project for the city. Kirk Hovenkotter, thanks so much for joining us. Yeah. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah. David Sandeep, Erica, thanks for having me. All right.

[00:19:23] Let's get into some money matters, Erica C. Barnett, starting with the mystery of $8 million missing from KCRHA. This is a mystery that's been solved. The mystery of this $8 million, which they said that they couldn't find, but which they confidently asserted that the city and county owed to them, has now been solved. The city and county do not, in fact, owe them any money.

[00:19:49] And there was, according to KCRHA, which went through a forensic audit and they're now having their finances gone over with a fine-toothed comb by an outside consultant. So, according to them, it was a ledger entry error. One time, somebody screwed up and somehow $8 million just went poof. But now it's back. I'm a little skeptical about these explanations because they're very vague and a little too neat.

[00:20:17] But what they're saying now is that, oops, we're wrong. The city and county didn't actually owe us money like we said before. And I would add that really pissed the city and county off. They actually claim now that they have the money. So, mystery solved, I guess, until the next thing comes up, I guess. But, yeah, according to them, there's no problem anymore. So, just so I understand this or maybe, Erica, if you know, let me ask you.

[00:20:46] Does this mean that they found $8 million that isn't spent and they can now spend it? Or does this mean that this money was spent at some point but they didn't account that they spent it and now they can account that they spent it? Like what's going on? Exactly. So, it's the latter.

[00:21:02] So, basically, they spent this money and then they said, oh, well, it's actually the city and county's fault for not billing us for this money when we didn't, you know, when we didn't ask them to pay for it in the past at some point. And it was all very vague but they were extremely confident about the fact that the city and county owed them this money. And that's why the city and county were pretty pissed off.

[00:21:26] I mean, they sort of came at the city and county from the perspective that this was basically their fault in a way. And then to turn around and be like, oopsie, we were wrong is – I mean, I got to imagine it's kind of galling. But I'm sure that the city and county are happy to have this apparently resolved.

[00:21:48] But, like, I haven't seen – you know, they haven't identified on a ledger sheet, like, here is the place where the person put too many – you know, six too many zeros or whatever happened. And so it's – I mean, it's not normal for $8 million just to go missing. So something weird happened and we don't know exactly what. At least now we know the money wasn't like – apparently we know that the money wasn't stolen or misspent or anything like that.

[00:22:14] It was – what they're saying is it was just an accounting bookkeeping error that they've not figured out. Yeah, and I don't think that there was ever, like, a – you know, an accusation that it was stolen or misspent. But I think that it was always going to be part of the sloppy accounting that was discovered during this forensic audit. And so now they're saying it's one time.

[00:22:39] I'm just taking that with a little bit of a grain of salt because I think there will probably be more information about this that's a little more specific. Yeah, I mean, it's just hard to – it's hard to picture a one-time error resulting in $8 million unless it just didn't get entered somewhere that it was supposed to be. And it's not hiding under somebody's mattress somewhere. Also, another mystery, Erica C. Barnett, this one not yet solved. Why did SPD overpay officers millions of dollars?

[00:23:06] So what appears to have happened is that the city miscalculated – somebody at the city, possibly at SPD, miscalculated the way that officers received retroactive payments, which this is part of what happens when they get a new contract. They always tend to go out of contract for a little while. They were out of contract for a couple years. So they were basically working under their old salary.

[00:23:33] So when they get a new contract, they get retroactive payments to bring their old salaries up to whatever the new salary is. And so somebody at the city calculated that based – calculated the difference between the old salary and the new salary based on the wrong period of time. They used 2020 salaries as a comparison instead of 2024. The gap there was a lot bigger. So officers got paid a lot more on their retroactive checks.

[00:23:59] And, I mean, when I say a lot more, this is like $10,000, $20,000, up to $32,000 was the highest one that somebody at the mayor's office told me. So, you know, these are massive, massive checks. And then they're, you know, perhaps doubled by these huge extra payments.

[00:24:20] And what is unclear is if anybody at SPD informed anybody else that, you know, oops, my check was supposed to be, you know, let's say $20,000 and it was actually $50,000. So there's a lot of mystery here to uncover. But one of the mysteries is why it took, you know, over – why this happened in June. The city was sort of aware of it and informed by mid-July and now they're dealing with it.

[00:24:49] So why didn't this get reported right away when all these way too big checks hit in June? I mean those all seem like really good questions, right? It also just seems like what the fuck is going on here, man? I mean these are sort of like basic competencies of government stuff, right? You know, payroll and, you know, this is like just foundational, you know.

[00:25:15] And it's one thing for KCRHA, which is a, you know, relatively new agency that had all sorts of problems getting its act together as it was, you know, stood up. And was plagued by scandals as well as by administrative, you know, problems and failures.

[00:25:39] It's another thing for the city, which is supposed to be functional, to be making such basic errors that, you know, how much was it? $13 million extra that got like sent out to cops or whatever. And I have actually heard from someone, I've not been able to confirm this, that the fuck up here seems to have happened at FAS, at Finance and Administrative Services rather than at SVD. But I don't know that for a fact.

[00:26:07] I'm going to be curious to see what they unearth here because presumably there should be – I mean look, somebody might make an error. But there ought to be like double and triple checks here before checks get mailed to people for millions of dollars, right? And so it's at a minimum an embarrassment and really does raise questions about kind of basic functionality of city government right now. Well, and SPD, you know, at some level signed off on this.

[00:26:35] So whether it was FAS or whether it was the HR department, which is separate from SPD, you know, somebody at the city, you know, made this error. And, you know, somebody or somebody's, but it was checked and approved, you know, by the chief operating officer at SPD.

[00:26:53] And then, I mean, I just, you know, as I pointed out in my piece, like, you know, what's the difference between getting, you know, a mystery extra $20,000 and just keeping it from the city and, you know, finding, you know, $10,000, $20,000 lying around at a crime scene and just saying, you know, that's my bonus. I mean, like, I realize those are technically different things, but I mean, that is theft. And, you know, maybe you don't notice.

[00:27:19] I mean, I personally, if I had $30,000 extra in a paycheck, I sure as hell would notice it. And it defies belief that no one at SPD noticed this. I had that same question. Maybe Sandeep's got an answer to it. But I also wanted to ask you about the Workday piece of it, because in my old workplace, when we got Workday, what a fucking shit show that was, I've got to tell you.

[00:27:43] And for one thing, it means that every employee and every manager suddenly has to become, like, a computer expert and a consultant. I mean, it's an incredibly unwieldy system that every institution seems to have adopted for some weird reason. And this, you say it's not a Workday issue, but it coincided with the implementation of its dramatically faulty new payroll system Workday in 2025. So I'm just wondering what you heard about that. Yeah, well, I didn't say it's not a Workday issue. It might be related.

[00:28:12] But the mayor's office says it's not a Workday issue. I mean, you know, I don't know how much this retro pay, like, went through Workday. So I can't say. I mean, again, what the city is saying is that it's, you know, it directly correlates to this, you know, using the wrong year. So they've identified the source, according to the city, of using the wrong year to calculate people's pay.

[00:28:37] So, you know, if your pay was supposed to come in at $50,000 and you got, you know, pay on top of that, it's coming in at $40,000 and you're getting pay on top of that. So that's what they're saying the reason was. I will say, though, that SPD is saying or rather the police union is telling other media they wouldn't talk to me, but they are telling other media that they're not planning to pay any of this back. And they don't, you know, they don't see any reason to until they figured out all of the shit shows.

[00:29:05] You put it, you know, with Workday from just in the Workday is this new payroll software system that I've written about extensively. It did a lot of overpayments. It did a lot of underpayments. It just fucked up everybody's pay for a long time or not everybody's, but a lot of people's pay. And SPD, you know, as one of the biggest departments really got impacted by that, just like everybody else in the city. So they're saying, look, we don't even know how much, you know, we were stiffed.

[00:29:32] They don't seem to mention the overpayments that also happened under Workday. But, you know, they're saying we got stiffed and we're not going to pay any of this back until we figure all that out. So I don't know. I mean, yeah, I expect that the city will end up just having to eat this $13 million somehow in the 2026 budget. And, you know, maybe some of it will eventually get worked out. Maybe it won't. But yeah, I mean, Workday doesn't help, right? I mean, it just was an absolute disaster and continues to be kind of a disaster.

[00:29:59] I mean, you know, just going off your story, Erica, but the city is saying they intend to claw the money back, right? I mean, they want to – they're saying you got to pay this money back. Now, I mean, what's maddening about your story is that, you know, for some of the other unions for employees at SPD that weren't covered by SPOG, there's like contractual language that says how they're going to get the money back. In the SPOG contract, there's no such language.

[00:30:24] And so now this is like subject to some kind of negotiation with SPOG, between the city and SPOG. And it just goes again to like the – just the sheer batshit nuttiness of the police contract, right? And the fact that over time there's been an accrual of all these rights and whatever that really hamper – obviously, we've talked about in the past in the context of police reform efforts.

[00:30:51] But here, even something as basic as just getting back the overpayment is not a sure thing, right? It's subject to some kind of bizarro conversation here, which just seems ridiculous to me. Yeah, the police managers, for example, have a different contract and they have a process, as you said, that's written in. For non-represented employees, they're just going to take the money back. I mean, the city is just going to take it out of their paychecks.

[00:31:20] And, you know, I mean, it's kind of – what I compare it to is like the IRS keeps claiming that I owe them like $200. I send them a check. It goes nowhere. They don't deposit it. And then I get a note the next year. They're never going to stop bugging me about that money that they say I owe them. And the same thing goes for, you know, your electric bill, goes for anything that you – you know, a car tap. You know, we were talking about a fine that you owe the city.

[00:31:49] You don't get to just not pay it. So this is like the only instance I've seen where the police union is saying, you know what, we're not going to pay this until you do something for us. And the rest of the city was impacted just the same way with Workday, and they don't get to do that. Only SPD gets to say we're going to not pay back this extra money that we did not earn until you figure out this other problem that we've been complaining about.

[00:32:15] These are depressing stories, and it would be great to somehow tie these threads together if we can. But the third one, King County Council writing another blank check, according to a headline Danny Westneat has in the Seattle Times, approving another sales tax increase. We were talking about sales tax increases earlier. For something that's really valid, youth and family homeless aid, this is something we care about. It's not very much, $10 million a year.

[00:32:42] But the issue is that the spending plan is undefined in this story. So, Sandeep, let's start with you. What do you think of that? What I think is that, you know, we've talked about this in the past. The county gets way less scrutiny than the city does, right? They're just less attention paid to what's going on at the county.

[00:33:00] And that has meant that for all the kind of breakdowns we were just talking about at the city of Seattle, the problems at the county have been, I think, several magnitudes worse, right? We've had outright fraud in some contracts that allegedly and seem quite likely to have been the case. You know, major ethical violations.

[00:33:23] We have revelations from some months ago that there was a program where the person in charge of it was doling out money to friends and family, basically, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. But again, there's just like a kind of lack of accountability that's sort of built into the culture of the county now.

[00:33:46] So, for them to kind of appropriate $10 million without any plan or, you know, it's sort of this nebulous like we want to do good shit with this. That's great. Like I get that you want to do good shit with it, but we have no idea how this money is going to get spent or for what or to who, you know.

[00:34:06] And I just think it points to a deeper problem at the county that they say they're trying to grapple with and create greater systems of accountability. But then stuff like this keeps happening and you kind of go like, hmm, I don't know, man. So, anyway, like it seems like a real head scratcher. I mean, I can't disagree.

[00:34:31] You know, I mean, it is pretty clear that, you know, the city, even under the scrutiny that you're talking about, Sandeep, which I think is, you know, not as much as it used to be because of the sort of diminishment of the local press covering it. There's nobody really paying attention to the county in the press, at least. And, I mean, I try to from time to time. The Seattle Times occasionally writes about things. But, yeah.

[00:34:59] KUOW did, although I don't know that they're doing that same kind of accountability reporting now. They certainly broke some of these stories in the past, but I don't know if they're doing that anymore. KUOWITZ So, I mean, essentially what this does is it gives the executive control of $10 million to do with whatever he wants within the sort of broad span of youth and family services. And, yeah, I mean, I can totally see us getting in the same situation. KUOWITZ Now, granted, this is not nearly as much money, but why not have a spending plan?

[00:35:28] I mean, it doesn't have to be prescriptive. Like, this money has to go to this organization or whatever. But it's very strange to pass a sales tax increase without a spending plan. And, I mean, even the city doesn't really do that very often. So, yeah, this is a little bit of a head-scratcher. KUOWITZ I don't quite know the origins. Did this come out of the exec's office? Was this something that the King County Council cooked up?

[00:35:54] I believe the chief sponsor of the legislation to pass this, I think, is Jorge Barone on the council. But, again, yeah, nobody's really been paying attention to this. So we should say that this was in the Seattle Times today because Danny Westney wrote a column about it. But, again, like, yeah, I mean, it's just not a good look. Not a good look. I just don't get the kind of ethics behind it.

[00:36:22] I mean, we talk about all the important issues on this podcast that we're dealing with. And when money gets misspent, it's just so upsetting, you know, because isn't that part of our ethical concerns? I mean, we're not addressing homelessness. We're not addressing addiction. We're not addressing affordable housing when this kind of money isn't well spent. So I just I don't understand why the public doesn't get as pissed off about this as they do about all those other issues that aren't being dealt with.

[00:36:48] Yeah, I mean, for me, I have a little bit of I mean, having covered the city and to lesser extent the county and just kind of government agencies for as long as I have. And there's quite a bit of cynicism that that I have about this kind of thing. You know, 13 million goes missing like, oh, well. Well, but part of that is bred out of the fact that I think a lot of people feel like the government doesn't spend money well in general.

[00:37:14] You know, I can certainly look at the city budget and some of the stuff that we are spending tens of millions of dollars on hundreds of millions of dollars and say, you know, I think that that actually is a waste of money that I care more about. You know, as a journalist, you know, as a journalist, you know, and close observer of this stuff, but also just kind of as a resident of Seattle.

[00:37:33] I mean, I'm more concerned about the fact that we are spending, you know, tens of millions of dollars sweeping encampments from place to place every single year than I am about 13 million dollars that they're going to find some way to spend, you know, to find the money for because it's the police. And we always have more money for police. And so, you know, I get more kind of upset about that or just like cutting small programs that are doing a lot of good, which happens every single year in the budget.

[00:38:02] Then, you know, like whoop-dee-doo, the police, you know, came up with another 13 million dollar problem for us. Don't worry, we'll solve it because it's the police. I mean, that is my very, very cynical take on sort of why it's – why that kind of thing doesn't raise more eyebrows.

[00:38:21] I do think there is – even in, you know, very progressive jurisdictions like Seattle, there is a certain kind of baseline cynicism about – I mean, there's just – there's a lot of cynicism about institutions in general in American society. We've lost faith in pretty much every institution, including government. So there's that.

[00:38:45] But David, to your question though, I do think when stuff like this surface, people are like kind of pissed off and suitably, you know, outraged about it. And they were like, this is really dumb. Why don't they have a plan? What do you mean $10 million with no plan? But the problem is there's just not as much attention as there used to be on these functions. Eric is absolutely right. Even though the city gets more scrutiny, it's less – way less than it used to be, right?

[00:39:11] We used to have – there used to be – back when I worked at the county, when I was at King County between 2005 and 2007 when I worked in the exec's office, we still had two daily newspapers. And each of them had a reporter who was full-time assigned to cover the county, right? You know, like I get calls from Neil Modai at the PI or Keith Irvin. You know, I was flacking for the exec and they would be like constantly – Oh my god, those are two different people. That's right.

[00:39:41] I think I've – this is horrible, but I think I've merged them into Keith Irvin. The PI had a reporter assigned to the port of Seattle who uncovered all sorts of like, you know, bad behavior at the port of Seattle during that period in the aughts. Like that just doesn't exist anymore and people just – a lot of the public just doesn't pay a whole lot of attention even when stories do surface. They're just not really grokking that this has happened. The people who are paying attention are kind of outraged.

[00:40:08] So it's as much about the kind of atrophying of our media ecosystem, I think, as it is about public indifference, I would argue. Thanks to our listeners for supporting Publicola and Seattle Nice and local journalism. Eric, I was seeing this thing on Columbia Journalism Review and it's some 30-year-old intern bought his local paper.

[00:40:36] And so it's this inspirational story about local journalism surviving, but then it's got this terrible quote at the end. The guy says, I was asked the other day if local journalism was boring and I was like, well, it might be boring, but it's necessary. Wow. Wow. Yeah, that's a terrible quote because – Oh my god.

[00:40:57] I mean, it's so – I mean, when I hear shit like that, it's so strange to me because I just think local journalism and just local news, like following it and following what's going on, like at City Hall, for example, is so much more interesting than this constant, like, debate that's happening over, oh my god, what's going to happen in the midterms? What's going to happen? What do the polls say? Well, guess what? We'll fucking know when the midterms happen. I mean, like, I just don't – I don't read that coverage.

[00:41:26] I don't give a shit. And, you know, and I just don't understand why that is more interesting to people than, like, you know, Rob Saka going off. Somebody the other day, like, texted me and was like, I hadn't watched a city council meeting in a while. I didn't realize you have a city council member who just screams all the time.

[00:41:46] To me, like, that – just the little details and the budget stuff that actually affects people's lives in a concrete way is, like, so much more important and interesting than, you know, who's running for Congress in Pennsylvania when you're living in Seattle. I don't know. But obviously I'm a sicko. Well, I would say this. First of all, I'm interested in both. I'm obviously obsessed with the national level stuff too.

[00:42:09] But – and there is some boring local journalism, but that's just bad journalism, right? Like, there are a million interesting, colorful, you know, meaningful, important local news stories to be covered and stuff to be unearthed and stuff we talk about every week, right? And we need to see more of that, right? And so, yeah.

[00:42:37] I mean, obviously it is super meaningful and important and very directly affects people's day-to-day lives. And there's a lot of good journalism being done there. You know, fucking do it. To the extent that there's bad and boring journalism, that's on the journalism, right? That's not on the issues. A hundred percent. There's so many more. I mean, I get so many more tips than I can possibly cover. I could use five more reporters easily. Well, and help make that happen by going to publicola.com. Wait, no. How do you donate to Publicola?

[00:43:07] You go to publicola.com to figure out how to donate. You can also donate to Seattle Nice at patreon.com slash Seattle Nice. That's it for another edition of Seattle Nice. She's Erica C. Barnett. He's Sandeep Kaushik. I'm David Hyde. And thanks, everybody, so much for listening.