Seattle's Nicest Year in Review

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde here as always with Erica C Barnett of Publicola. Hi, Erica. Hello, hello. Sandeep Kaushik of Kaushik & Company. How are you, Sandeep Kaushik? Kaushik & Company, huh? Hey, hey, hey, I'm good.

[00:00:26] So today it's our annual Year in Review show. I think it might be our first annual Year in Review show or have we done this before? I'm not really sure. And we're going to be talking about a number of topics including Bruce Harrell's Year in Review. But first,

[00:00:40] we thought we'd start by winding the clock back to an episode that we did just about at this time last year. And the question was would Seattle politics be better off without Twitter? And so we've looked at that. We've carefully analyzed the outcome over the last

[00:00:57] year. The data? The data, we've looked at the data. Erica, well, first of all, Twitter still exists. So I guess we're going to answer the question. But what would your answer to that question be now a year later?

[00:01:11] Oh my God, we were such summer children. Yeah, I personally am not really on Twitter anymore. In the last year, obviously, Elon Musk I think had recently taken over Twitter. Now it's X and he's led a lot of Nazis back on the platform. Today as we're recording

[00:01:31] he let Alex Jones back on. There's just a lot of reasons that people generally speaking, progressives in particular are not on Twitter as much anymore. So would Seattle politics be better off without Twitter? Well, I would say Seattle politics is largely off

[00:01:48] Twitter. So I think that's kind of kind of answers itself. We thought we couldn't live without Twitter and I think people including myself are learning that we can. And I will just make one observation about being off Twitter for the most part, I still post my

[00:02:03] stories on there. There's a lot of people in the Seattle political atmosphere that really used to bug me and piss me off all the time. And they're just gone now. Like it's like they don't exist. And so I think what I personally learned is you can actually turn

[00:02:21] these things off and sometimes like your life is better for it. Sondip Kashik, a frequent Twitter yourself, you're pretty much on there all the time. You've actually upped your Twitter game over the last year.

[00:02:33] I have upped my Twitter. Yeah, maybe you're one of the people I'm talking about, Sondip. Yeah, yeah. Apparently I like the new fascistic reactionary Twitter is like, now that all the annoying lefties are gone, I like it a lot more.

[00:02:49] No, I mean, look, wow, there is life after Twitter. I mean, as you know, and as I said last year, like I hate Twitter, right? I've always kind of hated what it did and what it represented it and the impacts that social media has had on our discourse.

[00:03:03] I think are very clearly a net negative. I still think that's true. Twitter is very different or X or whatever you're going to call it from what it was a year ago. I am actually on there more these days for whatever reason, but it does feel like social

[00:03:19] media itself has kind of taken a hit across the board. I don't know where is the, it just fragmented. Where is the meeting place now? If it used to be Twitter, it's not that anymore. You know, Erica semi-decamped a lot of other people have too. Facebook is just

[00:03:36] dead, right? It's the place you go for to post pictures of your grandkids or there's really nothing going on in Facebook. So I don't know where is it Instagram or TikTok where all the action's happening, but it definitely feels like wherever it is, I'm not there.

[00:03:52] So if that is meant that social media has sort of declined in importance in our lives a little bit, I think that's probably a good thing. I think it's changed. I mean, I think that the meeting place aspect of Twitter is something that really has not been replaced

[00:04:06] unfortunately yet. But I think just in terms of like as a content producer or you know, whatever you want to call what I do, like, you know, it's just migrated. I mean, now I'm sort of,

[00:04:17] I'm posting everywhere on and I'm on Instagram like way, way more. I'm on threads, but that also seems to be kind of a vacant room a little bit. That's Facebook's Twitter. Is that what that is?

[00:04:30] Yeah, that's Facebook's Twitter. And I'm on Blue Sky, which Sunday if you would hate because that's where all the lefties went. Yeah, I mean, obviously people put their Blue Sky handle in their Twitter thing now and yeah.

[00:04:43] KUW left Twitter when Elon Musk branded NPR like a government sponsored organization or something like that and they left in protest. It's just not a great place to have a conversation. I've been admonished on Twitter before and I just don't like it.

[00:05:04] So it has never been my favorite thing. But Elon Musk says about Alex Jones, I vehemently disagree with what he said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not? So there you go.

[00:05:18] I'm not engaging with anything Elon Musk says, which is one reason I'm off Twitter. I mean, I will say like the algorithm is totally different now and the stuff that pops up in my Twitter feed or X feed or whatever you want to call it is really different

[00:05:36] than it used to be. And it does till significantly more kind of conservative or right wing voices or voices that I was like, why am I all of a sudden getting these various people in my Twitter

[00:05:49] feed? I don't follow any of them and what's going on here? So it is, I think pretty profoundly different than it was 12 months ago. It is different. It's interesting because I have my own account and I have the Seattle

[00:06:03] Nice account and the Seattle Nice account only follows you two and like city council people and it gets a different feed than my own Twitter account. I still think Twitter is useful for tracking the news obviously. And somewhat weirdly, I am on it more now than I was.

[00:06:19] I don't find that weird at all, Sandy, because you are obsessed with the Twitter left and they finally left and now it's you and your people. Yeah, well, it's not really my people. Like I said, I'm getting a lot of right wing stuff.

[00:06:32] I don't really consider those people my people but I do think some of the people that I found most ultra ideological and there's less of the kind of Twitter car wreck pile on stuff now.

[00:06:45] And I do like that but there's less of the kind of a year and a half ago or two years ago, Twitter was just a train wreck. You went on there and it was just like who was being ostracized? What were the massive idealized?

[00:07:02] Well now it's just everybody... Yeah, now it's just the right doing that. I noticed on Twitter the other day that one of the stories that we ran was going crazy and I went to see why is this getting so much traction on Twitter and it was because Jason

[00:07:17] Rantz, our local right wing commentator had posted a thing mocking a story that we ran and it turned into this long thread of people mocking me and mocking the woman who was quoted in the piece and just this like pile on of bizarre, parasocial hatred.

[00:07:35] And I said thank you very much and I clicked away and that's the last time I've been on Twitter. So social media is alive and well is what you're saying. Let's talk about some of the biggest stories of the year starting with Fentanyl. Who wants to start,

[00:07:49] Erika? I guess I can start. I mean you know the Fentanyl epidemic continued to escalate all year this year in Seattle everywhere else too. There was a big story in the Seattle Times today,

[00:08:02] Sunday as we're recording about safe consumption sites but I think the big sort of local angle on that story this year was this drug law that kind of consumed the debate about drugs and

[00:08:17] you know quote unquote disorder generally for much of the year. This is the law that made it possible for the city attorney to prosecute people for using drugs in public or for possession of

[00:08:29] drugs and you know it also kind of ate the election. It became one of the only couple of issues that existed but you know surprise surprise we did not make a lot of progress on

[00:08:40] Fentanyl this year. It is an issue that cannot be addressed by just cracking down on people using drugs in public because addiction doesn't work that way but you know it did become kind of the

[00:08:52] major issue of not just the elections but you know I would say of the entire year. Sonny, 47 arrests have been made according to KOW as of the end of November according to SPD

[00:09:04] of those arrests 33 people have been diverted but to Erica's point you know what's your take at this point on the outcome, the fallout, the aftermath? Yeah well Erica's point is well taken that the

[00:09:17] drug law did kind of take over the it became the central sort of focal point of the council elections we just had where you know kind of moderate progressive candidates ended up pretty much decisively beating or at least across the board beating some of the races were close

[00:09:34] but at least across the board beating more left-wing candidates and it was largely because that drug law became a proxy for a larger debate we're having in the city around public safety so

[00:09:44] but I will say like the stats you just reeled off David like the disjuncture between at least so far the actual impact of the law and yet the symbolic importance that took on

[00:09:56] over the last year in our politics is really like astronomically wide. I mean first of all even your 47 arrest statistic if you parse that a little more I mean the first day the law went into

[00:10:10] effect they did an enforcement action at 12th and Jackson and 3rd and Pine that netted something like 20 plus arrests on just on one day right and then since then it means they've been the

[00:10:21] laws being invoked I think less than once every two days or right around you know one arrest every other day so that's basically a case where SPD is barely using this law that figured so

[00:10:39] prominently now whether that's going to change or not in the future I don't know but right now in terms of its reality and its impact it's kind of a nothing bird. But and this is exactly what

[00:10:49] I reported and I was kind of scoffed at at the time but I reported this you know early on when they started debating this law that you know this law is not going to have the kind of amazing

[00:11:00] incredible impact that its proponents have claimed and the reason for that is you know very obvious and it's something we've discussed on this podcast a bunch of times there is not you know there's not sufficient space in the jail there's not sufficient funding for alternatives like lead

[00:11:18] so I mean you can't you there's only so many people that lead which is the main diversion program can take on the ability of the city attorney to prosecute these cases is limited

[00:11:28] because they have a lot of other stuff on their plate so you're talking about you know expanding the possibility of you know arrest prosecution diversion etc but you're not expanding the actual system that has to do that so it was entirely predictable and in fact you know

[00:11:43] Lisa Dugard from the Purpose Dignity Action which runs lead was saying this from the very beginning it is not you know gonna be an impactful law unless you know we expand the jail capacity unless we fund lead which you know Bruce Harrell's budget and that was just passed

[00:12:02] did not do so you know I mean if you don't expand capacity you're not gonna expand access you know or jail so this was this was pretty predictable it seems like Lisa Dugard is beating

[00:12:13] the drum to try to get more funding for lead around this drug law Sarah Nelson has said that that's her number one priority I think for next year so are we gonna I don't know if it's lead

[00:12:25] particularly but sort of drug treatment drug rehab is that going to change are we going to see a lot more funding for this stuff including lead next year there are it remains to be seen but

[00:12:33] there are definitely some what I would call preliminary conversations going on with people like Lisa Dugard that I've had a little bit of involvement in my DSC role about you know can we

[00:12:46] come up with a better approach you know what we need to really address the the the fentanyl crisis that's unfolding on our streets whether those conversations go anywhere or not I don't know

[00:12:58] it remains to be seen but um but I think that the need is definitely there right and I will just just really quick to what Eric was saying before back in September when the drug law

[00:13:08] that quote unquote new version of the drug law finally passed and we did an episode of Seattle nice about it it what we did predict kind of this right I mean we you know Erica's right we said

[00:13:18] I think we were in agreement like where's the mechanism of diversion where's the the treatment slot where's the other factor I think is also with public safety initiatives typically if you want a sustained response from SBD on it it requires a lot of top down

[00:13:37] kind of involvement and pressure from elected officials from either the council or the mayor's office and so I think this raises a question about whether they're really pushing on SBD to kind of

[00:13:49] kind of actually enforce this law or whether there was a sort of you know first day kind of splashing show and now things have sort of reverted but but there goes larger points

[00:13:58] structurally where we are lacking I think a lot of the the struggle right I mean we said at the time it felt like smoke and mirrors like a lot of the stuff that they the context they had built

[00:14:08] around the the punitive part of the law when they passed it in September and that seems to be playing out on our streets so a couple things to respond to what you said Sandy you said that the that

[00:14:18] it remains to be seen if there's going to be funding we actually know that there's not going to be funding for this next year Sarah Nelson's big push to get abstinence based private treatment funded ended up with I think $600,000 I could be wrong about the exact number

[00:14:34] so forgive me if I am but I think it's 400 a fairly insignificant amount of money in the scheme of the budget so so that just does not remain to be seen it is seen and known and then the other

[00:14:47] the other point about you know SPD you know during this big push I think we need to stop being naive about these things or phone naive or whatever it is that you know the proponents of

[00:14:58] these kind of crackdowns are SPD always does a big showy push and you know has some big event and surrounds an intersection and goes in and arrests a bunch of people and then doesn't do anything

[00:15:10] again on you know whatever it is until the mayor says or you know or Tim Burgess the deputy mayor says we got to go in and crack down on this corner it's all smoke and mirrors I mean

[00:15:19] when it comes to this law in particular they can't there is like as I said there's just simply not the capacity so SPD is not going to go in and handcuff a bunch of people and what that they

[00:15:30] can't book for using drugs in public and take their drugs away that is just a dumb use of SPD resources and even if it wasn't we don't have a history that shows them doing any kind

[00:15:43] of sustained push like that on any similar law in recent history so I think we just need to stop like paying big attention to these stories I think it's you know ridiculous the kind of play they get in

[00:15:56] the media you know it's splashed across the front page that SPD goes into 12th and Jackson every now and then an arrest 20 people I mean honestly that should be like you know the bottom of the local section whatever the equivalent of that is because it's it's generally pretty

[00:16:10] meaningless well and people who voted against the law quoted Seattle nice or used the phrase smoke and mirrors and you still both disagree about that it seems like about whether or not the law

[00:16:25] should have been passed at all right well yeah no I think because it's smoke and mirrors it shouldn't have been passed right I was at the end of the day supportive of the law but

[00:16:36] also as I said in September I think maybe smoke and mirrors was actually my my term at the time but um uh that that at least the wrap around stuff the 27 million dollars and you know that stuff

[00:16:49] that got announced as sort of this is why we're now able to pass this law that did feel mostly like smoke and mirrors I mean the one tangible thing as we said at the time that is likely to come out of this is an opioid overdose recovery

[00:17:04] site though even that is moving forward at a much slower pace than I would like right and in part because the particular funding sources they've used are very difficult to access and you know

[00:17:20] there's a series of issues that are slowing the progress on that in ways that I think are very um frustrating so well okay so maybe the the drug law isn't living up to some of the promise

[00:17:34] but fortunately we've got another institution to talk about the king county regional homelessness authority how it performed over the last year both of you considering that maybe the biggest story or the second biggest story Erica tell us about why you think king county regional

[00:17:49] homelessness authority is the other thing that people should be uh reviewing when they're doing their annual year in review you know on New Year's Eve yeah I think it's actually relevant and it'll look forward way too because the homelessness authority was you know established as the

[00:18:04] sort of overarching authority that's going to address homelessness for the entire region we know Seattle and other cities said this is a regional problem it's not a city by city problem so we're going to do something about it by creating this agency I was skeptical about

[00:18:17] that from the very beginning because I don't I mean again it's it's about funding it's about resources it's not about just reorganizing the deck chairs but they did it and in this last year

[00:18:29] of course the founding CEO Mark Jones resigned after you know a series of sort of just a lot of conflict and failed initiatives and initiatives where people told them that this isn't going

[00:18:43] to work and they moved ahead anyway and so that was like the big symbolic thing you know that if not failure a major setback so during all that there was the implosion of a hotel program that was

[00:18:58] run by the lived experience coalition which we talked about a lot this year so I won't go into too many details but there was sort of just a series of catastrophes the next thing

[00:19:10] that happened after that was that the sort of big push to do to fix homelessness downtown or to end visible homelessness downtown which is supposed to happen by last year did not happen they closed

[00:19:21] down the program they hired a bunch of people who had were formerly homeless and ended up they hired you know dozens of people ended up laying them all off so it's just you know

[00:19:32] a series of really really bad headlines for them so why is the story looking forward because stuff is still going on you know mark don'ts is gone but I think that morale at the agency is

[00:19:43] low a lot of people very high up in the agency have departed the number of jobs that are open at the KCRHA right now is I believe in the dozens for you know pretty small agency about 100 people

[00:19:56] I think and you know there's I think there's real skepticism about whether this was the right direction to go and at the same time and then I'll shut up there is the question of funding

[00:20:08] the city of Seattle is the main funder and as we know the city is facing potential 200 million dollar plus budget deficit next year so you know the Calvary isn't coming and so I think that

[00:20:20] there's going to be some real questions next year especially when people you know perhaps on the new city council start saying you know this agency isn't performing and that's kind of a chicken and egg problem but you know I think there's going to be some real questions about

[00:20:33] survival and last last thing I'll say is that they also they also still need a CEO they don't have a permanent CEO yet and it's not clear how that search is going I do think that King

[00:20:46] County RHA regional homelessness authority and its its woes over this last year that that Erica has detailed is arguably the biggest story of the year because of how profound the implications are right I mean I think Erica's description of KCRHA and the fact that it's on a

[00:21:06] pretty shaky footing at this point and that I think a huge amount is lying on how this CEO search goes right a huge amount of of its future viability I think people are investing in it

[00:21:21] they better produce something out of the search and come up with a leader who's going to be able to work to reassure various stakeholders and players and elected officials regionally that this is a viable institution and is on a pathway to become more effective going forward

[00:21:41] I think that all kind of hangs in the balance right now and as a result our entire kind of homelessness response maybe not our entire homelessness but much of our homelessness response is sort of you know in some kind of uncomfortable stasis right you know some of these

[00:22:00] big splashy initiatives they've pulled back on it's not clear that there's a real plan or agenda or strategy going forward on homelessness you know everything seems like it's kind of in this weird liminal flux state right now and we're talking about you know what for the last

[00:22:21] five plus years has been five far the biggest problem in the city which was you know rising levels of homelessness so it's a huge issue right how this plays out how the future of kcrha plays

[00:22:33] out is a huge issue with really profound implications thank you professor kaushik and professor barnett now let me turn to the question of bruce heralds year in review not enough progress you're saying on homelessness or on the fentanyl crisis

[00:22:49] bruce heralds been there he's been mayor uh he's going to be mayor next year too with a new friendly council but how would you rank bruce heralds year in review erica barnett giving him

[00:22:59] a letter grade a b c d or f jesus christ wow yeah you know i love this topic of uh grading people on on their year i mean you know look bruce herald um you know as sandif has pointed out and

[00:23:16] as i pointed out i mean really one big in the last election in the sense i mean he has a city council that is allied with him uh you know almost entirely with the exception of uh tammy moralis his former

[00:23:28] foe for city council the new nick lakata tammy moralis yeah i guess so uh so it's a in that sense it was a a good year for him but you know i think if you are a person interested in policy and

[00:23:43] actually like making progress on the problems that we have like i am you know as you said i mean these problems are as bad as they've ever been i think there's only so much impact of any mayor

[00:23:53] can have on the fentanyl crisis which is a national problem and it is a problem of addiction it's public health so you know i don't want to necessarily trash him for not solving that

[00:24:04] you know i think at the same time i mean we have not seen a lot of progress on homelessness a lot of these problems are continuing to get worse and um as i said i think last week the uh

[00:24:17] completely allied council you know could be less of a blessing than a curse in some ways because now there is unanimity more or less on the direction the city should go and so they've

[00:24:28] got to make some progress on the things that they say they want to do like you know increasing the number of cups in the city like cracking down on drugs more and like just solving all of the

[00:24:41] problems that the city faces so you know now there is there is you know sort of a mandate and i say sort of because a lot of these races are pretty close um so what is Bruce Harrell going to do

[00:24:51] now i mean i think on the flip side people who are upset at the presence of visible homelessness downtown um are probably pretty happy with the mayor because he has really increased sweeps downtown so you don't see the kind of encampments that you used to see

[00:25:08] post covid or post the um covid shutdown so um i think that you know i've certainly heard people saying wow you know everything just looks so much better things must be getting better and it's like well yeah because people are coming back downtown and because Harrell is

[00:25:21] you know ensuring that the streets are swept of homeless people but that doesn't mean they're not homeless anymore. Sonny Kaczek Bruce Harrell's year in review Erica giving him i'm gonna say that's a

[00:25:31] b-minus what would you what would you what would your letter grade be and on what basis and then and then just moving forward you might as well go the professorial route last question goes to you Bruce Harrell's year in review and the challenge in 2024.

[00:25:46] King Bruce King Bruce how do i grade King Bruce now um uh look if we want to assess the mayor in terms of political popularity and political influence over the last year

[00:25:57] i think he gets an A grade right i mean he's had a very good year on those fronts i mean he's really demonstrated that his you know imprimatur his endorsement really seemed to have mattered

[00:26:09] uh in the council races he's broadly popular the public clearly likes him and they think at least his heart is in the right place and that they want to be aligned with him and and you know he sort of calls for greater emphasis on things like public safety

[00:26:25] or you know cleaning up how the city looks and stuff like that that said like you know this is a kind of year in review sort of episode that we're doing here and one of the recurring themes we've

[00:26:37] had on Seattle nice over the last year is you know kind of where's the plan like where's the fentanyl plan where's the homelessness plan where's the you know what is our strategy what is our approach these big looming issues and problems that we're facing as a city

[00:26:56] and i think we're still looking for that what is the broader direction i think Erica's right to point to the fact that yeah there's been some you know kind of visible progress on encampments downtown or things like that but the fundamental underlying problems are still there and maybe

[00:27:19] as bad if not worse than ever right so what are we going to do about that right and i think that's that's the big question now for for the mayor and his team and for this new council if we

[00:27:32] talked about this last week like balls in your court you got the big win you have a unified you know kind of political leadership for the most part so what's the what's the play

[00:27:45] right what's the what's the plan and let's be realistic do you sunday last question i'm stealing the last question away from david do you think it's likely that there actually is a plan because i

[00:27:57] you know we say things like this like what's the plan and like and i'll just to state the obvious i don't think there is a unified plan because i think if you know if bruce harrell like had something

[00:28:07] you know brilliant up his sleeve he would have revealed it by now and i'm not saying again i think some of these these things are just endemic crises that are happening all over the

[00:28:17] country but you know i think we're also no mayor is ever honest about that and so yeah you so when you're saying what's the plan do you actually mean that are you being rhetorical no well i

[00:28:28] i i don't know that there's a plan right now i will say again as i mentioned earlier in the in the podcast i think there are some conversations coming together right now some very nascent conversations with stakeholders around on issues like the fentanyl crisis or issues like homelessness

[00:28:46] to kind of kind of say what can we do in this new political reality to pull together a plan so no i don't think those plans exist right now i'm what i'm saying is there some potential here that we

[00:29:00] may see some of that emerge over the next several months but but maybe not right i mean i think it's an open question right of of whether the city is going to get its act together and develop a

[00:29:12] kind of strategies on some of these problems that they can coalesce support around i think that's one of the things we're going to be looking at in 2024 to see whether that happens okay that's

[00:29:23] it for another edition of seattle nice thank you so much for appreciating this program over the last two years it's the two year anniversary of seattle nice you may recall loyal listeners that our first episode was about the recall the unsuccessful recall of shama sauant now sauant is

[00:29:42] leaving the council so it's an interesting bookend for us for the last couple of years if you've been enjoying this important programming taking you inside seattle city hall and seattle city politics

[00:29:53] please support it now by going to patreon go to patreon slash seattle nice to support it and to support our fantastic editor quinn waller for everybody here at seattle nice i'm david hide with sandeep casheck and erica c barnett thank you so much for listening