Spinning in Circles: Seattle's Police Chief Carousel, Sayles Saga and KCRHA Layoffs

[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. And Erica, I want to have a start by thanking listeners who donated at patreon.com slash Seattle Nice because you're gonna be able to find us now on YouTube. But the URL is kind of confusing here. It's youtube.com slash at Seattle Nice podcast. You have to add the ad.

[00:00:36] Are you saying that we're gonna be live and on camera? Well, not live, but we're gonna be on camera for all our listeners to look at our beautiful and not so beautiful faces? Yes, disturbingly. Yes, you to Sandeep Kaushik. Welcome political consultant Sandeep Kaushik. I'm gonna have to start wearing like pancake makeup here. Maybe. Yeah. Oh, my God. You're not already? Maybe. Yes. I'm gonna go. Erica, you should go back to like your goth era. Like, you know, like, I can dress up like Marilyn Manson.

[00:01:06] And Sandeep, you could go back to your insane clown posse. That's right. There you go. I'll get my black lipstick out of store. All right. On today's show, layoffs at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, a candidate in meltdown mode, the search for a new police chief. But first, Erica, you've got a story here, a blockbuster about police chief sales. What's the scoop? What's the story?

[00:01:33] I reported this last Friday, so listeners may already be familiar with the story. But the interim police chief, Andre Sales, filed a complaint against a detective who has been a detective for about 30 years from various departments. She was a hate crimes detective at SPD. The complaint is because she spoke at a rally against the two Let's Go Washington initiatives. There's an anti-trans girls in sports initiative and an anti, I would call it an anti-student privacy initiative.

[00:02:03] So this is a pro-LGBTQ rally held by No Hate in Washington. She had permission to speak, but sales filed a complaint saying that she had been insubordinate and that she had been dishonest. And those are both incredibly serious complaints that if they were upheld, you know, could have ended her career, could have, you know, she could have had her law enforcement certification with revoked.

[00:02:29] And so essentially sales was alleging that she had mischaracterized what the initiatives did. And one of his sources for that claim was Brandy Cruz, who's a conservative podcaster. We probably talked about her before. And, you know, she kind of went on a tear against this detective for a couple of days, contacted the police department.

[00:02:55] And and so she, you know, characterized these initiatives falsely, I would say. But sales, I guess, believed her, filed this complaint, believed her and other people who were complaining, filed this complaint, didn't talk to anybody, like didn't consult with legal or anything. And and and so as a result, you know, it was dismissed pretty quickly. But the detective was so upset by this that she decided to retire instead of returning to SPD.

[00:03:23] She was on a sabbatical. So pretty big deal. And now sales himself is under investigation. So, yeah, a lot going on in that story. But he is the interim chief. He is, you know, potentially going to be a candidate for police chief. So we'll see how this affects it. But I think it will have an impact. Before we go to Sandy, can I just ask, like, police are allowed to do a lot when they're not wearing their uniforms.

[00:03:52] Right. I mean, they can even go to those January 6 rallies as they as some did, you know, as long as they don't get in, you know, legal trouble themselves. Right. I mean, they have pretty wide latitude. So what what was being charged here against, you know, by sales or alleged? Yeah. One of the things that he was claiming was that I believe and, you know, and I've seen the the intake file on a lot of documents. But I'm having to infer some of this.

[00:04:20] But he was claiming that she, you know, mentioned SPD or said that she was with SPD or said she was representing SPD, which absolutely did not happen. And I'm saying I'm inferring that because it's it was pretty clear, you know, from you could you could watch the videotape of her speaking as of the day after this rally, which was last November. And she clearly did not. I mean, she abided by her agreement. She had written permission to to speak at this rally.

[00:04:49] So, yeah, if you're not in uniform, if you're not representing yourself as SPD, you have free speech rights and they're written into not just the Constitution, but the Seattle police manual. So one of the things that the investigators concluded in this in their dismissal of the case was that if he pursued or if anybody continued to pursue her on this stuff, that they would be violating her constitutional rights and that they would be opening SPD up to a lawsuit. So it was pretty firm.

[00:05:16] I mean, yeah, they have they have pretty strong free speech rights, just like every other citizen. And, you know, it's telling that, you know, that you're right. I mean, they go to that. They went to the January 6th rally, a lot of them. And they also frequently speak out in very conservative forums like Mike Solon, the former police union director, had a podcast that was incredibly incendiary and often false. But nobody complained about that, or at least it didn't reach this this level.

[00:05:44] But, you know, as soon as as soon as a police officer says something that's perceived as left wing, it's, you know, incredibly controversial. And you have Brandi Cruz making, you know, a field day of demonizing this woman. Sandeep, what do you think? Well, yeah, I mean, I read the story, Erica, when it came out and I was there is a lot to unpack in it. And I, you know, and I am still kind of the question David was just asking.

[00:06:11] I still am mystified by what interim chief sales was thinking. The violation here was right. Because, as you say, the detective in question had prior permission to participate in this event. Right. So it wasn't like this was they were blindsided by it. You kind of cleared it and advanced. And so what gives? I don't know. That's just kind of weird.

[00:06:36] But the other thing that struck me in your piece, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you said that the the mayor said that they were aware that this complaint had been filed by the interim chief. Prior to appointing him the interim chief. And so that also is kind of, you know, interesting and worth sort of sort of noodling on. Right. What is that? What's going on there?

[00:06:59] Did they decide that it wasn't relevant or that it was, you know, did not rise to level or that there were other reasons why sales should be appointed the interim chief? You know, right. Yeah. So, yeah. What does that mean? Yeah. I mean, I think there's you know, this goes back to a theme that we've hit on a bunch of times in the show. I mean, I think that so I so I confirmed it. The mayor's office then later confirmed it with me that the mayor knew.

[00:07:28] But what I've since learned is that she had not actually or I do not believe she had actually read the entire intake and the complaint and all the information that I have, because she seemed to have characterized it. You know, so she went to the LGBTQ commission and told them that my story was coming. And this was before they had gotten back to me and characterized it in a way that was false.

[00:07:56] But I think they did so based on having read just like the little closed case summary that's available online to anybody. And that, you know, said one thing. It basically said that that, you know, she had not misrepresented herself as a member of SPD. And so the mayor and her aide basically said this is no big deal. You know, he was wrong. It's fine. I think that she genuinely didn't know.

[00:08:23] But the reason I say it hits on a theme we've talked about a lot is that she shouldn't have been characterizing it if she didn't know. And I saw that story. I saw a story about the meeting with the commission and Seattle Gate News. And I was like, what the fuck? Because, you know, first of all, going to the commission and warning them about my story before it comes out or telling them is just it's very weird. And it was they hadn't gotten back to me yet when they did that.

[00:08:50] But like, B, you know, you're mischaracterizing it inadvertently or not. And like and I and I have the whole story. It's just not the way it happened. So, yeah, it was just it was just very. So I think it speaks to sort of the mayor getting out over her skis or whatever the saying is again.

[00:09:10] Yeah, I mean, it goes it goes back to, I think, the really hasty nature and abrupt nature of the decision that she made in the heat of the moment during the immediate aftermath of the bite of Seattle shooting fallout to ask for Sean Barnes's resignation. Right. Right. And so there wasn't any kind of groundwork laid and they had to kind of move very, very quickly. Obviously, we knew the whole thing with Sean Barnes blew up when he refused to resign.

[00:09:37] And then they had to do this kind of frantic 23 hour negotiation with him that resulted in his seven hundred thousand dollar, you know, settlement payout for him to for him to exit SPD. And they had to, you know, hastily appoint an interim. Right. You know, without any kind of preparation and vetting and then, you know, thoughtful decision making.

[00:10:02] And it just goes again to like, boy, that was a fuck up on there, you know, leaving aside whether she should have pulled the trigger on get on, on, you know, changing police chiefs. Right. Which is a different question. There are arguments on both sides of that. I don't have strong feelings about it, but the way in which it happened clearly was a significant fuck up. It was reactive. It was in the moment.

[00:10:27] There really wasn't the groundwork laid to make that change properly. And now we're seeing some of the fallout. Hey, Seattle nice listeners. Seattle politics got you low. We'll get high with Uncle Ike's pot shop. Pissed at the mayor? Relax with a dollar joint. Pop a tire in a pothole.

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[00:11:24] Sandy, to your other question about what exactly sales was alleging. He was also saying that she lied or was dishonest about what the initiative would do. And, you know, what she said, and this is, you know, a longtime hate crimes detective, as I mentioned. She's got a ton of experience and is a parent herself.

[00:11:42] She said, look, you know, these these genital inspections that they're going to require doctors to do before they, you know, before girls are allowed to play in sports will put kids at risk. And she said, you know, I would not subject my child to that. And I believe, you know, just kind of I mean, this is a little bit speculation.

[00:12:06] But Brandi Cruz and others really focused on this idea that they're that, you know, inspections to confirm that a child has a penis or a vagina are routine, which they are absolutely not. I mean, that's a lie. So, you know, but that is that is the thing that they kept harping on and sort of saying that Detective Waring, the detective in this case, had had lied about.

[00:12:27] So, you know, I gather from that that that is kind of the nature of what sales was saying that this detective was dishonest about. And, you know, I mean, it's falling for, I would say, like a very clear right wing talking point about, you know, these anti trans initiatives essentially having no impact whatsoever, which I would say, OK, so why are we having these initiatives if that's true? But but yeah, I mean, I think that's that's kind of the nature of it.

[00:12:54] And what you're citing, Erica, is the main talking point of the anti campaign there, which clearly falls within her free speech rights, First Amendment rights, regardless of what you think about the issue. Yeah, like it's sort of like, you know, I don't I don't get it really quickly. I don't want to adjudicate the trans girls in sports issue here or whatever at all. I don't want to get I'm not interested in getting into that issue.

[00:13:16] But but but yes, to this point about, you know, did she say something like these are really contested issues in this campaign about how extensive these general inspections are going to be or whatever the pro side has is saying that the note that the anti side is exaggerating. Whatever. Right. That's just that's politics. Right.

[00:13:36] And and who is the interim chief to be saying, you know, because you David, to your point, because you exercise your free speech rights to take one side of that that that argument that, you know, this is some kind of terrible, you know, question that goes to your, you know, veracity and truthfulness. Yeah. I mean, it's just weird. Yeah. It's fine for Brandi Cruz to say that.

[00:14:03] But to but to adopt her position on this is really odd. OK, let's turn to the search for a new Seattle chief of police. The mayor came out with a press release yesterday talking about, you know, what's going to go into that search. Who's going to be leading the search? Sandeep Kaushik, a lot of a sort of long list of things that the city wants from a new chief of police. And I guess the part of the question here is who wants to be the next chief of police here in Seattle.

[00:14:30] But, you know, what did you glean from yesterday's announcement? Yeah, well, first of all, there's so much, you know, weight that is going to political weight that is going to be put on the outcome of this search, given what's happened up to this point.

[00:14:46] And and conducting a search under these circumstances was going to be difficult, regardless, even without all of the bite of Seattle sort of Sean Barnes baggage and fallout that happened. Right. I mean, you've got a relatively new mayor, an insurgent outsider, self-proclaimed socialist, you know, who just fired the African-American police chief.

[00:15:15] And now is going to conduct a search. You know, the African-American police chief, whether you agree with or not, was, you know, seen as a kind of liberal in policing. Right. Was the former police chief of Madison, Wisconsin. And so that's the kind of context in which the search is going to be conducted. The announcement was that they are launching the search and they've appointed two co-chairs for the search.

[00:15:39] Right. And it's going to be Ian Warner, who is someone I know and I'm friends with. Actually, David, somebody who's on the KUW board of directors of all these other things. I'm currently in the private sector. But during the Ed Murray administration, he and into the Durkin administration, he was the mayor's office attorney.

[00:16:01] And so Ian was very involved in the previous police chief search under Jenny Durkin that, you know, was kind of bumpy and led ultimately to the appointment of Carmen Best. Right. After there was just a rehash the history here. There were three finalists that did not include Carmen Best. There was an uproar from the black community about that.

[00:16:22] And Carmen Best was added back in as a candidate and then ultimately given the position after a lot of her back and forth and and and, you know, uproar. Right. But anyway, yeah. Ian's an experienced city guy. And like I said, a friend of mine and then and then marry you.

[00:16:48] Very, very respected, I would say, kind of kind of, you know, politically progressive leaning judge. Right. And jurors. So, yeah, I mean, I think that some of the things that I would take away from this announcement, I mean, first of all, you know, Wilson said the mayor said that she wants somebody who will be active in the neighborhoods and sort of on the ground here.

[00:17:11] I think the implication is that, you know, whoever it is, whether it is Andre Sales, the current deputy, sorry, the current interim chief or not, they need to actually live here. Sales, like Sean Barnes, maintains a permanent home in the out of state in Illinois. He also has a home here that he calls his primary home here being, you know, in eastern King County.

[00:17:38] I think the other thing I mean, you know, those are the two people that will be leading the search. But as I understand that they're going to be using one of the same search rooms that have led to some of the last more recent police chiefs. And I think that is it's a little concerning. I mean, we have a situation or we have a practice in this city of hiring sort of the same one or two search firms to find these police chiefs.

[00:18:07] And and, you know, and it has resulted in the people that we've had so far, you know, Adrian Diaz, the police chief who was ousted, Sean Barnes and, you know, other police chiefs basically going back to to right after O'Toole. So, you know, that's a little uninspiring, to be honest.

[00:18:29] I mean, I don't know that these these same few people that are involved in picking our police chiefs need, you know, have necessarily done a great job. And so if we're just kind of using the same standard issue practice that we've used for every other police chief, I think we're going to have a similar result. I, you know, have not found most recent police chiefs to be particularly, you know, Sandy, if you said that Barnes was known as a progressive police chief, and I'm not sure that that's necessarily true.

[00:18:58] He's definitely from Madison, which is known as a progressive city. But, you know, I mean, I just think that when we use the same practices over and over again to find our police chiefs, we will get similar results. Hopefully this process will be a little more open than the last one, because, you know, Barnes was chosen essentially with no public process. But I don't know, man. I mean, it's not a good job.

[00:19:24] The only reason I think people take it is that it offers prestige and a lot of money. It pays, you know, increasingly well. I would expect that this next police chief will make as much or more than Barnes, who made, you know, well over $300,000. So we'll see. But, you know, I'm not optimistic either. Well, I will say this.

[00:19:46] I mean, the mayor has an enormous amount riding on this search going well, and they're having an outcome of it where whoever gets appointed at the end of it is seen as credible and a good fit for the city. You know, the last really successful police chief search that I can think of was Kathleen O'Toole getting appointed under Ed Murray.

[00:20:14] She had real police reform credentials and was seen as the right person at the right time. I mean, I think she was kind of a bit of a holy terror when she was SPD chief. I had heard some, you know, complaints about her management style and stuff like that. But nonetheless, I think she was seen as making real reforms and making real cultural changes in the department while she was chief. That really led that selection to be seen as a really effective, successful search.

[00:20:44] And since then, they've been bumpier. We talked about the Carmen Best one. Obviously, the Diaz search was a search in name only since he, you know, Bruce Harrell had already essentially signaled that he was going to appoint Diaz. And then that blew up. As you say, there was not much transparency in the search around Sean Barnes. So anyway, the mayor's got a ton riding on this given the situation that's going on. And just to highlight for people, I have heard this going back from all of my involvement in city politics.

[00:21:13] Mayors will tell you that there is no more politically significant relationship at City Hall than the relationship that exists between a mayor and a police chief. If that relationship goes wrong, you don't get that right. The chemistry isn't there. The communication isn't there and stuff. It leads to big fuck ups. And, you know, probably played into the bite of Seattle fuck ups that happened, you know, on that Sunday night in the shooting here.

[00:21:43] So it's an incredibly important search both for the politics of it for the mayor, but also just for the functioning of the city going forward. Seattle has averaged a new police chief roughly every two years for the last 17 years. Yeah, we turn them over even faster than we turn over our mayors. Well, yeah. And even more.

[00:22:07] I mean, it's not even that that average kind of aligns the fact that we've had three blasting for like one year, you know, or less. So, I mean, it is we have and I don't know that other cities are like this. Maybe they are. Maybe this is a job that turns over a lot. Boston. Boston has a very progressive mayor. Their their police commissioner has been there since August of 2022. She ran on a defund kind of platform back in 2020 or whenever it was 2021.

[00:22:35] And this last election got the police unions endorsement. So, I mean, there are ways for progressives to do things differently, but or for cities to do things differently and more effectively than we're doing here in Seattle. That's for sure. Well, I think just really quickly. I mean, the two people, you know, Barnes and sales, the two most recent chiefs sales being interim right now. I mean, they came from, I think, very different places. And I think it is true.

[00:23:04] I mean, just this is based on my reporting and just observations that they did not really understand what Seattle was going to be like. And I think this is still true of sales because, you know, that complaint we were talking about, you know, in fairness, I don't think that he completely understood how incredibly damaging it would be to this detective in her life and career. To file this complaint.

[00:23:30] Like, I think he I think that he probably believed it was a little more trivial than it was. And, you know, and I think that they both kind of came in here not, you know, from from places and particularly Madison where they are used to, you know, the chief being beloved, the police being beloved, you know, among a huge sector of the population. The press is incredibly friendly. You know, they do like like they think that coffee with a cop is like, you know, the pinnacle of community outreach.

[00:23:57] And I'm saying that in other cities, I think that I'm not attributing that to Barnes and sales. But, you know, that that is kind of that is kind of what other places in Madison in particular are more like. So coming here with an adversarial press with, you know, a populace that includes a lot of people that don't trust the cops and just a totally different culture. I think neither of them were prepared for it. And I think that is one risk when you bring people in from outside, particularly smaller cities.

[00:24:25] You know, sales was the chief in a city or a town of about thirty six thousand people. It is just a different environment. And you can say, oh, policing is the same everywhere, which is kind of what sales said to me. You know, and it's a very diverse community that he comes from. But it is just, you know, Seattle is a different beast. And our attitude towards police is different than it is in other cities.

[00:24:47] And Sandeep, isn't it true that it might be true that we're searching in smaller cities because, you know, successful big city police chiefs probably don't want to come here. Well, yeah. Right. I mean, I mean, again, like, are you going to get the kind of like tier one candidate pool for a search like this under conditions? Like, I think that's a big open question about what we're going to get. And yes, I 100 percent agree with Erica on this.

[00:25:14] Like Seattle is a different kettle of fish than Beloit, Wisconsin or Matt or even Madison, Wisconsin. And like, yeah, Madison's progressive, but it doesn't have as the factors that Erica enumerated about our own kind of, you know, fucked up history between like, you know, how we see policing and what's happened and our own sort of, you know, version of progressivism and what have you. Like, so so it is a very different environment.

[00:25:38] And I will say this, like, it's so interesting to me how much, you know, things can kind of turn 180 over time. When Ed was became mayor in 2013, he fired the then chief and initiated a search. And I remember he brought in an interim, Harry Bailey, that blew up in his face, right?

[00:26:00] African-American cop and had appointed Harry Bailey because he wanted he felt really strongly that we needed to try to restore trust between the African-American community and SPD. But Harry Bailey, unfortunately, was very close to Spog, the political the the police union. And he reversed some disciplinary decisions against police officers who misbehaved at basically at Spog's behest.

[00:26:25] And it blew up into a huge political controversy for Ed early in his first year in office. And I remember talking to him at the time and he was like, basically like, what the hell, man? I was just trying to, like, you know, fix the relationship and get the right person here. And I and I remember I said to him at the time, Ed, you fucked up here because you pointed somebody internal.

[00:26:50] Right. And the SPD command staff at the time had all come up through the ranks together. They had all been there like 20 plus years and they were super factionalized. Like the black cops, like had their own faction and it was like Nick Metz and Harry Bailey. And then there was like Jim Pugel, the chief that had fired, you know, had his own faction.

[00:27:15] And they were it was super factionalized. They all kind of like were at each other's throats. And I just said, Ed, man, you got to fucking clean house. Right. You can't. The reason you're getting so much blowback on this is because inadvertently you picked a side in a fight where every faction has their own public constituencies. And all the other factions gang up on the faction you pick. And it's just a big public mess for you.

[00:27:37] And this just says to me that you need to, like, clean house and command staff, bring in a whole new person from the outside who can recreate SPD and change the culture. Right. Which is what he ended up doing. I'm not sure that's the dynamic now. Garica, to your point, you need somebody who really gets Seattle and understands the culture of the city here. And maybe that's more an internal hire at this point, you know. And so I don't know. Right.

[00:28:03] I mean, that's that's something that the mayor is going to have to consider as she as she makes this, you know, very, very important pick for herself. But it does feel to me like bringing someone in from the outside who doesn't get Seattle could be a real fuck up on her part at this point. Real quickly, I mean, Sadie, you've sort of touched on a on a on a thing that, you know, that I think is like one of the more irritating things to me about Seattle's racial politics, which is tokenism.

[00:28:30] And the idea that, you know, if you appoint a black chief, you've made the black community happy. And, you know, I mean, without without going into like a whole side podcast about that, I think that that is going to be a factor at play in this decision, too, because I think Katie Wilson is under tremendous pressure not to fire the black chief of police and not to hire a white chief of police.

[00:28:55] Yes, understandably so. But but the idea that like you just pick, you know, anybody who is black and that is going to be better than anybody who is, you know, Hispanic or white or Asian or other races. I mean, it is a kind of tokenism that happens in Seattle all the time. And it's very condescending, I think. And and to your point, like doesn't actually I mean, you know, is completely beside the point.

[00:29:22] You know, what matters is, you know, who is this person going to be aligned with? Are they aligned with the mayor? Are they aligned with the police union? Do they have any concept of what Seattle is like, you know, et cetera, et cetera? Like those are all more important factors than this kind of tokenistic like, well, we've we've made this community happy, happy. We can we can stop paying attention now. OK, let's move on to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

[00:29:49] Erica, you've got a story about layoffs happening there and kind of questions about the timing. Yeah. So real briefly, and as we're recording this, I have not written that story yet. So more to come. But I am reporting this week on the first round of layoffs that are happening at KCRHA. They we knew these were coming because they are taking back all the contracts, moving them to the city and county.

[00:30:15] They've been at KCRHA for a few years now. And so layoffs are happening. The interesting thing, I mean, a couple of interesting things about the layoffs. They are not really all where you would expect them to be. So the first round of about a dozen layoffs includes people that you would think would actually be needed to continue the work that KCRHA is going to keep doing,

[00:30:37] like the homeless management information system, the continuum of care, you know, all these things that are just about keeping federal money flowing in and keeping information, the data systems that sort of track people through the system. Those folks are being cut. People associated with the point in time count, which KCRHA is going to keep doing, have been cut.

[00:31:03] And meanwhile, the finance and programs people who are really, you know, probably the most superfluous at this point, they've been kept mostly whole. And so there's a lot of question right now about why is Kelly Kinison, the CEO, choosing these particular people to be cut? And then the way it was done was pretty shitty. I mean, they let everybody know last Wednesday that there are going to be, you know, about this many cuts coming.

[00:31:30] And they were like, well, you'll have more information after the weekend. So everybody got to agonize over the weekend. And then on Monday, they sent out another email that was like, OK, we're going to send out an email tomorrow. And if you get an invite to this meeting, then you're laid off. And so, I mean, it's just like such a shitty way to handle it. And then Kelly Kinison, the CEO, and her right-hand guy, William Towie, were not at the office.

[00:31:54] They were both conveniently at another meeting across the, you know, nearby at King County Council, both attending, which is, you know, I don't think I've really seen them do that. So they weren't there. And to top it all off, Towie got a promotion amid all this. His title has been elevated. And then a couple other folks got demotions.

[00:32:22] So just kind of like, I don't know, why are you handling it this way on the way out? We all know that KCRJ is basically going to go away. But they're doing it in a chaotic way that is, you know, potentially kind of damaging to their ability to keep doing the stuff that they do need to keep doing. Sandy, but I don't know what to ask you. Do you want to weigh in? Yeah. I mean, you know, yeah.

[00:32:46] You know, is anybody surprised at anything anymore about things not, you know, being handled, you know, in the best possible way at KCRHA? You know, okay. Right. You know, like, yeah. I mean, it does seem clear that the perception has set in that they are, in fact, unwinding KCRHA permanently without saying so yet, you know. And obviously clawing back the contracts is the core of what KCRHA does.

[00:33:15] So that's sort of the, you know, the beginning of the end, even though they're, Germai, the King County exec and the mayor, you know, publicly kind of avoiding saying what we all know is obvious. So anyway, but, but, but yeah, you know, the internal dynamics of KCRHA have been fucked up since day one and they are still fucked up. You know, well, there you go. Well, it's just, I don't know. I mean, I am sort of looking at the actual people here.

[00:33:43] And like, you know, and, and, and it is, you know, they have two people at the top, Kelly Kennison and William Toey, who, you know, was Kelly Kennison brought him in for reasons that were kind of unknown to everybody while she also laid off a ton of people last year. And, you know, collectively there, they cost, you know, $600,000. I mean, they cost as much as quite a few lower level employees. They're actually doing the work. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just kind of like, I don't know.

[00:34:12] It just looks like such a, such an unnecessarily harmful way of doing it. Like, and, and just very graceless. And, you know, I mean, morale is like the worst it's ever been and they're going to have a brain drain very soon. And they do need to keep some people around. I mean, the federal money is like incredibly important. It funds a lot of our homeless services. And if we just totally fuck that up, you know, that's potentially $67 million out the door.

[00:34:39] It won't be the first time when a, when a nonprofit or a government agency is badly mismanaged and they let the people that are actually doing the work go, as opposed to the managers who made all the bad decisions that led them to the point, led them to this point. And it's not quite what's happening here, but I, but I, I do totally get your point, Erica, in terms of, in terms of some of the resentment that, that the folks that are doing the work probably feel. Yeah. I'm going to push back on that a little bit. I mean, let's be fair.

[00:35:04] Like, like once the county and the city made the decision to claw back the contracts, obviously, like then, you know, we talked about this on a previous episode. They hadn't announced any layoffs yet. So we're like, you know, are they just going to keep the staff around now that they don't have anything to do? So obviously they had to lay off a, you know, a bunch of people, but now that doesn't, you know, change the fact that this doesn't sound like it was handled in a particularly sensitive or, or, or, or, or caring sort of way. Right.

[00:35:32] And, and again, that's indicative of the kind of cultural issues that have beset the agency from its origins. Um, uh, so yeah, you know, I, I mean, I will just say I'm still a little surprised just about the, when it comes to the federal money that we have not had the Trump administration kind of weigh in yet with the sort of, you know. Well, they have, I mean, there's, there's, there's ongoing litigation that keeps going back and forth and I've covered some of it.

[00:35:59] I mean, the Trump administration weighed in very heavily and, you know, and, and talked about Seattle specifically. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So we talked, we've talked about that before, but the reason that, um, we're not hearing anything right now about decisions is because that litigation is still going on right now. Um, the Trump administration is on its heels. Um, I believe the, um, the homeless advocates won the last round, but I mean. Just this week in the ninth circuit. Yeah. So God knows like where all that's going to end up.

[00:36:29] It's just being kind of dragged on endlessly at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And, and to be clear here, what I'm saying is that, that yes, there is that going. So the Trump administration is attempting to make a global change in how federal homelessness dollars are allocated. And they want to de-emphasize, take what is essentially almost all of the federal money goes to housing first sort of stuff now. And they want to, uh, cut that back to only a third of the money or 30% going to housing first.

[00:36:57] And they want to emphasize other forms of spending like recovery stuff and, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that, that's, that's, that's ongoing. What I'm talking about is the Trump administration in LA came in directly and said, your agency is a fucked up mess and we're going to cut all of our federal funding to you. Right. And guess what? Our agency is a fucked up mess. And I'm a little surprised that they haven't done the same thing to us.

[00:37:25] It's the virtue of being a West coast city that a lot of people in the East coast still don't realize exists in a lot of ways, probably. Right. I've heard some various like speculation and theories about why, you know, they haven't, they haven't targeted, fully targeted Seattle yet. But, but anyway, who knows? I mean, yeah, that day is probably coming. Okay. Okay. We've got one more segment to get to. And if you want to hear it, it's on patreon.com slash Seattle nice.

[00:37:50] We're talking about a losing candidate having released another manifesto blaming the stranger's cheat sheet for the fact that he came up short in this election. We take a closer look at the candidates use of statistics and wonder if there might be some additional explanations for that loss. If you want to hear it, just head on over to patreon.com slash Seattle nice. And 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.