Tent City Gets a Reprieve, Council Rolls Back Ethics Rules, and Kshama's Back, Baby!

[00:00:10] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde, here as always with Erica C. Barnett of Publicola. Erica, how you doing? I'm good, kind of as always. I wasn't here last week, but I'm back. Oh, that's true. Yes, Erica C. Barnett, back. She's back. She's not the only one who's back. We're going to be talking about a politician who may be back in just a minute, but I should also mention that Sandeep Kaushik is here. I am here, yes, and I never laugh, so there you go.

[00:00:39] Yeah, we're taping a little early. If we sound sleepy to start, it's like 8 a.m. Friday morning. That's how dedicated we are to this bringing you the news here on Seattle Nice. So let's just let's jump right in to ethics rule changes. Seattle City Council accused of being unethical.

[00:01:00] Right, Erica, after a vote to change the ethics code that would essentially allow people to vote on matters where they might have a financial interest, which is which is kind of outrageous. Some would say. How about you? Well, I mean, what is outrageous to me is, you know, a couple of things. I mean, one is that the people who are voting for this and supporting this, the five members of Sarah Nelson's governance committee, you know,

[00:01:29] most of them claim that this is not rolling back ethics rules, which it absolutely is. The current rule says that if you have a financial conflict of interest and you would benefit or be harmed by your vote financially, you are supposed to recuse yourself from that vote and abstain. And that does happen. It doesn't happen that often, but it has happened in the past. And and now the rule will be once, you know, assuming this goes through at the full council,

[00:01:55] that you just have to say that you have the financial conflict and then go ahead and vote anyway. So it is absolutely a rollback of ethics rules. So that's number one, that they're claiming that's not what it is. And two, they are doing this in advance of a vote to change some of the renter protections, to roll back some of the renter protections that were passed by the previous council. And the conflict of interest that a couple of council members have is that they are landlords.

[00:02:21] And so they have, you know, potentially a direct financial interest in the outcome of that legislation, which is designed to, you know, the original legislation and laws were designed to prevent evictions. And they're going to be rolling back some of those in the next few weeks. So it's just, you know, it stinks to high heaven. One of the people who is a landlord on the council wasn't even elected, Mark Solomon. He is an appointed council member.

[00:02:47] So there's just there's a lot of stuff to be concerned about here. You know, you said, do I think that they are corrupt or unethical? I mean, I think this is a pretty unethical vote. And I think it will permanently, you know, roll back ethics rules for the city of Seattle that have been in place for 45 years. So it's a pretty big decision by a bunch of people who were just elected in 2023 and maybe one-termers in many cases. So it's really consequential.

[00:03:14] Before we go to Sandeep, Wayne Barnett says he thinks disclosure is sufficient. Wayne Barnett, head of the Seattle Ethics Commission, says this is OK. Yeah, I mean, and I think that speaks to the fact that in our system we have this, I mean, it's kind of bizarre. We have an Ethics and Elections Commission, but Wayne Barnett, who is the president, he's not a member of the commission. He's a city employee, you know, has tremendous power and say and sway over, you know, over ethics rules and how they're interpreted in the city.

[00:03:43] The Ethics Commission can, of course, overrule him. But one of the votes that they made yesterday on Thursday was to essentially give Barnett himself and whoever succeeds him more power by requiring changes to the rules in the future to be run by Wayne and not by the entire commission within five days. So the fact that one person thinks that this is fine, he said he's from Boston and that's what they do there and named a bunch of other jurisdictions, including Arkansas, Alabama,

[00:04:13] Florida that have similar rules. You know, that doesn't inspire a ton of confidence in me because he is just one person. And, you know, he's he he was sort of acting like a political philosopher yesterday. And, you know, we we didn't elect him either. Sandeep, which Barnett do you agree with? Erica C. Barnett or Wayne Barnett? This is one of those cases where I think I'm on Wayne's side of this. For one thing, Wayne Barnett, the city's ethics head, I think Erica's right. He wields enormous power.

[00:04:42] And what and what he's saying here is, in some sense, you know, too much power sort of devolving to him and to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission to kind of make these these judgment calls about when people need to recuse themselves or not. And that there's a lot of ambiguity in that decision and that this standard, the disclosure standard that he's supporting

[00:05:08] and that, as Erica mentions, a bunch of other cities around the country use is a better way to do it. But that if if there's some kind of like, let's say a council member is a landlord and they're voting on some legislation that affects landlords, as long as that's upfront and disclosed, their constituents still get the representation from their council member. But everybody understands that there's, you know, that connection or that tie that the council member has.

[00:05:38] And that's just a better way to do the ethics rule. I think I'm I'm I think that's right. And I'm supportive of it. But Erica is also right that the blowback here is. It's as much about the kind of progressive fear that this is teeing up some changes and rollbacks to some of the slew of renter protection legislation that the previous council had passed.

[00:06:08] That that's driving a lot of the freak out. I mean, it's interesting, Saidi, if you're the first person I've ever heard say they support this legislation who is not on the city council and the the. Or Wayne Barnett. Or Wayne Barnett. But but but in the in the public, in the general public, there has been no support for this and there has been unanimous opposition. Can you also address what Wayne said and what Sandeep just referenced, which was having too many recusals disenfranchises people in the district system?

[00:06:37] What do you think of that? Yeah, I mean, we've had district elections for more than a decade now. This has not been a problem. And as I said, you know, I've been covering city council for a very long time and recusals are rare when they happen. They have happened, I think, appropriately. Sometimes, you know, they have not happened when they should happen, I think. But, you know, this is an invented problem.

[00:06:58] And the idea the idea that you weren't represented by your district rep because they have a conflict of interest and, oh, you could just vote them out on this single issue, you know, in four years. I mean, I don't know. That's pretty specious. Like, the easy answer and one that many, many cities and other jurisdictions do is just abstain on that one vote. We have not seen a rash of district council members or citywide council members having to abstain from votes.

[00:07:26] And if the idea is that, well, we want to elect people with more conflicts of interest, I mean, that's a different question. But, you know, right now, I mean, we don't have that much landlord-tenant legislation. We have this legislation that is coming up. And that is why the two landlords on the council, you know, voting is going to be, you know, a potential issue. And what people in the public said when they testified was, I do not feel unrepresented by my district council member if they have to recuse themselves because of a conflict of interest.

[00:07:55] In fact, it feels, you know, disingenuous for a district council member to vote in their own conflict and in their own interest and their own financial interest. So, I don't know. I mean, this is this is a this is a piece of legislation without a constituency other than the city council that wants to vote in ways that will benefit themselves. So I just I just I find that. But don't they don't they want to vote in a way that will benefit landlords, including themselves, potentially?

[00:08:25] You know, in this legislation. Yeah, that's what it's not like. I mean, yes, of course. Like, there's no such thing as a piece of legislation that only benefits a council member. I mean, yeah, no, I get it. The example the example that Wayne kept bringing up, Wayne Barnett kept bringing up yesterday, which I thought I interpreted the exact opposite way that he did,

[00:08:42] was that Sally Bagshaw, who owned a condo downtown, recused herself from a vote on a special taxing district for waterfront residents because she, you know, had had an interest in voting against that tax. She would have saved money. And, you know, and Wayne was saying, oh, that's like a terrible example or an example where she should have been allowed to vote. And I take the exact opposite interpretation, which is that that's a perfect example where you should have to recuse yourself on a tax.

[00:09:10] That's going to you know, it will harm you. It will also harm everybody else who is in the waterfront district in the sense that, you know, they'll have to pay the tax. But, you know, that's textbook example. And we're not going to have that anymore. Sandeep, journalists hold themselves to a standard whereby, let's say you had, you know, a romantic partner who was in the mayor's office. You probably wouldn't be allowed to cover the mayor, even if you were a politics reporter, for example.

[00:09:39] Similarly, like when I was a politics reporter recently, until recently, like I didn't even vote in local elections because I wanted to avoid even like a sense of that sort of conflict. Shouldn't elected officials hold themselves to a higher standard than reporters do? And I'm not talking about all reporters, obviously, like, you know, there's different kinds of reporters. But why shouldn't why shouldn't why shouldn't they hold themselves to a higher standard?

[00:10:04] Well, first of all, your, you know, decision not to vote in elections as a sort of ethical thing, I find. Well, I mean, set that aside. Set that aside. No, you brought it up. That is ridiculous. That is ridiculous. If you want to debate it, what I found was when I, the last mayor I voted for was, was frankly, Mayor McGinn. And after he won, I found myself kind of rooting for McGinn to be successful. And it was affecting my impartiality.

[00:10:33] And I decided to be better off just being like, screw all these people. I'm the opposition to everybody who's in elected office in the sense that that's my job. People who are politics reporters who take sides, you know, don't have to do that. Other politics reporters don't have to do it. That's what I chose to do. Like, Sandeep, you may take issue with that. And that's fine. But I'd rather you address the other substantive point I made about people who have romantic partners, let's say, in the mayor's office.

[00:11:00] And their organization decides, look, that person can't cover city politics. So journalistic institutions hold themselves to a higher standard than elected officials. Is that the right standard? I'd really, I'd just like to address the idea that like, sorry, but you, you know, you did denigrate the kind of journalism that I do. And you said that because I take sides, it's fine for me to vote. That is not why I vote at all whatsoever. I think it is fine for impartial journalists, which, by the way, I mean, come on. You can, you can.

[00:11:28] I think it's fine for impartial journalists to vote. And I don't think it should color your, I mean, any more than like, I mean, voting on taxes or, you know, I mean, if you are truly like an impartial, neutral journalist, you know, I mean, I just don't think there's a such thing. I mean, obviously, like this is a trite point to even make. But I mean, obviously, you have opinions on things. If you were going to root for McGinn, you're going to root for McGinn. I voted for McGinn. I didn't root for him. I vote in every single election.

[00:11:57] And I don't root for one side or another. I change my mind all the time. I change my mind about people I voted for. And I'll let the listeners decide. Yeah, I just don't. Well, I'm telling you actually what I believe. David, the key thing is you said you made a personal decision as a journalist about what fits your ability. So the point is, it was a personal decision, right? It wasn't a standard at the journalistic entity that you that you worked at.

[00:12:23] That's different from having a institutional standard, right? Absolutely. As I said, right. Right. And so I think your comparison of like, well, journalists have ethics standards about, you know, obviously you can't, you know, if you've got a personal relationship with somebody, you know, at some entity, you can't cover that entity. That makes perfect sense. In the same way, nobody's here at the city talking about eliminating ethics standards.

[00:12:50] They're talking about a different standard, one that is widely used in other cities, one that the city's ethics czar says is in many ways a better standard. Right. So, so I don't think this is some kind of like. It's a lower standard than journalists use. And I'm not referring to that myself. I'm talking about institutions. I don't know. I don't understand why it, I don't understand. Journalists have to recuse themselves if they have a, if they have a, a conflict of interest

[00:13:19] from covering a topic. That's how it is. That's how it is. Well, they can't just disclose. They have to, they have, they have to recuse. Erica made the point earlier that this is widely unpopular, right? That this change because it does look to people like it is a lowering of standards. And I think that, I think Erica's right about that. Right. I thought the vote yesterday in council where it passed out of a five member committee to nothing with three abstentions is indicative of that. Right.

[00:13:47] You had three council members who just sidelined themselves. They didn't want to take a vote for this, right? Because to Erica's point, I think it's landing in a way that looks, looks bad to kind of your normie voter out there. Right. So while I may not think this is a lowering of standards, I may think it's a perfectly fine ethical standard. I do think that, but. It's clearly a lowering of the standards. I mean, recusal is up here. I mean, and they've even described it this way.

[00:14:16] The recusal is the highest and nothing is the lowest. You can just vote in your own interest. And, you know, it's somewhere in the middle is disclosure. I mean, you, I don't understand how you could possibly argue that disclosure is the same level of a standard as abstention. I mean, if you can still vote, that's one vote you can make that you couldn't make before. I'm not saying it's a lower standard. Yeah. I'm not saying it's the same level of standard. I'm saying it's a reasonable and widely used standard. Right.

[00:14:46] And that the higher standard has its own negative consequences. Right. That it is not a inconsequential thing to have council members recused out and not being able to weigh in on issues. And sometimes stuff that, you know, the disclosure standard may work better for. That's what I'm saying. And Erica, you were there and there was another important internationally famous Seattle political figure was there as well. Yeah.

[00:15:16] Jill Stein, advocate, Kamala Harris opponent and former city council member Shama Sawant brought in a bunch of people with her new organization, new ish organization, Worker Strike Back to scream and chant between every public comment. And their point was that we shouldn't roll back renters rights. I think their larger point was pay attention to us. And yeah, Shama's back, baby.

[00:15:45] She's back! Yeah. She's back! As someone who had an update in my calendar at one point that said, are we still talking about Shama? I guess I have to kind of eat crow because we are still fucking talking about Shama. I remember this. Well, she's definitely back. She and her folks came in and brought back, you know, that beloved level of toxicity that

[00:16:14] we all missed at council meetings where they'd shout and denounce and, you know, try to browbeat the council members into kowtowing to their worldview. It wasn't just this committee hearing yesterday. She did it last week and brought her folks. The week before that, too. Yeah. Yeah. It's becoming a regular thing. It's a thing now, right? It's back. And I've seen her again, much more active again on social media, like blasting, you know,

[00:16:43] the mayor and the council. I heard her recently talking and it was very clear from what she was saying that she pretty deeply regrets not running for reelection in 2023. She basically says that that was a decision imposed on her by sort of higher ups in the

[00:17:08] hierarchy of her previous organization, political party, socialist alternative, that they made her not run and because they're they only care about sort of politics as ideas and theory. And she's a she's a you know, she wants to get into the mix and like deliver actual stuff on the ground. And that makes me think that all of this, you know, Shama activity and the showing up at council and making all this noise is a precursor to the fact that she wants to get

[00:17:38] back into public office maybe. And in a couple of years, we'll see her on the ballot again. Remember, though, and that may well be true. But remember, when she left, she did say, like, if there are issues that's important to working people, like we'll be there. I'll be there protesting. Like she didn't say I'm disappearing forever, even though, yeah, she's back. Support for Seattle Nice comes from Hearth Protection, offering commercial protective services

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[00:18:35] More information at HearthProtection.org. Hearth Protection. Don't let fear make your world smaller. Yeah, I mean, I the idea that Shama would be cowed by a political party is pretty laughable to me as somebody who, you know, covered her and watched her. And I mean, I think she has a tremendously large ego.

[00:19:01] And, you know, so is she going to run against Joy Hollingsworth in a couple of years? I think that that will be interesting to see. I think Hollingsworth, who represents District 3, Shama's old district is, you know, not unpopular. She is kind of the go along to get along. What can't we, you know, all, you know, find some kind of compromise council member. And, you know, she's not widely loathed by progressives in the same way that, you know,

[00:19:29] maybe Kathy Moore or Sarah Nelson or Mercer Rivera are. But, you know, I do think it's interesting that, you know, I think Shama, as I said, comes in with like maybe a couple dozen people. The first meeting I was at, she had about eight people. This last meeting, she had about 20, 25. And it's just, it's quite a contrast from the days when she was on the dais. And she was sitting up there and, you know, could rally, you know, 100, 200 people to come in and dominate and take over the meetings. Now she's on the other side.

[00:19:59] And I'm sure it doesn't feel great to be on that side screaming at people who are sitting where she used to sit. So I certainly would not be surprised if she jumped back in, because I imagine it just looks a little less powerful from the side that she's on right now. So that's an interesting point. I will say, going back to the party thing, you got to remember her socialist alternative is not like the Democratic Party, right? It is a Trotskyite party where, you know. Oh, for sure, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm just talking about the personality we're talking about here.

[00:20:28] And it was very clear from what she was saying. She deeply resented being, you know, forced to not run again. And that's why she's now broken with socialist alternative, right? And she said not only does she have this group, Workers Strike Back, but she's forming a new political party called like Revolutionary Worker or something like that, that presumably is going to be run by Shama Swant.

[00:20:53] And she will have, you know, total sway over its actions sort of in keeping to your point, Erica, with her, the dictates of her own ego and will. Like, so we will see how that all goes. But man, she is back. She is back. And I have a feeling the next year or so we're going to be seeing a lot of like disrupted city council meetings. My eardrums are not going to survive.

[00:21:19] I'm actually curious about what the kind of arcane arguments are between socialist alternative and Shama over why elected office is no longer, according to them, the proper vehicle for achieving revolution, which is always as she saw it, right? Like the whole point of being elected wasn't to pass bourgeois reformist legislation.

[00:21:44] It was to expose like the conflict between labor and capital at every turn to raise class consciousness to bring about the revolution. So I think it's interesting that she's back, but it seems like I have a hard time believing she gets elected again. But I guess we'll find out. I'm sure there are manifestos, David. And, you know, yeah. Yes. Doc, go online. Yeah, I will be. I mean, I have to say I'll be studying up this this arcane shit.

[00:22:11] I mean, it reminds me of like, you know, what I what I always have told people who, you know, who I've edited is like, what is the impact? I just don't give a shit about any of that stuff because it doesn't have an impact in like the real politic of daily life in Seattle. You know, does Shama have an impact other than disrupting meetings? Does Shama have an impact? Does does the arcane difference between Socialist Alternative and the Revolutionary Workers

[00:22:37] Party or whatever have any impact on anybody's daily lives who's not in those two parties and in those debates? I don't think so. What I want to know is what who is on the council? What do they do? What is the impact on people's lives? And that's what's interesting to me. I agree with that. But the arcane stuff is important for understanding what she's up there doing and why she's doing it, what her motives are like. Why is she denouncing her fellow council members? How pragmatic is she? Does she even want legislation to pass?

[00:23:06] Like when you're covering politics, it's interesting to try to figure out like we've covered her for years. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't I don't think it's interesting. I think it's I think it's she wants to do exactly what she did before, which is vote against everything that, you know, I mean, basically vote against everything, propose things that will never pass and make make points. And I don't think that is, you know, the proper or I don't think that is like the main job of being an elected official.

[00:23:32] I think the main job is to pass legislation and, you know, and oppose bad legislation. But yeah, I just think like the short if that's what the voters want, the shorthand socialist Shama Sawant that everybody used in the Seattle media for about 10 years to describe her. The problem with that and the reasons why that was a problem for me was that voters weren't voting for a DSA type socialist ever. They were voting for somebody else. But the but the media made them think they were voting for like a, you know, Bernie Sanders

[00:24:01] socialist, which she's not like, you know, Bernie is a total sellout. AOC is a total sellout. So anyway, she she campaigned with Jill Stein against against Kamala Harris. The Democratic part of Democratic socialists. She is not down with the Democratic part. Right. She is a Trotskyite neo-totalitarian. Right. And I think she was just praising the Russian Revolution. Right. And, you know, as a model for, you know, how we should do, you know, the Soviet system was

[00:24:29] a, you know, it was not a democratic in any way, shape or form state. It was a totalitarian surveillance state. And that's what she would like to recreate. Right. I mean, that's. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there are genuine Marxists in the electorate in Capitol Hill, you know, who agree with her about that. But I think a lot of people thought they were voting for Bernie Sanders. Anyway, Erica, I wanted to hear we wanted to hear our listeners want to hear about the future of Tent City Four.

[00:24:58] Yeah, this is a story I broke and wrote about while I was on vacation. You're welcome. Yeah. What kind of vacation is that? Geez. Yeah. I mean, something always happens when I leave town. It's just inevitable. Anyway, the Tent City Four encampment, it's an authorized encampment that moves from place to place every year or less.

[00:25:22] It's been in in Lake City for a year, was planning to move from the Mennonite Church up there to the site of the former Lake City Community Center, which burned and is vacant. And this has been planned for months and months. They did outreach. They handed out hundreds of flyers, knocked on doors, held a meeting. And then at the very last minute, the city decided that it wasn't going to work, you know, for reasons that are, you know, a bit obscure.

[00:25:50] But it sounds like there was a email campaign that targeted Councilmember Kathy Moore and the mayor's office. And they said, you know, oh, no, no, no. This site is now inappropriate. And they said that they needed to find another site at the last minute. And there was, you know, a lot of pretty ridiculous back and forth with Tent City, really one-sided back and forth where the city said, you know, well, can't you just stay at the Mennonite Church

[00:26:19] for longer? And that is not their model. They make a commitment to a community to be there for a certain period of time and move on. And the Mennonites supported them in that. And they said they were going to move. And the city just decided not to believe them. And we're sort of having this, you know, one-sided negotiation where they thought that they could just convince Tent City to stay where they were. Now they, again, at the last minute, the Friday before the Saturday, they planned to move.

[00:26:49] They made a deal to let them be at the Lake City Community Center for one to six months until a more quote-unquote appropriate place can be found. And so that's where we are right now. They're kind of in limbo. But they were able to move. But they've been told that the site that they've been planning for months is no longer appropriate for unspecified reasons. It does all originate in Nicholsville, as I recall, which, you know, was a, you know,

[00:27:19] of course, it's called Nicholsville because it was a protest against the policies of former mayor, Greg Nichols. And that was originally an unauthorized encampment. Since then, there have been, you know, there was Nicholsville up in Ballard. I mean, so there's been a couple of different sort of offshoots. This particular one, this Tent City, Tent City 4, is run by, or it is affiliated with Share and Wheel, Share and Wheel, two different organizations that are affiliated.

[00:27:48] But one is a women's organization. And they are, you know, sort of they don't run it exactly, but they are the organizers. And so they've been around for a long time. And yeah, I mean, part of the idea was to bring attention to the problem of unsheltered homelessness by having, you know, visible tent encampments that, you know, are self-managed. They're, they have a, you know, a sort of ethos of being good neighbors, doing security

[00:28:18] patrols, having security at all times and, and doing neighborhood trash pickups. And so that is, that is also part of it. Like they are considered, you know, by most people, certainly their former hosts to be very good neighbors and to improve the neighborhoods that they're in. And that's also part of the point. And, and so the fact that suddenly, you know, Kathy Moore and Bruce Harrell and Tiffany Washington and the mayor's office are all saying that this, that they would be bad neighbors and that this

[00:28:45] is like an inappropriate thing for a vacant lot at the burndown Lake City Community Center, you know, is pretty out of keeping with their actual history. I will just jump in to reinforce that point. I had a, this is not a, a, you know, organic unstructured encampment. This is a very structured, longstanding, self-governed, self-policed system. And I actually had a friend who lives up in North Seattle and where one of the tent cities was for

[00:29:14] six months or however long their tenure was just like maybe half a block away from where my friend lived. And he said it was, it was, it was indeed, they were good neighbors and there were no issues or problems. And, you know, it was quiet. There was a lot of interaction with, with between neighbors and people living in, in tent city four, they were all positive. And so, so, uh, you know, uh, from what I've heard and from sort of past experience, uh,

[00:29:42] over the last decade, almost 15 years now, it does seem like they, these tent cities have had a really good track record. Hey, Seattle nice listeners, Seattle politics got you low. Well, get high with uncle likes pissed at the mayor, relax with a dollar joint, pop a tire

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[00:30:33] All right, Erica, another hot topic that I know you'd been covering, but we haven't had a chance to talk about yet is Seattle city council member Dan Strauss, who, um, you see out and about in Ballard, you know, fairly frequently probably goes to some shows and he's concerned about people's hearing when there are concerts and wants to mandate hearing protection.

[00:31:01] Yeah, well, he wants to mandate that, um, he's got legislation that would mandate that clubs sell, uh, earplugs for a dollar or less. Um, and then, uh, if they don't do so be subject to a fine. Um, it's pretty nominal fine, but, um, the, uh, he introduced this back in March and I think, you know, the response from city council and a lot of the public since then has been, huh? Like, because they can't hear you.

[00:31:29] Uh, uh, yeah, maybe, I mean, they, they, uh, you know, they don't understand where this came from. Uh, Strauss said that it came from a constituent who was like, um, an ear doctor or something. Um, but, uh, it's, uh, it's pretty head scratchy. Um, it would create this new business category called loud music venues and, and, you know, and they would have these, these new requirements. And I mean, I think that, you know, the music venues have said, you know, most of them like,

[00:31:58] yeah, we offered them already, you know, for free or, or, or, you know, 50 cents or whatever, but mandating them and creating a new, uh, regulatory infrastructure that would, you know, cost money. Um, cause you'd have to have people, uh, going around and enforcing these laws just seems kind of, um, kind of weird and then unnecessary. Um, and I, you know, if, if people are not going to wear earplugs, it's not require them to do so. It just, you know, says that clubs have to have them available.

[00:32:24] So I think people, um, I think the response to this has been very like, why is this happening? Where is this coming from? Um, and, uh, you know, I, if I was, uh, to bet, I would say it probably, um, is not going anywhere, but, uh, but we'll see. Yeah. The, the, the council's reaction has been pretty underwhelmed. Yeah. All right, Sandeep as, as Seattle's answer to Ayn Rand, what do you think? Yeah, I am. Yeah. I, I, well, channeling Ayn here, I'm, you know, uh, Ayn Rand, right.

[00:32:55] Um, uh, channeling Ayn, I'm going to say that this does have the appearance of a classic kind of nanny state overreach, right? I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, yeah. Do we really need a big new, a new law and a, some kind of like absurd regulatory structure about like people going out to see live music and to solve a problem that maybe doesn't exist. And, and look, I, I, I don't think people have been so like wound up about it that they're

[00:33:23] like pulling a shama and like showing up at council to, you know, denounce their, their whatever to Erica's point. It's more like, what, what do you guys think? Like, this seems kind of dumb. Like, why are you guys like, this is overreach or whatever. So I think the response has been more than just, huh, it's been kind of negative to it. And I do, and I, and the council member Strauss's credit, I think he's heard that he's indicated that he's probably likely to withdraw this legislation and kind of turn to, you know, maybe advocate

[00:33:52] for something more like a public awareness campaign about, you know, loud music and how that can damage your hearing or whatever. And that seems fine. Like that seems more in line with sort of the public service stuff that, you know, government does. But yeah, the idea that we're going to like have some kind of inspection regime and like hire bureaucrats to like, you know, enforcement, that seems silly and, and nanny statey.

[00:34:19] And I think that, I think that's how it landed with, with people. I'll tell you among the, I've been seeing a fair amount of music lately. And among the two shows that I saw recently, they were super loud. First Bob Mould, always loud. You saw Bob Mould? Yeah, I saw Bob Mould. Somebody had a spare ticket and I got to go. I actually saw, I actually saw Who's Gurdue in like 1985 in a teeny little venue in Portland, which was like not crowded at all.

[00:34:46] Bob Mould was full of dedicated people my age. It was sort of embarrassing, but man, he loved it. He loved the crowd, but it was, it was just as loud now as it was back then. And then I saw Jack White just the other night, also super fricking loud. Wait, did you wear earplugs or not? Yes. In both instances, I basically bring my AirPods. And if I'm, if I, if, if I think I'm damaging my hearing over a certain time, I'll sort of put them in, I'll take them out. I mean, it's not ideal because it muddies the sound and the fucking Paramount when you sit

[00:35:13] on the balcony as I was sitting, like the sound in that venue is pretty muddy. It's okay on the floor, but it's terrible in the, in the balcony, I think. And it, and the earplugs make it even worse. So it's, it's sort of, it's, it's, it's like, are you going to suffer hearing damage? Are you going to enjoy the concert? It's always a tough decision. However, what I will say about this is that I just find like, you know, as a Canadian who grew up mostly on the East coast, I've lived here now most of my life, but, uh, Seattle's

[00:35:38] just weird mixture of libertarianism and progressivism definitely leads to some great things. Like we got legalized weed, we got, you know, tolerance for things like gay marriage before a lot of other places and gay rights, that sort of thing. You know, perhaps it it's, it's helped our business community even, but it also leads to some really weird opposition to something like this was just a fucking modest public health campaign to try to help people's hearing.

[00:36:05] I mean, calling it the nanny state in this day, it's like, are you, let me finish, let me finish. Are you also against like seatbelt legislation? I remember my uncle was sort of a Western Canadian. He never wore his seatbelt and stuff. And it's like, live free and die, Sandeep Kashuk. That's all I can say. So, so I don't get it. Like, why wouldn't you want to protect people's hearing? I just don't understand that perspective. It's like, like, it's, it is literally the most individual choice.

[00:36:32] Think of the amount, think of the amount of legislation that we have burdening small businesses in Seattle, according to them. And we're going to worry about something that's actually going to protect public health potentially. And it's not, you know, it's like, you have a choice. You don't have to buy the, uh, the earplugs. If you forget them, we'd like to make them available. Why isn't this just modest public health? And also last thing I'm going to say, Dan Strauss, man, show some backbone. You know, if you, if you're going to introduce legislation, don't back off it immediately. Like get fired up about it.

[00:37:01] I mean, given that, you know, he seems, I mean, what he should have done is run it by the rest of the council before he rolled it out and surprised them. But, you know, clearly it's, this is not a popular idea. I mean, I, I cannot imagine what kind of legislation would mandate, you know, shoving earplugs in your ears. Um, you know, it's completely, you know, not analogous to seatbelts at all. Um, you know, I, I would say that it's probably likely that all three of us have suffered hearing loss from not wearing earplugs, you know, when we were younger and, you know, man, that's like,

[00:37:30] that's just, you know, maybe, maybe kids today are smarter, but to me, that was just a part of like what it was like to be a dumb kid and not have any sense of consequences. So I don't know. I saw a lot of dumb adults at the Bob Mould concert. Well, sure. I mean, obviously you're not going to see kids at a Bob Mould concert. But no one under 50 is allowed in there, right? For real. For real. Yeah. No, I was, I was banned. Um, that's why I wasn't there. Uh, yeah.

[00:37:59] I mean, I, you know, it's just of all the things in the, in the world, I mean, it is nanny state. It's like nanny state with a, with a lowercase. What's wrong with nannies? What's wrong with nannies? Yeah. Why are you guys so anti-nanny? It's so sexist. You're so Canadian, David. You're so Canadian. Okay. Yeah. I don't have fear of invisible government forcing me to, oh wait, they're not forcing me to do anything. I don't get, I'm sorry. I don't get, anyway, that's it for another scintillating edition of Seattle Nice. She is as always back. Erica C. Barnett of Publicola. Check it out at publicola.com.

[00:38:29] Donate at publicola.com. You can also donate to Seattle Nice at Patreon. And also with us temporarily this week, at least Sandeep Kashuk. I'm David Hyde. Our editor is Quinn Waller. And thanks everybody so much for listening.