The good, the bad, and the ugly takes on Tammy Morales quitting Seattle's City Council

[00:00:09] Hello and welcome to the December 4th Emergency Podcast edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde here with Publicola Editor, Writer, and this podcast's answer to Cisco Morris, Erica C. Barnett.

[00:00:25] Hi, you're throwing me off. Who is Cisco Morris? Oh, the garden guy.

[00:00:29] The garden guy.

[00:00:30] Wow, deep cut.

[00:00:31] I don't know. What garden? What is a garden?

[00:00:35] Yeah, he's the guy with the catchphrase, ooh la la. And that's what I'm going to say about Erica's scoop today in just a minute. But first, introducing our political consultant and prognosticator, Sandeep Kaushik. Hi, Sandeep.

[00:00:48] Hello. Hello. I'm the PBS, the guy that paints on that TV show. What's his name?

[00:00:54] You really can't remember Bob Ross's name?

[00:00:56] Bob. Oh, yes. Yes, I'm him.

[00:00:59] Oh my God, you guys are old.

[00:01:01] Erica's the doodler.

[00:01:02] Yeah.

[00:01:04] She's the painting, gardening, PBS. Yeah, loving.

[00:01:08] This all tracks.

[00:01:09] Folks should know behind the scenes that Erica is like constantly scribbling, like making these doodly scribble sounds and Sandeep is like shaking his leg and it drives our editor Quinn Waller crazy. So let's try to stop some of that today.

[00:01:23] And the topic is, I mean, huge for this podcast, which Sandeep just pointed out is close to our fourth anniversary from when we first started.

[00:01:34] Third anniversary.

[00:01:35] Third anniversary.

[00:01:36] Sorry, third anniversary, but fourth season of Seattle Nice. So we're kind of just getting going on our fourth season. Seattle City Council member Tammy Morales announcing she's resigning.

[00:01:47] And as listeners out there in Seattle Nice land, I'm sure for the most part know Morales first elected to the council back in 2019.

[00:01:56] The most progressive member on the current council. So in a minute, we're going to ask about how this move is going to affect progressive legislation in the future or just kind of what's going to happen politically next year.

[00:02:10] Like what are the chances of a recently proposed capital gains tax of passing now that Morales is left?

[00:02:17] But Erica, this is your scoop. You spoke with Tammy Morales on Monday, two days before anybody else, as far as I know in the press, had the story.

[00:02:25] And she told you a lot. She had a lot to say about why she's resigning. So walk us through a little bit of her thinking.

[00:02:32] Yeah, I mean, I think that the sort of overarching reason is that she doesn't feel like she can get anything done.

[00:02:39] And it's just, you know, from her perspective, a shitty place to go to work every day.

[00:02:43] I am very much paraphrasing and you can read what she actually said in my story this morning.

[00:02:48] But, you know, I mean, she talked about just feeling undermined at every turn.

[00:02:53] You know, some of the things were visible to the public, like, you know, other council members sort of reprimanding her and losing their temper at her over pretty mild stuff.

[00:03:02] And, you know, it really one thing that really struck me that she told me was, you know, she just felt uncomfortable and kind of, you know, nervous going out to the dais every time the council would meet because she never knew who was going to denounce her.

[00:03:17] And, you know, there's been a lot of examples of this.

[00:03:19] I've written about them a lot.

[00:03:20] And I gave several of the examples in today's story.

[00:03:23] But, you know, I mean, everything from, like, Kathy Moore conflating her completely with Shama Sawant and saying that she had said something that Shama Sawant used to say, but that Tammy Morales certainly never said.

[00:03:36] You know, saying that she had called them corporate shills and, you know, all this stuff that, you know, used to come out of Sawant's mouth on a weekly basis.

[00:03:44] Bob Kettle, you know, has sort of suggested that Tammy Morales caused problems with police recruitment and therefore had no right to have any say in how the council addressed that.

[00:03:58] That was during the recent budget process.

[00:03:59] And also, you know, essentially called her lazy and ill-informed during another recent debate.

[00:04:05] So, you know, there's just it's not even interpersonal stuff because I think that would kind of minimize it.

[00:04:11] I mean, it's workplace stuff.

[00:04:12] She felt like, you know, there's just no way to be effective at, you know, her job, which is representing the people of District 2.

[00:04:19] So that's her perspective as she described it to me.

[00:04:22] Sandeep, for context, I'm sure you're thinking about it.

[00:04:25] I mean, we've had a number of Seattle City Council members say publicly or privately that they were leaving the council in part due to a toxic atmosphere.

[00:04:34] Former City Council President Deborah Juarez, Alex Peterson, Lisa Herbold.

[00:04:40] I'm probably forgetting someone.

[00:04:41] Definitely not Shama Sawant.

[00:04:42] She did not say that.

[00:04:43] But Teresa Mosqueda also resigned.

[00:04:46] And now Tammy Morales.

[00:04:48] You were critical at that time of the toxic atmosphere on the council that led to this.

[00:04:55] Are you sympathetic to Tammy Morales this time?

[00:04:57] Well, I'm sympathetic to the toxicity part.

[00:05:00] What I'm not sympathetic to is the fact that a lot of this problematic behavior has originated on the left.

[00:05:08] And abusive behavior directed at council members came out of the culture created by people like Shama Sawant.

[00:05:15] And the fact is a lot of people on the left have hand waved away that behavior when it's directed at somebody like Sarah Nelson or Jenny Durkin.

[00:05:23] And so there's a little bit of, you know, the tiniest violin stuff, I think, from a lot of folks when they hear Tammy Morales now saying, oh, you know, people are being mean to me or my colleagues aren't, you know, being nice to me.

[00:05:36] And you're like, well, you sat there and justified incredibly angry, abusive stuff directed at your colleagues.

[00:05:45] So Sandeep is saying some of this toxicity previously had been coming from the left.

[00:05:52] There's a perspective out there that says taking this job means dealing with a certain amount of tough talk when you're on the dais.

[00:06:00] It means sometimes people are going to show up at your house and protest in the middle of the night and write nasty graffiti on your sidewalk.

[00:06:05] And if you don't like it, maybe this job isn't for you.

[00:06:08] The question kind of is from both sides, like what's what are the standards here?

[00:06:13] What's your point of view?

[00:06:14] How do you respond to Sandeep?

[00:06:15] I don't think that that is remotely in any way whatsoever equivalent to what Tammy Morales was going to and being thwarted at every turn.

[00:06:24] And I do wish that people and hope that people will read my piece because nowhere in the piece did I say and nowhere did Tammy Morales say to me or anybody else that she was mad because people were mean to her or that there was a toxic generalized environment.

[00:06:38] She had very specific examples and I listed all many of them, certainly not all of them in my post linking back to pieces that I've written about those examples.

[00:06:46] So it's a false equivalence to say that somebody put graffiti in front of Jenny Durkin's house five years ago.

[00:06:52] And that's the same thing that led to, you know, people boxing Tammy Morales out of meetings, you know, saying things about her behind her back, but also just, you know, opposing, you know, in a really, you know, kind of radically new way, very anodyne proposals that she's put forward.

[00:07:11] Like, you know, the neighborhood matching fund program that she wanted to expand to allow more community-based projects to go forward.

[00:07:21] Totally uncontroversial.

[00:07:22] She'd been working on it for two years, but they defeated a policy because she was the one, I mean, I believe and she believes, you know, just observing it, that she was the one supporting it.

[00:07:31] And this has happened over and over and over again.

[00:07:33] So you're not talking about a general miasma of Shama Sawant, you know, existing and protesters being mean to elected officials.

[00:07:42] It's just a completely different thing that she's talking about.

[00:07:46] And so I know, Sandeep and David, that like, it's fun to go back to Shama Sawant and everybody loves talking about her.

[00:07:53] But this has nothing to do with Shama coming onto the council in 2013 and everything to do with this brand new council that has been behaving in the ways that Tammy described really explicitly and in detail.

[00:08:08] And, I mean, this problem, she got elected last year, ran for office, was hoping to be able to work with this council because, you know, I mean, she has been in the minority before and has worked, you know, fine with her more conservative council colleagues, even if they don't agree on issues.

[00:08:24] So the issue is that this council came in and started behaving the way they did.

[00:08:28] And I think it is, I mean, as somebody who observes the council really closely, I think things are really different now.

[00:08:33] And I don't think it's because someone was mean to Jenny Durkin.

[00:08:35] And Erica, that's a complete misrepresentation of what I just said.

[00:08:39] It was a question for Sandeep about whether or not he felt some sympathy for Tammy Morales in context since he had expressed sympathy for other council members at a different time period.

[00:08:48] So I was trying to test, you know, his kind of consistency.

[00:08:52] And I'm also going to be testing your consistency in just a minute.

[00:08:55] But Sandeep, to you.

[00:08:55] Yeah, I think these are two different things.

[00:08:56] Yeah, it's a total misrepresentation.

[00:08:58] It's a false equivalency.

[00:08:59] I wasn't comparing or saying there was equivalency between Shama Sawant and Tammy Morales.

[00:09:04] But anyway, Sandeep, were these qualitatively different criticisms from some of what we were hearing from Deborah Juarez and others back in the last council?

[00:09:13] Erica says this is a completely different situation.

[00:09:16] So, but Shama Sawant aside for a minute, okay?

[00:09:19] If you want to say Shama's her own category of behavior and when she turned out a red shirt, fine.

[00:09:27] Erica, don't you think Sarah Nelson has a set of grievances about how she was treated by the last council and her colleagues, leaving Shama aside?

[00:09:38] But any of the other members of the colleagues, how they talked about her or what they said about her?

[00:09:46] Because I, of course she does.

[00:09:48] Hey, Seattle nice listeners.

[00:09:58] Seattle politics got you low.

[00:10:01] Well, get high with Uncle Ikes.

[00:10:04] Pissed at the mayor?

[00:10:06] Relax with a dollar joint.

[00:10:08] Pop a tire in a pothole?

[00:10:11] Eat a $2 gummy and chill.

[00:10:14] Whether you need something to pump you up for Saturday's protest or a mellow strain for your next sit-in, Ikes is your best friend.

[00:10:23] Now is the time to roll up, Seattle.

[00:10:26] Download the Ikes app today.

[00:10:28] Or head on over to Ikes.com.

[00:10:31] That's Ikes.com.

[00:10:38] Can you give an example that happened from the dais publicly?

[00:10:42] You know, I'd have to go back and look, but I...

[00:10:45] Because I can't think of any.

[00:10:46] I know that she felt politically in the minority, which she was, but it is a different thing.

[00:10:53] Testy exchanges during that period from the dais between Sarah Nelson and any number of other council members, right?

[00:10:59] I mean, I watch those meetings too.

[00:11:01] And I'm not talking about testy exchanges alone.

[00:11:04] I'm talking about Tammy Morales being unable to get anything on her agenda done simply because she is Tammy Morales.

[00:11:10] It takes two to tango, too.

[00:11:12] On that point about whether she...

[00:11:15] Frankly, I think you're rewriting history about Tammy being very willing to reach out and be open to council members who had different ideological positions than her.

[00:11:26] That is, I think, frankly, complete bullshit.

[00:11:28] Tammy's reputation on the council and the way she's behaved on the council has been to be very insular and ideological about how she conducted her business.

[00:11:37] When she introduced this stuff, I will tell you, I've heard from other council members, she never really reached out to them herself to have conversations.

[00:11:43] It's a two-way street.

[00:11:44] She's like, they weren't, you know, accommodating to me, but they themselves have said, Tammy never reached out to us or made any effort to kind of come, you know, meet us halfway on her stuff.

[00:11:56] She just sort of threw her stuff out there and then bitched publicly when, you know, we didn't agree with it.

[00:12:03] Bitched publicly.

[00:12:04] Hmm. Well, I mean, I would say that it is the job of a council member to talk about their priorities.

[00:12:10] But I, you know, and I don't know what private, like, secret meetings you've had with Sarah Nelson and Maritza Rivera and whoever.

[00:12:16] But I will tell you that I think it goes far beyond testy exchanges.

[00:12:19] I think with Sarah Nelson, you know, specifically because you brought her up, I think there are testy exchanges now with Dan Strauss.

[00:12:26] I mean, there are some council members on this council who do not like each other.

[00:12:29] And that is still not preventing those council members from getting legislation done.

[00:12:35] One thing that Tammy Morales mentioned to me was, you know, Alex Peterson and her really did not agree on almost anything.

[00:12:44] But they had a good, cordial working relationship.

[00:12:46] And they did work together on a couple of things, including a rent transparency bill.

[00:12:50] I would also point to, you know, in the last council, I think Deborah Juarez and Kshama Sawant got along.

[00:12:54] You know, there was bridging divides that was happening.

[00:12:59] I mean, I too have heard a lot of anecdotes about, you know, about Tammy's staff being treated quite shabbily.

[00:13:06] And, you know, I mean, we can, I think the ultimate, the ultimate question here is, you know, should someone be expected to sort of be a martyr for four years, getting nothing done, being denounced, you know, constantly by her fellow council members?

[00:13:25] And not just one council member, the way Kshama Sawant would denounce everybody.

[00:13:28] But lots of council members really do make an effort to speak up against her.

[00:13:33] And, I mean, Maritza Rivera got mad that she threw out, that she sent out, rather, an action alert about Maritza Rivera's efforts to kill the Equitable Development Initiative.

[00:13:44] And, you know, and really, like, went off about it several times.

[00:13:48] I mean, city council members send out action alerts all the time.

[00:13:51] But for Tammy to do it was just beyond the pale.

[00:13:53] I mean, there's just, there's endless examples of this.

[00:13:56] And, you know, and it's been written about, like I said, I've written about it a bunch in the past before we knew any of this was happening or that Tammy was resigning.

[00:14:03] And I just, I don't think it's the same as people sniping at each other and making, you know, little bitchy comments.

[00:14:10] I think it goes far beyond that.

[00:14:12] And I think it, I think, you know, to kind of move on, if possible, I think that it speaks to, you know, a problem with this council.

[00:14:18] You know, they believe that their job is to defer to the mayor and to do the mayor's bidding.

[00:14:24] And I don't think that they have shown a lot of, like, either ideological or, you know, even policy differences with the mayor.

[00:14:31] And they, and they've said many times, you know, to Tammy, you know, we don't want you to do that because you clearly haven't cleared it with the mayor.

[00:14:40] And I think that is a real problem for the, for the legislative branch to be that deferential.

[00:14:44] I want to actually ask you, Erica, a follow-up before Sandeep gets in, which is what this means for the next council and, and how progressives are responding to it.

[00:14:54] Because I haven't spoken to anybody, you know, as a reporter, but I'm sure you have, you know, if she has serious mental health concerns, you know, as a result of the, what she's experienced, that's understandable.

[00:15:06] But if she's leaving, you know, because of how she felt she was being treated, I can imagine progressives being not just disappointed, but kind of pissed off.

[00:15:16] Yeah, there's some legislation she wasn't going to get passed next year.

[00:15:19] But with this flip and that 4-4 vote that we just recently saw on the capital gains tax, I mean, this pretty much sinks the chances of that progressive legislation passing next year, doesn't it?

[00:15:32] And you're saying it's understandable because she feels like she can't possibly get anything done.

[00:15:37] But how do we know what she might have gotten done if she'd stayed on the council?

[00:15:40] And also, doesn't that apply to everybody else in government?

[00:15:42] If you're in, you know, a representative from Washington State in Congress right now, you have zero say over what's going to happen.

[00:15:49] Should everybody quit now because Trump's in power and the Republicans are in power and they have to leave and the Republicans are mean to them?

[00:15:55] I mean, how would progressives be responding if Pramila Jayapal said, I don't like it, I'm leaving, you know, I'm coming home.

[00:16:02] And so again, if she has serious mental health concerns, that's one thing.

[00:16:05] But if it's like, I don't like it and I'm not going to get anything done, shouldn't progressives be pissed off?

[00:16:10] And if not, why not?

[00:16:11] But again, I think that, you know, you guys are being a little belittling of, you know, of her decision to leave.

[00:16:19] And I think, again, would love for you, for everybody to read the story that I wrote about this because she did not say, I don't like it.

[00:16:28] She didn't say, you know, I read it.

[00:16:31] I just keep hearing you guys characterize.

[00:16:34] I said if she has serious mental health concerns over this, that's one thing.

[00:16:37] But why does she have to have serious mental health concerns?

[00:16:39] Why are you even bringing that up?

[00:16:41] Because if capital gains doesn't pass next year.

[00:16:44] It's not going to pass anyway.

[00:16:45] It wasn't going to pass anyway.

[00:16:47] Joy, we talked about this.

[00:16:48] Joy and Dan are going to vote, would vote against it if, you know, Alexis Mercedes Rink and Tammy Morales and Kathy Moore voted for it.

[00:16:57] I mean, so that is really the only edge case that we even had.

[00:17:00] And we've seen Joy Hollingsworth already change her vote.

[00:17:02] But the reason I say it's belittling is that, you know, I don't think someone should have to, like, show their medical records and prove that they have a serious mental health condition.

[00:17:12] Nor do I think that would convince people who are going to be pissed about this.

[00:17:16] The response I've gotten has mostly been, you know, I'd say 90-10 has been, you know, this is really disappointing, but she needs to do what's right for her.

[00:17:25] 10% has been, fuck her, you know, she owes us, she'd, you know, she should have to stay for three more years no matter what.

[00:17:33] I am, you know, of the mind that human beings should be allowed to be human.

[00:17:39] Rob Johnson resigned from the city council.

[00:17:43] Teresa Mosqueda resigned from the city council.

[00:17:45] Lots of people have resigned from the city council.

[00:17:47] Well, Morales is being subjected to an extra degree of scrutiny for reasons that I, you know, can only speculate on.

[00:17:53] But I don't think any of those people were asked to prove a serious mental health condition before, you know, being, you know, told it was okay.

[00:18:01] So I don't think people should have to be martyrs, nor do I think that having two progressives on the council is going to be enough to sway, you know, votes by the other seven.

[00:18:11] So I think there have been a number of what I would call false narratives that have been created by the left around this council.

[00:18:18] One of them being that there is a monolithic, quote unquote, conservative block that's going to vote down anything that even vaguely smells within the distance of progressive.

[00:18:30] Just yesterday, Alexis Rink's, you know, first real day on the council, she ran an amendment to add progressive revenue before lifting caps on real estate to put to the legislative, to the Olympia legislative agenda of the city.

[00:18:47] Right.

[00:18:47] That, you know, and that passed, that passed with a, I think it was a five, one with three abstentions vote.

[00:18:56] Rob Saka being the fifth vote for it.

[00:18:59] And I think you saw in the debate we just had in the budget process around capital gains.

[00:19:04] I don't think it was at all a done deal that capital gains was dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

[00:19:08] I think it was coming back in first quarter of, of this next year.

[00:19:13] And frankly, I feel like you're changing your tune, Sani, on this particular one.

[00:19:16] I said that the last time we talked about cap gains.

[00:19:19] I said, it's coming back.

[00:19:21] And like, I think it would, it would pass.

[00:19:23] But I said, I said, I don't know, but it's certainly in play.

[00:19:27] It was certainly in play after that.

[00:19:30] And it's definitely coming back and it's in play.

[00:19:32] And I do think now it's much less likely that it would pass.

[00:19:36] And, you know, but, but again, there have been a kind of kaleidoscope of coalitions that have

[00:19:43] come together on various different issues and debates over this last year around this council

[00:19:49] that I think argue strongly against the fact that there's some unified, you know, moderate

[00:19:56] or whatever you want to call it, conservative bloc, like that, that votes in lockstep with

[00:20:01] each other.

[00:20:01] Like if that had happened, then they would have passed the, you know, DNC earning stuff

[00:20:06] or they would have done the tip credit thing or they, you know, or, or any number of other

[00:20:10] pieces of legislation that you said they failed to pass because you said they were doing it.

[00:20:15] I think they, I think they thought they were going to pass.

[00:20:17] And I think that they found that, that reducing people's wages was a step too far and the public

[00:20:23] showed up and protested that stuff.

[00:20:25] I mean, and speaking of which, I mean, this council also, I mean, and Tammy Morales mentioned

[00:20:29] this in her, and in our conversation, you know, I mean, they were also, you know, constantly

[00:20:33] threatening to shut down council chambers.

[00:20:36] They've arrested people who, you know, were there to public comment and became protesters

[00:20:40] when public comment was cut off.

[00:20:42] So there is, there's just, you know, you say they're not in lockstep.

[00:20:45] You can certainly point to votes that aren't 8-1.

[00:20:48] Absolutely.

[00:20:49] But I do think that there is an anti-democratic thing going on with this council that people should

[00:20:54] be concerned about.

[00:20:55] And then I do think, you know, this is, this is a sign when you have people resigning, you

[00:21:01] know, less than a year after they are reelected, because it's just an impossible place to get

[00:21:05] anything done and impossible place to work.

[00:21:07] Instead of saying like, what's wrong with Tammy?

[00:21:10] You know, maybe people should also ask what's wrong with the council that somebody would want

[00:21:14] to flee this workplace so badly that they work hard to get reelected and, you know,

[00:21:19] and manage to win and then leave.

[00:21:21] What's wrong with this workplace?

[00:21:23] And it sounds like you're not willing to acknowledge that anything might be wrong.

[00:21:28] I just fundamentally think you're, you're, you're engaging in a blatant double standard

[00:21:32] because you like Tammy Morales and some of these other people that have been subjected

[00:21:35] to equally shitty behaviors from council members you like.

[00:21:40] That doesn't count, right?

[00:21:42] And maybe they're not the exact same.

[00:21:43] You haven't pointed out one example.

[00:21:45] To finish my point, maybe they're not the exact same behaviors, but there's certainly

[00:21:48] really egregious examples that Tammy Morales and, you know, Lorena Gonzalez and Teresa Mosqueda

[00:21:55] and Lisa Herbold and, you know, whoever else you want to cite from the previous council kind

[00:22:01] of hand waved away those behaviors when they were doing-

[00:22:04] Give me an example.

[00:22:05] I'm talking about all the, you know, shouting down, you know, council members.

[00:22:10] Even in the current council, you say, oh, they cut off public comment.

[00:22:14] Therefore, these people became protesters.

[00:22:16] And then they started shouting down the council members and shutting down procedures.

[00:22:19] What council member, you're giving, the examples you're giving, you're returning again to members

[00:22:23] of the public.

[00:22:23] I'm saying in the day-to-day workplace, what's the example of other council members behaving

[00:22:29] towards someone other than Tammy in this way?

[00:22:32] Because you're saying it's incredibly common, but I don't think you have any-

[00:22:36] I can think of some pretty negative comments that were directed at Sarah Nelson about stuff

[00:22:41] she proposed by the previous council from folks like, you know, Teresa or whatever, right?

[00:22:46] I mean, I have to go back and pull the examples, but they certainly exist.

[00:22:50] You just kind of don't want to, you know, they didn't bug you because they were directed

[00:22:55] at somebody, you know, from somebody you agree with towards somebody you disagree with.

[00:22:59] I'm a reporter and I don't do that, Sandeep.

[00:23:02] So if there were egregious examples of somebody I agreed with who was shutting down, not allowing

[00:23:10] people to speak, you know, accusing them of being lazy, accusing them of being misinformed

[00:23:17] and stupid, then I would certainly have reported on those.

[00:23:20] And I don't think you have examples.

[00:23:22] Can I follow up on that?

[00:23:23] I'm looking at this story about lazy.

[00:23:26] Bob Kettle accused Tammy Morales of failing to do due diligence before proposing legislation

[00:23:30] to release funds collected from a payroll tax increase this year.

[00:23:34] That's your reporting.

[00:23:36] That's and the headline is lazy.

[00:23:38] Did he say lazy or did you say lazy?

[00:23:41] I summarized by using the word lazy.

[00:23:43] Calling somebody saying somebody failed to do due diligence.

[00:23:46] I mean, I'm not picking on your reporting because I think there are other instances here,

[00:23:49] but that's the that's one that you keep bringing up.

[00:23:51] So I went and looked at it.

[00:23:52] You've many times actually accused this council of failing to do due diligence.

[00:23:57] You haven't headlined those stories as you accusing the council of being lazy.

[00:24:01] So, I mean, is it OK to accuse somebody of not doing due diligence before proposing legislation?

[00:24:07] Well, wow.

[00:24:08] You're OK.

[00:24:08] So it's not a boy.

[00:24:10] I mean, if we want to go down the rabbit hole on the mental health funding, what he said

[00:24:15] later, if you'll read that whole story, is that she didn't do due diligence by talking

[00:24:19] to the mayor's office to make sure it was OK.

[00:24:21] And this goes back again to what I was saying before, which is that the council is, I think,

[00:24:27] on, you know, unjustifiably or excessively deferential to a separate branch of government.

[00:24:32] So in this case, he was saying that her due diligence should have been talking to the

[00:24:37] mayor's office and making sure it was OK with them.

[00:24:39] But would you call it a harmful work environment as KW does in their headline in that instance?

[00:24:45] So when they killed her Connected Communities pilot, which, you know, was a zoning bonus for

[00:24:52] small community groups that needed, you know, a boost to do first-time development projects,

[00:24:59] that was another project that should have been completely uncontroversial and was before this

[00:25:03] council.

[00:25:04] And in that case, Kettle suggested, and I don't know if he used the word lazy, but he suggested

[00:25:09] that she had not done her work because she couldn't get a majority of people to support her.

[00:25:14] And I mean, you know, you guys, I know you don't watch these meetings as frequently as I do.

[00:25:20] But when I say that the tone has changed, it's not because, as Sandeep says, I like Tammy Morales.

[00:25:27] It's because I'm observing the tone changing really dramatically between last year and this year.

[00:25:33] And it has nothing to do with the ideology of the people on the council.

[00:25:37] It has everything to do with the way they're behaving and the way that they,

[00:25:40] you know, have come in sort of seemingly thinking that they know everything and people

[00:25:44] who've been there before know nothing.

[00:25:46] And particularly that, you know, Tammy Morales is, you know, some kind of wild, bad actor when,

[00:25:52] you know, in fact, she's proposing stuff that has been in the works for years in some cases.

[00:25:57] And they're just saying, absolutely not.

[00:25:58] You can't do that because we don't like it.

[00:26:00] And, you know, I just don't I just don't think cherry picking one example and saying,

[00:26:05] well, what about this one example?

[00:26:06] Was Bob Kettle really saying this in this one example?

[00:26:09] Yeah, I mean, it's the one you brought up several times.

[00:26:10] So just to wrap it up, what do you think this story tells us about the current city council?

[00:26:16] Well, I mean, I think it says that there is a pretty toxic workplace environment for people

[00:26:21] who are for at least for Tammy Morales, but possibly for people who, you know, don't fall

[00:26:26] in lockstep with the council majority and the council president.

[00:26:29] And I think it's going to make it hard for, you know, for progressives, particularly to get a

[00:26:35] candidate who is willing to go into this environment and be part of a two member minority

[00:26:41] because it is extraordinarily difficult to get things done.

[00:26:44] But there's also a large block of the council that sees their job, you know, at least in part

[00:26:49] as doing what the mayor tells them to do.

[00:26:53] And the mayor, you know, of course, endorsed and supported many of these council members

[00:26:57] as did the council president.

[00:26:59] So I think it makes it really hard to make it be an appealing place for people to come

[00:27:04] in and want to want to be and want to work for four years.

[00:27:07] And you're thinking about some of the elections coming up next year.

[00:27:11] Yeah, there's going to be this one for for the seat that Tammy Morales is vacating.

[00:27:17] And Alexis Mercedes Rink is going to have to run again.

[00:27:20] And then Sarah Nelson is also going to be up.

[00:27:23] Right.

[00:27:24] Well, Sandeep.

[00:27:25] And the mayor.

[00:27:26] Let's yeah, let's put that to you.

[00:27:28] We've got a number of races next year with Morales out of this out of the picture.

[00:27:33] You know, how do you think that could affect voters thinking?

[00:27:36] Because at this point, you know, it's clear this mayor, this council, if you don't like the

[00:27:42] direction of the city, if you don't like what's going on, you're going to blame them.

[00:27:45] There's the progressives or if they weren't in charge before, they're definitely not in

[00:27:50] charge now that Tammy Morales is leaving.

[00:27:53] Well, you know, I mean, maybe I don't think we know what the what the contours of the of

[00:28:00] the debate are going to be, you know, six or eight months from now or, you know, what

[00:28:04] the kind of, you know, you know, is this is next year going to be a backlash election?

[00:28:09] I mean, maybe, but maybe not.

[00:28:11] Right.

[00:28:11] I don't think we know that I will say this, though.

[00:28:13] One thing we do know is that the Sarah Nelson reelect, I can tell you now from the stuff

[00:28:19] I'm hearing is shaping up to be a kind of epic battle, right?

[00:28:25] That where I think labor is going to come back in and play in a big way and spend money

[00:28:30] to try to take Sarah Nelson out.

[00:28:33] And, you know, they're actively out there recruiting right now to find a candidate to run against

[00:28:38] her.

[00:28:38] I think you're very likely going to see business step in in a big way to defend her.

[00:28:43] And we're going to have a kind of classic Seattle, you know, battle royale right between

[00:28:50] between the two sides and with a lot of money that's going to flow into that race.

[00:28:54] I'm a little less sure about the city attorney's race.

[00:28:56] There is definitely going to be a serious challenge to Ann Davison.

[00:29:01] Right.

[00:29:01] She's got the R after her name and that alone makes her vulnerable.

[00:29:04] And there are already candidates that are lining up potentially to run against her.

[00:29:09] And so I think that's going to be a fairly epic battle as well.

[00:29:12] And then very likely this seat, the second district seat.

[00:29:15] Remember, District 2 is one of the two most progressive districts in the city.

[00:29:20] Right.

[00:29:21] Districts 2 and 3.

[00:29:22] Joy Hollingsworth district, which is Capitol Hill, and the CD is District 3.

[00:29:26] Southeast Seattle.

[00:29:27] The most progressive, according to some.

[00:29:29] I think I think arguably District 2 might be.

[00:29:33] I think that is I think that is changing quite a bit.

[00:29:36] Yeah.

[00:29:36] Yeah.

[00:29:37] Actually, I mean, I mean, there's definitely been movement in places like the CID.

[00:29:40] Right.

[00:29:41] Away from from from, you know, kind of.

[00:29:44] I don't just mean in the CID.

[00:29:45] I mean, I mean, overall, I think I think we'll see that.

[00:29:48] But potentially, I mean, I mean, and remember in the last year's race in that district was

[00:29:53] close.

[00:29:53] Right.

[00:29:54] The final race, Tammy got reelected, but not by very many votes over.

[00:29:57] It was like 400 votes or something over over Tanya Wu in that race.

[00:30:01] So we're going to have an epic battle over that seat, too, in District 2, no doubt.

[00:30:06] Erica, the council now has to appoint somebody to this seat.

[00:30:09] Have you heard anything?

[00:30:11] What are you expecting?

[00:30:12] Yeah, I mean, I haven't heard anything.

[00:30:13] The sort of immediate joke on social media was that they can appoint Tanya Wu again.

[00:30:18] I think that's a joke.

[00:30:19] I think it's a joke.

[00:30:21] Or she could run again.

[00:30:23] But she she could run.

[00:30:25] She lives in that district.

[00:30:26] You know, I think they're going to I think they're probably scrambling right now.

[00:30:30] I don't have any special insight, unlike Sandeep, into who they're thinking about appointing.

[00:30:36] But but yeah, I mean, that that district is interesting.

[00:30:40] I think it is getting more conservative and and less the most progressive district or whatever.

[00:30:45] So I think that it's kind of a toss up, especially with off year, odd year elections.

[00:30:50] You know, when the electorate is smaller off year, odd year elections do tend to bring out a more conservative electorate.

[00:30:57] And, you know, what actually convinced me that we need to vote in even years is that, you know, more people vote.

[00:31:05] And I think that's a good thing.

[00:31:07] And in an even year election, voters chose a very progressive candidate, Alexis Mercedes Rink, by an overwhelming margin.

[00:31:16] And so, you know, if we had even year elections, I think things would be different.

[00:31:20] But fewer people tend to vote in those, you know, nonpresidential, noncongressional elections.

[00:31:24] So I think it's going to be a tougher one for any progressive who wants to take that seat.

[00:31:30] That's it for another edition of Seattle Nice.

[00:31:33] She's Erica C. Barnett.

[00:31:34] He's Sandeep Kaushik.

[00:31:36] I'm David Hyde.

[00:31:37] Wynn Waller is our editor.

[00:31:40] Thank you so much for listening.