Who really wants Teresa Mosqueda's old job on the Seattle city council?

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice, the juicy January 7th edition of Seattle Nice I would say because we've got some hot goss coming up in just a minute with Erica C Barnett and Sandeep Kaushik.

[00:00:22] And of course we're talking about the Seattle City Council, it's just held its first meeting, there was some swearing in happening, there was some appointments happening, there's rumors about who's going to get the interim appointment for this position 8.

[00:00:35] There are some names that are out there that we've all heard that are being floated for this position 8 to replace Teresa Mosqueda who is now a King County council member so her position opening up and there's a lot of speculation about who might fill it.

[00:00:50] Yeah, there are a lot of names floating around and applications are being submitted as we speak as we're taping on Sunday right at the application windows open through next Tuesday. Just to start out there are a lot of names out there that are being kicked around but

[00:01:03] just to start out I think Tanya Wu who just ran and lost narrowly to Tammy Morales I think is definitely in, I talked to her last week and she told me she's going for the appointment. I'm hearing Mark Solomon interestingly who ran against Tammy Morales four years ago

[00:01:21] who is a civilian but civilian crime prevention officer working at SPD is also I'm pretty sure going for the position. Vivian Song-Maritz whose name has been out there she's on the school board currently has expressed interest and sounds like she's going for it though I don't have confirmation

[00:01:43] of that. Boy, there are a lot of other names out there as well. I've heard some talk of Casey Sixkiller who was recently deputy mayor and then probably one of the most interesting I should say Juan Cotto who's been around for a long time

[00:02:01] and currently does public affairs works for blood works Northwest I think is getting in Indian American Woman by the name of Nihon Nariah I think is extremely interested and likely to get into her family owned specific hotel and then probably very interestingly I'm

[00:02:19] hearing that a actual high ranking police officer Steve Strand who is the West precinct captain has expressed interest in the position and I'm hearing has some interest and support from the current council members and so that obviously would be a case where she

[00:02:42] super interesting pick given the attitudes of the last council about having somebody like that actually directly involved in the council. There are other names out there too but Erica you may have other names. Erica I have a million questions but what's your reaction to Sundeep's laundry list I

[00:02:58] guess long laundry list? I reported a similar laundry list in Publicola this week I mean my reaction is it's very interesting to me that two former Tammy Morales opponents are getting in because I mean you

[00:03:12] know obviously Tammy Morales in District 2 is now the most progressive member of the council she's kind of holding down the left flank amid this recent election that's going to really reshape the council in a more rightward direction so that's interesting to me.

[00:03:29] I also heard Steve Strand over the weekend and you know I mean what I have heard is that Sarah Nelson might be interested in his appointment to this position. You know I don't know I mean the council Sundeep says that the council hasn't been interested

[00:03:46] in somebody like that before I would say generally cops who have run for city council have not gone very far with the public so it's not just the defund the police thing that

[00:04:00] is an issue here it's this is an actual high ranking police officer and I think that this would be you know incredibly controversial among you know a large segment of the public to just put a police captain on the council but with this current council with Bob Kettle

[00:04:16] in charge of public safety which we're going to talk about committees in a minute but you know the most conservative of the folks that were recently elected in charge of public safety perhaps advocating for Captain Strand it's just really impossible

[00:04:29] to say what this council will do because you know as we mentioned a bunch of times they are all brand new so we've got a majority on the council of completely new people joined

[00:04:38] by Sarah Nelson who you know is very excited about their appointment and Rodin Op-Ed you know sort of talking about how this is going to reshape the council for the next four years and so we'll see I don't know what it's I think it's possible that

[00:04:53] they would actually appoint a police officer and a high ranking one to the council itself. Well just to preface my comment on this and to respond to you remember Jim Pugel ran four years ago right who was a former police chief for Seattle and actually garnered

[00:05:08] some support from folks you know that you would consider kind of on the last you know folks like Lisa Dugard and stuff like that and he lost Andrew Lewis but not by a whole lot and that that was the sort of Amazon impacted election where

[00:05:22] they're sort of huge contribution in the late stages of the election really changed I think the dynamic and some of the races including potentially that one I thought there was some pretty good evidence that Pugel might have won that race.

[00:05:35] Well for various reasons I think Pugel was kind of unusual but we don't need to get into that. Right and I will say I think it would be I'm skeptical that that strand is going to get enough traction to actually get the appointment that said

[00:05:51] everyone I talked to right now I don't think anybody has it in the bag right I think it's very fluid I think there are a lot of names out there I think a lot of the new council members are probably smartly you know keeping their powder

[00:06:05] dry and and are not you know making commitments about who they're going to support. I think they're kind of trying to assess which among this broad range of candidates would be acceptable to them and then sort of we'll see what the

[00:06:19] process is like as I understand the process now there is going to be a big curve cattle call public meeting now delayed till the 22nd where all of the candidates will get a chance to sort of make their case and then the council

[00:06:32] will vote on the 23rd and you would assume with this many candidates that there will be a kind of multiple rounds of voting. Just to follow up on Erica's question Jim Pugel sort of this reform reminded police advocate pre-2020 but after the consent decree what about

[00:06:50] Captain Steve Strand do you know anything about his reputation I'm reading his bio here began as a military police officer in the army I don't see anything here about him being a police reformer so what's the case for Steve Strand.

[00:07:04] So in answer to your question David I don't know Strand I have not met with Strand I do think Strand has a pretty good reputation from what I hear and in terms of why would the council appoint somebody like Steve Strand I mean

[00:07:19] public safety right I mean what was this election what was the fulcrum around which this last election rotated it was public safety right and if anything it was a rejection of a set of commitments from the previous

[00:07:33] council and their attitudes towards public safety that has sort of led to a kind of near sweep of more moderate candidates who are coming in who kind of want to do a reset and so I think appointing somebody like Captain Strand

[00:07:48] would be you know a clear indication that you know things are changing on that front on that front on that front and center issue right that said I'm I'm still skeptical that even this more moderate council is going

[00:08:03] to go in that direction I mean I like I said I don't think there's some clear front runner here or we know what the outcome is going to be I think it could go I think it's very unpredictable because I think there's

[00:08:14] going to be multiple rounds of voting and a lot of different candidates and we're going to have to kind of wait and see how the council members sort of sort of play it out so who knows maybe we will have a current

[00:08:24] high ranking police officer is going to transition over and join the council I wouldn't rule it out. Erica I see he has a degree in sociology from the University of Washington so there's that what do you think about me.

[00:08:35] Sandeep seems to think it's obvious why they're electing or they would potentially nominate a cop to this position. I mean he's the political analyst here but just what do you think. I mean you sort of hinted earlier that you think it could be a mistake

[00:08:50] for this council perhaps to overplay its hand by going in that direction sort of doubling down and saying Sandeep sort of implying they have a law and order mandate of course they're embracing a police officer of the position if they do if they end up doing that.

[00:09:03] What do you think. Well I agree with Sandeep that it's pretty you know up in the air or leaning to unlikely that they would just appoint an outright pop. But you know like I said before this this council is completely

[00:09:17] unpredictable because in the sense that they are all new so we don't know what kind of actions they are going to take as a council overplaying their hand. I mean yeah I think there will be a huge segment of the population

[00:09:29] that will have a problem with having somebody who was just the West Precinct captain on the council. But I think that Strand has shown has made some indications over the weekend you know removing all his social media profiles.

[00:09:41] It's kind of interesting that he's serious so I mean we'll see if it's just Bob Kettle advocating for it you know I could see somebody else being sort of a compromise you know Mark Solomon who's associated with the police but is not himself a cop might be

[00:09:55] a compromised position. But you know really I mean at this point it's anybody's guess everybody is sort of throwing around names but we have no idea how this council is going to going to vote. And to a point you made a few minutes earlier about the process

[00:10:09] and the rescheduling of this this cattle call meeting I mean that's kind of ridiculous right like they're going to have this cattle call meeting where they interview everybody it's by that point going to be probably a forwarding conclusion about

[00:10:22] who they're going to vote for the very next day. So the process itself seems a little less than transparent. Now that has always been true of these appointment processes they're not really something that the public gets much of a say in

[00:10:35] or gets to see much transparency into but you know you got to figure they've got their favorites lined up already and it's going to be a bargaining session behind the scenes about who they're going to ultimately be able to compromise on.

[00:10:48] I don't know that it's all going to sort itself out neatly kind of in some smoking back room and that they'll know by the time they get to the 23rd who the winner is going to be.

[00:11:00] I think it could be still wide open when they start voting right. The last time we had an appointment I think it went through five rounds of voting and there were multiple candidates that looked like they were on the cusp of getting to five

[00:11:12] votes in various rounds until it was able Pacheco that I think was on the fifth round that he garnered the supporting unit. So we could see a reprise of a kind of scenario like that given that as Eric as you say we've got a lot of new

[00:11:28] council members who don't want to who maybe don't want to go out of lim and maybe want to play it a little cautiously and kind of see how things develop before they commit to one person right there. I will say one candidate that I do think probably has

[00:11:40] some momentum going into this is Tanya Wu. Tanya was just as we mentioned earlier the candidate that recently in this last election lost to Danny Morales. She has significant support I mean really deep support in the CID and in the Asian community there's been a petition

[00:11:58] that the Asian community has gotten behind advocating for Tanya's appointment. I do think there are some council members I have talked to who you know were on the campaign trail with Tanya as they were themselves running and like her and so I would

[00:12:16] not be I would not be at all shocked to see Tanya potentially come out of this with the appointment. The other thing to consider here though is that everything I hear from council members is that they want to appoint somebody who is going

[00:12:29] to be a strong candidate in November right because whoever gets appointed has to get there's going to be an election this November a special election for that seat and so they're not only going to have to like govern but

[00:12:43] they're going to have to run for the office as well and if it is a moderate appointee which I think is likely I don't think anybody else would kind of coming out of the left lane is going to get much traction with this council there's

[00:12:54] nevertheless going to be a strong challenge electorally from somebody you know to the left so that's going to be a battle right and we talked about it last week in a presidential year election with high turnout etc. Oh and by the way we got something wrong last week

[00:13:08] we should correct Sondip's rumor turned out to be false that there would be no primary thought that there might not be a primary it turns out there will be a primary. Is that confirmed David? That is confirmed as of Thursday or Friday I can't remember which. There was

[00:13:23] certainly a lot of confusion about it internally among election officials but yeah it seems like they're resolving that by saying there will be a primary. So Tanya Wu she's got support I mean this is also a candidate who just lost Erica what do you think?

[00:13:37] Yeah I mean I think Tanya Wu maybe very well get the appointment but I don't think it's because she has like the universal support of the quote unquote Asian community she has the support of the people that supported her during

[00:13:48] her campaign the people like Matt Chan an activist in the CID who was very much you know sort of part of the homeless megaplex you know anti-homeless shelter crowd that Tanya Wu was part of last year and so there is

[00:14:03] certainly a segment of the population that supported her but not enough for her to win election against Tammy Morales you know I think it's it's a little insulting to put somebody who just lost the election onto the council it's sort of you know overturning an election very

[00:14:20] shortly after the election itself and you know arguably putting her in an even bigger position because this seat is city-wide it's not district-based so she would be representing the whole city. I think that that too would be you know potentially a real liability for her in

[00:14:34] the general election you know as we discussed last week in 2024 it's going to be a big presidential turnout year and generally you know more progressive turnout in Seattle in those big elections so you know as a moderate or conservative on some issues candidate you know who is not

[00:14:54] well known city-wide might not be the strongest contender for a city-wide seat in a presidential election year so you know I would think that the council would be considering that you know as they decide whether she's really their best bet. I also wonder Sandeep whether or not

[00:15:08] in a presidential election year where we know local elections are getting more and more nationalized if the issue of crime will just play a little bit differently than it did this year in 2024 for whether it's Tanya Wu or another kind of law and order type candidate.

[00:15:24] Well first of all I contest that that Tanya Wu or any of them are really quote unquote law and order type candidates I think that those that's your term or Erica's term but um they're certainly not part of the sort of abolition defund like wings that's for sure

[00:15:39] um that that last two lembrations. Let's just let's just let's just have as a baseline that we are in Seattle and like instead of endlessly debating that like we're in Seattle they're conservative for Seattle right? I reject the term conservative straight off the map because it's a deliberate

[00:15:53] attempt to kind of associate these candidates with with with the national meaning of the term that is used by the left to color people's perceptions of it. You want to call them centrist or moderate? Sure. I think that's what they're calling them.

[00:16:08] They've come into vogue in recent years you know from the political class but I mean it conservative for Seattle is something that I was writing back in 2001 it's like I mean go back you're acting like

[00:16:21] conservative for Seattle as some new in vogue term that came into you know into fashion with Donald Trump but actually the centrist-moderate stuff is your guys play and when I say your guys I mean the political class. Anyway, anyway whatever I know I reject the term conservative.

[00:16:37] Well I actually I actually I actually think in the context of my question was just in a presidential election year where we know that local politics has become increasingly nationalized by which I mean voters are actually only interested

[00:16:50] in it in so far as it's a reflection of what's happening federally like there's very little local interest we know this from the data and the research right in presidential election years that's how people are interpreting local politics more so than in in our case local

[00:17:04] election years so that's that's my question like whether you want to call it law in order or not like would it be filtered through a law and order lens I guess in a presidential election year?

[00:17:14] I don't know that it's particularly like that there's going to be a different ideological lens there is certainly a long time between now and you know the election in November almost a year so a lot of things could change

[00:17:25] about where the voters themselves are but David to your point I do think the fact that this is a presidential election does have some profound impacts on this turnout in Seattle is going to be you know probably north of 85 percent which is a very very different electorate

[00:17:43] right than you typically have in a municipal year election and I think that while I have argued in the past I think correctly that higher turnout doesn't necessarily mean that the electorate skews more left I do think when you get up to turnout levels

[00:17:59] like that and you you're very likely seeing very large numbers of younger voters and low frequency voters coming out in an election and those voters as we know from past Seattle experience tend to tilt more left so I do think

[00:18:13] whoever the kind of moderate or centrist or to use Erica's I think you know by his terminology conservative candidate is they're going to have a challenge holding that seat right it's going to be a battle like it's not at all a done deal and

[00:18:31] yeah in the context of very high turnout and as you say a lot of the the media oxygen and public attention is going to be focused elsewhere it's unpredictable what's going to happen in that November

[00:18:44] election I think that's why a lot of the council members are trying to do that calculus and I would say of all the field of many candidates and there are other names out there too Sarah Renavelle who just ran for

[00:18:55] county council I think it's a name that might might get into this thing as what I've heard but but anyway most of them don't have a whole lot of campaign experience or or campaign success as Erica said so I do

[00:19:07] think that's going to be a question mark that they're going to be considering as they make this appointment yeah yeah very much so all right enough about elections and appointments and position eight I mean how much does position eight really matter anyway there's nine council

[00:19:22] members it's just it's interim appointment let's talk about let's talk about committee appointments this some exciting news here Erica you've been covering this I notice a before we get to it position eight I was I want to ask about that at the end

[00:19:39] because it seems like they stuck some stuff with position eight like city light and stuff I'm curious why they would do that but but what do you think of these is one of the more interesting or exciting appointments that we saw well interesting I would say

[00:19:53] is the decision to appoint Bob Kettle again conservative by Seattle standards district seven winner defeated Andrew Lewis as public safety chair you know he is definitely in the law and order camp by any standard I interviewed him and he talked about you know ending Seattle's culture permissiveness

[00:20:13] and you know sort of doing something to crack down on drug users in public and you know not talking about you know the lefty stuff like diversion but the very you know law and order type stuff like putting people in jail

[00:20:30] to you know shake some sense into them so you know he's going to be in charge of the committee that oversees everything deal with public safety from how much the city invests in diversion to you know how it enforces

[00:20:40] the drug law to things like advocating for more police hiring and so I think that that is a really interesting choice you know he I think was somebody who was not originally expected to win but

[00:20:54] Andrew Lewis ran a week campaign and you know made a decision on the drug law vote to sort of flip-flop which became a huge campaign issue so so yeah so now Bob Kettle's going to be in charge of public safety Kettle is also in charge of the

[00:21:11] let everyone advance with dignity committee or he's going to be sorry not in charge but on the committee that oversees that diversion program that position was previously held by Lisa Herbold and they have you know very divergent views I think on public safety

[00:21:25] the other appointment that I wanted to just point out is to a regional committee which is the king county regional homelessness authority committee again Bob Kettle is going to be on that governing board and these are you know some pretty influential positions

[00:21:39] that he's being appointed to the other person that's going to be on the board from the city council is Sarah Nelson so we've got again two of the more conservative for Seattle standards council members overseeing homelessness and and public safety

[00:21:55] and homelessness just last thing on the committees for me is that homelessness is no longer its own committee so there's no longer a homelessness committee on the city council there is a housing committee that's going to be

[00:22:05] headed up by Kathy Moore and there's no longer a renters rights committee which was a project of shama sawant renters rights are no longer on any specific committee agenda yeah I mean some of how they

[00:22:18] sliced and diced right I mean it's not just who got the appointment but first of all we should also mention here that we also elected Sarah Nelson the president of the council right with a nine oh unanimous vote right and I

[00:22:29] do think that's a strong indication of the fact that not only did Bruce Harrell emerge as a big winner out of this last election but Sarah Nelson did as well and Sarah as we know is a sort of a

[00:22:40] baton war of the left when that vote happened and she was she was elected the new president of the council there was a lot of gnashing of teeth and wailing and moaning on twitter about how

[00:22:52] this is terrible in the end of the world you know and and the evil Sarah Nelson has won so obviously she's she doesn't have a lot of fans on the on the left but um but she did she did go out on

[00:23:03] limb in this election to advocate for candidates including against some of her colleagues bob kettle being the prime example of that and and it paid off and yeah she's she's council president and now is going to wield significant authority over the direction that the council takes in

[00:23:19] this in this new iteration one thing I will one other thing I will add here is when I look at these this sort of lineup and these new council committees one thing that stands out to me is that it really does feel like the power of

[00:23:34] organized labor which wielded enormous power and influence with the last council is very significantly reduced here and when you look at this lineup of new council members and the committees they have you know I think the dynamics of

[00:23:50] sort of stakeholder interplay about how these committees works it's going to be very very different I will just say I mean Sarah Nelson wrote and not bad in the Seattle Times you know basically saying here's what I'm

[00:24:02] well the headline is here's what I'll change at City Hall as council president and you know a lot of it is just sort of a standard issue um you know I'm not going to count out a special interest which I assume

[00:24:15] includes stuff like organized labor instead I'll listen to the non-special interest of business and and and she also says you know that the council is going to focus not on finding new taxes but on budget cuts which you know I mean council

[00:24:32] president is somewhat a ceremonial role except in terms of you know figuring out what the committees look like at the beginning of the term and then figuring out what legislation goes to committee and it's also sort of council member wrangling I think it'll be

[00:24:48] really interesting as I've said before to see how this council thinks they're going to deal with a 200 to 250 million dollar deficit without raising any new taxes because I've also said you know the budget is a document that has a constituency for every single dollar

[00:25:03] and you know Nelson has indicated you know that her priority is hiring more police a lot of the other council members who were just elected have have indicated that this is also their priority so these are these are fundamentally conflicting aims I mean if you're going

[00:25:18] to spend more money on police and cut 250 million dollars from the budget and not raise taxes you're talking about cutting a lot of stuff that is going to have a very vocal constituency and not just on the quote unquote left but you know among people who are

[00:25:32] trying to solve the very problems that this council says it wants to solve like homelessness like the fentanyl crisis like crime and so you know I think we're in a honeymoon period right now with this

[00:25:42] council and I think that they have a lot of really really tough problems to solve and you know meanwhile they're going to spend the first 20 days or so figuring out who their first appointee is going to be on Monday they have their first council briefing meeting where they're

[00:25:55] going to get a briefing on just some really basic stuff about how laws are made and things like that so they're starting at a significant informational deficit I would say and with a lot of big promises that you know I think they're

[00:26:08] going to have to actually demonstrate how they're going to fulfill pretty fast here I would say that if I had been waving a magic wand or advising you know Sarah Nelson on that op-ed I probably wouldn't have gone you know as far as she did in kind of

[00:26:23] ruling out new revenue I mean look I do think there is a strong perception on the new council that previous councils have been you know the budget committee has been run by Theresa Mosqueda who sort of you know has cut you know the the sort of classic

[00:26:44] Theresa formulation is when anybody ever mentioned changing anything or cutting anything is you know no austerity budgets right that that has been the the mantra right from the previous council I think that era is dead and I do think it's going to be largely budget cuts that are

[00:26:59] are going to be the way that they're going to resolve this but can they do it entirely with budget cuts I wouldn't put a marker down on that yet I do think the math is difficult and these are thorny problems that they're facing and I would kind of

[00:27:12] probably leave a little bit of leeway at this early stage but that's obviously not how how Sarah sees it or how she's playing it one other thing I will bring up here and Eric I'm curious about your perceptions of this I'm going to be watching what happens

[00:27:26] over at council central staff right these are the sort of policy and other staff that are behind the scenes you know you see them kind of come brief the council when they're talking about various policy issues about why does this ordinance being shaped the way it is and

[00:27:43] they're supposed to really be the council's you know kind of non-partisan objective sort of policy advisors and I think there's been a perception I would I think is true in recent years that council central staff at least some elements of council central

[00:28:01] staff have become pretty ideological right and pretty left-leaning and their sort of analysis and reports on legislation have been fairly tilted and I know that's been a concern of for instance council president Nelson at times and so I'm going to be very

[00:28:22] curious to see how council central staff changes are how it operates going forward yeah I mean she's gonna have you know obviously influence over that central staff is unionized but you know I won't disagree with that with that point there have been some very high-profile

[00:28:35] analyses including the analysis of the drug law which you know as as an opponent of that law personally I sort of delighted in reading but that has been controversial so you know we'll see I think that

[00:28:50] central staff does you know it has seen some turnover in recent years and I certainly wouldn't agree that you know I think there are some more right-leaning members of central staff on issues that probably don't get as much play on this

[00:29:01] podcaster in the public in general but you know that is that is a really interesting question one that kind of goes under the radar because central staff is you know an obscure part of the the deep state of the city but

[00:29:13] I will also say their institutional knowledge is going to be really critical right now as you know as I mentioned this council sort of is finding out you know many of them sort of finding out how the city works for

[00:29:23] the first time in detail how many how many existing staffers are on that point are managing to hang on in terms of institutional knowledge Erica have you been tracking that or talking to folks who worked for

[00:29:36] existing council members or is it kind of ideological turnover oh I think it's yeah I think it's huge turnover I mean even Tambi Morales the most long-standing veteran on the council is seeing turnover in her staff so and when I say veteran I mean two terms

[00:29:53] so that's that's the council we're talking about but yeah I mean everybody else is bringing in their own staff you know campaign staff and you know people that supported them and that's that's standard yeah the actual you know staff for each council member you know each of the

[00:30:07] new council members has been out there sort of frantically trying to you know figure out their three or four positions that they were going to have that directly are in their office and report to them

[00:30:17] um yeah so and I do think there's going to be there aren't going to be a there may be a handful of holdovers of L.A.'s you know working for for previous council members that might uh stay on on on staff but it's going to be a

[00:30:30] really significant change on that front as well but David I want to ask you going back to the council central staff question didn't you have a story a few few months ago that sort of pointed out some of the issues that

[00:30:41] that that we were just talking about around some council central staff and is it worth mentioning that? You know yeah I had questions about the the central staff's reporting on rent control it seemed to leave out some pretty relevant facts specifically

[00:31:00] that St. Paul Minnesota had had a very similar rent control law and then decided to abandon it because it appeared that housing starts plummeted after they passed it and if you remember I don't want to get too

[00:31:12] detailed here but the the rent control bill Salomon was proposing was essentially first-generation rent control that didn't exempt any new construction I think was the formulation and and one of the reasons that was abandoned was concerns that it might affect the housing market essentially so that

[00:31:32] initial report at least seemed a little bit light on that point but I don't know anything about you know your larger point about whether or not there are ideological things driving central staff I do know I mean

[00:31:42] they're supposed to operate the same way that the congressional budget office does and it's you know the general public like here's those reports if you if you sit on council meetings those of us who are reporters do but the public's there too listening to

[00:31:57] these things and and they're they're sort of quoted as if they're as neutral as possible you know that you're just getting good information so that people can govern well and so if it's true that they're not doing that that to me that that

[00:32:09] would be a problem as a reporter because I rely on that information too and when it's not there it could be problematic but I also know I just one other thing I would say is they're also busy they're overworked so sometimes

[00:32:19] there's stuff that just doesn't end up in those reports maybe for that reason I don't know yeah I mean I think that is true of any report produced by any department in the city not just the legislative department I mean I have

[00:32:30] recently been covering the the tree ordinance and I think there have been competing reports on that and you know the the city is you know was embroiled in what is effectively a court case at the hearing examiner arguing you know that the tree

[00:32:43] ordinance needed no further environmental review and it had no impacts based on you know what I would consider some pretty biased reporting from a city department so I think it's worth you know always being aware as reporters and as just you know citizens

[00:32:57] of Seattle that human beings are producing the stuff that comes out of the city and you know it's not the budget office the budget office does produce you know pretty unbiased reports we now have two competing budget offices because of

[00:33:11] disputes over that I'd say but but in any case I mean I just I think that lots of reports come out of lots of places that are biased the federal congressional budget office is supposed to be completely non-partisan and and and still has a good reputation for being

[00:33:28] non-partisan you don't hear either side really complaining much about their reporting so hearing that here in Seattle yeah what is going on and I don't think it's like other departments the it's there there's no other department whose job it is is to create

[00:33:43] neutral non-partisan reports other than central staff that I know of is there well there's a budget projections office to write right then noble runs and yeah but anyway Erica you're I mean I would say every department is supposed to create

[00:33:57] non-partisan reports on things like environmental impacts I mean I was thinking of the Department of Construction and Inspections which has been you know over the years like a pretty not ideological but they certainly have a view and that you know typically reflects

[00:34:11] the mayor's view the mayor is an elected official you know so I just think like let's not let's not be naive and think that like central staff is the only thing that's the only

[00:34:20] department that's ever you know biased on anything and like I said I mean central staff it's really it's varied over the years a lot and over the issue areas you know where they're sort of

[00:34:31] I mean I don't even want to call it bias but I think that in some cases you know the person writing the report has a perspective but I think that's that's something that we as

[00:34:40] reporters are sort of responsible for parsing and looking at and and when there is I mean as you said like with this this report that you uh you were reporting on it was pretty

[00:34:50] obvious to you where the bias was correct like you know you can you can parse that well our job no I mean the thing is I wasn't aware of the fact that there was this Saint Paul law

[00:35:02] and it was kind of just buried and not even really mentioned in the report and it was just so incredibly relevant and again like it seems like their job is to present relevant information so that the people we elect to make decisions can make those decisions

[00:35:16] their job isn't to kind of tilt the the scales so that people have a harder time making those decisions I don't know I totally agree yeah I also I also feel like I wonder if it's it isn't just

[00:35:29] business as usual yes people aren't there's no such thing as objectivity there's no such thing as true neutrality but there is something there is professional integrity to David's point and this is something I was thinking as well yes there's something like implicit bias and we

[00:35:44] should always be aware of it and sort of unintentional unintentionally these are human beings writing reports and stuff I don't think that's the criticism that's being leveled right now at least that I'm

[00:35:56] leveling right now at so be specific what are you talking about I think that there has been a tilted council central staff that that they should be producing analysis that conforms to you know what was the the ideological commitments of the previous council right on a whole series

[00:36:16] of things and so I don't think it was David may not want to say this but I will say it I think it was a very deliberate effort on the rent control stuff to like tailor the analysis to

[00:36:27] support to wants proposed law without unearthing any of the countervailing or negative information about the consequences of what that law might be and I think that sometimes there have been times I think where sometimes where council central staff that has become kind of the de facto policy

[00:36:47] about how they operate and that they're there to push an ideological agenda and not there to produce you know objective analysis right well I think this is kind of like Sarah Nelson saying that

[00:36:57] you know that she's not going to let special interests have any influence at the council and then the very next paragraph citing the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is a source

[00:37:05] of truth you know I think that there's going to be bias or you know implicit bias or you know explicit bias among people who are appointed by council president for example do these jobs so

[00:37:19] you know if if you think that this is now going to that we've ushered in a new era of neutrality because there's no such thing as conservatism in the city of Seattle even

[00:37:28] for Seattle standards and all they are is neutral moderates you know let's let's talk in a year and I can probably produce some reports that you know appear biased to me towards this council's positions

[00:37:39] that I'm really interested to see that's great that would be super clear here I'm I'm just saying it's going to be interesting to see what happens to the council central staff right I mean if in a year from now they're producing biased reports in the other direction

[00:37:52] you know we should be pointing that out but right now I think over the last few years I think there's a there's a pretty strong perception that the bias is running well there's a pretty strong

[00:38:03] perception as insinuation Sandy if you've given an example both of you have given an example of one report on rent control and the rent control measure never went into effect so the report had no impact on what the report on the drug law like you just said yourself

[00:38:19] like was controversial and seemed pretty tilted yeah I mean what I guess what if it would conservative a more conservative leaning council were to ask for a report on that law you know it would probably

[00:38:32] reflect Ann Davison's position and Sarah Nelson's position a little more which is a focus on some of the problems that are perceived as coming from drug use um and so yeah I mean I think

[00:38:43] if that report was produced today it would be positive toward the drug law and focus on that those aspects rather than you know the downstream problems of putting people in jail and the lack of jail capacity and all that kind of thing so yeah I mean definitely different

[00:38:57] different appointees focus on different things I mean news at 11 I don't think that this council is going to be any different I just think that they are particular goals and focuses are going to be different that see that's interesting because because I guess my question would be

[00:39:13] does it become more like the congressional budget office you know if it's true if it's true that there's been a bit of an ideological shift which again I'm not saying or is it that central staff

[00:39:25] sees itself as essentially writing reports for the council members who are sponsoring that legislation and that's part of what's really going on here it's less of personal individual ideological agendas and simply like saying I'm not creating neutral reports I'm working

[00:39:40] for Saouan this is her legislation so I'm going to write a report that reflects that and as you're saying are we now going to see a report that reflects the Sarah Nielsen Chamber of Commerce

[00:39:48] point of view in which case you know charges of ideological bias will seem kind of silly yeah I mean I think I think I could also point you to a lot of extremely boring neutral reports on a

[00:39:59] lot of things I mean if you watch council meetings you've heard these you've heard these you've heard these reports and uh yeah I mean it's not it's not like it's all one

[00:40:08] thing or another totally and I think you're right I don't want to overstate my accusation here I don't think it's like a bunch of like Twitter left activists are now you know kind of kind of in

[00:40:17] charge of the asylum over at council central staff that said I will say from my dealings with the city on a whole bunch of like you know down in the weeds for a policy stuff I have

[00:40:28] definitely seen a shift in recent years in terms of the the thrust of the work that council central staff is doing in ways that I would say you know yeah there's there's still a

[00:40:39] lot of good work that comes out there that's that's facially neutral and you know and and comprehensive and and I don't want to disparage and there are good people there too right but

[00:40:48] I also have seen other example you know enough other examples of stuff that looks just really directly the analysis is tailored to the outcome that's that's wanted right and I I would like to

[00:41:01] in terms of basic norms of good governance that would be good if they fix that now if they overdo it and go in the other direction then we should call them out on that too I mean I've

[00:41:09] also seen examples of central staff effectively sort of trying to discourage bad ideas or unworkable ideas and I mean that is that is I would say part of the role of central staff

[00:41:20] I mean maybe that's a bias but part of the role of central staff as I said that as I you know said jokingly the the deep state of the city is like when people you know propose

[00:41:30] off the wall things that won't work it's their job to produce reports that basically say you know in very boring terms this is unworkable which which they did not do with the right to say whatever in control but they did with a lot of other stuff David over

[00:41:44] yes over yes the last couple terms so I agree yeah from my perspective this is a just to pull back a little bit I mean and we saw this with the swearing in and the

[00:41:55] speeches we saw from the new council members I mean this is a big sea change in terms of the culture and the ideology and the operations and who knows what all else of the Seattle City Council

[00:42:10] I mean it is definitely a shift in a different direction and it's going to be super interesting to see how all this plays out particularly as Erica said that they're going into a landscape that's pretty complicated and full of difficult challenges so how's that all going to

[00:42:33] play out TBD yeah I just want to say I kind of agree with Erica that I'll I'll be waiting and seeing but you know Sarah Nelson's piece in the Seattle Times kind of there was stuff in there about

[00:42:48] sort of almost like the end of ideology you know this represent we're ushering in an end of ideology and yeah well I guess we'll wait and see if that's what ends up happening well I'm not going to wait

[00:42:59] and see on that I think the council has an ideology that's what they got elected for and we're going to see that ideology play out oh that's it for another edition of Seattle nice Erica gets

[00:43:11] the last word that's Erica C Barnett of Publicola he was Sandeep Koshik I'm David Hyde we also have editing from Quinn Waller thanks to Quinn and thanks all of you have been supporting Seattle nice by going to patreon slash Seattle nice and joining up with a monthly membership

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