Wilson’s office framed the “Neighbor by Neighbor Initiative” as a “citywide, all-hands-on-deck effort to rapidly expand shelter across Seattle and start bringing people inside.” Wilson has set a goal of standing up 4,000 additional units of emergency housing or shelter in her first term, with 1,000 of those in her first year.

The first piece of legislation empowers the Director of Finance & Administrative Services to directly sign lease agreements with property owners for new emergency housing, such as tiny house villages or RV safe lots. This would eliminate a significant bureaucratic hurdle in standing up such facilities.

“We’re moving faster than ever before, but I want to see the ground start breaking, the hammers start swinging, and fewer people left to sleep in doorways and tents,” Wilson said. “That’s why I have transmitted legislation to city council that will help us deliver on the goal of opening 1,000 new units of shelter with supportive services across the city this year. Now I need your help to get sites ready, to support our front-line service provides, and to be good neighbors with the shelters we need to open around the city.” 

Sites for potential RV encampments and tiny home villages were identified within weeks of Wilson’s inauguration, with a state-owned parcel on W Marginal Way SW in West Seattle selected as the first to move forward. Glassyard Commons will be operated by the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) and will include space for 72 RVs and 20 tiny homes.

Wilson’s second bill would increase the limit on shelter size, allowing tiny house villages to grow as large as 250 people in a few select cases. That’s more that twice as large as today’s cap. Only one tiny home village that large would be allowed in each council district, with villages capped at 150 after that one gets stood up.

“The second piece of legislation will allow successful shelters to serve more people,” Wilson said. “Even the most successful shelters that do the best work and have the best relationships in their communities are currently limited to serve just 100 people. This is a very low limit, which is out of step with national best practices and what cities like LA, Tampa, and Austin are doing now, and it just doesn’t make sense when we have so many people sleeping outside with nowhere to go. My proposal would increase this limit to 150 people per site on an interim basis, provide support to address any potential public safety impacts, and additionally allow one location in each city district to serve up to 250 people in cases where it makes sense.”

It’s unclear how many village operators would take the City up on this new ability, should it be granted. Some operators, such as Chief Seattle Club executive director Derrick Belgarde, have expressed a preference for lower capacity sites so that they are more manageable and less prone to issues. The largest tiny house village site that the Low Income Housing Institute currently operates has 73 units, but most are in the 40-to-50 unit range.

The third piece of legislation reallocates $4.8 million in funding to get emergency housing creation started sooner.

“My team has identified $4.8 million from existing, underutilized City fund sources, which can be used to fund shelter and wraparound services,” Wilson said. “$3.3 million was derived from an underutilized revolving loan program that was difficult to deploy and not previously appropriated. An additional $1.5 million will be appropriated from the Downtown Health and Human Service Fund, which is a program from the 1990s that has not been used for a decade.”

Mayoral spokesperson Sage Wilson indicated that, while the one-time funds would be a boost, it would be hard to find such large sums lying around in future budgets. Former Mayor Bruce Harrell and the Seattle City Council left Wilson with a bleak budget outlook for 2027, with many one-time programs sucking up scarce city dollars as the city’s revenue forecasts look stagnant at best.

As in other public appearances, Wilson underscored that addressing the homelessness crisis was her highest priority.

“Seattle’s homelessness crisis is an emergency, and in fact, our city declared a civil state of emergency on homelessness more than 10 years ago in November of 2015,” Wilson said. “But for many years and through multiple federal administrations, we have not treated this crisis with the urgency that it demands. That pattern ends here with all of us.”

She admitted that many obstacles remained to meeting that goal, but she contended the city was increasingly aligned at putting in the work to get there.

“Let’s be clear about the challenges: Our rates of unsheltered homelessness are off the charts, even in comparison with our peer cities,” Wilson said. “We have a big hill to climb, and if the solutions were easy, it would have happened already. To address this crisis at scale, we are going to need to do hard things. But I’m also confident that we can do this, because homelessness is not only the number one priority for me and my administration, I know that it’s also the number one priority for the residents of this city, for businesses and many other stakeholders across the city.”

Wilson had not identified which councilmembers will carry each piece of legislation. That said, District 1 Councilmember Rob Saka did speak at the event and broadly offer his support.

“Seattle urgently needs more shelter capacity to meet the scale of our homelessness crisis, which has gone on for too long without meaningful progress,” Saka said. “After touring Sound Foundations’ Hope Factory in my district, I saw firsthand how tiny homes can be built efficiently at scale. Expanding tiny home villages and RV safe lots is an effective, compassionate way to move people indoors and connect them to services. I commend Mayor Wilson for addressing this crisis with the urgency it demands and partnering so closely with my office to get it done.”

Additionally, District 7 Councilmember Bob Kettle did offer a supportive statement for the mayor’s press release.

“Today’s announcement of creating potentially 1,000 new units of shelter is welcome news for it builds capacity,” Kettle said. “I appreciate Mayor Wilson’s focus on this issue. My office will continue to support ways in which the city can assist our most vulnerable populations and create that safe base for all.”

Housing committee chair Dionne Foster and land use committee chair Eddie Lin are also both broadly aligned with Wilson’s agenda around making progress on homelessness, but did not release statements following Wednesday’s announcement.

Although Wilson herself did not stick around for the second half of the speaking program or to take questions from reporters afterward, a long list of providers spoke, including those focused on substance use disorder treatment and wraparound services. Beyond Wilson and Saka, the program included:

• Steve Roberts, Hope Factory / Sound Foundations NW
• Sharon Lee, Executive Director of Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) 
• Fé LopezGaetke, Co-Executive Director, Purpose. Dignity. Action 
• Grace Stiller, West Seattle resident and neighbor of Camp Second Chance 
• Ann Haruki-Pinedo, Central District resident and neighbor of True Hope Village 
• Chloe Gale, REACH Program, Evergreen Treatment Services 
• Jilma Meneses, President and CEO, Catholic Community Services 
• Derrick Belgarde, Executive Director, Chief Seattle Club 
• Brandon Ashford-Whitfield, frontline service provider and OPEIU 8 member 

Wilson is far from the first mayor to pledge bold action on homelessness. In fact, her predecessor Bruce Harrell pledged 1,000 units of emergency housing in first six months and 2,000 units in his first year, and came up well short on both fronts, which Wilson noted on the campaign trail.

Actions by the Trump administration shredding the social safety net and risking an economic crash are likely to exacerbate the homelessness crisis. That puts even more pressure on local leaders to queue up effective programs and try innovative solutions.

As an organizer at heart, Wilson also appears to be taking the strategy that a broader coalition is needed to tackle the problem, from big institutional players to everyday residents. The mayor launched a citywide call to volunteer to show support and be part of the solution. More information on options to get involved in support is available on the mayor’s blog. 

“We need to choose to come together as a city, because we can’t keep looking away from this problem,” Wilson said. “We can’t keep pushing people from place to place without bringing more people inside. And we can’t keep forcing our busses, our parks, our libraries, to function as social service providers. Neighbor by neighbor, we can do this together.”

The post Wilson Rolls Out Bills Expediting Emergency Housing for Homeless Residents first appeared on The Urbanist.

Last week, the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) celebrated the grand opening of its most recent building, Clover Place, which is located on Aurora Avenue just south of Woodland Park. 

Clover Place consists of 95 studio apartments that will house single adults who have severe mental health conditions and have been chronically homeless, what DESC’s Senior Director of Housing Programs Noah Fay called “the highest needs people in our community.”

In addition to housing, Clover Place will provide wraparound services, including behavioral health treatment, substance use disorder treatment, and connection to other services. Its community space will be used to host community-building activities and events for residents and their guests. The wraparound services at Clover Place help residents maintain their housing, manage their health needs, and build a sense of community all of which make Clover Place, what providers call, “permanent supportive housing” or PSH, a key ingredient in solving the homelessness crisis.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and spoke to its importance, especially in light of her pledge to ramp up the supply of emergency housing for homeless people over the course of her term.

“In a moment when it often feels like we are playing defense and spending all of our time and energy and passion just trying to hold the line and not lose what we have, it’s really remarkable and heartening to be able to gather to celebrate progress, to celebrate opening new space for our neighbors and for our community,” Wilson said.

DESC executive director Daniel Malone said his organization is in a unique position to provide this kind of program, due to its expertise in both supportive housing and behavioral health. 

“Supportive housing has become an essential but under-recognized part of a quality behavioral health system,” Malone said at the grand opening event. “Everybody – all of us – need a place to live, after all, and people with serious mental illness and years of traumatic experiences often need a place that is arranged to provide them the support they need to heal and to have a successful tenancy. If supportive housing didn’t exist to do all of those things, the behavioral health system would be even more overwhelmed, with thousands of people with profound health conditions unable to get better as their lives continue in chaos.”

Clover Place will be run somewhat differently than DESC’s previous PSH buildings. When a behavioral service team member is working with a resident, they won’t limit their service offerings to only those that can be billed. This change means each resident will receive the benefit of the full range of available services.

State and local money, including from the City of Seattle’s Office of Housing, paid for much of the acquisition and construction of Clover Place. Money from Seattle’s JumpStart payroll expense tax, as well as from the state, will be used to help fund its operating costs.

Malone called out Mayor Katie Wilson’s key involvement in making the JumpStart tax a reality, leading to the availability of some of those operating costs. 

“DESC, as we know, is a national model for supporting people facing the most complex barriers: chronic homelessness, behavioral health needs, and long term instability,” Wilson said. “Their work shows what is possible when we meet people with dignity, evidence-based services, and consistency.” 

Clover Place is DESC’s 19th PSH building. Its 20th building, Birch Grove in Lake City, is slated to open this summer, at which point DESC is planning a pause before starting any new projects in light of federal funding uncertainty.

DESC’s legacy continues

Clover Place is named after the organization’s first nursing supervisor, Christina Clover. Sommer Inman remembered her former colleague as a tenacious, witty, and trusted nurse.

“Christina didn’t just live DESC’s core values, but really personified them,” Inman said. “Meeting Christina helped to restore my hope that an agency could really want to live their mission statement.”

Clover was also remembered as occasionally being irritable, which Fay spoke of as a strength.

“I think that is kind of the beauty of this approach and this work, is that it’s based in principle and doing what’s right and being practical about it, and getting it done, and serving people the way we know how, and being pretty impatient with barriers that stand in our way,” Fay said.

Clover Place was specifically designed as PSH, with several safeguards to protect residents and limit DESC’s liability. For example, each kitchen has its oven’s burners set on a timer that automatically shuts them off after 30 minutes. There is an automatic water shut-off triggered after a certain number of gallons of water are used, and each bathroom is equipped with a drain in the floor in case of overflow from the shower. Each apartment unit also has an intercom, which means residents can easily communicate with the building’s staff.

Five units are also ADA compliant and intended to serve people with disabilities. 

At the grand opening, staff members shared a video of two clients served by SAGE, DESC’s outpatient mental health program. 

“Once I was housed, everything changed, because I wasn’t living with the stress of everyday survival like that,” one participant shared in the video. “I had a place I could go and lock the door […] and just be left alone.”

DESC’s supportive housing is available to people who are dealing with substance use challenges, and DESC does not require its tenants to stay sober in order to keep their housing. DESC’s harm reduction approach attempts to mitigate the risks associated with drug use, while making substance use treatment readily available when a person feels ready to try making a change. 

Data doesn’t support the use of involuntary drug treatment, which results in an increased risk of overdose and often relapse. 

Critics, however, point out that this policy can make things difficult for those tenants who have become sober and might not want to be living near active drug use. 

Malone stressed that people need different options based on their individual needs. In addition to supportive housing like Clover Place, DESC operates scattered sites, which support people living in regular apartment buildings with access to services. DESC tries to help people find the environment that is going to work best for them. 

“An environment like this, where the residents of the apartment building all come from places of trauma and great difficulty, has real benefits and some drawbacks. And some of the drawbacks include things like people saying, you know, I’m trying to make these changes, and others aren’t. And so we’re not in the same place,” Malone said. “Some of the advantages of this kind of setup are that a lot of people express that they find a certain level of comfort and support by being around other people with similar experiences.”

Federal threats to ‘Housing First’ approaches

The future of permanent supportive housing in the region, and across the country, is threatened by the stance of the Trump administration. 

King County receives significant federal funding for permanent housing through the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Continuum of Care grants. Last November, HUD announced major changes to the rules for these grants that would have gutted funding for permanent supportive housing in the region. After a lot of confusion and a lawsuit brought against HUD by a coalition of states, including Washington, a federal judge ordered HUD to halt the changes to the grant program.  

In January, HUD told providers they were reinstating grant applications submitted under the former rules. However, depending on how the lawsuit is resolved, funding for 2027 may still be in jeopardy.

Work on Clover Place began in 2021, well before any federal funding threats. 

Advocates for ‘Housing First’ emphasize that the approach is not only about providing housing. Rather, it’s acknowledging the reality that people often need a stable place to live before they can focus on getting better – whether that’s accessing psychiatric treatment, stopping the use of substances, or getting more involved with their communities. That’s why Clover Place offers its tenants both a place to live and the services they’ll need to stabilize. 

Malone spoke to The Urbanist about the importance of the ‘Housing First’ model and supportive housing. 

“Generally, supportive housing is far and away the [intervention] that is most effective at getting people out of homelessness and keeping them out of homelessness,” Malone said. “The real problem with all this stuff is that for every person who is out of homelessness and remains out, […] at the same time, there is actually more than one person falling into homelessness along the way.”

Malone said it’s important to pair homelessness interventions like supportive housing with strategies to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place. 

Unfortunately, between potential cuts to Continuum of Care contracts that fund interventions like supportive housing, and cuts to federal services such as Medicaid and SNAP food assistance that help people meet their basic needs and remain housed, the problem of homelessness is likely to increase in scale in the United States, and the Puget Sound area, going forward.

Cuts to Medicaid laid out in the country’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” H.R.1, will impact operation costs at Clover Place and DESC’s work in general. 

“We won’t be able to serve people as many people or as deeply as we currently do,” Malone said.

Elected officials in King County have continued to express vocal support for supportive housing in the region. 

“I want to acknowledge that as Housing First particularly is under ever more threats, and safety nets for the most vulnerable members of our community are eroding at the federal level at a rate that we’ve never seen in our community, I feel deeply privileged and honored to live and work in a community that is rooted in values about supporting the most vulnerable among us,” Fay said. “That includes community members. That includes our elected officials, who, in the face of difficult times, have doubled down on the investment on what works and have not shied away from programs that are evidence-based and supporting people in a way we know that will help people recover over the long haul.” 

In 2024, Seattle’s Office of Housing estimated the city alone will need 28,572 new supportive housing units by 2044. 

In addition to DESC’s two new buildings opening this year, King County’s Health Through Housing initiative opened Booker House, an 86-unit supportive housing building, in late January and plans to open the 100-unit Sheila Stanton Place in Kirkland later this year. 

In spite of future threats, the atmosphere at the grand opening of Clover Place was celebratory, with new tenants expected to start moving in on Monday, February 9.

The post Supportive Housing Building Opens Near Seattle’s Woodland Park first appeared on The Urbanist.

from The Everything App…Marshawn Lynch riding a bike to Lumen

[image or embed]

— Rock Me Amadeus Ex Machina (@mikeall.bsky.social) January 25, 2026 at 3:04 PM

At that game, the Seahawks punched their ticket to the Superbowl, which is taking place in Santa Clara, California, just south of Lynch’s native Oakland, where he’s also no stranger to two-wheeled transportation. As Seahawks fan are all too familiar, the team is looking for redemption against the New England Patriots, who defeated them in their last Super Bowl appearance in 2015, after the coaching staff opted to try a pass play in the final seconds of the game, rather than just give the ball to their dominant running back in Lynch. The pass was intercepted, dooming the Seahawks’ comeback attempt.

Today, the Seahawks find themselves favorites to win, but 2015 proved there are no sure things, even when the ball is on the one-yard line and Marshawn is in your backfield.

Lynch has remained beloved by fans and a continuing presence via his cameo appearances on numerous shows and movies, known for his love of bicycles and all around having a good time. The former football star has done a number of these “ride out” events with SE Bikes, including a tour of Tokyo, where critical mass rides are less common. Maybe it won’t stay that way for long!

The post Sunday Video: Marshawn Lynch Bikes to Victory, Seattle Seahawks Superbowl Edition first appeared on The Urbanist.

With at least 14 bills in play this legislative session that pertain to AI, the focus on regulating this technology is as strong as it’s ever been. 

Jon Pincus, the founder of Nexus of Privacy, said legislators are grappling with the implications of AI all over the country.

“AI is moving really fast, and no matter what you think of it, it’s really changing things,” Pincus said. “And states are all wrestling with how to regulate it. Like any industry, tech doesn’t want to be regulated at all. There’s a sort of grudging admission that, well, okay, maybe something needs to be done. They’re pushing for things to be as weak as possible. I’m certainly in favor of strong regulations, but there is this real complexity that we don’t want to just kill promising technology.”

Tee Sannon, the the ACLU of Washington’s Technology Policy Program Director, said the ACLU has been advocating for meaningful regulation of AI for some time now. 

“There’s a slew of AI-related bills that we’re seeing introduced, and I think it speaks to the point that we do really need AI regulations,” Sannon told The Urbanist. “And currently this is an unregulated space, and we’re seeing the risks and harms that come from that. But at the same time, we also have to be careful to make sure that those protections are meaningful.”

Washington State could be uniquely positioned to lead in AI regulation. The state is one of the country’s big technical hubs, is the home to the world-class research institution the University of Washington, and has a strong network of tech organizers. For example, in 2023, the legislature passed the landmark “My Health My Data” Act, which the Electronic Frontier Foundation called “one of the strongest consumer data privacy laws in recent years.” Washington was the first state to tackle issues around the gaps in protection of consumer health care data.

“I feel like we’ve arrived at this moment where many, many people are waking up to the fact that an unregulated tech industry has sort of brought us to this place of urgency and crisis in terms of what we’ve allowed to happen with big tech in our lives,” Maya Morales, founder of Washington People’s Privacy, said. “We’re now having this fraught and violent and disruptive kind of world environment, of many people coming to a realization all at once that we are literally creating a tech war against ourselves if we do not step up and regulate.”

Concerns around AI abound, from harms to the environment from increased energy and water usage to power massive data centers to the fear of AI taking away people’s jobs. Because AI is trained on real-world data, the bias contained in that data is baked straight into AI, which can then potentially make decisions that repeat that bias, leading to algorithmic discrimination. AI’s use in various systems has also raised privacy concerns – since AIs tend to collect a huge amount of data as they’re being used – and criticism over a lack of transparency, since people may not know they’re using a system that involves AI or consuming a product (or information) that was created by AI. 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has staked out a strongly anti-regulation stance. Although their bid to include a 10-year moratorium on states regulating AI was removed from last summer’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” H.R.1, by a vote from the Senate, President Donald Trump issued an executive order in December to “check the most onerous and excessive laws emerging from the States that threaten to stymie innovation.” The order instructs the formation of an AI litigation taskforce to challenge state-level AI laws and threatens to withhold federal broadband funding for states that do not comply.

Morales spoke of the dangers of big tech billionaires and their credo of technofascism, which is furthered by a lack of regulation, to democracy itself. 

“It’s understanding that if you don’t regulate big tech, then you’re looking at this massive sort of techno class divide, where you literally have a ruling high tech class and you have this populace that doesn’t have its needs met,” Morales said. “Many people have been speaking about this on world and national stages, but ultimately, there is really this risk of building this techno future that isn’t even really built for humans.”

Regulating AI in schools

Senate Bill 5956, sponsored by Senator T’wina Nobles (D-28th Legislative District, Tacoma), sets statewide rules for student privacy protections, regulating the use of AI in school discipline and surveillance.

The bill prohibits using automated decision systems and surveillance systems from being the sole basis for disciplinary decisions, using student risk scores, and using biometrics to infer students’ sensitive psychological or personal characteristics. It prohibits school use of facial recognition technologies, which suffer from accuracy issues, especially for people of color. 

The bill also protects student data by setting limitations on when it can be turned over to law enforcement.

Derek Harrison, the executive director of Black Education Strategy Roundtable, testified at the bill’s hearing, telling the story of a student in Maryland last year who was holding a bag of chips that a gun detection system misidentified as a gun. 

“Even here in Washington State, we see that Black students, students with different needs, we see LGBTQIA+ students, students in foster care, are disproportionately impacted by discipline rates,” Harrison testified. “And so, SB 5956 protects student safety and civil rights.” 

The bill directs the Washington State School Directors Association to develop a model policy that addresses human oversight of AI systems and automated decision systems strategies to avoid discrimination and harm to students. The development of such a policy is likely to add a small fiscal note to the bill, which was passed out of committee on January 22.

“Across the country, we are seeing more automated systems used in schools with attempts to keep students safe or to predict student behavior, to assign risk scores, to increase surveillance. Often, these systems are without transparency or context or meaningful human judgment,” Nobles said. “Most importantly, this bill affirms a simple principle that decisions that affect our students’ future must be made by people and not by algorithms.”

AI surveillance pricing for retail goods

House Bill 2481, sponsored by Rep. Mary Fosse, (D-38 LD, Everett), takes on the recent practice of grocery stores and other retailers to enact the widespread practices of surveillance and surge pricing. 

Surveillance pricing is the practice of retailers building up a profile on a customer and then charging what an AI thinks they will pay. Surge pricing is the practice of changing the price of a product due to demand (think of how taking a rideshare home on the night of a popular event costs twice as much, and apply that principle to other goods and services). 

A report from the Federal Trade Commission released last year found that surveillance pricing happens “frequently,” taking into account factors such as location, demographics, cursor movements, and what you left behind in your cart. 

Consumer Reports collaborated with Groundwork Collaborative to conduct an investigative study on Instacart and found the price variation between customers for the same item could range as much as 23%. Instacart has since said it no longer offers the technology that allows this surveillance pricing. 

Derek Kravitz, an investigative reporter and deputy editor at Consumer Reports, testified at the bill’s hearing last week. 

“What we found was not an isolated event in our testing,” Kravtiz said. “Every single shopper using the Instacart app was an unwitting participant in the company’s pricing experiments. None of the volunteers we spoke to had any idea Instacart was running these algorithmic tests. When we told them, they repeatedly referred to the practice as unfair and manipulative.”

The bill would also institute a four-year moratorium on the use of electronic shelf labels in retail stores that are 15,000 square feet or larger. These labels aid companies in collecting data about their customers and allow for instantaneous price changes.

Lobbyists from the Washington Food Industry Association and the Northwest Grocery Retail Association oppose the bill. UFCW 3000 is in support. 

“The need for state action is especially clear in this case,” Pincus testified. “As an earlier panelist said, food is not a luxury. Purchases of food are necessary for survival. Treating violations as an unfair, deceptive business practice under the Consumer Protection Act is appropriate.”

This bill is scheduled for executive session on Wednesday. An amendment is expected.

The risk of AI chatbots

One of Governor Bob Ferguson’s legislative priorities this session is Senate Bill 5984 (and companion bill House Bill 2225). Sponsored by Senator Lisa Wellman (D-41st LD, Mercer Island), SB 5984 makes an attempt to regulate AI companion chatbots, and specifically the way minors interact with them. 

“AI holds the promise of amazing benefits, but with numerous instances of damage to humans and a number of child suicides with AI involvement, we feel we need to step in and put industry on notice that it is not okay to put out a product that has so many possibilities for significant damage,” Wellman said at the bill’s hearing. “Their software, the playground we’re talking about, these chatbots, it’s their responsibility that the children have a safe environment to operate in.”

The bill requires an AI chatbot that seems human to give reminders that it is not human at the beginning of a session, at least every three hours, and whenever a new session is initiated. Chatbot operators would be required to have a protocol for detecting and addressing suicidal ideation and expressions of self-harm, including giving referrals to crisis hotlines and other mental health resources if such behavior is detected. 

In addition, if the operator knows the chatbot is engaging with a minor, then the chatbot is not allowed to generate sexually explicit content or engage in emotionally manipulative techniques.

Attorney Laura Marquez Garrett specializes in representing children and families harmed by tech products. 

“This is not just one or two apps. This is AI chat bots as an unregulated product type, and these are design-based harms,” Garrett testified. “That is why we see sexual abuse harms with some AI products and not others. We see suicide encouragement with some AI products and not others. […] We shouldn’t need a law to stop these kinds of design-based harms, but the AI industry has made clear that we do.”

Pincus from Nexus of Privacy would like to see the current version of the bill improved, including adding privacy protections and extending the ban on emotionally manipulative techniques to everyone, not just kids. He’d also like to see the manipulative techniques be expanded to include a chatbot using first person language (referring to itself as “I”), which reaffirms the impression that the chatbot is a person.

Sannon doesn’t think this bill takes the right approach to the harms caused by chatbots.

“We’re all concerned about children’s safety online, and I think there are a number of other solutions that we can explore, like device-based protections,” Sannon said. “Sometimes I think the gap ends up being focusing on minors to protect them, but when there are certain protections that just seem good, maybe we just apply them to everyone.” 

Right now this bill doesn’t include explicit age verification, but if this were added, such a policy would bring with it a lot of privacy concerns as well as potential harms to marginalized groups. 

Companion bill House Bill 2225 just passed through the House executive committee on Friday, but as a substitute version that made several changes, including prohibiting a chatbot from mimicking romantic partnership with minors and requiring notifications that it isn’t human every hour instead of every three hours.

An amendment was introduced that would have removed the bill’s private right of action, but it failed.

A slew of AI bills

The bills discussed above only represent a few of the issues around AI currently being tackled by the legislature. Other bills being considered include regulating AI use in therapy, AI use in health insurance authorization, transparency around AI training data, allowing collective bargaining around use of AI, and regulating high-risk AI systems that make impactful decisions in areas such as housing, employment, and health care. 

But with a short session and a tight purse, lawmakers are likely to be constrained in what they can accomplish this year. Lawmakers may be tempted to weaken the bills to get them over the finish line.

The tech industry is lobbying to remove the private right of action from each bill, as we’ve already seen illustrated in the House chatbot bill. Such changes will both reduce the public’s ability to access accountability from the harmful behavior of tech companies and potentially increase the price tag of bills that will then rely solely on the Attorney General’s office for enforcement. 

Another temptation will be to add a “right to cure” to some of the bills, giving tech companies time to address issues after they’ve arisen. This right to cure also raises the costs for the Attorney General, and advocates say it’s a way for companies to avoid accountability.

Still, as attitudes around AI shift, both legislators and the public seem more inclined to push harder around efforts to regulate AI.

“We’re seeing AI in every single space,” Morales said. “There is this decision and this crossroads that we’re at as people and as local and state governments, where many of us are realizing, and it’s clear our legislators are realizing, we’ve actually got to stand up and be a little more decisive about the future that we really want to build for ourselves, and we cannot really allow [Elon] Musk and a few gazillionaires to make those decisions for us.”

The post Washington Legislature Grapples with Slew of Bills Regulating AI first appeared on The Urbanist.

The post Sunday Video: What is ‘Carbrain’? first appeared on The Urbanist.

It’s nighttime at Gas Works Park. Surrounded by good friends and community, one can see the glow of LED props being spun and juggled, framed by the luminescent skyline of Downtown Seattle and reflected in the water of Lake Union. Music is playing, but it’s at a low enough volume that conversation can easily be carried without raising one’s voice. Fellow parkgoers are largely sober and in good spirits. 

For flow artists, jugglers, and movement artists like me, it’s a special time to be connecting with those who share in their love of movement art – largely individuals with few options for the space and time necessary to hone their craft.

From behind comes the affront of a floodlight, immediately piercing the moment of shared company. A Seattle Police Department (SPD) vehicle approaches, the officers’ faces cloaked behind the onslaught of the light beam. Over an intercom, the group is told that the gates to the parking lot will be shut and locked, and any vehicles inside will be stuck overnight. No matter, as tonight’s visit was made possible by the Burke-Gilman Trail. The SPD vehicle carries on, as does the joy of the time found with friends on a jovial though peaceful Friday night.

Not 20 minutes later, the same SPD vehicle returns, this time with a more stern command: the park is now closing, and it must be vacated. Confused, parkgoers are looking around, surprised that this unique space and time in which the community can gather is now being dashed. Under explicit threat of arrest, everyone reluctantly gathers their belongings, makes quick goodbyes, and disperses. None in attendance can recall having been rudely dispersed in this fashion in the countless previous gatherings in this space. 

There had been no disturbance, no noise complaint, no altercations, no reason to be leaving the park, aside from the dictation of park hours – a reflexively imagined transgression. As a result, this peaceful gathering of artists, with already limited options for convening and practicing their art forms, has been cut short inexplicably.

This is the sort of outcome delivered by the Summer Safety Plan implemented by Mayor Bruce Harrell’s administration, with strong support of District 4 Councilmember Maritza Rivera, District 3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, and District 1 Councilmember Rob Saka. Announced in May 2025, the plan included earlier curfews at some of the most highly used parks in Seattle, including Gas Works, Golden Gardens, Magnuson, and Alki Beach. 

Alki Beach and Golden Gardens saw their respective hours shortened from 11:30pm to 10:30pm permanently for summer months, Magnuson boat ramps saw their hours permanently shortened to 10:00pm, and Gas Works saw its hours shortened from 11:00pm to 10:00pm for the summer months on a pilot basis. Other actions taken in the Summer Safety Plan include increased police patrols, new barriers for parking lots, and other, more minor adjustments. 

The purported reasons for these adjustments in hours and police presence is an increase in violent crime and “nuisance activity” in the summer months. 

Was an interest in public safety truly at the heart of these actions taken? Further, if public safety was in fact the good-faith goal of these actions, are they the most appropriate actions for these critical public spaces? While violent crime was mentioned as the motivating factor in the Harrell administration’s summer safety plan document, Councilmember Rivera’s discussion of this plan in her district’s July newsletter focused much more on “noise complaints” at Magnuson Park and Gas Works Park, with nary a mention of any instance of violent crime. 

The summer safety plan reiterates its focus on a data-informed approach to its strategy. What does the data tell us? The only data cited in the safety plan document describe that “71% of community-generated calls happen during opening hours which are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. This is especially true for assaults and thefts. In contrast, burglary calls tend to be more frequent before 10 p.m.” So far, the data does not support a surge in late-night patrols and shortened park hours. 

Based on available crime data from the Seattle Police Department (SPD) dating from 2008 to September 2025, when this data was pulled, the rates of violent crime are not significantly different from that of the city at large. A breakdown comparison of crime rates by the four largest parks mentioned in the safety plan is listed below.

One of the glaring details of this information includes the high raw number of crimes to occur at Alki Beach, though it should be noted that the City broadly defines Alki Beach, capturing a fair amount of property extending blocks from the beach itself, including a large number of the neighboring bars and restaurants across the street. 

A more detailed breakdown below shows the seasonality of crime at the above listed parks, compared with the city. Percentage rates are grouped relative to crime per park, i.e. a value of 2.0 in the column “Percent Violent Crime” for Golden Gardens in Summer signals that 2% of all crime to have occurred in Golden Gardens Park is violent crime in the summer months.

Out of the four largest parks affected by the Summer Safety Strategy, only two saw their violent crime rates peak in the summer months: Magnuson and Gas Works. 

Gas Works saw only two incidents of violent crime since 2008 (significantly less than other parks), and only one of them occurred during nighttime. In fact, that nighttime act of violence occurred at 12:40am, well past even the original park closure hour of 11pm. With only 16 total crimes reported in the last 17 years, Gas Works appears a remarkably safe place, relatively speaking, with an exceptionally low incidence of crime overall. 

It’s worth noting that Magnuson Park’s overall violent crime rate (1.8%) is well below that of the city as a whole (5.2%), even if its violent crime rate peaks in the summer months.

If there is not significant data to support additional police and shortened park hours, then why were they prioritized, particularly when there is greater incidence of violent crime elsewhere in the city? 

Absent further data regarding police calls and non-criminal complaints, one can only look to the other broad category of activity cited as “nuisance activity,” in which the Summer Safety Strategy lists highly dangerous behaviors such as “excessive noise” and “lack of adherence to park hours.” Councilmember Rivera’s newsletters make frequent mention of noise complaints, signaling the priorities of city leadership in a more honest way than the purported reasons in the published Summer Safety Strategy. 

Harrell’s spokesperson Callie Craighead has remarked that, at least with respect to Gas Works, police patrols are “not permanently stationed at the park.” The problem remains, still, that the policy of shortened park hours leaves the door open for selective enforcement, keeping alive the problems of biased policing and encumbered public access. 

There are serious, even if unintended consequences for this ham-fisted approach, including needless friction between police and members of the public, as well as increased opportunity for bias in policing, stemming from unresolved racial disparities in SPD policing. When police resources are as limited as they are purported to be, then pre-emptive patrols in low-crime, high-income areas, such as Gas Works Park, are simply not prudent as is claimed.

The most striking downside of these shortened park hours, overlooked by policymakers and supporters of these actions, is the sterilizing effect of these actions on peaceful parkgoers and artistic communities that rely on nighttime access to expansive public spaces, such as Gas Works, for which there is negligible data to support increased patrols and early nighttime closures. 

In what ways, then, can safety truly be bolstered in parks, if not by way of restriction and policing? One aspirational answer can be found in Los Angeles, where an initiative called “Parks After Dark” has utilized intentional programming in parks, as the name would suggest, after sunset, finding significant reductions in crime in addition to boosts in public health as outcomes for participating parks. 

Further inspiration can be found in Paris, where, since 2019, about one quarter of the city’s parks remain open a full 24 hours during the summer months, supporting a variety of nighttime uses throughout the city’s public spaces. The program has been successful to the point of expansion in the six summers since the initiative began.

Many cities globally have positions specific to nightlife culture and activation, often informally called a “Night Mayor.” Even the City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development holds a similar position, though the position’s purview largely excludes parks and the activation of public spaces at nighttime. Seattle’s reputation of innovation leaves an opportunity for experimentation, where the city’s concerns with public safety in parks at night could also be an opportunity to expand the use and activity of those same parks throughout the day and night.

In the timeless classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs writes that “effective neighborhood physical planning for cities should aim […] to use parks and squares and public buildings as part of [the] street fabric; use them to intensify and knit together the fabric’s complexity and multiple use. They should not be used to island off different uses from each other.” 

Parks thrive when they have a variety of uses facilitating nearly constant use by the public, enhancing the “eyes on the street” principle of community vigilance, popularized by Jacobs, that strengthens public safety far more preemptively than armed patrols do. When a variety of people are using or passing through a park or public place, their very presence is what goes farthest to prevent violence and to protect neighbors of that park. 

Seattle’s parks and arts presence are among its greatest assets, as is the city’s ability to experiment, innovate, and set new precedents for governance and collective action. At a time when artists and artistic communities have faced dwindling opportunities to practice their crafts, their gathering spaces should be supported and uplifted, rather than squashed and sterilized. 

Our path to actualized public safety in our parks relies precisely on our city’s ability to innovate and create, where historic paths to repeated harm must give way to safety grounded in accountability, transparency, and above all, community. 

Seattle Parks appears convinced their shorter summer hours are popular with Seattleites. If the Parks department has not heard your voice, email them at pks_info@seattle.gov. 

The post Op-Ed: Shortening Seattle Park Hours Was Misguided, Failed to Promote Safety first appeared on The Urbanist.

For Pierce County, Pierce Transit, and the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, it’s a new year, a new budget — but the same problems. All of these entities face serious financial hurdles, leading to layoffs, lagging service levels, and reduced program offerings.

Despite a balanced budget this biennium, Pierce County officials are facing the very real possibility of long-term struggles that could severely impact the County’s main focus areas, including public safety and affordable housing. Officials are worried that the federal government will slash local funding, and the County’s limited options for raising revenue could make dealing with a fiscal crisis particularly difficult.

Pierce Transit, on the other hand, is dealing with financial woes that began nearly 15 years ago. Its budget is only a fraction of what’s needed to meet demand for transit and offer service at comparable frequencies to its peer agencies.

The health department, also an independent entity, has this year faced a major budgeting setback largely driven by total loss of Covid-19 funding, less overall grant funding, and a decrease in Foundational Public Health Services funding. As a result, it had to cut 22 staff jobs, some of which came from program divisions. 

Pierce County

Let’s start with the overall county budget. Pierce County budgets for bienniums, or two-year intervals. This means that the budget the county council passed in late November represents the County’s funding plans through 2027. In 2027, it will prepare to pass another two-year budget.

This year, the County passed a $3.5 billion budget. That budget, said County spokesperson Connor Davis, “reflects both optimism and realism—optimism about investments that will make the County safer, healthier, and more connected, and realism about the long-term fiscal challenges we must solve.”

He noted that the County budgeted a modest 2% over last biennium’s budget, and prioritized minimizing risk while fulfilling the County’s essential obligations, keeping vulnerable individuals safe, and progressing on strategic priorities.

Priorities

At the top of the County’s priority list is public safety, Davis said. Nearly 80% of the General Fund went towards services like the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, the prosecutor’s office, and Superior Court. 

More than half of that funding went towards the sheriff’s department. The council has also planned to match the sheriff’s department’s funding requests, after Mello concludes contract negotiations with the Pierce County Deputy Sheriff’s Guild, the guild that represents management staff.

These negotiations have been ongoing for more than a year, and have entered into interest arbitration.

Davis also said the County is prioritizing affordable housing, as well as investing in behavioral health services and creating safer transportation infrastructure.

Long-term Projections and New Revenue

The law limits what the County can use as a revenue source. Its primary sources of revenue are property taxes and sales taxes, and for the next three years, the County’s financial reserves are projected to remain in the black. But that could swiftly change, particularly given the combination of threats of funding cuts coming from Washington, D.C., existing state and federal cuts, and the fact that revenue coming from these taxes just isn’t keeping pace with the rising cost of County employees’ salaries and benefits, and core County services.

“This imbalance, combined with state and federal budget cuts, has created a structural deficit for Pierce County,” Davis explained. “Projections show [County] reserves falling below recommended levels in later years. The County maintains lean staffing compared to our peers and we have implemented cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze for positions supported by the General Fund. Without new, stable funding sources, the County will face difficult tradeoffs in the future.”

One of the new revenue sources the County is considering is imposing a 0.1% local sales tax to fund public safety, as authorized in House Bill 2015, which the legislature passed last year. In Pierce County, Davis said, this tax would generate more than $27 million for public safety over time, increasing overall public safety funding by 4%.

Last autumn, the County convened a Public Safety Work Group to figure out a plan for this tax, if the Pierce County Council approves it. The group consisted of Mello, the Department of Assigned Council, the District Court, the Juvenile Court, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, and the Superior Court.

The group’s submission of the ordinance has been delayed, Davis said, and the Pierce County Council has not yet set a date to discuss it.

Transportation

Unlike in King County, Pierce Transit — the main transit agency in Pierce County — isn’t under County control. Even so, the County does have the ability to create transportation-related projects, funded through a mix of County, state, and federal money.

This biennial budget’s focus on public safety also extends to transport, Davis said, particularly as it relates to making the area safer for drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists.

Davis highlighted a few projects, including the recently adopted Vision Zero Action Plan. The plan is meant to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries on County roadways by 2035. The County also partnered with local school districts in unincorporated Pierce County on its Safe Routes to School initiative, which focuses on creating safer walking routes to school by prioritizing sidewalk improvements in specific areas.

He also pointed to the ongoing Blue Zones Parkland-Spanaway project, which is supposed to create healthier communities through a number of community-based improvements, including improving transportation infrastructure between Parkland and Spanaway.

The County recently updated its Transportation Improvement Program to include tags specifying when work relates to any of these three initiatives.

Pierce Transit

Pierce Transit has historically lagged behind its peer agencies in the amount of service it can provide. The number one reason for this, said Pierce Transit spokesperson Rebecca Japhet, is lower funding levels. (Japhet retired from Pierce Transit shortly after speaking with The Urbanist.) More than three-quarters of the agency’s budget comes from a 0.6% local sales tax. That’s the lowest sales tax percentage collected amongst Pierce Transit’s peer agencies, and it hasn’t changed for the last 23 years.

Moreover, Pierce Transit is a standalone Public Transportation Benefit Area (PTBA). It’s not part of Pierce County. Putting aside the fact that King County Metro is part of King County, when Pierce Transit stands in comparison to King County Metro’s budget, it’s no contest: King County Metro has an annual budget of about $2 billion to serve its 2.4 million residents, while Pierce Transit has just north of $224 million to serve about 950,000 residents. 

In other words, King County spends 3.5 times as much on local transit per capita as Pierce Transit.

King County also has its RapidRide enhanced bus network and plans to add new lines. In contrast, Pierce Transit has just one frequent route that runs every 20 minutes or less.

But the agency would like that to change, and plans to make changes as soon as funding allows. Japhet said that Pierce Transit spent 2024 and 2025 gathering community feedback about what they want from local transit — more service on weekends, more frequent trips, and trips earlier and later in the day. From that, Pierce Transit developed an updated Long Range Plan.

Now, the agency is creating a framework to provide more service, in line with that plan, should funding become available. While it did not commit to a higher level of sales tax, Japhet said that more funding “could” come from a higher sales tax that voters would have to approve. The agency is also looking at other revenue sources, such as grants.

Pierce Transit spokesperson Penny Grellier said grant revenue could fund bus shelters, transit centers, and maintenance facilities, as well as bus replacements. She added that operating grants are available for services like Paratransit or the Pierce Transit Runner, though these are usually one-time grants or represent limited funding.

Pierce Transit’s 2026 budget includes funding for a few additional services inside its service boundaries. These new services will start in March, and will include an extended Stream Community Line to Commerce Street Station in downtown Tacoma. It will also increase service on two different routes, Route 1 and Route 3, so that a bus arrives every 15 minutes between 6 a.m. — 7 p.m. on weekdays.

Route 1 runs on a 30-minute schedule starting at 4 a.m., and changes to a 15-minute schedule just before 9 a.m. It returns to a 30-minute schedule just before 6 p.m., and stops service at 11:30 p.m.

Route 3 runs similarly, on a 30-minute schedule at the start of service at 5:30 a.m. until 10 a.m., after which it switches to a 15-minute schedule until 6:30 p.m. After that, it changes back to a 30-minute schedule, until the end of service at 10:30 p.m. 

Japhet highlighted, too, that the challenges that Pierce Transit faces are not entirely new. The agency has a limited range, and some parts of the county are located outside its current service area. This includes places like the Key Peninsula, a largely unincorporated area located just to the west of Tacoma across Puget Sound that is home to two state parks.

This limited service stems from past financial troubles. In 2011, following declining revenues, the agency’s board of commissioners convened a Public Transportation Improvement Conference to address the issue through revisions to the PTBA boundaries. One official from each jurisdiction in Pierce County had the authority to decide whether their jurisdiction would withdraw from the PTBA.

In 2012, the cities of Bonney Lake, Buckley, DuPont, Orting, and Sumner chose to leave the transportation benefit area. Pierce County also voted to remove a large portion of unincorporated Pierce County, including the Key Peninsula.

Today, Pierce Transit services 70% of Pierce County. Japhet said that Pierce Transit is aware of the challenges facing particular areas, and is “always open to providing contracted service, should another organization provide funding to do so, and Pierce Transit has the resources (drivers, vehicles, etc.) available. This would require an organization paying for 100% of the service costs, since it would be outside Pierce Transit’s service area.”

She also noted that rural areas have lower ridership, which makes service to those areas more expensive to operate. Because routes are evaluated on their efficiency, it’s hard to justify serving rural locations that are further apart, since the low ridership means that the agency is spending more to move fewer people from place to place.

As far as the Key Peninsula goes, she said, the agency “continues to engage with elected officials and community leaders about how we can support transportation solutions for Key Peninsula. For example, we have coordinated with those planning the new pilot service to ensure riders can make easy connections to Pierce Transit service, once they are into our service area.”

Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department 

It’s not just Pierce County and Pierce Transit that are feeling the squeeze. The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department (TPCHD) — which currently faces a biennial budget reduction of a whopping $24 million — recently made headlines after cutting 22 staffers.

TPCHD spokesperson Kenny Via told The Urbanist that the staffing cuts were lower than what was originally on the table. At first, he said, the board presented a budget in July 2025 that would have meant 40 people lost their jobs. But between then and budget deadline time, the agency was able to secure enough funding to save 18 of those jobs by both finding new funding sources and deferring hiring for open positions. He also said that the department put a voluntary retirement incentive in place.

Of the 22 positions cut, 12 were from the department’s administrative division. Those staffers originally supported program staff.

When asked how those 12 individuals’ work would be distributed, Via said that they came from “a wide range of support duties, including communications, finance, human resources, information technology, office administration, and records management,” and that the department is in the process of adjusting work in those programs and redistributing some duties, while ending others.

Of the remaining 10 who lost their jobs, six were from the agency’s Disease Prevention and Management Division. These staffers focused on STI/HIV programs, as well as the department’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Management and Immunizations and Provider Engagement programs.

Two more were in the TPCHD’s Strengthening Families Division. These staff members worked in the agency’s Parent, Child & Family Health program and Behavioral & Emotional Health program.

The last two came from the department’s Environmental Health Division, and worked in its Social, Economic & Environmental Conditions for Health program.

“We prioritized keeping positions that work to bring services directly to Pierce County residents,” Via said. “Because of this, we don’t expect the public to see any immediate impact on the services we provide.”

He noted that the agency has five open positions, three of which it is currently looking to fill.

Overall, the agency’s 2026-2027 biennial budget is $102.9 million, which represents a decrease of more than $24 million from its current budget. That decrease reflects a combination of changes to federal and state funding, Via explained, including decreased funding to Foundational Public Health Services, less grant funding, and a complete loss of Covid response funding.

The agency has a variety of revenue sources, but most of the TPCHD’s revenue comes first from permits and fees (39%), and then from the state (30%). It receives further funding from the County, federal government, private, local and miscellaneous funding, and the City of Tacoma.

Via noted that though the TPCHD had planned a certain budget, and that the county council had approved that budget, “things often shift over time. That will certainly be the case here as well. We usually amend our budget twice every year, in the spring and fall, with the most up to date information.”

The post Pierce County’s Tight Budget Forces Tough Choices first appeared on The Urbanist.

A new report released last Thursday by the University of Washington (UW) Center for Human Rights shows that driver information from Washington state’s Department of Licensing had been used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for federal immigration enforcement through at least mid-November. 

While state officials said two separate times last year that improper driver data was no longer being shared with federal immigration officials, it appears there is still a simple way for agents to obtain Washingtonians’ data.  

Researchers identified nine cases between September and November of last year where federal immigration enforcement occurred to Washingtonians while they were driving, following a search of their license plate numbers in the Washington Department of Licensing (DOL) database. Federal access to this data required the cooperation of both the DOL and the Washington State Patrol through Nlets and ACCESS, which are switchboard-type systems that allow users to query data held in a variety of institutions’ systems, including federal and state databases and records from undisclosed private companies.

At least seven of these cases are confirmed as civil immigration enforcement, in spite of this kind of state cooperation being against both agency policy and state law, including the Keep Washington Working Act. Several of the cases took place in King County, with traffic stops leading to immigration detentions in Renton, Auburn, Tukwila, Burien, and Puyallup. 

In the first 11 months of 2025, federal agencies used ACCESS/Nlets to query WA DOL data a total of 2,671,776 times, according to data provided by DOL. While many of these queries had nothing to do with civil immigration enforcement, the large number illustrates the possible scope of the problem. 

Through the ACCESS/Nlets data connection, immigration officers are able to access information such as date of birth, height, hair color, home address, and often most useful to agents, identifying photos. 

“We know [this number of confirmed cases] likely represent the tip of the iceberg,” Professor Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, the director of the UW Center for Human Rights, said at a press conference. “In fact, later today, we expect another batch of records about other arrests that have been reported to us, so it’s likely that the number of confirmed cases and affected Washingtonians will only continue to climb with time.”

Department of Licensing’s history of security issues

The Seattle Times first discovered the DOL was sharing driver data to assist federal agents in civil immigration enforcement back in 2018, when ICE and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) would directly email the department and receive records. ICE and CBP were also able to search the DOL’s Driver and Plate Search (DAPS) database. 

At that time, the DOL changed its policy to stop emailing data except in the case of a judicial warrant. It also canceled several DAPS contracts with federal offices to protect its data. The next year, the legislature passed the Keep Washington Working Act. 

However, in July of last year, King 5 discovered that the DOL was once more sharing driver information with ICE through the DAPS database, leading to multiple immigration arrests. The DOL initially denied the allegations but then said that ICE had lied about how they were using the data. By the end of August, the DOL had terminated the two ICE DAPS accounts that had been used to obtain the data. 

In November, a group of lawmakers revealed that immigration authorities had another way to access driver data through the Nlets system. At that time, Governor Bob Ferguson quickly moved to block ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations’ (ERO) access to the data via this new pathway. 

However, eight of the nine cases identified by UW researchers showed that the Nlets system had been accessed by CBP, not by ICE ERO. CBP was never blocked from accessing the Nlets system. “We know the Border Patrol is engaging in civil immigration arrests and therefore failing to block their access, there’s no reason to believe that this would have stopped,” Godoy said.

The report referenced recent sworn testimony from federal officers in Portland, Oregon, explaining that they traveled to locations they considered to be promising for finding immigrants and then randomly ran license plates. Once they had the name associated with a vehicle, they could run the name in other databases, and if that information suggested the owner of the vehicle may have immigration issues, they would either arrest them during a traffic stop or visit their registered address to arrest them later.

The report said, “Records reviewed by UWCHR researchers, including ICE documents and records of Nlets queries using ACCESS, show that similar tactics appear to be being deployed by immigration agents in Washington.” 

Maria Abando, representing Whose Streets? Our Streets!, a BIPOC-led workgroup that formed as an offshoot of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, spoke about the fear and anger caused by ICE’s assault on civil liberties and the state’s failure to protect sensitive data.

“We are infuriated that we have been misled to believe that state institutions like the Department of Licensing were keeping us safe,” Abando said. “We are disgusted that our leadership is not taking action to eliminate institutional surveillance of the people, knowing that they’re putting us in harm’s way. There should be no negotiation, no compromise, no prioritizing of business partnerships with tech companies when it comes to our lives – for all data, not just with the Department of Licensing.”

ICE’s attack on civil liberties

The timing of this report’s release highlights the dangers presented by Washington state’s lack of data security when it comes to protecting immigrants.

On Wednesday in Minneapolis, an ICE agent shot and killed a woman, Renee Nicole Good. Good had been participating in a protest against an ICE raid in the neighborhood and appeared to be attempting to drive away when she was shot. 

The Department of Homeland Security claimed Good was trying to run over an agent who feared for his life. However, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the claim “spin” and “bullsh*t.” 

An analysis from The New York Times shows Good’s vehicle appears to be turning away from the agent at the time he shot her. 

“We’ve dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis,” said Frey in a statement. “This was a federal agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying.”

The New York Times said this shooting is the ninth ICE shooting since September. 

“ICE is tearing families apart, detaining people regardless of immigration status, often targeting people based on race and language. District 2, Seattle’s most racially diverse district, has already seen an uptick of activity by ICE and other federal officers,” Seattle Councilmember Eddie Lin wrote in a statement. “Let me be clear — ICE is not welcome in Seattle.” 

Also on Wednesday, masked ICE agents reportedly arrested three men in Seattle at Evergreen Washelli Cemetery.

“I am furious at the federal government’s abuse of power. It is unacceptable to kidnap people who are simply going about their lives. There is no place for it in Seattle,” Wilson wrote in a statement.

I joined today’s ICE Out vigil to grieve for Renee Nicole Good & the many others who have lost their lives to ICE. To mourn. And to organize too. To everyone who makes Seattle home: this is your city, and you belong here. You deserve to be safe here. And together, we’ll fight to make it so.

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— Mayor Katie B. Wilson (@mayorofseattle.bsky.social) January 11, 2026 at 3:59 PM

On Thursday, federal agents from the CBP shot two people in Portland, Oregon. Oregon’s attorney general is opening a formal investigation into the shooting. 

ICE also continues to ramp up its nationwide surveillance apparatus. 

“With a budget for 2025 that is 10 times the size of the agency’s total surveillance spending over the last 13 years, ICE is going on a shopping spree, creating one of the largest, most comprehensive domestic surveillance machines in history,” wrote Cooper Quintin, the senior staff technologist at Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Multiple instances over the last year have illustrated how data collected by Washington State can be incorporated into this surveillance system.

Politico reported at the end of the year that ICE has new data-sharing agreements with several federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Health and Human Services. These agreements appear to enable bulk data-sharing in spite of the 1974 Privacy Act, which ostensibly barred such arrangements. 

President Donald Trump also went on a firing spree of inspector generals and government watchdogs when he took office last January. 

Meanwhile, in October, Radley Balko interviewed former immigration judge George Pappas, who was fired by the Trump administration in July.

“I can tell you that today, the immigration courts are substantively dead,” Pappas said. “They are completely absent of due process. Of fair hearings. They exist only for show, and in name only. Period. The courts are dead.”

Locally, the state democratic congressional delegation has grave concerns about the conditions at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. A December letter cites insufficient medical staff, two suicide attempts in April, and pregnant women not receiving appropriate pre-natal care. The detainees have also not been receiving enough food and face barriers to receiving necessary legal counsel.

State officials have the options of rescinding the business license of GEO, the operator of the ICE center, and taxing the facility per detainee per day in an effort to make its operation financially untenable. Rescinding the business license would be a job for Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, while a detention tax could be instituted by the state legislature during this session. 

The behavior of ICE and status of immigration courts and detention facilities raises the stakes for protecting Washingtonians, and their data, ever higher. 

Next steps for Washington State and Seattle

In an interview with The Urbanist, Wilson reiterated her concern for the threats surveillance data poses to vulnerable people in Seattle.

“We’re going to be reviewing all the surveillance policies and programs that are in place, and talking to the folks who have written in with concerns and others, and coming up with a plan,” Wilson said. “I don’t have the details of exactly what that looks like, but it’s very important to me that we’re protecting people’s privacy and not unnecessarily handing tools to the federal government that could be used to target people.”

In a statement reported on by The Washington Standard, Governor Bob Ferguson said “he stands prepared to take further action.” 

The statement goes on to say he’ll do so “with reason and care.”

The UW report contains three recommendations for next steps regarding the DOL data:

1. Immediately block Nlets searches by any agency associated with ICE and federal immigration, including CPB and Homeland Security Investigations.
2. Institute a process of accountability for the harm that has been caused to people through the improper data sharing that has taken place.
3. Commit to transparency of data-sharing by state agencies, including providing various logs to independent researchers.

However, reporting from the Seattle Times indicates the state might be reluctant to cut CBP’s access to Nlets, with Brionna Aho, a spokesperson from the Governor’s Office, saying it’s not a straightforward issue. “Misleading reports like this do more harm than good,” Aho said.

According to the report, one of the reasons the state hasn’t yet blocked CPB from Nlets is because of the need for agents to check enhanced drivers’ licenses at the border. However, there is a technical fix that would alleviate the problem should the state choose to invest in it. 

Regardless, both Godoy and Nina Martinez, executive director of Latino Civic Alliance, agreed that even if CBP’s access is revoked, they are concerned ICE will simply find other agencies and avenues that aren’t blocked to get to the state’s data. Godoy suggested that if the state was either conducting audits itself or allowing audits by independent auditors, the migration of which agency was sharing data with ICE could be more easily tracked.

However, if the data sharing with ICE is happening on a more informal basis, as it does with law enforcement officers performing casual look-ups of license plate reader data on behalf of ICE, audits might not be enough. 

Abando and BJ Last from Stop Surveillance City referred to this as a game of Whac-a-Mole and asked for more action from the state, including state agencies deliberately trying to scale back their collection of data. An example of this would be the DOL no longer sharing photos with Nlets or ceasing to permanently store photos at all.  

“Whose Streets? Our Streets! would like to say to our Washington State leadership, do something,” Abando said. “We urge you to stop playing this game of Whac-a-Mole when ICE shows its ugly head on our streets, and be accountable. We paid into this system, registering our licenses, not expecting our information to be treated so carelessly. We call on you to reduce data being collected to only what is absolutely essential to providing the services, and store that data for as little time as possible, and delete all non-essential data about us to help prevent us from getting targeted, harassed and snatched up on the streets.”

The post UW Report: Immigration Agents Still Accessing WA Driver Data first appeared on The Urbanist.

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A kitten, 10 weeks old, under two pounds, sleeps; my toe a pillow for her head. With her eyes closed, I can see her as a newborn, still blind. Her chest rises and falls, the smallest bellows stoking a fire that would be snuffed without my care and my warmth. Michelle, my girlfriend and I adopted Ellie, this kitten, recently.

When we arrived at the shelter that day, a man who looked dirty, distressed, and desperate stood outside, kept away from the door by a crowd of shelter staff. The one security guard, twice the man’s size, did most of the physical blocking. The man’s shouts were responded to with soft, understanding condescensions from the rest.

He wanted his dog back, something he turned to us and said while we were being ushered past to our scheduled appointment. “Careful about adopting from here, they’re gonna steal back your dog and give it away to someone else.”

“His neighbor, well, not really neighbor, they live on houseboats, complained to us a third time,” we overheard a shelter staffer – whose job seemed to be looking over other people’s shoulders and gossiping on the phone  – say while we waited for our turn at the solo-staffed adoption processing desk.

Most of the other staff seemed to be taking shifts blocking the man from entering and reclaiming his dog. “It was a complete sty when they got there; I’m just glad the dog’ll be going to a good home soon.” 

And so, after this inconvenient delay, Michelle and I, employed and clean, walked in and back out with a cat.

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This contrast in our experiences – our ease in gaining a pet; the man’s hardship in losing a pet – is but one example of the many ways that the poor, the underhoused, and the homeless are systematically denied a key part of living in Seattle, or just living at all: pet ownership. 

Ellie is in fact our second cat. Our first cat, Paprika, is a large and beautiful “buff” orange cat. She’s highly emotionally intelligent and very social, often chatty. Her presence has always been a blessing. Ellie’s new life breathes energy and possibility into our home as well. Seeing Paprika come and lie next to this baby embodies our hopes for a harmonious household.

I mention all of these soft joys and comforts to say that without them, I do not believe I am able to live fully. The companionship of a pet is as necessary to many people’s lives and happiness as having a human partner. And Seattleites agree on the importance of pets, especially dogs. There have been more dogs in the city than children since at least 1997. And this pro-dog stance is officially endorsed. The ferries allow leashed dogs everywhere except for the food galleys, and Sound Transit recently announced that new rules were coming to allow leashed dogs on the light rail. All these to enable the connection between humans and their furry companions – so long as you are clean, employed and housed.

But the need for companionship is more important to many people than having shelter. A study of Los Angeles’ homeless population found that 22% of homeless people say that they avoid shelters because they know they won’t be able to keep their pet – 48% of pet-owning homeless people say they have been turned away from shelters because of their pets. 

Why can’t homeless people have pets with them in shelters? Most homeless shelters aren’t equipped to house pets. They don’t have the space, the facilities, or the resources to care for and keep pets safe. In Seattle, few shelters offer the ability for a person and their pet to stay together – and those spaces are limited.

It’s even harder for unsheltered people to get pet food. Very few food banks provide it, and the ones that do provide pet food one or two days a month and require advance registration to guarantee available supplies. Otherwise, a pet owner could end up standing in line for hours only to be turned away after the two-hour pet food giveaway window. The closest always-stocked pet food banks to Seattle in Kent and Shoreline.

Veterinary care is also expensive, and much like human health, prevention is much cheaper than treatment – especially when it comes to neutering and spaying pets. Seattle Veterinary Outreach is a nonprofit organization that offers free pop-up vet clinics eight times a month. Hosted from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. across the city, there are no locations between Phinney Ridge and SoDo. People who don’t line up before 9 a.m. do not get seen. If you are homeless and seeking the bare minimum of a life with dignity and companionship, be prepared to travel far and wait long. 

How do we fix this? With the targeted spend of state funds. California started the Pet Assistance and Support program in 2019, allocating $5 million for retrofitting homeless shelters with pet accommodations. The state awarded funds to 30 shelters. In 2023, it renewed funding with an additional $10 million to expand the program to new shelters and continue support of participating shelters with repairs, pet food and veterinary services.

Washington should implement a similar program. Seattle, King County, and the state continue to throw money at patchwork attempts to get people off the streets and into shelter. . Part of the problem is offering people shelter and services that do not meet their needs. If 22% of the unhoused population refuses to accept shelter because their pet will not be cared for or, worse, separated from them permanently – like the man we saw at the shelter screaming and crying in front of a crowd of well-meaning civil servants – how can our government continue operating  a system that could be shutting out a fifth of the people they claim to serve?

Maybe this man was a bad owner. Maybe his home was unsafe. Maybe he wasn’t able to afford to take care of an animal. All I know is that his neighbors complained and people from the shelter, upon seeing the mess of his home, agreed that the dog should be removed from the owner, who was unwilling. 

What if there had been more help and resources available to this man? Free dog food and vet care to keep his dog healthy, to remove any financial burden, and the certainty that should things get tough, he’d be able to remain with his pet? I don’t know. But I do know that in the face of claims of being a “bad owner,” he cared for his dog, and he was not allowed to have it.

Make Seattle a dog city. For everyone.

The post Op-Ed: Make Seattle a Dog City for Everyone first appeared on The Urbanist.