Amazon, Microsoft, and much of the tech industry have been enabling the rising Trump dictatorship. Both mega-corporations donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. They were among the largest donors to Trump’s $300 million ballroom built on the remains of the East Wing of the White House, which was demolished by Trump last year.   

While currying favor with Trump has been a priority, Amazon and Microsoft have been silent about Renee Good, Alex Pretti, the little five-year-old boy stolen from Minneapolis, and the two-year-old boy left alone in a car in Shoreline after his dad was snatched by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Why do anything to get in the way when colluding  with Trump fattens the corporate bottomline? 

What is weird is that, while Washington state Democratic political leaders have condemned ICE, the state legislature seems intent on purposefully ignoring an opportunity to hold Amazon and Microsoft accountable. This accountability would make Amazon and Microsoft pay the same tax as other companies to fund college grants for Washington students and to lower tuition. Democratic legislative leaders are just sitting on that bill — you could say colluding with Amazon and Microsoft. 

In 2019 Amazon and Microsoft were public proponents for the Workforce Education Investment Act, which included a surtax on advanced computing businesses. It was a tax applied uniformly to all such businesses. However, the House Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment to ratchet down payments from those corporations with over $25 billion in global receipts… two corporations, to be exact – Amazon and Microsoft. 

Very few advocates or legislators knew of or understood this amendment. Who did it? Several Democratic lawmakers, including Guy Palumbo, a Democratic state senator who resigned from office to become Amazon’s public policy director, Drew Hansen, now a state senator, who was chair of the House Higher Education Committee in 2019, and Jamie Pedersen, currently Senate Majority Leader for the Democrats.

In 2020 the Legislature made some “corrections” to the Workforce Education Investment Act, authored by Senator Pedersen, which again made sure to cap any payments by Amazon and Microsoft, to give them a significant tax advantage that smaller corporations did not receive. Each year this amounts to the robbery of over $100 million from higher education.

These were both Democratic bills. No Republicans voted for them, while very few Democrats voted no, including Dave Paul, the current chair of the House Postsecondary Education & Workforce Committee and Mari Leavitt, also a member of this committee, perhaps because they realized the gross favoritism to and collusion with Microsoft and Amazon.

Thanks to this loophole, the legislature actually reduced eligibility for the full college grant this past year and tuition goes up and up every year. When I talked with legislators about this loophole over the past five years, their refrain has been that they had a deal with Amazon and Microsoft to support this legislation. How about a deal with citizens of our state trying to afford college? Rather than capitulate to Amazon and Microsoft, how about we stand with students?

That is what House Bill 2098, sponsored by state representative Julia Reed (D-36th Seattle) does: it erases a megacorporate exclusion from taxation and insures proportional taxation across the board. The new revenue – $800 million a year – will fully fund the College Grant program for students from families with incomes up to $150,000, and it will also enable the state to lower tuition. These are what our objectives for progress should be in our state, not to protect the corporate billionaires whose actions are destroying our democracy. 

A recent poll shows two-to-one support for this bill. Responding to this statement “this bill would require Amazon and Microsoft to pay the same tax rate as other Washington-based advanced computing companies,” voter support is 77% to 16%. Reducing tuition garners 73% to 17%. Expanding college grants to students with family incomes up to $150,000 gets 67% to 23%. 

And yet, since the legislative session began on January 12, Democrats have refused to act to advance HB 2098. The Democratic caucus appears to be held hostage by corporate lobbyists. They are careful not to overturn legislative actions from six years ago, even as a majority of the senators who voted for these loopholes are no longer in the legislature. So while Democratic legislators mourn Alex Pretti and Renee Good they continue to coddle the mega-corporations that are enabling Trump. These are the corporations that are helping Trump to create a fascist state of our nation.

Democrats, don’t you think it is about time you actually worked for Washington students, not global soulless corporations? It is time to pass HB 2098.

The post Op-Ed: State Lawmakers Should Hold Amazon, Microsoft Accountable for Supporting Fascism first appeared on The Urbanist.

In both cases, replacement buses will provide a bridge between shuttered 1 Line stations, with regular service continuing on either side of the closure. Riders may want to consider alternate bus routes, which may offer faster service given the circumstances. The agency has said passengers should prepare for delays and plan ahead.

Late night service closures in certain segments are also planned November 18 to 20 and December 2 to 4. In both cases, the closures will allow for expanded overnight maintenance, and buses will replace trains to serve affected stations. The exact start of those late night closures has yet to be determined, but likely similar to October closures that started around 10:30pm.

On December 6, the 1 Line will be getting 7.8 miles longer with the Federal Way Link extension. Integration work for that extension is already completed, with trains now running “simulated service” getting ready for the big day.

“Federal Way is at this point ready to rock,” Bendon told The Urbanist. “Our upcoming work is for existing system maintenance, repair work, and signaling upgrades to add Automatic Train Protection in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.”

Meanwhile, transit fans will start to see more trains running across I-90 as a part of 2 Line testing, with Sound Transit only recently granted approval to test throughout the day in addition to overnight.

The 2 Line extension through the Lake Washington segment is where Sound Transit still has a few integration items. That opening is tabbed for spring 2026, with an exact date still to be determined. The automatic train protection being added in the downtown tunnel will ultimately benefit both 1 Line and 2 Line trains.

Sound Transit has laid out the following planned closures through the end of the year, and noted the work will continue in January 2026 — on specific dates to be determined.

• Nov. 8: 1 Line service will be suspended between U District and Westlake from start of service until 2 p.m. for maintenance. Buses will replace trains.  
• Nov. 16: 1 Line service will be suspended between Capitol Hill and Stadium to replace a cracked rail north of Westlake. Buses will replace trains.  
• Nov. 18-20: 1 Line service between Capitol Hill and SODO will end early to allow for expanded overnight maintenance. Buses will replace trains. 
• Dec. 2-4: 1 Line service between Northgate and Capitol Hill will end early to allow for expanded overnight maintenance. Buses will replace trains. 
• Dec. 12-13: 1 Line service will be suspended from 11 p.m. to 10 a.m. between Capitol Hill and Stadium to install advanced signaling in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Buses will replace trains.  
• Dec. 20-21: 1 Line service will be suspended from 11 p.m. to 10 a.m. between Capitol Hill and Stadium to install advanced signaling in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Buses will replace trains. 
• Dec. 27-28: 1 Line service will be suspended from 11 p.m. to 10 a.m. between Capitol Hill and Stadium to install advanced signaling in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Buses will replace trains. 

For up-to-date information, Sound Transit encourages passengers to sign up to receive automatic email service alerts for Link light rail, ST Express, T Link, Sounder N Line and Sounder S Line. Just go to Service alerts | Sound Transit.  

The post 1 Line Light Rail Faces Weekend Maintenance Closures Starting November 8 first appeared on The Urbanist.

Bremerton’s newly adopted Comprehensive Plan, approved on the same night, anticipates significant housing growth in a city that’s currently home to just over 45,000 people. The plan primes Downtown Bremerton for a building boom, raising height limits to 80 feet and removing all density limits for new development. Additional planned density is focused in commercial centers around the city and along a planned bus rapid transit line that is envisioned in Kitsap Transit’s long-range plan.

With parking mandates dropped, builders in Bremerton have the option to choose additional homes over parking, particularly in areas close to transit. Structured parking in new apartment buildings can cost builders up to $60,000 per stall, according to the Sightline Institute, a cost that is passed onto the renters who live in those buildings.

Parking mandates also put a damper on the opening of new businesses, requiring business owners to add parking to existing environments when wanting to change a use. This dynamic contributed to the hollowing out of historic main street business districts in favor of sprawled-out strip malls.

“This does not ban parking. It doesn’t prohibit parking. It doesn’t remove any existing parking, and we have a lot of surface lots across the city already. What it does do is enable extra housing. It enables businesses,” said Councilmember Jeff Coughlin, challenging incumbent Mayor Greg Wheeler to lead the city in this fall’s election, on Wednesday night. “We have the parking, and we have the ability to manage it. We just have to be smart about it. But when it comes to tackling these longstanding Bremerton problems that have not gotten better, this is a concrete step we can take. I’m happy to be bold. We need to take the lead. We need to do something big. This is something big.”

With a council that is highly focused on improving safety for people walking and biking, Bremerton’s leaders framed the change as pushing the city toward a place where depending on a single-occupancy vehicle to get around is less necessary.

“In theory, we’re supposed to be growing a city, and every city I’ve lived in, from New Orleans to New York City and Boston, I never owned a car. I walked everywhere or took a bus, or if was a little bit farther, got a cab,” Councilmember Jane Rebelowski said, noting that there’s a positive feedback loop between housing density and transit improvements. “So hopefully by [passing] this — and we get more tight development in areas — Kitsap Transit will get better.”

“Parking is absolutely a hindrance to home construction. Without a doubt, this is a huge opportunity for the City of Bremerton to be the leader in the county and in western Washington,” Jake Carter, the director of construction for Habitat for Humanity of Kitsap County, told the council. “It’s a chicken and an egg. We can’t have housing. We can’t have transit. You look at transit models, they’re based on housing density. […] Parking inhibits housing, period.”

Bremerton is on the leading edge of a wave of parking reform that is set to overtake Washington State thanks to recent moves by the legislature. With the passage of Senate Bill 5184 earlier this year, all cities with more than 30,000 people will be forced to curb the mandates in their land use codes within three years. The newly enacted law includes a new ceiling of one stall for every two units in an apartment building, with additional exemptions for affordable housing, senior housing, and smaller housing units — everything under 1,200 square feet.

While some cities, like Lynnwood, are already taking steps to adopt the framework of these new requirements as written, others are following Bremerton’s lead and exploring dropping mandates entirely, a move that is much simpler and includes less potential for unintended incentives. For example, if cities want to encourage more two and three-bedroom units, an exemption for smaller units might actually work against that.

Shoreline, which committed to unraveling parking from its land use code late last year, is still heading toward that goal, and earlier this year a majority of the Bothell City Council signed onto the idea as well. But it remains notable that cities outside of King County, which is home to the most frequent transit service in the state, moved forward first, debunking the idea that abolishing parking mandates is only possible in areas of the state with incredibly high levels of transit service.

The impacts of mandating copious parking are far-reaching, driving up air pollution that worsens human health and generating runoff contaminated with toxic tire chemicals (i.e., 6PPDQ) that has been tied to declining salmon runs. Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson drew just this connection.

“Parking is a government-mandated tax on new housing and small businesses that we want, and the result that we get from it is more pavement, more air pollution, more tire dust, 6PPDQ pollution, and we know that it drives more traffic,” Bothell Mayor Mason Thompson said in April.

With more and more cities realizing the detrimental impacts that parking mandates have on their built environment and their goals around improving transit and mobility, Bremerton is part of an early group of trend-setting cities, but there almost certainly will be more to come.

The post Bremerton Becomes Latest Washington City to Ditch Parking Mandates first appeared on The Urbanist.

Diaz and Tompkins have consistently denied there was any affair.

Now, new information involving the case has come to light amidst a $10 million tort claim Diaz has filed against the city, Harrell, and Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess and a demand letter from Tompkins alleging that SPD subjected her to a sexually hostile workplace. Tompkins is asking for a $3 million settlement. 

The independent investigation

In a report documenting her independent investigation into Diaz, Shayda Z. Le, a partner at Barran Liepman LLP, wrote that based on a preponderance of evidence, she found that Diaz and Tompkins had engaged in an intimate or romantic relationship. 

“The primary evidence which weighed in favor of this finding consisted of the handwritten card, the subsequent handwriting analysis, and the direct statements relayed by the security detail,” Le wrote in her report. 

Most of the evidence presented in the report is circumstantial and based on the unsupported testimony of several SPD employees, including Diaz’s security detail. The main piece of physical evidence is a handwritten birthday card with a fuzzy Ewok on the front. A member of Diaz’s security detail says he found the card while cleaning out his own assigned car on May 27, 2023. The officer allegedly held onto the card for over a year before revealing it was in his possession.

Diaz’s birthday is July 21, almost two months after the card was allegedly found. May 26, 2023 was Tompkins’s first day of work at SPD. 

According to the report, the card said the following: 

“Adrian, When I think about you, I think of the first time I saw you smile. You were so shy, but sweet. And I loved the way you chose your words so carefully. I wondered what you were filtering out. What made you tick? What made you laugh? Why would a person want to take on such a challenging role? Now that I know you, I know the answers to those questions. What I did not expect was how knowing you would bring me closer to me. More in line with who I am. How I feel. What I want. Where I want to go. Before I knew you, I didn’t really know me. You woke me up. Like a prince in one of your Disney movies. I hope I always know your kiss. I hope I always feel your influence. I hope to always know you and me. I love you, Me.”

A handwriting analysis was conducted by expert Robin D. Williams as part of the report. Williams found that it was “highly probable” that the handwriting in the greeting card belonged to Tompkins. She also said she found evidence of disguise in some of Tompkins’s writing samples.

However, Diaz’s legal team initiated their own handwriting analysis of the card from expert Hannah McFarland, who found the card was “probably not written by Jamie Tompkins.” McFarland did note she would have preferred to analyze the original card instead of the copy she was provided.

Forensic handwriting analysis is subjective by nature, which calls its reliability into question, as is illustrated by these two differing expert opinions. A paper about handwriting analysis published in 2019 in The Journal of Forensic Science and Medicine said, “Although this form of evidence has been used in courts for a long time, its standing as evidence is relatively weak. Although it is based on expert opinion in practice, it is less reliable than other forms of evidence based on scientific knowledge.”

Other information provided in the investigatory report involves SPD employees sharing conversations they’d had with Diaz, which would not always be evidence that is admissible in court. The report also brought up an irregularity in Diaz’s handling of Tompkins’s background check.

The report discussed confusion about what Tompkins’s role was supposed to be as Chief of Staff, given Tompkins’s experience as an anchor and journalist, most recently at FOX 13. Chief of Staff at SPD has often been a role filled by a sworn officer instead of a civilian. However, Le reported that Diaz had told her he had first been considering hiring an anchor at KIRO to be his chief of staff. 

The Urbanist obtained a copy of an email, dated November 11, 2024, sent by Tompkins to Le and OIG Inspector General Lisa Judge in which Tompkins said she wanted to share some new information pertinent to the investigation. She said she spoke with former Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell, who told her Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess personally shared the rumor of Tompkins and Diaz’s affair with her and was, according to the email, “behind the fabrication and media frenzy of this rumor.”

“Monisha says she is willing to testify on the record for any attorney or investigator. She said the goal was to “get rid of Diaz” and I was quote, “just in the way”,” Jamie wrote. 

The Urbanist contacted Monisha Harrell, who said nobody ever reached out to her regarding the investigation.

Diaz provided Le with a draft of his remarks at a Command Staff meeting a week before Tompkins began at SPD. In the draft, he denied any romantic relationship with Tompkins and said he was aware of allegations that West Precinct officers had been surveilling Tompkins to confirm the rumors. He also stated that he had reached out to federal authorities to discuss these surveillance allegations. 

Undisputed is the fact that Diaz went to Tompkins’s apartment on many occasions, he says to help her with various chores. The report details Diaz’s concerns about whether he was being followed or tracked in his car.

The greeting card was the linchpin of the investigation’s findings. With authorship of the card called into question, it’s unclear if the investigation is adequate to make a confident finding on the question of the nature of the relationship between Diaz and Tompkins.

With the providence of the greeting card in doubt, there is also the question of whether the card could have been forged, which would be a criminal offense.

The Urbanist has learned that Diaz’s legal team has requested a criminal investigation by an outside agency, but such an investigation does not appear to have been initiated at this time. 

Tompkins’s demand letter

The Urbanist obtained a copy of Tompkins’s demand letter to the City, which was signed by attorney Michael C. Subit. The letter states, “Before Tompkins began work, and continuing throughout the entirety of her employment, SPD subjected her to a sexually hostile work environment. On a regular basis, SPD officers and employees taunted and insulted Tompkins by repeating the false charge that she was in a sexual relationship with former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz.” 

The demand letter alleges that rumors about a relationship between Tompkins and Diaz began before she’d even begun working at SPD. The letter states that a reporter let Tompkins know before she began work that SPD officers were surveilling her. The letter goes on to say that once Tompkins began the job, she frequently heard comments “about her alleged affair with Diaz and/or her physical appearance.” 

The letter continues by listing a number of incidences and examples of the sexual harassment Tompkins says she experienced during her year and a half at SPD. She resigned on November 6, 2024.  

The letter concludes, “Words cannot describe the anguish and humiliation Tompkins experienced as a result of the continual sexual harassment she experienced.” 

The letter expresses a desire to begin settlement negotiations, suggesting the figure of $3 million. 

“The City takes allegations of this nature seriously, and we are committed to creating a Police Department that reflects our Seattle community and where women have the opportunity to succeed in leadership and in the department,” said Jamie Housen, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office. 

After conducting an investigation, the Washington State Employment Security Department approved Tompkins’s unemployment benefits after she resigned from SPD. They found Tompkins had “a good reason for quitting her job.”

Tompkin’s allegations of sexual harassment land on an already troubled department. SPD commissioned a study done in August of 2023 as part of its 30×30 initiative, which seeks to hire more women officers. 

During the study, researcher Dr. Lois James documented many stories of women officers  at SPD experiencing sexual harassment while on the job. Women officers also complained of discrimination against getting promoted, a problem that appeared to worsen the higher up the ranks an officer climbed. 

The report reads, “Most of the participants would not encourage other women in their lives to join the department.” 

Several lawsuits have been filed against SPD alleging sexual harassment and discrimination in the last two and half years.

In addition, SPD doesn’t seem to be making much progress in its 30×30 goals. At a press conference on Monday, SPD’s new Chief Shon Barnes said, “Last year we hired 10 females. This year we’ve hired five, so we still have some work to do on that.”

At the press conference, Harrell announced SPD had hired 60 officers so far this year, meaning the percentage of new women officers is 8.33%. And PubliCola reported that 5 of the 24 departures from SPD this year–or 20%–have been women, meaning SPD has achieved a net gain of zero women officers this year. 

Combined with the 30×30 report, Tompkins’s claims of sexual harassment offer one possible explanation as to why SPD has so many female officers leaving the department. 

Harrell responds

At Monday’s press conference, Jonathan Choe, a reporter at Turning Points USA, a far-right youth group founded by Charlie Kirk, asked Harrell about Tompkins’s demand letter and her allegations of SPD being a sexually hostile working environment. 

“I can’t comment on either litigation or threatened litigation,” Harrell said. “I’ll have to defer to the City Attorney’s office.” 

FOX 13 reporter Hana Kim then pressed Harrell further, saying that he was specifically named in the demand letter and could be assumed to have known about it.

“So you should not make assumptions,” Harrell said. “I have both a City Attorney’s office to handle all litigation–threatened, pending, and actual litigation. I have a General Counsel that handles all litigation–threatened, pending or actual litigation. And we are running a city and moving forward today. So it’s very […] it’s a poor assumption [to assume] I know every complaint made by every employee. It’s just not a good assumption. So again, on this date, we’re moving forward.”

Harrell then turned back towards the lineup of SPD recruits present for the conference and said, “You guys with me, right?” 

Barnes, standing next to him, said, “Absolutely.”

With allegations flying on both sides and so much of the evidence being circumstantial, it is hard to guess what actually happened in the lead-up to Tompkins’s resignation and Diaz’s firing late last year. Harrell might not want to be proactive about what’s proving to be a messy debacle for the City, especially given that it’s an election year. But due to the seriousness of some of the claims being made, Harrell might feel forced to give Diaz the independent criminal investigation he’s been requesting.

In the meantime, the public is left considering two competing narratives: that Diaz created a position for and hired a woman with whom he was having an affair while privately bragging about it, or that Diaz, having recently realized he was gay, received moral support from a former theater kid and decided to hire her when his top choice for the job fell through.  

The post Ex-SPD Employee Jamie Tompkins Alleges City Allowed “Sexually Hostile Work Environment” first appeared on The Urbanist.

Washingtonians in the market for a new e-bike can qualify for the chance to snag a $300 or $1,200 instant rebate starting this week. The statewide rebate program, which has been in the works for two years, will allow Washingtonians to take advantage of more than $4 million in discounts that could put the cost of a new e-bike within reach for more people. Around 10,000 rebates are expected to be disbursed, with a two-week sign up period starting Wednesday, April 9 and extending through April 23.

Anyone signing up during that time will be entered into a lottery, so e-bike purchasers don’t have to be waiting at the computers to refresh the website starting on Wednesday morning.

Only Washington residents 16 and over will be able to apply via the state’s rebate portal. To qualify for a $1,200 rebate, residents must confirm a household income at or below 80% of the median income for their county — $89,000 for a household of two in King and Snohomish County. For those who don’t meet those income limits, $300 rebates will be available instead.

A lottery system will help the state avoid the mad dash e-bike rebate launches that have been seen elsewhere, in which first-come-first-served rebates are exhausted within minutes of becoming available. Successful applicants will have 96 hours to complete their rebate applications, and another 45 days to purchase the e-bike (and potential e-bike accessories including helmets and locks) from a participating retailer. Find a list of those here.

Information about what types of e-bikes — including adaptive e-bikes and e-tricycles — qualify for the rebates will be available directly in the rebate portal starting Wednesday. For other program details, check the portal’s frequently asked questions page.

Launch of a statewide e-bike rebate likely would not have happened without the work of State Senator Sharon Shewmake (D-42nd, Bellingham). Shewmake unsuccessfully pushed to pilot a statewide e-bike sales tax exemption in 2021 and was the driving force behind the 2023 budget allocation that made the e-bike rebate program possible. That budget amendment also directed the state to develop e-bike lending library programs, for households that want to try out an e-bike before committing to owning one or just need one for a few trips here and there. Those programs are still in development.

The launch of the rebate program does come as a fraught time, with new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration likely to increase the cost of many household goods, including e-bikes. On top of that, the transportation budget approved by the state Senate late last month levies an additional 10% sales tax on e-bikes, though it now includes an exemption for some of the most common types. If it were approved, that new tax wouldn’t take effect until next year, but the move sends a conflicting signal about state support for e-bike riders and decarbonizing transportation.

While other jurisdictions, such as Denver, make e-bike rebates available on a regular basis, Washington is unlikely to repeat its rebate lottery any time soon. Cost increases on Washington’s highway megaprojects, combined with declines in fuel tax revenue, have prompted lawmakers to scramble to realign the state’s transportation budget. Additional funding for the e-bike rebate program did not make the cut, despite the fact that the hard part — setting up the infrastructure to disburse the vouchers and looping in retailers — has already been done.

One thing is clear: demand for e-bike vouchers will almost certainly outpace supply when the online portal opens tomorrow. After all, more than 80% of the state’s eight million residents are old enough to qualify for the estimated 10,000 available vouchers, giving them 1 in 650 odds, should everyone apply.

In 2024, the League of American Cyclists ranked Washington as the most bike-friendly state in the U.S., as the group also did for the period for 2013 to 2019. If any state is likely to have high bike demand, Washington is a good bet.

If e-bike vouchers ends up becoming a one-and-done program, the state will likely be leaving significant benefit on the table when it comes to improving mobility and reducing emissions. A 2022 study of Denver’s e-bike rebate program found that after the first tranche of vouchers was released, allowing over 4,700 Denver residents to purchase an e-bike, program participants reported utilizing their e-bikes for an average of 26 miles of travel every week. Those miles replaced 3.4 round trips that would otherwise have been made in motor vehicles, with 71% of respondents reporting using their gas vehicles less after purchasing an e-bike.

While the program is almost guaranteed to leave some people behind, it’s also poised to help a great deal of Washingtonians get a leg up in purchasing what is quickly becoming an essential urban mobility tool.

The post Washington’s E-bike Rebate Program Launches Wednesday first appeared on The Urbanist.

The Urbanist Elections Committee (on which both of us sit) made Mello our headline endorsement due to the strength of his campaign and his campaign’s potential to shift Pierce County in an urbanist direction. Mello has a strong record on housing, transit, and safe streets.

Several other endorsees are in strong position heading into the general election. As a vote-by-mail state, late returns are built into the system. Election officials estimate 144,000 ballots remain to be counted statewide following Friday’s count.

Alexis Rinck opens up 11 point lead

In Seattle’s citywide special election, progressive challenger Alexis Mercedes Rinck is ahead of current seat-holder Tanya Woo in the race for City Council Position 8. Rinck has a lead of more than 20,000 votes and is sitting at 49% at Friday’s drop, and she could clear 50% after all votes are counted. Meanwhile Woo has slipped below 39%.

The strong showing for progressives could be a sign that the wave that carried centrists to victory in 2023 might have dissipated. A more progressive electorate in an even-year presidential election could also be at play, compared to notoriously conservative-leaning odd-year elections. However, Woo’s electoral struggles — despite the veneer of incumbency she was provided by being appointed to her seat — suggests that voters have not been won over by the centrist agenda.

High-powered lobbyist Tim Ceis (a former deputy mayor who now raises money for business-aligned political action committees) lobbied hard for Woo’s appointment, arguing wealthy donors had earned the right to pick the appointee for the seat vacated by Teresa Mosqueda’s election to King County Council. Ceis and his allies also argued Woo was well-positioned to hold the seat this November, but that now appears in doubt. Woo is trailing by 11 points. A big campaign spending spree orchestrated by Ceis may help close the gap, but it also could reinforce that Woo is the corporate crony candidate.

Democrats well-positioned in statewide races

The Governor’s race will be a showdown between Democrat Bob Ferguson and Republican Dave Reichert. Ferguson has a commanding lead, with more than 45% of the primary vote. Reichert has managed 27.5% of the vote, with Washington GOP-endorsed Trumpist Semi Bird pulling only 10%. Conservative-leaning Democrat Mark Mullet managed only 6% despite raising $1.3 million and having nearly a million on his behalf via a political action committee largely funded by real estate magnates and oil executives.

The Urbanist did not make a gubernatorial endorsement during the primary, after Ferguson declined to participate in the elections committee’s process. If he makes it to the Governor’s Mansion, Ferguson will have to decide how to carry on Jay Inslee’s 12-year legacy, which included passing landmark climate legislation and outspoken advocacy for increasing the state’s housing supply during the later years of his tenure.

The state Commissioner of Public Lands race was surprisingly crowded this year, with two Republicans and five Democrats vying for the seat. Initially, it looked like that mismatch may end up resulting in a Democrat being pinched out of the general election in the top two primary. The two Republican candidates lead in early returns, but Democrat Dave Upthegrove has surged past Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson and is currently trailing only Jaime Herrera Beutler, setting up the final D versus R showdown. Urbanist-endorsed Patrick DePoe has won 14% of the vote, finishing third.

Urbanist-endorsed Nick Brown advanced in a three-way race to succeed Ferguson at the state’s Attorney General, garnering 35% of the vote to State Senator Manka Dhingra’s 22%. Brown will face Republican Pete Serrano, who pulled in 42% of the vote.

Insurance Commissioner is not a race traditionally associated with planning issues, but State Senator Patty Kuderer, currently the chair of the Senate’s Housing Committee, looks primed to prevail in her race as well, garnering 45% to fellow Senator Phil Fortunato’s 28%. Kuderer’s departure from the Senate would trigger an appointment to be made by the King County Council, after a recommendation is made by the 48th District Democrats.

Olympia headed for an infusion of progressive talent

With so many state lawmakers retiring at the end of 2024, the August primary results point toward a full lineup of new progressive voices at the Washington Legislature next year. Not only do the Democratic caucuses in both the House and the Senate look poised to increase their majorities — potentially even to the level of supermajorities — but many of the candidates on track to head to Olympia ran directly on issues like housing reform and support for progressive revenue sources.

Shaun Scott is far ahead in Legislative District 43 for the open house seat vacated by Frank Chopp’s retirement. Some pundits had been ready to concede the race to centrists, arguing that a durable conservative shift had occurred in the Seattle electorate. With 56% of the primary vote, Scott will head into the general election well ahead of We [Heart] Seattle activist Andrea Suarez, who edged out Seattle Times endorsed Daniel Carusello by 4.7 points. It turns out LD43 remains fertile ground for progressives. If elected, Scott will join pro-housing stalwart Nicole Macri as a seatmate, after Macri faced no challenger in the primary.

Speaking of housing champions, Representative Jessica Bateman, the architect of Washington’s 2023 Missing Middle law, looks to be headed to the State Senate after an impressive 69% showing in a three-way all-Democratic primary in Olympia’s 22nd Legislative District. All signs also point to her current House seat being filled by Lisa Parshley, who follows in Bateman’s footsteps as a current Olympia City Councilmember. Parshley leads fellow Democrat Syd Locke 65% to 32%, as of Friday’s drop.

On the Eastside, Issaquah Councilmember Victoria Hunt came out ahead as the leading Democrat in the race for the open House seat in the 5th Legislative District. She will go on to challenge Republican Mark Hargrove, but with over 55% of the primary’s vote share going to Democrats in that race, Hunt has a significant edge. The Urbanist endorsed underdog Kristiana de Leon in the race, but Hunt has made her pro-housing bona fides clear during her time on the Issaquah City Council.

In LD45, long-time incumbent Rep. Larry Springer also appear to have a tight race on his hands and is sitting below 50%. Urbanist-endorsed Melissa Demyan is trailing by just 2.7 points, suggesting she is within striking distance if her campaign can continue to build momentum heading into November.

The post Urbanist Candidates Make Strong Showing in August Primary first appeared on The Urbanist.

The City of Seattle has a quarter-billion-dollar budget problem to solve. In his “state of the city” speech earlier this year, Mayor Bruce Harrell said he rejects notions of austerity. Good for him! I’m here to help. Let’s chart a way out of this crisis that doesn’t involve slashing city services, laying off city workers, and hobbling our progress on housing and homelessness. In other words, let’s talk about taxing the rich. But first, a brief primer on how we got here.

How did we get here?

The City’s $1.7 billion general fund is its most flexible pool of money and comprises just over a fifth of the total budget. Base revenues flowing into that fund have fallen short of expenses for some years now. Why? A host of factors, which mostly boil down to the economic blow dealt by the Covid pandemic, roaring inflation, the (consequently) rising cost of paying city workers, and the state-imposed 1% annual limit on general-purpose property tax rate increases. 

So far, that gap between revenue and expenses has been masked by the addition of temporary funds, including federal pandemic relief dollars and infusions from the JumpStart big business tax that was passed in 2020. JumpStart’s long term spending plan focuses on affordable housing, equitable development, small business support, and climate resilience, but the tax also came to the rescue during the pandemic, preventing the deep cuts many other cities have had to make.

But starting in 2025, those one-time transfers disappear and a yawning shortfall opens up, most recently estimated at $258 million or about 15% of the general fund.

We’re already getting a taste of what the fallout might feel like. Seattle Public Library announced 1,500 hours of closures this spring, after an anticipatory hiring freeze made staffing shortages worse. This year over 60% of the library’s funding, or $62 million, came from the general fund.

What else could be on the chopping block? Almost half the general fund goes to public safety, which (just being real here) seems unlikely to get a haircut — Mayor Harrell has exempted public safety departments from the hiring freeze he put in place in January. But other general fund beneficiaries, from the libraries to human services to arts and culture to transportation, may be in peril.

The other obvious move is to toss out the JumpStart spending plan, slashing the City’s future investments in affordable housing and diverting that revenue to fill the general fund hole. (It’s already begun.)

But why are we talking about cuts? Harrell says he’s not an austerity mayor, so let’s talk about new revenue instead. Specifically, let’s talk about taxing the person who will be moving into that multimillion dollar penthouse at the top of the First Light condo tower, soaking in the rooftop jacuzzi and vrooming around downtown in a McLaren supercar. Let’s talk about taxing the rich. How could we do it, if the political will were there? Let us count the ways.

1. Capital gains tax

Our future penthouse owner needs to sell off some assets to plunk down that $5.1 million. When they do, Washington state will be taking a cut. In 2021, the legislature passed a bill that taxes capital gains in excess of $250,000 at a rate of 7%. This was challenged in court as an illegal graduated tax on income, but last year the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that it’s actually an excise tax. This decision paves the way for Seattle, which has broad authority to levy excise taxes, to adopt its own local capital gains tax.

Some other US cities tax capital gains, including San Francisco and New York, but they do so by default as part of a broader tax on income,  and their local income taxes are an added increment on top of a state income tax. A local capital gains tax not paired with an income tax would be a first. (Thanks to Brian Heywood, Seattle will not be passing an income tax anytime soon, though that would be an excellent way to tax the rich.)

Last fall, City staff estimated that a 2% local capital gains tax, structured just like the state tax, could raise $38 million in its first year. A few percentage points on top of the state’s 7% isn’t going to solve the general fund problem, but it would make a dent. This is a volatile revenue source, as we’re seeing at the state level now, so the City couldn’t count on consistency from year to year. But it would likely be popular.

There’s one big political wrinkle, of course: This fall, Washington voters will decide whether to repeal the state capital gains tax. Until that’s settled, it’s hard to imagine city leaders taking up a local version, even if they were enthusiastic about the idea. But next year, they should. 

2. Wealth tax

Seattle already taxes wealth — in the form of real property, like land and houses. If you’re a middling homeowner, most of your wealth is tied up in your home, and you’re paying taxes on it. If you’re a renter, you’re still indirectly paying property taxes, even though you don’t enjoy the benefits of ownership and may well have zero or negative wealth. But if you’re very rich, like the future inhabitant of the First Light penthouse, you’re probably also sitting on a huge pile of intangible assets, such as stocks and bonds. And those are tax free.

So how about taxing intangible wealth? The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center has proposed that the City of Philadelphia do just that. Pennsylvania counties have a long history of taxing intangible wealth, but these taxes were repealed in the 1990s after a successful court challenge. In 2022, several Philadelphia councilmembers supported a new, improved version, a 0.4% tax that PBPC estimates would generate between $240 and $280 million a year. But it hasn’t moved forward since.

Here in Washington, a state-level wealth tax has been a hot topic in the last couple legislative sessions. In 2021, HB 1406 was proposed to “[improve] the equity of Washington state’s tax code by creating the Washington state wealth tax and taxing extraordinary financial intangible assets.” This one percent tax would have exempted the first $1 billion of assessed value. A new version proposed in 2023 (HB 1473 and SB 5486) lowered the exemption to $250 million and was estimated to raise $3 billion annually.

Could Seattle tax intangible wealth? Whether passed at a state or local level, such a tax would surely face legal challenges. Even if it withstood those challenges, administering and enforcing a city-level wealth tax would be difficult. Look, I’m not saying all these ideas are slam dunks! But it’s worth a try. If Philadelphia can go there, so can we.

3. Mansion tax

When the First Light penthouse is eventually sold, the City will collect a real estate excise tax (REET) amounting to 0.5% of the sale price. When a more modest home changes hands, that transaction is taxed at the same rate.

But some cities have so-called mansion taxes, with steeper rates for high-dollar property transactions. In 2022, Los Angeles voters approved a 4% tax on property sales above $5 million, rising to 5.5% on sales over $10 million. It’s raising hundreds of millions a year — and stirring up a lot of controversy. San Francisco and New York City also have progressive real estate transfer taxes with graduated rates, rising to 6% on property sales above $25 million in San Francisco and 3.9% in New York.

Washington adopted a similar approach for our state-level REET in 2020. Sellers pay graduated rates topping out at 3% for sale value in excess of about $3 million. Last year, House Bill 1628 proposed an additional tier, a 4% tax on property sale value in excess of $5 million. That bill did not pass.

Seattle’s REET authority is regulated by state law, so to increase the rate or create a graduated structure would require permission from the legislature. Even a flat 0.25% bump (which was also part of HB 1628) is a fine way to tax the rich. New tiers with higher rates for sales in excess of $3, $5, or $10 million would be even better. You could also imagine adding a surcharge specifically for ‘McMansion’ sized homes, typically defined as greater than 3,000 square feet.

REET revenue has taken a dive with the cooling real estate market, mostly due to high interest rates and cratering office demand. That’s another city budget problem on top of the general fund shortfall; REET revenues go toward maintenance, debt service, and capital projects in several areas including parks and transportation. Seattle should definitely lobby the legislature for more REET authority.

4. Double down on taxing big business

Taxing businesses is an imperfect means of taxing the rich, because there are ways they can pass some of those costs on to the rest of us. But a well-designed tax minimizes that effect, and Seattle’s JumpStart payroll expense tax, focused on large corporations with high-salary employees, likely does a great job.

Excuse me while I take a victory lap. Whenever I think of JumpStart I feel a little thrill of satisfaction — as should everyone involved in the multiyear effort to tax big business, including the ill-fated “head tax” drama of 2017-2018. We knew there were gobs of wealth flowing through this city, we didn’t give up, and eventually we tapped into a vein and out flowed $300 million a year. Just like that.

Probably the easiest way for the City to raise more progressive revenue is to ‘turn up the dial’ on JumpStart. There are a number of ways to do this. My favorite idea doesn’t even involve raising the rates. Instead, simply reset the total payroll and employee compensation thresholds back to what they were when the tax started in 2021, namely $7 million and $150,000, before several years of major inflation adjustments.

If Initiative 137 qualifies for the November ballot, Seattle voters will soon weigh in on another option. The House Our Neighbors campaign hopes to fund Seattle’s new social housing developer with a tax similar to JumpStart but based on employers’ compensation to individual employees in excess of $1 million.

San Francisco and Portland have taken yet another approach to taxing big business. Both cities have implemented taxes specifically on corporations whose CEO or highest-paid executive is paid at least 100 times more than its median worker. San Francisco’s version is a graduated surcharge on existing gross receipts and payroll taxes, and it brought in over $200 million last year. San Francisco’s mayor is now proposing mostly gutting the tax as part of an effort to cozy up to business and revitalize the economy — politics are complicated down there, at least as much as they are here.

5. Grab bag

Last year, I served on the Seattle Revenue Stabilization Workgroup, which was co-created by Mayor Harrell and former Councilmember Teresa Mosequda and tasked with assessing new revenue options in the context of the City’s budget shortfall. The Transit Riders Union, of which I am an elected officer and an employee, published our own report alongside the final report of the workgroup, and in it there are more ideas for taxing the rich. But they don’t have solid city-level precedents in the US, so to abide by my own rules for this series I will only mention a few of them briefly:

Luxury taxes: The idea is simple. Seattle can levy excise taxes on the sale or purchase of specific goods. So think of stuff that rich people buy, and tax that! How about luxury cars and boats? But there’s the rub. Statewide, that might work. But try to do that in a single city, and if people can easily travel a few miles further to purchase the same thing without the tax, they’ll probably do it. Cars are easy to move! In fact, McLaren Seattle is already located in Bellevue.

Can other cities show us how to get around this problem? Atlantic City has something called a luxury tax. But it covers things like rentals of beach chairs and cabanas, so they’re not exactly squeezing the big spenders. My best idea so far is to tax luxury appliances and goods needed for high-end home construction or renovation — like when the First Light penthouse owner decides to upgrade his Miele appliance package. It would be impractical to take possession of such goods outside their eventual destination, so as long as the tax is applied at the point of delivery, this might work. Admittedly it feels like a cash grab. But that’s kind of the name of the game here.

Professional services excise tax: Speaking of taxing things that rich people buy, there’s a major loophole in our sales tax that Seattle could try to close. If you hire a plumber to fix a leaky pipe, you pay sales tax on your bill. But when the First Light penthouse owner hires an architect to redesign the interior or a financial advisor to manage their vast wealth, they won’t pay sales tax, because those services are exempt. 

Washington isn’t unusual in this respect; as far as I can tell, only New Mexico, South Dakota, and Hawaii impose sales tax on professional services. Exempting such services doesn’t seem to be backed by any good reasons, only by the substantial lobbying power of professional groups. Seattle could try to remedy this with an excise tax, but it would have to be structured in a way that didn’t too closely mirror sales or business and occupation taxes, which are regulated by state law.

Estate and inheritance taxes: It’s a sad day. The First Light penthouse owner was driving his McLaren way over Seattle’s speed limit and lost control. Luckily no one else was hurt, but he’s no longer with us. When his estate passes on to his heirs, Washington state will take a cut. Tax rates range from 10% to 20%, in graduated tiers based on estate value in excess of about $2 million. Could Seattle add its own city-level estate tax? Maybe. It’s unclear whether special state authorization is needed for this, but it’s worth a try.

The other way to get at dead rich people’s wealth is through an inheritance tax. The tax base would be different: not Seattle estates, but Seattle residents who receive an inheritance from anywhere. Washington used to have an inheritance tax, and at least six states currently have one; in Maryland and Nebraska, county governments collect the revenue, so that’s kind of a local precedent. Trying to implement a Seattle-only inheritance tax would carry legal risks and practical challenges, especially since we have no income tax infrastructure to build upon.

With most of these tax-the-rich ideas, there’s also the possibility that some taxpayers might relocate outside Seattle to avoid paying. It’s a danger that’s often exaggerated by opponents of progressive taxation, but it should be considered when setting tax rates and estimating revenue.

This year, for the first time since I’ve been paying attention, Washington lost the title of the state with the most regressive tax system. That’s thanks to the new state capital gains tax, and to Seattle’s JumpStart tax, which was also included in the analysis by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy. Washington is now way down in second place, having passed the crown to Florida. In other words, we still have a long way to go to make our tax system more equitable, and budget shortfall or not, Seattle shouldn’t shy away from taxing the rich.

This is part three in the Policy Lab series. Check out the introduction and second installment on mode shift incentives. And watch for more installments!

The post Policy Lab: Tax the Filthy, Stinking Rich first appeared on The Urbanist.

“My biggest takeaway is that this plan feels like it’s planning for our current conditions, and not planning for a vision of what we know is coming in terms of growth and what we could become, which is a city of really healthy, vibrant well-connected neighborhoods,” Morales said at a briefing Monday on the One Seattle plan.

The plan, released last week, is already drawing criticism from housing advocates who worry it won’t accommodate enough growth to keep housing prices from escalating, and state legislators who have questions about whether it even fully complies with recent state legislation mandating additional allowed density in neighborhoods across the state.

Mayor Harrell’s office, represented at Monday’s meeting by deputy director of policy Christa Valles, pushed back on criticism of the plan’s ambitions by emphasizing that the 100,000 additional units that the city expects to see in the next 20 years — only around 20,000 more than current baseline projections (and the minimum number assigned by the county) — are not the same as the additional zoning capacity created by the plan, even as the City still hasn’t released a firm number on what that additional capacity actually translates to. Valles touted the city’s rapid growth over the past decade-and-a-half, suggesting the city’s path to success is largely the same one that has been seen.

“Since our Comp Plan was adopted in 2015, we have added 70,000 homes, meeting our current 20-year growth target in just eight years,” Valles said. “This statistic also illustrates that growth targets are not the same thing as zoning capacity. Even today, with this rapid expansion of housing in Seattle in recent years, our current zoned capacity for new housing stands at 165,000 units. This does not include our current proposed plan and the additional capacity that will be added with it.”

But Morales didn’t mince words when it came to how she sees the plan as maintaining the status quo. She took aim in particular at a lack of expansion plans for the city’s regional centers — currently central Seattle neighborhoods like Uptown, Downtown, and First Hill/Capitol Hill, as well as Northgate and the U District — do not include the south half of the city. Regional centers are areas that traditionally see the most housing and jobs growth, and are designated in conjunction with the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), which generally requires a neighborhood level plan separate from a city’s Comprehensive Plan to guide growth in those areas.

“What we’re doing here is continuing the status quo,” Morales said. “We’re excluding the South End from intentionally planning for economic development opportunities. We’re doing ourselves to the same mistakes we made in the past and creating deeper economic inequality. This area was already identified as an area of low access to economic opportunity in the last comprehensive plan.”

But whether Morales will have any true allies on the council when it comes to radically changing the plan remains unclear.

“The goal is to increase the supply and diversity of housing options,” District 5’s Cathy Moore said Monday. Last year, Moore told The Urbanist that she supported Alternative 5, and even supported studying an Alternative 6 that would have gone even further. The current plan falls well short of even Alternative 5 even as it picks and chooses elements from the other options.

But Moore suggested one of the primary concerns she was hearing from constituents had more to do with aesthetics than anything else. “The feedback that I get from District 5, from homeowners, is that [current development is] just too townhouse-specific and too townhouse-centric, and that people are really looking and [are] much more receptive to a sense of a housing diversity.”

More likely to end up in the mayor’s corner are councilmembers like Bob Kettle (District 7), Rob Saka (District 1), and Maritza Rivera (District 4). Last year, Rivera told The Urbanist that her vision for a growth strategy was roughly in line with what Harrell has proposed now. “If we allowed development up to quad-plexes everywhere in the City while expanding transit-oriented development, we would address a very significant portion of our housing affordability crisis and preserve the unique character of our neighborhoods,” Rivera said last summer.

Saka, who told The Urbanist last year that he supports “increasing the most density along transit corridors and in urban villages,” also suggested that the city should be careful about going too far Monday.

“I strongly support thoughtful growth,” Saka said this week, suggesting that neighborhoods needed to have infrastructure like grocery stores in place before they could be asked to take on more density. “If not, this whole 15-minute walkable neighborhood is a pipe dream, for many, unless and until we get a lot of that really important nitty-gritty, last-minute, last-mile details,” he said.

With most of the council focused on immediate issues like police hiring or immediate budget issues, Morales seems to be the one urging the council to consider the long-term implications of the decisions that get made this year and into next year around the Seattle Comprehensive Plan.

“This plan is about the future of Seattle’s housing and jobs and our climate strategies,” Morales said. “We have a once in a decade chance to build more affordable housing, to decrease rents, to create economic opportunity and bring good jobs to folks across the city, particularly to underserved communities, and to build a smarter, more efficient city that is serious about addressing our climate emergency.”

The draft plan is open for public comments until mid-May, via the online engagement hub or by emailing oneseattlecompplan@seattle.gov. The first in-person open house to provide feedback on the plan is this Thursday, March 14, at Loyal Heights Community Center, from 6-7:30pm. One open house is being hosted in every district, followed by a citywide virtual meeting on May 2.

The post Land Use Chair Tammy Morales Takes Aim at Proposed Seattle Growth Plan first appeared on The Urbanist.

Join us in welcoming Rian Watt as executive director of The Urbanist.

Rian has been involved with The Urbanist in one form or another since 2019, when he joined the Elections Committee as a member. Since then, he’s gone on to chair the Elections Committee (since 2020), serve on the Board of Directors (since 2022), and generally help out with the thousand little things it takes to make The Urbanist tick.

Earlier this week, the Board of Directors voted to create a new publisher role, responsible for overseeing all editorial decisions related to our website and podcast, and leading our advocacy and coalition work. Doug Trumm, who has served as our full-time executive director since January of 2020, will move into this role. The Board also voted to update the executive director position to a narrower role responsible for board management, revenue, and organizational growth. Rian will be taking on this role on a part-time basis.

We feel this change in responsibilities (in combination with the recent addition of Linda Hanlon as a part-time lead editor) will better position us to continue to deliver important, deeply-reported content to our readers while setting us up for growth that’ll allow us to expand our impact over the next few years. Thanks to your continuous support through subscriptions and readership, The Urbanist has never been in a stronger financial position, and we feel excited to continue to grow and expand our work and coverage.

If you’d like to support that growth, we encourage you to become a subscriber here!

A bit more about Rian: In addition to his work with The Urbanist, Rian serves on the boards of Futurewise, a statewide land use advocacy organization, and the Third Door Coalition, a group advocating for permanent supportive housing in King County. Previously, Rian volunteered as a commissioner on the Seattle Planning Commission and as a Meal Coordinator for Teen Feed, a low-barrier meal program for homeless and unstably housed youth in Seattle’s University District.

Outside of Seattle, Rian has also worked as a management consultant, a social policy researcher, and a strategy lead for various national firms, and he freelanced as a professional baseball writer covering the Mariners and national baseball as a member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He’s the proud son of immigrants (from West Bengal and Scotland, respectively), and rents in Capitol Hill with his wife and two cats.

The post Introducing Rian Watt As Executive Director of The Urbanist first appeared on The Urbanist.

1. Of Laughter and Forgetting

I walked into the base after another rewarding evening on the mighty 7/49. Operator (we’ll call him) Jim was there. I like Jim. I don’t need people to be like me in order for me to enjoy their company, but he and I have a fair amount in common anyway.

“How was your night?”
“Mellow,” Jim replied. “Except kids on my last trip through Union southbound, the trip before I see you, that’s when they always wanna get on and smoke that shit. I went back there and told em, hey –”
“You went back there?”
“Yeah, man!”
“Wow!”
“What, we’re not supposed to?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m not gonna tell you how to drive, but shoot man, I admire your courage.”
“Sometimes you got to! These clowns –”
“Jim, here’s – okay here’s what I worry about. I think to myself what if he has a weapon. What if that’s his friend across the aisle. What if he has five brothers and you’re gonna see him again in an hour.”
“True. Okay. True.”
“But I understand wanting to do something about this stuff.”
“I can’t stand it! I can take everything else. I don’t mind all the other stuff.” He paused, then spoke again. “You know what gets me about it? Is these youngsters don’t care if there’s kids on the bus, or elderly, they don’t care about anyone else.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Exactly! These new kids, ’cause not one of them is from Seattle, and – ” he was nodding vigorously – “you know how beforehand, the whole concept of the street was, the ultimate currency of the street is respect? These kids don’t get that!”
“Yeah! They don’t understand!”
“The street has always been about respect. It’s the whole point of how everything works out here. And now we have all these new people who –”
“– don’t care.” 
“Exactly.” 
“You know, I watch ’em. At Pike. I wanna see how this shit works. Have you seen those puffs of smoke they get? I seen this lady had a piece of foil this big, with a huuuge –”
“No way! She’s gonna overdose in no time!”
“Yeah! I thought the whole idea they smoke on buses is to get outta the wind and get the biggest hit a smoke they can, but they’re gettin’ it out there too! Just a mountain of fumes. You shoulda seen this lady. Like this.”
“She’s gonna be dead in a week!”

2. The Lament

Yes, we were laughing. I dare you to call us insensitive. We, who in the early days of this drug melee saw the rows of dead bodies every pre-dawn morning, laid out on Third between Pike and Union, getting wrapped in body bags and tarps so they could quickly be removed from view before the day’s commuters arrived. We, who are forced to inhale opiates against our will. Who are faced with impossible decisions. Some of us have failed drug tests as a result of being too close to offenders. 

We, who witness crimes we can’t stop, because no one will intervene, no one can stop this. My first experience with fentanyl was a young mother coming up to apologize for her toddler son, who’d vomited on the bus floor due to the fumes coming from the teens smoking right next to them. 

We, who spent a lifetime making sure we didn’t expose our bodies to this garbage, because we wanted to live long and healthy lives with our loved ones. That care, those decisions – are being taken away from us and every passenger who’s done the same. Secondhand smoke of all kinds has lasting effects. Additionally, today’s opiates are the sort which can cause addictive behaviors from a single use, permanent brain damage from a single exposure. Even if some fears are overblown, you have to admit this isn’t kid stuff. Shouldn’t consent be a necessary component of drug abuse? Especially indoors?

We watch as those with real power to change things remain distant, vocal but unmoving. We read with amazement statements from officials which reveal they don’t know the first thing about what goes on out here, in the deep hours of the night (I’m not talking about Metro officials, where there have finally been some positive personnel changes). No, it is not us who are insensitive. It’s the system. The system is a monster, unstoppable and insatiable. 

The pattern was first revealed to the public in 2017: “vagrants” from small and mid-sized cities in the rural Midwest and South are given one-way Greyhound tickets to major West Coast cities. They get dumped in Seattle, where possessing, using and distributing drugs not only won’t land you in any legal trouble, but the goods can be had for dirt cheap. Where ordinances are not enforced, shoplifting and breaking and entering are not prosecuted crimes, and no arrests will be made that don’t involve physical assault. These are mandates I’ve learned about on the street from those with rueful personal experience. Basically: It’s Disneyland. This is the kind of once-a-century lawbreaker’s heaven you’d think would result in the happiest of delinquents. 

3. However

The fact that street people are so uniformly miserable (which wasn’t true pre-pandemic, but is now) is a testament to their humanity. They are not enjoying this melee. It is not fun for them. 

They are hurting. 

They are, like most of us, abandoned by those who profess to look out for them. They are waiting for someone to ask them what they need. Can you believe it has occurred to no elected official to do so? When will those in power learn that solutions are immeasurably better if those affected are involved in the decision-making process? Though it is true that kindness doesn’t always mean giving people what they want, it is usually worthwhile to collaborate, to co-create.

Of course, Seattle’s problems are well beyond the purview of Metro’s responsibility. Metro is merely the setting, the whipping boy and scapegoat who takes on the frankly heroic role of the unwilling venue, while we – operators, commuters, passengers, residents – wait(ing) patiently for a solution. Something needs to be done about the practice of shipping les miserables in from places that don’t want them, and dumping them in cities unprepared to respond. It is not the way to take care of people.

4. Picture Yourself in Others Shoes

You’ve just been relocated to a new city, Seattle. Bigger than anywhere you’ve been. You have no contacts. You don’t know about the Real Change Directory because, why would you, you don’t know where anything is, and it’s obvious the streets are dangerous. You’re out of your element and you know it. They said it would be Amazon and Starbucks. You don’t need a latte; you need a weapon. And you need to figure a lot of stuff out. Where to get meds, where to get a state ID and how, learning what you can and can’t achieve in Seattle based on your past, finding lists for housing, looking up shelters, food, clothes for living, clothes for interviews, a phone, where’s a shower, a dentist for this toothache that’s killing me, how to get insurance, a job, a job, a house, a job, my education records, a prescription renewal, internet, a library card, an address, more food, painkillers maybe, something for this headache, maybe a drink so I don’t feel the cold…

And then, of course, you learn about the drugs. You learn they have that thing they had back home; not as much of it (Seattle isn’t even in the top 20 cities for fentanyl, if you can believe it – see below), but still dirt cheap. And they can’t arrest you over it?

Here’s a description from a former user:

“Think of it this way….think about the most sick you’ve ever been in your life. Think about the cold sweat and chills running down your spine and the dreaded stomach cramps where you know you need to find a bathroom NOW. Now add on being nauseated. Now add on your whole body being sore and achey as if you worked out for 6 hours without stretching. Now add on your skin feeling like it’s going to explode. Now add on some yawning, eye tearing, HIGHLY bad anxiety, restless legs and the knowledge that this is going to last an entire week… or you could just get some Fentanyl and when you do it, allllll the sickness goes away INSTANTLY. It’s an amazing feeling if you’ve ever experienced it. And not only does it go away, your anxiety goes away and is replaced with good feelings. If you could live like that all the time with no consequences, why wouldn’t you? A lot of addicts think it’s worth the risk. I know I did while I was using. Addicts will literally seek it out not caring about whether it’s deadly or not because they need it to survive their day. They need it to not be sick, to stop the withdrawal and to get the high so they can function.”

Why fix your problems when you can just forget them? Why bother with struggling to live when you can die instead? All deaths are suicides, someone once wrote. I disagree, but these deaths make you wonder. The new generation, this rural Gen Z influx, doesn’t currently have the ability to take care of itself. That much is obvious. Seattle has the ability to take care of them, but isn’t.

If you can’t stop a generation from killing itself, you could at least create a safe space where they can do so while you figure out next steps. For nearly a century the city’s most extreme cases resided in the Jungle. With that enormous and largely autonomous facility closed, what was once hidden plays out in broad daylight. What are we to make of a society that allows such behavior? I hear conspiracy theories everyday. Similar to the dog days of 2003, when everyone had a solution to the Iraq war, now everyone has an opinion on what would fix everything, what’s really going on, and why no one’s taking action.

“I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones,” Einstein wrote. What weapons indeed, you ask. How about these: Drugs? The Internet? Manipulation of information? Taking advantage of a country’s most vulnerable people?

This is a picture of the mind racing.

5. The State of Things

“You can get a contact high from fentanyl, you’ll black out,” I was saying to Jim. “I’ve talked with passengers who’ve had that happen to them, just last night this mom from Texas. She didn’t know what hit her. Woke up on the other side of town, had to walk all the way back.”
“It’s sad,” Jim said, in a tone representing both defeat and discovery.
“They’re all new. These kids.”
“Yeah,” he added. “And they don’t hang out with the old guys. Have you ever noticed the guys who drink, and the guys who smoke that shit… never mix?”
“Never! In fact if someone cracks open a beer, I’m honestly relieved because I know for sure, that that guy’s not gonna smoke any fentanyl!” Jim howled in recognition as I continued. “And you know what else? I kinda like having people who smell bad now, because they’ll clear out a coach!”
Jim could barely keep his composure. In between guffaws he said, “You know that, you know that guy who shuffles?”
“I know exactly who you’re talking about!”
“He’s my magic, my little good luck charm!”
“All you have to do is get him on –”
“– and you can ask him to go sit in the back, he doesn’t even get mad, just says okay, and starts going back there, and then – and then –”
“They can’t handle it!”
“They can’t take it!”
“It’s beautiful!”

No, we are not being insensitive. We laugh because laughter is the only tool we have left. When all power has been taken away, there is nothing left to do but make music. Our lives are short, and while civilization crumbles around us – if indeed it is crumbling – I will laugh, smile, share joy, including with those individuals alluded to above, they who are most scorned and feared. 

We can remember that people have different starting points in the game of life, some with less resources than others, and this isn’t their fault. Everyone makes stupid decisions; only some of us have to live out giant chunks of their lives defined by our worst moments. Can you blame them for their hopelessness? Can you blame them for not caring about the rules of a society they feel has rejected them? For flaunting their disregard, the way a child does who feels humiliated, wronged? These are the grapes of wrath. “Kill me please, or else I will,” reads a scrawled plea on a light rail seat.

This is the state of things.

6. How I Live Now

I greet the new boys and girls on the block with the same gusto as ever, and they respond with ignorance or confusion. They’re on edge because they’re on foreign turf, a new city with boundaries and histories they know they’re clueless about. Survival mode. They’re not expecting anything approaching kindness, but I give it to them anyway, without expecting a response… and then it starts to happen. 

It begins.

There is one, then maybe another, not as much as pre-COVID but even still, in these conditions, there are glimmers. You can’t stop humanity, can’t curtail its hunger for connection. “This guy’s cool,” I’ll hear them say. “He actually talks. Actually likes his job, gives a shit about the people.” Eventually they begin to understand you’re not looking down on them. Building relationships with some of the crew at 12th and Jackson has been one of my great post-pandemic joys. 

A young man running out from his hangout spot behind a bus shelter, stepping away from his friends for a moment to pump his first in the air toward me with gratitude, pounding his solar plexus and nodding with a mighty grin, returning my bow and salute. These are the moments I was made for. 

A lovely conversation with two young men that ends with one sheepishly telling me, “I’m sorry if you ever see me, uh you know, passed out on the street or acting out. I’m kinda hooked on that stuff.”
“We all have phases, right?”
He beamed with appreciation. “Exactly.”

Or another, chatting it up with a young man in recovery. He’s on methadone now, and employed, reveling in the de-stressed headspace of clean living. Look at the kindness in his eyes. I know that face. I’ve seen it on others. It is my own face, the child who lives inside the man, still somehow hoping for goodness, sometimes hesitant to believe. Here it is again in a prematurely aged man, likely a veteran of time behind bars, miraculously still in possession of a certain recognizable softness in the eyes. I want to give him a hug.

You realize there are degrees. It isn’t the same level of unstable, or type of usage. Some street people are scared of other street people.

“Sorry ’bout that,” a woman said after her screaming partner stormed off the coach. “I ain’t even with him.”
“Well, I’d rather have you on the bus than him!”
“Ha! Yeah, he’s got his own, uh, problems.”
“Don’t we all. ‘Specially these days.”
“Right. These days is crazy, with them blues…” Blues means fentanyl. “They still overdose every night! Addicts! Dumbasses! I’m a drug addict, but shit…”
“Moderation, right?”
“Right. I don’t smoke that shit. You’d hafta be crazy to go near that stuff.” 
“Totally. Too much… death!”
“Right, all you do is overdose on that bullshit. You take it, then ya die. Simple. People thought heroin was something, pssshhhh, heroin ain’t got nothin’ on this.”

A man behind me, speaking to his ladyfriend as they watch another panoply of incomprehensible behaviors at a bus stop; a fellow outside had desperately yelled for me to wait for him, only to lose interest and start doing handstands. “Man, shit like that is why we get left.” Referring to how often buses pass up zones now. “No wonder!” 

7. New Frontiers

I realize it’s the same game as before, just under harsher circumstances. Street people used to be from Seattle, and they weren’t all on drugs. Now they’re strangers in a strange land, further ostracized by pandemic fears, surrounded by cheap temptation and money they can’t have. But we can still push toward connection. Society’s given up on them, they seem to have given up on themselves, and yet…

Seattle has always been a frontier town. This is a place of beginnings. The recent corporate takeovers have tried their best to conceal it, but no amount of homogenized, artless extravagance can suppress the city’s grit-grime texture, its envelope-pushing origins, the cluttered vibrance and dirty beauty of its enterprising spirit. Cities are living things, with forces of gravity that extend beyond the control of leaders and interests. Frontiers are born in rebellion. They involve strife, violence, unorganized angst that dreams of something greater. These are the ingredients humans have for rebirth. We are failing forward, stumbling together in the night, and it is all pointing in a direction, no more visible to us than to our forebears who lived through worse hardship. Suffering is when we grow, learn, bind ourselves to something higher, and Seattle is currently in labor. 

Am I afraid? Sometimes, yes. Am I saddened and frustrated? Sometimes, yes. I’m saddened when street people assume I hate them, because others do, and act accordingly. I’m frustrated when they default to believing they are unloved, that the world’s against them. They, like the rest of us, see only what they’re looking for, and they accordingly fail to see my smile, fail to hear my words and tone. They were respected and acknowledged for a moment in the night, appreciated by a stranger for their common humanity, and they didn’t have a clue. 

It’s their loss.

I keep on. I do my part. They don’t have to respond. I do this for myself. I do it for the greater good. 

It is a part of me I wish to keep alive.

–

Sources and further reading:
Importing unhoused people:
The Guardian US, 2018: “Bussed Out: How America Moves Its Homeless.” Online Journalism Awards.

Seattle’s problems less severe than other cities:
American Addiction Centers, 2023: “Highest Drug Use by City.” Primarily midwest cities; breakdowns by drug type.
American Addiction Centers, 2023: “Top 10 US States with Drug Overdose Deaths.” West Virginia sits at #1. Data and context for each state.
Monarch Shores Recovery: “10 Cities with Worst Drug Problems.” With info for each city.
Families Against Fentanyl: “Fentanyl By State: Report.” A data compilation primarily using 2021 CDC data.
CDC: “Drug Overdose Mortality by State.”

On policy:
ChangingTheNarrative, 2023. “The Tired Narratives of Drug Policy.” Clarification of stigmatizing/reductive language regarding addiction and policing issues; however, not Seattle-specific (in practical terms, dealing and possessing are not illegal here.)
ChangeWA, 2020: “A Loophole that Effectively Legalizes Most Crime in Seattle.” Analysis of Seattle City Council action to excuse and dismiss most misdemeanor crimes.
Seattle City Attorney: “Seattle Isn’t Dying.” Alternate opinion to above.
KUOW, 2022: “Why is Seattle dropping 2,000 misdemeanor cases?” Explanation of the backlog and choice.

Drug impacts on the body:
CDC: “Health Problems Caused by Secondhand Smoke.”
Johns Hopkins University, 2023. “Opioid Use Disorder.” On addictive behaviors and impacts.
American Addiction Centers, 2022: “Opiates, Overdose and Permanent Brain Damage.” Brief explanation of hypoxic brain damage.
NIH, 2020: “Fentanyl panic goes viral: The spread of misinformation about overdose risk from casual contact with fentanyl in mainstream and social media.” Analysis of various comments, their impacts, and degree of foundation in fact.
WhiteHouse.gov: “Fentanyl: Safety Recommendations for First Responders” (PDF). Unlike operators, first responders primarily encounter fentanyl in solid form.

The international perspective
DEA, 2020: “Fentanyl Flow to the United States.” Executive Summary, Unclassified Document (PDF).
The Guardian, 2023: “The China-Mexico fentanyl pipeline: increasingly sophisticated and deadly.” Brief overview of business models.

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