Criticism of the Council's new proposed drug and sex work laws continues
Happy Seattle City Council recess! Let’s take a look at what’s been going on the last few weeks.
Seattle’s proposed SODA/SOAP laws:
Perhaps the biggest local public safety story of the past two weeks has been the proposed SODA and SOAP legislation. You can read my summary and analysis of the two bills over at The Urbanist.
KUOW reported on the differences in crime rates on Aurora in Shoreline as opposed to Seattle:
“[Jim Hammond] pointed to the 8-foot-wide sidewalks, and medians planted with trees, which he said can prevent collisions and provide more safety for pedestrians. These and other upgrades took twelve years and cost $140 million dollars. But Hammond believes they do more to deter prostitution and other types of disorder than the city’s criminal penalties.
“Environments matter,” he said. “If it looks well cared for, and you know people are going to continue to care for it, it just has a different effect on the behavior people are going to engage in in that space.””
The South Seattle Emerald ran an opinion piece discussing the harm caused by a video Councilmember Cathy Moore screened at an open city council committee meeting that showed sex workers walking up and down Aurora Avenue without their consent.
PubliCola did an analysis showing that focusing on “johns” or sex buyers has not historically reduced sex work taking place on Aurora and has a disproportionate impact on Black and Latino men. It also found from court data that SOAP orders were rarely enforced against men. The article quotes Gordon Hill, deputy director at the King County Department of Public Defense as saying, “I think what this law does is going to be incredibly disproportionate. It’s going to be people with immigration challenges, it’s going to be poor people, it’s going to be people of color. So the degree to which it works at all is only going to [exacerbate] the inequities in our criminal legal system.”
Overall there has been a lot of resistance to the proposed SOAP bill. Less featured in articles has been the similar SODA bill that targets downtown and CID drug users. But this bill also has concerning ramifications, as I explain in my article:
“The SODA bill would make it much easier for the City Attorney’s office to criminalize poverty and substance abuse disorder. As it stands now, when someone is arrested for public drug use, their drug use must be proven in court. This requires sending samples to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory, which is currently backed up. But if someone is put under a SODA order, they can later be arrested for violating that order, and their drug use never has to be proven in order for them to be convicted of a gross misdemeanor.”
The Martin Luther King Jr. County Labor Council just adopted a resolution against both these pieces of legislation.
The public safety committee will take up these two bills again on Tuesday, September 10.
Other Seattle News:
I also had a piece in The Urbanist about the newly announced school safety plan for the 2024-2025 school year.
Here are the investments being made:
$5.6 million for additional school-based mental health counselors and a health coordinator totaling 42 new positions (City of Seattle)
$2.4 million for telehealth therapy services (City of Seattle)
$4.25 million for violence interruption programs in partnership with community-based organizations, including safe passage programs, new violence intervention specialists working directly out of focus schools, individual case management for those students most likely to experience gun violence, and a new family resource fund. (City of Seattle)
$2.3 million for increasing staffing on the safety and security team, including hiring an executive director of student and community safety, and school infrastructure such as cameras, perimeter fencing and gate improvements, and classroom door lock enhancements (Seattle Public Schools)
The city’s $12.25 million investment is all coming from the tiny increase in the JumpStart payroll tax passed by the city council during last year’s budget deliberations. However, both the Mayor and the Council declined to spend the full $20 million amount available this year in spite of students’ urgent requests for further assistance. It will be interesting to see if the full $20 million amount is included in Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed budget coming out on September 24.
The Community Police Commission (CPC) continues to implode. PubliCola announced on August 23 that the CPC had hired an acting director to fill in for current Director Cali Ellis, who is on administrative leave. Then, less than a week later, PubliCola reported that the new acting director is already leaving for a new position.
Former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz is still classified as Police Chief three months after his removal from the position and is still being paid more than $28,000 per month. Interim Chief Sue Rahr is also being paid, and the total annual compensation for keeping both Chiefs on the books would be almost $700,000. It’s enough to make one wonder how concerned City Hall really is about the upcoming budget deficit.
The new city council continues to receive high levels of criticism for behavior opponents characterize as “undemocratic.”
The Stranger ran down many of the issues, flubs, and concerning choices coming out of the council so far this year:
“After the City’s unofficial legislative session ended this month, it doesn’t look like the council pleasantly surprised any of their progressive constituents. Instead, the council steamrolled them, stifled them, betrayed them, belittled them, and arrested them–all in the service of a wealthier, older, and whiter Seattle. The only pleasant surprise came in the form of the body’s incompetence and fragility, which delayed some of its most egregious attacks on working people and the poor.”
And an op-ed in The South Seattle Emerald states:
”Policy disagreements can be intense, but we expect our civic leaders to avoid making it personal and focus on legislating. Despite their repeated commitments and pledges of “good governance,” this does not appear to be a core value of the current council majority.”
King County News
The King County Council has been having an interesting week when it comes to youth detention. The Law & Justice committee was slated to once more discuss their legislation changing definitions of what constitutes “solitary confinement” for youth. However, they chose to defer that discussion to allow for feedback from the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention (DAJD). King County will soon enter their budget season, meaning if they don’t hold a special meeting, the council committee won’t be able to take up this work until after a new budget has been approved later in the fall.
The King County Council also passed a non-binding resolution proposed by Councilmember Reagan Dunn committing to keep the Patricia Clark Children and Family Justice Center open. This is in opposition to Executive Dow Constantine’s 2020 commitment to close the youth jail, a promise he postponed earlier this year. All councilmembers voted in favor of the resolution except Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who was absent.
As PubliCola reported: “As of today, there are 59 young people, from 12 to 18 years old, incarcerated at the youth jail, with another 48 on electronic home detention; 61 percent of them are Black.”
King County Metro reported on their highest one-day total ridership in the last four years. About safety, they said: “Security incidents in 2023 were down 12% from 2019 (before the pandemic) and down 22% from the peak in 2020. Drug-related incidents in April 2024 were down 55% from April 2023.”
Recent Headlines:
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Back to School²: Big 5 Legislative Priorities to Fully Fund Our Schools
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What Alexis Rinck’s Council primary win says about Seattle politics
Safer Cities: Three Things to Read this Week (Part 1)
Safer Cities: Three Things to Read this Week (Part 2)