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>> Hey, it's me.

Downtown Seattle.

Seatown.

Wish you were here.

>> Tom Layson: Bless the Downtown Association's heart for promoting Seattle.

But the fantasy from above doesn't have much to do with the reality on the ground in large portions of the city's footprint.

COVID provided a lot of political cover for a Seattle city government that some say badly fumbled the pandemic, homelessness, drug vagrancy, and civil unrest.

So here comes the 2021 election with a mayor out, a city attorney out, and two important at-large council seats up for grabs.

The election 2021 in the Emerald City is the discussion next on Northwest Now.

[ Intro Music ] All the cool kids wanted to be part of the scene in Seattle.

But Amazon now says its growth won't likely be in Seattle anymore.

And get this, Weyerhaeuser refuses to bring employees back to the Pioneer Square area until they can do it safely.

That's how bad things are in sections of Seattle where crime, drug vagrancy, and general disrepair following a year of COVID and riots have turned a once shining example of progressive Utopianism into a place that some will only go if they absolutely have to.

Defunding the police, attacking wages through even more business taxes, threatening the viability of what little affordable housing there is with even more regulations on small-time landlords, all seem like great ideas.

Until crime, closed businesses and an even worse housing crisis brought it all crashing down.

There are many voices in Seattle.

And one perspective on crime and police reform is offered by Victoria Beach, the chair of the African-American Community Police Advisory Council.

We're protecting Victoria Beach's location because she says while she loves Seattle, she hates her neighborhood.

Where gun violence, vagrancy, and fear have destroyed the quality of life for her and many others living in a place that has been allowed to fail in the name of a dangerous social experiment.

>> Ms. Beach: Our city is in a crisis right now.

And I don't feel safe.

You know, I can only imagine how the community feels.

I've never felt so unsafe and unprotected in my life.

Every night when I go to bed, I check the doors or windows and make a plan.

You know, how am I going to escape.

>> Tom Layson: Beach mourns the loss of Chief Carmen Best and all the cops who followed her out the door when city council and the mayor used the language of compassion to defund the police and usher in an era of street-level survival of the fittest.

Where violence and fear are the tools used to win.

>> Ms. Beach: I want to give the black community a voice.

>> Tom Layson: So Beach accepted the chairperson's job on the Police Advisory Council to tell city leaders that they need the ability to hold several thoughts in their minds.

That the black community values public safety, doesn't support across-the-board cuts to police, but also does support meaningful police reform.

>> Ms. Beach: I totally agree.

We need to -- the police are doing services that they should not be doing.

We pushed them in that role, and now we need to take it back.

We need mental health professionals to show up at certain 9-1-1 calls.

We need money back into these communities.

We need wraparound services that the Police Department should not have their hand in.

I get it and I support that.

But with -- you have to be smart about it -- the way you handle it.

You don't just jump in and say 50% or more, you know, with the Police Department.

We're done.

You don't do it that way.

>> Tom Layson: But well-crafted policy solutions are something she fears are not on the radical agendas of either mayoral candidate Lorena Gonzalez or city attorney candidate Nicole Thomas-Kennedy.

Which she says just don't get it when it comes to the relationship between public safety, reform, and the quality of life in the city she loves.

>> Ms. Beach: They think they speak for the black community, but they don't.

We know that we need the police, and the black community will be the ones that suffer without having the Police Department.

It's heartbreaking.

I was born and raised here in Seattle and I never thought I would witness anything like this.

We have to stop it.

We have to stop it.

I mean, people think it's bad now.

It can get worse.

>> Tom Layson: Joining us now is Northwest Now election team member, Cali Ellis, who's a political science professor at the Evergreen State College.

And Erica Barnett, a longtime Seattle political journalist and observer who's broken all kinds of stories and is currently at PubliCola, writing about Seattle people, policy, and politics.

Welcome both of you to Northwest Now.

You know, we keep talking about it being an off-year election, but, boy, in Seattle and King County, it's certainly an on-year election.

I'm glad to have that conversation with both of you here this evening.

We just came out of a discussion with Victoria Beach, who's the chair of the African-American Community Police Advisory Council.

Nice short title there.

How important -- let me start with you, Cali.

How important is crime, justice, law and order, some of those on the street kinds of things, shaping up to be in this election?

>> Ms. Ellis: Well, according to the most recent Elway Crosscut poll, which was in September, it's not number one.

Number one is homelessness, but it comes pretty close behind.

And it's sort of tied into something I hope we get to talk about later, which is the city attorney's race.

Remember, the Police Department is still under a federal consent decree, and that interacts with the number and the dynamics in that race.

>> Tom Layson: Erica, what's your take?

First, [inaudible] from 30,000 feet on the importance of that as an issue.

And then we definitely do want to get into the city attorney's race.

>> Ms. Barnett: Sure.

I mean, I agree that homelessness is the top issue right now.

I think it's being conflated with crime a little bit; particularly, property crime.

In Seattle, I don't know if you've driven through downtown lately or taken a bus, but it's very visible; there's graffiti, there's tents everywhere.

And I think that those two issues are getting conflated together in a way that isn't entirely accurate, but it's definitely what's on voters' minds.

>> Tom Layson: And I want to follow up on that because I find myself, as I'm thinking about this issue, and even writing about it, there is a tendency to conflate it.

There are times I have to kind of stop myself.

Have you found that?

And why -- why is that important?

>> Ms. Barnett: Well, I think when you ask the candidates about crime, they tend to answer with a response about homelessness.

You know, if you're talking about the mayoral candidates, Bruce Harrell will say we're going to clean up the streets and that's going to reduce crime.

When you talk to Lorena Gonzalez, she says we're going to provide compassionate services for people experiencing homelessness so they don't have to commit misdemeanors that are essentially survival crimes.

So I think that the two are, you know, while not directly related, you know, in general, violent crime has been mostly down.

Property crime kind of goes up and down.

But right now people are thinking about property crime and they're relating it to homelessness.

>> Tom Layson: I think they're thinking a lot about gun violence too.

>> Ms. Barnett: That's absolutely true.

I mean, gun violence has gone up during the pandemic in Seattle and violent crime has gone up, but that is a national trend.

I don't think that -- you know, if you pull back to the 130,000-foot level, that's a national trend that's going on in every single city.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

>> Ms. Barnett: And it's a troubling trend, but it's not one that's specific to Seattle and the conditions here.

>> Tom Layson: So let's talk about that city attorney's race.

It is very much a race that has a lot to say about the conditions on the street, as we started out with there.

What do we make of Nicole Thomas-Kennedy?

And what do we make of that race?

Cali?

>> Ms. Ellis: Well, she's a very different kind of candidate.

And she's running on a platform that a few other candidates around the country are running on, which is an abolitionist's platform.

It is defunding the police.

It is investing in the social services as an answer to what the city attorney's office prosecutes, which is misdemeanor-level crime.

There's other candidates that are abolitionist running in New York and Minneapolis, for example.

As well as Nikkita Oliver running for city council.

>> Tom Layson: So is there an appetite for that in Seattle, do you think?

When we did talk about the homelessness problem, the optics of what is happening in Seattle, do you see the pendulum swinging that way even further, or coming back a little bit?

What are you thinking, Nicole -- or, Erica.

Sorry.

>> Ms. Barnett: What do you -- well, I mean, you know, it kind of depends on what you think the city attorney's role is supposed to be.

The city attorney does prosecute misdemeanor crimes.

And I think that there are subtleties here that, you know, may be missing when you look at the latest mailer or when you look at what the candidates are saying.

But, you know, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy has said she'll stop prosecuting most misdemeanor crimes.

I think that that is a bridge too far for a lot of people.

And, at the same time, Ann Davison, her opponent, has, you know, talked a lot about felonies and sort of has promised to start cracking down on these big crimes.

Neither of those things are really what the city attorney does.

The city attorney does not deal with felonies at all, and misdemeanor prosecutions are a tiny fragment of what the city attorney actually does.

However, I mean, on the -- on who -- you know, the question of who people are going to support, Ann Davison is getting a lot of support from mainstream democrats.

You know, including former governor Chris Gregoire and others that, you know, might not ordinarily support someone who's said that she's a republican and, in fact, decided to be a republican during the Trump administration.

>> Tom Layson: And with very much a law-and-order message.

>> Ms. Barnett: Right.

>> Tom Layson: Like you -- yeah, like you suggest.

All right.

Let's talk a little bit about Nicole Thomas-Kennedy's Twitter situation.

How much does that matter?

Cali, I'll start with you.

I want both of you to chime in on this.

She's had some, you know, Twitter controversy.

What's going on with that and how important is it?

>> Ms. Ellis: Sure.

Well, again, referring to the last Elway poll that was in September, Ann Davison was at 26%, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy is at 22, and 45% undecided.

And that's where I think the Twitter thing might start to come into play.

The Twitter tweets from 2020 from July, from the CHOP and CHAZ, have started to come out and been highlighted in outlets like the Seattle Times.

The specific tweets themselves.

And that might actually drive people one way or the other.

They reflect what she says doesn't really apply anymore, but some of them are pretty hostile towards the police and the community.

>> Tom Layson: What is your take on the relevance of Twitter in this race, Erica?

>> Ms. Barnett: Yeah, I mean, I'm on Twitter a lot, as a lot of journalists are.

And I think we tend to overemphasize Twitter in our own, you know, lives and minds.

However, I mean, as Cali said, the "Twittersphere" is sort of merging with the media landscape and, you know, people are writing about it in the times.

There's been a lot of radio reporting; particularly, on right-leaning radio about these tweets.

So I think that -- you know, I think it has the potential to jump into, sort of, real-life and impact her.

You know, her response has been, look, I was sort of doing political theatre and I didn't really mean everything I said literally.

You know, she sort of made some comments supporting violence, which I think, you know -- I mean, I saw them.

I was shocked.

But -- so I think it -- I think it has a real potential to impact her.

I do.

>> Tom Layson: How much run or how much credence should the "oh, I was just being snarky" defense have?

>> Ms. Barnett: Well, I mean, look -- again, this is not particularly directly relevant to what the city attorney does.

And I hate to give such a kind of boring answer.

But, you know, I think voters can look at that and kind of weigh in their minds, you know, is this going to reflect on the job that she does as city attorney?

Which is largely doing stuff like defending laws that the city passes, defending, you know, city council members in court, recently, and things like that.

Ann Davison, you know, I think it's also toxic in Seattle to have, again, you know, come out against the, quote, unquote "democrat party" and joined the Trump party.

You know, she ran on a platform -- she ran for Lieutenant Governor on a platform of abolishing the office.

This is her third time running for something.

She has almost no courtroom experience.

So I think -- you know, hopefully, voters are going to see some of that information and weigh it carefully.

>> Tom Layson: Cali, what do you think about the role of social media in this kind of thing?

How important or unimportant is it?

>> Ms. Ellis: Well, it's really hard to say.

Again, because as Erica pointed out, it's mixed in with other kinds of media.

So maybe, you know, my grandparents might not be on Twitter directly, but they'll have the opportunity to hear about things that are on Twitter from elsewhere.

And this is something that we've seen becoming increasingly important in national trends as well.

>> Tom Layson: I want to hit you both with kind of what you might call a free skate question.

And that is, what is it you're really watching?

Erica, I'll start with you.

What is it that you're dialed in on and you're most interested in and want to write about and think that voters will be keyed in on?

>> Ms. Barnett: Yeah.

I mean, I'm most interested in homelessness.

Like, you know, as a Seattle resident, as a reporter, and as a voter.

I think that the two candidates in the mayor's race are offering very different plans for homelessness.

Bruce Harrell has said that he will implement Compassion Seattle, which is the Charter amendment that failed earlier this year to make it onto the ballot.

And Lorena Gonzalez has said that she would not remove encampments unless people have places to go.

So those are two, sort of, radically different -- I mean, neither is really a radical position, but they're radically different approaches to the issue.

So if you -- you know, if you want Bruce Harrell's approach to homelessness and you care about homelessness, you vote for him, and same for Lorena Gonzalez.

>> Tom Layson: I said this to Bruce when he was on the show last week.

I said, you know, everybody kind of says the same thing.

He didn't like that.

But, you know, we need to, you know, have affordable housing, we need to give people an alternative.

But the mechanics of actually getting it done are so daunting.

Cali, is this going -- does this election actually move the needle on the streets of Seattle, do you think?

Or is the Seattle process and the slowly turning wheels of Seattle government going to keep things -- is there too much momentum for the status quo?

What are your thoughts about that?

>> Ms. Ellis: That's really hard to say.

I mean Bruce Harrell keeps on coming out ahead in the polls, ahead of his opponent.

It could be because of this connection to the homelessness issue.

This was by far and away the thing that people are the most interested in, the most concerned about, they care the most about in polls, repeatedly.

In terms of the mechanics of it, keep in mind Seattle is part of King County.

And King County is trying, with the new director, to implement its regional homeless initiative that's just getting started.

So it's hard to sort of pull out what Seattle specifically will do and what the effects will be of just the city if you don't think about King County.

>> Tom Layson: Erica, same question to you.

Does this move the needle?

Do you anticipate four years from now us having this discussion and going, boy did -- wow!

Man what a change!

>> Ms. Barnett: I think it's going to be really different four years from now because, as Cali said, there's going to be a new regional authority up and running and actually have a track record by that time.

So, you know, I think a lot of the rhetoric right now is based on the idea that Seattle is going to actually be in charge of anything.

When the reality is, Seattle sends money to the regional authority, but they're not going to be in charge of anything other than removing encampments after January 1st of next year.

So a lot of this rhetoric is just that, it's rhetoric.

>> Tom Layson: Talk a little bit about the backlash effect.

Because what's interesting here is we -- last time, in the last election, we allegedly had a backlash against corporate interests who came in and tried to fund packing the city council.

This time, we're talking about having a backlash against crime and some of the issues on the street, including homelessness and encampments.

Which backlash are we in, and is there -- is the backlash a valid concept in this election?

I'll let you both hit that.

Cali?

>> Ms. Ellis: Sure.

I mean, one of the things to keep in mind when you think of the backlash and you think about different stages of the elections, is that Seattle is still growing.

Even during the pandemic, the population went up.

And part of this growth is from people from outside the area and outside the state.

And as we've seen repeatedly, their political leanings don't necessarily make it a progressive go.

Especially, when you look at the range of races that people have to vote on citywide.

>> Tom Layson: Your thoughts, Erica?

>> Ms. Barnett: Are we in a backlash?

I mean, I think we're in a polarized election.

I think in every single race that is, you know, prominent - the city council races, the city attorney race, and the mayor's race - we have two very, very different candidates.

It's not like, you know, in previous years where it's been Pete Holmes, you know, the current city attorney, versus some other person.

>> Tom Layson: That's a very good observation.

We're definitely on the ends in all these races.

Continue that thought.

But I wanted to highlight that.

That is very true.

>> Ms. Barnett: Yeah, I mean -- so if you're looking at Bruce Harrell versus Lorena Gonzalez, that's probably the least polarized race, but they're very different.

And, you know, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy.

Do you support her or Ann Davison?

Well, a lot of people who are in the middle are going to have to pick one or the other no matter what.

So, you know, people are going to be picking between polarized opposites in a lot of these races.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that that is a backlash, you know, choice.

It's just these are the options we have on the ballot right now.

>> Tom Layson: Here's a tough question for you.

And, Erica, I'll start with you.

Where do -- if you take a look at the political spectrum, Seattle has definitely always shifted left.

Where exactly is that fulcrum, though, between far-left, moderate-left?

Is there a moderate-left anymore in Seattle, or is it ultra-progressive, is it anarchy?

You hear people on social media all the time telling you that Seattle has basically been lost.

It's gone to the dogs.

It's an anarchist state.

That's, obviously, too far.

Does -- would Joe Biden win in a mayor's race in Seattle?

I don't know.

So where's that fulcrum?

>> Ms. Barnett: I don't know.

I mean, I think -- you know, I'm not originally from Seattle.

I'm from a Red State, and so I have a little bit of a different perspective, probably.

But I think there is still a moderate-left in Seattle.

I think that's probably Bruce Harrell.

And I think there's a radical-left in Seattle, but they don't -- they don't dominate any office.

I mean, we have one radical-left person on the city council.

And then everybody else is, you know, well within the current sort of mainstream spectrum of democratic party thinking.

>> Tom Layson: Of progressive -- >> Ms. Barnett: Progressive.

>> Tom Layson: -- progressive-left thinking.

>> Ms. Barnett: Yeah, yeah.

And so I don't -- I don't think we have -- you know, we have definitely shifted to the left on certain issues like police and whether we need to be funding the police at the level we have been.

But, you know, it's kind of issue-specific.

I mean, Seattle is a very far-left city compared to the rest of the country.

>> Tom Layson: Cali, you don't -- you know, you're down at Evergreen State College.

So you're like me, a little bit of an outsider looking in.

You look -- gaze at Seattle.

What's your take on where that fulcrum sits on the political spectrum.

>> Ms. Ellis: Well, I actually do live in Seattle.

>> Tom Layson: Oh, do you?

Okay.

>> Ms. Ellis: Yes, I do.

>> Tom Layson: All right.

>> Ms. Ellis: Yeah, I live near Seattle University.

And so I actually see this on a day-to-day basis myself.

And one of the things that, really, I try to look at is, as a political scientist what does the political science research say?

And so what it says is that more than parties -- especially on local levels, parties matter less.

Maybe everyone's a democrat or everyone's a republican.

But people really look at the ideologies and stated positions of candidates.

Another important point from the political science literature, and what we've seen here in Seattle, is that turnout matters.

And turnout is pretty low.

It was low in the primary.

Hopefully, we'll get up near the 50% that it was for the last Mayor's race when Jenny Durkan was elected.

But turnout kind of drives this.

>> Tom Layson: I'm surprised by that.

I would think that this would be an election that would really drive some voter interest.

>> Ms. Ellis: We'll see.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah, because of the nature of some of the choices.

Seattle's problems -- this is something when I was working in California we'd have this discussion quite a bit, too.

Is California ungovernable?

Too big, too vast, too many intractable problems, too many different interests across the state.

Could you ask the same question about Seattle?

Are the intractable problems with homelessness and transportation -- and, you know, an underreported but still huge problem they've been having with IT in the city of Seattle.

There's been some coverage on that if you really want to dig, but they've had an IT disaster in that city.

Police reform, being under the court order.

There's just so many things.

Is Seattle governable, ultimately, do you think?

>> Ms. Barnett: I mean, yes, I think so.

Seattle is still a small city and I think that these problems are solvable.

But I do think that they -- many of them will require a different approach, a different mindset.

Particularly, homelessness; I mean, I think homelessness is an example where you actually need money.

But, you know, IT and things like that, I mean, these are solvable problems that, you know, that are not intractable in themselves.

They can feel intractable because of the Seattle process and because everything takes five times longer than it should or does anywhere else.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah, and I think that's why I asked that question, as somebody on the outside of Seattle looking in, is you just -- you find yourself having that thought, "Nothing's changed, we're still doing this."

Do I think that buying some hotels -- and I hear some strategies that start to give me a little -- you know, that might -- I have kind of a "that might work" moment on some of these ideas.

Cali, let me ask you the same question.

Is Seattle governable?

Are the problems intractable or am I too pessimistic?

>> Ms. Ellis: I think you might be a little bit pessimistic there, Tom.

I mean, as we talked about before, Seattle is part of King County.

And King County and Seattle have decided to approach homelessness from a regional perspective, as it should be.

Homelessness doesn't stop at the border of Seattle.

It doesn't start in the suburbs and end in the city, it's everywhere.

And once we see that process at a county level start to play out, I think we'll start to see real changes.

But, of course, it requires cooperation and an interest in that cooperation from all parties.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

And pulling in the King County piece here is going to be important, too.

I know that this program is about the Seattle elections.

But, Erica, I'm sure you have been watching this a little bit.

How important is what's going on with the executives' race and the somewhat nasty race on King County Council?

How does -- how do those two jurisdictions interplay and why is that important?

>> Ms. Barnett: Well, now I'm going to be a little pessimistic.

Which is to say that I think Seattle voters, unfortunately, don't pay nearly enough attention to King County.

You know, right now, it looks like the county executives' race is a fairly foregone conclusion that the county is going to re-elect Dow Constantine executive.

There's another race out in East King County with Kathy Lambert, the incumbent.

She's a republican and she has made some really sort of nasty statements.

She put out a mailer recently.

>> Tom Layson: Oh, so talk about the mailer a little bit.

>> Ms. Barnett: Yeah.

So she put out a mailer that -- essentially, it shows a bunch of people that she perceives to be left-leaning.

Including three people of color, Girmay Zahilay, Kshama Sawant, and Kamala Harris, along with Bernie Sanders, pulling sort of pantomime strings over her opponent Sarah Perry.

And it's -- you know, and the language, you know, says that they're socialists and they want to impose their agenda, and it was roundly and rightly criticized as being racist.

She did eventually apologize for it, but I think that that really kind of brought her to the attention of a lot more people than if she had just sort of simply remained a more conventional candidate like she has in the past.

>> Tom Layson: Is that a failing message in the outlying ring of King County?

>> Ms. Barnett: I think it is, actually, because she -- it's not just -- perhaps in the very outlying ring.

I don't know.

But the fact is she represents Issaquah, and Issaquah has densified tremendously over the last, you know, ten years, but certainly the last four years.

And so the problem Kathy Lambert is facing is she does have, essentially, a democratic district now.

And so she's got to turn out those voters, you know, who might respond to a dog whistle mailer to counteract all the people who, you know, are basically living in Issaquah now because they can't afford to live in Seattle.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

>> Ms. Barnett: So I think she's got a very, very tough race.

>> Tom Layson: Cali, last question for you.

As you look at this, you know, big picture, look at this election as a researcher and a political observer and as a member of our election night coverage here on Northwest Now, what are the big takeaways?

What are you -- what would you ask viewers to get engaged in and to take a closer look at?

>> Ms. Ellis: Sure.

I would ask viewers to really dig into the statements that the candidates are making.

One of the things that I did before preparing for this was actually looking at the platform for Nicole Thomas-Kennedy.

What does she say she wants to do?

What does Ann Davison say she wants to do?

Actually taking the time to educate oneself and really understand what they're saying, and not what Twitter is saying they're saying, I think is the most important thing that any voter can do.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

Good.

Well, good conversation.

I appreciate you both coming.

There's a lot at stake and a lot of tough issues that voters are going to be taking a look at here.

Trying to make the best choice for the ongoing future of a -- of a city that has always been a shining example of progressivism on a hill, but certainly has gone through a rough patch in recent years.

Thank you both for coming to Northwest Now.

>> Ms. Ellis: Thank you, Tom.

>> Ms. Barnett: Thank you.

>> Tom Layson: Let me break off just one of Seattle's issues here.

I notice a lot of people get bogged down in the debate about whether homeless people are problems who need to fix themselves or innocent victims who deserve a full palette of cradle-to-grave wraparound services.

The Bottom Line, do a thought experiment and assume all are fully deserving.

What are the results of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to help them?

No matter how you feel about the people, it's the readily observable results that tell the basic story.

And that goes for a lot of the other issues Seattle voters will be pondering as well.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

To watch this program again or to share it with others, Northwest Now can be found on the web at kbtc.org.

And be sure to follow us on Twitter at Northwest Now.

Thanks for taking a closer look on this edition of Northwest Now.

Until next time, I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.

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