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>> Washington's largest city is just part of the story in Washington's most populace county.

The King County Executive may not govern the entire state, but it's certainly the top job in the most important place when it comes to politics and economics.

For 12 years now, Dow Constantine has reigned relatively unopposed but this time, state center Joe Nguyen is posing a serious challenge.

The race for King County Executive is next, on Northwest Now.

[ Music ] In terms of Federal offices, this is an off-year election, but not in Seattle in King County.

With a 6 billion dollar budget and a population approaching 2 and one 1/2 million, a lot rides on the success of King County.

Here are a couple of interesting notes; with incumbent Executive Dow Constantine, consideration must be given to the governorship which opens up in 2 years, and which by the way, is on the same election cycle as that of the State's Attorney General, and here's something else to know; while the County Executive's job is nonpartisan, both candidates in this race are democrats.

So let's start with Dow Constantine; he's 59, served 5 years in the house and senate, and has been King County Executive since 2009.

He points to Sound Transit 3, his COVID response, the Clean Water Healthy Habitat initiative, and the formation of the Regional Homeless Authority, among his successes.

Dow Constantine, thanks for coming to Northwest Now.

It's been a long time since you've been a guest here on this program, which you have been a couple times.

Good to see you again.

Talk to me a little bit about this election here on this particular appearance.

Where do you feel the daylight exists between you and Joe Nguyen?

He's supporting a wealth tax, let's face it, basically an income tax.

Is that one of the areas that there's some daylight?

Talk a little bit about that.

>> I don't really think so, I mean I've supported taxing people based on what they make and what they have as opposed to the set of taxes we have now which fall most heavily on those who have the least.

And I've supported that for 20 years, and you know, Joe's been real clear that he doesn't think there's a lot of philosophical difference here.

I think the real difference is that my proven leadership has actually taken those ideals and turned them into real progress, real achievements for the people of King County.

That is the difference in the race.

>> No big surprise to you here, one of the, the big issue that really shows up on the radar when you look at polling and other things is homelessness.

I believe the number's somewhere around 130 million dollars the county spent in 2020 on homelessness.

What is your feeling about, did we get the bang for the buck on that kind of spending?

>> Well, you know, a lot of that is spent trying to keep people from falling into homelessness or rapidly rehousing them, but the fact is that we are working through the Regional Homeless Authority that I've helped set up, to unite Seattle and King County's efforts, call in the efforts of the other cities and those with lived experience and be able to get more for the resources that are being invested by having them be coordinated and eliminating duplication.

The exciting part for me here is that we have some new tools available that we're using now to really stand up some solutions just didn't exist 2 years ago, like help through housing with the thousands of hotel and other units that we're acquiring to move people out of the streets with the services to stay housed, or hiring some 400 people who've been homeless to help clean up our parks or streets, put our communities back together.

That's real tangible work, it's different than the talk and finger pointing you've seen from some quarters over time and I do think it's an opportunity for us to finally turn the tide on homelessness.

>> Do talk a little bit about that new housing authority and the sales tax that you've talked about for tapping underperforming commercial properties.

It's been mentioned hotels, motels, nursing homes.

I even think there's a potential at some point for these big box retailers, the retail model is changing so rapidly, they're all over King County.

There seems like some real potential there.

Talk a little bit about that idea.

>> Well there, yeah, there's a lot of real estate and of course the real estate market's dynamic, but the interesting thing about buying hotels and similar places is that they're effectively move in ready, they're set up for this purpose.

Now at the start of COVID, we worked very hard to prevent infections in homeless shelters by moving people into their own rooms.

We rented hotels that had become empty because of the change in tourism, and what we found is that it did prevent infections from COVID but it also made a lot of other differences; it helped people get a full night's sleep, to be able to begin to collect their thoughts and get centered so they could accept the services we're providing.

We saw fewer behavioral health crises, we saw improved physical health, and the University of Washington came in and studied this and said yes, in fact, this is making a big difference for people.

It's not you know, a brand new apartment purpose built, but having that room of your own, your own bathroom, a lock on the door, your own bed, is making all the difference in the world.

So we set about to buy thousands of those then vacant units and that is I thinking going to be a big chunk of the selection moving forward, to get people back on their feet and taking charge of their lives again.

>> Let's talk a little bit about youth homelessness; it was edging down in King County, then started edging up again.

There was a pledge to end youth homelessness by the summer of 2021, but that, as you well-know, blew up in a fit of allegations of racism and all the stakeholders ended up being at odds with each other.

Take any responsibility for that?

Was that something that didn't work that you had in your mind?

Talk a little bit about that.

>> You know, the county is still providing all of the actual services that we were providing that was going into that effort.

That is our job, this was an attempt to bring together the city and county and private nonprofit work, to really be the face of the youth homelessness effort.

To reach out to those youth.

With a, they had a headquarters in the University District.

But the challenge there, which was the challenge with some of the previous efforts, was that this sort of planning was disconnected from the authority and the responsibility.

And what we've worked to do with this new homelessness authority is to unite those things.

So we're actually handing over our contracts, handing over the funding and handing over the accountability to this new homelessness authority for the emergency services, for people as they are on the street.

>> I was going to say-- >> -- I think is going to create some real progress for us.

>> The big thing there, Dow, is that somebody has to own that and there has to be transparency and accountability.

>> That's right.

And the problem in the situation you mentioned and some previous efforts, was that you had an organization that was doing a lot of planning and saying a lot of good words, but didn't have the spending authority and wasn't able to be held accountable for delivering the results.

And we have now united all of those things together in this new homelessness authority.

I think it's going to make a big difference.

>> Talking a little bit about issues surrounding youth while we're at it, you somewhat controversially supported the new county detention center but you also said you want to end youth detention by 2025.

So, so how does that look?

Are we just relabeling it?

Calling detention or jail something else?

Give us a preview of what that looks like in those out years.

>> So, you know, we're required to have a youth detention facility by state law.

And of course the state makes the laws around the criminal legal system, but we had an old, like 1950s era, and very large youth detention facility.

And we've been working to reduce youth detention through prevention and diversion for many years, but we needed to replace it.

So we replaced it with one that was barely half to size as part of a larger rebuild of courtrooms and other facilities.

And we've continued since then to reduce youth detention from about 80 youth a night when I took office to fewer than 15 youth a night on average this year.

But I really challenged the community, not just the criminal legal system community but the entire community, to help figure out how to get that last difficult leg of the journey done.

How can we make it so that there isn't a need for centralized youth detention?

There may be a need for more localized neighborhood based facilities, there's clearly a need for more work on prevention and on diverting kids into the programs that can help fix the challenge that brought them into contact with the legal system in the first place.

But without an all hands on deck effort, if it's just government and the legal system is not going to get it done.

Without an all hands on deck effort, we're not going to be able to make that really, I think national leading transformational change.

>> We talk a lot about diversion and community based supervision and resources, but A, you know there's a lot of resistance in communities when it comes to citing a group home or something like it, and B, what about the problem with violent offenders?

>> Right, well and that is exactly it, the cases that are left are really the most completion, the most difficult cases and I, are reason I'm challenging communities to do this and not simply saying we'll take care of it ourselves is because it is going to require communities to weigh their values, to decide it's worth it to site a facility or find alternatives as opposed to just maintaining the traditional middle of a centralized detention facility.

So this is really calling the question I think, it's calling the question on what the community is willing to step up to do to help our kids and I can tell you that we've spent a lot of time examining systems around the country and trying to figure out what we can do locally to keep making progress on diverting kids from the system, preventing them from getting in trouble in the first place.

The next leg of the journey as I say, is really going to require all of us to put our shoulder to the wheel and make it happen.

>> That provides a nice segue, talking about law enforcement, into a piece of this that I think has been a little underreported and a little under-recognized and that is the new county executive is going to be appointing a new sheriff.

What is important to find in the new sheriff?

Where does that search take place?

What are you looking for?

What matters?

>> Okay, well first off, we convened a community group to help sort of articulate the values and priorities in hiring a new sheriff.

I'm going to receive their report, talk with them, but ultimately, it's my decision about whom to appoint and the qualities we're looking for.

I think we need someone who is going to be able to lead transformation, and by transformation I mean having police practices, training, and behavior, really meet the expectations of our population here in the 21st century, and to inspire their own employees.

They need to be able to lead police officers, detectives, and others in creating genuine community safety.

The new model of safety is clearly going to be one that is not just relying on a cop with a gun to show up and solve every problem, but bringing in public health resources, bringing in human services, focusing more on engaging communities and identifying conflict and figuring out how to unwind it before criminal activity happens and I'm confident that we have the desire to do this, the will to do this, but it is organizing around getting the right person on the job and then moving all the segments in the community forward that's really the key to this.

>> I know there's a lot to this but in your last 30 seconds, Dow, talk a little bit about Clean Water Healthy Habitat and what you see at its future going forward.

>> Clean Water Healthy Habitat, that's us bringing together all of the clean water programs, 9 billion dollars in this decade alone, much of it focused on how do we get the best outcomes for the money available?

Not just spending based on the regulatory regime but what are the priorities that will restore the salmon, restore the sound, restore this place we call home.

>> Dow Constantine, thanks so much for coming the Northwest Now.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> Now let's meet the challenger in the race for King County Executive.

Joe Nguyen is 37, a state senator elected in 2018, and a manager at Microsoft.

Nguyen supports free public transit, a wealth tax on the richest county residents, and closure of the new youth jail and justice center.

Joe, welcome, thanks for coming to Northwest Now.

I'm going to start by being a little facetious.

>> Okay.

>> And I admit it, it's a little facetious, but I'm going to ask this anyway; do we need another corporate know-it-all, Microsoft, person telling us what to do in Western Washington?

>> I think we need somebody with lived experience and has the background to be successful in an executive position to be in charge, yes.

But no, we don't need another corporate know-it-all by any means.

>> Yeah, there's a lot of softies you know who have done well.

>> Yeah.

>> And are definitely in leadership positions around this state and that's something you hear about you know, Microsoft, here comes another softie.

Anybody else ever asked you that question or does that?

>> Well no, because most of those folks are founders, right?

So you have Congresswoman DelBene, you'll have Ross Hunter and all those folks and I think their time at the company was at different points than I was, so I'm just a regular employee that's there.

But what's interesting is that background has been very effective while in the legislature as well, so I don't think I'm over that caliber of Microsoftee, I just happen to work there now.

>> Politicians don't like to have to choose, but I'm going to make you.

>> Yeah.

>> What is the big thing in your mind, what is the big differentiator, where is the daylight between you and Dow on this race?

>> Well, in terms of just personality, I think it's a want to actually fix these problems with urgency.

So the biggest thing is, like you mentioned, I'm not a career politician, so in addition to being a state senator, I still work at Microsoft and my background hasn't been in politics and in the past few years, when I got involved, it was largely because I believed that our community deserved better, I believed we needed leaders who actually would listen to folks that needed help.

So the biggest thing between me and him, largely isn't so much policy as a voice for folks who have been left out of the process.

>> Mm hmm.

And a sense of urgency to bring to some of these.

>> I mean the fact I'm in this race shows that there's a sense of urgency in my step, but also the fact that I'm not scared to tackle big problems that we're facing right now as well.

>> Let's talk about some of those big problems; homelessness-- >> Yeah.

>> Dow is proud of establishing or being a part of the group that established this new regional authority, what are your thoughts about that?

Does that have a shot at success?

Where are your-- what's your thinking?

>> I hope it does succeed because we absolutely need it.

What I will point out is that although it's had different names throughout the past 12 years that he's been in office, whether it's the 10-year plan to end homelessness, it was a 5-year plan, 2-year plan, now it's the Regional Authority on Homelessness, different names, same player, right?

And that's the biggest thing for me is that at a certain point, you need to have your elected officials deliver on these promises or else they just become broken promises.

I do think that this is a good idea, I think Marc Dones is the right person to be in charge of this space, and it has to be a regional approach.

For me I think part of it is that we need trust in our local jurisdictions to be able to make this work and the fact that this has been around, you know, for a short period of time but homelessness response has been around for a long time.

I do think we need leadership that is kind of reflecting the future of what our county should be looking like.

>> A hundred and thirty-one million dollars spent on the problem just last year alone.

>> Yeah.

>> Getting the bang for the buck that we need to out of that do you think?

>> Yes and no, so that's 131 million just on direct homelessness response.

We're not even talking about behavioral mental health, the legal system, we're talking a lot more than that actually.

And the biggest thing for me that I found as well is that first, we do need to have emergency solutions to housing, the other part is that we have to have the services to actually address the folks who are chronically homeless.

And I think that's the problem, because even with the Health Through Housing initiative, by buying all these hotels, most of them can't open because they don't have the services associated with them.

And that's not a new issue, right, like that's always been kind of a problem where the people who are doing the behavior mental health, the homelessness response, they're not getting paid a wage that would reflect the hard work that's being put in.

So you have a lack of labor in that space.

So we have to look at it from a multi-pronged approach.

>> Yeah, because on the face of it, it seems like a clever idea.

>> Yeah.

>> To buy these spaces that are underutilized, deliver services right there, you kind of have it all under one roof, possibly.

It strikes a certain cord.

>> Yeah.

No, I think it does make sense and that idea has been around for a long time, one of the reasons why I got involved in the first place was working with an organization that specifically, that specifically worked on family homelessness.

And you know, obviously the most effective way to keep somebody from becoming homeless is to keep them housed before they become homeless.

It's 3-5 times cheaper to keep somebody housed than it is to take them out of homelessness.

>> Here's an issue that I think's flown a little bit under the radar in the county executive's race and that is, this county executive, whoever it is, is going to be appointing a sheriff.

>> That's right.

>> That is a big change.

>> Yeah.

>> And the possible impact there on the streets and when it comes to the police reform and a lot of these other issues, all of a sudden start converging on that at the doorstep of the county executive.

Who are you looking for in a new sheriff?

What's important?

What's your thinking on that?

>> I think fundamentally that's probably the biggest thing that's going to impact our justice system and for decades to come, is this next decision.

Right?

The biggest thing.

And fundamentally, we should be looking for somebody who sees themselves as a guardian and not necessarily a warrior.

Right, like we've seen the system not work for a lot of communities and in fact, there was a report commissioned by the SPD, the Seattle Police Department, that stated that the vast majority of their responses, over 80% of their responses, were for non-criminal activity.

So what that means to me is that we need more healthcare providers, we need more behavioral health providers, we need responders that can address those particular issues and not necessarily folks with guns.

That would make it safer for the general public, it would make it safer for law enforcement as well, so really, we have the opportunity to rethink what public safety looks like in a way that matches the data that we're seeing coming out of our local jurisdictions.

>> So a national search?

>> Oh yeah, a national search and being able to be thoughtful, and I think one of the most important things too in that is that you have to engage the community members who are going to be impacted.

I think for this to work, it has to be a partnership, not just with the executive's office but with the community.

And they have been doing community engagement and gotten the first round of feedback in terms of what the community wants to look for.

And it's that kind of collaboration that we're going to need.

>> One of the pieces of your platform I also find interesting is free public transit.

>> Yeah.

>> Take the lid off, if it's there, you jump on and you ride it.

>> Yeah.

>> Corporate Seattle's already helping to pay for ORCA cards-- >> The majority of it, yeah.

>> Is there enough left to take that idea all the way and do you think this will move the needle when it comes to transit in something that we're decades behind on in King County?

>> Yeah, so first off, when I talk about transit, it is not necessarily in a silo, right?

So, for me the reason why I say that is because if you look at affordable housing, you have to connect transit for it to make sense.

If you talk about climate change, you have to lower the emissions from tailpipes, that's why you need transit.

If you talk about economic mobility, right, like the fact that things are so expensive now in certain parts of King County, people are being gentrified away.

So if we have the core foundation of transit, where people can have access to all of those things, that's how we build a just future for our economy as well.

So if you look at it in a silo, it does seem expensive, but if you talk about decongesting roads, the easiest way to decongest roads is to get people into public transit.

The best way to build affordable housing that is mindful of climate impacts, is by having public transit.

So it's just one of the lynch pins in terms of how do we get stuff done.

>> County Council, very sharply divided, a couple of the races there-- >> Have gotten interesting.

>> A little ugly, yeah, in some ways.

Do you think you can be a moderating influence on that council?

How do you view the Executive's role when it comes to managing County Council?

>> Yeah, I actually, I do because I work with many of them right now.

But what's also funny is that even the Seattle Times called this out, where hey look, I'm known for being kind of a liberal reformer but I'm also known for being able to build coalitions and work across the aisle.

In fact, there was a reporter who was known for being more moderate or conservative that said hey, in the legislature, Senator Nguyen is well-respected by the GOP because he shows up to do work.

You know, and what's funny is that if you look at the bills that we passed this past year, the vast majority were actually bipartisan.

So there are certainly things that divide us, but there are many more things that unite us as well.

And I think being able to invest in a just economy for the future of King County, I think certainly you can walk, you don't have to walk a fine line, you can work together across the aisle.

Which, [inaudible] non-partisan, you can work with many people.

>> Right.

It is a non-partisan office technically, yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Little personal piece from you, how does your personal story inform how you are a state senator and how you want to go ahead and proceed as county executive is elected?

>> Yeah, thank you, I mean I think that's the core, right?

So I'm the son of refugees, born in White Center, which is unincorporated King County, in a community that has oftentimes been neglected and underinvested, right?

And I'll be honest, I didn't think that I'd ever run for state senate let alone running for King County Executive, because a lot of folks where I come from, didn't have those opportunities.

So for most of my life I was told that I wasn't going to be good enough for a whole host of things, but when I ran for state senate, I realized that not only was I good enough, I should have been here the entire time.

And in a very short period of time, I went from being a first year legislator to now I serve in a senior leadership position in the legislature, I negotiate with you know, the governor and the other chambers on major bills, I've helped negotiate the budget as well.

So the reason why that's so important is because oftentimes the people closest to the pain should also be closest to the power.

And if you look at the legislature, this is the most diverse legislature in the history of Washington State.

And arguably one of the more effective at the very least urgent over the past few years.

So, seeing how transformative it is to have people who are impacted by policies not at the table, I think we could bring that energy and that dynamic to the county as well.

Because you're talking the 12th biggest county in the entire United States, bigger than 14 states.

You can definitely create positive change with that resource and that size, that we're not necessarily seeing right now.

>> Last question for you, start talking about transit and homelessness and solving a lot of these huge, seemingly intractable problems to some degree, and they see this young democrat running for county council and already in the state senate, first thing they're going to do is start grabbing for their wallets.

Where are you on that?

Is there a taxing capacity?

Is there a limit in King County for the people living in King County?

They've got huge problems, but I also-- do you give due consideration to folks who are trying to make it on a paycheck?

>> Oh, one hundred percent!

And they rightfully should be looking at their wallets because if you look at our tax structure right now, it doesn't work.

And the problem is when you're trying to fund things to address homelessness and you keep using sales tax, property tax, even car tabs, what ends up happening is that the people that you're trying to help the most, get pushed further and further towards margins as well.

So we have to do a better job.

First off, we need accountability and transparency in terms of how the money's being spent.

Kind of what you alluded to before.

And I think first off we can do better.

Also, we are also home to, I don't know, four or five of the wealthiest people to ever exist in the history of humanity, literally live right here.

So there are resources that we can potentially use to help mitigate this impact.

But the biggest thing for me is that we have to prove to the voters that we can be credible, that we can be trusted, and then their needs to be a plan when we go out and ask for resources to be able to solve these problems.

>> Joe Nguyen, thanks for coming to Northwest Now.

>> Thank you, I appreciate it.

>> There is a real temptation in this year's elections to blame every broken promise on COVID.

How many promises were you allowed to break in the past year and a half?

But with that said, the bottom line is that challengers have to provide a value proposition that goes beyond simply new and improved.

And that's how the contest shapes up in this case; a long-time leader with a track record of both hits and misses, and a relative newcomer who says he can turn the plotting wheels of government better and faster.

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 @NorthwestNow.

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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