Seattle Nice: Fees for Housing, a Lightweight Condemnation of "Defund," and a Critique of Seattle's Response to Shootings

Is it "truth and reconciliation" to condemn people for demanding alternatives to police?

By Erica C. Barnett

On this week's episode of Seattle Nice, we blast through a range of local topics—from the city council's nonbinding resolution denouncing "defund" (Rob Saka called it a "truth and reconciliation" process), to Councilmember Cathy Moore's efforts to impose Mandatory Housing Affordability fees on small infill "middle housing" in former single-family neighborhoods, where state legislators recently forced cities to allow townhouses, fourplexes, and other kinds of very low-density development. Developers say that MHA fees would make small projects infeasible by adding potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in pre-development costs; Moore said they should just accept lower returns.

In addition to going in deep on MHA (and appropriately shallow on Saka's lightweight resolution), we talked about a recent city audit that explored some of the reasons gun violence has been declining in cities like Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Las Vegas, even as shootings continue to rise in Seattle. The City Auditor's Office recommended more transparent, better-integrated information about patterns in gun violence, and said the city should collaborate more effectively with regional governments and community groups to understand the root causes of shootings in specific communities, rather than responding reactively and operating in siloes.

At a recent council committee meeting, Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington said she felt a lack of "respect" from the council, which moved forward with the audit even after the mayor's office directed the auditor's office to stop working on it, telling Councilmember Maritza Rivera and Council President Sara Nelson that the mayor's office and police department are already implementing all the recommendations in the audit, rendering the audit unnecessary and even insulting.

Last week, Rivera said the mayor's office contacted her right after the meeting to discuss the concerns she raised about shootings in and around Magnuson Park, and she felt at least somewhat reassured that they heard her and were taking action. But, she added, the city still needs to centralize its response to gun violence in response to the audit—taking the kind of "all-hands-on-deck" approach of other cities that have actually seen gun violence go down.

Listen to Seattle Nice below or wherever you get your podcasts.