This Week On PubliCola: May 3, 2025
SPD celebrates a hiring surge that included a net gain of zero women; campaigns heat up as filing week approaches; and much more
Monday, April 28
Could a Sales Tax Hike for Criminal Justice Programs Save the County’s Budget?
King County Council chair Girmay Zahilay and budget chair Rod Dembowski want the county to impose a new sales tax of 0.1 percent to boost funding for the county’s criminal legal system, including sheriff’s deputies, prosecutors, public defenders, and diversion programs. The tax could help close the county’s $160 million budget shortfall.
Tuesday, April 29
SPD Celebrates Its Hiring Spree. The Only Thing That’s Missing: Women
As the Seattle Police Department faces multiple lawsuits by women alleging harassment, discrimination, and a toxic work environment, new police chief Shon Barnes and Mayor Bruce Harrell touted an uptick in police hiring, with a large group of men standing as a backdrop. So far this year, SPD has hired 60 new cops, just five of them women.
Joe Mallahan, the T-Mobile executive and 2009 mayoral candidate who lost to Mike McGinn in that year’s general election, is reportedly considering a run against Harrell. And Takayo Ederer, a Seward Park resident who’s been raising money to run for City Council District 2, has more household wealth than the entire current council combined.
No, the Library Did Not Tell Employees to “Capitulate to Fascism”
A story on a new website started by a former Stranger reporter claimed, incorrectly, that the Seattle Public Library has ordered its staff not to record ICE raids in library buildings and to stand by and do nothing if ICE shows up. The site’s editor claimed SPL was “capitulating to fascism," and doubled down on most of the inaccurate claims in the initial piece, which continued to spread online (and cause misguided alarm and outrage) all week.
Wednesday, April 30
SPD Is Losing Women As Fast As It’s Hiring Them; State Budget Defunds Successful Encampment Program
Not only is SPD failing to come close to its stated goal of hiring a 30-percent female recruit class by 20230, it’s going backward; this year alone, five women have left the department, canceling out the five new female hires. And the legislature chose not to save a successful program that helped people living in encampments come indoors and find housing, treatment, and other services through intensive case management.
Thursday, May 1
Ann Davison’s New “Drug Prosecution Alternative” Is Just the Community Court She Ended Two Years Ago
Two years have gone by since Republican City Attorney Ann Davison unilaterally ended community court, which allowed some people charged with misdemeanors to bypass prosecution if they connected with social services. Last week, Davison rolled out a new “drug prosecution alternative” that is structurally identical to community court—and it doesn’t include some of the features Davison said were non-negotiable, like mandatory community service as a condition for receiving city services.
Friday, May 2
Privately Owned Trees Are Better Than Trees in Parks and Public Spaces, Councilmembers Argue
Council members have come up with a lot of ways to say “we should force more people to retain trees on their private property” over the years, but “private trees are better because street trees are expensive and get in the way of theoretical future projects” was a new one for me. The argument for forcing people to keep private trees always comes up in the context of developments that would allow more people to live in former single-family neighborhoods; “saving” a tree usually means preventing someone from building denser housing
Update on Mallahan: He’s still calling around, but apparently not getting any bites from local consultants. Update on Ederer: We hear she won’t make her campaign official during filing week, which runs from May 5-9. Finally, we put a council proposal to weaken the city’s ethics rules in a recent historical context.