Soundside

Members of the King County Council have moved to officially say the county’s youth jail should remain open. The council voted last week eight-to-zero in favor of a non-binding resolution to declare its support for keeping the Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center in operation – with some improvements.   The move comes just over four years after King County Executive Dow Constantine pledged to shutter the facility by 2025 It was a promise made during the summer of George Floyd racial justice protests. At the time – Constantine said his goal was “shifting public dollars away from systems that are rooted in oppression.”  And he predicted that, “phasing out centralized youth detention is no longer a goal in the far distance.” But since then, the goal has been getting farther down the road. Earlier this year, the timeline for closing the jail was pushed out to 2028 at the recommendation of an advisory committee of community partners. And now, the county appears to be indefinitely delaying that push.  Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.    Guests: Tascha R. Johnson, Associate Executive Director of Choose 180 - a non-profit dedicated to transforming the juvenile justice system King County Councilmember (District 9) Reagan Dunn   Relevant Links: Youth jail should be improved, not closed, King County Council votes - KUOW See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Democratic party is riding the Good Vibes Express after its Chicago convention.  And a look at polling averages gives them reason to celebrate: Since becoming the nominee, Vice President Harris has shaken up a relatively static presidential race: She’s now running slightly ahead of former President Trump nationwide.  In swing states, she has pulled even in key areas of the sun belt like Georgia and North Carolina.  Some analysts say you have a more concrete expression of the electorate’s mood coming from right here in Washington State. In fact, in the last several presidential and midterm elections, Washington state’s primary has developed a reputation as a reliable bellwether for the outcome of national general elections.  Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.    Guest: Armin Thomas is a political analyst at Split Ticket, a nonpartisan election analysis firm Relevant Links: A Very Detailed Examination Of The Washington Primary - Split Ticket See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Washington State University's MT James Entomological Collection is the largest insect museum in the state, it holds around three million specimens.  In 2022, state legislators allocated $50,000 for the collection to digitize pollinators,  like bees, moths, flies, butterflies and other insects that carry pollen. Adding the 30,000 pollinators in WSU’s collection to a digital database will open up collaboration for researchers worldwide. Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.  Guests: Elizabeth Murray, Telford Family Professor of Entomology and the director of the MT James Entomological Collection at Washington State University Relevant Links: Spokesman Review: WSU makes strides in digitalizing 3 million insect collection M.T. James Entomological Collection website  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last year, the Yakima City Council made a landmark decision by passing a proclamation to designate the month of June as LGBTQ+ Pride month.  Less than a year later, the council voted to reverse that decision.  The move was celebrated by far right religious leaders like Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and Sean Feucht, who took to X to applaud the decision.  And while pride celebrations defiantly went on in the city, it’s raised a lot of concerns about the ties between public officials and prominent Christian Nationalist figures.  GUESTS:  Mai Hoang - Central and Eastern Washington reporter for Cascade PBS. Dominick Bonny - investigative journalist based in Wenatchee. RELATED LINK: “Under God: How Christianity Permeates Yakima City Politics.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For many Washington students, and parents, the school year is just about to start - if it hasn’t already. And they're not the only ones gearing up for the new year. Teachers and school staff are about to step into a new year with all sorts of new questions about how their respective school systems will be run. So, we wanted to check in with a panel of education experts, to hear about how they’re preparing for both an incoming class  of students, and the realities of working in the Washington education system right now. Guests: Ibijoke Idowu, a special education teacher with Seattle Public Schools Hilda Lail, Vancouver Public Schools Bilingual Family and Community Engagement Partnership Coordinator Julianna Dauble, president of the Renton Education Association Relevant Links: Cell Phone and Smart Device Use in Schools - OSPI SPS, city of Seattle announce safety plan before new school year - Seattle Times Seattle school closures: Why almost every student would be affected - Seattle Times More school resource officers coming to Renton - Kent Reporter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this month, City of Seattle workers were told most of them will have to return to the office at least 3 days a week starting this fall. Meanwhile… a certain large tech and online retail company (named after a river in South America) has reportedly started a mulling the minimum number of hours employees must stay on site to count towards its three day in-office mandate.These changes had us wondering – is remote work gradually eroding in the Puget Sound region? One study looking at 2022 Census data found that a quarter of workers in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area worked at least part of the week remotely, away from the office. But the past year has brought a lot of changes to employer policies around where employees have to put in their hours – and for policymakers, that’s coinciding with concern about the lasting effects of remote work on Seattle’s struggling downtown core.  For a vibe check on remote work and what the numbers tell us about its effects on Seattle, Soundside host Libby Denkmann caught up with Tracy Hadden Loh, fellow at the Brookings Institute, and Joshua McNichols, growth and development reporter for KUOW and co-host of the "Booming" podcast. Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible. If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. Guests: Tracy Hadden Loh, fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C. Joshua McNichols, growth and development reporter for KUOW and co-host of the "Booming" podcast. Related Links: How to break the doom loop: Actionable insights from the Brookings Future of Downtowns learning exchange Amazon cracks down on ‘coffee badging,’ amid return-to-office push | The Seattle Times KUOW - Seattle ticks through to-do list to revive downtown Seattle mayor mandates 3 days of in-office work for city employees (komonews.com) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early 90s, Seattle was at the center of a sonic revolution. Grunge, a homegrown sludgy rock sound, became a global commodity. At the same time, another sound was making its mark on Seattle. The Gits were a band on the precipice of national stardom, standing out with their punk sensibility and charismatic female vocalist, with music labels circling. But the promise of a big break came to a violent end. The band’s lead singer, Mia Zapata, was murdered in 1993. It happened in the early morning hours after a show at the Comet Tavern.  For years, in media accounts, the band was defined by that tragic night. Today, the Gits’ drummer, Steve Moriarty, says he doesn’t want an act of violence to overshadow their full story. His book, Mia Zapata and the Gits: A True Story of Art, Rock, and Revolution, tells a fuller story of the band's existence. Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.  Guests: Steve Moriarty, drummer and author of Mia Zapata and The Gits: A True Story of Art, Rock, and RevolutionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Addressing homelessness is looking a little different in Thurston County these days. The county, which includes Olympia, just became the fifth community in the nation to collect data on every single adult experiencing homelessness. The county’s partner organization says that data includes the names and circumstances of each person counted. And the county vows to update the information monthly. It’s part of a model called “Built for Zero”.    Guests: Keylee Marineau, homeless response program manager at Thurston County's Office of Housing & Homeless Prevention Garrett Grainger, Research Associate at Manchester Metropolitan University   Relevant Links: Olympia, Wash. Becomes Fifth U.S. City to Collect Data on All Single Adults Experiencing Homelessness - PR Newswire Blog: Five Questions Housing Analysts Should Ask About "By-Name Data" - HSA: The Forum for Housing-Related Research and Debate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We know a few things about the woman known as Lou Graham, for sure:  She was a brothel madam in Seattle at the turn of the century. And she’s immortalized in one of the city’s popular ghost tours.  Maybe you’ve even felt her spiritual presence while passing through tunnels underneath Pioneer Square. Beyond that, facts are sparse. But plenty of legends about Graham’s life and impact on Seattle are served up to tourists and YouTube viewers who care to search her name.   From Geographics: “Technically sex work was illegal, so Graham made sure to have the ladies registered as “seamstresses” on the books. From Women Being Podcast: “Graham was an advocate for women’s rights and social justice, and supported the women’s rights movement, including the Seattle chapter of the NAACP. She died in 1903 a feminist icon.” It turns out, most of that is TOTAL BUNK.But the truth behind those fables – and a journalist’s search to find it – may be even more illuminating.   GUEST: Hanna Brooks Olson, author of “Notoriously Bad Character: The True Story of Lou Graham and the Immigrants and Sex Workers Who Built Seattle” RELATED LINKS: https://hannabrooksolsen.com/  The Many False Histories of Lou Graham | Medium See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last winter, federal officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a program to save the perpetually threatened northern spotted owl. The problem? Invasive barred owls are crowding out our local forest -- they're bigger, and more aggressive. The solution? Culling half a million of those owls over the next 30 years. On its face, the issue seems pretty straightforward: barred owls are invasive, and because of them, Northern spotted owls are disappearing.  But for Jay Odenbaugh, a philosopher and ethicist, the issue brings up a bigger question: how we as humans try to intervene in a problem we're also responsible for creating. KUOW's Diana Opong spoke with Odenbaugh about a recent op-ed he co-authored for the New York Times about how we can think more ethically about conservation.  Guests: Jay Odenbaugh, professor of humanities at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR. Related Links: KUOW - Why the feds want to cull barred owls in the Pacific Northwest Opinion | To Save Some Endangered Owls, Would You Kill 500,000 Other Owls? - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Feds propose shooting one owl to save another in Pacific Northwest | The Seattle Times See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.