Seattle Nice

In this episode, we take a closer look at Mayor Bruce Harrell's proposed ban on anti-competitive covenants in grocery and pharmacy leases—a move aimed at preventing future food deserts. Is this a genuine step toward saving grocery stores and pharmacies, or, as Erica argues, a form of political posturing in the midst of a mayoral election?We also broaden the discussion to consider alternative solutions, with Sandeep suggesting a re-evaluation of design review processes as a more effective lever for lowering costs and sustaining local businesses. David highlights the critical ideological divide here between Harrell and challenger Katie Wilson, whose socialist-sounding stance on publicly backed grocery stores offers a stark contrast to Harrell's market-oriented approach on remedying food deserts. Whereas Wilson wants the government more involved in the private sector, Harrell would reserve public dollars for things like food assistance.    We also discuss turbulence within the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, based on Erica’s reporting about accusations of mismanagement and racism against its CEO, Kelly Kennison. This segment unpacks the broader debate about the organization's efficacy and future. We come back to a question we’ve discussed before: is it time to pull the plug on the KCRHA? Finally, we talk about Mayor Harrell's campaign criticism of Katie Wilson's experience, with Erica challenging the tone and substance of Harrell’s attacks.Quinn Waller is our editor. Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

This week we take the patented Seattle Nice deep dive into Bruce Harrell's proposed nearly $9 billion budget, examining the Seattle mayor’s priorities as he’s fighting for his political life in what’s turned into a tough election year for him.  David points out how various local media outlets, from KIRO to our own Erica C. Barnett’s Publicola framed the budget news through their own lenses. The discussion also highlights the budget's strategic rollout, with Sandeep noting the mayor’s reliance on a "slick, produced, 15-minute video" in lieu of a traditional speech.We then get into criticism of the budget, which assumes both sales and B&O tax increases and prioritizes spending on new police hires and, in the face of Trump threats, immigrant and refugee assistance and other supports. Erica criticizes the mayor for boosting spending for what will be ongoing programs with one time dollars, saying he is avoiding tough choices and leaving substantial  projected out-year deficits. She argues he should have worked harder to cut the police budget in particular. Sandeep echoes Erica’s concerns about a lack of fiscal discipline but says his concern extends to potential wasteful spending in all city departments and not just the cops. He also argues the mayor missed a political opportunity by not proposing more bold, innovative ideas. We also get into the King County Council's recent ban on rent-setting software like RealPage to try and prevent algorithmic price fixing, which follows on the heels of a similar City ban. Finally, the podcast concludes with some back and forth about political endorsements, and specifically the “odd timing” of Pete Buttigieg's backing of Mayor Harrell.  Our editor is Quinn Waller.Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

We delve into the political maneuvering behind the scenes leading up to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed sales tax hike for non-police public safety initiatives. We also discuss the debate over proposed changes to Seattle's comprehensive plan.Our editor is Quinn Waller. Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

This week we discuss the contentious decision by Seattle’s City Council and Mayor Bruce Harrell to expand police surveillance cameras. How should city leaders balance concerns about crime with questions about privacy and the misuse of surveillance? Also, when dozens speak out against a piece of legislation at a council meeting, what does that tell us us about public opinion citywide?We also take a closer look at Mayor Harrell's proposed $80 million “reparations fund” for homeownership. We discuss the financial details, political implications, and ask whether it’s the right way to address generational wealth loss due to redlining.Our editor is Quinn Waller. City Expands Police Surveillance Despite Overwhelming Opposition, Concerns About Civil Liberties Amid vocal opposition, Seattle council expands police surveillanceMayor Bruce Harrell wants reparations fund to help people buy housesSend us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

This week we bring you a second spin of our widely discussed interview earlier this year with Katie Wilson, who is now running for Seattle mayor. We talked with Katie before she was a candidate about a piece she wrote for the Stranger in January. At the time, Wilson was the head of the Transit Riders Union and a progressive advocate for affordable housing.  In this interview, Wilson argued the left has failed to acknowledge some critical realities about homelessness, ceding the issue to "Seattle Is Dying" demagogues.   Our editor is Quinn Waller. Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

In this special preview from the Blue City Blues podcast, Sandeep and David explore the sprawling open-air drug market in Seattle’s Little Saigon neighborhood, which resembles similar drug markets in poor, blue city neighborhoods across the US that have been overrun by the urban fentanyl and methamphetamine crises. Whether it's the Tenderloin in San Francisco, or Kensington in Philadelphia, or Skid Row or MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, the well intentioned, largely permissive policies towards hard drug use that in recent years took root in progressive-dominated bluer cities is coming under increasing challenge, and not just from Trump and the MAGA right.In the fall of 2024, Oregon rolled back its famous 2020 experiment in full drug decriminalization - as did Vancouver, B.C. earlier last year - after Portland neighborhoods like Old Town were overrun by addicts committing petty crimes to fuel their addictions. Recently installed San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has embraced more aggressive law enforcement and treatment interventions, as part of a nascent shift heralded by the city’s adoption of “Breaking the Cycle” and “Recovery First” policies.Our guide in Little Saigon is Andrew Constantino, a former heroin addict and outreach worker, whose recent Seattle Times op-ed, “Here’s what I Learned about Addiction at 12th and Jackson,” has struck a nerve in Seattle’s social services provider community. Constantino walks us through the streets of Seattle’s most notorious open air drug market, where methamphetamine, fentanyl, and stolen goods are openly exchanged at all hours of the day and night, and explains why so many fentanyl users are stuck here on the streets, trapped in a cycle of rising hopelessness and despair – due to the fleeting, highly addictive nature of the drug.With a searing candor, disarming humor and electric cowboy green hair, Constantino rejects many prevailing progressive orthodoxies to offer his own, deeply compassionate yet sharply questioning perspective on addiction, personal autonomy, and opportunities for productive interventions on the mean streets of blue cities.Our editor is Quinn Waller. Our producer and editor for this episode was Jennie Cecil Moore. About Blue City BluesSubscribe to the Blue City Blues podcast here. Twenty years ago, Dan Savage encouraged progressives to move to blue cities to escape the reactionary politics of red places. And he got his wish. Over the last two decades, rural places have gotten redder and urban areas much bluer.America’s bluest cities developed their own distinctive culture, politics and governance. They became the leading edge of a cultural transformation that reshaped progressivism, redefined urbanism and remade the Democratic Party.But as blue cities went their own way, as they thrived as economically and culturally vibrant trend-setters, these urban cosmopolitan islands also deSend us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

This week we discuss the upcoming Christian nationalist rally at Cal Anderson Park, why these events continue to happen, and debate the city's legal challenges in managing them.We also bring you primary election news and get into Seattle’s aversion to re-electing mayors.Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

This week on Seattle Nice, we debate the factors that led to a progressive triumph in Seattle's August primary. We dig into what went wrong for centrist incumbents Mayor Bruce Harrell, City Council Member Sara Nelson, and City Attorney Ann Davison. Was it a longing for a kinder, gentler approach to public safety and homelessness? The high price of pizza? The “Trump effect?” Take a listen and let us know what you think at realseattlenice@gmail.com. Our editor is Quinn Waller. About Seattle NIce It’s getting harder and harder to talk about politics, especially if you disagree. Well, screw that. Seattle Nice aims to be the most opinionated and smartest analysis of what’s really happening in Seattle politics available in any medium. Each episode dives into contentious and sometimes ridiculous topics, exploring perspectives from across Seattle's political spectrum, from city council brawls to the ways the national political conversation filters through our unique political process. Even if you’re not from Seattle, you need to listen to Seattle Nice. Because it’s coming for you. Unlike the sun, politics rises in the West and sets in the East. Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

This episode delves into three political developments in Seattle and King County. Part I examines a proposed initiative to ban unauthorized public camping in unincorporated King County, discussing its scope, the signature-gathering process, and the larger goals of its main proponent, Saul Spady. Part II focuses on the B&O tax increase proposal which passed out of committee unanimously last week, exploring its financial implications, its goals, recent amendments, and its potential impact on Mayor Harrell's re-election. Part III gets into City Attorney Ann Davison and Mayor Bruce Harrell's lawsuit against the Trump administration, and the timing … just before the August primary.Our editor is Quinn Waller. Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

In this extra special, heavy duty emergency weekend edition of Seattle Nice, we dissect what Trump’s new executive order on homelessness means for Seattle. Initial hot takes have interpreted the order as a full frontal assault on the "housing first" and “harm reduction” approaches that prevail in blue jurisdictions, and its release  has precipitated a major freak out from providers and progressive elected officials in Seattle and nationally.But we need to stop and take a deep breath, says one of Seattle Nice’s go to experts, MacArthur genius Lisa Daugaard, co-Executive Director of Purpose Dignity Action. Looking past the inflammatory Trumpian rhetoric to the actual language of the order, Lisa offers a more nuanced and “strategic” take. While the Trumpists’ political rhetoric surrounding the order is inflammatory, Daugaard walks us through a deep dive into the actual, much more carefully drafted language of the order to point out that the text itself is (for the most part) not horrific and could even open doors to increased resources for treatment and recovery. As Duagaard emphasizes, Housing First, understood correctly, is not “housing only,” and this EO presents an opportunity for providers and advocates to better explain the full range of case management and recovery interventions they are already deploying to help those suffering from addiction.The discussion goes deep into the EO’s implications for harm reduction services, housing first programs, and for civil commitment, weighing the potential risks and strategic opportunities on each front for local providers and governments. The conversation also gets into the potentially sharp disjuncture between the political imperatives for municipal candidates vying to present themselves as the most anti-Trump as local election season heats up, and the right strategy for providers to demonstrate to federal agencies that they are addressing the terms of the EO in good faith.Quinn Waller is our editor. Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.comThanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.comSupport the showYour support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.