Should Seattle’s Police Chief Live Here Full Time? Plus, Spokane Fire Resources and a New Ballard Light Rail Timeline

This is CityCast Seattle. I'm Jane Coo, and here's what Seattle's talking about. An updated plan for Ballard Light Rail recently dropped. Will we finally get lines to Seattle Center in Ballard after all? And we'll discuss what we know about former police chief Sean Barnes' resignation. But first, over the weekend, fires spread across eastern Washington, blown by heavy winds. Three fires sparked near Spokane, more than 700 structures burned, making the fires the most destructive in Washington history, and it led to the evacuation of over 60,000 people. So far, luckily, there have been no injuries or deaths. The Spokane mayor told NPR that about half of the city's neighborhoods are evacuated or at risk. But as of recording, the fires are 0% contained. Here to discuss, we have Guy O'Run, independent journalist behind the newsletter Gossip Guy. Welcome Guy. Hi, great to be here. And we have Hannah Krieg, founder of the burner. Hi, Hannah. And I'll say Spokane. Born and raised. Well, not really born, but I'm from Spokane. I know. Hannah, my first question was going to be, I know you have family in Spokane. How are they doing? Maybe I'm like a bad daughter because I didn't really realize I should probably like shoot my mom a text about this. But they're, uh, they live a little bit north of Spokane. So they're fine. My sister lives in Spokane proper and they're fine too. But I think her sister-in-law had to evacuate. And then a neighbor got their cat out recently for them. And so the cat is with my sister. safe and sound. Good, good. Yeah, I had read this piece in range media about what people are doing with their farm animals and their pets. And I mean, I think that always in the craziness of a fire and trying to evacuate, some people were able to get their pets out and some were not. And yeah, just hoping, hoping for the best for all involved. So yeah, those wildfires were among. dozens across the western U.S., and it's really stretched the ability of federal, state, and local agencies to try and fight them. According to the AP, at least 390 square miles have burned across Washington alone. And in recent years, we've seen more fires close to city limits in what experts call the wooey, the wildland urban interface, or the area between what we think of as uninhabited wilderness space and urban development. I mean, we saw the fires in L.A. Now we're seeing these fires in basically Spokane proper. And I can't help but wonder if this is going to come for Seattle at some point, if we're just going to see more of this in coming years. What a coastal elite perspective. Truly. Spokane's on fire. Spokane has always been on fire every summer since I've been a child. I remember one summer, TV news told us to make like little like drawstring go bags for like the fire season. Obviously this is a historic one. I'm really bad. But Spokane's always had these bad fires. But yeah, it would be bad if it came to Seattle too.

I think we're a little insulated from it in weather-wise, but also, yeah, culturally. I think like a lot of towns, especially in mountain towns, I think this has just become a regular occurrence, especially over the last like 10, 15 years. I mean, we might get some smoke and so that will be like a reminder that we're all connected, you know, like just because we're over the mountains doesn't mean we're not affected by climate change. It was just terrifying to read how quickly everything developed and really like within in a matter of hours, people have to evacuate. So yeah, just a lot of my thoughts with folks with Pekan. Absolutely. So, yeah, Governor Ferguson declared a state of emergency on Saturday, which includes a burn ban for the entire state through the end of September. That declaration will hopefully unlock some federal funding for community support. But in the meantime, There are a couple of resources to help fire survivors in Spokane that we know about. So the first is the Home Starts Here Fund, which is typically used to support services for people experiencing homelessness, but they are activating it to accept donations for community members who are impacted by the current wildfires. So you can make donations there at my.spokanecity.org slash. ending homelessness slash donations. The other group in Spokane that is collecting funds to help wildfire survivors is the Inovia Foundation. So they typically fund nonprofits in Spokane, but they just started a Spokane complex wildfire response fund to support immediate and long-term needs in the Spokane area. And we will put links in the show notes to both of those resources. So as you mentioned, Guy, the smoke is also rolling into Seattle and it is expected to stick around through Friday. Also, tomorrow and Thursday are supposed to be nearing 90 degrees, but the smoke might actually make it a little bit cooler. Like, is that a silver lining? I'm not really sure. But Friday morning is when the air quality is expected to improve when winds blow a different direction. We'll be getting less of that smoke. I feel like I am a broken record when it comes to this. But as we just talked about with the wooey, you know, meaning stuff from an urban environment is burning, remember that when you were breathing in smoke, it's not just like... nice trees burning. It is a lot of human-made objects and really toxic, dangerous stuff. So.

Please be mindful and try to stay out of it as much as you can as that thick smoke rolls in. We as a state have to use this as an opportunity to continue to adapt. I think we're going to see more and more worse things going on like more fires, droughts. And so figuring out all the different ways that from a policy angle that we can change things will be really important. Yeah. It seems like resource-wise, there's an upper limit on what we're capable of handling right now. And it seems like we might need to widen that. It seems like we're just going to need a lot more support for that in coming years. And I mean, honestly, I think we got really lucky the past couple of seasons in that it was relatively calm here when it comes to fire and smoke. Obviously, some really devastating fires still. But okay. Let's take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about police chief Sean Barnes resignation and what we know currently.

Last week, police chief Sean Barnes resigned amid scrutiny of our local government's response to the recent shooting at Seattle Center. Deputy Chief Andre Sales will serve as the interim chief and at a press conference Friday morning, Mayor Wilson introduced sales and announced to search for a new permanent police chief. King Five reported that the city agreed to provide a lump sum payment to Barnes equal to 18 months of salary. totaling about $560,000 based on his hourly wage of about $180. And that also came with an agreement not to sue the city. We haven't seen a lot of direct conversation about what led to Wilson asking for Barnes' resignation. What do you all see as a factors playing into this turn of events? It's pretty clear that people are unhappy with the communications directly after the shooting at Seattle Center. A lot of that communication work is really incumbent on the Seattle Police Department to have like updates on the facts of the case and the investigation. A mayor in that situation is more like responsible for like feelings communication to be quite honest. forward-thinking policy communication. And so it's been very disappointing to see, like, people, like, kind of blame us all in the mayor, like the communication bungles when really, like, a lot of that information stuff is on SPD. And so it seems like... That was a part of it. The interaction between Barnes and Southdale Emerald reporter Connor Nash over reporting from Publicola about Barnes's travel and his home in Chicago. But honestly, like, it seems like a long time coming. Seems like if someone is not like sharing your vision as a new mayor, you need the commander of your army essentially to like be submissive to you. For lack of better. words like I expected her to fire him immediately and I think this is just as good of a time as any to do it and I think will help her like feel more in control of the police department feel more in control of the city. Definitely there is a lot of discussion about you know Barnes's many trips out of town and the fact that you know he still visits his family a lot who don't live in the city. Like Hannah said, you know, oftentimes new mayors kind of appoint their person, you know, to the police chief role. At the same time, it is like a very tricky role. There's a lot of moving parts. You have like the city council who has to sign on. Oftentimes when you do a hiring process, it's like a big search. You have three different candidates. And it's like, it takes a lot of time and effort. I think some of the reason why there's been a lot of sort of backlash or controversy around. And it seems like there hasn't been a lot of lead time kind of to set the groundwork for kind of basically show the public why she lost faith and confidence in him. And instead you ended up having a situation where she kind of asked him to resign. And then he had a lot of bargaining leverage and was able to kind of negotiate probably a resignation package or something, you know, that was looked over by lawyers. So she can't say a lot, you know, in the details. And so that's, I think, part of the reason.

That has led to some confusion, you know. So on Monday morning, former Chief Barnes wrote an op-ed that was published in Seattle Medium. And it was an open letter to the community. Seattle Medium also published an open letter from local black leaders in support of Barnes last week. So in that open letter, Barnes wrote that he was incredibly proud of what we accomplished, but I'm even more proud of how we accomplished it. We accomplished it together. That gets me wondering how much is a police chief responsible for what happens in the force? Barnes, I believe, was the fifth police chief since 2020. And he was not in office for very long. But, I mean, how much of the criticism or credit should a police chief be receiving? over what their forces doing. It's similar to how the mayor doesn't really have that much power. It has a lot of... connections to a lot of things, but a lot of decisions in the police department, like you're always constrained, you know, in what you can do. So it is interesting to hear that, like, in terms of him only being there for less than two years, how much was he actually able to make a mark? Yeah, I mean, what do you all see as the highlights or low lights of what SPD was doing during his tenure? Harassing queer people at the beach. I know. I think they're trying to take credit for, like, the consent decree. Like, trying to say he was, like, instrumental in that. I don't really think that bears out in the math. He certainly presided over a lot of hiring. And that was also, like, driven a lot by the council and the previous mayor to really, like, try to... boost the numbers of in the forest. At the same time, you know, like there's questions like, where all the people he hired good quality candidates, the same thing about some of the promotions. Those are some things I would be interested to see more reporting on, like to really examine, like, especially with relations with the queer community, like, where all the personal decisions like done well or where there may be some areas of friction. Some parts of the black community were very supportive of Sean Barnes. And some of them did rally and show up, I think, last Thursday. Yeah, it also bears repeating that the black community is not a Malnilif. It's like really many communities. But certainly, you know, this will be a sticking point that Katie Wilson will have to address is like for some of those people who are unhappy with the decision, including also Council President Joy Hollingsworth. How do you kind of rebuild trust or kind of collaboration?

Yeah. I'm really worried for Wilson based for like her council relations. I think a lot of this council relationship stuff from my perspective has been sort of like stepkid syndrome and like, oh, you don't do it how like dad used to do it kind of. And that's like can be frustrating because I don't really know like what she can do. I mean, I'm sure there are actual communication issues between the council and the mayor. But yeah, seeing sort of just like the outrage from the council or comode. just put a camera in front of anyone who wanted to say something negative about Mayor Wilson. Yeah, I'm worried that like legislation with her name on it will be unfairly treated by the council. And we saw it in like the school lunches fiasco where, you know, a very popular policy, I think suffered and like had public drama because the city council didn't want the mayor to have a win. And I think we're going to see more of that going forward. So Wilson said in. that Friday press conference introducing sales as the interim police chief. She talked a little bit about the quality she'll be looking for in a new police chief. And she said she's looking for someone who can practice clear communication in stressful situations, who can navigate criticism, and is consistently present and keeps travel to an appropriate minimum. So, Guy, you mentioned earlier, Erica C. Barnett's reporting in publicola that Barnes was out of town for seven weeks so far this year. and that his family home was in Chicago. Seems like Wilson's statement on that is a kind of tacit acknowledgement of that ongoing discussion. And Hannah, you wrote a piece in the burner that Andre Sales also is not living in Seattle proper and that he also has a home in Illinois. So I'm curious what we know about sales at this point. Yeah, he said in a press conference on, I think it was Friday, that he has a home still in Illinois and his family lives there. He says his wife is often, you know, coming to see him and spending most of her time with him in East King County. But he has kids in Illinois who I think sounds like, you know, trying to like get them through high school and like leave the nest before they eventually the plan. He said at the press conferences to like make this there like. permanent home, which to me, the language of that, even though he does have a home pretty close, East King County, I mean, East King County could be two and a half hours away and the mayor's office wouldn't confirm where he lived for security reasons. But to say, like, we want to make this our primary home. And it's like, it still feels aspirational that they have roots here. And see, he seems to really still have roots somewhere else, which, but I mean, if he's telling the truth about his travel schedule and he only goes there like every eight weeks, I don't think that's actually that. crazy. I mean, they do have time off, right? They can, like, go wherever they want their time off. Yeah. I mean, in hearing about the conversation around Barnes as well, like, you know, he had a, his family is in Chicago. His wife is one of the deans at DePaul University. So, you know, she's got a career that's very rooted in Chicago. They've got three kids. I don't know how old they are. But I mean, I can kind of see why you might not want to uproot your whole family for. a job that seems like a lot of his predecessors were only in for a very short amount of time. It doesn't seem like a sure thing. And it got me thinking whether this is just a systemic problem and how common this is. And I read a report from the police executive research forum, which is a nonprofit research and policy organization. And they surveyed police chiefs about their compensation and their career pathways.

And in that survey, they found that only around 30% of the 340 chiefs they interviewed said that their employers required them to establish residency where they live. And that's down from about 37.5% in 2014. So, I mean, I don't know a lot about the culture of hiring police chiefs, but... It seems like most places don't really have that residency requirement. And, you know, if police chief is maybe a position that only a certain subset of people reach in their career. And I don't know. I guess I'm just curious how much we should expect our police chief to be. rooted here permanently, especially in the first couple years of their job, if it doesn't seem like there's a lot of job security. Yeah. I think, like, the state prohibits, like, a residency requirement for this role. And the mayor is saying, she's not disqualifying people who are out of state or anything. And that's what they emailed me last week. And I think like spiritually and emotionally, yeah, you want like the person who like serves your community as much as cops should serve any community to like have like an actual investment in the community, a personal investment. But I don't actually think the research bears out. I mean, this is more maybe for like rank and file cops anyway, but that living there actually makes you a better cop for the area. I think it's more just like kind of an emotional argument, which is a fine argument. And we're allowed to have emotional standards for someone we're paying like. half a million dollars to almost. So I think it's like fine if that's a quality they're looking forward to something they can legally like say it that you have to live in Seattle or like a 20 minute buffer zone that we think is Seattle enough. A lot of the rank and file do live outside, like in the suburbs. And I think that has been, you know, a concern in the past. You have a feeling of like an outside force kind of occupying the city. I think that's certainly like very negative framing in terms of how people see the police. But there is a big part of the community that doesn't have trust, you know, with the police department. And regardless of who the chief will be, they'll probably remain. and be a factor. And especially when they have also the police union that the police chief is basically always has like a tense working relationship with. You know, there's a lot of factors. that are besides just like who you pick to be in that role. So Wilson says that they are trying to quickly find a replacement for Barnes to relieve sales of being the interim chief. Do we have any sense for the timeline for this kind of search?

The last one was actually interesting because I think Bruce Harold didn't have a more public forum where, you know, you had three candidates kind of interview all publicly. But I remember when Carmen Best was hired and it can take a number of months, I think. I think that might also be a contributor to why, you know, some of the council might have been hesitant to kind of back Wilson's decision is just because it is a big endeavor. And... you know, for the public, if they had had like more of a sense of what are the concrete reasons why Wilson had lost faith in Barnes, that would have been helpful, you know, to get everyone on board with that decision. I'll be curious if there is more from the mayor about that in coming days. But as you said, Guy, it seems like that settlement might prevent more candid conversation about that. But. All right, let's take a break, and when we come back, let's talk about the future and the present state of Sound Transit. Late Friday, Sound Transit announced their outline for the Ballard Light Rail Plan. The upshot of that is we could get a line between the CID and Ballard by 2042. But only if the agency continues to find ways to cut costs and hit funding milestones for construction along the way. So that's going to require a cost savings of around $1 billion by 2030 and getting all of the necessary funding in place by 2030. The original schedule for the Ballard light rail line before all of the recent discussion here about Sound Transit's funding shortfall was supposed to be 2035, which still felt like the distant future. But is this good news? Everyone was kind of pushing to have at least a date, right? I think that's what Councilmember Dan Strauss was really concerned about when there was like sort of up in the air, like maybe unlimited delays to Ballard Light Rail and maybe there'll be more delays in the future. Don't put on your calendar, I would say. But I think, yeah, I think it's good news to have a date. It's not a very inspiring date for me, though. Yeah. So this date is kind of, if everything goes right, if like, you know, federal funding and, you know, it's like such a big contingency. And it's interesting to see that like the decision makers, like the politicians who are on the sound transit board wanted to pick the most optimistic date like 2042 instead of 2050 or something. So it is. Interesting that they're kind of passing the buck onto the next politician who will be in office who might have to announce like a further delay. You know, unless Sound Transit can get like a ton of federal funding to really like bail them out if like a Democrat comes in again. But who knows, you know. It's a lot of ifs. Yeah. It's interesting that part of the issue with Sand Transit 3 was that they kind of unrealistically budgeted. They were very optimistic with what they could afford. And you got to wonder like have they.

fully shaking that off? Or are they still kind of being too optimistic? I think some of that is also... not to be like stonks, but like market pressures that would have been hard to predict at that point. And I think political wins that would have been hard to predict in the same way that you were just saying, guy with, you know, who knows about federal funding? It could depend on who is in federal office and whether they are interested in funding public transit projects. A lot of that funding has dried up. in recent years and doesn't look super promising. But yeah, we'll see. So the overall project is estimated currently to cost about $18.1 billion. Most of the major leaders in this area are on board. But they seem optimistic about this being a real possibility, but it's yet to be seen, like you said, Guy, that how, who is going to be handling that in the future will likely be different politicians. Also, by 2042, we're going to get potentially a Soto to Seattle Center line, which could also be exciting. But again, Hannah, like you said, I'm not putting it on my calendar quite yet. 2042 still feels like a billion years from now. I think now is a really great time to romanticize the bus. I've been busing to Ballard. I, you know, just think of it as a great journey across, you know, many waterways. I'm like, oh, why do we even need light rail here? You know, I love walking downtown to the D. I'm starting to love the commute to Ballard, and I'm coping. I'm coping with the light rail news. Fascinating. I feel like I would never guess Hannah to be like, I will make the journey to Ballard because I've always known Hannah to be like, I will not be making the journey to Ballard. But I love that journey for you. It's a new development. It's a new development. Speaking of taking the bus over light rail, that had to happen over the weekend because on Saturday night at nearly midnight, an empty light rail train derailed coming into International District. Chinatown Station. Luckily, there's no injuries. I don't think there was even anyone on board. But there were quite a number of people who witnessed this derailment. Have you all seen the picture of this? It's bonkers. Okay. Tell me what you saw, what you're looking at in this photo that Sam maybe will be able to send to you all. So you kind of see the train like diagonally crossing both tracks of like the whole tunnel. It's basically covering. But it seems like it stopped right before hit the like side of the platform, which is good. Yeah, it looks like it's at an abnormal angle.

When I woke up on Sunday, it was like I saw like the light rail alerts, like derailment recovery or something. And I was like, whoa, like I think I got flashbacks to when we had that derailment of the Amtrak train. And so I'm glad that no one was hurt in this time. Yeah. Apparently this is only the second known derailment since Sound Transit began service in 2009. But people did have to get off Lincoln transfer to shuttle buses at Capitol Hill, Soto, and Judkins Park stations to be able to go through. And Sound Transit restored full service on both the one and two lines by mid-afternoon on Sunday. So, Guy, you just mentioned you get... maybe alerts for these delays. I'm curious how you all keep track of the delays and how you plan around them. Well, I got to the station and then it was like, why is there only the two line? But then I go on the, I just Google like service alerts or something and just go to the webpage. So I mean, if you're smart, I think you can like subscribe for texts potentially that will like message you every time the link is like out of service for whatever reason. Yeah, I get emails for it. And I do feel like there have been a few times this summer where, I mean, I think we saw some delays right after the World Cup as well where service was suspended for various reasons. I mean, have you all ever had to take one of those buses that serve as like the bridge service? Yeah, there was a summer where I felt like the Capitol Hill light where I was just like kind of. screwed the whole summer. Like every weekend you had to take the shuttle. And it's kind of just like, I hate a transfer of any kind. I'll walk 20 minutes so I can just take one bus instead of having to do two buses or a link and a transfer. I just don't, I don't enjoy that interim period. Yeah. There was like a summer where like, I think the wires in UW station got messed up. And so you had like all sorts of delays. I use One Bus Away too. They're actually like a locally grown, like homegrown transit app. And so they will show you, I think, updates like that. Like you'll be able to see the train is only going to Capitol Hill. So if you're smart, check that app before you head out just to double check, you know. Speaking of One Bus Away, have you ever heard of One Raccoon Away? No, but tell me more. What are you talking about? Don't piss me off. Is this Jimity? Yes. Yes, it is. Not Jimmy Slop posting again. It's powered by the One Bus Away API. Okay. And if you go to One Raccoonaway.org, it shows you a cute little board. It's very like 8-bit, 16-bit illustration. with raccoon neighbors. And it says that it's an honor of Jimothy. But it is like a cute, aesthetically pleasing version of one bus away. And it's kind of nice because sometimes I feel like my phone like forgets that it has one bus away on it. It makes me redownload it. So it's nice to have like an actual website to go to instead of having to have the app per se.

I love how we collectively, like out Seattle, we just like squeeze every bit of the memes, you know. It reminds me of the saint rat. I'm a supporter of cute animals, so I don't mind. I am too. I'm sorry for having a bad attitude about Jimithy. No, that's fair. I feel like I have been that person where I'm like, okay, we've done Jimothy for long enough now, but it's hard to. Yeah. I think it's just like you get sent 8,000 memes and you're kind of like, I'm done with it. I'm becoming more like post ironically into Jimothy where I like went through a phase where I was like, oh, that's cute, like the initial cute. Then it got too popular and I was like kind of a hater or like subversive or whatever. But now it's like sort of like minion memes or like, don't talk to me before I've had my coffee. Like I just feel like I like it in like a chuggy way that's, you know, more intellectual than the way you might like it. We've really come full circle on the Jimpathy. Yeah. I feel like, you know, Sound Transit to win back trust, maybe they should make a Jimithy orca card. Yeah. Okay. So. No, don't tell me there's a Jimenez. No, no, no. I'm just saying, Guy, you're not even the first contributor on CityCast to have this idea. Chase Hutchinson also was like, maybe we should get like Jimothy transit cards or something. So I love that you all independently arrived at that. All right, well, Sound Transit, here, hear our call. If you all do this, please, you got to send me one. I'm still looking for a boob card, honestly. I will say this until I get one. That's all for today here at CityCast, Seattle. Guyoran, thank you so much for joining us. Glad to be here. And Hannah Krieg, thank you for bringing us some of the positive hater energy. Ah, you know, it's the nuance I live in. Yes, yes. I'm your host, Jane Sehu, and listeners, we love hearing from you all. Send us your thoughts on whether 2042 Ballard Light Rail is good news or not. You can always send us an email at Seattle at citycast.fm or text us or leave us a voicemail at 20688. 03931. I'll admit I slightly fear what I just asked for because I know people will have strong opinions. Until next time, see ya, Seattle.