Week in Review: April 21, 2023 - with Derek Young
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On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by former Pierce County Council Chair Derek Young! They discuss the official end of the death penalty in Washington state, the abortion pill decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, Pierce County & rural students struggling emotionally and socially after covid, how Seattle\\u2019s failure to act on housing is hurting other cities, and some interesting political races shaping up in Pierce County.
As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com.
Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today\\u2019s co-host, Derek Young at @DerekMYoung.
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Resources
Climate Justice Work with 350 Seattle\\u2019s Shemona Moreno from Hacks & Wonks
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\\u201cWashington Legislature votes to repeal death penalty\\u201d by Melissa Santos from Axios
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\\u201cWashington state officially abolishes death penalty\\u201d by Lisa Baumann from The Associated Press
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\\u201cBudget committee weighs Inslee\'s plan to stockpile abortion medicine\\u201d by Jim Camden from The Spokesman Review
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\\u201cGov. Inslee buys 3-year supply of abortion pills in case of ban\\u201d by Joseph O\\u2019Sullivan from Crosscut
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\\u201cPierce County students \\u2018absolutely in crisis\\u2019 after COVID, say area superintendents\\u201d by Becca Most from The News Tribune
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\\u201cFour Vital Housing and Climate Bills Survive the Washington Legislature\\u201d by Ray Dubicki from The Urbanist
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\\u201cWA Senate passes bill allowing duplexes, fourplexes in single-family zones\\u201d by David Gutman from The Seattle Times
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\\u201cThe Battle for the Seattle City Council, Part 1: The Incumbents\\u201d by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist
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Find more stories that Crystal is reading here
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Transcript
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[00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I\'m Crystal Fincher, and I\'m a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what\'s happening, why it\'s happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is to leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.
If you missed our Tuesday midweek show, Executive Director of 350 Seattle, Shemona Moreno, shared with me how the organization approaches climate justice work through deep systems of change. Today, we\'re continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today\'s co-host: former Pierce County Council Chair, Derek Young. Hey Derek.
[00:01:15] Derek Young: Hey, thanks for having me back.
[00:01:16] Crystal Fincher: Of course - always appreciate and enjoy having you on the show. There\'s a lot of news out of Olympia this week - I think we will start with talking about Washington officially abolishing the death penalty. How are you feeling about this?
[00:01:32] Derek Young: If you\'d asked me this question 15 years ago, I might\'ve had a different answer, but I think it\'s pretty clear to me now that the system that we had was unjust and that it was not equitably applied. And that was ultimately the reason for that initial Supreme Court case - that said that you can\'t impose this penalty unless you can show that it\'s being basically ordered in all cases. And obviously, I think that the final straw for most people was Gary Ridgway - because if you\'re not gonna use it in that case, which is the worst imaginable, then how can you apply it in others? So we\'ve been waiting for the law to actually be finally changed - because we had basically executive restraint, I would say, in imposing it - but now it\'s official. And I think it\'s not only from a moral sense - the good thing - but from a practical sense too. The more - at least I\'ve come to understand - how often people are convicted that are innocent, or at least shouldn\'t have been found guilty because of defects in the case - you can always let someone out of jail or out of prison. And we see that happen more and more often, not necessarily in Washington - I haven\'t noticed many cases here - but the Innocence Project has done tremendous work around the country and proving that people were spending decades in prison. And while tragic in itself - if we had executed those folks, they would not have been able to reverse those decisions.
[00:03:18] Crystal Fincher: Right - it is absolutely the correct moral thing to do and the fiscally responsible thing to do. As you said, we have not had an execution in Washington State in about 13 years, since 2010. You\'re right - we\'ve been relying a lot on executive restraint - Inslee pledged to never sign a death warrant while he was in office. The Legislature, I believe in 2014, acted to put a moratorium on the death penalty - this officially abolishes it in the state. And I do think it is absolutely a moral issue. We should not be putting people to death. It\'s also more expensive, it\'s also impractical. We have a deeply, deeply flawed criminal legal system. To have death be a consequence that flows from a result, from a system that we know is deeply flawed, doesn\'t make any sense. For me personally, it doesn\'t make sense to put people to death from a state perspective anyway. And I hope more of this spreads to more places throughout the country. There are other states who have also outlawed the death penalty - hopefully more continue to do so.
[00:04:22] Derek Young: Yeah, and I do think it\'s good to acknowledge why some people react really emotionally to this. There have been some really heinous crimes committed - certainly we\'ve had our share here in Pierce County that I think really drove the conversation around that - just saying these crimes were so horrific, they deserve the ultimate punishment. And I certainly understand that. At the same time, the outcome is still the same if we ensure that those folks are never getting out, unless we can prove they\'re innocence. And if they can, then they should be let out. So there is a degree to which - I think we have to try to separate that desire for retribution for some rather horrific crimes, and weigh it with the moral and practical reality and financial realities of the death penalty - which is, it\'s hard to do, but I think it\'s important and the Legislature and the governor deserve credit for doing it.
[00:05:25] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. In other important legal news this week, we are today - as we are recording this in the morning - waiting on an expected Supreme, United States Supreme Court decision today about whether to allow restrictions on mifepristone, an abortion pill, to go into effect while a lawsuit brought by anti-abortion groups targeting the pill proceeds. This is going to be a big deal and really goes to show how - even a movement that some people here in Washington, a state that has moved to protect reproductive rights - thinking, Supreme Court, different states are outlawing abortion, but that\'s them, doesn\'t really affect us in other states. And if you want to get away from that, just move to another state - this is a states rights issue, and you can move to a different state if you don\'t like it. Moving to a different state does not necessarily mean that you will not be impacted, and this is a perfect example. How are you seeing this?
[00:06:22] Derek Young: Yeah, I guess I should not have been surprised because it had been rumored that there were, there was some judge shopping going on to bring this case. And in fact, from my understanding, is that the organization that brought it literally just invented itself and opened up an office in one particular court district in order to bring this case - so they must\'ve done their homework. But I thought, even more interesting, was that the attorney general and governor appeared to have been prepared for this both legally and practically - the governor had ordered the stockpiling so that we would protect some supply of mifepristone. But also the attorney general, within - I believe it was a day - had a case in front of the Eastern District in Washington and got essentially a counter case in order to try to stop things. I don\'t think that we can count on a positive outcome \'cause when you have conflicts, eventually these things tend to end up in the Supreme Court. And we know how that Court has been ruling and been behaving lately. But to me, it\'s just shocking that there would be a judge asserting their own judgment over the FDA in a case like this. And from what I understand from legal experts, it was a wacky case and decision - that there were a lot of assertions that simply aren\'t true, got way outside the law and into the efficacy and the safety of the drugs - that that\'s certainly not a judge\'s expertise. So I don\'t know - on the one hand, I wanna be shocked, but I don\'t think we can be at this point.
[00:08:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And the heart of this is really about whether the FDA is the ultimate authority on this or not. And this is essentially overruling the FDA, which has years of data and studies and experts who deal with this, or a judge who was put in place to handle rulings largely like this in a way that conservatives were confident would be friendly to them and their position. So it\'s an interesting place. I absolutely applaud Governor Inslee\'s decision to buy what\'s anticipated to be a three-year stockpile of mifepristone and think that\'s an excellent use of our state funds to make sure that we protect women\'s and people\'s reproductive rights here in Washington State. It\'s going to be interesting to see what the result and outcome of whatever this decision is - certainly hope that reason and justice prevails. But as you said, reason and justice has not been prevailing with this Supreme Court, as currently constituted. So I generally do not hold much hope that their rulings are going to reflect what most legal authorities consider to be sound jurisprudence and reasoning. So we\'re eagerly awaiting. If we happen to get it while we\'re recording, we will let you know. Odds are it\'s going to happen later in the day, but we will see.
[00:09:33] Derek Young: The thing that gives me a little bit of hope here is that the initial stay by Justice Thomas was extended - that suggests to me that maybe there is some behind-the-scenes dissent, I guess is the right word, that maybe this might even be a bridge too far for some of the core conservatives. I\'m hoping that that\'s the case. But what\'s unusual about it is that typically the Supreme Court doesn\'t - when they issue stays, they don\'t put deadlines necessarily on them - it\'s when they want to come back to them, they will. This seemed to be tipping his hand that he wanted to rush this and couldn\'t quite get it together. So I\'m hoping that says there\'s maybe - out of that block - one or two justices that are getting cold feet and maybe realizing that overruling administrators is a bridge too far. If you\'ve ever complained about judicial activism, this is the ultimate judicial activism.
[00:10:40] Crystal Fincher: It absolutely is. And not even a borderline attempt - this is wholesale. I know the law says one thing, I know precedent says one thing - but we\'re doing something different \'cause I feel like it time. Conservatives seem to have no problem with that when it goes their direction. Not what you would call small government, not what you would call a personal freedom and liberty, but here we are.
[00:11:03] Derek Young: And it\'s not like the FDA is known for rushing through things.
[00:11:06] Crystal Fincher: Not at all.
[00:11:07] Derek Young: My biggest complaint with them is that they tend to be feet dragging and overly cautious. So this is long established - good science behind it. We understand its safety and efficacy. In fact, in nearly all cases, this would be the most, the best method for women to seek out. So I really don\'t understand the objection.
[00:11:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. This is just about the safest way to have an abortion. If you fit within the timeframes that this is supposed to be taken in, has the least amount of complications out of all of the methods here. It\'s been in use for decades. Not controversial at all, except for when a moral panic spins this up and here we are. We\'ll continue to follow this. And again, if we get this decision while we\'re recording, we\'ll let you know. Otherwise, you know to be on the lookout for it.
This week, we also saw an article in The News Tribune talking about how Pierce County students are struggling after the pandemic. What were your takeaways from this article?
[00:12:19] Derek Young: Yeah, it\'s one of those things that\'s unfortunately not surprising, but something that we really need to address. And it\'s obviously not just Pierce County - this is kids all over the country and frankly, the world. The impact to them during the pandemic was significant in terms of their social emotional wellbeing, and it\'s causing a crisis. And it\'s not just in our schools - we see it definitely in how they\'re doing academically - but in their lives in general. And certainly we\'ve seen it unfortunately manifest itself on our streets with kids, at alarming rates, getting into violent situations. And so I think it\'s good to recognize and it\'s good to see our superintendents are on top of this. Social emotional learning is something that we worked a lot on even before the pandemic in public health, but the resources are thin. And so that\'s something that has to be addressed, likely by the Legislature. If we leave this up to local governments to sort out, it\'s gonna be tough to come up with the kind of resources we\'re talking about, but it needs to be dealt with because - I think everyone assumes that the problem was just being out of school and going hybrid for that time period. And that\'s a part of it - for sure - but kids suffered a lot of trauma. I don\'t think people realize - how many people lost caregivers, or how many of their caregivers lost income - and so their lives were thrown into turmoil at an important time in their lives. And so it\'s something that we have to hit head on, and I\'m glad to see people taking it seriously.
I also think it\'s worth noting the disparity between districts and how some of the rural districts would struggle to handle this on their own. And so it\'s something that I\'d like to see our health departments, with the support of the state, take up and try to ensure that we have resources distributed equitably. I know Councilmember Hitchen, who has been - in her previous life before she joined the County Council with me, was a teacher in a rural high school - and is super aware of the impacts to the kids that she was there to educate. And so she seems to be taking this on, in particular, as Chair of the Human Services Committee and also a member of the Board of Health - I think the Vice-Chair now. So I\'m glad to see that folks - after I left - are working hard on this.
[00:15:18] Crystal Fincher: Yeah and this is a big issue, as you said, for rural districts. This is a big issue and they\'re really these - there were administrators from the Franklin Pierce School District, White River, Peninsula, Carbonado and Bethel school districts who got together - those superintendents got together and addressed Pierce County Council\'s Human Services meeting on Tuesday. They talked about lessons that they learned from the pandemic. Obviously the pandemic was a new experience for everyone at every level, so things didn\'t happen perfectly. A lot of people learned lessons. One of the things that they talked about was the confusion of navigating through a time where they were getting different guidance from the CDC, state authorities, health departments, and other leadership - whether it\'s the OSPI or the State - just all these levels of government who were trying to figure things out, but saying different things, giving conflicting information. And really superintendents in schools having to ultimately make sense of and implement that in a very uncertain time - was a challenge.
And then they went on to talk about the impacts that the students are feeling that you articulated so well. And that yes, definitely impacts to the academics - reading, writing, math - but the most striking challenges that they\'re seeing are not academic. They\'re, as you said, social and emotional. They\'re dealing with the complications that everyone felt during this pandemic. This pandemic took quite a toll on the community. We talk about huge numbers - over a million people died, tens of millions of people potentially disabled with long COVID and not able to live life in the same way that they were able to before, or work in the same way that they were able to before. And when those are caregivers, when those are people who are responsible for the finances and the income in the family, that is incredibly destabilizing. And so we have these kids who just went through years of destabilization. Some of them were not able to stay in the same place, not able to keep doing the things that they\'ve been used to doing. And it\'s just a big challenge. And they\'re seeing the impacts of that and how they deal with each other and how they\'re not able to emotionally regulate as effectively as they did before the pandemic - understandably.
But this now creates a situation where we need to double down on the resources, on the help. This is not a time to be cutting resources in schools as unfortunately, a lack of state funding is forcing a lot of schools to do. But losing counselors, losing school nurses, losing resources, losing places where kids could congregate and teens had things to do - lots of those things were decimated throughout the pandemic, suspended, taken away, have not returned in the way that they did before. And so you have kids who are just floating away and being lost and compounded with challenges in rural areas, like a lack of stable and reliable internet access for many people in the district just creates all of these problems that are manifest. They manifest in our criminal justice system. They manifest in abuse - substance use and abuse. If we don\'t address this head on, if we don\'t pour resources and time into trying to solidify the future for these kids, I don\'t know what\'s gonna happen but it doesn\'t seem like it\'s gonna be good.
[00:19:06] Derek Young: No. And I think the thing that is - you touched on something there that I think is really important. The districts were - I will say, as someone who was there at the time - they were doing their best to sort through it. And in this sort of chaotic environment where you\'re learning something new every day and trying to adjust on the fly, trying to adjust to conditions on the ground - they were doing their best. But I can also understand why they would have some frustration coming out of that. This is a good example of the sort of things - I am annoyed that we are not doing a better job of having some lessons learned coming out of this because there will be another pandemic at some point. If we don\'t figure out - here\'s the things that went well and here\'s went wrong - shame on us. And I had pushed - and Senator Murray to her credit had done so on the Congressional side - to create a joint task force at all layers of government to do an after-action report. For whatever reason, that didn\'t get into the final bill as something that we were going to push. I thought that it was gonna pass, but apparently there were some objections. And I just think that\'s a shame because we need some sort of trusted bipartisan report-out to tell us what we got wrong and what we got right.
And just to your point on the - all of the experiences that kids had - it doesn\'t look like the same, it\'s not the same for everyone, right? You mentioned that we have people with long COVID and such. We also know that this disease causes neurological problems, and that\'s becoming something that we\'re more aware of now. I always point to it as - everyone\'s acting weird, right? We know that people\'s behavior changed during the pandemic and that\'s gonna come out in ways that are unexpected - and not only for the kids themselves, but also if your parents have changed in their behavior, that\'s gonna affect them as well. So it just feels like we need to address this as directly as possible, like you said, because if it\'s not - we know what happens when young people don\'t get their needs met. And that tends to be really bad outcomes later in life. So you\'re better off - financially - investing in the types of resources that will help support them, whether it\'s social services, some sort of social emotional learning programs, whether it\'s extra help in schools. I don\'t really care what that looks like, but it needs to be really well thought out. And it\'s no different than the impacts of what happens to a person when they lose housing. We know that that trauma lives with them for a very long time, if not forever. And so if you take a step back and say - What if we kept them in housing? Almost always, you\'re going to save a huge amount of money down the road. So these are kids - they\'re depending on us to fight for them - let\'s do it.
[00:22:48] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And again, we all have a role to play in this, different levels of government have a role to play in this. This is not something that the districts can solve themselves. The White River School District Superintendent talked about how they suffer from a lack of programming and resources, saying that there are resource deserts that lack stable internet access, programming geared towards youth, pharmacies, grocery stores, and public transportation. The Bethel School District Superintendent said there were only three parks in his entire school district - no Boys and Girls Club, no YMCA - with over 20,000 students. No pool for kids to go to in the summer - just they lack resources in the entire community. And of course that\'s going to impact them. So we\'ll link this article by Becca Most in the resources in the show notes so you can read it. It\'s just something that we have to get our hands around. We know that bad outcomes are happening when we don\'t address this. And if we allow kids to go through this system, we\'re really cheating them. We\'re not giving them what we should be, what they\'re due. We\'re not living up to our paramount duty, as our State Constitution said, to provide a quality education. And we certainly aren\'t setting these kids up for success. We can and should invest in this.
This article also talks about the increasing needs for special education students. And at a time where our Legislature is still debating about special education funding and whether there should be a cap and maybe not, we do have more kids who need this. This is not just frivolous over-identification - these are kids in need. And of course there\'s a greater need. So why we\'re capping that need - I don\'t know at all - but the need has certainly increased and we shouldn\'t be punishing, ultimately, districts and kids for presenting with those needs.
[00:24:45] Derek Young: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:24:46] Crystal Fincher: Also want to talk about the progress that we\'ve made in housing. We talked a bit about this last week, but we have now seen more housing bills passed - four major housing bills have passed. Definitely HB 1110, the missing middle housing bill, passing was big. Also we saw HB 1293, which streamlined some development regulations, which has been cited as something slowing down the ability to build the capacity in housing that we need. Accessory Dwelling Units being allowed under HB 1337, as well as some transit-oriented development. When you think about these housing bills and the progress made on housing, what does this mean to you? Where are we, and what lesson should we take from this?
[00:25:36] Derek Young: Yeah, first of all - my thanks to the legislators who worked hard on this, because it was one of the more difficult fights that I\'ve seen in the Legislature. It\'s taken a couple of years to get these ideas through, not in this exact form, but certainly in something looking like it. And I\'ll start by saying housing is at the center of almost all of our social problems. And just to take a step back to the example we just used - Bethel School District, for those of your listeners that aren\'t familiar with it, it\'s basically that southeast corner of Pierce County. It starts in the urban area, but goes into the very rural areas, like Graham-Kapowsin area. And you could characterize it as - that\'s sprawl policy that Pierce County had for a number of years - the lack of infrastructure that you spoke about is a direct result of those land use policies. And it pushed more and more people away, but in a pattern of development that\'s not sustainable for basic services. And so what you end up with is people who are isolated, who don\'t have access to public transportation, good public services - like you said, parks. And it\'s really a tragedy. But if you also want to see us reduce vehicle miles traveled - because that\'s our number one source of climate pollution - if you want to reduce the amount of pollutants going into our waters, if you want to see reduction in housing costs, because it\'s the number one increased cost in the last 20, 30 years in our region. If you want to complain about inflation, that\'s the worst part of inflation.
All of those things come back to whether or not we\'re providing enough housing in our urban areas. And frankly, we have a collective action problem. And the reason it\'s an issue is that you can basically say, each community can say - Well, that\'s all well and good, but I don\'t want it near me. And I understand why people have a fear about that - it\'s fear of change, and I guess that\'s reasonable. But I will just say that if you think that having someone live next to you with shared walls, like I have, is more of a problem than all of those other issues that I just listed out - I don\'t think many people would agree with you. But again, we have this collective action problem where at the local level, we\'re making these decisions, but having this regional problem. So it\'s really important that this get passed. And I don\'t think this is going to be - you\'re not gonna see skyscrapers in Mercer Island next year as a result of this. It\'s a pretty modest approach and really just allows fourplexes and sixplexes in a lot of areas with access to good transit. And so the advantage here is that we distribute the burden of growth - because I recognize there can be some impacts - but we do so in a manner that makes sense.
And also just note that - people may wonder why the guy from Gig Harbor is always talking about urban development. And first of all, I live in a part of the city that actually had a lot of growth, and one of the denser neighborhoods you\'ll find anywhere. But the more important thing is that if we don\'t locate the housing for all this job growth that we\'ve had in the region - particularly in King County, by the way - then that will push the market out further and further, and it will destroy more farmland, it will destroy more rural areas, and take up more of our natural lands. So we all have a part to play in protecting what makes this place so special. And that, ultimately, I think is why this passed with pretty tremendous bipartisan support, I will say. And that took a tremendous amount of work. That was - I don\'t think there was even a majority support in the Democratic caucus for a long time, in either Democratic caucus. So getting to the point where it passed pretty overwhelmingly - it took - to the credit of the principal sponsors.
[00:30:32] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, it makes perfect sense. I will also add that the GMA climate bill HB 1181 passed, which is important to ensure the planning takes place in the way that it should to enable this growth further in the future and trying to sow the seeds for making sure we do make climate-conscious decisions in all of the planning decisions that we make. This is a big deal. I hope Seattle does get its act together because everyone is relying on Seattle getting its act together. As you said, we\'re all impacted by what happens in the big city. Unfortunately, the big city is lagging behind. Hopefully this legislation from the state will assist Seattle in doing so.
Also want to talk about just what you see in Pierce County - lay of the land - what\'s happening in election land, what districts, councils, positions are interesting, where is control at stake? What are you seeing that\'s noteworthy out there?
[00:31:33] Derek Young: So as you know, this is a municipal election year. So all of the cities, school districts, special taxing districts have their races in this year. In Pierce County - our County Council, like the other partisan offices, are in the on-year election so those will take place next year. So I think you\'re starting to see these shape up - sometimes the municipal races don\'t start quite as early as a legislative race. So you may see people pop up during filing week. In fact, I\'ve always thought it was funny that there\'s sort of a trend of everyone watching and refreshing their filing page - watching to see who jumps in and what race. So sometimes we have to wait \'til filing week. A couple trends that I think it\'s important to keep an eye on are school district races that used to be, frankly, pretty sleepy and sometimes it was difficult to recruit people to run. It\'s a volunteer job - thankless in the best of times - suddenly turned very political in recent years. And you\'ve seen around the country how some of this has been weaponized by pretty extreme folks on the right, and questions about what should be taught in our classrooms about our history, about equity. And then frankly, the echoes of the pandemic - about policies that we had to protect students and staff. All of that has really worn on the districts themselves. But I don\'t think that - I think especially in the kind of more rural and suburban districts, we may see that trend continue where there\'s candidate recruitment happening to try to install board members who will do things like ban books. I don\'t know specific races where that is something that we should be keeping an eye out for, but given what we experienced here - like in my school district, in Peninsula, and thankfully was unsuccessful. But they\'ve had more success in other places - I think it\'s important to keep an eye on that.
[00:34:10] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree it\'s important to keep an eye on that. What do you see in terms of Tacoma and the city council?
[00:34:16] Derek Young: So one of the most interesting races - and this is often the case where Tacoma, like Pierce County, has a two-term limit on office. So very often you\'ll see re-election races not even get an opponent or maybe not a very serious one, but the open seats tend to be where there is a lot of interest. And so the district - I\'m blanking on the district number, but the Hilltop District, Hilltop-Downtown-Central Tacoma District - Councilmember Keith Blocker is leaving and he\'s, I think, done a tremendous job for his community. And there are at least three candidates that I know of now that have shown interest or announced. And each kind of brings their own unique take to how they would approach the office. It\'s not one I\'m engaged in personally, so I don\'t wanna tout anyone in particular, but that one I think is gonna be the most competitive that I can tell outside or looking in. I know in some of the other city council races, growth concerns are an issue and tend to be what drive city politics - which getting back to that state bill is also why sometimes you have to set some minimum standards so that they don\'t get in the way of good policy.
But I know in my own community in Gig Harbor, but Lakewood, Puyallup, some of the larger core cities outside of Tacoma - they may see similar type races because there\'ve been growth concerns there as well. And this is what kind of creates these conflicts - is that there\'s a lot of political incentives to try to push back. And so that is always interesting in how it plays out.
[00:36:19] Crystal Fincher: It is. We will continue to keep an eye on how those unfold, as you said. During this recording, I\'ve checked to see if anyone new has filed at the PDC - definitely a refresh-a-thon will be going on until the very end of filing week, in May. I think it\'s May 19th, isn\'t it? Is that the last day of filing week?
[00:36:40] Derek Young: I know it\'s that week, yeah.
[00:36:43] Crystal Fincher: It\'s that week in May. Yeah, it is, it is. Filing week is May 15th through 19th. So we will follow and see who hops in these races. Also, for a Seattle-centric review, Doug Trumm has started a great series, The Battle for Seattle City Council, with its first part looking at Districts 2, 6, and 7, which each have incumbents in the races. So we\'ll also include a link to that article in the show notes.
And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday - every time I say this date, it just is wild how fast time flies. It flies when you get as old as I am, let me tell you. Anyway, thanks for listening on this Friday, April 21st, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is the former Pierce County Council Chair, Derek Young. You can find Derek on Twitter - if Twitter is still there - @DerekMYoung, that\'s D-E-R-E-K. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, that\'s two I\'s at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - I like Overcast as an app, but you can choose whatever you want - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the podcast, be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes.
Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.
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