Week in Review: July 28, 2023 - with Shauna Sowersby
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On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Washington State government reporter for McClatchy, Shauna Sowersby!
They discuss the failure of an anti-trans referendum campaign, a self-proclaimed white nationalist country musician playing at the Washington state capitol, new state laws going into effect, AG Ferguson continuing to avoid disclosing his donors, and another lawsuit filed against the Washington State Legislature for withholding public records under \\u201clegislative privilege.\\u201d The conversation continues with federal pandemic relief aid getting funneled into police surveillance technology, no-notice sweeps being ruled unconstitutional by King County Superior Court, and an audit showing that the Seattle Police Department could do more with existing resources to address organized retail crime.
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, Shauna Sowersby at @Shauna_Sowersby.
Shauna Sowersby
Shauna Sowersby was a freelancer for several local and national publications before joining McClatchy\\u2019s northwest newspapers covering the Legislature. Before that, Shauna worked for the US Navy as a photographer and journalist.
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Resources
\\u201cPRIMARY WEEK RE-AIR: Teresa Mosqueda, Candidate for King County Council District 8\\u201d from Hacks & Wonks
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\\u201cPRIMARY WEEK RE-AIR: Becka Johnson Poppe, Candidate for King County Council District 4\\u201d from Hacks & Wonks
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\\u201cPRIMARY WEEK RE-AIR: Sarah Reyneveld, Candidate for King County Council District 4\\u201d from Hacks & Wonks
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\\u201cPRIMARY WEEK RE-AIR: Jorge Bar\\xf3n, Candidate for King County Council District 4\\u201d from Hacks & Wonks
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\\u201cWith referendum failure, WA just dodged a bullet of hype and hate\\u201d by Danny Westneat from The Seattle Times
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\\u201c\\u2018Heretic\\u2019 group to offer unbaptisms at WA Capitol Campus\\u201d by Shauna Sowersby from The Olympian
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\\u201cNew Washington state laws go into effect Sunday. Here are some of the key ones\\u201d by Shauna Sowersby from The Olympian
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\\u201cWA AG Bob Ferguson should come clean about donors\\u201d by The Seattle Times editorial board
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\\u201cWA judge fines AG\\u2019s office, DSHS in \\u2018cavalier\\u2019 withholding of lawsuit evidence\\u201d by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times
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\\u201cNew lawsuit alleges WA state Senators were \\u2018silently withholding\\u2019 public records\\u201d by Shauna Sowersby from The Olympian
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\\u201cFederal aid is supercharging local WA police surveillance tech\\u201d by Brandon Block from Crosscut
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\\u201cSummary judgment in ACLU case could end \\u2018no-notice\\u2019 sweeps in Seattle\\u201d by Tobias Coughlin-Bogue from Real Change
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\\u201cAudit: Police Could Do More, Without Hiring Extra Cops, To Address Retail Theft Rings\\u201d by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola
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Find stories that Crystal is reading here
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Transcript
[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 Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen.
In preparation for the primary election on next Tuesday, August 1st, we\'ve been re-airing candidate interviews for the open City [County] Council seats all this week. Be sure to check them out if you\'re still deciding whom to vote for. Today, we are continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program for the first time, today\'s co-host: Washington state government reporter for McClatchy, Shauna Sowersby. Hello.
[00:01:09] Shauna Sowersby: Hello, thanks for having me.
[00:01:11] Crystal Fincher: I am so excited to have you on the show today. I think I told you before - followed your work for so long and your reporting has been really important for quite some time now, so very excited. To begin the conversation, we will start talking about the failure of a referendum for a piece of legislation that would benefit the trans community. What happened here?
[00:01:35] Shauna Sowersby: During the State Legislature this year, there was a bill that was passed, 5599, that was sponsored by Senator Marko Liias. And that bill expanded a law that was already in place and included teenagers trying to seek gender-affirming care as well as abortion care. So it wasn\'t really a new law, it was just expanding on something that was already there - to try and protect these other factors that were involved.
[00:02:04] Crystal Fincher: This is really about protecting populations within our homeless community. This is about shelters and whether shelters have to mandatorily divulge information, or if they wait to determine, or discriminate in any way. So it\'s not - as it was couched by some people - this is about medically intervening with youth, this is about intervening in family matters, or they wanna take people from your homes. This is about a population that\'s already unhoused and legislation that\'s trying to keep teens from really being vulnerable when they\'re homeless and out on the street with nowhere else to go, which is a very, very dangerous and harmful place to be. This became what a lot of people refer to as culture war stuff - is really what we\'re dealing with in this whole time now, where people are targeting trans people, trans rights, really the broader LGBTQ community in a lot of these situations. And anything that could potentially make life easier or just not as extraordinarily difficult for trans people in things that they may be dealing with. There are a lot of LGBTQ youth that get kicked out of their homes for that reason - and so if they are there, or people who are seeking abortion care - that can\'t be a reason for someone to be turned away or submitting information, divulging information to other people. Basically just protecting them like we protect everyone else.
But I was happy to see, personally, that this referendum failed. And I think it\'s just another statement that overall - we don\'t play that, we don\'t do that in Washington. Certainly these elements are active, but they are nowhere near the majority of community and we need to keep making sure people know and understand that and make that visible.
[00:03:44] Shauna Sowersby: And I just wanted to point out, too, that it failed by a lot - I think it was like 5,000 signatures or something that it failed by. So I don\'t think it had quite as much support as the writers of that referendum had intended.
[00:03:57] Crystal Fincher: When you look at the facts of what is and isn\'t happening and why, and what gender-affirming care means in the context of the broader community - it\'s got broad meanings. People who are not even trans access that all the time. It\'s not a controversial thing. This is not really about kids. This was an attack on the entire community and an attempt to claw back rights.
[00:04:17] Shauna Sowersby: And I think the Danny Westneat article in The Seattle Times brought up a really good point too. This wasn\'t even an issue until gender and reproductive rights got brought into the mix. It wasn\'t a problem before that. These two things are very popular topics throughout the country right now.
[00:04:35] Crystal Fincher: I also wanna talk about a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist country musician playing at the Washington State Capitol. What went on?
[00:04:43] Shauna Sowersby: He\'ll be there Friday the 28th. There was a Rolling Stone article that came out a while ago about him. He was open about being a white nationalist - seemed to be proud of the fact that he is a white nationalist country musician. So he\'ll be there at the Capitol with Turning Point USA, which I\'m sure a lot of folks listening might be familiar with. But the House of Heretics will be there and they will be doing unbaptisms and gender affirming rituals. I believe one of their quotes was something like they wanted whenever Sean plays on Friday night for it to be the devil\'s ground for him to play on. So I thought that was pretty interesting.
[00:05:24] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it is. And Turning Point USA is a radical organization - you have a self-described white nationalist, like a Charlie Kirk, that is associated with and promoting white nationalists. And it\'s just not that wonderful. And like I said, these things are here and they\'re around and people are trying to introduce this in the community, certainly trying to make it seem more mainstream. But it\'s not. And I think all of our responsibility is making that known and visible.
Other news this week - and especially with you as a legislative reporter covering so much that happened in the legislative session - we passed legislation, but there\'s usually a little bit of time before it\'s passed and when it completely takes effect. But we do have a number of new laws about to go into effect this Sunday. What are some of the key laws coming?
[00:06:09] Shauna Sowersby: Our legislature did a really good job on housing this year. And one of the laws that went into effect on the 23rd was more access to ADUs, so that\'s a positive thing. That\'s something that the legislature had been going after for several years, if I remember correctly, but finally got that one. So those are allowed in certain cities with a certain population. Hopefully that will help ease the lack of housing situation that\'s going on pretty much everywhere around the state. So I think that\'s a good one. Another one that goes into effect is landlords\' claims for damages. So that extends the timeline landlords have to provide documentation to show that they are in the right in retaining a tenant\'s deposit - which is a really important one, I feel - that\'s also another thing that they\'ve been trying to get passed for a long time. They also need to keep receipts that they can actually show to their tenants before they can charge them, so I think all of those are really good. It also prevents them from charging past normal wear and tear, which anybody who\'s ever rented, I\'m sure, has probably run into an issue like that. So I think that type of law will be a positive for a lot of renters out there.
And then another one I thought was interesting, just because I\'d never really heard of this before this year, but they\'re making pill presses illegal in the state. I had no clue what these were, to be honest with you, before they passed this law. It\'s basically trying to prevent people from overdosing on fentanyl when they take things that they think might be something else, such as a Percocet. These can look very legitimate with these pill presses, but can include amounts of fentanyl in them that can kill you. So obviously that is another positive law that went into effect just recently.
[00:08:04] Crystal Fincher: And that\'s how people can identify pills. They\'re registered, marked for different types of pills. You can actually look up and Google them. If a pill gets lost or dropped or something and you pick it up and see markings on them, you can find out what it is by that. But yeah, people have been abusing that to pass off some substances. And when we have such dangerous and harmful drugs out there that can be so easily mixed into other substances or look like something else, that\'s really important. As well as the accessory dwelling unit, or the ADU, bill - a lot of people think of them as mother-in-law houses, but allowing people to add density or add a unit to their existing property is an important element in the whole web of increasing the amount of density, or preparing communities to responsibly absorb more people living there without having real estate prices go sky high as we\'ve been seeing. So some really, I think, good laws coming in, some progress being made. And so it\'ll be interesting to see how these are enforced, especially when it comes to those landlord ones - to see if they actually do materially improve the situations that they are seeking to improve.
Also wanna talk about Attorney General Ferguson\'s campaign for governor and a call for him to come clean about his donors, especially in a piece that was published in The Seattle Times this week. What\'s happening with this?
[00:09:27] Shauna Sowersby: The Public disclosure Commission was set to have a ruling a few weeks back that outlined and reinforced the idea that if you\'re moving money from one campaign to another campaign - so Ferguson moving from going for Attorney General again to governor - so you can move a certain amount of money over into your other campaign without having to disclose those donors. Like you were saying earlier, it\'s something that could be done - they were saying you shouldn\'t be doing it this way. And right before that date came in, they clarified that he switched all that money over - and I believe it was $1.2 million, is that correct?
[00:10:05] Crystal Fincher: It\'s about $1.2 million and they received notice that a clarification was coming. They transferred it the day after that notice, which I think was a day before they officially did it. That is a detail that I don\'t know we all knew and understood before. And it\'s confusing. With the PDC, there\'s an underlying law and the PDC issues guidance and interpretations. This entire time, the actual law has not changed. The PDC\'s guidance about the law is what changed. And a person was looking at the law and looking at the guidance - unconnected to the campaign, I think to any campaigns - and was - Hey, it looks like your guidance does not actually say what the law does, or it leaves a hole. The bigger issue is - say you transfer these things over - we have campaign finance limits. If you can only donate - say a limit is $1,000, it changes year to year - if you transfer money over from some of those same donors, it could put people over the limit for this race and you can\'t be over the limit. The PDC said - Oh, that is correct. We overlooked that or got that wrong. Called the campaigns to say - Hey, we realized we got something wrong and we\'re going to be issuing formal guidance tomorrow. After that call, the campaign said - Oh, let\'s transfer it. Then we find ourself here. There\'s the law. Should this have been done? The answer appears to be no, but it\'s also hard because people are following guidance. I followed a PDC guidance before. And so the fact that it was done in the first place - I completely understand you\'re relying on the PDC for guidance - it\'s the muddy area of when they say - Ooh, this guidance is wrong. And it\'s not like they\'re saying the law is going to change. If it\'s not the law, it\'s not the law. It\'s not illegal if you do it before it\'s a law. It\'s a little dicey in that they were notified that they weren\'t going to be able to do it and then rushed to do it before it was written on paper when basically they got the tip off.
[00:11:57] Shauna Sowersby: And now the fact that they\'re being called on to disclose those donors and they\'re not doing it - that\'s another issue as well.
[00:12:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it\'s something that the PDC is taking up again. I believe they\'re having a meeting - we\'re recording this on Thursday - I think they are having a meeting today, potentially as we speak. Big issue that we\'re left with - because the issue of democracy, small-d democracy, is the disclosure of donors. This is foundational to our system. And from near and far, every state has campaign finance regulations. Some are enforced better than others, but this is really important so that within campaigns - there\'s dark money with PACs - within campaigns, it\'s really defined that someone can donate, but they have a limit and they can\'t donate above that limit. That helps, from the campaign perspective, make sure that people with money can\'t crowd out everyone else or just dominate the conversation financially within that campaign. I do find it concerning that right now, there\'s $1.2 million worth of donors that we don\'t know. If you have pledges that you\'re not accepting money from these people or who\'s that? We see in other races - Oh, whoa, this Trump supporter donated or this, on the Republican side, Biden supporter did this. Or you\'re wondering why they\'re donating and what promises may have been made. I\'m not saying that promises are always made for donations, but usually people donate to who they find themselves aligned. That\'s a reasonable thing to explore and debate, which is why our law mandates that. I hope that they are disclosed. Even if they find that he shouldn\'t have transferred the money at all, I do think it is realistic and very doable to disclose them. Disclosure is easy. For them to have been able to transfer the money, they had to get permission from the donor. So they have all of those records - that the transfer couldn\'t have happened without it. It\'ll be really interesting to see how this winds up.
[00:13:48] Shauna Sowersby: One more thing too that I wanted to add about the whole Ferguson thing is that - for the state\'s highest attorney\'s office, him being in that office for so long - he obviously knows these rules. He knows that he should be holding himself to a higher standard. One of the things that concerns me - not just about the PDC and his campaign finance stuff - is that his office was recently fined for withholding hundreds of thousands of documents in a lawsuit against a developmentally disabled woman. Documents that would have helped this woman and her case, but appears that a lot of these documents were intentionally withheld. Not saying that Ferguson himself was responsible for doing these things, but it is his office. The mixture between that and then the recent PDC guidance that - as a candidate for governor, he should really be putting himself in a higher standard.
[00:14:44] Crystal Fincher: Like you said, who knows how much he was aware of going in - and most of these donors are probably above board - I would assume most of them are not above the limit. How much money is it, really, from donors who are above the limit here? Practically looking at correcting this issue - say it\'s even half a million dollars worth, he still has a significant financial lead over other people and it gets this thing that\'s dogging his campaign. Just disclose the donors - you have the money, just disclose donors.
[00:15:15] Shauna Sowersby: You\'re already in the lead. Hilary Franz said she wanted to make sure that this was a fair transfer and that everybody was going by the same rules. Even with somebody else calling him out for it, still wasn\'t doing it.
[00:15:28] Crystal Fincher: There\'s a reason why he\'s the front-runner. There\'s a lot of things about him that excite people, but I don\'t think you\'re ever above having to answer questions. Even if you are the front runner in the race, we all wind up better. And it sets a precedent - people may be comfortable with Ferguson and he may make a wonderful governor, but for successive governors, I don\'t want a precedent set where they don\'t have to follow the rules.
I want to talk about another lawsuit filed against the Washington State Legislature for withholding public records under "legislative privilege." What\'s happening this time?
[00:16:03] Shauna Sowersby: Nothing new here. I believe it was Friday of last week - me and some other requesters got back a set of documents - this is from a request that was filed, I want to say, in January and closed out in February. We were told that we had all records from every lawmaker that was withholding records under "legislative privilege". Lo and behold, Friday, we get another batch of records that have suddenly been found. The petitioner in this lawsuit, Arthur West, also filed one of the previous lawsuits for "legislative privilege." He believes that in this case, it\'s called "silent withholding" - it\'s still part of the same lawsuit that he\'s filed before, but this is an addendum where he believes they may have intentionally been withholding these final documents - they should have been found, they should have been captured in our request, so it\'s odd they\'re showing up now. This is an additional lawsuit into what\'s already happening - I believe WashCOG, Washington Coalition for Open Government, they also have a lawsuit pending. I don\'t think it has a hearing date until later in September. So not looking good so far for lawsuits and lawmakers. We\'ll see how this all turns out. I\'m assuming it\'ll be a slow process, but we\'re finally getting things kicked off.
[00:17:25] Crystal Fincher: I\'ll be curious to see what comes of it.
Also want to talk about a story that came out this week - just a couple of days ago or yesterday, I think - about the amount of federal aid going towards police surveillance. When we say police surveillance, what are they talking about?
[00:17:40] Shauna Sowersby: An article from Brandon Block in Crosscut - looks like they are using federal aid money that was supposed to go to other things to basically spy on people. It seems like there\'s a lot of concerns from groups like the ACLU who say that the surveillance equipment can be used - not just for immigrants and for trying to deport people, but it can also be used for people who are seeking out-of-state abortions coming into Washington. So there\'s multiple concerns here what the surveillance equipment could be doing. And it looks like a lot of it is - from the article - license plate surveillance and the drones that they were using - makes you wonder why these smaller towns are spending so much money on surveillance equipment.
[00:18:29] Crystal Fincher: I don\'t think people realize that this much money was going to these things. And at a time when lots of people are talking about wanting more police funding, wanting to hire more officers, saying that there\'s not money to do it - there\'s so much money being spent and being siphoned from other areas where it seems like it was originally intended to go and being spent on this surveillance technology, like drones and automatic license plate readers, going through communities and looking up everyone\'s license plates everywhere. And usually - one, these are not equitably used, equitably deployed. A lot of times they are deployed much more heavily and ubiquitously in lower income communities and BIPOC communities. Is the community aware of this? Are people aware of this? Like you said, we have other states trying to - actually have criminalized abortion care, gender affirming care. There aren\'t policies, strong policies with enforcement that really limit how this data can be used, how it can be shared, how it can be spread. This is where we can have bad outcomes where potentially someone from another state, someone with a nefarious purpose can find this information to track people down and inequitably enforce laws that are on our books in communities, causing disproportionate harm.
At minimum, this should be something that is very intentionally discussed in these communities. I definitely recommend that people do read this article by Brandon Block - we\'ll include it in the podcast show notes and on the website. It\'s really concerning to see so much money diverted for this purpose - was supposed to help people survive the pandemic, help people not get evicted, help cities support small businesses - that this was diverted for this purpose and in a way I don\'t think was transparent or consistent with what people intended within their communities or even federally.
[00:20:25] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, it seems like people weren\'t asked about that. I\'m sure there was probably no conversation for that, but like you\'re saying, it could have been diverted for a number of purposes and instead goes to surveillance equipment.
[00:20:39] Crystal Fincher: We will see if there\'s any follow up on that. There was another case this week that was really important and reiterated what other cases have found and that is that no-notice police sweeps that are used in lots of localities, including Seattle, were found to be unconstitutional. What did this ruling hold and what are some of the impacts that it may have?
[00:21:01] Shauna Sowersby: In this article from Real Change, it talks about how the court ruled the city\'s sweep policies are not carefully tailored, in some circumstances, to pursue the city\'s valid governmental interests and require more disclosure than is reasonably necessary. The rules define obstruction so broadly, the city can invade unhoused people\'s privacy rights without notice, offers of shelter and preservation.
[00:21:27] Crystal Fincher: This is an issue that many cities are dealing with. We\'ve been talking about the unfortunate circumstances in Burien, certainly in Seattle. Every community is really looking at this and facing this. So many of our neighbors are now homeless - and the City of Seattle and Burien have really gone too far. It had been established before that it is illegal for a city to conduct a sweep if there is no offer of shelter provided. Basically, if you have nowhere for someone to go, it is found to be unconstitutional to sweep someone in that instance. There\'s a reason why the CDC recommends against it, why it is not recommended, especially in extreme weather situations. These are people\'s whole possessions. Though outwardly sometimes they may not look like much to someone walking by, this is what they have and this is critical - the few things they do have for work, their ID, the few mementos that have meant the absolute most to them that they\'ve been able to keep when they\'ve lost everything else is what they have. Just coming through unannounced - and you leave, you come back, and your stuff is gone. Or you have an hour and the stuff is gone is really destabilizing. We have to do a better job of supporting this. Most people have also seen that when there is nowhere for someone to go, it doesn\'t do anything to solve the problem. We\'re really just moving the issue of homelessness around. We\'re not doing anything to solve it. It\'s this game of musical chairs and most people are just moving from property to property or place to place within a city most of the time, certainly within the region.
So we\'ve got to expand our response. We can\'t keep doing the same thing over and over again. The biggest problem here is that people don\'t have housing. If housing is not an element in the solution, it\'s not a solution. And yes, that is complicated. Yes, it\'s costly. But it really is not as costly as allowing the situation to continue. I don\'t think there\'s anyone left, right, or anywhere who is satisfied with seeing people on the street within encampments, but I think people just don\'t want to double down on that failure, spend so much money on police resources - all the resources that we\'re spending in a way that doesn\'t solve the problem. So the City of Seattle is gonna have to go back to the table and figure out what they\'re gonna do. Other cities are gonna have to look at this ruling and modify what they\'re doing, or potentially face the same lawsuit and legislation, and wind up having to do it by force rather than proactively.
[00:23:58] Shauna Sowersby: The governor and the legislature - they\'ve been trying to tackle this issue too with the rights-of-way - the whole idea there was that they weren\'t gonna move people out unless they had some sort of housing situation set up for those folks. So instead of just shuffling them around from one place to another, it\'s still a small pilot program at this point - and can\'t do it on a large scale, obviously. I think instead of sweeping folks, this is a better alternative - not the best alternative, for sure - but it\'s better than shuffling folks around one other part of the city like you were saying.
[00:24:33] Crystal Fincher: And this ruling did say that the use was overbroad. There are still circumstances where it is legally permissible to do this if really obstructing a sidewalk. It is constitutional for a sweep to happen. The issue is that they\'re happening in so many more situations where there\'s imminent harm or obstruction.
The last story I wanted to talk about today was an audit that came out about the City of Seattle, but really applicable to many cities - saying police could do more without hiring extra cops to address retail theft rings. This is really important - we see stories almost every day on the news about theft. If you\'re online, you see surveillance photos from stores and theft happening. People are trying to figure out the way to address this, and the biggest problem that seems solvable from a public safety perspective is going after these retail theft rings. But in a way, going after petty theft is not going after retail theft and this audit addressed that. This report basically said targeting organized retail theft is important. And some cities like Auburn have been successful at doing that, but they\'ve succeeded by trying to "cut off the head of the snake" - as they put it - and not going after petty theft. What this study found is that Seattle really likes going after petty theft and calling it going after retail crime. Most of the crimes are theft under $750, they are individuals doing this. They find them participating in task forces, but as for action on the ground - action that they\'re taking - it doesn\'t appear that they\'re doing much to actually go after the heads of these organizations, the organized part of that organized crime.
According to the audit - in PubliCola that came out on the 25th - responding to calls from just the top 100 retail locations in the city used almost 19,000 hours of police time, equivalent to nine full-time officers that could be streamlined by using tools like rapid video response instead of deploying officers out all over town. So if they need to interview employees, they can do those interviews by Zoom. They can do those in a more proactive way, in a more efficient way - that saves officers time, that saves employees time, that is really less impactful to both the business and the department. And can also get them that information quicker, so it gives more of a chance to get closer to the people who are in these fencing rings, who are making it profitable for these people to steal. And the audit found that the City does participate in task forces and stuff, but they should also invest in place-based strategies like environmental factors, the actual design, better lighting, activating vacant lots, and other non-law enforcement approaches to make hotspots less appealing places for people to operate illegal street markets. There were 68 strategies proposed last year, but the City\'s only implemented three.
So we have these conversations - they\'re really visible in Seattle, but they\'re happening all over the place in cities from Auburn to Kent to others - having these community meetings and saying - Wow, we\'re really trying to do this. If you look under the hood, you see that they continue to go after petty criminals at the expense of the ability to go after the heads of these organized crime rings and using other tools besides just a cop responding to something to prevent these things from happening. How did you see this?
[00:28:00] Shauna Sowersby: Yeah, this is something that could probably not just apply to Seattle, even down here in Olympia, Tacoma. This is a result of the other media outlets making a bigger deal about shoplifting and focusing on that as a narrative - that could be inspiring more resources to be going into those sorts of things, as opposed to - like you were saying - the areas where they really could be focusing on instead. We\'re just going for the wrong thing.
[00:28:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and you raise a good point. If you are seeing this highlighted - and we\'ve seen lots of stories of theft used in a way that\'s really propaganda, we\'ve seen situations here locally and nationally where the impact of theft has been overstated and the cause is muddied. If people really care about this, they\'ll take these findings into account and implement them. If all you hear them saying is the same thing over and over again, that seems more like a campaign tactic or like a scare tactic. We have to use all of the tools at our disposal. We have to get more intentional about wisely using the resources that we do. You have people saying the only way that things can be improved is to hire more cops. There\'s no way to get more cops online without basically a year lead time because they have to be accepted, go to the academy - there\'s a long lead time before you get them on the street. Wow - how bleak and hopeless is that situation? Seemingly nothing else can be done - after we have already taken so many steps and allocated so much money, extra money - retention bonuses to stay, high salaries, how many officers are clearing money that other people in the community aren\'t making? And so using that money effectively, finding ways to use the existing assets more efficiently - this is gonna save officers\' time. We should see action taken on these. And certainly within SPD, when there are 60-something recommendations and only three have been implemented, we need to keep ticking down that list. I hope we get beyond the talk when there\'s so much that needs to happen to keep us safe and to hopefully prevent crime instead of just responding to it. There are things identified and hopefully they choose to do them.
And with that, we thank you for listening to this Hacks & Wonks on Friday, July 28th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful cohost today was Washington State government reporter from McClatchy, Shauna Sowersby. You can find Shauna on Twitter @Shauna_Sowersby - Shauna underscore Sowersby. You can - and that\'s S-H-A-U-N-A. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter and you can find me on all platforms @finchfrii, that\'s two I\'s at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes.
Thanks for tuning in, vote by August 1st, and we will talk to you next time.
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