Welcome to The Newsfeed.

I'm Paris Jackson.

We had the opportunity to sit down with new Seattle Mayor, Katie Wilson, and discuss her priorities in office as her administration faces a myriad of local and national challenges.

Here is that conversation.

First and foremost, Mayor Wilson, thank you so much for joining us.

Very good to be here, Paris.

You've worked for a long time as an organizer, and now you're the mayor.

It's been more than a month.

How have your views evolved from the campaign to now the front lines of decision making?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I mean, I'll say in the first place, it's amazing now to be in this position where I have this great team in the mayor's office and there's, you know, 14,000 city employees.

And to really feel that I'm in a position with that team, to do things that really move the needle for people's quality of life.

And it's just a different part of the picture, I think, then being on the outside as an organizer.

And, you know, always pushing and being like, here's the thing that people need.

We're just going to push and push and push until we get there.

And now being the mayor, feeling that I have kind of a different set of levers at my disposal to get things done, and then at the same time, really feeling also how important it is to have people in organizations and movements on the outside that are doing that pushing and providing that perspective on what the community needs, and also, creating that public support that really makes hard things possible politically.

So it's definitely just a different, a different piece of the puzzle and a different perspective.

But it's been, I mean, it's been really great so far.

And it's just great to meet so many dedicated public servants who work at the city and who are just like in this work for the right reasons, really love this city and really want to make life better for all the people who live here.

In your state of the city address, you pledged to bring 1,000 units of housing before the end of the year and 500 before the World Cup.

Where do you plan to find the money for the housing?

And so this is emergency housing and shelter specifically.

So we're trying to, really tackle our crisis of unsheltered homelessness here in Seattle.

And we have some of the highest rates of unsheltered homelessness here compared to our peer cities around the country.

And, of course, this is, you know.

If you walk around outside, a lot of people are sleeping unsheltered, living in tents or sleeping in doorways.

And a lot of folks who have really complex needs related to drug addiction or mental illness.

And so it's really, I would say, the top priority of my administration to address this crisis.

So we are moving rapidly to accelerate expansion of shelter and emergency housing.

I signed an executive order a few weeks ago to basically get our city departments aligned and moving in that direction.

Your question, where are we going to find the money?

So we've been, combing through the city budget, looking for places where, we can use funds for basically for their intended purpose, but kind of like shift a little bit to really put everything together in the right way so that we can open these new units.

And so we have found some funding in the city, in the city budget for this.

We are also, going to be working with council to allocate some additional funds.

And then we're also working with philanthropic partners to raise money for kind of the capital side of actually standing up new units.

And this might look like tiny house villages or other micro modular housing.

And so, I'm feeling very hopeful about this work.

We're going to be making some announcements in the weeks ahead about kind of the specifics of our plan, but it's very heartening to see how the city is really coming together around this goal because I think everyone from the business community to residents in neighborhoods around the city to folks who are sleeping unsheltered and really want a place to go inside, and it's just not there.

And I think everyone wants the same thing, which is to see that real progress.

And so, yeah, this is this is something that we're very committed to making happen.

And sticking with the homelessness crisis and particularly emergency housing that you are working on.

In your address, you also shared how you temporarily halted a sweep of an encampment in Ballard to give more time to find housing for residents, which resulted in six people being moved inside who otherwise would have been swept.

How would the city be able to respond to future encampments when, as you said that night, we simply don't have enough housing, shelter and services for everyone who's living unsheltered.

This is really why we're putting this big focus on opening new space inside, right?

Because we know that we have, both this obligation to address unsheltered homelessness and also people rightly expect to have a sidewalk that they can walk down and a park where they and their children can go and play.

And so, we're taking the mandate to keep our public spaces open and accessible very seriously.

So our unified care team is continuing, to basically identify areas where there's an encampment where there are safety hazards or where it's obstructing another use of that public space.

And we are continuing to clear those encampments.

And at the same time, we know that sweeps are harmful for the people who are living there often.

That's disruptive to whatever stability, community they've been able to build, and that this is not an ideal solution.

Moving people around the city from place to place is not what we want to be doing.

So we are continuing to do encampment removals especially responding to safety hazards.

But at the same time, we're going to be moving to rapidly expand emergency housing and shelters so that we can be actually moving people inside rather than just making them move to another location outside.

You recently announced the elimination of regulatory barriers to speed up the permitting process in order to accelerate the production of housing and shelter needs.

How will this fix that need?

So this is one small piece of a large puzzle, right?

So we know that our housing crisis has been building for many, many years.

It has many causes.

The big one is that we have not been building housing to match our growing region.

We've had people moving to Seattle, to our region for many, many years as part of the tech boom and just all of the reasons why people want to live in this city.

And we have not built housing to match.

And so that mismatch has really helped to drive up rents.

Now, that's not the only cause, right?

We've also seen decades of federal disinvestment in subsidized housing.

And so tackling this crisis really is an all hands on deck kind of thing.

So there's not just one thing we can do, but one thing we can do is, make it possible for the private market to build more housing in our great neighborhoods around the city.

And so the legislation that you mentioned, speeding up, reducing some of those permitting obstacles is part of that.

But that's not going to solve it all by itself.

So we're going to have more chances this year and in the years ahead, to make it possible for more housing to be built around the city.

And then at the same time, I'm very committed to supporting Seattle's new social housing developer, which just got its first big infusion of revenue from the tax that was passed by voters last year.

And so we're going to be working hard to make sure that they get up and rolling and start to acquire and develop units that will be permanently affordable, publicly owned, affordable housing.

And so those are two pieces of the puzzle, but not the only pieces by any means.

When we talk about those proposed so-called junk fees, you talked about eliminating those for renters.

What will that look like?

Yeah.

So I'm a renter myself.

So I'm coming from the perspective of someone who knows what it's like when every year, you get your lease renewal notice, and they're like oh, your rent's going up another hundred bucks a month.

And it can be really hard.

If you're a renter who's already paying over 30%, maybe even over 50% of your income every month on your housing, that just doesn't leave a lot of money left for other expenses.

And so one thing that you see, especially when you're dealing with some of the big corporate landlords or management firms, is that in addition to your monthly rent price, which is too high.

There will also be hidden fees in your lease that you don't necessarily notice when you're originally signing it.

But maybe they're like, oh well, we're going to tack on another $25, which is your share of the utilities for the common space.

And then here's, you know, mandatory valet garbage service.

And there's all these kind of weird fees that you don't really anticipate that basically add to your monthly rent.

And we've seen this really explode, I would say, over the last five years or so where this has just become a tactic to nickel and dime tenants.

And so what we're looking at is legislation that would ban or regulate a lot of these fees so that, as a renter, you know what you're getting into when you sign that lease.

And so we we did we've done a survey of renters, and I believe we had over 6,000 people who took that survey.

And that was really to help us get a better idea of the landscape and what kind of fees are most common that people are getting hit with.

And so now, over the coming weeks and months, we're going to be developing that legislation, working with council members, obviously also talking with landlords, property management firms to understand their perspective.

But we're hoping to come out with some really strong legislation, that will help to rein in some of those costs for renters.

There was a lot of criticism about the lack of accountability in the police, Seattle Police Officers Guild contract, which was signed under the previous administration.

Is there anything you can do to push for stronger police accountability?

Yeah, I mean, we're going to be working with the city's accountability bodies, to figure out what we can do and obviously we are constrained within the police contract for the next few years until that comes up for renegotiation.

But I do think there's progress we can make.

Another area where we're putting a lot of energy is into the relationship between our police department and the care department, which is our alternative non-police responders for crisis calls.

And this is really becoming a national best practice.

Realizing that not every single call requires a police response.

And sometimes, a police response is actually harmful.

And so, we also have some issues with the police contract there, where it constrains, much more than is ideal, the kinds of calls that our care team is allowed to respond to.

So we're going to be working with our care team, working with our police department, trying to make sure that, trying to make sure that they're working together in the best way possible so that the right responder responds to any given call.

So that's another big body of work that we're working on.

And speaking, just staying right on that point with the care team and Seattle police, specifically to nail down, to address some of that tension between those two entities.

Will we see, can you give a timeline of when we can see care team, folks being dispatched at an increased rate?

Yeah.

I mean, they're staffing up.

And so I would hope that people are seeing, starting to see that already, but it will be, it's going to be a work in progress.

And I think we're going to just figure out how we can really maximize the use of the care team.

And part of that is really like making sure that our officers understand the circumstances under which, they should be calling in the care team to take care of a call.

So yeah, I would hope that over the course of this year, that's something that people can see around them.

Yeah.

You decided to keep Seattle Police Chief Barnes in his job.

How was your relationship with the chief?

Really good.

I think that Chief Barnes is a great guy, and he brings a lot of really valuable experience to Seattle.

I think one example is that in the wake of the really tragic shootings in Rainier Beach, we are both working with the community, the neighborhood, the families.

But at the same time, really taking a hard look at the city's approach to gun violence prevention, and how we respond to gun violence.

And the chief brings a lot of really good experience from his previous work in that area.

And so we're going to be drawing on that, as well as all of our experts in the community, community based organizations, and learning from things that have worked in other cities that have really succeeded at reducing gun violence to try to reformulate our approach around best practices and have kind of a strategic framework that makes sure that we're really basically getting results as we move forward.

Because we just we can't keep losing our young people.

Absolutely.

And one of the things, when we talk about gun violence, is that grieving and mourning that the Rainier Beach community is currently dealing with right now, losing two students to gun violence.

What do you want to see in terms of stronger gun violence prevention policy?

So there's a number of pieces to this.

One thing that we're doing in the wake of those shootings is working with our police department and with the schools to formulate this kind of, and with community based organizations this kind of 90 day plan for really supporting the community and trying to make sure that there's not retaliatory violence, that things don't escalate.

And so that's like a lot of, kind of, support, for individuals and for folks in the schools.

And part of that, too, is working with our police department to make sure that there's increased police presence in that area.

And one thing that I heard loud and clear when I went down and talked to young people, young folks at Rainier Beach High School is that they do want that increased police presence.

But it's also really important that the officers who are there also understand the community.

Ideally, come from the community, right?

Look like them, right?

They really want to know that they can trust the officers who are there to serve and care for them.

And that's not always the case right now.

So I think we have some work to do with our police department.

And just moving forward as we're recruiting and retaining great officers, and making sure that we're also building those trusting relationships between our police force and the communities that they're serving.

And so that's a big part of it too.

And, you know, we have a lot of great community based organizations in Seattle that do violence intervention and violence prevention work.

And so part of it is really, just the city working with them, making sure that they're resourced to do the work that they do, and also just make sure that, again, we're kind of aligning all these different pieces under a larger kind of strategic framework to make sure that we're making that progress and also just assessing what's working and what's not, so that we can do more of what's working and do less of what's not.

It seems you're currently weighing the best route.

When we talked to, and staying on this topic, the expansion of the city's existing CCTV surveillance cameras.

There's a lot of talk on both sides about going forward with the cameras and expansion or not.

Where do you stand today?

Yeah, and this is something that, this is a very complex and contentious issue, obviously.

And there are really strong feelings, in the community for really good reasons, right?

Because I think the bottom line and what we all agree on is that people deserve to feel safe in their community.

Immigrants deserve to feel safe in their community.

Folks in the Chinatown International District, in the Central District and Rainer Beach, everyone deserves to feel safe walking around.

And right now that's not the case.

And the reasons why that's not the case are multiple, right?

Because we have levels of gun violence that are much higher than they should be.

Because we are in a position where we're facing threats from the federal government and from potential surges in ICE activity.

And so, you know, I think the issue with the cameras, we're weighing very carefully.

I'm weighing very carefully.

And also we're just trying to get some additional information.

So the concerns that I expressed during the campaign, I very much still have about the security of the images and the footage that is being captured by our CCTV cameras.

That footage is held locally for five days and then deleted.

But the risk, the biggest risk is really when there is an incident and SPD or the care department, goes to view footage and it gets uploaded and at that point it's in the cloud.

And so we're trying to figure out now basically, where the servers are.

Is that in a state that has protections like Washington does or not?

So we're trying to learn more about the security or potential insecurity of that data.

And at the same time, weighing the risk of the misuse of that data against what the CCTV cameras are used for.

And so, when there is a crime, the CCTV cameras have proved useful in being able to apprehend a suspect and also being able to rule out suspects.

So if the police bring someone in and you can look at the camera, you can say, well, that's not that person.

They can release them, right?

So it also reduces how much we're hauling in and holding people who didn't do something.

So there's a real usefulness to those cameras.

And at the same time there's a risk.

And so we're trying to weigh that very carefully because again, there are strong feelings, like really legitimate feelings in the community on both sides of that.

Staying in the same vein, in terms of, the use, or misuse, of those cameras, when we talk about immigration enforcement.

Although Seattle hasn't seen a surge from ICE currently, can you share with our audience what your office is doing, or has done, to protect the rights of people within Seattle Metro?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, I signed an executive order, and we've taken some actions to try to better protect our communities.

So one of the things that we've done is provide much clearer guidance around the role of our police department, regarding ICE.

And so basically, directing police to record potentially criminal ICE activity.

And I think this is something that's really important when we think about how are we actually going to hold people responsible for what they're doing in our community?

We've also invited, small businesses, other private institutions to join us in not allowing ICE to stage on their property, to making it clear that, you know, this is a private space where ICE cannot come in without a warrant.

And so we have signs that, for example, a small business can put in their window and we are prohibiting ICE from staging on city property.

We're also doing a lot more to really regularly brief and connect with all of our immigrants rights partners around the city and make sure that we are using our city resources, that were allocated during the budget process last year, to support all of the work that they're doing out in the community to try to keep people safe, and support our rapid response network and make sure that we're providing legal aid and all of that.

So we've done some things and obviously we're continuing to talk with our partners about what else can we do to keep people as safe as possible?

Also, knowing that there are limits to what the city can do.

And part of it, too, is making sure that we're working really closely with our community partners to be as ready as possible.

if a surge happens, so that we are coordinating, communicating, and we're able to really stand up for people together.

You recently had a staffer that came back from Minneapolis.

- That's right.

Yes.

What did that staffer bring back that may be applicable or beneficial for Seattle?

Yeah.

I mean, he met with elected officials there, some of the council members, and then with a lot of the community organizations that were doing the work on the ground.

And I think he came back really impressed by the infrastructure that had been created from the ground up there by communities to keep people safe.

And so I think a big lesson was just the importance of that really consistent collaboration and communication between the city government and neighborhood based organizations and the immigrants rights groups.

And so we're really taking that to heart, and trying to make sure that we're building those relationships now and that also we just have a really clear plan and protocol in place.

And we do.

We have lots and lots of paper that tells us, like, here is exactly what we are going to do in this case, in this case, in this case, depending on the nature and the scale of the threat as it emerges.

One thing that is apparent about your leadership is how inclusive, intentional, and wide your coalition is.

Why is it important to have this expansive coalition?

I mean, to me, this comes out of my background as a community organizer and a coalition builder.

I mean, really, what's philosophically at the root of the work that I've done my whole career is believing that, like, people need to be involved in the decisions that affect their lives, right?

That that is where the change happens, right?

That is where, that is how you drive change is by having ordinary people engaged in understanding, like, how government works.

This is democracy.

How how are these decisions made?

How are these policies passed that end up affecting my daily life?

And that's something that people don't normally go through their daily lives thinking about.

But it's so important.

And so for me, it's just really important that we're trying to change the relationship between our city government and constituents to something that's more participatory.

That's why, you know, the slogan of my campaign, and now I guess my administration is like, this is your city.

I really want people to feel, not just that Seattle is their city, but that this city government is their city government.

And so we're trying to really put that into action.

And we actually just wrapped up our transition process, which is normally a transition process, you get like 50 people in a room and they give you their recommendations.

Well, what we did was we actually created a transition team that was tasked with going out and talking to people across the city.

And so we had, like, I don't know, 2,000 people ultimately involved in this process of basically, giving us recommendations about what should our administration be doing in all these different areas?

And so that kind of really collaborative, like, reach out, bring people in.

That's what I want to be doing throughout my time in office.

Seattle is one of a number of cities that draw critique from the president and others on the federal level, as well as in the national conservative media, whether it's for our sanctuary policies or city ordinances, how do you plan to deal with that kind of attention?

And also keep in mind the attention from just a national perspective, the view that folks have about Seattle?

I mean, I'm the mayor of Seattle.

And so I really view my job as to do what is best for our city and to keep my attention and my work focused on what are the things that we can do here to get real results that improve people's lives.

And so for me, that means that I don't want to get too distracted by all the chatter, whether that's chatter on social media, whether that's chatter coming from the White House, right?

So I'm really trying to stay focused.

And obviously, if something happens that we have to respond to, like a surge in ICE activity, we are here and we are ready to respond.

But for the most part, I'm not here to get into shouting matches with whoever it is that is criticizing Seattle.

Now, I do think it's important that we can tell a really strong story about ourselves, about our city, about what we stand for.

And I think we can do that, and so that's kind of, like, which can kind of indirectly combat, some of the noise out there about what Seattle is.

But, for the most part, I'm just really focused on our city.

Thank you so much for your time.

- Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

I'm Paris Jackson.

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