Final Push in Olympia and Candidate Launch Updates

The Urbanist's Ryan Packer, Amy Sundberg, and Doug Trumm discuss recent news out of Olympia, candidate campaign rollouts, and King County transportation funding woes. The crew also gives their recommendations for favorite outdoor festivals or seasonal events.

Our latest dispatches on the Washington State Legislature include:

• Mosquito Fleet Act Runs Into Choppy Seas in the State Senate
• Sound Transit’s Bid to Unlock 75-Year Bonds Finds Second Wind
• Neighborhood Cafe and Corner Store Bill Fails for Third Straight Year
• Legislation Targeting Ground-Floor Storefronts Gets Overhauled in House
• State Senate Signs Onto Billions of New Debt for Highway Upkeep
• Washington's Elevator Reform Bill Rises Again

To check out more on the candidates jumping in races, see Amy's interview with Hannah Sabio-Howell (who is challenging Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen) and Ryan's interview with Ron Davis, who is challenging longtime Rep. Gerry Pollet.

This episode of The Urbanist Podcast was edited by your truly. Episodes also air on KVRU 105.7 FM radio Thursdays at 4pm. Thank you to Crystal Fincher and Shannon Cheng of KVRU for their assistance getting this podcast off the ground. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform to help us spread the word.

Transcript

Copy

[00:00:10] Ryan: Welcome to the Urbanist Podcast, a show touching on the biggest headlines at the urbanist, and also offering a deeper look from the reporters who are breaking the stories as an independent reader supported publication, the Urbanist has been covering the Seattle metropolitan region since 2014. We do advocacy journalism for better cities. 
 

You can find us at theurbanist.org. My name is Ryan Packer. I'm a contributing editor here at the Urbanist. Excited to be with you. And we got the rest of our news team on deck. Doug Trumm publisher. 
 

[00:00:39] Doug: Hi, Ryan. Happy to be here. 
 

[00:00:41] Ryan: Good to have you, Doug. And Amy Sundberg, our reporter. 
 

[00:00:45] Amy: Hello. Good to be here. 
 

[00:00:46] Ryan: Good to have you, Amy. Well, we are recording this six days before the end of the state legislative session, and we've got a lot to talk about, but things are changing by the hour right now. I was just watching senate floor a couple minutes before we jumped on this call, but there's a lot to talk about. Fair warning, things may have dramatically changed by the time this comes out. Set to be out on the last day of the session. 

So Amy, what are you tracking? As the legislature finally starts to wrap up their work. 

[00:01:18] Amy: Well, there have been some interesting bills that have made it through and are currently in concurrence. Mostly, they haven't been signed yet, but the social housing bill was able to pass both, both chambers. So that would basically give similar incentives to social housing that public housing has. 
 

So it's one less reason to avoid social housing and do public housing instead. Right. Which is a win. And then there also was a bill that passed both chambers that will make it easier to cite emergency housing, permanent supportive housing, and that kind of thing, which, which is a big deal. Clearly, that is our mayor's top priority right now. And hopefully this will be something that might help her do some of that siting work. 
 

[00:02:02] Ryan: Yeah, that bill was kind of aimed not at Seattle, but more at like, you know, cities like Kenmore that have tried to block those facilities. Right. Amy? 
 

[00:02:10] Amy: Uh, yes, I believe so. But, you know, it's always lovely to have good standards throughout the state, so that every everyone can get on board with helping to solve big problems like homelessness. 

[00:02:22] Ryan: Yeah, raising that floor to make sure that cities aren't able to just ban the idea of creating emergency housing. That's a bill that I think took a couple sessions, so it's good to see that finally passed the Senate. 
 

[00:02:33] Amy: Yeah. Yeah, it's a big deal. Also, last night we had a marathon session, because the Republicans found it very controversial, the idea that a sheriff should have to meet the same criteria that the police officers or deputies, under the sheriff have to meet. So, you know, have to go through a background check, have to be certified by the state, as all officers and law enforcement personnel have to, except for these sheriffs. 

So it took many, many hours to get through all of the amendments that the Republicans added to this bill. But in the end, they, they made it and it did pass. 
 

[00:03:13] Ryan: The house looks like it may take up the millionaire's tax, which is one of the most high profile bills of this session. Amy, where do things stand on that right now with our listeners, knowing that things could be very different by the time they hear this. 
 

[00:03:26] Amy: Yes, things will probably change. And they have been changing and it's been kind of a rollercoaster. Just a couple days ago we had Governor Ferguson saying, well, maybe we're just gonna postpone the whole idea and not do it till next year. Which, I thought was pretty wild. Um, but I guess it was an effective negotiating tactic, because today he says now the newest striker, so the newest version of this bill, he says he's okay with it now. And so he's willing to sign. 

It still needs to get the votes though before it goes to his desk. Changes to that bill: a lot more money will go to the working family's tax credit, because it would increase the income eligibility threshold. And it would add an estimated almost 1.3 million people would then be eligible for this, including over 350,000 kids, which is a big deal. 
 

And it means that you wouldn't have to make as little in order to qualify for this tax credit. And actually I checked in because, I think it was last episode, I said, well, why don't we just do guaranteed basic income? So I checked in with some guaranteed basic income supporters, and they actually love this. They're celebrating this idea right now. They're thrilled that this threshold might be raised for the working families tax credit. So, that is an interesting point. 
 

It also would cover school lunches and breakfasts, which is something that I think, that legislature has been interested in trying to fund for quite some time now. And it looks like, this version that the governor is willing to sign would finally have the funding to make that happen. But you know, there are trade-offs. Perhaps you can share a couple of them. 
 

[00:05:09] Ryan: Yeah. Well, one thing I'm looking at is, you know, last year the legislature passed a increase to the state sales tax expanding it to cover services. Previously, you only paid sales tax on goods. And this is set to take that back as one of the ways it's providing tax relief. But, starting in 2029 or 2030, it's still up in the air right now. 
 

But, local governments also get that sales tax, so, counties, cities that collect sales tax were getting a boost from that. And it doesn't look like they're gonna get backfilled that funding that they were gonna lose, despite the immense amount of money coming into the state general fund. I think there's some intent language that they are gonna look at a fund in future years to be able to provide those dollars. 
 

One thing I'm also tracking is the impact on Sound Transit. They also get sales tax. I think what I understand is that last year's bill, expanding the sales tax gave them additional $2 billion over the next two decades. So, it's not chump change in terms of the impact. King County Metro, their fiscal cliff would get more steep if this was repealed. As well as other things the county funds, like housing and mental health services. So, that's kind of going under the radar in my opinion. 
 

At a press conference this week, I asked County Executive Girmay Zahilay about that. He said that he had supported the Millionaires Tax, which is true, he testified earlier in the session, but he wishes that the sales tax repeal wasn't in there, and couldn't tell me whether he currently supports the bill or not. So. 
 

[00:06:50] Amy: I mean, I could see how he would have mixed feelings, because King County is already struggling fiscally, right. I think a lot of our counties and cities are struggling 'cause they have so few tools to bring in more revenue and yet it's more expensive because of inflation, because of the tariffs, you know. 
 

[00:07:07] Ryan: Yeah, and the bill I think had in a previous version, earmarked specific money for public defenders, due to the recent ruling that they need to be spending more on public defenders. My understanding is that that's now being stripped out. That doesn't mean that public defenders won't get money in the future. They would just have to be allocated that money by a future legislature. 
 

[00:07:27] Amy: Yeah, but that's been a difficult issue. You know, I've written about it. There is technically a public defender crisis in our state, and it does affect us here in King County, but it's a much worse elsewhere in the state. 
 

[00:07:42] Ryan: Yeah. Another bill that I'm tracking right now is the Mosquito Fleet Act, which we've written about a lot, which would set up the ability for local governments to establish passenger ferry districts more easily. It did pass the Senate Transportation Committee and the full Senate, today, but there's some amendments that are being called poison pills by ferry advocates. The bill sponsor in the House, Representative Greg Nance, is not happy at all about the changes, which include a requirement that the fast ferries have to be zero emissions. They have to be made in Washington. These are all requirements that the current state ferry system doesn't have to abide by, of course. 
 

They switched to new ferry districts from a sales tax model to a property tax model, which would likely be more unpopular, could be harder to get buy-in and some other requirements around potentially even not allowing service areas to overlap. 
 

So it's kind of ambiguous what that means, but it's not clear to me reading the new language whether two ferry systems could actually serve downtown Seattle at the same time. So, kind of concerning. There should be a piece on this up on the site to break down this. I know they're hopeful that the amendments in the house can maybe walk this back a little bit, but that might end up, you know, killing the bill if there is so much back and forth in six days. 
 

[00:09:04] Doug: It's pretty clear it has popular support. Whenever we write about ferries or post about ferries, it gets a lot of attention. So. 
 

[00:09:11] Ryan: Yeah. And these are local governments that are clamoring for this. Port districts, county governments, they want to do this. They just need the authority. Marko Liias, senate chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, gave a floor speech today. He's like, everyone wants to say I'm against ferries, but it's not, but we need to be laser focused on the car ferry system. So it's clear that he does see this as zero sum and sees the idea that if they are gonna have more passenger ferry districts, there'll be more mouths to feed at the legislature that are gonna take away from the state ferry system. 
 

I just feel like that's a little bit, oh, it's not an abundance mindset, first of all, so, that's clear. And I just feel like we have to be more nimble, which is kind of what Greg Nance has been saying all along. Like, the first ferries are gonna arrive in 2030. The legislature just decided not to move forward with getting any more, so that'll probably be another five years beyond that, that we get even any more vessels. And so relying on that system is clearly gonna be a glide path to failure. 
 

[00:10:12] Doug: Yeah, and just from an urbanism perspective, making car ferries the centerpiece of it, that's just gonna be more expensive and it's going to not be as good at promoting good outcomes for cities. Many ferry terminal towns, you know, they struggle with the traffic that happens when a big ferry unloads, or is queuing up. 
 

Whereas a foot ferry, you're getting the good benefits that less of a bad, helping support your main street near the ferry terminal and get visitors into your town to help boost your economy. 
 

[00:10:43] Ryan: Yeah, and I mentioned the buy local provisions. The Senate striker requires that boats are made in Washington, which actually isn't really that much of a problem to literally do. There's a lot of local fast ferry manufacturers around Washington, unlike, the large ferries which are now being sourced from Florida, but what a buy Washington requirement does actually, is it makes the ferry system ineligible for federal grants. And so, that's a little bit of a hard pill to swallow. 
 

[00:11:16] Doug: Yeah, that doesn't seem the most prudent, even if there's not likely to be a ton of grants from this administration. I mean, I think looking longer term, that would be something that normally would be a good part of the funding mix. But yeah, I think we need more, more foot ferries, more fast ferries, and it can't detract from the main focus of our transportation system being on buses and trains. But it's a nice augment. And obviously you can't get to an island without one. So, we should be thinking about that too. And it seems shortsighted to make everything about cars. 
 

And obviously we've talked about housing before on this podcast, and those bills are still limping along. Some hope that things will happen. It's kind of a technical session, but Ryan, what bills are still alive and how impactful do you think they can be in their surviving form? 
 

[00:12:03] Ryan: Well, we've written a lot about SB 6026, which is the governor's big high-profile housing bill, requiring cities to legalize residential development in commercial zones. Uh, the real teeth of that bill is a provision dictating that they not require ground floor retail in certain districts. 
 

The house local government committee chair, Davina Duerr, who used to be a Bothell City council member, got her hands on the bill and gave it a big overhaul. A lot of the most urbanist cities in the region would were really voicing concerns about this: Kirkland, Redmond, Bothell. Not cities that are known to be recalcitrant on building housing. They were concerned about the idea that they couldn't require retail in the neighborhoods that they're trying to build. And so, Duerr overhauled the bill saying, 'okay, you have a upper cap of 40% of your commercial zones can require ground floor retail, giving them the flexibility to kind of figure out where they want to prioritize foot traffic and vibrancy basically. 
 

So, it seems like a pretty good compromise. Light rail station areas are still exempted, so, places like Redmond and Shoreline can still maximize the area around their new stations. But seems like we've gone to a pretty good place. 
 

[00:13:19] Doug: That debate has been super interesting to me, because you have urbanists on both sides. So, you can sort of see the argument on both sides. But it does seem like the people who are against the retail storefronts make, you know, libertarian style arguments that we should just let the market decide those things. And, this is a case where I'm kind of curious if that's actually how the market works out. Or if it's good policy because part of the challenge you're coming up against is that you're trying to graft a commercial district onto a bedroom community in many of these cases. 
 

So, it doesn't happen very quickly without, without intervention, I guess. And, maybe we can debate how, how heavy that hand should be. But, I'm not sure if you left the market to the devices, how quickly that would, that would happen partially because if you're in the business of building housing, that's what you know, and you might not be thinking about how much money you can make off of a retail storefront, even if it is a little bit of money. 
 

[00:14:11] Ryan: Another bill that's moving forward and getting a lot of attention is the one regarding elevator reform. That one is back for its second year and is moving forward. There was a big blow to it though with the house housing committee pulling out a provision seeking to align state elevator codes around international codes, harmonizing those and potentially trying to get the state to be more like Europe and Asia in terms of their elevator codes, reducing costs, allowing them to be more easily built. 
 

The bill still directs the state building code council to legalize the minimum federal accessibility requirements for elevators in middle housing. So up to six stories, 24 units. So if we were able to get that across the finish line, that would be a big deal, and really allow some of these new building types that are being legalized to actually happen. 
 

But there was a disappointing amendment to that. But it looks like that one's gonna make it across the finish line. So, some other ones that have been pretty exciting: the scissor stair bill, by Representative Zahn was able to pass both chambers, allowing your stairs to interlock and save space. So it's a big deal. 
 

But then there's some bills that have been falling by the wayside. The mobile dwelling units bill, we talked about, I think a couple episodes ago, was officially dead. 
 

[00:15:36] Doug: Yeah, it's nice that there's gonna be a, looks like a few bills that come out of this in housing, but yeah, it definitely still feels like a little bit of a hangover of doing some of the heavy lifting over the last few years. Yeah, hopefully these can, can help fill in around the edges, but, certainly more work ahead. 
 

[00:15:50] Ryan: Definitely a lot of smaller scale fixes. The bill once again tackling condo reform was able to pass, building on last year's bill. We're taking these reforms to condo liability that are kind of standing in the way of building condos, taking them out piece by piece. So as opposed to in one big, one big go. 
 

[00:16:10] Doug: Yeah, and I wanted to zoom out for a little bit too, because we've been, you know, jumping around all the bills we've been interested in. But obviously the thing that's going to dominate the session and especially in the last week here, is they've finalized all these deals, is how do we actually get the budget to balance? 
 

And it seems like that debate has sort of gotten lost in, in all these other debates, including the millionaires tax, but that debate has sort of been the distraction somewhat from the fact that what they're actually doing to balance the budget for now is doing a lot of cuts, especially to childcare, to education, to pre-K, long-term care, all this, all these social programs that, in some cases, they got accolades for expanding in recent years. 
 

But, a little budget headwinds and it seems like it's the first thing to go. So, I know that a lot of childcare providers and advocates have been pretty frustrated by that. But, it is what it is to balance this budget, and I'm curious, Amy, what you make of, if there's any hope of kind of easing nose cuts or if they're kind of just baked in now. 
 

[00:17:11] Amy: I mean, you never know. You never know. There's always hope. But, I would say I expect a lot of cuts. So I expect most of those cuts to stay or, you know, they might shift around a little bit. But, you're correct that there's been a huge focus on the millionaires tax, which won't even bring any money in until 2029. 
 

We're in 2026, we're talking about the second half of 2026, -27. So, none of that money will help us at all during that budget year. And there hasn't been a big appetite for passing any other new revenue that maybe could be collected sooner. Obviously there was Representative Shaun Scott's Well Washington Fund, that I would be pretty surprised at this point if, if anything were to happen with that. And they've been rolling back some other taxes that were passed in the last year or so. Most notably probably the increase in the estate tax. 
 

[00:18:12] Doug: Yeah. And I think it would, wouldn't be such a bitter pill as swallow, for a lot of more progressive wing folks it is, but if we were just doing some temporary belt tightening and then there was this, you know, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak, and we were gonna pass this billionaires tax and start expanding the social safety net again, I think people maybe would think about that trade and, and maybe be willing to take it and be happy soldiers about it. 'Cause the governor has a certain approach to this he wants to take. But, so much of that tax being dedicated to sort of hard to quantify, at least in people's day-to-day lives, tax relief, like little, little bit bits of sales tax getting nibbled away that a lot of people won't even feel, rather than programs that could tackle many of our issues, whether their education, poverty, whatever. 
 

It certainly is going to be interesting to see if all the progressives do in line or whether they sort of draw the line somewhere as far as, okay, well what where would be additive here, rather than just shifting tax burden here and there. 
 

[00:19:15] Amy: I mean, there's also, you know, the problem of what the federal government is gonna do. And that's a huge question mark that kind of hangs over everything, especially when we're talking about budgeting, because we do not know exactly what impact, how large of an impact that is gonna have on our budget. 
 

And, the Medicaid AppleCare cuts go into effect at the end of this year. So we're closing in on beginning to see some of that, some of the SNAP cuts, right, for the food access. And then we also see the federal government kind of trying to penalize Minnesota as a state and Minneapolis, and you know, right now that's not happening as much to Washington, but it, but it could, right? 
 

We, we don't know. We certainly are a candidate for that kind of treatment, I would say. So it, it just, injects a much larger level of uncertainty than I think lawmakers often have to grapple with. 
 

[00:20:11] Doug: And I have to as an aside say that you say Minnesota like a true Minnesotan with your, uh, your California accent. Long "O". I love that. Minnesota. 
 

[00:20:22] Amy: Yes, I, I actually lived in the UK for a little while and I think that kind of weirdly changed the way I speak. Or maybe it was all the vocal training. I don't know. 
 

[00:20:34] Doug: I like it. All right. I derailed this. There's just so many things that lawmakers have in front of them, and hopefully they can come up with new tools fast enough to get ahead of all this crap that's getting thrown at them from the federal government or just with the chaos that is being caused geopolitically, now too, um, a lot going on. 
 

[00:20:54] Amy: Yeah, as we see oil prices begin to rise. I mean, who knows? Who knows what's gonna happen? 

[00:21:18] Ryan: Well with the end of the legislative session, we're gonna quickly get into election season. I'm expecting more candidates to start announcing for the state legislature. We are already getting quite a few rolling out their campaigns. And so, yeah, we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the candidates who have already announced, including Ron Davis, who I spoke with for our story this week on The Urbanist. 
 

Ron Davis is about as died in the wool urbanist as you can get in terms of, an advocate for housing and sustainable transportation. Ron ran for City Council in 2023, lost by about 300 votes to Maritza Rivera. But now he's back to challenge Representative Gerry Pollet, who is not a best friend of the urbanists in Seattle. He's represented the 46th district up in Northeast Seattle for 15 years. Doug, what was your impressions reading my story about Ron Davis? 
 

[00:22:17] Doug: Yeah, I'm always impressed by Ron's willingness to just be ambitious and just kind of go for it. He's not a traditional politician in that sense. As far as, they all kind of sound the same and they keep the promises very vague. We're in campaign rollout season, and a lot of candidates keep it to the point where you're like, what does this person put on the bumper stick or what are, what are the top three things they wanna achieve in office? And they might get to that eventually later on in the campaign, but not a lot of them come out, all systems go. And Ron, I thought made a lot of things clear about where he stands. 
 

Like he's going to be a huge housing advocate, a huge transit advocate. He clearly wants to be an urbanist in Olympia. So, I think it's definitely someone that our readers are gonna wanna take a good look at. And they probably already know Ron to some extent 'cause he's been so active. I mean obviously we, we want those kind of issues elevated in Olympia, so it's definitely, even though he's taking on an incumbent, and both of these camps are already lining up a lot of big endorsements. 
 

So I think it's really gonna be a, a big cage match basically between these two. But I think it's generally good for folks who've been there. Gerry Pollet's been there 15 years to have a tough challenge and actually have to, um, to defend what he is doing. And sometimes, even if he wins, that might change how he approaches things and, and not let him get complacent. But I do think Ron has a pretty good shot. 
 

[00:23:39] Ryan: Yeah, I think, Gerry announced his reelection on the same day that Ron announced his campaign with some high profile endorsements from Bob Ferguson. Pramila Jayapal was a little eyebrow raising as was Shaun Scott, his colleague in the house. So, that was interesting. But I do think it's gonna be a particularly challenging year four incumbents, with the high turnout midterm elections. 
 

There's another candidate just jumped in the race. Hannah Sabio-Howell is gonna challenge the majority leader in the state Senate, so that's a really big, really big swing. Amy, you talked to Hannah, who previously served on The Urbanist Elections Committee as co-chair. So we're pretty familiar with her, but can you talk a little bit about your conversation with Hannah? 
 

[00:24:25] Amy: Yeah, so she's challenging Senator Jamie Pedersen in the 43rd. And, I feel like she's ready to go all in, was definitely the impression I got. And, she's running on a platform of affordability. I think we've seen over the past year or so that that has been a platform that has really resonated with a lot of people. 
 

So, I think that this will be a really interesting race. She does have some familiarity with the legislature. She worked as a legislative aid and then as a communication specialist for the Senate. So, she knows a lot of the lawmakers and the staff, and she knows all about the process that has to be gone through, which I think for a challenger, for an incumbent is pretty important, and reassuring for voters to see that. 
 

And, you know, she definitely wants to think big. She wants to tax the rich and she wants to actually start building programs. So instead of kind of the austerity cuts that we're seeing this year, she really wants to look for ways to move closer to universal childcare. Closer to universal healthcare. And she's a renter, she is a frequent transit rider, so she really cares a lot about tenant rights and transit as well. 
 

[00:25:48] Doug: Obviously I've gotten to know Hannah a little bit serving on her with the Elections committee. It's hard not to be a little bit biased in this race. But, I do think that it'll be fascinating because she is someone who's from a different generation than Jamie Pedersen and is on social media a lot, and posting about what's happening both on the her work side. She was with Working Washington for a good number of years as a communications person. So, very on top of what labor and other alliances for working people are doing in Olympia. And just posting about urbanism stuff too. 
 

I think you're gonna get more of a modern progressive, you know, your AOC, Mamdani type of campaign where she's very active online and whether or not Jamie Pedersen tries to do more online to counteract that or what his strategy exactly is, but I do think there will be some circling of the wagons for a long-time powerful member of the state legislature. And I think the argument for Jamie's gonna be around, you know, this is someone who raises a lot of money for the party and has been a good team player and going too far might be bad for the party and higher up races and stuff like that. I guess they're kind of centrus tropes sometimes. 
 

There's a kernel of truth in some of them. And if there's no people like Jamie in the legislature, I suppose some people have fear that the progressives just go too, too crazy or corporations turn on them, but I think a lot of other people are tired of playing that game. 
 

So, it's gonna be a race with a lot of stark differences and big debates, I think. 
 

[00:27:19] Ryan: Yeah, I mean, we got the 43rd, which is the smallest, densest, one of the most blue districts in the state. I went to the 43rd town hall, a couple weekends ago. And you know, I think the differences between Shaun Scott and Jamie Pedersen in terms of messaging was very different, very stark. With Shaun almost talking through the crowd at Senator Pedersen, in terms of the cuts that are on deck that are kind of being shepherded through him as majority leader. 
 

With Nicole Macri, who, you know, we always, always appreciate trying to say she agreed with both people. So that was interesting. But, the mood in the room, I guess is the point there was I think definitely more, more interested in bold action than I think Jamie was willing to go on the record in support of. 
 

[00:28:06] Amy: And I think, there's kind of a national feeling of unease, fear, frustration. Certainly some people are very frustrated by what they've seen from Democrats at the federal level. And that could definitely spread down to the state level. 
 

[00:28:25] Ryan: Yeah, I think it's inevitable. And the fact that we're seeing so many people challenge these incumbents. Another one we wanna talk about, we haven't had a chance to sit down, with Jessica Forsyth, who's challenging Amy Walen over in the 48th Legislative District. You know, Amy Wallen is a pretty moderate Democrat. That permanent supportive housing bill that you mentioned at the top of the show, Amy, I think she was one of the few votes against that in the house. She voted against the new guardrails on AI chatbots this session. She voted against some other things that seem pretty broadly popular. So, I think that's another race. Amy had tried to get into the state Senate, running against Vandana Slatter in a special election last year. Uh, she got creamed. 
 

So I think the opening is clearly there for more left lane challenges this year, and they are seizing the opportunity. I think we're gonna see some more in the coming days, especially as, as the session ends. And, and I think we're probably gonna also see some retirements as well, for people who know that the writing is on the wall for them. 
 

[00:29:28] Doug: Yeah, and I think you hate to judge a book by its cover, but another thing I say about Amy Walen: she and her husband own a car dealership, so as an urbanist, that's a tough beat to, to try to get excited about. Yeah, I think Jessica Forsyth's probably gonna try to outflank her on some of those issues, because there's a lot of space there to be more pro housing or pro transit, pro safe streets than Amy Walen. 
 

The odds are usually not that great when you go up against incumbent, but as Ryan mentioned, the mood right now is, you know, different. It's if people are frustrated and crazy stuff is happening at the federal level and business as usual isn't seeming as great, I think for a lot of people. 
 

[00:30:06] Amy: I think strategically, if you're interested in trying to get an incumbent out, this is the year to do it. 
 

[00:30:13] Ryan: A hundred percent. That being said, there are some open seats with legislators playing musical chairs. And so there are some wide open fields that we're tracking. One of those is down in the 37th District with Representative Chipalo Street poised to run for the state senate, because of Rebecca Saldaña, longtime senator running for King County Council, leaving a house seat open. 

We haven't had a any chance to sit down with Jaelynn Scott who announced for that seat, but, I think you read the reporting on her announcement, Amy. And what was your takeaway on that? 
 

[00:30:49] Amy: Yeah, so Jaelynn Scott is the executive director of the Lavender Rights Project, and she would be the first openly trans person to serve in our state legislature. So. Yeah, that's a pretty big deal. In general, you know, she is obviously a big proponent of trans rights. The Lavender Rights Project has run permanent supportive housing. They have run a pilot guaranteed basic income program, or they were thinking about it. She knows a lot about that. 
 

She served on Mayor Katie Wilson's Transition Committee. So she's a fairly well known progressive name. However, the reporting I read was a little bit short on the details. So, I would like to learn more about her platform. 
 

[00:31:39] Ryan: Yeah, and this is an open seat. So there's definitely gonna be some other people announcing for this to represent South Seattle in the legislature. So we'll be tracking that moving forward. 
 

[00:31:50] Doug: Yeah, I agree with Amy. It seemed like a lot of platitudes. And, as I mentioned, that's not a crazy strategy. A lot of candidates do it sometimes they're just kind of waiting to see what kind of candidate they're gonna run against before they lock in their positions, which is a little bit cynical, but you can see how the consultants would think that's a good idea. 
 

But I just wanted to contrast that, where I dug out this, this quote from Ryan's interview with Ron Davis and, you know, Ron's kind of the other extreme of this, where he said we should paint a thousand miles of bus lanes in the busiest corridors in the region, and we should add 50% frequency to the top a hundred bus routes. And then you take hundreds of thousands of people a day and you make their lives easier and more convenient, and they get places fast. And you also end up attracting a lot more people to those routes. And you're solving a transportation cost and convenience problem to hundreds of thousands of people. 
 

So yeah, definitely wasn't shying away from, 'well, what do you actually want to go do?' And he can't do that directly as a state legislator. He can help create programs to make that easier to do for cities. But, I just thought that was a contrast from how when you hear the candidate talking without really having decided what they're about yet on the opening day, at least as far as concrete policy, maybe on values, they're a little bit more locked in. And not to say that she won't get there. 
 

[00:33:05] Amy: I think it's hard to tell too. I mean, because, I don't know what questions were asked at that interview. So, I'm willing to extend somebody the benefit of the doubt at the very beginning. And you know, of course not all outlets are as wonky as The Urbanist is. So, you know, perhaps there's not the same enthusiasm for digging into the details. 
 

[00:33:26] Ryan: True. Another open seat is up north, Edmonds Shoreline area: the 32nd Legislative District. Representative Cindy Ryu is running against incumbent Senator Jesse Solomon, another example of this year to challenge longtime incumbents, leaving her seat open. 
 

And so a bunch of people have jumped in that race. We haven't had a chance to talk to any of them, with no real clear urbanist candidate as yet. Shoreline Councilmember Keith Scully would probably be the top contender for that. Shoreline, obviously having done a lot to really pave the way for housing construction, around its site rail stations. 
 

Across the border in Edmonds, which is not known for its movement on housing, we've got two council members who've jumped into that race as well. Jenna Nand and Will Chen. That's gonna be a very interesting race, and I really have no idea how it's gonna go. No idea who's the clear front runner right now. But yeah, that one's gonna be an interesting one to watch. 
 

[00:34:28] Doug: Yeah. Edmonds and Shoreline have really diverged ways, haven't they? I mean, I know there's Rick, Steves in Edmonds. I don't know if that many more are urbanists beyond him living there. 
 

[00:34:38] Ryan: Yeah. Jenna Nand's an interesting councilmember. You know, she tries to represent the Highway 99 portion of Edmonds, which has been kind of neglected, in favor of what they call the bowl, the downtown area. But she hasn't been particularly urbanist, in terms of really defending parking mandates and keeping a lot of the restrictions in place. So that's interesting to watch. 
 

[00:35:01] Doug: Yeah. And in the sort of Edmonds homeowner brain neglecting means they're shunting all of the dense housing to the 99 corridor and trying to spare the bowl. And if they had more enlightened policy that could actually be a good thing if you were trying to remake that area in a more urban paradigm with good walkability and good amenities and all that, but it's neglected. 
 

[00:35:23] Ryan: Yeah. Well, we're gonna be watching these races and many more over the coming weeks and months. We've got two months until finally deadlines, so there's plenty of time for people to get in the race, and I'm sure they will. So, in addition to the County council and Seattle City Council special election in District 5 this year. Lots of election coverage this year on The Urbanist. 
 

[00:35:45] Amy: There's actually one other really important election this year, which is the state Supreme Court has several justice seats open and those seats are elected. So that's gonna be something I'm gonna be interested in, in looking at, a little closer to the primary. 
 

[00:36:02] Ryan: Yeah, it could be almost a full turnover, of half the Supreme Court, right? 
 

[00:36:07] Amy: Yeah, I think it's five seats.  
 

[00:36:10] Ryan: That'll be fascinating to watch. 

[00:36:37] Ryan: Another hot topic this year is transportation funding. Seattle is set to renew its transportation measure funding, bus service, the Seattle Transportation Measure. A lot of people were hoping that they could get in alignment with King County and expand and go countywide for a transit funding measure to really start to expand the amount of buses on the roads. It's not looking like that is gonna happen, for a number of factors. In terms of the short amount of time that the new executive Girmay Zahilay has had to coordinate with incoming Mayor Katie Wilson. 
 

A much bigger priority right now is getting the county's roads system solvent. It is essentially going broke. Current projections are that the King County Roads Capital Fund is gonna be running outta money in just two years. And that was actually before the devastating floods of December that caused around $10 million in damage to county roads, which is essentially all the money that they have. So, they're doing some borrowing to staunch the bleeding right now. But it's looking like the county councils can now approve a 0.1% sales tax to bail out the county roads fund. The state of that system is pretty wild in terms of the systemic way that it's been underfunded. 
 

It's only funded by property tax in unincorporated areas, except it's it's a road network that is used by a lot more people than that. It would stretch from Mexico to Canada if it was laid end to end. And there's just no real systemic way to fund it. So, it's pretty wild. It looks like by April they're probably gonna approve that so they can get that money flowing before the end of the year. 
 

[00:38:21] Amy: I feel like the fact that they're reaching for the sales tax again, too, kind of shows the desperation, right? Because that just keeps ratcheting higher and higher. 
 

[00:38:30] Ryan: It does. They were almost gonna do this last year. But I think the fact that they had to do the public safety sales tax the same year was really a big factor of why they didn't. Cities are not necessarily wild about the idea of a countywide sales tax. It's just going to the unincorporated roads. 
 

We're seeing some nice requests by cities to give them a little bit of that funding. We're also seeing some out and out complaints from other council members in cities like Federal Way. And so that's gonna be an interesting dynamic. I think it's a little shortsighted in my opinion. We all play a part in making sure that this road system doesn't completely fall into dispair. So. 
 

[00:39:10] Amy: Yeah, well, our roads and our bridges, right? Our bridges aren't in great shape either. 
 

[00:39:17] Doug: That was the King County road, or was that a Pierce County Road that Governor Ferguson went to that washed out, and did this big press conference. 
 

[00:39:24] Ryan: So the White River was a state... yeah, that was a state bridge. Yeah, the governors obviously, despite having served on the King County Council for 10 years, has just discovered that there's a bridge funding problem in Washington state. And so he posted the other day about how there are 22 bridges in King County that are in poor condition. That was just the state roads. He's totally leaving out the county, city roads that are also systemically underfunded. 
 

[00:39:51] Amy: Yes, and I'm very touchy about bridges because I live in West Seattle. And so, I know all too well what happens when a major piece of infrastructure suddenly fails. 
 

[00:40:01] Ryan: Of course that bridge didn't fail because of a lack of maintenance. It was a structural issue, but yes. Obviously we have the First Avenue South Bridge closure right now. A couple of the lanes is gonna have to be closed for a couple days, as a real example of what happens when it is left unchecked. But we do continue to expand those, those highways around the state. So, uh, fun fact that I learned from the King County Roads presentation, the amount of funding that it would take to bring county roads up to ADA standard is around 36,000 years. 
 

[00:40:35] Amy: Oh wow. That is not encouraging. 
 

[00:40:41] Ryan: With the current funding that they have available to them. So... 
 

[00:40:45] Doug: yeah, I'm curious what they're gonna do when they have to repair the I 90 floating bridge with a light rail on top of it. That'll be a interesting problem to solve. 
 

[00:40:54] Ryan: Well now I'm gonna be staying up at night thinking about that, Doug. 
 

[00:40:58] Doug: Sorry. 
 

[00:40:59] Ryan: But in terms of the bigger question about when the county might take a countywide approach to funding transit, utilize the 0.2% sales tax that they have left, which would have to go to voters, remains an open question. 
 

I talked to Claudia Balducci, who's chair of the King County Transportation Benefit District that would oversee that, and they're looking at assembling that package, but it might not go out until 2027 or 2028. Kind of figuring out all the pieces to that is gonna be interesting to see. 
 

[00:41:30] Doug: Whether they, yeah, shoehorn that bridge and local road funding in there, as we've seen in the past. Sometimes that makes strange bedfellows where that last measure that the region rejected was roads and transit. 2007.. Yeah. Where transit, we've have good reason to believe would've passed on its own 'cause it did pass when they pulled the roads out. So I don't know if there's a way they can package the roads measure to make it more palatable if it does have to go to a vote, but you know, the Frankenstein monster hasn't been popular in the past, 
 

[00:42:05] Ryan: Well, it's my understanding, like I said, that they're just gonna go with the 0.01% councilmanic, that they can just pass on their own and not send roads funding to the voters. 
 

[00:42:15] Doug: But yeah, I mean, that's a patch, right? That's not like, not enough money to really move the needle, as far as getting the backlog closed. 
 

[00:42:23] Ryan: it'll be somewhat of a systemic, I mean, it's not the end all and be all of fixing the roads crisis, but it would be a big difference from what's funding now. And I don't see a ballot measure including roads funding as well. 
 

[00:42:37] Doug: Okay. Well, yeah, then I guess that solves that. Yeah, it's interesting the roads get to be councilmanic, but I guess the transit at least has the voter support. But, we could be doing more things without going to voters on transit, too. 
 

[00:42:49] Ryan: Well, yeah, they were gonna do half and half last year, half to transit, half to roads, but that was before the floods. But I think the bigger problem I had with that was that it wasn't clear what the Metro funding was gonna go towards. There was no real plan, no real process to figure out how we're gonna use this. I feel like if it had passed last year, it would just all end up going to the partitions that Metro's installing to separate the drivers from the cabs for safety, which is a fine expense, but I just don't really know that we had a real vision beyond that. 
 

[00:43:22] Doug: Yeah, it felt tacked on. 
 

[00:43:24] Ryan: Well, we're running outta time on this edition of The Urbanist Podcast, but before we go, a little pallet cleanser, I'm gonna ask our panelists this weekend, when we're recording this last weekend when you're listening to this was Comic-Con, which I always consider the kickoff of the annual events in Seattle, first week of weekend of March, followed by Sakura Con, and then we kind of have to start rolling into the summer festivals, it seems like right after that. So, my question is, what are your favorite annual events, outside events, inside events, conventions in Seattle? Amy Sundberg?  
 

[00:43:59] Amy: Yes, I have two. I can't pick between them 'cause they're very, very different. One of them is Norwescon, which is our regional science fiction and fantasy convention. And of course for me it's somewhat of a professional event since, since I am a novelist. Um, but it's also just a lot of fun. There are panels, there are a lot of writers who are there, but there's also, the Philip K Dick Awards are presented. There's a masquerade, there's an art show. So there's a lot going on. And there's a lot of people, you know, celebrating their love of science fiction and fantasy, which I love too. So it is great for me. 
 

And then the other event that I really love is the Alki Art Fair, which is in July. And they just set it up right along, like the water, basically. 
 

And there's all sorts of booths with different art. And then there's also food. And you walk and you look at the art and you have your little snack and, and you look at the water and it's just a lovely day out. 
 

[00:44:56] Ryan: Amazing. Amy, have you ever been nominated for a Philip K Dick Award? 
 

[00:45:00] Amy: No, I have not. But actually it's my favorite award ceremony and I've been to many science fiction and fantasy award ceremony. 'cause they do a little excerpt reading from each nominated work. So you kind of get a feel for it and then you can decide what you wanna read. 
 

[00:45:14] Ryan: That sounds fun. What about you, Doug Trumm? 
 

[00:45:18] Doug: Yeah, I am a sci-fi nerd too, so I really should be going to Comic-Con, I guess, but I don't like huge crowds, so I have, I've generally not gone. But I do enjoy, like you, Ryan, the, all the people running around downtown and in full costume, it definitely makes downtown feel more alive. But there's a million to choose from. 
 

I really do like sakura con, which I guess is just go look at cherry blossoms anywhere you can find them. And I do brave the crowds couple times in spring to see them in full glory at, at UW campus, but I try to bike in at a time when it's not a complete zoo. 
 

I do enjoy going to live music, especially outdoor festivals. So there'll be a lot of those. I'm struggling to pick just one, but usually KEXP puts on a big one in the summer or fall in their new gathering space, spilling out into the Seattle Center and that, that was really fun last year. I'm blanking on what the name of it was called, but it was sort of their fundraiser event. 
 

And I love any event that is activating Seattle Center. It's such a huge asset for our city and great place to host events. And you actually obviously had the Folklife Festival being the one that fills it the most. When we were writing about the new transit record that our region set on the Seahawk Super Bowl Parade Day, when Link light rail got over 225,000 rides, we were looking up what the old record was and it turns out that was on Folklife Festival weekend, when I think it was over 160,000 rides that day. 
 

So that, that has to show that, that that festival gets a lot of people and people who are getting there on transit. 
 

[00:46:52] Ryan: Yeah, I do love Comic-Con weekend, even though I don't go to Comic-Con, just being downtown. It's just amazing. I think my answer, I just love all the festivals we have that end up shutting down streets. I think my absolute favorite annual event is the Georgetown Carnival, which I believe is in July, maybe June. 
 

But, just shutting down airport way, for a lot of zany, fun bands. U District Street Fair is always fun. Pride Weekend Pride Fest on Broadway. That's two blocks from where I live, so I love being able to, to walk out and go down to carfree streets. So, yeah, those are, those are kind of my top ones, but anything that shuts down the street and kind of changes the dynamic of a neighborhood is kind of where I'm at when it comes to annual events. 
 

[00:47:38] Doug: I am really looking forward to bicycle weekends this summer, and i'm really curious if Mayor Wilson is gonna, you know, get out her big mayor pen or whatever and write in some more weekends. 
 

[00:47:49] Ryan: Yeah. Or just let parks go with the schedule. They wanted to and let us have our Friday evenings and Sunday evenings again, so that would be nice. 
 

[00:47:57] Doug: Those pathetic, 36-hour weekends were not enough. Yeah, Bruce Harrell had shrank those down to very hard to use weekends. And it's too bad when we were going the other direction for a little bit. But Lake Washington Boulevard is so much more enjoyable when there's not drag racing happening right on your tail, white knuckling your bike. 
 

[00:48:14] Ryan: Yeah. It's probably too much to ask, but you know, a lot of cities do have open street festivals in different neighborhoods. We kind of tried to do that 10 years ago and totally didn't work, but this could be the administration that could finally find a way to do it. Obviously, it's not the top priority, so it's hard to really say that we want that to be, be implemented as soon as possible, but maybe in the future we could, we could see that happening again. 
 

[00:48:42] Doug: Well, yeah, I'm curious if it so much that it didn't work or just that we lost interest in ironing out at the kinks. Like I think of the Pike Pine street closures where they were like doing yoga and things like that in the street. I thought they were really cool, but obviously they maybe thought some of the surrounding property owners and business owners weren't, weren't as bought in, but it felt like they kind of gave up before they'd really tried. 
 

[00:49:05] Ryan: Yeah, I think it was a little of both, but obviously we have Katie Wilson, who clearly has an interest in seeing if the super block could actually work in Capitol Hill, so we shall see. Yeah. Well, that's about all the time we have this week. Thanks for listening to The Urbanist Podcast and catching up on the news with the entire newsroom here. 

Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for being on Amy and Doug. 
 

[00:49:30] Amy: Thank you for having me. 
 

[00:49:32] Doug: Yeah, thanks. Let's, let's get out there and enjoy our spring festivities and festival season 
 

[00:49:37] Ryan: Hopefully the sun will come out at some point. 
 

[00:49:39] Doug: One day over a rainbow. 
 

[00:49:42] Ryan: Bye.