Week in Review: December 5, 2025 - with David Kroman

Senator Rebecca Saldaña Maps Out Legislative Priorities for 2026 Session from Hacks & Wonks

“WA Gov. Bob Ferguson says his budget will rely on cuts, not taxes to balance” by Bill Lucia and Jerry Cornfield from Washington State Standard

“Trump administration sues WA for not sharing voter data” by Jake Goldstein-Street from Washington State Standard

“Seattle doubles bailout for ailing affordable housing sector” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times

“Katie Wilson picks key advisers for Seattle mayor’s office” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times

“Eddie Lin takes seat on Seattle City Council” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times

“First Look at South King County’s Three New Light Rail Stations” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist

“Light rail’s push to Federal Way gives students, workers front-door access” by Nicholas Deshais from The Seattle Times

Find stories that Crystal is reading here

Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here

[00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. 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.

If you missed our Tuesday topical show, I chatted with Senator Rebecca Saldaña of the 37th Legislative District about her 2026 legislative priorities, including protecting healthcare access, defending immigrants, and reforming Washington's regressive tax system with a payroll tax on high earners.

Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Seattle Times City Hall reporter David Kroman. Welcome back!

[00:01:05] David Kroman: Hi, thanks so much for having me.

[00:01:07] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you back - we have a lot to talk about. Before we do get in there, I just do want to remind people that we usually have two weeks a show come out, but we have been on an amended and abbreviated schedule. Shannon Cheng, who is our producer, editor - all things amazing and basically the wind beneath my wings - is battling cancer. Life has been busy on all fronts - and challenging - and so that has amended our schedule. We're doing our best, but we probably are not going to be at a regular two-show-a-week cadence consistently for a while. So we ask that you just bear with us and we'll get shows out when we can - as we deal with real life things. So we appreciate that.

And we will begin talking about the news of the week with a couple things at the state level. The first thing I wanted to talk about was news this week that Governor Bob Ferguson says his budget will rely completely on cuts to close the deficit that the state is facing - and not taxes, as the Legislature has been discussing. What is he talking about here? Why is he saying this is his preferred route?

[00:02:23] David Kroman: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't particularly surprise me. The state is facing another deficit and whenever there's a deficit, the question is - do we close it with new revenue or cuts? And Ferguson - coming into office, I think there was just a lot of question marks around what kind of governor he would be. I would say so far - at least in last session, he kind of tried to straddle a line between someone that kind of more moderate that maybe Republicans could work with, while kind of still acknowledging the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party - which is why last year they ended up with new taxes to help with the budget deficit, but not perhaps to the extent that some more progressive lawmakers had wanted. I still think - for my money, I'm still a little bit unsure about exactly the kind of governor he is. I don't think I'm alone in that. Here, though, we're seeing what I think is the clearest lines being drawn between his office and the more progressive wing of the Democratic caucus, which in a state where the opposition party of Republicans is pretty well neutered in a lot of way - the most interesting fights end up being between various Democrats and that's what we're seeing here.

And so - interesting the way in which he announced that this is the way he'd be doing his budget. Ferguson, unlike Inslee, has really not been publicly available to take questions. He doesn't do a lot of press conferences. Inslee did a lot of press conferences with reporters, so you could always hear what he was thinking. With Ferguson, you get these kind of offhanded remarks about how he's going to conduct himself. So we hear this - he says he's going to rely on cuts, not new revenue. That is in opposition to a proposal from some Democrats - Shaun Scott and Rebecca Saldaña - to expand what would essentially be a statewide version of what Seattle has in its payroll tax to close the deficit. How that shakes out - I think in a lot of ways that's the essential fight among Democrats and the left is around progressive revenues and how much is too much, how much is not enough. And that's clearly playing out at state level.

[00:04:21] Crystal Fincher: I think you kind of nailed it in that It seems like he's trying to lay down some boundaries here. But it seems like there might be room for conversations because while he said that his budget that he's proposing is not going to have that, looks like he was also saying - Okay, well, I'm telling you right now, I'm going to veto anything that includes an increase in the sales tax or in property taxes. That does leave a lot of other things that maybe the Legislature can put forward that he might sign, but he's essentially saying - But not property taxes, not sales taxes. Do you feel the same way where maybe there's some room for negotiation there?

[00:05:02] David Kroman: Yeah, it does. And again, it's a little hard to read between the lines of how strongly held some of his opinions are because again, like I said, he's just not out front of a lot of this stuff very often. It's kind of hard to get answers to how he's thinking. And so, yeah, I did read it that way. And I think that leaves the door open for negotiations around something like a payroll tax, a JumpStart Tax. So how that shakes out - I will say as an aside - over the last probably two years, at least in the kind of Seattle area, but arguably at state level too, the most winning political issue has been taxing the wealthy and corporations. However one feels personally about that, we had this - in some ways, the biggest gift that the kind of conservative political party of Washington gave to Democrats was putting the capital gains tax referendum on a statewide ballot. Because then it failed spectacularly in places that were - I think voted for Trump - that opposed repealing a capital gains tax. And so what that signaled to a lot of Democrats in the State Legislature is this is a politically popular issue - taxes on rich people and corporations. I think we saw that in the last session where they pushed forward a pretty big new tax package. I would say that the political strength of that issue was only reinforced with first the Social Housing vote, which then of course inspired Katie Wilson to get into the mayor's race. There was nobody on the campaign trail in Seattle who was explicitly anti-progressive revenue and quite a few people who were running on building their platform around that. And all of those people won. So it's not really - it may be kind of contentious, of course, among business groups and the Chamber of Commerce and however you want to view it. But the details of Shaun Scott and Rebecca Saldaña's proposal aside, they have a pretty strong claim to it being a politically popular one. I don't know when that popularity runs out, if ever - it might eventually. But as of right now, we're not getting a lot of signals from the electorate that they are tired of taxing rich people and corporations.

[00:07:12] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I think you're completely spot on with that. And that will certainly impact, I think, how legislative Democrats and the caucus moves forward with these proposals. And probably why there is room for some negotiation, if there is, with Governor Ferguson, because this is politically popular. And I think in the article, it kind of referenced - they have made some cuts before, several billion dollars worth of cuts. And now thinking of making additional ones, they only get more painful the deeper you go. And so stacking that against progressive revenue - that, to your point, has proven popular on the east and west side of the mountains, among not only progressive Democrats, but all Democrats and independents and people who traditionally vote Republican - really going to make for an interesting conversation.

I also want to talk about news this week that we received that the Trump administration has signaled its intention to sue Washington for not sharing voter data. What's behind this and how is Washington responding?

[00:08:25] David Kroman: As far as what's behind it, we're never entirely sure what's behind federal decisions. It's not like they're calling up our local elected people and having sit down conversations and explaining the rationale here. It's usually politically motivated and tends to be red meat issues. So voter rolls and how votes are counted is a red meat issue for Trump and his base. Washington being an all-mail-in election system, particularly, I think probably drew their attention because that has been a target of people on the right wing, both at the national and local level. What they do with that information, I don't know. It certainly would suggest some precursor to a push, I would assume, to clamp down on mail-in ballots. The Trump administration had kind of signaled that that's where they wanted to go - I don't remember the specifics of exactly how. But right now, the last I heard from Steve Hobbs - he said he basically hasn't seen whatever they're serving him with, that he doesn't actually know whether or not he's literally been sued. So he is still taking a line of he doesn't even know what they're asking for. He would have pretty strong - in Washington state, which is, I think, the only state in the country that did not move right in the last presidential election, it is still probably the most anti-Trump state in the country. He would have pretty strong political ground to stand on to refuse that request. I assume that he probably will do whatever he needs to do to refuse that request. But like a lot of things for the Trump administration, we can speculate on where they want to go from here, but I don't know exactly what they would do with that information.

[00:10:01] Crystal Fincher: And it seems like from what has been reported, what's been discussed at the state level, that the Trump administration is asking for much more detailed voter data than is publicly accessible. And that they have access to the publicly accessible data, which are things like your name, address, birth date, and potentially the record of elections that you have voted in - not how you voted, but just that you voted. And that they're asking for information above and beyond that could include driver's license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security codes. And that seems to be where there is the contention with them saying - Wait a minute, that's private data. Us handing that over can have a variety of downsides for Washington residents, people on the voter rolls, people that are consumers. We don't know if this is going to be misused, abused, whether it's used for ICE or other information. And Washington is contending they have no reason to hand that over. And so it's going to be really interesting to see what this actually becomes and how this is presented in court.

[00:11:16] David Kroman: Yeah. And there's a piece here too, which is that they might just want to be picking a fight to pick a fight. They know that Steve Hobbs and Washington state would refuse this request. This is an administration that likes to needle Democratic lawmakers and states and jurisdictions - and sometimes they just relish the fight itself and think it's politically beneficial to them. I don't know that it's politically beneficial to them because Trump is as unpopular right now as he's ever been. But I don't think we should rule out the possibility that perhaps they're not even that interested in this information. Because I assume that there are other ways they could find a lot of this stuff if they have a sound reason for wanting it. But my hunch is they just like the idea of a fight with Washington state.

[00:11:58] Crystal Fincher: I think you're onto something there. Now I want to turn to Seattle and talk about a story you wrote this week about Seattle doubling the bailout for Seattle's affordable housing sector, which has been struggling. What's happening here?

[00:12:13] David Kroman: Yeah, so Seattle is spending a lot of money to build affordable housing - and that is because voters said that they want to spend a lot of money to build affordable housing. Housing Levy, we have the payroll tax, so this year's budget is $340 million, which is bigger than every year except for maybe last year. The challenge is that pretty much every developer and provider of affordable housing is reporting financial challenges right now. It's nearly unanimous. And the reasons for that are a few, which is the cost of owning and operating and building affordable housing has gone up. After the pandemic, there was a lot of backlog maintenance that needed to be done. I think fentanyl has been really difficult for a lot of affordable housing providers - there have been more safety issues. And then there are other pieces like the cost of insurance has gone up 300, 400%. Cost of utilities has gone up. And as all of this is happening, most providers are finding that they are not getting the level of rent payment that their financial models were built around. So a lot of these buildings really require 95% rental payments. Some of them are hovering more around 80, 70, even 60% rental payments. So this is a pretty universal issue in the affordable housing space. The reasons for that are sort of debatable. Some providers argue it's the result of Seattle's landlord-tenant laws. Others make a more holistic argument, which is that the city has incentivized too many studio apartments for people earning around 60, 70% AMI and Those are no longer filling up, and so there's a lot of vacancies in some of these apartments.

Regardless, the deep financial insecurity in this sector has forced the City to ask itself how it's going to be spending its money. And over the last two years, the City has now had to spend $42 million just to help out affordable housing providers from basically going out of business or more near-term needing to sell off buildings. Because, of course, we don't want them getting out of the business entirely. And so it's kind of a tough reality because we all want more housing for people who can't afford to live here. But we're in the situation where we're spending tens of millions of dollars - $42 million is not chump change - just propping up the housing we've already built. So this isn't getting us any new housing, it's just making sure the housing we have doesn't go away. For my money, it's probably among the most underrated issues facing City Hall right now. And it didn't come up very often on the campaign trail - just how precarious this industry is right now. But for Katie Wilson, it's going to be a big task to figure out what the City does about this, because the options before her are we basically accept our new reality, which is we spend $30 million a year just to keep these providers from going out of business. Or we do a wholesale holistic change - there's some people are advocating for entire debt and loan restructuring, changing how these buildings are being rented out, building an entirely different sort of affordable housing going forward. So. It's a pretty existential question without a lot of easy solutions.

[00:15:27] Crystal Fincher: Well, and how does social housing fit into this mix?

[00:15:31] David Kroman: Yeah, that's a good question. We don't know exactly yet because we haven't had any come online yet. Social housing - it's a little different because the financing for a lot of the affordable housing that we're talking about is extremely complex and relies on a lot of debt from banks and selling tax credits. And so I think a lot of the sort of math to get there for a lot of these buildings was built on a lot of assumptions that may or may not be true anymore. Social housing, though, in some ways is a lot easier because it's just the City is taxing people and bringing in money and is going to use that money to build housing. With social housing, you could imagine a reality where perhaps the money they bring in doesn't build as much housing as they wanted or whatever - maybe it's not as cost effective as they'd hoped. But because it's not contingent on banks and debt and investors and these really sort of precise calculations that they made, I think in some ways it's not going to be as kind of house of cards-y, if that makes sense. Social housing has all of its own questions, which is how quickly can they find and build buildings? I think it's probably going to end up being more complicated than they hope. But in my estimation, that's kind of a different conversation than what's happening with the affordable housing sector.

[00:16:53] Crystal Fincher: Definitely. Well, we will continue to pay attention to it. I think you're absolutely right that this is one of the most vexing challenges that Mayor-Elect Wilson will have to contend with. Really a thorny one. A lot of people counting on housing becoming more affordable, certainly one of Mayor-elect Wilson's top priorities. We'll see how things progress.

Now I also want to talk a little bit more about Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson - because she announced some key advisors in the mayor's office and city, announcing some members of her team, which I was actually pretty impressed with. What did she announce?

[00:17:33] David Kroman: Well, we already knew about her transition team. This is her first round of hires that she's announcing here. Yeah, it's interesting. There are some expected names and some surprises, I suppose. In a general sense, when I look at the people that she's announced, I see a mayor-elect who's trying to balance hiring people that she knows well and trusts and has loyalty to, with a number of people that maybe she doesn't as personally close to but sees some value in having around. So I'm thinking specifically of - her chief of staff is Kate Kreuzer, who worked for FutureWise, but for years was the treasurer for the Transit Riders Union that Katie Wilson co-founded. And so those two are tight, they're really close. So in selecting her, Wilson is choosing to bring someone on that she feels like she can trust.

But then as a deputy mayor, she hired Brian Surratt, who worked for Ed Murray as the Office of Economic Development head, is pretty popular in the business community - he's on the Downtown Seattle Association board of directors. And this is somebody who was described to me by one person as really not having a lot of enemies in Seattle - he moves through a lot of different circles and is quite well known. And as far as I can tell, he and Wilson didn't have any kind of relationship, at least before the primary. But Wilson clearly sees him as somebody who - as the deputy mayor, he's kind of the vice president of this administration in some ways. He will be the person who, when Katie Wilson can't show up to an event or whatever, he'll be the person who goes and he's the forward-facing voice there. And so I think in him, Wilson sees somebody who can be sort of a bridge to some of the organizations and people who did not support her. I'm thinking specifically of like the Downtown Seattle Association or even the Chamber, Amazon possibly. I'm sure Amazon knows Brian Surratt and likes Brian Surratt.

So it's just kind of an interesting balance because there's some pretty clearly progressive names here, but then also some more mainstream-y City Hall types, City Hall veteran types. I think of Aly Pennucci as the City Budget Director - that's kind of an interesting choice - she was an analyst for the City Council for years, but then left, I think, out of frustration in part, working for Council President Sara Nelson. So she's making a return to City Hall. So I think Wilson is trying to make good on what she said, which is that she understands her own inexperience in elected office and is going to try and bring in people who have a lot of time in City Hall, while also bringing in some progressive allies. And it feels like she's doing that.

[00:20:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it does feel like she's doing that. And she released a video also earlier this week explaining her approach to the transition and what she was doing. And I think she expressed a similar sentiment, just saying - Hey, I'm putting together a team of diverse people. And people who are diverse in every way. We see representation from various interests throughout the city, certainly, racial inclusion here. We see inclusion from, like you said, business and labor. So many different communities, different advocates - some who she agrees with about a lot, some who she doesn't agree with about a lot, but they may be able to align on different things. I know some picks have raised eyebrows in various places for going - Oh, you know, that doesn't seem like someone who's completely aligned or maybe wasn't absolutely supportive. But I do think when you are moving into the role of mayor, you're the mayor for everyone in the city. And it's really important to have lines of communication open in the city. I think that's a very different thing than what some may have felt and reacted in opposition to with prior administrations, where maybe business has an outsized voice, an outsized influence. Trying to avoid that, but saying, I'm not icing anyone out. I'm here to listen to everyone, to listen to concerns, to gather information - that's a really useful and important thing, as I move forward with my agendas and the priorities that I have articulated. I think that's absolutely possible.

And I'm just very, very encouraged by a number of the names that I've seen because it just looks like there's a very thoughtful approach. And to your point with Brian Surratt - almost everyone I've seen on the list, whether they have been part of progressive advocacy or have been in business, are people who seem to be bridge builders, people who seem to have good relationships across a variety of coalitions. I'm even looking at Seferiana Day as communications director, and just a number of names that really get me excited, and people who've built up really solid reputations over the past several years. So stay tuned. I am staying tuned. but we will see how that continues to unfold.

Also, we had another swearing in - of Eddie Lin, the District 2 councilmember. How did that go?

[00:22:30] David Kroman: Yeah, it is interesting, actually - he was sworn in before he was kind of ceremonially sworn in, because he took office right when the vote was certified because he's replacing Mark Solomon, who is an interim councilmember. So he had actually had his first official meeting as a council person before he really had his swearing in ceremony, which was interesting. And Eddie Lin is kind of the first entrant into City government that represents, I would say, a return to some kind of power for progressives in Seattle. Of course, there was Councilmember Rinck, who was kind of holding that down. But this last election was uniformly positive for the city's left-wing progressive candidates. And so Eddie Lin is the first of those to enter City Hall. And at his first meeting - it was a Council briefing - they were talking about their state legislative agenda, so what they would be lobbying Olympia for. And he right away pushed for amending the agenda to include more conversation about flexibility around progressive revenue. As we talked about before, this was a very winning issue on the campaign trail - and there wasn't any sort of concrete action, but the fact that these were really his first comments, his first official comments as a council person, that they were pushing for adding this to the state legislative agenda, shows that he and I'm sure Dionne Foster and then Wilson, when they take office, are going to make good on what they talked about on the campaign trail - is that they support more progressive revenue. So that was interesting.

I think with Eddie Lin - an ongoing theme of City Hall right now is it is just so inexperienced. That was true in 2023 when that whole new slate was brought in. So you had a majority of the Council all being sworn in at the same time. And then Sara Nelson had a bit of experience - she's gone now. Tammy Morales left, replaced by Mark Solomon, who's now being replaced by Eddie Lin. And so in Lin, I think you get somebody who - he is an attorney, he works as assistant city attorney. He did a lot of housing policy around affordable housing and helping the City close deals around affordable housing. So he's new from a political perspective, which I think is important. But in some ways, he's kind of now one of the more experienced city government voices on that body, which I do think - particularly when you're thinking about writing legislation, which is a new skill for anybody who's joining. City Council, it won't feel that new to him because I think in some ways it was his job to vet some of this legislation that was coming through the City Council. So he's going to know, he's going to kind of understand the nuts and bolts in a way that a lot of people coming into this job won't. There is still going to be a pretty steep political learning curve. How do you compromise? How do you push forward legislation? How do you work with all your colleagues? But in a city government as inexperienced as this one, I think his experience is going to end up being important.

[00:25:15] Crystal Fincher: I think that's a really important point. There have been criticisms - that I have shared - with the Council, and a lot of the criticism isn't necessarily strictly about the ideology. Some is, but some is just about how they have conducted themselves and just some of the nuts and bolts of the job - how to write legislation, how to stakeholder legislation, how to coordinate with the departments who are responsible for it implementing this legislation that you're writing so it has a shot of delivering the results that you're saying it will as you're passing it. Those have been challenges for this Council - understanding the boundaries and the roadblocks of what they're able to do, what is in their jurisdiction and what isn't. I think Eddie Lin has a fantastic grasp on that, as you just said, and that's going to be really helpful to have more of this experience on the Council and just give their actions a better shot of achieving the results that they intend.

[00:26:20] David Kroman: Yeah, and I'll be interested to - because he comes in as Chair of the Land Use Committee, only sort of by default, because that's what Mark Solomon was. That's all going to get shuffled in the New Year when they have to choose a new council president to replace Sara Nelson. I'll be interested though - I think it would make some logical sense for him to keep that job, particularly because housing and affordability is going to be such an important piece over the next two, four years. And a council as inexperienced as this one, it could make some logical sense to have him there. Of course, there is some politicking that goes into those committee assignments as well. It's a much more balanced council than it was a few months ago, but it's still not an overwhelmingly progressive council or anything like that. And so whoever ends up being council president is going to have a lot of influence over who gets what committee assignment and what that means for certain policy proposals. But again, if you want someone who understands how land use really works and can ensure that the legislation that goes through there is viable, Eddie Lin does make a certain amount of sense. So it'll be interesting to see if he ends up staying in that chair role that he is right now.

[00:27:20] Crystal Fincher: I haven't even been involved in the banter, but any word on who a likely next Council President may be?

[00:27:28] David Kroman: You know, this is all just sort of palace intrigue stuff. My sense is it's going to be one of either Dan Strauss, Joy Hollingsworth, or Bob Kettle - would be my guess. This isn't really based on anything. I would say that perhaps right now - I mean, in some ways, Joy Hollingsworth probably has the most broad appeal. She's known for - she can work with anybody on that council, she's not the most ideological of the bunch. Dan Strauss has the more traditional claim to the job, which is that he's the most veteran - that's usually how this has gone. But on a council with so many new people, that standard has gone a bit out the window and I think it's safe to say that not everybody on that council gets along with Dan Strauss exactly. And then Bob Kettle, I think some people look to him in a way because - whatever you think of his politics, he's a process-oriented person. He respects process a lot. And he's a military guy, ex-Navy. And I think Sara Nelson was not particularly good at that and that frustrated some people. And so I think for some on the Council, there's some appeal to having a guy that they feel like can kind of run a tight ship - pun perhaps intended, with his Navy background. So my guess is it's one of those three, but that'll probably change with the introduction of Eddie Lin and Dionne Foster - they're going to have a say too - so I don't know how it ends up shaking out.

[00:28:47] Crystal Fincher: Certainly really interesting. We'll see how those conversations unfold. Now I want to talk about this week - some exciting news. We have three new light rail stations about to open up. Where are they? What's going on and how are they commemorating this?

[00:29:06] David Kroman: Yeah, this is south - this is Kent Des Moines, Star Lake. I've never - I didn't know Star Lake was a real place, if I'm being honest - but yeah, south of the airport. I think these are really significant. Well, I mean, there's a few ways that I think about these. One, whenever a new station opens up on the I-5 corridor, it's kind of an interesting reminder of the philosophical approach that Sound Transit took to building light rail. There's a few ways you could have gone here, which is you have a light rail system that is a little more urban - think of Capitol Hill Station, Roosevelt, UW, ones that move through cities. And then you have the light rail stations that are clearly aimed at commuters and those are the ones along the I-5 corridor. It's no coincidence that the commuter lanes are in Pierce and Snohomish County - that's what it took to get buy-in from those board members. So this is very much in the commuter vein of light rail stations. I think it's going to go a long way for a pretty diverse set of communities. And I think it, as my colleague Nick Deshais wrote about, it really hinges a lot around Highland College and SeaTac Airport, because a lot of people who work at SeaTac are going to depend on this light rail line to get there. And then a lot of people who go to Highline College are going to depend on these lines. So I think for some pretty specific groups of people - which are quite large groups of people, a lot of people work at SeaTac - it's going to be really significant. If you're not within those - if you don't go to Highline College or you don't work at SeaTac - maybe you won't feel the significance quite as much. But I think economically, it could mean a lot for the people who live in those areas who need to get north. You know, he talked to some people who - it's now going to be a lot easier if you live in Kent but want to work downtown and don't want to drive, you can take that route rather than, say, the Sounder train or whatever it might have been. So, yeah, I think it opens up a lot of opportunities from a commuter perspective. But it does follow this model that has been laid out, which is this spine that kind of traces traditional commuter routes.

[00:31:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's spot on. I'm really excited for all three stations. I am a South County girl who is very familiar with Kent Des Moines, Star Lake, and Federal Way - those stations, the areas around them, and just how vibrant the communities are down and around these places. And also, a lot of people, I think this is absolutely everything that you said, following the commuter model, really going to make a difference for the populations that you mentioned. But also just a line into these communities from Seattle - for a lot of people who are not familiar at all, there's a ton in Kent and Midway and Federal Way, whether it's dining options or shopping or community events or a variety of different things - there's a lot in these South County communities that I think lots of people would have a really fun time exploring and discovering. Light rail makes that really easy. The Sounder train had been kind of on a parallel line, but that only operates during peak commute time, so it's not a real transit option day in and day out. And so this is a really big deal, I think, for South King County. It has taken a while to get here. I think people are excited to see it finally arrive here. But I certainly am excited about this and looking forward to it.

[00:32:31] David Kroman: Yeah, the key is that Sound Transit owns these tracks because the Sounder - those tracks are owned by BNSF. And so it is useful for people getting to Seattle during rush hour, but BNSF is extremely inflexible about providing additional service time for transit outside of commuter hours, with the exception of a few special trains on Seahawks games or whatever. Adding service to the Sounder is really hard because BNSF basically just doesn't want to do it. Now Sound Transit owns these tracks, it gives them a lot more flexibility to help people move. A lot of people who grew up in Seattle now live in Kent and so as a result, there is quite a vibrant and interesting community down there, as you said. And hopefully it kind of reintegrates some of that, some of what was lost by people who felt like maybe they left Seattle not entirely by choice. But now there's this vibrant community in South County. And hopefully people like me can get down there more often and spend more time down there as a result.

[00:33:34] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, December 5th, 2025. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle Times City Hall reporter David Kroman. You can find David on Bluesky at @KromanDavid. You can follow Hacks & Wonks and me on Bluesky too. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical shows delivered to your podcast feed. And if you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com.

Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.