Week in Review: June 12, 2026 - with Erica Barnett
Seattle's council pauses large AI data centers for a year, Link set a ridership record even as the Ballard extension was shelved, and KCRHA's deficit grew to about $65 million as auditors warn its turnaround plan should not be taken on faith.
What we cover in this week-in-review:
Seattle Council Votes to Pause New Large Data Centers
King County Regional Homelessness Authority's Financial Crisis Deepens
Seattle Council Considers Clarifying Role of CARE Department Crisis Responders
Seattle Council Votes to Pause New Large Data Centers
The Seattle City Council voted 9-0 this week to impose a one year moratorium on new large scale data centers, joining more than 70 cities across the country that have enacted temporary or permanent bans on the facilities. The moratorium applies to large data centers drawing more than 20 megawatts of power, and the legislation includes an option to extend the pause for an additional six months while the city develops a longer term policy.
The vote followed proposals from four companies seeking to build a combined five data centers in Seattle that, together, would have used roughly as much electricity as a third of what the entire city currently consumes. While smaller data centers already operate in Seattle, the scale of the proposed facilities drew significant public attention because of concerns about energy use, water consumption, noise pollution, and the potential to drive up electricity rates for residents.
Council members heard overwhelming opposition during the legislative process. Over 50 people testified against allowing the data centers to proceed, with none speaking in favor, and tens of thousands of residents wrote to the city with the vast majority urging adoption of a moratorium.
PubliCola editor and Seattle Nice podcast co-host Erica Barnett said the testimony reflected broader skepticism toward the demands of large technology companies. Residents and council members alike were asking, she said, "Why do we need this? What good does this do for the public?"
Barnett also pointed to questions about whether the current pace of AI data center development reflects real, lasting demand or a speculative bubble. As she put it, "a year pause is also just going to allow some time for potentially that bubble to burst," giving the city a clearer picture before it commits to accommodating a wave of new facilities. The year long delay is intended to give the city time to craft a data center policy that addresses the energy, water, and cost concerns raised by the proposed projects.
Link Light Rail Sets Ridership Record After Crosslake Connection Opens, But Ballard Extension Remains Shelved
Link light rail ridership hit a new high following the opening of the Crosslake Connection across Interstate 90. Barnett said the milestone makes Link "the most popular light rail system in the entire country" by ridership.
Barnett said the surge proves a simple principle about transit investment: "if you have a system that goes places people want to go, they're going to ride it." The Sound Transit Board recently voted to prioritize completing the light rail spine to Everett and Tacoma over extending the line to Ballard, citing a $35 billion shortfall in the ST3 program. Barnett said the Ballard extension, as proposed, would have been the system's highest ridership corridor, with projected boardings of around 171,000, more than the new record set this week on the Crosslake Connection.
Barnett said she fears the new record could prove to be, in her words, "a high watermark, for now at least, in the light rail system," and said she hopes the strong ridership data prompts a rethink of how expansion priorities are set going forward.
Recent commentary in The Urbanist by Robert Cruickshank has called for restructuring Sound Transit's leadership as one avenue that could help revive prospects for completing the Ballard line. The strong ridership numbers arrive as the cost of driving and parking continues to climb for many residents, underscoring arguments that expanding transit access, particularly to dense job centers like Seattle, remains a priority even as the agency works through its current financial constraints.
King County Regional Homelessness Authority's Financial Crisis Deepens
The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is facing what Barnett described as "a very devastating forensic audit" that found the agency has had poor financial reporting practices since its founding, including a failure to perform basic monthly closeouts. The audit found that KCRHA lost track of roughly $8 million in funding that it has spent and may have to write off because there is currently no way to seek reimbursement for it.
The agency's deficit has continued to grow even since the audit was released, climbing from about $45 million to around $65 million, according to Barnett's reporting. KCRHA sent a corrective action plan to the city and county earlier this month in response to the audit's findings.
Barnett reported that the city and county were discussing, as recently as last week, a proposal to take back the homeless service contracts that KCRHA currently administers, returning them to Seattle's Human Services Department and King County's Department of Community and Human Services. Under that scenario, KCRHA would retain only the responsibilities it is required by federal law to handle as the region's Continuum of Care, including administering the annual Point in Time count of the homeless population. For now, the city and county have decided not to take that step. Instead, they plan to fund embedded accountants at KCRHA, which has not had a chief financial officer since last October, to help address the agency's financial problems.
Barnett said auditors have responded to KCRHA's corrective action plan by warning funders not to take the agency's assurances at face value. She said, "the level of trust is extremely low," citing a pattern in which KCRHA has repeatedly said it was addressing problems without following through. Barnett said KCRHA's leadership, CEO Kelly Kinnison and her deputy William Towey, has largely attributed the agency's problems to the previous administration under former director Mark Dones, and has pointed to reimbursement timing with nonprofit contractors as a driver of the deficit. Barnett said auditors have rejected that explanation, noting that other agencies operate under similar reimbursement structures without seeing their deficits grow the way KCRHA's has.
Asked where the situation is likely headed, Barnett said, "Yeah, I think they're going to dissolve the agency. I think it just might happen in a more purposeful and measured way over time rather than one big announcement that they're yanking back all the contracts, which could be really disruptive."
The financial crisis has become a flashpoint in this year's King County Council races. Fincher moderated a housing forum this week featuring two candidates for County Council District 2, Port Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa and State Senator Rebecca Saldaña, both of whom raised concerns about the audit findings and voiced support for a continued regional approach to homelessness. But Barnett said she has not heard city or county leaders propose a clear alternative structure for that regional coordination. "I'm not hearing a proposed alternative to the KCRHA," she said, adding that while there is broad agreement on the need for some kind of regional policy, there is little appetite simply to return to the pre-KCRHA arrangement, in which the city, the county, and 39 other cities in the county each managed their own contracts separately.
Seattle Council Considers Clarifying Role of CARE Department Crisis Responders
The Seattle City Council is considering legislation, introduced by Councilmember Bob Kettle, that would clarify the role of the CARE Department's crisis responders by formally designating them as first responders alongside police and fire. Barnett, who watched the committee discussion, said the practical effect of the change is unclear. "To be honest, I don't think it will change a whole lot," she said.
The Seattle Police Officers Guild contract significantly restricts when CARE responders can be dispatched. Under current rules, CARE teams cannot respond to crises occurring inside private buildings, in vehicles, or on private property such as grocery store parking lots, because those locations fall outside the scope the contract allows. Barnett said CARE teams have been so constrained by the contract that "they've been restricted and not allowed to respond to grocery store parking lots because they are grocery store property," even when a behavioral health crisis is unfolding there.
Kettle's legislation does not rewrite that contract, but it could open the door to some narrower changes. Those include no longer tying CARE dispatch exclusively to 911 calls, allowing other agencies such as the Fire Department to refer cases directly to CARE teams, and establishing CARE as the city's official liaison for King County behavioral health programs. The Capitol Hill Seattle Blog has covered the proposal in detail.
Barnett said the biggest barrier to expanding CARE's role remains the SPOG contract itself, and that meaningful change would require revisiting those terms, something she called unlikely under the current administration. She said responsibility for change also rests with the police department's day to day practices, and that "it's on the cops as much as it is on the City Council or the CARE team to change things."
The CARE Department's mission, connecting people experiencing behavioral health crises or substance use issues with appropriate services rather than a police response, has broad public support. But with CARE teams currently unable to respond to many of the situations residents most want addressed, frustration has grown over conflicting messages about whether police are too understaffed to respond to low level calls or unwilling to hand those calls off to CARE. Whether Kettle's legislation moves the needle on CARE's actual deployment numbers remains to be seen.
About the Guest
Erica Barnett
Erica Barnett is a Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast.
Find Erica Barnett on Bluesky at @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com.
Resources
Tatiana Brown Makes Case for Open Senate Seat in the 37th District from Hacks & Wonks
Seattle passes moratorium on new data centers amid national backlash by Greg Kim from The Seattle Times
Link Ridership Soars 46% After Crosslake Connection Opening by Michael Smith from Seattle Transit Blog
KCRHA Lays Out Plan to Address Audit Findings, But Says Many Issues Need "Joint Correction" With City and County by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola
New Federal Guidelines Put Funding for Permanent Supportive Housing at Risk by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola
City, County Plan to "Embed" Consultant to Address Financial Issues at Homelessness Agency by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola
Auditor: KCRHA's Corrective Action Plan Fails to Take Audit Findings Seriously by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola
Proposal would refine mission of Seattle Care Department crisis responders by Justin Carder from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog
Find stories that Crystal is reading here
Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:50] 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 spoke with Tatiana Brown, who is running for the open 37th District State Senate seat on a platform of progressive tax reform, environmental justice, and expanded public safety alternatives and community-driven governance.
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 political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett. Welcome back!
[00:01:52] Erica Barnett: It's great to be here.
[00:01:54] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you here. We've got a number of things to cover today. First off, Seattle passed a moratorium on new data centers. What did Seattle provide, and why did they say they did this?
[00:02:08] Erica Barnett: The Seattle City Council on a 9-0 vote - which is, you know, a pretty overwhelming show of support - voted to essentially put a moratorium on new data centers for the next year. And these are larger data centers with more than 20 megawatts of power. I don't know what a megawatt is, but I'm assuming that these are the biggest data centers that you can have. And they did it because, you know, there's a lot of concern about the proliferation of data centers for AI specifically, and the fact that they use a tremendous amount of energy, a tremendous amount of water, can increase people's energy bills. And so I think that this is just a way of showing some caution about allowing these centers to proliferate for the next year so they can have some time to create a policy. There's an extension option in the bill that would allow another extension for six months. But the idea is that they would create a policy around data centers that would hopefully take care of, or address some of those issues that come up when we've seen these big, giant AI data centers sprout up in other places.
[00:03:20] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and Seattle joins more than 70 cities across the country who have passed temporary or permanent bans on data centers. Data centers currently exist, but they've been much smaller in nature. The data centers that were under consideration were from four companies who'd approached the city about building five data centers that would use as much electricity as about a third of the city does right now. That's a humongous amount just for five data centers and a lot of people were concerned. You talked about this being a unanimous vote by the Council, which is notable given that they range pretty widely in ideology - we see a lot of votes that are not unanimous. What did they cite as their reasons for supporting this? And what did they hear from the public?
[00:04:12] Erica Barnett: So what they heard from the public was a lot of opposition to AI, a lot of questioning - Why do we need this? What good does this do for the public? And I think the City Council responded to that - was very skeptical of the idea that these tech billionaires need this kind of concession from the City, that we would - as you said, just an astronomical amount of energy use - that we would just say okay to that and increase our electricity rates, increase the climate impact. And for what? I mean, I think the question is - Who does this benefit? And why do we need this? And do we need to be investing or giving away so much to these companies that are investing heavily in AI at this point?
You know, I talked on Seattle Nice quite a bit about the AI bubble that is obviously happening right now. And so, I mean, I think that there's some correct skepticism about the rush to give these companies everything they want. And I actually think a year or a year-and-a-half pause could also allow us to get more information about what's happening with AI. Is it still going to be in the same place in a year that it is now where there's all this demand from the tech companies? I mean, do we need this technology to the extent that they claim that we need it? And so, I think a year pause is also just going to allow some time for potentially that bubble to burst. If not burst, deflate. And we'll see like what is actually necessary instead of just sort of reactively responding to tech companies by giving them everything they ask for.
[00:05:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think that we've heard - for a while - comments that, especially from the tech industry, that make it seem like AI is inevitable. It's happening. We just have to get on board. If we miss this train, we're going to be behind and miss out. It's going kill our economy and you aren't going to be employable. But I think people are questioning that. The City Council heard from 50 people who turned up to testify, none of them in support of allowing data centers to proceed. Tens of thousands of people wrote into the City to make their voices heard, the overwhelming majority in support of a moratorium. So it seems like people are asking a lot of those questions that you talked about and saying - We want to really understand what these impacts are, and give us some time to figure this out, and taking an approach that's cautious and like you said, just doesn't hand everything over. So we will continue to pay attention to how that unfolds.
I also want to talk about news this week that Link ridership has soared after the opening of the Crosslake Connection. People are using light rail. What did we learn?
[00:07:15] Erica Barnett: Well, basically, we learned that we have the most popular light rail system in the entire country - the highest ridership with, I think, around 155,000 boardings. And that is after the Crosslake Connection opened across I-90 after some delays. And, you know, I mean, I think what we learned is if you have a system that goes places people want to go, they're going to ride it. And I think that this may unfortunately prove to be a high watermark, for now at least, in the light rail system because, of course, the Sound Transit Board voted to not build the light rail to Ballard. I'm sure you've discussed that on this podcast before, but just briefly, they voted to complete the spine to Everett and Tacoma instead of building to Ballard as part of the ST3 plan in order to help address a $35 billion shortfall. Ballard line would have had the highest ridership in the system with, I think, like 171,000 boardings - if I'm not wrong - on that entire Link line out to Ballard, so several stations on that line.
So reading this news, it's like very exciting. I love that people are riding the train and that it's actually going places people want to be. But it kind of makes me think - Well, why don't we learn that lesson and base our expansion on ridership rather than this idea of completing the spine now? I understand - there's obviously arguments for doing that, including the fact that Snohomish and Pierce Counties have been paying into the system and have not gotten trains. But it's a little dispiriting to look at these great numbers and then think of what we could have if we actually completed the line to Ballard.
[00:09:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I think you captured what I feel pretty well. Light rail is important. Transit is important to cities and regions. It is a hallmark of modern cities, a modern economy. Cities can't support endless cars. They just cannot. Density does not allow that. That's why you see dense places with modern transit systems and that are walkable. But we've had challenges with Sound Transit and the way they are making decisions, even in how they're making concessions in some of the light rail lines or at-grade sections and watching reliability suffer because of those decisions. And infrastructure that's here to serve us for the next several decades is a challenge. I do think that Snohomish and Pierce County have been paying into the system just like everyone else for decades now, and they do need to see results. They deserve to see results. Seattle deserves an extension of transit too, especially like this is where the jobs and the riders are concentrated to the greatest degree. I wish they would do more work to find that. We've seen them pause at the request of some of our largest corporations and reconsider a lot of things, consider new ideas that some large corporations have brought to the table. But have not seemed to have the same kind of curiosity and openness when it comes to other types of initiatives, and I wish we would see that.
I'm hoping some things can still be done to save the Ballard line, that we see some new leadership. I know Robert Cruickshank had a recent op-ed in The Urbanist talking about the need to restructure Sound Transit leadership and how that's done. I think that would be helpful, that's worthy of looking at. But my goodness, people want transit. Like right now, gas costs are killing people. The need to drive and park is killing people. And people deserve an alternative. You shouldn't have to drive. You shouldn't have to spend $500 to $1,000 a month just to get around. Cities can do better than that. And I'm really hoping Sound Transit helps make that happen long into the future.
[00:11:27] Erica Barnett: Same.
[00:11:28] Crystal Fincher: Now, I want to talk about the whole King County Regional Homelessness Authority situation, which you have done an excellent job of covering the entire time. Can you please give us a recap of what we've seen with a recent audit? And what the responses from the authority, from Seattle and King County have been and where we're at now.
[00:11:55] Erica Barnett: Oh boy, just a real quick summary. Okay, I'll give it a shot. So there was, as your listeners probably know, a very devastating forensic audit, technically a forensic report, by auditors that found that KCRHA had for years - since its inception, basically - had extremely poor financial reporting practices, had lost track of some $8 million in funding that it has spent and may have to write off because they don't essentially have a way of getting it reimbursed. They're working on that. But in addition, there is a growing deficit that has grown over time even since the audit from about $45 million to around $65 million as of about a month ago. And so that has to be accounted for. There's a bunch of interest that they have no way of paying for on that debt. And so a lot more details in my coverage in PubliCola, but basically, KCRHA is arguing that they have a plan to deal with that. They sent a corrective action plan to the City and County earlier this month.
And the question is, of course, are the City and County going to accept that plan long term and allow the KCRHA to continue to exist? Or are they going to shut it down? And I think that the latter option is the most likely. I reported this week that the City and County were discussing as recently as last week, a proposal announcing that they were going to take back the homeless service contracts that the City and County used to oversee - meaning that all the contracts with nonprofits would go back to the Human Services Department and the Department of Community and Human Services at the County. And that KCRHA would essentially just run federal contracts, which they have to do by law - they're the Continuum of Care. I don't want to get into too many acronyms here, but that would be among their responsibilities and administering the Point-in-Time count of the homeless population. And so those two things would have remained at KCRHA until the foreseeable future, at least right now. But as of right now, the City and County have decided that they're not going to do that yet. They're going to spend some more money embedding some accountants at KCRHA, which has not had a chief financial officer since last October. And those accountants are supposed to kind of help them address some of the biggest problems and figure out where some of this money went.
[00:14:43] Crystal Fincher: Now, there was, like you said, a corrective action plan given in response to the audit. But that audit raised a lot of questions and essentially said the management of the agency is no longer worthy of trust, even to verify that things are moving forward - and that you need to independently make sure that these benchmarks are being met. It looks like KCRHA said - Yeah, you know, of course we welcome that. But where does, I guess, the trust stand? And what are people indicating moving forward that they'd like to see? Are they truly looking at reforming this agency? Are they open to potentially dissolving this and moving in a different direction?
[00:15:29] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I mean, I think the level of trust is extremely low. And as you mentioned, the auditor - their findings were kind of shocking, honestly. In the original audit, there was just a lot of stuff that was going on that was not in keeping with basic accounting practices. Like they didn't do monthly closeouts, for example. They don't have a - basically a financial system in place that is required by federal law. And so I think the trust is very low. The auditors actually responded to the corrective action plan - and I have a story about that in PubliCola that went up on Wednesday - basically saying, look, like, a lot of the stuff in this corrective action plan says that the solutions are underway and that we're working on it and that we've already begun. And you, the funders - King County and the City - should not trust that. You need to verify it because they have a long history at this agency of saying that they are doing things and then not doing them. And they have a list of commitments that they made and did not fulfill.
And I think one of the things that's going on at the KCRHA is they're trying to pass the buck a lot right now. Kelly Kinnison, the CEO, and her right-hand person, William Towey, or Towey - I apologize, I don't know how to pronounce his name - but they have sort of circled the wagons and are saying that a lot of these problems stem from the previous administration at KCRHA under Mark Dones and that a lot of the problems have been addressed by the new leadership. They've blamed a lot of the deficit on the fact that they have to pay out to the nonprofits and get reimbursed by their funders. But the auditor has said over and over at this point that that is not the issue, that there are lots of other agencies that work this way. And that the problem with KCRHA is that their deficit keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger over time. And so I think there is a lot of reason not to, or at least to trust but verify some of the stuff that the KCRHA is saying, because as the auditor said in its most recent report, I mean, they are just kind of not taking responsibility for some of these things that should be like laid at their feet. So I think there's not a lot of trust. I don't know what this decision to fund an accountant or accounting team within the agency means long term. But my guess, I mean, if I was going to bet, I would say - Yeah, I think they're going to dissolve the agency. I think it just might happen in a more purposeful and measured way over time rather than one big announcement that they're yanking back all the contracts, which could be really disruptive.
[00:18:10] Crystal Fincher: So does that mean that they bring these services in-house? Are they still considering or indicating their desire for a regional solution? I moderated a housing forum last night with County Council candidates - current Port Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa and State Senator Rebecca Saldaña - who both expressed a lot of concern about what they're seeing from these audit reports and also talked about their desire to continue to see a regional solution, I think ideally within this agency. But either way, there needs to be a regional approach. Are you hearing that from people on the City and County Councils?
[00:18:52] Erica Barnett: I mean, I am hearing that, but I - I'm not hearing a proposed alternative to the KCRHA, right? I mean, I'm hearing that there needs to be regional policy and perhaps that could be administered by the City and County. I don't think that there is an overwhelming desire to just go back to the way things were before, which is that the City administered its contracts, the County administered its contracts, and all the other cities in the county that are part of the KCRHA - the other 39 cities - just kind of did their own thing. I think there is a feeling on the County and City Councils and in the Execs' offices that - yeah, we need to have some kind of regional approach. But I think that the KCRHA, which has been essentially a pass-through agency for all of those contracts, is not really a regional approach. I think that is kind of what we have learned. Like, there's an office and there are a lot of people working there and there's a lot of administrative overhead, but what have we gotten for that? There hasn't really been a change in policy. There hasn't really been a regional policy. There's just been a new agency administering essentially all the same contracts. And so I think that there's just been a lot of wasted time and kind of wasted money on this because that regional policy and regional strategy never really happened. And there's a lot of reasons for that. There's a lot of upheaval and mistakes made in the first few years. But I think when we look back, if we do come up with a regional policy - and I don't know that we can because everybody, all the cities have different beliefs about what should be done about homelessness, and there's more conservative places and more liberal places. But if that happens, I don't think it necessarily requires a whole agency to be in charge of all these contracts. It just, it feels like there's a lot of redundancies that were created with this agency. So I think there's a desire, but I don't think that people feel that it necessarily has to reside within a completely separate government like it has.
[00:20:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's fair. And I also - I mean, certainly I have thought this early in its inception and throughout, and we heard last night in that forum expressed also - that it seems like the agency might have been set up for failure in the beginning. Because to your point, it hasn't truly been regional. We see most of the funding come from the City of Seattle, in comparison to other cities in the county. And its inception seemed motivated by the executives who were in charge at the time - the then mayor of Seattle perhaps just wanting to punt on the issue and to not have that on his plate directly. And I don't think that changed in subsequent mayors after that, early in its formation. So was this really an attempt to escape accountability on a local level or not have to deal with this growing problem directly and seek more help? Kind of a lack of accountability versus a true desire to address this problem in collaboration with regional partners. But we will certainly see - it's going to be a lot coming in terms of news - seems like between the City and County Councilmembers that we're getting statements every day and all the time about various things. Certainly a lot to talk about on the campaign trail for candidates who are running right now. So we'll see how this proceeds.
Now, another interesting thing happened this week - and that was a proposal to refine the mission of the Seattle CARE Department crisis responders. What is this, and what would it change?
[00:22:38] Erica Barnett: I mean, to be honest, I don't think it will change a whole lot. But the legislation, as I understand it - and I did watch this meeting and I have to say, I still don't entirely understand the intent, but I'll give it a go. Essentially, the City Council is considering legislation that would clarify the role of CARE team crisis responders and specifically clarify that they are first responders along the lines of Police and Fire. And the import or the impact of this is a little unclear to me. The CARE Department itself - Amy Barden, the head of the CARE Department - was not there. I think the intent - and this legislation is from Bob Kettle on the Council - I think the intent is to try to give CARE a little more agency and ability to respond to crises, despite the fact that the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract says that they are extremely restricted in their ability to do so. I don't know if it's going to make any actual difference in terms of what they are legally allowed to respond to, because the City signed this contract that essentially signed away almost all of CARE's ability to respond to crises. And I think we've talked about this before. They're not allowed to respond if something, if a crisis occurs inside a building that isn't public. They're not allowed to respond if it's in - somebody in a car. Just they've been restricted and not allowed to respond to grocery store parking lots because they are grocery store property and therefore they're private property. This legislation doesn't really change any of that. It's, I think, more of a statement of intent than anything. And I think for CARE to be able to respond more effectively and be able to sort of fulfill its purpose, they're going to have to revisit that contract. And that is pretty unlikely to happen during this administration. So Bob Kettle, I think, is very frustrated that CARE has not been able to respond to crises that it absolutely should be able to respond to - like mental health crises, like drug-related crisis that doesn't involve, that doesn't require like the Fire Department. And they're just - they're stymied. They have to wait for police to show up, and often they don't. So it's a good faith effort, but they're going to have to go back into the contract to really make a difference.
[00:25:11] Crystal Fincher: I think your assessment is right, and I'm going to be interested to see if this does move the needle at all. It seems like there has been a reliance on reading what the SPOG contract says and how it has limited them very broadly - and that there were some areas that were brought up that seemingly limited the scope of what CARE could do. This is looking to cause some of them. I mean, I think there could potentially be a little bit of impact from this, like not explicitly tying their dispatch to 911 calls as it currently is and saying that they could be dispatched via other mechanisms - that other agencies can refer things, like the Fire Department could refer calls to the CARE team. And that they can take on a liaison role as the official point of contact for all King County programs. The Capitol Hill Seattle Blog did a nice piece covering this.
So I think that can make some change around the margins. But I think to your point, the biggest barrier to deployment and expansion of CARE is that Seattle Police Officers Guild contract and what it limits their scope to be. There are few things more popular in the city than the CARE team and what their mission is. People want someone to call when they see someone experiencing a behavioral health crisis or they see someone potentially suffering from substance use addiction on the streets. There is disorder and people do feel helpless about what the options are to do it. Calling the police doesn't seem like it's a solution to that. It's not like they may be actively breaking a law, but they're in crisis. So what do you do? And I think people get really frustrated when the answer is do nothing. They feel like there isn't anything to do. The CARE Department was established to fill this need, to meet this need - to give people someone to call who can show up and handle this in the most appropriate way possible, connect these people to the services that they need. But we're just not even seeing them be able to be deployed. So it seems like one of the biggest steps that the City can take is to get more CARE team people out to more calls more often and we'll see if this helps move in that direction. Certainly the public wants it to.
[00:27:40] Erica Barnett: Yeah. I mean, it ultimately is in some ways up to the police department. And I think in practice on a day-to-day basis, they are not referring to CARE. And even if we pass stern legislation saying that they should, it is going to be on those dispatchers and then on the individual police officers to sort of, I think, change their attitude and their approach. And that also starts with the culture of the police department and what they consider to be their calls. And so it's on the cops as much as it is on the City Council or the CARE team to change things.
[00:28:16] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I think part of the frustration is people in the public here - they see increasing examples of calling the police and it taking longer and longer for cops to show up. And sometimes them not showing up. And hearing they're understaffed, they don't have the time and capacity to do that. And so the answer was - Hey, here's a CARE team. Just like in many other cities, they're taking these low-level, nonviolent calls that don't require an armed police officer and freeing up police to handle the serious stuff, to respond quickly when people are in need. Yet, they're not allowing that to happen. They're not allowing those calls that are not serious to be handled by someone else. They're explicitly saying - No, we want those. And so it just feels like we're hearing conflicting things. Do you have the time or do you not have the time or capacity? Are you understaffed or are you not? Because what we're seeing in practice doesn't seem to match what we're hearing as the reasons for long response times and some of the challenges experienced with responses. So something has got to give, one would think. We will see if it does.
And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, June 12th, 2026. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. And I will just say, Shannon is doing well. Thanks so many of you for wishing her well, asking how she's doing. Realized that we have not given an update in a while, but she is doing really well. And we thank everyone for their support. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Bluesky at @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Bluesky at @HacksAndWonks and find me on Bluesky at @finchfrii. 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 the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com.
Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.
