Week in Review: May 30, 2025 - with Josh Cohen

Eddie Lin Outlines Vision for Seattle City Council District 2 from Hacks & Wonks

“The City Let Anti-LGBTQ Religious Zealots Take Over Cal Anderson” by Hannah Murphy Winter from The Stranger

“Seattle got owned in the latest free speech battle” by Danny Westneat from The Seattle Times

“Church groups say holding another Cal Anderson Park rally in August — UPDATE: ‘Not granted’” from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog

“Seattle Police make multiple arrests during counter-protest of fundamentalist church group’s rally in Cal Anderson Park — UPDATES” from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog

“‘Worship warfare’ event in Seattle was planned to be violent” by Rick Pidcock from Baptist News Global

“Record numbers of Seattle voters disapprove of the performance of City Attorney Ann Davison and Council President Sara Nelson” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate

“Katie Wilson 36%, Bruce Harrell 33%: NPI's May 2025 Civic Heartbeat poll finds statistical tie in Seattle mayoral race” by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate

“Seattle Just Rezoned the Entire City — That Was the Easy Part” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist

“Seattle City Council approves temporary housing density plan” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times

“WA cuts funding for new Vancouver behavioral health campus” by Jayati Ramakrishnan from The Seattle Times

“State budget, legislation could help vacant Lynnwood Crisis Care Center” by Jenna Peterson from The Daily Herald

“County working on next steps in Capitol Hill Crisis Care Center plan” from Capitol Hill Seattle Blog

“June 4th Seattle Candidate Forum to Focus on Transportation and Housing” from The Urbanist

RSVP to Seattle Mobility and Housing Candidate Forum

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 Eddie Lin, candidate for Seattle City Council District 2, about his stance on housing affordability, public safety, transportation, and more - including the Hacks & Wonks Lightning Round - as well as his government experience and commitment to community-driven solutions.

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: Cascade PBS city reporter covering Seattle government, politics, and the issues that shape life in the city, Josh Cohen! Hey, great to have you.

[00:01:12] Josh Cohen: Hello - thanks so much for having me.

[00:01:14] Crystal Fincher: So I am pumped that you're here and to talk about this this week - I am not pumped about the first topic, but it's been dominating news coverage attention this week. The Protect Our Kids Rally of religious leaders - who are basically taking an anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ stance - taking over Cal Anderson Park, leading to a counter-protest and arrests. And another protest, and more arrests, another protest targeted for August 30th. How did this come to be? How did this start? And who is behind the Protect Our Kids Rally?

[00:01:55] Josh Cohen: Yeah, story of the week, for sure. So this has been in the works for a while. This group, Mayday USA, which is a conglomeration of evangelicals, preachers and churches - very much Christian organizations - they've been doing this five-city tour. I think, mostly liberal West coast cities - getting the word of God out on the street in liberal places like Seattle and San Francisco, LA. So way back in February, they applied to hold their big 500-ish person rally, concert, public prayer. They were giving out free haircuts to folks. They applied to hold it Downtown, on the street near Pike Place, but the city denied that and instead offered them up a space in Cal Anderson Park - in the heart of Capitol Hill, city's historically gay neighborhood. They also offered up space, or said there was space, available in South Lake Union. And Mayday USA applied to hold the rally in Cal Anderson. And, like you said, explicitly anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion, and like, went into it with an antagonistic aim. Like they wanted to stir up a reaction from Seattle, from the LGBT community - and they got it. There was a big counter-protest, as you said, on Saturday. A huge police presence ultimately ended up being conflict, for lack of a better word, between police and almost exclusively counter-protesters. I think 23 people got arrested on Saturday. Police were using pepper spray and batons, and people complaining about just an excess response from the police.

All in all, I would say - a big mess. And then Mayor Bruce Harrell denounced the Mayday USA folks, accusing them of coming in to antagonize the LGBTQ community and decried them as an extremist right-wing group, which then led to Tuesday's protest - another four-hour affair outside of City Hall, with, again, lots of police, lots of counter-protesters, eight more arrests of counter-protesters. Big, big, messy affair. And just a few interesting threads coming from it. There's been a lot of people saying the city never should have issued this permit, or they shouldn't have issued it for Cal Anderson. It is interesting - the city code and our U.S. Constitution is pretty cut and dry about issuing the permit. It is a free speech, free assembly event, and the city does not really have grounds to deny it based on the substance. I was asking the Mayor's office if there are instances where they would deny an event - say if it's hate speech or an explicit hate group - and it sounds like their answers are pretty firm. No, they don't do that. The only time they deny permits is logistical things, like the space is not big enough for where the group applied and whatnot. And then there's another thread of it where people are saying - Well, they shouldn't have issued it for Cal Anderson. You know, again, having a group that's explicitly anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ going to the heart of Seattle's Gayborhood in a park named after the first gay state legislator, Cal Anderson, is just sort of asking for the messy trouble that they got.

[00:05:35] Crystal Fincher: Seems like a provocation in itself.

[00:05:36] Josh Cohen: Yeah, and I don't have a clear answer yet on that. I'm still pushing to understand - could the city choose, in the interest of, like, trying to minimize conflict? Could they say - No, you can't have it here, but you can have it in, say, South Lake Union, or at the Westlake Center, or whatever it might be?

[00:05:54] Crystal Fincher: Well, and they can and have before. As a matter of fact, they did with this particular protest. So this one, where they initially applied to have it, they said - No, you are not able to have it there. But we can work together on another location. They have denied permits before on a staffing basis, saying that they aren't able to adequately staff and keep people safe. Certainly, the staffing needs at Cal Anderson could be predicted to be much higher - given the provocation and the need for SPD presence, other people there. And the level of staffing would predictably be higher there than it would at other locations in the city. In the same way that if the KKK wanted to have a protest at the Northwest African American Museum, at historically Black spaces, that would - one, be an obvious provocation and someone looking to provoke and incite a reaction that could be predictably violent, certainly tense. And two, with all of the other choices, you could say - Ah, our staffing needs would not be as great. Here, we would be struggling to contain this.

So I think that one, you make excellent points in that - just on content alone, of course, you can't deny a permit. People have a First Amendment right to protected speech to say what they want to do. I think where a lot of people were questioning was on - if they already said no to one location, why was it yes at Cal Anderson? Why was this one of the things suggested by the city? How did that make any kind of sense? Why did they think they would be able to staff it adequately? Was someone just completely asleep at the wheel, or was someone aligned with the provocation here? Because this should have been foreseeable. And the one councilmember who was there and seemingly engaged on the day-of - Alexis Mercedes Rinck - had said that she was calling hours before the end of this rally, before the escalation and a lot of the tension. Saying, this is headed in a bad direction. I don't think we can keep a lid on this and keep this peaceful and contained. We should be calling this off. And then the other set of questions I've seen - not just about the rally over the weekend, but the one on Tuesday - was the conduct and the content of the rally. One, if you're holding a rally in a public space, the public is supposed to be invited. In some of these - especially the one on Tuesday - they were not allowing all members of the public to attend. They were screening - asking what churches people belonged to, not letting them in there. They had significant, high-powered audio equipment - that there are different thresholds and permitted uses for what a permit is. If it's a rally or a protest, that's different than holding a concert - having a private event using a public space. So it's interesting just to see what is protected and permitted in different cases, because it seems to have been inconsistent between this and other rallies and protests with other organizations from other ideological perspectives before. Certainly a lot of questions being raised here.

[00:09:14] Josh Cohen: Yeah, and it seems like - especially Tuesday's follow-up rally came after this huge national attention. Right-wing media really grabbed onto this story. And like lots of angry religious figures and right-wing media figures targeting Harrell and say - He either needs to apologize or resign for his statements about us being "extremists," etc., etc. And so, yeah, you kind of have to assume that Tuesday's event - counterfactual, who knows how it would have gone in other circumstances, but I kind of got the impression that it was amplified and a private event on City Hall Plaza and all of these other things that aren't allowed in the city rules. And that probably the Harrell administration didn't want to invite even more backlash from all these national figures in the wake of the backlash that was already coming out of Saturday. So, yeah, I have to assume that that was a bit of a factor in their logic at City Hall.

And I think it's worth mentioning that also, Saturday was the first time post the City Council changing rules around, or basically rolling back restrictions around, "less lethal weapons" - crowd control stuff like pepper spray and the long sticks, the batons and blast balls. Our City Council repealed restrictions on those that were placed on SPD by the last City Council, I want to say 2020 or 2021. And so another piece of this coming out of Saturday is a lot of concern about overreaction by SPD targeted at trans, LGBTQ counter-protesters. And there's some intense photos and videos that came out of Saturday of eight or ten officers swarming somebody and tackling them for an arrest, or an officer pepper-spraying two young women that are already lying on the ground. And Police Chief Barnes has said he is investigating and they're going to do a review of it. I think Harrell has said similar. But a moment where our police, which part of the consent decree from the feds, the federal oversight, is overuse of force in crowd control situations - like here we are with the sort of leash off. And I think a lot of people are deeply upset about how the police responded to the counter-protest. And again, I guess worth mentioning that the only people who got arrested were counter-protesters on Saturday and then again on Tuesday.

[00:11:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely worth mentioning and continuing to pay attention to. So just a lot coming out of this. Danny Westneat, who always has a column, had a column about this. He makes various points in there. But one of them I do agree with is that the Harrell administration essentially played themselves here, and they're inviting this as a tactic now - certainly for the rest of the summer. The right now knows that they have painted this administration into a corner here. And they can use this for attention, they can use this to provoke a reaction. Whether he permits them and they're allowed to spew their rhetoric in the middle of Seattle's queer neighborhood, or they can act persecuted for being denied a space or moved somewhere else. That's going to be milked for attention - that it appears the administration is not up to handling effectively, according to the way a lot of people are talking now.

[00:12:58] Josh Cohen: Yeah, a tough spot for city leaders. I think, for sure, like, there will definitely - and we already know that August 30, there's an event permitted at Cal Anderson Park by the same group. And I would not be surprised, like you said, if there's more of it - that is reminiscent of what we saw in Portland, with Proud Boys just holding rally after rally in the heart of "Antifa" territory - for the same thing to like, get the national media attention, to just antagonize. And this does not feel like it will be the last of this sort of thing happening in Seattle this summer.

[00:13:34] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And now, on to another subject - NPI came out with another poll this week, showing that every Seattle City Councilmember now has a negative approval rating. What did this poll show, and what do they think is behind this?

[00:13:55] Josh Cohen: Yeah, not the best numbers for Seattle's elected officials - both City Council, Mayor Harrell, and City Attorney Ann Davison. The disapproval numbers are all quite high. They range from 30% disapproval to 45% disapproval. Alexis Rinck is the least disapproved City Councilmember - that could be just because she's barely been there for six months so far. And Harrell has the highest disapproval numbers at 45%. On the flip side, Harrell also has the highest approval rating at 37%. Alexis Rinck has the highest approval rating of councilmembers at 26%. And with the caveat that there are almost equal or even higher percentages in every case of people who just aren't sure - whether that means they aren't sure because they don't know their councilmember's policy. Or I would guess most citizens in the world - they just straight up don't know who these people are by name. But yeah, I think, given what an important election year this is, and how much I think it will say about how Seattle feels about the direction of city leadership, it is interesting that in May, we're seeing such high disapproval, especially of figures up for re-election, like Harrell, Davison, and City Council President Sara Nelson.

[00:15:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely - that's, I think, what's most striking to a lot of people. Interesting to see all of these numbers. Like you said, Alexis Mercedes Rinck - kind of leading the pack of everyone - with a mere negative 4% approval rating. Bruce Harrell, negative 8%. Ann Davison, negative 13%. Joy Hollingsworth, negative 16%. Mark Solomon, negative 18%. Bob Kettle, negative 20%. Sara Nelson, negative 21%. Maritza Rivera, negative 21%. Dan Strauss, negative 21%. Cathy Moore, negative 23%. And the least popular politician in Seattle at this point in time, according to this poll, Rob Saka, negative 27%. Really interesting to see. This was a sample of 522 likely 2025 Seattle voters done in May 2025.

So I think a lot of this is just really interesting in signaling competitive races here. We have Alexis Mercedes Rinck - perhaps most people are feeling that she's in a fairly comfortable position, but certainly not a race she can take for granted at all. Sara Nelson - with that significant negative 21% disapproval rating, essentially - and a figure that has grown since the last time they measured her disapproval rating. So it seems like voters are only getting more unhappy. Or more are tuned in, and they're landing in the unhappy pile. And she's in a race with Dionne Foster for that citywide seat. Then you have Bruce Harrell - a negative rating - with more controversial actions and news headlines coming at a negative 8%. And facing Katie Wilson, Ry Armstrong, several others in this mayoral race. Just a lot here and with some significant decisions coming up on the ballot, it strikes me - we're currently having a conversation about the ethics vote. Whether they should weaken essentially ethics rules - that we talked about before, and I'm sure we'll be talking about in the coming weeks as they take further action. Just wondering - the headlines that we're seeing are not kind to the Council. They're not either showing them to be aligned with where the general voting public is at in Seattle. On top of some issues, they seem to be reactive to a lot of this instead of proactive. Several taking heat on that for not hearing from them - most recently as this weekend, with the protests and this rally that we saw. So this is one to continue to pay attention to. And I think this just means that we're going to see pretty competitive races. Ann Davison is facing three challengers in this race - three fairly strong and qualified challengers in that race. So it's going to be really interesting to see where things land in the primary.

[00:18:29] Josh Cohen: Yeah, for sure. I think it would be very surprising if any of the incumbents didn't make it into the general, with the exception of potentially Ann Davison. Extremely early, we're only a couple weeks past the filing deadline - but I did notice this week that she's in last place in fundraising among the four City Attorney candidates. She's raised about $44,000, $45,000. And then Erika Evans - she's at like $54,000 or $55,000. And then all the way up to Rory O'Sullivan, who's at somewhere like $150,000 raised. And so, money isn't everything and there's a lot of time for supporters to donate to Ann Davison. But it says something that an incumbent is in last place in the fundraising contest, when if you look at the other incumbents, they are just way out ahead of their challengers in fundraising so far.

[00:19:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. It's going to be really interesting to see what that is. Nathan Rouse, the other candidate in that race, also having a - last time I checked - decent amount of cash-on-hand. So that's going to be an interesting race because it's unusual to see all of the challengers to an incumbent being, certainly, to Republican Ann Davison's left - it's not that hard to do in Seattle when you're a Republican - but to her left. But also each coming with their very impressive set of resumes and backgrounds themselves - and healthy resources to get their message out. So that's going to be one to pay attention to.

This is coming on the heels of last week's poll finding that we talked about briefly. That showed, after messaging, a statistical tie in the mayor's race. Before the messaging - just initial question - Bruce Harrell would be the choice of 25% of respondents, Katie Wilson 18%, with 56% not being sure. After hearing about their backgrounds and platforms, that moved people who were Not Sure - some people who were Not Sure - ultimately resulting in Katie Wilson receiving the hypothetical vote of 36% of the respondents, Bruce Harrell 33%, with 30% of people remaining Unsure. Also read this week that Katie Wilson has now surpassed Bruce Harrell in Democracy Voucher collection. So really interesting dynamic with an incumbent - usually, like you said, we're seeing incumbents with big leads. It's really looking like Bruce Harrell may be vulnerable here, with Katie Wilson running to his left. Not sure yet exactly where Joe Mallahan is running, but does appear - I believe he did a cleanup with We Heart Seattle over the past couple weeks. And certainly has been critical of the Harrell administration's management and some of the ethics and legal issues that we have seen. So it's going to be interesting to see where they land there. And if Bruce Harrell is going to be in a strong position to even make it through the primary in this situation - will be really interesting to see.

[00:21:46] Josh Cohen: Yeah, again - it would be very surprising if Harrell did not make it through the primary. If I was reading the crystal ball, I would say it's likely we'll have a Harrell-Wilson race in the general. But I still think Katie Wilson has an uphill battle for sure in this race. Harrell has big business backing and the Chamber has a great relationship with him. But then also, and I know you guys talked about this last week, but he's netted labor support - and he got that endorsement from the MLK Labor Council. Again, early - long race ahead of us - but I'd say it's still Harrell's race to lose.

[00:22:24] Crystal Fincher: I think if you're looking at probability based on how similar races have gone and the dynamics that you have traditionally seen in these races - certainly, the incumbent has the advantage, and that would say Harrell has that. But, you know, and maybe it's because Mallahan's in this race. But the dynamic is very, very similar to 2009, where you have an increasingly unpopular incumbent - and Harrell's approval rating is upside down right now - facing existing controversies. That time, it was Snowmageddon. This time, we have some ethics issues in the office, some management issues, different controversies here. And it looks like we're gearing up for what we kicked off talking about - these rallies and provocations seeming like they're beginning and not ending here. So that's going to be interesting to see. And corporate executive challenger to the unpopular incumbent - Joe Mallahan coming from the right - kind of someone from left field, both ideologically and unknown to most of the voters in Seattle, and people being in a big mood for change. I think the Council approval ratings are showing people are fed up with incumbents at this moment, overall - maybe some exceptions, but overall not happy with the way things are going and looking for some change. And so I just - who knows how this is going to end up, I'm certainly not predicting an upset. But I also think we can't discount that at all, especially since we have seen it involving one of these people before.

[00:24:07] Josh Cohen: Right. The inclusion of Joe Mallahan does make it very similar to Nickels 2009. But we didn't have any big snowstorms in Seattle this year, so Harrell's street didn't get plowed first.

[00:24:20] Crystal Fincher: Not yet, not here. So we'll continue to pay attention to that. I also want to talk this week about pretty important legislation, but interim legislation. The missing middle housing bill passed the Seattle City Council on Tuesday. What does this bill do, and what will its impact be?

[00:24:40] Josh Cohen: Yeah, the bill aligns us essentially with the State Legislature's missing middle housing bill from two years ago, which says that cities must allow anywhere, any residential zones must allow four to six units per lot. So this is places that used to be single family, now they can build up to four townhouses on the lot. And if the lots are near a light rail station or a bus rapid transit station, they can build up to six. There's some other sort of wonky carve outs to allow you to build 6 as well. Like you said, it is interim legislation because of delays from the Mayor's office transmitting his proposed Comp Plan update to the City Council, delays from legal challenges to the Comp Plan. The city was butting right up against the state's deadline of July 2025 to implement the missing middle law, so they did this interim, more bare bones version. The crucial difference between what they passed on Tuesday and what the Mayor has proposed for the permanent version of missing middle is that in the interim version, the maximum number a developer could build is six units - no matter the size of the lot. In the permanent version that Harrell has proposed, there's like a calculus of - so if you had a larger lot, you could build more than six units, potentially. And so that leaves us in a situation where the impact of the interim legislation is kind of a big question mark. Working on a story about this, people can check it out next week.

But when I spoke to some developers earlier this spring - when the interim proposal was on the table - a lot of them said that everything is kind of on hold for this sort of townhome development in Seattle right now. Because people were just waiting to see what the City Council did. And say, you're a developer who has a lot way up north or way down south that's 9,000, 10,000 square feet, where you could potentially be building eight or nine or ten units - I don't know the math off the top of my head - and making that much more money from your deal, you're probably not going to want to go ahead and develop it. When you could only do four to six right now, because that's real money out of your pocket in the project. So yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see if folks move forward building four to six units on lots right now, or if they're just going to wait. The Council has set a goal of passing the permanent legislation in October - only a couple months down the line - and then the interim legislation expires this time next year. And so it's also very costly for a developer to sit on land and not do their project for a year, but that could be one outcome we see - is a delayed Impact of all of this because the Council went for the interim, lesser version of the proposal.

[00:27:54] Crystal Fincher: Very interesting. We will continue to follow this and see where this lands up in the permanent version - what will ultimately happen.

I also want to talk about a story that's been reported across the state, but that really is an overall trend, of behavioral health facilities sitting empty, certainly in Vancouver, Washington, and Lynnwood, And also push back over the crisis care proposal on Capitol Hill. What's behind this and why is this happening?

[00:28:30] Josh Cohen: Yeah, a few factors on this arguably frustrating story. Here we are, everybody saying - from residents to business owners to police and city leaders all across the state - they're like, We need somewhere to take folks who are in crisis. Whether it's a mental health crisis or substance use disorder in public, they want these behavioral health facilities to take people. In Seattle right now, the option is basically drop somebody at Harborview, where they'll be out on the street that evening or the next day. Or take them to jail, which is expensive and deeply unhelpful. So down in Vancouver, they have this shiny, brand new residential facility that's either just about to be ready to be open or is ready to be open. And it's got beds for 48 patients, where somebody who has a mental behavioral health issue can go there and receive treatment and it's a longer term option. But it's sitting empty right now because it doesn't have enough funding from the state to open. We've got a many billion dollar budget deficit at the state and the Leg and Governor Ferguson were making cuts - and this is something that fell into the cuts bucket, unfortunately.

Then, up in Lynnwood, a similar story - they've got a crisis care center, more of a temporary, like somebody can go there for a couple of days to get help and get off the street and get connected to services. And the provider who was supposed to run that facility pulled out, saying that the way the city does its billing and Medicaid reimbursement doesn't pencil. Like, they can't - it's not financially feasible for them to run it. And so, again, we have this shiny new facility that's sitting empty. In that case, there was some money earmarked in the state budget this year to try and help get that off the ground.

And then, finally, a couple years ago, King County voters approved Crisis Care Center Levy to construct and operate, again, these like temporary facilities - somebody can go for a couple of days or a week and get connected to services and get them off the street. And there is a proposal to build one in Capitol Hill in Seattle, right on Broadway - sort of the border between the Hospital District on First Hill and the Business District on Capitol Hill. And there's been huge pushback from business owners on Capitol Hill, saying - This is just going to bring in more people with problems and we already have so many people struggling with addiction and mental health problems on the street in Capitol Hill. Can it go somewhere else? It's just this sort of frustrating situation where - this is part of the solution that everyone says we need. And for a variety of reasons - funding or community pushback - we're struggling to get these places open to actually start helping people on the street.

[00:31:36] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think this is certainly frustrating to me personally, but I think to a lot of people - because this is a crucial link in our public safety chain. Public safety is far more than police - even though sometimes the public conversation is just about police, it is mostly other things in reality. And a big part of that - and you'll hear people in law enforcement talk about this, too - there are people in crisis who are not necessarily committing a crime. But it's contributing to disorder - they're in crisis, they can't get stabilized, maybe they escalate to a point where it's an issue. So people are calling the police to deal with this, but police don't have the tools - and oftentimes the training - to even deal with this. And too often, it leads to violent confrontations and escalations, because that person is not of sound mind at the time. Or, someone entering into the criminal legal system - maybe it does result in arrest, they go to jail - and those things have proven to be more destabilizing than stabilizing overall. And then you see people develop more and more of a record - having repeated arrests and repeated trips to jail or within the legal system because we aren't dealing with the root cause of the issue, just the symptoms of it. And so, as you mentioned, King County passed a Crisis Care Centers Levy - this has been demanded by people across the state, cited as a priority by most of our legislators, our governor, certainly. And it feels like we're taking steps backwards instead of steps forward here. And particularly after all of the investment, it feels frustrating that we're not making more progress.

[00:33:28] Josh Cohen: Yeah, I will say - we can leave listeners on the one bright note on that - at least I hope this is still true. Kirkland opened the first Crisis Cares facility in the county, or post the Crisis Cares Levy passing. And as far as I am aware, it is working and it is sort of a model for others - so that is one bright spot. But the fact that it is so hard to get these places open - and even when you build a new facility that we so desperately need, and it just sits empty because the state didn't come through with money for operations - it just feels like banging our heads against the wall, when I think everybody wants to make progress on this issue. Nobody wants people in crisis on the streets.

[00:34:20] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely agree with that. Also, want to remind listeners - or inform listeners - that on June 4th, this coming Wednesday, there will be a forum put on by the Move All Seattle Sustainably, or MASS Coalition - hosting a candidate forum at the Centilia Cultural Center in Beacon Hill, focusing on transportation and housing issues critical to Seattle's future. It starts at 5:30p with refreshments and mingling, followed by discussions with District 2 candidates, citywide council candidates, and mayoral candidates. Nearly all major candidates have RSVP'd, and attendees have a chance to hear directly from those seeking to lead Seattle forward. So it's free, open to the public. There will be ASL interpretation. Masks will be there and provided. And this should be a real enlightening evening. And I'll be moderating it so we can all learn together. Hope to see you there.

And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, May 30th, 2025. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Cascade PBS city reporter, covering Seattle government, politics, and issues that shape life in the city, Josh Cohen. Thank you so much for your insight today.

[00:35:43] Josh Cohen: Thanks for having me.

[00:35:44] Crystal Fincher: You can find Josh on Bluesky at @jcohenwrites. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Bluesky at @HacksAndWonks. And you can follow me on Bluesky at @finchfrii - that's F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen - 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 and our Tuesday topical shows delivered to your podcast feed. 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 at officialhacksandwonks.com.

Thanks for tuning in - and we'll talk to you next time.